A Roadmap for Politics in the 21st Century (Part 2 of 2)

Solidarity and Democracy

The second half of the 20th century was defined, most and foremost, by a long cold war between the world’s two remaining superpowers, the capitalist and democratic United States and the communist and autocratic Soviet Union. The duel was solved in favor of the United States in the last decade of the century, almost suddenly, in the space of two or three years. The contest was not decided on the battlefield, however. In the proxy wars of the cold war era there was often no clear winner, even though one can make the argument that the communist victory in Vietnam put the soviets in the lead as far as military conflicts were concerned. Then again, the Soviet calamitous defeat in Afghanistan a decade or so later arguably hurt the Soviets more than the Vietnam debacle hurt the United States. In any case, in the end it wasn’t a military victory that settled the dispute but rather the social and economic implosion of the Soviet Union driven by its economic shortcomings and its social and independentist tensions. When all was said and done, the American political and economic model worked quite well, whereas in the Soviet Union economic collapse quickly led to the disintegration of the union of Soviet republics created some seven decades earlier. Capitalism triumphed over communism. Democracy triumphed over autocracy and the American model seemed, at least for a short while, the only model. And yet two decades into the 21st century, the right vs left debate seems livelier than ever, and is prevalent in the political battlefields of Europe, the United States and Latin America.

The fight between right and left continues, even if it has changed remarkably. Capitalism won the battle against communism decisively, we should make no mistake about that. With the exception of some of communism’s last bastions, such as Cuba and North Korea, all of the truly important communist countries have either completely abandoned communism or, like Chin, have come up with its own version of a market-driven, semi-communist modern economy. The communism of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, however, is long dead and buried.

And yet the struggle between right and left remains. The matter is that the right and the left have essentially changed. The right today represents a market economy that knows few boundaries. It promotes the rights of corporations, individualism over collectivism and it places a great emphasis on the needs of the economy, often even bove the needs of society at large and certainly above the needs of the environment and the animal kingdom.

The truly relevant left today has parted from its communist roots and settled on the ideal of social democracy. It doesn’t go as far as wanting to abolish private property like the communists of old, yet it does propose an economic system that favors individual needs above the needs of the big corporations. Political leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the United States or Lula da Silva and Dilma Roussef in Brazil have made a name for themselves defending the needs of the poor and the middle-class over the prerogatives of big corporations and the rich. The left today seeks to add a social and collective component to the freedom of the markets and enact laws and promote initiatives that limit the power of corporations.

Meanwhile in Europe, many of the goals of the left in the United States have already been made into a reality, such as universal healthcare and higher education. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden or Switzerland have developed very robust social welfare systems, which coexist with competitive, highly developed market economies.

It is uncertain which side will ultimately win the battle, but right and left are likely to remain at each other’s throats for decades to come. My intention here is certainly not to make an exhaustive argument for either side, yet I would like to make some remarks on the issue of democracy, the economy, and collective solidarity as a guiding principle for modern society.

It makes perhaps the most sense to start with the issue of democracy, since in almost every Western country at least, there is agreement between left and right that democracy is a better system than autocracy. As I pointed out in the last section, even though democracy is not without its flaws, it is better than the alternatives. I also pointed out that even though democracy seems secure today, we should not take it for granted since both in Ancient Rome and Greece and in the early 20th century we saw the fall of proud democracies, often at the hands of powerful demagogues. It is because of this that democratic institutions must always remain strong, and populist leaders with too much power and autocratic tendencies must be vigorously opposed.

It is also very possible that a free-market economy is a necessary condition for a democracy, even though it is obviously not a sufficient condition. As such, if for no other reason, both the modern right and the modern left should be in agreement that the free market is necessary for freedom as well as prosperity to be had, even if the freedom of the market does not need to be, and perhaps should not be, absolute.

The question then is really how much freedom we should actually give the market, and conversely how much should governments intervene in the economy. The right argues that the government should intervene very little and that the market should be given almost absolute freedom. The left argues in favor of more government intervention in order to correct the negative effects produced by a free market economy. Which one is right?

It is beyond the scope of this essay and the capacity of this writer to provide an absolute answer to such a question, yet I will attempt to shine a little bit of light on the issue by making two or three considerations on the subject. The first and most important consideration is that individuals are not islands, everyone is connected to everyone both socially and economically. Hence the libertarian notions of independent economic agents have little to do with how society actually works. As such, the housewife who takes care of her two children receives no pay in dollars or pounds, even though her contribution to society in the form of rearing two of its youngest members is considerable. This example should shine some light on the fact that value to society and economic remuneration are not always, perhaps not even often, aligned. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the successful day-trader who makes thousands of dollars in a given month or week adds no value whatsoever to society, simply profiting from the fluctuations of the stock-market. Effort and contribution are not always repaid proportionally according to the lows of the free market.

In order to function well, a society must prepare its members to perform necessary tasks and should then compensate them in an appropriate manner. In order for this to happen, not everything can be left in the market’s hands. It is the government, not the free market, that must pay the school teacher, the policeman, the mailman, the firmean, the soldier and the magistrate.

It should then be clear at this point that in many ways the market alone is not sufficient as the sole architect of the economy of a country. Any society will need the government to be a participant of the economy, alongside individuals and organizations.

From the moment we admit the vital role of the government in any economy, as we just have, it is silly to suppose that the free-market alone can guide the economy of any society. A healthy and free economy is not a libertarian paradise of unrestricted economic freedom, but a balanced compromise between the several components that make up any society, such as a central government, for-profit enterprises, non-profit associations, private individuals and their families.

It is similarly misguided to suppose that the only two alternatives for any economic system are either pure socialism or unrefrained free-market capitalism. Such a line of thinking is perhaps a legacy of the cold war era and the economic dogmas it produced, yet it has no place in the reality of the third decade of the 21st century and beyond.

In fact, looking at virtually every country in the northern portion of the European continent, and even to the rest of the continent to some extent, we are encouraged to think that a middle way, or as it has also been called “a third way”, is not only possible but highly desirable. A quick glance at Canada, Australia or New Zealand would produce the same result. These nations have added, quite successfully, a social dimension to their competitive free-market economies, expanding the role of the government in areas such as education, healthcare and childcare and also developing a robust network of welfare and social programs. Not only has this proven sustainable, it has also led to societies that can boast of having the highest quality of life indexes in the world.

