I prefer civic, civil, and legal engagement during the transition to young adulthood and for a complete human lifetime, but without the conflicting mysteries Aristotle would impose.[3] Individuals may use self-reliance (see HIPEA, below) to avoid socialization/subjugation by either believers or non-believers; Marxists or capitalists; Alinsky organizations or religious institutions.
Mirabile’s erroneous attitudes toward fellow
citizens at college caution high school seniors to establish individual
civic integrity more than “social morality” as they prepare for
college. I realize I propose a human challenge for students entering college,
so I express it for K-12 students as well. The challenge is to develop human
authenticity fast enough to emerge a human being. Only the human species can
pursue individual happiness with civic
integrity rather than social morality. College or its equal is potentially among
the most wonderful times in a human experience, so it is good for matriculating
individuals to aim to be human beings. Note that my words and phrases do not
seem socialized or civilized or legal. That’s because they are civic rather
than religious or traditional. By “civic” I mean collaborating for statutory
justice, a worthy goal if not a possibility. A civic people approach statutory justice by discovering and amending the injustices in statutory law.
Mirabile suggests “the Constitution,
free markets, and individual liberty [as] conservative political positions [that
are] transformed into a sign of moral depravation by the left.” What standard
of “moral depravation” does she imagine the left applies? She seems to claim
the right, but her words seem obfuscating and judgmental when she states, “. .
. our beliefs . . . have been proven to help people.” Doesn’t appreciation for
help come from the helped person rather than the aid-imposer or philanthropist?
No wonder Mirabile seeks a society of believers. But what believers would she
reveal if she did not hide them? Is she religious? If so, is she a theist?
If so, whose god is her god? Which gods do her believers promote? Do they accept that whatever-God-is may not agree with their god? It’s their
private business, of course, but only they need their beliefs. Religious
beliefs are private rather than civic. No one wants to specify their personal
god for other people to evaluate, yet many believers perceive their god is
known by everyone else. In my opinion, my words and phrases do not seem
socialized or civilized, because they are civic. In other words, for me,
subjection to society or to civilization is not competitive with collaborating
for statutory justice.
Belief is insistence that an
opinion is stronger than the-objective-truth (ToT). ToT exists, can only be
discovered rather than constructed, and does not yield to mystery, revelation, reason,
or opinion. ToT is not an accepted phrase in the scholarly world. A litany of
scholarly words-and-phrases do not admit that they yield to ToT, including the
following: truth or the truth (especially when the proponent capitalizes Truth);
objective truth or the objective truth (which is often taken as the “objective
truth” so as to ignore the-objective-truth); absolute truth or ultimate
truth; eternal truth or God’s truth; my truth or your truth; honesty;
imagination and fiction; actual reality; the indisputable facts; statutory
justice, which may ultimately approach perfection; and speculation (often
veiled). ToT (the-objective-truth) is the standard by which truth is measured.
For example, the existence of whatever-God-is, however
the believer would define “God,” has been imagined, so far, without disproof. Imposing God on a civic people is like not ever discovering whether an apparent oasis is a mirage or not,
merely because there’s an infinite supply of camels, riders, and supplies that
may be used to eternally wander for the phantom oasis. Scholars debate God, as
though everyone agrees with the particular scholar, never addressing the fact
that their specific God is not accepted by other scholars. It’s a matter of the
believer’s intent. The believer does not intend to accept the views of counter believers. Perhaps the believer is too egoistic to accept whatever-God-is.
Leibniz (d. 1716) asked, “Why is there something
rather than nothing?." He assumed that there is a why. However, evolution
progressed according to the laws of physics during the recent 13.8 billion
years, and there may be no motives or inspiration---no why. The physics
behind ToT exists, and the evidence may ultimately be discovered.
Upon first discovery, humankind may
know the-objective-evidence yet may remain open-minded to future discovery that
changes their view of ToT. In other words, humans cannot aspire to be whatever-God-is, and
therefore individuals must be open to future discovery that changes their view
of ToT. Open-mindedness is not novel: it reflects the first premise of the
scientific method of study: Accept that you do not know what you do not
know. Some people mistake science as an object rather than a process, and some
accept pseudoscience as research rather than speculation and search for statistical support.
