Poetry and Writings by Ilya Shambat

Fiction Books Literature Books: Cross Pacific Passion by Shambat, Ilya And Melanie: Better World Books

2010-11-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

Fiction Books Literature Books: Cross Pacific Passion by Shambat, Ilya And Melanie: Better World Books

Webpages by Ilya Shambat

2010-04-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

My translations of Russian Silver Age poetry are at

http://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat

Philosophical, political, psychological writings at

http://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatwritings

Poetry at

http://www.oocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/poems.htm

Hydrogen Transmission Network at

http://www.adda-enterprises.com/HTNwebsite/home.htm

NowPublic profile at

http://my.nowpublic.com/user/540276/assignments

Political writings also at

http://bettermillenium.blogspot.com

Ilya Shambat

Integrative Cognition and Dualities

2009-09-22T00:54:00.000-07:00

Methods of Investigation

The natures of cultures, societies, religions, lifestyles, communities, families and individual people can only be fully assayed through combination of external examination and subjective experience. The first shows the entity's effects on the world; the second, the experience of the people who are a part of it. To do the first, is to know the nature of the entity in its external effects. To do the second, is to know its nature as felt and experienced by its participants.

The merely external examination fails to understand the exerience and is felt by the participants as being out of touch, cold, and lacking in understanding. The merely experiential fails to compute the entity's external effects and also fails to see and correct its wrongs and itse errors, allowing these errors and wrongs to continue unchecked. As these errors and wrongs continue unchecked, they continue to grow.

The scientific method being one of empirical analysis and observation, many of those who are drawn to it become hostile to anything that involves such things as empathy, feeling, or subjective experience. In understanding people at individual or collective level, this attitude is wrong. Understanding people means also understanding their experience and thus being able to relate to them. The journalist, the sociologist, the psychologist, need to be able to do this in order to have a complete enough knowledge to do their work with wisdom. The humanistic psychology not only recognizes the need for empathy; it demands it. And empathy training is an essential part of the training of anyone ivolved in psychology or social science.

But empathy itself is likewise not sufficient. As the purely empathic feels the experience of a person or a group of people, she gets lost in their world and forgets the rest of the world and their effects on it. She identifies with their experience and, as part of it, identifies also with their errors and their wrongs - frequently to her own grave wrong. Someone who empathizes with a Talibanist or a member of Christian Identity gets used for a wrongful agenda - at grave expense to herself, her children, and (if the people with whom she's empathized get their way) the rest of the world. Empathy, and caring, can easily be exploited for goals that are in no way caring or empathic, and the tragic experiences of those who have made such a choice is evidence of that fact.

Empathy must be balanced with discernment if one is to avoid such a fate. At the same time, the rational mind must be balanced with empathy in order to avoid greater errors of cruelty, coldness, and out-of-touch ineffectuality. The full examination of any human phenomenon demands to know both its effects on the world and its effects on participants. And this requires intelligence and empathy working together to create not only an integrative assessment of what is under examination, but also more integrated people themselves.

Approaching Dualities

The Western thinking and Eastern thinking is both dualistic; however the dualities are treated in West and East in completely different ways. Whereas the Western thinking posits valued dualities, in which one side is good and the other is bad, the Eastern thinking posits value-neutral dualities that interact with and interpenetrate one another. And whereas the thinking of Eastern philosophy concerns with achieving balance among the dualities - and the thinking of Taoism is concerned with seeing past the dualities to the nondual reality - a thinking more pertinent to the world would be concerned instead with maximizing the positive outcomes for each side of the duality and for their interaction, while minimizing the negative effects of both.

The value-neutral dualities - such as male and female, nature and civilization, business and labor, private sector and public sector, thinking and feeling, self-interest and altruism - are made value-neutral by the fact that they both exist, not by moral choice based on values, but simply as parts of reality. Not existing by moral choice, they have zero correlation with moral judgment. Zero correlation with moral judgment means: Tendency toward good; tendency toward bad; and tendency toward indifferent; will be found in each side of the duality. And the process of maximizing the positive outcomes and minimizing the negative outcomes will consist of - each side checking the other's harmful tendencies; leaving each other alone where the direction is positive; and collaborating with each other when such is beneficial.

The non-valued dualities can interact in these ways:

- One can impact the other positively;
- One can impact the other negatively;
- One can operate independently of the other toward either positive, negative or value-neutral outcomes;
- The two can collaborate in a constructive manner;
- The two can collaborate in a destructive manner.

A viable approach toward maximizing the beneficial outcomes and minimizing the negative outcomes will see all these potentials and work to enhance the positive ones and minimize the negative ones.

In addition to value-neutral dualities such as the preceding, there is also such a thing as valued dualities. Dualities such as health and disease, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil, are neither equal nor are they of equal value. In valued dualities, one is good and the other is bad; and the benefit comes from maximizing the good side and minimizing the bad side. One of the greatest errors one can commit is to confuse value-neutral dualities with valued dualities and to claim value-neutral duality like "man and woman" to be comparable to a valued duality such as "good and evil." There is no room for this error, as it results in horrible wrong - either that error be of claiming men good and women bad, or of claiming good and evil to be equal in value. In both cases a terrible wrong is done. The non-valued dualities are only similar to valued dualities in their dualism. Beyond that, similarity between them ends.

This error has been taken to variously disastrous ends by various forces in society. Whether misogynists claiming men to be good and women to be evil, socialists claiming workers to be good and business to be evil, Republicans claiming private sector to be good and public sector to be evil, rationalists claiming reason to be good and feelings to be evil, or representatives of some religions claiming civilization to be good and nature to be evil and spirit to be good and physicality to be evil, in all cases a horrible wrong has been done.

All of the above-mentioned forces are value-neutral. They are all capable of action good, bad and indifferent. Claiming one to be good and the other to be evil results in wrongs condoned and institutionalized on the part of the first side of the duality, and a brutal and hideous oppression against the second side. And while we see many movements on the part of the second side in either of these (and many other) dualities claiming their to be good and the first side to be evil, the truth of the matter is that neither side is either good or evil. Both are value-neutral; both are capable of right, wrong, and indifferent.

The valued-duality approach, when applied to value-neutral dualities, is therefore disastrous. This is the kind of thinking that leads to creation of ever-growing hostilities and ever-growing oppression. The correct approach to dealing with value-neutral dualities is to see their capacities - to destructive outcomes; to neutral outcomes; and to beneficial outcomes. And then to - reduce the first; leave free the second; and encourage the third where possible. All are there; all are legitimate; all are capable of both positive and negative effects. The goal in all cases is to maximize the value for each and of benefits of both while minimizing the negative effects.

The public sector and private sector are both there because they serve demand - the first at the poll booth, the second in the marketplace. Business and labor are two components of the production process. Nature and civilization are both parts of the world - the first of the world as not created by human being; the second of the world created by human beings. As for self-interest and humanity-interest, a being that exists both as individual self and as part of its species will have natural inclinations toward benefit of both, with different levels, in different people, and at different times in their lives. In all cases, we see value-neutral dualities that can either injure each other, leave each other alone, or work together. And in all cases, the interaction must be aimed at reducing the negative effects and maximizing the positive ones.

This is achievable in a three-tier model. At the bottom level, each side in the duality has right to protect itself from the negative effects of the other side. Civilization has right to protect itself from viruses and harmful bacteria; people concerned for well-being of the world and the future generations have right to protect rich and essential environments from destruction. Business has right to protect itself from Luddites and robbers; labor has right to protect itself from brutal and corrupt business practices. Private sector has right to protect itself from excessive regulation; public sector has right to protect itself from those who want it gone. Finally, individual interest has right to protect itself from oppression, tyranny, and similitude, as does humanity-interest from those whose self-interest demands planetary destruction and lasting damage to humanity.

In the middle level, each side in the duality should accomplish the most of itself while leaving the other alone to accomplish the most of itself. Civilization should blossom, and so should nature, as human intelligence makes it possible to fulfil the needs of humanity in a manner that less impinges upon the natural world. Business and labor should both leave each other to do their sides of the work. Private sector should leave the private sector to do its work of producing prosperity, and private sector should leave the public sector to do its work of defense, law enforcement, education, infrastructure, and reducing ills. Likewise, the humanity-interest should leave people to define who they are, become who they want to be, and express to fulfilment their life and liberty - just as individual interest should leave humanity-interest to do its work of protecting human rights and creating a livable future.

At the top level, the value-neutral dualities should engage in positive collaboration that makes possible what either cannot do alone. Greening the cities and suburbs, creating synthetic lifeforms to clean out landfills, producing nanotechnological devices to clean out arteries, and planting forests and farmland in places such as Sahara, Gobi, and deserts of Australia, Arabia and American Southwest, will see nature and civilization working together to create a better future for both. Business and labor work together to create the product. Private sector and public sector have worked together on projects such as the Interstate and the Internet and should work together now on putting in place sustainable and effective clean-energy and clean-water solutions for the world. As for self-interest and humanity-interest, the benefit is maximized when people are given the freedom to choose their lives and to contribute to humanity as they can. In this situation, both the self-directed aspect of human being and the humanity-directed aspect are served and work for mutual benefit, resulting in the complete solution - as opposed to either pure individualism or pure collectivism, both of which only see a half.

In the integrative solution, the negative effects of collective-minded beliefs (oppression, tyranny, and similitude) are checked by affirmation of individual life and freedom; the negative effects of individualist beliefs (isolation, cruelty, short-sighted destructive rapacity) are checked by affirmation of the needs of humanity; both individual interest and humanity interest are acknowledged and are served; and, at the top level, the two work together on matters of interest to both individual people and humanity itself - matters such as, for example, creating a livable and sustainable long-term future.

This approach to dualities recognizes, once again, their value-neutral nature and as such their capacity - for harming the other (which is checked by each protecting its prerogatives); for doing their own thing (which is made possible by leaving each other to do their part without negative interference); and for working together with one another (which is made possible by collaboration where such is beneficial). In this model, the negative effects are minimized, and the positive effects are maximized - both for each side of the duality and for what it requires them both to create. Checks and balances, freedom, and collaboration, all exist in this model - and are applied where they are applicable.

Further, care must be taken by entities external to each duality to reduce the negative-collaboration potential. If, say, public sector and private sector decide to join forces to create a fascist state such as Franco's Spain or Pinochet's Chile, to wage unjust wars for corporate interest, or to oppress and tyrannize people, the result is negative collaboration: The dualities working together toward a
negative outcome. The negative-collaboration potential cannot be corrected for from within the duality, but can be corrected for externally to the duality - by voice of those who come at the receiving end of the negative collaboration.

Whereas positive collaboration should be encouraged wherever possible. The public sector and private sector working together on projects such as the Interstate and the Internet have been the source of huge economic boom and prosperity for the country. When thinking and feeling work together, the result is insight and understanding attained faster and deeper than by either of the preceding acting alone, as well as intelligence informed by human experience that has the possibility of actually being beneficial toward human existence.

When the needs of both nature and civilization are taken into consideration in creation of economic benefit, the result is a sustainable development that fulfils the needs of the man-made world of civilization while leaving intact and wholesome the world of nature that man has not created and cannot at this time recreate. When women and men collaborate on creating and raising new life - when business and labor work together harmoniously to produce international economic prosperity - when both spirit and physicality are tended to and work together - the results are such that neither part would be able to accomplish alone. Similarly there is potential for collaboration between altruism and self-interest - to make better world for the people, and better people for the world.

Integrative Approach

Integrative approach to dualities makes it possible to make the best of both worlds. It makes possible coexistence with mutual understanding, allowing real peace. The man and the woman who make a real effort to understand and work with each other create far more wholesome, productive, and lastingly loving relaitonships than those who make no such effort. And if the interest of creating wholesome family life is to come to any kind of a real fruition, this must be the fact of the relationships and their norm.

Similarly, integrative approach can and should be applied to such entities as nature and civilization. The needs of humanity must be provided in such a way that does not destroy what man has not created and cannot rebuild. Human intellect and human effort must be put to work toward affectuating this outcome. Techonology that uses only the energy of the sun and the ocean water to deliver both water and energy, conveniently and economically, round-the-clock, while producing as outcome only fresh water to be recycled into the environment, stands to fulfil both energy and water requirements of
humanity indefinitely while greatly reducing the burden of the same on the planet.

The thinking that values, respects, and quantifies both aspects of the duality, selects for and incentivizes solutions that work for the benefit of both. In this is set forth the intellectual infrastructure for creating and putting into place such mutually beneficial solutions on the part of both sides of the dualities.

With business and labor, private sector and public sector, self-interest and humanity- interest, similar benefit can be achieved.

By application of objective and subjective methods of investigation working together, can be understood human phenomena quicker and to a fuller extent.

And by application of integrative approach, can be made the best of the inputs and the best of the outcome, while each part protects itself from the negative effects of the other, the negative interaction is checked, and the positive interaction is maximized for the benefit of each side, their outcome, and all that it stands to affect.

The Boon of Clean Energy

2008-07-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

What many people do not understand about clean energy is that it is a major economic boon to any country that would embrace it. The clean energy technologies - wind power, solar power, coal sequestration, hydrogen engines, sun-beam technology - are all brain-intensive, technology-intensive industries. Which means that they will directly create millions of jobs - engineering jobs to develop the technologies, and manufacturing and construction jobs to put them in place. And that will be a real way to put back to work the parts of America that have taken a hit from displacement of industrial jobs.

Clean energy also creates stronger economic foundations for liberty. It is a path toward wresting the world free of the stranglehold exercised by oil-funded fundamentalists in Texas, Oklahoma, Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as dictators in Venezuela, Lybia and Kazakhstan. With energy production no longer under control of oppressors, there are stronger economical foundations for liberty the world over. And that also means in the United States.

Clean energy is also a way for prosperity to continue while treading lighter upon the world. It is true progress: Affectuating greater utility with higher technology and less waste. The prosperous lifestyle can be maintained, while significantly reducing its negative effects, simply by changing the sources of energy to ones that are non-polluting and by removing the polluting elements from existing sources. The economic growth in China, India and elsewhere can be accommodated through the same mechanism.

Clean energy is also a boon for mentality and character that it fosters. Instead of seeing world as one in which it is jobs against the environment or civilization against nature, choose one or the other, the thinking turns to jobs and environment, civilization and nature, together: Accommodate both at once by creating jobs that produce wealth in a more intelligent and prudent way. Instead of people having to be fragmented between wealth and social responsibility, nature and civilization, feeling and intellect, ideal and reality, instead they become beings of both, and making the most of the aspects of human beingness that are in false dualistic thinking seen to be irrevocably at war. And this serves both the integration of human character as much as it serves longevity and progress.

The oil industry is based on extraction of finite resource - a resource that is a result of compaction of formerly-living matter. As such it fosters an extractive, exploitative, expropriative mentality - mentality that also, in a sense more than metaphorical, burns life. And just as the oil, through the pumps, is extracted and burned, so are the lives. Just as the resource that is extracted is both finite and poisonous, so become the worldview and hence the actions of the participants in its extraction and those whose minds are in league with them. And just as the worldview of the oil industry is a worldview that fails to see or to plan for the time beyond the date that their oil runs out, so do the worldviews of places most oil-influenced in their mentality become short-sighted to the point of being apocalyptic. And then they attract beliefs that envision the end of the world in our lifetime: The end that obliterates visible cosmos and puts into conflaggration most life under the earth (the deceased) and above the earth (the living) - perhaps as Biblical metaphor for burning, through incineration, the former life under the ground that is oil and coal - and, through global warming, of present life - natural and human - on top.

Clean energy, on the other hand, is based on transformation of abundant energy into usable energy. There is no end in sight to either the sun or the wind or the hydrogen in ocean water; and energy that uses these resources - resources that, unlike oil, are not made of organic matter, does not destroy but only transforms. The mentality of clean energy is thus provident, nonviolent, self-replenishing and supporting life with non-living rather than destroying life through combustion of life. It is a mentality that uses man's ingenuity and technical knowledge to transmute the energy of - sun, ocean water, wind - into forms that can be used to power the civilization, without poisoning the world or poisoning itself. It is a mentality that lives and lets live, and that shows how to coexist with life rather than burn the life under oneself and incinerate oneself in the process. It is a mentality that is at once life-supporting, productive, intelligent and responsible to the future generations - and one that offers a chance to secure a viable future for the planet and for humanity.

Clean energy is a solution that uses the best of civilization - its intelligence, its foresight, its reason, its inventive pioneering thinking - to minimize negative impact of economic activity on nature and on the future generations, while providing through ingenuity and constructive endeavor a lifestyle as good as or better than one that they've had before. Man stops being an agent of destruction of nature and becomes an agent of creation and coexistence with it. The people who for idealistic reasons are loathe to participate in economy, have an economic pursuit in which they can work and be true to ideals. And intelligence becomes source not merely of wealth, but of lasting wealth that works with nature rather than against nature - and that as such benefits both nature and mankind.

The mentality fostered is one of considering all aspects of one's activity - and building a civilization that not only minimizes negative impact on nature, but also applies the best of intelligence and the best of innovation and the best of work to provide more for people while minimizing impact on what one has not made and what the future generation will need. From modes of cognition that constantly create hostile dualities which necessitate constant destruction, human understanding reaches upwards to see the components working together and put into place a lifestyle that makes the most of all the components and makes the most as such of mankind. And the character created is a life-supporting integrative character: A character that considers all aspects and works to make the most of them - to make the most as such of life that is a function of all of the aspects working together. Intellect and feeling, civilization and nature, ideal and reality, prosperity and social responsibility, work together and create people of true integrity - integrity that is result of integration of components required for life, and that as such is supportive of life rather than life-destructive. Which character, by building a synergy of components, makes also the most of human existence; and which character, due to its very nature as a combiner and unifier, is also the character that seeks and actualizes lasting peace.

All of which is a matter of all components of life working together to create and perpetuate life, both in its natural and its man-made aspects, and allowing them to work with each other at basic and all other levels rather than being, as in all separationist dogmas, inherently and pointlessly at war.

Clean energy is therefore good all around. It is good economically, it is good politically, it is good for the character and mentality that it fosters, and it is good for its effects on the world. The extent to which clean energy is embraced, will determine who lives and for how long. In 200 AD, a Roman named Hero of Alexandria invented the steam engine. The Romans refused to use it because they thought the slave labor was cheap enough for their purposes. This oversight led Roman Empire to decline and eventually to fall to Vandals. If the Romans had realized what they had, they would have industrialized 1700 years before the Industrial Revolution and would have been completely invulnerable, and most likely the world would be speaking Latin even to this day.

In choosing whether to embrace clean energy, the world at this time faces an analogous choice.

Happiness Growth and Expectation Inflation

2008-04-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

When a country gains more monetary wealth than it has had in the past, there are two paths that it can take. One is known as economic growth - of money being invested into producing real wealth. The other is known as inflation - of the money losing its value, things becoming more and more expensive, and the gain being squandered.

The same applies in human happiness. When state of affairs of any person improves, the two paths possible are happiness growth and expectation inflation.

In the first case, the person joyfully embraces the improvements and becomes a happier person. Remaining grateful and appreciative for what he has that he did not have previously, he exists in a happier mindstate. Any new improvements are likewise met joyfully and appreciatively. And the improvements are never taken for granted, but are appreciated in each case, resulting in ever greater happiness of the person.

In the case of expectation inflation, the person takes the new state of affairs for granted and begins to expects it. Instead of becoming happier, he requires more and more positive conditions to sustain the basic mental state. Sense of entitlement grows, requiring more and more to meet ever-growing expectations and making happiness ever more remote. The improvements are inflated away to feed the growing expectations. The demand grows out of control, necessities grow beyond all measure, and more is required to sustain basic level and more still for any level of happiness.

Both phenomena take place at the individual level as well as the collective. The current state of existence of most people in the First World would have been unthinkable to most people in history; and yet many take it for granted. Frequently it becomes worthwhile to show such people how life is elsewhere and how it has been before they have sufficient appreciation to value the life that they have and the efforts of hundreds of millions of people who made it possible.

One case of expectation inflation, taken to a thoroughly absurd extreme, can be found in the Australian men of father's lobby persuasion. My friend Dean, who has traveled to over 100 countries, wrote that Australia is the best place in the world to live. And yet Australian men have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. This suicide rate cannot be based on political or economic conditions; otherwise most of the world, where political and economic conditions are nowhere nearly as good as they are in Australia, would have much higher rates of sucide. Nor can it be based, as Australian father's lobby types claim, on feminism; otherwise there will be far more suicide among men in America, where feminism is far more strident, more toxic, more vehement, more abusive, more powerful and more extreme. The only possible explanation is that these men have absurd expectations of life - expectations that have inflated so far from reality that they cannot be met in the real world. If their expectations cannot be met in Australia, then they cannot be met anywhere, and the only solution is for these men to be made to know how good they have it by comparison to what people face in the rest of the world and also what was faced by their ancestors. Which may also give them appreciation for the liberal ideals and efforts of millions who made it possible for them to have the life that they have here.

Only then - when the overly-inflated expectations are shown for the folly that they are - can people develop the appreciative state of mind that is required for actual happiness. It is then that happiness can grow. And then these same people can become contributors to happiness of their families and of their country rather than its detractors. Which will be a far superior use of their resources than whining about feminism in one of the First World's least feminist countries, or taking away women's rights still further in a country known for violence against women, strident male chauvenism, and aggressively atrocious treatment of wives.

For happiness of people at both individual and collective level, it is necessary to encourage happiness growth and confront expectation inflation. In this the good is not wasted but is appreciated, and is affectuated improvement both in human condition and in people's experience of life. And then it in fact becomes a worthwhile endeavor to put in work to improve human condition, knowing that it will not be taken for granted but rather benefit people, and will not be inflated away into bloated sense of entitlement but rather lead to happiness in people who live and are yet to live.

Translations of three expatriate Russian poets

2008-02-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

Alexandra Geller

Untitled

As far as all us know, love and sin

Walked side by side in world from the beginning:

Serpent's temptation in the garden of Eden

Turned Eve and Adam into human beings.

Thank you, the cunning serpent, for your gifts:

Apple and passion, untold good and evil,

And has remained for many centuries

The might of sinful pain and gorgeous feelings

And we possess no shame, when love arrives,

Of pangs of love or of our own conception,

And may be justified it, for all times -

The earthly passion of enamoration.

Ella Odeyash

By the Sea

Like liquid glass, water of sea,

Made of the tinted-bottle color,

Was pouring softly, heavily

The appelation of this: summer.

And ships, appearing like white dots,

Forming the distance with their presence.

They went somewhere to end of earth,

The appelation of this: heaven.

*****

Like in childhood, I am walking barefot

With my feet feeling the trail.

For long time I did not walk like this.

For long time I was not this way.

Balmy breeze in my face is blowing.

I forgot how old I've become

And perhaps it's the joy of living

Wafting at me from the ground.

It's the day, it's the path, it's the summer...

Every blade of grass, dear to me...

And my bare-footed childhood

Smiling, is looking at me.

*****

From the bluish distance blown,

Wind, arrives on a spring day.

Arms and elbows smell of orange,

Air is full of jasmin smell.

Not agreeing with my years

My soul sings and sings and sings:

And the leaves' rustle makes clear

Something tender's whisperings.

*****

I live in condition

Of mood schizophrenia:

As if there's no distance

Between Russia and Israel.

I live in two mentalities

In two different spaces and times.

In two "hard" realities,

In noise of different tribes.

In news political

(From darkness where I can't see)

About both Russia and Israel

I say the word "We."

And I watch TV programs

Like fog that is full of blood:

All is woeful and horrible

Both here and there it's bad

Like in a monster fairy tale,

Like in a tale of horror -

The Arabian terrorism

And the Chechnya war

And I live in condition

Of split apart soul -

As if there is no distance

Between the two countries I know.

*****

Again - a lightning bug, or maybe a cicada

Again - the moon and palms above my head...

And in my dream, blockade of Leningrad, and

The icy chill is blowing from the street.

Though life has not been smooth in any manner,

And flow of time has changed so much, I know,

WIthin my soul - I'm still a Leningrader,

And lightning bug looks like the Metronome.

Greg Kleper

My Wife is a Martial Artist

My wife is not an actor,

Not a pharmacist, not a doctor,

Not a linguist and not a harpist:

My wife is a martial artist

She gives me no vodka or Riesling:

For dinner - three grains of rice meal

Three raisins and then three olives

And on the holiday - orange.

My wife and I live in harmony

And go everywhere - she is right by me

If you do not like me - too bad

Come and greet my wife instead.

On weekends other have parties,

But me and my wife have a practice,

And I am woking a bag:

The one to punch, not to drag.

The kids have no worries at all:

With Mom they are climbing the wall

They practice with swords and with knives,

I have almost sleepless nights.

Me and my wife never quarrel

Right at hand she has a barbell

If you do not like me - too bad,

Come and greet my wife instead.

And in the bed she has tortured me:

She's short, but keeps jumping all over me,

Putting me in such positions

That I need to see a physician

And now she again succeeds:

She got me to do the splits.

I felt like I was torn in half,

But it's fine, I'm still alive.

My wife behaves quite meekly -

She almost does not beat me.

If you do not like me - too bad,

Come and greet my wife instead.

I will learn a bit more of all that

And I will get a black belt

And such forms to her I will show

That even she does not know

And then I will have no fear

Of my wife darling dear

And to every foe I may possess

I'll be able to say all this:

"Me and my wife live in harmony,

And go everywhere, she is right by me.

If you don't like my wife - too bad,

Come and greet me instead."

Ilya Shambat's Wikipedia page

2008-02-05T21:41:00.001-08:00

Wikipedia now has a page about me. It has some of my translations as well as links to poetry and translation sites. URL

http://www.wikilivres.info/wiki/index.php/Ilya_Shambat

Fighting domestic violence in Australia

2008-01-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

As the Australian women and the better Australian men proceed on a much-needed fight against violence in relationships, it may be valuable to share insight that can be gained from experience of women's movements in other parts of the world.

In few parts of the First World is this fight more necessary or more rightful than it is in Australia. Australia has been singled out by international human rights watchdog organizations as a place where violence against women is a serious problem. Australia is the butt of such jokes as, "American man turns to his wife and says, 'Pass the sugar, sugar.' Englishman turns to his wife and says, ' Pass the honey, honey.' Australian man turns to his wife and says, 'Pass the tea, bag.'" While posting on Australian Internet forums, I have consistently encountered attitudes supporting domestic violence up to and including murder of wives. And the news stories reported that the Australian men, even the football heroes, felt embarrassed about donning white ribbons in fight against domestic violence, when the actions of men who stand up to abuse in relationships should be seen in no way as embarrassing but instead as heroic.

As an American expatriate married to an Australian woman, I know for certain that Australian women are anything other than bags. Australian women have amazing qualities to recommend themselves as people and as marital partners, and it is indeed unappreciative people who, instead of reciprocating these qualities with affection and passion and caring, would instead reciprocate them with violence and abuse. The heart, the beauty, the warmth, the strength, the genuineness and the generosity that Australian women have, deserve better treatment than what is afforded to them by "traditional" Australian attitudes. And it is a matter of fairness, a matter of virtue, as well as a matter of international image that Australia moves away from such attitudes and "traditions."

So as Australian women embark on solving this hideous problem, I hope that they do not lose what they are in the process. I hope that they keep their amazing qualities while pushing for and attaining the good treatment that they deserve. And I also hope that they do not repeat the errors of the errors made by American feminists in 1990s.

American feminism made this critical error: Of equating equality with similitude. Attempting to be equal to men, they lost what they were as women, including many wonderful qualities that women possess naturally but men do not. And just as many American women came under abuse from American feminists for having or wanting to keep the beautiful qualities that set them apart from men, likewise many women in America (and many more in the world) have developed enough distaste for American feminism to aggressively reject it. This, to the point that we see many educated Indian women willingly choose the obedient-wife role, many educated American women aggressively challenging feminism, many Western European women say that American women are stupid, and many successful and educated women from Eastern Europe state that American feminists have no idea what being a woman is all about.

The Swedish women did not make the same error. Sweden has significantly higher representation of women in politics than does either America or Australia, and it also has laws that are designed to protect women from everything from violence to emotional abuse. The Swedish women decided rightly that it's not one or the other but both. It's not be feminine or be powerful; it's be feminine and be powerful. It's not brains or beauty, it's brains and beauty at the same time. It's not be themselves or be equal; it's be equal and be themselves. And then, with the social power they gained, it became possible for these women to make the feminine count meaningfully in the world.

The result being, they have better lives; they are both who they are and equal to men in power; and they can apply the power to manifest the good that they have in them.

It benefits one little - and it benefits the world less - if the price of one's success is losing one's best qualities. That results only in trading one prison for another, or creating another prison into which to put others. Success is cheap if one loses oneself in the process of getting it. And as many women in America and around the world become enough disenchanted with American feminist social role to move away from it, Australian women deserve to know enough not to repeat the American women's self-proclaimed leaders' mistakes.

To do that, it becomes necessary to renege on false dualistic thinking, which American feminists have sheepishly followed men to embrace. The male logic is by design dualistic and made for conquest. The feminine logic, at its best, is integrative. While traditionally patriarchial beliefs want to separate thinking from feeling, civilization from nature, spirit from physicality, and use one to conquer the other, the traditionally feminine beliefs know enough to combine the components. A flower is not roots or stalk or petals; it's all of these things working together. And a human being is not one or the other component; it's all of them working together. A spirit without body is dead; a mind without feeling is a computer; a civilization without nature cannot exist. But it's when those components exist together and work together, that is found life in all its richness and splendor, and all the magnificent outcomes are created and can coexist with one another.

To have this basic understanding - that life is not one component driving the other into extinction, but all components working in synergy - is the logic of life and its ongoing perpetuation, as well as a logic of genuine peace. And it is that logic to which women, as givers of life, are most naturally attuned. Which means that when they are disconnected from that basic nature, they become incomplete, inferior to their possibility, and in most cases thoroughly unhappy. In the world of perpetuation of life it's not one component of life or the other; it's all the components of life at the same time. It's not feminine vs. equal, beautiful vs. smart, or loving vs. powerful; it's feminine AND equal, smart AND beautiful, powerful AND loving. And then the power and the status one gains, can actually be a mechanism for making the qualities one has count in the world meaningfully, instead of destroying them in the process of trying to be equal by being similar and thus becoming a two-X-chromosome vehicle for manifestation of masculine values and ways.

The people who think in terms of conquest keep having to find new things to conquer, and approach the world consistently as though it were field of war. But the person who combines instead of divides the components of life, results in new and splendid creations and outcomes. To use the intelligence to synergize rather than separate, is to strive for and achieve not only myriad splendid creations, but also achieve actual peace and completeness. Which is a more path not only to ongoing creation and perpetuation of life, but also to sustainable existence and happiness.

It have been American women that have been most hurt by the errors of American feminism of 1990s. The feminist war against beauty, love, romance, feminine physicality and the life-giving role have robbed American women not only of the wonderful qualities that are natural to women that are not to men, but also of much of their chance at happiness. One of the saddest statements I'd heard came from a highly educated American woman who described her female body as "useless." As many of the women educated in such modes of thought become parents, they will begin to move away from such destructive conceptions and strive for genuine power as women, which also means allowing themselves to be many of the things that women can be and that men cannot.

Now, I've been hearing feminist college students say that their leaders had got it all wrong; that traditional women actually had more power than do American urban corporate women, because the traditional women were in charge of reproduction while the American urban women are totally under control of male-dominated business. Whether or not that is true, it can't be denied that many legitimate aspects and needs of women were short-changed by American feminists. And there is a growing consensus by both men and women that these were denied wrongly.

And I am far from the only person who believes that there is a better way.

I have no intention at all of discouraging Australian women from achieving in business, science, politics, or any other worldly pursuits. That is their human right and part of fulfilment of their potential as it relates in those aspects. But having lived in America from 1988 to 2006, I seek to counsel Australian women against believing that this empowerment is incompatible with empowerment in other aspects. It's possible to have meaningful professional life and meaningful love relationships; it's possible to have both power and femininity; it's possible to have professional life and a home life; it's possible to be smart and beautiful; it's possible to have both a mind and a body at once. And a valid direction by both men and women, would be to encourage that integrative type of thinking; to teach men to respect women for being capable of all the preceding; and to show clearly the superiority of what they have for far too long regarded to be inferior to themselves.

There is now in America a popular sticker that says, "The women who want to be equal to men lack ambition." I've always been under impression that the women who are capable of genuine womanhood are superior, not inferior, to men, and my experience in Australia has borne me out. Australian women deserve respect and love for what they are. And they have a chance of obtaining it without making the errors that the American feminists made.

Australian men need to see that women can do all the things that men can do, and then some. But what they really need to see is the accomplishment of what women can be. They do not need to see women trying to be men - a race in which they can only come second - while destroying the womanhood in themselves and aggressively stomping on it in the women around them. They need to see women who can be what women can be and men cannot; who can also achieve significant things at what men think only they are good at; and who are enough as such to inspire both their love and their respect.

And then they need to learn appreciation for what they have for so long taken for granted, brutalized, referred to as their "bags" or their "kitchen b*tches." and whose value it sometimes takes an external perspective to bring them to see.

International competition will always make losers of the men who mistreat women and of the women who mistreat men. And people who fail to appreciate what they have, fail to gain from it and are wrongfully unhappy. While men's groups blame Australian men's high suicide rates on Australian feminism, I for one do not sympathize at all. Australian men have it better than men anywhere else on the planet. With a big, open continent, a working economy, a democratic government, and some of the world's most amazing women, Australian men should be the happiest men anywhere on the planet. Unhappiness here comes not from any reality but from failure to appreciate what one has. The problem in this case is not corrected by further oppression of Australian women by Australian men, but from change of attitude to value instead of degrading what one has here.

It is entirely for the benefit of Australian men to learn to appreciate and be good to Australian women. It will improve their international standing, their reputation, and their experience of life. The Australian men who campaign for good treatment of women, do so both in the interest of Australian men and in Australia's national interest. Which means that they are true heroes of Australia.

As for Australian women, they are wonderful as they are. What they need is to make it apparent that they would no longer accept mistreatment. Putting themselves in a position of power through work, business and politics can and should part of the solution for many; but another and greater part of the solution is making the feminine appreciated, respected and valued in Australia. And in striving for this life-supporting, integrative, state of affairs, Australian women stand not only to achieve social empowerment, but do so while remaining the many wonderful things that they are - that men aren't - that American feminists have destroyed in themselves and those who believed them - and that the Australian women, by keeping these virtues alive while pushing for both legitimate social power and legitimate good treatment in marriage, would be able to use their power to make count in the world, while gaining both love and respect that they richly deserve.

Intrinsic Conflagration

2008-01-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Project the mind - it resonates with thunder;
Reject the mind - around you it burns.
Intrepid joy - impassioned restless wonder -
The heart-suffused and life-rich way to learn:

Intrinsic conflaggrations, not to pity
Or to respect, or even yet to see -
The nature's splendor reaching into city
To render its inhabitants half-free

Until joy drops, and out appears concept
And meaning - this, if only for some!
And from beneath the axioms, a rocket
Ballasts into the space, explodes and is gone

And then - another time, another meaning,
The meaning is constructed from all sides
And forms the structure that informs the seeming
Which then becomes the vision of mankind -

And then come other meanings and perceivings
Construed just like dynamic SQL...
The culture wisens, thickens as it's dreaming
And builds to levels more removed from hell.

Mind, Heart and Wisdom

2007-12-29T04:21:00.000-08:00

A Russian writer stated, "In Russia, there are two kinds of people: Smart and mean, and stupid and kind." In America, the mind and heart can be seen arranged in two significant misdirections, and with other more positive possibilities.

One common American misdirection is the Midwestern-style anti-intellectual "hey-mr-smartie-pants-who-do-you-think-you-are" crowd. These compensate for their intellectual inferiority by claiming that someone who has a mind can't also have a heart. The other is the emotionally repressive rationalists, reductionists, logical
positivists, behaviorists, "skeptics," eliminativists, and others who want to deny the validity of anything intuitive or heart-involving. These compensate for their emotional inferiority by claiming that those who have a heart can't also have a mind. Both are in grave error.

In effect, there are good hearts and bad hearts at every level of intellect. There are brilliant jerks like Freud, Hitler or J. Edgar Hoover and brilliant great men like Jefferson, Franklin, Gandhi or Martin Luther King. There are good-hearted dumb Forrest Gump types and there are stupid creeps who rape 9-year-old black girls and think that they are doing their country a favor. The dogma on both sides of this
is not in tune with reality, and to be able to see things for what they are it becomes necessary to be free of that dogma.

The heart can in fact produce insight and wisdom; and there are people of all intellectual levels who found, from going to significant lengths to develop the heart, that they came in possession of insight and understanding that they had not possessed previously. It is aso possible through development of the mind to come to the place of the heart - to the place of appreciation and wonder before the universe as its mysteries are deeper and deeper fathomed - to the place of respect for what has such intricacy, complexity and beauty; to the place of seeing the next person enough to empathize with them; to the place of fathoming the magnificence of the world enough to love it. Where both mind and heart merge into insight, compassion, understanding and love, is the place of wisdom. Which, like light that is both energy and matter (both wave and particle), becomes the point of intersection of mind and heart, where they exist together as one at the place of embodied infinity.

Many genuine scientists and mathematicians (as opposed to "skeptics," "rationalists" and others of similar persuasion) develop kind hearts, as that is the appropriate logical reaction to genuinely beholding magnificence of the Universe. Many people who work with the matters of heart develop very sharp minds, as that is what it takes to adequately fathom, nurture and resolve matters of human experience for
existent and long-term benefit.

The mind can therefore be a valid path to the heart, and the heart to the mind.

It therefore follows that an effective path to take is the integrative one of mind and heart feeding into each other and growing each other as well as themselves into both mentally fathomed and emotionally experienced universe-attuned wisdom.

False advertising and the culture of insincerity

2007-11-23T06:07:00.001-08:00

I have written on all kinds of issues, and now I'm writing about a problem I've seen in more cases than I can count.

The problem is that of false advertising in relationships and the culture of insincerity that results.

The perpetrator presents a genial front and acts nice to everyone. Then when he has found the woman, and she is his, he turns into a monster. The people cannot believe that he does the things that he does, because according to the impression he gives to them he is a nice person. And the person against whom the perpetrator commits his
abominations is blamed for all things that result, and is attacked even further if she tries to leave the perpetrator.

In business, advertising as one thing while having a different product is known as false advertisement. It is a crime, and one that is severely punished. But in relationships there is no clause about false advertising. Instead, the person at the receiving end of the abominations is blamed for all things, and is blamed even further if she tries to go on her own.

