Christianity and our Coming Social Convergence

So I was honored and pleased to have attended Dr. Fulginiti’s Institute for Human Flourishing’s dinner event last Saturday evening in Oviedo, Florida. Our group conversation centered on the question of whether America is a Christian nation. At the discussion I shared my own examination of the historical period surrounding the penning of the Magna Carta and my speculation that this document, having been moderated by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, definitely bore signs of Cristian influence which subsequently passed on to America. Such influence being the Magna Carta’s helping to inspire the very spirit of liberalism’s belief in the value of the individual, after the pattern of the supremely valuable individual, Jesus Christ. To see more of this argument, stay tuned for my upcoming book “Next Generation Rising: A Heart to Heart to Young Adults.” These points are in Chapter 1 titled “American Child.”

Our conversation then evolved into an exploration of Christianity’s place in our present American liberal evolution. I introduced my New American Spring Vision of an American society characterized by a state of maximal liberty. That is, a society in which every individual will be at liberty to be and do whatsoever he or she pleases, so long as everyone collectively agrees to one and only one constraint—that no individual harms or hinders any other in the free exercise of his and her liberty. See John Stuart Mill’s essay titled “On Liberty” for a fuller understanding of this principle. I emphasized that this one constraint to liberty is of course essential in order to have a social environment itself, since otherwise, individuals will be at each other’s throats, leading to anarchy and the breakdown of the very social condition. I also stressed that a social state of maximal liberty will require two other essential values if it will avoid anarchical disintegration. The first is that of embracing diversity, or seeing the individuality of one another as a good thing rather than as a threat. And the second is that of tolerant dialogue, from which process individuals can influence one another toward a healthier state of social convergence. For truly tolerant dialogue will not fail to result in a new and shared social consciousness, a natural “morality” which will then be the basis of a truer social cohesion. Let’s optimistically call this new social state our Coming Social Convergence.

The pushback that I encountered against my premises centered on what I understand as the pessimistic spirit about human nature. Christianity, for one, holds that human beings are hopelessly sinful and corrupt. Our long line of historical experience, moreover, only shows a human race that is basically selfish, self-centered, violent and destructive. So the natural question arises: why do I feel that a state of maximal liberty of individuals will not only not result in anarchy, but might ultimately evolve into a new, social cohesion through dialogue? I pointed, in response, to the very conversation our group was having. I asked: were we not having some influence on one another through mere conversation? And if this happened in the same cooperative spirit, nationwide, might peoples not naturally converge in healthier ways?

I’m writing this little article, at any rate, to summarize what New American Spring stands for, from a Christian point of view. Firstly, I am Christian myself. So it would seem very unusual indeed that I might advocate for a society of maximal liberty. For a society in which individuals do whatsoever they please, even if constrained by the mandate not to discriminate or harm any other (which “discrimination” or “harm” is determined socially through dialogue), would certainly result in actions which are presently understood as “sinful.” We even had a person of Middle Eastern dissent in the group who went so far as to say that individuals can still be evil in such a social context, and I followed up by asking her what makes an individual evil if he or she does not hurt anyone else, since evil, in my mind, is determined through its hurtful and destructive effects? Such questions which confront one another’s assumptions are often the fruitful consequences of dialogue, even if they lead to moments of silence and contemplation, as I seemed to observe mine doing.

Returning to my mission, however, of answering this question of Christianity verses Sin in maximal liberty, I had to clarify to my group the definition of three essential concepts: Free Will, Freedom, and Liberty. Free Will, as I hold it, is the individual’s ability to either accept or reject God or the Creator. As a Christian I hold that God gave us this ability to either accept or reject him for the greater purpose of Love, since one cannot love a person whom one is unable to reject. Freedom, secondly, is the individual’s state of health and well-being following the choice to accept his or her Creator, as a robot might be considered healthy if it complied with its original programing and design from its engineer. And Liberty is the mere ability to do whatsoever one pleases in society and the world, regardless of whether such choices align with a state of accepting ones Creator (Freedom) or rejecting one’s creator (Sin). Now we are able to see the exact way in which a state of maximal liberty can involve occasions of sinfulness. We can also understand how Christians can argue that a state of maximal liberty is not “Free” in the Christian sense if it occasions sinful choices among individuals, resulting in self-destruction. Choices of life contrary to God’s original design.

