O Glory of the All-Glorious!

Please bear in mind that I am only speculating. My advice is to always be highly critical regarding human ideas and conclusions. Far-fetched, unsupportable, and absolute statements deserve extreme skepticism. Ultimately, my objective is to share certain unauthoritative personal reflections on texts through Heartfulness Inquiry™. Since I try not to take my views too seriously, neither should anyone else:

Part I of the book focuses upon the inevitable calamities which, according to my understanding, humanity will continue to undergo on its pathway to unity. The current Dispensation includes, within its scope, not just the Day of Resurrection. It also includes the Day of Judgment. Although the general thrust of the Baháʾí texts remains substantially optimistic, numerous struggles and difficult times might lie immediately ahead. The world, according to dear Baháʾuʾlláh, has sustained multiple cataclysms:

The Great Unraveling, the purification, of this time is, I believe, the passageway to global unity. In the near future, our collective birth pangs may become even more severe. Cultures, as we have seen throughout history, have risen, declined, and, ultimately, fallen. My own gut tells me that Western civilization, along with its materialistic ideologies (shared oppressive belief systems), will, in the not too distant future, go the way of the Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Aztecs, Romans, Athenians, and others. Fortunately, the world, as we have known it, could now be ending. There is no need for catastrophobia:

Shoghi Effendi, as the Guardian of the Cause of God, announced the end of nation-building. Subsequent attempts at forming nations have resulted from disunity, not from unity:

Through the Great Unraveling, the false consciousness of any religious, political, economic, religious, or other belief system contrary to the Will of God will be wiped away:

The light of Baháʾuʾlláh’s Revelation could, He wrote, appear in the ocean:

Through large-scale destruction and warfare in regions dominated by materialism and ungodliness, God will once again demonstrate His global dominion. In the Lord’s own time, the old world order, and those who serve and promote it, will, in some fashion, be destroyed. As Shoghi Effendi quoted the Blessed Beauty:

Similarly, in the heavenly words of dear Jesus and beloved Paul:

Destroying the world, however, does not necessarily refer to the annihilation of all, or even most, human life:

In other words, the destruction to come may be regional, not uniformly global. According to my understanding, spiritual factors will be brought into play. For reasons that are as yet unknown, various frigid regions of the world could become temperate. However, the people of Greenland and perhaps elsewhere may have a choice, reminiscent of humanity during Nōăḥ’s diluvian Dispensation, concerning the long-term continuation of their landmass. Please bear in mind that I am only offering one personal interpretation of this passage:

Ultimately, however, divine punishment will fall upon the just and the unjust alike:

Countries closely guard their secrets, especially their highly sensitive sources and methods of intelligence gathering. Yet, ironically, only months after U.S. President Barack Obama announced an end to the War on Terror, Edward Snowden began his revelations on the National Security Agency:

While witnessing the distressing news of political repression in the Middle East, with governments slaughtering their own citizens, I have sometimes recalled the last of these three Islāmic traditions (al-aḥādīṯ, the plural of al-ḥadīṯ), as quoted by Shoghi Effendi. The text could refer to the dreadful consequences of nuclear warfare or, perhaps, of natural disasters in predominantly Muslim countries. Splitting an atom is relatively easy. Putting it all back together is the problem:

Shoghi Effendi apparently anticipated that, given the dire circumstances surrounding a rapidly intensifying Cold War coupled with the American ideology of racism, the former Soviet Union would bomb cities in the United States. However, the key phrase in this quotation may be, “if allowed to drift”:

So what happened? Well, according to Baháʾuʾlláh and ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, peace and blessings be upon Them, fate, and perhaps also prophecy, can sometimes be impending or conditional:

In this case, although certain U.S. cities may be destroyed by other means, natural or humanly engineered, the Civil Rights Movement inspired significant changes in American race relations, including legislative reform. Conceivably, those improvements, while certainly lacking in many areas, were sufficient to avert a more immediate catastrophe. In spite of continuing problems, Americans did eventually elect a self-defined African American president. Therefore, the planetary timeline, or conditionally predestined course of events, might also have shifted due to these unforeseen circumstances.

On the other hand, one of the most notable historical features of the American Civil Rights Movement was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) during a time of terrible racial conflict in the United States. Section 4 of the Act required nine Southern states and certain other mostly Southern counties with long histories of racial discrimination to receive federal approval before making any electoral changes. On June 25, 2013, that section was unceremoniously struck down, in a 5-4 ruling, by the Supreme Court.

One admittedly effective provision was, perplexingly, gutted. Any divine retributions for human misdeads are, of course, known only to God, His Prophets, and His Chosen Ones. Without a Soviet Union, the punishment may be inflicted by other means. The South of the twenty-first century is, in many respects, different from the South of the 1960s. Yet the recent Southern record of attempted repression against minorities voters has been less then exemplary. However, if the old white South attempts to rise again, in a manner of speaking, much more blood might fill the streets.

In addition, ever since the end of school segregation and Jim Crow (segregation) laws in general, many white people have become increasingly fearful of Blacks, especially African American men. The institutionally racist undertones of describing inner cities as “jungles” appear to be lost on some people. Stand-your-ground laws, which allow people to kill based on a perceived threat, have been criticized as a legal justification for lynching in the twenty-first century:

Plainly, there will be no rapture, or physical translation into heaven, of the elect. Many, though obviously not all, of these supposed elect are some of the same people who are applauding the Supreme Court’s decision. If the major source of problems in an Age is social or sociological, not personal or psychological, then the effects of disobedience are felt by everyone, not just the supposed evildoers. The current Age of Transition might, in my opinion, be described as one from homo sapien to homo unitas. We will, through trials and ordeals, become a new race of men.

I am not a fan of imposing psychiatric, or clinical psychological, diagnoses on societies. Nevertheless, the celebration of personal liberty might be understood, metaphorically, as The Culture of Narcissism, the title of a bestseller written by historian Christopher Lasch (1932-1994). I found it, by chance, in a White Plains, New York, bookstore immediately after it was published in 1979. If anything, the book’s major thesis, the death of a competitive individualist culture through self-centeredness, is more relevant now in the twenty-first century. According to Lasch, people are becoming increasingly self-involved:

Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan’s The Demise of Guys presents many similar ideas. In my opinion, however, the authors have drawn some mistaken conclusions from the data. The problem is the cult of individualism, not the male gender. Both women and men have been struggling under the culture of narcissism. The significant difference, perhaps, is that women are usually socialized, during childhood, to be more gregarious than men. That one factor, it seems to me, may, in certain respects, have allowed women to be a bit less damaged by this narcissistic culture than men.

Elsewhere, elaborating on this theme, I wrote:

Men, like women, will participate in the unfoldment of a new planetary society. However, with all of the upheavals in male-dominated countries and corporations, we may be witnessing the death, globally, of specifically masculinized cultures, along with patriarchy or male dominance, and the birth of a more spiritually egalitarian civilization. The Demise of Guys strikes me as a reaction to these rapid social changes. In any event, anyone who resists the emergence of unity will, I suspect, experience some degree of inner discomfort. ʿAbduʾl-Bahá reportedly said:

Again, according to ʿAbduʾl-Bahá and confirmed in a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi:

A deep-seated and popular dissatisfaction with institutional leaders, including high-profile politicians and the industrialists of transnational corporations, are being fueled by the unapologetic wickedness of destructive ideologies, including predatory capitalism, pervasive racism, and militant nationalism. Anyone who dares to question the legitimacy of these systems might risk an immediate branding as unpatriotic or even irreligious. Thus, oppression, bigotry, and other evils have been sacralized. Under these deteriorating conditions, the enticement of anarchism, on the Left, and libertarianism (even anarcho-capitalism), on the Right, has become ever more seductive.

