My name is James Gates. I grew up in the 1940's and 50's, in a diverse hostile social environment in a complex time. This environment was go

The Essence of Humanity

By James Gates

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 James Gates
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-2252-2

Chapter One

The Essence of Humanity

I grew up in a hostile society in a complex time. It was a social environment governed by insanity, bigotry, fear, and inhumanity. But beyond the madness, a sense of hopelessness induced a measure of tolerance that created a guarded feeling of happiness and well being, yet tainted by fear.

At an early age I studied the Greek philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. I also studied Darwin's theories, and others. Purely from a profound inquiry point of view, I found the principles and theories to say the least, fascinating, yet mere speculation.

I am a Christian not an evolutionist. I believe that the only rational explanation for everything in existence was formed by Divine Arrangement which I believe to be God. I also believe that when we are disconnected from the creator, the source of all things, we are nothing more than simple animals. This is the only rational explanation for the irrational behavior of the social majority of that era, and human behavior in general.

However, in my observation and examination of human behavior and the characteristics that govern both human and animal social existence, I discovered that some of Darwin's conclusions when applied to human behavior offer a reasonable degree of legitimacy. For example, the survival of the fittest and natural selection were conclusion based on the relationship and social behavior of the animals that he observed. But his hypotheses also mirrored the social behavior of the animal called man, and the way we behave and respond to all environmental stimuli.

As I observed and experienced the blatant inhumanities associated with bigotry and other flaws, I realized that I was in a unique position to analyze the relationship between human behavior, and the natural instincts that govern it.

Throughout this book, it is possible that I may use and modify a few of Darwin's conclusions to support my own. However, I will not allow these adjustments to exceed the boundaries of my own observation, faith and reasoning.

Godliness and wickedness are spiritual forces that govern human moral and social behavior. To define and explain how our flawed, natural instincts are in primary charge of our souls, I searched for a means to examine the two forces. Because these opposing forces are control by either God or Satan, I considered becoming a preacher. But as a black preacher, I felt that I could only reach the souls of blacks.

Even though I recognized at an early age that ministering the gospel was something that I was destined to do, it did not appeal to me at that time. My reluctance was primarily supported by my desire to share my ideas and beliefs with everyone in a non-ministering setting.

Because of the diversity of human social structures, and the variations inreligiousbeliefs,Ifeltthatitwouldbeimpossibletoministertoeveryone about Christianity. So, I decided to create with a poetical assault what I considered as the fundamental functioning of humanity. This method that I chose would be radical and yet rational. All human beings are capable of reasoning, whether we demonstrate the capacity for it or not.

As I assembled words on the pages, I was amazed at how effortlessly they flowed from the depths of my still troubled soul. There were no constraints to handicap my beliefs and conclusions. I had reached a level of consciousness that allowed me to examine, and explore the functioning of the entity that we call the soul.

The words on these pages will not completely reveal the effect that creating them had on me. But from the shadows of mere existence in which I lived, a new image emerged; generating an alien form of rebirth.

As I stumbled through the dawning of my new understanding, I felt no vanity, but a magnificent light shined. It illuminated the path that I had chosen. I can only hope that if any individual read these words, their hearts will be enlightened too.

The Challenge

The constant assault by mostly external aggression to undermine America's moral consciousness and stability is a testament to its greatness. It also has an enormous racial diversity that exposes the enormous differences in the masses that often generate a great divide. And although the misunderstandings and disagreements have often concluded with irrational consequences, they are the mechanisms that sustain our nation's greatness.

Despite our nation's leadership in the world, in terms of its ambition to force feed democracy to every global community, it still has an infinite number of problems here at home. With our diverse cultures, and radical differences of opinions, it is a constant struggle to compensate for the problems that the diversity sometime creates. However, diversity is an inherited function of the principle of free will.

As we struggle with our social problems, we must also understand that it is not totally our nation's diversity, but the governing by the politicians who oversee our affairs that are plunging our nation into a chaotic state. Our electoral process is the best that modern civilization has to offer. But our greatest challenge appears to lie in our inability to select competent political representation. Course we only have a small group from which to choose. Out of this small group, an overwhelming number of these people are often only interested in using their political positions for their own selfish gains. But because our society tolerates this behavior, the individuals parade around as if they were heirs to a royal throne.

