Our Monthly Fireside Makes Page One

Shirlee Smith spoke in October of her harrowing experiences as a descendant of escaped slaves living in Toronto, and of her eventual discovery of the Baha’i Faith. Our monthly meetings are always covered extensively in the local paper, but I do believe that this is the first time we have made the front page. In the photo, Shirlee is showing a photo of her when she won an essay for Black History Month (read it at: http://www.globaltoronto.com/search/Week+Contest+Winner/1310621/story.html) that made the front page of the Toronto Star, coincidentally on the same day that the first Black president also made history. You can read the full text of the report of Shirlee’s talk as it appears in the Dunnville Chronicle article, “From Slavery to Celebrity,” at:

http://www.dunnvillechronicle.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2138848

Simplicity and Works; Medications against Fundamentalism

Final notes on the Comenian Cure to Fundamentalism

By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 08, Qudrat 05, 166 BE

The threat of imminent climate dislocation demands a quick response from us all. Scientists are beginning to worry that their training is too specialized and theoretical to address the challenge of the present hour. Some suggest that there be "clinical economists" and "climate engineers," and that all disciplines put students through a final phase of practical or clinical training, especially in the social sciences. Just as medical schools go beyond physiology and anatomy and insist that young doctors undergo years of practice as interns, so every discipline should concentrate on practice and responsible application of knowledge.

John Amos Comenius centuries ago made the same point about religion. Religion is not a mere set of beliefs, it is an entire lifestyle. Life, he said, should be reformed before doctrine, basing his authority on John 7:17, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine," and, "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin, but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." (John 9:41) We should work on our lives before our beliefs not only because it is easier and simpler, but also because it has a better chance of reconciling us to God, whose ways are not our ways. This, he held, is the meaning of the myth of Adam and Eve in Eden,

"We must return from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to the tree of life. In his judgment Christ inquires not so much into our doctrine as into our deeds..." (Psalm 50, Matthew 25, Romans 2:16; Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 23, para 9, pp. 62-64)

By emphasizing what we do rather than what we believe, by valuing mercy and compassion before being right, we take the first step to extirpating nitpicking and fanaticism from spiritual life. We can do this with a simple lifestyle that encourages all to put first what Comenius calls the "cardinal points of wisdom and salvation,"

"Simplicity will reconcile us if we turn away from the rigmarole of disputations (whose trivialities are a never-ending cause of schism and disunity) and confine ourselves to more substantial considerations containing the cardinal points of wisdom and salvation." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 43, pp. 127-128)

Since the word "cardinal" comes from the Latin word for "heart," Baha'is will recognize "Fu'ad," or heart, a major theme in the Writings of Baha'u'llah. As long as we bear in mind that one of the most important "cardinal points" is simplicity, of mind as well as dress, clear essentials can stand as the basis of agreement. This makes it difficult for false power-mongers to turn faith into its opposite, to substitute hatred for love. Comenius continues,

"Since these [cardinal points] are few in number and consist of clear and substantial truth (for God poses no subtle questions when he invites us into Heaven, as Saint Hilary warns us) they will serve not to separate but rather to unite us. Then indeed if in seeking answers to our questions, we do not launch into a flood of subtlety but attend to the rule laid down by Christ, 'From the beginning it was not so' (Matt 24:8) and then follow his examples and practice, countless problems will suddenly be solved." (Ib.)

As long as simplicity is held up first, experts cannot obfuscate their way to power. Another stumbling-block is pride and vainglory. The cure to that is the injunction, "He who would live, let him give up his life..."

"For example, since he bids those who have fallen into the sin of pride to be converted and become as little children, (Matthew 18:3) that they may begin to hold themselves in better esteem, which means no esteem, why should this not apply likewise so that those who have fallen into false knowledge are converted to no knowledge, or those who have come into false power (tyranny) are converted to no power? What I mean to say is that the man of false knowledge should begin to learn better, and he who has not the power to rule himself should hand over the reins of power to others, as suggested by Christ in John 9:39,41." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 43, p. 128)

By applying the most important lessons of faith, including renunciation of corrupt power, we will cure the arrogance and parochialism at the heart of fundamentalism. As soon as religion is subjected by firm public opinion to the reasonable demand that it be kept simple, active and humble, democracy will take its rightful place in matters of faith. This will allow the new philosophy, theology and politics of Comenian governance to filter out opinions that are violent, complex or biased before they can do harm. Then science and religion will stand together with political policy in facing climate change, ethnic reconciliation, and the many other challenges of the present hour.

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Inducements, Real and Virtual

More on the Three Sub-Currencies of the Terra; Eduterras, Ecuterras and Paxterras

By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 04, Qudrat 01, 166 BE

Economics is not just for economists. Monetary policy should broaden its scope to include more than profit, growth and other merely economic values. With proper organization, the money supply can be used as a positive reinforcement for moral worth and socially beneficial behavior. As a way of doing this, we are contemplating a universal currency called the Terra that would be overseen by a Comenian world parliament, that is, a decentralized body of three houses, one each for politics, science and faith. Comenius called these branches of the world court and parliament the Dicastery of Peace, the College of Light and the Ecumenical Consistory.

The ability to print its own currency permits a government to work out its own monetary policy. Each of these branches, therefore, can work an independent monetary policy by manipulating its own particular brand of terra currency. Thus, there are three flavours of Terra currency, called respectively the "paxterra," "eduterra," and "ecuterra." Reflecting this structure, subsidiary authorities at local levels run their own banks, insurance companies and other financial organs as public utilities. These print and distribute either paxterras, eduterras or ecuterras, as needed. Each currency has a special use and a strictly limited purpose.

Whereas governance in the past has been preoccupied with force and punishment, each of these three currencies is designed to to open up the field to rewards as well. Hence, terras also have the unique ability to purchase adornments and enhancements for escutcheons, the official displays marking a prestigious place in a cosmopolitan order. Thus, the inducement of earning paxterras protects our immediate interest in law, order and keeping the peace. Eduterras are the tool of scientists, teachers and other experts in promoting educational ends. Finally, ecuterras maintain our moral center, reconciling us to a longer perspective.

Let us look in more detail at each currency in turn.

The paxterra is what we think of as money today, a politico-economic currency. The guaranteed basic income is paid in paxterras, so for most people its primary use is paying basic living expenses, food, clothing and shelter. Paxterras are also used for reward schemes based on certain professions, similar to the teacher's eduterra that we have already discussed in some detail. Although under the aegis of the Dicastery of Peace, these schemes are promoted by and for members of protective professions, such as the police, military, doctors, nurses, civil servants and politicians. Beyond these watchdog purposes, the paxterra is mostly the currency of basic economic necessities, not rewards, since opportunities to spend paxterras are strictly limited.

The eduterra is the currency overseen by the college of light. It is earned and distributed by philosophers, scientists, teachers and other trades and professions in order to promote learning and reinforce the practical application of knowledge.

In earlier discussions I have concentrated on the use of the eduterra in early schooling as the currency of students. However, earning an eduterra income does not stop when classes end. As children grow into adolescents they wean themselves from student eduterras to coop and apprenticeship eduterras. Finally, the eduterra becomes the currency of one's trade or profession. Independent adults earn eduterras from their work and, since they have a vote for their representative on the college of light, they also pay part of their taxes in eduterras. Eduterras are also paid to their trade, which distributes them in controlled ways to further the professional goals and interests of that field of endeavor.

With their own currency, trades and professions can institute monetary policy, in effect, leveraging knowledge itself. As an area of knowledge becomes more or less useful to humanity, its exchange value will rise or fall in comparison with others. Instead of passively offering advice as now, control over eduterras give experts the ability to actively make their own policy, literally to put their money where their mouth is.

The ecuterra is the currency managed by the Ecumenical Consistory, the religious and existential branch of the Comenian government. The "ecu" in ecuterra comes from "ecumenical," the Greek word for "the entire populated world." Although in English we use the word to refer to relations among Christian sects, here we include all world religions and beyond them to the wider "populated world" of spiritual, eternal things, including the arts, literature, music and painting. Whereas paxterras are the currency of citizens, the ecuterra is the currency of everyone endowed with a soul. Whereas eduterras are primarily the currency of teachers, youth and the learned professions, ecuterras are the currency of old age, the time when our thoughts turn to the fruit of our whole lives, to what extends beyond this fleeting lifetime.

Thus the ecuterra is the primary means of exchange not only of faith groups but also manual workers, artists and artisans, everyone whose calling involves the long-term concerns of beauty, wisdom and virtue. It is the currency of human fulfillment, of all that is shadowed by the aspect of eternity. For example, most of the badges on the personal escutcheon, a heraldic device displayed in life and placed on one's gravestone after death, are purchased with ecuterras.

In order to promote a balanced life for all, one characterized by exuberant effort and deep involvement, yet devoid of desperation, fanaticism or fundamentalism, every paycheck must by law include a minimum quantity of each of the three kinds of Terra, eduterras, paxterras and ecuterras. A scientist or teacher would receive a higher proportion of eduterras, a doctor or police officer gets more paxterras and an artisan or pastor earns more ecuterras than others. However, this is because their professional lives give them both knowledge and opportunity to spend these currencies more intelligently than others.

This contrasts with the present financial system. Nationalist governments delegate monetary policy to central banks, and new money is created by bankers, who leverage debt. With the eduterra, the learned create new money through knowledge, not credit and lending. With the paxterra, new money comes to those whose work protect the peace and health of society. With the ecuterra, new money goes to those who would worship God and prolong their own memory by enriching and beautifying our populated world.

At each nexus of economic activity, monetary policy is dynamically worked out in a "war and peace room," a real-time, large scale display of the local economy. Like courtrooms, these planning rooms are required by law to be open to public examination at all times. Here inventors and entrepreneurs present initiatives, projects and proposals to all concerned stakeholders. The rooms also serve as monetary exchanges between real and virtual currencies.

A virtual currency is the money used in a genre of computer games called "virtual worlds," the best known of which is Second Life. These virtual worlds train all concerned parties in the skills and values of that currency, in an atmosphere where mistakes can be made and risks taken without painful real-world consequences. The lessons gained from this activity, both in professional practice and in computer games and simulations, are incorporated here into actual monetary policy. Here, as well as in the real world, a player has an escutcheon designed to improve with moderate effort, and worsen as the bounds of moderation burst and break.

Rather than constantly introducing new laws and rules, a Comenian system thus applies subtle monetary inducements to swing the balance of power over to indirect influence rather than arbitrary force.

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Flushing Fanaticism

The Comenian Cure for Fundamentalism

 

By John Taylor; 2009 Nov 03, Ilm 19, 166 BE

 

 

The Reformation was the result of a general realization that change in religion was unavoidable; unfortunately efforts at reform often cause yet more disagreement, disputation and even war. John Amos Comenius's solution to fanaticism was a systematic process of reasoning combined with efforts at reconciliation, starting with the self by eliminating lazy imitation. Every vexed question must be depoliticized by undergoing treatment by each of the big three, politics, science and religion. These lay down three "channels" of sure knowledge, sense, reason and faith,

 

"No-one who has received a taste of true knowledge, wisdom and piety will doubt my words. For he must have acquired it by means of his own senses, his own reasoning and his own testimony from God. Knowledge and wisdom are rooted in the senses and reason, but piety depends on faith. He who accepts dogmas and beliefs for no other reason than that he sees other people holding them has no faith worthy of the name, but only superficial persuasion or idle superstition or grievous error. But if the three channels, sense, reason and faith even in isolation have power to convey sure knowledge, there will be no limit to their power when they act in unison to convey the combined light of God's three fountains. Here in the light of God we cannot fail to see the light and rejoice.'" (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 3, para 39, p. 80)

 

Early in Panorthosia he lays out ten more criteria for sifting out blocks to reconciliation. They constitute a veritable list of the characteristics of what we now call fundamentalism. Whatever point of doctrine does not pass through should be labeled "not clear" and left aside for the resurrection. Some include:

 

3. "Nothing should be affirmed in absolute terms, unless its truth is so manifest as to be undeniable."

4. "Nothing should be absolutely denied, unless its falsity is so manifest as to be indefensible." (Ch. 8, para 39, pp. 125-126)

 

Those with a professional interest in the search for truth, especially philosophers (they were not called scientists until the 19th Century) and spiritual and political leaders, should use particular rigor in this.

 

"I mean that all philosophers should prove the truth of their opinions by real experiments, based with the truest skill on the hypotheses of their theory. Theologians, too, should prove the truth of their doctrines by passionate practice in the worship of God, and by evidence of Regeneration in those who worship Him in this way, and lastly, politicians should prove their theories by establishing true peace and tranquillity." (Ch. 8, para 39, pp. 125-126)

 

Above all, it is important to avoid conflicts in matters of religious opinion. In a chapter about reform of the church in Panorthosia, Comenius cites a saying attributed to the poet Sir Henry Wotton (d. 1639) that "The itch for disputation is the scab of the churches." (Panorthosia, Ch. 23, para 9, pp. 62-64) Frances Bacon, who heavily influenced Comenius, wrote in "Of Unity in Religion" that "it is certain that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals (of the Church)." Comenius agreed, though he added that can be some limited good in allowing diverse opinions to clash as long as it is not prolonged long enough to become an end in itself.

 

"The question could also be asked at this point whether there is any need for religious disputations in the church. My answer is: Yes, there are certain periods for controversies, like disease symptoms which do not last for ever. The itch of disputation has infected the church with a scab, so that we achieve nothing by our disputing and grasping at knowledge except to inflame one another into hostility, forgetting the better parts of Christ's teaching, namely: compassion, long-suffering, prayer, and lamentation. Everything has been disputed in the past, even whether there was any such person as God or any such thing as revelation. Therefore universal reform is necessary, so that wars and quarrels cease with the dawning of light in which all men can see the same things in the same way. Now therefore, is the time for action. Let us change things for the better (I shall demonstrate a way that far excels it, namely, contemplation)... (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 23, para 21, pp. 69-82)

 

It is refreshing to read Comenius because he did not despair, as we unfortunately do today, of finding common ground in disputed issues. As an educator, he saw the problem as one of ignorance on all sides. If an argument becomes too entrenched, one solution is simply to stand back and reflect. If that does not work, get away from theorizing completely, since words upon words often only multiplies argumentation, and jump right to practice. Very often just serving and experimenting together is enough to reconcile opposing parties.

