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The Paradise Perspective: Commentary from a Free and Compassionate Alternate Reality Volume 1, Number 12 Opening Up to Paradise: My Journey to an Optimistic View of the Future by Glen Allport Exclusive to STR April
2, 2007 There
is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood
tomorrow. ~ Victor Hugo For
most of my life, I believed that a healthy world – a world characterized
by love and freedom, instead of by widespread emotional damage and tyranny
– was an impossibility. Even thinking about such a world, much less
longing for it, seemed a waste of time. There was nothing I wanted more,
yet I could not get past the seeming impossibility of such a world. Eventually
it occurred to me that this was not a productive approach. I began letting
myself think about the world I wanted, and forcing myself to see it as a
real possibility. I let details of this world sink into my awareness; I
thought through the implications of various aspects and approaches. I made
the conscious choice to see creating
such a world as a problem to be solved instead of as a poignant fantasy
that could never be fulfilled. I
was surprised at how difficult this mental transition was. -
- - - - One
immediate hurdle was the unspoken prohibition against even acknowledging
the desire for a world of love and freedom. I firmly believe that a world
of love and freedom is exactly what every person is born expecting and
needing, yet taking the idea seriously is suspect; it is seen as a sign one has
gone over the edge, or at least wandered too far from the beaten path. A
sane person accepts the world as it is – a vale
of tears – and does not expect this basic character to ever change.
Or so common opinion has it. That
opinion seems understandable, and I had trouble with my own newfound and
fragile optimism, which often seemed painfully unrealistic. Trying
to think realistically about the prospects for a better world, and for any
role I might be able to play in bringing such a world about, quickly
brought up doubts, objections, and fears. A few examples: Such
a change would take time; generations, most likely. That
meant I could never have what I
wanted – not now and not ever. I'd be long-dead before success was
achieved, assuming it ever was. Accepting this was difficult and took a
long time. It
seemed delusional to think success at such a thing was even possible. Many
others have tried and all have failed. I
was nobody special – not famous or rich or with fancy credentials. There
was no reason to think I could have any
effect on the world, much less the effect I was hoping for. People
would laugh at someone trying to "save the world" and it
certainly wouldn't help that I was not an impressive, famous person. Nor
was I some Gandhi-like character. I'm not even always a nice person; I am sometimes insensitive or rude or otherwise far
less than perfect. Neither saint nor superman; not famous or rich; not an
established authority or someone with any detectable talent for promotion,
I was – certainly when viewed next to such an epic task – pitifully
inadequate. Facing
all that brought up an enormous amount of feeling, including the childhood
horror of finding myself in a world where every
person seemed insane (yet where noticing
this was forbidden) and where history and contemporary news reinforced
that perception. My parents had postponed starting a family while my
father spent several years fighting the Nazis as a ski-trooper in the
Italian Alps – in a war that killed over
50 million human beings, and during which death camps were being run
by the bad guys, and in which the good
guys – us, the Allies –
incinerated entire cities full of civilians, mostly old men, women, and
children. An early and precocious reader, I knew about Dresden,
Tokyo, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki,
and other nightmares of the war. I knew about the death
camps. I knew, in short, and from an early age, that people in
Germany, Japan, and in other nations, including my own, had planned and
executed the gruesome deaths of millions, in massive firestorms, in orgies
of mass-rape and mass-murder, in gas chambers, and in a hundred other
ways. I knew that mass-murder was commonplace
in history – history being, as Voltaire put it, "a tableau of
crimes and misfortunes." Can one really know
such things and survive? Can one overhear even a whisper of such horrors
without bursting into tears or clamping down enough to bury one's humanity
beyond reach? That
was only part of what kept coming up for me. Against the vast, ancient,
and ongoing evil of this world, I felt pitifully helpless. -
- - - - Despite
all that, I decided to act as if success were possible. I had to make that
decision repeatedly because doubts resurfaced daily. "Ha! You plan to
save the world – with what?"
