Chapter 12 explores how contradictory ideas are shaped, which eventually leads to contradictory policies and unexpected and undesirable consequences. For a system to work, we need to agree on what is good and bad. How do we understand virtue? This chapter suggests a way forward.

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doublethink by Steve Consilvio

Man is very good at both creating problems and solving them. Unfortunately, we do not discover that our solutions are making things worse until after the fact. We are a creative species as a necessity of survival. We try to solve problems as we understand them, but can we solve them better? Our solutions form a court of public opinion, or conventional wisdom, which becomes our working definition of virtue. Every generation prepares the next generation for the role of responsibility. We teach the virtues we believe. 

There are, of course, huge debates over various issues. One would like to believe that after thousands of years clever people have solved all of the world's challenges, but we all know that is not the case. We conquer old problems and new ones arrive. Every child must learn virtue anew, and what they learn is often inaccurate.

Big History Triplethink by Steve Consilvio

The Big History model encompasses all of the shifts of human understanding and action, and can be applied to any dispute or agreement or philosophical perspective. It helps to reveal the power of ideas. While a big idea about big ideas, it fits at the micro level, too. It scales from the individual person, up to individual organizations, and onward to schools of thought and the entire history of mankind. The micro is the macro. It can help us discern consistencies and inconsistencies. Inconsistencies are at the root of all conflicts and failures. Emerson wrote that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." It follows then, that a wise consistency is the foundation of progress.

The Big History model is dynamic. The cultural gears are in constant motion, and everyone is a unique evolutionary machine. We can plot our own virtue and prejudices and how others arrive at theirs. The Big History model might be a map for success. The hope is once we can see our strengths and weaknesses that we can then separate them.

To accomplish our needs, we have formed goal-focused organizations that represent empire types. These empires are represented by the elements that overlap. Governments combine social and physical, and exclude the abstract; for-profit businesses combine the physical and abstract, and exclude the social; non-profit organizations combine abstract and social, and exclude the physical. At the center, all the circles overlap. Here are the individuals that make up society. 

We all work for and promote the empires. Directly or indirectly, we are the connecting force between all ideas, organizations and actions. We fill our roles based on how we combine the various philosophies and opportunities. We have some freedom to choose which empires and which beliefs we will subscribe to, but we are impacted by all of them, regardless of our personal beliefs.

The Big History model is a system of opposites. Each empire combines two ideas and excludes a third. That makes each empire unique, and each has the potential to be an ally or an adversary with the other empires. However, the elements that create the empires are not homogenous. The larger circles independently represent a body of thought regarding the contentious topics of religion, politics and economics. There are literally millions of nuances among competing religious, political and economic theories. For example, Christianity is just one of many religions, and there are thousands of sects within it. There may be commonality on one issue and hard disagreement on another.

Organizations and sub-organizations form within the empires based on a unique combination of different prejudices. For example, the empire of government has three levels (federal, state and local) and within each level there are thousands of departments and agencies. Outside of government there are watchdog and lobbyist groups, supporters and detractors, manipulators and consultants, suppliers and opportunists. Every point of view can be considered a prejudice, not because of a desire to be hurtful to others, but because most beliefs, as the model implies, are incomplete.

There are no shortages of opinions. Every goal, action, problem, and procedure are being viewed differently. One person will be bragging about what another finds shameful. There are opposites everywhere, and comparative analysis can help survey how our ideas, emotions and actions interact. The following chart details some of the assumptions behind our prejudices and virtues. The assumptions of each realm are similar but have different nuances. An appreciation for subtlety is how we solve problems. 

Triplethink breakout by Steve Consilvio

You may be surprised to see Spiritual listed under the social heading, rather than under the abstract or religious heading. The spirit refers to social connections, whether it is between God and man, a married couple, family, friends or co-workers. It is the lack of spirit that brings on a social crisis. God is a person, just like everyone else. Atheists reject a spiritual connection with God that believers accept. When a spiritual connection is lacking, a member of one political party can easily scorn another party, or one religion another religion. Love and hate are spiritual conditions based upon emotions.

Similarly, you may be surprised to see reason and logic under religion. People tend to think of science one-dimensionally. Science has ideas, emotional and action components. Science can be divided into scientific method, scientific goals, and scientific practice. All reason and logic fall under abstract thinking. Science follows the abstract, social and physical paradigm.

There is no natural conflict between religion and reason. Atheists reason that God does not exist; believers reason that He does exist. The history of what certain individuals do with political power notwithstanding, religion is of the abstract realm along with scientific inquiry. 

Reason explores cause and effect. The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are studies of cause and effect. If you believe that life was created by a lightening bolt hitting a primordial pool, there is still the question of what created the lightening bolt. What was before the Big Bang? What is at the edge of the universe? Questions never end, like the question, "Who created God?' Are two events related or not? All big questions involving cause and effect eventually meet an unsolvable mystery. We can learn a lot during the process. 

We know more than our ancestors, but knowledge makes the mystery larger, not smaller. We use reason to form a hypotheses, formulate experiments and search for evidence to support our logic. Reason is scientific method, regardless of the conclusion. The abstract category refers to thinking.

Emotions, in contrast, deal with the result. Is what we have good or bad? Politics is the social category and refers to feelings. Emotions do not ask how something arrived, but only register pleasure or pain. Is it something to keep and cultivate, or something to avoid and prevent? The political realm is where those goals are debated and determined. The social realm is subjective and problematic, because what one person enjoys may be suffering for another person. If people are at emotional opposites, then they can be working for an opposing result. Should the government conduct stem cell research? Should the government defend or abolish slavery? Emotions determine the scientific goal. Hitler, for example, wanted to use genetics to prove that whites were superior to satisfy his emotional need. 

