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To summarize, we are at a crossroads. There is the old-world perspective of feudalism—rule by a king in cahoots with a religious oligarchy. Following this perspective ends up in a dictatorship supported by a plutocracy and oligarchy.
By contrast, there is the worldview of scientific materialism based on mechanistic old science—rule by meritocrats. This ends up in socialism.
And then there is the quantum worldview based on the new physics—a revival of democracy that ends up with equality and participation. Which way, which worldview is in our future?
Let’s talk short-term first
Ever since Ronald Reagan, we have been moving towards an anti-democratic political system; the choice had been between feudalistic elitism and elitism guided by scientific materialism. The Republican presidencies have tended to take us more and more towards a feudalistic autocracy. Again, by contrast, scientific materialism has dominated the Democratic governments, and those administrations have moved us toward meritocracy and socialism. Only the third integrative worldview promises to save democracy if history is any guide.
From an anthropological point of view, we are still in the stage of the rational mind that favors hierarchy. In every culture you look at today, there are hierarchies. People who are at the top levels naturally try to maintain those hierarchies. And ordinary people who are at the bottom, even in countries of affluence, can neither partake nor challenge the sophistication of conceptual materialist’s fake sophist thinking maintaining a mechanistic value-less worldview. They would rather hold on to their old religions. They do not see any other alternative than to accept the old hierarchy of plutocracy.
Unity consciousness vs. hierarchies
The quantum worldview makes it easy to understand why. The unity consciousness and the ways to cultivate it—meaning, feeling, and purposeful archetypes—are all in potentiality. Even if one is aware of the quantum worldview, in a democracy one has the right to choose not to go there, not to engage in personal growth and potentiality, particularly when there is no easy road to it.
The intellectual imperialists of U.S. institutions of higher learning are using that right to reject the quantum worldview even though that attitude is anti-science. It is quite clear to Trump supporters that higher education under scientific materialism does not elevate the human condition, except perhaps financially. It surely does not lead to better mental hygiene, for example.
In truth, in the United States, ordinary people also have their own hierarchy: for example, white as opposed to black, “American” as opposed to Latino. In their turn, they try to maintain these hierarchies. When a leader like Trump promises to maintain white superiority over blacks and Latinos, he gets votes. In India, when a political party promises to maintain hierarchies of poor Hindus over Muslims, it gets votes.
Remember that scene at the dinner table of the movie Saturday Night Fever? “Everyone accepts being dumped on so long he or she has somebody else to dump on.”
Plutocracy vs. meritocracy
Republicans have the upper hand here; they have the support of big money and a clear majority of white men and the women in their purview. But Republicans cannot go on indefinitely giving rich people tax breaks. The rich/poor wealth gap can only be widened so far; when it reaches a threshold, people revolt (as in the French Revolution).
Right now, in the U.S., the Democrats fight back in part with the support of the dumped, blacks, Latinos, and independent women. The other part of their support comes from young, science-minded, higher educated voters duped by scientific materialism to pursue a pleasure-oriented lifestyle remaining within the bounds of the human condition in the hope of being part of the elite meritocracy. Higher education with scientific materialism tends to produce a hierarchy—a meritocracy—almost as evil as plutocracy.
There is a real danger here, a crossroads within crossroads. Ultimately scientific materialism produces a society of information junkies and pleasure junkies, or as neuroscientists put it, a society of philosophical zombies—zombies with experience, but with no causal prerogative. Sure, it was heartening during the 2016 election cycle when the idealism of Bernie Sanders attracted so many young people. But when young people become philosophical zombies, Democrats cannot rely upon their support because they easily lose enthusiasm and momentum and become apathetic like real zombies. They do not come out to vote.
At a crossroads, once again
As I said, we are at a crossroads here again. The idealism of the young and educated that we experienced in the 2018 midterm is heartening. The week after the election, I woke up with an elevating dream. In the dream, I was going to a conference to deliver a paper on the environment, external and internal, about shallow and deep ecology, and some friends were trying to discourage me. But the dream ended with me saying exuberantly to them, “Students are back in America (to idealism).”
If the worldview changes from scientific materialism to the quantum worldview in the higher education academe, the student population will be compelled by idealism once again, and quite rapidly they will find meaning, feeling, and purpose and make room for democracy.
Three hundred years ago, scientists challenged the hierarchy of the church by introducing a new form of education—dogma-free liberal education. The answer to the problem of how to get rid of the meritocratic hierarchy is the same today: liberal education based on the quantum worldview.
From transaction to transformation
Quantum education is dogma-free. It requires inner creativity more than outer sophistication, and it is not tied to conceptual intelligence alone. People of emotion and intuition get their chance. Education becomes simple again, necessarily unsophisticated to make room for the heart, intuition, and wisdom. Instead of learning how to debate, “Why love?” people learn to love by opening their heart. People change their ways from transaction to transformation.
By and large, the conceptually unsophisticated people of Trump vintage are that way because they are relatively new souls (think reincarnation). Promising them free college education is in vain. Of course, promising them manufacturing jobs of old ilk is also in vain but not in the short term. Eventually, those jobs will give way to robots, but until then Trump can become a hero to these people by making good (even only symbolically) on his promise.
Scientific materialists promise a seemingly better long-term picture. Start with a growing meritocracy. Let technology make sophisticated robots to perform all routine jobs. Offer widespread technical training to enable displaced manufacturing workers to fulfill newer more useful (yet relatively low-paying) functions but with some promise of growth. However, as these new roles are also eventually subsumed by increasingly sophisticated technology, people will continue to be displaced without the means to access higher levels of training to ensure job security and mobility.
As the author Daniel Pinchbeck rightly comments, “It is unclear what people are meant to do in that sterile future State, once they have become appendages of a flawlessly computerized beehive mind.”
