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FINS -Federal Information News Syndicate -GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE LIBRARY

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A radical introduction
Democracy or plutocracy?
The library


A radical introduction to the library

Vincent van Gogh's painting of The Starry-Night, below displayed, engages the power of the universe and brings to mind the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, which some say may have had an influence on the composition of the work.

'Look, I have had another dream' he said, 'I thought I saw the sun, the moon and eleven stars, bowing to me.' Genesis 37:10

Van Gogh, is now treasured as, "the world's greatest artist," concludes Patrice Marandel, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, although only one of his paintings (The Red Vineyard) was sold for 400 francs (currently, U.S. $68), just before he shot himself and died in 1890. "The radical individual" like van Gogh, "may be the very instrument of creative evolution itself." Other radical individuals included (among many others): Socrates, who was sentenced to death for his principled philosophy; Galileo, who was threatened with death by a Trial of Inquisition, unless he renounced his scientific views of the Universe; Captain John Brown, who's attempted insurrection against slavery at Harper's Ferry, in 1859, and death by hanging, was described by the naturalist poet Henry David Thoreau in A Plea for Captain John Brown, as a "sublime spectacle" "teaching us how to live"; Rosa Parks, the women who defied racial segregation on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, galvanized America's civil rights "revolution" a century after John Brown was hanged for demanding an end to slavery; Aung San Suu Kyi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1991, a champion of human rights and democracy, marked by her fearless opposition to the military dictatorship in Myanmar (Burma); and Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Mayan Indian of Guatemala awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1992, in recognition of her work for social justice and ethnocultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples. All these men and women were (and remain) the instruments of creative evolution.

These are among the great heros of human civilizations without whom genuine progress is not possible. In browsing the pages of this digital library one may become "the radical individual." Simply open your mind to the possibilities of self-guided cultural evolution toward a better fulture confronting the terrible challenge now looming between democracy and plutocracy.

Democracy or plutocracy?

Loss of harmony at an evolutionary stage leads to the loss of all those evolutionary qualities. It leads to the breakdown and eventual disintegration of the evolutionary system. The tragic event of September 11 [2001] is horrible evidence of the total breakdown of harmony in the global system of humanity.

--Bela H. Banathy, HARMONY, International Society for the Systems Science (2001).

Individuality is the capacity for union. The measure of individuality is the depth and breath of true relation. I am an individual not as far as I am apart from, but as far as I am a part of other men. Evil is non-relation. The source of our strength is the central supply. You may as well break a branch off the tree and expect it to live. Non-relation is death.

Mary Parker Follett, The New State 62-62 (1918) (The Pennsylvania State University Press ed. 1998)

We live in an age of contempt for democracy and democratic institutions. "The people" and their elected representatives are not to be trusted. They are too stupid or too irrational to govern. They have passions but no reason.

--Larry D. Kramer, "The Supreme Court in Politics," in Jack N. Rakove, editor, The Unfinished Election of 2000 105, 151-152 (2001).

Market theology and unelected leadership have been displacing politics and elections. Either democracy must be renewed, with politics brought back to life, or wealth is likely to cement a new and less democratic regime--plutocracy by some other name.

--Kevin Philips, Wealth and Democracy 422 (2002)

The greatest challenge is not just in the institutions themselves but in mind-sets. Caring about the environment, making sure the poor have a say in decisions that affect them, promoting democracy and fair trade are necessary if the potential benefits of globalization are to be achieved.

--Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents 216 (2002)

The continual shifting of the sands in our desert--separation from places, persons, beliefs--produce the psychic state of nature where reserve and timidity are the prevailing dispositions. We are social solitaries.

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

117-118 (1987)

The old adage that America is a free country has, at last, come true, for Americans have come to accept the relevance of individual freedom, not only in their economic and political life, but in their moral life as well.

--Alan Wolfe, Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice 195 (2001)

The library

Archive of the Federal Information News Syndicate (FINS). Carefully selected documents organized in a purposive subject tree, communicating the emerging philosophy of the Global Information Age.

Communicative action

Creating Cyberspace Capital, and facilitating affordable and meaningful dialogue by and between the multitudes to guide cultural evolution of the 21st-century toward the end of savage capitalism and triumph of democracy.

Structures of democracy

Uncovering the wisdom of the people through knowledge organization and a "technique of democracy," anticipated by the sage philosopher of democracy, Mary Parker Follett.

Patterns of civic society

Publications and networks synthesizing global information and telecommunications systems with social and ecological purposes, which should govern the Global Information Age.

Structures of relevant information

US Congressional bills and Public laws, Public policy papers, and global links pertaining to global information and telecommunications systems.


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