Meta-ideology and Nemocracy

Meta-ideology and Nemocracy

Taking Education From Nobody's Business to Everybody's

Precis: Adolph Nobody, my personification of the tragedy of the commons, rules by excluded middle, the corruption of fatuous, absolutist universality. Adolph Nobody's nationalist hegemony defaults on the arbitrary rule of blind, irrational nature. This I term rule by nobody, or nemocracy. Our nemocratic world disorder arises from the sad, paradoxical truth that without focus, everybody's possession ends up as nobody's. Universal reform is the reverse of this deformation, it trains each world citizen in a new ideology that can only be called a "meta-ideology": education for all.

A couple of years ago I became pre-occupied with a character I call Adolph Nobody. It seemed to me that everything that matters for our survival is being degraded by the tragedy of the commons where, if everybody owns it, nobody does. With the environment or the oceans or whatever is the common heritage of humanity, if nobody is responsible for it, then it is doomed, there is an inevitable free-for-all to see who can rape, overexploit and degrade it first. So why not give, as Shakespeare puts it, to `airy nothing a local habitation and a name'? Why not just give our non-existent world leader a name like Adolph Nothing, or Adolph Nobody?

I thought about this Adolph Nobody guy for a long time until I realized that, like Satan, he has always been around. It is just that few notice him, and those who do are afraid to recognize it. Butler wrote a dystopian novel called "Erehwon," which is `nowhere' spelled backwards. Jules Verne had a recurring character in his novels called Captain Nemo, which is Latin for "nobody." And as the palindrome puts it: "Nemo, Na! An Omen." Adolph Nobody is just that, a nobody. I may boast of knowing a celeb, but the effect on my reputation of knowing nobody is mere anonymity. That is what Odysseus wanted when called himself "nobody" during his perilous visit to the Cyclopes. Being nobody offered security from revenge.

In the play "The Tempest," Shakespeare even has some characters sing a song to the monster Caliban, which they attribute to the "picture of nobody,"

STEPHANO: At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.

 Flout 'em and scout 'em

 And scout 'em and flout 'em

 Thought is free.

 CALIBAN That's not the tune.

 [Ariel plays the tune on a tabour and pipe]

 STEPHANO: What is this same?

 TRINCULO: This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody.

 STEPHANO: If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list of.

"Thought is free", yes but it is free because it is not tied down by being enacted in a finite world. Absolute freedom amounts to the same as what absolute slavery offers, that is, nothing. Our reality is only what thought, will and action make. Even life itself offers nothing more than what we make of it, as Shakespeare's dark anti-hero Hamlet reminds us, "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." He adds that the most glorious hero in our most uplifting dreams ends up, physically, as nothing more than sewer sludge,

"To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?"

Adolph Nobody's influence is pervasive. He makes every part into a partisan seeking limited interest before the whole. You cannot learn in a nemocratic system because ends and means are ignored. Without means and ends, one's worldview becomes particularistic, absolutist and exclusionary. Nemocratic education breeds fundamentalism rather firmness in what fundamental.

What nags me is not that Adolph Nobody is the real president of the world. That is obvious. What bothers me is that nobody recognizes him. We talk on and on about global warming and the degradation of the environment. But none stop to think about how to oust Adolph Nobody from power and get world governance going.

So many people today are looking forward with hope and anticipation to the inauguration of a new President of the United States, Barak Obama. But even if everything goes right for him, can any de facto president of the world, no matter how competent, solve the problems confronting it? Not likely. He has no jurisdiction over the entire planet. He has no mandate for the world.

Nobody does.

We can turn this around if and only if Obama and other faction leaders recognize en mass who is really running things, Adolph Nobody. Nobody is at the rudder of the ship. Nobody is in the pilot's seat, and the airliner is about to go down. We must address this most urgent issue before all others.

Several months ago I was sinking into despair for the world when I came across the Panorthosia. This book is truly a gift from God to the world of today. In it Comenius states very economically the essence of the tragedy of the commons and the resultant Adolph Nobody problem:

"...since everybody's business is nobody's business, it is imperative that we select men of eminence for this solemn duty to survey the world, as it were, from a high watch-tower and see that everything that is introduced is consistent with the sound reform of our affairs (that is, that there should be no loophole for falsehood, impiety or warmongering)." (Panorthosia, Ch. 15, para 3, p. 216)

Comenius here ties the problem to the most basic philosophical lesson: that to love everything is to love nothing. To be all is to be nothing. To try every means is to try no means. To aim at totality is to hit nullity. To posit a god who is the sum total of everything is to accept no god at all; pantheism amounts to rejection of God. For every end, then, there must be a means. This is the basis of the Baha'i idea of the Manifestation of God. God assigns a way and means towards him in the Person of His Representative. The golden path to universality is through particulars. Otherwise, Adolph Nobody rules absolutely, and his absolute power leads to absolute corruption.