This of course results in tremendous ongoing hypocrisy and insincerity. And it is a hypocrisy and insincerity that requires for its perpetuation a destruction of sincerity wherever it can be found. Thus, the sincere woman is entrapped; the sincere man is seen as being fundamentally criminal. And it is through this attack on sincerity that the culture of false advertising and insincerity goes on.

Insincerity, for its continuation, requires further destruction of sincerity wherever it can be found. Thus, any true feeling, any true idea, any true existence, comes under vicious attack. And the result is a putrid swamp of falsehood and viciousness and hypocrisy that ensnares all the living. And then this swamp claims for itself the sanction of religion or of morality.

For this abomination to end, it becomes requisite to see all false advertising for what it is, and to instead demand truthful portrayal of self, of feeling, and of attitude. And then one more obstacle to sincerity, passion and clarity will be removed, and it will be more possible for more people to live truly.

Poem for my daughter

2007-11-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

The umbilical cord is blue,
The placenta is black and red,
The newborn's skin is purple,
And now, I'm a dad.

It took seven minutes -
No more than that,
My love stands, leans on me,
Then comes out a head

And then - an announcement
To all alive:
The baby is here -
Greet her, husband and wife!

How do I feel
Do you suppose
When you reach for my eyes
Or snatch at my nose

Or look at my face
With wise giant clear eyes
Appearing informed
By multiple lives

And yet also open
To everything here -
Whatever world you come from,
Greetings, my dear!

"Num-num" for milk,
"Bum-bum" to get changed -
Both words you know
At one month of age,

You look like a bear cub
When your mom sits you up
And resound like a trumpet
When you give out a burp

Or you happily laugh
When you stand on her thighs
And she holds you up
And looks in your eyes

And when I say
You will grow up strong
You don't cry any more
And then stare along -

Everyone says
"What a beautiful child"
Lovely and thoughtful
Peaceful and mild

Wherefrom do you come?
What do you know?
What is your truth?
Into what will you grow?

What will you teach us?
What will you become?
Put pieces together
Into what sum?

How to combine
Wisdom of soul
With what exists
In this world?

All that you have been,
All that you see,
All that is given
And what you will be -

Masterpiece, artist,
Creation, creator,
Nature, mankind,
Shaped and the shaper,

Part you eternal,
Part me and my wife,
Part what you'll learn
And part all of life -

In those giant eyes
As you look to the ceiling
Full of great thought
Full of great feeling

Full of everything
That is true:
Lillian Gaia Shambat,
I love you!

Ilya Shambat

Fairy Tales

2007-11-18T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have written several fairy tales and takeoffs on known fairy tales, with adult meaning.

Check them out at

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/sunflower.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/mermaid.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/ridinghood.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/nemo.htm

Also feel free to look at The Frogs Project, where I took thematic drawings of frogs by a famous Russian-born artist named Victor Kinza and wrote poems to go along with them. These ended up telling a story:

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/frogs.htm

The Logic of the Flower

2007-08-17T05:42:00.001-07:00

The logic of the flower is the logic of the fruition and perpetuation of life. It is the logic of CONSUMMATION - of being the complete unfoldment and mature product of life. And it is the logic of CONTINUITY - of being the path leading into the future. In combining the logic of consummation and continuity, the flowerbecomes the fulfilment of life - and the method by which life is to go forth.

The logic of the flower is not linear; indeed it is marvelously non-linear. The logic of the flower is akin to a quantum swirl, in which the two purposes of the flower - to CONSUMMATE the species and to CONTINUE it - intermingle and interpenetrate and interweave. It is an exquisite combination of two sets of logic, creating a dynamic tug-and-play leading toward excellence and self-refinement. It is a dynamic duality between two sets of logic, each of which partakes of and adds to the other and is itself by the other enriched.

The logic of consummation is this: The flower is the fulfilment of the species. The flower as consummation completes the species; is the fulfilment of its potentiality; is further its accomplishment. The flower is therefore by her nature delicate; soft; tender; and determined in pursuit of beauty and excellence - the beauty and excellence that stand as the accomplishment of existence and its fruition made manifest.

The excellence-pursuing, beauty-pursuing nature of the flower of course makes her sensitive to criticism of all kinds. If one is the consummation of the species then one must be not only her absolute best but likewise the best of what came before her; and the state of being the flower therefore demands tremendous effort of mind and heart; an interweaving, an integrative synthesis, an integration of all influences and the triumphing over them of life.

The flower is therefore in need of being noticed, understood and appreciated. That, being seen falsely as vanity or insecurity, is in fact functional to the flower's nature: As Consummation and Fruition of the Species and of what has come before. The gigantic work that is done by the flower to exist at a level of functioning that makes possible for there to be a thing such as a rose, justly requires appreciation; and while this legitimate need may easily be usurped to lead to bad places, it can be likewise fulfilled in a principled and determined manner by those who see the beauty of flowers and are dedicated to making this world a world in which flowers can bloom.

Another vulnerability in the structure is that it does not ipso facto discriminate legitimate from illegitimate influences and is not only frequently subject to influences that are malicious, deceptive or wrongful, but likewise allows negativity from beings that do not possess any similar standard of self-demand or are intolerant of beauty and excellence. Thus, the flower is frequently torn apart when confronted with judgmental interposition of logic other than one by which she herself runs, which is held to be true logic but which is itself nowhere near to describing life and the universe, and certainly nowhere near to describing the logic by which the flower exists. What is thought illogical, is in fact something that runs by a logic different from the perversion of logic that's used to assay it; and in human society the flower gets attacked for deviating from such logic when in fact her own logic is far more intricate, far more valuable and far more life-suffused than the concept of logic that wants to see all things in straight lines and miss out entirely on the curvatures and complexities that exist in the universe and through which the universe is made the miraculous place that it is. The universe is not made of brick; and unless one's logic can create a flower then it is not competent to be judging the logic by which she herself runs.

The logic of CONTINUITY is the logic of affinity with life and her link to the posterity. The flower is fiercely determined in the well-being of the yet-to-be; indeed she is effectively self-sacrificing toward that end. She is concerned for the good of the children; likewise for good of the species and of life itself. That, is functional to the second purpose of the flower - to perpetuate life - and to the logic of CONTINUITY that is its essence. The self-perfecting character of the CONSUMMATION logic - and the self-sacrificing one of the CONTINUITY logic - are frequently seen as being contradictory to each other. The worst misrepresentation is the hypocrisy accusation; a claim that somehow wanting to be loved and appreciated for the unique self, and wanting the good of the world are somehow incompatible. In effect, life exists in itself and through its creatures; and the good of the life includes the good of the creatures as well as the good of the whole. The life exists further through self and through others; and to insist on good for self while also allowing and working for good of others is not only the healthy stance but in fact one that is intellectually honest.

The logic contained in the flower is the logic that has applications for the world ravaged by misuses of linear logic. Thus, to allow the various forms of individual good, while also contributing to the whole, is the consummate stance; the stance that allows for the fruition of both the entirety and the facets. And that makes the best of individualism and the best of altruism all at once - avoiding the individualism's wrong of cruelty and altruism's wrong of oppression, while allowing instead for individualism's virtue of freedom and altruism's virtue of compassion and good of all.

The Twelve C's of Effective Relationships

2006-09-11T19:37:00.000-07:00

As I've been finding out from observing relationships, both successful and unsuccessful, and from my own experience of both kinds, there are twelve C's that are necessary for relationships that are complete. These are:

Caring
Compassion
Communication
Consideration
Clarity
Compatibility
Credibility
Charitability
Commitment
Creativity
Consistency
Cooperation

Caring - mutual caring about one another - is the first ingredient of anything that can possibly qualify as a love relationship. There can be no worthwhile relationship between people who don't care about each other, and genuine caring about the partner is the first ingredient of any possibly lasting love. Any relationship that is shorn of caring turns into exploitation and ultimately abuse, coldness, and mutually assured destruction. People absolutely must care about each other in order to have any love between one another; and people who don't care about one another have absolutely no business being together. Caring provides the nurturing soil in which can grow love, as well as the partners. It is the first and main ingredient of love - as well as of friendship or indeed any meaningful interaction. The partners or friends who don't care about you are neither your friends nor your partners. And with caring, it is possible to overcome many obstacles, as well as many problems in self or in relationship. Caring provides the motivator and the soil; other things provide the tools to make it matter.

One such tool is compassion. Compassion means understanding where the person comes from and relating to them on the basis of that. A frequent grievous error that people make is that of judgment rather than compassion: Of failing to understand the person's motives, experience and ways of thinking before jumping to negative conclusions about their motivations and behavior and then prosecuting them for their perceptions of them. Few things kill love more reliably than lack of compassion; few things are as damaging emotionally. Compassion makes it possible for people to understand each other; to relate to each other on meaningful level; and to work through whatever problems that they may have, in a manner that is forgiving, kind and mutually enriching. Some people are compassionate overtly; others become so through training and experience, which may sometimes involve learning from errors and understanding own shortcomings enough to be forgiving of those of another. Whether natural or trained, compassion is the bridge between other and self that make possible the lasting and self-replenishing flow of goodwill and passion; and with genuine compassion, the error of judgmentalism that kills meaningful relationships is overcome.

Communication is what makes possible for caring and compassion to manifest and to continue. Communication makes it possible for people to talk through their problems, to work through their disagreements, and to come up with intelligent solutions that take the needs of both partners into account. Communication makes it possible for people to understand where they are coming from (making possible compassion), to express their perceptions and feelings, and to allow each other intimacy where there would otherwise be only battling. Communication means understanding own feelings well enough to express them and let the partners understand each other's point of view. This, in turn, makes possible both compassion and caring; it also makes possible to solve problems rather than get stuck in them perpetually. Lack of communication makes it impossible for people to understand each other, which in turn leads to needless conflict and frequent recrimination in place of knowing where each other is coming from. And learning to communicate - to understand the self, to try to understand the partner's perspective, and thus through mutual expression to understand one another - can solve most of the problems that arise in relationships. With good communication, it is possible to work through problems rather than letting them destroy everything in their path. Unlike caring (which comes naturally), or compassion (which can either be natural or developed deliberately), communication is in all cases a learned skill; and learning to communicate in relationships successfully is key to avoiding needless conflict and misery – conflict and misery that needlessly and unjustly destroy all kinds of relationships - and allowing love to grow in the nurturing soil of caring and compassion.

Consideration is attentiveness to the partner's feelings and needs. That of course is a part of love; and a necessary component also of caring. Consideration is what makes it possible on a day to day basis for partners to get along. It is what avoids disagreements and fights over small things, which fights may turn into something larger as they
build up. To be considerate of the partner makes it possible to anticipate many things that would otherwise lead to fights and to disagreements, and avoid making bad choices that wrongly affect the partner. All in all, it is a state of mind that makes it possible to get through the day without needless fights and resentments; and in so
doing it makes daily living easier.

Clarity is a matter of understanding emotions and motivations, especially one's own. Being able to do that, makes it possible to be compassionate to a greater extent. Being able to see self - and see the other - and love them for it, is to have contact with them at the deepest levels; contact that leads to a very profound and meaningful
intimacy. Being clear in the mind of the person's attributes, motivations, goals and perspectives, it becomes possible to likewise do what affects them most beautifully - to be the best partner possible, and to direct efforts in the most effective possible manner. Clarity is a state of mind that enhances effectiveness; and in relationships it is
a state of mind that enhances effectiveness of love.

Compatibility means picking the right partner and being the right person for the partner. It means choosing the right person and being the right person. Compatibility does not mean similitude of ethnicity or religion or age or upbringing or geography; it means closeness of basic mindset and basic propensities. It means being close to the
partner at the most fundamental levels - the levels, not of tradition or adaptation, but of the tenor of heart and mind. And it is discovered perhaps best through people finding each other based on similarity of interests - in forums (athletic, artistic, political, etc) that lend expression to those interests - rather than through people finding each other in bars, where the only thing they know about each other is that they are both drunks.

Credibility means being trustworthy. It means fulfilling promises; it means being able to own up to mistakes; it means refraining from expressions of anger and violence that do injury to the heart of the partner. It means earning and keeping the trust of the partner, by being or else becoming a credible individual. Credibility means
self-control; it also means character. All these can be developed, and there are many ways to do so in the world.

Charitability is a state of basic generosity and openness to the partner. It is willingness to forgive; it is willingness to refrain from criticism and prosecution; it is a basic kindness and goodness of spirit that makes it possible for love to continue in spite of possible misunderstandings, arguments and mistakes. It is willingness to live
and let live; it is willingness to be compassionate and forgiving. All in all, it is the essence of love - the love that makes it possible for goodwill to blossom and propagate and thrive in spite of anything that might arise between the partners. Once developed, charitability can then reach out to other areas of life and make possible more
fulfilling existence and beautiful experience of life for self and others in it.

Commitment means being dedicated to making the relationship happen. This is something that must be done by both parties - both must be committed to each other and to the love among each other. Commitment assures that people are determined to overcome whatever issues might arise, and are likewise determined to making love continue. It assures loyalty between the partners; it also assures determination between the partners toward making the love live and grow. It is an effort of will, by both parties, to persevere in love for each other and in so doing to overcome all possible obstacles while also sustaining and growing the relationship.

The tenth C of relationships is creativity. Creativity makes it possible to come up with original solutions to problems and, rather than being bogged down by problems, instead stay on top of them. It also makes it possible to have a relationship full of fun and excitement in which nobody ever gets bored or settled into a rut. Creativity makes the relationship blossom and sparkle and produce beautiful fruit; it also makes it possible to innovatively solve problems that may arise unexpectedly, for which pat or methodical solutions may fail. It is thus the attitude and frame of mind that allows both to solve problems and to reach ever-higher into the place
of ongoing love.

Consistency that matters in relationships means not having only a single emotional tone or a single way of thinking or even a single view of the partner, but rather being consistent in one’s determination to be loving to her. Whatever the mood, whatever the mind state, whatever the circumstance, consistency is a deliberate choice to remain loving and act in a loving manner to the best of one‘s abilities. It is not a matter of having a single mood; it is not a matter of having a single way of thinking; rather it is a matter of choosing deliberately to subject one’s words and actions to scrutiny of, “Is this a loving thing to do?” Consistency is a matter of choice and a matter of will, that uses the mechanism of deliberate action to overpower any bad feelings or bad reactions, or if they do appear to make up and grow stronger in the love. Like growth in economic curve, consistency is an ever-upward pulling force, whatever the fluctuation of risk-based emotional, circumstantial or other factors. It is the will that guides and informs continuity.

Finally, collaboration is just what it is: Being able to work together. This is something that any given couple has to work out for itself. Since people are different, and pairs of people more different, there is no single template for what kind of collaboration would work for whom. It is something that each couple has to figure out for itself as a calculus of their respective strengths, skills, likes, and requirements for what each needs to have done and what is required for both.

There are probably other ingredients, but these are the main ones I've seen so far in successful relationships, and ones that I have been called upon to develop in myself.

Putting it all together

2006-06-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

It was 2 in the morning, and the Lost Soul was walking around the neighborhood. Firefly, thought he, as an illumined unit of flesh and awareness flew before him and disappeared again in the dark. The moon, like a half of brie in the sky, was illuminating the path. And on the other side of Bradford St. was paradise.

Small cozy houses nestled amid trees that must have been there for centuries. One of these trees was overhanging the street, its branches and leaves hanging down, enfolded in cobwebs of fog. When Elvis Costello said "They lead you half-way to paradise, they leave you half-way to bliss" he was speaking about incomplete task. It has become up to us to complete it.

"We could do nothing for them, so we did not" said evil little voices. Except I could and did. It was wanted extinct and buried; but his love and respect for it only grew the more this was being done. Along with it grew passionate rage. And when they asked Balak to curse, and instead Balak blessed, he had been doing nothing different from what he was now doing.

"Bad crop," was said. "The worst generation." Not exactly, he said, and he meant it. He loved these people, and he was willing to live for the beauty that they had envisioned and put in craft. And if he was to deal with what they were dealing with, he was game.

He was loathe to learn incomplete lessons. A lesson that is a function of an interest or a worldview was bound to be full of distortion and fallacy and either error or deliberate lies. It was said that the Jews were hard-headed - would not they have to be in order to be the people of God? Would not they have to suspend their judgment from what the world told them in order to carry on the work? Would not that be thought psychotic by those who equate each society with the whole of reality and want to define people by reference to their status within it? And would not they have to go elsewhere besides the societies that hate them for insight and wisdom and personal truth?

He was loathe to learn incomplete lessons. The wrong lesson learned, he reasoned, is worse than no lesson learned at all. And better than both is right lesson learned, which can only be a result of complete perspective. To see all the forces involved in a situation, he reasoned, was higher form of justice than dumping on singular people who were used as emotional garbage dumps for the civilization. And so he traveled, read, explored, spoke to people from many cultures and occupations and ways of thought.

They ask Balak to curse, but he blesses. You might call it enabling; however the choice was to help beauty to thrive and have beautiful existence. No change was required; why change something so sublime? Rather clear the paths, improve the condition, and then she blossoms into resplendor and sets example for the future that beauty is good and viable and very much part of the real world -

- when people use the reality of their actions to make it so.

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At age 15 he saw essences intermingling and was told this was evil, but he dived in. It gave information and understanding of what was happening. If Adam was made in God's image then he was made to create; and the process required knowledge.

How can there be free will when one is not cognizant of the forces on which will is based and with which it deals? Such will is not free at all, but rather wielded despite itself by one or another such force.

How can there be responsibility without knowledge? Responsible action can only take place when one is informed of the full range of consequences of one's actions and can thus act in an informed manner, without unexpected consequences due to ignorance, and can take responsibility for the result.

Thus: Any concept of responsibility that excludes knowledge and what it takes to acquire it is therefore a transparent lie. True responsibility presupposes knowledge -

And true will presupposes understanding of that on which it resides. After which knowledge it can become truly free.

Now go tell that, students of life, to the Midwest.

So he explores. He feels. He thinks. He combines experience with observation. He trades places all the time to know how life by people in those places is experienced.

He does not use the will to bludgeon but to explore.

He recognizes the social, political, ideological, historical, economic conditions - all things that those who blindly mouth the lie of responsibility without understanding that uninformed action makes it impossible for one to actually be responsible - would rather people living under their spell ignore.

Through this whole process, the false foundations of will are eroded, and it becomes more informed and more free.

And then, with this wisdom gathered as to the internal and the external world, it becomes possible to use the truly freed will to act in a truly responsible manner.

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Many societies tell people what to do, but I've observed in some something yet more insidious: People being told what to WANT. Is that not a form of enslavement? The first being only circumstance-based, the second being internal?

Does it matter what circumstantial freedom man has, if his mind and his wishes are not his own? And to formulate people and then set them to compete against one another and call that liberty - is that not a deception?

Is not freedom of thought - freedom of mind - the root of all other freedoms? Are not man's actions guided by mind, and what forms mind becomes expressed through action in the world? And to force mental similitude and then call that freedom - is that not conmanship?

And does not conmanship and deception belie the claims of integrity and ethics that one professes to espouse?

The societies that derive legitimacy from claims of providing for human happiness, get very angry when humans within them want something other than what they want them to want. Such a thing is a blow to their claims of legitimacy and a refutation, by counterexample, of their worldview.

It takes someone with an outsider's and insider's perspective to see such things. More on this later.

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A golden tree grew up through him as she left him at the Poughkeepsie train station. And in the morning there were many bikes. The train rides here and there the little lakes glimmering with reflected clouds and all-eating swamps and giant Edwin Church forests.

Scott Lasch said that we are morally at sea. So learn to swim with the mermaids.

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In order to keep the love of the mermaid, the prince had to learn to swim. She was out of her natural element in the palace. The Prince, wanting what in the landed mind passed for a normal relationship, could not get that with someone who came from the ocean and thus could not completely subsume her marine nature however much she tried to be pleasing to the Prince. And because she was no longer the mermaid, what made her lovable to him in the first place was gone.

So the Mermaid runs out to the sea. Her golden hair flies in the wind, as tears run down her cheeks. She has come to throw herself into the ocean and end her sorrow and the Prince's frustration.

Then a sound magnetic - a sound warm - a sound resonant - reaches to her from the ocean. It's indistinct at first; it gets louder. It tugs on aorta and squeezes the lungs. A face comes up to the beach.

It is the Dolphin, her childhood friend. He reminds her of where she comes from.

And she knows now. She knows beyond the slightest doubt.

That in order for their marriage to continue, the Prince has to experience the ocean.

And then he would know her world and understand her.

And the love that he had for her - the love that developed in his heart when he knew her as the mermaid - will go on, now enriched with understanding of what made her lovable in the first place.

And they will both be complete, in knowledge of both the Appolonian and the Oceanic.

And then they can truly live happily everafter, having completed the task of attaining marine and landed intelligence and become the fruition of both.

IN ORDER TO LIVE HAPPILY WITH THE MERMAID, THE PRINCE HAS TO LEARN TO SWIM.

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I like to vanish into people's worlds. I like to experience them from the inside. I like to feel them and be one with them. And then I like to make sense of them, using both mind and heart.

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Everything happens for a reason, and some reasons are better than others.

Are things singularly caused? Overdetermined? Patterns from chaos? Games? Fractals? Relative? Quantum swirls? Holographic? Karma? Ionized multiplicity?

What does one do with Einsteinian reference frames that are individuals' and cultures' perspectives?

Does their being incomplete make them worthless? Or merely incomplete - convex mirrors, the curvature a function of the perspective - and thus worthwhile in part and self-defeating in another?

And does not clarity develop by putting an object in middle of convex mirrors, so that mirrors see both each other and the object, and it becomes possible to reduce the curvature in all and arrive at greater clarity of referential frames and clearer picture of the object?

It's hard to remove the beam from one's own eye. But to abrade multiplicity of perspectives to clarity - by pointing them to the same object and getting in them different pictures - which pictures then show the natures as well as the incompletenesses of the perspectives - there, is a way to reduce the amount of beam in everyone's eyes, while letting them all gain greater clarity as to themselves and to each other.

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An inner world is not understood completely except from within. The outside manifestations are not understood completely except from a multiplicity of referential frames working in synthesis. A DC ghetto is seen one way from liberal America; another from Midwest; another from China; another from Africa; another from Russia; another from Cherokees. In combining these perspectives is arrived a more complete picture of the ghetto - and in the process of checking each other also a more complete picture of liberal America, Midwest, China, Africa, Russia and the Cherokee tribe.

As these perspectives check each other in understanding of a single object, their own agendas and incompletenesses - as well as their virtues - become apparent. An integrative perspective is formed of the object being studied and of the things that are studying it. Flux is created; both beams in the eyes and the eye-matter itself become seen more completely. The result as these perspectives battle each other is reduction in amount of beam in everyone's eyes.

The multiple pieces understand each other; they see each other and are seen themselves. The incompleteness in each perspective is corrected, and the virtue in each perspective is seen, by having to arrive at a complete representation of what is being studied - and through attaining this representation seeing each other and seeing themselves.

De Tocqueville was able to write insightfully about America, because as a Frenchman who had lived in America he combined the subjective experience with outsider's perspective. Thus he was able to see both the experience and the external effects.

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Leo Tolstoy said that all happy families are alike, but unhappy ones differ. This means that according to him there is a single model of happiness that applies to everyone, and any deviation from it leads to misery.

I do not believe that people are such fools or such clones of each other. If what's right for people is function of what is inside them, then there will be many forms of happiness that are right for different people.

Each person being an integrative function - of general human traits; inner propensity and biology; culture and nation; gender; psychology; guidance; and one's own choices -

And what is right for the each person being, functional to this, widely different.

And if I am to be the change I wish to see in the world, then I will be knowledgeable, generous, gallant, giving, inspired, and full of passion and fire of life -

produce work worthy of having been written -

While also empowering in all ways possible that outside myself which I am rejoicing to see -

Which I find valuable for what it is, what it embodies and what it attains.

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Kino dived into the ocean to retrieve a beautiful pearl. After trying to sell it, and having his child killed on the way, he returned to the ocean and threw the pearl back in it. The pearl was full of faces.

But the pearl in itself is innocent. Rather in it are placed like gnarled roots and hedge the corruptions and incompletenesses and cruelties of the world. These are the distillations of context in which it is found. It is possible to say by the root and the hedge just what the soul has been through and what is the shape of the context.

And by looking at the pearl that is the soul, it becomes possible to know what world exists at the time.

Some say that pearls are pathological. Yet it is the pearl that adorns the necklace of the beloved.

The Russian way is to embrace the pearl and have the tragic worldview that sees the world as hopeless.

The American way is to cut out the pearl.

The way that combines Russian and American in the highest synthetic manner, is to remove roots from the pearl and allow it to continue, now pure and innocent, to enrich the world.

And thus to achieve the completeness of civilized process, in which can coexist the oyster and the pearl - the natural and the human - the matter and soul - the ongoing and the sublime.

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Pasternak said, "If it was so agonizing to love the woman, then how much more painful would it be to be the woman and inspire the love?"

How much more painful indeed to have to be absolutely at the top of everything, emotionally, mentally, physically, and carry unbearable emotional loads while remaining a lady in all ways?

How much more painful indeed to be the embodiment of the emotional striving of millions and carry that load while straining under unbearable personal tragedy? And in the process to be attacked on one side for daring to be ladylike and on the other for not being entirely a servant or not being entirely one of the tribe?

How many tons of unbearable baggage could they have placed on one delicate frame? And by what miraculous feat of strength was she able to carry it all?

The Mermaid had no context for herself on the land, and lacking experience of the sea the people of land had no intrinsic awareness of her world and thus treated her without any empathy. And their referential perspectives, being shaped in pursuit of one or another land-interest, attacked her in every way. And the only way for her to endure it -

Was to know that she is the Mermaid -

Was to know what Mermaids are made of -

And to stand on the truth of her Mermaidhood and to determinedly bring ocean's intelligence to the parched lips.

The dolphins have been bashing themselves against shores recently in large numbers. Maybe they're tired of mermaids being misunderstood and misrepresented and seek to bring people the truth of the ocean, whatever it does to themselves.

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There are people who are of the belief that the romantic perspective is untrue to reality.

The question to be asked is then, What is the composition of reality?

Reality is an integrative function of myriads of influences, some natural, some manmade, some spiritual, some inherent, some created, some eternal, some changing with the times.

And a large part of the composition of the reality - indeed a huge chunk of its composition - is people's actions guided by their beliefs.

So that, if one has belief in beauty, in passion, in excellence, in fairness, in generosity, in compassion, and is willing to make these beliefs count in his life and those of others, then he will use the practical reality of his action, pursuant to these convictions, to make these things more and more an aspect of reality.

A concept of realism that ignores man's role as active participant in shaping reality, according to his beliefs, is a completely inadequate concept of realism. It is a concept of realism that ignores man's ability, as an active participant in the constant shaping and reshaping of reality, to change it in any direction! And for someone who claims himself to be a realist, to ignore something so fundamental in shaping of reality, is to commit a fatal logical error according to his own system of thought.

There is that which exists and cannot be changed; there is also that which man does using the practical reality of his actions, pursuant to his convictions.

And the more use the practical reality of their actions to make life more beautiful, the more beautiful the practical reality of life becomes.

And that, is a far more complete and inclusive realism -

One that recognizes man's role as participant in shaping of reality -

And thus recognizes and values and empowers true responsibility and true will.

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I majored in psychology and economics. I think in both economic and psychological terms. The economic perspective is to combine the inputs in such a way as to make the best outcome. Combine, for example, the best businessmen with the best workers; or the best government with the best population; or the best women with the best men.

Thus, when American business goes to China, the result is extremely efficient production and improvement in quality of what is produced - along with lifting 500 million people out of abject poverty in less than three decades.

The same mentality can be applied to social and psychological issues. Combining the best of the complementaries across the world. Bringing talent, mind, heart, passion, man, woman, everything, where they can do the most good and where they can be most appreciated and justly rewarded.

Combining the psychological forces where they can be most effective and be rewarded the most.

Computing psychological costs and in so doing creating a system of valuation of psychic inputs.

And thus to make the most of all components, resulting in optimization of human process -

With incentives for what is emotionally enriching and beautifying -

And disincentives for what emotionally grinds people into the dirt.

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The error - indeed the crime - of failing to compute psychological costs is the error that leads to abomination in all forms and conditions. The prince wants to see the Mermaid's erotic resplendor as worthless, and then he wants to feed on it while attacking her in the process for not being completely made of land. And however much the Mermaid disfigures herself or tries to please the Prince, it is never sufficient: Nothing will satisfy him except her complete evisceration. And then he catches himself in a double bind. If the Mermaid was no longer the Mermaid, then what he loved about her would be gone. And if the Mermaid in any part of her being remains the Mermaid, then that is a violation of his lie of normalcy. He catches himself in a double bind; he catches her in a double bind. He wants her to feel her gifts worthless and meaningless; he wants her to feel trapped and helpless. And in the meanwhile he's preying on her magnificent energy, with his own actions of being with her and preying upon her denying the supposed worthlessness that he has to her ascribed.

These Gordian knots require participation of mind and heart to untie. The mind by itself would not see the insides of the knot. The heart by itself would not know how to untie it. Put them together, and there is no longer the need for the sword.

THE GORDIAN KNOT IS TO BE UNTIED BY MAN'S WITS, GUIDED BY MAN'S DESIRE.

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The biggest ongoing error that keeps insidiously creeping into psychology is that of introjecting into the mind the method used to study the mind, and judge it instead of understanding it should its processes be found to run by a logic different than that of that method. That is of course a betrayal of the very rationality one claims to espouse. The purpose of scientific analysis is to study and comprehend. And if that which is being studied runs by logic different from one used to study it, then that is simply how the thing is made and deserves to be understood for its nature rather than being bludgeoned to death for difference from one's own methodology.

A corollary of the same damnable error were such abominations as logical positivism, which made the incredible irrationality (for people regarding themselves rational) of discarding all that did not parse with their concept of logic instead of finding out the logic by which the thing was in itself made. This, of course, is the highest of irrationality; and while the movement is supposedly dead, it is important that it remain dead.

As should historical errors such as imperialism, which damned and sought conquer-worthy all other civilizations for supposedly using different methodology or supposedly having different attributes (attributes that oneself did not create, could not create and thus is not licensed to be judging).

It is important that such abominations and all similar manifestations not only be dead, but have their graves covered in spit.

Is reason " a higher function"? Let me ask a stupid question: Wherefrom comes reason? Then does the person who claims to be rational being rational in claiming credit for it while attacking all else? A higher function? I repeat, wherefrom comes the higher function? Did the supposedly rational person create it? Then what is the rational thing to do with this supposed higher function: Attack other functions - ones that one has not created - or to do something with it - to make something with it - to use it for something of benefit?

As I am using my own, innate, function, of insight for the benefit of deconstructing sophistries - in this case, sophistries spun by misuses of rational mind.

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What is the logic by which something exists? Of what is its existence a function? What is its nature, what is its essence?

What things are functional of that essence, and what can be most made with it?

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What logic motivates a flower? What is a flower? A flower is the completion, the consummation, the mature form, of the species, as well as its link to the future times. The logic? CONSUMMATION and CONTINUITY, both functional to what the flower IS. As the consummation of the species, it is the flower's nature to be exquisite, self-demanding and bent on pursuit of excellence. As the link to the future times, it is the flower's nature to be forward-seeking and fiercely determined toward nurturing future generations. The first makes the flower delicate, vulnerable to criticism and determined to be her most splendid. The second makes the flower self-sacrificial and most concerned for the future.

A corollary of being the consummation - and the incredible mental work it takes to remain at that level - is a very legitimate longing to be seen, appreciated and adored for the inner-directed effort. This can easily get her in trouble and may be slandered and misconstrued. "Who does she think she is," ask many. I tell you who I think she is: A splendid, giving, loving, generous, and rigorously self-demanding human being - a flowering of humanity, its mature form and manifestation, desiring as part of her nature to be her most magnificent and justly seeking to be rewarded for the colossal emotional and mental effort it takes to be at that level of Being.

Which is of course only fair. And which fairness becomes likewise functional to the ethic of the flower - for the same reason as fairness was advocated by Socrates: Because it is necessary for ongoing, resentment-free, harmonious, perpetuation of life.

With (from economics) incentives created for all that leads to magnificence:

Rewarding fairly, by computing the psychological costs, for the work done by the flower to make the highest resplendency of herself.

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The erotic becomes an aspect of being a flower, as the erotic is blood of life. The flower is filled with erotic energy and seeks rightly to be for it seen and appreciated. The erotic becomes likewise a path to the future; a lifeline toward the next generation and the next step. The flower sacrifices herself for the future and is fiercely determined to make the lives of the coming to be a success; to not only protect them and educate them while they are growing but to likewise make sure that the environment in which they grow up be peaceful and friendly to their development and existence. That's no illogic; that's how the thing is made - rightly - and it is by looking at the process, intrinsically, instead of adjudicating it referentially to a mode of cognition that is acquired not only understanding and empathy - empathy that the logicists sorely lack - but knowledge and wisdom and ultimately a path to the future where flowers can blossom.

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There are many who refer people in America who like European culture, or literature, or poetry, or art, as posers. My response: Who cares if you think they're posers? These are people who seek to have beauty and class and elegance in their lives. If they go for it to Europe or to Japan, then that's simply because those places know how to cultivate class and beauty. And I say furthermore this:

That by bringing class, beauty and elegance to American soil, they enrich America.

And it is by bringing the best from all of the world that America grows and redefines itself into ongoing greatness:

An E PLURIBUS UNUM of all that is of highest quality, weaving the talents, the wisdom, the greatness, contained in each into completeness that serves one and all.

It takes someone who's lived on the outside and on the inside to have an integrative perspective -

And it takes someone who's seen both worlds at times to remind America, lost as it often is and most countries are in one or another shroud, of what it can and should be.

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We have been living in times that have waged a war on beauty.

An attack was waged on the psychological foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be narcissistic.

An attack was waged on the economic foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be impractical.

An attack was waged on the philosophical foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be a temporary artifact of a male-dominated society.

An attack was waged on moral foundations of beauty, leading people to wrongly believe beauty to be shallow.

An attack was waged on beauty at the political level, leading people to believe it elitist.

Until the nation was robbed of beauty, and all that was of beauty was in one or another bind, allowing the enemies of beauty to claim that this was what beauty led to naturally and to perpetuate in so doing their wicked worldview.

Many people were led astray into hideous places by such hideousness. And through manipulation of social climate and psychological climate the people were led to participate in this abomination, with climate (and resulting lessons) manufactured to lead people to make deliberately contrived, fallacious, conclusions, to validate this fallacious worldview.

So man rises.

The fire from the center of the earth, bound down by the crust, which is itself a congealment of plasmic fire, rises.

He bursts through the crust. In order to tower at the top of the crust. Not so that he could itself tower - no, not for anything nearly so vain or short-sighted.

But so that water, the solvent of life, the love of man that is the feminine counterpart.

The life-giving substance that is the reason for life; that being pure in herself dissolves into herself all forms of rubbish, and thinks herself the vilest things on earth when it is the reason for life and is in itself utterly indispensable and sublime.

With people calling her damaged goods if she were to dissolve into herself any rubbish, and in so doing becoming accomplices in the original crime of dumping the garbage into the water instead of doing what justice demands and removing the trash.

Water, that is the reason for all of life, and that by ingratitude and malice and jealousy and ideologies catering and justifying malice and jealousy is contaminated with all kinds of poison.

Could seep into the top of the volcano.

Into the crater that congealed fire has made for her.

And bask at the top, under the sky, in delicacy and enchantment - dissolving minerals, and yet being completely and utterly clear, transparent, and enchanting - at night reflecting the stars and at day being dressed in fog and white gossamer webs of clouds.

So that people could journey for thousands of miles, to the crater, and not only be healed of their ailments. But to behold life as life can be - as is the attained merger of elements - as is the result of man's action guided by inspired and principled passion - as is the wisdom embodied in the planet.

And as is finally, after all the horror and error and misdirection that has been done through incomplete study and incomplete understanding - after web-spinning, fabrication, illusioneering in service of hideous motives and hideous worldviews - after all the fallaciousness and worldview-fabricating - after all these things, at long last, weaving a gordian knot around the soul and silencing it into extinction 0 is by the reality of man's action made part of reality of the world.

So that beauty can be by practical reality of man's action made a part of the practical reality. That by the fire rising from the depth of being, at the sight of horrible social manipulation leading the world's most sublime things into extinction, is grounded in deepest human reality and informed, intelligent, ethical choice. That, being aware of this manipulation, is based on the highest human intelligence. That, by man's action out of love based in profound aesthetic sensibility and rightful wrath upon seeing beloved water contaminated with debris and usurped and denatured and robbed and denounced, is grounded in greatest motives known to man. And that, by being what it is in itself, becomes a complete manifestation of what is possible here on earth, and inspires others with sight of accomplishment based in deepest human reality and reaching toward states worthy of the world that we have been given and that makes us worthy of that world.

This, consummation of love, a volcanic crater lake, solution to the disease of the times, flowering of truth of humanity and inspiration for generations to come.

It's better to learn no lesson than it is to learn a wrong lesson.

If things don't parse with theory, check your premises.

And a lesson that is most profoundly premised, is based on the depths underlying reality.

It's based on the Fire at the Center of the Earth.

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Then can the frames of reference be redintegrated around this plasmic fire. Then can ideologies can be stood on their heads and seen for their incompleteness. Then can commonsense - the mental shroud of the times - get punctured as is the seeming, and visible resplendor becomes the embodied reality of human mind, of ethics, of sensibility and pursuant that of the civilization.

The commonsense redintegrates around this reality, and becomes servant of it as is its nature.

Don't have common sense? Good for you. Reach for inspired truth, and make that formative to a more informed commonsense.

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Love is an unexpected guest at the table. Tsvetayeva: "they dressed the table for the six, but seventh one they did forget." They forgot her, and she came unannounced. Did not knock at the door, did not call, did not ask for an invitation. They banished her; they thought she was a mirage.

What is a mirage? A reflection, across the sky, of something real that dwells on the other side of the desert.

And which as such is a sign, to the parched traveler, that there is a world outside the desert - a real world, a rich world, and a world that is worth traveling through the desert to find - as it is itself trying to find the traveler through its reflections that the sky sends to him on his path.

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There is love general, love Christlike, love directed toward one and all.

And then there is love particular, love preferential, love passionate.

There are many who, practicing first form, are hateful of second form. That is a bad error.

To reward the magnificent - for making the effort to be magnificent - with gift of romantic passion, is to give people incentive to be resplendent -

While rightly rewarding those who make such an effort -

And in so doing to help make the most of people and the most of humankind.

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What happens to a dream deferred?

