Werner tells us that our beliefs create a fundamental condition in which we live our lives and give rise to forces which are impossible to resist as long as we approach matters out of that condition.
A condition is a position, a point of view or belief, that functions as a fundamental ground of being. Forces are the processes that arise out of conditions.
Werner Erhard, The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come. 1977, at http://www.wernererhard.net/thpsource.html
The Condition in which We Live our Lives
What you discover is that hunger and starvation on this planet are a function of the condition in which each of us lives his or her life. It isn’t what you are doing, or what I am doing, or what they are doing. It isn’t what you are not doing, or what I am not doing, or what they are not doing that is causing the persistence of hunger and starvation on the planet. The source of the problem is that you and I and they live in a condition.
Here is an analogy that will explain what I mean by a condition: Our bodies as physical entities exist in an atmosphere, and no matter how healthy a body may be, if we pollute the atmosphere, that body will be damaged in direct proportion to the pollution.
The environment for living organisms is called the biosphere. You as a living organism may be very functional, but if I put you into an unhealthy and unworkable biosphere, you will cease to function.
The environment for you as a human being (the beingsphere, if you will) is a system of concepts and forces. It is the condition in which your humanity exists. It is the condition which surrounds us as human beings. And it is in that condition that starvation persists.
A condition is a position, a point of view or belief, that functions as a fundamental ground of being. Forces are the processes that arise out of conditions.
The Forces in the World
It is the forces in the world which result in 15 million of us dying each year as a consequence of starvation. It is the forces emanating from the condition in which you and I and all of us live that result in those 15 million deaths each year.
Call them political forces, if you like. Study the political forces and you will see that hunger and starvation on the planet are the inevitable result of those forces. It doesn’t make any difference what form the forces come in, or how you change them. When you study the various forms of political forces, you see that hunger and starvation are the inevitable result.
If you don’t like politics, do it with economic forces. If you don’t like economics, do it with sociological forces. Psychological forces. Philosophical forces. Or if you prefer, a combination of them.
The forces in the world come from and are consistent with the existing content, the existing circumstances. In turn, these content-determined forces circle back to reinforce the existing content, the existing circumstances, in an endless cycle. This process describes the condition of unworkability in which, no matter what you do, it does not work.
The point is that when you get your own belief system out of the way and you get through the confusion, controversy and opinions, down to the source of the problem of the persistence of starvation on the planet, you see that it is a function of the forces on this planet.
As an analogy, let’s assume we live in a world in which the forces are represented by invisible horizontal lines. Any attempt to take vertical actions is stopped by the horizontal forces that turn all vertical movement into horizontal movement. You can’t see those forces. They are like magnetism or gravity. You can see their results, but you can’t see the forces themselves.
To continue the analogy, let’s assume that horizontal actions result in the persistence of hunger and that to end hunger you need to take vertical actions. But if you do that in a field of horizontal forces, you can see what happens. You end up being forced to move horizontally. So what you do, even when you try to end starvation, is consistent with the persistence of starvation. Inevitably. No matter what you do, it will be ultimately ineffective in ending starvation. Starvation will persist.
By the way, this is not a justification for doing nothing, either. The truth doesn’t justify anything. Its a place to come from, not something to argue with. This paper is not an attempt to take a stand. What we’re attempting to do is to get at the truth about hunger and starvation on our planet. And when you get to the truth of it, when you work your way to the source of it, you see that hunger and starvation on this planet are a function of the forces in which we live on this planet.
(To be continued tomorrow)