I’m writing these ideas in my eighth
decade of limited, open-minded living that was nevertheless plagued by fear (and still is).
Like Mirable, I entered my freshman year at college with a “biggest fear,” but
it had nothing to do with “forming true and lasting friendships.” I hated
giving up violin practice, which I loved, convinced I would never have the necessary talent
for livelihood. I feared whether or not my “B+” grades in high school prepared
me to survive my land-grant university’s freshman cut, with the added load of
ROTC. In other words, was my general comprehension adequate for me to succeed
in college? Not only that, I wanted a degree in chemical engineering and had no
idea how Mom and Dad would pay for it after their savings and man ran out. (Buying my used Plymouth Valiant just about gutted my account.) I
earned a position in the Cooperative Engineering Scholarship program and paid
my way over five years’ college instead of four. I mutually developed friends,
some I consider friends for life even though our paths parted. But I wanted to
be a person in the world of persons—a minnow in oceans rather than a small fish
in a large pond. Nevertheless, I relish friendship when it comes.
However, I took every opportunity
to expand my comprehension of the-objective-truth, even though I could not then
articulate my intentions. For example, my term paper in sophomore English was
on Hinduism. I knew well that I wanted to explore a competitor with Mom and
Dad’s beliefs: their individual visions of salvation of the soul in heaven. I
had heard of reincarnation. (Also, I learned hygienic yoga to the extent that I
sniffed a cotton string into the right nostril, coughed it out, and “flossed.”
Then switched to the left nostril. I slowly acquired a nasal-flesh toughness.) Back
to the spiritual pursuit, I got the vague idea that a soul could develop enough goodness
so as to rejoin the World Soul or ultimate reality, I recall Brahman. With that,
I decided that one religion was good enough for my person, whether a soul is
involved or not. I had never questioned my existence as a soul before
conception and felt no need to try to influence my afterdeath, that vast time
after body, mind, and person stop functioning. Hinduism helped me feel
comfortable that I do not know that traditions older than Mom and Dad’s are
false. It affirmed my trust-in and commitment to the-objective-truth, whatever
it is. Five decades’ conversations with Kishon Seth (d. 2018) and other
neighbors helped me.
In the mid 1960s I discovered I preferred American literature to
English literature and only now would express that the latter discourages the
pursuit of individual happiness with civic integrity by favoring if not imposing tradition. Also,
in 1965, I chose the elective course “The Philosophy of Science.” Cecil Schneer
(d. 2017) wrote,[4]
“Second, it is the aim of this work to show science as one aspect of our common
culture insuperably bound to the intellectual evolution of society.”
Yesterday’s discoveries required the neologisms that empower the human imagination
for new discovery. For example, “black hole” appeared in 1967.[5] Schneer
did not seem to reference Albert Einstein’s 1941 speech.[6] Einstein
applied physics to psychology by asserting that when we lie we disclose personal privations and invite loss and misery. The principle is expressed by Rudyard
Kipling when primitive women cut a presumed-god’s skin to show that the village
king bled.[7]
(Now in the second half of my eighth decade, I could not have written these
thoughts when I was a college senior beginning my third decade. So what? I
think I benefitted from an open mind from my earliest years.)
Not only did I fear my freshman
year in college, I feared my career into the fifth year of service. In 1971, I
thought: rather than student I am the chemical engineer who is responsible to
all stakeholders for this assignment, especially to the public regarding safety
and security. Therefore, I started new assignments by earnestly reviewing the pertinent chemical
engineering literature or other literature and thus never stopped learning. One
of my most helpful experiences was Dale Carnegie’s course.[8]
I’m still learning to LISTEN.
But I know of no fear greater than
the fear of falling in love with an authentic woman. An authentic woman has
taken care of herself for life before and after each moment. She’s aware that
she may produce the ovum that could become a human person---perhaps 400 ova
during her fertile years. Whereas some men develop a sense of responsibility,
many women are intuitively caring. Someone advocating Christian tradition erroneously wrote fathers heartlessly discipline the family and mothers compassionately attend the community. A possible cultural lag between male
authenticity and female intuition toward caring may explain Mirabel’s promotion
of women believers rather than human beings in general. However, habitual civic-infidelity by some women cannot be ignored.