More importantly, what happens to an ability suffocated?

It becomes cancerous. It eats from the inside. It tears out the lungs.

The hobbled minds and emotions either turn outside in jaws or are gnarled inside.

It becomes a poison that injures oneself; or it becomes a criminal that injures others.

The more it is attacked, the more obvious becomes the cruelty and abomination and hypocrisy of what it takes to constrain it.

Until someone who's seen both perspectives reminds people of what E PLURIBUS UNUM means.

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E PLURIBUS UNUM means this: That there are multiple valid abilities, that can produce multiple valid results. That there is not a single way that is right for everyone, nor a single hierarchy, nor a single "adequacy," nor a single mode of computation, but multiplicity of pursuits and modes. It means that there are multiple intelligences, all expressed to different extents in different people. It means that there are multiple ways to the top of the mountain; it means that there are multiple valid endeavors; it means that there are multiple mirrors; it means that there are multiple PATHS.

And by allowing people a fruition of what they are given - in paths that are right for them - more and more of the human potential is given a way to expression for the good of one and all. Economically; academically; artistically; and in multiplicity of endeavors.

That, is the meaning of E PLURIBUS UNUM.

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A neighborhood kid tried to teach me what he called player tips. I stopped him right in his tracks.

A relationship that is based on deception will be toppled by any manifestation of emotional truth.

The process of defending such a relationship involves spinning an ever-more-wide, ever-more-oppressive, ever-more-strangulating and ultimately ever-more-transparently-dishonest web of deceit, in order to not only keep what the partner truly wants from appearing, but to keep the partner so shackled and guilt-ridden and miserable as to not be capable of seeing the deceit or extricating herself from it.

The lie grows; it becomes more ensnaring. Everything in the partner that is receptive to emotional truth is torn up and destroyed. The people cannot give love to their children or to handle in them sincerity or give them emotional understanding, because such things are a menace to the falsehood that is their existence: A foil for it and, as something of sincerity itself, a frame that makes apparent their own insincerity.

The people retreat behind closed-gate neighborhoods and develop groupthink, allowing lies to build up while aggressively excluding anyone with any other ideas. The church comes in to justify the lie, profaning itself and the name of God in the process. Psychology comes in to make people believe that they don't think what they think and don't feel what they feel. Social movements come in to deal with those who would not be deceived by either of these methods.

Criminalized, the emotional truth becomes criminal, while the lie becomes the law.

It becomes, in the words of Steven Jay Gould, "Shared dogma masquerading as objectivity" - and defining all people, all abilities, all perceptions, all values, all mindsets, all personalities, in reference to - itself.

Creating a bigger and bigger shroud; a bigger and bigger falsehood; and a bigger and bigger skein of self-perpetuating and mutually-perpetuating lies.

It has been often observed that suburban life is hypocritical. I've just explained why and how.

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If something exists at a rate greater than chance, then there is inevitably a reason. Thus many of the things that are stereotypical are based on actual root causes. The task becomes to see the underlying mechanism.

"Jews are hard-headed" - well yeah, and I've said why they have to be. "Black people in America are lazy and violent" - many aren't, but historical analysis would refer to it as learned helplessness in face of having all of their work expropriated. "Women aren't rational" - while many are, the ones that aren't simply think along different lines which are functional to another level of nature.

To know this, is a way to move out from cultural dogma masquerading as objectivity -

And toward actual examination of cultural, historical and psychological forces that are necessary for integrative portrayal of people at levels individual and collective -

And, once this wisdom is quantified, making possible for actual, informed, responsibility to be the fact of people's lives.

================================

It has been this experience: That whenever faith is put into something that is incomplete, follows a refutation by counterexample. Someone puts faith in brotherhood of man - and gets stung by a scorpion. Someone puts faith in himself - and to survive keeps having to draw on other forms of knowledge, on friendships, on alliances, that expand his horizons beyond himself. Someone puts faith in work or responsibility - and as the work builds all kinds of unexpected consequences arise, that demand more knowledge, that call on more faculties, that expand the definition of work and responsibility and activity that is useful that was not previously known as work. Someone puts faith in empiricism - and as empiricism builds on itself it finds out, through Einsteinian relativity, quantum mechanics and game and chaos theories, that it is not the absolute truth. People put faith in logic - and get Kant and others using the logic for suicidal epistemologizing. Communists put faith in mankind - and get the worst of what man can be.

All and further along; these aren't tricks, these aren't illusions, this is not human condition, these are simply manifestations of how the universe is. The false theories get tested and deconstructed, with their shortcomings becoming immediately or sometimes not so immediately made apparent. Does incompleteness of all these things render them worthless? No, but it renders them incomplete.

Through interpolation among convex mirrors the amount of curvature is made fathomable, and the legitimate, being separated from the illegitimate - as is grain from the chaff - gives clarity of perspective; clarity about perspectives; and sets in forth the dynamics by which the beam in everyone's eyes is reduced to undistinguishable quantities.

There is more.

==================================

The human being, from perspective of self, can be said to possess self-interest and other-interest. If evolution is true, then man is both self and part of the greater whole. This avoids the two errors - objectivism and communism - on either side: There is the self; there is the whole; and both are valid. One is not only a wave or a part of the ocean; one is both part of the ocean and the wave. There is the collective identity; there is the individual identity; both are valid, both are real, both are incomplete and both enrich each other.

Thus, the completeness of human beingness is accomplished when people are allowed to make the most of self-interest and likewise to do the most good for the fellow human beings. In this way is fulfilled constructively, for good of all selves and good of the whole, the totality of human beingness. And it is by encouraging both of these directions that can be made the completeness of man and the completeness of humankind.

==================================

The pomegranate contains myriads of seeds. The seeds are the function of their unique selves, and of the fruit around them. The fruit is the function of itself and the seeds. Through integrative synthesis, tug-and-play, checks-and-balance and ultimately synergy between levels of substructure and superstructure, is created the best fruit and the best seeds.

At any given point in time, based upon analysis of the seeds, patterns emerge, explanations, apparencies. These apparencies become the worldview; the worldview that claims to speak for the world. They will claim that they speak for the whole of the fruit and for all of the seeds. At one point or another will appear a seed that refutes the pattern.

Such a seed will be pressed from all sides. Such a seed will be maligned and attacked. Such a seed will be seen as a threat - a threat not for what it IS, but for the fact that, by being what it is, it is a REFUTATION OF THE WORLDVIEW - of the shared dogma masquerading as objectivity. Few things are more threatening than challenges to worldview; the result is what I call WORLDVIEW PANIC. And the first and most frequent response to the worldview panic: Destroy what causes it.

And for any such pioneer seed, faced with such dynamics, the correct answer is this:

Identify with the inherent truth;

Identify with the entirety of the fruit, which it is by being what it is - and refuting the temporary dogma - serves to a far greater extent than does the dogma;

And stand, both on the grounds of the unique embodied essence in it embodied and on the ground of the fruit's shared interest -

Identifying with self as well as the shared -

The seed becomes tuned into the reality of itself and the fruit -

Reality which is an integrative function of the given and the newly created -

And which it serves by making the most of itself and the fruit (or wave and ocean, or self-interest and shared-interest).

At which point again becomes manifest this:

A more complete understanding of human interest, as interest of each self and interest of the totality - working through integrative synthesis:

And which, through commingling and interaction among levels of structure, not only refute temporary shared dogmas -

But in fact complete and become and make manifest the totality of human process:

AS EACH UNIQUE SELF AND THE WHOLE WORKING IN SYNERGY -

And through which synergy among substructure and superstructure, as shown, is actualized the totality of that which is man and that which is humanity -

And reality of both attains the highest functionality -

For good of each person and good of mankind.

================================

Then the seeds fall out; become themselves; and give birth to the new fruit.

Succession of the seasons. The way of the universe.

Bring in will guided by wisdom and goodwill, and build the next level.

Not only cyclical as in the East.

Not only linear as in the West.

But understanding integratively - intrinsically and through synthesis of referential planes - arrive at an ever-more-complete, ever-more-clear, understanding.

And then use the real mechanism of will, informed by real knowledge and real benificence, to make the most of - reality.

To build the next level, now inspired with passionate embrace of the resplendent -

And to make it an ongoing, continuous, practical part of the reality of the world -

By using the practical reality of man's actions inspired by the resplendent to make it so.

===================================

Ilya Shambat.

Conveying states

2006-06-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

A common situation that writers have is that, in expressing an experience or a feeling, they are loved by those who have experienced similar things but ridiculed by those who have not. When a reader has experiential ground for a piece of writing, the writing reflects a subjective state with which he is familiar; this creates a sense of recognition and a sense also of being understood. Both of these are helpful, and both evoke respect and goodwill. The person who has not experienced the same feelings or lifestyles, on the other hand, has no recognition; and he is therefore typically left wondering what has been written - as well as whether it's anything worthwhile.

How indeed does one convey an emotion to someone who has not felt it? How if not through metaphor - through comparing the processes to something with which the reader is familiar - or by attempting to put it in terms that reflect the reader's neurological state? A person who has no context - or limited context, or erroneous context - for what's being conveyed may not only be annoyed but become full of hatred. The feelings that he has either not known or decided wrong-made - or both -
now come at him though a random piece of writing. So what is this reluctant reader to do?

Let's turn this around; What is the writer to do in order to make his work palatable to the reluctant reader? At stake is more than the writer's popularity; at stake is how the world views the emotions conveyed. And this means: Figuring out how the reader thinks and what he has known; and present the work in reference to this knowledge. And when the issue is with feelings, I believe that it's worthwhile to
describe them as they are felt - intrinsically - and then, once referential (external) analytical perspective is possible to come up with referential definition.

And then feed them into each other - feed heart and mind into each other - in the process checking, improving, completing, enhancing and finally mastering - until they produce beautiful work.

There is also of course the hostile-takeover model (derived from corporate law): Conveying something so powerfully and beautifully that even the cynics will be swayed. The first model is that of catering to the consumer; the second is that of overpowering his defenses with truth and beauty of one's work. I believe there is room for both, and I hope that devices such as extended metaphor and intrinsic-referential synthesis can be used by people to convincingly and completely convey emotional and intrapersonal states in order that the totality of human experience - or at least more and more of it in pieces - can be made available to the reader and thus both felt and understood.

Hooting with the owls

2006-06-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

Written in Summer 2005.

This one's a doozy. Feel free to skip it if you find it boring. The people referred to are posters to the Internet, with whom I have had debates.

Some of the ideas in here, however, I believe are worth looking at.

============================================

So Mr. Bat had a fine ole night hooting with the owls! And not only the owls, but the howls. The owls make the howls and the howls make the owls and over the backbone of the H they form a mirror image of each other. As in, eviLive.

It's been a fine night for Mr. Bat, out on the streets of Alexandria. First I read Mr. Khodorkovsky's epistle from the jail: "True freedom is within," "a result of pursuing one's principles" - and of course the main question to ask is, "Are your principles truly yours?" And then, "By what authority?" And then, "After what process?" And finally, "To what extent true?" (and of course the idea that Scorpio stuff is destructive: No, you first reject what you don't like, then you figure out what you do like and affirm it). (and the correlated concept of self-awareness: Self-awareness in terms of a false set of beliefs is wrong and can only be done in terms of true beliefs) (and the corollary concept of taking responsibility for one's life: That only becomes possible truly when you've studied and experienced and have an informed knowledge of what you truly want: all else leads to wasted lives). After philosophy class (continuing education program) at the community college, in which was discussed Spinosa's concept of God being self-existing manifesting through all people who are nodes (and it is the purpose of the node, I presume, to refract the light until it creates a picture that is most appealing, with each node shaped by substance & reshaping substance and self and - hey, Mr. Self-existing One, could you please notice me and what I've done with your substance (oh and tell me the true causes of things, in what cases it's linear & in what cases it's over-determined & in what cases it's a web & of what or what behind the web (and as a mode could I be good this way or could I be good another way or could I let you be me for a second so you could show me the ropes or could you let me in your shoes here for a moment so I have compassion for you or could you and I work together here for a second and to reshape one another with our essentiality so that we could establish flux between the self-existing and the merely-existing and allow the emanation to respond to the core with experimental results its actions [true/false/transcendent] while the core enlightens the emanation with its continued manifestations of self-existence) - I see this fashionable black woman rubbing lotion on her hands, and I say she smells tasty, and she asks "Do you want to eat me?"

So I get out of class, it's 10:25, my bus leaves, it's a gorgeous summer night so I walk down the street. I keep hearing "Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die" - while professors leave the parking lot, one in a Beetle - and I keep merrily heading down the road, occasionally kissing a flower. I see the den of the enchanted she-spider hanging in the air between the trees. That den of the enchanted she-spider, thank the grounds of being for that, I can just get lost in those embraces and those enfoldments and that gentle caressing mist between trees seeking to shroud life with its delicacy and bring it into its complete resplendor. And all night long it's something with "95" (year of the enchanting she-spider) it's something with "56" (year of my muse) or the next number "57" (year of Sputnik in space - not coincidental) it's something with "7:07" or "9:11" or all along the same line.

I remember from previously: The movement outward is hardest from most closed-minded places and easiest from most open-minded. The worst ones are the hardest, while the better ones are freer because much of the work has been done for you. The places with greatest political and social obstacles are ones that have least to offer, and whose people have most legitimate reason to go somewhere else. The same is true for all propaganda, family-values, militaristic, religious, Marxist, feminist or any other: The less the place has to offer and the worse it is, the more propaganda and moral bludgeoning it requires. Which creates an inverse relationship between actual moral quality of the social order and amount of moralizing done by the social order. A social order that is most malignant is one that is most moralizing. The more malignant, the more moralizing; the more actually morally upstanding, the less propaganda and moralizing required. Which is the reason that moralizing societies lead to the worst abuses against people. Some think this is coincidental, I see direct and inevitable relationship.

I see some toughs loitering outside King's Pizza and wait at bus station, walking around the corner and stand at bus stop watching restorateurs leave in cabs, and here I am again in treespace while bus does not come and I keep walking. And there I run into the whole sociopath nonsense and say in response that that is a concept that underlies the economic system and political system and to apply it to Wollmann without applying it to Gates is despicable - and then I keep reiterating: What we have here is a science selling out to a political interest: adopting as health the interest of American middle class and its dogmas and pathologizing what speaks otherwise: That it speaks to American dogmas rather than Soviet ones does not make it any less of a manipulation. And then I notice something more on this issue: Through manipulation of social climate and attitudes and actions and reactions pursuant those attitudes, consequences are assigned to actions that are not natural, but rather artificial & create an impression of good actions being bad and bad actions being good. We see that run through all societies and times. We have, for example, Pakis saying that romance is disastrous and proving it by killing those who fall in love. We have, for example, Cubans saying that business is antisocial and proving it by killing those who do business. The idea of God being through all things is used to excuse deliberate social manipulation, by nodes and creators of nodes, as though those were divinely ordained rather than manmade. The obvious problem is that substance may manifest through nodes, but nodes, involving choice, mean that they are not obligated to the ground of being but are as such nodes capable of deliberate choice, God-ordained or not!

And then it is used to impose this order as though it was divine. Which requires calling the bluff. If God is through all things, in other words, then not only the order you create but the order I create is manifestation of God - as is the order created by any of your other enemies.

So we have environmental science claim that environment exists according to its order, unless disturbed by man (devil #1). We have systems like Confucianism that claim society as a matter of social order having a place for everyone - place according to divine order - unless that order is disturbed by man's ego (devil #2). We have economic science that has applied this to economic activity and said that all things are guided by "invisible hand" when in a "free-market" context, with everyone competing against everyone, unless disturbed by intellectually conceived and goal-directed political action (devil #3), even as this same science adopts will and ego and montarily defined self-interest (combination of devil #1 and devil #2) as basic concept of legitimate human interest and claims the competition within framework of law to be the natural order. After which we have the concept of intellectual-political action uniting people in what it believes to be intellectually right ideology; that seeks to educate people based on intellectual and philosophical ideas and shared interest (and which the economic mindset sees as meddling or evil or arrogance - the same way the social interest was to the economic mindset from the beginning - even as the media-intellectual-political ideas created anyway necessitate for the people to move toward a place of politics and philosophy and awareness of their civilization beyond the dogmas of laissez-faire and even to protect laissez-faire demand political and intellectual action on the part of the business class). In this political-intellectual order the devil (devil #4) is spirituality, which main proponents of this ideology see as being one or another form of mental malfunction - much like the capitalists think of the political-intellectual. Once that stops working, after many corpses and disfigurements, and people start realizing after collossal battling that, no, spiritual experience is real, the next step seeks to create an order of people united in their spiritual experience and loyal to their knowledge and conception of the divine. In that order, the devil #5 is attained will (the people familiar with the subject know what I'm talking about). In all cases, we see a concept of nature, then society, then economy, then intelligence, then spirituality, then attained will, being divine; which order in all cases starts through one or another stage of will-assertion. Each level considers itself divine - unless disturbed by the artifact of man's deliberate act of choice and of will as it stands to disrupt these supposedly divine workings. And what each level fails to understand is that the case of something being divine does not make what goes to the next level less divine.

Each of these deified orders regard the next one as being demonic in origin. It refers to it as one or another form of hubris, without realising that according to a previous order it itself has been regarded as hubris, and that what works is for gradations of hubris to build on itself! We have Dan Mocnsny here, an evolutionist, saying that the problem with the world is that "freaks won't know their place" when if his belief in evolution is true then it is the freaks that are the source of all evolution, and it is their "place" to move the world forward (and yes Dan, you most certainly are a freak and there is nothing remotely bad about it - the problem is what you do with your mutation). The social order is based on man - the demon vis-a-vis the natural order. The capitalist economy is based on ego - the demon vis-a-vis the social order. The politics and ideology are based on ideology-based action, which is the demon vis-a-vis capitalism. The same dynamics work at the next levels. And what we are seeing at every level is, essentially, demonization of the next stage of liberty, until it is either supplanted by it or unless it subverts it to perpetuate itself.

How do I define liberty? AN ACT OF DIRECTING WILL DELIBERATELY. Liberty is an act of saying, essentially, I EXIST. And as corollary of that: I direct my action. And note to Gail and Mickey: Whether you like it or not (and note number 2: If God did not like arrogance then he would not have created signs Leo and Scorpio, and especially He would not have created a Scorpio with Leo rising, Pluto opposite Jupiter and Uranus square Saturn).

The interesting part consists, once again, in the absolute insistence of each preceding order ind the demonic quality of the coming one. The new order gives promise to lift man to a higher level; the previous order attacks by claiming that motive to be based in thinking oneself better than the authority by which the order is believed to be ordained (and to which will is made to believe to be subjugated). Essentially each order considers the preceding level to be divine and the following one as based in disruption of divine order. Both are right, and both are wrong. If all is God, then so is what man does (and to all the you-think-you're-God people, the response is: "ye are gods" is part of the New Testament, it's a matter of how you use it). As the situation rises, the deliberateness quotient rises, but the complexity of the system builds. The life becomes more free of the preceding level, but more tied to the following level. The devil becomes the shaper and is then himself exceeded.

Now based on similar observations made two centuries ago, was developed a historical inevitability model: That politics would overcome capitalism and lead to a global order based on all-unifying political action based in shared interest of all. The problem with this model was a problem common to Tauruses: A grossly incomplete concept of human nature, that accepts what he believes to be bottom line as the only legitimate interest and anything else as form of deviance or insanity: A concept we see among many in the capitalist world that Marx tried to supplant and whose error he perpetuated in its essence while claiming to overcome it in ideology. He took a futuristic outlook and put it in service of barbaric mentality and created just what would be expected: A futuristic barbaric order! An order that put the first man in space while keeping its people in a barbaric condition. The very people he claimed to speak for - at the expense of all actual human traits.

Now based on the step-by-step approach I've talke about previously, we see in many cases a hierarchial mentality develop: Of claiming the next level of separation from the ground of being to be the higher level of mind, beneath which all else is to be subjugated. I object to this idea because even the most technologically advanced order has not created anything approaching a rainforest, a tiger or an experience of romance, and the so-called lower levels possess legitimacy and deserve respect just for their sheer complexity. That something is preceding does not make it inferior, and true human experience involves experience of such things as nature and passion (or at least, anyway, an experience that I seek for myself and seek to make possible to similar tastes).

The problem of hierarchial thinking - and the resulting cruelty and oppression against experience that make the most of existense - led to thought, among feminists among others, that this model is patriarchial, whereas the feminine way is holistic and regarded to be more in tune with life. Now while noticing as needed an obvious reverse snobbery in this situation - to regard yourself as being in tune with life for being a woman rather than a man is as ridiculous as it is to regard yourself more human for doing manual labor rather than for being a professor - we are confronted with two potentials for improvement and two potentials for evil. The problem in hierarchial thinking is suppressing experience of life, seeing emotions or sexuality as lower functions, spitting on nature, despising things one had no chance of being able to create and robbing life of its color. The problem with holistic thinking is that fails to differentiate in quality and seeks to achieve similar outcomes - a condition that of course shackles the best.

The problem with American feminism, as I have repeatedly stated, is that it is just as authoritarian, as abrasive, as cruel and as malicious in enforcing the feminist social role as the patriarchy was in enforcing its concept of what women should be. Which has rightfully led to reaction by many women of intellect and initiative. We see many educated upper-class young women in India deliberately choosing subservient role because they see it as natural. We see many women in America reject feminist values because they rightly claim them to be inappropriate, wrong, limiting or against their religion. The beautiful, successful, intelligent Russian women of my acquaintance, my generation or previous one, all tell me the same thing: That American feminists are insane; that they don't understand what being a woman is all about; that they rob women of the best qualities that come with being a woman and impoverish not only what she is but what she can get out of life. That they've bought into man's value system and in so doing destroyed the uniquely good and beautiful in the woman - in the same way as, well, as Marx bought into the materialistic value system and sought to make it a part of his collectivistic ideology and as a result caused a still more oppressive form of materialism to the very people whose interests he claimed to espouse.

As I see independent-minded women say again and again, Unisex does not work. It is not right for them; it is not fulfilling for them; it is not what they want. The problem with former system was not its differentiation of feminine traits and masculine traits; it was the belief that one set was superior to the other - which I, of course, regard and always did regard to be complete idiocy. (Priest says: Men and women are different in roles, not in value). As a poet, I am in love with female beauty, tenderness, gentleness, and emotional richness - the qualities that I see, in women who have them, to be far better than traits of the next man (or, rightfully, of the woman who does not have these traits). These are the qualities that make a world worthy of human habitation! These are the qualities that I, rightly, would like to see more in the world - whatever the woman in glasses in the academia has to say about it - and that most certainly does mean protecting the women who have these qualities from those, women and men, who would like such traits not to exist! The problem is not the beautiful traits; the problem is a competition-based culture that fails to value, respect and reward such traits! And if feminism is in any way to be honest to its claimed goals - to give woman freedom of choice and of who to be - then it has to live with women choosing, deliberately, to have these traits, whether or not the feminist wants them to have them - whatever it thinks about their cultural origin or their psychological fundamentals - and what it, in its arrogant claim to speak for the rights of all women while denying the real women the right to be who and what they want to be, completely overlooks as virtues that women are uniquely capable of having and that make life worthwhile, for women who have these traits and for people around them, when they find the way to a man who rightly appreciates them and rightly rewards them for having such qualities!

It's not "feminist vs. misogynist" or any such nonsense. It's this: That under the pretext of women's advancement you people denied women the freedom to be what you do not want them to be! And yes, we are seeing women rightly rejecting this authoritarianism left and right, in the same way as we saw the world righty reject Marxism. And in standing up to - that - women truly assert their liberty. It's very heart-warming to see women say to the psychological bullies that claim to speak for them that, no, they don't represent women. In the same way as it's heart-warming to see black people stand up to the African "big men" and gangsters who claim that they represent Africa while killing Africans - and to see industrial workers stand up to the unions that attack workers for working well and say that they don't speak for them either.

The problem with feminism is the same as the problem with Marxism. It adopted the enemy's value structure and concept of what makes a genuine human interest or mentality, and then sought to beat them at their own game. This can be done only at the expense of hideous disfigurement and ultimately degradation of the very people the ideology claims to help. And the next step beyond feminism - as articulated by smart, strong-minded women again and again - is HEALTHY HETEROSEXUALITY - defined as CELEBRATION OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF MUTUAL LOVE AND RESPECT. And yes, that does mean standing up to bullies on either side of the aisle, both idiots who think women to be inferior and monsters who want to rob women of being women.

To go back to the hierarchial model. What I seek to state is that the fact of something being on a lower level in the hierarchy of organization does not make it inferior or having less to offer people. Thus, for example, we see many people, who are quite capable of intelligent thought, do such things as commune with nature and revel in romantic passion. The reason is this: To do such things is to experience the totality of life as life is meant to be experienced in total. The beauty and interconnectivity of nature does not go away because man lives in St. Louis; indeed it is in that interconnectivity that is found an aspect of mankind that corresponds with life itself, at the level near the ground of being that is most profound and is in many ways the most complex (What economy ever produced a rainforest?) Romantic love, I explain in the same way as did Ayn Rand: A passionate affirmation, with the totality of one's being, of the other person: An act of saying yes with one's whole entity to what the other person is; a statement that puts one in touch with the truth of life as it is expressed throughout one's beingness and in the other, in both one's consciously known values and unconsciously known ones. It is, likewise, a case of experiencing life at a more profound level and a more complete level - and to make such things possible (and to make possible for such things to thrive and survive longterm) is a secret to securing life worthy of human existence.

Now there is much ado about the idea that a man who presumes to act out of his volition or use his mind is seeking to be God-like. To people of such conviction, I would like to offer the Biblical story at Mount Sinai, in which God was going to kill off the Jews until Moses told him that if He were to do so, He would be seen as negating His promise. This shows of course that, whether God be omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent, He is not infallible - that man's perspective supplements God's perspective - that man comes up with ideas that God hadn't come up with - and that is further the case not only for people regarded as wise by one or another culture or priestry, but especially for people who have unique ways of combining information, whom cultures may not regard wise or benevolent at all, but whose perspective, being unique, supplements that of the culture and corrects it in its endemic errors (in the same way that sometimes even a carpenter's perspective supplements that of God).

I keep developing the psycho-ethical equilibrium concept: The world at any given time is at equilibrium point among people's just-world concepts; which equilibrium is constantly shifting as people's condition changes and so do just-world concepts, with both feeding into each other. I remember my comment that, when someone is being bullied, there's a pressure on people to regard that person as wrong - then I recognize how difficult it is to maintain one's sense of self as good in presence of constant nastiness or to maintain sense of another person's good when they are being savaged or the sense of goodness of self and the world in presence of hideousness all around - and well, that still may very well be a flaw in design, but one I see as something that can be overcome - though not simply by effort of will, by no means, as will simply embodies one's basic beliefs and convictions - but rather by having a structure of convictions that are structurous of a will and by which these convictions manifest and are part of formation of interdependent reality pursuant your just-world convictions.

I hear about God-in-all-through-all of Spinosa, Jungian version of this, Platonic and I look at how this is exclusive of free will - at the same time I have to watch for barbaric beliefs of people who are not schooled in such concepts and deliberate manipulations of those who want to blind people to cultural factors especially when those be their own - and I say that hey, Confucians equated social order with this ("li") and Taoists claimed it to be part of natural way toward which deliberate action and social order is hindrance - and then I say how we've seen an abomination of all abominations: American psychology deriving from spirituality the idea of collective consciousness and then used it to mean what they wanted psychosocial environment to become - creating a "li" type condition to freeze-dry in eternities a sociocultural moment and set of false convictions and interests - using the consciousness movement sellouts to deify precisely the thing that they sought rightly to overcome and shoving, through character destruction and psychological violence, the lie of the deliberately created construct being natural or divine, down people's throats. Creating this abomination of all abominations; Bigotry, barbarism and sheer malice using spiritual tools to enforce itself and claiming to be spiritual consciousness of civilization! Treating its dissidents as demons! And claiming for itself absolute authority over people's lives, while denying them any freedom of will and choice and thought: An encompassing American "li," the deviation from which is deviation not only from sanity but indeed from divine order! Confucianism on American soil, ladies and gentlemen, denying not only deliberate choice but denying people the knowledge of the Choices That Went Into Creating This Situation - that pass off social construction as part of divine will or all that is while not only ignoring the fact of human will (modes, right?) in formation and co-formation of social reality but denying people the RIGHT TO MAKE A CHOICE, period!

Which means that any meaningful concept of liberty means breaking down that construct.

So I'm walking down the street and still seeing the den of the enchanted she-spider in front of me and pulling me further ahead into her grasp. Oh! You know how much I need you, devour me, why don't you, and turn me into food for webs. The she-spider laughs. I would be corrupt if I were to use such feelings for short-sighted purposes. I'm only pulling you to where the self-existing one lives. That's whom you want to talk to, then you could actually have informed choice & to reason why would be yours.

I remember "in the middle of the road only yellow stripes and dead armadillos" and I walk between yellow stripes and a SUV approaches from behind and I think maybe I could disprove that but it shows no signs of seeing me so I move off and well I think the middle-of-the-road view can sometimes work and in some cases may even be optimal, but it also is taxing and hard to maintain energy (and some things are furthermore not to be integrated, as compromise with what wants you dead leaves you half-dead: Dialectic works for legitimate pairs of existents, while in other pairs of existence one is all-good and other is all-bad in which what is needed is not dialectic but radicalism, and in other existents still we have some convoluted mixture), so on occasion it will happen that one extreme topples the moderate and then the two need to fight or make up and, well, just that you came up with this solution in DC as a politician at 50 does not mean that it it true for Puerto Rican at 30 or the 15-year-old rape victim or the German retirees or the bus driver in India or people in Ethiopia or Ukraine. And yes, I do expect the same things to be said by the next or the preceding, and see that as part of the job. Moving equilibrium, right? Composed of just-world hypotheses, shifting all the time.

And then - far right. Path to the greenery, and inside it a brook. I'm in my shorts with bare feet, and I hear Well if you're so in touch with the light then go into here, through darkness, through brambles, and let it carry you. I do, while at one point laughing at a vine above me (she once swung on a vine too and it broke but she lived - here I think vine is a helping hand, a high place extending me hand I need as it hangs off the emanation of the self-existing and looks like umbilical cord but only apparently mimics that adaptation to lead out and up) - and so I walk through and find myself in the brook, and I stand as they tell me, and I let she-spider weave all around me and be enfolded by her skin and remember the river nymphs and know the true meaning of communing. The river nymphs Ms. LL said were always lonely and sought to be loved, but found upon contact with man that he saw them as satanic and wanted to either kill them or put them in horrible place - and I said I am with you I won't stand to let you be killed whatever that means to my salvation - and then I hear about hardness of walls and I say that I will show what is under the wall ("earth hard - fire under it"), as I rummage through rocks - rocks polished by water - rocks arranged meticulously - I take a rock that has flat bottom and circular top, the presentation I presume of model of being - until I find WHAT WAS UNDER THE WALL.

This one is all black, containing many black rocks within a fused-together ground of being shape of an L. No spheres, no polish, nothing. Absolutely uncompromising. A bit of a nematode I conjecture, a bit of a coral reef I conjecture, a bit of a colony in which each is its own seed and whole being manifests through all. So I think OK this is the integrative synthesis, with self and structure reshaping both and belonging to each other, making best of each other and best for each other through synthesis and abrasion and creating synergy within framework of checks and balances - actually I think this later, what I think here is:

If you WWIIers or Xers still don't get a clue, the clue is as follows. That particular society combined the worst of spirit and matter: Regimented and intellectually oppressive as in religion and barren of all emotional and spiritual experience as in rationalism. And the purpose of mind is to combine the best of all possible worlds. A world that makes the best of spirit and matter: Full of emotional and spiritual and experiential richness (the best of spirit) - and with real liberties and well-being (the best of matter). And yes that means the best of all possible worlds; and if you say you can't have the best of all possible worlds then I say that it is the purpose of mind to make the best of all possible worlds and if we don't have the best of all possible worlds then we either aren't thinking or are being sabotaged or are sabotaging ourselves.

("And what if humanity does not deserve that?" Whether or not that is so, your job as a human is to make that possible. "And what about original sin?" Well if there is such a thing as original sin then it speaks to the totality of the human nature including all agendas belonging to it, including desire to control your children or run your community or control people's behavior or make money or shape your country or stand in anyone else's way, so the concept applies to anything you may do and is for that reason meaningless to all practical action - in the same way for example as the concept of all things being illusion becomes meaningless by the same standard.)

So I am out of the stream and walking past a cemetery. It says "Mitchell" (Hey you know who) then "Bowie" and before all of them in the middle, "Shepherd." (and I guess the ones behind you are sheep, and well guess where they are now). Then: "Onion" and "Simpson" (I start laughing: Hey boss, thanks for that) followed by "Stuart." OK, you got my attention (someone else knows significance of that too).

Then there's the church that talks about 11:00: Christianity 101: Repentance and I see this as initiation ritual akin to all others in other religions (you reject sin or the world of sin or ego and then you proceed on path to illumination or enlightenment) and then I think I don't repent things under consideration so I hear then let's manipulate the events in society and in people's lives in such ways that they would suffer negative circumstances and you would be seen as a culprit or as a wrongdoer and I say This is your social manipulation done using deliberate effort of will and mind and is in no way a natural consequence of those actions, so the one guilty is not me or my loved ones but you. I remember the observation that said non-Christians got headaches and mental pain and I remember that state of affairs when in Christian school and of course this is not natural state of being non-Christian but state induced by Christian people's thoughts and prayers - you think you don't do magic? Your whole mindset is magic - and so I start thinking well am I not bringing murderous memes of Christianity to those whom I don't want killed and - that was the problem before, I kept bringing shit to those I did not want to bring shit and I hoped Christianity would free me of that

So I reiterate what I said before, There's the true spiritual attitude that fills world with richness and the religious component that regiments, and there's the logic-based worldview that gives circumstantial liberty but disallows any feeling or thought or existence that actually makes life worthwhile, and I say there's ways to combine it with 00 rate of return (religious applied to behavioral standards - material applied to emotion: no liberty, no richness, aka pure evil), 01 (religious applied to behavioral standards - spiritual applied to emotion: no liberty, but richness, the experience of the Mexican), 10 (material applied to behavioral standards - material applied to emotion: Liberty, no experience, the experience of the Unitarian), and the prize: 11: Material applied to society and spiritual applied to experience: Liberty AND life worth living.

Now this has happened once in American history: The path from 10 moved to 11. The Transcendentalism. A more traumatic transition: From 00 to 11: the Hippies. And in both cases they were described as being spoiled. Will you people learn? IT IS MEANINGLESS TO GIVE PEOPLE CIRCUMSTANTIAL LIBERTY, OR PEACE, OR PROSPERITY, IF THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIVE! What happened was not merely rebellion; It was improvement: It was progress: It was the next level. It was the innovation upon what existed previously. You've created a civilization in which people have rights. Now, it can be a civilization in which people can actually live. AND Integrate the spiritual component, while Building it, On top, Of, The, Intellectual, Structures, That, You, Created!

In other words: Liberty AND emotional richness! Mind AND spirituality! Not only have statutory liberty, but make it possible to actually live! Like I said, what's the point of being free if you are not allowed to feel, or to live, or to have beautiful experiences and beautiful existence? We have New Agers freeing themselves by saying that they must essentially be a world to themselves - that others are reflection of self but not important - that romantic love is a myth - that everyone creates their reality (corollaries: that everyone who's being mistreated caused it, that the privileged Westerner created conditions of his privilege and the Ethiopian has done the same for himself, that any feeling worth having is to be exculcated, that leader can do anything to his subjects because they would be creating their reality through his actions and you can do what you want to another because they caused their reality) - and what I'm saying is, This is monstrous! So you've found a way to be free, I see that; but you've done it by becoming cold and heartless and malevolent! And utterly lacking in compassion, ethics or any sense of what your ideas would mean for the world as a whole.

The problem I've seen with a lot of spiritual adepts is that they become cold, heartless, and cruel, and that's simply not a direction I would accept any spirituality taking me! What's the point of having spirituality if you end up cold? "You are the river" - no, a river is a flow, it is a flux, it is a relationship. "Just be love" - an impossibility: You cannot be love because love is something that is felt by one thing for another - you can love but you cannot be love: You can be fire, you can be light, I've been motion and verb for a while, you can even be self-existent for a while if you swing that way but you cannot BE love. The Bhakti Yoga is not based on "being love"; it is based on devotional love of God bringing one into Godspace. In the same way as love for the next person creates similar flux that reshapes both.

And meanwhile we have (from a Castaneda group leader and publisher of "Tucson Poet") the poetic imagery of the civilizaition being a giant eros-extracting mechanism directing lifeforce toward consumption. What does this mean, and where does this lead? If eros is something to be extracted and used to fuel economy - what world do we have? As Robert Tkotch rightly stated, a population completely and deservedly emasculated in every respect that counts. A population in which, to paraphrase Onion, 90% of the population are permanently sedentary, all their life force expropriated. A population that attacks the true river - the true flux - the true manifestation of eros: The passionate love between man and woman. And that, by attacking the basis of all true emotional experience, becomes this and this absolutely: An expropriation and usurpation of life. Itself. Apparently "God is love" becomes "military-industrial complex is love" the upshot of which is: Pepsi loves you.

I've seen this malignant element in thought of aforementioned spiritual adepts: Their claim of passion between woman and man as "a shortcut." A shortcut? A shortcut to what? Enlightenment? What if they aren't interested in enlightenment - what if they are simply interested in living? No, it is a better technology. It is a claim on existence. It is a birthright of human beingness. It is the truth of experience, and without such things being possible all the progress you have means nothing!

Don't you YET understand? To have liberties, is meaningless unless you can actually have an existence worthy of experiencing! It puts a question to the whole idea of, "Well what do we have these liberties for?" To have legal liberties, without a freedom to feel, to experience, to have life worth having, is like having walls without a building inside of it! Once again, WHAT ARE THESE LIBERTIES FOR? Is it worth fighting to protect liberties without it being acceptable to live? if it is impossible to have a fully human, fully passionate, fully experienced, existence? Don't just say you've made this building (and everyone owes you their life, and then go down in history as yet another set of tyrants who fed in order to choke while people legitimately start asking if maybe it's better to surrender some of these liberties for the sake of spirituality), make it habitable so that your work actually BENEFITS the world! Put furniture, paintings, carpets inside so that somebody actually BENEFITS from what you've created! Put this work in service of human interest, use hardware to carry beautiful works and beautiful artifacts and ideas that allow people to develop beautiful thoughts and emotions and by implementing them in their lives and sharing them with each other not only make life beautiful for each other but actually create a social order that does the world the honor for existing - that makes possible life worth living - that Consummates the Edifact of Civilization and allows light to manifest through the structures of manifestation and create a livable world rather than simply a working economy!

