The Cosmos is Infinite with No Beginning or End

Recently a heated debate occurred in a rather intellectual think tank. The debate centered around the Cosmos and its size. It went round and round for a while and many think tankers had no problem with the idea that the Cosmos is Infinite with no beginning and with no end.

One of the protagonists of the group stated matter of factly that: The cosmos is infinite. It has no beginning or end. It is not time. It is beyond time. Yes it contracts and expands because it is alive just like a human being.

One should not have a problem with this statement, the idea or concept of the Cosmos being infinite has been tossed around in intellectual circles for as long as humans could reason and discuss such things. Contracting and expanding is not a difficult concept either; Jelly Fish do that, so that is a pretty easy to understand concept. Indeed, such theory has been discussed here on this think tank forum.

Yet one has to ask the question of the contradiction here. If the Cosmos expands and contracts, how can it do that if it is everywhere infinitely already? Ah ha. So is the protagonist indicating it is only one of such never ending systems in a greater expanded system and so on? And if so, why would this be so hard to understand? If not, then there is a major error in his thinking and he will have to go back and rethink his comment. What do you think? Think on this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Cosmos is Infinite with No Beginning or End
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Darius and the US Postal Service

DARIUS: - Coins bearing his visage are found in the Americas but we would never expect to see normal academic overviews mention this for public consideration. And I was not surprised when I read many other things about Aryans and supposed first Empires, as I read the following part of a far larger presentation. Was the US support of the Shah connected to a larger and long term plan to manage the plebs or serfs who think they are free?

Cyrus recognized that the known world he wished to conquer included Egypt, Carthage, Ethiopia, and Greek colonies on the Mediterranean coast as far as Gibraltar, but for the time being he thought he had better seize the known world to the east (except for distant, legendary China). In about a year he took lands as far away as what are now the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He rushed west again and fell upon Babylon by diverting the unfordable Gyndes River, a tributary of the Tigris which protected the city , into many shallow hand-dug channels. There he freed the forty thousand Jews held in the Babylonian captivity. A few years later, putting down a revolt in the east, Cyrus died in battle. His troops brought his body back to Pasargadae, and laid it to rest in the tomb with the Nordic roof. N.B.

Cyrus was not only the world's first great emperor; he was a humane man, who treated his victims benevolently, honored their gods, and set higher standards for the profession of kingship than most other monarchs down through the centuries. His son and successor, by contrast, was a brute who had earlier kicked his pregnant wife to death. He adored flattery, not blinking even when a courtier told him, I do not think you are the equal of your father, because you do not have a son like the son he left behind. Nevertheless, before he mysteriously committed suicide, he managed to capture Egypt and pack the pharaoh back to Iran. Upon his death, according to Herodotus, the seven young no bles who formed the imperial council met and agreed to accept as king him among them whose horse should neigh first at dawn the next day. One groom made sure that his master would win by providing a delectable, neigh-worthy mare for the stallion. In this way the noble named Darius became king, although his own account of his ascent, which he left engraved on stone, differs in ways that do not make nearly as good a story.

Whatever the truth, Darius turned out to be second only to Cyrus as Great King, King of Kings, and even more than Cyrus, the architect of the Persian Empire. Despite his chance choice, Darius had the royal blood of Achaemenes in his veins, for he descended from a collateral branch of the family. Darius ruled for thirty-five years, at first putting down rivals (he fought nineteen battles at the rate of nearly a battle a month, and defeated nine upstart kinglets), then giving the empire the institutions that Cyrus had been too busy to devise. He had to k eep the subject populations contented enough not to revolt (for the conquered masses greatly outnumbered the ruling Persians), but disciplined enough to pay heavy taxes to support the court and the armies. (2)

He established a secret spy network not unlike his far later relative and recent King, the Shah of Iran; but he also established a reliable postal service not unlike the Pony Express that Herodotus was inspired to write the words now used as the motto of the US Postal Service. We have all heard it and wondered perhaps, why we are not told the origin bespeaks great things in other cultures.

Sir Roger Stevens to write, in The Land of the Great Sophy: There can be no proper understanding of what underlies modern Iran unless we recognize the significance of this triumph of legend over history, or art over reality, this preference for embellishment as against unvarnished fact, for ancient folk beliefs as against new-fangled creeds. (3)

Author of Diverse D ruids
Columnist for The ES Press
Guest 'expert' at World-Mysteries.com

Author:: Robert Baird
Keywords:: Shah of Iran, US Postal Service
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Swedenborg 5th in the "Look Who's Talking" Series

Swedenborg, you're crazy! they said when I told them I was designing a boat that could navigate under water, and I was nearly laughed out of town when I made a treadmill chariot where the horse rode on board. The horse bolted one day and caused damage in the town. I had to give up my invention.

I also visualized that some day guns would be able to shoot dozens of cartridges in a moment, and I knew there would be flying machines. Alas, my work was not to be the inventor of these futuristic things. My work was to write and work as an assayer for the King Sweden, which is where I was born.

My parents welcomed me in 1688. My father, a bishop of the Lutheran church, was interested in the spiritual world, believing that he was receiving messages from those who had passed beyond. This subject greatly interested me when I grew older. I wrote about it, but unfortunately most of the people of those times did not understand what I was Writing. Oh yes, I was praised highly but the praise was from people who could not understand the words, therefore they thought the Writing was of a great intellectual nature.

How I wish I could live in these wonderful, modern times of yours. I would say to my countrymen, see, see, it is possible to have all the things I told you about, the submarines, the gattling gun, and the motorcar. I would be the one to laugh then, but never at someone else's' expense. I would laugh with joy that these things had come to be.

Emanuel! Emanuel! You are a dreamer, I would hear my family say again and again. My father believed in my dreams and made it possible for me to travel to Germany, France, Italy and England where I was able to meet with heads of state and brilliant men. I learned the language of each country and prided myself in my ability to converse with the people in their native tongue.

I had been an excellent scholar. I loved to study and learn, especially things of nature. When I returned from m y tour of the foreign countries, I wrote in detail of my travels.

The King took me on to give scientific advice about the mineral properties of ores. I was happy to do this work since I loved all that had to do with the earth. I also designed canals for the sate and was considered to be quite good at my work. Modesty was never one of my characteristics. I believed that if we are given gifts by the Almighty, then we should use them to the maximum limit.

For my work in transporting ships overland by using a roller railway, I was knighted by the King. It was a just reward.

I wrote a book of prophecies and regret that although I lived into my eighties, I never saw my visions materialize. It pleases me now that most of the things I wrote about have come into being. Your generation is lucky and you too might have dreams of things to come in the future.

Consider these:

Planets being connected by a universal highway system, but rather than roads, highwa ys would be built on laser beams of light.

The earth would become a contained object surrounded by a Plexiglas like substance. Opening would work for space travel but the shield would protect the environment. The sun's life giving energy would be filtered through a web like opening during certain periods of the day.

This environmental protection system would enable other planets to be inhabited.

The atmosphere would come through a filter system such like the reservoirs of today.

The human body will have learned to sustain itself on chemical foods. This is all part of our natural evolution.

These things may seem outlandish to you, but then so did my predictions of a submarine, machine gun, and automobile.

Mary Bradley McCauley is a writer in no particular genre. Her Articles, short stories, essays, poems, travel bits, and 'thinking about' series have been published and well received.

Her metaphysical novel, The House of Annon has bee n one of her Writing highlights.

After the nomadic life of the military with it's countless moves, and a career in travel taking her to the Bering Sea in Alaska, the Opera House in Sydney, most of the major islands in the Caribbean as well as several trips to Europe, Ms. McCauley recently moved from Florida to Franklin TN.

A former Army Brat, Army Wife and Group Tour Travel Advisor, she claims her first love is being with her grandchildren and second is communicating in any way, shape or form.

Author:: Mary McCauley
Keywords:: article submission, Articles, Writers, Writing, Publishing, Ezine, Email marketing, Email news letter, Email
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Industrial Labor Versus Domestic Labor

Introduction

When an economic treatise is composed, there is almost no doubt that it is one based on a system of free, or somewhat limited, trade. The reason for that is quite easy to understand. Economics is a siocological study: it seeks to grasp and understand the fluctuation and mechanics of the interaction between people of the same society. In an economic system wheret he people are free to buy or sell anything they own at any price they want, there is a fervent interest of sociologists to understand what the rules of exchange are -- such sociologists who are known as economists. Questions will be raised: Why does this person sell this at this price? We must understand the interests of other parties: consumers, workers, competitors, and the rules that give economic strength to one party or another, or what causes one party to increase or decrease in the number of members.

