Sustainable Development vs. Artificial Armageddon

In 1998, after observing activities of the Christian Right in California where I was living and working, I predicted what was going to happen. And it did. I knew what they were up to, and I described them as Nazis of America. I knew that they were going to seriously undermine, the country, and they did just that. And now it is time to pick up the pieces.

To be fair, the ideologies of the 1990s that they have replaced were full of hideous error. Political correctness made it impossible for people to say what they thought, resulting in massive hypocrisy and strangulation. The idea that everything is about self-esteem created an inverted value system in which those who have lowest standards for themselves and thus find self-esteem most easy to come by dominated those who have higher standards and thus find it less easy to think as well of themselves. The brain-dead concept of adequacy dating from Alfred Adler, and the perversion of the concept of winners and losers from Eric Berne, turned people into enemies of one another, kept people from doing good to others, and allowed entities to play divide-and-conquer and to ensnare both those who thought themselves winners and those who were seen as losers. The war waged by worst elements among feminists against beauty, love, tenderness, warmth and goodness made the climate so toxic and horrible that people flocked to any ideology that might protect them from it, including ideologies that were completely destructive. The DSM-II psychology with its erroneous concept of what is health - and consequently erroneous concept of what is sickness - aimed to - and, where implemented, did - rob America of its sources of creative thinking, ingenuity, risk-taking, passion and greatness, reducing the productivity of its science, impoverishing people’s minds and relationships, and keeping true innovation from taking place. And the New Age idea that everyone makes their own reality – that no one can either help or injure another – that everyone is in control of everything that others do to them – and that someone to whom bad things have been done caused them and will be bad for everyone else - stopped people from doing good, denied assistance where it was needed, kept people strangulated in bad situations, and supported corruption, cruelty, crookedness, callousness and conmanship all around.

What followed however was not an improvement but degradation. What followed was a totalitarian misogynistic apocalyptic cult that warred, with predictably disastrous results, against human rights, liberty, peace, prosperity, science, reason, women's rights, and democracy itself. What followed was the darkest hour in American history since Second World War, with none of its glory. What followed was a Giant Leap Backwards to 19th century and an undoing of the accomplishments of civilization that took place since then.

There was - and is - another totalitarian misogynistic cult attempting to war with this one and with the rest of the world. And to both of the preceding, it is time to say: You do not have the right values to lead. If you believe that it is OK to conceive - and work toward - a world that ends before your children or grandchildren have reached maturity, and where the bulk of the people wind up in hell, then you do not have the right moral values to lead the great countries of the world. Having gone into one of these cults - and having had close personal relations with people from the other - I have come out having made a moral decision. And the decision is this: I would rather burn in Hell than conceptualize and work toward such a future, or be a part of any entity - secular or religious - that does.

And I hope that more people of goodwill and intellect - and ones of either of the preceding - make the same choice.

It becomes incumbent to move away from both errors - those committed in 1990s and those committed in this decade - and work toward a sustainable, peaceful, beautiful, long-term future. To use high-technology, high-intelligence, high-job-creation abundant clean energy solutions to provide for the world of civilization that man has created while impinging minimally on world of nature that man has not. To fully fund nanotechnology, stem-cell research, and genetic cures for cancer and congenital disease. To create synthetic life-forms to eat the plastics and clean out the landfills - to replant rainforests - to support both public and private space travel, resulting in colonization of Mars and Moon and eventually long-distance space travel. It is time to develop and put to work human brilliance, passion and inspiration and create a long-term beautiful sustainable future for humanity.

It is time to create true family values - values that allow in relationships for men and women to have meaningful roles suitable for who they are; that teach men to respect their wives, and teach all parties to have the attitude, respect and goodwill to negotiate among themselves and work together to better future for both their daughters and their sons. To create beautiful, loving relations between men and women, where women are respected as being women and do not have to act like bad men in order to gain equality or respect. To teach men how to treat their wives nobly and to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law domestic violence and child abuse.

It is time to create better social values - values that celebrate and make room for the fulfilment of beauty, intellect, caring, insight, and benevolence, both in women and in men. It is time to create better psychology - psychology that affirms, accepts, and allows to manifest and constructively implement, human genius, insight, brilliance, greatness, ingenuity and love. And it is time to create better moral values - values that accept life, celebrate life, and reward what adds to it and leads to its richness and continuity.

It is time to create covenants that respect all these things and tap into their endless resources in humanity to avail of their riches and employ them for benefit of the present and ages to come. It is time to sustain such covenants by values and ways affirming and hospitable of the above. It is time to move away from oppressive, destructive, malicious mentalities - secular or religious - and replace them with mindsets affirming of life, in its natural and man-created aspects, allowing a replenishment of nature, continuous prosperity and accomplishment of the civilization, and affirmation and constructive fruition of both natural and creating aspects of human being.

It is time to use intellect not to divide but to create, and to strive for win-win scenarios. It is not nature or civilization, reason or feeling, love or equality, spirit or body, business or government, doing good or doing well; with true use of mind, it is both in every duality. And by being employed to do the tasks necessary to make possible the preceding, intelligence - now a tool of combining and creating instead of dividing - becomes a path to true peace, to constructive sustainable integration, to life being seen and given path to benefit at all levels. At which point intelligence - which has at all times been the true saving grace of humanity - becomes saving grace once again and a basis for a long and beautiful future.

It is time to look at the inherent logic of the beliefs - secular and religious - and trace them to their logical consummation. And by doing so, to predict their effect on the world. Whether a secular belief that claims that creativity, ingenuity, passion, originality, inventiveness, greatness and love are pathological - or a religious belief that claims that women are root of all evil, that nature and physicality is of the Satan, that the only good in the world comes from the belief and that all else is going to hell - can be traced and easily found out for their results. The first being, stagnation and decline and graying of the world - and the second being, a totalitarian misogynistic abusive world-gobbling apocalyptic cult. And then it becomes possible to create better ways, better values, better traditions, that tap into instead of suppressing the genius and beauty and greatness that lives in humanity, and apply them toward creating a beautiful livable sustainable peaceful world.

At this point the choice is really nothing less. Will humanity bring an Armageddon upon itself before the babies born in this baby boomlet have learned how to read, or will the future extend indefinitely and reach ever greater beauty and ever greater accomplishment. These are momentous times in world history, and it is up to us to decide which world will be bequeathed to our children and theirs and ones after them.

This, is the true moral choice facing this generation. And it is a choice that will resonate - on earth or in any conceivable afterlife - for ages to come.

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Refuting Reaganism

As America wakes up to the ruin that has been forced on it by Reagan-Bush Republicans over the last thirty years, it is time to look at the basic tenets of Reaganism and show them for what they are.

I deal here with Reagan’s economic policies and Reagan’s social policies and show them for their error.

Tenet One of Reagan economics is that the government is a tax-and-spend operation, and that cutting taxes leads to economic growth. That has been solidly refuted by the last two administrations. The high-tax Clinton economy produced 23 million new jobs, soaring family incomes, and the greatest prosperity that America ever had. The low-tax Bush administration - with Republican Congress for six out of its eight years in power - produced collapsing family incomes and no new jobs.