Why then, as a Christian man, do I advocate for a state of maximal liberty and why do I accept the resulting social convergence, good or bad, which might result in the best case scenario from such a liberal evolution? Simply because I feel that this evolution is inevitable and cannot be avoided, so that the best thing I can do as person concerned about the well-being of my human family is to enable its development in the healthiest way possible. Liberalism will have to be tempered with tolerance and dialogue which require humility and a form of operational social love if it will not result in chaos and destruction. Therefore my Christian Charity tells me that in a society which will inevitably take this liberal direction, I must do my best to assist in its safe passage.

There is a second reason why I actually want to participate in the growing liberalization of America, however, besides keeping my society from running off the rails. I often think that our Christian tradition entertains certain principles, concepts and ideas about right and wrong which I’m not sure, in my own heart, actually comes from God. One wife one husband, for instance, while human nature might be quite capable of multi-amorous relationships, moderated by a mature rationality. One physical life and after that the judgment, as another example. While it is quite possible that the soul goes through many incarnations in a karmic tangle, Christ being the way out of the web of reincarnation, which might be the true meaning of salvation. A third example of Christianity’s artificial restrictions might be its limitation of various sexualities, while humanity might be quite naturally diverse in sexual expression–if only society evolved into its full and natural potential, etc. I feel that there might be a benefit for human self-understanding by allowing for a society that is at liberty to radically experiment with traditional value systems. A society that breaks down all traditional assumption and put humanity to the test for what it really is, accepting only the constraints mentioned above for the sake of social cohesion. Part of me wants to see what the human race actually has inside itself when allowed to express itself in the greatest possible way through liberating its smallest unit, the individual.

At the very least I might be accused of toying with Pandora’s Box. What would it mean to open up the previously unopened chamber (from the perspective of this socially radical way) of the human heart? Am I toying with ultimate destruction, or am I the prophet of a new awakening? While I don’t know the answer myself, I can only repeat that this is the direction liberalism is taking anyway, so why not help moderate the journey to be as safe as possible? One thing I will however take immediate comfort in is that in this new society of maximal liberty, I should be most at liberty to be my Christian self. If God puts in my heart that I should live in such and such ways which might be self-constraining in the mind of another individual, would I not thereby be an example onto him or her? And if God did indeed speak to me in such instances, would I not thereby be a light? If God really courts the human family and invites all individuals to Love, would not a maximally liberal society really bring home to individuals the emptiness of living contrary to the intentions of God via the empty wages of Sin? I dare say, a maximally liberal society would be a perfect place for God’s light to shine, for God’s true children to influence their fellow human beings. And if Christianity happens to be wrong, then humanity will finally have an opportunity to free itself from self-hating because self-limiting traditions.

This willingness to allow for such a radical test of our human race should not dissuade anyone on the side of truth, as I feel I am as a Christian. It should not dissuade the sincere Christian. One who is not a “Christian” only because it makes one feel better than others (self-righteous). Or one who is not a “Christian” because it brings social privileges in a Christian-value-system society (hypocrite). Or one who is not a “Christian” because it gives one an arbitrary (because merely born into it) sense of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world (existential coward). A true Christian would welcome a state of maximal liberty and not be afraid, for truth fears nothing.

Selah!

Future of Diversity

 

So one thing I have come to deeply understand in my 47 years of life is that humanity is diversity personified. Whoever champions the cause of embracing diversity in the human community, he or she is a champion of our very race on this blue planet.

