The profound iniquities drive the spirit. To the naive and innocent mind fairness is the only value or hope given to it. If the society is overwhelmingly unfair, distorted and diseased, then what can the innocent and naive mind do except excise from his consciousness all the "stuff" of that wretched state?

Isn't the demand of the society to view it as a whole? Isn't that the command of social consciousness? "View society as a whole." It was this simple observation which drove me to study and form rather than drink and drugs. And when you go to study and form you are put on edge.

The other side of the coin is that one is truly and wonderfully free. My sin was that I accepted that freedom as reality, as an imperative in America rather than a useless exercise.

To exercise this freedom is a true delight! And when one accepts this then how can he deny the freedom of others to express their own form of freedom? The freedom to invent. the freedom to do business. The freedom to celebrate his or her religion. The freedom to practice and express his political beliefs.

Now you can judge the product of this expression, but you can hardly destroy the freedom that gives rise to it. There is a weakness in human nature which would want to do this.

Rival political parties are exploiting this all the time. It is a supreme problem when addressing the question of nuclear weapons, especially since that problem is in the realm of myth ( ie. an existing thing too large to fully comprehend and so subject to the fantasies of people) inside the other huge myth of state.

This is especially a problem in democracy because you don't want the citizen alienated from the power that is supposedly representing him. What difference is there between a society that by law alienates power from the citizen and a society that abdicates itself, alienates itself, from power since power is so huge, menacing and inhuman an entity?

There is a difference but there is also a similarity of effects.

Now someone who wants to defend power can say, "well, reality is such that the power evolves with the development of population, technology, economies and so on. And that the government exists to make decisions and there is obviously input from the citizens on that decision making. It is therefore up to the institutions, especially education, to lead the student to the learning curves that allow them to "master" each level of complexity.

The innocent and naive mind comes to the conclusion that the government is a burden above all else. But what can there be but the government as it exists? It is one of the first learning curves to greet the mind of a free citizen.And is it the government, as it is, that is the problem or is it the problem generated by the nature of the world that the government is called on to resolve which is the problem? I go with the latter only because if it is the government as is, then there is no alternative but eternal fantasy and disruption until its is exhausted. A stupified citizenry will give up the ghost and not care about the system of governance. And if that reaches a critical mass then the liberal democracy and its Constitution becomes a few wispy words that are meaningless.

I gave up the idea of "revolution" early on because the destablized society is not a free one and the disruption would bring on horrible consequences in this day and age. Whatever fantasies are generated by the alienated state can be valuable but can never become policy in the practical world.

In democracy, the government as it appears in personal consciousness, is the primary thing. And it can appear as an iron necessity as well as a dreaded object of alienation. Or as a womb to hide behind. Or, it can become "a thing known" because the mind has constantly focused some energy on its totality.

Perhaps it comes back to a broader question of rationality and Reason. It almost comes down to a question of Reason vs. Reality with Reason losing out most of the time.

If human beings were utterly reasonable, were perfectly reasonable in the truest sense of the word, the world would be transformed overnight. Reason took a great plunge in the past 100 years or so for distinct reasons. (1) Psychologists pointed out, with some authority, that Reason can be a mask for irrationality, self-interest, passions; a veneer that collapses at its first touch with conflict. (2)The insatiability of human beings to destroy reason in favor of the passions has been amply demonstrated in recent history. (3)There is a difference between Reason and the desire for reasons. (4)At the same time Reason itself is conflict. Reason cannot come to any conclusions about itself. Or, when it does other Reason is there to contradict it both in reality and theory. There is no absolute "Reason."

Ironically, religious faith is one way to become reasonable, despite irrational aspects to it. It rationalizes the irrational and resolves the infinite number of dissolutions the irrational is hungry for. Science seems to be a more reasonable source of reason than faith. But science is demoralizing as well, especially when it is utterly dominant. It has a shadow side to it that science and its supporters are not willing to look at. We chastise religion for suppressing thought and the development of thought and to the con aspects of it but here we have science developing techniques of repression, weapons of horror, nuclear and bio, unspeakable things never experienced before. These ride along with the good things and one wonders what connection exists between the act of scientific inquiry and the horrors. Just as there is a connection between the dominance of religion and the repression of thought, is there a connection between the development of science and the most inhuman century in history? Ironically, a century that is almost unlivable in thought but free and easy and rather mundane in the "body."

Science is the beauty of its mathematics and "laws." It is the humble practice in investigation, it is an objective method that then must prove itself with rigorous tests. It brings into being tremendous products, processes, and ideas. It is a great relief in some ways.

For the innocent and naive mind science must convince it that it is overcoming itself, overcoming its tendency to produce as much terror as magic. It cannot produce an "ideal" since it would not be scientific to do such a thing. How could an "ideal" survive scientific scrutiny?

It is the linkage of science with the political and economic systems that is of concern. Much of the political and economic systems have been rationalized through scientific techniques. They are creations of science in some aspects, especially the bureaucracy. Since both political and economic activity have preceded science, one has to conclude that these activities are driven by something other than science.

Religion has receded to the periphery. It is a strong periphery but, in the long run, has been outstripped by science, as organization of things, rather than as a "faith."

All the fantasies and concerns about "soulless humanity" come from the recognition of this relatively new state of affairs. Since the profound doubt of this age is whether the "soul' exists or not. If the soul does not exist, then what is it which exists in the human being? And if the human being is nothing other than neurons, chemicals, etc then what future can human beings possibly have?

I call relation soul. Soul is, of course, a tainted word. Spirit or being is better.

It is not science versus spirit but what relation does spirit have to science and vice versa.

Science makes this mistake as well. It says spirit is essentially passion. Passion is essentially destructive. Therefore, they are bad. Therefore, they will not or should not exist.

Another prejudice which is making its way: Mind is infinite, therefore thought is infinite, therefore thought is not subject to limitations, therefore thought can do anything which it pictures itself doing. Therefore, it can create an atom bomb today and dream of wealth tomorrow without any accountability.

Now this prejudice is making its way from several directions. From the "bottom", desire is being transformed into thought. Desire is determined by the environment. The environment is huge, seemingly infinite in variety and scope. Therefore, desire seems unlimited, therefore thought is or seems unlimited. From the "top" thought itself has translated the infinitude of the universe and its experience as a fact into the infinitude of thought. Thought itself thinks now in terms of light years, of billions of years of biological life, of huge abstractions that correlate vast reaches of time, vast reaches of history, vast reaches of problems. Therefore, mind is the object that is striving after itself.

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