Craig,

Thanks for the support, it means a lot. Resisting the convoluted, conformist thought policing that is prevalent in bahai culture is exhausting. I guess the process is cathartic in that unearthing repressed/hidden collective experiences can have a cleansing effect?

re:
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7548716.stm
| What meme is this above footage?

Mostly blue meme (feudal/warlord). Russian empirialism. Probably with tribal elements.

I have not studied the Russia/Georgia conflict in detail yet, watching such idiocy and pointless tragedy is painful, but I will eventually come to terms with this latest example of broken humanity, and try to understand the causes.

In general, here is an integral perspective on war and the need for a world police force:

(note to other readers: I’m including these longish excerpts because they contain very specific ideas about world peace efforts, not generalized “feel good” rhetoric such as most bahais spout off.)

| Some of Graves’ students went on to work with Nelson Mandela to
| organize the truth and reconcoliation process in post-apartheid
| south afria. Again, no bahais were present, or apparently aware
| of what happened, or why Graves theories about
| developmental “stages” (”Spiral Dynamics”) are important to
| peace work.

Ken Wilber’s “take” on the Iraq war:

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/iraq.cfm

… I therefore suggested a few things about what a world governance system operating at yellow might look like. “Yellow” is the level of consciousness at which “second tier” or truly integral awareness begins to emerge. It is thus contrasted with the previous 6 levels or vMemes—which are called first tier, each of which believes that its value system is the only true, correct, or deeply worthwhile value system in existence. Those first-tier waves are, very briefly:

beige: instinctual;

purple: magical-animistic, tribal;

red: egocentric, power, feudalistic;

blue: mythic-membership, conformist, fundamentalist, ethnocentric, traditional;

orange: excellence, achievement, progress, modern;

green: postmodern, multicultural, sensitive, pluralistic.

Those first-tier waves of development are followed by what Clare Graves called “the momentous leap of meaning” to second tier, which has, as of today, two major levels or waves of awareness:

yellow: systemic, flexible, flowing;

turquoise: cosmic unity, integrative, nested hierarchies of interrelationships, one-in-many holism.
…

The reason that Graves called second tier a “momentous leap” is that unlike all first-tier waves (which imagine their values are the only correct values), second tier has an understanding of the crucial if relative importance of all previous values—including red, blue, orange, and green. Orange thinks green is mindless; green despises orange; blue thinks both of them are going to burn in hell forever. Yellow, on the other hand, finds all of them necessary and acceptable, as long as none of them gets the upper hand and starts repressing the others. This, needless to say, would have a profound influence on any World Federation operating from yellow or second tier values (as we will see).

There are two basic points to keep in mind about any future world governance system. The first is that laws, to be laws, are enacted from the highest average expectable level of development in the governance system. In today’s world, for example, most of the laws in Western democracies stem from the orange level, which is worldcentric, postconventional, and modern (or, as our French friends first expressed the orange meme 300 years ago: equality, fraternity, liberty). Many countries continue to operate basically at a blue level: conformist, non-democratic (dictatorial or totalitarian), grounded not in evidence but in dogma (Marxist, Muslim, or otherwise), and ethnocentric (believe the Book or burn). Some terrorist cells (not to mention street gangs) remain at red: hierarchies of raw power and physical strength, implemented often by torture, rape, or any means necessary to keep a particular warlord in power. Although structures such as red and blue might sound rather brutal, and often are, they have to be seen in context: they are usually the best that can be arranged under the given circumstances and conditions.

…even in an “integral society” (yellow or higher), there will still be pockets or subcultures of individuals at purple, red, blue, orange, and green. This is not only unavoidable, it is healthy, normal, desirable.

[*] What is not desirable, however, is that any of those waves
[*] dominate the governance system and therefore attempt to
[*] force their values on others
…

A second-tier, integral, World Federation—in my Utopian view—would therefore prevent any first-tier memes from dominating, attacking, or exploiting any other populations. If necessary, a World Federation would do so by using force, just as all democracies today have an internal police force to curtail murder, rape, robbery, extortion, and so on. Somebody whose center of gravity is green will not commit murder, rape, or robbery. However, somebody whose center of gravity is red will do any or all of those, sometimes happily. And because everybody is born at square one, and must progress through purple, red, blue, and so on,

[*] some sort of police will always be necessary to protect
[*] others from those who do not evolve to a worldcentric
[*] level of care and compassion.

So any World Federation would have some sort of police force, of necessity. Call them the World Cops. Needless to say, the World Cops would be regulated by the World Federation, not by any country (and certainly not by America, Britain, France, Germany, etc.).