Economics is a highly complicated and uncertain science so in no way I intend to decipher its mysteries here, lacking both the time and the capacity to do so. Yet, it is not complicated to look at real-world cases and to make sincere assessments on what works and does not work for regular citizens in present day nation-states. As I just mentioned, a sincere assessment of the economies of Northern Europe will lead to the conclusion that a market-driven economy can successfully add and sustain social components without becoming unsuccessful. As such, we should naturally regard it as a possibility to have a thriving market economy on one hand, and having social programs such as public healthcare, wellfare, childcare and higher education on the other. Such an arrangement is currently working in countries all over the world such as Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Germany  and many others.

Having established, with the help of irrefutable real-world evidence, that free-market economies can remain competitive whilst incorporating elements of social good such as wide access to healthcare and education, I would like to make my second assertion, which is that “third way” or “middle way”economies work better for the general population than “pure” capitalist or socialist economies.

This second assertion is perhaps not as self-evident as the first and yet a brief comparison between “middle way” or “third way” countries and either pure socialist or capitalist countries gives a definite edge to the more balanced economies. To reach such a conclusion one does not have to resort to overly complex economic, philosophical or political theories of any kind. It suffices to ask ourselves in which country we would prefer to live given the choice or, even better, under which system we would like to live under if we could choose any of the three options for our own country?

Pure socialist or communist countries do not fare well if we apply this rule. It is not a coincidence that most communist countries were either dissolved or changed their economic systems over the course of a century of communism. The most influential of communist countries, the Soviet Union, ended up imploding economically, socially and politically, and was disintegrated into 15 separate republics, all of which dropped communism in its pure form. The second biggest communist power, China, has reinvented itself as its own blend of authoritarianism and  aggressive capitalist tendencies with just a hint of its former socialism. One of the newest members of the communist family, Venezuela, quickly fell into a well of despair filled with economic collapse, social unrest and violent politics bordering on a civil war. The most faithful of communist regimes that remain, Cuba and North Korea, have grown accustomed to varying degrees of poverty, international ostracism, underdevelopment and totalitarianism. It is no surprise that as a result of this the communist doctrine has been largely delegitimized, at least in its “purer” version.

Perhaps a more relevant debate today concerns the comparison between “purer” forms of capitalism such as the American system and more hybrid models like the ones adopted by northern European democracies, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. This debate has largely dominated American politics for the better part of this century and especially in recent years, but it is also prevalent in European and Latin American politics. The right vs left divide is as pronounced now as it ever was. We should then ask ourselves if given the chance we would either 1) prefer to live under under a purer capitalist model with the State providing few social services, with high economic inequality and with corporations yielding immense economic and political power or; 2) we would rather live under a northern European styled model, with an extensive web of social services, low income inequality and a society where corporations have much less economic and political power. 

Both camps have vocal partidaries and ultimately, in spite of the great success achieved in the political, social and economic realm by “third way” economies, one could hardly designate an aggressively capitalist economy such as the United States as a failure. Ultimately, one has to decide between paying fewer taxes or living in a country that provides ample healthcare, childcare, education and other important social services to all its citizens, regardless of economic status. It will also depend on one’s views on income inequality and the growing power of corporations. I feel that I’m unable to deliver any definitive arguments in favor of either option, even though I cannot help but think that balanced economic systems tend to offer the best of both worlds (social justice and economic prosperity), whereas an unrestrained free-market economy delivers a great deal of social injustice along with economic gains which overall seems like the worse deal of the two.

Most importantly, however, at least in my opinion, is the notion of solidarity as a political, social and economic guide for the future of humankind. We’ve spent a great deal not only of the past decade or century but of our all history competing with each other, taking from each other, competing for resources. Most of human history has been marked by the subjugation of one set of people in favor of a different set of people. This is particularly evident in younger societies such as those in the western hemisphere, and yet it is a commonality of the entire human species. For the first time in the history of our species we have the chance of changing that dynamic. Under the auspice of liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, human rights and international cooperation we can start building a world where every single man, woman and child can live with dignity and without fear of starvation, misery and constant violence. This is not yet the world we live in, but we have the chance of building that world. One of the keys to do so is starting to emphasize our commonalities more than our differences, and being more solidary and less selfish.

That applies not only to the world at large, but also for each individual society. In my opinion we already have too much economic disparity between the rich and the poor, we don’t need the gap to grow wider and the middle class to continue to shrink. Modern prosperous economies like the United States owe much of their strength to  thriving middle class, with great political as well as economic power. If the middle class loses its economic and political power in favour of the 1 percent and the big corporations, not only will the economy weaken, democracy will also become more fragile. The notion of democracy, the rule by the people, rests on the idea of a powerful populus, capable of asserting its dominance over the aristocracy or the oligarchy. If the people become powerless, democracy will become nothing but an illusion.

In many developed countries in the world today, things like universal healthcare and childcare, free or affordable higher education, or a strong welfare system are seen as rights conferred to citizens and permanent residents of those countries. In other countries, like the United States, not only do those benefits prove elusive for most of the population, many people argue that they are not rights and should not be a responsibility of the state at all. The result is that many people cannot afford to obtain university degrees, access affordable childcare or even go to the hospital and obtain treatment when sick.

If we abide by the principle of solidarity, we should recognize that a fair community should provide treatment for the sick even if they are poor. In a society that strives for fairness and equality, even the poor should be given the chance to better themselves through education. In a society moved by solidarity, we should recognize that childcare is a social responsibility and that if a person loses his or her job, he or she should not lose the ability to go to a hospital when sick or lose his or her home because he or she cannot make the rent or the mortgage payment that month. Ultimately, we should all have the right and the responsibility to help and be helped, since we are all part of the same community.

The Way Ahead

The Coronavirus pandemic has forced most of us to retreat to our homes and spend a lot of time in isolation along with our families and the other people we share our homes with. Many of us, myself included, will take this time to reflect on what kind of world we would like to return to and this is really what this essay is all about.

For tens of thousands of years humans have played the game of politics by yielding a sword, pointing a spear or aiming a gun at their fellow humans. In the 20th century we added tanks, planes and, perhaps most significantly, atomic bombs to that equation. However, the sheer destructive capacity of modern warfare technology, demonstrated emphatically in two world wars, has forced us to reconsider politics in general and international relations in particular. It is very well possible that, recalling the words of Mao Zedong, political power still grows out of the barrel of a gun, evn in our days. However, it is also true that events like the two world wars, the holocaust, and the invention, use and proliferation of atomic bombs have forced us to reconsider things. We have established mechanisms of international cooperation such as the United Nations and the European Union because we know that war is now too costly, and that we have much more to gain from international collaboration than from a new world war. We must not forget the lessons we learned in the past century, and how much they cost us, or else we may be fated to repeat the same mistakes. Populism and nationalism have made a resurgence in recent years in many countries, so it is particularly important now, maybe more than ever, that we remind ourselves of the dangers posed by nationalism and populism. The way forward is the way of diplomacy and cooperation between nations.