Comenius in the above points out three "loopholes" where the nihilism of Adolph Nobody takes root, falsehood, impiety and warmongering, corresponding to knowledge, volition and action. The first loophole is false illusions, the negation of knowledge that takes place under Adolph Nobody's educational system. The second is Nobody's religion, which causes impiety, or negative expressions of religion like fundamentalism, prejudice and hatred. The third loophole is warmongering, Adolph Nobody's politics. This is the reverse of the goal and raison d'etre of politics, which is peace.

In place of Adolph Nobody's rule in these three crucial areas, the challenge is to empower everybody to know, will and act by giving each means, or particular focal point. Let the knower will and act on particular essentials, and do so not as a partisan but in behalf of everybody. That kind of universality, nothing less or more, is what is meant by universal reform.

"Universal Philosophy should be an agent of enlightenment for all men. Universal Politics should be their agent of government, and Universal Religion their agent of blessedness." (Ch. 13, para 12, No. 6, p. 206)

Panorthosia, Universal reform needs a means or agent as it takes knowledge, will and action and encourages some (not all, just the best, according to the dictum, `Many are called but few are chosen') to take the lead in a three pronged educational initiative that will involve every world citizen. 

The means, then, is enlightened experts using what Comenius calls "universal agencies of reform." This distinguishes universal reform, panorthosia, from the Ad Hoc, piecemeal agents of reform that are failing so spectacularly today.

"...would-be reformers, (that is, all men) are to be taught so that they have the knowledge, the power and the will to reform themselves and their affairs universally. Universal Agencies of Reform ... employ certain means whereby our evils may be terminated and restored to a perfect state, and our affairs once reformed may be established to prevent the return of corruption." (Ch. 5, para 22, p. 96)

The learned, be they professional intellectuals or concerned amateurs, be they dedicated to the propagation of knowledge or to protection from corruption, are tasked here with enlightenment in the three ways, knowledge, volition and action, and through the three basic disciplines, philosophy, religion and politics. Following Biblical teaching, Comenius holds that vision is the first step towards this end,

"Thus through true philosophy Man will become exactly like an eye, seeing, discerning, and distinguishing all things; through true religion he will become exactly like a magnet, enabling himself and everything about him to face towards Heaven; and through true politics exactly like a cithara made up of different strings but always in perfect harmony. And so at last all the affairs of every man and the whole of human society will thrive in light, peace, and joy." (Ch. 10, para 41, p. 169)

So to conclude, the only way to wrest power from Adolph Nobody is by vigorous effort on the part of those who know to teach and on the part of those who do not, to learn. Universal education, the application of vision and principle, then, is the only viable, universal, world surrounding "meta-ideology."

--

John Taylor


email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::

Terry Spratt in Dunnville

Baha'i Principles Discussion Series

Upcoming Monthly Talk in Dunnville:

What in the World is Happening?

  

How do we make sense of the incredible changes around us? The world we knew as children has disappeared! What is behind these incredible changes?

  Tuesday, Jan 13, 2009

  8 PM

  Garfield Disher Room,

  Dunnville Public Library

  Featured speaker: Terry Spratt 

Early Interlanguage Proposal

Baha'u'llah's Early Proposal for the Implementation of a World Language, Part I

by John Taylor; 2009 Jan 05, 06 Sharaf, 165 BE

Originally written April 18, 2002; revised January, 2009

I have not found any direct, written mention of either universal language or an international inter-language before Baha'u'llah's "Great Announcement," the letters He wrote to world leaders in the late 1860's. It would be surprising though if some mention does not turn up, especially from the Edirne period, which was Baha'u'llah's most prolific. However the earlier writings of Baha'u'llah do not ignore the general question of language. For example, the moral dimensions of words and speech come into play in at least twenty of the Hidden Words. The 68th Arabic Hidden Word in particular points out the direction for universal language by reminding us of our fundamental equality as humans and directing us to "dwell in the same land."

In His last book-length work, the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Baha'u'llah recalls a conversation that took in Constantinople (now Istanbul) during His stay there in 1863. During a visit, Baha'u'llah made the following informal suggestion to a former prime minister of the Turkish Empire, Kamal Pasha in 1863.

"He said that he had learned several languages. In reply We observed: "You have wasted your life. It beseemeth you and the other officials of the Government to convene a gathering and choose one of the divers languages, and likewise one of the existing scripts, or else to create a new language and a new script to be taught children in schools throughout the world. They would, in this way, be acquiring only two languages, one their own native tongue, the other the language in which all the peoples of the world would converse. Were men to take fast hold on that which hath been mentioned, the whole earth would come to be regarded as one country, and the people would be relieved and freed from the necessity of acquiring and teaching different languages." (Epistle, 137)

Kamal Pasha, Baha'u'llah says, agreed that an official second language for the world is a good idea and promised to bring the matter forward in future contacts with his government. There is no evidence that he did, though. Baha'u'llah's practical emphasis in Istanbul was in stark contrast to what had gone on before in the evolution of religious thought.

The Bible emphasizes that universal language is an outcome of the unity of God Himself. From Adam until the Tower of Babel was built, humans had only one language. Jan Amos Comenius, inspired by this legend, is said to have attempted to devise a perfect language where an untrue proposition would be impossible even to express.

