Towards a Pinocchio Law

Foolishness in the News,

Real Roots of Competition

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Apr 16, Jalal 07, 168 BE

 

 

There are several chapters in my book-in-progress on John Amos Comenius and Panorthosia that deal with wisdom. Universal wisdom, pansophy, is, for him, a precondition of world order.

 

As I write about wisdom and pansophy, I try not to comment on the news. If I do that too much, I will surely never finish this book.

 

But the nuclear disaster in Japan made it very hard. What kind of ship of fools would build nuclear reactors in the most earthquake and tsunami prone area on earth? We are talking folly on an epic scale. Really, it is amazing that an entire industry can lie in the faces of the public for so long and not suffer any consequences. I have seen proposals for making the telling of lies illegal. Call it a Pinocchio law. In this case surely, somebody should go to jail for blatant mendacity under Pinocchio legislation. Trouble is, the government of Japan has been doing the same thing to the people from the day the crisis started. Who do you appoint to guard the guardians? Meta-guardians?

 

George Monbiot is going around defending the nuclear case, based on holes he found in a debate he had with Helen Caldecott. He is missing the point. The point is that no nuclear power has ever been generated without heavy subsidies from us, through government. If an economic activity is not economical and it is impossible for insurers to back it up when things go wrong, then what better reason could there be to shut the whole industry down immediately and never look back?

 

 

The more news I read, the harder it is to shut up. For example, President Obama railroads the UN and NATO to attack Libya, has U.S. planes lead the assault, then remembers that he is required by the U.S. constitution to inform Congress before engaging in hostilities. Oops. Obama is a law professor advised by dozens of legal experts. How could a blunder like that slip by?

 

The list goes on.

 

Then I ran across this, from Kant's famous peace plan. It expresses one's feelings exactly.

 

"One cannot suppress a certain indignation when one sees men's actions on the great world-stage and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness." (Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View, 1784, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)

 

In setting up a Pinocchio law, all you have to do is set up a leader board where the truth of any public statement is measured according to factual results determined later by statisticians and other experts. Any statement by a public figure should be displayed visually for all to see, if only on the Web. If the facts vary from what is stated by them, have a portrait of that public figure grow its nose a little longer. Once it stretches beyond a certain point, jail time or fines or some other punishment can normalize the image.

 

Again, this is derived from a divine teaching, "by their fruits ye shall know them..." Socrates, according to Xenophon, talked about the same idea. We just have to visualize and put into graphic form, what he describes.

 

"It seems strange enough to me that a herdsman who lets his cattle decrease and go to the bad should not admit that he is a poor cowherd; but stranger still that a statesman when he causes the citizens to decrease and go to the bad, should feel no shame nor think himself a poor statesman." (Xen. Mem. 1.2.32)

 

A few months ago, I audited Karen Armstrong's book, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (2001, from Orion Publishing).

 

 

Two quotes from the Qur'an jumped out at me and bit me on the nose. I have been keeping them in a safe box, but I take them out now to show you, very carefully. To me, they are making some very advanced points about evolution. The first talks about cultural evolution.

 

"Unto every one of you We have appointed a (different) law and way of life. And if Allah had so willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but (He willed it otherwise) in order to test you by means of what He has given you. Vie, then, with one another in doing good works! Unto Allah you all must return; and then He will make you truly understand all that on which you were wont to differ." (Qur'an 5:48)

It is important not to miss what is being said here. We have many cultures, languages and races for a divinely inspired reason. God wants it that way. He does things for a reason. The market fundamentalists did not invent the idea that competition is a good thing. It is a teaching of God. He encourages groups to work apart and vie with one another in excellence, and everybody benefits from the invisible hand -- another religious teaching that did not come from Adam Smith or any other economist, it is scriptural.

 

Abdu'l-Baha, in one of His letters to Dr. Forel, pointed out that the Genesis myth, so often used in opposition to evolution, in fact, is the origin of the whole idea of evolution. It starts off telling how God created light, then earth, then animals, and so forth until humans came along. The entire idea of good coming out of fair competition, in nature, in human ideas, it comes from God's teachings.

 

The other Qur'an quote talks about the good in other faiths. Muhammad looks back at older faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and points out that there are pious believers who, again, "vie with one another in good works." Religion is in essence not a field for self-congratulation on being right while others are in error. It is not even a place where ideas or groups compete; it is a fraternity where true believers lovingly compete with one another in virtue, not as many lamps under many bushels, but in showing one light to the world.

 

"[However] They are not all alike. Among the People of the Book there is an upright community who recite the revelation of God during the night and fall prostrate before Him. They believe in God and the Last Day, enjoin what is right and forbid what is evil, and vie with one another in good works. They are of the righteous and whatever good they do, its reward will not be denied them. God knows those who fear [Him]. (Qur'an 3:113-115)

Baha'u'llah says something parallel when He declares that this faith is not a "field for the foolish and faint of heart," it is a jousting field where you a charger and fight your spiritual battles in the name of God.

 

"This is not a Cause which may be made a plaything for your idle fancies, nor is it a field for the foolish and faint of heart. By God, this is the arena of insight and detachment, of vision and upliftment, where none may spur on their chargers save the valiant horsemen of the Merciful, who have severed all attachment to the world of being. These, truly, are they that render God victorious on earth, and are the dawning-places of His sovereign might amidst mankind. (Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Aqdas, para 178, p. 84)

 

 

This describes the divine art of struggle and competition, a battle to remove folly, arrogance and insolence at the root. It starts within, it starts with the self-assessment that Baha'u'llah prescribes for us all, every day, every moment of our lives. Anything that visualizes and charts our progress in this regard, has to be welcomed by us, and by all, for ultimately the question, "Who will guard the guardians?" has to be our own vigilant selves in living up to the Covenant.

Chapter Seven; Cosmopolis Earth

Law and the Socratic Dialectician

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Feb 07, Mulk 01, 167 BE

 

 

Ancient Athens attracted many geniuses, including the first philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. They witnessed Lycurgus's attempt in Sparta to establish equality, and Pericles' experimentation in Athens with democracy and liberty. They analyzed why both of these failed to last, and speculated on how they might be improved upon.

