Some extraterrestrial civilization observing Earth would have issued a report to home base:
“The
planet is inhabited by different types of people who, basically, don’t
get along with each other. They never will. Earth is some sort of mixed
bag. Their elites have decided to build a single race out of this
mish-mash, through propaganda, mind control, and biological
experimentation. That program is destructive, and it won’t work.”
The actual solution is a functioning Earth department of negotiation.
But not a government entity. So I call it a department store.
---Many people at work cooking up ways for people who basically don’t get along to negotiate with each other.
The subject has never been explored as extensively as it needs to be.
Compromise
is a slippery version of what we require, because it tends to make
people abandon what they are. I’m not asking for that.
Negotiation
is in the vein of two fortresses agreeing to leave two roads open for
travel and not blow them up. The fortresses remain. They don’t try to
melt down into soft cheese.
The
department store would feature thousands of glass cases. Inside each
case would be an illustration of a negotiation. Diplomats would stroll
through the store every day. Absorbing possibilities.
This is a forever enterprise.
Inside a prison, a common yard for all inmates is insane.
You have a black yard and a white yard and a Latin yard.
And
then you have a department store, for the best and brightest of the
three groups. They browse, they talk to one another, they propose
specific deals. They’re cautious. Circumspect.
Little by little, arrangements are hammered out.
Out
in the world, there would have been a Russian-Ukrainian-NATO department
store. For a decade or two. Zelensky wouldn’t have become
President. George Soros would have been exiled from the Ukraine. NATO
(the US) would have reduced the number of nuclear missiles ringing
Russia.
Negotiation
is a method of avoiding extreme solutions. Including the extreme
solution of declaring an all-out Peace, which would be alarming to all
parties.
Gradually,
a tradition builds: people who want shooting wars and people who want
to eradicate hatred suddenly and radically are widely considered to be
psychotic.
Hatred is a mountain of stone. During a given century, perhaps a layer one millimeter thick is worn away.
Recognizing
and accepting hatred between groups, however, has a beneficial and
mysterious effect. Nothing changes, and yet something does change.
Not
through force. Not through demanding the alteration of language. Not
through preaching. Not through the kind of condemnation and accusation
and victim tunes we now swim in.
People
learn to see their hatreds of each other as money in the bank. And they
cherish that money. They can count it. They can look at it every day
and make sure it’s still there. Nobody is trying to seize the accounts.
And
they know about the department store. Which grows larger every month,
but retains its careful and cautious repose and composure.
A central feature of human culture is the stand-off.
Against the odds, it is admired.
The stand-off permits negotiation.
~~~
(The link to this article posted on my blog is here.)
(Follow me on Substack, Twitter, and Gab at @jonrappoport)
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