First Mention of a DWG

The First Sketch of a Democratic World Government

By John Taylor; 2009 April 12, Jalal 04, 166 BE

We have been examining Chapter 25 of Panorthosia, history's first plan for a democratic world government. Comenius's approach is distinct from later peace plans in that it starts first with faith, science and education, and hold politics only as a final stage. In a saying that should be famous, Comenius held that "the way to agreement ... will never be discovered through partial studies." (Panorthosia, Ch. 23, para 21, p. 75). Before all else, then, our task is to understand the universal grounds upon which all things, human, divine and natural, stand. When these are grasped, we can apply principle.

One principle that Comenius observed in nature, for example, was that big changes tend to come from within (this was later dubbed evolution). In the same way, we can make peace by beginning deep within our mind and spirit, by changing our deepest presuppositions about who we are before we turn outwards. Another principle, both natural and divine, is that of equality. Compared with God we are all equal and so our first obligation must be to see to it that each human, without exception, has an equal opportunity to enter into perfection.

"Such a universal council is an urgent necessity as a universal remedy for universal misunderstanding, since God does not wish some to be made perfect without others. `God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.' (Hebrews 11:40)" (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 3, pp. 129-130)

Awareness of equality would raise common consciousness to an animating principle. Consciousness is an outcome of detached, non-partisan, disinterested meditation. The most important preparation for world order, then, is to abolish parties and the entire partisan mind-set which destroys consciousness and drags us ever back into warlike ways.

"All the nations of the world will be its assessors, through their three-fold representatives, for instead of rules and laws they have all God's creatures, and all the senses and consciences of all who are assembled, and all God's revelations to them; and in this way God alone will preside, and we shall all be His assessors on equal terms." (Idem.)

Witness what is happening without our leaders being expert in being God's "assessors." Politics today is dominated by expediency rather than principle. Even the most peaceful and democratic governments remain fields of squabbling and struggle for gain. As a result, overall development is unequal and spotty. A tiny minority prospers and accumulates the lion's share of knowledge, wealth and resources, while the vast majority languishes in penury.

In contrast with the later secular ways of governing by checks and balances and separation of powers, Comenius saw world government as an expression of divine virtue, of the three Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity. Rather than offsetting one another, his three world institutions would "use its own characteristic weapons to wipe out its own brand of plague." (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 10, p. 142)

The first, the "College of Light," would be a world department of science and education. It "will use the power of light to banish the darkness of error..." As a liberal educator, Comenius believed that universal literacy allows universal educability. This learned institution would lay the groundwork for this by taking on the task of agreeing upon a universal language and assuring that the next generation is fully literate in that language.

The parliament of religions, which he called the Consistory, presents the model of God's service and bountiful giving in order to purify our inner motives. It "will preserve charity as the bond of perfection by using charity, or the love of heaven, and the fear of hell (for this is the sole purpose of the full power of the keys)..." When such internal controls and sanctions fail, the "dicastery of the world," or political wing of the world government,

"will use external force to curb any disturbers of the peace (whenever there is any outbreak of violence which would not be kept in order either by the light of reason or the love or fear of God, the dicastery will use its supreme authority to crush it effectively)." (142)

The next question that Comenius deals with in this chapter is how to choose the members of these three institutions of world government. Because it is so important, I will include it here in its entirety, without further comment.

==========

The World's First Proposal for a Democratic World Government

from: Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 10, p. 142-144

But how should we appoint these delegates who are to preside over the reform of human affairs?

My answer is:

I. There should be one such college in every region.

II. There should be one each for Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

III. There should be one to serve the entire world.

IV. In every dicastery, consistory, and college there should be one delegate, assisted by a senate of definite size which should either be in constant session with the delegate or meet once a year at an appointed place.

V. The delegate should always have three deputies beside him, or at least two, in addition to clerks and secretaries.

VI. The delegate should reside in Europe in a centre which is easily accessible from every country. London is recommended in my `Way of Light" (i.e. Comenius's 'Via Lucis' xviii, written in 1641-2 when he visited England, dedicated to the founders of the Royal Society, 1660, and published in Amsterdam in 1668) for this and other reasons, especially that provision exists there for politicians, churchmen, and philosophers visiting it from abroad to obtain the necessities of life, and I also recommend it as the site for the Academy of light, peace, love, etc.

VII. Every nation should have one assessor (or two in the case of the larger nations) attached to the delegate and one or two clerks. Then if a delegate dies in office or returns to his country, there will be another to take his place, so that this light cannot ever be extinguished even in the smallest corner of the world.

VIII. Moreover, assessors of this kind will be sent to the president from the college of light, the dicastery of peace, and the holy consistory of every nation. The representatives of Christian nations will be chosen by vote as men whose virtues and gifts are already renowned, and this should ensure the election of the best scholars, the most pious churchmen, and the most responsible politicians, while leaving any unsuccessful candidate to praise God that his country has plenty of men who are worthy of His gift.

Alternatively, one delegate should be elected by his fellow- countrymen in each nation, and each continent should choose one delegate from their number, and these should hold office in turn.

Votes should first be collected from everyone for counting, and voting should be free. Then they should be well-considered. But no conclusion should be reached unless it seems acceptable to all, so that the common good, as it were, is firmly determined by common approval.

