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In the previous essay the short article Protest Movements as Political Strategy, by Ben West was mentioned in the context of a cognitive orientation related to a type of sociological analysis. However, we could also frame this in reference of political protests as expressions of environmental pressures, though most readers might limit the word "environment" to the social environment and not the macro (larger) external planetary environment, or the median (internal mid-level) internalized physiological environment or the micro (smaller) environment of chemical, genetic and atomic processes... even if some would prefer to see the state of human social activity as the overall mid-point between two extremes.
Clearly, different models can be used as part of one's analysis of protest and other sociological events. Whether the model be reduced to a dichotomy such as when using the words organic and mechanical, chemical-physics (adiabatic/diabatic... thermodynamics), electrical (on/off, binary), sports (team opposition), history (past/present), etc..., or some other numerically reducible philosophical constituency (monism, trichotomy-...plurality); the usage of such analogies is an attempt to grasp a greater clarity. While some approaches such as using a billiards analogy to describe human events might appear to be a revelation to those who are not familiar with the cognitive behavior of adopting different models for interpretation and analysis, to others, such a trial and error application is particularly simplistic. It's not that many others can not adopt this style of thinking, it's just that they are neither exposed to such a line of thinking nor chance upon it themselves, unless they encounter a reference such as this page. Even though they may have read articles by others who used one or another analogy, the reader may not analyze the style of writing and compare it with others.
Most of us are not as widely read as we might think we are. Simply reading a hundred books in any one subject area does not constitute being "well read", though this labeling, when placed under scrutiny, may yield different interpretations such that a person who does read 100 or more books in a given subject area may be well read for the given subject area, but their ability to make a comparative analysis with other subjects is greatly diminished. It's not that they are incapable of doing so, there cognitive routine doesn't include this type of thinking strategy. Indeed, if there peers share the same type of cognitive strategy because it is aligned with their careers which is another way of speaking about a means of making a living, we thus can acknowledge why their cognitive strategy is so limiting. There is only so much time they may be able to apply to reading and are subject to constraints. If they for one reason or another do venture outside the typical cognitive parameter of their chosen interest, occupation and similar interests shared by peers, they may not be able to engage in a conversation with such peers because the necessary language for discussing a larger array of analogies may substantially differ from the common vernacular. In fact, in trying to do so, they may be looked upon as a kook, eccentric, or even find themselves being analyzed and deduced as a person who is "not on the same page". Even if their one or more analogies are deemed particularly insightful, leadership in any given field of study or/and job environment may not know how to contend with someone whose cognitive forays are leading into areas of discovery that a given leadership do not know how to control nor apply.
In the realm of protestors, there are no doubt those whose ideas may well be on a level of genius incomprehensible to most others. While they themselves may see insightful connections that, if understood by others, would lead into a greater development and application of a new protest strategy, their fellow protestors are stuck in the cognitive framework of a singular protest issue. They are being reflexively motivated to think in a given way, even though there are alternatives. The role of protestors can not be limited to the goal of conducting a protest under the motivation of "getting the word out". One could travel about the country giving lectures, promoting protest marches, writing one or more books, create a web page, develop an organization, make a movie or documentary, etc... and yet not create a substantially profitable social movement. No doubt that many good and useful ideas are generated that never reach the public light of day. Some, like the work of Gregor Mendel, are discovered years after their death and others that do become recognized and applied socially, may end up dying after a few years or longer. Even the ideas of the "Great" Philosophers scientists, musicians, painters, lovers, theologians, etc., eventually find their roles diminished by time. Perhaps all those whose ideas are being taught in school today, will be forgotten memories in ten thousand or less years... much in the manner that popular songs of a century ago are no longer widely known.