The possible human individual was previously
an ovum then fertilized. It takes about 3 decades if a typically fertilized ovum
is gestated and delivered by his or her mom and then transitions into a person
with the understanding and intent to live a complete human life. Many persons
die young. By complete life I mean developing both chronological and
psychological maturity.[9] By
psychological maturity I mean the individual discovery that fidelity to ToT is a
favorable personal policy.
Fortunate is the man who, upon
meeting the woman who could fall in love with him, perceives she represents a
potential crowd. Knowing this, he has the humility to commit to care for both
her and her ova in monogamy for life. If she and he conceive persons, their
family prepares so that the spouses’ grandchildren may have a possibility to pursue
an achievable better future. I write this now, but there is no way I could have
articulated monogamy for life when I entered the commitment and trust with my
wonderful, witty wife (MWWW) and then our children. I began conflicted by
traditional belief in Dad’s expressions, for example, “God is boss in this
house.”[10] MWWW rejected those ideas: I reformed. I think the cultural failure to teach in
public schools how to form and maintain worthy human connections is responsible
for Mirable’s unfortunate misguidance. Most societies delude the individual’s
potential to commit to fidelity to ToT. In actual reality, freedom of religion is an unfortunate imposition of belief in an institution that opposes individual development of integrity. One cannot cling to speculation when ToT is discovered.
Fear is unfortunate and ruinous, so
I do all I can to persuasively express my experiences and observations
regarding fidelity to ToT. I am still developing civic integrity. Nevertheless,
given the chance to live my life again with exactly the same events and
consequences, I would happily do so, egocentric as that may be. I asked MWWW to
consider that statement, and she agreed with it for both her and for me and for our
monogamy. Monogamy for life happens through fidelity to ToT by spouses and
their families. Since I do not know the whole of ToT, there may be a better
way, much as I doubt. I would like to consider an achievable, better lifestyle.
Mirabile describes the dichotomy
she perceives in military terms: “. . . face the same battles . . . stand strong, be brave, and resist the temptation
to temper our beliefs . . .” Her apparent enemy is “the campus left,” who, as
“social justice warriors,” ostracize, politically correct, “other,” and bully
her as “morally depraved.” Mirabile’s civic militancy comes from “fear of
social rejection.” What people need is humility to collaborate, communicate, and connect for civic
integrity, allowing other individuals the opportunity to reject collaboration
if they choose to.
Her militancy toward socialist
professors could be replaced with patient objections and recognition that they may yet
become attracted to civic integrity but not by her stonewalling or arrogance. She
may be available if they propose to talk. Learning how to be an authentic
person without inviting the professor to grade unfairly is part of the college
experience. The first principle is to focus on the course material rather than
social debate. Second, risk grade-point average only for those courses that are
essential to your college journey. In other words, don’t subject yourself to an
immoral professor if you don’t need the course anyway. Don't take a controversial course merely to enter the controversy.
Collaboration for civic integrity
is no synonym for cooperation, subjugation, or submission in order to receive social
acceptance. In civic integrity, both sides collaborate to discover ToT and use
it to responsibly pursue individual happiness. Some biased professors may never
reform, but they always face fellow citizens who collaborate to discover ToT
regarding the course topic. Many professors err by forgetting that they are
first fellow citizens and that their students face discoveries the professor
can neither imagine nor teach.[11]
Some professors simply have egocentric practices. As fellow-citizens learn the Internet's reliable sources of information, erroneous professors' days decline.
Fellow citizens are not unlike
spouses. Just as an authentic male is faithful to an authentic female, the
authentic left and the reliable right collaborate for mutual, comprehensive,
safety and security. Thereby, individuals may collaborate for statutory
justice, and most fellow citizens may responsibly pursue individual happiness with civic
integrity during their lifetimes. Whereas 2019’s fellow citizens seem split at just over 50%, there is
historical evidence that collaboration to discover ToT rests at about 2/3 for
justice and 1/3 in infidelity to ToT with the possibility to reform. For example, 2/3 of
the framers of the U.S. Constitution signed the document, and 2/3 of delegates
to the nine state-ratifying-conventions voted yes. In citing these facts, I am
asserting that the U.S. preamble is a worthy civic, civil, and legal agreement. I'd like to learn that one justice on the U.S. Supreme Court agrees with me, but the Court does not.