The governments prior to Reagan were regarded as being "tax-and-spend." The Reagan-influenced governments however were something far more irresponsible. The Republican administrations starting with Reagan produced Borrow-And-Spend policies that put America ten trillion dollars in the hole.

This debt is now being passed on to the children and grandchildren of Reagan Republicans. And I ask this of the people behind this: How dare you speak of family values when you are doing this to your own children? How dare you speak of responsibility while you are passing on this crushing burden to those who have not had any part in making this problem or any voice in how it is dealt with? How dare you speak of fighting crime or being American patriots when you have committed this giant criminal misdeed against America?

The Reagan borrow-and-spend economics are not just wrong morally. They are also wrong economically. Government debt takes investment funds out of productive sectors of the economy, making it harder for businesses to start or expand. High levels of bond debt leads to rising interest rates. In both cases, economy falls. It did in the second way under Bush Sr; and it did the first way under Bush Jr.

The borrow-and-spend economics is also wrong in its basic contention. With government, it's not pay or not pay; it's pay now or pay later. For as long as you want roads, military, police, courts, schools, fire engines, jails, garbage pickup, you pay. Or else your children and grandchildren will have to.

Perhaps the people behind Reaganomics are working toward a 10 trillion dollar government debt default. Perhaps they are thinking the world will end before it is due. More likely, they just don’t care what they are doing to their children and to their country. In either case, the attitude is totally unacceptable.

The next tenet of Reaganism: "Get government off people's backs." And yet the most solid Republican constituencies - Texas and Plains States - exist solely by virtue of government. The economic bases for these constituencies are Texas Oil, beef industry, and the military. The third is part of government. The second is heavily subsidized by the government. And the first became and remained what it is by virtue of lobbying the government and deceiving the public.

Oil interests have deceived the nation for decades, claiming that there is no global warming and that nothing man do can affect the environment. They are responsible for the current climatic crisis. Without their conmanship, America and much of the world would have by now converted to high-intelligence, high-technology, high-job abundant clean energy such as the energy of the sun and the electrolysis of ocean water - technology that can provide for all of people's material requirements while minimally impinging on nature. Instead it was - "liberal academics this, liberal media that" - well. Now we know who has been truly brainwashing the public, and who truly has been stealing from the people their most precious commodity – their future.

The beef industry in its present form is likewise parasitical. It takes ten times as much biomass to produce a pound of beef as it does to produce an equivalent amount of grain. Government subsidies to the beef industry that make beef artificially cheap keep the country producing an inefficient, unhealthy, environmentally expensive foodstuff when it could have produced ten times as much healthy food. Food that it could have sold on world markets, reaping huge revenues, and given away in famines, reaping great international goodwill, instead of reaping disease and debt.

The true sources of American prosperity are and have always been the Democratic areas of the country. The greatest source of 1980s and 1990s prosperity - personal computer - was invented by a California hippie named Steven Jobs and put in place by Democratic constituencies in California, Washington State, and the DC area. Another big source of prosperity - Internet - was a government project. Of America's Nobel Prize - winning scientists, 90% came from Democratic states, and of its Ivy League institutions of learning, all except Duke are in solid Democratic states. America's richest states in per capita terms are DC, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York - solidly Democratic. There is a reason for all this, and it has to do with the thinking habits that are required for innovation and for generation of true prosperity.

Innovation in science, technology, and organizational and business practices, depends on free and creative thinking. The authoritarian-minded red states cannot tolerate such a thing and suppress it wherever they find it. The Democrats on the other hand are open to such things and encourage it, nurture it, and bring it to constructive fruition. Which means that Democrats develop habits of mind needed to innovate and create true prosperity, while Republicans feed off of them, demonize and attack them, and the steal the credit. The Democratic thinking is about how to create; the Republican thinking is about how to bludgeon, deceive, steal credit and place blame. Which makes them parasitical economically as much as they are parasitical in other respects.

Another major tenet of Reaganism has been aggressive inattention to the environment. Now we all know exactly where this leads. Even the Republicans are waking up to the reality of what they have done to the world. And that is a belated big Duh for people who were so certain that they knew reality and common sense, and that everyone who thought to the contrary was a fool or a crazy.

The social policies of Reagan have been just as disastrous. Abortion and “family values” are a ruse – a false issue used to distract the public from real social issues of the day. Domestic brutality and abuse of women and children in families is and has always been the true social wrong facing the people. The Reaganists sought to silence these truths – by portraying women as losers or crazy for being in the abusive relationships and portraying them as evil if they left; by abusing the concept of personal responsibility to blame people for wrong that others did to them while exonerating the wrongdoer; and by claiming that America was losing its “moral fiber” as more women left situations of abuse. And in neither case was there anything moral in these policies. The purpose was and remains to perpetuate abusive, brutal, incestuous ways from generation to generation, and portray these horrendous practices as morality or tradition or family values.

The family values and morality that I have shown above that Reaganists have the least of, as they have forced federal debt and environmental catastrophe on their own children and on the children of everyone else.

In making major issues of nonissues, while failing to address true wrongdoing, resources were distracted from where they were needed and engaged them in battles where they could be portrayed as being against morality. This paralyzed the women’s rights and human rights agenda and kept it from being applied where it was most in need. The result has been ongoing incest, abuse and brutality all over America. And that is the true reality of Reagan conservatism – the true reality of the so-called traditional family values. Quite simply, a parent or a partner who truly practices ethics treats the partner and children in such a manner that they do not want to leave him. Whereas a parent or a partner who uses “family-value” theme to keep them from leaving is the one who is unethical in the values and actions he practices toward his family and least merits to lay a claim on the concept.

Further policies – Reagan’s anti-education, anti-academic, anti-intellectual and anti-media propaganda in particular – resulted in the thinning and hollowing out of institutions of science and education, greatly reduced levels of Nobel Prize winning work, denying the media scrutiny to matters that were of most import, and allowing corruption to go on without strong and active media and academia being there to check it. It also resulted in turning of red-state America into a morass of aggressive ignorance and violent stupidity. In Reagan society, intelligence was despised and bullied, abused, demonized, trivialized, or even criminalized and pathologized. This resulted in dumbening of the population, in America overrun by cons and cults, and in degradation in the character of American people. It also resulted in loss of what media and academia exist for – cultivation of knowledge, education of youth, scrutiny of all levels of society, checking of corruption, and address of issues of public concern.

The refusal to include birth control in population control initiatives made sure the gross overpopulation of the world. The support for militant Islam against Communism created the terrorist threat facing the world today. The “war on drugs” led to two parasitical infrastructures: Brutal gangs and cartels to deliver the forbidden goods – with most drug-related violent crime related to its distribution instead of consumption – and expensive police and prison infrastructure to keep imprisoned people who have availed themselves of drugs or were falsely convicted of having done so.

And the concept of personal responsibility was abused to blame people for the wrong that others have done to them - to blame wives for brutality by their husbands, to blame poor children for their heritage, to blame the disenfranchised for despotism and oppression against them, to blame people around the world for actions of despots, to blame "humanity" for global warming and federal debt accumulated by Reaganists – as much as it was abused to discourage people from pursuits such as teaching and science that are not well monetarily compensated but that hold supreme social value. If every person is responsible for themselves and solely for themselves, and success is measured in monetary achievement, then it is against the ethic of the times to do anything for the children, or for the country, or for the planet, or for justice and peace. This Reaganist ethic sowed not only corruption, violence, deception and sociopathy at all levels of America, but also prevented action to redress and prevent the same. This directly led to these great wrongs becoming way of life in America, when there was tons of knowledge and resources that, with better values and leadership, could have been used to correct these wrongs.

