“Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people who have the right to that knowledge and the desire to know. But besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge—I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.” -- John Adams, 1765
What are the expected qualities of a future president? What are the determinants?
It depends on what America’s expectations are for the office of President of the United States of America. If Americans require that the office of President be based on the institutional values the office represents, then they will select a President who will conform to those values. If Americans have no idea what institutional values the office should represent, then their selection will be based on the man or woman who more closely represents their perceptions based on their own values.
Americans need to know what to expect in order to objectively ratiocinate a decision; without knowing what to expect Americans are relying on those who are contending for the presidency, pundits, their interlocutors, and the insidiousness of the media, to tell them what they should expect. The candidates posit what they are going to do if elected president and that becomes the basis for their vote.
If we expect national and international respect and dignity for the United States of America, then there cannot be any determinant more important than the principles, moral character, and quality of leadership of those who occupy the oval office. The expectations are what are delineated in the Constitution of the United States of America which extends itself to a leadership with probity in relation to peace, human rights, justice, the environment, fiscal responsibility, respects for the civil rights of Americans and others, the honoring of international commitments, the separation of church and state, secularity, and the prudent management and control of our military and particularly nuclear weapons.
When Americans are ignorant of -- or choose to ignore -- the expectations of the Presidency as an institution is when Americans build their expectations around the man or woman running for the Presidency. Sometimes the sizzle becomes more important than the steak. The substance of their rhetoric obfuscated. The sizzle is not only in their rhetoric, but includes the object value we place with the candidate: whether they look presidential.
Whomever the President chosen, he or she must posses because of the expectations of the office:
Good behavior; moral and ethical standards in judgement based on principle rather than expediency, and uphold the tenets and essence of our Constitution and democracy.
Private and public moral character; keeping in mind that they are role models for other nations, Americans in general, and our children. The office must reflect our expectations of how other nations should behave. A leader’s duty is to act in a way so as not to physically or emotionally hurt others, and traits that include trustworthiness, respect for others, self-restraint, honesty, integrity, reliability (promise keeping), loyalty and fidelity, sincerity, candor, integrity (playing by the rules), reliability (keeping ones word), accepting accountability and responsibility (the willingness to be accountable for one’s actions), prudence, vision, and compassion for others: if one cannot be sympathetic toward others, one’s actions will be based on criteria that do not take into account a full respect for human beings and their circumstances.
Quality of leadership: “And if the President builds that trust to the American people, so that when he says it, they believe it, even if they disagree with the policy that he's advocating, you can create a situation in which leadership can be exerted, that can take this country forward. I don't think it's possible to do that if the President, in the view of the people, is not a man that you can trust and you've caught him in too many lies.” – Stephen Ambrose
The man or woman who is President of the United States must have gravitas, and a command of the issues that face America, of course. His or her principles, character, and quality of leadership will affect how she or he responds.
It is a lot to expect of a man or woman, but the office of the President of the United States of America demands high expectations.
Unfortunately, most Americans buy the sizzle of object value, ones faith, and rhetoric based on what they want to hear; promises of what the candidates are going to do if elected that many times they do not have a hope in the world of accomplishing. The steak, the essence, the basic substance of a man or woman’s electablity must be based on principles, character, and quality of leadership.
However, there are caveats posed in two questions: If Americans do not posses these same qualities, are they capable of making judgments of these qualities in others? Do they have the desire to know the issues facing our country or is the race for the Presidency just like any horserace, only about winning and losing (Democrats vs. Republicans, and the candidates being the stable of each running in the race); a game on which to wager a bet.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year's brooding
Another outstanding article by James Carroll in the Boston Globe.
Reading a James Carroll article is like listening to Miles Davis. It's very rewarding. It is awesome how he can put into a 700-word article so much meaning, as it is with Miles Davis putting so much musical meaning in 32 bars of improvisation.
If you could ask time about time, the answer would be a question in return: what's time? There is no such thing in the real world as chronological time – the arrow of time; time as with light, it just simply exists.
“New Year's is the joyful celebration of all that has ever transpired anywhere, aware of itself now in you.”
Happy New Year,
Rach
JAMES CARROLL
New Year's brooding
By James Carroll December 31, 2007
WHAT IS MORE worthless than the ripped off page of a calendar? Indeed, what is more brusque than that act of ripping off? On New Year's, you start over with a new calendar, and the fresh pages, each with its day or week or month, are innocent and beautiful. You move through time by sullying each page, tearing and discarding it. In the black-and-white cinema of your mind, a locomotive forever chugs along its tracks, while in the foreground, the pages of the calendar flip by, into the wind. Is that all there is to time?
The trouble with the image of time as a calendar with pages to be torn and tossed is that it can reinforce your general feeling of disconnectedness, as if the events of life cohere no more than one page does to another. All that stands between you and the cinder pile of history are a pair of staples. You, too, are a mere page on the calendar, and the dull roaring in the back of your head is that locomotive, bombing into the unknown, with no relationship to what it leaves behind. No relationship, finally, even to you - unless, of course, you are the train. Past, present, and future are nothing but a set of unchosen tracks along which you move, picking up speed - leaving behind the litter of what just happened. This is time experienced as mere chronology, one damn thing after another, and then it's over.
