WHAT IF......?

In the middle of the Eighties I asked myself what if I changed the way I responded to the threats posed by other human beings.
Formerly, if a motorist was upset with a mistake he perceived I had made, if he thought I cut him off, I would give him the chance to get satisfaction.
For example, once an individual riding a motorcycle started following me and making rude, obscene gestures, and, I parked my car, got out and waited by the side of the road for him to do the same; he rode past and declined to confront me.
I examined the pros and cons of that situation, and decided that it was far riskier to confront than to just walk away; further, I concluded that I had no need to prove my manhood or my courage by confronting strangers over minor issues because dire consequences might arise from such confrontations.
I remembered that I had been found guilty of assault in my native land when I punched a neighbor even though, in my mind, I had acted entirely appropriately and in self defense and had someone whom I was sure would be a reliable witness.
It did not work out that way; I found out that even the most clear cut case of self defense can be difficult to prove in a court of law.
I decided that I would only become physical if, I were at home, and was attacked by an intruder who had broken into my place of residence; that I would never again become embroiled in fisticuffs whatever the provocation in a social setting like a nightclub or a bar or on the embankment of a highway.
This was a watershed event in my life as I matured, gained wisdom in the conduct of my affairs and became determined to reduce conflict in my life by becoming adept at relying on positive reinforcements and renounced and rejected utilizing coercion in my relations with other human beings.
This was a logical progression and development from the most important decision I have ever made, one that completely transformed my life; when some years earlier I decided never again utilize coercion, in any form overt or covert, to satisfy my sex drive.
I had witnessed how an open ended system of rewards had improved function, reduced conflict and had resulted in vastly improved levels of efficiency in a project for which was responsible; and, speculated if it would have a similar impact on my personal relationships, and, decided to experiment.
The mother of my third child with whom I lived at that time, liked to read in bed before falling asleep; a preference and habit that often conflicted with our making love.
I wish to interject at this point a codicil and justification for my interjecting frank references to sex and using examples that some readers may find offensive because of their salacious or prurient content, I do this despite the fact that I am aware that this may be an obstacle to communication because I exist in the straitjacket of having to tell the truth as much as I can.
It is an approach diametrically opposed to the currently very popular approach that favors the convenient lie over the inconvenient truth; and, is logically and morally consistent with the fundamental guiding principle in this transcendent endeavor that holds that there are basically two types of culture; a design for human existence that relies on coercion, and, one that relies on positive reinforcements.
Agents of coercion based culture repress by consigning to the subconscious compartments of their minds thoughts, memories and experiences that might create awareness that they rely on coercion, or the threat of coercion, to motivate others; material that would cause them to have to confront the reality that they are playing the roles of territorial predator or prey that they became so far immutably habituated to doing near the beginning of the human story in the ‘state of nature.’
It is my intent to precipitate change by causing a bare majority of human beings in every social system to confront this reality that I suggest is the major obstacle to societal functioning and progress.
To return to the description of how my life dramatically changed - I must confess that on occasions when my significant other was reading when I wanted to make love to her, I remonstrated with her until she grudgingly put her book aside and submitted to my demands; and, this tainted and made unsatisfactory our lovemaking.
I decided to adopt a different approach to see if this would result in greater satisfaction for both of us.
On the next occasion that I confronted this problem instead of remonstrating with her, I got real close to her, and began being affectionate and doing the things that turned her on; it worked like a charm, after a brief period she put the book away, performed the necessary absolutions; and, became a willing and enthusiastic participant in our lovemaking.
This may seem a small thing, it may be too much knowledge about my personal affairs for most people; but to me it was the giant step in my transformation from talking, uncivilized animal to thinking, civilized animal.
It was then that I first began to see another human being, not as prey, but as an individual worthy of consideration and respect; an entity with an absolute right to personal autonomy.
Most human beings would vigorously and passionately reject the notion that they do otherwise, but those who do, do so because when applying coercion they do not know what they are doing as is implicit in the following paragraphs from a news report.
updated 1:20 p.m. ET, Mon., July. 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Monday that as president he would send at least two more combat brigades to Afghanistan, where U.S. soldiers face rising violence and endured their deadliest attack in three years on Sunday.
The proposed force increase — about 7,000 troops — is part of Obama's plan to pull combat troops out of Iraq and focus on the growing threat from a resurgent al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
"As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan," Obama said in an op-ed published Monday in The New York Times, a day before he plans a speech here on his vision for Iraq and Afghanistan.
In that same article the following was a footnote to Senator Obama’s picture:
Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in a New York Times op-ed piece, defended his opposition to President Bush's increase of troops in Iraq despite its success in helping bring down the violence in that country.
What I am suggesting to the citizens of this nation is that they adopt an approach that is diametrically approach to what is traditional, that they adopt an intellectual approach that reflects a commitment to change from reliance on coercion to embracing and applying positive reinforcements in their relations with every individual, organization, and nation; an approach that ensure that in the future such relations will be informed and mediated by the values of simple justice and equity.
