Dog Philosophy

Dog Philosophy; A Digression on Ideology and Protectionism

By John Taylor; 6 December, 2005

My friends, before I continue on this truth telling theme, I cannot
help but share some heartening news. You can check it out for yourself
at:

<http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions>

This is an independent body that keeps track of religious adherence in
the United States. It seems that the US census does not ask about
people's religion, and this group tries to fill in that gap with its
own scientific polls. According to the information they have collected
and collated at this site, there has been a 200 percent increase in
the number of persons identifying themselves as Baha'is over the past
few years, which places the Faith among the 10 fastest growing
religious affiliations in that country right now. It is especially
credible in view of the fact that it comes from outside the Baha'i
membership rolls. This is wonderful, surprising news after a thirty
year decline in relative numbers, a seemingly endless draught.

The Guardian wrote that one "fruit of a slowly maturing age" is "a
world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant
nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of
world citizenship." (WOB 41) The invention of the internet is removing
one of the most important factors that makes nationalism so
capricious, the nation state's total hegemony over education and its
tight control over mass media. We made the point yesterday that
imitation makes any group activity volatile and capricious, and this
is true of both decentralized markets and centralized powers that be.

After the fall of the wall Daniel Yergin, one of my favorite writers,
wrote an exultant book cheerleading the victory of market capitalism
over state communism called "Commanding Heights" that became an
influential mini-series. Anyway, the "commanding heights" referred to
in the title was from a sarcastic comment made by V.I. Lenin after his
introduction of the New Economic Plan just before he died of a stroke
(though he was a rebel and murderer, I cannot help but have sympathy
for Lenin, since like me he suffered from terrible migraines).
Socialists were worried that the NEP meant that Bolsheviks had lost
control of the economy by allowing markets some freedom. But Lenin
said in effect, forget it, rest assured, we still have control of the
"commanding heights" of the economy and we can steer it any direction
we please. The analogy is of an army that throughout history has
always had a tactical advantage when it controls the high ground and
can shoot downwards onto the heads of the enemy.

I recently read a history of Lenin and his managing of the Russian
revolution, and was particularly interested to learn that one of his
most effective weapons was his use even in exile and clandestinely of
what he called "study circles" to indoctrinate workers in his Marxist
ideology. Though all the odds were stacked against him, he was still
the only one actually trying to teach and organize industrial workers
at the time. The Tsarist tyrants cared nothing for the benefit of the
people and made no effort to turn over any apple carts by spreading
education outside the elites and the narrow, clumsy bureaucracy
supporting the government. Not coincidentally, in view of Lenin's
startling triumph, national governments in the West instituted public
education. It was clear to all observers that the Tsar was playing
into the socialists' class obsessed hands by ignoring their universal
education. Since that time education has been the tool of nationalism,
not communism, and it is not surprising that for this reason alone the
deck was stacked against the communists.

Yergin in Commanding Heights documents how the West, under the
influence of Keynesian economics, followed through on Lenin's
reassurance that the state can successfully dominate decentralized
markets by holding the "commanding heights" and invoking tactics like
wage and price controls, central banks, welfare, public education, and
so forth. This tactic that governments worked out of dominating free
markets from above and using them for their own nationalist ends was
very successful at first, then it fell from grace at the end of the
20th Century. Yergin is quite correct in pointing out that free
markets, though ruled by no single central authority, are demonstrably
smarter at sorting out many economic bottlenecks, and are all in all,
extremely efficient. But they are not the be all and end all, never
have been, never will be.

John Ralston Saul is a Canadian critic of Yergin and his ilk. Though
most of the time I find Saul rather strange and incoherent, he makes a
very good observation on events just after 9-11-2001. The free market
theorists had nationalist governments mesmerized at that time,
completely persuaded that they were ineffectual, fading out,
irrelevant, powerless in the face of an all-knowing, all-seeing free
market. The terrorist attacks that September suddenly put the world
economy into free fall. Collapse was imminent. Then government leaders
woke up and flexed their muscles, rescuing in the nick of time world
markets in free fall. The world was on the brink of total economic
collapse, saved by governments who found that they did have power
after all. This was a turning point, a swing back to nationalism and
away from the free market and its omnipresent reach using an ideology
dubbed unofficially "globalization." Globalism is a false god like any
other, a lie pretending to be the spirit of the age, utterly unlike
the true spirit, the oneness of humanity, which is a divine principle.

