Note posts below on the varied fronts in the resurging collectivist totalitarianism of today in Western societies.
Here is an important summary of research by Bob Brinsmead on the anti-sacrifice message of Historical Jesus, meaning that Jesus argued against Christology (i.e. the mythology of a cosmic godman sent to make atonement for human sin by offering himself as a blood sacrifice). So who is really the “anti-Christ”? Unfortunately, we received Paul’s Christ-ianity, not Jesus-ianity. We properly honor Jesus by doing what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy did- make distinctly clear the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus as contrasted with the larger New Testament context that buries the message of Jesus under Paul’s Christ myth.
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
More sage insight from Bob Brinsmead on Historical Jesus research
“Yes ____, some good reasoning here. Some of the miracles and stories in the Bible are no more literally true than the Greek myths which were designed to convey moral and ethical insights. The Bible is written by people like us. It is an expression of a faith journey and the evolving, human view of God – which is sometimes raw, primitive and brutal. Ellens (Faith to Live By) says that God’s behaviour in the OT is sometimes insane as well as sometimes sublime as in end of Micah.
“The priestly view of God (the Priestly author) never says a thing about the mercy of God. The Levitical laws were added to the original law of Moses hundreds of years later, and passed off as the words of Moses, but in reality based more on the old pagan sacrifices for which the later prophets, John the Baptist and Jesus expressed utter contempt and rejection, the same as some of the enlightened Greek thinkers such as Pythagoras. Just as the priestly elite put their rituals into the mouth of Moses, so the elite, educated churchmen did not hesitate to put their apocalyptic world view and their ecclesiology into the mouth of Jesus. Their deceitful construction of history led them to construct two entire NT books in the name of Peter to remake Peter in the image of Paul and more.
Another from Bob:
“Belousek’s book, which I have, is a monumental waste of time because he builds on the premise that Jesus’ death was in some sense a saving event or transaction. He simply tries to re-work a discredited doctrine in the same way as some try to rework the violent Christological imagery of the book of Revelation. When he gets through, he is trying to justify the Christian teaching that in some way the death of Jesus was an atonement. Wendell would say re-working of an old teaching is like putting lipstick on a pig.
“Even Catholic theologians have traditionally rejected Calvin’s substitutionary model for the atonement, and rather than trying to explain in what sense it was an atonement, Catholics have tended to say that it is a mystery – just like the Trinity – and that, after all, might be the best way to close down an argument. What is wrong with the whole box and dice of atonement theology is the stark fact that John the Baptist and Jesus stood in the best tradition of the Hebrew prophets who rejected the entire sacrificial system of the priesthood which they maintained was added to the law of Moses by the “lying priests.”
“And for this stance, some of them, like Isaiah, were put to death by the priesthood. This rejection of animal sacrifice as in way having anything to do with God’s forgiveness persisted among a significant segment of Judaism right down through the four centuries of prophetic silence until the arrival of the prophetic spirit again in the persons of John the Baptist and Jesus, and this was continued by James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem for 32 years after the death of Jesus.
“With John and Jesus, as it was with Isaiah and Micah, forgiveness of sin rested solely on the compassionate justice of God and had nothing to do with either the offering of animal or human sacrifice. When John started to baptize in the Jordan as a ritual for the forgiveness of sins, he was by this rejecting the priestly system of sacrifices at Jerusalem for the remission of sins.
“John placed the authority of the whole religious system at stake – the power, authority and prestige of the ruling priesthood. Jesus forgave sins without any need for atoning or blood sacrifices. He did not endorse the sacrificial tradition which said, “Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” He forgave sin without resort to the temple sacrifices or even the ritual of water baptism. In his climatic protest against the sacrificial system, he went into the temple precincts and let all the animals go as it says in John 2. It was for this protest, this tension between prophet and priest, that Jesus was killed.
“The Hellenists in the Jesus movement who fled to Antioch came up with the teaching that Jesus was the Christ who died to make an atonement for sin. Instead of rejecting the entire sacrificial system as John and Jesus did, this was a teaching that invested the sacrificial system of the Jewish priesthood with an amazingly new sacred significance – as if this subhuman carryover from primitive darkness, superstition and brutality could be glorified by the supreme human sacrifice of Jesus.
“Here is the real contest between the Jerusalem teaching led by James and the Antioch theology to which Paul was converted and became the deceased champion – but only after James was put death around 64 CE and the Jerusalem leadership of the Jesus movement was destroyed by the events of 70 CE.”
The best of Bob Brinsmead:
“All Christology is a total myth and a 2000-year detour. Jesus rejected the entire notion of a Christ. He was first great Jewish Anti-Christ. Christology is all human apocalyptic speculation. Get back to the real teaching of Jesus which was not about himself but about the good news of the Abba Father and his kingdom with us and in us.”
And this response of Bob to a participant defending the biblical teaching that Jesus was a substitute sacrifice for the sin of humanity– i.e. died in our place. The other person was arguing that substitutionary atonement was a beautiful sentiment taught in the Bible.
Bobs response to him:
“I can and do often substitute putting avocado on my bread in the place of using butter. Yes, there are cases where substitution is possible or convenient and legitimate. In the case of crime and punishment, it is not possible that an innocent person can take the place of a guilty person. No court will permit a parent to endure the death penalty instead of the child – or vice versa. That would be regarded as immoral. It never happens, and in real life it can’t happen!
“Yes, I agree with Noel that Jesus showed us what God was like. But as Nolan in Jesus Before Christianity argues, we have turned that around and used our view of God to change our view of Jesus.
“This was the most astonishing insight of his little book. Worth thinking this insight through until it sinks in, because it explains how the church turned the meekest, non-violent peacemaker who ever lived into the most terrifying agent of apocalyptic violence, ever! And because of this, Christ-ianity became a religion inspired by its view of Christ to shed more blood that any other religion in the history of mankind. That is an astonishing thing because the whole teaching of Jesus was centred on the right treatment of others -especially the differing others. How come a religion about Jesus could cause us to treat others so badly? Just think about Nolan’s insight!”
Scary new McCarthyism a totalitarian assault on freedom- “This is scary: Scotland’s totalitarian new hate speech law”, Michael Shellenberger, April, 2, 2024
https://public.substack.com/p/this-is-scary
Quotes:
“Yesterday, a group of people in Scotland protested a new hate speech law. “The irony of this hateful, spiteful law coming into play on April’s Fools Day…” said one of the protesters.
“Criminalizing free speech in this country is absolutely disgraceful.”…
“The Hate Crime and Public Order Act of 2021 creates a new crime for “stirring up hatred,” including related to trans identity. People can be arrested for things they say in the privacy of their own home. They can be arrested for simply being “insulting.” And prosecutors need only prove your stirring up of hatred was “likely” not “intended.”…
“And it’s not just Scotland. In the US, pro-censorship forces hope a Supreme Court victory will let them once again ramp up censorship demands by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
“EU officials are putting in place a sweeping online censorship system that far exceeds in power and scope anything attempted under Communism or fascism.
‘And last week, European political leaders weaponized their intelligence and security agencies in order to smear everyone from German farmers to conservative politicians as “Russia-linked.”…
“The entire “Russia influence” narrative coming from European politicians and intelligence agencies rests upon the monstrous insult that Europeans would be compliant were it not for Russians sowing discontent.
“This is an old political trick: characterize your enemies as foreigners. It’s also a trick of totalitarians….
“But another part of it appears to be driven by genuine hatred….
“The bad news is that the censors are on the offensive and we are on the defensive. In the US, Europe, Scotland, Germany, Ireland, Canada, and Brazil, an alliance of government agencies, government-funded think tanks, and corporate media are demanding more censorship…
“As importantly, we can expose the hatred behind the hate speech policies, and continue to point out that the solution to hate speech is free speech, not censorship….
“Totalitarianism is on the rise. The good news is that so too is the resistance.” (end of Shellenberger article)
The little local dictators are often worse than the big centralized ones because they meddle more directly and immediately in our lives and are harder to avoid. Wendell Krossa
The stunning thing that emerged out of the Covid lockdowns was how many dictators emerged at national, state/province, municipal, and business/organizational levels, even family level. Media fostered social contagion hysteria with “we’re all gonna die” daily headlines (exaggerated body counts) that epidemiology experts from the beginning warned us were exaggerated (notably, John Ioannidis of Standford and Jay Bhattacharya of Harvard, among others). Those dissenting expert voices were demonized, censored, silenced.
https://www.hoover.org/research/man-who-talked-back-jay-bhattacharya-fight-against-covid-lockdowns
With fear cranked to panic hysteria heights, and in full denial of contrary voices and evidence, the dictators pushed for widespread censorship and even criminalization of skepticism and dissent. The little dictators seized the opportunity that the “existential crisis” presented and shut everything down for everyone. They angrily shouted down any questioning, skepticism, or dissent with ”Just shut up and obey the “science”, especially the very embodiment of science- “Dr. Fauci” (Did that communicate the sarcasm I intended?).
Note how prominently the lockdown fever was on the left/liberal side (blue states and cities).
My point now shifts to the larger background emergence of something very unsettling over the past decade or so- i.e. The abandonment of true liberalism and notably the lack of understanding of what true liberalism is on the “liberal/Democratic/leftist” side of our societies. The people we once assumed were the keepers of the liberal flame.
Woke Progressives today, for example, are the loudest voices and activists for DEI while at the same time rejecting the very liberalism that tolerates universal diversity, equality, and the full inclusion of all. Progressive DEI is another front for a re-emerging collectivism characterized by new features like Woke Racism (John McWhorter), exclusion of differing/diverse opinion and speech, and “equity” that is a rejection of the fundamental liberal principle of equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, or other identity markers. The tyrannical bullying that enforces the new illiberalism all across society exposes its fundamentally totalitarian nature.
Data points affirming the threat is more prominent on the left side:
Surveys show that a majority of Democrats want more censorship and banning of opponents from elections- https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/31/mccaughey-democrats-becoming-the-censorship-party/
Many of us Classic Liberals/Independents/Libertarians are still trying to process the rejection of liberalism by those we have long viewed as from the “liberal” side of society. This rejection of liberalism apparently emerged in a publicly prominent manner only a decade and more ago. Those who once publicly stood for the free speech of all, freedom in general, diversity, inclusion, anti-war, etc., all good things that many people across the board could support, we now see them publicly rejecting that liberalism.
I use these terms- i.e. Classic Liberalism, Libertarianism, Independent- not in a “dogmatic pledging-loyalty-to-an-ideology” sense but as terms that exhibit general ideals and practises of freedom that most people can affirm (as per the questionnaire at the back of David Boaz’s “Libertarianism: A Primer” that gets over 90% affirmation from respondents).
Today’s liberals (now identifying often as “Woke Progressives”) are now rejecting “too much freedom as a threat to democracy” (“Too much democracy threatens democracy”?? Huh? See, for example, Robert Reich’s statements on this.). “Highly illiberal” progressives are now calling for more laws, policies, and activism against the speech of their opponents that they categorize as “disinformation, misinformation, mal-information, hate speech, etc.”. All to be censored, shadow-banned or banned outright, deplatformed, and otherwise cancelled. We are even seeing the growing demand for criminalization of opponent’s opinions and speech.
