Category Archives: Society

My Favourite Quote

Leave a reply

Whatsoever occurreth in the world of being is light for His loved ones and fire for the people of sedition and strife. Even if all the losses of the world were to be sustained by one of the friends of God, he would still profit thereby, whereas true loss would be borne by such as are wayward, ignorant and contemptuous. Although the author of the following saying had intended it otherwise, yet We find it pertinent to the operation of God’s immutable Will:

“Even or odd, thou shalt win the wager.” The friends of God shall win and profit under all conditions, and shall attain true wealth. In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry. Their affairs are at variance with the affairs of men. Gain is their lot, whatever the deal. To this testifieth every wise one with a discerning eye, and every fair-minded one with a hearing ear.

– Baha’u’llah

There are many reasons this quote is my favourite. Primarily, however, it is a quote of optimism; I am an optimist. I read this quote many years ago… possibly as a child or in my early teens. It has guided my outlook on life ever since.

I love the metaphors “In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry.” These are so vivid to me. I imagine them literally and they remind me of magical stories I read as a kid.

I also love the implicit reminder: to remain a “friend of God”. To me this means always believing in God, always serving God, and by direct extension, always serving humanity. I’m not perfect at it, and I definitely have my selfish, venal moments… but I always am trying to improve and serve more.

I also love this quote also because I have experienced loss. Everything from true poverty in my young adulthood to loss of love and even loss in my business dealings. “Even if all the losses of the world were to be sustained by one of the friends of God, he would still profit thereby.” To me this is about learning and building spiritual capabilities. Loss only is harmful to those who reject spiritual reality.

Unfortunately, our society is built on the idea that we must ignore spiritual reality in making political, economic, health, social, and personal decisions. Secular society has killed death as a step in our development. This “death of death” means that all we can do is argue about surface traits. Secularism means that being white, male, cis, etc. are important… not my spiritual reality. This is a tragedy for our civilization; it also means that ultimately strength, wealth, position and other material-isms are the totality by which we can measure our worth.

I grieve for the gradual de-spiritualization of our society. I am certain it will change in the future; the logical inconsistencies of Secularism will become too hard to ignore, eventually. But what suffering will happen in the meantime? What conflict must we experience before we realize how important it is to bring spiritual reality back into our discourses across society?

FB: Understanding Conflict

Leave a reply

The events in the United States over the past several years are legitimately upsetting to many people. It is hard to understand how other humans, with hearts and minds like our own, can do things that seem so harmful, ignorant or subversive.

I hope that most of my friends want to see peace in the world, both globally and locally, that most of my friends want to see our environment treated responsibly, that most of my friends want to see society advance with harmony instead of conflict.

But, many of my friends do not know how to make this possible when there seem to be some many on the “other side”.

Friends, there are two things that I want to recommend to your attention to help you resolve this conundrum:

  1. For the secular-minded among you, I strongly recommend the book “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt. It is easily the best non-fiction I have read in 10 years (and I read a lot of non-fiction). It provides research-based explanations for the seemingly growing conflict between “left” and “right”, in a way that allows us to build some bridges.
  2. For the spiritually-minded among you, I strongly recommend the publication “The Prosperity of Humankind” from 1995. It is the most concise and insightful statement on the connection between justice and social progress I have read.
    A quick online search will reliably find you either of the above.
    Of course, I recommend all my friends read both!

(originally posted on Facebook here)

FB: Ruhi Book 2 Discussion

Leave a reply

Study from my Ruhi Book 2 this evening. We had some really great discussions. The concept of “fixed” vs. “growth” mindset came up along with some discussion of current events in the US.

“The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch.”

– Baha’u’llah

I know this is difficult to do. Another idea that came up in our discussion is that science and religion must both rest upon reason. One of the unique gifts of humans over other animals is the ability to search for, perceive and reason about the truth. We apply this standard to science “easily” in the sense that we expect it. Why don’t we expect this about religion too?

Both science and religion without reason are nothing but pointless fantasies. Science without religion is materialism that leads to depression and despair (as we can see so prevalently in our society). Religion without science is superstition and leads to fanaticism and conflict (which we can also see prevalently in our society).

I’ve been learning about post-modernism (philosophy, not art) lately and it seems that it attacks reason and truth-finding. If there are any of my friends who are experts on post-modernist thought or theory, I would be interested in talking and learning more.

(originally posted on Facebook here)

What is Identity

Leave a reply

(First posted on Facebook 5years ago.)

If we have an eternal soul that transcends death, then the soul is what matters and it is the soul that defines our identity. On the other hand, if all we have is our material existence, then the form of our material existence matters.

It matters if you are fat or thin. It matters if you are black or white. It matters if you are strong or weak. It matters if you are wealthy or not. These are all material attributes.

