On the way to Israel I briefly sojourned in Boston, Massachusetts in the USA to renew an affair that I believed had ended when I chose my family over the infatuation I had for a woman who had then migrated and so ceased to be a factor in my life; but whom I had contacted for consolation and emotional support when it became clear that my attempt at reconciliation with my wife was doomed to failure.
In that city, in which occurred the famous Tea Party which many saw as a harbinger of freedom, by a remarkable and happy coincidence I was gifted with a text, “Personality and Psychotherapy” written by John Dollard and Neale Miller, which contained ideas that were to inform and give meaning to my quest:
Human behavior is learned, precisely that behavior which is widely felt to characterize man as a rational being, or as a member of a particular social class, is learned rather than innate.
The field of human learning covers phenomena which range all the way from the simple, almost reflex, learning of a child to avoid a hot radiator, and the complex processes of insight by which a scientist constructs a theory.
Throughout the whole range, however, the same fundamental factors seem to be exceedingly important. The factors are: drive, cue, response and reinforcement. They are frequently referred to with other roughly equivalent words - drive as motivation, cue as stimulus, response as act or thought, and reinforcement as reward. (Dollard 25)
Moreover, the people of Israel, burdened as they were by a seemingly endless conflict that threatened the very survival of that nation, and, by refugees from surrounding Arab States and areas worldwide; had been forced to apply the most rational notions that were available in their quest to keep that nation economically, socially and politically viable; and, had been galvanized to create a social system based on learning circles composed of positive attitudes combining with, and reinforcing, adequate motivation for patterns of behavior that were conducive to the efficient functioning of their society.
This rational approach to existence was demonstrated to me again and again during my sabbatical, as I studied the integrated, comprehensive development project that resulted in the city of Ashdod, as I participated in the life of the community on Kibbutz Hagroshim and on a Moshav; and, because of the abject failure of the ideas to which I had been socialized I was completely open and receptive to any world view that would restore order and promised function in my life and that of the nation of which I was a citizen.
It was in Israel that I first was introduced to the modernization ideals that had been conceived by Gunnar Myrdal, the value premises that could be the basis for cultural change and provide the possibility of happiness for human beings:
(1) efficiency;
(2) diligence;
(3) orderliness;
(4) punctuality;
(5) frugality;
(6) scrupulous honesty ( which pays in the long run and is a condition
for raising efficiency in all social and economic relations);
(7) rationality in decisions on action (liberation from reliance on static customs, from group allegiances and favoritism, from superstitious beliefs and prejudices, approaching the rationally calculating “economic man” of Western liberal ideology);
(8) preparedness for change (for experimentation along new lines, and for moving around spatially, economically, socially);
(9) alertness to opportunities as they arise in a changing world;
(10) energetic enterprise;
(11) integrity and self-reliance;
(12) cooperativeness (not limiting but redirecting egoistic striving in a socially beneficial channel; acceptance of responsibility for the welfare of the community and the nation);
(13)willingness to take the long view ( and to forego short-term profiteering; subordination of speculation to investment and of commerce and finance to production, etc.). (Myrdal 61)
But the most important component of the new design for existence that I embraced as I wrestled with my demons in the Land of the Bible was my decision to tell the truth as much as I could for the rest of my life regardless of the consequences for myself or for others.
In October, 1975 as I bore the pain of my first prolonged separation from my children; as I wrestled with the guilt occasioned by my failure to keep a promise I had made to myself during my teenage years that my children would never have the bear the pain and dislocation occasioned by a broken marriage; as I deeply regretted the casual and meaningless affairs that had been my contribution to this exceedingly tragic state of affairs; as I contemplated from a distance the intense abuse I had inflicted on my wife and the mother of my beloved children; I made the decision to tell the truth for the rest of my life whatever the consequences for myself or for others.
Which was not to say that prior to that watershed decision I had not been truthful and honest in most things; but there had been a large area of deceit and falsehood composed of the numerous and facile lies that had facilitated my numerous affairs and infidelities.
And, as I shared confidences with other participants in the course of study offered by the Afro Asian Institute I became more and more aware that incidents that demonstrated that man’s inhumanity to man was a worldwide phenomenon and my decision to dedicate my life to overcoming this bane of human existence was reinforced and concretized into what has become a lifelong commitment.
By the middle of December, 1975 when I departed from Israel to return to Jamaica I had become conceptually the agent of an untried and untested culture which was an amalgam of the knowledge and perspectives I had been exposed to in that country.
More accurately, I had learnt by rote, embraced and adopted a new set of ‘conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action,’ and on my return to my native land I was immediately propelled into situations that would be the acid test of the functionality of those values, beliefs, attitudes and patterns of behavior.
I became the head of the newly formed Cooperative Department in the Union, a development consistent with the policy and direction enunciated at a previous Annual Conference of the PNP by its leader, Prime Minister Michael Manley, when he stated that the political movement he led was founded on the principles of democratic socialism, a declaration that increased the growing disquiet of the private sector and other conservative elements of the Jamaican body politic; and, tended to intensify and escalate tensions already at a high level because of general elections which were a statutory requirement every four years the results of which were seen as a referendum supporting, or rejecting, the leftist course that the Manley Administration was charting for the nation.
My first real challenge was to organize a stevedoring cooperative, to create a legal entity that would replace a contractor who had absconded allegedly taking with him monies contributed by the workers he employed into a pension fund.
That Contractor provided a stevedoring gang that had been engaged in two operations that took place over the Esso Dry Cargo Dock, the loading of Lube Oil for export to the Caribbean and Central America in cartons, drums and pails; and, the unloading of fertilizer materials that would be bagged and sold to farmers in Jamaica.
Both operations usually occurred once per month, and when a Motor Vessel docked a large group of potential holders gathered at the gate; and, from this group were chosen by the contractor those privileged individuals who would be employed to load or unload its cargo; those who operated the winches, drove the fork lifts and supervised the stevedoring gangs were not involved in this lottery but perennially were employed to perform those relatively skilled functions.
For several years the operation so organized produced high loading or unloading rates because any holder who was perceived to be slacking on the job was immediately replaced from the large group of hopefuls who congregated at the gate leading to the dock to take advantage of just such a contingency.
The routine of the operation was disrupted by the advent of a Motor Vessel with a cargo of fertilizer that had advanced technology that made it capable of unloading that cargo without human assistance, which resulted in the stevedores being deprived the pay they were habituated to receiving; a circumstance which prompted them, lead by the relatively skilled workers, to seek to join the Union which employed me.
This led to a bitter dispute and strike action by the stevedores, which the Contractor unsuccessfully attempted to break by hiring scabs from Tivoli Gardens; a tactic which failed because an agreement was reached within the group, which avoided a bloody confrontation, that one gang of holders whenever a motor vessel was loaded or unloaded, would consist of individuals who hailed from that enclave.
Eventually, the Union gained bargaining rights for the stevedores after a poll conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of Labor, which had the impact of negating the threat of summary dismissal that had galvanized the stevedores to their maximum efforts, that motivated them by convincing them that they could be replaced if found slacking; since subsequent to the poll the Contractor and Union agreed that the stevedoring operation would hence forth be a closed shop, that employment would be limited to union members who could not be replaced without just and sufficient cause.