When my grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in New York City, they did not have a visa. Their names were taken down, and they were let in. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, U.S. immigration officials functioned mostly as processors and health inspectors. Quotas or waiting lists were unknown. The terms “illegal alien” and “undocumented worker” should become oxymorons. Provided that immigrants are not violent criminals, they should be processed and admitted. The spirit of the age, as prescribed by the Divine Physician, is unity. Any country which acts in conformity with that spirit will, in my opinion, be rewarded.

Conservatism is, frequently, dedicated to conserving the old and traditional. Many conservatives are conservatives precisely because they are opposed to multiculturalism or diversity:

The term “political correctness,” or “PC,” is used by some conservatives to criticize a supposed left-of-center intolerance of distasteful speech. What about teaching evolution in public schools, but not creation, for many conservative evangelicals? Why do some conservatives get absolutely livid at GSD (gender and sexual diversity) rights discussions in a public school? How does one explain the anger at medical doctors allegedly counseling women to have abortions without mentioning adoption or encouraging the mother to keep the child? Are conservatives who complain of a war on Christmas, when people say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” being politically correct?

Furthermore, despite the decline in unity, Baháʾís are encouraged and expected, contrary to the views of some anarchists and extreme libertarians, to put others before themselves and to be obedient to their governments:

Each of us occupies a front-row seat to one of the greatest dramas in human history – the great unraveling of a global economic and political order. Corporate capitalism, which was once widely imagined to have defeated Soviet communism in the Cold War, might, as some now fear, be on the verge of collapse. Shattering all illusions, the emperor, a marauding economic system born from human greed while disguised as a profit motive, has had no clothes. Revolutions, uprisings, political repression, and climate change are among its legacies of moral contradiction. The profit-based economic system is now tearing the Earth apart to sustain itself.

In 1954, Shoghi Effendi, the interpreter and Guardian of the Cause of God, condemned the cancerous growth of economic materialism, including both communism and the so-called free-market system:

Then, in 1985, the House of Justice ruled, by its divine authority, on the injustices of all oppressive economic systems whether East or West. So-called communism, or state capitalism as some have called it, has, with very few exceptions, already crumbled. Bourgeois corporate capitalism, which has now incorporated Mainland China and the republics of the former Soviet Union, is now struggling for its long-term survival. That system, with its avid supporters, could, through presently unfolding events or whenever dear Baháʾuʾlláh so wills, be the next to fall. Relatively powerless nations, such as North Korea, have, recognizing the West’s weakening, become seemingly fearless.

As Hollywood producer Oliver Stone brilliantly remarked:

Although God’s Will appears to be plainly evident in this regard, the fundamental problem is not, as this person claims, wage slavery through debt. The predicament is global capitalism itself:

Monetary debt is merely one of its many contradictions:

There is, however, no need to worry. God and His Prophets are in control. In any event, this world is merely a brief interlude between life in the fetus and the eternal realm to come. Until the remedy prescribed by the Divine Physician, Baháʾuʾlláh, is taken by humanity, the problems will continue and intensify:

From Stalin, to Mao, to Hitler, to a host of other despots, tyranny became one of the most pressing social problems of the twentieth century. Clearly, dictators continue to rule over some nations, but the success of totalitarianism and authoritarianism depends upon the official reinforcement of popular terror. Unabashed fearlessness is a threat to the continuation of any imperialist system. As absolutist states, along with democratic republics, descend into instability or chaos, many individuals have thrown caution to the wind, or, perhaps, economic and political panic has simply dwarfed other, less-immediate worries.

World War III, or whatever term one prefers, is, at least in its initial stages, being waged with drones, high-tech espionage, and computer hacking. In particular, the United States government, evidently fearful of a world cast into disorder and without the collective security of an obviously requred global government, continues its long-established imperialist role as “policeman of the world.” Have its methods always been ethical? In my view, no. The problem is that the a single nation, the U.S., is fulfilling a role which should be performed by a global government. The latest form of that policing is its controversial drone program.

Tyranny is the opposite of anarchy. Democratic republics have tried, with some success, to find a happy medium between those two extremes. Although anarchy, not tyranny, may be the major threat of the twenty-first century, despotism and authoritarianism, sometimes draped in secrecy, can also be observed throughout the world. It is, generally speaking, a response to social disorganization and fear, especially driven by a perceived threat of losing control. National intelligence estimates are secret. In the U.S., any president would now be taking Draconian measures. Riots are bad enough without dangerous memes spreading throughout the Internet in times of crisis.

Additionally, perceived tyranny followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist acts in New York City, Northern Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania:

Globalization becomes both the problem and the solution. The rise of religious and political terrorism and, correspondingly, extremely vigilant security states are responses to a premature world-encircling relationships. Nations with relatively little in common, socially and culturally, now sit face to face. The popularity of the Internet, especially social networking, along with accelerating political and economic dependence have resulted in a dangerous world order. Moreover, governments govern. That is their job. Increased global complexity requires the cosmic envelope of unity, not the present-day demireality of disunity.

Meanwhile, in 2013, anarchistic state terrorism, as some people might regard it, have been committed by an American Congress which, angry over the President’s Affordable Care Act (so-called Obamacare), shut the government down:

The world has been cast into disorder and disunity. Contrary to many perceptions, surveillance and drones are, in my view, symptoms, not problems. Even a President, Mr. Obama, who once opposed widespread surveillance, now enforces it. Reality bites. Any chief political executive today is burdened with unimaginable economic, political, environmental threats. A decaying capitalist world order has been materialistically canibalizing on itself, and destroying the planet, to postpone its imminent demise. Working for a new world order is the only viable solution to the problems which currently plague humanity. Thankfully, I do not read the U.S. President’s daily intelligence briefing.

Rather than focusing, atomistically, on a supposed loss of individual freedom, perhaps, as explained by C. Wright Mills, we humans need to develop a sociological, not a psychological, imagination (my radio show on the subject):

1. What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components, and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order? Within it, what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change?
2. Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole? How does any particular feature we are examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical period in which it moves? And this period—what are its essential features? How does it differ from other periods? What are its characteristic ways of history-making?
3. What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of “human nature” are revealed in the conduct and character we observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning for “human nature” of each and every feature of the society we are examining?
4. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. 2000. Pages 6-7.

As I see it, two separate questions are involved. First, to the question, “Do I understand the leaders of a dying imperial republic attempting to adapt the centuries-old Monroe doctrine or Pax Americana to the real dangers of the twenty-first century?,” I can certainly sympathize with political leaders protecting and serving their country. I would be disappointed if these women and men were not doing their jobs. To the second question, “How do I feel about the revelations by unprotected whisleblowers of the omnipresent surveillance state?,” I am, on one level, quite grateful. The contradictions in empire are now evident to almost everyone, while the empire strikes back.

On the other hand, the surveillance state is simply a single contradiction taken from the final hours of the capitalist world order. Focusing, myopically, on a contradiction, rather than upon the decaying system as a whole, is, in my opinion, misdirected. By the same token, if unethical actions, whether repeatedly targeting people with drones who turn out to be innocent or universal surveillance of the general public, are necessary to sustain a decaying world order or system, then perhaps, some might argue, the current world order should allowed to unravel rather than the end justifying the means. Together, we can work for a unified world commonwealth.

The spying apparatus should, in my view, be examined in its proper social and historical context. Attacking the surveillance state is a bit like getting angry at some of the the unfortunate symptoms of certain chemotherapies. The treatment might or might not work, and it has some rather nasty side effects, but the problem is the cancer, not the treatments administered by healthcare professionals. However, I assume that intelligence agencies are, from their perspectives, acting in good faith. I also do not possess enough information to second guess (worse, judge) them. My concern is with the cause of these problems, disunity, not with personal privacy.

Even admitting some possible over-reach, if officials were not working to protect their citizens, especially after the mistakes preceding 9/11, these public servants would, and should, be held responsible. Indeed, the world is ending. Governments and public bureaucrats are performing their jobs. They doing what they can to hold everything together. Any government-sponsored industrial espionage, while unfortunate, is understandable in light of economic instability and threats to national economies.

