Truth vs Falsehood (29 page)

Henry Ford dazzled the world of workers in 1914 when he paid five dollars a day, which eventually became five dollars an hour and attracted workers from all over the country. In those days, the average pay for unskilled labor was thirty-five cents an hour. On the other hand, Ford forbade humor or laughing in the work place, and bathroom visits were by permission of the foreman only and were time monitored.

Cultural Changes

Prior to World War II, the American economy was 50 percent agrarian. Half of America lived on farms where work was equally divided between men and women, and domestically, women were held in high esteem. Out of respect, men desisted from vulgarity, stood up when women entered the room, and opened doors for them. Overall, the woman, especially the mother, was honored and revered and had authority over the domestic aspects of life while the men tended to the crops, livestock, and equipment. The wife was not a job seeker in the commercial work force unless she happened to be a teacher or a nurse. It was the social responsibility of the man to support the woman. For a wife to “have to go to work” was a disgrace, and a man would “die of shame” at such public evidence of his inadequacy as a provider. People felt sorry for a wife who “had to go to work.”

Areas of interest were relatively genderized overall. Women exhibited little interest in business or politics. Men went into another room after dinner to discuss such subjects. Women did not noticeably enter the employment world until World War II, when “Rosie, the Riveter” was celebrated as saving the day.

With cultural change, women entered the workforce in greater numbers, and the prejudice they had to overcome was based primarily on habitual stereotypes, not on economic competition or prejudice as such. Frankly, nobody had ever met a lady plumber, and no women were CEOs of giant corporations because they were absent from that culture rather than being prohibited from it (i.e., a field effect).

The benefit to the overall economy and its capitalistic base escalated when women became progressively more involved. They have now evolved to become CEOs of very major U. S. corporations and to hold high offices in the government as well. In other areas, women have become legendary billionaires solely out of their own potential initiative. They also have brought a major new energy into the media, that of caring and love. The most admired personality on television today is a woman who runs the most successful television show, which has the highest calibration of any such program in the media, currently over 500. She and other prominent women CEOs now appear with regularity on the front cover of
Fortune
magazine, which had formerly been a solely male institution. In 2003, corporations led by women CEOs outperformed those led by men.

All the above is cited to demonstrate that America is not only a land of opportunity but, even more importantly, it is also a flexible, self-correcting society based on a sense of balance and fairness in which the injustices of inequities call forth corrective and sympathetic responses. There is practically no cause that lacks supporters. Thus, the social reality is inherently integrous, which is the consequence of the overall proximate field, the level of which was already set by a Constitution that calibrates over 700. Thus, a field of high integrity has an invisible influence in that it reveals itself in injustice and nonintegrity, much like a clean shirt reveals a spot.

Curiosity arises as to why America represents such an enormous confluence of so many remarkable qualities—material, psychological, and inspirational. Creative genius birthed the majority of the great industries and inventions that support the economy today. The most productive society in history emerged and spawned a free, self-correcting society on top of a governmental foundation of the highest possible calibration. All of this emerged within a land that itself is of enormous space and endless breathtaking beauty and contains freestanding and endless riches—gold, silver, copper, platinum, rare metals, timber, wildlife, and, most importantly, iron, the basic ingredient of steel.

Again, seemingly fortuitously, the engineering and structural use of steel was facilitated by another ready asset, the availability of Native American workers who had no fear of heights. Thus arose the great structures and bridges, and out of creative inspiration came the symbolic Empire State Building. This was the fruit of the coalition of creative genius, skill, and the power of an economy with the availability of working capital made up of the earnings and savings of the workforce of America, without which there could be no railroads, airlines, sidewalks, stores, automobiles, life-saving drugs, federal budget, Medicare, welfare, or telephone system—in fact, not even a public restroom.

From the foregoing overall analysis and historical review, as well as calibrations of the levels of integrity of its elements, it can be readily observed that in all critical and important areas of human life, America represents prodigious accomplishment and overall integrity worthy of respect. Whereas citizens in a free country, as part of the ongoing political process and social evolution, are free or even encouraged to criticize the country (honest dissent calibrates from 210-330), in contrast, political extremists calibrate at 160. (Note that America, typically alone, is pouring millions of dollars and medicine toward conquering AIDS in far-away Africa.) An example of negative distortion is provided by the denunciation of outsourcing as due to ‘greed’ or ‘the President’ (calibrates as ‘false’), whereas it is actually a consequence of the Internet and international economics (calibrates as ‘true’). Outsourcing is currently done by most countries, cities, states, localities, and corporations for economic survival. Even Mexico has been outsourcing to China (Brezosky, 2005; Kniazkov, 2005).

In contrast to native-born denouncers of their own native land, America embraces immigrants who are appreciative of the true land of opportunity. Impressive for its open-eyed honesty and integrity is this description of America by a fluent, talented immigrant. It appeared in brief form in an editorial (Devji, 2004) but with permission from the author, her “Ten Noble Traits of Americans” (cal. 470) is abridged here:

I am an American. I love being American! All that is beautiful, righteous, and joyous in me is enhanced and affirmed by being American. Ten traits mark who we are as a people:

1.  
GODLY
: Almost all of us acknowledge that a power beyond us guides the swirling destinies of men; the Native Americans pray to a ‘Great Spirit’ and with a reverent heart tie it to the sacred earth and skies of America.