This new wave of collectivist revolution against liberalism and individual freedom has been birthed largely in the universities that once taught critical thinking, skepticism, questioning, healthy dissent, and protest, but now indoctrinate young collectivists that then go out into media, the Democratic Party, and populate state agencies and bureaucracies like the intelligence agencies, and also control social media platforms as main forums for public information and news. Woke Progressivism has even spread into our militaries. The new collectivism comes at us via diverse fronts like DEI that is highly anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, and anti-equality. Collectivism has even tried to sneak in the backdoor of business through ESG. Also, it comes at us via Woke racism, and on and on. So many new fronts.
As fiercely independent, I watch for these troubling illiberal and totalitarian trends, aware that both sides have inherited the animal impulse to domination. All of us on both sides have to wrestle with the totalitarian impulse as one of our darkest, ugliest antihuman impulses.
Classic liberal principles pull us all back to a safe arena where we can agree on the most basic issues common to us all- like freedom for all (“live and let live”), equality (not equity of outcome), full inclusion of diverse human lifestyles, and the rest that makes us human. Classic liberal principles, ideals, institutions, and policies constrain us all within a safe route into the future of a more humane society.
More on the elitism that despises the peasant commoners, the ignorant masses, just as Marx, Engels, and Mao did. (The association I make here is that climate alarmism is a crusade largely embraced by the left)
“Claim: Questioning Attribution Studies is the “Gateway Drug” to Climate Denial, Essay by Eric Worrall, April 3, 2024
“Apparently “… denialism is standing up for industrial capitalism. … poorly educated men (and to the regional communities built around them) …” are the drivers of modern climate denial….
“Read more: https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/04/02/news-corp-climate-change-denial-machine/
“The person (Christopher Warren) who wrote this vile outpouring of ignorance and contempt for rural people and people who work with their hands is a former president of the International Federation of Journalists – which in my opinion goes a long way towards explaining why large sectors of society don’t trust establishment media….
“But the idea that climate denial is motivated by irrational support for industrial capitalism is the crowning absurdity of Christopher’s article….
“Green policies are the real job killers, not technology and progress – and people who are most affected by green policies, farmers and industry workers whose profitability utterly depends on affordable energy, are naturally opponents of policies which are wrecking their livelihoods.
“Perhaps none of this matters to comfortable establishment media journalists who have no hesitation heaping contempt and scorn on anyone who gets their hands dirty, or anyone who objects to whatever latest green lunacy they champion….”
Woke is one front in the resurgence of Marxist collectivism today (i.e. Woke Marxism)… Here are some of my posts to participants in a discussion group in response to the Amy Hamm article below, Wendell Krossa
“Be aware of the bigger background picture in what is happening today. This is the point in all my posts from varied podcasts and other sources on the corruption of mainstream media, the “projection” thing where US Democrats constantly blame opponents as “the great threat to democracy, etc.”. And yes, there is some bothsideism here, but overwhelmingly this new totalitarianism threat is emerging from the liberal/Democratic/leftist side today. One interesting feature in the mix is the zealotry in the new McCarthyism that ties many things to “Russian disinformation”. Much like smears of “right wing, racist, Nazi, etc.”. In related topics that I post, I am pointing to (illustrating) this larger background threat of a re-emerging collectivism/totalitarianism.
“Yes, Wokeism is just another of varied fronts in the resurgence of Marxist collectivism in Western societies. Is this the outcome of the long-game strategy of 60s Marxists? That was Nial Ferguson’s suggestion. He suggested that 60s Marxists realized they could not win the public opinion battle for their ideology, so they chose to go into US teachers colleges to get teachers to indoctrinate new generations of students throughout the education systems. And that Marxist ideology was then given new expressions through diverse new fronts- i.e. Woke Marxism and Woke Racism that identifies the collective more in terms of race now, not so much just in terms of the old dualist divide of capitalist owners versus disenfranchised peasant workers.”
Another post:
“All collectivisms deny the individual to demand subjection of individuals to the collective and collective identity. Collectivism’s primary rejection is the rejection of the evil of private or individual property- “The greatest evil” according to Marx. “You will own nothing, and you will be happy”, Klaus Schwab. Happy eating bugs in your return to primitivism under de-development, de-growth, de-industrialization, de-colonization, and de-whatever that the elite masters demand.
“Frederik Hayek nailed it in warning us that the great danger to freedom was that collectivism centralizes power and control under an elite who must run the collective for all- i.e. the “enlightened vanguard” who take over the “means of production” (all businesses, all the economy) to operate them for “the greater good, the common good” (purportedly elites demanding the collectivist ownership of all resources to “serve the workers”).
“Add the delusion of serving “common or greater good” which helps understand why socialists feel that their system is morally superior to the “self-interest” of individualism, as in the selfishness and greed of capitalism. So, despite over 20 major failures of socialist systems across the last century, socialists unwaveringly defend their collectivist approach- “We just need another chance to prove that it is the best system for organizing human society”. I watched my Marxist professors at SFU actually state this defensive argument when the Soviet Union collapsed around 1990. They dismissed the failures of Communism as “not true socialism”.
“Question: Where now are all those Hollywood elites who ran down south to greet Chavez with fanboy excitement? Venezuela, one of the formerly richest countries in the world, now just another socialist disaster with its citizens fleeing to the US. Read Kristian Niemietz’s excellent short history of “Socialism: The failed idea that never dies”.
“So Hamm’s comment below on collective identity is just what Woke theorist Robin DiAngelo admitted to in her Christiane Amanpour interview on CNN (Douglas Murray commented on this in his War on the West). Collectivism, as in Marxist ideology, can be traced further back to primitive dualism and tribalism. Oppressor/oppressed, victimizer/victim. Evil vs good. Dominant versus weaker. Elites versus commoners. Zoroaster formalized this long ago (1500ish BC). The point is the primitive, animal-like nature of such thinking and activism.
“Where is the great foundational reality of human oneness in all this?
“This comment that Hamm made on viewing all in terms of a collectivist identity, “It views human beings not as individuals, but as a collection of group identities that are either oppressed, or oppressive. And to be oppressed is to be virtuous.”
“This is the great threat to freedom today- collectivism that, as a fundamental principle, denies private property and with that denies fundamental individual identity, rights, and freedoms. All citizens are to be subjected to the collective that is controlled by elites who will inevitably even turn on their own, their fellow collectivists who are not as zealously subjecting themselves to the elite control.
“Thanks to the psychologists- i.e. Jordan Peterson, Christine Brophy, and others- we are getting a better understanding of the “psychopathology of far-left authoritarianism” (“Narcissism behind Left-Wing Authoritarianism”). As Michael Shellenberger and others keep warning us- We are in a battle for our freedom like none before in history. We can “stand by silently and observe” (the movie “Will”) or truly wake up and get into the fight before it’s too late. As Joe Rogan asked recently, “How did we end up here?”
https://public.substack.com/p/christine-brophy-narcissism-and-agreeableness
This from Amy Hamm: “Wokeness hurts women. Why do so many support it?: Troubling truths about the male-female divide on radical progressive hogwash”, April 3, 2024
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/wokeness-hurts-women-why-do-so-many-support-it
Quotes from Hamm article:
“A majority of Canadians reject “wokeness,” according to recent polls. But more than that, a new paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology reveals something else — a male-female dichotomy. It is women who, for unclear reasons, disproportionately promulgate and buttress such progressive ideology. These findings are not surprising to anyone who has loudly opposed the politics of woke — myself included — and who has had largely female wrath visited upon them for their heresy.
“Women should reject leftist radicalism. We suffer because of it. Instead, we promote it at work, in universities, in politics, our communities, and at home. We are the primary drivers of woke hogwash. This admission is both humiliating and enraging — but it’s true. Canadian institutions are beholden to this mostly female minority that not only bores us to tears — care to hear another personalized land acknowledgement, anyone? — but terrorizes us at the mere scent of wavering fealty.
““Wokeness”… (definition) borrowed from political scientist Yascha Mounk, is that wokeness is a version of social justice based on what he terms “the identity synthesis.” It views human beings not as individuals, but as a collection of group identities that are either oppressed, or oppressive. And to be oppressed is to be virtuous; to be a victim is to hold precious social cachet….
“Wokeness has infiltrated every aspect of our society — from education to employment to sports…. Our girls are expected to undress in change rooms with grown, intact males. Complaints not permitted. We’ve been accomplices in silencing ourselves, demonizing ourselves, and cheering on those who wish to refer to us by our body parts or functions. That any woman accepts “uterus owner” or “chest feeder” as something other than misogynistic tripe is incomprehensible. Utter nonsense….
“In saner times, the statements the researchers used to gauge public sentiment would read as (bad) parody. But we do not live in sane times…. why women are “woker” than men….
“Is it simply in our female nature to be drawn in by the allure of what some see as virtuous compassion for the downtrodden?…
“We need to admit, instead, that a subset of women is complicit in this culture-destroying, thought-terminating scourge.
“There is a deep cruelty in radical progressiveness. To woke persons, others can only be saintly or evil — nothing in-between. It evokes the psychology of the “in-group, out-group” dynamic, which, curiously, is a dynamic more often enforced by females…. Perhaps it is not a tendril of our good nature that makes women “woker” than men but merely a reflection of our darker, malicious side….
“… we need more women to demonstrate the courage of their convictions — and denounce the destructive, far-left dogma that is running roughshod over the majority of Canadians.”
National Post
“Amy Hamm is a freelance writer and health-care professional. She is co-founder of the nonpartisan Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar).”
Another post to discussion group: Wendell Krossa
“Note also why the battle for free speech is so critical in all this. Control of language, as Shellenberger and others warn, is to control thinking. Look at the warnings about the Scottish law, similar to EU efforts with similar laws, and just like Trudeau’s “Online Harms” bill here, and Biden’s similar one now in Congress. All purportedly to deal with harmful “misinformation, disinformation, Russian disinformation, hate speech, etc.”.
“But with fuzzy boundaries and “concept creep” (“hate speech” boundaries extended to cover anything powerholders don’t like) that have been used to censor the speech of political opponents as the Twitter Files revelations have shown. Robert Kennedy talked about this on his CNN interview the other day, how Biden was the first US president in history to use the CIA, FBI, and other government agencies to censor and criminalize his opponents. RFK said that Biden was the real great threat to democracy, not Trump. His argument was well stated.
“Here is the video clip- RFK on CNN the other day explaining the details of how Biden is the first president in history to censor the speech of political opponents, using FBI, CIA, IRS, NIH, etc. to censor on social media companies, also to deny Secret Service protection to a political opponent… This was about a lower court decision in RFK’s favor that has since gone to the Supreme Court…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhbyuN5TNDw
Also in the larger context- note the growing revolt worldwide against the Net Zero Decarbonization policies pushed on populations to devastation of their economies. Sri Lanka illustrated the lunacy of these irrational apocalyptic crusades to “save the world”. As expected from the climate alarmism crusade, the populist pushback in Holland, Germany (farmer’s protests”) has been demonized as “far-right extremism”, the go-to smear of leftist anti-human, anti-civilization activists. Decarbonization is part of the larger de-development, de-growth, de-industrialization, de-colonization, and more de-this and de-that lunacy. Woke Progressive activism to return us to primitivism in a world without fossil fuels, and as in the ultimate utopian, nihilist hope- “a world without humans”.
Policing the language of all, Wendell Krossa (further posts to discussion group participants related to the surging collectivist totalitarianism of today and its many diverse fronts)
“It’s been called “the tyranny of the minority”. Never before in history have gay, trans, and other minorities had such widespread acceptance, inclusion, and equality. Yet the activists associating themselves with these “oppressed” minorities continue to claim systemic victimhood and push for control of the language of others through policies insisting that “gender pronouns” be included in public materials. Our government here in BC has now pushed for “gender sensitive” language all through government documents. I saw this recently when filling out medical forms. And then the bullying begins toward any questioning this domination over language. The tyranny then begins to show itself.