As for the nonsense of liberal-media-and-academia-are-brainwashing-you (and the people who claim such things aren't) - who indeed is more worthy of being believed: hundreds of thousands of brilliant, dedicated, hard-working people working on scientific pursuit of knowledge, or Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson style blowhards who claim them all idiots and sinners while they themselves are contributing nothing whatsoever toward that pursuit? In defunding America's scientists and teachers and discrediting its journalists and professors, Reaganists have deceived, debased and dumbened America. And that, along with global warming, federal debt, sickening of America, domestic brutality, world overpopulation, Islamic terrorism, and deterioration in American character, is a crime that Reagan “conservatives” will have to wear for decades to come.

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True family values

For a long time the concept of family values has been completely misconstrued. It was used to mean a return to 1950s-style arrangement and exclusion of all innovation that came after 1950s. As a father, and one dedicated to the well-being of my family and my daughter, I say this: That is not family values.

True family values is about bequeathing to one's children a better world than what existed when one has found it. True family values is about making sure that one's children have a chance. True family values is about providing for the future. And that means, a long-term, sustainable, livable future, and not one that is supposed to end at the time that the baby boomers have died.

True family values is about preserving the planet in all its richness and splendor, and using intelligence and technology to provide for material needs while minimally impinging upon the world's climate, air quality, water quality, and biospheric diversity. It means using high-intelligence, high-technology abundant clean energy solutions to keep the civilization running while preserving what man has not created and does not know how to recreate. It means sustainable agriculture, sustainable industry, sustainable energy, and sustainable technology, using the best of man - his intellect, effort and dedication - to power the world of civilization that man has created while being nonobtrusive to world of nature that man has not.

True family values is about creating institutional transparency, so that one's children do not have to live in a snakepit of corruption, deception and cruelty that takes place when this does not exist. It means ridding institutions of rackets and cons that are used to silence people from telling the truth. It means creating media, court, and political cultures that practice transparency and integrity and are not afraid to confront corruption in whatever form it may take.

True family values is about creating covenants in which one's daughters have a chance at a life worth having, and do not have to worry about abusive partners, corrupt and ensnaring communities, bullying in school and in workplace, and religious, social and institutional abuse. It is about making sure that one's daughters can attain to their potential and not be undermined in it by entities or individuals hateful of women's advancement or of human rights. It means full enforcement of human rights and civil rights and standing up to all things that are hateful to the preceding. And it means protecting meaningfully people's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, even when and especially when this is not popular.

True family values is about putting the future ahead of the present, rather than making the future pay for irresponsible borrow-and-spend policies and planetary destruction of the present with no eye toward posterity. It is about doing what needs to be done, now, in order that there is a livable future for one's children. It is about fiscal sanity and environmental sanity, and about using intelligence to make possible the preceding.

True family values is about imparting to children real education that gives them understanding necessary for good citizenship and for avoiding rackets and cons. It is about making primary education sufficiently strong that the children come out of it with knowledge and with intelligence that allows them to be better citizens as well as better workers. It is about making college education more affordable, so that those who seek to rise to that level can, regardless of income of the family.

True family values is about recognizing and giving the way to fruition of human genius, goodwill, intellect, love and beauty, making it possible for these endless sources of good to flourish and to impart to the world and its inhabitants of the magnificence that they have to give.

True family values is about creating an honest society and ending corruption, whether it be in law or medicine or government or business or small town or society itself. It is about making things clear and making that clarity and integrity the basis of social covenants and interactions, with no room for corruption, oppression, deception or abuse.

It is about creating a livable society for one's children, as well as a livable planet.

And that, is the true family values that are at stake in the world at this time.

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Character Smears and Character of America

The predominant claim by political entities that campaign against the character of the opposition candidates is that they are protecting the character or integrity of the office. In fact, they degrade the character of the office as much as they degrade the character of the voter. Political culture of character assassination does not improve character of the office or of the country, but lowers it to the level of pettiness, nastiness, maliciousness, vileness and ugliness. And that does not improve the character of the office or of the nation; it degrades both.

To create a political culture of character assassination, is to create a political culture of abuse. Abuse then becomes the way of the political process, putting into office the people who are most skilled at abuse - and frequently at nothing else. That leads to wrong people being in the office and implementing wrong policies - in many cases, given the way they got into the office, policies that are completely destructive and injurious to the people. So that, when a Rick Santorum claims that "sometimes it's good that people struggle" as he votes for a bill to make it harder for single mothers to have their children in babysitting while they are working, we see the product of the abusive character in politics and what it stands to do to the people.

It is not only the ones in office that end up being encouraged toward wrongful action. The politicians' abusive behavior also trickles down to the voter. It influences people to behave in abusive ways to their families and to the people over whom they have influence. And that by itself is a source of needless suffering for millions. The constituencies that are abusive, or that want to be abusive, thrive on such politics. The more abusive the constituency, the more drawn it is to the politics of character smear. The level to which an individual or a constituency supports character smear campaigns is a good measure of the individual's or constituency's embrace of abusive practices in their own lives. And the more political life is based on
abuse, the more people take the example, the more abuse becomes the reality of people's lives.

The abusive character of the political culture trickles up to the office-holders and down to the regular people. And then not only is the character of the political discourse diminished, but people's own character gets worse and worse, as does the lot of people at the receiving end of their behavior.

That, is the true degradation in character that has taken place in politics of America. And the way to restore both statesmanship and American character, is to see through abusive smear tactics and demand dignity in the political process. The people who practice character smear campaigns, are themselves the worst character in the country and commit by their actions a far greater wrong than anything that the people whom they attack could be conceivably accused of having committed. Not only do they bring abuse into politics, but they also influence people to become abusers themselves. And that not only injures the credibility of America; it also injures countless millions of people who stand to be at the receiving end of abusive behavior by people influenced in such a way.

So whenever one sees character smear campaign, it can be said with accuracy that the person doing such campaigning is an abuser, just as it can be said that someone who supports such campaign is likewise possessive of an abusive frame of mind. And bringing dignity and respect back to America requires growing beyond such despicable tactics and creating a culture of dignity in the political process. A person who truly is interested in character will concern himself with character which he encourages in the people. And if he campaigns abusively and influences people to be abusive, then it is him that exhibits the truly unworthy character and does true violence to the character of the political office and of the country itself.

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Obama: Better man to fight terrorism

Obama is a better man for the war on terrorism, for a very simple reason. It is not just bombs that deter terrorists, but also improvement in the condition of the lives of people in Middle East and better view of the Western world. Terrorists feed off two twin problems: Bad living conditions and ill will toward the West. And it is by addressing the two, convincingly and effectively, that the spell of jihadism can be broken over the people of Middle East.

The Australian army has figured this out, and is doing the right thing in Afghanistan. Not only are they involved, as all armies on the ground, in the military operations against Taliban, but they also are building schools for children and training adults in skills such as carpentry. In this they are tackling the two root problems. They are giving people a chance at a better future, and they are building goodwill in the people toward the West. That makes them a lot less likely to believe or join entities such as the Taliban.

