Science, language and education
*
Since nothing is immutable and everything is in motion,
since every human being is in constant change, big or small,
then every word, every influence
is a form of education.
Actually,
everything is education.
No matter how little or how big,
we are all concerned.
*
* * *
*
Science of Life.
*
See higher than the highest peak.
The verb comprehend has two meanings:
1. to understand, make intelligible to oneself.
2. to embrace fully, include, integrate, assimilate wholly,
without exception or discrimination.
Thus,
in order to see the details and comprehend, to understand everything,
one must see the big picture.
And conversely,
one must grasp the parts in order to grasp the whole,
being aware that in order to see or understand something,
one must not only see and understand this very thing itself,
but one must also see and understand what it is not.
Not to see this
is to confess to seeing nothing.
Seeing all
is seeing everything.
All is said.
Everything is understood.
We can only understand anything
when we can see, when we can behold and embrace everything,
whole and details all at once.
That is why,
as with any other learning or undertaking,
the first steps on the path to awareness and understanding
are the most difficult ones.
Thus,
to have an overall vision is relatively difficult
because the spatiotemporal* whole
that underpins our personal and collective lives
is dynamic, multidimensional, relative and subjective,
one and multiple to infinity.
* We must also grasp the concept of space-time.
Our decisions, our words and our actions have repercussions through time AND space.
Space-time is both two things and one thing at the same time.
In this light, cause and effect relationships are, in space and in time, essential.
We start with a limited perception,
able to grasp only the few details that surround us.
As we climb the mountain,
we see more and more of the big picture,
and when we get enough distance,
we understand more and more aspects and things,
not only of what is and what is real,
but also of what is not and what is not real.
When at last our gaze can encompass the wonder-earth, the miracle-earth,
when we are on top of the mountain, even above it,
when we can see everything around us,
above, below, right, left, in front, behind, before, now and beyond,
when we can also see ourselves,
only then can we really understand, comprehend, envision, see
and distinguish between the essential and the superfluous,
between illusion and reality.
When we finally realize that the mountain
is both insignificant and a giant’s monument;
When we finally realize that the slope is an illusion;
When we finally realize that our only obstacle
is our perception, our ignorance, our unconsciousness, our false beliefs,
then the whole is revealed.
Everything reveals itself.
Only then can we put in place, and in order,
the solutions that will make a real difference.
Seeing with fresh eyes,
that is what makes a real difference.
*
To glimpse and to see
Even if it may be true and precise,
not seeing the entire picture of reality
is having a partial vision of reality.
The more this vision is partial,
the more it tends to be biased,
the more it risks omitting the essential.
Thus,
seeing the parts is like having a headlamp on your head.
It’s good, but it’s not enough.
Seeing the whole is seeing the light itself.
Seeing the whole is giving birth to light,
being blessed with grace.
Seeing the whole
is bringing everything to light.
*
The science of life is original, primordial.
No matter what name it may be given,
humanities, philosophy, wisdom, spirituality, or whatever else,
the science of life was born with consciousness and thought,
and from the point of view of humanity,
it will die with it.
It was born with the mind, with consciousness,
with the first questions, the first mystical thoughts, the first rituals,
the first artistic manifestations.
At once spiritual, metaphysical,
protoscientific, artistic, cultural and ritualistic,
these first lights of consciousness and of the spirit
are inextricably linked to the elements, to the Earth,
to the known and the unknown, to the rational and the irrational,
to death and life, to being and nothingness,
inspired both by horror and wonder.
The science of life is universal.
It is spiritual and emotional,
political, scientific, sociological, economic and environmental.
It transcends human consciousness.
It transcends everything, all the realities of our world,
from the intimate to the universal level.
The science of life
is the science of being and the science of the whole.
If the science of life is the science of everything,
then the science of life is not only the science of science, the science of every science,
it is also crucially the study of oneself, of our own mind.
If the science of life is the science of everything,
then the science of life is to understand that everything is subjective and relative,
that everything goes through the prism of our psyche and our personality
even when we speak of so-called ‘hard’ science.
Wisdom thus offers us the necessary perspective
to enlarge our minds and increase our intelligences
so as to be able to face all present and future challenges.
*
To understand is to change.
To understand is to undergo metamorphosis.
If understanding means understanding,
then understanding is not just growing,
understanding is becoming.
Indeed,
when I understand what I am not,
when I become aware of a reality that I did not know existed a moment ago,
I become what I was not before.
To understand this, to conceive this,
is not just to see this,
it is also to become this.
To be is to understand.
To understand is to be.
To be or not to be,
that is indeed the question.
*
Everything is subjective
Since everything we see, think, say or do originates from ourselves,
then everything is subjective.
Subjectivity
is the emanation of our being, of our soul, of our innermost being.
Subjectivity
is the expression of your freedom and uniqueness,
the expression of each and every one of our freedom and uniqueness.
It is marvelous in its singularity.
To understand this is to understand
that what is subjective is what is human,
and that it involves us all.
Thus,
what is subjective is intimate
as much as what is intimate is subjective.
This reality is universal.
You exist, she exists, he exists, they exist, we exist, I exist.
The innermost exists.
The innermost is universal.
*
Inner humanity
Indeed,
I am me only in my own eyes.
To everyone else,
I am someone else.
And yet,
I embody what is human.
By embodying what is Human,
we embody the whole Humankind.
We all embody Humanity.
Humanity is in each and every one of us,
by nature and by definition.
It is the new scale,
the law of evolution.
Universal Humanism:
the death or resurrection of the human species.
*
Objective
Thus,
universal humanism
is necessarily the most accomplished and coherent form of objectivity
that humanity has at its disposal.
To reach the absolute,
what is relative must be included.
Einstein proves it in his General Theory of Relativity.
In the space-time continuum,
the perception of reality depends on the observer.
In the human sciences,
relativity includes both what is intimate and what is subjective.
Thus,
getting a glimpse of the absolute
is key to understanding the theories of dynamic relativity.
And conversely,
understanding that relativity is universal
is key to getting a glimpse of the absolute.
To discovering the infinite.
*
Such is the light that guides us.
*
Since comprehending something amounts to becoming it,
therefore, when we get a grasp of infinity,
do we become infinity?
*
Sovereignty is a humanity.
All that is human is by nature and by definition subjective,
conditioned by historical, social and psychological factors,
and is all the more limited and irrational
as individual and collective consciousness
is not open to the reality, multidimensional to infinity,
of the Earth and the Universe.
Since subjectivity is by definition human,
to be objective is to understand all subjectivities.
Only the science of being can achieve this.
Since only being is,
only being can reach to the universal.
Because humans are human,
philosophy and the sciences of being, the humanities
are not only crucial and indispensable,
but humanistic and universal philosophical thought, both one and infinite,
is also our common salvation.
It is therefore indispensable
to make the right decisions and move in the right direction.
Never can we reach greater objectivity
than when the objective is the comprehension of what is subjective and unconscious
in order to take our destiny into our own hands.
At least at this stage of evolution,
subjectivity includes a non-negligible amount of irrationality.
To deny subjectivity and irrationality
is to be doomed never to know them,
and never really understand human realities.
*
Ultra-rationalism is irrational.
If mathematics and the science of numbers
are the science of the measurable, the calculable,
wisdom is the science of the incalculable, the immeasurable, the infinite.
Our ultra-profitable capitalist societies
can neither measure the unquantifiable nor the infinite.
They believe that numbers and ultra-profitable rationalism
are guarantees of objectivity.
Never the mathematical, statistical or other so-called hard sciences
will be able to grasp the subjective and relative, spiritual and emotional subtlety of being,
and neither will neurobiology.
Absolute objectivity, ‘mathematical’ objectivism
is at best a delusion,
at worst a tyrannical absolutism.
Because it conveys blind submission, obedience
and thus ignorance and violence,
because ignorance is the negation of knowledge and reason,
our ultra-rationalist materialistic and profitable societies
cannot open the doors
to freedom, humanism, justice or harmony.
Our ultra-rationalist ultra-capitalist ultra-profitable societies
can neither understand nor include the immeasurable, the indescribable,
consciousness, the mind, subjectivity, the emotional,
death, life, what’s human, what’s divine.
Thus,
and in the sense that it denies everything it does not understand,
hyper-rationalism is blind and therefore hyper-irrational and destructive.
Reason and knowledge are, of course, saving and salutary,
as we keep saying.
Consumerist ultra-materialism,
on the other hand, is a cosmic, ecological, impassable planetary dead end,
and capitalist ultra-rationalism,
based on numbers and the greatest possible profitability,
a deadly illusion.
Neither reason nor salvation
will come from the economy or from financial accounting,
which, on the contrary, seek only to silence them by all possible means.
As a matter of fact,
pseudo-capitalist rationalism is a dogma of the same nature as religious dogma,
at least as irrational, blind and destructive, if not more so.
If humanity is subjective by nature,
then subjectivity is human.
If subjectivity is human,
then humanity is its raison d’être, its origin and its objective.
Universal subjectivity carries within itself
its own solution, its own remedy:
it is universal and human.
In order for the subjective to ally itself with the objective,
the objective must be universal and humanistic.
When the subjective becomes the objective,
then subjectivity becomes objective,
because it becomes universal.
In other words,
when the subjective becomes universal,
then subjectivity inherent to humanity becomes objective.
If subjectivity is universal and humanist,
then humanism is the eye of humankind.
Universal humanism
is therefore what is closest to objectivity for humans on Earth.
It is something that everyone knows intimately, in their heart, in their inner self:
Humanism is the light that guides consciousness,
the light that alone can propel us to the top of the mountain
and beyond.
When humanism reigns,
then justice reigns.
Thus,
all those who exercise any public or influential position
should study the science of life and consciousness,
and meet wise men, scientists and living people.
We certainly need guides.
But we need those who have climbed the mountain.
Not a mountain of money.
But a mountain of wisdom and humanism.
*
Infinity
is a scientific, philosophical, metaphysical and spiritual reality.
Since infinity is a scientific reality
twice proven by astrophysics and quantum physics,
then infinity becomes a reality.
A reality dreamed of
by all the greatest philosophers, the greatest mystics, the greatest utopians,
in the depths of their being.
The philosophy of infinity is the philosophy of all possibilities.
It is the absolute opposite of fanatical and liberticidal dogma.
Philosophy of all possibilities,
it is the philosophy of the future.
Philosophy of what is real and possible,
wisdom is liberating.
It is a reality, a philosophy, a state of mind
of the cognitive, sensitive, spiritual, physical, social, relational, emotional fulfillment
and well-being of the self in the midst of the whole.
Understanding that we are insignificant
but that our consciousness in spite of and thanks to this insignificance
perceives the gigantism of the infinite
is bathing in this spirit.
It is perceiving in grace the world’s immensity and beauty.
It is therefore necessary to learn
the science of life and consciousness, the science of the whole and the infinite
in order to have a greater vision, a broader perspective,
a more fertile and solid mind,
a more accurate, precise, vast and subtle way of thinking.
It is enlightened intelligence that saves,
not blind stupidity.
It is a natural spiritual function that must be exploited at all costs.
If life is everything,
then everything is life.
If the science of life is the science of everything,
then everything is the science of life.
Nothing escapes this one.
Neither anything nor anyone does.
A blind and childish person would claim to know everything.
If it is impossible to know everything about infinity,
it is however easy to know that infinity transcends limits and differences.
Infinity makes us both humbler and greater.
Infinity offers us eternal wonder.
The philosophy of infinity
is cosmic, spiritual, human, simple and natural.
The essence of the science of life
is to see and feel, through research, discovery, truth, wisdom.
Its goal is human progress and the salvation of humanity,
mine as well as everybody else’s.
He or she who does not seek the salvation of Humanity,
who does not even wish it,
can be neither a philosopher nor a representative of the people
in any way whatsoever.
The wise one’s point of view
is the point of view of the Other, of all the others;
it consists in putting oneself in the position of the Other, of all the others.
And yet we do not always realize it,
but we are all visionaries and philosophers,
at certain times, more or less, depending on the period.
It is therefore a matter of teaching and studying these sciences,
which we call human or humanities
and all the more so when we want to hold a public office.
Their benefits would be considerable.
It is not because it is not talked about in the media,
it is not because it is not at all defended by this system
guided by economic profitability alone
that we have not made incredible progress in this area as well.
Although it dates from the beginning of the ages,
more than ever, deep thinking is modern, new and immense in spirit.
It is magnificent.
It is particularly well embodied by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Etienne Chouard, Michel Onfray, Chogyam Trungpa, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Spinoza, Noam Chomsky and many others.
Philosophically,
we have made leaps forward in many areas,
throughout the world.
Not only when you don’t look,
you are sure to find nothing,
but when you look,
more often than not,
you find.
Seek
and you will perhaps see the beauty of the current of thought
that is spreading throughout the world,
a current that unfortunately not everyone is yet aware that it truly exists.
Without the ideas of the Enlightenment of the 18th century,
it is highly unlikely that the French and American Revolutions
would have taken the forms they did and given birth to Democracies,
or even that they could have existed.
Similarly,
progress in the human,
philosophical, political, psychological, sociological, cognitive, educational, etc. sciences
is a latent evolution.
The reality of infinity is a latent revolution
of which too few of us are yet aware
for it to become effective.
But if you had told a common man of the year 1200
that one day his descendants could go to the polls
to choose their political leaders,
he would undoubtedly have called you an insane fool.
And yet,
what’s the real difference between you and him?
Anyone who would judge the thoughts of this book
to be unrealistic and the fruit of the mind of a lunatic
would be at least as ignorant as our poor human being
enslaved to the feudal system of the twelfth century AD.
Knowledge in general, the sciences of existence
are the source of everyone’s salvation.
It cannot be otherwise.
This is great news.
We still have a choice:
Intelligence, life, hope or chronic stupidity, despair and death.
Not only must harmony be studied and taught,
but it also must be given a voice and advanced.
Harmony is a form of life that liberates us.
Harmony exists by itself.
Forged in the midst of infinite multidimensional equilibria,
it reigns on the largest scales of the universe.
Since harmony is human as much as it is cosmic and infinite,
then harmony is not only profitable and beneficial,
it is saving and liberating.
If there is only one thing, or entity,
in which to believe…
*
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* * * * *
* * *
*
Education
*
In each generation,
the task of the newborn,
of the human being who comes into the world,
is titanic.
In the space of a few years,
thousands of years of knowledge aggregated in the present,
5,400 if our point of reference is the invention of writing,
35,000 if we refer to the invention of weaving
need to be processed.
