Are we ready?

[RMorgan]

Hey folks,

I was wondering here...

What do you think would happen if we remove the police from the streets?

What do you think would happen if we remove the certainty of being legally punished for doing something against the common welfare?

I´m asking that because all of us are, on different levels, addicted to blame the government/the system/ for our current conditions but, if we analyze the above questions carefully, would we be capable of controlling our social behavior without the supervision of a superior common authority?

So, are we able to control our primitive and neurotic impulses without the fear of punishment?

Personally, I think it would be chaos. People would commit more crimes than ever.

How are we supposed to socially/collectively evolve, if we still can´t control our destructive impulses?

Idealistically, if people could simply voluntarily follow the natural rule of mutual respect, we wouldn´t need law enforcement authorities, but, is this scenario really possible?

Are we violent by nature or we are conditioned to be violent?

I know...These are very old and hard questions, but I´m very interested in listening to your points of view and developing an intelligent debate about it.

So, are we ready for living an idealistic model of society? Are we ready for peace?

Cheers,

Raf.

[Kindred]

WE Won't be 'removing' the police...

I Strongly feel that They Themselves, Once they Understand (and get the 'Wake Up Call'), will Remove Themselves. This will be a Universal Awakening...

THIS is My Hope... and what I Feel in my Heart.

In Unity, Peace and LOVE

[SilentFeathers]

There would be total chaos in my opinion, relating to my thread I just started about "odd and strange behavior", there is just too much insanity.....the social grids will break down either way soon no matter what happens.......sadly, the spirit and common sense has been knocked out of the large majority of humanity in my opinion.

People are under the illusion that the police and/or government is the glue that holds everything together when actually it is the people themselves that are the glue......this way of thinking and believing in such an illusion is bound to erupt in chaos sooner or later.

Keep your eyes peeled! the show is about to begin! :)

[RMorgan]

There would be total chaos in my opinion, relating to my thread I just started about "odd and strange behavior", there is just too much insanity.....the social grids will break down either way soon no matter what happens.......sadly, the spirit and common sense has been knocked out of the large majority of humanity in my opinion.

People are under the illusion that the police and/or government is the glue that holds everything together when actually it is the people themselves that are the glue......this way of thinking and believing in such an illusion is bound to erupt in chaos sooner or later.

Keep your eyes peeled! the show is about to begin! :)

Hey mate,

What really bothers me is that much before police/constitutions/law enforcement, people were always subjected to some sort of punishing for their bad behaviors.

Much before that, we had all sorts of religions that preached the idea of punishment, in order to keep the population under control.

The ten commandments is a great example of that.

Could we keep ourselves under control without the fear of punishment?

Cheers,

Raf.

[Tarka the Duck]

I read this a couple of days ago in the Daily Mail (yes, I know...;) ) - but it seems relevant to the OP.

One in eight of the population admit they have no sense of moral rectitude, a survey has found.
They said No when asked if they were ‘a moral person who knows the difference between right and wrong and most often chooses the right course of action’.
The figure shot up to one in five when the question was asked in London, home to City bankers and Westminster politicians.
But in Scotland only one person in 15 put themselves among the bad guys.
Overall, women claimed to be more moral than men. Just over one in ten women said they were not guided by any sense of right and wrong, compared to nearly one in seven men.
Two-thirds of us think the moral standards of the nation are withering away.
According to the survey of 2,000 people carried out for the TCM cable movie channel, 12.55 per cent of the county said no when they were asked the question: are you a moral person?
The question was qualified as someone who ‘knows the difference between right and wrong and most often chooses the right course of action?’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149075/The-thousands-Britons-don-t-moral-compass-One-admit-bad-people.html#ixzz1w5W6O3kt

[RMorgan]

One in eight of the population admit they have no sense of moral rectitude, a survey has found.

Hey Kathie,

Well, things get even worse if we consider that a few of the other seven persons submitted to the survey could be simply lying.

This points to another problem.

Before simply obeying the law, people should first have the clear notion of what´s right or wrong.

The problem is that people could just achieve this notion if they have the true idea of what ethics really mean.

However, they don´t really teach ethics in schools or anywhere else. If a person wants to understand it, he should go to to the library and do his own research, which is a very rare behavior.

Cheers,

Raf.

[SilentFeathers]

There would be total chaos in my opinion, relating to my thread I just started about "odd and strange behavior", there is just too much insanity.....the social grids will break down either way soon no matter what happens.......sadly, the spirit and common sense has been knocked out of the large majority of humanity in my opinion.

People are under the illusion that the police and/or government is the glue that holds everything together when actually it is the people themselves that are the glue......this way of thinking and believing in such an illusion is bound to erupt in chaos sooner or later.

Keep your eyes peeled! the show is about to begin! :)

Hey mate,

What really bothers me is that much before police/constitutions/law enforcement, people were always subjected to some sort of punishing for their bad behaviors.

Much before that, we had all sorts of religions that preached the idea of punishment, in order to keep the population under control.

The ten commandments is a great example of that.

Could we keep ourselves under control without the fear of punishment?

Cheers,

Raf.

If we didn't live under so many illusions, some of what you mentioned above, things would be more real and in harmony with nature and creation so to speak. The old Native American social structures are a good example of a people/community not needing police or jails ect., they were not without some crime but their punishment was swift and usually left up to the family or person that was wronged to issue the verdict/punishment.....crime was very rare in many old tribal communities across the US......it seems to me that the more people are one or in harmony with the earth, nature, and all of creation, the easier things can be, far from where we are at now as a species that's for sure......

Added: the designed breakdown/destruction of community and family, especially in the last 40 years has been a huge contributor in the way things are today concerning mass crime against each other and complete insane like behavior.

[RMorgan]

If we didn't live under so many illusions, some of what you mentioned above, things would be more real and in harmony with nature and creation so to speak. The old Native American social structures are a good example of a people/community not needing police or jails ect., they were not without some crime but their punishment was swift and usually left up to the family or person that was wronged to issue the verdict/punishment.....crime was very rare in many old tribal communities across the US......it seems to me that the more people are one or in harmony with the earth, nature, and all of creation, the easier things can be, far from where we are at now as a species that's for sure......

Added: the designed breakdown/destruction of community and family, especially in the last 40 years has been a huge contributor in the way things are today concerning mass crime against each other and complete insane like behavior.

Hey mate,

Yes, the old Native American tribes, which includes tribes from the entire American continent, are really a great example.

However, they were still living in small cells/tribes and there was still plenty of very violent wars going on between different tribes.

Is it possible to achieve harmony, like they partially did, in a global massive scale, without dividing ourselves into small clusters waging war towards each other?

Cheers,

Raf.

[SilentFeathers]

These wars going on back then between these N.A. tribes were mostly small skirmishes over trespassing on another's hunting grounds/territorial, basically a struggle conflict between tribes solely for survival purposes.....