Furthermore, although practically none of the intelligence which 29- and 30-year-old former technical contractor Edward Snowden released, in 2013, was a surprise to the reasonably informed reader, the solution to our problems is not anarchy, civil disobedience, or breaking confidentiality agreements:

The issues is that, instead of turning to unity as the solution to our mounting global social problems, these officials have turned to surveillance. It cannot work. For instance, recent investigative reporting by Reuters has discovered that National Security Agency intercepts, shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency, have been confidentially provided to local law-enforcement agencies. Those police departments were encouraged to lie, through “parallel construction,” about the sources of the information:

Bureaucracies generally resist change, but change is what we need. According to Baháʾuʾlláh:

By laying bare the social corrosion of Realpolitik (political pragmatism) for the eyes of the world to see, Snowden turned the world, at least for a time, into a political battleground. The contradictions, and opposing players, within a defeated, disintegrating capitalist world order have been tearing human affairs to shreds. When bureaucrats panic, they get into protective mode. Hopefully, we will soon build a world out of unity, not disunity or demireality, in which public officials no longer believe, whether correctly or as a knee-jerk over-reaction, that extreme surveillance of human activities is desirable or necessary.

For the governors and the governed alike, trying to fix disunity with disunity, such as in Machiavellianism, is a bit like expecting a plant to water itself.

Harvard University sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin (1889-1968) argued that Machiavellianism should be repleaced by servitude and cooperation:

As alleged by some people, various U.S. government agencies apparently fear a civil war. Nevertheless, please bear in mind the obvious. Bureaucrats are not psychics; and fear is not prophecy. In addition, considering all of the advanced weapons purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense, what is the fuss about other agencies buying simple rifle ammunition? The following provocative comments do not reflect my own views. In other words, I remain skeptical:

Regardless of the above argument’s merits, governments, throughout the world, are panicking. As Baháʾuʾlláh promised, they have lost their power:

The global capitalist system, we have discovered, really does not work. In the present climate of economic and political fear, censorship efforts, by many political regimes, have dramatically increased. For instance, the institutionalized gossip of YouTube coupled with popular gullibility have been concerning:

In 1912, the beloved Master, traveling throughout the West, repeatedly emphasized race unity. To be clear, while some political parties are disguised right-wing hate groups, I am not making partisan comments. No political party holds a monopoly on race-baiting. I am, however, expressing sadness and, to be honest, fear for a country which has not yet learned the lesson of the oneness of humanity. The recent decline in fortunes for conservative American politicians reflects increasing ethnic diversity, especially the increasing Latino population and the the end of white supremacy.

I used to self-identify as a white American. I can now confidently assert that I no longer place myself under that pernicious and odious category. In the United States, race is synonymous with white class dominance or institutionalized supremacy over people of color. The category, “African American,” should, in my opinion, have always been another ethnicity, not a subordinated caste or race. To reject whiteness is synonymous with repudiating the ideology, or shared oppressive ideology, of racism. That is to say, race, racism, or white exceptionalism is a continuation of African American enslavement.

To the question, “What is your race?,” my current response would be that I have none. If the person insisted, my response, once again, would be that I am a raceless individual. However, if strongly and persistently pressed, I suppose I would say that I am, racially (ethnically) or historically, an indigenous Ashkenazi (Hebrew, Aškenazî) Jew. That is to say, I have a Yiddish (Yîdîš, Yiddish-language word for Jewish) ancestry. Saying, “I am a member of the human race,” while ostensibly true, is also a bit cliché. The fact that so many American Jews willingly embraced the construct of “whiteness,” grounded in the slave system, was, in my opinion, a mistake. Of course, I am also a Baháʾí:

Given the diversification of the U.S. population, and the de facto end of its racial establishment, large numbers of social disenfranchised European Americans, including some white domestic terrorists, are now socially alienated by multiculturalism and emboldened by right-wing conspiratorial media sources. These people are panicking. Following the re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama on November 6, 2012, many Americans, such as this fellow, even filed petitions to leave the country. However, calls for secession are simply the latest chapter in the unfolding saga of American racism.

The social status of whiteness is now threatened, and some are clinging to their whiteness. In bashing Jeremiah Wright, President Barack Obama’s former pastor, they are attacking the Black church, and its liberation theology, which, in an earlier incarnation, promoted community organizing among the slaves in the old American South. These poor and lower-class whites are, in a sense, reiterating the mistakes of the German Nazis prior to World War II. One of the most blatant contradictions becomes apparent as these white people vociferously claim that their freedoms are being taken away. Yet, none of them are arrested for treason.

President Obama is a political moderate, a military hawk, a Keynesian capitalist, a liberal Christian, and an American by birth. Accusing him, conspiratorially, of being a “secret” communist, socialist, Muslim, or Kenyan synthesizes white racism, reactionary politics, Islāmophobia, and conspiracy theory. All socialists, communists, Muslim, and (the few) Kenyans whom I have known are open, even proud, of their backgrounds. Leftists do not mask their emancipatory views behind a smokescreen. Similarly, most Muslims are peace-loving citizens, not religious extremists.

I have, in fact, been accused of being a “secret socialist” myself. My response generally leaves people speechless:

Overall, these conspiracies tell us a great deal more about far-right paranoia, and the negativity which many far-right individuals project upon the Left and the religion of Islām, than about the president. Moreover, the odd twenty-first-century phenomenon of white people calling themselves “slaves,” particularly given the old plantation system in the United States, is pretty ironic:

Nobody is enslaved to a system. Anyone can work for meaningful social change and emancipation. Hopefully, over time, the era of bigoted white supremacy will, through the process of disintegration, be finished for good:

Barack Obama is really the first truly twenty-first-century president. He comes from an interfaith, inter-racial family background. The fact that, for many Americans, a Muslim presidency would be scandalous is, of course, offensive. Yet, even beyond all the fearmongering, the far-right conspiracy theory of President Obama’s religious duplicity is ludicrous. Although he clearly respects his paternal Muslim ancestry, when he moved to Chicago, he joined the United Church of Christ, not a Muslim mosque (Arabic, masǧid). Outside of the culture of hate and racism, it is unreasonable to assume that anyone would maintain a religious façade for so many years.

Ultimately, many members of the far right are simply projecting their own paranoia. These people are assuming that because they fear Islām, socialism, communism, multiculturalism, and immigration, President Obama must be a Muslim socialist born in Africa. Clearly, no one would be able to become an American president without proving her or his place of birth. These haters are, in other words, confusing their own negative emotions with the normative values of others. Therefore, I celebrate what self-described paleoconservative Patrick Buchanan mourns:

As an Autistic rights activist, I cannot be inconsistent and, God forbid, oppose civil rights for racial and other minorities. Sadly, racism, as an ideology, is ubiquitous. It is is deeply embedded into all of the social institutions of American society. Indeed, most white people hardly ever notice that racism – until someone, comes along and bites with it. White Southerners from poor and working-class backgrounds, the icons of the Ku Klux Klan, are especially alienated from society. In early 2012, one, ultimately unsuccessful, U.S. presidential contender referred to the current chief executive as a “food stamp president.” Strangely enough, the man has a Ph.D. in history:

Indeed, as Shoghi Effendi had, it appears to me, once lamented:

As I see it, in recognition of the white race as a creation of the Black slave system, and in celebration of cooperative economics, all Americans, especially those individuals who have been privileged by imaginary whitness, might consider commemorating Kwanza (along with, in the United States and Canada, Thanksgiving and, in the United States, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day):

Meanwhile, the Syrian government has reacted adversely to the so-called Arab spring of 2011:

Of course, many officials, internationally, have also been concerned about Īrān:

A Psalmist wrote about Israel:

As long as the unifying remedy of the Divine Physician, Baháʾuʾlláh, is withheld, world peace and global security will, despite even the best of intentions, remain elusive:

