An Achievable Better Future
Thank you, fellow citizens, for the chance to introduce you to the leading edge of a specific civic task: establishing actual use of the United States preamble.
I write and speak to express a dream and to make it attractive and convincing so that the listener may want to clarify the premises, collaborate to discover the practices that are implied, help create a plan of action, and begin to reap the benefits of living an achievable better future. My approach is to describe the bases of the imagined future without apology or derivation, leaving that collaboration for the fellow citizens who, perhaps with us, may actually capture the dream and make it happen.
In other words, this essay is not intended to prove the premises. So the reader is asked to accept them in order to grasp the dream. If the dream is favorable the hard work of improving the statements today may seem worthwhile and can be accomplished in time. My language is necessarily specific, so listen with an open ear and alacrity to accommodate new uses for old words. For example, “civic” herein is like “live and let live,” and I hope that may be evident as I talk. Sometimes, I seem repetitive, and I am comfortable with it.
There is an achievable better future! Let’s make it happen.
Being human within humankind
Each individual human life is a brief experience in the continuum of families that make up humankind. Family development often seems unattended or random but could drive the progress of humankind itself. So far, it seems humankind’s psychological development lags technological development. The consequence of humankind’s psychological lag can be ruinous for the individual who does not individually attend to his or her psychological development.
Every human being has the individual power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (IPEA) to either develop integrity or not. (There won’t be any more acronyms, so its OK to learn this one at least for this essay: IPEA means individual power, energy, and authority.) If an individual chooses to develop integrity, fidelity follows. Integrity is a practice, and fidelity empowers civic human connections.[1] Integrity entails both understanding and morality in connections with fellow citizens.
If a person, unfortunately, chooses to develop crime, his or her IPEA does not weaken. He or she may become a crime-master. However, to have a civic culture, a people collaborate to constrain crime. In this context, “civic” means living people who during their cognitive lives collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security, hereafter Security. The civic needs of today surpass the civic needs of the past, yet there is an abiding civic integrity.
Like a tsunami’s uncontrollable advance, a newborn human’s life unstoppably unfolds from a feral state unto young adulthood. The young adult either emerges with the understanding and intent to live a full human life or not. Fortunate is the person who develops integrity. Developing integrity is essential to human fullness. Most human beings could have been more than they become.
The human being is so psychologically powerful it takes a quarter century for his or her body to complete construction of the wisdom parts of the brain, and another few years of experience and observations for his or her personal preferences to emerge. Without integrity and fidelity, wisdom may never come. Caregivers may encourage and coach the individual, but the decision to develop integrity can only be made by the person.
It might seem nice if an individual could know who they’d like to be just before their body, mind, and person stop functioning. However, there would be no opportunity for self-discovery and development of personal preferences. The individual’s families may encourage him or her in youth to develop integrity without exception, but only the individual can make his or her cumulative choices leading to maturity or not.
Integrity is established by fidelity. If an individual elects infidelity, the mistake may[2] be undone if the person wishes to re-establish his or her journey to integrity. The delay and any harm caused are losses in personal time and property yet may be corrective. That is, error is often a person’s teacher. Fortunate is the person whose harmless error can be corrected---perhaps as lucky as the person who reaches high ground in a storm surge.
Often human error is nearly ruinous. It is important for the individual not to accept ruin; to never give up the quest for integrity.
In a civic culture, most adults would, by example, encourage and coach children to embrace IPEA and to use it to develop integrity. Never has such a culture existed, yet the U.S. may be at a moral abyss and on the brink of ascent to civic integrity. If so, we may help.
Developing IPEA
The human being is so physically and psychologically powerful that it takes about three decades to acquire the understanding and intent to live a complete human lifetime. Whereas a lion is mature in 3 years and an elephant in 25 years, a human body has not completed construction of the wisdom-building parts of the brain until a quarter century has passed. Human maturity occurs late in life, perhaps in the seventh decade if at all. Integrity is as essential to human psychological power as the thumb is to human physical power. Through integrity, the individual develops fidelity to the-objective-truth.
