The Mental Environment
Photo by Christophe Kutner, Party Monster 1, 2009
Your mind, a clear mountain stream running burbling through the rocks. Until Pepsi stands up, unzips its billion-dollar ad budget, and takes a leak, staining it forever brown. Your brain, a verdant old-growth forest, until it dies the death of a thousand swooshes. Your soul, filled with the crystal fresh air of early morning, until Philip Morris blows in a cloud of its seductive smoke.
No. Mental environmentalism may be the most important notion of this new century, but the only way to start this discussion is by admitting the analogy is not exact. Whatever the mental environment is, it’s not a pristine wilderness untrammeled by people. It’s not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or the Antarctic biosphere. No, the mental environment has been shaped by culture as long as we’ve been, well, human.
The mind is, among other things, a tool for collecting, storing, weighing images and ideas. Perhaps earlier in our primate evolution our brains worked differently, but for millions of years we have been shaping our own minds and the minds of those around us. Our mental environment is not the Yosemite of John Muir or Ansel Adams. It has always been more like Central Park, a landscaped reflection of human notions. Every generation, every community, has had a mental environment. The culture. The zeitgeist. It is that almost invisible fog of assumptions in which we live our lives, the set of images and ideas we barely notice because they are so common as to be both banal and overwhelming.
What’s more, this is not the first moment that our mental environment has been polluted. We’ve seen all kinds of toxins poured into the infostream. Check out a Leni Riefenstahl movie if you want to see what I mean. Try to imagine life during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The state, the church have time and again become mentally oppressive until eventually a resistance emerged — a resistance that, from Martin Luther to Vaclav Havel, said at least in part: “We want our minds back.” Not all the way back: We’ve never owned our minds entirely. But more of our minds, in better shape.
Which brings us to the present moment, the moment that we have to deal with, the moment out of which we have to stage our singular resistance. The mental environment is under siege from a particularly difficult variety of pollution. To understand it, consider an analogy from the physical world, where carbon dioxide is threatening to warm the planet disastrously. Taken in small doses, carbon dioxide is not dangerous, just as the occasional commercial or billboard is hardly a problem. In fact, CO2 in small quantities isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as most chemicals, just as Ronald McDonald couldn’t do the same kind of damage as, say, Joseph Goebbels. But every act of a modern life releases carbon into the atmosphere. Spewed from the rear ends of a billion cars and factories and furnaces, this constant pollution now seems likely to raise global temperatures five degrees in this century, altering everything from rainfall to ice-melt to wind speed. Similarly, the modern consumer economy sends up an almost infinite blitz of information and enticement, till the air is so thick with it that every feature of our society is changed. In neither case is it pollution in the usual sense, easily cleaned with a smokestack filter or combated with a more wholesome image. Instead, it’s a volume problem. In the case of the so-called information society, it may be the largest psychological experiment in history.
Here’s another way of saying it: We are the first few generations to receive most of our sense of the world mediated rather than direct, to have it arrive through one screen or another instead of from contact with other human beings or with nature.
If the mental environment we live in has a single distinctive feature, the way that oxygen defines our atmosphere, it is self-absorption. That’s what a mental environment gone awry has produced; that is the toxic outcome of our era’s unique pollution. Some years ago, working on a book, I watched every word and image that came across the largest cable system in the world in a 24-hour period — more than 2,000 hours of ads and infomercials, music videos and sitcoms. If you boiled this stew down to its basic ingredient, this is what you found, repeated ad infinitum: You are the most important thing on Earth, the heaviest object in the universe. From the fawning flattery of the programming to the mind-messing nastiness of the commercials, it continually posited a world of extreme individualism. Even more than, say, violence, that’s the message that flows out the coaxial cable. Characters on television may turn violent to get what they want now, but it’s the what-they-want-now that lies nearer the heart of the problem.
This hyperindividualism is a relatively new phenomenon in our lives. For most of human history, people have put something else near the center — the tribe, the gods, the natural world. But a consumer society can’t tolerate that, because having something else at the center complicates consumption.
This appeal to us as individual fragments grows ever more powerful and precise. Most of the new technologies premise their appeal (especially to advertisers) on their ability to target with frightening accuracy our locations and our psyches.
