Nazareth was a planet, like all other planets, floating alone in the vastness of space, giving allegiance to a warming nearby star. It was far from all other occupied planets as all planets are far from other inhabited worlds. However, far distances were no longer much of a barrier to trade, tourism, and social sharing. So, Nazareth participated fully in the intergalactic federations of its time and grew rich and sophisticated. It shared in the technology developed by a million Babbages and Turins based on the science of a million Einsteins, Feynmans, and Gell-Mans. But it was, nevertheless, a strange world.
The first colonists had named it after a village on a distant planet, whose mayor they were told was named, Love. Some believed that this was not his true name but an honorific title bestowed on him. Some said that it was his true name because his father was also called Love. Anyhow, the long trip through space had generated many conflicts between the settlers and on landing they all decided that they should try to get along and so named their planet after the quality they all hoped would characterize their living together.
It was a good idea. Unfortunately it did not work out very well. As their population grew their conflicts grew. As they spread out over the surface of the planet, so their differences magnified. The families grew into clans, which joined into tribes, which joined into nations. Nations being what they are, fought with other nations. And so the millennia passed.
Two millennia ago, a strong genealogical movement arose. This movement spread over the whole planet. At first it was just a matter of tracking the family names, but then they tracked through their literature, their art, their technology, and finally their genetic patterns. It lead them back to a few small family groups who had braved the vast distances of space to find a new home, and the meaning of their planet’s name was rediscovered. They realized that their original fathers had wanted them to live the good life and that they measured the good life by love.
So people in every nation, in every culture, in every city and almost in every family, began to discuss what they had lost. It became a ground swell of goodwill. It was not an adolescent emotion sweeping through nations sickened by war. It was growing question in the minds of mature people, living on a sophisticated planet with the means to satisfy almost all human needs. Why can we not live together in peace? Why can we not love one another? We are, after all, one group of settlers who came to live together on this planet. Did we come to fight and kill each other? Did we come to achieve dominance over the other? No. Did we come to live together in a community, to help one another, to be a strength for each other, to share in each other’s good fortune and to help each other in times on hardship? Yes. We did not evolve from some common ancestor. We came here to live together in peaceful co-operation. Why did we forget? And so they remembered – they remembered their original values.
This ground swell movement covered the planet. Love was in the air. People became invigorated. Bridges were built between neighbours, between cultures, between nations. There seemed to be great promise of something wonderful happening. Many great things did happen. People joined together in social activities, participated in many more business ventures, co-operated militarily, created transnational organizations for social justice, for the care of the downtrodden, the sick, the environment, and created art and music together. It was a wonderful decade. But it ended.
It did not collapse in one fell swoop. It broke down little by little. Petty differences became petty squabbles, became significant differences and lead to the break-up of relationships, groups and organizations. The differences became dislikes, the dislikes became hatreds, and the hatreds became conflict. The grand experiment ended.
Well almost. The Genealogy Institute remained. They analyzed the Grand Experiment, which was now capitalized. After about 5 years of talking and researching, they concluded that the problem had been that they had focused on the wrong emotion. They had tried to facilitate love, but they realized you cannot force people to love that which they see as foreign, alien, threatening, and hateful. Love occurs naturally when you see that which is worthy of love. They needed to find a way to reduce hatred. If peace, co-operation, love are natural states, then dislike and hatred are unnatural states. If love is not a natural state, then there will always be conflict that will have to be controlled by might and law. The philosophers, sociologists, psychologists amassed data and opinions supporting both sides of the argument. The Genealogy Institute eventually concluded that there was no unequivocal answer to the question and so decided, as they were practical people and, therefore, much enamoured with Occam’s razor (the simple solution is the correct one) decided to accept that love is the natural state of people.
The solution, therefore, was to find a way to end hatred. Thus began the Second Grand Experiment, which was capitalized right from the beginning. So they set the task to neurologists, psychologists, and sociologists, as well as the holy men and woman of their world. Identify what hatred is, where it comes from, and how it can be eradicated. It took them 10 years. Not a long time really. They did all that was asked of them. This is what they found.
Hatred, it seems, comes from a judgment people make about something, someone, or some situation that causes a painful disequilibrium that, it is believed, can be relieved to some degree or other by an attack on the thing, person, or situation causing the disequilibrium. The consequence of this judgment is the emotion called hatred. And hatred is just an extreme of an associated group of feelings ranging from irritation and dislike to full-fledged hatred. Some people’s brains were biased in this direction, some minds were trained to think like this, and some social situations tended to elicit these judgments. They discussed these things for those 10 years and slowly developed a multitude of ways of dealing with it, of eradicating it.
