ROMPEDAS

HISTORY OF HUMAN SOCIETY

rompedas — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:31:02 +0000

It is difficult to draw a fixed line between civilized and uncivilized peoples. There is a broader conception of civilization which recognizes all phases of human achievement, from the making of a stone axe to the construction of the airplane; from the rude hut to the magnificent palace; from crude moral and religious conditions to the more refined conditions of human association.
If we consider that civilization involves the whole process of human achievement, it must admit of a great variety of qualities and degrees of development, hence it appears to be a relative term applied to the variation of human life. Thus, the Japanese are highly civilized along special lines of hand work, hand industry, and hand art, as well as being superior in some phases of family relationships. So we might say of the Chinese, the East Indians, and the American Indians, that they each have well-established customs, habits of thought, and standards of life, differing from other nations, expressing different types of civilization.
As soon as people began to co-operate with one another in obtaining food, building houses, or for protection against wild animals and wild men, that is, when they began to treat each other civilly, they were becoming civilized. We may say then in reality that civilization has been a continuous process from the first beginning of man’s conquest of himself and nature to the modern complexities of social life with its multitude of products of industry and cultural arts.
It is very common for one group or race to assume to be highly civilized and call the others barbarians or savages. Thus the Hebrews assumed superiority when they called other people Gentiles, and the Greeks when they called others barbarians. Indeed, it is only within recent years that we are beginning to recognize that the civilizations of China, Japan, and India have qualities worth studying and that they may have something worthwhile in life that the Western civilization has not.
It is a fatal error for an individual, neighborhood, tribe, or nation to assume superiority to the extent that it fails to recognize good qualities in others. One should not look with disdain upon a tribe of American Indians, calling them uncivilized because their material life is simple. In reality in point of honor, faithfulness, and courage they excel a large proportion of the races assuming a higher civilization.
Observe the happy homes, with all of their sweet and hallowed influences, and the social mingling of the people searching for pleasure or profit in their peaceful, harmonious association. Witness the evidences of accumulated knowledge in newspapers, periodicals, and books, and the culture of painting, poetry, and music. Behold, too, the achievements of the mind in the invention and discovery of the age; steam and electrical appliances that cause the whirl of bright machinery, that turn night into day, and make thought travel swift as the wings of the wind! Consider the influence of chemistry, biology, and medicine on material welfare, and the discoveries of the products of the earth that sub serve man’s purpose! And the central idea of all this is man, who walks upright in the dignity and grace of his own manhood, surrounded by the evidence of his own achievements. His knowledge, his power of thought, his moral character, and his capacity for living a large life, are evidences of the real civilization. For individual culture are, after all, the flower and fruit, the beauty and strength of civilization.
Man became a co-operating creature, working with his fellows in the satisfaction of material wants and in protecting the rights of individuals. Slow and painful was this process of development, but as he worked his capacity enlarged, his power increased, until he mastered the forces of nature and turned them to serve him; he accumulated knowledge and brought forth culture and learning; he marshaled the social forces in orderly process. Each new mastery of nature or self was a power for the future, for civilization is cumulative in its nature; it works in a geometrical progression. An idea once formed, others follow; one invention leads to another, and each material form of progress furnishes a basis for a more rapid progress and for a larger life. The discovery and use of a new food product increased the power of civilization a hundredfold. One step in social order leads to another, and thus is furnished a means of utilizing without waste all of the individual and social forces.
Yet how irregular and faltering are the first steps of human progress. A step forward, followed by a long period of readjustment of the conditions of life; a movement forward here and a retarding force there. Within this irregular movement we discover the true course of human progress. One tribe, on account of peculiar advantages, makes a special discovery, which places it in the ascendancy and gives it power over others.
Different ideals and the adaptation to different environment cause different types of life. The ideals of the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, and the Teuton varied. Still greater is the contrast between these and the Chinese and the Egyptian ideals. China boasts of an ancient civilization that had its origin long before the faint beginnings of Western nations, and the Chinese are firm believers in their own culture and superior advancement. The silent grandeur of the pyramids and temples of the Nile valley bespeak a civilization of great maturity, that did much for the world in general, but little for the Egyptian people. Yet these types of civilization are far different from that of Western nations. Their ideas of culture are in great contrast to others. But even the Western nations are not uniform in ideals of civil life or in their practice of social order. They are not identical in religious life, and their ideals of art and social progress vary.
As we stand and gaze at the movements of the airplane, or contemplate its rapid flight from ocean to ocean and from land to land around the world, we are impressed with this great wonder of the age, the great achievement of the inventive power of man. But what of the gain to humanity? If it is possible to transport the mails from New York to San Francisco in sixteen hours instead of in five days, is there advantage in that except the quickening process of transportation and life? Is it not worthwhile to inquire what the man at the other end of the line is going to do by having his mail four days ahead? He will hurry up somebody else and somebody else will hurry the next one, and we only increase the rapidity of motion. Does it really give us more time for leisure, and if so, are we using that leisure time in the development of our reflective intellectual powers or our spiritual life? It is easier to see improvement in the case of the radio, whereby songs and lectures can be broadcast all over the earth, and the community of life and the community of interest are developed thereby, and, also, the leisure hours are devoted to a contemplation of high ideals, of beautiful music, of noble thoughts. We do recognize a modicum of progress out of the great whirring, rapid changes in transportation and creative industry; but let us not be deceived by substituting change for progress, or making the two identical.
Granted that the life of the human race has originated from a common biological origin and from a common geographical centre, it has taken a very long time for the races to be differentiated into the physical traits they possess to-day, as it has taken a long time for man to spread over the earth. The generalized man wandering along the streams and through the forests in search of food, seeking for shelter under rocks and in caves and trees, was turned aside by the impassable barriers of mountains, or the forbidding glacier, the roaring torrent, or the limits of the ocean itself, and spread over the accessible parts of the earth’s surface until he had covered the selected districts on the main portions of the globe. Then came race specialization, where a group remained a long time in the same environment and inbred in the same stock, developing specialized racial characters. These changes were very slow, and the wide difference to-day between the Asiatic, the African, and the European is indicative of the long period of years which brought them about. Certainly, six thousand years would not suffice to make such changes.
Not only is civilization primarily based upon the physical powers and resources of nature, but the quality of social order is determined thereby. Thus, people following the streams, plains, and forests would develop a different type of social order from those who would settle down to permanent seats of agriculture. The Bedouin Arabs of the desert, although among the oldest of organized groups, have changed very little through the passing centuries, because their mode of life permits only a simple organization. Likewise, it is greatly in contrast with the modern nations, built upon industrial and commercial life, with all of the machinery run by the powers of nature.
Civilization is a continuous movement—hence there is a gradual transition from the Oriental civilization to the Western. The former finally merges into the latter. Although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. Perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. Connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. It has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. It was the early privilege of European life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. Kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the Western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. There came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. It is admitted that the despotic governments of the Old World existed for the few and neglected the many. While despotism was not wanting in European civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. The history of Europe centers on this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action.
Among Oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. True, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. Their eyes were turned toward the past. Their thoughts centered on traditions and things that were fixed. Life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. If at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. On the other hand, in European civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. The early Greeks and Romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. At times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. But through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of Western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress. Future progress will depend upon a clearness of vision, a unity of thought, the standardization of the objectives of social achievement, and, moreover, an elevation of human conduct. Truly, “without vision the people perish.”
(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Human Society, by Frank W. Blackmar)