So far, the assaults on our mental environment have been mainly from the outside, but we are seeing sorties on the inside too. Already we see psychopharmacology rampant, the ranks of people who need such medicine swelled by a creeping malaise: a gradual redefinition of our foibles, of our tiny personal tragedies. There are pills for the camera-shy, for “shopper’s remorse,” for the stresses of personal bankruptcy — it’s getting crowded in the collective bummer tent. Before long, genetic engineers may well be able to literally tweak the brains of our children, offering them “extra intelligence” or perhaps docility, upgraded memory at the price of downgraded meaning. Improved individuals, at the price of whatever individuality should mean in its sweetest sense.
But. The human mind and heart are not dead yet; indeed there are signs that we’ve reached the moment of resistance, that a million Vaclav Havels, albeit often tongue-tied and unsure precisely of their mission, are rising from different corners to challenge this assault. If you ask me what I remember from the WTO battle in Seattle, it is not the sting of rubber bullets or the choke of gas; it is a jaunty balloon rising above the melee with this message painted on its side: “Wake Up Muggles.” If you’ve read Harry Potter, then you know: Muggles are all of us, living in a world of magic but unable to see it, focused as we are on television and mall. But we are waking, in sufficient numbers to ensure there will be the same kind of fight for the mental environment as there has been for the physical one. And, of course, the fights will overlap.
Mental environmentalists may well lose, just like their colleagues working in the physical world. Global warming may be too much to overcome, and so may genetic engineering or push media or the simple warm-bath skill of those designers and marketers who would sap our lives for their own advancement. But the fight itself holds tremendous possibility. The liberation from self-absorption comes most of all in the battle to help others and in the vision of a world that makes sense to our minds, a world where no single idea (“buy”) holds sway.
Forget monoculture, in our fields or in our heads; imagine instead a thousand different communities, adapted to the physical places they inhabit, sharing insight and difference, appreciating small scale and large heart. Where no musician sells 10 million copies, but 10 million musicians sing each night. Where we are freed from consumer identity and idolatry to be much more ourselves. Where we have our heads back.
Bill McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, and is the pioneer behind the 350.org movement. His latest book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.
This essay was reprinted from Adbusters #38.
58 comments on the article “The Mental Environment”
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seb land
I was born in 64 and have an emergent memory of a very different world. I am naturally non conformist; there was a lot of it around as I grew up. In those years, being a "significance junky", a poet, and both scientifically and spiritually inclined, I studied outside the system. It's been an up and down ride, gone as deep and as far as my mind allows, still scratching at clues, but one of my processes, (not innate), was to spend years away from tv, and meditating to de-frag my mind. Ok, might sound laborious, impractical now, but has its value. I saw a lot of this mental junk coming in the 80's, it was clear, people just couldn't think for themselves and went with groupthink, soon after the 'system' was busy co-opting all forms of creativity and commodifying individualism, whilst bribing or destroying what remained - or so 'it' thought.
I see where our Muslim friend is coming from, but agree that true freedom and consciousness is boundary free. Most people will not seek to exploit and corrupt others if they are secure and supported - but there is - I know this is going to get me burned by many readers but I have to say it, a mystical side to life that once commodified kills our humanity.
Bauval, in Fingerprints of the Gods (I believe), described the function of the pyramids as a time machine ... and said that 'mystery is the engine of creation'. What I am talking about is a primary function of consciousness, creativity, a form of free thinking, and much of this comes from awe. Not the Military Industrial Complex generated-awe that is psychotic, as Bill suggests, but an awe that opens consciousness, stimulates non linear ‘super logic’, a form of enlightenment which in turn leads to what Adbusters, and both artists and scientists do, be creative. You've got to see the link between materialism, capitalism/monopoly, exploitation and commodification. These distorted modes lead to a scarcity consciousness, and that leads to competition, ownership conflicts, divide and rule - the territory was always that of the mind because most people have to embrace the lie before they conform to it.