Added into this unstable mix, the dangers of atomic weaponization, and perhaps also of laser-lightning weaponry, were vividly foreshadowed by His Blessed Presence Baháʾuʾlláh Himself. His concern about nuclear energy being discovered too early, perhaps, was realized at the end of World War II:

The following quotation describes the application of laser-lightning technology:

Here are three apparently corresponding Biblical references:

In the considered views of many economists and pundits, the beginnings of the worst are already upon us:

I personally believe there will be even more severe devastations in the near future, but the Will of God has only partially been revealed. On the other hand, it has sometimes been difficult for me to imagine any external and, perhaps more importantly, internal deteriorations which would be worse than those which, from one end of the globe to the other, we are witnessing at the present time. Indeed, history may show that the United States began and, in its global dominance, ended at a tea party. By setting dates for some future tribulation, the disunity of “oppression,” we may well have already missed its prologue:

The pretribulational rapture, as a triumphalist or religiously elitist doctrine, is not only highly questionable. The spiritual elect, believers claim, will be translated into Heaven before the Tribulation. However, the Great Unraveling, now occurring in this Dispensation, is both universal and relative to the Sovereign Will of God. Humanity is a single essence, not divided. Although we, as human beings, operate within specific social and ethical contexts, God, acting through His Prophets of His Own accord, does whatsoever He wills. He alone determines the ethical requirements for a particular age.

Triumphalism is also unappealing to a millennial generation reared on globalized soical networking. Even the emerging church, which was developed to appeal to the previous Generation X, may be too traditional:

1. A theology for a community that is in self-conscious continuity with the biblical people of God and the calling of Abraham to be blessed and be a blessing to the nations of the world.
2. A theology done under the lordship of Christ.
3. A theology that gives priority to narrative in order both to define its core and to contextualize the content of biblical teaching.
4. A theology that seeks to understand the intimate relationship between text and historical narrative.
5. A theology that at its heart is a reading of scripture.
6. A theology that as a matter of methodological commitment celebrates, reinforces, and exploits community: an emerging theology is strongly relational, conversational, interactive.
7. A theology that is strongly aware of, and responsive to, the locality in which these conversations take place.
8. A theology that attempts to resist certain distortions of modernism.
9. A theology that is broadly but not slavishly postmodern in its epistemology, wary of absolute formulations, tolerant of diversity and plurality, sensitive to the social manipulation of texts.
10. A theology that places a high value on intellectual and critical integrity - ‘integrity’ being, I think, the ‘postmodern’ word in that sentence.
11. A theology committed to the renewal of its own discourse, understood not only as speech but as the whole spectrum of means (artistic, communal, activist) by which we communicate.
12. A theology that fosters an open, inquisitive, probing mindset.
13. A theology that endeavours to integrate rather than dissociate modes of thought, analysis, and practice, that draws on the mind of the whole community of faith.
14. A generous theology that is inclined to discover meaning and truth outside of itself.
15. A theology with an eschatological orientation towards the renewal of creation - humanity within a comprehensive ecology; therefore a public rather than a private theology.

Standards of good and evil, or collective conscience, are legitimated by God through His Prophets, not by His mortal servants:

Everything that belongs to the old order of disunity is unraveling. Still, the tragic wars which are being continually reported in the news, no matter how devastating, and the “rumors of wars” are, in my view, only the precursors or shadows of sorrows. The issue, to my mind, is more basic. Through the coming of the Promised One of all ages, the dimensions of this world, including the planetary substance, have been thrown out of balance. The geomagnetic field has, according to some scientists, been shifting. When all is said and done, the Earth, including its relationship with the sun, will, I feel, dramatically change.

The Father has come. This Dispensation is His Day of Judgment and Chastisement. So far, however, the nations of the world have turned a deaf ear to His universal rulings. At the same time, the very equilibrium of the world has, through His Cause or Command (al-Amr), been upset and shaken by His new Order of existence, while the Earth is being filled with His Blessed Presence Baháʾuʾlláh, the Glory of God:

The disequilibrating of the world is now being manifested globally. On May 25, 2013 earthquakes rocked and disequilibriated all corners of the earth. Baháʾuʾlláh’s words are, in my humble opinion, now being literally fulfilled. Meanwhile, one videographer (MP4 video) noted, by observing the Moon, that the Earth itself was shaking:

Similarly, possible earthly upheavals, including a shifting of the magnetic poles and quaking, were anticipated in the Book of Isaiah:

Likewise, in the TaNaḤ (Old Testament):

The Earth has grown tired of humanity. In my opinion, these planetary disturbances are, in addition to their obvious spiritual impact, being manifested as accelerated geomagnetic changes:

Furthermore, brush fires, earthquakes, massive animal deaths, volcanos, tornados, rapid climate change, and global warming have all intensified. Although some of these anomalies may have either terrestrial or solar causes, most, in my view, are the result of human abuse of the planet:

Geomagnetic changes, “acoustic trauma,” and changes in planetary resonance, might be responsible for some large-scale animal deaths or, perhaps, die-offs:

Regarding these widespread, massive deaths of animals, the authors of the Books of Zephaniah and Hosea recorded:

Despite all of the fear-mongering on the web and on certain email lists, the solar maximum of 2013-2014 is expected to be relatively weak. Consequently, the immediate chances of a damaging solar flare or a coronal mass ejection (CME) of plasma are reasonably minimal. Perhaps, however, a rapid geomagnetic shift, not the commonly feared veering of the Earth from its axis, will, at some point in the future, derange the planetary equilibrium. Additionally, according to Drunvalo Melchizedek (born, Bernard Perona in 1941), the ringing in some people’s ears has been connected by various Russian scientists with a geomagnetic weakening (MP3 audio file).

According to certain scientists and writers, the shift has already started:

On the other hand, as some NASA scientists have pointed out, an actual reversal in Earth’s rotation is impossible:

Globally, the 2004 tsunami near the Indian Ocean, the 2005 flood in New Orleans, and the 2011 tsunami in Japan also come to mind. At least In the Nōăḥide narrative, people were apparently not, to my understanding, automatically saved from death or suffering because of their individual spiritual qualities:

Rather than admitting that global warming, sometimes called climate change or climate disruption, has primarily been among the more noticeable waste products of the engines of capitalism, the sun and its cycles are, in some fringe scientific quarters, conveniently scapegoated:

The issue of solar complicity is briefly addressed in the following quotations:

The Earth was around before any of our present-day economic systems. Both American political parties support the corporatocracy. In the U.S., a country without an established Left, the claim by Fox News Channel to be “fair and balanced” is simply reinforcing a distinction without a difference. If modern corporations cannot, allegedly, afford to clean up their act, and stop polluting the environment, perhaps capitalism, and its forces of destruction, should be eliminated. Indeed, the evidence for global warming is widespread:

In some cases, the same corporations which covered up the dangers of tobacco throughout much of the twentieth centurey are now spreading disinformation and junk science on global warming:

Although climate change is a natural process, solar activity, according to NASA, cannot explain the degree and type of present-day climate change:

Although a small amount of climate change has natural explanations, the arguments against humanly caused global warming are, generally speaking, quite weak. For instance, Mitch Batros, whose website combines some scientific analysis of earth changes with a magical presentation of Western indigenous prophecies (especially Mayan and Hopi), wrote that “global warming” is a “made up name.” (The romanticism aside, everyone is indigenous to one or more places.) My question is, “Can anyone provide an example of a name or word that has not been made up?” Batros wrote:

While anarchy, chaos, and earth changes have encircled the globe, a predictable survivalist or prepper conversation has been taking place. Even now, people are hoarding food and water, building their “coffins” (bunkers and, at least in one case, underground condos), and, in short, reinforcing the social delusion of safety in separation. My own view is that, rather than becoming captivated by this fear-mongering, we should regularly reflect upon ourselves as servants. The ultimate accomplishment of our brief journeys in the material world is al-fanāʾ (self-annihilation or true poverty and absolute nothingness).

illustrations of underground condo bunkers

Truthfully, I cannot imagine myself, particularly as a single man, becoming a survivalist. Hopefully, I would reflect, “How can I help everyone, not only my friends, in the disaster?” “In what ways can I put their lives, needs, and sustenance ahead of mine?“ Being ready is being ready to serve others. In my opinion, we should all be “preppers” for the spiritual Kingdom beyond, the heavenly world of departed angels, not for this temporal plane of dust:

Although my views on the libertarian or individualistic philosophy of survivalism, including building home-grown military dugouts, are quite negative, disaster preparedness, particularly under the supervision of government agencies (such as, in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security or DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA), is always a good idea:

The conspiratorial meme notwithstanding, there are no FEMA prison camps. However, emergency planning is a good idea:

1. identification of the hazards to which they are vulnerable.
2. details on what they should do in an emergency.
3. the persons to contact for details about the plan.
4. a list of nearby evacuation centers.
5. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), The Emergency Program Manager: Independent Study Course. Official U.S. government document.

