Reposted from CALResCo.

Connecting Synergistically

Chris Lucas

Men and Women are different, not in the obvious bits but in a deeper way, in our approach to life. The difference in question relates to our relationships, how we view being separate and being together, our approach to connectivity. Whilst this difference may have a biological (hormonal) basis, and be reinforced culturally, that aspect is of little importance. All such differences are statistical, with much overlap between the sexes. Neither approach is right or wrong in itself, they matter only in their effects on our overall fitness, whether we consider that as an individual, as a group or in terms of local or global societies. What matters is what these different approaches tell us about the way we view our world, and how this in turn affects our future behaviour.

When people meet we can take two basic attitudes. In the first, competition, which is typified by male behaviour (fighting over mates in its biological origin perhaps), we regard the other as threatening, as an interaction that potentially reduces our fitness as an individual. In the second, cooperation, typified by female behaviour (caring for offspring as a biological drive perhaps), the other is regarded as needy, interactions potentially increase our overall fitness as a group. In modern complexity thought these two approaches to fitness interrelate and we explore this relationship here. Despite their origins as survival methodologies from our evolutionary past, these gender biases are still with us today, affecting our current social behaviour and shaping the constitutions that we create.

A Difference between the Sexes

Over the last 2500 years we have been living in a patriarchal world, all our institutions and cultural behaviours have been instigated by men, controlled by men and validated by men. Only recently, with the rise of feminism, has serious attention been directed at women and their actual (rather than assumed) behaviours. In her book ‘In a Different Voice’, Carol Gilligan outlines research showing that the two sexes have rather different approaches to life. Calling these the ‘rights’ and ‘care’ approaches, she explains these as methodologies that respectively regulate conflict, and which seek to establish cooperation. The approaches are so different that questions presupposing ‘rights’ answers are apparently badly answered by ‘carers’ (leading to the prejudice of women being thought ‘illogical’), The ‘care’ approach is instead trying to diffuse any conflict, by seeking an alternative solution to the dualistic yes/no answers being forced by the ‘rights’ approach.

The evolutionary value of these two alternative approaches are seen in the behaviour of our primate relatives, whose lifestyles still reflect the evolutionary conditions under which such behaviours originated. The dominance hierarchy of the alpha male’s ‘mating rights’, and the resultant subordinate actions by lesser males, are echoed within the human social scene, with our constant emphasis upon ‘bosses’ and levels of control over the ‘lesser’ members of our social groups. In contrast, the maternal infant care role within the primate world echoes the power sharing mode seen in human friendship associations, a mode that must be seen to be at the heart of society itself.

External and Internal Perspectives

The ‘rights’ view of life is what Hampshire called a ‘judge’ perspective. Here, in common with much philosophy and science, each situation is viewed from the outside in what is regarded as an objective way. This viewpoint forces simplifications since an observer necessarily cannot know the full history or values of the protagonists. Such abstractions allow for easy apparent solutions, but accept without question the either/or nature of protagonist conflict situations. The ‘care’ approach, on the other hand, relates more to what is called an ‘agent‘ perspective, where we are invited to place ourselves into the situations faced by the protagonists and asked how we would respond, which brings into play the full range of our personal historical and emotional values.

This situated form of evaluation is, from a complexity perspective, far more appropriate in real life situations, since it leaves the solution set open and allows the agent to access the full range of possible alternatives, without canalizing choice to just two isolated and opposing options. The requirement to balance multiple values or dimensions in any real situation encourages compromise, but more importantly it also allows synergistic effects to be taken into account, those new possibilities or solutions that result from the interaction process itself. This allows us to deal with novelty and not just those situations phrased in terms of existing or predetermined academic answers.

The Idea of Synergy

Within the complexity field we spend much time talking about state space and the total possibilities open to the system. Here alternative answers come into their own, and in this sense complexity studies is more a female oriented approach to choice than a male one. Synergy is the study of how interactions within systems affect their joint fitness, and this depends largely upon the forms of interaction employed. In the ancient philosophy of Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, and also in its close relative Taoism, we find the observation that as well as the view of ‘me’ and that of ‘you’ we can also have the views of ‘both me and you’ and of ‘neither me nor you’. In other words, when we view combinations or interactions we must take into account all the possible combinations, and not just those obvious or familiar to us.

Relating this to our two forms of interactions, the male ‘rights’ approach seeks to keep ‘me’ and ‘you’ separate and to mediate a sort of mutual non-interference pact between us – a uneasy truce (as seen in the politics of Rawls and Dworkin). The female ‘care’ mode addresses the ‘both me and you’ viewpoint, and seeks to benefit both as a result – a compromise, more concerned with emotions, intuition and trust (e.g. in the work of Noddings and Baier). But what about the ‘neither me nor you’ viewpoint, what do we make of this ? Here we step up a level, we transcend the limitations of individual viewpoints and enter a new plane, a social viewpoint. In complexity terms this is a form of emergence and leads to new system properties coming into being, properties or opportunities that do not exist in terms of individual viewpoints.

One plus One equals Infinity

Emergent properties extend the options available to us, they are forms of innovation that take us beyond those possibilities that we previously knew. Two people by working together can achieve what each alone cannot – this may be in something as simple as erecting a tent for example. Once this novel structure comes into existence then further innovations become possible. More people working together can achieve a cathedral, in other fields we obtain computers or ships. Each combinatorial creation can then join with the others to create additional novelty (a floating, computer navigated, hotel for example). In this way our human societies expand in complexity without limit. Synergistic possibilities are thus infinite, life is an open ended adventure.

As well as these material synergies we can also recognise more mental or spiritual ones, for example the religious and political philosophies that play such a large part in our human lives. Each time we innovate in this way we expand our viewpoint to create new values, extra levels of individual or social needs that can then affect our lives in positive or negative ways, often in forms that escape our immediate notice. Emergence, by definition, requires that we transcend our current world, that we accept a new level of reality that goes beyond what we could previously envisage. Our awareness thus grows and we potentially extend beyond our origins, adopting along the way more appropriate modes of thought.

Society as Synergy in Action

Transcending the viewpoint of the individual and recognising these higher level properties is not an easy thing to do, any more than our organs can recognise that they are parts of a person or a molecule that it is part of a cell. Nethertheless, just as a person has abilities beyond those of cells and organs, so our social organisations have lives of their own, properties that do not depend upon specific individuals (whilst being dependent upon some individuals participating in the various roles). This is a form of autopoiesis, a self-sustaining property that retains identity despite part changes, in just the same way as a body retains identity despite replacing all its cells over time.

This form of synergy is characterised by the phenomenon of downward causation, whereby the properties of the higher level act to constrain or stabilise the part behaviours. In society, our laws, customs and institutions create a framework that prevents chaos or disorder but also enables the specialist behaviours (division of labour) and individual efficiencies (extended choice) that distinguishes today’s higher standard of living and potentially better quality of life from more primitive tribal collectives. This aspect of communal novelty can prove to be both good or bad, and sadly our historical experience has rather emphasised the negative aspects, nethertheless this need not be the case.

Autonomy as Illusion

The two inherent aspects, of restrictions (needed to maintain the social infrastructure) and freedoms (our apparent individuality), are often treated separately, as opposing viewpoints, rather than as complementary features of a complex system. Most of our political thought adopts a dualist position, emphasising on the one hand control (law and order – the static traditionalist society) and on the other hand autonomy (personal liberty – the competitive liberal society emphasis). Once we recognise however that freedoms can exist only within a social framework (desert island living forgoes such social benefits), we bring into play the concept of responsibilities. The self as an autonomous entity has no existence outside the society that sustains it. All our claims to individualism (e.g. as artist, lawyer or web billionaire) depend extensively on other people, we rely on them to maintain the social infrastructure that permits us to enjoy ‘rights’ and thus we must also accept responsibility to them in return for these privileges. The modern view that we can have ‘rights’ in isolation is thus seen as absurd – why should other people support us as parasites ? Rights exist only in so far as we accept our collective responsibilities for the synergistic whole which enables them.

Many of the jobs, recreations and infrastructures that make up modern society are meaningless in individual terms, they only gain their validity as social functions, in terms of collective responsibility and benefits. Examples include football games, politics, computers, bureaucrats, banking, churches and television. All of these are producible or usable only within a collective structure, as part of a system of multiple interconnections that gives the freedoms that allow each individual to specialise in tasks that bypass those survival strategies that would be essential if societies didn’t exist. Perhaps 90% or more of our lifestyle today relates to such non-primal needs. That we are able to concentrate so much on the higher social and abstract aspects of life reflects the benefits obtained by social synergy, in contrast to the selfishness often shown today by the individual members.

The Selfish Approach

Problem resolution within a view of autonomous individuality often resorts to power plays, the use of threats. If this does not work then little is left other than acts of aggression. This form of violence is usually resisted. Even if it is not it must lead to damage to the victim, and if resisted (our natural biological impulse) leads to damage to the aggressor also (either material, financial or physical). The escalation of such conflicts is almost inevitable, as the residue of resentment, grudges and injustice will linger over many generations. Breakdown of the social infrastructure (local or national) is a common result of these scenarios, in other words both parties lose in the long term.

The position established by such power plays has led historically to the dominance based social hierarchies with which we are familiar. These are based upon a static form of society, whether dependent upon left or right wing dictatorships, whether secular or religious in form. Given humanity’s propensity for curiosity and novelty, these sorts of systems can only be kept in place by repression of any dissidents, thus most of the government effort is directed to stabilising their control and not on bettering the conditions for their citizens. It is in this form of society that revolutions come into their own, since there is no other avenue for resolving major disputes or disagreements within the status quo. It is an irresponsible form of social organisation that leads to massive fitness losses in overall terms.

Higher Level Webs

Responsibility means accountability, obligation, duty and trust. It presupposes a care ethic, a way of regarding society as a beneficial establishment both for ourselves and others. We thus have a mutual interest in maintaining the synergy that it creates. These emergent properties are a result of our interactions as members of society and if we allow these to change then society can develop accordingly. The fear often supporting static or traditional societies is that this change will dissolve what is valued about the current society and replace it by unwanted novelty that will impinge negatively upon our quality of life. Yet, in any grouping, allowing all to contribute enhances greatly the intelligence and knowledge available. Having one ‘boss’ directing say twelve ‘workers’ means that only a twelfth of his mind can be devoted to controlling each of them, whereas giving the workers self-autonomy enlists thirteen mind-powers on a now mutually-agreed task – a step jump in efficiency exceeding by far so called ‘productivity’ improvements !

The only reason not to support this mode is if the boss wishes to exploit the workers, achieving a result not in their interests, and we must be honest in saying that this is almost invariably the case within our societies, any dissension quickly resulting in suppression by company or state – a fitness minimising strategy for the majority. But the size of the ‘pots’ that such bosses are hoarding is itself being vastly reduced by their behaviour – a self-defeating stupidity in synergic terms ! Mutually supporting, rather than competitive, forms of interaction however can also enhance rather than detract from the maintenance of our values. This is the case, since by caring about the whole we can avoid forms of growth that fail to maintain what is good about our world. The equality of worth or values amongst participants assumed by the ‘care’ approach establishes a network of links amongst all the members of society. This multidirectional web leads to a form of dynamic society that naturally can evolve in a positive way, if it is free to do so.

Social Self-Help

In many ways the emphasis we gain from complexity studies, where better options result from agent autonomy than those obtained by external design, leads us towards a political stance that may be termed anarchistic. Despite authoritarian misinformation, this refers to a system without leaders or dominance (whether these be communist or capitalist, governmental or company), in other words a self-organizing form of social order, rather than the ‘lawless disorder’ implied by the word’s vulgar usage. The efficiency advantages resulting from the ability to explore all of state space, and not just those avenues allowed by vested interests, makes this form of dynamic democracy superior in all ways to the more exploitative and unsustainable static forms common throughout the world today (in both their right and left wing versions).

These considerations tie in with similar concerns within the ecological, feminist and human rights movements, and these all support forms of organization that do not enshrine a single value (e.g. money or power) as superior to all others. Within a more balanced multidimensional value system we see clearly that maximising single values forces such negative impacts and divisions on the rest that the very existence of society and even of our planet is threatened. Whether a form of stateless libertarian socialism would result in solutions to the failures and self-contradictions of domination capitalism is of course open to debate, but ethical decisions here will depend on a better understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of multivalued self-organizing systems. This aspect has so far been neglected as a research direction, where dynamic equilibria are usually studied with respect to over-simplified or one-dimensional fitness criteria.

Conclusion

Recognising the biases inherent within our current social organizations does require some education and openness, an approach allowing the free availability of critical information that is increasingly being prevented today by monopolistic media interests. Working together, rather than in opposition, can only increase the positive benefits to society as a whole. This synergistic fact is obvious after a little thought. Behaviours that tend to stifle or prevent people using their talents cannot enhance our overall lives, at best they can trade-off some values against others, usually leading to social divisions and a need then to resort to force to maintain the status-quo. A stressed ‘master/slave’ society cannot be regarded as a optimised one, thus it behoves independent scientists to look for and demonstrate better ways of political organization.

The self-organizing ideas on which complexity science is based support (in principle) many similar (historical or current) forms of genuinely free social organization. If we understand that society itself requires cooperation to survive, then this empowers us to look more closely at cooperative effects in both human and ecological fields. This alternative (to the conflict based studies so dominant in the current life sciences), can be expected to show in stark relief the massive advantages of cooperation over conflict as a way of organizing our planet. To obtain these advantages however, this awareness needs to be globally disseminated, in such a way that the people of this planet understand that there are valid alternatives to the socially and environmentally crippling ‘control freak’ mentality evident within all our governments (in blatent opposition to their professed democracy), and the divisive company elites that they increasingly represent .

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Chris Lucas is a researcher working on the philosophy and new sciences of Complexity Theory and Artificial Life. He has been involved full time in this area since 1994, and previously did related research in his spare time. He is the founder of CALResCo and Director of Research.  He holds a 1st in physics and computer science and is a member of the Institute for the Management of Information Systems (IMIS).  He lives in Manchester, England, U.K. Resume.

Reposted from CALResCo.

Reposted from The Edge.

Among his recent books are Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought ; Science and Anti-Science; Einstein, History, and Other Passions; The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens; Scientific Imagination; two books with Gerhard Sonnert: Gender Differences in Science Careers: The Project Access Study, and Who Succeeds in Science? The Gender Dimension;  Physics, The Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond (with S.G.Brush).

Professor Holton is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Life Honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of several Learned Societies in Europe. Founding editor of the quarterly journal Daedalus,and founder of Science, Society, & Human Values, he is also on the editorial committee of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton University Press). Among the honors he has received are the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, and the selection by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the Jefferson Lecturer.

The Changing Face of Terrorism

Gerald Holton

There has been an historic transition in which Type I terrorism and Type II terrorism are being combined.  Type I terrorism consists of acts by individuals or small groups that aim to impose terror on other individuals and groups, and through them indirectly on their governments.  Type II terrorism is the imposition by a government on groups of local or foreign populations. The new type of terrorism — Type III — is carried out by a substantially larger group of individuals, is aimed directly at a national population, and has all the components for success.  The article deals with how this new terrorism, at very little psychic cost on the perpetrators, disrupts personal and historic memory through large-scale catastrophe organized for that purpose. Type III terrorism is made easier by the ready availability of high-level technology.  Target nations will not have open to them the conventional responses, and will have to devise new, preventive measures.

Most 20th-century discussions on terrorism seem to me to have missed the point that, short of an unlikely act of international will, we have passed irreversibly through an historic transition.

