Tag: economics

Categories
- Education Human Nature Justice Oneness

The Midnight Sighing…

A continuation of a conversation on Facebook, prompted by the quotation below, in which thoughts about these two links were asked…

www.usdebtclock.org – US National Debt Clock
xkcd.com/980/huge/ – xkcd: Money Chart

 

“Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor…”

One thing to remember is that money is simply a social construct that represents good and services, and the social value placed on these goods and services. In fact, economics as a whole is the systemization of values.

What the US National Debt Clock indicates to me is that there is a grossly unjust correspondence between useful and beneficial input of goods and services into society and output. For instance, the third largest budget item is on “defense/war” – this economic investment does not increase prosperity; in fact, building B2 bombers (represented in the xkcd chart in the bottom-right hand corner of the millions box) is not a constructive and beneficial use of funds. The cheaper alternative is to not war. Another example, which costs a bit more than the “defense/war” budget item is “credit card debt”. Again, this doesn’t input anything useful into society. Charging an individual to borrow money that they do not have does not create systemic prosperity – the more economical alternative is to create a culture of education that facilitates sound long-term economic planning at the level of the individual and community. How can we fund a legitimate need, like health care – an investment that will surely produce fruits (for healthy human beings contribute to societal well-being) – when we are, instead, funding fruitlessness?

The xkcd Money Chart is brilliant. At a certain level, it is a chart of values (the same way that the Manhattan skyscraper profile is a map of the depth and strength of its underlying bedrock). Money is simply the unit used to indicate this value. The wealth of the 1,200 richest people is roughly a bit more than the annual spending of the United States. US spending on nuclear arms during the cold war is roughly more than US spending on health care. The cost of flowers for William and Kate’s wedding is about equal to the annual income of individuals in the wealthiest 1% of the US; while the cost of Kate’s dress is more than what the wealthiest 10% of individuals make annually. It’s interesting to look around and make comparisons about how money is being spent.

Clearly, there is tremendous inequality and injustice. The solution is not found in fine-tuning manipulation of the same system that created the problem – not through “political passion, conflicting expressions of class interest, or technical recipes”. Rather, what is called for is “a spiritual revival, as a prerequisite to the successful application of political, economic and technological instruments”. As consciousness of the inherent oneness of humanity is raised and as understanding of the spiritual nature of a human being, a creation that mirrors forth divine attributes (like generosity), is fostered will the peoples of the world be empowered to creatively and together address the challenge of injustice. Understanding the nature of the individual as spiritual and the nature of humanity as one entity can be achieved through a process of spiritual education – through “meetings that strengthen the devotional character of the community; classes that nurture the tender hearts and minds of children; groups that channel the surging energies of junior youth; circles of study, open to all, that enable people of varied backgrounds to advance on equal footing and explore the application of the teachings to their individual and collective lives”. So we see the spiritual solution to economic injustice.

 

“Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor…To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.”

 

 

The Bahá’í perspective on the spiritual solution to economic inequality:

“…not through sedition and appeal to physical force—not through warfare, but welfare. Hearts must be so cemented together, love must become so dominant that the rich shall most willingly extend assistance to the poor and take steps to establish these economic adjustments permanently….For example, it will be as if the rich inhabitants of a city should say, “It is neither just nor lawful that we should possess great wealth while there is abject poverty in this community,” and then willingly give their wealth to the poor, retaining only as much as will enable them to live comfortably.”

“Fighting, and the employment of force, even for the right cause, will not bring about good results. The oppressed who have right on their side, must not take that right by force; the evil would continue. Hearts must be changed. The rich must wish to give! …The spiritually awakened are like to bright torches in the sight of God, they give light and comfort to their fellows.”

 

 

How can we create an economic system that empowers the wealthy to adorn themselves with the attribute of generosity, instead of oppressing them with the burden of greed?

 

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Categories
- Governance - Oppression Justice

Tax Code 101

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The top 10 US tax deductions, credits and exclusions ensure that over $12 trillion in tax revenues will be granted to multinational corporations over the next decade. The tax loopholes have been written into the tax code by a bought-and-paid-for Congress that receives its marching orders from the multinational corporations that dominate campaign-finance. The study below shows that the top 20% of American income earners will receive more than half of the $900 billion in benefits from these tax breaks in 2013 alone. Exactly 70% of the total benefits will  go to the top 1% of income earners – families that earn a combined $450,000 or more.

US fiscal policy could achieve a significant amount of deficit reduction by limiting tax loop-holes to the highest income earners.

Three of the top five biggest tax breaks, a $2 trillion dollar exclusion of net pension contributions and earnings over 10 years, the $1 trillion deduction for mortgage interest, and the $1.1 trillion deduction for state and local taxes also disproportionately benefit the top 20% of income earners.

These tax breaks that disproportionately benefit only the very wealthiest Americans are not only blowing up our deficit, but are providing unnecessary tax relief to those that need it the least, and do no work for the economy.

revolution

Categories
- Empowerment - Governance - Human Body - Religion Justice

Abdu’l-Baha on Economic Policy

According to Abdu’l-Baha, wealth inequality, can be attributed to the “extreme greed and rapacity of the manufacturers and industrialists.” He furthermore  identifies  the root cause of income disparity as the defunct operations of the legislative branch of government:

“The principal cause of these difficulties lies in the laws of the present civilization; for they lead to a small number of individuals accumulating incomparable fortunes, beyond their needs, while the greater number remain destitute, stripped and in the greatest misery.”

