I was arguing in the previous post that we think using images stored in our memory. While we are convinced that we deal with real ‘objects’… ‘Hammers’ versus ‘nails’…
As you should have already noticed, Abraham Maslow had said more or less the same thing sometimes in the first half of the previous century… Well, he was a ‘clinical’ psychologist while I’m nothing more than an engineer. He was interested in how our mind works, I’m interested in the consequences of how our minds work. If you understand what I mean…
‘And what about the pretext you used for today’s post?’
Free market capitalism is nothing but an environment. Man made, for sure, but also ‘natural’. As in ‘evolved’ to the present state as opposed to ‘designed’ in the present state. Free market capitalism doesn’t do/cause anything. People toiling in this environment do whatever happens here.
Gravity doesn’t cause any falls.
Gravity pulls us, all of us, towards the center of the Earth. Regardless. Of us walking sober in the middle of the town versus skating ‘under the influence’ on a thin iced lake in the middle of nowhere.
Recent developments have helped me to understand something. And no, not the fact that there are more worlds out there. One happy about what’s going on, one horrified and a few rather indifferent.
Trump being elected for a second term as President of the United States hasn’t changed much in the real world. Not yet, anyway. What it had changed, dramatically, was our image of the world. Of the US, in particular, but also of the world as a whole.
This development has helped me to understand that we don’t deal in realities. We don’t consider things, make decisions, by examining the things themselves. No!
We consider things by examining the images we have in our minds.
We look at things and we get a ‘set of data’. A virtual image. We recollect from our memory whatever other information we have on the subject. Another image. We put two and two together. And we reach a conclusion. Most of the time ignoring the fact that we’ve been dealing with images instead of the real thing.
Until we are forced to acknowledge that our image was incomplete. Inaccurate… Or that, simply, we’ve chosen to see what was more comfortable for us!
By 1917 it seemed to Lenin that the war would never end and that the prospect of revolution was rapidly receding. But in the week of March 8–15, the starving, freezing, war-weary workers and soldiers of Petrograd (until 1914, St. Petersburg) succeeded in deposing the Tsar. Lenin and his closest lieutenants hastened home after the German authorities agreed to permit their passage through Germany to neutral Sweden. Berlin hoped that the return of anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort.
Do you remember the story about the early American Colonists “gifting of blankets and linens contaminated with smallpox” to the native inhabitants of the place? It worked, to a degree, because the natives had no prior experience with the disease. Their immune systems had no prior experience with this pathogen. Which had been construed as an opportunity by those who had cooked up the plan, even though – in those times – nobody had any idea about ‘immunity’.
Lenin was also effective towards pulling the Czarist Empire out of WWI. Do we really care whether he was aware of the fact that he had been used as a 5-th column by Kaiser Wilhelm II’s strategists?
Life, in general, is about species evolving in a given set of circumstances. If the circumstances allow it, live will appear. And survive for as long as the circumstances remain livable. We must keep in mind that life changes the environment in which it evolves. Social life, the human kind in particular, is about cultural species evolving in given sets of circumstances. For as long as the circumstances remain livable, cultural species will continue to evolve. To put their culture to work and to build civilizations. Each set of circumstances influencing both the culture which inhabits the circumstances and the civilization being built there.
Currently, there are three main categories of cultures. Imperial, democratic and incomplete.
I will start by noting that those cultures which are ‘incomplete’ have remained so because they didn’t have enough time to make ‘full use’ of the limited resources they had at their disposal. The difference between the imperial and the democratic cultures being the fact that the imperial ones stagnate as soon as they reach a certain level of development while the democratic ones continue to evolve for as long as they manage to remain democratic. To retain their ability to change as soon and as far as they need in order to survive. To maintain their democratic character.
Need proof? Are you familiar with any empire which had lasted for long? The Egyptian? 33 dynasties covering 3 millennia? Is that long enough for you? Well, not so fast. ’33 dynasties’ actually means 33 different empires. It was very seldom that a dynasty ended when/because there was no available successor… Most dynasties were removed from power rather than petered out. And, nevertheless, who cares about why a certain dynasty was replaced by the next one?!? The simple fact that it was replaced is enough for me. The replaced dynasty was no longer able to cope! Hence it had to make place for the next one. Another set of decision makers, naturally following a (however slightly) different mantra.