At a time of great economic disruption such as this, we should also consider the ways in which we can create a society that is more prosperous, fairer and more solidary. The right vs left debate rages on in the 21st century, now with different players. Regardless of the outcome or one’s political inclinations, this might be the ideal time to remind ourselves that we all depend on each other. We are not islands of economic activity. The unpaid housewife raising her children contributes to society as much or more than the wall street broker, regardless of salary or the zeros in their bank accounts. In a fair community we should not deny medical treatment to the poor or the unemployed, and we should not deny the poor the possibility of bettering themselves and improving the lives of their families by going to University. Even more importantly, we should not forget that we are all part of the same community and as such we should look out for each other. Public health, public education and public decency affect all, because when we live in a community, our fates are entwined.

Finally, we should look ahead with hope and confidence. More than any other time in our history we have the tools to build a world that is fair, safe and prosperous for all men, women and children, not just one tribe, or one nation, or one ethnicity or one social class. Yet we must not disregard the challenges ahead, some dramatic and global in nature. We cannot keep destroying our own planet with impunity. We must create an economy that is more sustainable and fairer. We cannot give in to fear of the other once more. We cannot give in to the temptation of isolationism or seek quick comfort in nationalism. The world is now global, our challenges are global in nature and we must band together to face them. It is time for more understanding and stricter cooperation between peoples. This should be the age of internationalism and human rights. This should be the time when we finally make politics more human and decide to share all the world has to offer us, if we let it. 

A Roadmap for Politics in the 21st Century (Part 1 of 2)

Politics is an ever changing game. Politics today, as we enter the third decade of the third millennium, is very different from what it looked like 100, 50, 20 or even just 10 years ago. Things change at neck breaking speed and political science and political theory must adapt to those changes.

My intention here is not to provide comprehensive or in-depth analysis. Such undertakings are better dealt with in the realm of academia by political science and political philosophy professors. I am but an observer who wishes to record some of his observations in an informal way. Hopefully these observations might prove interesting to other interested observers of world events and politics, but even if that is not the case, writing down one’s thoughts has the minimum value of helping to solidify and crystallize one’s ideas.  

I’ve always been intrigued by the nation of creating a roadmap for the future. The great visions and ideals have always appealed to me a great deal more than the finepoints and the minutia of details. As such, in line with the personal tendency of the writer, this simple essay deals with general points rather than specifics. The general idea here is to provide an approximation of a roadmap for politics in the times to come.

I’m also not particularly interested in the political struggles and bickerings of a specific nation, but of the whole world. As I see myself as a citizen of the world, I cannot help but regard politics as being a global affair, concerning all the men, women and children of the world, not just those of a particular nation. In fact, out of all my notions, none is more prevalent than this idea of politics as a global phenomenon and all the things that it entails.

The Globalization of Politics

For better or worse, the history of mankind in the past 500 years has been marked, most and foremost, by a process of globalization. After millenia of relative isolation, practically all the cultures in the world have in the past five centuries been inevitably linked to each other in one way or another, economically, culturally, technologically, militarily and politically.

Five centuries ago. Give or take, the world was divided, geographically, culturally and politically, in a number of more or less self-contained areas or civilizations. Previous to Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492, all pre-columbian American civilizations were completely separated from the rest of the world and were carving their own civilizational path that had begun over 10,000 years ago or so when the first humans crossed into the Americas for the first time from Northeast Asia. Even amongst pre-columbian American civilizations, there was a considerable degree of isolation imposed by the great distances that separate North, Central and South America. The indian tribes of North-America had little contact with the more advanced meso-american civilizations and those in turn had likely little contact and knowledge of south-American civilizations in their varying degrees of development. Even in South America, the more advanced civilizations of the west would probably have little or no contact with the predominantly hunter-gatherer tribes of the eastern part of South America such as the Tupi-Guarani in the territory of modern-day Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. Also, in the North-America that predated Columbus’ arrival, contact was either minimal or inexistent between civilizations of different territories such as the Caribbean, the Arctic or the Central Plains region.  

In the world pre-1500, relative isolation was a feature not just of the American civilizations but of most parts of the world. Before the first European traders and explorers reached the shores of India, China, Siam, Japan and Indonesia, there had been minimal contact and interaction between the civilizations of Europe and Asia. Up until then, contact between Europeans and Eastern Asians had been almost null and mediated by the Middle Eastern kingdoms and empires that stood in-between them. Sub-saharan African peoples also remained out of the grasp of Europeans up until the mid to late 15th century, when the first European explorers, mostly Portuguese and Spaniards, were able to overcome for the first time the difficulties of long-distance sea exploration and reach further and further into the southern top of Africa and beyond. Australian aborigines remained in isolation even longer, not having come in contact with European explorers and settlers until much later in history. When they did, unfortunately for them, the more advanced Europeans relegated them into a state of subservience at best and annihilation at worst, much like what had previously occurred in the Americas.

If the world before the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was marked by the development of many different and relatively isolated civilizations in Europe, the MiddleEast, America, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia, the european explorer-conquerors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would change all that. European colonies were established in North and South America, the great mesoamerican and andine civilizations of old swiftly fell to the Spanish conquistadores, and the initial Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch trade posts in sub-saharan Africa, India and East Asia eventually morphed into full-fledged European colonial empires and a global network of war, trade and cultural and technological exchange. 

Since the great period of exploration and discovery of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, two major political cataclysms have changed the nature of global politics. The first was the eclosion of political and cultural revolutions that transformed the whole world in the late eighteenth century, namely the American and French revolutions. The second, and even more significant disruption occurred in the first half of the 20th century, as two world wars and one great global economic crisis gave rise to fascism and communism and provoked the fall of the great European colonial powers that had ruled the world for five centuries. As the British, French, Dutch, Austrian and German empires collapsed, the newly formed communist union of Soviet republics and the capitalist American super-power took the mantle of world leadership in the second half of the 20th century. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the last decade of the past century, the world entered a new millenium led by a powerful United States of America and with liberal-democracy fully implemented in most of the world.The nationalist and fascist movements of the first half of the twentieth century, namely those in Germany, Italy in Japan were obliterated by means of warfare in WWII. In spite of a later resurgence of fascism in the form of military dictatorships throughout Latin America and surviving fascist regimes in southern Europe, the later half of the 20th century would be marked by the uneasy coexistence of two world views. In the West, the world became increasingly capitalist, democratic and globalized. In the East, under Soviet leadership, the world was communist and totalitarian. In any case, globalism and not nationalism won the day and shaped the fortunes of most of the world going into the twenty-first century. A global system of international trade and diplomacy emerged and globalization has advanced politically, economically, culturally and technologically.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early nineties, it seemed that liberal-democracy, globalization and capitalism would become the guiding lights of the 21st century. Francis Fukuyama famously celebrated the End of History and the struggles of the human race. 