The benign brooding of New Year's suggests another way to think of time. The Greeks distinguished between chronos and kairos, one a railroad track spanning the surface of life, and the other, say, a spiral winding down into the depths of wisdom and true knowledge. There is chronological time, with its detritus, and there is contemplative time, where nothing is lost. The first depends on the skill of forgetfulness, while the second nurtures a feeling for the past through memory. To the first, the future is the next surprise; to the second, the future is familiar, because the past and the present prepare it.
The word contemplation has a Latin root, suggesting "time with," as if in contrast to chronology as time alone. But the "with" here is not merely social. Contemplative time is time in which connectedness is perceived as essential. There is no fully human knowing unless it is knowing "with"; knowing, especially, how one experience links with another. The connection is what matters, and in contemplative time, the connection is what shows itself. As the scientists tell you, there is homo sapiens, the creature who knows; and there is homo sapiens sapiens, the creature who knows that it knows. Who knows "with." And "knowing with," of course, comes to us from Latin as conscience.
That double knowing is the realm of meaning. It is what you live for, and why you aim to move from mere chronology to contemplation. The first is episodic, with events following each other as if randomly. The second is dramatic, with events joined not by mere sequence, but by causation. In contemplation, where you perceive the "with" in time, you see that the past, present, and future flow into one another not accidentally, but as choice flows into consequence, which flows into a new choice, and an ever-larger consequence. In the spiraled knowing of contemplation, you see that choice is the seat of connectedness, which makes time the realm of morality, as well as meaning. You grasp your part in the simple wholeness of all that is, a part defined by freedom and responsibility. The episodes of your life, therefore, are not discrete pages to be discarded one by one, but form a moral unity, the purpose of which is to be understood. Every day you have lived has been preparing you for this day - the fullness of time. Kairos.
The timespan of Earth stretches back across thousands of millions of years, with the cosmos stretching farther back through years without number. Your lifespan is less than a blink of the eye of time, and so, for that matter, is all of humanity's. The law of chronology suggests that, on such a scale, what you make of the turning calendar means nothing. But the law of contemplation is otherwise. Today, the previous span of cosmic incomprehensibility adds up in the sum of your thoughtfulness. New Year's is the joyful celebration of all that has ever transpired anywhere, aware of itself now in you.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Reading a James Carroll article is like listening to Miles Davis. It's very rewarding. It is awesome how he can put into a 700-word article so much meaning, as it is with Miles Davis putting so much musical meaning in 32 bars of improvisation.
If you could ask time about time, the answer would be a question in return: what's time? There is no such thing in the real world as chronological time – the arrow of time; time as with light, it just simply exists.
“New Year's is the joyful celebration of all that has ever transpired anywhere, aware of itself now in you.”
Happy New Year,
Rach
JAMES CARROLL
New Year's brooding
By James Carroll December 31, 2007
WHAT IS MORE worthless than the ripped off page of a calendar? Indeed, what is more brusque than that act of ripping off? On New Year's, you start over with a new calendar, and the fresh pages, each with its day or week or month, are innocent and beautiful. You move through time by sullying each page, tearing and discarding it. In the black-and-white cinema of your mind, a locomotive forever chugs along its tracks, while in the foreground, the pages of the calendar flip by, into the wind. Is that all there is to time?
The trouble with the image of time as a calendar with pages to be torn and tossed is that it can reinforce your general feeling of disconnectedness, as if the events of life cohere no more than one page does to another. All that stands between you and the cinder pile of history are a pair of staples. You, too, are a mere page on the calendar, and the dull roaring in the back of your head is that locomotive, bombing into the unknown, with no relationship to what it leaves behind. No relationship, finally, even to you - unless, of course, you are the train. Past, present, and future are nothing but a set of unchosen tracks along which you move, picking up speed - leaving behind the litter of what just happened. This is time experienced as mere chronology, one damn thing after another, and then it's over.
The benign brooding of New Year's suggests another way to think of time. The Greeks distinguished between chronos and kairos, one a railroad track spanning the surface of life, and the other, say, a spiral winding down into the depths of wisdom and true knowledge. There is chronological time, with its detritus, and there is contemplative time, where nothing is lost. The first depends on the skill of forgetfulness, while the second nurtures a feeling for the past through memory. To the first, the future is the next surprise; to the second, the future is familiar, because the past and the present prepare it.
The word contemplation has a Latin root, suggesting "time with," as if in contrast to chronology as time alone. But the "with" here is not merely social. Contemplative time is time in which connectedness is perceived as essential. There is no fully human knowing unless it is knowing "with"; knowing, especially, how one experience links with another. The connection is what matters, and in contemplative time, the connection is what shows itself. As the scientists tell you, there is homo sapiens, the creature who knows; and there is homo sapiens sapiens, the creature who knows that it knows. Who knows "with." And "knowing with," of course, comes to us from Latin as conscience.
That double knowing is the realm of meaning. It is what you live for, and why you aim to move from mere chronology to contemplation. The first is episodic, with events following each other as if randomly. The second is dramatic, with events joined not by mere sequence, but by causation. In contemplation, where you perceive the "with" in time, you see that the past, present, and future flow into one another not accidentally, but as choice flows into consequence, which flows into a new choice, and an ever-larger consequence. In the spiraled knowing of contemplation, you see that choice is the seat of connectedness, which makes time the realm of morality, as well as meaning. You grasp your part in the simple wholeness of all that is, a part defined by freedom and responsibility. The episodes of your life, therefore, are not discrete pages to be discarded one by one, but form a moral unity, the purpose of which is to be understood. Every day you have lived has been preparing you for this day - the fullness of time. Kairos.
