![\"pamphleteer](\"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/pamphleteer-placards1.jpg\" "\\"pamphleteer")
finding a 'silver lining' in the 'global warming debate'<\/p><\/div>\n
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There was not much \u2018engagement\u2019.\u00a0 Friends that came by were interested in what \u2018I was up to\u2019 and happily took a pamphlet when I personally offered it, but not one person (there were not that many anyway) took a pamphlet on their own (the pamphlet was nicely done; a 4 \u00bc \u201c x 5 \u00bd \u201c booklet with the front and back covers in colour), perhaps too nicely done as people were surprised that \u2018it was my doing\u2019 rather than some corporation-funded initiative or etc.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the feeling that came to me; it was as if people were expressing \u2018religious tolerance\u2019 to me, … as if my pamphlet were an \u2018Awake!\u2019 magazine and I was a believer in some religion such as the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses.<\/p>\n
In reflecting on this, I could see where this feeling was coming from and the \u2018religious\u2019 aspects clinked into place; i.e. I was feeling like a pagan in a monotheist community.<\/p>\n
Since these words \u2018pagan\u2019 and \u2018monotheist\u2019 are open to many different thoughts; i.e. \u2018pagan\u2019 can be defined as \u201cAn adherent of a religion other than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.\u201d, I shall clarify what I mean when using them.<\/p>\n
Pagan:<\/strong> – A believer in the occult; i.e. that the source of the world dynamic including the dynamic figure\/s \u2018comes out of the woodwork\u2019 (the flow of nature) rather than from the hand of a single point source or \u2018Creator\u2019.\u00a0 This equates to a belief that \u2018nature is alive\u2019 and is the dynamic ground from which all \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 derive, whether man chooses to break them up into two categories, EITHER \u2018organic\u2019 (living) OR \u2018inorganic\u2019 (dead, without life).\u00a0 If one sees Nature as a \u2018flow\u2019 (interdependent spatial-relational unfolding) then it impossible (inconsistent) to impute \u2018living\u2019 to local parts and \u2018lifelessness\u2019 to the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n Monotheist: <\/strong> \u2013 A believer that each living thing is a \u2018local\u2019, \u2018independently existing\u2019 thing animated by an interior process called \u2018life\u2019, the source of which is a mystery that we \u2018deal with\u2019 by simply \u2018believing\u2019 that the source lies there within, and it is either due to \u2018God\u2019 putting it there, or to mysterious process kicked off by a strange event (lightning striking a mud-puddle?) in the geological history of the earth, an earth whose \u2018original state\u2019 was alleged to be absolutely without life or \u2018inorganic\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That is, the key belief bundled into monotheism is that there \u2018REALLY EXISTS\u2019 local sources of absolute original creativity such as we hold responsible for infusing \u2018life\u2019 into a local collection of \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 which would allegedly, otherwise, be \u2018inorganic matter\u2019 and the belief is, further,\u00a0 that when the \u2018spark of life\u2019 leaves the physical matter, that which remains is simply that, \u2018lifeless\u2019 physical matter.<\/span><\/p>\n (N.B. compare that with the \u2018Pagan\u2019 view of Nature as \u2018flow\u2019 or \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 in which \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 are continually gathering and regathering; i.e. where \u2018life\u2019 is the property of Nature, rather than the property of a certain category of dynamic figures we impose our definitions and labels on.)<\/span><\/p>\n In regard to the choice of how I understand the world, I prefer to give my natural experience precedence over \u2018common belief\u2019, and so my understanding of \u2018what is reality\u2019 is not swayed by the fact that that the popular preference of western science and western society is to buy into this superstitious belief (monotheism).\u00a0 \u00a0But, more than that, my view is that this superstitious belief (monotheism), when it is \u2018confused for reality\u2019 rather than being understood as over-simplification born of convenience for linguistic communications is the source of the rising dysfunction in our society.<\/p>\n As Giordano Bruno said; \u2018The majority does not have a monopoly on truth\u2019.\u00a0 Of course, Bruno was burnt at the stake (1600) shortly after making that statement.