RULE OF LAW, NOT RULE BY MAJORITY

rompedas — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:17:31 +0000

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength.
The main evil of the present democratic institutions does not arise from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. The excessive liberty which reins in any country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. An individual or a party is wronged, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power; it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.
(Unlimited Power of the Majority in The United States, and its Consequences, Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocquevilleat xroads.virginia.edu)
The phrase “tyranny of the majority” (or “tyranny of the masses”), used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority’s interests so far above a dissenting individual’s interest that the individual would be actively oppressed, just like the oppression by tyrants and despots.
(en.wikipedia.org)
“The tyranny of majorities may be as bad as the tyranny of kings,” Arthur James Balfour, 1848-1930 said. The American founding fathers were incredibly wise. They had experienced firsthand the tyranny of kings and realized that concentrating power in one person was dangerous. They designed the American governmental system such that power would be spread among three equal branches of government. Rejecting the divine right of monarchy, they felt that government was only legitimate when governing by the consent of the governed. The founding fathers also realized that pure democracy was nothing more than a fancy term for mob rule. They knew that the majority was not always right. They gave the americans a country not ruled by the majority, but ruled by law – a nation of laws, not of men. Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address in 1801 said, “Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;…the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression”. The law provides protection when the majority is wrong.
Every civilized society needs laws, needs rules to govern behavior. Without laws, we are subject to the impulses of the majority or to those with the means to enforce their whims. In the late 18th century, the king had the power to enforce his desires, no matter how oppressive. Later in the same century, the French Revolution showed the brutality of mob rule – emotional, irrational democracy in action. The French atrocities may have been democratic, that is, sanctioned by the majority, but they were still atrocities.
Law is objective; justice is blind. The flaws in the system of governance are caused not by the nature of law, but by the emotional application of the law by people. Injection of irrational emotionalism into the law subverts the intent of the law, and opens the door for abuse, oppression and tyranny.
We accept these laws and other rules – what Frederick Hayek calls “rules of just behavior” – because we believe that they are in our best interest. We would not accept a majority ruling that abolished the Bill of Rights, or one that legalized murder because we know that these actions would not support the general welfare of a nation. Instinctively, we know that the majority is not always right.
In political science, democracy is an interesting concept, but in reality it doesn’t work. Democratic theory ignores human emotions and passions. The theory does not account for selfishness, bias, prejudice or ignorance. These real life attitudes make necessary laws and rules to prevent the potential abuses of power caused by unbridled emotion.
(Adapted from The tyranny of the majority By Charles Bloomer, senior writer for Enter Stage Right at enterstageright.com)
There are communities in which the members of the minority can never hope to draw the majority over to their side, because they must then give up the very point that is at issue between them. Thus an aristocracy can never become a majority while it retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot cede its privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.
(Unlimited Power of the Majority in The United States, and its Consequences, Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocquevilleat xroads.virginia.edu)
Democracies were thought vulnerable to two distinct forms of majority tyranny. The first is political or legal tyranny that operates through the formal procedures of majoritarian rule. Where all aspects of government, from public opinion and juries to the legislature, the executive, and even some judges, are a function of the majority, its power is absolute. As Tocqueville put it in the first volume of Democracy in America (1835), “politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything.”
The second type is the moral or social tyranny the majority exercises through custom and the power of public opinion. “As long as the majority is still silent,” Tocqueville observed, “discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent.” More insidious than the overt tyranny long practiced by monarchs and despots, which was physically brutal but powerless to inhibit the exercise of thought, under this new form of “democratic despotism,” as Tocqueville would come to call it, “the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved.”
(Tyranny of the Majority, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences)
Why governments sometimes follow the law and other times choose to evade the law? The traditional answer of jurists has been that laws have an autonomous causal efficacy: law rules when actions follow anterior norms; the relation between laws and actions is one of obedience, obligation, or compliance. The rule of law results from the strategic choices of relevant actors. Rule of law is just one possible outcome in which political actors process their conflicts using whatever resources they can muster: only when these actors seek to resolve their conflicts by recourse to law, does law rule. What distinguishes rule-of-law as an institutional equilibrium from rule-by-law is the distribution of power. The former emerges when no one group is strong enough to dominate the others and when the many use institutions to promote their interest.
(Democracy and the rule of law by Adam Przeworski, José María Maravall)
In any institution in which a majority of citizens or members can pass laws or rules that apply, not just to themselves, but to all members of the group, judgment is required to distinguish potential laws which are reasonable and fair from those which are tyrannical because they are unnecessary, unfair, and justifiably intolerable to the minority that opposed them. And formal mechanisms need to be in place, wherever feasible, to prevent tyrannical laws from being passed by those whose judgment in such matters might fail.
(The Need for Formal and Informal Mechanisms to Prevent “Tyranny of the Majority” in Any Democratic Government by Rick Garlikov)
“Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own…”
(John Stuart Mill to On Liberty, The Library of Liberal Arts edition)
There is a common misconception that in a democracy, 51% of the electorate can override the wishes of the other 49%, even ordering genocide by decree if they wanted to. This is not so; it may be true in the idealized dystopia world of some political scientists, but in reality, no democracy is a democracy for very long if it implements a tyranny of the majority.
There is however a worrying tendency amongst many people to assume that all branches of government must always reflect the views of the majority, no matter what, without regard for the rule of law. In a democracy, the laws created by the institutions are to be enforced and followed, regardless of whether the majority benefits or is harmed by them.
In the West, it is not possible for white policemen to gun down suspicious-looking black men on the excuse that these people are probably criminals, or that this coldblooded murder benefits the majority white population. Similarly, when the courts interpret the law, they are supposed to have only one thing in mind — what the law says. To allow the majority to impose its will on the minority by coercing the courts into following a false interpretation of the law is to throw the door open to anarchy.
The institutions of a country do not exist to provide a semblance of organization to the messy process of enforcing a tyranny of the majority. A civilized country is ruled by what the statute books have to say, not by the whims and fancies of the majority.
In some “democracies”, the branches of government which are directly or indirectly elected by the citizens seem to think they can lord it over the unelected branch, which is usually the judiciary.
But all that does is raise the question, what is supreme in a civilized nation? Is it the will of the majority, or the will of the constitution? In some idealized dystopia “democracy”, the will of the majority may be supreme, but in the real world, any self-respecting civilized society knows that it is the law which takes priority.
(johnleemk at infernalramblings.com)