Loading or unloading rates declined dramatically when the jobs of the stevedores began to be protected by the Union - a situation greatly exacerbated by the fact that the stevedores were paid an hourly rate and the longer the loading or unloading operation took, the more money they made.
Charges were made by the Contractor and the managers of the Companies who hired him, that the stevedores were conspiring as a group to deliberately reduce the loading or unloading rates to increase their take home pay; and also that stevedores had began to be observed in reclining positions and to be emitting sounds much more appropriate to their bedrooms than to an industrial operation.
The unloading of fertilizer material was facilitated by removable and collapsible conveyor belts which could be extended to a position in close proximity to a Motor Vessel as required; and, transport and deposit its cargo into storage bins; this circumstance made it very difficult and prohibitively costly to unload this freight at any other location, so Grace Chemical the company that imported fertilizer materials were forced to grin and bear the additional costs precipitated by the decline in loading rates which they passed on to Jamaican farmers since they had a virtual monopoly on providing this item so necessary for agriculture.
The circumstances that formed the context for the other component of the operation that was the livelihood of the Contractor was very different, the Lube Oil cargo was destined for a market that was very competitive, listed among those competing to supply those customers were other Esso Lube Plants; and, also similar plants operated by the other major oil companies. So when the loading operation became so inefficient that on some twelve hour shifts very little cargo was loaded on to the motor vessel that Company was forced to, despite greatly increased costs, to relocate this operation to the Kingston Commercial Docks to which the cargo had to be transported by flatbed truck.
I was interjected into this dysfunctional and inefficient industrial equation to find a means to restore its lost productivity and cause the stevedores to again have access to the income that had been denied them when the loss of this component of the operation caused the Contractor to be unable to navigate the submerged shoals, reefs and jagged rocks of bankruptcy and eventually abscond.
I am constrained at this juncture to explain why I am inflicting on my readers this boring, detailed, esoteric account on my readers.
I do so because what is implicit in this experience is the impact, thus far, of attempts to graft on to social systems that had utilized coercion based culture democratic values, attitudes and institutions.
For millions of years, the vast majority of human beings had been motivated by coercion to satisfy the needs of the few, for quite literally millions of years the notion that might was right had informed and been the foundation for social interaction.
When circumstances had conspired to create a situation in which overt, unlimited coercion was inflicted on human beings facilitated by the social institutions of absolutism, feudalism, chattel slavery and marriage, became politically unacceptable, the tendency had been ‘to build on the old with the single omission of slavery,’ with the single omission of overt, unlimited, untrammeled coercion.
In the workplace, the whips, chains and other means of intense physical abuse were substituted by forms of economic pressure; by threats of dismissal combined with high rates of unemployment, low wages, and by the employer having the power to determine the living conditions of the worker.
One common plan was to charge a very low rent if the workers worked regularly on the estate and a very high rent if they worked elsewhere. Another was simply to charge a very high rent at all times, forcing the Negroes to work to meet the rent bill.
Where the rent-for-wages device was employed moderately, it was sometimes very successful. Seville Estate, in St. Ann, for example, gave the workers a six- month tenure combined with a high rental of 2s.6d. a week.
Excessive rents angered the Negroes and so did the fact that they were being charged for what they considered their own property - and with some reason, since they had usually built the houses and planted the grounds in their spare time. The Negro desire to stay in the village and near the burial grounds was a valuable lever, but it could not be pushed too far. Once the worker was evicted, the hold was broken and the planter’s labor problem was worse than ever. (Curtin 129)
Thus the institution of chattel slavery was replaced by the institution of wage slavery.
With the advent of democracy, the strong tendency over time was to limit the degree and extent to which coercion in any form, overt or covert, could be applied to individuals - without creating an alternative means of motivating the patterns of behavior necessary for societal functioning, order and progress.
The issue of motivation, which was a given for millions of years when social interaction was based on the notion that might was right, became more and more urgent and pertinent with the spread and adoption of democratic ideas and principles; and, with the strengthening of institutions, for example universal adult suffrage, that caused these concepts to impact the lives of more and more human beings.
What I have been trying to focus the attention of human beings in Jamaica, and latterly in the USA, for the last three decades is this momentous watershed development.
The degree and extent that human beings in both societies have resisted consideration of this notion, which was subjected to detailed scrutiny in the decade of Thirties by American social scientist, notably Neale Miller and John Dollard, is what led me to the conclusion that one very debilitating effect of coercion based culture is to create a massive delusion that perpetuates this anachronistic design for human existence.
It is as if social science exists in a separate compartment, its primary objective being to enhance the reputation for wisdom and erudition of academics; but, heaven forbid, that it should ever be used to solve problems that human beings contend with daily or that it should be the ideational basis for increasing efficiency and functioning.
I have written in the past decade literally hundreds of essays in my futile attempt to communicate and focus attention on this issue, several of these have contained this quote from a text in Sociology:
Reward and punishment play a part in all learning, but one rather than the other may be stressed. Repressive socialization emphasizes the punishing wrong behavior, participatory socialization rewards and thus reinforces good behavior. In toilet training for example, parents may be on the lookout for mishaps to admonish; or they may ignore mishaps and concentrate on praising instances of self-control and compliance.
If the modes of socialization are compared with laboratory conditioning of animals, repressive socialization is similar to administering an electric shock to an experimental rat when he takes a wrong turn in a maze. Participatory socialization is like giving the rat a pellet of food when he selects the right path. Both forms of conditioning extinguish “wrong” behavior, one by the negative act of punishment, the other by the positive act of reward. (Broom 100)
Lately, the airwaves and electronic waves have been pregnant with a gigantic snafu attributed to Presidential candidate, Senator John McCain who, on the day that the market failed, referred to the fundamental strength of the American economy.
Recently, Governor Palin explained that not he was completely out of touch with reality as this observation indicates but was referring to the work ethic and skills of the American labor force.
Everyone is missing the point, it makes absolutely no difference how skilled or how industrious American workers are, what is the core issue is how strongly motivated they are.
I am attempting to prove, beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt despite the delusion that lames the intellect of the vast majority of Americans, despite the fact that ’beliefs are opportune they conceal interests,’ that jobs are being outsourced and the economy is failing because the principle, an honest day’s work, for a honest day’s pay, which is the basic prerequisite for a strong and expanding economy, has never been applied in precept in the USA; and, that the impact of democracy, American style, has been to reduce the degree and extent to which coercion, in any form, can be applied to citizens - without creating an alternative means of motivating patterns of behavior necessary for societal functioning, order and progress.
This inadequacy is patently obvious in the workplace and would be confronted and its malefic effects overcome - if the vast majority of Americans were not deluded. I have also tried to highlight the debilitating effect of low levels of motivation on every other social institution; on the family as demonstrated by the fact that parents cannot socialize their children; on the institution of marriage, as exemplified by high divorce rates; in education where a nation that is believed by many to be the richest nation on Planet Earth has also become a nation of dropouts. All of these vicious circles have combined to produce the global recession that is the experience today.
In 1976 I began negotiations with the Esso management to return the loading of the Lube Oil cargo on the Motor Vessel “Esso Caribe” to that company’s Dry Cargo Dock.