This police force is

[*] NOT allowed to tell people what level of consciousness they should be at; it is

[*] NOT allowed to govern what individuals do in the privacy of their own homes or dwellings; it is

[*] NOT allowed to coerce or intimidate people who are not at the average level of social development.

It is, however, allowed to prevent (or punish) those whose public behavior stems from a less-than-worldcentric stance.

…I personally believe that any protest movement that does not equally protest both America’s invasion and Saddam’s murder of 400,000 people is a protest movement that does not truly represent peace or non-aggression or worldcentric values.

I am aware of no major protest movement that has protested both forms of violence equally, and that has insisted upon an immediate end to both aggressions, and offered a believable way that both aggressions could actually be halted immediately so that neither side can continue its homicidal actions.

That is, I am aware of no integral protest movement anywhere in the world, unfortunately.

…Unless there is a healthy blue infrastructure—whether in inner city ghettos or Mid-East tribes—there is no place for red youth to go, and thus they end up trapped in warlord city. Forcing “democracy” on such a culture simply results, as it consistently has elsewhere, in the free election of military dictators. This, needless to say, is a complex topic; readers are again referred to A Theory of Everything for an overview, as well as to integralinstitute.org.)

What has struck me the most in the highly emotional debates about the war in Iraq is how deeply the entire discussion is sunk in first-tier value fights. Both the blue-to-orange Bush supporters, and the orange-to-green media (and protesters) give wildly skewed, biased, and prejudiced accounts of the events. I am constantly taken aback by how brutally narrow a given perspective is, even (and sometimes especially) those claiming to be caring and inclusive and compassionate. There is plenty of truth on each side of the debate, just not the whole truth, which both sides vociferously claim to possess.

…
I believe that the first World Federation will likely be orange-to-green. My hope is that it will be healthy green, but who knows? I believe that any such green World Federation will make substantial strides toward world harmony, but it will eventually face the inherent limitations and contradictions of all first-tier perspectives. The equivalent of worldwide, politically-correct thought-police will surface—a green Inquisition, if you will—whose subtle brutalities, accompanied by a series of extremely unpleasant economic events brought about by green’s hobbling of orange business, will force a second-tier, yellow, World Federation to move haltingly into place. (Orange business cripples ecology; ecological green cripples orange business; both are forms of first-tier violence, neither of which is countenanced by yellow, and thus the first World Federation will likely be characterized, among numerous other forms of wholeness in practice, by a reconciliation between capitalism and ecology.) But that, I believe, will be at least a century or so away.

—end excerpts—

Some of God’s “latest work”:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7548716.stm

EP,

Thanks for you very cogent analysis here lately. Spot on.

What meme is this above footage?

Some of God’s “latest work”:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7548716.stm

EP,

Thanks for you very cogent analysis here lately. Spot on.

What meme is this above footage?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7548716.stm

EP,

Thanks for you very cogent analysis here lately. Spot on.

What meme is this above footage?

“Among the teachings of Bahá’u'lláh is His declaration that religion must be the cause of love and fellowship, must be the source of unity in the hearts of men. If religion becomes a cause of enmity and hatred, it is evident that the abolition of religion is preferable to its promulgation; for religion is a remedy for human ills. If a remedy should be productive of disease, it is certainly advisable to abandon it. “

—

Farhan,

Bahai does not put the church in the middle of the village. Baha’is that have tried to move toward a “Mashriq” form of bahai culture (mysticism/service) are viciously attacked by bureaucratic apparatchiks and fundamentalists. The spirits of these blessed seekers of spiritually-centric bahai life are broken, and their hope for a life of sacred harmony ground under the boot of viciously fascist bahai conformism to worship of “organization”.

Please note that german philosopher Jurgen Habermas, one of the most advanced thinkers on the planet, has as a central premise that institutions universally suffer a “crisis of legitimization” because of the prevailing conditions of culture. They become victim to their own public relations campaigns and attempts to manipulate public opinion via mass media.

Baha’i has clearly absorbed exactly the problems that Habermas describes in its (BAD) “adaptation to culture”.

In the midst of crisis, Baha’is naturally turn backward, as do all reactionary belief systems that have to vision of a “legitimate” future paradigm.

If bahai believed in KOSMIC EVOLUTION, instead of backward “revelation”, a way forward, an escape from metaphysical quicksand, would be possible.

But, alas, the bahai leadership elites, and their dunce followers, are doomed to march off a cliff of error and waywardness, rejecting the very evolutionary characteristics that could assure a slim chance of survival.