The nature of people, in groups, a society, is studied by Economics. In a Comm unist economy, many of these questions are mute. While it may be examined by sociologists, to understand what kind of society it would be, it is almost completely ignored (and even despised) by economists. Why is that? Because the elements often traditional in economic study, such as competition or rent trends or price fluctuation, are gone. Private interest being able to regulate the entire economy is the basis of a Capitalist economy. In a Communist economy, the price, production, distribution, and consumption of goods is decided by public interest. The primary element of economic study, private interests, is eliminated, for the most part. But, in a Communist economy, the exchange of wealth between members can still be discussed. It is in this treatise that I hope to expand upon the idea of Communist Economics.

The Treatise: The Question of the Allocation of Labor

Before continuing in this treatise, I feel that it is important to define a Communist syst em accurately. By a Communist economy, I mean a system of production and distribution, where each person is paid according to the value of their labor. All of this is being regulated by the public, instead of being regulated by the private interest -- as would be the case if it was a Capitalist economy. With that said, I continue with this economic treatise of Communism.

When something is produced and sold as a commodity, it can be sold in various forms. Of the particular form that I am talking about, I mean the readiness of its use. Several hundred planks of wood and one or two tons of cement are less ready to use than a house; frozen vegetables are less ready to be eaten than a warm, cooked meal. Thus we have a variety of forms of readiness to consume when an item is sold. The production that goes into a commodity when produced to be distributed, such as a person cooking their own meal, this production I have decided to call domestic labor.

The importance of comparing these types of labor can be seen in a Communist economy. Since it is the collective that determines what types of industry to erect, they must choose whether to sell houses, or only the materials to build a house -- whether to sell clothes or only fabric. When examining the effectiveness of industrial labor versus domestic labor, there is no doubt that industrial labor tends to be much more productive. However, materials to produce something else - while of lesser exchange value - it may still be more desired. For example, a great deal of preparable food is probably more desired than already cooked food when going on a trip or a journey for days. Also, a person may find pleasure in building their own home, or cooking their own food. Sometimes those things which are considered irksome labor to some are actually a joy or routine happiness for others.

Increasing the preparedness of a commodity means the more industrial labor must be done by the whole. Allow me to demonstrate with an example. In one region, there are 2,000 members of the work force, half working in agriculture and the other half in manufacturing. Each worker works 1 and 1/2 hours a day, but no product is sold ready to consume -- it requires domestic labor to make it consummable (and by consume here, I mean use). Food is sold frozen, cloth and sewing materials are sold, and perhaps to avoid selling an unprepared commodity that not everyone is capable fo preparing themselves, apartments are rented. In the agricultural industry, there are four sectors: two producing wheat, those producing vegetables, and those producing fruit. Each sector has 250 workers. The manufacturing industry is similarly divided into four sectors: one sector converting food (such as wheat) into a more consummable form, one sector in extracting and refining metals, and 2 sectors producing a variety of goods, such as bicycles, toys, street signs, and other goods. Each sector has 250 laborers. In both industries, all sectors, each worker works 1.5 hours.

Each agricultural worker is capable of producing 3 meals for every half hour of labor, thus totalling 9 meals a day for their labor. This means 4.5 meals are available to each agricultural worker and 4.5 meals are available to each manufacturing worker (since 1,000 workers working 1.5 hours each day to produce 9 meals a day, that means 9,000 meals a day to the 2,000 working population). And though it is true that agriculture usually reaps its harvest not everyday, but at one time in the year, I am overlooking this fact to simplify my scenario.

Each industrial worker is capable of producing 3 pairs of clothes, 3 moderately valuable items of enjoyment (such as a toy or an electronic device), or 3 pieces of furniture every half hour of labor. Since each industrial labor works 1 and 1/2 hours, they will produce roughly: 9 pairs of clothing per textile worker per day, 9 toys per worker per day, and 9 pieces of furniture per worker per day. Again, I admit this may seem overly simplified, but if this is the impression the reader is getting, understand it is only because I do not want to draw a too complicated scenario. So, for 1,000 industrial laborers, each day, there is produced, 3,000 pairs of clothing, 3,000 items of enjoyment, and 3,000 pieces of furnuter. 1,500 of each item is distributed to the industrialist workers and 1,5000 of each item is distributed to the agricultural laborers.

Thus we have a vision of an economy in which each person is satisfied. Though each person's indsutry, of 1 and 1/2 hours of labor each day, each person has their needs satisfied. But, to demonstrate what economic fluctuation means in a Communist economy, let's throw in some variables to this scenario I above described.

Imagine that a new need is universally desired by this hypothetical Communist economy. Let's say that each person gains an interest in music , a very strong interest. Let's say that a factory by this population is activated to produce music CDs. Whatever the production rate and whatever the desire to consume is, let's say that it requires 500 laborers -- musicians, producers, manufacturing workers, etc.. The agricultural industry loses 250 workers and so does the manufacturing industry. What is the end result? Well, each industry of manufacturing and agriculture still need to produce the same amount with fewer workers. With 1,000 workers working 1.5 hours each or 1,500 labor hours a day, each industry is capable of satisfying the needs of society. Now each industry has 750 workers, and if they worked 1.5 hours each day, then they only have 1,125 labor hours each day, not satisfying the needs of the population by 375 work hours per day. Each person would have to work 2 hours a day, an additional 1/2 hour. Of course, they are trading this additional half hour for more luxury, particularly what the other 50 0 workers are doing to produce music products. Here we can see the obvious fluctuation of the economy among a Communist society. Perhaps the next year, technology will take a leap, and each worker must work only 1 hour. Or perhaps a natural disaster stirkes, and for 2 months, they need to work 3 hours a day to rebuild. Maybe the interest of society in a product or service will wax or wane.

I have accurately described the relation of industrial labor to other industrial labor. But, as the title of this treatise denotes, we must understand industrial labor versus domestic labor. For satisfying the need of food, an industrial laborer -- with the aid of technology and specialization -- would require 2 minutes of labor to perpare food. In a home, a meal of adequate satisfaction would require 15 to 20 minutes, possibly more, to prepare, that is to say, with the use of domestic labor. The question concerning how accurate this hypothetical comparison is should need not much be addressed. It is overwhelmingly clear that industrial labor is by far more productive than domestic labor. One man cooking food will perhaps be able to make 20 or 30 meals in one day, if he works every hour. But only a few people with the aid of technology and specialization will be able to make hundreds or thousands in one day -- such is the case with fast food restaurants. So, then, if this society, of 2,000 people requires 3 meals a day, in terms of domestic labor, this means 1 hour of personal labor a day. However, if each meal is produced via industrial labor, this means 6 minutes of labor per person per day. In total, this is 2,000 hours (120,00 minutes) of domestic labor for 2,000 people. But, if industrial labor was employed, it would be a total of 200 hours (12,000 minutes) of industrial labor for the 2,000 people. However, if the population opted to have all of their food prepared by industrial labor, thus saving them a great deal of labor and incr easing productivity by ten times, then each person must labor more industrially. A small force of people would be working to prepare this food and that means others in those other industries must work more, just like I demonstrated in the section where a music industry sprang up in this society. A person's total labor (domestic and industrial) might be 5 hours a day, if they prepared their own meals, but if food was prepared industrially, a person's total labor might be only 4 hours a day -- thus, saving them time and increasing productivity.

The next question that arrises is whether society would want to do solely industrial labor and no domestic labor. For some individuals, the normal, routine of day-to-day life make up desirable acts. Marx once said...

What he [the worker produces for himself is wages; and the silk, the gold, and the palace are resolved for him into a certain quantity of necessaries of life, perhaps into a cotton jacket, into copper coins, and into a basement dwelling. And the labourer who for 12 hours long, weaves, spins, bores, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stone, carries hods, and so on - is this 12 hours' weaving, spinning, boring, turning, building, shovelling, stone-breaking, regarded by him as a manifestation of life, as life? Quite the contrary. Life for him begins where this activity ceases, at the table, at the tavern, in bed. The 12 hours' work, on the other hand, has no meaning for him as weaving, spinning, boring, and so on, but only as earnings, which enable him to sit down at a table, to take his seat in the tavern, and to lie down in a bed. If the silk-worm's object in spinning were to prolong its existence as caterpillar, it would be a perfect example of a wage-worker. [Wage Labour and Capital, by Karl Marx, December of 1847, edited by Friedrich Engels, chapter 3: What are Wages? How are they Determined?

The worker's day does not start when he wakes, but it starts once his industrial l abor ends. Those acts of domestic labor, with cooking, cleaning, and maintenance of house, car, or items make up a part of their life. Perhaps those 6 minutes of industrial are less desirable than 1 hour of domestic labor, because the industrial labor is purely irksome (for most) and domestic labor is part of day-to-day life. Of course, the opposite may be true. A person may know that domestic labor is unproductive and believe that only through industrial labor should we work, as a sort of work pride ethic. But, then again, all workers must realize that every moment not working, whether industrial or domestic, is a moment to let them relax, enjoy themselves, on engage in some hobby or recreational activity -- or, something to challenge themselves in. There is a fact here that must be recognized. Communism must be practised with a respect to the fact that every human being is different, with different lifestyles and interests. To force people to live in a way that doe s not recognize them as different, is unjust and without appeal to either reason or justice. To quote Karl Marx again...