Action falls under the physical category. This is scientific practice. Applied science tests the causality that reason develops, and discovery is then applied for its best impact: to bring pleasure and avoid pain. Unity and consensus are important for scientific goals, but scientific action tests for accuracy. Is something true or false? Can we build a machine that works as intended? 

Balance and accuracy are critical in all areas. If we mistakenly believe a falsehood, then good can result only by accident. The best choices are balanced and will result in more balance. Balance is understanding cause and effect, choosing good over bad, and true over false.

When Jesse Owens won the 1936 Olympics, it shattered Hitler's claim that non-whites were inferior. Not only did Germany fail, but all aryans failed, too. Hitler twisted scientific reasoning and goals. In the death camps, he would go on to twist scientific action. It was absurd to tattoo numbers onto people that you intended to kill. What was the purpose of all the record-keeping? His distorted spiritual connection, an extreme self-love and hatred of others, led to many distorted scientific practices, including where humans were cruelly used as test subjects. He was unique because of his success in leading a nation into an extreme misdirection, but the paths he traveled to get there are well worn. Scapegoats are created by false reasoning and emotional separation. Every realm also has a matching virtue and vice. In politics, they are humility and pride.  The results speak for themselves.

Ideas (abstract realm) and emotions (social realm) are both self-centered phenomenons. Science cannot "prove' what is right or good. It can only test for true or false. Many questions are beyond the boundaries for science to test. In the hierarchy of the human condition, religion should be at the top. If we fail to respect cause and effect, then we believe a lie. Unfortunately, how we feel effects what we reason. This is a subtle but important condition when it comes to recognizing dissonance in ourselves. When our emotions mis-register reality, there is an opportunity for error. The error can be as huge as World War II, or as local as a disagreement with a friend.

Theories, empires and organizations are just like the people that created them. Ideas, emotions and actions are inseparable. Balance can only be achieved through consistency. The world is a reflection of humanity's success or failure to think, feel and act in harmony. Balance is in everyone's interest. 

Heroes and Villains

The myriad of personal choices and opportunities are overwhelming. A hierarchy of priority is developed based on the role we occupy. For a parent it may be family; for the breadwinner, their job; for a student, their studies; for a church, the services; for government, the laws; for a business, sales. We are all familiar with these roles. The only way to fully understand any choice is to make it. Once we do, we are able to define heroes and villains based on how they interact with our roles. We enjoy our supporters and are displeased by our detractors. Cause and effect, good and bad, true and false all combine when we make a judgement.

Our choices are our ambition, and ambition is a double-edged sword. People discover that it is lonely at the top, if they manage to make it. Others lose their desire, want to get off the path they chose, but are stuck. Whatever next choice we make has all the same issues. We cannot escape the human condition. Life is too brief to experiment with many choices. What people need most is balance, but that is difficult to achieve in a system that is structurally imbalanced. Economic volatility intrudes upon everyone, and sets off many conflicts.

As a result of faulty reasoning and unfortunate experiences, some people develop one-dimensional personalities. They become full of hate, rage and anger and live life on the offensive. For them, the fault of history can only be the one target to which they have dedicated themselves to oppose. This blame can fall on anything. It can be a person, a business type, a political party, an organization, a belief, a skin color, a nationality or an ethnicity. In a world of tremendous size, diversity and activity, there are plenty of opportunities to rage against straw-men, near or far. We follow our misjudgments as far as we can go, and when we get to the end, we embrace a change that we previously felt was impossible or ridiculous. Epiphanies are fair-weather friends.

Sometimes the one-dimensional personality can be the emotional opposite of anger. They are not full of hate and rage, but of concern and sympathy for a specific group of people that they wish to help. The target group may suffer from illness, ignorance, injustice or a social condition. 

The one-dimensional person can be either an extreme pessimist or an extreme optimist, a demagogue or a prophet, a destroyer or a philanthropist. Given the nature of dissonance, there are often elements of both. One person's hero is another's villain, but more importantly, creating a victim requires a hero and a villain. We elevate ourselves as we condemn others. Triangularizations are common.

The best epiphanies are when the right hand and the left hand discover what each other are doing. The hand that loves heroes discovers the hand that hates villains. Suddenly, scapegoats and straw-men are not the enemy, but our own faulty reasoning. What somebody loves and hates defines how they understand the world. We create our heroes and our villains based on how we interpret roles and ideas. When we discover that our heroes and villains share the same characteristics, then we discover ourselves. That is the central idea that the Big History model hopes to illuminate. The drawing is a mirror of our prejudices and experience.

Mapping Anger

All anger can be mapped within the Big History diagram. For example, when an employee who is angry at his boss over wages.The disagreement is located within the for-profit business empire. The boss is at the top of the pyramid, and the employee is at the bottom. The complaint is that the boss is being unfair or greedy, which is a complaint with moral right/wrong intonations (which falls under the abstract/religion realm), but the boss is making decisions for the business empire, where profit is the defined virtue. His job is to keep expenses down, not make people happy. Fairness may be the virtue in politics or religion, but not in business. A fair business is open to overlap. An unfair business is not. 

On the personal level, the boss is trying to maximize the revenue, the same as the employee. The conflict is because they are similar, not because they are different. Two dogs are fighting over the same bone. In this case the bone is money, but it could be power, respect, perks, job duties, God's favor or something else. People who are similar fight, because the same thing is important to both of them. While the conflict takes place within one empire, it is informed by the other realms. Fairness is a political concept, not a business concept.

Courts in the political realm attempt to adjudicate business disputes. An accusation of unfairness is not necessarily true. The worker may be greedy and self-aggrandizing. Disputes can rise to the point of being a legal issue, and lawmakers create laws that reflect the side which they support. The recent disputes between bankers and consumers, and the attempt at new financial regulations, is an example of how the two realms collide and change. Most disputes in court are related to business, including organized crime, which is just illegal business. The reason for a jury of peers, rather than a jury by superiors or victims, is that our peers are most likely to share the same experiences as ourselves. We are more willing to accept the judgement of an equal than of an enemy or a superior. 

