Pieter Breughel the Elder : The Triumph of Death
A Crisis of Mindset
Renewal - Or the Abyss ?
The Fullness of Life
As humans on earth, we can know with certainty that we'll encounter illness, death and evil (in simplest terms, our persistent tendency to make mistakes, and cause each other harm). There's no real end to these encroachments - they come, seemingly, when and where they will. The strength and vitality of our body to face these things peaks at a certain point and recedes - at best by kind increments, but not always. Such are the facts and risks, the genuine drama of our life on earth ; and we must respond.
To meet these challenges, we have available our human capacities to think, feel and take action ; to reflect on our experiences of life, and choose how we respond. We learn these skills from others in childhood, as best possible, and add to them in the course of life. At best, we deal with the challenges of illness, death and evil well ; and as a result of these encounters
- In our outer and external life, develop competence
- In our life with others, become truly social
- In what we learn from our experiences, become truly wise
These are of course no guarantees - we can lose our way even tragically. Yet our competence, social and personal wisdom can also continue to increase - even to the end of life, with no fixed upper limits.
Human social life is similar, on a spectrum of harmony, abundance and abject misery and brutality. And whether we realize it or not, the direction of this larger, shared and common life is in our hands too.
The Threefold Social Order
In this series so far, we've looked at a new understanding of society, based in observations of social phenomena, both current and historical. In this perspective
The essential unit of spiritual cultural life is the individual human being ; and the essential need of this individual is freedom : freedom to cultivate his or her own insights, gifts and and abilities, and to express or share these with others. Hindrance or restriction of these freedoms, whether by government, economic interests or hostile faction within spiritual cultural work, harm this crucial realm of life. The one limit to freedom is of course that it not cause harm to others.
This said, conflict need not be avoided in this realm of life - rather, here conflict should take it's healthiest and most robust form ; namely
- The competition of ideas for the sake of excellence ; and for their appropriateness and applicability to real world circumstances.
- Debate of the merits, benefits or dangers of products, practices and policies - proposed or already in use ; or of the appropriateness of a given person for a position of skill/leadership/responsibility.
- Challenge to the accuracy or completeness of observations, conclusions or thought processes in any field of work.
Our skill at outer, physical warfare has reached the point where the harm it wreaks outweighs almost any benefits it might bring. We destroy whole infrastructures - and devastate human and social ones - in a matter of days, even hours ; and even "victors" discover they've been wounded too, economically, emotionally, morally. Spiritual warfare, on the other hand - the war of ideas described - need have no loser in this sense ; the winner is humanity itself. This is the appropriate warfare of our times - and an actual source of hope.
The goals of economic life are often seen as profits, wealth, or simply to "make a living", with competition as a driving or motivating force. Seen through a threefold lens, however, the goal of this realm of life is simpler : exactly as noted, to meet our physical needs of life. Given that every human being has these needs, competition can be seen as less motive and driver, as an easily made error, error, and temptation of thinking. The core needs of economic life, per Rudolf Steiner's observation, are in reality cooperation, collaboration and communication, in a spirit of brother and sisterhood. Seen this way, it's actually not competition that makes economic life healthy, but attention and service to the needs of others.
The tools of modern economic life include skilled use of capital, land and natural resources, placed in the most competent available hands ; specialization ; and division of labor. This is a contrast to earlier times, when personal craftmanship and relationships gave work its meaning and purpose. Yet these new methods are marvels of efficiency, yielding maximum results and returns at a minimum of cost and time.
In systems bound tightly to profits and competition, however, this truly benefits only the few ; while giving rise in the many to feelings of drudgery, entrapment and alienation. Unchecked, they make commodities even of human labor - of human beings themselves - and harm the natural environment upon which all depends, even without noticing.
Human skill and ingenuity, careful considered, are not products or commodities ; nor are land or natural resources. They are needs, required ingredients of all economic life, and require different consideration. As resources, they need certain protections, against damage, waste or exploitation.
In this way, economic life stands in need, on the one hand of spiritual cultural life for insights - for better and safer methods, and ways to give work more genuine meaning ; and on the other to rights life for limits and boundaries. A revised view of economic life not as competition, or simply profit opportunity but as cooperation for mutual/universal benefit, opens doors to both new forms, and more hopeful morale and attitudes. Buyers clubs and co-ops, employee owned businesses, profit sharing, community supported agriculture, increased employee input in planning and decision making, are all signs of this ; and of the promise of this new mindset.