They taught everyone the nature of hatred. How destructive it is to all states of life – physical, personal, and social. They showed all the evidence, gave all the background philosophy, explicated the psychological twists and turns of the mental processes, and showed the impact of it on their social life. In the end it was overkill. Very few people did not already know how destructive it was. No-one really enjoyed it and hardly anyone thought it had real value. Except for one situation and that had to be explained and changed. That situation was War.
War is fought in anger not in a state of goodwill. Their models of fighting all praised anger and hatred. Soldiers were thought to be better soldiers if they hated the enemy; how else could they risk their own death if they did not think it was to destroy a hateful enemy. So wars were thought to be best fought if soldiers thought in black and white modes; and the enemy was definitely the black.
This was a difficult thinking mode to settle, after all, all the generals thought like that, and although they tried to say that they fought in a civilized fashion (not like the enemy), after the propaganda settled, every war revealed the terrible atrocities the “civilized” allies had perpetrated. And all the soldiers said they were following orders, and all the generals denied they had ever told their troops to behave like that. And they were all telling the truth, those behaviours were just the natural consequence of hating the enemy, because armaments and capture allow opportunity for haters to relieve their painful disequilibrium by an attack on the enemy. The more vulnerable the enemy the easier it is to attack them, so in the field women and children and in capture, prisoners, are the most likely to be abused. If you understand your enemy, know the social and economic circumstances that drive them to attack you, it is very difficult to fight with the passion of anger, or to abuse them when they are in your power. It is even hard to fight them in the first place. So politicians and generals were the least supportive of the eradication of hatred.
However, the matter resolved itself with a strange twist. Studies showed that soldiers were more effective killing machines if they were not angry. They made better decisions, whether it was the generals making large battle plans or the troops fighting hand-to-hand. If they were not angry, they used their wits, were much braver because they were willing to lay down their lives for their comrades through a reasoned commitment and not through the heated passion of the moment, and had more endurance because they took better care of themselves. And so they fought with a sense of respect for their enemy; this gradually changed into an awareness that the enemy had reason to fight them or that it was only some false rationalization by a politician that was driving the war. Soldiers, being sensible people, slowly realized that they were being asked to kill other good people for silly reasons. So they started demanding that their leaders discuss things more, admit bad things done to others, make reparations, and make compromises. The result was that wars became less and less frequent. The military became world experts at non-military, conflict resolution. They used all their military efficiency and trained millions in the use of rational appraisal of circumstances, of controlling physiological arousal in arguments, of using rational thinking to settle rising anger in disputation, and in the philosophy of the win-win argument. The groups that were the perpetrators of the greatest amount of mayhem and killing – the armies – became the greatest peacemakers.
The Second Grand Experiment became a vast social movement involving teachers, preachers, philosophers, filmmakers, advertisers, in fact pretty well everyone became involved. It was so universally recognized as a prime value that the vast majority began to practice it. Hatred was called “the disease of humans”. Violence in films and in sports changed. In films it was now portrayed as a weakness of character and the long-term negative consequences were usually indicated in the film. It changed within a few years from being seen as a heroic solution undertaken by an oppressed character to being seen as a poor short-term solution by people who did not understand things well. There were originally still plenty of fights in films but always undertaken in extreme situations and only as a control solution. They were not shown as the final solution of anything. The fixing of relationships and the setting up of mature, long-term communication processes were shown to be the truly heroic choice and the real final solution. As wars became rarer, as errors of behaviour, and as arguments ending in fights became less frequent, fights in movies slowly abated. They became rare and they were almost always attributed to someone with a serious mental aberration.
The model for the general citizen was of a person who was first and foremost a human being, this was the primary group to which everyone belonged, all other groups were subsidiary to this. So one’s country, one’s social status, one’s economic status, one’s job, one’s education, one’s football team, one’s religious affiliation, all these were not part of one’s primary identity. They were all human, which meant that they understood that behind any affiliation, skin colour, badge of status, was a person who had generally the same aspirations as they did, valued the same things that they valued, tended to think in the same way they did, and generally reacted psychologically to life in the same way that they did. All-in-all they discovered and understood in real ways that under the covers we were all the same.
