But the problem is, less people don't think we need it.
But the problem is, it's harder to obtain that knowledge.
But the problem is, the complexity of itself.
That's why loosely ruled governments aren't that great.
A leader has to be wise.
Every leader has to be wise.
Every leader has to be wise.
A Philosopher King is needed.
And it can't be taken lightly.
These are lives we're dealing with.
These are lives we're talking about.
These are lives, not numbers, not statistics.
These are lives, not characters in a book.
Not expendable, but needed...
For the Sake of Humanity.
13 comments:
I'm curious about your "Philosopher King" idea. Could you please expand and the subject?
I agree with you when you say we need more educated rulers, and that most people vote without a single intellectual thought. However, what you described many would argue is already in existence. Nobody wants a king because, as you said, it often ends up in some moron becoming a dictator. This would lead to revolts and democracy would be created, but it would often fall apart as they were too many people with too many conflicting ideas. People would take violent action against one another to get more power over the rest of the democracy. The Founding Fathers when deciding the government for our nation considered this and as a result, they conjured our representative democracy. This form of government was created to serve two points. 1: the 13 colonies had too many people for a direct democracy, so elected officials would serve for a faster and much more effective government. 2: The Founding Fathers were strongly against letting the uneducated rule. They believed that only the educated were fit to make the decisions for the country and I for one agree with them. This idea of kings for the social, economic, and political aspects of our nation in a sense, is already in affect. We have elected officials to fill those roles instead of kings. But I also believe that what we have isn't working. The majority of the public is, as you said, stupid, yet they elect our leaders. This very reason is why our economy is failing right now, our gas emissions as a nation are extremely high, and we have illegal immigrants stealing our jobs. People elect candidates with only the short term in mind. For instance, when an official is advocating tax cuts, a majority of the public do not consider the long term effects of that. When you say Revolution of the Mind, I think you mean we need another Renaissance. In my opinion, I predict that our country is about to go through a very harsh time. We are going to have to suffer for all of our short time decisions and its going to cause a lot of problems. If we make it out of it, which I predict we will, we will learn from our mistakes and things, hopefully, will be different.
Our government and our society definitely have some major issues. I keep thinking about what would work but I keep coming back to communism and look what history has done to that idea. Religion definitely is a big thorn in society. I for one argue that we would be better off without religion than with it. Regardless of whether we abide by religion or not, we all still abide by the same values and morals thought to be the principle ideas of religion. If it were allowed, I would like to start a town or small society that attempted to exist without religion. I'd like to see what would become of the people born and raised in a religion free society. But religion is out of the question because we will never get rid of it. Most people are too mentally weak to exist in our competitive society without breaking down. Figures such as God and Allah and Buddha give them a figure to depend on. Someone that will never fail them. This gives people hope, comfort, and reassurance that everything will be alright. Ignorance is bliss. What we need to do, is change the goals of our society. I could relate us to the Athenians of ancient Greece all day, but their goal in life was not to become rich and powerful by any means necessary. They sought to be remembered, to achieve fame and glory by living honorous lives. Today, we have role models like Paris Hilton and Viva La Bam. A nation is only as strong as its people, and right now, our people are weak. We need to produce citizens who are mentally strong, who can reason and act on logical conclusions. I also think we need to get rid of political parties. When only two people are arguing, you never make any progress because there is no majority to rule one or the other right. The same thing happens in politics. Argument forces us to weigh our thoughts and decisions. However with people just picking one side or the other, people don’t have to think about what it means to be a democrat or a republican. Democracy is government by the people, and if people don't want to put in the effort to be a part of it and actually learn about who they are voting for, then they simply won't be involved in our government and when other people make decisions for them, it is their fault. But many people simply don't care or think about that. They don't learn about the candidates and then when they screw up, they blame it on the candidate. How is that going to get us anywhere? What do we do to make everyone happy when no one wants to work for happiness? In my opinion, something must be done to change their way of thinking. Something must be done to where they learn the consequences of their inaction, and they only have themselves to blame. I'm starting to think an economic depression is necessary. Why do parents send their children who misbehave to boot camp? Because those children have developed in a harmful manner. Boot camps completely tear these individuals down to their roots, then build them back up again the right way. That is what we need for our government. We have developed deformed and disfigured, corrupted and twisted by the actions of wrongfully powerful men. We need to have all of that done away with. We need to be torn down to our roots. Then we can rebuild better and stronger. We learn most from the consequences of our mistakes. In the same way, this nation will learn from the consequences of its mistakes. Only question is, we will adjust and learn, or will we simply crumble?
It's as you say, we need more thinkers and less fools. If anything, I would say we need to tell the public the truth about reality. We need to tell them that if they keep acting without considering the consequences, we will all be paying for it very soon. I don't know if you are familiar with the man, but Thomas Paine was an ordinary man who was not exceptionally educated or rich or powerful. He was a simple man who observed the struggle between the Colonial Americans and England. He observed and pondered and after much consideration, wrote a short pamphlet about the situation called "Common Sense". This small pamphlet spread with growing enthusiasm and reached so many people that it immensely affected our decision to fight for independence. I believe we must fight the same way. We must try to show the world what is happening and when we have them on our side, there is no problem that we cannot tackle.