Balance is the ideal because theoretically there would be no conflict, no trial, no jury, no court. The thicker the book of laws, the greater the lack of balance in society. In America's case, the imbalance has been institutionalized into a dissonance called "checks and balances.' Ironic, since there is no balance, except in name and claim. The structure breeds conflict.

The worker versus employer conflict is an up-down divide within a business organization. Capitalism versus socialism is a left-right conflict within economic theory. There are many conflict combinations, including diagonal. Karl Marx blamed the religious leaders, thereby crossing from the bottom of economics to the top of religion. Workers can blame government for protecting abusive employers. The businesses can blame government for both taxes and regulations. It is common for someone at the top of one empire to complain about the choices made in another empire. For example, a music celebrity speaks out against politicians. There is plenty of hypocrisy going around, and we all get ensnared in it. It is difficult to discuss virtue without making someone or some choice an example of the lack of virtue. We need comparative analysis to frame our understanding, but hot disputes indicate a lack of understanding.

Silence is Not Harmony

A lack of conflict does not mean there is balance. A different priority could be the reason. There is no flash point to fight over. Similarly, silence is not an affirmation. Power-mongers and their toadies attempt to silence criticism. Their success does not make them right, anymore than a complaint is always true. A boss can compel silence by non-verbal cues. If he threatens anyone who questions his choices, like vendors, then the workers internalize his behavior as a threat if they disagree. Fear compels silence. Workers may agree with a complaining employee, and will view him as a hero, or crazy, because of his courage to speak out.  

Some people have the courage to speak out. Others do not. The same words that make him a villain for management make him a hero to others. To have empathy for a villain makes one the equivalent of a villain, so most people opt for silence. This is tragic. The only way to teach the next generation right from wrong is to stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong. The lack of a vigorous debate gives all errors the most opportunity to flourish. Yet, we need to disagree respectfully, or we are teaching that it is okay to be disrespectful. 

Children are often indoctrinated to be afraid. They are taught to obey and not to think. Being wrong is not very different than being silent. Both error and a lack of courage have undesirable consequences for the formation of virtue in young minds. We learn the most when we disagree. While the goal is to agree, the means are to disagree. It is an odd tension. That is why free speech is so important. To have a right and to not exercise it is the same as not having it. The challenge is to be as intellectually honest with ourselves as we are critical of others. We have to be open to learning and being corrected, as much as to teaching and correcting others.

Enlightenment

We have empathy for ourselves and others, but we also make harsh judgments. That is the source of heroes and villains. We are usually more forgiving of ourselves and our group than we are of outliers. One person can be a mixture of many different extremes. Two people can be an ally on one issue and antagonists on another. Somewhere there must be cognitive dissonance present, because the truth will lead everyone to the same conclusions. Unfortunately, consensus is not proof of a truth. Many ill-advised choices have been carried forward through unanimous consent.

Enlightenment is a stage of redemptive and proactive forgiveness. We must forgive ourself for our mistakes before we can forgive others for theirs, but first we need to recognize our mistakes. It is only in conquering our own unique cognitive dissonance can we see the same struggle in others. We heal others in the same manner that we heal ourselves. Hypocrisy and doublethink works the same way. We are apt to punish where the sins of another most closely align with our own. The merciless punish the merciless unmercifully, blurring the distinction between who is the victim and who is the crime. Might is not right, but neither is being a victim. In viewing the events of history, we need to be honest about the antecedents that created conflict. All is cause and effect. Blaming the victim is as absurd as claiming the victim is always innocent. We all have a shared responsibility for what occurs in society. We are both victim and crime, a mixture of virtue and prejudices.

There are battles within organizations and within empires for dominance. For example, two factions within a church, political party or a business may develop. Each struggles to control the reins of the organization. This same organization struggles for dominance outside of the organization. For example, a church wants to control public opinion, or a political party wants to control the government. Certain businesses wants to control their industry. There are also battles between the empires. The business community may want to control government, and government may want to control the business community. During war, people look to the government to protect them. During civil war, the government is regarded as the enemy or protector, depending upon which side you chose. When business and government unite for a common purpose they can be a formidable opponent. Non-profit organizations (religion) suffer, and they become the wedge force to divide government and business dominance. Control of government is desirable because of its ability to force others to obey your prejudice. Turf battles are fought with ferocious intensity. Dissonance exists whenever there is an inability to forgive. If there are heroes and villains, if there are conflicts, then dissonance is present.

Conflict by Steve Consilvio

Does the previous graphic look familiar? It is a simplified version of the infamous Powerpoint slide regarding the Afghanistan War. (See next illustration) Upon seeing the original, General McChrystal remarked, "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war.' Everyone is the room laughed, but life and death is no laughing matter. Mankind has brought our troubles upon ourselves. We need to understand the nature of conflict if we are to defeat it. Eastern philosophy (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc), with its many complex mandala representations, is trying communicate the same message regarding the importance of balance.

Military Powerpoint by US Government

Mandala by unknown

Another indicator of cognitive dissonance is the sense surrounding the relative importance of certain issues. The description that people "make a mountain out of a molehill' is true. The lack of comparative analysis is also lack of perspective. A power-monger uses force disproportionately to the situation. For example, firing an employee for disagreeing, or violently silencing criticism by smashing a printing press. Electoral politics constantly seize upon minor issues as a means of attacking an opponent. Businesses take small design differences between themselves and their competition and cast them as huge advantages of their product. Olympic athletes are stellar performers, yet we are to believe a half-second of speed is a mark of significant superiority. 