Abdu’l-Baha introduces concepts into His discourse that rarely find equivalent parallels in the modern discourse on economic policy. Instead of dominant values such as “economic growth”, He emphasizes “justice”; instead of  “profits” He emphasizes “humanity” and “equity”. His appeal to new concepts is grounded in a metaphysics that transcends the modern foundations of economics, which are outdated. The remedy to economic injustice He specifies lies in legislation designed to ensure that private profits go to meet the needs of the impoverished masses:

“…Rules and laws should be established to regulate the excessive fortunes of certain private individuals and meet the needs of millions of the poor masses; thus a certain moderation would be obtained…”

The exact proportion of workers wages as a function of CEO or owner income that is most conducive to justice, Abdu’l-Baha specifies as 20-25%. Therefore the average laborer should earn 20-25% of the total income earned by an owner or CEO. The majority shareholder of a corporation for example could expect to see approximately 4-5 times as much share in the profits as the average worker would. No more.

“Laws and regulations should be established which would permit the workmen to receive from the factory owner their wages and a share in the fourth or the fifth part of the profits…The body of workmen and the manufacturers should share equitably the profits and advantages…”

Today the average CEO “earns” 360 times as much as his average employee.  According to Abdu’l-Baha’s vision, the ratio of reward for investment vs reward for labor is not as distorted in favor of investment as is today’s market. The power balance between the labor and capital markets today is not tenable in the context of justice. Furthermore, honest labor should come with the guarantee of social security and retirement packages for aging populations. According to Abdu’l-Baha,

“The capital and management come from the owner of the factory, and the work and labor, from the body of the workmen… Either the workmen should receive wages which assure them an adequate support and, when they cease work, becoming feeble or helpless, they should have sufficient benefits from the income of the industry; or the wages should be high enough to satisfy the workmen with the amount they receive so that they may themselves be able to put a little aside for days of want and helplessness.”

The accumulation of excessive wealth is itself a burden and carries with it natural and moral dangers for individuals. Extremes of wealth and poverty engender social unrest between classes. Violence and crime become means of survival for the poor as well as weapons of retribution for their suffering against the rich. Wealth in itself is a transient entity that will not endure beyond its utility in this world. Large sums of wealth carry with them the burden of responsibility and administration for its owner. In the words of Abdu’l-Baha:

“If the fortune is disproportionate, the capitalist succumbs under a formidable burden and gets into the greatest difficulties and troubles…[for] the administration of an excessive fortune is very difficult and exhausts man’s natural strength”

Abdu’l-Baha advises people who control vast means of production that they exercise moderation in the acquisition of profits, instead diverting the majority of their funds to the infrastructure of their company, the needs of employees, or the welfare of society:

“It lies in the capitalists’ being moderate in the acquisition of their profits, and in their having a consideration for the welfare of the poor and needy”

For Abdu’l-Baha, the profits of a corporation do not belong to whoever arbitrarily purchased more of their stock. On the contrary, there is a moral right intrinsic to the workers who created the products to ownership of a fixed and definite proportion of the profits:

“Workmen and artisans receive a fixed and established daily wage—and have a share in the general profits of the factory…” “And it is from the income of the factory itself, to which they have a right, that they will derive a share…”

Moderation in the profits of the owner are linked to the retirement security of the laborers as well as the cost of caring for and rearing the worker’s offspring. The social security net of work covers not only the individuals who work but their family and children until they become old enough to be independently financially responsible:

“It would be well, with regard to the common rights of manufacturers, workmen and artisans, that laws be established, giving moderate profits to manufacturers, and to workmen the necessary means of existence and security for the future. Thus when they become feeble and cease working, get old and helpless, or leave behind children under age, they and their children will not be annihilated by excess of poverty.”

Abdu’l-baha advises congress to legislate on matters of workers rights and the share of profits to be apportioned to owners vs laborers in a just and impartial manner. By this statement He rules out the legitimacy of lobbyists or special interests swaying the partiality of the law-makers. It would be important for them to remain “impartial” in this regard and to legislate laws of profit distribution in accordance with principles of justice.

“But the mutual and reasonable rights of both associated parties will be legally fixed and established according to custom by just and impartial laws.”

If owners oppress laborers by refusing to pay them their share of the profits or treating them poorly or providing abusive working conditions, the judicial branch is responsible for passing a ruling in defense of the laborers, and the president and department of justice would be responsible for penalizing the corporation, procuring the profits due to the unpaid workers and establishing measures for the continuation of a just relationship:

“In case one of the two parties should transgress, the court of justice should condemn the transgressor, and the executive branch should enforce the verdict; thus order will be reestablished…”

Abdu’l-Baha clearly situates the relationship between employers and employees within the public sector, endorsing the validity and importance of state-run workers rights regulations:

“The interference of courts of justice and of the government in difficulties pending between manufacturers and workmen is legal, for the reason that current affairs between workmen and manufacturers cannot be compared with ordinary affairs between private persons, which do not concern the public, and with which the government should not occupy itself.