Times are much different now, I feel it's highly unlikely to go back to those days and ways.....we are basically beyond the point of no return in my opinion under these current systems and illusions that we are living under, they will most likely have to play themselves out and under current conditions it doesn't look like it'll be much harmony and love for a while.....it's any one's guess to what will replace these current systems and actually how many of us will be left here once the smoke clears....

Also: It wasn't really until the white man arrived in America that these wars between tribes became full blown tribal nation to tribal nation massacres for the most part.....

[RMorgan]

These wars going on back then between these N.A. tribes were mostly small skirmishes over trespassing on another's hunting grounds/territorial, basically a struggle conflict between tribes solely for survival purposes.....

Well, the reason for making wars is still mostly the same, but since we have bigger societies and need more resources than simply food and territory, our wars have grown bigger in scale.

Basically, the wars back then were centered in the real basic level survival resources, for the sake of the survival of the species. Our wars today, are mostly centered on the survival of a lifestyle.

Anyway, I also think they used to live much more in harmony than we do.

However, if they were so socially evolved, then why didn´t they just talked to each other, solving their problems diplomatically, instead of making wars?

Cheers,

Raf.

[SilentFeathers]

However, if they were so socially evolved, then why didn´t they just talked to each other, solving their problems diplomatically, instead of making wars?

Cheers,

Raf.

This is a deep subject: in a nut shell though there was no time for talk; Power, control, arrogance and greed was the true agenda of the day when the white man arrived and the earth loving Native American way of life had no importance to these greed and power mongers.

As for the tribal conflicts it was basically a message to the trespassing tribes to back off and find another food source, that this one was taken, if they didn't then there would be some show of force to show them that they weren't kidding around....often times they shared food through trade with other struggling tribes before warring against them, trading stuff etc.....it was those sneaky ones that didn't ask permission and tresspassed that often paid a dear price for trespassing and threatening the survival of the neighboring tribe......it was really all about survival, not money or greed.

[NancyV]

If we didn't have laws and law enforcers it would be chaos and crime would increase. Just watch the movie Mad Max to know what would likely happen. I don't buy into the notion that any tribal cultures were either without crime or low on crime. Sure a very few isolated groups, like maybe Australian Aboriginals, probably had relative peace for short periods of time, but rarely for long.

American Indians often warred with other tribes. Many tribes kept slaves long before the European introduction of black slaves from Africa. American Indians also kept hostages, "adopted" captives whom they occasionally would cut off one foot so they couldn't run away, and sometimes used captives or slaves as sacrifices. Africans had slavery long before their slaves, which they sold to the whites, were imported into America.

Romanticizing any native culture is not at all realistic. All humans have violent tendencies as a survival mechanism. If we weren't so violent we would have become extinct long ago considering there are many animals that are more physically dangerous when compared to our fragile bodies. We don't have fangs, we can't run fast, we aren't big enough to intimidate most dangerous animals, we don't have a poison bite, no stingers.....nothing but our brains and our survival instincts. We are the most dangerous animal on earth and I would guess that we're more dangerous than many, if not most, off world species and probably other dimensionals. If we better learn how to defend ourselves against telepathic control and brainwashing we will be even more dangerous.

The question of this thread: "Are We Ready" is one I would answer with a big NO. If we don't have laws and law enforcement we will quickly degenerate into complete chaos with groups or tribes killing, stealing from others and taking slaves. I doubt that this 3D earth dimension will ever ascend to a point where it won't be this way. Since it's been this way for countless countless thousands of years, the odds of humans changing to some idealized happy, loving, evolved and enlightened state...are slim to none.

Mass ascension?? LOL..not gonna happen. Individually we can ascend right now. If you want to do it...do it. Don't wait around for ET's, Drake, Wilcock, the White Hats or anyone else to do it for you. Or...perhaps we are here for a reason. Even those of us who have "ascended" many times and merged with the source are still here. Why? ....Why not? When you have eternity it matters not what you do within this illusion called time and this illusionary 3rd dimensional construct called earth.

[Cartomancer]

I think everything would get evened out for the good in just a short time. Just because there were no police wouldn't mean that bad people would dominate. People would band together to protect themselves. You would see some of those going overboard and hanging someone for drunk in public or something but eventually it would all work out for the best. The way we do law enforcement is not questioned by the public and meanwhile half of the shows on tv make them look like hereos.

There has been a defininte move to control us more and more as time goes on. I don't like it.

[christian]

I am ready, but I tend to agree with you, most people still seem to be very attached to the artificial order the matrix generates for them and would most probably be very lost without that. Unprepared minds must necessarily have problems with changes, but at some point sticking to the old ways for the sake of not having chaos is not really an option anymore, as the old ways are generating an increasing amount of chaos themselves.

http://matheplanet.com/matheplanet/nuke/html/uploads/5/7723_graph1.JPG

blue = old paradigm
pink = new paradigm
x-axis = time
y-axis= chaos/suffering

It's about finding the convergence point of the blue and pink to know when to (physically) fully commit to the new paradigm. I mean, right now I would hardly advise people to not pay taxes or not obey laws, even if they are criminal. Whom would it serve it you end up in jail now? But at some point, civil disobedience and the purposeful enactment of a new paradigm through personal commitment etc. might be a necessary step to take. If we do it all really well and it is all super smooth, changes will happen because a majority of people made up their minds and consciously choose to create a new paradigm. I choose not to give up hope in regard to this yet, the momentum is surely on the side of love, peace and harmony - there is an awakening happening.

[RMorgan]

Hey Chris,

I agree. Every society is cyclic. It seems to me that we´re indeed close to a major change.

I really don´t know if we´ll be able to handle a revolution without major bursts of violence, though.

What is still not clear for me, and for most part of our great philosophers, is that if the human being is violent by nature or not.

If we´re naturally violent, then this violence is beyond good and evil, it´s beyond judgement, since it´s natural. In this case, judging us would be the same as judging a lion.

The big question is; if we´re violent by nature, is there any equally natural way for us to control this violent impulses, so we can move towards a peaceful society?

We have tried religions and they didn´t work. We have tried laws and they are not working as well. What else could we try?

If the human being is not violent by nature, then we could work it out simply by re-education.

However, the evidence pointing to the contrary is overwhelming, since humans show violent behavior, in different levels, even in isolated tribes and small scale communities.

Cheers,

Raf.

[aranuk]

I read this a couple of days ago in the Daily Mail (yes, I know...;) ) - but it seems relevant to the OP.