THE COMMON LAW

rompedas — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:45:06 +0000

The law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In order to know what it is, we must know what it has been, and what it tends to become.
There are two errors equally to be avoided both. One is that of supposing, because an idea seems very familiar and natural to us, that it has always been so. Many things which we take for granted have had to be laboriously fought out or thought out in past times. The other mistake is the opposite one of asking too much of history. We start with man full grown. It may be assumed that the earliest barbarian, whose practices are to be considered, had a good many of the same feelings and passions as us.
It is commonly known that the early forms of legal procedure were grounded in vengeance. Modern writers have thought that the Roman law started from the blood feud, and all the authorities agree that the German law begun in that way. The feud led to the composition, at first optional, then compulsory, by which the feud was bought off. The gradual encroachment of the composition may be traced in the Anglo-Saxon laws, and the feud was pretty well broken up, though not extinguished, by the time of William the Conqueror. The killings and house-burnings of an earlier day became the appeals of mayhem and arson. The appeals de pace et plagis and of mayhem became, or rather were in substance, the action of trespass which is still familiar to lawyers. But as the compensation recovered in the appeal was the alternative of vengeance, we might expect to find its scope limited to the scope of vengeance. Vengeance imports a feeling of blame, and an opinion, however distorted by passion, that a wrong has been done. It can hardly go very far beyond the case of a harm intentionally inflicted: even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.
The early English appeals for personal violence seem to have been confined to intentional wrongs. Glanvill mentions melees, blows, and wounds,—all forms of intentional violence. In the fuller description of such appeals given by Bracton it is made quite clear that they were based on intentional assaults. The appeal de pace et plagis laid an intentional assault, described the nature of the arms used, and the length and depth of the wound. The appellor also had to show that he immediately raised the hue and cry. So when Bracton speaks of the lesser offences, which were not sued by way of appeal, he instances only intentional wrongs, such as blows with the fist, flogging, wounding, insults, and so forth. The cause of action in the cases of trespass reported in the earlier Year Books and in the Abbreviatio Plaeitorum is always an intentional wrong. It was only at a later day, and after argument, that trespass was extended so as to embrace harms which were foreseen, but which were not the intended consequence of the defendant’s act. Thence again it extended to unforeseen injuries.
The first requirement of a sound body of law is that it should correspond with the actual feelings and demands of the community, whether right or wrong. If people would gratify the passion of revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid the greater evil of private retribution. At the same time, this passion is not one which we encourage, either as private individuals or as lawmakers. Moreover, it does not cover the whole ground. There are crimes which do not excite it, and we should naturally expect that the most important purposes of punishment would be coextensive with the whole field of its application. It remains to be discovered whether such a general purpose exists, and if so what it is. Different theories still divide opinion upon the subject.
It has been thought that the purpose of punishment is to reform the criminal; that it is to deter the criminal and others from committing similar crimes; and that it is retribution. Few would now maintain that the first of these purposes was the only one. If it were, every prisoner should be released as soon as it appears clear that he will never repeat his offence, and if he is incurable he should not be punished at all. Of course it would be hard to reconcile the punishment of death with this doctrine.
The main struggle lies between the other two. On the one side is the notion that there is a mystic bond between wrong and punishment; on the other, that the infliction of pain is only a means to an end. Hegel, one of the great expounders of the former view, puts it, in his quasi mathematical form, that, wrong being the negation of right, punishment is the negation of that negation, or retribution. Thus the punishment must be equal, in the sense of proportionate to the crime, because its only function is to destroy it. Others, without this logical apparatus, are content to rely upon a felt necessity that suffering should follow wrong-doing.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. This substantive principle is sometimes put in the form of a rule of evidence, that everyone is presumed to know the law. It has accordingly been defended by Austin and others, on the ground of difficulty of proof. If justice requires the fact to be ascertained, the difficulty of doing so is no ground for refusing to try. But everyone must feel that ignorance of the law could never be admitted as an excuse, even if the fact could be proved by sight and hearing in every case. Furthermore, now that parties can testify, it may be doubted whether a man’s knowledge of the law is any harder to investigate than many questions which are gone into. The difficulty, such as it is, would be met by throwing the burden of proving ignorance on the lawbreaker. Malice aforethought means any one or more of the following states of mind:
(a) An intention to cause the death of, or grievous bodily harm to, any person, whether such person is the person actually killed or not; “
(b) Knowledge that the act which causes death will probably cause the death of, or grievous bodily harm to, some person, whether such person is the person actually killed or not, although such knowledge is accompanied by indifference whether death or grievous bodily harm is caused or not, or by a wish that it may not be caused; “
(c) An intent to commit any felony whatever; “
(d) An intent to oppose by force any officer of justice on his way to, in, or returning from the execution of the duty of arresting, keeping in custody, or imprisoning any person whom he is lawfully entitled to arrest, keep in custody, or imprison, or the duty of keeping the peace or dispersing an unlawful assembly, provided that the offender has notice that the person killed is such an officer so employed.”
Malice, as used in common speech, includes intent, and something more. When an act is said to be done with intent to do harm, it is meant that a wish for the harm is the motive of the act. Intent, however, is perfectly consistent with the harm being regretted as such, and being wished only as a means to something else. But when an act is said to be done maliciously, it is meant, not only that a wish for the harmful effect is the motive, but also that the harm is wished for its own sake, or, as Austin would say with more accuracy, for the sake of the pleasurable feeling which knowledge of the suffering caused by the act would excite. Now it is apparent from Sir James Stephen’s enumeration that of these two elements of malice the intent alone is material to murder. It is just as much murder to shoot a sentry for the purpose of releasing a friend, as to shoot him because you hate him. Malice, in the definition of murder, has not the same meaning as in common speech, and, in view of the considerations just mentioned, it has been thought to mean criminal intention.
But intent again will be found to resolve itself into two things; foresight that certain consequences will follow from an act, and the wish for those consequences working as a motive which induces the act. The question then is, whether intent, in its turn, cannot be reduced to a lower term. Sir James Stephen’s statement shows that it can be, and that knowledge that the act will probably cause death, that is, foresight of the consequences of the act, is enough in murder as in tort.
What is foresight of consequences? It is a picture of a future state of things called up by knowledge of the present state of things, the future being viewed as standing to the present in the relation of effect to cause. If the known present state of things is such that the act done will very certainly cause death, and the probability is a matter of common knowledge, one who does the act, knowing the present state of things, is guilty of murder, and the law will not inquire whether he did actually foresee the consequences or not. The test of foresight is not what this very criminal foresaw, but what a man of reasonable prudence would have foreseen.
To make an act which causes death murder, then, the actor ought, on principle, to know, or have notice of the facts which make the act dangerous. There are certain exceptions to this principle which will be stated presently, but they have less application to murder than to some smaller statutory crimes. The general rule prevails for the most part in murder.
But furthermore, on the same principle, the danger which in fact exists under the known circumstances ought to be of a class which a man of reasonable prudence could foresee. Ignorance of a fact and inability to foresee a consequence has the same effect on blameworthiness. If a consequence cannot be foreseen, it cannot be avoided. But there is this practical difference that whereas, in most cases, the question of knowledge is a question of the actual condition of the defendant’s consciousness, the question of what he might have foreseen is determined by the standard of the prudent man, that is, by general experience. As the purpose is to compel men to abstain from dangerous conduct, and not merely to restrain them from evil inclinations, the law requires them at their peril to know the teachings of common experience, just as it requires them to know the law.
(Adapted from Project Gutenberg’s The Common Law, by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.)

A ‘PROUD CONTEMPT OF OTHERS’

rompedas — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:58:26 +0000

Arrogance is doubly a pity, because the talents of the arrogant serve primarily themselves. The arrogant assumes his views and opinions are The Truth. In arrogance, natural confidence goes sadly awry. Rather than the self-assurance born of knowing his own strengths and limitations, arrogance admits no limits. The arrogant brooks no weakness in him and may even secretly rejoice to find flaws in others. But imperfections are inherent in being human, so the arrogant, like everyone else, always has feet of clay, however well hidden they may be. Fearing exposure, haughtiness forms a hard shell masking inner emptiness.
(Inner Frontier at innerfrontier.org)
The best way to deal with an arrogant person is to understand why he is being arrogant. This may sound odd, but the truth is, as soon as you know the reason behind his arrogance you will pity him. Arrogant people think that they are always right, they think that they know the best answers to all life problems and they think that they are better than most of the ordinary people. Arrogance is no more than a shield that covers inner emptiness and sometimes an inferiority complex.
Arrogance is a defense mechanism used by the subconscious mind in order to prevent further criticism. If someone had a terrible childhood and if he was hurt by others he may develop arrogance in order to prevent further criticism from hurting him, the trick usually works, because if someone criticized him he can simply devalue him and assume that he is worthless.
Arrogant behavior can be a result of feeling neglected. If someone felt that he is not getting all the attention he deserves, he may unconsciously become arrogant just to attract some of the lost attention.
(Dealing With Arrogant People, Written by M.Farouk Radwan, MSc. at 2knowmyself.com)
Be arrogant if you wish. Look down on others and treat them poorly, if you wish. But realize that if you do so, you’re only allowing your own inner weaknesses to shine through, and you’re not fooling anyone. Not the people around you, who hold you in disdain, not God who made you and loves you and knows all about you, and not yourself.
And for those who must deal with arrogance on a regular basis, please keep in mind that arrogant people treat you poorly only because they’re needier than you, and they haven’t yet admitted to themselves that they are needy. They need and deserve your compassion, not your anger.
(livinglifefully.com)
People build their arrogance from different foundations. Some start with money, others with intellect, education, lineage, job status, good looks, and athleticism. Some allow their arrogance to sprout from even the most obscure hobbies or traits. Arrogance can be based on real qualities or possessions: a genius IQ, a staggering bank account. It can just as easily be based on illusion: a ‘brilliant’ strategist who gleans every last idea from others, a ‘millionaire’ who owns nothing more than a generous line of credit.
Many people bristle at arrogance, quickly asserting themselves or rejecting the speaker. Others must suffer quietly as the arrogant person is in a position of power. Some take a person’s arrogance as a signal of importance. “She must be somebody to act like that.” Fans can be willing to excuse the arrogance of someone whose achievements or skills they admire. “When you play the horn like he does, you’re allowed to be a jerk.”
(Human Solutions Humaines at wilsonbanwell.com)
There are many kinds of arrogance. There is the most surface sort of arrogance that seeks to justify sin. Often this will take the form of saying to us, “But no one was hurt.” If the sin is against another, this arrogance blames the other, or a third party. We see this in the seven year old boy who isn’t watching where he is going, and rams into a wall and loudly proclaims, “I didn’t do it!”
Another form of arrogance is the most interior. It deposits itself just a few layers from our soul when we first commit any act of arrogance. This arrogance afflicts the entirety of humanity – all who has not sought it out in themselves and cut it out, and have remained watchful for its return. This is an arrogance that deceives us into thinking we know best. It is held up and supported by pride. It is this arrogance that makes us an easy mark for any temptation that may present itself to us.
(On Sin, Arrogance, and Peeling an Onion, By Steven Clark at ancient-future.net)
Some people become arrogant because they are afraid of losing their power. They are in good standing right now and they don’t want to come down. Arrogance gives them a certain distance. These powerful people can find that arrogant behavior gives them an air of invulnerability, renders them slightly untouchable. “Others may be less likely to challenge me if what I have seems out of reach.” It is easier for powerful people to cast an arrogant eye on others. They do, after all, have some tangible ‘evidence’ of their positions. Psychologists Steven Spencer and Susan Fiske find that people in positions of power tend to stereotype more. This is because they often don’t consider personal, distinguishing details about others and they need to defend their decisions.
(Human Solutions Humaines at wilsonbanwell.com)
“Arrogance” looks awfully much the same. The person is aware of his skills and talents in an area and assumes leadership in that area. The only difference is that those around him or her are bothered by it. For some reason, that control feels pushy and out of place. The observer is inclined to think, “Who does he think he is?” There seems to be a divide between the individual’s self-assessment and that of onlookers.
That runs us right into the next question: Who’s responsible for that — the person or the spectators? After all, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, wouldn’t that also be true for another person’s talents and management? Perhaps, when there is a difference of opinions, the arrogance lies not with the person in charge but with the viewers. Perhaps it is the viewers who have misplaced arrogance rather than the presumptive leader. How are we to tell?
Here’s one clue: A person who knows his (or her) strengths, also knows his weaknesses. You’ll frequently find a person who is proud and takes leadership roles in one domain, deferring to others in different domains of activity. The arrogant person won’t do that. The arrogant person seems to know everything about everything and won’t give up a stronghold on anything. Thus, in judging who the arrogant person really is, ask yourself: Which one of these two people thinks he or she knows everything about everything? Which one has all the answers on all subjects? That’s one clue.
(Which Is It: Pride or Arrogance? By Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn at jewishworldreview.com)

