Cohesion Project Thesis

From The Practical Ontology & Compendium of Social Cohesion

Definition: Cohesion Project 2025, a thesis By Daniel Hough Jones The first set of statements The vast majority of people I have spoken with agree that we live in a Fragmented Society. They say it has gotten worse in their lifetimes. Social Fragmentation is the general Situation, if not the single-most-important Crisis that they see the United States is in. The people I have spoken with do not like what is going on. But they do not know what to do about it. Social Fragmentation is a humanly-solvable Problem. How do we Solve it? To Solve means to change an Undesirable (or a less Desirable) Aspect of Reality (also known as a Problem) to a (more) Desirable state. The change is called the Solution. In the case of Social Fragmentation, the obvious change that is Desirable is to bring about Social Cohesion. Social Cohesion is the Mission or outcome that one seeks. But how do you bring about the changes? And what intermediate changes are we talking about that will add up to Social Cohesion? Finally, whatever the proposed Solution might be that we settle on as the object of our pursuit, it ought to be Adequate; otherwise a Problem - possibly a new and different one - remains un-Solved. We must aim from the beginning to be Adequate in our Solution-making and Problem-Solving. We must estimate and adjust our Understanding as we go along about what Adequate Social Cohesion means. DAN: See Pope John Paul II Theology of the Body. This essay is about the Cohesion Program. It states my thesis with regard to it. There are many parts to my thesis. Introduction Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician. He had important things to say. Interestingly, he was born in Europe one year after the birth of Pocahontas (1595-1617) in North America. That may seem an odd connection to make, but I have a purpose. Pocahontas was a woman and she, too, had important things to say that for my purposes are more important. Contents 1 The first set of statements 2 Introduction 3 Fundamental human needs 4 Suffering 4.1 Normal overwhelming 4.2 Courage 4.3 The Overwhelming Let's get back to Descartes. He famously wrote, "Cogito ergo sum," which from Latin or the original French translates as, "I am thinking, therefore I exist" or more commonly we hear it simply as, "I think. Therefore, I am." Descartes' statement has become so famous it is often referred to as the cogito. He was trying to answer the question - What is the bedrock for knowing anything? After skeptically and systematically tearing down all of the traditional possibilities, he concluded that the bedrock was the fact that he was asking questions or you could say, that he was doubting what he had been taught by his teaches. His questioning, doubting and thinking proved that he existed. From this apparently me-centered approach for getting at reality, modernity arose, according to Wikipedia. Descartes supposedly emancipated us from a God-centered, revelation-centered, church-centered way of doing things. Thus liberated, human knowledge exploded and progress made. This is the argument put forth by many modern scholars. It has broadly trickled down among ordinary people. I doubt the last paragraph accurately summarizes the whole story of progress since the 17th century, much less from the beginning of time. I believe progress was and continues to be much more complicated. Consider this - Rene's mother died when he was one year old. Imagine for a moment that at the time of Rene's big utterance, his mother was alive and said, "Rene, sweetheart, you exist even as I watch you sleeping, not just when you are thinking. You do not need to doubt your own existence or your capacity to improve your knowledge and make progress. I gave birth to you and here you are before my eyes, breathing, talking and writing whereas before you were a baby in my womb. Sweetheart, come away from your desk and sit with me for a while." Pocahontas on our side of the Atlantic would have said the same thing. My wife and two daughters say it to me today - "Dad, you think too much about your project." I am agreeing with the women. The entirety of our Body - not just our self-conscious thinking - is a reliable basis for approaching Reality. That is what I think. Ha! Please understand that it is not my intention to found the Cohesion Program on philosophical argument. I am not a Rene Descartes. I am not qualified. I do not have a PhD in philosophy. Rather, I am a husband, father of four and grandfather of ten. I have serious concerns about how our contemporary American society operates. It adversely affects my loved-ones. I do not like that. I do not like the particulars of the outcome those effects have helped to produce. To say it differently, I do not like the obvious suffering that some aspects of our society have inflicted on my family and the other people I care about. Therefore, I am going to do my best to change our society in certain respects. I do not mean to be dismissive of philosophy or academia in general. On the contrary, I use philosophy and the rest of academia as best I can in practical ways. I call what I do practical philosophy. It is a system of words and definitions that you and I agree to use in our efforts to make things better. I have recorded all of my special terms and definitions in the ECUSA® Compendium-Glossary. I am proposing we make progress based on our mutual agreement about meaning. When I label what I do practical philosophy, I am confessing that I do not expect, nor am I aiming, to win a blue ribbon from academia. My objective is to change some aspects of the world so that the children of academics and everyone