Constructive Megalomania is when you do want to take over the world--but you
honestly believe it's for good reasons and you'll be a real help. I don't think
Stalin and Mao and Hitler honestly believed they were doing something good. I
think they knew it was all bullshit. Pol Pot might've been more monstrous
because maybe he did believe his own bullshit.
Anyway here's my own constructive megalomania. If I were going to redesign the
world....These are from the notes for my forthcoming novel The Other End. They
won't be in the novel except by implication.
So imagine beings from a higher plane, angels with flaming swords, benevolent
super powerful aliens, whomever you like, come downand tell us what to do. We'll
call them "The Guides". My own preference is that they'll tell us:
Number One rule is: human rights are to be enforced militantly and universally,
around the world. Women and men are completely equal and this is to be enforced
in every country, everywhere. Men may not abort children, or abandon them,
because they are female. They may not deny education to females. They may not
deny freedom of choice to females. They may not force women to marry someone
they don't want to marry. They may not mutilate their bodies, ever, for any
purpose (see,"female circumcision"). They may not beat or rape them or use force
to make them work.
Children must be treated with respect, as human beings. They may not be forced
into labor, to make money for adults. They may not be sexually abused, ever.
They may never, ever be sold, anywhere anytime, to anyone. They may not be
beaten. Anyone who has a child must feed that child sufficiently and provide it
with the necessary affectionate attention and opportunity for education. This is
required by law. Those who are not fit parents, will not be allowed to be
parents. Tests will be given. If you don't pass the test, you don't have
children.
Racism is over. Religious intolerance and intolerance regarding sexual
preference are over. Indentured servitude is over anywhere in the world. These
things are socially destructive, and are flat-out not allowed anywhere on the
planet. Fundamentalism which excludes the possibility that other religions may
have some rightness about them, is at an end. That particular social virus is
over with.
Not all traditions are tolerated. The traditional fantasy that disease is caused
by evil spirits or "angry ancestors" is to be a thing of the past.
People may enjoy most of their tribal and ethnic traditions, but no one may hold
that their tribe or ethnic group is better than another tribe or ethnic group;
no tribe or ethnic group may hold that it has more rights than any other. This
will be strictly enforced--and it has been, too.
The Guides say we can make up religions, if we want--they refuse to allow anyone
to create an organized ritualistic religion around Guides or Adjustors
however--but no one can force that religion on anyone else, not on their children
or their neighbors. Religions cannot become enforced by laws, anywhere.
The Guides will subject those who break the rules on human rights to emanations
of mind altering consciousness raising. If they resist this, they will be
excluded from the planet (see banishment to alternate universes, appendix 76) or
"vanished" which means sent into the past, a few minutes before the great
destruction began.
Number Two rule is: While people may identify with a geographical area, and
with the traditions of that area, and organize themselves into nation-states,
they may not superimpose the will of their nation state over another with force.
Therefore, there will be no wars designed to appropriate another territory's
resources, or property, regardless of pretense. Worldwide policing is done by
the worldwide police. They will enforce the global rules and only those rules.
They will invade only if the global rules are egregiously overstepped, according
to vote of the democratically elected world council. There will be one army, for
law enforcement, and every territory will contribute to it. Individuals may
accumulate minor weapons, if they so desire. But no one will be allowed to
develop weapons of mass destruction. The Guides will use their power to see to
it there are no nuclear, biological, or neurolotoxic weapons remaining in the
world anywhere and there will be none developed in the future.
Terrorists for any cause will be eradicated.
Number Three rule is: Business must be responsive to broad social needs.
Money is necessary, for now. You do well to compete with one another, to
form companies and businesses. A well regulated free-market, we're told, usually
is the best economic system one can hope for until people reach a higher level
of spiritual evolution, thousands of years from now. But people get caught up in
their hunger to survive, and forget that they have a community responsibility.
They forget that they owe a fair means of survival to those who work for them,
and safe working conditions, and that planning for the long term is as important
as planning for the short term. So they must be reminded by regulations. When
people are hired, they must be given a wage they can live on.
Businesses working in territories where they are not headquartered will not
allocate to themselves a majority control of the goods in those areas. That is,
don't exploit an economically weaker people with economic power brought in from
another place. Resources originating in any certain area must be shared with the
people who live in that area.
Number Four Rule is: You simply cannot pollute while manufacturing goods. There
are ways to manufacture things without polluting. If you can't manufacture them
without toxifying the land, the water, and eventually people, you must do
without those things.
This is an inflexible rule. It will be "taboo" to pollute the world, or to cover
up too much wilderness with buildings and streets. There should always be more
wilderness than construction.
A sub-rule of number four is, a new technology is not completely invented until
you can show that it will not do more harm than good in the long term. A car is
not invented unless it does not pollute. If it poisons the air, it is only half
invented.
Number Five rule is: government may not be dictatorial, arbitrary, or too closed
off from the view of the public.
The Guides also give us some "advisories". They advise us not to develop large
organized religions at all. If we do organize religions, they strongly advise
against allowing priesthoods, of any sort, or extensive rituals, or special
garments that seem to impart significance to a person who in fact has no special
significance. Spiritual traditions should be loosely organized and democratic.
The Guides recommend learning how to behave by being more conscious of your
inner self and the outer world, at once. By being aware that people tend to be
"asleep" when they think they are "awake". This realization will spur people to
try to be more conscious and in the present moment so they can guide themselves
morally--and therefore they will not need a priesthood.
The Guides recommend against religious mythology and elaborate fantasies about
the nature of the afterlife. The afterlife will take care of itself, after. Be
concerned with how you live your life with others here. Look for compassion and
patience and tolerance in yourself, cultivate awareness, and you'll do fine in
the afterlife, whatever it may be.
The guides also recommend that you be extremely skeptical about people who
claim to be prophets, people who insist that some particular text is sacred--this
text is not sacred!--and that you look for people who may have the psychological
disease that makes them into cult leaders. Societal sicknesses like cultism and
fascism can be avoided if people are skeptical and wary.
The guides recommend trusting science, so long as the scientific method is
strictly applied. What seems to be supernatural, issuing from the Guides, is
really just higher science. Darwin was a saint as much as anyone else was.
Skepticism is very important. How do we stay skeptical even when the guides give
us specific definite hard-and-fast rules that we must live by? If you think
about it, those rules are relatively few and only in certain key areas. Most of
our lives are in fact uncontrolled. This leaves us lots of room for skepticism.
We can be skeptical about anything, even the guides. There are places to express
that skepticism. The basic rules are becoming given parts of life, like taboos
against murder. But that leaves lots of areas for skepticism and even rebellion.
Consciousness can't really grow without an inquiring, skeptical and even
rebellious mind.
