Hi, Doug
Again, my apologies for my slow response. I was out yesterday and that always puts me way behind with my work.
re: Doug: "Until Good uses tactics of Evil, Evil wins."
Fred: "No. No. No. No. No."
I admit to having been a bit extreme with that. I probably should have just said, "Nahhh".
It seems to me the biggest differences in our views are that I am less inclined to think in absolutes than you and that we express ourselves differently. What you call "evil" I call "the pursuit of self-interest".
re: "For me society [humanity] has always been a constant as Evil learned from day zero that it can use the majorities fault of accepting non-accountability, to take control."
I think you are saying Evil knows how to use the human "will-to-believe" (that I've described elsewhere) to subjugate the majority of people ... and you blame the people for allowing themselves to be subjected. I disagree.
My view is that aggressive individuals, in their pursuit of "success", learn that they can influence the people and they use that ability to sway the people's actions. They learn they can "lead" the people ... and they do so ... to the advantage of the "leader" rather than the advantage of the "people".
Where I differ with you (assuming my interpretation of your meaning is correct) is that I don't see such "leadership" as evil. I think it is a natural human trait ... and it has been going on since humans became "human". (I described this in the essay on "goodness").
I'm less inclined to categorize the leaders as evil than I am to think they are destructively successful in pursuing their self-interest. (I'm obliged to mention that the destruction never appears at the beginning of their leadership, when it could be recognized and rejected. It is always later or after their leadership ends.)
I'm not at all inclined to categorize the bulk of humanity as stupid or as sheep or even as accepting non-accountability for allowing this to happen. Our will-to-believe is a human trait. We may lament it but we can't change it. Our weakness is that we are slow to learn that trust in leaders must be given conditionally and with care.
I absolutely agree that this has been going on since day zero.
Xerxes, Hammurabi, Solomon, David, Alexander, Moses, Caesar, Pope (whichever), Solon, Napoleon, King Arthur, you name him, were all the same. If there was difference between them, it was only a matter of degree. And, since the winners write the history, most of these folks were memorialized as "Great". I doubt they were very great to those who were subject to their ministrations.
We often miss the role of those who surround these "great" leaders ... the people who made their "greatness" possible, who administered their laws, who collected their taxes and so forth. I can certainly understand the point of view that would call these people "evil", but I don't agree with it. It's not that I think they were "good" ... I think they were inevitable.
We are still learning to relate to our leaders, and we have a l-o-n-g way to go. It is a slow, difficult process because the circumstances create an anomaly: Society must have leaders but the people can not trust their leaders.
Because of that we must learn to build political institutions that are not controlled by anyone and that respond to conditions intelligently. To do that, we must understand that ...
We don't have the answers ... we don't even know the questions!!!
We must design a method that will elevate people we don't know in a way that gives reasonable assurance that they will find the best answers to the questions that arise ... when they arise. That is the entire point of my effort to get folks to look at our political institutions,
re: "Fred, I realize you have an outline (aka suggestion) to do this, and while initially it will progress as you would hope it would, and even hit some bumps in the road to overcome, I say that even if your plan with changes and modifications along the way to achieve the goal was supported fully, at the end of the road, at the end of the day, bottom line, it would be a short hic-up, and Evil once again would take full control and destroy it."
I think you are saying all political institutions, however righteous they are in concept, will be attacked by the forces of evil and destroyed. I agree they will be attacked. I don't agree they will be destroyed.
We need look no further than the United States of America. Our government, which was established by our Constitution, was called "The Noble Experiment". The design was as righteous as our founders could make it. Yet, in less than twenty years the forces of evil ... the politicians of the time ... started the subversion by making rules which allowed political parties to take control of our political process. From there, it has been a slow, down-hill slide to our present state of corruption.
B-U-T ... so far, they (the forces of evil; the politicians) have not succeeded in destroying our nation. We have the ability to stop them. The question is whether we have the will.
You feel the attempt to build a righteous government will fail because "Good will not use tactics of Evil to keep a defeated Evil at bay." Here, I ask myself, "What are the tactics of Evil?" So far, the only answer I've been able to come up with is the use of intellect.
The folks who subverted our government were brilliant. They were able to create an aura of rectitude for a cesspool of wickedness. They learned to incite floods of passion to support their greed for power. They used our emotions to suppress our reason. In short, they were smart.
Can we use those tactics? Can we outsmart them?
I think we can.
I don't kid myself that they will be easy to beat. Their access to bright and greedy people is unlimited and the rewards they reap are so immense they'll battle to protect them. To make it even more difficult, the reform can protect no vested interest other than the people themselves. That means big business and big labor and big banks are among the enemy ... but even nuclear weapons can't stop good ideas from spreading. Sooner or later people will understand Thomas Jefferson's profound words, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
Finally, while you think the tendency of the people to believe in and follow their leaders, without critical thought, is just the Hand of Evil controlling the "good" majority, I prefer to think gathering the energy to alter the course of the ship of state is a slow ... but inexorable ... process.
Fred