<\/p>\n Poincar\u00e9 touched on this issue in \u2018Science and Hypothesis\u2019 by pointing out that we can\u2019t REALISTICALLY attribute the source of behaviour to a local object; i.e. we can\u2019t say \u2018the earth rotates\u2019 or \u2018the hurricane is growing stronger\u2019 because such propositions require us to invoke the notion of \u2018absolute space\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 The earth and the hurricane are essentially \u2018non-local\u2019 in both their \u2018being\u2019 and in their dynamics; i.e. they are \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 that gather within the dynamic ground of space.\u00a0 Their behaviour is not \u2018theirs\u2019 in the sense that they are imputed \u2018local objects\u2019 with \u2018locally originating behaviours\u2019.\u00a0 This is a convenient but over-simplistic way of describing them (thanks to our imposing an absolute space reference frame to notionally \u2018split them out\u2019 of the flow they are inclusions in.).<\/p>\n It is \u2018common belief\u2019 that facilitates this deceptive practice.\u00a0 Using common belief, we can draw some imaginary boundary lines that purportedly point out the local existence of a \u2018sovereign state\u2019 that we further notionally equip with \u2018its own locally originating behaviour\u2019 so that we can then say, as we did with the earth and the hurricane, \u2018The US is growing stronger\u2019 and \u2018the US is acting as a global policeman\u2019.<\/p>\n BUT, that is not REAL; i.e. the US, … or any other sovereign state, is not a REAL THING, and it does not have \u2018its own locally originating behaviour\u2019.\u00a0 Like words in a language, their reality derives from common belief.\u00a0 As the old joke goes, an Englishman holds up a six inch long four-pronged piece of metal that people all over the world use to pick up food and put it in their mouth, and he says; \u201cIn France, they call this \u2018une fourchette\u2019, … in Germany, they call it \u2018ein gabel\u2019, … and in England, we call it \u2018a fork\u2019, which is of course what it REALLY is.\u201d<\/p>\n More \u2018real\u2019 than any notional LOCAL OBJECT\/ORGANISM, is the dynamic ground that these dynamic figures are included in.<\/p>\n Historians of law, have studied this phenomenon, of how common belief can give rise to the notion of a \u2018local sovereign state\u2019, notionally equipped with its own locally originating behaviour, and they conclude that the belief in a \u2018local, independent sovereign state\u2019 is essentially \u2018monotheism\u2019; e.g. the following extract from an article by Peter D\u2019Errico (professor of law emeritus at University of Massachusetts) at\u00a0 http:\/\/www.umass.edu\/legal\/derrico\/nowyouseeit.html<\/a><\/p>\n \u201c[T]hat the ultimate moving force which inspires and controls political action is a spiritual force \u2013 a common conviction that makes for righteousness, a common conscience …. (Ahmad, Ilyas. Sovereignty: Islamic and Modern<\/em>. Karachi and Hyderabad: The Allies Book Corporation, 1965) This suggestion is startling because we are used to the western notion of separation of church and state. Western discussion can speak of\u00a0 common will,” but gets nervous with the thought that this phrase only acquires meaning in spiritual terms. As we have seen, however, western political thinking itself is grounded in theological concepts of “Christian nationalism.” The notion of “absolute, unlimited power held permanently in a single person or source, inalienable, indivisible, and original” is a definition of the Judeo- Christian-Islamic God. This “God died around the time of Machiavelli…. Sovereignty was … His earthly replacement.” (Walker, R. B. J. and Mendlovitz, Saul H. “Interrogating State Sovereignty.”<\/span><\/p>\n How can a \u2018sovereign state\u2019 be said to \u2018produce things\u2019 when a \u2018sovereign state\u2019 is not even a real entity?\u00a0 If Ralph has enough military might, he can create the sovereign state called \u2018the Kingdom of Ralph\u2019 and, using physical force, \u2018make believers\u2019 out of those who would not respect Ralph and his followers\u2019 \u2018declaration of independence\u2019.\u00a0 The creatures of the forests and oceans, the winds, the waters, the thermal flows etc. … all those dynamics that are of Nature, … will never pay heed to such declarations of local existence and of locally originating behaviour,… declarations which constitute \u2018monotheism\u2019, and which, taken together, afford us a \u2018monotheist view of reality\u2019 in terms of local objects, notionally with \u2018their own local agency\u2019 that interact in a notional absolute reference-framing space.<\/p>\n It gets curiouser and curiouser when people take this monotheist personification even further and formulate propositions like; \u2018our country has been insulted\u2019 and we must avenge this insult, .. or, … our \u2018country ranks higher than any other in the production of goods and services\u2019, or \u2018our country is the most powerful country in the world\u2019.<\/p>\n Such statements which rest dependently on the notions of \u2018local existence\u2019 and \u2018local agency\u2019 are \u2018IDEALISATIONS\u2019 that CANNOT, WITHOUT CREATING INCOHERENCE AND DYSFUNCTION, be confused for \u2018REALITY\u2019.