The essential need of rights life is equality : namely that all citizens have a voice in rules and laws that concern them ; and equal protection under rules/laws established. Rights life, in a threefold understanding, assumes people know themselves well enough to know when they are truly threatened, or have been harmed ; and enough empathy to recognize when these things happen to others.
Wisdom, morality and other good qualities in people, as noted, emerge through contributions from spiritual cultural life, on the basis of insight. But they also emerge slowly. Rights life provides needed protections to safety, dignity and freedoms "in the meantime".
We've looked now at factors contributing to health in society - and also to counterforces that challenge and/or undermine it, including
These factors affect not just the functioning of society, but our relationships with each other, and even our attitudes toward ourselves. They give rise to what Rudolf Steiner named as the great obstacles and miseries of social life today : namely narrow mindedness - the inability to look beyond our own rigid viewpoint ; philistinism - an outlook of greed and thoughtless, aggressive self interest ; and incompetence, in matters both of thinking and practical life. This article will look at three mindsets prevalent in modern life, as they undermine rights life ; and their potential direly serious consequences.
Mindset of SELF INTEREST
A first serious danger to rights life is an outlook that idealizes and/or demands rights and freedoms, but sees these things primarily in terms of personal benefit. This is a one-sided tendency in all human beings, that manifests across the political spectrum, differing only in choice of issues. Emphasis is on my (or our) rights/freedoms, my or our bodies, our right to run our business as we please, the possibilities these open to us, and our loss if they're restricted. Not addressed in this dynamic are effects and consequences on others, which may be ignored, denied and/or rejected as their responsibility.
Whether on left or right, this mindset may revere founders and documents, but not grasp the deeper principles, the ongoing work and process they entail. It does not take up the full tools available, or use them in the ways needed. Other essential rights, freedoms and people affected may be ignored, or left to the mercies of special or predatory interests. The failures of this mindset are ones of empathy (beyond my/our own needs and interests) ; and of participation.
This worldview may extend hallowed rights and freedoms not just to individual persons, but to economic entities - but overlook real harm they may cause. The greater resources such entities can bring to bear in a conflict with an individual - or even almost any group - can make relief or redress of harm almost impossible ; and render injustices virtually permanent.
Mindset of AUTHORITARIANISM
A second dangerous mindset arises from distortions of concepts and practices of leadership in rights life.
All three spheres of social life need leadership in order to be healthy. There are certain constants, common factors in effective leadership : current and exceptional competence in the particular sphere of work ; personal integrity ; and the acknowledgement and consent of those to be led. But leadership in each sphere also has its own needs and nuance - namely :
Leadership on the basis of these factors, both common and field-specific, has great potential for effectiveness. The counterforces named - boundary trespasses, political parties, materialism - however, can also distort leadership seriously. Societies caught in these entanglements have virtually no way to extract themselves - or even quite know what ails them. Flying both blind and at great speed, they flounder in chaos, and seeming endless chains of disruptions.
Authoritarianism is one way we're prone to react to stress and conflict, as human beings - a drive to enforce, require or double down on favored, familiar beliefs or behaviors, and suppress or forbid others. Authoritarian, heirarchical and power based thinking and practices vie with more cooperative and collaborative ones in all three spheres of life today : on both left and right politically, in economic relationships, in religious and spiritual life, and sadly, even, in scientific camps and factions.
Authoritarianism drives rights life in directions antithetical to rights life - namely the bending or subduing of the will of one group or person to the will of another. How does this turnaround happen ?
Authoritarianism enters rights life from two sides - one from the side of emotions and psychology, the other from the side of values. It appeals to our wish for clarity, simplicity, safety, stability ; for persons anxious or traumatized, to a wish for safety in a seemingly dangerous world - to hopes someone can be trusted, and will take charge. From the side of values, materialism also plays a part in ways subtle in concept, but forceful in actual practice.
Governments with this mindset may endorse rights and freedoms passionately, but in fact aim beyond these things ; past containment and redress of actual harm or injury, to guarantee the wellbeing of citizens ; construing "rights" subtly less in terms of the safety and autonomy of citizens, than in physical and material ones. They value health, wealth, comfort and convenience, and may treat as problems - even evils - any perceived threat to these. To the extent citizens themselves hold these values, they tend to favor - or at least accept - governments that promise them.
