Reversing civic illiteracy

 

Reversing civic illiteracy

A recent article[1], by Timothy S. Goeglein, on “civic illiteracy” suggests a swamp of controversial history and motivated me to binge-read companion articles. I think readers have slim chance to pursue goodness, because many writers unintentionally skirt the topic – writers often fail literacy. Goodness necessitates writing with precise, accurate, and deep word usage, which is difficult for both writer and reader. In fact, I won’t let any author bind me to their “civic” or their “illiteracy”. It’s a matter of freedom in grammar, word usage, and thus thought.

Civic literacy

Few people would consider Goelglein’s suggestion, “civic literacy”, as I reverse and use it: awareness-of how-to pursue necessary goodness in living, both individually and collectively. My view stems from global slogans like “live and let live” and “do the right thing” – necessarily practicing goodness rather than accommodating badness and tolerating evil. Civic citizens may and can constrain bad actors and eradicate evil villains. With civic intentions, the reliably responsible individual neither initiates nor tolerates harm to or from anyone and aids civility and governance, in order to pursue statutory justice. A civic society continually discovers injustice and amends unjust laws. Goodness is necessary, in order to pursue justice. Neither divinity nor government can usurp humankind’s duty to pursue necessary justice.

The civic citizen’s greatest power is reliable responsibility against harm. Yet individual pursuit of goodness may be repressed by local badness, such as war, even while humankind steadily discovers and practices goodness. Personal goodness may and can accelerate, even when temporal badness represses society. Yet humankind continually pursues goodness, intending to prevail over badness and not tolerate evil.

The role of physics and its progeny

                The laws of physics, especially conservation of energy and economic viability, drive three types of civil behavior: independent, dependent, and villainous. Dependents, such as sloths and criminals rely on civic citizens, and villains terrorize the other two groups. Both elected and appointed government officials necessarily collaborate to constrain if not eradicate evil villainy, so that society may operate. In short, the able and the willing citizens collaborate to constrain the evil actors. Civic illiteracy, then, is personal and collective failure to pursue economically achievable necessary goodness.

                Guidance regarding how to pursue necessary goodness on earth may and can be sought in the reports and consequences of human development plus application of recent discoveries. Discovery is lame, even harmful, if unapplied. Consequences of human choice do not yield to reports about happenings. For example, the United States accepted its Civil War of 1861, in order to accelerate humankind’s march toward responsible independence to every inhabitant of earth. The world neglects this gift so that slavery can still be practiced.

I think three factors dominate civic literacy: most human-beings feel yet do not articulate that necessary goodness is a self-interest; nations compete over The God or none; and the United States republic remains promising to the civic world.

Motivation and inspiration

Powerful as they are, the laws of physics may be meaningless to the person who has not discovered, trusted, and committed-to human being (verb). The human-being practices, facilitates, and encourages civic integrity. The alternatives are mineral (nothingness), vegetable (consumption), animal (self-satisfaction), spirit (mystery), and villain (intentional harm).

These options bemuse the individual, because many laws of physics have not been discovered. At any moment in time, an array of persons do not accept some laws. Both unknowns and personal arrogance against physics sustain a continuum of human behaviors from pursuit of perfect goodness to evil.

Among Homo sapiens, there are only two viable types: female and male. The female’s body generates eggs (ova) and a male may inseminate a viable egg to produce an embryo. Gestation and delivery of a healthy infant gives opportunity for a human-being to develop. Ovum, embryo, or infant may be subjugated by the female and male who conceived the baby.

Authentic females choose reliable males, and together, they produce offspring to receive the couple’s care for life unto grandchildren and further descendants. Suffering the mistakes of their parents, children develop better parenting practices and debate their elders about the changes. Thereby, mistakes do not make traditions. Each generation may and can retain past good practices and establish improvements, so that successive generations may accelerate necessary goodness. Authentic single people do all they can to aid development and maintenance of children unto mature adulthood.

It takes a quarter century for the human body to develop the wisdom-building parts of the brain, and the aware person spends their first quarter century acquiring the knowledge and intentions to pursue human being (v).  Choosing a mate for life before comprehension and intention were acquired creates risk to personal success. Time is unforgiving and the person who does not discover and adopt these principles risks erroneous choices. When the choice of necessary goodness is not obvious to an actor, waiting is often the better choice.

