Here is the key question, that answers many others...
Are you an independent individual, beholden to none, or are you a member of:
a community
a race
a religion
an ethnicity
a culture
a world society
mankind
a people
a public
a generation
a citizenry
a nation
a country
a clan
a family
a sect
a civilization
to which, or to other members of which, to some extent or other, you are beholden to act, think, speak, a certain prescribed, preferred way, without the power to choose to unbeholden yourself.
All political and ethical views and perspectives rest on the answer to that question, verbalized or not. More that anything else, the answer to that question sets the tone of your life and determines your character.
To be beholden or not to be beholden...that is the question.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
ART, ALL ABOUT
I wrote recently about the lack of art in much of America's architecture. Then I came across this collection of U.S. postage stamps I had bought a few years back. And the point I was making in the architecture piece became clearer from a different perspective.
The art in the stamps are not all great art, to be sure...though a few may be considered to be. But the point being made in the stamps to me is that if we but open our eyes, there is art all about us...in a couple dancing, in pomp and regalia, in a woman prettying herself and primping her son, in serene settings and in horseback riders in battle, in a soldier's return from war, in a child's inquisitiveness and a child's loving concern for the health of her doll.
Art and beauty are but one, and it is all about us. It is inherent in the world we live in, and in our individual universes. It can be found in a pebble on the path and in the brilliance of a thought, in the sounds of laughter and in the silence of prayer and meditation. It is in the air we breathe, the sweat on our brow, the love in our heart.
It is invisible only to the closed mind.
The art in the stamps are not all great art, to be sure...though a few may be considered to be. But the point being made in the stamps to me is that if we but open our eyes, there is art all about us...in a couple dancing, in pomp and regalia, in a woman prettying herself and primping her son, in serene settings and in horseback riders in battle, in a soldier's return from war, in a child's inquisitiveness and a child's loving concern for the health of her doll.
Art and beauty are but one, and it is all about us. It is inherent in the world we live in, and in our individual universes. It can be found in a pebble on the path and in the brilliance of a thought, in the sounds of laughter and in the silence of prayer and meditation. It is in the air we breathe, the sweat on our brow, the love in our heart.
It is invisible only to the closed mind.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
ARCHITEXTURELESS
I started to write this post by writing, "The state of American architecture is atrocious"...but I realized that is not true. American architecture is not atrocious, it is nonexistent.
Look around. Virtually every office building and store and home you will see are flat sided boxes, rectangular doorways and windows, with bricks or other nondescript siding piled squarely on top of each other. In other words, there is little, if any, art in our architecture. Perhaps rectangles make maximum use of space, and so our architecture, like much else in our society, is almost totally money driven. Shame if it is, because though money is a value, it may not be as much a value in the long run as art can be in our lives.
Driving around this afternoon, I was bombarded by building boredom to the point of nauseousness. I recalled vividly the artistically beautiful promenades and boulevards and avenidas, the porticos and terraces, the cobblestoned roadways, that I saw traveling throughout Portugal and Spain and Mallorca and Italy and Switzerland. Art, it seemed to me, was a critical part of European architecture. Buildings were every bit as functional as our boxes, but appealed as well to our emotions, to a sense of historical grandeur, and most importantly, to an uplifting of the human spirit.
Money flourishes in the world of concretes. We pay a heavy price if we fail to recognize our ongoing need for artistic and spiritual nourishment, as well...if not more.
Look around. Virtually every office building and store and home you will see are flat sided boxes, rectangular doorways and windows, with bricks or other nondescript siding piled squarely on top of each other. In other words, there is little, if any, art in our architecture. Perhaps rectangles make maximum use of space, and so our architecture, like much else in our society, is almost totally money driven. Shame if it is, because though money is a value, it may not be as much a value in the long run as art can be in our lives.
Driving around this afternoon, I was bombarded by building boredom to the point of nauseousness. I recalled vividly the artistically beautiful promenades and boulevards and avenidas, the porticos and terraces, the cobblestoned roadways, that I saw traveling throughout Portugal and Spain and Mallorca and Italy and Switzerland. Art, it seemed to me, was a critical part of European architecture. Buildings were every bit as functional as our boxes, but appealed as well to our emotions, to a sense of historical grandeur, and most importantly, to an uplifting of the human spirit.
Money flourishes in the world of concretes. We pay a heavy price if we fail to recognize our ongoing need for artistic and spiritual nourishment, as well...if not more.
ARE WE ENTERING A TIME WARP?
I understand that someone has designed a software program that can produce brand new Bach-like sonatas. It apparently is so good that experts cannot tell the difference between the music it generates and the real stuff.
Wow. Is more Rimsky-Korsakov, more Shakespeare, more Hugo, in our future? More Pavarotti, more Callas, more Sinatra? More Michelangelo. more DaVinci, more Rembrandt? Can we really resurrect the great minds of the past?