 

Today, the forefront of the challenge to diversity on our globe is the LBGTQ campaign. Even though or perhaps because I am in the majority as a straight male, I still fully appreciate that human sexuality is the most powerful AND the most sensitive of the kind of varieties we find among our species. If ever our human race will fully embrace itself as a species of colors and variety, acknowledging that this is a good thing, it will largely be in response to this dimension of its self-understanding. May we indeed evolve to fully embrace one another in all our differences, recognizing that variations are a good thing about our species.

 

So long, of course, as no human being abuses any other in his or her self-expression, as he or she has a right not to be abused. The “abuse” limitation to human variety will require peoples coming together and reasoning together, so let us leave this point for future discussion.

 

At any rate, I have dedicated my highest dreams and ambition in life to bringing this embracing spirit to America. Not just or specifically regarding human sexuality, but the embrace of all human varieties as a sacred point of existence itself. America as a nation is leading the way in inclusiveness since we have always boasted being the “melting pot” of the world. But our crowning achievement on behalf of our very species will be in taking this integrative concept to its full and logical extent.

Therefore to my fellow warriors in the cause for a world which loves itself by loving its variety, I say, “hip, hip, hooray,” and I ask you all to join me in action by visiting and supporting my own humble work in this spirit, at http://www.newamericanspring.org.

 

Revolution of vision, evolution of world…

 

Roger Farinha, Founder

The New American Spring Social Curriculum for a Better World

Love, or Suicide

I must confess that I am intimately acquainted with the age old, existential crisis, the haunting question of whether my life has meaning or value or purpose. Like a shadowy hobgoblin, it crouches just beyond my routine life and invades in moments of weariness.

Like the rest of the whole world, I sustain my ego with the shallow hope for personal “success.” The poor man says in his heart, “I will be happy when I am rich.” The rich man says, “I will be happy when I am richer.” And the richest man most miserably says, “sure happiness is absolute power to dominate all the rest.” But no man is wise enough to realize that ego and self-centeredness is the poison pit at the center of our tainted beings.

Egos pursuing “success” only ends in self-destruction or suicide, the final realization that self is itself is the problem, yet having nowhere to turn but upon itself. The self snare of mankind! And love, yes love, is the remedy. To give love is to revive the soul, for in love we preserve the good kernel of our selfhood as we deny the fallacy of autonomy.

We must learn from the failures of our recent celebrity suicides. I will learn at least. Today, I have set myself to seeking out with a magnifying glass, opportunities for love. Why with a magnifying glass? Because when we have grown accustomed to the lens of the Ego for our soul’s perception, its atrophying action on our awareness necessitates much aid in basic seeing.

For if we could only see clearly, LOVE in actuality abounds…

Your Fareed Zakaria Interview

Dear Mr. Bannon:

 

I saw your interview tonight with Fareed Zakaria regarding the Trump agenda and your populist stance, and I wanted to get a very important message to you.

 

You alluded to how if Senator Sanders had been more insistent, he might have given Trump a harder run for his money, and I agree, being one of Sanders’ supporters. I am also a proud populist, albeit one who explicitly emphasizes the DIVERSITY of America.

 

The point of my comment here, however, is regarding your alluding to the Five Star Movement of young populists in Italy, and how you foresee such an evolution of American populism. I adamantly agree. Why? Because I propose to you that I represent the very future essence an conscience of this movement. It is called New American Spring!

 

Please consider getting in touch with me and I will happily help you get this revitalization (a more accurate term than “revolution”) going…

 

Mr. Roger Farinha, Founder

The New American Spring Social Curriculum

Www.NewAmericanSpring.Org

Does Democracy still Work?

While sipping on my coffee this morning I was appalled to hear Carol’s HLN question, “Does democracy still work?” Why, because I am one of the many warriors of the people who are stepping up to offer solutions, not tear down the one last hope of the world for a self-directed rule of We, The People.

A solution to the difficulty of cohesively representing the people of California, in example, was proposed. It was suggested that California can be split into three separate states for a more localized engagement of the body politic. Yet if we began such a trend, we would only be signaling the first death throws of our republic as it would signal that our representative structures are obsolete. This is not the way.

