If a reversal of generations of secular Leftism is required - what are the possible models for positive change and what is the prospect of each being able to generate the desired spiritual awakening?
1. Established routes of change: Political parties, old and new; Voting, Organization, Lobbying...
*Possibility of positive change - Zero.
The System is the problem, not the solution.
2. Corruption: bribery, intimidation, trading favours, cheating...
*Possibility of positive change - Zero. This model is only for the rich and powerful: again the problem not the solution.
3. Direct action: strikes, riots, civil disobedience...
*Possibility of positive change - Zero. These methods only work when the Establishment is covertly on the side of change and therefore fight with one hand only (e.g. the British in India, the US government versus Civil Rights movement or 1960s student revolutionaries). The full force of State repression will rapidly and very-completely snuff-out such movements if/ when the State wishes.
4. Supersensible influence: a change in the Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist); external influences of an undetectable kind - such as putative frequencies or vibrations that affect the human mind; intervention of divine or divinely-inspired personages such as gods, angels, prophets, spiritual leaders; the one-ness of all things, such that everything is linked, such that all positive change anywhere has effects everywhere - leading to incalculable and non-linear beneficial effects.
*Possibility of positive change - Our Best and Only Hope (assuming that such factors are regarded as real).
Bruce, do you think that all (or some) of the methods/ways that you mentioned could actually be linked in some way (especially the first and last ones you mentioned)? For example, that divine intervention could manifest as a change in political party structures, power dynamics, messages, etc.?
ReplyDeleteOr do you think that divine intervention would happen at the level of individual awakening, and would therefore cause change which would be of a more organic nature (which would then naturally cause the organizational/political/beaurocratic landscape to change, but only as a reaction, not as a driving force)?
I ask, because I am as yet still unsure of whether it is worth engaging in direct action at the first level you mentioned, in hope that if it is inspired by right thinking/feeling (i.e. in tune with God´s will) then it will be positive, or if by its very nature such activity is better not engaged in in any systematic/stategic way because it is intrinsically and inextricably corrupt and corrupting?
Hope my question is clear, and would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this matter.
@Gary - I can't see how anything valuable can come from working within The System - when that is the most rotten place of all.
ReplyDeleteI believe that rotten systems must be replaced - and that they cannot be reformed; and rotten people too.
This seems to apply even on a small scale of life; but the larger is an organisation, the more necessary to replace the whole thing, or at least replace nearly all the key people and many of the lower downs as well.
But at present there probably are not enough good (honest, uncorrupt, virtue-aiming) people to go round; hence the necessity for spiritual awakening as the *first* step.