A BRAND NEW WORLD!

It is artists sometimes who express the deepest, most sought after aspirations of human beings, and Elton John and Celine Dion have both sung very popular songs that have attempted to communicate an intense human desire for change.

These songs were very popular because human beings are not happy, even those human beings who have great material wealth, are not happy, moreover, they do not know how to be happy.

The question immediately presents itself, how can we create that whole new world for humanity, how can we create an epiphany that would provide the possibility of happiness?

Would some great invention in the physical world have that result? If we were to invent a new energy source to replace petroleum and other fossil fuels; would this create the possibility of happiness for human beings?

I suggest that it would not. I suggest that what needs to explored is inner space, the hitherto little explored and uncharted expanse of the human psyche.

What I intend to do is create a chart of that realm that would create the possibility of happiness for human beings.

I feel constrained to state that this piece has the objective of transporting human beings into that whole, new world. It has no prurient or salacious dimension.

This has to be said because all human feelings have been subjected to the manipulations of the spin doctors. Indeed, all contemporary human endeavors are designed to promote the interests of an individual, or of a group, they are very seldom altruistic; it is very unusual that we confront ideas that are designed to promote the common good.

Also, I have deliberately made the contrast between outer space and inner space to strike a sharp contrast between the success humanity has had in solving problems in the physical environment and their palpable and pervasive failure in resolving social and political issues. I intend to unashamedly borrow and apply the method used in the physical environment and apply this method to social problems.

The fundamental principle I shall apply is that the necessary prerequisite to solving any problem is its accurate description.

In the last piece I wrote entitled “A Blueprint for Change” I quote a segment of arguably the most famous piece of rhetoric conceived by a human being, I included the closing lines of the Gettysburg Address delivered by President Abraham Lincoln as a memorial to those who died in the battle of Gettysburg.

I reproduce that quote here to expose an inaccuracy in that wonderfully inspiring address and stress the importance of ideas in the human story:

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate --- we cannot consecrate --- we cannot hallow --- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it will never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the full measure of devotion --- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain --- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom --- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I wish to state that President Lincoln was wrong, this beautifully crafted piece of rhetoric has given the lie to one idea contained therein, it consecrated and memorialized the sacrifice of those who were killed at Gettysburg, and it encapsulated and provided justifications for the horrors and untold suffering of a civil war much more than the mere deaths of those soldiers ever could.

This piece of rhetoric has inspired countless generations of human beings, it has been rehearsed again and again, but it retains its validity because it calls for devotion to an aim that is one of deepest aspirations of humanity, it evokes the sacred cherished value of freedom and defines a means by which this transcendent state may be achieved.

This is also the aim of this piece; to provide a road map to freedom and I begin with my definition of freedom.

Freedom exists in a social system when individuals within that system are not subjected to coercion as they fulfill their innate drives, as they satisfy their needs for nutrition, shelter, clothing, and healthcare. That they not subjected to coercion during their employment, or, as they
Engage in recreational activities.

I believe that the use of force; the reliance on coercion as the means used to motivate action necessary for societal function is the major source of the discontent and unhappiness that plagues human beings.

As I have stated before, so many times, humanity did not choose to rely on coercion, this choice was made for them because it was the only model for social interaction that was available at the beginning of the human story, when human beings were forced to become the most efficient predators to survive, when human beings were forced to compete with large and ferocious denizens, for example dinosaurs, for available food resources.

After at least half a million years of such competition, humanity discovered agriculture and was released from the thralldom of predation, and began to go about the business of building civilizations.

But habits die hard, and coercion is a most efficient means of motivating behavior. The wonders of the world that were created by ancient civilizations provide mute testimony of its efficacy, however much some contemporary scientists attempt to obscure this by minimizing the impact of human labor and effort motivated by coercion in the construction of these edifices.

There are other examples closer at hand; that attest to the efficacy of coercion. Jamaica, the land of my birth was once regarded as ‘the most valuable jewel in the British Crown’ because of sugar that was produced there. The Southern States of United States of America were once so wealthy that an author of fiction through the mouth of a fictional character described the lifestyle created in this area as symmetry to perfection;” of course, the novel that contained that quote was “Gone with the Wind” written by Margaret Mitchell and the character that she created, the very famous character that she created was Ashley Wilkes.

But why has that wealth and the luxurious lifestyle it created gone with the wind, why did successful plantations throughout the New World become unprofitable and even ruinate subsequent to the Abolition of Slavery?