Yes our country is big, and yes, this is why our founding fathers needed to construct a representative republic where We, The People can elect specialists to represent our wishes. So why do we now feel that the system is becoming dysfunctional? Only because we have allowed the forces of entropy, of disorder, to run amok in our garden of democracy, the weed of absolute power linked to the polarization of wealth. And all because we lack the spiritual humility to embrace one another in equality, tolerance, and good-will. We can and must take back our country by first healing ourselves. This is a tough solution but it is the only solution.

If we give up on the hope of democracy, we give up on ourselves and we only show ourselves worthy of eternal and final slavery. It would be a crying shame if we had such a light as Thomas Jefferson who spoke to the essence of the problem but we ultimately ignored him when he stated: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

If you are interested in the good fight, I recommend you explore the solution set forth at http://www.newamericanspring.org, a solution for the ultimate enlightenment of our body politic and the true healing of our country.

Revolution of Vision, Evolution of World…

Children With Power

Do we give power drills, electrical saws, or nuclear suitcases with red buttons to children? As absurd as these questions are, I would like to propose that whenever we allow individual human beings to wield any degree of unchecked or absolute power over others, we invite catastrophizes as serious as what might result from mindless parenting. Yet in the case of our human interactions with one another, we are no more than a Lord of the Flies community of children, ourselves.

Bill O’Reilley, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Charley Rose, and many other yet unknown persons of former influence dot our contemporary landscape in example. So as not to fall under the illusion that abuse of power is an exclusively male weakness, however, we might also consider the abuses of the Democratic Party against the Sanders’ presidential candidacy on behalf of Hilary Clinton, and I’m sure there are many more examples of women in power abuses. Why? Because moral fortitude is a fundamentally human challenge.

No one is intrinsically holy!

I say it is high time that we begin to think of ourselves honestly as human beings. Morality is essentially learned through checks and balances. This is why we are in need of a truly democratic world, so that we might each check one another. Yet not in a spirt of vengeance or finger pointing, but in a spirit of we-are-all-striving-children. How wonderful a world we can see if we only humbled ourselves in our collective, human family.

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Originally posted in the Daytona Beach News-Journal Newspaper’s Opinion Section, Sunday, May 6th…

The Good Men Project: An Appeal–Part I

I recently became a member of the Good Men Project and had one of my articles posted with them. But just when I began to have hope that I might find a platform out there which genuinely engages in dialogue and open, honest conversation, I was again disillusioned. The Good Men Project claims that they wish to foster a community of conversation, but they are ultimately unable to tolerate radically open conversation in the spirit of American liberty. Therefore I’d like to share the following article of mine which they declined printing, in an appeal to them to re-think their culture of conversation:

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The Good Man is the Sincere Man:
A Radical Embrace of American Liberty

Let me begin by asserting that I fully understand and accept that the perspective I am about to set forth is my own and may not reflect the present culture of The Good Men Project. I nevertheless offer this sensitive reflection in the spirit of the great conversation that GMP so nobly aspires to:

When I first heard of The Good Man Project, I wondered. Is there any such thing as a definition of goodness today, in the midst of our many cultural mixes, including gender fluidity, feminism and even fundamentalism? In our environment of moral relativism which imposes itself on the contemporary person like a giant elephant in our global room? Yet I know very well that the human need for a sense of rightness, a measure of the mainstream, if you will, can never die—since we must ultimately find a way to interact with one another. So we encounter the crux of the matter. What should become our new and self-evident custom, which might provide a proper stage upon which we may all freely enter into conversation?

One of our most famed philosophers of civil liberty, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), referred to this most troublesome fact of the centrality of human custom which can unfortunately result in bias and social tyranny. He writes:

They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals…Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

Therefore in our present-day society which benefits from the long and hard-won history of philosophies of liberty, I say we must understand “the good” in such a way as to empower each and every one of us to speak freely, to represent ourselves via a uniformly acceptable point of view. What could this be? We might adopt the idea that a good man is a sincere man. We might very deliberately decide to place the sacred freedom of conscience at our apex.