else will have a better crack at happiness and to do that I need the help of a Critical Mass of all my fellow citizens, not just academics. So my objective is the persuasion of people in general, not a class of experts. I want to persuade you - whoever you are - to take action. To say I need help in the last paragraph is a rather pinched way of putting it. I want to persuade a Critical Mass of citizens - me being just one citizen among the mass - that we all need the help of one another up against these harmful aspects of our society that I am referring to. We have a common enemy. Let us work together against it. Even the last paragraph does not hit the mark adequately. Here is why - I was born in 1950. I did not begin this project until 2006 when I was 56 years old. As I write this, I am approaching 65. I do not have the energy to do much more beyond what I am doing, which is observing, talking, reading, thinking and writing as a prelude to teaching. The only realistic thing I can do to move this project along is teach younger men and women what I believe is in our collective best interest. Some of us are older, others younger, some of us are richer, others poorer, some of us are parents, some of us not, some of us are "white," some of us "minority," and so on. The best that I can do - and it is a profound honor if you will accept me - is take-on the role of teacher to American adult who will listen while you take-on the temporary role of student. Given my age, that is the best that I can do. My purpose in this essay is merely to set out a long list of thesis "statements," i.e., mini-essays, each with its own heading, that are fleshed out or will be fleshed out in other places. What you are doing now is reading glimpses of what I believe is the entire root system of the Cohesion Program. I hope I have not missed anything crucial. If you think I have, write me. Fundamental human needs Humans have fundamental Needs. My first and most fundamental mini-essay or thesis statement - my substitute for Descartes "cogito" - is along the lines that I believe women in general would agree with, namely, that our Bodies are really, really important. They are important to men and women in a womanly way. They are the basis for all our Knowledge of Reality including the knowledge of philosophers. Now, most men, I suspect, think of their Bodies in terms of capacities - How fast they can run and jump or catch a ball. Are they in good shape - Could they win in a fist fight and so on. As they age, men ask these questions in a less physical way but still in terms of capacity - "Can I sell more than the other guy? Can I earn a bigger bonus? Can I win the Nobel Prize?" In this regard, I am reminded of Daniel Boone and his capacity - When Daniel Boone (1734 - 1820) was courting the tall and beautiful, 17-year old Rebecca Bryan (1739 - 1813) and the day came that he wanted to propose marriage to her, what did he do? He went out, found the largest deer he could find, shot it, dragged it back and laid it at Rebecca's feet. That is what American (Indian) men did in those days when they proposed marriage. It was a clear sign to Rebecca that she and her future children would be provided for. She accepted his proposal and "over twenty-five years time, she delivered six sons and four daughters of her own," plus took in at least eight orphans, starting with Daniel's two orphaned cousins at the start of their marriage. Again, she was 17 years old. When it comes to capacity in my case, I ask, "Can I finish developing the Cohesion Program before I am too old and feeble or dead?" Meanwhile, my wife and two daughters (and secondarily my two sons, too) are worried about my weight and health. I should care more but I act as if I could not care less - I am focused on my project - Getting the work out. Let's get back to women - It is my observation that women tend to concern themselves with the well-being of others and what they are focused on more than anything else is the well being of the other person's Body - the whole of it. Let's begin at the beginning - A woman gives birth. The infant is hungry. The mother therefore nurses the baby. She nurses the baby because the baby is hungry. It has a Need. Her body fills it. Now, a first time mother certainly can be anxious about her capacity to nurse her baby. From what I have observed, however, that anxiety begins to diminish in the first 30 seconds. (Not so with men - There is always another bonus to earn - Another hurdle.) By the second day, the brand new mother is a pro compared to her former self. She converses knowledgeably in the sense of asking pointed, relevant questions of the more experienced women around her. She grows in competency and confidence quickly. Her doubts diminish. (Not so men.) So, women - as a general proposition - are focused on the Needs of others - not just babies - but other people in general. And in the process, they get their own Needs met. For instance, until the baby is weened, there will be times when the mother's breasts will become engorged with milk. The baby has been happily preoccupied crawling and pulling itself up on things. Too much time has passed. The mother needs the baby to nurse. Nursing is very much a fulfillment of mutual Needs. It is all very internal - a kind of secret from men unless women tell them and even then sometimes men may not have the capacity to Understand what the woman is saying. Sometimes men must take women on faith. So, anyway, I say our Fundamental Human Needs are a reliable place to begin to come to an Adequate Understanding of Reality. Our Needs are a reliable path for obtaining Knowledge and ultimately arriving at the Truth. This is my cogito. This is my