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! (Italics mine.) [Critique of the Gotha Programme, by Karl Marx, 1875, part 1.

Thus brings me to my last scenario to be brought up with the Communist economy. In this economy of 2,000 workers, the previous fact must be realized and understood: each person is different, with different needs. One person may be very Thoreau-like in their needs: they only wneed sustenance and no luxury items. Being allowed to explore a natural world and indulge in all emotions as all that they need to feel happy and live their lives contently. Some people need a low amount of lxury produced by industrial labor, and are easily pleased by it. Others need a moderate amount, while still others want large amounts, and finally some want estates of luxury to feel content and happy in their life. Each person is different in their needs. Now, assuming that the extremes of needs for luxury contain the least amount of people and the moderate levels of the need for luxury is where most people can be found. With all this set, what would the economy in this Communist society look like?

With 2,000 people, let's say that 100 of them desire no luxury and 100 desire estates of wealth -- this accounts for both ends of the sp ectrum. Then for those who require only a small amount of luxury, there are 400, and those who require large amounts are also 400. Then, finally, there are 1,000 who want only moderate amounts.

Those who want nothing but sustenance work 1 hour, those wo want a little luxury work 2 hours, moderate luxury 3 hours, high luxury 4 hours, extreme high luxury 5 hours, totalling 5,000 industrial labor hours a day from these 2,000 varied laborers. Now, let's examine the output of each class of laborers. Those who want nothing but the bare sustenance of living work 1 hour each day. If in agriculture, that means 6 meals a day. That means they eat the 3 meals, and the other 3 meals are traded for necessities like clothing or housing (obviously money -- as much as it is detested by the labor groups -- will allow for easier exchanges). If these bare sustenance workers labored in manufacturing for 1 hour a day, that would mean 6 manufacturing items, of which 3 they keep and th e other 3 are traded for food. The 3 that they do keep are, most likely, necessities such as clothing and housing. Those who want minimal luxury work 2 hours a day. If in agriculture, that means 12 meals a day. That means they eat 3 to 6 meals, and the the rest are traded for necessities and luxuries. The translation would mean 6 to 9 manufacturing products, 3 necessities, the other 3 to 6 being items of luxury. If in manufacturing, the 2 hours a day of labor would translate into 12 products. Some are kept, others are traded for food and other necessities. Those who want moderate wealth, the largest class, will be working 3 hours a day. In agriculture, that will translate to 18 meals, most of it probably exchanged for luxury items. In manufacturing, that will translate to 18 products, some of it exchanged for food. Those who desire much wealth will be working 4 hours a day. In agriculture, that means 24 meals, most of it exchanged. In manufacturing, 24 items, so me of it exchanged. And, finally, those who want large estates of wealth work 5 hours a day. In agriculture, producing 30 meals, or in manufacturing, producing 30 products, all of which may be exchanged.

The essential ethic of a Communist society would be this: you will be proportionately rewarded for the work that you do. Those who do little work will receive little pay, as those who do much work will receive much pay. The premises that I operate upon are based on justice and fairness. With this treatise complete, I hope I have offered a good theoretical consideration of a Communist economy: its fluctuations, its dynamics, and its very basic mechanics.

www.punkerslut.com

For Life,

Punkerslut (or Andy Carloff) has been writing essays and poetry on social issues which have caught his attention for several years. His website http://www.punkerslut.com provides a complete list of all of these writings. His life experience includes homelessness, squat ing in New Orleans and LA, dropping out of high school, getting expelled from college for subversive activities, and a myriad of other revolutionary actions.

Author:: Andy Carloff
Keywords:: Economics, foreign policy, international trade, Globalization, domestic economy, macroEconomics
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Philosophical Arguments Against Illegal Immigration

In the United States of America we live in a society, which is caring and loving of all people. Most Americans do not want to exploit illegal aliens in some sort of slave labor. At the same time we realize that we cannot afford to take all the poor people of the world into our civilization and feed them.

There are hundreds of millions of poor people in Africa, South America, India, China and the rest of Asia in the United States has big and as economically strong as we are, we just can't take everyone. Over 3.5 Billion People live on less than a dollar a day. Currently there are 24 million illegal aliens United States and 60 percent of those came from Mexico and we need to be very careful not to take too many more or we jeopardize all that we have built in this great country of ours.

Below is excerpt all that article that I wrote back in 1999 discussing this very issue and the information in this paragraph is still warranted and must be considered. We must d o what's right for the American people and also consider the illegal aliens in their plight as they flee from Mexico's corrupt government for a better life;

Right now it may appear good to employers because wages are kept low, yet if the middle class disappears then there will be no one to sell too. Then what? Remember we do not make anything, we do not use our own resources, and we are giving away our technology to Nations who have yet to go where we have been. Can we afford to do that? I do not want to have a civil conflict with my neighbor who came here for a better life to feed his family. I do not want talk two different languages to people on the streets. I do not want to catch a disease that was suppose to be gone 40 years ago. I do not want to lose the middle class who buys my services and who will own our franchises in order to move to the next class.

All Americans must wise up and consider the reality of a situation. It is okay to be of a libera l mindset, but the same time we must face reality if we are to move the United States of America forward to the utopia that we all seek and for the forward progression of our nation and the future of our children and their children. Please consider this in 2006 on a more realistic basis.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Philosophical Arguments, Against Illegal Immigration
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Human Life Who Would Want To Do It?

Obviously life is not easy or fair. It is not even close. And as folks reach their later years more and more seem to wonder if it is all worth it. Sure there are the great times and the not so great events which we endure, however all in all it isnt so bad. Now then the question of the day, if you had to choose to do it all again; would you? Would you choose to come back and live again, as a different person and go thru the trials and tribulations of a different life story or saga? Well would you? Ah, human life; who would want to do it?

You know some cultures and religious belief systems believe that you get to choose who your parents are and who you will go thru life with. That is an interesting notion indeed. Other religious beliefs say that you are re-incarnated, fairly interesting concept too? What if you could choose, would you choose to go for it? Do it all again? Or would you simply say, I have had enough and choose not to partake in such activities such as t he life experience?

There are some who actually believe that life is nothing more than the worlds greatest virtual reality game or similar to the Matrix, if so, it is a very interesting game. But is it one you would wish to play? Well, would you go again? Would you choose to re-wind a little? Would you consider yourself privileged to play or to have been chosen to be a given character? Would you? Consider this philosophical thought for moment. Ill get back to you with another one later.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Human Life, who would want to do it
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What Is Truth

What is Truth? Four values above all are the key to ultimate happiness and contentment and are evident in the first paragraph of The Sound of Laughter. Here it reads: My memory when Im gone will be colorful, rich, full of happiness and light.?they will see a bright smiling picture with trickles of laughter in the background and the chirp of peace echoing throughout my aura.

One of the values of Truth is my final and most important moral value. It rises above the rest because it is the only one that will insure complete an angelic state. It is a universal Truth that lives within each of us. Truth is universally important. Without Truth nothing is real, all would be an illusion of lies and fables steering us into the confusion and chaos of a complex mirage. Who is to know what really exists, what is really pure and what is completely uncontaminated by lies? No one would live a satisfied life because the journey would have no end, just a never-ending labyrinth with no u ltimate happiness.

Happiness is achieved through inner Truth. Reaching inside yourself to the inner depths of the soul to find Truth is more powerful and life-giving then the power of procreation. This is so because it is procreation, but the only inalienable difference is that it is a procreation of a new elevated self not just a new self. With Truth life evolves in a cyclical pattern of optimism, peace, beauty, and Truth, when the cycle lacks Truth the cyclical pattern of life and happiness is broken and left stagnant with no end to ultimate happiness.

The moral value of Truth revealed its importance slowly, softly evolving overtime like the metamorphosis of a blooming rose but the clarity came from a dispute with my family. My family is my everything, and when they threatened to leave me until I could be Truthful to not only them but myself I fought like and angry fish gasping for air. ?I dont lie, theyre lying! We were both at fault. I couldnt own up to my mi stakes and in turn almost lost the greatest jewel of my life, my family. Then I found clarity, but only when my optimism gave me hope for resolution, inner peace cleared the hurt, and the beauty of our bond became relevant did I learn that Truth was the key to ultimate happiness. I began to tell them the whole Truth and in turn regained respect.

To convince someone that this is the absolute highest moral value I would ask him or her to look inside themselves and look inside their lives. If Truth wasnt the highest value, how honorable would the bond of your marriage be? How real would your promises be? How would justice be found? It would not, there would be no hierarchy or model to hold your convictions to, it would all be a messy chaotic confusion of lost emotion. I say lost emotion because without Truth emotion would be lost.