That management team composed of Vernon Meikle, Hiram “Pete” Fenton and Leighton “Skeets” McGregor created an incentive scheme, an open ended system of rewards for the stevedores that demonstrated the marked superiority of positive reinforcements over coercion as the means relied on to motivate human behavior.
They proposed that the rate per hour that determined the take home pay of those workers be translated into a rate per ton, with the consequence that it no longer was significant how long the Motor Vessel remained at the dock because this would not change the total amount paid to any worker.
The mathematical formula that effected this transformation was so simple and transparent that the stevedores could grasp it despite the fact that many of them were functionally illiterate.
Further, they revealed that the Motor Vessel “Caribe” was hired for US$1200/hr and that if demurrage savings resulted from the stevedoring gang attaining loading rates in excess of eight tons per hour, the negotiated, established and mutually agreed to, norm, such savings would be shared equally among those whose effort produced the increased loading rate.
On the first occasion that the “Caribe” was loaded using an open ended system of rewards it was loaded at eight tons per hour, in subsequent operations a rate of twelve tons per hour was attained by the fledgling stevedoring cooperative.
I am constrained to observe that once a higher loading rate was achieved it was duplicated in subsequent operations until this was surpassed.
The next milestone was precipitated by the Esso management procuring from an operation in a Scandinavian country, improved loading hooks for the fifty gallon drums, a major component of the cargo; which when utilized precipitated an increase in the loading rate to sixteen tons per hour.
The Esso management would never have taken the trouble to procure those hooks before the institution of the open ended system of rewards because this would have resulted increased leisure time for the stevedoring gang; more fundamentally the acquisition of these hooks that increased efficiency validated and demonstrated the efficacy of the tonnage rate allied with the demurrage incentive over the hourly rate; its palpable effect and very positive impact was to cause the Esso management and the stevedoring cooperative to share a common goal, the loading of the cargo of Lube Oil as quickly as safely possible.
At the end of 1976 the “Caribe” arrived to be loaded and the stevedores calculated, without my help or foreknowledge, that to participate in the festivities that attended the advent of the new year they would have to attain a rate of twenty four tons per hour, which they did and once this rate was attained they duplicate it in future loading operations.
Eventually, they attained a rate of thirty two tons per hour, a very noteworthy achievement given the fact that the Motor Vessel was loaded by American stevedores with a similar cargo of Lube Oil at a rate of thirty six tons per hour.
It is likely that this increase in efficiency, this very remarkable increase in efficiency would have occurred whoever had been the Union Officer representing the stevedores, which is not to say that I did nothing to foster and promote this positive development.
I chose the weakest, least productive team which happened to be the group from Tivoli Gardens, and worked in the hold of the ship with them, providing a positive example by being first to unhook the fifty five gallon drum or unload the cartons or pail from the pallets; and, turned it into a competition between those who sought to best me and who refused to be shown up by someone who was relatively inexperienced as a holder.
Coincidentally, this group included Tyrone, a resident of Tivoli Gardens, who had witnessed my futile, failed attempt to initiate a dialog towards peace between the residents of that enclave and those individuals who lived in the neighborhood that centered on Bread Lane.
On one occasion when we were engaged in the loading of the Esso “Caribe,” I had received a telephone call from Skitter, who had become the marshal of the Spangler’s, with a request that I help them bury one of their members whom had been shot to death; but whom had not been interred because they could not afford burial costs.
I was happy to contribute and during the lunch period traveled to Bread Lane to hand over the money; and, had in the car with me members of the stevedoring gang, including “Ratbat”a front line warrior from Tivoli Gardens, who with others had embraced opportunity created by my having to run that errand to ride with me and eat lunch at home.
When I was about to enter Bread Lane from Spanish Town Road, this worthy indicated strong reservations about entering the territory that housed his enemies; but I overcame these by convincing him that he was safe while he was in my company.
When I arrived at the point on that thoroughfare where the Spanglers were standing, and inquired about the whereabouts of Skitter, I was told he was not present.
A woman, one of those who had been prominent in the ‘mooning’ that presaged the gun battle that I had witnessed across Spanish Town Road, who had also been the one who had concealed the gun in her panties; espied Ratbat, and greeted him warmly, evincing surprise that he had come to visit; simultaneously, I saw a younger member of the posse, coming out from behind a wall with a gun in his hand, clearly bent on giving that individual a demonstration of the perils involved in invading the domain controlled by the Spanglers.
Prudently, I had not shut off the car and immediately I hit the gas and drove forward, reached North Street, turned right on to that thoroughfare, and so escaped the danger posed by that posse member to Ratbat.
While negotiating that street, I chanced upon Skitter, stopped and made him aware of what had occurred and told him I would return to give him the money, after I discharged my passengers in Tivoli Gardens.
When I returned to Bread Lane, I reminded the group in the presence of their leader, that I was not involved in; and, did not intend to become involved in their conflict with those who inhabited Tivoli Gardens and attempted to communicate the danger for me that would be the consequence of a resident of that enclave being shot in my car; they did not seem to care and I learned how far my authority over them extended when set against the deep seated animosity and burning grievances that existed between the two factions.
But Ratbat and other residents of Tivoli Gardens became convinced that I was for peace and cooperation; and, was deeply committed to those values since only my quick reflexes when apprised of the danger had averted the tragedy that might have resulted from my overconfidence.
I also ensured that simple justice was extended to all members of the group regardless of political affiliation, but even in this area I was never required to swim very hard against the tide of popular opinion because for the most part simple justice ruled in decisions made by the group. As was demonstrated when a Sate of Emergency was declared in the run up to the General Elections and stevedores from both political tribes were detained and the ruling committee decided to pay them until they were actually convicted of a crime, whatever political tribe they were affiliated to.
The very positive impact of the open ended system of reward was emphasized by the fact that the same group as loaded Lube Oil also continued to unload the cargo of fertilizer; and, even as efficiency improved by leaps and bounds in one operation, the unloading of fertilizer materials continued to be plagued by stevedores sleeping on the job and incidents in which entire night shift elapsed without one ton of material being unloaded.
The stevedores sought to hide this situation from me by having Lester McKenzie who had been their Union Officer before my advent, attend meetings with the management of Grace Chemical so they could continue to engage in the practice of increasing their take home pay by unloading this cargo at a very slow rate.
Eventually, when the contract with Grace had to be renewed, after a bitter, protracted strike which ended when both sides accepted arbitration of the dispute, the arbiter accepted our arguments that the open ended system of reward would increase efficiency in that operation and ruled in our favor and a tonnage rate came to be applied in both operations.
Two other developments are worthy of mention, the first that pilfering of lube oil in cans significantly decreased over time; something that I was knowledgeable about because I observed the unusual number of canoes whose occupants were ostensibly fishing, around the “Caribe” while it was being loaded; but wisely and prudently as it turned out, decided to ignore this practice until I had enough influence to reduce or eliminate it – because eventually influential members of the group used their authority to significantly reduce if not eliminate this evil on their own.
The second indication that cooperation with the management was increasing hand over fist was the fact that I could no longer galvanize members of the group to engage in demonstrations and other industrial action that I was accustomed to utilizing to manifest discontent.
I was amazed to discover, to belatedly discover, that the level in the reservoir of injustice and the hostility and discontent that this created, that I could manipulate to coerce managements when required had been very significantly reduced by the equity, fair play and reasonableness displayed by the Esso management team that was often augmented by Ramon Gordon, who was an attorney and Industrial Relations Manager of that company.