In the general community the first thing that was noted was that violent crime declined, followed soon by general altercations going down; arguments with raised voices became rare, in the home spousal abuse disappeared, and fighting in the school-yard seldom occurred.
The quantum change seen was in interpersonal behaviour. People got on with each other. The community became very co-operative. Individuals became important. People’s feelings mattered. The expression of differences was encouraged because they brought character to the community. The richness of the variation in life became prized by all. The varying skill sets of people became a valued commodity. People still got fired, divorces still happened, contracts were still broken, and fights still occurred, but very rarely. Concern and understanding became the common approach to interpersonal and community living. Hatred had, to a large extent, been eliminated.
This made it a strange community to outsiders. They came there and could feel the interpersonal difference. No-one was obsequious, yet they felt considered and cared for all the time. Because people were interested in them, they became interested in the people and often began good friendships very quickly. Things still went wrong; Life’s irritations remained. The holiday makers from other worlds still complained loudly at times, but not for long. Problems were dealt with, with real concern for the tourist. No one ever shouted back at them. Their concerns were considered real, their disappointments were always acknowledged, and fixing the problem always seemed to be a pleasure. The tourist’s satisfaction when things were corrected seemed to bring the servers real satisfaction themselves.
Love, however, did not happen.
What did happen was that as a society they became deeply caring towards each other. People looked after one another. They had fun together; they challenged each other to do better; work was a team affair, and the team took it as a matter of pride that their work was well done. People were not seriously concerned when something did not work out. They took failure as an opportunity to learn something more. They did not make quick judgements as to what went wrong, even if the source of the failure seemed obvious. They knew that everything had multiple causes; that every person’s behaviour had multiple causes; that social situations elicit certain behaviours; that mental states by the judgments they make can hide and reveal different truths; that biological drives can promote strong tendencies, that are difficult to control, to behave in certain ways.
So they became very tolerant. They promoted social models of co-operative behaviour. They began spontaneously to practice a voluntary form of eugenics. Those who habitually were angry or filled with hatred were not considered good marriage prospects. They were not seen as partners for a good life. So they had fewer children and the biology of hatred was slowly washed out of the Nazarene community.
A more and more sophisticated understanding of the mental mechanics of hatred developed. The community taught itself how to combat these thoughts. Different groups did it in different ways. The army used mental discipline techniques combined with disengagement from the situation, calisthenics, and the adherence to a rigid code of conduct emphasizing protection of others. Religious people used prayer and meditation and the liberal use of worry beads, now called love beads. Psychologists taught rational thinking, correct breathing and muscle relaxation. Businessmen taught win-win business strategies and published a famous book called The Art of Success. Advertisers played a big role in promoting the Second Grand Experiment. Very large prizes were offered in competitions for the best advertisements promoting what had come to be called the Nazarene Way, or Nazway for short.
Nazway was taught as a way of power, not one for the wimp. It required dedication, a commitment extending over years, and a willingness to practice every day. The payoff was huge. Their society changed within one generation. Even though they had only focused on one negative factor in their society, the ramifications of changing that were profound and extensive. Almost every interpersonal action changed. People changed, life vibrated, fear declined, anxiety was eliminated, confidence abounded, and all sorts of criminal activities completely disappeared. The huge problems that beset humanity, the regional droughts, floods, and other natural catastrophes were more easily dealt with, because mobilizing international aid was simple. Countries were very co-operative. Decisions could be made in a short meeting. Aid flowed out. Countries did not wait to see how much others would give, they immediately gave what they could. Co-operation extended into all social areas, business, health, science, the arts. The world became a better place.
Love, however, did not happen.
It had been thought that once the unnatural, hatred, had been eradicated, then love, the natural state, would naturally transpire. It did not. Although living was much better, and there was peace and caring between people, love did not blossom. The Nazway had created a great society, the Second Grand Experiment was by almost all parameters a great success, but in its ultimate goal it failed. Love did not happen.
What had happened? What went wrong with their thinking? They had spent three generations on the Second Grand Experiment. Their lives had improved immeasurably but Nazareth was not the place they wanted it to be. They knew they were much closer than they had been. They knew that few states, let alone worlds had done what they had managed. All nations had a history of a golden age, when citizens were in harmony with each other and in which peace abounded. There was no report in modern times of a place such as Nazareth. But in all the happiness they felt and lived out day-to-day, they all felt an emptiness behind it all. It was as if they partially glimpsed something else, something they knew was much greater, and something they knew they did not have. This longing, once awakened, became an anguish. A hush descended over the world. They waited.