Terrorism is a method of coercion of a population or its leadership or both, through fear or traumatization.  What usually has caught our attention was an act that attempts to impose terror, by individuals or small groups, on other individuals or groups, and through them indirectly on their governments.  I will call this Type I terrorism.  The record shows that such acts, from the bombing of buildings to skyjacking, in virtually every case have had three characteristics.  They have been carried out with conventional, i.e., paleotechnic means.  They become part of a long and numbing series of such acts (one study reported 2400 attacks by foreign terrorists on the U.S. between 1983 and 1998).  But above all, while they usually gain their fundamental aims of attracting worldwide attention for a time, of perhaps scoring a victory over a rival gang, and of satisfying a lust for blood by assassinating innocent people at relatively low risk, they have in most cases been failures — failures with respect to the long-range objective of coercing fundamental government policies.  One recalls here the dismissive remark in a letter of September 1870 from F. Engels to K. Marx: “Terror is for the most part useless cruelties committed by frightened people to reassure themselves.” The situation is completely asymmetrical when we turn to Type II terrorism, namely the imposition of terror by governments on individuals or on groups of local or foreign populations.  Although less frequent than Type I, such acts have claimed in the 20th century a far larger number of victims.  Above all, they have largely succeeded in their avowed aim, from Mussolini’s bombing of the Abyssinians and the killing of all men in the town of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of one man, down to the “Christmas bombing” of Hanoi in 1972.  (There are only a few cases of failure, e.g., the German Blitz raids on England, and the coercive acts of French military groups and colons in Algeria.)

It is my judgment that the asymmetries are now being dissolved.  There will be a progressive fusion of Types I and II terrorism that began with the process of governments co-opting and arming terrorist groups for transnational purposes; the legitimization of terrorism as part of so-called “national liberation” actions; and, most ominously, the training, arming, and financing by various countries of networks of international terrorists.  The last of these enables the two previously distinct types of terrorist agencies — states with potentially biblical scales of terror, and relatively independent small groups with limited powers of devastation–to collaborate, merge, or act, in secret or in more or less open collusion, in the new, Type III terrorism.

To understand the potential of this form, one must not stop with a prognosis of likely technical means.  The new technological capabilities in the present context — e.g., nuclear and other spectacularly destructive physical means, or biological and chemical (binary) weapons — form only one part of the context.  Neotechnic means can vastly increase the scale of damage, and through television can almost instantly and repeatedly spread the news and imagery of the act; but by themselves they need not coerce a determined people.  One should be equally concerned with the other components that are essential to the successful act of terror.  For whether it is carried out by individuals, a group, a state, or a coalition of these, terror succeeds or fails on a “stage” that has four components, each of which is subject, in our time, to the enlargements of opportunity or scope:

1. The technological capabilities available to the terrorizing group.

2. The current model of normal or “regular” life as perceived by the targeted group.

3. The historic memory (including folklore and other social myths) of the affected group.

4.The international-political situation in which the terrorizers and their victims find themselves.

Historic Memory

To see this point clearly, one must realize that the methods of terror of Type II, from the earliest historic period to our own, involved not merely inflicting horrid casualties, but succeeded when they produced a drastic modification of the traditional perception of society and nature within which human life had previously been thinkable. It is through this modification that the victim is disoriented, robbed of integrity, and made manipulable. That is the chief lesson of one of the primal examples of traumatization, namely, chapter 11 of Exodus: Not until the tenth plague, one that disrupted the whole familial and social fabric of Ancient Egypt, was the level of terror high enough to coerce the pharaoh’s decision.  Another example is that of the Mayas, otherwise successful and valiant warriors, who are said to have been put to flight by the very appearance of Spaniards on horseback, who were thus representing a psychologically intolerable fusion of incommensurables. (1) The modern terrorist may well try to determine consciously where the most effective place is in the personal and historic memory of his or her intended victims, in order to insert the crowbar there.  Conversely, a group and its leadership that fears victimization by terrorists might examine both the weak spots in its society that could at least partially be protected, and also what may be the hate-producing elements in the potential attackers’ worldview and grievances that might be ameliorated.

Precisely because this subject is so rarely considered in such discussion, a digression will be useful to elaborate on, and to distinguish between, personal and historic memory.  The former, at least on the surface, is characterized by the remnants of specific and individual joys and traumata.  On a deeper level, to which long, thin roots penetrate from the surface, there are the universalized aspects that form the subject of the search for lawfulness in modern psychological studies.

Historic memory, partly of factual and partly of mythic events, can be regarded as a subset located within deep personal memory.  A good part of its contents are the possibilities of moving, ominous, foreboding, uncanny, magical happenings that are expressed in creation myths and apocalyptic myths, and in the stories that transform common personal events such as birth, danger, escape, and death — the realm of storytellers about the events in ancient kingdoms, exploits of armies and leaders, or great natural catastrophes (such as the eighteenth-century earthquake that devastated Lisbon and so helped change the Western optimism of the century).  While these stories and myths may seem ethnocentric in a specific population, there are important invariants here too.  Thus, the Motive-Index of Folk Literature by Stith Thompson (2) contains a classification of narrative elements through an enormous range of cultures and time periods; but it is significant that the antithetical couple, “world calamities” and “establishment of natural order,” is among the very first “mythological motives” listed.

The potential of using this psychological ground as part of a stage for political action has been known for some time.  Thus, in RÈflexions sur la violence (1908), a manual long influential in terrorist movements, Georges Sorel counseled the revolutionaries of his time to take advantage of these “social myths,” as he termed them.  He noted that:

“…the framing of a future…may be very effective….This happens when the anticipations of the future take the form of those myths, which enclose with them all the strongest inclinations of a people, of a party, or of a class, inclinations which recur to the mind with the insistence of instincts in all the circumstances of life; and which give an aspect of complete reality to the hopes of immediate action by which, more easily than by any other method, man can reform the desires, passions, and mental activity.” (3)

He argued that it made no sense to discuss how far such a myth can be taken literally in detail as future history:  “It is the myth in its entirety which is alone important: its parts are only of interest insofar as they bring out the main idea.”  He proceeded to show that this conception can be used both in its positive and its negative sense.  That is, not only can a social myth stabilize a social order, but its destruction and replacement by another myth can be, and indeed has to be, the condition for the radical transformation of a society.  This, in his view, was the function of “Proletarian violence” and “plainest brutality.”  The aim of this violence is the institution of a counter-myth, in the specific case of interest to him, the myth of “the General Strike…the myth in which Socialism is wholly comprised.”  His whole essay, far from a call to violence for its own sake, had the grandiose aim to “confront man with a catastrophe” that would signify “absolute revolution.”  While one might well doubt the details of Sorel’s conceptions, the method of transformation through a large-scale catastrophe organized for the purpose is in our technologically more advanced era an even more powerful conception than it was in Sorel’s time.

Another famous manual for using widespread terror in the service of an ideology is of course Leon Trotzky’s book Terrorism and Communism (University of Michigan Press, 1961), written within two years of the Bolsheviks’ victory in the Russian Revolution.  Thus, in his chapter titled simply “Terrorism,” he writes with confidence passages such as these:  “The problem of revolution, as of war, consists in breaking the will of the foe, forcing him to capitulate and to accept the conditions of the conqueror” (p.56)….”Are we expected to consider them [the measures] ‘intolerable’?” (p.57)….”As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the ‘sacredness of human life.’” (p.63)

Twentieth-Century Cases

The key role of historic memory in the success of Type II terror acts becomes immediately clear when we consider the particular part of modern historic memory that refers to actual traumatic happenings which disrupted the familiar environment of human life.  The chief example that comes to mind is of course the release over Hiroshima and Nagasaki of artificial, man-made suns that rained down heat, gamma rays, and radioactive fallout — an injection of a new, essentially cosmological object into the ecology of human experience.  Secretary of War  Stimson accurately observed to the members of his scientific panel advising on the use of the bomb on 31 May 1945, prior to its first test over Alamogordo, that they should consider the atomic bomb not “as a new weapon merely but as creating a revolutionary change in the relation of man to the universe.” (4)  More than even most of the scientists present, Stimson seems to have realized early that the weapon was outside the normal frame of causality, not only of the intended victims but also of the victors.

The use of the atomic bomb is a classic case of successful traumatization by Type II terrorism.  But the historic memory contains other examples that share some of the same parameters, even if not the same scale or duration of effect.  Thus in some quarters, the impact of the injection in October 1957 of a new artificial moon, Sputnik, was near-hysteria, the more so as the object had been made in a country thought to be threatening, and (as far as the public was concerned) was made in secret.  A more relevant case was that of the replacement of natural air by a deadly gas produced by the Germans in World War I.  The Allies were initially terrified, but they soon absorbed the weapon into their own war plans.  Thus, as noted by Gilbert F. Wittemore, Jr., by March of 1918 the United States research group had developed a simple and efficient process for the production of the large supplies of mustard gas that had been ordered by the United States military in September 1917.  “By the time of the armistice, the Edgewood plant was producing 30 tons of mustard gas a day.  Chemists later pointed with pride to this accomplishment, noting that it was not their fault that these vast quantities of gas had not been fired in American shells.  The gas had been ready and waiting: the army had failed to provide the artillery shells.”(5)

The case, and the condition of non-use in Western society since, illustrate a maxim that state-controlled terror weapons lead to proliferation, just as do other weapons, but that there may then ensue a balance of terror — that peculiar state in which each side exhibits the behavior of both terrorizer and victim.

The historic consciousness of our time contains also another case that future historians may put on the list of developments that uniquely characterize the twentieth century.  I refer to the discovery by the civilized world, at the end of World War II, of the existence of the Nazi camps for genocide — or, more properly, of final proof that bore out the evidence long available to those who cared to know.  The process by which these concentration camps were used systematically to destroy specially selected and identified groups of the population under German domination was calculated to serve a triple purpose.

Not only were the camps designed to eliminate people.  They also were factories to “harvest” them methodically, rapidly, and on a huge scale.  Nothing in the exhibit area of Auschwitz has been more shattering than the carefully sorted, huge piles of eye glasses, shaving brushes, trusses, children’s wear, human hair, and so forth, the last of such shipments to the German homeland, abandoned when the camp was liberated.  (It is a small part of the evidence of the involvement of large numbers of people in the transport and other aspects of the undertaking.)

But it is generally overlooked that a third purpose of the camps was precisely that they would act also as a terror weapon.  Certainly, at least the segment of the population that was the target of these camps was sufficiently aware of their existence, and consequently was traumatized by the threat to such an extent that the vast operation in which millions were killed could be carried on with considerable efficiency in terms of manpower needs.  (6)  The existence of the Gulag in the Soviet Union was more generally known within the country; the disappearance of millions forced into those camps also had a paralyzing effect on the psyche of most in the population at large — although with splendid exceptions.

The use of systematic state terror in what became the Soviet Union has been most authoritatively described by Richard Pipes in his book, The Russian Revolution (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990).  Chapter 18, “The Red Terror,” traces its early stages to Lenin’s writings, as in an essay of 1908, where he first used the concept of “extermination” of class enemies.  Once in power, the Bolshevik dictatorship made terror part of its state policy.  Lenin’s Commissar of Justice wrote in 1920:  “Terror is a system…a legalized plan of the regime for the purpose of mass intimidation, mass compulsion, mass extermination,” all directed to segments of the state’s own population.  Eventually, the Soviet security police were given a free hand to end the lives of millions of citizens that it regarded as “enemies.”  Concentration camps, called by that name, had been first ordered to be set up by Trotzky and Lenin in August 1918, as part of the “Red Terror.”  By 1923, there were 315 such camps.  In the Stalinist U.S.S.R., they grew ever larger and more numerous.

This is not the place to pursue this particular legacy of that tragic century to world history.  But in the absence of any agreements, incentives, or other forces that would tend to discourage continued development and use of terror of both types, we may expect the tacit taboo on this particular Type II terror weapon to be overcome also.  The campaigns of “ethnic cleansing,” e.g., in Serbia and  Rwanda, came close to this model in recent years.

The Success of Terror

I have argued that cataclysmic events, the perpetration of enormities, and other precipitous changes in the human condition, stretch personal and historic memory beyond the limits of the accommodations of the ordinary elastic range; they make a plastic deformation, leaving the psyche different, distorted, and ready to crystalize experiences around the wound in new ways.  When we ask what lessons the historic memory of our time has drawn from these events, one finds that the most prominent response is, of course, self-protection on the conscious level.  The atomic bomb and the Holocaust are rarely made part of educational curricula.  On the contrary, for the masses the chief vehicle for presenting terror situations has been banalization (and exploitation).  Examples are such movies and TV productions as Hiroshima Mon Amour, “Hogan’s Heroes,” The Night Porter, Mel Brooks’s The Producers, Lina Wertm¸ller’s Seven Beauties, and, most recently, videogames using Nazi protagonists in full uniform.

The second lesson that the planned use of calamities as Type II terror weapons has left in historic memory is that on the whole they were successful, and, moreover, that the use of the weapons did not produce counterbalancing, severe psychic costs to the user.  Hence, there is no reason why future adventures along this line should not be seen “safe” enough by the perpetrators.  The effect that the dropping of the first atomic bombs had on the leadership and population of the Western Allies is an illustrative case in point.  When, in response to the reasonable likelihood that the Germans would preempt them, a number of scientists working on the design and manufacture of the bomb (James Franck, Eugene Rabinowitch, Glenn T. Seaborg, Leo Szilard, and others) pleaded in June 1945 (in “A Report to the Secretary of War”) that the bomb should not be first used on a civilian target, one of their chief arguments was that “the military advantages and the saving of American lives achieved by the sudden use of atomic bombs against Japan may be outweighed by the ensuing loss of confidence and by a wave of horror and repulsion sweeping over the rest of the world and perhaps even dividing public opinion at home.” (7)  Their advice was of course not heeded, and the explosions had their intended traumatizing effect on the Japanese leadership.  None of the expected “loss of confidence” and “wave of horror and repulsion sweeping over the rest of the world” materialized, at least not for some time.  Quite the contrary.  The New York Times, in an editorial on 7 August 1945, for example, hailed the Hiroshima bomb as “the magic key to victory [which] has been found in America….The new bomb…is the crowning demonstration of Allied technical, scientific and material superiority over the enemy.”

Moreover, the Times declared under the heading “Science and the Bomb,” that the scientists had better shape up and learn a lesson from the event:

  A most important piece of research was conducted on behalf of the Army by precisely the means adopted in industrial laboratories.  And the result?  An invention is given to the world in three years which it would have taken perhaps half a century to develop if we had to rely on prima donna research scientists to work alone.  The internal logical necessities of atomic physics and the war led to the bomb.  A problem was stated.  It was solved by teamwork, by planning, by competent direction, and not by a mere desire to satisfy curiosity.”

While the War Department’s announcement concerning Hiroshima said the destruction force equaled the load of 2,000 B-29s and more than 2,000 times the blast power of what previously had been the world’s most devastating type of bomb, it also said that more than 400 fighters and bombers pounded Tarumizu in Southern Kyushu on that same day in just one of the other actions.  On the next day, more than 225 B-29 “Super Fortresses,” escorted by 140 P-47 Thunderbolt Fighters, dropped about 1,500 tons of demolition bombs on the city of Yawata.  (Yawata was one of the Japanese cities that had been publicly warned by the Air Force that it would be destroyed.)  Like the first nine biblical plagues, such devastation could somehow still be made of a previously known kind of order (or disorder).  But the new bomb provided a discontinuous jump to an unimagined higher order of magnitude.  In this respect, it was beyond the usual use of weapons in war, which have traditionally served primarily in the physical incapacitation of the enemy and the subsequent conquest of his territory.