This idealistic bent of scripture was taken to the most sublime heights in the Writings of the Bab, especially His latter period. In his recent study of the Bab's body of work, Nader Saiedi calls the result of the Bab's teaching a kind of "spiritual linguistics." For example, the Bab's highly abstruse "Book of Names," versions of which are extant in both Arabic and Persian, reduces (or I should say, exalts) all words and all possible language into some kind of name for God. A universal language based upon names of the perfect Being is impossible to imagine, though the virtues of the Badi' calendar seems to broach upon it. It is to be hoped that further study of the Bab's works will take us closer to understanding how a true universal language based upon the Holy Spirit might exist.

As mentioned, Baha'u'llah in the last year of His life wrote the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf as a sort of summing up of His entire Mission on earth. For that reason, it is important to bear in mind that He recalls his interviews with Kamal Pasha in determinedly pragmatic terms. It would take almost no effort by one generation to end forever the language barrier, a blight that has crippled most of the potential of most humans from time immemorial.

"How often have things been simple and easy of accomplishment, and yet most men have been heedless, and busied themselves with that which wasteth their time!" (Epistle to the Son, 137)

On 10 October, 2003 I made the following further comments about this incident in Constantinople in 1863.

==========

"Instead of playing the power games that were expected of Him, during the visit of Kamal Pasha Baha'u'llah instead brought up "topics profitable to man." This was probably a shocking novelty for the Pasha. Baha'u'llah's suggestion of an international language would have challenged any government; even the most enlightened and advanced ones of today, much less the warren of oppression and intrigue that was Constantinople at the time.

"Just think of the opportunity that was missed. This suggestion of Baha'u'llah to the Pasha came 22 years before Esperanto was announced by Ludwig Zamenhof and 17 years before its predecessor, Volapuk, was devised.

"In 1880, Johann Martin Schleyer, a German cleric proposed Volapuk for use as an international second language that would be not only for science but for everyman. Before that there had been no hint of a popular movement to actually implement this idea, other than theorizing among an elite few. If Kamal Pasha's Turkey had taken this up, it would have been way ahead of its time. The step, even had it failed, would have been long remembered by posterity. As long as people spoke the official world language, the `Turkish Convention' deciding upon a world language would have been on the lips of historians.

"Instead of taking the path to unity and enlightenment, what path did Turkey actually take? Well for one thing they veered the other way, towards seething religious and ethnic hatred over the next several decades, culminating in the murder of over a million ethnic Armenians living in that empire during World War One."

==========

Had the Turkish Empire considered this advice at this early point in the modern era they would have gone down in history as an innovative "Camelot" rather than the notorious "sick man of Europe." Ironically, the Turkey of today still periodically makes world headlines through its policy of suppressing the Kurdish, Armenian and other minority languages. By ignoring their own language problem, they have only got sicker. Parallel struggles are going on in every nations of the world, irrespective of whether they are "developed" or not. All factions, ethnic, local, regional and national, cling to their own language and refuse the advice to "cast away that which ye possess" and work for a simple international standard.

In the "Great Announcement," one of a series of letters to world leaders written in and around 1868, Baha'u'llah introduced most of the Baha'i principles to the peoples of the world. This series is collectively called the Proclamation to the Kings. It was written over several years beginning towards the end of Baha'u'llah's four years exile in Edirne (Adrianople). The Great Announcement called upon the people to give up their ties to past ways and adopt principle, the harmonious combination of thought and action,

"Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things. Thus biddeth you the Lord of creation, the movement of Whose Pen hath revolutionized the soul of mankind." (Proclamation, 115-6)

Baha'u'llah then declares that this "soul revolution" starts with that most cherished of intellectual tools, language. As such, the challenge demands unprecedented levels of detachment.

The following passage as far as I have been able to determine is the first mention of a universal language in written, translated Baha'i scripture:

"The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home. These things are obligatory and absolutely essential. It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action." (Proclamation, 117)

Years later Baha'u'llah again quoted this passage from the Great Announcement word for word in the Tablet to Maqsud (Lawh-i-Maqsud, Tablets, 166). A good teacher repeats the most important lessons and this repetition surely shows how essential Baha'u'llah considered the principle to be.

Note that Baha'u'llah places the main burden of enacting this principle on the shoulders of the individual world citizen. We the people, not institutions or experts, are to see to it that anyone, in every town and city, will be welcomed and able to feel at home, free of language barriers. He assumes that anyone of "insight and understanding" will realize that it is essential that the peoples of the world be empowered to communicate directly one with another through a single language.

The last sentence of this passage I find particularly witty, subtle and ironic. In this age we do not just hear and obey the Word of God. Now the task of eliminating the need to constantly translate among a multiplicity of languages will be accomplished by an act of "translation" of what God has said into "reality and action." This is a good definition of principle: principle is a greater type of "translation;" translating the holy command of God into deeds comes first and makes all lesser kinds of translation redundant. Like a tested theory in science this involves a more holistic knowledge. Religious principle is a process of translation in this age because it uses the whole individual and the whole social fact. We begin in search, our end is promotion of human oneness, and the result is economy of knowledge and technical potential.

