Текст книги "The British Study Edition of the Urantia Papers"

Автор книги: Tigran Aivazian

^70:2.1 In past ages a fierce war would institute social changes and facilitate the adoption of new ideas such as would not have occurred naturally in 10,000 years. The terrible price paid for these certain war advantages was that society was temporarily thrown back into savagery; civilized reason had to abdicate. War is strong medicine, very costly and most dangerous; while often curative of certain social disorders, it sometimes kills the patient, destroys the society.

^70:2.2 The constant necessity for national defence creates many new and advanced social adjustments. Society, today, enjoys the benefit of a long list of useful innovations which were at first wholly military and is even indebted to war for the dance, one of the early forms of which was a military drill.

^70:2.3 ¶ War has had a social value to past civilizations because it:

^70:2.4 1. Imposed discipline, enforced co-operation.

^70:2.5 2. Put a premium on fortitude and courage.

^70:2.6 3. Fostered and solidified nationalism.

^70:2.7 4. Destroyed weak and unfit peoples.

^70:2.8 5. Dissolved the illusion of primitive equality and selectively stratified society.

^70:2.9 ¶ War has had a certain evolutionary and selective value, but like slavery, it must sometime be abandoned as civilization slowly advances. Olden wars promoted travel and cultural intercourse; these ends are now better served by modern methods of transport and communication. Olden wars strengthened nations, but modern struggles disrupt civilized culture. Ancient warfare resulted in the decimation of inferior peoples; the net result of modern conflict is the selective destruction of the best human stocks. Early wars promoted organization and efficiency, but these have now become the aims of modern industry. During past ages war was a social ferment which pushed civilization forward; this result is now better attained by ambition and invention. Ancient warfare supported the concept of a God of battles, but modern man has been told that God is love. War has served many valuable purposes in the past, it has been an indispensable scaffolding in the building of civilization, but it is rapidly becoming culturally bankrupt – incapable of producing dividends of social gain in any way commensurate with the terrible losses attendant upon its invocation.

^70:2.10 At one time physicians believed in bloodletting as a cure for many diseases, but they have since discovered better remedies for most of these disorders. And so must the international bloodletting of war certainly give place to the discovery of better methods for curing the ills of nations.

^70:2.11 The nations of Urantia have already entered upon the gigantic struggle between nationalistic militarism and industrialism, and in many ways this conflict is analogous to the agelong struggle between the herder-hunter and the farmer. But if industrialism is to triumph over militarism, it must avoid the dangers which beset it. The perils of budding industry on Urantia are:

^70:2.12 1. The strong drift toward materialism, spiritual blindness.

^70:2.13 2. The worship of wealth-power, value distortion.

^70:2.14 3. The vices of luxury, cultural immaturity.

^70:2.15 4. The increasing dangers of indolence, service insensitivity.

^70:2.16 5. The growth of undesirable racial softness, biologic deterioration.

^70:2.17 6. The threat of standardized industrial slavery, personality stagnation. Labour is ennobling but drudgery is benumbing.

^70:2.18 ¶ Militarism is autocratic and cruel – savage. It promotes social organization among the conquerors but disintegrates the vanquished. Industrialism is more civilized and should be so carried on as to promote initiative and to encourage individualism. Society should in every way possible foster originality.

^70:2.19 Do not make the mistake of glorifying war; rather discern what it has done for society so that you may the more accurately visualize what its substitutes must provide in order to continue the advancement of civilization. And if such adequate substitutes are not provided, then you may be sure that war will long continue.

^70:2.20 Man will never accept peace as a normal mode of living until he has been thoroughly and repeatedly convinced that peace is best for his material welfare, and until society has wisely provided peaceful substitutes for the gratification of that inherent tendency periodically to let loose a collective drive designed to liberate those ever-accumulating emotions and energies belonging to the self-preservation reactions of the human species.

^70:2.21 But even in passing, war should be honoured as the school of experience which compelled a race of arrogant individualists to submit themselves to highly concentrated authority – a chief executive. Old-fashioned war did select the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does this. To discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests of peace: industry, science, and social achievement.

^70:3.1 In the most primitive society the horde is everything; even children are its common property. The evolving family displaced the horde in child rearing, while the emerging clans and tribes took its place as the social unit.

^70:3.2 Sex hunger and mother love establish the family. But real government does not appear until superfamily groups have begun to form. In the prefamily days of the horde, leadership was provided by informally chosen individuals. The African Bushmen have never progressed beyond this primitive stage; they do not have chiefs in the horde.