Governments with these values may wrongly take responsibility for citizens' physical needs of life ; but
rightly see economic life as the means to meet them. They partner willingly with corporate entities to reach their ends - and for skilled work they can't do themselves. Understanding their role to be to support economic life generally, they're readily disposed to support the interests of these partners and helpers. Dependent on them for expertise, they see little conflict in their formulating - even writing - government policies ; and are in an awkward position if ever called to confront them for wrongdoing. Governments in this position may have no eyes or ears to perceive even the largest problems, or impartial experts to advise them on them. Problems and practices they should rightly curtail may by now simply have moved inside government.
Governments of this kind tend inevitably to grow ; and with size to need ways to manage systems with ever more moving parts. With corporate partners so close at hand, corporate means and measures become temptingly attractive. Governments can have these tools readily from private contractors today - they need only name a purpose, a "need" they wish to fill.
Perhaps not noticed, however, is the difficulty to adequately supervise these entities ; to assure privacy and safety to citizens whose "data" these systems have access to ; or to hold in check the ambitions of contractors themselves - for instance, for larger markets or profits. If anything at all is true of our world today, it's that the roles, goals and practices of government and corporation have become ever more enmeshed.
A case in point was the the health scare of 2020-2021, and the policies it gave rise to.
Governments and their corporate partners worked together closely during this time ; but for governments, the rights component in the matter was at first problematical. They lacked the legal authority to fully enact the restrictions and mandates they had in mind ; but found a workaround in directives to businesses, which, although still not backed by law, accomplished the very same things. The business, for their part, offered little resistance, enforcing restrictions/mandates on their customers and employees almost universally. Citizens - in massive numbers worldwide - thus lost rights to move or travel freely, assemble or earn a living ; and were eventually forced to take unwanted medical treatments, not because government required it, but because a businesses or employer required it.
Government-corporate relationships grew yet closer when protest arose against these measures. Hesitant to
directly and overtly suspend rights, governments again turned to businesses, chiefly technocratic ones : particularly internet marketing and search search engine platforms, public and social media outlets. Dissent by those badly affected by the policies mentioned - and by doctors and scientists alarmed by them - were on the one hand systematically dismissed and ridiculed on these media ; and on the other surveilled, blocked and/or removed.
From "Emergency Measures" to Permanent Structures
The growth of controlling, more or less mechanized systems for "the greater good" of society have unfortunately meant loss of rights and autonomy for the human individual human. This has come so slowly enough in recent centuries, that we by now take it almost completely for granted.
As noted previously, this is especially advanced in the realm of work and profession ; extending into all aspects of licensing, practice, even professional education, in virtually every branch of professional life. While such measures might seem to protect against human error, they also quietly set limits to human expression and initiative ; and eventually, even to human knowledge - to what is "approved" or acceptable to think.
But who approves - who's in charge of this controlling, comprehensive system ?
Rights life, as by now often noted, requires equality among citizens, to work and be healthy. Governments of this kind, however, depend on systems of control and heirarchy, and on gatekeepers - persons invested with authority, and a more or less permanent option to use it. Unnoticed, persons with a mindset for authority find homes in such systems, and become near impossible to challenge - let alone dislodge or evict. Odds of success for someone in conflict with such a system become near impossibly small !
Mindset of HATRED (Anti-Human Mindset)
A third damaging mindset in our times can only be described as a certain aggressive hostility and hatred towards the human being.
A Crisis of Mindset
Renewal - Or the Abyss ?
The Fullness of Life
As humans on earth, we can know with certainty that we'll encounter illness, death and evil (in simplest terms, our persistent tendency to make mistakes, and cause each other harm). There's no real end to these encroachments - they come, seemingly, when and where they will. The strength and vitality of our body to face these things peaks at a certain point and recedes - at best by kind increments, but not always. Such are the facts and risks, the genuine drama of our life on earth ; and we must respond.
To meet these challenges, we have available our human capacities to think, feel and take action ; to reflect on our experiences of life, and choose how we respond. We learn these skills from others in childhood, as best possible, and add to them in the course of life. At best, we deal with the challenges of illness, death and evil well ; and as a result of these encounters
- In our outer and external life, develop competence
- In our life with others, become truly social
- In what we learn from our experiences, become truly wise
These are of course no guarantees - we can lose our way even tragically. Yet our competence, social and personal wisdom can also continue to increase - even to the end of life, with no fixed upper limits.
Human social life is similar, on a spectrum of harmony, abundance and abject misery and brutality. And whether we realize it or not, the direction of this larger, shared and common life is in our hands too.
