THE GUNFIGHT AT DARFUR

I happened to tune into CNN the other night and caught Mia Farrow’s urgent plea for somebody to do something right away to stop the genocide in Darfur. She had just returned from her fourth visit to the area. The killing there has been going on for three years and has now spilled over into Eastern Chad. She had no words to describe the horror she had been exposed to after leaving yet again the artificial comfort and security of her own home and life, The shock of being out on the front lines of the real world, which the majority of mankind has to deal with, trying to let desperate mothers with starving babies and dazed men with gauged out eyes and hands severed, know that at least somebody in the global community cared, showed in her face and eyes. Behind the quiet desperation in her voice I sensed a note of hopeless frustration. She knew, like all of us knew, that with the UN and USA tied up in the tangle of domestic and international political manipulations, nothing of significance would be done.

As these realities impacted on my mind, something snapped inside and brought me out of in insidious hypnotic trance.

Her sincerity, as a woman, as sister and as a mother, appealing directly to me as a man, a brother and a father myself, telling me that other men, bad men, cruel men, were ruthlessly murdering innocent women and children, and inferring what was I going to do about it, cut directly through the artificial reality that I had surrendered my manhood to. I was faced by my own lethargy and reluctance to act personally to such an extreme challenge. My reality was fixed to my wallet and my decisions left to the whim of other men – useless do-nothing men, their own manhood caught up in the artificial power of numbers printed on notes and their civic ambitions twisted in the spin of redundant political ideologies that were revealing an increasing inability to deal with the exponential pressures that our burgeoning populations are currently exerting on the global community.

So, caught in this new sense of reality, with at least one eye now open, I am making the following proposal to millions of other men caught in the same trance: I propose the formation of a privately funded mercenary commando force, of company strength if possible, well armed, equipped with modern communication, and night-fighting capabilities, all well trained in bush warfare and properly supported, to go into Darfur and Eastern Chad and the Congo and start to put things right on the Mother Continent, by giving those roving gangs of thugs a taste of their own medicine.

I have some idea of what I am proposing. Born and raised in Africa, I have traveled much of the continent and spent the past forty years studying and seeking solutions to Her problems. I believe that a well-run mercenary mission designed specifically as a humanitarian relief operation, with long-term goals of repatriation in mind, is not only eminently doable – but desperately needed – and will be internationally applauded by every man and woman who has some gumption still left in them. Such private action stands a good chance of triggering a more positive global response to Africa and the 3rd World in general..

Any billionaire with humanitarian instincts, anxious to prove that privately-run enterprises can out-do government in any sphere of influence, and who might be interested in bankrolling this mission, better still even taking part in it, please contact me at: globalstats@hotmail.com

Friendship

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people

The Relationship between Science and Reliogion

Shaman47 wrote:
I have no problems with the concept of mutual respect between faith/hope and science. However I do feel that there is a huge differenece between faith/hope in religion and faith/hope without religion. We do not need religion as it exists today, and faith/hope can and will exist without it when humanity is ready to rid itself of the perils of religion.

MagnetMan wrote:
I have use the word religion in general terms. Religiously practiced metaphysical (spiritual) observances is more precisely what is meant - with the rider that every person is free to decide who and what form God/Creator takes, and how to pay private respects.

For instance: If one worships Reason - then one should religiously (regularly and devoutly) pay homage to the underlying metaphysical force that gave rise to reason. Such humble observances serves to keep the psyche focused on the endless need for learning and saves the ego from prematurely arriving at the delusions of all manner of self-importance.

I agree that Scriptural dogma, especially Christian New Testament dogma, which asserts Jesus is God, is primitive and dangerously divisive and has no place in the modern world. Jesus' message of love for neighbor and non-retaliation for trespass is for me socially brilliant and religiously profound. As is the messages of all the other great socio/theologians.

My argument is that science deals with physics and has no knowledge of metaphysics and therefore has no business even mentioning it, let alone knocking it. Even though one may not agree with the vast majority of the word who have faith in spirit, one should at the very least respect their view.

Finally science itself is an outgrowth of scripture. The spread of scripture taught mankind to read and write. And it had to be spread among hostile heathens by learned ministers who had to brave all kinds of hardships that only Faith alone could have sustained in their desire to teach.

Scripture first served to break the superstitious hold of oral-based totemic worship and unit warring clans into a national consciousness, with all of them re-focused on a Common Origin.

The content of the Scriptures aside, the grammatical structures of literature stimulated our intellect - and the metaphors and parables in scripture that the ancients needed to explain the workings of the universe to inquisitive children, excited our maturing curiosity to search in an educated manner for more determinant answers. Mix that intellectual awakening of the literate mind with the practical engineering technologies that we had already developed during the hunting and gathering and agricultural eras - and we see how Scripture was instrumental in moving man away from purely oral-based metaphorical instruction into new eras of industrial and scientific consciousness.

For that evolutionary reason alone, science should be grateful to religion - for all the added complexities it brought with it..

The Chicken-bone Mentality

After publishing my book on Psyche-Genetics I have, for the past several months been posting novel arguments taken from the book, on a number of international philosophy forums.

Each argument has challenged conventional wisdom on a wide variety of social and spiritual issues. As can be expected, I have been met with fierce resistance and an almost complete refusal to entertain any new idea that has been presented.

What has confounded me is that most of my arguments, which appeal to my own common sense do not seem to do so with others. Which leaves me in the unhappy position of thinking that either I have lost touch with reality, or the world around me has.

Let me give you an example (not from my book) of the way I think and how and why it contradicts convention beliefs - just to see if I am not a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

I came to America as the guest if a friend. During a barbecue at their house, I tried to feed their pet poodle with a chicken bone. At least four people rushed to wrestle it away from the dog and I was severely reprimanded.

Now everybody knows that any dog can choke on a chicken bone, but if he does, he is a greedy idiot and needs to be reminded of that fact. The more basic fact is that dogs have been eating birds for millions of years and are past masters at crunching and swallowing any kind of bone you care to name, including fish. Nature has endowed them with a powerful jaw with three times the crushing power of apes in order to do just that. They also have brains - and they know all about choking on a bone splinter and how foolish that is if it happens.

So today, throughout the length and breadth of America, tens of millions of chicken bones get thrown in the trash daily, and one of the most delectable meals a dog can sink his teeth into, sadly goes to waste.

I am still hopeful that at least one brave American will step up to the plate and rely on his own common sense to defy national convention, and feed his dog a tasty chicken bone.

FAITH, HOPE and STATE

There was a time in another Age when all men believed in the Divine Design of an Almighty God. They believed in the Divine appointment of their religious leaders and in the blessed anointment of their kings. The had both good rulers and bad rulers and accepted the weakness of individuals. But they all held true to the general principle that men proposed and God disposed and that He controlled human destiny.

Ten basic commandments laid out the rules for the good life that led to God's grace, and by and large they tried to be obedient to them. Faith, Hope and Charity were the golden principles that ensured a common consensus of social and spiritual ethics.

It was reasonably easy in that Age to evoke the collective will; to get them to make sacrifices and contribute to the general good; to build mighty defences and to die in war. They were conscientious craftsmen and worked together on communal projects without the thought of individual profit. They built mighty pyramids and soaring cathedrals and left behind for posterity unparalleled works of art and architecture.


