Of 'Progressives' and Progression

There was an excellent blog on a website called American Thinker by one Paul Curtis on 4 November (linked at Vision to America on 5 November), entitled ‘”Progressive” is a Funny Name for Poverty’. In it he made a compelling case for the failure of socialism as an economic system, and extolled capitalism for its unparallelled success, which has bought us to the level of human satisfaction where we are today. Well, I overegg the ingredients there a little bit; as a subtle hint as to where I’m going with this blog; but that’s the general drift of the article. Now, it’s true that the more that people depend on the state for their living, the more they will support the state - regardless of what it does to its people, in terms of curtailing their autonomous rights; besides demonstrably affecting, in a perverse way (at least from Eastern Europe’s experience and perspective), their standard of living. But there’s a larger picture going on here. Mr. Curtis’s blog elicited this response from me:

"Some good thoughts here, in both the article itself and this thread. But I feel a false dichotomy is being created, with one side all 'bad', and the other side all 'good'. Life doesn't really work that way. (Do you REALLY think it was a good idea to put our lives in the hands of short-term-gain Masters of the Universe??)

"May we consider a What if: What if we truly were "spiritual beings having a human experience" - and started acting like we were, from that truth. We could reach a crowning Synthesis stage from the dialectical historical processes going on (each 'thesis' having generated an antithetical reaction: the excesses of capitalism generating communism; fundamentalist and intolerant religious belief generating 'scientific' rejection of any idea of a higher Power across the board; etc). Both the religious-oriented capitalist and the secular-humanist socialist systems function on the philosophy of power; the first on the power of the few (the individual and the owner class) over the many, the latter on the power of the many (the collective) over the individual. A spiritual system, instead, would function on Love - and would get the money changers out of the picture; so that an exchange of goods and services between individuals can happen based on love, ie, freely transpiring. Not based on the training-wheels motive of a 'profit' (and the humiliating 'incentive' of interest-bearing money, and its odious, perpetual debt-creating partner, fractional-reserve banking). Recognizing fundamentally who and what we are; and living our lives from that awareness - out of gratitude to our Creator for life with meaning. Reflecting that gratitude in giving of our best - giving, in a word, service - to one another, as mutual sparks of the Divine.

"And when we do, we solve the problems inherent in our current dilemmic situation, of, eg, needing continual growth (and its 'planned obsolescence') at a time when we need to conserve resources; can move to alternative sources of energy (including cosmic, 'Zero Point' energy) instead of continuing to base our civilization on a terribly environmentally-polluting reliance on fossil fuels; operating and living in a system where the economy is healthier the sicker we are as individuals; and so forth.

"In a word: an evolution.

"Won't work? Ah. But we're there.

"And in our (globalized) time.

"A time we have chosen to incarnate in, and help make it happen.

"Don't believe it?

"Keep listening, inside. You'll get there.

"Sooner. Or later.

"Your choice."


I can imagine some responses to my comment.

Q: I don’t get what you were getting at. The Left sounded pretty ‘bad’ to its core to me, in your presentation.

A: This was neither the time nor place to go into all this in detail. I admit I left the argument hanging a litle. The key piece I perhaps should have inserted into this ‘puzzle’ was how the classic Left champions cooperation over the Right’s classic ‘piece’ of competition. My point: It’s time to ‘bridge our differences’, and come together. The old Left-Right paradigm is a game of ping pong. But it’s just that: a game. An historical process; but a game nevertheless. It’s time to resolve the things that separate us, and come to unity. Because, in the words of the playwright: 'Affairs are now soul sized' - ie, we have come to globalisation.

Q: Speaking of a presumed ‘historical process’: you seem to be a Marxist, or at least buy into the idea of ‘dialectical materialism’, a dialectical process.

A: I am saying that there a definite element of truth in his analysis of the economic process. He just missed the capstone; the missing piece that creates the Synthesis to the process: that there is Plan in and Purpose to life, beyond just in and for itself. It is that missing piece that will bring both sides of the dynamic equation together. Because it addresses the matter of motive.

Q: Ah yes; motive. Why do you emphasize the ‘badness’ of money so much? We humans have always had money.

A: Because ‘money’ - that concept - is standing in the way of human progress, above and beyond the level of the problem.
You - we - don’t need money. All you need is a motive, to give of your best to one another, in the providing of goods and services, and your human ingenuity. And I submit that the highest motive is Love - is out of gratitude to your Creator for life with meaning, and love for one another as sparks off the same divine Being. In truth: We are one another. In further truth: We are One.

Q: It sounds...pretty; but getting back to reality: Human nature being what it is, some people are just lazy. Why should the productive carry the unproductive?

A: Because we are all in this together; for better or for worse. Because our level of technology allows us to produce abundance; and abundance in the midst of lack is obscene, indicates a malfunctioning system. (I think of the phenomenon of food mountains adjacent to starving peoples, eg.) Because example is the best teacher. Give of your best, and leave others to heaven. (Remember: there is a Plan in all this.)
Now, obviously, there is not enough of everything for everybody. Beyond a basic level of support, you can create a system of credits, whereby the more you contribute, put into the process, the more credit you receive. (This could be purely electronically calculated and recorded; like current LETS systems.) But don’t make the mistake of doing something FOR the goodies you get out of doing it. In my earlier years I came across a bit of what I perceived even then as good advice. Quote: ‘Do, not for the fruit but for the sake.’ Just as money transmogrified in human consciousness into an end in itself, rather than the means to an end that it started out as - as simply a medium of exchange, and easier to exchange, than either cattle or coins - so can the credit system take on a life of its own. There lie dragons.*

Q: Well. Sounds...nice...

A: But it’ll never happen?

Q: Yeah.

A: Don’t underestimate the power of Spirit in affecting human consciousness. We are phototropic beings: we are being constantly called up out of ourselves by the power of the Light.
Welcome to Emergence.
In our time.


* The same as in getting caught up in life itself. Life - as we know it; on this level, this material plane of existence -is properly a means to an end, not an end in itself.
I have summarized this somewhere else, in/with the words: Life is a school. The purpose is to graduate. To experience separation from Source, learn lessons, and move on.
There may well be a kernel of truth in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, wherein Eve ‘tempted’ Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. ‘God’ may well have sighed and said, ‘Oh Man - are you in for it now.’ And waited patiently for the Prodigal Son to come back home from his explorations. This seems to be the essence of the philosophy of dualism - ie, that there is Good and there is Evil, and Life is the kingdom of Evil; essentially a snare and a delusion. But there is also the possibility that ‘God’ (Whomever/Whatever; maybe a composite Being, beyond our current capabiity of understanding) is continuing to grow in consciousness as we the Children of the process do. I like to think that the latter is closer to the full truth of the matter than the former - that we are growing God as we grow ourselves; for - altogether now: We are One. Are all of the same Essence.