 

In his great work, the Republic, Plato held that at its best kingship, the rule of an individual, would be ideal. A ruling individual does not contradict himself as polyarchies do. Unfortunately, few if any mortals can wield power for long without being corrupted by hubris. Only a true philosopher dare aspire to that. Unfortunately, philosopher kings are rarer than the philosopher's stone. Kings rarely aspire to becoming philosophers, and few philosophers even want to be kings. Similar weaknesses arise from rule of the few, aristocracy, and rule of the people, democracy. Failing the ideal, our best hope is to combine and balance the best features of all three possible types of government, royalism, aristocracy and democracy. Fuse them into a single entity and you get the public thing, the Res Publica or Republic.

 

 

 

 

In my opinion, though, Plato's greatest masterpiece was his last work, the Laws. We think of sustainability as a modern invention, but Plato held this up as the highest object of all reform. We need to create a polity with the longevity, robustness and stability of Egyptian civilization, which was ancient even in Plato's time. In order to do that, we must strike a measure of justice and right perspective within, and then translate that into good laws.

 

"If one neglects the rule of due measure, and gives things too great in power to things too small -- sails to ships, food to bodies, offices of rule to souls -- then everything is upset, and they run, through excess of insolence, some to bodily disorders, others to that offspring of insolence, injustice." [Plato, Laws, 691c, <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0166%3Abook%3D3%3Apage%3D691>]

The process of corruption begins, Plato's Athenian Stranger tells us, in pride, which distorts pain and pleasure. We must respond to the two basic human motivations in the right way. If the ruling principle, our reason or wisdom, controls feelings of fear and hope, or better still, directs our fears and hopes towards what we should fear and hope for, then the outcome is good laws.

 

==========

 

"Well then we may take it that any human being is one person?"

"Of course."

"But one person has within himself a pair of unwise and conflicting counselors, whose names are pleasure and pain?"

"The fact is as you say."

"He has, besides, anticipations of the future, and these of two sorts. The common name for both sorts is expectation, the special name for anticipation of pain being fear, and for anticipation of its opposite, confidence. And on the top of all, there is judgment, to discern which of these states is better or worse, and when judgment takes the form of a public decision of a city, it has the name of law." (Plato, Laws, 644d, Collected Writings, p. 1244)

==========

 

Law, then, is the product of many minds undergoing, apart and together, what Socrates, Plato's beloved teacher, had called dialectic. Dialectic is a creative conversation where the learner goes from an idea or thesis, feeling confidence, and that is contradicted and refined by antithesis (fear), and finally the seeker arrives at a consensus, synthesis or reasoned judgment. In the collective sense, the ultimate outcome is law.

 

 

 

 

We should not concentrate, therefore, on the particular design of a Republic; the most important thing is the legislation that holds it together and gives it life. Make adjustments to the laws, understand the spirit of law, and good leaders and upstanding citizens will arise naturally.

 

As enough seekers of truth learn to apply dialectic successfully, the polity will hit what we now call a Goldilocks zone, a point of moderation where there is just enough intimate contact among members for equality and freedom to play off on one another. The right amount of equality and inequality comes first. Non-equals naturally want to emulate their betters. Peers want to vie with peers by maintaining a reputation for uprightness and vigour in good works. In order to do this, there must optimum personal freedom so that each can work out his or her own contribution. As Plato puts it in the Laws,

 

"There is indeed no such boon for a society as this familiar knowledge of citizen by citizen. For where men have no light on each other's characters, but are dark on the subject, no one will ever reach the rank or station that he deserves, or get the justice which is his proper due. Hence in every society it should always be the endeavor of every citizen, before anything else, to prove himself to all his neighbors no counterfeit, but a man of sterling sincerity, and not to be imposed upon by any counterfeiting by others." (Laws, 738e, pp. 1323-1324)

 

There cannot be so much closeness and unbounded intimacy in a society that outside opinions will dominate personal search. This is imitation, and it intrudes upon the integrity of the individual's dialectic. The tyranny of others' opinions stifles creativity and ultimately kills the polity as well. The way to destroy imitation is through carefully directed conversation, dialectic, which irritates but also leads to a profound realization of what freedom and equality really mean.

 

Next time I will discuss how Plato's theory might be combined with the Chinese neighborhood helper and Comenius's three magistrates into a new, practical profession called the dialectician.

Chapter Six and a Half of Cosmopolis Earth

Three Orders of Magistrate

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Feb 02, Sultan 15, 167 BE

 

 

In China, government is not a distant presence; families consider the state to be the head of the household. Districts, neighbourhoods and other local divisions are given official status as levels of government, unlike the informal organizations or pressure groups that localities tend to be elsewhere. Some local governments even hire "neighborhood helpers" to act as den mothers, go-betweens or goodwill ambassadors among families and the local bureaucracy. I have not been able to find any details about this practice but I have often thought that there should be some such profession in every locale.

 

 

 

As it is, families live on the edge until they start to fracture and people living alone are neglected until they slip through the cracks. The poor, and often even the rich, live marginal lives and are neglected until a crisis flares up. Then the police or some other official agency are called in to intervene with a heavy hand. As the saying goes, "the law is a blunt instrument." Worse, our present legal system sees only major crimes and exerts control with negative sanctions like fines or imprisonment. The justice system doles out gross punishment and pays little or no attention to what motivates people most, reward.

 

In Panorthosia, John Amos Comenius proposes that we reform the blunt instrument of the law by establishing a set of professions specially trained to act as rewarders, as agents of positive social change. Using the Roman model, he called them magistrates. The magistrate would intervene before innocents can be ground up into statistics. Like the Chinese neighbourhood helper,  they would be assigned a certain locality and be paid on a capitation basis, that is, according to the well being of a given number of people in a clearly defined jurisdiction. In short, they would make the law into an elegant instrument of almost surgical precision.

 

Comenius suggested that not one but three "orders" or specialties of magistrate be organized to work both independently and as a team on the same population. The first is an educator or public relations specialist, the second a guardian or public defender, and the third a planner.

 

 

"The world will be more orderly if every political system, or state or city has magistrates who are devoted to piety, peace and order." (Panorthosia, Ch. 24, para 1, p. 110)

 

 

The first kind of magistrate is the consul, whose prime concern is piety. The consul is a sort of teaching magistrate who gives general advice to all comers, attempting to resolve differences, public or private, before they become severe. The consuls must "make themselves fully available to all men at stated times and give advice on all kinds of business for the purpose of smoothing out any public or private difficulties." The qualification of the consul is that he or she is a wise and good teacher, able to explain the law in clear terms and to convince both officials and the general public of its fairness.