Indeed, the only objection to the use of the new weapon that found its way to the front of The New York Times in the first days after its use was a story under the heading “Vatican Deplores Use of Atom Bomb.  Official Press Office Says the Weapon Has Created an Unfavorable Impression.” (

The New York Times went on to reprint part of the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano editorial that deplored the development of the atomic bomb by reminding its readers about a story concerning Leonardo da Vinci:  “He planned a submarine, but he feared that man would not apply it to progress, namely to the constructive uses of civilization, but to its ruin.  He destroyed that possible instrument of destruction.”  The accusing finger was clearly pointing at the scientists involved — and to this day, it is generally they who are singled out when the popular mind tries to assess responsibilities in this case. (9)

In late November 1945, an opinion poll showed that only 5 percent of the public was opposed to the combat use of the atomic bomb.  Harry Truman, who made the decision to use it, shared with the electorate the opinion that the bomb was a legitimate weapon. As Truman wrote to a clergyman shortly after the Nagasaki explosion:

  The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them.  When you have to deal with a beast, you have to treat him as a beast.” (10)

It is a capsule illustration of what Erik Erikson has called “pseudo-speciation,” a process by which an “enemy” traditionally is deprived of membership in the human race proper, thus solving the problem of guilt, if only on the surface. (11)

Conclusion

Since operationally the condemnations that both Type I and Type II terrorism have received so far have generally been ineffective, there is no reason to think that Type I terrorists will continue to limit themselves to paleotechnic means and to essentially unsuccessful missions.  On the contrary, the same dynamic that escalated the technological sophistication of state terrorism is bound to act also within individual and group terrorism of Type III.  Therefore three developments may be expected.  One is the attempt by one or more states to disseminate, not directly but through hired gangs, both the technology and also the cultural ground for successful terror, i.e., to secure the marriage of advanced technology and the intent to traumatize through cataclysmic disaster.  The second is that gangs, not necessarily or openly associated with states but motivated by a fervid ideology (analogous to the case of the Bolsheviks), will perform that same sinister marriage on their own.

Third, a nation targeted for the new terrorism will not have open to it the conventional response — i.e., a balance of terror against an identifiable Type II threat.  Therefore it will have to devise new measures, both for making terror acts unacceptably costly to each or all probable instigators, and for initiating policies that might defuse the conditions likely to be animating the potential terrorists.

There is a final point.  As Type III terrorists scale up the levels of activity, chances are that some terrorists may experience technical failures, particularly in their early preparations.  Any attempt to produce damage on a very large scale requires a certain amount of technical mastery that may not be easy to transmit locally to what previously would have been merely a band of Type I terrorists.  The distance in competence between the supplier of the new weapon on the one hand and the operator on the other hand can be very large, even in the cases where such weapons are used by advanced states in warfare. (12)

However, even “failures” of weapons (nuclear, chemical, or biological) on the scale of Type II agents but in the hands of Type III agents could be attended by enormous deleterious effects, devastating to life in unintended areas.  It may well be that precisely such a catastrophic “failure” could serve to mark the full extent of the discontinuity in world history.

Copyright © 2002, Gerald Holton

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REFERENCES

1 Conversely, the Mayas, being well advanced in the study of solar astronomy, are said to have been much less vulnerable than earlier European peoples to the appearance of solar eclipses.

2 Thompson, Stith, Motive-Index of Folk Literature  (Bloomingdale, IN: Indiana University Press, 1932-36).

3 Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, trans. T. E. Hulme and J. Roth, with an introduction by Edward A. Shils (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950).

4 Quoted in Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), pp. 204-205.

5 Gilbert F. Wittemore, Jr.  “World War I, Poison Gas Research, and the Ideal of American Chemists,” Social Studies of Science 5 (1975): 151.

6 The same theme of efficiency is found in the detailed operations of the camps.  Thus, I have seen in the archives in Auschwitz records of experimental research to determine the number of calories needed in the food supply to keep the average inmate not so weak as to be unable to work in the labor sections of the camp, nor so strong as to survive for more than some nine months at the outset.  Moreover, when the available food supply was tuned to this particular aim, camp inmates could be persuaded to do a great deal for relatively small favors (e.g., being rewarded by scooping a ladleful of soup from the bottom of the kettle, where there might be some potatoes, rather than from the top).  Thus the camps were policeable with less manpower.

7 Quoted from the Report as reprinted in The Project Physics Course Reader, Unit 6, The Nucleus (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 206. Edward Teller maintained that he also was sympathetic to the aims of that group in 1945:  “[In a letter by Einstein in 1945] it was emphasized that one should not use the atomic bomb except by way of demonstration.  I also was of the opinion at that time that this was correct.  In my opinion, it would have been sufficient to explode the bomb at a suitably harmless height above Tokyo….On the other hand, it was Oppenheimer who quite explicitly recommended the release of the atomic bomb.”  (Translated from the interview “Professor Haber stellt vor: Edward Teller,” Bild der Wissenschaft [October 1975], p. 106.)  However, the contemporaneous documentation, e.g., in the J. R. Oppenheimer papers in the Library of Congress, appears to lead one to a rather different conclusion.

8 The New York Times, 8 August 1945, p. 1.

9 This is obviously simpler to do in peacetime than in the middle of a war.  The Vatican paper might have counterposed Leonardo’s supposed action with the declaration of the Italian scientist Nicolo Tartaglia, who in mid-sixteenth century had kept his treatise on ballistics to himself — until the Turks advanced: “Today, however, in the sight of the ferocious wolf preparing to set on our flock, and of our pastors united for the common defense, it does not seem to me any longer proper to hold these things [scientific discoveries of use in warfare] hid, and I have resolved to publish them partly in writing, and partly by word of mouth, for the benefit of Christians so that all should be in a better state either to attack the common enemy or to defend themselves against him.”

10 For passages from the Truman papers, see Barton J. Bernstein, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Reconsidered: The Atomic Bombings of Japan and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1945 (Morristown, NJ: Silver Burdett Co., 1975).  Along the same lines is Dean Acheson’s recollection about J. Robert Oppenheimer and Truman:  “I accompanied Oppie into Truman’s office.  Oppie was wringing his hands and said, ‘I have blood on my hands.’  ‘Don’t ever bring that damn fool in here again,’ Truman told me afterward.  ‘He didn’t set that bomb off.  I did.  This kind of sniveling makes me sick.’” (Newsweek, 20 October 1969, p. 71.) Similarly, when Niels Bohr obtained an interview with Winston Churchill in 1944 and argued for the internationalization of atomic energy as a way of avoiding a postwar arms race, Churchill was so outraged that he ordered “inquiries should be made regarding the activities of Professor Bohr, and steps taken to insure that he is responsible for no leakage of information, particularly to the Russians.”  Quoted from Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939-1945 (London: St. Martin’s, 1964) in Bernstein, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Reconsidered, p. 5.  It is considered likely that Bohr might have been interned if it had not been for Roosevelt’s sympathy.

11 An analogous process that tends to work toward the same end might be called “pseudo-professionalization.”  It allows scientists and other “experts” not to oppose an insufficient political and sociological act or view, by regarding themselves incompetent to deal with the uses others make of their work.

12 Thus when General Groves was asked by General Marshall to boil down his report on the first successful test of the atomic bomb at Alamogordo to half a page for use by the President and his staff, General Groves stressed that the bomb, only a few kilograms heavy and carried by a single plane, would produce a devastation equivalent to an attack by many hundreds of B-29s,  General Marshall is reported to have only one question:  “How large is a kilogram?”

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Reposted from The Edge.

Reposted from ThomHartman.com

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Something will Save Us

Thom Hartman

Wendy Kaminer wrote a brilliant book titled I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional. In it, she pointed to the pervasive assumptions of dysfunction inherent in the self-help movement, and the increasing obsession with emotional and psychological pathology in our culture. At the end of the book, she didn’t offer any specific solutions: she had only defined the problem. (Although one could argue that her solution was really the most elegant of all: see the problem for what it is, and refuse to dance the dance. In this, she argued forcibly for people reclaiming their own inherent power and emotional health.) 

Interestingly, after publication of the book, Kaminer received numerous letters from people indignantly demanding solutions to the problems she identified. She pointed out this irony in a later edition of the book: it was as if the people writing wanted her to suggest the creation of a self-help group or book to help those addicted to self-help groups or self-help books.

Some of the initial responses to the early editions of this book were curiously similar. I received letters, emails, and calls from people telling me with great certainty that the only solution to the problems outlined in the first third of this book would be found in smaller families, cold fusion, coaxing the flying saucer people out of their hiding, a worldwide conversion to Christianity (at least a half-dozen different people suggested, too, that only their particular sect of Christianity could bring this about, and all other Christians must ultimately recognize the error of their ways) or Islam or some other religion, or the immediate institution of a benevolent one-world government. The letters ranged from amazement to outrage that I’d failed to see and support their perspective.

But these are all Something-Will-Save-Us solutions. This kind of thinking is a symptom of our Younger Culture — and fighting fire with fire is only rarely successful: usually, it just produces more flames. As Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. demonstrated, often the most powerful and effective way to “fight back” against the pathological kings and kingdoms is to walk away from the kings: see the situation for what it is, and stop playing the dominator’s game.

But that involves a shift of perspective that some people find very difficult. There are, for example, those who point to the foundational belief of our culture (and, particularly, to European-ancestry citizens of the United States) that we can solve any problem if we just put our minds to it. Some even argue that the exploding human population is a good thing, because the more people there are, the greater the possibility we will find among them the next Edison or Jefferson or Einstein, who will figure out how to get us out of this mess. It is, of course, a simplistic, and ultimately cruel, notion, but one that has been used for years, usually to advance a dominator religious or economic agenda.

In fact, it’s somewhere between unlikely and impossible that children born into in the contemporary slums of Islamabad or Haiti, or even Baltimore or East Los Angeles, will grow up to change the world or solve our problems. They may become very competent: any corrections officer can tell you there are geniuses among our cities’ gang members and in our prisons. But grinding poverty and pervasive violence — born of overcrowding, and a lack of resources and security — rarely produce more than a surfeit of ingenious criminals and competent jailhouse lawyers.

On the other hand, Jefferson was a member of the land-owning elite, what we would today call the “very wealthy.” Translated into today’s dollars, nearly every signer of the Declaration of Independence was a millionaire or multi-millionaire. Einstein was never truly poor, and mostly lived a life ranging from comfortable to wealthy. And even Edison, penniless when he ran away from home at age 15, entered a world with a total population that was a fifth of what it is today, rich with cheap natural resources and virtually limitless opportunity for ambitious white young men who spoke American English. If any of them were to be born into the modern-day sewers of Bogota, they may end up being hunted for sport — but it’s unlikely that they’d ever have access to the resources necessary to create lasting and meaningful changes in the world.

True change is not a simple process

There is, of course, no shortage of do-this-and-everything-will-be-ok solutions proffered in the press and other books. The more commonly touted include worldwide birth control, strong controls on corporate exploiters and polluters, five-dollar-a-gallon (or more) taxes on gasoline and oil products, doubling or tripling of the cost of water and electricity by increased taxation, worldwide destruction of weapons of war, more money for environmental remediation, and the creation and empowerment of new political parties not beholden to corporate powers. I even dance around the edge of such solutions in the chapter about using our current oil supplies to create non-oil-consuming energy sources such as solar; I also, however, make it clear that this is nowhere near a full solution, but merely a stopgap.

But those who are concerned that this book doesn’t emphasize technological or political solutions have — if I may say it gently — missed the point.

Missing the point of a book like this is quite easy to do, because this book makes a radical departure from the normal fare of self-help and environmentalism. It presents the problems, delves into the cause of the problems, and then presents as a solution something that many may think couldn’t possibly be a solution because it seems unfathomably difficult: change our culture, beginning with yourself.

Such a solution is among the most perplexing to grasp because culture, at its core, is invisible. Like the air we breathe and walk through, its presence is only felt when it’s resisted: at all other times it’s part of the nothing-around-us that we rarely consider and almost never question.

The idea of cultural change is also often unpalatable because any sort of real, individual, personal change in beliefs and behaviors is so difficult as to be one of the rarest events we ever experience in our own lives or witness among those we know. It’s easy to send ten dollars off to the Sierra Club; it’s infinitely more difficult to reconsider beliefs and behaviors held since childhood, and then change your way of life to one based on that new understanding, new viewpoint, or new story.

But if such deep change is what we really need, I see no point in pretending that something simpler will do it.

The Something-Will-Save-Us Viewpoint

We are members of a culture that asserts humans are at the top of a pyramid of creation and evolution. In our radio-talk-show naivetÈ, we reveal our fatal belief that anything we have done — for better or worse — can also be undone. We tend to think that every problem, including man-made ones, has a solution. 

“Don’t worry,” our sitcom culture tell us: “Human ingenuity will save us.” In the deus ex machina ending in Greek plays, the hero inevitably finds himself in an impossible situation. To close the show, a platform is cranked down from the ceiling with a god on it who waves his staff and makes everything well again. Similarly, we today have an ultimate faith that somehow things will turn out ok.

From this perspective, we envision that our salvation will come from new technologies, or perhaps the rise of a new leader or political party, or the return/appearance of ancient founders of our largest religions. The more esoteric among us suggest that people from outer space will show up and either share their planet-saving technology or take us to another, less polluted and more paradisiacal planet. The Christian “rapture” envisions the world’s “good people” being removed from this mess we’ve created and relocated to a paradise created just for them. Among the New Age movement, a popular notion is that just in the nick of time the Ancient Ones, now only available in channeled form through our mediums and psychics, will make themselves known and tell us how to solve our problems. And, of course, there is no shortage of “just follow me, worship me, do as I say, and you’ll be happy forever” gurus.

Whatever form it takes, our culture whispers in our ears daily, “Something or someone will save us.”

This is what I refer to as Something-Will-Save-Us thinking.

It’s built into our culture, at the foundation of our certainty about how life should be lived, how the world works, and our role in it. It originated, most likely, as a way for dominators in emerging Younger Cultures to control their slaves: “Just keep picking that cotton and praying, and you’ll eventually be saved. It may be after you die, but it’ll happen, don’t worry about that. But, in the meantime, don’t stop picking that cotton!”

And, far from being the solution, Something-Will-Save-Us thinking is the root of our problems.

Younger Cultures and Something-Will-Save-Us beliefs

Something-Will-Save-Us beliefs are at the core of Younger Cultures, but startlingly rare among Older Cultures. This is not to say Older Cultures don’t have spirituality, belief in deities or spirits, elaborate ritual, offerings or oblations to gods or spirits, personal mystical experience, and so on. But Younger Culture Something-Will-Save-Us beliefs require two essential elements which are lacking from most Older Cultures: 

The belief there is only one Right Way To Live (which, of course, is “our” way), and that when everybody on the planet figures this out and lives our way, then things will be good. Conversely, this belief says that if we fail to convert everybody to our way of life, we will be punished by the deity (or, for secularists, the science/technology) who defined this one right way of life. 

The punishment may be personal or it may involve the destruction of the entire planet. But in either case, those who fail to conform to the dominator’s way will suffer, and the only way to be saved from doom is to conform. 

