Chapter 3 – Foundation
Ideologically driven processes
When an individual or a group becomes strongly fixated on a particular goal thought to be extremely desirable, there is danger the process may get out of hand; it is precisely at this point that a firm moral foundation is crucial. Having a moral compass minimizes the chance of going astray; when there is no such foundation anything becomes justified to attain that goal.
Idealists frequently see something in society they feel needs to be corrected, which is as it should be. These goals and the plans made to reach them are how such idealists should operate; this is the way society changes and grows. People of faith or social activists also find societal goals they want to reach out for. Any of these individuals may become strongly fixated on their goal which is thought to be extremely desirable. It is precisely at this point that a firm moral foundation is crucial. Having a moral compass minimizes the chance of going astray; when there is no such foundation anything becomes justified to attain that goal.
An ideologically driven process is one in which the goal becomes so important it becomes the morality. In this framework anything is acceptable if it contributes to reaching the goal; the goal becomes the morality.
For these people the goal is far more important than the process used to attain that goal, their efforts are guided by this ideology not by facts or a moral foundation; they perceive a certain state of affairs, which is so desirable any means are acceptable to reach this exalted goal. Hitler desired a world without Jews. The communists wanted a workers paradise. The neoconservatives desired a world conforming to a certain set of “traditional” values. Radical Islamists envision a world in which the ummah, the community of Islamic believers, comprise all of humanity. In each case this idealized goal was so desirable, so sublime it would be immoral not to pursue it with all vigor; it would be immoral to allow reason and conventional morality to interfere with this ultimate goal. This goal becomes their morality. This is what is meant by ideologically driven processes.
For them truth has little value, only attaining this goal has meaning. This has become so prevalent in our society that for 2016 the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was “post-truth” which is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”[1] The sad aspect of this is individuals in our society have been dumbed down so much this tactic works; we discuss this dumbing down in the next chapter.
This goal may be specific or it may be an idealized state. The central tenet of their belief system may be idealized and practically unattainable but moving toward this goal becomes the center of their efforts. It may be as specific as wanting to make America the most powerful nation on the planet; or it may be more idealistic such as attaining universal brotherhood, according to their definition.
This goal, whatever it may be, is then deemed to be so glorious any means must be used to attain it. We can imagine young idealists everywhere declaring their goal is so transcendent it is certainly worth any cost, any price to attain. This might be a true idealistic goal but it is not wisdom. Only those who face facts and adjust them to ideals can achieve wisdom. Wisdom embraces both the fact and the ideal and therefore saves its devotees from both of those barren extremes of philosophy — the man whose idealism excludes facts and the materialist who is devoid of spiritual outlook.[2] Many of those who are caught up in these ideological processes tend to ignore facts inconsistent with their worldview.
The followers of these processes realize things do not often happen rapidly. They realize they may need to fight for their cause for a very long time, but they are not deterred, rather it seems to give them even more determination to stay with it for the long term.
Individuals appear to lose their sense of morality and reason to the process; in fact thinking it through is the last thing an ideologue wants to do.[3] Their thinking process is focused upon how the goal can be realized; there is little questioning of the proper method to employ, in effect the attainment of their goal becomes their morality. Their ideology is a non-thinking philosophy and it becomes easier because of this, it is absolutism.[4]
Understanding the impact an ideology has upon the mind is important because this speaks to the acceptance of redefining personal morality toward attaining the ideological goal. In effect the ideological goal becomes their morality, it becomes more important than basic honesty;[5] truth has been outsourced.[6]
It is sad to know people have lost their moral nature to a fossilized ideological concept; it can have tragic consequences for them spiritually. It is much more disheartening to view what these ideological drives can do to our democracy. In order to function properly, democracy must have a well-informed citizenry and the ideologically driven individuals are informed only about what agrees with their preconceived notions; thus reason departs from our public discourse. When reason is removed, democracy reduces to who can exercise the most power.[7] This raw power is not directed at the public good but rather toward a personal agenda. In chapter 6 we explore how to attain a better government.
Those who are caught up in these ideological processes may not be aware of any moral failure. To them their goal has such vital importance morality becomes secondary to their goal. Again, achieving this goal becomes their morality.