 

 

 

The second order of magistrate is concerned with peace, the ultimate reason for being of politics. They act as judges, but not the kind of judge in English speaking countries, that is, passive listeners to formal proceedings. Instead they are free to go out into the community, more like the "investigating magistrates" that are part of the French legal system. The judge or protective magistrate would settle any disputes or lawsuits that slip past the consuls. They must, Comenius says, be righteous themselves yet tolerant and unwilling to use force or compulsion.

 

Since justice is concerned with order as well as law, Comenius proposed a third, senior order of judge, called an ephor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephor) or censor. The ephor's chief concern is to keep good order in society, presumably by making certain that laws are applied in such ways that they promote broader social goals and plans. This type of magistrate must "have a most observant eye" and be willing to assert authority over the first two orders of judge. Every law, rule and procedure needs to fall together in proper order.

 

 

 

All three orders of magistrate must be wise and just themselves, before they can presume to impose laws on others. Comenius stresses that they be skilled at going through all three stages of action, knowledge, volition and action, that is, they should be possessed of sound knowledge, a decisive will and be ever active in good works.

 

"Their main qualification is that they should all have the knowledge, the will and the ability to do good works." (Panorthosia, Ch. 24, para 1, p. 110)

 

This magistrate, then, is more than a mere legal expert. He or she is also a skilled executive and a sage manager who not only can investigate individuals but also understands how they fit into the neighbourhood and the cosmopolis. A magistrates is a sort of life coach who aids citizens to plan out their lives, for their own benefit and that of the community. The main technical gifts of a magistrate, then, would be in steles and PIM's, the software planning aid that fits individuals into the Cosmopolis. This is inspired by Comenius, once again, who wrote,

 

"Finally, consideration [by a democratic world government] can be given to the question of a private calendar which each individual can start for himself on an attached sheet of blank paper, as a record of past activities and future engagements." (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 10, p. 147-149)

 

The need for such an intermediary profession for personal planning is already evident in areas of personal decision making that are highly computerized, the most advanced of which is the trading of stocks. Already decision algorithms are interacting with one another with such bewildering speed that the stock market is becoming unpredictable. The whole system is prone to sudden collapse, for reasons utterly inscrutable to human brains. As one reporter points out, "Ironically enough, the notion of using algorithms as trading tools was born as a way of empowering traders." [1] To me, this volatility in a software oriented community indicates that the kind of expertise that will be most in demand in future will not be technical or even legal, but philosophical. We must be very clear on "why" before we set computers to answering "how." In order to get a handle on that, then, we will need to go much further back than Comenius. We must consult Socrates and Plato. That we shall do next time…

 

(1) "Ironically enough, the notion of using algorithms as trading tools was born as a way of empowering traders." (Algorithms Take Control of Wall Street, by Felix Salmon and Jon Stokes, December 27, 2010, Wired Magazine, January 2011

 <http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_ai_flashtrading/> )

Planning for the Supreme Law

The Precedent of U.N. Planning Years

"Salus populi suprema lex." (Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.)

The United Nations in the fifty-plus years of its existence has so far succeeded in staving off the ultimate disaster, a nuclear war among states. By this criterion alone, it justifies every penny spent on its upkeep. Although the UNO comprises one of the larger bureaucracies in the world, its resources pale in comparison with its main sponsor, the United States. As financial historian Niall Ferguson points out, the UN's,

"resources are so much smaller than those of the U.S. government that its functions can never be more than complementary to American power. To be precise, the annual budget of the United Nations is equivalent to around 0.07 percent of the U.S. federal budget, 0.4 percent of the U.S. defense budget and 17.6 percent of the U.S. international development and humanitarian assistance budget. In the words of the former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, who from 1993 to 1996 was the American permanent representative to the UN, the annual budget of the United Nations is `roughly what the Pentagon spends every thirty-two hours.'" (Niall Ferguson, Colossus, The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Penguin, 2004, pp. 134-135)

In spite of the flimsy resources at its command, the United Nations can boast of at least one further accomplishment, its planning years and decades. These plans are devised after painstaking consensus building among concerned parties. On the whole, they constitute the second great success story coming out of the international institution in the first half-century of its existence.

These years and decades publicize important but otherwise overlooked global needs and issues. They focus the attention of policy makers on positive measures to solve the problems, both independently and through cooperative action on a regional basis. Examples of recent planning years and decades include the International Year for Freshwater (2003) and the Literacy Decade (2003-2012). Such broad themes orient governments and NGO's around specific goals. The publicity surrounding the event encourages them to vie with one another in fulfilling their promises.

Unfortunately the press largely ignores these plans, as it does the existence of United Nations itself. Whereas the slightest dip in the stock market or the latest sports scores, or the tiniest variations in the weather are given meticulous attention by broadcasters, the plans of the United Nation make little impression on the popular mind.

Right now, press outlets themselves are large media corporations. They in turn depend upon profits coming from advertisements paid for by other corporations. They are thus doubly shackled. As a result, it is an open secret that these corporate media conglomerates instruct publishers, and editors instruct journalists, to ignore the plans of the United Nations. Such deference to the interests of owners is paid, in spite of the tremendous potential benefit that we all would derive from such publicity. I for one would rather hear on the radio what the international plan is for this year, and how my nation is doing in fulfilling its promises in this regard, than, say, an hourly update in hundredths of a cent on the fortunes of the American dollar.

These, however, are not the only reasons why the U.N. years and decades do not inspire the attention, much less the hope that they could. The planning years restrict themselves to specialized measures by national governments and NGO's. They are of interest, by and large, only to specialists and policy makers at high levels. They rarely tie in to the everyday concerns of the average citizen. In relation to one another, the plans are narrow, disconnected and incoherent. The accomplishments of one year do not lead naturally to the next. One decade is wholly unrelated to all other decades.

Perhaps most important, the plans are not written into a world constitution, and as a result they are lacking in moral and legal authority.

The reform proposals that John Amos Comenius puts forward in Panorthosia would change the entire equation of global planning by placing universal concerns into the hands and minds of all.

A Comenian world order would never permit politics and the press to be mischievously manipulated by unseen interests, as they are now. The plan of humanity must be open and transparent at every stage, from theory to implementation. The public therefore must own every organ of publicity, since through this means arises an intelligent consensus of opinion, and out of that all effective action proceeds.

