'TOUGH GUY' ISN'T THE IMAGE THE PUBLIC OR POLICE NEED OF POLICING TODAY...June 6, 2020

I'd like to expand on the theme of this news article. I suspect that in general American males have for many decades taken being, or subtly threatening to be, ' a tough guy' as the preferred and most effective way to be manly and  emotionally and physically  safe.

So male  police have overtly and exaggeratedly presented themselves that way to the public,  especially to the  part of the public -people of color-  they perceive as a threat to their authority.

The police are in a very unenviable impossible role because the white public has expected them to protect and shield them from people of color,  especially  black males, who they  historically imagine as a dark threat if not contained. 

Another shameful part of that false fear narrative has been that white women should fear black men. But police would protect them from assault. Little were the police expected to protect black men under ongoing physical and economic assault in America.

Much of these attitudes and motivations are barely conscious to us white folks and that makes them doubly resistant to change and to reshape.

But after 400 years of this slave master 'tough guy ' effort, especially presented in the image of police, by whites the psychological atmosphere of George Floyd's murder appears to be helping white folks to 'see' that this trusted effort to intimidate black people has not only always back fired it is simply not needed.  Instead whites can more safely dwell in an appropriate, more respectful and mutual way with dark skinned persons.

This article is about how the 'tough guy image' has become much less popular and attractive  , including among many police departments, by white Americans.

Recent days of the protest environment are  showing that dropping the 'tough guy' image is a smart and effective way to make the streets , and maybe life in general, safer and more pleasant for everyone. (Incidentally this is in strong contrast to the President's efforts. His 'law and order' rhetoric is a dog whistle to his Always Trump fans that the government will keep its thumb on people of color, poor whites and those pushing for their equal human rights.)

The ' tough guy' image has shown itself being  outgrown before our very eyes. This could become the new more mature and responsible way of white folks conceptualizing and relating  in mutual respect to blacks. And give law enforcement persons a more human way to enforce the law for everyone's benefit and safety.

I hope these observations are significantly more than wishful thinking on my part. If so we might see a ray of hopeful light in what has always been America's  most serious spiritual and ethical problem.

https://abc7ny.com/why-tough-guy-policing-fails/6235054/

TIME FOR AMERICA TO STOP EXCUSING OUR RACISM...June1, 2020

Im going to honestly vent here. I wrote this three days ago. I'm sick of our American excuse-filled  racist cycle.

If these protest crowds could just live by totally  non violence discipline as MLK did. Actual human progress is much messier. I'm confident most protestors are committed to non violence. Some who are sincere just reach that  understandable ' I can't stand it anymore' moment and lose self control.   They are young. Giving into rioting is commonly human but also a serious mistake.   I think  there are strong dark  forces, here and foreign, that want to see a divided  America so they intentionally agitate  violence to happen.

BUT when whites get single mindedly upset when looting and burning occurs we ought not then begin verbally blaming and warning protestors in general. This is where we always get to.  The blame eventually comes down on the protestors as if they are to solve this American problem they did not create. They mostly can only protest. That's their only legal significant power.  They don't have the power to make the needed changes. Only the powerful majority and its institutions can sincerely decide to do that.  We only started that with the 1960 Civil Rights Legislation. We seldom follow through after national incidents of police brutality and murder.

Why aren't national forces ever being called not to handle the 'problem of protestors' violence  but to seriously stop the  everyday systemic  violence against minorities?

We just can't ever quite turn it round and hold the true empowered crimimals and white collar officials accountable and  get publicly angry about that, the actual  problem.  The killers and abusers usually walk free with the same job whether officials or police. That is our repeating cycle.

I think I saw this pattern begin again this time with the lowest possible charge  given at the start. 3rd degree murder /manslaughter.  The crowd and now the nation saw and heard  something more serious by the alleged killer and three other professional policeman watch and do nothing . Nothing.

If this were reversed color wise I'm confident it would be very different and a charge that matches the crimes witnessed would  have come swiftly. And It's not just once , its our continuing  repetition and we all in open God's Presence see it.  And  then always expect the victims, with such limited power, to straighten it out, make it right.  The victims are regularly expected to be the example of maturity, integrity, calm and even the primary agent of change.

The whole cycle shows how irrational  and truly blind  inbred racism is in our land. It is our original sin and we've yet to consistently look it in the eye and take responsibility.

And sadly, present national leadership is less capable of facing this than we've had in modern times. I can't imagine it being weaker. That's why protestors and those they represent are so discouraged and nearly hopeless.

I suspect with our excuses we are nearly out of time to correct it. There is little light. I think of  the imperfect mind of Evolution searching for the right thing to come forth. And evolution cares nothing about where it comes from. Evolution cares not about the demise of a nation whose citizens do not rise to their necessary ethical consciousness. Evolution, even God,  will surely look elsewhere.

