Chapter 14
World Unity
Before the pacifist revolution can have any hope of achieving success it must begin with a unity of humanity, a unity permeating every most meaningful aspect of our common existence. Such a unity must not be just a superficial political part of people's lives but it must become the dictates of every single human's existence. The revolution is much deeper and more profound in its significance than any so far experienced by any single group of humanity. The human is today a member of a world society. His responsibilities to this much greater unity are stronger than any bonds of nationalism. As a world citizen today the individual must strive consciously to overcome all the differences in language, thought, religion, culture, economics and government which serve to differentiate and isolate him from the experiences of his fellow world citizens. He must sacrifice and subordinate all of his previously held regional, national and cultural prejudices to this effort to achieve a much more valuable view of the world and of himself.
It becomes necessary to question whether or not there really can be common grounds on which differences may be peacefully resolved. It is the objective of this chapter to reveal the efficacy of one alternative framework and foundation for world unity in almost every aspect of every day life. Many other alternatives may be found within the imagination, yet these extend in depth to achieve a theoretical, philosophical, religious, cultural, economic and political unity of a common source by identifying and surmounting certain discrepancies which continue to persist and separate world humanity.
The authoritarian power structures are held to be primarily responsible for the persistence of these social shortcomings and these discrepancies are viewed as other symptoms of militarism, to achieve unity these alternatives must not be forcibly imposed on the minds of humanity, on the collective world mind, by which imposition they will be subsequently rejected and dichotomized as alien and threatening. Unity can only be accomplished by a conscious peaceful coexistence of the alternatives in the lives of humanity, in which their efficacy might be subtly demonstrated and revealed in very personal ways. Once the seeds are sown in an environment of peaceful cooperation, these alternatives will take root, mature and blossom in the lives of all humanity becoming integrated and eventually displacing all past beliefs and practices which will be discarded as obsolete and nonfunctional. Such alternatives have no proposed deadline in which they are to be fully integrated. Implemented today, it can only be a very gradual and subtle process extending over a period of at least several generations. These alternatives are offered as the foundation of a value strategy believed to be applicable to all humanity in the hope of transcending the differences perceived to separate and to isolate a person from his neighbor, to unite in common bonds of all of humanity.
There exists a certain impersonalness of the "system" which isolates the individual and keeps his life void of intimate "spiritual" contact with other people. The system has rectified itself unconsciously in the minds of humanity and has assumed the façade of omnipotent righteousness. The impersonalness and superiority of the "system" over the individual's life has contributed greatly to the dehumanization of the individual, a gradual process of erosion perceived in no detailed way but rather felt deep "inside" in the form of vague hopelessness, despair, random anxiety and in the lack of personal faith and purposefulness. The individual's life is often rift with traumatic changes and emotional fragmentation by which the individual loses sense of personal identity, of self importance and objective living and withdraws very silently into his own subjective womb, an inner world of illusion and disillusionment. Humanity has become inextricably related at both conscious and unconscious level of existence as a component of the "system" that it has created and inherited from one generation to the next. As far as the individual and the whole of humanity have become subordinated as a "part" of the "system" the human has become alienated from his deeper and higher values of living, dehumanized from a higher integrity of being and becoming. Just how healthy is the "normal" human?
To understand the relevancy of this general alienation of humanity to world unity I present a theory of the normative self, a part of the general theory of creativity and universal human nature. The human is endowed with a mind which unlike any other biological species enables him unsurpassed capability for abstraction, intellection, theoretical and logical theorization, creation and intuition, rational volition and decision making, in other words with the potential for the integration of a metaphysical self. There exists for the common human not just a singular physical or perceptual reality for the common human not just a singular physical or perceptual reality. Such a singular reality of existence would solve all of his most pressing problems. He would then be able to operate quite effectively on an instinctual and emotional level, quite as "naturally" as any other species of animal. Every aspect of human existence is involved intimately not with one but with two or more realities, or so it seems, which might be termed the physical and metaphysical realities, or the perceptual and conceptual realities. These are not separate but are rather interdependent and are united within the individual's mind. The human may consciously dichotomize the two instead of naturally striving to integrate the two into a harmony of "truth", striving to deny one or the other of the realities with pathological results because a human can never avoid and divorce himself completely from either side of reality. In striving to integrate the perceptual and the conceptual requires conscious and rational normative decision making, which issues in part from the human's spontaneous creativity, both passively in thought and actively in behavior. It is a natural process of integrating the subjective and the objective, the ends and the means. These two sides of reality and the central relationship the human shares with both create for the individual an essential duality of existence which becomes reflected as dilemma and paradox in every concern of behavior. It becomes the common socially operational nature of all of humanity's philosophical and normative endeavors including military philosophy.
If one accepts the possible efficacy, however limited, of this primary theoretical generalization, reasonably scientific, then the physiological explanation for this duality might possibly be hypothesized as being related to the fact that human brain is divided into two interdependent halves, the left and the right. Each side serves a distinct subset of mental functions, while both operate interdependently of each other. The left side serves the deductive, logical perceptually differentiating and conceptual rationalizing functions, tending to initially dichotomize and differentiate. The right side serves the intuitive, creative, inductive integrating function of uniting the dichotomizations and differentiations in a subsequent harmony or a simplifying paradox of conclusions. This might further be related to the observed duality of personality traits and types, say between the aggressive and the repressive, between the introverted and the extroverted, between the central top dog-under dog inner conflict which afflicts the normative behavior of most humans. It might lead to the value and social connotations such dual interrelationships might have, of dominance and predominance of one trait or character type over its opposite or antithetical trait, of the symbolic and operant male predominance over the female, of supposed male and female character social traits. It might be related to the difference between the authoritarian and the revolutionary personality types. Perhaps this essential duality is necessary for the regeneration and survival of the human, of synthesis from the "dialectical" conflict of opposites, not only psychologically or philosophically, but physiologically involving the "whole" human.
In his life a healthy person needs to consciously and unconsciously in integrate the two sides of reality in order to be happy and successful. Healthy life is one of continual growth. The normative decision making process leads to normative growth and self educational development of the individual. This integration process is a continuous one. The pathological person is one whose growth has been stemmed at some point, becoming fixated and regressive instead of progressive. He is one who is unable to successfully integrate the two sides of reality, due to too fast or too slow change of the external reality or to isolation and fragmentation of the internal metaphysical reality. The pathologically unhealthy human perceives an ever widening gap between the two realities, losing his sense of self, as a whole entity or integrity, becoming a person whom the death forces of fear, regression, substitution, self limitation and destructiveness in both internalized and externalized forms predominate over the life forces of courage, love, trust, integration, independence, growth and progression, being and becoming, freedom, independence, self discipline and creative expression. The healthy person is one of mature integrative growth of the metaphysical and physical self. The pathological person is one of immaturity, metaphysical and physical alienation, and subsequent regression, of which various forms of neurosis, psychosis and physical psycho-somatic dysfunction may be related as symptoms.
The determining factor of a natural ideal is not necessarily a relativistic condition of emotional well being but is rather a universally applicable degree of natural, individuated health. There exists an interdependent pyramidal hierarchy of human needs the satiation of which determine the health of the human personality matrix. Continual satiation is a prerequisite for continual growth. At the base of this hierarchy are all of the biological needs and the relative state of biological physical heath and well being, including uninhibited physical maturation, nutrition, exercise and sleep by which all biological requirements of existence are adequately satiated. At the next level are the libidinous-instinctual needs and the corresponding degree of emotional health, in which appetites, angers, love and sexual desires and otherwise, security and stability are expressed and sated in appropriate measure. The next higher level are the cognitive needs of human perception and conception, of intellection involving the satiation of fears and curiosity, of perceptual sensing and conceptual rationalizing. These needs form the conscious levels of the pyramidal hierarchy, involving experiential, empirical knowledge and abstracted, generalized and communicable knowledge. The final apex of this pyramidal hierarchy of needs and satiations is the purely human level of normative needs and normative health of rational integrating, decision making, and creative expression. This is the level at which the metaphysical self grows and becomes integrated with the physical self as a "whole" human being. This model of a pyramidal hierarchy of human needs and growth may not be the most accurate one for the description of the personality matrix. The biological needs sated, the emotional-sexual needs, from which many social characterizations derive power of influence, seem in conflict with the so called "higher" perceptual and purely "conceptual" needs of intellection by the individual. It may indeed be the eternal conflict between these two sets of needs, social and personal, which is the central dilemma of human existence. Above the biological needs, the higher forms of needs can be foregone without the dire consequences of death, but without the satiation of which the human cannot hope to be completely whole, healthy, natural and happy in a very real sense. The resolution of the dilemma formed by the conflict between needs may give rise to the normative, creative, decision making needs. Insufficient resolution or satiation of these lower needs may give rise to the pathologization of normative behavior. The problems of normative needs, sexual reproduction, social recognition, social characterization, and ultimately proper social organization are very closely interrelated and in context to the human personality matrix forms an inseparable "whole".
Normative decision making is the highest need of expression of humanity's as yet mostly unconscious powers, forming the basis of normative judgment, experiential wisdom and knowledge, of philosophical truth and of strategic rationality as opposed to irrational and pathologized life styles and social behaviors. This level involves the satiation and subsequent growth of an individual's decision making capabilities, of his essential creativity. Normative needs falls into two general groups, the lower individual decision making needs and the higher more general social decision making needs arising from the fact that the human is a social animal and must make collective decisions. This forms part of a complex interrelationship of the individual to society, in which the individual is continuously faced with either "selfless" conformity or "selfish" independence. The interrelationship is a cyclical one of mutual regenerative integration or of degenerative disintegration, giving rise to construction or destruction, progression or regression. It is a cycle which when healthy initiates with the lower social base of cognitive satiation from which the individual inherits his civilizing commonwealth, enabling individuated normative integration, and then manifestation in the ultimate form of communicable social expression by which the process returns and complements the initial civilizing commonwealth of humanity. When pathologized this process might well be reversed and inverted into an authoritarian power structure on which conformity instead of individuality is superimposed on the human.
