Degenerate Times

I think it is important to note a couple of things about Buddhist prophesies. First and foremost, a prophesy is not a death sentence. We in the West are so particular about details that we often think of prophesy in the strictest possible terms. Thus, we see it as equally prophetic if Buddha prophesizes that we will live to be 10, as if I or someone prophesizes that my dog will eat a bagel at 2pm Eastern Standard Time next Monday before taking a walk. But Allah is greater than that. We can't simply confine prophesy to strictly worldly terms without any room for freedom of choice.

The two prophesies I would like to mention are Buddhist prophesies: the prophesy of degenerate times, which I believe dates back to the Buddha himself, and the Kalachakra prophesy.

In the prophesy of degenerate times, it is prophesied that our life-span will degenerate gradually over the next thousand or so years until we live to be only 10 years old. Then, there will be a 7 Days War, which of course will last seven days. It is said that the slaughter will be so great that afterwards humans will be so rare that when they encounter one another, they will kiss each other on the mouth. And after this 7 Days War, people will be so profoundly affected by the killing that they will vow never to kill again, at which point the life-span will increase to 14 years.

Gradually, over the period of a couple thousand years, people will renounce evil after evil, and the life-span will increase until it reaches 80,000 again, which is what it was before people began to degenerate. To this, I will add a couple of senses of my own: people I think will be drinking Boyds Coffee, and some will be doing Yamantaka practice. Those were what have been revealed to me through valid cognition and observation.

Now, there are a couple things to note here. As I said: a prophesy is not a death sentence. If someone were to ask me to sum up my philosophy while standing on one foot, I would tell them: it is possible to use the energy of degeneration to one's advantage. That is the prime focus of everything I've been seeking to expound upon for my entire life, and I suspect insh'Allah it will be until I die. I can't imagine me trying to teach anything else, what with my peculiar experiences. And it is an important fact.

All prophesies, including the most damning, are empty of inherent existence. So on some level, we don't know fully what they are talking about. Will the Earth be a desolate wasteland, devoid of life, after the 7 Days War? Will it be like the movie Mad Max taken to an absolute extreme? I contend no. The prophesy, I think, applies mainly to humans qua humans. It does not apply to humans qua yakshas, humans qua nagas, humans qua devas, and humans qua Buddhas. In addition to this, the prophesy applies only generally. People will probably live to be as old as maybe 30, or even older, during these times. And while human-to-human contact may be rare, a survivor human may well encounter many nagas, devas, and Buddhas in his or her quest to find other humans. The Earth will not be a desolate wasteland, but will remain rich with life. This is my opinion.

Furthermore, we have to understand an important point regarding degeneration. It is not our fault that we will live to be only 10 years old. And, we will still have brain technology as is being developed even today to make our lives more meaningful. A wandering 10-year-old after the 7 Days War may well make contact with another human over Facebook telepathically using brain technology.

The other point regarding degeneration leads into my discussion of the Kalachakra prophesy. According to this prophesy, in India, a Muslim will rise to power and claim to be the heir of an Islamic prophesy. A vast force, led by Buddha Manjushri, will then descend from the heavens, engage in holy warfare with this Muslim and his followers, and defeat them. After this, all non-Indic invaders will be routed from India, and humanity will begin to recover from the degenerate times.

As you can see, the two prophesies are related. They both refer to the point at which society ceases to degenerate. The relation is important, because it points to the very heart of the nature of degeneration. I recently became a Muslim, in addition to being a Buddhist, and my intent is to learn the very heart of this religion, as it is important to me. (I have had more intimate connection with many more Buddhas through Islam than through all my 15 years as a Buddhist.) Obviously, then, I am against the view that the Kalachakra prophesy prophesizes the downfall and defeat of Islam. But I don't think the prophesy is inauthentic.