IX. The world council should meet at ten-yearly intervals, first, somewhere in Europe, then in Asia, Africa, and America in turn, and every nation should send one or two members from each of its colleges, that is to say, philosophers, churchmen, and politicians accompanied by clerks.

Without this representation of the three colleges (a kind of common factory functioning like the stomach, the liver, and the brain in relation to bile, blood, and the air we breathe) it is impossible to reform the world, since (1) the vile mixture of doubtful books will throw everything into confusion again, like torrential rain destroying the fields. But the college will supply the dew and the rain of gentle wisdom to the advantage of us all; (2) religions which are deprived of their freedom will continue to begat sects and heresies; (3) if nations do the same as the Israelites did at the time when they were without a king, everything will become confused again and history will repeat itself."

--
John Taylor

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

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Eulogy for Anne Nichols

Betty Frost wrote this in the Dunnville Chronicle. For the rest of her eulogy, go to: http://www.dunnvillechronicle.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1518652

THE PASSING OF A DEAR FRIEND
Posted By BETTY FROST, SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Posted 2 days ago


In last week's paper, we reported a loss to the Baha'i community in Dunnville with the departure of one of our stalwart members, Ron Speer, when he moves to Georgetown possibly in April.

This week we have another loss to report, but this time it is of a more serious nature. A much-loved member of our community, Ann Nichols, was overtaken by a sudden heart attack and passed away last Monday, March 30. Although only in her mid-50s, she had lived quite a remarkable life. On the one hand it was devoted to the care and nurture of foster children, and on the other, to the various responsibilities she undertook and the generous giving of her time to the nurture of the Baha'i community of Haldimand and its expansion...

Great New News

Just debuted: The Baha'i Encyclopedia

http://www.bahai-encyclopedia-project.org/

Postliminium

The Great Postliminium

By John Taylor; 2009 April 08, Baha 19, 166 BE

John Amos Comenius gives the twenty-fifth chapter of the Panorthosia the title, "The World Assembly Or Ecumenical Council, The Authority For Universal Reform." It is the most important part of this great book. As noted here before, this and a couple of other chapters of Panorthosia were translated into English and put in a compilation published on the occasion of the founding of UNESCO in the 1950's. Here Comenius proposes a council with three branches based on the three kinds of knowing, knowledge of self, of the world and of God. He details here what we must do to accomplish the most important event in the development of humankind, the formation of a democratic world government. This huge leap forward would allow what he calls the Great Postliminium to take place.

A footnote explains that the word "postliminium" means a "return to one's former home in order to resume one's ranks and privileges," after fighting a war or undergoing exile (this differs slightly the current meaning of postliminium, which is a legal term). In his sense the word describes the great benefit of a just, democratic world government, that it would let us all go home and get back to normal, moral living. War by nature deprives us of freedom and human rights, and we have been on a war footing for so long that we have forgotten what natural human rights are. A permanent peace would free up massive resources to invest in people and liberate us from the need to support an oversized military by feeding a trillion dollar a year armament industry.

Today most expect a world government to come out of the efforts of politicians making a primarily political body. Others expect scientists to take the lead in such an enterprise. Indeed Albert Einstein and other physicists of the Pugwash conferences attempted just that after the atomic bomb had made old warlike ways clearly obsolete. Comenius, though, reasoned that since the knowledge of God is by nature transcendent we should expect world government to come from a religious impulse for reform and revitalization. The Postliminium would come about only after an ecumenical council of Christian bishops met to consult on how to purify their church first.

A founding group of enlightened Christians, united by a return to pure faith, would purge all "elements of moral corruption (such as impiety and hypocrisy)" (Panorthosia, p. 142) from the spiritual life of humanity. He devotes considerable space to the need not to restrict the ecumenical process to Christianity. The ecumenical counsel should reconcile with the Jews, as is prophesied in the Bible, and join with other religions as well. This would put them in a moral position to form a permanent world inter-faith body, which he suggested be permanently housed in London, England, where the delegates would have access to the means of survival. At first, this institution would be concerned with matters of faith and education. Only later, having succeeded at that would they broaden their mandate to politics and the proclamation of what amounts to a world constitution.

In the first paragraph of this chapter he plays on the similar sounding Latin words for "ecumenical" and "economic" to describe how the ecumenical counsel might reform all human affairs. The ecumenical counsel, having accomplished its first order of business of uniting Christians and removing corruption from their midst, would become "economic," from the Greek word for householder or manager.

"But we shall have a truly economic council only if we assemble enlightened men from all over the habitable world, philosophers, churchmen, and politicians of outstanding eminence in wisdom, piety, and prudence pledged to introduce plans at long last full enough to secure, establish, and increase the safety of all mankind." (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 1, p. 128)

This next step, inviting experts in science and politics to form two other houses, he describes near the middle of this twenty-fifth chapter,

"The council's fourth duty will be to establish a college of light, a dicastery of peace, and a consistory of holiness. These will serve as three universal antidotes to the plagues which have afflicted us in the past, namely, heresy, hypocrisy, and tyranny." (para 10, p. 142)

As this indicates, the three institutions, religious, political and scientific, would have more or less equal status once formed. The original religious conference would turn into a permanent body called the Consistory of Holiness. The second institution, the College of Light, would be concerned with science and research into nature and act as a sort of global department of education.

The third institution, the Dicastery of Peace, is designed to extirpate conflict among national governments.