^70:3.3 ¶ Families became united by blood ties in clans, aggregations of kinsmen; and these subsequently evolved into tribes, territorial communities. Warfare and external pressure forced the tribal organization upon the kinship clans, but it was commerce and trade that held these early and primitive groups together with some degree of internal peace.

^70:3.4 The peace of Urantia will be promoted far more by international trade organizations than by all the sentimental sophistry of visionary peace planning. Trade relations have been facilitated by development of language and by improved methods of communication as well as by better transportation.

^70:3.5 The absence of a common language has always impeded the growth of peace groups, but money has become the universal language of modern trade. Modern society is largely held together by the industrial market. The gain motive is a mighty civilizer when augmented by the desire to serve.

^70:3.6 ¶ In the early ages each tribe was surrounded by concentric circles of increasing fear and suspicion; hence it was once the custom to kill all strangers, later on, to enslave them. The old idea of friendship meant adoption into the clan; and clan membership was believed to survive death – one of the earliest concepts of eternal life.

^70:3.7 The ceremony of adoption consisted in drinking each other’s blood. In some groups saliva was exchanged in the place of blood drinking, this being the ancient origin of the practice of social kissing. And all ceremonies of association, whether marriage or adoption, were always terminated by feasting.

^70:3.8 In later times, blood diluted with red wine was used, and eventually wine alone was drunk to seal the adoption ceremony, which was signified in the touching of the wine cups and consummated by the swallowing of the beverage. The Hebrews employed a modified form of this adoption ceremony. Their Arab ancestors made use of the oath taken while the hand of the candidate rested upon the generative organ of the tribal native. The Hebrews treated adopted aliens kindly and fraternally. “The stranger that dwells with you shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself.”

^70:3.9 “Guest friendship” was a relation of temporary hospitality. When visiting guests departed, a dish would be broken in half, one piece being given the departing friend so that it would serve as a suitable introduction for a third party who might arrive on a later visit. It was customary for guests to pay their way by telling tales of their travels and adventures. The storytellers of olden times became so popular that the mores eventually forbade their functioning during either the hunting or harvest seasons.

^70:3.10 The first treaties of peace were the “blood bonds.” The peace ambassadors of two warring tribes would meet, pay their respects, and then proceed to prick the skin until it bled; whereupon they would suck each other’s blood and declare peace.

^70:3.11 The earliest peace missions consisted of delegations of men bringing their choice maidens for the sex gratification of their onetime enemies, the sex appetite being utilized in combating the war urge. The tribe so honoured would pay a return visit, with its offering of maidens; whereupon peace would be firmly established. And soon intermarriages between the families of the chiefs were sanctioned.

^70:4.1 The first peace group was the family, then the clan, the tribe, and later on the nation, which eventually became the modern territorial state. The fact that the present-day peace groups have long since expanded beyond blood ties to embrace nations is most encouraging, despite the fact that Urantia nations are still spending vast sums on war preparations.

^70:4.2 The clans were blood-tie groups within the tribe, and they owed their existence to certain common interests, such as:

^70:4.3 1. Tracing origin back to a common ancestor.

^70:4.4 2. Allegiance to a common religious totem.

^70:4.5 3. Speaking the same dialect.

^70:4.6 4. Sharing a common dwelling place.

^70:4.7 5. Fearing the same enemies.

^70:4.8 6. Having had a common military experience.

^70:4.9 ¶ The clan headmen were always subordinate to the tribal chief, the early tribal governments being a loose confederation of clans. The native Australians never developed a tribal form of government.

^70:4.10 The clan peace chiefs usually ruled through the mother line; the tribal war chiefs established the father line. The courts of the tribal chiefs and early kings consisted of the headmen of the clans, whom it was customary to invite into the king’s presence several times a year. This enabled him to watch them and the better secure their co-operation. The clans served a valuable purpose in local self-government, but they greatly delayed the growth of large and strong nations.

^70:5.1 Every human institution had a beginning, and civil government is a product of progressive evolution just as much as are marriage, industry, and religion. From the early clans and primitive tribes there gradually developed the successive orders of human government which have come and gone right on down to those forms of social and civil regulation that characterize the second third of the XX century.

^70:5.2 With the gradual emergence of the family units the foundations of government were established in the clan organization, the grouping of consanguineous families. The first real governmental body was the council of the elders. This regulative group was composed of old men who had distinguished themselves in some efficient manner. Wisdom and experience were early appreciated even by barbaric man, and there ensued a long age of the domination of the elders. This reign of the oligarchy of age gradually grew into the patriarchal idea.