 

"If anything cannot be reconciled in theory, one should begin to try it out in practice, for better practice would follow from the earnest attention given to both aspects. (I mean that all philosophers should prove the truth of their opinions by real experiments, based with the truest skill on the hypotheses of their theory. Theologians, too, should prove the truth of their doctrines by passionate practice in the worship of God, and by evidence of Regeneration in those who worship Him in this way, and lastly, politicians should prove their theories by establishing true peace and tranquillity)." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 39, p. 126)

 

Many matters only seem complicated; they can be solved to general satisfaction if we subject them, one after the other, to the three basics of knowledge: philosophy (science), theology and politics. Each must contribute to the result. This means first testing each idea for universality, since philosophy and science give results that apply everywhere. Then testing for simplicity, since the religious lifestyle simplifies desires of the heart. Last, we can test for agreement, since peace is the chief goal of politics. These three act as a sort of filter to purify the mind from violent, complex or biased opinions. Whatever passes through this filter must be universal, simple and unifying, and therefore pleasing to all parties.

 

"Suitable means to restore our happy state to its true form will be 1. New Philosophy, 2. New Theology, 3. New Politics all conforming to true laws of universality, simplicity and agreement. Since contemporary philosophies, theologies and political systems are biased, complex, and violent, they cannot therefore be brought back to the ideas and laws of true universality or true simplicity or agreement unless retraced from their very foundations so that they are left with no taint of bias, no knotty problems, no threat of fear, alarm, hatred or schism." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 5, para 24, pp. 96-97)

 

This can be distilled to two basic Christian principles, first, strict testing, "narrow is the way and strait the gate..." Once a matter has been tested though, the second principle applies, freedom: "the truth shall set you free," and "my yoke is easy..." Comenius sums up this latter principle in a passage that rings true in the ears of every lover of freedom:

 

==========

 

" ... our Good, as God will restore it to us, should not only be genuinely good and well-ordered, but also sweet and agreeable, without even the outward semblance of compulsion, everything flowing along, as it were, of its own accord. For human nature has an innate preference for guidance rather than force, for action of its own free will rather than at the behest of others, for self-reliance rather than to rely upon others. Whenever high-handed treatment is involved, man turns away in disgust, and whenever he is confident of making his own way forward, he goes without a guide.

Take the case of an infant, for example, as soon as he begins to walk regularly, he refuses a helping hand and wishes to be left to himself. Similarly no adult finds it easy to put up with a master.

 

Therefore, our whole aim and object must be to secure the return of Philosophical liberty, Religious liberty, and Political liberty to the human race; liberty, I say, which is Man's most exquisite good, created with him and inseparable from him except in the hour of his death. Hence God restores to liberty those whom He carries away to death, according to the word of His son, in John VIII, 36, and His apostles, in Galatians IV, 31, and V, 1, 13, 17, etc.6 Therefore let us assert the claim of human nature to its full portion of liberty, by setting men free from the yoke of compulsory Dogma, Worship and Obedience." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 9, pp. 155-156)

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What the Bastinado Feels Like

Passage from: Marina Nemat, Prisoner of Tehran


Marina Nemat was kind enough to come to speak at our Human Rights Day commemoration in Dunnville last December, and I purchased her memoir, Prisoner of Tehran. I noticed lately that it is still on the Canadian Bestseller List. It is the story of how just after the Iranian Revolution this Christian schoolgirl in Tehran was arrested for requesting that her calculus teacher teach math, instead of the Qur'an. When she refused she walked out of class, and the rest of the school followed in protest. She was branded a "revolutionary" for this, and the authorities refused to believe that she was not an agitator for some political group. The following is an account of how she was bastinadoed soon after her arrest. After I read it, I remembered how both the Bab and Baha'u'llah were bastinadoed. Since as far as I know, we have no first-person account from Them of what the experience was like, I thought I would include here Marina's rather detailed story of her similar encounter with the bastinado soon after entering Evin prison. It is something to think about in the days leading  up to the Birth of Baha'u'llah this month.




"We have to know her whereabouts."

"I can't help you because I don't know where she is."

He had remained calm during the interrogation and had never raised his voice. "Marina, listen carefully. I can see you are a brave girl, and I respect this, but I have to know what you know. If you aren't willing to tell me, Brother Hamehd will be very upset. He isn't a very patient man. I don't want to see you suffer."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have anything to tell you."

"I'm sorry, too," he said and led me out of the room and through three or four hallways.

A man was screaming. I was told to sit on the floor. Ali said that, like me, the man who was screaming didn't want to share any information but that he would soon change his mind.

Pain-saturated cries filled the air around me. Heavy, deep, and desperate, they got into my skin, spreading into every cell of my body.

The poor man was being torn apart. The world became a slab of lead sitting on my chest.

The loud, severe impact of the lash. The man's scream. A split second of silence. And the cycle repeated itself.

After a few minutes, someone asked the man if he was ready to talk. His answer was "no." The lashing started again. Although my wrists were tied, I tried to cover my ears with my arms to push the screams away, but it was useless. It went on and on, strike after strike, scream after scream.

"Stop ... please ... I'll talk ..."  the suffering man finally cried. It stopped.

Nothing mattered except the fact that I had decided not to give them any names. I was not helpless. I was going to put up a fight.

"Marina, how are you?" asked the voice that had questioned the suffering man. "Ali has told me all about you. You have impressed him. He doesn't want you to get hurt, but business is business. Did you hear that man? He didn't want to tell me anything at the beginning, but he did at the end. It would've been a lot smarter if he'd told me what I wanted to know at the start. Now, are you ready to talk?"

I took a deep breath. "No."

"Too bad. Get up."

He grabbed the rope that was tied around my wrists, dragged me along lilt a few steps, and then pushed me to the ground. My blindfold was pulled off. A thin, small man with short brown hair and a moustache stood 0ver me, holding my blindfold in his hand. He was in his early forties and wearing brown casual pants and a white shirt. The room was empty except for a bare wooden bed with a metal headboard. He untied my wrists. "Rope won't do; we need something harder and stronger," he said. He took a pair of handcuffs out of one of his pockets and put them on my wrists.

Another man entered the room. He was about six foot one and two hundred pounds, had very short black hair and a trimmed black beard, and was in his late twenties.

"Hamehd, has she talked?" he asked.

"No, she's pretty stubborn, but don't worry; she'll talk soon."

"Marina, this is your last chance," the newcomer said.

I recognized his voice. Ali. His nose was a little too large, his brown eyes were expressive, and his eyelashes were long and thick.

"You're going to talk at the end anyway, so you'd better do it now. Will you give us the names?"

"No."

"What I really want you to tell me is where Shahrzad is."

"I don't know where she is."

"Ali, look; she has such small wrists! They'll slide out of the cuffs," said Hamehd.

He forced both my wrists into one cuff and dragged me to the bed. The metal cuff dug into my bones. A scream escaped my throat, but I didn't struggle, knowing that my situation was hopeless and would only worsen if I put up a fight. He fastened the free cuff to the metal headboard. Then, after pulling off my shoes, he tied my ankles to the bed.

"I'm going to whip the soles of your feet with this cable," Hamehd said, waving a length of black cable, which was a little less than an inch thick, in front of my face.

"Ali, how many do you think it will take to make her talk?"

"Not many."

"I'm saying ten."

The sharp, threatening whistle of the cable cut the air, and it landed on the soles of my feet.

Pain. I had never experienced anything like it. I couldn't even have imagined it. It exploded inside me like a bolt of lightning.

Second strike: my breath stopped in my throat. How could anything hurt so much? I tried to think of a way to help myself bear it. I couldn't scream, because there wasn't enough air left in my lungs.

Third strike: the scream of the cable and the blinding agony that followed. The "Hail Mary" filled my head.

Blows came, one after another, and I prayed, struggling against pain. I wanted to lose consciousness, but it didn't happen. Each strike kept me wide awake for the next.

Tenth strike: I begged God to ease the pain.

Eleventh strike: it hurt more than all the ones before it.

God, please, don't leave me on my own. I can't take it.

It went on and on. Endless agony.

They'll stop if I give them a few names ... No, they won't stop. They want to know about Shahrzad. I don't know anything about her anyway. The beating can't go on forever. I'll take it one at a time.

After sixteen strikes of the lash, I gave up counting.

Pain.

"Where is Shahrzad?"

I would have told if I knew. I would have done anything to stop it. Strike.

I had experienced different kinds of pain before. I had broken my arm once. But this was worse. Far worse.

"Where is Shahrzad?"

"I really don't know!"

Agony. Voices.

When Hamehd stopped, I could just find enough energy to turn my ad and see him leave the room. Ali removed the handcuffs and untied my ankles. My feet ached, but the agonizing pain was gone, replaced by a soothing emptiness that spread inside my veins. A moment later, I could hardly feel my body, and my eyelids began to feel heavy. Something cold splashed against my face. Water. I shook my head.

"You're passing out, Marina. Come on, sit up," said Ali.

He pulled on my arms, and I sat up. My feet were now burning as if a hundred bees had stung them. I looked at them. They were red and blue and very swollen. I was surprised that my skin had not burst.

"Do you have anything to tell me now?" Ali asked.

"No."

"This isn't worth it!" He glared at me. "Do you want another beating? Your feet will look a lot worse if you don't talk."

"I don't know anything."

"This isn't bravery any more! It's stupidity! You could easily be executed for not cooperating with the government. Don't do this to yourself."

"Don't do this to me," I corrected him.

He looked me straight in the eyes for the first time and told me that they had all the names from my school. Khanoom Mahmoodi had given them the list. He said that my cooperation would change nothing for any of my friends, but it would save me from torture. He said that my friends would be arrested whether I talked or not, but if I wrote down their names, I wouldn't have to suffer any longer.

"I believe that you're telling the truth about Shahrzad," he said. "Don't try to be a hero; you could lose your life for it. Hamehd is sure that you're a member of the Fadayian, but I don't think so. A Fadayee wouldn't pray to Mary under torture."

I hadn't realized I had prayed out loud.

I asked if I was allowed to go to the bathroom, and he took my arm and helped me up. I felt dizzy. He put a pair of rubber slippers on the floor in front of the bed. They were at least four sizes too big for me, but because of the swelling they were too small. It hurt to put them on. He helped me walk across the room. It was not easy to keep my balance. Once we got to the door, he let go of my arm, gave me my blindfold, and told me to put it on. I did. He put a length of rope in my hand and guided me to the bathroom door. I stepped in, turned on the tap, and washed my face with cold water. A sudden wave of nausea rushed through me, my stomach contracted, and I vomited. It felt like a knife had cut me in half. A loud ringing filled my ears, and darkness swallowed me.

When I opened my eyes, I didn't know where I was. As my mind gradually cleared, I realized I wasn't in the bathroom any more but was lying on the wooden bed where I had been tortured. Ali sat on a chair, watching me. My head felt very sore, and when I touched it, I felt a big bump on the right side of my forehead. I asked Ali what had happened, and he said I had fallen in the bathroom and had hit my head. He said that the doctor had seen me and that my condition wasn't too serious. Then he helped me sit in a wheelchair, put my blindfold back on, and pushed me out of the room.

When he took off the blindfold, we were in a very small room with no windows and a toilet and a sink in the corner. There were two grey military blankets on the floor. He helped me lie down and spread one of them over me; it was rough and stiff and smelled of mould, but I didn't care; I was freezing. He asked if I was in pain, and I nodded, wondering why he was being nice to me. He left but came back in a few minutes with a middle-aged man wearing a military uniform, whom he introduced as Doctor Sheikh.

The doctor gave me some kind of injection in the arm, and he and Ali left the cell. I closed my eyes and thought of home. I wished I could crawl into my grandmother's bed as I used to when I was a child, so she could tell me there was no reason to be scared, that it had all been a nightmare.

(Marina Nemat, Prisoner of Tehran, A Memoir, Penguin Canada, 2007, pages 15-20)



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Corrupion of the Cradle, I

Two Unworkable Pieces of Marble


By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 30, Ilm 15, 166 BE

Baha'is believe that the Manifestation of God always comes to the most corrupt place in the world. This is how God proves His expertise as teacher and reformer. It is like that messed up, split, dirty, ugly hunk of marble that ordinary sculptors found unworkable. They left it aside until along came the greatest among them, Michelangelo. He drags the block out of the dump and carves his masterpiece, the famed David. So it is with the cradle of the Baha'i Faith, the nation formerly known as Persia. Iran, from a religious point of view, was a sub-standard piece of marble, by far the most corrupt, bigoted nation in the world. This is obvious to all, whether they have heard of Baha'u'llah or not.

"All observers agree in representing Persia as a feeble and backward nation divided against itself by corrupt practices and ferocious bigotries." (George Townshend, introduction to Shoghi Effendi, The Dawn-Breakers, p. xxiv)

No human can do anything with a nation so embroiled in prejudice; only God, the supreme Reformer, could ever turn it into anything but a pile of rubble. The root of its corruption is a confusion between politics and faith. Religion is all but indistinguishable from politics in Iran, and has been for centuries. The Guardian describes how the Mullas find it convenient to persecute Baha'is in order to enhance their own power and influence.

