The Heart of Darkness

Dennis Praeger states that lying is the source of great evil. I know that Eric H. and others lament that committing a crime is one thing, but far more vitiating is the attempt to cover it up. The cover up is a pattern of lies that makes evil done become systemic. The rot spreads wide and deep.

Only as an awake individual does one exist in the truth, breathe the truth, feel the truth and cogitate along the lines of veracity. Where that acute individual loves and enjoys a close relationship with the Higher Power, the interlocking connections to truthful being is powerfully reinforced. 

Group living, with all its demands for conformity of thought and behavior, is living the lie. Therein, reside dark powers. There resides the heart of darkness.

Looking Beyond Pessimism

11/17/2010

                                                      

To be thirty years old or older: one had gained weight and gone soft. One’s hair is thinning and premature gray hair is showing. Youthful idealism has long deserted one. One’s career and relationships have not panned out as one once planned.  One feels that time has passed one by. One no longer feels relevant. One’s life feels like a wasteland. One’s hope is shattered. The future looks like an infinite horizon, where each day is just a bleak copy of the boring, dreary, and previous day. 

For too many people, this is how they perceive their spot in the world. There is always hope. No matter how true the pessimistic viewpoint represented above was yesterday, tomorrow is a new day, a fine opportunity to make things better.

I am an optimist and an idealist.  No matter where one is at, from that jumping off point, one can work tirelessly and shrewdly to better one’s lot and improve the world. We must envision that it can happen, before we will act and work to make it happen. Things will improve. Our life, even our suffering, will not be without purpose. We can make a difference. Things soon will be looking up.

The Double-Edge Sword Called Power

J. R. R.  Tolkien was prophetic in doubting that we can wholly trust anyone, especially ourselves. Even when we strive mightily to be strong and honest, we are weak. Often we fail and backslide. Worse yet, we often and willingly embrace temptation.

All humans are very corruptible. The more centralized and the more formally wielded and officially assigned are personal allotments of that available political, economic and institutional power, the more risky and corrupting it is for each person to wield that power.

Due to the predictable danger inherent in such power-wielding, is the answer to wield no power? No, the individuator and each undeveloped person must wield at minimum bestowed personal power. Too often the unprepared person even botches this responsibility.

The trick to moral, successful wielding of power is to decentralize its distribution into the hands of individuators surrounded by millions of other, free, democratized and willful power-wielders. So distributed, much lessened are the dangers of wielding such power. At the very least, they will not lust so much for the power of powerlessness. On this negative side of the equation, the competition among millions of wielders will lead to their canceling out pernicious side effects. The influence of power-wielding on society is kept harmless. On the plus side, the beneficial result of power-wielding is to make society grow and progress. 

To get to this point, humans must pledge to take five steps and then do it. Here are the steps:

First, the life of individuating must have gained wide adherence among citizens.

Second, all must admit that they are sinners whose lives will be wrecked and whose souls will be fallen, should they choose to accumulate power to themselves.

Third, by accepting that people are basically evil, they will fear the handling of power in a destructive, centralized fashion.

Fourth, by admitting that none is exempt from the innate, human proclivity to be corrupted by amassing power to oneself at any time, each likely has the awareness and will to repel the compelling urge to amass power.

Fifth, each pledges and acts in such a way as to work ceaselessly to keep power decentralized.

Decentralizing big biz and big government

 This is no prelude to Libertarian political philosophy. I am not that deeply versed in it. From the little that I do know about it, I approve of many of their concepts. A political philosopher likely would admire their consistency, their clear statements of principles and their black and white description of how things work. Are they logically coherent in their reasoning, and factually accurate in their assertions? I don’t know but I dislike their over-consistency and fanatical beliefs. They are mostly right like Ayn Rand is, but, like her, their wrong-thinking, if it becomes popular finally, could be very dangerous.

Let me try be more specific. Libertarians believe that big government deprives the individual of life, liberty and the pursuit of property and happiness. So good so far. They advocate downsizing big government, back to the state level and even farther, to the local level. They are still correct.

They desire to see big government deinstitutionalized, but cartels, monopolies and wealth accumulation by the super-rich does not faze them. Their reluctance here is immoderate and shortsighted.

My political and social vision is one embracing the deinstitutionalizing of big business as well as big government (and all other huge, centralized institutions). This is the moderate, humane approach against all institutions.

Groupism is a biological drive supported by, furthered by and linked to institutionalized society. Individualism is made possible and is linked to a small, decentralized set of social institutions. 

All Skin and No Kernel

Let me quote Hoffer from The Passionate State of Mind: “Man’s being is neither profound nor sublime. To search for something deep underneath the surface in order to explain human phenomena is to discard the nutritious outer layer for a nonexistent core.  Like a bulb man is all skin and no kernel.”
    Hoffer regards the a posteriori surface of life as the most fruitful, the subtler area to research for solutions. Study effects more causes and you will gain insight into causes too.
    He will not countenance Freud, philosophers or professional intellectuals the right to study and derive answers from the causal, the a priori, and the root origins of things. That is misguided, a waste of time.
    The moderate in me agrees with Hoffer for the most part. Still, turn loose even researchers with a Freudian outlook. Any research will bear some fruit.

A Society of Individuators

A society of individuators would be a society of upper middle class people. Some ascetics would renounce wealth, but that would be a personal decision, not a recommended, societal standard.

             

All would work and be expected to earn a living and volunteer. All would acquire nice things, but not be ruled by them. All would display the common touch among other prosperous peers, without the need to put on exclusive or haughty airs.