About Professor Taboo

Welcome — Come Immerse, Convalesce, Spark, or Simply Discern. Enter, the doors are open.

The Land of Opportunity?

Posted on July 22, 2012 by Professor Taboo

(paragraph separation)

As some of you are aware, I teach 4^th through 12^th grade Special-Ed science, social studies, and secondary career development at a charter school. Close to two-thirds of our students are either wards-of-the-state and/or special-needs. Due in part to the nation-wide recession and severe federal-state education cuts and the increasing gap of social-economic inequality in America (families in poverty vs. families with great wealth), my workload and hours are increasing between 25-30% for the 2012-2013 school year. However, my meek salary and annual increase has been frozen – while our cost-of-living continues to run free like a gorilla in a banana farm. Even more astonishing, the social expenditures to address and manage our nation’s growing impoverished families – the exact families my students come from – are dropping through the basement in alarming amounts.

I am not blowing a horn that many haven’t already heard: America is in a very serious economic and social crisis! But what I would like to convey is a re-evaluation of a socio-economic system that like the Roman Empire, is heading toward collapse.

Here is a crash-course in basic social sciences.

From Tribe to Modern Civilization…and Back?

All people on this planet have the same basic needs for food, water, clothing, and shelter. People everywhere live in families, or primary groups, and they get these needs in one of two ways: in a way that is individually and socially beneficial, or in a way that is damaging socially and eventually to themselves, i.e. illegally according to the group’s/society’s laws-of-behavior. The methods of obtaining these basic life-needs are directly proportional to a society’s advancement or decline in relation to available resources; or in an advanced civilization, the opportunities available. I would like to elaborate on this basic social equation.

Advancement in a civilization can be categorized in six stages essentially developing for the greater good. Decline in a civilization is the reverse of these stages coupled with and caused by increased crime, civil revolt, and/or war(s), and deteriorate the greater good. In my diagram Development of Civilization right, the United States is by global comparisons clearly in the last blue stage. However, most indicators show that we are digressing, not only by global rankings but by our own domestic indicators as well.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is an index created by the United Nations Development Program to measure development of all member nations according to a composite indicator of life-expectancy (healthcare), educational attainment for youth and adults (primary, secondary, and tertiary programs & literacy rates), and finally individual income-wealth (Per capita gross domestic product). According to the index covering 1975 to 2005, a thirty-year period, you might be surprised that the United States does not rank in the top 10. Over the scope of annual indices the U.S. ranks higher. However, a 30-year scope shows a trend. Here are the rankings:

Iceland
Norway
Australia
Canada
Ireland
Sweden
Switzerland
Japan
Netherlands
France
Finland
United States

Life-expectancy is directly related to a society’s or nation’s healthcare system. In the 1975 Human Development Index the United States ranked sixth barely above Norway; a real fall in less than one family generation for one of the most advanced civilizations. However, this 30-year index doesn’t paint the whole picture. The World Health Organization (WHO) published a ranking in 2000 of the world’s health systems. Out of 190 nations the U.S. ranked 37^th. The 2000 report was WHO’s last publishing due to vast complexities in compilation. The Common Wealth Fund did a study of 19 industrialized nations on deaths considered amenable to healthcare before the age of 75. In their 2002-2003 study the U.S. ranked 14^th. Yet, the U.S. ranks 1^st or 2^nd worldwide in total expenditures toward healthcare as a percentage of its GDP according to WHO. To put it another way, in Italy, Hong Kong, France, or Japan, citizens pay much less for noticeably better overall healthcare.

The attainment of education is also directly related to a nation’s social and economic development or decline. Education and literacy directly affect a civilization’s progress. If literacy and education are stable and improving, so goes the civilization. If education and literacy are unstable and declining, so goes the de-civilization of its people. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the U.S. ranked 16^th worldwide for literacy (reading, math, & science above 15 yrs old) in 2000, ranked 27^th in 2006, and 23^rd by 2011 according to UNESCO. A muddling in the mid to low 20’s will not improve over future generations unless attainment of quality education by our general population improves. This in turn requires tax revenues as well as a proportionate per capita GDP. But this is not happening. Though America is one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the overall American standard of living has been in serious decline since at least 1981.

A dysfunctional healthcare system and underfunded public education system will have tragic implications for American society. Joseph E. Stiglitz is the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in economics. He writes in The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future:

The consequences of pervasive and persistent poverty and long-term underinvestment in public education and other social expenditure [healthcare] are also manifest in other indicators that our society is not functioning as it should: a high level of crime, and a large fraction of the population in prison. While violent-crime statistics are better than they were at their nadir (in 1991), they remain high, far worse than in other advanced industrial countries, and they impose large economic and social costs on our society. Residents of many poor (and not so poor) neighborhoods still feel the risk of physical assault. It’s expensive to keep 2.3 million people [illiterate or semi-illiterate] in prison. The U.S. incarceration rate of 730 per 100,000 people (or almost 1 in 100 adults), is the world’s highest and some nine to ten times that of many European countries. Some U.S. states spend as much on their prisons as they do on their universities.

