I have often pondered the question as to whether or not time equals progress as it relates to human civilization and the quality of existence for those participating in civilization. For example, would a sample of the American population experience a higher quality of existence (mental, physical, spiritual) in Ancient Greece relative to their current experience here and now in the United States? One could write a thousand page thesis on this topic, but this is just a muse and I offer my opinion (must have a sense of humor)through a few broad categories and images.
Our God or Gods
Our cities
How we confront our enemies
Our Heros
Our culture
Our Philosophers 
Contemplating The Human Direction 
Great and very telling contrasts. Under the “Our Culture” heading you might have included an image of Socrates contrasted with one of, say, Eminem–though I doubt there are many people of the present who could discern just how profound and radical such a contrast really is; for that would entail understanding the different contents of such beings.
Ok brotha…I added you wish under “philosphers”….willinging to add others as people offer suggestions….after all….it is a comic
🙂 Can you imagine how that “discourse” would unfold?
Slim Shady (Or Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, et cetera): Yo, I’m the flyest mo fo to ever yo yo round dis ole planet Pappy G.
Socrates: Is that so? Well, the Oracle said I was the wisest man alive, and this puzzled me for some time until I figured out that this was because unlike others I realize I know nothing.
Slim Shady: Saaaay whaaaaaaaaaaaat? Yo, I KNOW I am the baddest mo fo alive.
Socrates: Really? Let us, then, use that as our point of departure. To begin with, what does it mean to be the baddest mo fo alive? Let us ask ourselves what the definition of this is, what its essence and nature consists of, so we that we can establish whether your statement is true or false. Shall we begin?
Here, however, I expect this “discourse” would end–for this is not the kind of “rap battle” that Eminem, et al is used to our equipped by any means to engage in.
LMAO…I hope to do a dialectic between Socrates and perhaps some famous American economist. Should be fun. Can you think of a good opponent?
i saw your nuclear bomb picture. world war three. people don’t think it can happen. europeans since they’ve got here have altered genetics, have gone to the moon, and created the nuclear bomb capable of destroying the Earth. holding the rest of the world hostage with a nuclear bomb. who’s going to be the man who blew up the world?
Thank you for stopping in. I just skimmed through your blog and really enjoyed this passage…
“The hard times are coming,” Smallboy warned me during an interview conducted in August 1982. “These have been foretold by our Elders. Our Elders have foretold that the white man will experience poverty and confusion. It will soon be his turn to experience hardship.” Indians like himself who had learned to survive under harsh conditions would be at an advantage, because “the indian’s main concern is survival, and as long as he has enough to survive, he is satisfied…By contrast:
[t]he white man does not teach his children how to survive under trying conditions. His way of life has become to easy. How then can he survive? He does not teach his children survival under difficult conditions. He doesn’t know about suffering. He doesn’t know how to survive with nature. It is said that food and all thise things which make life easy will eventually no longer exist as they are today. When the explosion occurs, how will any of these networks survive? When the cities explode, where will people get food to eat?” (196-197)
I look forward to reading more. I have recently thought about finding some books that describe your culture when it was at its peak…before us white euros came to America. Do you have any recommendations? Otherwise…all I have to go off of is Dances with Wolves:)
We are the only people/country to have actually used the Nuclear bomb. I hear it saved lives…but dropping this beast on a city full of women and children is not something I can support. My point in showing those series of photos is that if one has to go to war…I prefer that it be hand to hand…no guns, no bombs…hand to hand with manual weapons. Man against man…when something is killed…it is merely another man…not every single living thing in the blast zone.
Books: Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt, 1932. updated versions available. The way it was before contact when the native people were more powerful than today.
Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters 1963. Updated versions available. It’s about prophecy and the picture above we spoke about.
Chief Smallboy: The Pusuit of Freedom by Gary Botting. 2005.
Native people had 50,000 years to practive spirituality. We’ve mastered it. White people mastered the fire, they have a spark in everything from vehicles to cell phones, that little fire inside. But there is no spirit. The spirit world is more real than you think. The Creator has been watching for a long time. There is competition in genetics, we compete with the Creator. There will be a price to pay for that. Our fate will be the same as the trees. Soon there will be new animals that will be created and the old ones will re-appear. Those animals were made extinct for a reason but we will bring them back, again competing with the Creator.
The Hopi Indians in Arizona have this prophecy about the cities. In the morning the prairies of stone will be there. In the evening they will be gone and nothing will remain but steam. Tactical deployment of nuclear weapons and it will be over in moments.
Thanks for book recommendations. I’ll try to get my hands on them. I am not sure nuclear bombs will be our destruction…it is a concern…but our massive population and many other issues put us at risk…all of us.
In actuality spirituality is an individual phenomenon–it does not belong to races, nor is it defined or owned by the pigment of the flesh. Every race deludes itself with the notion that it is defined and made exceptional by its individual “prophets”. They all want to believe that they are raised above the others by the individuals that raised themselves above their own people. Bullshit. There is no such thing as a “spiritual race”. There are only spiritual beings–race, skin color, heritage, is irrelevant. I can name such beings from every race on Earth, beings who just happened to be “white”, “black”, “red”, “yellow”: “Native American”, “European”, “African”, “Asian”. All of that is irrelevant. What matters is the spirit within these beings. What doesn’t matter is when others come along and imagine they are “superior” because they share an irrelevant trait with one of these beings. “Oh, my skin is white like Beethoven’s–therefore I am superior to those whose skin is not white”. More racist bullshit, and nothing more. Wake up, and see the Light.