This, of course, was not to be. The new Russia grew increasingly authoritarian and anti-Western under Putin. China, under a neo-communist totalitarian regime, became a new super-power and has emerged as a credible alternative to Western liberal-democracies. The Middle-East has become engulfed in war and religious extremism and is becoming increasingly anti-Western. Capitalism is no longer an unquestioned model, especially as a major economic crisis in 2008-10 and in current times have put the system to the test and global economic inequality has gone rampant. And, perhaps most surprisingly of all, in several European nations and in the United States the far-right has gained ground, to a great extent bolstered by increasing anti-immigration and anti-globalization feelings. Nationalism has made a comeback and new leaders of important western democracies were elected on nationalist platforms, with Donald Trump’s “America First” policy and Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit and anti European Union stance leading the way.

As I write this, in the middle of a global pandemic and during this unprecedented economic crisis, neither liberal-democracy, nor globalization nor international cooperation seem like safe bets anymore. Nationalism, xenophobia and isolationism have once again seized the day and the future is uncertain once again. There is no doubt that the globalization process of the last five centuries cannot be reversed. We live in a global world whether we want it or not. The only question is how we react to this fact, either by resorting to isolanist and nationalistic policies or by embracing internationalism.

It would be a mistake for us, humans, to go back to the past and make the same mistakes that our ancestors have made. The rise of nationalism and its hyperbolic form, fascism, in the first half of the past century ended up in catastrophe as events such as World War II and the Holocaust attest to. Almost as a way of reminding us of the dangers of nationalism, the Yoguslavian wars in the last decade of the 20th century, extremely nationalistic, also resulted in genocide and widespread misery for all of those involved. Even more subdued fascist regimes such as those in Portugal, Spain or Greece resulted in decades of loss of personal freedom and repression and are generally thought of as a very bad experience for those nations. More recent fascist regimes, mostly in Latin America, have also led to human tragedy, albeit perhaps not to the degree experienced by Europeans in the thirties and forties. Even so, to this day hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Argentinians, Chileans, Brazilians, Peruvians and other Latin-Americans remember the atrocities they or their families and friends had to endure under the rule of the Latin-American fascist regimes of the mid to late 20th century. 

Democracy is far from perfect. Modern liberal democracy certainly has its flaws. Yet compared to the alternatives it is probably still our best bet by a long shot. As Churchill said, our democratic systems may be terrible, yet they are still much better than the alternatives.

One could also make the argument that nationalism must not necessarily lead to its more extreme form. Perhaps we can have nationalism and democracy, a situation we have seemingly now in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Hungary and Austria. Yet it is much too soon to know if such an arrangement is possible on the long-term or if nationalism, as time progresses, naturally reverts to authoritarianism as it has in the past.

However, looking at the foremost current nationalistic leaders of democracies such as Trump in the United States and Bolsonaro in Brazil, it is easy to see authoritarianism tendencies displayed both in words and deeds. We should not take democracy for granted as people did in Spain, Germany, Italy or Portugal in the first half of the 20th century. Even though our democracies today are older and stronger than those of the early 20th century, like the Weimar Republic or the Second Spanish Republic, nationalism and fascism have destroyed democracies in the past and could do it again in the future. Even the oldest of republics can die as history, going as far back as the Ancient World can teach us. Democracy died in Athens and Rome millenia before Mussolini and Hitler were born. We must always be in the lookout for the Hitlers and Mussolinis of the future and stop them before they get too strong.

There are, however, even deeper reasons why our future should be determined by organizations such as the United Nations and the European Unionand not by isolationist and nationalistic demagogs. In a world that is as globalized and interlinked as ours today, insisting on isolationism is as foolish as it is dangerous. Problems such as global warming, nuclear proliferation, global pandemics such as the current one, international terrorism or even international economic crisis such as the one we are about to face, must be dealt with not by nations individually but rather by international cooperation. Global problems can only be solved by all the nations working together to reduce global carbon emissions, enact measures of social distancing during a global pandemic or reduce the amount of nuclear bombs in stand by in the world’s militaries. The more globalized our societies become the bigger the need for global mechanisms of political action is.  

On a slightly more philosophical note, it is also important to acknowledge that moving away from national interests in favor of humanity’s interests is also natural and desirable from the standpoint of our evolutionary journey. As we become more enlightened as a species we must necessarily move from the tribe, to the city, to the country, to the world. Technology has allowed us to greatly enlarge our scope as individuals and the widening perspectives that we acquire as individuals must be reflected on our political institutions. 1000 years ago the ordinary person would probably never travel much farther than a couple hundred miles from where they were born their whole lives. As such, it made sense that their vision of the world was quite small and firmly rooted and determined by a small number of people and by few and simple ideas. Today, however, most people have the opportunity to not only travel to different continents and live in different countries than they were born in, they are also able to access the knowledge and the culture of the whole world simply by browsing the internet, going to the local library or even by turning on their smart TVs.

As our consciousness evolves, it makes sense to acknowledge our common humanity, regardless of one’s place of birth, color of skin, native language, religion or nationality. Specially as globalization accelerates our experiences as humans become increasingly connected. Today an American boy who grew up watching Anime and playing video games will probably have more in common with his Japanese counterpart than with the football player he goes to highschool with. And regardless of our differences and our similarities, there is nevertheless tremendous value in acknowledging that we share a common humanity which transcends nationality. As such, we are better served by taking a humanist approach of the future, rather than one that is nationalistic, and politics should be a reflection of that.

Fortunately, for the first time in history, we are in a position that allows us to effectively conduct policies of government that favor all of humankind and not just a portion of it. The only thing we need is the political will to pursue this course of action, but the foundation for international cooperation and global governance has already been laid out.