^70:5.3 In the early council of the elders there resided the potential of all governmental functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. When the council interpreted the current mores, it was a court; when establishing new modes of social usage, it was a legislature; to the extent that such decrees and enactments were enforced, it was the executive. The chairman of the council was one of the forerunners of the later tribal chief.

^70:5.4 Some tribes had female councils, and from time to time many tribes had women rulers. Certain tribes of the red man preserved the teaching of Onamonalonton in following the unanimous rule of the “council of seven.”

^70:5.5 ¶ It has been hard for mankind to learn that neither peace nor war can be run by a debating society. The primitive “palavers” were seldom useful. The race early learned that an army commanded by a group of clan heads had no chance against a strong one-man army. War has always been a kingmaker.

^70:5.6 ¶ At first the war chiefs were chosen only for military service, and they would relinquish some of their authority during peacetimes, when their duties were of a more social nature. But gradually they began to encroach upon the peace intervals, tending to continue to rule from one war on through to the next. They often saw to it that one war was not too long in following another. These early war lords were not fond of peace.

^70:5.7 In later times some chiefs were chosen for other than military service, being selected because of unusual physique or outstanding personal abilities. The red men often had two sets of chiefs – the sachems, or peace chiefs, and the hereditary war chiefs. The peace rulers were also judges and teachers.

^70:5.8 Some early communities were ruled by medicine men, who often acted as chiefs. One man would act as priest, physician, and chief executive. Quite often the early royal insignias had originally been the symbols or emblems of priestly dress.

^70:5.9 And it was by these steps that the executive branch of government gradually came into existence. The clan and tribal councils continued in an advisory capacity and as forerunners of the later appearing legislative and judicial branches. In Africa, today, all these forms of primitive government are in actual existence among the various tribes.

^70:6.1 Effective state rule only came with the arrival of a chief with full executive authority. Man found that effective government could be had only by conferring power on a personality, not by endowing an idea.

^70:6.2 Rulership grew out of the idea of family authority or wealth. When a patriarchal kinglet became a real king, he was sometimes called “father of his people.” Later on, kings were thought to have sprung from heroes. And still further on, rulership became hereditary, due to belief in the divine origin of kings.

^70:6.3 Hereditary kingship avoided the anarchy which had previously wrought such havoc between the death of a king and the election of a successor. The family had a biologic head; the clan, a selected natural leader; the tribe and later state had no natural leader, and this was an additional reason for making the chief-kings hereditary. The idea of royal families and aristocracy was also based on the mores of “name ownership” in the clans.

^70:6.4 The succession of kings was eventually regarded as supernatural, the royal blood being thought to extend back to the times of the materialized staff of Prince Caligastia. Thus kings became fetish personalities and were inordinately feared, a special form of speech being adopted for court usage. Even in recent times it was believed that the touch of kings would cure disease, and some Urantia peoples still regard their rulers as having had a divine origin.

^70:6.5 The early fetish king was often kept in seclusion; he was regarded as too sacred to be viewed except on feast days and holy days. Ordinarily a representative was chosen to impersonate him, and this is the origin of prime ministers. The first cabinet officer was a food administrator; others shortly followed. Rulers soon appointed representatives to be in charge of commerce and religion; and the development of a cabinet was a direct step toward depersonalization of executive authority. These assistants of the early kings became the accepted nobility, and the king’s wife gradually rose to the dignity of queen as women came to be held in higher esteem.

^70:6.6 ¶ Unscrupulous rulers gained great power by the discovery of poison. Early court magic was diabolical; the king’s enemies soon died. But even the most despotic tyrant was subject to some restrictions; he was at least restrained by the ever-present fear of assassination. The medicine men, witch doctors, and priests have always been a powerful check on the kings. Subsequently, the landowners, the aristocracy, exerted a restraining influence. And ever and anon the clans and tribes would simply rise up and overthrow their despots and tyrants. Deposed rulers, when sentenced to death, were often given the option of committing suicide, which gave origin to the ancient social vogue of suicide in certain circumstances.

^70:7.1 Blood kinship determined the first social groups; association enlarged the kinship clan. Intermarriage was the next step in group enlargement, and the resultant complex tribe was the first true political body. The next advance in social development was the evolution of religious cults and the political clubs. These first appeared as secret societies and originally were wholly religious; subsequently they became regulative. At first they were men’s clubs; later women’s groups appeared. Presently they became divided into two classes: sociopolitical and religio-mystical.

