Two weeks ago, I wrote Beware the Ides of March. In that blog I point out that by mid-March (the Ides) we may be at a pivotal point, where we find out if we can rise to the challenge of a global crisis or we fail because we cannot believe and accept that continued growth and prosperity could be vulnerable. So far as this time approaches, I’m very encouraged, not so much by our Federal leadership, but by the actions of State and Local governments, the sports and entertainment industry, the education, religious and healthcare institutions. So many making smart decisions about reducing large crowds, encouraging safety, and preparing for a surge of patients that will challenge our healthcare systems. The social distancing and containment actions of society will help flatten the curve of patients needing critical care, thus avoiding overwhelming our healthcare capacity. It is remarkable that this understanding, and these actions are happening as rapidly as they are prior to emergency declaration, and while it will do great good. The Federal government is almost being dragged along in this crisis instead of leading it. We are a society that still believes and operates with democratic principles of it is We The People that will govern, and ensure our elected leaders come into alignment. The release of emergency funding, and the actions to soften the financial blow to millions that will be out of work, as well as millions that have no healthcare insurance, are in all our best interest and We The People understand. Sure, many will complain about overreaction, about March Madness being cancelled and a host of other inconveniences, but I see our society showing that it can pivot rapidly to meet a global, crises. And yes, there will be some that hoard what others need, but when the time comes I think most of them will share what they have. I believe in the collective good and wisdom of people, and we will learn from this as we have with every global challenge, that We The People are resilient!
Category Archives: Blog
Beware the Ides of March…
I woke this morning, thinking. Thinking about the threat of this virus, and the stock market’s reaction. I wonder if there is something to the stock market drop that goes beyond the herd mentality of predictive growth slowing. Maybe it smart money betting that something is changing. We have become so accustomed, since the end of WW2, to expect continued growth and improvement in the quality of life, and life expectancy, that maybe it is difficult to imagine and to remember that continued improvements are not guaranteed. The world has suffered greatly in many parts over the recent decades driven largely by war or local weather phenomena, such as the fires in Australia a couple of months ago, the war in Syria and other places. But we have not seen a world-wide crisis since the end of the second world war. We have enjoyed 75 years of relative continued improvements in prosperity, reduction in poverty, and advancements in science, art, and human understanding. Sure, there are plenty that resist change, resist the opening of thought, of understanding, and even the globalization of commerce and advancement, but they have never really won the day. Optimism, philanthropy, science, and human spirit for growth have been the winners, and have shaped our recent history. However, progress and growth are not guaranteed. A crisis, be it a pandemic, or climate change, and the simultaneous loss of faith in human ingenuity and values could tip the cart over and our future could be one of decline and dismay. If we allow it, or we deny and resist reality. And if we give into global challenges with a loss of spirit, with a loss of fire, intellect and desire to make the future better for our children, and grandchildren.
I don’t know why, but I feel we are at an historically pivotal moment that could be a major world-wide crisis, or more hopefully a wakeup call that reminds us that we are, and remain vulnerable to the randomness of nature and our response to it determines our futures. Beware the ides of March.
Announcing Book 2…
Wealth of Religious Organizations
From Wikipedia:
Religious organization’s wealth
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
$67.0 B (alleged to be as much as 100.0 billion) - Catholic Church Germany $25.0B
- Catholic Church Australia $30B
- Church of England $7.8B
- Opus Dei (part of the Catholic Church) $2.8B Italy
- Church of Scientology $2.0B
- Catholic Church Vatican – Unknown – Vatican City (some estimates are about $15B in investment holdings)
How does poverty persist
In a world where religious leaders advocate charity
And religious institutions hold billions in wealth
How is the glory of God to be served?
Lifting the unfortunate with opportunity and investment,
Bringing clean water to every soul,
Eradicating disease like malaria and AIDS,
Establishing stable energy for those that would welcome the light,
Or maybe they should just continue to build ever greater monuments of wealth?
And the collection of donations, tithes and zakat (Islamic version of tithe) continue and the wealth builds tax free.
What do they spend on charity services? What do they define as charity services? There is no way of knowing, but the wealth accumulation relative to the problems of the world certainly suggests that religious institutions are better at building wealth than helping the poor and less fortunate. Transparency of non-religious charities are such that they are rated for how much of donations find their way to the targeted needy. However, church institutions seem dramatically less transparent. But opulence seems to be a common feature at the top of the institutional pyramid.
A thought today…
Vision of a destination is the mother of a journey … and curiosity the father of innovation!
Thomas Mann… on democracy
A work called “The Coming Victory for Democracy” by Thomas Mann was written in 1938. I’ve found it fascinating. Some excerpts that seemed very applicable to our times and our challenges are captured here. Mann’s premise at the time was that for democracy to win over the coming conflict with fascism, it would require democratic peoples to understand, know and properly reflect on the higher values of democratic principles. I believe we need to re-examine our commitment to democracy and remember always that its future survival is not guaranteed.
Thomas Mann… (parenthetical material is my editorial comment)
Democracy is friendly to intellectual thought, to arts, to literature (and free press). Distinguishing itself from dictatorship, which because of its belief in force is thereby obliged to be remote, foreign, and hostile to intellectual pursuits. But this assertion only acquires real value as a definition of democracy if the concept of intellectual life is not understood as one-sided, isolated, abstract, superior to life and remote from it, but is characterized as closely related to life, as directed toward life and action — for only that and specifically that is the democratic spirit. That is the spirit of democracy. “Democracy is not intellectual in an old and outworn sense. Democracy is thought; but it is thought related to life and action.
