SUMMARY
OF LEARNERS INTRO &
VOCAB
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it.”
An Upton Sinclair quote, taken from the syndicated column of Mike
Mailway (pseudonym for L.M. Boyd, now defunct) in the now-defunct Seattle Post
Intelligencer. All that’s left is that
reactionary rag, the Seattle Times.
Please read “The Future” first.
One way or another,
this grim era is grinding to a halt.
The time has passed when weapon managers could tease more profit
from warfare … even false profit. That
time has long gone. The energy wasted
on weapon myths is no longer surplus.
No justification remains for knee jerk ignorance, deliberate poverty,
preventable disaster and runaway overpopulation: by far the most expensive
social policies. Better substitutes would cause us less
regimentation and suffering, and thus offer more profit. Better yet, they would reduce the ill will
that plagues us.
We are rapidly running
out of petroleum. A dozen or so years ago, we were forced over
a cliff edge of increasing oil demand and reduced supply: a jump that none of
our officials bothered to warn us about.
The inertial
momentum of WeaponWorld is too massive to be stopped; it has turned us
into cartoon characters suspended over a precipice and windmilling our feet to
keep level. There is still enough time
(though precious little) to choose what we will take with us over that
precipice.
We can take the
jump bearing the latest flame-thrower apparatus WeaponWorld could
devise: death at the touch of a button, that’ll fry anyone who would dare pry
it from our hands. Costing a
fortune. Why not several, why not self-propelled
on tracks and heavily armored? That
will make a nice flash and a satisfying bang when we land hard on the canyon
floor. A quite spectacular display of
fireworks: smoking body parts and bits of junk soaring everywhere!
Otherwise, we
could wear a parachute: carefully woven, tested reliable, sensibly packed and
deftly secured to the body; train long and hard to land gently at the
bottom like an expert smoke jumpes.
I suspect that we will take this jump equipped with something halfway between these extremes: a moth-eaten emergency parachute to hold up a medium weight flame-thrower tank.
If only we had looked deeply into this problem back during the 1950s, when we had enough oil reserves to cushion our fall! If only a convincing precursor of Learners had been broadcast in millions of copies a few generations ago.
But people in
positions of WeaponWorld authority were too stupid, back then, to do the right
thing; and their modern-day replacements show no sign of being smarter,
on the contrary. They are just
politically correct enough to satisfy us idiots.
Tending toward
flame-throwers: the sacrifice of the Other; tending toward parachutes: the
celebration of Learners.
It is not mere
profit we should seek, but Learner commonalities we may share: the Humanity
of World Peace and the Duty of Learning (per Mencius).
Society’s worst
habits jeopardize our future: elite presumption, proletarian ignorance and our
collective submission to error.
Prejudice, panic and greed threaten everyday wisdom; ignorance, mental
sloth and self-isolation short-circuit common sense.
The suggestions
contained in Learners demand serious
consideration; better alternatives, STAT application. There is barely enough time before it’s too late; so let’s
hustle!
Powerful private
interests may resist (are resisting) this transformation; they may jam (are
jamming) infant Learner Networks – especially the Internet – with meaningless
babble. Info elites continue to peddle
their worthless priorities across tiers of monologue mass media. Conspiracies of Greed still crouch behind
private property rights and other weapon myths, so that they may violate the
Commons with impunity.
Once Learners
prevail, weapon technicians (globally bad peace technicians), will find
distasteful their newfound vestigial status.
They will suffer clinical withdrawal from so much money, authority and
prestige—this last, the ultimate military perk. Battle elites may balk at
honoring their host proletariat’s newfound priorities. They may refuse to cooperate with erstwhile
enemies, except to wreck more havoc.
Our religious
fundamentalists are resurrected carnivores in sullen retreat. They’ll find no sustenance in Learners for their self-worship. Preaching the patent contradictions of
religious bigotry and blessed mayhem, they accurse themselves and those who
follow them. Yet exactly the same
people could choose to celebrate more often and sacrifice less, help more
people and anger fewer, thus render due devotion to peace and to their
God.