So we hear intellectualists argue that emotions are necessarily entrapping and regressive, and I say, Ridiculous - and to paraphrase someone, what's so freeing or rational about the emotion of hate. And then we hear religious people argue that you're not independent. Well, I may be independent or I may not be independent; Khodorkovsky just told us a way to be free whatever the circumstances. And there's Mickey saying that that makes you arrogant and I say SO BE IT, Be arrogant when dealing with people like Mickey, STAND BY your thoughts, STAND BY your feelings, stand by your being and right to exist as an independent unit of volitional consciousness and a being who feels - and for people to be able to do that is the only way to defeat dictatorship and oppression by any name, whether it come from people who think you arrogant for having your own thoughts or people who think you infantile for having feelings worth having or from the marriage in hell between psychology and religion to create an encompassing American "li" the devation from which is a deviation from sanity and goodness itself (and Scott Peck as its ultimate arbiter). Yes, I read that the idealist's strategy is to create a holistic synthesis that gets everyone to agree - and I keep saying that's fine and good and a noble project, but don't tell me that that means I have to submit to this if I see and know to the contrary!

So I see two complementary half-rights half-wrongs: Religion being oppressive of behavior but enriching of experience, and rationalism creating circumstantial liberty but denying freedom to feel and to experience life. And I say that the poet's way is to combine the best of both: To have circumstantial freedom and the freedom of passion and beauty and inspired, beautiful, passionate, romantic existence. You may claim the latter to be an impossibility. But I've seen it work and would fight for it for the next person. And to the people who regard such things badly, I say, This is the prize of existence, and anything against that is against all the good in humanity. It is for this that every great person has ever striven, and to make such things possible for the next person is one's duty before America and one's duty before humankind.

Renaissance man vs. specialization

2006-06-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

The problem with the ethic of specialization is that it creates minds that are good at one thing but are ignorant of other things. Thus, they make choices based upon the mentality of one area of human endeavor while having no knowledge of the others (and frequently having contempt therefor). This leads to errors; it also leads to bad citizenship. The people begin deciding that their specialization is the only one that matters, and develop disregard and contempt for all other human endeavors no matter how worthwhile they are. The people begin judging intelligence, character and all other qualities according to the standard of their profession and imposing upon the world that standard. Until we get to a situation in which programmers start attacking everyone else for supposedly being stupid because the professions they
practice demand a different way of thinking - and say such things as "Can artists program in Java?" - to which the correct response is "Can programmers fly F-15"?

The ethic of specialization leads to a rock mentality, in which people are ignorant of the world they inhabit and of all the richness of cross-fertilization and human endeavor and forms of intelligence that makes it possible. The ethic of specialization makes people unappreciative of all else that it takes to make the world work. Finally - and this is the most sinister of these situations - the ehtic
of specialization makes people intolerant of other qualities and talents besides ones used in their profession, resulting in a caste-like system in which people prevent their children from developing abilities no matter how much they stand to contribute through their development.

The ethic of specialization furthermore has a negative effect on the people themselves. They become rigid; intolerant; paranoid; adapted to only one niche and afraid to step out anywhere else. The fear of the unknown - unknown because they are specialized in only one thing and are not prepared to understand or accept anything else - leads them to cruelty and intolerance. Far from being bliss, their ignorance becomes a cause of nightmarish existence, both for others and for themselves.

The specialization ethic creates people who are incomplete; and being incomplete are not accepting of anyone else's completeness. It creates people who become mistrustful of anything other than themselves and of any gifts people have other than ones they choose in their professions. The infrastructure required to sustain this state of affairs becomes rigid, cruel, and turns easily toward malevolence and oppression. These aren't coincidental; these are direct and inevitable result of the
ethic of specialization.

When a person is versed in many things, on the other hand, he becomes more and more the completeness of what he can be. He also becomes a better citizen, capable of checking the wrong in any given pursuit and capable of assisting the right that is in it. He is not as ignorant of the world and therefore not as paranoid or intolerant. He understands the value of other ways of thinking and other professions and is more willing to let people around him find their way to pursuits for which
they are suited the most, while appreciating those engaged in other pursuits. From rigid narcissism that refuses to accept any other professions or modes of thought or abilities or forms of intellect than what one practices in one's specialization, one turns to greater wisdom and greater understanding and greater tolerance. The inner experience is enriched; disposition improves; likewise grows respect for, compassion for, and understanding of others. People improve; so does experience of life; so does the civilization.

Which means that moving from ethic of specialization to ethic of Renaissance will improve the lives of many and the condition of the civilization as such.

Ilya Shambat.

More poems

2006-06-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

She-Spider

The glorious enchanted she-spider
Is weaving her web again
The lights of the street lamps are wider
And branches are drenched with rain

The light of the moon pours diffusely
Through fog upon the ground,
The headlights of cars shine profusely
And through them the web is wound -

Night cloudy and full of vapor:
Night foggy that pours forth soul
The den of enchanted she-spider
Holds heart and then makes it whole

Caressing, expressing, impressing -
Delirium it will instil
To all of the world's faults confessing
And from it forging Will

Which she will in her web hold
And make it bear great fruit:
Who knows it? Who ever told?
And if so, who could refute?

The glorious enchanted she-spider:
She who makes love from pain,
Beauty and truth beside her:
Fog, and beyond it, rain:

Tender still night, and silent
And in it dwells respite:
Indigo, yellow, violet -
Greet this, the holy night!

Greet she-spider, her the angel
Of beauty and delight,
Greet the intent and danger -
Greet and gain second sight!

Greet her, she's again here
Showing what's warm and sweet,
Greet her, and her revere:
And in her web let's meet -

There within her embraces!
In her web midst the trees!
There where she life entrances -
And puts the mind at ease -

While making it to blossom
And bear the fruit that's true.
She-spider! You are awesome!
And I thank you for you!

====================================

Pieces

I will send a piece of me to you
Through the thinness of the morning air,
It will penetrate your eyes of blue
And remain inside your heart forever.

I will send a piece of me to you
Over poppies, vilets and roses,
It will vanish in a church's pew
And resurface where your soul reposes.

I will send a piece of me to you -
You alone in all of humankind -
It will disappear from my view
And become a figment of your mind.

I will send a piece of me to you -
Nowhere else I'd send it to instead -
I will tell you to take it - take two -
And retain them all inside your head.

I will send a piece of me to you
Over oceans and over lands,
It will be so supple and so new -
Mold it, mold it, mold it with your hands.

I will send a piece of me to you -
A created piece, a piece complete -
Let it be your own, I say this too,
To just trample underneath your feet.

I will send a piece of me to you
I do not know where, nor even when,
I will send it how, I wish I knew,
To expire and live in you again.

I will send pieces of me to you
In the winter, summer, spring and fall,
And inside your being they'll accrue
Until I am none and we are all.

============================

Heaven in her Mind

The heaven in her mind
Has no boundaries or separation
No darkness
No edges
No limit
And absolutely no evil.
The heaven in her mind
Shines like sun through a cloud
Luminous white
Melodious
And perfecly soft.
She reaches down to me
And she guides me
Gently
Skillfully
With musical fingers
Drawing light to shoot to her from my heart.
The heaven in her mind
Shines softly and supernaturally
And tells me to listen
Submerge myself
To quiet my mind
And to love her.
And I kneel before her
And shroud my head in heaven
And merge with her soul.
She takes me to heaven.
I've been to heaven today.

============================

Universal Splendor

All was arranged like an orchestral chamber,
The music - synthesis of heart and mind.
The symphony of universal splendor
Was ringing through the ears of all mankind.

Who was the judge, and who was the contender?
Who won, who lived, who fell, who bled, who died?
All this is known to universal splendor
As manifest in nature and mankind.

It was not long before, as I remember
That good and evil had been ill-defined
Until the light of universal splendor
Came blazing into eyes of all mankind.

As I's and You's are put into a blender
And blades bleed them to blackness as they grind,
The smashing arm of universal splendor
Descends upon the nature and mankind.

In inspiration comes the soul's defender
And as it burns on every side, I find,
The glory of the universal splendor
Invigorates the hearts of all mankind.

In states like this, you cannot sit or stand or
Attempt to see - You'll utterly go blind:
Such is the flame of universal splendor
That vitalizes nature and mankind.

You look at galaxies, and you surrender
To universe so gloriously designed:
You come in face with universal splendor
And its creations: Nature and mankind.

As each poetic spirit bears the standard
Of passion and of beauty deified,
Through them will blossom universal splendor
And through them reach the essence of mankind.

In heart aflame, abraded to an ember -
In heaven and inferno intertwined -
Will burn the truth of universal splendor:
The truth of love, of nature and mankind.

===============================

To Embrace You with Blue Horizon

To embrace you with blue horizon
And enfold you with starry night
Means to see through the man's devising
And by Passion to set it right.

That Life shines with galactic splendor
And arises in purple dawn
Means in Humankind to engender
Beauty that reaches to the bone.

In the foam of caressing clouds -
Like in foam of the ocean waves -
Floats Life's Essence - and the mind's doubts
Find inside them Etheric graves.

Can you hear me? Oh can you hear me -
Can the Wind from the Southern shores
Take your atoms and bring them near me
That I feel the one I Adore?

Can the air that last week caressed you -
Air that bathed you along its flight -
Bring to me Cosmic Truths which blessed you
And delight me with your delight?

Droplets! Rain! I am jealous of you
That you touch her, and I cannot -
And from gusts that come streaming from you
Wisps of Julia to me float.

Wind and clouds! Wanderers of heaven!
Flying from the South to the North -
As you Swirl, Sail, Uplift and Travel -
Bring to me my love!

Love, come forth!

And before all that Lives will vanish
In the final glory of rays
I'll enfold you, the one I cherish,
With Horizon that I embrace.

========================================

Heart of Darkness

Into the heart of darkness,
Viciousness and despair -
Into the very Tartarus -
Enters the prince of Air.

Ceiling is bleak and starless.
Nobody knows your name.
Inside the heart of darkness
Flickers an open flame.

Everywhere, creeps and scoundrels
Feeding upon the souls.
Under the heart of darkness,
Broken glass and coals.

Think that I might take flight, less
I also burn to death.
But through the heart of darkness
I must create a path.

Something ignites and startles
Amid the sulfur fumes.
Inside the heart of darkness
Torment of souls resumes.

Demons and fiends and gargoyles
Crowd me on every side
As through the heart of darkness
I take a tourist ride.

Skin catches fire and sparkles
And from it pours hot blood.
Within the heart of darkness,
Boiling and ruddy flood.

"Have you lost all your marbles?"
"If I did, would I care?"
Inside the heart of darkness
I can't tell here from there.

Place is unmapped and chartless.
All roads lead to Rome -
That is, to heart of darkness -
And from it rises foam.

Nothing is seen apart; yes,
Mirrors on every wall
Reflect the heart of darkness
At everyone and all.

Evil has many partners
And many a disguise.
Look in the heart of darkness
And train your ears and eyes.

You cannot tell apart us,
Me and the souls on fire.
It burns, the heart of darkness,
Outside, inside, and higher.

Where do I stand or start? Yes,
Write with a piece of chalk
Map of the heart of darkness
Upon a lotus stalk -

Lotus that, like most marvels,
Grows in the thickest mud
And through the heart of darkness
Reaches to heart of God -

There will be no more markers
Upon my path, as I
Burn through the heart of darkness
Into the open sky.

====================================

Mirror

I will become your mirror
Showing you what you are
Making your beauty clear -
Clear as a shooting star -

I will reflect your nose
And your blue giant eyes
Your tasteful, fitting clothes
And your athletic thighs

I will reflect your hair
Elegant, long and white,
Your haunting, soulful stare
And loving, healing light,

Your noble, gorgeous features
And your heart, soft and warm
And all the precious creatures
That you hide from the storm -

I will reflect your kindness
And your internal state,
Your talent and the timeless
Beauty that you create,

Your incandescent passion
Your love and tenderness
Your elegance and fashion
Everyone that you bless -

See your reflection in me
That I give back to you
What you evoke within me -
And if it be untrue,

Shatter me like a mirror
Scatter me wide and far
Forcing me to revere
As you say au revoir,

And as I piece the fragments
Into a disco ball
It will show without raiments
Essence and heart of All.

================================

You are a Masterpiece

You are a masterpiece; true work of art
And your whole being, and its every part
Is masterwork of nature and mankind
Which in you is accomplished and refined.

Your hair, like hanging gardens of the queen
Of Babylon, swing down, and in them seen
Are ivy, cherry blossom, orchid, rose
Blooming together in resplendor. Those

Blue eyes, in which we see Monet, Renoir -
The beauty fathomed specially from afar,
That are more haunting, beautiful and true
The greater distance between me and you;

A nose that like a yacht upon the seas
Engulfs the essence of the ocean breeze -
That stays aloft in turmoil and in flood
And sends the chastened air through the blood -

The lips that like the opening to a cave
Conceal a warm and delicate enclave
In which the sparkling teeth and gentle tongue
Lead food inside and air into the lung;

A neck that like a Doric column stands
Majestic, long and white; the lily hands
That craft calligraphy and highest art
Sustained by rushing turbines of your heart;

A chest with pair of Taj Mahals adorned
That puts all human craftsmanship to scorn;
The voice, like a piano or a flute
Resounds through many octaves or stops mute,

The strands of spirit that are entertwined
In the refining furnace of your mind
That fills itself with majesty and love
And forges them into a treasure trove:

The legs like those of cheetah or gazelle
Are elegant and long and run like hell;
The stomach that like delta river's sand
Is smooth and soft and tender to the hand;

And terraced hills and paddies of your ears,
And morning dewdrops of your gentle tears,
And the Saharah Desert of your back,
And the Forbidden Palace in its track:

In you the world is manifest, in you
Is sun and sky and every worldly hue,
The flowers, stars and sculptures and the word
Of masters and the dreamers and the Lord.

I love you all; and, feeling with my heart
Your whole entity and every part,
I rise in passion and, inspired, fall
Into the Sistine Chapel of your soul.

==================================

Nightingales

Nightingales give to the forest
its meaning and its fulfilment
its passion and its consummation
Weaving into magnetic sound its essence of flying pollen and playing leaves.
they flap their wings and they perch at the top of trees
and from their beaks comes out the melody
of branches brushing past each other
and squirrel climbing up a tree.
Into the heart of madness
And out with the notes of delightfulness
Into the heart of darkness
Out with the trill of love
Into the heart of oblivion
And out with the unforgettable coral mix of piano notes and dripping dew.
Does it please you to know that you will die
And all that you knew will be obliterated
Crumbled into the ground and decomposed for flowers to bloom through you?
The nightingale wings make a breeze
And in it the butterflies flutter and pollen floats from flower to flower
And sun shines
And people love
And people love.
Nightingales reach for the sky with their song
The sound rises far above summer canopies
Hoping to fly with the clouds and water the earth like rain.
It is said that nightingales do not die
And they don't
They live within the heart of the listener
Reminding him of the ground and the forest and the sky full of stars.
You will see a nightingale sing
Then fall to the ground
As if thunderstruck
And you will go to your life as if nothing had happened
And sun will rise in the morning
And rain will fall in the afternoon
But you will be addicted forever to nightingale trill.

===============================

Start the Fire

Start the fire - Higher, higher!
That's the word the dead will hear
That the World, Complete, Entire,
Is Entitled to revere -

Start the fire - let it simmer
Let it singe the wooden branches,
Let the sparks above it shimmer
And reach out to all man's natures,

As they burn - no intervention
Burning freely, bravely, truly,
Burn the darkness of convention
And inspire the living fully,

Burn, O bonfire! Burn completely
Leave no trace of loss and sorrow
Burn in love and indiscreetly
Flare the past, light up tomorrow

And keep burning into Now
Till the moment is a Fire
And all in it starts to Glow;
Fire, keep burning - Higher, Higher -

That's the word the dead will hear
That's the word known to the living
Who have vanquished all the fear
And thus overcame Deceiving:

Tell me, fire, spare not my feelings,
How do I appear beside you?
Will the truth you be revealing
If I put my arm inside you?

Will it burn or become vapor?
Will I hold or scream in pain?
Will it light up like white paper
Or be drenched in soothing rain?

I am burning, I am burning;
And through passion made by fire,
In the fire the truth discerning,
I Alight, Complete, Entire -

Blue and red and orange-yellow
Flames are reaching all around me,
Blazing fire, screaming shadows -
Do you seek now to astound me?

Do you know what you are facing?
Do I know who, what, made you?
From what unbeknownst places
Did you come - where going to?

All the things I ever wanted
Came to me before I chose them,
And their memories are haunting,
And are cutting like a rose stem,

But the rose is worth the prickles
And the warmth is worth the pain
And though blood from my mouth trickles
I would do it all again.

I would burn like I am burning
I would yearn like I have yearned,
Staying fiery, never learning
Lessons not worth being learned:

But inspired with life's essence
Through unbridled Love's embrace
See through all of man's false lessons
And burn them without a trace

And then reach into the soul
And there feel light from the heart
And discern the timeless whole
As reflected in each part -

Which in plasma come together
Like electrons' quantum rings
In which lives key to Forever
And the truth from which it springs -

And inside it I'll be burning
With the essence of each minute:
Know what Truth is worth discerning?
Look at Fire - I am in it!

And in fire, where I am standing,
I'll send Light into the world,
That its life be never-ending
And the Living hear my Word.

==============================

Snowstorm in December

Snowstorm on winter evening
Air full of light and snow
Mind feels as though it's dreaming
As ground reclines below

Tree branches just like rivers
From their eternal source
Leading through air that shivers
Into the sea of earth

Branches overlaid with snow -
Fairy tales, like Renoir's
Paintings - together flow -
Past flakes that shine like stars!

Snow flakes here fly illumined
With light from a streetlamp
While from the sky exhuming
Winter night's cold and damp

As it falls on the ground
Under the evening sky
Makes bed of fluff and down
Where the trees' shadows lie.

Snow flakes on a December
In their chaotic flight
Make an orchestral chamber
Where music of the night

Resonates true and clear
And bursts into a song
Where passion, hope and fear
Carry the heart along -

Carry, to truths revealing!
Carry, to joys sublime!
Carry each Thought and Feeling
Into the heart of Time

And in eternal Now
In which resides true Peace
Make Essence merge with Tao
And bring eternal Bliss.

Snow, the exalted water!
Substance of life on high!
Earth's truth and heaven's daughter!
When brought into the sky

Turns into perfect matter
Each one unique, yet all
Crystalline, and they scatter
Everywhere as they fall!

Give us the truth of heaven,
Water congealed in height!
Take us to where you've traveled
On this December night -

Give us what you have mastered -
Place where the truth of life
Turns into alabaster
Crystals! To us arrive,

Each one unique, each real -
Perfect by its own code -
Soulful, incorporeal -
From its sublime abode

Falling upon the ground
And swirling on its course -
Carry your truths profound
And in them bathe the earth.

Water to heights exalted -
To place all poets seek -
Turns into truth embodied -
Each perfect and unique

Each beautiful and tender
And each reflecting light
Each to completeness rendered
And in it bathing Night

As snowflakes shimmer dancing
In chilly winter air
Heaven in them romances
Earth away from despair:

Snowflakes dress trees with beauty
And carpet breathing earth
Onto which is exuded
Truth of the soul's rebirth:

Water reaches the clouds
And there becomes attained,
And then falls on the ground
As snowflakes or as rain

To hide it in the cold
Or feed it in the heat
And the life's truth enfold
In rain, snow, ice and sleet.

Through every time and season
Through every night and day
Passion combined with reason -
Purpose combined with play -

Makes the accomplished matter
Which with the truth of soul -
The Noumenal unfettered
From the Phenomenal -

Brings the embodied splendor
And feeds what may exist
That on the earth is rendered
This divine painter's feast.

Total as life is total,
And unique, one and all -
Both anecdotal
And experimental -

Subjective and objective
Yin and yang, age and youth,
Passive and overactive
Make manifest the truth!

All elements combining
Makes what did not exist
Dualities refining
Where they like gene strands twist

Until they are most splendid
And then they all combine -
Finest and most candid -
Into the truth divine.

There passion turns to matter
And becomes absolute
There preconceptions shatter
And truths untruths refute

There Life strives for existence
Amid the strains of Time
There Seed strives through resistance -
There all becomes sublime!

There water reaches air:
There all is true and wise
There is true beauty - there -
There is no room for lies!

There soul becomes embodied
And then the ground it flails
As though overloaded -
Which its new task entails -

Here to become its most - and
All of its gifts impart:
Unique and universal
In body, mind, and heart!

Upon an earth-shaped canvas
Painting sublime designs
In world we have, that has us,
Making the most of time:

That, being made of water,
And crafted out of ice,
Makes of the time's iota
What will transcend all times:

There, to complete life's substance!
In snow or in rain
And as the snow flake dances -
There, let the soul remain

To consummate the coming
And inspire yet-to-be
And, when the rain comes drumming,
Then let the winter flee!

Then let the sun come beaming!
Then let the life return!
And until then - be dreaming
During this winter storm!

Snowstorm on winter evening!
Both journey and the goal!
Both giving and receiving!
In you, the human soul!

========================

Enchantress

My incredible!
Almost edible!
Infrared and, well,
Ultraviolet!
Full of warmth and light -
Gorgeous, timeless sight
Taking mind on flight
To the never-land.

Your blonde hair swings down
On your velvet gown -
In you voices drown,
Like in concert hall.
Unbelievable!
Inconceivable!
Sun will rise and fall
On your gorgeous soul.

My enchantress, you!
Giant eyes of blue
Like a cloud that flew
Over turquoise skies
Singing melodies
Of the galaxies
Ending fallacies
And becoming wise.

Gentle like a dove,
You are queen of love -
I can't get enough
Of your tenderness!
Goddess of the sea!
How you sing to me
How I long to be
In your soft caress!

Cherry blossom, you!
All that's good and true!
Pink and white and blue
Like a carnival,
Like a rainbow, free!
How you spell-bind me!
How I long to be
In your heart and soul!

In your love I'll swim
And your voice will sing
An eternal hymn -
No regret at all!
Inexorable!
Most adorable!
Uncontrollable!
Unforgettable!

============================

Abyss Has Opened

"Abyss has opened, full of stars" - Lomonosov

Abyss has opened full of stars.
Pluto to Venus, Moon to Mars -
We see the universal force
Charting the cosmos from its source.

Abyss of stars; in stars, abyss -
From depths to heights - from ague to bliss -
The life is manifest in all -
In every part, key to the whole -

In whole, key to every part.
The mind to soul, the breath to heart -
All of life's pieces intertwined
And through the synthesis refined.

The void in me, the stars in you -
The will to be, the sight that's true -
Will intermingle and imbue
The world with light of every hue,

That will commingle into white
And frame and sanctify the night
Shining throughout the day with sun -
And in the night, when course is run,

Return again to their source
And be the parcels. And of course
Inside each star, its own piece
Of wisdom, ecstasy and bliss.

Abyss has opened, full of stars.
Come with me darling, let us parse
The code contained within the whole
Into the knowledge of the soul.

We are the stars; we are the void -
The burning passion is employed
To light the path, to guide the way
And let the cosmic forces play

Within the whole, as holes within
Are by the interplay worn thin
And disappear in the night
To reabsorb into the light.

Galactic wisdom knows it all;
Spacetime collapsed in a black hole
As world around it rushes by
And man asks what, and how, and why;

The incongruity within -
The passions torn, the mind worn thin -
Reflect the daylight and the night
In endless love; in endless fight.

Through all abysses in the space -
Through all that in abysses plays -
Through quasars, galaxies, red shift -
Through truth, invention and deceit -

Through spirit's longing and heart's pain -
Through reasoned words and speech insane -
Through passion, terror and delight -
Through day and twilight and the night -

In all that lives; in all that's here
In ocean, island, atmosphere
In jungle, desert, tundra, steppe
In every place on which I step -

In atom cracked, its core undone -
In colors blending into one -
In forces crumbling on themselves -
In the commingling of the selves -

In space collapsed and rearranged -
In mind extended and deranged -
In lyre of life, in drum of death -
In Keats, Neruda, Rumi, Plath -

In senses shattered to the core
Till Present touches Evermore -
In every minute flung ajar -
I be abyss; you be the star.

===================================

Little Star

Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
From a trillion miles afar -
Your rays penetrate the night
And avail of your delight.
Through the curvatures in space
Where the moments are erased
You forge onward in your course
To the sun and to the earth,
Both a photon and a wave -
Both a master and a slave -
Matter, energy and speed -
Both fulfilment and the need -
Self and space-disturbing force
Charting journey from its source.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
Shimmer as you fling ajar
Door between the mind and heart -
Tear the manacles apart -
Make it shatter; make it bleed -
Water flowers; cull the weed;
Burn outside and burn within
Till the mind begins to spin
And avails of Northern Pole
To attain into the soul -
There to manifgest as light
And achieve unending might
That can burn, and warm, and heal -
Universal truth reveal -
And allow it to break free
Like volcano in the sea,
There to reach into the clouds
And to exorcise the doubts
Of what's lovely - of what's good -
And what, if it only could -
If it only had the force -
Make a paradise of Earth.

Twinkle, twinkle, little soul,
Be my journey, be my goal,
Be my transcendental truth
And don't fall into misuse
But remain, all woes despite,
To give solace, courage, might -
To inspire the ones beneath
And direct them into bliss:
Burn and shine, and from my mind
Wipe false thoughts that make me blind
And replace myopic eyes
With the true, the good, the wise.
And as you reach in my bone,
Make it shatter like a stone,
Tear it, shake it, mold it, burn
From the sundown till the morn.
In the sky and in the eye
In the place where shadows fly
Disincarnate, free at last -
Free from future, free from past -
And existing anyhow
Living in eternal now:
Through the evening, through the dark,
Like a condor, like a shark,
Like a laughter, like a tear -
Through the moody atmosphere -
Little star! Twinkle and shine!
Burn me, scorn me, and be mine!

===============================

Orchid

Soft and warm is your heart, gentle orchid,
Sweet and tender are petals you bear
Bumblebees crowd your pistil. They lurk. It
Sends golden dust everywhere.

Would I knew where your tenderness comes from
Would I knew how your softness is made
Would I knew how your love makes the soul roam
To the heights and the depths, unafraid.

Would I felt your incredible beauty
On my cheeks, on my lips, in my heart,
Would I had one desire undisputed
Within my soul: to impart

Every beautiful thing that you know
To the people who need it the most,
By transmitting your tender glow
To their hearts and their minds. Though it cost

Me a lifetime, to give your true glory
To the world, to the stars, to the sky -
And though I never know your full story
I will never allow you to die -

No, I'll take you through time, you just glow,
I will take you to Venus and Mars
And when you are about to go
I'll establish you among the stars.

===============================

Wish

What thunder told me is that I must hurry
To be forever, and forever new;
What wonder brought me is a bit of worry
That I can't conquer time and sky of blue.

I want it all; to overcome Forever
And leave a lasting imprint of my life;
To fathom all that's beautiful and clever
And at existence's essence to arrive;

To see the souls and let them bloom in season
To water hearts with poetry and soul;
To make true understanding with my reason
And with my intuition know the whole;

To have the wisdom young enough to matter,
To know how to fulfil the people's dreams;
To cut with manacles through every fetter
And heed to every spirit's rending screams;

To add to knowledge that man has fathomed
And have new insights into life and love;
To see into the core of every atom
And of each wave to make a spirit - of

You and me to know the shared being,
To know the secret of true love's delight,
How to restore the eyes to the unseeing
And to the visionaries give the might,

How to create with all that I've been given
And from all parts to make a greater sum;
I want it all. But though I've been forgiven
I know I'll have to do with only some.

===================================

Lost Mind

I lost my mind today -
Oh boy -
and all the thoughts I had -
just seemed to vanish -
in the haze -
surrounding my head

It seemed so wise -
so potent -
so infinitely dull -
complete with thought, effete with pomp
emblazoned on its skull.

An ounce of heart
a pound of spleen
a smattering of phlegm
A bit of code
a bunch of will
and a thick soup of memes:

All this was all mixed
and cut to bits
a chewy marble blend
from which I built
a vague relief
of life that I intend:

Where has it gone, do tell me?
Where is my upscale mind?
I look without,
I look within,
But nothing can I find.

It seems the mind has melted
and I must build anew
today's mind-melded structure
with but a quart of glue.

===============================

Bubble

We made a bubble of our minds -
Connected over the distance -
Our nerves together intertwined
And in their center, Our Existence -

Heartbeat to heartbeat - will to will -
Passion to passion - and to reason:
Keeping us in there from the chill
In every day - in every season -

And in the middle - in the core -
Were our own centers: In this bubble
They will be there, forevermore,
All times protected from the trouble.

The walls us from the world will keep
And in there we will be together:
In day, in night, in wake, in sleep
Like swallow safe within her feathers.

We made a bubble of our souls -
How hard it was though to sustain it!
To wait all day for you to call -
To keep away all that was tainted -

To keep alive, this heart to heart,
This mind to mind, this soul to soul,
To love you though we be apart -
And to retain this perfect whole:

The mental energy it took
Made me make most of every moment
My spirit tore, my body shook,
And I was in a passion's torment -

And then the bubble's walls concussed
As all its contents lay there scattered:
Eternal, present and the past
Of both the spirit and the matter.

The bubble burst; walls fell apart
And what was thought inside protected -
The throbbing souls, the beating hearts -
Were there, open and dissected.

It was as though the skin was flayed
As centers lay there undefended
I felt destroyed; you felt betrayed -
But something happened unintended:

I saw the beauty that is you,
You saw how much I cared for you,
I saw you from a closer view
And knew indeed that I adore you:

The bubble burst and spilt its core
But yet the dream has not been shattered:
I see you - clearer than before -
And I can love you even better.

=============================

Heat Lightning

Hello my friend heat lightning!
How beautiful you are!
All of the sky alighting
The heaven's avatar!

Illumined and transparent
Bathing the sky like milk -
Weaving the webs apparent
Of white majestic silk!

White, yellow, luminescent -
You shimmer through the clouds!
Delicate, effervescent,
And making not a sound -

Shining each place, all over,
Completely unafraid
In platinum, in silver -
Like cobwebs overhead!

And through them beams like sunshine
The electrical charge -
The unremitting passion
Of universe at large!

And then the rain starts drizzling
And thunder then erupts
Gentle, magnetic, sizzling -
Like coffee from a cup -

And as comes forth the power
Which in it was contained
The sky, on midnight hour,
Erupts like cannonnade!

Like nerves spread out and screaming,
Like bursting light-filled veins,
The lightning punctures Seeming
And augments joy and pain -

Is frame for all illusion
With its electric light -
Who can bear this intrusion?
Who can believe this sight?

The nerves of man, spilled out
And bursting in the sky!
Hate, fear, worry, doubt
In heaven - how? Why?

What makes you, and who are you?
You, madman's random trails,
You, baobabs on fire
You, yachts without sails!

You, turmoil incandescent!
You, agony and glee!
You, passion effervescent!
Are you now seeking me?

I'll see you and I'll feel you
I'll sense you in my heart
The truths you are revealing
That you wish to impart,

And with my feet on gravel
And head held out high
I'll watch the roads you've traveled,
Unraveled, in the sky.

===========================

More at http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/poems.htm

Methods

2006-06-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

American method is to start from scratch and build as did the pioneers. This results in desirable phenomenon that is courage and ingenuity and undesirable one that is failure to recognize and value what has previously existed. Each generation sees itself and its methodology as the right one; tries to do it alone; some succeed, others die, others go back and builds on top of the roots. The world goes on; lessons are learned; some get passed down, others forgotten. The place keeps building upon itself, using the efforts of everyone, however directed, for its purposes; an E Pluribus Unum. All intentions are used and appropriated and become a resource which America uses to build on itself.

European method is to stand on accomplishments of tradition and to evolve the tradition with new knowledge. This results in desirable phenomenon that is continuity and cultivation and undesirable one that is failure to develop ingenuity and courage. American method and European method are therefore direct opposites and complete each other. They check and balance each other, in best situations imparting of their virtues, in worst destroying the other's virtues with one's flaws. It is through interlocking interaction among them, like Star of David, that can be visualized the West.

Russian method is to learn fast and then take to the next level. It is based on two best Russian qualities: Intelligence and perseverance. Thus we had: Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pasternak, Pushkin, Akhmatova); Russian music (Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff); Russian ballet; and the first man in space. All these pursuits were not invented in Russia, but Russians made the most of them. Russian character is about intelligence and perseverance. This is good for the aforementioned pursuits; it is bad for politics and for business, as stubbornness and certainty - both corollaries of these qualities - make people unable to compromise. The resulting history is a logical outcome of this character.

Arabic method is to take over the world and impose their law upon everyone. That is what Allah tells them to do. Their current project is to destroy the West by understanding the West and then using its own mechanisms to break it. The most vivid example was 9-11; but this has been going on all the time, including the OPEC crisis of 1970s and the Tehran hostage crisis. The method is this: See the logic of people's drives, fears, goals, pursuits, beiefs, systemic arrangements, political and social covenants, etc; and then use it to conquer them. They justify that by saying that such things are weak and evil and thus should be used against the people who have them for the sake of Allah, until we all live in the great land of Afghanistan.

Chinese method was to create a crystalline civilization, combining the interests of the society (Confucianism) with individualist outlet (Taoist) that gave people freedom for as long as they used it to acquire and transmit wisdom. This worked, until China's crystallinity led to closed-mindedness that made it unreceptive to progress. The crystal got hit with a sledgehammer that was the English civilization; at which point they had to do something else. They have been doing this: Encorporating the ideas and the inventions and science of Russia and America and redintegrating them around China's original mindset. The goal - seen in China's business practices and politics - has been to acquire leverage over everyone and make them need China and refrain from attacking China while it is growing. This has been working so far. Eventually people will start leveraging them back, and a tug of war will ensue between Chinese and all others. At which point China will either have to regress to a totalitarian state, or learn all the business and diplomatic skills in order to exist in the tug-and-pull arrangement that it has itself created with the rest of the world.

Japan's method is to copy and then improve. Japanese culture discourages original thinking but encourages excellence and diligence. This means the following: That Japan cannot produce truly original inventions or science, but it can take them from the West and then improve their quality in mass production. This has happened with cars, computers and robots. In this way, it's similar to the Russian method, but applied to different things calling on different qualities. Where Russia uses determination and intellect to create singular achievements, Japan uses diligence and excellence to create practical things.

Latin American method is to be full of energy and passion, and yet be obedient. This attracts money-making people from all over the world. Thus, Latin America manages to have luxurious cities and many wealthy people despite having very little industry. This also leads to all kinds of volatility, as moral questions constantly arise. Interests defend themselves; corruption takes place; countries become less attractive; money goes elsewhere. Then a Cardoso or a Fujimori steps in to set the place straight; country again becomes attractive; money flows in; and cycle continues.

The Jewish project has always been to change the world; they differ in tactics. The liberal Jews seek to influence other civilizations; the conservative Jews seek to lead by example. Both achieve a measure of success and a measure of failure as a result of mechanisms involved and competence in making them work.

Liberal Jewish method is to use their smarts to advance other civilizations, with ultimate hope of bringing about a world free of barbarism and full of intelligence and prosperity. "Where there is sand, there are Jews" - indeed there are; they see that as being their job. This leads to greater accomplishment in other civilizations; it also leads to all kinds of nastiness directed toward Jews themselves. Jews feel ungrateful and slighted by God; they lose their religion; other religions come in. Other Jews feel betrayed and create Orthodox communities and claim themselves to be true Jews. They carry on the line, encorporating new lessons into Rabbinic Judaism, until their children are confronted with the world. This leads to their glorification of suffering - then Christian missionaries come in promising relief. The back-and-forth influencing continues until the liberal Jews have blended thoroughly with the natives, while also having largely transformed them. They sacrifice their national identity for good of humanity, and humanity then has a choice: Either to recognize what has just happened and live at higher level, or to go back to barbarism while blaming the Jews and the liberals for everything under the sun.

Conservative Jewish method is to have a homeland in Israel and run it by Biblical and Talmudic law. They believe in leading by example rather than by working within other civilizations. The task - of running a country - involves qualities that Jewish people around the world never developed, and they have to learn from others or else stand entirely on the Bible and the Talmud. They have to defend themselves, manage political affairs, and are frequently seen as dinosaurs in the age (having less than 50 years in self-governance) when their former oppressors have long moved on to better ways. The project of leading by example becomes seen by the West as absurd; so the Israelies then have to hire Russian-Jewish expatriates to learn fast and then help catapult Israel into the next level.

African method has been taking the worst of the colonized and the colonizers: The colonized's victim mentality and the colonizers' cruelty and abomination. This has created a slew of hideous despots who plundered the African countries while refusing to take responsibility for their actions and claiming the injury of the colonized to injure the African people as gravely as had the imperialists. All is blamed on the West; tyrants come to power in that name and injure their people still worse than had the West. Good things get stomped out, leaving the people demoralized. This validates the West's stereotypes of African people being lazy, when what we see is learned helplessness.

Indian method is to be so attractive as to seduce everyone, and so peaceful and self-controlled as to be regarded ethically superior. Armies, colonists, came and went; they came back talking about how beautiful the place is and how profound its literature and religion. Gandhi appeared, combining India's spirituality with liberal Western belief in human rights, and inspired people living under oppression everywhere. India's method? Be magnificent and ethical, and they will all come and learn from you. At which point you will have more influence on the world than a thousand armies, and you will be cherished in people's hearts.

Which, incidentally, is similar to Christ's method - which raises in many minds speculation as to whether a certain Issa(http://reluctant-messenger.com/issa.htm), who supposedly came from the West around that time to study in India, did not happen to be the Nazarene.

Romantic poetry

2006-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

Most of my poetry is romantic in theme, and combines feeling with insight.

I am of the belief that the dichotomy between feeling and thinking is a false one; that it is possible to both feel and think, and that doing so creates a complete (integrative) experience.

Given the nature of reason - as something that builds on premises - I see it as being possible to use reason either against feeling (thus creating emotional violence); or in conjunction with feeling (thus creating emotional expansion).

I have been finding it necessary at many times to suspend reason from its premises and let the feeling take over and understand it later, while letting the experience enrich my understanding and giving me knowledge that I would not have had if I had operated from the position of building upon existing premises.

I furthermore see that it is through combination of reasoning and emotion - experiencing from within; assaying from without; letting the two perspectives integrate - that full picture of a feeling, or (on another level) of a person or of a culture or of a mindset - can be created: One superior to the merely objective (which by itself tends toward coldness and cruelty) or to the merely subjective (which by itself tends toward lack of awareness of external effects).

