D. Related Resolutions

A Radical Centrist Vision for the Future > Appendix > D. Related Resolutions

D.1 Religious Heritage Resolution

America was founded by a combination of Christian believers, Jews in several states, and by Deists like Thomas Jefferson and Free Thinkers like Thomas Paine. The obvious majority were Protestants like Patrick Henry, John Adams, and George Washington. There were also very ecumenical individuals who defy classification such as Benjamin Franklin.

Although in no manner or form was the original United States a theocracy there is a sense in which it can be said that America began as a “Christian nation.” Indeed, Alexander Hamilton, later in his abbreviated life, became a convert to evangelical Christian faith and supported an Amendment to the Constitution which would have decreed that the United State is a “Christian nation.” And informally this was assumed by most contemporaries, who took the view that freedom of religion, as a practical matter, was primarily intended to keep the peace between contending Protestant Churches. Still, there also was a broader sense which referred to other faiths that might be compatible with Christianity. And this sense, in time, became predominant.

But let us not forget or overlook the foundational nature of America when the vast majority of citizens were Protestant Christians and when Protestant values were taken for granted as normative and good. The United States began as a (Protestant) Christian nation even if this was not formalized into Law and even if there was toleration for Catholics, Quakers, Greek Orthodox, and others

This sense has as a subtext respect for the religious minorities which participated in the Revolution and contributed to its success and to the rise of a constitutional form of government. Additionally, it should be pointed out that Hannah Adams, a daughter of the extended Adams family, was, as some historians say, the first scholar of Comparative Religion in history, someone who showed respect for the religions of Asia, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, even if knowledge of these traditions was far less than perfect at that time. Later American thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau would study these Asian religious ideas and values and make them their own.

Moreover, although Americans of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th centuries most often more than anything sought to convert Indians to Christian faith, there existed from the outset among an important minority, including Franklin and Jefferson, sincere appreciation for native spirituality, to the extent that some ideas based on Iroquois tradition can legitimately be called one of the inspirations for the US Constitution itself.

But from the beginning Islam was regarded as a religion apart from all others. The reason that Jefferson had a copy of the Koran was not because of some kind of inspiration from it, but because he recognized the problems which Islam posed for the new nation as Muslim Pirates from North Africa terrorized Americans who sailed the Mediterranean Sea. John Quincy Adams also understood the same thing and wrote about Islam in The American Annual Register for 1827—1829, published as a book in 1830, the essay in question entitled, “Christianity—Islamism.”

There is some question about authorship since the article is unsigned. However, we may regard the writer as someone who, at a minimum, certainly shared many of Adams’ values and who probably was the Adams even if we cannot be altogether sure.. Adams would have had opinions on the subject due to his role in international affairs in that era.

Here are the relevant parts of –presumably– John Quincy Adams’ comments:

“In the seventh century of the Christian era a wandering Arab…..combing the powers of transcendent genius with the preternatural energy of a fanatic and the fraudulent spirit of an imposter, proclaimed himself as a messenger from heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth.

Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God, he connected indissolubly with it the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion.

[ Muhammad ] poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex…..and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as part of his religion against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust; to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in the characters, a war of more than twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinct[ion] of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute are encouraged to furnish motives to human action, there never can be peace on earth and good will toward men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”

Contemporary actual scholarship, while it tells the story in different language and makes distinctions among Muslims which Adams was not aware of, nonetheless makes much the same argument. Which is to discuss legitimate scholarship, not the ersatz version which is at the service of Leninist-inspired philosophy –called by other names but common among political Leftists, especially in academia, the mass media, and groups associated with Arabists in the State Department

That is, with due allowances for many Sufis and for Arabs and Iranians and other people from the Mid East and elsewhere who share in a common culture but who are not zealous Muslim believers, including individuals who deserve our admiration, otherwise Islam needs to be understood for what it is, antithetical to American democracy, and incompatible with the beliefs and values of the first citizens of the Republic.

