Category Archives: Classic Bill

Why Does the World Seem to Be Moving Away from Democracy?

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Created October 21, 2022

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

In my regular MediaVillage column the other day I advised the political parties to use imagery rather than just words in their midterm political ads. This was based on a finding that only 38% of Democrats and only about 20% of Republicans and Independents consider democracy to make it into the top two vote-deciding issues of the day. The greater concern is with money, meaning the declining portfolio values of investors and the cost of living going up. Voters clearly want those pain points to be made to go away by some form of governmental action. In the face of those felt pains on a daily basis, the idea of protecting democracy seems abstract and maybe even farfetched. My MediaVillage column implied showing, in ads, how life would be like if America became like Russia and China, people ratting each other out, getting conscripted and sent to war, not able to say what is really in their hearts and minds, and so on. This would be the way to get past abstractions and make the importance of democracy felt.

I was thinking of the great spot of the little girl smelling the flowers and then an A-bomb goes off behind her, which spot ended the presidential aspirations of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Images not words. I was picturing midterm political ads in the next couple of weeks with Americans having a loving dinner until political police kick in the door, 16-year-old girls in peaceful protests beaten to death, and so many other kinds of scenes like that which go on every day in most of the world, who live in authoritarian states rather than in democracies, ads showing those same sorts of things happening right here in America. That would be sure to cause a rise in the perceived importance of protecting our democracy in polls.

Americans are so sure of themselves however. We feel that it can “never happen here.” Which makes “protect our democracy” seem like mere political manipulation language, and we have all hardened ourselves against being manipulated.

I’m no longer so sure about the “It can’t ever happen here” thesis.

One of my former partners, a Chinese patriot in a long family line of Chinese patriots, told me sadly one day that he couldn’t stand to live in China because people were forced to rat each other out, so that you could never trust your neighbors to know anything beyond the superficial about you and your family’s doings. This was in 1983 when I visited China with him and found its ambiance very friendly, except for the airports and the soldiers inhibiting taking of some photographs. He said I didn’t know the half of it. Before he passed away he told me it’s much worse now.

Could it happen here, people ratting each other out to the government? Well, yes, in some States that are now attempting to pass or actually passing legislation paying bounties for reporting women seeking or having abortions, that’s a big step toward one of the many distressing things about living in an autocracy. One such law could move us a long way away from the kind of free-thinking freedom we’ve been used to for hundreds of years. And into the growing camp of countries who choose strong men to rule by force so as to allow individuals who play the game right to grow wealthy and powerful themselves, and the hell with everyone else.

Why is this happening now? Why didn’t it happen before? Newton’s Third Law: there is always an equal and opposite reaction. For more than a half century, civil rights, feminism, coming out of the closet, Hispanic immigration all made great strides in America, making it even better than it had always been. Then a line was crossed when Obama was elected. The shining moment. Not seen that way by everyone. Some white folks really disquieted. Pendulum starts to swing, metaphorically obeying Newton, we get Trump, Trump cozy with autocrats, acts like one, millions of Americans emulate him and let it all hang out.

Neil Postman said that television would eventually take us to a place where we all acted like we were on TV all the time. So did Aldous Huxley in his own way. We are here, living proof they were both right. Living as if in a dream world that pays very little attention to truth, facts, reality, where the average person plays back whatever they hear persuasively put, by people they are biased to believe in, in the expanded media, whether it’s backed by facts or not. Those of us lucky enough to go to college learned to think for ourselves but apparently many of us quickly forgot about that stuff under the endless media barrage. And Acceleritis. Let’s never forget that the human mind has limits and we are being pushed beyond those limits and have been for many decades by the media onslaught embedding our subconscious program of giving up trying to think for ourselves because it is all just too complex and everchanging. A great breeding ground for autocracy. Grand scale knuckling under to bullies.

That’s why it’s happening now, and why it’s already happening here. “It can never happen here” is obsolete. We are already about 40% of the way into autocracy. Fortunately, Millennials and Gen Z are thinking for themselves more than most of us. But we saw how 60s idealists were largely in finance by the 80s, so we can’t count on the purity of youth to save us. It’s an internal fight each of us has to win against our own tendencies toward autocracy, having bad feelings about some other people, unable to transcend that level of thinking and emerge into the daylight of solutions thinking, uniting rather than arguing. The essence of American democracy from the beginning. Rational discourse and civility, the genuine effort to find the win/win solution or get as close to it as possible. A uniquely American idea which echoes the importance placed upon balance by the eminent Greek philosophers.