So mental colonisation is the battleground, and really this is 'spiritual colonisation' by proxy. Big subject and difficult to articulate but the John Muir reference shines a light here. Apparently his 'hunting consciousness' ended when he saw a green essence leave the body of an animal he killed. Taking this to be irrefutable evidence of the existence of a soul, he was transformed into an environmentalist. The PTB have gone to immense lengths to deny the existence of spirit and the relevance of alternative realities, they'd much rather see us on the couch with a Big Mac and a Duff beer, or in a high powered sports car that uses half the earths resources to get them a mile down the road as loudly and inefficiently as possible. And this is part of the point, materialism, positivism, what they call reality, and scientism is completely skewed toward exploitation. They can exploit us is if we believe that the commercial world has everything we need.
This was worked out very scientifically at the turn of the last century, Ford contributed to this, the city beautiful movement did the same, and turned people away from community life, replacing it with the nuclear family, city anonymity and all that goes with the modern world. The cult of the individual - now hyper-individuality is all part of this, divide, sell to, and rule by consumerism/taxation.
But mystery don't work that way - creativity breaks normal thinking patterns, alternative consciousness as advocated by Timothy Leary is dangerous because it frees the mind and begs more and bigger questions. Awe, natural awe, heightens consciousness to the extent that it parallels the 'breakthrough mindset'.
Weizacker and Weizacker wrote, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth and Halving Resource Usage in 1996. Clinton had commissioned functional Zero waste industrial models and 20% quotient of hydrogen powered cars by 2002.
Toffler in the 70’s advocated (an updated Ghandian notion) the global industrial village, sharing tech and ideas in communities using advanced and artisanal technologies, the fablabs were made in Berkeley, the creativity of the free thinking mindset was explosive. Then came Seattle, then came Davos, then came Blair, Bush and the co-opting of the environmental movement and 9 (bullshit) 11.
It’s all there, all to be done practically but what we have missing is the will, the community, the resources, and the values that unite people into a common workable consciousness for global powershift. Added to this we have wage labour enslavement, mass theft by Banks and corporate sector, and itinerant propaganda everywhere we look.
Why do you think so many US soldiers kill helpless man women and children, overseas and rape their female colleagues without a conscience? Games, violent games. Their minds have been colonised with the brutality of merciless combat video games (probably funded by the Pentagon). They seek the highs of being equipped with militarily technology to carry out large scale assassinations. That kind of stomach wrenching ‘awe’ has replaced natural awe. Youth have become psychotic and addicted to these artificial ‘peak experiences’.
Just going over connections – rough shod. We could use the slogan, Be revolutionary – Think for yourself. But mental colonisation is the issue. We also need to consider how this relates to spirituality, and in this time, I suspect new definitions and insights are going to come flooding through as the old language to describe this is loaded with outmoded notions, and just some very subtle ideas that most people will struggle with.
So going back to the question of how to resist or better create, alternative ways to engage with the toxic mellifluence out there and the pollution in our heads, we may need a system of checks and balances which are inspired by a higher insight some may call spiritual. But whatever we do, just don’t accept the assumptive codes that force you into making a consumer jackass out of yourself. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it happens to me everyday, but everyday I fight, question, plant seeds and stimulate questions, but now, if ever there was, it really is a time to get together and be megacreative as if our lives depend on it, because, its more fun, and they do!
seb land
I was born in 64 and have an emergent memory of a very different world. I am naturally non conformist; there was a lot of it around as I grew up. In those years, being a "significance junky", a poet, and both scientifically and spiritually inclined, I studied outside the system. It's been an up and down ride, gone as deep and as far as my mind allows, still scratching at clues, but one of my processes, (not innate), was to spend years away from tv, and meditating to de-frag my mind. Ok, might sound laborious, impractical now, but has its value. I saw a lot of this mental junk coming in the 80's, it was clear, people just couldn't think for themselves and went with groupthink, soon after the 'system' was busy co-opting all forms of creativity and commodifying individualism, whilst bribing or destroying what remained - or so 'it' thought.
I see where our Muslim friend is coming from, but agree that true freedom and consciousness is boundary free. Most people will not seek to exploit and corrupt others if they are secure and supported - but there is - I know this is going to get me burned by many readers but I have to say it, a mystical side to life that once commodified kills our humanity.