That set me to thinking. What the world truly and desperately needs more of now is wisdom and ethical guidance and direction. Can we design a program to give us more Aristotle and Solomon and Socrates and Confucius and Muhammad...more Mahatma Gandhi, more Martin Luther King, more Thomas Jefferson...to hear what they would say about the problems of today, to help us get back on course?
And if it is true as believed by many that the Bible was written with Divine guidance, can we get more God-inspired Bible, more Scripture, more pedagogy, more enlightenment?
Can we harvest the past to feed our future?
Can we?
Wow!
Wow. Is more Rimsky-Korsakov, more Shakespeare, more Hugo, in our future? More Pavarotti, more Callas, more Sinatra? More Michelangelo. more DaVinci, more Rembrandt? Can we really resurrect the great minds of the past?
That set me to thinking. What the world truly and desperately needs more of now is wisdom and ethical guidance and direction. Can we design a program to give us more Aristotle and Solomon and Socrates and Confucius and Muhammad...more Mahatma Gandhi, more Martin Luther King, more Thomas Jefferson...to hear what they would say about the problems of today, to help us get back on course?
And if it is true as believed by many that the Bible was written with Divine guidance, can we get more God-inspired Bible, more Scripture, more pedagogy, more enlightenment?
Can we harvest the past to feed our future?
Can we?
Wow!
Friday, March 5, 2010
BEWARE: INVERSION AT WORK
I had seen all those ads about credit management companies that claimed to be able to get your credit card interest rates, and in some case your principal, substantially reduced. I spoke with a few, settled on one that seemed more responsible, and then contacted my credit card companies to inquire if they knew of this company and would they recommend it.
Now here is when the surprising thing happened. All but one of the credit card companies, hearing that I might be working with a debt management company, immediately offered to reduce their high interest rates (one reaching 25%) to a more respectable 6%. One credit card company...a major major one...told me "Since your account is current, not in default (as none of my cards were), there is nothing we can do for you. But if you were in arrears, we could automatically reduce your interest rate, perhaps down to 2%."
"So," I said, "your company has it ass backwards. The good guys who pay their bills on time get no deal, the bad guys who are in default get a sweetheart deal." "Right," they said.
The inversion. Where I came from, the good guys were rewarded, the bad guys were not. And it was not just a mathematical thing: companies with good payers were invariably more profitable than the others. It was also a moral thing: those who honored their commitments, their agreements, were perceived of as deserving the better deals for that very reason. The guiding principle was "It is good to be good, bad to be bad".
Not so today. The reverse has taken hold. Those who put out the effort and prosper because of it are made to pay for those who don't. Criminals plea bargain or are given light sentences in some myopic view that that will help them change their ways, and those who obey the law are thus endangered. The drivers who drive at the speed limit are given a finger, the speeder is given a thumb's up. Beating the system, cutting corners, getting away with it, are today's ethical royalty.
That guffaw you hear on the sidelines is Reality laughing. Reality knows that embracing, rewarding, honoring the bad will come back to bite you a thousand times over because, try as hard as he may, man does not have the power to turn bad into good...though he forever tries to do so. The inevitable result of immorality is self-destruction.
So...do you pay your bills on time or do you join the herd?
Ha ha ha ha.
Now here is when the surprising thing happened. All but one of the credit card companies, hearing that I might be working with a debt management company, immediately offered to reduce their high interest rates (one reaching 25%) to a more respectable 6%. One credit card company...a major major one...told me "Since your account is current, not in default (as none of my cards were), there is nothing we can do for you. But if you were in arrears, we could automatically reduce your interest rate, perhaps down to 2%."
"So," I said, "your company has it ass backwards. The good guys who pay their bills on time get no deal, the bad guys who are in default get a sweetheart deal." "Right," they said.
The inversion. Where I came from, the good guys were rewarded, the bad guys were not. And it was not just a mathematical thing: companies with good payers were invariably more profitable than the others. It was also a moral thing: those who honored their commitments, their agreements, were perceived of as deserving the better deals for that very reason. The guiding principle was "It is good to be good, bad to be bad".
Not so today. The reverse has taken hold. Those who put out the effort and prosper because of it are made to pay for those who don't. Criminals plea bargain or are given light sentences in some myopic view that that will help them change their ways, and those who obey the law are thus endangered. The drivers who drive at the speed limit are given a finger, the speeder is given a thumb's up. Beating the system, cutting corners, getting away with it, are today's ethical royalty.
That guffaw you hear on the sidelines is Reality laughing. Reality knows that embracing, rewarding, honoring the bad will come back to bite you a thousand times over because, try as hard as he may, man does not have the power to turn bad into good...though he forever tries to do so. The inevitable result of immorality is self-destruction.
