...it is possible!
The daily news cycle ...no the hourly news cycle is little more than a display of how cruel, how careless, how selfish, how evil, how greedy, and how unreasonable human beings actually are! Every corner of the globe reveals our disregard for the planet, for the beauty, for things living. Our destruction seems to have no bounds for every form of life. Especially other human beings! Even pious religious leaders become sexual predators of defenseless children.
The same sense of dismay and disappointment accumulates in like manner when one is a student of history. History is the discipline which documents the activities of humans generally across the centuries and across the planet, earth. Some say history records the progress of the human race, but how can we call it progress when almost every "forward progression" is merely a new, perhaps a more sophisticated way of killing and destruction?
Its easy to get a fairly accurate picture of the past. One only need read about the same event as written by several different authors. Additionally when one reads many sources which chronologically connect one era to the next and the next, a cohesive account forms which carries the events of one era and the consequences of those events into a quite complete and rational understanding.
Then the key understanding, the key conclusion comes into view: human beings suck! Pretty much!
An example of what is meant here is the event of the Great Depression, an event totally, wholly created by human beings. Add the effects of natures destruction to the human traits listed above...what do you get? The Great Depression! And often natures destruction is actually triggered by poor decisions and irrational acts by humans.
On contemplation one wonders if human beings deserve to even exist?
Those who see things in this manner are called pessimists. Those who see this picture as all rosy and nice are called optimists. Perhaps we could say that there is another class of humans who are well aware of the surrounding evil and acknowledge it but who say we humans can get a transfer to another existence where everything is absolutely perfect, happy, wholesome, and peachy from top to bottom.
So, does anything wholesome, good, or heroic reside in human beings? Perhaps the question is worth exploration and thought.
Well the answer is yes! We are capable of generosity, kindness, and caring.
Allen Vincent King lived a life which proves we are capable of caring about others and was in evidence by the over flow crowd which attended his funeral. Vince had lived a secret life of helping others, but was not capable of grandstanding. There were people in attendance who stood and said, "...were it not for Vince, I would be dead..." To me Vince proved that it is possible to be a Christian because he used the words of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as more than a suggestion they were words to live by.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Sunday, September 9, 2018
President John F. Kennedy, 1961 Disarmament
President Kennedy addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1961 and included these words in his speech.
"
The program to be presented to this assembly - for general and complete disarmament under effective international control - moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machinery of war. It would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs, not with the big powers alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament - true inspection - and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin. In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test - a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.[9] "
"
The program to be presented to this assembly - for general and complete disarmament under effective international control - moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machinery of war. It would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs, not with the big powers alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament - true inspection - and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin. In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test - a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.[9] "
The Threshold Of No Return
The human race is now proceeding through a threshold of no return. No one knows if we will survive. The catastrophe is complicated and is literally taking place as we breathe the breath of life each day. It involves massive pollution of our environment, over population, the existence of nuclear weapons in all the major nations of the world.
Some of these massive problems will mean a slow death of our species. One of these problems could kill us quickly and painfully.
We have always possessed the ability to control pollution but have not found the will within us to shoulder the responsibility. Our species is naturally addicted to pleasure and to a focus on the ease of the moment not on the job of securing our future for our selves and our children and their children. So we procrastinate doing the hard jobs which are essential to our survival. It would have been so much easier to "keep" the world clean than to attempt to clean up our mess after the fact.
A solution to the over population of our planet seems an even greater challenge. The Republic of China made attempts to control the growth of their population with limited success and with the interference of the state in the family unit with its natural urge to have children at their own discretion. World population is 7.6 billion. How many people can the earth support? Along with this population comes famine, plagues, wars, displacement, and a world of misery.
If a nation, an organization, or even a small group detonates a nuclear weapon on a large population for what ever reason, a nuclear war could easily occur. All the people who have carefully studied such a scenario have concluded that no one would be the victor. Everyone would be the looser...the whole human race. Under the wrong circumstances this could occur. There have been numerous close calls with nuclear weapons but none so close as October 1962 when the political officer of Soviet submarine B-59, Vasili Arkhipov cast a "no" vote to launch a nuclear torpedo at a US Aircraft carrier the USS Randolph. Had the torpedo been launched a nuclear exchange with Russia would have occurred.