Before power corrupts, the lust for power distorts. Enlightenment is a world undivided into heroes and villains, or winners and losers. Socrates, after being found guilty, was required to propose a just punishment. His accuser recommended death. Socrates felt he should be housed and feted like the athletes. The molehill was worshipped, and the mountain of wisdom was destroyed. There are millions of petty squabbles over insignificant things. Money is a big one, but not the only one. True equality is the world's most radical idea: to see ones enemy as oneself.

Know Thyself

People are ignorant about their dissonance, which is why Plato advised "Know Thyself." (Yes, Plato was ignorant of his own dissonance). We need to explore our own prejudices to find ourselves and one another. Everybody is exactly the same. We all share the capacity to mix up cause and effect, good and bad, true and false. We have all been indoctrinated into a unique set of half-truths that form our prejudices. Our heroes and villains reflect our unique challenges with dissonance. To be truly free, then we need to recognize the equality of mankind, regardless of skill, learning, position, pedigree or possession. Just as the planet is rich in resources and climates, we all have diverse gifts and temperaments, too. The challenge before us is, "How do we exchange these gifts, that we fashion from the Earth and our community, with other communities?' That, ultimately, is what the study of economics encompasses. Politics is supposed to make that process easier, not harder.

Big History Goals by Steve Consilvio

While a certain degree of simplification is necessary to understand the world, including these models, it is important to remember that everyone was, is, and will be tethered to the same 24 hour day. Our heroes and villains were both using comparative analysis in the best way they knew. They both sought to fix a problem, even if that put them in opposition to one another. They met with varying degrees of success over their lifetime, the same as us. We can do better. We have their experience to draw from.

Evolution is incremental. Just as we change everyday, so too do the ideas and institutions represented in the model. Time can appear to be like a pendulum in a repeating motion, swinging back and forth, but the pendulum is always moving forward as a single line. The line may intersect on each swing, but it does not repeat. You are you, and everyone is themselves. However, the virtues that we ascribe to are timeless and accessible. A clock measures time, but it has no effect on time. Everyone is fully capable of living a virtuous life, but we need to ask, "What is virtue?' Virtue does not change. We need to hold ourselves, our heroes, our villains, and victims to the same standard. 

We can start anywhere. Every point on the model is a definition of virtue. From there we can test it in every direction. Every idea is the center of the universe because ideas are a web. No idea is an island. 

The virtue model

The qualitative difference between opinions is how well they have been tested. Virtue is something that is true logically, emotionally and physically. Virtue works because it is in balance.

The Big History model is not in balance. It is a state of extreme imbalance, with the individual in the center of the confusion. A model in balance would have all three circles perfectly stacked one upon the other. There would be no difference between the ideas, the organizations and the individual. Perfect harmony. 

Balance by Steve Consilvio

In the current model, all of the organizations within the empires exist while ignoring the virtues of a particular philosophy. For example, politics excludes religious virtues, it is non-religious. Religion says do not kill, but governments decide life and death, and kill any challenge to its authority or threat to its citizens. Businesses are non-political. Even though it overlaps with religion, it makes no judgements. Businesses sell anything to everyone. Governments try to restrict businesses from trading with its enemies, and religions try to prevent immoral commerce, but both have little success. Churches are non-profit. They do not try to produce or sell anything, but the non-profits enjoy some of the oldest and largest hoards of wealth. Every empire tries to impact the other empires, while enjoying the virtues that the other empires supply. 

In practice, no organization is as cleanly separated as the model, but that is the point. The model attempts to expose the priority behind certain choices, the resulting struggle for success, and the dissonance trap that exists within all endeavor. Reality is similar to chaos theory. Humanity, like the Sun, acts like a flame, ever constant, yet never-repeating. Our fire is the interaction of solid matter, abstract ideas and emotions. New lives form the new embers. Time burns perpetually generating light and warmth, but it can just as easily flame out of control and burn, or reduce almost to the point of being extinguished, bringing cold and darkness. Ash and dust are generated during the burn, representing the discard of error, and the end of our lives, but the memory of light and temperature lingers onward. Just as the first chicken is an ancestor of every egg, so too is all light part of the same first fire, regardless of how or when humans became sentient. All is one, and one is all. We should not put man into boxes or stereotypical categories. The purpose of using this model is to explain and illuminate, not to categorize and condemn. 

None of the empires are pure or logical, by any set of standards. If the goal of politics is to create order, the governments are constantly at war. If the goal of economics is to efficiently create plenty, businesses have created waste and poverty, too. If the goal of religion is to offer moral clarity, hope and salvation and brotherhood, it has created division and self-righteousness, too. Within themselves and between themselves the empires are full of contradictions. That is true generically and specifically for any organization. Everyone is in a constant state of difficulty. The virtues that they espouse (the real ones) are diluted by contradictions and the multitude of other forces that do not recognize their virtues. 

As individuals, we all have our own sense of what is correct, which is usually slightly different than the organizations that we join or that employ us. This is not surprising, since none of the empires can address the complete needs of a whole person. The more the ideas are exclusionary in the model, the more it resembles a prison, rather than an organic machine. Separate but equal, like the division of church and state, is an intellectual farce. The empires have evolved to be contradicting what people need most: balance.

The model in flux

There are ideas and organizations that attempt to move things towards a better balance. This occurs culturally as well as individually. Making comparisons between other nations and other times shows how the model can fluctuate. For example, by moving the religion disk more towards the center, religion has a greater influence on political and economic organizations. This can be good or bad, depending upon the nature of the political philosophy it is paired with. Is it a tolerant loving political philosophy or an intolerant punishing political philosophy? 

