Re-Visiting Ancient Traditions

Humanity is re-visiting old and sometimes ancient traditions now. Many ancient Christian practices and other 'fundamentalist' ideas are being sought out and practiced again. Old, ancient ways that the sexes were divided are being brought back. Old, 'archaic' traditions of where fear and respect were coupled are also seeing a resurgence. In the ancient and oftentimes, barbaric past, one respected leaders whom one feared. And fearing a leader was a sign of respect. If you didn't fear him/her then you didn't respect them. These are old, patriarchal dynamics. In these times, loyalty to dogma, totalitarian control was a sign of respect. To be 'disloyal' was to risk losing one's life.

We are being asked collectively to look and and re-experience these old, traditional ways to understand them and decide what, if any, parts of these old traditions we want to carry forward.

Traditions, traditional practices and beliefs are very, very tricky. We have a loyalty to honor them in that they form our past and yet we need to look at the downside and shortfalls in the old ways. There is love there! even in the brutality. But we need to honor it without bringing it forward. Not all traditions are good. How can we honor our brutal past, see the love there, and move into a new and different future?

This is a time of great 'unknowing.' We need to go easy on ourselves. We need to reflect and honor and move into a better place.

 

The 18th century Enlightenment Era challenged that long enduring dogmatism, putting Reason with a capital R in its place. Applied to natural phenomena, this approach produced first theoretical science and then the industrial revolution. Applied to government and society, it produced the idea that all men should be equal. That in turn caused the American and French revolutions. Women's rights, the abolition of slavery, labor unions, a free press, all followed.

The modern world has been created by the challenging of dogmatism by investigation and demanding proof of claims.

 

What about the human rights of the 500 nations who lived thousands of years in North America but killed by "civilized" immigrants from Europe?

I don't see any equality here when the latest Asian immigrants bring their money but blamed for everything while the old immigrants from Europe brought guns to kill but nobody seems to care about the fact.

 

This grievance I agree with. The concept of human rights, spawned by the Enlightenment Era, was very inconsistently and selectively applied. Western civilization has gotten where it is today by the robbery and genocide of black, brown and yellow people. And today, western civilization is rotting and falling apart like the Roman Empire.