“Note the case of nurse Amy Hamm here in BC and also the many death threats/rape threats, etc. against J. K. Rowling who refuses to silently stand by and observe. She gets the real issues here- the end of free speech, the most fundamental of freedoms.
“One trans person’s comment on the Amy Hamm situation…
And here is the latest on J. K. Rowling’s courageous stance on free speech. Go J.K., go.
“JK Rowling dares police to arrest her, says free speech is ‘at an end in Scotland’ under new hate crime bill: The author says Scottish lawmakers place ‘higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness’ than ‘the rights and freedoms of actual women’”, April 2, 2024, Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi.
From Jordan Peterson’s “Mondays of Meaning”, April 1, 2024: “Perfection is a horizon that constantly recedes, but it is not obvious what the upper limit to that is.”
The central issue in climate, the foundational factor to engage and understand– Wendell Krossa
The fundamental issue in climate science is “the physics of CO2” as in the actual warming effect of CO2. And the fact that warming effect has now almost reached “saturation”- meaning its ability to absorb and instantaneously re-emit infrared radiation on the infrared spectrum is now almost full. A doubling of CO2 over the next centuries (from today’s roughly 420 ppm to 800 ppm) will contribute very little to any possible further warming (we don’t know if any warming will continue). Such is the research of atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen, William Happer, and others.
Put this “saturated warming effect” in the larger climate context which shows that other natural factors have been most responsible for the climate change that we have seen over past decades, centuries, and millennia. CO2 has been shown to have had a very small role in the larger context, a role that is consistently overwhelmed by the other natural factors. See, for example, Javier Vinos’ reports on “The Sun-Climate Effect: Winter Gatekeeper Hypothesis” and more at Wattsupwiththat.com and co2coalition.org, etc.
See also “Climate Data Refutes Crisis Narrative: ‘If you concede the science and only challenge the policies… you’re going to lose’’, Climate Depot, Nov. 13, 2023
Conclusion- There is no “climate crisis” and hence no good scientific reason to tax carbon or decarbonize our societies.
And then add the data on the immense benefits of more CO2 in our “CO2 starvation era”. Benefits like CO2 fertilization that has added some 15% more green vegetation to the Earth just since 1980. More food for animals and increased crop production for humanity.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/10/Moore-2.pdf
Love and freedom are inseparable realities. Wendell Krossa
Taking my friend Bob Brinsmead’s sage comment that freedom and love are one and the same reality, inseparable twins, I believe these two are best expressed at societal scale today through Classic Liberal institutions, principles, and practises.
The Classic Liberal approach to organizing human societies is the best that we have come up with to protect and promote the supreme human ideals of love and freedom, two critical features that more than any others define us as truly human persons. These two are inseparable realities. You cannot have one without the other. As Bob says, where there is no authentic freedom, there is no authentic love.
These two are also potent counters to two of the worst features of the “evil triad” of inherited animal impulses to (1) tribalism, (2) domination of others, and (3) punitive destruction of differing others/enemies. Examples: Respecting and defending the freedom of all others counters the domination impulse. And embracing the ultimate reach of love in “love your enemies” counters the punitive destruction impulse.
Moving right along…. Don’t talk about compassion for commoners, for the poor and oppressed, if you are pushing for more and more regulation of citizen’s lives via endless state rules, regulations, or laws. We (all of us commoners) stand by too passively and watch the growth of ever-expanding state interference and control of citizen’s lives through such projects as the Green revolution/decarbonization crusade that wants to dictate what you can eat, what you can drive and how far, how many kids you can have, along with endless more restrictions on human freedom. All moving toward North Korea-like puritanism over the details of citizen’s lives such as permissible hair cuts and clothes to wear.
And concurrently, we are watching the ongoing encroachment of Woke Progressivism that busybody-like and moralistically meddles in how people can talk or express themselves on social media platforms and elsewhere. In onerous detail that violates our fundamental freedom of speech.
Further, we stand by and observe the rejection of individual freedom in big state progressivism where government is pushing to do everything for people through more and more government programs and agencies, a state-bloating approach that infantilizes citizens, treating people as ignorant and incompetent children unable to decide for themselves. This unrestrained expansion of state agencies is not remotely anything to do with love or compassion. (“Stand by and observe”? Yes, the comment of the police supervisor to new recruits as to how they might act under the Nazi occupation of Holland during WW2, in the Netflix movie “Will”.)
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/one-big-growth-industry-of-the-trudeau-years-the-bureaucracy
And this from: https://shelburnefreepress.ca/?p=33326
Frank Stronach (former CEO of Magna International Inc.): “Unfortunately, Canada’s bureaucracy continues to mushroom in size, regulating and micro-managing more and more aspects related to how we live and work….
“It’s a problem for two reasons. The first is that more bureaucrats equals more government spending – and that, in turn, leads to bigger deficits and more taxes.
“But the other problem, which is perhaps even worse, is that more bureaucrats also means more regulations, permits and licenses. All of this red tape is strangling economic growth and progress, particularly for small business, and is one of the major reasons why our living standards are falling.”
Again, moving along…
Note the pathological delusion of elites today in their claim that they are fighting a morally just and righteous cause to liberate the poor and disenfranchised, the oppressed, but with approaches and policies that strip away personal freedom and choice and enslave people by making choices for them which short-circuits normal human development. Elite interference in average citizen’s lives expresses a fundamental distrust of people. It is also a denial of the evidence that order in societies is a bottom-up reality. “Bottom-up” in that the state and its systems of laws and institutions should exist to serve the citizenry as holding supreme authority over the state and its institutions and laws.
At core the expansion of elite state interference and control of commoners is anti-human, a form of self-hatred projected onto populations- i.e. the primitive belief that humans are essentially corrupted, sinful, lost beings and must be supervised and controlled by the nanny state as the god-like master of all things (Hegel’s substitution of the state for God). Much like the condescending views of commoners that Marx and Mao held, where they despised the “stupid/ignorant peasants” that they claimed to fight for.
Hence, psychologists are now exposing the resurging elite totalitarianism of today for what it really is- the psychopathology of narcissism, left-wing authoritarianism, cruel compassion, etc. It is certainly not pro-human, as in pro-freedom or pro-love.
So what do love and freedom really look like? The best means of expressing these highest of human ideals that we have found yet is through Classic Liberalism.
Below are some of the basics of this approach to organizing human societies:
The collectivist distortion of reality is evident in the demonization of the Classic Liberal system of individual equality and freedom as being pre-eminently about “selfishness and greed”. And yes, these deformities of humanity (selfishness and greed) are always in any mix of what imperfect people create. But selfishness and greed find more room for expression in collectivist systems that centralize power, planning, and control of societies under governing elites (the “enlightened vanguard” of collectivism approaches). Collectivist approaches demand that all citizens must be subject to elite control and that then unleashes the worst of selfishness and greed in controlling elites because governing elites are then unconstrained by the institutions of liberal democracy that disperse power among competing institutions and individuals (Frederik Hayek’s point that decentralization of power is the best safeguard against totalitarianism).
We all remember the perversions of “collectivist compassion” that were unleashed in the Soviet Union, China, and other socialist revolutions, where greedy, selfish elites enjoyed the good life in their isolated and protected villas while the peasants lined up for remaining scraps on mostly empty store shelves.
We are again watching the projection of dehumanizing self-hatred onto average citizens, the despising of commoners, notably in the collectivist rejection of freedom as too dangerous for commoners to engage. Hence, the propaganda campaign to smear “too much freedom” as a threat to democracy, meaning a threat to the elite version of democracy as in elites controlling all others, lording over the commoners through the all-encompassing extension of regulations into all areas of life. Destroying democracy to “save democracy”.
Understand the basics of Classic Liberalism or liberal democracy, Wendell Krossa (Insert: Why not program AI with these basic features of Classic Liberalism? And thereby counter ideological or other bias in such systems.)
(Insert qualifier: Of course, we all agree to some level of taxation as our contribution to shared infrastructure and assistance to those in our societies who are less fortunate or unable to contribute by themselves due to various disabilities. The disagreement here is over the levels of taxation/regulations required, abuses of the state systems, and the elite/bureaucratic tendency to keep extending state intervention and control, unconstrained by common sense, public support, or Classic Liberal guidelines. In other words, I am not advocating for some form of Libertarian extremism.)
Important sources: Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom”. Classic Liberal freedom begins with treating all citizens equally under a system of common law- i.e. beginning with Magna Carta. Under common law systems there are no special privileges for elites. The rights and freedoms of all citizens are protected equally. Add institutions like British representative parliament where representatives are chosen by the citizens to then serve those citizens through government institutions. With the development of truly representative parliaments government would no longer exist and operate to protect and serve elites.
Critical to Classic Liberalism is the protection of private property. When average people began to realize, around the early 1800s, that they could work to create or improve some asset, that sense of protected freedom and rights then unleashed human creativity as never before in history. People realized they could work to improve their lives, knowing that the elites of their time (kings, nobles, lords) could no longer confiscate their personal property. Average citizens could work hard and reap the reward of their efforts. Consequently, GDP that had been flat for millennia, took off around 1820 to subsequently lift billions into the prosperity of our modern world, the best time ever to be alive in history.
Here is the Amazon blurb on Hannan’s book: “Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World”:
“British politician Daniel Hannan’s Inventing Freedom is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.
“According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—are the legacy of a very specific tradition that was born in England and that we Americans, along with other former British colonies, inherited.
“By the tenth century, England was a nation-state whose people were already starting to define themselves with reference to inherited common-law rights. The story of liberty is the story of how that model triumphed. How it was enshrined in a series of landmark victories—the Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the U.S. Constitution—and how it came to defeat every international rival.
“Today we see those ideas abandoned and scorned in the places where they once went unchallenged. Inventing Freedom is a chronicle of the success of Anglosphere exceptionalism. And it is offered at a time that may turn out to be the end of the age of political freedom.”
(End of blurb)
Another good source on the basic institutions of Classic Liberalism is William Bernstein’s detail on the four basic institutions for a successful society- “The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created”.
Bernstein also adds that critical to freedom is a free press that can expose elite abuse and hold governing bureaucrats responsible, so unlike today’s press that now too often functions as the unquestioning, subservient mouthpiece for state elite propaganda. Fortunately, a new journalism is re-emerging in the alternative free press, independent press, and podcasts.
Amazon blurb:
“In The Birth of Plenty, William Bernstein, the bestselling author of The Four Pillars of Investing, presents his provocative, highly acclaimed theory of why prosperity has been the engine of civilization for the last 200 years.
“This is a fascinating, irresistibly written “big-picture” work that highlights and explains the impact of four elements that when occurring simultaneously, are the fundamental building blocks for human progress:
• Property rights, which drive creativity
• Scientific rationalism, which permits the freedom to innovate without fear of retribution;
• Capital markets, which provide funding for people to pursue their visions;
• Transportation/communication, which allows for the effective transfer of ideas and products.
“Meticulously researched, splendidly told, and featuring a new preface and introduction, The Birth of Plenty explains the interplay of the events, philosophies, and related phenomena that were nothing less than the crucible of the modern age. This is one of the rare books that will change how you look at the world.” (end of blurb)
Add the point that systems of common law should protect private contracts, protect the rights of private individuals to make free contracts among themselves, free from state interference. Free to express the self-determination of free individuals not dominated by state/elite planning and interference.