But rather one that combines experience with observation - the internal with the external - and thus creates a more complete picture.

Once again, the poems are at:

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/poems.htm

Happy reading.

Intrinsic vs. referential psychology

2006-06-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

I advocate this: A complete human existence. One that recognizes the truth of the multiple levels of human nature - multiple likewise intelligences and approaches - and makes the most of them all, in the same way as the multiple paths can be used to achieve the completeness of social enterprise. I advocate man that is at once spiritual, intellectual, material, egoic and altruistic, combining all forms of self-interest and other-interest into completenss of human beingness. And for this I advocate that people partake of the mindsets that address one or another form of human existence; apply them where appropriate; and through the synthesis of these levels of human existence live and impart a full life.

The feelings and thoughts of people can be explained in reference to something else (a code; an ideology; a belief; a method); or they can be explained inherently, by looking at essences, by feeling the feelings themselves. The first results in abrasion; the second results in compassion. And it is the second method that is the only one capable of producing people that are not only true, but also emotionally complete.

The error that keeps creeping into psychology, despite the actions of Rogers's and May's and Fromm's of the world, is that of projecting the method used to understand the mind, onto the mind, and then judging the mind rather than understanding it in case its own methods differ. Allow me to explain what I'm talking about. The scientific method is a path toward understanding things; that requires a particular kind of logic. In studying things other than mind, it is fine; but when one approaches the mind FROM THE POSITION OF the scientific method, he is easily subject to this error: Comparing the mind's processes to the process (scientific method) he uses in studying the mind; and judging them when they are inevitably found to be run by a different logic, the way one would judge other-than-scientific approach within the laboratory.

Which leads of course not to exploration but to judgmentalism. Anything that is run by a logic that either is not of the scientific method or that the scientific method cannot be found to understand, becomes an "issue." The logic of science gets interjected into the mind, squashing its own processes in the process. Compassion goes; so does imagination. And the result is projection of human perfection as someone with the mentality of a brick (and the physical and emotional qualities that are commensurate with that mentality), and vicious attack on anything that is more alive - or rarefied, or exquisite, or inspired, or passionate, or indeed attuned to the higher logic of life.

What logic indeed motivates a flower? Is a flower linear? How could it be? A flower is the following things: Individual (with none like the other); intricate; multifaceted; tender; and delicate. What logic? The logic of consummation - of being one's best, as fruition, fulfillment and justification of the species; which being best is necessary both to consummate and to lead to the future. The logic? An integrative logic, combining the CONSUMMATION with CONTINUITY. The attainment of the species, and a link to the times to come. That's no "issue." That's how the thing is made - rightly so - and instead of dissecting it why don't you look at what's in front of you and see the actual logic by which it runs.

Which is quite different from assaying things from the position of (and in reference to) the mindset running the discipline. Understanding human feelings in their essence is quite different from assaying them in reference to a code or a norm. I've made it my job to experience all kinds of feelings that I understand them directly. And it is only through this process that anything close to understanding can possibly be achieved.

Another persistent error in assaying people is that of continually doing so in reference to a norm. A cat is seen to be perfect not by being of a norm, but by being the best she can be as a fruition of her own potential. But a human being is seen to be perfect when he or she fulfills one or another normative function. Which means that people's minds are expropriated and put in service of one or another usurpatory construct. But what it means most of all is that any true perfection - perfection as attainment of one's possibility - is destroyed, while a cask is imposed at the top to shove people under a crucifix.

There was a woman on the Net who said that she lusted after the criminal element. One person - operating from the standpoint of one or another supposed norm (one of course out of millions developed through history) - said that the fact she lusted after scum meant that she was scum. He defined her feelings in reference to his perspective: One that claims that criminals are scum (while heartless, malicious, abusive bullies like him are not). Someone else - operating from a psychological self-esteem paradigm, in which all bad things are a result of people thinking poorly of themselves and if they feel better about themselves they will magically become the citizens they want them to be - said that her problem was low self-esteem. He, once again, defined her feelings in reference to his perspective: That of self-esteem psychology, in which all is about self-esteem and feelings are functional to it. But none bothered to look at how her feelings actually were experienced. What made the criminal element attractive to her? Was it some erotic fascination, with people who have discarded all bonds and are indulging in the forbidden? Was it some kind of freedom from things she either could not identify or ones she could? Did she herself feel like a criminal? To claim it her being scum, or to claim it low self-esteem, did not explain how it felt inside. And to see psychologists, who are supposed to understand such things, time and again rejecting compassion and falling into the trap of projecting one or another form of judgmentalism or lack of compassion ("Compassion went out of passion, that's all your concern meant") or mechanistic thinking, is to see a problem endemic to the profession, and that can only be overcome, not by only externally observing feelings, but by internally feeling them.

To reiterate: A feeling is not known unless it is felt. It does not exist by reference to a norm or an ideology; but in its own right and according to its own logic. And projecting one or another form of logic on mind, and judging it when it is seen to be run by a different logic, is not science but bigotry. Indeed it is a betrayal of scientific spirit; whether it comes under name of rationality or self-esteem or anything else. Examining the mind and being the mind are two different things; and the logic of the second need not legitimately accord with the first. Indeed it may have a logic whose intricacy blows your mind; and attacking that is a hideous error.

An error that is just another manifestation of a still bigger error, to which humanity has been prone for centuries: Of assuming all people to be the same and treating them likewise. That is a projection, once again, of one or another mindset upon something that runs by its own. Not only does that result in destruction of liberty, but it results furthermore in degradation of the world and all people in it. The categorical imperative involved is that of creating gray and lifeless society. And the solution to that is this:

I do the next person no favors by treating them the way I want to be treated.

I do the next person favor by treating them the way they want to be treated.

And in this I honor the next person's individuality and preserve it.

And that is the categorical imperative I seek to serve.

Extended metaphor

2006-06-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

It is a main tenet of modern science that the universe can be seen in its laws and its essence from any vintage point in the universe. This means likewise that the universe can be seen in every part of human mechanism. This means reason, but it also means intuition, passion and metaphorical intelligence.

The latter consists of seeing the qualities of one aspect of the universe in another. As the poet draws parallels between one set of events and another, or one phenomenon and another, he sees right into the universal essence as it is manifest in both - and attains wisdom that sees and manifests and wraps the mind around the interconnectedness of all things and the sublime universal wisdom that lives through both.

Metaphor - and particularly extended metaphor - is therefore a path to wisdom and intuitive understanding that is at least as valid as, and more rewarding than, scientific analysis. It is a path that lets the people see one thing as reflected in another and the universe as reflected in both. It is a path that lets the people develop intuitive feeling for the totality of the universe and its various reifications. And that is as sure a path to wisdom as anything people have thought up in either the scientific or religious paths.

The stuff of the mind of the people - both the intellect and the emotion - is the root of their selves and then the root of their actions. Therefore education and cultivation of beauty in all its forms becomes in a very real and practical sense the basis for beautiful existence. As stuff of people’s minds, beauty in all its forms becomes the basis for their thoughts and ultimately the basis for their behavior. Radiating out of minds, which have been attuned to beauty, beauty becomes the stuff of relationships and the stuff of the social interactions and a daily, practical, ongoing reality of experience of humankind.

Beauty stops being seen as inapplicable to the real world and instead becomes formative of the real world. Which is indeed its right place in the order of things: As the culmination of substance and form; its consummation; its triumph; and inspiration for yet-to-be.

And which beauty becomes then a practical reality - through the practical mechanism of people using their minds and actions to make it so.

Poetry about nature

2006-06-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

After being with Julia, who as a visual artist achieved tremendous mastery in seeing and capturing beauty in nature, I have been motivated to use words in the same way as she does the camera and the paint brush. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words; so there was a thousand, and then a thousand, and then another thousand. One of my best experiences with this came when I, after seeing an incredibly beautiful day, came to the keyboard and said to myself, "Let's paint a Renoir."

The following poems are an application of the same principle.

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/clouds.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/spider.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/snowstorm.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/blossoms.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/geese.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/shenandoah.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/nightingales.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/mantis.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/cobwebs.htm

Squaring off against reductionism

2006-06-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Following is an essay I made about intricacy and romantic love.

===================================

Layo told me how, when she was younger, she was seeing tremendous things in people that she later described as being ridiculous.

My response: Those things were there all right. They were just not part - or not completely part - of the people's conscious makeup. You weren't being delusional; you were just seeing things that were not normally talked about or understood or owned up to. A ballerina has many beautiful physical qualities, and many more encoded through art in her emotional structure, even if she is consciously not able to understand the significance of the work that she performs.

Here is a question that's worthy of being posed. What's more impressive: Person the creature, or contents of person's conscious mind? I pose this question quite seriously and not being facetious. Is what's inside any living being's - any living being's - conscious mind anywhere nearly as complicated, as calibrated, as brilliant, as compact, as intelligent, as is the intelligence encoded in the organism itself, the emotional structure included? I pose this question also because there are plenty of people whose conscious minds contain very interesting and sometimes brilliant and even wise things. But is any man's conscious mind as impressive as the hardware on which it resides? Or the talents, or the emotional fractals, or all else contained within?

Indeed it is a question that cuts to the core of the matter. I've seen even teenagers (when I was a teenager) have tremendous talent and even emotional richness and intellect - while being also capable of extreme stupidity. The same indeed can be spoken about adults. Here's the problem with the reductionistic perspective: It sees the stupidity and uses it to reduce the rest of the being to the level of stupidity, while claiming the intelligence and the talent and the beauty encoded in the organism to be invalid by that token. It's not invalid; it's still there, it just exists at a more subtle level. The person may be able to see it and own up to it, or else they may not. But it still is there, at one or another level, and that makes it a reality.

So it is possible to put a bullet through someone's chest. Does that mean that the man is as cheap as a bullet? Does being able to destroy something make one able to create (or even to fathom) something of commensurate complexity? Does the ballerina's inability to articulate the themes of her artwork make her movements less elegant? Socrates said that the poets were not wise because their works were based on inspiration instead of analysis. But that does not refute the inspiration or what underlies it or what it comes from, now does it? Or the quality of their work?

Based on this use of reductionism therefore, the worst in the world seek to claim the perspective of someone who sees such things to be pathological. No it is not; it is rather just the matter of what you had suspected originally: A matter of more profound and cultivated sight that reaches to the underlying potentiality. The women in whom I saw incredible qualities all have them. And that is the case, whether they are consciously aware of them or not; whether they are able to own up to them or not; and especially whether or not others see in them such qualities.

You can kill a tiger; but can you create a tiger from scratch? How much more so a human being? Indeed it has been my observation that the most interesting people with most of beauty and inspiration and wisdom and goodness to offer are ones that are most intricate in their structure. That was the case for all the women with whom I had relationships, Layo included. And it was my goal in all such cases to let the magnificence blossom, rather than cutting them down as would someone acting from reductionistic perspective or from position of conquest or from position of self-sufficiency or any other such foolishness shoved down people's throats by the malevolent.

It is not everyone's job to haul loads. A world in which everyone does such things is not any kind of a world that I would seek to inhabit. Some are more sturdy; others are more delicate. And the best world is created by having everyone do the same job, but by people doing the tasks that are for them most natural. Which means having a civilization in which the Layos and Julias of the world are appreciated and being given a way to do what they do best: Create magnificent works and impart to the world of their beauty. And in so doing take human experience to a higher level.

Many of the most interesting things in the world are indeed the most intricate. Which requires not breaking them but allowing them to unfold. At which point the intricate thing can indeed impart of its riches. And the world is made better for it.

Now that, is an attitude with which one can become a teacher.

Psychological poetry

2006-06-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Included are links to my psychological poetry:

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/mantis.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/lostmind.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/fruit.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/colors.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/cobwebs.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/dream.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/arrows.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/screamingsun.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/wish.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/man.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/darkness.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/bubble.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/truth.htm

Philosophical poetry

2006-06-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

Included are links to my philosophical poems:

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/abyss.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/firewater.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/infinity.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/numenous.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/universe.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/heaven.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/muse.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/littlestar.htm
http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/meteors.htm

Expansive essays

2006-06-11T11:12:00.001-07:00

I have included a link to a comprehensive essay covering a variety of subjects, and in the body of the blog I am including another.

The first is http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/renaissance.htm. You may not agree with all things there, but I believe there are significant ideas there.

The second follows.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND MULTIPLE PATHS

Part 1. Freedom of Thought: Virtue and Root of All Other Virtues

The man's life is a result of the mindset that he possesses; and the
same is the case for societies. The people's beliefs, perspectives,
perceptions and feelings and outlook that are their function shape the
world they inhabit and the world they bequeath to their kids. The
mindset, through actions done in its pursuance, becomes
self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling. And the ideas shaping it become
reflected in the nation at all its levels, shaping its social movements
and its climate and ultimately the lives of all that are in it
involved.

The mindset, however it came to pass, therefore becomes the ultimate
and complete authority over the lives of the people within the
civilization. It becomes so complete and encompassing that people
don't question it, but are rather by it shaped. The mindset -
whatever its origins, whatever its methods, whatever its function -
becomes therefore a greater, more complete and more invasive power over
the lives of the people than does the government. By shaping the minds
of the people it shapes all their actions and then the world they
create with these actions. As such it becomes the true authority of the
land.

To be in any way regarded as democratic, an authority has to be
balanced and checked and held accountable. In other words it must be
official and open and complete and thus subject to accountability that
comes from being brought open into the sun. An authority that is not
official is an authority that becomes unaccountable, unchecked and
unbalanced. Which means that it is well on its way to becoming
totalitarian.

America, seeking rightfully to avoid totalitarianism, has applied
checks and balances on all levels of official government. This has
prevented any official organ of power from turning tyrannical and
absolute. The same checks and balances, however, have not been applied
on American society. They have not been applied on American
communities; on American media; on American business; on American
churches; and especially on American public opinion. Which means that
totalitarianism has found a way to slip under the radar screen and
through controlling the minds of people has found a way to create a de
facto tyranny in the land of the free the home of the brave.

What are the signs of this totalitarianism? They are all around us.
They are in fears bludgeoned into people's heads, from fear of being
different to fear of being open to fear of being fully alive. They are
in similitude of thought; similitude of feeling; similitude of
perspective, all bludgeoned into the minds of America from earliest
ages. They are in the hideousness of American social climate from high
school onwards and the strident sellout psychologies that pander to
this conman's totalitarianism by portraying the people's legitimate
reaction to such climates as pathological. They are in the control of
people's wants, minds, hearts and desires and their twisting into
wanting, valuing and seeking what they would in many cases never
rightfully want, fear what they should never rightfully fear, seek what
they should never rightfully seek and believe what they should never
rightfully believe.

I refer to this as conman's totalitarianism, precisely because it is
unofficial. To people who think they are free under this arrangement,
the correct question to ask is, "If you all are so free, then why are
you all the same?" To go further: Why do you all dress the same, want
the same things, believe the same lies, approach life with the same -
mindset? And if you truly believe in freedom, then why are you so
vehement in attacking anything that is in any way different from
yourselves, whether these be the people within or the people without?

It makes no sense to create a country designed to be free of official
tyranny when unofficial tyranny takes its place and exercises over
people's minds (and thus over their lives, and over their
civilization) a greater coercive power than is exercised by the
President, Congress, Supreme Court and state and local government. It
makes no sense to create a country designed to be free when the basic
unit of human consciousness - the mind - is twisted into
perpetuation of a big lie. To be democratic, authority - all
authority - must be official, checked and balanced, and thus
accountable. And in standing up to conman's totalitarianism in all
its aspects, one does one's duty as a true American patriot.

Freedom of thought is at the basis of all other virtues. Freedom of
thought means true freedom; freedom that shapes one's mind and
radiating out of it one's life and one's actions within the world.
Freedom is prerequisite for knowledge; as it is only within the context
of freedom that one can be free to acquire true understanding, one not
shaped or manipulated by usurpatory interest or mindset of any kind.
Knowledge, in turn, is a prerequisite for responsibility and ethics; as
it is only through knowledge that one can understand the world enough
to know the full range of consequences of one's actions and then act
in a manner that's calculated and thus could regard itself
responsible. And it is only a choice that is calculated and informed
that can consider itself ethical, as it is only by knowing the
consequences of one's actions and taking responsibility for them that
it is possible to make a choice based on values.

By transitive rule, freedom is a prerequisite for ethics; as it is only
within context of freedom that it is possible to make choices, not
based on avoiding or anticipating consequences for self, but rather
because they are the right thing to do. And freedom of thought, being
the root of all other freedoms, becomes the prerequisite for ethics.

Thus, it is impossible to have ethics, responsibility, or any other
virtues we see people claim to profess to believe without freedom and
knowledge. And it is impossible to have actual freedom and knowledge
without freedom of thought.

Which means the following: That it is only through freedom from the
oppressive mindset that it is possible to attain to any kind of virtue.
And that in freeing people from conman's totalitarianism one does
sacred duty before ethics, responsibility, knowledge, and America.

Freedom of thought has another virtue that is just as real. It is
freedom of thought that allows people to see what others don't see.
This has multiple applications. The first of these is that it corrects
errors that happen when people think the same way and exposes them to
perspectives they need to think better and understand the world more
completely. But it does this furthermore: Become the root of all
innovation that exists in the world. Which innovation depends on people
to come up with new ideas that are a result of original perspectives.

And it is this innovation that is at the root of all manmade good that
exists in the world.

Therefore freedom of thought is not only at the root of all other
virtues (liberty; knowledge; responsibility and ethics) that are
espoused by America. It also is the reason the world has what it has
now. And as such, it is the true and unshakeable source of not only
moral good, but physical and political and technological and artistic
good. Which makes it, quite truly, the saving grace of humanity and the
reason for all it has accomplished.

Part 2. Absolute Case for Democracy

I say not only that it is man's right to be free of all forms of
unofficial authority. I say that it is man's DUTY to do so - duty
before America and the Republic For Which It Stands. I say that any
mindset that is unwritten and unofficial, is unaccountable, unchecked
and unbalanced, and as such lacking accountability becomes tyrannical.
And that any serious interpretation of democracy - also of life and
liberty - requires a citizenry that is aware of all unofficial forms of
tyranny and stands against it.

Whether that tyranny be the mindset of Fort Wayne, Indiana, or the
mores of the average East Coast suburb, or the mindset of gangs.

I do not advocate freedom of thought as a form of rebellion. I advocate
it in and of itself, as a virtue, and the necessary condition for all
other virtues. I embrace it passionately and completely, not as a
matter of contrarianism but for its own sake and for the sake of all
else that requires it - all the other virtues stated above.

And I say quite clearly that true democracy and true liberty demands a
passionate, unconditional and absolute embrace of the freedom of
thought - as the true accomplishment of civilization and the core of
all its stated virtues.

In many cases, the arguments for democracy have been the wrong ones.
Relativism - the belief that all things are uncertain, and that
certainty is what distinguishes totalitarianism from democracy - is a
flimsy justification for democracy. Indeed it is a definition that
opens democracy to accusations of cowardice and corruption and serves
not democracy but totalitarianism.

The only true, moral, absolute basis for democracy is absolute
conviction in absolute rightness of human freedom. And that means
absolute, unconditional and passionate embrace of freedom of thought.
In and of itself and as a basis for all other virtues.

The freedom of thought is the most fundamental of human liberties. And
freedom of thought involves also freedom of personhood. And radiating
out of that freedom of thought and freedom of personhood come all other
freedoms and all other virtues. It is impossible to have a country that
one proclaims free when there is no freedom of thought,
self-definition, emotion and personality.

It is impossible to have a country that one proclaims free when
official totalitarianism is replaced with unofficial totalitarianism of
a mindset controlling people's minds, hearts, spirits and
personalities.

And in freeing people from such unofficial totalitarianism it becomes
possible to arrive at population that is truly free.

Freedom is therefore a necessary condition for all other virtues. And
in affirming, passionately and absolutely, the freedom of thought, one
affirms likewise all other virtues.

Which then becomes the absolute and unshakeable ethical foundation for
democracy, and, as I have just shown, the root of all human attainment.
One that is far superior to the conman's ideology of relativism -
and one that possesses enough strength to combat the threats to
democracy, both external ones and internal, that we see today.

It is of course unavoidable that mindsets will come about. Recognizing
their power of authority over people's lives, I thus postulate
applying to them the same logic that has been applied rightfully and
successfully to the branches of American government; The logic of
checks-and-balances. Seeing in all mindsets - as in all governmental
organs - the capacity for both right and wrong, I seek to subject
mindsets to the same accountability as is done to American government.

Making them known and official is the first step.

Part 3. Ideology and Psychology

Scott Peck described as "neurotics" the people who take responsibility
for things that are not their responsibility - and as "character
disordered" the people who do not take responsibility for things that
are.

My response: The issue in many cases is not psychological but
ideological, and the ideological explanation is both simpler and more
precise than the psychological one.

It may come as a surprise to people who think in terms of emotional
forces, but one's conscious beliefs have a fair amount of things to do
with how one relates to the world. And these conscious beliefs differ
tremendously in what is believed to be one's own responsibility; what
is believed to be the next person's responsibility; what is believed to
be the government's responsibility; or what responsibility is shared,
to what extent and among whom.

Do you remember Beatles' song, "Hey Jude, don't carry the world upon
your shoulders?" The "carrying the world upon your shoulders" appears
to be a quite common - ahem - neurosis among people with particular
ideologies. Let me ask you a stupid question. Was Jude an objectivist?
A conservative? A libertarian? Could he have been these things? Or was
he a liberal whose self was identified with the good of the world, who
believed in shared responsibility, and who found life meaningless for
himself and intolerable for all unless the world was in a good shape?

I ask another stupid question. What is the responsibility of any given
person, for what, and according to whom? We see people fight over this
issue all the time. We see people shunting the responsibility at
someone else; we also see people taking responsibility for one or
another issue, or cause, or project, or society, or outcome, that many
would say is not their responsibility - but that, without someone
taking responsibility for it, would never get accomplished at all. Are
the first group character-disordered? Are the second group neurotics?
Or is this something that people have been doing for as long as - well,
for as long as there was a responsibility to shunt one way or another,
which is to say for as long as there were people?

Remember Communism? These were the people who believed that
responsibility was shared and a part of each citizen as well as
humanity as a whole. Indeed the same ideology was mouthed once by
American leaders, from FDR to Kennedy - and now, guess who - Mr.
Compassionate Conservative. Were these people possessive of character
disorders? Were they pushing on America a mass neurosis? Or did they
simply recognize that responsibility in any given society contains both
the individual and the shared aspect - something that was articulated
by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt of all people, long before these - ahem -
supposed sociopaths took these ideas to such places as "The only thing
to fear is fear itself," "Do not ask what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country" and "Mr. Putin has a good soul."

Indeed I am of the belief that each ideology arrives at its own
peculiar mix of supposed character disorder and neurosis. The people
who believe in shared responsibility will be described by people who
believe in individual responsibility as both taking responsibility for
things that aren't their fault and not taking responsibility for things
that are. The same is the case the other way around.

I ask the final question. Where does your responsibility stop and
another person's responsibility begin? What is responsibility of which
citizen or which entity or which collection of citizens or entities?
I've had people tell me that I had a responsibility to myself, and to
tell me what that responsibility was. I've had people grow exasperated
because I kept saying that I was not interested in things in which an
American citizen is supposed to be interested and in pursuit of which
he is supposed to expend his life. Let me get this straight. You tell
me what I owe myself? You tell me what I should want and what I should
strive for? And then you claim that we are living in a free country?

A person who believes in every person being completely responsible for
his life will be both a character disorder and a neurotic. He will
strive obsessively to be completely at top of everything, including
things that he can do precious nothing about; and he will do nothing to
contribute to shared good. That similar characterization will be
frequently made for people who believe in shared responsibility, needs
no elaboration. So this is my question to Mr. Peck:

Where does one person's responsibility end and another's begin?

Where does one entity's responsibility end and another begin?

What responsibility belongs to individual, to country, or to one or
another entity?

And what does a healthy character do to determine which delineation and
which ideology is legitimate?

There are two directions of interest in any human being. One is
self-interest; the other is other-interest. The I-Thou duality
manifests in concern for self and concern for the next person or for
the world. The two components can be arranged in many different ways. I
am here to show the best way to arrange them.

Part 4. Self-Interest and Other-Interest

The evolutionary theory supposes that man has evolved both as species
and as self. That is, man exists as part of humanity and as his own
unique self, and interests of both are combined. Man competes against
other men, but he also serves mankind. The error made by tribal, or
statist, or religious ideologies, is to claim man as solely part of
humanity; the error made by Ayn Rand and Nietzsche is to claim man as
solely himself. Both are half-right. Man exists as himself and as part
of humanity.

Which means the following: That man's orientation to the world consists
of self-interest and other-interest. Both are absolutely legitimate and
natural and, as I've shown, worthwhile. Currently in America we are
seeing the worst possible combination of the two. The other-interest is
to attack in man all that is original and all that is his own and all
that is different from that of his neighbor - in essence, all things
that a man stands to contribute and all that in him makes for
meaningful liberty and existence worth having. The self-interest
meanwhile, under the rubric of liberty - the liberty that I've just
shown the same people to deny others in any meaningful form - is used
to attack man's ability to engage in any collective political or
philanthropic action to improve the lot of one's fellow man. The
concept of "selfishness" gained from collectivist ideologies is misused
to attack all meaningful liberty - especially anyone whose thoughts,
beliefs, feelings and interest differ from that of those who claim to
represent social interest. Meanwhile the concept of liberty gained from
capitalist ideologies - the liberty that, as I've just shown, is denied
in any meaningful manner - is misused to attack any collective action
that seeks to give people a way to a better existence. Thus we have the
worst of all possible arrangements: People formulated on the inside,
with all meaningful freedom and goodness and originality and beauty
forbidden - and the fear of collective action denying people political
power necessary to actually improve their condition, while forcing
these people to compete against one another and be isolated from one
another and being more and more ensnared in a culture of consumer
coercion that claims to give liberty while essentially binding the
person for life.

Ayn Rand offered a way out of this arrangement: Complete self-interest
and interaction among people based on even exchange within the
framework of rule of law. Socialism offers another way out of this
arrangement: Collectivization of all economic activity and unified push
for common good. I offer something better than both.

I offer making the best of self-interest and the best of
other-interest. I offer putting the two where they belong:
Respectively, in the sphere of self-action and the sphere of
other-action. And what I offer is this: Self-interest leading to
complete self-determination, with freedom of thought and freedom of
feeling and freedom of self-creation - with acquisition of wisdom and
knowledge from many cultures and ways of thinking and personal
experience and social insight giving a person a way to completely shape
himself or herself and a life that he or she chooses in an informed and
open manner (including the options that are not a part of his
upbringing) - and other-interest leading one to do good deeds for one's
fellow man. What I offer is this: Self-interest determining self-action
and other-interest determining other-action. What I offer is this:
Complete and meaningful liberty of the individual - and philanthropic
work by the individual that leads to improved lives and a better state
for humanity.

What I offer indeed is arranging existents in a way that makes the best
existence. What I offer is the best of capitalism and socialism:
Meaningful liberty, with freedom of thought and feeling and being and
choice - and philanthropic activity that does actual and noticeable
good to the people who live now or are yet to live. What I offer is
making the best of one's life and the best of what one does for
humanity.

I offer removing the false strands of misconceived other-interest from
the person's mind, soul, heart and existence in order that he or she
can choose in an open and informed and free manner what to be, how to
think, how to feel and what to make of himself or herself. And I offer
removing the misinterpreted concept of liberty from political and
social arena so that it becomes possible for people to do good for
others and organize for common good. Liberty does not mean every man
for himself without any organizing objective; liberty means freedom to
think how one chooses to think, feel how one chooses to feel, be what
one chooses to be and relate to the world in the way one chooses to.
And common good does not mean turning the people into replicas of
oneself or destroying in them what they themselves uniquely are capable
of being or dictating to them what they can be or how they can live; it
means doing philanthropic work, teaching children how to think,
pursuing scientific knowledge, taking care of the elderly, producing
great works, helping those who are not advantaged to have a shot at
existence worth having, and pursuing goals that actually lead to
improvement in lives of humanity. It means being of service to others
and to one another; while allowing for each other complete freedom of
thought, feeling and being - and, from this position of true, actual,
meaningful liberty, to interact as actually free people who rightfully
see the need for improving life for the existing and the yet-to-exist.

In essence then, the concept of liberty and the concept of common good
must be redefined, from the worst possible form we've seen in 1980s and
1990s to a form that makes the best life for man and the best life for
humanity. Instead of the enslaving and short-sighted models of thought
we have seen, will be necessary models of thought that are liberating,
benign, prudent and leading to the best life, both for the existing and
the yet-to-exist. The self-interest will consist of passionate embrace
of life and liberty, along with knowledge and wisdom and understanding
- the freedom of thinking, of feeling, of being and of existence that
is required to make the most of self and most of life. The
other-interest will consist of prudent economic activity, education,
science, art, clean technology and philanthropic work that direct
other-interest in ways that are actually good for real people and good
for humanity.

It is through this arrangement of existence that life can be elevated
to a state worthy of that which is man and that which is mankind.

I do not believe in treating everyone the same. I do not believe in
treating everyone the way I want to be treated. I do not believe in
introjecting my needs, wants and personality into everyone around me
and bludgeoning them into being carbon copy of myself.

I do not believe that the world is made best by there being 6 billion
Ilya Shambat's, or Mike Tyson's, or George Bush's, or
Dilbert's, or Beaver Cleaver's, or Joe Blow's. I believe in human
individuality and as a result of it different needs, wants and mindsets
that are to people most natural and most enhancing of them expressing
their potentiality.

As such, I believe in treating the next person the way they, not I,
want to be treated.

And that is the categorical imperative that I seek to serve.

The world of individuals, all of them able to be the maximization of
their potentiality and their propensities for the good of themselves
and the good of the next person.

The world of people making the most of both their self-interest and
other-interest.

All able to be themselves completely and all willing and able to
contribute to the good of the next person and the good of humanity.

And all contributing to a world that is rich, colorful, passionate and
resplendent. That is made that way through the efforts of people toward
making it so - and through people being allowed to be the best that
they can be themselves.

And that involves the following:

Seeing and respecting and nurturing human individuality.

Recognizing that different things work for different people.

Recognizing that mindsets that are right for some are not right for
others.

And putting the mindsets into a framework of competition and
checks-and-balances.

Resulting in best outcomes produced through competition among mindsets;
freedom achieved through checks and balances among mindsets; and people
achieving fulfilling existence by finding the way to contribute within
the mindset and the resulting path that is to them most natural and
most right.

Part 5. Hierarchial and Holistic in Synthesis

There are many who want to shove down people's throats falsely
contrived and manipulated "lessons" that are used deliberately to
further a fallacious arrangement. The correct response is that wisdom
is gained by taking lessons that are right rather than ones that are
wrong, and by having perspective that makes such judgments possible.

Through manipulation of social climate and attitudes and actions and
reactions pursuant those attitudes, consequences are assigned to
actions that are not natural, but rather artificial & create an
impression of good actions being bad and bad actions being good. We see
that run through all societies and times. We have, for example, Pakis
saying that romance is disastrous and proving it by killing those who
fall in love. We have, for example, Cubans saying that business is
antisocial and proving it by killing those who do business. The idea of
God being through all things is used to excuse deliberate social
manipulation, by modes and creators of modes, as though those were
divinely ordained rather than manmade. The obvious problem is that
substance may manifest through nodes, but nodes, involving choice, mean
that they are not obligated to the ground of being but are as such
nodes capable of deliberate choice, God-ordained or not!

And then it is used to impose this order as though it was divine. Which
requires calling the bluff. If God is through all things, in other
words, then not only the order you create but the order I create is
manifestation of God - as is the order created by any of your other
enemies.

So we have environmental science claim that environment exists
according to its order, unless disturbed by man (devil #1). We have
systems like Confucianism that claim society as a matter of social
order having a place for everyone - place according to divine order -
unless that order is disturbed by man's ego (devil #2). We have
economic science that has applied this to economic activity and said
that all things are guided by "invisible hand" when in a "free-market"
context, with everyone competing against everyone, unless disturbed by
intellectually conceived and goal-directed political action (devil #3),
even as this same science adopts will and ego and montarily defined
self-interest (combination of devil #1 and devil #2) as basic concept
of legitimate human interest and claims the competition within
framework of law to be the natural order. After which we have the
concept of intellectual-political action uniting people in what it
believes to be intellectually right ideology; that seeks to educate
people based on intellectual and philosophical ideas and shared
interest (and which the economic mindset sees as meddling or evil or
arrogance - the same way the social interest was to the economic
mindset from the beginning - even as the media-intellectual-political
ideas created anyway necessitate for the people to move toward a place
of politics and philosophy and awareness of their civilization beyond
the dogmas of laissez-faire and even to protect laissez-faire demand
political and intellectual action on the part of the business class).
In this political-intellectual order the devil (devil #4) is
spirituality, which main proponents of this ideology see as being one
or another form of mental malfunction - much like the capitalists think
of the political-intellectual. Once that stops working, after many
corpses and disfigurements, and people start realizing after collossal
battling that, no, spiritual experience is real, the next step seeks to
create an order of people united in their spiritual experience and
loyal to their knowledge and conception of the divine. In that order,
the devil #5 is attained will. In all cases, we see a concept of
nature, then society, then economy, then intelligence, then
spirituality, then attained will, being divine; which order in all
cases starts through one or another stage of will-assertion. Each level
considers itself divine - unless disturbed by the artifact of man's
deliberate act of choice and of will as it stands to disrupt these
supposedly divine workings. And what each level fails to understand is
that the case of something being divine does not make what goes to the
next level less divine.

Each of these deified orders regard the next one as being demonic in
origin. It refers to it as one or another form of hubris, without
realising that according to a previous order it itself has been
regarded as hubris, and that what works is for gradations of hubris to
build on itself! We have evolutionists saying that the problem with the
world is that "freaks won't know their place" when if his belief in
evolution is true then it is the freaks that are the source of all
evolution, and it is their "place" to move the world forward. The
social order is based on man - the demon vis-a-vis the natural order.
The capitalist economy is based on ego - the demon vis-a-vis the social
order. The politics and ideology are based on ideology-based action,
which is the demon vis-a-vis capitalism. The same dynamics work at the
next levels. And what we are seeing at every level is, essentially,
demonization of the next stage of liberty, until it is either
supplanted by it or unless it subverts it to perpetuate itself.

The interesting part consists, once again, in the absolute insistence
of each preceding order ind the demonic quality of the coming one. The
new order gives promise to lift man to a higher level; the previous
order attacks by claiming that motive to be based in thinking oneself
better than the authority by which the order is believed to be ordained
(and to which will is made to believe to be subjugated). Essentially
each order considers the preceding level to be divine and the following
one as based in disruption of divine order. Both are right, and both
are wrong. If all is God, then so is what man does (and to all the
you-think-you're-God people, the response is: "ye are gods" is part of
the New Testament, it's a matter of how you use it). As the situation
rises, the deliberateness quotient rises, but the complexity of the
system builds. The life becomes more free of the preceding level, but
more tied to the following level. The devil becomes the shaper and is
then himself exceeded.

The patric religions and ideologies therefore envision a hierarchical
worldview, in which the levels (whether they be chakric, or corporate,
or social, or political) build on top of each other. Each succeeding
level is held in higher esteem than does the preceding, and each
succeeding level is held to be closer to the truth than the preceding.

The matric religions and ideologies envision a holistic worldview, in
which the totality of human beingness is held in similar esteem and
seen to be worthy of nurturing and existence.

I am of the belief that the two must combine, in a way that checks the
disagreeable features within each other and synergize to create the
best of all.

The hierarchical worldview is frequently visualized as a triangle, or a
pyramid. The holistic worldview is visualized as a circle, or a sphere.
The complete worldview I see as being visualized as a triangle within a
circle, or a pyramid within a sphere.

The hierarchical and holistic approaches are both ways of attaining at
divinity. Both the pyramid and the sphere are perfect. The sphere
contains the rays in every direction from the center with the same
distance; the pyramid contains an arrangement of sides that all aim
from the bottom to the same height. The two thus reflect two different
approaches: One of perfect completeness; the other of perfect striving.

Both are perfect; but both are also incomplete. Both likewise possess
capacity for right and capacity for wrong. The hierarchical model leads
to excellence, but also leads to cruelty and coldness and contempt for
what is held to be lower levels. The holistic model is encompassing,
but lacking the quality consideration fails to lead to improvement. In
combining the two it becomes possible for the two models to check each
other in capacity for wrong and to synergize in a way that makes the
best of both.

From the perspective of the center of the sphere, every place on the
sphere is equidistant. To the sphere, all things are equal in worth.
The triangle however increases in worth as it rises above the
foundation. The combination of the two arrives at perfection from two
different directions: The sphere, of light spreading out in every
direction and reaching completeness; the pyramid, of sides reaching for
heights from the ground and meeting at a single point.

The sphere enfolds, nurtures and gives life to all levels and the
entirety of human beingness. The pyramid motivates and structures and
leads toward higher places. When the two combine, life is served; so is
improvement. The sphere prevents the pyramid from becoming cruel and
oppressive and instead imparts beauty and goodness and kindness toward
life at all levels. The pyramid prevents the sphere from becoming
ensnaring and static and therefore guides toward excellence.

Both the sphere and the triangle serve and take away freedom. The
sphere frees from cruelty and coldness but also is capable of being
devouring and entrapping. The triangle frees from ensnarement but also
is capable of stomping, controlling and brutality. The freedom is
served, as it does in the government of checks and balances, when the
two levels must compete with each other and check each other's wrong,
while combining at what is right to achieve a greater state than each
is capable of doing.

The two levels of attaining divinity therefore must both work together
and work to check each other. The holistic gives life and goodwill to
all and makes the process beautiful rather than cruel and soulless. The
hierarchical motivates toward self-improvement and guides people to
make the most of themselves and the most of all. Like Quaballistic
pillar of mildness and pillar of severity, the sphere and the pyramid
work together to make the most of human existence: To make the most of
human experience through the the sphere's awareness and goodwill and
kindness, and to make the most of humankind through the pyramid's
rigor, motivation and demand.

In combining the sphere and the pyramid, are combined two great
approaches to wisdom. Both, I repeat, being perfect; but both being in
and of themselves incomplete. The two complete each other and check
each other's capacity for wrong, while together combining to do what
each is in of itself incapable of doing.

