The Millennium Thoughts for a Vision of a New Age1 Justin Synnestvedt, Chicago, 2012

It seems safe to say that people in a community need a common vision - one that both moves and guides them. Of course all individuals have their own visions, from infancy. All our conscious acts aim to bring about an experience of something we have envisioned, either from memory or in imagination. This is what we mean when we say behavior is intentional or purposeful. Vision then is a very flexible concept, ranging from a childs image of a piece of candy, to a prophets image of the kingdom of God. Visions can be kept to oneself, or shared. The idea of sharing is problematic, however. The only access we have to anothers vision is through language, and given the limits of language, strictly speaking, we can never be sure we share anothers vision. Still, shared visions are what I have in mind in this discussion. Some people are visionaries on a large scale, imagining whole tribes, nations, cultures, or all humankind, made over into the ideal of their imagination. When these visions are organized and given verbal or written expression, they can affect many people. Hundreds of such visionary works exist in written history, the best of which are studied still with interest and appreciation, such as The Republic, The City of God, Utopia, Gullivers Travels, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, The Fountainhead, and Walden Two.2 They are either utopian or dystopian, depending upon whether they are offered as a dream to be desired, or a nightmare to be feared. They are critiqued for their historical insights, their views about human nature, and of course their artistic worth, but few people take them as models to follow. The visions I want to think about here, by contrast, are those that are put forth as models, or plans, with the thought of actualizing them in some group or society. These often ignore or blur the distinction between theory and practice. And the larger the scope of the vision, the more important it is to know how theory and practice differ. I personally have always tended to think in big pictures, and in generalities; but age and experience push me toward caution and practicality. Its appropriate and natural for people to have visions throughout life. Children are given to dreaming, which parents sometimes discourage as a waste of time, or getting in the way of chores. Some eras or cultures give more attention to dreams and imagination than others, such as the Romantic age, or tribal groups. But visionary thinking comes to all of us, especially in times of change and stress, or when we are prompted to take notice of passing time. When such thinking becomes grand in scope, and belongs to persons who have the intention and means to try to actualize it, there is great risk. Modern history has many notorious examples of such persons: Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Milosevic and Bin Laden for examples. These were not just dictators; they were dictators with a vision. 1

Visionaries typically simplify and generalize their views of humans in society. Often they assume their dream can include every member of the group they conceive of, which is a risky assumption. Such thinking can cause violence, revolution and suffering, not only by eliminating opposition, but especially by crushing individuality. The danger exists when the vision is imposed by a powerful few against the will of many; but it also exists when the vision is widely agreed to and accepted. Conformity can be a subtle danger; it isnt always imposed by force. Democracy has helped to guard against these abuses of visionary thinking, however inefficient and directionless it may seem to those impatient for change. To be coherent, every group or organization needs some sense of commonality some belief or set of beliefs that unify, without which any group is only a collection of individuals. Today a whole industry a subset of marketing - aims at helping organizations find a vision in terms of a mission statement and objectives that suit their ends. It is similar in societies, but typically without conscious design (except recently, in places where new states are evolving, and constitutions are being developed).3 Without a common societal mission, people would be left to fend for themselves, alone and in a life or death competition for survival. Such is the so-called state of nature where, as Hobbes famously said, existence would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, and not at all a paradise of innocence as Rousseau suggested. Of course there is no such state to be found, since all people are connected to some social group, but it is approximated during civil wars, or in lawless parts of large cities. In recent decades, Rene Girard has added a new dimension to this debate, using what he calls mimetic rivalry to explain both the disorderly origins of all societies, and the continued violence and disorder that increasingly racks the world today.4 Hobbes said that to guarantee enough security for each individual to gain even a subsistence level, everyone must trade in his or her natural right to self-defense, and invest the power to maintain order in the hands of an absolute and irrevocable authority a single ruler that Hobbes called the Leviathan. John Locke softened Hobbes message, saying the State has such authority only provisionally, and it can legitimately be removed by the people if the vital security (and other rights) are not provided for. In other words, Locke supported the idea of democracy, in keeping with a new political trend of his time. We see in his case the thought that a state (or any group) must have some shared belief or vision that goes beyond mere order to give security. For Locke, society needs a commitment to law, which is an abstract idea one that seems to me to be weakening in contemporary American culture. Having given these precautions, I think it is evident that the United States and western nations generally have great need of a vision to help reconcile the many conflicting parts of our societies as well as bring us into some harmony with the traditional, non-western world. What that vision might entail is the subject of this essay. Of course there are today, and have been for a long time, various political and geopolitical parties and organizations which hold to one or another kind of vision for improving society: The United Nations, NATO, The European Union, The World Trade Organization, International Workers of the World, The Arab League, The Green movement, etc. These try in one way or another to advance the vision of their membership for improving the world, or their part of the world, or the role their members have in the world. Each of these