*
Teaching humanity
Carried away by the torrent of events,
all victims of History,
our collective unconsciousness, inherited from the animal age,
leads us towards a cataclysm.
Inherited from the most remote times of humanity,
from the first stammering of the origins,
it is not because there is neither tangible nor written memory
of this primitive age, from before the Stone Age,
that there is no memory of prehistory.
On the contrary,
this memory is inscribed everywhere
within the elements, within the Earth, within life,
within all human beings,
this memory that belongs both to the past, to the present and to the future,
this memory that still lives all around us
is inscribed deep within us
and is fully visible in the light of scientific discoveries.
It teaches us that humanity has resided at the heart of humanity
since the dawn of time at the dawn of consciousness.
And that wisdom has existed
since the dawn of humanity.
The only salvation, the only way out, the only hope
is to put wisdom, knowledge and fulfillment
at the heart of the school system.
*
* * *
*
The sciences of being
If the connection that can be created between a human being and the world
depends on his or her relationship with him or herself,
then the relationship to the universe, to the world,
to the Other, to our god or our divinity
necessarily depends on our relationship with ourselves.
As much as the world influences the human being’s innermost psyche
with a power that no one, or very few suspect,
the human being’s innermost psyche influences oneself, others and the world.
If the relationship of the self to the world
depends on our relationship to the world
as much as on our relationship to ourselves,
then our relationship to the other and to the world, to society, to the universe
and, if we believe in it, to the divinity,
is both one and multiple.
Since one never understands anything but through oneself,
then the primary foundation of education
is to give the ability to know oneself
in order to know others and the world
and to recognize that without others,
I would not even exist.
If one never understands anything but through oneself,
then access to knowledge, society, the world, the universe, others and the spirit
is necessarily a personal, intimate and direct relationship.
Thus,
there is only one real solution:
Education.
Harmony is impossible without education.
From a physical as well as metaphysical point of view,
without education to oneself, the world, the other, the universe and harmony,
there is no hope.
Without education, there is no hope.
Education is a key.
It is a spiritual key
because it takes into consideration an essential dimension of being:
oneself.
Our only salvation, our only grace, our only hope
is to put the human being and humanity at the heart of humanity’s project.
If the objective of education is education through oneself,
education to be able to discover the world and humanity
through self-discovery
brings serenity and hope to oneself and the world
and vice versa.
An education to peace, intelligence, fulfillment,
knowledge of the human being, of oneself and of the universe
is a condition for an authentic dynamic of hope.
In this regard,
its richness emanates from itself.
If hope and wisdom are riches,
and if education to oneself generates wisdom and hope,
then education is a richness in itself.
And its benefits will be immense.
Hope and wisdom are riches in and of themselves.
It is therefore not only legitimate but also vital
to implement it as soon as possible.
If we are all interconnected on the planet,
if we are all human beings,
then we are all part of the same species with a common destiny.
If our personal destiny
is intrinsically, irremediably linked
to the destiny of the human species as a whole,
it is at a global level that we must implement a particular teaching,
in all the schools of the world:
A teaching to the acceptance of oneself, of others and of the world,
a teaching to the discovery of oneself, of others and of the world,
a teaching that is simple to implement,
a teaching with a very high intrinsic value, for a minimal price,
to the discovery of a universe, of a planet and of being
that opens us up, and that offers us
to infinity and wonder,
the healthy and simple, almost holy joy of being alive.
Without any human and humanistic education,
no grace is possible,
neither for man, nor for woman, nor for child, nor for anyone.
A humanistic education in humanistic justice,
in the full perception, awareness and understanding
that what harms others always harms oneself
is priceless.
The more numerous are all those
who are victims of injustices and nuisances,
the more we are all, each and every one of us,
affected as negatively as the suffering we inflict on one another
through space and time from soul to soul,
in direct proportion to the exponentially negative systemic trend
that such a state of human degeneration,
and of a decaying bond between all human beings
necessarily engenders.
If an authentic education to oneself is the necessary investment
that will preserve us from future disasters and expenses,
it does not matter if we do not have the money to do so.
If we can see that education is an undeniable wealth,
then it is legitimate to create this money from scratch.
If the relationship of the self to the world
as well as the world to oneself
depends on who we are,
then education is crucial,
and the means it requires must be allocated to it.
Moreover,
adding courses in self-respect, respect for others,
respect for life and respect for the world
to the school curriculum for a few hours a week
would not cost much but would have such tangible benefits
that they could generate a myriad of positive dynamics
and become part of a systemic virtuous circle.
Because an educated and wise people
is neither violent nor quick to war,
then investing in education is an investment
in peace, serenity, well-being and prosperity.
Peace is free of charge, peace is freedom, peace is life,
peace is the mother of all possibilities.
Conversely,
war is spending tons of money
to sow violence, misery and suffering, destitution, slavery,
submission to unhealthy systemic dynamics.
War means losing all your rights,
war means no longer being human,
war means the death of all possibilities,
war means losing everything,
yourself and all those you love.
If it is crucial for each one of us,
it is crucial for humanity as a whole.
Therefore,
the price of education is immeasurable.
Its value is priceless.
Nothing has greater legitimacy than what can save humanity.
Wisdom alone will preserve us from wars and cataclysms.
Wisdom is as much our most accurate compass
to lead us to the most beautiful of possible worlds
as it is our ultimate and primary wealth:
ourselves.
In this sense,
beyond the sciences of numbers,
we must teach the sciences of being.
If this education is above all an education to be oneself,
to find oneself, and to find one’s place in the world,
to do what makes us alive
not only in our own eyes but also in the eyes of others and the world,
if the sciences of being
are best able to foster conscious and responsible citizens,
therefore, it is an education to self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction,
to the acceptance of a world with its pains and joys,
to truth, knowledge, intelligence, justice and harmony.
It is the renewal of the world.
To find the greatest and most beautiful and ecstatic joys
through the greatest possible self-fulfillment
within the limits imposed by respect for others, oneself and the world
is the objective of this educational model.
Education to oneself is an art,
a subject undoubtedly more important than any other.
For the uses we will make of the knowledge and powers
that the evolution of the human species will have transmitted to us
necessarily depend on education to oneself.
The only remedy to the nightmare of systematized inhumanity
is the consciousness of oneself, of the world and of humanity
as an organic whole
in which the whole and the parts reach a balance, a harmony.
To consider one’s own life
as inseparably, organically linked to the rest of humanity
requires no special effort or means.
All it takes is to see it.
All it takes is to know it.
All it takes is to teach it.
*
Every flower’s destiny is to unfold and blossom.
Each child, each human being carries within him or herself,
the potential of his or her own personal fulfillment.
To create the conditions favorable to the discovery of oneself
is to open a possible path, a possible, accomplished and fulfilled future
for each and everyone.
The freer and more fulfilled human beings will be,
the more the human race will have the chance and the opportunities
to reveal itself, to free itself, and to flourish.
*
Saving childhood
The phenomenon of the perpetuation of generalized blindness
inherited from the darkest times of humanity
is all the more profound and powerful
and leads us all the more inexorably to our own loss as a species
as it concerns each and every one of us, everyone’s lives,
affecting our own innermost being
with all the tear, pain and heartbreak that that can entail.
A society can only be balanced
if those who are part of it are balanced beings.
No one can find balance
without a minimum of authentic and sincere fulfillment.
Children are by nature fragile and vulnerable.
As we ourselves are searching for a meaning and a purpose,
we poorly know how to guide them, accompany them
towards their fulfillment, their blossoming, their destiny.
Children,
we all have been children,
We probably still are.
All of us children of humanity.
All of us orphans of a lost humanity,
we continue to neglect the education we give our children.
While it is the only renewal of humanity, our only hope,
we continue to neglect and abuse childhood.
We literally neglect the scope and importance
of the messages, beliefs, hopes and despairs
that we pass down to our children
as parents, schools, a society and a humanity.
All of us humanity’s children,
saving childhood is saving ourselves.
Saving childhood is saving humanity.
*
The teachings of universal wisdom shall save humanity
from the darkness of ignorance and the hell of its consequences.
We must become aware of the seeds we sow
in the mind of humanity,
in the minds of our friends, our parents, our children
now and in the future.
More hope than despair, more happiness than pain,
more benevolence than evil, more openness than narrowness,
more mind than materialism, more generosity than greed,
more wisdom than insanity,
more incitement to peace than incitement to conflict
must be sown in childhood.
If love, solidarity and siblinghood are one and the same thing,
then love has a precise and primordial social function.
No calculation, no figure can quantify it.
No theory, no political, economic or metaphysical ideology whatsoever
can deny or ignore it,
or, even more stupidly, claim to be able to replace it.
Humanity lies at the heart of the human being.
It is therefore humanity, what’s human,
that creates the social bond.
This is what needs to be taught to all the children of the world.
It’s as simple as that.
All over the world, all around the Earth,
this is what we all have to learn.
When we all know this,
then the world will have changed.
When we all know this,
then humanity will be saved.
When this humanity disappears, the human dies with it,
and in their wake, society, civilization, the world.
For better or worse,
society will change.
Another educational system
that cannot but add to the efficiency of teaching
is within our reach, and that of future generations.
We have to realize this and give ourselves the means to make it happen.
For neglecting one’s children is neglecting oneself.
Helping humans to know themselves,
to find their own way, to recognize their intrinsic humaneness right from infancy
is giving a meaning, a purpose, a raison d’être back to life
giving their destiny back to humans,
giving freedom back to humanity.
This system must be based on the discovery of oneself, the world and others,
what makes me a boy or a girl, a man or a woman,
what makes me human, among other humans.
Essential to the life of our societies,
this teaching of self-discovery and discovery of the world
is, however, absent from all curricula.
In which schools, in which countries
is Wisdom taught?
Within this new system,
let us help our children to discover themselves,
to love and respect life and death,
let us help them to discover their qualities and strengths,
let us help them to live with themselves, with others and in the world.
To restore the balance between theoretical and practical teachings,
to nourish them with reality, creativity, task sharing and so on,
to accompany them in the discovery and understanding of the world and themselves
without crushing or stifling them, without blaming or restraining them,
such is the mission of the school system.
To lead them
to discover nature and culture, science, knowledge, society,
in exchange, respect, recognition and understanding,
in communication, dialogue, observation, exploration, cooperation, inspiration and creation,
such is the mission of the school system.
Thus, and only thus,
can the whole of humanity flourish and thrive.
Only thus will we be able to hinder and break
the infernal circle of repetition of all the errors of the past
that constantly affect the present and the future.
*
Lion cubs in a cage?
Aren’t our children similar to the bear cub or the lion cub
with an irrepressible natural need to play with their siblings?
Even though we will never prevent them from being overflowing with life,
put children in a healthy environment with wise and humane rules,
with moments for study, moments for play,
moments for sports, moments for discovery, for the arts etc.,
then these children will know how to prove themselves worthy and conciliatory
because each of them was born with both a unique and plural potential, waiting to be revealed,
that they only want to embody, cultivate, exploit.
We should guide them with love, awareness, wonder, dignity, compassion
and respect not only for the mental characteristics of their ages
but also for their need to move around, to be physically active,
rather than hammering them with theories
with little or no connection to reality,
sitting on a table all day long.
It is our role as parents and teachers, adults in general,
to help our children to reveal themselves to themselves.
Each one of them has a different little universe,
little, but full of magic, curiosity,
source of wonder and joy of life, source of so much becoming,
because they are excellent, sublime, wonderful, loving, endearing,
always surprising – innovative! – in the way they see the world,
however clumsy they sometimes are, so funny!!!
Children are eager to learn and marvel.
Better yet,
homo-sapiens sons and daughters,
they are programmed to learn.
Don’t they always ask a lot of questions, ‘Why? Why?’ Why? Why?’,
questions that often surprise us
and to which sometimes we don’t have the slightest answer?
Our children are programmed to learn,
and yet, in school, all over the world, most often,
we achieve the feat of putting them off learning.
On the scale of the species or nation,
childhood is regeneration.
We should therefore stop projecting
our preconceived ideas and experiences onto childhood
and stop repeating the mistakes of the past.
Understanding childhood is giving it a new taste for learning.
Understanding childhood is being able to guide it
without restraining it, without breaking it.
Guiding childhood is making it become what it already is:
homo-sapiens.
Guiding childhood towards what it is,
is leading childhood towards the fulfillment of its destiny.
A humane and gentle education
based on the bond to oneself, to others and to reality
is not only a right,
it is a duty,
all the more absolute and universal
as it is constitutive of tomorrow’s humanity and world.
Education is the future of humanity.
This future is not in 2050.
It is now.
Forevermore,
the future is now, right now.
Every day and with a kind of blind, compulsive, thoughtless insistence,
we feed our little ones with materialism,
TV, advertisements, egocentricity, vanity,
pornography, violence, deception, intrigue, lies, swindles,
greed, exacerbated narcissism, fear and barbarism…
All in their most extreme forms!
Without even dwelling on what they are taught
in the “big” business or management schools, to name but a few
(how to manipulate speeches in order to sell, in other words how to lie,
how to overly exploit natural and human resources
to make money, in other words how to best plunder…),
the incommensurability of irresponsibility towards them
will sooner or later cause our children
to turn against us, and against themselves!
I don’t know if there is always worse,
but when you think of all these children who come into the world
and who are destined to psychological imbalance and suffering,
to human relationships based on power and violence,
to a society that is totally disintegrated, unjust, degrading and corrupt,
the sadness that engulfs you is immense and intense.
*
Teaching teachers
Since those who teach are ignorant of universal wisdom,
how to work for the regeneration of childhood?
Perpetuating its own neurotic illnesses,
aggravating its own metaphysical errors,
reinforcing widespread blindness,
how a society can hope to be sustainable and in harmony with itself
when too few properly trained teachers
can have access to a positive and humanistic pedagogy?
We must therefore review our curricula
and invite parents, teachers, educators and trainers
to cultivate humanism and humaneness in themselves
for the greater good of the children, the nation and humanity.
We must be able to question who we are and what we do
in order to become aware of our educational deficiencies
in terms of universal wisdom, self-knowledge, living well and well-being,
quite simply.
“Know thyself”, said the philosopher.
As bright as the sun
bathing in an ocean of azure blue sky bathing in light,
simplicity is luminous.
Simplicity is solar.
Simplicity is light.
Like the immeasurable,
there’s one thing that never ends:
Learning.
We never stop learning.