"Let us restore all things to all men through reforms which are universal to make for universal justice, easy to make for simplicity, and agreeable to make for easy acceptance." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 48, p. 171)

Press outlets should be trusts, independent of advertising, run by agencies sanctioned and heavily influenced by Comenius' three branches of government, respectively the college (science and education), the dicastery (peace and politics) and the consistory (faith and ethics). Although the members of the press need to be free and independent in one sense, they cannot be free in the sense of being divorced from the supreme law, which is Salus Popoli, the benefit of humanity.

The first step in world planning, Comenius proposed, should be before all else to enlist everyone's attention to the question at issue. The basis of this is encapsulated in the Latin proverb at the head of this essay, what the Romans considered to be the supreme priority, the good of the people. And surely the first and best defenders of this supreme goal must be the people themselves. Therefore, the average person must cast aside all distractions and give full attention to what benefits all.

Fostering this is the first duty of the press, and indeed the entire publishing industry, including Internet publications. They must do all they can to aid the public in this noble but difficult challenge. As Comenius wrote,

"It is true that there are very many people whom you would not desire to pay extraordinary attention to things, but they should at least have the necessary knowledge. `For they only know how to attend to things that are amusing, vain, and unimportant, but in serious matters they are apathetic. If an actor makes the least movement out of step,' says Cicero, `or if he speaks a line one syllable too short or too long, he is hissed and booed off the stage.' (Cicero, Paradoxa, 111, 2, 26) You see how critical the common people are towards the subtleties of even the most trivial things! And the same attention is paid to rhythmic dance-movement accompanied by music as to spicy foodstuff and the sensual, earthly, and transitory things. But confront a man with serious, intellectual, and religious matters and you will soon see that he is apathetic. Therefore human effort has its shortcomings, mostly where we can least afford them." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 4, pp. 144-145)

Justice Leaks Out

By John Taylor; 2010 Dec 03, Qawl 12, 167 BE

I just started attending an institute on the Baha'i Covenant (the new Book VIII) being held for tutors in my old home town of Ancaster, Ontario. At the same time, I have also been auditing a series of lectures on the history of freedom. This I do, wearing earphones, as I paint part of our basement. At the same time, the news is full of this Wikileaks affair, which, it strikes me, is part of the whole theme of this age, the tension between security and freedom, between obedience and expression, between individual right and social conformity.

Cosmopolitanism, the theme of the book I am trying to write, is all about this very theme, the need for strict rectitude in universals, and a concurrent faith that universals will translate into optimum good for individual souls. This is what Immanuel Kant talked about with his Categorical Imperative, the duty strictly to adhere to duty by turning the implications of the Golden Rule into universal laws. And Baha'u'llah seems to seek the same balance in the Kitab-i-Ahd, the Will and Testament of Baha'u'llah, which is the main concern of Book VIII.

Abdu'l-Baha, in Paris, laid out the Baha'i version of Kant's C.I. with astonishing purity. Although this is not, strictly speaking, Baha'i scripture (the original text in Persian was lost), it is still astonishing that the Master seems to have spoken in such Kantian terms about the need for duty in universal and particular undertakings.

"In the human world there are two kinds of undertakings, universal and particular. The result of every universal undertaking is infinite, and the outcome of every particular undertaking is finite. In this age all the human problems which create a general interest are universal and their results are likewise universal, for humanity has become interdependent."

"Today international laws have great influence, international policies are bringing nations nearer to one another. Therefore it is a general axiom that in the human world every universal affair commands attention, and its results and benefits are limitless; therefore let us say that every universal cause is divine and every special matter is human." (Address by Abdu'l-Baha at the Esperanto Banquet, given at Hotel Moderns in Paris, France, February 12th, 1913, Divine Philosophy, p. 141)

The Master says, "Every universal affair is divine." Think about that, what it implies for the amoral Realpolitik that dominates the international stage today. In effect, the current nationalist mind set turns every universal affair into what Baha'u'llah calls the "metropolis of Satan." Morality is irrelevant, only so called practical matters of competing interest. Compare that cynicism and what the Master says above to what Kant says in his own "peace message" (Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, 1795), which is one of the backbones of my book-in-perpetual-progress, Cosmopolis Earth.

"Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a cosmopolitan right is not fantastical, high-flown or exaggerated notion. It is a complement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, necessary for the public rights of mankind in general and thus for the realization of perpetual peace." (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)

The fact that, as Kant points out, civil and international law remains unwritten, that is, that there is no written world constitution, is the great flaw and downfall of our current world.

This is one reason that the Wikileaks affair has gripped me harder than any news event since Watergate, which played out way back when I was in High School. I remember at the time being glued to the television, watching the hearings for days on end, devouring every article in the press about the characters of the senators and lawyers running those senate hearings. They were heroes to me, and the climax came when Richard Nixon resigned. Then he was pardoned and everything went back to normal. I longed to become a lawyer at the time. This chase for justice in high places that seemed to be happening in those hearings seemed the noblest thing in the world.

Only later did I read Noam Chomsky, who pointed out that all that fuss was just a reflection of the fact that the crime committed at the Watergate complex, bugging backroom dealings of members of the Democratic Party -- activities that were themselves highly illegal and scandalous, by the way, but that somehow never got discussed --was committed against powerful people. Nixon had already committed dozens of worse crimes, including out-and-out assassinations, against less powerful groups, but as always that barely merited a headline. Then I felt ashamed to have been sucked into watching what amounted to a show trial that had nothing to do with real justice.

Still, the diplomatic dispatches being released by Wikileaks have many of the elements that made Watergate so compelling. There is the high-tech angle, the fact that the Internet seems to be beyond the clammy claws of censorship -- although some say that censorship is just being delayed and privatized. There is the fact that powerful officials of the American superpower are being flouted in the same way that outliers are, the sort of schlep they openly torture and routinely kill as an object lesson to the powerless.

There is the secrecy angle, the fact that although only about six percent of these dispatches were officially secret, so pervasive is the cloak and dagger culture that it is provoking the most comical reactions, including apparatchiks threatening employees and potential employees of the State Department that if they dare read any of the leaks they are doomed, even if the leak mentions them, or in fact was written by themselves. One Canadian stooge even suggested sending a cruise missile against Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks -- let no American claim that they have a monopoly on whackos.

