Waking Up to Vladimir Putin’s Uncommon Common Sense
Balzac, Contributor
Waking Times
First and foremost we should be governed by common sense.
~ Vladimir Putin (Time Magazine, 2007)
President Vladimir Putin is audaciously attempting to remove the brush covering from atop the common sense rabbit hole, which is not only a truly rare and subversive act in the eyes of the Con, but a potentially great gift to humanity – if only humanity had the sensitivity to appreciate it.
Nonetheless, this will no doubt prove to be a thrilling ride for those willing to take up the challenge. Russians are fortunate to have such a sane leader, and the West would be wise to follow his lead, but what exactly does Mr. Putin mean by Common Sense?
Here’s a quick peek at a couple of dictionary definitions:
1) Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgment.
2) The basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things.
The ability to soundly judge is important to understanding what common sense is all about, as is the fact that judgment is not an isolated act made according to individuated, specialized knowledge, but of something that is of a more general nature that is shared, common or native to the species as a whole.
To better understand how common sense operates as a cognitive process, Aristotle provides a clear and useful description:
The reason for having several senses is in fact that it increases the chances that we can distinguish and recognize things correctly.] Each sense is used to identify distinctions, such as sight identifying the difference between black and white, but, says Aristotle, all animals with perception must have “some one thing” which can distinguish black from sweet.]
see section on “Aristotelian Common Sense” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense
This shared or common sense, as opposed to a two-step Stimulus-Response model, appears to operate, according to Aristotle’s description, as a three-step process:
A) Perception
B) Understanding (through comparative analysis)
C) Judgment
Why is something as fundamental and basic to humanity’s existence operating according to a three-step rather than two-step process?
If you look around the world today, everything is presented in opposing, pairs: A-B. Not A-B-C.
As such, critical A-B-C thinking, aka Common Sense is fundamental to the evolution of awareness, consciousness, cooperation and love which seems to occur with great frequency in nature, but not nearly as much in most human societies.
The Con understands this reality quite well, and they exploit it to their benefit. The Con does everything it can to lock humanity into a system characterized by dualism, stimulus-response programming, isolation, separation, competition, narcissism and egotism.
According to Aristotle’s logic, while each individual is inseparable from the whole, without common sense, i.e. a shared vision of the whole, perception of reality is too narrow, distorted and false.
Aristotle also said:
Common sense is where comparison happens, and this must occur by comparing impressions or symbols or markers of what the specialist senses have perceived. This is therefore also where consciousness originates, “for it makes us aware of having sensations at all”
see section on “Aristotelian Common Sense” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_sense
Aristotle emphasizes the act of comparison as critical to Understanding (Step B) the three-step A-B-C Common Sense-making process.
After perceiving an object, the perceiver compares and contrasts that object in relation to similar objects found within the perceiver’s experience. Finally, based on that understanding, the perceiver, in a creative act of synthesis, finds the true center or third way derived from the act of comparison and projects that decision out into the world.
In 2006, after carefully analyzing and deconstructing Vladimir Putin’s year 2000 Millennium Manifesto, author Gavin Slade from the Central European University in Budapest, an affiliate of The School of Russian and Asian Studies (SRAS), affirms the Russian leader’s propensity for utilizing in the political arena the type of Hegelian common sense widely discussed in this article:
In the 1990s Russia’s political discourse was framed in terms of good and evil. There was little compromise or synthesis.
The rejection of revolution and change shows that Putin is effectively trying to establish a discourse focused on unity and stability knowing that the binary oppositions of politics during the Yeltsin era had created a situation where the state was unable “to muster a critical mass of leaders who articulate[d] one or another political discourse that resonate[d] in political society.
Rare among today’s world leaders, Vladimir Putin appears to well understand the evolutionary necessity of this third way approach to governance based on common sense-derived synthesis, and leverages that knowledge to promote unity, social cohesion and commonality of purpose on a national and international scale.