As I mentioned earlier, a civilization on the decline has increased crime intertwined with widening social and economic wealth-to-poverty levels. When the opportunities for socio-economic advancement are hard, few and far between for a country’s impoverished, or semi-bankrupt per capita GDP families making only $41,890 per year in 2005, obtaining basic or moderate life-needs turns immoral or criminal. At least two sets of statistics indicate this trend.

Generation Extreme – Death Rates of Young People

This bleak outlook doesn’t improve. In 2011 the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and University of Melbourne published a table ranking 28 industrialized – or modernized – civilizations according to their mortality rate of 10 to 24 year olds per 100,000 population by traffic accidents, violence, suicide, and “other” causes. Sadly, it ranks the United States first in all four categories, with the most glaring difference being deaths by violence, out doing the other 27 countries substantially.

One way or another these numbers can be attributed to any combination of three variables: lack of happiness, lack of education, and lack of social-balance. And these three factors are derived from available or unavailable resources and opportunities.

A Growing Popularity toward Immorality and Crime

Get a stout cocktail, this statistic doesn’t paint a pretty picture either. In 2007 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released statistical data regarding nation’s prison populations and incarceration rates. Once again the U.S. ranks first, or highest in number of prisoners per 100,000 population. Our total prison population is nearly three times higher as the second highest nation Russia.

One indicator of the immorality rate is hate crime statistics. In 1990 Congress enacted the FBI Hate Crimes Statistics Act but not all states reported during the following five years. In 1996 all fifty states reported their data. Here are those results for the following 14-year period shown in the table.

As the data indicates, religious, ethnic/national origin, and sexual orientation are and have been on a steady climb. A statistic I do not need to illustrate is America’s appalling divorce rate (over 50% in 2010). For the sake of time, I will also not include incidents of domestic-family violence not related to racial, religious, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, or physical-mental disability. These cases are typically attributed in various combinations to psychological, psychiatric, and drug-abuse or addiction. Naturally the treatment and management of these problems goes back to available healthcare, and on a broader scale education, employment/unemployment, and overall happiness.

I stated earlier that the United States is on a path to socio-economic collapse, remarkably like the great Roman Empire. The familiar cliché history repeats itself, could not be truer here. Yet, many Americans believe we are the strongest wealthiest nation on earth of which all nations should model themselves. True, but only on the surface and ONLY in the top 1 percent of the population or the top 10% at best. The lower 90-99% has seen their standard of living erode frankly. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz describes our historic predicament strikingly Romanesque:

If struggling poor families get our sympathy today, those at the top increasingly draw our ire. At one time, when there was a broad social consensus that those at the top earned what they got, they received our admiration. In the recent crisis, however, bank executives received outsize bonuses for outsize losses, and firms fired workers, claiming they couldn’t afford them, only to use the savings to increase executive bonuses still more. The result was that admiration at their cleverness turned to anger at their insensitivities…

…We described earlier the huge gap between CEO pay and that of the typical worker – more than 200 times greater – a number markedly higher than in other countries (in Japan, for instance, the corresponding ratio is 16 to 1) and even markedly higher than it was in the United States a quarter century ago. The old U.S. ratio of 30 to 1 now seems quaint by comparison…

…What’s worse, we have provided a bad [model], as executives in other countries around the world emulate their American counterparts. The UK’s High Pay Commission reported that the executive pay at its large companies is heading toward Victorian levels of inequality, vis-à-vis the rest of society (though currently the disparity is only as egregious as it was in the 1920’s). As the report puts it, “…publicly listed companies sets a precedent, and when it is patently not linked to [overall] performance, or rewards [overall] failure, it sends out the wrong message and is a clear symptom of market failure.”

If you are familiar with ancient Roman civilization, or even Victorian civilization in Europe, then you are also familiar with the stark inequality of their respective populations. Both Rome and the great British Empire of the 18^th century CE crumbled under this bloated weight of inequality. Rome vanished and Britain to a mere semblance of its former glory. Obviously at the risk of oversimplification, this socio-economic inequality is the consequence of the denial of the altruistic and philanthropic system of the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number lifestyle. I will return to this concept later, but first I want to explain another accurate form of socio-economic performance.