It is held in holistic approach that the heart is a way toward
knowledge and wisdom - that, being created in divine image, it
contains in itself blueprint for truth. It is held in hierarchical
approach that the mind is a way toward knowledge and wisdom. Both are
capable of knowledge and wisdom; but they know and are wise in
different ways. The way at which the mind and the heart both attain at
the same truth, is to be seen as the consummation. In the interim is
possible wrong in both cases; and in checking each other in doing
wrong, while guiding each other to consummation, both the holistic and
the hierarchical reduce the wrong done while improving each other and
helping each other be its best and make the most of life.

The holistic and the hierarchical, the heart and the mind, like female
and male, are of equal truth and of equal value. They synthesize to
make the most of each other and most of self and to make likewise what
has not existed before. The holistic nourishes and heals and
replenishes; the hierarchical motivates and guides. When the two come
together in mutual understanding, is achieved a state of affairs that's
both kind and excellent. And as they check and balance each other, what
is eliminated is the wrong in each other, while allowing the right in
each other to blossom and achieve more magnificent state of affairs
than one of which either is capable.

The result of this combination is complete humanity and complete human
experience, where life is made best it can be as are the living. People
are motivated to be their best; they are also given (and give) goodwill
and love and nourishment toward that purpose. The mind is improved; so
is the heart. And the mind and the heart, both being made their most
and both as such imparting of their fruits to the living, work together
to make the most of human experience, both for humanity and for each
human being.

Checking each other in each other's capacity for wrong, and synergizing
in where they are right, the hierarchical and the holistic express and
give life to and empower and challenge and vitalize the totality of
human beingness - leading toward most of human existence and most of
humankind. Through its own efforts, humanity becomes its best and makes
the most of human experience, bringing together both the holistic love
and the hierarchical excellence to make life the most it can be. Love
is served; so is improvement. And the result is the best of all worlds.

In holistic and hierarchical working together in synthesis, or synergy
within the framework of checks and balances, is achieved the optimal
state of humanity and the optimal state of life.

Part 6. Multiple Paths

I do not advocate socialism, and I do not advocate communism. I
advocate something that builds on the status quo, based on what has
worked well in it. I am applying here two concepts that have worked
wonders: The concept of competition and the concept of
checks-and-balances. I take it to a higher level. And that is as
follows:

For there to be multiple paths based on fulfillment of multiple forms
of self-interest and other-interest, is to achieve, through these paths
struggling among each other, the optimal outcome for the people -

As they check and balance among each other, for them to prevent any
form of nature or mindset from being tyrannical and thus to create
meaningful freedom -

And in the process allowing people to find the place in these paths in
which they, according to their talents and propensities, contribute
their best toward that outcome and thus have fulfilling lives.

Now I am saying this based on the computation that, as far as a
people's good is affected - the good that is a result of the
natures that are present in them and thus of the form of interest that
is to them most significant - there are many forms of good that can
be created, which serve the totality of human nature and thus the
totality of human happiness.

The multiple levels of human nature means this: That there are many
forms of good that people are capable of fulfilling; and many others
that they would demand. The multiple natures and multiple intelligences
mean that there are different things that people legitimately may
demand, and different things that they may be equipped to supply.
"Things" here do not merely mean consumable goods; they also mean
anything that can fulfill one or another form of nature, mindset and
interest. They mean everything from physical, intellectual, emotional
and spiritual nourishment, to addressing common concerns, to educating
the youth, to improving relationships, to creating embodied artistic,
architectural, technological and literary legacy of the civilization.

To address which are created multiple paths, in which people contribute
the intelligence that they have most present to fulfill the interest
they are most suited to fulfill and most interested in fulfilling, and
from addressing which interest the people derive most meaning and thus
arrive at most meaningful life.

And as they struggle among each other - as do branches of American
government within the context of checks-and-balances - they ensure
that none of them (and with that, neither interest; neither approach;
neither intelligence; neither nature) becomes omnipotent and
tyrannical, and that true liberty of people is served.

With there being multiple forms of interest, and there being paths
catering to those interests, it becomes possible further for people on
individual basis to find freedom that is significant for them. The
entirety of human nature is fulfilled; and the entirety of human
intelligence and talent is given a practical, free way to be
actualized. This is done using the mechanisms that have worked
already- the mechanisms of competition and checks-and-balances.
Rather than concentrating power, as did Marx in his errors, it in fact
diffuses it among paths. Which, as they struggle among each other, make
each other create the best outcome; and, as they check-and-balance each
other, not only protect liberty but take it to a far more inclusive
place.

By paths, I mean business; I mean education and academia; I mean
science and technology; I mean policing and diplomacy and legitimate
civil service; I mean thought and service that improves people's
lives and relationships; and I mean artwork and architecture that
becomes the embodied legacy of the civilization, that adorns it,
enriches the lives of its members, gives the civilization a legitimate
sense of accomplishment, and inspires the yet-to-exist. I am of the
belief, once again, that all these are legitimate and rational
pursuits, both involving different forms of intelligence as present in
humanity and through expression of these intelligences providing
fulfillment for sets of human nature that they are most equipped to
fulfill. I am of the belief that all of them are valid, but neither of
them has right to absolute authority or to claim the interest it serves
or mindset it furthers to be definitive. And that it is by all of these
paths existing and struggling among each other that is served both the
outcome (through mechanism of competition) and liberty (through
mechanism of checks-and-balances, here applied by paths upon each
other).

Which means that through competition among paths is accomplished
optimal outcome; that happiness as fulfillment of all forms of nature
and interest is attained; that more inclusive liberty - is served,
with neither approach being definitive and tyrannical; that meaningful
life becomes a reality for more and more people as they find ways to
paths that the forms of intelligence they possess are most equipped
for, and that people have way to contribute the form of intelligence
(or labor, or talent, or any other form of potential) in which they are
most endowed.

In mathematics there is a concept known as game theory. Based on it,
the participants in a system seek to maximize their benefit, and some
solutions benefit some at expense of others and others maximize the
benefit of all. The solution known as Pareto-optimal is the outcome in
which the interest of one can only be increased by harming another's
interest to a greater extent. And the goal of the so-called game -
which of course is completely serious - is to attain that
Pareto-optimal outcome: The outcome that is regarded as the optimal
solution to the game.

Each path - as defined above - fulfils the mindset that is
appropriate to it and a basic interest, self-directed or
other-directed, that is most present in each individual and that is
most significant to him or her. It allows people to actualize in the
process the forms of intelligence and talent in them and gives them a
legitimate way to impart of their fruits. And in so doing they fulfill
the entirety of human nature - by the entirety of human intelligence
finding a way to contribute to the outcome. The result is the optimal
one: One in which people find ways to achieve according to their basic
form of intelligence - and the entirety of human interest is served
through their efforts. Optimal on both demand side and on supply side.
Optimal in the level of human fulfillment accomplished on the demand
side - through what is created by different paths to serve different
levels of human nature and interest, and in the levels and the
completeness of self-interest and human nature that their efforts
serve. And optimal on the supply side - through people involving
themselves in pursuits that serve the level of human nature and
interest that their talents are most competent to address and that
their values are most interested in fulfilling.

I involve in this situation concepts, once again, that are behind the
greatest economic and political accomplishments in history: The concept
of competition and the concept of checks-and-balances. As paths compete
with each other, they are made to create the optimal outcome, while
people find the way to contribute their optimal by finding place in
paths that actualize their form of intelligence. And as they struggle
among each other within a framework of understanding of each other's
roles, they exert checks-and-balance upon each other, making sure that
neither become tyrannical, and that liberty and life in people are
protected and actualized at the highest possible level.

This is not Communism. This is not socialism. This is America's
principles taken to the next level. This is not increase of control but
its reduction. And this is furthermore something that increases rather
than decreasing liberty, happiness and meaningful life, by logic shown
above.

The multiple intelligences among people; multiple forms of human
interest, both self-interest and other-interest; multiple mindsets and
talents and outlooks; mean that life, liberty and happiness are
accomplished by there being a functional way to fulfill these interests
- through people using the forms of intelligence of which they have
in most abundance finding their way to paths that fulfill these
interests. There are multiple forms of human nature, and making the
most of human existence consists of acknowledging and valuing all these
forms of nature and giving them a way to be fulfilled within a legal
framework. As function of these forms of human nature, there are many
legitimate forms of interest, both self-interest and other-interest,
and making the most of human existence consists of acknowledging and
valuing all of these interests and giving them a way to both be
legitimately fulfilled. As function of there being multiple forms of
intelligence, there are many legitimate paths in which people can give
of the form of intelligence that they have in the greatest abundance;
as function of there being multiple values and outlooks, people find
way to pursuits that to them are most meaningful. And through there
being multiple paths, which struggle among each other, is made the
highest outcome created - while, as they struggle among each other,
they destroy tyranny and stranglehold of a single mindset and make
liberty that matters to people on individual basis a reality for more
people.

The success of free-market economics is based on the businesses having
to strive to achieve best product, and people finding ways to
contribute according to their gifts. The success of check-and-balances
system of governance is based on the branches of government checking
each other in order that none should become tyrannical or
unconstitutional. I am taking the logic of both and applying it to the
next level:

That many paths - all fulfilling different forms of interest - are
necessary for the fulfillment of the entire thing that is human nature
and human interest;

That through struggling among each other they are made to produce their
best outcome;

That through there being multiple paths that check each other the
tyranny of a single mindset or interest or attitude or approach to life
is averted;

That as a result of this there is meaningful choice and meaningful life
and liberty;

That people working within these paths use their intelligence and their
efforts to feed the form of happiness that they are most equipped to
impart;

And that people finding a way to involve themselves in these paths,
according to the forms of intelligence and talent and mindset that is
to them most appropriate, is the way to make the entirety of the human
creature bear fruit and, through these efforts, fulfill the entirety of
human nature.

Thus, it becomes possible to achieve happiness as fulfillment of the
entirety of human interest - through people finding the way to the
paths that utilize the intelligence that they have in greatest
abundance and through work in those paths fulfilling the interest they
are most suited to fulfill -

That through competition among these paths brings them to optimize
their product and accomplish the best outcome -

While the logic of checks-and-balances allows multiple mindsets bring
them to balance among each other and check each other and make sure
that none ever become tyrannical, thus achieving the maximum freedom as
experienced by people on individual basis -

And as a result of that the approach of multiple paths arrives at most
complete happiness, most meaningful life and most inclusive liberty for
everyone affected.

Part 7. Better A-Frame Relationship

There is in psychology the concept of M-frame relationship and A-frame
relationship. In M-frame relationship, both parties stand (as in two
sides of "M") and sustain the relationship through their emotional
self-sufficiency. In A-frame relationship, the parties lean on each
other (as in the two sides of the "A") and require each other to stay
afloat emotionally. When one of these parties tries to stand up, the
relationship breaks and the other falls; and the mindset of the
relationship, being based on mutual leaning, demands that neither party
can grow. The relationship thus becomes a blockage to growth and
development, and the two parties end up destroying each other.

That may be as is, and I am sure that both of these are the case for a
lot of people. But I am here to talk about a different kind of A-frame
relationship; a much better kind of A-frame relationship. An A-frame
relationship that is superior to both the entombing A-frame
relationship and to the dry, boring, vain M-frame relationship as
prescribed by psychology of emotional self-sufficiency and mental
hygiene. An A-frame relationship that merges each party's interest in
growth, with caring for each other, with inspiration and goodness
sustaining them both and guiding them individually and together to
higher and better place. An A-frame relationship that is inspired,
beautiful, full of heart, enriching, livening, caring, compassionate
and focused on what is good and true - which goodness and truth
manifests to both partners, manifests through both partners to one
another, and becomes a daily quality in their lives.

I am speaking of this kind of A-frame relationship: In which both
parties are in contact with, and merge at the point of, heaven (the top
point of A), which manifests through both, inspires both, directs both,
informs both and leads both to it. The other part of the better A-frame
relationship is the contact between the hearts of the partners (the
line in the middle of the A), allowing for ongoing and unimpeded flux
of passion, compassion, caring, understanding and goodwill between
them. This true A-frame arrangement - with heaven at the top sustaining
both and forming the point at which their souls meet and are sustained
by wisdom and luminosity - and benevolence and compassion and goodwill
in the middle between each parties at the heart level being free to
flow without obstruction caused by one-upmanship or power games -
creates a relationship that is at once inspired, beautiful, emotionally
fulfilling and good for both parties; where the heaven, being the focal
point of intellectual and spiritual union, is manifest through each
party and directs the mind and spirit of the relationship; while the
hearts are in constant mutually refurbishing contact, imparting to one
another passion, compassion, caring and goodwill.

In many relationships I've examined, I found either heart bond or mind
bond. The first resulted in emotional closeness in context of mental
battling; the second resulted in mutual purpose but either emotional
deadness or emotional violence. Ayn Rand's concept of love as an
entirely ego phenomenon was seen in her life in her own relationships:
Relationships that either ended with nastiness on her part when she
felt spurned, or in which she essentially dominated the partner. This
is what happens when there is no heart bond. I've seen unity of purpose
- the top point of the "A" uniting the minds - sustain relationships
among people whose hearts were no longer together - only to result in
extreme emotional violence in the process and, when given the
opportunity, to fall apart when the relationship's purpose ended. I've
seen heart bonds unite people whose minds were in different places -
and the minds by self-righteousness and miscommunication destroying the
bond of love. But man is a being of both mind and heart; and it is not
adequate for there to be just one or the other. There have to be both;
and it is this - the unity of spirit and mind at the top and the bond
between hearts in the middle - that is the meaning of true A-frame
relationship. Which indeed leads me to think that that is the only kind
of relationship that can completely fulfill human beings.

I am acquainted with a priest whose marriage was falling apart because
of constant bickering, until he asked God (in his case, Christian God)
to direct him to the solution. He opened the Bible on a section from
Romans that said to have righteousness by God rather than by self.
Having lifted his mind out of ego battling and made the determination
to see himself and his wife the way God saw them, he was able to see
things from a top level; at which point he was able to unite his will
with that of heaven and, inhabiting that place mentally, actually
exhibit the compassion and goodwill and charitability that was the
first requirement of being Christlike and that was required for a
sustainable relationship. After both he and his wife took the mind into
that place, their bickering stopped. At which point the interaction
they had was cleared of internecine negativity, and the love they had
for each other at the heart level was able to blossom, while being
guided at mind and spirit level by actual spiritual truth.

This is what I mean by a true A-frame relationship: A relationship that
unites the spirits and minds of people in divine truth and divine
light; while allowing at the heart level emotional sharing. The hearts,
being directed from the top by divine wisdom, become warm and tender
and have tons of treasures to share with one another. While the minds
and spirits are united with the source of all such gifts: a source that
is absolute, endless and always willing to oblige those who seek it
sincerely.

In case people think that I am speaking only for Christian believers, I
will put forth something said by basically pagan Gerry Spence: That
sometimes in a relationship the way to win an argument is to lose the
argument - let the other party have their way at the low level and
keeping the love alive. It of course takes a fair deal of faith to be
able to do that effectively, rather than getting run over or thought
weak or all other nonsense that the crude of mind think. In case the
person is thick (and this is something that must be done by women more
than by men, although apparently in some places now it's the opposite),
it is worthwhile to show one's strength once in a while until people
see that kindness and deference are not the same thing as weakness.

The concept of human being - as a being of spirit; of mind; of heart
and of course of physicality - necessitates that all of these be taken
into consideration. To visualize a relationship as sustained by divine
bond at mind and spirit level, while each other's hearts become vessels
of that light and constantly share beauty with one another - is to
visualize a relationship that is fulfilling of the entire thing that is
the human entity. For minds and spirits to be guided by real spiritual
truth and united in its service and its pursuit, is to impart the
people of endless treasures of heaven - which treasures flow into the
hearts and empower caring for and cherishing of each other. The true
A-frame relationship places the spirit and mind in the infinite and
unites and uplifts them with light of eternal truth. The hearts both
partake of that light and share with each other the splendor which it
in them instils. The spiritual, emotional and intellectual nature of
humanity is fulfilled and manifest as an ongoing daily share, with
daily life of the partners rather than only Sunday services or Zen
practice being a scenery of manifestation of the divine good. Higher
love guides human love and makes the relationship a canvas of its
manifestation; a canvas on which is painted the masterpiece of creative
intelligence, as inspired by above and as manifest through the hearts
and minds and lives of the partners.

The partners do not lean on each other; they are rather united in
inspiration and wisdom. The hearts are connected to one another and to
spiritual light, which manifests both to them and through them. The
spiritual and emotional nature of humanity is fulfilled and becomes a
daily reality. The love human and love divine are united; and life
itself becomes a place of the implementation of inspired and
impassioned magnificence; which, completed by emotional closeness and
compassion and caring for one another, creates a life in which human
love and divine love work together in harmony and make life truly one
of love.

This is the true A-frame relationship, and one I heartily recommend to
anyone who wants to have beauty in their lives.

Part 8. Intrinsic vs. Referential Psychology

I advocate also this: A complete human existence. One that recognizes
the truth of the multiple levels of human nature - multiple likewise
intelligences and approaches - and makes the most of them all, in the
same way as the multiple paths can be used to achieve the completeness
of social enterprise. I advocate man that is at once spiritual,
intellectual, material, egoic and altruistic, combining all forms of
self-interest and other-interest into completenss of human beingness.
And for this I advocate that people partake of the mindsets that
address one or another form of human existence; apply them where
appropriate; and through the synthesis of these levels of human
existence live and impart a full life.

The feelings and thoughts of people can be explained in reference to
something else (a code; an ideology; a belief; a method); or they can
be explained inherently, by looking at essences, by feeling the
feelings themselves. The first results in abrasion; the second results
in compassion. And it is the second method that is the only one capable
of producing people that are not only true, but also emotionally
complete.

The error that keeps creeping into psychology, despite the actions of
Rogers's and May's and Fromm's of the world, is that of projecting the
method used to understand the mind, onto the mind, and then judging the
mind rather than understanding it in case its own methods differ. Allow
me to explain what I'm talking about. The scientific method is a path
toward understanding things; that requires a particular kind of logic.
In studying things other than mind, it is fine; but when one approaches
the mind FROM THE POSITION OF the scientific method, he is easily
subject to this error: Comparing the mind's processes to the process
(scientific method) he uses in studying the mind; and judging them when
they are inevitably found to be run by a different logic, the way one
would judge other-than-scientific approach within the laboratory.

Which leads of course not to exploration but to judgmentalism. Anything
that is run by a logic that either is not of the scientific method or
that the scientific method cannot be found to understand, becomes an
"issue." The logic of science gets interjected into the mind, squashing
its own processes in the process. Compassion goes; so does imagination.
And the result is projection of human perfection as someone with the
mentality of a brick (and the physical and emotional qualities that are
commensurate with that mentality), and vicious attack on anything that
is more alive - or rarefied, or exquisite, or inspired, or passionate,
or indeed attuned to the higher logic of life.
What logic indeed motivates a flower? Is a flower linear? How could it
be? A flower is the following things: Individual (with none like the
other); intricate; multifaceted; tender; and delicate. WHat logic? The
logic of consummation - of being one's best, as fruition, fulfillment
and justification of the species; which being best is necessary both to
consummate and to lead to the future. THe logic? An integrative logic,
combining the CONSUMMATION with CONTINUITY. The attainment of the
species, and a link to the times to come. That's no "issue." That's how
the thing is made - rightly so - and instead of dissecting it why don't
you look at what's in front of you and see the actual logic by which it
runs.

Which is quite different from assaying things from the position of (and
in reference to) the mindset running the discipline. Understanding
human feelings in their essence is quite different from assaying them
in reference to a code or a norm. I've made it my job to experience all
kinds of feelings that I understand them directly. And it is only
through this process that anything close to understanding can possibly
be achieved.

Another persistent error in assaying people is that of continually
doing so in reference to a norm. A cat is seen to be perfect not by
being of a norm, but by being the best she can be as a fruition of her
own potential. But a human being is seen to be perfect when he or she
fulfills one or another normative function. Which means that people's
minds are expropriated and put in service of one or another usurpatory
construct. But what it means most of all is that any true perfection -
perfection as attainment of one's possibility - is destroyed, while a
cask is imposed at the top to shove
people under a crucifix.

There was a woman on the Net who said that she lusted after the
criminal element. One person - operating from the standpoint of one or
another supposed norm (one of course out of millions developed through
history) - said that the fact she lusted after scum meant that she was
scum. He defined her feelings in reference to his perspective: One that
claims that criminals are scum (while heartless, malicious, abusive
bullies like him are not). Someone else - operating from a
psychological self-esteem paradigm, in which all bad things are a
result of people thinking poorly of themselves and if they feel better
about themselves they will magically become the citizens they want them
to be - said that her problem was low self-esteem. He, once again,
defined her feelings in reference to his perspective: That of
self-esteem psychology, in which all is about self-esteem and feelings
are functional to it. But none bothered to look at how her feelings
actually were experienced. What made the criminal element attractive to
her? Was it some erotic fascination, with people who have discarded all
bonds and are indulging in the forbidden? Was it some kind of freedom
from things she either could not identify or ones she could? Did she
herself feel like a criminal? To claim it her being scum, or to claim
it low self-esteem, did not explain how it felt inside. And to see
psychologists, who are supposed to understand such things, time and
again rejecting compassion and falling into the trap of projecting one
or another form of judgmentalism or lack of compassion ("Compassion
went out of passion, that's all your concern meant") or mechanistic
thinking, is to see a problem endemic to the profession, and that can
only be overcome, not by only externally observing feelings, but by
internally feeling them.

To reiterate: A feeling is not known unless it is felt. It does not
exist by reference to a norm or an ideology; but in its own right and
according to its own logic. And projecting one or another form of logic
on mind, and judging it when it is seen to be run by a different logic,
is not science but bigotry. Indeed it is a betrayal of scientific
spirit; whether it comes under name of rationality or self-esteem or
anything else. Examining the mind and being the mind are two different
things; and the logic of the second need not legitimately accord with
the first. Indeed it may have a logic whose intricacy blows your mind;
and attacking that is a hideous error.

An error that is just another manifestation of a still bigger error, to
which humanity has been prone for centuries: Of assuming all people to
be the same and treating them likewise. That is a projection, once
again, of one or another mindset upon something that runs by its own.
Not only does that result in destruction of liberty, but it results
furthermore in degradation of the world and all people in it. The
categorical imperative involved is that of creating gray and lifeless
society. And the solution to that is this:

I do the next person no favors by treating them the way I want to be
treated.

I do the next person favor by treating them the way they want to be
treated.

And in this I honor the next person's individuality and preserve it.

And that is the categorical imperative I seek to serve.

Part 9. Metaphor and Beauty

It is a main tenet of modern science that the universe can be seen in
its laws and its essence from any vintage point in the universe. This
means likewise that the universe can be seen in every part of human
mechanism. This means reason, but it also means intuition, passion and
metaphorical intelligence.

The latter consists of seeing the qualities of one aspect of the
universe in another. As the poet draws parallels between one set of
events and another, or one phenomenon and another, he sees right into
the universal essence as it is manifest in both - and attains wisdom
that sees and manifests and wraps the mind around the
interconnectedness of all things and the sublime universal wisdom that
lives through both.

Metaphor - and particularly extended metaphor - is therefore a path to
wisdom and intuitive understanding that is at least as valid as, and
more rewarding than, scientific analysis. It is a path that lets the
people see one thing as reflected in another and the universe as
reflected in both. It is a path that lets the people develop intuitive
feeling for the totality of the universe and its various reifications.
And that is as sure a path to wisdom as anything people have thought up
in either the scientific or religious paths.

The stuff of the mind of the people - both the intellect and the
emotion - is the root of their selves and then the root of their
actions. Therefore education and cultivation of beauty in all its forms
becomes in a very real and practical sense the basis for beautiful
existence. As stuff of people's minds, beauty in all its forms
becomes the basis for their thoughts and ultimately the basis for their
behavior. Radiating out of minds, which have been attuned to beauty,
beauty becomes the stuff of relationships and the stuff of the social
interactions and a daily, practical, ongoing reality of experience of
humankind.

Beauty stops being seen as inapplicable to the real world and instead
becomes formative of the real world. Which is indeed its right place in
the order of things: As the culmination of substance and form; its
consummation; its triumph; and inspiration for yet-to-be.

And which beauty becomes then a practical reality - through the
practical mechanism of people using their minds and actions to make it
so.

And with this, the wisdom and inspiration of humanity's benefactors
in history stands redeemed.

Ilya Shambat.

Translations of Russian poetry

2006-06-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

I have translated into English a giant selection of Russian poetry, including Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelshtam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Igor Severyanin and (a smaller selection of) Vladimir Vysotsky.

They can be found on

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005

My original poetry is on

http://www.geocities.com/ilya_shambat2005/poems.htm

Integrationism and cultural Renaissance

2006-06-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Included is another essay that takes a single theme - integration of opposites with eye toward creation of optimal consummation - and applies it to various areas of life, from relationships to politics to art.

I see this as a useful method, and one that I hope you the reader will as well.

=====================

Integrationism and Cultural Renaissance

"But man has a need beyond living and securing his welfare, and quite another destiny than to comprehend the phenomena that surround him."
- Friderich Schiller, On the Sublime

Part 1. Integrationism

Schiller has defined beauty this way: the accord between reason and sensuousness. And indeed, when one looks at a forest, a dolphin or through a telescope at a galaxy, one sees the celebration of both reason and sensuousness - a celebration, indeed, of the reason and sensuousness of the universe of which these things are a part. A maple that has been chiseled to perfection over millions of years is a celebration of everything that made it - the elegance of the four forces, the power of the sun, the incredible life-supporting conditions of planet Earth and the environment it inhabits. It may be possible, assuming agreement with those who do not believe in theistic creation, to claim that these forces are blind; but that makes the process and the result still more miraculous.

Hegel spoke of universe as being a result of dialectical refinement of opposites - as consciousness taking form in opposite forces which, through synthesis with one another, refine toward spirit. He claimed that all of history has been a result of this synthesis, and the intended result is to bring everything toward optimal state. Whether or not that is true, the more the opposite forces work with one another intelligently the more beautiful is the result. When two opposite forces - forces such as male and female; forces such as business and government; forces such as genius and structure; forces such as reason and emotions - fundamentally comprehend and respect one another, and understand also their own nature as well as the legitimate parameters of their own role, they arrive at a synergy that makes far, far more than is either force acting alone. The result is synthesis. A product. Not spirit, not heaven, but rather something new and beautiful that is greater than the sum of its parts.

This then is the mechanism of cultivation of beauty according to Schiller, as well as the mechanism of achieving the best of history according to Hegel: integration, reconciliation and recombination of existents. And indeed the applications for this approach are nothing short of universal. For capital and labor that work in understanding and mutual agreement with one another, as in the case of the Clinton economy, produced far better results than capital and labor that work against one another, as in the case of the Industrial Revolution. It likewise produced better results than slave economy or Communist state, in which one class dominated the other. Indeed it produced results far more satisfying to both worker and capitalist, results that produced the beautiful fruit of peace and prosperity, as well as a better product. A marriage in which the emotional and sexual feelings of people for one another accord with values of the relationship, and vice versa, is a beautiful relationship, one in which both partners blossom as does their love. And a mind whose emotional and rational, as well as ethical and aesthetic, aspects accord with one another is a beautiful mind. In all cases, the best synthesis has been accomplished, using the mechanism of the human thought to arrive at the best outcome vis-à-vis the components from which the synthesis is made.

It is known from science that after the Big Bang were formed the four forces. It is known also that light exists in a spectrum of colors, with their union together forming the white. This is consistent with Plotinus concept that the One, or the primal unity, which he equates with God, emanates existents in a multiplicity of dimensions, which existents then struggle and refine among one another to produce the world in which we exist. In other words, the primal unity turns into a multiplicity in order that the universe can exist as a reification; which multiplicity can be consummated, through a dialectical synthesis, to arrive at a product that is better than anything that has existed before. Once consummated into a product, a unity – consummation – has been achieved, and divine harmony is restored, with a product created out of the components that would not have possibly existed before.

But the Hegelian model is only partly complete. After all, it is not only through synthesis with its opposite that a thing is improved, nor is there at all times merely a single measurement variable determining the quantification. Life can be represented far more as a multivariable system in which there are multiple axes of measurement, and as such there are multiple dimensions along which value can be quantified. Best results are achieved, I posit, through synthesis along all these dimensions, arriving at an integration that reconciles and consummates all forces that are at hand – a multidimensional dialectic; a creative unity from a multiplicity; a high-minded, creative solution that unites the components into a product; what Steven Covey referred to as synergy.

That it is given to us as shapers of the social universe in which we live to create products of all existents through creative synergistic synthesis and reconciliation along the dimensions of multiplicity, I call the philosophy of integrationism.

Part 2. Ethics and Aesthetics

It is normally held that reason and emotions are opposites to one another. I have heard people say frequently that their thoughts and their feelings told them different things; this of course is typically due to ideologies and injunctions shaping their reason to act against what their emotions tell them, or else due to psychological forces and traumas shaping their emotions into distorted shapes. To people who say that emotions are not to be trusted, the correct response is: Make yourself trustworthy to your emotions, and they will trust you. Practice rational-emotional integration. Practice reconciliation between the sensuous and the rational, starting with an approach toward the emotions that is understanding rather than judgmental. Talk to your emotions and let them talk back to you. Build a relationship with your emotions based on mutual acceptance and understanding in partnership for happiness, and not one based on rejection and perpetuation of abuse. And thus arrive at an integrated character, a character in which reason and emotions are in accord.

The same is to be told to people who distrust sexuality. Sexuality is a subset of nature, and sexuality that feels itself wrong is a sexuality that is inhibited, whether through traumatic experience such as incest or rape or through poisonous ideologies such as Puritanism and the Wolf-McKinnon-Dworkin feminazism. Complex emotions surrounding sexuality reflect the complexity of both nature and civilization, and the honorable solution is not to blame the medium, as many do, for the problem, but rather to understand the facts of life well enough to undo the emotional damage of traumatic experience and undo the mental and psychological damage of traumatic ideologies to forge these emotions into something beautiful, developed, cultivated and benign - into something, that is, that produces poetry and art; into something that is both loving and life-supporting; into something that accords with developed reason; into something that is - beautiful.

Since ethics determine what we value and aesthetics determine what we like, happiness is dependent upon our ethics and our aesthetics being in harmony with one another. That is, for a person to achieve inner peace, there must be an area of intersection between his values and his likes, and he must live at that subset. The greater that area of intersection, the more the chances there are for happiness; the rational and the emotional, or the ethical and the aesthetic, have to possess a way to intersect, or else happiness becomes mathematically unattainable. Inhabiting the region of ethics without aesthetics is grim joyless duty and obligation, and living there results in ongoing misery. Inhabiting the region of aesthetics without ethics is the forbidden pleasures, and going there results in guilt. Where ethics and aesthetics intersect, is happiness.*

Sri Aurobindo stated that the sum total of ethical endeavor is to live one’s life beautifully. He of course meant that the person was to act in a beautiful manner – a manner that is kind, loving, dignified, self-controlled and elegant. In view of his perspective, as in view of the previous, it is incumbent upon people to cultivate integration between their ethics and their aesthetics, with that which is aesthetically pleasing being understood and then either valued or altered – and that which is valued either being made palatable to the aesthetic sense or dismissed. In this injunction, is the ultimate recipe for integration of the ethical and the aesthetic – a moral code demanding upon the sum total of man’s activities to aim at beauty in all its forms and to lead, through mechanism of man’s activity, to formation of a beautiful world – beautiful in its physical, relational and human aspects. It is thus a recipe for integration and happiness. When Beadelaire said “Make life beautiful, make life beautiful” he was giving an ethical and not merely aesthetic injunction. It is, in my view, a very workable ethic; one that is applied with greatest of success in Paris, San Francisco, Barcelona, Florence, Prague, Edinburgh – in the best places in the world. Civilizations are judged by artifacts they leave behind and ways in which they treat people. Both can be done in a beautiful manner or ugly manner – and in both cases the ethic of beauty is tantamount.

The person who is attracted to another person without valuing her as a person commits a theft – a theft of failure to compute value. He fails to morally value what he aesthetically likes and, having through whatever methods acquired what he has sought in pursuit of his aesthetics, proceeds to hurt her instead of doing the thing that honesty would demand – value and cherish her. The most common example of this is the case of the men who are attracted to glamorous, artistic women, but value in a woman the opposite traits – the traits of servility, humility and traditional values. If this kind of man marries the kind of woman to whom he is attracted, he (and to a far greater extent she) is bound to living in misery, as her personality would be the opposite of what he values, and he would seek to eviscerate her. If such a man marries the kind of woman he values, on the other hand, he would be sexually and emotionally unfulfilled and most likely seek adulterous relationships. For a happy relationship to take place, the man must alter either his values or his likes until he either finds a way to value the kind of woman to whom he is attracted, or else finds a way to like the kind of woman he considers the paragons of moral virtue. The most common alternative – of marrying the glamorous woman and then trying to destroy her personality and self-esteem in order to bludgeon her into compliance with the traditional wife role – is miserable for him and, in my view, criminal due to the amount of agony it inflicts upon the woman.

The same is the case for women’s attractions. It is common for women to be attracted to the macho character, but to value in a relationship the man who would treat them well. Now at the risk of provoking to anger the entire feminine gender, good treatment of women is not in the description of the Rambo character. He is most likely to see himself as superior to women, to be violent, to be more loyal to his buddies than to his wife, and to be prone to adultery, gambling, drinking, flirtation and other behaviors that are devastating to the woman emotionally. The provider character isn’t much better, seeing his wife as property and treating her as worse than property – as property that had the insolence to possess a will of her own that can at times disagree with his own, a will that by all means had to be stamped out. A woman therefore needs to decide what she values and let her values lead ahead of her likes – or learn to value what she likes and stop complaining when her likes lead her to bad situations.

Both man and woman are at a disadvantage, due to historical errors that pit the ethical and the aesthetic against each other. The attitudes that create a rupture between the ethical and the aesthetic – the attitudes that tell people that their desires are sinful, or that there is no use for sensitive and romantic women, or that women are irrational or evil, or that men are out to use women for sex – are the attitudes that are responsible for such abuse. Effectively, they cause a separation between the ethical and the aesthetic; which leads to ugliness and suffering for everyone whose lives a person may touch – the ugliness that he frequently goes out of his way to make sure to be the reality of the lives of people around him. A person whose aesthetics and ethics are contradictory to each other – a person who is attracted to one set of qualities but values another - is a miserable individual who inflicts misery on other people. Such a person simply cannot be happy, and he would not bear for anyone else to be less wretched than he.

St. Paul said that the wishes of the spirit and the wishes of the flesh are contradictory to each other. I suggest that this is an error; for as anyone who’s been in love knows, love involves both a spiritual and a physical longing – the feelings for the loved one and cravings for her are both spiritual and sexual at once. A partner who is both spiritually developed and physically beautiful evokes both spiritual craving and sexual desire; and in the best relationships, there is both spiritual love and physical affection at once. Spirit and flesh are two distinct existents within the human being – and in the best situations, the happy situations, the harmonious situations, the two work in accord and in collaboration. In Schiller’s beautiful character, the two are in agreement with one another – and in beautiful social covenants, both the emotional and the rational, like the aesthetic and the ethical, are integrated using the mechanism of the human mind and will into the best synthetic product.

Russian Communist candidate Gennady Zuyganov said, “A smart woman is fine. A beautiful woman is fine. But a woman who’s both smart and beautiful is the scariest thing in the world.” As she should be – for him. A woman who’s both beautiful and smart contains in herself the secret of happiness – the accord between reason and sensuousness - a refutation to the collectivist misery which the Communist party preached. Someone who stimulates both the reason and the emotions can present a point of intersection of the ethical and the aesthetic and as such refute by counterexample the misery-inducing ideologies that seek to make people believe ecstatic happiness to be unattainable in this lifetime. But it is very well attainable. It is attained when people value beauty and love goodness. When the reason is developed enough to join with the best of emotion, and emotion is developed enough to join with the best of reason and morality. When reason and sensuousness are in accord.

The discordance between many people’s ethical and aesthetic values can be understood from the psychological perspective. Our values, except for the case of people who put a lot of thought into making their own values or else adopted a belief system radically different from that of their hometown, are largely the result of childhood reinforcement. In perhaps every society, men and women are reinforced differently. Yet, with the exception of homosexuals, men and women make partnerships with each other. To both like and value a different-gender partner, we therefore have to recognize value in things other than what is similar to us – we have to extend ourselves to embrace something different from ourselves – different also from how we have been reinforced; men have to learn to understand and to value feminine traits and mentality, and women need to learn to understand and to value masculine approach to life. Scott Peck said love is an act of extending ourselves for the purpose of another person’s spiritual growth; the spiritual growth achieved here is likewise one’s own, that of integrating into one’s personality an appreciation for something that is not of oneself.

Needless to say, this does not result in easy peace but in dynamic equilibrium, a state that constantly takes mental effort in order to sustain. It results in a polarity, in a synergy, that makes the most of both components. The process is an ongoing synthesis and refinement; a Zarathurstra’s acrobat bestriding the marketplace on a tightrope, a juggling, until the synergy has been made complete into a product and the goal – the consummation - has been reached. This is how the multiplicity is unified and a product is shaped. True peace – a state of ongoing synthesis and integration among dimensions of multiplicity – a state of beauty - is therefore a dynamic process involving thought and ingenuity. The other solution is that of one side of the dialectic driving the other side into extinction; a war solution, a domination solution, a lazy solution that fails to produce a product and results in ugliness, waste of resources, unhappiness and prevention of inputs from producing anything better than what they are in themselves.

For those who do not like dynamism and want to seek stability, the response is: Life is dynamic. Life requires a homeostasis, yes, but it requires also constant motion and work in order to defeat entropy. Life has to be both balanced and dynamic; within itself it has to possess homeostasis and it has to move ahead. True maximization as living beings is neither the simple straight-line progress of the West nor the circular harmony of the East; it is rather a combination of two, a spiral heading upwards, a helix in which the motion is both circular and linear, with each cycle along one set of dimensions resulting in an uplifting of human condition along another dimension of measurement toward a more advanced state, or, if interrupted at any point in the process, heading downwards to continue the process again once the destructive influence has passed.

The finding that happiness can only result when likes and values are in harmony with each other necessitates that both ethical and aesthetic development proceed in a manner that is harmonious with each other – through development of the aesthetic sense with help of art and literature that integrates beauty with virtue and develops emotions into forms that are noble and beautiful, while providing an equally elegant conceptual structure that intellectually accommodates emotional understanding. The high purpose of art is thus to communicate to senses and to emotions the universal order - to communicate the ecstasy, the majesty, the magnificence of the universe in which we live. The high purpose of art is to communicate the truth in a way that is accessible to emotions - in a way that the feelings can catch on and that can bring into expression that they can fathom the higher truth of the world. The high purpose of art is to express what is true and what is lasting - what is true, that is, to the universe, whether it find its reflection in passions that run through us or in fractals and logarithms or in the substance from which has come matter and time.