The timespan of Earth stretches back across thousands of millions of years, with the cosmos stretching farther back through years without number. Your lifespan is less than a blink of the eye of time, and so, for that matter, is all of humanity's. The law of chronology suggests that, on such a scale, what you make of the turning calendar means nothing. But the law of contemplation is otherwise. Today, the previous span of cosmic incomprehensibility adds up in the sum of your thoughtfulness. New Year's is the joyful celebration of all that has ever transpired anywhere, aware of itself now in you.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Creating money with debt
Anyone who has read The Creature from Jekyll Island by Edward Griffin will instantaneously relate to this video. It's a long video, 47 minutes, so set the time necessary to watch. To comprehend it's message it must be watched multiple times, especially for those who are not familiar with Griffin's book.
Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of "Money as Debt" tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out.
7 of the Most Important Economic Events of the Last 7 Years: The Buildup to World War III
Friday, December 28, 2007
A New Way Of Thinking: Peace Is the Way
Deepak Chopra's book, “Peace Is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End was inspired by a saying from Mahatma Gandhi: There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. In a world where every path to peace has proved futile, the one strategy that has not been tried is the way of peace itself. We must not bring one war to an end, or thirty, Chopra tells us, but the idea of war itself.”
Chris Hedges informs us “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.”
War has the same psychological effect on patriots, as any sporting competition has in success and failure, winning and losing, on the fan. When hostilities begin, patriots rally around the flag, regardless of whether it is right, wrong, moral, or immoral. The idea of losing always has its attendant shame and disgrace. In Iraq, everything is hunky-dory as long as there is a sense that America is winning; when there is a sense that we are losing, there is a need to bring the troops home.
For those who are the combatants’, “war forms its own culture.” Chris Hedges explains, “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by myth makers, historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists and the state -- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty. It dominates culture, distorts memory, corrupts language and infects everything around it, even humor, which becomes preoccupied with the grim perversities of smut and death. Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths. War exposes the capacity for evil that lurks just below the surface within all of us.”
War is archaically evil. We must create a new way of thinking and make necessary changes so that violence is no longer appealing. Chopra tells us, “War has become a habit. We reach for it the way a chain smoker reaches for a cigarette, promising to quit but somehow never kicking the habit.” However, Chopra also tells us that peace has its own power, and our task now is to direct that power and multiply it one person at a time.
Peace Is the Way challenges each of us to take the next leap in our evolution. You aren’t asked to be a saint, or to give up any belief. You are only asked to stop reacting out of fear, to change your allegiance from violence to peace. ... Violence may be innate in human nature, but so is its opposite: love. The next stage of humanity, the leap which we are poised to take, will be guided by the force of that love. This is more than a hope or an aspiration. It is a new way of being in the world, giving each individual the power to end war in our time.
We must provide the leadership and be mentors for peace, creating memes for the evolution of peace.
Peace is the way. Do not let war be the force that gives us meaning, peace can also be the force that gives us meaning, for it is the natural way. Just as war forms its own culture, so can we create a culture of peace.
It is a new way of thinking.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
(Mohandas Gandhi)
Chris Hedges informs us “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.”
War has the same psychological effect on patriots, as any sporting competition has in success and failure, winning and losing, on the fan. When hostilities begin, patriots rally around the flag, regardless of whether it is right, wrong, moral, or immoral. The idea of losing always has its attendant shame and disgrace. In Iraq, everything is hunky-dory as long as there is a sense that America is winning; when there is a sense that we are losing, there is a need to bring the troops home.
For those who are the combatants’, “war forms its own culture.” Chris Hedges explains, “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by myth makers, historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists and the state -- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty. It dominates culture, distorts memory, corrupts language and infects everything around it, even humor, which becomes preoccupied with the grim perversities of smut and death. Fundamental questions about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of our place on the planet are laid bare when we watch those around us sink to the lowest depths. War exposes the capacity for evil that lurks just below the surface within all of us.”
War is archaically evil. We must create a new way of thinking and make necessary changes so that violence is no longer appealing. Chopra tells us, “War has become a habit. We reach for it the way a chain smoker reaches for a cigarette, promising to quit but somehow never kicking the habit.” However, Chopra also tells us that peace has its own power, and our task now is to direct that power and multiply it one person at a time.
Peace Is the Way challenges each of us to take the next leap in our evolution. You aren’t asked to be a saint, or to give up any belief. You are only asked to stop reacting out of fear, to change your allegiance from violence to peace. ... Violence may be innate in human nature, but so is its opposite: love. The next stage of humanity, the leap which we are poised to take, will be guided by the force of that love. This is more than a hope or an aspiration. It is a new way of being in the world, giving each individual the power to end war in our time.
We must provide the leadership and be mentors for peace, creating memes for the evolution of peace.
Peace is the way. Do not let war be the force that gives us meaning, peace can also be the force that gives us meaning, for it is the natural way. Just as war forms its own culture, so can we create a culture of peace.
It is a new way of thinking.