From what I've observed of Muslims today, the ongoing trend seems to be that while they are practicing their religion, they are subtlely involved in what I would call "the cult of the white water." Ordinary water, as a metaphysical substance, is a metaphor for emptiness. In other words, emptiness is like water. It dissolves all things. It is clear. Many creatures live in it. It is vast as the sea. It forms rain. It carves mountains. And so forth. But what color is water? Well, ultimately, water is clear. However, it is also very highly correct to say that water is white. When it freezes, it is white. As it moves about, it froths at the tips of waves, and reflects lights, and ends up becoming white.

Muslims want to be like white water. They want to purify themselves to the utmost extent, become fully distilled of every little stain, and rub themselves clean all the time. They want to be at the tips of the waves, reaching into the void. But one thing they may perhaps overlook is that water is also black. It is equally correct to say water is black as it is to say it is white. Why? When water is gathered together densely in one place, if you peer into its depths, it is black. In a way, water is as black as it is white, but no less pure.

The West, for myriad historical reasons, seems to be deeply involved in "the cult of the black water." The West likes to examine physical things to their depths and uncover their deepest secrets. It also is far less concerned with purity, and riding the tips of waves, seeking to deeply immerse itself into physical phenomena.

What happens when "the cult of the white water" meets "the cult of the black water?" The result is the 7 Days War, which will culminate in at least some small realization that really, water is clear. It may manifest as white, or as black. But ultimately, it is clear. Following this, I suspect life will be much like the famous Andy Warhol movie Chelsea Girls: one side black, one side white. And the result will be purity. Clarity.

I suspect that with regards to the Kalachakra prophesy, Western countries, particularly the United States of America, will play a very important role with regards to the cult of the black water, in answer to India's cult of the white water. Manjushri, in my opinion, will probably come from America.

It is not good to become overly involved in either the cult of the white water or the cult of the black water, because water is clear. However, recognizing and honoring water manifesting as black or white, or as rainbows, and so forth, is important. Light refracted in water, or reflected, or absorbed, still remains light. And ultimately, we are beings of light. My ideas, as they stand now, have to do with blackness. I feel this is important, because too many people are overly concerned with white, while we have a natural tendency to avoid blackness. This is a mistake.

It is a human mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, and as equally dangerous as any mistake, potentially costing real people their lives. I suspect that today many people in Pakistan are dying unnecessarily because overly religious Islamic zealots want their society to be pristinely pure and white in color. The Taliban won't let people listen to music, or make art, or do pretty much anything, because they want to wear robes of white. It is so dangerous to be a Muslim today, I feel, because of the resistance to experiencing Western society, which is the dominant and globalized form of society in the world today. I'm worried that concern with issues such as playing music, or drawing representative art, will condemn foreign muslims to poverty and powerlessness. Why? Because it is impossible to move the hearts and minds of the people without making movies, and you can't make movies without drawing pictures and writing music. Period.

Purity is important, but it is not that important. We have to remember that good Muslims are like doctors, and that they do not come to the healthy, but to the sick. And anyway, it is impossible to be one hundred percent pure. Frankly, the fact that the religious people most concerned with purity are the ones who do the most damage convinces me that purity is sometimes a worse evil than sin. If this isn't true, then why are so many terrorists going around calling themselves Boko Haram? The lesson from this is what I consider to be my most important and, hopefully, enduring contribution to moral knowledge everywhere. This is why, I'm certain, I have lived my life. And there is far greater to share and more contributions as well. I'm not always the best at keeping the faith, but I hope my message has reached at least some people in the right way. That is my wish.

Thoughts about Anonymous's Project V

This is a clarification of Anonymous's new project, "Project V." This came on the heels of their "Operation V," the goal of which was apparently to take over the United States government.

I've noticed, just looking around at society today, that there are thugs involved in my government and perhaps corporations and so forth, taking things over and not really doing positive actions or behaving in an awake manner. So I'm not at all surprised that there is a movement to try to take over the government, or to protest the government. I support a lot of what these people do.