What do you think we should do?
Well, do you want to really do something about it?
Because if you are tired of seeing ignorance and failing governments and unsolvable issues, why shouldn't we try and do something about it?
Sigh.. I suppose my goals are too big. I should focus on helping individuals like you, and not try to save the whole world. I'm just tired of all these problems everywhere, problems I feel like I could fix.
Honestly, I want to do something, because nobody else seems to want to. I look at these political candidates and they're a mess, our economy is going down the drain, illegal immigrants are out of control, overpopulation, global warming, terrorism, drugs, so many problems and nothing is being done. In addition to these, our people are weakening. All of these issues are a result of the people.
I look at some friends of mine that are so intelligent, but they simply aren't interested in doing anything. I can't help but think what a waste. Such potential, such possibility that they could fix things and yet they do nothing. I go to them and ask why they don't worry because it's going to be there country and they say there why bother, there's nothing they can do.
I don't believe that. I am not content to merely exist with my thoughts and ideas and just tell them to the few people here and there who are interested. There is something we can do, and we need to do it. Because if not people like you and me, the two fifteen year-olds who discuss philosophy and talk about politics and have so much potential, who will?
Well, in my opinion, the only way we can make a difference is through our words. Words are the reincarnation of ideas, and ideas spur action. So if our words can connect with people, we can have an influential say in the actions of whomever reads our writings. But you and me alone are not capable of meeting the world's needs, we simply have too many personal experiences which influence our decisions, too much biased emotion. So what do I propose? I say that together you and me put together a league of people our age with radical yet logical ideas who meet whatever criteria we set. Together, the group of us will discuss ideas and logic until we have come up with the perfect method for solving whatever problems we discuss. Of course if we actually go through with this, we will think it out much more thoroughly, but I think it could be very successful. In addition, we must remain anonymous. There is power in secrecy. If people knew who we were or that we were only teenagers, their opinions about our ideas would change simply because of who it is coming from. Together the group of us will compile and distribute as many of our writings to as many places as we can. After a while, we will begin to gain recongnition for our ideas. It won't come immediately, but if we keep hitting the public with these ideas, eventually they will listen. For us, both quanity and quality will be equally important. But I can't put this into action alone.
I think I am. You and me have been given an incredible gift, and now, it is time to put it to use. We will learn, we will write, we will lead, we will challenge the world, and Benji if our passion is strong enough, we will win.
Well, I think for now we should just keep doing what we've been doing, discussing and writing, and try and get our words out there. But we should start looking for other people like us that can help us meet our goals, the people to join our group. I was thinking about who we should be looking for in these people, like what qualities and I wondered whether we should try to get a wide range of people such as a highly religious individual, and an atheist, an African-American, a Jew, a poor individual, a rich individual, things like that, or should we try and get people who have the same views as us, the same ideas on these issues. I think we need people who are open-minded who can give constructive criticism to our ideas and help us make it as good as it can be before we release it to the public. But I think the best people for the job aren't going to make us go to them, they will come to us. If we keep writing, they will stick out in their comments and ideas and desire, and will we know them when the time comes. Secondly, I think we need to start reading books about all the issues that we are arguing. I believe that there are three steps to getting someone to listen to you. Let's compare the process to the firing of a gun. First you must have facts. Facts are like our bullets, our ammunition. The more facts we have and the better our proof is, the better off we are going to be. Second, you must focus those facts into an idea, a simple logical conjecture conceived from your facts. This is like loading the gun, now it is useful and ready to strike. Lastly, there is your communication of that idea. This is very important because if you cannot properly communicate your ideas they are useless. This is like the firing of the gun; you must aim it and hold it steady. We are already good at making ideas (step 2) and our writing will improve the more we practice (step 3). The only thing we have left to improve is our facts (step 1) and the best way to do that is by reading books. I am going to try to read as many books that I can to improve my mental combat skills, and I think you should too. Philosophy, overpopulation, conflicting cultures, government, psychology, there are so many things to learn about that will help us accomplish our goals.
So a summary of what I have just said
1. Continue writing and discussing as we have been.
2. Look for individuals with the right requirements to join our group.
3. Read books to build our mental arsenal, so that when the time comes that our ideas are challenged, we will be ready.
Do you have any other suggestions?
I agree, so I think we should set up account in as many "blog" sites as we can, blogger, yahoo answers, get as many as we can so that we are known to a range of people. Then we find a place where we can all talk through like a chat room. But then again I almost think emailing or posting to one another would be better, because for me at least nearly everything I have said to you has taken time to think about and revise, instant messaging is just that, instant. Some would feel compelled to hurry with what they are trying to say and it would come out sloppy. Maybe we should keep it to emailing or posting for the majority of the time and leave chat rooms to special occasions, such as when we first meet.
Then our mission statement and name...
I think our mission statement should have something to with changing the world through writing, something like that. Once we figure everything else out then we can decide on a name.
It doesn't really matter, just do something that reflects our goals.
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