A coherent conception of society underlies Abdu’l-Baha’s vision of the relationship between the private and state sectors and the role of governance and law in ordering and regulating capital and labor markets:

“If one of these suffers an abuse, the detriment affects the mass. Thus the difficulties between workmen and manufacturers become a cause of general detriment.”

The Baha’i principle of unity is the nexus through which all things are connected. Pain of the part necessitates pain of the whole. Prosperity for the whole implies prosperity for each part. Can any body part maintain the position that only some distant body part is in pain, but that it itself is immune to the feeling? Surely not. The body experiences pain and pleasure as one. Likewise, the body politic experiences prosperity or privation as one. Abdu’l-Baha explains:

“In reality…these difficulties between the two parties produce a detriment to the public; for commerce, industry, agriculture and the general affairs of the country are all intimately linked together.”

pies

Categories
- Education - Prevailing Conceptions - Science Discourse Human Nature

Economics and Human Nature

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 fact, in the Darwinian interpretation, as the social reality is which denies people jobs and education on the basis of competitor’s performance.

The competitive theory of economics is based upon the ratio of goods to wants. The competitive theory of evolution is based upon our observation of the disproportionate reproductive resources claimed by the fittest members of a species. One of these theories has scientific evidence in support of it. How can we demonstrate the falsity of the competitive theory of economics without overcoming the facts on the ground that wants exceed goods? We must arrange for a new situation in which the wants do not exceed the goods. This set of facts will be more consistent with a new theory of economics and will not require competition. This organization will allow for the deconstruction of the competitive theory of human nature. Without a change in the structure of the market and the social order, how can the same facts (wants>goods) give rise to a new set of interpretations about social and economic reality (that human nature is actually cooperative)?

It is naive to think that we can think up an alternative theory of human and economic nature without a subject matter to work with, an empirical reality to examine, and a group of people who enact and experiment by which we learn. Initial conjectures, even of an enlightened and inspired nature, can only carry us so far. New food is needed for thought. New experience is needed for reflection. A constant stream of empirical data informs, refines, and alters working theories. Understanding the application of theory, both in terms of individual growth and social progress, increases manifold when study and service are intermingled concurrently. There, in the field of service, knowledge is tested, questions arise out of practice, and new levels of understanding are achieved.

What structures can you think of which demonstrate a distribution of resources and needs that allows the corroboration of the cooperative theory of human nature?

Categories
- Consultation - Education - Governance - Language Human Nature

Shadows of the Mind: Disorganized Activism, Conducive to Change?

Decades have come and gone and our busy lives, cluttered with diverse daily drives and enjoyments, have advanced in age, irreparable choices have been made, courses set, and moral decisions cast in the stone of opportunity cost. Billions have come before us and billions beyond, all have passed into the annals of history, and been forgotten by the onward march of time.

The abyss of oblivion now beckons to our scrumptious generation, morsels for its dinner. Not many with good intentions have been seen on the world stage; albeit works of charity and small acts of kindness are as prevalent as the annual holiday season – but  structurally, not much has changed. A collective will that is able to revolutionize the structure of society and apply new values to its educational, operational, military, economic, and cultural aspirations has not emerged.

The failure belongs to us all, as much as it does to any individual, institution, or activist community. Faith in a number of established principles has waned from public consciousness. With lack of faith in these values, and the will to apply them, it is not easy to conceive a remedy for society’s spiral.

Many people speak of their ideals of improving society, but without the will to plan for the future how will this good intention produce any result? Without organization for the widespread application of intelligence, foresight, evidence-based strategy, and the will endure what is necessary to arrive at the desired result, of what use are all “good intentions”? The touchstone of intention, is the ability to learn from mistakes, not just to reapply the same failed systems and ideas to current problems.

Society has inculcated a system that places economic activity at the center of social existence, that deifies the market, that worships monetary wealth, that promotes cutthroat and deceitful business practices, that is protected by a system of legality that is equally divorced from morality as it is profitable to ruthless corporate-legal machines.

We have abandoned our children and the future generation to teachers less qualified, less compensated, and less equipped to discharge their duties than the sacred task of education requires them to be. The educational system is outdated, ineffective  and trains people to be a receptacle of knowledge, not active participants in their own learning process. This reflects our collective disregard for the importance of education. Lip service is no substitute. Where society places its wallet, is where you find what it believes in, what it values.

We have relegated intelligent problems that is the substance of climate change and discourses of global importance to the realm of political talking points, and corporate manipulation. When justice is dethroned, and intelligence is mocked as a partisan ploy, there you see the dangers of corruption in politics. Individuals cannot combat institutional corruption – institutional capacity is needed to deal with the evils of partisanship and to cleanse the current system.

We have abandoned justice for the guise of non-aggression in society: where human psyches should be nurtured with love and education and opportunity we have implemented a system of mass consumerism and individual disconnectedness.

Loneliness and desperation bursts through publicly in acts of unprovoked personal massacres committed by mentally deranged outcasts on the fringes of the social order. Mentally ill college students, and bullied high schoolers exact their vengeance upon a world that neglected their need to belong. The difference between outcasts and the rest of people living “normal lives” is not clear superficially, because the baseline level of social disconnectedness is so high. Madness, goes undiagnosed and unsuspected for decades. Loneliness is widespread and the human need to belong – much more powerful than the drive to consume commercial products – is not recognized at all in social value, taking hardly a second place to the recognized need for an new iPod.