Those protestors who are open to discussion and don't mind having their ideas altered in terms of improvement, may live at distances which make face to face discussions difficult. Whereas usage of the internet is of value, and phone conversations useful as a means of introduction, daily routines (school, work, sleep, etc.,) may cause conflicts. There are not many people whose daily routine is to get up early and begin reading or writing... much less making phone calls or even meeting to discuss social philosophy or protest strategy. Some people have only certain periods of a day, week or month that they can engage in a particular topic, like a cyclical biological event or better known as a circadian rhythm. Like having a certain breakfast at a certain time, this is how they discuss a given topic. And by using such a comment as a topic identifying another cognitive model, we can view protests in terms of a rhythm that can be plotted on a graph. While such a graph could well describe time, place and number of participants, the depth and height of the protest poignancy may be difficult to delineate unless one uses an artificially applied standard, such as periods of Revolution, economic crisis and relative social calm as delineated parameters within which a given rhythm is to be analyzed. Then again, though the information may be an expression of creative thinking, it may not yield any useful data with which one can apply to assist in the development of another type of social movement... though the originators of such a view may be noted as being someone with whom one would like to associate in order to share their ideas with.
For example, imagine what might have happened if Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had never met, or others in different fields of research such as Frances Crick and James Watson (along with the work of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin). [Note: The 2003 autobiography of Maurice Wilkins was entitled "The Third Man of the Double Helix". By adding him and Rosalind Franklin, we have another 3 -to- 1 ratio, to be added to the list of other similarly referenced examples cited on page 2 in this "CCS" series of essays.] Whereas there might quite possibly exist those whose ideas would generate a profound social movement, they might never come to meet. Even though some social reformists are reaching out to exchange ideas, their necessary counter-part may not deliberately find nor chance upon the invitation, thus both, during critical stages of intellectual development, do not get a chance to create a meaningful mixture. We revolutionists, revisionists, and reformists don't get an opportunity to meet and present our ideas in order to corroborate intentions to create a manifested philosophy to be presented to the public. Protestors have a poor peer review process and instead use a made-up standard which indulges supposition and illusion. Whereas it may make one feel good about having a street full of people chanting a slogan in unison, that which is being chanted may be just another isolated public exercise akin to a publicly sung school song or sports contest cheer.
In as much as we social reformists do not get a chance to share our ideas with the intent of creating a "game plan" of protest directed towards a goal to be honestly measured against gain, loss and stagnation, the situation is compounded by the fact that such a practice is not typically with respect to public discussions about social issues. There is no established forum for the public to meet, share ideas and concentrate on a given topic that is to be pursued with respect to achieving a goal via a collective vote. Because there is the political practice of keeping the public in a divided situation in order that the government can better conquer any would-be opposition, the practice has created a routine in thinking that causes far too many people to give up too soon in an effort. They do not live for actual social reform as many reformists do. While they may retain an interest and might even participate, the initial efforts must be carried out by those of us whose assessment of their own lives is that they have embraced such a philosophical perspective what may seem to be most of their lives. Indeed, their personal survey of themselves would agree with the assessment that their experiences were different models of experience preparing them for a sustained effort that must eventually culminate with an assertive push forward... like those whose animal rights or environmental efforts cause them to break commercially-oriented laws for the purposes of assisting life forms who are otherwise vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
Participating in political events such as voting in one or more different government employees whose roles will then set the stage affecting and effecting laws that a given populace must abide by but have no real means of applying their collective opinion to discussions, and final stages of development and voting thereon; is a fool's errand in political activism, when what is needed is a new form of government, and not the creation of a different body of government employees whose actions will be constrained by a tradition of governance that is out-of-step with larger considerations of life. It is of little value to elect those who do not have the practice of thinking outside a type of government box where many millions of citizens already cognitively exist, but are being denied the application of a would-be social enhancement because political leadership conforms to a model of thinking that supports an economic model designed with values anti-thetical to a larger appreciation of life and living for the whole of a society and a species.