"In the land of its birth, wherein reside the immense majority of its followers ... a civil authority, as yet undivorced officially from the paralyzing influences of an antiquated, a fanatical, and outrageously corrupt clergy, pursues relentlessly its campaign of repression against the adherents of a Faith which it has for well-nigh a century striven unsuccessfully to suppress." (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 4)

The Iranian revolution kneaded religious opinion even deeper into the fabric of their administration. Still, one might think that this concern with religion might give its leaders the faith to reach out to stranger and trust the West. Unfortunately, revolutions, like the titan Chronos in Greek mythology, eat their own children. The power of Mullahs and parliamentarians alike is now permanently built on protest, negativity and reaction. Fear and xenophobia predominate, hatred, not love, suspicion, not trust. And, as often happens, the dislike has become mutual. Now the West has put Iran at the top of its enemies list. Take this sample headline from a recent New York Times article:

"Both Iran and West Fear a Trap on Uranium Deal; Iran is afraid of falling for a Western ruse to neutralize its `strategic reserve' while the West fears being lured into a plot to buy time for a nuclear bomb program." (David E. Sanger, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/world/middleeast/26iran.html?th&emc=th)

Contrast that with the trust and cooperation that Abdu'l-Baha promoted between America and Persia. When He spoke to the "Orient-Occident-Unity Conference" in Washington, He said,

"Tonight I am most happy in presenting myself before an audience such as this. I am an Oriental and have come into the West to meet the people of the Occident. Praise be to God! Upon the faces of those assembled here I perceive the light of God. This I consider an evidence of the possibility of uniting the East and the West, of establishing a perfect bond between Persia and America -- one of the objects of this conference. For the Persians there is no government better fitted to contribute to the development of their natural resources and the helping of their national needs in a reciprocal alliance than the United States of America, and for the Americans there could be no better industrial outlet and market than the virgin commercial soil of Persia. The mineral wealth of Persia is still latent and untouched. It is my hope that the great American democracy may be instrumental in developing these hidden resources and that a bond of perfect amity and unity may be established between the American republic and the government of Persia. May this bond -- whether material or spiritual -- be well cemented. May the material civilization of America find complete efficacy and establishment in Persia, and may the spiritual civilization of Persia find acceptance and response in America. ... Surely there will be great harvests of results forthcoming for Persia and America. In Persia advanced material civilization will be established and the doors thrown open wide to American commerce." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 35)

Nor were the central figures of the Baha'i Faith silent before the authorities in Persia, antagonistic as they may have been. Although Baha'u'llah disdained to mention politics in His own Writings, He saw to it that the Baha'i position was available to those who sought it out. Not long after He revealed His Book of Laws, He commissioned His son, Abdu'l-Baha, to write down some suggestions for eliminating the "ferocious bigotries" afflicting His native land. This book, "The Secret of Divine Civilization," is in my opinion one of the greatest works of reform and political science ever written. Needless to say, it was ignored in Baha'u'llah's native land. In a recent letter to the Baha'is in Iran, the Universal House of Justice continues the story of what happened after Abdu'l-Baha wrote "Secret of Divine Civilization."

"Locked in the grip of an antiquated Qajar autocracy restrained only by its incompetence, Persia drifted ever deeper into stagnation. Venal politicians competed with one another for a share of the diminishing wealth of a country driven to the verge of bankruptcy. Worse still, a population that had once produced some of the greatest minds in the history of civilization -- Cyrus, Darius, Rumi, Hafiz, Avicenna, Rhazes and countless others -- had become the prey of a clerical caste, as ignorant as it was corrupt, whose petty privileges could be maintained only by arousing in the helpless masses an unreasoning fear of anything progressive." (The Universal House of Justice, 2003 Nov 26, To the Followers of Baha'u'llah in the Cradle of the Faith, paragraph 10, p. 2)

Next time I will talk about the other rock the workers threw out that, as Jesus prophesied, would one day become the corner of the foundation, that is, the administrative cradle of the Baha'i Faith, North America.


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Ethics, Reward and Finance

Money as Root of All Good

 

A brief theoretical interlude about ethics, reward and finance

 

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 29, Ilm 14, 166 BE

 

 

In this series we are speculating on the possible introduction of local monetary schemes using three universal currencies based on trades and professions. Today we back off a bit in order to look at the right and wrong uses of money.

 

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There are fundamentally three ways to get someone to go out of their way to do good or to refrain from doing harm: one is fear of punishment, two, hope for reward, and three, inherent value. Inherent value is another way of saying the "l" word, that you love the good and do the right thing for its own sake. Unfortunately, when speaking about moral behavior in a social context you have to ignore inherent value.

 

If I leave my diamond necklace in a public place, a hundred or a thousand people may walk by, valuing their own integrity above stealing, but if only one is tempted, I still lose it forever. Similarly, that one thief among a thousand saints may be perfectly moral in every other way, may do right for its own sake every minute of their life except the moment they glimpse my necklace, but that does not save me from becoming a crime victim.

 

Government and even religion do not have the power to impose love on everybody. Often one cannot order oneself to do what is for our own good; if we could, smoking and obesity, to name just two, would be unknown. And even if we could impose love, love in imperfect beings is never an absolute or a constant. All it takes is one fleeting moment of temptation in one in a thousand for that necklace to disappear.

 

That leaves the other two motivators, reward and punishment. Historically, rulers have been better at imposing punishments for wrongdoing than they at rewarding good deeds. Government as we know it today is obsessed with negative sanctions, such as war, fines and imprisonment.

 

There are good psychological and evolutionary reasons for this. For millions of years large predators lurked behind every tree, ready to pounce. This constant danger made our brains respond instantly and viscerally to any imminent threat of harm. No matter how much our ancestor hoped to better himself, no matter how sublimely he valued good for its own sake, his genes were not passed on if he did not respond instantly and ended up as dinner for a sabre-toothed tiger.

 

With the possible exception of agriculture, the two greatest human inventions ever were language and money. Among other things, they introduced into the social equation the two longer-term motivators, hope of reward and love of right. For the first time hope and love could equal and even surpass brute fear as prime movers. Language enabled communication, which permited humans to cooperate in their own defense. The new power of speech empowered a weaker species to scale the food chain and take on the largest, most fearsome beasts.

 

The invention of money gave birth to homo economicus. It is a practical fact that for most people most of the time, the most enticing reward is cold, hard cash, and losing it is the most repugnant sanction. Even the prospect of paying less than expected is an enticing prospect, judging by how often advertisers use the word "save!"

 

Why is money so powerful?

 

The biggest reason is that historically it permitted the division of labour to come about. With a reasonable expectation of fair recompense, it suddenly made sense to spend years learning a specialized skill and even longer working high priced masterpieces in that craft. In this sense, money is the root of all good, but only if it furthers professional virtues like thrift, knowledge and excellence.

 

Money, then, has become an even more constant motivator than fear. In effect, money pits a long period of time against a relatively brief chill. Whereas fear galvanizes the body for quick reaction, money impells us to delayed gratification. Much delayed. As the saying, Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, implies, an artist reaches beyond the grave, much less the next pay-cheque.

 

Language and money are so fundamental that we treat them like the air, we forget they are there. Distressingly, in spite of tremendous progress in just about every other area of knowledge, the two greatest accomplishments, language and money, easily the most fundamental inventions ever made, are being neglected. We act as if they were blind forces of nature that we cannot alter or improve. Yet the language barrier is widening the digital divide, and it remains the greatest structural cause of poverty and injustice. If linguists agreed upon a second language for everybody, we would remove it in a single generation.

 

Similarly, we treat finance and monetary issues as if they are fixed and forever beyond human purview. The result? Money ceases to motivate, and when it does move us, it does so in an unhealthy way, one that does not further peace, enterprise or expertise. As the Bible says, "the love of money is the root of all evil." If money becomes an end in itself, it loses the power to motivate good deeds, delayed gratification, for most people most of the time. Without engrossing careers, the source of good money is out of reach and ceases to motivate the masses. Fear and gross punishments again become the only thing that moves them. At the same time, the wealthy fear loss of their fortunes more than they hope for the far greater fortunes that could be made if economic equity were univerally applied.

Thus inequality is a churning maelstrom from which it is impossible to escape.

 

It is not a coincidence that countries with the highest income inequalities also have the highest rates of incarceration.

 

With little chance for the poor majority to better their condition legally, the only perceived way ahead is trafficing, pandering and other criminal activity. Even in supposedly egalitarian and freedom-loving democracies, a spirit of revenge proliferates. As punishment fails, and the authorities retaliate with even more severe punishments.

It is also not a coincidence that these unequal, punitive societies are also the most caught up in materialism, a worldview that concentrates on immediate motives at the expense of a longer view.

 

Next time we will continue with the question: What kind of currency and monetary policy would make money the root of all good again?

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A Pause from the Three Terras; Eduterras, Ecuterras and Paxterras

Money As Motivator


By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 28, Ilm 13, 166 BE


This series asks what monetary policy might be like under a decentralized world government. We often forget that the extreme centralization of power that is the norm today is not inevitable. Rather, it is a symptom of the corruption and slow death of the sovereign nation, which jealously guards every jot and tittle of its own prerogatives.

A democratic world government would immediately shift the balance away from the sovereign middle. Without the need to maintain large armies or pay for weapons, there would be a great shift of wealth towards the world center. However, with Comenian organization the lion's share of the wealth would flow out to the periphery, towards localities, neighbourhoods and families. This is because the power to collect taxes, print money and, as a result, the power to manipulate monetary policy would be delegated to local levels of governance. The present fractional reserve system is designed to concentrate monetary policy in the hands of central banks, which then permit banks to create money through lending. Why cannot other, local institutions, including the trades and professions, do this too? They could create their own money by providing credit and taking out loans for activities that they know about best, enterprises promoting their own trade, such as training apprentices, funding research and promoting related charities.

In our present financial system money is the be all and end all, the overweening reward for all economic activity. The sole motive rewarded and reinforced by money is lust for naked profit. Worse, this profit is gained not necessarily by invention or productive activity but simply from growth. It has been calculated that high finance has gone from five to fifteen percent of GNP in only ten years. Lately these financial wizards have devised derivatives based on debt risk. This means that even our future growth is being systematically plundered. Since risk is by definition, well, risky, this model is inherently ephemeral and unstable, a house built not on sand but on financial bubbles. Responding to the current economic crisis, governments are even raising their stimulus funds by borrowing from private lenders. This was not how the miracle of the New Deal was performed. While this is highly profitable for a moneyed few, its cost to society is so great that at least one European banker, hardly a socialist, has suggested that the entire financial industry be officially nationalized and that these offending institutions be run as not-for-profit public utilities.

Meanwhile, the greatest factor of social as well as economic stability, income equality, continues to spin out of control. An often mentioned example is the stratospheric pay given to professional athletes. It has been calculated that an ordinary professional worker who makes the average starting salary of a university graduate, fifty-thousand dollars a year, would have to work for seventy years to make what the average professional hockey player gets in a single season -- and hockey is on the lower end of the pay scale among elite athletes. Meanwhile, those who do tremendous good to society, such as inventors, innovators and discoverers, must scrounge for funding.

An economy that allowed local institutions and trades and professions to manufacture money would see to it that those who work in fields that benefit society the most would merit the highest pay-rates. Those who innovate and discover new knowledge in these areas would stand to gain the most of all. What is more, their pay would be in a currency (the terra, a three pronged currency) that is best suited to their expertise, managed by a local and world public utility of high finance.

The great benefit of this localization would be an increase in administrative efficiency. One of the most brilliant advocates of local governance was Jane Jacobs. She deplored the present funding squeeze on the local level, especially for cities and towns, saying that, "standardization is the parent of stagnation." (Dark Age, 119) Large cities are sinking into decrepitude because the lion's share of the wealth and tax revenue they produce is "standardized," that is, pre-allocated by having strings attached to them by more "senior" levels of government.

"Healthy municipalities do not march in lockstep. At a given time, each has its needs and may also have its own particular opportunities for innovative solutions. These opportunities can be very valuable. Central planning, whether by leftists or conservatives, draws too little on local knowledge and creativity, stifles innovations, and is inefficient and costly because it is circuitous. It bypasses intimate and varied knowledge directly fed back into the system." (Dark Age Ahead, 116-117)

The worst effects of over-centralization are witnessed on the lowliest but most important level of all, that of the individual. Over past decades the relative share of wealth in the hands of the majority has diminished while the riches of the few concentrated beyond measure. Here, centralization is at its most extreme.

Advocates of the status quo argue that our economic stagnation would be worsened by giving everyone a standard, livable income as a human right. We need the threat of homelessness and starvation to keep the wheels of society turning. How else could bosses light a fire under their lazy employees? If the threat of destitution ever went away, workers would not want to work.
Next time I will argue that this fear is fallacious. It is born of ignorance of how to manage the most powerful human motivator, money. If local institutions and trades controlled the money supply, workers would be more motivated to work, not less. They would be concerned with something that really matters, progressive social change, not crass profiteering.


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Voyager Ends

Voyager Notes

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 26, Ilm 11, 166 BE

It has taken over a month but now at last we have viewed all seven seasons of Star Trek Voyager. On the day when we watched the last episode I dreamed a sort of fan-fiction Voyager scenario. There was a big explosion and one of the shuttles was obliterated, along with several central characters. Captain Janeway was about to move the star ship on when the Doctor objected that it would be immoral to just leave. He could send out nano-probes to act as markers. These will give the cells that are living a chance to gather together into clumps. These clumps of flesh may someday learn to live a sort of multi-cellular existence on their own. She was considering his suggestion when I woke up; only then did the absurdity start to sink in.

My original fear when I heard they were making Star Trek Voyager was that it would be horrible to watch. The plot of making one's way home across the galaxy is too similar to that excruciating TV Sci-fi comedy that blighted my childhood, Lost in Space, with its prescient robot crying: "Danger Will Robinson, danger!" Now that I have seen the whole Voyager series I am reminded more of Homer's Odyssey. Actually, this space opera is probably somewhere in between, though I think closer to the Odyssey than to Lost in Space. The writing is as good as it ever gets on television.

The effect of Voyager on the kids is even more marked than on me. Though I did not intend to do so, it looks like I am raising a couple of trekkers. 15 year old Silvie has decided that her costume for Halloween will be Ohura in the new movie version of Star Trek. Yesterday she and her mother bought a red miniskirt and black net hose, just like Ohura. All she needs is a com badge and a black turtleneck dickey, and maybe a deeper tan, and she will look just like the communications officer of the original Star Trek series.

