T R U T H - F o r T h e P r e p a r e d M i nd
An introduction or foreword, I belive, should prepare the reader for what lie ahead, for what he/she will find in the text; a sort of road map for the journey about to begin. Writing is in itself a way to commence understanding; understanding being the most valuable of all things.
Having started as a natural science student, later adding degrees in economics and jurisprudence at university, I hope to be able to combine acquired knowledge into a comprehensible logic.
As a private detective I have for years stood side-by-side with people who are sometimes in the worst moments of their lives - in courts, at police investigations' chambers, at social security offices - having an experience not everyone can bring to the bench. This implicitly carries a heavy responsibility.
In lacunas or caveats between private detective assignments or missions globally - and the odd board meeting at Space Metals Group - there have at times been ample and necessary thoughts and dreams about the human condition.
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night," as the foremost poet and thinker E.A. Poe formulated it - and tempus fugit. Erit hora - and in language, norma loquendi - what is actually thought, said or written - is the highest authority.
Da capo, motto vivace: Semantics, knowledge and experience of individuals' psychological and philosophical patterns in combination with pure logic will usually decide a successful analysis. However, proper decorum requires thinking along the lines of the the U.S. Supreme Court: "We are not final because we are infallible; we are infallible because we are final."
That tastes differ is a palpable impression of things at present; at the moment, there is unity only in confusion. Evidence-based, scientific truth rather than emotion, superstition, tradition, revelation, authority, religion ... is what we need.
Politics, philosophy and religion are mixed: There is a persistence of religion that has not only obstructed and undermined science in the age of Galileo and Copernicus; it has also survived Darwin, whose theory of evolution shocked us.
"Man is the only religious animal. In the holy taste of smoothing his brother's path to the happiness of heaven, he has turned the globe into a graveyard," as Mark Twain formulated it. "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature ... it is the opium of the people," wrote Karl Marx in 1844.
The idea - not unique to Marx - was that by promising rewards in the next life, religion helps the poor bear their lot in this one. Noble suffering and mutual aid are two themes on whether religious belief makes poverty more bearable.
Religious belief offers an appealing lie of a beneficient force that cares about us if we do the "right" things. So fundamental a truth is a challenge few writers take on. But then, few are as able "to tell without distortions what they know".
Religious competition is healthy. "If there was only one religion in England," argued the French writer Voltaire in the 1730s, "there would be danger of despotism. If there there were two they would cut each other's throats, but here there are 30, and they live in peace and happiness."
The Pope - or any other priest, monk, imam or prelate - is not in the habit of taking advice from even Europe's most seasoned private detective. After all, the Roman Catholic Church and the rest take instruction from the creator of the universe.
In art, as in life, feelings rise and boundaries blur when politicians mess things up with involving themselves in faith-based issues and ditto legal concoctions. The vice president of Argentine, Christina Fernández de Kirchner, recently uttered: "Remember that judges are just judges - they are not God. You only have to fear God. And me a little bit, too."
Evil is misguided competition. "The most dangerous psychological mistake is the projection of the shadow on to others: this is the root of almost all conflicts," as Carl jung emphasized. Cooperative behaviours have been selected for thousands of generations, so that a sense of justice and fairness is part of what makes us human. Indeed, we punish ourselves severely for bad behaviour by feeling shame and guilt.
The ultimate reason for the environmental damage we cause is too many people. A steady population decrease is our best hope to avoid ruin. Migration to ease the pressure from over-crowded geographical areas is not a viable solution - offering a perverse prospect of dignity and freedom.
This is poignant knowledge - and looking back is the only material we can access. We are not in the business of predicting - yet!!! Politicians - many - are piling flimsy evidence on dubious argument to produce politically correct hokum. Truth is beauty: the best weapon against misinformation is the truth, not an embarrassed silence.
With regard to what one should do as a politician, there is always "a responsibility for consequences". Abuse and misuse of language when something is called something that it is not should be avoided. Real change in this matter "will not be won by 'nicely asking'".
Arguments from authority in Brussels - and elsewhere: "I believe that the moon is made of green cheese because Professor Waffle says so and she is really clever" will not work here. Political meddling in these investigations has weakened the whole system. They are not meant so much a set of clinical doctrines as a climate of feeling.
Cruelty is a choice, not a state of nature - however, political systems require constant renewal, through argument and competition. Publication of facts are critical - discoveries and revelations are of no use if no one hears about them. A paucity of data across swathes of Africa and the Middle East has left governments in Europe guessing.
You only see the shadow when it strikes - then it is too late. "What is good for the heart is good for the brain" is a bromide often trotted out, albeit an ability to say No, is neither too big for Europe, nor too small for the world, but just right.
War rages in Europe - not solely because of religious competion, albeit it is partly present. Small wars ... are already throwing up some quite big lessons. "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself," as president Roosevelt stated in 1941. Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
The thing to be known grows with the knowing. Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact.
Three centuries ago Jonathan Swift wrote that "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect."
To be continued.../.
.jpg "International Private Detective Claes Ekman, USA, Sweden, Europe")
