CREATING A CAPACITY FOR MAKING RATIONAL DECISIONS

Near the beginning of the human story, the collective mind of the newly emergent species, Homo sapiens, encountered conditions and circumstances that encumbered, burdened and effectively constrained it with shackles of determinism, causing members of this species to be forever afterward incapable of making rational decisions.

Some thirty four years ago I stumbled upon the means, telling the truth, which could effectively strike these shackles from the collective and individual minds of human beings and create the possibility of a prosperous and peaceful future for the species to replace an existence that has always been replete and redolent with conflict, tragedy, misery and suffering.

My attempt to communicate the inestimable value of telling the truth has met with abject failure, has been the ultimate exercise in futility yet the consequences of humanity continuing to hew to the worldview that ‘might is right’ are so dire, since I sincerely believe that this will cause us to destroy the civilizations that we have arduously and painstakingly built with the weapons of mass destruction we have devised, that I must persevere.

I must continue to attempt to convince others that force could be relied on to motivate the other when human beings were armed with axes, knives and spears tipped with sharpened flints, that this is no longer possible when varied and variegated individuals from diverse populations have ever increasing access to weapons of mass destruction that in the bellicose ranting of USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev were capable of ‘melting the polar icecaps.’

I am constrained to continue to make the arguments supporting my attempt to sound the alarm, I am constrained to say again and again that members of the genus Hominid that has been labeled Homo sapiens emerged and quickly supplanted all other strains of that genus approximately One Hundred Thousand years ago.

That it is clear that this very positive development could not have occurred if members of that species had not only demonstrated a capacity for language and therefore for learning and to transmit culture; but also were capable of the savagery and ferocity that allowed the species to successfully compete with other physically imposing denizens for existing food resources.

I am constrained to continue to declaim that the critical component of that success was the fact that the human mind was divided into two compartments the conscious and subconscious – though the critical importance of that adaptation is currently deemphasized and consigned to the background of popular consideration.

It is clear, abundantly and unmistakably clear to me because I have been telling the truth as much as was humanly possible for upwards of three decades; that Absolutism, the form of governance that has been most widely utilized for all but three hundred years of human history, had its roots and is a logical progression and outgrowth of the design for human existence determined by the circumstances and conditions that existed in the ‘state of nature.’

In that environment in which the law of the jungle applied, in which the fittest survived, which was ruled by fang and claw, in which groups of human beings engaged in hunting and gathering to survive, in such a physical environment it was logical and mandatory that human tribes embrace a design for existence founded in the worldview that ‘might was right,’ whose ethos was competition, which relied on coercion to motivate the other, and, whose dominant social roles were territorial predator and their hapless prey.

What I have been incapable of causing human beings to seriously consider despite the currently unimaginable length of time during which these ‘conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action’ were practiced, were successfully practiced since their practice led to Homo sapiens becoming the dominant species on Planet Earth, is the fact that little has changed, that the vast majority of human beings continue to be agents of coercion determined culture.

Despite overwhelming and irrefutable evidence supporting my conclusion, human beings because this is what they what to believe, because this is what they are comfortable believing, perceive a world not for the most part composed of agents of coercion determined culture; but one in which there are Christian nations, in which there are democratic nations, one in which there are communist nations, despite the palpably obvious fact that in precept human beings, to refer to a prime example, those in the so called Christian nations are actually Christians for only a few hours on Sunday or on Saturday mornings.

Human beings manage to comprehensively ignore, reject and give absolutely no credence to my contention, they manage to reject a fact that should be palpably, unmistakably obvious from the content of news reports with which they are inundated every day, which they cannot avoid but which they are incapable of accurately interpreting.

Despite the fact that in every nation on Planet Earth five per cent of populations control ninety per cent of the wealth generated in that nation, rich or poor, large or small, developed or underdeveloped; despite the reports of wars, genocide, crime and sundry conflicts; despite the numbers who are unrelievedly and unalterably poor and hungry, the majority of human beings contend that we have in fact divested our psyches of the habits we learned during the One Hundred Thousand years that we languished in a ‘state of nature.’

Most human beings opportunistically believe that we have somehow evolved beyond being agents of coercion determined culture, that we have divested our psyches of habits we practiced for One Hundred Thousand years – though there is no human population, or period of human history that we can point to and say this is when this nation became civilized, this was the means they used to achieve this transcendent state; and, this span of time marked the turning point in this transcendent development.

