Wednesday, June 21, 2017

What the World Needs Now is Wisdom, Sweet Wisdom

I don't know how to start this blog entry. The way the world is today, it's easier, and makes more sense to just whinge and complain. Greed and the love of gain have free reign. Their perpetrators are no longer even trying to hide these apocalyptic horsemen because they are no longer considered wrong, evil, crass, they are considered intelligent virtues. One of the most quotable guys ever, Bertrand Russell, said, "Even the best technicians should also be good citizens; and when I say 'citizens', I mean citizens of the world and not of this or that sect or nation. With every increase of knowledge and skill, wisdom becomes more necessary, for every such increase augments our capacity of realizing our purposes, and therefore augments our capacity for evil, if our purposes are unwise. The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now." A great quote. A timely quote as we see our world marching technologically onward while we get dumber and dumber. Now I could go on to question here. Because I have the time. It's another 4 AM mosquito fight here so I can't get back to sleep, but don't have to work tomorrow so here I am, banging away. I, unlike most people, have the leisure, the intellect, the facilities and the desire for that wisdom Bert talked about to ask, "Who was this Bertrand Russell, and why have I read so many great quotes from him?" I've heard of him but don't know a lot about him. Or to put it another way, I'm not busy, I can Google him.

Nobel laureate, born to money, prodigious writer, math, philosophy, social critic, political activist, AH HA! and an atheist. THAT'S where I remember him from. You see it's a theory of mine, a very well researched theory, that from the mid 1800's, perhaps the early 1800's, scientists, philosophers, social developers, politicians, pretty much anyone who wanted to be taken seriously as an intellectual had to jump onto the band wagon toward secularism. I enjoy reading the well known writings of the time by people who quite obviously maintained an unstylish belief in God and were not so good at hiding it. Charles Darwin is the best example, but let's get back to Bertrand. Geez, he lived to be 97... with that name. Could a poor parent name their son Bertrand? I'm thinking... no. No they could not.

Anyway, it was the intelligent thing to be an atheist and Bert came to his decision when he was 15 after reading the autobiography of John Stuart Mill. Mill, another atheist, had a great influence on Bertrand Russell. In fact he was his godfather. Mill is another I have read of in my personal research. His "inductive reasoning" may have been where Bert found the intellectual strength to make the leap to atheism. Inductive reasoning posits that some laws can be known without empirical verification. This is the rather unscientific direction many areas of science took at the same time, I believe to their detriment, and if you ask me, inductive reasoning is identical to faith. But don't say that to a scientist or an atheist. They think it makes them sound less intelligent.

Back to our point, Mill worked for the British East India Company from 1823-1858. The corporations of today probably have shrines in CEO's offices to this company! They were wicked! Taxing any tea other than theirs that was drunk in the colonies. Boston Tea Party? That was their baby. And HUGE, or you might say, "UGE," supporters of slavery. While Mill was in their employ he defended slavery calling it "benevolent despotism," whatever he reckoned THAT meant, and referring to slaves as barbarians even suggesting that anyone who spoke of equality just hadn't the experience to know what they were talking about. But then in 1869, no longer beholden to Mammon, he wrote of the evils of slavery and how unthinkable it was that it even existed in Christian England for, "its motive was the love of gain, unmixed and undisguised: and those who profited by it were a very small numerical fraction of the country, while the natural feeling of all who were not personally interested in it, was unmitigated abhorrence." Unmitigated abhorrence... unless you were personally interested in it, like you traded slaves or owned cotton fields or maybe worked for the British East India Company. Then it wasn't abhorrent, it was benevolent despotism.

Where am I going with this? Re-read the quote. It seems to me that the one and only reason why wisdom is not keeping up with technological advancement, though the world so desperately needs it to, nay, is actually being suppressed in this day and age, is the exact same thing that casts a little bit of doubt on the quotester, Third Earl/Viscount, born of Lord and Lady Amberly in their country home known as Revenscroft, and his godfather and influence: Money. Filthy lucre. Avarice. And, in the words of Mill himself, "the love of gain." So add to the quote, "... unless you're trying to get rich." Which pretty much negates it.

See? This is what I do. I find out stuff, always negative stuff cuz that's the stuff that's harder to find out, and share it with people who are blissfully maintaining their ignorance. I don't have to say, "Hey, have you ever seen Bruce Banner wearing super stretchy, purple pants?" but I do. And this has made me less popular than I once was.

I'm going to write something that will be at least mostly positive today. A break from the usual. But, believe it or not, I was once a very positive person not very many years ago. A lot of people enjoyed my company. I actually made people happy. I've mostly forgotten how, or had that ability shitkicked out of me by life and knowledge. I guess that'd qualify as the wisdom in the above quotation. I don't know what good it does the world for ME to have it...

Nowadays I can still put on that happy face for people who don't know me. But I think sometimes it's fake. Maybe more often than not. I put on the positive face for students and even parents of students who want their kids in a positive environment. Even strangers walking down the street. I'll give them a friendly smile as though my life, (and, indeed, theirs), couldn't be significantly better. People who've never read my blog or sat down and had a heart to heart with me. It's sad but the only people I make happy, sometimes, are people who have just met me. Well aside from those who know me best, family, and a few other special friends. I think, my very best friends, and my family know me well enough to understand that even though I'm all doom and gloom here on the blog, I still maintain a spark of happiness deep, deep down and it surfaces in the company of those I love most.

That said, I wonder if people reading this blog will think I'm just a negative Nancy. I feel like I have never brought that spark to the surface in print here. I feel a lot of things. I feel like I should know what the words Beh or cofveve or small fries mean, but I don't. I'm living in a world where the only kids I have are not mine. I love kids that are not mine! Because I don't have to take them home! I have them for a short time, then they're gone. So I figure, much like the heroes of the vids I'm going to recommend here, they're not mine, I can act and maybe they won't see me at my darkest when I'm just demoralized by the crappiness of the general public. Maybe they will never see me when I want to scream at the top of my lungs to the whole world, "This is not you vs. the world, it's supposed to be you in brotherhood with the world." That, I believe, is the wisdom the quote says is needed.

I sometimes wish I could have remained in Canada, my home and native land, and imparted to them, in their own language, the wisdom, ethics and common sense that I have learned over my 50 years on the planet. It would edify and improve Canadian kids in ways that are just as necessary as the ways I am helping kids over here in Asia. Maybe a little more since they would be able to grasp the deeper cultural and heartfelt lessons taught by one from within their own culture. Just like the two videos.

What I, and all of the finer ESL teachers over here are doing is the same, only we're handicapped by cultural, regional, national and linguistic subtleties that will take half a lifetime to learn. But we still get some great "wow" moments from students and those are what keep us going. I don't think most of us are THAT different from the teacher in Japan, though, we ARE quite a bit different from the Saint in the other vid.

So, this is as close as I get to a positive blog post. What I want to show you are two vids that made me feel very good. They should make everybody feel very good. They are absolute paint by number instructions in the wisdom I, and Bertrand Russell, feel the world needs. And I still maintain a spark of hope that someday, before we wipe each other out with greed, we just might acknowledge, honour and practice this wisdom over the "intelligent virtue" of avarice.

Watch "Tashi and the Monk," and "Children Full of Life," two documentaries you can find on this site.

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