2.  
TOLERANT
: European Christians settled this land and wrote its constitution. They then opened their arms wide and welcomed people from the rest of the world. Now mosques, synagogues, and temples pepper the landscape along with churches. Muslims can worship more freely here than in most Moslem countries. Sikhs wear their turbans and Jews their yamakas.

3.  
VISIONARY
: While we are an earthbound nation enjoying our material success, we are also an extraordinarily visionary people. We dare dream impossible dreams. We soar the skies searching the stars. We have landed on planets that lie shrouded in billions of years of silence. On earth, our vision in the healing arts will literally make the lame walk and the blind see.

4.  
PROSPEROUS
: The capacity of Americans to work hard joyously is the stuff of which the wealth of this country is made. Our work ethic is unmatched. We are the richest country in the world, but our children start baby-sitting, bagging groceries, and cutting lawns when they are still in school.

5.  
GENEROUS
: There is possibly no country on earth that has been untouched by the generosity of Americans. We respond to earthquakes, floods, and famines with compassionate hearts. We send money, medicines, clothes, and prayers to victims of every color and creed, and even to our ‘enemies’. We know that we are custodians of wealth, not its owners.

6.  
RESILIENT
: Americans have an uncanny capacity to bounce back from adversity—accidents, bankruptcies, and divorces. They rebuild their bodies, businesses, and lives. They do not sit in dark corners; they fight back.

7.  
COURAGEOUS
: A four-year-old in my neighborhood comes around the corner wearing a helmet, riding a scooter, and my aunts in India still hold on to their 14-year-olds protectively! Americans seem to be born with an extra streak of courage. It seems to be seared into our soul. We teach the world the meaning of the word with our daring spirits and our exploits.

8.  
HUMOROUS
: We love laughter and life. You can tell an American abroad because he is generally the one who has the biggest smile, sometimes the loudest voice and laughter, and is the most approachable. An American will fill a room with his infectious goodwill and just will not treat anyone as a stranger.

9.  
SELF-INTROSPECTION
: Occupying the unique position that we do in the world, we could be really arrogant and indifferent to people’s opinions. But we are childlike in our need for approval. We are a self-introspective people, we dissect our actions and thoughts, we form committees, and we discuss them in newspapers, television, and town hall meetings.

10.
SWEETNESS
: Countries, like people, become dry and arid if the quality of sweetness is absent from the souls of their citizens. Americans have been blessed with a rare quality of sweetness of the soul.

Because of its positive qualities, America attracts millions of immigrants from all over the world, as it has for centuries. Although Devji’s description of America is specific to the United States, her capacity to see the positives reflects what could also be apparent to visitors or immigrants to other countries that also represent freedom and opportunity. Her statements (cal. 470) are included to serve as a contrast to the current “hate America” views, which all calibrate below 200. While other countries, such as Canada, calibrate high, they are not under an orchestrated vilification from both within and without. Critics attack policies but not their own country, which represents the malice of personality problems and not politics. (To “bite the hand that feeds you” calibrates at 160, indicating a loss of reality testing.)

Apropos of Canada, the following are the results of a Gallup Organization Survey reported in the Business section of Toronto’s
Globe and Mail
newspaper on October 18, 2004:

The evolution of consciousness, the development of mankind, and spiritual evolution follow along roughly parallel lines as outlined by the Map of Consciousness (see Appendix B). The bottom represents self-interest. Its intention is survival, and when it lacks energy, it ends as apathy and death. Once this energy is sufficient, life survives. It moves up to mastery, assertiveness, doingness, the capacity to perform, competition, acquisition or accumulation, and pride. Only then does the person become more interested in the rights and welfare of others. The emergence of the intellect then subserves survival and social expansion. The predominant life energy eventually moves to the heart, and the capacity for love, from an evolutionary viewpoint, could be viewed as a luxury not available when life is still clinging by its fingernails to a precipice.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, love first appears as the maternal instinct, and the male does not participate in that energy field until relatively quite late in evolution. In fact, romantic love is a very recent phenomenon of human culture. From the heart, through evolution, the spiritual energy results in creativity, spiritual discernment, and finally, advanced spiritual awareness.

Throughout America’s development and history, one sees a society that has been bulwarked and reinforced by the ethics of an intrinsic religiosity. The great majority of citizens (approximately 92 percent) believes in God and thus holds itself to be ultimately answerable to a higher authority. It was this intrinsic core of integrity that called forth the necessity of transcending slavery and then eventually racism itself. Intimidation by the Ku Klux Klan in the South came to an end. The historic Civil War ended slavery at the cost of thousands of lives of volunteer soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Men die for their beliefs, and that is why calibrating the levels of belief systems is so important. The Civil War pitted human rights against states’ rights and the vested interests of the plantation owners. In the end, as would be expected from a country such as America, justice and equality prevailed, emerging victoriously over the principles of self-interest. Although there is a conflict of force within a linearly defined area for a time, eventually the power of the contextual field corrects the imbalance and guarantees the final result.

From a spiritual or humanistic/moral viewpoint, the 1800s were America’s darkest period. Sweatshops and the abuse of workers were prevalent, and an orchestrated genocide of the Native American Plains Indians was horrific and savage, as was the purposeful killing of fifty million buffalo. The nobility of the great Plains Indian leaders, such as Black Kettle, White Antelope, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse was unrecognized, as they were perceived as “heathen,” despite the fact that White Antelope had been awarded the Peace Medal by President Lincoln. Racial prejudice was rampant, and the end of the Civil War triggered the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.