Dominate Ideas by Steve Consilvio

When imbued with more political power, we could get an inquisition that persecutes heresy, or an enlightenment that encourages freedom of religion. Ideas from the religious realm can and should inform both our politics and our economics, but everything needs to be in balance.

Similarly, political ideas inform our economics and religious viewpoints. The term liberty can mean many things. The liberty discussed in the Bible is not the same liberty that is discussed politically. Political liberty is making ones own laws. Religious liberty is embracing God's laws. What one person regards as liberty another may regard as slavery. That is a sure sign of cognitive dissonance, but if on one or both sides is unclear.

One of the big stories of the Bible is the political liberation of the Hebrews from slavery to the Pharaoh. Their faith in God gave them their political liberty. No sooner were the Hebrews politically free, and given the laws of Moses, did they start to make their own laws. They fashioned a golden calf and worshiped that instead of God. They deserted their religious liberty. Freedom gives one the ability to live up to, as well as to abandon, a standard of virtue.

Ancient slavery in Egypt was as much an economic condition as it was a political or religious condition. The Pharoah's believed themselves to be gods. People like Karl Marx see religion as enslaving its followers to a blind obedience. The slaves of Egypt would disagree. Their faith in God led to their freedom. What they did with that liberation is a separate story. Because the Hebrews thought themselves superior, they lost their humility. That was the same failing as the Pharaoh. Egypt was not always ruled ruthlessly. It was Joseph who instituted the 1/7 tax to prepare for a drought seven years in the future. When the crop failure came, there was plenty of food on hand for all. Egypt provides an example of both wise and unwise public administration. 

Hierarchy: Slavery versus Liberty 

The slave and slave-master relationship is found in religion, politics and economics. This suggests that the problem with liberty is not the realm, but the quality of hierarchical relationships within any empire. An organizational hierarchy of skill or experience is natural, but a hierarchy of inequality is not. A child is not inferior to its parents, or an object to be exploited. Obedience is blind when it is not a conscious or logical choice. Winston Smith, in 1984, was a slave of the status quo, as were his oppressors. It is the tenor of authority that is the problem, not the existence of authority.

There is always a tendency for us to become that which we oppose. That is the nature of dissonance. We are what we hate. Marx opposed religious virtues, but his brotherhood of comrades required the same brotherhood of community that religions hope to achieve. There is no "right' side in history. This Big History model exposes the failings of every movement. We are all human, and fall victim to inconsistencies or double-standards. Ideals are the only thing capable of being pure. Our challenge is first to understand virtue, and then to live up to that standard. 

What we say is a measure of our understanding. Our virtue is as obvious as our dissonance, to everyone except ourselves. As followers, we follow those who share a similar dissonance. 

Slaves, of course, have limited choice, but on any of a thousand nights they could have risen up and killed their captors. They chose not to kill. Marx, in advocating class warfare, did not recognize that the slaves were declining war, not justice. Moses was similarly rejected by the slaves when he killed one of the Pharaoh's soldiers. The ends cannot justify the means.

At the heart of all organizations are the concepts of property and justice. Both the haves and have-nots resort to violence to protect and enhance their livelihood, they only start at a different level. Violence can be a consequence of an imbalanced mathematical model. Reducing poverty and extremes in wealth will reduce the likelihood of war, but economics is only one possible cause of violence. There are two other causes: pride (the social realm) and fear (the religious realm). Equality needs to be political, economic, religious and, most importantly, generational. The freedom to live requires the responsibility to prepare for those who come after us.

All three empires are attempting to provide for the needs of the individual as well as the collective. To some degree, each empire exists to blunt the failures of the other empires. Religions exist to provide knowledge. Religions builds schools to educate the social spirit, but not roads. Governments exist to provide order. They purchase roads for everyone and encourage productivity. It builds schools, but primarily to indoctrinate the population to trust the government and follow its rules, which is why the religions build their own schools. Businesses exist to solve the physical demands of production and consumption. It is contracted to build the roads and the schools. 

Increasingly, business leaders make payments to schools and within politics to educate and indoctrinate their point of view. Businesses have the most money because they are free to create the most inflation. These owners believe themselves to be superior in society. People amass a personal fortune and then get involved in politics. The craving for wealth becomes a craving for power.

 During and after times of war citizens turn to military generals as their political leaders. Usually, the rich are trusted to run things because they already have control. During war-time, the political leaders turn to private industry for their armaments. Either way, the businesses come out on top. In a financial crisis, the government turns to the banks to solve the problems, too. The people have no institutional power, even under a democracy. The Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations have the same rights as citizens. The Bill of Rights attempts to blunt the rough treatment of individuals, but with limited success. The empires themselves interpret their own rules of self-restraint, and they invariably fail to restrain themselves.

Prejudice and Virtue

Organizations are governed by individuals, and their prejudices become the policy of the organization. The top individuals of one empire attempt to impact the top levels of another empire. For example, a popular entertainer may make comments about public policy. He could be pro or anti-war, support who should be President, or even run for office. Similarly, those in government might attempt to control or censor the entertainment industry. The Red Scare and Hollywood blacklisting of the 1950's was censorship. Religious leaders and organizations have often expressed their moral objections about politics and business. It is impossible to separate individual prejudices from the cultural currents. Generically, every empire, organization and individual (myself included) claims to have some special insight on what people need to be happy. There is some truth in these positions. We need the best ideas in all three empires to be in balance.

Language presents a problem because the same labels are sometimes used interchangeably, though they mean different things. The word liberty is a good example, but there are many others that can be viewed pejoratively. Some define freedom as unbridled capitalism, where others see unbridled capitalism as fascism, and the strong abusing the weak. Freedom is believed to be the ability of the good to limit the hand of the evil. People have different expectations of government, church and business. They all see their hand as the good hand, and all who impede them as the evil hand. When a church leader, political leader or business leader complain about the actions or choices of one another, that is the model in action.