The Threefold Social Order
In this series so far, we've looked at a new understanding of society, based in observations of social phenomena, both current and historical. In this perspective
- Spiritual and cultural ("spiritual cultural") life encompasses the gifts, talents and abilities of human beings, and their nurture and expression in society. Fields of work these include are education, science, medicine, religious and spiritual life - but they in fact extend to all gifts and abilities people bring to life, and that contribute to its betterment. Through this sphere of life comes all innovation, invention, creative, moral and ethical progress that make human life possible, improve it and permit it to thrive. Whatever failings humanity may have, and even serious errors it makes, it's here also they can be corrected and redeemed.
The essential unit of spiritual cultural life is the individual human being ; and the essential need of this individual is freedom : freedom to cultivate his or her own insights, gifts and and abilities, and to express or share these with others. Hindrance or restriction of these freedoms, whether by government, economic interests or hostile faction within spiritual cultural work, harm this crucial realm of life. The one limit to freedom is of course that it not cause harm to others.
This said, conflict need not be avoided in this realm of life - rather, here conflict should take it's healthiest and most robust form ; namely
- The competition of ideas for the sake of excellence ; and for their appropriateness and applicability to real world circumstances.
- Debate of the merits, benefits or dangers of products, practices and policies - proposed or already in use ; or of the appropriateness of a given person for a position of skill/leadership/responsibility.
- Challenge to the accuracy or completeness of observations, conclusions or thought processes in any field of work.
Our skill at outer, physical warfare has reached the point where the harm it wreaks outweighs almost any benefits it might bring. We destroy whole infrastructures - and devastate human and social ones - in a matter of days, even hours ; and even "victors" discover they've been wounded too, economically, emotionally, morally. Spiritual warfare, on the other hand - the war of ideas described - need have no loser in this sense ; the winner is humanity itself. This is the appropriate warfare of our times - and an actual source of hope.
- Economic life encompasses all activities needed to meet our physical needs of life. To these belong our needs for food, shelter and clothing ; for clean water and sanitation ; for transportation and related infrastructure ; for energy, manufacturing and communication technologies, and infrastructure that makes these possible. All human beings have these needs in common. To meet these needs, economic life applies creative human effort to the substances of the earth to create needed products ; and further intelligent work and communication to distribute them where needed, and provide other needed and related services.
The goals of economic life are often seen as profits, wealth, or simply to "make a living", with competition as a driving or motivating force. Seen through a threefold lens, however, the goal of this realm of life is simpler : exactly as noted, to meet our physical needs of life. Given that every human being has these needs, competition can be seen as less motive and driver, as an easily made error, error, and temptation of thinking. The core needs of economic life, per Rudolf Steiner's observation, are in reality cooperation, collaboration and communication, in a spirit of brother and sisterhood. Seen this way, it's actually not competition that makes economic life healthy, but attention and service to the needs of others.
The tools of modern economic life include skilled use of capital, land and natural resources, placed in the most competent available hands ; specialization ; and division of labor. This is a contrast to earlier times, when personal craftmanship and relationships gave work its meaning and purpose. Yet these new methods are marvels of efficiency, yielding maximum results and returns at a minimum of cost and time.
In systems bound tightly to profits and competition, however, this truly benefits only the few ; while giving rise in the many to feelings of drudgery, entrapment and alienation. Unchecked, they make commodities even of human labor - of human beings themselves - and harm the natural environment upon which all depends, even without noticing.
Human skill and ingenuity, careful considered, are not products or commodities ; nor are land or natural resources. They are needs, required ingredients of all economic life, and require different consideration. As resources, they need certain protections, against damage, waste or exploitation.
In this way, economic life stands in need, on the one hand of spiritual cultural life for insights - for better and safer methods, and ways to give work more genuine meaning ; and on the other to rights life for limits and boundaries. A revised view of economic life not as competition, or simply profit opportunity but as cooperation for mutual/universal benefit, opens doors to both new forms, and more hopeful morale and attitudes. Buyers clubs and co-ops, employee owned businesses, profit sharing, community supported agriculture, increased employee input in planning and decision making, are all signs of this ; and of the promise of this new mindset.
- Rights life addresses the persistent capacity in human beings not just for creativity and insight, but to make mistakes and cause harm. Reasons for this may be ones of attention or understanding (a lack of these), a variety of emotions and degrees of intention from the most accidental to the most purposeful and malicious. The common factor in all, however, is that action or neglect causes injury, harm or loss to others, or to the environment (natural, economic etc) on which all depend ; and that relief (abatement, protection, restitution) is needed from the harm. Rights life serves to protect the safety and dignity of citizens in society, and the freedoms they need to live the lives they choose. As in economic life, the limit of choice and freedom is that they do not cause harm.