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
(Mohandas Gandhi)
Monday, December 24, 2007
A New Way Of Thinking
The gestalt and wise eventually arrive at an understanding that material and object value must be put into equilibrium with spiritual value. People must transform to a new way of thinking; new in the way they think, believe, and perceive reality. To understand ones inner world is to understand that the ultimate reality of consciousness is the potency that steers our world.
Those who are wise understand that all experience of sound, touch, smell, taste, sight, and perception are a result of chemical reactions and their interactions that occur within each one of us when sensations are experienced. The fruition of being from non-being in our world only works by way of life within our particular law of physics, which yields the dimension in which we live. And, so, it is only by being that non-being can be contemplated, and that a new way of thinking can be known. An unknown lies beneath our surface reality that may never be fully known, but we must be cognizant of its existence and continually endeavor to understand its ultimate reality.
The fruit rather than the flower are the concern of the wise. Each one of us must decide what it might be that we seek: the outer world flowery trapping of material and object value that comes to fullness first, or the fruit that comes from consciousness and the unknown ultimate reality that is beneath that is apprehended by the flower of knowledge and understanding.
The cosmos and all living things are formed by being, shaped by our creation of environment, and as a result nourished by virtue; the being from non-being. We are responsible for all creation, its direction, and for its health.
Morality and goodness are the result of this understanding. There are things that transcend our outer world reality that are the essence of the cosmos and of all life. We create all there is from this unseen reality. Ultimate reality lies in consciousness, the absolute, in which there is an absence of desire and wanting; within the parameters of this understanding, evil does not exist. Evil is the result of created desire and wanting. We create evil; morality and goodness are innate.
The efficacious, good, beneficial, and powerful force of the absolute ultimate reality is the natural way, in that all things are born of it. This is where the God of all resides.
Those who are wise understand that all experience of sound, touch, smell, taste, sight, and perception are a result of chemical reactions and their interactions that occur within each one of us when sensations are experienced. The fruition of being from non-being in our world only works by way of life within our particular law of physics, which yields the dimension in which we live. And, so, it is only by being that non-being can be contemplated, and that a new way of thinking can be known. An unknown lies beneath our surface reality that may never be fully known, but we must be cognizant of its existence and continually endeavor to understand its ultimate reality.
The fruit rather than the flower are the concern of the wise. Each one of us must decide what it might be that we seek: the outer world flowery trapping of material and object value that comes to fullness first, or the fruit that comes from consciousness and the unknown ultimate reality that is beneath that is apprehended by the flower of knowledge and understanding.
The cosmos and all living things are formed by being, shaped by our creation of environment, and as a result nourished by virtue; the being from non-being. We are responsible for all creation, its direction, and for its health.
Morality and goodness are the result of this understanding. There are things that transcend our outer world reality that are the essence of the cosmos and of all life. We create all there is from this unseen reality. Ultimate reality lies in consciousness, the absolute, in which there is an absence of desire and wanting; within the parameters of this understanding, evil does not exist. Evil is the result of created desire and wanting. We create evil; morality and goodness are innate.
The efficacious, good, beneficial, and powerful force of the absolute ultimate reality is the natural way, in that all things are born of it. This is where the God of all resides.
Monday, December 10, 2007
All Power, No Influence
Another good article by James Carroll, although a little longer than his usual 700 words at around 844 words; the title “all power, no influence” is right on point.
“… what really endangers the United States today. Arguably, the single largest threat to national security [world peace] is the growing gulf between desperately impoverished peoples [ not only impoverished or poor, people with a loss of self-esteem, but indigent in many other human ways: for an example, the availability of a simple glass of clean water] and those who have what they need to live [only in the sense of affirming, and promoting equal political, economic, social, and civil rights; it does not mean to simply give them money to make them economically equal]. What is the Pentagon budget to that? Environmental degradation is also a massive national security threat. How do aircraft carriers help with that?”
Moreover, I might add, how do we develop an alternate source of energy and make a transformation for domestic purposes to include in that transformation an alternate to oil dependence a fuel for an M1 Abrams or a F-16 Fighting Falcon, or for that matter any of the other military assets that need gasoline, naphtha or kerosene to operate? How does this figure in our reluctance, seemingly (our postulations and desire seem only to be rhetorical), to find an alternate for oil? What would be the cost of transformation to another energy source for our military? Would we have the same capabilities or diminished capabilities? I am not an engineer, obviously, but in reality can it even be accomplished?
In a previous life, an incarnation where I was somewhat belligerent – a time when I thought war was probably necessary -- I operated an M47 Patton tank. It took a ton of diesel to fill it -- around 230 gallons. I would assume that the M1 Abrams is more fuel-efficient than the M47, which was manned by a five man crew and whose firepower utilized 90 mm rounds (weighty in and of themselves, and carried on board at full battle readiness 70 rounds) and a couple of machine guns. Nevertheless, the M1 still must take a ton of fuel to operate. It just makes me wonder how oil calculates into our need for hegemony in the Middle East, and, as a result of that need, the premeditated, preemptive Iraq War. Why our belligerent posture toward Iran? And, please don’t tell me it is because Saddam was a bad man as the reason we are in Iraq, or that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is another Hitler (the same rhetoric was used for Saddam) and needs to acquire WMD’s to dominate the world, therefore there is a need for regime change in Iran. It’s not complicated -- “It’s the oil, stupid!”