But America was not founded on opposition to any religion; rather it was founded largely on Christian values, upon freedom of conscience to follow any faith which shared, or mostly shared, essential moral principles with Christians, and upon philosophies of liberty popular in the 18th century, generally referred to as Enlightenment thought. This mixture has served us well from that time to this and allows new faiths to join in our shared spiritual tradition, from the Mormons of the 1840s to the Chinese Confucians of the 1890s to the Baha’is and Zoroastrians and Goddess devotees of the 20th century.

America’s Christians, moreover, have often shown great forbearance and toleration for non-believers, and some of our most admired historical figures, such as Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken, are in this category. While this has not stopped other Christians from criticizing Atheists, such people have always had the right to their views, including the freedom to publicize irreverent opinions and to criticize Christians.

All of which is to say that Christian faith, which whatever else may be said, was foundational to the Republic, deserves full respect and due acknowledgement for its contributions to the origins of the nation and its subsequent history. This should include freedom for Christians to place symbols of their faith, in socially respectful ways that do not infringe on the rights of others, in public places.

It also means such taken-for-granted customs as singing Christmas carols in public schools should be protected by Law, as should use of church facilities for graduations when adequate school auditoriums are not available, and prayers that mention Jesus at public events.

Moreover, this Resolution recommends that America’s Judeo-Christian heritage should be acknowledged in all appropriate venues and given due credit for making the United States the nation it is today. Basic Christian and Jewish values such as the importance of honesty, kindness to others, conscientious work, respect for education, and the like, should be promoted freely even if other virtues we may most often associate with faiths like Buddhism, such as the virtue of choosing a vocation that is right for the individual, may be added for common benefit.

This Resolution clearly means that modern-day equivalents for Deism are also due respect, and likewise other religions except any that are incompatible with the values enshrined in the Constitution. This Resolution is intended to encourage free expression of faith, and to safeguard believers from harassment and attack by anti-religious zealots seeking to deny Christians or Jews or anyone else within the purview of comments made here their rights to faith.

In no way should this Resolution be construed to limit freedom of speech as sanctioned by the First Amendment.

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D.2 Visual Literacy Resolution

The time is past due for the visual arts to be considered as having essential status in educational values. This principle applies to the way that visual symbolism is treated in the mass media and other communications media inasmuch as the “press,” which means all news sources, has constitutional standing as essential to democracy.

There are many times when visual illiteracy costs us dearly. In the year 2000 the format of ballots in Florida was so confusing to many voters that, by common consent, significant numbers of candidates, because of how the ballots were designed –by someone who was visually near illiterate– did not make it clear exactly who you might be voting for. Had the modest expense of hiring a good graphic artist to design ballots been approved this major problem could have easily been avoided, which would have saved the entire Electorate weeks of anxiety, would have made it unnecessary for the Supreme Court to have become involved, and would have kept expensive lawyers out of the picture entirely. We also would, as of our own time, be far more assured that the final tabulation of votes was accurate.

Unfortunately, far too many people regard “art” as frivolous and not that important. As if flag art (vexillology) doesn’t matter, as if the millions spent on advertising has no effect on how we spend billions of dollars on purchases of many kinds, and as if none of us have any stake in women’s fashions, the “look” of computer devices, brightly colored signs which tell us what restaurants to patronize, and innumerable other things that are part of our lives, every day.

As well, because of gross misunderstanding of visual symbolism, the mass media continually misrepresents such things as swastikas, six-pointed stars, crosses, and so forth. This has effects on everything from lessons in school to Hollywood films to politics. The time has come for American citizens to be informed about the real meanings of common symbols. And to appreciate the many artistic possibilities in symbolic design.

Consider six-point stars. According to TV, these symbols necessarily stand for Judaism and only Jewish faith. Not that this identification is unreasonable. This style of star is featured on the flag of the state of Israel. In Jewish tradition the star is called a Magan David. And it certainly has a rich heritage in Jewish history.