Now an objection might naturally arise concerning this risky standard. What of the clearly abusive man who is most sincere in his thoughts and actions? Can we ever legitimize him as being “good?” This question gets to the heart of the very important distinction between freedom of expression and freedom of action. Freedom of action is mitigated by law, but I feel it is essentially American to assert absolute freedom of expression in order to safeguard the sanctity of conscience. This is why I believe The Good Men project, as a platform of conversation which requires such freedom of expression if it will be genuine and effective, should adopt the standard of sincerity and freedom of conscience. It may even get to the point where virtually every participant in the conversation condemn an “abusive” participant’s opinion as contemptible. Yet this would be quite ok, even if such a person is the very founder of the platform of conversation itself. For to censor his or her opinion because the content is deemed “abusive,” in effect, crosses that line which our esteemed father of civil liberty rightly identified as things in which society “ought not to meddle.”

Do I have a deeper reason for presently making this case on our GMP platform? Yes indeed, for we have a perfect example of this dilemma which touched the Good Men Project itself, most intimately. In deciding whether I should become acquainted with this Project, I decided to research what is being said of GMP outside of GMP. In her article titled “How Did the Good Men Project Get Hijacked by Such Bad Guys” on mic.com, author Lis Hall Magill shows herself guilty, in my opinion, of just this kind of tyrannical judgment. I will not get into the details of her argument due to article length restrictions on my part here but she brought up the controversy of how the founder of the Good Men Project, Tom Matlack, wrote an article titled “Being a Dude is a Good Thing,” how he seemingly espoused the opinion that most women want men to be like them, how he engaged in “gaslighting” in defense of himself when criticized, seemingly revealing himself as a “men’s rights activist;” and how, finally, “he left the Good Men Project in April of 2003.”

In opposition, I propose that The Good Men Project, inasmuch as it aspires to become a genuine platform of conversation, should very deliberately adopt a culture of conscience and absolute freedom of expression. We should disarm anyone who endeavors to criticize us from any particular sense of social “rightness” if we will avoid participating in the social tyranny that John Stuart Mill speaks of.

As an aspiring founder of my own social movement, I find appalling the possibility that I may have to leave my life’s work due to controversies which attend matters of my private conscience, in a country where freedom of conscience should be most protected, and open conversation in the spirit of liberal exchange of ideas, most celebrated. Controversy notwithstanding. For I feel that by the massive hand of controversy, much useful debate is today being smacked down, to the detriment of genuine social progress.

I must confess I don’t know Tom’s perspective on the matter of leaving GMP. He may well have realized that he did not wish to commit himself to this movement, but if he did desire to stay, he could have remained a fruitful and even edifying force, exemplifying the truth that no human being is perfect or should be held to some impossible standard of holiness. In the case of my own, New American Spring movement, I have anticipated this threat from those I deem “the enemies of human progress” and have addressed the matter both in my blogspot.com blog titled “The Holiness Fallacy,” and in the last chapter titled “Founders Disclaimer” of my upcoming book. See my main website on my profile if you wish to explore this matter more.

Therefore let the “abuser” speak, let the “white supremacist” speak, let the “sexist” and “feminist” speak, let the “civil rights advocate” speak. So long as they are specking from the perspective of men, about being a contemporary man, or to men today. Or in my case here, about the conversation itself. We ought to have the humility to realize that our labels are reflective of our own judgments and should not be used to tyrannize over others through the discrimination of censorship, no matter how “good” or “bad” we judge the characters of our fellow men and women to be. Critique your interlocker from the point of view of your conscience, as you should always feel free to remonstrate with your brother and sister, and not from a pretense of goodness or rightness which you endeavor to mandate for all. For in embracing this truest spirit of liberty, even to the level of freedom of conscience, I dare say you might just find that ultimate truth is not but the freedom of the human heart and soul to be itself, unfettered from all forms of tyranny of ideas.