Some guidelines for college
freshman to consider for developing mutual, comprehensive safety and security while
on campus include the following:
1.
Each human being inalienably has the individual
power, the individual energy, and the individual authority (HIPEA) to develop
either infidelity or integrity to ToT (the-objective-truth).
a.
The young human cannot predict what he or she
wants her or his adult person to achieve.
i. However,
every choice during life’s path can be made in integrity.
ii. Error need not be developed as habit that leads to ruin.
iii. Yet
recovery is always possible: Never
accept ruin.
b.
Neither whatever-God-is nor government usurps the individual's opportunity to develop fidelity. That is, HIPEA cannot be consigned to an institution or
another individual.
c.
Other fellow citizens may reject a person, but
the rejected person need not react by withdrawal from collaboration, communication, and connection (with others and with time for the rejecter to reform) to discover
ToT.
d.
The young may add to their individual experiences
observations of how different mature adults employed HIPEA and the consequences. Some people use HIPEA to develop criminality.
2.
Fellow citizens may either collaborate for
equity under law or conflict for dominant opinion. Some fellow citizens erroneously think infidelity pays.
a.
Some citizens collaborate first to discover inequity
then to amend the law so as to pursue statutory justice, impossible as
perfection may be.
b.
Some citizens think infidelity pays. Thus, there
will always be dissidents to justice.
i. Therefore,
statutory law and its enforcement are essential.
ii. A
civic people authorize law enforcement and the military to own the monopoly on
physical force.
iii. There
are anarchists.
c.
Fellow citizens may suffer tyranny but need not
allow oppression to ruin individual pursuit of integrity.
d. HIPEA is so powerful that many humans ultimately
reject the coercion of dominant opinion.
3.
For U.S. citizens, the agreement to develop
statutory justice is stated in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution (the U.S.
preamble).
a. Inhabitants create a dichotomy: those who adopt the
agreement to behave according to civic discipline and fellow citizens who are dissidents.
b.
Among dissidents, there are a few traitors.
c.
Illegal aliens cannot be traitors, because the
U.S. preamble is not their agreement to consider. Yet they may choose to observe its proposition.
d.
Citizens appreciate fellow citizens as they are
and where they are as long as there is no actual harm that the public discovers.
i. Even
if a dissident’s behavior subjects her or him to law enforcement
1.
Even the death penalty
ii. Civic
citizens hope their example influences dissidents to reform
e.
Even though they are dependent, children are
persons, individuals, and fellow citizens.
i. Minors
do not own property and therefore ought not be assigned future debt beyond personal inheritance.
ii. The
governments and gods that impose debt on children are immoral.
iii. Each
person is appreciated as a fellow citizen but may deserve disfavor or
constraint due to criminal behavior.
f.
The U.S. preamble offers an areligious rather
than so-called secular agreement
i. Existence
of whatever-God-is remains un-disproven, so theism or competitive god-theory such as
atheism is not favored
ii. Evaluation
of a fellow citizen’s god is a private rather than civic function.
iii. Fellow
citizens my not impose god evaluations on other citizens.
iv. Fellow
citizens collaborate about their gods or the mystery of whatever-God-is only under private, mutual agreement but
not under the U.S. preamble. (Read it and consider it.)
v. Religion
is a private practice for mature adults and therefore should not be imposed on
children.
vi. Failure
to separate church from state is individual failure to adopt the agreement that is offered
in the U.S. preamble.
vii. Under
the U.S. preamble, every civic, civil, and legal religion, society, or
association may flourish on the accounts of responsible believers.
g.
The U.S. preamble is neutral to religion, race,
skin color, ethnicity, wealth, profession, heritage, property, gender; in
short the U.S. preamble pursues the benefits of physics and its progeny---biology, psychology, mathematics, etc.
h.
Foreigners cannot possibly comprehend what it
means to want to be an American citizen---to want to adopt the U.S. preamble’s proposition.
i. The
English are especially estranged from the U.S. preamble’s agreement.