Aristotle even goes as far as to say that common sense is where consciousness originates. So if a society is lacking in common sense, and there’s little to no conscience, morality, empathy, consciousness, creativity, taste, discernment or love, how does one propose to govern such a population? This no doubt created a quandary for the rulers of large populations in the past, and clearly still presents governance challenges today.
The system’s time-honored, traditional answer to the problem of populations lacking in common sense was to oppress them into submission, with increased submission leading to an ever more constrictive cycle of dominance, oppression and abuse. It’s not outrageous to consider both parties to be at fault for this social dynamic that still exists and thrives today.
The cognitive process of common sense is part of humanity’s spiritual endowment and is similar to the Greek idea of knowledge or nous, which is the divine spark or knowledge within that is shared or common to all.
While nous may be common to all, it seems at present to be buried deep within the human psyche, and as such, unfortunately, is largely inactive.
Humanity’s drive to separate, exceptionalize and specialize (such groveling at the feet of society’s beloved specialists), is but a tiny sliver of the whole spoon-fed matrix. These absurd, self-destructive values are automatically downloaded at face value and parroted aloud as that which everybody knows.
These automatic, pre-programmed responses demonstrate the process of individual and social decay which epitomizes dualistic A-B programming, and as such represents an evolutionary dead-end. And yet despite its flaws, this system, while abhorrent to many not only does have value in populations largely lacking in common sense, but also provides stark contrast to utopian social visions, as well as important motivation for those who wish to overcome its glaring inadequacies.
So cheer up, the news is not entirely bleak. To find oneself, one must first lose oneself, and so humanity has intentionally (if not consciously), led itself astray. The capacity for auto-correction is built into the natural system of the Earth and undoubtedly woven into the very fabric of cosmic existence itself. And yet in order to auto-correct, one must first dare to walk down dark paths leading to destinations unknown.
Compliance with Globalist diktat is ensured by the Con’s ability to provide endless streams of mindless distractions and short-term pleasures quick as you can afford them. And if you can’t afford them but still crave them, you get a gold star for being a motivated world citizen.
But try inducing people to step off that wheel, swallow the red pill and slide down the rabbit hole. Just see how that works out.
Of course this makes no sense. Why choose isolated, short-term pleasures over long-term ones? Freedom is sold cheap in exchange for a handful of trinkets and beads. But as the late great George Carlin once said: “nobody seems to notice; nobody seems to care.”
The average person, lacking common sense, is unable to step outside his bubble and recognize the divinely entangled oneness of reality.
How many times do you have to read in the alternative media about the daunting lack of empathy on the part of the Globalist controllers, and this is true, but how about the lack of empathy among the masses? Without common sense, there is no empathy, and the masses are sorely lacking in common sense.
The inability to put themselves in the shoes of others keeps the un-awoken strapped to the bed of their own egotistical, narcissism. Good luck getting through to them. They are simply incapable of being awakened in anything less than a repeatedly rough manner.
Russian history is chock-full of examples of these rough awakenings, and it therefore should not be so surprising that today’s Russian population is relatively more awake than those still snoozing in the pampered, declining West.
Perhaps this is why those cast in the role of Controllers – along with their robotic minions – are as nasty and brutish as they are, since it falls on them to rouse Joe Sixpack in the only way he seems to understand: by shoving his face deep down into the toilet bowl of an unexamined life. Spend enough time down there, and you may finally see that all your dreams of wealth, success and material gain have just been so much meaningless crap.
And so the seemingly endless stream of futile chatter in the alternative media referring to the slumbering masses and how if they just had the right information is, sorry to say, nothing but pure fantasy, wishful thinking and projection on the part of the awakened, common sense minority.
The Great Awakening that many feel today, and it is palpable, is not widespread; it’s actually emanating from a very small, scattered fraction of the global population. It’s just that this small but slowly growing group of A-B-C common sense types, specialists in their own right, have a tendency, despite their incessant utilization of the common sense process, largely due to a lifetime of incessant “all men are created equal” propaganda, to erroneously project their common sense values on to the masses, and as a result are time and time again disappointed when their best intentions to rouse the herd are not taken seriously. Boo-hoo.