So too, those who exult in catastrophe. It doesn’t matter whether they draw
inspiration from the Bible's Book of Revelations,
from some rabid misinterpretation of the Koran (Qran)
or from some other source they’ve rendered toxic. Their reaction is that of a bus driver who daydreams of a fiery
crash that will consume the passengers entrusted to his care. The trick would be to never again hire such
people to be our guides.
It is awe-inspiring
miracle that we should be playing with, like chuckling infants on the
floor—not unstoppable catastrophe.
You, indignant social activist! Snap out of your
hypnotic fascination with empty clichés; shake off your dead-end lethargy, the
busy futility and vehement emptiness you have inherited. Take up instead the golden yoke of
Learning. Watch radiance blossom along
every furrow you and the rest of the world would till.
We who have been
routed by the forces of reaction, let us sound the rally call so that our
scattered friends and allies may link up with us from the ends of the Earth.
We who share no common vision beyond our worst fears, let us form square
around Learners and stand
our ground until reactionary arguments shatter and bog down against this
bastion, and their outcomes turn out (as usual) to be the worst. Then we may return to the encounter
irresistibly, once and for all.
This book proposes just a few preliminary answers to our worst problems. Expect better solutions to emerge, once new Cooperatives of Plenty rouse Learner creativity. Once these creative coops emerge, we will gain a new say in every problem our curiosity illuminates. Every baby step, every resolved antinomy, both personal and institutional, will win another round for Learners.
First off, we must winnow weapon content from our constellation of political metaphors; only then may we free ourselves from the Thousand Year Reich of weapon mentality.
We could establish Learning Casinos: lavish recreational facilities where game masters, programmers, graphic artists and fellow contestants would gather to create and play video arcade games, virtual reality simulations, gambling, card and board games, theatrics and interactive simulations in forms transcending our awareness.
Those whose talent would be to assemble and manage these scenarios will find all the adulation and reward they might seek—much the way painters of the Italian Renaissance, playwrights of Shakespeare’s London, classical music composers of Vienna and cinematographers of the 20th Century did. See Marc Prensky’s book, Digital Game-Based Learning, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001, for a preliminary sketch of these new games.
Social problems will be played-through for innovative solutions. Political games will familiarize voters with complex social issues. Learners will sign up for critical judgment scenarios―mundane or life threatening, personal or sociological; on scales of play micro, macro or cosmic.
According to a
Chinese proverb, it takes ten thousand war dead to establish a general’s
reputation. Contestants at these new
Casinos will deepen their wisdom much more cheaply: their disastrous
mistakes will only have ‘paper’ consequences.
Virtual reality software and
interactive videos will simulate a vast array of alternative
probabilities. Outlandish social
proposals will be gamed publicly to review their long-term outcomes in
detail. Players will root out
weaknesses, misconceptions, unintended consequences and miscreant
loopholes. All their results will be
matters of public record, subject to scientific research.
Learner Casinos
could run a ‘probability stock exchange’ (first described in John Brunner’s
The Shockwave Rider, among many more
of his proposals included in Learners). There, as part of the world’s rewired neural
network, contestants would predict social trends as a profitable spectator
sport. Such Casinos may coordinate
their activities with Learning Networks, World Militias, Renaissance
Learning Centers and other Administrative functions: some suggested in this
book and many more yet to come.
New Learner
ceremonies could dissipate homicidal hostility—perhaps with live-fire
militia exercises. Ernest
Callenbach’s book, Ecotopia, portrays
this pseudo-battle ritual.
Create a bounded playing field. Wall it off from curious bystanders and forbid idle spectators. An underground “Dome of Pain” might be best.