I fully believe that the “sacred” (transcendence, mysticism) is wired into the human brain, by evolution. Not by bogus Prophetic/Progressive Revelation. We are all made of Kosmic dust from the Big Bang, and can directly access transcendence as a populist community of voluntary reciprocity and mutal interest, not via some corrupt, backward quasi-priesthood that uses spirituality as a weapon of control, a tool for accumulating wealth, and a means of perpetuating dysfunctional “systems” that work against harmony, responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Modernity (science, rationalism, democracy, industry, capitalism) is premised on the overthrow of the same corrupt forms of traditional authority that the founders of babai/bahai belief themselves fiercely denounced over and over and over.

As Sen McGlinn and many others have said, the problem with modernity, in its state of “paradigm regression”, is that it attempts to “colonize lifeworld” (Habermas), thus it tries to impose a monolithic (”universal”) structure of consciousness on other paradigms. Postmodernism (pluralism, deconstruction) developed as a critique of the monolithic aspect of modernity. However, Sen does not state the further problem, which is that postmodernism itself has many nasty “paradigm regressive” forms of expression. Ken Wilber and other Integral thinkers have called those nasty forms of postmodernism the “mean green meme” (MGM). Once common version of the MGM is “political correctness” (thought policing).

In reality, bahai HAS CLEARLY (AND BADLY) “adapted to culture” by absorbing the worst aspects of “monolithic colonization” by modernism “systems” and “thought policing” by postmodernism (not to mention pre-modern conformism and archaic rule by violence).

The escape from the cycle of meaninglessness and backwardness is to peer into the evolutionary future of the human race, and see “something better”, which is holism, or trans-rational thought (an integration of transcendence and rationalism).

The UHJ itself mentioned in a message to Dr. Susan Maneck that the “solution” to the “liberal vs. conservative” conflicts in bahai culture is to adaopt “Integrative Paradigms” benig developed by non-bahai scholars!!!

*******************
*** PLEASE NOTE ***
*******************

THE UHJ ITSELF HAS CLEARLY TOLD BAHAIS TO “ADAPT TO CULTURE”.

Bahais are defying the very authority structure that they worship (by NOT “contributing to Integrative Paradigms”).

As Craig says, the incompetence of bahai is so vast and unending as to stupify anyone that attempts to fathom it.

CLEARLY, you and Masud are backward, priest-like “Dunces” of the Highest Order and Magnitude Imaginable.

Anyways, the version of mysticism/service that you have in mind (”church is the center of the village”) is forever enslaved to a failed model of social progress that is premised upon worship of organization (”systems”), not human decency or transcendence (much less “integrative paradigms”).

—

It is, in theory, simple to detach yourself from such false ideas and beliefs. Take a few moments during your days of mindless “happiness” while tending and tinkling on sprouts and shoots (that some evil bahai administrator will subsequently pour spiritual herbicides on if it dares to not conform to the enforcers of CORRECT GROWTH), and meditate on such detachment.

Think about how glorious a contribution to a positive future you will make by stopping such foolishness. Think about how much better and more enlightened the lives of multitudes will be if the sources of bahai error, mischief and exploitation, such as yourself and masud, just mind your own business for once.

Clearly bahai is increasingly tending toward incompetence, fundamentalism, conformism, backwardness, stupidity, intolerance, dysfunctional bureacuracy, injustice, elitism, racism and cultural imperialism. All of which are consistent with “enmity and hatred”.

I am increasingly stunned at how many otherwise (at least moderately) intelligent people, like you and masud, simply believe in stupid things.

As I’ve seen people that originally had some intellectual integrity rise up within the bahai system over the last couple of decades, they learn to give up much of their integrity in order to conform and “get along”. This is the same thing seen everywhere else in the world, people become cynical, and give up hope that any major social change can happen, and look for ways to establish an “emotional comfort zone” - and/or collect a paycheck.

Since everything you belive is premised opn giving up “real” hope, you are the one that is unhappy, you just chose to cover it up with lies in order to “save face”.

Your complete refusal to admit that bahais have failed to address the long and absurd internal history of social injustices and racism, and your adamant and inexplicable refusal to think that anything CONCRETE could or should be done to recognise or change it, is sufficient to prove my point.

This is because your beliefs are empty, and the void has to be filled with “something”, and that “something” is worship of organization. It is emptiness upon emptiness.

Ultimately what you believe in is destined for collapse. Which is why the bahai bureaucracy that you worhip has to constantly reinvent itself by crushing the spirits of people that come to the religion for a sense of belonging, real hope and change.

You should be deeply and profoundly ashamed to be an apologist for such a morally bankrupt, corrupt, wretched, failed, mindless and heartless belief system.