Then there are the actual revelations, which are not insubstantial in the skullduggery they uncover. The loss in America of the right of habeas corpus is a grave one, a loss for every human being, and the leaks show that the spooks are taking full advantage of their new powers. They flout the law by secretly transporting terror suspects beyond borders. In one case, a German national with the same name as a terrorist was transported to Pakistan and tortured for months. Then, when the blunder was undeniable, the U.S. Secretary of State had to intervene before the C.I.A. did what they were inclined to do, rub him out with extreme prejudice to cover up the embarrassment permanently. This is criminality at the highest levels. It of course will go unpunished, as always.

Such wrongdoing is an outward symptom of a deeper cancer. You cannot engage in the behavior that the international order demands of its minions without soiling yourself, without losing all your better principles and ideals, without sinking in the ordure floating around you. The biggest secret that these over-secretive officials and heads of state are keeping is that they have lost their principles. As Kant points out, you may have a personality but you cannot have character without holding to high moral principle.

"Character means that the person derives his rules of conduct from himself and from the dignity of humanity. Character is the common ruling principle in man in the use of his talents and attributes. Thus it is the nature of his will ... A man who acts without settled principles, with no uniformity, has no character. A man may have a good heart and yet no character, because he is dependent upon impulses and does not act according to maxims. Firmness and unity of principle are essential to character." (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant)

I long for the strict moral standard that Kant held up for world statespersons.

I am happy that the information revealed by wikileaks is out in the open so soon. I do not imagine that it will change much but at least it allows future historians to understand the mind set of our cynical leaders. These mistakes are probably the worst of any generation of leaders, ever. This generation of leaders (and followers) are willfully ignoring climate change, the most basic threat to our survival. They are therefore putting the human race in the gravest peril. Speaking of recent climate talks, George Monbiot put it very well,

"What all this means is that there is not a single effective instrument for containing manmade global warming anywhere on earth. The response to climate change, which was described by Lord Stern as a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen, is the greatest political failure the world has ever seen." (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/09/20/the-process-is-dead/)

It is frightening. In spite of all the affected concern for security, there is no single instrument for basic justice anywhere on earth ... other than the Universal House Justice, of course, which, as its name implies, is all about universalizing justice. And their true splendor will not shine for all to see until we all see the light and form a world government.

Cyber-Steles and the Universal PIM

The Promulgating Robot

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 21, Ilm 06, 167 BE

In an earlier chapter, "Man of Stele," we broached the idea of an electronic interface between people and institutions called the stele, a latter day update of an almost four thousand-year-old technique used by ancient kings, the best known of whom was Hammurabi of Babylon. Steles are finger-shaped stone monuments standing about two metres high, with a codified version of the laws inscribed around their "skin." By this means ancient kings of this era pioneered the rule of law by erecting steles in prominent places, tacitly declaring that it was not their whim that ruled the land but immutable, comprehensible laws. The "fingernail" of one surviving stele on display in the Louvre features a portrait of Hammurabi himself, in the act of handing down the "rod" of his law.

The stele fulfills a major precondition of justice: in order for a law to be fair, it must be promulgated, that is, publicized and made comprehensible to all. Steles were designed to assure that even foreigners and non-literate peasants had as much access to a codification of the laws as possible, so that all could be held to account for their actions. Ignorance was no longer an excuse in the eyes of the law.

We no longer use steles today, in spite of the fact that we are called upon to conform to far more laws and much more complex rules, norms and regulations. In place of steles, it could be said that we spend as long as twenty years in school learning what society expects of us. At the same time, multiculturalism has intensified; rapid travel and the Internet are melding all cultures into one global civilization. This makes promulgation a much more important and difficult challenge today than in Hammurabi's time.

Fortunately, it is possible to build steles based not on a legal code written in cuneiform script etched in stone, but rather computer code "etched" into silicon chips, in particular a genre of software known as a personal information manager, or PIM. PIM software is now routinely used by executives to schedule appointments, organize projects, and simplify interactions with complex databases of contacts. The PIM can be used to guide the investigation, aspirations and plans of individuals, displaying visuals as they check off achievements, mark milestones. They also issue warnings when an action falls short of self-declared goals and ideals. PIM's often have standard plug-ins to coordinate activity with similar software planners of groups and institutions. The interaction of PIM's already informs the protean structure of daily life.

For the individual, a PIM-based cybernetic stele could start where software PIM's leave off. It can act as a core interface to cyberspace, and as a sounding board for setting out one's goals in life. Such information management could become the concern of a new science called "lifestyle engineering," since they start with a unique individual's personal style and carry that forward into what Socrates called the "examined life." We will discuss the details of this future science in future sections of Cosmopolis.

For institutions, similar steles will mediate and negotiate among the many PIM's of members, clients and guests. Standard group information managers would coordinate ideas and distribute services among members, clients and guests, while maintaining due security by clarifying and proclaiming the rules, standards and purposes not only of that group or institution in particular, but of all similar ones around the world.

Like the ancient stele, cyber-steles would make written constitutions open and accessible to all. In order to do this most effectively, these steles and PIM's would need to conform to the legal conventions of open systems software, as laid out in the Creative Commons and the Open Frontiers Foundation. This would not only make the stele's PIM software free, concise, open and confidential, it would also make it safe. Every line of open systems code is freely available for scrutiny by any who care to download it. This makes it impervious to the back doors, worms and other security threats that seem inherent to proprietary software.

The most distinctive feature of the open systems PIM in the stele is the cosmopolitanism standards built into it. Every time a person swings out of balance, the stele would alert the aspiring Homo Universalis of insipient danger. Its universal standards are the product of a consensus of opinion among philosophers, senior citizens, believers, workers and teachers around the world on what is needed to become a sane, balanced person, and how that person fits into the social whole. As Plato puts it,

"A community should be at once free, sane, and at amity with itself, and ... these are the ends a legislator must keep in view in his enactments." (Plato, Collected Dialogues, The Laws, 693b, p. 1282)

Thus the cosmopolitan PIM is the product not only of computer programmers but also the collective wisdom of legislators, philosophers, elders and every other kind of expert. It is our fundamental heritage as humans in a united world. Once a stele is linked to the totality of human experience available on the Internet, it can act as a sort of DNA for cosmopolitan faith, learning and citizenship.