Let us ultimately listen to one another and find truth in each other, in all humility and in all sincerity.

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Because The Good Men Project was unwilling to print this article, they prove that they are not a truly open platform of conversation. Even if they are unwilling to engage in such a radically open culture of dialogue, which they are in the full rights not to, they could at least have had the honesty to print it for the sake of demonstrating some degree of transparency, which always bolsters credibility.

 

Teenage Bullying and School Shootings: The Deepest Truth

So in our day and times, with the phenomenon of teenage bullying and school shootings having reached a clear and present, crisis level, I would like to blow your minds by unveiling its deepest truth. I am speaking from the point of view of having earned a Bachelors in the History of Modern Philosophy, a Masters in Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts (Liberal Studies), a Masters Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership, and from the perspective of having spent 14 years traveling across America and engaging my fellow Americans in dialogue about life and meaning, resulting in my book “The Socratic Trucker: An American Memoir.” I am speaking, shortly, from my point of view as a seasoned student of human nature.

Adolescent bullying is a function of our human survivalist instinct. You see, human beings evolved in a state of nature where we had to compete with other species for the materials that support life. Species are imbued with instincts which enable them to hit the ground running, as it were, from birth. Therefore in order to survive, our human species had to be imbued with the competitive instinct.

This survivalist instinct has two sides to it, which together serve to secure our specie’s greater survival. First is the conformity instinct. This enables our species to group together and pool their strength for better chances at survival. Next is the individuation instinct, which enables individual members of our species to manifest potentially useful variety, enabling our species, ultimately, to better adopt to a changing, natural environment. Therefore this survival instinct of ours, coupled with the benefits of our brain or intellect, secured our human species’ triumph over nature vie our technological civilization.

Now, to bullying. Bullying is a function of our human survivalist instinct as it manifests in conformity pressure, which we today call peer pressure. Since, as a species, we had to develop a strong conformity instinct as described above, individual members of our human race who veer too far left on the individuation spectrum encounter problems in conforming to the status quo mentality of the group, which today we refer to as being “cool.” While nature imbues in every individual a unique personality, that personality must nevertheless not be so different that it becomes unable to harmonize with the group. Therefore the objects of bullying are teenagers who fall so far left on the individuation side of the human survivalist instinct as to have socialization difficulties.

This also accounts for why bullying can be so vicious. For collectively, the group senses that this excessive differentiation of the bullied individual is a classical threat to the survival of the species itself. Therefore in the collective unconscious of the bullies, they might as well be saying, “Better our social cruelty than the cruelty of nature via the teeth of the lion.” For an excessively different individual can put the whole group and species at threat if he or she cannot harmonize toward our collective survival.

Now to school shootings. This phenomenon is uniquely modern, arising from a breakdown of our human survivalist instinct in the state of society. You see, our human survivalist instinct served our species well, as mentioned before, in securing our triumph over other species in the state of nature. But now, in the state of society where there is no need to compete directly with other species for survival, the competitive drive of the human survivalist instinct has nowhere to turn but upon one another. The vicious survivalist struggles of nature is brought into our human family, and individuals and groups now prey upon one another as we once preyed upon mammoths and lions and antelopes.

When an individual member of our species therefore veers to far left on the individuation scale of our human survivalist instinct, he or she becomes an easy target for human survivalist competition. He or she is relentless picked on, both because he or she is seen as prey for the consumption of the bully, as well as because he or she is seen by the bully as an easy path to survivalist status in the larger group. After years of this relentless treatment, he or she can become homicidal, as if saying in his or her survivalist psyche “So you want to throw me to the lions of utter rejection, ha? Well, meet my little friend!” Click, click.

What, therefore, is the solution? The solution is to educate ourselves about this underlying, ignoble cause of bullying, and to challenge ourselves to transcend our more primitive instincts. And what is the path to this realization?

