Wayseer Manifesto: The Translation

Someone showed me a thing just now called WayseerManifesto.

There's a video on the website that is composed of scenes from movies and tv shows all designed to evoke a sense of people rebelling against oppression and striving to reach some conveniently ill defined goal.

Yeah. You caught that tone in my voice, didn't you? There's a reason for that.

It reminds me of the ad that the main character reads at the beginning of Ishmael. "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Please apply in person" The guy reads this and is annoyed. He figures the person who posted the ad is either a "new agey" type who foolishly believes that something as all encompassing as "saving the world" is possible or is a cynical bastard taking advantage of people who do. Either way, he's pissed.

Now, in Ishmael, it turns out that the ad poster actually has some serious knowledge to impart.

That being said, what makes me so quick to dismiss this Wayseer thing?

Well, I listened to it. The jist? Generic pablum pushing the idea that rules of any kind are inherantly wrong (Wait. Is that a rule?) And that an inability to articulate one's reason for believing something should in no way detract from the validity of that belief.

I'm seeing a gathering around a campfire. People trading stories of their beliefs. And because this belief system rejects any analysis or second guessing of its ideas or logical inconsistencies, everyone is right. No matter what they say. I hear this is how Scientology got started. (I didn't actually hear that but I can see it, yknow?)

I feel vaguely ridiculous for even dignifying this latest load of crap with an entry. But the fact that it got me writing again means there's at least one thing to recommend it.

This WSM thing, it offers what most things like this offer; universal unquestioning acceptance. Which for a whole shit ton of people in the world is in real short supply. There's something vital missing from the equation though.

People should not be universally unquestioningly accepted. There are damn good reasons to not accept people as they are. Society has rules, many of which are made for the general well being of all. If someone wants to take issue with certain specific rules, that's all well and good. But rules as a concept? Add to that this thing about "knowing things you can't articulate"?

Does anyone else see a problem with presenting an inability to articulate ones ideas as an argument for the rightness of said ideas? It seems like the Right wingers are ahead of the curve on this one. They've been inarticulate for years! Clearly its working out for them, right?

To the untrained eye WSM might seem cut from the same cloth as the Zeitgeist Movement and Ishmael. There's room for debate there but the intro video I saw (which should be as perfect a pitch for their movement as they can make it, since some people like myself won't dig any deeper if you don't grab me with it) set off every warning bell imaginable for something cynically crafted and just plain not good. Could there be more to WSM than it appears? Maybe.

but like the saying goes "When someone shows you who they are, believe them".