When revolutionists, revisionists and reformers finally agree to corroboratively collaborate on a formula of interactivity, each person taking a turn to relate their views must emphasize their perspective as if it were that already accepted as THE main idea... and others should listen with a like-minded level of respect. Each of us has our own story to tell, even though it may eventually be better told by someone else. However, it is easy to use one's own logic to persuade themselves that their ideas are correct if they are not actually being subjected to a review by those whose interest is in combining ideas to formulate a New Government proposal. If you go to a gathering where there is only one person or a group of people who do not have your experiences nor education, it is easy to become the dominant speaker so long as the topic remains in the arena of your preference. But given the fact that less experienced and less educated people may gravitate towards a shared common- peer level of interest(s), the arena may come to be diverted. Like the scene imagined when Moses came down after his lengthy stay on Mount Sinai (in order to inscribe religious edicts on stone tablets), and saw his followers engaging in the worship of a golden calf. While the behavior of the people has been described as due to stubbornness and rebelliousness, such characteristics do not sit well with the notion of a people who had been subjugated to a life of slavery. If such a people did have these characteristics, it is doubtful that they would have lasted very long as a trustworthy source of labor... whose "employment" situation was a type of self-interest Capitalism embodying generalized values of Communism and Socialism with respect to the era of occurrence... like the "golden calf" of Moses' time being viewed as the American stock market bull of today.
Golden Calf image source: How God Provides
As of today, there is no single social governing formula which will allow everyone to engage in whatever they want to. This may well be due to the limitations of life developmental processes which are expressed models of limitation influenced by the limited recurrences of environmental activity. While examples which exceed the constraints can occur, such as homosexuality, they are not sustainable without the application of a dominant heterosexual presence of cyclicity. In effect, the alternative sexual orientation ideologies being promoted by the LGBTQ community of colonies, is like a "everyone gets what they want" or "everyone shares" philosophy of Communism that can not survive without the presence of an abundant resource of heterosexuality... without which, such alternative perspectives would not even be born. However, it is wrong to characterize such an example as a definitive expression of Communism... when alternative definitions of Communism are available.
In a large meeting of various reformist ideologies, one will no doubt be confronted with those whose primary interest is to express an opinion for a very selective issue of self-centered personal concern... like a person discussing a problem with their car, their children, their pet, their yard, their house, their clothes, "their" music, their makeup, their gender, their weight, their illness/injury, their race, their career, etc... They are not focused on creating a form of government which would be better suited in addressing many more multiple, singular issues of concern. Nor may they be in a frame of mind for ascertaining whether or not whether their particular issue- interest is but a symptom of a larger concern that needs to be addressed. Without a perceived personal "me or mine" incentive that can be attributed to a given topic, some people do not involve themselves because they can not identify the "what", in a "what's directly in it for me" perspective of personal concern. Some people are particularly self-centered, if not selfish, even though they may exhibit what appear to be charitable moments and not interpreted as compensations for personalized instances of guilt.
In order to get some people interested in a protest venture, a whole series of personalized social attention may be involved. Some require enormous amounts of personalized attention and entitlement offering denoted as being a "high maintenance" individual, while others are more of the Johnny-on-the-spot, happy-go-lucky variety. And still others are more interested in the type of sociability which they are afforded by a given situation. And there are those who participate because they think the association might afford them some insight with which to record and use as a token coinage for a career in academics, business or future political position. There are many types of personalities which gravitate towards a given protest venue, some of which are simply curious and have no actual at-the-moment dedication to a given protest philosophy. Indeed, it has been noted that some would-be protestors leave the scene of protest because their initial examination of a crowd contains those that they would not want to associate with on their worst day... which might well be how they later describe the protest rally, whereby they re-examine what it is they are actually protesting about. Without a common sense of camaraderie such as referring to oneself and others as "Citizen" or "Comrade", a search for some other commonality such as gender, race, vernacular, nationality or uniform may be all that is required to keep them present, or make them abscond to some other rationale.