With the rise of science, pseudo-intellectualism claimed the mind of man and shut down the intuitions of his heart. Revolutions were fought and kings deposed. Republics were formed and the laws of God and commons sense were replaced by convoluted constitutions of man which were so full of loopholes, they required endless amendments and new legislation's.

Thus the State separated itself from the Church. Faith and Hope were scoffed at as the crutches of the weak and feeble-minded.

Now, unless the carrot of personal profit is dangled before the eyes of man, no work can get done. No government can rule without argument and divisions of thought. Wars are fought for profit and not defence. Natural resources are mined relentless, the environment is polluted, half the world starves. In this self-determinant Age, where Faith and Hope are no longer idealized, every man, world-wise or not, claims his right to express his own opinion, and a tower of Babel deafens the globe

For those few who still cling to Faith and Hope, their challenge is to see the Divine design that underlies the moment.

FAITH, HOPE and SCIENCE

I realize that what I have to say on this tri-une of consciousness may well be controversial to many. So I would like to say upfront, though I Believe in and deeply revere the underlying Divine spirit that drives the universe, my faith in the growth and ultimate purpose of science is almost as profound.

The scientific mind is an essential tool in the development of human consciousness. Without the advances in technology that scientific research is providing us with, we would not have the means to manage our planet and deal effectively with the exponential pressures of our population impacting on the global environment.

But with that great power comes great responsibility and in the arena of deteriorating ethical behavior, the Lodge of Science has much to answer for.

Using science to build atomic bombs illustrates the point to some degree, but the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reveals only the tip of the ice-berg.

The real cancer lies in the protestant reaction science has had to all the Catholic religions of Belief.

In the process of indoctrinating every child on the planet in compulsory school classrooms into a purely analytical mind-set, science has catastrophically under-mined mankind's intuitive grasp of the motivating power of spirit. When Belief in Divine design gone, faith and hope in an eternal after-life, goes with it.

When the full realization sets in - that the only future mankind can hope for, lies in the finite field of scientific exploration - with the end realization that when science can go no further, we will be trapped on this tiny planet on the edge of our galaxy, and never ever get to see or experience the full meaning and purpose of Creation - then surely a collective boredom must set in and drive us over the edge of sanity into the madness of mass suicide.

Some would say that we stand on that brink already. If there is no God, there is no Heaven. If there is no heaven there can be no hell. So death is simply oblivion and life is meaningless. So if one is desperately poor with no chance of ever enjoying great material wealth and one has access to WMD.s - what the hell, why not push the button?

For many that stark reality is spoiling their sense of a meaningful existence, and science is indirectly responsible for that hopeless feeling.

Before the challenges of science, every culture on the planet believed in a God of their own choosing. Religious devotion motivated every culture to build massive monuments to their Gods and established the cultures we all enjoy today. Without learning grammar via Scripture, the scientific intellect would never have evolved.

The initial reaction of the administers of religion to science was unquestionably disgraceful. There are still many churches that remain disrespectful to science. The result, instead of some form of civil accommodation between the Church and Science, there has been a steady and growing reaction of protestation. While most of the Church has gradually leaned forward to embrace science, the reverse compliment has not happened to any significant degree.

The concept of an invisible God cannot be disproved. Thus the unbending attitude of science to Faith and Hope is not only unethically disrespectful to Ages of ancestral belief, it is also irresponsible. This wrong, unless righted, will spell the end of us.

It is not for religion to prove that God exists, for by its very definition it must be based on Faith and Hope and Charitable expression, not on any certainty. Thus if there is to be an argument, it is up to science to prove that God does not exist. And until such definite proof is forthcoming, the only ethical stance of any scientist to his or her culture, is to either bow in respect of the unknown, or keep one's opinion to one's self every time the name of God is mentioned.

More Forum Debate on World Leadership

aspacia wrote:


In a nutshell, Magnet proposes a World Government, with the USA leading the way. Chuckle, right, like the UN really follows our lead. That is, at this point in human history, this is not possible, especially since globalization is nascent.

The UN would be only to happy to follow America's lead if we did just that, instead of just dismissing them. And it is because globalization is in its infancy that it needs responsible parenting.

Quote:
MagnetMan discusses environmental issues, but fails to mention that the nations that signed to the Kyoto (sp) agreement, are not living up to their obligations, and the most polluting countries are Russia and China, at least according to much of the material I have read. The USA is a major polluter as well, but not nearly as bad as these two countries.

Maybe if we lead the way the bad guys will follow. Excusing ourselves because of them is the weakest of all excuses.

Quote:
He mentions starvation, plagues, genocide and wars. Hello, haven't these always occurred.

Africa suffers these now because of the premature collapse of colonial rule. None of the present conditions existed before 1960. Another generation or two learning modern technology would have left them with a sound middle class and enough qualified technicians to go it alone.

Quote:
Iraqis were very hungry under Saddam because he would not comply with the sanctions. We kick the bad guy out, we are damned.

It was the oil, stupid.
A tyrant like Saddam was the only guy who could keep a lid in Iraq. We had no business interfering with an ancient culture's internal affairs. They would have got rid of the tyrant themselves in due course.

Quote:
We send food to Somalia and 18 of our troops are butchered.

The sacrifice of those young soldiers, saved many thousands of children from starvation. They died for a far more noble cause than the 2000 plus that are currently dying in Iraq. We need to send out our young people as peace-makers and educators, not as soldiers - and bring technology to more of the world's poor - that is the true business of a world leader - not running around policing. The cost of one guided missile could erect ten schools in Africa. The cost of two would pay for all the teacher's salaries.

Quote:
Magnet discusses altruistic vision...right, try being altruistic with the Stalin's, Hitler's, Pol Pot's, etc. of the world. This is impossible as the current reality stands.
Without some measure of altruism, what kind of a world would this be? You do yourself no justice by mocking human kindness - no matter how naive it may seem.

Quote:
The British Empire fell because of WWII. It was not dismantled, and her influence continues with the USA, India and many other lands.

The British Empire fell because it became too expensive to administer and keep building up the infrastructures in its colonies in the 3rd World. So when Africa's pseudo-intellectuals (mostly lawyers) came back from their sponsored education in Oxford and Cambridge, and started demanding self rule, England and Europe in general were only too happy to grab the opportunity to dump them - knowing full well the administrative ineptitude and corruption that would follow.

Quote:
HELLO, the world hates us. We have not always had difficult world diplomatic relations, it is called Bush won and pissed off the world.

America pissed off England during the Revolutionary War and then Europe, when it bragged it won both World Wars. It came in late both times after millions had already sacrificed their lives. Bush has merely served to put salt on those old wounds.

Quote:
Many of the US young are not reflective regarding politics, but then again, if not reflecting and searching for insight, why is almost every home with a computer and the Internet. The children will grow, and create their own identities, and develop insight. At least in the West they can do so, unlike many other lands.


Children grow and develop the family and social values that their parents instill in them to begin with. If every parent spent the first twelve years instilling the sharing and chore-based work ethics, and encouraged courage, and how to think things out for themselves, before indoctrinating them with predigested information out of text books when they are only three or four years old, children will indeed grow up to create their own unique identifies. right now all we have are robots face down on the mass production line, and growing poorer every year while the greediest get ever richer.

Quote:
Magnet claims we are not self-aware??? Are you kidding, we, especially our young, are too self-absorbed, and self-aware to be aware of others.