Before an higher level of growth can be attained in this pyramidal hierarchy of needs the more fundamental needs must first have been adequately satiated (except when sublimation, compensation, rationalization, etc. affect the energies arising from the whole "natural" aggression as a part of a total and innate resource pool of energy in the individual, requiring the bypassing of some needs and the channeling into other appropriate levels of self satiation). A pathological condition of no growth is one in which the more fundamental needs have not been adequately satiated. A pathological development can initiate at the highest level of normative needs and infect all the levels of need satiation and of health, in a pattern of progressive neurosis, psychosis, character disorders and psycho and socio pathologies and affect even the individual's physical well being. A pathologized person whose natural maturation has been stemmed is a neurotic cognitive and normative development is deficiency and fear motivated, giving rise to attempts to alter and control the environment in order to satiate the needs, eventuating in destructiveness and overt domination. Projecting his own inadequacies into the environment as a defense, the pathologized person feels threatened by his environment…alienation, hate, and destructiveness are the products of non-growth of normative decision making capabilities. Neurosis may be the only available solution, the best possible self defense under the given conditions, for the frustrated individual. For the neurotic it is the most healthy solution possible. The disintegration process may not need to develop beyond the point of subtle neurosis, adequately overcoming any sense of frustration. All of humanity to some minuscule extent or at some time or another, suffers neurotic regression. Indeed to be neurotic is "normal" in the authoritarian power structures inflicting most societies.
A healthy person satisfies his emotional needs, overcomes his fear with courage, seeks to understand and become independent with his social environment and in the final analysis is a person motivated by love and has attained an integrated metaphysical self. The golden mean is the achieving integration of the physical and metaphysical sides of reality. The human being is a social animal. Part of healthy self actualization involves the love of others. Pathological development results in alienated antisocial behavior patterns which in various forms become institutionalized within the modern social system. Healthy union in social interrelationships is the knowledge gained by the path of love. Pathological interrelationships involve feat and mistrust, knowledge of others gained not by love but by distortion and manipulation.
In the socialization process of the infant the natural desires are frustrated by fears in a dehumanizing process in which the socialized artificial authoritarian superego is instilled in the individual as a means of control to insure submission, conformity and obedience to the cultural system. The authoritarian power structure dictates that men in power have the right to restrict the normative and other behavior of others. It dictates obedience instead of autonomy, sameness instead of equality, conformity rather than individuality. The authoritarian power structures are multifaceted throughout all occurring social systems. It results in a pathological development of people's normative behavior, a gradual process of dehumanization, alienation, self frustration and pathologization and is reflected in various pathological social expressions which are the symptoms of a diseased authoritarian power structure: drug abuse, crime, sexual perversion, prejudice, ignorance, mindless conformity, religious and political fanaticism, terrorism and militarism. The various social structures arising around these various vices, differentiated symptoms of the same source of affliction becomes institutionalized, contributing to the further dehumanization and continued pathologization of humanity. In patterning the behavior of the constituents the authoritarian power structure reinforces the adaptability of certain mutually symbiotic personality characteristics. It has over extensively relied on the predominance of the left half of the brain function of cognitive analytical capabilities, the predominance of the aggressive personality, of male traits. Societies have always been the domain of the male and have always had a preponderant tendency towards war, militarism and the frontal assault. The majority of humanity, if left alone, would probably be naturally well balanced and very pacific.
Observing how the pathologization of the self and the formulation of authoritarian power structures might mitigate against the conceptual foundations of world unity I have offered the theory of the normative metaphysical self as an alternative starting point in the construction of such foundations. It is necessary to ask oneself how healthy is the normal "statistical" average of humanity. This leads to a consideration of perhaps other pathological affects in inhibiting and channeling that which falls under the category of science, especially as it attempts to deal with the single most complex entity so far known to man, the human mind and personality. Psychology by the pursuit scientific methodology has usurped the relationship which religion and personalized faith in human purpose had served in people's lives by negativistic dichotomization between the subjective and the objective realities, and it has offered nothing rational to replace that upon which humanity had been dependent, a common ground for a common faith. I offer as a second alternative prerequisite to comprehensive conceptual foundations of world unity the model of Humanistic Science; an integration of objective scientific methodology and the subjective aspects of human existence. Relying exclusively on hard perceptual data and the analytical tolls of mathematics and logic, scientific thought needs to become integrated to some as yet indefinite extent with the normative sciences of philosophy and of ethics, and when dealing with the human and society especially in the formulation of models of psychological and sociological health. Working towards some ideal goal requires subjective, nonobjective "opinionation" as to the "best". There is needed a substantial means of "subjective" proof. The suggestion is the positive proof of performance. If it works well, theoretically under universal conditions, transcending cultural and historical relativity, then it can be empirically experimentally, experientially and theoretically proved. There is a gap between the sciences and the humanities, between knowledge of the world and of human nature and of human purpose, between the objective and the subjective, between the limitations of psychology and the limitations of philosophy. Bridging this gap is an essential prerequisite for the foundations of world unity. A larger more powerful and comprehensive un-self limiting body of knowledge and thought, as part of a common conceptual understanding of humanity. Science must restore a common ground of faith between understanding of the world and of humanity's place and purpose in it.
One basic thesis which emerges from this approach is that the model of science in general inherited from the impersonal sciences of things, objects, animals and part processes is limited and inadequate when we attempt to know and to understand whole and individual persons and cultures. It was primarily the physicists and the astronomers who created the Weltanschauung and the subculture known as Science (including all its goals, methods, axiomatic values, concepts, languages, folkways prejudices, selective blindness, hidden assumptions). This has been pointed out by so many to amount to truism by now. But only recently has it been demonstrated just how and where this impersonal model failed with the personal, the unique, the holistic. None has an alternative model yet been offered to deal validly with the fully human person.
This I attempt to do in this book, I hope to show that these limitations of classical science are not intrinsically necessary. In the broad sense, science can be defined as powerful and inclusive enough to reclaim many of the cognitive problems from which it has had to abdicate because of its hidden but fatal weakness--its inability to deal impersonally with the personal, with the problems of value, of individuality, of consciousness, of beauty, of transcendence, of ethics. In principle, at least, science should be capable of generating normative psychologies of psycho therapy, of religion, of work, play and leisure, of esthetics, of economics and politics, and who knows what else?
…I have been disturbed not only by the moral "anal" scientists and the dangers of their denial of human values in science, along with the consequent amoral technologizing of all science. Just as dangerous are some of the critics of orthodox science who hind it too skeptical, too cool, and non-human, and then reject it altogether as a danger to human values. They become "anti-scientific" and anti-intellectual. This is a real danger among some psychotherapists and clinical psychologists, among artists, among some seriously religious people, among some of the people who are interested in Zen, in Taoism, in existentialism, "experimentalism" and the like. Their alternative to science is often sheer freakishness and cultishness, uncritical and selfish exaltation of mere personal experiencing, over reliance on impulsivity (which they confuse with spontaneity) arbitrary whimsicality and emotionality, unskeptical enthusiasm and finally navel watching and solipsism. This is a real danger. In the political realm, anti-science could wipe out mankind just as easily as could value free, amoral, technologized science. We should remember the Nazis and Fascists with their call to blood and to sheer instinct, and their hostility to freely probing intellect and to cool rationality.
…As a philosophical doctrine orthodox science is ethnocentric, being Western rather than universal. It is unaware that it is a product of time and place, that it is not an eternal, unchangeable, inexorably progressing truth. Not only is it relative to time, place and local culture but it is also characterologically relative, for I believe it to be a reflection far more narrowly of the cautious, obsessional world view centered on the need for safety than of a more mature, generally human, comprehensive view of life. Such weaknesses as these become especially glaring in the area of psychology where the goal is the knowledge of persons and other actions and works.
"But in this century and especially in the last decade or two, a counter philosophy has been rapidly developing along with a considerable revolt against the mechanistic, dehumanized view of man and the world. It might be called a rediscovery of man and his human capacities, needs and aspirations. These humanly based values are being restored to politics, to industry, to religion, and also to the psychological and social sciences. I might put it so: while it was necessary and helpful to dehumanize planets, rocks, and animals we are realizing more and more strongly that it is not necessary to dehumanize the human being and to deny him human purposes."
"Yet a certain re-humanization is also taking place even in the non-human and impersonal sciences, as Matson points out. This change is part of a larger and more inclusive, more "humanistic" world view. For the time being these two great philosophic orientations, the mechanistic and the humanistic, exist simultaneously like some species wide two party system."
"The Psychology of Science-A Reconnaissance" by Abraham Maslow.
An alternative philosophy of creativity is proffered as another prerequisite to the foundations of conceptual unity needed before world unity of human behavior can be attained. A common philosophical ground is corollary and complementary to the humanistic science, as the limitations of science in dealing with human behavior are the same source of the subject-object dichotomy of human thought that self limits and undermines philosophy. There is a need for a common philosophical foundation, one uniting the efficacy of each school of philosophical thought and transcending the divisive nature of all active philosophy. It is important because the premises on which humanity attempts to understand reality underlies and determines all epistemological conclusions, eventuating in the direction of all human endeavor. Science must not only be extended and enlarged into the humanities, but the fundamental normative science of the humanities, philosophy, of how the human perceives and conceives his world, must be enlarged and unified as well to include a more rational "scientific" basis of a universal reality.