Fulfilling higher needs
Let’s face it. Once people’s survival needs are satisfied, they need to fulfill higher needs. The mistake is to think like a materialist: The only higher need is mental, conceptual.
“No,” says the quantum worldview and our own experience. Higher needs must cater to our feelings and intuitions with a minimal amount of conceptualization. Satisfying higher needs makes us happy.
The alternative is to pursue pleasure a la the drug culture; witness the opiate epidemic today. In a Dilbert cartoon, Ted says, “I used to have a traditional soul, but I upgraded it. Now I let the major social media companies control my beliefs and actions through their dopamine delivery systems.” And when Dilbert quips, “That sounds like an empty life,” Ted retorts, “You old-timers with your legacy souls are hilarious.”
Quantum politics and cooperative consensus building
If Democrats and liberals want to go back to winning, there is only one way. Yes, computerization and mechanization are here to stay, no doubt about that. But people have to be given ways to pursue happiness and also be kept busy. It is easiest to keep them busy by forwarding their pursuit of happiness via the subtle production-consumption economy—the archetypal way.
Quantum politics and economics first; the archetypes of power and abundance are the attractive archetypes to explore for relatively new souls; quantum education next, without education the first two archetypal explorations bog down; quantum health and the archetype of wholeness third.
Meanwhile, people work on the archetypes of love, goodness, and the self on their own. Eventually, the rest of the archetypes—justice, beauty etc. will enter the fray, and that is when racism, sexism, elitism, etc., will be eliminated from our society.
Quantum politics will instill these important social changes against all resistance but with cooperative consensus building, not with the divisive politics that operates today. Democrats will be enthusiastic because of their humanistic values tradition. Traditional Republicans will be enthusiastic because conservative values—less government and free market—are basic values in the new worldview. Gradually, the goal of quantum politics will follow, inclusivity and participatory democracy.
Trump’s policy will work not only for Trump, but other Republicans as well, but not indefinitely. When robots really take over all routine jobs, non-traditional Republicans too have to look for new answers to the question, “What will people do?” Can they really turn the clock back to feudal times, to the time of barons and serfs?
Democrats can earn a huge advantage over Republicans if they opt for a worldview change now instead of later. Don’t wait for complete robotizing when it may be too late. Even Steven Hawking—a staunch materialist—was scared of a robot takeover. All it takes are a couple of misguided programmers.
The evolutionary movement of consciousness
I have mentioned the evolutionary movement of consciousness that has been proceeding on a longtime scale: from physical mind to the vital mind to the rational mind to the intuitive mind. If our political parties choose the road of worldview change to the quantum worldview pronto, they can get us back on track for the conscious evolution from the rational to the intuitive mind.
Giving the Republicans and their corporate plutocrat backers repeated chances for playing their divisive games of clannishness and tribalism is too dangerous. The reign of Trump has shown us clearly how vulnerable the American democracy is to a dictatorial takeover.
Here is a description of our polarized America—red and blue—from Dave Barry in the form of a rhetorical question:
As Americans we must ask ourselves: Are we really so different? Must we stereotype those who disagree with us? Do we really believe that all red-state residents are ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin marrying roadkill-eating tobacco juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks: or that ALL blue-state residents are godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving left-wing communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts? -- Dave Barry, The Baltimore Sun: It's time for the red and blue states to start a cultural exchange program and begin the healing.
Yes, we have become really so different, if not in behavior, in mindset. And the way back is going to be difficult. Fortunately, the movement of consciousness is on the side of democracy, values, and inclusivity.
Computer scientists think that politics will end when human beings are freed from jobs. They don’t understand that our humanity consists of the pursuit of new potentialities as we gradually overcome our machine tendencies. Right now, that means an exploration of archetypal ideals. We need to be clear, humankind needs democracy to pursue archetypes en masse.
We need to be resilient. Democratic ideals take a long time to fulfill. However, with meaning and purpose to guide us, with the movement of consciousness to support us, we can be nothing but optimistic. To quote the Reverend Martin Luther King, “We shall overcome.”
©2020 by Amit Goswami. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher,
Luminare Press: LuminarePress.com
Article Source
Quantum Politics: Saving Democracy
by Amit Goswami, PhD
Our democracy is founded upon the ideal of giving equal access to human potentialities of life, liberty, and happiness to all its citizens. Today, in Trump’s America, we are far from that ideal. This book considers both the short-term problem of politics, namely erosion of values, elitism, and worldview polarization, and, of course, Trumpism and the long-term problem of how to make politics into a real science for making an equitable society. Quantum Politics uses the new science and demonstrates that democracy is the only scientific way of governing a nation. The key is to bring human values and creativity into the picture and combine the exploration of power with the exploration of love. In this way, we can integrate the values in our society with every human being.
For more info, or to order this book, click here. (Also available as a Kindle edition.)
About the Author
Amit Goswami is a retired professor of physics. He is a revolutionary amongst a growing body of renegade scientists who, in recent years, has ventured into the domain of the spiritual in an attempt both to interpret the seemingly inexplicable findings of curious experiments and to validate intuitions about the existence of a spiritual dimension of life. A prolific writer, teacher, and visionary, Dr. Goswami has appeared in the movies What the Bleep do we know!?, Dalai Lama Renaissance, as well as the award winning documentary, The Quantum Activist. . He is the author of numerous books, most notably: The Self-Aware Universe, Physics of the Soul, The Quantum Doctor, God is Not Dead, Quantum Creativity, Quantum Spirituality, and The Everything Answer Book. He was featured in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and the documentaries Dalai Lama Renaissance and The Quantum Activist. Amit is a spiritual practitioner and calls himself a quantum activist in search of Wholeness. For more information, visit www.amitgoswami.org