This practical leaning of Baha'u'llah is more than a prophesy, more even than a mandate. It constitutes a change in the nature of religion itself, a shift from idealism to pragmatism. Not only is there a great peace but now a transitional "lesser peace." By coming together to agree upon a common language, be it natural or planned, we put in place a neutral ladder to the heavenly linguistic ideal of earlier faiths. A standard, official second language for all leads beyond treaties and ineffectual mediation institutions to real peace, to an inexorable unification of the human race. Such decisive action is what matters most, not endless jawboning about the attributes of a particular language.

In the next instalment we will look at how this principle evolved in the 1870's and beyond.

==========

For those who receive the Badi essays by email, I have posted directly to the Badi' Blog the following contributions lately:

Passive House Construction

A couple of videos about passive house standards, posted on January 04, 2009, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/passive-house-construction.html

Universal Language as a Baha'i Principle

Reader feedback on recent essays about Comenius and the principle of Universal Language, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/universal-language-as-bahai-principle.html

The Seasons of Reform

Two time lapse films demonstrating words of the Master about reform, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/seasons-of-reform.html

--

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

::

Universal Language as a Baha'i Principle

Let me share the following reader feedback on the Baha'i principle of a universal auxiliary language. I have been writing about Comenius and the Biblical ideal of a universal language, and Andrew Singer offers this as a corrective to the "pure" principle of universality in a world language. I have gone over my older essays on language and found that I did write an essay on Baha'u'llah's take on this principle, but it was written a year or so before the Badi' Blog came into existence. So I will make some revisions and post it later on today.

04 January 2008 Budapest

 

Dear John,

Thank you so much once more for your postings on Comenius. Like the prodigious number of other topics you've addressed in your blog it is a wonderful window for helping apprehend our larger world from a Bahá'í perspective. The portrait you give of Comenius is that of a fortuitous thinker forging principles that remain clearly vital, into the present and beyond, and in points accords wonderfully well with our beliefs.

As Bahá'ís we have the benefit of the further Revelation of God, and in this light we can understand a couple of refinements on Comenius's thinking, deriving as it did from his study of the Christian Bible.

In particular regarding a language for the world, whereas Comenius thought to conquer the world's langauges with a single universal langusge, Bahá'ís seek to manage the rich diversity of the world's cultures by adopting one shared language, rather than supplanting the rest. Comenius, as you quote him, says: "From Who shall persuade the Nations of so many languages to discontinue their traditional tongue in favour of a strange one?" As Bahá'ís our goal rather is as explained in the following quote from the Divine Philosphy by 'Abdu'l-Bahá:

"In order to facilitate complete understanding between all people, a universal auxiliary language will be adopted and in the schools of the future two languages will be taught -- the mother tongue and this international auxiliary tongue which will be either one of the existing language or a new language made up of words from all the languages -- the matter is to be determined by a confederation met for the purpose which shall represent all tribes and nations."

We can derive much inspiration from Comenius's view as you explain it, that "change and growth is a basic characteristic of spirit. Faith must grow along with the Spirit and Word." This is exactly what we bring to the table as Bahá'ís. One such development will be this universal shared language as a supplement to the tongues of the world.

Whether or not we "devise" a new language or use an existing one will be determined at a future date. Bahá'u'lláh tells us in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas that we will "select" a single language for the purpose. On this point I am not inclined to speculate further, keeping faith that when the appointed time comes it will be decided on by a body duly authorized.

Again thanks for your ceaseless dedication to this and other topics. With your work you are helping keep the flame of committed study and scholarship alive in my heart and I am sure in many others as well.

All best wishes,

Andrew

Passive house construction

Recently I wrote here that earthship housing is the only innovation in house building since Bucky Fuller. But I was wrong about that. There is also the far more conventional standard called passive house construction. 

Listen to this guy talk about the apartment building he had built by a group of owner-residents. First of all, it is communally owned. That alone is something I have been advocating on this blog for years... Next, the construction is all done according to the passive house standard. Not only that, the architect actually thought about the whole problem of building, not just shelter but managing energy and waste. In my opinion, unless an architect addresses all the things this fellow talks about, he or she should be bumped back to work with the general laborers. 

There are several videos out there about passive 

standards for freehold dwellings, but they are not

up to professional production values. The only one

that is well done is this one. Unfortunately,

it is in French. Which goes to show how much

interest there is in sustainability in English

speaking countries...