CAN THIS INCIDENT SHOW US WHAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN WRONG? ..May 29, 2020

The Minnesota governor  appears to honestly speak now.  And  strive to acknowledge  the seriousness of George Floyd's death. And to teach, not threaten  or preach, that if civil order is not found now  there will be no justice for anyone.

Can America actually take this moment to face our long history  of injustice to people of color? Do we have yet, so civil disobedience can end in Minneapolis, confidence  in ourselves and courage  to act strongly and clearly  enough to this to bring equal  justice for all?.

This question is before us, no matter how uncomfortable: I don't see how there can be any honest person who does not ask her/himself, " If the nation had seen a white person treated as George Floyd  was would someone have already been arrested while careful investigation proceeds? "  The world will watch again  now for that to happen or not.

It appears , to many persons, from   video evidence that an unarmed bound American citizen, George Floyd,  has been murdered by a policeman, while other policemen  watch his death. That is grounds for arrests to follow quickly. Then time can be had for establishing guilt or not in court. Right hearted  professional  law officers would be as determined in this outcome  as any citizen.

Are Americans agreed that arrest should come as swiftly for any color of person in America?  Hopefully we will see that  our determination for equal justice is alive. Each American needs to Express themselves as well as they can to each other as this unfolds.

If the answer to the  question regarding arrest  is yes, then we can clearly understand, more of us can  really get it,  why Minneapolis is burning. We must face ourselves and our history of  thousands of times across our land when justice has come slow and often never to protect persons of dark skin compared to fair skin.

If we dont face this  simple  historical American reality than our  incapacity to learn what our own personal and collective  lives teach us can naturally destroy us.

FEW WHITE PERSONS CAN YET HONESTLY SAY WE ARE AGAINST RACISM..May 30, 2020

Unarmed, bound, black man George Floyd was murdered  wide openly while other policemen watched. Sadly there is much racism , treating people of color different under the law, in our world. The law has not given dark skin persons the same protections as the fair skinned.

 I think there is little question  that these things  are far more likely to happen to persons with dark skin. There is still embedded in white America that black persons do not deserve equal treatment by the law. Somehow they are not equally valued when the rubber meets the road.

White persons have long often vented their own frustrations on to dark skinned people. It's as if we think they should not be here.  They are in our way,  not fellow equal  contributing citizens. We call in troops when rioters threaten violence . When will we call in highest  public forces to stop  routine violence  and injustice against people of color? Our weak responses are quite irrational and usually come from the  strong   emotional dark core of our political/social/legal systems.

 I too Cindy  wish it weren't so. I know Black parents have to teach their children to not expect equal treatment. They have to live daily knowing that and being more careful than a white person has to ever  consider.

I think we'd all do better to  not say , " I'm not racist" . I know as a child of the  segregated South that I'm far less racist than I once was. But it is unusual  to be white in America and not carry some racism that can surface any moment in us. Our strong insistance we are not often shows that we do not face it.

We'd make more  progress if we could consider ourselves  somewhere on a scale of racism. At one end actual hating,  abusing  and hurting others and the other where we are unwilling to acknowledge the problem and to go on record with others  as standing against it when it happens. And failing to always sadly hope we can help end it.

Its our American original sin that has yet to be set aside in how  the law on the street works. Sad. :(

SOMETHING BETTER THAN THE PAST IS POSSIBLE...May 21, 2020

Jung's reflections of nearly  a hundred years ago may have more to give when the conflicts, high  death rates and uncertainties of human life are more evident to more of us.

This surely  can have an awakening effect on sensitive persons. Like this moment of the Earth's humans facing the Coronavirus.

Of course many will be untouched and insist that our American type materialistic and competitive  values and handed down  notions of  an anthropomorphic God  are all we need.

Humans are capable of questioning these  values and we should. Something better than our past may be very needed and possible.

AN EVOLVING AND RELEVANT RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE...May 20, 2020

Here is a great and nearly still unnoticed paradox of human evolution in our 'Christian' world. Jung , like few, saw a century ago that the Christ Story lost its central benefit and wisdom  to humankind with the necessary coming of modern science beginning 400 years ago.

The original impact of the Christian teaching  promised and quite well provided a moral transforming power in the ancient Mediterranian world. A lifting up of the human spirit and culture.

C.G. Jung said,  "As at the beginning of the Christian Era, so again today we are faced with the problem of the moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical and social developments.

So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern man.

Is he capable of resisting the temptation to use his power for the purpose of staging a world conflagration?

Is he conscious of the path he is treading, and what the conclusions are that must be drawn from the present world situation and his own psychic situation?

Does he know that he is on the point of losing the life-preserving myth of the inner man which Christianity has treasured up for him?

Does he realize what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall him?

Is he even capable at all of realizing that this would be a catastrophe?

And finally, does the individual know that he is the makeweight that tips the scales? "~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 78.