Generally these people cannot be reasoned with because of their total loyalty to their goal instead of to reason. Democracy can become weighted down and torn apart when reason and facts are trampled under the boots of ideological processes.
Throughout history idealists have focused upon a particular idealistic goal so desirable they feel obligated to use any possible means to reach that goal. To do anything less would be a failure of will. This goal might be to overthrow tyranny or to bring about equality and justice under their definition. This sublime goal is so important to them it becomes their morality, therefore true morality is lost and their goal is lost.
When the goal and morality become so intertwined there arises a sort of feedback loop, each feeds the other. Under these circumstances goals and morality become confused and mixed up. Having lost their foundation in true morality, recognition of the supremacy of our Heavenly Father in all creation, they flounder in a sea of confusion and their goal is lost, witness Communism; countless other examples might also be brought up: French Revolution, radical Islamists, and many elements in current politics. Undoubtedly there are numerous others in the dustbins of history.
It is difficult to deal with such ideologues because they have no true moral foundation; their focus upon attaining their goal at any cost clouds their moral judgement. Lies, deceit, murder and any other tactic is acceptable as long as it helps reach their goal.
Any time an idealistic goal becomes supreme in the focus of any person or group it overrides true morality. The only way to attain such a goal is to base our life on a solid moral foundation, the presence of God within each of us; once this is done we can all seek idealistic goals based on this bedrock.
There are many examples of these processes in the history of our world. One example is the communist uprisings in Russia and China. Intellectuals formulated theories about the proletariat asserting their rights and forming a more equitable society, but the reality of reaching this communal society produced repressive conditions. These totalitarian regimes place all power into the hands of one person or a very few people and everyone else becomes disenfranchised. The goal becomes increasingly their morality until the goal is lost sight of and they are without morality. In chapter 6 we examine true sovereignty.
Various terrorist organizations are another group using ideologically driven processes. They may be driven by idealistic reactions to poverty or other unfair conditions such as religious discrimination; their concerns are real and deserve to be addressed in a rational manner. The problem with being rational is change may not appear in a reasonable time frame; the poor and downtrodden have dealt with adversity for so long they see no reasonable way out; at this point the terrorists approach them with a new means of rising above their unhappy existence. The terrorists feed upon the miserable conditions of those who have been marginalized and feel they have no other option but to strike out with violence.
Sometimes the ideology of these terrorist groups is couched in terms of conservative and extreme religious dogma. They appear to feel when murder is cloaked in religious terms it becomes sanctified; it is true the needs of the poor and downtrodden must be addressed, but doing this by means of violence is not productive for anybody.
Other groups or individuals are driven by lust for power; their goal is control without limits; having such a goal without a moral foundation is certainly a recipe for disaster. Among these are demagogues who seize power by the force of their presentation; their ideology is power for themselves. The dictionary has an interesting definition for the word demagogue; originally it meant a leader of the people but it came to mean “a person who tries to stir up the people by appeals to emotion, prejudice, etc. in order to win them over quickly and so gain power.”[8] Hitler was an example of this type of leader, but there are certainly others in recent political history.
The manner in which a leader guides the people in their reaction to fear is a vital indication of the type of leader these people have. “Leadership means inspiring us to manage our fears. Demagoguery means exploiting our fears for political gain. There is a crucial difference.”[9] True leaders have a genuine concern for the ordinary people; those who seek power for its own sake are no friend of the people, but they manipulate disenfranchised people to gain power for themselves.
Poverty is fertile ground for all sorts of individuals who seek power by questionable means; poverty causes the collapse of expectations by those who are trapped within its confines. As a result of this, they become desperate and susceptible to appeals by terrorists and demagogues.[10]
Some campaigns against truth are motivated by materialistic considerations. In these instances profit is the main if not the only consideration. In pure capitalism the goal is to increase capital, money; in effect the ideology of the capitalist is increasing wealth.
The destruction of our environment and the drastic change in our climate are certainly serious but they are not the real problem, instead they are symptoms of an underlying problem. There are sinister forces on our planet working against peace and harmony; they are in open rebellion against God and His creation. We will discuss our degrading climatic situation, but first the underlying cause must be outlined.