GREAT NATIONS RISE AND FALL

rompedas — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:52:43 +0000

“Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”
Even though no one is certain who first spoke or penned this statement, truer words were never uttered.
(Why Democracy Doesn’t Work by Joseph Farah, a nationally syndicated columnist at humanevents.com)
Where are the great empires of the past? Where is the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, and the Roman Empire? You can find what is left of them in museums, in ruins and in a few ancient stone buildings frequented only by modern tourists.
We cannot help but be impressed by the great empires of the past. The Babylonian Empire ruled the Middle East, and the armies of Nebuchadnezzar were unstoppable. The mighty Roman Empire lasted for 500 years, before falling to the Vandals and the Heruli. World War II saw the blitzkrieg expansion of the Third Reich across Europe and North Africa. Hitler’s ambitions included conquest of the Soviet Union, but he failed, and Allied armies pummeled mighty Germany into a rubble heap. Can any nation or empire long endure?
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consisted of 15 republics and one-sixth of the world’s land surface, or 2.5 times the area of the U.S. This great superpower reveled in its Communist ideology; it fought for the hearts of nations all over the world and lost. On November 9, 1989, the symbol of its subjugation of Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall, came tumbling down. Now this once-mighty power has shattered into 15 struggling nation-states, with 12 tied together in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Who could have predicted the fall of this great superpower?
(Rise and fall of Nations, Cover Story: Richard F. Ames at tomorrowsworld.org)
History shows us that all of the great nations of the world have never lived much more than 200 years and there has been sequential stages in every case.
The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second stage moves from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage again.
These are the ten stages through which all the great nations have gone. We can’t help from noticing the progression from bondage to liberty back to bondage. It seems that the law of circularity might be at work. Nevertheless, the first generation throws off the shackles of bondage only to have a later generation … through apathy, indifference, and dependence upon the government … to allow it to once again be enslaved.
(godfire.net)
The people of the great nations of the past seem normally to have imagined that their pre eminence would last forever. Rome appeared to its citizens to be destined to be for all time the mistress of the world. Seventy years ago, many people in Britain believed that the empire would endure forever. Although Hitler failed to achieve his objective, he declared that Germany would rule the world for a thousand years. That sentiments like these could be publicly expressed without evoking derision shows that, in all ages, the regular rise and fall of great nations has passed unperceived. The simplest statistics prove the steady rotation of one nation after another at regular intervals.
The belief that their nation would rule the world forever naturally encouraged the citizens of the leading nation of any period to attribute their pre eminence to hereditary virtues. They carried in their blood, they believed, qualities which constituted them a race of supermen, an illusion which inclined them to the employment of cheap foreign labor (or slaves) to perform menial tasks and to engage foreign mercenaries to fight their battles or to sail their ships.
These poorer peoples were only too happy to migrate to the wealthy cities of the empire, and thereby, as we have seen, to adulterate the close knit, homogeneous character of the conquering race. The latter unconsciously assumed that they would always be the leaders of mankind, relaxed their energies, and spent an increasing part of their time in leisure, amusement or sport.
In recent years, the idea has spread widely in the West that ‘progress’ will be automatic without effort, that everyone will continue to grow richer and richer and that every year will show a ‘rise in the standard of living’. We have not drawn from history the obvious conclusion that material success is the result of courage, endurance and hard work a conclusion nevertheless obvious from the history of the meteoric rise of our own ancestors. This self-assurance of its own superiority seems to go hand in hand with the luxury resulting from wealth, in undermining the character of the dominant race.
It is of interest to note that decadence is the disintegration of a system, not of its individual members. The habits of the members of the community have been corrupted by the enjoyment of too much money and too much power for too long a period. The result has been, in the framework of their national life, to make them selfish and idle. A community of selfish and idle people declines, internal quarrels develops in the division of its dwindling wealth, and pessimism follows, which some of them endeavour to drown in sensuality or frivolity. In their own surroundings, they are unable to redirect their thoughts and their energies into new channels.
(Adapted from THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL by Sir John Glubb at antimisandry.com)
We can find about 28 symbols of different civilizations in world history, out of which 18 are now extinct, 9 are on the decline and only one civilization remains that is progressing. But the future of this civilization may also not be different from the other civilizations. Before Toynbee (British historian), many historians and social philosophers had given their theories on the concept of rise and fall of civilizations. Spangler said, “Society is like an individual. It is born and then after passing through various stages it expires”. Plato was also of the same view. Toynbee differed with all these concepts. He said that the fall of a nation or civilization takes place with the failure of self determination. The subject of the fall of civilizations is very vast and cannot be dealt with in one go.
The first situation is that there is an eruption of a new social force in a society and that society fails to bring the essential changes in various organs of the society to cope with the change. This lack of ability to bring contemporary change gives rise to a revolution, as a result of which everything is destroyed and the new energy is also usurped.
The second situation says that the ingenious and intricate ability of the human mind is beneficial and at the same time harmful also. If you achieve the success by employing your ingenuity on one occasion, you may develop such an over confidence that you tend to lose in the face of a very trivial difficulty subsequently. If repeated time and again at the higher level of society, it ultimately leads to downfall.
The third situation is that you make an attachment and association with successful institutions like the monarchy, the parliament or the clergy in such a manner that if the downfall of those institutions starts, you are unable to detach yourself from those institutions. In that case the ship will sink along with everybody onboard.
The fourth situation is that you adopt some principles, doctrines or the instruments of war and as a result you achieve many successes. But as with the passage of time these rules, doctrines and the instruments of war (or even instruments of peace like tools of production etc) become outdated and the superior concepts and doctrines over take them, you are unable to adapt to the changes required by the prevailing situation. You tend to apply old solutions to resolve the newly emerged problems and thus face the defeat.
The fifth situation is the unwise and irresponsible use of power (Also refer to the philosophy of power given by Bismarck). The Greek used to explain this reason of downfall in three words: abundance, irresponsibility and destruction. The Assyrians had excelled in the art of warfare. After every conquest they would add new force to their fighting ability. Their conquests continued till many decades. But there was an inbuilt weakness in their strategy. The continued and unabated wars dissipated their energies. The ultimate result was their annihilation.
When Phillip II sent land force against Holland and naval force against England, when Napoleon III attacked Prussia, when William II attacked Belgium, when Charlemagne attacked Italy five times and when Tamer-lane spent his 42 years in fighting wars. All these are the examples of the violation of the philosophy of power and thus met with failure.
The sixth situation of down fall is the state of intoxication acquired due to successes achieved. The victory and triumph creates temporary satisfaction but also opens Pandora box of new problems. The intoxication, whether of power or victory, does not allow time to take stock of other problems. And this is what proves fatal. In 2nd century BC the Roman Empire got intoxicated due to extensive military victories and ultimately it became one of the causes of their downfall. The Rome got intoxicated by the victorious to such an extent that they neither took rest nor did they allow others to rest. The peace is needed even by the victorious, and the defeated ones want asylum and safety. Both the situations became nonexistent.
(Adapted from Rise and fall of the Nations: What does history have for the bright future of mankind? by Peace at spotlightofpeace.com)
Reflections on the History of Nations:
When I consider mighty nations’ fate,
Their rise, their growth, their grandeur, and decline;
And all their varied history contemplate,
I see and own in each the Hand divine!
Not of themselves they rose to wealth and power,
And gained on earth a glory and a name;
Alike, to God, the nation of an hour,
And that which stands a thousand years the same.
To such as walk in righteousness and truth,
He gives long years of steady, sure increase;
They, like the eagle, shall renew their youth,
Their honor and their glory never cease;
While such as from his just commandments stray,
Shall sudden fall; or waste by slow decay.
(Jones Very, 1868 at blogs.the-american-interest.com)