Emotion plays a crucial part in moral values because they are the bodies natural detection of what is wrong and what is right. If somethi ng is wrong you know it is wrong because you can feel it, directly in your heart. You can deny that it is wrong verbally but inside it clenches around your heart polluting your body with famine. This can be more destructive than the lie itself. Sometimes I loose faith in the power of Truth. I see the corrupt attitudes of society and the shadiness of others surface. Sometimes I feel as though I am the only one being honest to myself and society, almost like it would be easier to be dishonest. Then a small miracle happens, I remember the strides I have taken and I feel the bond my family shares and I know that Truth and honesty is the only way. My emotions take me higher, but not without my intellect. Ponder rationally with me: be honest and carry no burden or dodge the Truth, suffer and sweat and prey it wont come back to slap you in the face? Sometimes the latter seems to be the easier route: Oh if I tell him I didnt cheat hell never know, and we can still be together. When your spirit is lazy and your mind begins to give up; when optimism dwindles your hope, peace breezes away with a conflict and beauty turns to ugliness. When I have no faith to move foreword, not even tomorrow, then does the importance of Truth leave me.

Sometimes I slip, and other times I hold on and know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the fastest route is through my self and my inner Truth. I would say my two most prevalent methods to finding my moral values are modes in which I arrive at knowledge through either emotion, intuition, sense experience, and deductive logic.. Nothing is more real then feeling something is right in your heart. To me emotion makes most of my decisions because I feel with my heart and my mind. It is how I have always been, so to come about with an answer only from authority, and/ or science would be totally foreign. Authority has no bearing with me because what is authority anyway? In the most simply, authority is someone elses opinion. How could someone elses Truth be mine as well if I dont feel it in my heart? If I had to pick my moral values from pure science alone it would be contradicting my views on authority.

Science is a synthetic technique relying upon math and logic. I am a poet not a scientist, science to me is non-valid unless I write the theory and my theories are born within my own heart and emotion. The four most important moral values are optimism, peace, beauty, and Truth. Without one you cant have the other, and without Truth you cant have any of the rest. My Morality comes from myself, not what anyone says, though I find a higher power in simplicity among the true great poets and the strength I find in my family. Never let go of Truth, without it you, me, the entire population would be lost. Nev er loose sight of yourself because without yourself you will never find Truth.

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Author:: Lisa Vox
Keywords:: Truth, Morality
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Dorothy Dunn and 'Primitive' Art

The artist's of tribes of the Great Plains left their paper trail for centuries on rocks, cave walls, and buffalo robes and other animal skins. After contact with the white man the Native American artists began to use paper from the ledger books that traders used for record keeping, thus the term ledger art.

The drawings were characteristic of the style that had persisted for centuries and culminated with the end of the proto-modern era of the Native American art movement.

It was at the end of this era and the beginning of the Modernistic era of the movement that Dorothy Dunn was teaching at the Santa Fe school. During her tenure she encouraged her students to continue the traditions of their predecessors in the flat, or primitive art style. Here one can cite Dunn's unique concept of primitive, and even more so her concept of primitive art.

Anthropologists use the term primitive as a general category to describe cultures which had not achieved a certai n standard (define modernity). For Dunn, a primitive was not a certain type of culture, but described individuals and objects indigenous to any, every, culture. The primitive subject was that gifted individual, or seer whom was able to discern the primitive objects relevant to their culture. These objects were also primitives, and represented the signs, icons, or symbols of a culture. Thus, for Dunn, primitive art was the one to one relationship between the seer and the perceived set of primitive objects of their culture. Primitive was not a certain type of culture, but a certain set of variables occurring in every culture, and primitive art was an event that portrayed the values, or what was of importance in that culture. Thus, Dunn encouraged her students to carry on the tradition into the Modernist era.

Dorothy Dunns concept of primitive art yields a definition that adequately depicts the problems and ambiguities in the usage of the term primitive. She agre es with Boas observation that in the broadest sense, every age has its primitives, its own interpreters and seers, and the assignment of the term primitive to these individuals is relative to the point of view based upon the knowledge of the observer. At the same time, she also cites Ralph Linton who denounces the commonly accepted connotation of the term primitive as assigning all primitives to the childhood of art, but she seems to differ essentially from Lintons assertion that the primitive in primitive art is a relative term. Relational perhaps, but relative only in the sense that each culture defines its primitives according to its own set of values. The relational aspect is that primitive art occurs in every culture as an event between the seers, and that set of symbols, signs or designs which are iconic to that particular culture as its own set of primitives. The relationship is complex and is manifest in every society. This relationship defines the absolute in p rimitive art. She summarizes this position in the statement that Primitive is a relational term, conditioned by time and place, yet maintaining constant universal elements pertaining to frontiers.

Dunn notes that Indian painting is the first art in history to have sprung, full-fledged, from the primitive into the contemporary world at a time when it was peculiarly compatible with both. Although it has won recognition as modern art, a consideration of some facts and assumptions in regard to primitive art may evaluate certain qualities of modern Indian painting which place it in a position of being old and new, primitive and contemporary. The reference to an absolute in primitive art is evident here, even though for the sake of communication she has to stumble over the common usage of the term primitive which she is trying to minimize.

In this regard Dunn states that the term primitive art calls for qualification. The qualification that Dunn employs is one that synthesizes the contrast between a diachronic and synchronic perspective of the term. In her usage of such terms as time and place and frontiers in contrasting the relative and universal aspects of primitive art she is indeed searching for a definition that would satisfy Fabians demand for allochronic determinations. If one were to isolate all instances of time and place diachronically (in linear, historical or temporal sequence) and apply them laterally, across cultural lines and the boundaries of possible worlds synchronically, and then abstract an intensive, characteristic notion of primitive as a universal concept, then one could have a definition that could be used comparatively at any given time and place, i.e. satisfying Fabian's demand for coevalence in discourse, and overcome any ethnocentricity a contemporary culture may have in its assessments and analysis of an object culture under study which lies at its frontier and depicts a different time and place.

The need for such qualification is summarized by Dunn in stating that Anthropologists question certain implications of the expression (primitive art) where a consideration of tolerance in the matter of other civilizations and our own may be comparatively based upon technical and material advancements, but overlook the fact that the lack of such advancements might allow major emphasis upon esthetic and spiritual value. Here Dunn is to a degree once again segregating the primitive in a unique aspect, as she does in stating that In primitive society symbolism is a special system through which ideas as images can be conveyed understandably to an individual or group, but her underlying supposition is that in every culture in every age society has its primitives; seers or interpreters who are the gifted individuals that discern and depict this special system of symbols. It is an event, a one to one relationship between the subject as a primitive interpreting the primitive as obj ectivity, and the event is a primal act.

In this Dunn has designated the interpreter within a culture as one who objectively identifies those elements that are the marks of that culture, and that the act is universal. While every society has its system of symbols, and certain images may be shared by diverse cultures, the same image may have different meanings cross-culturally or even have multi-references within a culture (The Zuni is a prime example). Every culture will iconize the sun and the moon, contrast the night with the day. The triangle has a range of meanings distinct in cultures as close as the Hopi and the Arapaho, or as diverse as its interpretation by the Western economist (The Greek letter Delta, signifying change). Yet, the act of the interpreter translating their cultures symbols into a communicable form is the absolute, universal, primitive act.

In this sense of the term primitive one is no longer referring to a category, or a term of alloch ronic discourse denoting temporal distance. It is not a qualifier for an object or culture, but is the object, subject, or act itself. Its sense is the act of the interpretation of symbols establishing a basis for and expediting the conveyance of intersubjective knowledge. Whether it is the interpreter within a culture translating a sign and conveying meaning to another interpreter within the culture, or an interpreter considering the system of symbols as an object language, the notion is that one is not dealing with a thing qualifiable as a primitive, but is identifying the primitive itself, and is what the logicians like to refer to as cross-identifications, or identifications of individuals across the boundaries of possible worlds, resulting in well-defined individuations or the objectivity of individuating functions.

This appears on its face to be actually quite useless. First, there is a set of objects within a culture the meaning of which is peculiar to that culture, and that particularity renders it non-informative for cross-identification with a set of particulars in another culture. The primitive act, conversely, is defined in such broad terms that it appears as nothing more than an abstraction that could not possibly produce any meaningful information. On a positive note, this sense of primitive has eliminated the temporal distancing with is denoted when used as a term of allochronic discourse, seemingly satisfying Fabians demand for allochronic determinations (coevalance). Execution is problematic however, as the paradox of anthropological discourse displays itself when the term primitive is used, as Dunn often does, in the sense of temporal distancing in order to minimize or eliminate that very connotation.