If the world was in fact brimming over with common sense, which currently it is not, reality would appear quite different than it does. No, the prison planet has been specially designed to serve the masochistic masses precisely what they need in order to evolve. It wouldn’t actually be so bad if it weren’t so damn destructive. If anything, it’s not dull.
As it is presented today, the Con’s “reality” is designed to stroke the mass ego consciousness with just enough happy endings to keep the machine humming and its occasionally unruly parts alternately motivated, sedated and restrained. This seems to be an unfortunate yet necessary design for an emotionally immature, Id-raging majority.
On the other hand, within an awakened community, no matter how small, which is not characterized by delusion but common sense, the rules of the game could not be more different. Within such a community, you can always choose another path and consciously create what you want. Life there is no longer an either/or A-B equation. You can finally transcend childish dualism as you take a quantum leap into the common sense adult world of contemplation, awareness, empathy, consciousness, comparative analysis, and synthesis. In this vitally thrilling world, A + B = C.
The goal of discourse is to create the transcendental, a higher centre of meaning outside the plurality of visions and interpretations, ‘to arrest the flow of differences, to construct a centre. ‘Thus, ‘at the base of Putin’s policies and what we shall describe as his “third way” lies the idea of a grand transcendence of so many of the conflicts that had both shaped and torn Russia in the modern era.’ –http://www.sras.org/deconstructing_the_millennium_manifesto
Mr. Putin has tirelessly and with increasing success preached his neo-Gnostic common sense gospel to a Russian population that has in the not-so-distant past become familiar on an unprecedented scale with such intense suffering and pain that an increasingly large portion of them now appear eager to listen to and act upon Putin’s challenge to reclaim their common heritage as intelligent, discerning and consciously evolving individuals in a country of rich heritage and national achievement. This development on a national scale is uncommon.
The economic prosperity that Putin’s leadership has helped generate, impressive as it is, pales in comparison to the raising of individual consciousness en masse in Russia, which is what can happen to a nation when real common sense is applied to governance. That requires rare leadership qualities on a level that few in other countries have experienced in a long while.
What many in the West often fail to comprehend (because they lack empathy) is that when you’re the leader of a 9 time zone wide, 17 million square kilometer (6.6 million sq mi) Eurasian land mass comprised of a wide range of European, Caucasian, Asian and Indigenous cultures, in order to successfully lead and inspire such a diverse group, you must possess a Yin Yang-balanced, personal and diplomatic Swiss Army-like skill-set.
This mixing of Western and Russian ideas is only a part of a blend of inter-discursive features adopted by Putin. It is in his co-optation of different discourses and ideas that Putin attempts to suture rifts in identity and win the war of position within discourse. It is, as some have said, a ‘third way.’
As an individual, Vladimir Putin displays many attributes of the modern Renaissance Man. He’s a vigorous yet contemplative gentleman of refinement and culture with an admiration for various art forms and a genuine appreciation for the diverse beauty and splendor of nature.
Although Mr. Putin enjoys hunting and fishing, it’s not part of some macho power trip to defeat and kill defenseless animals, but rather as a way for him to feel vitally connected to the natural world that we share with each other and are invited to explore if only we dare.
Here’s a striking passage from a May, 2011 Outdoor Life Magazine interview where Mr. Putin candidly describes his experience obtaining a whale biopsy:
OL: In August 2010, you helped scientists obtain skin samples from a whale off Russia’s Pacific Coast by darting one with a crossbow. I imagine that has to be one of the more incredible of your wildlife encounters.
VP: That was indeed an unforgettable experience, and I remember very well how impressed I was.
First, all that surrounded me—the low sky, the stormy sea and, of course, the whales—was magnificent. Besides, these elegant giants showed us a real performance, leaping out of the water in front of our boat.
Second, I was really thrilled. I do not want to offend your feelings as a hunter, but, by its intensity, its dynamics, that was a real hunt. But without killing the animal. And this was a special pleasure. This is not a melodramatic statement. That’s the way it really was.