Ten-year-old Tommy is now spouting pseudo-scientific Star Trek babble as his natural language. He carries around an unrecognizable piece of an old toy that now is his "phaser." In his grade five class he was assigned an outline of a turkey to colour for Thanksgiving. Instead of using crayons, he took a pen and drew cybernetic implants over one of its eyes. When his teacher asked what it was, he said that it was a Borg turkey. In response, she told him of a golf partner she once had who wore a flashing Bluetooth cell device behind his ear, which made him look eerily like a Borg drone. Ignoring the fact that the Borg would have disdained to assimilate a turkey, Tommy's Borg turkey is one of the most ridiculous looking creatures I have ever seen. If the earth were invaded by Borg turkeys we would at least go out with a laugh.

As the series ended for us, I heard news on the CBC science radio program, Quirks and Quarks, that the two real Voyager probes are travelling at two different points of a newly discovered ribbon of EM radiation at the outer edge of the heliosphere. The EM ribbon was discovered by telescope, and the two Voyager spacecraft cannot see it because it runs directly between them. Strange.

This morning before school Tommy was huddling on the couch under a blanket while his hot chocolate was waiting for him on the kitchen table. He made the following observation about Voyager, which had me rolling on the floor laughing. "You know with all the transporting they do in Star Trek, you never see them transporting a meal directly into someone's stomach..."

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Eduterras: An Educational Economy

Eduterras




By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 25, Ilm 11, 166 BE


Yesterday we broached the possibility of a Comenian world government instituting a world currency called the "terra," with three semi-exchangeable sub-types, the "ecuterra," the "paxterra" and the "eduterra." The first sub-currency is the ecuterra, a currency overseen by interfaith institutions at every level of society that are charged with overseeing faith groups and, more broadly, with the general religious, spiritual and metaphysical welfare of humanity. The paxterra is run by the political world parliament, whose chief goal is peace, the removal of injustice, and the immediate material welfare of all world citizens. The third, the eduterra, is the terra sub-currency overseen by affiliated institutions dedicated to philosophy, science, art, culture, knowledge and education. This is what I will discuss today.


While the idea of educators printing money seems foreign at first, it has great affinity to everything that teachers and learners do that. The desire to learn gainfully is deeply rooted in human psychology from the earliest age. As we shall see, teachers who are empowered to give students substantive rewards, short term as well as long term, will suddenly be far more effectual with their students and influential in society. So spectacular will be its success, I feel certain, that once eduterras are instituted the big question will be how educators ever muddled along without it.



==========



Roland Fryer, an economist and head of Harvard's Education Innovation Laboratory, has been experimenting with "pay-for-performance" in education, where students are paid in cash or cell phone minutes for getting good grades. In a 2008 interview with Macleans Magazine he told how he realized that the reason why it is so hard to motivate children and youth to try hard at school is that the rewards are so distant, usually ten or twenty years into the future. Children complained that they are the last to be consulted on educational issues. Although results from his experiments are still tentative, Fryer told how he has already noticed how pay for achievement in class is universally popular among pupils and students.

"Part of the resistance (to pay for performance) echoes part of the [problem] with public education: we consult mainly adults, and do things that are comfortable for adults. I think if the answer lay there, we would already have found it. One thing we are trying to do at Ed-Labs to push the envelope is to ask children how schools can better serve them. And the most important thing is that I never met a kid who did not like it. Though in D.C. a few weeks ago, there was a kid who surprised me. He said, `I do not think we should be paid for school. I think I should pay to come to school, because it is such a valuable resource.' I was so impressed. An hour later, we were giving out the first cheques in the auditorium, and this kid's name was called, so I put his cheque in my pocket. He said, `What are you doing?' I said, `You told me you did not believe you should be paid, so I would like to honour that.' He looked at me in a way that only a 13-year-old could, and said, `I never said that!'" <http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/12/08/macleans-interview-roland-fryer/4/>

I too have observed in my own son and daughter that money, even fake money like reward points, silly and insubstantial as they seem to someone old enough to take into account several decades of life, are extremely effective motivators. It was an economist, J.M. Keynes, who said that in the long term we are all dead. The brilliant invention of money acts as a constant reward for economic virtue. Meanwhile, educational values tend to be pie in the sky. As long as there are no immediate rewards for learning as well as working, for all intents and purposes it is not rewarded at all.

This initiative hints at what could be done with eduterras. Let us go over the numbers. Where I live, in Ontario, it costs the government an average of about ten thousand dollars to keep a child in a public school for a year. This expense is slightly above average for developed countries. Some nations, such as Belgium, attach that yearly sum to the child, so that whatever school the child decides to attend, be it public, parochial or private, and whether teachers are unionized or not, the money follows that child. This forces all schools to compete for pupils; reportedly, Belgian teachers take great pains to keep pupils and their parents happy. In any case, this ten thousand dollars a year amounts at five percent interest to the equivalent of a float of two hundred thousand dollars for the duration of a child's schooling.

In view of Fryer's findings, it would make sense to make at least some of this ten thousand a year available for pay for performance schemes, paid directly to children. It would be wise to earmark at least some of this money not for pupils to retain for themselves but to pay out to their peers, conditional upon performance, in this case on whether those peers show them kindness, cooperativeness and helpfulness in studying together. The power to reward others in this way would give children a degree of financial independence and would teach how to influence others in reaching their own educational goals. Of course, all this could be done with ordinary money.

The advantage of paying educational expenses in the world eduterra currency is that educational institutions would actually gain the ability to exercise monetary policy. They could leverage their budgets by tying education to not-for-profit revenue schemes. For example, eduterras could pay for tokens in video and internet games that are sanctioned and licensed by educators; they might be used to pay for educational books, toys and games. Under the present system, such new revenue streams could be used to increase the float, or reduce the yearly costs of school.

Under an eduterra scheme, this would be leveraged. That is, the extra eduterras are re-distributed directly to students, who in turn purchase more sanctioned goods, which increases the revenue further. Since children would have only marked eduterras in their pocket, it would be difficult for them to spend the money on illicit or non-age appropriate goods or activities. At the same time, any advertising or commercial outreach to children would have to live up to the standards of educators before earning the right to trade in eduterras.

This goes further than what Comenius actually proposed as sources of revenue for teachers in Panorthosia. However, in other ways Comenius went further. Here is the full text of paragraph 11, Chapter 22 of Panorthosia, which deals with pay for teachers.

"Proper salaries for teachers. Where the question may arise, whether it is better for teachers' salaries to be paid from public funds by the local Magistracy, or from private fees charged to parents, my answer is 'Both'. Modest salaries should be paid from public funds, payable in advance, to provide them with means of subsistence while teaching the poorer pupils free of charge. But fees should remain as an incentive to diligence, payable duly after a public examination at the end of a year's work, if the teacher has fully succeeded in bringing his Pupils to the proper standard. Otherwise he should receive nothing except disgrace for failing to perform his task. If these arrangements are made, there will be plenty of opportunities and incentives for diligence on the part of teachers and generosity on the part of parents." (Panorthosia, Chap 22, Para 11, p. 51)

It can be seen that he advocated multiple revenue streams for education, and, rather severely I think, advocated pay for performance for teachers, or, more exactly, no pay for poor performance of students in examinations. I know of no school where teachers get no pay-cheque if their students fail their final examination.

In his defence, he does seem to advocate an unconditional salary from the state. An under-performing teacher would be like a business that goes bankrupt; he or she would lose out on extra pay, but would not be faced with homelessness and starvation.




Parts of this are based on an essay originally written for the Badi' Blog dated Dec 10, 2008, called: "The Leadership of Knowledge; Beautiful Balance Sheets and Trade Money" (http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/leadership-of-knowledge.html)


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Paxterras, Eduterras and Ecuterras

A Three Part, Unidirectional Currency

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 23, Ilm 09, 166 BE


This is part of a series of essays on John Amos Comenius's idea of universal reform, or "Panorthosia," and how it might be applied today. Today let us continue our discussion of a Comenius-inspired idea for three new forms of currency.

John Amos Comenius proposed a world government unlike any other. He saw the routine, day-to-day work of legislation being handled by continental governments, while at the top, instead of a wholly political entity, there would be a three-chambered supreme court keeping education, politics and religion as three separate but equal partners. These three bodies Comenius called the College of Light, the Dicastery of Peace and the Ecumenical Consistory. Each has an independent sphere and runs autonomously, holding elections, maintaining its own budget through independent taxation and possibly, as we will speculate upon today, even print its own currency.

This tripartite partnership is not restricted to the world level. It is universal, meaning that it is a sort of franchise duplicated at every institutional level, from continental governments right down to faith groups and family households. It uses as foundation or model the individual, whose fundamental interests, Comenius maintained, are threefold: peace in the short term (politics), providence in the long term (religion), and the advance of knowledge from one generation to the next (science and education).
Such governance has no parallel in modern times. Even the most enlightened democratic politicians would shrink in horror at sharing money and power with scientists, educators and spiritual leaders. True, political leaders gladly take science and faith under their wings, as long as the purse strings and decision-making remain firmly in their hands. Even the United Nations tacked on Unesco only as an afterthought years after the U.N. formed. To find something similar, you have to go all the way back to Plato's "The Republic." Let us briefly summarize Plato's idea.

Plato compared society to a pastoral model run by a shepherd, who is served by sheepdogs, which in turn manage herds of sheep. These three functions of the state, wisdom, protection and production, are mutually exclusive, yet at the same time utterly depend upon one another. This can be compared to the world's simplest game, rock-paper-scissors. Just as rock breaks scissors, scissors cut paper and paper wraps rock, so it is with shepherd, sheepdog and sheep. The shepherd, or philosopher king, cannot eat without an income from sheep, nor manage sheep without a sheepdog. The sheepdog, the spirited, protective element of society, cannot restrain its passions without knowledge and guidance from the shepherd, nor are its natural abilities constructive without a flock of wandering sheep to keep in line. The sheep cannot fully concentrate on grazing or protect against predators without sheepdogs, nor do they have any long term hope of survival without serving the needs of humans through their shepherd.

As mentioned, the nation state of today is monolithic, with one shepherd, one sheepdog and one flock of sheep. The guardian or sheepdog is the laws, police and military, which protect and tax the people and their various enterprises. Nationalists justify their monopoly on power by pointing to the constant threat of attack from other nations, or from separatists, terrorists and insurgents within. Tension between nations creates a so-called balance of terror holding war at bay, even as nuclear weapons proliferate. One advantage of keeping almost two hundred separate nation states in the United Nations is that it does perforce maintain a degree of decentralization, though in practice it leaves even the strongest nation states open to undue influence from wealthy corporations, which are not tied down by borders.

In a Comenian UCS, all nations would unite under a single, constitutional, elected republic. As the government of all human beings ruling over all nations, its very existence would finish the threat of external attack forever -- or, at least until we experience first contact with intelligent aliens. As for the more insidious internal problems of discontent, insurgency and civil war, and the often worse threat of arbitrary countermeasures from the center, these would be removed by constitutionally decentralizing the world government, for example, by applying the principle of subsidiarity and shoring up the periphery, adding continental, neighbourhood and household governmental structures both above and below the level of the nation state.

Another important way to diffuse power in the center is what we are discussing here, splitting the central authority into three chambers, each holding its own elections, enforcing taxation and printing its own money. Just as nation states now require taxpayers to pay taxes in their own currency, each of the three chambers would require world citizens to pay their taxes in their own respective currency.

How might monetary policy work in such a system?

As discussed yesterday, the variety of local currencies could be collectively called "locas," and the global currency "terras." In a Comenian world order there might be three types of terra. The College of Light, charged with science and education, might produce an educational terra, or eduterra for short. The political body, Comenius's Dicastery of Peace, is charged with keeping the peace. A name for its currency might be "peace terra," or paxterra for short. The currency of the Ecumenical Consistory, responsible for inter-faith relations and fulfilling the spiritual needs of humanity, might be called "ecumenical terras," or ecuterras for short.
I am on so to speak Terra Incognita here I know, but I wonder if the world body might decide to limit conversion among these three kinds of terra currency, using Plato's pastoral game of stone-paper-scissors as model. For example, it is a major lesson of history that religious leaders do tremendous harm and provoke terrible persecution when they attempt to meddle in politics, so why not prohibit the conversion of ecuterras directly into paxterras? Similarly, the relentless creep of global warming demonstrates the harm that politicians do when they try to write the agenda of science. In order to prevent this, the constitution of the world government could forbid conversion of paxterras directly into eduterras.

Like the game of rock-paper-scissors, these two blocking rules force money conversions to circulate in one direction only, from eduterras to paxterras to ecuterras, not the other way around. So, religion must cross through science (that is, quasi-political or superstitious beliefs must be subjected to the systematic, reasoned scrutiny of the scientific method) in order to have a say in the arena of policy and politics. Similarly, politicians would have to subject their policies to religious values of mercy, love and reciprocity before they can speak to scientific opinion. Plus, scientists and educators must address practical policy before wasting time and energy fathoming the eternal, ultimate concerns of faith. Unless this due vetting takes place, not a penny, or whatever the smallest unit of the terra is called, can be spent in ill-advised boundary-crossing enterprises.

Next time, let us talk in more detail about how these three world bodies might work monetary policy using their respective currencies, starting with the eduterra.

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Terras or Locas?

Three New Types of Currency


By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 22, Ilm 08, 166 BE



I have been looking for a precedent for the new types of money that I have been contemplating for the UCS, Universal Civic Society -- that is, the world after the concurrent formation of continental, global, familial and neighbourhood governments. Here is what I learned after wading through several Wikipedia articles on currency, including "alternative currency", "complementary currency," "fiat currency," and "private currency."


There is a startling variety of types of currency. Some are well established, some remain experimental and others are only proposed. The most common currency in actual use is fiat currency, the national government-imposed money that most people use most of the time. These are universal largely because governments back them up and demand that taxes be paid in this type of currency. There are, however, alternatives to fiat species. Many types of local or private schemes have been tried with varying success, some based on barter and others on commodities, like gold or silver. Many are local currencies that can only be spent in a certain place, and others are limited to a single company or industry (scrip, coupons or air miles).