When the question is asked in a poll after the kind of acerbic and heated media conversation that has been going on about democracy, the average person probably looks at this as a Democratic Party issue not as a really universal one. And answers accordingly, with the subconscious belief that “it can’t happen here”, that democracy is not the big issue of the day. Despite the first violent insurrection breaching the capitol in history. Insurrections are not democratic events, they are the signature of the start of most autocracies. Anyone who would use violence in those ways based on such skimpy evidence and self-delusional thinking would not hesitate to create laws to keep people from having abortions, from voting, for incentivizing tattling on others and taking vigilante actions, for gaming elections with districting, from stalling progress via filibustering, for arresting people on suspicion without habeas corpus, for allowing the state to cause individuals to disappear when considered desirable for the common good, for allowing people to be publicly humiliated in social media within purposely-impotent restrictions, for allowing legislators to goof off on the job for political gain ignoring the needs of the people, for allowing people to tell lies in the media with zero accountability… and all of the other tricks of the trade of the ever-dominant political form on the planet.

Here we are living it large and spoiled into thinking nothing can change that, all we need to do is pay less for gas and stabilize the stock market and go back to sleep. Too bad it isn’t that way, but it isn’t. Thousands of smart and calculating people have decided, long ago, to impose their will and take over control of the USA despite being a minority, and they have almost completed the operation. Millions of us have taken their word for things. Stuff happens in the world that Biden & co had no control over, yet the voters are told that that crew caused it all, and millions of people accept that without a second thought. They caused inflation, they caused the economy to go down, kick them out and put us in. Anyone running on that sort of ticket will not get my vote. I want to see solution plans, not irrelevant blame allocation. The best people in both parties can do a better job of forming their ideas and communicating them effectively, because right now the tailwind is going to people who are themselves internal autocrats, probably brought up by harsh parents, and who have the money, power, and will to win. That minority must not be allowed to take over the brightest hope of humanity. Elect Democrats or Republicans not based on their party but based on who they are and what solutions they are proposing. Are they putting down their competitors? Do they exude anger? Are they citing verifiable facts you can look up on Urban Legend and see are true, or are they telling what’s true to them?

The stakes are not just gas and stock prices. The stakes are slavery for ourselves and God knows how many generations of our progeny, if we stay asleep at the switch and let the strongest democracy ever to exist on Earth, backslide all the way centuries back into autocracy by simply voting the party and going back to whatever we were doing.

Please: Think. Feel. Vote.

Love to all,

Bill

 

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Cultivate Your Own Virtues, Including Conflict Resolution

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Created October 14, 2022

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

In these dangerous times, the one thing you can do to help the world is to help yourself, by bringing out the best in yourself.

Imagine for a moment that the worst-case scenario actually happens. Say battlefield nukes are used by a person who only cares about himself, and then the use of nukes by capable parties escalates until numerous cities are wiped out and this continues until one day, you and your family come up from the basement and risk the radioactivity. And find yourself in an anarchistic society of survivors trying to pull together self-sufficient pockets built around local farms. What skills will you have to contribute?

If you’re a carpenter, plumber, electrician, doctor or dentist, farmer, or can repair machines, you will be very important to the community. Today many of us are knowledge workers and our abilities might not be immediately perceived as essential to survival. What can we do to help besides babysit, teach children to read, write and calculate?

There will always be a need for people who can help resolve conflicts through dialogue, who can serve as the voice of reason when others are locked in opposition. These are people who have processed their own internal divisions and can be objective and compassionate, who have conquered their own egos.

The value of becoming such a person – or becoming even more of such a person – is not dependent on the downside scenario. By uplifting ourselves we stand a better chance of bypassing the downside scenario. My main ongoing point is that the root causes of today’s horrifying threat vector salad are within ourselves, and that only by assimilating ancient knowhow can we transcend our racial immaturity and bootstrap ourselves to a society where leaders and citizens are profoundly converted into a state of enlightened self-interest. This is what the Founders, especially Jefferson, held as the ultimate vision for the USA and then the world.