The fact that you encourage people to be “happy” and march off a cliff like a herd of mindless lemmings simply reinforces the absurd futility of anyone thinking that the bahai leadership elites have any clue about how to reform the religion so that it makes sense to the rest of the world.

Thus, bahai can not be considered “the cause of love and fellowship”, and, according to bahai scripture itself, should be abolished.

Your “unity” is really “false unity”.

It is lies and cowardice.

Have a wnoderful weekend!
ep

Eric,

I fully agree with the point brought up by Masud, with which you disagree:

“Again, I think that culture should adapt to the Baha’i Faith, not vice-versa.”

This is the crux of all religious belief: the concept of the sacred, Mother Nature, the Great architect, the Revelation of God, etc, provides a nucleus to which people adhere with heart and soul, and around which a civilisation can be weaved. These are the warp and the woof of civilisation, if you prefer. The Swiss have an expression: put the church in the middle of the village”

Jaques Monod, the French Nobel prize wrote a treatise in teh 1970s called “Le Hazard et la Necessité”, a cold and arid plea for objectivity, which is translated into English, in which he considers science as providing it’s own source of objective ethics, BUT he goes on to explain that it is the concept of the sacred that can attract people to these ethical laws to the point that they are ready to sacrifice their lives for it.

Whatever the mistakes Baha’is like us might make, however pessimistic we might be, the Faith of God will march on in an exponential manner as it has done for the last century and a half. Not with the aim of success for itself, but with the aim of reforming human society. As the French say, we should not only look at the half empty part of the bottle, but also at the half full part. Otherwise we will suffer from depression.

Shoots, branches and flowers are blooming everywhere. We should lift our eyes from the mire and dirt of the compost to look at the budding community.

I fully agree with the point brought up by Masud, with which you disagree:

“Again, I think that culture should adapt to the Baha’i Faith, not vice-versa.”

This is the crux of all religious belief: the concept of the sacred, Mother Nature, the Great architect, the Revelation of God, etc, provides a nucleus to which people adhere with heart and soul, and around which a civilisation can be weaved. These are the warp and the woof of civilisation, if you prefer. The Swiss have an expression: put the church in the middle of the village”

Jaques Monod, the French Nobel prize wrote a treatise in teh 1970s called “Le Hazard et la Necessité”, a cold and arid plea for objectivity, which is translated into English, in which he considers science as providing it’s own source of objective ethics, BUT he goes on to explain that it is the concept of the sacred that can attract people to these ethical laws to the point that they are ready to sacrifice their lives for it.

Whatever the mistakes Baha’is like us might make, however pessimistic we might be, the Faith of God will march on in an exponential manner as it has done for the last century and a half. Not with the aim of success for itself, but with the aim of reforming human society. As the French say, we should not only look at the half empty part of the bottle, but also at the half full part. Otherwise we will suffer from depression.

Shoots, branches and flowers are blooming everywhere. We should lift our eyes from the mire and dirt of the compost to look at the budding community.

Masud,

For some weird reason the bahairants.com blog software sent me an email containing the following post of yours today (8/7/08) even though your reponse was posted a while ago (while I was on vacation).

Bahai not only should, but has, adapted to culture. Unfortunately it has adapted very badly, absorbing every tendency of dysfunctional social engineering and failed bureaucracy available. It could adapt in a “good” way that is consistent with making a contribution to an “ever advancing civilization”, but that appears to be very unlikely given the present mindset of inept, dysfunctional bureaucracy, conformism, intolerance of dissent/ nonconformance/criticism.

I’m very honest in stating exactly what I believe, and why. Revelation is a complete scam. Bahaullah is as much of a “Manifestation of God” as are most of the people in mental health hospitals.

Have you ever wondered why the old testament has “Prophets” coming out of the woodwork, but later on, they really started to dry up and become scarce? What utter silliness.

Love, peace, compassion, altruism (etc.) existed in human consciousness long before being appropriated by “univeralist” religions in their quests for political, economic and miltary empire.

Frankly, you sound like a typical bullshit artist, AKA a typical condescending/arrogant “bahai apologist” (outwardly fair, inwardly foul). You might like to be in the “missionary position”, but I have no interest in being reconverted by someone who so obviously wants to engage in cultural imperialism.

In other words, you sound like a fairly smart person that believes in some really stupid crap.

I have no interest in joining you in anything given the above.

