Democracy is the worst form of government, except for any other kind.
—Winston Churchill
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
—James Madison
This month’s topic for Robert Hruzek’s writing challenge is What I Learned From Government. The first thing that comes to my mind is Plato’s The Republic, one of the most influential books on political philosophy ever written. I read it when I was 15… I was trying to develop my own philosophy of life, one of my main goals in high school. What better place to start than Plato, I thought.
The book was over my head, of course, but I’ve always figured if I wasn’t stretching my mind I wasn’t learning very much. The book was disappointing in one sense…it wasn’t much help in figuring out what a meaningful life would be like for me. But it also taught me one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned:
We can’t trust authority, no matter how exalted, to do our thinking for us.
Plato, of course, was an anti-democrat…the democrats had killed his beloved Socrates. So a good part of The Republic is devoted to designing an ideal government, an alternative to the evils of democracy. I, of course, had been raised on the glories of democracy and the American way, and I realized I didn’t know enough to resolve the conflict in my own mind. I simply didn’t have enough data to judge, and I wasn’t going to get it by reading theoretical discussions. So even though I read a bit more philosophy, I became much more interested in history and biography… a way of testing ideas against the real world.
That choice has enriched my life. So even though I didn’t understand it very well, The Republic is one of the books that has had the greatest influence on my life. I’m especially grateful nowadays as I sort through all the political rhetoric.
What About You?
What books have influenced you? How do you check out people’s stories about the world?
The two books that have influenced me most in my life are 1. Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl and 2. The Bhagwath Geetha. The latter is an amazing source of inspiration and I keep going back to it all the time. I have a detailed home study course of it authored by a Scholar of renown.
The former is a classic and at every possible opportunity, I recommend it to people. I have in my library, all the books written by Frankl and can attest that they have profoundly changed my attitude to life and all that it has to offer me.
I have just ordered a book, Prisoners of our thoughts, by his student Alex Pattakos. This too talks about the same things that Frankl has written about, but I shall know more once I read it.
I do not understand your question about how to check out the stories of people. I suppose that I simply accept the stories.
rummusers last blog post..Realities Of The Past.
rummuser,
🙂 Thanks for bringing back some wonderful memories. I still remember finding Man’s Search For Meaning in the stacks of the Cornell library when I was in my mid-twenties. And even though I’ve never read the whole thing, The Bhagwath Geetha (we call it the Bhagavada Gita) had an even bigger impact on me. I was still in high school when I first heard of it, and the message I got from it was, “Play your part well and let go of the results.” That to me was a much saner approach than all of the emphasis on goal setting and achievement urged on us by our society.
About checking out stories…by that I simply mean we can’t believe everything we, and other people, think and say. As I mentioned in This Mystery Called Life, I believe reality is more complicated than our little minds can handle, so we need to check out the assumptions we’re making. Just think of all the examples in literature where the conflict is caused by people not understanding one another and instead of getting curious and learning more about what was going on, they assumed the pictures in their minds were the whole truth.
rummuser,
I would love to hear more about the home study course and how it inspires you. What effect is having on your every day life?
Jean, the home study course is simply a translation of the BG on a verse to verse basis with detailed commentary and explanation based on Adi Shankara’s commentary on the BG. My Guru’s Guru, Swami Dayananda Saraswati is considered to be a living Master of Vedanta. The home study course that I follow is available in the USA at http://books.arshavidya.org/cgi-bin/process/shop/display/main?type=display&subtype=category&arg=category&value=Arsha%20Vidya%20Books%2C%20Audio%20%26%20Video
The BG is a complete guide to living. It teaches three paths to total freedom and I am sure that if you go through the list of books that are available in the link that I have given, you will find something that will be of use to you.
In my life, I now live a joyful life almost free of stress, I understand life and keep striving towards achieving that state of being when I will be totally free. This concept is different from other streams of philosophical thought. The idea is to achieve heaven on earth!
rummuser,
Thanks. In fact I’m not looking for new ideas. I’m more interested in how you practice in your everyday life. I agree with Thich Nhat Hanh:
So how exactly do you practice?
No.1. My attitude now is that I am here for a purpose. This purpose unfolds everyday through a number of events that require a response from me. The response is usually action. The attitude towards the action is that it is my duty to act but it is not up to me to decide on the reward for the work done. When the reward is to my liking or more, it is a blessing and when it is not, there is something that is acting in a way to make the unfolding process longer for a purpose which will also eventually unfold. So, there is no great elation or despair. I am simply in equanimity.
2. The sense of personal doership is not a precondition to live a life of purpose. The understanding that the greatest freedom is to find freedom from the FEAR of God. Acceptance that I do nothing and He does everything.