"…This plague is a formal theory in technical philosophy, it is called: the analytic-synthetic dichotomy…In its dominant contemporary form, the theory states that there is a fundamental cleavage in human knowledge, which divides propositions or truths into two mutually exclusive (and jointly exhaustive) types. These types differ, it is claimed, in their origins, their referents, their cognitive status and the means by which they are validated…analytic truths represent concrete instances of the Law of Identity, as such they are also frequently called "tautologies" (which, etymologically means that the proposition repeats 'the same thing', e.g. …a rational animal is a rational animal. The solid form of water is a solid. Since all of the propositions of logic and mathematics can ultimately be analyzed and validated in this fashion, these are two subjects, it is claimed fall entirely within the "analytic" or "tautological" half of human knowledge…Synthetic propositions on the other hand…are said to be entirely different on all these accounts. A "synthetic" proposition is defined as one which cannot be validated merely by an analysis of the meanings or definitions of its constituent concepts…In this type of case, said Kant, the predicate of the proposition (e.g. "floats on water") states something about the subject ("ice") which is not already contained in the meaning of the subject-concept. (The proposition represents a synthesis of the subject with a new predicate, hence the name.) Such truths cannot be validated merely by correctly applying the laws of logic, they do not represent concrete instances of the Law of Identity. To deny such truths is to maintain a falsehood, but not a self contradiction…It is the facts of the case, not the laws of logic, which condemn such statements. Accordingly synthetic truths are held to be "factual" as opposed to "logical" or "tautological" in character…Analytic truths are necessary, no matter what region of space or what period of time one considers, such propositions must hold true…Synthetic truths, however, are declared not to be necessary, they are called "contingent". This means; as a matter of fact, in the actual world that men now observe, such propositions happen to be true--but they do not have to be true. They are not true in "in all possible worlds". Since its denial is self contradictory, the opposite of any synthetic truth is at least imaginable or conceivable…(c) Since analytic proposition are "logically" true, they can, it is claimed, be validated independently of experience; they are "non-empirical" or "a-priori" (today these terms means 'independent of experience')…Synthetic truths on the other hand, are said to be dependent upon experience for their validation, they are "empirical" or "a-posteriori". Analytic propositions provide no information about reality, they do not describe facts, they are "non-ontological" (i.e. do not pertain to reality). Analytic truths it is held, are created and sustained by men's arbitrary decision to use words (or concepts) in a certain fashion, they merely record the implications of linguistic (or conceptual) conventions….Synthetic propositions on the other hand, are factual and for this, man pays a price. The price is that they are contingent, uncertain and unprovable…The theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy presents men with the following choice: if your statement is proved, it says nothing about what which exists, if it is about existents, it cannot be proved…Objectivism rejects the theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy as false--in principle, at root, and in every one of its variants.
The ultimate result of the theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is the following verdict pronounced on human cognition: if the denial of a proposition is inconceivable, if there is no possibility that any fact of reality can contradict it, i.e., if the proposition represents knowledge which is certain, then it does not represent knowledge of reality. In other words, if a proposition cannot be wrong, it cannot be right…This means, a proposition is regarded as arbitrary precisely because it has been logically proved…Now observe what is left of philosophy in consequence of this neo-Kantism…Metaphysics has been all but obliterated, its most influential opponents have declared that metaphysical statements are neither analytic nor synthetic and therefore are meaningless…Ethics has been virtually banished from the province of philosophy…Politics has been discarded by virtually all philosophic schools, in so far as politics deals with values, it has been relegated to the same status as ethics…Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, the science that defines the rules by which man is to acquire knowledge of facts has been disintegrated by the notion that facts are the subject matter of "synthetic", "empirical", propositions and therefore, are outside the province of philosophy--with the result that the special sciences are now left adrift in a rising tide of irrationalism…What we are witnessing is the self liquidation of philosophy…To regain philosophy realm, it is necessary to challenge and reject the fundamental premises which are responsible for today's debacle. A major step in that direction is the elimination of the death carrier known as the analytic-synthetic dichotomy.
"The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" by Leonard Peikoff from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand.
The philosophy of creativity is the direct extension of the theory of creativity already mentioned in this book. Its basis lies on the premises of reduction--that social behavior patterns and the problems that arise from them may be reduced conceptually to the way the individual deals with his environment and is subjected to many problems. Many social tendencies are ultimately reducible to being a collectivization of many individual tendencies by the constituents of the social system. Likewise it employs the principle of direct extension of individual tendencies to explain mass social tendencies. In context of world unity this implies the most inclusive and open human social system occurring, world humanity and reductively the most common individual tendencies encountered by humans--thus the necessity of the concept of a universal human nature. Corollary to the principles of reduction and extension are the concepts of complication, magnification, resonance and reverberation. These concepts imply that those tendencies which predominate at the individual level and the primary "immediate" level of inter-human social relationships become complicated and magnified at the higher levels of more distant social relationships to infect every form of human social expression and in turn complicated and further affect and influence the individual behavior patternings. An individual who lives primarily motivated by fear and a majority of constituents who are pathologically motivated results in the formation of an authoritarian power structure with many complex negativistic tendencies which in turn fosters social dependency by the individual and results in a dehumanization of the individual constituent. A vicious cycle that begins and ends with the individual and vice versa, begins and ends with the social institution.
Philosophy today suffers from a lack of comprehensiveness of definition and understanding, a general divisiveness occurring in all fields of philosophical application, which results in a failure of unity of human behavior which sets into motion many fundamentally irrational patterns of behavior, in thought and action, which interfere destructively with each other and which perseverate absurdly to the point of self frustration and self destruction. All too often individuals are unwilling to let go of philosophies which are founded on limited premises of understanding and which often contradicts the perceptual reality. They cling almost religiously to beliefs and outmoded functions--living blindly with their heads in the sand--and stubbornly refuse to accept new ideas and possibilities of thought. Such perserveration is a great source of inner security and consolation--yet it belies the facts of reality and reveals an underlying pathology. Philosophy is the understanding and definition of universally applicable human condition--often times posed as a confusing human dilemma--by its very definition it must never be a closed self contained system of conception--it strives constantly for a comprehensivity of thought and definition which will enable greater clarity of thought and facilitate human activity. There is no room for limited system of conception and belief in the purely human realm of philosophy. Philosophical thought considers every field and perspective of human understanding. It is the general utility of philosophy which is important--a utility vale which is often neglected, ignored, denied or forgotten. It is hoped that the comprehensive and generally applicable efficiency of the philosophy of creativity will be adequately demonstrate to widen the reader's horizon of understanding.
The importance of philosophy to world unity lies precisely in the concept of a universal human nature--in the idea that the origin and fundamental basis of all social problems and solutions ultimately rests within the understanding of the individual in context to his immediate environment. It is to the extent that in order to behave rationally a human needs to be guided by a "rational" philosophy. Rational behavior, social or individual, in thought or in physical activity, needs to be guided by a well defined and rational philosophical outlook by both the individual and by world society as a collective whole. The whole idea of changing for the better and of improvement starts with philosophical definition of what if better--of the first importance of philosophy in dictating human behavior. Before any human or society can change for the better they must start with changing and objectively defining their philosophical premises. Even definition of the pathological or of the bad requires implicit acceptance if not the conscious definition of what is healthy and good. Indeed it is precisely the extent that a human or a society fails to live according to a rational, utilitarian, conscious normatively philosophical premises--the extent that they neglect the first importance of philosophy--that they become frustrated and more dictated by their lower instinctual needs and behavior patterns. These negativistic patterns begin to predominate life and result in irrationally uncoordinated, fear motivated behavior patterns which so characterize the authoritarian personality and eventuate in the formation of the authoritarian power structure. Neglect and prejudicial ignorance of philosophical, rationally derived premises of understanding results in the dehumanization of the individual and the social system. This is the extent to which contemporary social systems are founded on prejudicial and limited premises of philosophical understanding--that they are based primarily on the conventionality of behavior. It is to the extent which the individual in his own private self actualization transcends those socially imposed conventions of behavior, of his inherited culture, that the individual achieves spiritual transcendence and is more characteristically human.
Creativity is both the means of making this transcendence and the ultimate expression and end of human behavior. But this is getting ahead of this story. Suffice it to say for how that creativity is a crucial element, a key concept which helps to explain much of the human dilemma and helps to unite philosophical understanding into a comprehensive whole. The following set of thoughts, ideas and conceptions are proffered to describe and give a cursory understanding of the philosophy of creativity--none of these opinions are meant to be construed as concise definition or as the absolute truth.
1. Philosophy implies comprehensive understanding which in turn implies a unity of all conceptions and perceptions. No single system of thought can be realistically considered as whole, or completely comprehensive. There is always the unknown and possible portion of human thought and of reality which complements that which is known. Philosophy is a unified, nonexclusive and non-exhaustive and open system of understanding. This implies the meaning of universe in context to human understanding. Considered objectively or subjectively it doesn’t really matter. Universe includes both the metaphysical (conceptual) reality and the physical (perceptual) reality. Philosophy is an unlimited system of thought.
2. The essential human dilemma of understanding which undermines philosophy as a tool is the product of illogical and irrational dichotomization of thought which divides the concept of universe and all philosophical subsystems into a intrinsically erroneous duality--expressed variously as the means versus ends dilemma, physical versus metaphysical reality, conceptual versus perceptual reality, objective versus subjective reality, analytic versus synthetic dichotomy and which affects virtually every field of human endeavor. Each duality implies mutual exclusiveness and results in limited philosophical systems. "Scientific versus Humanist."
3. Creativity is the human bridge between this apparent duality of reality. Creativity is directly opposed to dichotomization of human understanding. It is a process of integration in philosophical understanding. It enables theoretical formulation of truth--a unity, identity, entity and trinity of understanding. Philosophy is an enquiry of understanding--a dynamic process that can never stop. Creativity is exploration and discovery of truth. There exists both a-priori absolute truth, one which can never be completely comprehended by philosophy and a relative degree of a posteriori truth which is defined by the comprehensive limits of philosophy. Both conditions of truth are dependent upon the concept of a universal human nature which poses the problem of the human dilemma.
4. In order to overcome the dichotomization of the human dilemma philosophical creativity and understanding must be based upon an objectively well defined and empirically tenable system of conception firmly rooted in perceptual reality. The system of conception must be logical and rational. It must be based upon objectivist epistemology purported by Ayn Rand.
5. Creativity implies integration into a philosophical whole or integrity. It is both a means of personal and social reform. It is in a philosophical sense the key to happiness, the establishment of the "golden" mean and the essence of beauty and love. Creativity explains well human "purpose" in universe, that of the anti-entropic role of doing more with less as a result of metaphysical functioning in physical reality. This explains the concept of industrial ephemeralization and the concept of progressive evolution of technological evolution. It is the heart of technological invention of applied science and of theoretical integration in pure science. Creativity is the key to strategic success in every field of applied human behavior including warfare. Creativity is a purely "human" metaphysical counter functioning in the naturally entropic environment of physical reality.
6. The philosophical transcendence of the essential human dilemma enabled by creativity results in many seeming paradoxes which actually simplify through integration the "problem" and is the source of cleared resolution of the question. Indeed creative solution to any problem is itself concise definition and clear resolution of what the problem actually is. It consists of being able to ask the appropriate questions. Answers follow logically and rationally.
7. Creative expression is manifest in all forms of philosophically based normative behavior. It is often a spontaneous normative response to external conditions, it is a substitution process for the limitations poverty and frustration encountered in reality--especially in social relationships.