Historians like Joshua Muravchik (former Socialist and author of “Heaven On Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism”) notes that socialists have never understood basic human motivation. They demonize the fundamental human desire for a better life as “selfishness and greed”.
(Insert: Adam Smith’s term “self-interest” only muddies understanding by providing socialist dreamers with what they view as a pejorative term to pounce on. Aha- “self-interest” as in evil “selfishness”. Much like Marx’s term “Capitalism” has accreted so much distorting baggage that it has now become a “dead word” that obfuscates more than clarifies basic issues.)
I would counter and argue that, no, the universal desire to improve one’s life and the life of one’s family, is the most basic form of love. It is also the most fundamental human responsibility. Socialism, as with all collectivisms (i.e. Owen’s communalism, Marxist communism, and the varied hybrid social democracy/democratic socialism models)… all collectivist approaches reject private property as the “greatest evil”. It was Marx’s belief that peasants/commoners had to be “liberated from private property to be really free”. Free, in his view, to flower and transform naturally into the collectivist humans that he imagined all people were at core, as truly unselfish humans. Much like Klaus Schwab’s mantra that “You will own nothing, and you will be happy eating bugs”, because I, as the enlightened elite, demand that you be such.
In this we also see exposed the elite intolerance of diversity, equality, and the full inclusion of all. The very opposite of the DEI principles that they claim to champion.
Collectivists, as a fundamental principle, reject individual freedom and rights, and demand the subjection of all citizens to a collective that is then run by the elites for “the good of all, the greater or common good”, taking control of society’s resources and “means of production” to purportedly serve all workers.
Additionally, the centralizing of power and control in collectives inevitably, and always, attracts the psychopathic types lusting for power and control over others, and that consequently leads inevitably to the loss of freedom and ruining of the lives of millions of citizens. That has been the historical record of the roughly 20 major socialist experiments over the past century or so. Source: “Socialism: The Failed Idea that Never Dies” by Kristian Niemietz.
Delusionally convinced by their narrative that their system is “morally superior”, because it professedly exists for the greater or common good, and further convinced by their distortion of free individual approaches as being about selfishness and greed, socialists can never admit to the repeated failures of their system. After initial excitement over a new socialist regime, the inevitable failure follows, and then socialist apologists claim, once again, that the latest experiment “was not true socialism” but a perversion of such. We just need another chance to prove the essential goodness of our system, they argue. But they never explain just what they would do differently from the last failure, according to Niemietz.
The latest great socialist experiment in Venezuela had the Hollywood and Progressive elites all excited to prove once again the glory of collectivism. Now that the same corrupting system has destroyed a once resource rich country, please explain to us, once again, how socialist collectivist approaches will produce human freedom and prosperity after some 20 tries over the past century have all failed? Venezuela has now joined that sorry club of repeated failures. And where are those formerly excited Hollywood elites now?
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/venezuela-chavez-anatomy-economic-collapse
I similarly listened to my Marxist professors at Simon Fraser University (late 80s, early 90s) all dismiss the collapsing Soviet Union as not true Socialism but just another communist perversion. We just need another chance to try true socialism, they argued.
We are all responsible to face this critical issue of what are we doing to contribute to the protection and promotion of love and freedom? How can we, for example, just stand by and watch governing elites repeatedly increase taxation which is the state coercively taking citizen’s resources and hence their freedom of choice as to how they would prefer to use their own private resources? Add here the unrestrained impulse of state bureaucracies to burden citizens with ever more and more regulations.
What are we doing to protect and promote individual self-determination, self-responsibility for resources, choices… in other words- protect and promote the most basic human features of love and freedom?
Note: Bernstein presents the interesting debates over the optimal size of government (as a percent of GDP) to grant the most freedom, or “the most good for the most people”. Something Milton Freidman weighed in on. The tendency of state bureaucracies is to become more and more bloated. The federal bureaucracy in Canada has increased some 27% under Justin Trudeau. The man who stated that of all governments around the world he “most admired China’s basic dictatorship because they knew how to get things done… quickly”. By state force.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/one-big-growth-industry-of-the-trudeau-years-the-bureaucracy
The nanny state mentality that infantilizes citizens by interfering in people’s lives with excessive control is not compassion in any normal sense of the term. It is a perversion of compassion and concern for the poor and oppressed. It is the denial of freedom and individual choice and that is enslavement, not freedom. Elite intervention in citizen’s lives undermines human development that depends on taking individual responsibility for ones’ own life.
True liberalism embraces tolerance for diversity of lifestyle, inclusion of all as equals, meaning an end to busybody meddling in the lives of differing others, constraints on state intervention in the lives of citizens via tax policies that take more and more of citizen’s resources (and hence their free choices) and state regulations to control the details of citizen’s lives (as in increasing climate regulations). Live and let live.
And one on “hate speech”, Wendell Krossa
It is more than unsettling that many fellow liberals today don’t appear to understand the basics of true liberalism- notably, the fundamental importance of free speech as a bedrock principle of freedom. Critical to free speech is the requirement that “hate speech” must be carefully limited to “immediate incitement to violence”. Dangerously today, hate speech is being extended to include speech that is repugnant, offensive, etc. There must be constitutional guardrails against the “concept creep” that opens the door to “totalitarian creep” where biased monitors of hate speech begin to include the offensive, repugnant speech of their opponents to be censored, silenced, and criminalized as we saw in the Twitter Files revelations. Even jokes were censored.
And speaking of comedy, who said that leftism today has become humorless? Or, where it maintains some shred of humor, it often degrades into something more akin to vilification of differing others. As Dr. Drew noted on a recent Rubin Report, regarding the MSNBC host Jen Psaki, that she was “seething” at the hiring of a Republican who was subsequently fired. The other side doesn’t do that, said Drew (meaning “seething”). That is not journalism, he said.
And again, the good comments of Ira Glasser of free speech (former ACLU director):
Glasser stated that the best way to deal with offensive speech is to “duke it out in public arena” with better arguments, debate, and speech. He added, “Who gets to decide what is hate speech?” We all suffer the loss of freedom if we start to permit encroachment on speech with concept creep that extends “hate speech” definitions to include offensive, repugnant speech of opponents. Hate speech should be limited to “speech that incites to immediate violence”.
Add here the Woke leftist projects to go after “disinformation, misinformation, etc.”, as applied again to the opinions and speech of political opponents.
Patterns in alarmism/totalitarian crusades… Wendell Krossa
The totalitarian spirit first alarms the public with an apocalyptic narrative, then claims that salvation will require “coercive purification of the thing that threatens life”, meaning in Woke Progressive views of salvation- an end to democracy as currently practised because it is not capable of dealing with the purported threat. There is no other option, no choice except what I, as the enlightened elite, tell you what is required. Its all the same old formula of Fear=control.
Note carefully the same old patterns of alarmism movements- The pattern of first create an alarm (i.e. the dangerous views of your enemies that you view as threats to democracy and life- their “disinformation, misinformation, mal-information, hate speech”). Then portray yourself as the savior of all things, with a demanded salvation scheme necessary to “save democracy, save the world”.
More on Patterns in alarmism movements, Wendell Krossa
Note a critical shift in Progressive speech that has taken place over the past few years. It has become more virulently extremist in the demonization of opponents. The common go-to smears/pejoratives: “Hitler, Nazi, fascist, threat to democracy and life, Russian disinformation agent, domestic terrorist, along with the usual racist, White Supremacist, Far Right, etc.” What is this about? Add here MSNBC host Keith Olberman expressing the hope that Trump will be assassinated.
Richard Landes noted (Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience), regarding apocalyptic millennial movements, that when an apocalyptic crusade appears to be weakening and even failing, the leading spokespersons will then make the shift to “exterminate or be exterminated” thinking. They become desperate to protect their failing movement and to demonize their opponents as threats to all that is good. That then takes the movement’s prophets toward dangerous plans and policies to eliminate their “enemies” as intolerable threats. People possessed with the totalitarian spirit do not want to give up power and control over their societies.
Just something to keep an eye on…
Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn weekly discussions
These posts to a discussion group regarding “Transcript- America This Week, March 29, 2024: ‘MSNBC Loses Its Nose Over Ronna: You can’t stick your nose up at the world if its gone. Walther and Matt relive the Ronna McDaniel chorus, condemn absolutely all scissors imagery, and read Gogol’s ‘The Nose’”
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-march
My posts to discussion group: “If you enjoy a stimulating conversation, discussion on issues of the day, these two provide some of the best. They are well informed and explore the core issues well. This week they go after the amazing drama at MSNBC over former Republican National Party head Ronna McDaniel being hired and fired and how the hosts there boasted sincerely/self-righteously that they had “saved democracy, saved free speech, saved the world” from evil. Ah, so much in this- again, the hypocrisy and projection Dr. Drew nailed the other day…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eykA1QOW4IM&t=670s
“Such self-delusion exhibited without any sense of self-awareness or embarrassment in mainstream media…
“Get some of the points from this Taibbi/Kirn discussion. This is the very media that have given themselves over to what Democratic Senator Frank Church warned about in the 1970s… that the intelligence agencies would infiltrate and control media to propagandize the public. These media no longer even try to hide that by hiring leading intelligence officials now.
“These two (Taibbi and Kirn) can’t believe this MSNBC drama. They suggest that its almost like a staged show trial where you invite the monster in, then all join to show their bravery in confronting and excising the monster, so they could then comment on their courage in saving America…
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-march
Quotes from the discussion:
“But the big development in news, especially since say the late-200s, the beginning of the Obama years has been this infiltration of the news business by federal law enforcement intelligence officials… all of this has been completely established now as business, as usual, a business that I have criticized since it began. These are people that should be sources they’re talking to off camera, not people they’re putting up front, especially the intelligence people who are, let’s remember, trained liars.”
“And I see this as an MSNBC pretext for basically censoring all kinds of things…. they are creating a precedent for the excision of all sorts of people, all sorts of stories, all sorts of events from their news channel.
“Matt Taibbi: You’re right. It’s sort of a Greek chorus thing. So where they’re playing out a scenario which is meant to entertain, but also give moral instruction, and this is the chorus.
“Walter Kirn: And to demonstrate what their posture is going to be going forward. So I expect that in a month or two or a week, but certainly by summertime, they will be using this as a legal precedent for all sorts of other acts of purgation and censorship….
On a Leslie Stahl argument on 60 Minutes:
“She’s continuing a meme that Rachel Maddow started, which is that censorship is protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they’re flipping everything on its head and saying the First Amendment actually protects the right to shut people up. So this is the Orwellian inversion, freedom of speech is the freedom to silence…
And this critical point- that all the hysteria from mainstream media and others over “disinformation, misinformation” and calls to censor and ban such is because people have recognized how media lie and propagandize so now are turning away to alternative news sources and that threatens the monopoly mainstream media believe they are entitle to- “And this is one of the reasons that there’s such unanimity among places like CBS, NBC, The Times and so on in the onslaught against dis-informers, is that it happens to coincide with an onslaught against their competitors. It just so happens that the people they’re talking about, the places where disinformation runs rampant, are all the places that are taking viewers and readers away from them. And why…”
“Could it possibly be because audiences out there don’t like to watch news organizations that don’t challenge powerful structures? And so here we have a ‘60 Minutes’ story that goes far out of its way, very far out of its way, to avoid the central issue in the Supreme Court case that they eventually talk about. The central issue, which is the participation of Homeland Security, the FBI, all these organizations, the White House, Health & Human Services. We don’t want to touch that. We don’t want to go after any of those folks. We don’t want to mention the evidence that talks about the interconnectedness between these groups and these researchers who are presented. It’s just these poor, independent academic researchers. So they tiptoe around that and expect that they’re going to retain their audience like their audience doesn’t notice that stuff. So you’re right, they’re beating back the competition, but it’s just not effective. It’s not subtle.