This is not to expect spiritual enlightenment as being as close at hand for we eight billion human beings on Earth, that will surely take longer to accomplish. Enlightened self-interest is the same as pragmatism, the fully embodied predisposition to create win/win situations as being the ones that will be sustainable and most beneficial to everybody.

By contrast, the ego seeks only the satisfaction of the one self, obtusely blind to the inevitable backfire effects of winning so much personally as to force others to lose.

What we call ethics is the body of work that seeks to contain the damaging tendencies of the egos who have taken us over, much like the puppet masters in Heinlein’s novel and motion picture of that name.

What are your virtues? What are things that are best about who you are? What are your shortcomings? How can you overcome them? This is a contemplation well worth having some beautiful autumn day, perhaps today, sitting in nature where the human psyche is automatically uplifted. Bring a means of recording your revelations e.g., a notepad and pen.

The virtue of a metal is its strength. The word comes from the Latin vir, meaning man. The original application of the word was to a man’s valor, and the meaning expanded to cover honor, morality, goodness, kindness, fairness, charity, hope, spiritual faith in the goodness of the universe itself and/or of its Creator, taking care of others, and many other virtues.

In a conversation with his son, as reported by his students, Gautama Buddha taught that honesty is the primary virtue, because if a person would lie, then that person could be deceiving in other ways, such as pretending all of the other virtues.

Winston Churchill may or may not have been aware of the Buddha’s statement when Churchill proclaimed courage to be the foundational virtue, because all of the other virtues rest upon it, even honesty. It requires great courage to be honest, and great understanding to know when to not take honesty too far.

Greek philosophy assimilated earlier Eastern philosophies in esteeming balance as the most bedrock virtue, because in order to do right in a specific situation, one would need to balance all of the virtues together. This reflects a deep insight into the importance of situational (context) factors, an awareness of the complexity of things, and how such variation mandates a decision-making process which transcends black and white abstractions.

Today’s situation definitely escalates the importance of the virtue of courage, the ability to conquer one’s own fears. It’s much harder for a materialist to achieve the level of detachment which is possible for a person whose intuition is strongly supportive of the idea of a benevolent universe. However the Stoic philosophers did not depend upon spirituality to help individuals become resigned to outcomes beyond their control to prevent. Stoicism teaches that nothing is gained by fear, that in fact fear undermines the ability to overcome whatever situation is causing the fear. This was pragmatism appearing much earlier than Charles Sanders Peirce, and in subtler form.

Accepting what is and working on the controllable parts of the situation are strong plays regardless of one’s view of reality.

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The Virtue of Dialogue

Socrates and Plato were great believers in the value of dialogue, which they saw as leading to truth and deeper understanding than hortatory one-way writing. Plato explained this in relation to the value of inner dialogue as a means to reaching deep intuitional understanding of oneself and of external situations.

Dialogue was important to the Founders who believed that people elected to represent the people could talk things out reasonably and reach right decisions. Being elevated beings themselves, they may have over-estimated their fellow Americans a bit. I’ve always loved the Lorenz Hart line in the song “I Wish I Were In Love Again”: “the conversation with the flying plates”. That image seems to fit the conversations going on nowadays in the legislature, and among the three branches of US government. It would be good if we could get back to actual dialogue instead of performative anger mismanagement.

The importance and strength of dialogue can be seen if one looks carefully enough, even in current day events. In the recent UN dialogue and voting on human rights, although the many smaller countries of the world are keeping their options open and trying to play the superpowers off one another, the voting went against Russia because of the open military aggression against the Ukraine. China was not censured despite evident of flagrant human rights violations, because China is not currently invading anybody. The germ of good news I see in that is that (a) China is smart enough to read the signs and the likelihood of their invading Taiwan is now reduced a notch as a result of that vote (b) the Russian people are smart enough to see that invasions are out of style in the new world order (c) other nations who might be tempted to invade someone have relevant new data to include in their calculus.