I have no answer other than the weak ones I give below, combined
with my belief that it makes no sense to behave as if failure is certain. -
- - - - Learn
as much by writing as by reading. ~
Lord Acton With
little else to draw upon, I focused on writing, and began a book project,
from which I quote occasionally below. This helped me work through my
feelings as well as forcing me to think and to research relevant topics. Gradually
I came to see that not only were there examples of successful wide
improvement in the world, but that a specific
tool was the catalyst for every such example. Seeing this requires a
longer focus than usual, but once seen, the power and dynamics of the tool
are undeniable. This was a galvanizing discovery, because it meant success
was a real possibility. The
task of dramatically changing the world for the better – specifically,
of replacing neurosis and tyranny with love and freedom – only seems
impossible; change happens all the time and large shifts in the character
of society have occurred repeatedly in history. Using the correct tool
makes success a reasonable possibility: "A
task this large requires appropriate tools. Because we are trying to
change the thinking and behavior of millions, we need a tool that works on
that order of magnitude. We need a tool that works across long spans of
time, because the job will not be done in a few months or years. "Such
tools are available. They are called paradigms." It
matters a great deal whether a paradigm is usefully accurate or not. As
with any powerful tool, paradigms can be dangerous, and the results of
badly (or purposefully) inaccurate paradigms are often horrifying. I have
written about the need for accuracy in social-political paradigms,
especially, in a
previous column. When
selecting or designing a paradigm for a specific task, clearly
understanding the goal is important. My goal was, and is, a
healthy world – a world characterized by love and freedom. The
details of such a world do not concern me; healthy people might arrange
their world in a variety of ways. Certain broad characteristics are
essential, however. For example, early
experience has a powerful and life-long impact on adult character and
behavior, so loving and
respectful treatment of the young is critical for creating a healthy
world: "Specifically
(and to say it again, for it cannot be said too often): linking treatment of the young – of pregnant mothers, babies,
infants, and children – with the
character of the world at large in the minds of people everywhere,
will lead to positive changes in attitudes and behavior. "Over
time, those changes will improve the world. "Save
it, perhaps. Not in an afterlife, you understand: here on Earth. A world
of healthy, loving, compassionate human beings would be nothing less than
the -
- - - - An
invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
~
Victor Hugo What
else might be important to create and sustain such a Everything
necessary which seems "additional" to love is
implied in the nature of love itself: freedom, respect for the rights
of others (including of children), compassion for those who suffer, and
more. Love is an incredibly dense and complex idea, implying much that
can, and much more that cannot be,
well-described in abstract language. Despite the accuracy, suitability,
and completeness of the term, "love" is open to wide and
often-bizarre misinterpretation*
because love is in short supply, and is thus often poorly understood. Expanding
the definition to "love and freedom" clears things up
dramatically; in particular, it suggests that imposing
"compassion" by the coercion and violence of the State might not
be optimal – more than "suggests" so, in fact, but
"freedom" is so often misunderstood that what is heard
by many is the merest whisper of the idea. Freedom, like love itself, is
in short supply, and is relentlessly mis-defined
by the media, by governments, and by other "authorities" of
every type. Adding
detail in hopes of communicating more clearly, while still trying for
compactness, I came up with a list of seven points:
-
- - - - Note: * An especially horrible and dramatic example of the misunderstanding (and/or misuse) of the concept of love was the Spanish Inquisition's torture of "heretics" and the burning of them at the stake, which were justified by "love" in this fashion: the heretics were not only headed for an eternity of torture in hell already but were leading others astray, endangering the immortal souls of neighbors and friends. Driving the demons out of the heretic by torture (and obtaining a confession in the process) and then burning the heretic alive in public not only might cause repentance in the heretic (which could keep him or her out of hell) but saved possible future victims from being led astray by the heretic. It also drove home to everyone the dire consequences of straying from Church dogma, again potentially saving souls. Thus, torture and gruesome murder by fire were justified as being in the service of "love and compassion." More earthly and less pious reasons for torturing people, burning them alive, and (not incidentally) confiscating their property, were at work as well. Glen Allport is the author of The Paradise Paradigm: On Creating A World of Compassion, Freedom, and Prosperity and maintains paradise-paradigm.net. This is one in a series of columns on the human condition.
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