Whereas Republican policies are completely blind to this obvious dynamic. They just want to come in, bang up the place, and declare victory. Then they want to claim that the hatred that Middle East has toward America is because of its freedoms. That is false. While the jihadists do in fact hate everything that is not Sharia, the people support them because of the blindness, arrogance, greed, irresponsibility and stupidity of Republican policies in the region.

The Reagan administration encouraged Islamism in Middle East as part of its war against Communism. What made them believe that Islamists would be more partial to USA than the Communists? Either it was a huge oversight, or we are seeing something sinister. And why would McCain, who has similar ideas on these matters as did Reagan, solve the problem instead of adding to it?

Another misconceived policy was in regards to Afghanistan. America armed and trained mujahedeen against USSR. When USSR withdrew, American policymakers forgot that Afghanistan existed. It was not long before these same people turned their guns away from USSR, which no longer was on the map, to USA, which was. The people felt used and betrayed. This gave a fertile ground for jihadists, whose tactic has been to feed off any sentiment against the West or any part of the West and use it to turn people into terrorists.

Indeed the terrorists have done this: Infiltrate any constituency that has a problem with West or with Israel or with government. Goal? Turn them all into Sharia thugs. Republican policies do not begin to address this problem, as they are focused solely on military action. But to truly end terrorism, it is necessary to also remove the true infrastructure for supporting terrorism: Ill will toward the West, and bad living conditions, of people in Middle East.

To succeed over the long term, any anti-terrorist action requires that people in Middle East be given good view of the West as well as a chance at a better existence. And while nobody is advocating that the war against Al Quaeda and Taliban be brought to a halt, in order to create and win the peace it is requisite to apply approach similar to one that is being taken by Australian forces in the region. It is necessary to win the war; it is also necessary to win the peace. And that can only come from action that benefits people on the ground as effectively as it combats the militants in the hills.

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Immigration and Synthesis

The problems that the children of hippies experienced have been blamed on the supposed bad parenting of them by the hippies. This is wrong. The root of the problem is that the parents lived by one set of values while living in a society that ran by another. The exact same problems have existed in other similar situations - Hindu children who were raised in America; children of the people with American sympathies who were raised in the Communist countries; children of Mexican or black people who were raised in racist societies; children of liberals who were raised in conservative parts of America. And given dynamics involved such problems are inevitable.

What is loved at home, is hated outside the home. What is loved outside the home, is hated at home. The child either tries to please both at once, or goes entirely one way in either one or the other direction. Both tug, pull, make all kinds of demands. And neither home nor outside the home will completely accept, as the two worlds hate each other and, when they are at war, both demand complete loyalty - against the other world.

So the blame-the-hippies people got it all wrong. It's not the problem with the hippies; it's the problem of living by one way in a society that lives by another. And this is going to happen all over the world, and all over America, by people on any side of any divide, for as long as the forces are not understood and not dealt with in an intelligent and rightful way.

Banking on the illusion of world war II generation being right, a speaker at Republican convention in 1992 said that right and wrong is "what your grandmother taught you." Let's see. That would mean, for the boomers, the flapper generation; for my children, the boomer generation; and for me, my Stalinist grandmother. Then there was the "back-to-the-basics" or "back-to-the-roots" movement. So that means, you want me to "go back to my roots." Really? You want me to become a Stalinist? One word for such attitudes: Idiocy. Two words: Complete idiocy.

These one-size-fits-all solutions are wrong because one size does not fit all at all. And far greater knowledge, wisdom and understanding is achieved by people using their minds proactively and arriving at their own solutions than is achieved by having one ill-fitting mold imposed by one or another band of thugs.

When raised among conflicting worldviews, systems and beliefs, the person has claims laid on him or her by everyone. The home wants complete loyalty and claims betrayal if one goes with what's outside the home. What's outside the home wants complete loyalty and claims betrayal (of country, "values", whatever) if one goes with the home. Then there's more idiots who claim that such people "lack integrity" or "are at sea." There is a good reason for that. We are dealing with people who've been raised in many worldviews and who therefore cannot have single mind about things unless their minds are completely locked. The only form of integrity that is available to someone who's experienced many worldviews is what I call dynamic integrity - the integrity of mind as created dynamically through insight and cross-examination of the perspectives among one another. Which, in many ways, is a process that leads to far greater knowledge and understanding than does static integrity of sticking with whatever "roots" one is supposed to have.

The intercultural flux accomplishes this: expose people to different mindsets. That means that people are removed from false comforting myths of one or another worldview and must use their brains. That is for the better. The more people have to use intelligence, the stronger it gets, the greater the knowledge and intelligence of the population. And the greater its capacity of making truly responsible choices that actually have a chance of being informed enough to create worthwhile outcomes.

On the way, are found all kinds of dangers. One woman I've known about had been a respected professional in the Soviet Union. In America, she was nothing, and she kept saying such things as "I used to be a person once." An older writer who had been vice-president of the Soviet Union Writer's Guild was reduced to going to restaurants in his Soviet-style suit and glasses selling people his book. His input: "We are Russian, and that's all we will ever be." In both cases, immigration was most likely the wrong decision - another evidence against one-size-fits-all solutions, whatever the ideology of the day may be.

To be completely American is to betray Russia. To be completely Russian is to betray America. But to see the right and the wrong in both, and to combine the rights while eliminating the wrongs - that, is a way to serve, embody, and improve both at the same time.

The mindsets can be combined in all kinds of ways, from optimal to worst to all between. One negative combination can be seen in my UVA classmate and fellow Russian immigrant Sam Vaknin, author of book on "Narcissistic personality disorder," who is using the Soviet tactic of pathologizing dissent to pathologize all potential sources of dissent from the party line of his profession - and in the process pathologize also all potential sources of innovation, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, drive, passion, creative thinking, and risk-taking to which America owes all it has. Another negative combination is found in those who've brought to America the Russian social authoritarianism and are using Russian-style dogmatism to empower oppressive agendas like Christian Right. Seeking a sustainably positive state of affairs, I am taking a different path of integration, and using American can-do spirit, enthusiasm, and entrepreneurial mentality to bring into America the Russian passion, poetry, romanticism and intellectual thought.

Too many in America have no value for the poetic, the romantic, the intellectual and the philosophical. With people lacking value for these, those naturally inclined toward such pursuits run into all kinds of nastiness, which leads many people to see the wrong attitudes responsible for such affects as rightful. They are not. The Soviet Union (and many in Russia before that) equated capitalism with evil and business with crime. The people naturally entrepreneurial became criminals - black marketeers, "speculators" (illegal resellers), "prohodimets's" (system manupulators), and later bandit capitalists. This likewise led many to believe the attitudes responsible for these affects as rightful. They are not. The problem is not with poetry, romanticism, arts or philosophical thinking any more than it is with business. The problem is with societies that have no value for these legitimate, worthwhile endeavors, and thus not only injure and criminalize those capable of these things, but also
fail to tap into the potential of these people and employ it for the benefit of the country and its people.