No nuclear weapons should even exist! The nations of the world should have totally outlawed their existence long ago.
Mean while most national governments of the world are certainly not focused on solutions to these problems. There have been times in the past when some feeble attempts were made to address some of these issues. Those windows are not open at this moment.
Solutions could be found! However we must first focus on the problems.
Some of these massive problems will mean a slow death of our species. One of these problems could kill us quickly and painfully.
We have always possessed the ability to control pollution but have not found the will within us to shoulder the responsibility. Our species is naturally addicted to pleasure and to a focus on the ease of the moment not on the job of securing our future for our selves and our children and their children. So we procrastinate doing the hard jobs which are essential to our survival. It would have been so much easier to "keep" the world clean than to attempt to clean up our mess after the fact.
A solution to the over population of our planet seems an even greater challenge. The Republic of China made attempts to control the growth of their population with limited success and with the interference of the state in the family unit with its natural urge to have children at their own discretion. World population is 7.6 billion. How many people can the earth support? Along with this population comes famine, plagues, wars, displacement, and a world of misery.
If a nation, an organization, or even a small group detonates a nuclear weapon on a large population for what ever reason, a nuclear war could easily occur. All the people who have carefully studied such a scenario have concluded that no one would be the victor. Everyone would be the looser...the whole human race. Under the wrong circumstances this could occur. There have been numerous close calls with nuclear weapons but none so close as October 1962 when the political officer of Soviet submarine B-59, Vasili Arkhipov cast a "no" vote to launch a nuclear torpedo at a US Aircraft carrier the USS Randolph. Had the torpedo been launched a nuclear exchange with Russia would have occurred.
No nuclear weapons should even exist! The nations of the world should have totally outlawed their existence long ago.
Mean while most national governments of the world are certainly not focused on solutions to these problems. There have been times in the past when some feeble attempts were made to address some of these issues. Those windows are not open at this moment.
Solutions could be found! However we must first focus on the problems.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Negligent Erosion
The erosion of the Natural Treasury of The United States and the Resulting Danger:
As a lad growing up in the 1950s I played in the creek with my cousins on my grandfather's farm. We removed our shoes and traversed up and down the creek looking for water moccasins to kill, swatting a "apple bugs" who could run on top of the water and generally had a ball in the clean cool water. When we were thirsty, we reached down into the running stream and scooped up the cool water to quench our thirst....because we could. The water was clean and OK to drink. I would be afraid to drink from that same creek today.
The Environmental Protection Agency was created by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970 to fix national pollution control standards, guidelines, and to monitor and enforce them. The Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972, and 10 other major statutes of law in force today to control uranium mill tailings; ocean dumping; safe drinking water; insecticides, fungicides, and other hazardous elements.
So why could it be dangerous to drink untreated water from the creek I played in as a child? ...especially since we have so many laws to prevent its pollution and a major federal agency to control it. Answer: We have placed business interests above the welfare and health of the citizens of the US. You see its not that we do not have the laws...its that we refuse to enforce the laws we have and we have allowed business interests to have too much influence through bribery and influence peddling. All three branches of the US government are guilty of allowing this tragedy of the loss of the health and safety of Americans.
We have been willing to spend trillions of dollars on defense spending but unwilling to spend the minimum required to control the pollution of our environment. The present Presidential Administration is doing its best to dismantle the EPA with the assistance of the Republican Congress and to defund the enforcement of our environmental laws. Their ears are tuned to listen to business interests first and foremost which is a blatant form of bribery!
The land we took from the Natives was rich. Natural and healthy. We have filled it with pollution. We are and will in untold ways pay for our lack of stewardship of the land...like it says in the gospel, "...to whom much is given, much shall be required..." So were you partially responsible for this tragedy by making your voting choices...voting for those who were so ready to put their business above your own health. You voted against your own welfare...perhaps against your own life!
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Making Sense of It All?
Understanding the American political scene of 2016-17 is a bewildering prospect. The following opinion will be of little consequence to anyone. But...here's the attempt to make some sense of it all.