I categorically state that we continue to be agents of coercion determined culture, that the proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this is so, is that we create and recreate the ‘state of nature’ wherever we go; that very like a crab carries its shell which it retreats into when danger threatens, we are festooned with out shackles of determinism and rattle these when threatened.

I dare to make this remarkable, apparently insane claim because as a direct consequence of my telling the truth as much as was humanly possible for upwards of three decades I have been transformed from being a caterpillar, an agent of coercion determined culture; and, become the butterfly of liberated, civilized human being.

Moreover I am capable of connecting the dots, I perceive the link between the most remarkable and enduring characteristic of Absolutist regimes, that Absolute rulers had the power of life and death over their subjects; as did hunters in the ‘state of nature’ have the power of life and death over other members of the tribe because they were responsible for distributing the proceeds of the hunt; and, moreover because they were required to protect weaker members of the tribe from the incursions of other predators.

I see, with emancipating sight, that the institution of the Absolute Ruler had its genesis in the in the real need for powerful warriors to protect cities and towns from the depredations of mobile hordes that were produced by human tribes after the domestication of the horse, who continued to hew to a nomadic existence depending for subsistence of large herds of cattle, sheep or goats; habitations that began to be constructed and in which the majority of human beings came to be located after they discovered how to domesticate certain grasses and animals, the humble beginnings of agriculture.

These powerful warriors over time accumulated and abrogated to themselves the powers that caused them to become absolute rulers.

Absolutism grew stronger, more sophisticated, more successful but changed very little during the Ten Thousand years of the Ancient Era; and for Eighteen Hundred years of the Modern Era – during this period the weak continued to be the prey of the strong as evidenced by the flourishing of the social institutions of feudalism and chattel slavery, they continued to give their all to satisfy the needs, wants and desires of the strong even if it cost them their lives.

The Greek and later the Roman flirtations with more democratic forms of social interaction proved that human beings were capable of a more civilized existence – if the powerful discerned that this was necessary but even these departures from the norm support my hypothesis because these opportunistic developments, for example, because all adult, able bodied males were required to participate in the phalanx required to protect Greek cities; did not precipitate enduring change in the design for human existence, these did not cause the rejection of coercion determined culture.

Very belatedly, a mere two thousand years when the many millennia of the human story is considered, human beings discovered ethic and moral values, they developed a conscience as the rivulets, streams and rivers of thought hitherto mere speculation, hopes and aspirations combined to create the torrent of civilized concepts that became the basis for organized religions.

But in a world in which men still routinely and habitually carried weapons, one a mere Ten Thousand years from the invention of an alphabet and the means to document experience, the knowledge in the social sciences which would have exposed the need for fundamental cultural change, that could have galvanized the will that might have produced fundamental cultural change was far in the future.

As a consequence the accommodation that in contemporary times has produced an ever increasing difference between concept and precept was embraced, ethical systems were embraced in concept and paid lip service, while in precept human beings continued to be agents of coercion determined culture.

For example, in Western Civilizations the Christian dogma attracted myths, rituals and rites until it was hammered into a form that would perpetuate the notion that ‘might is right,’ and an adaptation and accommodation was reached that would apply to all competing ideologies to the notion that ‘might was right’ that emerged down the ages; whether that ideology be socialism or democracy or social welfareism, they were all embraced in concept while human beings continued to be agents of coercion determined culture in precept; and all social institutions and organizations whatever ideology they embraced as window dressing in precept perpetuated the notion that ‘might is right.’

Lip service was paid to Christian values and celebrants and neophytes of that religion practiced its rituals, rites and ceremonies on Sunday or on Saturday morning, while for the rest of the week human beings continued to act consistent with the ‘conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action’ to which they had become habituated during the One Hundred Thousand years the species languished in the ‘state of nature.’

As evidenced by the fact that Christianity was embraced by human populations when these were conquered and became part of the Roman Empire; or, much later of the British Empire; or, when native populations became a colony of some European nation.

If further evidence were needed of this duality, of the difference between concept and precept; we might look no further than the atrocities committed during the Crusades in the name of Gentle Jesus, or those committed during the Spanish Inquisition, or we might contemplate the horror and rigors of the Middle Passage, the genocide committed against native populations in North and South America by Christian nations, or, last but certainly not least in horrific magnitude, the millions of Jews and other undesirables that perished in Nazi Concentration Camps.

Communism hewing to this pattern was transformed into the stale dogma of a secular religion, as millions were consigned to Siberia in support of the Revolution by Stalin; millions were purged, and continue to be erased in support of Cultural Revolutions and under other guises in China and other ostensibly Communist countries.