The Gini Coefficient (illustrated left) measures the degree of inequality of the distribution of family income within a nation. Basically, a gini coefficient of zero indicates perfect equality, and a gini coefficient of one represents a maximum inequality of incomes. Nations with coefficients of 0.3 or below are considered mostly equal. Nations with coefficients of 0.5 or above are considered mostly unequal. If you have finished your stout cocktail, pour another because this U.S. comparison to the rest of the world is going to break your heart.

According to the 2011 CIA World Factbook – Gini Index, the United States ranks practically the same as Cameroon (Africa) and Uruguay (South America). Stiglitz puts it in these terms: “According to UN data, we are slightly more unequal than Iran and Turkey, and much less equal than any country in the European Union.” Our actual CIA World Factbook ranking has us at 95^th, behind the likes of not only Cameroon but Uganda, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Pakistan to name a few.

The Indicators Re-examined

Performances of family income inequality don’t tell the entire story. The Land of Opportunity’s real story may in fact be much worse than these numbers are indicating. For example, in other modern European civilizations their people do not worry about how to pay medical expenses, or how to afford taking care of their elderly parents, or how their children will receive a well-funded education. Attaining all these social benefits are viewed as a basic human right! In other advanced nations, the citizens put a heavy emphasis on hard work at a job, but they do not worry so much if they lose their job because their unemployment programs are good. In these advanced countries, homeowners do not concern themselves with foreclosure anywhere near as much as Americans. Social and economic insecurity for lower-class and middle-class Americans has become the rule-of-thumb. And if these international comparisons bear some level of truth, the United States is worse off than it prefers to portray itself.

If the picture is not quite in focus, then Stiglitz concludes these performance indicators this way:

Recent U.S. income growth primarily occurs at the top 1 percent of the income distribution.
As a result there is growing inequality.
And those at the bottom and in the middle are actually worse-off today than they were at the beginning of the century.
Inequalities in wealth are even greater than inequalities in income.
Inequalities are apparent not just in income but in a variety of other variables that reflect standards of living, such as insecurity [fear and sadness] and health.
Life is particularly harsh at the bottom – and the recession made it much worse.
There has been a hollowing out of the middle class.
There is little income mobility – the notion of America as a land of opportunity is a myth.
And America has more inequality than any other advanced industrialized country, it does less to correct these inequalities, and inequality is growing more than in many other countries.

As the American Conservative Right describes this socio-economic outlook, even Mitt Romney, these facts are inconvenient to them and should be whispered in private. There is no need to point out what sectors of the American population the phrase “American Conservative Right” refers. However, the philosophy they cherish, project, and protect is essentially no different from Ancient Rome’s and Victorian Britain’s elite. The proverbial phrases “You need money to make money” and “the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer” are simply true today.

Greatest Good for the Greatest Number

One could argue that the concept of the greatest good for the greatest number is socialism and its initiative found in communism. This type of argument is frequently revealed in American Conservative Right rhetoric. Not surprisingly, you also discover that the Conservative Right has a majority of religious-political advocates, many from various forms of Christianity (and a growing population of Islam). I find this social-political position utterly fascinating and in alarming conflict with the founding principles of the very same theology (and scriptural basis) they proclaim membership. For a more in depth look at this background, read my April 2011 article Constantine: Christianity’s True Catalyst/Christ. It and its references bring to light the utter success that the Judeo-Jesus movement of the 1^st century CE was in reality a welfare-system phenomena for Rome’s grossly outsized and mistreated poor; ironically, not unlike the heading of America’s social-economic system.

Simply and factually put, the philosophy-turning-lifestyle of the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number has been preached, taught, prophesied, born-out, died-for, whatever the case, in just about all of history’s great reformers. From Gautama Buddha in c. 563 BCE to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, one theme stands out from all their wisdom: there is something more and larger than yourself. What can you imagine as this theme’s reciprocal, or antithesis? Think of as many possible oppositions as you can.

The fall of Rome c. 455 CE

Now synthesize your list of oppositions into a summation. It should reflect an inflated ego, whether it is one, many, or a system, it carries with it an awareness and action for self and for few – as well as those who benefit our self. It also carries with it a reduced lack of awareness and action for the whole system – as well as those who we tolerate and/or are intolerant. When viewed in this light, the inequality that is today’s America is absolutely no different from ancient Rome or Victorian Britain. You have the superior and the inferior, and the two should remain mostly separate. The inferior are such because they are illiterate. They lack a good education because it is next to impossible to attain. The inferior are diseased because of their illiteracy and lack of medical treatment because it is next to impossible to attain. The inferior are unskilled workers because of their illiteracy to understand the complex nuances of business and ingenuity, and to gain this understanding is next to impossible without heavy coin.

