(Politics and the Human Spirit – Installment 2)

If  we humans were noble creatures driven by our spiritual inclinations toward trust and good will, all of our governments would evolve in ways that enrich the human experience… in ways that foster conditions in society so that everyone’s needs are taken care of.

If we were savage creatures driven only by our hormones and egos, operating on our fears and our material and carnal desires, then there’d be little need or desire for government. We’d all be living mostly in survival mode under dangerous conditions.

As it is, we’re noble-savage creatures—brilliant souls navigating in rugged carnal bodies… trying to get by in a rough world in which life kills life to survive—so politics gets complicated here on Earth. We don’t always have a clear idea about whether government is a good thing or a bad thing… a facilitator of public safety and stability, or an obstruction to human affairs.

And we sometimes get a little testy about our government and its proper role in society.

Public Service and Private Enterprise

Public service is the political term or concept most closely related to our noble side. It involves government efforts to help people thrive and to minimize human suffering… for example, health, education, and welfare programs.

Private enterprise is the political term most closely related to our savage side. It defines an environment in which individuals and self-motivated groups compete among themselves with minimal government involvement or interference.

Why do we get so emotional about these two concepts?

Well, again, it’s our noble-savage nature.

There’s a part within every human being that wants to feel safe and protected, like a child on its mother’s lap. It wants to revel in a state of complete love, trust, and devotion.

There’s another part within each of us that wants to break away from Mom… to go off and explore the adventures around us… not only to survive the dangers of the world, but to prevail.

Part of us loves to feel a oneness with everyone and everything. That’s the finest spiritual part of us at the center of our being. Our soul… our connection to the Source. Our noble side.

Part of us needs to individuate… to feel unique and to accept the challenges that life on Earth has to offer. That’s the animal part of us. Our hormones and ego. Our savage side.

Our noble side understands the value of public service.

Our savage side recognizes the importance of prevailing in an unforgiving world.

When we understand that little battle that’s going on inside each and every one of us, maybe it gets easier to understand the big battles raging between our political groups.

Transforming a society to lessen private enterprise and increase public service is sometimes called socializing, or socialism.

Transforming a society the other way—less public service and more private enterprise—is called privatization.

If a society moves too far in either direction, society starts to suffer.

Becoming too socialized—too heavy a reliance on public service—a society can become politically and economically weak in a savage world of competing nations.

Becoming too privatized—allowing excessive competition among its individuals and businesses—a society can also weaken as the less fortunate individuals and groups within society get ground up and destroyed by the competition.

The noble-savage nature of humanity requires a healthy balance between public service and private enterprise… within each of us, and within our social groups, including governments.

Into Perspective

In a recent post I shared an allegory by Konstantin Raudive, the famous Latvian afterlife researcher who died in 1974, then began informing ITC researchers on Earth, via telephone, computer, and radio, what life is like over there in the worlds beyond.

He compared life to an endless highway in which timeless spirits travel to all sorts of places. Life on Earth is like one service area along the way where people often get sidetracked for awhile. They grab the merchandise, overcrowd, mess up the services, and forget all about the vast roadway.

He suggested that people would be better off using Service Area Earth as it was intended… to rest up and plan the next leg of their awesome journeys.

Konstantin ended his message:

Every research, every science should have one underlying purpose: to inform and to serve the traveler.

Read the complete article…

I’d add government to that statement. The main role of every political system should be to inform and to serve “the traveler”… that is, the public. Make sure society has a good education system, a healthy infrastructure of transportation and communication networks, and a wholesome economic climate for manufacturing, healthcare, business, and housing… that sort of thing.

Regardless of political variations—capitalist or communist, democratic or socialistic, centralized or tribalistic…—governments at all levels should work together to sustain conditions for a stable society shared and operated by healthy, informed people and their private groups.

Competition should be not only allowed, but encouraged… but only to a point. If too many people start falling through the cracks into poverty, illness, and ignorance, you know that privatization has gone too far. At that point government has to ramp up the public service.

There’s indication that privatization may be going a bit too far in the USA today.

Read more here… and here….

Finally, on a lighter note, things can get gruesome when public service is abandoned….

http://youtu.be/9QuFnOYcy4E

Politics and the Human Spirit series:

1 Introduction     2 Privatization and the public good     3 Military     4 Information     5 Spirit of Society     6 Education     7 Regulation      8 Economics    9 Managing the World in the 21st Century  –  10 The carnal line between noble and savage   –  11 Embrace the divine; it’s where we shine  –  12 Who decides what?    –   13 Finally… good politics

Related articles:

Best and worst countries to be born  –   Election fraud 2012  –   Best and worst US presidents  –  Humor in politics  –  Biggest political news –  End of the American dream  –  Blown to bits in the computer age  –  Standards, the key to peace  –   What Obama and Stalin really have in common   –  Bad counsel and a short leash   –   Capital punishment & the human spirit