One cannot be self-aware unless one is aware of one's relationship to the awareness of others. Without a keen sense of community, all you have is Narcissus staring at his own reflection. If we project this expanded sense of self-awareness on a global scale one can see why America would find it enlightening to reach out and step up to the plate.

Quote:
He hopes to have a book published regarding this. I doubt if it

Psyche-Genetics, the base research work on which all my present and future books will be published, is itself already published. You can buy it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Quote:
as he is not an academic and this type of discourse is usually reserved for academics.

This kind of intellectual snobbery is disgraceful and it is why I feel that too many academics are are purely pseudo-intelligent - experts at rote learning and memory retention - yet too practically inept to tie their own shoe-laces.

Your position on this issue is particularly ironic Aspacia. I have never heard any academic espouse American isolationism as fervently as you do. If your training makes you so globally astute, and me so naive, please explain to me why America, long before it became the catch-phrase of the moment, inscribed its intent to establish a new world order on that most holy of all American Scriptures, the dollar bill? It seems to me (if you can read Latin) that I am far more in tune with our underlying national policy than you are.

(Check out the Latin inscription at the bottom of the pyramid)

FAITH, HOPE and LOTTERIES

There was a time not so long ago when only the Mob ran the numbers racket. Betting on a number was outlawed by the state and they sic-ed the Feds on the Mob.

Then some bright bureaucrat is some poor state, back in the late 70's, short on budget (I forget which state was first and the exact startdate) decided to muscle-in on the hoods and take over the numbers racket for itself.

BINGO!

The State hit the jackpot and millions of unearned dollars came pouring in its coffers. (Gotta hand it to them hoods, they sure knew a good thing when they saw it.)

Well, to cut a long story sort, soon there was not a state in the Union (not sure if that is right either - maybe not Utah) who was not running a lottery racket of their own.

Don't know what the sum of the National rip-off is these days, but it runs in the billions.

So what is the moral of the story so far? Betting on numbers is illegal if you belong to the Mob, but legal if you are in Government.

Anyway, the States are awash in gambling money now and the numbers are growing in leaps and bounds every year and some of it is indeed trickling down and helping the poor and the infrastructure.

But what are the side effects of the cash injection?

For starters, Now that betting is not socially frowned upon it has helped to feed a national frenzy of gambling addictions that is reaching epidemic proportions. (Just check the Internet.)

Secondly; there was a religious reason for outlawing gambling in the first place. Betting on the lottery is tantamount to betting on one's fate - which is a betrayal of God's own intentions for us.

We came to an ethical fork in the road somewhere in the 1970's and we took the left hand path to easy riches and it has taken the spirit out of us.

Much of the nation is now focused on getting a quick fix and has abandoned that long and careful walk down the straight and narrow.

Faith and hope in winning the lottery has almost entirely replaced our Faith and Hope in winning a place in Heaven.

As gambling sky-rockets, faith and hope in hard work earning its just rewards will also, inevitably, erode.

And so. yet another great civilization falls gradually into decay, bites the dust and disappears from human memory.

World Leadership

Mastriani wrote:
This trait of the "melting pot", (of American nationalism) is actually one of the more vicious pendulum fantasies of social, or as Adlerian so aptly defined, "group" thinking. Although this sociological splintering has been hyped into a fantasy of national strength, when viewed from the logical, critical thinking processes, the alterior becomes more clear.

Magnetman wrote:

I am afraid that I have basic disagreements on this point. First of all your position assumes that the evolution of human development is intrinsically random and that Representatives of all the world's cultures coming together to form a single nation in the New World, is simply circumstantial and was never intended to be employed in any purposeful evolutionary design.

For me that stance reflects the cynical pseudo-intellectualism of modern rationalizations, which tends to latch onto comparatively recent distortions in human behavior, then assumes that it is intrinsic to our base nature - and then extrapolates conclusions from that superficial viewpoint.

The obvious fallacy with this line of reasoning is that it fails to dig down far enough into the basic behavior of prehistoric cultures in order to discover the bedrock of common social purpose that has brought our specie through a 100,000 generations of cultural disciplines, so powerfully and dangerously to the present.

That failure of our scholars is simply because there is no handy written records to study regarding the vast amount of time man invested in pre-literate conscious development. Actual field work is required to know how we behaved back then - and most intellectuals are loath to do make that personal effort. Fossil bones tells us very little. Thus millions of lay people still tend to believe that we began our journey to the present as loutish cavemen, invading each other's territories and bashing in each others skulls.

The basic fact is that if we had been even marginally socially uncooperative from the start we would never have made it through subsequent Ages of development and you and I would not exist.

I did my homework 40 years ago. At that time comparatively uncontaminated pre-literate Stone Age and Bronze Age cultures still existed in Africa. I went to live and study both their social structures and their spiritual beliefs.

Among the San Bushmen in the Kalahari I found that meticulous sharing was the fundamental basis of their culture. As an instance. I gave a small piece of candy to a youngster, expecting him to eat it before the rest of the family arrived back from the hunt. Not so. He kept it until they arrived. Then that tiny piece was passed around twenty people, each taking a tiny bite for themselves.

Meticulous sharing, beyond the natural sharing of motherhood, is what propelled mankind above all other animals. Another revelation for me during that signal moment, was that I realized that no experience is valid, unless it is shared among others, only then does it gain its full flavor. Bushmen instill the sharing ethic in their children as soon as they are weaned. That is the base of human intelligence and unless we continue to instill meticulous haring in our own children before they learn anything else, they will never experience their full social potential.

Among Bronze Age agricultural tribesmen I found that a chore-based work ethic was strictly enforced from about the age of four onwards.

The sharing ethic and the work ethic forms the foundation of human intelligence and serve to define our core values. Courage comes next. This is followed by affection, conscientious craftsmanship, then creative artistry. Only then is intellectual development effectual. For it is then based on natural reality, not on the virtual reality we get from religious scripture and science text books.

Here then, is a basic lesson in the logic of spiritual and social progressions.

Environmental imperatives related to exponential population pressures have forced us to move sequentially from:

1. Animist family group hunter/gatherer cooperatives

2. Shamanist clan group agricultural cooperatives

3. Scriptural national group industrial cooperatives

4. Agnostic international group scientific cooperation.

Our next logical evolutionary step is

5. Ontological global group cooperation as planet managers,

Each Age imposed its own specific social and spiritual disciplines. That evolutionary progression reveals that the need for ever larger cooperatives, with each amalgamation serving to instill core ethics, is a fundamental rule for survival, no matter how much initial Resistance or how many bloody wars we fought against our entry onto each paradigm shift.

America is the most internationally integrated group on the planet, and is therefore at the very forefront of the evolutionary momentum. Generations of inter-marrying has elevated us above the national mentality of most of the rest of the world, where ethnic bigotries continue to make each believe that their culture is superior in some way to the others. In Europe, the English cannot stand the French, or Italian and so on and the sentiments are returned. In Asia, Chinese cannot stand the Koreans and the Koreans cannot stand the Japanese and so on. And the Middle East has come to despise all.

America, despite its superficial domestic distortions, has 14 generations invested in cementing a homogeneous relationship. "It may be far from perfect, but its the best we have." That is no evolutionary accident and that is the leadership force which will and must propel the entire specie into our next Age as a globalized society.

The same old environmental imperative that drives evolutionary development, reacting once again to rising exponential population pressures, is again at work and demands mass change - and has made sure that we have the mechanisms to do so..

