On Mere Opinions

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Letter to an associate, 1849

"Aquellos que profesan favorecer la libertad, y sin embargo desprecian la agitación, son hombres que quieren cosechar sin arar la tierra. Quieren lluvia sin truenos y relámpagos. Quieren el océano sin el estruendo espantoso de todas sus aguas. Esta puede ser una lucha moral, o puede ser física, o puede ser a la vez moral y física, pero debe ser una lucha. El poder no concede nada sin una demanda. Nunca lo hizo y nunca lo hará."

Frederick Douglass, American Abolicionista, Carta a un asociado, 1849

There are not false assumptions in politics and for the same matter in anything else; as dear they appear or could be to us, they are still only assumptions, and so our paradigmatic edifices are in the end made only at best of deep-rooted beliefs and assumptions, many of which are far from the reality and let alone could  bring a fair resolution over our social and economic as political issues and dilemmas; although, I still believe, in a very romantic idea that this is possible and so we have the capability to resolve our issues and differences and live in a more humane and civilized manner.

Our democratic values seem to be one of the many "instruments" that we have envisioned especially in our western civilization.  As Aristotle explained and compared the government of the one, with of the few and of the many and better from, for and by all, we have understood the more effective route for the development of our societies and for each individual that are part of them.

In quoting President Lincoln, you might need to read more about the civil war and its underpinnings, war whose one of the principal protagonists was, incidentally, Lincoln, the President of, for and from our Union.

In addition, as an engineer, and by more precisely, by understanding and applying the techniques of FEA (Field Element Analysis), you know very well that a current state of any system is a result of previous states, and therefore, any present situation is effectively historically-affected by past forces and determined not by any fate or oracle but by causes that can be partially and sometimes totally understood. Again, every state of any system is determined and so in fact it is a consequence of previous circumstances, plus the responses and the free-will embedded in the unpredictable behavior of their actors and parts, in this case power groups and parties formed as a reaction or action against the transitions or events manifested in the system.

Every person have an opinion, obviously you have yours, but if every opinion is equal and valid, in science as in politics, why we are committing time, money and effort to find truth and any pragmatic, effective, sustainable solution as rational derive from this findings and understandings?

You stick with what you know, you have been specialized and so you have not opportunity to understand at this moment the background in the necessarily depth and seriousness that these complex and "elastic" subjects demand. You can start again learning about it though, but you have to change your mindset and your entirely attitude about it. Something that could be as difficult as asking a testicle's cell to become a neuron.

It takes years, thirst, hunger, and determination to do it so.  But whereas you are not a cell, and still it is difficult but you can change even though, you are like a bended tree, [you are] hard to be curved to search for light in any other side but than from the one that you are already used to.

If you really want to understand you will but you cannot do it just right now, you need to study and think and practice, then you will need to apply and fail and fail once again and fail many times more and perhaps you will understand someday somehow somewhat and better. These issues are much better understood in that way, and therefore you have exhibited very little concern or little understanding of what is really going on as stating some of your analyses.

This have nothing to do with your intelligence but with your disposition of your mind towards these issues. I have spoken with you and I knew then that you and me would eventually find each other in writing, as Hector was found by Achilles. In writing, I shall archive our discussion(s) much better, and you perhaps will learn by my example something from me other that trying to show your lack of research and competence over something that could appear to you so superficial and simple as it is how our societies' struggle to become more effective and our markets more flexible and sustainable no for the few, no for one, if not for all. This inquiry is the problem of everyone and it does not mean communism neither exploitation, and it does not need to mean the end of the capitalism, or the "death of the salesman" either; it means that we are humans and as we adapt we are intelligent beings to solve our problems and improve our social systems as well.

Do not worry you will suffer a cognitive dissonance and most probably you will hide your head and soul from me. It will be fine as well since you will find perhaps a better part of yourself only if you strive, as I know that you have the curiosity and the desire to know.

Moreover, and getting back to the main theme, let's say as for the purpose of illustrating it: That we know poverty is caused by multiple factors but we are lazy and we just think of poverty as the an indispensable or necessary evil for the fabric of our societies, or as the result of a set of specific behaviors or vices, such as a type of a constant or a normal in the survival of states. As saying without poverty, there would not be any society, we need poor people, wee need struggle, agony, precisely the Greek "Agon". So we would think of property as a set of properties not only of those who are sick or weak or evil; a essential quality of the misfit and/or the uneducated or anything else that is derogatory and belittles or wrongs the human being but also a dynamic attribute in the history of every nation. I am opposed almost completely to this perspective. Poverty is a product of our incapacity to understand much better our rights and obligations as a citizens, as members of state, of a city of neighborhood, of a club, of a family, and at large as a human being.

For instance, the present economical moment or turmoil that is experienced in Greece and in USA, and other industrialized countries, and everyone is expecting China to come over the same crises, presently, has been caused by multiple factors as well, and not precisely by what you have called the "weak", or the indigents, poor, or immigrants, or to whom really knows what you are trying to mean or point or blame to, by using that aforementioned Lincoln's quote.

However, all the contrary, the enormous debt, as the "foreclosure revolution" and other maladies were done and are being done, incidentally by the many of the supposed strong, fittest and finest people of the world; who just are used to exploit the situation, which also happen to be the greedy, the most powerful stomachs and the "richest" as holes of this, form time to time, mechanistic world.

Could you parse this better?

And I repeat: "Many"  not all of them but indeed the majority. Perhaps, there are some like the "Mother Theresa of Calcutta"  I guess, although I have not found none as yet [not that I like Mother Theresa in any way either] but I am still looking as Diogenes did with my lantern by day, especially by midday in which there is more light at the very top; remember, I bought my new glasses just for continuing doing so.