These developments prompted me to consider what if , as an alternative to coercing other human beings, I began to apply positive reinforcements in my relations with other human beings?
This essay, and all the others I have written, seeks to prompt every human being to consider that question, what if your relations with others, not in concept but in precept, was informed and imbued with the values of equity, justice, honesty and compassion?
What I am actually saying here is that the modernization ideals if applied in precept to existing social systems would cause significantly improved functioning and eventually create the possibility of happiness for the majority of human beings; and, that scrupulous honesty is indeed, the necessary prerequisite to increasing efficiency in all social and economic relations. And, I lead by example.
To demonstrate this, I am constrained to admit that Ramon Gordon whom I believe was gay, was omitted by me when I listed the management group that created that open ended system of rewards that I consider one of the most creative and meaningful social innovations that I have ever witnessed; and, as I continued to write I began wondering if it was my deeply ingrained and embedded prejudice against those who embrace the gay lifestyle was what prompted that omission.
I believe that telling the truth has made me rational and objective but this is always a work in progress and to be scrupulously honest I must confess to this bias and note that I am not certain who contributed most to devising that tonnage rate; and, state that if I were pinned down I would say it was likely Pete Fenton whose funeral I attended, or, Skeets McGregor who I am informed died of complications caused by AIDS and who might also have been gay, and specify that the function of Ramon Gordon was to advise the management team on industrial relations practices and statutory regulations that applied; not on the more technical, work related dimensions of the stevedoring operations.
I also feel constrained to state my opposition to the tendency to over complicate issues, to opportunistically make simple problems esoteric and obscure to absolve themselves of responsibility for failure. For example, no one has stated the obvious in my hearing that this financial crisis is a consequence of our lack of frugality; of the powerful tendency to live on credit, beyond our means; of our failure to put away something for a rainy day; to admit that we are experiencing a hurricane of insolvency now; that by failing to hew to this adage, we have sown a wind of profligacy and are now reaping an inevitable tornado of bankruptcy.
The first insight regarding my personal life that telling the truth prompted was the realization of how stupid I had been to sexually neglect my young, healthy wife for long periods with the deluded expectation that she could remain celibate especially when taking into consideration the fact that at the beginning of the marriage we engaged in sex with great regularity and mutual enjoyment.
This insight was followed by many others, the circumstance of my increased mental acuity and problem solving capabilities were obvious to myself and to individuals around me; until at length I became so habituated to telling the truth, so seized with its impact on my problem solving capabilities that I became as likely to engage in lies or deceit as to deliberately blinding myself in one eye, as one Jamaican politician had done to collect on an insurance policy.
The die was cast against my remaining an agent of coercion based culture when after observing the improved functioning and efficacy precipitated by the open ended system of rewards on the loading of the “Caribe,” I decided to experiment in the use of positive reinforcements in my relationships with members of the opposite sex.
Instead of remonstrating with my significant other when she was reading some novel when I wanted to have sex, I decided to be very tender and affectionate. It worked like a charm, when my caresses aroused her, she put her book aside, performed her absolutions and became an active, very enthusiastic participant in the sexual relations that we engaged in that night.
This may seem to be a relatively insignificant and unremarkable development but to me it was a turning point and watershed event that transformed forever the nature of my social interaction, I discovered something that worked really well; something moreover that relieved me of the burden of guilt that had inhibited and incapacitated me sexually; and, in the days, months and ensuing years new vistas and dimensions of intimacy, fulfillment and satisfaction opened up for me and for my sexual partners.
Eventually, I became irrevocably and immutably determined to rely on positive reinforcements in all my social relationships; and, eventually after several years became so adept in the use of this motivation that I could, with some credibility, claim to being a gentle, civilized human being.
The dream of love that I have blindly sought all my life was no longer an obscure aim, I came to the realization that it could only be attained if I could share my life with someone who had told the truth until it had made her free; and, this had prompted her to become habituated to telling the truth and so develop the wisdom that would cause her to commit in precept to relying on positive reinforcements in her relations with other human beings.
This change from coercion based culture to reliance on positive reinforcements to motivate the other, occurred within four years of my decision to tell the truth as much as I could; but this was just the beginning of my quest to creating a body of ideas that would explain and support the proper functioning of democratic free labor societies; during the ensuing three decades as I applied this different design for human existence and accepted the consequences, to enhance my capacity to endure the intense loneliness, the pain, suffering and misery that were the inevitable consequences implicit in being culturally different I was forced to closely examine and develop a in depth appreciation of origins and development of coercion based culture.
First of all, I eventually came to understand that I was breaking habits of thinking and acting that my species applied for as period that might have spanned some sixty million years, a period that began with the emergence of homo sapiens and lasted until the discovery of crude begins of agriculture, an extended interval of undocumented history during which human beings lived in hunting and gathering societies whose life style was little different from that of other aggregations of predators, for example, contemporary prides of lions or tigers.
The tendency is to focus, in examining the origin and development of human culture, on the written, documented history of species that covers a period of about ten thousand years, a blink of the eye when compared to the millions of years during which the species languished in a ‘state of nature.’
To arrive at an accurate description and understanding of the nature of contemporary human beings I had to see that in the same way the personality of a child is shaped during the first few years of its life, human culture was determined by events and circumstances that obtained near the beginning of the human story.
It was the very extreme physical conditions that existed millions of years ago that precipitated the adaptations that created a creature with a capacity for language and for learning, whatever Governor Sarah Palin believes about the creation of the world in a few days.
If a capacity for language is the most important adaptation that caused human beings to eventually emerge as the dominant species on Planet Earth, the division of the human mind into two compartments, the conscious and the subconscious, is, in my view the second most important adaptation; because it permitted human beings to simultaneously demonstrate the intelligence to harness and utilize fire; while simultaneously being capable of the unrelieved savagery and brutality that was required to compete for existing energy resources.
It is this division that also produced a critical side effect; it caused human beings to be susceptible to conditioning; and, made overwhelmingly significant and meaningful the aphorism, ‘beliefs are opportune, they conceal interests.’
Because of the fact that the psyche was divided into two compartments, human beings were prone to embracing myths, illusions and delusions based on irrational beliefs; because of the duality inherent in the human psyche, individuals could be conditioned to believe nonsense, for example, the myth of Adam and Eve, or, that the earth was flat, while they were trapped in situations where pretending to at least pay lip service to such beliefs was required for survival, as exemplified by human reaction and response to the period that demarcated the Spanish Inquisition.
The strategy of dirty tricks that reduced Walter Mondale to tears, and which was honed to perfection by Karl Rove to elect President Bush, which is currently attempting to focus the attention of voters on the circumstance that Senator Obama has associated during his life with sundry terrorists and at least one radical clergyman; but which entirely abstracts from the issues, that is comprehensively and entirely out of touch with the problems, the massive problems the nation faces - might win the election; but, as has been demonstrated by the failure in every area of endeavor during the Bush Administration, this strategy cannot create jobs, cannot put food on the table, lower the price of gasoline, win the war on terror, or result in any positive development whatsoever.