Bauval, in Fingerprints of the Gods (I believe), described the function of the pyramids as a time machine ... and said that 'mystery is the engine of creation'. What I am talking about is a primary function of consciousness, creativity, a form of free thinking, and much of this comes from awe. Not the Military Industrial Complex generated-awe that is psychotic, as Bill suggests, but an awe that opens consciousness, stimulates non linear ‘super logic’, a form of enlightenment which in turn leads to what Adbusters, and both artists and scientists do, be creative. You've got to see the link between materialism, capitalism/monopoly, exploitation and commodification. These distorted modes lead to a scarcity consciousness, and that leads to competition, ownership conflicts, divide and rule - the territory was always that of the mind because most people have to embrace the lie before they conform to it.
So mental colonisation is the battleground, and really this is 'spiritual colonisation' by proxy. Big subject and difficult to articulate but the John Muir reference shines a light here. Apparently his 'hunting consciousness' ended when he saw a green essence leave the body of an animal he killed. Taking this to be irrefutable evidence of the existence of a soul, he was transformed into an environmentalist. The PTB have gone to immense lengths to deny the existence of spirit and the relevance of alternative realities, they'd much rather see us on the couch with a Big Mac and a Duff beer, or in a high powered sports car that uses half the earths resources to get them a mile down the road as loudly and inefficiently as possible. And this is part of the point, materialism, positivism, what they call reality, and scientism is completely skewed toward exploitation. They can exploit us is if we believe that the commercial world has everything we need.
This was worked out very scientifically at the turn of the last century, Ford contributed to this, the city beautiful movement did the same, and turned people away from community life, replacing it with the nuclear family, city anonymity and all that goes with the modern world. The cult of the individual - now hyper-individuality is all part of this, divide, sell to, and rule by consumerism/taxation.
But mystery don't work that way - creativity breaks normal thinking patterns, alternative consciousness as advocated by Timothy Leary is dangerous because it frees the mind and begs more and bigger questions. Awe, natural awe, heightens consciousness to the extent that it parallels the 'breakthrough mindset'.
Weizacker and Weizacker wrote, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth and Halving Resource Usage in 1996. Clinton had commissioned functional Zero waste industrial models and 20% quotient of hydrogen powered cars by 2002.
Toffler in the 70’s advocated (an updated Ghandian notion) the global industrial village, sharing tech and ideas in communities using advanced and artisanal technologies, the fablabs were made in Berkeley, the creativity of the free thinking mindset was explosive. Then came Seattle, then came Davos, then came Blair, Bush and the co-opting of the environmental movement and 9 (bullshit) 11.
It’s all there, all to be done practically but what we have missing is the will, the community, the resources, and the values that unite people into a common workable consciousness for global powershift. Added to this we have wage labour enslavement, mass theft by Banks and corporate sector, and itinerant propaganda everywhere we look.
Why do you think so many US soldiers kill helpless man women and children, overseas and rape their female colleagues without a conscience? Games, violent games. Their minds have been colonised with the brutality of merciless combat video games (probably funded by the Pentagon). They seek the highs of being equipped with militarily technology to carry out large scale assassinations. That kind of stomach wrenching ‘awe’ has replaced natural awe. Youth have become psychotic and addicted to these artificial ‘peak experiences’.
Just going over connections – rough shod. We could use the slogan, Be revolutionary – Think for yourself. But mental colonisation is the issue. We also need to consider how this relates to spirituality, and in this time, I suspect new definitions and insights are going to come flooding through as the old language to describe this is loaded with outmoded notions, and just some very subtle ideas that most people will struggle with.
So going back to the question of how to resist or better create, alternative ways to engage with the toxic mellifluence out there and the pollution in our heads, we may need a system of checks and balances which are inspired by a higher insight some may call spiritual. But whatever we do, just don’t accept the assumptive codes that force you into making a consumer jackass out of yourself. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it happens to me everyday, but everyday I fight, question, plant seeds and stimulate questions, but now, if ever there was, it really is a time to get together and be megacreative as if our lives depend on it, because, its more fun, and they do!
Anonymous
"Forget monoculture, in our fields or in our heads; imagine instead a thousand different communities, adapted to the physical places they inhabit, sharing insight and difference, appreciating small scale and large heart. Where no musician sells 10 million copies, but 10 million musicians sing each night. Where we are freed from consumer identity and idolatry to be much more ourselves. Where we have our heads back."