Rights life encompasses the processes by which people discuss concerns and grievances of these kinds, reach agreement on what things are problems, and on solutions to relieve them. Rights questions may of course be worked out privately among people, but even at local levels, may need more formal treatment. Tools for this work include discussion and forums, referendums, legislation, courts, civil and criminal justice systems ; and where needed, protection by military force.
The essential need of rights life is equality : namely that all citizens have a voice in rules and laws that concern them ; and equal protection under rules/laws established. Rights life, in a threefold understanding, assumes people know themselves well enough to know when they are truly threatened, or have been harmed ; and enough empathy to recognize when these things happen to others.
Wisdom, morality and other good qualities in people, as noted, emerge through contributions from spiritual cultural life, on the basis of insight. But they also emerge slowly. Rights life provides needed protections to safety, dignity and freedoms "in the meantime".
We've looked now at factors contributing to health in society - and also to counterforces that challenge and/or undermine it, including
- Incursions and boundary trespasses among the three core spheres of life - economic, legal-political and cultural - detrimental to their individual needs and functioning, and to the wellbeing of the whole.
- The serious yet unnoticed destabilizing effects of political parties, exacerbating conflicts and tensions in society, and undermining, rather than healing the sphere of rights life.
- The overshoot of natural science, also unnoticed, into materialism (bottom of page), both philosophical and in all fields of practical life.
These factors affect not just the functioning of society, but our relationships with each other, and even our attitudes toward ourselves. They give rise to what Rudolf Steiner named as the great obstacles and miseries of social life today : namely narrow mindedness - the inability to look beyond our own rigid viewpoint ; philistinism - an outlook of greed and thoughtless, aggressive self interest ; and incompetence, in matters both of thinking and practical life. This article will look at three mindsets prevalent in modern life, as they undermine rights life ; and their potential direly serious consequences.
Mindset of SELF INTEREST
A first serious danger to rights life is an outlook that idealizes and/or demands rights and freedoms, but sees these things primarily in terms of personal benefit. This is a one-sided tendency in all human beings, that manifests across the political spectrum, differing only in choice of issues. Emphasis is on my (or our) rights/freedoms, my or our bodies, our right to run our business as we please, the possibilities these open to us, and our loss if they're restricted. Not addressed in this dynamic are effects and consequences on others, which may be ignored, denied and/or rejected as their responsibility.
Whether on left or right, this mindset may revere founders and documents, but not grasp the deeper principles, the ongoing work and process they entail. It does not take up the full tools available, or use them in the ways needed. Other essential rights, freedoms and people affected may be ignored, or left to the mercies of special or predatory interests. The failures of this mindset are ones of empathy (beyond my/our own needs and interests) ; and of participation.
This worldview may extend hallowed rights and freedoms not just to individual persons, but to economic entities - but overlook real harm they may cause. The greater resources such entities can bring to bear in a conflict with an individual - or even almost any group - can make relief or redress of harm almost impossible ; and render injustices virtually permanent.
Mindset of AUTHORITARIANISM
A second dangerous mindset arises from distortions of concepts and practices of leadership in rights life.
All three spheres of social life need leadership in order to be healthy. There are certain constants, common factors in effective leadership : current and exceptional competence in the particular sphere of work ; personal integrity ; and the acknowledgement and consent of those to be led. But leadership in each sphere also has its own needs and nuance - namely :
- In spiritual cultural life, leadership on the basis of best current competence.
- In economic life, leadership on the basis of comprehensive and current experience.
- In rights life, leadership on the basis of capacities for empathy, communication and negotiation.
Leadership on the basis of these factors, both common and field-specific, has great potential for effectiveness. The counterforces named - boundary trespasses, political parties, materialism - however, can also distort leadership seriously. Societies caught in these entanglements have virtually no way to extract themselves - or even quite know what ails them. Flying both blind and at great speed, they flounder in chaos, and seeming endless chains of disruptions.
Authoritarianism is one way we're prone to react to stress and conflict, as human beings - a drive to enforce, require or double down on favored, familiar beliefs or behaviors, and suppress or forbid others. Authoritarian, heirarchical and power based thinking and practices vie with more cooperative and collaborative ones in all three spheres of life today : on both left and right politically, in economic relationships, in religious and spiritual life, and sadly, even, in scientific camps and factions.
Authoritarianism drives rights life in directions antithetical to rights life - namely the bending or subduing of the will of one group or person to the will of another. How does this turnaround happen ?