Dealing Recklessly With God

The Teaching Worldview of Comenius

The Real Oldest Profession

A snide saying says that the world's oldest profession is prostitution. This is utterly wrong. The oldest profession is teaching, if only because there have to be teachers applying a regularized curriculum in order for professions to exist in the first place. But there is more to it than that. God Himself offers the primal example as to why teaching must be the true "world's oldest profession." God rules over nature directly, by force of Might,

"He shall have dominion also... unto the ends of the earth." (Ps 72:8)

But God gave us a transcendent gift, that of reason. Arbitrary measures are not appropriate for creatures capable of reasoning. Therefore the divine method with intelligent beings is not to force but to teach. God instructs us how to rule over the lower orders of creation in a duly benevolent and responsible manner. In order to do this, God turns stewardship of His garden over to human hands,

"I shall give thee... the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Ps 2:8)

God cedes sovereignty, albeit temporarily, because that is how you teach. A good teacher does not just pontificate; he or she assigns active exercises to allow students to learn by doing. When we doctor and order the lower levels of creation we learn through our mistakes. When we finally do learn how to take our rightful place in the divine order, then,

"All the ends of the world shall turn unto the Lord." (Ps 22:27)

Comenius in the Panorthosia often refers to these three citations from the Psalms. In the above I tried to string them together so as to sum up very briefly his worldview. In short, teaching is not just a job for Comenius; it is the very purpose of creation. As we attune ourselves to the divine teaching method we will learn to do what every good teacher does for his students, show them how to pay attention to essentials and cast aside whatever might distract or confuse.

"... the ultimate changes which we seek through this Reform of the World should be necessary, not frivolous; that is to say, we must cut out the countless side-issues in our affairs and pre-occupations which obsess and divide and strangely perplex all the orders of human society, economic, political, religious, and educational, and even involve individual men in a thorny tangle of useless theories, ambitions and intrigues. ... This way to Universal Reform warns us that the world must be recalled from multiplicity to simplicity, and bids us to regard all side-issues as snares and nuisances." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 14, 157-158)

This reminds me of my favourite definition of a teacher: someone who saves his or her students' time. Teachers save time by doing just what Comenius describes here, by showing an example of being well organized themselves, by eschewing wasted time on dead ends, and by demonstrating how to organize the mind and the world for effective practice. Comenius was indisputably one of the greatest educators in history; he is often called the "father of modern education." As one would expect, he was supremely well-organized. His reform program in Panorthosia compresses all areas of knowledge into three simple parts.

God provides humanity, he says, with three "books" which in combination are sufficient for all purposes, the book of the physical world, the book of the human mind and the book of Revelation, the direct "thought" of God. (Pampaedia 6:2, Panorthosia, pp. 111-2, Introd. p. 9). We read these "books" by means of three disciplines, politics, philosophy (science) and religion. These three are not to be confused with the narrow subject areas that politicians, philosophers and priests are experts in. Rather everybody with a trade or calling in life has to "read" the three books and teach lessons from them effectively before their apprenticeship is complete.

Unlike dogmatic theologians, Comenius did not place the "book" of divine revelation over everything, discounting the lesser books of mind and of the world. Although scripture holds the thought of God, the other two books, the mind and the material world, are there for good reason. But he did place faith first among them, as does the Baha'i Faith, I think. This is axiomatic: every real change has to start with a change in worldview. For Comenius religion must be the fundamental impetus behind reform, as taught by a verse he often cites, "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelations 21:5).

The Comenian reform program looks forward to the prophesied Second Eden where all believers in God, Christians, Jews and Muslims, will come together in harmony and agree upon a common platform of beliefs. That is, he envisaged what Baha'u'llah called "one common cause, one universal faith" for the entire human race.

"... it would be most desirable ... to make the whole world (1) a School of God, whereas the hidden schools of the world, the flesh, and the devil are everywhere made to perish; (2) a Kingdom of Christ, including particular kingdoms and states converted to the cause of Christ; (3) a single Temple of God, and a single worship of one God under one Universal Religion, (4) finally, that the whole world should become a house accessible to all, and all the inhabitants of the earth one family of God, linked by the common bond of a universal language, with particular languages either ceasing to be spoken or blending with the common language.." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 5, para 21, p. 96)

Christian triumphalism aside, this proposed goal of Comenius is startlingly similar to the Universal House of Justice's recent book "One Common Faith," which aims at establishing common ground among all major world faiths so that basic religious teachings will be common knowledge. That is, one day the true fundamentals of religion will be taught in all schools from primary on up in the same way that certain basics of mathematics and science are already taught.

Unfortunately these three "books," faith, science and politics, have been divorced for centuries. The inclination of reformers since Comenius is to leave religion aside as a lost cause and take a secular approach that excludes the "book" of scripture completely from reforms. Since 9-11 there has been wider recognition that we cannot get by just with the two "books" of the mind and the physical world. People of faith are needed to be actively involved in solving the crises that threaten our future. If that is ever to happen, sooner or later the world's religions must bury the hatchet and come together to form a world parliament of religion very like the "Ecumenical Consistory" that Comenius proposes in the eighteenth chapter of the Panorthosia.