The reason I support many of the people who fight government and corporations and so forth is because of the thuggishness I've seen. The thuggishness itself is the first part. The second part is the fact that thuggishness is not merely the natural, human sort — an understandable sort which you can expect to be some part of any society — but something which is slowly becoming law. We cannot have "thug law." Thug law, in this case, involves people in office, and running corporations, who don't care about listening to other people, especially the people they affect. Thug law involves things being created for their own purpose, to multiply like viruses, such as cash or even money, or such as government regulations, or psychiatric harm.

A commodity is produced in a factory not for its own sake, but in order to be sold to someone else. However, it seems an awful lot like many of the people running these corporations would be satisfied if the product is produced for its own sake. In other words, the attitude is that it's about the product itself, and promoting the product itself, rather than about listening to what the consumer wants.

This doesn't happen everywhere, but it does happen in the case of food, for instance. Food today is produced for the purpose of food being produced and sold, not for the purpose of feeding people. There is an important difference between the two, and we need to start rethinking the way we do things to promote feeding people instead of producing and selling food. Similarly, transportation seems to be about producing and selling gasoline, not about transporting people. Energy production seems to be about producing and selling raw materials, not making energy. Our corporations are sick.

Now that I've talked a bit about what I agree with about Anonymous, I'd like to share what I disagree with.

Consider the idea of a revolution. What is a revolution? The idea is that you're getting rid of a society, and replacing it with a new one. But if you examine it closely, the idea becomes less and less clear. What do you want to revolutionize? Just the executive government? We do that every eight or so years. What about the law? Are we trying to change the law? Well, perhaps we are, but we can change the law in a couple of ways: by changing the letter of the law, or changing how it's enforced. If we change the letter of the law, then we get into the problem of semantics, which means we may have changed nothing unless we change how it's enforced. If we change how it's enforced, though, we have a problem there, too. Who enforces? Who enforces law against the enforcers? In a sense, the people enforcing the law are embodiments of the law. But are we changing just the people themselves? How do we control against merely switching out one corrupt judge or peace officer for another? Either we have to use the law to control this, in which case we're going in circles again, or we have to change the underlying society which educates and produces the judges.

But how do we change society? Are we changing the actual minds of the people themselves? Are we giving them more education? Education of what? What do they already know? What don't they know? Is it really about what they think they know, or how they behave? How do we change the way people behave? And are we changing a group of people, or changing people one-on-one? And where do we stop? Should we just switch out everyone we don't like and throw the old people in jail? If so, what makes us any better than the oppressors? Or should we let everyone be as they are and work out their own problems? If it is this, how is our movement a revolution?

I don't think we need a revolution. I think we need loyal opposition parties, and we need perhaps a simplification of our culture. But you can't have a loyal opposition party and a revolution at the same time. And a simplification of something doesn't involve the introduction of new elements. That's what you do when you want to make things more complex. What we need is to go back to our roots, and instead of wildly thrashing about and making more new ideas and stuff, we need to be satisfied with a simple understanding of how things work. Instead of choosing more stuff, choose the right stuff. This sounds like an economic idea, but really it applies to government as well. We should be more conservative about how we run our government. We should be conservative about how we run our churches as well. The only thing we shouldn't be conservative about is helping other people. But remember: help doesn't come in the form of money. I am not a socialist. As soon as you start thinking that help comes in the form of money, you begin producing money for the sake of producing money, which is exactly the kind of problem which I see today that needs to change. We need to help people live. In every sector of our society. That's what we need to do. And a lot of what the resistance people in our society are doing is just that. But I don't think they see it that way, and they really should.

How to Tell if there's a Conspiracy

Conspiracies exist. Everywhere. A conspiracy is defined as an attempt to do something unethical, which you don't want anyone beyond your circle of friends to know about. Of course, there are times when doing something unethical is necessary, usually to protect yourself. However, unfortunately, there are certain people in the world who are ignorant of the effects of unethical actions, which are always bad. These kinds of people commit conspiracies and think they'll "get away with it." You never get away with a conspiracy, but if you were trying to protect yourself, or something similar to that, then you may be able at least to survive the negative effects of the natural consequences of when the truth comes to light.