Nor can the blind, mindless faith of Creationists solve the problem of global warming, because as I attempted to communicate in an essay I wrote and published on the World Wide Web during the second half of the last decade, the time has come for decisions to be based on facts, never on irrational beliefs because the world has changed; and, in a world in which there are limitations on the degree and extent coercion, in any form, can applied to citizens, that morality is the bridge between fact and function.
I really also would like to take this opportunity to recommend this rational, empirical approach to the existing reality to those who have hired Karl Rove, who resigned in the face of allegations that he fired competent attorneys to replace them with political hacks. I would suggest that he is not an expert on politics, or economics, or any other relevant discipline; but was one of the chief architects of the calamity that this nation faces, and has nothing meaningful to contribute at this time; that someone with his dubious skills and qualifications should be relegated to employment, as I suggested long ago when it could have made a difference, tending and paying close attention to the movement and maintenance of the southernmost crags and promontories of northbound cattle.
I suggest to all citizens of the USA that the objective is not to win elections, any completely ruthless, wholly immoral, very stupid daddy’s boy can accomplish that feat in the dropout nation of the world, the objective is to improve the quality, and, quantity of life, of the majority of citizens.
By 1978, after telling the truth for two years, I had adopted the mindset ‘right is might,’ and rejected and renounced the notion that ‘might is right,’ in precept, I began to approach the existing social reality as if morality was the bridge between fact and function.
I wish to introduce into this discussion the Marxist notion that every social interaction reflects the culture of the individuals or institutions involved, that relations between human beings in the every social organization or institution is replete and redolent with ‘the conscious and unconscious premises for thinking and action’ to create understanding of the conflict that was ignited by the interface between my world view that ‘right is might’ and the deeply embedded, pervasive and ubiquitous ideology that holds that ‘might is right.’
My intent is to demonstrate that one of these is functional, that one of these works, while the other is responsible for the state that the world is in today.
In a recent article published in a British newspaper, the Observer, John Gray, a former professor at the London School of Economics declaims:
Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.
The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War is over…. The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained control of markets have been vindicated.
In a change as far-reaching as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.
How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.
I am suggesting, and intend to prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, that both the fall of the Soviet Union, and the current massive instability in the US economy has the same fundamental cause, the culture that human beings were habituated to in the ’state of nature,’ that can be denoted in shorthand by the catchall description ’might is right.’
Even as I write, this global tsunami of instability is spreading to engulf those countries that form the European Union, which I may safely assume and conclude were being referred to by Professor Gray as demonstrating the prudence and good sense to retain control of their markets; negating and destroying his self interested and biased conclusion that the free-market creed is the cause of this debacle; vindicating my oft repeated truism that ‘beliefs are opportune they conceal interests,’ as well as providing evidence that the practice of coercion based culture with its laming effect is ubiquitous, pervasive and worldwide; and that this design for human existence has become wholly inadequate, totally anachronistic and completely incapable of producing function in contemporary social systems.
Further, it is a direct consequence of my embracing the notion that ‘right is might,’ that I can demonstrate the effrontery and temerity implicit in my disputing and successfully debunking the intellectual constructs of individuals with vastly superior academic qualifications. It is because of my quixotic, obsessive, even aberrant fascination with telling the truth and doing the right thing that has created the moral authority that allows me to provide the solutions, the obvious solutions; and, accurately map and chart a safe, viable and secure path out of the odorous, pernicious, mental swamp filled with pockets of deep quicksand created by the practice of coercion based culture.
The world view, that of telling the truth and doing the right thing, has not only been invaluable practice in creating the accurate description of any problem that is the necessary prerequisite to finding realistic, workable solutions, it has exposed the logical inconsistencies and weaknesses of coercion based culture. The most destructive and dysfunctional being that human beings can be motivated to believe anything and everything that has the effect of improving, or preserving, their economic or social condition, every man or woman has a price, and for most, it is not a very high price.
This is the quality that makes me different, that I would never believe anything because it suited my interests, whether economic, social or psychological interests; but always attempted to establish the facts and act based on my best appreciation of those facts.
This proclivity, that was significantly magnified and powerfully reinforced when I decided to tell the truth whatever the consequences, placed me on a divergent course from the human concourse, a circumstance which became more and more apparent to me until eventually, belatedly I came to the realization that it had a clear, readily discernible pattern; even as its consequences and implications had an ever increasing very negative impact on my existence but one which I never permitted to reach an intensity that would cause me to be prone to accepting once more the delusion that is a byproduct of being an agent of coercion based culture.
Beginning after my sojourn in Israel, in every new situation, initially my efficient functioning met with the approval of, and evinced great satisfaction in any and every human being with whom I interacted; but laterally when this cut across their interests because I told the truth, or acted consistent with my principles, their animus was ignited.
My colleagues in the Peoples National Party and the National Workers Union, were extremely excited and pleased by the fact that I was the catalyst in the only, the one and only, efficient, profitable, viable worker owned enterprise of that period.
Everyone wanted to know the secret of my success, which I was incapable of communicating to them since what I was doing was telling the truth and doing the right thing, exhibiting the scrupulous honesty which is required to create positive changes in all economic and social relationships; which moreover I thought is what they were also doing because I then believed that most human beings were moral and honest.
In retrospect, my very significant, earthshaking and extremely innovative contribution to that development occurred after the PNP won the elections held in December, 1977, and, Puncie, who sold ‘drop hand,’ a form of lottery then popular in Jamaica, on Wildman Street, and was my closest friend and associate among the stevedores, suggested that this was the appropriate moment to excise from the group the members who hailed from Tivoli Gardens.
I told him that if anyone attempted this I would not only resist this wholly unjust imposition with all my might; and if this enterprise met with success I would leave with the dutty Laborites.
I recognized that such an attempt would destroy the cohesion and solidarity of the group, and moreover would interject into the operation a degree of conflict which would make efficient functioning impossible; but I was completely and naively ignorant of the fact, as when I had noted that I would never engage again in bogus voting; that democratic politics in Jamaica, like almost everywhere else, was predicated on winning elections by whatever means possible and available including bogus voting, thus creating preferential access of your supporters to the pork barrel of government spending.
When he made that suggestion I never gave any thought to my response, I never realized that realistically what I was deciding was my political future, that I was tacitly admitting that I had no future in contemporary politics.
When I resigned from the Union to protest members of the NWU crossing the picket lines of refinery workers because of a meeting to which no refinery worker or their representative was invited, which effectively was strikebreaking instigated by the then Island Supervisor of the Union, Roy Thompson; I was aware that I was taking a great risk; but had no idea that I would be blacklisted and never again be regularly, permanently employed in the land of my birth.
Moreover, I had not the slightest inkling then that, in the same way that human societies protected itself from those who were caught engaging in criminal activities by incarcerating or executing them; it protected itself, by denying them the means to make a living, from any individual who had, in precept, moral tendencies; who by their actions demonstrated that they rejected and renounced the notion that ‘might is right;’ who refused to play the dominant social roles of territorial predator or hapless, defenseless prey.
During the ensuing five years, that spanned the period August, 1979 until I migrated to the USA in August, 1984, I lost everything of economic, social or emotional value to me; but because of my naivete and idealism never learned the lesson implicit in that experience; that ethics and principles were always to be embraced in concept but were never, ever to be applied in precept.