In the physical environment the application of scientific principles have produced function; this approach has produced the means to land a man on the moon, it allowed surgeons to transplant hearts, to create a world wide web that connects and informs human beings everywhere on the planet.
In the social environment from time immemorial, the ideology or the world view applied by human beings everywhere on Planet Earth have produced wars and rumors of wars, it has produced widespread poverty, it has produced crime and drug abuse, it has produced too numerous to mention incidents of genocide, famine and rape.
It has produced incipient chaos worldwide; it has produced the scourge of global warming, and social systems, the vast majority of whom cannot provide food, shelter and clothing for all of their citizens.
What I am proposing is that humanity adopt the intellectual approach that produces function in the physical environment and apply it to the social milieu - that is the development that would produce change we can we can believe in.
I am not saying that we should change the ownership in the modes of production, I am not saying that we should redistribute the wealth, I am not saying that we should engage in revolutions, rioting or any form of civil disobedience or of violent or peaceful protest; I am saying we should learn to connect the dots and become adept at applying our higher mental processes to social and political problems.
We are approaching social problems with a mental approach that is lamed by repression, like a boxer going into the ring with both hands tied behind his back, both are certain to result in loss and dysfunction; as life has been a dead loss for the vast majority of human beings from the beginning of time.
The Attack on Iraq is pregnant with examples that illustrate and demonstrate the deficiencies in intellectual approach that lames all our efforts to create function in the social milieu.
The increase in troop levels in Iraq has worked, as the then Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Shinseki predicted when it would have made a difference and saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers; but where is that General now whose only crime was to have the courage to describe this reality, his career was ruined and he was forced to retire.
But that is just the beginning of this comedy of errors, there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no link between the 911 terrorist attack and the regime of Saddam Hussein, all the justifications to attack Iraq were contrived by the Bush Administration so that the price of crude oil would rise to unprecedented levels to create gargantuan profits for oil companies like Exxon Mobil the major backers of this President headquartered in Texas his home state.
This is nothing new; the genocide perpetuated against Native American tribes like the Sioux, the Apache, the Cherokee, did not occur because of their depredations, their savagery, their propensity for taking scalps, as was bandied about then; this occurred because European settlers wanted to mine the metals on their lands, because immigrants from Europe wanted to farm the land on which the buffaloes roamed that supported the way of life of Native American tribes, because of the mindless, unfeeling materialism of European immigrants to North America.
It is this same mindset that is driving the genocides now occurring on the African continent in the Sudan, in the Congo, and elsewhere, whatever the justifications currently popular there.
I am not saying this must be changed to create social justice, I am saying that this mindset that is deeply embedded in human culture, to which all human beings became habituated while it was practiced for upwards of half a million years, must be changed because if we continue to apply it we will destroy the civilizations we have built with the weapons of mass destruction we have created spurred by the conflicts we have perennially engaged in.
This is the lesson of the 911 attack, that the notion that might is right could only be practiced as long as it was Winchester rifles against bows and arrows, as soon as all human beings were granted access to information on how to create weapons of mass destruction this mindset became self destructive and the ultimate anachronism.
It is easy to criticize others for acting as if might is right, as the European nations and the USA are now reveling in doing in respect of the naked act of aggression being engaged in by Russia against the people of Georgia, what is difficult is to confront the fact that each and every one of us is habituated to playing the social roles of territorial predator or prey.
The refinery worker who perennially steals gasoline, inveighs against corrupt politicians but cannot change this endemic evil because it is his culture and theirs; nor can the international operator who steals calls; or the policeman on the take; or the prostitute selling herself; because all are agents of the same culture and what is desperately required to change the incipient chaos that dogs humanity is the most fundamental cultural change that we can contemplate - that we go in a philosophical direction that is diametrically opposed to what we have practiced for upwards of half a million years.
What if there was really a Judgment Day that would be happiest day of my life for on that day I would tell the truth and be rewarded for so doing, the stray dog that everyone kicks would become the hero, the last would be the first; I would not be terminated and consigned to poverty or made homeless as is my lot on every occasion that I have the temerity to tell the truth to human beings.
It in this context that my revelations regarding the Christian dogma that promotes the fantastic notion that winged creatures announced the arrival of a Messiah, and, individuals who conquered death and ascended into heaven, must be considered; I make these revelations however painful and whatever the degree and intensity of the animus they precipitate because these irrational beliefs hide and obscure the value of simply telling the truth.
What if a bare majority of human beings in every social system were to actually practice in precept the values that they revere and pay lip service to in concept, we might create a peaceful and prosperous future for our species and avoid destroying our civilizations with the weapons of mass destruction we have created?
This is the ‘what if’ I have been trying to have humanity seriously consider for the past more than three decades of my life ever since I stumbled upon by accident the efficacy, the transcendentally transforming, the ultimately civilizing effect of simply telling the truth.
Copyright Retained, All Rights Retained
William E. Virtue