I agree that maybe the single largest threat to national security is the growing disparity between desperately impoverished peoples and those who have what they need to live. However, it is not the only threat, the need for oil as an energy source may be, arguably, the largest.
If you do not agree, please let me know.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
“… what really endangers the United States today. Arguably, the single largest threat to national security [world peace] is the growing gulf between desperately impoverished peoples [ not only impoverished or poor, people with a loss of self-esteem, but indigent in many other human ways: for an example, the availability of a simple glass of clean water] and those who have what they need to live [only in the sense of affirming, and promoting equal political, economic, social, and civil rights; it does not mean to simply give them money to make them economically equal]. What is the Pentagon budget to that? Environmental degradation is also a massive national security threat. How do aircraft carriers help with that?”
Moreover, I might add, how do we develop an alternate source of energy and make a transformation for domestic purposes to include in that transformation an alternate to oil dependence a fuel for an M1 Abrams or a F-16 Fighting Falcon, or for that matter any of the other military assets that need gasoline, naphtha or kerosene to operate? How does this figure in our reluctance, seemingly (our postulations and desire seem only to be rhetorical), to find an alternate for oil? What would be the cost of transformation to another energy source for our military? Would we have the same capabilities or diminished capabilities? I am not an engineer, obviously, but in reality can it even be accomplished?
In a previous life, an incarnation where I was somewhat belligerent – a time when I thought war was probably necessary -- I operated an M47 Patton tank. It took a ton of diesel to fill it -- around 230 gallons. I would assume that the M1 Abrams is more fuel-efficient than the M47, which was manned by a five man crew and whose firepower utilized 90 mm rounds (weighty in and of themselves, and carried on board at full battle readiness 70 rounds) and a couple of machine guns. Nevertheless, the M1 still must take a ton of fuel to operate. It just makes me wonder how oil calculates into our need for hegemony in the Middle East, and, as a result of that need, the premeditated, preemptive Iraq War. Why our belligerent posture toward Iran? And, please don’t tell me it is because Saddam was a bad man as the reason we are in Iraq, or that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is another Hitler (the same rhetoric was used for Saddam) and needs to acquire WMD’s to dominate the world, therefore there is a need for regime change in Iran. It’s not complicated -- “It’s the oil, stupid!”
I agree that maybe the single largest threat to national security is the growing disparity between desperately impoverished peoples and those who have what they need to live. However, it is not the only threat, the need for oil as an energy source may be, arguably, the largest.
If you do not agree, please let me know.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Who is the real humanitarian?
I received an email glurge the other day. The email related a simple allegory pointing out the benefit achieved by people helping people. I am sure that many have previously heard the tale; the parable can be found by following this link: The Difference between Heaven and Hell (on earth) .
I thought the message was a good message and so I summarily forwarded the mail to friends and family. However, a good friend had a different take on this parable.
My friend’s email reply: “I appreciate the idea of sharing and taking care of loved ones. There is however some facts that I would like to draw your attention to. Observation over long periods of time concerning human behavior tell us in no uncertain terms that human beings are property acquisitive.They like to acquire all types of property. If you prohibit them from doing so they die. Unfortunately, you see, people are selfish. You may not want to acknowledge that fact but nonetheless it is true. Ann Rand spent the better part of her life trying to show the world that the great civilization that has come into being is a result of the accomplishments of selfishness. Galambos had a great way of illustrating this idea. He hypothesized a situation where two brothers inherited equal amounts of substantial wealth. One brother was an ‘humanitarian’. The other brother was a very selfish individual. The humanitarian brother decided to give all his money to the most needy people he could find. He and his brother had inherited 100 million dollars each. He did a study and turned up 10000 of the most needy people he could find. He gave them each 10000 dollars apiece. A very few invested the money. Most went on a buying spree and spent the money in short order as you can probably imagine. This action put them right back in the condition that they were in the first place. The other brother, being a very greedy selfish person, decided he was not satisfied with his inheritance. He wanted much more. He thought about it and decided that the thing for to do was to do research and find out what the market place would want to buy from him. He finally settled on a product. He acquired production facilities, hired workers, and went into business. Gradually his business increased and he expanded and hired more workers. After awhile he employed 10000 people. These people earned their pay year in and year out. They also earned something else. They earned their self-respect. Now the question is ‘Who is the real humanitarian?’”
There are many values: materialistic values – those values that have monetary value, which is the inference in my friend’s email, the philosophy of materialism of which everyone is familiar; object value – those values that people adopt in egocentrism, narcissism, and idolatry, and are coexistent in the adoption of material values; spiritual values – those values that are colloquially more closely related to religion, as opposed to the authentic relationship to the new paradigm of consciousness; and, then there are human values that attempt to put into balance all of these values in such a way that it benefits the evolution of consciousness and the world environment within the dimension that we live.
Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” is an outstanding metaphor for people helping people, although I am sure that his definition would not be the same as mine. The principle of the “Invisible Hand” should be interpreted beyond the economic scope of its meaning to include those things that people do to promote human values. The “Invisible Hand” principle incorporates material value, object value, and spiritual value into the values associated with human values, which benefit life and not the pocketbook or self-centeredness. It is the concept of the “Invisible Hand” that is metaphorically represented in this story.
I am deeply interested in economic principles because, as by example in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Human Action by Ludwig von Mises as well as on the Ludwig von Mises website, of their close praxeological relationship with human values.