Learning never ends.
Learning has no limits.
Learning has no boundaries.
Like God, and the Cosmos,
learning is infinite, learning is eternal.
The potential is both infinite and eternal.
Because seeing is seeing the light;
Because seeing is revealing what is;
Because light illuminates our path, our destiny,
seeing and knowing, seeing the light,
that is the way.
*
Thus,
those who never stop learning are probably the most competent ones
to guide others to the light.
Thus,
to foster a taste for learning is the number one priority
of school, of all educators, parents, teachers and trainers,
an unconditional prerequisite without which no learning is possible.
*
The pedagogy of trust.
The pedagogy of hope.
Even before being a teacher,
a teacher or trainer must be a pedagogue
who knows how to put him or herself in the place and on the level of others,
who knows how to open his or her mind
beyond his or her own specialty
to the comprehension of the mechanisms of the world as well as the learners’ brains
beyond his or her own specialty.
The teacher is above all a human being.
Thus,
if knowing how to put oneself in the place and on the level of others
is indispensable to teaching,
then compassion is a skill, an indispensable ingredient of effective pedagogy.
The positive value of pedagogy
is at least as important as the pedagogical content.
Unfortunately,
there is still too much of a tendency for teachers to practice pedagogy
that focuses on error and the negative.
Too many teachers too often say,
“That’s lame. No, Wrong, Badly said etc.”.
and this can go as far as
“That’s rubbish. You’re just a good-for-nothing. You’ll never make it…”, etc.
Put yourself in their shoes.
You’ve been there, in their shoes.
Who likes to be constantly belittled?
No one does.
This has two negative consequences:
A dislike for learning and knowledge
and a dedication to ignorance and all its harmful consequences.
Do you realize that?
And yet this negative pedagogy is widespread.
Parents and children,
can you imagine the harm it does to all of us?
We don’t respect,
let alone seriously take into consideration,
the rhythms, needs and cognitive abilities
of the different ages from early childhood to adulthood,
and because of this, because we don’t know what the art of transmission means,
as soon as they fail to understand,
we punish them.
Which is a crowning achievement,
it has to be said.
We punish our children because they don’t understand what we tell them,
whereas it is us, the adults, who have failed to understand them well enough
in order to explain clearly enough for them to understand.
Positive pedagogy,
on the contrary, focuses on encouragement.
Throughout the learning process,
seeking to highlight all the signs of progress
means giving learning a chance to bear fruit.
Have you ever had the experience
of transmitting knowledge, understanding and intelligence?
When this happens,
it is a victory in people’s minds.
When understanding is mutual,
sparks of intelligence shine in both the teacher’s and the learner’s mind, whether young or old.
A teacher is an eternal learner and it is because s/he is well aware of this
that s/he remains humble in the face of the infinite
that s/he will eternally have to learn.
Thus,
since a teacher is an eternal learner,
teaching makes one humble and encouraging
more than haughty and contemptuous.
Thus,
a genuine teacher has learned to no longer judge negatively,
but to appreciate what is positive.
It changes everything.
It costs nothing, not a euro, not a dime,
but it changes everything.
From the point of view of the schoolchild, the student, the learner,
to be encouraged, to be valued
on one’s strengths more than on one’s weaknesses,
without excess but with justice and fairness, with kindness and wisdom,
it is extraordinary.
It changes everything in the way you look at yourself.
The teaching technique is simple and humble
and yet its results can be magical.
Magical, and yet very real.
Magical because they are very real.
Just as our children are magical and real.
All it takes is for every teacher, educator, trainer and parent
to focus on what is positive, what is right,
more than what is wrong.
Doing this costs next to nothing,
but it’s 50% of the solution,
at least.
Mathematically,
the benefits of positive pedagogy are as unquantifiable and immeasurable
as the consequences and chain reactions of negative pedagogy
on the hearts and minds of those who receive it
are staggeringly abysmal.
Spreading this basic and simplistic pedagogy,
summarized here in two lines,
would certainly make a big difference.
Highlighting the positive and the potential of the child, adolescent or adult
rather than relying on the negative traits of behavior, mind, body or being,
is already a revolution.
Freedom is the freedom to see what choices are available to us.
When the choice is between the positive and the negative,
any sensible person would choose the positive.
Investing in education is investing in the future.
It is one of the remedies against the Apocalypse.
*
Inspiring the desire to learn
Fostering the desire to learn by respecting the child
so that the child respects teaching, educational institutions, knowledge, wisdom and intelligence.
It is already hard, frustrating, and even to some extent unnatural
for a child or teenager to sit on a chair for hours
while their bodies are overflowing with youthful energy,
if we discourage them whenever possible
and, to top it all off, hardly ever compliment them,
then don’t put any hope in that education.
No wonder that today, every day,
we pay a very high price for it.
The body is full of energy at this age,
it is not only the privilege of youth,
but it is also the time when the body is building itself,
and must, in order to build itself well, build itself in a solid, healthy way.
It is a natural need linked to the evolution of our species.
Physical activity is obviously positive and beneficial,
but it’s not just sport or competition.
There is good physical and concrete work to be done,
such as gardening, masonry, etc., in short, manual work.
We should therefore invest in equipment and/or find the right partners
so that children very quickly become familiar
with the more or less manual work of the physical world.
From the age when the child can create something, i.e. early,
it is good to develop this.
And there is nothing better
than starting very early with the simplest things.
Picking strawberries or raspberries,
planting trees, plants, vegetables, fruits, or flowers…
As early as middle school, around 11, 12 years old,
one can tackle more substantial work,
such as painting, on a wall or on canvas, or anything else,
a bit of masonry, whatever can be done.
We continue gardening.
At the same time,
we develop the traditional subjects
such as reading, math, geometry, physics, biology, geology, etc.,
which will help them to carry out all these practical works,
all these experiences in the real world.
For example,
calculating the surface area of a room to be painted
in order to know how much paint is needed to do so.
Learning through reading the characteristics of the plants
that we put in the ground so that they will bear fruit.
The other subjects are obviously not given up.
In primary school,
traditional subjects as well as sciences
pertaining to reality such as botany, biology, ‘naturology’, physics, etc.
will be studied at a simple level
but as observationally, playfully or experimentally as possible
rather than in a purely abstract and theoretical way
in order to find a healthy and effective balance
between theory and practice, between the abstract and the concrete,
between the unreal and the real. *
* The Montessori method has proved its usefulness
in creating this link between the abstract and the concrete.
How can I describe our joy at discovering, two years after writing these lines
that such schools focused on the child and his or her development
more or less similar to our vision
already exist under the name of Waldorf schools,
designed and developed by Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of the 20th century
in a way that is not only much more profound than what we present here,
but whose benefits on children are already tangible and proven
since nowadays there are in the world 1,100 Steiner-Waldorf schools,
over 2,000 Steiner-Waldorf kindergartens,
300 special education centers (curative education)
and 60 teacher training institutes in this pedagogy.
https://www.ecole-steiner-avignon.org/lecole-dans-le-monde/
https://www.waldorf-100.org/en/
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner
Whatever the age,
from the moment the child can speak,
we can make them discover all sciences,
as long as we adapt the pedagogy to the cognitive capacities specific to their age.
Each science can be seen as we see reality,
with the naked eye or through a microscope.
Indeed,
from the visible to the invisible,
the more powerful the microscope is,
the more we discover previously hidden realities,
like as many new sciences that at the same time surprise, amaze us
and explain the world.
We present the broad outlines,
the visible things first of all.
And as the child grows up,
the details begin to be taught,
in an increasingly precise, refined and subtle way.
Even the interrelational complexity of all things.
Who does not marvel at the miracle of a tree
that grows and gives us its fruits?
Who does not marvel at the miracle of life on Earth?
Who does not marvel at the images of the cosmos
as revealed by the Hubble and Planck telescopes, to name but a few?
What better way to give children the desire to learn,
to do math in order to better understand and become an astronaut,
a computer scientist, an engineer or an astrophysicist, among others?
What better way of making children want to learn
than saving our world?
*
School curricula
As a consequence of all that has just been said,
the Herculean and unrealistic curricula that are imposed on children
take no account of the reality of childhood,
not to mention the teachers’ reality and working conditions.
Weak and unrealistic in terms of the feasibility of the objectives,
not only out of sync with the talents and skills of too many students,
but also out of sync with the reality
of the world of work, society and the world at large,
what is the percentage of curricula up to the A-levels or their equivalent
that children use or remember in their adult lives?
Burdened by the syllabuses, the objectives,
the number of students, strangled by a lack of means,
establishments struggle to instill a hint of pedagogy within the system.
Thus,
teachers struggle to continue to love their job and to share it.
A school is not an enterprise
in which children and teachers are forced to be productive,
where performance is coerced.
One learns, ingests, remembers and does better
as one enjoys what one learns and learns to do.
Instead of constantly lowering the level of the various exams,
such as the GCSE, or the A-levels,
we would do better to lighten the curricula,
and to ensure that a reduced number of main subjects,
chosen by the student, detected and encouraged by the teaching team,
are more thorough, that more time is devoted to them,
and that secondary subjects are lighter.
For if the level of certain exams is relatively low,
from a very young age, the weight of the curricula is too heavy,
too heavy on our children’s shoulders.
*
The fundamental objectives of primary school
If, already by the time they enter the 6th grade,
children are beginning to know how to read, write and count well,
if they have opened a little bit to life and its various phenomena,
art, science, society and the humanities,
if they have been taught to love a few foreign languages,
if we have managed to ever so slightly sharpen their scientific curiosity,
if we have opened them up to the world and to themselves,
with the primary goal of letting them know
who they are and what they are good at,
if we have taught them to love learning,
then the elementary school mission has been fulfilled
and even beyond.
For then their personal characteristics would soon find paths
through which to express themselves;
their potential, their creativity, their skills, however humble,
would soon find a way and a use for their own good in the first place,
and then, with and through it, for the good of the whole community.
For there is nothing more precious than knowing oneself,
especially at this age when nothing is yet decided,
when destiny has yet to be written.
For as soon as we know ourselves,
as soon as we know what we have talents for, what we are made for,
everyone can find a place and a usefulness, be it great or small,
but always legitimate and justified, natural and fulfilling in human society.
If at the age of 11, after 7-8 years in the school system,
neither teachers nor parents have any idea of what the child likes to do,
nor what he or she really is, and therefore may become,
if he or she has not been helped
to germinate any awareness of what he or she is,
if he or she has not been taught or only badly
how to interact with him or herself,
if he or she does not know how to interact with others,
then we can talk about pedagogical failure.
Every child is a human being.
The needs, but also the riches are innumerable,
as great and multiple as there are human beings.
A better education system makes a better future possible.
Within or outside the school system, at school or at home,
a positive education illuminates the future of our children
as much as it illuminates the future of the world.
Beyond the debate on equal opportunity,
the issue here and now is humanity’s chances of survival.
By making a child aware
of what he or she has skills for, what he or she is made for,
what life he or she may have as an individual and a socially fulfilled person
this is how the education system, including parents and teachers,
can give our children the best possible opportunities.
Without this,
any debate on equal opportunity is a dead end.
*
Secondary school:
majors.
In England,
a two-stage system of progressive subject selection
is introduced from secondary school onwards, when children are 11 years old.
First stage:
Among 15 to 40 subjects, depending on the school,
at the age of 11, students have only five compulsory subjects:
mathematics, English, biology, physics, chemistry.
In general, students choose between nine and twelve of them.
At the age of 14, after the GCSE,
(General Certificate of Secondary Education),
they can either leave the general system
or opt for only three to six subjects.
Thus,
as long as students know who they are at a minimum,
they can focus on what they are best at and what suits them best.
Rather than spreading themselves thin by studying too many subjects,
they focus on what they are most gifted at
and what would help them fulfil their potential in their adult working lives.
England is a developed country with a skilled and qualified population.
It is therefore not necessary to study everything
in order to flourish and find one’s place in society.
However,
there is a downside to this positive picture of the English system:
Since in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, memory is a duty,
it seems indispensable for citizens to be informed
about the history of the world.
In addition and for the same political and humanistic reasons,
it seems indispensable for civic education courses to be given throughout high school.
Since being a responsible human being
includes respect for nature and the environment,
then this civic education could include courses in ecology.
Finally,
because one never develops better awareness and self-control
than by studying the science of being and by practicing meditation,
then it seems indispensable for these two interconnected disciplines
to be practiced throughout the entire education period,
from the beginning of primary school to the end of secondary school.
*
Meditation at school
Since meditating is relaxing, letting go and releasing tension;
since meditating is learning to concentrate in the most natural possible way;
since meditating is learning to know oneself;
since meditating is observing oneself
and learning from one’s feelings and emotions;
since meditation is learning to control and be master of oneself;
since meditating is understanding
that we are only a grain of sand in the universe,
a grain of sand certainly,
but inevitably and inseparably connected to the great earthly and universal whole,
then it seems obvious that meditation should be practiced at school.
Indeed,
nothing better than meditation fulfills the school’s mission:
To make children responsible, respectful, self-aware citizens,
better able to concentrate and carry out what they are meant to do.
Of course,
this will be first and foremost a relaxing meditation,
one that aims to clear the mind and relax
much more than one that seeks to analyze the deep workings of the being,
the mysteries of the psyche, emotions and feelings.
Even so, in the long run,
self-knowledge necessarily involves a deep understanding of the heart and mind.
However,
meditation is the subject of so many fantasies and ignorance
that it seems convenient to have a better understanding
of the nature and goals of meditation practice.
We would therefore be honored to outline them for you:
First of all, let us be clear:
there is nothing mysterious, dogmatic, and even less religious
about meditation practice.
Many books are dedicated to this subject,
and without doubt each one is interesting in its own way.*
This is not surprising in the sense that meditation being about discovering oneself,
there are as many different perspectives on the subject
as there are individuals on earth.
*We cannot help but invite you
to browse through some of them
and be inspired.
In any case,
the basis of meditation practice is simple:
It is about emptying oneself,
or more accurately, making oneself empty
in order to discover what is beneath, beside and beyond oneself,
what is beneath, beside and beyond the thoughts that clutter our mind
and fill our ears with a constant and deafening buzzing
that prevents us from listening to silence
and therefore from listening to ourselves,
that prevents us from seeing who we are
and therefore makes us blind not only to what surrounds us,
but also to our own existence.
Not knowing who we are
is inexorably ensuring that we never know anything at all.