Premise for everything that follows. Suffering Normal overwhelming You have probably witnessed this. When a toddler is separated for the first time from its mother when the mother, for instance, returns to the working world, the child is distressed terribly. "Where is mommy," the child looks around anxiously? Not seeing her, the child concludes "Mommy has dropped off the face of the Earth. This is terrible!" The poor kid wails. Its Need for protection and affection, which are two categories out of ten that make up the complex of our Needs, are not being satisfied Adequately. As a consequence, the child must act. It must wail. A child crying is a sign of normal overwhelming. For the inexperienced child, the universe has suddenly been flung on its head. It is out of control. That is what "to be overwhelmed," means. It means to have lost control or to be in the process of losing control. It is awful. Courage Courage is the first of virtues. Without Courage, you cannot progress. For example, with comfort and encouragement from grandpa and grandma, after a few days of mommy going to work, the child is blowing kisses to mommy as she leaves. Later when just an ordinary baby sitter is there, that is still okay. The child has developed Adequate Courage to withstand the fear that the absence of mommy would otherwise generate without Adequate Courage. The Overwhelming When infants and toddlers do not have their Needs met, they become distressed. They cry. As mentioned, this is normal overwhelming. Now notice this - The crying child is acutely Aware of the situation. The child is not in Denial about what is going on, but could be - and often is - influenced by a False Belief about the Nature of the situation. ("Mommy has dropped off the face of the Earth." Well, no, that is a False Belief. She has not fallen off the face of the Earth. She has gone to work and will be back home about 5:30. That is what is really happening. But the small child does not know that.) Over time, the child Understands increasingly well - due to experience and the guidance of others - what the Nature of Reality really is and so the child grows up to manhood or womanhood, no longer suffering normal overwhelming. Now, note this - Healthy, well-adjusted adults have learned how to avoid overwhelming situations. I am not talking about being thrilled by a roller coaster ride that - in Reality - is a safe experience. What I am saying is that no one willingly chooses to be truly overwhelmed in contrast to merely being thrilled. Being overwhelmed is too awful. Of course it is avoided. So, what does it mean to be Overwhelmed by the Overwhelming? It may be visualized this way - Normal overwhelming + Denial = Being Overwhelmed by the Overwhelming First of all, let me set aside children. In the Cohesion Program, I am concentrating on adults only - Adults sometimes come upon Events in Reality that are overwhelming. The Events crash into their Awareness. That is to say, they crash into the Sensoria of their Bodies - the complex of all their senses, all of which is very complicated to explain in a mini-essay. The bottom line is the adults are threatened with complete, overwhelming loss of control. In a given case, what happens is that the adult's Courage fails to cope with the situation that is presented. The adult goes into Denial. Once in Denial about the real meaning of the Event, then the Event can mean anything. How is the gap in Understanding filled? The Overwhelming - this phenomenon that I explain elsewhere - fills it. Here is a not-entirely-silly example - "What does this odd shade of pink lipstick on my executive husband's white shirt collar mean," the young stay-at-home mother of three children wonders? "Oh, it means "Oxiclean® gets the tough stain out." She breaths a sigh of relief, suppressing the thought that the security and future of her children is severely threatened. With Oxiclean®, she's got the situation under control, which is to say, in the real world she is Overwhelmed by the Overwhelming. What is the Overwhelming?

2. by a complex of your own efforts and that of other people. 3. 4. The Overwhelming exists. 5. We live in a fragmented society. 6. A fragmented society makes us vulnerable to the Overwhelming as adults. 7. The Amazing American Ideomatic exists. 8. There are many benefits to the Ideomatic. 9. The Ideomatic in a fragmented society facilitates the Overwhelming. 10. The combination of the Overwhelming/Ideomatic keeps us in a state of denial. 11. Denial adversely affects our judgment, which leads to unnecessary suffering caused by humanly solvable problems (in contrast to unalterable conditions). 12. For purpose of discussion, all problems are divided into seven categories arranged along an approximate string of causality[1] as follows. 1) Personal problems spread/accumulate among households leading to broad 2) Social, 3) Economic and 4) Environmental problems that then affect 5) Government spending/debt incurred trying to solve the broad problems that pushes the government to get “too big” that then 6) Encroaches on individual liberty. The string of problems ends with 7) Problems in foreign affairs that the previous six categories aggravate, e.g. our lifestyle of urban sprawl trying to avoid other people’s personal problems (#1) requires a lot of oil, leading to our Mideast interventions, etc. 13. The Cohesion Program countervails the Overwhelming and so 14. Is able to bring about social cohesion, which if successful* 15. Makes progress more likely in all seven categories of human problems. 16. * The Cohesion Program requires CRITICAL MASS. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality



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