Pain is the perpetual companion of the disenfranchised members within the system. Those without happiness, home, opportunity, love, or family values are relegated to a world of isolated subsistence, where they are expected to “overcome” through “self-reliance” the disparities that divide them. Instead, most are forced to suffer in solitude the aching question: should I continue being misunderstood by society? or take from society the attention and awe I deserve? Crime is the result.

Disconnectedness and disunity remain the foremost culprits. Though society has adopted a lingo of professed love and unity one to another, disenfranchisement and lack of a community to belong to, remains the de facto reality for most of the world’s inhabitants.

Oblivious to this suffering, post-modern voices from a bygone philosophical age still cry: “NO, to organized initiatives. NO organized system is needed to solve any social dilemma!” Why is this opinion maintained, that organized systems are superfluous to addressing social disparities and values of social cohesion and unity? Do we leave medicine and finance to free-lance garage-practitioners? Do we leave law and order to old-school sheriff’s like the wild wild west? In this day and age, do we leave governance to regional chieftains and warlords? So why would we leave social justice to disorganized activism?

Is the fear of oppression from large organizations rational? Or does it stem from a past where systems had been abused to commit atrocities against and oppress the public? Examples that come to mind are gender inequalities propagated by the Catholic Church, and government embroilment in scandals like the Tuskegee experiments?But should we throw out the baby with bath water, and use the rationale of post-modernism?

Religious structure even still oppress the masses. But is disorganization and the dissolution of organized approaches to reforming society’s values the solution? Do we consider these religious structure valid expressions of religion? Is al-Qaeda a valid expression of religion? Is Christian fundamentalism a valid expression of religion?

But what should be foremost in our concerns, fear of tyranny, or commitment to improving the world? Systems increase the power of response. As such they increase the power of corruption as well.  Corruption should be rooted out, however, and we ought to struggle to eliminate. Let this be the end to which a painful past can motivate us to act. Let our will be stronger than our fear. Let us embrace an overarching process within evolutionary and global history. Let us acknowledge a fruit and destination to which the revolutions ages is inexorably drawing the human race. Let the telos of the universe again be recognized.

The new demand and discourse on valid religious organizations begins here: http://agencyandchange.com/2012/10/19/discourse-on-religion/

Mankind’s united destiny beckons. The merger of nation states into global federalism, the elimination of distinctions of all kinds, the economic, cultural, linguistic, and ultimately the political and biological unity of the human race is inevitable.

Inevitably, globalization will merge our economies, internet and cell phone communication will combine our languages, intermarriage and the force of biology will intermingle our genomes, the collective travails and natural disasters that persistently plague our world will require us to unite economically and politically to resist them, and the global trends in trade will mandate us to adopt a single international currency.

Competition, we have institutionalized in economic doctrine and business practice. Selfishness, we have inculcated as the driver of innovation and change. Concern with one’s personal family, we have touted as moral responsibility, while the heavens have said from the beginning of time “prefer others before oneself”.

Military might we appraise as a means of keeping peace and an expression of our patriotic commitment. But when has a display of might been conducive to de-escalating the portents and probability of war? When has war run from selfish armamentarians? and when has hot war not been preceded by cold-war?

When research and investments in technologies and green-energy for the future, upon which the prosperity of the whole race depends, are relegated to a second priority, and fossil fuels burnt at a ever-accelerating rate, it raises concerns about the intelligence of out political and discursive climate. If this trend continues, the demise of the values of the mind of man will be evident, and the rise of values pertinent to his body will be consummate in lust for power, war, and dominion. The drive for economic and military domination is an expedient, and not a path to enduring change and prosperity. domination is nullified when it faces the same thing across the sea. Historically, it has been particularistic pursuits of power that produce destruction, and it has always been submission of the ego in deference to the collective will that produces progress and prosperity.

Drives for particularistic interest, personal control, with power and war as a means to it, inevitably end by destroying and disenfranchising all, irrespective of the identity of the parties. Selfishness itself is the essence of destruction. Its origin is the war within the self, and its end is annihilation.

“…ye walk on My earth complacent and self-satisfied, heedless that My earth is weary of you…”

Categories
- Education - Governance Human Nature Justice

Spring Showers onto Hard Earth: Prevailing Theories of Human Nature, Alterable?

How great is our capacity for change? The endpoint of our progress is as difficult to imagine as space travel is to cavemen. Social reform will outpace our technological ingenuity. Freedom fighting at present is dwarfed by the liberties of the future. Cause-drops merge into revolution-streams; but the goal remains oceans away. Over fair seas, where life is fair, sail with me.

Activists confront wide-scale cynicism. Their hopes dashed by erroneous assumptions of human nature. Does the past have to be our future? Competitive economics prescribed because of the struggle for survival in World War II? Cutthroat education climates because individuals procreate their genes?  Contentious politics because checking leads to balance?

Selfishness theory is self-fulfilling. Its prescription causes the disease; the disease is mistaken for our nature; that nature is re-prescribed. If disease is described as health, symptoms become prescribed as cure.