The Grand Experiment of 1776 and the democratic Republic in North America thus begun has failed....its political philosophy having been stated in the Declaration of Independence and its legal basis having been written in The Constitution of the United States. It is obvious that we have abandoned our stated philosophy, and we have left the purpose of the Constitution far behind us. We have allowed the government to evolve into a political system which principally resembles a Fascist State.
Perhaps the following analogy will help convey the reasoning behind this conclusion...
A few hundred years ago after the dawning of the great enlightenment, many individuals were known by their profession: wheel right, cobbler, tinker, mason, baker, etc. Generally a cobbler made a pair of shoes or repaired shoes and earned for himself the value of his labor in some direct form. He earned value for value his labor and it belonged to him. When the industrial revolution came along and labor became a commodity individuals were forced to sell their labor to industrial enterprises but had little control as to the value assigned to their labor. The worker had to take the value which was offered or live in poverty. Since his labor was worth much more than he was paid, the remaining value was turned into profit for the industry which used his labor. Nothing basically wrong with that...except that the worker had no control over the amount of value assigned to his labor. That basic system has been in affect fro several hundred years and still is.
There is a basic flaw in this system which created a social injustice among the working class. That is the levers of power in the system belong entirely in the hands of the owners of the industry (capital). Very little power is in the hands of the worker (labor). This flaw has been accepted as normal and unavoidable. It has allowed Capital the freedom to create grievous abuses in the workplace and to expand these abuses even to the point of the creation of an international slave trade and the use of human slaves both historically and in the present time to maximize the profits of capital. It included inhumane practices like child labor, dangerous working conditions, even deadly work environments, with no provisions for loss of life or limb. Depending on where one travels, these same practices can still be found occurring now in our time in parts of the world.
This economic system is called Capitalism.
There is a mostly buried history of an era where the common people of the world fought back against this theft of personal power over ones own body and ones own labor. Various labor unions were formed and political organizations were formed to present a united resistance to the abuses of Capital. During certain historical periods Labor gained power and were successful in obtaining a more equatable compensation for their work. But in recent years in the United States, Capital has gained the upper hand in this struggle by fighting labor unions and laws benefiting Labor by political bribery to repeal laws and practices which gave clout to Labor. They have also been successful in getting new laws passed which severely limit the ability of Labor to regain its power to bargain for fair treatment of workers. Thousands of workers find themselves in the position of being unable to sustain a living on the wages they receive for their work. This is a political situation and it has crated the consequences that the United States has evolved into a fascist state. As a nation over several hundred years we built the most thriving booming economic juggernaut the world has ever witnessed. We became the richest nation in history through capitalism. But somewhere along the way we allowed Capital to totally dominate the media and the people in government and began to equate democracy with capitalism as one and the same. Capital developed the idea that if anyone in the world believed in an economic system which was different from capitalism and actually attempted to practice a different economic system they were enemies of democracy. It meant that if a government promoted any form of socialism we labeled them communists even if their socialist government was the democratic choice of the people of the nation in question.
An example of how that worked is: some sovereign nations with democratic governments created the policy that the natural resources of that nation were a part of the common property which belonged to the people and the people of that nation deserved a larger share of that value than just having a job which made international Capital richer and richer. The international Capitalists loathe this "nationalization" of a countries resources. It is their view that the worlds resources are "up for grabs" for those who are powerful enough to exploit them and profit from that exploitation.
The United States evolved into a nation , a government, which places the utmost importance on the promotion of capitalism and made that the number one purpose of government. It meant that we wished to pressure all other nations into the same economic system which we practiced. In fact the US created intentional organizations which promoted our economic system around the various countries of the world and placed enormous economic pressure on their governments to cooperate by allowing US companies to exploit resources both natural and Labor as if their nations were our own nation. These organizations include the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The strategy is to get the other nations in debt by granting loans while demanding changes in their domestic laws which benefit international corporations for profit. The US appointed ourselves as the economic world police force, putting down communism and socialism militarily. All for greater and greater profits for our massive world corporations.
