As the first and foremost educational institution for each individual citizen, mothers and families are of the highest priority in the structuring of the economic system to function within an agápē reality. The goal of the economic system in agápē reality is to nurture the family and its members to achieve the highest humanity humanly possible for each and every member of said family.
The system of economics for any given society or nation is analogous to the circulatory system of the human body. Blood circulating through the network of arteries and veins moves because the heart pumps and, in pumping, our blood flows. It flows through the network of arteries and veins to pick up oxygen needed by the cells to oxidize the nutrients picked up from the digestive system. These nutrients are then transported via these same arteries and veins so that the energy from the oxidation process can be used to perform all of the functions of our body which in turn moves our spirit, our soul, through our life experiences to learn and grow via our five senses and to reflect upon our joys and sorrows via our nervous and limbic systems. Just as our circulatory system delivers all of the nutrients required to sustain our life, it also serves to remove and transport all waste material from our cells to be collected in and removed by our excretory system. In short, the circulatory system provides the means by which the body lives.
Modern medicine can keep the body alive artificially by connecting various tubes to the body through which doctors and nurses can introduce the nutrients needed by the cells of tissues that form the various organs which in turn comprise the various systems that constitute the body; however, it is still the circulatory system that provides the life sustaining material to each and every cell in the body by functioning as the system of transportation. The body can be kept alive even when the spirit or soul of the body appears to be disconnected from that body as in the case of individuals who are in a coma.
The body cannot function without the circulatory system because it provides the means for the cell to live. Likewise, can a human being live without an economic system? Our ancient ancestral hominids did not establish nor did they function within an economic system as they roamed Earth like all other animals foraging, hunting, and seeking shelter as they could. Compare them, however, to the humans living in industrialized cities like New York, Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Washington D.C. Hominids have lived without need of an economic system but once they began their evolutionary journey to become us, the humans of the modern industrialized world, they progressed through a stage of bartering into village dwellers of farmers and craftsmen and women who emerged into the age of commerce, buying and selling goods and services.
“Commerce” is the word that has left the word “bartering” in the dust as humans emerged from hunters and gatherers to village and city dwellers to become today’s citizens of a huge mercantile metropolis of global commerce. I did not forage for my food. I worked for my paycheck. Now, on the horizon of future days, is the push for cryptocurrency. In the days of my grandfather, U.S. currency was based on a gold/silver standard. In my lifetime, the gold standard was removed. Now with cryptocurrency, I am at a loss as to what determines its value but many are pushing for its use and banks are in the process of trying to assess the reality of cryptocurrency. Additionally, only the U.S. government has the authority to print the U.S. currency used in the economy of the United States of America. I can only wonder about who has the authority to produce the units of cryptocurrency. This is the age and the world of economics. This is not the era of finding food and shelter and the material means to survive. This is the era of wealth acquisition.
In my life, I have heard the assertion that, “Wealth is power.” It has occurred to me, or I have heard others say to me, that, “power is wealth.” If I am physically unimpressive regarding my strength and I am wealthy, but must contend with a physically robust individual, I can hire all the muscle I can afford — bodyguards to crush any physical adversary. If I need money but have substantial power, I can create situations to enhance my capital flow to become wealthier thereby accruing the wealth needed to purchase whatever is my desire. Hence, wealth is power and power is wealth. In the days of our ancient ancestral hominids, power was power. In those days physical power ruled. This rule of power waned as the brain evolved and learning increased. Brain would eventually overcome brawn. The fact is, in my opinion, brain overruling brawn is what transforms ancient hunting and gathering into modern economic commerce.
If my adult life was the pursuit of my paycheck and that paycheck is what provided the means to sustain my life and that of my family members, then my survival and theirs was and is dependent on the impact that the U.S. economic system has on my life. This is the hard truth prevailing to this day as I click this keyboard making a record of what I have learned correctly or incorrectly. Economic systems rule. It is the economic system that weaves through every aspect of the society of which I am a part, just like a single cell is a part of my body. As such the economic system of the U.S. provides me with the means to sustain my life or withholds the flow of those needed ‘nutrients’. The economic system of the society provides the lifeblood of that society. Every business person understands this absolute fact.