Galambos was one of those selfish individuals of whom the tale speaks. Galambos first came on the scene in the late 50’s or early 60’s, died in 1997, and he or his heirs have not accomplished anything to promote any human value, except for those things that have material and object value. Galambos or his heirs have not even benefited their own cause, except monetarily, because of their selfishness due to intellectual property concerns. It seems they want to keep their grand plan for society a deeply held secret.
Galambos was correct; we never help anyone by simply giving them money.
It is people, such as …
· Jesus Christ (not the bible, but the historical Jesus)
· Henry David Thoreau
· Ralph Waldo Emerson
· Mohandas Gandhi
· Albert Einstein
· Martin Luther King, Jr.
· Noam Chomsky
· Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
· Dr. Helen Caldicott
· Jimmy Carter
· Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
· Muhammad Yunus
and so many others, who are the authentic humanitarians.
Andrew Galambos or Ayn Rand have not intrinsically contributed one iota to benefit humankind, except for those bent on avarice.
I thought the message was a good message and so I summarily forwarded the mail to friends and family. However, a good friend had a different take on this parable.
My friend’s email reply: “I appreciate the idea of sharing and taking care of loved ones. There is however some facts that I would like to draw your attention to. Observation over long periods of time concerning human behavior tell us in no uncertain terms that human beings are property acquisitive.They like to acquire all types of property. If you prohibit them from doing so they die. Unfortunately, you see, people are selfish. You may not want to acknowledge that fact but nonetheless it is true. Ann Rand spent the better part of her life trying to show the world that the great civilization that has come into being is a result of the accomplishments of selfishness. Galambos had a great way of illustrating this idea. He hypothesized a situation where two brothers inherited equal amounts of substantial wealth. One brother was an ‘humanitarian’. The other brother was a very selfish individual. The humanitarian brother decided to give all his money to the most needy people he could find. He and his brother had inherited 100 million dollars each. He did a study and turned up 10000 of the most needy people he could find. He gave them each 10000 dollars apiece. A very few invested the money. Most went on a buying spree and spent the money in short order as you can probably imagine. This action put them right back in the condition that they were in the first place. The other brother, being a very greedy selfish person, decided he was not satisfied with his inheritance. He wanted much more. He thought about it and decided that the thing for to do was to do research and find out what the market place would want to buy from him. He finally settled on a product. He acquired production facilities, hired workers, and went into business. Gradually his business increased and he expanded and hired more workers. After awhile he employed 10000 people. These people earned their pay year in and year out. They also earned something else. They earned their self-respect. Now the question is ‘Who is the real humanitarian?’”
There are many values: materialistic values – those values that have monetary value, which is the inference in my friend’s email, the philosophy of materialism of which everyone is familiar; object value – those values that people adopt in egocentrism, narcissism, and idolatry, and are coexistent in the adoption of material values; spiritual values – those values that are colloquially more closely related to religion, as opposed to the authentic relationship to the new paradigm of consciousness; and, then there are human values that attempt to put into balance all of these values in such a way that it benefits the evolution of consciousness and the world environment within the dimension that we live.
Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” is an outstanding metaphor for people helping people, although I am sure that his definition would not be the same as mine. The principle of the “Invisible Hand” should be interpreted beyond the economic scope of its meaning to include those things that people do to promote human values. The “Invisible Hand” principle incorporates material value, object value, and spiritual value into the values associated with human values, which benefit life and not the pocketbook or self-centeredness. It is the concept of the “Invisible Hand” that is metaphorically represented in this story.
I am deeply interested in economic principles because, as by example in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and Human Action by Ludwig von Mises as well as on the Ludwig von Mises website, of their close praxeological relationship with human values.
Galambos was one of those selfish individuals of whom the tale speaks. Galambos first came on the scene in the late 50’s or early 60’s, died in 1997, and he or his heirs have not accomplished anything to promote any human value, except for those things that have material and object value. Galambos or his heirs have not even benefited their own cause, except monetarily, because of their selfishness due to intellectual property concerns. It seems they want to keep their grand plan for society a deeply held secret.
Galambos was correct; we never help anyone by simply giving them money.
It is people, such as …
· Jesus Christ (not the bible, but the historical Jesus)
· Henry David Thoreau
· Ralph Waldo Emerson
· Mohandas Gandhi
· Albert Einstein
· Martin Luther King, Jr.
· Noam Chomsky
· Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
· Dr. Helen Caldicott
· Jimmy Carter
· Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
· Muhammad Yunus
and so many others, who are the authentic humanitarians.
Andrew Galambos or Ayn Rand have not intrinsically contributed one iota to benefit humankind, except for those bent on avarice.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Take Nothing For Granted
“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination [military-industrial-academic complex] endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.”
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Farewell address, January 17, 1961
This monition of President Eisenhower clearly has not been heeded.
Americans, as far as I am concerned, have embraced the policies of Bush, Cheney, and their cabal. They have signed-off on the doctrine of the Project for a New American Century.
It has not been until recently that Americans have rebuked these policies, and only now, because their perception is that we are not winning the war.
It seems Americans will accept war, torture (but only by America, of course; everyone else would be scolded), suspension of habeas corpus, and give up their freedoms out of fear. Fear that we are not winning the battle, whether that is a war, immigration, or something else.