1. a trained emergency organization in place,
2. designated chain of succession for elected official and appointed executives,
3. protection of vital records, and
4. alternate seats of government.
5. Frances Edwards, Ph.D., CEM, Homeland Security and Emergency Management: Planning/Preparedness/Readiness. From the FEMA website.

Similar suggestions have been made by Phillipine Business for Social Progress:

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

The U.S. Army document, Internment and Resettlement Operations (FM 3-39.40), outlines official procedures to be used with detainees, including both confined enemy combatants and dislocated civilians. Although this February, 2010, publication was leaked, and is now in the public domain, a distribution notice at the beginning reads, “Destroy by any method that will prevent disclosure of contents or reconstruction of the document.” Therefore, I will not quote directly from the operations manual. On the other hand, an earlier version, FM 3-19.40, has already been declassified.

Operations manuals, while often used in planning for worst-case scenarios, can, when they are read by untrained eyes, cause considerable panic. For example, some people, including the highly dangerous Alex Jones, have entirely misinterpreted the FM 3-39.40 publication as a totalitarian plan for one world government:

Certain U.S. government officials might be afraid of something. For instance, in an tumultuous era which has seen a succession of lost military conflicts by major powers, including the U.S., drones may be a appealing solution. No sober-minded politician wants to lead her country into a failed war:

Various subterranean and suboceanic fortresses, research facilities, and bomb or air-raid shelters, including in such western U.S. western states as Nevada and Colorado and in the Washington, D.C., area, are being, and have already been, constructed, often out of existing caverns (MP4 videos one, two, and three). These facilities may, in certain cases, be networked using high-speed subways or other rapid transit systems. Unfortunately, no fortifications or dugouts, however expertly designed, could, I believe, guarantee protection or security from accelerating planetary shifts, civil unrest, or weapons of mass destruction. Humanity’s sole salvation is the Blessed Perfection, Baháʾuʾlláh.

photos of alleged U.S. deep underground military bases and the train system (click to enlarge)

In other words, the defenders of the old world order are attempting to salvage a morally bankrupt system. The quotations provided below on deep underground military bases (DUMB), shelters for command and control or continuity of government (COG), are taken from official United States government documents:

This document outlines some of the basic technologies which might be used to construct deep underground bases:

photos of alleged boring machines for U.S. deep underground military bases (click to enlarge)

NASA is more qualified in its comments on the subject:

The next report, of unknown accuracy, concerns Lloyd Duscha, a former deputy director of engineering and construction for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:

This story is from 2011:

The specific mechanisms for the continuity of the U.S. federal government, in the event of a massive catastrophe, are, apparently, highly classified. Congressman Peter DeFazio complained about the secrecy on the floor of the House of Representatives:

Bunkers have, of course, also been constructed elsewhere. The following statements come from official Israeli government publications:

Fortunately, however, the meek will inherit the earth, not religious leaders, rulers, the proud, and the seemingly mighty:

Many people, coming from various perspectives, had premonitions about various Earth-changing events beginning in 2012. My personal intuition is that 2012, or perhaps even its December solstice, marked the end of a respite – an era with mere foreshadowings of unravelling. 2013 through 2021, the nine-year period following the 2012 centenary of the Master’s journeys in the West, will climax on the centenary of the Ascension of ʿAbduʾl-Bahá with the inception of the Formative Age of the Baháʾí Dispensation, and, possibly, the termination of Western global hegemony and the establishment of a world commonwealth.

During the years immediately following 2012, the masses of humanity may actually wish, in retrospect, that popularized interpretations of Mayan astrology, whether catastrophes or elevations of consciousness, were correct. At least in the short term, 2012 might, paradoxically, become a year of nostalgia. However, in the midst of Earth-shaking tribulations or oppressions, the receptiveness to discussions of 2012, no matter the superstitious source, appears to have indicated that many folks are, by future shock, experiencing a planetary neighborhood which, through continuously shifting global relationships, is rapidly changing:

Some people made some rather creative, and largely unfulfilled, predictions. When it comes to life in general, and especially to the Internet, there is always the sage advice – caveat emptor (Latin for let the buyer beware):

Others argued that 2012 is “encoded” in the Biblical texts. The approach, which examines the proximity of certain keywords in the original Hebrew of the Holy TaNaḤ (Old Testament), is referred to as the Torah [Hebrew, Tôrâ, instruction or teaching] or Bible Code. Similar techniques have been applied to other religious scriptures. The Torah code, as a type of fortunetelling, illustrates the logical fallacy of circular reasoning. For instance, claiming that a relationship between concepts or events and the Bible, or any text, cannot be attributed to chance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The results of the analysis are statistically predicted by the data entered.

This form of divination or fortunetelling, called bibliomancy, is illustrated in the following quotations:

The December 21, 2012, “meme,” a term which was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, appeared, for several years, to have been imprinted onto the collective awareness of much of humanity. Repeatedly observing a meme may, to the uncritical thinker, support its validity. However, they are simply witnessing cultural diffusion (the spread of memes through direct and indirect interaction). Outwardly, at least, Robert J. Sharer, was that meme’s originator. Based upon his own research, he added the date to the fourth (1983), fifth (1994), and sixth (2007) editions of Slyvanus G. Morley’s book (peace be upon them):

José Argüelles, Ph.D. (1939-2011), peace and blessings be upon him, popularized the date. He also gave it spiritual significance. December 21, 2012, became, in the years following 1987, a hugely successful popular cultural phenomenon:

Reinforcing the 2012 meme in the popular imagination, the date was incorporated into the script for the final episode of the popular science-fiction television series, The X-Files (1993-2002), and became the title for an adventure film (released in 2009):

The apparent seer, William Miller (1782-1849), founded the Adventist movement. He stumbled upon the year of the Declaration of the Most Exalted Báb in 1844. When the Báb came, and the Adventists did not accept him, they factionalized. The Russellites, influenced by Adventist ministers George Storrs and George Stetson, developed into the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups. 1878, 1914, 1915, 1917, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1948, 1975, and 1994 were their unfulfilled dates. Out of the Church of God (Seventh Day), another Adventist group, came the Russellites’ first cousin, Worldwide Church of God. They also had failed messianic predictions: 1936, 1943, 1957, 1972, and 1975.

Argüelles and some other 2012 writers and speakers, peace be upon them, also made recent predictions. After a reported meeting with some Mayan elders, Argüelles was sometimes known, late in his life, by the name, Valum Votan (Mayan for closer of the cycle):

Argüelles was, in previous years, known for the Harmonic Convergence:

Unfortunately, instead of highlighting the realism of unity itself, the more common approach taken by the 2012 movement was to emphasize a New Age, an idealistic unity consciousness. In my opinion, this perspective fails to rank the unifying cause over its influence on attributes or events, including a higher consciousness. Furthermore, improperly elevating knowledge, or the conscious effect, above unity is, perhaps by definition, the opposite or contradiction of Baháʾí consultation. We are now living in the blessed age of unity, not the age of higher consciousness.