How to Tell if There's a Conspiracy:

You check the independent channels. They won't know all of the truth. This is because they're independent. They don't have a lot of social resources, so they can't access all of the truth. Some of them, you can't trust. Some of them have been infiltrated by conspirators who don't want the truth to be known.

You check the people who you think are committing the conspiracy. They'll mechanically repeat the exact same thing: "There is no conspiracy here." Or something relevantly similar to that. If they actually did make a mistake, and as a matter of fact they are decent people and not conspirators, they will send out marketing information revealing exactly what the mistakes were, who made them, and what they're doing to correct the problem.

You check the people who you trust, who have seen the truth. This is called an empirical observation. Eventually, you'll find a couple empirical observations through the appropriate channels which contradict the last mechanically repeated statement, "There is no conspiracy here." Then you know there's a conspiracy.

However. Even at this point, not all the questions have been answered. You don't know for certain who is the one committing the conspiracy. Depending on how much you've been hurt by the conspiracy, it's up to you to determine how extensive of an investigation you want to make to determine who the real conspirators are, and it's also up to you to determine how you're going to use violent means (like the government or the law) to neutralize the conspiracy and bring the criminals to justice.

This goes for corporate conspiracies, Illuminati conspiracies, government conspiracies, raver conspiracies, Satanist conspiracies, Buddhist conspiracies, etc.

Why Enemies are Blessings: Re. Morgan Freeman and Lanza

I'm glad Morgan Freeman wrote the response he did for the shootings in Connecticut. Because I completely disagree. And, actually, my disagreement has solidified my resolve to a) not kill every fucking body I see, and b) not kill myself. (Death, by the way, is not an "opposite to life." Another post for another day, perhaps.) The argument went a little like this:

Freeman: http://www.dailypaul.com/266479/surprising-message-from-morgan-freeman-he-blames-the-media-for-ct-shooting

Me: You're full of shit.

Freeman: Yeah? Why's that?

Me: Because you're spouting the same sort of crap that every cynical psychiatrist does. You want more "mental health research," and like any "mental health researcher," you're looking for the essential quality that makes people essentially and fundamentally bad people from the very start, so you can kill it, quarantine it, sedate it, and obliterate it from the human race.

And to top it all off, you're saying the essentialist quality has to do with desire for fame. FAME! Which shows that you, like most other Hollywood celebrities (I wanted to say "hacks" but that's going too far—in this case, anyway, there's actually evidence against that claim), you believe that:

1. Everyone wants exactly what you have.
2. While it was divinely ordained for you to have it, it was not divinely ordained for 99.9999% of the world's population to have it.
3. All the problems of the world would be solved if everyone just gave up on their dreams and stopped wanting what you have, and instead, adopt a submissive position and accept the crumbs that people like you allow to drop off the table.

Freeman: Well, I read your position, because like every Hollywood celebrity in the world I keep up with the writings of Nathan Foster. It seems like you claim here that you understand the inner workings of school shooters. You say, and I quote, "I have these kinds of thoughts running through my head at least 20 times a day...."

You go on to claim the following: "[W]hether or not the objective world is an evil place where everyone deserves to die will be entirely beside the point. It is quite possible, theoretically, that everyone in the entire universe will rise up as your personal enemy." Taken in conjunction with the post about "Absolute Eclectic Morality," It would seem that you, sir, not only understand the shooter, but empathize with him, and perhaps even agree with him. There is actual evidence, in these three posts, that you believe everyone deserves to die.

So what's stopping you? If you think you deserve fame, and you know killing a bunch of people will get you fame, and you don't think that it is necessarily ethically wrong to kill a bunch of people, why don't you do it then, and gain as much fame as you could ever hope for?