Don’t believe me? Consider any other empire. Evaluate the duration for which each dynasty had managed to hold the helm. And compare it with the fact that the Roman Republic had survived, as a functional democracy, for almost 5 centuries.
And no, Europe isn’t the only place where democratic forms of self-rule had happened during human history. Kurultai, Loya-Jirga… The mere existence of the concepts is proof enough for the budding democracies which might have developed in those places, given enough time and resources.
Then, if democracy is so much ‘better’ – as in more helpful towards the survival of a certain set of mores/culture – then why is it so ‘scarce’?
Well, for democracy to remain functional, at least some wise men need to remain both strong and focused on the job at hand. Otherwise, the helm will be confiscated by the would be strong but not so wise….
And why is it that good times tend to make weak people? First of all, good times tend to weaken ‘the people’. Not as much to weaken the individuals living a good life as to make them careless. To take the good times for granted. To convince them that ‘times’ will continue to remain good regardless…..
Not having to struggle for their day to day existence tends to make ‘some of the wisest, happiest, and most peaceful men and women to spend much of their time alone at home, steering clear of UNNECESSARY drama, negativity and chaos’.
This being how successful democracies sometimes succumb to tyranny and how empires eventually crumble under their own weight.
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil:
We live in a world of our own making. We build it by talking ourselves into shaping it one way or another. If not careful, we end up building a lie!
Competition has nothing to do with what’s going on in the jungle!
The jungle is about eat or be eaten! Competition is about rules. Follow the rule or you’re kicked out before you get to the end! The competition stops being true the moment you break the rule and your co-competitors do not throw you out. By not throwing you out, those in attendance have just transformed that particular pitch into a jungle!
“Cooperation is the law of the civilization!“ This part is true. But incomplete! As I explained before, to compete implies to cooperate. Those involved in a competition want to know who amongst them is better in a particular field. And COOPERATE in order to find that answer. By doing that they also build what we currently call ‘civilization’.
Kropotkin might be forgiven for what he had said. He didn’t get to witness the Chinese Cultural Revolution. That was the true pinnacle of ‘cooperation’! Not civilized by any measure…
We really need to be more careful with words. With what we say and with what we end up holding to be true!
Etiquette is a matter of social interaction. A mannerism used to convey ‘we are in sync’. ‘We see eye to eye’ on most matters that count.
In this picture, one of the two men are dressed ‘inappropriately’. According to the ‘normal’ etiquette.
This is ‘posturing’. That choice of attire – in flagrant breach of ‘comme il faut’ – is a constant reminder to the rest of the world that he, and his country, are not ‘normal’. Like the rest of us still are. For now…
We can accept his ‘look’. Demonstrating that we feel with him. And with his country!
Sometimes reading about history is not enough. You might need to live at least some aspects of it…
I’m sure most of you are familiar with this notion. With the notion that war is an art and that Sun Tzu was at least a notable teacher. In this domain. And the second place goes to
Now, that we have established whom we consider to be the THE greatest experts on war, would you be so kind as to tell me when was the last time that China – or Germany, for that matter – had vanquished their opponents? After their respective treaties on war had been compiled…
My point being that a really ‘successful’ war ends with both parties understanding that there’s no point in fighting one. That whenever the winner starts boasting about their exploits, that war has been fought for nothing. The winner might have won the war but they certainly had lost the peace. My secondary point – and, maybe, the more important one – being that we tend to treat the current war using the knowledge gathered during the previous one, Which seems rational, right?!?
Yeah… well… The only successful war in our recent history – and only partially at that – was WWII. WWI was fought for nothing. At the end, the victors had copied the actions of those who had won the previous wars. Imposed hefty reparations upon the vanquished. Hence the advent of Hitler. WWII was not only terrible but also widespread. France, Germany, Italy, the Central Europe and, to a central extent, the Great Britain have been so thoroughly destroyed that people there did learn their lesson. No more war. Hence a completely different approach to peace than after WWI. Inclusion of the former aggressor instead of punishment.
The next global war was the Cold one. Fought mainly between the two WWII victors who had not directly experienced war. The US and the USSR.
What?!?
Well, just think about it. France, Germany, Italy and so on had been occupied. Experienced hot war on a first hand manner for years on end. Great Britain had not only fought but had also been bombarded. The US had fought in the war but only Hawai’i had directly experienced it. And when it comes to the USSR the situation is… complicated. The eastern part of the WWII had been fought mainly in Ukraine and in the western part of Russia proper. The only main city directly affected by war was Sankt Petersburg/Leningrad. The rest of the Russian Federation had experienced less disturbance than western Ukraine in the present conflict. And what did the free world do after the Cold war had been concluded? Specially the Americans? Boasted? About their exploits?