Set no rules. Arm naked antagonists with two-by-four staves spiked with nasty nails. Fill emergency rooms with the results of their rage. Begin with the fifty foremost representatives – political, military and religious – of each militant assembly, then fifty more replacements, then fifty more until no more are left outside hospital wards. Let them express the full scope of their hatred and rage! This might be preferable to sending innocent, patriotic children to cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war with modern military hardware and our social blessing, against equally innocent victims from the other side.
These days,
arena-style and televised violence pander to disgusting human traits without
serious analysis or catharsis. Learner violence games will exclude voyeur (voy-uhr, Peeping Tom) thrill
seekers. Such artificial
confrontations may turn out to be superior to the crime scenes, prisons, and
battlefields across which we’ve let our accursed rage range freely.
In exchange for
voluntary and anonymous participation, they would provide:
·
mystery and
initiation;
·
a real risk
of sacrifice, serious injury and death;
·
a mystical
quest for shared understanding and forgiveness;
·
elaborate
ceremonies of mutual pardon and ritual cleansing; and
·
a mystical
rebirth into the real world, where such atavistic cruelties were no longer tolerated.
As an extreme
example, the Maya staged sacred ball games so challenging that the rare winning
team took all the onlookers’ belongings and the losing (winning?) team’s
captain sometimes sacrificed his life.
Such confrontations might stem from duel-challenge, provided the
challenged party could call upon volunteer and mercenary champions.
Outer space
offers a handy death arena for those who must have their mortality served to
them piping hot.
“The particular combination of physical and mental empowerment, retreat
from and return to the ordinary world, and spiritual renewal that adventure
offers, bears a close formal resemblance to classic warrior myths. And with care and thought, it should be
possible to design adventures that could serve as initiation ceremonies for
boys making the transition to manhood.
Undoubtedly, activities not based on adventure, and myths not based on
war can also be developed that would similarly move men forward toward maturity
and transcendent experience. To assert
that myths meet human needs and that we need new myths, does not imply that the
Age of Enlightenment is over, just that rationalism has limits: it can take the
world apart, but not put it back together.
Only stories and visions do that.”
James William Gibson, Warrior
Dreams: Violence and Manhood in Post-Vietnam America, Hill and Wang, A
Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1994, p. 308.
These realtime
wargames might parallel today’s battlefield reenactments and paintball
wargames. In highly structured,
ritualistic environments, people might act out their atavistic urge to
fight, flee, posture or submit. As in
martial arts sparring, overt violence might cause a few serious injuries and
the exceptional fatality. The violence provoked would vary in
proportion to the severity of local disputes, the numeric proportion of
which could be controlled by the number of real bullets issued, compared to
blanks. The first death and wounding
from this ceremony would end it – as determined by female and shaman
referees. However, deliberate
risk-taking and sacrifice would form an integral part of the psychic
process. All such activities, strictly
forbidden outside these arenas.
These cruel
dramas could be turned into a basic lesson in civics. Emerging from these hermetic rituals, shaken participants
would shun further violence. They would
gladly undergo lengthy stretches of medical care, ritual purification,
psychological healing and repatriation into the world at peace. They’d never revisit these ‘Arenas of
Suffering’ unless they felt the urge to re-explore their craving for violence.
Those (male and
female) hopelessly addicted to such violent games would become paid managers,
cult priests and priestesses, and permanent inhabitants of these taboo
facilities. They would also serve as volunteer
and mercenary stand-ins for weaklings called upon to duel. Everyone could find a rightful place on
PeaceWorld, even the most violent among us.
Alcohol, drug,
prostitution, gambling, and other human addictions appear to multiply social costs,
especially when legalistic prohibition make them scarce and expensive (and
profit thereby). In that case, those
things should be legalized, subsidized and heavily regulated to reduce their
social overheads.
Addicts should
get their kicks for free; indeed, they should receive special subsidies
for their addiction. In the long run,
these outlays would be much less costly than forcing the innocent victims to
support their drug habit and petty larceny in person, directly and
disproportionately.