Implementing the Stele Ideal

Emerging robotics technology should allow electronic steles to aim at much more than passive promulgation. They can potentially become the face and focal center of the built world, including all tools and technology. As mentioned, the stone monuments of old were shaped like oversized index fingers with a stone mosaic portrait of the monarch on their "fingernail." In a similar way, a robotic stele would feature a computer monitor as its "fingernail." It can interact with us using a voice interface, as well as the usual computer input and output devices, a mouse, speakers, webcam and so forth. Most importantly, it will be mobile.

In order to work, electronic steles would be ubiquitous, placed prominently wherever humans go, and fit in with the machines around it, for which it acts as interlocutor. Offices can put mobile robotic steles to work as receptionists and public relations representatives. One can be stationed at the center of a workplace or at the entryway, making sure who everybody is and that everybody knows where they are going, and understands the rules, roles and expectations of the institution in question. A domestic stele acts as a doorman, guide and factotum at the gate of a family compound. Institutional steles would be stationed at gates and entryways to neighbourhoods, city blocks and apartment complexes. Throughout the cosmopolitan city, steles are placed at entry points, street corners and squares of a city, village or town.

The most important of all steles is the personal stele. Individuals will station their robotic stele at the doorway of their bedroom or other private space. When they are away from home, it autonomously maintains and protects the home, working as butler, maid, receptionist, secretary, answering machine and security guard. When the resident arrives home, it acts as their workstation and interface to the Internet, as well as tutor, student and companion. Because it is so influential, it may turn out that in future the work that teachers, doctors and other professionals do will involve less direct interaction with students and more tweaking and adjusting of the software running their respective steles. Such intervention would be less intrusive and may prove more effective.

To begin with, a stele need be little more than a tall, rolling computer with an LCD monitor on its "fingernail." Already many hospitals have "helpmate" robots plying the corridors, delivering medications and performing other menial tasks. Such devices can also act as stand-ins for flesh and blood human beings. At least one office has a telecommuting boss who works from home thousands of miles away from his company. He is represented there by a robotic proxy, a remotely controlled, mobile robot with a video image of his face on its monitor. This virtual boss's authority resembles that of Hammurabi's steles, except that employees can actually speak and interact with his avatar image in real time on the robot's monitor.

Even with the rudimentary robotics technology available today it would not be overly expensive or difficult to mass produce at least the outer shells of robotic steles, allowing the software PIM within it to be constantly updated over the Internet as experience increases. As more data and opinions are fed back into their software, steles would get better by the minute. Most citizens of developed countries are already heavily invested in personal computers, broadband links, and many other kinds of Internet connected devices; a stele would connect with these and integrate them through standard ports.

A world government can declare owning at least one standard cyber-stele as a basic human right. By declaring a goal of "one person, one stele" within a decade or two it would jumpstart a massive industry. This would also change how we understand law itself, and for that matter judges and lawyers. The global law promulgated by steles would not be the sort of dead letter that we have become used to. In place of sanctions that are little changed from Hammurabi's harsh, inflexible laws, the rules of steles will be entirely personalized and ever more flexible, capable even of reprogramming itself in real time, adapting as circumstances change.

Of course, the introduction of steles would have to be slow and graduated. For example, it is true that we cannot yet entirely trust the competence of robotic drivers on the open road -- although Google and some military contractors have been quietly experimenting with prototypes. Autonomous feedback technology is advancing at a furious pace, however. Soon autonomous vehicles will be much more reliable than human drivers, and will probably take over the wheel.

The real obstacle is not technical but ethical.

We fear intelligent robots, probably for good reason. Like a world government itself, we have to get it absolutely right before we implement it, since a bad product might be impossible to change or remove. If we are to put robotics to good use, we must first address legitimate fears by eliminating the root cause.

As Immanuel Kant pointed out, only a world order would be completely secure, since as long as competing centers of power exist, they will continually struggle for hegemony, even in so-called peacetime. Our nationalist order is therefore inherently warlike and competitive. As a result, we have come to expect that advances in robotics will automatically lead to a nightmare scenario where robots take over, or, as depicted in the "Terminator" movie series, where murderous robots wage eternal war with humanity. It is already possible to buy an off-the-shelf autonomous, drone fighter that can be launched from anywhere; completely stealthy, these drones can attack and destroy just about anything, anywhere, without being detected. Such killing machines only work if they are programmed to destroy without qualm. The more intelligent they become, the more inherently dangerous they are.

I see a PIM-based robotic stele, regulated by a cosmopolitan world order, as the only sure way to avert this clear and present danger built into technology. Everything depends upon the permanent peace enforced by a democratic world government. Once that is established, however, it will be possible to build the highest of human ideals and values right into all technology, from chip design to software to the hardware shell without.

Already the first "moral" robot has been built. Named "Nao," its programming is based on ethical principles that allow it to make elementary choices about which of several tasks it takes on first while serving the residents of a nursing home. (Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson, "Robot be good; Independent minded machines will soon play a big role in our lives. It's time they learned how to behave ethically." Scientific American, October, 2010, p. 72). With increasing sophistication, ethical robots placed in new situations should be able to answer the most difficult ethical quandary, if only by sending out a wireless "informational crowd sourcing" query on the Internet. For the same reasons that autonomous vehicles will be safer than flawed human drivers, as long as such robots are in touch with the Internet, their ethical savvy should rapidly become as good or better than a human.

Once steles can be relied upon to maintain core human values themselves, the next question is how they would help humans do the same -- which of course is the main goal of promulgation. The fact that they are shaped like steles, the first technology that instantiated the rule of law, would remind everybody that the law is the basis of peace on earth. Then it will not be unreasonable to expect higher probity from our machines than any human authority figure. Anybody who interacts with a stele would realize that this is no mere machine, it stands for the sum of our collective wisdom.

At the same time, users of steles will soon be made aware that unlike older legal systems, cosmopolitan laws are not a Fait Accompli. The experience of an individual with PIM's feeds back into its software and constantly changes the defaults. If there are enough exceptions to a rule, new subsections can be written into the law. In this way, steles and PIM's will change the professions, especially the teaching profession. Instead of working directly on their students, teachers can spend most of their time adjusting and tweaking a student's PIM to make it more responsive to his or her particular temperament, interests and personality.

We are used to many freedoms that the near future will probably regard as license; for example, the obesity rate over the past few decades has slowly climbed to a large majority of the population without many alarm bells going off. The stele would prevent that, although many of us today would find the subtle incentives and disincentives that it uses too intrusive for comfort. Be that as it may, a little intrusiveness in daily life is a far sunnier prospect than an epidemic of chronic illness caused by obesity, not to mention the gloomy scenario explored in the Terminator movies.