FUNDAMENTALS OF PROSPERITY

rompedas — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:54:57 +0000

Some two thousand years ago the greatest teacher who ever walked the earth advised a group of people not to build their houses on the sand. What he had in mind was that they were looking too much to the structure above ground, and too little to the spiritual forces which must be the foundation of any structure which is to stand.
Following the war we enjoyed greatest activity, the greatest bank clearings, the greatest foreign trade, the greatest railroad gross earnings, the highest commodity prices. The fact is, we have become crazy over material things. We are looking only at the structure above ground. We are trying to get more smoke from the chimney. We are looking at space instead of service, at profits instead of volume. With our eyes focused on the structure above ground, we have lost sight of those human resources, thrift, imagination, integrity, vision and faith which make the structure possible.
We are spending millions and millions in every city to develop the good-will of customers, to develop in customers a desire to buy. This is all well and good, but we can’t continue to go in one direction indefinitely. We cannot always get steam out of the boiler without feeding the furnace. The time has come when in our own interests, in the interests of our communities, our industry, and of the nation itself, for a while we must stop adding more stories to this structure. Instead, we must strengthen the foundations upon which the entire structure rests.
Those things which we look upon as of great value:—the stocks, bonds, bank-books, deeds, mortgages, insurance policies, etc., are merely nothing. While fifty-one per cent of the people have their eyes on the goal of Integrity, our investments are secure; but with fifty-one per cent of them headed in the wrong direction, our investments are valueless. So the first fundamental of prosperity is integrity. Without it there is no civilization, there is no peace, there is no security, and there is no safety. Mind you also that this applies just as much to the man who is working for wages as to the capitalist and every owner of property.
A man may be honest and wonder why he does not get ahead; a man may have vision and still remain only a dreamer; but when integrity and vision are combined with hard work, the man prospers. It is the same with classes and nations.
It has been said that genius is the author of invention. Statistics do not support this statement. The facts show that industry is the mother of invention. Struggle, sacrifice and burning midnight oil have produced the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the printing press, the steam engine, the electric motor, the telephone, the incandescent lamp and the other great inventions of civilization.
Why is it that most of the able men in our great industries came from the country districts? The reason is that the country boy is trained to work. Statistics indicate that very seldom does a child; brought up in a city apartment house, amount to much; while the children of well-to-do city people are seriously handicapped. The great educator of the previous generation was not the public school, but rather the wood box. Those of us parents who have not a wood box for our children to keep filled, or chores for them to do, are unfortunate.
Run through the list of the greatest captains of industry, as they come to your mind. How many of the men who are really directing the country’s business gained their position through inherited wealth? You will find them astonishingly few. There is no “divine right of kings” in business. In fact, statistics show us that the very things which most people think of as advantages, namely, wealth and “not having to work” are really obstacles which are rarely surmounted.
Industry and thrift are closely allied. Economic studies show clearly that ninety-five per cent of the employers are employers because they systematically saved money. Any man who systematically saves money from early youth automatically becomes an employer. He may employ thousands or he may have only two or three clerks in a country store, but he nevertheless is an employer. These same studies show that ninety-five per cent of the wage workers are wage workers because they have systematically spent their money as fast as they have earned it. They of necessity remain wage workers. These are facts which no labor leader can disprove and which are exceedingly significant. This is especially striking when one considers that the employer often started out at the same wages and in the same community as his wage workers. The employer was naturally industrious and thrifty; while those who remained wage workers were not.
Feelings rule this world,—not things. The reason that some people are not successful with collective bargaining and profit sharing and all these other plans is because they think that men act according to what they say, or according to what they learn, or according to that in which they agree. Men act according to their feelings, and “good feeling” is synonymous with the spirit of cooperation. One cannot exist without the other and prosperity cannot continue without both. We have gone crazy over structures above ground. We are absolutely forgetting the greatest of our resources,—the great spiritual resource, upon which everything depends. How shall we develop these resources?
The masses to-day is getting their real education from the daily newspapers. Many of these newspapers have much good material, but the great effort of the daily press is not to make producers, but rather to make consumers. The policy of the daily press is not to get people to serve, but rather to get them to buy. Not only is the larger portion of the newspapers given up to advertising, but most of this advertising is of non-essentials, if not of luxuries. With this advertising constantly before the people of the country, it is but natural that the material things should seem of greatest importance.
We have forgotten to consider whether or not goods are needed. We only consider whether or not they are being bought. We are forgetting to establish new markets, but rather are scrambling over the markets already secured. Tremendous opportunities exist in developing new industries, in creating new communities, in relocating the center of production from one community to another community to match up with the center of consumption.
The greatest resources of the world to-day are human resources,—not resources of iron, copper and lumber. The great need of the hour is to strengthen this human foundation and revive in men a desire to produce and a joy in service. Business men are the one group that can do it. They understand the emotions; understand the importance of the intangible things. They understand how to awaken in people new motives, not to wait too long to revive man and awaken the soul which is slumbering to-day.
The nation is only a mass of individuals. The true prosperity of a country depends upon the same qualities as the true prosperity of its people. As religion is necessary for the man, it is also necessary for the nation. As the soul of man needs to be developed, so also does the soul of the nation.
(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fundamentals of Prosperity, by Roger W. Babson)