By example, take another term of allochronic discourse that conveys temporal distancing. That term is savage, or savagery. Frank Hamilton Cushing used the term numerous times during his tenure as a participan t observer at the Zuni Pueblo from 1879-1884 when reporting to his colleagues and superiors, and in various publications. In our own time he has been criticized for this as wrong-headed and wrong-hearted. I hesitate to call these remarks wrong-headed or wrong-hearted, but in the very least they are incorrect, and any ethnologist/anthropologist worth their weight in salt should realize this. To summarize Fabian: Anthropological discourse about the primitive or the savage is not about people in the real world, at least not directly. First and immediately, it is about the primitive or the savage as an internal referent of a discourse or as a scientifically constituted object of a discipline. One must not confuse the logical content of a scientific language and the real world. That is, while temporal distancing creates its object for the anthropologist the synchronic of discourse projects its referent atemporally. In other words, Cushing was a scientist of the Victorian e ra using the scientific language of his time in order to communicate effectively with his colleagues, superiors, and general media audience. Communicative competence and valuing sociality guarantees its rationality and objectivity. As long as anthropological discourse does not confuse its own logical content with the real world then rationality is not violated by deviant utterances and the normative content of the discipline is maintained, thereby attaining rationality and objectivity through conformity.

The terms primitive and savage do pose differences, however, and is likely the reason, though not a justification for, the criticisms posed against Cushing for the use of the term. As Fabian points out in regard to the term savage, no amount of nominalist technicality can purge the term of its moral, aesthetic, and political connotations. It cannot be reduced to universal data.

Primitive, on the other hand, is quite conducive to universalization. As Dunn note s, in an Indian society, there are no artists. As a medium for expression anyone may be a creative participant in some capacity, and as such the groundwork for an inclusive base for interpretation of a communicable set of symbols is laid, providing an ontological basis of rationality. That is, the former abstract concept of primitive art as a primitive act has been provided with content. This should, to a reasonable degree, satisfy the ontologist and anthropologist alike. In the ontological sense rationality is viewed as perspective- taking and does not require objectivity. Objectivity requires agreement, or intersubjective validation through public reciprocal intentions, where the objectivity of claims is tied to their communicability. Objectivity becomes a personal accomplishment (Willard) and belongs to the anthropological sense of rationality as a social fact where forms of communication are used to express approval of someones actions (aesthetic appreciation).

Quoting Alice Corbin Henderson, Dunn states that in an Indian society, art is possessed in common and totally lacking in individualistic concept. Thus, objectivity is enjoined with intentionality as personal accomplishment without a reference to the individual. This would satisfy a pedagogic sense of rationality in that in an Indian society the surest way to make a prayer effective is to symbolize the matter prayed for (Bandelier). If the prayer (the art of rhetoric) was effective, then it was handed down from generation to generation and its success justified its rationality.

Dunn contrasts Indian art and contemporary art in distinguishing modern society where the title of the artist may well be deserved with the capacity to impress representatively, whereas to artists of primitive societies painting does not seek primarily to portray a subject in a given place and time in a more or less representationalist manner, but rather to stress the fundamental qualities of the object or power. It is concerned with the inner functions and meanings rather than the superficial appearance of nature, and it sets forth the essential aspects of a subjectthe primitive artist gives right-of-way to the basic elements in his interpretation. Dunn then cites Linton who observed that the insistence upon accurate naturalistic representation seems childish to the primitive artist who, although he admires technical skill, feels that it is being expended for trivial ends in an amplification of the obvious.

Two worlds, side by side. The Indian artist may say of the contemporary artist that they are in forgetfulness of their origins, and the contemporary artist may refer to a child like quality of the Indians painting. Nonetheless, to Dorothy Dunn they are both primitive art, or better said, a primitive act, and both have their reason for being. Each aspect which characterizes Indian painting as a primitive art has its own reason for being. Likewis e, certain of these same features qualify Indian painting as modern. This seeming paradox may well be in the fact that international painting, for reasons of its own, increasingly evolves forms and styles, even concepts, not unlike those long and deeply developed by Indian artists.

And so it was that Dorothy Dunn followed her inclinations towards the primitive and encouraged her students at the Santa Fe school to preserve the authenticity of their heritage through long established modes of interpreting the primitives.

REFERENCES:

Dunn, Dorothy. American Indian Painting of the Southwest and PlainsArea. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1968.

Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. NY: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Hintikka, Jaakko. The Semantics of Modal Notions and the Indeterminacy of Ontology. Synthese. 21: 408-424, 1970.

Willard, Charles. A Theory of Argumentation. Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1989.

Chet Staley
Copyright 2005
amerindianarts.us
All Rights Reserved

Author:: Chet Staley
Keywords:: Dorothy Dunn, Plains Indian Ledger art, santa fe school, Native american art movement,primitive art
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All That We Are... Are Labels

Within the confines of the known universe, a madness is present that taints all of the knowledge which every human being has aquired within their life, and within the lives of others.

Nothing is as it seems, and it only seems that way because the human being has labeled it as such.

Language is the remarkable tool which all philosophers great and small have at their disposal, and it is that very language which limits knowledge at all levels to that very element.

Indeed, Labeling begins with prehistoric man and continues to this day. The life and times of the hunter gatherer revolved around the daily exercise of Labeling this and Labeling that. Fire, wood, the animals which are hunted, are all a product of Labeling.

The reader may now ask...so what?....and they would be right to a certain extent. But from a philosophical point of view an important point is being made: what is knowledge? For that matter, what constitutes Intelligence? Because the more one explores that question, the more limited mankind becomes.

It is a critical observation that comes with the reality that all knowledge revolves around the act of Labeling, and with that Labeling comes a vague sort of Intelligence allowing the passing of thought and emotion. Clearly, reality is judged by the senses. What can be seen, heard, smelled, or touched constitutes how real something may or may not be. Along these lines would come an in-depth dialogue about dreams and the clinically insane, but that discussion must be for another day.

When one gets down to it, what is known? Does existan ce essentially consist of running around and placing post-it notes upon all that is sensed? This is 'milk', this is your father', this is the 'television'. Is everyone aware, as I am, that the know universe simply consists of Labeling? And since that is true, what is it that is achieved by mankinds existance?

One conclusion would surround the fact that this existance being experienced now is only the preliminary one of understanding. Perhaps it is like a martial art form: there are endless basic movements that must be mastered before one can continue and achieve. In fact, with martial arts, all who are involved with them knows the words black belt stands for excellence, but the reality is something quite different.

In most martial art forms, black belt means only mastering of the basics, which is significant because most outsiders believe that achieving the black belt is the end, when in fact, for the dedicated artist, it is only the beginning.

Perhaps that is the state of mankind today: we are only at the beginning of our contribution to this universe. We, as a species, are in the gathering of information area of existance. But that revelation (if that's what one might call it) is significant because it is an indication that mankind truly has an enormous way to go to achieve true intellectual enlightenment.

I attended Rutgers University and studied Philosophy, English, and History.

Author:: Christopher Graham
Keywords:: Philosophy, Labeling, human existance, Intelligence
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Politically Correct Terms Go In and Out of Style

Have you ever noticed when dealing with minority groups or human groupings or various categories that the names people wish to be called keep changing. Obviously some one who is a moron does not wish to be called a blithering idiot. And mentally challenged sound rather bizarre so what do you call them? Beats me. But what if someone is handicapped, then they wish to be called physically challenged, but beware as soon as you get use to that they will want to be called something else.

Then there is the other group in society, which often feels outcaste. What do you call a gay person, transvestite or lesbian? Which one do you call a queer, or are you politically correctly allowed to use that word? Well I do not ever use the word Queer, so I am not sure its exact definition? It brings to me images of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or an extremely eccentric Homosexual like lets say Elton John, Sigfried and Roy or Liberachi?

Fact is it is okay to call some one a queer who fits a certain category, such as a transsexual, they are fine with being called a queer, but they do not wish to be called a gay or a mere homosexual you see? So, if you did not know the answer to that one, you failed the test. Now then are you sure you will know a queer when you see one if you are out at a bar and had a few drinks? Ah, that is the question one may really wish to know in all this isnt it? Consider all this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Politically Correct Terms Go In and Out of Style
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William James Free Will and Role of Chance

William James is one of the most prominent philosophers of America of 19-20th cc. He made a great contribution into the development of a philosophical thought of his time. He also widely uses his experience of psychologist in his works on philosophy. In his works he mainly speaks about thinking and knowledge which he treats as instruments in the struggle to live that may be the result of his psychological practice. Also one of the most important themes of his works is pragmatism. He generalized the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce by asserting that the meaning of any idea must be analyzed in terms of the succession of experiential consequences it leads to the idea that truth and error depend solely on these consequences. He applied pragmatism to the analysis of change and chance, freedom, variety, pluralism, and novelty. Pragmatism was also the basis for his polemic against monism, the block universe, the idealistic doctrine of internal relations, and all views that pr esented reality as a static whole. He was also a leader of the psychological movement of functionalism.