The Evolving Cycle of Consciousness

Satyr wrote:
This “imposition” (of social mores) is what makes society possible.
Rational man desperately wants to maintain access to his fate by making himself a total product of nurturing and the immediate environment. In this way nature can he ‘healed’ or ‘corrected’ and man can gain control over himself through reason. This way the entire historical process that lead up to the emergence of a particular being is minimized, because man has no access to the process before his birth. He is forced to live with what choices his ancestors made. He is, in fact, the sum of these choices, making his own by echoes of theirs or corrective, either trying to deny them or surpass them. This is how gender roles become entirely social constructs. Rational man, democratic man (social man), will have it no other way.

MagnetMan wrote: Very well put.

That imposed process was essential for our intitial developmental stages of growth - from the infancy of a Stone Age hunter/gatherer, through Bronze Age agriculturalist and Iron Age industrialist to the teenage angst of a Steel Age scientist, intent on empirical verfication.

Each Age initiated a logical progression of social and spiritual disciplines that allowed Nature to develope a specie that is capable of escaping extinction from over-population - by learning how to manage a planet and his own continued survival via the application of advanced technology.

The grand Cosmic strategy behind this was to allow Mother Earth's most advanced form of consciousness to complete its full cycle and be able to parade Her's and our Sun's creation around the universe.

Having arrived at the start of a new Nuclear Age, the first stage of an adult consciousness is about to emerge, one which will be able to transcend imposed social mores and directly access the original source of natural consciousness.

The final stage of the cycle will allow us to be completely natural, not as naive as were were at the begining of the cycle, but endowed with the sagaciousness gained from all the ages of experience.

Each individual life goes through and anticipates the entire evolutionary cycle in microcosm - all the way to the end game.

Hence a true sage is childlike.

And the death experience is transcendental.

World Leadership ....for Dummies

[armchairphilosopher wrote:] I believe that you are correct in saying that there is a need for leadership because it may be true that the world is in a crisis state although ,any of us may not be willing to accept it. Deciding that any particular nation-state is the correct leader is futhering the problems that we face. Humans associate with groups, and what comes with that is identitification of differences between groups, from geeks and jocks, to french and german.

That is true to some extent, especially when it comes to peer groups. But it is possible to get a wide variety of groups to get behind an idea - especially if there is an emergency. The trick right now is to get a few groups to see an emergency before it hits us all square on. If you are in Dafar right now, you are in an emergency. So too if you have AIDS, or live in Iraq. Korea and Iran are rising emergencies. So is global warming and a host of other major enviromental and economic issues on a global scale. So the question is; can the human group get together and get the home planet back on track so that we can all go our individual ways again? I believe we can and I can only hope that a few others thinks so too. Once you get more than one determined person behind an idea, others tend to follow. Thats how groups get formed.

People need to start to accept what it is we have in common, almost everything as modern humans. How else can we be expected to work towards common goals if we continue to espouse the minor differences between tribes?

All our differences are mainly artificial. Underneath we all share the same fundamental family values - IE. Sharing and caring, a sound work ethic, courage, affection, generosity and ambitions for our children. If we start from that shared base of mutual understanding, no matter what language or creed, or political spin, and work together to build a better future for them on the home planet, everything else will follow.

ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN WORLD LEADERSHIP

FOREWORD.

The basic reality that every individual and all nations have to face is that the global problems we are facing now can only get exponentially worse unless significant changes, even larger than those already proposed, are initiated in the near future.

This proposal will suggest that the whole planet and all who live on it is both seen and managed as a single estate.

Global warming due to human generated air pollution is now a proven fact. The oceans are polluted as well and traditional fishing grounds around the world are depleted. The giant equatorial forests that generate much of the worlds oxygen are been mowed down at an accelerated rate. The changing weather conditions are affecting global food production. Mass starvation, plagues of disease, genocide and regional wars have engulfed the lives of over a billion people. The proliferation of WMDs and the rise of international terrorism is alarming to all of us. On top of all this, the global population is growing at an exponential rate, putting even greater strain on existing systems.

As the environment and diplomatic relationships continue to deteriorate, while the existential gap between the privileged and under privileged continues to grow wider, world attention is showing signs of a gradual shift away from concerns about the inequality in international trade and is focusing on seeking more holistic solutions towards global management as a whole.

For planet management to happen on a concerted scale, it will need inspired leadership. For a true world leader to emerge, narrow national goals have to be transcended and the home planet together with all its dispirit cultures has to be seen and managed as a single family estate. Such a visionary leader also has to have the diplomatic skills to convince the world of its altruistic integrity. It must also have the economic capability and the technological ingenuity to bring many elements together, in order to design large scale planet management projects that can excite and employ the combined effort of our kind.

The first order of business would be to bring everyone to the table and agree to repair the environmental damage that has been incurred as the result of an Age that has been invested in developing and establishing a world industry of technological advances - and in conjunction, rebuild the world’s infrastructure and revitalize its education, food, housing and energy resources in a manner that will accommodate the exponential population needs of every nation as we all undergo such a mass change of direction.

Faced with the magnitude of a mass paradigm shift, which many would say; we do or die, the salient question is, which nation is able and willing to step up to the plate and take on the challenge of word leadership?

Since the dismantling of the British Empire, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States of America has emerged as the last surviving global super power, and stands as the logical choice for accepting the role as the world leader.

This opportunity is not simply because of America’s economic and military clout. There are more profound requirements for global leadership qualifications. America has most of them.

America’s Assets

America has evolved beyond Old World class structures and treats all its citizens equally.
America has the largest and widest concentration of ethnic immigrants from across the planet and therefore has a direct familial connection to every one of our cultures.
America speaks and teaches English, the global lingua franca.
America has the economic power to initiate global management policies
America has three centuries of pioneer and frontier expertise.
America has the largest concentration of technological brains able to design the large scale engineering projects needed to effectively manage a planet.

America’s Liabilities

Firstly: After three centuries of pioneering a wilderness and integrating hundreds of cultures into a homogeneous whole, while establishing a civilization in the New World (and after cutting itself off from its own cultural roots for generations via a bloody revolution) America has had no time to truly reflect on itself, in relationship to the rest of the world and the image the nation projects. As a consequence of its under-developed state of self awareness America remains patently naive in world diplomacy.
Secondly; Despite its vast economic clout, America continues to think of world development in terms of comparatively small scale corporate goals.

The objective in this thread is:
To try and give Americans an outsiders perspective on their self image, so that they can see themselves as the world sees them and thereby make a better presentation of who they really are..
Provide elementary lessons in race relations, and also in caste and class distinctions so that the average American can get know the cultures of the world more intimately, and thereby improve on diplomatic relationships
Present some preliminary ideas on large scale planet management engineering.

As I have a contract for a book to be published on this subject, it is my hope that participants in this thread, both proponents and nay sayers alike, will do so in a broad-minded manner that will help general readers gain some idea of the philosophical and psychological challenges that an issue as large as this one imposes on mankind’s ability to adapt to the major changes an Age shift requires.

Death and Wisdom Part 5

[quote FIN from Philosophy forum] My point being is; are you suggesting that death is the main, or at least a large, reason that helps one to realize and understand life simply because. Or is it that it is the combination of age and death and the constant realization of whats to come that makes one wise?

I had brushes with death when I was younger, which sobered me up considerably and left me with a degree of wisdom. But now that I am past my mid-sixties an entirely new perspective has come over me, one that i never had at any other stage of my life - and I have had a very eventful life.