The path rests in a new understanding of human heroism. You see, human heroism is a very strong and profound sense of triumphalism. The human spirit wants to triumph unto life. But today, because of our survivalist instinctual residue, forged in primal memories of a past where we had to mortally compete for material resources in service of our physical survival, our human heroism has taken on a default state of material heroism. We feel that only in securing for ourselves a triumph over material goods and statuses, do we show ourselves the hero. Our current president, Donald Trump, is a perfect contemporary archetype of this heroism.

Yet because, as a species, we no longer live in the state of nature where we have to compete with other species, we can now adopt a new vision of human triumphalism (a new human heroism) which is more suited to our present state of technological triumph over nature. In other words, we can begin to celebrate our divergents, those teens who fall more left on the individuation scale of the human survivalist instinct, rather than keep trying to beat them down. For while nature has put this very individuation instinct into them for the sake of manifesting new variety which might serve the survival of the species as a whole, these new varieties can also now add human creative wealth and beautiful colors to the human-race-triumphant.

Let us therefore celebrate the colors and varieties of our human family going forward, recognizing these bullied ones for the truth of their existence—that they are the very future of shining humanity! For if our different ones such as Albert Einstein did not find a patent office to retreat to from the status quo of his society, earning a sheltered living while developing his unique light, we would not, after all, have been so scientifically triumphant as a species. And if I had not the cab of my eighteen-wheeler to similarly shelter myself and develop my unique perspective, we would not have this deepest truth, would we?

Yet here’s the good news. A pathway to this new society and world is spelled out and planned, via a comprehensive, social curriculum at http://www.newamericanspring.org. My life’s mission. Come and see.

Revolution of Vision, Evolution of World…

 

This article was originally published for The Good Men Project here:

https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/teenage-bullying-school-shootings-deepest-truth-lbkr/

 

Roger Farinha

US Indictment of 13 Russians

Let’s be clear.

The Muller indictment of 13 Russians for U.S. election meddling means certain things only. Although I liberally lean, I do not buy into the ultimate implications that CNN, for one, is attempting to spin. Namely, that Russian support of Trump necessarily means that the Trump Campaign is treasonous. Rather, the issue at hand revolves around the significance of America’s latest awakening of populism and cuts to the heart of America itself.

Populism is neither a curse word, nor is it a signifier of any spirit of national betrayal. For it essentially declares the overt will of We, The People. Populist sentiment sits at the very heart and soul of our nation, so dedicated to a rule by, of and for us. Due to his broad based support, an exact phenomena which our Founding Fathers explicitly designed the electoral system to defend, Trump’s victory, though I may not personally be happy with it, is legitimately American.

Putin, who is indeed our enemy and the enemy of democracy generally, is only able to agitate our American people’ discontent with the present direction of our nation because of our own, internal dissent. In terms of hacking the election system, I am firm in the opinion that this behavior approaches an act of war, but my article here is mainly concerned with his propaganda campaign to sway American populist opinion. We are so in need of healing, of coming together in populist unity toward the greater glory of America—even for the very future of precious democracy! Our unification will only neutralize Putin and all enemies of democracy, most democratically, but will revitalize democracy itself.

Through my New American Spring movement at http://www.newamericanspring.org, I am attempting to champion a new, enlightened populism.

Come and see…

Unquiet Desperation

I propose that our whole society shares a deeper and underlying problem resulting in the occasional breakdown of mass shooters and other psychopaths. These characters are not completely off the rails we all travel, and if this thought seems shocking, perhaps we are in need of just such out-of-the-box thinking if we will plum the depths of such a psyche as that of, say, our Las Vegas shooter’s.