Although, failure is common, is it also our nature? War and injustice reinforce this  illusion. The state of the world, however, reflects a distortion of the human spirit, not its essential nature. Anachronisms disallow drawing on the extraordinary reservoir of spiritual potential available to us.

Drawing on this power, activists develop spiritual capacities to contribute to social reform. Like hard earth, prevailing theories, seem impervious to alteration, before the spiritual springtime brings rain. Like flowers, accurate theories of human nature, are due to spring up fresh and fair.

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Categories
- Consultation - Education - Empowerment - Governance - Language - Oppression - Prevailing Conceptions - Religion - Three Protagonists Development Discourse Human Nature Justice Knowledge Oneness

Summary: Ridvan 2012 Message

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) features grasped. Intensify application.

5. Signs: individual transformation, divine communities, administration promotes human welfare. Protagonist’s mutual support.

6. Citizens, body politic, societal institutions struggle for power. Cooperative Baha’i alternative emerging: responsible individual, nurturing institutions, eager community.

7. Revelation recasts societal relationships. Economic injustice tolerated; disproportionate gain emblem of success. Eschew dishonesty, exploitation.

8. National Mashriqu’l-Adhkars to be raised in Democratic Republic of Congo and Papua New Guinea. Remarkable response to Plans.

9. Mashriqu’l-Adhkar weds worship and service, reflected in devotionals and educational process, correlates with size and SA. JYSEP fuels SC’s and CC’s. Learning site fortifies E&C. Erection of Local Houses of Worship: Battambang, Cambodia; Bihar Sharif, India; Matunda Soy, Kenya; Norte del Cauca, Colombia; and Tanna, Vanuatu clusters.

10. Temples Fund established. Sacrificial contributions invited.

11. Seven countries breaking Temple-ground. Every city prelude. From these Dawning-Points peal out anthems of His praise.

The Universal House of Justice

 

“…extraordinary reservoir of spiritual potential available to any illumined soul…”

 

Abbreviations:
5YP – Five Year Plan
SA – Social Action
JYSEP – Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program
SC – Study Circle
CC – Children’s Class
E&C – Expansion and Consolidation

 

 

Categories
- Governance Discourse Human Nature Justice Knowledge Power

Progressive Revelation: Historiography and Civilization Dynamics

The endowment which distinguishes the human race from all other life forms is summed up in the reality known as the human spirit, or the rational soul. Of this soul, the diverse faculties of the mind constitute its most brilliant feature. The reality of man is his thought. Through the agency of this power humankind has been enabled to invent technologies, and rear social structures with intricate governance relations and sophisticated administrative capacities. Social order allowed economic prosperity and fulfillment for the human body. Accomplishments of this plane alone, however, must always fail to satisfy the human spirit, the mysterious nature of which draws imperceptibly and irresistibly towards the attainment of transcendence. As if by a magnet we are drawn heart-first toward a realm above or within – a realm that is harder, firmer, and more ultimate than anything that we have experienced. This transcendent, eternally-attractive, essentially unknowable Entity, we know by the ever-inadequate term: God.

Religion, as a phenomenon, is a set of ethico-social rejuvenations initiated cyclically in the life of mankind  by a series of great spiritual Teachers, who historically have served as the sole-successful self-claiming manifestation of the Word and Will of the Divine. Each in His own way, culture, and time has revolutionized and elevated humankind’s powers for attaining new moral and material heights of achievement.

Religion remains the only force capable of uniting mankind into a peaceful global society. World peace, for example, will require a reinterpretation of human nature in light of mankind’s progressive religious history before it can hope to achieve global acceptance. It is the position of this forum, that the interaction of the human conscience with religion has largely constituted the substance of history.

Before man knew fire, he buried his dead. To bury a corpse is to assume that life continues beyond the mortal frame. Ritualistic bones found in ancient graves of deceased ancestral humans predate the existence of society. Ritual itself stands for belief in meaning and significance that transcends the material symbols used to convey them. Religion therefore is a faculty within human nature, as deep and immutable as the homo sapien form itself. Homo sapien can alternatively be described as “Homo relgiosus” as the unique trademark our species.

Religion does not enjoy such a noble reputation in public perception currently, in large part because of the confusion in society due to the violent and inhumane conflicts fought in the name of religion in the 20th century. But the problem began long before that. Religion was losing its relevance to the struggles and questions of the human condition early in the 19th century. People may have been willing to tolerate the rare and radical extremists harming society in recent decades had religion maintained some of its positive contributions to human life, answering life’s challenging questions. Ethical dilemmas discussed in ancient scripture, however, are so alien to modern predicaments that it is difficult to see how one could derive inspiration or solutions from these Writings in a sincere way. Ultimately, however, it would also be incorrect for a fair-minded observer to discount the expansive influence organized religion has exerted on energizing, legislating, moralizing, and engendering the vital expressions of civilization.

Religion’s indispensability to social order has been grudgingly recognized in recent decades due to its irreproducible effect on human morality and law. Intrinsic to its force, religion remains the greatest means for the establishment of order in the world and for the attainment of inner peace. Without an inner restraint on the conscience of a human, what is to prevent him from causing harm through tendencies towards selfishness? According to modern economic dogma, we are rationally self-interested actors on a free market stage calculating cost-benefit analyses for each decision. A society formed by social contract for the betterment of all requires a police force to maintain internal order. But who will police the police? Order cannot be maintained purely by external coercion. Moral obedience to the conscience of faith has always been and will always remain necessary. Civilization and religion have always depended upon each other.