SELLING LIES LIKE CIGARETTES

rompedas — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 01:56:55 +0000

While people do universally lie, people also universally acknowledge that it is wrong; at least they universally acknowledge that they do not want people to lie to them. But why is it wrong to lie? What is going on when lies are told and believed? Human beings condemn murder yet do murder; they condemn rape and yet commit rape. Should we just accept rape and murder because we don’t live up to our own standards?
(theroadupward.wordpress.com)
Why do politicians so easily get away with telling lies? In large part, the news media are more interested in bonding with politicians than in exposing them. People are encouraged to believe that the media will serve as a check and a balance on the government. Instead, the press too often volunteers as unpaid pimps, helping politicians deceive the public.
(campaignforliberty.com at campaignforliberty.com)
All governments thrive on lies. We might even say that apart from weapons and men cruel enough to wield them on behalf of the rulers, lies are a government’s most essential resource. Opponents of the state may be powerless in nearly every way, but so long as they are free to speak the truth, the rulers can never sleep soundly. It therefore behooves them to suppress the truth and to substitute the state’s propaganda at every turn.
(Robert Higgs at blog.independent.org)
There was once a time when the media understood it had a job to do: Question everything, take nothing for granted and do whatever it takes to ferret out the truth. Sadly, that time has passed. Now, the corporate media blindly accepts its nuggets of food from its government master — never questioning and often cheerleading rather than reporting.
(Bob Livingston at personalliberty.com)
It is not a matter of bias in the media; it is a matter of deception. Bias, however damaging, is nowhere as dangerous and destructive as the sheer deception that is taking place. People can detect bias, but unless they are actively exploring alternative news sources they might never even suspect that they are being deceived or lied to by omission. The corporate media have abused the trust that had been earned by journalists past. They know the public trusts them to tell the truth. They know that a public that trusts them will not spend time fact checking.
News is simply information about events taking place around us. What news is reported and how that news is presented influence and shape public opinion. The people who are responsible for reporting news have enormous power over public opinion. Corporate entities whose financial or political interest depends on the support of the people to advance their agendas cannot and should not be trusted to control the information that shapes public opinion. This is an obvious and extremely dangerous conflict of interest.
Journalism is a profession. It is a calling. Unfortunately, what the public sees as journalists are is far too often people staking out careers in corporate world. Why is it that we now can rely only on the independent journalist (or news organizations) for unfiltered information? Regardless of one’s political position, people must understand that a free press can exist under a capitalist structure. However, profits, ratings or agenda should play no part in reporting news events to the public. News should not be a business. Surely, everyone in the journalism industry should be fairly compensated, but we cannot permit vested interests, either political or economic, to affect the validity of the information that is delivered. And yet, this is exactly what is taking place today.
(Editor, TvNewsLIES.org)
Why are so many people so willing to accept the lies of the State? Is it simply “ignorance is bliss”? Or is it the inevitable result of many years of compulsory government prisons for kids aged 5-18, also known as public schools? You probably learned in government school that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves and saved the Constitution; that FDR pulled America from the depths of the Depression with his New Deal; that the Japanese perpetrated a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor; that if Truman hadn’t dropped the Big One on Japan – twice! – The war would have lasted several more years and hundreds of thousands more soldiers would have died.
The lies will continue as long as we have a system that perversely encourages the worst among us to rise to positions of power. As long as the government monopoly on education continues, the lies will continue to be drilled into the soft, mushy heads of our nation’s youth. No tactic will be considered verboten as long as it seeks legitimacy among the “docile and gullible.”
The wisest course of action for the independent thinker is to constantly question authority, to assume that anything he hears from the mouth of a politician or bureaucrat is unadulterated bullshit, and to recognize that the worst will always make it to the top. And because the worst among us always believe the ends justify the means, lying will always be a hallmark of their modus operandi.
(Rick Gee at lewrockwell.com)
We spend a good deal of time discussing the statements made by politicians and other dignitaries and test those statements against common knowledge, common sense, physics, economics and what others have stated on the same subject. Sometimes we look at each other with astonishment on how people of honor, in high places, could make such utterances, or believe such non-sense. Perhaps the prevailing words here are, “people of honor”.
We have come to two conclusions on what are the real political realities of today. The first conclusion is that the problems have grown so large and so complex, that puny man seems to be impotent in his attempts to solve them, especially when shackled by single-focused political constituencies. That complexity is largely of our own doing. The second conclusion is related to the first. Since the national problems are so huge, politicians resort to propaganda, hype, distortions and lies to convince the masses that they are in control of the situation and what they are doing is for the masses’ own good, in spite of the fact that for purely political reasons, there can be no common-sense solutions to any of the problems. The decisions the politicians do make, so they tell us, are usually made as a result of some emergency, real, imagined, or purposely cooked up for their own ends. The hard cold truth of the matter is, politicians lie and for the most part, cannot be believed, no matter which side of the aisle they reside. The unwise person that does believe them does so at their own peril. All of this is due to the growing lack of honor and integrity by those in power, to the principles of freedom and liberty.
(Ron Ewart at newmediajournal.us)
In general people already have their own ideas when they view television, read newspapers, or log on to websites. This leads to “selective attentiveness” and acts as a type of filter that allows the viewer to pay attention to the details that agree with his or her own opinion. The media are more effective with those who have not formed a stable political opinion, whether it is on issues or candidates. Studies show that commercials and debates aired right before Election Day have the most effect on undecided viewers. Voters who have already formed their opinions are hardly influenced by the media to the point of changing their minds.
(Tatum Wilcox at helium.com)
The media is conspicuously silent when it comes to holding the government accountable for the impact of special interest legislation on the well-being of the public. Although newspapers and reporters may occasionally run an ephemeral article about a gift to big business, coverage of the real social impacts rarely, if ever, evolve into sustained scrutiny and analysis. The media is obsessed with portraying the perfect body.
(Brandon T. Pacey at associatedcontent.com)