3. Living life in the understanding that “Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof.”
4. Love is wanting to do everything for the other/s without slightest expectation of anything in return.
Sounds crazy? That is how I live Jean. I am not a Saint however and I do slip off into very human reactions now and then, but, much quicker than for most others, wisdom dawns and I shrug off whatever has bothered me and get back to equanimity. I am very much better than when my quest started 15 years ago. Everyday, it gets better. Who knows? I may find the elusive enlightenment that I am assured is within the realms of possibility.
rummusers last blog post..A Magnificent Story.
rummuser,
“Sounds crazy?” Not for me. To me it sounds like a spiritual approach to life. Don’t forget, this post is about “Happiness as a spiritual practice.”
As I’ve mentioned,I don’t think in terms of God, but I do believe in playing my part well and letting go of the results. It seems to me that’s what you’re saying in #1 above. I would interpret #3 as “Get your ego out of the way”, a lifelong practice of mine. As you say, practicing doesn’t mean always doing it perfectly, and that’s all right, too. As for #4, I can tell when I’m in tune (see Staying in Tune when I feel overflowing with love that needs to be shared, with no strings attached, no feeling the other person has to do anything in return.
Sounds crazy? If so, you have some good company here. 🙂
The two books that have influenced me the most:
Gestalt Therapy by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman. A good enough theory of psychotherapy and exercises that apply it, all in 450 pages. It is an extraordinary achievement, still well ahead of most psychotherapy practise and over 50 years old!
Ethics of Freedom by Jacques Ellul. It was from reading this book that I came to understand freedom. Freedom is not happiness, neither is it contradiction.
I think Man’s Search for Meaning is one of the great books too.
Evans last blog post..None of My Business, But . . .
Evan,
🙂 Thanks. I tried looking up Ethics of Freedom but had trouble finding a review. What exactly does freedom mean to you? I think more in terms of creativity and joy than in freedom. But for a while one of my favorite mantras was “Freedom and connection, creativity and joy.” I wanted to stay connected to people I loved and who looked at, and lived, life differently than I did. On the other hand, I wasn’t about to give up my own approach. That issue eventually resolved itself and I no longer use the “freedom and connection” part. I still use creativity and joy because for me the two are inseparable.
I know something about Gestalt Therapy, but the therapeutic model never appealed to me. I think of humans as creative beings. We helped create our “selves” based on our personality and experience. So if what we’re doing isn’t working, my approach is to stand back, understand what’s going on, and try something else. My sense of self and identity isn’t completely static. It does change, and I have some say in how it changes. Again, thank you.
Hi Jean,
Roughly speaking I’m not of the view that choice exhausts freedom. I prefer to see it as ‘creative adherence to an inexhaustible good’. This has much more room for innovation I think.
Like you I don’t have a lot of time for gestalt therapy as practised. It is so dull, though has helped people I guess. It has been trapped by the middle class, has given up it socially innovative potential . . . I could go on about this for hours. But the book is simply awesome. The self is seen as the fluid contact of organism and environment – no sense of staticness. And creativity is given as (at least one) criterion of health. Please don’t let the bozos who think they are doing gestalt rob you of the richness of the book. OK, OK, I’m a fan, I know. And because of that I hate the way gestalt has been emasculated to prop up our current social insanity. I’ll stop preaching now.
Evan,
🙂 Thanks! I asked for your opinions because I wanted to hear them. I will check out Gestalt Therapy, as written by Perls et. al. I just tried ordering it from Interlibrary Loan.
Hi Jean,
I hope you love it. I do. It is written in an unusual style that some find difficult. This form is a result of the content in my view – highlighting awareness (whereas most books are written to be easy to swallow, if you see what I mean). Would love to hear what you make of it – whatever that is.
Evans last blog post..Cancer Roundup
Evan,
I just read a couple of reviews of the book at amazon.com and also found this site: http://www.g-gej.org/4-3/theoryoverview.html
The part that resonates with me is “each experience unfolds as a creative adjustment of the organism in the environment.” That’s the way I look at it, and the idea that children are molded by their experience always bothered me. It’s always been clear to me that the child has a lot to do with it. My sister and I have very different personalities, and our memories of growing up are vastly different. I also noticed years ago that I usually remember the best parts of my experiences, but that my view of childhood was largely negative. I had sense enough to check to see what was going on. What was the “payoff” for me to filter out all of the great times? The result was I started remembering a much more balanced picture.
I was attracted to psychosynthesis and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and even became a Master Practitioner of the latter. Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders, started off as a gestalt therapist. I remember once he said he was watching Perls once. Everyone was having a good time chatting with one another until Perls walked in. He said, “Who wants to do some work?” Immediately the whole room became serious and started focusing on what was wrong with them. Richard (and I) thought that was an unhealthy approach. Why not focus on what’s right and grow that part of ourselves. One thing I like about NLP is the emphasis on connecting with our resources.
