What Would a New Better World Look Like?
“Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic,” writes Rick Shenkman, founder of George Washington University’s History News Network, in an essay predicting the death of Democracy. We should know what he is talking about and it is true, as we see in American politics today where no one respects the views of the other.
The world is bankrupt, not only in financial terms but also in philosophic ones. Everything about modern life is exhausted meaning nothing has worked and that is creating increasing anxiety and stress that is getting people sick. Stress levels are going off the Richter scale and we know the worlds politicians are largely responsible. For all the good ideas in the world what we have is a suicidal civilization.
“Today, people are living in a hyper-delusional world, where people are confused with ideological underpinnings, civilizational cleavage, cultural disruption, anthropological idleness, sociological collapse and political chaos,” writes Shahzada Rahim. Liberals are the worst affected as their ideas are crumbling all around them. Conservatives are gearing up for a fight to defend themselves and their principles.
It is amazing to read in the liberal minded Washington Post Charles Hurt saying, “Even the best that the Democrats have to offer these days are fundamentally unserious people who constantly lie about everything.” And, “The few sane Democrats still left in Washington are starting to sweat.” And then he ends with, “There is something seriously wrong with them. Let’s hope they get help before one of them wins the Democratic nomination.”
Too many think (politicians) they have the answer but most are delusional and that explains why and how they are digging our collective graves. We either find a new way forward, a new species of politicians, or we kiss our collective asses goodbye. Human extinction is a possibility, as many have stepped forward to say, and with the rate we are poisoning ourselves and our planet it is perhaps our fate.
The liberal state aims to safeguard the rights of the individual in their own private ‘pursuit of happiness.’ Each individual in a liberal society has liberty of conscience, and liberty to pursue their happiness as they see fit, as long as they are not harming anyone else.
But liberals have taken their freedom to the point where everyone is being harmed. Liberalism has been the most enduring philosophy of the enlightenment era but since the dawn of 21st century, it seems only fit for a burial chamber. The liberal elites have betrayed liberalism as they shattered the hope of ordinary masses with their never satisfied greed to accumulate more wealth and power.
The entire medical industrial complex has betrayed liberalism for it betrays freedom of choice in medicine. Though the conservatives have never gone away liberalism emerged as the most enduring philosophy of the enlightenment era, which pretty much encompassed the 20th century. Since the start of the 21st its been all down hill.
So is there any hope for humanity? Its not looking good with war, financial collapse and environmental disasters knocking at our doors. And soon we will be freezing and starving as the next mini-ice age/grand solar minimum sets in.
One has to see these Democratic contenders make total fools of themselves in this video with their plans to spend trillions of dollars for something that is not happening.
The Gatestone Institute writes:
“Civil liberties are in greater danger today from the intolerant hard-left than from the bigoted hard-right. This may seem counter-intuitive: There has been far more violence — mass shootings in malls, synagogues and other soft targets — from extremists who identify more with the hard-right than with the hard-left. But the influence of the hard-left on our future leaders is far more pervasive, insidious and dangerous than the influence of the hard-right.”
“People on the “woke” hard-left seem so self-righteous about their monopoly over Truth (with a capital T) that many of them see no reason to allow dissenting, politically incorrect, views to be expressed. Such incorrect views, they claim, make them feel “unsafe.” They can feel safe only if views they share are allowed to be expressed. Feeling unsafe is the new trigger word for demanding censorship.”
I have recently published an essay about surviving all of this with love but is there any light at the end of the doomsday tunnel that our race is rushing through?
I hope there is but it has to be centered around something not evident in any of the worlds philosophies or political systems. I think we will have to go into the ashes first with only a few of us left around to pick up the pieces, if we are lucky.
Until we are honest with ourselves there is little chance we will muddle through. In reality many of the issues of the world is beyond left right, conservative liberal paradigms. Modern medicine, for example, has become a cruel killing machine that both sides endorse wholeheartedly.
What Would a New Better World Look Like?
Could have ended the essay here and dropped us all over a cliff, which is where we are probably going anyway for a list of easily identifiable reasons. But I will not be that cruel since we all need some hope, especially if we have children.
