Beyond Love

Will Mankind Be Tough Enough to Survive the 21st Century?

Charles C. Wise, Jr.

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ISBN: 1-57733-076-5, 116 pages, 5.5 x 8.5, paper, $12.95
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Charles Wise has written a very unusual book. As an administrator, he analyzes the recent past and extends current trends in our country and the world into the future. With a characteristic disregard for "political correctness," he presents some surprising thoughts about our twentieth-century legacy and a disturbing view of what lies ahead in the century now beginning.

Many will be shocked at his opinions and forceful statements. Perhaps not one single person will agree with all of his recommended remedies. But these are problems which are being ignored politically and should be publicly discussed. World politicians are loudly touting growth and a wonderful future without any apparent appreciation that the two are incompatible.

"Beyond Love tackles the most desperate problem of our day, one that could bring down the whole human species. ... [Charles] Wise advocates measures for mitigating the grim overpopulation problem ... [that] are like electric shocks to our sensibilities." Claire G. Walker, Ph.D., Director of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
I. Fear
II. Cooperation, Trust, and Acceptance
III. Curiosity, Conversation, and Innovation
IV. Love as the Universal Solution
V. Reason Must Reign
VI. Canada's Political Situation
VII. Future Evolutionary Development
VIII. Beyond the Physical?

Excerpt

FEAR

Each human child is born in total terror.

It had been growing and developing in a warm and protective liquid environment. It had been automatically nourished by a process requiring no conscious action on its part. In total darkness, there were no lights to distract. Sounds reaching it were muted, never harsh, and many had patterns that were pleasing. It happily performed its aquatic exercises without supervision or criticism.

Suddenly, catastrophe strikes. The water breaks and the baby's whole world is destroyed. It is grabbed by unknown muscular forces and propelled through tight passages so narrow that the child's every part is squeezed. It is pummeled and pounded, often for many hours.

Finally, badly beaten, it is roughly ejected into a totally unfamiliar world, and its senses are suddenly subjected to a battery of stimuli which its brain is not programmed to process. Screams, shouts, and other loud noises assail ears unaccustomed to such volumes. Bright lights dazzle, pain, and blind eyes not yet coordinated to focus. It is now grabbed by strong hands and thrust onto a hard table. Its life-support system is summarily severed and tied. It is lifted up into the air activating a fear of falling, an instinct developed by generations of ancestors who lived their lives in trees. It is struck sharply on the back to induce breathing, utilizing hitherto unknown muscles which soon tire and ache. If a male, it is usually circumcised without anesthetic. The child cries, having no other means to express its pain, fear, and frustration.

At this point, the child is conscious only of a "me" which has been mistreated. All else is "them," enemies to be disliked, feared, hated, and rejected. This emotion is basic, and never wholly leaves. Life is a process to learn to convert "me" to "us" and to determine what elements of "them" can be trusted and accepted into "us."

FEAR is earlier, instinctive, and more basic than LOVE, and perhaps more powerful. Love has to be learned. As Chekhov said, "Love, friendship, respect do not unite people so much as a common hatred for something."

Primitive man had much to fear: fire, predatory animals, other humans, lightning, storms, flood, injury, sickness, ghosts of the dead, witches, and other evil spirits. Endless, often dangerous, experiments were necessary to discover what could safely be eaten, which could be overcome by force or utilized to improve living, and which could only be worshipped or perhaps placated. Fear always remains, of the unknown, other groups, races or nations, UFOs, atomic disasters, and death. Intelligent fear is still necessary to deal reasonably with personal, local, national, and world crises as they arise. Indeed, some have learned to enjoy the excitement of danger in such activities as sports, combat, romance, roller coasters, hand gliders, and bungee-jumping. But fear is always with us.

Symposium Publishing (an imprint of Blue Dolphin Publishing), 2000


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