This paragraph reveals the author's biased world view, immune to the intrusions of a reality that stubbornly refuses to conform to his diagnosis. This world is still one that rewards the efforts of a person willing to search for a quality experience rather than a mass one, but more it's still a place that will sustain the ones who would rather provide a quality experience than a mass one. Too anyone who feels crushed by this author's jaded vision of the world, I would optimistically point out that 10 million musicians already do sing every night. Maybe that fact slips between the cracks because they none of them has achieved the main-stream appeal that this article takes aim at. We don't have to imagine the world he's described because it hasn't gone anywhere, all it asks of you is that you look for it.
Much of the condemnation of Western models in these replies is based on conceptualizations and straw-men arguments.
"To illustrate this point let us see the holistic approach of Shariah with regards to crime which is a problem spiraling out of control in the West."
The notion that crime is spiraling out of control in the West is patently untrue. That's an opinion that seems like it's informed by an overabundance of CNN. In the United States and Great Britain at least, crime rates have not significantly shifted in the past thirty years, and certainly not beyond a standard of deviation.
"The Islamic ethos ensures that society is more evenly balanced between material, moral, humanitarian and spiritual values. Politicians have to have a strong foundation rooted in values that are strongly correlated with helping the needs of their citizens. It is, in the end, only an atmosphere of God-consciousness allied with divinely inspired rules that govern the detailed institutions that can ensure a more effective political system."
This atmosphere of "God-consciousness allied with divinely inspired rules" is precisely the source of the perceived antagonism of the West towards Islam. More fundamental Christians who have diluted the meaning of words like freedom, liberalism, and democracy, have spawned a pseudo Judeo-Christian political movement that cannot possibly refrain from targeting Islam on the basis that former and the latter represent two inherently distinctive world-views that are being politically institutionalized. Obviously institutionalizing the moral precepts of Christianity into the political framework (which deals with law, force of the state, and by extension violence) is going to be perceived as threatening by adherents of Islam who fall within the immediate or removed sphere of influence of that state, and vice-versa.
The Western model, in its theoretical form, does not aspire to do what some of these posters have accused it of failing to do. Moral standards come in many incarnations, and the surest way to the "tyranny of the majority" is to empower the state to enforce morality. Western democracy realized, very early along, that it -must- refrain from legislating moral standards, and that people would have to be left to choose their own moral norms. Prosecuting rapists, thieves, and murderers may not address the root of the problem, but the alternative too-often results in religious, ethnic, and cultural persecution.
Anonymous
"Forget monoculture, in our fields or in our heads; imagine instead a thousand different communities, adapted to the physical places they inhabit, sharing insight and difference, appreciating small scale and large heart. Where no musician sells 10 million copies, but 10 million musicians sing each night. Where we are freed from consumer identity and idolatry to be much more ourselves. Where we have our heads back."
This paragraph reveals the author's biased world view, immune to the intrusions of a reality that stubbornly refuses to conform to his diagnosis. This world is still one that rewards the efforts of a person willing to search for a quality experience rather than a mass one, but more it's still a place that will sustain the ones who would rather provide a quality experience than a mass one. Too anyone who feels crushed by this author's jaded vision of the world, I would optimistically point out that 10 million musicians already do sing every night. Maybe that fact slips between the cracks because they none of them has achieved the main-stream appeal that this article takes aim at. We don't have to imagine the world he's described because it hasn't gone anywhere, all it asks of you is that you look for it.
Much of the condemnation of Western models in these replies is based on conceptualizations and straw-men arguments.
"To illustrate this point let us see the holistic approach of Shariah with regards to crime which is a problem spiraling out of control in the West."
The notion that crime is spiraling out of control in the West is patently untrue. That's an opinion that seems like it's informed by an overabundance of CNN. In the United States and Great Britain at least, crime rates have not significantly shifted in the past thirty years, and certainly not beyond a standard of deviation.
"The Islamic ethos ensures that society is more evenly balanced between material, moral, humanitarian and spiritual values. Politicians have to have a strong foundation rooted in values that are strongly correlated with helping the needs of their citizens. It is, in the end, only an atmosphere of God-consciousness allied with divinely inspired rules that govern the detailed institutions that can ensure a more effective political system."
