Outsider-respecting subcultures and rebellious sociopolitical movements have flourished during historical upheavals and transition periods. A mesh of specific events, pervasive social circumstances and unresolved crises, from climate change and technological innovation to political purges and social anomie occurs. This mesh tests the resourcefulness of the rulling elites and power structures: their inability to face and resolve these emerging complexities can trigger inter-group competition by those lower on the social pecking order. New alliances form, new movements emerge, new subcultures grow. Society may simultaneously upsurge in expansionist novelty (Athenian Greece, the Renaissance, the 1960s Consciousness Revolution) and regress to an isolationist status quo (Spartan Greece, the Dark Ages, Europe's 100 Year War, Ming Dynasty China).

Exoteric history suggests deeper reasons for "culture wars" than political jeremiads or religious bromides. Groups may embrace more complex existential questions or flee from them. Individuals may live simultaneously in several different Peer-group conformity and cultural logic quickly assimilates the novelty and diversity; inertia prevails. Some Outsiders may get through the Gate in time.

History as Thwarting Consensus Reality

The elder myths are no longer a refuge from the exoteric history (externally observable or outwardly viewable) which emerges from sociocultural conditioning (consensus reality). Post-conventional heterodoxies arise to question these exoteric orthodoxies: Noam Chomsky challenges NSC 68 and Cold War ideologies, Howard Zinn undermines the high-school textbook, Riane Eisler supplants the Dominator Society with a Partnership Way. Post-conventional schools (feminist, postmodernist, post-colonialist, integral) displace earlier interpretations worldviews, yet transcend and include aspects of these "partial histories" in a more encompassing vision. Joseph Chilton Pierce observed:

Our notions of what is "real" function as an "editorial hierarchy of mind," deciding which data, among all available, is "fit to print" as perceptual events. This conceptual framework "even sends out orders" to its sensory reporters for the kinds of material desired by the current newsroom synthesis policy. This policy is our "world view," the result of the preprogramming of culture, organizing our cognitive system along set patterns of purpose. [1]

The Spanish Empire reached great cultural heights and destroyed two Meso-American Indian civilizations. The Christian Inquisitions and Muslim Jihads massacred thousands of heretics. Ancient cultures engaged in enforced abortions, foot-binding, clitodectomy, slavery and other "barbaric" practices. The cruelties, excesses and persecutions of our Era are just emerging. Tomorrow's history is a nightmare from which we are yet to Awaken.

History as Waking Up

Exoteric history can also be driven by the combinations and recombinations of ideas and innovations that create new groups and personal disequilibrium. These recombinations may restructure our subjective awareness of objective reality, and the resulting internal disequilibrium pushes us toward new horizons. Our personal life history merges into our social milieu and the wider history of our times.

The Seeker After Truth first "self-observes" their different states to discover the limits of their worldview, deconstructs the semantic overlays that generate blindness, then reconstructs a New World. The alchemical formula Solve et Coagula.

For Neuro-semantics author L. Michael Hall, "[Alfred] Korzybski argued that unsanity and insanity ultimately lies in identifications." [1] These identifications turn events, ideologies and people into static objects, freezes the past and mis-maps external reality. For the unwary, the line blurs between self-examination and self-awareness.

Endnotes:

[1] Joseph Chilton Pearce. Exploring the Crack in the Cosmic Egg: Split Minds and Meta-Realities. New York: Pocket Books, 1974. pp. 61-62.

[2] L. Michael Hall. The Secrets of Magic: Communicational Excellence for the 21st Century. Bancyfelin, Wales: Crown House Publishing, 1998. p. 211.

Exercises and References:

1. Choose a controversial social issue or stereotype. Using several Internet search engines (including this Web site), research your topic for a week from at least four different perspectives. Use a diversity of sources: major and alternative/fringe news sources (why are they labelled this and by whom?), government studies, lobby groups and other non-government organizations, on-line academic journals and personal pages. Go beyond "pro-con" bipolarities and shallow surfing: actively seek out different and unusual information sources. Look for a continuum rather than a "black/white" dichotomy.

2. Now do the above exercise for an enemy, issue or stereotype that attracts your gaze, holds your attention, or opposes your personal belief system. Try and list their possible motivations (both conscious and unconscious) for holding these views. Compare this list to the reasons that you have attributed to them in the past. Keep doing this exercise until you get a diversity of scenarios (span) and reasons (depth). Re-examine your beliefs and perceptual filters. Have you reached new conclusions? Is your view of objective reality more complex and inclusive?

3. Study ten differrent Internet news sources for a week. Make a list of the bipolarities that each news source creates: Republican/Democrat, Fundamentalist/Secular Humanist, Queer/Straight, Pro-Business/Anti-Globalist etc. Pay specific attention to the adjectives that editors and reporters use as descriptions. Try to deduce who the publication's target readership is, and create a profile of their likely worldviews. How could each publication change its language to embrace a more inclusive reality?

4. Read John Searle's book The Construction of Social Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1997). What is your reaction to Searle's critique of social constructionism as a faddish ideology?

5. If all "received truths" are dubious, does this reasoning apply to this statement?

6. Consider Robert Anton Wilson's argument that The Federal Reserve waves a magic wand and "creates" money. Does this mean that Alan Greenspan embodies a black magician? Visit sites like Fast Company, Motley Fool and Quote for a week. Try Gordon Gecko's meta-program that "Greed is G(o)od." Can money and the Quest for higher realities coexist?