So the Christ story was both the nurse maid of modern science but also lost most of its  relevance to morally transform persons and cultures with the growth of that science. In this psychological sense science is an 'Anti Christ' and has already been this long with us.  It had to be this way. We now are psychologically and spiritually the result of this paradoxical mutual gain and loss. This is a central evolving process for us right now.

We gained materially by leaps from science's basic hypothesis that the only reality is the material world.  With that came the grand rush of knowledge of all things material and external, and the ever streaming technology. World-wide humans were  rightly dazzled by it. Some benefitted from this far more than others. Science alone lacks any moral or ethical foundation or judgment as a branch of human learning. It generates physical facts and correlating principles and is coldly amoral.

Some Christian well wishers may have wanted to give  God the credit for science.  But actually it was accomplished by purposely removing  the anthropromorphic  traditional God from the hypothesis of science. That is how science does it wonders. Adding an interfering  God being  factor would destroy its objectivity. Paradoxes never cease in this world. And these science wonders are limited precisely to half of human experience, the material.

But many also now deeply sense in recent decades that humanity has lost its inner self, it's own soul. At the heart of the Christ Story is that there is a non material factor which is where the Human and Divine actually connect. It is this irrational half of human life that science disconnected us from. The part of life that in ancient times was the world of the living spirits and Gods. It is what gave and still gives life its  spiritual zest and exhilaration.

This other half of human reality reality is  also heard in Paul's teaching about the 'inner man', the truer fuller man who is both material and spiritual.  It is heard in Jesus' reference to a 'kingdom not of this world' that is 'within the human'  and the paradoxical  irrational nature of a 'new birth.'

Science, which is so much in all of us now, necessarily abhors including such a non material factor for it threatens the high ground of the materialistic hypothesis of science that has so rightly captured our confidence.

The hypothesis of Paul and Jesus adds to the kind of knowledge science achieves by reminding humans that we are also a spiritual  phenomenon. And that the Christ story has always promised it is natural for our inner person, as adults, to potentially be ' transformed' and to usher in a far more loving, responsible  and caring world. A world that places a far higher value on cooperation among humans  than 'science /technology only' whose primary motivator becomes  greed and competition for the Earth's  finite resources.

And so the several hundred years of war and tension between science and religion, Christ and its opposite 'Anti Christ' goes incompleted and won by neither side alone. For  the reality must be there is both the physical outward reality and the inner non physical spiritual one. And these still contending opposites now seek an evolutionized hope based harmony with each other.  A grand union of opposites to a transcendent 'third ' reality. This describes a 'new world' coming into view perhaps in some of our youths' life times.

None of this means anything has ultimately gone wrong. It is a grand example of how the paradoxical mind of evolution has done its work in bringing humans to the present state of consciousness. A state where we might see how centrally important this new consciousness of ours is to be in helping shape the evolution of the world's future.

Again, the Christ Story after remarkably transforming the ancient Western world to a higher plane of consciousness and culture,  paradoxically gave birth to its opposite: Science which strengthened the human capacity to explore and take much control of the physical world.  And now  materialistic science, absent the Spirit that birthed it, has brought us to a sterile technological world with very little sustaining joy, harmony, deep fascination  or  soul.

What's next? Humans  need to keep what science has taught us and somehow reclaim what was lost from ourselves, our soul life, to make that monumental achievement possible. Now required by evolution is a return to a trust in the reality of the 'inner person' which as the Christ Story claimed can be transformed to a fuller expression of the meaning of being human. This  requires the courage to return to a place in the collective mind that most of us have never been, but that our ancient forebears, before science , experienced in their own way.

Such confidence in the inner spiritual reality along with affirmation of our physicality makes possible a ' new kind of  person' , a fuller more complete human.  Or as Jung suggests here a more *four dimensional human. The human who is not only of this world via science  but is also in fuller union with the cosmos and with the Divine.

The new discovery now waiting as a 'pearl of great price' is that humans now need a broader more inclusive hypothesis of reality. That humans are both a physical and spiriual phenomenon, both mind and living soul.  We are only half if either is ignored by our own bias.

This I think is the kind of hope that can still be resurrected to humanity from the Christ Story with no attack or invalidation, but inclusion of and cooperation with, the other major world religions.

*Note by Jung on human transformation. "Rebirth, you receive the immortal soul you at first did not possess, you are a twice-born. Like Jesus you are now no longer a simple personality, but a non-personality or symbolic personality, you now belong to the entire world, which is somewhat more important than the role of being the son of Joseph and Marie!

Manipura is the center of identification with God, where one is part of the divine substance. You are now already part of timelessness, no longer merely 3-dimensional, but now belonging to a fourth-dimensional order of things where space does not exist and time is not – but only eternity exists. We see a new image of ourselves." Carl Jung

MANY AMERICANS ARE SHOWING DISCIPLINED COOPERATION..May 19, 2020

It's good to be reminded many persons and groups are still maturely doing what is right. Keep it up. This is not over at all. We may find some healthy habits we will want to keep even.