The belief that humans are essentially flawed, sinful, damned by a specific deity, or intrinsically destructive, and, therefore, they (we) can and must be “saved.” According to this belief, this personal (and, thus, worldwide) salvation process can only happen by either intense personal effort and devotion to a particular program (yoga, rosary, prostrations, good deeds, psychotherapy, jihad, Prozac), or through the intervention of a divine being or beings who reside in a non-Earthly realm (aliens from space) or non-physical realm (gods, saviors, angels, prophets, gurus, channeled Wise Ones).

The most secular among us believe we will find, among our own human race, people who will save us from ourselves. Historically, this was the basis of the rule of dominator kings: they had to have absolute power over their people, to save the people from themselves. This is also a core belief found among modern people who treat either politics or science as a Something-Will-Save-Us religion. 

Because members of Older Cultures assume there are many Right Ways To Live, each unique to a particular place, time, and people, they avoid evangelism. Instead, they respect other cultures and beliefs (even when they disagree with them): in fact, most carefully protect their ways and beliefs from outsiders, and accept “converts” only in the most rare of circumstances.

Believing in the flawed or “fallen” nature of humanity allows people to rationalize the various genocides, past and present, committed against humans and non-humans. According to this world-view, people are essentially evil and cursed; it logically follows that some of us will act out what we all agree is basic “human nature” (whether it’s biologically caused as the neo-Darwinianists suggest, or a curse from an upset god as some religions suggest) and commit all sorts of crimes against the human and natural world.

But if evil is fundamental to human nature, how could it be that it doesn’t exist in all cultures?

Few ever pause to question whether the evil or dysfunction may be in the nature of our culture, rather than the humans who are in it.

If we could just find the right lever

Something-Will-Save-Us beliefs — whether rooted in technology or religion — suggest that our problems are always solvable by new and improved human actions: they’re things we can control and manipulate, if only we have the right levers/science or can figure out the right prayers to motivate the right god(s) or space aliens.

The Technological Something-Will-Save-Us believers say that we haven’t yet mastered the technology of efficient and non-polluting energy use, equitable economic and/or political systems, simple and widespread methods of food or birth-control (or distribution of them), better medicines, or efficient communications. “If only there was more ofÖ” or, “If only everybody wouldÖ” the Something-Will-Save-Us refrain always begins, followed with the particular doxology of the particular solution being recommended.

Religionists say we just haven’t yet mastered the technology of pleasing the particular god of their sect: if every last tribe is found and converted to a particular institutionalized religion, or if all the ancient prophecies are fulfilled, or if enough people would meditate with the right technique, then we’ll be saved from doom. But we haven’t yet gotten that system perfect, they feel, so we need to work harder on it.

Older Cultures and the Synergist world-view

The true problem we’re facing is a result of our Something-Will-Save-Us way of viewing the world — a natural and predictable result. The problem is the stories we tell ourselves, what we see and hear and feel as we move through the world. The true problem is our disconnection from the sacred natural world. The problem is our insistence on quick-fix/external-to-us solutions to natural-world crises which we ourselves created.

Because our world-view is so much a part of us, subtly programmed into us since birth and reinforced a thousand whispered times every day, we take it for granted. We assume that the worldview we live with is inevitably, unchangeably real. Most of us can’t even imagine what it would be like to live with a different world-view from our own. (We do, though, keep getting glimpses, most often in the words of our “enlightened ones” — and we usually ignore those glimpses because, being Older Culture wisdom, they’re so inconsistent with our way of life).

Essentially, the Younger Culture Something-Will-Save-Us perspective says, “Something/somebody outside of us will save us,” whereas the Older Culture perspective looks within the individual and the local culture for solutions. 

The Younger Culture says, “Grab all the gusto,” or, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may be dead.” It hopes that no matter what we do or how bad we screw up, somehow we’ll be saved from it, either in this life or the next. Who cares what our children’s children will inherit: that’s their problem, and they can work out their own salvation just as we must work out ours. 

The Older Culture perspective says, “We’re here, now, and must deal with the practical realities of this life. And, most important, any decisions we make must consider their impact on our grandchildren seven or more generations from now.”

I find value in many of the Something-Will-Save-Us technological suggestions people are exploring and promoting worldwide, and many must ultimately play a role in the transformation of our world if we are to avoid utter disaster. But none attacks the problem at its core.

We must begin to live a sustainable, egalitarian, peaceful way of life.

The solution is not hidden from us: people have been doing it for over a hundred thousand years. A dwindling few million still do, to this day.

These are not secrets: Older Culture people have been shouting them at us since we first began our genocide against them 7000 years ago. Most of them are still trying as hard as they can to tell us, but we’re just not capable of hearing, because our culture has plugged our ears to their message.

Here is their message:

“Return to the ancient and honest ways in which
humans participated in the web of life on the Earth,
seeing yourselves and all things as sacred and interpenetrated.
Listen to the voice of all life,
and feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth.”

Living from this place, all other decisions we make will be appropriate.

The good news is that this is a very clear solution, embodying, as it does, only a single issue and a single change in a single culture (ours). The bad news is that that single issue is the most difficult and wrenching change I can envisionÖbut we must begin, now, to take the first steps toward the changes necessary.

It’s the same problem the prophets of old wrestled with: their core message was most often, “Change your way of seeing and living in the world, because the path you’re currently walking will lead to disaster.” As secular and Bible history both show, such prophets were almost always ignoredÖat least until the predicted (and inevitable) disasters struck. (And even then, the responses to the disasters were reactive: more animal sacrifices, building bigger temples, developing new medicines, drilling deeper wells, seizing distant and more fertile lands, etc.)

The world-view of Older Cultures rarely brought them to the inevitable and cyclic crises Younger Cultures have faced since their first eruption 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. Because people in these Older Cultures assumed that humans were intrinsically good, emphasis was placed on nurturing and healing, rather than controlling and punishing. Because they believed that humans and natural systems were not separate but, instead, interpenetrated and interdependent — synergistic — they developed cultural, religious, and economic systems which preserved the abundance of their natural environment and provided for their descendants generation after generation.

So what are the easy answers to difficult problems?

Unlike many of our self-assured gurus, ecologists, and technologist Something-Will-Save-Us believers, I don’t claim to know the exact details of our future. What I do know is that if we are to save some part of this world for our children and all other life, the answers won’t simply rest in just the application of technology, economy, government, messianic figures, or new religions/sects/cults. 

Instead, true and lasting solutions will require that a critical mass of people achieve an Older Culture way of viewing the world: the perspective that successfully and sustainably maintained human populations for hundreds of thousands of years.

Because I’m so firmly convinced that our problem is rooted in our world-view, the third section of this book is devoted to ways we can change that world view, rather than the technological/political/economic details which may emerge from that new perspective. The concepts of this third section flow from a few simple assertions:

1. History demonstrates that the deepest and most meaningful cultural/social/political changes began with individuals, not organizations, governments, or institutions.

2. In helping to “save the world,” the most important work you and I face is to help individuals transform their ability to perceive reality and control the stories they believe — because people do tend to live out what they believe is true. This has to do with people taking back personal spirituality, finding their own personal power, and realizing that most of our religious, political, and economic institutions are Younger Culture dominators and must be transformed.

3. Then, out of this new perspective, we ourselves will come up with the solutions…in ways that you and I right now probably can’t even imagine.

In the reality and experience of an Older Culture perspective, the mystical and life-connected world-view, we find a life rich and deep with wisdom, love, and the very real experience of the presence of the sacred in all things and all humans. A world that works for every living thing, including our children’s children’s children.

Copyright 1996-2002 by Thom Hartman

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 Reposted from ThomHartman.com

We continue with the third in our SafeEARTH series. See: 1) Beyond Crime and Punishment 2) Synergic Containment: Protecting Children

Synergic Containment

Science and Rationale

Timothy Wilken, MD

Synergy at its most basic simply means “working together.” Synergic science is then the study of “working together.” As science has progressed in helping us understand the human condition, it is now clear that we are an interdependent species. Sometimes I depend on others, and sometimes others depend on me. Another important fact of being in interdependent species is we share the same environment—the same reality.

Shared Reality

At home, we share the same living space with friends or family. If I turn the heater thermostat up, the room will become warmer for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I start yelling and screaming, things will get much noisier for everyone. Control of that reality is shared. If I make a mess or don’t clean up the kitchen, then we are all living in that mess.

This is just as true in the workplace, our neighborhoods, our communities, and in fact in the whole world. We live on a single planet, we all share the same water, the same air and the same resources of the single small planet.

Because control of reality is shared, if I foul the water or air, I foul your water and your air. Whatever I do, will effect you. Whatever you do, will effect me. If we work together and act responsibly, we can minimize the harm we do each other, and maximize the benefits of solving our problems together.

Freedom of action in a shared environment is a privilege, not a right. When we use Synergic Containment to protect a child, we are teaching the child that in a shared environment, he is free to act as long as those actions do not hurt others. We are teaching him to work together and act responsibly.

Synergic containment is probably most attractive to parents because it is a technique to control adversary behavior when you love and care about the individual behaving adversarily. Most parents love and care about their children. Containment is about protecting both the victim and the aggressor. It does this by stopping adversary behavior. Now synergic containment could be used just as effectively outside the family.

Community Use of Synergic Containment 

Throughout the long history of humanity, the primary mechanism for controlling adversary behavior has been adversary punishment. In the short term, adversary punishment seems successful in controlling adversary behavior, but punishment always hurts and injures the one being controlled. This injury tends to breed anger and resentment in the one being punished. Of course the effect is longer if you kill the aggressor, at least until their children grow up.

Now, outside the family, we often do not know or care about the individual being controlled with adversary punishment. So we are less disturbed that they are being injured and hurt. In fact we often identify with the victim, and feel it is only fair that they suffer for their crimes. It is an “eye for an eye,” and a “tooth for a tooth.” It is our very definition of justice.

What we are missing here, is that adversary punishment fails to stop adversary behavior in the long run. Punishment breeds hostility, hatred and eventually revenge. The Israelis and Palestinians have been punishing each other for decades, with no sign that the mutual adversary behavior in their communities is stopping or even slowing. “As you sow, so shall you reap!” You can’t stop adversity with adversity.

We have been adversarily punishing serious crimes in the United States for over 200 years. As the FBI reported in 1998: Despite the fact that as of “midyear 1998, the United States’ prisons and jails incarcerated an estimated 1,802,496 criminals”, in the year 1997, “the number of violent crimes—murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault —and property crimes—burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft —reported to the police departments in the United States totaled 13,175,070.” (2)

Community’s Right of Synergic Containment

In Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek,  Mr. Spock, the Vulcan Science Officer from a race ruled by logic, would remind his shipmates that: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one.”

 

The human body is a community of 40 trillion individual cells. The individual cells are organized synergically to be interdependent upon each other. They cannot separate themselves from the body as community. The survival of the cells depends on the survival of the body. The needs and safety of the body precedes the needs and safety of the individual cells. Sometimes individual cells are injured or even sacrificed to protect and insure the survival of the body as a whole. The needs and safety of the community of cells takes precedence over the needs and safety of the cells as individuals.

The Needs of the Many

Which is more important? The individual’s right to freedom of action or community’s right to public safety? We can now see that this is a silly and false argument. Community is simply “many” individuals. My freedom of action stops at the boundary of another individual’s personal space and safety.

America has long been the champion of the individual’s right to freedom of action. In fact, our American criminal justice system is so paralyzed by the need to protect the rights of the individual, that our streets are full of criminals, and our e-mail boxes are full of unsolicited junk mail and garbage including pornography and fraudulent offers. Why do we tolerate this? Isn’t it time to grow up? Aren’t we smart enough to create a society that values both an individual’s right to freedom of action and the community’s right to public safety.

With the discovery that humanity is an interdependent species comes the realization that we humans can no longer separate ourselves from community. Humanity as community is larger and contains humanity as individuals. The needs and safety of humanity as community must precede the needs and safety of humanity as individuals.

Community’s Right to Synergic Containment rests on the premise that if you deliberately harm other members of community, you will lose freedom of action within that community. If I harm others in a shared environment, I should expect community to contain my behavior—I should expect community to restrict my  freedom of action.

The Rule of Public Safety is that no human should be allowed to deliberately injure another human—that all adversary actions should ideally be prevented and when not prevented quickly contained.

Our present culture based on the false premise of human independence often places individual needs and safety over community needs and safety. This will shift dramatically in a synergic culture. If we humans choose a positive future, we would want a system that provides both for the protection and safety of humanity as community and humanity as individual.

Life Trust Guardians

This future system might well be modeled after the most successful systems on the planet—the living systems. Your body has a powerful immune system which protects the organism as individual cells and the organism as a whole.

In my proposal for protecting humanity, I have defined those who would assume this role as Life Trust Guardians. Their mission would be the protection of both humanity as community and humanity as individuals. They are bound by two laws.

The Code of the Life Trust Guardians

1) A Life Trust Guardian may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

2) A Life Trust Guardian may not injure an individual human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would conflict with the First Law.  

The first law of the of the Code commits to protect Humanity as Community. The second law commits to protect Humanity as Individuals. This represents a major shift in human values from today’s focus with the individual as primary to tomorrow’s focus with community as primary.

While Life Trust Guardians are responsible for the safety of both humanity as community and humanity as individuals, the needs and safety of community take precedent over the needs and safety of individuals.

This does not suggest a casual attitude toward the rights of individuals. Life Trust Guardians may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except where that would cause injury to humanity as a whole — except where that would cause injury to humanity as community. When an adversary event presents no risk to humanity as community then the Synergic Containment Officer’s first responsibility is to the safety of the individual. (3)

Protecting the Public

The Life Trust Guardians (LTG) as described in A Synergic Future have large responsibilities. Here we will only address their role in protecting public safety.

The Public Safety Division of the LTG would be entrusted with protecting the public safety by containment and prevention of adversary events. They will utilize synergic mechanism based on synergic morality to insure freedom from crime. This synergic organization will act more like our body’s immune system, than the law enforcement agencies we are familiar with today. Life Trust Guardians accept the premise that adversary behavior is caused by ignorance and not badness. This is discussed at length elsewhere in Beyond Crime and Punishment. Life Trust Guardians are synergists. They operate in the synergic paradigm.

Adversary	Synergic
MISTAKES = Badness	MISTAKES = Ignorance
INVESTIGATE	ANALYZE
ACCUSE & BLAME	DETERMINE RESPONSIBILITY
PUNISH —> self-punish	EDUCATE —> self-educate
“Guilt”	“Learn”
regret->	RESTITUTION

Life Trust Guardians accept as their responsibility the protection of humanity as community as well as humanity as individuals.

The Rule of Public Safety is that no human should be allowed to deliberately injure another human— that all adversary actions should ideally be prevented and when not prevented quickly contained.

The Public Safety Division of the Life Trust Guardians accomplish the rule of public safety by:

• 1) Seeking the Containment of all adversary events,
  
  
• 2) Performing Scientific analysis and investigation of all adversary events to determine the causes and parties responsible,
  
  
• 3) Holding Responsibility Hearings when those suspected of adversary actions claim innocence,
  
  
• 4) Providing Rehabilitation of those responsible for serious and dangerous adversary events up to and including incarceration for long term psychiatric and psychological treatment until they are found to be fully recovered and no longer a threat to the public safety,
  
  
• 5) Providing Education of those responsible for adversary events until they possess the understanding and knowledge necessary to avoid such events in the future,
  
  
• 6) Seeking Restitution from the responsible parties to repair to extent possible the injuries that their adversary actions have caused, and
  
  
• 7) And, always working toward Prevention of future adversary events, by monitoring and/or restricting personal freedom as appropriate to protect the public. (3)

The Public Safety Division is composed various pubic safety specialists. These include: Synergic Containment Officers, Science Officers, Hearing Officers, Rehabilitation Officers, and Prevention Officers.