Is my America-Rome analogy that far-fetched? Your response should turn to civil action; we do live in a country that OFFERS a model of social-political freedom. I come from a family and middle-class background that worked and works its ass off to gain a little more of the American dream. During my generation, and perhaps during my children’s generation, we have seen those opportunities all but vanish. My children and I face almost exactly what my grandparents faced during the Great Depression and World War II. As a boy then, my father faced strict food and material rations for over fourteen years! Our current Great Recession, economists state, began in 2007. Here we are in mid-2012, five years later.

Whatever your situation, I will repeat what I said at the start.

Due in part to the nation-wide recession and severe federal-state education cuts and the increasing gap of social-economic inequality in America (families in poverty vs. families with great wealth), my workload and hours are increasing between 25-30% for the 2012-2013 school year. However, my meek salary and annual increase has been frozen – while our cost-of-living continues to run free like a gorilla in a banana farm. Even more astonishing, the social expenditures to address and manage our nation’s growing impoverished families – the exact families my students come from – are dropping through the basement in alarming amounts. Let me reiterate:

The social expenditures to address and manage our nation’s growing impoverished families – the exact families my students come from – are dropping through the basement in alarming amounts, even disappearing!

And by the way, our enrollment/placement of special-needs students are increasing (and therefore class sizes with fewer teachers) because several identical charter schools in the region had to close their doors due to funding cuts.

In the boom years before the 2007-08 crisis, the top 1 percent seized more than 65% of the gain in total national income. And while the GDP grew, most American citizens saw their standard of living fall into the basement. In 2010, as the nation floundered to stay afloat, the 1 percent (even the top 10%) gained 93% of the additional income created in the so-called recovery. As those at the top continue to enjoy the best healthcare, education, and benefits of wealth in a Reagan-freed-market system, they often fail to realize that, as Rome’s elite fatally ignored, “their fate is bound up” Stiglitz highlights, “with how the other 99 percent live.”

No matter the social, economic, or intellectual differences, we ALL need each other and MUST find and implement civilized efficient, evolving, fair systems toward the Greatest Good for the Greatest Number, or we will go down in history as the 2nd Rise and Fall of the 2nd Roman Empire.

(paragraph separation)

This work by Professor Taboo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://professortaboo.wordpress.com.

Dare to Love…More!

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Professor Taboo

As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

The Price of Exclusivism

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Professor Taboo

I am in the process of intently reading three superb books on America’s current anemic social and economic position. By what I have read so far, all three of these books speak directly to my deep concern for our country’s doomed path of progression: exclusivism; unless this path changes. Following are some reviews of these books.

A forceful argument against America’s vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.

The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

The other two books in which I am engrossed are the Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now and the book I am foaming at the mouth to finish, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks by co-authors Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein.

The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, “Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain.”

How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years—a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the “intellectual clarity and political will” to end this depression now.

And on Mann’s and Ornstein’s book —

Acrimony and hyper-partisanship have seeped into every part of the political process. Congress is deadlocked and its approval ratings are at record lows. America’s two main political parties have given up their traditions of compromise, endangering our very system of constitutional democracy. And one of these parties has taken on the role of insurgent outlier; the Republicans have become ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and ardently opposed to the established social and economic policy regime.

In It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein identify two overriding problems that have led Congress—and the United States—to the brink of institutional collapse. The first is the serious mismatch between our political parties, which have become as vehemently adversarial as parliamentary parties, and a governing system that, unlike a parliamentary democracy, makes it extremely difficult for majorities to act. Second, while both parties participate in tribal warfare, both sides are not equally culpable. The political system faces what the authors call “asymmetric polarization,” with the Republican Party implacably refusing to allow anything that might help the Democrats politically, no matter the cost.

With dysfunction rooted in long-term political trends, a coarsened political culture and a new partisan media, the authors conclude that there is no “silver bullet” reform that can solve everything. But they offer a panoply of useful ideas and reforms, endorsing some solutions, like greater public participation and institutional restructuring of the House and Senate, while debunking others, like independent or third-party candidates. Above all, they call on the media as well as the public at large to focus on the true causes of dysfunction rather than just throwing the bums out every election cycle. Until voters learn to act strategically to reward problem solving and punish obstruction, American democracy will remain in serious danger.

As I have written about adequately throughout my WordPress blog, exclusivism, elitism, and mob-egotism seriously, seriously threaten modern democracies and ultimately this planet. Apparently Stiglitz, Krugman, Mann, and Ornstein would more less agree, particularly in a socio-economic context. Ah, humbly I need to restate that: I apparently agree with them. Or perhaps the five of us all agree.