Much of that was a direct result of the bloodiest and most costly event in human history (both in lives and material possessions). World War II showcased the dangers of unchecked nationalism and the absolute necessity for some sort of mechanism of global governance in the age of industrial warfare and nuclear bombs. The millions of lives lost in the war bought the necessary goodwill and awareness that led to the creation of the two most important and most powerful international organizations in human history, the United Nations and the European Union. These mechanisms of international governance have been successful so far in establishing tools that allow the different countries in the world to solve their conflicts in a peaceful manner and to work together in order to solve common problems. This should be seen as the first step in our journey to develop a system of global governance that prevents world wars from happening and allows for the protection of human rights worldwide. 

If humankind is to have a long and prosperous future, then we need to think beyond the nation. We need to think and act globally, both as individuals and as governments. Global cooperation and supranational organizations are the future. We must work together in order to solve common problems and not fight against each other. The foreign policy of modern liberal-democracies, and in fact all the nations in the world, should pursue this goal as its primary objective.

God and the Wondrously Abstract

As a retort to an essay written earlier by a fellow thinker, I wish to address a couple concerns that I have had apropos multiple stances recognized, not only in the essay that I’m replying to, but also in many of the dialogues I have had with fellow interlocutors in the group. Mainly I wish to address the “Unification” of institutionalized religion through an understanding of “Divine Law” in the subject of jurisprudence; and take a look at the wondrous abstraction that is God. Before getting started, and in hopes of making antecedent bias known, I feel it is only fair to point out that for all practical purposes I am an atheist, although I’m not a materialist; and it’s worth noting that I am infamously hard to read when dealing with subjects such as these, and have a tendency to get lost in my own thought (I apologize in advance). That being said, I have contributed hundreds of hours of my time to understanding theological works, and the vast mythologies that have spawned from them; so, without further ado let's begin. 

To get right to the point, I don’t think that a theistic religion as a juridical means is necessary to all peoples throughout time; as there have been multiple societies whom have functioned without it, found in various secs of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism. Not to mention multiple western thinkers who were active participants in the furthering of both societies’, and their own thought were, in fact, confessed atheist. Now, I do believe a collective ideal can indeed give us something like a contractarian oath, but let us not forget that many of the divisions it creates have just as much potential for destruction as for creation whilst in proximity to other societies if some form of tolerance has not been formed. As I am an advocate for the teleology found in a liberal government that reflects its people, and their ideals—both as a whole, and individual—I usually find that the pragmatic stance of the institution that represents a collective ideal often leads to the compromise—if not the complete abdication—of the individual’s ideal. This pragmatism is nothing new, and is even welcome in certain scenarios; but often it can lead away from reflecting the ideals of many to the ideals of a few that stagnate the realization of others to maintain a state that is conducive to their interests. So, can religion help a collective people survive by establishing law? Yes, but so can a government, or just a rationally thought out principle (see gain theory); and what's more is that these two seem to lead closer to the means of establishing the ideal on the individual level—which, of course—is where we want it if the abstract right that is the law is to be reflective of the empirical ethic, instead of history for history’s/tradition for tradition’s sake (more on this in the next paragraph). The values that we assign must be in context as they are objective, lest their practicality is lost to those whom they would serve. 

Now onto the logical contradiction in the practical that is God. God is quite the loaded term, and when you say it everyone has a different idea of what you mean (remember the “liberal ideal” from the last paragraph). Now what I mean by “logical contradiction in the practical” when “mentioning” God is that—for me—this concept/notion is a fine logical abstraction; until you try to make it objective in use. In other words, God is a lot like math to me (oh god I can hear the replies now) in that it is an abstraction that we use to build on other abstractions that we may/may not have practical ends (see internal and external motivation in mathematics). This can be compared to writing a book, or narrative that one creates characters to fulfill certain duties; all without having to worry about the difficulties of discovery in the objective. Now the problem with this seems to come about when people like to “pop” out of the abstraction, and proceed to bring their moral God with them; or as an objective value, that I will refer to as “property”, whilst using what I will call the “fantasy law”. Now when god is in the abstract right that is law through divine theory (or a bunch of other types of governments), or in my thoughts as an abstraction it’s representation, due to its lack of immediacy in an shared objective plain, is an actual property as it is connected to the particulars of either me or state; and thus, either Logically or historically necessary (think a big old logical if then). However, when I bring God into an ethical conversation—which I am having with a presupposed other rational—it becomes an unfalsifiable argument/conversation; or at best a representation of an ambiguous ethic, that becomes superfluous through substitution with egotism that allows responsibility through recognition of human fault (via Fichte). This is often best represented via the sepulcher in France noted in Hume’s work, where the individuals just ascribe “miracles from god”, because they don’t understand what is happening; resulting in a stagnation of the pursuit of the real through use of rigor, no matter the limits of one's current epistemology/axiology. Or, this can lead to a dogma found in external teleological dictum that stagnates further discovery. This, when applied on a large scale such as state, can lead to the promulgation of various traditions and laws that appeal to a deity/authority/character, whilst denying the individuals whom represent actual negation due to this objective ideal personified by recognizable property; and thus perpetuating only the survival of the abstract right that is state, not the individual people whom make it up. So, I wish to instead advocate for the subjective (not entirely, but that’s a conversation for another time), and rigorous religion of metaphysics in the question of my own belief structures through reflection, and investigation (that’s Kant by the way; same guy who is responsible for god being what we can’t know) that lead just as much—if not more—room for speculation; or that I vouchsafe this upon those whom I recognize as rational/conscious as it is to be their moral. To quote Voltaire, “I want religion without the church”, and as such, to recognize the values as to whom they belong as particulars. 
Now on to matter of the religious institutions, and their connection—as well as any other institution—to the state of our previously defined understanding of "property"; and the mimetic nature of mythology that foists the ideal onto material inheritance. Us being born into the world often take note that we inherit the material goods of those whom came before us, but so rarely do we think of the ideals that embody the rigor necessary to create their material representations that is constant. Now one of these creations is the wondrous structure of institutions of various sorts that allow us to transcend our immediacy and address the state/nation/world more as a whole throughout time. This by itself is not a problem, and I even would go as so far as to say it perfectly represents the talk of "unification"; however, as these structures become synonymous with value and not knowledge, so they usual seek to uphold these through enforcing a clear set of determined rules in our shared objective. Now this is can be bypassed by recognition of the external dogma that we addressed in the previous paragraph; or, be the practice of mimetic mythology that allows for every person to reflect the representation of their belief upon the whole body of work. Now, while the mythology does have a potential to liberalize the ideal it cannot be enforced through a set of presupposed dictums enforced by a single institution; lest it confines the individual to the realization of their ideal through the practical by forcing a set of "our values" upon them prior, and thus forgoes any chance of a liberal end. Not to mention that this puts a requirement of ability to participate in the mythos for all, furthering the schism of those don’t inherit things such as language that can be recognized by the collective. Now this isn't to say neither of these can be effective on their own, but instead address a set of ideas presented that I feel threaten a regress in our way of thinking/life when these two are coupled. Oh my, this has gone on for far too long! I will start the the wrap up post haste!