"Lastly, the dicastery of peace will keep the whole political world in order, so that no power either succumbs in face of danger to its possessions or degenerates into tyranny by destroying the possessions of others." (142)

Compare this extremely broad mandate -- which includes intervention in civil wars and internal conflicts, and even imperialism and the trans-border intrigue that is unfortunately the norm today -- to the second article of the original United Nations charter, the strongest language found in that document.

"Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

The United Nations was born as a response by self-interested and often less-than-sincere politicians to a terrible world war. Comenius's world government would be an outcome of more positive motives. It would arise from what we now call a grassroots reforming initiative, one born of relationship with our Creator. "Such a universal council is an urgent necessity as a universal remedy for universal misunderstanding..." (129)

The Dicastery of Peace would have full authority to remove every block to peace. Thanks to our permanent war footing, we too often we forget what Comenius repeats often in Panorthosia, that the beginning and end of politics is peace. For that reason, the name "Dicastery of Peace" is far more appropriate for a world parliament than "United Nations." Although he makes no mention of an army or peacekeeping force to enforce its decisions, it is still amazing that in the 17th Century someone was calling for a world political institution with a firmer grounding and even a better name than the one that Winston Churchill called our current world body.

One might ask, why does Comenius do it in this order? Why have the founding institution a religious one, the one he calls the Consistory of Holiness? Does it not make sense to start with political brass tacks (the United Nations), then add on education (UNESCO), and then sit back let the Parliament of Religions and the Earth Charter sneak in later by the back door? Do I really need to ask that question? Although the UN has kept us from destroying ourselves quickly by war, it is clear now that the present system is incapable of summoning up the moral fibre to address slow moving disasters like environmental degradation and climate change.

Comenius was an experienced peace negotiator. As he was writing Panorthosia, he was fresh from brokering the end of hostilities between Holland and England. For good reason he advised that we not jump right into world government. We should be wise, pause, and then follow a special order of approach. By concentrating our thoughts first on God, then on philosophy and teaching, we would mentally prepare ourselves for the essential first step to world governance, complete abandonment of competition, parties, partisanship and the entire adversarial model of law and governance. Harmful as these are on the local and national level, they would be fatal when blown up to a global scale.

Comenius starts his discussion of this crucial first step by referring to a saying that is unfortunately still common today, for example in jokes like, "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." He writes,

"There is no reason why one should recall to mind the well-known saying `I have not known any good to come out of any council.' For that was true in olden days when the times of partiality (mentioned by the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13:9, 12) had not yet passed, when bitterness between opposing factions was at its height. But today with God's blessing the times are approaching when that which was in part shall be done away (I Corinthians 13:10-11). In olden days men met together to fight, today they should meet in conference. For this will no longer be an age of folly when anyone pronounces upon matters unknown, but an age like that of the wise Elihu ..." (para 3, p. 129)

The partisan spirit, then, cannot infect a permanent union. To avoid it, we must first forget completely old habits of contention, advocacy, plotting, protest, opposition and learn maturity in our political relationships. We must constantly remind leaders and officials that the real goal of politics is in fact peace, not the reverse. In a passage that should be printed on a card and read aloud by everyone entering into any forum of world government, Comenius states,

"I am not asking for a council where one part of the church or the world will assemble in opposition to the rest, or party confronts party for the purpose of disputing, quarrelling or deceiving one another and entering into sworn conspiracies, but one where all will meet together in peace with the unanimous desire to procure the common good through common policies. What, then, has one to fear from such a universal council?" (129-130)

This fear, needless to say, remains with us today. It is the chief reason we dare not clutch at the straw of world government, even as the planet's atmosphere heats ominously. If only more thinkers had examined the peace proposal of Comenius with due care, this understandable trepidation would have been dispelled centuries ago.

The wisest procedure, he maintains, is to found a two and later three-chambered house for coordinating universal reform. It would send his already-written plan as a manifesto to every government, religion and other institution around the world, inviting each and all to participate.

Comenius does not exclude any country from his proposed world government, but, following Descartes' method (he had had a long interview with Descartes in earlier years) he suggests starting with the easier and simpler issues first. These are above all the prejudices that subsist and persist in the mind.

"The third duty will be to establish a new philosophy, a new theology or religion, and a new political system..." (Panorthosia, Ch. 25, para 10, p. 140)

Daunting as it may seem to start a new philosophy, a new theology and a new political system designed to be acceptable to the vast diversity of human beings, it really is not. Unlike physical objects, it takes no energy or materials to reconstruct ideas from their foundations. All it takes to start the Great Postliminium are self-criticism and mental effort. The enemy is nothing but insubstantial ideas. We can erase ethereal products of the mind easily and quickly, though admittedly not always painlessly. That, then, should be the first order of business of a world confederation.

::

10 Hated Things

Ten Things I Hate, Part I

By John Taylor; 2009 April 07, Baha 18, 166 BE

My old writing tutor, a non-Baha'i who read my long handwritten letters for over a decade, used to tell me that my good writing takes place when I am angry and my most brilliant material only comes when I am furious. This is embarrassing for an attempted Baha'i. I am supposed to respond to goodness and light. I am supposed to ignore what is bad and look at the bright side. But airy-fairy virtues like niceness and far-off ideals like godliness just do not light a fire under my muse. Looking back on my life, I see how right she was. My best ideas were and are a direct response to my slow burning fury at the stupidity, the pig headed injustices that are messing up the big three: myself, the human race and the planet we live on.