New religious
ceremonies will demonstrate to young Learners the pathos of their immorality. Learner rituals may re-enact ancient
morality plays of excess and the Pandora’s Box they release. Mystery cults served the same function in
the past; likewise ancient Dionysian rites of mandatory drunkenness. Once
society provides secure havens of initiation, intoxication and recovery,
we may curb public intoxication and harmful addictions. They will become unthinkable public faux
pas (foh-pah, “missteps,”
numb-nut strategies) to most members of a peaceful society.
Likewise, Learner society will encourage personal research into revelatory hallucinogens. Friends will gather in legal Kivas where they may share cheap, legal, high quality drugs, and meditate together on Dreamtime: safe Kivas for these activities. Yet personal responsibility would never diminish for the public abuse of drugs and alcohol. On the contrary, drug-aggravated crimes would draw stiffer penalties from Learner juries. After all, those jurors would have been there and done that, themselves, without harmful consequences.
It has been at
least ten thousand years since humans began dosing themselves with such
drugs. Arbitrary prohibition is rabid
folly. Street drugs should be regulated
to ensure their quality and reduce their toxicity. The designation “Sativa,” in Cannabis
Sativa, is a multi-thousand-year-old Sanskrit honorific reserved for rice
and other beneficial plants (fennel, grape).
Properly cultivated and administered, its medicinal and Dreamtime
qualities outweigh its risks. High quality marijuana reduces nervous
tension and stress—as opposed to the mind-numbing trash the police and
criminals have conspired to refine. It
promotes socialization and philosophical discourse, without jeopardizing the
quest for the Muse. Learner peace would
welcome this inspiration.
There are two
reasons why recreational drugs remain illegal. First off, what to do with all the spear-carriers of the War
against the Druggies: all those narcs, vice cops and petty criminals, once
they’ve been let go? The “War on Drugs”
has created legions of undercover agents, snitches, street dealers and kingpins
for whom every social abuse has become routine. Finding other work for them would unleash a backlash of
sophisticated criminality, the like of which afflicts Russia since its secret
police lost its license to terrorize the populace in the name of Revolution.
The second reason
why this war is waged against us? The
huge profits reactionaries have obtained by flooding world-class banks with
drug cash. These last few decades,
reactionaries have financed their media-driven ascendancy from this
criminal cash flow. All these fascistic spin-offs would dry up if
we decriminalized drug use. Every new
prison, drug law and illegal purchase increases their profit margin and power
base. Think about that, the next time
you score your favorite high.
These days, some
irresponsible people commit wild crimes and lay the blame for their horrifying
outcomes on drugs. Info elites coach
these self-serving penitents so that their horror stories can demonize
victimless drug criminals. The same
goes for grieving survivors of suicide victims who took drugs. However, this careful selection of scapegoats
and spokespeople cannot invalidate recreational drug use. Those
who panic over ‘drug abuse’ by adults should understand its essential
neutrality. When the abuse of drugs
releases destructive urges, it only magnifies deep-seated psychological
conflicts, notably subconscious defiance of the weapon/peace dialectic. Slamming shut more psychic gateways is not
the solution for these problems.
Instead, we should wrap sufferers in stronger, more flexible and
gentler safety nets.
I have little use
for most mind-altering substances. Once
such drugs are legalized, I would grow the most benign of them in my garden and
would rather have friends share them from theirs. All recreational drugs, however, should be legalized. This would reduce secondary crimes and
invasive police intervention: far worse evils in the long run.
Like eating too
much chocolate, the prevention of drug-related mishaps would become a primary responsibility
of local barefoot
doctors dedicated to the Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm”—not an armed,
invasive and trouble-stirring police force.
Minors should deny themselves such drugs, by choice. They should demand some better alternative. They might rather ‘save themselves’ for graduated ceremonies of age-set initiation: much more powerful shapers of their destiny. Imitating ancient tribal ceremonies, Learner rituals would promote intense kinship among age-set peers. This clan membership would endow its novitiates with well-timed, well-deserved rewards of maturity and social responsibility.