Yet the star only became a dominant symbol in Judaism in the 19th century. Before that some version of a menorah was the usual form if identification.

Why it matters now is that, in a global economy and an increasingly global culture, people are more and more exposed to very different six-point star usages. The symbol has Hindu meaning in India, for example, and even can be found in much Islamic art of past centuries. How was this possible? Because, in the past, few Jews used the star as representing their religion. As well, various American Indian tribes use the design, such as the Apache, and the meanings they give it are unrelated to Judaism. This is worth knowing.

Similarly for the cross, which appears in many non-Christian contexts around the world, as does the crescent, nowadays associated with Islam almost exclusively, but in the past having Chinese, Japanese, black African, Maori, and still other associations.

Where the biggest problem arises, however, concerns the swastika. As far as the mass media and the movie industries are concerned, the only conceivable meaning is Nazi Germany, Hitler, and the Third Reich. This kind of view does all of us a great disservice and must cease. Such a view is based on ignorance of history, ignorance of the visual traditions of religions, and ignorance of the heritage of graphic art and architecture in our culture.

In the early 2000s the European Union began to take steps to outlaw the swastika in all forms and all venues, on the grounds that it was an irredeemable symbol of hate. The breath-taking ignorance of European legislators soon became apparent, however, when large-scale protests broke out in Great Britain, led by Hindus, with smaller scale protests on the continent led by followers of Falun Gong. It seems as if the swastika has central importance in Hindu religion and in Falun Gong– where it derives from Buddhist precedent. While there apparently were no protests by followers of Jain religion, such people surely were also very concerned since the swastika is the main symbol on the flag of Jainism.

This has other practical considerations. While the company closed down some years prior to the controversy in the 2000s, until the 1970s the Scindia Steamship Company of India regularly sailed its ships into German ports. The flag of Scindia was blue, with a large white circle in the middle, and a red swastika within the circle. This design had been in use before the rise of the Nazis and was known about and praised by Gandhi.

Current relevance concerns the wide use in India of swastikas for many purposes. Such usage dates back at least 5000 years when the symbol was common in Harappan culture. It is pervasive in modern day India and is a popular decorative device for Diwali, more-or-less the equivalent, in that country, as Christmas in America.

Hindus have two official flags, one with a stylized OM, the other with a swastika. In India the swastika is auspicious, it stands for good fortune, for love between men and women, and for divine blessing. And it is used in the names of at least 500 commercial companies, as a “bumper sticker” for motor vehicles, etc, and even as a name for people of either sex, most famously, Swastika Mukherjee, the film actress.

Obviously this has implications for Israeli – Indian relations in a time when an important trade and military alliance between the two nations exists.

To be very sure, there is no way that Jews can forget the Holocaust. Nor should they, nor should anyone else. However, continued association of the swastika exclusively with the Nazis is a major mistake that needs remedy.

Among other things is denies part of Jewish heritage. The Second Temple, in Jerusalem, featured rows of swastikas at the Hulda Gate. And, to refer to only one other example, the historic Ein Gedi synagogue has a large unmistakable swastika in the center of the floor, created from mosaic tiles.

This is also a time when people everywhere are rediscovering their forgotten past. Among many popular rediscoveries are the uses of swastikas centuries ago in places as diverse as Ethiopia, where the design has never passed out of use as a form of the Christian cross, Tajikistan, Finland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Portugal, Ireland, France, Italy (the Vatican has elaborate swastika art in its architecture), Great Britain (where, among many other locations, Oxford University has swastika-tile floors), Denmark (it was the symbol of Carlsbad Beer for many years), Indonesia, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, and many other countries, including the United States of America.

In some countries the swastika is as current as it has ever been throughout their histories. This is the case for Japan, where the symbol is known as a manji, Iceland, Latvia, Estonia,Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, Viet Nam, the Basque area of Spain, the Cuna tribal area of Panama, and the Pennsylvania Dutch area in Pennsylvania.