I say again, whatever ideology is embraced in concept, whatever ethical system is opportunistically used as window dressing, every social organization and every social institution worldwide continues to perpetuate the notion that ‘might is right.’

Near the beginning of the human story it was discovered that it was possible to reduce human beings to absolutes, that they could be reduced to entities that would be amenable to satisfying the needs, wants and desires of the strong even if it cost them their lives; and others confronted by these examples of savagery and brutality, of hangings, lynching, of human beings being placed on the rack, would act even though no force had actually been applied to them as if they had been hung, or beaten, or tortured; it was early discovered that human beings could be conditioned.

This possibility and potentiality arising from the fact that human beings had a capacity for learning combined with the fact that the human mind was divided into two compartments.

This duality so necessary and functional an adaptation to the evolution of a sentient species, also permitted the strong to act with unrelieved ferocity towards the weak; both actors in this predatory drama continuing to function because memories of experience could be consigned to the subconscious compartment of their minds; permitting both actors to accurately and truthfully report that they did not know what they did; or, what had been done to them.

The burden of guilt, shame or humiliation so created could be reduced to a level that permitted function by catharsis producing theater or by religious rites and rituals.

Precipitating the logical conclusion that the vast majority of human beings continue to act and react almost totally subconsciously – except when they manipulate absolutes in the physical environment making it easily comprehensible and explainable why developments and innovations in the physical sciences have dangerously outstripped and surpassed those in the social sciences.

It also is permits an appreciation of my mental and moral development because telling the truth for an extended period as much as humanly possible has the effect of transferring experiences from the subconscious to the conscious compartment of my mind where these can be mediated by higher mental processes and limited by the dictates of conscience.

This is definitely not a magical, supernatural, spiritual or religious process, the practice of discipline of truth will produced rationality in decisions on action in all human beings who have the courage and determination to practice this discipline, it will accomplish what the practice of religion has not, what education has not, it will civilize the human species, the truth will make us free.

To label anyone a prophet or a seer, to assign to such individuals mystical or magical capabilities simply because they stumble upon and circumstances and conditions galvanize them to practice the discipline of truth, is, as is all social and cultural imperatives, an attempt to perpetuate the status quo by obfuscating and obscuring the irreducible, though morally and politically unacceptable notion, that in this so called modern world, as in the primitive, uncivilized ‘stated of nature,’ the dominant ideology is the notion that ‘might is right.’

The division of the psyche that created the unlimited potential for human learning, for the transmission of this accumulated knowledge from generation to generation creating a capacity for culture - also ironically and paradoxically created a near unlimited capacity for self delusion and for conditioning of human beings, which I have described as the ultimate paradox and consummate irony of not only human existence, but of sentient existence.

This is the major obstacle to self realization and self actualization in individual human beings; and, to the creation of peaceful, prosperous human societies.

A pertinent, prime example of the impact of this ubiquitous, pervasive, monolithic construct on human affairs is the situation that currently exists in American Public Schools.

Whites in the South did everything in their power to block the segregation of these schools, they used every means at their disposal, legal, political and even criminal to ensure that white and black students would never be taught sitting side by side together in the same class.

Eventually, they were forced to accept this development, in the same way that slave owners were forced to accept the emancipation of slaves, that feudal lords the liberation of serfs, that monarchs were overthrown by popular revolutions, that men were forced to accept that women had equal rights, that employers had to accept trade unions.

The requisite cultural change that would produce societal function and human civility did not occur during any of these social cataclysms because the change was imposed by a superior power, the strong continued to perceive the weak to be prey, however they were labeled; and, White parents could not abide Black teachers being able to apply corporal punishments to their children so they caused corporal punishment to be removed from the Public School system effectively also extracting the means used to create the order necessary for imparting knowledge creating the situation that exists today.

The dysfunction and anomie that exists in every social institution in the USA has similar roots and is driven by the same cultural imperative, the need to perpetuate the notion that ‘might is right.’

The Government is oblivious of the true nature of citizens so they are incapable of finding the means necessary for releasing the creativity and harnessing the energies of citizens to the national plow; similarly, employers are completely ignorant of the true nature of employees and so cannot develop the means to motivate them to efficiently produce; parents and teachers remain oblivious of the fact that motivation is an essential component of socialization; Men are from Mars and women are from Venus so the divorce rate in the USA is a whopping sixty seven per cent.

None of these issues are mysteries to me because I know what I am doing, I have developed a capacity for solving social problems because I can describe any social problem accurately the necessary prerequisite to creating viable solutions, because I told the truth as much as was humanly possible for an extended period of time.