But I will not jump too hastily to conclusions. I will completely finish these three fine works and THEN incorporate their problem-identifications, solutions, and ideals into my views and opinions for a better nation and world. Come to think of it, I can probably merge polyamory and the open-swinger lifestyle (grinning and laughing) into my viewpoint as well!

Stay tuned!

Repost – Sexual and Gender Ambiguity: My Once Gross Ignorance

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Professor Taboo

Since posting this in April 2011, it has been my most popular blog with over 11,000 views so far. It seems a good idea to reblog it since intersex births and sexual orientations are commonly misunderstood or avoided, or worse… attacked.

In my archaic way of thinking, or perhaps as my conservative culture taught me, I thought that a boy was a boy not only by how similar he acted among me and other boys, but also because of his genitalia. And a girl was a girl not only by how similar she acted among other girls, but because of her genitalia as well. It all seemed pretty obvious and quite simple, so I thought for more than 30 years.

A few years ago my mother informed me of the death of a dear family friend and halfway-house mother to my sister of addiction and innumerable relapses. She had been there for my mom and other women countless times as my sister fought her disease on the losing end. This woman had been a pillar of hope and therapy in the community for battered, abused women, and many typically in chemical addiction. I was unaware that she had been what is often termed as an “intersexed baby”; a prenatal condition I knew absolutely nothing about. Subsequently, this not-so-rare occurrence completely overhauled my views on sexual orientation, “same-sex” marriage, and gender identity.

Exact numbers of intersexed births are difficult to determine due to the lack of a humane dignifying definition of what physically should be considered normal or abnormal. The ignorance and social stigma the condition carries with it is as much a part of the difficulty as the collective understanding by medical science. Despite the ongoing studies one thing is quite clear. Sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, and gender identity IS NOT a social-religious debate, period.

Here is some perspective. It is commonly accepted in the medical community that on a global scale there are likely as many intersexed births as there are Jews. It is more common than multiple-sclerosis. More specifically, according to the Intersex Society of North America, about one in 100 births are intersexed or do not fall under “standard” male or female identity. One in 1,666 births has no clear XX or XY chromosome structure. For a more expansive report of all types of intersex conditions visit the ISNA (http://www.isna.org/faq/frequency) website. With chromosome structures outside of the traditional gender dichotomy, how can sexual or gender identity ever be separated from a genetic hard-wiring? Intersexed people could not have made the presumed adolescent or adult choice in “un-Godly perversion” if their condition formed in the womb. As such, social political shaming of these people can never be justified by any ideology. In fact, under such an archaic model one could argue that the molecular, biological, hormonal embryonic designing of intersex babies is from God’s workshop. Think about those implications.

The available prenatal and neonatal hormonal development studies are showing that aside from physical conditions, the development of testosterone and estrogen levels, or the under-developed levels, can sometimes vary widely. Pediatric and adolescent psychology has shown that intersex patient’s social behavior are indeed influenced by the relative levels of these and other gender hormones not necessarily specific to their external natal anatomy. A wonderful comprehensive article on the intricacies of intersexed births by Joy A. Bilharz can be found in her scholarly report (Click here). I highly recommend reading it two or three times. With this medical knowledge, it is not a stretch by any means to theorize, if not conclude, that there are smaller variations hormonally and neurologically in the general “natural” population that despite their social catch-all external anatomy, internally their gender development is different starting at conception.

For me, this is obvious: The rigid binary sexual-gender identification models many Americans have must be trashed for a more biologically, chromosome-informed model for not only political-legal reasons, but more importantly for humane reasons. However, the LGBT and intersex communities must avoid pendulum-mania. Elitism would certainly hamper hard fought gains. As Joy Bilharz notes,

The transgender movement…is attempting to breakdown the boxes into which people are pigeonholed on the basis of actual or presumed characteristics. Unfortunately, however, it has shown itself to be as exclusive and intolerant in many respects as the society whose values it rejects. This may represent the radical beginning typical of most social movements and it certainly doesn’t represent all of those who see themselves as transgendered. On the other hand, an attempt to bring all sex and gender and sexual minorities under a single umbrella of “queerness” can also be seen as having a homogenizing effect that creates discord within the category as different groups jockey for leadership positions or stake out their exclusive turf.

From a legal-political standpoint, I encourage the intersex/LGBT community to show first and foremost that they have something very unique to offer society without segregating it. A tall order in some cases, yes. But remember, men like myself, however fortunate to have grown up in a Humanist home, who are heterosexual and unaware that there are truly MORE flavor’s of ice cream than simply vanilla or chocolate. Since the condition did not directly affect my family, I was a product of our society’s concealment-approach to intersex and sexual orientation.

