“I of my own knowledge…”

This is from the PEERS http://www.WantToKnow.info/008/080825_greatest_good

The excellent essay below from Greater Good magazine by J.K. Rowling, author of the renowned Harry Potter books, implores us to open our sphere of awareness to all who share our world. The moving description of her younger years working with Amnesty International can inspire all of us to work towards the greatest good, so that we might make this a better world for all. I also recommend subscribing to Greater Good magazine for lots of uplifting and inspiring stories and essays which invite us to join together in working for the greatest good. Thanks for caring and please help to spread the word to all who want to join in making a difference

Magic for Muggles
by J.K. Rowling

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.

This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

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How many angry ideologues still have not learned this simple lesson!

“Historic observation shows that there are many modes of change, other than dialectical opposition: Maturation, mimesis, mutual aid are all as effective as the struggle between opposing classes. In failing to take in the diverse modes of change, Marx compelled himself to overlook a good part of human history.”
Lewis Mumford, Interpretations and Forecasts, 201

You will notice, in the middle of the home page of this site, a horizontal row of buttons. Until now they have been merely decorative, but as you see my webmeister has begun to activate them. Clicking on “My Story”, “Spirit and Society” or “Fiction” will now bring you to the respective pages. Ultimately all the buttons will work, which should make it a little easier to navigate the site.  

We are still having a problem getting the credit-card acceptance mechanism to work right, but that seems to be the last major speed bump. At least, it’s the last one we anticipate. Now it’s up to me to do the considerable amount of work needed to provide the information that is the site’s reason for being.

Tags: "I Of My Own Knoweldge", "visionary fiction", metaphysics

“It was possible for Paine, in the 18th century, to believe that culture was served merely by the absence of a church, a state, a social order such as those under which Europe labored. That was the error of his school, for the absence of these harmful or obsolete institutions left a vacancy in society, and that vacancy was filled by work, or more accurately speaking, by busy work, which fatigued the body and diverted the mind from the things which should have enriched it. Republican politics aided this externalism. People sought to live by politics alone; the National State became their religion. The flag…supplanted the cross, and the Fathers of the Constitution the Fathers of the Church.”
Lewis Mumford, Interpretations and Forecasts, 14-15

In this election year, a reminder.

“Democracy is not so much a new form of political life as a dissolution and disorganization of the old forms. It is simply a resolution of government into the hands of the people, a taking down of that which has before it existed, and a recommitment of it to its original source, but it is by no means the substitution of anything else in its place.”
Henry James, 1852, quoted in Lewis Mumford’s Interpretations and Forecasts, p. 10