1.
The U.S. psychological revolution from colonial
British dominance has barely begun.
2.
The American Bar Association is substantially
responsible for repression of the U.S. preamble’s civic, civil, and legal
agreement. Note their allegiance to Magna Carta (1215).
3.
The progression from factional Protestantism to
Judeo-Christianity is also culpable.
a.
Imposing theism in public debate is believer
error, correctable through civic integrity.
b.
Freedom of theism, in particular Christianity,
is a colonial British imposition that is negated by the U.S. preamble, ratified on June 21, 1788 but yet to
be established.
ii. It
is important for fellow citizens to rely on the U.S. preamble rather than
English tradition or other foreign opinion such as the social democracy that
dominates parts of Europe or identity-politics that seeks chaos.
iii. Equal
justice under law is a controversial principle from Athenian Greeks about 2400
years ago.[12]
1.
The U.S. preamble tacitly pursues statutory
justice, impossible as perfection may be.
2.
Equity does not impose a particular god.
A fellow citizen may accept stonewalling by another citizen
without forfeiting appreciation. For example, a collaborator told me he no longer
wanted inclusion on my acknowledgements page because he wanted to disassociate me.
I took his last name off the page, but left the first name. A fellow citizen
may withdraw support for my work and not speak to me but cannot terminate
appreciation for her or his prior contributions or collaboration. A couple
fellow citizens have called my writing “condescending.” I ask: How does a human establish the authority to
declare condescension, especially when the speaker (Phil Beaver) claims not knowing the whole
of the-objective-truth?
In other words, if a fellow citizen rejects your thoughts or
you, you can only accept their action, but can still exercise civic
integrity---still appreciate her or him as a fellow citizen on her or his
personal path possibly toward civic integrity. People who advance identity politics are not unlike the tyrants who have joined the abyss of history's condemnation, but it is never to late for them to reform to fidelity in the-objective-truth.
With so much involved in self-discovery over the course of a
lifetime, it does not make sense to try to understand what a society demands of
the individual. The Marxist-Alinsky organizations (AMO) that dominate college
campuses could not care less for the individual activist’s life. The religious
institutions offer no better hope for individual happiness with civic
integrity. While Alinsky expressed personal “rights” as physical violence,[13]
religious institutions offer psychological violence to try to impose hate.[14]
I hope the college freshman who considers experiences and
observations expressed by a perhaps maturing fellow citizen may find herein at least one
useful idea. The chief suggestions include HIPEA, the U.S. preamble’s agreement,
ToT, grandchildren, worthy human connections, human authenticity, and
individual happiness with civic integrity. Whatever ideas prove useful I urge
the college freshman to share with a friend in K-12, because that’s where the
civic revolution is most needed. Civic integrity is an obligation to fellow
citizens and moreover to self.
[3]
James V. Schall, “Aristotle and the
Seriousness of Politics,” Law & Liberty, November 16, 2018, online
at https://www.lawliberty.org/2018/11/16/aristotle-and-the-seriousness-of-politics/.
[4]
Cecil J. Schneer, The Evolution of Physical Science, Grove Press, NY, 1960,
Page xiv.
[5]
Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_holes_in_fiction#Golden_Age.
[6]
Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, Philosophical Library, NY, pp. 114-115. The essay
online at https://samharris.org/my-friend-einstein/.
[7]
Rudyard
Kipling, “The Man Who Would be King,” W.H. Wheeler Co., British India, 1888.
[8]
Online at https://www.dalecarnegie.com.
[9]
H. A. Overstreet, The Mature Mind, W.W. Norton, NY, 1949.
[10]
“Wives, submit
yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:22.
[11]
Kahlil Gibran, “On Children,” in “The Prophet,” Alfred A. Knoph, 1923, online
at http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html.
I recommend suppressing the religious tone of the message so as to consider the
exponential pace of discovery.
[12]
Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law.
[13]
Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsfxnaFaHWI.
Listen to Alinsky’s answer to a student’s question during the last couple of
minutes.
[14]
For example, consider and interpret John 15:18-24.
Copyright©2019 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. Revised 1/20, 8/3 (82 views), 2019.
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