In defense of those like me, it is mindful to remember the “democracy” the United States of America was founded and later built upon: primarily European theological and social doctrines, which traditionally ostracized non-Catholics, or non-Protestants, or non-Christians who challenged or questioned them. Do not despair. Our nation’s brief history is laden with violent civil-rights movements that took many decades and generations to change legally. Fortunately, they did happen. One day, hopefully soon, ignorance will once again be overcome.

[Later addition] Our wonderful close family friend had told my Mom that for her entire life she felt her doctor and parents made the wrong gender choice for her at birth. She never felt as if she was female. Her social assimilation growing up was often unbearable at times eventually leading to prescription drug addiction, alcoholism, and illegal drug addiction. Thankfully, by her late thirties she turned her life around with large support by chemical dependency programs but most of all the support by other intersex support groups. As a result, she became the Director of no less than four women’s halfway-houses! Listening to my mother speak so fondly about her, I cannot help but wonder what mental and emotional state my Mom might otherwise be in, much less my sister. Thank all goodness in this Universe that someone so special and unique as her was THERE for us….us “standard” humans who too often treat people like her politically and socially as sub-human.

If this blog has piqued your interest, let me know and begin your own study of the subject. Start perhaps with Wikipedia’s basic overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_differentiation#Hormonal_differentiation. I think you will find how much you DIDN’T know.

Connectivity — The New Paradigm

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Professor Taboo

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus

paragraph formating

For those who are awake, the cosmos is One.

— Heraclitus c. 475-455 BCE

paragraph formatting

We are all connected. The last four words of the previous article in this series (from Connectivity — Back to Physics Class). “We are all connected.” What do you think that really means? Let us explore this question by first asking some other questions.

Why is the telegraph and Morse code not in use anymore? At the time of its discovery, communication was taking place slowly. Over long distances it sometimes took weeks or months to reach its intended eyes or ears. With the advent of the telegraph that all changed, for the better. Why is the Geocentric model of our solar system no longer in use? At the time of its formulation, every day and night the sun, stars, moon, and visible planets appeared to revolve around the Earth, so it followed that the Earth was the center of everything. Navigating the vast seas could be done precisely with this model and seafaring trade captains and sailors soon realized they actually would not fall off the edge of a flat Earth or limited seas.

The telegraph and Geocentrism both served mankind well and seemingly true, so why abandon them? These old paradigms were no longer useful because humanity, more specifically human ingenuity, research, successful experimentation and modified hypothesi were able to flourish and discover they simply were untrue. A closer look at these two historical events, however, reveals that one was widely embraced in a short period while the other took 1,200 years. Imagine where this world would be had the Authorities of Truth and Death lost their mass appeal when Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler first presented the right Universe?

Heraclitus is often considered one of the founders of Metaphysics and perhaps to an extent Quantum physics. Going against the mainstream of his contemporaries, he said “You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” For the time, his claims were radical and challenged the establishment. Another fascinating philosophy of Heraclitus was that of observer upon the nature of opposites. It was his belief in the “unity of opposites”. One cannot exist without the other, especially from the standpoint of the observer. This type of debate, speculation, and reformation was welcomed right up into the early 4th century C.E. when everything changed.

Exclusivity: The Old Paradigm

From about 2000 BCE to 400 C.E. commonly known as the Classical Era, there were two fundamental belief systems competing for the hearts and minds of mankind. These opposing groups have been described in religious and historical texts in different forms. One group taught doctrines of unity and wholeness of the world and cosmos. The other taught doctrines of separation, classes or a caste system, and depravity. The former embraces a multiverse where existence is simultaneous in parallel coexisting dimensions. The latter embraces a universe, or monoverse if you will, where existence is dependent on another “force” and we control or have little influence upon it. One is a participator/activator, the other is merely an observer/receptor. Care to guess which group won out? A few other fundamental sub-groups spawned from this system as well, amplifying the divisions and destruction upon humanity.

Exclusivity, or elitism, has been one of humanity’s worst undercover killers. This lethal or potentially lethal mentality stems from a belief-framework of separation — separation from each other, or separation from creation/creator. This mentality is sometimes subtle in where or how it exists, so allow me to elaborate.

Intolerance of differing beliefs or lifestyles is always accompanied by harmful action. How many various examples of intolerance do we witness today? How many various examples can we recall throughout recent or ancient history (Sept. 11th, 2001 and The Trail of Tears of the Cherokee nation to name just two)? Don’t be fooled. Merely considering followers of other religions to hold invalid beliefs, considering them “lost” or deluded, or assessing their behavior as immoral or heretical is nothing more than exclusivism.