I suggest that the major factor causing this decline was the reduction in the degree and extent coercion, in any form, could be applied to the labor force.

Moreover, I suggest that this is the bar to progress in societies engaged in the sacred task referred to by President Lincoln. In every social system that aspires to become a functioning democracy what has occurred is amelioration of the symptoms of coercion based culture, a reduction of the degree and extent to which coercion can be applied to individuals in society – without addressing the fundamental issue; the implications and consequences of relying on coercion.

I suggest that in the human psyche there is an area on which we cannot apply higher mental processes; we can and do apply our intellects to the solving of problems in the physical milieu; we cannot and do not apply our intellects to solving problems in the social environments.

We do not think about motivation when we plan, or when as an elected government we frame a policy or as we construct any social initiative or program.

To make the most convincing argument demonstrating that the human intellect is lamed and has blind areas; I must venture into the forbidden realm of accurately describing sexual relations between human beings.

I feel constrained to state that this was my Achilles’ heel, this was the area that consigned and chained me to the past; it was my attempts to satisfy my sex drive that produced heavy and impermeable chains and manacles on my mind, and denied me the possibility of happiness.

I developed the means to break these chains when I decided to tell the truth, whatever the consequences, for the rest of my life. I made this decision while going through a painful divorce. I believed that my contribution to this tragedy; was the numerous affairs and infidelities I had engaged in while married, liaisons facilitated by numerous lies and deceptions, hence my decision prompted by intense guilt, to tell the truth.

The first insight that was precipitated by this new intellectual approach was the realization of how stupid I had been to expect fidelity of a young, healthy female whom I had neglected, sexually and emotionally, as I had engaged in affairs in younger and more attractive women.

I kicked myself mentally for having had the temerity to tell the mother of my children, ostensibly in jest, that I was thinking of trading her in for a later, newer model of femininity.

This marked the breaking of the dam of repression and this initial insight was to presage a veritable flood of creative thinking and new ideas about the nature of the social reality in which I existed.

I had been trained as a Change Agent and during the initial project I was responsible for, I witnessed the impact of an incentive scheme on the relations between employers and employees in the workplace, I saw the effect of positive reinforcements on human beings, whom in the past had been trapped in the thralldom of coercion; the very positive effect of this innovation on their behavior that instead of competing they began to cooperate.

I feel constrained to state for emphasis that this essay contains no salacious or prurient intent; in fact the opposite is true. I am attempting to swim against a river of tradition, a river that has been gaining pace and momentum in human affairs for literally millions of years, I am trying to cause a bare majority of human beings in American society to objectively examine the negative consequences and implications of the use of coercion.

A significant portion of these ideas were created by American social scientists; it was used by them in their narrow disciplines, as a justification for the fees they levied; it was used by them to accrue academic honors; I am using this information for the common good, it is my contribution to the progress of my race.

I began this journey of discovery, a pilgrimage precipitated by adopting the discipline of truth, in October, 1975. As I write, it is the year 2006, thirty one years later, during the intervening period I have tried to communicate the superior results for every social system that would result from practicing the discipline of truth and relying on positive reinforcements in motivating others for thirty one years – without any success.

I have made an appeal to the intellects of other human beings for thirty one years without any success. At worst, I have attempted moral suasion – without any success. During this period, despite great temptation, not the least of these temptations being that the world was going to hell in hand basket; I have remained true to the principle that I should not attempt to coerce anyone to accept these ideas, that they would only support function – if they were not imposed on any human being. I have remained true to that principle even when it resulted in my enduring abject poverty and loneliness, in my drifting further and further apart from the human concourse.

I have already with complete and enduring altruism, laid down my life for human beings; some of whom hate me for this; other who treat me with the thinly disguised contempt reserved for the poor; others who patronize me for my the quixotic enterprise in which they perceive I am engaged.

It is not in any sense a quixotic enterprise; sooner or later some individual or interest group, probably justifying their action by saying they speak to God, will unleash a weapon of mass destruction, effectively destroying the hope that there will every exist on Planet Earth a government, of the people, by the people, for the people.

I have ‘prophesied the future’ but this is not enough to convince anybody of the efficacy of telling the truth, I have evoked the name of Jesus to provide authority for this method, I have steered very close to stating that I am the Spirit of Truth, the other Comforter that He indicated would come – nothing has had any effect; no human being has any greater appreciation of the efficacy of telling the truth than when I began.

Yet I persevere, not out of hubris or a iota of self interest, but because of the terrible results of human beings; the inescapable reality that governments cannot govern, that husbands cannot keep their wives, that parents or teachers cannot socialize the young, that employers cannot motivate employees without relying on coercion.