<\/p>\n So, after reflecting on what it felt like sitting there in the middle of the Driftwood, with my placards and my pamphlets, it felt like I was being given \u2018religious tolerance\u2019; e.g. \u2018Ted seems like not a bad chap, but he has such strange beliefs\u2019,… the same sort of treatment that I would give to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses coming to my door with \u2018Awake\u2019 or \u2018Watchtower\u2019 magazines; i.e. I receive them politely and I am interested more in \u2018them\u2019 and \u2018how they come by their views and how they support them\u2019 than I am \u2018touched\u2019 by their views themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 I am also happy that their behaviours are currently \u2018harmony cultivating\u2019 but I am also \u2018tuned\u2019 to the fact that their morals and ethics derive from \u2018belief in God\u2019 (monotheism) and thus on interpretations of \u2018what God intends us to do\u2019 which in some monotheist belief systems (such as the belief in sovereignty), frequently leads to war that is based on \u2018morals and ethics and justice\u2019 that derive strictly from the \u2018common beliefs\u2019 of a local crony collective.<\/p>\n My own \u2018understanding\u2019 is that nature is always tending to moderation, the crest of waves seek to infill the valleys, and the valleys open up to make space to receive the crests, and regions of space rich in thermal energy strive to distribute their riches to those regions of space that are thermal energy impoverished.\u00a0 All humans seem equipped with this same \u2018ethic\u2019 of cultivating balance, though Western humans have been particularly \u2018bitten\u2019 by this notion of Darwinism, wherein we impute to \u2018nature\u2019 the notion of \u2018competition\u2019 and \u2018survival of the fittest\u2019; i.e. we impute this NOT REALLY TO NATURE, but to the dynamic figures that we have imputed to have \u2018local existence\u2019 and \u2018local agency\u2019, an \u2018idealisation\u2019 which equates directly to \u2018monotheism\u2019; i.e. the imputing of an absolute local source of creative power to the imputedly \u2018locally existing\u2019 object\/organism\/state etc.<\/p>\n This \u2018belief\u2019 in the \u2018local agency\u2019 of dynamic figures gives rise to what Hunter S. Thompson calls \u2018a nation of celebrity-worshipping, flag-suckers\u2019, and I know what he means, and when I use this phrase with friends, they too believe it captures something that has gone awry in our society.\u00a0 In terms of the definitions above, it is this embedded \u2018monotheism\u2019 that has us \u2018confusing idealisation for reality\u2019, as when we impute \u2018local agency\u2019 to dynamic figures rather than acknowledge that the dynamic ground is the source of the agency of the dynamic figures and the source of the dynamic figures themselves.<\/p>\n So, my \u2018pamphleteering\u2019 experience (though only one day old so far) is underscoring for me, the \u2018religious dimensions\u2019 of what is going on here.<\/p>\n In my view;<\/p>\n Why do we always impute \u2018CAUSE\u2019 to the \u2018local agency\u2019 of \u2018local objects\u2019?<\/p>\n This belief that local agents are the \u2018cause\u2019 of \u2018results\u2019 equates to \u2018monotheism\u2019.\u00a0 The \u2018monotheist recipe\u2019 is as follows;<\/p>\n Define and name-label a \u2018dynamic figure\u2019.\u00a0 Then, as John Stuart Mill says, \u2018Every definition implies an axiom, that in which we affirm the local existence of the object defined.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 This equates to imposing an absolute space frame over the dynamic figure so that the shape and behaviour of the dynamic figure no longer seems to depend upon the dynamic ground it is included in, but instead appears to be coming from the dynamic figure itself.\u00a0 This, as in the above discussion of \u2018sovereignty\u2019, amounts to \u2018putting a God\u2019 inside of the dynamic figure, and thus denying that the creative source lies in the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019.<\/p>\n Science is \u2018complicit\u2019 in this \u2018monotheism\u2019 since it, for ease and convenience (Poincar\u00e9), imputes \u2018local existence\u2019 and \u2018local agency\u2019 to \u2018dynamic figures\u2019.\u00a0 But this was originally done to better\u00a0 \u2018model\u2019 dynamic phenomena and \u2018models\u2019 are \u2018idealizations\u2019 that need not be \u2018confused for reality\u2019.<\/p>\n That is, \u2018monotheism\u2019 is perpetuated and supported in \u2018science\u2019 and in \u2018rational thinking\u2019.\u00a0 Nature is not \u2018rational\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether are talking about avalanches or people, what prevails is the combination of \u2018memory\u2019 and \u2018energy threshold\u2019 so that what happens in the present depends on what happened in the distant past and not just what happened in the immediate past, as is the implicit definition of \u2018rational\u2019 thinking.