If you are in the least hyper-sensitive about your personal communal religious beliefs, then you may consider stopping here and read no further. I am going to point out specific passages in the Christian New Testament that clearly promote exclusivism, and potential-probable intolerance. Keep in mind that anyone can find these underlying teachings in many of the world’s major religions; the Christian New Testament is one example and not being singled out. But for most of Western Civilization — the birthplace of modern Quantum Mechanics — it must be pointed out as no longer useful.

The Apostle Peter, one of Christendom’s major icons, preaches exclusivism unequivocally:

“Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole… Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”— Acts 4:10-12

There are perhaps three ways to interpret this passage. One, conservative Christian ministers and apologists accept this passage for face value. All non-Christians will after death be unsaved from the expected/accepted eternal damnation of a place called Hell. These verses have inspired missionaries, through hope and fear, to go into pagan non-Christian corners of the world to win converts. The passage implies not only eternal punishment for non-Christian believers, but more profoundly an intolerant God of any other belief systems.

Apostles Peter and Paul – the two most revered contributors to the Christian New Testament

Second, many religious liberals might reject such a literal interpretation of the passage. They could argue that a baby born in India or Arabia has a very likely chance of becoming a non-Christian adult — in other words, a Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh. In modern Israel the chances of a baby becoming Jewish are around 99% not Christian. According to the Apostle Peter and the Christian New Testament, trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior as the only route to eternal bliss, then a very large majority of the earth’s population will remain unsaved. After their death, they will be tortured in Hell for all eternity without hope of mercy, for the simple reason that they followed the religion of their parents and community. Many Christian liberals consider such a destiny to be incompatible with the concept of a loving and just God.

Thirdly, the Roman Catholic Church today takes a more moderate position on the matter: even though followers of non-Christian faiths do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, it is possible for them to receive salvation by following their own religion. However, this “new” mercy (presumably handed down from God to the Pope and his holiest bishops) does not extend to individuals who have been raised as agnostics or atheists, or have converted to unGodly beliefs such as agnosticism or atheism. To say it another way, those who do not conform at a minimum to a monotheistic tradition such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam will suffer eternal damnation.

The Apostle Paul teaches just as much exclusivity as Peter. Paul wrote that Gentiles worshipped devils. Today, those would be called Satanists, Black or White witches, occultists, or wiccans.

“But I say, that the things which Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.”— I Corinthians 10: 20-21

Paul makes it clear that the Gods and Goddesses of other religions are actually demons. Christians are to completely isolate themselves from non-Christians, not even dine at the same dinner tables. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?” (II Corinthians 6: 14). Paul requires his followers to separate from “unbelievers“. He teaches his weak-willed followers to avoid close relationships with non-Christians. He implies that non-Christians are automatically unrighteous. He associates Christianity with “light” and all other religions with “darkness“. Paul teaches that duality cannot coexist. The Apostle Paul would be laughed at among modern quantum physicists.

“…ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.”— I Thessalonians 2: 14-16

Paul apparently has a tendency for anti-Semitism. He clearly blames the Jews for murdering Jesus. Christian theologians today and Roman historians alike, feel that Jews had little to do with Jesus’ execution. Jesus’ aggravated assaults in the Jerusalem temple, and verbal abuse toward the Jewish priests would have been considered an act of insurrection by Roman authorities, and made him eligible for Roman crucifixion. This falls in line, according to modern Roman scholars, with the Apostle Paul being previously well acquainted in Roman society, even a Roman citizen with all its amenities, prior to meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus.

There are several other clear indications that the Christian New Testament supports exclusivity.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” — John 14: 6

“As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” — Galatians 1: 9

“While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed [i.e. the Jewish Christians] were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” — Acts 10: 44-45

“And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.” — Acts 11: 1-3

The first passage above (John 14: 6), it has been one of the main biblical passages of all Christendom used to devalue non-Christian religions or belief systems. Its meaning and implications cannot be misunderstood in the least: the only way to eternal bliss both here in this life or the next is through belief in Jesus and his teachings from the canonical Christian New Testament. In the second passage (Galatians 1: 9), Paul simply curses any teachings that deviate from his own. What many amateur Christians are unaware is that during the first two centuries C.E. (or in Catholic terms A.D.) there were three main Christian movements. This should be no surprise at all to modern inquisitors of faith-choices. Try to count all the various types of Catholic or Protestant churches available today, and you will spend the better part of a year or more researching their differences! In 1st and 2nd century Jerusalem though, there were the Pauline Christians, who were pitted against the Gnostic Christians, and Jewish Christians, and any others. More often than not, a city in that part of the Roman empire would have three or more Christian groups, each teaching very different doctrines. Paul obviously proclaims not only HIS version of Jesus, but just as much his Graeco-Roman background.