There are multiple hands at work. In religion, there is the hand of God. In economics, there is the invisible hand of capitalism, as suggested by Adam Smith. And in politics, there is the hand of government and the voice of the people. There is too little appreciation for the hand of man in all these theories.

Everybody favors the good hand of their organization, as they have defined it. Using comparative analysis, and a set of principles, we can determine what are the best virtues for all empires, organizations and individuals.

In general, everyone has the same goal: peace and prosperity. While there is a divide between the tenor of optimists and pessimists, that should have no impact on virtue. Virtue should illuminate the best possible strategy. What is The Good must be good for all equally. The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom. Like math, virtue should balance, and be the same equation frontward and backward. It should be easy to accomplish.

What are Virtues?

Every virtue is a hybrid of thoughts, feelings and actions. For the sake of simplicity, and because of my desire to illuminate similarities and differences, it is necessary to discuss this topic using broad generalizations. The Big History model provides a good framework. In this section intellectual realms and empires are treated as equivalent 

Virtue in Religion, and its Opposite

The virtue of religion is faith. More specifically, love, forgiveness, trust and preparation for the future (stewardship). The abstract realm confronts the mystery of life, delves into the big questions of right and wrong, and encourages us to think. The non-profit organizations (universities and churches) provide educations to help children enter the workforce, adulthood and the afterlife. Faith is the virtue because we must have an open mind and a trusting spirit in order to be able to learn, and, later, question. Faith and reason are not opposites, rather, they are complimentary. We have faith in others and our conclusions, which we reach through reasoning. Faith is not only about a belief in God, but faith in our fellow man. Atheists go through the same exact reasoning process as believers to reach the opposite faith conclusion. It is as difficult to prove the existence of God as his non-existence. (For the record, I believe in God. God does not fix man's problems, he fixes the man who makes the problems. This book is a part of that process).

The primary element of faith is to trust our reasoning and one another, with or without God. This overlaps with politics and economics because a community is obliged to trust, otherwise it cannot function to govern or trade. The non-profits help us to determine who, what, when, where and why we trust.The vice of religion is fear. Fear spreads mistrust, anger, revenge and condemnation. Fear is the death of faith. When power is used to punish religious infidelity, political differences, or economic challenges, that is fear being expressed. Fear can exist high or low, with or without the power to act. Fear is a mental and emotional prison that clouds our judgment. Fear is pessimistic. We fear our conclusion. When we use a lock, we are both indicating what we value and our fears. The symbol of a lock represents our fears. The valentine heart represents trust, love and faith. 

Religious Virtue by Steve Consilvio

Virtue in Politics, and its Opposite

Government is the social realm. The virtue of politics is liberty. To say what we want to say and do what we want to do, and have what we need is liberty. The freedoms of self-determination, opportunity, movement, expression, and possession are all part of liberty. The vice in politics is authoritarianism, inequality or fascism. When one person or group controls another, they are unequal. Laws that divide, like the Jim Crow laws, are destructive of liberty. Legality often has a low moral standard. Laws allow stealing, predation, prejudice and many forms of injustice. 

There is no universal victim. A black person may be mistreated in a white country or a white person mistreated in a black country. Similarly, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists and atheists can mistreat one another in their respective spheres. Citizens can mistreat non-citizens. The rich class can mistreat the poor class, and vice-versa. The employer can abuse employees. The unions can abuse consumers. The public servants can abuse the taxpayers. Every form of prejudice can be a government policy or a cultural norm. True liberty encompasses systemic equality and requires personal responsibility, not individualistic opportunism. 

Authoritarianism is systemic inequality, which grants a privilege to one group or individual to exercise power at the expense of others. When Thomas Paine described society as a blessing, and government as a necessary evil, the dividing line was how power was used, not who was using it. Slavery and Jim Crow were as unfair as monarchy or feudalism. Plutocrats practicing democracy amongst themselves is not liberty. The peace symbol represents social harmony and equality whereas the fist represents violence and inequality.

Political Virtue by Steve Consilvio

The virtue of economics is production. Economics deals with the physical. Money, or finance, deals with the numerical values that we assign to the physical. We can live without money, but we cannot survive without work. We must produce so we can consume. The more we produce, the higher our standard of living, and the more people society can support. Goods and services are created through cooperation. No man is an island. As we step through the sequence of our lives, we need one another to fashion the physical world for our mutual benefit. 

Distribution is an important element of production. Moving the wealth of land and labor between businesses, between the city and the countryside, and between nations, is at the heart of economics. Everyone lives a hand-to-mouth existence, and shares an immediate need for food, healthcare and shelter. 

The vice in economics is destruction (war) or hoarding (selfishness). Both reduce the quality of life. When the goal of work is to make things difficult for others, to mutually destroy what others manufacture, or when we demand more than our share, we destroy economic balance. Selfishness (inequality) is a lethal act, but it works more slowly than a bomb. Greedy behavior mimics the slave-master who robs the productive labor of the slave. It is like an assembly-line worker who disrupts the line by not using the parts they were given. They have extra pieces which serve no purpose, and everyone else suffers the consequences of inferior products and avoidable repairs. Economics is an assembly line on which we are all a participant. The happy face symbol represents hunger satiated. Through equality everyone's needs are met. In contrast, the percentage symbol with the embedded up and down arrows represent inequality and volatility, which eventually makes everyone miserable.

Economics Virtue by Steve Consilvio

Consistency

Commonwealth requires the understanding of a system,  the recognition of our role, and standards of proper behavior for everyone. Commonwealth is more than just physical wealth, it is social harmony and intellectual enlightenment, too. Commonwealth combines faith, liberty and production.

