Re: A message on this day



Andrew Usher wrote:
Moderator wrote:

A violent revolution is unlikely since power has been increasingly
centralized. The closest the west has had to violent revolution in
modern times were the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.
Neither one overthrew governments nor were they intended to be
violent.

I agree. The French Revolution wasn't really 'violent' either - it
involved no
civil war, and only became violent after the initial revolution was
accomplished.

Change begins with the individual but how does the individual
determine a sound course for change if there are few things the
individual can be sure of outside of what they can directly determine
is true?

You can't accomplish anything with that attitude! There's a time and
place for such philosophical speculation, but not in politics.

When we don’t apply this notion of self-determination we hand over our
authority and the collective result leads to either an increase in
centralized power throughout society, a failed movement or the
unintended consequences of a successful but misguided movement.

So what can be done about it? If people ever do wake up to this there
would be a revolution, wouldn't there?

Andrew Usher

Accomplishment could be overrated and if your measure of something is
based on accomplishment, then what you are measuring may also be
overrated or at least inaccurate. This is exactly what we do currently
when we speak of the accomplishments of for instance, democracy or
capitalism and ignore the costs.

In medicine, the approach is “do no harm”. In law the approach is,
“only what is fact”. Both of these approaches seek some semblance of
truth before a decision is made. This seems less philosophical than it
does practical just as having directions to a destination before I
begin to travel has little to do with philosophy and everything to do
with practicality. On the other hand, if all I wish to accomplish is
to be somewhere different, then no directions are necessary but I may
be not be any more satisfied once I arrive.

The challenge as I see it is, our entire system is built on this and
other falsehoods and its difficult to imagine something different when
its all we’ve ever known. I’m suggesting a change in individual
thinking, a philosophical change if you prefer, that says the only
real power is the individual but only if they can reclaim their
authority. They can only reclaim their authority once they know what
it is and they can only know what it is by having some desire to seek
to truth. Truth is central to what being human is. When we lose our
understanding of truth, we become vulnerable to an unjust authority
and that has been our history to this point.

Perhaps the awakening itself is the revolution. This awakening is a
moment of truth.
.

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