Why is such an institution so necessary? Because even those who reject religion still live on faith and end up speaking in religious terms, albeit in a degraded form. That is because every world embracing issue is framed by our view of the world. So, if faith is unavoidable why not make sure that we all have access to the best that religious thought can offer? A religious parliament would do just that. Comenius explains the problems of confusion that such an institution would solve at the end of the seventh chapter of Panorthosia,

"Therefore we must abandon all the labyrinths of our own wisdom, will, and intrigue, and we must abolish every counterfeit that falsely pretends to follow the wisdom, will and works of God. Finally we must stamp out all the stupidity of disregarding God and His thoughts, purposes, and works, or in a word WE MUST UNIVERSALLY CEASE TO DEAL RECKLESSLY WITH GOD. And then at last we shall have removed the supreme obstacle and hindrance to true reform of ourselves and our affairs." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 7, para 15, p. 108)

--

John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

The Parable of the Ship

Sailing in a Tempest

By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 02, 03 Sharaf, 165 BE

The saying goes that "Anyone can sail a ship when the sea is calm." This seems to derive from Plato's parable of the ship in the Republic, which he uses as an argument against pure democracy. In the story the passengers in a ship take a vote as to who should lead. They fire the captain and take over the helm. The problem is that the crowd does not technically know how to sail a ship. Worrisome. However, against all expectations the arrangement worked well for the time being. The captain stayed on the sidelines and as long as fair weather held, there was no problem taking plebiscites as to what to do next. Only when a storm whipped up did the need for an expert captain become obvious to all on board. But by then it was too late and the ship foundered.

A variation to the story was just posted on the Monty Python channel on YouTube. A pilot, played by John Cleese, and his co-pilot in an airliner get bored with clear sailing in fair skies. They decide to jerk their passengers around by making announcements like, "Kindly stay in your seats and remain calm." This is followed by increasingly disturbing announcements until eventually the passengers all panic and jump out. The pilot's closing comment is, "I would be surprised if there were not some trouble about that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh_shsRfXqk

This describes our present crisis, especially in high finance. As long as they had prosperity and fair weather the rich successfully argued that markets are self-sufficient and do not need rules and regulations. Now that a storm really is brewing, the usual panic starts to spread. A Laissez faire attitude suddenly seems less than wise. Where is the wise captain now that the waves are breaking over our bow? Would we not be better prepared if we had been under a competent leadership all along?

Our family was in town last week shopping and my 14 year old daughter insisted on accompanying me on my usual trip through a bulk grocery. Here she picked out a variety of powdered soups. I was pleased that she was showing an interest in cooking for herself. But no, that was not why she wanted them. It turns out that she wanted to have a stash of long-lasting food on hand for the coming Second Great Depression. She is certain that this is about to happen and thinks we should prepare for it. What do you say to that?

Of course, the true captain of the age is God's holy Manifestation. His instructions we have to obey without question, even as scripture says, "He doeth what He willeth." This because an experienced captain's orders arise from long experience, from his suffering, testing and survival in real crises. Often an expert of any kind, be it a carpenter, a doctor or the captain of a ship, will be quite inarticulate about why he holds a given opinion. He may not be able to explain in words why he thinks you should do this and not that. This explanation the Master gave,

"If some people do not understand the hidden secret of one of His commands and actions, they ought not to oppose it, for the supreme Manifestation does what He wishes... So also, when the head of the army is unrivaled in the art of war, in what he says and commands he does what he wishes. When the captain of a ship is proficient in the art of navigation, in whatever he says and commands he does what he wishes. And as the real educator is the Perfect Man, in whatever He says and commands He does what He wishes." (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 173)

We who were raised in nominal democracies have a hard time with this "sovereignty of the expert." We are used to riding in ships that have been taken over by non-experts. We are used to frequent shipwrecks, depressions and downturns too. We are almost instinctually suspicious of putting the helm into the hands of any one person, whatever his claim to expertise. Yet nobody has refuted Plato's ship's captain argument against democracy. Present day democracies try to get around the problem by electing representatives who have supposedly been pre-selected for their expertise. Yet often the reverse is the case, since it is in the narrow interest of the political parties to nominate compliant, ignorant stooges. For example, a recent study found that over a third of Members of Parliament in Canada had not even completed High School.

I remember once long ago an evangelical Christian dragged me to one of his Holy Roller meetings. The pastor went on and on and on about Jesus dying for our sins. My friend turned to me and asked if I found it a strange idea that He had to suffer like that? "Yes. I mean no," I answered, "Baha'is believe that too." But later I had nagging doubts. Suffering is a strange idea, like that comment about quantum mechanics: If you think you understand it you only show that you have not understood it. Do I really understand why we have to suffer? Pretty unlikely. Yet there is a definite emphasis in the Writings that the more the Manifestation suffers, the more powerful is His Medicine. In the following letter (written originally to Lua, who was later named by Him the Herald of the Covenant) the Master uses the same ship's captain analogy to explain why Baha'u'llah had to suffer as He did, and why we have to follow in those footsteps,

