We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020

This article touches more on true wisdom than it appears. But it only touches the surface. There is a whole lot more beneath the surface that I would like draw your attention to. It is the ultimate question on how we humans should live. Unfortunately for our species, we are just cognizant enough to realize that our individual existence is only temporary. But this insight is an unacceptable truth which becomes an ultimate evil.  This realization has caused humans to neurotically believe in delusions: an after-life and an obsession with acquiring power, and especially power over other humans.
You see, we humans think that we are unlike other species which are doomed to only a temporary existence. Most religions teach us that there is some sort of an afterlife. Also we frequently believe that other species exist in order to serve our needs. We humans have long held belief systems, or religions, that put our species at the center of the universe. But religion is only one method to overcome this dreadful consciousness. Domination of other humans has become a major means to ward off this unthinkable fate. Thus, our human history has been marred by attempts to use violence to coerce others to serve our needs. Only recently we have become aware that we humans are only a tiny part of the web of life on our planet Earth; and while we search the universe for other life forms, we haven't yet found any. 
It is apparent that a major part of our existence is in families and clans, and down through the ages we humans have used this organic structure to impose power over other families and clans, and this often has taken some form of violence: outright physical violence, the threat of such violence, and/or the deprivation of the material means of existence such as denying them access to water, food, shelter, jobs, etc. 
Our species' history has produced various systems to socialize entire societies, along with the assistance of religious authorities, to inculcate beliefs among populations that their system was divinely sanctioned, and of course it is the best and only system possible. But people eventually noticed that a certain segments of their societies held more power and material benefits than others. These were designated as ruling classes which consisted of families and clans that used their systems to obtain disproportionate rewards, and sometimes these rewards were extremely disproportionate.  
Human history can be considered as a series of changes of systems, and the latter all have the same characteristics: use of physical force or the threat of such force with a supporting ideology to impose their disproportionate rule on other classes of humans.  Social scientists have identified such systems as rule by military or religious classes; feudalism: rule by those who, or their heirs, of conquered lands; and in our present- day, capitalism. Capitalist families continue to place special value only on families and clans instead of whole societies, but uses a hidden class commitment to capitalism which enables and sustains a ruling class.
Our existing capitalist ruling class continues this sordid history via the private purchase of the economy and awarding the owners of property of nearly unlimited rights. This system uses the denial of life sustenance needs, in addition to the use of violence, mostly directed on those who oppose the system. Capitalists have a built-in tendency to reduce the sustenance needs of workers to a bare minimum, and to deny aid to those who do not contribute to the wealth and power of the capitalist ruling class.  
Currently there is a growing awareness of the unsustainability of capitalism: of the extreme inequality of wealth distribution that is inherent in the capitalist system, the contradictions that are obvious in the capitalist requirement of infinite growth on a finite planet, the lack of awareness by our masters that we humans constitute minuscule part in the web of life on our unique planet Earth. Under capitalism, militaristic ruling classes are currently threatening a nuclear war catastrophe which will end our very existence.
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