Which is not to say that this initial introduction to abject poverty and destitution produced no circumstances that prompted me to behave in ways that were inconsistent with the moral values I aspired to, and, the dictates of my conscience.
I am constrained to confess that having a lot of time on my hands, and losing the economic and social status that allowed me to easily and without great effort procure sexual rewards, I regressed to being what I had been during the years of adolescence and young adulthood, a sexual predator.
One woman, that I set upon so abruptly and precipitately at the beginning of our date, described it most accurately and succinctly, she said, “You are not the cookie monster, you are the pussy monster!”
Morally, at the lowest ebb in the flow of my life, I searched the belongings of one of the domestic helpers I employed; and, used the very small amount of rice I discovered, as the excuse to fire her so that I could employ someone who would be more amenable to satisfying my lust.
My pilgrimage was not a continuous moral ascent, it was a climb that occurred in fits and starts; one in which I would gain a foothold on the heights of civility; but was dislodged by circumstances which caused me to slide downwards and regress into the depths of immorality; and, had to pick myself up and resume my interrupted advance.
One of the most debilitating components of the delusion that lames the minds of human beings is the notion that we are engaged in a battle between good and evil.
We are involved in breaking habits that have been practiced for millions of years, we are divesting ourselves of patterns of behavior that were once vital and indispensable to our survival, for example, we had to become adept in utilizing force in our relations with other entities to eat; which caused this response to be paramount in the hierarchy of our responses.
Also, to ensure that the tribe would not be burdened by too many defectives the consequence of inbreeding, we had to kidnap females from other tribes to enlarge the gene pool of our group; and, rape them to create normally functioning human beings.
But the application of force, the successful and functional application application of force, implies a difference in strength as exists in the natural order of things, for example, the difference in size and power that exists between the lion and deer; but what if all actors in this equation of power have access to the means to construct weapons of mass destruction, this equality creates a virtual recipe for disaster.
When American calvary or British soldiers in South Africa confronted Apache warriors armed with bows and arrows or Zulu fighters with spears and shields this pattern was functional, it conformed with the notion that might is right that existed in the ‘state of nature.’ That condition was demonstrated and changed beyond redemption by the 911 attack.
Implicit in this account is the observation that posse members fermented discord and conflict among the more privileged members of Jamaican society because such contretemps benefited them.
Similarly, Boeing, Lockheed and Krupp; and other powerful entities that benefit from the arms race that occurred during the Cold War, used all their resources to prolong and escalate this conflict and all conflict; however much suffering and misery this creates for human beings because the profitability of these companies depended on force being used to resolve disputes.
Understanding human nature and watching it operate in any social relationship, in any social context, once the mind is freed from the laming effects of repression and suppression, implies understanding of the dynamics of social relationships, social organizations and social systems, past, present or future; which ability has attracted the label, the supernatural label, prophet; but this is actually the consequence of overcoming the neurosis inevitably a byproduct of being an agent of coercion based culture.
It is no more remarkable than knowing that if a building is constructed on the premise that one and one is three, it is going to be a very crooked edifice, one that is unlikely to long endure.
When the depredations of the Jungleists spread island wide, into several constituencies under the aegis of urban renewal, Edward Seaga replaced Hugh Shearer as leader of the Jamaica Labor Party, because those who provided leadership in that party believed that former Prime Minister Shearer was not ruthless enough, or bloodthirsty enough to prevent adherents of the JLP being terrorized and consigned to political obscurity.
When the Bush Administration, with scant or contrived justifications engaged in the naked act of aggression that the attack on Iraq was, this had the effect of strengthening extremist ideologies throughout the Middle East, in Iran with the election of a little experienced and relatively unknown mayor to be President; in Palestine where Fatah which had been corrupted and bought by the West being replaced by Hamas; in Lebanon where Hezbollah became a major force.
I have recently heard ’experts’ declaiming that the Iraq war has resulted in much increased power and prestige for Iran, I knew that before Allied Forces took Baghdad - when it could have made a difference.
I sometimes engage in completely meaningless and idle speculation about who suffered more in the attempt to convince the human species of the value of telling the truth, Jesus or me.
It is clear that he told the truth until he developed wisdom in the conduct of human affairs, until he was able to create the accurate descriptions of social problems that is the necessary prerequisite to their solution; and, he accomplished this during the period when human beings routinely carried weapons on their persons, when the species was a mere ten thousand years away from existence in the ‘state of nature.’
It is likely that I would never have the deciphered human experience without the directions and signposts that he created, which have convinced me that he traversed a similar road to the one I have been traveling for three decades. When he said “Father, forgive them they know not what they do,” without the benefit of existing information on the nature of neuroses and how these are created, he was describing the reality of guilt laming the higher mental process of human beings.
Also, implicit in that statement was its corollary, as I later discovered - when I understood the consequences and effects of my actions, I became incapable of engaging in behavior that I was aware would have a negative impact on the lives of others.
When he declaimed that human beings have to be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was saying that the change that we need is the most fundamental change a human being could contemplate; the need to reject and renounce relying on coercion to motivate others, and breaking habits that human beings have practiced for, quite literally, millions of years; and, becoming adept at utilizing positive reinforcements to motivate the other to act.
When he said that human beings must remove the beam from their eyes to acquire wisdom, he was saying that an individual who pilfers office supplies or gasoline from his employer; or, a policeman who is on the sheet and takes money from drug dealers; or, the CEO of a conglomerate who contributes millions to the election campaign of a politician so that when in power he will enact laws to benefit that enterprise; none of these individuals can perceive the dangers inherent in corruption because they are engaged in a similar pattern of behavior.
He was saying that scrupulous honesty is the condition for increasing efficiency in all social and economic relations; that this is especially true and relevant to creating functioning democracies because the major obstacle to efficient functioning in modern social systems is government overspending; and, no citizen can be the check and balance, and use his or her vote to limit this evil when they are also living beyond their means, on credit.
Most of all, when he talked about throwing pearls before swine lest they turn and rend you, he was speaking about the three decades I have spent in an independent audit of the human condition to create the possibility of happiness for the wretched of this earth; and, the fact that I have never been able to convince anyone of the functional value of doing the right thing, I have never been able to convince anyone that telling the truth will make you free.
And, we have shared very similar experiences, Judas his disciple betrayed with a kiss for money; my beloved daughter, whom I loved most for all of her life and did everything in my power to make her happy, kicked me to the curb.
What I am stating is not, from my point of view, blasphemy or sacrilege, though many human beings have been conditioned to perceive it in this way.
What happened was that he demonstrated wisdom in the conduct of human affairs and remarkable problem solving abilities in respect of social problems; and, this created moral authority and idealistic, misguided, unscrupulous and opportunistic human beings vested him the power to perform miracles, to conquer death, raised him on a pedestal, worshiped him as a deity; which served to deemphasize, prostitute and marginalize the message he was trying to communicate, that telling the truth will make you free.
