Assign "the common good" to the trash bin of English history

Dear Fellow Citizens:

             I appreciate your work and expressions, and write to suggest, for your unique collaboration, a slogan that commits-to both integrity rather than honesty and to the-ineluctable-evidence more than to traditional constructs --- pursues to Americans reading journals/media the-ineluctable-truth through civic-integrity. Civic-citizens read& write with comprehension& intention to human being (verb).

 The challenge

            I would like a slogan that challenges civic-citizens including journalists to neither initiate nor accommodate harm to or from any person or institution. I don’t think “give”, “truth”, and “honest”, in your seasonal solicitation, accept the power of human being.

Dictionaries report usage more than reliability and sometimes leave the reader uncertain. Only human-beings can independently and corporately pursue comprehensive safety and security where they live. Neither God nor government can usurp human being.

During 10,000 years with language and 6,000 years with grammar, humankind has not developed the words and phrases to promote human being responsibility: order and prosperity to life on earth. Successive generations traditionally neglected civic-responsibility until today it no longer seems feasible to leave reform to the next generation. The divergent chaos that is evident in 2022 suggests that, in self-interest, this generation ought to accelerate comprehension and intention to personal& collaborative responsibility.

I think The Epoch Times can lead and suggest this slogan: Fellow-citizens Discover The-ineluctable-truth through Civic-integrity. In other words, civic-integrity is a personal self-interest. This slogan, or your improvement, incorporates journalists as responsible fellow-citizens and avoids the insufficient usages: give, truth, and honest. To solicit contributions, the slogan can be adapted to: Support Journalism that Pursues The-ineluctable-truth, or Support Civic-integrity to The-ineluctable-truth. In future, the slogan might reduce to Practice The-ineluctable-truth to Human Being (v.).

 Potential human being (verb)

            So far, in the development of human being (verb), most judges, lawyers, politicians, writers, educators, journalists, and clergy influence humankind to neglect two practices: civic-integrity and the-ineluctable-truth. Neglect eventually fails, because it relies on constructs like belief, faith, reason, revelation, perseverance, precedent, tradition, enterprise, coercion, or force. Reliability is pursued when the researcher accepts-to-self, “I don’t know”, what they labor to discover.

Aliens to human being discovered long ago that most adults are too busy trying to survive and are gullible to elite falsehoods, for example, “the common good” (see below). Adults can improve civic-integrity, in order to lessen the influence of alien-elites, both foreign and domestic. Integrity cannot be given: it must be earned.

 Definitions and opinions

            Civic-integrity expresses reliability in human connections& transactions more than conformity to civilization or legality: rules. When a rule is unjust, the civic-citizen upholds the law by observing the code while appealing to legislators to enact statutory-justice.

Also, the civic-citizen requires religious canon-law to conform to the U.S. constitution, even when Congressional legislation must be amended. For example, the civic-citizens, We the People of the United States who conform to the preamble, can& ought-to amend the First Amendment’s religious-practice clause to: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or [promoting] the free exercise thereof. Pursuing religion is a private, adult choice rather than a civil imposition.

Throughout life, the civic-citizen both observes the law and aids continual improvement toward statutory-justice. They do so in the self-interest to pursue comprehensive safety and security, so that each civic-citizen may pursue the happiness they want rather than submit to someone else’s vision for them. Comprehension& intention to responsibly-pursue personal happiness cannot be given; it must be earned.

That honesty is insufficient to integrity is demonstrated by the principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In other words, civic-citizens accept responsibility to discourage criminals from assuming innocent-ignorance, by requiring the truly-unaware-offender to suffer the same law. Civic-citizens know that honesty is no substitute for integrity.

When injustice is discovered, civic-citizens propose well-grounded amendment of the law based on the-ineluctable-evidence more than on legal precedence, democracy, or populism. For example, no civic-citizen holds that their enslavement is just. Therefore, neither legal or religious doctrine nor majority vote can uphold slavery. Yet slavery persists within human factions. A civic-people can& may amend, to the-ineluctable-truth, existing law-systems that accommodate slavery.

Word-usage studies

The phrases “civic integrity” and “ineluctable truth” may seem new, yet have been published in both British-English and American-English since 1844 and 1906, respectively. Scanned-book statistics from Google ngram[*] are in the attached tables.

Writers published "civic integrity" in British-English about 15 years earlier than in American-English. About 30% relative peaks occurred in 1902 and 1896, respectively. In 1908 American-English, “civic integrity” usage peaked. Peaks and valleys swapped between civic integrity and ineluctable truth in British-English during 1926 through 2019. Then, "ineluctable truth" was thrice dominant in British-English, compared to nearly balanced in American-English, at 20% of the 1908 “civic integrity” peak.

            World events impact usage (see data Table B). For example, 1844 to 1858 was intense regarding the abolition of slavery; Darwin furthered interest in evolution. In America, 1896 was fraught with women’s suffrage and Jim Crowe laws. In 1966, the Vietnam War was controversial. In the early 1990s, Russia dissolved, and African apartheid ended. The 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center may have promoted the 2005 peak in British usage and the 2011 peak in American usage.

