And the Way to Build
Common Sense in
Personal Life and International Community
Personal Life and International Community
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
In
family life, local politics or the community of nations, the practice of scapegoating
helps us live the illusion that we are infallible, and truth belongs to us.
“Anyone
who disagrees with me is obviously wrong”, says the optimistic fool.
Such
an emotional pattern is comfortable in the short-term, in one’s family, among
friends and in politics. It later leads to disaster, but it is initially
pleasing to think we don’t need to question ourselves. There is no reason to learn
anything from our own mistakes. Those
who think differently deserve our automatic contempt.
In
every form of collective life, persistent attacks against this or that personality
are scapegoating mechanisms. They are a subtle sort of voodoo. A false image of one’s opponent is created by repeating
baseless accusations or insults. Such an image of the adversary is then
persistently attacked, playing the role of a voodoo doll.
In a country
where this type of political tactics is dominant, the spirit of democracy is at
risk. When such a lack of veracity is not unmasked in the international
community, the principle of dialogue among nations is questioned and the danger
of war arises. If a Western country with nuclear weapons indulges in such
psychological games against another nation with a nuclear arsenal, its
government is suffering from a remarkable absence of lucidity.
Do We Need a Bogeyman?
The
unjust persecution of those who do not fit in a forced consensus is not a recent phenomenon. For long centuries, the
Jews have been one of the chief scapegoats in Christian nations, but we cannot
say the Jewish nation is alone in that. In more recent centuries they have had
the company of black people, black nations, Asians and smaller Christian groups
(like the Amish), to name a few examples. During the Cold War, the Russians
were the great enemy. The land of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy played the convenient
role of international bogeyman-in-chief and “source of every problem”. Of
course, the United States did the same favor to the Russian Comrades.
The
mechanism of using an individual, a group or nation as a scapegoat is mainly
subconscious in some cases, at least for many persons involved, for it deals
with the instinctive part of soul. It seeks - among other goals - to hide some
important truth, a truth which, if properly accepted, could pave the way to the
growth in wisdom of the larger community.
Scapegoating
is a failed attempt to hide an uncomfortable fact from oneself and from others.
It tries to delete a painful reality by stimulating fear from the unknown. The feeling of inner insecurity will be
disguised and covered up by the attitude of contempt and hatred. Let us see an
example. By using your Deep State and your media to convincingly fabricate an
international enemy, you can produce a global political climate of constant
insecurity, which allows you to stimulate your military-industrial complex
while keeping under closer control your own citizens.
The
trick works for a time. In the right
moment, truth becomes apparent and failure cannot be avoided any longer. At any
point it is worth remembering the fundamental law of life: what goes around
comes around. What is sowed, is reaped sooner or later. Preserving a feeling of
respect for our adversaries allows us to be realistic and balanced enough to learn
from our own mistakes.
The
presence of good sense in our lives is protected by the practice of sincerity,
not by organized hatred. Falsehood is not a good adviser. An enduring anger
destroys one’s lucidity. Every journalist knows that truthfulness is the first
casualty in war, while peace makes sincerity possible.
The
roots of peace are in one’s mind and soul. When good sense prevails, dishonest
manipulation of community feelings is left aside and the leadership understands
that the practice of hate makes one become morally inferior to the one who is hated.
In the long term, inner strength makes the difference. Those who play the most
significant role from a spiritual point of view are often the weakest on the
material plane, and may be used as scapegoats.
In
the correct practice of Eastern martial arts, however, there is no room for
fear or rage. These two opposite feelings are seen as inseparable, and they
easily become one another. An impersonal good will for all beings constitutes
the root-source of self-control and the basic factor in an effective practice
of martial arts.
When
the focus of one’s perception works from the point of view of the higher levels
of life, one’s external situation tends to naturally improve. We then do not
have the unfortunate idea of seeking for scapegoats on whom to project our
frustrations. In one’s family as among nations, abandoning hatred is better
than the practice of finger-pointing.
The
dialogue among countries is similar to the dialogue among the members of a
small group. It needs mutual sincerity, even when there is serious disagreement.
