The current events taking place throughout the world — most prominently the social and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic; and the social unrest sparked from a deep sense of systemic racism, being expressed through mass protests and riots — … Continue reading The Crucible of Universal Affliction
In the field of emergency medicine, there is an idea called “door-to-balloon” or “time-to-cath”, which is the amount of time that has elapsed from the moment a patient who is having a specific kind of heart attack walks into the … Continue reading Is Primary Care Actually Effective?
The Problem . ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY is a term used to describe the condition in which masses of people are deprived of their bare necessities, while wealth, resources, and infrastructure exist in sufficient proportion to provide for all. The amount of … Continue reading Artificial Scarcity & The Baha’i Faith
For thousands of years, beginning with the birth of the family – the smallest unit in the scale of human organization – humanity’s evolution has been characterized by a process of integration, which although far less spectacular than the parallel … Continue reading The Power of Truth
A ‘prescription’ is that which is laid down as a rule, an order, a precept. A ‘description’, on the other hand, is a statement that indicates and notes observations. Common to both words is ‘script’, which denotes a law or … Continue reading A De-scription Pad
The Baha’i world has been learning how to use an education program to raise capacity in individuals and populations to take charge of their own spiritual, social, and intellectual development and to build communities that understand the dynamic coherence of … Continue reading Pedagogy of the Empowered
“The reality of man is his thought…” The world is in a state of oppression. This is not an unknown fact – any media source will recount the various expressions of social disintegration throughout the world. The riots in Turkey, … Continue reading Which brand are you?
Since the housing market crash of 2008 we have heard it said that the economy is recovering. Who, I wonder are the people who are actually recovering? Let us look into what the facts say. The top 7% of wealthy … Continue reading Money, Lies, and Spiritual Solutions
Corrupt incentives drive people’s contribution to the public discourse. Politicians, businessmen, financiers, are all guilty. The discourse no longer represents an honest viewpoint of reality, the dominant slogans on TV and radio are a designed smoke-screen to hide the real structure, decision-making, and motives at play in the world of economic policy, legislation, and campaigning. The derangement in economics, political deceit, and social manipulation is reaching unrecognizable proportions. Popular culture is responsible for making itself gullible to such influence. Our society nurtures a desire to be entertained from childhood, cultivating generations eager to be led by priests, politicians, advertising, pop idols, and whoever proves … Continue reading New World Order
No one looks for the source of economic problems in spiritual matters. Likewise, no one looks for solutions to economic problems through spiritual means. Unemployment is the self-claimed most important economic problem of the day, and yet, the fact that … Continue reading Unemployment and Religion
Disproportionate access to nutritious diets, quality housing, industry-recognized education, employment opportunities, and healthcare services would not in itself sow the seeds of rebellion were it not for the possessiveness of the privileged over their resources. Selfishness towards privilege is engendered through fear of having to … Continue reading Economic Mirages
Our theory of economics is predicated on the assumption that people and wants grossly outnumber opportunities and resources in our society. This is why competition is the basis for our economic system. Biology is as much a testimony to this … Continue reading Economics and Human Nature
Paragraph#: 1. Abdu’l-Baha’s Temple-ground piercing Centenary. Diverse participants then and now. 2. Divine civilization beyond mere adjustments to present order. 3. Erroneous assumptions of human nature, justified by failings, disallow spiritual potential. 4. Imprisonment enables sympathetic hearts. 5-Year Plan (5YP) … Continue reading Summary: Ridvan 2012 Message
Human nature has been misinterpreted. We are not selfish and competitive by nature, but rather, altruistic and cooperative. Human societies to some extent actually represent an anomaly in the competitive theory of the jungle. Humans demonstrate a detailed division of … Continue reading Economic Theory: Competition, the Key to Prosperity?
Discourse on the following topics has brought these themes to the point of being reconceptualized. Certain foundational principles have emerged and crystallized from ongoing discourse. Principles we now believe in in a new way are: 1) Unity of all Humankind 2) … Continue reading Discourse and Politics: Blood in the Arteries of Governance
As we can clearly see around us, governance stands in need of reconceptualization. At this moment in history, when humankind is in a transition phase, and when changes are occurring at accelerated rates, the development of just and effective forms … Continue reading Assumptions Underlying Governance
How does the conception of power from the last few posts shape thoughts regarding governance? Currently, because our society’s structures and relationships are dominated by self-interested expressions of power, governance is viewed as a set of regulations and rules of … Continue reading Governance and Discipline
With the understanding that the human being is a potential instrument for the expression of spiritual powers and capacities within social realty, just as a lump of iron has the potential for the expression of magnetic forces within the physical … Continue reading Structures of Contest
The processes of development have adopted values driven by economic growth, values that often view all things as means to a narrow-minded end, values that reduce an individual’s identity to a producer, consumer, and coveter of goods, values that reduce … Continue reading Exploitation and Oppression
Today’s vision of betterment is dogmatically materialistic. The interpretation of reality that progress equals economic development, and that people’s happiness would only be the result of better health, food, education, living conditions, etc., has consolidated itself to become the deciding … Continue reading Materialism
Let us take advertising as an example of social forces that cause oppression through distortion of self-knowledge. Advertising, a euphemism for propaganda, mutilates our conceptions of reality. Images presented to youth, at a time of rising self-awareness, present unattainable goals … Continue reading Advertising
Current society, quite understandably so, has a fear of imposed conformity in the name of unity. History has repeatedly given examples of oppressive systems under the disguise of unity – feudalism, castes, communism, fascism, theocracy, nationalism, and authoritarianism. This legitimate … Continue reading Fear of Uniformity
Dr. Michael Karlberg is a professor of Communications at Western Washington University whose work centers around the advancement of collaboration and mutualism in human relations. In his TEDx Talk, Dr. Karlberg challenges the assumption that human nature is inherently competitive … Continue reading Beyond the Culture of Contest
The socio-spiritual phenomenon beginning circa 33 AD inaugurated an era of ever-deepening emphasis on the social reality of the individual, in terms of her or his status and rights, merits and responsibilities, and origins and opportunities. The various religions of … Continue reading The Rise of Christianity and Individualism
In addition to individualism and individuality, here are two more examples of fragmented social theories on the conception of the individual: anarchism and socialism. Anarchism’s view places the individual as the source of inspiration, and values freedom for the people … Continue reading Ideological Either-Or
Individuality consists in the inner feelings and essential subjectivity of the human condition. Individualism on the other hand is a politico-economic doctrine instating rights and privileges of persons. The former is empirical fact; the latter, a cornerstone of anglo-american political theory and … Continue reading Individualism and the West
There are multiple models of human nature that have been claimed on various levels throughout the ages, and regardless of whether they are religiously or philosophically associated claims, social models employed by policy makers, rhetorical assertions used to group rationalize … Continue reading Caricatures of Human Nature
Today’s consumer culture, a byproduct of the cult of the individual’s materialistic religion, is unapologetic as it reinterprets every aspect of human history and behavior within its single-minded view, as it imposes its ideology through a cultural hegemony, as it … Continue reading Consumer Culture
achieving coherence 