I awoke this morning with a thought. It was the title of today's essay: "Ten Things I Hate." It seemed like a good idea, especially since it would be hard to find a topic easier to write about. I hate so many things. But where to start? Hey, why not today's newspaper? So I picked up this morning's Hamilton Spectator and decided to go through the articles that anger me in the order I find them, starting with the lead headline, "Quake in L'Aquila Reverberates in Hamilton." It seems Italian Canadians are worried about relatives in Italy, who may have been killed or hurt by the earthquake there. I hate that.

Things I Hate, Number One; Disorganization

We put the lion's share of our money and technological smarts into making killing machines and we leave basics like shelter and housing to tradition, or, at best, to random, ad hoc change. We go on living -- and dying -- in the same vulnerable structures that we have for thousands of years. My anger at this has fuelled my ideas about the way dwellings should be built -- what I call mound housing -- and, more to the point, how we should re-organize our families and neighbourhoods.

Things I Hate, Number Two; Lack of Hygiene

"Cleaning Standards Urged for Hospitals." Outbreaks of disease are prompting calls for provincial standards of cleanliness in hospitals. I hate filth, as we all do. If hospitals cannot stop disease and standards do not work, we have to rethink the whole idea of hospitals. But this is only a sign of inner filth, as it were. We have to get rid of filth from within, be paying attention to inner cleanliness, to prayer, meditation and reflection. Periodic pauses should break up activity, followed by physical cleanliness. So I guess even more than lack of spiritual hygiene, I hate free riding, the lazy idea that I can put off basics like cleaning, praying and organizing housing to the point where they have been de-prioritized completely.

Ten Things I Hate, Number Three; Lawlessness

Headline: "Building permit rules to tighten." This article reports that home building companies are starting to build their houses before getting the proper approval from the city. I hate this on so many levels that I cannot count them. What are private profiteers, glorified land speculators, doing building homes anyway? They have no interest in the long term quality of the product. Resident co-operatives, along with the governments, schools, faith groups and other institutions that will serve them, should plan, pay for and supervise all construction. Housing is wasteful garbage for the same reason that our automobiles are garbage, because we refuse to put responsibility into responsible hands. Ralph Nader said it all when he testified against corporate freeloaders and outright criminals in 1967:

"The requirement of a just social order is that responsibility shall lie where the power of decision rests. But the law has never caught up with the development of the large corporate unit. Deliberate acts emanate from the sprawling and indeterminable shelter of the corporate organization. Too often responsibility for an act is not imputable to those whose decision enables it to be set in motion." (quoted in Phil Edmonston, Lemon-aid, Used Cars and Trucks, 2009-2010, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009, p.17)

Ten Things I Hate, Number Four; Overcentralization

"Hamilton Backs Away From Plastic Bag Crackdown." The ubiquitous plastic shopping bag is a visible environmental issue that gets people's attention. I know that because we end up discussing it endlessly at our Philosopher's Cafe meetings, even though we know that more serious problems are being ignored. But in a way it is indeed important. As the article says, both individuals and local authorities do not have the power to stand up to corporations who find it convenient to dump mountains of packaging on our heads.

Lately I was watching a movie set in the Sixties, and a character doing kitchen work opened up a garbage can that was a recycler's dream. It was all organic. You could toss it on a compost heap, no problem. I look into our kitchen garbage bag and see guilt staring back at me. I try to take the time to buy straight produce and sort out plastic packaging for the recycling bin, but the garbage still ends up 90 percent plastic.

This infuriates me.

What are we doing buying our own food anyway? Why not have the same coops that house us take care of our diet too? Our capitalist system insists that we be consumers, that we make a thousand decisions a day, bribed by ten thousand advertisements a day, but there is no real need for any of that. I would eat better, eat less, eat more environmentally friendly if my neighbourhood kitchen bought food straight from my neighbourhood farmer and served me just the amount of food I need, chosen by a professional dietitian. It is crazy to accept the way things are when we could do so much better, so easily, if we would only think.

Ten Things I Hate, Number Five; Inequality

I hate it when there is not a trace of international news until page seven of a newspaper. That is a bonus thing I hate.

"Afghans Reworking Rape Law," A7

Anyway, I do not want to talk about the disgusting details of this proposed law permitting marital rape in Afghanistan. You can read about it yourself. But what I hate most of all is the lack of a code of universal human rights on every level of government, everywhere there are people. If government is for the people, how can governments rape the people -- in this case, quite literally?

The reason angers me deeply: we are on a permanent war footing. Why? Because of a negative feedback loop. We accept an imbalance between the sexes, men make decisions based on testosterone, violence breaks out, and fear, and that is an excuse for more injustice, more violence, more fear, and so forth. A government should not be able to call itself a government unless it is doing all in its power to reverse this slippery slope to war.

Okay, here are five things I hate and already I am running out of gas and have to stop. I will do the remaining five another day. Besides, I have to give this newspaper back to my father, who will soon wake up and start looking for it. I hate it when I steal things. At this point I could change the title to "five things I hate," but I hate lies and betrayal; plus, I have learned the hard way to pay close attention to my muse. If she says I must pick ten things to hate, then ten things it is. The headlines will have to come from another source, but there will be five more.

--
John Taylor

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

one friend, Dan Seals

Dan Seals, We are One

The Study Circle, an office parody

What in the World is Happening?

