Mature And Immature Manifestations

Just about any new thing goes through birth pangs, and in many cases the immature manifestations of things are destructive. Many get better as they mature. When I first began developing my opinions, my expressions of them were angry, they were rude and they were mean. Now, after putting significant intellectual effort into developing my opinions, I can express them in a calmer and more reasonable manner.

We see this with both liberalism and the Christian Right. The 1960s liberals were seen as irresponsible and unrealistic, and the Christans were seen as stupid bigots. Both have improved their operations. The liberals became more informed and more effective, and the Christians expanded their worldview and have been in many cases doing actual good. The original manifestations were flawed in many ways; the mature manifestations have become a lot better.

It appears the nature of most things in their original stages to be flawed. One starts on a journey on which there are few stars on the perimeter. Where one goes, either people have not gone before or they have gone before one's time or, if they have gone in one's time, were suppressed. One is groping in the darkness, and one frequently makes mistakes. But in any number of cases he emerges with valuable insight or valuable new directions.

The original cause is frequently not rationally known, or at least not well expressible. If the culture is turned against love, then people who seek to embark upon love are at a disadvantage. They do not have knowledge or practice or support. If they fail – being as they are at a disadvantage – then that feeds the cultural claims that love is a myth or a racket or mental illness; which reinforces the widely held falsehood. However they do part of the job to help pave the way for others on the same journey, and that makes what they do a contribution to society.

Of course anything new will be seen by somebody as being disruptive, and that would feed the claim that it is bad. However everything that they have was once new, and that means that it was disruptive to somebody. That does not make it bad. Electricity was disruptive to candle makers, but that does not damn electricity. The American Revolution was disruptive to English monarchy, but that likewise does not make it bad.

Original manifestations of electricity were clumsy. The American Revolution had to involve a war. The ideas behind American democracy were in contradiction to the order of the day and were ridiculed by many. We see any number of similar things with just about anything that is new.

Are there bad things that come about? Of course there are. There are plenty of new things that are no good. The question that needs to be asked, when faced with anything that is new, is, What would be its mature manifestation? Once again, immature manifestation of things are flawed in most cases. Many get better as they mature; some get worse.

So yes, the immature manifestations of things – both good things and bad things – will be obnoxious in some ways. That is not because of the thing itself; that is because it is an immature manifestation. The important question to ask, once again, is, What would this thing be like if it becomes mature? And then it becomes possible to see which beginnings lead to bad outcomes and which beginnings lead to good ones.