One in eight of the population admit they have no sense of moral rectitude, a survey has found.
They said No when asked if they were ‘a moral person who knows the difference between right and wrong and most often chooses the right course of action’.
The figure shot up to one in five when the question was asked in London, home to City bankers and Westminster politicians.
But in Scotland only one person in 15 put themselves among the bad guys.
Overall, women claimed to be more moral than men. Just over one in ten women said they were not guided by any sense of right and wrong, compared to nearly one in seven men.
Two-thirds of us think the moral standards of the nation are withering away.
According to the survey of 2,000 people carried out for the TCM cable movie channel, 12.55 per cent of the county said no when they were asked the question: are you a moral person?
The question was qualified as someone who ‘knows the difference between right and wrong and most often chooses the right course of action?’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149075/The-thousands-Britons-don-t-moral-compass-One-admit-bad-people.html#ixzz1w5W6O3kt

Now do you all believe me when I say that Scots are more moral than the English? :p

Saint Stan:confused:

[Fred Steeves]

What is still not clear for me, and for most part of our great philosophers, is that the human being is violent by nature or not.


I am thoroughly convinced that being prone to violence is not our inherant nature, that we've been hijacked by the matrix. I think my own story bears this out. Just four years ago, if I would have come across a bumper sticker that read "War Is The Answer", it would have been on the back of my truck in a New York minute. Once the awakening process began, it was like pulling the drain in a tub to release that monstrous mindset back to the four winds. Sorry guys, you just lost another one.(LOL)

I also don't see many people on these forums doing the battle cry for war against the NWO, and these are people much more familiar with the history of atrocities than most. So I would say that the more we move to reclaim our true nature, the further removed we become from our false violent nature.

Cheers,
Fred

[RMorgan]

What is still not clear for me, and for most part of our great philosophers, is that the human being is violent by nature or not.


I am thoroughly convinced that being prone to violence is not our inherant nature, that we've been hijacked by the matrix. I think my own story bears this out. Just four years ago, if I would have come across a bumper sticker that read "War Is The Answer", it would have been on the back of my truck in a New York minute. Once the awakening process began, it was like pulling the drain in a tub to release that monstrous mindset back to the four winds. Sorry guys, you just lost another one.(LOL)

I also don't see many people on these forums doing the battle cry for war against the NWO, and these are people much more familiar with the history of atrocities than most. So I would say that the more we move to reclaim our true nature, the further removed we become from our false violent nature.

Cheers,
Fred

Hey Fred,

This raises another important point.

If we´re not naturally violent, how far have we been "domesticated" until violence become part of our natural behavior?

Metaphorically, we could talk about wolves and dogs.

Initially, wolves were domesticated for thousands of years, until they ended up as what we know as domestic dogs.

Dogs, when released in nature, don´t have so much of their natural instincts to survive on their own, differently from wolves.

Dogs often die without human masters to take care of them.

So are we, humans, after being "domesticated" and transformed into a violent species, able to return to our natural non-violent state?

I mean, in terms of conditioning/brainwashing, there clearly is a point of no return. So, how far have we been brainwashed/conditioned/domesticated?

Cheers,

Raf.

[christian]

What is still not clear for me, and for most part of our great philosophers, is that the human being is violent by nature or not.

If we´re naturally violent, then this violence is beyond good and evil, it´s beyond judgement, since it´s natural. In this case, judging us would be the same as judging a lion.

The big question is; if we´re violent by nature, is there any equally natural way for us to control this violent impulses, so we can move towards a peaceful society?

We have tried religions and they didn´t work. We have tried laws and they are not working as well. What else could we try?

Excellent questions. I think it's safe to say, that a lot of the destructive tendencies right now present on earth are not genuine but imposed, as Don Juan says:



We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don’t do so...
Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary and egomaniacal.

-- from http://www.metahistory.org/gnostique/gnosticastaneda/CCgnosis.php
There are also methods described how to defend oneself against their influence.

I do see those "mud-shadows" and I always thought it was just glitches in my ability to perceive auras, which doesn't really make sense, as I realized before, that they influence people they connect with in a negative way, but I kind of didn't want to further pursue this line of investigation. Reading the descriptions from Don Juan and the Nag Hammadi texts were then impressive pieces of information to me. They are all over the place, virtually everybody is influenced by them. When they attach to someone, including myself, it seems to me, like the people then feel kind of smart and that what they are saying or doing due to the influence benefits them in some way, when actually it boils down to the stereotypical reptilian brain type behaviour -- which still is seen as smart by a lot of people, they say it's what it takes, to be successful in life. Needless to say, that people usually think the thoughts are their own and that they are not aware of the fact, that they are being influenced.

Breaking free of the predator's influence is eventually a matter of (meditative) willpower in my opinion.

Another convenient opportunity to link to Houman's archon thread:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?40941-Horus-Ra-as-the-Archontic-Alien-Parasite-A-follow-up-interview-with-Maarit

-------

Back to the question of what we could try, I think it's generally a subtle but profound and penetrating approach that will do it. People cannot be forced to act ethically responsible, it really boils down to living a decent life, individually helping others and being a benevolent teacher and not worrying about how long it will take, I think this is the only approach, that can eventually bear the real fruit of a matured humanity.

Trying to make men right by imposing laws and using coercion abuses mankind's mind. Besides, even the less complex beings on earth find ways around the constraints man imposes on them, so of course men finds ways around artificial constructs as well. A genuinely responsible society is born through the individuals deciding to go that way: Choosing to become awake and aware and act based on that. Those are the two major stumbling blocks, I guess. It's all about personal choices, we all have the higher and the lower elements within us and it's about what we strive after. I cannot make choices for others, so I choose for myself, stick to it and the rest is something "time" will tell.

It's the hardest way to go in a way, but the only way that has a light at the end of the tunnel, that is not a train.

(Global meditation starting right ahead: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?45652-Global-Unified-Meditation-Today-Sunday-27th-May)

[Carmen]

I agree with you Steve. Our human personality nature can be quite primitive, violent and base! But that is not our true nature. Those humans in contact, in the realization of their Inner Self, naturally move away from any need to be controlled by an outside force. Morality, honesty, integrity, peace, fearlessness, are all natural attributes of our Inner Self. These attributes occur natually with the realization of our Limitless Self. They are never forced in any way. Outside authority and opinion becomes Inner Authority and Knowing.

[Eram]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Hamlet
William Shakespeare


Are we ready?
How are we to know?

It would need a miracle to have this change occur without total chaos at this point in time.
Then again... miracles happen every day.
The whole existence is one big miracle.

Our thinking small doesn't serve us in the shift that we're going through.

The more we stay open for the unimaginable, the more we might be surprised in a pleasant way.

[Fred Steeves]

I mean, in terms of conditioning/brainwashing, there clearly is a point of no return. So, how far have we been brainwashed/conditioned/domesticated?


In my opinion, completely. There does however seem to be that fail safe, that teeny weeny little burning coal of our true nature that can never be compromised, and it's always there waiting, in all of us. Of course the ones who gave us their minds are well aware of this little coal, and it must be a truly terrifying thought.