Baha’i Principles Discussion Series

 

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?

 

 

 

Featured speaker: Terry Spratt

 

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

 

8 PM

 

Garfield Disher Room,

 

Dunnville Public Library

Two Eco-films

Film Reviews: Radiant City and Garbage Warrior

By John Taylor; 2009 April 04, Baha 13, 166 BE

I viewed two thought provoking documentaries, each in its way a worthy successor to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," both of which were consciously produced in response to Gore's film. The first I have already talked about here, Radiant City. You can find out more about it at:

http://www.radiantcitymovie.com/

Radiant City is a Canadian production about the relentless push of suburbanism, what one person in the film calls the "cartoonification" of modern life. A short selection from the film is to be found at:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/kochvideo/videos/15/

This interview starts off with the subject summing up development over the past century: "The twentieth century was a kind of a nervous breakdown for architecture." I remember thinking over and over as I watched this movie, which mixes some fictional elements in with the documentary: "I wish that I could watch this film with the members of the UHJ. Would they be so gung ho about the present program if they knew how deeply, deeply ingrained this non-social set-up is, and how opposed what we are doing is to the way things are here in North America?"

At the same time, there was a telling moment in the film where the filmmakers, perhaps not intentionally, put their finger on the nub of why people are fleeing into the hell of suburban life, into a wholy unnatural flight from social contact -- a suburban dweller can leave home, drive to work, park and enter the workplace without coming face to face with any other human being. The result, over generations, is a total loss of social skills on the part of most in our society. And this has a snowballing effect, we do not have contact, we forget how to treat others well, we flee social contacts and rush even further into the low density housing trap.

Oh yes, the nub. It comes when somebody being interviewed says something like: "We wanted to get away from this and that problem with urban living ... especially the infighting, the fishbowl of lack of privacy, the gossip and backbiting that are basic to both urban and rural life." There you have it. Backbiting is driving this plunge into environmental destruction. We turn social contact into a battleground, then we tisk tisk when everybody flees into subdivisions that eat up land, kill nature, cause endless commutes, and where the two greatest killers of kids are cars and suicide. We are made to be social, but we will do anything to get away from one another, often for good reason.

Which leads me to the documentary that I saw last night, Garbage Warrior. The official website is:

http://www.garbagewarrior.com/

Like all films being pitched, Garbage Warrior is summed up in a meeting. In this case one site suggests: "Frank Lloyd Wright meets Ed Begley Jr meets the local garbage man." The film review site "Rotten Tomatoes" offers this synopsis:

"This documentary looks at the life and work of Michael Reynolds, a pioneering architect who creates sustainable structures using recycled materials. "Garbage Warrior" was filmed over three years, chronicling Reynolds' struggles with the government and his successes at turning a devastated community into a thriving one."

This is a very inspiring film. It shows that an innovator can fight and win against a corrupt system, given a few decades hard work, especially when the interests of the human race are at stake. I have already expressed my opinion on this blog that Reynolds is the only member of his profession in America worth a second glance since Buckminster Fuller. As he points out, there is very little innovation in home building, every shack looks the same as the next because, in part, building codes bog down everything in a hopeless mess of rules and regulations, few of which have the welfare of the people in mind. Here are a couple of interesting snippets from an interview with Reynolds. The first is about his organic philosophy of building.

"Architecture is clearly not addressing the needs of our times. Biotecture  a word I invented, a cross of biology and architecture better describes what I do. So many parts of the world -- Nicaragua, Jamaica, Norway, United Kingdom, France -- are embracing the need for the biotecture method, regardless of what they call it. They are recognizing that conventional housing systems are not panning out."

Interviewer: "Do you see a future in which subdivisions are filled with earthships?"

"Yes! I definitely see cities, villages and towns filled with earthships or buildings that passively heat and cool themselves  and homes that provide their own electricity and water and food, contain and treat their own sewage. All of these utilities can be supplied off the grid in a self-sustaining community.

(from: http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/Garbage-Warrior-Turns-Trash-Into-Houses.html)

Having said all that, though, I must say that the Canadian film, Radiant City, ruined the British-American one, Garbage Warrior, for me. I could not help but look at the earth ships Reynolds is making and think, how inadequate! True, he makes sustainable houses but at a tremendous cost in land. This is an answer only if the number of humans on earth were a few million, rather than several billion. He designs energy independent sub-divisions made of garbage materials, waste tires, bottles, and so forth, but they are subdivisions nonetheless, low-density, separate and wholly suburban. The earthship dwellers still have to drive long distances, wasting time and fuel, if they work outside the home. The syndrome that Radiant City describes, running away from social contact into land hungry housing, is driving Reynolds and crew to build these earthships, innovative as they may be.

True, many of his developments are communally owned, at least at first. That is an all-too-rare step forward. We need to explore alternatives to exclusive, private ownership. But if we hope to keep large numbers of people alive without sprawl destroying the planet, he will have to start designing far more high density, diverse, multi-use cityscapes. We need town planners, as well as architects, who are as courageous, original and innovative as Reynolds.

In one of the interviews included on the DVD the director of Garbage Warrior declares that he made it as a corrective to the negative slant of Inconvenient Truth (and this applies to Radiant City too), where a problem is pointed out but no convincing solution is presented. I appreciate that this film does point to a positive attempt to save us all. I do not want to put that down. Nonetheless, the insular character of English speakers is evident in this film. There is no sense that Europeans are innovating too in this area, with, for example, the pasivhus standard. Third Worlders are passive recipients of his ideas. Yet the round houses he suggests after the Tsunami were invented by aboriginals!