movements and organizations, and many, many more, has a vision - more or less limited in scope and they compete for attention and influence, typically through political organization. The present essay is not to establish yet another such organization, but to show what may be practical and useful to keep in mind about any visionary effort. To say the world's ills result either from bad will or ignorance, or both, is a platitude, but it is useful to consider. Since it is doubtful that bad will is any more prevalent today than it was in the past four or five millennia, our problems most likely result from ignorance, or better, lack of understanding. Hence the subtitle of this essay: Thoughts for a Vision of a New Age. The new millennium arrived more than a decade ago, and millennium fever dissipated almost immediately after the fear of a technological breakdown, and the threat of the Apocalypse passed. But obviously the first decade has not seen a happy new age begin. It has included half a dozen civil wars, the globalization of terrorism, unprecedented natural disasters,5 raised consciousness of global environmental problems, explosive growth of internet technology and communication, financial depressions and social unrest among both developed and developing nations. The pace of change is clearly increasing, but whether for good or ill overall is not clear. So what can visionaries predict, or what direction can they help to chart? Objectively speaking, a millennium may simply be a random event - the result of purely arbitrary choices regarding how to standardize talk about the movement of heavenly bodies, units of time, and the formal structure of a numbering system. The arbitrariness of it all seems especially evident as we watch the world get smaller, and realize how many cultural variations there are about making and marking calendars. What fixes any peoples ideas about The Beginning, or The End, or the passing of an age is different for Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Chinese, Buddhists and Mayans. And then there are some misguided persons who like to calibrate their own particular Doomsday predictions, which the popular press enjoys bringing to public attention now and then. But subjectively, the millennium can be a moving thought, which has potential for good. Whether or not there is something arbitrary to the way history is overlaid by a calendar, the spirit which draws people to consider cycles and changes in human life cant be denied. I admit being affected by 'millennium fever,' a decade ago. This is not altogether irrational. We have all felt the emotional energy a complex of nostalgia, retrospection, apprehension and eagerness - that goes along with beginnings of all kinds - be it the first day of school, or a job, or a new year; the opening of a store, or a play, or a baseball season; the start of spring, a trip, or a romance. It is as though a summary of the future is somehow wrapped up in these first feelings. This is particularly obvious at the start of a love affair. There is a common mental - some would say spiritual - state, which we call the 'honeymoon.' Over two centuries ago, Emanuel Swedenborg described this initial state of mind as a divine gift to humans a taste of future happiness - the memory of which might support them through the hard work and inevitable conflicts of a serious relationship.6 Swedenborg wrote during the so-called Age of Reason. Even so, he had much to say about emotions, and about the mental world. It was a time when many Enlightenment thinkers still believed in universal moral principles, the existence of transcendent good, and even the guidance of divine Providence, before the recent development of general skepticism in western thinking.

Today many people are asking Whats wrong with our society? Despite the fact that most citizens spend their time trying to provide a living during a time of global economic depression and many seem intent on losing themselves in distractions of social media, or following the suggestions of commercial advertising, there are others more thoughtful, aware and concerned. I see an increasingly wide range of writers, educators and commentators trying to raise consciousness and correct the consequences of uncontrolled greed, political incompetence, ineffective public education, increasing inequities in wealth and opportunity, hateful and destructive foreign policies, environmental degradation, runaway obesity and other health problems, and so on. Many activists try to improve the area of their particular concern. Unfortunately, many of the debates involve too much heat, too little light and almost no change. A current example is the so-called One Percent of the recent Occupy Wall Street movement. Sad to say, rational, civil discourse and practical collaboration seem out of style in public exchanges.7 Every visionary is dissatisfied. In fact, some would say human nature at its most basic level is dissatisfaction. Plato in the Symposium8 called this dissatisfaction eros, or desire, which he said is a gift from the gods, for our improvement. If we listen with sufficient openness and humility to the prompting of desire, it will lead us by stages to higher things, helping us to transcend our birth nature which orients us to selfishness, sensuous pleasure and immediate satisfaction. The natural course of a love affair encourages us to seek the happiness of the other; it kindles interests that go beyond physical pleasure; and it orients us to long-term development. Physically, erotic desire leads naturally to offspring, which are a kind of surrogate eternal life; but in the mental realm, desire leads us to create mental offspring which are truly timeless. In brief, desire can engage our spiritual perfection, and introduce us to transcendent reality and happiness. Buddha too thought that desire is the essence of human life, but it is the source of all misery. Life is basically painful (dukkha, or out-of-joint), because we naturally want to change things to suit our desires. We need to stop desiring, or better, stop trying to make the world over to suit ourselves. That will happen when we take the big picture, and see the world as it really is, rather than what we want it to be. The world is limited, and incapable of satisfying our limitless desires. Once we realize and accept that the world is what it is, we can stop our fascination with it. By disciplining our ego-involvement in the world - letting go as is said - we can transcend the natural realm, and realize our true inner nature, which is free and blissful. Notice that both these great visionaries, living in the Axial Age, made assumptions about what is real and what is illusory, relating to desire. Every baby who cries to be fed, or changed, or picked up, also makes assumptions about reality. She assumes that the same action which brought satisfaction of her desire previously will do so again. But this will not necessarily be so. The outcome depends on the will of her parent or care provider; it is not a law of reality. So the child will be guided to a normal life, or left undeveloped or even seriously disordered, depending on how responsible and consistent that care provider is. Similarly, if visionaries make false assumptions about reality, their work will be either futile at best, or disastrous at worst.