[white wizard]

I do not share some of Avalonians responses for the way you think people will react.
I believe people will come together in a major disruption rather then kill each other
one by one until only the strongest most ruthless people survive in marauding
hordes.

I do think there would be violence though, but on a more of people fighting
each other for things they want, such as food and supplies. In any given
situation people would band together to prevent rioting and looting in there
neighborhoods and either enforce common law until order returns or become a
policing force of there own. I have seen this happen in situations were disasters
occur people come together and protect each other rather then fight each other.

In a situation of complete shut down of all systems the smart people would come
together, because there is strength in numbers. In this situation chances are you
would have to go with what the group as a whole wanted to do. Even though
you might have some bad apples there, the good people who know what right
and wrong is would still have a say in things and most likely prevent the group
from doing anything as far as wreck less killing and hurting people.

The first thing that would happen is a compiling of supplies and setting up
communications with other groups and if possible left over law enforcement
services and government services. At this point a group depending on size
and type of people would then begin organizing itself for long term survival
or short term depending on type of event. This is the critical point in a group
formation, because leaders are established depending on skills and knowledge.

In these situations prior police and military will most likely gain control and lead the
group. Contrary to what you might think this is a good thing. I know a lot of military and police officers and there trained in enforcement of common law
and doing whats right.

Police officers would be the best for being group leader, because there trained to
handle situations of unrest and keep the peace. The prior or current military
people would most likely be used for group defense and offense if your in a big
group, which wants to restore order and safety in hostile areas.

I think if you are in a big city it would definitely be a more hostile situation and your best bet would be to leave until some type of order is restored or a large
group can come in a restore stability. Small to medium towns will most likely come
together more quickly, because if you live in one like me you know we look out
for each other. It is also more sustainable in a small town people store more food and have live stock on hand which will hopefully last until the group figures out
a way to sustain themselves by living off the land.

Most towns will probably become small self sustaining well armed communities and
depending on group resources safe havens for people leaving cities. Chances are
they will be turning away more people than accepting so you have to make yourself look desirable to them while and at the same time make it so people
do not wanna rob you while you are traveling.

I have enough food on hand for 3 months and enough protection to make myself
a very undesirable target. I believe it would take my town of 7,000 about a week
after the event to come together well enough to restore decent law and order.
most people have three days food on hand and won't start stealing until two days
without it so hopefully by then we get things together and there is not too much violence.

[RMorgan]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Hamlet
William Shakespeare


Are we ready?
How are we to know?

It would need a miracle to have this change occur without total chaos at this point in time.
Then again... miracles happen every day.
The whole existence is one big miracle.

Our thinking small doesn't serve us in the shift that we're going through.

The more we stay open for the unimaginable, the more we might be surprised in a pleasant way.

Hey mate,

I agree and I always keep my mind open for any possibility!

However, there´s not such thing as "thinking small".

Thinking is always amazing!

Besides, there´s no way to measure thought, to conclude if it is small or big. ;)

If we don´t make difficult questions, if we don´t think, we would be just like rocks; and rocks don´t care about evolution, they just roll to wherever the circumstances push them.

Unfortunately, most people behave exactly like rocks.

Cheers,

Raf.


In my opinion, completely. There does however seem to be that fail safe, that teeny weeny little burning coal of our true nature that can never be compromised, and it's always there waiting, in all of us. Of course the ones who gave us their minds are well aware of this little coal, and it must be a truly terrifying thought.

In my opinion, you´re correct, Fred.

However, the more we wait, the more "that teeny weeny little burning coal of our true nature" becomes fragile and weak, and, eventually, it will fade away.

Cheers,

Raf.

[Ba-ba-Ra]

I read this a couple of days ago in the Daily Mail (yes, I know...;) ) - but it seems relevant to the OP.

[I][SIZE="3"][COLOR="#4b0082"]One in eight of the population admit they have no sense of moral rectitude, a survey has found.



Hi Tarka, I am always personally suspicious of surveys. Often those taking them were hired to come up with a specific conclusion. In this case perhaps to convince us through fear that we need the police and the must become more aggressive to control us.

That being said, it's a complicated subject. Drugs factor in as drug addicts will often do anything to get their fix. (but again, who is supplying the drugs - lots of proof that it is the PTB) Also, as long as they keep us locked into an obvious unjust economical and judicial system - lots of resentment will rise up.

I know many on this forum saw the Zeitgeist Movement as not good - but it did have many good points. They interviewed many psychologist, anthropoligists, etc and what they concluded was: Man is not immoral by nature, but becomes that way through life experiences. Of course, you could say based on what I said earlier about surveys - this is what they wanted to prove, but it's definitely worth a watch. I have personally seen how something as simple as lack of proper nutrition can chemically change a person's behavior.

[Sierra]

Maybe someone can confirm something for me. I heard that the American system of government is based in part, on an Native American system, with one glaring omission, that a council of Indian women existed within the system, with the power to veto war.

I've also heard over the years, that we are one of three planets in our galaxy, that war with their own species.

No, I don't think we will stop being violent, not on an individual level. But damn it would be so wonderful if we'd quit going to war with one another. That alone, would release energy and resources, to make life better where we could actually see a difference on a global scale. It's the collective will that has to change. And the inertia is enormous. Easier to join the army to make a living, easier to get a job to harass people going through foreclosure, easier to frack the land next door, easier to put depleted plutonium in bullets for no other reason than ... (you get the idea) and until we start taking each other's survival into consideration, that inertia and acceptance of violence on a global scale will continue to rule (imo).

Many of the posts above, address the issue of survival. What I find particularly disgusting, is that for the most part, it is the already_rich_nations, waging war on the poor. While rich nations no longer own other nations (are there any "colonies" left?), they still use their economic clout to cause wars (We, the Americans, are THE weapon makers of the world, and we sell our products in such a way, that allows us to rape and pillage the countries under the control of those "on our side" (you buy our weapons, you starve, enslave, kill your people, you sell us your natural resources cheaply, and we'll make you, our regime puppet, richer than your wildest dreams. Oh yeah, lets make a deal!)

One at a time, we can choose to not do harm. This requires awareness, a refusal to be ignorant. When we choose to do this, the choice enters the collective, and gets passed down to the next generation. Just waiting for the 100th monkey to tip the balance.

Yeah, we'll get there. Two steps forward, one step back, we lurch along. It makes me nervous though, that the current cultural cycle is in a "dumb down" phase. Not good. Ignorance is deadly. What gives me hope, is that choosing to do no harm aligns with powerful energy that is not available to TPTB. And as NancyV points out, we have eternity to figure it out. I also believe and have faith, that many species have gone before in ways we wish to go. It is possible to create a planet of peace and abundance.

This slouching towards Bethlehem is such a drag.