I could not help but wonder which is the better answer for architecture: earthships or passive houses? Earthships make good use of heat sinks and waste materials, but a passive house, made from insulating concrete made with volcanic additives, combined with heat-exchange ventilators, is just as energy independent and can be part of much higher density housing. Perhaps some combination of these with Buckminster Fuller's domed over neighbourhoods would be closer to true sustainability.

I think the best point Reynolds makes is this: in order to improve we have to be ready to experiment and sometimes make mistakes. He is the best in his profession because, over thirty years of breaking all the rules that tie down his conformist colleagues he has made mistakes and learned from them. As he says, you have to be able to have an idea (he literally dreams one up at one point in the film) and then build it right away. Otherwise there is neither art nor science to the trade. As it is, our built world is dominated by faceless bureaucrats and has neither practicality nor beauty. This alone, not to speak of destroying planet earth, is enough of an argument to change the status quo in building.

When I got up this morning after seeing that film last night, I came across the following poem written in Persian by Baha'u'llah. It is the closest I have seen in His Writings to anticlericism, though clearly, He is speaking not necessarily about religious leaders but to the same anti-innovative mind-set that the hippy rebellion was about, the bureaucratic, corrupt misuse of law by the small minded that is leading us all down the slippery slope to planetary destruction. The last verse especially, could have been written for the architectural innovator. "Let thine abode be under the stone, but seek not the shelter of the cleric."

"Be thou of the people of hell-fire,

but be not a hypocrite."

"Be thou an unbeliever,

but be not a plotter."

"Make thy home in taverns,

but tread not the path

of the mischief-maker."

"Fear thou God,

but not the priest."

"Give to the executioner thy head,

but not thy heart."

"Let thine abode be under the stone,

but seek not the shelter of the cleric."

Thus doth the Holy Reed intone its melodies, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its song, so that He may infuse life eternal into the mortal frames of men, impart to the temples of dust the essence of the Holy Spirit and the heavenly Light, and draw the transient world, through the potency of a single word, unto the Everlasting Kingdom.

(Trustworthiness, in Compilation of Compilations, Vol II, #2050, p. 337)

From the Beloved UHJ

Joe Woods' recent contribution to the Hamilton Baha'i Mailing list:

The beloved Universal House of Justice reminds us of the intrinsic link between the decay of the Old World Order and the essential need to match its accelerated momentum with an increased focus on the requirements of the Five Plan.


"That the continued strengthening of the community should be matched by a further decline in the old world order comes as no surprise. Indeed, the friends should be on their guard, lest the development of capacity in the community not keep pace with the rise in receptivity of a disillusioned humanity.  Behold how even in the short span of time since we raised this warning in our Ridvan message, financial structures once thought to be impregnable have tottered and world leaders have shown their inability to devise more than temporary solutions, a failing to which they increasingly confess.  Whatever expedient measures are adopted, confidence has been shaken and a sense of security lost.  Surely such developments have caused the believers in every land to reflect on the lamentable condition of the present order and have reinforced in them the conviction that material and spiritual civilization must be advanced together." (Universal House of Justice, October 20 2008)

Our monthly fireside and proclamation

Our community is fortunate to have Betty Frost, who submits reports of our meetings to the local paper. Just by establishing good relations with each successive editor she writes a column on each talk and gets for us probably the best publicity of any community in the country.  Everybody in town knows what we are doing. I cannot understand why other communities, many of them much larger than us, do not do the same thing. A huge return for just a little well placed effort.

Letter to the Editor

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the speaker for our last meeting, Terry Spratt, was unable to present his thoughts about understanding the world  around us.  We are happy to report that he will now be able to come to the Garfield Disher Room in the Library on Tuesday, April 14^th at 8:00 p.m.  We know this will be an interesting and challenging talk. 

There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion during the evening and, of course, a social hour with coffee/tea and something of a delicious nature!

Betty Frost

Haldimand Baha’i Community

AROUND TOWN

Tuesday, April 14^th

Sponsored by the Haldimand Baha’i community, Terry Spratt will present his thoughts on understanding the world around us at 8:00 p.m. in the Garfield Disher Room of the Library.  All are welcome. 

Explosive Reference to Putative Baha'is

In the 1987 book "Secret Armies, The Explosive Inside Story of the World's Most Elite Warriers," by James Adams, there is a reference to the Baha'i Faith that, if true, would be, as the title says, pretty explosive. A non-Baha'i, a distant friend of an acquaintance of local believers, came across it and had some questions about whether it is true. Our LSA secretary wrote the National Assembly of Canada about it but they had heard nothing about it. I am the source of last resort here. I know nothing about it, but I am sharing the reference on this blog in hopes that maybe one of my readers may be able to supply more details.