In trying to critique and develop visions for a New Age, then, whether for our nation, or in the West, or even throughout the world, scholars and activists need to know what assumptions about reality are made, and whether they are valid. For purposes of discussion, in the remainder of this essay, I will make an assumption which is not new, but which lies outside the mainstream of western thought. My grand assumption here is this: Everything is a union of opposites. I was introduced to this idea more than twenty years ago, in philosophical group discussions at the home of Hector Sabelli, a psychiatrist, experimental psychologist, pharmacologist and philosopher, at Rush/ Presbyterian St. Lukes Hospital until 1995, who founded the Society for the Advancement of Clinical Philosophy (1979 to present) and the Chicago Center for Creative Development (1995 to present). This union of opposites is a principle in process philosophy,9at least as old as Herakleitos, which has retained its vitality to the present, although outside the mainstream currents of western thought. Sabelli is perhaps its major spokesperson today. Sabelli's process theory, found in his 1989 book, Union of Opposites,10 synthesizes the historic stream of process philosophy with contemporary clinical medicine and mathematical dynamics, to yield a powerful new paradigm for problem solving in the modern era. Note that the phrase used here is a union of opposites - stressing harmony more than conflict. But conflict must exist too, of course, in its own union of opposites with harmony. Perhaps we entertain the hope that war will end, or be brought to a minimum; but that hope will fail if we disregard the necessity and inevitability of conflict. As Herakleitos said, 'War is the Father of all things.' Sabelli believes the statement is incomplete, and that we should add '...and Peace is their Mother.' In our culture's characteristic view, opposition has a bad ring; and whatever labels we employ - left, right, conservative, liberal, Democratic or Republican - Americans are basically centrist, neutral, and unappreciative and unaccepting of differences. Opposition is fundamental and creative. Because of their failure to see this, it seems most Americans tend to emphasize not union, but fragmentation, separateness, competition, atomic existence, black-and-white thinking, and the glorification of goals more than living. If my grand assumption is correct, then society - and indeed every group - is essentially a union of opposites, or better, a set of unions of opposites, especially the opposition of individual members, and the group. This opposition can be more cooperative, or more antagonistic, but typically it is both (another union of opposites). Paradoxically, individuals freely choose to give up freedom for the sake of freedom (i.e., they give up complete autonomy in return for freedom from want, loneliness, fear, etc.) This idea illustrates what Jung called enantiodromia - literally, running in opposite directions - a notion to be found in Herakleitos. Also paradoxically, any society that tries to push individual autonomy to the limit reaches a condition (which Hobbes might liken to the state of nature), that does not result in freedom, but in chaos and inhibition (what Hobbes aptly called "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.") I see this illustrated in many parts of American society not only in the inner cities, but also in affluent suburban developments, where people live isolating, anonymous, generic lives, driving most places, and seldom meeting their neighbors. They may seek to overcome boredom