The primary reference for this book is The Urantia Book. It reveals that in the past our planet did have a world leader, but 200,000 years ago our Planetary Prince, Caligastia, joined a rebellion against God. As a result our planet currently has no visible leader, nobody with planetary authority. More than that, there are those who are still working on his behalf seeking to disrupt society.
As a result of their machinations there are several areas where our society is in peril. One of these is climate change, another is the prevalence of guns and other examples of violence; even children in school are no longer safe from gunmen. Weapons of mass destruction are held by many nations. Excessive greed and an overwhelmingly materialistic society is another factor. Politicians and lawmakers have no incentive to correct these problems because they exist primarily to get reelected, not to serve the people who elect them as should be the case. They lack a moral foundation upon which to base their life work. Lying has become much too easy in our political environment because politicians, and indeed most of society, have little awareness of spiritual reality; most of our sisters and brothers are poor cosmic citizens.
Before investigating why global warming or climate change belongs in this section we need a few facts on the subject. The leading authority on the subject of climate change is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established “in 1988 to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts.”[11] It was jointly established by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Thousands of scientists active in this scientific study from around the world work on its reports. Its conclusions are authoritative.
For example their report states “Human influence on the climate is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”[12] Generally they couch their conclusions in scientific terms such as this has a very high certainty or perhaps a medium certainty; however this statement states clearly human beings have had a strong influence on climate change.
This report has an interesting graph comparing observed and simulated temperatures for various regions on our planet. Fifteen regions are plotted, in them observed temperature readings are compared with projections based upon either natural causes or natural causes plus human caused effects; of these, seven are over land such as North America or Asia and eight are over ocean such as the Indian Ocean or the South Pacific. When these are plotted, two regions, the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean, had little temperature change over the time period studied, from about 1880 and 1999. The other thirteen plots show a clear correspondence between the observed changes and human causes for these changes; natural causes could not explain these observations.[13] More recent research indicates the predicted sea level rise could be even greater than indicated in the IPCC report.[14]
There is however a problem with this because many individuals are influenced by factors other than the facts; there are companies and ideologies gaining more profit or more recognition by denying truth. Neoconservatives generally deny the facts of climate change. Big businesses gaining large profits from polluting our planet not only deny these changes but they also actively promote a campaign to spread doubt on these facts. For example, between 1998 and 2005 Exxon Mobil spent at least $16 million on organizations seeking to confuse the public about the facts of global warming science.[15] This is a similar campaign to the tobacco industry; their motive is abundantly clear because in early 2007 Exxon Mobil announced that its profit for 2006, the preceding year, was the highest of any corporation in U.S. history.[16] Exactly like the tobacco industry claiming its cancer causing products was safe, this company promotes as benign its climate destroying products for its own profit.
Those in the industry knew about the facts of climate change; for example in 1991 Shell Oil made a film about the consequences to the environment from using their product.[17] In this film, titled “Climate of Concern,” it is reported research into climate changes had reached a new sense of urgency because of the realization “that our energy consuming way of life may be causing climatic changes with adverse consequences for us all.” In spite of this they continue to fund climate change deniers. Again this is an example of a corporation selling a product they knew to be harmful to life on our planet.
Carl Sagan stated there are dangerous consequences of scientific illiteracy such as ignorance of global warming or any of the other perils to our environment.[18] Each citizen has a responsibility to independently determine the facts of this or any issue; a responsibility to think and be aware of the issues rather than being the puppet of a particular ideology.
Indeed this is a moral issue begging to be understood upon its own merits instead of through the prism of whatever ideology one might view the world; this is a moral issue because failure to act could ruin the prospects of every generation following us.[19] Climate change is not a fancy, it is actually happening. For example roads in Miami, Florida are already going under water even as their politicians deny it.[20]
There are other indications our climate is changing permanently for the worse. The “Arctic Report Card 2017” has as its subtitle “Arctic shows no sign of returning to reliably frozen region of recent decades.”[21] They report “there are many strong signals that continue to indicate the Arctic environmental system has reached a ‘new normal’…. Arctic air temperatures… are warming at double the rate of the global temperature increase.”[22] This new normal means the Arctic will continue to melt, increasing the sea level considerably above current levels and the Arctic permafrost will continue to melt, thus releasing even more methane and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Climate change will certainly be with us for a very long time whatever the politicians might declare.