So...do you pay your bills on time or do you join the herd?
Ha ha ha ha.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
YOU DON'T HAVE TO
You don't have to live smartly.
You don't have to be prudent.
You don't have to live without risk.
You don't have to have health insurance.
You don't have to avoid junk food.
You don't have to invest wisely.
You don't have to vote.
You don't have to give charity.
You don't have to act a certain way, look a certain way, speak a certain way.
You only have to be free...free to do or not do all of those things and thousands of others, as you choose, without control by others.
Why must you be free? Because you are alive not as a pebble or a grain of sand but as a glorious wondrous human being and LIFE requires you to live in harmony with your nature as a human being. Failure to do so is a living DEATH.
In essence, it is this:
Humans = Composite of mind and body facing life and death alternative + conceptual faculty + capacity to choose = need to be free to act
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU MUST BE FREE, YOU SOON WILL NOT BE. AND THEN YOU'LL KNOW.
You don't have to be prudent.
You don't have to live without risk.
You don't have to have health insurance.
You don't have to avoid junk food.
You don't have to invest wisely.
You don't have to vote.
You don't have to give charity.
You don't have to act a certain way, look a certain way, speak a certain way.
You only have to be free...free to do or not do all of those things and thousands of others, as you choose, without control by others.
Why must you be free? Because you are alive not as a pebble or a grain of sand but as a glorious wondrous human being and LIFE requires you to live in harmony with your nature as a human being. Failure to do so is a living DEATH.
In essence, it is this:
Humans = Composite of mind and body facing life and death alternative + conceptual faculty + capacity to choose = need to be free to act
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHY YOU MUST BE FREE, YOU SOON WILL NOT BE. AND THEN YOU'LL KNOW.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
WHAT'S THE JOKE?
"Socialism", defined by the Random House Dictionary: "a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole". Every socialist country has slight variations as to what segment of the economy is to be taken over. But the underlying socialist precept is clear: the economy is community (via government) owned, and can be claimed by the government at any time. Individual rights are out, freedom is out. It is the capitalist free economy system that is built on those ideals.
The raging political question in the country is whether President Obama is a socialist...and of course, he is. His ardent desire and persistent efforts to take over and control America's health insurance industry (which probably really means our total health industry), the banking and related industries, the energy industry, etc. are all first steps in the implementation of a full socialist system in our country. And does he believe in freedom? Clearly not, when he believes the government has the legal power to force individuals to purchase insurance, whether they wish to or not, force companies to offer products and services on terms the government dictates, restrain companies from outsourcing the production of their products, penalize individuals for using the energy of their choice and for drinking the beverages of their choice. Clearly not, when he says income distribution is one of his goals...as if my money in some convoluted way belongs in part to others. And on and on.
Is not the cataclysmic change from a predominantly capitalist system to a predominantly socialist one, the hidden, unrevealed, change the President was promising when he campaigned to be dictator?
Is the reason so many in the country cannot seem to be able to call the President what he is, is that in America, socialism is a dirty word. Is that why Senator John McCain, when pointedly asked by George Stephanopoulis on tv this past weekend whether the President is a socialist, giggled like a child and refused to answer the question. This November, hopefully, Arizona voters will tell the Senator, who has seemingly gone from a courageous warrior to a pussyfooting politician, that "we don't get the joke".
Because there is no joke. Uprooting the glorious ideals of our heritage and reversing our course, will send us flying over that cliff. Nothing damn funny about that.
The raging political question in the country is whether President Obama is a socialist...and of course, he is. His ardent desire and persistent efforts to take over and control America's health insurance industry (which probably really means our total health industry), the banking and related industries, the energy industry, etc. are all first steps in the implementation of a full socialist system in our country. And does he believe in freedom? Clearly not, when he believes the government has the legal power to force individuals to purchase insurance, whether they wish to or not, force companies to offer products and services on terms the government dictates, restrain companies from outsourcing the production of their products, penalize individuals for using the energy of their choice and for drinking the beverages of their choice. Clearly not, when he says income distribution is one of his goals...as if my money in some convoluted way belongs in part to others. And on and on.
Is not the cataclysmic change from a predominantly capitalist system to a predominantly socialist one, the hidden, unrevealed, change the President was promising when he campaigned to be dictator?
Is the reason so many in the country cannot seem to be able to call the President what he is, is that in America, socialism is a dirty word. Is that why Senator John McCain, when pointedly asked by George Stephanopoulis on tv this past weekend whether the President is a socialist, giggled like a child and refused to answer the question. This November, hopefully, Arizona voters will tell the Senator, who has seemingly gone from a courageous warrior to a pussyfooting politician, that "we don't get the joke".
Because there is no joke. Uprooting the glorious ideals of our heritage and reversing our course, will send us flying over that cliff. Nothing damn funny about that.
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