Many of us would-be revolutionists waited in the wings for the Occupy Movement to present a publicly manifested ideological pronouncement with which to use as a statement for developing a conversation amongst friends and family. Because its first expressions provided impressions involving all members of society, those of us advocating a reformist interest for everyone did take notice. Yet the drum roll turned out to be that on a hollow log that was too encumbered by being sat upon by those who wanted a closer listen but were too blind and deaf to recognize themselves as an impediment to moving the log to a higher plateau, because their vision was filled with a forest of personal concerns which they could not see past. While this is not true for many of them, too many others began adopting the protests to voice their own reformist issues. And it's not that the very many issues didn't have merit, the issues are too large to be taken on by a small force that does not get reinforcements. When it is clear that the very many issues can be addressed by a change in the plan of governance, a unified strategy of protest must take place. We can not have some protestors bunting the ball when a home run is needed, or be unable to recognize when a game is fixed to favor the home team and the public is too busy with the socialization of their seating area to be aware of the fix in order to protest in unison about.
We have too many protestors worrying about minute detailing concerns (social issues) that they overlook the need for getting a new and better vehicle (government). Some people are so attached to their vehicle that they are not even aware of their obsession, because it is a conventionalized behavior shared by lots of others; thereby creating a type of accepted commonality... like those of ancient Meso-America who saw nothing wrong with the occasional blood sacrifice of a fellow citizen... not because the sacrifice actually did anything for changing environmental conditions, but because the political leadership were blood-thirsty psycho-paths. And there are too many who think a New Government is being expressed by using the frame of one vehicle upon which to attach the body of a different manufacturer, such as those who engage in using the already manufactured platform to place a fiber-glass body on it (as in the case of the old Volkswagen dune-buggies), or reconstruct an existing body by chopping, stretching or molding given parts into a different design. When the extent of being able to think in original terms for most people is extremely limited, it is necessary for us not to try to compensate by having expectations for being provided exceptional results in our activism to make up for a loss in creative thinking.
However, necessarily so, we can not be biased against the occasion of creative ideas if they do not readily exhibit an expected form and functionality... like a child who intuitively solves a math problem but is unable to provide the step-by-step algorithm used by all others involved with answering the same problem, and thus claim that the child cheated. For example, on one occasion it was witnessed that a college student was asked to participate with another student in systematically identifying which combination of five different liquid-held vials would produce a given result. After momentarily sitting down the student answered that they knew the answer and promptly provided it (which was 1-3-5). When asked how they achieved the correct answer, all they could do was shrug their shoulders and say "I don't know, I just knew... the answer just came to me." However, since the student was judged as not "going along with the program", their intuitive grasp was interpreted to be the result of having asked some other student in another class, in which the same problem occurred which enabled all of the classes (after first period), to have access to the correct answer. While this one instance may have been a lucky guess or a mere coincidence, had it not been for the fact that this same student show other episodes of creative thinking in other classes, but none of the professors were communicating with one another about. Each isolated instance was not being catalogued to provide a larger picture.
The same thing is occurring amongst those who have creative singular or multiple ideas but are not being recognized for such, or much more preferable to them, is that their ideas become collated with others that could produce a symphony of chorused perspective applied to social reform. Expecting such to only occur by way of standard political or government activities is discriminatory. So long as politicians and economists (as well as all business, government and religious activities) are permitted to "own" a given arena of social activity, the public will be the scape goat, the greatest loser, and foremost means by which such enterprises are supported in their respectively rigged systems of activity. But simply quitting or refusing to play either inside the arena or by the set standard of rules does not ensure that the system(s) will be correctively altered. Different versions of the same models will appear like a marketplace of ideologies trying to sell their wares to the vulnerable, unsuspecting, and otherwise gullible... because such are general requirements for co-existing in any prevailing society.