Anyone who knows our historical documents, know that we "say" we believe the purpose of government is to "preserve" basic human rights as is stated in the Declaration of Independence, but we have pushed that purpose aside in order to promote capitalism both at home and around the world.We have said to the world, "If you do not practice our economic model, you are not truly a democracy." This perspective dominated our domestic policies and our foreign policy. This perspective has grown to dominate all three branches of the American government. Preservation of our inalienable rights has fallen far behind the other "more important" purposes of government.
If you wish to either question or debate this thesis, here is this first of many many other possible proofs that we began in the beginning to place profits above human rights when we struck the issue of human slavery from the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. This is what was protested and removed: (speaking of King George III of England, a passage critical of the international slave trade in 1776) "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold,...." This passage was written by an individual who owned more than 200 human beings who posses no trace of personal freedom and dignity, Thomas Jefferson. This is a perfect example of how we have rationalized our emphasis on profits and greed and have consistently spoke from both sides of our mouths while claiming the high moral ground and that we the "shining city on a hill for all to follow and emulate".
The United States chose profits over human rights. We started early in our history toward fascism. We have now arrived at the station.
The Grand Experiment of 1776 and the democratic Republic in North America thus begun has failed....its political philosophy having been stated in the Declaration of Independence and its legal basis having been written in The Constitution of the United States. It is obvious that we have abandoned our stated philosophy, and we have left the purpose of the Constitution far behind us. We have allowed the government to evolve into a political system which principally resembles a Fascist State.
Perhaps the following analogy will help convey the reasoning behind this conclusion...
A few hundred years ago after the dawning of the great enlightenment, many individuals were known by their profession: wheel right, cobbler, tinker, mason, baker, etc. Generally a cobbler made a pair of shoes or repaired shoes and earned for himself the value of his labor in some direct form. He earned value for value his labor and it belonged to him. When the industrial revolution came along and labor became a commodity individuals were forced to sell their labor to industrial enterprises but had little control as to the value assigned to their labor. The worker had to take the value which was offered or live in poverty. Since his labor was worth much more than he was paid, the remaining value was turned into profit for the industry which used his labor. Nothing basically wrong with that...except that the worker had no control over the amount of value assigned to his labor. That basic system has been in affect fro several hundred years and still is.
There is a basic flaw in this system which created a social injustice among the working class. That is the levers of power in the system belong entirely in the hands of the owners of the industry (capital). Very little power is in the hands of the worker (labor). This flaw has been accepted as normal and unavoidable. It has allowed Capital the freedom to create grievous abuses in the workplace and to expand these abuses even to the point of the creation of an international slave trade and the use of human slaves both historically and in the present time to maximize the profits of capital. It included inhumane practices like child labor, dangerous working conditions, even deadly work environments, with no provisions for loss of life or limb. Depending on where one travels, these same practices can still be found occurring now in our time in parts of the world.
This economic system is called Capitalism.
There is a mostly buried history of an era where the common people of the world fought back against this theft of personal power over ones own body and ones own labor. Various labor unions were formed and political organizations were formed to present a united resistance to the abuses of Capital. During certain historical periods Labor gained power and were successful in obtaining a more equatable compensation for their work. But in recent years in the United States, Capital has gained the upper hand in this struggle by fighting labor unions and laws benefiting Labor by political bribery to repeal laws and practices which gave clout to Labor. They have also been successful in getting new laws passed which severely limit the ability of Labor to regain its power to bargain for fair treatment of workers. Thousands of workers find themselves in the position of being unable to sustain a living on the wages they receive for their work. This is a political situation and it has crated the consequences that the United States has evolved into a fascist state. As a nation over several hundred years we built the most thriving booming economic juggernaut the world has ever witnessed. We became the richest nation in history through capitalism. But somewhere along the way we allowed Capital to totally dominate the media and the people in government and began to equate democracy with capitalism as one and the same. Capital developed the idea that if anyone in the world believed in an economic system which was different from capitalism and actually attempted to practice a different economic system they were enemies of democracy. It meant that if a government promoted any form of socialism we labeled them communists even if their socialist government was the democratic choice of the people of the nation in question.