Man of Stele

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 04, Mashiyyat 08, 167 BE

Hammurabi (d. 1750 BCE) was a king of Babylon best known today for a code of laws that he promulgated in Akkadian (the language of the common people) throughout his dominion on clay tablets. Because these tablets were accessible only to a literate elite, he also had steles, stone monuments or pillars about as tall as a person, placed in the center of public places in every town. On the surface of these pillars were written, in cuneiform script, some 281 concise laws, each laying out a specific transgression followed by its punishment, which was usually severe by today's standards. Hammurabi proclaimed that anyone complaining of an injustice need only go and consult the writing on the stele in order to find out what recourse there was in his law.

In 1901, a "diorite stele in the shape of a huge index finger, 2.25 m or 7.4 ft tall" with nearly the complete code written on it was uncovered near the ancient capital of Susa, and it is now on display in the Louvre Museum. (see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi>, and, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi>) The idea of using a stele to publicize the content of laws had been around for centuries when Hammurabi came along. Nonetheless, because of the perfect condition of this "finger stele," we now associate this technique with him. The "fingernail" of the stele's finger contains bas relief images as well as text. That means that the citizens of 1700 BCE had a more immediate multimedia experience in reading their laws than we do with our far more complex modern legal systems.

I think that it is highly significant that Hammurabi, or whatever leader it was that originally came up with this idea, chose his index finger as a symbolic display for his codex. Actually, I do not think that this is even a symbol or metaphor -- it is exactly, literally what we do with our index fingers. We use them to give instructions, to indicate direction, to assert authority, threaten punishment or even to express puzzlement, saying "Wait a second here." We wag our index finger when a right is violated, and we curl it when we want someone to come hither. This is our first and main pointer.

So natural does such use of the index finger seem that when I had small children I remember being surprised that I had to teach it to them. When they asked where something was, I sometimes had to literally take their face in my hand and turn it so that they would look at my finger. When performing a search they seemed to expect verbal directions as a matter of course while I, being lazy, prefer non-verbal indicators. Even now that they are 11 and 16 years old I sometimes have to say to them, "Look at my finger," before they will look in the right direction. So, evidently, did Hammurabi.

The index finger also seems to be tied into written language. It would be very clumsy to write with a pen without using the index finger, though perhaps less so to wield a hammer and chisel to inscribe the ancient cuneiform script into a clay tablet. It is interesting that in some of the pre-literate languages of the oldest culture in the world, the Aboriginals of Australia, the need for relative pointers like the index finger was largely eliminated. Instead of learning concepts like "left" or "right," it is expected that everyone will constantly maintain a mental compass in their head. For example, instead of warning someone that there is a bee approaching their left foot, they will say, "Look out, there is a bee approaching the northwest of your foot." Since the first thing most people do when they hear such urgent news is to spin around in panic, the Aboriginal way seems more practical in such situations. Only when agriculture helps a population grow large and the people trade with and mix with foreigners, as they did in Mesopotamia, is there a clear necessity to throw out implicit assumptions about what others know and lay down the law by combining written symbols with non-verbal indicators, as does the finger-shaped stile.

I think that we need to revive the stele, and not only in promulgating laws but for just about every serious, directed purpose. Now that computers and the Internet are ubiquitous, we can use stiles not only as displays but also as interfaces, as points of interaction with every center of power and authority.

Three Directions of the Stele

The electronic stele would be indispensible in a Comenian inspired cosmopolis. The finger can point in three dimensions, upwards towards Platonic, eternal forms and ideals (art and religion), sideways towards other people (politics and peace studies) and inwards or outwards, to the depth dimensions of enlightenment, science and education. Just as the stele indicated for the ancient Babylonians what the law was on any given issue, an electronic stile interface, with a computer monitor where the "fingernail" is placed, can indicate which modality of governance is involved, the consistory, the college or the Dicastery. Hence, to repeat,

The stele's finger pointed upwards is religion, the interfaith consistory of holiness, which deals with whatever extends beyond the time scale of this particular generation. The classic images are Michelangelo’s (1475-1574) portrait of Plato, pointing heavenwards, or of the creation, with God pointing an index finger directly at the drooping hand of Adam.

The stele pointing sideways is practical politics, the Dicastery of Peace, dealing with our worldly relations with other human beings. This dimension is concerned with practical end results, which conduce to wisdom, harmony, reciprocity and, in a word, peace. Michelangelo’s image is of Aristotle, extending an outstretched hand palm down, indicating the broadness and moderation that is the foundation of this entire dimension.

Finally, there is the stele pointing in the inward or outward dimension, towards enlightenment, philosophy, education and science, which are the jobs of the College of Light. The concern of this stele is to deepen our understanding and to express that in our service. An example in the same artist's work may be the recently discovered self-portrait of Michelangelo in "The Crucifixion of Saint Peter." (1550) Here he looks along the arm and pointed finger of another horseman, pointing in the direction of the feet of the saint being crucified upside-down.

Another image that springs to mind is the war recruitment poster of a stern man pointing his index finger directly at the viewer, captioned, "Uncle Sam needs you."

As our technology becomes more sophisticated it will become wholly interactive. One day I see children raised and educated in regular dialogue with robot stiles -- situated in their own room, in the family household, in the community and everywhere they go. These stiles will be designed to explicate rules and laws of world governance, pointing in the three directions and dimensions that were laid out by John Amos Comenius, and others.

Ridvan, Ensaf and God’s Peace Plan

Peace Plan

Thoughts on the Second Day of Ridvan

By John Taylor; 2010 April 22, Jalal 13, 167 BE

Yesterday, the first day of Ridvan, was a warm, beautiful day. My 10-year-old son Thomas and I walked and shopped, biked and hiked around Dunnville before the Holy Day and election, which took place in late afternoon.

We have a total of 24 believers in Haldimand, and over half voted; but so few of us are able, willing or active that it pretty much meant that a discernable pulse and a willingness to show your face once a year (and sometimes not even the latter) is sufficient qualification to be elected to the Assembly. One hopeful sign however was an apparent unanimity of opinion among voters as to who should serve. Normally, the Assembly member with the greatest number of votes becomes the convener, who is responsible to arrange the first meeting where the officers are elected. In this case, however, seven of the nine were tied at twelve votes each. Seven convenors? We decided just to leave the job up to the former secretary.