Make yourself stronger, help others do the same, encourage people to do the right thing, do not vote for people who are concerned only about themselves no matter what they say (what they say is calculated to get your vote, do not be manipulated by your ego and your old inner rhetoric). Be prepared to deal constructively with whatever situation you find yourself in. Open your mind to all possibilities about the benevolence or indifference of the universe. Quantum physics has proven the existence of teleportation. The universe is a lot stranger thing than suspected by the anti-spiritualism movement within science in the last few hundred years. Science itself is in the slow process of changing its mind. Keep a good thought and good feelings. Live out each day with gusto and love. What’s the point of life if you’re always postponing enjoyment for some future state, as if you won’t allow yourself to smile until conditions are met. Heaven is right here in the present moment if you let it in.

Love to all,

Bill

 

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Walking In Someone Else’s Moccasins Is Rarely Accomplished

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Created September 23, 2022

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

It’s so easy to say things but so hard to ever do them actually.

That bit of advice associated with Native Americans but probably evolved within every culture in the world is most profound: put yourself in their shoes. What would you be thinking, feeling, and doing?

It requires a willing imagination to do something like that. Most of time people are just saying those things not even attempting to actually do them – because they think they already got the point, but didn’t.

Hearing any old proverb, one tends to assume they are now obeying it having been reminded of it. As if it is easy to do. Just hear it, remember agreeing with it, set it aside and express agreement, then move on, coming from exactly the same place you were in before hearing the mantra.

It is easy to actually test out the proverb, but it does require concentration, time, patience, openness, imaginal powers (many of us have let that muscle atrophy), and a genuine desire to understand the adversary of the moment.

In the Acceleritis Culture, one does not have time for such fripperies.

We might think a person is strange who actually took a minute to mentally/emotionally put himself in another person, sense what that would feel like, enduring the discomfort of the long pause in the conversation. Because it’s not just a proverb, it’s an exercise, something you make time to do, because it’s one of your responsibilities as a human being.

Some ancients in every culture came up with this same exercise and the proverb is merely the mnemonic to remind us to do the exercise, pointed at each person with whom you have any discomfort.

There was a time when the human race automatically understood stuff like this, and knew it was a level above the importance of choosing the right style or watching the right influential. Perhaps from an ethical point of view the Neanderthals were the Golden Age.

I jest to make a point. Our obligation being the stewards of right now, is to make this the Golden Age.

Admittedly that seems laughable given the darkness of the latest half decade, but we have to remember that we are the same brave people we were before the present darkness set in. That gaiety will return. It can Be Here Now.

We are all affected, we therefore are each responsible for sauve qui peut. (Save as many as you can.)

We seem to have lost respect for the dignity of the human race. Realizing this can lead us to become more courageous, serious and open-minded.

If God is watching, let’s make Her proud. (We should rotate God’s pronouns every 2000 years.)

We can’t endlessly shrink from debate with people who seek to debate with us, or seek otherwise to possibly to do us harm. “We” must speak together with “them” (the us/them tendency is built into our language) only after agreeing to keep it nice, and then keeping it nice.

Fortunately we have that age old adage exercise, Moccasin Imagination Mode (MIM). Before thinking of talking about it, see if you can begin to feel the way they do about it even just a little bit. You’ll gain an understanding of larger issues you never thought about before.

Here’s a report of my recent MIM exercise. It had been brought about by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and then the articles about colonial brutality. In my MIM, I imagined many scenes out of many times, and felt strongly one way then another. In one vision I saw and heard the Queen saying, with a tear in one eye, “We thought we were sharing civilization.”

The tendency to demonize one another is demonic.

Share warmth.

Love to all,

Bill

 

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The Kids Were Playing the Usual Game

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Created September 2, 2022

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog.

The kids were playing the usual game.

It was the only game in town. That explained why they stuck with it, day after day, decade after decade. You gotta do something.

As usual, the moves were all predictable. Because they all imitated the past.

So, what are the most aggressive players doing? Well, of course, they are looking back for inspiration to WWII. Let’s see, what would Hitler do?

So, for example, the Russian player invades the perceived nearest weakest monkey. Turns out to be a rather formidable ape. Hmm, bad move. Not much immediate learning. Still no existential wakeup call WHY AM I DOING THIS?! Just muddling along as if human beings lacked creativity entirely. Repeating the same old moves that didn’t work last time.