Among the most interesting experiments in local currency took place in response to the hyper-inflation that afflicted Germanic countries after the First World War. They had various names, including the Schwundgeld. This local currency started with a private company and ended up as a project by urban governments. This local currency had a "best-before-date," which is to say that Schwundgelds devalued gradually; after a certain deadline they expired and were useless. Termed demurrage, or negative interest, this encouraged fast and furious spending in local stores and other enterprises. This shot of adrenaline was a strong but temporary stimulus to the economy. Some environmentalists, including the Green Party and George Monbiot, argue that demurrage, by discouraging cash holdings, encourages investment in long term resources, like forests, fisheries, and so forth.


Many other currencies have been speculated upon by futurists and science fiction writers based on units of energy, time, labour, carbon, etc. The Star Trek universe, at least in its early incarnations, contemplated a future society without need of money at all. Indeed, the nature of money would change as soon as a standard income covering basic needs is introduced. With a modicum of food, clothing and shelter guaranteed as fundamental rights, the threat of starvation and homelessness would not loom over economic relations; naked profit might not exert the addictive fascination that it does now. Other values and virtues would enter the economic equation if work and purchases were done more out of inherent interest rather than brute survival. Just as government-owned corporations are not necessarily restricted to brute profit as motivators, standard incomes would allow other financial agents to take on new spiritual, scientific and legal motivations.


The question remains, however: what kind of currency is the best? When a democratic world government comes about, should it retain unchanged the present monetary system run by national governments? Or should it encourage entire continents to take on their own currencies, as has already been done in Europe with the euro? Should there be an "afro," an "americo," and an "asio" as well? Or should the world authority establish right away its own fiat currency to replace the hundreds of currencies, fiat or otherwise, in use around the world?


A name has even been suggested for this world currency, the "terra," analogous to the EC's "euro." So, under a world government will every exchange of funds be in terras, or will the terra be restricted to travellers and diplomats while most transactions are done using various forms of local currency? What should we call them, since presumably every locality would have a different name for its currency. Collectively we could call the myriad local currencies "locas." So the question is, in a UCS should we pay our taxes and everything else in terras and keep locas as adjuncts, or should the loca be the main currency in use, with terras reserved for exceptional cases, such as intercontinental tourism?


I cannot begin to try to answer these questions. I expect that specialists using computer simulations could determine what currency or combination of currencies would be most economically viable on a regional or international basis. There seems to be a consensus of opinion that locas do offer a measure of security against hyper-inflation (whether that would be a problem in a cosmopolitan order I have no idea) and against over-investment in environmentally unfriendly enterprises, and that demurrage and Tobin taxes on currency exchange could be effective protections against hyper-inflation and overly heated speculation. But beyond that, not much is accessible to the non-economist.


Undaunted, I have an idea for three new kinds currency that, as far as I can see, has never been tried. To recap: In this series of essays on the Badi' Blog (badiblog@blogspot.com) I have been exploring the idea of a three-chambered world government based on education, politics and religion. Since, as we have seen, these three already have their own elections and taxation, the question I am now interested in is: should each of the three branches print their own money as well? That is what I will try to answer over the next several installments in this series.

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Validation

Other Baha'i bloggers have noted how this sheds light on the holy words: "A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men..."

Baha'u'llah on the Bab

Baha'u'llah on the Bab

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 20, Ilm 06, 166 BE


On this holy day, the Birth of the Bab, it is helpful to recall what Baha'u'llah wrote about the Bab. In the Ishraqat, He wrote,


"Praise be to God who manifested the Point [the Bab] and caused to proceed therefrom the knowledge of all that was and shall be.... He is that Point which God hath made to be an Ocean of light unto the faithful among His servants, and a Ball of Fire unto the deniers among His creatures and the impious among His people. (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 102)


Baha'u'llah, in one of His most important prayers, the Tablet of Ahmad, vindicates the Bab's power and glory, and challenges those who would question it, "If ye deny these verses, by what proof have ye believed in God? Produce it, O assemblage of false ones." Compare this to the following parallel statement in the Writings of the Bab himself, which declares that the very mercy of God is conditional upon this allegiance.


"O peoples of the earth! Bear ye allegiance unto this resplendent light wherewith God hath graciously invested Me through the power of infallible Truth, and walk not in the footsteps of the Evil One, [Q2:204] inasmuch as he prompteth you to disbelieve in God, your Lord, and verily God will not forgive disbelief in Himself, though He will forgive other sins to whomsoever He pleaseth. [4:51] Indeed His knowledge embraceth all things..." (Qayyumu'l-Asma', SWB, 48)


Baha'u'llah revealed one tablet especially for this Holy Day. It includes a special prayer for the occasion at the end. Here is a paragraph from that work,


"This glorious Tablet hath been revealed on the Anniversary of the Birth [of the Bab] that thou mayest recite it in a spirit of humility and supplication and give thanks unto thy Lord, the All-Knowing, the All-Informed. Make thou every effort to render service unto God, that from thee may appear that which will immortalize thy memory in His glorious and exalted heaven." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 234)


This seems to indicate what our goal should be for today, and more broadly for our whole lives. We should aim to do something worthy of "immortalizing" our memory in the heaven of the Bab. This may include a good deed, a visit to a person in need, a meal for the poor, a gift to the fund, a payment to the Huququ'llah, or even the thoughts and prayers we have about the Bab today.


In another late Tablet, written to a member of the Bab's family, Baha'u'llah says,


"Say: This is the Day of meritorious deeds, did ye but know it. This is the Day of the glorification of God and of the exposition of His Word, could ye but perceive it. Abandon the things current amongst men and hold fast unto that which God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting, hath enjoined upon you. The day is fast approaching when all the treasures of the earth shall be of no profit to you." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets, 231-232)


Speaking of the Bab in an early, mystical work, the Javahiru'l-Asrar Baha'u'llah discusses at length the station of the Bab. He was among other things the consummation of the 12 Imams or disciples of Muhammad, a lineage that started with Muhammad and continued to Ali, Hasan, Husain, and nine others. The Mission of the Bab, Ali Muhammad, was the consummation of that spiritual heritage.


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 "But as to Him Who appeared in the year sixty, He standeth in need of neither transformation nor interpretation, for His name was Muhammad, and He was a descendant of the Imams of the Faith. Thus it can be truly said of Him that He was the son of Hasan, as is undoubtedly clear and evident unto thine eminence. Nay, He it is Who fashioned that name and created it for Himself, were ye to observe with the eye of God." (Javahir, paragraph 50)

 "It is Our wish at this juncture to ... extol His remembrance, that perchance thou mayest gain into all things an insight born of Him Who is the Almighty, the Incomparable. (paragraph 51)

 "Consider and reflect upon His days, when God raised Him up to promote His Cause and to stand as the representative of His own Self. Witness how He was assailed, denied, and denounced by all; how, when He set foot in the streets and marketplaces, the people derided Him, wagged their heads at Him, and laughed Him to scorn; how at every moment they sought to slay Him. Such were their doings that the earth in all its vastness was straitened for Him, the Concourse on High bewailed His plight, the foundations of existence were reduced to nothingness, and the eyes of the well-favoured denizens of His Kingdom wept sore over Him. Indeed, so grievous were the afflictions which the infidels and the wicked showered upon Him that no faithful soul can bear to hear them." (Paragraph 52)

 "... Indeed, should a soul be acquainted with these mysteries, he would grasp that which none other hath fathomed." (Paragraph 57)


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Yet More Escutcheons

Groups, Boffins and Beauty

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 19, Ilm 05, 166 BE


Escutcheons for Groups and Institutions


We have been looking mostly at personal escutcheons so far, but in reality that is only the beginning. Personal escutcheons are the foundation for a set of standard reforms to be introduced at every level of society, from the individual to the household, company, school, neighbourhood, city, region, nation, continent and the world.


Group escutcheons are a much more complex proposition individual ones. In a democratic meritocracy, groups depend utterly upon the initiative, goodwill and consensus of opinion among individuals in order to progress. Institutional escutcheons plug into the dashboard displays and escutcheons of many individuals, both within their membership and without. But they also interact closely with other groups at all levels of society.


Like a personal escutcheon, each family, company, government or other organization has some freedom to decide upon what plans, measures and criteria to display on their escutcheon, according to their current needs and priorities. However, whereas individuals design their escutcheons autonomously, setting up their own self-monitored goals and criteria of success, group escutcheons must adhere to many rules and standards imposed from within and without. Group policies must be open, their goals determined by free elections and progress verified by qualified outside parties.


As mentioned, the mottos and displays on escutcheons act as interfaces from one person or group to all others. Many of these interfaces are obligatory. Institutions, unlike individuals, are required to display their escutcheon in public. By law, schools, companies, faith groups, families, neighbourhoods and governments, must place their escutcheon in a prominent place over their door, on membership cards and their website.


Depending upon their purpose, an institution can earn the right to add certain features and distinctions to their escutcheon. Badges and emblems are designed to be a recognizable, open set of standards, determined by data gathered according to strict regulations. Badges are standard, audited by licensed specialists, and change automatically according to received criteria. Like a policeman's badge, the escutcheon serves as public notification of licensing and accreditation. Their visualizations are designed to ensure transparency, to discourage nepotism or favouritism in awarding grants and contracts. They assure that every bidder's qualifications are clear and accessible by the public, who have a right to view and analyze their escutcheon.


Rise of the Boffins


Future political scientists will surely look back on this time as having the biggest, most dangerous power vacuum ever. Our lack of leadership is staggering. Leaders at all levels do nothing but dawdle while temperatures and sea-levels soar and glaciers melt. It is unlikely that any individual leader, no matter how wise or charismatic, can possibly fit the bill. This is because the sort of leader we need today is not an individual at all.


Undoubtedly, we need good individuals to take the lead; we always have and always will. But pay too much attention to individual leaders. This is unhealthy and in fact contributes to the power vacuum. No, the real default of leadership today is not that leaders in themselves are lacklustre or inadequate, is in a sad lack of influence of experts and expertise. We leave our trades and professions forlorn, banished from the halls of power.


Everything comes of opinion, so it only makes sense that the opinion of our best experts should come before that of others. We cannot expect professionals to serve, advise and obey passively. The problem with the UN's Science Advisory Panel on Climate Change is that it is just that, an advisory panel. True, this body has increased greatly in prestige as more thinking people realize that stopping greenhouse gas emissions is vital to our collective survival.


What we really need are panels of experts with teeth. Give them power to tell governments what to do. Right now, the panel on climate change is telling the world: "Stop these emissions or we are all cooked, literally." But that is not enough. They need power to act directly, not just sit on the sidelines. Then the boffins can take the initiative and lead from the front lines in humanity's battle for survival.


What is more difficult, though, is that we need the opinion of some, those expert in important disciplines, to have more sway than others, whose knowledge is in areas that are less crucial to human survival. Some professionals, such as actors and celebrities, hog the limelight while climate scientists are allowed on only as extras. Nor is climate alone among sciences being ignored. It is just one of a thousand areas of expertise where we are not doing the right thing, or even the sensible thing. We need farmers, doctors, teachers and other experts not to be content with telling us what to do, they must be in unalienable positions of honour where they can take political leaders to task as soon as they begin to ignore fundamentals.


Here are some examples. There are thousands, if not millions of soldiers, arms merchants and spies for every expert in peace studies. The number of agriculturalists has dwindled from over half to less than one percent of the population in many regions. As a result, farmers have little influence and in their work remain dependent upon hydrocarbons for fertilizers. This threatens the world with famine at the first rise in oil prices. There are thousands of linguists, chroniclers of languages and literary lights for every educator working to remove the language barrier. The list goes on.


Beautiful Balance Sheets


In high technology industries official bodies come together periodically to adopt standards for the next generation of products. This use of the consensus of expert opinion is pretty much the definition of the scientific method. Yet this process has more influence in some areas of human endeavour than others. It is all but unknown in religion, for example, yet it is commonplace in rapidly advancing high-technology industries. The problem with the latter, though, is that technical standards tend to be comprehensible only to highly trained specialists. The lay public is not consulted.


For example, investors in stocks learn after years of patient study how to read a balance sheet. Assuming that the data are reliable in a year-end report, they can look down the listing of facts and figures about a public corporation and rapidly assess its health.




With escutcheons bodies of experts will similarly agree upon what data are important, but they will cross the line of specialist knowledge and ask what graphics could represent the meaning of this information.


Collaborating with artists, they will find ways of summarizing health that are so intuitively obvious that any untrained person using their aesthetic sense alone can tell at a glance how robust a person, company or other institution is. The financial part of an escutcheon, for example, may not display the exact amount of savings or where investments are, but it will show a graphic attesting that the party in question is in good economic shape and has adhered to accepted norms in the industry.


Of course, nature already does this with organisms. Usually any viewer can tell at a glance whether the body of a plant, animal or human is a pretty or ugly example of its kind. If it has good genes it will have a strong and elegant enough constitution to pass them on to their progeny. In such cases, the face, flower or body an organism invariably strikes the eye as beautiful. When it looks symmetrical and harmonious, then every law of evolutionary biology says that this organism will be a good bet. If it is ugly, its chances of survival are probably slim.











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As it is now, organizations are expected consciously to manipulate their public face with paid advertising, in effect bribing the public to listen. This is done at prodigious cost, not only financially but to the truth, which is routinely distorted. Meanwhile, the public has little official, unbiased, verifiable information about what a company stands for, its qualifications and past achievements.



The advantage of escutcheons is not just that they bridge the chasm between specialists and lay, but mostly that they extend open standards to areas that have stubbornly resisted change for centuries. Some of the most hidebound include morality, religion, philosophy and politics. However, even accounting, a discipline where standards are highly advanced, would be revolutionized by escutcheons.