Let us examine the process in more detail. When an adversary event occurs and an injury is reported to the Life Trust Guardians, they will dispense Containment Officers to the scene of the injury to analyze the adversary event, and if further risk to body or life exists, contain it.

Principles of Synergic Containment

1) Protection and safety of Humanity as Community.

2) Protection and safety of Humanity as Individual

3) When in conflict, the protection and safety of Community takes precedence over the protection and safety of the Individual.  “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few or of the one.” A community is a collection of many individuals.

4) The force of Synergic Containment is overwhelmingly powerful. The power of community is much much greater than the power of any individual or group of individuals. The power of the many outweighs the power of the few or of the one.

5) The force of Synergic Containment is never applied to punish others for wrongdoing. It is applied only to protect. The goal is to protect the largest number of individuals possible. Because this force is so powerful it must be applied carefully. It is always applied with love and compassion. It is always applied thoughtfully, carefully, intelligently, cautiously, and calmly. Ideally, individuals win, community wins, Life wins and the Earth wins. If some must lose, all efforts will be made to minimize that loss.

Depending on the nature and severity of the adversary event, Containment Officers have the authority to take those suspected of adversary actions into custody. Public safety is paramount. Suspects are required to cooperate with the Containment Officers, and if asked to enter into custody to do so voluntarily.

Containment of adversary events is the prime responsibility of the Synergic Containment Officers. They are required to protect themselves and the public. If a suspect resists being taken into custody, the Containment Officers will utilize the most advanced containment technology in every effort to avoid injury to the suspects, but if the suspects resist, Containment Officers are authorized to use whatever level of force necessary to insure public safety. This includes authorization to use deadly force.

When a synergist is containing an adversary, he must speak the language they understand—the language of force.

While our immune system lacks any ability to repair or rehabilitate cancer cells, the Life Trust Guardians should have much greater success rehabilitating and educating adversarily behaving humans. In a synergic future, all Physicians, Psychiatrists and Psychologists will be Life Trust Guardians. As humanity becomes more synergic and our knowledge of human psychology becomes greater, the need for deadly force should diminish.

In a moment we will examine how this might work in the real world, but first we need to define what it means to be “hurt”. Recall, when an adversary event occurs and an injury is reported to the Life Trust Guardians, they will dispense Containment Officers to the scene of the injury to analyze the adversary event.

Today, if you have a house fire you call the fire department. If you have home accident with personal injury, you call an ambulance. Now within synergic society all of these problems would be reported to and handled by the Life Trust Guardians, but Synergic Containment Officers would only respond to reports of adversary events.

An adversary event involves the intentionally injuring or threatening to injure other individuals–fighting and flighting–pain and dying. This is where we find conflict–the struggle to avoid losing–the struggle to avoid being hurt or killed. These are the events that our police forces respond to today.

Synergic Containment

Synergic Containment Officers are only responsible for containment of adversary events.

 

Their first task will be to contain the adversary event, and prevent the event from spreading further into community and involving new victims. 

 

Synergic society does not view the perpetrators as bad or criminal. However, they certainly recognize that they are dangerous. Recall in our initial discussion of using synergic containment to protect children, we are seeking to contain and protect all the individuals caught up in an adversary event—both victims and perpetrators. Containment is about protecting both the victim and the aggressor.

Synergic Rescue 

Once the adversary event has been contained, the second task becomes to safely rescue all of the individuals caught up in the event. This rescue is prioritized. First to be rescued are victims at greatest risk for further harm, then victims at lower risk. Once the victims are safe, the synergic containment officers will begin their rescue of the perpetrators.

 Synergic Disarmament

If those perpetrating the adversary event have weapons, they must be disarmed. Today, the danger of adversary events is greatly magnified by access to weapons. We humans are Time-binders. That means as a species we can create knowledge without limit. When we incorporate knowledge into matter-energy it is called a tool. Because knowledge can grow without limit, tools can also grow without limit. When tools are used to hurt others, they are called weapons. In our modern world, we have created ever more powerful weapons. These weapons are not safe in the hands of ignorance.

Once the perpetrators of an adversary event are contained, their victims rescued, then they will be disarmed, this must be effected before they can be rescued.

Next: Synergic Containment: Protecting Community

 

This morning, I begin a series of articles on a new mechanism for the synergic containment of adversary events. This new tool from synergic science is premised on the understanding that all mistakes are caused by ignorance. We have previously discussed how that premise leads to new ways of dealing with mistakes, even when those mistakes hurt people.

Synergic Containment

Protecting Children

Timothy Wilken, MD

Today our world is a dangerous place, and growing ever more dangerous. Everyday, humans are hurting and killing other humans. Mothers and fathers are beating their children. Husbands are beating and killing their wives. Rouge men are abducting and killing children. Teenage and young adult men are killing each other over the color of their clothes or the brand of shoes they wear. Life threatening violence is erupting over any act of supposed DISrespect.

Children are strapping high explosives to their bodies and detonating them in public places in desperate acts of suicide-homicide. In April of this year, President George W. Bush said, “When an 18 year old Palestinian girl is induced to blow herself up, and in the process kills a 17 year old Israeli girl, the future, itself, is dying.”

And then of course there are the armed conflicts, Peter Wallensteen of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports :

In 2001, there were 24 major armed conflicts in 22 locations. … Africa continued to be the region with the greatest number of conflicts. Worldwide, there were approximately equal numbers of contests for control of government and for territory.

In the 12-year post-cold war period 1990–2001 there were 57 different major armed conflicts in 45 different locations. … All but 3 of the major armed conflicts registered for 1990–2001 were internal—the issue concerned control over the government or territory of one state. The 3 interstate conflicts in this period were Iraq versus Kuwait, India versus Pakistan and Eritrea versus Ethiopia.

… The year 2001 was overshadowed in September by one new major conflict with qualitatively different, global characteristics which have so far proved difficult to categorize.(1)

And now we have the War on Terrorism, the War on Afghanistan, the impending War on Iraq, and then what? The War on Iran? The War on North Korea? The War on the Philippines? The War on China? Etc.? Etc.? 

Something is very wrong in our world.

Synergic Science

As a synergic scientist, I believe that we must learn to work together. This means we must become synergic humans. Synergy means working together—operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. We are committed to a world where I win, you win, community wins and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

 

Synergic science finds there are three types of humans in our present world. Which type you are depends on what you believe about how the world works.

Adversaries believe there is not enough for everyone and only the physically strong will survive. They believe humans are coercively dependent on others, and they best understand the language of force.

Neutralists believe there is enough for everyone, if only you work hard enough and take care of yourself. They believe humans are financially independent and should be self-sufficient unless they are too lazy or defective. They best understand the language of money.

And, finally a new type of human is still emerging. Synergists believe there is enough for everyone but only if we work together and act responsibly. They believe humans are interdependent and can only obtain sufficiency by working together as community. Synergists best understand the language of love.

But, to be successful in our present world, the synergist must understand all three languages and know when to use them. Synergists must sometimes use the language of force, and sometimes the language of money, it depends on whom they are talking to. However, when synergists are seeking allies—when synergists are seeking to build community—they must speak the language of love.

We believe that you should, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”What is it that most of us want others to do unto us? Synergic scientists answer this question as follows: Help and support others as you would wish them to help and support you.  Or, more simply, ”Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.” —Abraham Lincoln  

Synergists are trying to heal the wounds inflicted by those who don’t understand how the world could work. This then is the essential challenge to the synergists. Can we work together and act responsibly in time to save our ourselves on this planet? … Only by helping each other. If humanity were to achieve synergy, we would have a peaceful world, but how do we get there?

As a young father, I wanted to do the best job of parenting I could. With the birth of our first daughter in 1980, I began reading the then current literature on parenting. After a few months I settled on the parenting style proposed by Dr. Thomas Gordon in his book Parent Effectiveness Training. It was a win-win approach that did not support punishment or conflict. But Gordon realized that permissiveness, and letting children run wild would create its own set of problems. Parent enforced discipline was a win/lose game that the parent always won. Permissiveness was a win/lose game that the child always won. Neither method was good for children or families. Gordon explained how we could improve our communication with others at any age. How to work together for solutions where both parent and child could win.

What he did was provide parents with a specific set of communication and problem-solving skills, as well as a means for knowing when and how to use them (the Behavior Window). These skills (Active Listening, No-Lose Conflict Resolution, and the I-Message) changed the way many parents communicate with their children. The Gordon Method has proved just as valuable for improving communication in the workplace and in our schools. His books have been published in 28 languages and over 6 million copies have been sold worldwide.

However, there was one situation that Gordon did not address. Children through immaturity and ignorance sometimes engage in  dangerous  behavior. The danger may be to themselves or to others. Often this begins before they are able to understand the consequence of their behavior, or to be reasoned with. How do you stop them without resorting to adversity and punishment?

We have all seen parents slap a small child’s hand, when their child reaches for something hot or sharp. The child immediately cries and often runs away, but what has the child learned? Gordon would argue that physically striking the child sends only one message, “You are bad!” And, while the child will withdraw, it is not because they understand that they were in danger, but simply because they fear the parent will strike them again. Now parents often feel that striking the child was necessary to protect the child, but is this really true?

I remember one winter, a heavy storm knocked out the electrical power to our home for almost a week. I hurriedly purchased a portable kerosene heater for warmth and cooking. It was an amazing device, but it was also dangerously hot. My three year old daughter Reason had never seen such a thing in our modern all electrical home and watched with fascination as I set it up. As I watched the sparkle in her eye, I realized the damage she might sustain from touching the top or sides of the heater.

I asked by wife to hold her well within her arms while I set up the heater.Once it was lit, it soon became hot and began to glow. I told my daughter that it was very hot. I placed a small piece of paper on top which soon burst into flames. I poured a few drops of water on the surface that flashed into steam. All this time her mother advised her, that the heater was very hot and she should not touch it. She stood back and I watched her eyes growing large in amazement. Later her mother went to attend her baby sister Serene, and when I turned, Reason was approaching the heater.

I moved quickly squatted down and contained her loosely in my arms. Gently preventing her from getting closer than two feet. Then to my delight, she told me that the stove was HOT! And that I was NOT to touch it.

Later that evening, I would hear Reason carefully instructing her baby sister that the heater was very HOT, and that Serene should NOT touch it. This was quite unlikely since Serene was only nine months old. However, she seemed to listen carefully as she sucked her bottle. Over the next seven days, Reason never ventured closer than two feet to the heater, and watched it with great respect. Then, electrical power was restored and we put away the kerosene heater.

At this same time, I was studying human behavior. I was aware of the three ways we humans could relate to each other—adversarily, neutrally, or synergically—also called The Relationship Continuum.

Striking the hand of a child reaching for something hot or sharp was an example of adversary punishment. Later as I thought back on how I had protected my daughter, I decided to call this technique synergic containment. At this time, I was practicing Stress Medicine. I often worked with young parents and would always tell them about Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training. And, include a description of the mechanism of synergic containment. I thought of the technique as protective, and in some cases even a rescue from danger. I advised them to apply it with love and compassion. Certainly, my child had a very positive experience in learning about the danger of HOT!

Synergic Containment of an Aggressive Child

One of parents came to me with a concern about their large and unusually strong two year old. He was into the full fury of the terrible twos, and he had taken to occasionally hitting his baby sister. It seemed to happen when he got angry. His parents had physically spanked him several times, but the behavior continued. They were genuinely afraid for both the aggressive child and the baby.

I advised them to use the mechanism of synergic containment as follows: Ideally, when a potentially dangerous adversary event occurs both parents would be present. Then one of the parents could contain the aggressor, while the other one attends to the baby. But if there is only one parent present, then the most important thing is to contain the aggressor. The baby may cry, but she is safe once the aggressor is contained.

Whenever you see your two year old son striking the baby, pick him up immediately and remove him from striking distance of his sister, then sit down and hold him on your lap. Wrap your arms around his shoulders, but no tighter than necessary to physically restrain him. Do not raise your voice or berate the child in any way. Do not strike him or inflict pain in any way.

You must contain him. You must absolutely stop him from getting down off your lap. If he struggles, increase the physical restraint of your embrace. Your son may struggle and cry, but this should not win his release. You will have to hold him until he quiets down. This may take a while. Be patient. You cannot successfully talk with him until he is calm.

Your goal is to restrain the child, but not send the message, “You are bad!” You want him to understand that you are afraid for the baby. You want him to understand that hitting the baby is dangerous. Once he is calm, in simple language express your fear for the baby. If another parent or adult is there ask them to attend the baby with create concern. Once the baby is calm, have them pantomime, raising one hand into a position as if they might strike the baby, but then deliberately grabbing their raised hand with their other hand and pulling it down. Repeatedly stating in a calm voice. “I am afraid for the baby.” “Don’t hit the baby.”

This is not a technique to be used lightly. It is serious medicine. Children should be allowed to get angry. Containment is not to be used to control anger. Containment is not to be used to stop evenly matched boys from wrestling or rough housing. Containment is to stop DANGEROUS behavior. Containment of an aggressive child should only occur if the child himself or someone else is in danger.

 

When you use containment, you are limiting your child’s freedom of action. The child may process this as if they are being punished. They may misunderstand the act of containment as punishment. This is why it must be done with love and compassion. Certainly, the parents love their child. They just don’t like his dangerous behavior. The goal is to make that behavior less likely to occur in the future. Synergic containment must do more than stop the dangerous behavior, it must educate the aggressor.

Most adults can easily contain a two year old child. Once your son quiets down and becomes calm, and this might take 15 to 20 minutes. You would then try to communicate with him that hitting his baby sister is prohibited. His ability to understand of course would be limited by his age and level of maturity. The human mind develops during childhood. The ability to understand consequence does not develop until about age four. You don’t over explain or discuss your concerns, you just state them in the way that you feel your child will best understand. Simpler is always better. “I am afraid for the baby!” “Don’t hit the baby!” With very small children, use pantomime when possible.

At this point, you let the child down from your lap to return to his activities. You immediately attend the baby. Showing him your concern. You try to enlist his help in comforting the baby, and in demonstrating love and caring for his sister.You don’t insist that he help, but you let him see your concern.

Synergic containment only occurs to stop dangerous behavior. If the adversary act recurs, the synergic containment recurs.

Every episode of synergic containment is an opportunity to communicate with your child. As the child grows, his ability to reason and to understand consequence grows. Since all humans do not like being on the receiving end of adversary acts, they soon learn that adversity is an inappropriate behavior. Teach them that they need to work together and act responsibly to be successful within the family.

Allowing children of any age to profit from adversary behavior is a mistake. Ideally, the use of synergic containment begins early. A single parent can contain a small child. It may take two parents to contain a 10 year old. It may take three or four adults to contain a 14 year old. And, it may take a SWAT team to contain an armed 18 year old.

Next: Synergic Containment: Science and Rationale

 

Sunday, I explained that the cause of all mistakes is ignorance. Therefore, the only proper response to mistakes is: 1) analysis to determine what wasn’t known and who didn’t know it,  2) education of those making the mistake, and if others were injured, 3) restitution by those causing the injury. 

Sometimes I am asked, but what about really evil people? If ignorance is the cause of all mistakes, what was it that Hitler didn’t know?

What Hitler didn’t Know

Timothy Wilken, MD

Hitler didn’t know that, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”

Hitler didn’t know that his worst enemy on the Eastern front would be the Russian winter.

Hitler didn’t know that English mathematicians would break his most secret codes, allowing the allies to intercept and know his every plan.