Russia will benefit from seeing the value of entrepreneurship and giving legitimacy to the process, allowing it to be done in legitimate ways and raise Russian material standards of living. America will benefit from seeing the value of passion, poetry, and conceptual thinking, and using these things to enrich people's minds, selves, relationships, and experience of life and one another. There is no unfixable flaw with either Russia or America. The problem is with wrong attitudes traditionally held by both populations. Replace those false limiting traditional attitudes with attitudes that see and apply instead of hindering human potential, and both places will bloom.

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The Superpower Syndrome

Having for 12 years lived in the former Soviet Union - and for 18 years in America - I have seen a malignancy shared by many citizens of both countries. I refer to it as the Superpower Syndrome. 

The affliction manifests in slightly different forms in the two countries, but its essence is similar. The afflicted believes that, because his country is great, he is great just by virtue of having been born in that country and needs to do nothing whatsoever in order to make himself great. The possessor of  Superpower Syndrome claims unconditional greatness as derived from his country and believes he does not need to develop intelligence, wisdom, goodness, or personal cultivation, and indeed that such things are against his country. Instead he derives his concept of greatness from his concept of patriotism - manifest in tunnel vision, barbarism, cruelty, ignorance and hatred of everything existing outside his home. 

The afflicted might believe different things and mouth different dogmas. The American may say "Money talks, bullsh*t walks"; the Soviet may have said "he fears me, that means he respects me." The American may tell his children to say "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"; the Soviet taught his children to say "proletariats of all countries unite." What both societies had in common, was the belief that they catered to the lowest common denominator - and as such were arbiters of reality, humanity and life itself. And both, in pursuit to the aforementioned beliefs, trivialized, demonized or destroyed everything that is more subtle, or less easily quantifiable, or requiring an attention span greater than that of an average TV commercial to understand. 

This of course has been the very worst feature of both superpowers. An American may believe that people who rightly appreciate - and draw into their lives - the appealing ideas and customs of other civilization is a poser. A Soviet may have said that the same person was the enemy of the proletariat. An American may believe that personal cultivation (as pursued in cultures such as France and Japan) is wussy or weakening. A Soviet may have said that such things were bourgeois. Having both received their political systems from erudite, finely cultivated intellectuals (Jefferson and Franklin in America; Marx and Lenin in USSR), they both turned viciously and barbarically anti-intellectual and anti-artistic, claiming the same to be artifacts of aristocracy rather than a natural human right - a pursuit that develops the people into the best they can be and enriches, invigorates, and gives wisdom, color and bounty to the countries and the citizens of the countries, whatever their income level and profession. 

Both, in the process, have seen quite hideous demagoguery. As the Soviets referred to luxury, sexuality and prosperity as vices of capitalism, so have American demagogues sought to portray intellectual, philosophical and artistic perspectives as being elitist or un-American. Whether or not they are elitist, or "vices of capitalism," is beside the point. All that the Soviets attacked in their demagoguery - and all that Americans have attacked in the same vein - enriches human existence and elevates it to a level above the "bottom line," however that is defined in each country. Furthermore, it gives expression to the most magnificent in the human being and allows it to do what it naturally seeks to do: Add color and beauty and elegance to human existence and make our world an improvement on nature and not a degradation. 

The truly obnoxious feature of Superpower Syndrome - afflicted individual is his equation of swinishness, cruelty, barbarism and sheer idiocy with morality. Believing himself to speak for human nature, he attacks, destroys and demonizes all aspects of human nature other than ones his country espouses as human nature while grotesquely indulging the aspects of human nature his country believes to be bottom line. An American who wants something other than acquisition of property, and a Soviet who wanted something other than to serve the state, comes under hideous and vicious attack - not because they are in any objective sense wrong (they are not), but rather because they violate the respective nation's ideological concept of what is human - and, by violating the nation's dogma of what is human (and consequently its pretense of being the unchallenged provider for fulfillment of human nature) constitute a blow to the very ideological precepts on which the country's claim to legitimacy is based. 

In pursuing the Superpower Syndrome, the afflicted of course harms his country far more than he helps it. To keep out of one's country the good ideas of other countries, is to fail to incorporate wisdom, insight and genius that exists elsewhere and lead one's country to fall behind. To keep people from developing the beautiful, the thoughtful, and the artistic, is to impoverish the experience of the people and to turn one's country into something hideous and grotesque while failing to incorporate ideas that form spontaneously in the culture. To keep people from developing cultivation, is likewise to impoverish human experience. And to say that one thing is human nature or bottom line, while everything else is not, is to do grave violence and grave disservice to humanity and especially to one's own country. 

When the Soviet Union fell, many possessors of the Soviet version of Superpower Syndrome were left in a pretty bad place - a place that of course they had richly merited. America has so far been able to avoid similar fate due to a more intelligently designed system, but it has had a number of close calls. I still encounter Superpower Syndrome among American people, and that is something that I believe intelligent Americans ought to combat. The Superpower Syndrome is a drain and a blight, not a benefit, for the country, and in destroying the best that appears in the culture it leads to its long-term ruin. 

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Freedom, Democracy, and Multiple Paths

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

The person's action, behavior and 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 a country that has been intended to be free.

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 citizen.

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 of a creeping kind. 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 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 seeking a better 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 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 to most people 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. Both are half-right. There is self-interest and species-interest, and the way for human benefit - both at self level and at species level - is to allow people to do the most toward both.

This means arranging existents in a way that makes the best existence. This means making the best of self-interest and best of collective interest: Meaningful liberty, with freedom of thought and feeling and being and choice - and provident, species-directed activity that does actual and noticeable good to the people who live now or are yet to live. This means making the best of one's life and the best of what one does for humanity. And it means affirming both individual life, liberty and human rights, while affirming also constructive and beneficial action toward benefit of mankind, both those living and those yet to live.

Liberty does not mean gobbling up and polluting the world without sight for the rest of the world or for future generations. Liberty means freedom to think how one chooses to think, feel how one chooses to feel, be what one chooses to be and select what one has to contribute. 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. Common good means sustainable development, technological solutions that fulfill material needs while impinging minimally on health of nature or people, meaningful education of children, scientific knowledge, taking care of the elderly, philanthropic work, helping those who are not advantaged to have a shot at existence worth having, producing thought or artwork or products or architecture that enrich people's worlds and create legacy for the future, 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, as such, also 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, as much as for humanity at individual level and as a whole. It is through this arrangement of existence that life can be elevated to a state beneficial both to man and to mankind.

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.

Part 5. Forms of Rational Interest

There is a presumption among many, pursuant classical economics, that people are driven what is called rational self-interest, which is equated with interest in accumulation of property. That is an article of faith that falls apart under examination.

From the position of each person, in reference to the world, there is perspective toward self and perspective toward others. In relation to which, each person can be said to possess self-interest and other-interest. There are some people - including Ayn Rand - who believe that man is only himself and that all interest is a form of self-interest. There are others who believe that man is evolved as part of humanity and that therefore that all interest is a form of species-interest. Of course there are both, and it functions differently in different people. If humanity has evolved, then it has done so both as individuals and as species; which means that interest in one's own good and interest in the good of the species are part of human makeup. And any creationist worldview likewise recognizes the same: That there is man; that there is mankind; and that man is both man and part of mankind.