Thus,
meditation is all about clearing your mind,
letting go of the thoughts that come to our minds
so as to see what is beyond them and listen to silence.
For it is when silence is found
that the essential is revealed.
It is when silence is found
that we can see beyond ourselves.
It is when we can see beyond ourselves
that we can surpass ourselves, grow, better ourselves, enhance our skills.
Thus,
meditation simply consists of becoming emptiness
and contemplating, contemplating space,
contemplating space within oneself,
even reaching to the infinite.
Silence has so much to tell us.
Its words are whispers
the universe and the earth and the infinite have to say to us.
They are calls for peace, love and harmony.
Today,
these calls resound like the Earth’s cries for reconciliation and harmony.
Everything that gives birth to us and keeps us alive
is fertile and beneficial.
Listening to silence
is being filled with universal benevolence.
Listening to silence
is incarnating universal consciousness,
incarnating the world, the earth, the universe.
Listening to silence
is letting ourselves be filled with the light that dwells in each one of us.
Seeing the light that shines in the depths of each one of us,
finding the world’s harmony,
such is the fruit of meditation.
Listen to silence,
everyone can do it.
Children are undoubtedly even more gifted than adults at listening to silence
as their minds have not yet been deafened
by the culture of materialism, narcissism, individualism, selfishness,
careerism, jealousy, greed, competitiveness, productivism, prosaicism, consumerism, guilt and negativity.
To make our children more attuned to themselves,
inwardly and collectively, individually and mutually,
to make our children calmer and quieter
with a greater ability to focus,
isn’t that the dream of every teacher?
To make our children more attentive to themselves
is to make our children more attentive to others,
therefore less inclined to be cruel to one another.
Isn’t this the dream
of every supervisor and every teacher, every parent and every child?
*
Focus
The camera does not know that it is a camera.
Not knowing what it is, it doesn’t know how it works.
It cannot therefore operate itself.
Similarly,
a camera cannot film itself.
Thus, and in the same way,
it is difficult for a being to look at him or herself
because then the one who is looking and the one who is being looked at
is the same person,
hence the crucial importance of education, experience, and knowledge
to guide those who want to discover the Truth
and explore the immense world, the infinite universe of the Mind.
Teaching our children to know themselves
means teaching them to be masters of their own selves
and thus of their own destiny.
Realizing what we are made for, finding our purpose and accomplishing it,
this is the definition of fulfillment and a successful life.
To make human beings, the nation and humanity
masters of their destiny again
is not only the supreme goal of any self-respecting educational system,
it is also, if it exists, the divine will.
*
A National Curriculum Council?
The example of education
is symptomatic of the non-democratic, absurd and counterproductive excesses
of the system of representation and appointment of its members.
Out of 18 of the ministers of education in France from 1978 to 2020,
only 8 have taught in their lifetime,
most of them in favorable educational conditions
in great and renowned institutions of higher education
where there is no shortage of money,
and none in difficult classes in the middle or high schools of today’s France.
Lionel Jospin (May 12, 1988 to April 2, 1992),
Jack Lang (April 2, 1992 to March 29, 1993 and March 28, 2000 to May 7, 2002),
François Bayrou (March 29, 1993 to June 4, 1997),
Claude Allègre (June 4, 1997 to March 28, 2000),
Luc Ferry (May 7, 2002 to March 31, 2004),
Xavier Darcos (May 18, 2007 to May 24, 2009),
Vincent Peillon (May 16, 2012 to March 31, 2014)
Jean-Michel Blanquer (May 17, 2017 – )
8 out of 17 is not even 50%.
Over the 42 years that cover our period, from 1978 to 2020,
10 ministers of education have never taught in their lives,
and the other 8 have been in the ministry of education for just over 20 years.
Thus,
for about 18 years,
France has had Ministers of Education who have never taught in their lives.
When we apply for a job,
we are asked to have about two years of experience.
And yet the people of France
have had ministers of education with no experience at all.
Thus,
among those who decide and have decided
on the destiny of all the citizens of the nation,
some have never given a course in their lives.
How is this possible?
What’s wrong with that?
will they say.
And yet would they entrust their children to a surgeon
who has never performed a single surgical operation,
neither on humans nor on animals, neither dead nor alive.
Ministers of Education are to the souls and minds of the nation’s children
what a surgeon would do to your son’s or daughter’s body.
Of course,
they have their own children
but this is not enough to know how to give a structured course,
how to make it a live experience, how to teach knowledge, skills and know-how.
And yet,
for 18 years, the education of an entire nation’s children and youth
was entrusted to people who had never taught a course,
who had no idea how intelligence, understanding and knowledge progress
in a person or a group of people (often made up of thirty individuals)
who have yet to be given the taste and pleasure of learning.
How can one decide on pedagogy,
the content of curricula and syllabuses, the means to implement them, etc., etc.,
without having an inch of firsthand experience?
What price are we going to pay for such irresponsibility?
We need to improve the education system.
It is possible, it is positive, it is easy.
To give it a better direction is realistic and possible
just as it is realistic and possible to give it a bad direction.
In order to address these flaws
in realism and feasibility inherent in the current system,
we should consider creating a National Curriculum Council.
This National Council would be a democratic advance
over the existing Superior Council of Curricula (Conseil Supérieur des Programmes)
in that it would be much more representative of the primary and secondary professionals
who are not, to our knowledge, represented in the current council.*
* https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conseil_sup%C3%A9rieur_des_programmes
*
This new national curriculum council could be composed of two boards:
one for the humanities and one for the ‘hard’ sciences,
or, to name them differently,
one for the sciences of the mind
(immaterial sciences with psychological, social and political applications) on the one hand,
and another one for the sciences of the bodies
(material sciences with technological applications) on the other,
these two categories not being watertight.
They could be made up of teachers and professors
from a representative sample of France,
elected by their peers according to the principles of the majority judgment,
by sector, two per region for example, one man and one woman, elected for 3 years (? ),
one third of each board renewed by election every 1 year (?),
with regular plenary meetings.*
*We could also consider a first, random
selection stage,
as is recommended for national
representation.
The focus of this council and this new education system
would be the positive pedagogy:
The preparation of children
through the development of their skills and talents
for their personal fulfillment within the community,
for their life as a man or a woman in tomorrow’s world.
*
A common humanist pedagogical bedrock
Cultivating joy and wonder, intelligence and creativity,
humanity and tolerance from an early age,
on as global a scale as possible,
ensures we’re moving towards a certain liberation.
It is, at as low a cost as possible,
the way to resurrect the future of humanity.
Defining a very basic and simple pedagogical foundation,
common to the self-proclaimed humanity
would free the world from a great burden:
the burden of the future,
the burden of not knowing where we are going,
the burden of a humanity that ignores itself,
that does not know where it is going,
and that, not knowing it, is certain to go straight to disaster.
If we agreed on a basic pedagogy,
a pedagogy based on harmony and universal wisdom,
understanding, consciousness and intelligence,
a pedagogy that would not erase cultural particularisms
but, on the contrary, would incorporate them as sources of knowledge,
then we would be certain that tomorrow
there would be more cooperation than confrontation.
And then the trend could be reversed.
So little is needed.
If the universal is applied on a universal scale,
then the universal will reverberate in the best sense of the word.
Harmony is the only possible and imaginable miracle on this earth.
It will generate unexpected solutions.
It will be fruitful of immense richness.
See it, right here,
it is the only possible and imaginable miracle on this earth.
To enshrine an international treaty on a common pedagogical bedrock
based on the first principles of universal humanism
is to breathe a new spirit into the heart of humanity and human beings.
Cultivate
intelligence, joy, wonder, creativity, delight, humility and generosity, affection, justice and humanity.
That’s it.
Those words are enough.
No need to go any further.
No economic obstacle prevents the spirit of humanity
from being breathed into the heart of humanity.
The obstacle is purely mental or ideological.
Breathing the spirit of universal harmony into humanity
is giving birth to the Spirit of God on Earth.
Instantly or almost instantaneously,
the world would know where to go.
Seeing the light is knowing where to go.
We would almost instantly regain confidence.
The more faith we will have in ourselves,
the more faith we will have in our future,
the less we will fight each other.
The universal is a revolution.
More than a revolution,
the universal is a necessary, vital, imperative evolution.
As when we understood that the earth was round,
perhaps one day we will understand that this understanding,
this revelation can never be doubted again.
Teaching joy, wonder and wisdom to a child,
what more wonderful teaching could there be?
*
* * *
*
The Youth and Children’s Parliament
Whatever forms of power governance may take,
no matter how wise it may be at the outset,
none of them can be immune from corruption or the diversion of its objectives
if leaders or citizens are not trained in wisdom, humanism and universality.
Thus,
the young must be trained in Wisdom.
Wisdom is the medicine for foolishness.
The age of Wisdom begins in childhood.
Thus,
even before the age of adolescence, from the age of reason,
it seems wise that children should be able to participate in the rebirth of the Nation.
Nine, ten years old seems to be a proper age.
Without being a teenager yet,
thoughts, ideas, and feelings begin to form
and leave their imprint on the personality.
It is therefore essential to imbue it
with wisdom, strength and reason.
Even if adolescence is approaching,
at 9, 10 years old, childhood is still palpable, perceptible and real.
From 9 to 18 years old,
the mission to speak and work on behalf of childhood and youth would be fertile.
We could imagine that each year, for a whole month,
our children, from 9 to 18 years old, would represent themselves.
Adults would only be there to set the guidelines
and remind them of the rules of the Democratic Law
inspired by universal wisdom and humanism.
A Parliament by and for children,
the Youth and Children’s Parliament could propose laws related to children.
These proposed laws would of course be subject to approval
by the vote of the other two (adult) national legislatures.
Even if these laws were not ratified,
the media coverage of the event would bring children’s concerns to the forefront.
Whether these concerns were translated
into sensible and rational law proposals, imbued with universal wisdom and justice,
or into a childish, completely zany and unconscious delusion,
these proposals would allow us to better understand our own children.
This would shed light on the world.
To lend credibility and prestige to the Youth and Children’s Parliament
is to give ourselves the chance to renew a real contact, a real relationship, a real affiliation,
a real bond with our children, with the flesh of our flesh, with the blood of our blood,
with all that we love most in the world.
Of course,
we cannot let children decide on their own.
They still have too much to learn.
Children won’t vote on defense budgets, geostrategy, or monetary policies
– that goes without saying.
This children’s assembly will obviously not be able to vote
on the decisions made by the two adult assemblies either,
because the knowledge and experience required
to decide are too important, complex
and too far from their minds still in a state of awakening and discovery,
that too goes without saying.
In any case,
as in the other assemblies,
with a relative and balanced power
in accordance with how things are ordered,
the nature of what they are and what the nation is,
not only will it be in the image of the people,
but also and above all in that of the children.
This assembly would remind men and women
that they have all been children
and that they are children first and foremost,
even before they are men and women.
Not only is the children’s view of the world a pure view
but to give back to humanity the view of its childhood
is to give it back its childhood, it is to regenerate it.
Childhood is our only fountain of youth.
Let us take care of it.
Let us listen to our youth.
How better to listen to it than to give it a voice through a parliament,
with limited but real powers?
Rebirth will be the gift of childhood to humanity.
This Children’s Assembly could be the crowning
of an immense collective and national wisdom.
It will undoubtedly be the sign of renewal, regeneration, rebirth.
This would be a miracle.
To institute something is to make it possible.
Only a miracle can save us.
To reveal the miracle
is the only way to make the miracle come true.
*
Number of child parliamentarians
One child per department, district or administrative county
would be a wonderful idea.
Each one would represent its territory at a child’s level.
It would be a marvel.
In France,
that would make 101 children, including the overseas departments.
Notwithstanding the legitimate question of their independence,
one of France’s strengths is to have territories all over the world.
If there are regions with which France must come to an agreement,
it is these overseas jurisdictions.
To unite children is to unite grown-ups.
With territories on many oceans,
it is one of France’s powers to unite the world in a coherent whole.
This strength is beyond measure.
To understand each other, to exchange and trade not only goods and services,
but also, and above all, knowledge and ideas throughout the world
is to work for harmony throughout the world,
it is to work for the survival of humanity.
France,
through her children,
could accomplish a miracle.
All the more so since France is home to citizens from all over the world.
One child per department per year to represent youth and childhood
in a carefully instituted parliament with limited but real powers,
a Children’s Parliament represents a new path not only for France
but also for the whole world.
The Law is universal.
It cannot be otherwise.
The universal law is.
It is a light,
our only light.
It is, in the midst of darkness, our sun.
In metropolitan France and on the other side of the oceans,
one month a year, one child per department would sit in the children’s parliament.
They would sit with the awareness
that they can propose a law for approval by the grown-ups’ parliament.
*
Methods of appointment
As for adults,
there would be a random selection draw followed by elections.
As with adults,
a child would obviously have the right to refuse to participate in parliament.
The right to refuse
is essential, inalienable and natural as much as it is universal.
1. Random selection by department, including overseas departments
2. In order not to give preference to the oldest ones,
8 children will be drawn at random:
one per age group,
one 9-year-old, one 10-year-old, one 11-year-old, one 12-year-old etc.
up to a 17-year-old.
3. The elections will be held at the departmental level,
adults not having the right to vote.
Since children under 18 years of age
cannot vote in what is called universal suffrage,
only children aged 9 to 17 years of age vote by department
from among the 8 age groups from 9 to 17 years of age
to designate the person who will be responsible for representing them in parliament.
Chance alone will give prevalence to any particular age group.
Very quickly, over the years,
the age groups will all be roughly equally represented.
This is the law of averages.
For those who would doubt the balance of power in an assembly
that would include both young men or women of 17 years old
and children of 9 years old
where only the oldest would always impose their will on the youngest,
it should be noted that sometimes,
often even a 10-year-old child is much smarter, finer and subtler
than a 15- or 17-year-old or even an adult
who lacks complete insight and analytical intelligence.
Indeed,
it is less a question of age than of sound judgment.
Children have this capacity to see this light,
this light which for us adults,
has already very often, too often unfortunately, dimmed or even disappeared.
Undoubtedly,
this experience would not only put into practice everything we have said before
about the benefits of education in connection with others and the world,
but it would be an authentic school of citizenship.
*
Operational aspects of the project
From one end to the other,
the parliamentary session will be overseen
by adults, pedagogues and educators among others,
whose role, as already mentioned,
will be to ensure that everything is done in respect
for democratic rules, respect for everyone and everyone’s opinions,
and to constantly remind children
that the light, the horizon, the focus, the beacon in the night
is the common good.
