Chapter 8. It All Falls Apart

What follows is a continuation of a series of articles comprising a book entitled “Passion, Power, and Panties–Confessions of a Businessman” wherein the author describes being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, spending almost ten years at their headquarters in Brooklyn, NY and then entering the ”outside”  world at the age of 27.  For purposes of continuity, I encourage you to subscribe in the column to the right so as not to miss a post.  It is free and without obligation. 

My star continued to rise, and soon I was requested to rewrite some of the lectures composed by some of the lesser talents in the Writing Department.  By this time I felt quite free about inserting much of my own philosophy in my writing.  After all it was all going to be reviewed and censored by others anyway.  So I lent my voice to the cacophony of dissent.  I wrote an article published in the Awake! magazine about the etymologies of words, and offered to write an article for the Watchtower   entitled “Are You a Thinking Christian?”  It bothered me that so much of the membership seemed to follow the route of least resistance and looked for a higher authority to tell them what to do when faced with the slightest conflict in their life.  They seemed incapable of abstracting principles from concrete situations and forming independent conclusions.  When I submitted my Abstract for the article, I received a letter in return from the Writing Department strongly admonishing me to build my article around prayer, meeting attendance, and regular door-to-door field service.  Only then did I realize the organization had a vested interest in the membership conforming to policy, and the last thing they needed was for them to become independent minded.  Later still I came to realize that the intended title of my article was in itself something of an oxymoron.  Not entirely however:   there were quite a few of us in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas who were attempting mightily to reconcile faith and intellectual integrity.  I never wrote the article.

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Passion, Power, and Panties–Confessions of a Businessman Preface

What follows is the first of a series of articles comprising a book entitled “Passion, Power, and Panties–Confessions of a Businessman” wherein the author describes being raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, spending almost ten years at their headquarters in Brooklyn, NY and then entering the ”outside”  world at the age of 27.  For purposes of continuity, I encourage you to subscribe in the column to the right so as not to miss a post.  It is free and without obligation.

Man has evolved over millions of years.  Of all recorded history, it took almost 10,000 years for his entire body of knowledge to double once.  It took about 300 years for his body of knowledge to double again (the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment), today it doubles about every 60 days (the Information Age with billions communicating with each other via the Internet).  Until recently, the one word that has characterized man’s development has been slow, with natural selection being the driving force.

 Man traditionally survived through his herding instinct, his need and desire to bunch together according to geographic, geneological , or shared-threat commonalities. These groups, or tribes,  competed with each other for resources, and often encouraged a sense of superiority among their members in relation to outsiders.  Herding provided a survival advantage in that even the less able among the herd were protected.  Such  a feeling of safety made it possible for them to contribute and succeed within their limitations, and if they successfully procreated, they also contributed  to the survival of that particular herd.  Such tribes often developed strong taboos about mixing and intermarrying with outsiders or other  forms of potential assimilation.   We know this today as ethnicity.  Ethnic “herding” tendencies have resulted in tenacious differences, each ethnic group becoming a sort of subspecies of Homo sapiens.  Some groups, as might be expected, have developed characteristics better suited for survival than others, and some groups have survived as parasites on others, something Nature allows.  An inherent problem with parasites is that their survival depends on the health of the host.  An additional problem, as the species evolves to a more conscious level, is the willingness of the host to tolerate their presence.

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