Again, thanks for the great discussion.
Hi Jean,
Fritz was a pr*ck. And for all his preaching about wholism was quite a reductionist. He was an exhibitionist who delighted in playing guru while asking others not to play games. I think toward the end of his life he figured this out, but then he died. This is a story about how he died (it may be apocryphal but it is entirely believable): he was in hospital recovering from a heart attack and went to get up. The nurse told him he couldn’t get up yet. Fritz said I can do whatever I like. Got up and died.
The book I think is greater than the sum of its authors. My admiration is for Paul Goodman. Although Fritz did generate publicity and innovations in therapy – the empty chair(s) are extraordinary (people are still, STILL, ‘working through the transference’ and so on and on and on). His wife said that she could tell not just which years therapists had worked with Fritz but in which city – he had moved on and they were still copying Fritz. (She didn’t ask what Fritz contributed to this.)
My greatest love of the book is that it retains individual agency and doesn’t ignore social context. Let me know how you find it. I’d love to know.
I haven’t read The Republic but I sure like the quote “We can’t trust authority, no matter how exalted, to do our thinking for us.” It is true. We have to make conscious decisions ourselves and not let others take over what we need to do for our own lives.
Evelyn Lims last blog post..The Lipstick Indicator To Great Wealth
Thinking for ourselves is one of the greatest achievements in life. Teaching our children and others’ children how to do this is a great challenge. I too have studied philosophy a bit looking for something that would help to discover a meaningful life. What’s great is that your disappointment didn’t get you down, rather it spurred you forward to find ways to learn, apply and discover. I eventually concluded that what I most like about philosophy is what it does to my mind. It does stretch us a little. It’s not so much about knowledge as it is an experience. But you have underscored the key to gaining the knowledge and wisdom and meaning that we all seek. Thanks – this caused me to reflect, ponder and re-read parts of this great post.
B. Wildes last blog post..Parenting Advice – Beware of Halloween Treats
Evelyn,
I agree. There is social pressure to go along with the crowd, but I agree with Robert Louis Stevenson:
“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.”
B. Wilde,
Thanks! That’s what I’m hoping my posts will do, to get us all (including myself) to think a bit more deeply and to share with one another.
The part about teaching our children brings back some great memories. One of our favorite sayings used to be, “You have to learn to think!” My daughter came home from school disgusted one day. Apparently one of the bookshelves came down…it was one of those that just fit together, with no screws or nails. My daughter said she was the only one in the classroom, including the teacher, who could fix it. She was the only one who “knew how to think.” We weren’t trying to teach her to be a snob, but we were pleased that she had learned something from all of our family projects. (I’ll talk about them a bit more in my next post.)
We scarcely watched TV when she was young, but whenever we came across an ad my husband would ask her what she thought they were trying to sell, how were they trying to get her money? I can still picture the two of them discussing it.
I used to snuggle in bed with her at bedtime and we would discuss anything she wanted to think and talk about.
My recent, most life-altering books have been:
“Boundaries,” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
“You Can Heal Your Life,” by Louise Hay
“Leadership and Self Deception,” by the Arbinger Institute
“The Wisdom of the Enneagram,” authors Don Riso and Russ Hudson
They have all helped be a mirror for me to make some needed changes.
How do I check out people’s stories of the world? — I ask myself: “Do they match my understanding of God and his relationship with the world?” This does not mean I filter things through religion, doctrine, or church leadership, rather, I filter it through my relationship with God, because in the end, it is all about relationships.
SpaceAgeSage – Loris last blog post..Can the disconnect be stopped or is it too late?
Lori,
Thanks for joining in. I love the Enneagram, not quite as much as Myers-Briggs, but it gives great insights. There are things I probably wouldn’t understand about my husband without their clues. I think people are fascinating, and I can use all the help I can get. 🙂
I know what you mean about mirrors. Tools like the Enneagram the the MBTI are great helps, and for me so is listening to other people. When I really try to understand how they see the world it helps me clarify what I believe.
Thanks Jean, My son-in-law just completed his PhD in Philosophy. He’d love this:-) Spoken like a pro!
Ellen Webers last blog post..Obama Leads with the Brain in Mind
Ellen,
Thanks! What will your son-in-law do next? It must be exciting for him to finish his Ph.D. That’s a long slog.
Hi Jean and All,
One book the Holy Bible as long as I can recall I sought wisdom. Another is not a book but the Declaration Of Independance…. I think it is one of the most powerful documents written in the history of the USA. And confirms free independant thinking as a right.
It is definately a chore to sift through the political rhetoric. So much seems to be written poorly. All it takes is one, and/ or/ if /or one line.
Actually if there’s a place that powerful simplification in writing would be wise? That would be my choice!!! HA, HA, History rules there!