This atmosphere of "God-consciousness allied with divinely inspired rules" is precisely the source of the perceived antagonism of the West towards Islam. More fundamental Christians who have diluted the meaning of words like freedom, liberalism, and democracy, have spawned a pseudo Judeo-Christian political movement that cannot possibly refrain from targeting Islam on the basis that former and the latter represent two inherently distinctive world-views that are being politically institutionalized. Obviously institutionalizing the moral precepts of Christianity into the political framework (which deals with law, force of the state, and by extension violence) is going to be perceived as threatening by adherents of Islam who fall within the immediate or removed sphere of influence of that state, and vice-versa.
The Western model, in its theoretical form, does not aspire to do what some of these posters have accused it of failing to do. Moral standards come in many incarnations, and the surest way to the "tyranny of the majority" is to empower the state to enforce morality. Western democracy realized, very early along, that it -must- refrain from legislating moral standards, and that people would have to be left to choose their own moral norms. Prosecuting rapists, thieves, and murderers may not address the root of the problem, but the alternative too-often results in religious, ethnic, and cultural persecution.
Annas I. Wibowo
note: I blocked all images of adbusters site from loading
There is no God but Allah. Muhammad is Allah's last and final messenger
Is this rate about to go down? Who wants stability of this crime rate if not a criminal or mentally disturbed as the results of living in environment that is so corrupt?
Crime The United States sees itself as the leader of the free world. However it does lead the world in one very unfortunate statistical category - crime. There are nearly 12 million reported crimes committed in the United States every single year. There are currently over 2.2 million people in prison in the United States. The United States has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated population. The United States also has 100,000 rapes every year. There are approximately 500,000 robberies in the United States every year. There are about one million police officers in the United States - the highest number in the world. There are over 17,000 murders in the United States every year. There are over 1.2 million car thefts in the United States every year - by far the most in the world. One out of every five people is a victim of a crime every year in the United States.
What started as an experiment in Athens over two thousand years ago eventually pervaded every continent and every land. Democracy, Democracy, Democracy is the repeated call that bellows from the four corners of the globe. It is the established order in a chaotic and unstable world, where every critic of democracy is viewed with heretical suspicion. For every political problem, we are told, lies a democratic solution. For every civilization, for every country for every tribe, for every time - goes the mantra - democracy is the claimed answer to all our ills.
Yet recent events conform to a remark by John Adams, the second President of the United States. “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams’ remarks were true then and are fast becoming true now, especially in the Western world, the heart of the democracy’s home turf.
>>> Though no one is suggesting that is an imminent alternative for non-Muslim countries, the same cannot be said in for the Muslim world, where the Caliphate has tried and trusted solutions and certainly a practical alternative. Of course, human implementation within the Caliphate will not be perfect in any way, but for those who believe that the sources for its legislation emanate from a divine entity (whose existence Muslims should rationally prove as a precursor) that fully understands the huge complexity of life and the nature of human beings; something human beings on their own could never comprehend. Islamic principles are by their nature less subject to personal whim, constant change, political expediency or public fickleness while at the same time remaining flexible enough through the process of Ijtihad to deal with new emerging realities.
>> The above is a common accusation but has no grounding in fact. The Khilafah State is mandated by divine law to treat non-Muslim citizens well; protecting their right to their religious beliefs and protecting their places of worship. Article 5 of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s draft Islamic constitution explains that ‘All citizens of the Islamic State enjoy the Shariah rights and duties.’ The State is forbidden from discriminating at all between the individuals in terms of rule, judiciary and management of affairs or anything similar. Rather, every individual should be treated equally regardless of race, creed, colour or anything else. Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala says “And if you judge between people, judge with justice.” (Translated Meaning Surah al Nisa 4:58] and in His Subhana wa Ta’ala saying: “And let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just, that is nearer to piety” [Translated Meaning Surah Maida 5:8]. Also The Messenger of Allah “He who kills a covenanted person unjustly shall not find the scent of heaven; its scent is found the distance of a hundred year march” [Tirmidhi].