\u00a0 Behaviour in the present derives in large part from the remote past.\u00a0 The woman that shoots her husband for his infidelity forgave him three times or more in the past but finally reached her limit the fourth time around.\u00a0 Nature is generally like this, energy builds up in space and then some small effect triggers its release.\u00a0 This is general; i.e. the dynamic figure is the result of turbulence in the dynamic ground rather than the cause of it.<\/p>\n Western man NEVER LIKE THIS UNCERTAINTY.\u00a0 When he walked through the avalanche zones where massive piles of boulders signalled to the traveller that he had better keep moving and limit his time there; i.e. that there was no way of predicting where, when and how big the releases of energy would unfold, … he felt the fear of mysterious and unknown that he was included in.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Bible re-renders this sourcing of dynamics, from \u2018tensions in space\u2019 (energy-of-place) to a \u2018notional local source\u2019, just as science did (for ease and convenience), although science, with relativity and quantum theory, put the source back into the spring-loaded energy of space as agrees with our experience; i.e. the \u2018quaking of the earth\u2019 is the \u2018result\u2019 of unrest in the earth (the building of tensions) rather than the \u2018source\u2019, intrinsically blurring the \u2018location\u2019 of the source.\u00a0 The Bible says;<\/p>\n \u201cYea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This idealisation of \u2018someone kind, a \u2018local individual\u2019, being in control\u2019 removes the blur of where these dynamics coming out of the woodwork (out of the interdependent cosmic \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 continuum), originate.\u00a0 The impression in the Bible phrase is that of shepherding where the sheep are tended to by the shepherd so that no harm befalls them.\u00a0\u00a0 This selects out the masculine notion of energy (kinetic energy) and attributes all dynamic results to this masculine source.<\/p>\n In the pagan belief, there is both masculine energy (God) and feminine energy (Goddess), and in physics, one can relate this directly to \u2018energy\u2019 as well; i.e.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo expressions for energy occur in the mathematical description, each of which changes, although the sum does not vary. It is thus possible to introduce mathematically and rigorously the concepts of potential energy, depending on position, and kinetic energy, depending on velocity. The introduction of the two names is, of course, arbitrary and justified only by convenience. The sum of the two quantities remains unchanged, and is called a constant of motion. The total energy, kinetic plus potential, is like a substance.\u201d\u00a0\u2014 Einstein, Infeld, \u2018The Evolution of Physics\u2019;<\/span><\/p>\n So, for example, when I watch, as I did the other night, Peter Mansbridge interview Bill Gates, … I was amazed at the way Mansbridge fawned over Gates and seemed generally \u2018under the spell\u2019 of Gates, using such phrases such as \u2018You have clearly changed the world\u2019, seemingly putting himself (Mansbridge, the journalist) into the camp of the \u2018celebrity-worshipping flag-suckers\u2019).<\/p>\n Gates did not CAUSE the change in the world, the change in the world cause him (he was the result of a changing world, not the cause of it.<\/p>\n In nonlinear economic theory there is the concept of \u2018lock-in\u2019 (Brian Arthur, Santa Fe Institute); e.g;<\/p>\n While the tensions come first, where people would like to get from A to B in some sense or other, someone is going to be \u2018the chosen one\u2019 (the chosen solution source).\u00a0\u00a0 The tensions in Germany and Europe \u2018came first\u2019 and the German people wanted to get from A to B and Hitler became the \u2018lock-in\u2019 solution \u2018source\u2019.\u00a0 Hitler was the result of unrest (tensions) in the dynamic ground rather than the cause of them.\u00a0 The same is true for Bill Gates.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the \u2018monotheist\u2019 way of thinking that MENTALLY STEALS the sourcing from the tensions in the dynamic ground and attributes the sourcing to the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019.\u00a0 In the fluid-dynamic view of modern physics, the dynamic figures are included in the dynamic ground (there is just one dynamic with two aspects, the two aspects are imputed by the observer, they do not come from the dynamic itself).\u00a0 Thus the world dynamic includes the arsonist and the forest.\u00a0\u00a0 The arsonist is impotent until the forest become tinder dry (until there are tensions in the energy-of-place so that a small trigger can lead to a huge and violent release of the energy in the tensioned situation).<\/p>\n Instead of giving credit to the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 for the huge transformation that results, the \u2018monotheist\u2019 mode of understanding MIS-attributes the power to the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019 and that is how we become \u2018celebrity-worshipping, flag-suckers\u2019.