But I think that the most interesting part of his work is his views on free will and the role of chance in our life. In his famous essay The Dilemma of Determinism James rejects determinism on the ground that people do not have any free choices in the life. So James appeal to direct experience to provide evidence of existence of free choice. He estimates that feeling that all of us have such as regret or sorrow do not make any sense unless there is some free will. And James believes that people experience regret or sorrow only because they could have done otherwise. He thinks that if determinism were true, then people could never have done otherwise and, consequently, he comes to the conclusion that they wouldnt have any reason to feel this regret or sorrow. In the work The Dilemma of Determinism William James says the following about determinism: What does dete rminism profess? It professes that those parts of the universe already laid down absolutely appoint and decree what the other parts shall be. The future has no ambiguous possibilities hidden in its womb the whole is in each and every part, and welds it with the rest into an absolute unity, an iron block, in which there can be no equivocation or shadow of turning. So from these words we may judge about his views on the role of chance. This quotation makes obvious the fact that we and everything around us are predetermined, fated. Consequently, people do not have any independent choice in their life. Then the philosopher says that: The only deterministic escape from pessimism is everywhere to abandon the judgment of regret But does not this immediately bring us into a curious logical predicament? Our determinism leads us to call our judgments of regret wrong, because they are pessimistic in implying that what is impossible yet ought to be. But how then about the judgments of r egret themselves? If they are wrong, other judgments, judgments of approval presumably, ought to be in their place. But as they are necessitated, nothing else can be in their place; and the universe is just what is was before,- namely, a place in which what ought to be appears impossible. We have got one foot out of the pessimistic bog, but the other one sinks all the deeper. We have rescued our actions from the bonds of evil, but our judgments are now held fast. When murders and treacheries cease to be sins, regrets are theoretic absurdities and errors. The theoretic and the active life thus play a kind of see-saw with each other on the ground of evil. The rise of either sends the other down. Murder and treachery cannot be good without regret being bad: regret cannot be good without treachery and murder being bad. Both, however, are supposed to have been foredoomed; so something must be fatally unreasonable, absurd, and wrong in the world. It means that the author wants to underline that in empiricism and pluralism he saw the only possible way out from our confinement in fatalistic universe that seems to be absurd.

Thus, William James defines truth as verification and in such a way he rejects the idea that any unverifiable theory or idea, such as determinism, for example, can be true. Despite the fact that he gives such a pragmatic definition of truth we shouldnt consider that the distinction between truth and verification cannot be associated with the deliberate neglect of realist epistemology because traditionally he get used to be an epistemological realist. Moreover, he made it clear that he understood well and cordially supported the correspondence theory of truth. A bit later he told the following about the truth-building and reality: The pragmatist calls satisfactions indispensable for truth-building, but I have everywhere called them insufficient unless reality also be incidentally led to. If the reality assumed were cancelled f rom the pragmatists universe of discourse, he would straightway give the name of falsehoods to the beliefs remaining in spite of all their satisfactoriness. For him, as for his critic, there can be no truth if there is nothing to be true about I remain an epistemological realist Realities are not true, they are; and beliefs are true of them. But at the same time a few years earlier William James told about the power of facts and the difference between verification and truth in his saying: Truth supposes a standard outside of the thinker to which he must conform.

His pragmatic theory of truth explains us why he is so insistent on the necessity of existence of free choices and freedom for people and I think that it is the most probable explanation of his eagerness in freedom because for him the quest of truth is of paramount importance and here he says that people have a definite choice or its better to say they have two ways: either we must know the truth or we must av oid errors. Judging by his works it is not difficult to guess that to know the truth is of primary importance for him and he thinks that normally people should chose this rather than the possibility to avoid errors.

On reflecting about the factors which influence our opinion or which even form it he comes to the idea that there are some options between our opinions and depending on different circumstances they may be either inevitable or they may be determined by our choice. That is, not only do our emotions affect our thoughts but also there are some options to our opinions where this emotional influence is to be seen as unavoidable and a determining factor in our choices. If one has any doubts as to this idea the only thing he needs is just recollect the facts that have been already mentioned in my work. I speak about two factors of our human nature which influence our opinions they are the intension to avoid errors and the quest to find the truth.

The ability to sacrifice one for the other is normal since the option between acquiring and losing the truth is not temporary. This is the kind of thing that happens daily in science and in human everyday life in general. For, as James points out, the necessity to act is seldom so urgent that even a controversial or doubtful choice to act on is better than no choice at all. Here decisions are made for practical reasons allowing one to get onto the next order of business. In the situations in which a hypothesis is trivial and hardly ever living, the choice between believing a truth rather than a false is seldom forced. So again we see that the necessity of existence of fee choices is of paramount importance for people and they could really help them to avoid mistakes which are not well accepted by William James.

Thus, we can see that as I have already said the existence of free choices is highly important for James despite the fact that the fate, the chance is one of the most inf luential factors in humans life. But anyway even nowadays we cannot help from admiring the great work of the great philosopher. At the end of my work I want to recite the words of this man which to my mind express one of the principal idea of his essay The Dilemma of Determinism and may be of his philosophy as well: Our determinism leads us to call our judgments of regret wrong, because they are pessimistic in implying that what is impossible yet ought to be. But how then about the judgments of regret themselves? If they are wrong, other judgments, judgments of approval presumably, ought to be in their place. But as they are necessitated, nothing else can be in their place; and the universe is just what it was before - namely, a place in which what ought to be appears impossible.

Aaron is a professional freelance writer at custom essays writing service: Research papers & custom essays Now he is a technical writer, advertising copywriter, & website copywriter for Custo m Essay Network.

Author:: Aaron Schwartz
Keywords:: William James - free will and role of chance
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What if the Most Pressing World Problems Went Away Tomorrow?

What if the President of Iran called up the President of the United States and other world leaders and said; we have changed our minds we do not want to build Atomic Bombs to Blow Israel off the map? What if oil prices went back down to $25.00 per barrel and fuel prices back down to $1.15 per gallon?

What if the atmosphere on Earth remained at a good temperature of 70 to 80 degrees in most places and Global Warming simply stopped? What if the 2006 Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Season made a few Hurricanes, which simply hugged the coastline out about 80-100 miles delivering rain and simply dissipated into regular storms? What if I ask, could you live in such a simple world?

What if 3 Billion people on the planet did not have to live on only $1.00 per day? What if there was enough food to go around and clean water for all? What if illegal immigration was not an issue because Mexico had their own honest government and was fair to its citizens and was building a stro ng middle class? What if no Earthquakes, Floods, Volcanoes or Tsunamis killed anyone for 10-years? Then what, would you be able to live in such a world or would you become bored watching less exciting things on TV?

You know many people pray for such a world, but in reality a boring world might not be what everyone really wants you see? Sure we hate to hear of people dying, but at the same time if life was too perfect or easy or comfortable would we really enjoy it or would we simply create more man made wars to propel our thirst for sound and fury? Consider this philosophical question in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: What if, Most Pressing, World Problems, Went Away, Tomorrow
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Why Are There Racist Attitudes In The First Place?

What is the point of Racism? ... Whats underneath it all?

Well those questions, as some of you are aware, have complex answers! Like an Octopus with a thousand tentacles! But lets attempt to answer them anyway!

Why are theyre Racist attitudes in the first place? Or to put it another way, what drove White European Christians to view themselves as superior to non-Whites and to go around the world conquering or enslaving them for benefit and profit?

I don't know why they did that! But I'm damned good at speculating!

When the Romans first invaded Northern Europe circa 500 AD, they encountered Germanic tribes wearing animal skins and living in thatched huts! The Romans wore fine clothes lived in eLaborate stone building, lived by written laws and legal codes and had a high degree of civilization (aqueducts, indoor baths, etc) They looked on the animal skin wearing, thatched hut living Germanic tribes, as savages! Sound familiar! Thats the how the Europea ns who first invaded, I mean discovered America viewed the Indians when they first encountered them! But in this instance you have Whites looking down on other Whites as inferior! The Germanic tribes populated England and most of Northern Europe!

To make a long story short! Roman civilization was the dominant culture and power in that region and the world for about a thousand years! But as time went on the ruling class became indulgent, corrupt and lazy until the wild war waging savage, Germanic tribes became powerful enough to over throw what was left of the Glory of Rome!

Now here's where my speculations get psychologically interesting (at least to me!)

As a result of being treated as inferior by the Romans for hundreds of years, when these savages finally did over throw Rome, they over compensated for the inferiority complex they had developed by putting in its place a superiority complex that masked their feelings of cultural inferiority! It's like some one having murderous envy toward another they secretly admire finally getting the chance to knock them off and take their place!

These savage tribes started feeling really good about themselves! Like they were the Big Dogs! And they were the Big Dogs! Hadnt they just knocked off the superior culture of the once mighty Roman Empire!