Historically Jews and Christians were well protected and examples of Islamic Spain and the refuge given to Jews by Istanbul at the time of the Inquisition are documented examples. In one famous case from the early period of Islamic rule a non-Muslim took the head of state to court over a property dispute and won the case. Non-Muslims of any creed (or none) have no fear from an Islamic system and for many who see Western societies increasingly mired in materialism and political corruption may seem pleasantly surprised at the Caliphate’s alternative model.
Note: Khilafah is not doctatorship or monarch
What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of secular democracy or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values and a new ethos of politics serving the public not a wealthy elite.
This is the essence of the Islamic alternative.
“O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and those in authority from amongst you. (And) if you differ in anything amongst yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if you believe in Allah and in the Last Day. That is better and more suitable for final determination” [Translated Meaning Surah al-Nisa: 59-60]
Only Islam offers a real ideological alternative to capitalism. When implemented through the Khilafah state, Islam’s economic system will make its number one priority lifting the poor out of destitution rather than merely increasing GDP. Islam’s justice system will uphold the rights of citizens and all will be equal before the rule of law irrespective of wealth and power. A business economy will be fostered yet corporate interests will not be allowed to undermine the wellbeing of Islamic society and values. Stability, which is critical for sustained economic prosperity, will be maintained through a representative and accountable Caliph without the political instability of the democratic political circus. Only Islam offers a real alternative - not only for the Muslim world but the world at large.
O People, I have been appointed over you, though I am not the best among you. If I do well, then help me. And if I act wrongly, then correct me. Truthfulness is synonymous with fulfilling trust, and lying is tantamount to treachery. The weak among you is deemed foremost by me, until I return to them that which is rightfully theirs, Insha’Allah. And the strong among you is deemed furthermost by me until I take from them what is rightfully someone else’s, Insha’Allah. No group of people abandons Jihad in the path of Allah, except that Allah makes them suffer humiliation. And wickedness does not become widespread among a people, except that Allah inflicts them with widespread calamity. If I disobey Allah and His Messenger , then I have no right to your obedience. Stand up now to pray, may Allah have mercy on you
(The first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr, in his inaugural address)
Annas I. Wibowo
note: I blocked all images of adbusters site from loading
There is no God but Allah. Muhammad is Allah's last and final messenger
Is this rate about to go down? Who wants stability of this crime rate if not a criminal or mentally disturbed as the results of living in environment that is so corrupt?
Crime The United States sees itself as the leader of the free world. However it does lead the world in one very unfortunate statistical category - crime. There are nearly 12 million reported crimes committed in the United States every single year. There are currently over 2.2 million people in prison in the United States. The United States has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's incarcerated population. The United States also has 100,000 rapes every year. There are approximately 500,000 robberies in the United States every year. There are about one million police officers in the United States - the highest number in the world. There are over 17,000 murders in the United States every year. There are over 1.2 million car thefts in the United States every year - by far the most in the world. One out of every five people is a victim of a crime every year in the United States.
What started as an experiment in Athens over two thousand years ago eventually pervaded every continent and every land. Democracy, Democracy, Democracy is the repeated call that bellows from the four corners of the globe. It is the established order in a chaotic and unstable world, where every critic of democracy is viewed with heretical suspicion. For every political problem, we are told, lies a democratic solution. For every civilization, for every country for every tribe, for every time - goes the mantra - democracy is the claimed answer to all our ills.
Yet recent events conform to a remark by John Adams, the second President of the United States. “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams’ remarks were true then and are fast becoming true now, especially in the Western world, the heart of the democracy’s home turf.
>>> Though no one is suggesting that is an imminent alternative for non-Muslim countries, the same cannot be said in for the Muslim world, where the Caliphate has tried and trusted solutions and certainly a practical alternative. Of course, human implementation within the Caliphate will not be perfect in any way, but for those who believe that the sources for its legislation emanate from a divine entity (whose existence Muslims should rationally prove as a precursor) that fully understands the huge complexity of life and the nature of human beings; something human beings on their own could never comprehend. Islamic principles are by their nature less subject to personal whim, constant change, political expediency or public fickleness while at the same time remaining flexible enough through the process of Ijtihad to deal with new emerging realities.