If, in decision making, people insist on the truth of their own thoughts and opinions, disharmony and discord, not harmony and accord, may be the likely results. To my understanding, however, the human species, which may also be referred to as the unity of humanity, is manifested as the collective consciousness, the rational faculty, or the human spirit. That is to say, the unity of humanity is manifested as a universal or shared awareness of the attributes of unifying essences (unities), such as the divine Unity (Tawḥīd), the unity of religions, and the unity of humanity. This human spirit is individualized in particular human beings:

Politics, or political realism, is like dirty poker. Its operative rule is self-interest. Therefore, the Great Unraveling, rather than politics or governmental reform, will, in my opinion, provide a resolution to the extraordinary crises at this juncture of our collective development. The operative word, I feel, is soon. Specifically, however, no one knows the future. As with “flying saucers,” the faddishness (dumbing down), superstition (alleged absence of free will or coincidences), magical thinking (finding meaning in everything), cosmic idealism (New Age higher consciousness), and purported indigenous prophecies surrounding the 2012 date became a collective obsession:

Gilbert Eriksen was more explicit:

On the other hand:

The magical properties of an alleged galactic center are, in my opinion, astrological superstitions:

To my understanding, the Best Beloved has given to humanity a new World Order, not a philanthropic society. The wealthy cannot be merely permitted or encouraged to contribute to a public charity on an entirely voluntary basis. In any orderly, non-anarchist, society, there will, by necessity, be some degree of compulsion. For instance, in princple, nothing is wrong, as I see it, with making a great deal of money, or acquiring considerable material resources, as long as an individual does not get to keep most of the riches she has acquired.

The assumption that people are motivated to work hard by the promise of financial rewards is not always justified. Frequently, even destitute individuals will volunteer to serve others. Laziness is an arrogant and classist explanation for poverty. Nevertheless, within the private sector, the implementation of profit sharing, or perhaps a similar form of collectivization, will, according to ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, make strikes unnecessary:

According to the principle of moderation, some income diversity or inequality would, in my view, be acceptable. That is not, however, the same as social stratification or inequality of opportunity. Wealth and poverty, the two immoral economic extremes, must, following the principle of justice, be eliminated. Exactly how such an optimistic state of affairs is established through economic policy will, I assume, be eventually decided by the Universal House of Justice or by an agency acting under the Supreme Body’s authority. Ultimately, the degrees of inequality, referred to by ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, lie, presumably, somewhere in the middle:

Democracy is impossible without socialism. Political equality requires an end to economic domination. By Unitive Socialism, I am tentatively outlining an economic system, not a form of government. Politically, a unity between nations, the rule of law under a system of global super-statism, will gradually evolve into an international commonwealth and, in time, to a Golden Age, an Era of Fulfillment, and the World Order of Baháʾuʾlláh. Yet, there is no need, in my view, to ferment an economic or a political revolution. Instead, revolutions of various types have been, and will most likely continue to be, predictable, even inevitable, outcomes of the disintegration of the old world order.

The present system of corporate capitalism is legalized theft. The pockets of workers, filled with their honest labor, have been picked, with impunity, by industrialists. Although many proponents of the so-called free-market system criticize the redistribution of wealth for the poor, they apparently have no qualms over redistributing it, through tax loopholes, to themselves. The modern-day robber barons of global capitalism are, through the justice and mercy of God, now being rapidly brought down by their failure to serve humanity and to promote its unification.

When people call me a devil, I sometimes think, jokingly, “Perhaps I am your devil. For all I know, I might be everything you think is bad and evil.” However, American imperialism, which was long used to resolve global problems, has failed, successively, in ʿIrāq and in Libya. The United States can no longer function effectively as the “policeman of the world.” The following quotation is offered only as an illustration:

Through the Occupy Movement, which began on Wall Street but quickly spread to Main Street, international outrage stirred over the accumulations of huge fortunes by the privileged few even while others have struggled to make ends meet. Regimes, like dominoes, were toppled, one by one, during a brief Arab spring which, despite considerable fanfare, has reverted to a hard winter, particularly in Syria. In these troubling times of widespread uncertainty and panic over tomorrow, the unprecedented dominations of political and economic leaders have, to many average individuals, become intolerable.

Significantly, many of Karl Marx’s predictions of popular alienation and dissent are currently being fulfilled. Socialism may emerge from the ashes of global anarchy. The dialectic of contradictory power relations can be observed in the revolutionary and reform movements of the present age, whether the labor uprisings of Occupy or the upheavals in the Arab world. Advocates of the so-called free market tactically condemn the dominated members of society, using defensive jargon, for waging “class warfare.” Hypocritically, then, consumers are warned of a continual onslaught with “let the buyer beware” or, in Latin, caveat emptor.

Occupy Wall Street was started by the anarchist group, Adbusters. Many forms of anarchism are dangerous and treasonous. Understandably, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been concerned:

In other words, socialism will, I suspect, appear critically and suddenly, through both emergence and emergency, not through gradualism:

I shall now briefly outline my vision for a Unitive Socialism. However, to be clear at the outset, I am not claiming that socialism, as a broad-based school of economic thought, is advocated within the Teachings of the Baháʾí Faith. This subject, like the material in the rest of the book, reflects only my personal perspectives. When reviewing the Baháʾí texts, there are no formal descriptions of future political economies. Instead, Baháʾí primary sources contain a few spiritual economic principles. These general criteria will, in the years to come, guide experts when developing economic systems:

The Will of God, as manifested by the divine Physician, is the unities of all things. Any human activities, including nationalism and nation building, which contradicts unity, the spirit of the age, will, in the long run, fail. Indeed, one of the major points to keep in mind is that Baháʾí economic principles, including my personal understandings of them, refer to a global civilization or kingdom of Heaven on Earth, not to modern societies and their governments:

Monetary interests should, under no circumstances, be permitted to monopolize public and private human affairs. The new Unitive Socialism, as I have imagined this command economy, would unify or spiritually harmonize aspects of theocracy, state socialism (such as government ownership of major industries and a decentralized welfare state), democratic socialism (including middle-sized collectives, public cooperatives, worker cooperatives as union ownership or perhaps co-ownership, and credit unions in place of commercial or savings banks), and both collectivized and privately owned (subject to collectivization for impropriety) small-scale enterprises.

Although voluntary contributions are an important aspect of economic collectivism and its socialist command economy, they are, according to ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, only one of seven sources of revenue for a local storehouse or house of finance. Based upon a negative income tax, the higher one’s income, the more one would pay in taxes. Correspondingly, the lower one’s income, the more one would receive from that storehouse. Wealth and poverty will become illegal through an orderly redistribution of resources:

1. General running expenses of the institution-salaries etc., and the administration of public safety, including the department of hygiene.
2. Tithes to the general government (State).
3. Taxes on animals for the State.
4. Support of an orphanage.
5. Support of cripples and the incurable.
6. Support of educational institutions.
7. Supplying any deficiency for the expenses of the poor.

In the United States, so-called “Obamacare” is a Keynesian capitalist, market-driven nonsolution for a problem which can only be remedied through spiritual transformation and economic collectivization. State socialism, based upon a command economy, is the opposite of a market system:

However, Marxist communism and socialist statism are incompatible. Most so-called communist nations instead referred to themselves as either socialist states (as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) or people’s republics (such as the People’s Republic of China). Modern history is replete with instances of widespread violence and chaos erupting in societies without effective vertical authority structures. Yet, there are no examples of stability. Without a measure of compulsion, criminal gangs, and their own vertical power arrangements, fill the void. The horizontal style of governance preferred by some anarchists has no historical precedents.