A place will be chosen to accommodate the children,
hopefully close to nature
in order to also carry out outdoor activities adapted to their age
with all the necessary facilities nearby so that their parents can,
if they so wish, reside close to their child during this time.
First of all,
they will be able to meet each other and for a few days discuss priorities.
Once a topic has been selected for deliberation,
adult presentations on the topic will be held in order to provide instruction.
All points of view shall be presented.
An independent commission
will have to ensure that everything is done according to democratic rules
that respect the children’s freedom
so that no adult will be tempted to impose his or her will.
In order for the entire nation to be aware of any infraction,
in order for the independent commission not to be tempted to abuse its power,
it must be constantly under scrutiny by the people and made public.
Anyone illegitimately attempting to influence the political process
will be held accountable for their actions, words and decisions
or suffer the consequences.
When it involves children,
any abuse becomes more heinous, horrible, unhealthy and evil.
Punishment will be all the more severe.
After which, after a period of time necessary
for the exploration of the issue(s), deliberation and collective elaboration of a bill,
it will be put to a vote.
The children alone will cast a vote to express themselves.
At all times,
the independent commission will have to make sure of it.
Finally,
in the same way as a standard bill,
their bill will be sent to the grown-ups’ Parliament.
*
The children’s parliament.
The objectives.
They are three:
1. Legislative:
Even though their power is relatively limited,
it is nevertheless real.
If their legislative proposals are sensible and fair,
they could be ratified.
We need to trust our children and the important things they have to tell us.
2. Educational:
It is the education to a democracy’s political life
and all that that implies:
empowerment, mastery of the matters at stake, mastery of the language
and mastery of the various knowledge required for any legislative process.
3. A right of speech:
This is perhaps the primary objective of this Youth and Children’s Parliament.
*
We have focused on a Children’s Parliament at the national level.
Of course,
nothing prevents this from being done
at the local, municipal, county and regional levels,
on the contrary.
*
Initiation rite
Can you imagine the transformation of our children,
our collective transformation,
if we cared and listened to what our children have to say?
Our society lacks initiation rites.
Our society lacks meaning.
Restoring meaning to our youth and childhood
would mean restoring meaning to our existence
and giving birth to humanity.
*
To be born again
We come from a culture that has long despised childhood,
that has long considered it ignorant.
Unfortunately,
it is without understanding
that respecting life and respecting childhood
is respecting ourselves.
The day when humans no longer put unnecessary barriers
between adulthood and childhood, between understanding and teaching,
then perhaps a new humanity can hope to be born.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful
to give each child, each little girl, each little boy
the chance to discover and become themselves
through exchange, discovery, experience and sharing of knowledge,
the chance to blossom and find their place in the world,
through respect and benevolence?
Many mothers and fathers no doubt understand.
Fulfillment through harmony is possible.
Not only is blossoming and harmony all the more possible
when they develop together,
but they are also and necessarily beneficial.
It is in this sense that we must rebuild our educational system:
a complete education is not only learning how to do or to know,
it is learning to be.
To be or not to be.
That is indeed the question.
Because it is education that allows it to survive
and last over time and generations,
more than being at the heart of society,
education is the heart of society,
and by extension, of all humanity.
Saving the planet Earth is already generating a number of callings.
Why not encourage them to multiply, to spread
by investing in research and education?
The planet and humanity are in such danger
that each one of us can become a savior of this world in great need.
We have reached the extreme end of such senselessness
that nothing else is possible…
To be or not to be.
That is still and always the question.
*
* * *
* * * * *
* * *
*
Reflections on Language
*
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
What is important is to have beautiful things in your head.
The important thing is to sow our minds
with beautiful and fruitful ideas that bear hope and joy.
Deep down, that’s all that matters.
I believe, no, I know, that to face our destiny,
we must put beautiful ideas in our minds,
in all our heads and in all our hearts.
That is our only hope.
Failing to reseed the minds with beautiful ideas and great, worthy thoughts
is tantamount to persevering on the dark path of perdition,
or eventual extinction…
It is no longer a choice.
It is no longer a choice. It is a matter of survival.
I’m begging you.
A little bit every day.
A little more each time, as much as possible, as soon as possible.
*
A mystery
Who remembers
his or her first words, his or her first sentences?
What do we know about language?
Our first memories
do not go as far back as our first words,
our first spoken expressions.
Since the first forms of language have not been written anywhere,
since we have no record of them,
we cannot remember our first words.
This is true at the individual level,
This is true at the species level.
We don’t remember our first words…
We date the birth of language approximately 100,000 years ago.
100,000 years ago,
the human species began to speak.
Even though we have no memory of it,
there is consensus on this date:
About 100,000 years ago, language was born.
That’s a long time ago.
A time immemorial.
Immemorial…
The meaning is most literal.
Immemorial and yet insignificant.
The paradox of time is not the only mystery.
The only enigma is not only physical and metaphysical,
the paradox of time is not only mathematical, besides being real and universal,
the mystery is spiritual and psychological, innermost and emotional.
How long did it take
for the complex and multiple, metaphorical and abstract forms of language
that we know today to form from a primitive protolanguage,
made up of simple gestures, grunts, groans, cries and moans?
Our language reveals what we are.
In this sense,
language defines what I am, what we are.
And yet,
language remains a mystery.
Regardless of the specific tongue,
language defines.
It is its nature, its very definition.
Because language defines,
language defines who I am
and how I express myself to others.
Language both reveals and defines who we all are:
It defines
what is most inner, most essential, most relational and most universal.
Language both reveals and defines who I am.
Language reveals and defines what you all are.
Such is its power.
From this point of view,
the power of language is infinite.
And yet,
language, like infinity, remains a mystery
whose most essential secrets we have not yet been able to unravel.
How then can we know that whose origin we have lost the traces of
and yet is undoubtedly what makes us human?
Language is a jigsaw puzzle full of mysteries
whose forms and contours are constantly changing
to adapt to the forms that we want, or that we can give them,
to adapt to society as well as to the individual
in their consciousness and their ignorance,
in their aspirations and their limits,
in their concepts and their specificities,
a giant jigsaw puzzle that takes on the shape that we want to give it
and that can adapt to our thoughts and feelings
if we make a little effort to do so.
The gift of speech is a treasure.
What it has to teach us is virtually infinite.
*
The word is creative
“In the beginning was the Word”
What a beautiful and magical phrase.
Speaking is an act of creation.
Speaking is creating.
The act of speaking necessarily implies an act of creation.
The act of speaking cannot be done without inspiration.
It is unique to each and every one of us.
For inspiration necessarily depends on who we are.
No one can be inspired by anything but himself or herself.
The act of speaking belongs to everyone and to no one.
The implications are gigantic.
First of all,
this human ability to speak is by nature accessible to everyone.
Whatever our mastery of language,
we have mastery of at least our mother tongue.
Language is universal.
In one form or another,
the gift of speech is the essence of being human.
*
Language:
Democratic expression at its peak
Language is therefore inherently humanistic and democratic
par excellence and by definition.
At the political level, especially at the political level,
the gift of speech is a key.
If speaking is both expressing one’s unique singularity
and at the same time having to adapt
to common grammatical, syntactic and semantic rules
in order to be understood,
then in an unconscious and innate way,
language structures both beings and society.
Language is therefore the expression of our uniqueness,
of our specific subjectivity inscribed within the framework
of common and collective grammatical, syntactical and vocabulary rules
defined by the group and each person at the same time.
The linguist and the grammarian observe and describe them,
but in no way dictate them.
No one decides the rules of language.
They get set of their own accord according to common usage.
In this sense,
human language is the perfect example of the triumphant Democracy.
The word accomplishes among men
the miracle of marrying individual freedom
and rule-and-code-structured society.
Therefore, in the most natural way in the world,
language has achieved that feat of strength
that we are told is utopian in politics.
Made up of rules accepted and decided upon by everyone,
guaranteeing the individual expression of everyone,
language is the psychosociolinguistic proof that human beings
are by nature democratic beings.
All the more so as without dialogue or exchange, without writing or reading,
there is no solution, no progress, no advance
in any political, scientific, social or technological field whatsoever.
Without dialogue and exchange,
no progress is possible.
Without dialogue and exchange,
no democracy is possible.
Without dialogue and exchange,
no liberation is possible.
The word is liberating,
the word is saving.
Language thus embodies the most successful democratic and libertarian body politic
that already exists on earth.
Speech is therefore eminently political.
That is precisely why people who speak out too much
are thrown into dungeons in dictatorial regimes.
*
The Language of Truth
is Saving and Liberating
No system based on lies can be stable
and is sooner or later bound to collapse.
I can shout and deny with all my might
that the wall right in front doesn’t exist,
if I don’t turn around, I’m going to get the truth right in my face.
What is is.
All the lies in the world
will never be enough to make what is not be.
That’s impossible.
All the lies in the world won’t be enough to make what is not be.
The most compulsive of liars
are ready, unfortunately, to ransack the world
to save their own, a world they have built on lies,
a psychotic, narcissistic, blind, inconstant, aggressive, manipulative, toxic and stupid world,
a world built on lies and therefore doomed to hit the wall of reality.
As inevitable as the sun will one day disappear,
sooner or later the wall of reality shall arise.
As inevitable as billions of suns
are still destined to rise out of the darkness in the entire universe,
the moment of truth has come.
*
The word edifies
As a species,
we build ourselves the way we tell ourselves
we must build ourselves.
As a species,
the word, the exchange through the word
is the indispensable prerequisite for any action or common work.
Since communication
is the obligatory, inevitable, unavoidable prerequisite of any common project,
then it is irremediably impossible for a community, a society, a civilization
to build anything without using words and a language of truth.
Without truth, nothing holds.
I can convince myself
that I can build a house of cards with soap bubbles,
that I can save humanity by massacring it,
that I can save the world by burning and polluting it,
I can convince myself as much as I want, it will never be possible.
Never, ever.
Without truth,
sooner or later, all systems collapse.
No life, no freedom, no progress is possible
without truth.
Likewise,
no genuine inspiration is possible without real and awakened freedom.
Because it reveals what is,
the word of truth is a light.
In this sense,
the word is sacred.
In speaking as much as in listening,
let us understand it, let us respect it, let us teach it.
It is light.
It is all that is.
In this sense,
it is divine.
Speaking is not only living,
it is also bringing life.
Speaking is existing.
Speaking is creating.
Creating is existing.
Creation is necessarily divine and sublime.
*
Universel Art
Talking is an art
that we all have been gifted with*.
* Except for a few rare human beings.
Autistic people in particular are artists and can create
in music, painting, sculpture etc.
often great and beautiful things.
Why they are so often more brilliant
than the average person is another question.
Probably because cut off from the world, they are free?
The fact is that almost all people with language deficiencies
know how to find a way to express and define themselves through art,
in a language that is their own
that we sometimes misunderstand, that sometimes stirs us,
that touches us, that moves us inside
without always understanding why.
We don’t realize how special a gift language is,
and yet it is universal.
Human beings are programmed to speak, programmed to express themselves
so that our being and our subjectivity, our singularity,
our freedom, our creativity
can be communicated.
If there is a creator,
this is what he wants, undeniably.
Since for as long as we can remember,
almost from birth to death, having always lived with it,
we cannot realize to what extent language is undoubtedly a ‘divine’ gift,
a skill that can make us realize
that we are all alike and unique at the same time.
Our every utterance is an act of creation
that reflects our self
and the subjectivity inherent in our being and our humanity.
The very fact that we do not remember our first words,
neither at the level of the human species nor at the level of the person
is the best proof that we lack distance from this gift,
that we still do not realize how powerful a gift the word is,
how its power is both great and terrible
depending on the use we make of it.
We do not yet realize that the gift of the word is a grace
that both connects and differentiates us all,
especially in the age of the Internet and globalization.
Speaking is an act of creation.
The act of speaking is the act of creation par excellence.
“In the beginning was the word.”
Verily,
not only in the beginning,
but also at all times, at any time,
everything is language…
To understand the act of speech in oneself, in others, and within the species,
is the way not only to learn to read and hear
the past, the present and even the future,
it is also the way to grasp altruism, infinity and therefore divine grace.
The gift of creation is a gift from the gods,
from all the gods and goddesses of the world.
As God is both free and creator,
and conversely, as there is no creator who is not free,
in order to create, one must be free.
Actually
we are all poets, but we do not know it.
Who am I?
Who are we?
Speaking is an art that we all practice…
We are all potential poets.
The only thing is, most of us don’t know it.
Speaking, or writing, expressing oneself
not to stir up hatred and war
but to explore and understand our world, to inspire beauty
is giving oneself the chance
to assert oneself, to create, to build and to find balance.
The gift of speech is a magnificent gift,
all the more wonderful because,
notwithstanding a few rare and unfortunate exceptions,
we are all gifted with it.
We must open our eyes to what the gods and goddesses offer us,
what they actually have always offered us,
and what we have never been able to see:
harmony.
Harmony,
a term generally applied to music and poetry
applied here to politics and society.
If creativity and freedom are divine characteristics in and of themselves,
then recognizing, through language, that our intrinsic creativity
is at the same time common and unique to all of us
will make us acknowledge that the respect for other people’s freedom
is the precondition for the respect for my own freedom.
This will be a giant leap in the right direction.
Since we are all gifted with the gift of speech,
then we are all intrinsically, and therefore potentially free, tolerant and connected.
Indeed,
unless it serves to silence and oppress others,
speaking sets us free.
This is popular wisdom.
For some to deplore it and even worry about it
is distressingly significant of how blind they are.
To this day, unhappily,
from the petty ruler to the most bloodthirsty tyrant,
the rich and powerful
seek by all possible and imaginable means,
even the most horrible and inhuman ones,
to stifle any voice deemed dangerous and dissenting
when it is simply the expression of a being, a society, an epoch, a temporary era
inscribed within the history and evolution of the species.
It is therefore even more terrible
that so many fundamentalists and terrorists
from all kinds of dogmas, from all sectarian and tyrannical groups
use and abuse lies or violence as their only language.
*
Like God,
language is universal.
Like Earth, water, fire and air, forests, oceans, mountains, plains, valleys, rivers,
language belongs to everyone and no one at the same time.
With very few exceptions,
we are all gifted with the gift of speech,
and therefore the gift of creation.
Speaking is creating.
That is the miracle.
If, in an act of creation,
a God or a Divinity created us,
He or She has given us, has offered each and every one of us
the gift of creation…
Whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not,
He or She made us in His or Her image:
Whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not,
we are all creators.