Authoritarianism enters rights life from two sides - one from the side of emotions and psychology, the other from the side of values. It appeals to our wish for clarity, simplicity, safety, stability ; for persons anxious or traumatized, to a wish for safety in a seemingly dangerous world - to hopes someone can be trusted, and will take charge. From the side of values, materialism also plays a part in ways subtle in concept, but forceful in actual practice.
Governments with this mindset may endorse rights and freedoms passionately, but in fact aim beyond these things ; past containment and redress of actual harm or injury, to guarantee the wellbeing of citizens ; construing "rights" subtly less in terms of the safety and autonomy of citizens, than in physical and material ones. They value health, wealth, comfort and convenience, and may treat as problems - even evils - any perceived threat to these. To the extent citizens themselves hold these values, they tend to favor - or at least accept - governments that promise them.
Governments with these values may wrongly take responsibility for citizens' physical needs of life ; but
rightly see economic life as the means to meet them. They partner willingly with corporate entities to reach their ends - and for skilled work they can't do themselves. Understanding their role to be to support economic life generally, they're readily disposed to support the interests of these partners and helpers. Dependent on them for expertise, they see little conflict in their formulating - even writing - government policies ; and are in an awkward position if ever called to confront them for wrongdoing. Governments in this position may have no eyes or ears to perceive even the largest problems, or impartial experts to advise them on them. Problems and practices they should rightly curtail may by now simply have moved inside government.
Governments of this kind tend inevitably to grow ; and with size to need ways to manage systems with ever more moving parts. With corporate partners so close at hand, corporate means and measures become temptingly attractive. Governments can have these tools readily from private contractors today - they need only name a purpose, a "need" they wish to fill.
Perhaps not noticed, however, is the difficulty to adequately supervise these entities ; to assure privacy and safety to citizens whose "data" these systems have access to ; or to hold in check the ambitions of contractors themselves - for instance, for larger markets or profits. If anything at all is true of our world today, it's that the roles, goals and practices of government and corporation have become ever more enmeshed.
A case in point was the the health scare of 2020-2021, and the policies it gave rise to.
Governments and their corporate partners worked together closely during this time ; but for governments, the rights component in the matter was at first problematical. They lacked the legal authority to fully enact the restrictions and mandates they had in mind ; but found a workaround in directives to businesses, which, although still not backed by law, accomplished the very same things. The business, for their part, offered little resistance, enforcing restrictions/mandates on their customers and employees almost universally. Citizens - in massive numbers worldwide - thus lost rights to move or travel freely, assemble or earn a living ; and were eventually forced to take unwanted medical treatments, not because government required it, but because a businesses or employer required it.
Government-corporate relationships grew yet closer when protest arose against these measures. Hesitant to
directly and overtly suspend rights, governments again turned to businesses, chiefly technocratic ones : particularly internet marketing and search search engine platforms, public and social media outlets. Dissent by those badly affected by the policies mentioned - and by doctors and scientists alarmed by them - were on the one hand systematically dismissed and ridiculed on these media ; and on the other surveilled, blocked and/or removed.
From "Emergency Measures" to Permanent Structures
The growth of controlling, more or less mechanized systems for "the greater good" of society have unfortunately meant loss of rights and autonomy for the human individual human. This has come so slowly enough in recent centuries, that we by now take it almost completely for granted.
As noted previously, this is especially advanced in the realm of work and profession ; extending into all aspects of licensing, practice, even professional education, in virtually every branch of professional life. While such measures might seem to protect against human error, they also quietly set limits to human expression and initiative ; and eventually, even to human knowledge - to what is "approved" or acceptable to think.
But who approves - who's in charge of this controlling, comprehensive system ?
Rights life, as by now often noted, requires equality among citizens, to work and be healthy. Governments of this kind, however, depend on systems of control and heirarchy, and on gatekeepers - persons invested with authority, and a more or less permanent option to use it. Unnoticed, persons with a mindset for authority find homes in such systems, and become near impossible to challenge - let alone dislodge or evict. Odds of success for someone in conflict with such a system become near impossibly small !
Mindset of HATRED (Anti-Human Mindset)
A third damaging mindset in our times can only be described as a certain aggressive hostility and hatred towards the human being.
Please Pardon Our CONSTRUCTION SITE !
We're in the homestretch of this "The Fullness of Human Life" article series, with just one section each of the last two articles remaining to complete. Please hold your thoughts on this one (or share them with me in the form below), and know that it won't be long now.
In the meantime, please continue to "Planting the Seeds of Threefolding : A Threefolder's Almanack" !
Thanks,
Jeff Smith RN
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