Here is what your religion teaches you to believe in, I suggest that you take it to heart instead of nit picking what other people say in order to evade/distort criticisms:

http://www.defenseoffaith.net/

Shoghi Effendi on fairmindedness

“It must be demonstrated in the impartiality of every defender of
the Faith against its enemies, in his fair-mindedness in recognizing
any merits that enemy may possess, and in his honesty in discharging
any obligations he may have towards him.” — Shoghi Effendi, The
Advent of Divine Justice, p. 26

so, given the above, feel free to respond in a way consistent with basic human decency and honesty.

ep,

I hate to have to say this, but you give me the awful impression of someone who hasn’t read any of the arguments against your position.
. . .

“and is out of touch with the trajectory of the leading edge of cultural evolution.”

Again, I think that culture should adapt to the Baha’i Faith, not vice-versa. I think this misconception is a sort of leitmotif in some people’s mindset, (and definitely in your last post) and is sometimes even manifested subconsciously, as I think is the case in the phrase cited above.
. . .

“This documented sorry record of organizational entrenched dysfunctional mental illness may yet bear much fruit in future very useful psychological theories of organizational dysfunction”

because, as of yet, this doesn’t characterize the Baha’i Faith. That mistakes have been made, I cannot and will not deny, but as a general characterization of the Baha’i Faith, with all due respect, I think you’re way off in your reasoning to think that it falls into this category. Who knows? Maybe we will fall into it in the future. You may even be an augur for this event. If that is the case, thank you; your admonitions have been taken into consideration. But until then, they are still mere prognostications. We can discuss this in a thousand years if you wish.

In the meanwhile, I’ll be doing my best to live a Baha’i life, lead by example, and propagate the message of peace, love, and unity. And I would love for all of you to join me.

I’ve enjoyed this discussion. All the best to all of you.
Smile, breathe, and pray,

Masud

Progressives are just as guilty of being relentless conformists and thought police as are conservatives, in some cases, far worse. When I was a kid in the 60s, liberals were “open minded”. Not so much any more. The Left raised Political Correctness to new heights starting in the 80s, and a lot of stupid “progressives” and “liberals” marched along in lockstep.

The author lacks a developmental model of cultural evolution, paradigms, or memes.

“liberal vs. conservative” debates (culture wars) are a waste of time. They represent outmoded paradigm/memes on each side, not the leading edge of cultural evolution. They represent what integralists call “deficient forms” of paradigms. Typically the “deficient form” of a paradigm tries to hide its weaknesses and failures by demonizing the “other”, and taking on “all good” to itself. That is clearly NOT “objective” or “scientific”.

THE ONLY REASON THAT “CONSERVATISM” IS POPULAR IN THE USA IS BECAUSE OF THE MASSIVE FAILURES OF “PROGRESSIVISM/LIBERALISM”.

(To a large extent, the same is true within bahai, although the whole story is far more convoluted.)

The lunatic fringe of progressivism/liberalism (better known as the “PC Left”, attempted to take the culture off the edge of an abyss of meaningless and self-absorbsion (nihilism/narcissism) in the 70s/80s. Many people were correctly horrified, and turned to the only other major alternatives they could see at the time: neoconservatism, evangelical christianity, fundamentalism, etc.

Some progressive/liberals themselves turned away from the horror and toward esoteric spirituality or populism, and a few of those realized that spirituality had to be reformulated to avoid outmoded, premodern metaphysics, superstition, and unscientific “new age” excessses, failed transpersonal psychology, and so forth. Thus, “integral thought” came about, built on a foundation laid by Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Clare Graves, and other integral pioneers and “futurists”.

Progressivism and conservatism (”left and right”) each have good and bad aspects.

Too much progressivism, and moral structure collapses. Liberals of the “warm/fuzzy” postmodern/progressive sort tend to be hapless and helpless in the face of gang or tribal violence, or brutal imperialism, dictators, authoritarians, etc.

What passes for progressivism/liberalism nowdays is actually a lot of postodernism. The author mixes up postmodernism with progressivism and the values of “classic liberalism”.

Most of what he is extoling is libertarianism (classic liberalism), not progressivism. Libertarian thought is what in the USA, would be considered “classic liberalism” in europe (free market, etc.). von Hayek and all those guys.

In consciousnes studies, or integral theory, classic liberalism is the paradigm of “modernity”. “libertarian” thought originated amongst the Radical Whigs, such as John Locke, who were early modernists (1640s, English Civil war).

Modernity developed in response to feudalism and medieval culture, which represented conformism, ecclesiastic and aristocratic rule, mercantile economics (economic management by royal bureacuracy).

What the modernists/libertarians wanted was property rights, open participation in governance, free thought, tolerance of religious dissent in protest of the corruption of high church, objective science, industrial capitalism, etc.