Sierra

[Deega]

Thanks Raf for this interesting, challenging Tread. If we remove the police from the street, it would probably be catastrophic to start with.

But, with time, people would make allegiance, would work in creating security network where a philosophy would prevail, my security is assured if my neighbour security is assured, so, I have the responsibility to look over the security of my neighbour. It sure wouldn’t be easy to start with, but in time, it would be pleasing to feel that a whole community strive for the security of all its members.


Are we violent by nature or we are conditioned to be violent?

First, there is a part of us that is animal, we have the seed to be violent, and also, I think that we have been programmed or conditioned to be violent if need be.

But, we have what’s needed to overcome, a soul, a spirit that can make a difference with «love».

All the best to you.

Deega

[RMorgan]

I know many on this forum saw the Zeitgeist Movement as not good - but it did have many good points. They interviewed many psychologist, anthropoligists, etc and what they concluded was: Man is not immoral by nature, but becomes that way through life experiences.

This is an important point, my friend.

There´s a huge difference between being immoral and being violent.

Violence is not immoral, if it´s natural.

A lion, when killing another animal, is not immoral, it´s just violent.

A agree that immorality is highly subject to conditioning. I agree with it 99.9%.

However, violence is another thing.

If the human animal is violent by nature or not, is a question that our philosophy is yet to answer.

Cheers,

Raf.


Thanks Raf for this interesting, challenging Tread. If we remove the police from the street, it would probably be catastrophic to start with.

But, with time, people would make allegiance, would work in creating security network where a philosophy would prevail, my security is assured if my neighbour security is assured, so, I have the responsibility to look over the security of my neighbour. It sure wouldn’t be easy to start with, but in time, it would be pleasing to feel that a whole community strive for the security of all its members.


Are we violent by nature or we are conditioned to be violent?

First, there is a part of us that is animal, we have the seed to be violent, and also, I think that we have been programmed or conditioned to be violent if need be.

But, we have what’s needed to overcome, a soul, a spirit that can make a difference with «love».

All the best to you.

Deega

Hey Deega,

That´s another interesting point.

I agree. If for some reason, things become uncontrollable, we would be able to organize ourselves into small relatively secure cells and communities.

However, will we be able to form a society, or will just make a social regression and go back living in tribal social structures?

If we menage to reorganize society, will it be the same old? Will it be better or worse than our current one?

Cheers,

Raf.

[Cartomancer]

Here's how to defeat the police state:

16564

[RMorgan]

Here's how to defeat the police state:

16564

Hey Cartomancer,

I´m not talking about the police state itself.

I´m talking about if we actually need law enforcement or if we could still organize a society without needing one.

Of course, along this thread, many other equally important questions were raised.

Cheers,

Raf.

[meeradas]

Can only speak for myself:
Violence isn't natural.
Being confronted with it quite early in this life,
i didn't get it, and i have still not got it nowadays.
I had to learn how to deal with it, like everyone here;
even learnt to use & used it once to stop harassment [did the job] -
still, the feeling that came with it is something i can only call 'totally alien'.
Again, that's just me.

To reorganize this here... there ain't even consensus in my street, amongst neighbors.

[Deega]

In response to RAF post 28.

Thanks Raf, if we have all (technology, works, what we have now to live) to continue our living, it would probably be a reorganized society that strive to preserve the security of all members. But if on the other hand, we are at lost with what is available to us now!, it would probably be a very different world. If we don’t have electricity, and we are not able to meet our basic needs, that would be a very challenging world, first for the new-born and older people, we are not prepared for this type of world, it would means, be ready to suffer for a while.


If we menage to reorganize society, will it be the same old?
Will it be better or worse than our current one?

If the Financial World is still holding the reign of decision making, it would tend to have a similar taste…!, if a new way of reward is found where all the sacred ressources of the Earth are put to value for the benefit of all, then, it might be different, hopefully..!

To be better than the one we have, would necessitate the following : children are borned in a «loving» societial world, the fundamental value that motivates people work is «ressources valuation_sacredness», that I am responsible to the security of my fellow citizen – that would entail that we «together» will live a better life – secured, that every human being are sacred and be treated that way, and the list is endless.

But, it seems that this dream of a better life is just a dream..!, or maybe someone can make a difference in working inwardly such that he may attained pleasurable living in attitudinal standing..!, who knows, we are more than we think, we were programmed to think less of who we are, we need to regain our power.

All the best to you.

Deega

[Carmen]

No RMorgan, the lion is not violent, it's hungry!! Very few animals kill just for the sake of killing, they kill to eat! There are exceptions, ferrets kill for the sake of killing which is why I have no hesitation in dealing to them! Wolves kill to eat, whilst domesticated dogs will kill sheep just for fun!!

Nature is in balance with it's animal species. Man upsets that balance by his control and attitude.

Actually there are checks and balances. The animal nature of man brought under the guidance/influence of his Inner Self is transformed and changed. The animal nature without this inner guidance eventually degenerates to the point where it destroys itself. Nature does not support that which does not evolve and grow as she evolves and grows.

[NancyV]

I consider a judgment that human aggression and violence are immoral or unnatural to be a denial of reality. As Raf has said, a lion cannot be judged immoral when it kills for survival. No animal, including humans, can be judged immoral when it kills if it is motivated by survival. Of course you may judge any killing as immoral but I consider that to be ignorant. As long as we are in a dimension of physical life and death we will kill to survive. Every time we eat we are eating the life of another, be it animal or plant. We humans thrive on consuming life. Every time we breathe or drink (unless you're drinking coca cola) we are ingesting living organisms.

It seems that natural human aggression is being used against us not only by any beings (perhaps archons and/or ET's among others) who are attempting to pervert our natural instincts to the point where we find it easy to kill for reasons other than survival, but it is also, perhaps inadvertently, being used against us by those who insist we are not naturally aggressive and violent and who persist in judging those who are more obviously aggressive and capable of violence. In this way they are attempting, deliberately or ignorantly, to instill a sense of guilt and shame for our natural tendencies and survival instincts.

A few of my favorite books on human evolution are The Territorial Imperative and African Genesis by Robert Ardry and The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. When I read these books decades ago, they made good sense to me. Of course anyone is entitled to their opinion of how humans evolved and what are our natural inherent human survival instincts. But I don't see how anyone would think that a fragile human could survive against saber tooth tigers, pterodactyls, various dinosaurs and other dangerous animals without becoming a superior survivor and predator... and more dangerous than the animals that like to eat us.

If one refuses to accept their dual nature then one is denying a part of who we are in this duality. Accepting that humans are violent is not denying that we are also highly spiritual, loving and caring. I like this quote from Robert Ardry:

The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses. No creature who began as a mathematical improbability, who was selected through millions of years of unprecedented environmental hardship and change for ruggedness, ruthlessness, cunning, and adaptability, and who in the short ten thousand years of what we may call civilization has achieved such wonders as we find about us, may be regarded as a creature without promise.