\u00a0 That is, the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019 is included in the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 in the manner that a hurricane (dynamic figure) is included in the flow of the atmosphere (dynamic ground).\u00a0 To split the dynamic figure out of the dynamic ground, as is a \u2018simplification\u2019 of \u2018convenience\u2019 and to animate it as if it were a \u2018local object\/organism\/state\/system with its own local agency, where we really do confuse this idealisation for reality, is equivalent to \u2018monotheist belief\u2019.<\/p>\n So, insofar as people no longer remark on such things, and accept the proposition that \u2018Bill Gates is a powerful person who has transformed the world\u2019, … which to me is a nonsense proposition, because I know lots of poor but muscular folks who could easily \u2018over-power\u2019 Bill Gates, unless he brought an army along with him to make believers out of us, in the manner that sovereigntist colonizers do.\u00a0 That is, we are not talking about any \u2018personal power\u2019 of Bill Gates the local individual.\u00a0 We are talking about the power of money.\u00a0 If Bill Gates propositioned 1000 young married couples, offering ten million dollars to those couples that would agree to Bill\u2019s sleeping with the pretty young wife, how many would agree?\u00a0 Or better, how many would not agree, since that number (in our modern, sex is not a big deal\u00a0 society) would likely be a lot smaller.<\/p>\n And what if Bill orchestrated this in a massive hall in Nuremberg, Germany where huge banner-pictures of \u2018Chairman Gates\u2019 were hanging and the drama was intense, with intense music and drums and all of the power of Microsoft \u2018strutting its stuff\u2019, and where Bill would give a speech and announce all of the \u2018prizes\u2019 that would come to those who went along with him, and where those in the audience (primed by actors and actresses pretending to be average couples so as to \u2018give permission\u2019 to the rest) would signal their willingness by the wives climbing onto the stage and stripping naked, while Bill continued to play on the crowds emotions to encourage the rest as the digital metre rose through 50% on its way towards the 100% target.<\/p>\n This \u2018power to change the world\u2019 derives from the tensions in the dynamic ground (the desire to get from A to B; e.g. to get transportation from the state of \u2018having-not\u2019 to the state of \u2018having-plenty\u2019.).\u00a0 If there is no tension in the dynamic ground, the \u2018proposition\u2019 will fall flat.\u00a0 If the forest is wet, the arsonist\u2019s tossing of the cigarette will fall flat, if there is no tension in the audience to trigger the quick release of, the comedian\u2019s joke will fall flat.<\/p>\n \u2018Monotheist thinking\u2019 STEALS the sourcing of dynamics from the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 and attributes the source to the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019.<\/p>\n Now, it may be comforting to think of God as the Shepherd who is caring for us as we walk through the avalanche zone, but it might be wise to pass through zone quickly since our experience informs us that the tensions in the dynamic ground are invisible and the timing, location and magnitude cannot be predicted, but the longer we are in the danger zone, the more likely we are to being carried away in an avalanche.<\/p>\n If we linger and still make it through safely, is it because God was looking out for us?<\/p>\n All I am trying to do, with this question, is to bring out how it is possible, psychologically, to shift the sourcing of dynamics from tensions in the flow of the dynamic ground, to a notional \u2018masculine\u2019 dynamic figure source, as in the monotheist view that permeates western science and the western world view.<\/p>\n If we assume that God is looking out for us, but we do get carried away by the avalanche, then we can say that \u2018God works in mysterious ways\u2019, and that while He may take us unexpectedly, He works in mysterious ways, and there is an answer to why this happened, an answer which is not presently available to us mere mortals.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the belief that God is looking out for us can give enormous \u2018power\u2019.\u00a0 How this comes about is illustrated in the following story of St. Francis who wanted to \u2018go on crusade\u2019 to end the crusader wars and bring about peace ;<\/p>\n \u201cDuring this time, Francis stayed with the Christian army, and then crossed over to the Moslem lines. Once outside the Christian lines, he was seized by Moslem soldiers. Francis told the soldiers that he wanted to preach Christ to the Sultan, who allowed him into the camp.<\/span><\/p>\n When brought to the Sultan, Francis said, \u201cI am sent by the Most High God, to show you and your people the way of salvation by announcing to you the truths of the Gospel.