Those who have generated ideas and formulated a doctrine are at points of perception that they may not be able to exceed in the short term. Whereas in the long term they may well come to revise some or even most of their thinking, at the moment, they realize they are at a stand-still... but sincerely want to move forward, or even sideways, backwards if not diagonally... if such moments are necessary to return to a straighter course along which ideological gains can be practically applied. However, others know that although they are not particularly adept at creating a useful insight as a form of path-finding adventure, they nonetheless know a good idea when they are confronted with it and will serve a proposed Cause because it is the right thing to do, given the information a person has. They simply want to be certain that their steadfast loyalty will be commensurably rewarded by a leadership that will be as unambiguous as they are. They don't want a wavering leadership that may change hands as often as someone changes underwear. While ideas and leadership do change over time, the reasons are part of an agreed upon understanding that changes need to take place for the better. Far too often leadership and ideology get changed like a neighborhood of kids who take turns at playing hide-n-seek and the boundaries are arbitrarily altered without letting everyone know.
In our separate examinations of different ideas, we come to find perspectives that may be incomplete forms of our own, or those that are more complete, if not totally different in the scope of their approach. Nonetheless, even if we are not directly communicating with them, we need to follow their thinking to see if it is undergoing development. Ideas which appear to remain stagnant may be a rationale based on some digression... such as being unable to maintain a diary of sorts in a web page. Some may be fearful that their ideas will be plagiarized by another who is writing a term paper or book, that will benefit the plagiarizer in some way, without the original author being given credit for their ideas. But, how do we communicate that we have an active interest in pursuing government reform, if we don't make an attempt to communicate in some fashion? Simply holding a banner aloft in a parking lot, the side of a road or in front of a government building, does not necessarily bring forth like-minded others. Very often, we are confronted by those who have an interest in a singular issue, and are not familiar with communicating in terms of exchanging ideas for the development of a larger governing philosophy.
If we introduce a word such as Eleutherocracy, or "Cenocracy", the general unfamiliarity of such words may be misinterpreted to construe ideas that can not be easily interpreted in the context of a larger political discussion involving an interest in developing a new form of government. With the first representing the idea of a Liberated Government and the second referring to a New Government, both have a complementary and complimentary association. But the same goes for the usage of other words which might be interpreted the dialogue of an intellectual. Conversations which remain at such levels of expression very often lead people into needless intellectual defense mechanisms which do not afford any of us the ability to benefit from ideas which may be stated more simply, or with less complexification... though colleagues often share a vernacular necessary for them to share reflected memories of discussion that are frequently underlined with much simpler symbolism.
In simple terms, for those who may have not yet grasped what is being discussed, we Cenocrats and Eleutherocrats want to design a New Government. While many share in the view that the present government(s) do not function correctly in one or another respect, those who share in this view of recognizing we need change, limit such a perspective to desiring changes within the presently practiced structures, and do not think in terms of designing a New Government (a Cenocracy), which will liberate us from the present recurring dysfunctionalities. In proposing such a desire, we are trying a more comprehensive interpretation of historical processes which can provide a precedent... a viable reason for making such a change. This historical review can not be limited to the subject of economics, sociology, nor any single subject area as is presently being taught. No doubt such an assessment of history will come to impinge the boundaries of considerations of individual subjects, including long-enduring traditions of thinking such as religion.
There is much to discuss and much to do in preparation for the adoption of a new Government philosophy. Many of us are in agreement, at least in principle, that major changes are needed. As yet, we have only begun collecting a few of the ideas being considered. This in no way suggests most ideas, nor even the best ideas are being reviewed. We simply know that we as a nation and as a species can not remain as we are. There are too many of us wanting to take a different journey than those trails of phony Communisms, Democracies, Dictatorships, Monarchies, Socialisms, Theologies, etc., that we have been forced to comply with. And even though some will not want to join in the journey, they will be forced to because they will follow the herd... since all of us in one manner or another, practice a herd mentality. While others see this clearly, others do not... and others think they are immune from such so long as they keep to themselves. And while it is unfortunate that many may well become trampled by the mass migration, it is only because they refuse to join in the exodus to a better way of life.
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Page First posted: Wednesday, 31-Aug-2016... 10:07 AM
Updated Page: Sunday, 18-June-2017... 7:19 AM