I expect that this is either the usual calumny coming from these quarters, or that the "Baha'is" mentioned here were covenant breakers, since it is common knowledge that among them was the physical granddaughter of Baha'u'llah, who was (many years before this) jailed for terrorist activities. I cannot imagine a Baha'i in good standing doing what this describes. Any help you could offer would be appreciated by all of us here.

from: pp. 252-253, SECRET ARMIES, Chapter Twenty, Congress Bites the Bullet,  


"The deaths of the Marines once again brought Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver North to the fore. He and National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane were so shocked at the tragedy and at America's apparent inability to do anything about it that they decided to respond themselves. They found out that responsibility for the bombing lay with Hezbollah, a shadowy Iranian-supported terrorist organization with bases in Lebanon. North encouraged the Lebanese Deuxieme Bureau to find and arm some Lebanese Baha'is who on 8 March 1985 planted a bomb intended to kill one of Hezbollah's leaders. The bomb missed its target, however, and killed eighty innocent civilians."

A footnote points to an unnamed article of 5 December, 1986 in the Washington post as substantiation. Since this book, very sloppily, does not even give a page number, the only way to find this article would be to read the whole paper for that day. I live in the sticks and do not have access to a university library, so that is as far as I can go.

from:  APRIL 03, 2009

Car Bombing

Dear Friends,

My thanks to Jean and Andrew for their kind, prompt and efficient response to my research query about the Beirut car bombing of twenty years ago. I am sending their answer out as a separate post today but will combine them with yesterday's blog post on the Badi' blog itself. This is an important protection issue and I do not want people reading the question without the answer.

Dear John,

Regarding your question in your recent post in the Badi Blog:

The article in question from the December 5, 1986 Washington Post is by Jim Hoagland. It is called "The Marine Connection", on page A2 and contains 750 words. It starts like this:

"BERLIN Inevitably, Robert McFarlane and Oliver North fade into one-dimensional symbols as revelation tumbles after revelation in the damaging scandal now gripping Washington. Rambo to some, incompetent and perhaps evil bunglers to many more, the two men have become blank screens onto which we all project our feelings about six years of Ronald Reagan's leadership."

This much I was able to get out of the Washington Post archive, as it was the only article that comes up when searching using the given date and the keyword Hezbollah.

Without a subscription I cannot read the whole article BUT I did manage to figure out one more thing: the article does seem to mention Baha'is but does not seem to mention Lebanon or Lebanese.  I figured this out by re-searching for the same article variously with the keywords Lebanon, Lebanese, Baha'i or Baha'is instead of Hezbollah.

… using this method and some good logical deduction regarding what keywords to choose we could probably reconstruct the article substantially after about a hundred searches. But I leave that for another day. The page the article is on can also be purchased as a "page print".

I hope this helps.

Kind wishes,
Andrew

Oh one more thing.  There is a short (235 word) article in the Washington Post of a week later, on December 12, page A22, by FIRUZ KAZEMZADEH, Vice Chairman, National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States New Haven, Conn., entitled, "'Malicious Gossip' about the Baha'is". Presumably this is a letter responding to the Jim Hoagland article.

Cheers,
Andrew

Hi John,

I think "out-7.pdf" is the article you want, on page 2 of the December 5 1986 Post.

Not much of a reference if you ask me.

Here are some online references to the March 8 1985 bombing. All of them attribute the bombing to other organizations or do not include any attribution.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/27/world/casey-reported-behind-85-lebanon-bombing.html

http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/civil_war_in_lebanon.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Beirut_car_bombing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/8/newsid_2516000/2516407.stm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html (see entry for 20 Sept 1984)

See the out-8 document, a letter to the editor from Firuz Kazemzadeh condemning Hoagland's article. The next reference to Baha'is in the Post was on 22 Dec, in an opinion piece on political prisoners.

I also searched the historical NYT, WSJ and Post from 12/01/1986 to 12/31/1988 to see if any other articles appeared, perhaps a followup or a retraction by Hoagland in another of his weekly columns (every Friday, page a2 of the Post)  The only result that turned up was Kazemzadeh's letter to the editor. (not the original column by Hoagland, which leads me to believe that other search terms might work)

Search terms used:  Jim Hoagland :AND: Baha'i, Baha'i :AND: Lebanon, Baha'i :AND: lebanese.  Not sure what else might work.

I think you (and Dr. Kazemzadeh) are correct about someone identifying an opportunity for calumny, whether it was the anonymous intelligence operative or someone else who passed along the story to him.

Best,
Jean

JET: A final note on spies. I am a fan of spy fiction, but in the real world spying will surely be one of the first things eliminated by a world government. And thank God for that. This calumny against the totally non-political Baha'is given by a wholly untraceable source is an example of the gossip and backbiting that passes for information in the so-called intelligence community. 

Oneness of Humanity in Panorthosia, Part III

Universal Wisdom: From Conscience to Consciousness

By John Taylor; 2009 April 01, Baha 11, 166 BE

Comenian Fundamentalism

Most sources credit American evangelicals with inventing the term "fundamentalism." This is true, as far as it goes. Certainly the "ism" in fundamentalism was new. What really happened though was that religious conservatives had appropriated the term "fundamental" from religious reformers. They took the reverse of fundamentals, the very dogma that reformers ever since the 15th and 16th Century Reformation had been trying to change, and made it into an impenetrable armour invulnerable to any who would dare alter their ideological power base. Since then fundamentalism has switched loyalties. Now the term means the opposite of fundamental. It is an ideology permanently resistant to reform or anything that smacks of changing with the times.