8. All people are naturally and potentially creative. They are born that way to an as yet undetermined and individually relative degree.
9. Creative development is spontaneous--it arises naturally from within the individual if it is not frustrated and if the individual is left to his own means of self determination and if the individual consciously strives to develop it in an objective form of expression.
10. The concept of creativity centers around the concept of the self as opposed to the "selfless" concept of society reflected in ideas of selfless altruism and religious and secular self sacrifice. Creativity implies self development, self discipline, self realization, self actualization and self transcendence of selfish narcissism. Creativity means self fulfillment which in turn means the future success of mankind on the earth.
11. Creativity is opposed to social behavior--its only relationship to social dependency is in a passive sense of society supplying the contextual framework, the objective resource "materials" the means of final objectified expression and the audience by which creativity achieves verification. Society is of secondary importance to the actual creative function. Creativity is the realm of the individual and not the domain of social organization. This defines the nature of the individuals natural relationship to his state, one of preeminent and primary importance. It is the reversal of this primary relationship which results in reciprocal pathological development of the state and the individual.
12. Creativity defines self evident, natural and fundamental human life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in all their relative connotations. It explains the primary importance of individual rights over state privileges. Creativity requires freedom from social convention, in thought and actions, and independence from suffocating social relationships. It requires a relative degree of isolation and solitude. Relative to human nature, in context to the whole of humanity, creativity should logically dictate the appropriate social, political and economic extensions and systems which will maximize its occurrence.
13. It is to the extent that the "natural" proclivity toward creativity becomes frustrated either genetically or phenomenologically--either through the subconscious inheritance of cultural conventions of behavior or the conscious socialization influences--that a person sacrifices his own integrity and creativity for conformity valuations and behaviors and the dependent security this relationship fosters. Many people never realize their creative potential--it is too often frustrated and limited at a very early age. Many social institutions, family school work and play strive without necessarily realizing to suppress and repress creative forms of self expression which are deemed threatening to the pathologically motivated and to those whose own creativity has been frustrated or transformed into destructive. Such repression is deemed reinforcing of social behavior and necessary to the order and security of the system.
14. Frustrated creativity eventuated in pathological development and in destructiveness. In the sense of undeveloped or mal-developed potentiality, all humans born potentially destructive under the right social circumstances, which primarily occurs through frustration by socialization influences. While humans are "inherently" aggressive--a fundamental aggression shared with other lower older animal species--the social manifestations the more complex "human" forms of aggression are synthetic in this respect--being derived primarily from social frustration, convention, prejudice, immaturity which takes the form of dehumanization and the extreme instance of militarism and war. Natural aggression is fundamentally a "spontaneous" life oriented force and not a death oriented drive.
15. The creative individual is opposed to the "true believer" stereotyped as the religious or political fanatic or as the believer in any conventional ideology or behavior pattern. It is the person who questions convention instead of taking it for granted. It is one who is always critical and never completely accepting of "truth".
16. A person who is creative is philosophically active and therefore has no need for belief in dogma. Such a person is actively engaged in determining his religious convictions and is not merely a passive determinant of a person striving to consciously integrate philosophical conviction with physical-practical-reality. A creative person is an active determiner of the future in any form, not only of his own private future but ultimately of the social future of all humanity.
17. Creativity is inherently revolutionary in the context of human acceptance and incorporation of change--to the extent that convention and prejudice hinders future development and rejects change. Creativity defines and characterizes the revolutionary personality as opposed to the anti-creative authoritarian personality. The authoritarian power structure so predominating in social relationships is founded on the suppression and repression of creativity and change.
18. Creativity is life oriented as opposed to the death orientation of destructiveness. Creativity is humanizing as opposed to the dehumanization of the authoritarian power structure.
19. The arts in all its forms are the direct means of creative expression. They serve no more important purpose than that. The arts are inherently creative and therefore useful to "human" philosophical needs.
20. Creativity is the crux of the art of leadership--the only valid form of rational human leadership--the setting of the inspirational example. As such creativity and the arts as is primary means of expression are not of subsidiary importance to social life and human existence but are a necessary and obligatory responsibility which is prejudicially ignored, actively denied and continually frustrated by the "true believer". The socially proclaimed "leaders" who have made of this criminal irresponsibility an institution and as a means of selfish existence form the apex of the authoritarian power structure.
21. Creativity has much historical support and offers much support for future human development and hope for humanity's future. It is the only means of surmounting the problems encountered today, especially the extreme divisiveness of human behavior which prevents world unity and threatens world catastrophe. Over specialization is a failure of adequate creative integration of the dichotomized realities of the human philosophical dilemma. Behavioral results of over specialization of the individual in context to his social environment are maladaptive behavior patterning and a failure to functionally incorporate change into the social structure. It will eventuate in self destructive behavior and in inevitable extinction. It reflects a failure to change.
22. The greatest individuals--the greatest contributors to human civilization--and not just the historically renowned or notorious personages--the true leaders of human history have been those who have achieved the greatest creative expression in their respective fields of application. They have been the most self actualized and the most self fulfilled. High intelligence is not necessarily indicative of high creative ability. These are interrelated and complementary but neither is wholly dependent upon the other. Intellect is often more a hindrance to creativity in as far as it is founded on convention of thought--on purely analytical constructs and knowledge. Indeed creativity actually requires a temporary suspension of "logic" of intelligence and conventional knowledge, to consider the alternative possibilities of the illogical or the unknown. The intellectual geniuses have not necessarily been the greatest contributors to human progress whereas the creative geniuses have almost invariably been the greatest and most revolutionary leaders of human civilization.
Creativity is not the whole story of human nature or the whole solution of all the problems of human reform and progress but it is a very critical and necessary part of that story and solution. It offers a philosophical unity of understanding which no other single concept does. It has not as yet been formally recognized or elaborated in this crucial role it plays, even though its importance in many fields and its intrinsic value has been well published time and again. It explains many dilemmas and is the source of many paradoxes. It offers much simplicity of abstraction and a certain parsimony which accords well with theoretical validation. It underlies every other philosophical perspective of this book. Its intrinsic importance cannot be over stressed.
The philosophy of creativity is founded on the validation of the important theory of creativity to "human" reality and of the importance of "creative" philosophy to world unity. It may seem absurd to better informed people to think that creativity is the answer and solution to all human problems. It is definitely not this. It is only a personal opinion that creativity lies at the heart of most human problems--indeed it is believed to be the crux of the whole "human dilemma". Until it can scientifically proven this explanation of creativity will remain only an opinion. It only leaves the question to be asked, is there not some other means of validation and proof not wholly scientific and not wholly philosophical which might be otherwise quite acceptable and palatable to human belief? Perhaps common sense of the obvious might be sufficient.
The economist thinks in terms of economics. The politician thinks in terms of power. The lawyer thinks in terms of legality. The scientist views the world differently than the clergyman. Yet it is not reality which separates people and hinders world unity. It is the failure of the individual to think comprehensively enough to be able to incorporate into his world of conception and understanding the worlds of other people. From a utilitarian point of view, this comprehensive integration is the primary function and purpose of philosophy--a responsibility that modern philosophy has failed. Philosophy remains steeped in the same ideological dogmatisms and self limiting prejudicial premises which serve to divide the many different conceptual world of humanity. A human is best as a specialist in his own field of technical expertise, the conceptual world is much too vast and complex for total comprehension by any single individual. Yet this does not deny the individual of his natural need for an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the whole, as if it were a single unity or entity--it is the human need to feel at one with his world--the same for all humanity. This is the task of philosophy. Over specialization of the human in his social relationships is the indirect result of this divisiveness of human understanding--it is reflected in the divisive functioning and organization of the general social system. The goal is not to change the human for he must be at one with this own nature--the same for all people. The goal is to change the social system to allow the individual to acquire that feeling of integrity. The change must begin with philosophy. The resurrection of a world integrating philosophy will signal the resurrection of a new world humanity.
Aesthetics, a long branch of normative "science", an essential branch of philosophy is of vital importance in its every aspect as the most fundamental "objective" means of expression of how humanity views reality. Its direction is not only a reflection of the underlying influence of science and philosophy, but in itself is a prime mover and anticipator of the new forms and directions these other cognitive and normative branches of intellectual functioning will take. The vital importance of aesthetics, as a positive, objective affirmation of human purpose--as a romantic ideal--is prerequisite to the cementing of the philosophical foundations for world unity as an affirmation of positive human culture. Aesthetics must take its rightful place in common human valuation, not to be degraded and neglected in its expression, as well as in its criticism as subordinate to any other ends outside itself: political, economic, religious, etc. The romantic aesthetic serves as the basis for world unity which must be cultivated in all forms of artistic expression. It is the reaffirmation of the purpose of life. It is the absence of such place that has served in the conceptual world of humanity as the degrading element in aesthetics, a degradation that seems to have particularly afflicted the current world trending in the world of art.
What is the importance of art in world unity? Very simply art is the definition, reflection and expression of quality which pervades every aspect and facet of human existence. True art has no purpose beyond itself. Human art, like human rights, human health, life and nature in general, is an end in itself which requires no subsequent justification of application--any such efforts is only debasement of true art. True art is not a means to any other end that is not intrinsic to the nature of art itself. The nature of art is the nature of the human. It is natural expression of human creativity--in any shape, form or condition. True art is the highest humanly possible form of expression of that essential creativity which interrelated the human role in the omni-functioning reality of nature. While true art is most often degraded where it can be found, the degree to which it is manifest despite impure degradation of purpose and function, is also evidence of the degree to which the affirmation of life, positive respect for humanitarian valuation, individual freedom and independence from convention and prejudice and fulfillment of human rights and health have been achieved in common social functioning. Art enhances the quality of life.
While art itself is a human end without need of justification of function or purpose, the romantic aesthetic is the highest possible value, social judgment and purpose that can be attached to the role of art in human society. In this role of the romantic aesthetic, art is the primary medium of social communication--a medium that is extremely diverse, multifaceted and virtually unlimited. While the romantic aesthetic is the objective expression of live, beauty and life, yet it is paradoxical to human nature that art will always remain an extremely subjective and relativistic form of communication--individually as well as culturally. True art is self identification. True art cannot be shackled or restrained by social convention, religious dogma, political propaganda, cultural tradition or by scientifically applied communication techniques. While these are possible means of art, they are not the true ends of true art. Boredom is antithetical to the realm of true art. As such boredom is the primary negative motivational stimulus to artistic communication. Art is empowered by the human need for change, for new possible conceptual and perceptual stimuli because of dissatisfaction with the old. In the context of the primary form of social communication, true art is revolutionary--both locally and universally.