They started seeing themselves as superior and but still had the need to keep that inferiority complex covered up! So it was easy for them to act-out their distain without guilt, on those ethnic groups they viewed as savage or inferior, because they saw the savagery and inferiority as coming from those groups, not from themselves!

The Whites in the U.S. inherited this cultural legacy of White Supremacy from the descendants of those savage tribes who immigrated to North America before the founding of the Nation! Northern European history and culture was so affected by Roman culture that, around the 11th century AD, the pope of tha t period and Charlemagne create a Second Roman Empire, The Holy Roman Empire! Now ruled by the once envious savage tribes! Today England has a parliament and the United States a Congress because they are both patterned after the Roman judicial system created by the cultural descendants of these savage tribes!

Further Speculation On Why There Are Racist Attitudes

Some Whites grow up in Racist home and social environments! Some have been brainwashed with Racist propaganda throughout their whole early Social development as kids! I've seen documentaries on the Klan, Neo-Nazis and other Racist groups that show parents with their 3,4, or 5 year olds at these rallies dressed in Klan robes, Neo-Nazi uniforms or other Racist attire, chanting Racist slogans and beaming with pride and enthusiastic approval of their children for doing so! So these are some of the way Racist attitudes are passed on from generation to generation and why theyre there in the first place for thes e kids!

What's the point of Racism? What's underneath it?

Whats underneath White Racism in this country is (to reiterate) the ideology of White Supremacy! Certain White European philosophers perpetuated the theory (as a result of Darwin's theory of evolution, for some of the reasons I gave above and for others to complex to go into in this article) that White people (especially White men because they dominated White society) were the pinnacle of the evolution of the human species and therefore racially superior and more privileged than all other races!

That philosophy was behind the exploitation of Africans for free slave Labor and the economic gain of White businessmen during the era of the slave trade! Africans were seen as subhuman in the evolutionary scale and therefore they weren't really enslaving or exploiting humans but something more like cattle or other beasts of burden!

When the United States Constitution was created the enslaved Africans w ere (for political reasons) only referred to indirectly as only 3/5th of a person! Most of the so-called founding fathers if not all of them, including Jefferson and Washington were rich slaveholders! The Constitution was obviously created to protect economic rights of the founding fathers not African Americans, American Indians, White women or any other non-White group for that matter!

As a matter of fact, in the early days of the United States before White Supremacy became the dominant ideology of the country, the only people classified as White were, White Anglo-Saxon protestants, who were English or descended from the English! Italians and others weren't looked upon as White until well after the slave trade was in full bloom!

The White supremacist philosophy and economic gain was behind the civil war! The southern states, who imported most of the slave Labor, whole economy was based on the slave trade and lots of people were getting rich or doing very well as a result of it! So they weren't too happy when certain conscientious Whites (like Lincoln), who may have thought Whites were racially superior to Blacks, but didn't believe it was right to enslaved their fellow man, wanted to end the profitable importation of slave Labor! So rather then have that occur, the political leaders of the slave states decided that they would no longer be part of the United States! Lincoln and other leaders said, You can't break up the Union of the United States! The slave states leaders said Oh yes we can! And that's how in a simplified way the Civil War got started!

Hitler was a White supremacist! He called the superior Whites, Aryans. He learned a lot of his ideas about racial superiority from the Racist science and philosophy of the slave trade and Jim Crow practices of the United States!

Another less familiar source of Racism is the Old Testament idea of the Chosen People of God who are more special to God than all other people! An d of course through much intellectual rationalizing by Racist Judeo-Christian intellectual Gods Chosen People were deem to be White! They convinced themselves and others that it was Ok to deprive Africans of their rights because they enjoyed a special privilege from God, a manifest Destiny, to dominate Africans and other non-White groups because they were God Chosen people!

But the underlying core of Racism is that White Supremacists dont want Blacks or other groups they view as inferior, contaminating their superior gene pool with their tainted blood! And White Racist men jealously defending their sexual dominance over White women! These two issues have sparked the most vehement White violence and hatred toward Black men! It made supremacist men feel sexually inadequate and inferior and an affront to their sexual dominance and pride if their White women preferred, what they saw as subhuman, genetically inferior men to themselves! They become enraged with hate filled, envy and jealousy toward Black men! Thus the formation of 'the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as Chivalric order to protect the virtue of the flower of the White race (White women) from all those degenerate Black men whose only desire was to deflower them (Rape them)! Thus the thousands of lynchings of Black men during the late 18 and early 1900s in the United States (mainly in the southern states)!

You can see how over time this hate-filled jealousy would continue to reinforce its self and how it would be attractive to other White men, who wanted to see themselves as this chivalrous order of knights valiantly protecting the flower of the White race from the threat of deflowerment by the black beasts and the even greater threat of the tainting of their familys gene pool with the blood of these genetic ally inferior beasts of burden or predators!

These feelings, supported by White supremacist Christian doctrines, sent them on a religious crusade carrying out Racist violence with religious zeal against black men and any White women who dared to have sex or become romantically involved with them! (But it was ok if White men had sex with Black women!) The flaming cross of the Klan is a Christian cross! They see themselves as Christians and Jesus as their Aryan brother!

Now I went through all of that to give you some idea of the underlying concepts and ideology behind the point of Racism and what's underneath it from a psycho-social-historical point of view!

From a psychological view, the point of Racism is to make those groups who hold this view feel they are superior, better and more privileged than all other ethnic groups! It's kind of like one little kid saying to another that my dad is better than your dad! Sometime those who latch on to Racist ideas hav e unfulfilled needs for self-esteem, self-worth or some other lack that they're unconsciously attempting to fill or over compensate for but may not see in themselves or want to see in themselves! For others, it's just brainwashing, plain and simple! Or a combination brainwashing and other factors! There are usually complex factors involved in the genesis of any problem rather than just one! Especially a problem like this one!

That, in a very simplified way, are some of my thoughts why there are Racist attitudes in the first place but definitely by no means all of my thoughts on the subject! Or all of my knowledge on the subject! I've studied, pondered and researched this topic for about 20-30 years because, I was puzzled by all this racial hatred and why it keeps raring its ugly head and wanted to find out what it was is about! Why its so resilient!

Thats my thoughts!

What are your thoughts on my thoughts and speculations?

Copyright 2006 El-Veasey Pub lishing Inc

El Veasey has PhDs in Social-Politics, Psycho-Social Relationships, History of the Human mind and Religious Politics, from the University of Hard-Knocks, Ghetto Town, USA

Email: elveasey at yahoo.com

Blog1 http://el-veasey.blogspot.com
Blog2 http://lveasey.blogspot.com

Author:: El Veasey
Keywords:: Racist, Racism, White, Supremacy, Klan, Nazi, Slavery, Lincoln, Consitiution, Labor, God, Destiny
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Human Casualties of Shock and Awe Debated

Shock and Awe is a sign of strength and a message to the world that justice will be served. It is a message that the days of International Terrorism are numbered, a message to the World and one, which is long over do. But if you are the enemy or if you support International Terrorism you will have a completely different spin and perception, as you deny the evil of your actions and cheer on the murderous acts of the enemy. Recently in an online political Blog a supporter of International Terrorism posted this anonymously;

hundreds of thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of wounded because of Shock and awe- the suicide attacks came after the Coalition of the Killing committed war crimes in Iraq.

This is pure and utter hokum you see. The suicide attacks in Iraq, well a good number of them come from planted Iranian Insurgents and therefore if this is an issue, perhaps you will retract your anti-US comments and take this issue up with the Iranian leadership, who will duly throw your rear end in jail.

Additionally the United States Military and their message of shock and awe and their ability to pin-point targets with accuracy with precision weapons prevents the mass killing of civilians, so this comment is just BS.

However there is no stopping these International Terrorist supporters, as our anonymous poster further states: Do you honestly not know the numbers of those killed and wounded by your country? Does the US government hide these facts? Are the US media controlled by pro-administration people?

The media is often critical of the administration so you are entirely wrong. But to answer your question, Do you know how many more people the US will be forced to kill if those insurgents sent by Iran and those still loyal to Saddam do not knock it off? Ill tell you how many; All of them, that is how many. So you think about that for minute. How many more people enemies of the Iraqi People and Iraqi Freedom and n ew Democracy will die. It will be every last one of them, unless they lay down their arms and get with the program and that program is: A Free Iraq, with liberty, democracy and Justice for all. Do you understand? That is the way it will be. Consider it.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Human Casualties, Shock and Awe Debated
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Time To Cull The H1N1 Religious Viruses of the World

Religion is like a virus to the World; and as the World waits for bird flu to arrive to kill millions of people instead we allow the religious viruses of the World to kill even more and this has been going on for millenniums. It seems like religious fundamentalism is the cause of more human deaths through war in the present period than we will expect to find when bird flu adapts too a human strain, which is easily transferable from person to person.