“And they now have joined forces with various political actors who also want control to create a sense of crisis around America’s ability to see reality on its own. And what they continually insist is that their mutual monopoly, no longer much of one, should be restored somehow in the interest of everything. Our survival, the First Amendment, beating Putin stopping disease, et cetera.
“And it is a late imperial reaction. These are true reactionaries who are seeing their seat of power assaulted and are fighting back using the only weapons they know how. Invoking saints like Tim Russert, crying heretic, demonizing the other side, misrepresenting the nature of the conflict, and finally just insisting on their own sacred right to tell us whatever they damn well please for our own good. And they’re failing. And as they fail, they recruit more and more fellow institutional actors who, themselves, come from endangered areas, politicians and so on, to make this last stand.” (End of quotes from Taibbi/Kirn discussion)
More on destroying life/civilization to “save the world”.
“Renewables will destroy America’s lifestyle back to the pre-1800’s – this is the Biden energy plan.
“The elephant in the room that policymakers refuse to talk about is that renewables only generate electricity but cannot manufacture any products for today’s… society.
“Published March 25, 2024, at America Out Loud News
“Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
“Regardless of the intermittent weather, the electrical grid is expected to deliver continuous and uninterrupted electricity no matter what the weather to support computers for hospitals, airports, offices, manufacturing, military sites, and telemetry, that all need a continuous uninterruptable supply of electricity.
“Yet, policymakers continue to subsidize wind turbines and solar panels (with taxpayers’ money) for the generation of electricity that do not work most of the time….
The elephant in the room that no policymaker wants to discuss is that:
• Neither wind turbines nor solar panels can replace the supply chain of products from crude oil that are the foundation of our materialistic society demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.
• Occasional electricity generated from wind and solar CANNOT support computers for hospitals, airports, offices, manufacturing, military sites, and telemetry, that all need a continuous uninterruptable supply of electricity.
“Interestingly, all the components of wind turbines and solar panels are also based on the products made from fossil fuels. Thus, in a fossil-free society, we’re decaying back in the 1800’s as there will also be NO electricity. Life was short and hard for the common man just a few hundred years ago…
1. Without oil, a significant loss of billions of lives of the 8 billion on this planet from starvation, diseases, and weather-related fatalities because of shortages of food, medications, and products, and a reduction in transportation infrastructures, that are all based on the components made from fossil fuels…
• Wind turbines and solar panels do not work most of the time, as they only generate occasional electricity AND manufacture NOTHING for society as renewables cannot make tires, insulation, or fuels for commercial and military aircraft, merchant ships, and the space program.
• Wind and solar cannot make any of the more than 6,000 products now in our materialistic world.
• Crude oil is virtually never used to generate electricity but when manufactured into petrochemicals, is the basis for virtually all the products in our materialistic society that did not exist before the 1800’s.
• We’ve become a very materialistic society over the last 200 years, and the world has populated from 1 to 8 billion because of all the products and different fuels for jets, ships, trucks, cars, military, and the space program that did not exist before the 1800’s.
• If the world governments want to rid the earth of crude oil usage, what’s the back-up source that can manufacture refrigerators, tires, asphalt, X-Ray machines, iPhones, air conditioners, and the other 6,000 products that wind and solar CANNOT manufacture?
• Crude oil use is essential to human flourishing for the foreseeable future. The pursuit of “net zero by 2050, without first identifying the crude oil replacement to support the supply chain of products now demanded by those in developed countries, would be one of the most destructive developments in human history.
• Without crude oil, there would be nothing that needs electricity!! Everything that needs electricity to function is made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil, from computers, iPhones, telemetry, and HVAC units…
“Germany, the first country to go “green” with an electricity generation transition to renewables, now has electricity rates that are among the highest in the world, and threatens to be an unaffordable, unrealizable disaster, according to the government’s own independent auditors.
“Looking beyond the few wealthy countries setting environmental policies for the other 94 percent of the world’s population, billions still struggle to meet basic needs. The poorer on this planet may never be able to enjoy the materialistic living styles of those in wealthier countries…..
“At the recent climate summit gathering in Dubai that attracted more than 70,000 from around the world that enjoy their materialistic lifestyles, as well as more than 600 emission-spewing private jets, the president of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 28, Sultan Al Jaber stated that a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”, i.e. back to the pre-1800’s”.
Now some comment on our personal stories… Wendell Krossa
The struggles and battles of our lives take place over the decades of our deep immersion in the material world arena in which we live. But I would suggest that there is a more profound meaning behind all that we experience in life, and its helpful to have a framework of themes, a general story outline that encompasses what all people experience, an outline of the issues that each of us is very likely to face sometime in our lives. Notable to the story outline is that the real battle is the inner battle of our true self vs the animal inheritance and that is the real evil enemy, monster that each of us has to fight and conquer.
This is my alternative to the mythical/religious view of life that has long dominated human narratives and understanding.
The big picture background framework helps us to understand what this life experience is all about in terms of our ultimate questions about the meaning and purpose of it all. It helps us understand what real success means, not as measured by the special privileges that very few will attain, i.e. privileges of birth status, place of birth, race, gender, the unique talents that few people have, educational opportunities, general life opportunities that not all get, and then the differing amounts of success in the hierarchies all through our societies that determine human well-being.
Most of us will live ordinary lives. But it does not have to be the “most men live lives of quiet desperation” of Henry Thoreau.
On the special privileges of the few at the top of societal hierarchies:
For example, I remember perusing, during my education, the Israeli studies that show those in positions in the upper levels of the hierarchies of organizations have higher levels of well-being because they have more control over the decisions that impact their lives. While those lower in hierarchical status have lower levels of well-being related to less control over the decisions that impact them. Control over the important decisions impacting our lives is critical to human well-being. Totalitarian control types seem to lack any appreciation or empathy for this fact.
The framework of all human story helps to understand what then equalizes all humans as in the intensely inner struggles of the human spirit against the animal. We can all attain the ultimate in success as the hero of our own unique story, our personal hero’s quest. Its how we view and measure such things. The primacy of our inner quest offers the possibility of real human equality in life, equality of true success in life, success that really matters.
Moving right along into Campbell…
Speculating with Campbell on the meaning of human life and experience Wendell Krossa
Or: How to tower in stature as maturely human, how to become the hero of your story or quest.
Joseph Campbell said that we all live a “hero’s quest or adventure”. Our lives and life experiences can be understood in terms of “the hero’s journey”. We live heroic stories of adventure, struggle, suffering, conquest of monsters/problems, disintegration/re-integration, transformation, discovery and gaining insights that can then benefit others. I have added to Campbell’s basic framework, revising, paraphrasing, and changing some things.
Going right to the point on the big question- What is the greater meaning, goal or purpose of human life? Above all else that we might accomplish in life, I would suggest that we are here to learn what love is and how to love. The defining identity marker of being human- Love- is central to the fundamental reason/purpose for the cosmos, our world, and conscious human life and story.
Campbell affirmed love as the overall meaning of life in his comment that we become mature persons when we embrace “universal love”. Then we become the heroes of our story. I would use the broader term “unconditional” or “no conditions” to hone the definition of love with lasering clarity. This boundary-breaking adjective takes love to whole new reaches of human courage and achievement. It is unconditional love that enables us to “tower in stature” as fully and maturely human. (Again, note qualifiers below that this is not advocacy for pacifist “turn the other cheek” responses to violence/evil. Love is always primarily responsible to protect the innocent and restrain offenders.)
Arguments for unconditional as the highest and most authentic form of love
Unconditional or no conditions love includes universal and more. Unconditional is the limitless generosity that demands no conditions of others before loving them. It is a big-heartedness that loves freely regardless of the response of the other person who for whatever reasons may not return kindness and generosity that is shown to them.
Unconditional has been best expressed in the “hard saying” of Historical Jesus to “love your enemies… give to anyone who asks, expecting nothing in return”. Jesus added that, comparatively, it is easy to love and give if you expect a similar response as in “limited ‘tit for tat’ love”: Here is the full central message of Jesus…
“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Everyone finds it easy to love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Everyone can do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Most will lend to others, expecting to be repaid in full.
“But do something more heroic, more humane. (Live on a higher plane of human experience). Do not retaliate against your offenders/enemies with ‘eye for eye’ justice. Instead, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then you will be just like God because God does not retaliate against God’s enemies. God does not mete out eye for eye justice. Instead, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be unconditionally loving, just as your God is unconditionally loving”. (My paraphrase of Luke 6:32-36 or Matthew 5:38-48.)
This can be summarized in this single statement: “Love your enemy because God does”.
Example of non-retaliatory, unconditional love: The Prodigal Father story in Luke 15:11-31.
The Father (representing God) did not demand a sacrifice, restitution, payment, apology, or anything else before forgiving, fully accepting, and loving the wasteful son.
Jesus’ point was that authentic mature love will not set any conditions before loving others. It is not dependent on similar response from others. And it is not limited to like-minded ingroup members- family, friends, neighbors. It will also love “enemies”. It is not tribally oriented or exclusive/discriminatory.
Unconditional love is the highest form of love that humanity has discovered and the ideal that points us in the direction of a more authentically humane existence. It prompts us to respond to offenders and others with actions that cause the least harm to others. It provides the safest ethical standard to help us navigate the tests of life. How so? Unconditional urges us to be non-retaliatory, non-dominating, and non-punitive. There is nothing safer than these responses for assuring that we do the least harm to others, and that we do the most good to others.
Further, with qualifiers…
Embracing unconditional as our lodestar ideal is how we conquer our personal monster, our real enemy in life, the inherited animal impulses that are embedded deeply inside each of us, impulses that orient us to tribal exclusion, division, and separation (i.e. small band mentality), to domination of others (i.e. alpha male/female control that refuses to respect the freedom and self-determination of others), and the impulse to treat other’s failures with punitive justice (i.e. to destroy the offending/competing other). Unconditional persuades us to resist and overcome these inherited tendencies and thereby to “tower in stature” as a heroic conqueror of the “animal passions” (Campbell’s term for the inherited animal in us).
Unconditional urges us to embrace traits like the unlimited forgiveness of the failures of others, forgiveness that is manifested in restorative justice approaches toward offenders (non-retaliatory, non-punitive justice). Unconditional prompts us to embrace universal inclusion of all as equals (non-dominating, non-controlling forms of relating to all others, i.e. relating horizontally not vertically).
Unconditional takes us to the height of what it means to live as authentically human. It is the singularly humane ideal that we have discovered to shape our goals, our ethics, and our mission/purpose in life. It shows us how we can become the hero of our unique story, and how we can mature as human persons. Unconditional, as our highest human ideal, gives meaning to everything else. It answers the great questions of meaning and purpose: “Why existence?”; “Why this cosmos and this world?”; and “Why conscious human life?”
The necessary qualifier to unconditional ethics:
Approaching life with an unconditional orientation toward every person does not mean pacifist inaction in the face of injustice, violence, or evil. In discussion groups you sometimes get participants who respond to the suggestion of embracing unconditional as an ideal with this distorting dismissal, “Oh, you’re saying that we should let all the psychopaths go free”. No. In advocating for an unconditional mindset, no one is suggesting anything so thoughtlessly irresponsible and extremist. Embracing an unconditional ideal to guide life does not entail the abandonment of common sense in an imperfect world. It is not an affirmation of “de-carceration” policies (or “no cash bail”) that set free repeatedly violent offenders.
