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Tag Archives: humanism

FTAC: Despots – Different Talks –> Same Walk!

05 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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absolute power, authoritarianism, despotism, dictatorship, dignity, freedom, humanism, malignant narcissism, political psychology

Different talks — same walk! When it comes to dictators, all are malignant narcissists.

Many want to keep repeating old arguments, especially, yawn, “communism v capitalism” but the truth is more like “sweet words — foul deeds”.

Add incitement, the role played by anti-Semitic cant and libel by despots through the ages.

In the eastern tradition too — I have in mind the Golden Horde — there appears to have been no difference in treatment between persons and property, and, in fact, for some (reference Richard Pipes books on Russian history) proof of sovereignty might be made to lie in the senseless destruction of either with impunity. And I would cite as another characteristic of the “authoritarian” breed the ability to visit suffering on others at will and with impunity.

On the street, they’re bullies; in office, presidents for life.


–33–

FTAC: Old Worn Out Arguments About Nothing That Needs to Exist Purely

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Philosophy, Politics

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absolutism v democratic distribution, humanism, medieval v modern, political criminality, political philosophy, political responsibility

As long as the terms are black v white / capitalism v communism-socialism, the conversation seems bound to be boxed in or circular as well as suffocated by events and personalities locked in the past and best left there as well. A better springboard would be to query the character and nature of potential political power as groomed today and whether “power” needs be responsible power.

I’ve tried this framing: “Feudal Political Absolutism v Democratic Checked and Distributed Power”.

It’s too much of a mouthful but fully observable in Syria, east v west “contests”, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the rifts of the Islamic Small Wars. All involve feudal personalities applying martial power to plowing forward into the more dismal regions of their own political pasts.


I’m a little lazy now and this summer believe I should be reading (on deck: Goldman’s Lord of the Flies, Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson), settling down, regathering myself for what beyond my 60+ years looks like a still daunting and frightening future for myself and tens of millions of Americans as well as the middle classes and the surviving and struggling of the nations worldwide.  Time seems to have produced too many drowning in arms and drugs, directly related insecurity against depredation, general economic dissolution and isolation, and general political miasma and upheaval.

–33–

From October 2017: Emir of Kano Lamido Sanusi II, Nigeria, on Economic Disparity

12 Saturday May 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, foreign aid, International Development, Nigeria, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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banking, communitarian politics, conservative progressive politics, economic development, economic disparity, economic distribution, free trade, human agency and choice, humanism, Kano Lamido Sanusi II, leadership, liberal economics, Nigeria, post-colonial Africa, values


Amen!

Conversation welcomed.

–33–

FTAC: A Comment on America’s Deep Polarization

03 Thursday May 2018

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics

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American political cohesion, American political polarization, humanism, political extremism, post-Enlightenment, Russian paternal authoritarianism, secularism

The Left is the achievement of Western enlightenment.

Recall the authoritarian and reactionary governance in place that involved hundreds of years of warfare between politically absolute monarchies and the development of a mercantile class powerful enough, eventually, to stand up for their own interests and security.

The Soviet / post-Soviet Far Left indeed continued the Russian historical experience with paternal authoritarianism — and, of course, it built on the secret police organization established by Nicholas II (the Okhrana). The rest is more or less KGB history and a long history of motivating or driving politics based on the amplification of the victimization of numerous groups thrown beneath the wheels of history — or believing themselves so.

The formerly moderate Left’s — or “cultural left’s” — embrace of humanism, secularism, the broadest freedom possible for persons (as opposed to, say, impersonal “headcount”) is echoed in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We were raised to believe in Man and Reason and great possibilities. It’s from the Russian side and, in part, the 19th Century and earlier portions of the 20th that we seem approving of authoritarianism and thuggery, frankly, in now polarized Left and Right camps.

One may suppose the center has not held — and we have forgotten many of the good things we as Americans were to embrace.


Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

–33–

FTAC: Have South African Communists Set an Example for the Suffering of Mexico?

22 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Political Psychology, Politics

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empathy, humanism, Mexico, New Communism, political criminality, political integrity, social conscience, South Africa, virtue

Inspiration: the briefest tirade against systemic corruption with other parts of the conversation previously referencing the agony of Mexico between the slave wages of the “maquiladora” and the brutality of the narcotics and other trafficking business.


I’ve just spent an hour struggling to deliver the answer, the prescription, that magic elixir in thought that would derail the wicked and cleanse the land with decency in law and the power to maintain the best conditions for economic, physical, political, psychological, and spiritual well being for all The People.

Naturally, I thought of the Communists of South Africa.

http://ewn.co.za/2017/11/18/mapaila-zuma-has-sold-out-the-country (Manyathela, Clement.  “Mapiala: Zuma has sold out the country.”  Eyewitness News (late 2017).

—
Jacob Zuma had taken millions in British development support to build for himself a compound fit for a king, and in the way of similar autocrats / malignant narcissists, he had developed renown for favors to family and friends. His latest turn was toward the Black Nationalism made so clearly successful (I kid about that) by Robert Mugabe next door in Zimbabwe.