… In a democracy which does not respect the intellectual life and is not guided by it, demagogy has free play, and the level of national life is depressed to that of the ignorant and uncultivated. But this cannot happen if the principle of education is allowed to dominate and the tendencies prevail to raise the lower classes (here, in our times we’d refer to the social-economic challenged) to an appreciation of culture and to accept the leadership of the better elements.
… They consider fascism a protective bulwark which will save them from the real, the Russian, proletarian bolshevism and from socialism in general (today, we need to avoid thinking of authoritarianism as a false choice against progressive policies)
… Now, as life is constituted, truth depends to some extent on the man who speaks it. From certain sources even the truth becomes a lie. There is no doubt, among the variations and the emotionally intelligible modifications of the idea — truth, freedom, justice– it is what we call justice that is closest to the conscience and the heart of humanity today.
https://ia601601.us.archive.org/4/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.221831/2015.221831.The-Coming.pdf
Embrace Gray
I’ve been thinking about the complexity of the world, about business issues I’ve been involved in, about relationships, and about how we experience all of it. Increasingly this is good, that is bad, or more imminently it seems, it is THEY are good and THEY are bad. In business I see decisions being made based on limited analysis. In politics I see decisions made based on abstract ideas with no grounding in life’s realities. Thomas Mann in his encouragement to the defense of democracy, warned against “pure abstraction”, and “the complete isolation of the mind from life itself” … because it allows us to see the world as black and white, right and wrong, and ignore the complexity of life. He also worried about our susceptibility to “the charm of novelty” … Grabbing on to the latest new idea without understanding the implications, and most importantly the unintended consequences. New is not bad, nor is it good, new is just new, something to be understood, and folded into the complexity of the real world.
Some are even proud of seeing the world in stark terms; black/white, good/bad, with-me/ against-me. As if ignoring the complexities of business, politics, of life is something meritorious. I believe that exploring complexity allows us to see in those gray areas as opportunity. Goodness hiding in the margin of sunrise, and sunset, when the colors shine, it is not day or night, it’s that gray-time in between. We are not wholly good or bad, but we are all gray. Business or politics is not win or lose, its compromise for a purpose. Computers can see through the RGB model 256 shades of gray… why can’t we see some ourselves? Complexity exists, and must be seen and embraced in order to be mastered. Education, and principled hope leads to wisdom and understanding, and advancement.
I think mothers know this better than fathers. They know that nurturing is always a case of operating in the gray zone. Finding the potential in a malcontent, in someone that is resisting learning, resisting change, when they are changing the most. Those that claim the high ground of right and wrong and black and white, are only doing so to bludgeon to death the gray and its inherent beauty in their own lives. Embrace complexity, embrace conflicting information, evaluate and then decide and promote, and grow, and learn even more. Then when you understand, it is possible to communicate a position clearly.
The Thomas Mann quotes were from an article by Nadia Schadlow in the WSJ, titled Thomas Mann’s Message for America in the Digital Age.
Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.
A quote attributed to him: War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Happy New Year!
Wisdom is seeing the world as it really is, while promoting the great potential within each and every one of its inhabitants!
A Network Of Thought
At the risk of too many ideas all in one place…
To become as one with others, gives our ‘I’ an ‘us”, and lives of many to augment the one we were born into, to expand knowledge, thought and the human experience. This thought was part of a question about language.
Specifically, does language spur thought, or is language an outcome of thought? Can you think without putting words to the thought? Possible, if we keep it simple. You can feel things like hunger, as a child does and express it without words. I think you can even reason in a temporary way, but that doesn’t really build memories, because you need words to replay memories, otherwise it is like muscle memory, something that is repeated but not consciously applied. Your mind can recognize patterns, but how do you communicate such memory, how do you share with others?
I think that language acts as an accelerator. With language we become something more than just an I, something more than the imperative of bodily needs and feelings. We have the ability to express and more importantly to learn in the abstract. Meaning we don’t need to experience it to find a way to communicate and internalize knowledge. Written language and oral histories in poetry, song, and art capture ideas, events, and make them part of a collective, tribal, clan, nation, and humankind experience.
Art is a form of language. A picture is worth ten thousand words. We even equate art with the words it would require to communicate it, as if there is an equation of sorts that could be discovered. Math is another means to communicate, and create a memory of something learned, but to apply it properly, we need words.
We experience a vast network made possible because of language. Something that is universally human. In every corner of the world humans developed language. An evolutionary means of survival for sure, but also a means of social expansion. Knowledge, learning, wisdom ensures not just the survival of our species but the advancement to something greater as a whole.
As a contrast to our admiration of rugged individualism, I contend that our social connection to the human network through language, empathy, curiosity and search for knowledge is and should be our priority. Our network of language allows our individual intellect to become part of a community that takes us beyond ourselves. It makes us part of a social and intellectual community with a legacy. Vibrations in this network, some louder, some higher pitched, connecting with thought, and sharing, adding meaning, emphasis, amplification or dampening.
I believe there is possible an even higher-level of connection, we still give words to it, but a telepathic experience will be something of humankind’s future, born out of something even deeper in our souls, deeper in understanding and empathy. Thoughts, feeling, that transcends words that we can hear or see. Something to look forward to the evolution of the network of us. In the present, we will relish the simple joys of a conversation over dinner, or a coffee, as well as the beauty of song and poetry, and stories and writings that moves us.
Funny Thought…
“It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads.”