The idea that the primary function of art is conceptual and perceptual revolution helps to relate the social role of art as the anticipator of social innovation and change and helps to identify the social role of the true artist as that of revolutionary leader. True art is the personal exploration for new perceptual and conceptual possibilities: the romantic aesthetic is the social exploration for the ideal, objective realization of the perfect, and the communicable discovery of the true. True art eventuates in conceptual space, freedom, vision and power which leads in turn to social reform and a reciprocal improvement and qualitative enhancement of the individual's existence. Art is the prime initiator and mover of technological invention and social innovation which are in turn the prime levers of progressive evolution of human civilization. To the extent that the social function of art is communication, the most appropriate and universal form of this inter-human communication is the conveyance of subjective mood. To the extent that the romantic aesthetic is part of the social role of true art, this mood is necessarily inspirational. The social function of the romantic aesthetic stands in direct counter valence to that of established religions--both are founded and derive power from the same fundamental source of human inspiration. The personal function of the romantic aesthetic is to provide a means of transcendence over all those limitations--external and internal, social and nonsocial, conceptual and perceptual, that the individual human encounters in day to day existence. In the final analysis true art can be viewed as the prime mover of individual and social reform and leadership.
As the primary expression of creativity, art is found in every human activity--even in war. It is the only means of successful human behavior. To the extent that the romantic aesthetic is the highest possible affirmation of positive human success, does true art function as the primary social role in human existence. Cultivation of the understanding and realization of this social role is critical to laying the conceptual foundations of world unity. This is the importance of art to world unity.
"Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition…"
"Their opposite answers to this question constitutes the respective basic premises of two broad categories of art: Romanticism which recognizes the existence of man's volition and Naturalism which denies it…"
"Just as man's aesthetic preferences are the sum of his metaphysical values and the barometer of his soul, so art is the sum and barometer of a culture. Modern art is the most eloquent demonstration of the cultural bankruptcy of our age."
"Art (including literature) is the barometer of a culture. It reflects the sum of a society's deepest philosophical values, not its professed notions and slogans, but its actual view of man and of existence…"
"…The dominant trend may not in fact express the soul of an entire people, it may be rejected, resented or ignored by an overwhelming majority, but if it is the dominant voice of a given period, this tells us something about the state of the people's souls."
"One of the grimmest monuments to altruism is man's culturally induced selflessness: his willingness to live with himself as with the unknown, to ignore, evade, repress the personal (the nonsocial) needs of his soul, to know least about the things that matter most and thus to consign his deepest values to the impotent underground of subjectivity and his life to the dreary wasteland of chronic guilt."
"The cognitive neglect of art has persisted precisely because the foundation of art is nonsocial. (This is one more instance of altruism's inhumanity, of its brutal indifference to the deepest needs of man--of an actual individual man. It is an instance of the inhumanity of any moral theory that regards moral values as a purely social matter!) art belongs to a non-socialized aspect of reality, which is universal (i.e. applicable to all men) but non-collective to the nature of man's consciousness."
"One of the distinguishing characteristics of a work of art is that is serves no practical material end, but is an end in itself, it serves no purpose other than contemplation and the pleasure of that contemplation is so intense, so deeply personal that a man experiences it as a self sufficient, self justifying primary and often resists or resents any suggestions to analyze it, the suggestion to him has the quality of an attack on his identity, on his deepest, essential self."
"Art does have a purpose and does serve a human need, only it is not a material need but a need of man's consciousness. Art is inextricably tied to man's survival--not to his physical survival but to that on which his physical survival depends, to the preservation of his consciousness."
"Apart from its many other evils, conventional morality is not concerned with the formation of a child's character. It does not teach or show him what kind o f man he ought to be and why, it is concerned only with imposing a set of rules on him--concrete, arbitrary, contradictory and more often than not, incomprehensible rules, which are mainly prohibitions and duties."
"The major source and demonstration of moral values available to a child is Romantic art. Romantic art offers him is not moral rules, not an explicit didactic message, but the image of a moral person--i.e. the concretized abstraction of a moral ideal."
"It is not abstract principles that a child learns from Romantic art, but the precondition and the incentive for the later understanding of such principles, the emotional experience of admiration for man's highest potential…"
"The translation of this sense of life into adult, conceptual terms would, if unimpeded, follow the growth of the child's knowledge and the two basic elements of his soul, the cognitive and normative, would develop together in serenely harmonious integration…"
"The most devastating part of this process is the fact that a child's moral sense of life is destroyed not only by means of such weaknesses or flaws as he might have developed, but by means of his barely emerging virtues…it is his virtues that are turned against him, his intelligence, his ambition and whatever respect he might feel for the knowledge and judgment of his elders."
"Thus the foundation of a lethal dichotomy is laid in his consciousness the practical versus the moral, with the un-stated, pre-conceptual implication that practicality requires the betrayal of one's values, the renunciation of ideals."
"His rationality is turned against him by means of a similar dichotomy: reason versus emotion. His Romantic sense of life is only a sense, an incoherent emotion which he can neither communicate nor explain nor defend. It is an intense, yet fragile emotion, painfully vulnerable to any sarcastic allegation since he is unable to identify its real meaning."
"A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence. It sets the nature of a man's emotional responses and the essence of his character. Every choice and value judgment implies some estimate of himself and of the world around him--most particularly of his capacity to deal with the world. He may draw conscious conclusions which may be true or false, or he may remain mentally passive and merely react to events (i.e. merely feel). Whatever the case may be, his subconscious mechanisms sums up his psychological activities, integrating his conclusions, reactions or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him. What began as a series of single discrete conclusions (or evasions) about his own particular problems, becomes a generalized feeling about existence, an implicit metaphysics with the compelling motivational power of a constant basic emotion, which is part of all his other emotions and underlies all his experiences. This is a sense of life."
"To the extent to which a man is mentally active, i.e. motivated by the desire to know, to understand, his mind works as the programmer of his emotional computer and his sense of life develops into a bright counterpart of a rational philosophy. To the extent to which a man evades, the programming of his emotional computer is done by chance influences, by random impressions, associations, imitations, by undigested snatches of environmental bromides, by cultural osmosis. If evasion or lethargy is a man's predominant method of mental functioning, the result is a sense of life dominated by fear--a soul like a shapeless piece of clay stamped by footprints going in all directions (in later years, such a man cries that he has lost his sense of identity, the fact is that he never acquired it)."
"Man by his nature, cannot refrain from generalizing, he cannot live moment by moment, without context, without past or future, he cannot eliminate his integrating capacity, i.e. his conceptual capacity, and confine his consciousness to an animal' s perceptual range…The enormously powerful integrating mechanism of man's consciousness is there at birth, his only choice is to drive it or to be driven by it. Since an act of volition--a process of thought--is required to use that mechanism for a cognitive purpose, man can evade that effort."
"A sense of life is formed by a process of emotional generalization which may be described as a subconscious counterpart of a process of abstraction, since it is a method of classifying and integrating. But it is a process of emotional abstraction, it consists of classifying things according to the emotions they invoke, i.e. of tying together by association or connotation all those things which have the power to make an individual experience the same (or similar) emotion…"
"Philosophy does not replace a man's sense of life, which continues to function as the automatically integrated sum of his values. But philosophy sets the criteria of his emotional integrations according to a fully defined and consistent view of reality (if and to the extent that a philosophy is rational). Instead of deriving, subconsciously, an implicit metaphysics from his value judgments he now derives conceptually his value judgments from an explicit metaphysics. His emotions proceed from his fully convinced judgments. The mind leads, the emotions follow."
"If his mind does not provide him with a comprehensive view of existence, his sense of life will. If he succumbs to centuries of concerted assaults on the mind--to traditions offering vicious irrationality or unconscionable nonsense in the guise of philosophy--if he gives up, in lethargy or bewilderment, evades fundamental issues and concerns himself only with the concrete's of his day to day existence, his sense of life takes over, for good or evil (and usually for evil) he is left at the mercy of a subconscious philosophy which he does not know, has never checked, has never been aware of accepting."
"Then as his fear, anxiety and uncertainty mount year by year, he finds himself living with a sense of unknown, indefinable doom, as if in expectation of some approaching judgment day. What he does not know is that every day of his life is judgment day, the day of paying for the defaults, the lies, the contradictions, the blank outs, recorded by his subconscious sense of life."
"A sense of life, once acquired, is not a closed issue. It can be changed and corrected--easily in youth while it is still fluid, or by a longer, harder effort in later years. Since it is an emotional sum, it cannot be changed by a direct act of will. It changes automatically, but only after a long process of psychological restraining, when and if a man changes his conscious philosophical premises."
"Whether he corrects it or not, whether it is objectively consonant with reality or not, at any stage or state of its specific content, a sense of life retains a profoundly personal quality, it reflects a man's deepest values, it is experienced by him as a sense of his own identity."
"There are two aspects of a man's existence which are the special province of and expression of his sense of life: love and art."
"A man's treason to his art values is not the primary cause of his neurosis (it is a contributory cause) but it becomes one of its most revealing symptoms. This last is of particular importance to the man who seeks to solve his psychological problem. Romantic art offers him a clear luminous impersonal abstraction and thus a clear objective test of his inner state, a clue available to his conscious mind."
"It is the artist's sense of life that controls and integrates his work, directing the innumerable choices he has to make, from the choice of subject to the subtlest details of style. It is the viewer's or reader's sense of life that responds to a work of art by a complex, yet automatic reaction of acceptance and approval, or rejection and condemnation."
"The emotion involved in art is not an emotion in the ordinary meaning of the term. It is experienced more as a 'sense' or a 'feel' but it has two characteristics pertaining to emotions, it is automatically immediate and it has an intense profoundly personal (yet undefined) value meaning to the individual experiencing it. The value involved in life and the words naming the emotion are 'This is what life means to me'".
"This does not mean that communication is not the primary purpose of the artist, his primary purpose is to bring his view of man and of existence into reality, but to be brought into reality it has to be translated in objective (therefore communicable) terms."