Not only has the Divinity made us in His or Her image of creator,
but moreover, since speech is the expression of oneself,
since speech can only be the expression of oneself,
therefore, the Divinity is necessarily in favor of freedom of conscience and speech,
in favor of dialogue and communication, of harmony and understanding.
The word is all that unites us to one another.
Of signs or hearts,
the word is all that unites us.
Thus,
speech is intrinsically democratic.
It is the bond, the divine bond,
a divine offering.
How could this be denied?
This is the link that unites each and every one of us.
Can you understand the scope of the Word?
Can you see its magnitude?
Can you measure how far it reaches?
How far-reaching each and every one’s word is?
*
The word is a revelation
Learning to master language is revealing oneself.
In addition to revealing oneself to oneself,
it is revealing oneself to others.
And conversely,
if learning to master language
means giving oneself the means to reveal oneself,
revealing oneself to oneself means mastering language.
Mastering language is a gift from heaven.
Indeed,
language does not only reveal what we are,
language reveals everything that exists.
Language is the reflection of what we are.
To master language is to master oneself.
To master language is to rise
to the rank of queens and kings.
*
The language of death,
the death of language.
It is a great sadness for us
that nowadays lies, violence and war become the one and only language,
the language of politics and tyranny, of ignorance and stupidity,
of cowardice and despair, of greed and indifference, of imbalance and insanity…
The language of hate is a language of death.
The language of hate and death
is the hate and death not only of language
but also of humanity,
and vice versa.
Hate and death of both humanity and the divinity.
Lies, hate and violence
are always distressing and laughable symptoms
of the ignorance and stupidity of all those who utter them.
Delusional narcissism and thirst for power and money are not enough.
They are so confused about what to say
that they can only resort to lies and violence.
Faced with what they do not understand, faced with intelligence,
stupidity coupled with greed and vanity always resort to lies and/or violence
as the only means of expression and self-assertion.
Violence always is the ‘trigger-happy’ weapon
of the pretentious ignorant, of malignant narcissists
who do not know, who cannot question their opinion, their positions.
Extremely arrogant and greedy by nature,
they cannot admit to being wrong.
Concretely,
having built their lives on predation, arrogance, pride, injustice, lies,
their standard of living and subsistence depend on it.
Spiritually,
they identify so much with their opinions
that they believe changing them is an admission of unbearable weakness,
a humiliation from which they will never recover.
*
Truth is light.
No more and no less.
Truth is Light.
This light must shine on the world.
Ignorance is a prison.
Truth is liberation.
The word of truth is a condition
for the triumph of wisdom, harmony and freedom.
*
“The truth will set you free.”
Like any other illusion,
a lie collapses when we see it and recognize it as such.
As soon as I know that what I see before me in the dark
dancing in a play of light and shadow is not a ghost or a wraith,
but a shrub swinging in the wind,
then I know.
There is no turning back.
I know.
Because I know, I am no longer afraid.
I don’t think about it anymore, all apprehension is gone,
I am freed from my illusion.
When illusions and especially lies disappear,
the majesty of the world and of being is finally revealed.
Freedom is truth as much as truth is freedom.
The truth is the source of all light.
The truth is the sun of the mind.
*
The Tree of Knowledge.
At the center of the Garden of Eden
sits the Tree of Knowledge.
Divine Garden,
the Garden of Eden is necessarily bathed in light.
Perhaps we do not understand the scope and meaning of the Scriptures.
Because humans would have tasted the Tree of Knowledge,
they would be lost, damned and expelled from the Garden of Eden?
On the contrary.
Knowledge liberates.
Knowledge enriches.
Knowledge elevates.
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge is the Garden.
Eve was right.
The serpent never wanted to deceive us.
No doubt it wanted to deliver us from darkness.
Knowledge liberates, knowledge enriches, knowledge elevates.
Knowledge enlightens.
Knowledge is a sun within the Spirit.
Ignorance is a tomb
blacker than the ugliest dungeon,
scarier than the most haunted cave.
How not to seek Knowledge?
How not to seek the sun of the Spirit?
If God exists, God is the Spirit.
The Spirit of God is necessarily Light.
If God is God,
God wants us to find the Garden of Eden again.
In the Garden of Eden stands the Tree of Knowledge.
To go to the Garden of Eden
is to go to the Kingdom of God.
We must finally find it again
to taste its fruits and bathe in its light.
Such is the divine will.
*
The Gates of Paradise
If knowledge always frees us from evil and suffering,
ignorance always and forever locks us up in violence and suffering.
Ignorance is to hell
what knowledge is to heaven.
The boundary between hell and paradise
is the boundary between ignorance and knowledge.
Ignorance is the darkness of soul and consciousness.
In the darkness one is afraid, one is lost.
In the dark, we lie in despair.
In the light,
everything is revealed and we come into the world.
Knowledge is the light of consciousness.
It is the light of the Spirit.
Knowledge is the light of paradise.
A light with an infinite range of tones, hues, colors, gleams
and spatiotemporal features.
*
Our only Garden of Eden is planet Earth.
*
* * *
* * * * *
* * *
*
Science and Conscience.
*
Science is great insofar as consciousness is great.
*
Artificial Intelligence
For all humankind, for all humans,
the higher the slope one climbs, the greater the mountain one climbs,
the deeper the precipice, the greater the pit.
Thus,
the greater the danger,
the more conscious and aware one must be.
There is no doubt that all progress is an asset, a force
as much as a precipice, a danger, a potential curse.
This was the case
with the mastery and knowledge of the nuclear dimension of matter,
it will be the case with artificial intelligence and robotics that goes with it.
*
All-powerfulness
Have you ever felt invincible behind the wheel of your vehicle?
Have you ever felt that sense of superiority
that comes from simply being behind the wheel
of our protective and powerful rolling steel box?
At least once,
vis-à-vis people who walk around on foot,
without steel armour, exposed, vulnerable, human, fragile, mortal,
or another driver of a moving steel box,
have you ever felt this sense of all-powerfulness?
If this has happened to all of us at least once in our lives,
the fact that just a rolling steel box
could inspire such power, such a sense of superiority,
then imagine what artificial intelligence could give the person or persons owning and controlling it.
We already know that artificial intelligence will eventually be so great
that humans will be overpowered.
Without consciousness and improperly used,
the dangers of such new powers are humongous.
*
Frankenstein’s monster?
Will intelligence without conscience
be the Frankenstein of humanity?
Without consciousness,
nothing human can live.
Without consciousness,
nothing human can survive.
Without consciousness,
intelligence is useless.
Without consciousness,
intelligence always turns against its creator.
If this were not true,
then we would have exterminated ourselves long ago.
For nearly 70 years,
humanity has had the power to self-exterminate itself.
And yet, it has not done so.
To this day,
humanity has not used nuclear weapons to start a war
whose outcome is too obvious not to impose itself on the conscience
as the inevitable and disastrous consequence
of unprecedented madness and irresponsibility.
This is undoubtedly proof that humanity is aware
of the danger posed by nuclear weapons.
Only consciousness can turn science and intelligence
into blessings and not curses.
Consciousness
is the salvation of intelligence.
Without it,
intelligence always turns against its creator.
Will artificial intelligence be humankind’s Frankenstein?
Will the intelligence we create find a reason,
however unimaginable, unpredictable or improbable it may be,
to turn against us, humanity, who are its creator?
Frankenstein’s creature had human feelings.
Even so,
it turned against its creator.
It found in the inconsistencies, in the very human imperfections of its creator
enough reasons to turn against him.
Human or not,
with artificial intelligence,
are we going to give birth to monsters against Humanity?
*
Sciences, powers and freedoms.
Robotization and dehumanization.
In a more and more total, tyrannical and worrying way,
technologies with totally historical, unprecedented totalitarian potential
of immense, unpredictable, repressive, alienating,
enslaving, dehumanizing, nightmarish and bloody consequences,
are multiplying exponentially.
Robotics, nanotechnology, neuroscience, genetics and computer science,
will they be used to control minds and masses?
Simply imagine the multiplied power of the rich and powerful
who already dominate the world with an iron fist.
Are the fruits of a technological convergence
reaped at great cost, no doubt subsidized by the peoples themselves,
going to be, or are they already being used
to subdue peoples and humanity,
to make us all outcasts and slaves?
In my youth,
I had such a horrible nightmare that I was afraid to go to sleep at night.
A nightmare so terrible that I woke up in a sweat,
and never wanted to go back to sleep again.
Never until today
have I been able to perceive its full and deep multifaceted meanings and ramifications.
Today,
I realize that this dream was a warning.
A warning of what was to come.
Of what we are rushing towards unprepared
if we do not try with all our might,
blind and damned that we are,
to change direction.
A total nightmare
where the inhuman materializes,
where what is monstrous takes on the appearance of humanity and perfection,
where inhumanity takes on the appearance of humanity,
and humanity takes on the appearance of inhumanity.
Very quickly now, if we persist in this terrible direction,
the inhuman will take human form to better deceive us
by interfering in our innermost intimacy,
even in our body and our cells, in our brain itself,
to better enslave us, control us and/or frighten us, persecute and torture us.
Robots will take human form
and humans will dehumanize themselves.
There is nothing more serious than that.
I say unto you,
since the rule of money which is called capitalism or neoliberalism
is already destroying rights and peoples, destroying life and the Earth,
science and technology are at high risk of being misused
to give birth to robotic monsters committed to serving tyranny,
be it political or economic.
My mind cannot imagine greater risks,
a darker and deeper pit, a more repugnant nightmare
into which humanity could sink and never return.
Stephen Hawking himself*,
one of the greatest astrophysicists of all times,
who, suffering from a motor neuron disease
(MND; also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease)
needed a computer to translate his thoughts from his microfacial expressions,
along with dozens of other experts on technology and artificial intelligence
warns us about the pitfalls and immense dangers of artificial intelligence.**
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Future_of_humanity
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_on_Artificial_Intelligence
*
Science fiction?
Imagine in 2, 5, 10, 15 or 20 years
meeting someone and wondering:
Is the person in front of me human?
Who is a robot?
Who has been lobotomized?
Who has a chip, an electronic one, in their head?
What can I do
so that no one will ever take possession of my brain, actions and thoughts
so that I will not be persecuted, terrorized, tortured or lobotomized?
Is my spouse herself or himself?
What about my parents, my children?
Who can I still trust?
When we know that whoever has control over these technologies
can take possession of our mind and make us lose our soul,
what trust will then remain between human beings?
An icy, unforgiving world,
absolute loneliness, total emotional emptiness.
In a few years, or a few short decades,
this will probably be science fiction no longer.
Already,
it is a reality that is slowly making its way into the world.
Absurd and silly irony of history:
On the one hand,
the combined sciences of neurology, computer science, robotics and artificial intelligence
have created robots that can make autonomous decisions,
until soon they will go far beyond the limits of human beings.
On the other hand,
we dehumanize humanity in order to enslave it,
to control its mind, to take possession of its body
and its thoughts, its identity and its humanity.
The most nightmarish horror movies
are nothing compared to what these robots could do to us
if they were made to serve injustice and tyranny.
What we risk is atrocious and unprecedented.
No writer, no filmmaker has ever imagined worse.
It is the taking over of body and mind, of thought, of soul, of identity,
the dispossession of our inner self, of our heart, of our soul, of our mind.
It is the perpetual caging of this very thing that makes us who we are,
our sensibility, our sentience, our creativity, our consciousness,
our humanity.
It is the inhuman reality, the most monstrous inhumanity
against which nothing and no one will be able to resist…
Never again will the police and the army, robotized,
be able to turn against those who control them.
The tyrants’ perfect weapon.
When all notions of trust have disappeared from the face of the Earth,
where will we be able to take shelter?
In the light of what is already happening now,
what will then be the place of the human,
of tenderness, of compassion, of trust, love, friendship and affection
in the face of such immense power of repression, oppression and destruction,
in the face of total and totalitarian technological power
held by an ultra-minority but ultra-powerful elite?
What will become
of love and bliss?
What will become
of the joy of meeting, sharing, being together?
What will become
of the incredible feeling of sharing the same humanity,
fragile and brilliant all at once?
What will become
of the certainty of no longer having ‘un jardin secret’,
an inner world of your own, or a private life?
What will become
of the wonderful emotional and spiritual bond between beings?
What will become
of the certainty to be free?
What will become
of the certainty of not having a chip in the head?
Can there ever come a day
when the power of control and repression of humans over humans
becomes such that only a moment of freedom
would be made totally and irremediably impossible?
Could freedom of thought, freedom of consciousness
ever be declared illegal?
Could the very spirit of freedom itself
be condemned to disappear
and never be born again?
*
Humans, humanoids
The era of humanoid robots is fast approaching.
Already robots walk like humans, they run like big cats,
they have the strength of several men,
they can climb vertical surfaces, fly, carry weapons…
More and more agile and powerful robots,
much more powerful than simple human beings.
Imagine the power that such an army
could give to the one, to those who control it.
Why do you think they’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars
to develop nanotechnology, robotics, neuroscience, computer science, genetics?
Don’t be naive anymore:
As illusory and counterproductive as it may be,
the oligarchy has the very resolute intention
of continuing to dominate and rule over the rest of humanity,
for all eternity.
When all these ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-powerful inventions of domination,
you have no idea, will be at the disposal of some tyranny,
then it will have the power to destroy
our ability to be genuine and to genuinely think
by aiming at our brain capacity, our neuronal connections
in order to control our thoughts, and thus our actions, our decisions
so that they can get us to continue maximizing their profits
by bleeding us as well as the planet
until the twilight of times, until robotization and total dehumanization,
until the great night of the mind…
The fight that is taking shape has been the same since the dawn of time,
now exacerbated and inescapable as never before:
It is humanity’s struggle against inhumanity.
Inhumanity and humanity are by no means abstract concepts.
Humanity is everything that makes us all who we are.
It is our foundation, our very definition.
Being human is all that we have in common.
Humanity is our own.
Humanity is our most precious wealth.
Humanity is our only true wealth.
The victory of life over death
depends on the outcome of the struggle of humanity against inhumanity.
In order to hope to heal ourselves
from our harmful, negative, destructive and counterproductive self-conditioning,
in order to hope to heal ourselves from inhumanity within ourselves,
we must become aware that the universal
both feeds on harmony
and nourishes it.
*
Robotized armed forces
Conversely,
imbalances always generate more chaos and risk.