Discovering and ruling-to goodness

                Goodness and badness existed from the beginning -- before the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. A sequence had to happen: the earth had to form, bipeds had to emerge, and Homo sapiens had to dominate human-being. Homo sapiens developed during more than 200,000 years, and they seem distinguished by a brain with rapid, capacious neurons and synapses so as to utilize an exponentially increasing flow of information and decision making. Only human-being may and can discover goodness as justice and no one knows if a new mutation will be required for the discovery.

                The invention of grammar, more than 10 thousand years ago empowered Homo sapiens to negotiate treaties. The Code of Hammurabi, nearly 4 thousand years old, divided inhabitants according to 4 practices: goodness, civic dependency, badness, or evil. Civic citizens collaborated to aid the dependents, reform bad actors, and constrain/eradicate evil people. But “eye for eye” rule rendered offending citizens dependent, lessening economic viably. Physics demanded revision to republicanism – constitutional law with intentions to statutory justice.

                Some nations improved republicanism. And 237 years ago, framers and signers published the religion-free 1787 United States Constitution. Its amend-ability and intentions empower “ourselves and our Posterity” to pursue statutory justice. The intentions are stated in its preamble, and every citizen should earn their view. Mine, today, is, “The civic faction, We the People of the United States, facilitate and practice 6 public pursuits — integrity, justice, safety, strength, prosperity, and responsibility, “in order to” pursue necessary goodness “to ourselves and our Posterity”.  

Religious primitives to Judeo-Christian monotheisms

In primitive Mesopotamia, there were 3,600 gods[2] compared to 4,200[3] religions today. The Code of Hammurabi resulted from socio-political innovations by Sumerian kings and their divinity schools during the period 10 thousand to 4 thousand years ago, when the Babylonians conquered Sumer. The polytheistic Sumerians also conducted research in physics and progeny with exemplary success, for example, inventing irrigation and fertilization of the land. Their city-state treaties became codes of law. They pursued civic goodness, for example, civil aid to widows and orphans. Eventually, societies took responsibility to educate their youth.

Soon, competitive monotheism began to dominate socio-political trends.[4] Also, the nearby Greek civilization proposed human being (verb) by the 5^th century BC.[5]

Semitic-speaking people in Ur departed to escape human blood and body sacrifice for worship to various gods. They left to prefer animal/ fowl killing in idol worship.

A branch of Semitic-speakers developed Judaism, with non-human blood sacrifice, tradition, and continuous development of the law. Israel developed as separate branches of descendants, who controversially worshiped Yahweh, yet divided over observance of the law. A faction predicted a descendant of King David would be anointed to unite the tribes as a nation (ostensibly to civic earth’s benefit). They discontinued blood sacrifice when the Romans destroyed the 2^nd temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and continued to pursue necessary goodness. 

A faction of Jews thought Yeshua of 2 thousand year-ago Nazareth was the anointed one from David and projected him onto Jewish literature and Yahweh tradition, constructing the miracle-worker now called “Jesus”. Attention to Jesus lessens Yeshua’s civic influence to humankind, since Homo sapiens cannot raise their dead. In 50 CE, Paul declared himself apostle to the pagans, who objected to male circumcision, which Yeshua suffered at age 8. Paul’s ministry created “Christ”, whose blood and body were sacrificed to redeem elected souls rather than to encourage civic living. Christianity canonized The Trinity to compete with Yahweh. In this review, I mentioned 5 divinities: Yahweh, Yeshua, Jesus, Christ, and The Trinity. It attests to insufficient humility toward The God – whatever constrains the consequences of human choice. I have not addressed the Holy Ghost, which may span Judeo-Christianity. I accept the importance of these 5 divinities and more, while encouraging everyone to consider Yeshua’s civic influence to necessary goodness.

Education critical to humankind

The Holy Bible collects thoughts of Homo sapiens in Mesopotamia, preserved from the past millennia. Genesis 1:26-28, 3,500 years old, segues from Mesopotamian polytheism to a monotheism, yet suggests that only humankind may and can rule to necessary goodness on earth. The advent of competitive monotheism bemused humankind’s pursuit of goodness by persuading factions in city-states to believe their god would eventually relieve their descendants of the ancestor’s pain and suffering. Kings employed military commanders and religious priests to persuade the people to look to higher power for salvation from physics and its mysteries. Slogans like “our god is more powerful than your god” bemused the people to ignore the Genesis 1:26-28 directive to constrain chaos in their individual and collective ways of living. Parents taught children tradition, thereby preserving the good with the bad and accommodating evil. The chaos the world suffers in 2024 can be stopped through personal intention to acquire comprehension and intention to pursue human being (verb).