Before this present moment in my life, the future always lay at some indefinite point ahead of me and was not part of my daily meditation. But at 64 (a year or so back) I seemed to have crossed over some psychic threshold. I crossed an earlier threshold at 42 when I reached male menopause.

Significant as that change was 21 years earlier, lifting me above my 30;s and 20, ( for the first time I wanted a son and teach him all I had learned), this next step in life - at 64 - is far more profound, far more spiritual. All my earlier ambitions are spent. Now I want to consolidate my earnings - to be a grandfather to be more of an advisor, and not so much a doer. I want my sons to take over the estate.

I am in a whole new ball game now and death is an essential part of my daily meditation. Unless my psyche is different from all other people - I am saying that age and experience and death are significantly different for me at age 64 onwards and that I feel all that more wiser now than I did just one or two years ago and I look forward to even deeper insights as the years go by.


[quote FIN ] HOWEVER!!!! I think you can gain the same wisdom from visiting a child's pre-school class if viewed and interpreted correctly.

We all gain wisdom from the moment we are born - and keep gaining more through each of the seven stages of life. But none of those developmental stages are the same as the wisdom you gain at the final stage. That stage it is far more profound, for it includes the sum of all the previous stages.

Seeing as how we all get it eventually, I do not understand why there is so much insistence on this thread by people who keep arguing that any and all of us are due its rewards at any stage of our lives. I am sorry, but that is not my experience. The argument that the young can be just as, or even wiser than the elderly, does not add up or make any sense to me. An inept elder is the result of an inept youth. Unless there is some disease of the brain cells, one does not start off wise and get dumber as one ages. That is simply ridiculous.

The wisest elder is the one with the widest experience - and the promise of death and the cessation of future ambitions gives them the time to be all that more reflective and inclusive about the treasures they have accumulated and ruminate over opportunities lost. Young people, busy chasing the future and ambitions yet to be fulfilled, do not have the time, the clarity nor the inclination to be so reflective. None of them want to retire or be grandfathers before their time. That is simple common sense.

Death and Wisdom Part 4

The controversy over my claim that the ever-present specter of death brings added wisdom to the elderly continues on several philosophical forums.

I have been accused of an ad hominem. Here forth my response:

I started off this thread by making an original observation that challenged conventional wisdom - about the relationship between age, death and wisdom. The idea was immediately attacked and I defended it. When no one could produce an observation that directly addressed that general relationship between the elderly and the wisdom thoughts of death brings to them, presenting as their challenge the side-effects of occasional brushes with death by the young as being of equal merit, which, in my opinion is clearly not so, (I had several such brushes myself when younger and that effect on my psyche is not the same as how death is affecting me today) the attack was then turned on me. I defended myself by hitting back - a silly mistake i know, but I am only human. I do not, however, consider my counter-attack as an ad Hominem, since no one has presented a contradiction that seriously challenges my claim, and which I can fairly analyse and comment on.

The whole point of this thread was not meant to provoke controversy. I sincerely believed that I was bringing a piece of interesting information to the social table. The reason I did so was because I was brought up in a social environment that revered the elderly. In fact it was considered rude to even utter an elders name when speaking to or about him or her. One always referred to an elder in the third person. I grew up admiring the genteel politeness of that social etiquette. Since then, over the past half century, I have watched that old-fashioned custom, not only gradually erode, but also reverse itself. The disparaging remarks about the elderly on this forum give clear testimony to the disregard senior citizens are subjected to nowadays. This fact got me wondering - what has happened to social mores on this matter and why did such drastic change happen?

I realized that just a few years back I would never have made the connection between age and death and wisdom how that reality impinges upon and changes the psyche of the elderly. Over the past year or two as I have reached the mid 60's I have come to realize just how much the idea of my impending demise has leavened my thinking and made it that much more profound. This was a revelation to me. Nobody had explained the distinction between a sage and a neophyte to me in terms of death awareness before. So I shared the revelation in general terms, never expecting an adverse backlash.

This concerted backlash by so many got me thinking again - about the whole concept of presenting an original opinion, subjective or otherwise, that challenges conventional wisdom. History shows us that no matter how much merit it may have, it will be immediately challenged by protectors of the status quo who have fixed positions on any given subject and do not like them challenged. If a new idea cannot be routed or refuted by one or more of their number, they then gang up and the initiator is ridiculed and even, in the extreme, persecuted. In general, the closer to the Truth a novel idea is, the greater the reactive backlash.

So far the attack on how death leavens the wisdom of the aged has been unrelenting, so one may take it that the idea may be hitting close to home. I personally think that this observation about sagehood is a valuable contribution that helps to explain the distinction between senior citizens and juniors, and it should receive due consideration.

The Origins & Evolution of Human Consciousness

The First Thought - Awareness of Self

Some one hundred thousand generations ago
enough neurons made enough connections
between the intuitive and analytical hemispheres
of an expanding primate brain
to allow a quantum leap in consciousness
to take place

An evolving ape
had a conscious thought
as an independent self
and became human

An eye
became an I
and an infant ego
took birth in the cosmos

an observer
apart from Nature
had become conscious
of consciousness itself

Who but God would have thought
that such a small step for man
would have such giant consequences
for all life on Earth


The Second Thought - Generosity

The first consciousness of self
as an independent observer
was followed by the realization
that self could only be evaluated
in relationship to another

It is the value placed on self
by another
that determines ones own sense
of self-worth

Thus the one-time ape
who had once grabbed all the bananas
had to struggle with basic animal instincts
and learn the value of sharing
and in that process of evolution
woo the good opinion of another

The Third Thought - Social Ethics

Social Ethics Having awoken to the self
in relation to support from the family
mankind transcended the hunt
and graduated into agriculture

In the paradigm of this new age
of planting, tending chores and harvesting
the cooperation of the extended-family
brought the evocation of the work-ethic

The domestication of Nature
posed problems of pestilence
no challenge was greater than the lions
who preyed on the herds
this initiated the circumcision lodges
and evoked the ethic of courage

Fourth Thought - War

Aware of self and friendship
disciplined by chores
initiated into courage
and conqueror of the lionsman
the farmer prospered
and his herds grew large
they trespassed on his neighbors' pasture
and clan vendetta began

the farmer who had become a lion fighter
was now forced to be a warrior
and wage war on his brother

As vendetta escalated
ruthless warlords arose
They united the clans into national forces
and crowned themselves as kings
and so the Bronze Age came to an end.


Fifth Thought - Conscientious Craftsmanship

Aware of self
reliant on neighbor
disciplined by chores
initiated in courage
blooded in War
men conscientiously polished their crafts
and built might nations of industry
and towering cathedrals to God

The Sixth Thought - Physical Determinism

His character established
on the foundations of the first five disciplines
his intellect sharpened by an analysis of Scripture
man protested against religious dogma
and began to measure the universe


Seventh Thought - Metaphysical Realization

His growth complete
And adulthood attained
Limited by the finite
Men explode the atom
And uncovered the origins of Consciousness
And became aware
That the Cosmos was aware
And was given charge of the World

And so the Nuclear Age began

The Dichotomy between Phsyics and Metaphsyics

Half a century ago I graduated out of high school, fully indoctrinated, into a scientific environment that is firmly set on an empirical course, proposing a dioctrine which argues that everything in existence has a physiological explanation - that if some of the more subtle mysteries of the cosmos are not yet fully understood, given time, science will come up with a definitive answer. In short, my mindset at the time of graduation was more or less identical to most the people who have commented on all the philosophical forums I am registered on. IE if humans can not see it, taste, smell it, touch it or hear it, it does not exist. My education trained me to scoff at the supernatural claims of religion and sent me into spiritless life without its moral guidance.