So, for example, the Chinese player makes moves short of bloodshed to indicate interest in becoming a dominant partner with the South China Sea, the Solomon Islands, and Taiwan. Having already done the same with Hong Kong with no more than a yawn from the other players. Hmm, we probably encouraged it, hmm, bad move. Muddle muddle.

What would be a more creative best move for China, say?

Their Belt and Road initiative was their most creative recent idea and deserves more time before more aggressive moves make any sense. The ideal path would have been to adaptively continue to roll out the investment in 150 other countries, without debt load pile-ups causing a reversion into apparently duplicitous colonialism. It has not gotten too far out of whack to still save it.

Live through the growing pains of helping 150 other countries and China will have earned the respect of everyone. My Chinese friends, please don’t screw that up now by reverting into old species habits. The atavistic threatening moves are out of place in this century. The whole world has accepted the business strategy as the way to go. Essentially, we are all capitalists now. Maybe it’s time to put aside the ritual ideological mumbles. Certainly, traders all benefit more when they are not at each other’s throats.

War is good for selling weapons, bad for everything else. We don’t have to force the selling of weapons as a business strategy (although we have been doing that for a long time as Ike warned) because we can achieve the same effect by going into space. We can sell a lot of steel etc. that way, it will turn out to be a far bigger market than war!

We don’t have to fight these fights.

It is not cowardice but wisdom that cuts off the roots of war. This is the essence of Sun Tzu’s teaching. Wake up everyone and hear the bell of freedom ringing to announce the end of the old game and the beginning of the new game.

The First Earth Town Hall Meeting

None of us were really enjoying the old game, so we world leaders all came together in Cannes for a bit of fun and re-inventing the world.

Of course, you all were invited to be there, and the world’s media made it the most amazing experience for all of us. It went on for months and then became a series. Ahem, actually the highest rated series. You know all this, you were there. Wasn’t it like Woodstock?

Yes, it was a miracle. We were all talking sense. I threw the I Ching at the height of the re-invention discussions and I got Fellowship, Hexagram 13. The change line said: “When they come together, their sadness shall turn to joy.” The hexagram morphed into Brightness, of which it is said “Thus the great man, by perpetuating this brightness, illumines the four quarters of the world.” (Wilhelm Baynes)

The new game is much more fun. Going out practically every night, or having friends over, participating together in solving the problems of the world, punctuated by entertainment and fun games dreamed up by all these crazy new media, and our kids signing up to discover what else is going on out there, it’s a better game. The other game was getting SO old. Even the hardliners agreed that this new game is better – eventually. They still loved the old game but the rest of us couldn’t stand it anymore. Had to go.

The best play for China is to bring to the world the most valuable thing created by the longest-running continuous civilization on Earth: the wisdom of Confucius, the I Ching, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, and all of the other great Chinese philosophers and teachers. How to flow with others in peace. This is the very quintessence of China, its greatest gift to The Universe and to the ancestors. It must be brought back to the fore and imbue every product and service produced in China. The spirit is what everyone needs and wants the most.

Compensation for not following one’s highest dreams, and instead settling for taking the easy way out of staying within the herd and keeping your mouth shut, is what happens when repressed subconscious parts of oneself start to rebel by taking over motor control at odd moments. This can come out in aggressiveness toward others. Stirring up anger against a rival nation within one’s own people will tend to get the spirit of the people back online, but in a way that has many hidden and unhidden costs. It’s not the right way to get the spirit up. All of Chinese philosophy knows and exhorts humane and righteous conduct, moderation and modesty, and China itself must always exhibit such conduct in order to gain its rightful share of world leadership influence. Otherwise what is it all for, anyway? Isn’t China here to bring its culture and its wisdom to the whole world? How better to do that than to exemplify that wisdom in all of China’s actions?

Is that not a better movie to watch and inhabit for the rest of your lives? Is not that closer to what you hope is the way your progeny will live?

If we plunge ourselves back into world war again there is a very high chance that we will set ourselves back by at least a millennium. Whether we do or not, it will make everyone’s life on Earth a continuous living hell for a long time, a lot worse than Covid.

The choice is obvious. World leadership had better prove itself to be precisely that, a real leadership that senses the right place to go and goes there.

Let the Good people stand up and conduct themselves rightly.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Love to all,

Bill

 

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