Historical Perspectives; when"Life is Flux"
Historical Perspectives; when"Life is Flux"
"One can attach one's self to anything, as long as one understands it is fleeting”--Heraclitus
“Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong.”
― John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
“Our civilization has spent almost a century setting Hitler’s Third Reich as the benchmark of pure evil. Now his Reich is no more than a precursor of the ultimate evil to follow and the self-destruction of a whole civilization, so shamelessly under the auspices of so-called democracies."
From World History Encyclopedia….“Heraclitus of Ephesus (l. c. 500 BCE) famously claimed that “life is flux” and, although he seems to have thought this observation would be clear to all, people have continued to resist change from his time to the present day. Heraclitus was one of the early Pre-Socratic philosophers, so named because they pre-date Socrates, considered the Father of Western Philosophy. The early Pre-Socratics focused on identifying the First Cause of creation – that element or energy that set all of creation in motion and sustained it – and were known as “natural philosophers” because their interest was in natural causes for previously-held supernatural phenomena as explained by the will of the gods.
His Eastern contemporary, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha, l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE), recognized the same essential aspect of life: that nothing was permanent and the observable world was in a constant state of change and understood that this was the cause of human suffering: people insisted on permanence in a world of impermanence. The Buddha encouraged people to accept the essential nature of life and detach themselves from the false idea that anything they held to could be permanent. Heraclitus had the same message but with a significant difference: one could attach one's self to anything, as long as one understood it was fleeting”.- Read full article here
“Criticism is perhaps the citizen's primary weapon in the exercise of her legitimacy. That is why, in the corporatist society, conformism, loyalty and silence are so admired and rewarded; why criticism is so punished or marginalized. Who has not experienced this conflict?”
― John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization
Note to Readers: To secure the widest potential readership of this particular blog I am leaving out the paywall. I hope readers in turn will share widely. It also serves as a discussion paper.
As the vicious West spirals downward into the depths of fascism and its own self- destruction it reveals the utter depths of our historical ignorance and childish impetuousness.
How immature and detached we are from our true selves and humanist values and the norms we purport to live by has become painfully obvious. We have resorted to the economic and political cannibalization our cultures all for the sake of gratuitous violence, the warfare and chaos serving no other purpose than to destroy ourselves.
John Raul Saul’s quote above diagnoses the desperation of Western governments as they desperately attempt to redefine moral behavior. They are persecuting students for being anti-genocide. They are redefining the antisemitism to suit their own treachery. They are using the thoroughly corrupted media as a tool to brainwash whole populations.
They have weaponized the law and our legislatures to suppress democracy and freedom of speech.
As they retreat into more and more authoritarian measures this only confirms their incompetence. When authoritarianism is on the rise it signals the incompetence and desperation of the perpetrators.
There is the unrelenting refusal to accept the fact the enemy is within and not the scapegoats on foreign shores. This is just one more deception essential to maintaining empire. Especially so, when China, as the designated scapegoat, has said repeatedly it desires a more harmonious relationship where the two countries practice reciprocity. There is no need for them to be cast as enemies though they will always be competitors.
Similarly, Russia prefers to resolve outstanding issues through diplomacy, where the West only speaks the language of war. This is essentially why the Ukraine war happened— NATO deliberately provoked it. The Gaza genocide is happening because a senile American president allowed it to happen.
Power acquired by ill-gotten means is never legitimate, less enduring and completely crippling.
The perspective of history is always in flux
As history is perpetually unfolding, as time passes events and epochs override others in terms of relevance, social impact and devastation. Since the end of WW II the millions of lives lost through wars, genocides, regime changes and sanctioning relegates all previous events to preliminary. Not to mention the trillions of dollars of squandered wealth on criminal wars.
Our civilization has spent almost a century setting Hitler’s Third Reich as the benchmark of pure evil. Now his Reich is no more than a precursor of the ultimate evil following it and the self-destruction of a whole civilization, so shamelessly under the auspices of so-called democracies.
The setbacks of the American Republic
What is known as the duly constituted American Republic has suffered many setbacks over the last 75 years. Among the most prominent were the assassination of John F. Kennedy and many others to pave the way for the ascendance of empire and the warfare state. There was 9/11 as the empire’s declaration of war on the world and securizing the police state at home. Now there has been the government capitulation to a Zionist genocide, yet another strike against the Republic.
Democratic republics and social democracies are delicate flowers easily torn up and destroyed by despots and war mongers. Democracy can only be maintained where men and women of integrity practice it. Where its processes are corrupted it simply collapses and we are seeing now the dire consequences of its collapse- social chaos and endless violence
Heraclitus and others still shout from the roof tops
Heraclitus and other ancient sages, along with modern day sages scream at us from the roof tops as we are deaf to the essential nature of our being and our precarious and temporal existence in world. As quoted above one could attach one's self to anything, as long as one understood it was fleeting”. The recalcitrant West is running from one of the fundamental truths of our existence. Every thing in life, like life itself, is temporal. Our lives are no more than a moving panorama of change to which we must adapt. Where we refuse to adapt and humbly pay homage to the gods of change and reconciliation, and the cycles of history, the gods will destroy the infidels just as they are now.
As suggested above Heraclitus not only reflects the ancient wisdom of the West but also of the East. Where the East is successfully adapting to the 21st century, the West has retreated into barbarism. The chaos and anarchy we now experience takes the measure of how woefully divorced we are from our own humanistic legacy.
Above my desk is a framed picture of Hippocrates, 450-375 BC, with the inscription:
For me this very succinct bit wisdom goes to the core of our existence. Arrogance and conceit destroy us where humility redeems us.
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