An example of how that worked is: some sovereign nations with democratic governments created the policy that the natural resources of that nation were a part of the common property which belonged to the people and the people of that nation deserved a larger share of that value than just having a job which made international Capital richer and richer. The international Capitalists loathe this "nationalization" of a countries resources. It is their view that the worlds resources are "up for grabs" for those who are powerful enough to exploit them and profit from that exploitation.
The United States evolved into a nation , a government, which places the utmost importance on the promotion of capitalism and made that the number one purpose of government. It meant that we wished to pressure all other nations into the same economic system which we practiced. In fact the US created intentional organizations which promoted our economic system around the various countries of the world and placed enormous economic pressure on their governments to cooperate by allowing US companies to exploit resources both natural and Labor as if their nations were our own nation. These organizations include the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. The strategy is to get the other nations in debt by granting loans while demanding changes in their domestic laws which benefit international corporations for profit. The US appointed ourselves as the economic world police force, putting down communism and socialism militarily. All for greater and greater profits for our massive world corporations.
Anyone who knows our historical documents, know that we "say" we believe the purpose of government is to "preserve" basic human rights as is stated in the Declaration of Independence, but we have pushed that purpose aside in order to promote capitalism both at home and around the world.We have said to the world, "If you do not practice our economic model, you are not truly a democracy." This perspective dominated our domestic policies and our foreign policy. This perspective has grown to dominate all three branches of the American government. Preservation of our inalienable rights has fallen far behind the other "more important" purposes of government.
If you wish to either question or debate this thesis, here is this first of many many other possible proofs that we began in the beginning to place profits above human rights when we struck the issue of human slavery from the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. This is what was protested and removed: (speaking of King George III of England, a passage critical of the international slave trade in 1776) "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold,...." This passage was written by an individual who owned more than 200 human beings who posses no trace of personal freedom and dignity, Thomas Jefferson. This is a perfect example of how we have rationalized our emphasis on profits and greed and have consistently spoke from both sides of our mouths while claiming the high moral ground and that we the "shining city on a hill for all to follow and emulate".
The United States chose profits over human rights. We started early in our history toward fascism. We have now arrived at the station.
Friday, July 24, 2015
Pursuit of Happiness: Could this be dangerous?
We humans are a happy lot...not so much. When we look around we can see who is happy and who is not. My dogs are happy. We have four of them. Each one has its own kind of happiness. Some are happier than others. The least intelligent is much more happy than the smartest one. Animals have a simple happiness which humans cannot easily posses. We become gradually burdened down with this wonderful consciousness. This accumulation of all things human.
Most children are happy, sort of, say from toddler age to middle school. Adults, adolescents, various persons of deprived social status are happy periodically...when they are tipsy, or at a party, or engaged with their friends and social group. Some of us are not happy very much at all. In fact we are kind of negative. (This is a real dirty word. If you want to put someone down, just say they are negative...that'll fix 'em.)
Have you ever noticed that babies "learn" to be happy. At birth they mostly feel hunger, and pain but not much else for a while. Often though, they learn to laugh before they even learn a word, like "Mama". And the parents are so very delighted when baby does laugh...wow, that's a happy baby! These babies keep growing and they keep learning happiness, family, friends, toys, kittys, doggies, ice cream, candy. Wow this is fun! Its fun to play and mess with video games, this is the life. So baring tragedy, childhood is usually a very happy thing.
Then Mommy and Daddy say you have to go to school to get smart. Try to be at the head of the class. There's lots of competition so you have to study when you want to do other things like video games. So little irritations start popping up. You run into a bad bully at school, you have teachers who are strict and everything begins to tense up. Mommy insist that you join lots of extra curricular activities and the competition increases and the tension notches up. Uh oh, I'm not so happy about some of this! (I am beginning to learn unhappiness). Seems like the smarter we get the unhappier we get. Is it true that ignorance is bliss? Should we remain uneducated so we can have some happiness?
Knowledge is cumulative. When the child learns that some day he will die, that never leaves him. And when the teacher who is responsible teaches about how the environment is being destroyed and there are too many people in the world and that a very large number of people are very poor and do not have enough food, the knowledge of all these things begins to accumulate. If this little person who is in the process of becoming a mature person and a citizen of the world, does not close his eyes and his ears, he will learn a whole world of disturbing things which accumulate inside and it becomes a burden. He learns and is actually "taught" that there are a whole lot of people in the world who are "bad" and not to be trusted! We learn the fear which accompanies human intelligence.