The Radical Whigs (and other classic liberals/modernists) proposed “Natural Law” as a replacement for the “Divine Right of Kings”.

A classic statment of Natural Law is:

| The opening of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas
| Jefferson in 1776, states as follows:
|
| “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
| equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
| unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
| Pursuit of Happiness. “

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_men_are_created_equal

The utter genius of Natural Law is that it replaced an image of God as “Rigid Conformism and Slavery” with one of God as “Freedom and Liberty”.

Like Darwinian Evolution, Natural Law is one of the strongest refutation of the Revelation Scam (including bahai “Progressive Revelation”) that exists.

(No so called “Prophet” produced either Evolutionary Theory or Natural Law.)

(note: the “Pursuit of Happiness” meant liberty to engage in free trade, and accumulate property via the “protestant work ethic”, where such property was protected by law, could not be unfairly taxed or seized by the central state police or other forms of unrepresentative government. It had nothing to do with current forms of “emotional happiness”. People were “Happy” when they were no longer economically enslaved by an oppressive system of royal bureaucracy, articifial social privilege, elite religion, and mercantile economics.)

Almost all premodern, and medieval/feudal societies, had economic systems that were built on rigid hirearchy and some form or another of slavery (serfdom, peasantry, etc.). Religion was a tool to control the slaves and uneducated masses (when it failed, unflinchingly brutal police or military force was used instead). It was rare that the elites allowed the lower classes to rise or to challenge prevailing ideas.

Capitalism led to the rise of powerful bourgeois classes, whose “materialistic” self-interests, frequently crass and vulgar, shocked and horrified the old, refined classes of aristocracy, ecclesiastics and their bureaucrats and those bohemian arteests and intellectuals that lived on patronage (favors from the aristocrats).

Thus, romanticism was born as a reaction to the “materialism” of modernity, classic liberalism and industrial capitalism. Romanticism eventually spawned two evil cousins: fascism and marxism.

To be clear: the Left is not “liberal” in its origins. The Left is descended from the old, marginalized intellectual and bohemian elites who were shoved out of the way by the bourgeoisie.

A good article on how “conservatives” see the origins of Leftism is by David Brooks:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/102gwtnf.asp

Among the Bourgeoisophobes
Why the Europeans and Arabs, each in their own way, hate America and Israel.
by David Brooks
04/15/2002, Volume 007, Issue 30

AROUND 1830, a group of French artists and intellectuals looked around and noticed that people who were their spiritual inferiors were running the world. Suddenly a large crowd of merchants, managers, and traders were making lots of money, living in the big houses, and holding the key posts. They had none of the high style of the aristocracy, or even the earthy integrity of the peasants. Instead, they were gross. They were vulgar materialists, shallow conformists, and self-absorbed philistines, who half the time failed even to acknowledge their moral and spiritual inferiority to the artists and intellectuals. What’s more, it was their very mediocrity that accounted for their success. Through some screw-up in the great scheme of the universe, their narrow-minded greed had brought them vast wealth, unstoppable power, and growing social prestige.

Naturally, the artists and intellectuals were outraged. Hatred of the bourgeoisie became the official emotion of the French intelligentsia. Stendhal said traders and merchants made him want to “weep and vomit at the same time.” Flaubert thought they were “plodding and avaricious.” Hatred of the bourgeoisie, he wrote, “is the beginning of all virtue.” He signed his letters “Bourgeoisophobus” to show how much he despised “stupid grocers and their ilk.”

Of all the great creeds of the 19th century, pretty much the only one still thriving is this one, bourgeoisophobia. Marxism is dead. Freudianism is dead. Social Darwinism is dead, along with all those theories about racial purity that grew up around it. But the emotions and reactions that Flaubert, Stendhal, and all the others articulated in the 1830s are still with us, bigger than ever. In fact, bourgeoisophobia, which has flowered variously and spread to places as diverse as Baghdad, Ramallah, and Beijing, is the major reactionary creed of our age.

This is because today, in much of the world’s eyes, two peoples–the Americans and the Jews–have emerged as the great exemplars of undeserved success. Americans and Israelis, in this view, are the money-mad molochs of the earth, the vulgarizers of morals, corrupters of culture, and proselytizers of idolatrous values. These two nations, it is said, practice conquest capitalism, overrunning poorer nations and exploiting weaker neighbors in their endless desire for more and more. These two peoples, the Americans and the Jews, in the view of the bourgeoisophobes, thrive precisely because they are spiritually stunted. It is their obliviousness to the holy things in life, their feverish energy, their injustice, their shallow pursuit of power and gain, that allow them to build fortunes, construct weapons, and play the role of hyperpower.