[Ba-ba-Ra]

But, it seems that this dream of a better life is just a dream..!, or maybe someone can make a difference in working inwardly such that he may attained pleasurable living in attitudinal standing..!, who knows, we are more than we think, we were programmed to think less of who we are, we need to regain our power.

All the best to you.

Deega

Yes Deega, I agree. I believe the power of man lies in our dreams, ideals and visions. Just when things seem at their worse, another Ghandi, Hiawatha, or Thomas Paine emmerges. I'm not saying wait for another one of these men, but to try to become one or educate our children to become one - or at least allow for the belief in the possibility of a greater future for humanity.

There was a conversation once between Beethoven and, I believe, Goethe. Beethoven was going on and on about what a terrible place the world had become. After listening at length, Goethe replied: I agree entirely with what you are saying, but I don't see how your spousing it regularly is doing anything to make it better.

I'm not saying we should stick our heads in the sand and deny, but instead to ask ourselves daily: "What am I doing to make this planet a better place? Am I reacting with violence (knee-jerk reactions) to those around me. Violence comes in many forms. Yelling at our children when we're frustrated, making snide remarks to friends, etc. When we see someone is upset with someone or about something, do we try to calm them down or do we work them up. If we understand the nature of energy, we could individually do much to dispurse violence.

Conversely, convincing ourselves we are violent by nature - where is that taking us?

[Deega]

I'm not saying we should stick our heads in the sand and deny, but instead to ask ourselves daily: "What am I doing to make this planet a better place? Am I reacting with violence (knee-jerk reactions) to those around me. Violence comes in many forms. Yelling at our children when we're frustrated, making snide remarks to friends, etc. When we see someone is upset with someone or about something, do we try to calm them down or do we work them up. If we understand the nature of energy, we could individually do much to dispurse violence.

Conversely, convincing ourselves we are violent by nature - where is that taking us?


Thanks Ba-Ba-Ra, interesting post, here is a few comments on part of it. Concur fully with «what am I doing to make this planet a better place?...violence. Yes!, unfortunately, aren’t we not to often, at lost, with patience, with tolerance, with forgiveness, with love to others!

But I would add that it stands also for all the natural resources we need to survive. What is our grain of salt..?, to preserved, to nurtured, to seed, our resources for tomorrow?, what a challenge we have, don’t we?

All the best to you.

Deega

[SilentFeathers]

I'll stick to my original response opinions/comments in this thread, we have had the spirit and common sense knocked out of us for the most part and have been brainwashed in many areas, which has knocked reality for many out of their world and they live in an delusional state. We have become insane and believe we are not even a part of nature and that we are above nature, that we are better than the grand design and can control it, (more insanity), that we are super beings who can control nature and every other aspect of reality....we have lost the ancient knowledge that we are all one and of the earth and ether, we are one with the universe and all things, and that going against nature and the universal law will only cause us to end up, well......look around you.........

There's no denying we are aggressive and "evil" in nature now, but were we in the beginning? were we genetically altered by a creepy alien race or another race of earth who are in hiding now?......no one knows.......find religion and you'll have all the answers! lol! (I'm being sarcastic) but I am also disgusted with what we have become, what we do to each other and the earth, what we do to all the life forms on this planet....and very few of us walk around in shame, many even laugh about how destructive we have become and have absolutely no remorse.

So yes, we are an insane species for the most part, look around you and call me a liar! and no, we are not ready yet! Ascension? yeah right, get real, find reality! We are not even close to becoming an enlightened super race with all the powers of the universe in my opinion, we can't even keep our own house( earth) in order and destroy everything we touch.

Alien intervention? yeah right! they avoid us like a plague or don't even notice us, the ones that do notice us or interact in some way with us are probably are aggressive killer like relatives.

There's my 2 cents worth and rant :)

Added: besides all the chemicals we digest/breath and also that we are a nation or species of prescription drug addicts, it's no wonder insanity has become so common....

[Carmody]

I come from a town of about 5000 people. We would, as usual, police ourselves. That is, if I was in that town..... but I'm not.

The dangers of city, is that city removes the fabric of community. With respect to the current human behavioral model, that is.

where does the flip occur?

I think it occurs when you see the first 'stranger' even though you both live in the same town. A person whom you cannot 'name', or 'place'.

This seems to happen at somewhere around the 10k population mark, maybe slightly lower.

It is the lack of all identification in any form of connection, that brings the beginnings of chaos, IMO.

The connections, as minimal as they may be, hold the fabric of community..together. They stretch to a tenuous state, somewhere around the 10k population point.

In this, I mean an ISOLATED 10k (or lower) population.

[mosquito]

Thanks Raf for an interesting and intelligent question. My answer has 2 totally different perspectives, that of the Westerner, born and raised in Britain, and that of the outsider, living in China.

First off - As a Brit. I'd say that Western society is in no way ready, for many of the reasons people have already highlighted. I think mnost people who live in the West will agree that violent crime especially is on the increase, which seems to be coupled with a general attitude of indifference to the plight of others. But I think the situation is very complex; the population has definitely become conditioned to seeing increased amounts of sufferening on the TV, and the entertainment industry has successfully ensured that an entire generation accept violence as an acceptable form of entertainment. Another factor is the attitude of the lawmakers. Something which has caused my hackles to rise in recent years is the adoption by Btitish and other Western societies of the hideous American term "Law enforcement". The job of the police in a civilized society is to protect citizens and maintain order, it IS NOT to enforce laws ! In my not-at-all-bloody-humble opinion, any law which needs enforcing needs to be SCRAPPED ! But this is just a symptom of the problem, I believe I'm right in saying that the Blair government introduced more legislation than any other government in history. Think about it - they introduce more laws, criminalizing more things, OF COURSE the crime rate goes up, because more and more "normal" people are now labelled as criminals ! My attitude is that governments like these fully deserve to have the people rebel and act lawlessly, I consider it my moral duty to break as many Blair-laws as possible. I don't smoke, but If I ever returned to Britain, I WOULD, simply because they say I can't.

The second perspective is from China which, contrary to what most of you want to believe, is A TOTALLY LAWLESS SOCIETY ! Walk around any city and you will see "laws" being flouted, people going about their daily business with complete disregard to what the legislators say they can and can't do. The police are scarcely visible, and they bear no resemblance to their armed, fascist counterparts in America. The police here are NOT law enforcers, they are seen as a public security service, and while I say that laws are openly flouted, that holds true so long as public order and safety aren't put at risk. If the police here operated with the same enthusiasm as the American or British police, Chinese society would collapse, because the majority of people would be in prison, including ALL of the traffic police (none of whom are capable of driving, nor obeying the traffic laws which everyone ignores). Occasionally, they have a crack-down, and they will spend an afternoon ticketing as many drivers as possible, or moving pavement vendors orwhatever, but for the most part they are non-intrusive. To my knowledge, the only people the police will take immediate action against is Falun Gong practitioners. But that's just typical of the contradictions of China.