with unsociable distractions like video games and social networks which are not social, films at the Cineplex, and shopping at the mall. Once again, things run to their opposites. The union of opposites suggests that freedom and law are inseparable, in any context. Ancient Greek plays, like the Bacchae of Euripides, illustrate this belief, by counter-posing the powers of Dionysos and Apollo - the god of intoxication, passion and letting go, versus the god of rationality, order and control. Any life which tries to emphasize either to the exclusion of the other, will self-destruct. The either-or mind set of Aristotelian logic, together with positivistic science has held sway in the Western world until today, with increasingly disastrous consequences. Perhaps this one-sided one-dimensional viewpoint was symbolized, in Homer's epics, by the race of ignorant, one-eyed Cyclops. Herakleitos proposed that everything changes, or flows like a river (Panta rhei) because of opposition. But things change according to the universal law (logos). The process is orderly. There is stability in the way things change, oneness in the differences, patterns in the variations, which we can see, and so predict and control our choices. As said above, we can have visions and be creative and involve ourselves actively in the changing world not just experience it. Creativity cannot exist apart from order (to quote the great cellist Pablo Casals). Free choice requires rationality.11 In English, the very word freedom, in its origins, illustrates this combination: frei (what is held most dear, related to the goddess Freya) is linked to dom (which means the law, or fate, related to doom). In the socio-political realm, the union of opposites is seen in the contest between libertarian and socialist societies (which we might also call the capitalists vs. the Marxists). When black-and-white thinking leads to the overemphasis of either position, and the weakening of its opposite, the result is destructive. Many people, on both sides of the former Iron Curtain, are saying Marxist communism is dead; and some quickly add that this proves the superiority of capitalism. But the union of opposites suggests that such an inference is far from valid. The old term 'iron curtain' itself illustrates our fascination with dichotomous thinking. Democratic capitalism may have been honestly conceived, but it has gone too far towards self-interest, in the delusion that this would bring happiness to individuals. It is clear that the short-sighted and anti-social life styles of Americans are not at all happy, and that indeed there is little respect for individuals, either in altruism or in self-regard. I believe Marx was right as a social critic, pointing out how capitalism sacrifices individual life (or humanness) for profits, and noting that profits can in no sense measure human value. Today this thought seems to be gaining popularity, in the United States and abroad. Recently the much-praised economic benefits of the capitalistic markets are not being widely shared, and ideas of class warfare are more and more strident. I would add that profits are only numerical, and dont really describe benefit. Money is abstract and necessarily generic; one dollar is the same as another; one negative credit rating is the same as another. Wealth or poverty can in no sense measure individuality, or personhood, let alone a satisfactory life. The things Marx noted a century

and a half ago still hold in America today. We suffer generally from alienation and dehumanization - from what today has been called massive 'societal depression' (Sabelli's phrase). Aside from increasing feelings of class conflict due to income disparity, western culture suffers from other even more important social dysfunctions. Depersonalization, disenfranchisement, women's disorders (like depression, anorexia and bulimia), failing public schools, homelessness, unmanageable health costs, obesity, race and class hatreds all these ills are clearly widespread. Even the simplest acts of traditional social order and civility seem to be disappearing. Paradoxically, individuals feel unimportant in America, where the importance of individuality has been preached to the point of myth, and they feel compelled to go to ridiculous extremes to be noticed. People are devalued rather than validated. They attempt to buy their worth in material goods; and they try ineffectually to fill the human void with pleasure seeking. If a personally satisfying life requires "validity," it cannot be achieved by citizens living as disconnected atoms. It is sometimes said that people must validate themselves, but they can do so only in a social context, in which they support the value of others. Being friended on FaceBook just wont do it. By our assumption of the union of opposites, then, it is not surprising that capitalism seems to invalidate persons by its very emphasis of individuality and competitive self-advantage. Despite the accuracy of Marx' criticisms, Marxism does not promise an answer. In practice, in the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua and Ethiopia, for instance, Marxism has led to repression under the dictatorship of military regimes. Some people might suggest that these were not truly Marxist societies, but only masqueraded as such, under the guise of "revolutionary governments," and that the criticism is therefore invalid. But even in theory I think Marxism fails, insofar as it sacrifices individuality to the State, or the will of the group as embodied in the laws and apparatus of the State. In democracies too, there is the threat of loss of individual liberty. In fact, every society is always a tense union of opposites - the group and the individual member. J. S. Mill was wise to point out (in On Liberty) the new threat of dictatorship in the 19th Century, coming not from a few, but from the many: the tyranny of the majority. The so-called "dictatorship of the proletariat" has never come about in Marxist countries, but it threatens to happen in democracies. Changes of government and revolutions over the past twenty five years in Eastern Europe, China, and South Africa and in the latest uprisings and repressions in the Middle-East and Sub-Saharan Africa in recent months, bring to mind that it could; the proletariat still has much power, as indeed it should. But one needs a union of opposition - a harmony of competing forces that is living and productive. I think it is fair, in some approximate way, to say that both capitalism and Marxism are dead, as paradigms for society. What does that leave us? A third option which is current, and apparently growing, is religion. We see a move towards fundamentalism in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism and other religions.12 Often these are linked to political programs, like the Moral Majority, or the Zionists, or the India Fundamentalist Party (BJP). These movements suggest several things to me. First, people are desirous for a sense of individual personhood; they wish to be cared for. Second, they need a simpler, more directed life, with a