Around my middle age, after a successful career as television producer. I became interested in trying to plumb the deeper mysteries of the invisible metaphysical forces that surround all of us. IE; love, hate, anger, guilt, stupidly, genius, courage, cowardice and a host of other very real emotional effects have direct impact on our state of mind, and on our conduct - towards ourself and those around us. These were real life mysteries which my scientific teaching in school had failed to address - and which my largely agnostic and atheistic community could not provide the reassuring and comforting answers that I needed at male menopause. The "Jesus only son of God" tirade coming from church pulpits offended me. The Christian message of love for neighbot, accompanied by bombing all and sundry was hypocritical. so I sought no help from that direction.

At forty years of age I did not know if I had ever really experienced genuine love for anybody, including myself and my society - our how to evoke it. I knew that I had experienced anger, joy, envy, admiration, jealousy etc. etc. but had no way of measuring the depth of those experiences. I wondered why some people wrote profound poetry and psalms. I did not know why I could not sing in tune, or paint elegant pictures like my brother or dance with the rhythm of an aborigine. The promise of answers from science that I received in school, had yet to explain why any of these life forces and natural abilities existed. My society as a whole seemed intent, via its lock on empiricism, on continuing to avoid any attempt to look inward itself.

So I decided to set out and do my own personal research on the meaning of my life. I went into the desert and lived with the Kalahari Bushmen.

The San are our original ancestors who still lived (at that time) an uncontaminated Stone Age existence. I found that the central social interest in their life, was not the physical science of survival via hunting and gathering, but in personal, social and spiritual integrity. By puberty they were all masters at basic survival. The ingenuity and craftsmanship of their traps, snares, weapons, tools; and their extensive knowledge of edible and medicinal plants, and the behavior of the animals they hunted was extra-ordinary. But the central interest in their lives was Animism - the superstitious belief that Nature was a soul - a conscious entity that rewarded the hunt and punished trespass. This uncontested belief guided their social behavior and was taught to children as soon as they were weaned. Instead of the skull-bashing ignorant louts we generally assign to our Stone Age ancestors, I found a highly intelligent, sharing caring people that were filled with the simple joys of life. loved singing and dancing and Rock art, smoked cannabis on occasion and went into altered states of spiritual consciousness.

The fact that spirituality not physical survival was the inspirational drive of our prehistoric ancestors, and that trespass on the divinity of Nature was entirely taboo and considerate family relationships a fundamental teaching of their children, is a basic human behavioral reality that science continues to remain largely unaware of. And so would I if I had not gone to find out for myself.

From that family base of human behavior, I moved on investigating each succeeding complex social contract that followed after the Stone Age, visiting and living with 3rd World Bronze Age agricultural clans and Iron Age national industrialists groups that still practiced ancient cultural traditions - finding out as I went that as mankind mastered the physical sciences of each succeeding Age paradigm, that mastery was accompanied by a corresponding focus on the type of spiritual practice that provided ethical guidance to individual and and group relationships.

Where animism and awe of Nature cemented Stone Age family group behavior, Shamanism guided Bronze Age societies, allowing for psychically gifted individuals to act as spiritual mediums between the clans and their dead ancestors who in turn importuned the weather gods on behalf of the descendants to keep the harvests flourishing. followed. Shamans themselves were universally regarded with both fear and awe, Their psychic powers were demonstrated by their uncanny ability to diagnose and cure ailments without asking for symptoms, practice surgery, interpret dreams, comfort the dying and predict future events.

Among deeply devout Iron Age cultures who believed implicitly in their religious scriptures. I found that their belief in an omniscient, ever-observant God, brought a personal sense of conscientiousness to their craftsmanship and evoked a collective sense of pride in their national power. In school, scripture was learned religiously, side by side with science. State and Church were intrinsically intertwined. No politician was elected to office unless he was also a devout coreligionist. The kings and their families were naturally accepted as divine appointments. Religious ministers, mystics and dead saints were deeply revered for the spiritual services and miracles they performed.

From this personal experience among the three foundation Ages of human development, a clear trend emerged. As we enter a new age paradigm, we look outwards while we master its physical disciplines - then we turn increasingly inwards and try to master ourselves in relation to the increased state of awareness the new paradigm imposes on our individual and collective psyche.


I have since returned resume my life our western culture that is still trying to master a science-based paradigm. It is a culture that, via denigration of the past, remains largely unaware of how our ancestors really evolved. thought and worshipped, - characterizing our prehisitoric Ages as primitively superstitious and barbaric. It is also scornful of scriptures and the zealous religious practices of Iron Age cultures - an unkind process that dangerously divides the world community and which directly debases our own ancestral history, which believed in the claims of all our saints who proclaimed the existence of supernatural forces that lie beyond the realm of science, and who demonstrated their inspirations by uncounted acts of human kindness and service to our society.

This dichotomy, between our past history of reliance on metaphysics for sound social development and our current reliance, primarily on the physical sciences, and our subsequent impoverishment of inner understanding, has led me to look at the so called hippie movement and drug culture of the 1960's in a more holistic light. Since that time, some two hundred million Westerners, all with a basic science background, have taken initiation into a wide variety of esoteric spiritual practices, much of it from the Far East.

I have been part of that New Age movement for thirty years now. Spiritual ( or right brain) practices have immeasurably increased my understanding of myself and my motivations. I revere our ancestors. I have found that I can love and honor my family deeply. I can sing in tune, draw elegantly and dance up a storm. My IQ has jumped up a few notches and I can now master mathematical and physical equations that stumped me formerly.

So I ask you these questions:
Is our evolutionary cycle of increasing self consciousness on-going?
Does the new Nuclear Age herald the beginning of a new era of inward searching?
Will the 21st century bring on a new type of spirituality - both individually and collectively?
Are we at the start of a new spiritual paradigm that is directly related to the science of atomic theory?

The Enigma of Consciousness

There is no logical explanation for the existence and evolution of consciousness.

Organic life, according to physics is the net result of the random activity of a variety of chemicals eroded from solid rock and mixed with water in a primeval soup. If one follows that line of logic, then why would an essentially mechanical process need to progress beyond the basic survival needs of feeding and procreating? What motive would it have for evolving into a complex self-conscious being who would rise above the rest of Nature and become interested in the workings of the entire Cosmos?

Those questions can only be addressed in metaphysical terms and are, of course, the ancient origins of a wide variety of contentious theological belief systems.

If the arise of a conscious being that would one day become devoted to scientific determination has any intuitive purpose beyond physics, can it be that it's dual brain capacity was designed to eventually answer the Enigma of Consciousness in universal terms - and thereby put an end to seemingly ceaseless theological arguments?

If it seems ridiculous to state that consciousness arose of its own out of solid rock, would it not be more universally understood and logical to propose that the seed of conscious has been, all along, a charismatic attribute of the atomic nucleus?

Is the Universe not primarily a vast radiation of atomic consciousness?

Has human consciousness not especially evolved as an observing ego, which allows Cosmic Consciousness the illusion of seeing and experiencing itself via the drama of life in an illusory Creation?