Furthermore, for each person, self-interest is different. There are unquestionably some who are driven by property; but there are many others who are driven by interest in knowledge and wisdom, or by interest in legacy, or by interest in service, or by interest in beautiful life, or by interest in improving their lives or the lives of others in ways that matter to them. The scientist who is driven by interest in knowledge is just as rational, if not more so, than the person who is interested in accumulation of wealth. The teacher who is driven by interest in raising the future generation is just as rational, if not more so, than either of the preceding. The environmentalist who seeks to preserve for the future generations the masterpieces of life that man cannot recreate and that are necessary for healthy future is also rational.  The policeman or military officer or diplomat who is driven by interest in securing peace for his community or serving his country is likewise driven by a perfectly rational interest. And the same is the case for the people interested in making life more just, or in creating sustainable development, or in guiding people who are disenfranchised to better places, or in developing new ideas that can improve lives for many other people, or in helping people have better relationships, or in creating beautiful work that celebrates the world and enriches the lives of the members and gives it legitimate sense of accomplishment and inspires the future generations to similar and greater heights.

A new useful theory in psychology is a theory of multiple intelligences. This theory states that there are many different forms of intellect of which people are capable, and that different people have different intelligences to different extents. Thus, there is no single function for intelligence; there are many functions for intelligence. The same is true for the natures that are present within humanity; and pursuant them the interest they have most need of fulfilling, the interest they are most interested in pursuing, and the liberty that is to them most dear.

There are people who are fulfilled by property; there are others who are fulfilled by achievement, legacy, service, meaning, beautiful relationships, wholesome family life, and wisdom and intellect that cater to and make possible the preceding. The good of the existing and yet to exist is enhanced by there being talented and dedicated people in education and police work and diplomacy; it is enhanced by there being wisdom that helps people to be empowered for personal happiness and people dedicated to helping people to actualize that wisdom. It is enhanced through sustainable development that uses high-technology, high-intelligence abundant clean energy to fulfill the physical requirements of the world of civilization that man has created while reducing imprint on world of nature that man has not. It is enhanced by there being great works of architecture and technology and science and medicine and space program and music and film and graphic arts. It is enhanced by all forms of intelligence having a path to impart of their riches, in the act of fulfilling the form of interest that they are most competent to fulfill. Indeed all these are legitimate aspects of human existence, and they are enhanced by people taking the path to which they are most suited - applying the form of intellect they have the most - to fulfilling the nature and interest of the people that they have most aptitude to fulfill and whose fulfillment they find most meaningful - and being likewise compensated for their efforts in a way that matters to them.

The concept behind economics is that happiness is actualized through people fulfilling their monetary self-interest. Given the multiple forms of human nature, it can be said better that happiness is actualized through people fulfilling their interest, whether it be monetarily denominated or not, as a function of the natures that live within them and the interests that are present as a result. Which means the following: There are many rational forms of interest, both self-interest and other-interest, and to reduce the totality of human existence to one out of many forms of interest is to do humanity a grave disservice. Quite simply, it is wrong to believe that everyone has single form of interest, whether self-interest or not and whether rational or not.

This is the same error that was made by Marx in assuming that there is a single value function of collective benefit, and that people would pursue it if properly educated or coerced by force. The diverseness of people and the multiple levels of human nature mean that there are many legitimate, informed and rational forms of interest, both self-directed and other-directed, as function of those levels of nature; and that happiness means different things for different people, as function of both having those levels of nature fulfilled by other people's agency - and imparting of gifts that their natures are most competent to impart.

Given these multiple levels of human nature and human interest, it further follows that people have different basic values and derive meaningful existence from participation different pursuits. And thus people find life that is worth living, on individual basis, by finding a way to path that is suited for them according to their nature. Given these multiple levels of human nature and human interest, furthermore, it follows that freedom means different things to different people. This is likewise is inevitable from the fact that there are multiple forms of human nature, which are present in different people to different extents. The government is prevented from becoming tyrannical through different branches of government working within framework of checks-and-balances. And liberty, as it matters to people on individual basis, is served through mindsets and interests doing the same thing among each other.

Therefore, a civilization that truly allows meaningful life, inclusive liberty and pursuit of happiness for its citizens as it matters to them on the individual basis is one that recognizes multiple levels of human nature and allows for all of them a functional and legitimate path that allows people to apply their talents to fulfilling the forms of interest that they are most equipped to fulfill - and from which other people can have accomplished the form of utility that matters to their own natures.

Given the multiplicity of human natures and talents and intelligences and interests within humanity, it therefore is incorrect to believe that the entire human nature can be reduced to a single form of interest or single definition of freedom or single definition of meaningful existence. There are many forms of rational and legitimate interest, both self-interest and other-interest, and they are natural to different people to different extents. In making a single approach - a result of addressing a single form of interest - universal, what is accomplished is bludgeoning people into the same mentality and the same supposed nature and supposed interest, even if it is to them completely ill-fitting. Which does not serve any liberty or happiness or even life worthy of having, and is only done through extreme disfigurement, which requires in many cases coercive and malicious tactics. What is created, is a single mindset that is bullied into the heads of everyone, and a single path controlling everyone's minds and efforts and ultimately, by becoming the substance of their minds, controlling their lives that are a function of their minds in pursuit of these indoctrinated beliefs. And what is accomplished is, in effect, de facto tyranny; a tyranny of a single mindset, bludgeoned into everyone's heads, and in that manner controlling the reality of everyone's lives.

I believe that life and liberty and happiness deserve better.

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 forms 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; I mean high-technology clean-energy solutions that extend the future of the world while fulfilling the present; 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. 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. 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 - fulfills 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.

That means, 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 nderstanding 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 involved.

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Building on Lerner: Social reality and psychoethical equilibrium

Melvin Lerner's concept of just-world hypothesis postulates that, for his sanity, man must believe world to be just - and that, in order to explain any given situation, invents ethical or worldly reason why different people are in the situation that they are in or why things are as they are. Thus, if the world is to be left alone as is, then it must be just; and if the world is not just, then it must be changed in order to be made just. The second attitude is the driving call for every political movement. The first attitude, besides of course in the actions of those who accept any given status quo or the values that made it, we see likewise in Eastern religions that believe karma to be the source of all things however good or bad. The Christian attitude that the world is evil (and redemption comes through Christ) is a way to explain injustice as way of the world - in fact, as something that people have merited - and in so doing to excuse all injustice in the world as a result of sin - which explanation of course allows the person to regain a just-world hypothesis: Namely that injustice of the world has a cause and, though it is the way of the world, it is possible for the Christian to find a way to ultimately defeat it (essentially by defeating the world itself).

I build upon the concept of just-world hypothesis to show the world to be the product of interactivity of many different people's sets of just-world hypotheses, resulting in what I call a psycho-ethical equilibrium: a byproduct of different people's concept of self and concept of others according to their just-world hypotheses; that places people at the intersection point of the just-world hypotheses held by all members involved - that, when altered, leads to changes in either people's senses of self, senses of others or concept of what makes a just world - and that of course is changed by alterations in all these things. The state of any person in this continuum - as well as their self-appraisal, their sense of just world and their effect on others - is an integrative function of factors internal and external.

