The Dawn of Tradition and Holiday: Examining Reasoning Behind Celebration
As I suppose possibly every conscious man, woman, and child in this hemisphere is already aware, today is the 4th day of the 7th month, the day that the United States celebrates the anniversary of declaring its independence. For those that are unaware, the abnormal behavior of millions of U.S. citizens shall provide sufficient alert that July 4th is a special day for the U.S.A. How we have found ourselves to remain 'independent' or 'free', still, after 230 years, is beyond my abilities to explain or even vaguely understand. It is far beyond those abilities of any other American as well, ignore their mindless banter to the contrary and confide in me, for they were not present at the D of I's signing either.
What I mean with what write, surely not to appear the sour grape, but to ask of every American citizen, rather beseech of all able-minded souls that still possess the breath of life and the strength to stand, to reflect upon, if even for only one moment, the progression through the pages of history, the state of affairs at present, and the prospect of days still to come, and to attempt to fathom this nation and its continued prestige as a world power.
This nation's presence in the world as its supreme, uncontested power; this nation's identity as the consumer of the worlds resources, in actuality, the consumer of the world itself; this nation's behavior in the global community as morally groundless, purely egotistic, and boundless in its capacity to repress, intervene, augment terrorist operatives against, and crush with all its strength, other nations' efforts at establishing democracy anywhere in the world; this nation's people's collective identity as flatly ignorant though selectively attentive, and basely apathetic to the most pressing of world affairs; this nation's cultural traditions rooted in transparent myth, thin veils behind which the truth, perverse obsessive genocide and other despicable things, lurks unspeakably.
These are the realities we, whether cognizant of or not, celebrate when we declare our allegiance to the stars and stripes. The supposition that we enjoy the greatest amount of individual freedom known to any citizenry of the world is a less-than-skin-deep fallacy. Our country’s freedom, though extremely great, is enjoyed by only a select few, wielded by those few in a manner to further those freedoms at any expense. We are a state controlled by an elitist class -a tight, impermeable circle that functions nothing like a democratic society, something closer to a totalitarian theocracy.
My assertions above capture only a brief snapshot of the world as I see it, see it through all the distortion and deceit, that is; but I am nonetheless very optimistic about the future of this land. I will now share what I believe awaits this human race, its inevitably destination, that end of ends wherein our arrival is continuous, perhaps even at this very moment, but still to greet us in every passage of time that shall follow hereafter until eternity suffers its demise. That any system or institution that presumes to govern the lives of men must suffer the very same trialsome pattern of refinement through progressive deaths that each man, himself, suffers.
The psychologist Catherine Snow explains the process of the developing brain, "Brain maturation is not about the way the brain grows, it's about the way it dies. As it ages, its neurons disappear." The process of which she speaks, 'synaptic pruning', which posits that an individual's mind will never have such a high level of neuro-connectivity as it does on the day of his/her birth. Each day that follows is a day that the connections between neurons are severed, the synapses connecting these brain cells are cut, plasticity diminishes and specialization within different domains of intelligence are defined. As a marble statue is crafted through the chiseling away of unwanted marble from the exquisite work of art that awaits its emancipation from within, the human mind is born a block of connected cells that are gradually trimmed to eventually unveil before the world that person's individual identity.
And the development of government follows this model as well, I believe, for government must certainly be, among other things, a product of human psychology. And looking back through the pages of history, it would be difficult to argue otherwise. Systems of social order began with structures characterized by absolute power. Social reform as imposed by the people began to gradually alter the identity of their ruling entity through progressive evolution typically resembling the "trial and error" paradigm seen in nature. When this particular form of government has run its course, it will be scrapped and replaced; what replaces it must, by reasonable logic, be better. For evolution is neither liberal nor conservative, it serves not the agenda of the Democrats or the Republicans. It concerns itself merely with the survival of it species: in this case, the need and right of the individual, as child of nature, to operate within a civil social order. Happy Independence Day, all my fellow citizens of the human race; I believe that independence indeed awaits, unwritten into the script of history for it is we who must pen it into one of the forthcoming acts.
What I mean with what write, surely not to appear the sour grape, but to ask of every American citizen, rather beseech of all able-minded souls that still possess the breath of life and the strength to stand, to reflect upon, if even for only one moment, the progression through the pages of history, the state of affairs at present, and the prospect of days still to come, and to attempt to fathom this nation and its continued prestige as a world power.
This nation's presence in the world as its supreme, uncontested power; this nation's identity as the consumer of the worlds resources, in actuality, the consumer of the world itself; this nation's behavior in the global community as morally groundless, purely egotistic, and boundless in its capacity to repress, intervene, augment terrorist operatives against, and crush with all its strength, other nations' efforts at establishing democracy anywhere in the world; this nation's people's collective identity as flatly ignorant though selectively attentive, and basely apathetic to the most pressing of world affairs; this nation's cultural traditions rooted in transparent myth, thin veils behind which the truth, perverse obsessive genocide and other despicable things, lurks unspeakably.
These are the realities we, whether cognizant of or not, celebrate when we declare our allegiance to the stars and stripes. The supposition that we enjoy the greatest amount of individual freedom known to any citizenry of the world is a less-than-skin-deep fallacy. Our country’s freedom, though extremely great, is enjoyed by only a select few, wielded by those few in a manner to further those freedoms at any expense. We are a state controlled by an elitist class -a tight, impermeable circle that functions nothing like a democratic society, something closer to a totalitarian theocracy.
My assertions above capture only a brief snapshot of the world as I see it, see it through all the distortion and deceit, that is; but I am nonetheless very optimistic about the future of this land. I will now share what I believe awaits this human race, its inevitably destination, that end of ends wherein our arrival is continuous, perhaps even at this very moment, but still to greet us in every passage of time that shall follow hereafter until eternity suffers its demise. That any system or institution that presumes to govern the lives of men must suffer the very same trialsome pattern of refinement through progressive deaths that each man, himself, suffers.
The psychologist Catherine Snow explains the process of the developing brain, "Brain maturation is not about the way the brain grows, it's about the way it dies. As it ages, its neurons disappear." The process of which she speaks, 'synaptic pruning', which posits that an individual's mind will never have such a high level of neuro-connectivity as it does on the day of his/her birth. Each day that follows is a day that the connections between neurons are severed, the synapses connecting these brain cells are cut, plasticity diminishes and specialization within different domains of intelligence are defined. As a marble statue is crafted through the chiseling away of unwanted marble from the exquisite work of art that awaits its emancipation from within, the human mind is born a block of connected cells that are gradually trimmed to eventually unveil before the world that person's individual identity.
And the development of government follows this model as well, I believe, for government must certainly be, among other things, a product of human psychology. And looking back through the pages of history, it would be difficult to argue otherwise. Systems of social order began with structures characterized by absolute power. Social reform as imposed by the people began to gradually alter the identity of their ruling entity through progressive evolution typically resembling the "trial and error" paradigm seen in nature. When this particular form of government has run its course, it will be scrapped and replaced; what replaces it must, by reasonable logic, be better. For evolution is neither liberal nor conservative, it serves not the agenda of the Democrats or the Republicans. It concerns itself merely with the survival of it species: in this case, the need and right of the individual, as child of nature, to operate within a civil social order. Happy Independence Day, all my fellow citizens of the human race; I believe that independence indeed awaits, unwritten into the script of history for it is we who must pen it into one of the forthcoming acts.
posted by Daniel Black | 7:27 AM
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