So it becomes NORMAL and natural that fear builds up in a person and tends to destroy the happiness which was seemingly a birth right of childhood! We thought that the American Dream was a statement of substance: an inalienable right,"...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
This is when we learn to lie to ourselves...so as to preserve some of the happiness which was so delightful in our youth. We build fantasies and dreams. We convince ourselves that we can be happy in the future. We dream of the great things and fun thing we will do. "Not to worry, we can create some happiness and life will be good again." This can go on for a life time and we never realize that we are mostly living in the past on the great things we did and we are living in the future on the great things we will do and all the great things we will learn, and all the money we will make, then we will be happy! But we do not so much realize that the ONLY thing we actually have is now the eternal present. We tend to not live in today. Our mind is elsewhere. We are living on dreams.
Not saying that dreams are not good to have. Because a dream can never come true if one has never had a dream.
So the things we learn in life tend to be mostly the things which reduce our happiness, destroying the innocence of childhood, replacing it with the morbid reality of eventual death. When my father died, my sister Carolyn and I had to go through all the remaining possessions. Our brother Paul had been dead 23 years. Mother had been dead 7 years. What was left of our beautiful family was in boxes of photos and records. In the bottom of Dad's file cabinet I found a group of house plans. These house plans were all the homes they had ever built or dreamed of building. They were there in my hands. It included the plan of the last home. A thought took over my mind, here in my hands are all the dreams that my parents had ever had or would have. They are all gone...all spent.
Since we can't "unlearn" the things which destroy our happiness, perhaps we could learn how to be happy with a different focus. Joshua Foa Dienstag speaks of a "well educated conscience". Could we teach ourselves to be happy again? Perhaps American education; the philosophy of it, has emphasized the wrong thing. From grammar school through college education, the philosophy of education should be aimed at preparing human beings for life not just for being smart and making money. Perhaps our American "education" is deficient in ethics and soul. Its the greedy who wish to live in a world without ethics and compassion! At every level we should teach our next generations music, art, literature, theater, and philosophy. Being just a math whiz, or science and computer whiz is not near enough. A more responsible education can build a sense humor and a sense of heroism in the face of the reality of living the life of a human being who is conscious of the past, the present, and the future and all the frightening realities they contain. If the gift of consciousness makes it difficult to be happy, perhaps we should just accept that fact and be heroes; just laugh about it. Dienstag quotes Leopardi in saying, "laughter is no less proper and peculiar to man than reason is." He adds, "we(humans) do not only laugh out of pleasure, but just as often, out of pain". A heroic attitude about life can arise from what seem to be ashes when we think as Dienstag suggests when he quotes Rousseau's famous challenge,"Live, and be great and unhappy"!
Modern man has come to believe in a series of ideas as the way to live a happy life: a good education, obtaining wealth and possessions, and living in a political system which provides complete freedom. But it's obvious that we have not been successful; the pursuit of happiness as we have defined it isn't working. We've been ignoring some realities. Perhaps we can as individuals teach ourselves a focus which will bring the answer,"yes" to this question, "Is life worth living?".
Most children are happy, sort of, say from toddler age to middle school. Adults, adolescents, various persons of deprived social status are happy periodically...when they are tipsy, or at a party, or engaged with their friends and social group. Some of us are not happy very much at all. In fact we are kind of negative. (This is a real dirty word. If you want to put someone down, just say they are negative...that'll fix 'em.)
Have you ever noticed that babies "learn" to be happy. At birth they mostly feel hunger, and pain but not much else for a while. Often though, they learn to laugh before they even learn a word, like "Mama". And the parents are so very delighted when baby does laugh...wow, that's a happy baby! These babies keep growing and they keep learning happiness, family, friends, toys, kittys, doggies, ice cream, candy. Wow this is fun! Its fun to play and mess with video games, this is the life. So baring tragedy, childhood is usually a very happy thing.