However, accepting bemusement by appetites, societies, civilizations, and governments, most people never adopt IPEA. Instead, they assume by tradition that another entity will oversee their development of maturity as time passes. Some attempt to assign this responsibility to their god. The habit is shared from generation to generation. Many people take advantage of this habit and promise to serve others in surrogate authority but in fact, use the bargain to unfavorably control the individual. By this process, past generations have neglected the U.S. preamble’s power for mutual civic discipline. Scholars erroneously claim the preamble is an agreement for self-governance rather than civic discipline.
The IPEA-family
Consequently, the physical family that attends to IPEA is essential to human development. Thus, a man and a woman who are mutually attracted may develop a bond for monogamy for life. Their bond has the support of four parent-in-laws with their families and friends. The couple may share their trust and commitment with progeny. Parents and children develop IPEA-lives that hold promise for the parents’ grandchildren. The grandchildren who procreate will each add another pair of grandparents bringing the immediate-past diversity to six family lines. Perhaps this physical commitment to human posterity provides ideal psychological development for the individual. With a majority of individuals practicing IPEA, the collective We the People of the United States may be empowered by IPEA.
Integrity
Integrity is a practice: recognize a personal concern, imposed fear, or wonder; discover whether the object of interest addresses actual reality (the-objective-truth), human construct, or a mirage; understand how actual reality invokes interest and how to benefit from the understanding; behave accordingly; share with fellow citizens why you behave so and LISTEN to their responses for opportunity to collaborate for mutual improvement; be alert for the need to change, for example, upon new discovery.
When the practice is inconclusive, the individual assents that the-objective-truth has not been discovered. In integrity, the person who does not know proclaims, “I do not know.” However, it seems not objectionable to express well-grounded opinion about the unknown. If action is required, it may be taken but not in conflict with the interconnected discoveries or the-objective-truth.
A civic culture
In a civic culture, most people are at a specific progress in their journey toward integrity or none. They are aware that some fellow citizens use IPEA for infidelity and by example encourage reform. That is, the civic fellow citizens encourage and coach dissidents to reform but hope motivation comes from exemplary behavior. Yet both a civic people and dissidents remain fellow citizens.
Justice
In a civic culture, most fellow citizens understand that civic behavior comes from personal consent to collaborate for mutual, comprehensive safety and security, hereafter Security.
History shows that living humans are on various moral and chronological paths; dissident fellow citizens may always be expected, so there is the need for statutory justice.
In order to collaborate to discover justice, there must be consent to develop law and law enforcement. Many fellow citizens are not aware of equal justice under law let alone its practice. Perhaps that is because political regimes develop dominant opinion rather than collaborate to discover and observe the-objective-truth, which I explain later.
U.S. civic agreement
In the United States, the established civic agreement on which the quest for statutory justice is organized is the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, hereafter the U.S. preamble. It is a civic, civil, and legal agreement. People queue to enter a concert on civic behavior. People observe traffic regulations on civil behavior. People serve on juries under legal behavior.
The preamble offers an agreement for mutual self-discipline rather than governance. Neighbors do not want to govern but some like support in the work for self-discipline. The preamble seems the world’s greatest political sentence because it tacitly offers fellow citizens the opportunity for individual happiness with civic integrity rather than “the happiness” someone else would impose. Fellow citizens who adopt the U.S. preamble discipline themselves and manage their local, state, and national governments by voting for representatives who will act for civic integrity.
The-objective-truth
In scholarly articles about “truth” there’s never a resolution of the debate between nature and reason; science and religion; earth and heaven; evolution and God; my truth and yours. However, there exists a response to every query, and whatever that response is in each case is the-objective-truth (with two hyphens to keep the phrase whole). The-object-truth exists and can only be discovered. For example, there may be an entity that controls the unfolding of the universe, but humankind has not yet discovered whether it’s a god, God, or physics, the object of scientific study.
Physics rather than science
We now know that Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a law rather than mere theory.[3] Mass and energy are interchangeable at the speed of light. Expressing this law as physics, the object of all scientific study, it seems that everything emerges from physics. Clearly, science is not an object but is a process for discovery.