Even though the following tragic reality is not from the United States, it serves as a stark demonstration of my contention that the economic system is the lifeblood of society. On January 29, 2020, I read the following headline posted online in ** The Guardian: “Disabled man starved to death after DWP stopped his benefits.” This individual had only two tins of fish that was four years past their expiration date. He was emaciated and was found when authorities forced their entry into his flat to evict him because he had not paid his rent. There was no electricity and no gas in the flat. The article indicated that his welfare assistance money had been discontinued. The coroner ruled that this individual died of starvation.
This absolute fact that the economic system is the lifeblood of society is the cornerstone for understanding the ramifications of agápē reality. In the era of wealth acquisition when decisions are required, there exists an almost worshiping attitude toward the economic bottom line as if this pseudo-divine revelation proclaims what course humans should take.
** The Guardian on Tuesday 28 January 2020 11.08 EST
This condition is the subject of the biblical parable of the golden calf (Exodus 32). In this story, it is supremely significant that the idol that so angers God and Moses is made of gold. The function of this manufactured false god is to render subservient the Hebrew God to the Hebrew gold collected from Hebrew families and individuals camped at the bottom of Mount Sinai. The golden calf (wealth) is honored and worshiped over the Hebrew God.
The golden calf, as the collected wealth of the Hebrews, demonstrates the elevation of mankind’s desires and goals over those of the Father-Creator. Secular goals and aspirations are worshiped over spiritual realities. Thus the golden calf for Hebrews at the bottom of Mount Sinai becomes an idol summoning the wrath of the Hebrew God. Christians can recall this same wrath as displayed by Jesus when He whipped the moneychangers from the Jewish temple.
It must be remembered, however, that Jesus did not display anger and consternation toward money (wealth) when being confronted about paying taxes. Jesus merely highlighted the rightful hierarchy of the sacred ruling over the secular. Spirituality must rule over secularity. Matthew 22: 15-22 is the story of the Pharisees trying to trap or ensnare Jesus over this issue. Jesus’s response is pertinent as recorded in the English Standard Version:
But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them,“Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them,“Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
A significant distinction is being made between the secular world and the sacred world when deciding upon what action should be taken by human beings. The acquisition of money and wealth is an external motivation. Agápē is absolutely internally motivated.
Another biblical reference to the acquisition of wealth is Matthew 19:24 (English Standard Version): “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” This assertion recorded in Matthew is not an outright condemnation of the acquisition of wealth but a highly significant warning that aspiring to acquire vast wealth is fraught with perilous dangers.
I cannot quite put my finger on what is stirring in my spirit when I juxtapose the circulatory system of a person lying in a comatose state and the economic system as the lifeblood of society. Once again a poem is needed. The image of a living person in an apparent lifeless state with an apparently fully functioning circulatory system delivering nutrients to the cells of that body feels like an extreme demonstration of a body without spirit, a body without a soul. It is this imagery that I believe represents the perilous danger of worshiping secularity over the spirituality. The comatose person is an excellent image of a soulless, spiritually devoid person with the exception that a spiritually devoid person can fully interact with the living world whereas the comatose person does not. I shudder at the prospect of an economic system devoid of any spirituality, yet I have read assertions in print which advocate for a valueless economic system, an economic system void of any moral connectivity. It was proposed that economic systems should be understood only in terms of economic realities. My prose explanation here does not come close to capturing the stirring of feelings in my spirit of the harm caused by an economic system that is functioning like the circulatory system of a comatose human.