I give you one tiny little example of how their putrid influence is extensible in all societies: The so-called charities and non-profits have proliferated in the last decades, more so in New York than in any other places in the world.

What  have they really done? Are the "weak" weakening the strong? Who are the weak precisely anyway? Are those who do not have money? Are those how are considered the second or third class citizens? Those who are "Hispanics", "Latinos", "blacks", "Asians" or "Greeks"?  Who are the powerful? The chosen ones? and Who could divide so accurately all or some people of the world in such a simplistic manner?

Now are you coming with a new kind of religion? Are you an extreme Republican, right-wing fellow, who is  confused about the separation of the church from the state or the domestic affairs of the governments and the well-being and privacy of their people?

Do you believe in the constitution or how you interpret it? Do you believe that the sharks own the oceans and the economy of the nations as well of their wealth? Do you want that those big tigers and bloody sharks and spiders to have slaves? Do you think that they owe to be fed by the carcass weakest elements of our society?

Therefore, why we need or owe to have a government in the first place, we might be happy with a tribe or an emperor or a tyrant, why not with an Ayatollah in place of a President?

Why we need to be humane or why are we calling ourselves humans? What is the quality that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom? Why do we want to have a decent society if we can act as hyenas as well? Why we just don't live in the feudal times again, full of lords and the rest of the bullshit, including the beheading, and the inquisition?

As you have stated the society [for you] is like a pyramid in which those who matter the most are at the top and the rest of people and herds, which should be at the bottom feeding recursively those who matter the most. Isn't it, Manos? Come on now,  write to me, I am here Manos, can you really justify or how could you support this claim of yours? Explain me your views in detail, I am  eager to know, I will read you anyways. Do you want to be read?  However, remember it takes years, and it is not baloney as the one which is sold around your marketplaces.

I remind you of a true American: Henry Ford, who stated,

"Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.”

Some experts share this Henry Ford's view.  As it is the case, at least of the richest man of the world, no Manos, he is not Gates or Buffett, they are the ones who are making our economy as it weakest point on history, and this society much worst of what it should be and unnecessarily for the most part too. Those are the real miserable.

The richest man of the world, according to Forbes Magazine, as you might already know, is Carlos Slim, a Mexican, just in case, he already pronounced his views about charities.

So some, again not all, of these people, who apparently you call the powerful, the rich, are not with their philanthropic bullshit really helping, what they are doing is maintaining the status-quo, they are taking and weakening the initiative of people. That is the reality and no the other way around, and it is very bad for any nation as for everybody as well, it is absurd and it is an immoral activity for say the least.

Now, in the very personal environment, and about your remarks about my person or future; Please, if you could, and I am imploring you this, kneeling in from of your sacred attitude but with my ass in front of your face, that just be happy to have known me the way I am, at least I am happy to show you who I am; although somewhat aware of my shortcomings, I am striving to improve as much as possible, and of course I wish and work for becoming the best person that I could be everyday.

I do not have, neither I had, any desire for political power, more so than the power that I already have as a simple human being, which is having the ability to make some decisions and to create artifacts, paintings and writings whereby I transmit my thoughts, feelings and emotions, none of which is propelled primarily by a desire to make money. Siddhartha, "told me", that "the true profession of a human being is to know thyself" incidentally Socrates spoke about the same need as he just only use his critical thinking and argumentative skills to influence the people around him. I declare my existence and I document my essence theretofore as is.

Do you have any problem with that?

I will be in my tomb naked and I will be more powerful than many. You are not and Spartan, let lone an ancient Greek, for which neither you understand what is really power and how to obtain real freedom; it seems that is not in where you are in any predetermined moment, and does not consist in what you have or your position in a specific society, or whom you know out there in the "uptown", that is only part of the bullshit. Your real freedom starts from inside out and it does not depend in nothing tangible. Ask Viktor Frankl, by the way, he would tell you, through his biography and his logotherapy.  By all means, I hope that you can become the next Manos the Zorba, since you have most of his qualities. Make an effort, you still have time.

I have written and I have been published, as I have released and shared openly what I have thought, as I have put all my might in the things that I have truly believed in, but I have never sold my values.

If I had failed, I had blamed none but my own,

If I have succeeded I have shared the benefits

with almost all those who where around myself at the time.

I have few things to fear and fewer things to loose

Because none of my possessions I will take

No one bone, when I finally forever would be gone

The fewer things that I fear,

It is fear the most to cause any harm

Whether intentionally or unknowingly

To another human being, animal, mineral or plant

I have never acted and neither I will act

With malice towards anyone,

But sadly I do not believe and with all my might

In Dons, secret societies  or on the chosen ones

Although I recognize the right of people to form groups

because any common ideas and of any type.

As long they respect the rights and freedoms of everyone.

I am an individual and a Human Being.

However I am proud to be Peruvian and that is it.

Now you Manos, you have been always free, I have never been an obstacle neither I will preclude you to do whatever your will, mind or soul dictates,  whether this be: To go to kiss your own hairy and stinky ass, or to go to suck the tips of some ugly bitch over the edge of a bridge is that would be your itch.

As for me I have many things to do, such as cooling the data flow in the information of this pity inferno.

... And please do remember very well another quote of that great man and President of United States of America, whom you have quoted before, Abraham Lincoln:

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor”

Sometimes, I found by mere inspection, as many people think, that it is exactly what we are becoming, more an more materialistic, like a monotonous piece of plastic, pieces that by the span of each hour all along on our way to the moment in which we will tragically succumb into the so-called singularity.

John M. Kennedy Traverso  © all rights reserved ◙ NYC ◙ 2011 - release at version 1.2 3:52 [one rev.]