The high purpose of science and philosophy is to communicate the same truth in a way that is accessible to reason.

The goal of therapy as aiming at increasing the person’s chances of happiness should be to bring reason and emotions, or ethics and aesthetics, into accord. This will result in an integrated character who values what he wants and wants what he values, thus arriving at a state of inner harmony and proactive effectiveness. As art develops emotions into states that accord with developed reason, and science, philosophy and insight develop reason into states that are friendly to developed emotion, is arrived a character that is integrated and lives in a state of dynamic equilibrium, unified among its components and striving in a united manner toward his or her goals.

Part 3. Equilibrium Theory

In postulating the equlibrium theory, John Nash went against both pure capitalism, which claims that the benefit of the collective is achieved through people striving for their own benefit, and against altruistic ideologies such as Communism and religion that claim the pursuit of self-interest to be antithetical to the benefit of the collective. What he said was something that ought to be common sense: that the benefit of the group is achieved when people strive to benefit themselves – and the group. That is, in a social universe consisting of self and others, the social universe benefits when one strives to benefit both self and the social universe. Through this is achieved an improvement in the well-being of all.

The social universe benefits, in other words, not from competition alone and not from cooperation alone, but rather from the mixture of competition and cooperation. It benefits from people seeking their own benefit as well as that of the group. This mixture of competition and cooperation, an integration of two opposite approaches to life, results in a Pareto-optimal solution, an equilibrium that achieves the best outcome for everybody. Knowing what’s good for yourself and knowing what’s good for the group, rather than seeing the group as out to destroy you or sacrificing yourself for the group, results in the best solution both for yourself and for the group. This is the meaning of synergy.

The mechanism of this approach is as follows. Competition sharpens the tool – it challenges the person to be his best. Cooperation strives for the benefit of the whole. Competition alone produces people who are good at what they do and benefit the consumer, but who are at each other’s throats and never reap the full benefit of their efforts because they spend so much time competing, hence they have no time left to enjoy life. Cooperation alone produces a lazy, low-level state of affairs that sells the consumer short. Combining competition with cooperation – challenging people to be their best, and to contribute their best to the shared outcome of which shared outcome each partakes – arrives at the best outcome for the whole and for each member. This, is the beautiful outcome; synergy; reconciliation and integration; consummation; the good of the collective and the members at the same time.

The optimal outcome for the world comes from cooperation of people within small entities such as companies, within the context of competition between companies and communities, within the context of cooperation among higher levels of structure – industries, sciences, technologies – to make a better world.

This state is largely (and thankfully in not least degree to the people responsible) reflected in the status quo. As Covey rightly advised his clients, companies should strive for their employees collaborating among each other rather than competing against each other, and in dealing with customers and suppliers companies should strive for win-win scenarios. The first results in people expending their energy striving to benefit the company and not in divisive intramural politicking that seeks promotion of self at all costs to other employees and regardless of benefit to the company; the second results in companies having good relations with other participants in the economy except, of course, their competitors. At a higher level, there is at this time international scientific and medical cooperation, as well as international economic policy-setting that takes business and labor interests, as well as interests of the people for air and water free of disease, into account.

What would bring larger entities to collaborate for a shared objective? Seeing the full picture and seeing how participating within it can lead to the benefit of the whole and of one’s own entity. It is believed that human nature is selfishness or at least rational self-interest, but I posit that humanity has gotten as far as it has due to the fact that it has a species consciousness as well as individual consciousness – that people possess within themselves, whether through mechanism of creation or evolution, a natural interest in the benefit of people other than themselves. In other words, that people do in general, not only as a result of liberal education but innately as a result of genetic traits that are more profoundly expressed in some than in others, wish for mankind to do well, and that this impetus has allowed many people on their own accord to pursue teaching, scholarly, charitable, monastic, scientific, creative, policing and civil service paths that did not present great monetary or ego reward but allowed satisfaction of doing something significant for other people. Few feelings are better than that of having done a good deed – a feeling that brings satisfaction even without the need to boast about it; I consider only the feeling of great achievement, the feeling of mutual love and the state of grace or spiritual ecstasy to be as gratifying. The first two are rare; the third goes away unless one applies oneself in serving mankind. Doing good is a far more sure path to gratification than taking, and it is an easier path to gratification than others listed.

The reason that doing good feels good is that it touches upon the best in the human beingness – the interest in the good of the species and, in some cases, of life itself. Thus, an order that benefits the self even as it benefits the species does the most for the entirety of the human nature – both for its self-directed, or self-interested, and its species-directed, or altruistic, components, which are expressed to different extents in different people and which people ought to be free to choose the path that suits them the most. This offers man the fulfillment of the entirety of the human nature – the opportunity to do good, and do well, at the same time. “Love your neighbor [defined in the Bible as all people including the hostile tribe of Samaritans, not merely the person next door] as yourself” means, Love yourself, and love your neighbor [defined as all humanity]. That means, do well for yourself and help others. Do good, and do well, at once, this increasing the benefit of mankind as it is contained both in self and in others.

C.S. Lewis stated that the Christian recognizes God’s creation as fully perfect, and the existence within a man of a certain motive therefore predicted a natural way whereby it may be fulfilled. Indeed, this is the same statement as that made by rationalist philosophers, that the Universe is rational (and all motives within human psyche are there for a reason – because they help our survival or evolution as a species). Given that both self-interest and altruism are potent motives within human psyche that have had tremendous formative power on the history of the species, both the Christian and the rationalist view demand that there be a rational and Christian way to channel both altruism and self-interest in society. There is. It is to possess a social covenant whose values encourage people to benefit both themselves and the species – to do good and do well at the same time, with those who want to do well without doing good being subjected to laws of market competition that brings them to work for the consumer’s interest and those who want to do good without caring whether or not they do well monetarily being given the honor that the social usefulness of their endeavors demands.

I go at this further and state that this – to do good and do well – is the only sane value system that can be given to people. Anything else results in hypocrisy or worse. To tell people to do good – without anyone being allowed to do well – is to essentially instruct the people to serve without anyone getting the benefit from being served. It is thus to waste the efforts of the entire civilization (as of course we have seen in Communist countries) and let their endeavors go down the drain. To tell people to do well is to impose upon people a value system that they may not very well want to intelligently espouse – a value system that tells people, not what they should do (as in the case of totalitarian civilizations), but what they should want – an act of more profound totalitarianism than can be found in totalitarian countries; an act that formulates people from within and then tells them to compete one against another. It is not easy to see why many of the more philosophically-minded youth in societies that live by this code rightly rebel against this ridiculous set of affairs and turn against their civilization and frequently see it as the great enemy. To tell people what they should want, is, quite simply, ridiculous. And it is especially ridiculous (and indeed tyrannical) when it is maintained through a system of threats, blackmail, personal destruction and other forms of abuse, in a nation that claims to derive its legitimacy from believing itself free and giving its people free existence. Not only does the second order lead to hypocrisy and indeed brutality and abomination, but it utterly and completely destroys the moral claims to legitimacy of America – and far worse than that, leads its most honest minds into suicide or rebellion.

It is in the merger of the best of the two endeavors – in being able to seek the benefit of the species as well as the self, in the ways that are most natural to oneself and beneficial within the context of the civilization – that is created an order that fulfills the human beingness in its entirety – in its both self-directed and species-directed capacities. And it is in this that can be created a civilization that is truly humane and truly accomplishing the most of human beingness.

Having traveled and lived in many different parts of America, I have seen wrong done on both the left and the right. The problem with the left consists of its unshakable belief that, because all people are created equal, the people with better genes must be attacked and brought down to the level of those with worse genes. The most malignant form has been its attack on beauty. Now if (as the perpetrators of this con say) beauty is something relative, then it makes no sense to only attack beautiful women; one must attack all women, including the homely ones. And if one is attacking the beautiful women, then one knows that they are beautiful, which undoes the entire concept that beauty is relative and brands one a hypocrite and a liar. Which, far worse than a regular liar and hypocrite, is indeed a hypocrite and a liar that destroys things far more meritorious than oneself – things that are also of far greater quality and took far greater effort to create.

Indeed what we see is something so hideous that it cannot be seen as anything less than evil. What we see, is people being made ashamed of their gifts and of their greatest endowments, which leads them essentially to deny their expression. For magnificent women to go with men who are in all respects their inferiors and be by them brutalized out of their desire to get back at the upper classes (and, after some time with the aforementioned brutes, to be so emotionally distraught that they go to psychologists, who proclaim their problem one of emotions rather than one of bad guidance), or for brilliant men to turn anti-intellectual and anti-spiritual and to shun the pursuits in which they are capable of excelling, or for people with any kind of a gift to be undermined in it by viciousness of their “neighbors” – those who claim to speak for “everyone” and believe that their gigantic overbearing arrogance in claiming to speak for “everyone” is less than the innocent pride of the person in standing by his or her gifts - and then, as a result of such assault and manipulation, fail to develop their gifts out of the idea that they have no right to it because they are inferior when they are superior or at least less malignant - far from enforcing any values worthy of enforcing or serving any equality worthy of serving, is in fact a ruin of the best minds of the country and pursuant that of the country itself.

On the right, we see another problem. What we see first and foremost is a misuse of the concept of individual responsibility. What I have to say to this is as follows. There can be no responsible action without knowledge. Only in understanding the world, from many places, does it become possible to understand the full range of consequences of one’s actions and therefore to truly act responsibly. And yet the people who most shout about responsibility are ones that are most hostile to knowledge and what it takes to acquire it. Which means that the result of their propaganda is people acting in an uninformed fashion – fashion that, being uninformed, of course becomes ultimately irresponsible. Indeed it is something more sinister still: People being bullied or manipulated into lives they would never have chosen if they had known better. And that, makes the people who participate in this conmen and liars; ones that, more than any simple conmen and liars, in effect steal lives of everyone over whose lives they have impact. Which, once again, is a far more malicious and horrible thing to do than simply to steal or to defraud.

On another level we see a rigid groupthink; a mind-stealing social machinery that through a studiously defined system of reinforcements, threats, punishments, lies and rewards creates a character and essentially warps the entire psyche – and then ridiculously proclaims the person free. To the preceding, I ask: If you are all so free, why are you all the same? A person who’s actually free is a person who is free to design the reality of himself and the reality of his life – effort directed at both the self-directed and world-directed (internal and external) levels of reality. And for that freedom – true freedom - like for true responsibility – is required knowledge. Which most certainly does involve values that honor and respect knowledge – and honor and respect what takes to acquire it and to transmit it (in itself very much a species-directed endeavor).

In the latter, we find America currently lacking. The disrespect that is afforded the teaching profession is, I believe, scandalous; for it is the teachers that inform the cognitive habits of the young generation, and teachers again that have the power to either affect the children into being developed human beings and productive citizens, or else through neglect or bad instruction resign them into the hell of addiction, depression and crime. The teachers in America aren’t respected, and for this reason American primary education despite money expended upon it is lagging behind that of other industrialized countries, as the best and the brightest shun teaching careers. It is considered more respectable to be a lawyer, a psychiatrist, a policeman – a person who cleans up the messes – than to be a teacher and prevent the messes from occurring in the first place. A good teacher is a great asset to the civilization; someone who can instill in children the love of the subject, the love of learning, the love of productive endeavor, the love of the neighbor, the love of country and the love of life. I have been fortunate to have had two such teachers in an American private school. They deserve all the respect one can give them, and the more respect is afforded great teachers the more great people go into the teaching profession and have positive effect on the formation of young minds, in schools public as well as private.

Altruism is thus neither solely the effect of liberal education nor the result of shortage of self-esteem. Altruism is a perfectly legitimate, natural, motive that, like self-interest, exists in the human psyche – in some people more than in others. It is, in my view, one of the better things that exist in the human psyche, and it benefits the world we live in as well as its members to honor altruism and channel it constructively and intelligently toward where it would the do the good for other people that it naturally seeks to do.

Representing one’s effect upon the collective benefit as the sum
Si = ax+a1y1+a2y1+…+anyn,
Where x is self, a is contribution to the benefit of self, and each y term is an other person that stands to be affected by one’s actions, S increases with increase in the sum of the terms. The benefit of each person is the sum
Bi = bx+b1y1+b2y2+…+bnyn,
Where x is the self, b one’s own contribution to the benefit of the self, and each y term the contribution of another person to one’s benefit. Collective benefit is the sum of Bi’s – a sum of actions expended by all individuals to benefit themselves and other people in the social whole.

This definition quantifies everyone affected by the individual’s actions, whether they take economic form or other forms. It includes – one’s co-workers, one’s wife and children, one’s neighbors, the government, the people whose health is affected by industrial and agricultural activity that forms one’s consumption, the people who produce the goods one consumes, one’s friends and enemies…. The interests of all these people needs to be reflected in the society and the economy in order that one’s actions work toward benefit of all whose lives one touches. In this, the main tenet of Christianity – that the main commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, with the concept of neighbor including all human beings – becomes reified in
society’s system of reinforcements, and people are steered toward living the lives that will get them right with God, even as they are steered toward living lives that benefit – themselves as well as each other.

The equation above is true for the objective definition of the collective benefit – the benefit of “the greatest good for the greatest number” according to utilitarianism or the benefit of “all individuals included in the society,” according to Ayn Rand’s concept of society as the sum total of its individual members. But game theory maintains something else: that collective benefit is not simply a sum of its parts but an entity in its own right. That is, the group exists as a real entity; whether it be Christianity claiming that all Christians are part of the body of Christ, or pantheism claiming that we are all one, or government claiming that a nation is a real unit that retains its own character regardless of which individual citizens live in it. Therefore there is, in addition to the good of the individual members of the collective, also the benefit of the collective. Which collective can be defined, respectively, as – Christendom; humanity; or the nation.

This can be understood economically, but this can also apply in other aspects of life. Quite simply, actions that benefit both self and others, whether in enhancing their state of mind or enhancing their material well-being, are actions that lead to collective benefit. A person who hurts another person poses a net drain on the collective well-being; a person who helps another person enhances it. Attitudes that are ennobling and enriching – that help people to see the beauty in each other and cherish each other – are attitudes that increase total benefit and are as such attitudes that increase the well-being both of the individual and the collective. Attitudes that are prosecutorial, degrading, shriveling and abusive are attitudes that cause misery and are as such wrong for both the whole and the individual members.

Part 4. Integrative Quality of Experience

It is possible to say that mathematical logic does not apply to the world of the subjective thing that is valuation. This would of course place all values outside the sphere of quantification. Placed outside the sphere of rationality, values become undefended, and consequently there is no rational defense for things that bring about happiness and no protection from things that destroy it. It is not difficult to see how this leads to a population of miserable people who are always struggling for scraps of sunlight, wasting all their resources defending their likes and dislikes while preventing the energy from going to benefit the social whole. The idea that valuation is subjective and not in any way based on any universal principles, or on anything rationally discernible, is what Mortimer Adler called suicidal psychologizing on the part of philosophy – a case of copping out on the task of explaining the human being; a copping out that has made the bulk of the people believe philosophy to be irrelevant to their lives.

The hideous injustice of this line of thinking consists of the fact that it degrades and devalues humanity. It states that people’s experience is subjective hence not rationally quantifiable, and then the bulk of the people who practice this line of thinking do the unforgivable and the illogical: they leap from the tentative (“subjective is not quantifiable”) to an impossible value judgment (“subjective is unimportant”). What it states is that if something can’t be objectively demonstrated, it’s worthless – a hubris of empiricism that asserts empiricism as the only way to compute value, and renders all experience that can’t be demonstrated beyond all doubt to everyone unimportant. In an unforgivable logical error for people who claim logic as their guiding purpose, they take their inability to measure something to mean that it it’s not significant - an absurdity if there ever was any.

Now if experience of the people, as this logic contends, effectively does not matter, then it becomes excusable to commit grave harm to people with impunity, for as long as it isn’t measurable. Thus, psychological abuse and emotional damage is easily forgivable because it can’t be traced. It is also, according to this logic, sensible to attack and devalue those who seek to provide to people a good experience – experience such as that of beauty, compassion, and love; experiences for which there is no empirical demonstration but which possess paramount value to people who receive them. To paraphrase R.D. Laing, It is fashionable to talk of experience as merely subjective, but never of anything as merely objective. To devalue experience as “merely subjective” is to devalue mankind as the recipients of the experience – and a philosophy that sees the experience of beauty, or love, or spirituality, or compassion, or happiness, as “merely subjective” or “in the eye of the beholder” is the philosophy that does violence to humanity, excluding these considerations from our social interactions and our environments we create and relegating the mass of the people to be mistreated and to live in despair and ugliness.

Is experience subjective or objective? It is both. The event that causes the experience to occur is an objective happening; the experience of the event as felt by the person is subject to sensory interpretation. The study of physical beauty by Judith Langlois has shown that a face with a particular proportions will be experienced as beautiful by subjects from all cultures. Another study has shown that, out of 500 faces shown to 20,000 subjects, all faces got picked at least once, but some got picked only once and others hundreds of times. The experience of beauty occurs in presence of some objects and not others, and some objects evoke the feeling of beauty in more people than do others. Both the object and the subject’s tastes and values are involved in the computation; the experience is a function of both. Experience is – integrative.

To those who do not consider experience to be a real event due to the fact that it takes place “only” inside a person’s head, one needs pose this question. Is computer software real? Its effects also take place only inside the computer, or the computer system to which the computer is attached. Yet nobody of any authority would begin to claim that computer software is not real. How much more real, then, is the code by which runs human psyche, measurable as it is only through its effects on the person’s emotions which may or may not manifest in actions – but which in all cases occasion events in the human brain to occur.

Thus both Kant and Ayn Rand had it partially right. The experience is both objective and subjective, and this makes it doubly real – formed both by the objective happening and the sensory-emotional interpretation. To understand an experience completely, one has to observe it externally as well as experience it, either directly or through the mechanism of empathy. This averts the nasty habit of trivialization of experience which is undertaken by the so-called rationalists, and builds a certain measure of compassion for one’s fellow women and men that is most paramount to making right decisions governing their lives.

When I attended the Burningman festival in Nevada, the organizers invited the media to participate in the event in order that they understand it AS IT IS EXPERIENCED BY PARTICIPANTS before writing about it to their audiences. My friend Gil, who is about 8 years older than me, said that this ruined objectivity. He was committing the error common to his generation – the error of believing that external measurement without participation is the only way of understanding an event. An experience is understood best when it is felt on one’s own skin; when one understands it not solely as it appears to an observer, but as it is actually experienced. The organizers of Burningman made the right decision in inviting the media to be participants. It allowed them to have an experience of the event that was not merely objective – not merely external – but also subjective. It allowed them to see the event both from within and from without. It allowed them to have the integrative perspective, which is truly the only complete way to understand an experience.

Human interaction is thus an integrative phenomenon, consisting of interactions between action as it is made and experience as it is perceived. When Person A insults Person B, the situation contains both the objective event – of A making the statement – and the experience – B feeling insulted. The experience as felt by B is a function of two things: the statement that A made and the emotional structure of B as it interprets and is affected by the statement. To understand the transaction, both have to be taken into account. To state, as did Eleanor Roosevelt, that people can’t hurt you unless you let them, is to place the responsibility for the entire event in B’s territory and leave A free to hurt, malign and abuse whomever he would desire. To state, as do New Agers, that we are in control of everything that happens to us, is to excuse every crime on the face of the planet, as it states that me raping, torturing and killing a New Ager would be something she has thought up and for which I am not to be held accountable.

And to state that beauty is in the eye of the beholder is to eliminate the beauty consideration from our contributions to the environment in which we live. It is to free the architect, the engineer, the builder, the artist and the musician of responsibility for creating works that are tasteful and well-designed. It is to give a green light to greed, bloat and tastelessness that wants to turn America into a giant strip mall and Americans into obese tubs. It is to mire people in hideousness in which their spirits shrivel and their body, shorn of all pleasure and stimulation, has nothing to do but bloat.

It is a damnable ideology, one that is partly responsible for the $117 billion in health costs that obesity costs the nation each year – and costing far more in people’s ability to enjoy and appreciate human experience, with romance, sex, art, creativity, freedom from abuse, ecstasy of physical exertion, and pride and pleasure of living in an environment that is an improvement and not a degradation on nature becoming inaccessible to people as a result.

Some objects – like the faces in the Judith Langlois study – appeal to something universal in human beings and are experienced by all who perceive them as beautiful. Others are experienced as beautiful only by people with certain tastes and beliefs. The art that touches on the universal in human beings is art that is timeless; the art that serves its times or its subjects is art that is limited to its audience. Both are necessary; both are legitimate. Classical art is still loved today because it speaks to the universal in human beings, but the currently-anachronistic music of Jefferson Airplane was just as important for its times.

I had a girlfriend who was seen by everyone she met as beautiful, and by some as the most beautiful woman they’ve ever beheld. I had another girlfriend that was seen as beautiful by some people and not by others, with most Europeans and the Orientals who met her finding her delectable - and most residents of her native Oregon seeing nothing in her at all. The poetry I post on the Internet draws reaction both good and bad, with some poems attracting only compliments, others only attack and others both. My personal experience, as well as the above-mentioned studies, indicates that beauty is an integrative function - with some forms of beauty universal and appealing to everyone and others appealing only to certain tastes and beliefs. The experience of beauty is a shared function between the object and the recipient; a person or a piece of art can be beautiful universally or only to certain tastes, with some possessing universal appeal - some appealing to some people - and some appealing to nobody. To claim, as do some "feminists," that there is no such thing as beauty and that beauty is an artificial construct that is used to keep women from developing self-esteem, is an absurdity that is refuted by the Judith Langlois study and by experiences of anyone who has ever looked at a classical piece of art or at Yosemite Park or at sky over rural Arizona on a cloudless night.

Seeing experience of life as is both subjective and objective – as integrative – as a thing that can be discerned both from within and without, with the integrative perspective – the perspective of both experiencing something immediately and measuring it externally – superior to the mere objective method of measurement without personal experience and the mere subjective method of living it without having a theoretical overarching perspective – one can rather postulate a model of the individual’s interaction with the collective. That model is as follows:

Part 5. Individual and Society: The Pomegranate

Think of a pomegranate. A pomegranate consists of hundreds of seeds. Each seed has its unique core – its unique center – of which it is a manifestation. Each seed is also a manifestation of the entire fruit in which it exists. The seed is the substructure; the fruit is the superstructure. The pomegranate and the seeds reinforce and shape each other.

The fruit is the seeds in it, but also itself as a unique being. The seeds are part of the fruit, but also their own unique and unshakeable selves. An individual and a civilization can be therefore seen as the seed and the pomegranate, with complex patterns of interconnectivity among one another shaping and reframing both – with each individual endowed with its own center, contributing its own unique essence to the larger whole, and the whole containing the individuals while also having its own character. Through the recombination, the mutual shaping, among the two levels of structure, the individual and the collective, is formed humanity.

When looking at a succession of seeds in the pomegranate, one gets an idea of what the pomegranate is like; until one comes across a seed that is different, and that by its sheer beingness refutes the pattern. This is known as the pioneer seed. The pioneer seed is different from previous bunch of seeds; it’s different from voices that claim to speak for the fruit. It is a part of the fruit however, and it peforms a very important function: that of giving a truer understanding of the whole than what has existed before.

Pioneer seeds lead difficult lives. They are pressed by the previous patterns, they are made to believe they are wrongly made, in order that they disappear and the cognitive dissonance of the existence of seeds such as them vis-à-vis the patterns that claim to speak for the fruit be resolved. The solution is for the pioneer seeds to dig in their heels and identify with the larger whole and say that they are serving a social function: That of refuting the pattern that claims to speak for the fruit and making the observer understand something that was not seen before.

The pomegranate and the seed depend on air, water and sunlight. The pomegranate and the seeds take these components and make something better than has existed before; something beautiful, consummate and synergistic. Since both the pomegranate and the seeds are real, legitimate entities, achieving benefit consists of achieving benefit both for the individual and for the whole. It consists of both the individual and the collective good. I say collective good not in the utilitarian meaning – the meaning of “greatest good for the greatest number” – but in the meaning of the benefit of the whole; the benefit, that is, of the pomegranate. I say individual good in the manner spoken of by the enlightenment philosophers and the objectivists and extolled by them as the highest and only form of benefit.

Both the seeds and the pomegranate are legitimate entities; and both must strive to be the best thing they can be even as it is legitimate for them to seek their own fulfillment. We must tend to our garden; we must also tend to the world. And it is legitimate for us, as seeds in the fruit, to reap dividends of what both our own seed and the fruit produce, even as it is legitimate for the fruit as a whole to reap dividends from the individual seeds and from its own structure.

Because both the seeds and the pomegranate are legitimate entities, they both possess power and they both consequently possess responsibility for the outcome of the whole as well as for themselves. Where an individual is in his life, is a function both of his actions and of his society’s preferences; where a society is, is a function of the actions of the whole and of those of its individual members. The same character that is encouraged in France (finely cultivated, delicate) is desecrated in American heartland; the same character traits that lead to success in Japan (respectful, docile, patient, hard-working) lead, in Africa, to extinction. Even within America itself, the values differ between different regions and between cities and heartland; and the character that does best in Los Angeles is quite different from a character that does best in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Each society has its own character that rewards some traits while punishing others, and an individual with given natal predispositions will be expected to achieve different things in different societies.

The power over lives of both the individuals and the social whole is therefore shared between the individual and society; it is an interaction of the substructure and a superstructure, a synthesis. True responsibility for individual lives and the social whole is therefore shared among the two levels. And yet the current ideologies err on either side and fight each other, resulting in people believing one thing in one set of places and the opposite in another. One ideology, popular especially in Midwest, consists of assigning all responsibility to the individual. This quickly degenerates into bullying attacks on the individuals whose inner propensities are not valued by the society, which spirals downward further into ignorant claims that their inner propensities are innately wrong and that the individuals with their propensities are incapable of success, or if they do succeed are evil. This is of course a case of society playing God, claiming for its ill-informed judgments the authority to judge what is beyond its power to create; and the most eloquent and well-deserved blow that one at the receiving end of such bludgeoning can do to the entire social edifice that assails him is to move to a place that values his or her natural propensities and live happily there.

The other error, seen in the worldview of sociology and in Marxism, consists of assigning all responsibility to society. This strips the individual of responsibility for his actions and shapes a character that is irresponsible, criminal and weak. In reality – and I mean here in the quantified, complete reality that involves and quantifies both the individual and the society, and not in the pushy screechy ignorant assault of those who, committing the first error, want to indulge in orgies of abuse against some individuals while considering themselves good realistic responsible citizens - both levels are real, and both levels are to be held justly accountable for their effect. Responsibility for a life is a shared function of the individual and society he inhabits; responsibility for a society is a shared function of its inhabitants and its historically and sociologically formulated national character.

An action can possess a real, or natural, consequence; a consequence that stems from the action’s inherent character and that results automatically, by law of cause and effect, in another event. In addition to real consequences, there are the artificial consequences, or the consequences assigned by society. Different societies assign different consequences to different kinds of actions. Conducting business in America results, due to the first set of consequences, in success or failure according to effectiveness of marketing and quality of deliverables; conducting business in the Soviet Union, due to the second set of consequences, resulted in imprisonment. That the same action, when performed in different social universes, results in different consequences, shows that the social universe is artificially constructed – whether by top-down design as in the case of the former Soviet Union or, as in the case of most societies, by bottom-up social and historical development. I define bottom-up as that which evolved spontaneously among people. I define top-down as that which was formulated and given to the people from above. The same character, while in all cases evoking the same natural consequences, will evoke different sets of artificial consequences in different societies; and it is both beneficial to the characters and resulting in their greatest contribution for them to find themselves in societies whose artificial systems of reinforcements are friendly to their basic nature.

In the way of the fulfillment both of the individual and the collective benefit stand – bullies. I define bullies as entities and individuals that seek power over other individuals at the expense of their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. The most vicious attacks on the internationalist Clinton administration, which sought the benefit of humanity as well as all individual humans whose self-interest did not consist of oppression over other individuals, came from two sets of people: bullies at home (Republicans who were used to dominating the American citizenry and could not stand for them to have cultural and economic alternatives) and bullies abroad (Islamic terrorists, murderous regimes and Stalinist dictatorships that were used to pulling the same trick on their own populations and were threatened by Clinton’s promise). In order for the individual and the collective benefit to be fulfilled, the power of bullies has to be broken through action combining the top and bottom – through action combining the leader with visionary outlook pushing from above and the people who do not wish to be dominated by the bullies any longer pushing from below. Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, in fighting with people’s help the corrupt officials in his country, provides the model for that sandwiching arrangement. Another model has been the United States, with the help of the Afghan people, overthrowing the Taliban.

It is therefore entirely in the best interests of both the world and the individuals that inhabit it for there to be a flux of individuals among regions within nations and across national boundaries. An individual with genetic predisposition for a Kansas character would not be happy in Japan; an individual with a genetic predisposition for a San Francisco character will not be happy in Kansas. Rather than apply their talents for the benefit of the world they inhabit, they will become liabilities to their societies even while they themselves lead miserable lives. It is a social service, and a service to humanity, to take the people who through clash of inner traits with social values are manipulated into the function of scapegoats in their societies to social universes in which their innate traits are rewarded rather than stigmatized – and in this end the distraction that self-righteous abuse of outcasts poses to the demanding historical task of formulating societies into humane, civilized, intelligent and habitable shapes.

This requires that the societies themselves compete for members within an overarching perspective that includes many societies united in free and fair competition for members – that the power exercised by societies over people’s lives be checked by the individual’s ability to leave when he or she feels too downtrodden for another society, and the existence of information, resources and political power for people around the world to be able to make such a change. Thus, global economy – an arrangement that benefits the collective prosperity of the whole as well as prosperity of far more individuals around the world than it hurts – is an excellent arrangement; one that improves the state of humanity even as it improves lives of its individual members. It is beneficial, both for its inclusiveness of millions of individual human beings, and for the reason that it destroys the stranglehold of local entities that lay claim on the lives, minds and hearts of individuals, at the expense of their membership in humanity and at the expense of their individual benefit. The global economy, with international entities created to place safeguards against protectionism and other abuses, results in the people who are competent around the world being able to have global market for their produce while consumers around the world have the best of the world at their disposal. This arrangement was striven for by the best among both Republicans and Democrats – by both Reagan and Clinton; and it is still producing great dividends for people around the world, having raised 250 million people out of poverty in two decades in China alone.

But global economy is not sufficient. Global economy requires global diplomacy. It requires this: global outlook in participating countries. A isolationist like LePen or Pat Buchanan in one country could jinx the entire global cooperation. Global economy is a synergistic arrangement. It is, once again, a fragile equilibrium that requires a presence of mind and a global outlook on the part of everyone to achieve, an ongoing political strength and vision, willingness to extend oneself to embrace something different from oneself, and willingness to motivate the people to see the big picture as well as themselves.

Following the economic progress toward globalization is progress in other spheres of human endeavor: endeavor such as cultural, spiritual and social. Competition, whether between economic entities or between social entities, forces them to improve their deliverables for the consumer. Thus, the advanced state of American and European society, which has seen cultural competition, as compared to Middle Eastern society, which has not, is demonstrative of the principle of cultural competition at play and the improvement it has had in the lives of humanity. In this way, cultural competition, like economic competition, arrives at the best outcome for the human being.

Intercultural competition leads to intercultural communication, resulting in a more integrated world. The optimal outcome of intercultural competition for citizens is improvement realized in all cultures, as good ideas from other parts of the world are adopted while bad ideas within one’s own culture are destroyed. The process leading to that, like economic competition within advanced regulated economies, is not automatic, but rather requiring the agreement upon fair tactics and unfair tactics – on exclusion of amoral, forcible and fraudulent, methods of influence – on requiring constant effort of synthetic intelligence and peacemaking to achieve at the best outcome among components and not allow cultural chauvenists within each region to silence, demonize or kill off the other cultures. Like laissez-faire economics within social covenant shaped by law, or like game theory-influenced competition within the framework of cooperation, this requires an overarching perspective of international cooperation at the task of producing the best possible people living within pareto-optimal social covenants that reflect the best of humanity – its foresight, its compassion, its knowledge, its inspiration, its wisdom. Its commitment to living – beautifully.

Part 6. Public Sector and Private Sector

Some people are naturally selfish, and others are naturally altruistic. Some are selfish in some aspects and altruistic in other aspects. A person may willingly work with minimal pay for a political cause, but would not tolerate anyone telling him to wash his clothes. Another person may be willing to die for his country, but would whine about having to pay a 30% tax. Each ideology structures the mind so as to arrange the internal existents – the different pieces of human nature – in a manner that leads to a particular configuration, a particular outcome, a particular character, a particular product. The fundamentals of both rational self-interest and of altruism exist in the mind; they are inextricable part of the thing that is human beingness. An order based on competition and rational self-interest alone, like an order based on altruism alone, is an order that is not fulfilling to a large number of its members, nor is it an order that makes the best use of its resources. The only conceivable order is one that allows for both aspects of human beingness to be fulfilled.

For this reason it makes the most sense to include both efforts private and public, with the corporations and the communities working in synergy with one another around the world to arrive at the best outcome for humanity. The Marxian concept of the main class struggle being the one between labor and capital stands refuted. Labor and capital are two sides of the same coin, which is economic production engaged in a competitive market – two necessary components toward production of material goods. Rather than consummating in Communism – a case of one class eliminating the other, a destruction and not a consummation, the lazy solution – the dialectic where it was not interrupted by force has resulted instead in a global economy in which labor and capital work in synergy with each other. The far more relevant dialectic now is between the private and public sectors; between entities that provide for people’s material fulfillment and entities that provide for their political one; between bottom-up entities based in pursuit of economic self-interest and top-down entities based in pursuit of shared goals. I find both top-down and bottom-up entities are required, with the first which, in an integrative, synergistic solution come together with one another to build upon rather than to destroy each other, with each working to channel constructively the aspect of human beingness to which it speaks. This synergy will result in maximization of benefit of the people, for it will require both ways of organizing human resources – the bottom-up and the top-down – to know the parameters of their roles and respectfully extend themselves to work with their opposite, thus resulting in optimization and enrichment from both directions.

The Adam Smith model of capitalism working invariably for the good of the consumer, who is guided invariably by rational self-interest, which rational self-interest is invariably good and just, is plainly wrong. Apple had a better technology, yet Microsoft got the market; Beta had a better technology, yet VHS got the market. During 1990s, the market in USA got flooded with gas-guzzling SUV’s, ending the progress that had been done in the previous decade toward cutting down on oil consumption, making us dependent on governments of largely anti-American Middle East, and bringing us to spew more disease-causing chemicals in the air – chemicals that cause material harm to people in our country and others. In 1980s and 1990s, the people who lived in the ghetto were targeted by ads selling expensive sneakers, and young economically disadvantaged people turned to drug sales and violent crime to get the money necessary for these purchases, turning their neighborhoods into zones of murder and blight. People are sold harmful substances like McDonald’s food and Coca Cola – substances that are unhealthy and cause rises in obesity, disease and medical costs. None of these results produced benefit for public welfare.

Does capitalism work according to an invisible hand to lead inevitably to public welfare? It does and it doesn’t. There is no question that an average Westerner or Japanese is much better off now than he was three centuries ago; however, the process involved a lot of cruelty, a lot of violence and a lot of waste. Some of the companies that succeed, such as Microsoft, do not have the best product, but become industry standard due to successful manipulation and positioning. A lot of people struggle to make the rent; a lot of people become neurotic mortgage-payers, struggling with all their might in a mobile work place to not be the next layoff; a lot of people in the Third World overpopulate and consign their children to famine-stricken conditions in which they feel they have to kill in order to survive. Capitalism produces both good and bad results. It is not free from vice or error. Like evolution, capitalism is a cruel, violent and often wasteful process that results in survival of the fittest – who may or may not be the best. And some of the best companies, such as Beta and Borland, fall the way of such natural wonders as the mammoth and saber-toothed tiger.

In the demand part of the equation, are the consumers driven by rational self-interest in making their economic decisions? The answer is nuanced. The consumer is guided not by enlightened reason, but by all the different qualities, good or bad, that exist in the human psyche, and all of them are capable of being manipulated to achieve outcomes good as well as bad. Success in reaching the consumer comes from effectiveness of marketing – of reaching the consumer both logically and psychologically, appealing to all the different parts of the human mind that figure in consumption decisions. A purely capitalist order, its demand equation comprising a compendium of subjective human valuation, is subject to all the foibles, vices and errors that live in the human being – and is thus far from sacrosanct or at all times producing the best result.

Even if the consumer was fully driven by rational self-interest, history of humanity shows that reason like all things human is prone to error. A person who lives in the ghetto may realistically assay that he’s going to be dead by 25 and will apply his economic decisions toward immediate consumption of harmful substances with disastrous consequences for his health and economic prospects. A more typical American person who wants security, respect and status will procure expensive products that may be highly polluting and that may not give him any satisfaction at all, but only allow him to feel himself secure in irrational battle with artificial feelings of inadequacy and status anxiety induced through a culture of consumer coercion. A Wall Street investor may rationally conjecture that the boom, as in late 1990s, was going to continue, and end up losing his shirt. In all three cases, the consumer makes bad decisions that don’t enhance his happiness and may in many respects detract from his health and well-being. It becomes possible, within capitalist system, for sin to grow and to consume people and make their happiness ever more remote.

Likewise socialism, which gives control to centralized power and gives the government workers the power to delay, abuse, usurp and lord it over the people. In centralizing economic power, it puts the nation at the mercy of people who work for the state – who, being human, are just as prone as capitalist or consumer toward vice and error. The top-down dictatorial orders are prone to gross violations of human rights and strangulation of economic activity. Commanding economic activity, socialism does not compute what the people would need or want – something that only the people themselves would be able to know. Socialist orders are inefficient and strangulating.

The error of statism, Communism and fascism from Hobbes till Franco is the belief that the sins of the human nature – the sins they see all-too-clearly – will not also infect the state, which is comprised of the same fallible human beings. The error of anarchism and libertarianism is the belief that the individuals, when given power, will not abuse it as does the state or in still worse ways to hurt fellow man. I posit that the way to minimize sins and errors of human condition, and to maximize human benefit, is to have an integrative, synergistic arrangement among entities bottom-up and top-down – an arrangement in which each knows itself and the legitimate parameters of its role, sees the virtue in the other and need for the other, and in an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding achieves the synergistic pareto-optimal equilibrium in which prospers the human being and humanity as a whole.