When the checks and balances of our governing bodies are functioning with any degree of parity, our political system is by far the best on earth. But regardless of our nation's political state of affairs, to continue to totally trust our future to politicians is ridiculous. They are human, and therefore subject to the same flaws as everyone else. In addition, despite their political promises, the majority of them do not have any interest in healing our nation's wounds. It is much too easy for them to apply a Band-Aid, and still maintain their illusions of great public officials.

The individuals that we select to represent us are supposed to be submissive to the wishes of their constituents, because they are only extensions of the people who vote for them. Therefore, as voters, we must not allow them to determine the path that our nation should travel without consulting us.

The conscious of America is its citizens. When there are issues that are vital to our nation's well being, we must unite as a single mechanism, and function as a unit. We must develop the same drive and purpose that motivated our nation's ancestors, as they struggled to construct and protect the foundation of democracy.

The wombs of the world's communities conceived and established the foundation of America with its many cultures, colors and beliefs. In order to retain the freedoms that we have, the diversity in our nation must become an enormous indivisible rainbow of strength.

We still consider the evils of communism, and any society that supports its doctrine as the greatest enemies to democracy. The citizens living under these regimes are taught just the opposite. The seemly infinite barrier that governs the political advancement of these two social ideologies has produced untold misery, sacrifice, and the altering of many lives. Unfortunately, every social structure and every human being that exists in their particular social structure needs adversaries, and chaos to learn and grow. The continuance of human existence demands that we maintain a purpose for existing.

Our nation's leaders have attempted to coerce the citizens into believing that we have won the so-called cold war, and therefore our nation has achieved some great feat. And they truly expect us to accept that nonsense.

The communist and the feeble-minds that embrace the doctrine will always have a total disregard for peaceful coexistence. Accept as a crutch, the foundation of Communist social ideology is an infinite barrier that prevents them from having a meaningful relationship with any social structure governed by democratic principles. They are only hibernating, healing, waiting and watching. They have not abandoned their desire for world domination, and the abolishment of free will.

Clearly, the Soviet Union is in disarray and Russia appears to have troubles with terrorism and other social ills of their own, but they are not neutralized. As long as they have the enormous stockpile of Nuclear Weapons, they will always be a valid threat, if not an imminent one.

With the decline of a very aggressive Soviet nature, China has become the beast of the east; coiled like an aggressive deadly, social, and political viper, it is seeking the right opportunity to gobble up the remnants of democracy that manage to survive the overbearing offensive of terrorism. Relying totally upon our nation and its allies respect for the power of the Beast, Korea is a small, relatively insignificant social structure, except for their human factor, and there struggle to swim upstream to global recognition.

Since all animals crave freedom, no social structure that relies upon brutality or any other forms of intimidating restraints can dislodge it from the spirit of man. Embedded in the craving of all living beings, human or otherwise, is a natural desire for freedom. Therefore, the principles that nourish communism impede its ability to continue to function as it is practiced.

It may appear that Russia is little more than an annoyance, but it remains a world power. Its influence still slithers out from the bowels of demented souls, and promotes fear and barbarity to undermine the quest for a peaceful coexistence. A tentacle, a wicked social malignancy of its influence is the terrorism that it once supported and now imminently faces. This malignant social evil with lethal intentions has attached its fears to the essence of democracy and other lest notable social structures. The force that is required to curtail its amoral and aggressive nature spawns the elements for social progression.

While the principles of democracy permit a restricted version of the communist and other ideological dissidents to exist in our society, they denounce and plot to destroy the system of governing that allows them to fester and grow. Nurtured by the tentacles of democratic principles, they feed on our greed, our phobias, and even our democratic approach to handling their aggressive nature. Their actions pressure our government into moral and financial bankruptcy to slow their progress.

Still, the fundamental function of democracy must not be altered, are changed to combat communism or terrorism; for, it is a system of governing that allows the human spirit to flourish. The evolutionary progression of humanity is depending on its continuation.

The individuals and nations that seek to alter our social structure from within are an imminent threat. But their commitment to their goal is an even greater threat to the societies that are still within the primary stages of democratic governing.

If we allow these threats to exist unchallenged in the world's communities, democracy will eventually become isolated, and nurtured only by societies strong, and committed enough to repel the challenges.

I do not believe that America will ever completely abandon our way of life. However, democracy for all its intents and purposes has already entered into a state retrogression. Still, we are, and we will always remain a nation of free people, even beyond the ultimate reality of total destruction. But when the sum total of our struggle with terrorism is weighed, the essence of democracy will be severally altered.

