SUMMARY OF LEARNERS INTRO & VOCAB
Everyone has his own trip, right? You’ve got yours, I’ve mine, each and every one has theirs: each one a carefully crafted, custom job, for better or worse. Hitler and his henchmen had theirs, too. Some new tyrant might smash ours like docked yachts in a hurricane. History has warned us.
Haven't we grown cagey enough to recognize the worst gangsters and shut them down? Don’t we have all the creeps of history to compare them against? Is there anything new they could try, that we couldn’t read through?
Learners will tap into everything known. That will make them smarter. Smarter people, fewer mistakes; fewer mistakes, less pain; less human pain, greater productivity. A quick investment for unlimited profits. Could we have enough Humanity and Duty, per Mencius, to see this through? Have we got the guts to attempt what I’m suggesting? Where could we find the guts; in the faith that our souls are saved in Jesus, perhaps?
Could it be we’ve grown too cagey for our own good? Today, we find it easier to believe in nothing—to trust in no new ideology, whatever the cost. Fanaticophobia is such a sorry custom. “The opposite of illusions is not disillusion but the truth.” A Course in Miracles, Foundation for Inner Peace, p. 438.
So here’s my agenda, in clear and simple, for your consideration.
First things first!
World peace first!
I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for decades, now; so far unheard, drowning in the meanders of denial.
You may have noticed three things happening all at once, for the first time in history.
· There’s a truly global communication network out there. Instead of a conglomeration of alien and alienating nation-states, we are fast becoming One World. Me Tarzan, swing my message along the jungle vines of this World Wide Web, to get it out to you.
· Like-minded Learners throng this planet. Regardless of provenance, religion and ideology, each of us craves peace. Exquisitely trained and ready for anything, we outnumber the tyrants and their accomplices by thousands to one.
· Finally, we’re teetering on a cliff-edge of omnicide ("Kill everything!") that’s nearing more scary every day.
Why not exploit this cracked-open, triple-pane window of opportunity, recruits and crisis? It was sealed shut in the past, since essential peace components were missing. Every prior effort at peace was doomed to fail in their absence; and it did so often that we have convinced ourselves that all such efforts are useless, with or without those essential components. That window of opportunity will close, once again, when the evil twin weapon components of those peace efforts execute their final mission. We only have this current, fleeting opportunity before the final curtain comes down.
In order to exploit it, we will need to share one ideal and organize our creativity around it. An ideal not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, yet adoptable after their careful consideration. One that embraces the best and worst of who we are; that would brace us to fear, exclude and censor nothing and no one. It would shield us from ice storms of recrimination, blame games, aggression and untruth. Finally, it would allow us to forgive everyone and everything, including ourselves and the worst we’ve done in the past—as cultures, religions and individuals.
Allow us to forgive ourselves, repent for our unholy ways and make honest amends? Could we find what that takes? Could we wrap our minds around that?
Learners will call that high ideal “PeaceWorld.”
For the first time, we have every means, motive and opportunity to make it happen. Once begun, the volume of our peace song may drown out the bad brass band blare of WeaponWorld.
Quotes from:
http://sunsite.org.uk/packages/Online-Book-Initiative/Adolph.Hitler/unpacked/mkv1ch04.html.
[Author’s note: a neutral academic web page, now offline. I’d rather not refer you to an alternative, pro-Nazi one. My family fought the Nazis tooth and nail. I despise them. But this is WeaponWorld and I must harvest my quotes where I can find them. Your reading of Learners will require a broadened outlook on your part].
“In every case where there are exigencies or tasks that seem impossible to deal with successfully, public opinion must be concentrated on the one problem ... Only in this way can public interest be aroused to such a pitch as will urge people to combine in a great voluntary effort and achieve important results.
“This
fundamental truth applies also to the individual ... He must always concentrate
his efforts to one definitely limited stage of his progress, which has to be
completed before the next step be attempted … This systematic way of
approaching an objective is an art in itself and always calls for the
expenditure of every ounce of energy...”
Adolph
Hitler, Mein Kampf,
Vol. I, Chap. 10.
“… all effective propaganda must be confined to a few
bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped
formulas. These slogans should be
repeated persistently until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea
that has been put forward.” Vol. I, Chap. 6.
“The more the militant energies of the people are directed towards one objective, the more will new recruits join the movement, attracted by the magnetism of its unified actions, ...” Vol. I, Chap. 3.
“Any Weltanschauung, though a thousandfold right and supremely beneficial to humanity, will be of no practical service for the maintenance of a people, as long as its principles have not yet become the rallying point of a militant movement.” Vol. II, Chap. 1.
Shouldn’t America remain a political lighthouse for the rest of the world? Or must it devolve so stupidly into the world’s latest bully Centurion? Why not nourish and pamper that legendary idealism, and transplant it into the fallow loam of the Old World, for permanent cultivation? All the Old World has managed to cultivate, up to now, have been the weeds of weapon mentality.
America has always served as a pragmatic test bed for lofty new ideals. Its citizens have taken the most radical, most risky ideologies and transformed them into pragmatic working models of downstream abundance. Across the world, idealists, entrepreneurs and common folk alike have fallen in love with our splendid results and beaten a path to our door. That is what we have been most admired for and what we’re best at.
Yet, when we start mimicking worn-out tyrants from the Old World, its wary residents begrudge us our second-hand despotism and strike back hard. With good reason—those gladiator-movie clichés never worked in thousands of years of bloody trial and error, as everyone knows perfectly well.
It’s time we cultivated PeaceWorld: our one true calling. Every other option is mere death by the sword.
“To these three forms of law, a fourth one links up, the most important
of all. It isn’t engraved in marble or
in bronze, but in citizens’ hearts. It
is the real constitution of the State, which grows stronger every day; when
other laws grow old or expire, it revives and replaces them. It sustains the people in the spirit of their
institution; it substitutes, unawares, the force of habit for that of
authority. I speak of morals, customs
and especially opinion: that overlooked part of our politics, but upon which
all the rest depends; that part which preoccupies the great statesman in
secret, while he seems to focus on personal regulations. Those are but the girdle of the dome, of
which morals – born more slowly – end up forming the unshakable key.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du
contrat social, (The Social Contract). Book II, Chapter
11.
I may try to invite you into PeaceWorld, but can’t cram you inside. All I can do is suggest the melody and trust that you will choose to join the harmony. Everybody sing!
What PeaceWorld may repay us is immaterial—no matter how much we may long to bask in its glory. Our conscience somewhat revived at last, the glory of our favorite God, reverence for long-dead ancestors, the welfare of our posterity and our military honor as true guarantors of Peace, all demand it of us.
That should be enough.
LEARNERS: On the Move from WeaponWorld
to PeaceWorld