Eclipsing the light of religion, corrupting its tenets, structures, and intentions, evidence shows, leads to a persistent, progressive degeneration of spiritual faculties and qualities. As the lamp of religion has been obscured, under duress from its own incompetence or misuse, increasing normalization has been seen with regard to levels of chaos and confusion. Actions motivated by a personal sense of fairness, justice, tranquillity and peace have ceased to be common modus operandi. Taking account of the effects, we see the perversion of the human drive towards transcendence misused and misguided in the corruption and dissolution and loss of respect for human institutions. Character has become a thing of the nostalgic past, though unbeknownst to most, no reversion to the past will succeed in reversing these unwanted effects, nor is such a reversion possible. Moral conservatism is as untenable as a world conceived without change. The question is not recreation of nostalgic bygone virtues, but rather the creation de novo of a new prosperous order, suited to the needs and unique opportunities of the age we enter.

Survey of social landscape: human character is normalized as debased in comparison with the noble virtues of which humanity is capable; confidence is shaken individually and universally; the nerves of discipline are relaxed and unprepared for sacrifice; the voice of human conscience is dulled by the intoxicants of social narcotics and preoccupation with entertainment; the sense of decency and shame is obscured behind a veil of anomie; conceptions of duty, solidarity, reciprocity and loyalty are twisted to suit exploitative and self-centered interests; overtime, though material comforts have accrued, the increasing agitation in people’s minds tells us: the important feeling of peacefulness, of joy and of hope has gradually been extinguished.

Categories
- Language Discourse

Rise of a New Dawn

Red was painted the sky of man’s grey history, blood rained from clouds heavy, pregnant with the neglected structures and individualistic anachronisms that is our society.  Individualistic rhetoric carried over from biological sciences went unquestioned as it is introduced into social conceptions of human nature and figured in shaping institutional structure and political policy.  Neglect for spiritual insight and enlightened conceptions of human collective nature, social structure persisted under outdated and animalistic thought processes until disaster and ruin forced a questioning of the thought process. Pain heightens spiritual perception. Spiritual perception invites conceptual reform. Re-conceptualizing human nature allows structural reform at all levels. New versions of unity follow, Justice, Knowledge as the central process of human society. Finally power is reformed. Within this gamut specific discourses arise for conceptual, structural and practical reform. Discourses of politics, development, the harmony of science and religion, and discourse emerge first. Discourse on economics follows…

Crimson complete, red supervenes over the grey of humankind’s neglect of outdated policies and self-conceptions. The mediocre and lazy stance towards conceptions of human nature and society’s neglect of all-important spiritual discourse allowed neanderthal slogans and fragmentary conceptions to occupy the sacrosanct seat of mankind’s ideology and self-conception. Ancient and simplistic conceptions were derelictly accepted as doctrine. The grey of this neglect formed the backdrop of storm clouds that gathered over mankind’s destiny which as it poured its pregnant product mankind realized rained not rain but crimson blood. Blood of our kind, blood of our brothers, blood of our species, blood of our nieces and babies. Blood rained from the clouds of our neglect, from the clouds of our neglect of ideologies, from our neglectful ideologies. Red blood rained from our structural primitiveness. Spirituality is now forced. Pain breeds spiritual enlightenment. Blood has served it purpose. Grey neglect has bled its purpose. Crimson complete.

 

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Categories
- Language - Science

Claims About Social Reality

The physical and material aspects of our complex reality are not the only ones with objectivity – the human mind is able to make objective statements about all of reality, including social and spiritual reality.  As an example related to social reality, one can claim that “one of the causes of violence in certain countries is pervasive social injustice”.  This statement contains a relationship between two observable phenomena, namely violence – demonstrated by crimes like robbery, murder, assault, and by increased need for police, security, and gated homes – and social injustice – shown by analyzing conditions of certain segments of the population, and interactions of certain groups of people with social institutions.  One can then observe societies to see if there is a positive correlation between the two.  Of course, correlation is not causation, but the statement claims that injustice is “one” of the causes, and therefore has some degree of objectivity to it.

One point to note is that objectivity is not synonymous with truth.  Furthermore, subjective statements can easily be presented as objective.  For instance, consider a hypothetical situation of a doctor who hires poor employees and pays them low wages, who sees poor people as patients and charges them high prices for unnecessary medical testing, and works in a system that blocks their progress.  This person would not make the subjective statement “I like to profit off poor people”.  Instead, this person would make the objective claim “poor people are lazy and uneducated and therefore stay poor”.  Because objectivity can be tested, it should be straightforward.  However, an observer can be biased by his or her own subjective judgements.  For instance, he might see that his family members worked hard and then became wealthy, or that a lazy person lost his job and became poor, or even notice a poor person who was also lazy.  From these limited, yet objective, observations, the observer would accept the claim that the poor are lazy.

