Tag Archives: division

Letters

Korean Non-Communion

It was at the North-South Korean border. An American military official approached the line, accompanied by one or two South Korean officials. He held a megaphone. Stopping just before the line, he aimed the megaphone over the border and explained that South Korea had found the body of a dead North Korean soldier and wanted information on how to turn it over to North Korea officials. As he spoke North Korean soldiers looked at him through binoculars and scattered about like flies until they finally went inside their building and closed the door.

It is difficult to take it all in. Normally, when you try to talk to someone, they listen, receive your message, and pass the message on. But, the North Korean officials seemed to assume that South Korea had some other intentions, as if the South wasn't saying what the South was saying. That's not to mention that the South had to communicate with a megaphone because no one in the North would receive a simple message.

What was even more startling was how much I kept thinking about communication between different Christian sects and denominations.

In the Church and in America as a whole, communication has a striking similarity. People are suspicious of each other and they don't receive each others' ideas. When a Baptist speaks to a Pentecostal, it is as if each of their friends circle the other with binoculars before silently walking away and closing the door. The only way to talk about even the most basic of cordial concerns is through a megaphone because there is no reception.

By refusing to listen to each other, Americans have adopted dangerous values to a point where North Korean missiles may not be necessary to destroy the country.

But, shouldn't Christians at least act better? Not only should Christians be courteous across their borders, there shouldn't be borders in the Church. It is as if American society follows the example of old-time, denominational, divided "Churchianity".

Unfortunately, the Church keeps the borders they shouldn't while governments don't keep the borders they should. Ironically, removing Church borders and building government borders are equally politically incorrect. Dr. Ben Carson had some words about political correctness.

"...Fix the PC culture in our country, which only listens to one narrative. And if it doesn't fit their philosophy, then they try to ascribe some motive to it... Whenever you are asked a certain question, it has to be answered in a certain way, and if you don't answer it that way, then let's attack. Let's not try to actually understand what a person is saying. Let's just attack, attack, attack. And hopefully, everybody else will look at that and they will realize they're never supposed to say something like that again. That's what the PC culture is." – Dr. Ben Carson

Blame for the nation's division rightly rests at the doorstep of the Church. It's impossible to rule-out that the North-South Korean conflict wasn't influenced by the Church's own division and non-communication. Non-communication is very dangerous. The Church doesn't seem to understand how important the issue of communication has always been. Christians don't even understand what they say to each other, let alone the great dangers that now await them, merely from their refusal to communicate.

So, the Christian and American political scripts are the same: When someone doesn't respond according to the expected narrative, the programmed minions assume that he has some hidden agenda and it is as if they can't hear plain English. continue reading

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, August 14, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2MNLlPECY0

Jared Kushner was fined $200 for being late in a financial statement filing, and it's apparently news. Investigators, including the Leftist publication, The Nation, have determined that Russianewsgategate is nonsense. And, someone wrote a think piece for inside baseball at Google and was fired shortly thereafter.

The so-dubbed "Google Manifesto" is a critical thinking piece, carefully defining terms, using many qualifications so there is no doubt that it is not stereotypical and that the author is willing to listen and evaluate his own ideas. The opening clearly states that nothing is intended to be discriminatory, no "blamer-mode" language is used. Shortly after it was released, he was fired. The CEO's response included reservations about the term "Neuroticism". When the "Google Manifesto's" author used the term, it was linked to a Wikipedia article and used in a thoughtful and academic way, not in a name-calling or "categorical" way.

Now, that "Google Manifesto" is being reported as having support from niche, idiosyncratic, "alt-right" political groups. But, agreement with the "Google Manifesto" is anything but a minority. On the other hand, as much as many would like to think the author was fired for his ideology, his primary crime was making waves in "corporate America".

Never stir discussion that the boss didn't invent. Never question rank and file conformity in "the company". Never outshine the de facto emperor best known as "the boss". Never make waves.

That was the crime of the "Google Manifesto" by corporate standards. The author's punishment is to be immediately fired so that the company doesn't have to "deal with the wave-maker" anymore. But this time, that firing backfired. Google has now been seen as a bureaucratic thug that doesn't want "necessary disrupters" propelling the company forward. This is the public beginning of the end for Google. It's coming: "Sell, sell, sell."