WHY MEN SHOULD DEVELOP THEIR FEMININE SIDE

Split brain experiments by Prof Roger Perry have shown distinct differences of perception between the two hemispheres of the brain. Surgical separations of the cortex have shown that the left brain controls the motor reflexes of the right side of the body and is mentally attracted to analytical perceptions and evaluations of realty. The right brain controls the left side motor reflexes and is more attracted to intuitive perceptions of reality.

Broadly speaking we can say that the left brain deals with the physical or visible aspects of reality, while the right brain is concerned with the metaphysical or emotive aspects of reality. In practice one half of our psyche demands hard evidence in order to determine action and the other half tends to rely more on intuitive “hunches” and feelings to guide action..

Obviously we are all a mix of both halves of the psyche, but generally speaking, males are predominantly left brain/analytically oriented and attracted to mechanics. Females are more right brain/intuitively oriented and attracted to the arts.

This is not s to say that males cannot be more intuitive than they generally are or females become more analytically orientated. With conscious effort and plenty of practice both male and female can evoke the less actives side of their brain and end up more holistically balanced in their approach to life.

For instance, men who practice right brain drills and exercises have found to their surprise that they can evoke stronger nurturing feelings for their children and deeper insights into their wives psyches than previously. (Of course many men have discovered their female/artistic side naturally, without the need to take extra exercises)

Women are generally more conscious than men of the dual nature of the psyche, for they have endless opportunities in dealing with the practical aspects of everyday life, not including their schooling years, exercising their analytical half. But they too, with more practice can become more mechanically orientated and more balanced than they already are.

I personally have been practicing right brain drills and exercises for the past thirty years, and have developed a dual brain educational course for children. In future blogs I will describe some of the surprising results and explain some of the more effective exercises that can help in furthering dual brain development.

War and Peace - Nietzsche vs. Jesus

Here follows another argument taken from the philosophical forums. Again, the italics are mine.

Jakob wrote:
Nietzsche didn't think world peace makes man happy, or that it justifies life. He might have had a point -

There was a time when mankind was at peace with his neighbor. That was during the Stone Age, when, like all other predatory animals, we instinctively did not trespass on our neighbors hunting territory. Our sparse numbers helped to make the maintenance of peace possible. When our success during the Stone Age increased our numbers, crowded hunting territories forced us to invent agriculture and domesticate Natural plants and animals. Towards the end of the Bronze Age our success at agriculture increased our numbers again and when our expanding herds started eating neighboring clan's pasture, the aggression began - first via clan vendetta. When crowding got worse during the Iron Age of national industrial development, the level of violence escalate into total war. Thus war was part of the price we paid for human development. Nature Herself reacts to over-crowding via violence. Take lemmings for example. All our wars have been over territorial needs. We could not have avoided it if we had wanted to.

Quote:
if peace was so important to us, we'd probably have attained it already - we're self indulgent enough.

All the eras of territorial warfare are now over. They have to be. Peace has become absolutely essential for the first time in our developmental history. Nietzsche was not around to realize that we would arrive at a total extinction capability. If he had known about the A Bomb, I am sure he would not have repudiated the message of Jesus. The stark reality we all face today is that if we continue to react instinctively to over-crowding on a global scale, then thermo-nuclear war is inevitable. Zero population growth is not going save us from the exponential effects of the population explosion, in fact that policy is already reaping grotesque results in India and China. The reason for the evolution of this this huge brain has not been to invent WMDs that can wipe out all life on the planet, but to turn our world into a cultivated Garden of Eden. We can use our amazing technological abilities in a peaceful manner to accommodate more and more people in less and less space. It can be done if we stop wasting most of our time, energy resources on wars and policing ourselves.

Quote:
It's a lot harder to make an atomic bomb than not to make one.

Making an A Bomb is one thing, dropping it on two cities filled with women and children and incinerating tens of thousands of them alive is quite another. I appreciate the fact that the invention of ever increasing;y efficient military weapons has always been at the forefront of mankind's technological development - which is the very tool we need for efficient planet management and the large scale engineering projects that will be needed to make it work - but as said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Quote:
Violence is part of existence - and a fundament of Christianity, let's not forget that. Christ's message wouldn't have come across if he hadn't been crucified.

Violence was part of our development after we graduated out of the infancy of our Stone Age, into the childhood of our Bronze Age and the rebellious teens of the Iron and Steel Ages. But we are now in the Nuclear Age and we need to grow up and act like responsible adults. We need to get busy steward this planet as a single family estate and stop fooling around playing soldiers in the childish playground

Quote:
Anyway, my reference was to your idea that Jesus was wise. That sort of contradicts your idea that wisdom comes only with age. Jesus was a young wippersnapper, is all I'm trying to say.

He was, and unmarried to boot with no kids of his own to be responsible for. His wisdom was focused on the one aspect of life that was predominant in his time - war and Rome's military might and Roman occupation of Israel. All of us can have clear insight into serious dysfunctional family issues when we are young. At 12 years old Jesus saw that love for the neighbor was the only ultimate defence against endless divisiveness and war. He was brilliantly wise in that arena for sure, but not wise enough to preach the message in a way that would avoid ending up in his Crucifixion. But as fate would have it, by sticking to his message even while he was being tortured by his neighbors, his message survived the Ages. The great problem with the Christian ministry is that it has invested to much of its energy in trying deify the messenger by killing off other claimants to the Divine ear, while forgetting the message of peace itself.

Death and Wisdom - part 3

The battle rages on international philosophical forums, over my claim that only age can bring wisdom. I have included another one of the less contentious forum posts here. It concerns a few general remarks from one of the philosophers. The responses in italics are mine.

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:15 pm Post subject: Death and Wisdom

[onlyhuman wrote:]
I've always been told that good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgement. essentially wisdom is learned from mistakes and from experience.]

Amen

[Quote:]
usually the older you are the more experience you have and thus the more wisdom. However it is still possible for someone younger than you to be more wise because of the experiences they have had in their life.

Wisdom by definition has to be holistic. The more factors that are taken into consideration the wiser the judgement will be. Thus, no matter what single extra-ordinary experience or even multiple experiences a young person may have, it is difficult if not impossible for them to evaluate its significance in the larger scheme of things - especially if one believes that everything happens for a reason. Agreed many aged may go though life and never have a significant experience, but that in itself is cause for considerable reflection. (This is why the immensely complex theology of karma is so significant, and needs sincere study by serious philosophers.) To meet a youthful old soul is rare, but it does happen.

[Quote:]
I find it disheartening when the older generation underestimate the young by saying you don't know what your talking about.

The way to avoid such underestimation is to make a conscious effort to reflect and remember what and how you thought and acted yourself at that age and make allowances for the generation gap or gaps that separate you. The young generally forget that you have been there, done that, and unfortunately have no way themselves of duplicating your effort and jumping ahead to see why you see what you see.

[Quote:]
on the other hand I also find it rude how the younger generations consider those before them fools saying they are past their time.

Lack of wisdom.

Death and Wisdom part 2.

I received an objection by a member of a philosophical forum that I contribute towards, regarding the subject of Death and Wisdom and my claim that only Age can bring true wisdom

Her objection is quoted below.

I think it's very self-misleading to suppose wisdomness just because of your age. This makes people very narrow minded and closed to alternative views on things in general, but stubbornness can be overcome by a willingness to listen to other peoples ideas even though they might be right.

Hopefully my response provides increased clarification.