Now this thought is what really crystalized my position, and it illustrates the value of enemies. (Not that Morgan Freeman is a mortal enemy of mine, but he does have a point of view which I completely disagree with, and in this case, that is enough.) The rest of the conversation:

Me: For one, if everybody didn't deserve to die, they probably wouldn't all eventually die. And for another, while I may, from time to time, hold the belief that everyone deserves to die RIGHT NOW, unless I actually have the ability to kill every single person in the world—not just a handful of people in this or that place, but literally everyone—I'm really just tooting my own horn. Everyone is going to die anyway. Why do I need to speed up the process?

And besides that obvious negative point of view, there's a positive reason not to kill everyone as well. There is a possibility that they have something to teach me. See, I'm a firm believer that situations of ignorance are ripe situations for new and meaningful knowledge. As it says in the Bible, "Many are called, but few are chosen." It's perfectly okay to be chosen, or not to be chosen, to be the one who kills everyone in the world. And while it's not certain that there's a reason why I'm not that person, there's a possibility that there is such a reason.

Which leaves me with two options. 1) I should've been chosen but wasn't. In which case, I have an opportunity to root out the real enemy and deal with that spirit. Or, 2) I should NOT have been chosen, and wasn't. In which case, I had something to learn, and it's better that I wasn't chosen.

Freeman: Great, so with your manic/depressive psychosis and acceptance of others, you're going to choose the other option, and off yourself in the basement?

Me: I'm glad you brought that up, because no, I'm not. I'm just like everyone else; I'm going to die eventually, and there's no reason to speed up the process. And there may be an opportunity to make a difference.

Freeman: You seem to be making the argument that living in this world is completely ephemeral. The only reason not to actually kill yourself, or anyone else, for that matter, is based on distant probabilities that perhaps they have benefit to the world. This is also evidenced by your insistance, in your response ("My Perspective on School Shootings"), that to end school shootings, we should train in discovering other-worldly goddesses, rather than human relationships here on Earth.

Me: I do NOT make the claim that life is ephemeral. I DO, however, make the claim that where you live your life is ephemeral, as long as you can make out goddess-Buddhas. If my body here on this Earth is killed, I'm fine with that, as long as I can find a place somewhere else where I can make out Buddhas. The choice is completely meaningless.

Freeman: If the choice is meaningless, why not try your luck with another body in another world, rather this one, which obviously causes you so much pain?

Me: Obviously, Morgan, you don't keep up with my writings as much as you claim, or you wouldn't have missed this post, in which I claimed that it is precisely the decisions which are meaningless—for example, Coke vs. Pepsi, Planet Earth vs. Planet Venus, human-form vs. goddess form, etc.—that are the most important. And not only did I make that claim, but I considered it such an important claim that I advanced the further claim that it is actually the basis for a just and creative society.

Hopefully you know, by now, that I mean exactly everything I say. And if we take the eclectic view of my philosophy, you'll understand that I am completely committed to a) NOT killing myself, and b) NOT killing others. This is a profound vow which, on many days, is like choosing to drink a specific cola-flavored drink. But many days there's actually a moral reason to follow it.

My Perspective on School Shootings

Approximately a year after my psychiatric hospitalization, and as a direct result of it, a number of thoughts I'd been having about the world culminated in a script for a short movie. It was about a school shooter. And it summed up the mindset of such a person in a simple argument, which I've not yet seen in circulation.

See, we tend to think that people commit school shootings because there aren't people "paying attention" to them. They lack the human interaction they need, and the human interaction they get is adverse to psychological health. So they attack a school or workplace in order to "get back" at the people who did them harm.

Now this view seems to make sense, but it leaves something important unexamined. It may explain the Columbine or Virginia Tech shooter, who shot their classmates. It may explain the shooter in Moscow Idaho, as well, since he probably believed that the government was the cause of all his problems, and therefore decided to shoot government employees.