We understand the forces that control the planets and their orbits by the discovery of physics’ laws. Likewise, we understand the workings of living beings through physics and its progeny, biology. Similarly, we understand psychology through the relation of physics, biology, and mathematics to behavior. Spiritualism seems the study of possibilities that have not yet been negated by discovery. Fiction lives on despite discovery. Science fiction and romance expand the bounds of imagination. However, physics does not respond to fiction, reason or other human constructs.
Conforming to physics (the object of study rather than the study process) provides a basis for civic collaboration to discover statutory justice.
Integrity rather than ethics
Einstein informed humankind in 1941[4] that the laws of science and the laws of ethics come from the same source. He spoke at a conference on science and religion and traditionally spoke for the audience. In other words, the words he used may have been popular rather than accurate. His only example was that “’Thou shalt not lie’ has been traced back to the demands: ‘Human life shall be preserved’ and ‘Pain and sorrow shall be lessened as much as possible’,” rather than to conform to Jewish doctrine.[5] Just as “physics,” the object of study, seems more expressive than science, the study; “integrity,” the practice, seems more expressive than “ethics,” a discovery process. Thus, I paraphrase Einstein’s message: Physics and integrity come from the same source: actual reality or the-objective-truth.
Being human
So far, individuals live in a conflicted world wherein most infants may or may not, over the unforgiving march of time, discover their opportunity to develop individual humanity rather than join the competition for dominant opinion or an organization for someone else’s political cause. The concepts presented herein, especially IPEA, are not presented to children much less developed among adults. Thus, human psychology lags technology.
Instead of using IPEA to develop integrity, self-discipline and fidelity people compete and war for dominance. Rather than accept human equality and dignity, most people vie for political power, either individually or by fruitlessly submitting IPEA to managers of a collective such as a church.
Equality
Among human beings, the basis of equality is mutual consent to a standard. Scholars lamely debate equal justice under law.[6] But humans are too physically and psychologically powerful to accept arbitrary laws. In other words, people who accept IPEA manage arbitrary laws to personal advantage over fellow citizens. Therefore, the development of statutory justice must be based on physics or a better expression of the-objective-truth on of you may discover. Only with a neutral standard can most fellow citizens apply IPEA to develop integrity. Scholars use the term “nature” to favor “reason,” repressing the-objective-truth.
Dignity
Human dignity is earned in privacy according to whether or not the individual uses IPEA to develop integrity. The Bernard Madoff’s of the world use IPEA to develop and nourish banal appetites until the chief value their person serves is to exemplify the remorse of gratitude for food, lodging, and health-care under the dole of prison. Some criminals avoid prison yet suffer the remorse of self-doubt.
Education
Education begins at birth and ends at death. The education system that most cultures have evolved is upside down. By that, I mean the educators assume they know what the student needs to know rather than what the student needs to learn: the discipline of life-long learning.[7] That is, educators think they must transfer knowledge when in fact they ought to encourage and coach students in acquiring individual discipline in learning.
After inculcating the basics of reading, comprehension, writing, and physics (E=mC-squared from which everything emerges), the education system ought to allow the individual to develop the awareness, understanding, and intent he or she needs to live a full human life. A civic culture empowers civic people who become free people. That is, people who are free from both external and internal constraints.
The stages in learning in the education system by which humans may flourish include awareness, personal autonomy, civic connection, comprehensive understanding, intent to collaborate for statutory justice, professionally serving fellow humans, civic integrity, fidelity, and self-discovery. Human error must not be allowed to terminate the quest, yet few humans become all they could be.
A civic culture does not exist because no nation or people has ever developed its children with an education system designed to encourage and coach each person to be all they can be.
Civic discipline under the U.S. preamble
With at least 2/3 of fellow citizens practicing civic discipline under the U.S. preamble, a civic culture may gradually develop. With shared purpose and goals, public discourse may gradually change from animosity over dominant opinion to appreciation for collaboration for civic integrity. Collaboration by most fellow citizens may lead to local, state, and national reliability: officials collaborating for the U.S. preamble’s goals and the-objective-truth rather than for partisan power. Individual happiness may accrue on some revolutionary changes.