Ideologically or profit driven politicians and businessmen can obfuscate all they want but the consequences of these climate changes happen in spite of their denials, for example 21.5 million human beings have been driven out of their homes every year since 2008 by climate or weather related events. Another estimate is that nearly one billion people were affected by natural disasters in 2015.[23]
Those who hold contrary beliefs, such as denying the obvious changes in our climate, are difficult to converse with. Indeed there are many areas where emotions appear to crowd out careful reasoning. We need some way of interacting with these individuals for whom emotion is more prevalent than thinking. A useful way of approaching these people is to use the acronym EGRIP.[24] First we need to deal with the emotions, why are they so upset. We cannot have dialog with them if emotions get in the way. Next we must determine their goals, what do they want to accomplish; then we establish a rapport with them, bond with them. Only after all this has taken place should we introduce information, give them the facts. Finally we give them positive reinforcement. EGRIP stands for Emotions, Goals, Rapport, Information, and Positive reinforcement. This is a useful way to interact with those who fixate on one issue emotionally without thinking things through.
As our climate deteriorates we can reach a tipping point and once this is passed the downward slide will accelerate. When this happens there can be no turning back. The time to begin pushing back against the downward spiral of our climate, our environment is now. Tomorrow will be too late.
In addition to the materialistically driven processes there are also those motivated mainly by politics. Unfortunately in these times the line between politics and money is flimsy indeed; politicians need money to get elected and materialists need political power to obtain more wealth. In these times politics is all about doing whatever is necessary to win.[25]
Without a firm moral foundation there is no way idealistic goals can be reached. If one must commit acts outside normal moral decency in an attempt to reach a particular goal then the goal is irretrievably lost. Idealistic goals are attainable only when a moral foundation is in place.
Table of Contents Next Section
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https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year-2016 ↑
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All references are to The Urantia Book unless stated otherwise. The number refers to the single column version in the format page.paragraph 1779.6 ↑
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“The Price of Loyalty – George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill, by Ron Suskind; Simon and Shuster, New York, 2004, p 127 ↑
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Suskind p 292 ↑
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“The Assault on Reason” by Al Gore, The Penguin Press New York, 2007, p 62 ↑
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Gore p 116 ↑
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Gore p 244 ↑
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Webster’s p 366 Third College Edition Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English, Victoria Neufeldt and David B. Guralnik eds., Webster’s New World, Cleveland and New York, 1988, P. 366 ↑
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Gore p 24 ↑
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Gore p 162 ↑
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www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml ↑
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IPCC, 2014: Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 152 pp., Page 40. ↑
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IPCC 2014, Figure 1.10, page 49 ↑
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Chis Mooney, Washington Post, October 26, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/10/26/new-science-suggests-the-ocean-could-rise-more-and-faster-than-we-thought/?utm_term=.a8a874c4d3a5
Retrieved October 29, 2017 ↑
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Gore p 201 ↑
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Gore p 202 ↑
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Thecorrespondent.com/6285/shell-made-a-film-about-climate-change-in-1991-then-neglected-to-heed-its-own-warning ↑
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“The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark” by Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books, New York, 1996, p 7 ↑
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Gore p 213 ↑
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www.miamihearld.com/news/local/environment/article4146653.html ↑
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J. Richter-Menge, J. E. Overland, J. T. Mathis, and E. Osborne, Eds., 2017: Arctic Report Card 2017, http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card. ↑
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ibid ↑
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The Global Risks Report 2017 12th Edition, World Economic Forum, 2017, GRR17, the report can be downloaded from http://wef.ch/risks2017, p 17 ↑
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How to Talk to a Science Denier without Arguing, by Gleb Tsipursky, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-talk-to-a-science-denier-without-arguing/
Retrieved 12/23/17 ↑
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Suskind p 314 ↑