On that note I have two last points that I would like to make; that there are certain values throughout history that we see as fortuitous to the whole of humanity by means of their ubiquitous references in the archives of history to which I say this: That as the value is recognized by means through past/history it is a “mention” of the action, and not an “use” due to lack of immediacy. This is meant to safeguard against the material inheritance of posterity that would deny others tribulations due to their conducive use of the current value system by adducing merely abstract in the form of historical reference. For example this would mean when you have read a certain value judgement in a book you must also engage in the act of “popping” to ensure that it has practicality in the objective to which you now inhabit; and not just in the abstract that it remains consistent with. The second point is this: The citation of “human nature” is highly flawed in my opinion. The idea that we attribute a singular/multiple pattern(s) to the whole of humanity as an inevitability is a clear misapplication of inductive reasoning as it requires our beloved “pop” to be empirical; and as an abstract historical field lacks the means to present every scenario that is found in principle of deductive reasoning through substitution, and as such I can only conclude that the use of it is equivalent to “Well everyone eventually just does that, because everyone knows that, because it happens a lot in our history.” Which I would say is similar in use to a historical version of a common sense fallacy. 

There is much more I could add to this, and if you let me; I fear that this would be an endless rebuttal to an age-old question, that honestly, I wouldn’t mind devoting a large portion of my life to. But, seeing as this is already over a thousand words, and I really should save some for our discussions I will acquiesce to my cessation until a later time. I hope I was able to shed some light on my thoughts—if not digress into a needless chain of thought—apropos all of yours', and will look forward to hearing from you! Auf Wiedersehen meine Freunde! 

A few thoughts on the possibility of God

One of the issues I find problematic in theist vs atheist arguments is an assumption that "God only exists, if things cannot be explained". I don't know how this came about, or why it's so commonly the deciding factor in discourses, but it seems a stretch to regard as a fact. It would be on par with saying, "because we know how the human brain works, the human consciousness doesn't exist". Are we willing to insist that as fact? That would mean that this argument itself is quite pointless, because the argument doesn't exist without consciousness. If we can at least begin with agreeing that humans have consciousness, then why cannot there also be other forms of explainable consciousness? 

Another argument assumes that, since there are crappy religious people, there is reason to believe the God of the religion also does not exist. Certainly, some religions are little better than cults—but the actions of cults and religions does little, if nothing, to disprove the existence of a God. If a toddler behaves crazily, does that mean they were born in a lab? Again the assumptions are distracting and inconclusive at best. So in order to genuinely take on the discussion of the existence of God, I think the most valuable consideration is whether or not we validate the nature of being human. 

Many natural human inclinations have remained constant for (at least) as long as we have record: experiences and visions, pursuits of betterment - evolution - through harmony and community. In a way, believing in God is synonymous with the belief that human collaboration/unification is necessary to evolve. Assigning a common enemy and fighting together reduces lower scale chaos and squabbles. Unification means survival; survival means a chance to evolve. There is a reason historians note the unifying nature of war, and wars are fought for all kinds of gains. In the case of religion, it's a "spiritual war" against "spiritual evil". Many times, religions have identified the "enemy" as being embodied by other humans, and assume that annihilation of the threat (or competition) is acceptable—even necessary. This produces the desirable effect of larger scale unification and collaboration, at an tragic cost, but can we really say that disproves God?

From the outside, it could be interpreted that this "enemy" which religions are fighting is, in reality, species extinction. The versatility and uniqueness of our species prompts a necessity to create rules (religious traditions) as a best method of survival and evolution through interpersonal cooperation on a large scale. The religious system provides rules for personal conduct in order to promote unification. So the religious system is evolve to unify; unify to survive; survive to evolve.

Now, what if God were a measurable, sentient particle? This is not entirely my idea - there is already a particle with this nickname attributed with being the very building block of the universe - but what if it's actually the case, whether it's the one already found or one on a scale we don't yet have equipment to observe? Either way, the inherent oneness-seeking in humanity could make sense, if there exists a unifying physical element to our being.  If we have sentience via a chemical process and we experience God with these same chemical processes, what is really the difference between God being "real" and God being a natural component inside us and everything we know and which we can possibly sense? I claim none.  If God is the very substance responsible for the scientifically-suggested Big Bang—the substance which represents the logic of the universe, integral to all the things— human consciousness is a natural and true reality, and the natural inclination of humans to seek community and unification promotes survival of the species,  the existence of a God becomes quite accessible. Unifying with our original substance = survival. 

As a side note, what I really love about this concept, is how much space and mental access it provides for the myths, miraculous and placebo. Basically, you can speculate that whenever the God "particles" are densely located, for example when someone or a community approaches a kind of synchronization with the true "mind of God" (nature of the original and foundational substance), there can occur small scale "big bangs" - creation or substitution of things which did not exist: eg.  creating a healthy organ in place of a sick one or creating an image or material where there was nothing. We no longer have to explain that every single weird thing experienced over the millennia was invalid d/t drugs, mental breakdown, stupidity or deception/conspiracy. We already accept that the brain can "mysteriously" cure the body. What if sentience is that "mysterious" component? If we don't know the formula the big bang, how can we say conclusively what it isn't?

To summarize, this is by no means a comprehensive article on the subject, but a few points to start the conversation with what, I believe, is more appropriate context. I find the arguments against the existence to be far too undeveloped, whereas the human history and experience seem strong indicators that God exists - perhaps in a form entirely unlike the stories, but perhaps also the experiences have been truer than we imagine.

The Fallacy of Instinct

There's a "fact" people throw around that fear is the most inherent instinct to living organisms. I believe evidence points to the contrary. The easiest example is in children. Baby animals readily adopt foreign species parents, children must be taught NOT to jump off high places, or eat dangerous things, or go home with strangers. Fear begets caution and must be taught through instruction or personal experience. Observation would suggest, however, there is a different instinct which drives survival—love. There's an impression that love is this evasive concept that "you just know", or it's this kind of love and not that kind of love, but I defend that it's pretty easy to define and identify, and there's only one. Let's explore. 

