Culture Is Not Your Friend But a Cult

"One of the conclusions that novelty theory leads to, in terms of its feedback into social here-and-now stuff, is the idea that culture is not your friend. That culture is an impediment to understanding what’s going on. That’s why, to my mind, the word 'cult' and the word 'culture' have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is a cult! And if you feel revulsion at the thought of somebody, you know, offering to the Great Carrot, or tithing to some squirly notion, just notice that your own culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation and automatic and unquestioned and unthinking behaviour. There is a tendency to want to celebrate culture, springing both from the French deconstructionists and their fascination with culture, and then the effort to build pride through ethnicity thing…well, that’s all very fine, but I think the cultures we should all revere are our ancestral cultures; the cultures most of us have our roots in, the actual culture we came from, was probably fairly squirly. I mean, the American family is what keeps American psychotherapy alive and well! This is a cauldron for the production of neurosis, and in some cases little else." - Terence McKenna.

Culture is Created by Creative People

“Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” - Albert Camus.

“You guys know about vampires?…You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, ‘Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist? And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.’” - Junot Diaz.

“Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable.” - Terence McKenna.

“Since all culture is a kind of con game, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is one which causes people to start questioning the rules of the game.” - Terence McKenna. 

"Culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people’s convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture.” - Terence McKenna.



“We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” - Terence McKenna.

Terence McKenna: Culture is not your friend

“The problem with current affairs is you forget about what’s important. You allow the agenda to be decided by superficial information. What am I saying? What am I talking about? Don’t think about what I’m wearing. These things are redundant and superficial.” – Russell Brand (Morning Joe, MSNBC).

“The line between good and evil runs not between cultures, religions or creeds but through every human heart. So, I recognise in myself the capacity for selfishness, for lustfulness, for egotism. And, because I recognise these qualities in myself, I would prefer a culture that didn’t celebrate, exacerbate, stimulate the most negative aspects of our species, inculcate them, reward them financially till we get to a kind of a cultural hysteria where we’re destroying the planet.” – Russell Brand (interview with Mehdi Hasan).

“Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!” - Hermann Goering. [Because Germany's culture was destroyed by Jews during the Weimar Republic. A Browning is a type of shotgun].

Dr Suess

Pop Culture

"Pay no attention to pop culture for it is what poisons our minds and divides our children. Without pop culture, we wouldn't have unrealistic icons to compare ourselves to that also thwart our perceptions and standards. They are the modern day animal gods. The real role models our children, friends and families need are all around them if they look hard enough - not on TV. Materialism leads to selfishness and egotism. Eliminate all of it. It is the plague of Big Business." - Suzy Kassem.

“Our normal expectations about reality are created by a social consensus. We are taught how to see and understand the world. The trick of socialization is to convince us that the descriptions we agree upon define the limits of the real world. What we call reality is only one way of seeing the world, a way that is supported by social consensus.” - Carlos Castaneda.

I guess I'm out of the pop culture loop

We Are Conditioned to Ruin & Want & Create Crap

"What a gulf between impression and expression! That’s our ironic fate - to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teenagers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse - touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash." – Aldous Huxley (The Genius and the Goddess, 1955).