sense of purpose. And third, they are hungry for spiritual food, both because materialism is inherently unsatisfying, and because the goods and services are not shared with most people. What else would explain the rise of New Age religion, even among the affluent? But whatever the need for spirituality, I don't believe that religious political states are desirable; they tend to press citizens into conformity, and create enemies of all those who do not fit the religious standard.13 Their very strong tendency to see the world in purely abstract concepts of good or evil leads to the labeling of all non-conformists, within and outside the state, as enemies, worthy of death. Holy wars are apt to be the result. In each of the political systems we have looked at, there is an unrealistic emphasis of one value, which tends to bring about its weakening by the opposite, and even its annihilation. So capitalism, which aims to have individuals compete for a share, ends up by creating monopolies, and leaves many individuals neither free nor successful. Communism, which seeks the welfare of individuals through public control, typically ends up in tyranny. And religion, whose aim is peace and spirituality, ends up in self-righteousness and warfare. Bearing these pitfalls in mind, what can we do to set American society on a better course in the new millennium? First of all, we need open minds. We must be aware of the ways in which opposites can be brought together, which requires a new style of thinking. Each of the systems we have thought of pushes a good thing too far, and either destroys or makes a destructive force of its opposite. Human life requires a combination of factors: material, social and spiritual. I see no reason why we might not choose the best of capitalism, socialism, and religion. If it is argued that these perspectives are opposed to each other, that is well; the effort will be to make a union of this opposition. How might this this be done? One thing to consider is that institutional changes must be viewed in relation to the persons within them, as well as outsiders affected by them. It would be impossible to change effectively from, say, capitalism to socialism, or from Marxism to capitalism, or from state-sponsored religion to secular humanism, without considering the corresponding changes in relationships such institutions would have with their participants. One cant change a political or an a-political organization without changing its members; the two are mutually dependent. Great danger exists in trying to make over society without considering the character of its members. Unlike the programs of 19th Century liberals and libertarians, we have at our disposal great technical and educational resources for understanding and correcting destructive viewpoints, including modern theories of public choice, and motivation, large libraries, research tools and techniques, computers for gathering and processing data, mass media, and communications networks. I am aware of the negative ring of talk about 'reeducating the public.' Nonetheless, that is what is needed, and certainly educating is better than trying to force changes. And if well-intentioned, educated persons shrink from the task, there will be many others who do not hesitate to indoctrinate for their own purposes. Just think of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on commercial advertising, which is not oriented to the public good.14 It is more true today than ever what Yeats said in his poem The Second Coming almost a century ago: The best lack

all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. On the huge scale of marketing costs, think how much passionate intensity, enthusiasm, and emotional energy go into supporting delusion and false values. I realize it is slower, and less exciting to change thinking, especially our own, than it is to change governments and institutions. And it is hard to see changes of the former sort. But that is what must happen. To say it another way, I think we need to concentrate on the enemy within more than the enemy without. I think the United States suffers more from bad attitudes than from bad institutions. In thinking about the potential tyranny of repressive power elites, the majority will, and fanatic idealism, we may try to create policies and encourage legislation that will improve American political life. But we should not depend too much on laws and public agencies to solve societal problems. Indeed, paradoxically, dependency on the public sector may actually have contributed largely to the scandalous lack of social-mindedness in America, which Will Herberg called "non-involved sociability" almost fifty years ago. In an article What is the Moral Crisis of Our Time? he described an attitude, illustrated by seemingly well-intentioned people, attempting to enact legislation on social welfare, who were reportedly interrupted by a loud noise in the lobby of their meeting place. They went to look, saw a rape taking place, did nothing, and went back to their debating!15 Our focus should be on how to turn people away from social apathy, mindless pleasure seeking, and conformity to mass culture values, which masquerade as freedom. We need to replace "mediocracy" with a society of persons. Or is this even possible? Teachers, activists and scholars must encourage, in themselves and their fellow citizens, a sense of 'responsible participation.' This will not be brought about by changing the political structure, or by instituting new laws, so much as by reconsidering and reforming the ways in which individuals relate to all the groups that contain them, such as family, church, school, work, and community. This is an idea well developed by John Dewey.16 It is a function primarily of practice and education, by whatever means possible. If a personalized society is to form in America, it demands the growth of new values on the part of citizens, and especially new ways of constructing a world view that embraces change, that is cautious about untested conceptual thinking, that shuns the law of the excluded middle," and that positively encourages differences. We manifestly should not "try to overcome our differences." We need to see how genuine personality and humanness can be recouped, and liberated from the myth of so-called "rugged individualism."17 To regain a sense of individual worth, persons need to become aware of their social context; that they define and express themselves as persons in their relations to others - not in splendid isolation (which is actually wretched). This manifestly does not imply that Americans must sacrifice all their pleasures, actual or imagined, to the group welfare, or that America must be on a slide towards second rate status among the nations.18 I would like to emphasize the point. Our effort must be to show Americans that it really is in their long term interest, both as a country and as individuals, to become "involved persons," and "world citizens." Of course we know the immediate and practical need for these changes: our survival depends on global awareness and social cooperation. There are many compelling arguments with