With an escutcheon display hooked into its balance sheets, anybody with minimal training would see the most important features of an organization's escutcheon at a glance, without referring to a single statistic or number. Right over its doorway a constantly updated graphic shows the relative well-being of an institution, whether it is keeping up to its stated goals and purposes, and so forth. As graphic standards are finalized for escutcheons, more and more indicators of an institution's budgetary and financial condition can gradually be incorporated into its escutcheon displays. As it is shown across the industry to be official and reliable, clients will be inclined to pay attention to each new indicator.


When a given badge has withstood scrutiny and feedback for a decade, it will be integrated into the world curriculum. In time, any educated person in the world will be able to walk through the portals of any institution whose escutcheon shows this badge posted over its doorway and gain an instant picture of its health, its plans and accomplishments. Passers-by who want more details can use HUD's or mobile devices to drill down using its wireless feed and pass beyond iconography to the raw numbers and statistics that form them.


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Dashboards and Escutcheons

More on Escutcheons for the Individual


Families and other institutions often connect themselves with medieval tradition by adopting a coat of arms, also called an escutcheon. This sometimes includes a Greek or Latin saying along with a set of symbolic images in the visual language of heraldry. In his posthumous work, "Panorthosia or Universal Reform," John Amos Comenius proposed that a world government take up certain mottos or slogans to place on the escutcheon of groups at each major level of society, from the individual to family, school, faith groups and, at the most universal level, the world government itself. Enhanced by sophisticated information technology, this device would make the goals and ideals of a cosmopolitan order more friendly, coherent and understandable.

For better or worse, the upcoming generation of children born after the advent of the internet are virtually all gamers. Electronic games are so compelling and even addictive for them because game designers long ago learned how to make what is little more than a display, a database and a data feedback mechanism appealing to young children. As an educational theorist, Comenius understood this psychology well. In his over 150 book oeuvre he often suggested ways that educators can make learning as natural and enjoyable as play. The mottos that he devised for families and governments in Panorthosia demonstrate that he understood how important this can be for governance as well as education.
Like a computer game or simulation, an escutcheon is nothing more than a display, a database and a set of feedback mechanisms. Unlike the augmented reality "dashboard displays" that we have discussed elsewhere, an escutcheon is permanent, official and relatively static. The escutcheon is a tally of the results of many lessons, games and simulations, both formal and informal. Like the list of top ten scorers in a computer game, it is essentially a record of goals accomplished and an emblem of the ideals, virtues and honours that one aims for in life.

An inherent part of the world curriculum, they begin in early childhood, starting with standard peer and parental assessments and report cards from teachers. However, with maturity they gradually become autonomous, self-regulated measures of virtue and self-education. They are the summary of a life displayed in as artistic a way as possible. Indeed as escutcheons are applied universally, they will create an entire industry for artists, graphic designers and illustrators.

An escutcheon has both a public and a private face. For an individual, the private face is a visualization designed to aid in reflection and meditation. It also acts as a memory aid and tool for the critical self-assessment that is essential to an examined life. The public face of an escutcheon shows to clients and employers qualifications and accomplishments gained in one's line of work.


The Difference between Escutcheons and Dashboard Displays

Whereas the dashboard display monitors dynamic lifestyle factors like diet and exercise, the escutcheon considers goals and accomplishments in relation to long-term measures of peace, health and well being.

For example, in personal finance a dashboard display features dials and graphs showing one's financial state designed to aid in budgeting and financial planning. If an investment portfolio is diversified, a display of a human face or figure takes on pleasing proportions. If it is less diverse or over-invests in a single industry, the figure loses symmetry or tilts to one side. Similarly, if spending is too munificent, income insufficient, savings too small or charitable giving not at recommended amounts, the figure might become too squat or tall, too thick or thin.

An escutcheon, on the other hand, takes a longer perspective of financial health. If a dashboard figure remains symmetrical and beautiful over a long enough period of time it begins to feed points, "energy" or "virtual money" into the escutcheon, depending on the type of game the user prefers to play. These, in turn, furnish colours and embellishments that artists can use in making up a beautiful escutcheon.

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An Escutcheon of my Own

Beauty in the Escutcheon

2009 Oct 14

Let us return to one of the most important innovations of the 17th Century educational reformer and world federalist, John Amos Comenius, author of Panorthosia, or Universal Reform. In an earlier essay called "Escutcheons for Social Diversity" we talked about his suggestion that a world government use short mottos or slogans to spread knowledge, virtue and excellence to every level of society. Borrowing from the terminology of emblems and coats of arms that were proudly displayed by nobles and knights of old, I have been calling these slogans "Escutcheons." Our earlier discussion was concerned with how the use of escutcheons could help ethnic relations in a hillside development. Today I want to focus on the personal and financial repercussions.

Escutcheons for Individuals

At the most basic level, that of the individual, Comenius held that all self-improvement comes of a strict regime of self-examination that a rival religious leader, St. Ignatius of Loyola, called the "examen," a daily or twice daily session of self-criticism. Comenius saw all reform starting in personal reform, and all personal reform starting in an examen. This can be reinforced by tracking one's progress in written or graphic form by the use of an escutcheon tracking what a person wishes to stand for, the virtues they aim to display, and so forth. In at least two chapters of the Panorthosia, Comenius sums up with the motto "Here is a splendid image of God," that he proposes for the examen of every individual,

"Therefore no matter who you are, you must reform yourself according to God's good pleasure and with His help, so that angels and pious men are able, as it were, to read on your forehead the inscription: 'HERE IS A SPLENDID IMAGE OF GOD.'" (Panorthosia, Chapters 19 and 20, paragraph 24)

This "splendid image" of the divine differs from the Tabula Rasa or blank slate of Frances Bacon and John Lock. For Comenius, knowledge is written on the soul not as chalk on a blackboard but as images on a mirror. This scripturally based model imagines the mind and soul as a glass, finite but boundless, instantly reflecting the whole universe presented before it, without limit but also without control. That is, there is no limit to how much we can learn.

However, to be created as an image or mirror of God entails the heavy responsibility of keeping the divine ever before us. We have a mind and spirit as well as a reflective soul. This means that we must not imitate or reflect passively but be critical. We have to examine, sift and prove the truth from the fleeting images presented before us.

By "splendid image of God" Comenius meant, of course, a spiritual condition of happiness and harmony, brilliant enough to be perceived by all onlookers. The saying "a splendid image of God" formalizes this; it serves as a constant reminder to post in a place of mediation or a private area of the home. Seeing the motto posted there aids the personal assessment of the examen.

All successful people subject themselves to some sort of daily accounting or weekly self-assessment, but the escutcheon can enhance that using the latest technology. Along with the slogan, various graphics and dashboard displays can have a live feed into various statistical measures of physical and emotional health, as well as measuring the current state of one's budget in relations to the financial health of one's family and community. A regular habit of checking these data in times of tranquility would keep the reflective life on track with praxis.

In designing escutcheons we will need artists as much as technicians. They will need to design its graphics to become more beautiful as accepted measures mark improvements, and less beautiful as a decline sets in. The displays on a personal escutcheon are fully configurable according to taste. A user may switch themes according to preference among many visual themes, digital, analogue or iconic. However, for each of them beauty always varies according to aesthetic standards.

One person may want to see their physical and financial health as a representation of the face and body of a person or animal. If her habits are unhealthy, the figure would gain ugly proportions. As healthy habits register, her avatar is beautified. Thus beauty, if nothing else, would reward the sacrifice, vigilance, temperance and self-denial that a virtuous life demands.

This system of standard displays on an escutcheon applies both technological and philosophical wisdom to the spiritual process described metaphorically in Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Portrait of Dorian Gray." Wilde's fable describes a personal portrait that ages as its subject remains handsome and youthful. While he lives a dissipated and superficially successful life, his portrait, hidden away, gradually becomes old and ugly for him.

Unlike Dorian Gray's portrait, an escutcheon would do the reverse, be beautified by the outwardly painful, difficult and tempestuous life that all great artists, innovators and saints tend to live. If Dorian Gray had an escutcheon plugged into accepted measures of real accomplishment, creativity and innovation, it might well be ugly to start but as he learns to live a meaningful, examined life it would gradually be beautified. Indeed the escutcheon of a good man or woman might after death may well be proudly transferred directly to adorn the family sarcophagus or gravestone.

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Money Tracers

Ending the Tyranny of Opinion, of Money and of Things

There are many kinds of imitation, prejudice and ignorance in the world but one of the most oppressive and difficult to eradicate is the tyranny of opinion. John Amos Comenius suggested a systematic, scientific technique for eliminating the tyranny of opinion that has a strange resemblance to what Immanuel Kant later called the Categorical Imperative. If we are to avoid recklessness, he says, we need "the trusty guidance of a true and clear philosophy. Come! let us hasten to acquire it." This philosophy would counteract fundamentalism. We can set up this universal science or philosophy if we refuse to accept things as arbitrary rules, but instead demand a good reason for every idea, course of action, even for every object in the world.

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"The last remedy for recklessness in handling affairs will be for us all to begin to avoid all misuse of things and observe and follow all their true uses. We should therefore hear no more of the attitude of the tyrant which has hitherto been applied all too widely to men and things alike.

`This is my will, and this is my command. My will supplies the reason.'

Instead we should recite the holy line:

'This is the will of God and Nature: let my will be based on reason.'

In other words, the Reasoning of conscience dictates that things should not be used for other purposes nor treated in other ways than they themselves wish to be used and treated according to their nature, and this is what God commands and prescribes.

(Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 20, p. 150)

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Here Comenius goes beyond Aristotle's definition of science as "knowing the causes of things" and adds a further requirement that one adduce a public reason for all things. Plants and animals should be treated as "they themselves would wish to be used and treated according to their own nature." This hierarchy of treatment would seem to rule out the massive cruelty of factory farming. Identification can even be extended to objects now that RFID devices containing large amounts of data about origin, nature, intended use and recycling instructions can easily and cheaply be implanted in every product and artefact. This allows the price of objects to reflect their real costs over their useable lifespan, including disposal and recycling fees.

This new ability of things to be rendered fully accountable is most needed for money.

Until now it has not been possible or even thought desirable to track the ebb and flow of cash. At the same time, organized crime is spreading alarmingly around the world, in part because on the international level the transfer of funds has been "liberalized." Criminals can easily launder cash and move it around the world at the speed of light. In many countries and even certain American states one can register a numbered company and open a bank account with only minimal identification.

Meanwhile, it is possible circumvent morality and responsibility without even breaking the law. For example, shipping companies burn the cheapest, dirtiest grade of oil, with the result that shipping lanes around the world are choked by thick smog. Since there are no locals on the open sea to complain about the air, savings are passed on in cheaper goods shipped from poor lands where labour is cheap. This is globalization, the result not of closer international ties for the benefit of all but of liberalization on behalf of a selfish few. Comenius's "reasoning of conscience" would eliminate this injustice by demanding a reason for every decision, by requiring an accounting from companies, money and possessions themselves.

In a cosmopolitan world order there would be a clear system of priorities made up by philosophers, confirmed by a religious parliament and enforced by a world political body bent on peace. Embedded microchips would fit each object into a clear hierarchy of possessions; this would include domesticated and wild animals, each of which would have rights defined by their own nature. As for objects, an individual would choose to own things according to a clear moral hierarchy. Anything that is local, made by themselves or by artisans in their household would come first. Then, each costing a little more to own, would be artefacts made in their neighbourhood, locality, town, region, and so forth. Lowest priority would be given for things bought with borrowed funds, with outside money, etc.

Complex as this seems, it is easier to dispose of material possessions compared with ideas. This is where we will have to expend most of our time and patience in future, for each of us must accept and reject far more ideas and opinions than we do physical things. Although reason enters in, very often these choices are made on aesthetic grounds. For example, the decision to burn cheap oil by shipping companies would not have been allowed if artists and monks plied the sea-lanes seeking the most beautiful seascapes and places of meditation. This leads us to one of the most important innovations of a Comenian order, which I call "beautiful balance sheets." That will be our theme next time.

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Basic Incomes

Basic Incomes and Social Credit

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 11, Mashiyyat 15, 166 BE

I have been mildly sick for the past few days. To keep my mind off my misery, I found myself listening over and over to the series of videos available at the Money Myths website. This guy, Brian Leslie, is an advocate of what I believe is called social credit. In most of his videos he offers an interesting explanation of what money is and where it comes from.

The bulk of his time is spent railing against what he calls our debt-based economy. Instead of spending their way out, governments are borrowing their way out of this recession. That is great for moneyed elites, not so great for everybody else. Instead of generating its money supply using its own resources, such as changing the fractional reserve rate, governments simply borrow from the banks. This assumes that the financial industry is the engine of productivity, but it is not. Even when governments have to bail out the big banks, they still borrow money to do so.

I am especially intrigued by Episode Six, which discusses what Leslie, the editor of Sustainable Economics Magazine, calls "basic incomes." I had heard of the idea, though the term I knew was "guaranteed annual income." In Canada we have a guaranteed income for seniors, but it is unfortunately not for the whole population. The idea of a basic income has always seemed sensible, since every other way of helping the poor, unemployed and disabled comes with so many strings that it all but criminalizes the disadvantaged if they try to perform the basic duty of working. Here is this economist's explanation of what a basic income would mean for society, taken from the transcript of the web cast included on this website.

