Nacirema The Island

So I have talked a little bit about anger, with a quote from the Sermon on the Mount. There is another resounding quote that helps us a bit more. 25  Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 26  Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. I don't think this means give up your valuable or dearly cherished beliefs. I think this means to work with your "enemy", see where he is coming from, and then try to see where you actually have common ground. Then your differences are not friction causing, rather they are something that enhances the diversity of life and thought that we all need. Many enemies you have at some point or another, can become your friends, but only if you try and love them. There will be those who will choose to be bitter enemies ...

So while not everybody agrees on the Bible (that's kind of the point of origin of America's different thought processes and philosophies, each denomination disagreeing on what the Bible meant, but having the freedom and the legal structure to do so wonderfully without the wars of the past), it will be pointed out that many people still believe its teachings both as believers and as a point of philosophy. Here is one of those masterful quotes: 21  ¶  Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: 22  But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. 23  Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and t...

This blog is to address the growing problem of American incivility in the private and political sphere. We all know people who have differing beliefs than we do. We believe differently about marriage, God, the nature of the family, the influence of science and religion in the public sphere, and how much control the government should have in our every day lives...these are just examples, not points to bicker about. That is the difficulty of the social contract theory. We get to decide where we want to go. Every civilization has had this right, this innate struggle for existence, that we have so grandly ennobled as our inalienable right to choose..without the blood of a revolution. We instituted these democratic and more importantly republican traditions so that instead of replacing wicked and tyrannous kings with bloody revolutions, and brutal reprisals, we could change the kings, rulers, and laws we do not like by peaceful means. In order to do that, we had to place everybody on a equa...

Manners and Political Life Oct. 11, 2017  Restraint in public life is not a foundation of civilization. It  is  civilization. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/manners-political-life/ By George Friedman I married a woman born in Australia, of that class that emulated English culture. Loving her as I did, I did not understand the British obsession with table manners. For her, eating a bowl of soup was a work of art, a complex of motions difficult for me to master, and to me incomprehensible in purpose. From the beginning of our love, dinner became for me an exercise of obscure rules governing the movement of food to my mouth. It was a time when conversation was carefully hedged by taboos and obligations. Some things were not discussed at dinner. Meredith, my wife, grew up elegant and restrained. The enormous body of rules she called good manners rigidly shaped and controlled her passions, which were many. She followed the rules she learned as a child partly out of a desire f...