"The more difficulties one sees in the world the more perfect one becomes. The more you plough and dig the ground the more fertile it becomes. The more you cut the branches of a tree the higher and stronger it grows. The more you put the gold in the fire, the purer it becomes. The more you sharpen the steel by grinding the better it cuts. Therefore, the more sorrows one sees the more perfect one becomes. That is why, in all times, the Prophets of God have had tribulations and difficulties to withstand. The more often the captain of a ship is in the tempest and difficult sailing the ... greater his knowledge becomes. Therefore I am happy that you have had great tribulations and difficulties . . . Strange it is that I love you and still I am happy that you have sorrows. ('Abdu'l-Baha, Star of the West, vol. XIV, no. 2, p. 41)

There is another anecdote from the Master about the ship's captain. It seems that just after Abdu'l-Baha's voyages to the West, somebody pointed out some French warships in the harbor of Alexandria. Here is what Ahmad Sohrab's diary entry for 26 October, 1913 records Him as saying,

"I desire that you may see the divine ships. These ships are the blessed sails who are traversing the sea of Divine mercy; their propellers are the powers of spiritual love and their captains are the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No ship is ever wrecked in this sea; its waves are life-giving. Each one of the friends of God is like unto an ark of Salvation. Each ark saves many souls from the storms of troubles. The signs and traces of these sails are never-ending and eternal. The future centuries and cycles are like the seas on the surface of which these arks glide blissfully toward their spiritual destination." (Star of the West, Vol. 8, No. 8, p. 104)

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John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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Self-Installing Language

A Self-Installing Universal Language, Part IV

By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 01, 02 Sharaf, 165 BE

Up until the 19th Century it was generally believed, following stories in the Bible, that Adam devised a single, perfect language in Eden and that this primordial language, based on reality rather than illusion, was spoken right up until human arrogance built the tower of Babel and broke speech into many languages. The dream of that age was to reconstruct the pristine language of Eden, the original language of a united human race. Early attempts to devise a universal language were thus backward looking, inspired by a quest for the long lost lingo of Eden, not what we now expect, a futuristic vision of things to come. A universal language was thought to involve not only human speech but also that of animals and indeed the entire universe. This is reminiscent of how some quantum physicists are maintaining today that the universe is acting as a giant calculating machine. To speak the language of Adam would be to see the machineries of Creation at first hand. Having seen them, we could speak and act them out too.

We have seen that Comenius divides everything into three parts, knowledge, will and action, and human activity into three crafts associated with them, science, religion and politics. We also saw that this is straight from the Greek view. But there is more to it than that. In the history of education, Frances Bacon and Jan Amos Comenius are often lumped under the "sense realist" school <http://www.archive.org/stream/studentstextbook00duggrich/studentstextbook00duggrich_djvu.txt>. That is, they theorized that the mind learns only through the intermediary of the senses, especially sight. This was derived from the contemporary understanding of the Bible, which the Gutenberg printing press had made affordable for the first time.

A new universal language, Comenius held, would reform all three stages, knowledge, volition and action, completely and concurrently, since language is the "bond and interpreter" (Ch. 14, para 3) among them. Comenius held that if we reformed our vision, language and action a new method of self-directed language would be possible. The universal language would become, as it were, "self-installing,"

"If the question is asked, 'How is this possible?' my answer is that it will be impossible either to teach or learn the new language by interchanging words, phrases, and sentences, which is the method at present employed in teaching and learning ordinary languages. Instead we should adopt the method of Paradise, which consists of seeing, speaking, and practising for ourselves. The candidate for the new language should be confronted with real objects to see, hear, taste, and touch, so that he may grasp them through his own senses: then each object should be named separately and the pupil asked to repeat its name, seeing and saying it for himself at the same time, until the same thing is clearly conceived in his mind and expressed in speech in the same way." (Panorthosia, Ch. 14, para 17, p. 213)

The first step of learning for Comenius, then, is to see with your own eyes and through that gain a consensus with others ("without vision the people perish," the Proverb says). Having seen we then speak the lesson, and finally practice it. Three steps. Comenius thus applied "sense realism" to language learning. This was a tremendous improvement over the random, rote methods of teaching Latin that preceded him.

In the above Comenius calls this not "sense realism" but the "method of paradise," because seeing, speaking and acting were the basic job description of Adam in Eden. Adam witnessed each creature as it came into being, he then gave it a name and God watched the results in their behavior, in mutual interaction.

In the Baha'i principles this sense realism is equivalent to the first principle, search for truth. Baha'u'llah certainly seems to agree that vision is the fundamental "agent and guide" to learning in the first Taraz,

"We cherish the hope that through the loving-kindness of the All-Wise, the All-Knowing, obscuring dust may be dispelled and the power of perception enhanced, that the people may discover the purpose for which they have been called into being. In this Day whatsoever serveth to reduce blindness and to increase vision is worthy of consideration. This vision acteth as the agent and guide for true knowledge. Indeed in the estimation of men of wisdom keenness of understanding is due to keenness of vision." (Tablets, 35)

Thus for Comenius the universal language will not be an abstract entity learned in isolation from world governance. Only by reforming all three, science, religion and politics, at the same time can such language be made up and taught. It would be born along with a universal curriculum where theory, planning and practice are worked out all at once. Thus Comenius continues,

"Then if Universal Books, containing accurate descriptions of things, are correctly written in this language, and circulated to nations all over the world and introduced into their schools, our task will be accomplished, since the minds of the younger generation will eagerly seize upon everything, captivated, as it were, by the sweet harmony of things, ideas, and language, and will readily continue to study them." (Ch. 14, para 17, p. 213)

The push for a world curriculum would come from our inherent desire to investigate reality. The pull, on the other hand, comes from our common human nature, from love's attractive force. This is termed in the Baha'i principles the oneness of humanity.