People here generally live peacefully, I could walk around town all day and all night with a 100 yuan note taped to my back, and when I got home it would still be there. I can also walk around at night without being attacked and without seeing any violence. (In contrast to the last town in Britain where I lived (Halifax) where nearly every time I went out in the evening, I could see fresh blood stains on the pavements.) I live in a school with over 6,000 students, I've been here for 2 years, and in that time have seen ONE fight.

Dare I conclude by saying that Chinese (and possible other Asian societies) are self-policing to some extent, there are things that people here would never dream of doing, simply because it goes against their cultural values. There is still a sense of society here, something which is sadly lacking in a lot of Western countries.

Are we ready ? As a society of pawns/sheep, kept in ignorence and treated like mere subjects, NO. As a species of people who deserve to be treated with respect, who deserve sovereignty over their own bodies and lives, YES

[SilentFeathers]

Maybe someone can confirm something for me. I heard that the American system of government is based in part, on an Native American system, with one glaring omission, that a council of Indian women existed within the system, with the power to veto war.


Sierra

Gayanashagowa or the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee) Six Nations (Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, the Seneca and Tuscarora) is the oral constitution whereby the Iroquois Confederacy was bound together. The law was written on wampum belts, conceived by Deganwidah, known as The Great Peacemaker, and his spokesman Hiawatha. The original five member nations ratified this constitution near present-day Victor, New York, with the sixth nation (the Tuscarora) being added in ca. 1720.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Law_of_Peace

This curricular unit looks at the influence one Native American culture had on the "Founding Fathers" ideas about democracy, governmental structures, the rights of the individual and the public good. Using primary sources, students will compare and contrast the differences between Native American and European cultures and how this affected governance. This will lead to a systematic comparison of the Iroquois Confederacy's Great Law of Peace and the US Constitution.
http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/

[Kindred]

I would suggest that, among sentient species, violence is a Choice... a Taught/Learned Choice. Teachings that are Further enforced by example, causing Fear, and, if 'properly trained', a desire for revenge/retribution.

This 'training' can be 'unlearned', but only through Love, and a recognition that All Life is deserving of compassion and understanding.

Can We Learn to Love?

I believe that, Yes, we Can... given the opportunity to Understand, and See the benefits that become manifested in our communities.

I remain committed to such Understandings, in comport with Free Will.

In Unity, Peace and LOVE

[Ba-ba-Ra]

I would suggest that, among sentient species, violence is a Choice... a Taught/Learned Choice. Teachings that are Further enforced by example, causing Fear, and, if 'properly trained', a desire for revenge/retribution.

This 'training' can be 'unlearned', but only through Love, and a recognition that All Life is deserving of compassion and understanding.

Can We Learn to Love?

I believe that, Yes, we Can... given the opportunity to Understand, and See the benefits that become manifested in our communities.

I remain committed to such Understandings, in comport with Free Will.

In Unity, Peace and LOVE

Thank you Kindred, I feel and graciously accept the love you send.

I would like to add: There has been much said in the last decade about the biology of beliefs by doctors (Bruce Lipton) channellers (Abraham through Esther Hicks) and scientist turned philosopher (Gregg Brayden) to name only a few. There seems to be a concensus among those mentioned that : In Order to See it, You Must First Believe it.

I would encourage all to give that thought some consideration and at least allow for the possibility of a peaceful world. I thank you.

[gord]

Maybe someone can confirm something for me. I heard that the American system of government is based in part, on an Native American system, with one glaring omission, that a council of Indian women existed within the system, with the power to veto war.


Sierra

Gayanashagowa or the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee) Six Nations (Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, the Seneca and Tuscarora) is the oral constitution whereby the Iroquois Confederacy was bound together. The law was written on wampum belts, conceived by Deganwidah, known as The Great Peacemaker, and his spokesman Hiawatha. The original five member nations ratified this constitution near present-day Victor, New York, with the sixth nation (the Tuscarora) being added in ca. 1720.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Law_of_Peace

This curricular unit looks at the influence one Native American culture had on the "Founding Fathers" ideas about democracy, governmental structures, the rights of the individual and the public good. Using primary sources, students will compare and contrast the differences between Native American and European cultures and how this affected governance. This will lead to a systematic comparison of the Iroquois Confederacy's Great Law of Peace and the US Constitution.
http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/
There's an interesting book about this on line called Forgotten Founders: (https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.html)Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution (https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.html) by Bruce E. Johansen
pdf (https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.pdf) version (https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FF.pdf)

Here is just the introduction part of the exerpts page (https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFexcerpts.html):


Excerpts from: F O R G O T T E N
F O U N D E R S By Bruce E. Johansen
Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois
and the Rationale for the
American Revolution