However, a more thorough analysis will reveal this statement false.  Hard work is not the only factor in the generation of wealth – it also includes starting capital, access to credit, technical knowledge, fair wages, and a somewhat just social structure.  All of these factors need be to examined and controlled for if one is to scientifically and objectively link work to wealth; and even observations need to be made about the resulting amount of work done when opportunities are given to the poor.  It becomes clear that subjective prejudgements about social reality, often false, can be disguised as objective.

Can you think of other statements that pass as objective, yet in reality are subjective?

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Categories
- Governance - Prevailing Conceptions

Assumptions Underlying 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 of government is imperative.  Democratic government, which has become the predominant form over the last century, has lost its legitimacy as a result of the corruption, hypocrisy, and elitism that has come to characterize its practice, rending it ineffective to address complex social challenges.  One main cause is its cooptation by lobbyists and interest groups – which, nominally may seem democratic, but in reality are just manipulations through selfish expressions of power.  These problems are not just confined to politics.  At the level of the market, corporate governance is viewed with distrust and suspicion – again, through the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize their economics, and through their pursuit of self-serving goals at the expense of broader concerns.  The result in this case has been outrageous ecological damage, a collapsed worldwide economy, and an ever-widening abyss between the rich and the poor.  Even governance of civil society and social organizations have been subject to the same problems of competing selfish factions, corruption, and viewing with otherness – rendering anarchy in the management of a school board or a hospital.  Considering the interdependence that characterizes all levels of governance, the interactions of these three levels leaves dismal expectations in one’s mind.

These are just the symptoms.  Any change must be at the level of principle – deeper still, at the level of assumption.  Some assumptions underlying these problems include:  1) Governance has to be divisive.  2) A single individual with good intentions can go into the system and change it.  3) Government is inherently ineffective, but necessary, so the more privatization, the better.  4) Governance is just an expression of power struggle.  5) There is no role for nurturing human potential.  6) Governance is largely a bureaucratic endeavor, and bureaucracy is cumbersome by nature.  7) To prevail, you have to undermine; to win, another has to lose.  Can you think of others?

The next series of posts will provide some insights into the concept of governance based on the assumptions provided throughout previous posts, rooted in a recognition of the spiritual dimension of human existence as well as drawn from the experience of governance within the Baha’i community.  What will be extremely helpful is your thoughts and contributions on the topic – to generate more and more insights; to understand issues, concerns, and needs; to raise questions for further exploration; and to identify challenges associated with profound changes both at the level of thought and at the level of structure.

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Categories
- Prevailing Conceptions Human Nature Power

Structures of Contest

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 world, then how do we conceive of social structures and their role in fostering human nature?

Our current models of society have normalized a contest of power.  They are based on the assumptions that human beings are only competitive, egoistic, and selfish by nature; thus the role of social institutions are to mitigate and regulate selfishness in an equal playing field in order to maximize utility – much like the role of a referee in a competitive sports game.  We have deluded ourselves into believing that the mythical free market, driven by some “invisible hand”, will bring about well-being; we have fooled ourselves into thinking that a tug-of-war will result in movement.  So it is seen today, not only in sports, but in the economic, political, legal, and educational systems of society the results of acting on these assumptions – the disintegration and breakdown of academia, the collapse of economic vitality, mistrust and apathy towards governance, extreme moral relativism in law, and utter and irreparable ecological disaster.

There are other assumptions about human nature and society, including those being advanced here – that human beings have a spiritual nature, with spiritual capacities and powers; that the nature of human beings is cooperative, reciprocal, and selfless.  The culture of contest that is normalized in prevailing thought is severely constraining the developing of our latent potentialities.  In our age of interdependence and imminent maturity, collective prosperity can only be achieved through creating systems, environments, and communities that cultivate our spiritual sources of power.  It is an evolutionary imperative.  Otherwise, we will continue to have ruinous consequences.

Categories
- Oppression Human Nature Justice

The Stimulus of the New

Medical treatment of drug addicted patients involves assessment of abuse, addiction, and tolerance. Consumerism is an addiction. Commodities, physiques, and sensations are its drug of choice; corporations the drug lord; advertising the dealer. The mystique of the unknown first lures an unsuspecting customer in. The first hit lasts as long as heaven should. Subsequent hits take less of an effect. Higher doses and new brands are necessary to maintain the sensation. Appetites for drugs and commodities alike grow. Finally we find insatiable greed tears a family, a community, a society apart. Often, relationships are characterized by an energetic initiation, a meteoric consumption, and a rapid disintegration.  Conquest, challenge, mystery drive the interaction. The stimulus of consumption gone, so too is the friendship. The market has found its invisible hands into human social relations. Mutually commodified and exploitative relationships are manifestations of consumer values. Is consumer culture to this extreme a re-manifestation of the practice of prostitution?

Categories
Justice Oneness

Cardiovascular Justice – 2

How does the body’s cardiovascular system determine blood flow in a way that transcends the limitations of unfettered individualism, which places value on the organ at the expense of the organism, on the one hand; and suffocating collectivism, which confuses justice with equality and ignores the diversity and hierarchy inherent in natural order, on the other hand? It is by assuming the perspective and vision of the whole body; it is through considering the welfare of the organism in its entirety – this, obviously, being the most effective way to ensure the vitality of each and all of the members and parts; it is through justice.