And so just as the French intellectuals of the 1830s rose up to despise the traders and bankers, certain people today rise up to shock, humiliate, and dream of destroying America and Israel. Today’s bourgeoisophobes burn with the same sense of unjust inferiority. They experience the same humiliation because there is nothing they can do to thwart the growing might of their enemies. They rage and rage. Only today’s bourgeoisophobes are not just artists and intellectuals. They are as likely to be terrorists and suicide bombers. They teach in madrassas, where they are careful not to instruct their students in the sort of practical knowledge that dominates bourgeois schools. They are Muslim clerics who incite hatred and violence. They are erudite Europeans who burn with humiliation because they know, deep down, that both America and Israel possess a vitality and heroism that their nations once had but no longer do.
…

—end excerpts—

Of course Brooks deconstructs a great deal of the philosophical foundations that bahai ideas about “spirituality” and “univeralism” rest upon.

Bye!
ep

“The great appeal of modern conservatism, or other forms of authoritarianism, is that people don’t have to think for themselves. They can mentally “check out” of this world and place their worries in the hands of a commanding politician or a higher deity.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen/in-defense-of-liberalism_b_116941.html

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I checked out some of Rodriguez’s Youtube videos, and he’s pretty good. But I don’t think anyone will ever hold a candle to the late (man, still feels weird saying that) George Carlin. Check out this gold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

Yeah, Iran has many blondes and red heads, but that’s more a throwback to Iran’s Indo-European lineage. I know several Persians with blue eyes and very fair skin. Their phenotype confuses people. hehe

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-besen/in-defense-of-liberalism_b_116941.html

Farhan,

(As you may know, the great writer Isabell Allende satirized meaningless bahai rhetoric and vacuous bahai abstractions in “El Plan Infinito”.)

You are in full-tilt spin mode! Awesome. You take loyalist evasion and “pivoting” on an issue to new, hilarious heights of absurdity. There could be no better entertainment. BRAVISIMO!!!

The beginning to the solution to bahai racism is to recognise its origins, and to stop the denial. I saw a group of 25 persian bahai youth get up at a large conference about 7 or 8 years ago (San Diego) and scream at their parents (in front of 800 people) about the utter hypocrisy of paying “lip service” to the “unity of mankind” while acting in a totally racist/classist manner in their “real world” interactions with other people. The youth said that they can understand their grandparents being too backward to change, but not their parents, most of whom came to the USA when fairly young, and should have been able to unlearn racist, classist, and elitist attitudes.

Shotly after, a persian friend of mine told me how an old bahai woman from Fiji, whose family originally were Indian muslims, was subject to horrible racist attitudes from the persians in their community. The Fijian woman made the horrible mistake of suggesting that the assembly “actually listen” to what non-persians in the community had to say. As you probably know, muslims in Fiji are subject to considerable discrimination as a “minority”. However, instead of making a basic adjustment to a person from an “oppressed” background, the persians went on the attack. any persians that dared to support the woman’s case were accused of “disloyalty” to the other persians. several americans realized that the pitiful rhetoric about the “oneness of mankind” was completely empty.

They knew that they had been lied to by “bahai teachers”. Sometimes is is “just that simple”.

Evolution and democracy are the solution to such problems, not an absurd, backward bahai system of dysfunctional bureaucratic reinvention that erases any memory of past errors and heaps (or should I say “sprinkles”) distain on any call for reform or improvement.

You are just trying to “save face” (somehow, presumably out of desperation), for the collective bahai system, which is failed. The world has no time to wait for such silliness or more empty, grand abstractions. People want justice and equality, and have no patience for failed ideas or beliefs that get recycled over and over and over no matter how many times they are proven to not work.

I find it incredible that you seem to be proposing that a complete lack of collective memory of the elitist and racist history of the persian and american bahai communities (or global bahai culture in general - if such a thing exists) is irrelevant to any understanding of how to improve bahai.

bahais do the same stuff eveyone else does. including recycling the old “god’s special people” archetype, absurd “infallibility” doctrines, etc., in order to cover up the “revelation scam”.

bahais make the same mistakes as everyoe else, and can solve them if they stop being deluded by illusions about some future, grandiose system, and instead have faith in human intelligence and goodness in the “here and now”.

your analogies about plants, shoots, watering, etc., are so devoid of real meaning that it is simply fabulous, in a twisted, weird way, that you persist in posting such pointless and futile stuff. it is high theatre of the absurd. delicious, in a perverse way, in its utterly pure exhaustion and complete vacuity.