I have no interest in seeing the death of the state in a communist anarchy. Although, by some measures, holding such views would make me a socialist statist, I am a world statist, not a nation-statist:

Mark Foster’s score on the World’s Smallest Political Quiz (September, 2012)

I reject the capitalist premise that an individual’s activities should be driven by a desire to make money. Service, in one’s occupation, should result from a love for others, and derive from unity, not from a desire to make a profit. Nevertheless, a Unified Socialist State would combine state socialism with democratic socialism, while incorporating both public and private sectors. Unitive Socialism resembles other models of socialism, such as economist Alec Nove’s (Aleksandr Novakovsky, 1915-1994) feasible socialism and political scientist Luke Martell’s associational socialism.

I also find aspects of Titoism to be appealing:

The corporatocracy, or mechanisms of corporate dominance, and plutocracy, or structure of wealth dominance, will, I anticipate, be superceded by a new participatory economic democracy:

A world federal, or decentralized, state, revolving around an acceptance of the Unity of God (Tawḥīd, Unifying), will fully, and lovingly, control the resources of the planet:

Historically, socialism has taken several forms. As a result, many self-defined socialists do not agree on how a socialistic system should operate. By and large, however, socialists tend to privilege need before want. Economic democratization, in which the forces of production become accountable to the citizens and residents of a society, would, it seems to me, be a vital ingredient in any form of socialism:

As a college professor, I am a member of a union, the Kansas chapter of the National Education Association (NEA), but I do not, as a Baháʾí, belong to a socialist, or to any other, political party. In other words, I am political nothing. However, America’s Socialist Party sums up the issue pretty well. The leaders of the organization recognize the diversity of the global socialist movement:

On the other hand, unlike the author of the following quotation, I have nothing against the rule of law through a fair measure of state domination:

Unfortunately, partisan politics and politicking in general are, often by design, divisive. They contradict, by definition, Unities of All Things, The Unicentric Paradigm, and the Baháʾí principle of consultative decision making. Although, to be honest, I am sometimes mildly entertained by governmental controversies, I try to avoid any personal involvement with them. Even in cases where I generally agree with one side or another, I have noticed that, as soon as the issues become politicized, they are rarely resolved. People, instead, gather around in-groups and out-groups, while the conversation quickly deteriorates into “us” versus “them.”

Therefore, while ownership within Unitive Socialism might, in my opinion, be cooperative, state, and private, economic and political decisions should be grounded upon a radical participatory consultation. That is to say, all stakeholders – workers, consumers, renters, owners, and so on – should be empowered to collaboratively make decisions which will impact their lives. His sanctified Presence ʿAbduʾl-Bahá wrote:

One of the key differences between Baháʾí consultation and the Rand Corporation’s Delphi Method (or Delphi Technique) is that consultation is not usually anonymous or private. There are, however, similarities. However, both processes are only as beneficial as people make them:

Discussions need to be open and cooperative, not manipulative or driven by predetermined agendas. Otherwise, people will become frustrated by the process and alienated from individuals occupying positions of authority:

When people argue that socialism has never worked, my response is threefold: First, I support a decentralized, not a totalitarian, socialism. Second, capitalism has never worked either. It has resulted oil spills and in cycles of depression, recession, inflation, deflation, stagflation, and high unemployment. Third, so-called socialist societies, like the Nordic countries and the Netherlands, are only capitalistic social democracies. Faced with two alternatives, complete isolationism or participation in the U.S.-dominated system of global capitalism, they took the second course. Socialism has never really been an option.

As to the common claim that socialism is a utopian (from Ancient Greek for nowhere) dream, and in violation of human nature (or the lower nature), my response is that contemporay capitalism is even more utopian. Indeed, it is a form of ritual magic which will, ultimately, be ultimated be eliminated through world unity. The proposition that leaving people alone (French, laissez-faire, let do or let make) to competitively pursue their own profitable interests will, abracadabra, produce a fair and just market is, it seems to me, entirely ludicrous.

Internationally, the capitalist market system has resulted in gross inequalities between the Western world and the more impoverished Global South. As the inadequacies and contradictions within corporate capitalism, and within empire, move the financial sector toward an ultimate collapse, the borderless fourth world of poverty becomes increasingly ubiquitous. Moreover, the nonempirical human nature fallacy has also been selectively used, over the course of history, to justify the inferiority and mistreatment of races, genders, ethnicities, and religions.

Unitive Socialism is based upon spiritual leadership, unity, and love, not upon a mechanistic technocracy of automatons:

Since work is worship, being freed from labor is, ultimately, not freedom at all:

If there is ever a global royal sovereign, a heroic or saintly servant of humanity might be selected. She or he should be someone of the caliber of: Ṭāhirih, Saint Teresa of Ávila, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Thomas (my spiritual mother), Ḥaḍrat Sulṭān Bāhū, Mother Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, or Mohandas “Mahatma” Karamchand Gandhi. Such a majestic and honorary position, held by a queen or king, would not be hereditary. My own views aside, according to my understanding of dear Shoghi Effendi’s words, His Ancient Presence Baháʾuʾlláh preferred unifying republicanism and royalty into a constitutional monarchy.

At this point, however, I see some value in briefly distinguishing the non-political intellectual left, as I have been personally developing it, from the philosophies of individualistic liberalism. Many on the intellectual left, grounded in a strong emancipatory ethic, support the human rights of marginalized communities, universal justice, and economic democratization, while opposing capitalist globalization. Unlike the politically reform-minded middle left of progressives, intellectual leftists advocate a fundamental restructuring or reshaping of societies and relationships, such as a radical unity in diversity.

In my opinion, the moderate left, or progressivism, is insufficient. I certainly do not advocate revolution or violence of any kind. However, revolutions, demonstrations, civil wars, insurrections, and coups d’état have been occurring, and will continue to occur, until the old world order is brought down. Movements of the far left do not need to be intentional or premeditated:

The globalization of the old world order needs to be succeeded by globalization 2.0:

The Western world, I would suggest, has too much freedom, liberty, and libertarianism but too little justice. The Supreme Baháʾí Institution is the Universal House of Justice, not the Universal House of Freedom. Reifying freedom and individualism, turning them into real things, is a logical fallacy. Then idolizing them, as goods in themselves, while imagining that they are somehow natural, may, at least in part, be an unfortunate byproduct of the frontier experience. Whose freedom?, I would ask. What about free health care or freedom from capitalism?

According to the dear Universal House of Justice:

In other words, justice, not so-called economic freedom, is the best beloved of all things in dear Baháʾuʾlláh’s sight:

Individual freedom or liberty is, by definition, a liberal issue. The concept developed in the Western Enlightenment. Strictly speaking, both the conservative pro-life and the progressive pro-choice views on abortion are liberal positions. Pro-lifers are primarily interested in the individual liberty of the fetus to come to term. Those on the pro-choice side, however, focus upon the individual reproductive freedom of the mother. The capitalist free market is classic economic liberalism (classical economics) or, expanded transnationally, neoliberalism (neoclassical economics).

Middle-left Keynesianism modified capitalist liberalism, with an enlarged civil-service sector, in order to allegedly protect the freedom of individuals to be employed. However, Keynesianism, in my opinion, was even worse than economic liberalism. Not only did Keynesians prop up the corporate state. They proposed a dangerous and distracting solution. There is, from a Keynesian standpoint, no need to dismantle corporate capitalism. Instead, one legitimizes the system by putting a band-aid on it. By worsening, through postponement, the inevitable crash and burn, Keynesianism became the corporate monster with a smile on his face.

Freedom, I think, has been interpreted in at least two ways: First, freedom can be understood, in the context of the European Enlightnment, as (personal) liberty. Since the founding fathers of the United States were rational, liberal Enlightenment thinkers, clearly indicated by the pyramidal eye on the back of a dollar bill, they focused on liberty. On the other hand, like Roy Bhaskar’s Critical Realism and his philosophy of metaReality, Unities of all Things™ focuses upon a second definition of freedom as liberation, emancipation, and social justice. In this sense, freedom is unity or, in Bhaskar’s terminology, the cosmic envelope.