For reasons I cannot explain, but perhaps today’s SA Communist Party will, Zuma’s corruption was found, alas, unappealing by those who were supposed to love him most of all.

My best hope for Mexico will be that the possession of conscience and empathy prove evolutionary even in the worst of gangsters, and that some forms of evil diminish because the criminals in the boardrooms and out on the streets may lose the respect of their children while also finding societies, somewhere, that for all their money and power won’t have them.

If I could time travel back in history, I would have liked to have spent an afternoon fly fishing with Andrew Carnegie and then a couple of hours over scotch AFTER he had given up his position and turned to philanthropy.

I would not have liked to have spent any time with Mr. Frick.


In what must be the weirdest way of the web and Facebook, this wonderfully supportive piece for evolutionary improvement in “self-awareness, social awareness” and moral sense arrived on my desktop:

Arnhart, Larry.  “Von Economo Nuerons: The Neural Basis for Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, and the Moral Sense?”  Darwinian Conservatism, December 14, 2017.

Spindle neurons are also called von Economo neurons (VENs), because Constantin von Economo provided the first comprehensive description of these neurons in 1925 (Seeley et al. 2012). It was not until the end of the 20th century, however, that comparative neurologists began to study VENs as special neurons that might be part of what explains the evolutionary uniqueness of the human mind.

VENs appear in the brains of only a few species. They are present in gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans, although in numbers smaller than for humans. They are also found in the brains of whales, dolphins, and elephants. Thus, VENs are associated with species that have large brains, which suggests the possibility that VENs facilitate speedy communication of neural signals over neural networks scattered over large brains. VENs are also associated with species that have complex social lives and that show mirror self-awareness (recognizing themselves in mirrors).

BackChannels natural interest: the cultivation of empathy in our species and concomitant possession of conscience and related good will and good spirit.

–33–

Battered, Jaded, Numbed? Here’s An Old Tonic

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journal, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Psychology

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decency, Don Quixote, humanism, idealism, universalism

As have many days for many years, this one started with a glimpse at conflict and crime news, some searched up, some by way of Facebook forum conversations: Mexico’s national addiction to drugs and money (in that order); a look at human trafficking — it appears China receives from Columbia a steady stream of duped women to be forced into prostitution and then takes little action against the trade.

Web surfers visiting here have probably had their own fill of experience or news — or both — vomited up from the evil and ugly world.  For those so offended but in themselves good and noble and perhaps in need of a refreshed idealism and inspiration, I offer an old memory.

Here’s a trailer.

And here — from another company — the greater quotation.


Related On the Web

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/08/20/richard-kiley-at-55-the-once-and-present-man-of-la-mancha/30d559ae-bac1-47f6-b7f4-cffc93304468/ – 8/20/1977

https://www.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1088321 — 11/21/2015 Message board topic: 50th anniversary of the musical.

–33–

FTAC: “Is there an ‘American’ cemetery somewhere?”

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by commart in American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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Equality in Legacy, humanism, Legacies, secularism, United States of America, USA

Abraham Lincoln Statue, Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor's Center, November 8, 2010

Abraham Lincoln Statue, Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor’s Center, November 8, 2010, (c)2010 James S. Oppenheim

I’m an American of Jewish descent and the last name tells of a small wine-making town on the Rhine. Perhaps growing up the proper noun-based cultural infusions in the development of self-concept shaped whatever it is I’ve become, but had those details been missing, would I have gravitated toward writing, music, photography, and, later, blogging?

In the democratic modern mode, there’s a lot more going on in the “mixing” of the person — multiple influences and variables — and in many ways we choose our character and if not for better — I’ve been handed some things . . . haven’t made a good life or at least picket-fence-and 2.5 children template of the “American Dream” — then at least for the possession of integrity, an authentic existence, which I think ultimately a good thing.

In other modes — authoritarian, medieval, Orwellian — legacy may indeed fix in place the future.

On the left sidebar of my blog are in essence listed my values —
https://conflict-backchannels.com/

We should be able to enjoy our respective ethnolinguistic and other legacies in heritage by finding for ourselves what is noble in survival and scrapping and shrugging away and tucking in the miseries of the past. For everyone: something happened back there — so what needs to happen to produce a better experience in living, personal and community-wide, tomorrow?

I don’t know where I want to be buried anymore.

Is there an “American” cemetery somewhere?


Who are your people?

My people are Americans.

–33–

FTAC: Islam, God, Nature, the Universe, and 7,000 Languages: A Note and Declaration

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Political Psychology, Religion

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American Secular Humanism, equality, humanism, Islam, religion, religion and language, secular humanism, Torah, validation and invalidation of scripture

” . . . remember that I have bestowed favours upon you . . .”

Is that God?

Is that God and the Prophet?

” . . . remember that WE have bestowed favours upon you . . . .”