In all these cases the swastika has entirely benign meaning, for instance, in Buddhism it stands for Buddha’s heart and for compassion.

In this connection a common myth should be dispelled. It simply is false that the Nazis took the “good” swastika design, facing to the Left, and reversed it by turning it to the Right, making it evil. In actual fact there are many conventions throughout the world about which way the swastika should face, and in many cultures it makes no difference whatsoever, which is true for most American Indian tribes that use the symbol. For the record, the Hindus usually prefer Right-facing swastikas and Buddhists usually prefer the opposite. However, there are many exceptions and, for that matter, Hindus use the “Buddhist” version fairly often, in which case it is referred to as a suavastika and is generally associated with female qualities or Goddesses.

It is also worth knowing that the Red Swastika Society is the Buddhist equivalent of the Red Cross, and has used the symbol since the 1920s. More recently a Hindu version of the red Cross, known as Red Swastik (without a final “A”), has organized in India and now counts as members large numbers of medical personnel and hospitals. The short form “swastik” is also made use of by rock bands, stores, hotels, and so forth.

All of this is anything but trivial. Nor can it continue to be swept under the rug. And to continue to regard it as some sort of “embarrassment” is completely unjustifiable.

About 55 miles from Eugene, Oregon, where this is written, there you will find Swastika Mountain in the midst of the Umpqua National Forest. You will find Swastika Lake in Wyoming, Swastika Trails in several states, a number of Swastika ghost towns, –most well known is the one in New Mexico, not far from Raton– the village of Swastika in upstate New York, not far from Plattsburg, and all kinds of historical sites, like that for Swastika Ranch not far from Lubbock, Texas.

Swastikas feature in the architecture of many famous buildings in America:

on the exterior of the Baha’i House of Worship (Temple) in Wilmette, near Chicago, in the Senate Hearing Room in the Capitol, on the ceiling of the lobby of the Supreme Court, within the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, on parts of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, on the floor of the old Public Library (now a cultural center) in Chicago, in the state capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, in fence designs at Monticello, and so forth, to mention just some of the more well known examples.

As well, approximately 100 American Indian tribes made extensive use of swastikas, known by Native American names like Tasita, for the Hopi. These tribes include the Navajo (many classic items of jewelry show swastikas as do many carpets), the Cherokee, the Sioux, the Pueblo, the Zuni, and the tribes of the Northwest Coast. Many of these tribes are now reviving use of the symbol.

The one state where something of the old historic traditions of American swastika use still can be found is New Mexico, where the famed KiMo Theater uses swastikas in its ornamentation, and where people still remember the Swastika Garage, the Swastika Railroad, the Swastika Coal Company, and much else. In Oklahoma some people still recall that the shoulder patch of the 41st Infantry Division, changed to a thunderbird in about 1940, had been a gold swastika on a red diamond shape.

Moreover, visit any Chinatown and keep your eyes open. At the Chinatown in Portland, Oregon, one restaurant, on the same block as the Jewish museum of Oregon, has over 70 swastikas in its ironwork decorations. Across the street from the museum is the Chinese Garden with possibly 100 Oriental-design swastikas. But if you are Jewish and love Chinese food……..

Or if you are Jewish and love education, there is the University of Oregon and the ERB Memorial Union and its large brass swastika window on the staircase landing between the first and second floors.

If you are of any ethnic origin, there are more modern examples to refer to. Just one of about 200 modern commercial uses will suffice: The symbol of JP Morgan Chase Bank is a stylized swastika.

A good deal of computer generated fractal art comes out as fancy swastika designs.

But there is much more to visual literacy than even swastikas and their meanings.