THE WILL TO DOUBT

rompedas — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 01:27:31 +0000

Life is a game, and the game of life, doubts and all, is a real interest as well as a necessity. We are creatures of habit, but we have, and we cherish, no habit stronger or more essential than the habit at once of adaptation and variation.
Doubt is necessary to life, to real life, to deep experience. Doubt is but one of the phases of the resistance which a real life demands. Real life implies a constant challenge, and doubt is a form under which the challenge finds expression. The doubter is a questioner, a seeker; he has, then, something to overcome; he fears, too, as well as hopes.
Doubt makes one dependent; isolation gives a sense of loss. Dependent man and doubting man must have society.
A man’s virtues are so near to his vices. Even what is cold is somewhat warm. Nothing is absolutely anything. In history a single ideal, rising to influence, has always divided men into two opposing camps. Witness the fact of bipartisanship, not in politics alone, but in all of life’s interests.
Democrats and Republicans, Radicals and Conservatives alike loved their country and honored their country’s flag and, regardless of party, their country’s heroes or patriots. Epicureans and Stoics—in recent times or long ago—have found the same life worth living. The Roman law and the Roman holiday, working together, like the right and the left hand, different yet in sympathy, made the great empire. Two men, furthermore, in active, open conflict are in truth at serious difference with each other; but, as they might even say, if their conflict were in the form of a debate, where words instead of fists or pistols were the weapons, in the bare, unapplied principle involved, or say in the abstract, in the final success of whichever is the “best man,” they do and they must agree.
Simply throughout this life of ours there has been and there can be no idealism without conflict and no conflict, whatever the issue or the manner, without common weapons, which means, too, without some common relationship and some common interest. As for the idealism, too, what is it but a demand for real unity?
Perhaps only to enlarge upon what has just been said, contradiction is an absolutely effective correction of narrowness or partiality or relativity or one-sidedness in life or consciousness, and so it makes experience not abstract, but realistic. This is in truth only another view of the worth of contradiction to integrity and vitality, to unity and reality.
In practical life there always are, and emphatically there always must be, two sides, to everything, to every question. In practical life, too, or at any rate in all effective activity, there always is, and emphatically there always must be, something very like to leadership; but any truly practical leadership, any leadership that is all along the lines of life, be it of things, ideas, persons, or social classes or parties, can never be confined to a single individual representative, but must be instead a leadership of many. No thoroughly practical leadership can ever be on one side or the other, but instead of being one-sided it must be both-sided, or rather, infinitely many-sided; it must be between or among all the different and opposed individuals; it must lie, perhaps in a sense sleep, in rivalry and competition.
Yes, real leadership, like real unity in general, is a divided labor; it is a labor that effects successful co-operation through its very differences and conflicts: for reality, a labor perhaps of different “elements” or “entities”; for knowledge, of different ideas and standpoints; for morals, of different standards; for politics, of different parties and platforms.
Not only do the contradictions make experience realistic and so practical, but also they make it essentially social. Let not our thinking conjure false sweetness and light. Experience is truly and essentially social; the individual was not meant to dwell alone; but herein is no immediate cure-all, no promise of an unperturbed brotherly love, of a life for one and all of simple peace and blissful quietude. On such a plan society would hardly suit the individual with whom, and with whose natural experience, we have become acquainted. To speak with the extravagance of counter-sentimentalism, the individual of our present acquaintance is forever spoiling for a fight. In the life of the society to which he belongs; in the life where he watches for his incoming ship, there must always be hate and evil in all their forms, lawlessness and destruction, illusion and error.
The good or the evil in society, being always opposed, is always also shared. So few people recognize, or appreciate, what a great mixer opposition is. Hate witnesses only a false love; sin, a pharisaical righteousness. Destruction marks an imperfect construction. In a word, the individual’s natural society is never without evil; and although social life, not less than individual life, must be one of conflict and discord, nevertheless, because the various factors or factions, however opposed, can never be unmixed, because the members of society must all be good and bad, right and wrong instead of being hopeless for having evil in it, the life of society is so much the more worth living.
For a life in which everything has an opposite, every idea a counter-idea, truth very plainly, as has indeed been frequently said, cannot be a specific consciousness or reality a fixed thing.
Have you ever climbed a mountain up and up and up, through thick woods, over rough, almost impassable trails, into clouds dense and chilling, stormy and angry, over treacherous snows and frightful cliffs, and come out at last on the very top to see both earth and heaven, yourself between, the clouds dispersed, the hardships and dangers all forgotten, the whole world real and yours? Well, that is doubt become achievement. Have you worked at some problem of everyday life, or a problem of science or philosophy, patiently or impatiently applying all the rules and precepts at your command, trying every resort known to you, and in final desperation many you only guess at, and then, when failure seems almost certain, caught a glimpse of the real meaning and the real way, attaining to an insight that reveals a new world to you? That, too, is doubt rewarded. Have you ever suffered a great heartrending disappointment or a great personal loss, and found it seemingly impossible to return to the routine of your former life, but nevertheless, almost imperceptibly, come into a sense of presence and gain from the very thing that seemed taken from you? That, once more, is doubt without its sting, robbed of its victory.
So we find ourselves well upon our way in the world of the doubter—and what a world it is! No finality, because so much reality. Conflict is forever necessary to its effective realization. Relativity is finiteness, of all things, of all things in it, just for the sake of its own true absoluteness, just to conserve its own actual infinity.
Does it hurt your business to doubt it sufficiently to make you able to sympathize with the interests of another? Does it hurt your politics, if you can lose enough of the partisan’s conceit or the jingo’s bombast to sympathize with the other parties or the other nations? The value of real independence in politics is one answer, and the idea of federation among competing states, or of international polity as a basis of successful national life, is another.
Does it hurt your understanding to outgrow your own profoundest ideas and see some validity in the doctrines and formulæ of others?
The confession of doubt, which we set out to make with all possible candors, is now nearly concluded. The confession began, as will be remembered, with recognition of certain general and easily demonstrated facts, of which there were five, as follows:
(1) We are all universal doubters.
(2) Doubt is essential to all consciousness.
(3) Even habit, though confidence be the horse, has doubt sitting up behind.
(4) Like pain or ignorance, doubt is a condition of real life.
(5) And the sense of dependence, so general to human nature, gives rise to doubt, although also, like misery, it always seeks company—the company of nature, of man, of God.
Of course in all matters as well as in this of intellectual honesty, the conceit of individual righteousness or individual possession is a very strong one, but it is “easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye” than for a man who is anything or has anything to himself alone, to enter into any kingdom. Is not life everywhere a movement and a struggle? And who is there, rich or poor, law-abiding or lawless, righteous or unrighteous, faithful or treacherous, believing or doubting, who can stand aloof, or who needs to stand aloof, and say to himself: “I personally, within my own nature, have no part in the struggle; for good or for ill, I am just what I am, and with him that is against me I have and can have no dealings”?
The doubter, then, and the believer may have to look askance at each other; the looking askance may be quite appropriate to the conflict in which each has and must feel his social role, but, at most and worst, they are only jealous lovers. They may be given, and profitably given, as much to quarrelling as to gentleness, but they love still, and, to borrow part of a line from a familiar college song, their battling love affords just one more view of that which “makes the world go ’round”—instead of off at some tangent.
(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Will to Doubt, by Alfred H. Lloyd)

SUPERFICIAL

rompedas — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:21:12 +0000

Is there a deeper kind of life than the one you are currently living? Is there more to life than acquiring all the material things you could possibly get your hands on? The truth is, when things are going well in our lives, we don’t give it any thought. We seldom stop to think about life’s meaning when things are great. Society has taught us to live in a world of fantasy; therefore, we find ourselves living in a superficial world without any substance and without any love for ourselves and others.
If you only find happiness by having instead of being, you may want to look at your life and consider shifting your focus. Instead of focusing on finding fulfillment through external things, try to focus on the happiness that comes from within. Feeling the need to accumulate things in life in order to feel loved and satisfied will only leave you craving for more, because when the excitement wears off, you will likely find yourself empty and dissatisfied. It’s like being thirsty and drinking only soda or coffee to quench your thirst. Nothing can quench your thirst better than water. You cannot rely on soda or other liquids to do an adequate job, because you will always be thirsty.
(Dr Alex ledgister at dralexledgister.com)
Superficial means being fairly shallow in character and attitude. It means focusing on the surface reality and not what lies beneath. It means that there is not much substance. It means that you are only concerned with seeing the obvious without exploring any underlying issues and circumstances. It means that you are only appearing to be real, but you are not truly being real.
(Jedha Dening at EzineArticles.com)
Here’s a poem to emphasize that there is more to a person than just looks:
THE BEGINNING
O’ Stop being Superficial
Stop being so Tri-vial
Just because I look so hot
Does not mean I have no brains
Just because I’m NO model
Does not mean you can call me names
I may be blonde and dumb
I may be blonde and wise
How do you really know?
That I won’t take you by surprise?
I may not look too exquisite
I may not be a model
I may still be the sweetest person
You encounter in this life
O’ Stop being Superficial
Stop being so Tri-vial
Learn to see beyond the layer
Only then will you be smarter
I hope when you look at me
A wonderful human is what you see
(CB at associatedcontent.com)
CB contributed the above poem at associatedcontent.com and explained:
“I write this because like many of you, I too am tired of reading messages from strangers talking about my looks. ‘Oh you look good. Can we be friends?’ – Both from men and women, LOL. To those strangers – I am privileged that you feel so and thank you for those compliments. But when I get these messages, all I think is – You don’t even know me! I just wished people stopped being superficial.”
Most of us have at least heard the saying “It’s not what’s in the outside that matters, but what’s in the inside is what matters“, at least once in our life. This saying may be true, but our society has made us believe that the outside matters a lot. Many girls read magazines and see that beautiful air brushed models, they want to become that dream girl…that doesn’t exist, and some will take drastic measures…to become that size zero girl, even if it means becoming anorexic. Our media is full of beautiful, size zero girls, but they fail to realize that most regular teenage girls don’t look like that. In our society the first impression is what matters. They judge us by our exterior, forcing some young girls to feel self-conscience about them. Girl self-esteem is one of the easiest things to break, they are already judging themselves too harshly, and the media doesn’t help them at all, seeing perfect models, only makes them wish they looked like that. We have to emphasize to teenage girls that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes; you don’t have to be a size zero to be beautiful. Beauty comes from within, but the media and our society don’t help the cause, they are creating the “perfect girl” that doesn’t exist. Now days, we are judged too harshly on just our physical appearance. Some people don’t even take our personality in consideration, which is sad and unfortunate. We cannot stop the media from putting out airbrushed pictures of perfect models, but we can stop being so influenced by them, and realizing that we are beautiful in our own way.
(princess6 at teenink.com)
Are you surrounded by shallow people? Are you in an intimate relationship with a superficial individual? You like that person, but the superficial nature of that person is a barrier to any genuine relationship. This situation is a case where actions speak louder than words. Why is this case? Well, you see them saying the right words and attempting to do the right things. However, sooner or later, their superficial disposition comes out, and you can’t believe they are that way. If you were honest with yourself, you knew that person was pretty hollow in the beginning, but you didn’t want to accept it. Let’s analyze this situation closer.
First, there are no physical characteristics that can identify a superficial person. Clearly, shallow people come in all shapes and sizes. They have varying backgrounds. They live in every community. However, these people all have a common characteristic; they are externally-driven.
In the frantic pace of modern living, many people are in the pursuit of the wrong possessions. The media bombards us with the notion that “We deserve it all.” When this philosophy is believed, it creates a generation of inwardly focused people. We become a “Me” generation. Because this person feels he is entitled to be happy, he focuses on what can make him happy now. Obviously, it is far easier to pursuit things (money, power, right clique, etc.) in terms of happiness because they are tangible to the eyes. However, this short path is not a road to fortune but perhaps a highway to destruction.
If you are in relationships with outward-focused people, you can be assured that your intimacy will lack depth. Your relationship may feel like the real thing but over time the truth usually will reveal itself.
Sadly, some people do not have this deepness of character. They exist on the shallow end of the spectrum; they rarely make serious relationships. Why is this factor the case? These people are more concerned with what’s on the outside of an individual than what is on the inside.
(Daryl Green at articleslash.net)
Human personality is like an onion. It consists of multiple layers that become denser as you go deeper within. Manners are a thin veneer on the surface, a set of formalized patterns of action and response demanded of each of us by the society we live in, regardless of how we actually feel inside, which is often very different from the outward manners we exhibit. Though manners are superficial, perfect conduct even at this level is extremely difficult. We may exhibit good manners on important occasions or with important people, but few are capable of maintaining perfect conduct all the waking hours with close friends, intimate family members, work colleagues, casual acquaintances, servants, etc. The world worships appearances and gives utmost value to good manners, even when they conceal the very opposite inner disposition. Self-restraint, soft speech, humble considerate behavior towards all, thoughtful gestures are extremely difficult to maintain as unvarying conduct. One who is a perfect master of good manners can by virtue of that endowment alone secure international fame and recognition.
Manners are on the surface. Behavior is on the depth of the surface. Whereas manners reflect conduct that the world expects or demands of us, behavior is conduct expressive of our inner attitudes and beliefs. What the society demands as manners develops into genuine behavior in the individual. Friendly manners may disguise inner anger or anguish because society frowns on their expression, whereas cheerful, warm behavior expresses genuine happy, positive attitudes towards oneself and others.
(Garry Jacobs at mssresearch.org)

