The ideas presented here will be attacked by False Minds galore, and by the pervasive Culture-Structure, on the basis of their originality anyway, so I do not need to court controversy. (The "Working Minds" philosophy is heresy to the Culture-Structure, and intended as such.) But the nasty fight over abortion rights is not so much an issue of right-wrong or of morality as it is actually a matter of Choice Free Choice [or not]. The folks on the Anti-Abortion side of the issue are choosing what is 'right' for other people, based not on Logic or Reason, but on a package of righteous False Values that happen to be truly and simply held to be false by the other, the Pro-Choice, side.
Dare I shed light on the loose sand upon which the Anti-Abortion side has built its edifice? Sure, why not? Somebody might be Empowered.
* * * *
Here is what the Working Mind can do should the subject of abortion or any similar controversy be brought up in conversation:
Ask the Anti- [anti-abortion or whatever] person whether they eat pork. Then remind them that both the Jews and the Muslims are told by their various prophets that to consume pork is a terrible sin in the eyes of their respective gods. And then there are the vegetarians, who condemn all eaters of meat, of animal flesh, for more secular reasons.
To Muslims and Jews and vegetarians, the eaters of pork are committing a Major Sin; it is only a matter of luck that the pork/meat issue has not generated the heat that the abortion issue has, that Jews and Muslims are not so militantly righteous about the pork issue as are opponents of abortion, that the Anti-Pork contingent do not demand that all non-believers live according to Jewish and Moslem and 'vegan' beliefs.
Per the pseudo-logic of the Anti-Abortion folks, eaters of pork must then stop doing so, because loudly righteous others believe the act of eating pork to be seriously immoral. Be clear that the pork/meat issue and the abortion issue have precisely the same positions: one side holds that their moral belief eliminates everyone else's Free Choice in the matter.
Per the pseudo-logic of the Anti-Abortion folks, those who eat pork or meat are wrong; only those who abstain are morally right. The side of the righteous cannot allow their issue to be decided by non-believers non-Muslims or non-Jews or non-vegetarians for themselves, but instead demand that the entire world obey beliefs that they do not in fact hold. Nor can the morally righteous Anti-Abortion side allow the issue to be decided by non-Catholics or non-fundamentalists who are independent of the righteous position on abortion.
But here's the deal based in Objective Reason: Nobody has the right to prevent another from eating pork or veal or beef, or from staying up all night, or from having sex with a consenting adult of one's choice, as long as no civil laws are broken and maybe not even then. The morally righteous would change such behavior by Force; I say that they cannot rightly prevent others from doing this except by Reason. I might reduce or modify my meat intake because my cholesterol is high, but never will I alter my personal practices or behavior based on somebody else's righteous and irrational moral or religious beliefs.
So tell your Anti-Whatever person that they have to give up eating pork, in fact all meat, before they can dictate the choices of other individuals on any matter. They won't agree to it, and will likely wander off or change the subject. But you will have given them and possibly others something to ponder.
* * * *
Nobody has the right to decide the moral choices of the rest of Mankind, on any issue also, except by the use of Objective Reason. Should the orthodox Muslim insistence that women always cover themselves with the chador garment dictate fashion in America? Surely not. Should the Hare Krishna belief in head-shaving dictate your hairstyle? No way! So also, other morally righteous meddlers cannot take away your Free Choice on any matter unless and until you give away that right to them.
The animosity and even deadly violence perpetrated by the Anti-Abortion crowd, their use of Force, is literal proof that they are not basing their position on Objective Reason at all. Belief will do this to people; belief is anti-rational at its base. Belief and Objective Reason cannot occupy the same Existential space.
Note also that one need not pick one or the other side of the issues used here as example, when you have developed an operative Working Mind. Neither of the two militant sides of the abortion issue can see empowering solutions that are available to the Working Mind: The decision of the possessor of an operative Working Mind, for the Right Action to be taken in a particular case concerning a particular issue, is that Choice which generates Empowerment.
Free Choice is based on Objective Reason, it comes from the intellect, which is the under-used and widely-stifled best chance for the survival of Mankind as Mankind, as something higher than the animals. Free Choice is the natural enemy of the Culture-Structure and of your False Mind, and the enemy of all dogma and righteousness. Free Choice empowers.
Whosoever is righteous or violent or both is the enemy of Objective Reason and Free Choice and Empowerment.
[copyright 2001 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]
The preceding is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of my forthcoming book, "Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment".
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