"Man's sense of life provides him with the integrated sum of his metaphysical abstractions, art concretizes them and allows him to perceive--to experience--their immediate reality."
"The importance of that experience is not in what man learns from it, but in what he experiences it. The fuel is not a theoretical principle, not a didactic 'message' but the life giving fact of experiencing a moment of metaphysical joy, a moment of love for existence."
"It is important to stress, however, that even though moral values are inextricably involved in art, they are involved only as a consequence, not as a casual determinant. The primary focus of art is metaphysical, not ethical. Art is not the 'handmaiden' of morality, its basic purpose if not to educate, to reform or to advocate anything…the basic purpose of art is not to teach, but to show, to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe."
"…but that influence and that 'message' to its audience are only secondary consequences. Art is not the means to any didactic end. This is the difference between a work of art and a morality play or a propaganda poster. The greater the work of art the more profoundly universal its theme. Art is not the means of literal transcription. This is the difference between a work of art and a news story or a photograph."
"The destruction of Romanticism in aesthetics--like the destruction of individualism in ethics or of capitalism in politics was made possible by philosophical default. It is one more demonstration of the principle that which is not known explicitly is not in man's conscious control. In all three cases the nature of the fundamental values involved have never been identified explicitly, the issues were taught in terms of nonessentials and the values were destroyed by men who did not know what they were losing or why."
"It is impossible to predict the time of a philosophical renaissance. One can only define the road to follow but not its length. What is certain however is that every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics--a rational ethics--as a precondition of rebirth. And perhaps no aspect needs it more desperately than the realm of art…"
"The Romantic Manifesto" by Ayn Rand.
Yet another alternative prerequisite to the foundation of world unity is what I have termed the ethic of love, not sexual love, but a higher form, a reverence for the dignity of life, and idiographic knowledge of the human individual as a subjective integrated whole--a unique entity that can only be understood fully in an act of union, love must be for the individual's whole being, of the full self without the discoloration of projection and stereotype. Love for humanity as a whole dictates a universal ethical code, which determines and underlies all human behavior, neither relative nor dependent to any specialized instance. The ethic of love is the same for all humans, not to be subordinated to any inferior code of social moral behavior, religious, political or ideological in any sense. The ethic of love implies a respect for human integrity and individuality. Again this ethical "science" is a prerequisite in the conceptual foundation of world unity. The power of a new humanistic science, objectivist philosophy and a renaissance of romantic aesthetics is fertile breeding grounds for the resurrection of a new code of ethics based on love. It implies mutual inter-human trust and rational love guided behavior on the part of the whole of humanity. The power of love transcends scientific, philosophical and aesthetic considerations in the human interrelationships with one another. Love implies full knowledge, not ignorance--apathy arising from neglect, dehumanization, alienation, disintegration of the self. Boredom is the symptom of the pathologization of love. The ethical importance of love is undeniable.
"I am referring to romantic love, in the serious meaning of that term--as distinguished from the superficial infatuation of those whose sense of life is devoid of any consistent values, i.e. of any lasting emotions other than fear. Love is a response to values. It is with a person's sense of life that one falls in love--with that essential sum, that fundamental stand or way of facing existence, which is the essence of a personality. One falls in love with the embodiment of the value that formed a person's character, which are reflected in his widest goals or smallest gestures, which create the style of his soul, the individual style of a unique unrepeatable, irreplaceable consciousness. It is one's own sense of life that acts as the selector and responds to what is recognizes as one's own basic values in the person of another. It is not a matter of professed convictions (though these are not irrelevant); it is a matter of much more profound conscious and subconscious harmony."
"Many errors and tragic disillusionment are possible in this process of emotional recognition, since a sense of life by itself, is not a reliable cognitive guide. And if there are degrees of evil, then one of the most evil consequences of mysticism--in terms of human suffering--is the belief that love is a matter of 'the heart', not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy. Love is the expression of philosophy--of a subconscious philosophical sum--and perhaps no other aspect of human existence needs the conscious power of philosophy quite so desperately. When that power is called upon to verify and support an emotional appraisal, when love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then and only then, it is the greatest reward of man's life."
"The Romantic Manifesto" by Ayn Rand.
"…But if we mean by ethics what was meant by the term in the great philosophical or religious tradition, then ethics is not a code of behavior valid for certain fields. In this tradition ethics refers to a particular orientation which is rooted in man and which, therefore is not valid in reference to this or that person or to this or that situation but to all human beings…Conscience is the organ of this ethical attitudes, if we speak of ethics in the sense of the great philosophical and religious tradition of the East and West, then ethics is not a code, it is a matter of conscience."
"…It is important to keep in mind a distinction between authoritarian conscience and humanistic conscience…Authoritarian conscience, or super ego is the internalized power of the father, originally, later it is the internalized authority of society…"
"Now the second type of conscience which is not internalized authority, I called humanistic conscience, referring to the philosophic nor religious tradition. This conscience is an inner voice that calls us back to ourselves. By this 'ourselves' is meant the human core common to all men, that is, certain basic characteristics of man which cannot be violated or negated without serious consequences."
"I believe that the statement 'Man is not a thing' is the central topic of the ethical problem of modern man. Man is not a thing, and if you try to transform him into a thing because you transform a living thing into a corpse.' A corpse is a thing. Man is not. Ultimate power--the power to destroy--is exactly ultimately power of transforming life into a thing. Man cannot be taken apart and put together again, a thing can be. A thing is predictable: Man is not. A thing cannot create, Man can. A thing has no self. Man has. Man has the capacity to say the most peculiar and difficult word in our language, the word 'I'…"
"I want to mention one more point here which refers to the difference between knowing things and knowing man. I can study a corpse or an organ and it is a thing…But if I want to know a man, I cannot study him in this way…The problem the psychiatrist and the psychoanalyst are concerned with however, the problem we should all be concerned with--to understand our neighbor and ourselves--is to understand a human being who is not a thing. And the process of this understanding cannot be accomplished by the same method in which knowledge in the natural sciences can be accomplished. The knowledge of man is possible only in the process of relating ourselves to him…Ultimate knowledge cannot be expressed in thought or words…And you can never exhaust the description of a personality, of a human being, in his full individuality, but you can know him in an act of empathy, in an act of full experience, in an act of love…"
"What then are the ethical demands of our day? First of all to overcome this 'thingness' or to use a technical term, the 'reification' of man, to overcome or indifference, our alienation from others, from nature and from ourselves. Second to arrive again at a new sense of 'I-ness' of self, of an experience 'I am' rather than succumb to the automaton feeling in which we have the illusion that 'I think that I think' when actually I do not think at all but am rather like someone who puts on a record and thinks he plays the music of the record."
"Medicine and the Ethical Problem of Modern Man" from the book The Dogma of Christ and Other Essays on Religion, Psychology and Culture by Erich Fromm.
"The problem of how man should act if his government prescribes actions or society expects an attitude which his own conscience considers wrong is indeed an old one. It is easy to say that the individual cannot be held responsible for acts carried out under irresistible compulsion because the individual is fully dependent upon the society in which he is living and therefore must accept its rules. But the very formulation of this idea makes it obvious to what extent such a concept contradicts our sense of justice."
"External compulsion can to a certain extent, reduce but never cancel the responsibility of the individual. In the Nuremberg trial this idea was considered to be self evident. Whatever is morally important in our institution, laws and mores can be traced back to interpretation of the sense of justice of countless individuals. Institutions are in a moral sense important unless they are supported by the sense of responsibility of living individuals. An effort to arouse and strengthen this sense of responsibility of the individual is an important service to mankind."
"The State and the Individual Conscience" from Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein 1950.
Fulfillment on the moral and aesthetic side is a goal which leads to the preoccupation of art than it does to those of science. Of course, understanding of our fellow beings is important, but this understanding becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feeling in the joy and in the sorrow. The cultivation of this most important spring of moral action is that which is left of religion when it has been purified of the elements of superstition. In this sense, religion forms and important part of education where it receives far too little consideration and that little not sufficiently systematic.
"he frightful dilemma of the political world situation has much to do with the sin of omission on the part of our civilization. Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity."
"The Need for Ethical Culture" from Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein 1951.
Current religion remain stepped in dogma, tradition and in anthropomorphic superstition in resistance to scientific validation or integration. The fundamental purpose of religion is the assuagement of doubt in the fulfillment of the normative needs of the individual constituent conforming to a collectively common set of beliefs. Because of the social authoritarian crystallization of the power to influence the constituents of the religion, the fundamental rationality of purpose for the individual remains disguised in mystical and fallacious illusions which serve only to maintain the ignorance and predictability of its adherents. Falsified demigods disguised beneath the dress of the sacred, God sent authority, gain personal security and advantage over others. Because of the general tendency for religions to resist scientifically based evolutionary social changes, i.e. the advance of technological civilization they have become hypocritical and are rejected by many actively intelligent and revolutionary modern personalities. The authoritarian power structure affects the world of religion as well as it infects the world of militarism and of politics. Worldwide, religions remain fragmented, and directly unserving to the most elementary spiritual needs of the individual as a member of world society. To achieve honorable foundation for a world religion one must carefully and delicately separate the illusory dogma from each prevailing religion of the world and integrate its most valuable universal essence with the views of a common world of science, philosophy and ethics. The fundamental morality of any religion must be viewed in terms of the whole of humanity, believers and non-believers included. The dichotomization of which morality leads only to its substitution as means to achieving authoritarian power and control over people. A world religion must be oriented to and serving of the individual lifestyles of all humanity. It must never by force achieve adherence. It must be taught by living exemplification and not just preached. While science becomes dehumanizing by failing to integrate 'religious' spiritually into its functioning methodology and philosophy, religion dogmatically denies science as irrelevant as being essentially atheistic and even sacrilegious.
"Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general only individuals of exceptional endowments and exceptionally high minded communities rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely fond in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it."
"The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling appears at an early stage of development…"
"The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which means no dogma and no God conceived in man's image: so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feelings and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists sometimes also as saints…"
"How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."
"Religion and Science" in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
"The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality: it is purely a human affair. His religious feelings takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages."
"The Religious Spirit of Science" in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
"…It is very high goal which, with our weak powers we can reach only very adequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of its religious form and look closely at its purely human side, one might state it perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he may place his powers freely and gladly in the service of mankind."