Extended study

            Neither phrase has ever been in wide use. In Table A, the highest usage is 6925 per billion. For example, if we add “common good” to the study, both “civic integrity” and “ineluctable truth” are driven to the abscises line -- graphically zeroed. In British-English “common good” reaches 2,703,601 per billion (390% if listed in Table B).

Adding “slavery” and starting in year 1500 rather than 1800, indicates higher interest and invites speculation:  Insufficient language represses thought. For example, with “truth” focus, a thinker cannot imagine “not to be avoided, changed, escaped, neglected, or resisted”. Definitive thought is difficult even with modification to “ineluctable truth”, and some mistakenly choose “inescapable truth”.

The American-English view has “slavery” peaking in 1526, joined by cycles with “common good” from 1606 to 1690, increasing from 1750 through 1863, then declining but to somewhat higher interest in 2019. The British-English view has similar focus from 1606 to 1690, and a pronounced peak for “slavery” in 1968, perhaps following the U.S. civil rights act.

What if the Catholic Church had, in the 15^th century, abolished slavery instead of “authorizing” it? Protestant/Deist John Locke published “Two Treatises of Government” in 1690, and both “common good” and “slavery” are argued. Did John Locke (b. 1632) erroneously, unintentionally exacerbate the African Slave Trade (1619-1801)[†] -- for “the common good”?

Interests in different nations

I viewed ngrams in several languages to compare “ineluctable” with “inescapable”. There was intense interest in “ineluctable” in 1574 British-English and strong preference for “inescapable” beginning 1944. “Ineluctable” peaked in 1657 American-English, fell to almost no use 1900 1900, and “inescapable” was 8:1 favored in 2019. Oddly, the English ngram shows a peak sequence in 1552 and 1575 – “inescapable” then “ineluctable”. I have not discovered an explanation. The Spanish ngram has “ineluctable” peak in 1702, 1743, and 1968. In 2019, “ineluctable” is favored 5:1. French, German, and Italian favor “inescapable”. In Italian, “inevitabile” graphically-zeroes the English terms and peaks in 1530. In summary, only Spain seems to favor “ineluctable”. The fact that courts routinely use precedent to escape ineluctable-evidence directs my preference: “ineluctable” lessens the opportunity to escape the-ineluctable-truth. 

Traditional advice

Following the erroneous adage “write for the audience,” modern writers may expect dominant popular-comprehension by choosing “common good” rather than “civic integrity”. Likewise, choose “truth” rather than “inescapable truth” or “ineluctable truth”, because few readers know those words. Consequently, the writer who insists on “the-ineluctable-truth” is forced into obscurity. In other words, by tradition, writers publish ignorance. The Epoch Times can change that ruinous dilemma through choosing exactly defined terms and using them consistently. Civic-citizens learn, given the opportunity.

My usages

I use hyphens to invite the reader to not disassemble phrases. Thus, I write civic-integrity, to invite the reader to think of duty to-self, through appreciating fellow-citizens. In other words, “civic” expresses reliability to human being (verb) rather than to rules, laws, or favor. On the other hand, civic-integrity requires citizens to support law codes, in order to facilitate& encourage reform to offenders. For example, appreciating the question, “Is there a God?”, the extant answer is the-ineluctable-truth, and the article “the” is essential to the expression. The answer is: We don’t know.

“The-ineluctable-truth” invites people to admit to self, “I don’t know”, when that is so. Adding to the definition in Merriam-Webster online, “ineluctable” means: “not to be avoided, changed, escaped, neglected, or resisted. Thus, the-ineluctable-truth about something cannot be contested by reason, revelation, coercion, force, doctrine, tradition, usage, or any other human construct. It requires “I don’t know” when that is so.

“Truth” means “the body of real things, events, and facts”, which provides the opportunity to debate “real”. “Truth” is insufficient.

Conclusion

Imagine what “Anglo-American tradition” might be if John Locke had discovered “civic-integrity” and “the-ineluctable-truth” for 1690 publication. Civic-citizens might then own the slogan: Fellow-citizens Discover The-ineluctable-truth through Civic-integrity -- and the promotion Support Civic-integrity to The-ineluctable-truth. Yet reform to civic-integrity can happen without ever reviewing English tradition.

Please consider, explore, and pursue these ideas. I could convert this to an article for publication and would write a brief introduction of my person. You could assign a journalist to collaborate with me and research questions like, “Why does Spain favor “ineluctable”? I want to help and hope you positively respond to this letter.

                                                            Sincerely,

 

                                                            Phillip R. Beaver

Attachment:  Tables A and B.

 225-766-7365

phillip@beaver.brcoxmail.com

Copyright©2022 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included.

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[*] Please create the ngrams at Google Ngram Viewer. Enter “civic integrity,ineluctable truth”. Accept 1800 to 2019. Choose “British English”, then “American English”, in separate views.

[†] Atlantic slave trade - Wikipedia