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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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March 20, 2008 by Donald Croft Brickner
More and more it appears as if 2008 might become The Year The Truth Began To Be Spoken -- particularly in these United States. That's sure to be a welcome transformational experience for a culture long steeped in smiley-faced spin control. At first The Truth may appear to be hurtful, but that's not its purpose. The whole point of Truth is to permit us at last to at be released from the grips of artificial bondages -- like Denial, Hubris…and Greed. The beginnings of phase one of The Great Leveling are portentously upon us. The Great Leveling, labeled here for the first time, is characterized by the onset of major survival threats and sociological changes in the U.S. that will affect, to varying degrees, most global residents over the next four-plus years. It features both a figurative and literal (particularly when weather factors into it) "leveling of the playing field," a not-entirely-physical world-generated event that will highlight the crashing-to-earth of all kinds of sociological elitisms and their resulting enforced repressions. This is Us doing this to Us -- not just in our three-dimensional construct reality but in the directly-related realms "beneath" our restricted-by-design consciousnesses where the actual origins of change always first kick in. That's an ontological claim to be sure, which has been touched upon in several previous essays. It won't be further defended here (or repeated, either), but if we want to talk big picture in its entirety, we'll ultimately need to identify every possible inch of the Big Picture. Regardless, the "better-thans" -- that ugly ongoing sociological phenomenon in which lots of individuals (or, more commonly, collections of individuals) consider themselves superior to (or certainly more deserving than) a large number of their peers (from whom they've consciously separated themselves, by the way) -- is about to turn to toast, both in practice and as an insistently ill-conceived concept. Just about all of us are going to slowly rediscover that we're all "in this" together. Defining "this" will be crucial to our achieving a meaningful resolution, as well. Phase one will be all about "hitting bottom," individually and collectively, and will take at least several more years to fully manifest. A lot of folks are sure to make a much bigger deal out of it than is impactfully warranted -- but truthfully, hardly anyone will be exempt from its painful global incidents (and unnecessary deaths) that, bound and gagged together, will be misidentified as the End of the World. Phase two will be characterized by an overwhelming admission by most people that, if indeed the bottom has not been "hit," then something very similar to that has occurred -- and it'll be time to admit it, and to begin to define its parameters. This, while we find ourselves standing in various physical and emotional ruins. Phase two, as well, however, will feature all kinds of widespread phenomena that will touch our hearts and lift our spirits. Across the planet, for instance, the empty sexual encounters of today's cynical cultures are sure to give way to tears-of-joy-filled romantic love affairs a lot more often -- and our performing arts will become a lot more gooey, as a result: lots of squished lips, soppy exchanges of laughter and tears, and long-held, wildly delirious embraces, while the internals of amore (and sobbing I-love-you-love-you-love-you's) are more fundamentally explored. Barry Manilow's music, and lots more like it, is going to make such a comeback. That portion of the outcome we're all going to adore. We are. Just you wait. That's not to make light of the tragedies that will transpire right next door to such romantic involvements, as but one sociological example -- but phase two of The Great Leveling will be expressed within a far more balanced framework and will boast a justifiably more hopeful context than phase one -- which, yes, will suck. As for phase three … an incredible outpouring of truth speaking, creativity and solution making is likely all but assured, if probabilities unfold as they're presently positioned. All three phases are, as yet, unfortunately, merely powerful probabilities. We, all of us, have it within us to screw this whole process up (it's been our prideful avocation to date) -- and in some self-destructive snit, continue to invoke our currently hugely-popular and determined self-fulfilling prophecy of mass suicide. That brings to the surface just how important the roles of healthy psychology and our beliefs about life and living truly are, and how they influence future outcomes. Do our various world views -- how we see ourselves in relation to the physical universe(s) we believe we inhabit -- deserve greater scrutiny? Yes, yes -- yes. In these early stages of phase one, we can control the length, depth and breadth of just how far we're all going to fall en route to hitting bottom. There's hurting -- and then there's hurting. To do that, though, we'll have to accurately frame behaviors that are driving any given sociological or cultural downward spirals. With the global economy now squarely in our sights as our prospective first major pressing arena of real-world collapse, it's appropriate to address greed -- which isn't likely to go away until its supporters decide they've "got a problem." Such individuals will be the last ones to recognize their destructive patterns, it should be noted. Greed-mongering is to addiction as mucousy cocaine-snorting is to addiction. If there were piling-on penalties in the world of chronic abuses, that could be one. There is a healthy human "I-want" that's similar to, even comparable to, greed: we call it desire. Desires we're born with, and while their untampered-with form in infants is often improperly diagnosed as Original Sin temptation within certain circles of Christian theology -- thereby damning the emotion out-of-hand whenever it's expressed in adulthood (especially when the adjective, sexual, is tacked-on in front of it) -- to suggest that "desire" is an expression of evil is an example of a misguided world view. For starters, it implies that God was either a screw-up, or was bent on tricking us. This just can't be stated enough: when it comes to living one's life, world view is always the number one least appreciated critical factor -- and it comes in tied with psychological health as the most important. Buy into a pre-packaged bill of goods when it comes to establishing your world view, and you're courting major troubles. That's in part how we've stumbled into having to deal with The Great Leveling in the first place. We believe stupid stuff. That thought notwithstanding -- it isn't a stretch to suggest that "desire" is good and good for us, while its darkside