Then Mommy and Daddy say you have to go to school to get smart. Try to be at the head of the class. There's lots of competition so you have to study when you want to do other things like video games. So little irritations start popping up. You run into a bad bully at school, you have teachers who are strict and everything begins to tense up. Mommy insist that you join lots of extra curricular activities and the competition increases and the tension notches up. Uh oh, I'm not so happy about some of this! (I am beginning to learn unhappiness). Seems like the smarter we get the unhappier we get. Is it true that ignorance is bliss? Should we remain uneducated so we can have some happiness?
Knowledge is cumulative. When the child learns that some day he will die, that never leaves him. And when the teacher who is responsible teaches about how the environment is being destroyed and there are too many people in the world and that a very large number of people are very poor and do not have enough food, the knowledge of all these things begins to accumulate. If this little person who is in the process of becoming a mature person and a citizen of the world, does not close his eyes and his ears, he will learn a whole world of disturbing things which accumulate inside and it becomes a burden. He learns and is actually "taught" that there are a whole lot of people in the world who are "bad" and not to be trusted! We learn the fear which accompanies human intelligence.
So it becomes NORMAL and natural that fear builds up in a person and tends to destroy the happiness which was seemingly a birth right of childhood! We thought that the American Dream was a statement of substance: an inalienable right,"...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
This is when we learn to lie to ourselves...so as to preserve some of the happiness which was so delightful in our youth. We build fantasies and dreams. We convince ourselves that we can be happy in the future. We dream of the great things and fun thing we will do. "Not to worry, we can create some happiness and life will be good again." This can go on for a life time and we never realize that we are mostly living in the past on the great things we did and we are living in the future on the great things we will do and all the great things we will learn, and all the money we will make, then we will be happy! But we do not so much realize that the ONLY thing we actually have is now the eternal present. We tend to not live in today. Our mind is elsewhere. We are living on dreams.
Not saying that dreams are not good to have. Because a dream can never come true if one has never had a dream.
So the things we learn in life tend to be mostly the things which reduce our happiness, destroying the innocence of childhood, replacing it with the morbid reality of eventual death. When my father died, my sister Carolyn and I had to go through all the remaining possessions. Our brother Paul had been dead 23 years. Mother had been dead 7 years. What was left of our beautiful family was in boxes of photos and records. In the bottom of Dad's file cabinet I found a group of house plans. These house plans were all the homes they had ever built or dreamed of building. They were there in my hands. It included the plan of the last home. A thought took over my mind, here in my hands are all the dreams that my parents had ever had or would have. They are all gone...all spent.
Since we can't "unlearn" the things which destroy our happiness, perhaps we could learn how to be happy with a different focus. Joshua Foa Dienstag speaks of a "well educated conscience". Could we teach ourselves to be happy again? Perhaps American education; the philosophy of it, has emphasized the wrong thing. From grammar school through college education, the philosophy of education should be aimed at preparing human beings for life not just for being smart and making money. Perhaps our American "education" is deficient in ethics and soul. Its the greedy who wish to live in a world without ethics and compassion! At every level we should teach our next generations music, art, literature, theater, and philosophy. Being just a math whiz, or science and computer whiz is not near enough. A more responsible education can build a sense humor and a sense of heroism in the face of the reality of living the life of a human being who is conscious of the past, the present, and the future and all the frightening realities they contain. If the gift of consciousness makes it difficult to be happy, perhaps we should just accept that fact and be heroes; just laugh about it. Dienstag quotes Leopardi in saying, "laughter is no less proper and peculiar to man than reason is." He adds, "we(humans) do not only laugh out of pleasure, but just as often, out of pain". A heroic attitude about life can arise from what seem to be ashes when we think as Dienstag suggests when he quotes Rousseau's famous challenge,"Live, and be great and unhappy"!
Modern man has come to believe in a series of ideas as the way to live a happy life: a good education, obtaining wealth and possessions, and living in a political system which provides complete freedom. But it's obvious that we have not been successful; the pursuit of happiness as we have defined it isn't working. We've been ignoring some realities. Perhaps we can as individuals teach ourselves a focus which will bring the answer,"yes" to this question, "Is life worth living?".
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