However, freedom as liberty, as I see it, can never be a good in itself. If taken to an extreme, freedom, or anomie, leads to libertarianism, anarchy, and wickedness. Moreover, liberalism or progressivism (the middle left) is often little more than left libertarianism. Sentiment and nostalgia, the desire to restore an imaginary idyllic past, are out of touch with the exigencies of the present day. Rather, freedom, from an emancipatory perspective, is achieved through an ongoing struggle against oppressions or unjust dominations, divinely ordained spiritual tests, and other directly observable human difficulties. According to His Blessed Presence Baháʾuʾlláh:

Furthermore, the philosophies of individualism and libertarianism are, in effect, false gods. If each person is an individualization of the unity of humanity and its attributes (the rational faculty), then no one, singly, is a complete individual. Absolute individual freedom or liberty becomes a socially reinforced delusion. On the other hand, the Unified Socialist™ economic principle of collective freedom, human rights, or social justice is, it seems to me, one of the profound, yet unavoidable, implications of the unity in multiplicity of existence or, according to ʿAbduʾl-Bahá, “the universal relationships.”

Freedom, in my view, is unity or, more precisely, unity in diversity:

As wonderful film maker Michael Moore (born, 1954) insightfully observed on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight (July 24, 2012), “Guns don’t kill people; Americans kill people.” Statistically, his assertion, however poignant, was accurate. The United States, among all countries, is currently ranked at the top of the list in its rate of incarceration. That nation also has, globally, one of the highest percentages of homicide and, per capita, the highest percentage of private gun ownership. Ostensibly, weapons have not made the country safe. What’s more, the American republic in particular, while not alone, appears to worship at the feet of the god of war:

Jesus apparently recommended that his disciples take up swords to protect and serve others, not to use these weapons defensively, or perhaps in revenge, and offensively:

The world is collapsing upon itself. Global leaders know it. That is the reason for heightened surveillance and drone programs. Many average people are clueless, or they imagine some conspiracy behind these events. Something needs to replace the present system when it is gone, and I have high hopes. In any event, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine that America’s epic and epoch, now decaying through violence, will, short of divine intervention, be concluded. Perhaps centuries from now, the socially atomizing tale of God, guns, and guts will be chronicled in the epilogue of a dying capitalist world order.

Countries are at war with themselves. Civil wars, revolutions, and coups d’état are multiplying. No social entity, not even a superpower, has much authority. Countries are too absorbed in their own pressing problems. As a mirror of world disorder, the United Nations, for it’s part, only has enough coercive might to issue “resolutions.” Without collective security, the world will remain, as a rotting corpse, in its present disintegrating state. Since a voluntary body of member states could not enforce its decisions, the world requires federation, not confederation.

According to the the holy Universal House of Justice, the remedy has been prescribed by the divine Physician, the Beloved Lord of Hosts:

America’s disunity through individualism and idolatry of liberty have been accompanied by a materialistic attachment to firearms. The U.S. Constitution, including its Second Amendment, has often been approached, reverently and inerrantly, with the scriptural literalism of a fundamentalist. Jointly, these factors have demonstrated themselves to be a dangerous, even deadly, combination. If the well-regulated militia of military, police, and intelligence agencies (with their right to bear arms) works properly, the necessity for average citizens to carry weapons, except when hunting, might, it seems to me, be eliminated.

Constitutions need to be periodically rewritten or revised. They should not be piously regarded as sacred texts. Although the U.S. Constitution was a well-crafted document for the late eighteenth century, a new global Constitution should, it seems to me, be authored for the twenty-first century. Consequently, I must, in that respect, agree with one of the framers of the United States Constitution, the second President of the United States Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). He would, I suspect, be horrified to learn that Americans would be debating the intricacies of a document written more than two centuries in the past.

Jefferson, as a rationalist, was a man of the Enlightenment. He was clearly not a constitutional fundamentalist. Aside from the impracticality of his proposal of authoring a new Constitution every nineteen years, given the entrenched divisions among politicians, his letter is important. It challenges a modern tendency to turn the Constitution into a perfect, even divinely inspired, document. I doubt that Jefferson would have agreed with any of those characterizations:

More specifically, the founding fathers of the U.S. supported a navy while, by and large, opposing a standing army. An ad hoc militia was their alternative. Of course, contrary to the wishes of the founding fathers, the U.S. has a standing army and a National Guard, so the provision for a “well regulated Militia” has, in a sense, become irrelevant:

Many American libertarians who support unrestricted, or virtually unrestricted, gun ownership oppose martial law. However, martial law is as constitutional as the Second Amendment:

Since criminals, some gun control opponents assert, will always find a way to obtain guns, weapons should not be registered. Of course, by that same argument, since murders will murder, robbers will rob, arsonists will burn down buildings, and so forth, those laws should also be eliminated:

That the gun culture is dominated by so-called white men should come as no surprise to any careful reader of American history. The violence of poor and working class Southern males, typified by the Ku Klux Klan and its offshoots, resulted from the creation of whiteness by the bourgeoisie. By giving laborers of European ancestry a few more breadcrumbs than their African coworkers, these poor “whites” were bribed into becoming the foremen and disciplinarians of African slaves. The bourgeoisie, or bluebloods, were then free to pursue a life of luxury. The end of slavery only increased poor white angst or anxiety. Racial differences obscured the common class interests of slaves and rednecks.

As Minister Louis Farrakhan (born, 1933) wisely said in this MP3 audio file:

The habitual use of so-called four-letter words is, in my view, inadvisable. Nevertheless, many words regarded as vulgar slang are little more than the so-called profane speech of the uneducated commoners. They originated in the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Old English era. Following the Norman Conquest, and the birth of Middle English, the higher classes began to use the French terms for certain bodily parts and functions. However, the older expressions might be appropriate or even pure, in certain cases, when expressing genuine moral outrage at social vulgarity or profanity.

Unfortunately, issues of social and economic freedom may, to a certain extent, be largely irrelevant at this moment. My personal observation is that global economic and political systems, along with our present-day material civilizations, are unsustainable. With power seized from high and low alike, the outcomes of national political elections have become practically irrelevant. Unity alone is the remedy. In the disintegrating, self-seeking capitalist world order, there are no real power elites. The disunified capitalist world order has spun out of control, and its leaders are unsuccessfully attempting to rein it in:

Moreover, if I, or someone with similar views, had influence over American society, its affairs might be handled very differently. Since partisanship is the rule of the present period, and emancipatory perspectives hold little sway, I am functionally a pragmatist. Avenues of cooperation and even compromise must be sought. Yet, given the widespread materialism in this world, little may be left following the collapse of the present order. Rather than concerning ourselves with personal freedom, we need to trust in the continuing guidance of the Universal House of Justice and to be spiritually prepared for localism:

Some of the laws given by Baháʾuʾlláh for His Dispensation appear to anticipate localism and an unsophisticated level of technology:

Right now, I believe, the world is headed down the path toward planetary lawlessness, a breakdown in infrastructure, and a disintegration of communication, transportation, and food distribution systems. As humanity, in its present state of travail, continues to unravel, the Universal House of Justice has, in my opinion, been encouraging greater local consolidation or unity through a strengthening of the Ruhi Institute (rūḥī, spiritual) and related activities. More generally, the Supreme Body has been preparing the Baháʾí world for the contributions it will make, on the grassroots level, to the rebuilding of civilization:

The once popular bumper sticker, “Think globally; act locally,” could, I imagine, be the emancipatory motto of the Great Reconstruction, through a collaborative, and an emancipatory, localism, which will, I suspect, inevitably result from worldwide anarchy. Economies and governments should, in my opinion, be reconstructed, on the grassroots level, upon the foundation of small towns or large neighborhoods. All business entities, of whatever size, must be democratically regulated by laws protecting localities, not stockholders. Community industries, whether cooperative or privately owned, would focus upon the needs of workers and customers. The profit motive will be replaced by the service motive.