The Writings of Henry Kissinger
Henry
Kissinger is a singularly experienced statesman. He was directly involved both
in the Vietnam War and the peace that ended it. Kissinger played a key role in
the preparatory steps for the end of Cold War. While describing world history
in his books, he shows the precarious alternation between periods of lucidity
and equilibrium, on one hand, and paranoia, hatred and violence, on the
other. The two attitudes are usually
combined in complex ways.
Kissinger
examines in his writings some of the ways to transcend the political use of
fear and hatred in international politics. He also has a number of friends in
Russia and had several friendly meetings with Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. In a
book first published in 2014, Kissinger says:
“Our
age is insistently, at times desperately, in pursuit of a concept of world
order. Chaos threatens side by side with unprecedented interdependence: in the spread of weapons of mass destruction,
the disintegration of states, the impact of environmental depredations, the
persistence of genocidal practices, and the spread of new technologies
threatening to drive conflict beyond human control or comprehension.”
Political
leaders often become the thoughtless puppets of organized propaganda. Kissinger
adds:
“New
methods of accessing and communicating information unite regions as never
before and project events globally - but in a manner that inhibits reflection,
demanding of leaders that they register instantaneous reactions in a form
expressible in slogans. Are we facing a period in which forces beyond the
restraints of any order determine the future?” [1]
The World Scene Now
The
time has come to use common sense.
“Every
age” - says Kissinger - “has its leitmotif, a set of beliefs that explains the
universe, which inspires or consoles the individual by providing an explanation
for the multiplicity of events impinging on him.”
“In
the medieval period”, he adds, “it was religion; in the Enlightenment, it was
Reason; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was nationalism combined
with a view of history as a motivating force. Science and technology are the
governing concepts of our age. They have brought about advances in human
well-being unprecedented in history. Their evolution transcends traditional
cultural constraints. Yet they have also produced weapons capable of destroying
mankind.” [2]
As
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote during the 18th century, more important than the
amount of knowledge we may think we have, is the way we use it. Knowledge can
be wasted away in unwise and harmful goals. Yet “integrity is even more
precious to good people than erudition is to scholars”. [3]
Kissinger
writes:
“Technology
has brought about a means of communication permitting instantaneous contact
between individuals or institutions in every part of the globe as well as the
storage and retrieval of vast quantities of information at the touch of a
button. Yet by what purposes is this technology informed?”
He
then poses other questions:
* “What
happens to international order if technology has become such a part of everyday
life that it defines its own universe as the sole relevant one?”
* “Is
the destructiveness of modern weapons technology so vast that a common fear may
unite mankind in order to eliminate the scourge of war? Or will possession of
these weapons create a permanent foreboding?”
* “Will
the rapidity and scope of communication break down barriers between societies
and individuals and provide transparency of such magnitude that the age-old
dreams of a human community will come into being? Or will the opposite happen:
Will mankind, amidst weapons of mass destruction, networked transparency, and
the absence of privacy, propel itself into a world without limits or order,
careening through crises without comprehending them?” [4]
This
is yet to be decided.
According
to Kissinger, the time-honoured principles of international equilibrium among
different powers - which make a sense of community possible - “are being
challenged on all sides, sometimes in the name of world order itself”. [5]
The
task of billions of good-willing people is to stop looking at life through the
lens of narrow selfishness, individual and collective. Cultural differences and
paradoxes are part of our richness and have to be preserved.
A
prudent and brotherly view of the world can be shared by all. Uniformity of thought is not desirable. A
social contract and a common feeling will have to be gradually established
among contrasting nations which, however, must deserve to be seen as reliable. Before world cooperation wins the
day, small preparatory steps will be necessary.
NOTES:
[1] “World Order”, Henry Kissinger, Penguin Books,
2014, 420 pp., see p. 02.
[2] “World Order”, Henry Kissinger, Penguin Books, 2014, p. 330.
[3] “Discourse on
the Sciences and the Arts”, in the book “The Social Contract and the First and
Second Discourses”, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Tale University Press, New Haven and
London, copyright 2002, 315 pp., see p. 47.
[4] “World Order”,
2014, pp. 330-331.
[5] “World Order”,
2014, p. 7.
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The article “How We Fabricate Scapegoats” was first published on 25
January 2022 in the theosophical blog at The Times of Israel. Its
publication in the associated websites took place on 04 February 2022.
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Read more:
* On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians
(an article by Vladimir Putin).
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