We left not just to see the whales, but to take a biopsy—in other words, to dart one of the animals with a crossbow arrow, which can rip off a small part of whale skin necessary to make a special analysis. It was not that easy; three times I failed, and only the fourth attempt was successful. Of course, I could justify myself that the boat was tossing badly and that it was the first time for me to handle a crossbow, but the main reason I see was my anxiety, because participation in the scientific experiment is a very important undertaking.
OL: After you successfully darted a whale, a reporter asked you if it was dangerous. You replied that, “Living, in general, is dangerous.” Do you have any comment on that?
VP: I think what I meant by that is obvious. Despite all the achievements of civilization, the human being is still one of the most vulnerable creatures on earth. None of us is protected from crimes, epidemic outbreaks, natural and technogenic disasters. What I am saying is not a fatalistic view of the world, it is a realistic one.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/hunting/2011/05/one-one-vladimir-putin?page=0%2C4
Mr. Putin, with obvious empathy for the whale and a humble appreciation for the magnitude of the moment, describes in a nutshell the fragility of the human experience within a natural world that is both nurturing and fraught with risk. Unlike his ego-driven political counterparts who can never admit to any weakness, it’s a feather in his cap that he does not appear to be afraid to convey his fear and anxiety at being in the middle of what most would agree was an unsafe situation.
Mr. Putin seems to be implying that you might as well take risks because risk is inherent to life. To therefore feel some degree of anxiety when taking bold steps is natural, and nothing to be afraid of. Taking those bold steps is part of a personal and national awakening process.
Having repeatedly put his personal safety in jeopardy for the sake of the greater good, as demonstrated by his biopsy of whales, soaring with endangered cranes and tranquilizing tigers…
Cranes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq1DEu5-aWo
Whale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9nt_IB-vTE
Tiger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkt5G0uHO0g
…it should come as no surprise when Mr. Putin applies a calculated risk approach to diplomacy, as demonstrated by his swift response to an extraordinary early August 2013 meeting with the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar, an event first reported in the UK Telegraph and widely acknowledged in the Russian press as well as a number of other sources.
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2013/06/25/17953.shtml
This colorful September 30th, 2013 recapitulation of that same fateful meeting comes courtesy of an approving Pravda opinion column, “Come the Day, Come The Hour”:
Essentially, Bandar Bush went to Putin – purportedly with the full backing of the US, and offered to cut a secret deal to carve up the oil profits if Russia would back off on Syria and allow a regime change. Putin quietly and politely offered a nyet. He was not for sale and neither were his principles. Bandar went on to then threaten Russia by turning loose Chechen terrorists to cause havoc in the Winter Sochi Olympics. Saying that all terrorists groups are under their control and that they can turn them on or off as they like. Well, it appears that at this stage, the negotiations moved from being polite – Putin warned Bandar that if Syria is attacked, Russia would bomb Saudi Arabia. At last, someone with balls. This threat was communicated to senior members of the Armed Forces with instructions to prepare to strike Saudi Arabia. Obviously, this was leaked.
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/17-09-2013/125685-president_putin-0/
The now famous and universally acclaimed accord on chemical weapons aside, wouldn’t it be more than likely that President Putin’s declaration of intent to bomb Saudi Arabia if Syria was attacked is the real, under-reported reason why a near-certain U.S. strike on Syria was called off? Just a theory…
President Putin, a man of principle and a strong advocate of International Law, rejected out of hand Bandar’s pathetic bribe, since unlike many other politicians, he has principles, and can’t just be bought off.
Nonetheless, upon digesting Prince Bandar’s incredible admission of he and his country’s direct support for state-sponsored terrorism, despite his usual placid demeanor, President Putin’s jaw must have dropped when he received a not-so-thinly veiled threat of Olympic terrorist attack if cooperation on the Syria question was not forthcoming. President Putin rightly determined that this was not only a direct threat to Russia, but to the entire civilized world, and so he did what he had to do: stand up to the bully.