So what would a better world look like? It certainly would not look like anything in the world we know. If our religions, philosophies and politics were beautiful, good or helpful we would already have a better world but we don’t. So what is it that is absent in our world that needs to be present in the next world if we survive long enough to get there?
What I propose as the key is something we collectively do not want to learn. It is something so simple and basic to sane life that we overlook it totally. The one thing that is obvious in life is that we do not want to listen to anything we don’t want to know about ourselves and our civilization.
To listen is to suffer because we do not want to listen
to anything that might require a change.
To listen is to change.
We cannot change without listening.
Listening implies a change.
We need to change just to listen.
We would rather have eternal war rather than listen. In America, for instance, the country is dividing in half with the potential for civil war because one side does not listen to the other. If one does not listen how can one even begin to understand what the other side is talking about or meaning. How can we heal the split between religions when for instance there is Islam and the rest of the world are infidels?
In good fights between husbands and wives one calms the other with listening, understanding and empathy. Listening always will draw us closer to the heart and its vulnerable feelings where as non-listening has the opposite effect. Our capacity for love grows automatically as we learn to communicate and listen from deeper levels of being.
Conflict brings to mind hard times when people disagree vehemently about an issue or an event. Images of physical or emotional violence seem to appear, along with the sound of angry voices loudly disagreeing with fervor and passion. However, creativity and conflict are essential for progress and true collaboration. Without the dynamic energy that comes from engagement, thoughtfulness, and discussion, we stagnant.
If war is the violent resolution of conflict, then peace is not the absence
of conflict, but rather,the ability to resolve conflict without violence.
C.T. Butler
In fights around issues like climate change, medicine, politics and the environment it is just one side wanting to pulverize the other. On the other hand, when there’s a consensus, everyone agrees on something. If you’re going to a movie with friends, you need to reach a consensus about which movie everyone wants to see.
Whenever there’s disagreement, there’s no consensus: consensus means everyone is on the same page. Consensus represents a resolution—a decision that satisfies all participants.
Can you image a world of consensus? Can you imagine an age where enlightened politicians were in charge of the world? Globalism was a good dream but they conveniently left out the enlightened part so their intention was to leave us in the hands of psychopaths instead of empaths who could understand and connect through feelings.
Listening is the ultimate social skill. The most essential attitude necessary for real listening and communication between beings is humility, something most politicians and doctors do not have. Psychologist Carl Rogers said, “It is astonishing how elements which seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens. How confusions, which seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard.”
It is sad but true that just about everyone on earth is centered in their egos though clearly some egos are much bigger than others.The first step in dissolving the separating self-sense of ego is to get out of our little self and inside the inner worlds of others but can you imagine someone who believes in man-made global warming listening to what they call a climate denier?
In its simplest form, empathy is the ability to recognize emotions in others, and to understand other people’s perspectives on a situation. At its most developed, empathy enables one to use insight to improve someone else’s mood and to support them through challenging situations.
The future of humanity depends on empaths taking control and psychopaths being contained. Western civilization made a huge mistake making drugs a crime and putting millions in jail when psychotic and sociopathic greed should have landed millions of these types in prison.
If we want a future we should build empathy and listening skills into our educational systems starting at the earliest ages but will we? Not in the world we know.
Consensus theory is concerned with the maintenance or continuation of social order in society. Consensus is a process of nonviolent conflict resolution. Consensus works best when conflict is encouraged and supported in a creative process that supports deep listening. Consensus is a process of nonviolent conflict resolution.
Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a consensus group is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports – or at least can live with.
There is in reality only one truth though human egos do not see it that way. But for example, its either getting colder or warmer, the sun is entering a minimum faze or its not. So the dream of globalism and a one world order is not going to happen because we cannot agree on anything. Its profoundly sad but it is important to understanding what is happening to us and why.
No matter what happens with the world, with our civilizations and society it is important to implement the future in our personal lives and in the lives of our families and other small groups. If we don’t start and model a new brilliant future today what can we expect? We cannot wait for the whole, we have to lift the weight of conflict one “creative conflict at a time.”
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