A former friend put forth in her graduate essay that meaning of communication is a function of both the speaker and the listener: That the beliefs and actions of both contribute in creating the meaning as it is perceived. I believe the same dynamic to shape both the just-world hypothesis and, pursuant it, the concept of self, the concept of others, and ultimately the place one inhabits. While one set of dogma (seen especially in the business world) wants to see all factors as being internal - and another set of secular dogma (seen in sociology departments) wants to see all factors as being external - I see both dogmas to be fallacious; the first one discounting external factors and blinding people to them (making them easy prey to manipulation and depending on them to have a culture of deliberate ignorance and suppression of insight) - and the second discounting internal factors and thus blinding people to individuality. Having seen both dogmas for what they are, I refuse to buy into either dogma and recognize the reality, and that is: That a world is an integrative function among many influences, all of which have one or another origin and all of which result directly or indirectly in changes in condition of others.

The psycho-ethical equilibrium is constantly in flux, as different people strive to change their condition; others strive to make the world reflect their sense of justice; and - the mechanism I choose to focus on especially - the people's sense of world (and sense of self) adjust constantly to reflect the reality of their situation and that of others.

Another source of fluctuation is the influence of people with different justice views from without the system. Thus, a civilization confronted with another civilization (if it does not get annihilated, or if it does not kill off the other completely) is confronted with other just-world hypotheses, other ideas, other influences, inventions, etc, all of which reshape both the actual reality and the reality as it is perceived by the civilization and its citizens. Indeed the world at any given time - the state of the world at any given time - is akin to that of an ocean, with changes in reality of people's condition occasioning changes in people's judicial-ethical view of people involved - and changes in ethical view of parties occasioning them to make changes in their (and each other's) condition. The entire world can be seen as an ever-shifting sea, sometimes calmy sometimes stormy, whose members wobble up an down, occasioning shifts in their own condition and in condition of others, and the interplay of whose actions shapes the equilibrium at any given time: The changes in which equilibrium result in changes in justice views, self views, and views of others in people involved.

The observation that brought this concept into focus for me - and one that gave me a fair amount of consternation and led me to place under serious doubt the quality of human design rather than simply of "human nature" or "human condition" - consisted of observing many situations in which people engaged in bullying, violence or other forms of amoral destruction of the next person and then invented reasons why the person deserved to be mistreated; which reasons the other people around readily gobbled up - and which the people under attack were under tremendous pressure to either fight off or to succumb under. The process that I observed in these situation consisted of sense of self from within (and sense of person from without) followed the change in the reality of the sitution (indeed in the reality of the treatment), eventually shifting the entire psycho-ethical equilibrium to a state reflecting the new reality. Thus, an action that had no moral quality changed people's sense of the moral worth of the next person or of themselves. And another dynamic that I observed, consisted of people repeatedly changing their view of one or another person who was going up or down in one or antoher respect, with their sense of them changing depending upon their position.

Thus, a bully (or set of bullies - this can include anything from a group of schoolboys to a brutal husband to an entire civilization) attacks a person or set of persons; whom, after they have been attacked or wiped off the world, the moral faculty invents a reason to devine as deserving of what took place. In order to maintain the just-world hypothesis, the person either must make the situation accord with his sense of justice and ethics - or else make the sense of what constitutes just world accord with the reality of the situation. The latter can be manifest in changes in view of self (when self is affected); in changes in view of the other person who is affected; or, if the changes of the person remain unaffected, changes in view of the reality of the world (changes in the just-world hypothesis).

The truly obnoxious quality consists of the pressure I've seen to see people who come under injust attack as morally inferior. This is, quite simply, outrageous; and yet the human design allows such things to take place! How? Well I've just shown how: Either you believe that the person is good and the world is injust - a situation that puts you in the uncomfortable position of having to take action and risk all kinds of nastiness - or you take the easy way and find out one or another reason why the person deserves what they're getting! The latter of which is of course the path taken especially by the moral cowards we've seen taking the path of the last two decades: A path that combines the worst of the two to arrive at a mindset peculiarly Eastern in its passivity and resulting moral cowardice - and peculiarly Western in its soulless (and likewise morally cowardly, some would say sociopathic) blame-the-victim attitude.

I refer to the Eastern mindset as being one of moral cowardice, precisely because it blames the victim for every atrocity and therefore justifies every wickedness done to the next person under the face of the sun, allowing the leader to get away with any injustice and leading to systemic atrocity that manifests in evil social orders such as caste system, Confucianism and Mongol hordes. The Christian solution ("the world is evil; humanity must be overcome and replaced with the Holy Spirit") may be seen as curing the patient by killing him. The effect of both religions is to give people the sense that the world is just in presence of injustice. The genius achieved by both approaches consists of giving people a sense of justice in presence of injustice, and thus of achieving fuflilment of just-world hypotheses necessary for stable functioning - and then giving the people the way to maintain the just-world hypothesis by behaving in ways that each religion believes to be rightful and to lead to a world it wants to see.

Which meant that, essentially, the religion bought into the just-world hypothesis mechanism and took it to the place it wanted to take it. Whether the world created as a result was in fact just or even better, is of course another story. And for this reason many justice-oriented movements reject the religious beliefs, both Eastern and Western, precisely because the result affectuated by them is anything but just.

In cases of both the change in the situation and the sense of just world, the situation moves from one psycho-ethical equilibrium to another; which equilibrium, in order to remain stable, achieves accord between state of ethics and situation. Through directed action in pursuit of one's concept of what makes a just world, the person changes reality of the world changed to reflect his person's just-world hypothesis and attempts to shift the psycho-ethical equilibrium deliberately to a level that accords with his sense of justice (after which all the affected parties have the option either to change back the reality of the situation to original equilibrium, to change the view of the participants in order to accommodate the new equilibrium, or to change their idea of what consitutes a just world). Through action that changes reality in a manner shorn of justice consideration, is put a pressure to take the psycho-ethical equilibrium to a level that justifies the action - and that, in and of itself, would result once again in either the participants' view of the person involved, or in their view of the world.

This, of course, can be used to believe human nature amoral or weak or of sellout quality. Whether or not that be the case, the situation can be explained from the just-world hypothesis standpoint. Either you make the world adjust to your sense of justice, or you make your sense of justice adjust to reality of the world; and the world, once again, in whatever psycho-ethical equilibrium exists at the time, is an integrative function of the interactions among the just-world hypothesis of all participants, with every lasting equilibrium a result of adjustments (right or wrong) of either people's views of the world, selves and each other or their reality - and any dischordance leading to pressure upon both reality of the condition and the beliefs of its participants. In both cases, the situation moves from one psycho-ethical equilibrium to another - which equilibrium, in order to remain stable, achieves accord between reality of situation and view by participants of themselves and others involved; the lack of which accord in any direction results in instability.

It is for this reason that it is so difficult for a person or a group of people at the receiving end of abuse to rise out of such conditions. Not only the external reality of the situation, but internal reality must alter: namely the warped sense of self that results from maintenance of just-world-hypothesis in presence of mistreatment - or alternatively the warped just-world hypothesis that is the result. In addition to the preceding, there is also the third factor. To make this new position permanent, one must furthermore make sure that it accords with the sum total of other people's just-world hypotheses: Which means changing the other people's view of self in a manner that's lasting and permanent and accords with their sense of justice (or changing pemanently their concept of what is just world). Which explains, for example, the troubles that faced America's women and blacks after they got their rights. The brutal domestic situations of many women, the far more insidious destruction of women's self-esteem in the media and in schools that undermine the self-confidence of most women especially the most talented, the rabid hatred we hear from around the world and from many (frequently unexpected) places within America, and the many self-inflicted errors of feminism's self-proclaimed leaders, are all manifestation of the equilibrium seeking to remain in place, through all the mechanisms previously stated, even after the legal situation changed.