I agree history is a great teacher of the real world of men.
A book I’ve read about three years ago…Truth verses Falshood by David Hawkins… Hard read but once you get his rythym down its not so bad. He’s a buddhist and pyschologist. Done some work in diplomacy too. He has a series, they are all good.
I also liked the Enneagram.
Bhagavada Gita was enlightening…. I’ve read the one that was explained by Yogananda. Here’s one of the things that stuck out in one of Yoganada’s quotes, “The irony to him was that Indian’s followed Jesus’ teachings and American’s followed Krishna’s… ” I thought that was an intriguing statement. (I am paraphrasing from memory) Talk about curiosity making…
After reading all the comments here. I’ll be adding to the list of books to read. I just read some work on NLP though I also heard some negativity centered around it also. And was interested in some of the methods used. Wow Jean your an expert in that too…
Diane,
I just looked up David Hawkins at amazon and read some reviews for a couple of his books. He certainly has written a lot and has gotten good reviews.
About political rhetoric…I don’t pay much attention to it. Often politicians do completely different things from what they say in campaigns. In fact, even their past history isn’t always a good predictor. Bush was a unifier when he was governor of Texas, but when the Republicans gained control of Congress he decided he didn’t need to deal with the Democrats.
About NLP…it can be used for manipulation. In fact Bandler and Grinder used Virginia Satir as one of the people they studied. They noticed how she gained rapport and told her about it. She had been doing it unconsciously and was concerned once they made her aware of it. She wasn’t trying to manipulate. I’m not interested in NLP for interactions with other people, as a persuasion tool. I was interested in it for making changes in myself. I’m an experimentalist at heart, and like to see what works for me and what doesn’t. It’s one of my favorite hobbies.
Thanks for commenting. 🙂
Hi Jean,
I think being president is much different then being a governor. As they say the Senate changes the president not the other way around. After experiencing so many presidents not many have ever really been able to get their agendas through without all lot give. To me I wonder whether congress just loves the debate and doesn’t pay enough attention to the result. One thing I find intriguing is when a compassionate force like a mother or a father get a bill passed like Megan’s Law. It seems passion moves passed all of it in that instance. I often wonder why we don’t see more of it on different instances. Its funny to me that something that may affect only very small population gets worked out. But it feels that what would affect the greater good of the whole is somehow stymied in congress. There are so many issues where 100,000 people die each year and those are still not answered effectively and effeiciently.
After working years in on school boards. How many times the BIG congress passed bills sent no funds and made it up as they went along as far as accountabilty goes. The funny thing was the states had to no matter if adequate funds for it was there or not. It was often shocking to find out each time what was taking away from the kids each time one of those bills were passed. Or in our state they deferred payment to our scholl districts. And then to top it off never paid it. It makes you wonder alot about government and its systems and integrity. Thank God for good quality teachers.
That’s so interesting on the NLP. I like that an experimentalist. Kind of like Gandhi…autobiography. My experiment with truth.
Listening is really a key element of knowing someone else and yourself.
Diane
Diane,
There is a reason that Congress has such low approval ratings!
I’m guessing the Democrats in Congress will be as much of a challenge for Obama as the Republicans will be. That may be one reason the he chose Emanuel as his chief of staff. One thing is certain, we’re facing enough challenges that he has a chance of being one of our great presidents. Let’s all hope he’s up to the job.
Hi Jean
I went on line and read up on Virginia Satir. She sure has many accolades for her pyschotherapy work. Thanks for the link up.
Yes, isn’t that the truth. There sure are alot of challenges to meet for him. It will be interesting to watch. He is very charismatic and that always seems to be of value in Congress.
I have to admit to studying Plato’s Republic as well – but in university, in a philosophy course. Well worth the effort, and still a great lesson: too many people think that the government should “protect” us from everything and take away our need to be responsible for ourselves. In fact, the government ends up having to legislate against stupidity! (Can you believe the kinds of warning labels we have now, because we aren’t expected to think for ourselves?) I’d like to see less government regulation in the lives of individuals – and perhaps a bit more, judiciously selected, for large organizations. Either that, or make the organizations be as responsible, from top to bottom, as any individual – which isn’t the case right now.
Monique Attingers last blog post..When You Are Sick And Have Food Allergies
In Australia, most of the excessive caution is due to fears about insurance – corporates rather than government. It may be different in the US of course.
Monique,
I agree we’ve gone a bit too far about trying to protect people from having to take responsibility, and I also agree with Evan that a lot of the warnings are to keep the companies from being sued. What specifically are you thinking of in terms of government regulation of individuals?
Evan,
I agree, the excess caution is because of the fear of law suits. A lot of those law suits are unfair, but if we didn’t have them companies would be even less responsible than some of them are now. I can’t see any easy answer.
Thank you both for writing.