Our current civilization has lost something in our human success story of survival. Due to the population explosion in our present moment in history, the more and more anonymous individual is becoming more and more disconnected from a sense of place, purpose, and role in society. Lost, as he is, in the sea of humanity. In example, the social separation, incessant gambling and personal isolation demonstrated by Stephen Paddock exactly points to such an existential dilemma. Henry David Thoreau coined the term “quiet desperation” way back in the mid 1800’s in his early warning about our civilization’s loss of value as we disconnect from the rhythms of nature. But today, our general human desperation is deafeningly louder as multitudes of egos scamper for attention on social media, ever lowering the bar of decency, of sanity. Could the maddening of some of our weaker souls in this environment of imbalance be nature’s way of foreshadowing a cruel rebalance, a course usually taken via plagues, pestilence and warfare? Warfare, by the way, is sadly not unthinkable given the Trump verses Kim Jong Il showdown of egos.

I recently read author Dan Brown’s “Inferno,” the theme of which book speaks to our present global population crisis. The mass of purposeless human beings on our globe today, grasping for self-expression, for psychological existence, was likened to Botticelli’s famous Mappa dell’Inferno which depicts Dante’s seven layers of Hell. In response to this human crisis a supposed genius and figurehead of the trans-humanist movement, throughout the book appearing to be a madman until the end, manufactured a virus which infected the human race, making a certain percentage of our population sterile in order to decelerate our global population growth and buy time for human progress to champion sustainability. Better than mass murder was the idea, whether mass murder via the hands of ruthless human beings, or cruel nature. But let me ask a more profound question. Is overpopulation, meaninglessness and human desperation the root problem or is our greater disrespect for ourselves and one another the true culprit?

Underlying all our human problems is our misguided way of thinking about ourselves and each other—our larger spiritual bankruptcy. Author Ernest Becker is right in his book “The Denial of Death” when he identifies the human heroic impulse as the deepest, most powerful, and indeed most promising energy source for a true and even exponential progress in human affairs. But here is where I will add, only if the individual learns to direct his and her right and noble impulse to be the hero, outward and toward the elevation of humanity itself through serving one another rather than inwardly seeking to outshine others. The former path leads to the ennobling of our species while the latter leads to inferno and chaos where our weakest members, created equally to shine, will not perceive any other outlet than either the unbearable desperation of empty anonymity, or infamy.

The solution, I offer, is a new and enlightened people’s movement where the individual is called upon to live per his and her unique conscience. By introducing a heroic culture of conscience charged to every individual root of grass [grassroots], we will challenge ourselves to finally wake up and become the adult in our social dealings rather than spiritually maintaining, as a species, in the throes of our terrible two’s. When all persons are challenged to live chivalrously in open and serving heroism we will see the dawning of our collective intelligence, creativity, and flourishing. Although the more “well adjusted” and “healthier” of us might choose to make children and build families as our best way of achieving meaning in an otherwise empty world, as presumably directed by God Himself in his command to “be fruitful and multiply,” we only end up adding to the sea of despair through an overpopulation of the otherwise aimless. While if we adopted a new culture of self-giving chivalry, we might find that we naturally incline either to self-limit our human additions to an imperfect globe while we vocationally dedicate ourselves to its improvement, or at least make sure our children have a heroically sustainable place in a nobler world. Then might we see our destiny as a great species!

The self-hatred, indeed the wickedness in us which would wag our heads at this impossibly idealistic vision is the very poison which now keeps us in self-imposed desperation, and those who succumb to it deserves the world as it stands right now. I for one don’t. For all his emphasis on the meaningfulness of living in sync with nature’s rhythms, Henry David Thoreau himself went on to leave his beloved Walden Pond for a life of intellectual service to his fellow man. Why, because humanity is indeed made for a higher meaning than mere naturalism and the multiplication of our species, perhaps to transcend our very earth in cosmic destiny. I therefore respond, like Thoreau, to this higher call by challenging the reader to delve into this providential message further by accessing my free indie essay series at smashwords.com titled “The E=MC2 of our New Humanity,” and to take up the gauntlet for a nobler future in partnering with my social vision at NewAmericanSpring.Org.

Revolution of vision, evolution of world…