A fear carefully manipulated by our present government, as well as all previous governments. A real fear, imagined or created to garner support for some impending action they intend to take – Adolf Hitler creating a fear of Jews is a prime example.
For those who may be a naysayer, just look at history. Three examples, but there are so many more: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, suspended civil law and enacted martial law, imprisoning 13,000 Americans who were simply practicing their right of free speech and freedom of assembly supposedly guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the United States of America; between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, farms, schools, jobs and businesses, in violation of their constitutional civil rights and liberties, incarcerating them in internment camps; the Bush cabal Patriot Act with the issuance of National Security Letters, their policy and practice of extraordinary rendition and torture, the initiation of an illegal preemptive war, and now Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America under the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
What is surreal is that the law has passed the House on a vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate.
Do not take for granted that at sometime, somewhere, when you least expect it that this law will not apply to you.
Please consider these links for information:
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
Google Groups
Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Farewell address, January 17, 1961
This monition of President Eisenhower clearly has not been heeded.
Americans, as far as I am concerned, have embraced the policies of Bush, Cheney, and their cabal. They have signed-off on the doctrine of the Project for a New American Century.
It has not been until recently that Americans have rebuked these policies, and only now, because their perception is that we are not winning the war.
It seems Americans will accept war, torture (but only by America, of course; everyone else would be scolded), suspension of habeas corpus, and give up their freedoms out of fear. Fear that we are not winning the battle, whether that is a war, immigration, or something else.
A fear carefully manipulated by our present government, as well as all previous governments. A real fear, imagined or created to garner support for some impending action they intend to take – Adolf Hitler creating a fear of Jews is a prime example.
For those who may be a naysayer, just look at history. Three examples, but there are so many more: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, suspended civil law and enacted martial law, imprisoning 13,000 Americans who were simply practicing their right of free speech and freedom of assembly supposedly guaranteed to them under the Constitution of the United States of America; between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, farms, schools, jobs and businesses, in violation of their constitutional civil rights and liberties, incarcerating them in internment camps; the Bush cabal Patriot Act with the issuance of National Security Letters, their policy and practice of extraordinary rendition and torture, the initiation of an illegal preemptive war, and now Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America under the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
What is surreal is that the law has passed the House on a vote of 405 to 6, and it is now being considered in the Senate.
Do not take for granted that at sometime, somewhere, when you least expect it that this law will not apply to you.
Please consider these links for information:
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
Google Groups
Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Solving the hard problem of evil
Evil is archaistic. It is a carryover from primitive man. Primitive man could not survive without human action that contemporarily would be considered evil. To have the ability to perform an evil act was necessary for survival in that era.
When man first met man, it aroused fear, ambivalence, and then curiosity. Curiosity led to social binding, even though there was no clear way of communicating. That first meeting was intuitive and came solely of the sense one had of the other -- a telepathic interaction; an interaction that was the result of the very essence of consciousness. This first interaction was completely void of any associative material value or objective value consideration. It was purely subjective. At some point, man met woman, or woman met man, and the inevitable resulting copulation was the progenitor of the human race.
After the first copulation, all other sexual relationships were incestuous, and there was inbreeding. Incest is considered immoral by today’s standards. Incest, and in some instances inbreeding is unlawful in our contemporary world. Evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology persisted and we grew out of the existential need of incest and inbreeding to a human aversion to it.
Social binding evolved into groupings of individuals. As these groups evolved and became larger groupings, they split into tribes. Cultures developed. Increasingly the competition for resources came into being. The first acquisition of property was the result of theft. This first acquisition of property may or may not have been violent, but surely, when there was no way of clandestinely acquiring property, coercion ruled the day. Evil and good became cofactors to a viable life.
As man evolved, he acquired knowledge of tool making, and developed language to communicate his knowledge. He developed concepts of law and justice, as well as a means of exchange. As he became more knowledgeable, the choice of evil over good became not as necessary. In our contemporary world, for entertainment we no longer roast a cat or throw men in arenas with lions; burn witches at the stake; embrace blatant misogyny; or embrace blatant racism. However, the psychology involved in some of this evil still persist, but has evolved and taken a different form: the brutality and violence of boxing and in other sports; the incivility we accept and even idolize in our viewing of reality shows and its voyeurism; the acceptance of expressions of incivility, immorality and evil in our music, art, and theaters, and in the decisions we make in our viewing preferences, which are clearly exemplified by the electronic and print media who elicit virulent reaction to maximize viewing or readership.
Exploitation of evil came into being with man’s invention of religion. The parable of Adam and Eve is a perfect metaphoric example of how man got it wrong.
Man created the universe. The first man in our universe created that first image of that other man. Man therefore created good and evil, and so man can eliminate evil if man’s desire is to do so.
So, evil is not a problem associated with free will; nor does it exist to complement good in that evil is the balance for all that is good; nor is it necessary to have the confliction of an omnipotent God, or any other theodicy of evil. A solution cannot be mandated nor can a solution be within the purview of religion, which is in itself archaic. It is going to take the process of evolution to a higher level of consciousness, a greater evolution to complete knowledge that will eventually marginalize evil.
There may be a day, and I am hopeful that there will be that day in the very, very distant future when our evolution has taken humans to a place where evil is not part of the decisional process. A place where man will have complete knowledge, knowledge amongst other considerations that religion (all religion) was, and is, a bad idea, and the evil option will be hopefully nonexistent.