"There is room in this for the divination of a nation, of a class, let alone of an individual. Are we not all children of one father, as it is said in religious language? Indeed, even the divination of humanity, as an abstract totality, would not be in the spirit of that idea. It is only to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any other way…
…If one holds these high principles clearly before one's eyes, and compares them with the life and spirit of our time, then it appears glaringly that civilized mankind finds itself at present in grave danger. In the totalitarian states it is the rulers themselves who strive actually to destroy that spirit of humanity. In less threatened parts it is the nationalism and intolerance as well as the oppression of the individuals by economic means, which threaten to choke those most previous traditions…
…But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representative of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of these forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task.
"Science and Religion" in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
When we consider the various religions as to their essential substance, that is, divested of their myths, they do not seem to me to differ as basically from each other as the proponents of the relativistic or conventional theory wish us to believe. And this is by no means surprising. For the moral attitudes of a people that is supported by religion need always aim at preserving and promoting the sanity and vitality of the community and its individuals, since otherwise this community is bound to perish. A people that were to honor falsehood, defamation, fraud and murder would be unable, indeed, to subsist for very long.
When considering the actual living conditions of present day civilized humanity from the standpoint of even the most elementary religious commands, one is bound to experience a feeling of deep and painful disappointment at what one sees. For while religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle resembles more a battlefield than an orchestra. Everywhere, in economic as well as in political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one's fellowmen. This competitive spirit prevails even in school and destroying all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation, conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection.
"Religion and Science: Irreconcilable?" from Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
In consideration of the basic components of a world religion there are offered four alternative interrelated functions which might be implemented before religion can achieve successful world wide integration with those that are already existing. The first is on gradual development of a common inspirational faith of freedom. Inspirational faith is the most basic component of religious belief, being founded on the trust of knowledge rather than superstitious fear and mistrust of ignorance. It is extensible to inter-human relationship in the belief that freedom of individual development, a hands off approach of unrestricted natural growth. The development of this faith in all inter-human relationships, is a very gradual process of encouraging inspirationally oriented, independent development displacing as much as possible the regressive authoritarian restrictions of growth which are so prevalent. The concept of freedom rests squarely within the related concepts of autonomy and independence. This faith can only be inspired, not enforced in the normative development by setting of its example in individual lifestyles. This natural faith is common to all healthy individuals. It is a fundamental faith which must be cultivated within text to the whole of humanity.
"I know that it is a hopeless thing to debate about fundamental value judgments. For instance, if someone approves, as a goal, the extirpation of the human race from the earth, one cannot refute such a viewpoint on rational grounds, but if there is an agreement of certain goals and values, one can argue rationally about the means by which these objectives may be obtained. Let us then indicate two goals which may well be agreed upon by nearly all who read these lines.
1. Those instrumental goods which serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labor of all.
2. The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities."
"The first of these two goals requires the promotion of all knowledge relating to the laws of nature and the laws of social processes, that is, the promotion of all scientific endeavor. For scientific endeavor is a natural whole, the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate. However, the progress of science presupposes the possibility of unrestricted communication of all results and judgments--freedom of expression and instruction in all realms of intellectual endeavor. By freedom, I understand social conditions of such a kind that the expression of opinions and assertions about general and particular matters of knowledge will not involve dangers of serious disadvantages for him who expresses them. This freedom of communication is indispensable for the development and extension of scientific knowledge, a consideration of much practical importance. In the first instance it must be guaranteed by law. But laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression, in order that every man may present his views without penalty, there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. Such an ideal of external liberty can never be fully attained, but must be sought unremittingly if scientific thought, and philosophical and creative thinking in general are to be advanced as far as possible."
"If the second goal, that is, the possibility of the spiritual development of all individuals is to be secured, a second kind of outward freedom is necessary. Man should not have to work for the achievement of the necessities of life to such an extent that he has neither time not strength for personal activities. Without this second kind of outward liberty, freedom of expression is useless for him. Advances in technology would provide the possibility of this kind of freedom if the problem of a reasonable division of labor were solved."
"The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom. It is this freedom of the spirit which consists in the independence of thought from un-philosophical routinizing and habit in general. This inward freedom is the infrequent gift of nature and worthy objective for the individual. Yet the community can do much to further this achievement, too, at least by not interfering in its development. Thus schools may interfere with the development of inward freedom through authoritarian influences and through imposing on young people an excessive spiritual burden, on the other hand, schools may favor such freedom by encouraging independent thought. Only if outward and inner freedom are constantly and consciously pursued is there a possibility of spiritual development and perfection and thus of improving man's outward and inner life."
"On Freedom" in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
The second component of the world religion I offer is the common morality of humanitarianism, as a minimal social fabric, a prerequisite for maintaining order and social discipline within world society. Morality has assumed various disguises of altruism throughout the world, the tool of the various forms of authoritarian power structures, and has been confined to limited arenas of human activity in context to the whole of humanity. Morality is the basis of social cohesion. It is the only beneficial and most widespread influence, next to prejudice and cultivated collective ignorance, religions have yet achieved. I believe the concept of social morality must be of necessity be minimized to avoid its extension to interference in the free and natural development of the individual. It means a minimum of social morality in full context to the whole of humanity, assuring a scope of humility which selfish ego-centrism tends to obscure, allowing a maximization of individual valuation in context to the immediate lifestyles, insuring freedom of communication and faith between all people. The socialization of the individual stems pathologically from the natural normative process, substituting for productive creativity unproductive conformity. An in-depth comprehensive survey of the many religions of civilization might reveal a different set of common fundamental moral precepts in regard to humanitarianism which if tempered to the pathos of modern technological civilization would forge a sense of humanitarian moral justice acceptable to any sane individual.
"When we survey our lives and endeavors we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires is bound up with the existence of other human beings. We notice that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have produce, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs have been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals: we have therefore to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth, would remain primitive and beast like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather a member of a great human community, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave."
"A man's value to the community depends on how his feelings, thoughts and actions are directed toward promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to his attitude, in this respect. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities."
"And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It can easily be seen that all the valuable achievements, material, spiritual and moral, which we receive from society has been brought about in the source of countless generations by creative individuals. Someone discovered the use of fire, someone the cultivation of edible plants, and someone the steam engine."
"Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society, nay, even set up new moral standards to which life of the community conforms. Without creative personalities able to think and judge independently the upward development of society is an unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community."
"The health of society thus depends as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close social cohesion. It has been rightly said that the very basis of Greco-European-American culture and in particular of its brilliant flowering in the Italian Renaissance which put an end to the stagnation of medieval Europe, has been the liberation and comparative isolation of the individual."
"Society and Personality" in Ideas and Opinions by Albert Einstein.
The third alternative component of a world religion is the personalized dogma of individuality. It is not an illusory fantasy of the past authoritarian religions, based on collective belief and assuring collective obedience, as a compensatory mechanism for physical and spiritual deprivations. In a world of progressive evolution these past dogmatic functions will become unnecessary to the spiritual satisfaction of the individual's life. It is a revolutionary dogma in the sense that individual rebellion against the authoritarian power structures will become collectively realized in dogmatic tradition of individualism. Such a dogma might be interpreted differently by the individual in accordance to personalized and highly distinctive sense of life. As a collective dogma, it will assume many unique and different individualized forms of expression, experienced by the person not as a fantasy but as a reality. In terms of dogma revolution will become permanently stabilized and will remain continuous as a permanent part of the future world civilization. In the highly individualized expressions the dogma will be concerned with the value of self fulfillment as a right and a responsibility of the individual, as distinct from basic materialism, selfish ego centrism and selfless altruism, which are nothing more than the various compensatory mechanism reflecting conformity to authoritarian power structures. It will represent the heart of the religion, the spirit of dissent and the importance of individual existence in continuous resistance to the formation of any dehumanizing power structures.
The fourth component is the ritualization of creative living. In the world of increasingly destabilizing changes, the giving of oneself to humanity in the form of living creatively, of seeking the inspirational examples from day to day living as expressed through all mediums of communication, must become ritualized into the form of self discipline and freedom within the individual's lifestyle. Creativity is the only healthy ritualism possible in human society, most other manifestations of ritual are the pathologized compensatory mechanism to the inevitability of change and restriction of growth. As past oriented perserveration is an unproductive manner of confronting the on flow of future ward events, rational creativity is the only productive mechanism with which a person may integrate change into his existence. All the manifestations of social shock, withdrawal, nonalignment, reaction, instead of "nonconformity" represent not only directly the problem of too fast change in the acceleration of technological civilization but is directly related to the failure of humanity and the individual in normative integration involving natural human creativity and to the predominance of inherently authoritarian predisposition of inter-human relationships. Too fast change or too slow, at the perceptual, conceptualized normative levels of functioning result in too great or too little influx of datum which may overload or stifle the functioning capacity of the individual and result in pathological development. The primary sources of this influence are direct and indirect social ties, forced upon the individual in an unrelenting fashion, from being too close to too many other people, or their environmental influences, or at too extended a period of duration. Man's integrating mechanism follows a cyclical process of intake, rumination and decision making in a more or less random or free flowing process. Social influences compensate for and pathologize the spontaneous normative growth of the individual. Sleep and dreaming, a form of rest, plays an important role in the integration process at a subconscious level.
Yet the integrating mechanisms must also function at the conscious level in the form of meditation, of being alone in solitude, of periodic rest and recreation. Man must consciously integrate as well in order to achieve healthy development. Finally he must be capable of expressing or realizing his integrations in a continuous fashion. It is not the matter of a ritual of the expression of others such as an art festival, even though this may serve an important function in the process, it is rather secondary to the primary function of expressing oneself. The human is first a lone individual, and is only secondarily and of necessity a social animal. It is a fact of human nature often neglected. Individualism is not a matter of nonconformity. It is question of to whom and to what to conform, hopefully to one's own inner source of well being, the self. The cult of deliberate nonconformity is but the hypocritical social reaction to the boredom of social conformity. One day we might be able to integrate the individual social dichotomy, the same as transcending the selfless-selfish dichotomy to become a transcendent from of human being as a member of world wide human society.
