Tuesday, January 28, 2025

My reply to friend Arthur Clark, retired neurologist and professor emeritus at the University of Calgary, and founder/director of the Calgary Centre for Global Community" Fw: Connecting Family and Friends worldwide with the Butterfly Effect, the Doomsday Clock, and History in a Nutshell

                                                                            

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The older I become -- I'm now approaching 78 -- the more I value Eric Hoffer, who became a media phenom back in the '60s.
Oddly, it was British-born Xerox executive (Phil Sturman who opened up the company's Latin American division) who brought Hoffer to my attention while I was still a teenager.

Hoffer may be the most important, most overlooked philosopher in the American intellectual tradition.

His scope and perspicacity is breathtaking

"How Self-Taught Philosopher-Longshoreman Eric Hoffer Judges A Government, Or A Way Of Life"

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During my high school years, I attended Aquinas Institute in Rochester, New York, the same school (founded in 1904) where several generations of the Wegman (Supermarket) family have educated their kids.

It is clear to me that the caring ethic of "AQ" (as graduates call it) is foundational to the goodness of the Wegman's business model.

In brief, care for all of Creation - the environment, Wegman's shoppers, the company's workers, the company's suppliers. Invest in education. Be persistently philanthropic.
Furthermore, it is no coincidence that Aquinas Institute is honored as a luminous educational institution because its patron, Thomas Aquinas (the foremost "Doctor of The Church"), held that "God is Truth."
To learn more about this foundational claim that "God is Truth," please look at this article from Johns Hopkins Univeristy. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/496672
Without Truth, we are -- at least metaphorically -- in league with The Prince of Darkness.
Furthermore, there is nothing in MAGA World that would make the pursuit of Truth -- reinforced by rigorous research, informed by The Scientific Method and committed to passing on a virtuous value system -- foundational to its educational aims

Instruction And Education Aim At Antipodes

"Trolls And The End Of Civilization As We Knew It"

A&W Hamburgers... And The End Of The World As We Knew It

Master Compendium Concerning Trump World's Active Antagonism To Truth, Passion For Falsehood, And Promotion Of Conspiracism To Undermine Truth, Knowing That The Resulting Chaos Will Foster Fascism

MAGA World is gullible to its core.
And consummate scam-artist-grifter Donald Trump knows that the presumptuousness of white, "conservative" "Christians" insures that "there's a sucker born every minute." (Trump "sounds" like a carnie barker because P.T. Barnum and he are cut from the same deceptive cloth.)
Dear Arthur

Once again, many thanks!

I did not know Bernie gave a reply to His Malignancy, and I am happy to have it.

Similarly, thanks for the Chris Hedges video: always good to know what Chris is thinking.

And the T.S Eliot quotation is wonderful. 

“I know that history at all times draws

The strangest consequence from remotest cause.”

-        T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

*****

Alan: Although the parallels are oblique at best, Eliot reminds me of some memes I 've created recently.


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When I posted the meme above to my Facebook page, I introduced with this passage: 

Great summary of Trump’s pending self-destruction.

2500 years ago, Chinese sage Lao Tzu said that “The profoundest truths are paradoxical.”

Get ready for the greatest paradox of all time - Trump crashing-and-burning because the totalitarian power he has so ardently sought (and has now won) will be the stumbling block that causes him to fall into the political abyss.


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Tell a friend!

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On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM Arthur Clark <awcimp@gmail.com> wrote:

“Each smallest act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time --affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo. Because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage, years later, and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.”  - Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye

 

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists announced on January 28 (today) that it has set the hands of the Doomsday Clock at 89 seconds to midnight, from its previous setting of 90 seconds to midnight – which until now had been the closest setting ever.  The knowledgeable observers of current events who make the decision are reminding us how quickly it can all come to an end.

Over the span of human history, empires and civilizations rise and fall.  In a commentary around the time of the recent US presidential inauguration, Chris Hedges gave an important overview of recent history, including his view that the American empire is coming to an end.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEFQyAqfjOQ 

  Bernie Sanders, who listened to the inauguration speech, gave a seven-minute comment on what he did not hear.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHH-KI2yk8s  What Donald Trump did not talk about tells us a lot about what he thinks is and is not important in the years ahead.  

Richard Wilkinson emphasized that inequality of wealth makes a society sick. Trump is not interested in curing that malady.  His way of thinking will exacerbate conflict within the United States.  Trump has also had a heated exchange with the Prime Minister of Denmark (a NATO country) about the idea that the United States should own Greenland; and his slap in the face to Canada, another NATO country, is well known. 

If there’s internal conflict, it reduces the ability to start an external conflict.  Paradoxically, then, by creating conflict within NATO and within the United States, Trump might actually be reducing the danger of World War III.   “Life is what happens while we are making other plans," as the expression goes.  History and life are full of surprises.

Learning the lessons of history is important.  In an article published almost a decade ago https://bit.ly/3PSszPf the author comments on how empires come to an end and mentions some of the books about the collapse of empire. 

We cannot predict the future in detail, and our ways of thinking about history are just ways of thinking.  History and life are full of surprises.  Many think that it’s presidents and prime ministers who make history, but I think that’s a small part of the story. 

The butterfly effect concept – tiny things lead to historic difference in outcomes – is woven into every hour of your day. That movie Sliding Doors makes the point.   The main character either makes it to the subway in time to get on before the sliding doors close or she doesn’t.  The movie then follows two parallel narratives depending on whether she did or didn’t.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da-Mizk86AE

By staying aware of how – in every hour of every day – little things make very significant differences, we can learn to improvise brilliantly.

If you smile at a stranger, it might save him from suicide.  If you smile at strangers frequently, it changes the culture.  Intentional cultural transformation can change the course of history.  That quote from Dean Koontz (above) states it in more detail. 

History will be what we make it.

 

“I know that history at all times draws

The strangest consequence from remotest cause.”

-        T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

 

Arthur

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