cousin, "greed," isn't. Desire is built in to us. Greed is desire-as-addiction, and it's learned -- mostly commonly from those whose inflexible beliefs in a random pointlessness, as promoted in our secular universities to cite but one source, has overflowed its banks into contemporary Americana. How widespread is a cultural belief in random pointlessness (and its end-game, put-upon human victimhood)? That hugely popular barbed wire tattoo encircling so many upper arms these days represents … what, exactly? Are such tattoos intended to insist that life sucks and/or shit happens -- or what? Greed is desire turned unspoken pseudo-philosophy. Its implications are many, and all of them prove negative by nature. This isn't to invoke ethics. Greed isn't "bad." Rather, it's deeply nearsighted, and misguided -- and all of its problems are parroted out of a pre-packaged world view that was simply accepted, and so never seriously challenged: a world view in which human beings are victims of an uncaring (and badly designed, if it was "designed" at all) universe. At its core, greed "wants" -- very much like desire. But desire has no intellectual component that strives to justify its existence. Among its unspoken traits, greed is also a weapon of war -- a war between an individual and his or her neighbor, or simply against blundering humanity-at-large. Greed seeks to gather endlessly -- and to that end it's insatiable. Greed is desire gone gluttonous. Its focus is strictly on one's self, and usually in (war-like) competition with others who may or may not themselves be competing. You only go 'round once in life, so grab all the gusto you can. "Gusto," in this context, is the object of greed -- and so one must "grab all" of it. A less sinister version of greed -- one that focuses on one's need to secure, secure, and secure again one's financial foundations just to assure one's survival (whether any of the extremes of securement are necessary, or not) -- is apt to be more common today, although you'd never know it by listening to CNBC's "bulls." Unfortunately, the only thing that separates this manifestation of greed from its greed-as-philosophy counterpart is motive. When is "enough" enough, when it comes to securing one's financial survival? Once the line of excess has been crossed (hence, the diagnosis of the act as just another form of addiction), it's no different than its more onerous, figuratively foaming-at-the-mouth counterpart. Greed is a lie, in any event. When The Great Leveling has had its due during its first phase (which, again, is already intractably underway), one of its themes will be that no amount of securement will protect its proponents -- which is the chief lesson to be learned when it comes to jettisoning greed as a personal practice. How many times in history has this lesson been "taught," only to be ignored x-number of generations later? Yet, The Great Leveling isn't simply going to be about punching greed repeatedly in the nose. There are a lot of other issues tied into it -- including a lack of regard for our planet's health (the global warming component), which comes out of blind hubris. The event's two largest components will focus on (1) humans having repeatedly backed the wrong horse(s) when it came to world views -- and (2) their continued failure to embrace a too-long-forgotten fulfilling character trait: caring humility. So, what -- does God detest all of us now? No. No, no, no. "God"'s riding this one out -- which, in all probability, is what God always does in our regard. We have been granted unfettered free will -- it's in our Declaration of Independence! (For those of you who consider yourselves formal atheists, by the way, it's time to reconsider your position, which is way wide of the mark: Few of today's atheists ever build arguments explaining why God doesn't [or can't] exist. Rather, most groups argue against the validity of Christianity -- arguments which have nothing to do with the existence of "God" at all, per se. That's just an aside.) In any case, it can be tenably argued that the operational mechanics behind The Great Leveling are likely to exceed their physical universe blueprints. There's not only nothing random at all about this implementation, it's likely to be determined, but there's also apt to be the strong sense of a meaningful intention behind it -- and a purpose to it all. It could even be the reason why different UFOs are here. Well..? It could. So-o many questions yet to be asked, never mind researched. Are our consciousnesses separate from our physical bodies? Do we survive our physical deaths? Is our physical reality a secondary (or even tertiary) construct reality? Is there a likely intelligent creative source behind, say, "the Big Bang?" Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It might be best to think of The Great Leveling as the remarkable historical event it's likely to become. Trying days lie ahead, yes -- but so, too, do heroic ones. A major suspicion to be drawn from this "leveling" could be that the "higher" one is, the farther one is likely to fall. For those of you (us) who are already destitute, there are dangers to be sure -- but with the love of one's intimates, the "fall" for America's (and Earth's) ignored just may prove often to be surprisingly minimal. Still -- love is going to carry the day, regardless, no matter what. It always does. For those of us who survive it -- which is "probably" going to be the overwhelming majority of us -- we'll have huge insights to pass along to our great grandchildren. By that time, one can only hope that they'll have finally "gotten things right." Otherwise, seriously -- what would have been the point?
After his military tour, for which he received an honorable discharge, he pursued his lifelong interest in the study of metaphysics/ontology, and finally received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Maine-Orono in 1992. He later attended graduate studies at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana and in the M.F.A. creative writing program at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has written an unproduced 3-act play, "Revelations at Mount Rushmore," which remains on file at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, California. He is also more than halfway through completing his first novel. Visit his MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/donaldcroftbrickner
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Philosophy Resource Center Main Page |
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Donald
Croft Brickner has lived in roughly half of the
states in America, working countless jobs in a
variety of occupations. Prior to serving as an
enlisted journalist in the U.S. Navy during the
Vietnam era, he majored in music theory in college
and later received an associate's degree in music
education.
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