When I was studying my catechism and getting good grades in the religion classes of my Roman Catholic grammar school, I was instructed and believed throughout my childhood that the God of the Old Testament was a jealous god. To me it naturally followed that when the Hebrews were worshiping the golden calf, God’s wrath poured forth from God’s jealousy. God is seen as jealous here, conveying the lesson that we should not worship idols. At age sixty-nine, I have a very different understanding. I now understand or interpret the perilous danger of worshiping secularity (wealth acquisition) over spirituality as the danger of living a life in the comatose state of a soulless shell of a human being naive of the existence of The Great Spirit of the universe. To my understanding, correctly or incorrectly, the extreme narcissist is such a person.
The reader should understand that I was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family but began to break away from the Roman Catholic church around the age of sixteen. My understanding of Christianity is from my Roman Catholic education and upbringing. My understanding of érōs, philía, and agápē began with my college education when I studied classical Greek literature and culture. Together these two influences were supplemented and enhanced with a class in comparative religions and my studies undertaken when earning my B.A degree as an English major. As a consequence of the path so traveled, I am more spiritually orientated than religiously oriented. I believe that since hominids began expanding their consciousness, they began somewhere along the way to seek to understand mystifying forces like wind, fire, storms, drought, solar eclipses, herd migrations, strange sounds in the night, lightening, and the aurora borealis. Deities were assigned to forces that impacted their lives but were forces imbued with mystery and magic.
When the human handprint was put on the cave walls of our evolving ancestors, these hominids began to demonstrate a sense of self as distinguished from a sense of other and a perceived value attributed to the self that was infused into burial ceremonies. This is the learn-by-doing path that has brought about the spirituality and religions that populate the consciousness of today’s Earth inhabitants. Modern science has concretely described many of the fantastic phenomenons like the aurora borealis, lightening, fire and such, but spirituality and religions have not disappeared from the consciousness of humans. To my consciousness, the journey down the path of spiritual understanding continues to evolve just as the path of secular understanding via science expands its conceptualizations.
At this juncture in my life I have learned that the essential distinction between the secular path and the spiritual path is the difference between the processes employed to perceive reality (i.e. scientific investigation via reductionism along with operant definitions versus prayer, meditation, miracles and supernatural revelations). The language sets used to convey those perceptions (i.e. stark, factual, measurable data void of emotion compared to highly emotional testimonials, anecdotes, commands and decrees from supernatural beings proclaimed by the caste of the holy men and women) differ appropriately to manifest the unique perceptions of reality particular to the messages being conveyed.
Érōs, philía, and agápē are nonscientific terms that I have attempted to anchor in the concrete realities investigated by science. Fritjof Capra’s book, The Tao of Physics suggests that if you take Eastern philosophy and Western science and push both perspectives to their ultimate end, you will arrive at the same point. It is with an interest, a childish gleam in the eye and a delightful smile on my metaphoric lips that I recall the fact that Socrates was a philosopher who was the teacher of Plato who in turn was the teacher of Aristotle. These great thinkers and teachers preceded Jesus, the Nazarene. Given this academic lineage, I contend that both science and religion flow forth originally from philosophy. What Is Love . . . Really? is my attempt to walk the path that merges science and religion, the path that merges secularity and spirituality. Érōs, philía, and agápē are tailor made for such a journey.
By merging agápē reality with the secular economic system a criterion of assessment can be used to highlight whether that economic system is humanistic or animalistic. Creating an ability to make such an overall assessment is more efficient than delineating every element of an economic system’s alignment with agápē reality. Recall that agápē reality seeks to move the slider on the animalistic vs the humanistic sliding scale to be as 100 % humanistic as is humanly possible.
The following four facts decree that the economic system infused with agápē reality must focus strongly on facilitating the transportation of all required resources and elements necessary for the mother and the family to carry out the educational responsibilities critical to the development of the family members’ developing consciousness.
1. Agápē reality is about nurturing the other;
2. Education is critical to the development and expansion of the consciousness;
3. The individual’s consciousness must exceed that of philía;
4. The mother and the family are the first educational institution responsible to set the foundation for the individual’s future learning and consciousness expansion.