regard to the sorry state of the world, in terms of the availability of air, water, food, soil, and energy. The World Watch Institute, for example, has published thorough analyses of these matters since 1984. Strangely however, it seems that Doom's Day predictions do not have practical results; things worsen, and the natural response is to hide, or throw up our hands. I think this happens when analysts look too far into the future, or emphasize only the notion of sacrifice, which is unconvincing and unattractive. But it is not just survival that is at issue. Fulfillment, pleasure, and happiness are more compelling reasons, and they are within reach as well, if we can learn to develop our social and spiritual selves, as much as our physical. It may sound ludicrous, but people need to be encouraged to flourish, not just to survive. Barring the unlikely, and unlikable, installation of philosopher-kings in American government, what can be done? Simply stated, show people how and why they should improve their lives by becoming social-minded, and just; and that this relates to their development as unique persons. Moving to something closer to action, let me here outline a few strategic questions which need to be considered, and illustrate the relevance of the principles discussed above. 1. First, we must ask who can and will initiate the changes we envision? Who, in fact, has the power to move society at all? I won't argue the question whether great leaders make history, or simply fulfill an evolutionary role. As you might expect, I would say both - the union of opposites, of course. But my point here is that you and I will initiate these changes, if we choose to. The question is, to whom and through whom should our efforts be directed, if they are to accomplish the most good? There are the obvious leaders, in positions of public authority. Should we concentrate our attention there? It seems very likely that such persons are leaders in name only, because they respond to how they believe the political winds are blowing. Plato, in The Republic Book VI, compared such pseudo-leaders to the keeper of a great strong beast who indulges its every whim in order to stay on its good side. Such persons, whether politicians or sophists, "in fact, teach nothing but the opinions of the many, that is to say, the opinions of their assemblies; and this is their wisdom."19 Does the United States Congress make good decisions, independent of pressures from its constituencies to do so? Obviously it does not. One overwhelming example is the creation of our $15.5 trillion national debt.20 Why? The reason is obvious: congressional constituents make more and more demands for government services, but refuse to pay the taxes to fund them.21 It is clear that Congress listens to its constituencies - or at least to what are perceived as the opinions of the constituents, especially those with influence over elections.22 Why does Congress not act to convert our economy from war-making to peace-making enterprises? There is no question that it would be more efficient and productive to do so; the myth that war is good for the general economy has long since been exploded. And why does Congress not mandate, by law, if not also by funding, serious improvements to public education? It cannot be claimed that it costs too much; compare the costs of unemployment, public housing, and law enforcement which derive directly from poor education. And why does Congress support policies around the world which are

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either aggressive, or else non-involved? It is hard to find consistent, rational arguments for our many military interventions in recent decades which would prove they were in our national interests, either for economic or security reason. Instead, these interventions typically relate to special interests of multinational corporations, and their governmental advocates. Sometimes the justifications given are called humanitarian, or are undertaken in the name of opposing dictatorships, but these terms are not applied equally to countries around the world. We support some dictatorships; and we ignore some humanitarian issues. It certainly cannot be answered that these policies were pragmatic, or advanced our national interests. It cannot, for one example, reasonably be claimed that our actions in the Middle East are saving us energy costs. Although it is very hard to determine the true cost of oil - in fact people dont all agree on which factors to count - clearly there are hidden costs of having oil flow steadily to our country. Direct subsidies to the companies, aid to oil producing nations, and military efforts to protecting the supply, have been estimated, which could amount to five or six times what the spot price is. That is, a barrel that sells for $90 today really costs about $500 per barrel if these other costs are included, and this doesnt factor in costs to the environment.23 Whose interests do these governmental policies have in mind? The obvious answer to these rhetorical questions is that Congress responds to the perceived demands of its various constituencies, which, absent a consensus of the public at large, amounts to yielding to special interest pressures. What needs to be done, therefore, is to change the majority public opinion, so that Congress gets the message. Can public opinion be changed for the good? How can we who are educated expect the general public, who are increasingly uneducated (and currently perhaps forty percent functionally illiterate to boot), to begin demanding what is good for them, instead of responding to the offers of bread and circuses made by those who would retain power? The fact is, it can be done. This is evident in somewhat improved public thinking, say since World War II, about racial equality, environmental affairs, women's rights, and the value of education. . 2. The question now becomes, How does a reform movement bring changes in public perceptions in order to empower itself? This is a question for scholars, which I am not prepared to answer. Two comments, however, are in order. First, we should remember that no single source of ideas controls the forming of public opinion. Schools, books, advertisements, radio interviews, lunchroom conversations, journals, T.V. news, sermons, songs, paintings, and many more - all influence peoples opinions. In fact, each influences different audiences, so there is no single public opinion. When polls tell us, say, that sixty-five percent of Americans think the President is doing a good job, we should expect that doing a good job means something different to each of those persons. It is likely that the same persons, if presented with different questions, could be interpreted as believing the opposite. And since there is no reasoning involved in any case, this search for public opinion is a very subjective thing. Nonetheless, public opinion polls are important to reform efforts, since they can be used to justify theories, agendas, and actions, in favor of or against reform.