Constantly designing and producing ever more weapons,
ever more sophisticated, ever more destructive, dehumanizing and terrifying weapons
is madness, a by-product of capitalism at all costs
where everything is good for profit,
even war and death.
Might these weapons, these robots fall into the hands of madmen, tyrants,
and you shall see.
No matter how hard you pray,
the robots will listen to no prayer.
To protect us from the technological horrors that await us,
two things are possible.
The first one is both the simplest to understand and the most effective one:
The harmonization of the world.
This is the purpose of this book:
People and nations find harmony
and no challenge will be impossible to meet.
No more need to manufacture weapons by the billions,
humanity is at peace with itself.
Without being incompatible with the first option,
the second one is regulation by legislation.
Its effectiveness will be proportional to the harmonization of the world.
Conversely,
it will be all the weaker the more the world is divided,
for a divided world is a world in which the arms race cannot be stopped.
In any case,
we will have to do everything we can to control it,
to restrict mass production to as low a level as we can
and to find means of control that can guarantee
the supremacy of Humans over the machine.
In an ideal world
where progress is not the enemy of humanity,
we would probably invent a universal, standardized switch
that every human being would be equipped with
in order to be able to turn off the machine when it goes completely wrong
or when its owner is a madman
who wants to harm his fellow human beings.
*
To be free
is to be free to choose.
In addition,
we should limit scientific research in certain fields and fields of application.
As soon as they are detrimental to the general interest,
all the more so when they benefit only the arms dealers and the armies
that add fuel to the fire
in tensions between nations and peoples around the world
in order to increase their revenues, or to establish the power of tyrants,
all scientific research is vain and even evil.
Thus,
any investment that is disproportionate
to the real, just, democratic and legitimate benefits
must be largely curbed, regulated, restrained, limited or even prohibited.
Aren’t the Western countries,
with the United States at their head,
doing everything in their power to ensure
that some countries can never acquire control of nuclear energy
for war purposes?
Is it not the same, throughout the world, regarding human cloning?
Moreover,
the privatization of warfare,
be it the production of weapons or the army,
should be prohibited, banished from the surface of the globe
as much as it is humanly possible to do so,
and remain within the sphere of the state
so as to allow for as democratic a control as possible.
Besides,
since a government that endangers its own people
is neither worthy nor legitimate to represent its people,
everything related to violence and war
should be an exclusive prerogative of the people.
Consequently,
all armies and arms industries should be controlled
by as fair and representative a democracy as possible.
Since division, confrontation or war
throw entire populations into deadly hell,
then war is to be avoided at all costs.
Whatever happens,
even when it cannot be avoided,
pacifist rhetoric must permeate all speeches.
“Peace, peace, peace and universal harmony are our supreme goals.”
Better still,
harmony is our only hope.
Spending hundreds of billions of dollars to kill is a total aberration.
A sure sign of our self-condemnation.
While we could use all
these immense financial, human, logistical, and astronomical resources
to understand and resolve
the deep root causes of all our existential problems, or almost,
through understanding and consciousness,
we spend hundreds of billions of dollars
to limitlessly worsen the fundamental problems of human beings:
Inequalities, lies, manipulation, division, slavery, conflict, confrontation, the most extreme imbalances
on a large scale, at all levels, in all dimensions of human life.
For what purpose, for what goal?
The desire for power over others and greed?
While we could use all these inordinately immense resources
to analyze and solve most of the problems of our kind and species,
to find a cure for what makes our world all too often a hell,
we prefer to perpetuate the Curse.
Harmony is a purpose
if not divine, at least sacred in that it benefits everyone.
While the combined forces
of compassion and reason,
intelligence and beauty, love, consciousness and harmony
are necessarily positive,
like damned, blind and collectively immensely stupid fools,
we are heading straight for the precipice.
I can already hear the thunderous voices of those who have an interest
in defending their privileges for fear of losing them:
“Wisdom, consciousness, reason and compassion don’t make any money!″
Quite the contrary,
it is not because the future and wisdom escape our reassuring calculations
that wisdom and the best of what is possible have no added value.
Our survival is priceless.
Humanity’s greatest added value is itself.
We must urgently invest ourselves and our resources
in order to go in this direction,
before we are completely overwhelmed by our own creations,
before our resources are exhausted, before the climate is unleashed,
and before the Earth becomes a living hell.
If the end, the union of humanity, is at the same time the means,
then there is nothing easier and cheaper
than to embark on this path and reach the goal.
All it takes is to wish for it,
and work towards it to the best of our ability
with as much hope and tolerance for others as for oneself.
However scientific it may be,
no research is legitimate
when its goal is the control, exploitation, enslavement and/or destruction
of the great homeland of humanity and the world.
The truth is,
it is no longer even a question
of whether we have the power to stop fighting each other.
It is now a vital, existential, inexorable duty.
*
Mind control
The risks we are talking about today
are no longer just the crude destructive forces
that would allow us to burn the planet thousands and thousands of times over
or make it toxic to our own species…
By controlling brain activity, by interfering inside our mind and heart,
they can infect the heart of the being, of all beings.
The torture here is no longer only physical,
it is mental, spiritual, in a sense still quite unknown to our species:
The depersonalization of the being,
the dehumanization of man, woman and all beings.
The rehumanization of humanity must begin
or we will all live a crazy, dreadful nightmare.
Imagine the insanity.
An ultra-performing robot, like an iron Hulk
that can be controlled remotely like in a video game.
The lust for power increased to infinity …
They will, they already advertise robots.
Are we, the peoples of the world, we, humanity,
going to let ourselves be tempted and conditioned,
conditioned into believing that they will be good for us,
that they will be useful to us,
and that it will be useful to us that they take our jobs from us
in a world where the unemployed are left behind?
Moreover,
some of these ‘intelligent’ machines
bought to do our cooking or housework for us
will be, already are in our own home and of course, for our well-being of course,
connected to the Internet.
If indeed the NSA and all the secret services of every country
that can afford to do so
are already spying on us via the Internet,
then will our robots ever be programmed to stop us
as soon as we step off the beaten path
of the single-mindedness of the rule of money
or any other form of tyranny in office?
Some say:
If you have nothing to blame yourself for,
then you have nothing to hide.
How appallingly naive.
When a country’s regime becomes totalitarian,
then we cannot be blameless,
no one is blameless.
The supreme crime
is having opinions that are not aligned with those of the regime.
Look at what happens in any autocratic country, e.g. in China,
where it is notorious that the authorities use the Internet
to control and ‘push out’ ‘citizens’ who are inconvenient to the authorities.
This is not science fiction,
not any longer.
Will we willingly let spies in the service of the rich and powerful
infiltrate our own homes?
*
Live connection
We hear about getting the Internet into our heads.
The theft of personal data
will be nothing compared to what could be stolen
with an Internet connection in the brain,
that goes without saying.
What’s more,
how many human beings are really masters of themselves?
How many human beings really understand
and control their own impulses, their own fantasies, their own thoughts?
Having access to all human knowledge,
to everything that happens on the Net,
to all the resources it contains,
to all the distractions in real time directly in the brain
is by no means the way to make a human being more intelligent.
At best,
we will make him more cultured.
Or will we?
If being intelligent means being able to discern,
with the internet in your head,
your mind will be totally cluttered, non-stop,
to the point of losing it completely.
How then to distinguish between true and false?
How to distinguish between the ‘thinking’ of the Internet and our own?
How to have any discernment at all?
Who are you?
Who are you not?
Whom do all the thoughts that are coming across your mind
belong to?
Are they yours?
Your parents’? Your spouse’s? Your teachers’? Friends’? Society’s? Your religion’s?
In the age of the Internet
where humanity has access to virtually all the knowledge of all humanity acquired since the dawn of time,
we often chose to put stupid and incompetent people, tyrants in power.
The most erroneous and misleading theories are innumerable.
Hatred and rage are constantly pouring in.
Are these signs of intelligence and wisdom?
Already, humans are addicted to their cell phones.
One day we will probably try it,
but before we do, let’s gather an army of psychologists:
the first one who will be connected to the Internet from his or her own brain
will undoubtedly have great difficulty not to sink into madness.
Put yourself in his or her mind.
Twitter twiterring away in your head…
The only solution in such a situation
will once again lie in the greatest and most conscious wisdom:
Stay offline most of the time and get online only when it is necessary.
We are told about the sovereignty of nations,
but with the Internet in our minds, besides the question of mental health,
the question of the sovereignty of human beings over themselves
obviously arises as well.
It is in your head
that not only the NSA but also all the other population control organizations
will be.
*
Ready-for-the-job machine
It is already forecast that 60% of today’s jobs
will be done by robots in the next two, three decades.
We are also assured that new jobs will be created instead.
But how many new jobs will be created?
And how long will humanity need to adapt?
Moreover,
in the long run, robots will take care of themselves.
Robots will create and repair robots.
In an ultra-capitalist society dominated by money,
what will happen to those hundreds of millions of jobless human beings?
What will they be left with?
The 1% will no longer need the 99% for production
neither of basic nor luxury goods,
so they will be able to do without us.
Do you really think they will share with us?
How in such a situation could we avoid a mass uprising?
And if this should be the future,
then inevitably the outcome of this confrontation
will be either the marginalization or even extermination of the mass, of the 99%,
or the victory of humanity over insanity, greed and vanity.
The ultimate irony,
which we no longer know if we should laugh at or cry about
because it would be the height of absurdity and childish vanity,
would of course be the victory of the super-rich oligarchs armed with their robots
over the rest of humanity:
In a world plagued by pollution, extinction of species and repeated climatic cataclysms
brought on by their follies of grandeur and lust for power
brought to an absolutely extreme, absurd and terrible height,
whether the 1% tear each other apart and exterminate themselves
or whether they self-robotize to the point of wanting to become junk superheroes,
in the name of an illusory and childish so-called trans-humanism,
in any case, the robots, which they themselves will have wanted,
will surpass them in strength and intelligence by far.
Humans who will become robots
will have sounded the death knell for humanity.
It is high time to unite for harmony.
To those of you
who have had the patience and intelligence to read this humble text,
we beg you:
spread the word.
Make yourself the voice of reason and harmony
among peoples and among beings,
make yourself the voice of all that is precious on earth.
It will soon be too late.
Become the last heroes and heroines
of Humanity, Love and History.
There are not two humanities.
Divided,
humanity is heading straight to hell.
United,
humanity opens up the gates of paradise.
The one and only invincible force
capable of facing the unbridled powers of domination and destruction
that humanity has acquired over itself
is the union of nations, world harmonization and pacification.
Will science and technology serve to liberate humanity,
a humanity that has heard the voice of universal wisdom and harmony,
or will they serve to tyrannize it, to turn the world into a huge prison
and exacerbate the curse of a divided humanity in perpetual conflict?
To be or not to be
remains as always the question.
*
Manufacturing defect.
Moreover,
and even more so in these times of deflationary low-cost economy,
even the so-called high-tech items we buy
have malfunctions, break down, bug, fall victim to computer viruses or whatever.
Without even mentioning planned obsolescence,
every technology has flaws,
and no matter how sophisticated,
no machine is immune to serious malfunctions.
Moreover,
any machine inevitably inherits the subjectivity,
even the irrationality of its creators,
that no mathematics or so-called exact science
can exempt or liberate from.
Yet,
all the opponents
of a humane, humanist and spiritual vision of the world and of humanity,
all the supporters
of robotics and robotization of productive and security forces,
and even of the robotization of themselves and of humanity
will tell you that robotics and artificial intelligence
is the assurance of the greatest possible objectivity,
the greatest possible rationality
in a human world that is, according to them, too subjective and irrational.
However,
let’s not be naive,
any intellectual approach,
as scientific as it may be or be believed to be,
is by nature subjective and carries within itself something irrational.
The gigantic problems and titanic challenges facing humanity today,
results of more than two centuries of so-called scientific objectivity,
are the indisputable proof of the limits of this perception of reality.
No science can claim to be truly exact,
no calculation, no measure, no figure, no statistic or mathematics
can lead us to perfect rationality and even less to wisdom,
especially when consciousness and humanity are left aside
and do not enter any equation.
The only thing we can be sure of
is that everything that comes from ourselves
mirrors something of ourselves.
In other words,
there is always something profoundly human
in whatever we do, analyze, or project.
As ‘intelligent’ as they will be,
even robots will carry within themselves the irrationality and madness
that make us what we are today,
shaped as we are by our psycho-socio-historical conditionings
which we are not aware of
and which will therefore inevitably, inexorably be passed on to them.
It would be very unconscious and naive to think the opposite.
Thus,
robots, however robotic they may be, will always carry,
until the last generation,
something of the irrationality that makes us what we are today,
of the subjectivity that is inherent to us.
Once again,
denying this would be as much an admission of weakness and unconsciousness
as a sign of our future self-destruction.
Yet
it is almost paradoxically within this intrinsically human subjectivity
that, contrary to popular belief,
our salvation lies.
Consciousness, feeling, fondness, generosity, love, the need to be loved,
in a word, humanity is the essence of being.
*
A firearm in a three-year-old’s hands
As beautiful as our most beautiful hopes,
the world bears within itself the best of what is possible,
which is far more realistic and virtuous
than the ultra-rapacious, ultra-predatory capitalist madness.
We will be wise
or the era of robotics will destroy us.
It will destroy us either
because we will destroy ourselves
or because we will lose our souls and our humanity.
In order to deal with the immense powers of technology,
we must be wise.
It is not as if we still had a choice:
The use of robots for military purposes
and the possession of robots by armed forces
must be banned throughout the world.
Only a peaceful Earth, united and in harmony
in the understanding of the immense interests
that such an awareness would induce
can make this evolutionary leap.
The circumstances of today’s world are such,
the balance of power, wealth and strength are so unequal and unbalanced,
humanity is so divided, men and nations are so competitive
that totalitarian domineering madness
is tightening its grip on the world and minds.
Tyrants,
having at their disposal the means and the knowledge
to get these new terrible weapons,
will treat themselves to them
and use them to establish their power
over any form of real, potential or imaginary opposition,
in other words, over everything and everyone.
We must rise up against this looming future of terror
where the human being in front of the machine
is nothing more than a defenseless prey
in front of a machine soldier who believes himself to be invincible,
or a soldier machine, without heart or soul,
endowed with unimaginable strength.
Drones can already be remotely piloted warplanes.
Monitoring, threatening, holding hostages, killing from a distance,
for revenge, for fun, to subdue and dominate, like in a video game,
becomes easy, almost playful.
