The Apple of Discord, from Homeric myth (“to the fairest” – Helen of Troy), is the same as the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “In the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)
There are many ways to express the original ideas of yang and yin, SOLVE ET COAGULA, expand and contract, etc., but an interesting one, from the point of view of social philosophy, is the distinction between Sharpeners and Levelers. The history of social and economic movement can be seen very clearly as the progressive interplay between sharpeners and levelers. When it comes to politics, Left and Right don’t really explain it – are you a sharpener or a leveler? For example, one problem of the Jews is that they have always been considered excessive sharpeners. Fascism, as it seems to be used lately, is just extreme sharpening. I was listening to a talk on fascism recently, and the speaker mentioned the line, “equality is a myth.” Are we all equal, or what?
But that’s the whole essence of the problem. The leveler says, “we are all equal to anyone else on the planet.” The sharpener says, “Behold, I will separate the sheep from the goats (– knowing good and evil).”
Alternative to the view that we are all equal, is the view that, on the contrary, there is a great amount of variance which may be observed on many levels of value among people of the world. This was widely taken for granted a century ago and earlier, but by now social, economic, and demographic changes have created a whole new world. So, the world is changing; that much is clear. But is this a good thing or not? And where is it going to go from here?
Any program for the reversal of the imminent death of most life on the planet will have to include planting trees, and limiting or reducing the number of people on the planet. The earth has exceeded its carrying capacity many years ago, and is now raging out of control due to the devastating loss of the trees, and the corresponding growth of people.
The biological health of our planet can be measured by the growth of the trees. When our forests and trees were at their fullest extent, our planet was at its greatest health, biologically, and it has been declining in health ever since. And now our planet is dying because so many of the trees are gone. – and the topsoil is gone; and the small animals are gone; and the human race is on the way out. Not only must we restore tree cover to the earth, and do so very quickly, but the whole planet must be cultivated as a garden. Our lives must be in tune with the garden all the time, and in every way. All food sold must be organically grown; chemical fertilizers must give way to organically derived processes, etc.
It will take a long time to repair the biological health of the planet – perhaps a couple of centuries at least to recover, even if a huge tree-planting effort were immediately under way. It is a lot easier and faster to destroy a forest than it is to grow it back.
So, how can there be any process by which it may be decided, and by whom, how the next generation of people on the planet can be limited? Who will be allowed to have children, and how many? Any attempt to apply an idea to this task will be met with overwhelming obstacles. So, finally, it can only proceed according to that universal abstraction, Money, as the vehicle of regulation. That means just what it sounds like it means – that if you have the financial resources to raise children, you will be able to do so. Those who do not have such resources will refrain from having children, if having children would be a financial burden.
This is a policy and a trend that will work its way out very gradually over the years (as it has already been going on for many years now), and there is, of course, a very obvious Darwinism about this.
But that is where the State comes in, to limit and regulate the sharpeners, and provide leveling solutions for everyone else. In December of 2017, the Trump Reality Show trundles along, hurtling the country and the world who knows where? The sharpeners are way out of control here.
And yet, it is consternating for me to follow the career of Hun Sen of Cambodia, who is on his way to becoming perpetual despot and tyrant. If I go back to my serene and idyllic beach in Cambodia, it will be under a regime as bogus as anything the Moron-in-Chief can throw at us over here. As I look around the world, almost every regime is totally corrupt, but the problem with the Donald is that he presides over a country with enough power to destroy the world.
Good luck, poor little earth.
The world needs an international leveler to take out such loose cannons as Donald Trump, Netanyahu, Erdogan, Hun Sen, Duterte, etc.
The situation of the earth is getting more desperate with each passing day, no thanks to the climate change deniers or war mongers. We are literally living through the death throes of the planet, as it is unable to cope first with the devastating loss of the trees, and then with the onslaught of all those people and their increasingly dangerous toys. The fabric of life is breaking down in so many parts of the world, as our planet hurtles out of control. If there is to be any hope at all of reversing this slide into chaos and oblivion, the whole earth, with its trees, plants, animals, and people, must be cultivated as a single garden, and there must be one Gardener, who derives his authority from God, who will survey the whole earth and its living systems for the good of all.
I have suggested a method of selecting this “Advocate for the Tree and Avatar of God” as a Seminary of selected students who will self-select one of their number whom they recognize as having the hand of God upon him or her. The Seminary is designed as an alchemical vessel in which the manifestation of God on earth can be conjured as a deliberate act of classical magic. Since the students will understand that, it will happen.
The Seminary can be started before anyone knows about it. It doesn’t have to have any political authority – it is intended to acquire its own authority as the people of the earth give it their allegiance, in preference to Donald Trump, Hun Sen, Duterte, Netanyahu, or any of the other yahoos of that ilk.