It is of merit to note that the perceived ethics and the perceived justice have typically no relation to actual justice or actual ethics. People have seen many orders as just and rightful, from slavery to Islam to Communism to Confucianism to 50s America to 60s America to Imperial China to Russia under the Tsars. So it is naive to expect that people would recognize justice and injustice for what it is and honor it properly. But one thing that can be relied upon, is the moral outrage coming from population whenever they see someone whom they have bullied - and then convinced themselves worthy of being bullied - leaving the bonds that have constrained them and strive for a better life.

And when a person who has a legitimate grievance refuses to press for its redress, it gives the other side the opening to continue attacking for made-up reasons. The the just-world model of universe required for sanity - and which the mind to maintain the cozy lie that is sanity always twists the worldview and world-morals to accommodate - always finds fallacious reasons to justify unjust states of affairs, and twists its conceptions of people, its conceptions of values and its conceptions of world into perpetuation of the same. When unchecked, it forms a psycho-ethical equilibrium that not only perpetuates but in fact justifies and morally ensconces the states of affairs arrived through worst of actions and worst of intentions. And the only way to see things as they are requires extricating oneself from the lie of sanity and the cozy but fallacious just-world-hypotheses-shaped moral shroud over a state of affairs arrived at through entirely uncozy means, and accepting the mental discomfort of knowing world to not be just and being determined to fight for justice regardless of psychic cost.

It is for this reason likewise that we see people slip back into old habits and bad situations once they've been in them. The sense of self is adjusted to psycho-ethical equilibrium corresponding with these habits, and often hard work (from introspection onwards, especially if introspection is done in terms of a bad value systems or malignant ideology) is performed in vain. For true, permanent alteration in psycho-ethical equilibrium, three things must happen. Change in reality of the situation; change in sense of self; and change in other people's sense of the person. Which is why, for any social movement to ultimately succeed, all three elements must be necessary. It does no good to get rights if your sense of self (and the world's sense of you) is adjusted to level corresponding with condition of slavery. The entire psycho-ethical equilibrium needed to maintain justice hypotheses must be taken to higher level. And it must be maintained there through deliberate action, until the equilibrium is regained - only now, rather than corresponding with state of inferiority, it must exist at a level corresponding with state of respect-worthiness as reflected in reality; in sense of self; and in the other's sense of the self.

It should be noted that the latter can be done in many different ways, from earning respect by proving the selves respect-worthy according to the other's values to changing the reality of the condition in a way that likewise accords with the other's values and cannot be justified by them in taking away. This we are seeing done finally by many black people who have pursued honest business, professional, military, priestry, scientific or social service paths: Paths that not only raise the reality of their condition, but likewise legitimately alter the world's sense of their value.

A more minor issue consists of the flux between the individual's sense of self and the world's sense of him. A person whose sense of self is higher than other people's view of him attracts attack intended to drag him down to the level of the other's idea; a person whose sense of self is lower than another's sense of him attracts love to help him rise to their level. The flux however is not only from outside in; it's also from inside out. A person's sense of self, beside being either attacked or supported if it disagrees with the other people's view of him, also exercises effect on other people's view of him - and ultimately on themselves. The people involved will have to keep pushing their view upon the person - to accept a different sense of the other person - to create a different just-world hypothesis - or have to change their beliefs.

A more salient issue is that we see people earn in estimation, or lose in estimation, all the time. The case of a society either unjustly punishing or unjustly rewarding somebody causes moral outrage: In other words, the person's just-world hypothesis revolting against perceived injustice. This is of course true with actual injustices (such as for example the burning of Joan of Arc) and injustices perceived in relation to the person's just-world hypothesis (such as, for example, in the mind of the Muslim fundamentalist, Western women working outside the home). And of course we see people manipulating people's just-world hypotheses all the time, for one or another set of agendas. We know this as politics. Another aspect of politics concerns the individual's place on the psycho-ethical equlibrium. Essentially, to move up and stay up, a person has to affect positively his estimation in the minds of others to a greater extent than he affects it negatively.

Given the back-and-forth nature of flux between reality and sense of reality and sense of justice, there are many ways to accomplish this. One can either earn respect and good treatment (and let the reality follow); one can change the place in reality (and let the people's sense of reality and justice hypothesis follow); or one can attempt both at once. The tactic involved depends on the quality of the forces with which one is dealing. The first tactic can work in the climate of actual conscientiousness (true conscientiousness) of the population; the second tactic is the only one that can deal with people who deal in force (as I've spoken in other situations, the people who speak the language of strength respect you only if you are strong). In the second case - in dealing with mindset of might-makes-right - force is in fact the way of changing the other person's justice hypothesis. With the mechanism of force mastered, it then becomes possible to put it in service of actual justice - which has of course been the expressed goal of Western civilization for centuries on end.

Actions by people to change their condition change either other people's sense of them, or their sense of the world. When someone who used to be well-regarded turns to "the dark side," that frequently occasions a shock: "Were we wrong about this person? Did something happen that I don't know about? Is something wrong with the world?" A similar shock can be heard when we see someone who's been conventionally mistreated gets something that the people buying into the just-world hypothesis warped by that mistreatment into believing him evil do not believe him or her to deserve.

Which leads me to speak of perhaps the most significant issue here of all, and that is: The quality of the just-world hypotheses. Not all just-world hypotheses are created equal. I see that to be a function of three variables. The first is actual truthfulness, compassion, sagacity, fairness, depth and integrity of the hypothesis in relation to the reality of the world and the fact of human beingness. The second is the method of its development - whether it started with principle or was developed through legitimate methods, or else followed from accident of force and fraud. And the third and perhaps ultimately most important is the ability of the hypothesis to allow for a better state of existence: That is, the HEIGHT to whether the entire equilibrium as it affects oneself and those who stand to be affected by oneself can rise; the level of life allowed for the entirety of the equilibrium; the movement (upward or downward) along the scale that is afforded to people affected and ultimately to the entire system.

With their position - the others' sense of them - their sense of themselves and the other - and worldview of all involved a constantly interactive synthesis, the people can be thought to relate like Leibniz's monads, connecting to one another and to the whole and through these interactions shaping the reality of each other, themselves and the world. The reality of their lives, and the reality of the meaning - the reality-concept - are a shared function of all parties involved: Of their sense of self; of their sense of each other; of their condition; and of the meaning and sense of justice that they assign the world. The reality of the world becomes a shifting sea, resting on monads of each individual's condition and that are always struggling to achieve a psycho-ethical equilibrium continuously reshaping each other through the recombinant flux of their just-world hypotheses and their sense of themselves and each other, with each individual unit of consciousness (individual or social) a monad - and each relation between them a part of the interconnectivity. And through effect on their lives, on themselves, on each other, and on the world, is created both the meaning (in terms of world hypotheses) and the reality of the world in which we live.

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