In looking at the virtues and vices of religion, politics and economics, we can see that they are almost inseparable issues. Every criteria can be triangulated, which forms the pattern reflected in the Big History model. The virtues form a complete whole: faith, trust, equality, working hard, productivity, cooperation, sharing and optimism, whereas only a single vice is necessary to disrupt harmony.

Wisdom Conflicts by Steve Consilvio

There are very clear differences between vice and virtue, so why is there so much confusion? Comparative analysis can help us to understand the nature of dissonance and the failures of society. The problems are internally paired opposites before they are triangulated. In the religion empire we have immoral moralists or immoral morality. In the political empire we have authoritarian liberty or authoritarian libertarians. In the economic empire we have destructive production or destructive producers. Using these terms, we should be able to evaluate any topic that arises, and test every idea for both internal and connective consistency. The same as math, virtue and vice both balance. Virtue: Morality = Liberty = Production. Vice: Immorality = Authoritarianism = Destruction. In a mathematical equation, there are infinite number of incorrect answers. If we want a correct answer, then we need to work for it logically and consistently. Any one of the three virtues can be substituted with a non-virtue.

Ideas, emotions and action need to be in harmony for virtue to come to life. All opinions are not equal. Some are informed and some are misinformed. An opinion that is true is a fact, an opinion that is false is a claim. We need to separate the facts from the claims. Theories of cause and effect need to be tested. For example, "Inflation is not caused by supply and demand, it is caused by the application of percentages." I consider this statement regarding inflation to be a fact, but many others likely view it as either a new opinion or a false claim.

Finding Balance

Any fact can be rejected by anyone. This book calls into question well-known economic "facts.' New facts are no more absolute than the discarded facts. We are all our own judge of the evidence. Consensus is an invalid criteria for establishing truth. The laws of mathematics are not subject to consensus and neither are the truths about virtue. The challenge is not to get everyone to agree, or to follow; the challenge is to get everyone to understand yet continue to question and analyze. We must leave enough doubt that we can continuously improve our virtue, but not so much that we exit the path. We need to check the math, and not blindly follow procedures to confirm our bias. The procedures, the expectations and the math can all be wrong, but we can easily convince ourselves that we are in "the best of all possible worlds' while things are collapsing all around us. We need to be content without being complacent, confident without being condescending, curious without being incongruous.

We are all born ignorant. Getting a child to obey and believe is easy, but society moves forward based on the ability of the adults to improve. Deep thinking does not require a college degree, it only requires effort and doubt. We are all students and teachers of one another. Our collective problems are caused by our collective lack of understanding of virtue. A person who is forced to obey can not teach anything except to obey or rebel. It is impossible for a coward to teach courage, except as a negative example. A person who is forced to starve is forced to learn greed. Many of the richest people today were once among the poorest people. A person who understands virtue can spread virtue. It is virtue that sustains our humanity. With virtue, the ends and the means are in harmony. That is the balance that we all need. Doubt is required for questioning to exist. Indifference and complacency are as destructive to virtue as error. The child must grow into a fully functioning mature adult, not just be a cog in the wheels of an empire. Virtue is something that must be right and widespread for a society to advance.

The person at the center of the model is trying to grow, survive, understand and thrive. They are surrounded by many voices and organizations and culturally accepted bodies of knowledge with contradictory messages. Since we are all individuals, and involved with all three organization types, there are two types of dissonance we experience: personal and organizational. 

The organizational hypocrisy has a clear distributive paradox. For a religion to promise salvation, it must also establish the damned. Morality needs immorality to define itself. Similarly, for a government to guarantee liberty it must impose restrictions using force. For a business to provide wealth it must consume resources of land and labor. Organizational dissonance can be an internal opposite, or formed by its indifference to whichever realm it fails to overlap. Similarly, personal hypocrisy occurs when we make a wrong or false judgment about other individuals or groups. All comparative analysis is a double-edged sword, which is why self-doubt must play as large a role as doubting others. A world divided into villains and heroes is like an acid. As it pours out of the container, it burns everything it touches.

Money and the zero-sum game

Organizational hypocrisy is at the heart of the transactional nature of the monetary system. Everyone's gain can be someone else's expense, whether it is salvation, freedom or prosperity. It is not a zero-sum game in the traditional sense, but one of inner group and outer non-group. The same as numbers, the only limit of either virtue or prejudice is the imagination of the optimist and pessimist. We can build more schools or more prisons, have more hunger or more equality, create more waste or more wealth.

All organizations use money for their own benefit, even if the organization nominally exists for the benefit of all. No organization can exist without revenue. In this way, revenue has become everyone's top priority, rather than virtue upon which they were founded. That is the deeper meaning of you cannot serve two masters. Money is the object that we think we understand. In fact, money is make-believe, whereas virtues are real. The ends and the means are in conflict.

Being miserly about money is to be like Ebenezer Scrooge. His Quality of Life was lost for an inanimate object. He was materially rich, but spiritually bankrupt, having destroyed all his social connections. Many organizations and individuals suffer the same self-inflicted wounds. They follow an endless quest for more revenue, as the richness in life fades away. 

The trap that Scrooge fell into was partly a result of the structure of society. The future becomes something to be feared. In the absence of commonwealth, it is every man and organization for himself or itself. Once conditioned to take to survive, there is no conditioning to ever stop taking. Employees, vendors, citizens and customers are all something to be relentlessly squeezed and exploited. Whether it is political power or material wealth, there is no state of contentment. With inflation constantly nipping at our heels, one seeks to be rich as a means of maintaining order. Hoarding wealth and perpetual growth becomes the goal to avoid future financial stress.  