Military robotics and the large-scale production of robots
make us run terrible risks that we don’t need.
If, by taking swift action,
we will undoubtedly be able to face climate change
thanks to a systemic economic, financial, monetary and ideological metamorphosis,
we will not be able to face all our systemic problems
if we add to these the horror of a humanity caught up in a race
for ultra-sophisticated, destructive, spying or informer robotic weapons
devoid of any trace of humanity,
with nation-states not only at war with each other,
but also against their own peoples, their own citizens.
A robot soldier, or a soldier robot,
is a potential monster.
To produce millions of them
is to produce millions of potential monsters.
A total nightmare.
Humanity’s nightmare.
Because the party that benefits
from a completely unbalanced balance of power in its favor
very often takes advantage of it to crush the other,
and because it will be all the more likely to take advantage of it
the more the current system
is guided by ultra-competition, inequality and excessive greed,
this scenario is all the more likely to happen in this nightmarish way.
Already in Japan,
museums are using humanoid robots as cultural guides.
Through a robotic, fixed, repetitive reading of art and culture,
their role is to show tourists around.
This will have the effect of considerably reducing personnel costs
since, of course, a robot does not receive any remuneration.
As things stand,
with the productivity gains earned by technological advances,
will hundreds of millions or even billions of people
be thrown into unemployment and misery?
What good is progress when all it does is exacerbate inequalities
and intensify the process of enslaving the world to money and debt?
*
Robocop
To prevent armies of millions of misused robots
from ever becoming instruments of domination,
exploitation and lobotomization of people,
everything must be done
to stem the imminent possibility of mass production of robots,
to ban their commercialization for private use
outside of any intrinsically democratic and humanistic legal framework
and above all to prohibit any military and repressive use whatsoever.
Indeed,
what force of protest would remain for the people
if the state police forces were above all made up of robots?
What hope would remain
if it was no longer possible to change society?
At a time when a drastic and major change of direction is needed
to resolve the ecological, economic, financial and geopolitical crises,
what hope would remain
if the police had no scruples, no shred of humanity left
to shoot in a crowd in which, by definition,
there could no longer be any kinship, be it close or distant,
between a protester and a law enforcement robocop?
What exit from institutional injustice and slavery remains
when there is no more hope that the police
thanks to their bond with their own people
can ever open their eyes again to the abuses of tyranny
and thus choose the side of justice, stand with their fellow citizens
against greedy, bloodthirsty and incompetent tyrants.
What hope remains
when no more change is possible?
What hope remains
when no more transformation is possible?
What hope remains
when no more adaptation is possible?
What hope remains
when no more revolution is possible?
What hope remains
when no more freedom is possible?
What hope remains
when until the end of time,
the political-economic-social structure is bound to stay the same?
The Earth itself makes revolutions around the sun every year.
This is what gives us the seasons and thus the renewal of nature.
One year, the harvest is bad.
The following year, it is miraculous.
It is because it is in perpetual renewal
that the Earth bears within itself the hope of a better future.
Conversely,
what hope remains
when no renewal is possible?
What hope remains
when some have everything
and others have nothing?
Thus,
in addition to everything that has been said so far,
we must already prepare for the worst.
To defend humanity, to defend hope, to defend humans, to defend ourselves,
we must therefore urgently orient research
to produce detectors for robotic processors,
in order to provide these instruments of self-defense
to the greatest possible number of people,
to all the populations of the world
who will sooner or later legitimately need
to disable all these new infamous and evil weapons
by jamming them, disconnecting them, crashing them harmless.
*
Being human
The faculty to be moved by what is,
to marvel at life and its infinitely fertile complexity,
at once multidimensional, multiple, simple and subtle,
is the characteristic of being human.
To lose this quality, this talent, this gift,
and give way instead to greed and domination
by the robotization of society and of the human being
is to sacrifice humanity, to lose that which is most human in ourselves:
the consciousness of ourselves and the world.
The right to be is more than a human right.
Not only does it proceed from nature, the cosmos and the afterlife,
but it also reveals them.
The right to be is a sacred right.
More even than a divine right,
defending life and human life is a divine mission.
Will we equip ourselves with robots and machines of all kinds
to reinforce tyranny, injustice, slavery, war and inhumanity?
To kill what is human in ourselves is to kill what is divine.
This is the true message, the rallying cry of all prophets:
Siddhartha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Ezekiel, Shiva …
To kill what is human in ourselves is to kill what is divine.
It is to kill all that is bright and divine in humans.
This world I’m talking about is very soon,
2030, maybe a little later, 2035, 2040, 2050, maybe a little sooner.
Presumably, in 10, 20, 30 years,
on the entire surface of the planet,
many of us will still be alive.
It is in this sense essential and of unparalleled urgency
to largely control robotics research and to stem,
before it is too late,
the production of robots on a large scale.
It must therefore be made illegal
to commercialize robots that can harm a human being
because then the one who would control them would have power,
leverage over everyone else, over you, over me, over anyone.
If from the moment humanity is united,
it has triumphed over the enemy,
then humanity must unite to stop the arms race.
A divided humanity is a necessarily fragile humanity.
The union of humanity alone is invincible.
The universal, humane and mutually supportive union
is the one and only way to avoid horror, the apocalypse,
to put an end to the arms race,
the commercialization of destruction, death, the ephemeral,
the institutionalization of division, conflict and warlike logic.
This is not a utopia.
This is the only logical continuation, the only future,
the one and only way to avoid the collapse of everything we are,
of everything that makes us human.
The union of humanity
is our one and only hope.
*
Fountain of youth
To avoid death,
regeneration is essential.
Regeneration
is the renewal of cells
as well as thoughts.
Without regeneration
everything withers, body and mind alike.
The regeneration of the species is its descendants.
Our immortality is our children.
Humanity’s fountain of youth is its children.
Some people pay billions to try to find immortality
and to have life and earth for themselves alone
and thus exclude all their contemporaries, their brothers, their sisters,
but also and above all all the children and descendants of all humanity,
even their own.
Not only are they spending considerable wealth
on a quest with very unlikely results,
but its consequences would be extremely dangerous and undesirable.
How can we believe
that the immortality of the elite of a money-loving civilization
can be such a good thing that we can entrust them
with our destinies and those of our descendants?
Not only is their ideology in action a disaster on the whole Earth,
but they should become immortal in order to remain in power forever,
until the end of time?
Would they want to steal everything, leave nothing,
neither the planet, nor the living, nor humanity, nor space, nor time?
Would they want through immortality to take possession of Time,
annihilate the future, reduce eternity to nothing?
Do you realize what this means?
Humanity’s fountain of youth is its children.
Immortality would mean condemning humanity
to never renew itself again, never reproduce itself again.
This perpetual non-renewal of the species, of its members,
would spell the certain death of humanity and of humans.
One day perhaps humans might live up to 150 years old on average.
And that will be good.
But to desire immortality is unparalleled madness.
Nothing can justify it.
Some say that we will be able to upload our minds
into computer databases.
If that were possible,
who would want to spend eternity on a chip,
no matter how ‘computerized’ and high-tech it would be?
Would you?
I wouldn’t, no matter what.
The wackiest ideas run rampant.
Rest assured,
the immortality of their terrible reign
will prove to be very short.
Under their yoke,
humanity will kill each other.
And the human race will die out and never return.
Humanity will never be again.
Look at the Earth,
its state.
Imagine if it were to be forever.
Such selfish madness could not last.
It is impossible.
To gain immortality,
humanity would lose all that is high, human, dignified and divine
because it would be inherently unjust, unequal and undemocratic.
Do some people want to make themselves gods on Earth
by investing so much in this kind of research?
Once again,
let us be reassured,
no one escapes his or her condition.
Except perhaps something superior to humans
and to this multidimensional and dynamic earthly and cosmic reality,
no one can triumph over time,
no one can defeat death.
The two most highly likely outcomes of such a possibility
would be either the outright extinction of the human species
or its robotization,
which would be inhumane either way.
Either way,
humans would no longer exist.
In such an eventuality,
in the infinitesimal probability that the immortality elixir would be discovered,
the only chance for humans to survive,
the only salvation of humanity would paradoxically be
to ban immortality.
Indeed,
if the human species were to gain access
to any form of immortality, or near immortality,
then what would happen between mortals and immortals?
Who would still have the right to have children?
And would those who would depart from the rule
of no longer having children be sentenced
to fines, to imprisonment, or, paradox of paradoxes, to death?
How many human beings would then live on the earth?
Who would have the right to live forever,
and who would be condemned to never live?
To never come into the world?
Discovering immortality or even near immortality
would inevitably trigger a war on earth
between those who could live forever and ever
and those who could never live.
It could not be otherwise.
In absolute terms,
the grace of experiencing the infinite and the eternal
is acquired through wisdom
and not through greed, the urge to dominate, tyranny, selfishness, narcissism
and the most delirious delusions of grandeur.
We all share the same planet,
not only through space but also through time.
One cannot achieve immortality as a mere human being
but one can feel eternity
throughout the whole species, as a member of the species,
in wisdom, sharing and solidarity,
through space and time.
Can you see this?
Could humanity, if it were wise, if it followed wisdom,
live another 100 million years? A billion?
It may not be eternity,
but at least it gives us a glimpse of it…
Wisdom and technology could likely help us
survive climate and geological changes.
If we stop fighting for everything like idiots
and choose wisdom, life and humanity,
500, 600, 1,000 million years is a lot and it is possible.
On the scale of the solar system,
it is possible.
Imagine humanity in 100,000 years
if today, or tomorrow, we finally became wise.
Then its lifespan could lengthen
until it finds a humble and enlightened duration,
in balance between renewal, youth, a fresh outlook, a spirit of innovation,
and old age, maturity, experience and wisdom.
Such is the species’ immortality.
Wisdom is its secret.
Wisdom is beneficial and universal.
Otherwise, it is not wisdom.
We are all humanity’s children.
Our immortality is our children
and the wisdom we must find and pass on
from human to human, from generation to generation.
All of us children of humanity,
that is how we all gain access to some form of immortality.
No other form of immortality has ever existed, exists and will ever exist.
Achieving immortality for the human species
in the sense meant by the ‘transhumanists’,
this kind of sect whose Grail is the elixir of immortality,
is almost certain extinction.
Why take such a risk?
The money and wealth of the planet and of humanity
must be dedicated to what saves,
and not to finance research
that not only has very little chance of succeeding before a very long time
but which would also put us at unspeakable and terrible risks
unprecedented in the history of the species.
The riches of the Earth and of Humanity
must be used to save humanity,
not to destroy it.
*
Wisdom and Progress
Science and technology can undoubtedly help us
during crises and disasters such as the coronavirus and Fukushima.
They can help us cure diseases and ease suffering,
Certainly…
But research must be focused
on what is most beneficial and least harmful to humanity.
Their applications must be very closely controlled
and their numbers reduced to their proper proportions
so that they do not create problems far more immense
than those they are supposed to solve.
Humans bear within themselves the seeds of the biggest problem:
Their primitive, prehistoric, original propensity
for war and collective self-destruction.
Because when it is too powerful, it is too tempting,
without consciousness, without wisdom, without balance,
technology is necessarily destructive.
Technology will not save humanity.
Wisdom will save humanity.
It is clear as bright is the sunlight.
The best that technology can do is help us.
There is no knowledge without wisdom.
There is no wisdom without knowledge.
Therefore,
if wisdom gives birth to knowledge,
then the purpose of all knowledge is wisdom.
Wisdom must therefore prevail and have the force of law
to guide all research and modern technological applications
towards what is most balanced and constructive for humanity.
The positive power of wisdom
is at least as infinitely great
as the power of technology is at its most destructive,
especially when combined with the lust for power in its extreme manifestations.
What differentiates these two states is not a calculation or a statistic.
It is a matter of life or death.
What separates us from these two bipolar and possible futures
is therefore an act of faith.
Faith in the future.
Faith in the universe and the universal.
Faith in the Earth.
Faith in ourselves.
Faith in harmony.
Faith in life.
Humanist wisdom is life.
Science without conscience
is self-destruction, self-inflicted genocide,
unhappiness and madness, suicide,
suffering and despair in forms and proportions
never experienced before in the entire,
yet atrocious and terrible history of a humanity
who, stuck at a lower stage of evolution,
is still fundamentally primitive.
The boundary between these two possible worlds
is the boundary between living and dying.
The distinction is crucial,
luminous and sublime,
or sombre and terrible.
No one can ignore it.
No one can escape from it.
Within a humanity at peace and in harmony,
technology will undoubtedly free us, in time, from work servitude.
In a divided humanity in perpetual conflict,
technology will enslave us like never before.
*
* * *
*
Anthem and hymns
to humanity, to the Earth, and to humans.
In order to awaken people’s awareness of universal wisdom,
special and priority attention must be given to education.
Composing and instituting a hymn or an anthem
would be another form of education,
admittedly a little superficial but nevertheless useful, rapid and effective.
It would be a kind of invitation
to become an embodiment of the sacred rights
of Women, Men, Children and the Living,
a free oath which would draw its strength
from its democratic, pacifist, inclusive and universal legitimacy.
It would be a hymn to life inspiring respect and dignity.
All states have an anthem…
Why not the Earth?
In and with humanity,
in order to give birth to humanity?
If there is a homeland
that can inspire us, inspire us with dignity and courage,
if there is a homeland that can inspire us to stand up,
lift our eyes to heaven and fight for,
it is surely the one that gives us life:
The Earth.
In order to awaken people’s minds
to the new, planetary and universal era,
it is time for humanity to have its own anthem,
an anthem to the Earth and to itself,
a call to union,
never performed on Earth,
a call to a new era, a call to a new world,
in which every world’s citizen
will be able to freely recognize one another.
Why not inscribe in the constitutions of the nation-states
and in the Charter of the United Nations given to each and everyone
the possibility of singing the Earth and Humanity
as a hymn of the heart, a hymn of the guts, a sacred hymn,
a hymn to life everywhere around the world?
What’s the point of singing one’s country
if it is to destroy the Earth?
From the point of view of God and the universe,
humankind has only one homeland:
The Earth.
Creative friends and creators, musicians,
fellow artists of all kinds, from all nations and all cultures,
create anthems to the Earth, to Humanity, to the universe,
create anthems to ceaselessly renewed Life, to certain Death,
to affection, fragility, generosity, to unspeakable beauty.
All hymns to Earth are hymns to love.
*
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