To examine human cardiovascular physiology is to behold a system of beauty, of harmony, of artistry, developed carefully over countless ages of physical evolution. It is characterized by cooperation, reciprocity, and interconnectedness, and governed by the principles of oneness and justice. It is a system of dynamic balance. Because the organism is in flux, constantly changing, and with myriad functions, powers, and activities, justice demands that blood is distributed with dynamism according to need. Consider two common states of the body – “fight or flight”. These are states of sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system dominance. Depending on the state, the distribution of blood needs to be adjusted. There are also certain organs that require a constant flow of blood regardless of the physiological state of the body. The organism achieves this dynamic equilibrium through numerous factors, both central and local.

Central factors are more obvious. The central nervous system, through the release of vasoactive chemicals as well as through direct neuronal innervation, can actively dilate and constrict certain large blood vessels, shunting blood towards or away from organ systems in anticipation of exercise or digestion, for instance. The local level schemes are more subtle. One method is termed active hyperemia, when blood vessels locally dilate in response to the build-up of metabolic byproducts. Additionally, reactive hyperemia – increased blood flow to places that have experienced an occlusion – demonstrate that some degree of need-based distribution occurs on the local level, and that local factors are given latitude in decision-making in order to be responsive. To establish a constant blood flow is called auto-regulation. At a local level, in some organs such as the kidneys and brain, the cells lining the walls of arteries detect the pressure being exerting, and constrict and dilate accordingly. And at a central level, the heart can alter its volume and pressure to respond to the needs of these organs. Some organs benefit more by local determinants, and some by central. And, likewise, certain states demand the use of certain types of factors over others.

Without going into too much detail, this analogy provides us with a number of understandings. An economic system governed by justice will entail a high degree of complexity and intricacy. It cannot be created through finding some balance between two deleterious extremes, but rather by transcending the dichotomy through adopting new assumptions, new principles, and new approaches. It is a dynamic equilibrium that must always consider the whole of humanity, and understand unity in diversity.

What are other insights gained from this analogy?

Categories
Justice

Cardiovascular Justice – 1

Once again, principles applied in our social reality can be informed by the analogy of the human body.  Justice, on one level, should govern decision-making processes.  One example of collective decisions is the distribution of resources – the economic system.  What is the human body’s macro-economic system?  The distribution of blood, one of the body’s most valuable possessions, is highly complex and awe-inspiring.  One thing that is apparent, when studying cardiovascular physiology, is that this system is governed by justice.

The 20th century was ideologically dominated by two schools of thought at opposite ends of a spectrum; and the economic systems of the world tended towards one or the other end of the spectrum (with none being purely one or the other).  One is characterized as unfettered individualism, in which people are self-interested actors competing for the accumulation of resources based on their own abilities.  The other is characterized as suffocating collectivism, in which a state machinery distributes resources according to some centrally planned equal proportion.  If we apply either of these models to the human body, we would witness disastrous results.

In a Laissez-faire model, organs compete for blood flow, maximally dilating their arteries in an attempt to secure as much blood possible; to their justification, each rightfully believes that it is an integral part of the whole organism and needs blood to survive, and thus it is in the best interest of the body that it labors to acquire blood.  There are multiple organs that have great capacity for taking cardiac output – the digestive organs and the skeletal muscles, in particular.  Each can take, say, 70% of the heart’s output.  Imagine if every organ competed according to its ability; no other organs would get any blood.  It becomes quickly evident that each organ competing towards its own self-interest would kill the body.

In a communistic model, centrally controlled factors distribute resources according to some type of equal proportion, such as weight, volume, activity, etc.  Again, death would quickly ensue.  If each organ got blood flow equalized for its weight, for instance, then organs such as the muscles and skin, which together take over half the body’s weight, would receive too much blood; while the brain and kidneys, equaling a small percentage of weight, would whither away.

How does the body determine blood flow?

Categories
- Prevailing Conceptions - Three Protagonists

Individualism and the West

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 cultural heritage. The concept of the radical individual is a new historical phenomenon, unique to the modern age. Ties of loyalty and love connect human hearts as always, but beneath it lies awareness that we do so as individuals with the freedom and liberty to decide otherwise. Diverse cultures and divergent stages in history have seen types of humans conscious of themselves only as members of one collective, one party, one corporation, one tribe, one army, one race, one civilization, a single species. Our notion of the individual as an entity separate from the collectivity is the product of an evolutionary process that contributes in part to the roots of  Western civilization. North America and Western Europe have placed an increasingly weighty emphasis on the individual. Human names are not an empirical fact, and yet to disregard a person’s name and instead address her or him according to their function is culturally rude. Perhaps this is universally true. Alternatively, it goes against the individualistic agenda of aggrandizing the importance of the personal identity. A complicated and persistent program with roots traceable to the 12th century can be seen consolidating itself in cultural attitudes towards death, the writing of novels, the painting of portraits, and the crafting of sculptures. Religion follows suit. The development of the confessional in Catholicism and salvation through faith alone in protestant Christianity have brought the hegemony of churches into the consciences of individuals, recasting religiosity in the mold of economically advantageous policies, controlling industrial productivity and entrepreneurial innovation through the soul of the fundamental protagonist.