the sad reality is that the bahai system is completely broken and as can easily be predicted by the study of basic organizational theory, is going the opposite direction than is needed for any real, meaningful reform.

instead of opening up and learning from people that are doing very real things to actually improve the world, it is closing down, becoming more insularized, inntolerant of dissent or nonconformism, and fascist.

it is a perfect example of “false unity” that is resistant to truth (just before a phase of chaos, followed by taking skeletons out of the closet, and then after painful self-examination, fullfillment and healing - see Scott Peck).

the “little pigs” at the bottom of the bahai system are at first upheld as the ultimate (but unspecified) solution, then later will be blamed for all failure by the “big pigs” at the top.

you are filling the role of the first part (proposing that the little people be upheld), stating grand, meaningless abstractions as their reward for conforming. later, the “destoyers” at the top will step in and harangue those very little people for failing to fullfil the grand, meaningless abstractions (that they never actually understood, and could never make sense of).

what is consistent in the above scenario is that the failed bureaucracy reinvents itself, and continues on to launch another cycle of emotional uplift and then destruction, leaving emotional wreckage and debris in its wake.

such a process is the essence of evil, the essence of injustice and the essence of inhumanity.

it is the essence of ungodliness and error.

which just reinforces the fact of scriptural/philosophial contradictions in the religion being piled up with even more contradictions in the thoughts and behavior of the organization and conformist followers.

by stating that bahai should igore its own internal history of racism and injustice, you are dooming it to repeat that very history.

unfortunately you have provided yet more proof, on top of a very large pile that I’ve seen accumulate in 30+ years of observation, that the apologists that volunteer to perpetuate bahai myths do not actually care about real people’s problems, concerns or issues.

it is a religion that has become profoundly dehumanizing at almost all levels.

the world is full of new, exciting developments in many spiritual and intellectual areas. people are putting “real money” on creating “spiritual businesses”. such new developments rarely show up in bahai, and when they do, they frequently become just more fodder for the old, bad historical cycle of false hope and bureaucratic reinvention that is doomed to be repeated until people understand it for what it is, and demand “something better”.

you personally could start making a positive contribution to the world right now by overcoming your denial.

it would be a very necessary and very important step.

the question is: are you honest enough and brave enough to do it?

I have seen “loyal” bahais spend their entire lives fighting against ignorance, corruption, abuses of power, nepotism, dishonesty, injustice and maliciousness within the bahai system. One outstanding example was Dr. John Cornell - may his blessed soul forever dwell in the warm embrace of celestial love and the abode of of transcendent light.

He and his family took on the NSA and other institutional sources of ignorance, arrogance (and other forms of distain for basic human decency), and stood firm in the face of unending hostility from bahai leadership elites and their parrot-like apologists for decades (since at least the 1950s).

Dr. Cornell used to openly discuss one of his pet peeves, which was the vast error of many bahais in thinking that “assemblies are always right”.

That was Dr. Cornell’s way of understanding that mainstream bahai culture worships “system” and “bureaucracy”, and not “good, truth and beauty” (or basic human decency).

Bahais like John Cornell epitomise the struggle for social justice and an ever advancing civilization.

It is quite apparent that Dr. Cornell’s outstanding example of a “true bahai life of service” (and very real, concrete “solutions” that actually made a difference to specific people) will never be remembered by any Ruhi class or Institute as long as people do what you are doing, and think what you are thinking, which is to white-wash history and forget what makes life truly meaningful.

bye!
ep

Eric wrote:

It is very curious to me how little recognition to historical injustices is given in bahai.

I agree Eric; the Baha’i Faith insists on what should be done, rather than insiting on the innumerous mistakes being done. Entirely different from the current intellectual approach where we make a diagnosis, accuse the culprits, and eventually suggest their punishment, without suggesting a viable soulution.

This is a huge jump: the Divine Physician making the diagnosis and prescribing, instead of us trying to make a diagnoss, with no remedy to suggest.

We can go around the garden and diagnose all the mishaps, when the gardener is telling us to ignore the dying plants, because it is time to dig a well and provide means for canalising the water instead of proping up the poor plants.

BTW, here is an interesting site with a great video of the congressman Kirk’s strong defense on Bahai’s of Iran.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwaglgNjYgs

warmest

Farhan

Craig,

You’ve obviously not hung out with the right type of Persians. I suggest you associate with more intellectual, non-Bahai Persians. They exist, in great numbers. You just won’t find too many of them among Bahais.
…

…if anyone wants to rip on my Welsh pubic hair. Me. Tom Jones. Richard Burton.