\u201d And when Saint Francis preached, the Sultan felt himself very much drawn to Francis and to the power of his words. So much so, that he invited Francis to stay with him.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWillingly,\u201d Francis replied, \u201cif you and your people will be converted to Christ.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Francis then proposed his famous challenge. He said:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf you yet waver between Christ and Mohammed, order a fire kindled and I will go into it with your priests that you may see which is the true Faith\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Sultan was not willing to permit this trial by fire, so Francis requested permission to leave. And the Sultan gave orders that Francis be conducted back to his camp with courtesy. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n No doubt, Francis had such faith in God and many religious men and women have gone bravely to their death as a result of having such faith.<\/p>\n Aboriginals and pagans can stand tall and erect, act morally and ethically, feeling that they are \u2018one-with-all\u2019 and that God is Nature, Nature, God.<\/p>\n Monotheists can stand tall and erect, act morally and ethically, feeing that God is their Shepherd.<\/p>\n The difference makes itself known, as a prime example, in the monotheist notion of the \u2018sovereign state\u2019 where the \u2018shepherding\u2019 must derive from the interior of the \u2018sovereign state\u2019 since it has been declared to be an \u2018independent state\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 People are asked to bear arms and give their lives as necessary, to sustain belief in the existence of the sovereign state, since \u2018belief\u2019 is the only basis for the notional \u2018local existence\u2019 of the sovereign state.\u00a0\u00a0 Nature certainly does not respect its imaginary line boundaries that are essential to the notion of a \u2018sovereign state\u2019.\u00a0 The following are, again, the views of law historians;<\/p>\n \u201cState sovereignty “is a ‘religion’ and a faith.” (Lombardi, Mark Owen. “Third-World Problem- Solving and the ‘Religion’ of Sovereignty: Trends and Prospects.” Mark E. Denham and Mark Owen Lombardi, ed’s. Perspectives on Third-World Sovereignty<\/em>. Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1996). The skillfully drawn borders that cartographers have provided for us are … spiritual and philosophical abstractions representative of a form of quasibelief. They are … not detached maps of reality as proponents would have us believe. These geographies reflect an ardent desire to make (or impose) sovereignty a physical reality as natural as the mountains, rivers and lakes…. \u2018[Id<\/em>.]<\/span><\/p>\n If one believes in the sovereign state as if this were a \u2018greater reality\u2019 than one\u2019s belief in Nature, then one will \u2018do or die\u2019 for the state; i.e. one will regard the state as the guiding shepherd whose rod and staff gives comfort.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This common belief is a powerful thing, which brings armies together and gives them unusual courage, to give their lives bravely to sustain a belief in the state (the perpetuating of common belief in the ‘abstraction’ that is known as ‘the sovereign state’ is the grounding on which it stands or falls).<\/p>\n The unqualified belief in \u2018sovereignty\u2019, otherwise known as \u2018nationalism\u2019 is \u2018monotheist\u2019 in its essence\u2019, and it thus steals the sourcing of dynamics from the common ground of nature that recognizes none of these \u2018imaginary boundary lines\u2019 of the 195 \u2018local\u2019 and \u2018independent\u2019 sovereign states, and re-renders it as the \u2018causal agency\u2019 that resides in the interior of the \u2018sovereign state\u2019.\u00a0 This is pure illusion, if the people of the world would tomorrow were to decide to abandon all of these imaginary line boundaries, the people of the world would not disappear nor would the world dynamic need to \u2018skip a beat\u2019 (though it would surely begin to transform); i.e. the notions of the local existence and local agency of the individual sovereign states could disappear overnight (if that was the will of the people around the globe) and we could then acknowledge that we are all included in a common dynamic ground and that that dynamic ground takes natural precedence over the dynamic figures that gather with in the common dynamic ground (such as sovereign states), dynamic figures that are the result of the global dynamic rather than the cause of it.<\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s a long ramble that comes from my attempt to flesh out my feelings on \u2018pamphleteering\u2019; i.e. by the word definitions I am using as specified above, we all have the makings of \u2018pagans\u2019 and \u2018monotheists\u2019 in us.