Mohammed will proclaim that the Jews perverted the Torah, but the Jews — and let’s acknowledge that the Torah has been “set” in history (okay, it was a committee) and then transcribed by hand on parchment in Hebrew for every living Torah letter by letter by scribes devoted to that extraordinary and regimented art — may claim that not one letter of the Torah has been altered through the ages . . . through the ocean of time between finality and what is read today.

What is “supersession” but a political attempt to “one-up” the Torah and claim final authority in the interest of personal aggrandizement and enrichment?

No Moses?

No Muhammad.

No Constantine?

No Church of Rome.

Frankly, I blame Hillel the Elder for striving to make Judaism accessible to the “restive of Rome”.

He succeeded.

But the Romans, whatever they were, were not necessarily Jewish in soul. They could and did abandon the Pantheon of the Gods (good thing), but they needed the symbols of the divine as Divine.

And oh ye Muslims . . .ye cannot brag the slaughter of the Banu Qurayza on one hand and convincingly tell of “no compulsion” on the other.

It doesn’t wash.

I’m an American of Jewish descent — an American Secular Humanist.

I appreciate the full range of thought about God, nature, and the universe, and much the appreciate today the fewer than 7,000 living languages into which our thoughts have been packed, each language representing an isolated People’s way of inventing responses to their own environmental and social challenges.


If I were drawing salary as an academic or writer, I would embark on a lengthy period of research and discussion about “modernity”, humanism, comparative religion, and multiculturalism.  However, unpaid, occasionally validated, I may leave the above to stand as it stands.

Here is the renowned but under-publicized Daniel Everett on his experience with Christianity, primitives, language, and faith:

Everett’s terrific, a capable scholar of unquestionable integrity.

–33–

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Epigram

Hillel the Elder

"That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and study."

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?"

"Whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

Oriana Fallaci
"Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon...I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born."

Talmud 7:16 as Quoted by Rishon Rishon in 2004
Qohelet Raba, 7:16

אכזרי סוף שנעשה אכזרי במקום רחמן

Kol mi shena`asa rahaman bimqom akhzari Sof shena`asa akhzari bimqom rahaman

All who are made to be compassionate in the place of the cruel In the end are made to be cruel in the place of the compassionate.

More colloquially translated: "Those who are kind to the cruel, in the end will be cruel to the kind."

Online Source: http://www.rishon-rishon.com/archives/044412.php

Abraham Isaac Kook

"The purely righteous do not complain about evil, rather they add justice.They do not complain about heresy, rather they add faith.They do not complain about ignorance, rather they add wisdom." From the pages of Arpilei Tohar.

Heinrich Heine
"Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned." -- From Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).

Simon Wiesenthal
Remark Made in the Ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria on the occasion of His 90th Birthday: "The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing."

Maimonides
"Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it."

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."

Douglas Adams
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Epigram appearing in the dedication of Richard Dawkins' The GOD Delusion.

Thucydides
"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."

Milan Kundera
"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Malala Yousafzai
“The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

Tanit Nima Tinat
"Who could die of love?"

What I Have Said About the Jews

My people, not that I speak for them, I nonetheless describe as a "global ethnic commune with its heart in Jerusalem and soul in the Land of Israel."

We have never given up on God, nor have we ever given up on one another.

Many things we have given up, but no one misses, say, animal sacrifice, and as many things we have kept, so we have still to welcome our Sabbath on Friday at sunset and to rest all of Saturday until three stars appear in the sky.

Most of all, through 5,773 years, wherever life has taken us, through the greatest triumphs and the most awful tragedies, we have preserved our tribal identity and soul, and so shall we continue eternally.

Anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism = Signal of Fascism

I may suggest that anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism are signal (a little bit) of fascist urges, and the Left -- I'm an old liberal: I know my heart -- has been vulnerable to manipulation by what appears to me as a "Red Brown Green Alliance" driven by a handful of powerful autocrats intent on sustaining a medieval worldview in service to their own glorification. (And there I will stop).
One hopes for knowledge to allay fear; one hopes for love to overmatch hate.

Too often, the security found in the parroting of a loyal lie outweighs the integrity to be earned in confronting and voicing an uncomfortable truth.

Those who make their followers believe absurdities may also make them commit atrocities.

Positively Orwellian: Comment Responding to Claim that the Arab Assault on Israel in 1948 Had Not Intended Annihilation

“Revisionism” is the most contemptible path that power takes to abet theft and hide shame by attempting to alter public perception of past events.

On Press Freedom, Commentary, and Journalism

In the free world, talent -- editors, graphic artists, researchers, writers -- gravitate toward the organizations that suit their interests and values. The result: high integrity and highly reliable reportage and both responsible and thoughtful reasoning.

This is not to suggest that partisan presses don't exist or that propaganda doesn't exist in the west, but any reader possessed of critical thinking ability and genuine independence -- not bought, not programmed -- is certainly free to evaluate the works of earnest reporters and scholars.

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