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In addition, and relatedly, would-be reformers must ask themselves whether they want to change opinions, or lead people to look for the truth. In a practical sense, a reformer might be concerned merely with getting his or her program implemented, without regard for how enlightened people might be about the truth of his claims. In such a case, she or he would aim to alter public opinions, by whatever means, simply in order to cause citizens to act in the right way say, to vote - whether or not the citizens understood why that was a right act. This is a problem, however, for those of us who, on the one hand, respect the autonomous decisions of adult citizens, but who, on the other, recognize that ordinary people are typically not well informed, or even reasonable. As a philosophy teacher, I constantly feel the paradox of wanting students to think for themselves, and knowing that they probably won't do so unless someone like me can manipulate them into the habit. Heres another instance of the union of opposites, no doubt. 3. Third, we must ask about the place of propaganda and indoctrination in our culture. It is arguable that Americans are uniquely subject to propaganda efforts 'from the top,' e.g. from a centralized medium, like the news networks, or, indirectly, from federal administrative agencies. In his 1965 book on propaganda,24 Jacques Ellul argued that the American myth of individuality and independence deludes our citizens into isolating themselves from each other, which leaves them easy targets for deception and manipulation. If Americans give little heed to familial advice, priestly exhortations, community standards, or the opinions of teachers, friends, or local journalism, they have no place to practice or develop critical thinking skills. Under such conditions, they are easily swayed by the national news, or the federal government, or the Madison Avenue advertisers and opinion makers. Strange as it sounds, our very claim of being free and independent thinkers makes us especially susceptible to being manipulated. Once again, we see the paradoxical union of opposites. 4. Fourth, we must discover what stands in the way of a better society. Let's remember that people do not start with blank minds; they start with biases. These include especially the typical conviction that whatever one presently believes to be true, is true, and that what she or he holds valuable is valuable. When hoping to reform these views, we need more than just to present the new perspective. Reformation is a process which involves energy, time and conflict. Why, after all, should I give up my old ideas for new ones, when my natural tendency is to think I am already right? On this account, any reform movement must show not so much that it is right as that it is to the benefit of those who might undertake to understand it. 5. Fifth, we need to ask what role schools play in reform movements. Educators are not necessarily good allies in such efforts. Without wanting to sound too cynical, I would suggest that teachers (from preschool through graduate school) are not typically inclined to help their students to be good thinkers, and responsible persons. This seems to be the point of Ivan Illich's suggestion, more than forty years ago,25that we should destroy schools if we want to save education; and it is implied in much of Neil Postman's Teaching as a Subversive Activity.26 6. Sixth, we need to question the effects of various media. 'The Press' is not a neutral distributor of other people's ideas. The press has biases, which it adds to the forming of public opinion. It is not always clear what those biases may be. There are, of course, conservative critics

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who claim that the press is too liberal, and liberal critics who claim it is too conservative.27 This might imply that the press gives well-rounded coverage, but that is not likely. Generally, one can say that reporters, and lower level managers may tend to be liberal, whereas owners and administrators are the opposite. But what the overall slant may be is not so easy to gauge. No doubt, different media have different slants, as do individual newsmen and editors. The question is not whether there are biases, but are these media aware of them, and do they admit them? To illustrate, from the start of the so-called Gulf Crisis, radio, T.V. and newspaper reports reflected and encouraged an atmosphere of war more than peace or negotiation. The military buildup of U.S. forces was the major item in all the headlines. Pugilistic statements of congressmen and administrative representatives were passed along, such as Sen. Lugar's claim that 'We should depose Sadam.' Calls for caution, long-range thinking, and consideration of other perspectives were very scarce. Why do editors prefer headlines like 'The embargo isn't working,' or 'Sadam threatens to pluck out our eyes,' instead of 'Arabs dislike U.S. intervention,' or 'Sadam offers to negotiate,'? It would seem that some biases of the commercial media are recognized; others go unnoticed. Is there a natural bias towards the war side, not because of any particular special interest group, such as our so-called military industrial complex, but merely because the buying public is more turned on by threats and descriptions of war than threats and descriptions of peace? Exactly the same kind of saber rattling occurred in the run-up to the war in Iraq, ten years later, with now notorious claims about threats which never actualized of weapons of mass destruction. Of course the attack on the World Trade Center made it easier to add to the stimulus of public feeling, and there was again little interest in seeing the pros and cons of military intervention - only sales techniques. And most recently, in the interventions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in the talk about attacking Syria, or Iran, it is almost impossible to find popular media that deal rationally with these issues. But whatever the slant of the media might be, it is a problem only for people who are actually interested in finding the facts. An unfortunate development today, since the viral explosion of social media and instant distribution of ideas, makes the problem of public information much harder. People tend to believe what they want to believe, and seek support for their ideas. And an idea that is spread widely enough seems to make people believe it. To illustrate this, we have the disagreement between scientists and religious believers about evolution, or scientists and politicians about global warming. Ordinary viewers and readers cant easily tell which sources are legitimate and trustworthy, so they choose the ones that support their prejudices, which are plentiful. 7. This leads to a seventh and final strategic question. How can we develop a more realistic sense of what motivates people, trying not to reduce everything to a single answer, and recognizing the complex, often interdependent factors that lead to our choices? If I may use an analogy from geometry, people's personalities have coordinates that are physical, social and spiritual. Each of us has a different combination of these, like a 'phase space.' It will be well for us to remember how complex is the phase space of each individual person, not to mention the phase space we think of as 'society.'

