[Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Thursday, July 4 from Jaime

[Sunny Walker]

Jaime, I can’t remember if you can access Dropbox. If so, I put it there (where I put some things earlier). Let me know if I need to email it.

 

From: oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jaime R Vergara
Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 3:51 AM
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: [Oe List ...] Fwd: OpEd Thursday, July 4 from Jaime

 

Learned not to apologize for what I post from WMJ.

 

Del Morrill just posted a YouTube of Kate Smith doing "God Bless America", which I cannot watch.  If only for the reason of free press, I am grateful to be an American citizen, though the systemic communality in China is impressive.

 

The following is in the July 4 edition of the Saipan Tribune.  I lifted a lot from one of Gene Marshall's take on megalomania and civilization.  I tailored it to my audience.

 

Sending it to the listserv with the same caveat as other ones: if curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend. (Probably easier to digest than Yes, we scan!

 

Jaime

 

Patriotism

 

Francis Bellamy, a Baptist pastor in 1892 wrote: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

 

He considered including equality and fraternity into the Pledge but knowing that equality for women and African Americans were still a majority "no-no", he was more intent to get the state superintendents of education in the Committee that approved the pledge, than he was in furthering his political cause.

 

Upon acceptance, edited to read "my Flag and to the Republic", it was recited for 30 years in American classrooms.  In 1923, it was changed to "the Flag of the United States", and a year later, "of America" was added to "the United States", until 1954, when to "one Nation indivisible" was added the phrase "under God".  The United States Congress started uttering the pledge in 1942.  The pledge has become a statement of patriotism.

 

Love of country has also become a staple serving of civilizations’ megalomaics.  Alexander the Great who started our social familiar is known as Alexandro Megos, “megos” meaning “great”, with the word as the root of what is observed as an obsession in the exercise of power, a mental delusion about one’s power or importance, megalomania. 

 

Alexander might be considered as one of competent greatness along with the Caesars Julius and Augustus.  Cleopatra was a conniving female counterpart who orchestrated the killing of her less competent brother so she could rule.

 

In our time, Mao Zedong, with his portrait gracing all current renminbi bills, is considered in many quarters as a very competent megalomaniac who united a disparate and desperate China from the ravages of rapacious Western Civilization and westernizing Meiji Japan.

 

Though we grew up being partial to Pat Boone over Elvis Presley, we were prejudiced against ‘tricky Dick’ Nixon who he is a better Republican than his current counterparts.  His megalomania energized and brought him down.  FDR was a remarkable presence whose achievements in domestic reorganization and successful waging of war deserve a place in the pantheon of exceptional American citizens.  His five terms in office, comfort with power and wielding it, a talent for mobilizing population, he may be counted among the successful “good kings” in the history of civilization as opposed to the “bad kings” we like to label Caligula, Hitler, Stalin and Idi Amin!  Male or female, for good or ill, famous wielders of power illustrate the personal mode we call megalomania in a social ambience that encourages it we call “civilization.”

 

Ordinary members of a civilization honor this megalomania, identify with it, and derive personal satisfaction in supporting it.  Its face today is patriotism.  It values competition over cooperation, with power wielding preference to the male, female counterparts acting and dressing up in definite masculine overtones.  It promotes social ladder climbing rather than encouraging an appropriate choice of vocation.

 

There is megalomania in the passion for excessive wealth and in achieving celebrity and notoriety of all kinds.  Civilization and megalomania go together.  When there is a top-down social stratification, megalomania resides at its core.   While we claim to honor democracy, we tolerate the Koch brothers’ influence on one side, and the mystique of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on the other.

 

Our current political challenge is not to find another megalomaniac of any variety from FDR to Obama who will save us, but to work together to build something better than the socially stratified civilization of our familiarity.

 

One of my heroes is recorded to have said:  You know that in the world the recognized leaders rule over subjects, and great ones make others feel the weight of authority. That is not the way with you: among you, whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the willing slave of all. 

I once used the same image to illustrate my career choice in an interview with a Saipan psychiatrist.  She saw the first part and ignored the second.  I was reported to my ecclesiastical superior as having megalomaniac tendencies!  Self-reference to the "peons" of megalomania are always read as self-serving.

 

I was tickled but my Bishop was not amused.  Megalomania after all is historically a prerogative of the episcopacy.  Iesu and his enlightened followers exemplified a new kind of power, that of servanthood, and solidarity with others who allow creative and democratic use of consciousness, talents, and opportunities without resorting to the allure of megalomania.

 

The Pledge will be widely repeated this Fourth of July in America.  On the train ride to Chengdu this weekend, I noticed the preservation of old structures with the cross in front, or on steeples.  Having foresworn the institutional company of the followers of the Galilean carpenter, with their unending edifice complexes, perhaps, it is time to influence the message content within those structures.  

 

“One nation under God, indivisible” is the current reading of the Pledge.  That would be understood as the paramount power of servanthood by the shores of Galilee.  I think I will be patriotic today!

 

  <http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031>  j'aime la vie 

 

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate.  In all, Celebrate!

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