Of course everybody is born with a degree of wisdomness and keeps improving upon it as they grow up. Most people do not realize that we all experience seven distinct stages of wisdom as we age.

1. Infancy 0 - 4years
2. Childhood 4 - 11 years
3. Puberty 11 - 14 years
4. Teenhood 14 - 21 years
5. Stewardship 21 - 42 years
6. Mastership 42 - 63 years
7. Sagehood. 63 - 84 years.

None of those time periods are set in stone of course, but they give a reasonably close approximation of graduated development. In normal circumstances every graduation leads to increasing states of self and social awareness. What is vitally important and the criteria I use by which to value wisdom, is that each stage of growth is closely linked to our perceptions of the relativity of the Space/Time consortium.

For example: An infant lives in a naive state of relativity. For them everything exists in the moment. After weaning, from about four years onwards, we begin to increasingly artificialize the here and now as we start to factor past and future states of expectation into our consciousness. This sense of separation from the here and now cycles outwards and peaks at menopause before it begins to shrink back again. Ideally, in sagehood, a state of sagacious perception of the relativity of space and time becomes part of the consciousness. (IE, all distances are very far if you are old and tired and times passes quickly if you are having fun)

At extreme age, Past; Present and Future begin to accelerate the fuse towards a singularity, which is experienced during the Death Moment, when the here and now is starkly present and fully loaded with everything that ever happened and everything that ever will. If the psyche has freed itself of guilt, this timeless moment is the ultimate state of wisdom (enlightenment if you will) and is the fruit of human evolution.

Race Relations

Tiger Woods. World Ambassador for Race

Yesterday I made a short reference to Tiger as regards to race. I would like to fill that in more comprehensively with some personal observations.

I was born and raised in South Africa during the Apartheid reign. I left the country in 1976 in protest against the racial discrimination policy, which sees blacks as inferior to whites. I sought refuge in Israel only to find race the major issue there, where Jews see themselves as superior to Arabs, will not let them vote in the Knesset - and thereby, because of our Western support in arms and dollars, poisoning race relations throughout the Middle East and all of Islam. In Japan I found discrimination against Koreans. In Europe I saw it among the Germans against the Turks, among the French against the Algerians and in England against the Pakistanis. I came up against it against an anti-white attitude in America as well - in the Rosebud Indian reservation among the Sioux when I travelled through South Dakota, in Arizona among the Hopis when I visited the Grand Canyon, in California among the Paiute and Shoshone while i was in the Sierras and again in Watts in South Central Los Angeles among the Latinos and blacks where I worked as a volunteer teacher.

From my experience I believe that race relations, next to environmental pollution, is the most volatile issue on the planet today and is not being properly addressed.

Tiger Woods is a phenomenon all on his own. He is arguably the most recognized individual on the planet. One can only marvel that the grace and dignity he displays under so much media attention, while remaining essentially a private family man. Supreme master of perhaps the most difficult of all hand/eye/mind coordination game we have, he has stilled forever whatever last residues of racial bias we have in the sports world regarding those abilities.

Genetically he is a mix of African, European and Asian and is therefore directly connected via our ancestors to the three great Houses of Man. Every race can see themselves in him. He has remained aloof from racial controversy. Much of the credit for who he is goes obviously to his parents and the way they raised him.

Earl Woods was a black army officer. In the army he will have learned that there is no humiliation in saluting an officer, black or white, calling him Sir and be ready to do his bidding. I think that military discipline played a large part in his raising of Tiger. The army would have taught Earl that there is reason for establishing a hierarchy of command in the world - in which each man must find his place - and that he can rise up through that hierarchy via his attitude to serve and his ability to command. Tiger has done both, and sits, at a young age, right on top of our pile and brings credit to all aces, for we are all a part of him. Through him and the example he sets, we can come to an agreement that no race is inherently superior to another and try harder to put an end to the race discrimination that continues to plague the human family

Ryder Cup. Why we keep loosing

American and European Team Psychology.

Every time America looses the Ryder Cup, the loss is followed by endless puzzled discussions by top sports analysts as to why a star-studded golfing team, packed with the top players in the world, including Tiger Woods, keeps loosing by such a wide margin to a European team of lesser stature.

There are two strategic reasons for the losses and several tactical ones, which when added together provide the variables that make it so difficult for the analysts to come up with a clear-cut answer.

It might be of general interests for Americans, both golfers and non-golfers alike, to share in this analysis as to why these losses against Europe are almost inevitable - as it might help to give us all some added perspective on the existential gap that exists between the American psyche and our cousins across the pond.


The first and most obvious strategic reason for the losses is the simple fact that European players, on both the European and American circuits, are always consciously representing their own country as well as themselves. The Euro-Union aside, the ancient history of European conflict is ever-present in European sporting competitions. Americans golfers on the other hand only play on our own country's more lucrative professional golfing circuit and consequently only represent themselves 99% of the time. They are simply not accustomed to carrying the extra burden of their country men's expectations around the course with them.

The second strategic reason is a little more subtle and may cause some controversial argument among us. But ever since America bragged that it won both World Wars for Europe, that more recent piece of history has served to make Europeans temporarily drop their own national differences and unite themselves against America in any competition. This factor goes beyond sports into international politics and business competition as well. As far as WWI and WWII are concerned the attitude in Europe is that they fought themselves to a stand still and lost millions of soldiers, before America entered the fray for clean-up operations. Though there is no real rancour about our boast, as all of them are grateful for the final victory, the underlying will of the sons and grandsons of European soldiers to prove to us how wrong we are, is very much part of the European psyche and is a significant factor in their sense of unity when they pit themselves against us.

So the net problem in trying to over-come our strategic handicaps in order to win the next Ryder Cup is in how to solve the problem of individual brilliance striking out against team unity.
The obvious answer is to make sure we pick American players who have plenty of over-seas experience, carrying America around on the shoulders when they play. And maybe get our president to publically give more credit to Europe about the wars and their contribution towards world stability than we currently do.

Now the tactical errors.
As four out of the five matches in Ryder Cup competition are regulated to pairs competing against each other, I think it is a mistake of pairing the best two of our players , and the next best two and so down the line, in order to ensure strong anchor teams. The basic psychology we should avoid here is that if you put two equal players together they tend to rely on each other. On the other hand if you put the strongest with the weakest, the strongest tries to stays strong and the weaker guy tries his best to prove he is just as good. Thus, from a tactical viewpoint, as captain, I would pit my own pairs against each other, with the expected result (seeing as how both of our men are stronger than either of the two European players) the opposition will naturally tend to come in third and fourth.

A team needs a recognized leader on the field. In this last Ryder Cup, Tiger, as the most experienced Ryder Cup player, was naturall picked to lead. Not to detract from his sense of social empathy, Tiger is the penultimate individual. His will to win comes from being a black man in a what is arguably the most elite of rich white men's games, and showing the world what being a champion is all about. Personally, I think that until he eclipses Jack Nicklaus's world records, he will remain focused as an individual. So we need to be more circumspect when we try to find the player who might be the most effective team leader, and not simply choose the strongest player. Inspired leadership in the field is what team work is all about, especially when the chips are down. Finding the right one is never easy.

On the general World front, I believe American citizens needs to gain a more holistic view on how the World views us. More of us should to try and travel abroad than we do at present - and try to gain a beter perpsective on our role as super-power by getting to see ourselves as others see us and not as we think they do.