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My hope is for what has been called a personalized society; and I have tried to show that this combination of persons and society is a union of opposites, among many. When I consider the complexity of persons, my efforts to envision a better society in the next millennium begin to seem futile - even presumptuous and silly. But then it should be possible to find a theoretical framework which allows for this complexity. Process theory, for example, not only recognizes the complexity of persons and their relations with matter, spirit and each other; it positively aids and abets that complexity. Can we, as planners and doers, accept the ultimate union of opposites: that persons really are all different, as well as all the same? And can we work for a society which wants those differences, and does not equate them with destructive and evil opposition? And can we then look at other nations without thinking, again, they are different, so they are evil? I hope so. I would like to end this essay with something catchy, or inspiring or insightful, but I cannot. I only have this cliche thought in my mind that keeps repeating itself: 'The world is not divided into good people and bad people.' We are all good people; we are all bad people; we can be better.

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Notes
1

I wrote most of this unpublished essay in 1990, on the eve of the millennium, before some of the more explosive events of our time took place, including several wars, the rise of terrorism, natural and manmade environmental disasters, and the development of internet and social media technology. Even so, the ideas still seem timely. I have updated statistics, and added contemporary illustrations, with comment.
2

A list of 1265 of these can be found at www.goodreads.com. Most of these are dystopias.

The Arab Spring has brought attention to the need for theoretical and practical guidance about developing constitutional and secular states, suited to various cultures. See, e.g. the Dohar project of Stanford on Egypts constitutional reform, and Abdullah An-Naim, Islam and the Secular State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
4

See, e.g., Rene Girards summary of these ideas in J.G. Williams (ed), The Girard Reader (New York: Crossroad Publ. Co, 1996), Pt. I.
5

Global storm damage costs for 2011 broke all records.

Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana Coelestia, (London: Self-published, 1749-1756), e.g. #s 4379, 9568.
7

Christopher Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class (New York: Nation Books, 2010). Plato, Symposium 201d - 212e. Process philosophy emphasizes that reality is not fundamentally entities, but processes. Hector Sabelli, Union of Opposites (Lawrenceville, VA: Brunswick Publishing Co., 1989).

10

11

This is a theme developed by Emanuel Swedenborg, e.g. in Divine Love & Wisdom (Amsterdam: Self-published, 1763), originally in Latin.
12

The Fundamentalism Project, a group of scholars under the direction of Martin Marty at the University of Chicago, studied this trend in world religions from 1986 to 1995, and published six volumes of research and conclusions.
13

See Abdullah M. An-Naim, Islam and the Secular State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
14

According to Plunkett Research, the worldwide amount was $450 billion in 2011, and $175 billion in the US.

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15

See Will Herberg, What is the Moral Crisis of our Time? in Intercollegiate Review, Jan-Feb 1968. This article which describes our typical non-involved sociability was reprinted twenty years later, in the same journal (Fall 1986), and should be reprinted today, as it is even more applicable.
16

See John Dewey, "Democracy and Educational Administration," in School and Society, XLV (April 3, 1937).
17

See Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (New York: Back Bay Books, 2008), especially Part I, which attacks the myth of the self-made man.
18

For a more optimistic view, see Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008).
19

Plato, Republic VI, Jowett translation, 493a 494a. When I first worked on this essay twenty two years ago, the debt was $3 trillion.

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21

I was surprised to learn that the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 went to Professor James Buchanan of George Mason University, for saying, in effect, the obvious fact I have just noted. Of course, he put it in the context of his study of public choice theory, and his contribution may be that he can show how to alter policies to avoid these sorts of insanity.
22

This influence has been greatly concentrated in certain hands by the Supreme Court decision of 2010, saying that organizational contributions to elective campaigns (e.g. by corporations, unions, and superpacs) could not be limited by government.
23

See, for example, Institute for the Analysis of Global Security article, How much are we paying for a gallon of gas? at http://www.iags.org/costofoil.html.
24

Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York: Knopf, 1965). See I. Illich, Deschooling Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).

25

26

See N. Postman and C. Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (New York: Delacorte Press, 1969).
27

For example, compare FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) to AIM (Accuracy in Media).

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