To return to the main point, having witnessed this transition from conflict to harmony, from competition to cooperation, I decided to adopt this approach in my personal life – with exceedingly positive results.

My spouse had the habit of reading before sleep; I was habituated to forcing her to forego this innocuous pastime when I wanted to have sex. I decided to try something different, to use the positive reinforcement of foreplay and affection. I worked beyond my wildest expectations; to the point where I applied this approach in all my sexual relations in the future, and entered a whole new world; a world from which conflict, guilt and physical force had been excised, to be replaced by tenderness, harmony, and even love.

It is this difference that I envision for all human beings, in all their social relationships.

Some years later, I came to understand the laming effects of guilt. I reflected on the difference between the premarital sexual relations I had had with my wife, and those that we engaged in on our honeymoon.

The contrast was so clear, premature ejaculation was replaced with complete control, dysfunction was replaced with function, where I had been the two minute man, I became the thirty minute man, the one or possibly two times of the past became as many times as we desired, and I had the wisdom then to understand what caused the change, the marriage ceremony, the ritual that cleansed our minds of guilt.
Frank Herbert in his watershed novel “Dune” introduced me to the notion that rituals reduce guilt, telling the truth had made it possible for me to make the connection, and see social reality specifically how the mind operated in the context of that reality.

Reliance on coercion lamed sections of the mind; this effect was produced by learning intense drives, fear and guilt, being two pertinent examples of these drives. In effect, certain thoughts that elicited fear or guilt were repressed; buried in the unconscious compartment of the mind of human beings, with practice it became easier and easier to repress unpleasant material and the mind is trapped and lamed in the vicious circle of coercion based culture.

But fear can be eradicated. When my career as a politician was foreshortened by my honesty, and human culture was attempting to destroy my resistance to perpetuating the status quo; I was unemployed for several years.

This is the major obstacle to change, embedded in the culture are two roles, territorial predator and prey; those who resist playing these roles are constrained to return to the beaten, traditional path of culture because unless they play these roles they will be denied access to food, shelter, etc.

So my rebellion against the corruption, power hunger and venality in Jamaican politic caused me to lose everything of economic, social and emotional value including the thing most dear to me.

When I put them on the aircraft to the USA to join their mother, I knew they would be lost to me in a very particular sense. They had been conditioned to adopt the modernization ideals, for several years they had been motivated by positive reinforcements, they had never been lied to, they did not compete at home, they cooperated.

I knew that living with their mother they would quickly revert to being agents of coercion based culture; that I would not only lose my children emotionally, but that I would lose the only hedges I had against loneliness.

On my return home, as I entered the mean accommodations that we had shared, I began to be afraid of the dark, empty rooms; I began to experience fear close akin to panic; but by then I knew that my stress at losing them was the real source of my emotional upset. I walked those rooms and confronted my fear and it dissolved, I defeated the incipient phobia.

More recently, as I traveled from Pompano Beach to Memphis, I was prompted by the change in location that I was embarking on, and the solitude engendered by the long journey; to reflect on the cause that was my magnificent obsession. I was encouraging my race to be rational I decided, to eschew irrationality.

But it struck me that my fear of heights was irrational; that there was no real threat to me when I was in a high rise building, on a bridge, or anywhere else. I realized that it was the stress that I encountered in these locations, as I tried and failed to repair my marriage in the penthouse of a luxury hotel, as I confronted employers in the conflicted arena of industrial relations, that had precipitated a fear of heights that over the years had gained phobic intensity. I realized my fear of heights was irrational; I described the problem accurately and engineered its reduction.

This was soon to be tested as I navigated the mountains of Tennessee, as I was comfortably without panic to navigate the mountains of Tennessee.

What I am trying to communicate is that the nature of human culture is determined by the motivation relied on to impel action in other human beings. I am suggesting that conflict and neurosis, and most other obstacles to human happiness and harmony are a direct consequence of the reliance on coercion to motivate action.

I wish to make human beings aware that it was a choice that was made for us; a choice that is against the ethics which we have developed, and that we are trapped in the conflict between those ethics and the attitudes, ways of thinking and patterns of behavior that have become powerful traditions in human culture.

And that we do have an alternative, and to embrace that alternative we need to renounce coercion, adopt the discipline of truth and commit to relying on positive reinforcements in our relations with other human beings. This will create the possibility of happiness and over time will result in peace on earth.