Because we are a free society, democracy appears to have an element of weakness and vulnerability. That weakness is the essence of freedom, and it will always exist. Still, it would be unthinkably foolish, and dangerous for our adversaries to overestimate their ridiculous illusions that our nation will not repel any challenge.

In a country governed by a dictator or communism, there is a need for direct control. A dictator's fanatic actions are beyond scrutiny. In comparison, I will graciously admit that the nature of democracy exposes its inborn weaknesses.

Fortunately, the strength of our nation does not rely upon intimidation and brutality. It promises instead, that its social structure will allow the human spirit to flourish within the boundaries of our moral and social laws, and occasionally beyond them.

We have taken giant strides to become a greater, more united nation than we were. We must not let greed; senseless bigotry, shattered hopes and dreams propel our progress into a state of stagnation.

Removing the ghosts of past amoral idealism is essential to determining our survival of the challenges. We must embrace and protect our democratic principles, and our ability to function as a unit, and the rejuvenating of our patriotic spirit assures maximum effort. These principles fashioned the greatness of our nation.

A confrontation with our adversaries always appears imminent. But I do not honestly believe that barbaric or suicidal as our adversaries often appear, they are going to seriously hinder the progression of democracy to a position that time and decent political representation cannot repair. It is very difficult to consider that any nation or any group that represent any nation would risk the complete annihilation of humanity, just to display to the world that they are a power, or represent a power to be reckoned with.

When respect for America, and its values declined in the world's communities, our influence stagnated, and retarded the effectiveness of our unlimited power. Yet, wounded as we are, we shall rise to the occasion.

Crutches

The social position of the bulk of the black race encourages a large sum of black people to settle on the generalization that our dark skin automatically diminishes our intellectual capabilities. Accepting the lowing of any standards so that we can participate, confirm that we do not have the will to compete.

The determining factors for social competition should be an individual's skills, behavior and their intellectual ability, not their ethnic heritage. I understand that blacks and other minorities are most often not playing on a level field, but playing on a level social field is not the relevant factor that hinders us.

The principles that nourish the process of learning are parental involvement, environment, desire, and the mental health of an individual. The color of one's skin is not important to the process. Still, if black people expect to compete, we must make every effort to learn and disprove the ridiculous generalization that blacks are inferior and hopelessly intellectually incompetent.

The continual erosion of moral values, concepts, and self-worth has victimized, deprived, and demoralized a large sum of our society, but particularly the black society. Because of the black race's seemly inability to employ, and maintain these standards that I mentioned, we are still in pursuit of the elusive recognition of total equality. Therefore, the bias judgmental, eyeballs of the established social hierarchy continues to focus on us.

Of course, there are other reasons why we still have not broken through the barriers that impede our social progress as a race. However, those that I mentioned previously appear to cause stagnation and hopelessness in black people more than it does any other group.

To confuse the obvious, which is our seemly inability to reach the social position of the white race, we rely much too often upon excuses that are no longer within the realm of progressive, social validity. We allow these excuses to camouflage the true explanation for our inability.

In order to compete successfully, we must demonstrate that we can compete with anyone. We must not sacrifice our self-esteem by embracing the lowering of any standards to compensate for our incompetence. When we allow other people to generalize that we are too stupid to learn, and compete on their academic level, we reinforce their claim to dominion over us. They are not going to consider that for some of us it is an infinite struggle just to exist in our environment, or the social obstacles that imminently threatened to overwhelm and demoralize our lives everyday. The mere fact that they have social dominance, and believe that they are dominant intellectually, is enough to claim superiority.

To upgrade our race's education and skills, black adults, whether we are parents or not, must have a greater influence on our children's social behavior, and academic excellence. If all our kids ever see is a crack head, or some person too lazy to flush the toilet, their perception of life does not have a very good beginning. We need to stop complaining about the difference in schools, and escort our kids to the neighborhood library. They must learn that 1+1=2 and that rap singers and pro athletes are not necessarily good role models. We must generate an inkling of pride for our black leaders, our race, and ourselves. We cannot allow anyone to sabotage the contributions of black people, or generalize our behavior, and intellectual abilities, because of the color of our skin, or the conduct of a few.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Essence of Humanityby James Gates Copyright © 2012 by James Gates. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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