But what about Adam Lanza?

Lanza shot a bunch of grade school children who had absolutely nothing to do with him. There was no reason whatsoever, according to the above-mentioned theories, for him to shoot these children. They were not his classmates. They were not his coworkers. And they did him no harm. This obviously points to this folk theory of school massacres as inadequate. In fact, the fact that the children did Lanza no harm is so obvious that, I bet, it factored in to his decision to shoot them. Which brings me to my own theory.

The thoughts I'd been having culminated in a simple, logical argument, which can be expressed formally. It goes like this:

1) Because of what I've experienced, the world is a very bad place. So bad, someone deserves to die for making it this way.

2) It's no one's fault in particular.

---

Conclusion: Everyone deserves to die.

Obviously no one has the power to kill everyone in the entire world. The next best option, then, is to kill as many people as possible.

Now this argument may have different flavors. It may take this form, for instance: "The world has been specifically designed to harm me." Or, "People in general exist for the sole purpose of harming me." Or any number of variants. But the key point is the same: existence in general is so awful, based on my own experience, that people who perpetuate this existence must be destroyed. Since it's no one's fault in particular, everyone must be destroyed.

Looking at it in this light, the meaning behind Lanza's apparently meaningless shooting becomes clear. Why unrelated children in an unrelated school? Because who it is does not matter. Everyone deserves to die, and the situation is so desperate that action must be taken right away. Therefore, Lanza decided to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Another point ought to be mentioned in regards to the question, "Why first-graders?" Well, first-graders are relatively undeveloped human beings. They have not yet had the chance to become the kind of people who contribute to the existence that people like Lanza have come to despise. Better to kill them, Lanza probably thought, before they become that way, and save them from contributing to that kind of treachery.

So what's the solution to this kind of problem? I can tell you with absolute certainty exactly what the solution is not. The solution is emphatically not psychiatric. Identifying and treating the "mentally ill" shooters before they shoot people will probably result in more shootings. Remember: I have these kinds of thoughts running through my head at least 20 times a day, and they did not start until after I submitted to psychiatric treatment. From my perspective, psychiatric treatment is almost entirely the cause rather than the solution to the school shooting phenomenon, insofar as psychiatry makes existence unbearable.

The solution is to make the world a better place. And I'm not talking, necessarily, about a one-piece-at-a-time strategy. For example, my strategy for doing this, partly, is to simply not exist in this world, and in that way make it better. For example, I've trained myself to see pictures, of goddesses or whatever, as living beings in and of themselves. Then I interact with these pictures, so I don't have to interact with the "real" world. Because the real world disproportionately causes me harm—harm for which no solution readily exists.

Psychology, today, is ill-equipped to deal with this problem. I always laughed when I talked with my therapist, because I would give him a long string of everything that had been going on, and how nothing had been going right, and the only thing he could say was, "Wow, that sounds pretty bad." Psychology has coping strategies for dealing with particular things which cause psychological problems. If the news is upsetting, limit access to the news. If a workplace setting is causing problems, take five minutes to visualize a better place. We have de-escalation techniques for dealing with problematic people. We encourage people to hang out with beneficial friends, rather than harmful ones.

But what happens when there are so many particular things, coming at you from all angles, and with such frequency, that it just seems like the world itself has set out to hurt you? What if you have no beneficial friends? What if it isn't the workplace that's causing you problems, but the entire world? At that point psychology has no answers, and in order to shut you up, refers you to a psychiatrist, who causes more problems. But why not apply these coping techniques to the world itself? Psychology will say that hanging out in seedy bars, for instance, will lead to having seedy friends, and therefore, you should not hang out in seedy bars. So if, living out your life, you have been completely unable to make more than maybe one or two friends who treat you right, why not stop hanging out in the world? Why not hang out with goddesses instead?