Every individual may consider the division of Homo sapiens according to personal choice to either pursue necessary goodness or settle for less. A more detailed grouping includes the following:

1.       Civic citizens

2.       Collaborative citizens who

a.       Are willing yet lack capability for civic wholeness and integrity

b.       Or are not now applying capability

c.       Or are lazy

3.       Citizens who actively cheat yet have potential for reform

a.       Some game well-fare assistance

b.       Some practice crime

4.       There are habitual criminals

5.       Some are evil villains

Fellow citizens in groups 1 through 3 may and can collaborate to either constrain or eradicate people in groups 4 and 5 under constitutional statutory justice.

                The lack of rule to necessary goodness in the world suggests radical change, in order to constrain the chaos. It seems no longer can the individual assume governments can pursue necessary goodness. And no longer can humankind hope that “our God” will relieve posterity of erroneous practices. Females and males worldwide may and can rule the earth to necessary goodness. 

Recent affirmation of humanity

                The precocious political philosopher from 2000 year-ago Nazareth affirmed Genesis 1:26-28 – humankind may and can rule to necessary goodness on earth. The framers and signers of the religion-free 1789 United States Constitution affirmed Genesis 1:26-28. James Madison had no clue when he imposed freedom of religion to Congress at the expense of the people, authoring the First Amendment.

                The information age facilitated by the Internet makes it possible for anyone to entertain themselves by becoming an authority on James Madison’s controversies. He authored both “Memorial and Remonstrance” and the religion clauses Congress included in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clauses grant Congress freedom of religion at the expense of the civic faction of We the People of the United States. It is up to the people to reform this tyranny.

Conclusion

Anyone who dreams of order among Homo sapiens, rather than division we behold in October 2024, may and can imagine teaching youth and adults to pursue human being (verb). Rather than ponder controversial Madisonian American history, youth may leave K-12 education with their own interpretation of the preamble to the United States Constitution. My view is that the civic faction of We the People of the United States use integrity, justice, safety, strength, prosperity, and responsibility, “in order to” pursue necessary goodness “to ourselves and our Posterity”. The actions of a civic people accommodate the pursuit of perfection that is suggested in Genesis 1:26-28.

 

Copyright©2024 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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[1] Civic Illiteracy Is a Danger to Us All | The Epoch Times

[2] Online at https://www.worldhistory.org/Mesopotamian_Religion/

[3] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions

[4] Online at monotheism summary | Britannica.

[5] Online at https://theconversation.com/the-long-walk-from-civilised-and-barbaric-to-a-new-world-view-81110

Comprehension& intention to develop human being (verb)

 Speech outline

 

1.       Who is Phil Beaver?

a.       Married in 53^rd year with 1 wife& 3 children, one deceased

b.      I do not accept any God that perceives such weakness as to threaten my person.

                                                               i.      My parents were such good providers I attempted to accept their competitive-Protestant-religions for 4 decades.

                                                             ii.      My precious Louisiana-French-Catholic wife aided my self-discovery.

                                                            iii.      I trust-in& commit-to the-ineluctable-truth. “Ineluctable” means: not to be avoided, changed, resisted, or neglected. I accept “I don’t know” what I don’t know.

c.       Young father of 3, I avidly pursued 2 questions:

                                                              i.      What does it mean to pursue being human (verb)?

                                                            ii.      What can& may “U.S. citizen” mean to a human-being (noun)?

d.      Reacting to homo sapiens, the 300,000 years old humankind,

                                                               i.      I promote the-metaphysical-Jesus, which is the-good that each generation and their posterity can& may discover from Jesus’ impact over time. For example, we know to appreciatively inform a friend we think they are in error, so the matter can be cleared up, whether our perception is right or wrong.

                                                             ii.      Jesus, divine or not, influences statutory-justice respecting the laws of physics (PHYSICS). PHYSICS constrains the consequences of personal choice.

                                                            iii.      The U.S. Constitution intends government that pursues statutory-justice.

e.      I retired in 2001 after 35 years’ chemical engineering service to one company.

f.        In 2015, I founded “A Civic People of the United States”, a Louisiana non-profit education corporation.