An unconditional approach to human failure will hold all responsible for their behavior. Any common sense understanding of love will require the restraint and imprisonment of people who are not able or not willing to self-control their worst impulses. Unconditional will even regretfully engage war to stop aggression against the innocent. But it will do so with the non-aggressive and non-triumphalist attitude advocated by the Chinese sage Laozi, that does not gloat over the defeat of an opponent but seeks the restoration of enemies after defeating them.
Further, unconditional love should not be primarily about feeling, as the horrific inhumanity of some offenders rightly evokes rage and disgust. Unconditional is an embrace of love that intends to treat all offenders humanely, despite their offenses. Much like our human rights codes that obligate us to treat prisoners of war humanely despite our feelings toward them and their crimes. Unconditional is how we maintain our own humanity in the face of evil.
Illustrations of unconditional love of enemies are presented in movies like “The Forgiven”, “The Railway Man”, “Invictus”, “To End All Wars”, “Ben Hur”, etc. Unconditional was also exhibited in the restoration of Germany and Japan by the Allies after the atrocities of WW2.
Unconditional profoundly transforms humanity’s highest ideal and authority- deity: Create for yourself a new God, construct a truly humane deity theory
(The same features that have long defined primitive deities also define the newer “secular” versions of deity, such as “Vengeful Gaia… angry Planet/Mother Earth, retributive Universe, and payback karma” or the coldly impersonal and loveless god of philosophical materialism- “Self-Organizing Principle”.)
Unconditional points to a profound redefining of humanity’s ultimate ideal and authority- deity. This one narrative-transforming adjective overturns entirely the long history of punitive, retaliatory gods demanding sacrifice/payment for human imperfection.
Deities, from the beginning, have been defined by the animal-like features of tribal exclusion (gods favoring true believers and excluding unbelievers), domination (God as lord, king, ruler), and retaliatory punishment (God as Judge, ultimate Punisher/Destroyer). These features projected onto deities have long guided and validated the expression of similar features in the followers of such deities because people across history have venerated the gods as their highest ideals and authorities for their lives and societies. Such is the outcome of humanity’s age-old impulse to base behavior on similar beliefs.
From the beginning, people have naturally tried to model their lives and societies according to their understanding of the nature of their deities. This primal human impulse to venerate deity as ultimate authority has often resulted in horrific outcomes because “we become just like the God that we believe in or worship” (Bob Brinsmead). The result has too often been- “men never do worse evil than when they do it in the name of God”.
Unconditional guts the old theologies and the baser features that have long been projected onto and framed humanity’s highest ideal and authority. Unconditional is the ultimate breakthrough insight to fully humanize deity. It finally makes God safe to use as a source of validation for human behavior and life.
History records stunning examples of the inhumane treatment of others in the name of God. For example, Christian crusaders near the end of the first millennium CE slaughtered Jews and Muslims driven by their belief that God willed the destruction of unbelievers and needed human agents to carry out the dirty work. More recently, ISIS and related groups have similarly slaughtered people incited by the belief that their God demands such harsh punishment of infidels.
Redefining God as unconditional love will overturn entirely the subhuman features of deity that have validated inhumane treatment of others. When unconditional defines the highest ideal and authority of humanity, then people still wanting to treat others inhumanely are left without recourse to divine validation. They are left indefensible and facing personal responsibility for any inhumanity vented toward others.
When unconditional defines deity, that fundamentally re-orients the primal human impulse to base behavior on belief- i.e. to validate our behavior with our beliefs, notably our beliefs regarding the nature of deity. Embracing unconditional to reshape our highest ideal and authority will then enable a profound re-shaping of our responses and our treatment of human imperfection and failure. Where punitive, retaliatory deities have long validated human justice as systems of punitive retaliation, unconditional deity will orient us away from punitive forms of justice and toward the restorative or rehabilitative treatment of imperfect others. In a word- mercy.
Campbell’s points on human story…
I would affirm with Campbell that we come from a greater Oneness that humanity has long called “God” (i.e. the Ultimate Creating Consciousness, Mind, Intelligence, Source, Spirit, Self, Goodness). There is one transcendently prominent feature that describes this divine Oneness- Love. Not just love as we commonly know it from our experience, but Love that is inexpressibly, transcendently, and infinitely unconditional. Beyond words, terms, definitions, or categories.
That is how Campbell stated the transcendent element in deity- the God that is infinitely beyond any human categories, definitions, or theories of God. I apply such transcendence to the feature of love. God as unconditional Love is a reality that is transcendently beyond any understanding of the term “God is love”. Inexpressibly beyond the best that we could ever imagine. No religion has ever communicated this liberating wonder to humanity.
Historically, religious traditions have been oriented to highly conditional reality- i.e. conditions of correct belief (the “truth” of the religion), demanded sacrifice/payment, required rituals and religious lifestyle as identity markers of “true believer” standing, and obligatory membership in a formalized religious tradition. An unconditional deity renders all such religious conditions unnecessary, hence the religious hesitation to engage or promote such a God.
No conditions Love redefines the ultimate meaning of everything. The stunning new theology of deity as unconditional Love presents a radical narrative-transforming background for understanding of the cosmos, the world, and conscious life.
Further speculations on metaphysical/spiritual realities
Quantum entanglement points to a fundamental oneness of all reality. Add here the central insight from Near-Death Experiences of our oneness with God. This leads me to consider that our true self is then also defined by the same no conditions Love that is God. This ought to radically transform and reshape our sense of identity or self-image. We are not the fallen, “originally sinful” beings of religious mythology.
The point is that the love that is God is inseparable from our human spirit and our human consciousness.
However, in our struggle to live as fully human we are inhibited by the material body and brain that we have come to inhabit. Our core nature as no conditions love is often obstructed from full expression by our tight interaction with the animal brain that we have inherited, a brain with its anti-human impulses to dualistic tribalism, domination of others, and the exclusion, punishment, and destruction of others. The animal inside us too often influences us to make choices that deny our true nature as beings of love.
I am affirming a form of “dualist interactionism” (immaterial mind interacting with material brain), similar to the ideas proposed by neuroscientist and Nobel laureate John Eccles.
Further, in regard to our origins in a greater Oneness (i.e. that we are essentially part of a greater Consciousness), Campbell along with others suggests that only part of our greater consciousness, or greater self, is expressed through our material body and brain. The human brain is a mechanism that limits our greater consciousness and enables us to function in a limited manner this material realm.
That greater consciousness is mediated through our physical body/brain and this limits our experience to the 5 senses of the human body/brain and the three or four-dimensional reality of this material realm. This limiting function of our brain enables us to experience life in this world. In this view, the brain is a transmitting organism, a limiting mechanism to make a life story possible in the here and now physical realm. (Note: Again, this view is more in line with Eccles’ “dualist inter-action”.)
Our origin in the Oneness or the God that is Love, our inseparable union with that Oneness, according to Campbell, is critical to remember as we journey through life in order that we do not lose our humanity in this world where we engage varied struggles with evil. Our true home in ultimate Oneness reminds us that the others that we battle against here- i.e. the imperfect others that we may view as “enemies” or opponents- they too are part of the same greater Oneness that is love. They are still intimate family despite the oppositions/dualisms that we engage here (i.e. the dualisms of race, nationality, gender, religion, politics, or other).
Note that Campbell bases his argument for love of enemy on the fact of our oneness with such “enemies”:
“For love is exactly as strong as life. And when life produces what the intellect names evil, we may enter into righteous battle, contending ‘from loyalty of heart’: however, if the principle of love (Christ’s “Love your enemies”) is lost thereby, our humanity too will be lost. ‘Man’, in the words of the American novelist Hawthorne, ‘must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest’” (Myths To Live By).
The differing others that we may oppose/fight during our lives are full equals in the greater Oneness. They are our brothers and sisters in the same family. If we forget this oneness with others (“our brotherhood with even our enemies”) during our righteous struggle with evil in this world, then we will lose our humanity, says Campbell. We will forget that “love your enemy” is the key to maintaining our humanity.
Others have suggested that we are co-creators with God, that we take part in creating this material reality as a learning arena, a place where we come to learn how to be human, to experience and act out a human adventure, story, or quest. We all come as “fellow actors in God’s theater”, says Campbell, playing our differing temporary roles in stories of opposition between good and evil.
And others yet suggest that we may even be responsible for choosing our unique life stories and the varied experiences of our stories, both good and bad. We may have chosen our bodies, our families, and the experiences of our unique life stories, in order to learn, develop, and grow as human. If this is true in any way, then we cannot blame God for our troubles.
I am not dogmatically affirming these speculative insights… just offering them for consideration.
They point to alternative ways to view the harsher experiences of our lives, alternatives that are radically different from the mythical/religious narratives that we have inherited that have long dominated human understanding. We may have chosen (in pre-existence) our unique life experiences as opportunities for personal learning and growth. See Natalie Sudman’s “The Application of Impossible Things” for some illustration of this (her story of an NDE and what she experienced beyond).
The insight on possible pre-existence planning is not a new take on religious predestination (i.e. that our lives were planned out in advance). As freedom is inseparable from love, so freedom remains paramount to our stories. We exercise authentic freedom of choice and create our stories on the fly, during our sojourn in this world. Freedom, with elements of indeterminacy and randomness, is inseparable from love. Where there is no authentic freedom of choice (free will) there is no authentic love.
Others have suggested that we come into life to fulfill some special mission, that we are called, or sent, to make some unique contribution to improve life, to make the world a better place. And we do this through living a unique life story. No one else can accomplish the unique mission that we have come to fulfill.
I affirm this main point again- that the central purpose of human life and story is to know and learn love. To learn what authentically humane love is about- that is, “unconditional love”. To learn how to love in that manner, how to express the no conditions love that is our true self, and how to experience similar love from others.
The primal human impulse to love is expressed through all the diversity of innumerable human lives and experiences- e.g. whether making an economic contribution, a political or social contribution, or something uniquely personal. Perhaps as an entertainer or sports person. Is there any greater contribution to improving life than that made by comedians? Putting hardship and suffering in its place (proper perspective), assisting us to laugh at it all, and thereby lightening the dark parts of life.
And what about the valued contribution of farmers growing food for all of us? Or sanitation workers preventing the spread of disease? There are no “useless” or less important human lives or stories. Despite the variety of our personal occupations, all of us contribute in some way to the grand overall venture of humanity learning what love is and expressing love.
Our contribution may be small and hidden, or it may be offered in the larger public realm. Again, our contributions to life are as diverse as the opportunities to be human in billions of individual life stories. There is infinite creative potential in the freedom to explore, to experience, to create and innovate, to live a unique story.
I would offer, again, that unconditional love is the central point of it all. And that is something intensely personal. As we contribute in some area (i.e. our jobs), we do well to nourish love as the motivating and guiding factor in our actions. It matters how we relate to and treat others around us in all the mundane, ordinary, and private situations of daily life. Fundamentally, success in life (true human achievement) is about how we treat others as fellow members of the same family. All differing others remain our equals in this one human family despite their status or failures in this world.
Main Campbell points– Central elements of the human story or hero’s quest:
As we go out into life, each of us will face a monster(s) in life. We will experience problems, trials and suffering, things that we struggle with and try to overcome. Our personal monster/problem may be a physical disability, or mental/emotional problems, or some social issue, perhaps economic or political. Our monsters, and our struggles/battles, are as diverse as the problems of our complex world, whether public or personal.