\u00a0 Monotheism is essentially the same as \u2018nationalism\u2019 or \u2018flag-worship\u2019 while \u2018paganism\u2019 is essentially the belief that the sourcing of the world dynamic derives from the \u2018occult\u2019, the invisible tensions in the common dynamic ground we all share inclusion in.<\/p>\n For \u2018pagans\u2019, strength derives from the acknowledging that \u2018all is one\u2019, that we are all brothers who are included in a common unfolding continuum.\u00a0 When one believes that one is included in the \u2018all-one\u2019, there is no absolute split between \u2018self\u2019 and \u2018other\u2019 (storm-cells are united by their inclusion in a common dynamic ground [flow]) and therefore it makes no sense to think of the common \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 that one shares inclusion in, in terms of a fearful voyage through \u2018the valley of the shadow of death\u2019.<\/p>\n Lao Tsu put this \u2018pagan valley\u2019 into a very different perspective;<\/p>\n \u201cThe spirit of the valley never dies.<\/span><\/p>\n This is called the mysterious woman.<\/span><\/p>\n The gateway of the mysterious woman<\/span><\/p>\n Is called the root of heaven and earth<\/span><\/p>\n Dimly visible, it seems as it if were there,<\/span><\/p>\n Yet use will never drain it. (VI)<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Know the male<\/span><\/p>\n But keep the role of the female<\/span><\/p>\n And be ravine to the Empire<\/span><\/p>\n Then the constant virtue will not desert you<\/span><\/p>\n And you will again return to being a babe.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching\u00a0 XXVIII)<\/span><\/p>\n On the other hand, the psychological strength of the \u2018monotheist\u2019 derives from acknowledging that the power of the sovereign state is \u2018shepherding\u2019 us, guiding us so that whether we are at home or abroad, the central authority of the sovereign state (and its embassies abroad), give us the sense of belonging and the sense that someone is looking out for us.\u00a0 The perpetuating of the common belief based sovereign state is something, as has been only too often demonstrated, that people are willing to give their lives for.\u00a0 \u201cYea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.<\/em><\/strong>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs we have seen, however, western political thinking itself is grounded in theological concepts of “Christian nationalism.” The notion of “absolute, unlimited power held permanently in a single person or source, inalienable, indivisible, and original” is a definition of the Judeo- Christian-Islamic God. This “God died <\/em><\/strong>around the time of Machiavelli…. Sovereignty was … His earthly replacement<\/em><\/strong>.” (Walker, R. B. J. and Mendlovitz, Saul H. “Interrogating State Sovereignty.”<\/span><\/p>\n Over the span of my lifetime, nationalism has been on the rise in Canada.\u00a0 The quest for a \u2018local identity\u2019 that shifts people away from the notion of being \u2018one with all\u2019 (without identity in the monotheist sense)\u00a0 by strengthening belief in the local independent existence of the \u2018sovereign state\u2019 of Canada\u00a0 (unlike the US, Canada never fought an \u2018identity\u2019-infusing revolutionary war, and it has been an amalgam of indigenous people and immigrants whose primary interest was making a new life for themselves and their families in these rich natural dynamic ground of northern North America).\u00a0 ‘Playing hockey and drinking beer’ are two of the common characteristics of Canadians that are being seized on to help promote the building of a ‘separate and distinct identity’, and ‘identity’ that runs from coast to coast to coast and starts curiously enough, from the imaginary-bounding line between the Canadian and US sovereign states.\u00a0 As many people have noticed, however, a common situating in dynamic ground (a common geographical setting may be a more real identifier based on the relationship of people with one another and the habitat.\u00a0 It has thus been suggested that the nation of Cascadia should be formed on that basis, uniting the people from northern California and up through and including Oregon, Washington, British Columbia (see http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29<\/a> )<\/p>\n Monotheism, which has been identified as the belief system that gives grounding to the notional\u00a0 \u2018sovereign state\u2019 and which interposes itself in precedence over sense of inclusion in the \u2018all-one\u2019 of nature in the ‘pagan’ belief, is the prevailing religion that ‘comes bundled in with ‘sovereigntism’. \u00a0\u00a0It is a religion that understands \u2018dynamics\u2019 in terms that imputes\u00a0 \u2018local causal agency\u2019 to \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 and give a \u2018back seat role\u2019 to \u2018dynamic ground\u2019, while \u2018paganism\u2019 does the inverse, and the inverse is in agreement with \u2018modern physics\u2019, which has ‘restored’ the energy-loaded dynamic ground of space into a natural primacy over \u2018dynamic figures\u2019.