Corporate wave-making was his first crime, in the corporate world. Now, he's a martyr. His second crime was committed against the public: He exercised "critical thinking" use of words.

In "critical thinking" conversation, people speak objectively about problems in order to understand and solve those problems. But, people who only "blame" when they consider a problem don't know about "critical thinking" conversation. Hearing a critical thinker, they say, "How dare he mention a problem! He's only complaining because that's what I do when I talk about problems!"

How dare the writer of the "Google Manifesto" think carefully to solve a problem! How dare he even suggest that our first knee-jerk reaction isn't the best and only solution! How dare he say ideas that haven't been said already! He's just trying to sound clever to sell us into a pyramid scheme! He's really just a "big meanie face".

That was the crime of the "Google Manifesto" by  blamer-mode group-think standards. The problem is that problems don't go away without critical thinking. So, this author of the "Google Manifesto" will actually be able to solve his problems. But, people who find fault with "critical thinking" conversation won't solve their problems, including no-brain, all-bureaucracy "corporate America".

And, to think that people are worried Google will be able to create "artificial intelligence"! Actually, AI will more likely be invented by misunderstood people like the author of the "Google Manifesto". It takes critical thinking to develop software that can think critically.

For a while, "critical-thinking", backbone Americans executed that "quick to listen, slow to judge" ethic they learned from the Bible. They were fair with people they disagreed with. They heard-out their political opposites more than enough, then continued listening. But, being heard only emboldened the talking blamers. They thought being heard meant they didn't need to listen themselves. They talked more and more and more. And now, they have over-talked.

Racism and slavery in America grew in the South, where the first British colonies began. The Pilgrims landed in the North on Plymouth Rock, the part of the country that fought to end slavery. They taught their children to read so they could read the Bible. They taught their children to think on their own so they could think about the Bible without dogma. Consequentially, the first constitution attempted to ban slavery, but the England empire-influenced South wouldn't have it. The North had to pry the South away from British imperial values a century later in a Civil War, while those evil values continued yet another century in segregationist laws. Pilgrim-valued America has fought against that same "British supremacy" culture since its founding, yet the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock have been blamed for it.

America can no more be blamed for bigotry than an Ebola victim can be blamed for having Ebola. The true, Bible-believing, Pilgrim-founded, northern-value heart of America is no longer only in the north; it is fighting the problem throughout the nation, not causing it. It was the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock who taught "critical thinking" in America and it was the "critical thinkers", both in the North and the underground in the South, who defeated slavery.

America's problem is neither Black people nor White people, but anyone who doesn't love his neighbor as himself. There are demographic ratios to be seen in anything, but when searching for the cause, demographics only fix stereotypes; demographics don't fix problems.

Constant and misplaced blaming isn't helping. To the blamers, nothing is good enough; apologizing and changing is evidence of further guilt, not something to be welcomed. A compliment is an insult only in the minds of people who hate themselves, hate others, and only give compliments to serve their own dubious, selfish goals.

"How dare you say I look good!" is the motto of insecurity. Such people would have us bloat our language with politically correct disclaimers at every line of every paragraph so that no one needs to learn to not feel offended. They expect the rest of the world to change so that victims don't need to heal. Such are people who fix nothing except blame.

There are two Americas: Those who thoughtfully listen and those who thoughtlessly blame. The blamers aren't entirely wrong, no one is, but their blaming has over-reached and it is becoming clear that they never wanted a conversation. The stress is snapping.

The listeners of America are taking the long, deep breath, just as they did with Pearl Harbor on 12/7/1941 and New York on 9/11/2001. They are looking at the the manner of firings, scandals, investigations, and reporting in business and government. They see that "political correctness" is an attack against themselves in their own situations across the nation.

We are witnessing the culmination of a century of propaganda efforts coming to a head and it's about to change history. The listeners are about to tune out the blamers entirely. When they do, they will work and they won't stop. They will create infrastructure without limits and justice without borders. They will take on both the corporate-bureaucrat giants and the blamer-mode masses and they will succeed for the sole reason that they have "critical thinking".

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