This book is old, but it's in a certain way very it's quite timely. The media is running a live stream of the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson's final doctor Conrad Murray, and it is not looking good for Dr. Murray. Conrad Murray's trial comes only a few years after the trial of Michael Jackson's one-time PI Anthony Pellicano. Incidentally but not totally off topic, Pellicano recently said in a Newsweek prison interview that he quit working for Michael Jackson because Michael Jackson was doing "something worse" to young boys then molesting them without specifying what. The Murray trial lifestream seems like one medical professional after another verifying that Conrad Murray was in extreme violation of medical ethics. Then there is Howard Bloom.
Howard Bloom was actually MJ's publicist back in the 80's. Howard Bloom also has a memoir about the 60's that Timothy Leary blurbed, which probably explains a lot of things. Have you ever seen that TV show Disinformation that aired on British TV briefly? Disinformation is a publishing house now, but it was also a television show for a while. There was the 2 DVD release of it that I had back in the early 2000's that my friends and I would make fun of. There's an interview with Howard Bloom on there where he says "fuck the god of war!". A little too much blow in the music industry back in the 80's, huh guy? They should make that Disinformation DVD the new Rocky Horror Picture Show with people yelling call backs at the screen because that DVD is hilarious. That same DVD release has the late Robert Anton Wilson babbling at length about his "willy" and how "you gotta have a willy" to be the pope. That DVD also has Marilyn Manson whining about football players beating up nerds. It makes exactly 0 sense. I'm talking about unintentional irony, by the way. A really excellent way to make the case for your own intellectual credibility is to be the guy who says "fuck the god of war" on the Disinformation DVD. That's right up there with the interview they on there with the woman who says Sylvester Stallone forced her to make dolphin porn.
Howard Bloom's big book is The Lucifer Principle. It's this weird book that I vaguely recall goth people in the 90's being into. The Lucifer Principle is a "science" book by Howard Bloom about how violence and aggression are hardwired by nature into human DNA and dominate human history. . The statistics I've seen on gun ownership in the United States generally have it at about a third of U.S. homes owning firearms. How often do you see something in the news about somebody in the United States randomly shooting masses of people? It comes up in the news only every once and a while. Also, the shooter is generally established as being psychologically abnormal- this person leaves YouTube video s that make no sense (in the case of Jared Lee Loughner) or hasn't had sex for 17 years (in the case of George Sodini)-things like that. It would seem that such an obvious issues would complicate Howard Bloom's basic thesis. He missed it though. That's not surprising because Howard Bloom has no military or law enforcement background whatsoever. An excellent book on the nature of violence by someone who does come out of the security industry is The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. Of course, what he has to say about the nature of violence in no way resembles what Howard Bloom has to say about the subject.
Anthony Pellicano, Conrad Murray, and Howard Bloom- that's the best and the brightest right there. Only Michael Jackson would have all three of those people on his payroll.
Anyway, back to the Lucifer Principal. I've read it before but re-reading it now I'm blown away by how dumb it actually is. Howard Bloom has this whole notion of "memes" or ideas operating like genes to create the"super organism" of cultures and discusses cultures as being literally living "super-organisms". I think the answer is drugs. I think those Disinformation people do a whole lot of drugs. Robert Anton Wilson was a big drug guy. The Lucifer Principle is painful. Howard Bloom must be unbearable at cocktail parties. Howard Bloom thinks he's got it all worked out with his memes and" super-organisms". If you want to read some acid-head book trying to explain the history of war in terms of the behavior of bees and ants, then this book is all you babe. In bare essences that's what the Lucifer Principal is. The whole thing is completely absurd.
Howard Bloom is the overlap between Jackson camp and Disinformation. That's quite something. Robert Anton Wilson's willy and Neverland Ranch. That's quite a combo.
Considering that you love super-violence, both in real life and on the screen, it doesn't surprise me in the least that you find Howard Bloom's metaphorical statement regarding rejecting the "god of war" to be "dumb". The concept of memes isn't at all stupid or far-reaching in fact it's a widely used term for how trends take off in society. The term "meme" was coined by the famous biologist Richard Dawkins by the way, and only redneck Christian fundamentalists generally call Mr. Dawkins stupid. Political correctness may have gone over the top in certain instances but nobody gets points simply for spitting in its face, as you put it. They have to do so cleverly, with wit, originality and zero mutilated women in order to get my vote. It's really easy to create something gross, disturbing and gory. Very few people have done so in a way that achieves art. You do make one valid point; comprehending expansive philosophies outside of the mainstream is certainly assisted by having experienced alternate realites, such as those afforded by LSD. Normally, I would advocate trying to expand your own narrow intellectual confines by this method but due to your unsavoury interest in firearms and violent movies, I think it's best you stay away from such things.
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