The Geni, as the Genealogical Institute was known colloquially, went back to work on this problem. The scientists, religious teachers, the mystics, the artists, and all the other groups started working on this problem. They held world-wide conferences to pool their data. Ideas, information, hunches, revelations all flowed hither and thither. They slowly developed an idea of what was wrong and the Third Grand Experiment began.
They realized that good feelings and good behaviour have the same multiple causes as the bad ones do. They had just shifted from one set of elicited behaviours to another. The pendulum had just swung from one side to the other. Their society was better for it, they were individually better for it, peace, co-operation, and respect were better than war, chaotic behaviour, and hatred, but they were still experiencing a world controlled by the things of the world. It turned out, not surprisingly, that they were still subject to the universe they were in. They were in the world and part of the world. Love, it seemed, being the truth, the natural way, was one thing, not part of this dual and multifaceted world. It was by its nature whole, spontaneous, primary. It was not the result of input from the world. It existed beyond biology, beyond society, and beyond the structures of the mind. They had called this happiness and deep caring for others, love. They thought that is what they meant by the word. Not the overwhelming passion of romantic love, but the deep abiding feeling of concern for the other. This, they thought, was love. And they had found that. Of all known living creatures, they were the only ones who, in this present day had attained that. But it was not enough. And, they realized, that it was not this love that they were seeking. They wanted more.
Most people had glimpsed the transformative power of moments of tremendous love. They would do anything for the one they loved. And it was not a labour. They would do it as they would do it for themselves, no, even more, for in these moments they did not feel the presence of themselves, they only felt the presence of the other. They lost themselves.
This seemed to be the secret. All these biological, social, and psychological forces were rooted in the self. Without that these forces would just be playing with themselves. The person would be other; still involved, still active, but different. They were not sure what this difference would be but they felt increasingly sure that that difference is what they had been looking for. What they had is what they had wanted initially, but the journey had changed them. They needed to conquer this love that they had found, and reach out to embrace the next. And they developed a way to do this.
They realized that within the self-transcending reformative nature of the love they felt for the significant other was a way forwards for them all. They decided to strive to love all things in the universe. Not in a romantic way, not in the deep caring way one loves ones family, not in the wonderful love the child receives from the mother, who gives in a way that no man can, gives life and nurturance from her very body, but in the way the soul loves when the self is swept away and the two become one. And this they did, in a mere hundred generations.
They finally understood why it was said of the mayor of Nazareth, that small village on that distant planet so many years ago that he had paid all the debts of all the people living there, he had performed some atonement that had wiped their debts away. They realized that what he had probably brought was not great riches to pay for their debts, but had brought them a technique of at-one-ment that freed them to love all things.
People seldom visit Nazareth now. What used to be the most popular tourist destination in the east wing of the universe, now is only the destination of an occasional visitor. Usually a seeker and most often they would never leave. It is said that whereas visitors felt so welcomed in the past, that they were so special, now the experience is very discomforting. Everyone is just as caring, just as considerate, but stay for a week and things become very strange. You stop feeling like yourself. You have thoughts and emotions that seem to float through you seemingly disconnected from you. You start finding simple, silly things, very interesting, and just being there is enough, even if you do not do much. If you don’t get out soon, you are likely to buy a house and stay forever. If do get out in time, it can take some weeks for you to start feeling like your old self again. So people don’t visit much. The Nazway is spoken of in hushed tones. It is thought that it is some old-style magical system, possibly even an old surviving witchcraft practice. If you don’t want to become brainwashed do not go there.
But over the last few hundred years, Nazarenes have been leaving and going to other planets often millions of light years away, and living there for a few decades before returning. In each place a little colony of Nazarenes start practicing the Nazway. They often call their village, Nazareth. The people about them usually do not understand what they are doing and often demonize or divinise the original Nazarene. They remember, though often indistinctly, the teachings, something about loving the divine, loving others even your enemies, but they often forget the hard practices that people need to undertake to defeat hatred, conquer love, and find their home. But what they do remember is that there are people who have done that and, if they want to become greater than themselves, they too can do it.
And, just that, is a start.
John B. Carlile 