Hitler didn’t know that American capitalism could make airplanes, tanks, and other weapons almost without limit.

Hitler did not know that his glorious “Thousand Year Reich” would last less than 10 years. He did not know that Nazi Germany would be totally defeated and forced to surrender unconditionally.  He did not know that 7,300,000 German citizens would die as a direct result of the war he started in 1939.

Hitler did not know that the cost of the war to the German Nation would exceed 282 billion dollars and bankrupt the country. Nor, that the German Nation would be divided in half and remain divided for fifty years.

Hitler did not know that within 5 years of starting the war, he would feel compelled to kill the only two living beings he loved–his mistress and his dog, and then commit suicide himself.

Hitler did not know that he would become the most despised and reviled human that ever lived.

How do I know that Hitler did not know these things?

Because if he had, he would never have gone to war. Hitler was ignorant, not stupid.

 

I think it’s time to move beyond crime and punishment. In our present world, it is widely believed that mistakes are the result of badness. So when mistakes occur, we investigate, blame and punish. This belief has resulted in a world where violence, hate and judgment are common.

Synergic science reveals that mistakes are in fact the result of ignorance. If we understand this, then when a mistake occurs, we would analyze, determine responsibility, and educate. This could soon lead to a world where public safety, love and compassion are common.

The Uncertainty of Human Knowing

Timothy Wilken, MD

We can never know all there is to know about anything — this is a fundamental ‘law’ of Nature. This is in fact is the only cause of mistakes.

Ignorance is the word that best describes the human condition. Alfred Korzybski explained this condition scientifically as the  Principle of Non-Allness. By this he meant that we humans make all of our decisions with incomplete and imperfect knowing. We make every choice without all the information. All humans live and act in state of ignorance. Korzybski felt that developing an awareness of this ‘law’ of Nature was so fundamentally important to all humans, that he developed a lesson especially for children. Korzybski would explain:

“Children, today we want to learn all about the apple.”

He would place an apple in view of the children, “Do you children know about the apple?”

“I do!”, “I do!”, “Yes, I know about apples!”

“Good” Korzybski moved to the blackboard. , “Come, tell me about the apple?”

“The Apple is a fruit.”, “The apple is red.”, “The apple grows on a tree.”

Korzybski would begin to list the characteristics described by the children on the blackboard.

The children continued, “An apple a day keeps the Doctor away.”

Korzybski continued listing the children’s answers until they run out of ideas, then he would ask, “Is that all we can say about the apple?

When the children answered in the affirmative, Korzybski would remove his pocket-knife and cut the apple in half, passing the parts among the children.

“Now, children can we say more about the apple?

“The apple smells good.” “The juices are sweet.” “The apple has seeds.” “Its pulp is white.” “Mother makes apple pie.

Finally when the children had again run out of answers, Korzybski would ask, “Now, is that all-we can say about the apple?” When the children agreed that it was all that could be said, he would again go into his pocket only this time he removed a ten power magnifying lens and passed it to the children. The children would examine the apple, and again respond:

“The apple pulp has a pattern and a structure.” “The skin of the apple has pores.” “The leaves have fuzz on them.” “The seeds have coats.”

Thus Korzybski would teach the children the lesson of Non-ALLness.

Now we could continue to examine the apple—with a light microscope, x-ray crystallography, and eventually the electron microscope. We would continue to discover more to say about the apple. However, we can never know ALL there is to know about anything in Nature. We humans have the power to know about Nature, but not to know ALL.

Knowing is without limit, but knowing is not total. Universe is our human model of Nature. Our ‘knowing’ can grow evermore complete. It can grow closer and closer to the ‘Truth’, but it cannot equal the ‘Truth’. It must always be incomplete. We are not ‘GOD’. We cannot see and know ALL.

Jacob Bronowski speaking in 1976 his famous public television series the Ascent of Man said:

“One aim of the physical sciences has been to give an exact picture of the material world. One achievement of physics in the Twentieth Century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable. There is no absolute knowledge and those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. This is the human condition; and that is what Quantum Physics says. I mean that literally.

“Let us examine an object with the best tool we have today, the electron microscope, where the rays are so concentrated that we no longer know whether to call them waves or particles. Electrons are fired at an object, and they trace its outline like a knife-thrower at a fair. The smallest object that has ever been seen is a single atom of thorium. It is spectacular.

And yet the soft image confirms that, like the knives that graze the girl at the fair, even the hardest electrons do not give a hard outline. The perfect image is still as remote as the distant stars.

“We are here face to face with the crucial paradox of knowledge. Year by year we devise more precise instruments with which to observe nature with more fineness and when we look at the observations, we are discomfited to see that they are still fuzzy, and we feel that we are as uncertain as ever.

“We had hoped that the human errors would disappear, and that we would ourselves have God’s view. But it turns out that the errors cannot be taken out of the observations. And that is true of stars, or atoms, or just looking at somebody’s picture, or hearing the report of somebody’s speech.”

“We seem to be running after a goal which lurches away from us to infinity every time we come within sight of it.

“The paradox of knowledge is not confined to the small, atomic scale; on the contrary, it is as cogent on the scale of man, and even of the stars.

“Let me put it in the context of an astronomical observatory. Karl Freidrich Gauss’ observatory at Gˆttingen was built about 1807. Throughout his life and ever since (the best part of 200 years) astronomical instruments have been improved.

“We look at the position of a star as it was determined then and now, and it seems to us that we are closer and closer to finding it precisely. But when we actually compare our individual observations today, we are astonished and chagrined to find them as scattered within themselves as ever.

Uncertainty is the Human Condition

Incomplete and imperfect knowing means that every human belief is an assumption. We can never know for sure. We can never know ALL.

As you sit in your chair reading these words, you assumed the chair would hold you. You did not check under the chair to see if it had broken since its last use. When you ate lunch at your favorite restaurant last week, you assumed the waitress had washed her hands. You assumed the cook did not have hepatitis. If you had assumed otherwise, you would not have walked into that restaurant. You would not have eaten your lunch. We humans assume. Herein lies our uncertainty — that’s all we humans can do. There is nothing wrong in our assuming, we are simply obeying a fundamental ‘law’ of Nature.

We humans have always believed that mistakes are bad. We have always believed that those who make mistakes are bad. They are stupid or careless — lazy or incompetent — just no damn good. If they were good, they wouldn’t make mistakes. Everyone knows that. Decent people don’t make mistakes. This is nearly a universal belief.

Mistakes = Badness

Korzybski coined the word space-binding to describe the world of the animal. In the world of the animal, cause and effect can not be distinguished from each other. They are the same — they equal each other — they are identical. If the effect of a mistake is bad, then the cause of a mistake is also bad. Human intelligence is build on animal intelligence. All humans have a space-mind. It is a powerful and often dominant part of our human intelligence. As children the space-mind is primary. The uniquely human mind creates what Korzybski called the world of Time-binding. The time-mind doesn’t even begin to become operational in children until they reach the age of four.

So our human belief that mistakes are ‘bad’ is legitimate. Most of us learn about mistakes as small children. If I stumble while running, I get hurt and that is bad. If an animal is running for its life and stumbles, it dies and that is bad. For space-binders, mistakes are a part of bad space.

In the world of space-binding, a mistake can cost not only the life of the individual space-binder, but also the lives of others in the group — pack, pride, herd, or troop. Therefore the result of a mistake was often bad, and not just for the individual, but for others in the group as well. Since 99.9% of all human history has been adversary — 99.9% of our history dominated by space-binding, it is no wonder that we humans have believed for countless centuries that mistakes are bad.

The belief in the badness of mistakes was further reinforced and given Divine sanction by our human religions. God is good. God is omniscience — ALL knowing. God makes no mistakes. He is perfect. We humans are admonished to be as God-like as possible. If making no mistakes is ‘good’, then obviously making mistakes is ‘bad’. Our religions institutionalized the adversary processing of mistakes — Sin, Hellfire, and Damnation.

Science has also added credence to the ‘badness’ of mistakes. The world view created by the ‘objective science’ of Galileo, Kepler, Hooke, and Newton was a ‘perfect’ Universe. Newton’s System of the Worlds described a precision clockwork perfection that controlled all in Universe. If the Universe is perfect, then humans too must evolve towards perfection.

Dealing with badness

Since mistakes are bad, when one occurs, we investigate to determine who is at fault. Who made the mistake? Once that is determined, we blame those responsible. Following blame, we are ready to punish. More pain and suffering has been inflicted on humankind for making mistakes than for any other cause. This should not surprise us.

Punishment is the proper way to deal with ‘badness’. And,if we are anything, we are fair. So when we are the one who made the mistake, we self-punish. Self-punishment is called “guilt”. Humans are the only class of living systems that feels guilty. The only class of living systems that teaches their pets to feel guilty.

MISTAKES = Badness
INVESTIGATE
BLAME
PUNISH —> self punish
“Guilt”

Korzybski’s Error of Identity

When humans rely only on their spacial intelligence, they see cause as being identical to effect. They are in essence time-blind, and so they confuse cause with effect.

Korzybski explained that when humans see things as being identical that are not identical, they are making an identification that is false to facts. Korzybski called this the Error of Identity.

When we confuse cause with effect, we are making the error of identity. Today most humans make this error. We assume without analysis that cause and effect are the same — that they are equal — that they are identical. If the effect of a mistake is bad then the cause of that mistake must also be bad.

We don’t analyze the event for sequence. We don’t use our time-binding power to understand. And so,we act without hesitation, without doubt on our belief. We act in certainty. And, certainty as explained earlier by Korzybski, Heisenberg, Eddington and Bronowski is not possible, because knowing is uncertain.

Certainty

We humans always act without all the information. We humans are always assuming. If we are unaware that we are assuming, then we are ignorant of our ignorance. Certainty means that we don’t know that we don’t know. We cannot seek knowing when we believe our ignorance is knowing. Ignorance of ignorance is leveraged ignorance — ignorance masquerading as knowledge. Ignorance of ignorance is certainty.

When we are certain, we are surprised and disheartened by our mistakes. This attitude toward human error is the most damaging of human ignorances. We humans make mistakes because, we make all our decisions without ALL the information. This is a major point that all humans must understand. The only cause of mistakes is ignorance.

We humans must become aware of our ignorance. When we humans have knowledge of our ignorance, we can learn from our mistakes and protect ourselves in the future. When an individual knows he doesn’t know, he is wise. Wisdom is the opposite of certainty. The knowledge of our ignorance is wisdom.

To error is the human condition

This truth, whether we call it the Principle of Non-Allness, the Principle of Uncertainty, the Principle of Indeterminacy, or the Principle of Tolerance, leads us to the conclusion that to error is human, and there is no need too ask forgiveness. All mistakes are innocent.

Universe is not certain — it is not structured as we humans have believed for countless centuries. Religion and the objective scientists were wrong. The physics of relativity and quantum mechanics describe a Universe in which things are not and cannot be perfect. A Universe in which, we humans are constrained to make all our choices without ALL the information. Mistakes are simply holes or gaps in our knowing — lapses in our understanding.

I am often asked, “But, what if I knew better?” If I knew better and then make a mistake. Isn’t that the result of stupidity. If I knew better, but still made an error, then surely that is my fault and not the result of ignorance.

What if I knew better?

I recall a young women I once treated. She had opened her hotel room door to a man claiming to be a maintenance worker, who then attacked and raped her. The attacker has stolen a hotel uniform from a laundry hamper and so seemed legitimate. However, something about his appearance disturbed her, but on second thought, she assumed she was just being silly and so unlocked her door. When I saw her several months later she was still struggling with guilt.

“Doctor, it was my own fault. I was so stupid. I shouldn’t have opened the door. I knew something was wrong. I was so stupid. I knew better, but I opened the door anyway.”

I responded, “You weren’t stupid. You were only ignorant.”

She replied, “No, Dr. Wilken, I knew better, I should never have opened the door, I was just so stupid.”

“NO!”, I told her, “You weren’t stupid, you were only ignorant and I can prove it with one simple question. She looked deep into my eyes desperate to know what I meant.

I asked: “If you had known that the man behind the door intended to rape you, would you have opened it?”

“No, of course not.”

No of course not. None of us would make a mistake if we knew we were about to make a mistake. Even when we humans repeat our mistakes, it is because we assume the mistake will not happen this time. We are ignorant of what will happen this time. As I have stated, the only cause of human error — the only cause of human mistakes is ignorance.

Scientists as well as non-scientists who seek to know must therefore embrace humility when we stand before the totality of Nature.

The Principle of Non-Allness is a fundamental law of Nature. And the first corollary to the Principle of Non-Allness is what I call the Principle of Innocence.

Principle of Innocence

All actions occur in ignorance. All human actions and all human choices are made without all the information. We are always acting and choosing without ALL the information. What we don’t know we must ignore and what we ignore may hurt us. Therefore all errors and and all mistakes are made in innocence.

Good news

I don’t mean that mistakes are good things or that getting hurt is a good thing. I mean that since the cause of mistakes is ignorance and the proper response to ignorance is education, then we can learn from our mistakes.

We can acknowledge the mistakes of history and those that are occurring in our present world and work to correct them. This is good news. It will make it infinitely easier to build a better world.

When we understand the truth of “to error is human”, we can then begin to process our mistakes in a synergic manner. The human who understands that mistakes are a natural part of life does not investigate the mistakes like a detective, he analyzes the mistake as a scientist. He does not blame when a mistake occurs, he seeks to learn from the mistake and to learn he must accept responsibility and seek responsibility in others for their mistakes. Once he knows who is responsible for the mistake he educates.

Education is the proper response to ignorance. Education and learning is the synergic alternative to adversary punishment and guilt. However there is something in guilt worth keeping. It is certainly not the badness, it is certainly not the blame, and of course it is not the punishment.

Guilt also contains regret and this is worth keeping. When a mistake happens there is always regret. In the adversary world where there is blame and punishment of course I might regret being blamed and punished. I also might regret being considered bad by those who are blaming and punishing me. But there is almost always another component of regret. When I make a mistake that hurts someone else, I regret that as well. This is the regret worth keeping.

And, this is often why we humans tend to hang onto our guilt feelings when we make a mistake. We regret injuring others. We can solve this dilemma by moving regret over into the synergic processing of mistakes, where it is called restitution. Restitution means to restore, to repair the damage caused by the ignorance of our behavior.

The synergist does not feel guilty when he makes a mistake, but he is sorry if his ignorance injured other. As a synergist, he will freely try to repair things. He will freely offer restitution.

We humans have a choice as to how to deal with mistakes. If we process our mistakes adversarily we get pain and no learning. If we process our mistakes synergically, we get learning and no pain.

In fact, you cannot learn when you adversarily process mistakes. We humans cannot tolerate the pain of blame, punishment, and guilt. We will deny that we make a mistake. We will project the blame for the mistake onto others. “I didn’t do it.” — “It wasn’t my fault.” — “And, if it isn’t my fault, why should I have to learn anything.”

In fact, if I am to learn from a mistake, I must first admit it was my fault. This is the real force behind what I call the “anti-learning barrier”. If I am to learn from my mistake I am trapped into accepting responsibility for my error. If I am adversarily processing the mistake, I cannot accept responsibility without feeling guilty. To avoid guilt I must deny responsibility. And if I wasn’t responsible then I have nothing to learn.

The “anti-learning barrier”

This barrier became evident to me by another one of my patients. I once had the occasion to treat a young woman in the early stages of her fifth pregnancy. She informed me she had had four abortions previously and was pregnant and planning to abort this pregnancy as well. I thought to myself, why can’t she learn to use birth control?