Campbell and others have noted that dualism, while a prominent feature of this material realm, is not part of the ultimate reality beyond this world. The cosmic dualism of Zoroaster is simply that- a mythological construction.
What Campbell is pointing to is that there is a greater point to the dualisms of material reality and life (i.e. the good versus evil dualism).
But first, this critical qualifier: Understanding dualism in this material world requires the preliminary qualifier that we never make light of evil in this world and the consequent suffering that evil/inhumanity brings. Our primary obligation as human is to fight all forms of evil throughout life, with all our being.
But it may help many to recognize that dualism serves deeper purposes in regard to human life and experience.
One suggestion argues that dualism is a necessary feature of the world and life, as wrong or evil provides a backdrop or contrast against which we learn what good is. We would not know good without its contrasting opposite.
The experience of evil in life provides an opposite that we struggle against, and through that “righteous struggle with evil” we gain insights, we discover humane responses, and we find solutions to problems, solutions that will benefit others. Our struggle with the wrongs, injustice, or evil of life is also where we learn empathy with suffering others (we “feel” and understand intimately what they are feeling).
Again, while being sensitive to the horrific suffering that many people have endured, I would offer that it may be helpful to note that others have suggested that some forms of struggle and suffering are necessary and even good for us because we would not learn, we would not develop and grow as human, aside from such struggle and suffering. As Julian Simon said, our problems are good for us because they push us to find solutions and our discovered solutions then benefit others. Struggle brings forth the best of the human spirit. Again, this is not an argument to tolerate or acquiesce in the face of evil and consequent suffering.
Further, it is critical to recognize that our experience of evil and suffering is never some form of divine punishment. That religious fallacy must be rejected entirely. God as unconditional love does not punish human imperfection. And God does not punish people through the imperfections of the world (i.e. through natural disaster, disease, accident, or human/animal cruelty).
Philosophical explanations of the meaning of evil and related suffering will never fully satisfy everyone. But it may help some to view the creation of this imperfect world, and its basic features, as fundamentally an experience and learning arena, with death serving the purpose of making this realm a temporary experience (a small part of a larger ongoing story as in the “eternal” existence of the human self or person).
Campbell then adds that we will be “wounded” in our struggle with our monster/problem. “Wounding” is as diverse as differing human stories. Wounding may be physical, mental/emotional, or related to some social problem.
To reiterate, some speculate that we may have chosen our unique problems and experiences of suffering before we came here. We may be more responsible for our lives than we realize. Let your mind toy with this suggestion (again, for illustration, see Natalie Sudman’s “The Application of Impossible Things”).
I would add something further to Campbell’s good points, though in places he has intimated a similar insight. The greatest monster and the real enemy that we all face, and must conquer, the greatest problem that we must all wrestle with and solve, is the inherited animal within each of us (“the animal passions”, according to Campbell). The greatest of all “righteous battles against evil” is the intensely personal inner battle that takes place inside each of us.
Here is where the role of unconditional as a guiding ideal comes into laser focus. And this is where we make our greatest contribution to making the world a better place. It starts within us, with conquering our own animal passions.
“Why do you worry about and judge the speck in the other person’s eye (their imperfections) when you have a beam in your own eye (your own imperfections)?”
Revolution, reformation, renewal, transformation, change… should all begin as something intensely personal. Within us. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “The great battle-line between good and evil runs through the center of every human heart”. The great battles against evil in life should focus initially and primarily within ourselves.
We have inherited a core animal brain. They used to frame this as the “tri-partite” brain, with the reptilian core (i.e. amygdala), the limbic system, and then the more human cortex at the surface.
The animal brain (and our past in millions of years of animal existence) bequeaths us with the basic impulse to (1) tribalism (small band separation and opposition to outsiders), (2) the impulse to dominate others (Alpha male/female), and (3) the impulse to exclude, punish, and destroy the differing other/enemy.
But we embrace a liberating qualifier: To paraphrase Jeffrey Schwartz, “We are not our brains”. Our core human spirit, our essential human self or person, our consciousness, is inseparable from the Love that we have long called God (our Source). We are not our inherited physical/animal brains. We are something much better in our essential nature, personhood, or human being (the “real” us). We are most essentially beings or persons that are love. Love is our true inner nature. And this is why our expressions of love make us feel authentically and maturely human, and most especially the expression of unconditional love toward enemies, the highest reach of love. Then we are most free (from the enslaving animal) and most authentically human, most truly ourselves.
I offer that the most important dualism of all to understand is the human versus the animal dualism inside us. The human in us- our human spirit and consciousness- is taking us in an entirely new direction from our brutal animal past. Our core humanity has set us on a trajectory toward a more humane future.
Evolutionary biology/psychology tends to devalue the human by defining it too much in terms of the animal, by viewing and limiting the human to just a form of more advanced animal. My problem, specifically, with evolutionary biology/psychology is that it devalues human love as something that can be explained in terms of the animal survival impulse- i.e. just another form of “species altruism”. That debases human love as just animal survival instinct- a form of animal selfishness. No, human love is something far more wondrous and essential to the greater ultimate meaning of conscious existence.
And here is where Campbell shines when defining human story. He says that the most critically important transformation in human life is when we orient our lives to “universal love”. Then we begin to mature as truly human. Then we become the hero of our story. Again, I would use unconditional love as a broader, more inclusive term.
What does the transformation to mature humanity entail?
Unconditional as a guiding ideal enables us to potently counter (overcome, conquer) the animal inside us by orienting us to embrace all others as fellow members of the one human family (inclusive, not limited tribal forms of love). Unconditional inspires us to treat all others as equals and to respect and protect the individual freedom of all others, to not dominate or control free and equal others (no alpha domination). And unconditional urges us to not punitively destroy the failing other but to forgive the imperfection that we encounter in others. Our core self, as unconditional love, points us toward the restorative treatment of failure in others (toward justice as rehabilitation/restoration, not punishment).
Additionally, Campbell makes comments on the shamanic experience that involves a disintegration of the self, and then re-integration around something new. A dying and rebirth. The disintegration may entail the collapse and abandonment of an old worldview for an entirely new worldview, new purpose, and new life story.
When we orient our worldviews and lives to universal or no conditions love, that new centering ideal overturns entirely the old worldviews that were oriented to tribal exclusion, domination of others, and retaliatory justice. Unconditional provides the new cohering center for a more humane worldview and life story. It liberates our consciousness from the subhuman features of past narratives and enables us to build an entirely new worldview framed around new features, as listed above. See “Old Story Themes, New Story Alternatives” in sections below for details on constructing an entirely new worldview oriented to unconditional.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
Re-emphasizing critical points:
The most important battles in life are not the great historical wars of tribe against tribe, or nation against nation. The greatest battles/wars are those that take place inside us. And this relates to the deeper meaning of equality in human life. There can be no outer material equality because life is shaped by hierarchies and pyramidal structures where only a few can reach the upper levels, whether in business, sports, politics, or entertainment.
Only an elite few can achieve the highest forms of what is considered conventional “success” in the pyramidal organizations of our societies. But everyone of us has the “equality of opportunity” to achieve the greatest success of all in the most important achievement of all- love.
Love is the foundational feature that defines ultimate success in human life and story. It is the essential core nature of our human spirit and consciousness, and it gives ultimate meaning to our existence. Further, love is the only lasting achievement in the cosmos. All else will be left behind and forgotten in this material world or realm. Only what is done in love lasts forever and reverberates to infinity and beyond.
Speaking superlatively, when we struggle and suffer in life, and then discover unconditional as the route to an authentically humane life story, that is the single greatest insight that we can discover, the greatest treasure that we can find, and living unconditionally is the greatest victory that we can achieve. When we orient our lives to unconditional love, then we can offer the greatest benefit or boon to others- to treat them unconditionally.
Unconditional points us toward the greatest revolution that we can bring to life, toward the greatest possible transformation of life, toward the greatest liberation that we can offer to the world (i.e. liberation from the inherited animal in all of us). The unconditional treatment of imperfect people around us (restorative justice) is one of the most potent personal ways to make the world a better place by ending the cycles of “eye for eye” retaliation that have incited endless violence between people, tribes, and nations. Include here also the expression of unconditional love toward oneself and one’s own failures and imperfections.
Another way of putting this… We will all face some struggle, some experience of suffering, something we fear, perhaps opposition from an enemy, or some abuse from an opponent. If we choose to respond to that challenge with love, we then discover our true self as a being of love, and we mature into a heroic person through that experience and choice. Again, for examples, note “The Railway Man”, Nelson Mandela’s life story, the tortured prisoners in “To End All Wars”, or the mother in “The Forgiven”.
In all that we do, and should do, to make this life better- i.e. in sports, in business and work, in all public or social issues, or entertainment- we should never forget that how we treat others in the daily mundane interactions (the ordinary and hidden things) is what make us real successes and achievers, or not. Steve Jobs appeared to have understood this on his death bed when he apologized to his daughter Lisa for treating her sub-humanly at times. He had achieved great public material success but regretted that he had failed in his private life. He died wishing that he had treated his family members with more kindness while he was alive and healthy.
Added notes in conclusion:
The embrace of a no-conditions ideal to guide our lives will orient us to (1) the non-tribal inclusion of all others as full equals. It will orient us to (2) respect and protect the full freedom and rights of all others (“Live and let live”). And it will orient us away from punitive, destructive forms of justice and (3) toward restorative/rehabilitative forms of justice- i.e. treating all human imperfection and failure with forgiveness, mercy, and generosity while still holding offenders responsible for their failures (protecting the public by incarceration of repeat offenders, rehabilitation programs, restitution, etc.).
Campbell also says that a “wise man”, or mentor, will give us a sword to slay our monster and help us to achieve our purpose in life. We all know such people among family and friends, people who give us advice from their own life experience. And again, unconditional love is that potent weapon or sword to slay our personal monster or enemy- the inherited animal in us.
From our struggle with this imperfect life and our struggle to learn love, we are transformed into a new person, into a better version of our self. Or better- learning to respond with love is the unveiling or expression of our true self. This is how we “discover our true self”. When we orient our lives to unconditional love, we then “tower in stature as mature humans”, we become the hero of our story, and we fulfill our destiny, we accomplish our mission. And that is how we help to create a better world, a new world, by first making ourselves better persons, by learning to live out the love that is our true self.
Another: Essential to developing into a mature human person is to take responsibility for our failures in life. Personal acknowledgement and embrace of failure is the starting point to the life trajectory of personal improvement.
Another: Unconditional love is the key to unlock the meaning of the cosmos, this world, and conscious human life. It is the defining essence of our ultimate Source- God. As someone said, “The very atoms of God are made of love, unconditional love”. That love then defines the essential purpose for the creation of the cosmos and life- i.e. that all has been created as an arena where we come to learn and experience such love, to receive and express such love. The imperfection of life, then, provides the background against which such love finds the opportunity to shine all the more brightly (in our battle with evil).
One more: The monster that we face in life is a two-headed beast. I noted the basic features of animal reality that we all struggle with- the impulses to tribalism (small band separation and opposition), domination of others (the alpha thing), and the impulse to exclude, punish, and destroy the differing other. Across history, people have projected these very same features onto deities, onto humanity’s highest ideals and authorities- the gods. They thereby created ultimate monsters that embodied tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction. Those deities then functioned as ultimate ideals and authorities that validated the same features in their followers. Consequently, conquering a monster in life is more than just overcoming the monster inside us- the animal inheritance in us.