Establishing U.S. practices rather than English tradition
One reason the U.S. preamble, the world’s greatest political sentence, has been suppressed for 230 years is that for 229 years the dominant political regimes have sought to re-establish British common law, Blackstone, with factional American Protestantism. We the People of the United States may examine everything Congress has done and if legislation restored British tradition at the expense of the purpose and goals of the U.S. preamble, correct the legislation. Establish U.S. independence from British colonialism at last.
Eventually, there may be constitutional amendments. For example, rather than defending religion, an institution that serves privacy, the First Amendment might defend civic integrity, both an individual opportunity and a collective duty. In civic integrity, fellow citizens neither compromise each other’s gods nor collaborate on other privacies.
The militia authorization of Amendment 2 might be replaced with self-defense and hunting, constraining public protest to un-armed and undisruptive expression. Such change becomes possible because elected officials consider themselves fellow citizens collaborating for the U.S. preamble’s purpose and goals. In a civic culture, both individuals and societies flourish provided that they conform to statutory justice.
This vision of a possible future may seem impossible at this moment, but that seems so only because public use of the U.S. preamble with the-objective-truth to establish statutory justice has never been tried in the history of the world.
Summary: the achievable principles and their consequences
We suggest that IPEA, use of the civic self-discipline that is offered in the U.S. preamble, collaboration for civic integrity or the-objective-truth, and attention to posterity rather than adult satisfactions offers an achievable, better future. Statutory justice may be discovered from physics rather than arbitrary opinion or reasoning. These mere conceptions need individual collaboration and improvement for success to accrue. The consequence may be the establishment of We the People of the United States rather than the lame “we, the people,” at last. The people of the world might celebrate.
Next steps for interested citizens
If what you have heard seems motivating, you may want to collaborate to use and further develop the principles. There are, in our blog, titled “A Civic People,” over 110 essays from which these principles emerged in library meetings with over seventy participants and in other fora.
Our next planned library meeting is for the week of June 21, 2019, to celebrate Individual Independence Day in commemoration of the establishment of the U.S. on June 21, 1788, when the ninth required state ratified the U.S. preamble and the constitution that followed. You are invited to prepare and lead that meeting to express your views on A Civic People.
While we are “A Civic People of the United States,” an education corporation registered with the Secretary of State, we have no intention to make this a non-profit, revenue-generating organization. We think commercialization is the reason past U.S. preamble promotions[8] failed. On the other hand, we write in several forums to promote the principles. Work that survives the generations is done by willing fellow citizens, and we need volunteers.
Conclusion
After 229 years’ operation, the United States has lost a gleaming promise that never developed. However, through collaboration to develop civic-discipline among most fellow citizens, a better future may immediately begin. With your collaboration, actual improvement may appear next week and become widespread in Baton Rouge within the coming year. With the consequential improvements in political management by fellow citizens, elected officials will begin to collaborate for civic integrity during the next couple of election cycles. The administrative improvements may spread to the institutional and appointed offices within a decade or two. Our posterity may be saved from the massive debt that burdens them. We the People of the United States may emerge at last.
Copyright©2018 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.
[1] I Googled the phrase “integral human condition,” and Google directed me to four interesting articles: https://catholicecology.net/blog/pope-francis-what-integral-human-development, https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm, https://keough.nd.edu/integral-human-development/, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_development_(economics).
[2] I admit to “may” when I don’t know enough to write “must.”
[3] Gravitational waves discovered, online at https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/news/ligo20160211.
[4] See Einstein’s speech, embedded online at https://samharris.org/my-friend-einstein/.
[5] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_bear_false_witness_against_thy_neighbour#Jewish_doctrine.
[6] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law.
[7] Children face a time parents cannot imagine: online at http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html.
[8] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_(United_States)#I_am_an_American_Day
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