"... being paid to everyone, Basic Incomes would replace most benefits such as Job-Seekers Allowance, Child Benefit, Working Families Tax Credit and State Pensions. Being unconditional, they would end the poverty trap, which means-tested benefits create. The current system makes it difficult for people on benefits to take on any paid work, unless very well paid, without being worse off through loss of the benefits. Even voluntary work is seen as a bad thing, as it makes the person unavailable for paid employment. The Minimum Wage legislation should be repealed when Basic Incomes are introduced. With Basic Incomes to fall back on, employees would be able to reject unacceptable terms of employment." (http://moneymyths.org.uk/)

As Leslie says, this idea of a basic income has a long history and has been put forward many times over the past century by politicians from all parts of the spectrum, from right to left. By making a basic income a human right governments would save tremendous amounts of money that is wasted confirming eligibility for dozens of support programs. I knew that, but some consequences of the idea for the labour market I had never thought of:

"The present system occupies most people in work that, with these changes, would no longer be needed. Persuasive advertising; telephone cold-calling; dealing with the mountains of paper waste caused by a system that is churning out an endless stream of deliberately short-lived goods instead of long-lasting, good quality and easily repaired goods; and so on... This (standard incomes) would lead to a change in the way that jobs are valued. Unpleasant but essential jobs would have to be well paid to attract workers, and easy, pleasant jobs would be less well paid. Basic Incomes would also make co-operatives and self-employment financially much more secure, and able to compete on more equal terms with the corporations  which would have to pay acceptable levels of pay to retain their workforce."

He contends that even back in the 1930's governments had enough money to pay out a basic income for everybody. The trick is simple, just switch from creating money out of debt to creating it directly out of the assets of the state.

"If the reform I advocate is adopted, in the period of change from bank-debt-based money to state-created money the State will have adequate new money to spend, to fund generous Basic Incomes as well as a Green New Deal. Spent into existence in this way, it would enable the outstanding debts to be paid off, without needing further debts to be taken on, just to maintain the money supply."

I do not claim to understand how this alone would be enough for the funds to appear, though it seems clear that national governments are spending tremendous funds just on the interest to national debts. What he seems to ignore is the fact that much of this debt is caused by simple criminality. Rich individuals and corporations can easily avoid taxes by hiding funds in "offshore" accounts. Meanwhile, in a democracy it is verboten to raise taxes. It has nonetheless been calculated that if the US raised taxes just a little, they could easily pay off their national debt. But to even talk about more taxes is political suicide. And for good reason. The middle and lower classes are carrying all the tax burden already and are understandably reluctant to pay even more.

As it is, both government and advertising act as debt pushers and the average person in the West is heavily in debt. This makes the burden of taxation seem heavier than it already is. If there were a standard income, people would have basic needs covered and be free to work as volunteers, or to work in order to pay taxes and save their money.

"With a money supply circulating without the debt which accompanies its creation under the present system, people in general would be far better off, and able to pay tax. The financial industry would be severely restricted in its ability to drain the profits from the productive industries. Borrowing-costs, in the form of interest charges, would be far less, so prices should tend to fall as debts reduce, instead of rising."

In one video, Leslie cites a chart of the findings of one economist, who found that between half and three quarters of the price of everything we buy goes to debt payments somewhere down the line. If that is true, his points are valid when he says that the financial industry is a predatory leach rather than a productive industry, and when he predicts that prices would drop if we all went cold turkey on lending and borrowing.

From the point of view of a Baha'i, the most enticing prospect of standard incomes is the prospect of a more equitable economy. Even the competitiveness characteristic of our present work world, according to him, would be eliminated by a standard income.

"Basic Incomes, coupled with the reduced need to borrow, would tend to reduce the extremes between rich and poor. ... At the moment, the jobs that are most needed are usually badly paid. Some are also dirty, unpleasant or dangerous. At the same time, some of the least needed jobs are highly paid. With Basic Incomes it would give people the choice to accept or reject employment and this would mean that wages should rise for the unpleasant but needed jobs and the pay would be reduced for the easier, less needed jobs. The desperate competition generated by the present debt-generating money system would be ended by these reforms, and cooperative working should flourish. These would include: organic food growing, repair of goods and infrastructure, research, parenting, education, health care, etc. Many unnecessary and destructive jobs could be eliminated."

He seems confident that this measure could be adopted without changes to the present nationalist order, but I have my doubts. Too much money is flowing into the hands of the military industrial complex and organized criminals for this ever to happen without a major fight. In my opinion, it is likely only to be possible after the formation of a world government.

::

BPS DIY "How to" Series

New Essay Series: The DIY on the BPS

I have been lurking on the Lulu.com self-publishing website for years, but over the past week I have made a serious study of their best-selling books. The site displays an all-time bestseller list, and a monthly and weekly list of their best selling works -- and curiously, they do it all without mentioning exactly how many copies each book managed to sell.

However, one thing is clear. They publish poetry, novels, technical books, but the one genre that they do a really good job of pushing off the shelves and into the cashier is the How-to book. Their all time best seller is a how-to, as is their second place winner, and so on right down the list as far as you want to go. Almost all their bestsellers are from that genre. It is pretty clear that this site knows how to sell how-to books.

Anyway, I caught a cold a few days ago and what with the pets waking me at all hours, I have taken to sleeping odd hours. So it was that I woke early this morning with these questions in my head: what would the Baha'i principles look like if they were a series of self-help books? Would DIY Baha'i books sell as well on Lulu as other how-to's? Is it right brazenly to cash in on the principles by making them into do-it-yourselfers? Swallowing my scruples, I quickly wrote down the following possible titles for a series of short books -- short is good, between 150 and 200 pages -- about the principles.

==========

How to Investigate Reality
How to Unite the World
How to Reconcile Religions
How to Unite Science and Religion
How to Exterminate Prejudice
How to Reform Free Enterprise
How to Promote Education
How to Learn Esperanto
How to Promote the Equality of the Sexes How to Understand God
How to Promote World Peace

==========

For virtually all of these topics I probably have enough material already written to be able to put out a small book of that title with only a few weeks of preparation and supplementary research. Indeed, I could do it even quicker if I cheated a little by writing a short essay on the specific topic of the title and then filling in the rest of the content of the book simply by plopping already written essays straight out of the Badi' blog. In any case, it feels funny to look over this list, and reflect upon how easy it is to turn the holy principles of Baha'u'llah into a sort of "Principles for Complete Idiots," or "Baha'i Principles for Dummies" publishing venture.

At least, it felt funny at first.

Now that I think of it, many of these titles make the principle look more optimistic and hopeful than they would otherwise seem. For example, "How to unify the religions" assumes that this is a goal, which it is most emphatically not for most experts in the field. Same thing for eliminating prejudice. That, surely is a good thing. In fact, there is a certain attraction to these approaches. I would buy them, if I did not have to write them first. Maybe I will start off by writing an essay series based on the above titles, and taking it from wherever that takes me.

People without Borders

Introducing People Without Borders

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 07, Mashiyyat 11, 166 BE

Our current essay series is about the monetary, economic and financial aspects of Comenian governance and its immediate outcome: hillside infrastructure. Over the past few days, however, I have been moved to begin a book proposal for publishers. The economic discussion takes place about three quarters of the way through the book.

Over the coming year I plan to submit plans for a book that would be based on essays appearing daily on this blog since the end of June to various publishing houses simultaneously. If no publisher takes it up, the following year I will publish it myself through lulu.com. As an exercise, I will also publish some short booklets through Lulu, if only to familiarize myself with the publishing end of the writing process, by far the most neglected area for me.

During this time I will also set up a separate blog and website for the book, whose latest title is "People without Borders;" here I will include later revisions, sample chapters and promotional and supplemental material. I do not plan on dropping the Badi' Blog, however; it has been and will remain the depository of all my first drafts and writing digressions. For those still on the Badi' mailing list, however, please be aware that most of the time a more refined version of the original mail out is posted on the Badi' Blog.

The following essay is introductory material for the book proposal; it will probably end up as part of the introduction or an early chapter in People Without Borders.

==========

People Without Borders

When the continents unite to form a tripartite world government based upon the Comenian model, the very nature of our physical and social infrastructure will be the first to change. How? First, let us briefly summarize what is meant by a Comenian world government.

John Amos Comenius described in Panorthosia a world republic that is not merely political, or merely religious, or merely scientific, but a carefully balanced product of the best that all three can offer. This has many implications, but one of the most obvious is how it would change the nature of democracy.

Instead of "one man, one vote," in this electoral system every individual gets three votes in three ongoing election cycles, each respectively ending in a particular world institution. This franchise confers one vote as a believer, one as a worker and one as a citizen. As a believer, one elects members of affiliated interfaith bodies at every level, from familial and neighbourhood levels right up to a continental body and finally a world parliament of religions. The same applies for votes as workers and citizens. As tradespersons, professionals, experts and teachers we will elect various affiliated scientific and professional bodies leading from the local to the neighbourhood, the continental and world levels. The result is a central scientific regulatory body combined with a world educational parliament whose chief mandate is to organize and run the press and the Internet. In the same way, citizens elect political bodies devoted to protecting the peace at every level, again ending in a world political parliament.

The combination of all three in a single comprehensive institution is what we call a Comenian world government. In combination, the three parliaments on the intercontinental level comprise the first institution in history with a comprehensive mandate to oversee the progress of all humans, comprehensively, everywhere on the planet.

No doubt in the short term this republic will have its hands full resolving any number of territorial disputes and ethnic conflicts. At the same time, nature itself is crying out for succour. Who can count the urgent environmental crises it would have to address right away? They include saving our dying oceans, cleaning the atmosphere, preventing a global climate meltdown, and so forth.

However, the main reason for forming this comprehensive planetary government in the first place is temporal. True, lesser institutions have neglected whatever goes beyond national borders, but most seriously, they have persistently ignored the long-term needs of humanity. There is nobody to represent issues concerning the vast majority of humans, future generations still unborn. The selection process of the Comenian republic is designed to raise up leaders with the courage, foresight and wisdom to address long-term considerations at the same time that they deal with those banging at the door.

In People Without Borders I am arguing that the Comenian republic should plan for both now and the future at the same time by devising and testing an open building code. This building code is the basis of a style of meta-architecture that I call Hillside Housing. A building code may sound like a strange place for a government to begin, but this is no ordinary government.

A conventional government is primarily political and legalistic in its approach. It solves problems by making up or referring to a constitution, legislating general laws and funding programs to implement decisions. In addition, a building code is essentially a set of laws and parameters for building projects. It starts off as an ordinary legal document that politicians, lawyers and law enforcement officials can implement. However, a Comenian government is capable of far more than that.

The Comenian government would first send the building code to its scientific and educational wing. This institution would set up an open systems approach for affiliate bodies at every level, designed and vetted by the best scientists and educators in the world. They would feed the actual experience of dwellers in each hillside development back into the legislative process, effectively making each neighbourhood into a research laboratory for the building code. Once a given design is shown to be efficient, environmentally friendly and economically viable, it passes on to the local franchise of the interfaith parliament. They take into account eternal, artistic values, such as whether a design has recreational value, and promotes morality, happiness and beauty. Finally, the political affiliate evaluates for safety and legal concerns of a given design.

::

Stop Greenhouse Emissions Fast

From Drop Box

A True, Blue Fundamentalist

Fundamentalism, Good and Bad

  Prologue for Baha'is

  The present use of the word "fundamentalist" comes from a publishing initiative by a body of protestant clergy that took place right around the time the Master toured North America. A body of scholars who had met in Niagara Falls tried in this way to set up a body of doctrine upon which all of them -- that is, not all people but all protestants -- could all agree upon as truths that are fundamental. This is why technically, it is not correct to say that a Muslim or Hindu is a fundamentalist. Only a certain breed of Protestant has that honour. In this way, an important word that, like the word "gay," had been around for a long time and had a history and many positive associations was suddenly appropriated for a very different agenda. The word "fundamentalist" suddenly meant someone who is more prejudiced than usual, more prejudiced than a group already is renowned for its bigotry. Fundamentalist is now a pejorative and it is far from laudable to claim to know the fundamentals of religion.

  It is interesting that on this very day in 1912, the 5th of October, the Master was in San Francisco and Mahmud made the following report His day:

  "Some clergymen and professors came to visit `Abdu'l-Baha in the morning in His second-floor room. Some of the Master's words to the pastor of the First Congregational Church in Oakland were these: `If a man is not a clergyman and is unprejudiced, it is not a cause for wonder. But if a man is a clergyman and is not prejudiced, he certainly deserves praise and glory.'" (for more insights into this or any day in Baha'i history, see http://jacklbushjr.blogspot.com/)

  A Comenian Cure for Fundamentalism, Part III

  We are used to thinking of fundamentalists as narrow-minded fanatics. Is there such a thing as a good fundamentalist? I think there is. Certainly we all hope that schools will teach our children good fundamentals, truths that will prepare them for success as adults and will stand them in good stead throughout their lives. In this sense, our expectation is that teachers will be good fundamentalists, well versed in what is not inconsequential but rather fundamental to the reality around us.

  In this series we have been studying one such good fundamentalist, John Amos Comenius, a famous educational reformer from Moravia. Comenius lived in the 17th Century and made various proposals for fundamental change in his posthumous work, Universal Reform, or Panorthosia. Comenius had a great deal to say about what true fundamentalism is and how to eliminate its corrupt form, the bad, false, ignorant breed of fundamentalism that since his day has all but eliminated religion as a force for social change.

  We have already examined his suggestion that a series of mottos or slogans be publicized around the world for various purposes, including this one for stamping out false fundamentalism:

  "God and the sun are the same for all."

  This saying implies that enlightenment is the criterion of truth. If an idea does not act like the sun and illuminate the situation for all, it comes not from the sun but darkness and ignorance. Yet it happens that sincere believers take many sides and end up in complete contradiction. In one sense, all sides are wrong when they argue but in another it is perfectly conceivable that each side can be right, or at least has made no mistakes. Comenius explained how this can be with an interesting extension of this astronomical, solar system analogy. Truth cannot contradict itself, but opposing results can and do arise even when no miscalculation has taken place. This is can happen because we live at different locations on the spherical surface of the planet Earth.

  "For just as Heaven truly stretches over one entire world, and moves with one simple movement, although it appears to move in one way at the equator and another in the Tropics and in quite the opposite way at the poles, so the spiritual heaven of the church, holy scripture, is truly one, and fills everything with one sensation, that of Christ, even if he is perceived differently in different places. Furthermore the various contradictory interpretations of the Scriptures can be brought into harmony provided that they are based on reason and fundamental truth, in the same way as dates predicted for the new moon, the full moon, and eclipses, which may differ so widely that one astronomer writes that a total eclipse will occur while others put it down as partial (and still differ about its extent), and one says that an eclipse will occur in the morning, another in the evening, another at noon, and another at midnight." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 8, para 36, p. 124)

  Baha'is will recognize a resemblance to the "dawning points" analogy that the Central Figures, especially Abdu'l-Baha, invoked to explain progressive revelation.