John Amos Comenius was a fundamentalist in the original meaning of the term; he was an ecumenical reformer who advocated going back to the fundamentals of religion, such as love, spirit and kindness, irrespective of the particulars of human belief and opinion. For him "back to God" meant away from ideology and "isms," a return to unitary wisdom. He would have agreed with the pre-Socratic philosopher who said,

"A single thing is wisdom, to understand knowledge, that which guides everything everywhere." (Heraclitus, Fr. 41)

This is based on the assumption that to believe in God is to simplify a universe that is otherwise complex, to harmonize a discordant chaos, and to do it through amity and open-mindedness, not by clinging to a set of opinions deemed by a few leaders as "fundamental." At the basis of everything is the oneness of humankind standing before a Creator Who is infinitely above us. Comenius wrote,

"For... Just as the universe of things, granted to us to behold, is one coherent and unbroken unit, so its beholders should be united to help and not hinder one another. And just as the globe of the earth is one, and is not divided but rather held together by mountains, rivers, and the seas themselves, so the masters of the earth and its inhabitants, should be as one, combining forces everywhere in the cause of peace and concord, and no more attacking one another than the earth beneath them attacks its parts. Lastly, just as God the Creator and Saviour of all is one, so all who worship Him should be as one." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 12, p. 157)

Although purely a religious event, such reform based on real fundamentals would be bound to have an effect on political arrangements as well. Just as in the time of Comenius, our present form of democracy is bogged down in an adversarial model of change. The idea that leaders must "fight it out" in order to be elected is regarded as so fundamental that it is never questioned, much less opposed. Competition, rather than cooperation, must rule. Political parties by their very nature divide and encourage partisans rather than uniting citizens in service to the common good. The answer that Comenius proposed he called universal politics, and it was similar to, indeed an outcome of universal religion.

"Universal Politics is the light of the human mind so directed to all human affairs that over the entire field of human activities fighting, confusion, and revolution are forbidden, but all things are restored to harmony and contribute their share to the common good of all human society." (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, p. 205)

Reformation Based on Oneness of Humanity

Comenius was a loyal Christian, indeed a bishop in his Church, the Christian Brotherhood, or Unitas Fratrum. Part of him distained pagan literature. But he was a classical scholar and was deeply impressed by one story in particular from Greek mythology, one of the labours of Hercules. In it, the hero uses brains as well as brawn to perform the seemingly impossible task of cleaning out the manure-choked Augean stables. Hercules did it by temporarily redirecting the river Alpheus so that it flowed through the king's stables. A rushing flood washed out mountains of accumulated manure and he needed do no further work than returning the river to its original course. This trick, Comenius pointed out, would be a perfect model for all human reform. If we return to true fundamentals the truth will make us free and will use its own power to wash away error. Thus while at first glance religion, science and politics seem hopelessly filthy and corrupt, we should hope that we might still change them by redirecting powerful streams of human potential.

Science since his time has succeed to some extent in doing just what Comenius envisioned. It has redirected the Alpheus of human capacity toward constant reform. Only religion and politics are stuck in the doldrums of false-fundamentalism. We now are used to a flood of news of scientific discoveries coming in almost daily. But technology and discovery are also experiencing a backlash, a tsunami-like flood of harmful side effects, such as pollution, resource depletion and global warming. This is the result of overemphasizing physical science, an imbalance worsened by general neglect of needed ethical, religious and political reforms. Each of these factors is every bit as important as scientific advance, and we cannot neglect them. The result is just what we see: the river Alpheus is carrying away the horses and buildings of the Augean stables as well as its piles of manure.

The Three Fountains of God

A hint at why reform based on true fundamentals would work so well, Comenius thought, is embedded in the very name of the river that Hercules redirected, Alpheus. Comenius considered this name highly significant because it comes from the first Greek letter, Alpha. The Book of Revelations talks about Almighty God being "the Alpha and the Omega," the beginning and the end of everything. Divine wisdom is the fundamental basis of knowledge, Alpha, and it is also its goal (Omega). For this reason Comenius called his philosophy "pansophia" or universal wisdom.

The power of pansophia comes from its basis in what Baha'is call the three onenesses, the oneness of God, religion and mankind, combined with the tee-off principle of independent search for truth.

"The first stage of Reform will stem from the threefold love which you owe to yourself, your neighbour, and God; to yourself, to avoid coming to grief through your indifference, to your neighbour, to prevent your bad example from destroying one whom you ought to be edifying, and to God, lest you should deprive Him of the glory and honour which He seeks from the many who find salvation, including yourself and all who can be saved with your help." (Panorthosia, Ch. 20, para 5, p. 21)

Thus reform grows not from ideology but from love, the three basic loves of self, love for one's neighbour and love of God. This is true fundamentalism, to avoid apathy in the self, to avoid giving a bad example to others, especially youth, and above all to eschew disappointing God by failing to glorify Him as He deserves.

In the following passage Comenius explains how search, oneness and wisdom could join together with the personal effort of search for truth into a force that we Baha'is call the "consciousness of the oneness of humanity."

"I think that it is clear from my Universal Wisdom (pansophia) that it is possible for these fountains of God to combine into one torrent like the Alpheus, thus integrating everything that the world possesses and the mind of man dictates and the word of God expresses, in such a way that any seeker after knowledge may find it in full, anyone searching for forms and standards of self-government may find them ready-made, and anyone desiring God may see His presence everywhere, and hear, taste and touch Him and feel His binding influence." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 3, para 38, p. 80)

--
John Taylor

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

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