RAW Language
A Few Things Stated by Robert Anton Wilson
I’d like to share some quotations by Robert Anton Wilson. For now I’ll leave you to think on them without commentary. At some point in the future I may come back to share my ruminations on them. They are always worth considering, but especially at times of tension.
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.”
“Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone’s B.S. too seriously, especially your own.”
“Every type of bigotry, every type of racism, sexism, prejudice, every dogmatic ideology that allows people to kill other people with a clear conscience, every stupid cult, every superstition-ridden religion, every kind of ignorance in the world, are all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see, and then we believe our interpretation of it, but we don’t even know we’re making an interpretation most of the time.”
“Reality is always plural and mutable.”
“Relativity and quantum mechanics have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you’re using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which ‘real’ reality can be seen; we’re all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels.”
“Any model we make does not describe the universe, it describes what our brains are capable of saying at this time.”
“We look for the Secret — the Philosopher’s Stone, the Elixir of the Wise, Supreme Enlightenment, ‘God’ or whatever…and all the time it is carrying us about…It is the human nervous system itself.”
“Human society as a whole is a vast brainwashing machine whose semantic rules and sex roles create a social robot.”
“The most thoroughly and relentlessly damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all ‘Damned Things’ is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this ‘Damned Thing’ into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the ‘Damned Thing’ will not fit into the slot assigned it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychologist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the ‘Damned Thing’ will not fit into their slots.”
“Kindness remains, to me, the most wonderful miracle in this incomprehensible universe.”
“Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.”
“A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely then the celebrated Marxian formula of monopoly in the means of production.”
“The ultimate weapon isn’t this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It’s the ability to say No and take the consequences.”
“In conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time.”