We must stop the N1 H1 religious virus from spreading to save humanity and guarantee the forward progression of the species into a new era of peace and prosperity for all. If we fail to cull the religious virus and allow fundamentalists who run international terrorist organizations that are sponsored by Nations State to have nuclear weapons, then the death tolls will be greater than any bird flu could produce.

We must do away with all religion in the present period in order to move the human species forward and enjoy the next evolutionary step of human progression, if we fail to cull religious fanaticism and fundamentalism we are merely doomed to repeat and the mass mobs will drive down the human race and have a severe chilling affect on the gene pool. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Time To Cull, The H1N1, Religious Viruses, World
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All That We Are... Are Labels

Within the confines of the known universe, a madness is present that taints all of the knowledge which every human being has aquired within their life, and within the lives of others.

Nothing is as it seems, and it only seems that way because the human being has labeled it as such.

Language is the remarkable tool which all philosophers great and small have at their disposal, and it is that very language which limits knowledge at all levels to that very element.

Indeed, Labeling begins with prehistoric man and continues to this day. The life and times of the hunter gatherer revolved around the daily exercise of Labeling this and Labeling that. Fire, wood, the animals which are hunted, are all a product of Labeling.

The reader may now ask...so what?....and they would be right to a certain extent. But from a philosophical point of view an important point is being made: what is knowledge? For that matter, what constitutes Intelligence? Because the more one explores that question, the more limited mankind becomes.

It is a critical observation that comes with the reality that all knowledge revolves around the act of Labeling, and with that Labeling comes a vague sort of Intelligence allowing the passing of thought and emotion. Clearly, reality is judged by the senses. What can be seen, heard, smelled, or touched constitutes how real something may or may not be. Along these lines would come an in-depth dialogue about dreams and the clinically insane, but that discussion must be for another day.

When one gets down to it, what is known? Does existan ce essentially consist of running around and placing post-it notes upon all that is sensed? This is 'milk', this is your father', this is the 'television'. Is everyone aware, as I am, that the know universe simply consists of Labeling? And since that is true, what is it that is achieved by mankinds existance?

One conclusion would surround the fact that this existance being experienced now is only the preliminary one of understanding. Perhaps it is like a martial art form: there are endless basic movements that must be mastered before one can continue and achieve. In fact, with martial arts, all who are involved with them knows the words black belt stands for excellence, but the reality is something quite different.

In most martial art forms, black belt means only mastering of the basics, which is significant because most outsiders believe that achieving the black belt is the end, when in fact, for the dedicated artist, it is only the beginning.

Perhaps that is the state of mankind today: we are only at the beginning of our contribution to this universe. We, as a species, are in the gathering of information area of existance. But that revelation (if that's what one might call it) is significant because it is an indication that mankind truly has an enormous way to go to achieve true intellectual enlightenment.

I attended Rutgers University and studied Philosophy, English, and History.

Author:: Christopher Graham
Keywords:: Philosophy, Labeling, human existance, Intelligence
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Why Should Man Believe in God An Optimistic Explanation

Belief is the base where the whole of humanity stands upon. Belief is the breath of every human being though he is unaware of it. Humanity believes many materialistic things in the world which they never see with their eyes, never hear with their ears. But when it comes to spiritual matters like God, man spontaneously questions Gods existence. Mans faith in the invisible God should flow like blood all over the limbs of the body. We should remember that our existence is only due to His existence.

How do we believe in God who is invisible? Such question is often pondered by some people. In reality we believe in many scientists discoveries which we only heard but never saw in reality. But when it comes to God, people ask for proofs. We do not see air but we feel it. Similarly we might not see God with the naked eyes but we feel him at heart. Just because one is unable to see air or God, can he deny their existence?

The Sun, Stars, Moon, Earth, Water, Sky and the n atures wonders which cannot be created by Man are all proofs of Gods existence. We can feel God when we are with the nature. Man might have created so many things on the earth but who created that man? God created man and his mysterious brain which helped man in his discovery.

Human being is able to achieve the impossible by his intelligence, knowledge and skill. This doesnt mean he is greater than God because that great human being is also helpless in some aspects. Is that being aware that there is an invisible thread which helps in the functioning of all parts? Is he breathing every breath by his will? Can he die at any moment he wants or can he live for more years when the hour of death approaches him? Is man making any effort to make his heart beat in a regular manner? Who is the guiding principle behind all these? It is God who resides in the heart of man.

Man cannot control nature. Can he control sun rise, sunset, rotation and revolution of the earth? Being human, if scientists can create water, what is the greatness of God in creating water, so think many people. Can scientists create water sufficient for the whole world by their experiments? Can they create oceans with hydrogen and oxygen? Imitation is human, creation is divine. Man uses mind. He is forgetful; God uses heart. He is forgiveness.

Love doesnt live together with ego and pomp. It is very easy to please God. You need not boast of your finances or intelligence; you need not utter the toughest language or greatest poetry on the earth to please him. Simple or no language is sufficient to pray. Empty hands and a heavy heart are all that God needs to fulfill your greatest wishes. Then all the troubles will be vanished and you will see the Sun of happiness shine on your heart. Chanting the name of God acts like anesthesia; though you are in the whirlpool of troubles, you will cross it with no trace of pain with His name on your lips. Never challenge God. Be humble , yearn for his love, strive for his grace, and let your eyes and heart be filled with true love for Him. There will be no miracle left to be taken place in your world of God. For this, blind Faith is the first step on the ladder of Realization to reach your final destination called God. Take one step towards God and he will take thousand steps towards you. God is a blend of mother, father, friend, guide and philosopher. This single word God seems so small but it has the whole of universe in it.

Spirituality is an easy path to reach God. Prayer without faith is like an artificial flower without fragrance. No good cause can dare to invite obstacles if only you have blind faith in God. One who has time for God in this busy mechanical world is the true son of God. Let your faith in God be blind and your heart be open. Surrender to God from below; God will render his blessings from above.

God is omnipresent; man's lack of faith prevents him from seeing God. Gods exis tence cannot be denied because of his invisibility. Can we deny the existence of the Sun because of the blockage of the clouds? When we wait with patience until the clouds are dispelled by a strong wind, we can witness the sun. Similarly, with the blowing of the wind of Faith, the cloud of doubt gets shattered and God becomes visible.

Patience, love or trust are essential to feel the Lord. Sharmila Sanka

Author:: Sharmila Sanka
Keywords:: article submission, Articles, Writers, Writing, Publishing, Ezine, Email marketing, Email newsletter, Email
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Who Can You Trust?

So who can you really trust? Well you cannot trust any human it seems, that is to say you cannot trust people. For instance you cannot trust lawyers to steal from you and you cannot trust Judges who are lawyers and you cannot trust politicians who are lawyers and so you cannot trust the laws. Which are made to supposedly allow for a civilized society and protection.

You cannot trust teachers to tell you the truth, you cannot trust clergy, you cannot trust doctors; because any truth they think they are purporting is in essence a relative truth and perception based and often in complete and total error.

Can you trust car salesmen, insurance salesmen or stockbrokers? No, they have a vested interest in fabrication, misrepresentation and manipulation. Can you trust government or those who work in government? No that is a lie and there is enough case history in the writings of mankind since the written record was saved to prove that.

Can you trust reporters, me dia, newspapers or the Internet? No, obviously that would be a bad idea too. These sources are completely a wash with half-truths, opinion and events blown out of proportion. Can you trust your spouse? Well you tell me, as 65% of all marriages end in divorce?

Can you trust your boss, co-workers or business acquaintances? Well not really as the competition for jobs, ladder climbing and shareholders will always take precedence over whatever was promised yesterday? So who can you trust?

Well you can trust the United States Mail most of the time, but your dog, the only one you can really trust doesnt seem to trust them? So you tell me is there any human you can really trust? Well I hope you trust what I have written here is truly sincere. Think on it.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: who can you trust
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Another Reason to Dump All World Religions in the Present Period

We see in the world culture clashes and even wars fought over religions and religious literature with vengeance. But why? If all these religions are so old and we humans knew so little back then, wouldn't ya say it is time to upgrade the human species a tad and well ditch all religion in the present period so we can maintain a steady clip of forward progression in the human race into the next period. I am serious.

Why not just get rid of all of it. Silly humans wake up, you are killing each other over some old wives tales and folklore which they made up to control your ancestors. Those people who made it all up are all dead now, you don't have to follow all that piddly dribble any longer? Wake up and take a gander outside the cave. It is way to stuff in there with all the flickering lights, fog and smoke.

As we watch the massive slaughter of entire third world countries over a belief in a good, witch doctor, voodoo doll or even various factions of Islam itself, doesnt it seem rather odd, that so many religions have been the previous fiber holding people together? Why are we even allowing such disruptive thought in the world? Why do we allow people to kill their neighbors over something that was written by men to control other men 3000 years ago? Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Another Reason, Dump All World Religions, Present Period
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