<\/p>\n The \u2018global warming debate\u2019 is bringing these unspoken religious preferences in our society ‘to the fore’,\u00a0 since the notion of greenhouse gases driving global warming is underlain by this inverted view which steals the sourcing of dynamics from the common dynamic ground of space and imputes the sourcing to be coming from \u2018dynamic figures\u2019 such as \u2018the rise in greenhouse gases\u2019.<\/p>\n Rising temperature implies \u2018rising kinetic energy\u2019 (rising force of\u00a0 the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019) while \u2018melting ice\u2019 implies tensions (kinetic energy-energy-of-place) in the dynamic ground.\u00a0 That is, ‘melting ice’, rather than being the result of ‘rising temperatures’, is manifesting the release of energy-of-place that has accrued in the ‘dynamic ground’.\u00a0 The latter is the Russian view (could this be from the weakening of \u2018monotheism\u2019 in Russia?), which makes more sense to me, based on the alternative framing choices (monotheist and pagan).<\/p>\n In any case, I realise that my pamphleteering is very much tied up in religious beliefs.\u00a0 I have \u2018religious tolerance\u2019 for those who Hunter S. Thompson refers to as \u2018celebrity-worshipping flag-suckers\u2019; i.e. those whose world view is strongly shaped by \u2018monotheism\u2019, but I am definitely not, myself,\u00a0 of that \u2018belief system\u2019 which, in my view, confuses \u2018idealism\u2019 for \u2018reality\u2019. \u00a0My experience informs me that the source of dynamics derives from the common dynamic ground that we are included in. \u00a0This puts me amongst the ‘pagans’, the Buddhists, Taoists, and Aboriginal traditionalists who draw their strength from the feeling of being \u2018one with all\u2019 rather than from the \u2018staff and rod\u2019 of a guiding Shepherd (the central authority of the monotheist sovereign state).<\/p>\n And, that is why (I am just realizing) that my pamphleteering makes me feel like the representative of a non-mainstream religion; e.g. a pagan in a monotheist society, where one is given freedom to express one\u2019s views as a matter of \u2018religious tolerance\u2019 but where many people, having become sufficiently ‘comfortable’ with sovereign state shepherding, are unlikely to acknowledge, even, that their views on dynamics in general are being shaped by a religious \u2018framing\u2019 preference.<\/p>\n Global warming is a case where the populace is framing their observations of global dynamics in terms that put \u2018causal agency\u2019 first, \u2018dynamic ground second\u2019, supporting the notion that;<\/p>\n \u201cGod said to them, \u2026 Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.\u201d \u2014 Genesis 1:28<\/span><\/p>\n As far as my experience informs me, a human being, like the hurricane, is a \u2018dynamic figure\u2019 that is the result of turbulence in the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 rather than the cause of it. \u00a0To invert this and thus to consider that the \u2018dynamic figure\u2019 is the \u2018cause\u2019 that shapes the \u2018dynamic ground\u2019 is to confuse idealisation for reality.<\/p>\n Hence I cannot \u2018buy in\u2019 to \u2018greenhouse gas driven global warming\u2019, for the same reason that many Russian (and other) scientists cannot; i.e. the notion is a tail-wagging the dog\u2019 notion that rests on the assumption that the earth system is a local system with its own local agency (its dynamic is shaped by internal causal agencies).<\/p>\n This, in effect, makes me a \u2018heretic\u2019 in the original sense of the word; I am a pagan in a monotheist society.<\/p>\n Lastly, all these labels don\u2019t refer to \u2018hard-wired\u2019 categories since people have within them the capacity to invert or re-invert the priority of \u2018dynamic figure\u2019 and \u2018dynamic ground\u2019.\u00a0 The person who is asked by his \u2018sovereign authority\u2019 to join the military and walk through the valley of death, possibly giving up his life for a \u2018cause\u2019 that he doesn’t believe in, … is perfectly able to give up the benefits of the comfort of thy rod and thy staff <\/em><\/strong> <\/span>and head north (into the bush) to \u2018re-embrace the nature that bore him\u2019, common ‘dynamic ground’ that he would rather have\u00a0 \u2018animating his dynamic figure\u2019 than the central authority of the sovereign state.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ok, now I\u2019ve had \u2018some pamphleteering experience\u2019 in this small community and it this engaging (and non-engaging) did give me some \u2018new feelings\u2019 and also insights why, in spite of people railing against the dysfunction of our social \u2018system\u2019, we don\u2019t seem able to change. I set up my placards in the centre of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teds-blog","count-0","even alt","author-emile","last"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodshare.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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