Our battle in life includes conquering the monsters in our meta-narratives- i.e. the mythical and religious God theories that inspire, guide, and validate human emotions, attitudes, motivations, and responses/behavior. Religious gods- humanity’s highest ideals and authorities- from the beginning have been monstrous in nature and their features have been employed to validate the same monstrous impulses in people- to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction. (My repeated use of this triad- “tribalism, domination, punitive destruction”- is simply illustrative of a larger complex of things. see “Old Story Themes, New Story Alternatives” in sections below)
Unconditional is the sword that potently slays the monster in us and also slays the monstrous pathologies of humanity’s God theories (monster gods). An unconditional God does not validate dualistic tribalism (believers versus unbelievers), or domination of people (the myth of “humanity created to serve the gods”) and does not punish or destroy “unbelievers” (i.e. apocalypse and hell myths).
While each of us has some unique thing to contribute to life in economics, politics, occupation, social life, sports/entertainment, music, or whatever else that we choose to do, the one common factor in all human story is the responsibility to learn unconditional love, to discover and achieve something of this highest form of love. When we orient our lives to this central ideal, then we have conquered our real monster and enemy, the inherited animal in us. Then we have become the hero of our story.
End of Campbell
More on destroying civilization to “save the world”, as per the apocalyptic millennial narrative of the climate alarmism crusade.
Germany has followed the same decarbonization, de-industrialization, de-development, de-civilization path to ruin, just like California and other places..
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/01/the-green-energy-mess-that-nobody-will-admit-to/
“The Green Energy Mess That Nobody Will Admit to”, Ben Pile, April 1, 2024
Quotes:
“Reports in newspapers this week revealed that Britain’s domestic production of energy has reached a new record low…. Since the turn of the century, U.K. production of energy has fallen by two thirds, whereas consumption has fallen by a third. The difference has been met by an increased dependence on imports. Yet neither the report itself, which is at best agnostic about renewables, nor the stories that cover it, seem to have taken seriously the harm that Net Zero and adjacent agendas have done to our industries, businesses and economy – and are set to do worse…
“The U.K. ceased being a net energy exporter in 2004, amid a flurry of green policymaking, culminating in the Climate Change Act 2008, and its increased ‘Net Zero’ target adopted in 2019. Over the duration, coal-fired power stations were demolished, but not replaced with equivalent (i.e. reliable) generating capacity, shale gas exploration was abolished before it had even started….
“It is as if the entire political establishment had at once decided to forget that there exists a relationship between scarcity and price. Yet, the effect of abolishing coal is just that: it creates scarcity. So too, do policies that either restrict the exploration of oil and gas, or increase the cost of capital, create scarcity. Politicians, lobbied by green billionaires’ ersatz ‘civil society’ organisations who pump false claims into the public sphere, then claim that the problem all along was ‘dependence’ on oil and gas. Green energy will lower prices and diminish the power of dictators, who turn energy into a ‘weapon’ that terrorises Europe, they claim. So successful are they in their policymaking that, since 2019, the Government has capped energy prices – a policy they stole from Ed Milibrand in 2017, before taking us into Net Zero. If ‘green’ means anything at all, it means acute cognitive dissonance….
“Even oil and gas executives, it seems, have swallowed the green Kool-Aid….
“It would be all for the better if regulators, industry associations and, of course, politicians simply admitted that they have made a catastrophic mess of the very industries that were pioneered in this country. Putting green political ambitions before any other practical consideration has made us poorer, and is going to create a problem far worse than climate change.”
Speculation- Some things I believe, as in “faith” or hope stuff, Wendell Krossa
I believe (and hope) that the conscious human person lives on beyond the death of the material brain and body (John Eccles “dualist interactionism”). I have never seen, read, or heard any good contrary evidence to this belief, despite centuries of dogmatic materialist speculation that the meat in our heads produces the wonder of human consciousness, mind, and the human self. There is not a shred of good evidence to affirm such materialist speculation.
And I believe (and hope) that the ongoing existence of the human self will not be in a religious heaven, my version of the hell that would be an endless religious service. From the many accounts in the NDE movement we are told that human life beyond death will be an infinitely better reality than anything we can imagine, in terms of love, light, peace, bliss, beauty, ongoing development and creativity.
And all the great confounding questions of this reality that curse our consciousness with doubt and confusion will be answered fully in the beyond death stage of life, I believe and hope. And it will all make sense. All the great “Whys” of natural disaster, human cruelty, randomness and accident, the unfairness of injustice, with consequent human suffering, all the things that contribute to the sometimes horror of living in this world. We will get the answers and find out that nothing was wasted, nothing was really random, and therefore nothing is meaningless or purposeless.
This site is basically about the struggle to understand what human existence means, and to offer some speculations from the best of human insight across history, to counter the meaningless, hopeless nihilism of materialist dogmatic speculation. Fortunately, many among us have had various experiences that provide some very helpful insights into what this world is all about.
And yes, I unapologetically look for insights that offer hope and point to love. I am not concerned about the source of some insight, but the content that is presented.
Does everybody speculate? Yes, even hardcore materialist scientists. Evidence? See, for example, Sabine Hossenfelder’s “Lost in Math”, James Baggot’s “Farewell to Reality” and “Mass: The quest to understand matter, from Greek atoms to quantum fields”, also Lee Smolin’s “The Trouble with Physics: The rise of String theory”.
Materialist speculations- i.e. multiverse theory, string theory, Self-Organizing Principle, and mindless natural law, functioning randomly, operates as some sort of force that creates material reality and life, etc. Certainly, the creating Consciousness/Mind creates natural law and uses such in the functioning of the material realm. Science has done a great job discovering how the material realm functions but it will never tell us the why and purpose of it all, or what it is really made of.
Coleman Hughes on Woke racism
https://www.racket.news/p/on-the-view-a-crack-finally-shows
More posts to a discussion group:
“Listen to Sonny Hostin illustrating the go-to smear of Woke leftists today- You are “Right-wing”. That has been used endlessly by media to discredit, not just conservatives, but many liberals/Democrats, fellow leftists, who disagree with the Woke Progressive extremism of Hostin, Joy Behar, Joy Reid, and others. Hostin and Behar illustrate again a significant pathology in liberal media today- the smearing/demonizing to discredit disagreeing others, and even direct lying to demonize the differing others. Making up false charges on air, on national TV. No shame, no apology… just throw out a lie and see if something sticks. If you succeed in staining the other person’s credibility somehow, well good then. You may have won a round.
“Interesting that the liberal audience disagreed with the hosts and affirmed Hughes’ points, even though Hostin reacted quickly to silence the applause of the audience.”
Here Matt Taibbi comments on the Coleman/Hostin interview…
“On “The View,” A Crack Finally Shows in the Propaganda Façade: Q & A with Coleman Hughes, author of “The End of Race Politics,” who just experienced the mother of all book tour appearances”, Matt Taibbi, April 3, 2024
Quotes:
“Coleman Hughes, host of the podcast Conversations With Coleman and a polite but resolute critic of antiracist ideas, stepped last week into the shrieking maw of social justice orthodoxy on ABC’s “The View” to promote his book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America. With hosts like Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin seeming anxious to tear into a young writer they clearly saw as a proxy for conservative reaction, Hughes seemed in line for an exhausting experience….
“Something interesting did happen, however…. The surprise came in the first moments when the studio audience burst into spontaneous applause after Hughes suggested, “We should try our very best to treat people without regard for race both in our personal lives and our public policy.”….
“Here was evidence that ideas dismissed in elite circles as radical and “dangerous” may be popular and widely accepted, even among fans of the most aggressive idea-policing show on TV.
“This was the audience of The View,” Hughes says, adding that the crowd’s reaction suggested the antiracist ideas they were confronting “do not have deep subscription in the Democratic party base even.”…
“(Then) Goldberg offered a scolding introduction that can only be described as a parody of condescension… but Hughes, a measured, forgiving personality, said something conciliatory about the experiences of different generations before moving to a larger point.
“The default right now in a lot of areas of policy is to use black and Hispanic identity as a proxy for disadvantage,” he said. “And my argument is that you actually get a better picture of who needs help by looking at socioeconomics and income that picks out people in a more accurate way.”
“The crowd again burst into spontaneous applause. Tension on set picked up. ABC’s Sunny Hostin, who… quickly stepped on audience cheers to begin questioning….
“Hughes cited Martin Luther King to make the rational argument that race-specific policies are unnecessary….
“Hostin cut Hughes off… Then she said the following: “And so your argument for colorblindness, I think is something that the right has co-opted and so many in the black community, if I’m being honest with you, because I want to, believe that you are being used as a pawn by the right and that you are charlatan of sorts”.
“Not long ago an on-air professional would hesitate before saying something badly untrue about a person… Not now. You don’t have to extend basic human decency on TV, let alone bring even basic journalistic rigor when criticizing a guest deemed on the wrong side of political orthodoxy…. Hostin went on:
“You’ve said that you’re a conservative,” she began.
“No, no,” Hughes said, frowning….
“It’s hard to describe how disorienting it can be to adjust on live TV to this new dynamic of invented charges, making it all the more impressive that Hughes recovered as well as he did….
“The final, incredible sequence involved Joy Behar….
“BEHAR: Okay. I have a question. You write that the anti-racism movement, there are a couple of people… [reading producer-prepared questions, annoyed]… I don’t even know who they are. Maybe you do.
“HUGHES: Robin DiAngelo or Ibram Kendi, for instance…
“BEHAR: Okay, well, you say that that is just another form of racism, and you even say it has a lot in common in white supremacy. [Peeved] How can you compare those two things? Anti-racism, you’re comparing to white supremacy?…
“Hughes explained that anti-racism and white supremacy both operate on the premise that your race is a central component of your identity, if not the defining element. He summed up:
“Neo-racists like Robin DiAngelo, they say that to be white is to be ignorant, for example. Well, this is a racial stereotype, and I want to call a spade a spade and say, this is not the style of anti-racism we have to be teaching our kids…”
“The View audience once again burst into applause….
“Coverage of Hughes has long been among modern media’s most glaring and offensive examples of intentional misinformation….
“His current career is only possible or necessary (in his new book he says he finds race “boring” and says he didn’t choose the topic, “it chose me”) because he’s confronting “antiracist” writers like Ibram Kendi who’ve had extraordinary recent success in radically redefining both racism and the goals of the civil rights movement. Surfing on ideas that until recently were niche concepts in remote corners at a handful of elite universities, Kendi popularized the idea that all unequal outcomes are caused by racism, and made respectable the incredible idea that “the only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”
Matt Taibbi then asked Coleman Hughes some questions:
“MT: What was going through your mind during that segment? It seemed like they were angry at the get-go….
“Coleman Hughes: My sense is that there were people in the audience of The View, which is a liberal audience, who agreed with me. And not just a few people. If that’s a signal of anything — I don’t know that I changed minds, or if it’s more that the show uncovered that there are a lot of liberals that agree with what I’m saying….
“MT: You brought up something interesting. My suspicion about a lot of these antiracist views has been that they’re actually less popular than is let on — they feel like media creations. I thought your appearance might have the effect of beginning to break the media spell about the issue. Is this neo-racism just fashion among a narrow slice of people, or something that’s actually spread far and wide?
“Coleman Hughes: I tend to think it’s only popular in the liberal elite. These views do not have deep subscription in the Democratic party base even….”
Here is a brief one of Joe Rogan interviewing Coleman Hughes on his View visit recently and his excellent expression of how we should view and treat race….