Consideration of the possibilities of a world religion leads directly to the formulation of the possibilities on the nature of world social organization. Historically, with the benefits of technological progress, human social organization has extended and grown to ever increasing levels of complexity and magnitude. Yet social organization remains to a predominant extent suffering from a similar pathological development as has affected the other aspects of civilization. Social ties of responsibility remain predominantly fear motivated, giving rise to the solidification of authoritarian power structures, fostering the persistence of social prejudices, ignorance and counter productive waste in context to the total development of the human race. It is with the intention of eliminating dehumanizing social distinctions, ignorance and prejudices and of transforming fear motivated interrelationships into trust oriented ties that the following generalized perspectives are offers as alternative minimum prerequisites for the establishment of a healthy world society.
The first alternative as a basis for world society is the culture of sexual liberation. The basis of social organization is its cultural development. Culture here implies the most basic functions of social organization, that of serving the individual and of providing the means of propagation through sexual regeneration. All other meanings are, for this instance, incidental and supplementary to these two primary functions. Human culture is the same as all other cultures of different biological species. All human subcultures, despite the manifold diversity, have the same characteristics founded in sexual regeneration and the serving of individual needs. It is precisely this universal similarities between all cultures which must serve as a part of the foundation of world society. Anachronistic sexual taboos which serve to frustrate the individual's natural sexual drives persist in even the most modern progressive cultures of today, while the sexual drives for the individual remains the strongest source of adaptive motivation. Liberation from traditional sexual repressions and misconceptions will not subvert the healthy creative drives of the individual, but will only augment them. It is the pathologizing of the natural sexual drives which has served as a foundation for the pathological development and persistence of authoritarian power structures in modern society. The continued frustration is perhaps the greatest and least acknowledged social injustice, when its satisfaction and free development could serve as the key focal point in development of civilization. Society must best serve the individual by providing him with that sexual liberation which tradition has restricted, and denied him in the forms of institutionalized marriage, in the tradition of celibacy, in the prohibition and persecution of prostitution and pornography. It must be able to tolerate expressions of all non-harmful forms of sexual relationships between people. Society must close the gap between the forward eye of the law in some aspects of sexual liberation and the obsolescent sense of social justice and morality in the persecution of ancient social practices such as prostitution.
As self styled rebels against age old sexual repression, the modern heroes of sexual freedom have failed in their response to prohibition by making the sexual issue a very superfluous, undignified and unimportant one. By revealing extreme forms of perversion to public attention through mass media they have made of sex a public recreation as any other sport, failing to emphasize the very intimate, dignified and important nature to which healthy individuals attach sexual satisfaction. Mass sexploitation making a fast buck from the frustrated and only vicariously satisfied desires of individuals, it is not the true advocation of sexual liberation: in the long run it is an antagonist to this cause. By divorcing sexuality from the emotion of love, in all its meanings, by the socialization in their modern sense of sexual freedom, they have achieved not a true culture of sexual liberation, but rather a flippant and over glorified ritual of enforcing cultural sterility. Sex with strangers and contraceptives are the unidentified idol of worship. Sexual deviation becomes preferable to natural sexual relationships. Fantasy replaces reality and sexual "freedom" becomes pathologized in the opposite sense of extreme reaction to sexual repression.
Popular sexual media glorifies the importance and beauty of sex, yet they overdo it in their competitive efforts at money making. In the final judgment they actually make of sex a trivial affair. They stress the deviate and orgiastic social extremes while tending to neglect the normal and more natural aspects. It may well be that individuals come from orgiastic sexual encounters with comparative strangers with a greater amount of feelings of loss and pathologization, more emotionally unstable and sexually unfulfilled than with more normalized and less sexually oriented relationships. While being important, the importance of sex must not be over stressed to the exclusion of other fulfilling and important aspects of healthy living. We must be careful that sexual liberation is not just over popularization and sexual exploitation. A minimal amount of sexual repression through self abnegation might even be essential to ensure the necessary productive sublimation of "creative" aggression and energy to other creative endeavors and the propagation of other cultural aspects of civilization. While at once excludes pathological promiscuity, open and honest sexual relationships does not necessarily preclude sexual self discipline.
By institutionalizing sex it is no wonder that modern post industrial societies achieve zero or sub-zero population growth, while the pre-industrialized agricultural societies attain an exponential growth rate. The danger signal of the reverse of population growth must be recognized--that is a trending toward cultural stagnation and eventual extinction. Societies proclaiming the virtue of zero population growth in the midst of an exponentially expanding human race must inevitably yield their domains either forcibly or more preferably peacefully to the hungry and ambitious masses of the poor and the uneducated. It is a wise choice that even in its exalted state of advanced civilization the United States is continuing an open door policy to the disadvantaged of the world. New blood is vitality to the old. It is wise to remember this point of the future, just as sexual regeneration is natural, growth and extension of human culture and civilization is healthy. People must eventually inhabit the vast regions of space and the as yet undeveloped and uninhabited regions of the earth and that in order to provide impetus and the necessary human resources for this manifest destiny of the human race, potentially unlimited human population growth must occur and to this end zero population growth is counter productive.
The other needs of the individual which society must fulfill include open and intimate interpersonal relationships with a broad variety of personality types who fulfill specific social functions and roles, the need for familial and communal relationships, the need for healthy life styles and productively cultivated creativity. Living must not be a mere by product of modern society, it must be both its driving impetus and its highest objective. This means healthy living in all the meanings implied by the term "health". Pathologized living is not living at all but merely dying. Adjusting the social system around the characteristics of the individual human to serve his private needs, instead of adjusting the individual human to conformity with the system, inspiring him to reciprocate the kindness in living productively and constructively for his culture. Society and socialization is a natural and necessary phenomenon for the development of cultural wealth and health, yet it easily stagnated and pathologizes into authoritarian power structures.
The prevailing social prejudices between male and female, the fundamental extremes of species procreativity, serve as sources for more complex social, racial and cultural prejudices. It is in the resolution of this most basic prejudice that may well be fond the key to solving the seemingly more urgent and threatening problems arising from social ignorance. Modern society remains organized around the authority figure of the male. The prejudicial restriction against the female in culture reveals itself in many subtle manners. History has by far predominantly been written for and by the male. The continued persistence of this fundamental authoritarian power structure in the dace of humanity's technological evolution could very well result in social stagnation. A reversal of roles might even be a more preferable alternative. The traditionally accepted roles of male and female must be critically reexamined in all of its manifestations, while a healthy understanding and respect for the very most basic differences in natural roles of male in cultural regeneration must be cultivated. The liberation of the female must be achieved in every aspect of social life, to elevate her status to that of equality with a male. At the same time, the male must also be liberated from often unrecognized "traditional" roles into which he has been cast by society. There is much in the popular women's liberation movement that implies advantage without responsibility. Many is it who seek in social reform superior personal advantage without the often overpowering burden of social responsibilities such reforms might entail. In many ways the traditional roles of the female, while being overly restrictive and inhibitory to personal fulfillment, at the same time were protective and advantageous to the female. It may well be argued that "traditionally" the male, and not the female, has been the most disadvantaged, having to earn a living to support a wife and family, becoming of necessity a slave to the system. Men have predominantly been the occupants of such hardship institutions has the military, prisons, and skid row. There is much to be said for the ideal of male liberation. Whatever the case may be, the important conclusion is that a working compromise relationship must be attained to create a truly liberated culture in which the individual, either male or female, may maximize their potential and freedom of living.
Examination of what kind of role liberation of sexual culture might play in world society leads to a consideration to a second precondition to be achieved before a healthy world society might predominate--that is the condition of a homogenous human race. The most fundamental sexual prejudices and mores of contemporary civilization give impetus indirectly to a much more baneful and influent host of deep seated cultural, racial, regional and national prejudices and restrictions. A homogenous human race does not necessarily mean a perfect blend of cream colored humanity of the same exact genotype but is rather the creation of an open and unrestricted world wide gene pool, transcending arbitrary national boundaries and customs to include every member of the human race and to encourage within this pool completely unrestricted acceptance and genetic integration of all races and peoples. It will be a time when a black man may look at the white man and see only another human being. Under such a program, the far future human race may be an almost complete mixture of genetic traits within the individual, with the emergence of new, widely varied character traits hitherto unknown and with the emergence of a whole new breed of world humanity.
Racial integration will reach much more advanced levels of cultural expression in the emergence of new aesthetic values and other "cultural" phenomenon, as the distinguishing cultural idioms of expression become accepted and gradually integrated as completely new forms. The most malignant social manifestation which has many profound political reverberations is the persistence of divisive nationalism which serves to create racial, social, and cultural differences between different regions and peoples to the inhibition of further worldwide social integration. The only way to achieve world society is the is the transcendence of this nationalism the elimination of national privilege based on citizenship and the creation of world citizenry with a common racial, cultural and social tradition and with common inalienable human rights and citizenship privileges.
The third precondition to the stabilization of a world society concerns the most subtle and complex manifestations of social prejudices in the form of class distinction, within the infrastructure of social organization. The creation of a single heterogeneous world class of humanity must be striven for, a world society in which the social stratification based on birth, wealth, profession or privilege is minimized in all its deepest aspects, and men are no longer judged as captains, rich men, poor men, politicians or sanitary technicians, but are judged only as whole human beings in the total scope of the individual's life. This has been the goal of utopian endeavors since the beginning of civilization--making all people equal in social status though individually unique and distinctive. No only economic reorganization will accomplish this goal. Many other social manifestations of class distinction must be recognized and dealt with outside the purely economic sphere of social activity. It is the whole impetus of social reform to aim toward the creation of utopia through every possible avenue.
While economic reorganization and reconstruction of the social structure remains the crux of the problem of class differences, altering the social conscience of the individual is the ultimate goal. It is the transcendence of this conscience from the level of quantitatively based materialism as the objective criteria of success to a more qualitative valuation of the term of success based on the fulfillment of a person's "spirituality"--to the more subjective criteria of a person's productive creativity in whatever direction chosen. It is when people are no longer to be judged socially by the title or degree they hold, by the function they do or what they did in the past, or by the material wealth or social renown they have, but by what they are as individual humans, in sum total, by what they can be and just simply as being human. Once the value system of the individual has been reformed material reevaluation and economic reorganization of the social structure will automatically follow. The accomplishment of this goal has profound legal implications for perhaps the epitome of social distinction is that a person be judged according to the offense he has committed, as merely a "criminal" and punished in accordance with the law, but he will be treated first as a human,