The ultimate proof of this proposition is that, as I will relate, is that human beings cannot endure the truth, they cannot bear to hear references to the difference between concept and precept in their personal, individual lives, the ever increasing difference that is a required for existence in the vast majority of social systems:
If normal people could be got to accept the conditions of psychotherapy, it would be possible to learn from them almost everything which has been discovered by studying neurotic persons. It has proved difficult to get normal people to spend the money, take the time, and accept the conditions of the psychotherapeutic situation. There is a tendency for everyone to wear a mask, to put his best foot forward, and to be on guard against exposure, criticism, or exploitation. But we need not doubt, as novelists are forever telling us, that there is much that even friends do not suspect behind the composed mask.(Dollard 4)
And:
The notion of “abnormal” behavior misleads many people. They think it to be the study of persons entirely different from the rest of mankind. Practically all specialists agree now that such is not the case. The very same variables which are operating in an extreme degree in mentally ill people are present in people who are not ill. Neurotic people should therefore be seen rather as a population in which the study of higher mental life is especially convenient than as group of people different in kind from others. Important variables which are hard to see in mild degrees become very clear when present in extreme degrees. (Dollard 5)
The difference between the level of suffering inflicted on the man called Jesus and myself for trying to communicate that telling the truth will make you free, is that to suppress this notion he was subjected by agents of the Roman Empire to the maximum degree of overt, physical coercion which was acceptable and permissible during that period of human history; I am being subjected to the covert, mental coercion that is currently available to suppress that notion; I am denied the means to make a living and therefore I am made incapable of satisfying any of my innate drives; because if generally applied, telling the truth would eventually result in the destruction of the pattern existence based on the notion that ‘might is right.’
Once Jesus was taken into custody every decision was taken out of his hands, it became certain that he would be horribly brutally tortured and cruelly murdered; for the better part of three decades I have repeatedly and deliberately told the truth and done the right thing as much as possible, though I knew that this would result in my being deprived of my livelihood, with the attendant bouts of abject poverty, homelessness and loneliness this precipitated.
I am constrained to state that what I have observed is that neurosis is a byproduct of being an agent of coercion based culture, that most individuals have nervous breakdowns, become unable to function and enter therapy when their fragile emotional equilibrium is subjected to an acid test occasioned by the break up of their marriage, the death of loved one, the loss of employment, being raped, the victim of a crime, or some other stressful situation that exposes the brittle nature of their adjustment and capacity for adapting to an inherently stressful social milieu.
I am different because I was able to continue to function, and resist regressing to become once again an agent of coercion based culture after experiencing, again and again, the intense stimuli that conditions individuals to be instruments of this mindless, unfeeling design for human existence.
I am constrained to clearly state just what I am attempting to achieve by writing this essay, my objective is to free human psyches from the laming effects of guilt and other socially learned drives.
When I was a young adult still living in my father’s home, working a rotating shift in the Oil Refinery, every Friday a woman came to clean the floors of that establishment; and, while she performed this service we were often the only ones present because that was the day our housekeeper went to the market to purchase foodstuffs.
I would pay that domestic servant to have sex with me, an amount that exceeded what she was paid for the housecleaning service she provided. That sexual interlude was exceedingly brief because I was prone to premature ejaculation and I remember one particular occasion when the housekeeper returned prematurely from the market; but that servant knowing I that would not keep her long from her primary duties, divested herself of her underclothing and submitted herself to the lecherous minute of frantic activity during which I satisfied my lust, even as that housekeeper was speaking to her through the closed door.
I wish to transport my readers quickly forward to examine the sexual relations that occurred on my honeymoon; during our stay at the small hotel located at the mineral water springs that reputedly have very remarkable curative and restorative powers, near to the town of Bath in the parish of St. Thomas; I performed effortlessly, I functioned as I never had before, as I never have since. I was insatiable, completely relaxed and in totally in control of when ejaculation occurred.
Years later, after I had been telling the truth for an extended period, I realized that my functioning had been remarkably and tremendously improved by the marriage ceremony; by the ritual that cleansed and relieved my mind of the burden of guilt and inadequacy that I had accumulated during adolescence and childhood.
It is that capacity for function that I experienced on my honeymoon that I seek to create or restore in every area of human endeavor, when I speak of creating for the wretched of this earth the possibility of happiness I am referring to demonstrating a way for human beings to consciously and deliberately unburden themselves of the guilt, shame, feelings of inadequacy, of all the socially learned drives that we have been conditioned to by the requirement of coercion based culture - that one actor be weaker, be subordinate to the other, be dependent on the other in any and every social relationship so that they will be amenable to satisfying the needs, wants and desires, no matter how inappropriate, irrational or unjust, of the stronger participant.
I am trying to answer the question of how any individual can achieve catharsis, the reduction of guilt without performing any ritual; but by having the rational appreciation of existence that liberates the individual from intense mental inhibitions that destroy or limit function.
The Greeks developed theater, a means of attaining catharsis; and, in modern societies the scientific establishment has produced television sets that introduce that means into every household and is one of moderns means of creating apathy and passivity in human beings, television has become the modern panacea and soother preserving societal order and perpetuating the status quo.
This perspective is implicit in the attitude of Governor Palin and others have attempted to focus the attention of voters on the fact that Senator Obama attended the Church of an activist preacher, Reverend Wright; but was that individual doing his Christian duty to tell the truth about inadequacies, inequalities and manifest injustices implicit and inherent in the way democracy is practiced in the USA, and, could this be positive and very constructive criticism?
Slave owners were shocked and surprised by servile revolts, they believed that their slaves loved them, they were duped by the adulation slaves demonstrated towards their masters in the futile attempt to ameliorate the sere conditions that they endured; similarly, what is required in contemporary America is that citizens be passive, apathetic couch potatoes who buy the lottery in the hope that one day they will strike it rich; who encourage their children to excel at some sport like basketball; who focus on the World Series or the Superbowl or the Sweet Sixteen but never complain about their lot or speak about the causes of the economic and social emergencies that are part and parcel of their everyday existences; who never reflect on the genocide committed against Native American tribes or the lynching of African Americans or the justifications for the Attack on Iraq which has resulted in the needless and wasteful erasure of so many lives; in short, to patiently and passively wait until the American Dream comes true for them, though it never has, and, most likely never will.
Every time I hear her speak I wonder about the fantasy world in which she lives, with every speech it is becoming clearer and clearer that she has been conditioned to the perception that life is beautiful in this nation for everyone; not only for the five per cent who control ninety per cent of the wealth, but for everybody and that she is inordinately suspicious of, and deems to be exceedingly dangerous anyone, who does not share this completely irrational and unrealistic percept; the reality she is sure exists is certainly a far removed and very different from the one that allows me to accurately chart the course of future events.
The choice by Senator McCain of Governor Palin to be his running mate, in my view, was either an act of unmitigated, unrelieved desperation; or, a clear and unmistakable indication that he is throwing in the towel, that he knows that he is going to receive the shellacking I predicted in the upcoming elections and is rebuilding his Party to effectively compete sometime in some contest in the distant future.
Reducing the majority of individuals to apathy and passivity is a double edged sword, as Americans are now discovering, since it also has the effect of causing such individuals to demonstrate the remarkable and well honed talent for work avoidance that I have observed in many workplaces, this perspective has caused many individuals to become uncaring and apathetic in every area of existence including their attitude to tasks they are employed to perform, precipitating the unprecedented and unparalleled flight of jobs to other countries where workers are motivated to be innovative, enterprising and industrious.
I am trying to communicate to my species that my being able to predict the course of events that was the inevitable consequence of the attack on Iraq from before that attack was launched, that allows me to see the link between cause and effect that would improve function, is simply the consequence of my telling the truth and doing the right thing; that it is a consequence of applying a moral perspective that produces the capacity to connect the dots.