I shall demonstrate this again, as I have on numerous occasions in the past on web sites like Blogger.com and Myspace.com, in my failed and futile attempt to demonstrate the inestimable value of telling the truth - by providing my take on what has actually happened in the USA over the past five decades that has reduced this country to the predicament it is in today?

First of all, it was the threat of the Hun, of the Nazi Axis, and finally, of World Communism that galvanized Americans to attempt to create a functioning democracy.

But never having experienced the fundamental cultural change that I am promoting, they were without the philosophical or intellectual appreciation of what was required to create such a social system and all they could do was extract and remove the most overt forms of tyranny, they reduced the degree and extent to which coercion, in any form overt or covert, could be applied to citizens – without creating an alternative means of motivating individuals to the attitudes and patterns of behavior required for societal functioning and progress.

To refer to relevant and pertinent examples of coercion that impelled order and progress, the threat of dismissal was what had replaced the whips, chains and manacles of yesteryear in the workplace; corporal punishment was what allowed parents and teachers to socialize their children; marriages endured because women were denied access to education and employment causing them to be DEPENDENT on their spouses; governments used the military and the police to suppress dissent.

State intervention in the economy and taxation was limited creating the expectation of unlimited profit in entrepreneurs and investors.

I wish to create a thumbnail sketch of how this changed to again attempt to demonstrate the inestimable value of telling the truth.

The zenith of the social revolution in the USA occurred in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson declared that the government was responsible for overcoming poverty and for the social welfare of citizens of this nation.

Which had two major impacts, firstly, the government began to initiate and attempt to institute social development programs, which since the attitude of those who implemented these programs had not changed, since the majority continued to be agents of coercion determined culture, resulted in the politicization and unprecedented expansion of the governmental bureaucracy.

Prior to this unprecedented change in social and political direction most government projects had to produce a tangible, observable result, a new bridge, or fighter jet, or a highway, or a submarine.

To attain social objectives the governmental organizations at the level of national, state and city government, could hire employees, rent offices, the impact of such programs being intangible and not easily quantifiable or observable, such initiatives resulted in corruption becoming even more deeply embedded and pervasive than historically had been the experience; precipitating massive increases in Government spending – not the least because government employees had to receive costly social benefits.

A nation that had historically been divided into an industrial North and agricultural South suffered the secondary impact of the new direction as industries began to relocate to the South as production costs skyrocketed driven by increased taxation to support substantially increased government spending and militant union activity designed to cause their members to have access to benefit packages.

These costs continued to escalate and when the Southern States failed to produce a favorable climate for investment industry relocated West and eventually migrated to foreign shores.

In the Southern States labor which had long endured and become habituated to being motivated by unlimited coercion reacted to the limitations on the degree and extent of coercion that could be applied combined with the residual impact of the struggle for civil rights by embracing attitudes inimical to the consistent effort required for profitable production and labor efficiency.

In this national economic climate, production began to be deemphasized while commerce, service industries, profiteering and speculation flourished.

Other factors and imperatives were added to this mix, the price of petroleum products skyrocketed after oil producing nations formed the OPEC cartel; and, the threat of World Communism significantly receded with the failure of the Russian economy.

The oil crisis of the Seventies was particularly important and significant because this caused the government of the USA to adopt the dangerous and damaging expedient of deficit financing of the national budget, significantly increasing the tax burden as well as the national debt and creating a massive disincentive to investment and production.

Which in turn had the consequence of small and medium companies beginning to navigate the reefs and shoals of unprofitability and bankruptcy and caused many of these to either cease operating or be swallowed by the by companies that had achieved economies of scale creating an economy that was dominated by large conglomerates.

All this occurring in the context of a Body Politic that was becoming more and more restive and determined that the government fulfill the promises of democracy and actually creating a government of the people, by the people, for the people, which was impossible without the fundamental ideological change from ‘might is right’ to ‘right is might’ a development unlikely if not impossible because no one perceived a need for fundamental cultural change in what was then incontrovertibly the richest nation on Planet Earth.

Palpably incapable intellectually or philosophically of actually fulfilling election promises both major political parties began to depend for popularity on the failure of the opposition rather than on their capability to govern competently; and, they began to depend more and more on creating the forms rather than the substance of political viability.

Elections were won by he, or she, who was able to attract the most political contributions, the candidate with the largest war chest was the eventual winner of election contests; which was used to purchase television commercials in mass media precipitating a nexus between economic and political power.