2.       Being human (verb) is a pursuit that is older than the ancients

a.       Just as the ancients invented the research leading to U.S. plans to place a nuclear reactor on Mars in 15 years, ancients developed plans to constrain chaos on earth. Moral progress slowed during the last 10,000 years.

b.      In my abstract view, Genesis 1:28, a Sumerian political philosophy, suggests that humankind, solely, can& may pursue comprehensive-safety& security on earth (SECURITY). That is, neither God nor government can usurp the human duty: SECURITY.

c.       Each human-being has the opportunity, the power, the energy, and the authority (AUTONOMY) to constrain chaos in their way of living. The ones who constrain chaos I call civic-citizens, where “civic” refers to reliability in human connections& transactions.

d.      Not every person accepts AUTONOMY and chooses to aspire to human being (verb): some prefer dependency. Dependencies include religious arrogance, indolence, crime, tyranny, and atrocity.

                                                               i.      Civic-citizens can& may constrain dependent persons, domestically through both law enforcement and by pursuing statutory-justice, plus maintaining military strength against foreign dependents.

                                                             ii.      Dependent human-beings are also too powerful to accept injustice.

                                                            iii.      There is no future utopia: civic-integrity will always be in a person’s self-interest.

3.       How do we know human-being (noun) through typical PHYSICS?

a.       Some persons assume being mineral, plant, animal, or spirit rather than human.

b.      It takes the human body a quarter century to complete the wisdom-building parts of the brain.

c.       By then, the individual human-being neither initiates nor accommodates harm to-or-from any person or association including self.

d.      The mature human-being develops the responsible-human-independence (RHI) that is required for civic-integrity; that is, reliability in their human connections& transactions.

e.      Honesty is insufficient to integrity, which requires ineluctable-evidence.

f.        Some human-beings cannot advance independently, so civic-citizens aid their pursuit of individual maturity – the most they can be.

4.       Hierarchy of self-interest (for the presentation, Phil will change the “needs” labels to “responsibility”)

a.       Human being (verb) regards the above hierarchy as responsibility-to-self more than of needs.

5.       U.S. citizenship is important because We the People of the United States can readily adapt to the RHI-culture.

                                                               i.      The U.S. Constitution can be amended (preferably, to pursue statutory-justice).

                                                             ii.      The intentions sentence in the preamble abstractly proffers RHI. It lists 5 public disciplines, “in order to” develop RHI to “ourselves and our Posterity”. Religion is not among the civil-disciplines.

                                                            iii.      The First Amendment can& may be amended to end Congressional imposition of religion. I suggest the religion clauses:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or [promoting] the free exercise thereof.

6.       To learn human being (verb) is a collective undertaking

a.       Education Departments reform from “teaching the skills the nation needs” to aiding youth’s acquisition of the comprehension& intention to develop human being (verb).

b.      Local, state, and national services to We the People of the United States practice, facilitate& encourage RHI.

c.       Religious institutions practice, facilitate& encourage civic-integrity.

d.      U.S. foreign policy (State Department) promotes human being (verb).

7.       Maintenance by the people

a.       Each generation pursues human being (verb) in the environment they face.

b.      Tradition is recalled specifically to lessen the chance of error-repetition. For example, no more civil war.

c.       Humanities educators establish& improve the language to practice, facilitate& encourage human being (verb). For example, “ineluctable” was first used in 1570 and published with “truth” in 1906, yet the public does not know “the-ineluctable-truth”.

8.       U.S. standards

a.       There are no standards for performance of the preamble’s intentions; posterity has the independence to pursue statutory-justice when injustice is discovered.

b.      If the-good derived from the-metaphysical-Jesus becomes obsolete, it is a PHYSICS consequence of RHI rather than of a political philosophy.

9.       Achievements

a.       When half of fellow-citizens are pursuing RHI, a perception of SECURITY might emerge.

b.      When 2/3 are achieving RHI, an achievable better future might be visible.

c.       The goal is personal happiness during every decade of life, according to the individual’s opinion rather than under an alien-elite vision for fellow-citizens.

Conclusions to be written after the speech is composed

 

Phillip R. Beaver

9/24/22, revised on 9/26/22

 

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. 

A better future is achievable

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. 

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[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