Empowerment II
"I am what I
will be" -- Ex. 3:14
Brain studies show that, at birth, a human is a powerhouse
of potential. However, at that stage,
humans have no self- control and little, or no, self-identity. Something must release and direct that potential
in order to produce a person who interacts in the world. That something is the world itself.
Initially the parents are the most influential in directing
the child's potential. Then, over time,
the immediate family and the culture in which the child is embedded becomes
increasingly influential. By the time
the child reaches maturity and the ability to make independent choices, those
choices nave been significantly limited by the influence of family and culture.
In some respects, computers mimic
human development. It might be that we
have developed computers in our image. An
infant is born with a "basic input-output system" (BIOS). It has been developed from the genetic
information provided by the parents. The
child has no choice or control concerning this information. However, it establishes the physical and many
behavioral attributes of the person.
This regulates how an individual will connect to the outside world. However, it does not determine what a person
will do with that connection. For example,
tendency toward aggression is included in the genetic code. But, it does not determine how that tendency
will be manifested. That could be for
good or evil.
After birth, the person develops an "operating
system". This is
"programmed" by parents, family and community. It determines much of the individual's
identity and how he/she will respond to society. All together, family and society determine
the initial identity of the person.
As people mature, they acquire their unique identity through
their experiences in the world. This is
the equivalent to developing "programs" to deal with incoming
data/information and committing it to memory. However, as we have seen, much of the
processing capability has been determined by the previous stages of
development.
At this point, the allegorical relation between human and
computer ends. All living creatures, to
varying degrees, have the ability to experience and adapt to the world. Only the human has the capacity to observe and
adapt the world to his/her requirements.
This is what makes humans the most magnificent and dangerous creature on
Earth.
From this perspective, we can see why previous generations
are so very important in the development of future generations. It is the current generation that provides
the means for the emerging generation to become "human".
This is the intent of the Biblical statements, "Honor your father and your
mother" (Ex. 20:12) and "visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s
children, to the third and to the fourth generation" (Ex. 34:7).
However, these are conditional statements. For our current purpose, let us take
"fathers and mothers" as representing the current generation of a
society. Then the condition is the presumption
that the society has achieved the self-control needed to subdue their [evil] inclination.
At birth, every human being has the potential to achieve
self-control and empowerment. They only
need the support and guidance required to achieve it. It would seem that the highest function of a
society is to provide that support and guidance to all of its members. Unfortunately, that is not true in the
"real" world.
To the contrary, our world is more like the world described
after the Biblical story of the "Tower of Babel" (Gen. 11:1-9). It is divided into many societies with
different "operating systems" and "programs". In most cases, their purpose is not to
encourage and guide all of its members to self-control and empowerment. Rather, their purpose is to give power to a
few, leaving most dependent and powerless.
Further, that power has little or nothing to do with the self-control of
the Pirke Avot. This is true whether the
society calls itself democracy or dictatorship, capitalist or socialist, or any
of the other words that societies have used to describe themselves. There have been only a few times in history
that a society has tried to to achieve the self-empowerment of the Pirke Avot.
If each generation is born with the capacity to achieve
self- control and to form a society that can pass that capability on to the
next, what has gone wrong? What are we
missing?
-- To be continued --
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