Individuals slow down because of age and eventually pass away. Organizations, in contrast, do not age. Nor do not grow wise. Oftentimes, an individual with a conscience within an organization is forced out in favor of the more ruthless. Revenue rules. Organizations have the ability to improve or destroy the quality of life, both for themselves and those around them. The more consistently virtuous we are in all our roles, the happier everyone will be.

Hypocrisy and Internal Division

Dissonance can be understood as an intellectual-emotional condition. The root causes of dissonance are reflected in the exclusionary nature of the model and the internal conflicts within each separate realm. The same as the model, dissonance can be abstract, social or physical. In religion, dissonance is fueled by fear. In politics, dissonance is fueled by pride. In economics, dissonance is fueled by greed. Fear, pride and greed are all emotional states! Therefore, we can conclude that dissonance is caused by an emotional state that clouds our reasoning. 

This is consistent with many studies that claim our sense of knowing something is a feeling. Dissonance can be understood as a bigotry that "feels right' emotionally but is rationally incorrect. In other words, it is not just two incompatible ideas (accepting 2+2=4 and 2+2=5), but when ideas and emotions are in conflict, too. Virtue is when the head, heart and hands are equally informed. A virtuous society is when everyone recognizes and shares that balance. Peer pressure can encourage both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Obviously, it would be best if individuals and organizations promoted consistently healthy virtues.

Feeding the wolves inside of us

There is a story of a Native American grandfather talking to his grandson. After purchasing a new knife and walking out of the trading post, some others boys surround the grandson, and trip him backwards. When he opens his hand to break his fall, he drops the knife. They tell him he does not deserve such a good knife; they steal it and run away. The grandson is full of rage and sorrow when he recounts the story to his grandfather. 

His grandfather tells them that inside of all men live two wolves, one black and one white. The black wolf is full of hate, jealousy, revenge, greed and anger. The black wolf makes many bad choices. The white wolf is the opposite. It takes a longer view of things. He does not want to bring harm to those who harmed him, because in doing so, he will become small and petty just like them. The child is startled to think that he could become just like his enemy. He cautiously asks his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?' To which the grandfather replies, "The one that you feed.'

Dissonant thoughts are triggered by our emotions and are easily recognizable. The black wolf is our dark emotions. The white wolf is our clear reasoning. We know which wolf we are feeding. Whenever we are angry, hypocrisy, or some element of misunderstanding, is nearby. The question is only whether the trigger is fear, pride or greed. When the knife was stolen, all of those issues were present. He was afraid because they ganged up on him. His pride was wounded because they tricked him, and he was also proud of his possession. His greed wanted the knife back. 

He had worked for and saved for the knife, but he did not get his reward. However, the knife was not the issue. He had spent his whole life not owning a knife, and more days in the same state of non-possession have no impact. Rather, his expectations frame the issue. His disappointment, hurt, and desire for revenge were inversely proportional to his desire and expectations. As a baseline, everyone expects the reward of their labor and mutual respect. We do not expect hate or anger to be directed at ourselves, unless we have been conditioned by its frequent occurrence. We define our own ambition, which is our expectation. Our potential for disappointment is a reflection of our pride.

The discovery for the child was two-fold. First, not all people are perfect. Second, neither was he. We do not expect the rage that pours out of ourselves. We discover that we are like children, and do not have complete control of our emotions. 

In a classroom, we discover a quantity of objective knowledge that is exciting to learn, but it is not a great epiphany. It is the discovery of ourselves that mark our epiphanies. They usually occur after a wrenching emotional moment. The rage spurred by fear, pride and greed is eventually exhausted, and a spiritual and rational calm fills the void. For example, former neo-nazi skinheads have transformed into Buddhist monks. These transformations occur within everyone. No one starts out as a neo-nazi or a buddhist monk. We reach our current state through a process of emotional evolution. At some point we overreach, and then we begin the process of retraction.

The grandson could not change the boys who stole his knife, but he had to decide what he expected from himself. He could have easily planned a counter-attack by getting his own group of friends or adults. The decision centered on which wolf he would feed, and therefore who he would be in the world. We all bring some share of hurt into the world.

Everyone believes that their opinions are well-reasoned, that their anger is justified, and their fears are commonsense. That is why self-analysis is a critical element of enlightenment. 

There are cabals that encourage the opposite. The gang of boys that stole the knife allowed themselves to be swayed by cruelty and greed. This is not the normal state of man. Every nation trains young men to glorify their baser instincts. Soldiers return from war zones with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because they are unable to cope with the wide discrepancy between their emotions, actions and the intended goal. Love of comrades and hatred of enemies cannot coexist. The struggle to change their values causes the trauma. When the wolves do battle, the mind and emotions are tortured.

A house divided is when the means and the ends are opposites. Epiphanies are difficult. The capitalist and the socialist both have trouble accepting that they could be wrong about the economy, and that their enemy is more like themselves than different. The same is true of those would make moral judgements on others. The stone-thrower is not more righteous than the adulteress. He has simply adopted a different sin. 

For everyone, it is our own unique dissonance that is our greatest struggle. When we form or join a group, we need to be careful about the assumptions of the group. The single purpose upon which it is founded may be doing as much harm as good. Recognizing contradictions, and the role of fiscal stress, is the first step in eliminating both.

Authors Website: www.behappyandfree.com

Authors Bio:
Steve grew up in a family business, was a history major in college, and has owned a small business for 25 years. Practical experience (mistakes) have led him to recognize that political rhetoric and educated analysis often falls short of reality. TAX Your Imagination! is the name of his first book, which he hopes will be a series. Two hundred years ago, it might have been called Commonsense. Thomas Paine, Henry Thoreau and Edward Bellamy (author of Looking Backward) would have been his best friends, if given the opportunity. He is a deep thinker with a light heart and a quirky sense of humor. If you want to categorize him, he is a neo-transcendentalist. Balance and simplify!