  The difference, of course, is that Comenius speaks of revelation as relative to the single, static, fixed heaven of one religion, Christianity. Abdu'l-Baha's dawning-points metaphor explains how a single truth can be common to all historical religions. In their corrupted state, these various religions erroneously worship the point at which truth arose at one particular time in human development, rather than paying heed to where the sun shines right now.

  Nonetheless, essentially the same astronomical metaphor is being used in both cases. Both point to a highly relativistic, evolutionary understanding of religious truth. Comenius continues.

  "For it is possible that they are all writing the truth, but differing according to their points of view in different climates and regions of the world. Therefore although to an inexperienced eye these appear to be real contradictions and therefore irreconcilable, the expert reconciles them without any difficulty. So in our present situation it is to be hoped that the same Scripture is open to a different interpretation depending on a different standpoint, without detriment to the truth." (Id.)

  In the next paragraph, Comenius compares the common sun of truth to the Biblical story of the manna from heaven that fed Moses's liberated slaves, lost in the wilderness. The same manna is cooked in various styles and dishes, but it is basically the same food, "able to content every man's delight.'

  "Therefore, just as it would have been shameful if the Israelites had chosen to quarrel because no two men prepared the manna for food in the same way, so it would be disgraceful for us to be intolerant if different people have different ways of preparing their soul's delights in accordance with the words of God, since God bears with this wherever he sees that they do not lose faith in his Oracles but behave with due reverence and prompt obedience towards Him." (para 37, pp. 124-125)

  We now know that in spite of the apparently vast variation in food preparation through the centuries and across many cultures, most humans still live on a small number of nutrients coming from an even smaller number of plants and animals that were domesticated about 10,000 years ago. Anthropologists point out that in spite of our vaunted agriculture and food processing technology, no new staples have entered the human diet since that long forgotten point in pre-history.

  The same thing applies for the seemingly fundamental truths that we all live by. However different and contradictory they seem, from a properly long perspective the similarities are greater than the differences. Failure to realize the common basis of all food is prejudice. Prejudice is at the root of all sorts of bad fundamentalisms, religious, political and philosophical. As Comenius points out, often it is not the prejudice itself that does harm but the reactions and defence mechanisms that are set up in order to perpetuate them. The two greatest of these are obstinacy and complacency.

  "The third hindrance to Reform is the obstinacy which arises from prejudice, and causes us not only to scorn truer and better things but also to turn away from them and to rebel against them whenever they confront us. For this is the source of the most heated arguments in philosophy, the most bloody wars in the world of politics, the bitterest hatreds in religion, and the outrageous persecutions inflicted by some and endured by others; and while everyone thinks that he is fighting or suffering in the cause of truth, or peace, or God, even in that gross anarchy there emerges the complacency which Paul the Apostle calls 'a zeal but not according to knowledge' (Romans X, 2). But unless we truly set aside such zeal and teach others to do likewise, it will serve no useful purpose, and our affairs will remain as they are, distracted, disorganized, and marred forever by disagreement." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 6, para 6, pp. 101)

  Comenius takes this statement of Paul as a definition of bad fundamentalism. A fundamentalist has a "zeal not according to knowledge." A muddled atmosphere of stubborn complacency gives rise to ignorance rather than knowledge. Even when the zealot has a true vision of truth, the end is harm rather than enlightenment.

  However, the fact that this unfortunate tendency is so common is no reason to give up on the quest of determining truths upon which all human beings can agree. If we are to hope in a future for humanity, we must believe that there are good fundamentals that, like manna from heaven, all can live by. We can do this, Comenius says, if we all adhere to the middle path of moderation.

  "If we are willing to take our stand on these fundamentals, we should confidently expect disputes to disappear; or, if any survive, they will be few in number and harmless, provided that we remove from them the risk of public hatred. But this will be removed in any event, since there will be no disagreement without some underlying reason, and no obvious parting of the ways that does not lead out to level ground. And this cannot possibly happen except in certain matters of detail, and we shall have no reason to fear that they will bring us to dangerous byways, since our Lord's way to salvation and truth always takes an uninterrupted course through the middle and brings us all in safety to the best possible ends. Therefore men should show mutual toleration in such matters, if it appears that some prefer one answer and others another, so long as truth has not become so obvious that all men see it clearly as one and the same." (Ch. 8, para 40, pp. 126-127)

  As we shall see next time, Panorthosia offers a set of hoops through which any proposition must jump fore it to be accepted as reasonable and worthy to be considered a fundamental truth for all to accept.

::

Natives Host the World

Desert Colonization and Aboriginal Hosting

By John Taylor; 2009 Oct 03, Mashiyyat 07, 166 BE

Seeing Earth From Space

Viewed from space, our planet looks blue because most of its surface is covered in ocean. However, if we look closer and restrict ourselves to the land, fertile regions look green and deserts look grayish brown. A surprisingly large percentage of the land mass between the equator and the poles is grayish brown rather than green. Two gray belts circle the planet. At night, green areas light up, but the gray desert regions remain black, a sure indication that they are barely populated. This is surprising because deserts receive tremendous amounts of energy from the sun. By rights they should support more agriculture, provide more energy from solar PV panels and have larger populations than anywhere else.

What is worse, with the advance of global warming, these desolate places are spreading.

In a cooler time, the looks of some of desert ecosystems were deceptive. They supported a surprisingly broad diversity of life; some, in Australia and Mexico, even rival the rain-forests in variety of native species, if not in biomass. But now that the planet is heating up, temperate climates shrink and lakes, both above and below the surface, dry out. The barren regions are becoming as devoid of life as the moon. What little water was available in these swathes of gray and green is evaporated by unrelenting heat.

The challenge of re-greening and colonizing these arid regions is challenging, almost as challenging as colonizing the moon. Forestry expert St. Barbe Baker travelled across the Sahara in the 1950's studying the possibility of colonizing the world's largest desert. He found that it would be possible, by planting large numbers of trees, to alter the climate there to make the area habitable. Subsequent studies have confirmed that if coastal regions are forested, the climate of the interior becomes wetter.

The difficulty facing those who would colonize the deserts, however, is not phsyical but political and religious, especially in the Sahara. National borders prevent mass immigration and cultural divisions keep regions, even these all-but-unpopulated regions, from being regarded as the property and heritage of all humankind.

The formation of a comprehensive world government, that is, one based on continental sub-federations and designed on the Comenian model of three independent, affiliated branches, would instantly tear down these mental and bureaucratic barriers. It would allow reforestation and other terraforming mega-projects to reclaim this land. This would be followed by an influx of millions of people now forced to live in sub-standard housing that is not only overcrowded but also extremely destructive to the environment.

How to Colonize the Deserts

The formation of a world government will immediately end the need for national governments to defend themselves from one another. At the same time, a just, well-designed world order would put an immediate end to the bitterness and separation that breed terrorism. Large standing armies would be demobilized and the trillion-dollar-a-year arms industry grind to a halt. Such de-militarization would suddenly create a huge labour pool and free up vast funds for reconstruction. In order to take advantage of this brief opportunity, the new world government should immediately undertake large mega-projects, such as the colonization of desert and mountainous regions and the World Belt discussed earlier.

At the same time, permanent structural changes should be introduced to make the transition from a weaponized economy to an irenic UCS as smooth as possible. Every one of the structural changes that we have been discussing here, such as hillside construction, localized, co-operative ownership, and many other reforms in architecture, politics, religion and finance, is designed to avoid dissipating the precious resources that peace would place in the hands of a newly united human race.

A global federation would be able to offer a powerful incentive to hurry all of this along: citizenship. Of course, in the long term everybody would automatically become a world citizen with full rights to travel and live anywhere in the world. However, in the early transitional stage from our present nationalist order to world order, a world federation would be well advised to confer the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship selectively. Specifically, at first only those who live in and actively contribute to a hillside development should be deemed by the world government to have earned the title "world citizen."

Since these developments are under construction around the world, and since the modular living units inside hillside developments make it quick and easy to pick up and move to any development anywhere in the world, residents could take full advantage of their citizenship.

Although they are part-owners of the property around them, the finances of these developments is designed to facilitate transfer of one's stake from a former residence to the new one. With this complete mobility, members could choose to reside anywhere it is possible to support themselves, without need for permits, visas, passports or other blocks to free movement. An inhabitant of a mound development in Canada could move his or her dwelling unit directly to a mound development in the Gobi desert at a moment's notice, without going through customs and immigration. In the same way a family who gains experience in the newly reclaimed land developments in the Sahara might take their expertise to an Australian desert development, without perceptible change in lifestyle.

This ordered mobility would assuage the greatest fear of wealthy nations, that tearing down border barriers would subject them to a sudden influx of foreigners from poor nations, eager for a share in their affluence. The many rules and regulations built into hillside housing projects, and their shared, co-operative economies, would assure that movement is ordered, that everybody works, and indeed that there is no particular advantage to living in a rich country over a poor one.

Settling the Claims of Aboriginals in One Shot

It is already in everybody's interest to see to it that as many people as possible reside in hillside developments, since they are a form of high density housing. They are designed from the ground up to reduce emissions and have the smallest possible impact on the environment. Our present, wasteful, freestanding style of buildings and streets do not compare. Clever use of the carrot of the advantages of world citizenship would make it even more attractive to move into these cooperative projects, even for magnates living in their mansions set far off on vast estates.

The world's aboriginal peoples are the ideal ethnic group to be the first to move into these developments. Native peoples have a deep reverence for the land and caring for the environment. Their ancient traditions of living in harmony with the land, without our irrational, obsessive attachment to exclusive ownership of property and real estate. Their religion and philosophy are already compatible with both world citizenship and the cooperative atmosphere and small, tribal households that characterize a hillside housing development. All these are prime requisites for mound living. The fact that they value the co-operative atmosphere of living in small, communal groups with shared accommodations makes them perfect candidates to be "first citizens," acting as hosts and sponsors for other ethnic groups entering these communities.

As soon as a world government forms, aboriginals would be given the rights of world citizens. In compensation for the historic injustices they have suffered from civilization, they would have first dibs at living in and designing hillside developments. All land claims would be settled as they are traded for choice shares and IPO's in the common property of a new development. Needless to say, they would also share in the obligations of world citizenship, such as paying a percentage of taxes directly to the world government.

Once they have taken this step, the legal distinctions of native peoples would end once and for all. All residents would enjoy equal rights as world citizens, without discrimination. The motto would be, all for one and one for all; the heritage of one people would be the heritage of all, and that of all would be to preserve each culture and see that it thrives to the greatest extent possible.

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TED: Tim Brown urges designers to think big

Baha'is in the News

Dizzy Continues to Teach the Faith


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113311070


"He was a Baha'i," she says. "We used to have great conversations about Judaism and Baha'ism and the oneness of mankind. But I do say when I play, I also feel Diz, I feel his connection with me, and that feels really special." Gillespie's Goddaughter Blows Her Own Horn








The following article appeared in our local paper, the Dunnville Chronicle, reporting on this month's public meeting, a commemoration of the visit to Canada of the Master.


Abdu'l-Baha spreads message of unity, equality


Cathy Pelletier, Dunnville Chronicle


http://www.dunnvillechronicle.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1774869


Dunnville's Baha`i community hosted Joseph Woods of Hamilton as their guest speaker at the Library recently. Woods, who spent time with the Maxwell family in Montreal --where Abdul Baha also stayed during his famed 1912 visit to Canada --shared some of the basic principles of the faith as put forth by its founder, Baha`u`llah, and Abdul Baha, his son.
"We have been asked to recognize the importance of his visit to Canada each year," said Woods, adding, "The year 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of his visit and it will be highly celebrated."


Former Dunnville citizen Ron Speer began the evening of presentations with a moving rendition of Queen of Carmel, in honour of the Baha`i shrine in Israel.


Abdul Baha was a prisoner for 50 years, said Woods, and in his own words, "entered prison as a youth and left as an old man. He never went to school but his speeches were brilliant, because he was thought to have the grace of God."


Travelling from temples to churches to synagogues -a feat Woods called unparalleled by any other religious leader at the time -Abdul Baha spread his father's teachings, which include the absolute oneness of religion, the unity of mankind, racial equality, and equality of men and women. "They are two wings of one bird," said Baha`u`llah.


Woods described how at age 68, Abdul Baha travelled extensively throughout Europe and arrived in North America in April of 1912. "It was the beginning of a journey that lasted 239 days." Although he only spent nine days in Canada and about six months in the U. S., "it was a blessing for us," stated Woods, charting the leader's path through Toronto, Hamilton and Smithville before moving on to the U. S. via Buffalo.


"At the end of his time in North America, he was so exhausted he could no longer meet with people but he aching his followers," said Woods.


"At that time, racial unity was very much a concern but he invited blacks and whites to have dinner with him. This was a shock for people around him. His father said religious fanatacism was an all-devouring fire," and many Baha`is were routinely tortured and executed for their beliefs. Muslims who merely mentioned the word Baha`i were killed immediately.


Woods shared some quotes from Abdul Baha: "We must at all times try to keep our ego in check. We have to realize that the insistent self, or ego, should contribute to the betterment of the community. The way we organize ourselves is lamentably defective." 


According to Woods, Abdul Baha publicly predicted the coming of World War I in a Montreal paper, and WWII as well, prior to his death in 1921.


John Taylor of Dunnville gave a slide presentation depicting highlights of Abdul Baha's life and journey through North America. Born in 1844 in Teheran, Persia, he was basically the first child to be raised in the Baha`i faith, explained Taylor. From a young boy, he was badly bullied for his beliefs, and though he didn't go to school, he educated himself by reading the writings of the Bab, who was executed in Tabriz in 1850.


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