I N T R O D U C T I O N



It is now time for a destructive order to be reversed, and it is well to inform other races that the aboriginal cultures of North America were not devoid of beauty. Futhermore, in denying the Indian his ancestral rights and heritages the white race is but robbing itself. America can be revived, rejuvenated, by recognizing a Native School of thought.
--
Chief Luther Standing Bear
Lakota (Sioux)
Land of the Spotted Eagle
The seeds for this book were sown in my mind during a late-summer day in 1975, by a young American Indian whose name I've long since forgotten. As a reporter for the Seattle Times, I had been researching a series of articles on Washington State Indian tribes. The research took me to Evergreen State College in Olympia, where a young woman, an undergraduate in the American Indian studies program, told me in passing that the Iroquois had played a key role in the evolution of American democracy.
The idea at first struck me as disingenuous. I considered myself decently educated in American history, and to the best of my knowledge, government for and by the people had been invented by white men in powdered wigs. I asked the young woman where she had come by her information.
"My grandmother told me," she said. That was hardly the kind of source one could use for a newspaper story. I asked whether she knew of any other sources. "You're the investigative reporter," she said. "You find them."
Back at the city desk, treed cats and petty crime were much more newsworthy than two-centuries-past revels in the woods the width of a continent away. For a time I forgot the meeting at Evergreen, but never completely. The woman's challenge stayed with me through another year at the Times, the writing of a book on American Indians, and most of a Ph.D. program at the University of Washington. I collected tantalizing shreds -- a piece of a quotation from Benjamin Franklin here, an allegation there. Individually, these meant little. Together, however, they began to assume the outline of a plausible argument that the Iroquois had indeed played a key role in the ideological birth of the United States, especially through Franklin's advocacy of federal union.
Late in 1978, the time came to venture the topic for my Ph.D. dissertation in history and communications. I proposed an investigation of the role that Iroquois political and social thought had played in the thinking of Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Members of my supervisory committee were not enthusiastic. Doubtless out of concern for my academic safety, I was advised to test my water wings a little closer to the dock of established knowledge. The professors, however, did not deny my request. Rather, I was invited to flail as far out as I might before returning to the dock, colder, wetter, and presumably wiser.
I plunged in, reading the published and unpublished papers of Franklin and Jefferson, along with all manner of revolutionary history, Iroquois ethnology, and whatever else came my way. Wandering through a maze of footnotes, I early on found an article by Felix Cohen, published in 1952. Cohen, probably the most outstanding scholar of American Indian law of his or any other age, argued the thesis I was investigating in the American Scholar. Like the Indian student I had encountered more than three years earlier, he seemed to be laying down the gauntlet -- providing a few enticing leads (summarized here in chapter one), with no footnotes or any other documentation.
After several months of research, I found two dozen scholars who had raised the question since 1851, usually in the context of studies with other objectives. Many of them urged further study of the American Indians' (especially the Iroquois') contribution to the nation's formative ideology, particularly the ideas of federal union, public opinion in governance, political liberty, and the government's role in guaranteeing citizens' well-being -- "happiness," in the eighteenth-century sense.
The most recent of these suggestions came through Donald Grinde, whose The Iroquois and the Founding of the American Nation (1979) reached me in the midst of my research. Grinde summarized much of what had been written to date, reserving special attention for Franklin, and then wrote that "more needs to be done, especially if America continues to view itself as a distinct entity set apart from many of the values of Western civilization." He also suggested that such a study could help dissolve negative stereotypes that many Euro-Americans still harbor toward American Indians' mental abilities and heritage.
By this time, I was past worrying whether I had a story to tell. The question was how to tell it: how to engage readers (the first of whom would be my skeptical professors) with history from a new angle; how to overcome the sense of implausibility that I had felt when the idea of American Indian contributions to the national revolutionary heritage was first presented to me.
Immersion in the records of the time had surprised me. I had not realized how tightly Franklin's experience with the Iroquois had been woven into his development of revolutionary theory and his advocacy of federal union. To understand how all this had come to be, I had to remove myself as much as possible from the assumptions of the twentieth century, to try to visualize America as Franklin knew it.
I would need to describe the Iroquois he knew, not celluloid caricatures concocted from bogus history, but well-organized polities governed by a system that one contemporary of Franklin's, Cadwallader Colden, wrote had "outdone the Romans." Colden was writing of a social and political system so old that the immigrant Europeans knew nothing of its origins -- a federal union of five (and later six) Indian nations that had put into practice concepts of popular participation and natural rights that the European savants had thus far only theorized. The Iroquoian system, expressed through its constitution, "The Great Law of Peace," rested on assumptions foreign to the monarchies of Europe: it regarded leaders as servants of the people, rather than their masters, and made provisions for the leaders' impeachment for errant behavior. The Iroquois' law and custom upheld freedom of expression in political and religious matters, and it forbade the unauthorized entry of homes. It provided for political participation by women and the relatively equitable distribution of wealth. These distinctly democratic tendencies sound familiar in light of subsequent American political history -- yet few people today (other than American Indians and students of their heritage) know that a republic existed on our soil before anyone here had ever heard of John Locke, or Cato, the Magna Charta, Rousseau, Franklin, or Jefferson.
To describe the Iroquoian system would not be enough, however. I would have to show how the unique geopolitical context of the mid-eighteenth century brought together Iroquois and Colonial leaders -- the dean of whom was Franklin -- in an atmosphere favoring the communication of political and social ideas: how, in essence, the American frontier became a laboratory for democracy precisely at a time when Colonial leaders were searching for alternatives to what they regarded as European tyranny and class stratification.
Once assembled, the pieces of this historical puzzle assumed an amazingly fine fit. The Iroquois, the premier Indian military power in eastern North America, occupied a pivotal geographical position between the rival French of the St. Lawrence Valley and the English of the Eastern Seaboard. Barely a million Anglo-Americans lived in communities scattered along the East Coast, islands in a sea of American Indian peoples that stretched far inland, as far as anyone who spoke English then knew, into the boundless mountains and forests of a continent much larger than Europe. The days when Euro-Americans could not have survived in America without Indian help had passed, but the new Americans still were learning to wear Indian clothing, eat Indian corn and potatoes, and follow Indian trails and watercourses, using Indian snowshoes and canoes. Indians and Europeans were more often at peace than at war -- a fact missed by telescoped history that focuses on conflict.
At times, Indian peace was as important to the history of the continent as Indian war, and the mid-eighteenth century was such a time. Out of English efforts at alliance with the Iroquois came a need for treaty councils, which brought together leaders of both cultures. And from the earliest days of his professional life, Franklin was drawn to the diplomatic and ideological interchange of these councils -- first as a printer of their proceedings, then as a Colonial envoy, the beginning of one of the most distinguished diplomatic careers in American history. Out of these councils grew an early campaign by Franklin for Colonial union on a federal model, very similar to the Iroquois system.
Contact with Indians and their ways of ordering life left a definite imprint on Franklin and others who were seeking, during the prerevolutionary period, alternatives to a European order against which revolution would be made. To Jefferson, as well as Franklin, the Indians had what the colonists wanted: societies free of oppression and class stratification. The Iroquois and other Indian nations fired the imaginations of the revolution's architects. As Henry Steele Commager has written, America acted the Enlightenment as European radicals dreamed it. Extensive, intimate contact with Indian nations was a major reason for this difference.
This book has two major purposes. First, it seeks to weave a few new threads into the tapestry of American revolutionary history, to begin the telling of a larger story that has lain largely forgotten, scattered around dusty archives, for more than two centuries. By arguing that American Indians (principally the Iroquois) played a major role in shaping the ideas of Franklin (and thus, the American Revolution) I do not mean to demean or denigrate European influences. I mean not to subtract from the existing record, but to add an indigenous aspect, to show how America has been a creation of all its peoples.
In the telling, this story also seeks to demolish what remains of stereotypical assumptions that American Indians were somehow too simpleminded to engage in effective social and political organization. No one may doubt any longer that there has been more to history, much more, than the simple opposition of "savagery" and "civilization." History's popular writers have served us with many kinds of savages, noble and vicious, "good Indians" and "bad Indians," nearly always as beings too preoccupied with the essentials of the hunt to engage in philosophy and statecraft.
This was simply not the case. Franklin and his fellow founders knew differently. They learned from American Indians, by assimilating into their vision of the future, aspects of American Indian wisdom and beauty. Our task is to relearn history as they experienced it, in all its richness and complexity, and thereby to arrive at a more complete understanding of what we were, what we are, and what we may become.

-- Bruce E. Johansen
Seattle, Washington
July 1981