If we examine her situation in light of our new understanding, we see that for her to use birth control, she would have to admit that it is her responsibility to prevent unwanted pregnancies. That admission would lead her to the further conclusion that she was then also responsible for her previous unwanted pregnancies and their abortions.

This young woman was a Catholic and to admit responsibility for unwanted pregnancies and abortions were far too painful for her. She opted to deny any responsibility. “My boy friend got me drunk, and made me pregnant. It wasn’t my fault, so I don’t need to take birth control. Besides using birth control is a sin, I would never do that.”

The human brain is the most powerfully precise computer in the Universe. If we program it to believe mistakes are bad, it will function to prove it does not make mistakes. The human brain rebels at the idea that mistakes are bad. It will defend itself in any way possible, it will defend itself by lying. When I am accused of badness, I must lie to protect myself — to protect myself from blame and punishment — to protect myself from guilt. Confronted with an adversary reality that we live with today, it is rational to lie. Lying leads to distrust — “I assume you are my enemy”. Thus, the processing of mistakes as bad always leads to conflict and adversary behavior.

If on the other hand, I process my mistakes in a more scientific manner — as simply ignorant — choices made without all the information, then I must tell the truth to protect myself — to protect myself from repeating the mistake — to protect myself and others from further injury — to protect myself from paying unnecessary restitution.

Telling the truth leads to trust — “I assume you are my friend”. Processing mistakes as ignorance leads to co-Operation and synergic behavior.

Scientists and all humans who seek to know must embrace humility when they stand before the totality of Nature. The principle of Non-Allness is a fundamental law of nature.

The fact that all actions occur in ignorance is a fundamental ‘knowing’ derived from the Principle of Non-Allness.

And the first corollary of that principle — the Principle of Innocence is an even more important extension of our human ‘knowing’. If we understand that all errors are committed in innocence, then how we treat those who err will change forever.

What about Bin Laden ?

How could the attack on the World Trade Towers have resulted from ignorance. How could those behind the murder of 3000+ thousand innocents themselves be innocent?

What don’t they know?

They don’t know that “As you sow, so shall you reap”. They don’t know that:

Adversary action usually provokes adversary reaction ending in an adversary resultant or loss.

They don’t know how powerful the United States really is. They have forgotten the lessons learned by Japan and Germany by the end of World War II. They to have wakened the sleeping Giant. Their acts will not make the world better and safer for themselves or for those they claim to represent. They don’t know that the end never justifies the means. In fact, the means always end up becoming the ends.

They don’t know that there is no heaven for murderers. They don’t know that an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, ends up with no winners only losers in a modern world with high technology and knowledge.

They don’t know that:

Progress + Warfare = Human Extinction

We humans are Time-binders, we have the power to create knowledge without limit. When knowledge is incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. As Andrew J. Galambos explained:

“Humans develop evermore powerful knowledge and therefore evermore powerful tools. When tools are used to harm other humans they are called weapons. Since human knowledge can grow without limit then tools themselves can be made without limit. And limitless tools can will produce limitless weapons.”

And, limitless weapons (progress) combined with leveraged adversity (warfare) must by all definitions and understanding of science produce human extinction.

All of today’s law enforcement agencies use adversary processing in an attempt to protect the public safety. Unfortunately, adversary processing results only in pain and no learning. The war on crime has been lost and always will be lost. Adversary behavior cannot be stopped with adversary behavior. The means always become the ends. The abolition of crime will require the abolition of punishment.

Only then can we move towards a world where, love, wisdom and compassion will replace hate, ignorance and judgment. Only then can we move beyond crime and punishment.

Read Timothy Wilken’s A Limit to Knowing.

Read Timothy Wilken’s Protecting Humanity.

Today marks the completion of my daughter Reason’s 22 revolution around the Sun. Happy Birthday! She left for New York City this past June and now works for a biotech investment firm as an analyst. We miss her. This morning, I repost a sample of her writings.

Reason Writes

My Thoughts

Synergic Justice

There are many ingredients of a good drama. Among them are tragedy, irony and suspense. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the current legal system provides plenty of fodder for shows like The Practice and Law & Order. In the course of one episode an individual guilty of murder can walk free or an innocent person can be found guilty ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. The testimony of a key witness may be thrown out on a technicality, and a defense attorney may pledge the innocence of their (guilty) client. Things are not always as they seem inside a courtroom, which provides plenty of plot twists for producers and writers. But if one is to look beyond the drama, is our current system of crime and punishment really “just”? It seems like there must be a better system of justice available, one in which a convicted killer could not be absolved of responsibility by pleading insanity. The newly proposed synergic organization called the Life Trust may be one such alternative.

The crux of the Life Trust proposal rests on what is referred to as the “Principle of Non-Allness”. This principle states that all the factors, details and circumstances in a situation can never be known. There is always uncertainty with regards to what will happen next, and all humans are living their lives and choosing courses of action do so without all of the information. In this context, mistakes are viewed in a new light. No longer are mistakes “bad” and worthy of blame and punishment. Instead, mistakes are the result of ignorance. They are an inevitable part of life because no one has all the information, but they do provide an opportunity to learn. Thus, mistakes should be dealt with using education rather than condescension, blame and punishment.

The proposed Life Trust is based upon a biological model: cancer. Cancer cells are continually being created during the process of cellular division and are (usually) destroyed by the immune system. The immune system is able to recognize cancer cells as abnormal and contain their spread by destroying them. In the Life Trust, individuals who take part in adversary events are like cancer cells, and they threaten the well-being of society just as cancer cells threaten the health of the body. Law enforcement officials (referred to as Life Trust Guardians) are akin to the immune system, seeking out adversary individuals and containing them. The process does not stop with containment (as it often does in the current system), but moves on to education and rehabilitation in order to help prevent future adversary events.

Read the full article 

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Synergy and Terror

As the initial shock from these terrible events of the past ten days begins to wear off, we are beginning to ask the question “What next?” The country is beginning to move past a stage of surreality and disbelief into one of inquisitiveness and resolve. “I can’t believe that this is happening!” is being replaced by “Who did this, where are they and what are we going to do about it?” in the minds of our people. It is a complicated dilemma, as we are definitely fighting a war but with whom we are unsure. Without delving into the details of foreign policy and possible international consequences to our eventual course of action, there are several issues to be considered.

My perspective is that of a new student of synergic science. Synergy means working together — operating together as in Co-Operation— laboring together as in Co-Laboration—acting together as in Co-Action. The goal of synergic union is to accomplish a larger or more difficult task than can be accomplished by individuals working separately. Synergists are committed to a world where I win, you win, others win and the Earth wins. Win-Win-Win-Win.

How do synergic (win-win) principles guide us (or not) in determining a due course of action in bringing these ambushers to justice and making our world safe?

The events in New York and Washington D.C. were clearly executed in an extremely adversary manner. Those responsible had a message or statement that they felt, for whatever reason, could only be communicated with violence. Instead of scheduling a conference with the American government to discuss points of conflict or protesting in the streets, the attackers chose instead to slam hijacked passenger aircrafts into their carefully selected targets. In addition, these individuals were so committed to their cause that they were willing to give up their own lives for it. Words such as “cowardly”, “evil” and “zealots” have been used to describe those that perpetrated these attacks. Perhaps “animalistic” and “subhuman” have their place on that list as well.

When one asks “What separates humans from other animals?”, qualities such as “the ability to think rationally”, “the ability to weigh risks and benefits of a course of action ” and “ a special empathetic connection and kinship with other members of the human race” might come to mind. In considering these points, it becomes evident that the terrorists who executed the attacks were behaving in a truly inhuman manner.

Although the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were well thought out and (sadly) well-executed, the actual motives for the bombings are less clear. It is suspected that religion may have played a role, and that the terrorists may have seen themselves as martyrs for a cause when they aimed those jets at their targets. To these individuals with their evangelical beliefs, the attacks were not only justifiable but necessary. Evidently, the massive number of casualties that would result was not too high a price to pay.

The absolute and utter disrespect that these terrorists had for human life (including their own) is nothing short of incredible. Their willingness to throw themselves and hundreds of innocents into a wall of fire to prove a point is beyond disgusting and beyond reproach. It is beyond inhuman.

Aside from the unforgettable pictures of the twin towers being hit by the aircrafts and subsequently collapsing, one of the most haunting images was that of the reaction in Palestine. All manner of people, including young children, were shouting with glee in the streets when they heard news of the attacks on America. They were jumping joyously for the destruction of two of this nation’s most famous landmarks, exalting in every injury and death of an American citizen. It is difficult to understand Palestine’s reaction to this tragedy, and it is even more difficult to accept. How can any American watch this “celebration” and not want to bomb the hell out of those who hold it? Not want to bring death and destruction and bloody fury to those who find so much fun in human suffering?

As we in America are forced to deal with this almost irrepressible anger that clenches our fists and brings tears to our eyes, what are we to do? Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of U.S. support for President Bush’s declarations that America will retaliate against those who perpetrated these attacks and “whip terrorism”. Indeed, it is hard to think of a synergic (win-win) solution to this dilemma. It is impossible to have a win-win situation by any stretch of the imagination, as America has lost so much that will never be recovered. In addition to the lives of all those killed on the planes, in the towers and in the Pentagon, America has lost some of her feelings of sanctity, security and innocence.

Synergic scientists realize and accept that there will be times and situations where loss is unavoidable. When this occurs synergic mechanism dictates that the group accept reality and focus on minimizing the loss. Hopefully, we Americans can work to minimize the loss for ourselves and all of humanity.

Judging from the philosophy and actions of the individuals who committed these acts, it is ludicrous to think that some kind of peace treaty can be reached with them. If America wants to prevent another attack, a friendly meeting with terrorist leaders is not the answer. The terrorists who carried out these acts are not rational, responsible human beings by any stretch of the imagination. Synergic relations among parties require that each party has a sincere desire to help and understand others. No matter how good the intentions are of one party to make peace and go forth in negotiations, it is useless if the other parties do not share the same goal. In fact, putting too much faith in untrustworthy individuals could prove very deadly. Like the unwise rabbit who ventures out of its hole in an attempt to bargain with the wolf, America could easily be struck again if no attempt is made to contain the reprehensible people who are responsible for these horrendous attacks.

In formulating an intelligent response to the terrorists, it is important for this nation to remain committed to a rational course of action and to not let anger cloud our judgement. While it is necessary to find and neutralize those responsible for the attacks on America, care must be taken to avoid the involvement of innocent citizens. How can America preach the importance of human life and then proceed to bomb civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever these terrorists hailed from? Even in this time of profound grief and anger, to do so would lower ourselves to the level of those kamakazi pilots.

The synergic scientists whose work I am studying believe that you should, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

What is it that most of us want others to do unto us? Synergic scientists answer this question as follows: Help others as you would wish them to help you.

If I was being angry and destructive, I would hope that others would help me by containing my dangerous behavior. I would hope they would prevent me from hurting others and myself. I think America must act with strength and resolve to contain the terrorists and eliminate their threat to all humanity.

If we wish to act as a synergists, America must put away its anger. We must realize that with crisis always comes opportunity. Opportunity to grow, to become stronger and more resilient. As we watched citizens from all over the country come together with surprising fervor to donate blood, help and supplies, it became very clear that America will get through this. Instead of allowing these attacks to weaken our morale as they were intended to do, this crisis has only proven the strength of our patriotic spirit and united our citizens. We will not be a nation whose inhabitants live among rubble and go about their daily lives in fear. America must remain resolutely united against terrorist attacks, so that tenants of high-rise buildings will never be required to keep a parachute handy under their desks just in case.

Reason Wilken
September 21, 2001

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What If?

On the fateful morning of September 11, 2001 America awoke to a nightmare beyond description. The unspeakable, the unthinkable had happened in our own backyard. The horrifying images of civilian aircrafts slamming into the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center in part of a massive terrorist attack will prove immortal in our national consciousness. We watched in disbelief as our largest symbols of wealth, capitalism and power collapsed into piles of dust.

My condolences and prayers go out to all the victims of this horrible tragedy, their families and friends, and all of the rescue workers and volunteers who donated their services in this time of tragedy. Although I was fortunate enough not to have any friends or relatives who were in Manhattan or Washington D.C. at the time of the attacks, the event still holds a personal significance for me.

A little over a month ago, I applied for a Financial Advisor position at Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley was one of the largest tenants of the World Trade Center, occupying approximately 50 floors of the first tower. The position I was interested in had a training program, part of which would take place at Morgan Stanley’s New York City National Sales Training Center. At the time, I was very interested in pursuing a career in finance and I was also very excited about working in the World Financial District in Lower Manhattan. Although my fate let me in another direction, I was horrified to hear that so much of the Morgan Stanley firm was affected.

As a human being and as an American, I was shocked, saddened and angered by the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. It is too early to consider the impact on anything but the families and friends of the all the individuals who fell victim to these violent attacks. The full fallout of these unbelievably horrific events will surely take time to sink in. While my thoughts and prayers are with all of those who lost loved ones and gave their time (and in many cases their lives as well) in rescue efforts, this event gives me certain pause.

As I watched the towers collapse, besides feeling shocked I thought “What if……What if”…

Reason Wilken
September 13, 2001 

My Reviews

My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

The Gorilla From Another Angle

My Ishmael is a sequel to the original novel, and reveals another side of the philosophizing gorilla that author Daniel Quinn’s readers have come to know and love. The book is set in the same time frame as the original, and centers on the relationship between Ishmael and another yet-unknown pupil. Twelve-year old Julie Gerchack is a good deal younger than the expected student for a sophisticated teacher like Ishmael, but possesses a logical power that is way beyond her years.

Unlike the previously documented pupil Alan Lomax (of Ishmael), Julie is drawn to this teacher not so much for enlightenment as for escape. A child of divorce, Julie has to singlehandedly deal with her overweight, alcoholic, full-time working mother. As a result, she assumes the role of “dutiful daughter” and preoccupies herself with school and maintaining the household. When she glimpses Ishmael’s ad, Julie feels that she might be able to be “useful to someone” and can’t resist answering it.

At their first meeting, Julie’s pessimism about the general state of affairs in the world is clear. When asked her reason for coming there, she replies that she just wants to “run for her life”. Ishmael asks what she is running from, and she replies “From everything. From people walking into schoolrooms with machine guns. From people bombing airplanes and hospitals. From people pumping nerve gas into subways. From people cutting down the forests…”. Unlike Alan Lomax, Julie seems to be acutely aware of just what is going wrong in the world. During her education with Ishmael, she will learn why.

Ishmael began his course with Julie in his usual fashion, by teasing out her version of “the story”. “The story”, of course, refers to the tale of human evolution as told by ‘Mother Culture’. Julie herself tells Ishmael that she thinks humans are “cursed” and incapable of living to their potential without destroying the Earth in the process. In short, humans are depicted as being at  an awkward stage of intelligence: smarter than other animals such as the insect or the earthworm, but not quite as smart as the gods that rule the world. As a result, humans are intelligent enough to develop new technologies (such as the automobile) but not intelligent enough to recognize the negative consequences (air pollution) until it is too late. The whole situation is simply beyond humans ability to solve it, so Mother Culture proposes that we just go on living this way for as long as we can (which at this rate is not very long).