How was the loser treated? The westerners tried to do what the allies had done after WWII? Integrate the loser into the ‘brave new world’? Without understanding that the loser had not accepted its status?
We don’t get what we deserve, we get what we put up with.
How did we get here?
Then
What is Truth? Pilate
Well, there are two kinds of truth. The one you feel with your shin when you hit a coffee table. And the one you feel in your heart when those present laugh at you hopping on one leg while caressing the hurt one.
Which two kinds of truth divide us, people, into two categories. Those trying to patch ‘an ever-changing truth’ out of many individual pictures – each of them the consequence of a ‘shin’ happening to connect with a portion of the ‘outside world’. Which people are currently known as ‘scientists’. And those trying to reach ‘the truth’. By thinking, by divination, by… God only knows what any other means… Philosophers, theologians, quacks…
I was trained as an engineer. To notice needs and to design solutions while evaluating the possible consequences of those needs being met by the proposed solutions. Which places me squarely into the first category.
“Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia acknowledged “constructive changes” in the U.S. position on the conflict. He told the council the resolution was “not an ideal one,” but “a starting point for future efforts towards peaceful settlement.””
By sending the Red Army to invade Ukraine, Putin had crossed a red line. The rest of the world noticed.
Some played possum. ‘Let’s stay out of it. And maybe, maybe, get something for ourselves’. The majority said “No! This is too much.”
Russia does have veto-power in the UN Security Council. Hence the dead-lock.
The Biden led US and the EU had chosen to support Ukraine. And to sanction the Putin regime.
Every day, people are being killed. Soldiers on the front and civilians under aerial bombardment. Reasonable individuals want the fighting to stop.
Easier said than done. Putin might say: ‘My bad!’ and tell his soldiers to go home. Ukraine might agree, on its own volition, with enough of Putin’s demands. And, hopefully, get at least a respite. Or those helping Ukraine might say: ‘We had enough. From now on, you’re on your own.’
Putin is not yet ready to back off. Ukraine is not yet ready to cave in. ‘Somebody’ is getting ready to act as a mediator.
What are the immediate consequences?
Putin is back. No longer an outcast!
Is the rest of the world ready? For it to go back? Back to what was going on before WWI but on a far wider scale?
““The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”
Bulgaria is a Balcanic country. Having evolved more or less together, the Balcanic countries share many cultural traits. Nevertheless, individual countries do have their own characteristics. Bulgaria does have a particular one. The name, Bulgaria, comes from a Turkic tribe. Who had conquered the area in the VII-th century and established the first Bulgarian Empire. Yet the Bulgarian people is mainly Slavic. Speaks a Slavic language and has remained Christian Orthodox despite having been ruled directly by the Islamic Ottoman Empire from 1396 to 1878. Hence it is safe to consider that the Bulgarians do know a thing or two about keeping their shit together, don’t you think?
On the other hand, who, in their right mind, would want to find themselves on the other side of the bridge? Alone with the devil?!?
Maybe ‘devil’ has different meanings for different people…
We, in our cozy world, where everything is just about fine, consider the devil to be the absolute evil. We are taught to believe that.
Yet things were not so clearly cut in the good old days.
The Bulgarian experience suggests that when the shit hits the fan, maybe it is wiser to put aside some of the things which made you consider your neighbour was ‘untouchable’ and join forces with them. Until the real danger is gone…
An even older experience, the one shared in the Bible, suggests that the Devil had a defining contribution in us becoming ‘like one of them (Gods)’. After all, it was ‘he’ who had taught Eve to eat the fruit which empowered her to “know good and evil”. It was ‘he’ who prodded Eve, who prodded Adam, to become conscious human beings…
Let me continue this post by sharing a story. Not a funny one but which fits in this context.
I’m not sure about 3. though. Keeping your mouth shut is not always the best option. Not in the longer run… Use your better judgement instead of letting others tell you what to do.
Having just told you to use your own better judgement instead of letting others tell you what to do, I now suggest that you click on the following link. And read Niemoller’s life story: https://hmd.org.uk/resource/pastor-martin-niemoller-hmd-2021/
nicichiarasa 