This perspective has produced the capacity for me to determine the outcome of random contests; because of this rational perspective I was able to predict with certainty the winner of a past World Series, the Arizona Diamondbacks; and, on another occasion the winner of the third leg of the Triple Crown, an entrant from Ireland; in a host of instances I can foresee the course of events before they occur.
Mentally, I function as efficiently as I functioned sexually for the brief period that constituted my honeymoon; but for a different reason. On that occasion my guilt was reduced by the social ritual implied in the marriage ceremony and its attendant rites, now my guilt has been reduced by being able to discriminate between behavior which exploits and has a negative impact on the lives of others and actions which have an opposite positive effect; and, have developed the self control and self discipline not to engage in behavior which will have negative and destructive consequences.
I posit that a moral approach to existence, one informed and mediated by telling the truth and doing the right thing will have a similar effect on the life of any and every individual, as Jesus taught us when he declaimed that every human being has the capacity to duplicate and go beyond his achievements.
The Bible by exaggerating his achievements, by authoritatively stating that he was capable of performing miracles, that he overcame death; by promoting and widely disseminating a supernatural cause and origin for these achievements; and, having for thousands of years unlimited power to generate fear in human beings and so to condition individuals to accept this dogma, have made it well nigh impossible for ordinary men and women to practice and develop the habit of telling the truth which would create wisdom in the conduct of human affairs and so the possibility of happiness for human beings.
The major obstacle to any individual duplicating the process that prompted my moral development, and which eventually caused me to achieve a fragile moral consistency, is conditioning over an extended period composed of celebrating Christmas, with its gifts, meals, quality time spent with family and friends reinforced by powerful faith in religious observances, dogmas and rituals. Which provide catharsis but at the prohibitive, extremely malignant cost of disconnecting and disabling the higher mental processes, so necessary for functioning in contemporary social systems.
I am trying to communicate to a bare majority of human beings in every social system that there can be function without rituals; that over the vast sweep of history members of the human species have become habituated to engaging in rituals to achieve function to the point where all social and political initiatives have been transformed and reduced by a traditional, perennial, ubiquitous, wholly pervasive cultural mechanism into meaningless and completely ineffective rites. I suggest that this insight applies to the current Presidential campaign that will reduce, and has reduced guilt and precipitated renewal in governmental institutions on forty four previous occasions - without addressing, or attempting to address in precept, the fundamental reforms and changes necessary to improve the quality of life of the vast majority of citizens.
As I continue to laboriously and painfully remove the mask that hitherto protected me from exposure, criticism and exploitation I enjoin my readers to seriously consider the above hypothesis and be seized with a realistic appreciation of, and empathize with me as I engage in this transcendent enterprise; and, so conclude that I have engaged in an independent, objective audit of the human condition which prompted me to completely reject and renounce being an agent of coercion based culture as evidenced by the fact that I have been transformed into a gentle, civilized human being who is aware that he can never erase or undo past indiscretions of whatever magnitude; but can only make restitution and reparation by never ever repeating such transgressions.
Which I have done, most notably during the past decade; and, to make meaningful, lend authority and credibility to this statement and testament, I stand ready at any time to submit to answering any question while hooked up to a lie detector machine; waive my Fifth Amendment rights and accept without resisting any penalties that may be the consequence of such disclosures.
To prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that I accept sole and total responsibility for my actions for the duration of my life; and, validate that what I am currently engaged in, is, the predominantly altruistic enterprise of galvanizing other human beings to follow my lead and create the possibility of happiness for themselves by telling the truth and becoming adept in applying positive reinforcements in their relations with the other.
It should be obvious that I have, and have had for several years, access to an option which many others who share my predilection for creating accurate descriptions of social reality have pursued, that of making a living by writing fiction; the culturally acceptable and financially viable way of telling the truth which has one great drawback; it has not, and cannot, create positive developments or the possibility of happiness for the wretched of this earth but has become just another means of achieving catharsis.
There are so many insurmountable obstacles to telling the truth, the young are conditioned at an early age to faith in the Christian dogma, this indoctrination is reinforced by events and circumstances and by the fact that telling the truth and developing a logical and rational perspective is diametrically opposed to the notion that miracles are possible, that it is possible to overcome death, that supernatural forces control our destinies - that it is logical and reasonable that life experiences of the vast majority of individuals is plagued by ambivalence, duality and other conflicted emotions.
The notion that might is right is inconsistent with ethics, with the notion that social relationships should be mediated by fair play, equity and justice; therefore any attempt to achieve natural justice is a struggle, often against overwhelming odds and results in the inability to satisfy innate drives, such strivings, as I have experienced, have the inevitable consequence of limiting or completely denying individuals the means to acquire food, shelter, clothing, education and human companionship.
If an individual displays merit he, or she, is recruited, but then has to accept and promote the mystique, the constellation of irrational beliefs, myths, illusions and delusions, that support and perpetuate the status quo.
And, each individual must contend with his or her past, with the inappropriate thoughts and actions they engaged in when immature which they must come to terms and overcome before they can achieve the realistic appreciation of the existing social reality required for contending with the problems, stresses and strains that human beings must confront every day.
Culture, according to Freud, is not a logical structure designed with experimental nicety. Rather, it is a loose historical system with many strains and conflicts. Some of the elements of current child-training procedures are undoubtedly thousands of years old. They represent a long history of conflict and confusion, of survivals from older times and unassimilated increments of the present. (Dollard 127)
At the core of the problem of galvanizing a bare majority of human beings to divest themselves of the notion that ‘might is right,’ is the belief strongly embraced by the individual that they do tell the truth, when the reality is that they tell the truth opportunistically and self servingly.
When I resigned from the employ of the National Workers Union after Roy Thompson connived with tanker drivers to cross the picket lines of refinery workers, I never again was permanently employed in Jamaica.
For two years I wrote a weekly column for the largest daily newspaper in that country but ceased to do so when the piece I wrote that described the vigilante approach that was successful in suppressing and reducing crime in West Kingston subsequent to the victory of the Jamaica Labor Party in 1982 and the ascension of Edward Seaga to the office of Prime Minister, was published in the Star, the afternoon newspaper of the Gleaner; moreover, it was published in a truncated form which changed completely its message and so reduced its impact, which was to alert the nation that crime rates had dropped because the first time someone was reported at the Bump to have stolen a chain from around the neck of some female, the offender was beaten to sickness; on the second occasion he was placed in a crocus bag and shot to death.
It is noteworthy that I have in my possession a handwritten copy of the original piece, as well as the published article, which I can produce on request.
Also, since I was paid Seventy Dollars for each piece that was published, an amount that could not begin to pay for the food I ate, much less cover the cost of shelter or clothing; this could not really described as a job but it was a channel that I used to attempt to halt and reverse the national slide into irrationality, poverty and want.
For most of that five year period I languished in poverty as I waited for the green card which my mother had applied for belatedly to be granted, which it was in a comparatively short space, because I was the unmarried son of a citizen of the USA.
I eventually migrated to the USA on the 22nd August, 1984 and gained a reprieve from the sentence of poverty that I was serving there as a consequence of telling the truth and doing the right thing.
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