THE PLEASURES OF LIFE

rompedas — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:27:57 +0000

Life is a great gift, and as we reach years of discretion, we most of us naturally ask ourselves what should be the main object of our existence. Even those who do not accept “the greatest good of the greatest number” as an absolute rule, will yet admit that we should all endeavor to contribute as far as we may to the happiness of our fellow-creatures. There are many, however, who seem to doubt whether it is right that we should try to be happy ourselves. Our own happiness ought not, of course, to be our main object, nor indeed will it ever be secured if selfishly sought.
If we separate ourselves so much from the interests of those around us that we do not sympathize with them in their sufferings, we shut ourselves out from sharing their happiness, and lose far more than we gain. If we avoid sympathy and wrap ourselves round in a cold chain armor of selfishness, we exclude ourselves from many of the greatest and purest joys of life.
People sometimes think how delightful it would be to be quite free. But a fish, as Ruskin says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly, it is “a black incarnation of freedom.” A life of so-called pleasure and self-indulgence is not a life of real happiness or true freedom. Far from it, if we once begin to give way to ourselves, we fall under a most intolerable tyranny. Other temptations are in some respects like that of drink. At first, perhaps, it seems delightful, but there is bitterness at the bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy the desire created by previous indulgence. So it is in other things. Repetition soon becomes a craving, not a pleasure. Resistance grows more and more painful; yielding, which at first, perhaps, afforded some slight and temporary gratification, soon ceases to give pleasure, and even if for a time it procures relief, were long becomes odious itself.
“As to the value of other things,” says Cicero, “most men differ; concerning friendship all have the same opinion. What can be more foolish than, when men are possessed of great influence by their wealth, power, and resources, to procure other things which are bought by money—horses, slaves, rich apparel, costly vases—and not to procure friends, the most valuable and fairest furniture of life?” And yet, he continues, “every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.”
Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our making a wise choice of our companions and friends. If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us down; if well they will raise us up. Yet many people seem to trust in this matter to the chapter of accident. It is well and right, indeed, to be courteous and considerate to everyone with whom we are brought into contact, but to choose them as real friends is another matter. Some seem to make a man a friend, or try to do so, because he lives near, because he is in the same business, travels on the same line of railway, or for some other trivial reason. There cannot be a greater mistake. These are only, in the words of Plutarch, “the idols and images of friendship.”
To be friendly with everyone is another matter; we must remember that there is no little enemy, and those who have ever really loved any one will have some tenderness for all. There is indeed some good in most men. “I have heard much,” says Mr. Nasmyth in his charming autobiography, “about the ingratitude and selfishness of the world. It may have been my good fortune, but I have never experienced either of these unfeeling conditions.”
We must, moreover, be as careful to keep friends as to make them. If everyone knew what one said of the other, Pascal assures us that “there would not be four friends in the world.” At any rate tries to be one of the four. And when you have made a friend, keep him. Hast thou a friend, says an Eastern proverb, “visit him often, for thorns and brushwood obstruct the road which no one treads.” The affections should not be mere “tents of a night.”
Time is often said to fly; but it is not so much the time that flies; as we that waste it, and wasted time is worse than no time at all; “I wasted time,” Shakespeare makes Richard II say, “and now doth time waste me.” The life of man is seventy years, but how little of this is actually our own. We must deduct the time required for sleep, for meals, for dressing and undressing, for exercise, etc., and then how little remains really at our own disposal! “I have lived,” said Lamb, “nominally fifty years, but deduct from them the hours I have lived for other people, and not for myself, and you will find me still a young fellow.” The hours we live for other people, however, are not those that should be deducted, but rather those which benefit neither oneself nor anyone else; and these, alas! are often very numerous. “There are some hours which are taken from us, some which are stolen from us, and some which slip from us.” But however we may lose them; we can never get them back. It is wonderful, indeed, how much innocent happiness we thoughtlessly throw away.
In few respects has mankind made a greater advance than in the relations of men and women? It is terrible to think how women suffer in savage life; and even among the intellectual Greeks, with rare exceptions, they seem to have been treated rather as housekeepers or playthings than as the Angels who make a Heaven of home. The Hindu proverb that you should “never strike a wife, even with a flower,” though a considerable advance, tells a melancholy tale of what must previously have been. What a life, and what a language, without love. Yet in marriage even the rough passion of a savage may contrast favorably with any cold calculation, which, like the enchanted hoard of the Nibelungs, is almost sure to bring misfortune. In the Kalevala, the Finnish epic, the divine smith, Ilmarinnen, forges a bride of gold and silver for Wainamoinen, who was pleased at first to have so rich a wife, but soon found her intolerably cold, for, in spite of fires and furs, whenever he touched her she froze him.
Moreover, apart from mere coldness, how much we suffer from foolish quarrels about trifles; from mere misunderstandings; from hasty words thoughtlessly repeated, sometimes without the context or tone which would have deprived them of any sting. How much would that charity which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,” effect to smooth away the sorrows of life and add to the happiness of home. Home indeed may be a sure haven of repose from the storms and perils of the world. If our life be one of toil and of suffering, if the world outside be cold and dreary, what a pleasure to return to the sunshine of happy faces and the warmth of hearts we love.
We have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some sorrows, alas, are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves, but others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of troubles: if we face them boldly, we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination, and that it is as true now as in the time of David that “Man disquieteth himself in a vain shadow.” Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils, but not real; while others are real, but not evils.
We often magnify troubles and difficulties, and look at them till they seem much greater than they really are. “Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them: nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep.”
Marcus Aurelius observes that “a spider is proud when it has caught a fly, a man when he has caught a hare, another when he has taken a little fish in a net, another when he has taken wild boars, another when he has taken bears, and another when he has taken Sarmatians;” but this, if from one point of view it shows the vanity of fame, also encourages us with the evidence that every one may succeed if his objects are but reasonable. “A continual and restless search after fortune,” says Bacon, “takes up too much of their time who have nobler things to observe.”
(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pleasures of Life, by Sir John Lubbock)