If we are purely material, then there is no basis to believe in human dignity. Materialism is nihilism and anti-identity: we are merely atoms and molecules and cellular processes and heat. Which is why so much discussion around identity in our society concerns the trivial made large. Skin color. Sexual preferences. Gender. Nationhood. Class. Membership. Job title.

We desperately grasp at these insignificances because we are afraid of the significant: the existence of the soul. Yet we also ignore the void that such denial leaves. We do so by shouting ever louder that our self-determined identity matters.

It does not.

The only identity that matters is our spiritual identity: our virtues developed by sacrificing all those trivial aspects of identity that our materialistic society is so keen on using to segment us into sliver-sized markets while selling stuff to stuff the unstuffable void. The driving force of this segmentation is the death of death.

Death used to be a passage to a greater stage. Now death is the end of our existence. Death, too, is sold. Avoid death at all costs or embrace it early – the choice is yours. This trivialization of death supports the narrative of material identity.

Photo of RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki with RCMP officers in background - systemic racism article

Systemic Racism

Leave a reply

For something to be systemic, it needs to be “in the system”, not just in individuals who happen to be in the system, but are also parts of other systems.

Simple example: I am a husband and a father. My wife and I are one system, and my kids and I are another system.

If I’m a pushover with my wife, and a disciplinarian with my kids, then those behaviours are part of the system because as an individual, I change my behaviour depending on the system I’m participating in. In other words, there is something in the system that changes my behaviour independent of my identity or self-concept, my beliefs or my desires.

On the other hand, if I’m a disciplinarian in all situations, particularly if there are explicit agreements I have made to be flexible and lenient, then my behaviour is part of me and not part of the systems I am in. In other words, if my actions do not align with the explicit policies or agreements of the system, then my actions are not systemic.

SO…

In the case of the RCMP, I suspect all the rules and procedures (the explicit text) are designed to be neutral… to not take race into account. That means the real question is what behaviours are exhibited by members of the RCMP which are racist and only demonstrated when those people are in the RCMP system (not in other parts of their lives).

“if systemic racism is meaning that racism is entrenched in our policies and procedures, I would say that we don’t have systemic racism.”

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki

However, to know if the rules and procedures are devoid of systemic racism is not something one can quickly determine unless the rules and procedures are very simple. Here is another example…

Suppose I have a rule in my house that the kids’ bedtimes are determined by their age – the older they get, the later the bedtime is. This is a simple rule, and it is easy to see that it doesn’t single out any subset of my children. There is no obvious injustice. Right?

Well, let’s examine the situation a little closer. Suppose, after medical assessment, we discover that one of my children has Short Sleeper Syndrome (SSS)… in fact, the youngest child. We now have a slightly more complicated situation… but probably easily resolved: there is no set amount of sleep required so the kids can wake up as early as they like.

Next, let’s suppose we introduce a new additional rule: everyone must wake up when the first person wakes up. Now we have a system that causes a change in behaviours to adjust to the new reality. Some of the older kids might choose to go to sleep earlier even than that one with SSS. Still okay, but a little odd and it might cause problems with socializing for the older kids. Still, socializing in the evenings is optional right?

Well, actually, now we have two rules and a consequence of those rules: the older kids cannot develop a social life. This is a systemic injustice, but it is not explicit injustice. In other words, we didn’t create a rule that singles out the older kids for unfair treatment. Instead, we have a combination of rules and characteristics of people in the system that creates injustice.

So, I think that RCMP Commissioner Lucki may not be aware of the systemic racism in the RCMP. There may indeed be a set of rules and procedures (including the laws of the land and internal policies) which conspire to create systemic racism.

How do we find out? Well, the way to start is to look at data. Then do a root cause analysis. (FWIW, this is the kind of thing I do as a consultant with businesses.)

Unfortunately, there is one further complication to the story: falsifiability.

It is extremely hard, and often impossible, to falsify an accusation about a system. Most systems are complex… which is beyond complicated… and determining cause and effect relationships is difficult.

The accusation of systemic racism against a specific organization such as the RCMP is not falsifiable. Why? Start by asking this question: “what would it take to prove that the RCMP has no vestige of systemic racism left in it?” How would you prove such a thing? What evidence and reasoning would it take? What experiments or measurements would you need to do? If you analyze every single piece of data, every rule, policy, procedure and law… can you be certain that systemic racism is not there?

Does this problem matter? Well, yes.

Until there is a falsifiable definition of systemic racism, applicable to specific systems such as the RCMP, then it is also unjust to take any action for or against the organization on the basis of a claim of systemic racism.

What can we do? Well, for one thing, we need that falsifiable definition of systemic racism. I admit… for this article, I did a quick few Google searches and couldn’t find anything that meets my mathematically-minded standard… but I’m not an academic specializing in racism (sociology, presumably). It might exist somewhere…