The classic example of a parent, who loves the children, sacrifices for their survival and success. Animals love their offspring to preserve the species instinctively. Parents teach caution passively or actively, instruction or demonstration, to avoid predators, injury and poison. The more energy these parents spend on the offspring, the more we can say they are loving, because energy is transferred. It is taken from self-seeking/preserving measures, and transferred to the other entity = sacrifice. It isn't simply being willing to die for another, though animals demonstrate this as well. When a predator approaches the nest, the parent will act as bait to draw them away. Even if the parent dies, one or more of the children have a chance to survive and multiply, increasing the likelihood of survival for the species. Likewise, in species where both parents work together, one parent hunts for food not just for itself, but spends extra time to bring additional food for the entire family. This is love.

Not all species identifiably love. Some have strong defense equipment at birth, or high egg- fertilization counts to ensure survival. Humans do not have these mechanisms, but at some point, it was deduced that our species is inherently selfish—that fear is to follow our instincts, and love is to deny them. It's been a damaging fallacy. How can the most incapacitating emotion (fear - of failure - of rejection - of commitment - of abandonment) be instinct? It can't. Fear keeps the deer in the headlights because it incapacitates comprehension and strategy, undermining survival. Fear is an implementation of childhood lessons. We go to therapy to remove this "instinct,” because removing fear always brings health,  empowerment, success, ingenuity, and the capacity to access the real instinct of love. It's from a love for the species, pride in being human, the we have evolved. When love is not given and received, it leads to destruction of the species (tyranny) and destruction of self (despair). Even when individuals suffer the crises caused by a lack of love, this often spawns art which fosters the healing of many: love. Our inventions come from a place of investing a single life towards bettering the lives of many: love.With regard to romance, we would all benefit from a more present awareness of love verses attraction. In my previous post, I discussed attraction in depth. I argue there is one love expressed in degrees: devoting the most time and energy (including bread-winning) towards the wellness and success of one's partner and children than to friends and coworkers, etc.

Attraction and sexuality are the indicators of solidarity and personal development. For example, we accept that to love your children is appropriate, but to be attracted to your children is not. The problem is not the love, it's errors in the personal development driving the attraction. Similarly, people who find themselves in abusive relationships repeatedly might be good at loving, but their attraction is likely due to regular exposure to abuse as children, and thus find the abusive nature familiar, and easy to understand.Love should also not be confused with nicety. Love utilizes all the skills available and knowledge of the environment to promote the thriving of others. This is why spoiling a child is not love. Teaching a child that they should always be happy, satisfied and dependent for everything does not equip them for survival and procreation. Love requires wisdom to teach patience and boundaries; norms and protest; measuring risk and cost.

In summary, it is through a deeper connection with the inherent instinct of love, teaching wisdom instead of fear, that we can each participate in the survival, education and evolution of humanity as a species.

The Philosopher in the 21st Century, a brief reflection

Who is the twenty-first century philosopher? What does philosophy look like in our times? Would the ancient wise men of Greece and Rome even recognize their modern peers? Is philosophy today so detached from what it once was that, if transported by magic to our times,  the Platos, Socrates and Ciceros of old would find themselves intellectually alienated among the philosophers of our time?

I

Perhaps the true philosopher, these days, is indeed a dying breed. Philosophy is still discussed as a discipline in universities across the world, and yet those who study it do so in the most scholastic of ways, either as undergraduate students, post-graduate students or university professors. Philosophy is tackled by these scholars of varying stature as somewhat of an immutable field, as something to be learnt and dissected, not unlike things like biology, mathematics, economics or history.

The academic philosopher studies philosophy as he would study literature or art, not so much as something to be created, but rather as something to be preserved throughout time. He takes to the study of these disciplines as an Egyptian priest took to the preservation of corpses, producing mummified dissertations, giving the appearance of life yet lacking the organs and the vitality of truly living creatures or entities. Indeed, he takes up the torch of the Christian monks in the monasteries of medieval Europe, transcribing the knowledge produced by better men in more glorious times.

What comes out of our modern philosophy departments is no more philosophy than what comes out of literature university departments is literature or what comes out of fine-arts schools is art. Those are places of contemplation rather than creation, of conservation rather than innovation.

Academic philosophers are burdened by a system that suppresses creativity and often prioritizes faculties such as mechanic memorization and a recurrent deference to authority which, while qualities of the scholar, are enemies to the free thinker. In the same way we do not turn to universities to find the great literary talents of our new millennium, neither should we look for the greatest thinkers of today in the halls of academia. Let us leave the university professors to their memorizing and dissecting of past works and to their games of mutual aggrandizing. For true philosophy, however, we must look elsewhere.

II

Where then, is the true philosopher of the 21st century if not in the places of scholarship? Where can we find our Platos and Aristotles, our Socrates and our Ciceros, our Nietzches and our Sartres? We should look far and away beyond the universities and their scholasticism, to where men venture deep into questioning the world we live in, free of intellectual chains. Often times we can find those men in the freedom of new media such as you tube, itunes or even Netflix. In these new media channels, in their own ways more democratic and irreverent, we find at least the spark of creativity that we can also find in the works of the great thinkers. Daring modern thinkers, often unconventional in their ways, can be found in those new media, tackling some of the great questions of our time. Along with groundbreaking men from academia like Yuval Noah Harari and Jordan Peterson, we find unconventional, informal and yet daring thinkers such as Joe Rogan, willing to ask the kinds if questions one must ask in order to understand our rapidly changing world.

Most academic-minded people will certainly be shocked by such statements and yet this is exactly why the philosophy of the 21st century won't come out of university campuses, but will instead be forged mostly in the wild spheres of the world wide web. Academic philosophy is saddled with a necessity to seek shelter in the authority of old, famous philosophers. Yet there is only so much we can say about and learn from our great, yet old, long dead philosophers. Most things of relevance have already been said about their works many times over, leaving all posterior discussions in a state of redundancy.

What we need, really, are new voices, asking different questions, in different ways and in different places. If we are to build a philosophy for the 21st century, it should be new and daring, fresh and uncompromising, inquisitive and revolutionary. These are all the things that academia is not, yet philosophy must always be.  

III

In the age of science and technology we live in, the role of philosophy must also change in relation to older times. The philosopher of the future, and in fact the present, should delegate a number of past philosophical inquiries to the new fields of knowledge, driven by scientific methodologies and instruments. Yet let us not think that the age of the philosopher is a thing of the distant past. As the world moves forward the questions change and will need answers. Some of those answers to new questions will come from the natural, computer and social sciences, and yet some questions can only be answered philosophically, because they can't be measured or weighted by scientific methods. Our scientific minds can give us nuclear and biological weapons of unparalleled power, yet we must reflect hard and long on when, how and where these weapons should be used, if at all.