In the third passage above (Acts 10: 44-45), Peter is publicly speaking to a mixed group of Jewish Christians and intrigued Gentiles. A number of the Gentiles were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Jewish Christians were bothered by this because they felt the message was strictly for them. They viewed Jesus’ teachings were merely a reform movement within Judaism, and not pertinent for non-Jews. With the last passage (Acts 11: 1-3), some Jewish Christians argued with Peter for associating with non-Jews and eating with them, which was common during the time. Before the Graeco-Roman teachings of Paul became mainstream in 325 C.E., Jewish Christians viewed Jesus’ reformations as teachings for them only. Peter persuades many of them that it is the will of the Holy Spirit to also reform the Gentiles. Nonetheless, the seven New Testament passages I have shared here are only a small portion of the many, many passages throughout the entire Bible — Old and New Testaments — that promotes separation among mankind, or elitism, or exclusion from creation/Creator.

Connectivity — The New Paradigm…Finally!

2008 World Literacy Map

Fortunately, with the help of modern quantum physics and unified field theory, the old paradigms are seeing their last decades. This is more evident as the world’s cultures and nations gradually become more literate and can grasp, at least in basic terms or better, what these collective physicists and scientists are proving. Examine the world literacy map (left). It shows that much of the population is educated. As this rate continues to rise over time, barring the militant illiterate regions exterminating much of humanity’s rise to mental and spiritual brilliance, the outcome will be that mankind requires a completely new framework of unity, of oneness, not separation. Let me be more precise; not religious separation.

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot (1994)

You may think that Carl Sagan’s revelation is far-fetched. Yet, already many renown scholars of mathematics and quantum physicists are in agreement: the existence of a web of energy connecting our physical world and our bodies to everything in the universe/multiverse suggests an entire overhaul of life as we have perceived it the last sixteen centuries. John A. Wheeler, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University and colleague of Albert Einstein, is credited for mentoring some of America’s most accomplished scientists of quantum mechanics today. Einstein believed that mankind had little influence on our environment, on our universe as a whole and that we were simply spectators. However, the late John Wheeler and his protegés today offer a radical departure from Einstein’s commonly held system. “We are participators…” Wheeler explains, “in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past and if we have one explanation for what’s happening in the distant past why should we need more?” Light (or the energy of light) travels to our eyes and skin by billions of interacting particles between us and our Sun, or light bulbs, or fires, whatever the source. If Wheeler is correct, then we are each creators of our reality and as we understand our world, the 7 billion inhabitants on this planet collectively manifest life itself! Quantum physics is supporting Wheeler’s idea too.

Are things able to travel faster than the speed of light, and can they be in two places at once? And if things have this ability, what about us?

(line break)
In addition to proving a unified field, an energy web connecting everything, quantum research is showing that the connections exist BECAUSE of us! We are not some creation out of an invisible force’s boredom or loneliness. Indeed, the fact that the quantum discoveries show we can use our connectedness consciously hands us the key to open the door to the same power that drives the whole universe/multiverse. Let that sink in for a moment. Put another way, because of our direct connection to inner and outer space, our oneness living inside you, me, and every single being on this planet, we have a direct line…no, we are a vital part of the same force that creates everything from atoms to the DNA of existence itself. Therefore, in ways that we are only now realizing, we find that not only are we inseparable with all life and human beings, and what we see, but also with everything that has ever been, as well as things which are yet to happen! Do you need a moment to fathom that? Do you understand that what we are experiencing now is the result of events that have already occurred in a realm of the multiverse we cannot even see? Yes indeed, these are the discoveries over the last 2-3 years in quantum physics.

The ramifications of these discoveries are huge, and undermine so many centuries of tradition, myth, and legend. As the evidence mounts and the quantum discoveries continue, all of mankind will finally be forced to toss out the Medieval Dark Age paradigms once and for all. The telegraph and Geocentric model will no longer serve, if you will, any purpose for our modern needs. Hence, the defunct orthodoxy of the nature of existence: who we are, what we are, what we need for the “beyond” will finally, and long over due, be matched with reality and how the multiverse/universe and creation truly function. What an awe-inspiring exciting future that holds for ALL OF US….not just a “special” few.

Like it or not, you, me, and every single soul on this earth are intimately connected; not all separate, exclusive, or élite. I dare say the only difference is our freedom of creativity, ingenuity, and altruistic philanthropy to “spread the wealth” of true existence. We are very much connected. What a wonderful breath of fresh air this is!