Socio-Spirituality & Small Scale Sovereignty

A politics of Oneness & decentralized self-governance

This is Third Paradigm, a thinktank on socio-spirituality & small scale sovereignty. Today I’m going to explain what those words mean by defining my purpose, core beliefs and underlying principles. I’ll be distinguishing what they’re not in comparison to other forms of spirituality, politics or religion. The concept of the theodicy triangle will be elucidated. And I’ll be giving some examples of applying these beliefs and principles to current events, and how it makes system change something to take seriously, not write off as utopian. Let’s dive in!

What’s my purpose in these episodes?

Lately I’ve been presenting on a lot of current events and journalism. But my intent is to use them both as street cred—that I know how to think and research—and as object lessons to teach a completely different way of seeing. I call this vantage point the Third Paradigm because we’re being divided by false dichotomies / dualities. I’m looking at social and spiritual issues from a completely different angle that isn’t a compromise but is a new question.

• Socio-spirituality is seeing with open eyes the reality in the world and questioning with an open mind the reality of the world.

Socio-spirituality is a word a viewer gave me and I love it! It captures exactly what I’d hoped to convey and how I wanted to differentiate from other forms of spirituality. Spirituality can be about feeling better, and being calmer in the face of chaos—excellent and necessary goals. What I’m looking at, though, is giving you the power to change the world.

In order to change the world, you first need to see what’s happening in the world clearly, without guilt, fear or blame—which I call the unholy trinity. And then you need an open mind to systematically and logically question the reality of the world. This isn’t a combination I’ve found pursued with serious intent anywhere.

What are my core beliefs?

In an episode called The Only Deadly Sin, I list my one dogma and the four beliefs and one suspicion that follow from it.

My only dogma is that I’m no better than anyone else. The four beliefs that follow are:

1. people are intrinsically good

2. when people behave badly, systems are to blame

3. systems can be changed

4. communities are equally capable of self-governance

Every orthodox religion is a hierarchy but the mystical traditions of each of them comes to the same conclusion—that we’re One. If I can resist my desire to see myself as better than others, the empire within, it allows me to entertain the possibility that we are One Mind, dreaming up the world, rather than separate “flesh-encapsulated minds” existing in the world. That phrase is from A Course in Miracles that teaches this way of unlearning and unseeing. This suspicion allows a lot of things to be possible that otherwise wouldn’t be.

In my episode on The Theodicy Triangle, I talk about the ancient theological dilemma expressed in three statements that can’t all be true: God is all good, God is all powerful, and evil exists. I substitute pain and suffering for evil with the same results: a God who would intentionally inflict suffering would be a monster. If this God did exist, change would be impossible.

In Theodicy, Hegemony and Michael Hudson on Ukraine, I position the theist thesis and the atheist antithesis as God is a monster vs. there is no God. The atheist position is more hopeful, but not by much. In order to accomplish global change, you’d have to individually change the minds of every person on earth.

The third paradigm is that there is no world, which is the only way that a God worth his salt could possibly exist—outside the illusion, which we’ve made up. If God were to enter the illusion, against our will, it would make the dream real. It’s not that I believe there’s no world, because belief is making up your mind in advance of the facts. But I also don’t take the existence of the world as dogma. I leave open the possibility and see what my experience lets enter.

What is small-scale sovereignty?

Each community is the owner of the assets within its borders, the issuer of the money backed by those assets, the sole authority to tax that money, and the arbiter of its laws, trade and commerce.

The principles of socio-spirituality applied to small scale sovereignty might be:

1. No one can lose for anyone to gain—the goal is proliferation, not redistribution.

2. Ethics is consistency; justice is blind. An ethical statement can switch out the proper nouns or reverse it and it will still be true.

3. Don’t do to anyone what you wouldn’t want done to you.

4. You have the right to do no wrong and not participate in what you find unethical.

5. What protects minorities and ethics is the right of secession—any time that union is forced, someone is being raped.

What are our human rights? Everyone is born belonging to a people and a place. Everyone has somewhere they’re entitled to be in the world, a community that counts them as one of its own. Everyone belongs.

What’s the role of the community government? There are two types of power—power over others and power over yourself. They correspond to money, which gives power over others, and wealth, which gives power over yourself. Every parent knows that it’s your responsibility to use your power over your children to give them eventual power over themselves. It’s the only legitimate use of power over.

The objective of the government is to use its money to create wealth, to use its power over the community to strengthen the self-reliance of the household, the family and the neighborhood. This can be measured by the increase in home ownership, small local landlords and small local businesses.

We need community capitalism. Capitalism is a system that favors the accumulation of wealth, which is the security and self-reliance a community or family needs. The capital (the assets) belong to the community by default when they trade between private owners. Only the community can issue the credit (the money) that facilitates this intergenerational transfer of wealth. Instead of a debt to the banks, it creates a debt to society—making sure the previous generation can live out their lives in dignity and passing on the gift to the next generation in better form.

What is the role of federal government? Lower-case federal in its original meaning was a negotiating body between sovereign entities, subservient to its parts. Its role is to build the strength and self-reliance of the states that serve the commonwealths that serve the communities that serve the families. It provides the tools that network them together and enhances the individual character that distinguishes each.

Applying these principles to current events

I’ve done many of my episodes on Russell Brand’s interviews because he, more than anyone else I’ve found, is pursuing my two areas of inquiry: a spirituality of Oneness and a politics of local self-governance. However, he keeps asking the same question, whether it’s to Candace Owens, Jimmy Dore or Richard Hanania on the Military-Industrial-Complex. The question is, how can we bring spirituality into politics?

When Russell asks this, I’m not sure he’s being consistent with a spirituality of Oneness. What he means, I feel, is “how can I impose my moral superiority on everyone else?” He wants a politics of forced charity, generosity, magnamity. A welfare system that, as Candace says, denies the human spirit. It also assumes that others aren’t as good as he is, and wouldn’t give if they had the means.

The system should be one of fairness and reciprocity, not charity. To institutionalize giving is to take the relationship of generosity and gratitude away from both. But Russell also says that he wants a system that encourages our best self, and I have a lot of ideas on how to do that—we should all be giving the best of ourselves to everyone. That’s the goal of socio-spirituality in a nutshell.