Local crime watch
would become one of their primary responsibilities. Children would assume adult privileges, once they were ready to
assume adult responsibilities but not before. A few police
responsibilities may default to young children in advanced peace societies
where unfettered violence would not have been heard of for years.
This text invokes
the reform-idealism of youth―call it revolutionary fervor, for
lack of a better term. Everyone
moderately sane shares a kalotropism: an innate attraction to the good.
Our conscience will guide us through to it quite reliably, once we stop
suppressing it.
Today, this fervor lies dormant with no permissible outlet. Weapon mentality converts this healthy fellow feeling into Prism exclusivity, rabid nationalism, parochial prejudice, personal hatred—and ultimately, willingness to soldier. Under this all-pervading deception, the milk of human kindness curdles into frustration and rage. Hypnotized since birth by expert weapon mentors, we have rejected new ideals and resisted real progress. Then we’ve asked ourselves why our little piece of the puzzle refuses to fit!
Most of us defy
these perversions, at least in the privacy of our own thoughts. Their defiance, however, relies on an
obsolete vocabulary, outmoded politics and feeble appeals for circumstantial
justice. Our liberal, atomistic and meliorist mindset has stalled, subverted by sociopaths. To shake them loose and jumpstart it, a vast
majority of Learners must form cooperatives of abundance everywhere on
Earth.
Peaceful Learners
will turn this reform-idealism into a dynamo of social transformation. Once we grant it fair advantage, we are
bound for glory.
Given a
knowledge-value loom stout enough to shuttle the thousand-thread count sheet of
reform and stiffen it with ribs of revolutionary fervor, we may mend our
tattered social fabric within a few years and reweave its broadcloth of many
colors in a single generation.
The best souls have bound up their bruised conscience in empty mysticism and bombastic positivism; swaddled it in pseudo philosophies and parafaiths; poisoned it with drug abuse, pathosex and the compulsive meaninglessness of Prismatic and Wimpish thought.
We’ve read and reread stacks of weapon mentality books and magazines, spent years watching television programming that just underscored our powerlessness and social futility. We’ve indulged in “scientific” closed-mindedness, inertial paralysis, post-modern nihilism, groundless fundamentalism and religious faith in the unlikelihood of significant progress. We’ve taken flight in personal cool, evasive jokes and refusal to take anything seriously except our carefully fattened ego. In desperation, we’ve clung to a succession of addictive denial mechanisms.
We pay too little attention to anything, any longer, but that which maintains our superficial comfort by confirming our worst prejudice. For fear of becoming ‘fanatics,’ we reject any new hope or inspiration. We have turned into hopeless credophobes: too hung-up and too ‘cool’ to believe in anything new.
Weapon mentality thrives on a waste of talent and intellect;
it prefers the clamminess of your cool.
As for the mentality of peace, it would favor the torchlight of your
Learning.
Don’t count on any grace-benefit – homegrown, store-bought or book-learnt – until global peace has prevailed. Five thousand years of unilateral self-perfection, bloody nation building, futile dissidence and fanatical cult revival—all we have to show for our history: untold time and aching effort poured down the drain.
These outgrown
notions have been granted their
best shot, more than a fair chance to succeed, much more latitude than sane
prudence would dictate, given their disastrous outcomes so unremitting. They have failed as miserably as they were
cunningly advertised and fanatically adhered to.
It is time
they were swept from the scene like musty rags; either that or carried to a
rooftop and washed in floods of clean water and soap suds, then sunned during
the heat of the day, that their colors might brighten.
We must enhance the global stage tremendously. Other remedies, so difficult to achieve in the past, will turn out to be self-starting and self-sustaining, once Learners sort out these things first.
Learning alone
may raise the living standards of common and uncommon folk alike. Developed wisely, real abundance will
replace the hardship and terror we have settled for, up ‘til now, until we
share every essential in peace. Peaceful abundance will become our
birthright, for which we’ve already paid in full. Any remaining threat or dearth will be an isolated
problem, subject to swift resolution—not another unintended consequence
expertly swept under the rug by senile institutions.