^70:7.2 ¶ There were many reasons for the secrecy of these societies, such as:

^70:7.3 1. Fear of incurring the displeasure of the rulers because of the violation of some taboo.

^70:7.4 2. In order to practice minority religious rites.

^70:7.5 3. For the purpose of preserving valuable “spirit” or trade secrets.

^70:7.6 4. For the enjoyment of some special charm or magic.

^70:7.7 ¶ The very secrecy of these societies conferred on all members the power of mystery over the rest of the tribe. Secrecy also appeals to vanity; the initiates were the social aristocracy of their day. After initiation the boys hunted with the men; whereas before they had gathered vegetables with the women. And it was the supreme humiliation, a tribal disgrace, to fail to pass the puberty tests and thus be compelled to remain outside the men’s abode with the women and children, to be considered effeminate. Besides, noninitiates were not allowed to marry.

^70:7.8 ¶ Primitive people very early taught their adolescent youths sex control. It became the custom to take boys away from parents from puberty to marriage, their education and training being intrusted to the men’s secret societies. And one of the chief functions of these clubs was to keep control of adolescent young men, thus preventing illegitimate children.

^70:7.9 Commercialized prostitution began when these men’s clubs paid money for the use of women from other tribes. But the earlier groups were remarkably free from sex laxity.

^70:7.10 The puberty initiation ceremony usually extended over a period of five years. Much self-torture and painful cutting entered into these ceremonies. Circumcision was first practised as a rite of initiation into one of these secret fraternities. The tribal marks were cut on the body as a part of the puberty initiation; the tattoo originated as such a badge of membership. Such torture, together with much privation, was designed to harden these youths, to impress them with the reality of life and its inevitable hardships. This purpose is better accomplished by the later appearing athletic games and physical contests.

^70:7.11 But the secret societies did aim at the improvement of adolescent morals; one of the chief purposes of the puberty ceremonies was to impress upon the boy that he must leave other men’s wives alone.

^70:7.12 Following these years of rigorous discipline and training and just before marriage, the young men were usually released for a short period of leisure and freedom, after which they returned to marry and to submit to lifelong subjection to the tribal taboos. And this ancient custom has continued down to modern times as the foolish notion of “sowing wild oats.”

^70:7.13 ¶ Many later tribes sanctioned the formation of women’s secret clubs, the purpose of which was to prepare adolescent girls for wifehood and motherhood. After initiation girls were eligible for marriage and were permitted to attend the “bride show,” the coming-out party of those days. Women’s orders pledged against marriage early came into existence.

^70:7.14 Presently nonsecret clubs made their appearance when groups of unmarried men and groups of unattached women formed their separate organizations. These associations were really the first schools. And while men’s and women’s clubs were often given to persecuting each other, some advanced tribes, after contact with the Dalamatia teachers, experimented with coeducation, having boarding schools for both sexes.

^70:7.15 ¶ Secret societies contributed to the building up of social castes chiefly by the mysterious character of their initiations. The members of these societies first wore masks to frighten the curious away from their mourning rites – ancestor worship. Later this ritual developed into a pseudo seance at which ghosts were reputed to have appeared. The ancient societies of the “new birth” used signs and employed a special secret language; they also forswore certain foods and drinks. They acted as night police and otherwise functioned in a wide range of social activities.

^70:7.16 All secret associations imposed an oath, enjoined confidence, and taught the keeping of secrets. These orders awed and controlled the mobs; they also acted as vigilance societies, thus practising lynch law. They were the first spies when the tribes were at war and the first secret police during times of peace. Best of all they kept unscrupulous kings on the anxious seat. To offset them, the kings fostered their own secret police.

^70:7.17 These societies gave rise to the first political parties. The first party government was “the strong” vs. “the weak.” In ancient times a change of administration only followed civil war, abundant proof that the weak had become strong.

^70:7.18 These clubs were employed by merchants to collect debts and by rulers to collect taxes. Taxation has been a long struggle, one of the earliest forms being the tithe, 10% of the hunt or spoils. Taxes were originally levied to keep up the king’s house, but it was found that they were easier to collect when disguised as an offering for the support of the temple service.

^70:7.19 By and by these secret associations grew into the first charitable organizations and later evolved into the earlier religious societies – the forerunners of churches. Finally some of these societies became intertribal, the first international fraternities.