My friend David, who as a successful businessman in Eastern Europe runs into lots of red tape, spoke of battle between homo faber – the productive man – and homo fiscus – the bureaucrat. He asserts that the businessman is all right and bureaucrat is all wrong, to the point of stating that a businessman acquaintance of mine, who helped millionaires find loopholes to pay less taxes and then went home to horribly abuse his wife and children, must have been good simply because he was a businessman. I told David that in idolizing his profession he left himself open to treachery, corruption and violence from other businessmen, who as people are just as prone to sin as are the bureaucrats and, when unchecked, frequently use their financial power to grossly mistreat people. It is just as possible to abuse financial power as it is to abuse government power, and bottom-up entities, just like top-down entities, are capable of doing grave wrong. In order to minimize sin and maximize benefit, there need to be a synergistic, integrative equilibrium between private and public sectors – a system of economic checks-and-balances similar to the system of political checks-and-balances that exists in the US government, making sure that people don’t misuse their economic power to harm or to own other people – and that the government workers likewise don’t abuse their power to strangle enterprise.

The system of checks-and-balances works to achieve synergy when the parties fundamentally respect and understand each other while understanding also the parameters of their role – when they stand on their own two feet confident in themselves and extend themselves to understand the other side in the dialectic. It works to paralyze activity when the two parties do not possess such understanding. What I propose is not automatic. It takes effort of mind – a balancing act – to make to work. But when it does work, it produces results that are truly beautiful and that benefit the individual as well as the social whole.

An example of what I’m talking about is the architectural design of Washington, DC. Whenever a developer proposes to erect a building, the district government has to check if that building looks good and if it works well with the other buildings that are on the street. The result is a city whose buildings work well with each other and whose downtown is beautiful. This compares with Tysons Corner, an office park outside DC which is free of all such regulations; a place whose buildings, beautiful as some of them are in themselves, are jumbled and arrive at an ugly mishmash of traffic congestion and tastelessness. Some tasks require an organizing intelligence that different players in the market simply don’t have. They are provided by the government.

It is in fact true that there are certain tasks that the free market cannot provide for because they do not belong in the sphere of self-interested endeavor. More precisely, they do not involve the aspects of human beingness that are motivated by monetary terms. Privatizing law enforcement means corruption; privatizing science means lack of objective research; privatizing domestic abuse counseling means women staying in abusive relationships; privatizing roads means no road access for poor neighborhoods; privatizing schools means parents determining the curriculum for their children and excluding the facts and subjects they find unsuitable. These tasks belong in the sphere of collective endeavor, of the community and the government, of entities that provide for altruistic endeavor, in the same way as tasks such as agriculture and industry that have viable monetary rewards belong in the self-interested sphere of capitalism.

It has been said that the government lacks the accountability of the private sector and as such is prone to waste and abuse. In dealings with the Fairfax County government, I’ve found it to be at least as friendly and efficient as any private-sector organization for which I’ve worked or with which I had dealings. The American government has remodeled itself in the 90s into a well-run and consumer-friendly mechanism and discharges its obligations magnificently. I believe that further attempts at cutting the government would not cut the fat but the muscle and bone, and that the people who seek to destroy the government through tax cuts and deficit spending are people who seek to illicitly profit at the expense of their neighbor and generations to come.

Through achieving the benefit of both self and the group is achieved the beautiful outcome, an outcome that is an accord and a harmony, an outcome that is a consummation. An outcome, that is, that is an integration and a reconciliation of opposites and their high-minded fulfillment; beauty of Schiller, synthesis of Hegel, synergy of Covey and collective benefit of Nash. I say high-minded, because the high-minded logic involves seeing the higher benefit of all parties involved and using creative mind to lead toward it, making better product of both parties through knowing their potential than anything that has existed before. It is emphatically neither compromise nor sacrifice nor domination; far rather, it is the case of seeing the entire picture, seeing each part of the picture, and seeing how each could come to a higher state while also using its capabilities to improve the whole.

Part 7. Postmodernism and Cultural Renaissance

Which is why postmodernism is such an inadequate ideology. It sees as invalid the concept of the grand picture, with all the civilization’s grand narratives that unify people’s creative striving, from progress to Christianity, under attack. It claims that the absolute truth is unknowable, hence it denies objective justification for human rights and human dignity – for human values – thus eviscerating also the individual. Thus, it arrives at destruction of both the seeds and the pomegranate – both the individual and the collective. It results in evisceration of both the substructural and the superstructural levels of humanity.

Now if absolute truth is unknowable, then all ideas are equal, and the idea that absolute truth is unknowable is equally valid or not valid as any other idea. Postmodernism is thus self-refuting. Postmodernism is what Mortimer Adler called suicidal epistemologizing and psychologizing, or removing objective quality from human life and human experience and denying it the sanction of reason. As such, it is a degradation of the civilization – a degradation also of humanity. It is a case of failure to own up to the burden of consciousness.

Certainly it is possible to deconstruct everything to its fundamentals and to insult it. It is possible to name altruism low self-esteem, compassion weak ego boundaries, soulfulness self-absorption, sensitivity weakness, interest in the big picture egomania, abstruse interests insanity and love codependency. But that is not the intelligent sum of human endeavor. These qualities result in the best masterpieces that humanity has produced, and as such deserve respect and protection. Yes, we can deconstruct; we can also kill half the world’s species in a few decades and destroy the treasure that nature took the nature millions of years to produce. How much more worthy enterprise it is to construct – to create another species or resurrect ones we have driven into extinction, rather than slaughter ones that exist; to create genetic cures, rather than put out chemicals that cause genetic illnesses; to make space colonies, rather than overpopulate the Earth. Rather than using one’s will and one’s mind to self-eviscerate and turn into a shrew or a heckler, how much more noble it is to use one’s will and one’s mind to create something beautiful, out of the medium that is human existence, and give it nobility, dignity and strength.

It is said that the human being is entirely a natural being. I posit that the human being is a being both natural and supernatural; as a being that is natural to the extent that he follows patterns and a being uniquely human to the extent that he sets them according to his own volition – according to inspiration, reason and will. This quality – this supernatural quality – is our gift and our saving grace; our unit of the divine – that which makes man in God’s image. The existence in the mind of mechanisms that Freud, Adler and similar people described does not inhibit existence of will; it rather presents another part of the picture. The will is an existent. As such, it has its legitimate place. Its legitimate place is this: Create what has not existed before. Lead. Improve. Dignify. Integrate. The human prerogative is to exercise this supernatural quality to make the world better. To build on all of the natural to arrive at a consummation. To integrate, structure and recombine existents into a synthesis. To create and to shape. To – ennoble.

The monstrosity of materialistic psychology is its desire to destroy the supernatural in the human being and thus reduce the human being to a deterministic state. It of course uses the human being’s supernatural, pattern-making, mindful, quality in order to do that. Thus it is a misuse of an existent in order to destroy awareness of that existent in other people. It is an indulgence that fails to own up to the human being’s burden of volitional consciousness. It is a hypocrisy and it is a power trip that results in paralyzed minds, shriveled spirits and humanity castrated of its potency.

I do not consider man to be “a moral animal,” “a rational animal,” or a “social animal.” I consider man to be man – a craftsman; an artist; a shaper of his environment and of his personhood pursuant to his beliefs and ideals. When Ayn Rand says that civilization should be an improvement on nature and not a degradation, what she means is that man should use his talent, wisdom, inspiration and understanding of what is beautiful to craft for humanity a world that is as harmonious, as elegant, as rich and as splendid as the medium from which we come. This requires two things. This requires being able to feel the best of what nature has given us – sense of love, sense of passion, sense of tenderness, sense of interest in the good of the species and in making our world the most wonderful possible – and to use one’s mind to make these things come to life. It requires, in other words, a merger of Dionysian and Apollonian – of soul and mind – and craftsmanship by the mind upon the canvas of the soul, resulting in beautiful reifications of beautiful passions and fine aesthetics – in artistic product that sculpts emotion and nature into the most magnificent possible forms.

This results in a celebration of life; in a celebration of human condition and of the world that we have been given. It results in beautiful feelings, beautiful relationships and beautiful environments that we create. It results in ennoblement, an enrichment, of human existence – adding to it class, dignity, richness, inspiration and harmony.

Ennoblement is the process of enriching life with the supernatural quality in humanity. I call that process also humanization. The civilization is a process of evolution out of a less human state and toward a more human state – from a state that is deterministic, toward a state reflecting greater level of intelligent design; from a state in which we are limited by nature to a state reflecting greater mastery and liberty. When people can live a dignified existence – when people can be cultured, trusting, loving and free from economic and psychological limitation - that is an achievement, and it means that the civilization is working. When people are distrustful and hateful, brutish, fearful and nasty, the civilization is not working, and needs to have its sensibilities revitalized through a collective effort of mind and will. This effort of mind and will, directed cooperatively toward an ennoblement of life, is what is required in order that a moral civilization – a civilization based on something other than military or consumer coercion, with people living a life that is deliberate, dignified and fulfilling – be allowed to exist.

It could be said that we don’t have the resources to have a noble and beautiful existence. That is entirely untrue. With average income of $40000 a year, America can most certainly afford noble existence and noble attitudes – attitudes of generosity, greatness, compassion, artistic beauty and romantic love. It has been fashionable to attack the people who cultivate such attitudes as posers or snobs or pretentious. Much rather, they are people who exercise the main human prerogative – using their will and their mind to forge themselves into something noble; into something reflecting high-minded design; into something beautiful; into something reflecting the rational and the aesthetic striving and as such harboring the keys to happiness.

A code of ethics that makes it the worst crime to be arrogant or pretentious is a code of ethics that degrades humanity and robs it of its attainments. It is a code of ethics that makes the beautiful unattainable by making people mired in psychological mindset that removes it from all things of beauty, both outside and within; that prevents them from exercising the divine right to shape themselves and their environment into forms reflecting inspiration and will. It is a code of ethics that stifles innovation and ingenuity and attacks things that reflect the creative, inspired, forward-seeking design. It is a code of ethics that robs people of human prerogative and treats the natural-uniquely human being that is the human being as though it did not possess the uniquely human – and as though the natural component, refined as it has been over millions of years of evolution into a magnificent mechanism or else imparted by a truly marvelous Creator, was not a product of a statistical miracle. It claims to attack hubris, but it is in itself hubris of the worst in humanity – of a mind that has no imagination or creativity or original thought. Of a mind that, lacking these saving graces, can only conceive of apocalyptic outcomes – that attacks the very things that can save us because it cannot imagine the inspired patterns of thinking from which such solutions may spring.

Postmodernism seeks to deconstruct everything in the mind. That arrives at a devitalized, distorted, disfigured populace; a population of people who cannot justify their romantic attractions and cannot justify that which is their claim on life. I seek the opposite outcome. I seek to ennoble. I seek to enrich. I seek to give grace and splendor. I seek to ennoble life.

I seek to ennoble life.

And based on the unified ethic and aesthetic of ennobling life – based on a novel and yet old mechanism, a mechanism of using one’s will and one’s mind to enrich and create rather than to destroy and degrade – based on systems of thought that include this mechanism - I seek a cultural renaissance in America.

In every choice – in every action – there are two possibilities. One is that which leads toward ennobling – the forward-seeking. The other is what leads toward the degrading - the downward-pulling. One leads to an upper turn in a spiral; the other breaks it down to a lower state. The first seeks to succeed or to make another person successful; the second seeks to destroy another person’s success even if it means not being successful oneself. The first seeks to improve human condition; the second seeks to put people in their supposed places, nevermind that we are creators who are endowed with uniquely human quality – that of legitimately making our own place. The first works with what’s good in people to make them grow into fullness; the second drags them down for their supposed deficiencies. The first seeks progress; the second seeks similitude. Of these, only the first is capable of arriving at a world worthy of human habitation, and only the first is therefore moral.

Consider sex. It is possible to see it as an animal instinct and treat it with contempt. But being people capable of making the most of an experience, it is also possible to see it as a vehicle for bountiful emotional sharing and treat it as such. In both cases, the act is the same, but the experience differs. In the first, one shuts off the ethical and receives only the value of physical act; in the second, one uses the ethical and the mindful in conjunction with the natural, to arrive at the product that’s better than either of the components – at the maximum thing that the experience can be made using the human mind.

An integrated personality is known in psychology as a personality that has reconciled its opposites. It is known in psychology as a personality that has resolved its internal conflicts and acts as one. Right-wing intellectuals look down on people who are not integrated as lacking integrity; what they fail to consider is that integration of an open mind that is exposed to a million conflicting influences is a far more difficult task than is remaining what one has been defined to be by an authoritarian household and church. And yet it is the former integrity, the dynamic synthesis, that produces a product that truly and meaningfully integrates existents contained within the social universe – while the former integrity is essentially a case of never having stirred, of never having been mobile, of never having taken a step toward becoming a human being with a mind.

Part 8. From Society to Civilization

America’s greatest contribution to the history of mankind has been that of applying to the federal government the morality and the checks and balances that governments previously forced upon the individual. The government in America is prohibited from tyrannizing the people; an advancement that most of the Western civilization has since adopted with America’s guidance. The blindness of libertarianism and anarchism in America is that, in its single-minded attack on the government as representing oppression, it shifts power from the balanced-and-checked American government to unofficial organs of power that evolve spontaneously in the society, which organs of power do not possess the same constitutional ideals or checks and balances that inform Washington. This, in turn, takes power away from benign, noble organs of power in America and gives it to inferior usurpers; to people who have none of the advanced ideals informing American constitutional order, who grossly mistreat people in their communities, and who if left to their own devices would perform far worse abuses against American citizens than any that the federal government has ever perpetrated.

The existence of such entities in America – spontaneous organs of power that are not subject to constitutional checks-and-balances - necessitates the existence of the social ombudsman, who exercises the checks of reason and ethics on the bottom-up entities and individuals who have taken upon themselves to speak for society. It is the role of one who stands up to those in the community who seek to find people to demonize and bludgeon, and prevents them from violating their rights. It is the role that, should America live by its stated ideals, needs to be taken up by as many people as possible; a role that is dangerous and ungrateful, but that gives one the satisfaction of having done much to preserve human and civil rights in a land that has been designated at its founding as the last best hope for humanity.

If the ideal of the baby boom generation was the individual, the ideal of Generation X was society. The psychology of the two generations had utterly different flavors, with the first aiming at self-actualization and existential development and the second aiming at bringing about social adjustment at any cost. The latter resulted in gross abuses of people’s rights. When the ideal of a civilization becomes nothing more than smooth functioning as a society, it becomes immoral and atavistic; shorn of organizing objectives or noble principles; a lynch mob, a vicious prosecuting force that is not mindful of human or civil rights, or legitimate parameters of its own role in the interaction between the seeds and the pomegranate, or existence of any entities other than itself. In prosecution of sociopaths, was excused the most cruel and ignorant possible action against people who could be maliciously portrayed as being sociopaths – namely, anybody who did not fit in or had few social skills or had an original thought in his head. In prosecution of date rape and sexual harassment, were committed false accusations resulting in spurious destruction of careers and imprisonment, which false accusations, as National Confederation of Free Men study has shown, were more numerous than true accusations – and which, due to the media-fanned social climate of fear, resulted in false conviction, imprisonment, loss of careers, and repeated buggery and battery in prison of innocent men. In attacking anything that could offend anyone, was stifled all meaningful discourse – all thought that was in any respect controversial, hence all thought that had meaning and relevance to people’s lives.

When society is the ideal, then anything that is original, different or pioneering comes under attack for its distinctness in character from the historical accident that is the social norm of the times, and the best ideas that lead to creative solutions, artistic output and innovation are demolished. As is anyone, indeed, who has an idea in his or her mind that’s different from the mindset of the social hysteria. When the crust of the pomegranate becomes omnipotent, the reality of the seeds, like that of the air and the sun, is forgotten – and in a nation that has forbidden official tyranny, an unofficial tyranny grows up and destroys the lives of thousands of innocent people. The social norm becomes omnipotent, which it has no right to be, and destroys all potential pioneer seeds. And in this is stifled all potential for human improvement.

Yes, I am talking about the prosecution of personality disorders. I am talking about the phenomenon in which the worst of the sinners – people with no compassion or love or forbearance – deigned to define which people were fit to live, posing as protectors of public sanity and pretending as though the public as well as themselves did not possess these or related sins. With sociopathic cruelty, narcissistic lack of compassion, borderline manipulation and histrionic hysteria-mongering, the prosecutors of personality disorders abused, slandered and maligned people whom they could portray as possessing a personality disorder. They portrayed them as, essentially, wrongly made – which means that in effect they were playing God, accusing a subset of the population of being wrong by design and pretending as though in so labeling them and bringing on them a vicious treatment they and the ones that believed them were not committing a graver sin than the accused.

Needless to say, that is not consistent with the principles that founded America. That is not remotely consistent with the spirit of courage, innovation and liberty that have made this country great. The people who claim to speak for society did not create the individual, nor did they create planet Earth and the Sun. And yet they claim the right to define people as legitimate or not legitimate. As the government minded its principles of laissez-faire, the most vicious hysteria swept the country, leaving behind spuriously destroyed careers, people spuriously jailed and innocent people consigned to hells of confusion, self-abuse and despair. While the government minded its business, an unofficial tyranny grew up in the nation – a tyranny that deigned to define for itself what people had right and had no right to live, to love, to be successful and to consider themselves worthy of existence.

As the government in America applies to itself moral standards and subjects itself to checks-and-balances that prevent it from tyrannizing the population, so must the society of America likewise be subjected to checks-and-balances that prevent it from orchestrating an unofficial tyranny in the name of feminism or psychology. Rather than seeing itself as an end in and of itself, with power to define which citizen has right to live and to love, society must be seen instead as a tool – as a part in a greater, more noble and more inspired entity that is the civilization, an entity that understands and quantifies both the natural and the uniquely human quality of humanity, an entity that, in deference to this dual human nature, applies to the society as well as to its members an inspired moral standard of beautiful living, fair interaction, integrative synergistic collaboration between entities bottom-up and top-down, and artistic bounty and scientific progress that enhances the quality of the world in which we live and the lives of its members. From the degrading status of social animal whose sole purpose is to adjust in the artificial social universe regardless of moral quality of its influences, man must be elevated philosophically into a being both natural and supernatural, a being capable of exercising the human prerogative – the prerogative to use the uniquely human quality that is inspiration and will to make the best of himself and of his environment; to ennoble life. The crust of the pomegranate must be checked lest it destroy the seeds – and the entire fruit must be seen as a whole, as an entity combining the individual and society, as an entity that needs to be the best possible in itself and makes the most of its members while affording them, through a wise combination of their own efforts, the best possible existence.

Through seeing society as a tool toward making possible a civilization – an entity that makes the most of both individual and society, with individual and society united in balanced dynamic equilibrium, through interlocking patterns of competition and cooperation, toward making the best of each component and of the whole – is achieved the best of the social universe. Society stops being omnipotent and is checked to its legitimate parameters. Noble principles and ideals inform people’s behavior and make the most of people, elevating their interaction from paranoid nitpicking toward shared pursuit of the pareto-optimal world – a world that minds and honors both the natural and the supernatural; both the self-interested and the altruistic; both the artistic and the scientific; both the animal and the soul; both the competitive and the cooperative; and through the mechanism of high-minded synergistic interaction arrives at the best possible outcome for the individual and for mankind.

Part 9. Nature and Humanity

On the issue of environment and civilization, the Western society is torn between two lines of thought. One is the unconditional growth of the civilization, whatever the consequences for the planet and for the future generations. The other is a reaction against it: a return-to-the-roots hippie environmentalism that seeks to destroy the civilization and return to natural existence.

Right now, the two work together in what I consider the worst possible manner. The first group engages in reckless plunder, while the second group, being powerless to stop the plunder, instead attacks the good things that come from the civilization and the good things that civilization can achieve. Instead of keeping the first group from driving millions of species into extinction, it instead plays upon the culturally endemic fear of thought, innovation and human intelligence to fan hysterias about scientific advances, whether they consist of genetically modified corn or cloning or stem-cell research or the Human Genome Project.

I believe that both are doing grave wrong. Nature contains tremendous variety and richness, and to drive millions of species into extinction in a shortsighted pursuit of profit is to destroy what is irreplaceable to pay for temporary enrichment of the enterprise at the price of permanent destruction of riches the enterprise cannot possibly replace. Like suicide, it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem; and if it continues unchecked, the result will indeed be a permanent planetary suicide.

However, to stand in the way of research that can lead to more sustainable farming, cures for genetic illnesses, cures for paralysis and cancer, and synthesis of bacteria that can break down plastics and styrofoams with which the civilization has been poisoning the planet, is to do a still graver wrong: To deny humanity the tools it's been given to solve the problems that it has created, to make its life (and the life of the planet) rich and sustainable, and to create a civilization that is an improvement on nature and not a degradation.

The atavistic types shout about the scientific experimentation that seeks to create new life-forms or resurrect ones that people have driven into extinction. They did not shout when people used DDT and Agent Orange to poison everything around them, nor when people created enough nuclear weapons to kill the world seven times over, nor when Amazonian ranchers kill thousands of species of plants and animals every year. Why this grating, atavistic hypocrisy? Why is it OK to destroy but not to create, to pillage nature and not to improve on nature, to murder but not to heal and resurrect? It is my belief that this comes from the same place as the saying that "beauty is only skin-deep, but ugliness goes down to the bone" and that "to err is human" - from the cultural notion that evil in human beings is to be expected but good is to be suspected; that destructiveness, violence, stupidity and short-sightedness is a necessary part of the human makeup but thought, innovation and inspiration is not. It comes, I believe, from the fact that most people have never been taught to think creatively and inventively, and they can identify with ugliness and destructiveness in the human nature - the ugliness and destructiveness which they've known since taking their first breath - but cannot rise to embrace the human ability to understand, to envision, to create and to solve.

In dividing the human beings into the "leavers" who live as part of nature and "takers" who live in the face of nature, Daniel Quinn separated the two aspects of human being: A being that lives in nature and follows the laws of nature and a being that shapes and creates out of its will, intelligence and self-awareness. I believe that both the leavers and the takers are a necessary part of the human makeup, and that the beneficial outcome comes neither from return-to-the-soil atavism nor from turning the world into a giant strip mall. I believe that there is good in the leaver mentality and there is good in the taker mentality, and that the two need to work together in an integrative synthesis - in a synergy - that makes the best of both.

The good done in service of leaver mentality comes most starkly in form of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist who risked her life many times to plant millions of trees in her country - an action that allowed Kenya to escape the fate of Haiti and other countries that had ignorantly driven their forests into extinction to pay for slash-and-burn farming and in so doing condemned themselves to sickness and poverty. To resurrect rainforest where it has been pillaged - to bring back natural richness to places in which it once has existed - is a prudent, inspired and ethical project that will preserve Planet Earth for future generations and for the life to come. The Reagan official who said, "If you've seen one tree, you've seen them all" can be answered quite simply, "If you've seen one Republican, you've seen them all." And to say out of that consideration that it is right to kill off thousands of species of trees, many containing useful medicinal qualities, is as damnable as to say that one should kill off all Republicans.

The good done in service of the taker mentality comes from innovators: From people who've created cars, airplanes, computers, spaceships, Internet, representative democracy, antibiotics and masterpieces such as the Sistine Chapel and the Empire State Building. It comes from people who use the unique inventive capacity in the human being to produce work that beautifies the world and improves people's lives. It comes from anyone who's ever had an original idea, anyone who's ever contributed something intelligent and creative, anyone who produced something good that has not existed before. Humanity has all it needs, not only to survive long-term, but also to manifest all the good things that live in the mind and psyche. To create a civilization that's an improvement on nature and not a degradation.

What am I proposing then? I propose taking the best of the Leaver mentality and the best of the Taker mentality and making them work together in an integrative synthesis. I propose preserving the planet for the future and repeating the feat of Wangari Maathai all over the world; and I propose using the human ingenuity to create a beautiful civilization - a civilization that builds upon nature, that improves upon nature, and that draws from the endless well of human ingenuity and intelligence to make our world the richest, most happy, most beautiful world it can be. It is to produce masterpieces - masterpieces artistic, scientific, medical, social and technological - that use the best in the human mind to create the best possible civilization. And, in synergy with the nature as it is kept from being mindlessly plundered, arrive at a planet that has the best of nature and the best of civilization, with nature in all its richness and color remaining alive and humanity building on top of it a civilization equal to all the richness, color and inspiration that has been imparted mankind.

Part 10. Utility of Art and Golden Age

The aesthetic product of the civilization constitutes its justification, consummation, and flowering. It is the thing from which the civilization derives its fame. A species of plants is shown in the botany books as its flower; it is the art of the civilization that goes in the museum thousands of years since its demise. The past civilizations we know exist to us through their artifacts and their writings; a Bible, a book of Plato or a Mayan pyramid is far more relevant to modern man than the commercial bosses of Judaic tribes, the generals who conducted Pelopponnessian Wars or the political history of the Mayas. Thus art and literature, far from being an impractical luxury, is rather the consummation of the endeavor of the civilization and its mark on the world. Artistic beauty conveys to future generation the mastery, elegance, talent, resources, vision and values that existed in the society. Art is the trace we leave behind in the world; our flowering, our consummation, our justification. And our architecture and engineering that we produce are also our mark both for the present and future generations, and as such they must be the most beautiful and tastefully designed possible, both for the sake of their inhabitants and for the sake of national pride. Beauty takes effort and talent to cultivate and as such deserves respect and protection; both in honor of the effort it took to produce it – because it is the flowering of the civilization – and because it has uplifting, enriching, ennobling effect on the inhabitants of the world; the effect of increasing the aesthetic in a manner congruent with the ethical, and thus increasing the area of intersection of ethical and aesthetic – increasing the chances for happiness.

The people who believe artistic beauty to be impractical are people who have abdicated the human prerogative – the human will’s role in shaping the world in which we live. Artistic beauty becomes practical when people value beauty and make concerted effort to make their environment beautiful and to adopt beauty as an existent within their lives, in the same way that happy relationships become practical when people’s likes and values are in accord and reflected in the partner. Artistic beauty is practical enough in Paris and San Francisco, whose inhabitants value beauty and produce architecture and artwork that reflects the best talent and striving of man and woman. And it is Paris and San Francisco, not Bologna or St. Louis, that people around the world travel to see and their civilizations recommend as their crowning glory. Art becomes practical and realistic, when people make a conscious effort to make art a part of the practical reality of their lives. And through cultivating inner beauty in people, artistic beauty creates an area of intersection in people’s minds between the ethical and the aesthetic, thus increasing their chances for happiness.

The sharing of this inner beauty becomes part of a most noble enterprise – that of formation of a happy and beautiful world. Through sharing of inner beauty, people arrive at beautiful relationships – relationships that endure with help of compassion and self-extension – with help of understanding of one’s own and other person’s inner reality and graciously accepting the other while demanding the best of oneself. As art cultivates inner beauty in people, there is more beauty inside to share and use to enrich the life of the other and enrich the relationship. The area of intersection between the ethical and the aesthetic becomes the centerpiece of the relationship; people share inner beauty and through that mechanism achieve for each other a beautiful world. Each love relationship then becomes a unit, a parcel, in formation of a beautiful civilization; a civilization in which love and beauty is a daily reality and in which people live happily.

There are ideologies that say love to be impractical or an escape from reality. Far rather, it is a result of sharing of real inner and outer beauty, using the reality of the human condition – the reality that we shape the world we inhabit – to make possible beautiful outcomes in reality of our lives. We are the shapers of the reality of our lives. Love becomes a reality of our lives when we choose to make it such – when we strive with our whole beings, the real will, the real mind, the real emotions, to make our lives reflect the reality of love. Love is a part of the reality of people’s lives, when they choose to make it a reality. The real mechanism is the sharing of inner and outer beauty; the real result is a beautiful world - a world that is also happy when the ethical and the aesthetic aspects of human condition find an area of intersection.

Through art, is achieved beautification of emotions – their ennoblement and their formation into shapes that are developed and accord with the best of human intelligence. Through sharing of this inner beauty in relationships, is achieved a beautiful world.

To the Darwinians who believe that life is all about survival, the response is: If that were true, life would never have evolved beyond the stage of the bacillus, the creature that can survive anywhere on Earth. Nature is brimming with creativity; with passion, with beauty, with inspiration, with thought, with imagination, with sensuousness, with love. Nature is a testimony that the creator of the Universe, if there is such a thing, is not a being solely of command and logic but rather a being that is also sensuous, a being that is also passionate, imaginative and inspired – and to those who do not believe in a creator, the response is: Nature is a testimony that passion, creativity and sensuousness is inextricable from the known universe. And thus development of passion, imagination and inspiration is a pious act, an act that is also realistic, an act that puts us in touch with the way the universe operates and makes it known to our hearts.

A side note on rationalism – the belief that the Universe is rational, and through rational method of inquiry we can arrive at universal truth - is that it is a philosophy that seeks to project upon the entire Universe the method of rational logic that is one function of human cognition – in much the same way as Hegel projects upon the Universe the dialectic that is another form of conducting inquiry. Both can therefore be seen to be an absurd case of hubris – of seeing the entire Universe to represent the way of cognition with which one is most familiar – until one asks whereby such functions exist in the human mind. For if the Creator of the Universe is as perfect as Bible states, then certainly He will place in His creatures the mechanisms of cognition with which they can understand His creation and approximate Him through analysis of Him as reflected within the creation – and in this case, both rationalism and dialectical systems, and also inspiration, insight, and romantic passion would be useful in apprehending the Universe, even if neither may do so completely. If we have evolved, then linear logic as well as the dialectic, and also passion and inspiration, are features of human species – ones that can be employed to its benefit or to its harm - but that are regardless in no way demonstrative of the truth of the Universe, merely of advantage of survival therein – unless, that is, the very process of evolution has allowed over time for the structure of the Universe to be built into the mechanism of the brain, with all its multifarious complexity creating different mechanisms which are congruent with different aspects of the universal whole and are useful for comprehending its different parts.

The contention of the second verse of Tao Te Ching that in conceiving of beauty we create a duality that manifests ugliness is manifestly false. Beauty is an axiomatic concept, one that exists in and of itself and neither requires its opposite to exist nor manifests in its opposite when thought about. A tiger is beautiful, regardless of whether or not there is an ugly animal in the ecosystem; nature produces beauty continuously without giving a second thought as to its opposite. And in human existence, beautiful environments like San Francisco and beautiful artifacts like Sistine Chapel are created by people deliberately striving to produce beauty; ugly environments like Beaumont, TX, Khartoum or Soviet-built cities consisting of 5-story mid-rises are created by people who do not care about beauty and concentrate solely on utility. The people who strive for beauty, produce beauty; they do not produce ugliness. Rather ugliness is a result of failure to include aesthetic consideration in our activities – a result of failure to strive to produce beauty.

The contention of Taoism – that the phenomenal world is a duality that consists of interaction of opposite forces, forces such as yin and yang or day and night – is an interesting ideology. However, the concept is perverted when the Westerner adds to these components the concept of good and evil. Quite simply, evil is not a legitimate force; it is an aberration, a case of something gone wrong. Same with ugliness; same with disease. A distinction has to be made between legitimate existents – existents such as reason and emotion, or competition and cooperation, or individual and society, which can work together toward creation of best products – and illegitimate existents such as disease and evil, existents that in no way improve the world in which we live. A legitimate synergy, or dialectic, is one between legitimate existents. Not all claimed existents are legitimate.

Integrationism is a reversal of Taoism. Whereas Taoism seeks to see through the duality to the true, non-dual, universal essence, integrationism gives the human being the role of craftsman and artisan, using the two aspects of the duality to craft and to integrate into ever-new, ever-more-interesting products. The parts of the duality are seen as raw materials from which man sculpts with his intelligence and his inspiration creations that are better than sum of their parts. Thus, reason and emotions are both given room to exist and then integrated into an artifact; nature and civilization are given room to exist side by side and then to together create a world that contains the best of both. Likewise in pursuance of integrationism, government and business, man and woman, humanities and science, individual and society, competition and cooperation, and all other aspects of human existence, are allowed to exist and then work together to create, using the mechanism of human craftsmanship, the product that is the best consummation of all.

It is said that beauty is only skin-deep, but ugliness goes down to the bone. That is entirely not the case; a woman who’s beautiful, loving, compassionate, soulful and artistic – who constantly finds beauty around her and portrays it in her artwork - is beautiful all the way through, while many people who look bad at one point in their life can look good at another, as has been the case with Yours Truly. The myth that beauty is shallow is a lie based on limited understanding; there is nothing shallow about Michelangelo’s work, nor about Yosemite Park, nor about Paris or Barcelona. True natural beauty is a flower of the universe; true manmade beauty is a flower of the civilization. Manmade beauty requires talent and effort and deserves the highest respect, in the same way as natural beauty deserves protection.

Through cultivation of inner and outer beauty with help of art, poetry and philosophy, and its ongoing sharing among people, is created a beautiful world for people to inhabit. A world in which art is as practical and formative as production is now; a world in which people live beautifully, think beautifully, interact beautifully and are beautiful inside and out. Sri Aurobindo’s ideal – that the substance of moral endeavor is to make one’s whole life beautiful – becomes enshrined in the lives of the people; and the goal of all moral science – to arrive at the merger of ethical and aesthetic, with the aesthetic informing the ethical into optimal shapes and the ethical informing the aesthetic into morally justifiable action – is thereby achieved, arriving at the integrity of the civilization and the practical happiness of its populace. And Baudellaire’s cry – “Make life beautiful, make life beautiful” – becomes formative of the civilization, motivating people into creating a life beautiful inside and out. Which, by increasing the area of intersection between the ethical and the aesthetic, leads to happiness.

Oscar Wilde said that we have been given a world which only our folly prevents from being a paradise. The paradise is achieved when one lives at the area of intersection of reason and emotion, or ethical and aesthetic – the area at which beauty in all its forms can be achieved and shared. The result is happiness and ongoing ecstasy. Which lasts for as long as people can make it last – sometimes a lifetime, sometimes a few months, sometimes a tracer that points to a world as it can be – and is never forgotten, motivating the person to either attempt to recreate it or wait for it in another lifetime.

The belief widespread in many of the world’s religions that the things that happen do so by the will of God, or that all power comes from God, is as easy to turn on its head as is postmodernism. If everything is done by the will of God, then the changes that the leader, or the revolutionary, or the influential figure whether or not approved by the religion, makes in the social order by exercising his mind and his will is also will of God. Which means that, with any changes made to the social order, the religious people will have to live because it is will of God. Deifying the status quo means that any status quo - even the one created by people who are not part of the religion - is divinely ordained, and governments such as those of Communist China or Mussolini’s Italy or Chavez’s Venezuela are there because God willed them to be there. Thus, the success by whatever means at getting the power means that God is on one’s side; a tenet that is at best Machiavellian and at worst sociopathic. The logical action, given such beliefs, is to take power by whatever means and keep it by whatever means – an action that, in places that exercise such beliefs, more than a few people took and were thereafter justified by religions as having taken.

The status quo at any given point in history is an amalgamation of influences, some good, some bad. The people who practice the aforementioned belief claim that spiritual advancement consists of accepting the world as is, whatever its influences. This kind of mentality negates man’s highest faculty – the faculty of moral choice. A human being has the moral prerogative to determine what influences are right and what influences are wrong. He accepts what is right and fights what he knows to be wrong. It is due to this process that has been achieved the best of the status quo, and it is through this process that a status quo worthy of human habitation can continue to be achieved.

The spiritual belief that ego or mind is something to be overcome is therefore a fallacy. It is in man’s ego and in man’s mind that moral choices are made, and it is man’s ego and man’s mind that motivate man to achieve and take risks and perform courageous, innovative action to benefit self and others. To eviscerate ego is to eviscerate man and to render him incapable of moral choice and constructive action that benefits the world. The Western civilization is a product of hundreds of millions of minds and egos striving courageously to create the best possible world; and to deny the ego and the mind is to deny the Western civilization.

If the theory of evolution is true, then rationalism - search for universal truth in reason - and romanticism - search for universal truth in emotions - are both legitimate enterprises, as both have evolved for the best outcome of the species. If people have been created by a perfect creator, the same holds true, as in both the reason and the emotion is the mark of the Creator. However, both rationalism and romanticism by themselves have been shown to produce garbage along the way. Rationalism by itself produces dry, heartless, hateful and mean people who have no wonder in their hearts or compassion for fellow man - people who think that machines are superior to human beings and that passion as well as compassion are manifestation of inferior functions; people who would willingly sacrifice the lives and the future of everyone in their vicinity in order to make a better gadget or serve eugenics. Romanticism by itself produces people who are moved by every emotion that they may have and lead chaotic lives. Both, however, have also produced great results as well: Rationalism, scientific and technological progress; romanticism, beautiful literature and art. And in the concept of universal consciousness, rationalism and romanticism merged to arrive at a conclusion discerned, from one side, by quantum mechanics, and from the other side by mysticism and literature: the conclusion of cosmic consciousness, that led to the belief that the new age was coming – but which new age has taken time to come.

I suggest a better model than the New Age. I suggest the model of synergy between the bottom-up and the top-down in the ultimate sense – the natural and supernatural in the human being; the integrative synthesis between animal and God; the dynamic harmony between man’s science and art and God’s revelation. The model of including both heaven and earth and applying both to achieve the best outcome of both levels of human existence, with the bottom-up result of human effort and the top-down revelation united in a synergy that understands, consummates, checks and extends itself to involve and make the most of both components and achieve the best synthetic products. The model of cultivating emotions with help of art and cultivating mind with help of science to create an understanding, both rational and emotional, that is true to the universe and that creates an area of intersection between the ethical and the aesthetic. The model of making our world a glory to God and to humanity, with the best qualities of each other working in dynamic synthesis with each other to achieve the outcome that is more than the sum of its parts – that is a product of man and God working together, with the invisible hand and the deliberate purposeful action balancing each other and making each other complete. Resulting in a dignified, ennobled, fully human and divinely inspired existence that allows people to be human beings and creatures of God at once, through their thought, inspiration, passion and revelation both competitively and cooperatively – both self-interestedly and altruistically – both individually and socially - both in business and in government – both in science and in art – both in worldly matters and in religion - making a Pareto-optimal situation that is the best world possible: the world of progress, beauty, goodness, nobility, mutual understanding and dynamic harmony leading in multidimensional synergy toward ever better outcomes for the universe and for mankind.

* “People who compromise what they believe in to satisfy their goals wind up dissatisfied with their accomplishments. If you do not believe yourself to be moral, satisfaction is unattainable” – The 100 Secrets of Happy People, David Niven