One might respond that we should make a commitment to live in the world rather than outside of it, in order to make the world a better place. Yes, of course this is true, but I think it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to handle everything the world throws at them all the time. If the world consistently throws us more than we can handle, we may need a temporary alternative.

But that alternative doesn't come from nowhere. Remember, even our pictures of goddesses are anthropomorphic: they're inspired by things in the world. It is quite likely, in fact probable, that our goddesses will behave similarly to people in the world, if we haven't trained our minds. And then, of course, there is no possible escape.

That is why it is of vital importance for people to come up with a wholesome, inspired, concrete philosophy of ethics, or "the way the world should be." This philosophy should be crystalized and clear to the philosopher. It should be founded on a solid basis, such as meditative experience. That way, even if the objective world continues to do nothing but hurt you, goddesses will nevertheless be attracted to your ideas, and, if absolutely necessary, you won't need to live in the world at all. And if your ideas aren't adequate, so long as you're honest with yourself, the goddesses will let you know, and you can revise from there.

Thus if we train people to be honest with themselves, self-expressive, introspective, and fundamentally inquisitive, we will have cut out the basis of mass shootings. If we allow people to question objective reality, formulate self-expressive philosophies of living, and have real and direct intercourse with our fantasies (rather than intercourse mediated through objective reality), whether or not the objective world is an evil place where everyone deserves to die will be entirely beside the point. It is quite possible, theoretically, that everyone in the entire universe will rise up as your personal enemy. But it is impossible for there to be any space anywhere in existence where a goddess-Buddha does not reside, if we've been trained to see them. That is the solution to hateful killings in the world.

Some Thoughts on an Age of Aquarius Part 3: Compassion

All parts include: Part 1: Ignorance; Part 2: Seduction; Part 3: Compassion; Part 4: Psychiatrists; Part 5: Hacking vs. Lying.

Compassion

Due to the fact of the two previous points, particularly the first, it is necessary to insist on higher standards for compassion. Yes, that means compassion for murderers, rapists, adulterers, kidnappers, drug dealers, and so on and so forth. We all like to villainize people for certain things. But the fact of the matter is, you never know anymore whether the information is accurate, or whether the act was more pitiable than hateful. At the very least, I tend to think we should be even more careful not to judge. Cyberbullying is a terrible risk with the Internet.

Criminality and Society

It seems to me that the criminal has a dangerous road. To some extent, he has given up society and gone "underground" if you will. Society may seem constricting, but it is useful in that it provides a construct for being good to people. There is a sense that what's good for society is good for everyone, so in a very real sense, someone who civilizes himself is working for the good of everybody. But the person who gave this up to pursue criminal purposes is probably working only for himself. Society teaches us to think about other people, instead of just about ourselves. This is why it is good to impart in people a sense of being civilized.

In some cases, movies and television glorify criminal life. Particularly, there is an idea that violence is justified, even if it is illegal, as long as there is a sense of moral violence. This is bad on two counts: it justifies violence, and it justifies criminality. Anyone could get the sense that doing this or that is bad in most circumstances, but in my case it is okay. In fact, this is quite common, and quite mistaken.

Now I think a fundamental precept of democracy is to maintain a dialogue which constantly tests the values of the government. In reality, almost nobody is good all the time, and this includes those who run the government. Democracy admonishes every citizen to take an active role in policy-making. It makes explicit the fact that politicians must answer to their constituency. Thus laws can change. Some people make the decision to be a criminal, I think, because they are destitute. This is understandable, though regrettable. But some people decide to become criminal simply because they feel society is wrong — society requires too much work, or society doesn't solve everybody's problems, or society has made mistakes. This is incorrect. Even if this were true, turning criminal is not the right answer. People who behave like this legitimize a harsh penal system, and further disenfranchise the destitute who turn criminal because they have no other choice. Because of people who behave like this, destitute criminals who have no other choice are given little sympathy. In the end, if one feels society is wrong, one should find legitimate ways to change society, because turning criminal does no good.