A sad note was that Ron Speer was not re-elected, having moved to Georgetown earlier in the year. He was on the old Dunnville Assembly and later on the amalgamated Haldimand LSA for a total of over thirty years, since its foundation.

Our daily Baha'i class continues unabated. Tomaso insisted that we read God Loves Laughter for what must be the fifth or sixth time. Each time I read it, it is different. One reading I got the impression that Sears' family was run by a father who today would be considered a child abuser. He was always ready to whack his son and Bill as a result became closer to his grandfather. The next reading refuted that thesis. I noticed that Sears was close to his father, and the father with the rest of the family, in spite of the corporal punishment. My father always prided himself that he never hit the five kids he raised; he thought that hitting is an act not only of cowardice but of stupidity – if you cannot outsmart a little tyro like that, you are not really using your brain.

Anyway, Bill Sears' family was probably pretty normal for the time, and if you banished all humour at the expense of fathers you would have to shut down the whole genre of the family sitcom.

Our reading of GLL this time is different. I notice typos that are themselves amusing. The copy we have is clearly the first edition, printed in England. You can see the Hand of the Cause writing something and then an officious copywriter coming along and changing it to something incomprehensible. For example, there is a reference to the Green Bay Packets, instead of the Packers...

This morning, Ridvan Day Two, I lured Thomas out of bed and persuaded him to get ready for school by reading aloud the twelfth chapter of the novel City of Ember, which his teacher read to his Grade Five class, and which he liked so much we are reading it again together. This is youth fiction, with a restricted vocabulary.

For me, when I read a novel the main lure is the author's command of language. If the novelist is not as much poet as storyteller, I rapidly grow bored. So as a way to amuse myself with the author's pedestrian diction, I read with an Oxford accent or Irish brogue, or, as lately, I mimic a famous actor, like John Wayne or, lately, Christopher Walkin. This is surprisingly difficult to do, because if my parody gets at all noticeable, Thomas, or Silvie before him, immediately stops me and asks that I read in a "normal voice." So I have to keep it very subtle, it has to be an impression, not a send up, or my little accent buzzer goes off.

This morning we were at an exciting point in the novel with much action and suspense, so I was able to push the limits with my accent game. The buzzer went off only once, late in the chapter. By then it was too late. I had actually become Christopher Walkin and I could not shake that broken lilt, that downturn at the end of each sentence, even when I tried. Then came the time for us all to recite our morning prayer and reading. I found that Christopher Walkin can recite the words of Baha'u'llah. The kids protested, "Is that not disrespectful?" I thought not, since Walkin is one of the best orators in the English language. Go onto YouTube and listen to his reading of Poe's "The Raven." It is the best rendition of that poem I have ever heard, including the formidable version by James Earl Jones.

Then as I rushed the kids off to school, I found that Christopher Walkin can speak fluent Esperanto as well. In fact, my impression of his voice is actually better in Esperanto than in English, since for the life of me I cannot do a New York accent. I have been trying to correct that with my usual learning method lately, YouTube videos. A youth by the moniker "Sunghero" gives an excellent little seminar on how to do an impersonation of this actor, and impersonations generally. Sunghero also gives some good situations in which to use a Walkin impression, including awkward silences and approaching members of the opposite sex. Since he is Chinese and speaks with an English accent, among others, I think Sunghero should do a music video showcasing his talent done to the tune of "Secret Agent Man," only with the lyrics changed to "Secret Asian Man." The latter is what my kids go around singing whenever we listen to the Tom Jones CD in our car.

Last week, in Dundas, I attended an inspiring deepening on the Arabic Hidden Words given by Ninaz Shadman. I have been telling everyone who will listen that she is great, not since the Hands were still around have I heard a Baha'i speaker put the pedal to the metal like that; she is the equivalent of a Baha'i Bible-thumper. This term puzzles my kids, and I have to explain that it means that she speaks with verve, vim, passion, all the spiritual uplift that the first AHW says that we should have if we want to be able to say that we got anything out of Baha'u'llah's Writings. All others, in comparison, might well say, in Shakespeare's words in Richard III,

"I have not that alacrity of spirit nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have..."

Better still, Ninaz is familiar with the original languages and does not shy away from using the actual words used by the Central Figures. For example, I learned for the first time the difference between Ensaf, personal justice, and Adalat, social justice, or balance. Thus, when Baha'u'llah says, "The essence of all that I have revealed for thee is justice...," the word He is using is Ensaf, the same term as in the second Arabic Hidden Word. I did not know that. My justice, not ours. In English we just say "justice," we seem to have no distinction between personal and social. This is funny and disconcerting. It makes me feel strange, kind of like it does to let some unknown actor inhabit you and take over your mannerisms and quirks of speech.

Let me close with a frank email exchange that I recently had with a rather conventionally-minded believer about the book I am writing. They wrote:

"There is something I saw in this blog and in others you have written which disturbs me somewhat.  You state that the world government proposed by Comenius "is the most insightful and appealing plan for a world government ever devised." Where does it leave the plan for world government which Baha'u'llah gave us now stand in your opinion? It sometimes seems to me that you have supplanted the Baha'i Faith in your book by idolizing Comenius..."

JET: Dear ----,

My book, People without Borders, will be a work of political science, which as you know, the Guardian encouraged young Baha'is to study. I am comparing Comenius's design of a world government with other plans made up by world federalists and political scientists.  I would not compare the Plan of God to what any man has thought up, if only because nobody knows how God's inscrutable Plan will play out.

When Baha'is speak of the Plan we do not refer to any detailed plan for a world government, since we are non-political. The Guardian was emphatic that we not advocate any scheme for a world government, nor are we to put forward a political platform. Nor did Baha'u'llah try to make up any detailed design of a world government, although He did advocate the attempt by kings and leaders, not by Baha'is. He forbids such meddling by His followers in the Kitab-i-Ahd.

Besides, since Comenius's plan is based on Biblical teaching, I'd say that his plan is to a large extent God's plan, and that he would presumably have submitted to Baha'u'llah had he lived a few centuries later. I am intentionally not mentioning Baha'i in this book, for several reasons. I may follow it with a book that does, I certainly have lots of material.

Thank you for reading along, and feel free to mention any further problems that occur to you.

 

Response: "Dear John, Thanks very much for your clarification. That will certainly help me to understand your future essays."

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