Never have we had, as a species, such formidable power. And yet, as uncle Ben once told Peter Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility". This much is true not only in the panels and screens of pop culture but also in real life. We may not have a Spider-Man in the real world, but we certainly developed super-powers as a species. What else should we call nuclear bombs, self-driving cars, personal computers, fighting jets, cloning, the internet or interplanetary space rockets? The future has changed us, it has changed the world around us, and philosophy has changed along with it. Yet, perhaps unlike the Christian God, Philosophy has not died as a result of the onset of the modern world we now inhabit. Philosophy has changed and must continue to change in order to allow us to make sense of the new world we have created for ourselves. It must, above all things, act as a counter-balance and as a moral guide to all the power we have accumulated through technological advancement. Never before has the need for responsibility been so great or urgent.

Let us welcome then this new breed, the new philosopher, a citizen-thinker of the future. His role is to make sense of a brave new world in which men have acquired the powers of the gods. In which moribund religions desperately cling to life, supported by the despair and the blind belief of radicals in search of meaning and identity in a meaningless, globalized world. A world in which millions, billions, are deep into a state of stupor, constantly entertained and pacified by a never-ending stream of video games, television series, movies, youtube videos, social media feeds, sports broadcasts and online news.

What has happened to us? What has happened to Man? Each passing day we are more machine than man. Each passing day we are less ourselves. Each passing day we are closer to extinction, in one way or another, literally or figuratively. Even if we survive nuclear holocaust and climate change, will we survive the personal computer and the smartphone? Will we survive genetic engineering and all-powerful, all-controlling, all-censoring electronic devices and companies? Will we survive AI? If we are to maintain our humanity, if we are to curb god-like powers with human responsibility, we must be philosophers in the 21st century.

Bruno Franco Netto

Intuitive Social Integration

Intuitive Social Integration

Part I: Feelings

The present approach to feelings - maybe unique to US culture, maybe worldwide (I can't know) seems to be that feelings are to be feared. They must be wrestled into submission, gagged through tricks, or given the reigns to take over the body as an entity of their own, so one can somehow distance oneself from the shame of associating with them, as perhaps from a toxic relative.

Being taught to "deal with" emotions, especially as children, teaches that feelings are essentially negative and, thus, threats. But i impress that denying one's feelings is denying one's very self and immediately produces discord within oneself.

Feelings are the primary form of communication used by one's true self to gain attention, and when confronted with care and thoroughness, promise a freedom by discovering and rejoining that true self. The people or things or circumstances which trigger the emotions are often seen as the answer to the emotions, but they are merely external mirrors of the message. They can provide clarity to the message in a new way. Unfortunately, they often provide further distraction, prolonging the discord. One must fearlessly identify the trigger, take pause to look inward at the feeling and then dig DEEP for that lost piece using the aforementioned clues. Only then is the true beauty and appreciation of the power and utility of feelings, and accordingly what it means to be human, found.

In summary, listen to your feelings: they are essential to being. But do so with enough time and care get the full message, which could be older than originally thought

Part II: Love and Sexuality

I think this subject is another which our culture gets very, very wrong; and, yet again, the teaching is fear. Children are taught to closely guard their hearts and that sexuality (which at a young age is symbolized by part of their very own, innocent bodies) is bad. This leads to strong paranoia and fear of each person as somehow having the power to steal something personal, and fear of not controlling oneself and damaging oneself permanently through using the wrong type of sexuality.

Sexuality and practicing one's passions are part of one's identity. How and when they are experienced is as unique as each person. I am providing my own definition of sexuality: a broader, misleading, term to describe the sensation of oneness with a people - be it through a shared passion, representing a missing part of oneself, or when loving them. The normal assumption is that a person who sparks the feelings of sexuality is someone to be feared (cut-off) or contained (obtained) in order to gain control of the feelings, lest they cause a lack of control of actions and accidental sex.

Sometimes a shared passion prompting that oneness isn't immediately recognized, or an existing disharmony within oneself will make the attraction all the more veiled. I suspect additionally that some who have a passion involving people, have the hardest time being understood and accepting their own sexuality, because they don't enjoy the luxury that is having context to separate the sexuality from passion for people. For example someone who is passionate about music will feel that same thrill as someone who is passionate about people, but they don't understand each other and thus cannot discern that they are the same. Perhaps the person passionate about people receives shaming for acting with passion towards people, links the passion with sex and yields lots of confusion all around. If there is an added level of disharmony in oneself, the stronger and longer that part of this self has been rejected, the stronger the self will be drawn to someone who points to the oneness sought in one's self. This is not sexuality as a passion, but something else entirely. This breeds dependency on the person to act in place of the rejected part, permanently, or at least until that rejected piece is recovered.

None of this is love (Hahaha). Just as a musician does not truly love the piano which is the vehicle of their passion, so does someone who experiences their sexuality with other people, not automatically love those people. Love is a choice to open one's ears to another's needs and give to them. It is a VERY broad spectrum, but always a choice. Also, the more one decides to love, the more one develops a passion to love, and the more love becomes available for one to give. It's a fascinating thing. But where I think this culture goes wrong is the emphasis that one should only love one person, or worse, depicting as love what is actually sexuality. To be clear, choosing a companion should be choosing to love that person MOST, in that their needs are put ahead of one's own and everyone else's. What's been lost, I speculate with the advent of high speed transportation as well as the world wars, has been loving each other as part of a community. The effects have been disastrous and, I believe, can be blamed for so much of the current, confusing tragedies. It's become commonplace to keep distance and deafen to the needs of others. Different versions of the mantra "do what works for you" are a useful to begin accepting oneself, but they cannot solve the destructive crisis of the lack of love. The mantras wouldn't be necessary if the love from the community were present and felt. I think this is where there is so much opportunity for change. What if each person tried to love EVERYONE RADICALLY: not being afraid of using the word "love", not being afraid to show affection, not being afraid to express appreciation for each person's uniqueness, not being afraid let someone else shine, not being afraid to accommodate, not being afraid to sacrifice some tears, not being afraid of being hurt. When one rejects fear, the world opens up.

In summary, sexuality is a sensation of oneness, and not something to fear. Love is a choice and should be practiced as lavishly as possible.