The problem with all ideologies, be they liberal or conservative, of
the right or the left, the fatal flaw of both decentralized, market
control and centralized nationalist domination from the heights is
that all are idols. Idols are mere substitutes for God, the One Truth
behind all outward semblances. And as the Master pointed out, a
primitive tribesman who bows down and worships a stone statue is far
superior to modern ideologues worshiping "isms," since at least that
statue is made of real rock; an ideology is nothing but imagination, a
phantasm without substance or verifiable reality. The only result of
ism worship is pain and blood. In the 1930's the Guardian wrote an
analysis of history that still stands as the best I have ever seen of
how ruling fallacies clash with the Truth behind illusion. Speaking of
the eclipse of the force of religion in peoples' minds and hearts, he
wrote:

"This vital force is dying out, this mighty agency has been scorned,
this radiant light obscured, this impregnable stronghold abandoned,
this beauteous robe discarded. God Himself has indeed been dethroned
from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and
clamorously hails and worships the false gods which its own idle
fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously
exalted. The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none
other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at
whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or
totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West,
Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees,
now worshiping. Their high priests are the politicians and the
worldly-wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the
flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations
outworn shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their
incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts
of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless." (Promised Day is Come,
113)

These triple gods, communism, nationalism, racism, still operate,
though there have obviously been tremendous changes since the Guardian
wrote the above. The following, from a recent Ridvan message of the
House of Justice, seems intended to update the above analysis a
little.

"All these developments have made it evident that the accumulated
potential for further progress of the Baha'i community is
incalculable. The changed situation within and among nations and the
many problems afflicting society amplify this potential. The
impression produced by such change is of the near approach of the
Lesser Peace. But there has been a simultaneous recrudescence of
countervailing forces. With the fresh tide of political freedom
resulting from the collapse of the strongholds of communism has come
an explosion of nationalism. The concomitant rise of racism in many
regions has become a matter of serious global concern. These are
compounded by an upsurge in religious fundamentalism which is
poisoning the wells of tolerance. Terrorism is rife." (Ridvan 149,
1992, page 4)

They do not stop there, but continue to shed light on the economic
changes in this post-Communist era.

"Widespread uncertainty about the condition of the economy indicates a
deep disorder in the management of the material affairs of the planet,
a condition which can only exacerbate the sense of frustration and
futility affecting the political realm. The worsening state of the
environment and of the health of huge populations is a source of
alarm. And yet an element of this change is the amazing advances in
communications technology making possible the rapid transmission of
information and ideas from one part of the world to the other. It is
against such "simultaneous processes of rise and fall, of integration
and of disintegration, of order and chaos, with their continuous and
reciprocal reactions on each other", that a myriad new opportunities
for the next stage in the unfoldment of the beloved Master's Divine
Plan present themselves." (Id.)

Perhaps the most striking and urgent need that national governments
have had to address in what we now call the "post-9-11" world is how
to run things in such a way as to allow both freedom and security.
Immediately after terrorists attacked on 9-11 nationalists and their
ideologues reasserted themselves by ripping away the cherished rights
that are the cornerstone of an open society, such as the right to a
trial, rule of law, and even the right not to be tortured. If you want
security, forget about freedom. You have to fight fire with fire. In
the face of a real, crying need for security self-betrayal was the
only tool at hand in their ideological workshop.

What alternative to terrorizing terrorists along with everybody else
does the Order of Baha'u'llah offer? It has a ready answer built into
its very structure. The learned are given two tasks, propagation and
protection; that is, security is built right into the bones, as it
were, of every educative initiative. Why is that so important and
unique? Because of one thing that beefed up security apparatuses in
the West are discovering, it is impossible to protect the world from
terror without a profound understanding of information. Not just an
intensive data bath, but a philosopher's understanding of rapidly
moving currents of opinion and consensus in the world's populations.
It is one thing to keep your finger on the pulse of the world through
search engines, another to know what it all means.

This huge intellectual task is something that cops and spooks are just
not mentally equipped to handle, and even they are starting to
recognize that. The only way to really come to grips with this massive
educational and research job is to enlist the support of learned
professors and researchers in the universities of the world. The only
model in the world, then, is that of the learned in Baha, half of whom
handle growth (the "sheep" or growers in Plato's Republic) and the
other half of whom deal with security, (watch dogs, in Plato's terms).
Lest anyone hold that watch dogs are an adequate replacement for
philosophers, here is how Plato refutes that idea in his Republic. We
can let Plato have the last word for today.

The Dog Philosopher and the Philosopher Dog; selection from Plato,
Republic, Book II

Socrates: Would not he who is fitted to be a guardian, besides the
spirited nature, need to have the qualities of a philosopher?

I do not apprehend your meaning. The trait of which I am speaking, I
replied, may be also seen in the dog, and is remarkable in the animal.

What trait?

Why, a dog, whenever he sees a stranger, is angry; when an
acquaintance, he welcomes him, although the one has never done him any
harm, nor the other any good. Did this never strike you as curious?

The matter never struck me before; but I quite recognise the truth of
your remark. And surely this instinct of the dog is very charming; --
your dog is a true philosopher.

Why?

Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy
only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an
animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and
dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?

Most assuredly.

And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy?

They are the same, he replied.

And may we not say confidently of man also, that he who is likely to
be gentle to his friends and acquaintances, must by nature be a lover
of wisdom and knowledge?

That we may safely affirm.

Then he who is to be a really good and noble guardian of the State
will require to unite in himself philosophy and spirit and swiftness
and strength?

Undoubtedly.

Then we have found the desired natures; and now that we have found
them, how are they to be reared and educated? Is not this enquiry
which may be expected to throw light on the greater enquiry which is
our final end -- How do justice and injustice grow up in States?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com