War, in anyway one might define it, is the embodiment of evil. War causes destruction, injury, pain, and suffering characterized by hate, anger, maliciousness, and injustice. All evil by anyone’s definition are cofactors of war. In war, you will find every evil known to man. It is the greatest of all evil because in spite of its inherent immorality, man, whether religious or secular, still support military action as necessary, or will use the reasoning: after all, the bible says there will always be “wars and rumors of wars.” With our allegorical myths of war, we glorify war, and instill in our children that war has a benevolent association with nationalism and patriotism, heroics and idolatry, morality, and glory.
Peace Warriors must imbue in others that evil is a primitive impulse, that there is an underlying reality, a metaconsciousness, a better way, which is beyond and transcendent to our current understanding. A consciousness that was so authentically expressed when man first met man.
Peace Warriors must create an understanding in others that everyone has a different “here and now,” and how important to each of us is the discovery that “I Am.” We are the creator of our Universe. Consciousness is not inherent in the Universe but the Universe is inherent in consciousness.
The solution to solving the hard problem of evil is embedded in a new way of thinking. Evil is a result of not having complete knowledge, and so, because of man’s limited knowledge and therefore limited options, man’s choice continues to be a choice between good and evil, at least for the time being.
When man first met man, it aroused fear, ambivalence, and then curiosity. Curiosity led to social binding, even though there was no clear way of communicating. That first meeting was intuitive and came solely of the sense one had of the other -- a telepathic interaction; an interaction that was the result of the very essence of consciousness. This first interaction was completely void of any associative material value or objective value consideration. It was purely subjective. At some point, man met woman, or woman met man, and the inevitable resulting copulation was the progenitor of the human race.
After the first copulation, all other sexual relationships were incestuous, and there was inbreeding. Incest is considered immoral by today’s standards. Incest, and in some instances inbreeding is unlawful in our contemporary world. Evolutionary biology and evolved human psychology persisted and we grew out of the existential need of incest and inbreeding to a human aversion to it.
Social binding evolved into groupings of individuals. As these groups evolved and became larger groupings, they split into tribes. Cultures developed. Increasingly the competition for resources came into being. The first acquisition of property was the result of theft. This first acquisition of property may or may not have been violent, but surely, when there was no way of clandestinely acquiring property, coercion ruled the day. Evil and good became cofactors to a viable life.
As man evolved, he acquired knowledge of tool making, and developed language to communicate his knowledge. He developed concepts of law and justice, as well as a means of exchange. As he became more knowledgeable, the choice of evil over good became not as necessary. In our contemporary world, for entertainment we no longer roast a cat or throw men in arenas with lions; burn witches at the stake; embrace blatant misogyny; or embrace blatant racism. However, the psychology involved in some of this evil still persist, but has evolved and taken a different form: the brutality and violence of boxing and in other sports; the incivility we accept and even idolize in our viewing of reality shows and its voyeurism; the acceptance of expressions of incivility, immorality and evil in our music, art, and theaters, and in the decisions we make in our viewing preferences, which are clearly exemplified by the electronic and print media who elicit virulent reaction to maximize viewing or readership.
Exploitation of evil came into being with man’s invention of religion. The parable of Adam and Eve is a perfect metaphoric example of how man got it wrong.
Man created the universe. The first man in our universe created that first image of that other man. Man therefore created good and evil, and so man can eliminate evil if man’s desire is to do so.
So, evil is not a problem associated with free will; nor does it exist to complement good in that evil is the balance for all that is good; nor is it necessary to have the confliction of an omnipotent God, or any other theodicy of evil. A solution cannot be mandated nor can a solution be within the purview of religion, which is in itself archaic. It is going to take the process of evolution to a higher level of consciousness, a greater evolution to complete knowledge that will eventually marginalize evil.
There may be a day, and I am hopeful that there will be that day in the very, very distant future when our evolution has taken humans to a place where evil is not part of the decisional process. A place where man will have complete knowledge, knowledge amongst other considerations that religion (all religion) was, and is, a bad idea, and the evil option will be hopefully nonexistent.
War, in anyway one might define it, is the embodiment of evil. War causes destruction, injury, pain, and suffering characterized by hate, anger, maliciousness, and injustice. All evil by anyone’s definition are cofactors of war. In war, you will find every evil known to man. It is the greatest of all evil because in spite of its inherent immorality, man, whether religious or secular, still support military action as necessary, or will use the reasoning: after all, the bible says there will always be “wars and rumors of wars.” With our allegorical myths of war, we glorify war, and instill in our children that war has a benevolent association with nationalism and patriotism, heroics and idolatry, morality, and glory.
Peace Warriors must imbue in others that evil is a primitive impulse, that there is an underlying reality, a metaconsciousness, a better way, which is beyond and transcendent to our current understanding. A consciousness that was so authentically expressed when man first met man.
Peace Warriors must create an understanding in others that everyone has a different “here and now,” and how important to each of us is the discovery that “I Am.” We are the creator of our Universe. Consciousness is not inherent in the Universe but the Universe is inherent in consciousness.
The solution to solving the hard problem of evil is embedded in a new way of thinking. Evil is a result of not having complete knowledge, and so, because of man’s limited knowledge and therefore limited options, man’s choice continues to be a choice between good and evil, at least for the time being.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)