>> The above is a common accusation but has no grounding in fact. The Khilafah State is mandated by divine law to treat non-Muslim citizens well; protecting their right to their religious beliefs and protecting their places of worship. Article 5 of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s draft Islamic constitution explains that ‘All citizens of the Islamic State enjoy the Shariah rights and duties.’ The State is forbidden from discriminating at all between the individuals in terms of rule, judiciary and management of affairs or anything similar. Rather, every individual should be treated equally regardless of race, creed, colour or anything else. Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala says “And if you judge between people, judge with justice.” (Translated Meaning Surah al Nisa 4:58] and in His Subhana wa Ta’ala saying: “And let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just, that is nearer to piety” [Translated Meaning Surah Maida 5:8]. Also The Messenger of Allah “He who kills a covenanted person unjustly shall not find the scent of heaven; its scent is found the distance of a hundred year march” [Tirmidhi].
Historically Jews and Christians were well protected and examples of Islamic Spain and the refuge given to Jews by Istanbul at the time of the Inquisition are documented examples. In one famous case from the early period of Islamic rule a non-Muslim took the head of state to court over a property dispute and won the case. Non-Muslims of any creed (or none) have no fear from an Islamic system and for many who see Western societies increasingly mired in materialism and political corruption may seem pleasantly surprised at the Caliphate’s alternative model.
Note: Khilafah is not doctatorship or monarch
What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of secular democracy or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values and a new ethos of politics serving the public not a wealthy elite.
This is the essence of the Islamic alternative.
“O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and those in authority from amongst you. (And) if you differ in anything amongst yourselves, refer it to Allah and His Messenger, if you believe in Allah and in the Last Day. That is better and more suitable for final determination” [Translated Meaning Surah al-Nisa: 59-60]
Only Islam offers a real ideological alternative to capitalism. When implemented through the Khilafah state, Islam’s economic system will make its number one priority lifting the poor out of destitution rather than merely increasing GDP. Islam’s justice system will uphold the rights of citizens and all will be equal before the rule of law irrespective of wealth and power. A business economy will be fostered yet corporate interests will not be allowed to undermine the wellbeing of Islamic society and values. Stability, which is critical for sustained economic prosperity, will be maintained through a representative and accountable Caliph without the political instability of the democratic political circus. Only Islam offers a real alternative - not only for the Muslim world but the world at large.
O People, I have been appointed over you, though I am not the best among you. If I do well, then help me. And if I act wrongly, then correct me. Truthfulness is synonymous with fulfilling trust, and lying is tantamount to treachery. The weak among you is deemed foremost by me, until I return to them that which is rightfully theirs, Insha’Allah. And the strong among you is deemed furthermost by me until I take from them what is rightfully someone else’s, Insha’Allah. No group of people abandons Jihad in the path of Allah, except that Allah makes them suffer humiliation. And wickedness does not become widespread among a people, except that Allah inflicts them with widespread calamity. If I disobey Allah and His Messenger , then I have no right to your obedience. Stand up now to pray, may Allah have mercy on you
(The first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr, in his inaugural address)
Nicholas
While it is likely still within one standard deviation, I was under the impression that most crime rates in the US have been decreasing since about 1994.
Nicholas
While it is likely still within one standard deviation, I was under the impression that most crime rates in the US have been decreasing since about 1994.
concerned atheist
Mutation is arbitrary disconnections, dislocations or shifts of genes in living things. Most importantly, there is not one single mutation in history that has been shown to improve the condition of a creature's genetic information.
Annas I. Wibowo
Annas, you are deluded
Checkout Richard Lenski and his work on E. Coli for a rebuttal of your statement. If you got something as simple as this wrong, I hate to think what intellectual worth resides in the rest of your diatribe. Religion is one of the most destructive toxins that we can introduce to our mental environments. May islam and christianity fail together!
concerned atheist
Mutation is arbitrary disconnections, dislocations or shifts of genes in living things. Most importantly, there is not one single mutation in history that has been shown to improve the condition of a creature's genetic information.
Annas I. Wibowo
Annas, you are deluded
Checkout Richard Lenski and his work on E. Coli for a rebuttal of your statement. If you got something as simple as this wrong, I hate to think what intellectual worth resides in the rest of your diatribe. Religion is one of the most destructive toxins that we can introduce to our mental environments. May islam and christianity fail together!
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