The poor of today
take for granted some things for
which ancient Emperors would have traded a kingdom: telephones and
vaccines, for example. In a Learner
world, the poor will claim security and comforts far surpassing the pitiful
luxuries that besieged millionaires boast of today.
This text
delivers to smug elites and ambitious proto-elites the only challenge
worthy of their braggadocio (strutting
arrogance). Their enthusiastic
cooperation is vital in the planning and execution of this endeavor. Their current accomplishments are trivial in
comparison and doomed to fail in the end, unless they follow them up with the
Learner endeavor. By supporting
Learners, they will ensure that their descendants enjoy more wealth, power and
luxury than they ever dreamt possible, even after every legitimate need
has been met.
And so, to
work! Let us forgo the paramilitary
consumer display we’ve mistaken for success, abandon suicidal wealth-to-poverty ratios beyond
fifteen-to-one and five-to-one.
Instead, we should provide everyone with a free choice between
moderate serenity and the riskiest adventure that Learners could find use for.
We Learner
proto-elites are just reawakening to our responsibilities. Reacting to every stimulus in turn, we find
ourselves in turn Wimpish, Prismatic and Chaosist; info elite and info
proletarian; progressive, moderate and conservative. Moreover, we’re relunctant to jam our political identity into
such cramped pigeonholes. We reject old values, but are baffled by
current events. No valid vision of the
future inspires us; our hearts embrace no sustainable conviction. Infant-like, our attention fixates on flashy
baubles. No matter how hard we try, we
cannot seem to focus on legitimate progress.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The Bible, Corinthians 13-11.
Learners will find ready allies on both sides of every social divide. Relieved of their fears, many loyal associates will emerge, ready to make friends, from sandbagged gun pits of wealth, class, ethnicity, nation, religion and occupation. Every remaining barrier on PeaceWorld will show off some cultural and artistic uniqueness—little more. They’ll turn out to be similar to the German Oktoberfest or American Indian Powwows: sources of cultural pride and comfort instead of bigot hostility and suspicion. Most of our alleged opponents will turn out to be natural allies. The sullen remainder’s mightiest resistance won't even put a speed-bump in front of Learner progress.
The chapters of Learners are not engraved in stone. I ask you to treat them as a discussion
agenda and a stage in the round, to help us plan a brighter future. Dedicated professionals and gifted amateurs
should reconsider every assumption found here; discussions which may engender a
brilliant Learner Commonwealth. Our first and last question should be: “What if the sky were the limit?”
Either Learners
will drag humanity kicking and screaming into PeaceWorld, or WeaponWorld will
sleepwalk us, smiling stupidly, hand-in-hand, into military disaster.
You. Yes,
you! Quit stoking the WeaponWorld
Jive Drive. Defy weapon mentality
wherever you find it. Be anarchic, in
your own incomparable way, or join a new collective to ensure the
success of its chosen projects. Devote
your life to quiet saintliness, as your ancestors once did; or quietly trip up
the next bully who’s chasing his next victim past your door.
In any case, stretch! The miracle we’ve hungered for since the beginning of time, is just within our reach.
“Our conception of justice and truth is
without a doubt destined to be surpassed in the ages to come. This much we know. And, far from suppressing our courage, this hope and conviction
are prime stimulants for our current drive.
Each generation’s strict duty is therefore to draw as near to the truth
as it can, to the limit of what can be glimpsed—and to cling there grimly, as
the absolute truth had been reached.
Mankind’s progress is at such a cost.
“The lifetime of one generation is nothing more than an effort that follows and guides the rest. Well, friends, our generation did its bit.
“Peace be upon us.”
Roger Martin du
Gard, Jean Barois, Edition Gallimard,
Paris, Le livre de poche, 1921, pp. 327-328.
Well, now!
What more are we waiting for?
Let Learner debates begin!