Ishmael proposes that the crux of Taker (that is, industrialized) culture is based on one practice: the storage of food under lock and key. Taking control of necessary resources into the hands of a few forces the rest of the population to work to get their share. Ishmael illustrates this system by telling Julie the story of Terpischore (a planet named after the muse of dancing). Early on, all the inhabitants lived off of the land by foraging and hunting the available food sources. They lived in the “hands of the gods” and left their livelihood up to them (thus they were called Leavers). Eventually, a few of the people began to “dance” (farm) a few days per month in order to grow the foods they liked to eat. As time went on, some thought that it would be better to have even more of the foods they liked, so they danced a few days per week. Eventually, some of the people were dancing every day. Not only did they now have more control over their lives, but their lives had more control over them.

The Takers that led the dance were firmly convinced that it was the best way to live,  and so they decided that everyone should dance like they did. If they had to work for their food, so should everyone else. In order to force the Leavers to dance, the Takers put the food under lock and key. This of course caused dissention among the Leavers, who had gotten along well without having to grow their food. In order to control the uprising, the Takers had to develop more powerful weapons (such as guns). Thus began the “Great Dancing Revolution”, which is better known as the Agricultural Revolution.

Aside from merely growing and storing food, the Agricultural Revolution brought with it a variety of new laws and practices. Whenever there is power of some kind to control (such as the possession of money, land or stored food), there needs to  be a system of government. The Takers created laws in order to provide legal protection to those individuals who have valuable possessions. Jobs were created in order to provide motivated individuals with a means to earn a living and secure food for themselves. An educational system was put together in order to prepare children for the workforce. In comparison to Leavers, Takers seem to be working very hard in order to scrape by on the basic necessities of life.

The educational system is one aspect of the Taker culture that Ishmael particularly detests. As most students know, school is not the idyllic learning experience that it is cracked up to be. Ishmael remarks: “What one sees first is how far short real schooling falls from the ideal of ‘young minds being awakened’”. Nor does school thoroughly prepare students for the workforce. The average college student takes many courses that, while interesting, most likely won’t come in handy during a job interview. Examples of this might include calculus of three dimensions, chemical thermodynamics or advanced conversational Latin.

 According to Ishmael, the main purpose of school is to keep people out of the job market so it won’t overflow with candidates. Moreover, when a student finally does graduate from college, a good job is far from guaranteed. A new graduate today starts at the bottom of the ladder, much like a person without any education would have fifty years ago. The number of people competing for jobs is always increasing, so the bar has to be raised. College and graduate degrees are no longer rare achievements among the job-seeking population, they have become par for the course.

Finally, the school system is also designed to “turn out graduates with zero survival value” — meaning that they would not be able to survive without income to purchase food. If graduates could truly take care of themselves, it would turn the whole Taker plan on its head. Individuals would not have to get jobs in order to have some of the food that was locked away because they would be able to grow their own. They would no longer have to work their lives away as captives in the “Taker Prison”.

As this story is unfolding in front of Julie, she is reminded why she sought to meet with Ishmael in the first place — she wanted to get out and “run for her life”. Up until now, she hadn’t been sure what she was running away from. Deep down Julie had felt confused and somewhat ashamed of the despair she felt about the world, as if her cloudy outlook was her problem alone. Her work with Ishmael helped to wipe some of the tears off of her mind’s eye and allowed her to view their place in this “ ‘wonderful program’ ” more clearly. Julie came in thinking that human nature was to blame for much of the world’s problems, but left feeling the opposite way. Listening to the various aspects of the Taker cultural system and realizing their weaknesses, Julie had a startling revelation: it wasn’t just her. And for once in her short life, this piece of information came as welcome news.

(Reviewed December 31, 2001)

Ishmael is available in bookstores everywhere and online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. You can find links here.

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THE WEB OF LIFE by Fritjof Capra

The book Web of Life is an attempt to synthesize philosophies from various areas of science into a coherent plan for improving human social structures. Author Fritjof Capra ( a theoretical physicist) refers to theories of quantum physics, mathematics, cybernetics and ecology in making his case for change. Peppered throughout Capra’s summation and analysis of classical theories (such as Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and Descartes’ method of analytic geometry) are more recent and less-known prophecies.

Prominent among these are the “Gaia (Living Earth) Theory” and the notion of “Deep Ecology”. Development of these theories through reference to other fields of science makes up the bulk of this novel. It is due to this extensive exploration of scientific theory that Web of Life reads more like a science textbook than the story that it truly is. This is definitely not a Sunday-by-the-pool approach to scientific writing, and thus may not hold mass appeal.

Capra begins by enumerating some of the problems facing humanity today — such as global warming, pollution, and depletion of natural resources — to motivate change. He calls for a “paradigm shift” that would mold the current anthropocentric view of humanity into a more realistic one. Capra proposes that this new paradigm should be based upon the theory of deep ecology. Capra defines deep ecology as a “holistic worldview” that emphasizes humanity’s connection to the rest of the universe. Capra proposes that the current incarnation of “ecology” is really quite shallow, and is based on a human perspective and emphasizes the “use-value of nature”. Deep ecology goes beyond the respect and understanding of natural processes, and fosters a deep spiritual connection with the universe. As Capra puts it, deep ecology “views humans as just one particular strand in the web of life”.

The notion of the universe as a web of interconnected elements leads naturally to the discussion of Gaia theory. Gaia theory states that the Earth is a dynamic, vital, self-regulating entity that functions more like a living being than a chunk of rock. Elements such as the temperature and salinity of the oceans are carefully regulated through processes called “feedback loops”. Capra uses the CO2 cycle as an example of temperature regulation. He describes how an increase in temperature increases the activity of soil bacteria, thus accelerating the process of rock weathering (by which rocks combine with water and atmospheric CO2 and break down). This process forms chemicals known as carbonates, which wash into oceans and are taken up by algae to make their shells. When algae die, their shells fall to the ocean floor, build up and are eventually sink into the mantle of the earth and are incorporated into lava. Of course, the lava eventually erupts out of a volcano, releasing atmospheric CO2 and cooling the planet.

An even more vivid illustration of the Gaia self-regulation concept comes in the form of the “Daisyworld Theory”. Proposed by James Lovelock, “Daisyworld” uses a simpler model to show the ‘living earth’. This model is based on the condition of increasing temperature over time for a world with only two species: black (heat-absorbing) and white (heat-reflecting) daisies. Each daisy has a certain temperature range in which it can flourish. As the earth begins to warm up at the equator, black daisies are able to absorb enough heat to grow. But as the temperature increases further, the equator becomes too hot for the black daisies and the heat-reflecting white variety begin to take over. Eventually, the temperature rises to the point that no daisies are able to exist near the equator, and only the white variety can grow at the poles. The increase in white daisies with increasing temperature helps reflect heat and cool the planet. Thus by changing the distribution of the daisies, the earth’s temperature is regulated.

 

Deep Ecology and Gaia Theory are only two of the numerous scientific arguments (among them the disciplines of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and so on) put forth in this book. The end goal of the extensive treatment of these scientific phenomena is quite simple. Capra aims to increase each human’s degree of “ecological literacy”in an attempt to restructure humanity to be closer to reality. Although Capra does not outline any detailed proposals (that, after all, would be another book), he does provide argument for doing so.

All of the parts of the earth once considered to be inanimate — rocks, soil, atmospheric gases — have a demonstrated roles to the contrary. The planet on which we live — which we had assumed to be a mere caterer to the wants and needs of humanity — is in fact a life force. This necessitates policies that are based on this reality that incorporate ecological principles into the rules of life. One of the most important principles is the interdependence of living systems.

Life is based on a horizontal network of relationships and cycles, while the current structure of humanity is mostly linear. Humanity does not recycle most of the things we depend on for modern life: oil, minerals, land. We burn the oil, mine the minerals and populate the land without giving appropriate thought to the consequences. To remedy this over-consumption, Capra proposes a slow (in order to allow invention of alternative environmentally-friendly processes), long-term “ecological tax reform”. This measure would employ taxes to make ecologically damaging processes “reflect their true cost”, eventually making them prohibitively expensive. Hopefully, by the time this measure achieved its intended purpose it would not be too late.

(Reviewed December 08, 2001)

Available at Amazon.com

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The Man Who Grew Young by Daniel Quinn & Tim Eldred

Deja Vu: Humanity in Reverse

At some point in our lives, most of us have wished that we could do things again. If we could just go back to childhood for a ‘do-over’, what would we change? If given a second chance, we might have made different (and perhaps better) choices with regard to our lifestyles and goals. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and life would certainly have been easier if we could have known the consequences of our actions beforehand. Daniel Quinn’s latest novel “The Man Who Grew Young” indulges this fantasy. It is the story of a world that is getting younger (and surprisingly, wiser) with every passing day, and of the man that got to do it all again.

The book is written in comic-book style, and reads more like a script than a novel. In fact, it is a script—if one were to make a movie about the evolution of humanity and than press the “rewind” button. Our protagonist is Adam Taylor, who has been selected (unbenounced to him) as “the one who sees with his own eyes the beginning and end of his own kind”. The story opens at the gravesite of Adam’s late wife Claire, but something odd is happening. Instead of lowering the casket into the grave, it is being raised up. This is not a funeral but a “wake”in the most literal sense.

After Claire is “born again”, she proceeds through her relationship with Adam in reverse. Claire gets younger every day, and their son passes from childhood back into infancy and finally to his final resting place in Claire’s womb. Adam and Claire move out of their house back into their old apartment, go on their honeymoon, and are released from their marriage in a backwards ceremony. The couple moves from going steady to their first date to their first meeting, after which they never see each other again.

Read the full review

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Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

A Gorilla’s Version of The Meaning of Life (And Why We Should Listen)

Imagine this scene: A man is sitting in the dimly lit office of his adopted professor. The professor is explaining, in great detail, the origin of man and the course of human evolution. To illustrate his points, the professor draws various maps of the so-called “Fertile Crescent” in the Middle East and references biblical stories with the ease of an Ivy League historian. His student listens intently as the professor makes complex inferences and analyses of where man has been and where he is going. The professor is a gorilla. What is wrong with this picture?

In a word, nothing. Though one might not expect much in the way of cultural insight from a gorilla, Ishmael is clearly different. He has apparently taken to educating himself during the long hours in his cage, and as a result has become well-versed in human civilization. His area of expertise is, fittingly enough, captivity. Exactly what the concept of captivity has to do with the course of human evolution is not immediately obvious, but it quickly becomes clear.

Read the full review

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Infinite Wealth by Barry Carter

In Barry Carter’s recent book entitled “Infinite Wealth”, a unique model for wealth creation is presented. Carter challenges current capitalistic ideals and offers up a more positive system of corporate conduct. In the new age, success will not be about “climbing the corporate ladder” or getting the gold watch after a set number of years. Instead, Carter says that what sits upon a person’s shoulders is far more important than what is in his pocket. Wealth will no longer be measured in terms of dollars and cents, but in I.Q. points. Brainpower, creativity and collaboration will become more important in the quest for success than hard-nosed determination and conformity to the company mold of the “ideal” employee. In fact, in Carter’s paradigm, “employees” no longer even exist. The idea of the subordinate employee has gone the way of the coal engine, and in its place is the notion of “holding partners”. Each of these holding partners functions like an independent contractor, and the more they contribute the more they gain. Knowledge is the currency of the future, and the value of an employee is determined not by their corporate rank but by the value that they add to the company as individuals.

Read the full review

Whether you believe Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ foretold in the Old Testament, or just a man, his words bring wisdom to all of humanity. He may have been the first human to embrace synergy. He is credited as the author of The Golden Rule and his words seem to capture the very essence of synergic morality.

The Scientific Basis for The Golden Rule

Edward Haskell, a pioneer of synergic science, explained:

“The first formulation of the MORAL LAW for a non-human “kingdom” of Universe was Dimitri Mendeleev’s discovery of the Periodic Law in 1869. “The properties of the chemical elements are functions of their atomic weights.”

“What Mendeleev’s discovery states for Atoms is that “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” where “reaping” is the properties of the chemical elements and “sowing” is the co-Action between the atom’s two components ­ its vast, light, electron cloud, and its tiny, massive nucleus.”

Haskell’s analysis of the Atomic elements showed that these two components ­ the electron cloud and the massive nucleus related in only three ways ­ positive, neutral, or negative. Haskell called this the Moral Law of Unified Science.

For humans, the earliest formulation of the Moral Law of Unified Science appeared 3500 years ago as the doctrine of karma.

“Hinduism began in India about 1500 BC. The belief in rebirth, or samsara, as a potentially endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman; literally “act,” or “deed”). According to the doctrine of karma, good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency toward repeated evil actions. This furnishes the basic context for the moral life of the individual.”

The doctrine of karma was accepted by Buddha ~500 BC and is incorporated in modern Buddhism today. It appeared in western thought ~300 BC, in the Old Testament of the Bible as the phrase:  “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth stated this law this way:

“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.“

Recall Universe is now understood to be process. Reality is a happening. Many things are going on all at once. Living systems­the plants, animals, and we humans all live within the EVENT paradigm. Buckminster Fuller defined an event to be a triad of related phenomena­ action, reaction, resultant.

The dynamics of all behavior can be understood using these three concepts. Fuller discovered for every action there is a reaction, and a precessional resultant.

I can decide on an action. I can then implement my action. The environment including all life forms react to my action, the vector sum of the two produce a resultant. I act, the rest of the world reacts, and when it all settles down the change made by the interaction is the resultant.

Now reformulating Haskell’s The Moral Law of Unified Science to include Fuller’s Principle of Action­-Reaction­-Resultant, we get:

Adversary action tends to provoke adversary reaction ending in an adversary resultant.

Neutral action tends to provoke neutral reaction ending in a neutral resultant.

And synergic action tends to provoke synergic reaction ending in a synergic resultant.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

We humans have three choices. We can sow adversary actions and reap adversary resultants. We can sow neutral actions and reap neutral resultants. Or we can sow synergic actions and reap synergic resultants.

Jesus of Nazareth’s The Golden Rule

The first formulation of the synergic corollary of the Moral Law of Unified Science was:

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

This formulation is credited to Jesus of Nazareth who intuitively discovered the synergic way 2000 years ago. He gave us the rules for synergic relationship in his sermon on the mount.

 ”You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Ö Go be reconciled with thy brother.”

But, can we modern humans do this? Can North American whites love the South American browns? Can the Jews love the Arabs? Can the Northern Irish love the English? Can the Bosnians love the Serbs? Can the South African whites love the South African blacks?

Are we humans better able to love today? Have we learned enough in 2000 years—“To reconcile with our brother”?

Jesus of Nazareth may have been the first human to embrace synergy. His words seem to capture the very essence of synergic morality. Synergic morality is more than not hurting other, it requires helping other. Jesus was the first human to state the fundamental law of synergic relationship. It is known as the Golden Rule:

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law.”

What would you have others do to you? The best one word answer I can find for this question is help. “Help others as you would have them help you.”

Synergic Morality is Helping

Andrew J. Galambos, in his lectures describing Moral Capitalism, often quoted the negative version of the Golden Rule:

“Do not do to others what you would have them not do to you.”

What would you have others not do to you?

Here the best one word answer is hurt. “Do not hurt others as you would have them not hurt you.”

The negative version of the Golden Rule is true and correct as far as it goes. In fact, it is the underlying premise for the Neutral Morality found in the western world today. But, Synergic Morality requires more of us than simply not hurting. It requires more of us than simply ignoring others. It requires us to help others ­ to help each other.

Jesus of Nazareth understood this on the deepest of levels. He called for more than a prohibition against hurting others. He asked all humans to help each other.

Synergic Morality is more than the absence of hurting. It is the presence of helping. Synergic Morality rests then on the premise­ that when you help others, you will find yourself helped in return.

Timothy Wilken

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 Timothy Wilken’s Understanding Order (PDF)