The greatest impact of this unholy alliance was on the pricing mechanism, in every market the price was no longer a function of cost plus a percentage of profit but became a matter of maximizing profit of the merchant or producer of goods or service, a situation which inevitably led to the economic decline which we are experiencing today.

Prior to industrial revolutions these cycles of cumulative causation were endurable because they had little effect on the quality of lives of the ruling elite but with mass production a certain level of disposable income has become an absolute requirement for economic viability and growth.

The growth rates greater than ten per cent achieved for more than a decade in the Chinese economy was a direct consequence of access to the high levels of disposable income generated by the American economy before the bust, a factor which also contributed to the success of the Japanese economy in the decades of the Seventies and Eighties.

The change in emphasis and direction from production to commerce and profiteering while government spending driven by deficit financing of the national budget maintained demand for good and services in the American economy was the mechanism that facilitated Asian economies to achieve industrial revolutions and unprecedented growth rates without political changes that would have expanded the consumer base in these economies, it permitted them to achieve economic growth while remaining essentially authoritarian, feudal societies.

Finally, the fundamental conclusion that I have arrived at is encapsulated in a hypothesis which I have labeled the Cassandra Syndrome because it was formulated based on the myth of the seer who was cursed to always predict the course of future events accurately but never to be believed.

I have concluded that for my ideas, or any ideas that in totality create a rational appreciation and the accurate description of the existing social reality to garner the widespread support and popularity required for their adoption and implementation at least a bare majority of human beings in that social system must tell the truth for the period of time required to develop a capacity for making rational decisions based on the facts available to them and therefore for making rational choices, failing this political debates will continue to be driven by the dictum ‘beliefs are opportune they conceal interest.’

The overwhelming evidence of the validity of this conclusion is the degree of dysfunction bordering on chaos in the largest and richest democracy on Planet Earth combined with the fact that there exists no rational, intellectual appreciation of how this may be overcome, that there is a palpable incapacity to describe any social issue accurately, the necessary prerequisite to developing and applying viable solutions.

As evidenced by the fact that no one dares to describe the endemic corruption in Public Schools for fear of igniting animus in the powerful Teachers Union, no one dares to state that is deficit financing of the national budget that is the major cause of the decline in the American economy, no one dares to refer to the lack of effort among the American labor force, and on and on and on.

So no one can perceive any virtue in my telling the truth and doing the right thing to the point where my practice of these virtues, though they have resulted in my being able to predict with a high degree of accuracy the course of events, has resulted in my embracing poverty so many times that it has become an old familiar friend and constant companion without making the slightest difference.

I have endured homelessness for an extended period without making the slightest difference.

Most of me can die, leaving only the small obsessed part of me alive that is committed to the making good the promise I made thirty five years ago to the two children who perished in the Fire at Orange Lane; because I had to endure and could not find the strength to endure being made homeless by a beloved daughter whom I had loved for all of her life and done everything in my power to make her happy without making the slightest difference.

I can write essays accurately predicting the future for more than a decade and disseminate these courtesy of the World Wide Web, without making the slightest difference.

In simple words, I can lead the horse to the water but drinking is up to the horse; and, in this case drinking means individuals confronting their true selves, becoming aware of and so being forced to confront all the experiences they have consigned to their subconscious, something no one has the courage to do.

To me the choice is clear and unequivocal; it is between rationality and irrationality.

Irrationality means perpetuating a status quo based on the notion that ‘might is right,’ it means perpetuating a design for human existence whose impact on the lives of the vast majority of human beings has been and will be unalterably malignant, inordinately vile and completely depraved.

Rationality in decisions on action will create, for the first time at last the possibility of happiness for members of the human species, it creates the possibility of a prosperous and peaceful future for humanity, the possibility that we will destroy the civilizations which we have painstakingly and arduously built with the weapons of mass destruction we have devised.

A non-brainer except that coercion determined culture creates individuals who are incapable of rational thought.

William E. Virtue

Gainesville, Florida

Ph; 954-850-9326

PS I could not close without attempting to document and honor the contribution of Helen Bennett to this transcendent enterprise; I first met her in 1965 she was the mother of a girlfriend, she latterly became my mother-in-law, and finally became what she was to most of those individuals who were lucky enough to know her well, my DEARMA. Over the years she has been the source of all the maternal wisdom, caring and affection that has been bestowed on me, it is a moot point whether I could have endured with sanity intact, an existence in which I had no connection whatsoever to the human concourse, that issue did not arise because of the moral character she unfailingly and consistently displayed.