Only a leader so level-headed and eminently comfortable in his own skin could stare the impudent Saudi down and call his bluff in terms that were crystal clear and absolutely appropriate to the threat. Exercising his capacity for A-B-C common sense, Mr. Putin perceived, understood and decided what to do without hesitation.
When threatened with force, sometimes the only way to get the other party to take you seriously is to threaten them right back. That took guts and is deserving of recognition.
World War III was averted (for now), and Putin’s stock has deservedly risen to such a high level around the world that he was in serious contention for the Nobel Prize. The fact that he didn’t win is probably better PR than if he had won, since Obama won it for bailing out the bankers. Putin is probably ok then with an honorable mention.
When an individual like Vladimir Putin, who both at home and abroad is recognized as having an authentic character, repeatedly demonstrates sane, balanced actions, as he declares the rule of law and common sense governance as the goals of the nation and backs it up with corresponding actions, he naturally enjoys widespread support and trust.
Sadly, these common sense leadership qualities, which should be essential prerequisites for every political leader, are sorely lacking in the West, where there seems to be a permanent disconnect between common sense and politics.
Often unfairly lampooned in the press for his bare-chested macho man image, Mr. Putin also appears to genuinely be in touch with his feminine side.
As a Judo master, Putin is adept at using his opponents’ momentum against them, which can only be done by respecting the power of each “adversary,” as well as being sensitive to the flow of energy emanating from that person. A perfect example of a real world application of that principle is how President Putin “flipped” and redirected the Saudi Prince’s malevolent, threatening, violent energy right back at the Prince and synthesized the product of that energy for the purpose of creating peace.
Check out Putin’s judo moves here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYtDQ_t-_HQ
Sometimes Presidents really do need to act like car salesmen, but the car that Putin is selling is built to last and runs efficiently on common sense, common law (i.e. as long as you’re not hurting anyone, you’re acting within the law), and community. And that’s a vehicle more and more Russian citizens are being convinced by Putin to buy, since he drives one himself.
Putin’s manifesto is rich in inter-discursivity, appropriating elements from competing ideologies and rejecting binary oppositions in order to win the war of position within the discursive field thus creating ‘an all-national spiritual reference point that will help to consolidate society, thereby strengthening the state. This reference point, a new Russian idea, helps construct an image of the state as a nation of people represented by a spokesperson, the president.
Those of the awakened minority who are frustrated and at odds with Globalist domination strategies should find solace in the fact that the dream of a New World Order, of which much of the world is presently dreaming into reality, must according to its unnatural and unsustainable underlying principles, much like its Soviet system predecessor, inevitably collapse under the weight of its excessive absurdity.
And if you’re one of the small but proud members of the common sense minority community, if you haven’t already done so, please do yourselves a big favor and cease all efforts aimed at trying to wake up humanity, because it can’t be done. Instead, continue waking yourselves up.
Humanity can only wake itself up one individual at a time. The newly awakened, in their own time, will make connections with others without your incessant nudges. So try to let go. You’ll feel better if you do.
In stark contrast to the West’s current political downward slope, it’s fascinating to observe the progress of Vladimir Putin in his quest to help instill and nurture a return of common sense to the realm of politics. It makes one hopeful that new leadership possessing similar strength of character will follow President Putin’s lead.
Unlike Mr. Putin, we can’t all play the part of hero in this movie, although there’s no character too minor and no act too small.
Continue speaking your truth, get along with others, and have a good time. The rest will take care of itself.
That’s just plain old common sense.
And to close the show, Ladies and Gentlemen and Children of all ages, live from the internet, the one, the only…:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na-31bdtjhI
About the Author
Committed to raising the curtain on illusion in order to reveal the beauty of unadorned truth wherever he can find it and communicating it to whoever dares to listen, with an appetite for ceaseless exploration, Balzac invites readers to join him on a fun-filled journey of investigation into the strange and wondrous worlds of art, history, philosophy, psychology, politics and the law.
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.
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