"Our love for mankind and the universal yearning for conversation should be sufficient to influence us in favour of desiring and trying to achieve this. For since we are all one blood, brothers and sisters, dwellers together in the one Home of the World, we ought to live and talk together, and to engage in the mutual exchange of advice; yet this is impossible owing to the diversity of languages: what an absurd situation! There are so many uncivilised nations in the world, sharing the same nature with us, and all seized with desire for the Highest Good: yet they do not know it and we are unable to demonstrate it to them."

"They are all `serving an unknown God' (as one may see from their altars, temples, holidays, and ceremonies) yet we are unable to proclaim the true God to them as Paul could do to the Athenians.

"Lastly, they are seeking a political system and peaceful way of life, yet they are unable to find it (acting contrariwise to their goal), and we are unable to reveal to them where their faults lie, and how they should mend their ways. Therefore there is an urgent need to find a cure for such serious faults, and this is possible only through the use of a universal language which cannot be introduced into the world until we devise one which is natural and fluent and suitable for universal adoption." (Panorthosia, Ch. 14, para 6, pp. 208-209)

I will close with some points that Oxford scholar Anthony Smith made in a review of a critical biography of Comenius. These comments help place Comenius in the history of ideas. It is interesting that on Abdu'l-Baha's first trip to London in 1911 somebody saw a close parallel between Him and Tolstoy (Abdu'l-Baha in London, pp. 94-95). Smith places Tolstoy in the same tradition leading up to the "world brain" movement of the 1990's.

"Deeply buried in Comenius's ideas are the lessons derived from attempts to impart the Judaeo-Christian scriptures to centuries of children; his approach is steeped in religion. There is a line running from Comenius (and Bacon) to Tolstoy and Froebel which emphasises the integrity and inextricability of the moral, the cultural and the religious. Comenius is separate from that other line of pragmatic, progressive and secular thinking about education which links, say, Rousseau and Dewey. But if you are looking for the roots of Kenneth Baker's view of the national curriculum you are more likely to detect it in Comenius than in Rousseau.

"Buber's concern with the "co-intentional dialogue of teacher and pupil" is Comenian, as is Tolstoy's vision of love as the heart of the educational process. The value of Murphy's resurrection of this 17th-century divine is that his book also illuminates and categorises so many strands of 20th-century thinking about education which have become interwoven in our own day into a stodgy liberalism in which many traditions are fused - or fudged.

"The new translation of Panorthosia (published with a useful preface summarising Comenius's great projects) gives us access to a typical piece of his writing in which he sets out one of his universal schemes to reform education, church and politics through good learning...

"Comenius's ideas are paralleled in this century by H. G. Wells whose writings on the idea of World Mind and World Brain have been brought together by Alan Mayne with a comprehensive introduction. Wells wrote at the eve of a war similar to the Thirty Years War in the havoc it wreaked upon Europe, and with some acknowledged debt to the work of Comenius. Wells's scheme was for the reorganisation and rededication of all the reliable information and education available in the world. He wanted the founding of a new social organ or institution "whereby we can solve the jigsaw puzzle and bring all the scattered and ineffective mental wealth of our world into something like a common understanding, and into effective reaction upon our vulgar, everyday political, social and economic life".

"The world has now grown irritated with universal schemes; the more brotherhood is preached the more our sceptical hackles rise and, certainly, Wells writes with the verve of a utopian snake-oil salesman, although his idea of using universal forms of knowledge to eradicate mutual suspicions is today enjoying a powerful new vogue among people who see in the computerisation of information the tool of a real utopian politics. Alan Mayne has long worked in this field and uses his introduction to restate the position of 1990s World Brain enthusiasts.

"We are so habituated today to seeing education treated as an instrument of wealth creation or for creating voting citizens, or to inculcate correct thinking about culture, politics and self-fulfilment, that it is quite hard at first to read this material with the seriousness it deserves. For Mayne (and Wells) are saying that education, if it uses all the techniques available, could become the means by which some vision of human brotherhood could be given meaning and reality. One has to suspend one's ever-ready pre-jaundiced scepticism but this reader found himself doing so willingly once entered into the spirit of the discourse. Cybernetic idealism has a place."

from a review of: Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Work Author - Daniel Murphy ISBN - 0 7165 2537 2 Publisher - Irish Academic Press, at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=163333&sectioncode=42

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John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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