This Resolution is intended to make the public conscious of the importance of graphic art, symbolic design, and our visual heritage. It is also intended to remind the educational establishment of its responsibilities to all students, and the public, to make the value of graphic arts obvious, and to encourage respect for religious and cultural traditions from around the world that are now at home in many American communities. This Resolution is also intended to point out to the media that it has special responsibilities to educate the public about the meanings of sacred symbols, that it has an obligation to be fair and honest, not to abuse its special constitutional rights by perpetuating stereotypes about swastikas or, for that matter, anything else. About this, the Law may well have something to say and actions that may be taken. Wilful deception of the public is not protected by anything said in the First Amendment.

More positively, this Resolution is meant to promote useful and helpful knowledge about graphic art and about symbols and art more generally. It is intended to facilitate better relations between people with different cultural and religious backgrounds, to enable US citizens to better appreciate art forms that they may now be unfamiliar with even though, in cases, these forms of art had been intrinsic to American visual culture in the past. This Resolution is meant to inspire artists and designers to make contributions to the visual environment of all Americans in new and beautiful ways.

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For further information contact the Swastika Club of America, also known as Swastika Club International, established by the author in 2004, which is headquartered in the United States, or Friends of the Swastika, which has its headquarters in Canada. There are other groups with similar goals and which are anti-Nazi in their values, including one in Poland –about which more cannot be said here because all of its publications are in the Polish language. Similarly there is a large group in Russia.

A caution is in order: Some groups seek to revive the swastika but, even though they may be anti-Nazi themselves, espouse ideas and values that may be strongly objectionable, such as the Raelians, infamous for a human cloning hoax, for sexual perversions, and for the egomania of its leader. For a fact, the Swastika Club and the Friends of the Swastika group reject what the Raelians stand for.

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D.3 Evolution and Sociobiology Resolution

This Resolution takes the view that we are all immeasurably better off when we understand the principles of evolution and apply the lessons of sociobiology to our lives.

Here is why:

It is unarguably true that science changes from one generation to the next and that we must always be prepared to revise our conclusions based on new empirical evidence. However, this is not to say that science is somehow unreliable or too relativistic to be trusted. On the contrary, the achievements of science speak for themselves, and it is from science that enormous advances have been made in medicine, computer technology, engineering, chemistry, and countless other fields, including the behavioral sciences, especially disciplines such as demographics.

And while the discoveries and theories of Charles Darwin are now more than a century and a half in our past, there can be no doubt that his insights and the evidence he marshaled on behalf of his views have had profound effects in innumerable areas of life. In terms of the biological sciences, all such science is now Darwinian to some or great extent. All biology, it can be said, is evolutionary biology.

This hardly denies the contributions of people like Gregor Mendel, for instance, but the point is that even the newer field of genetics has proven to be completely compatible with most of the basics of Darwinian evolution. Mendel compliments Darwin, he does not negate Darwin and, instead, makes evolution more understandable and even more empirically grounded.

This is not to say that some aspects of evolution necessarily support various philosophies or political positions. There have been a variety of claims to this effect, but few are “necessary” in an objective sense. After all, evolution can be interpreted as showing how humanity arose over millions of years of prehistory, guided by providence, or as something which Spirit was self-actualized within and “hitched a ride” on, through eons of time, emerging into our world as the modern men and women who created civilization.

Evolution can also be interpreted as supportive of Atheism, as a process guided by circumstances, without purpose, and about which our best course of action is simply to make the most of our situation as we find it in life. This particular view is as metaphysical as its opposite viewpoint, Creationism, and is about as likely to be right, viz, not very. For as R Buckminster Fuller once said, we must take note of an undisputed fact, the potential for intelligent life, for civilization, for every human quality and value, was built into the “nature of nature” from the very beginning, from the instant of the Big Bang, or from the time when the universe emerged from a titanic cosmic oscillation, depending on your preferred theory of cosmology. Or something else for all anyone can say.

The point is that the potential for all we are was present all along. This can hardly be accidental, and to dismiss all purpose out-of-hand surely is arrogant in extremis.

What should also not deserve to be dismissed is the new science of sociobiology, or as it sometimes is referred to, evolutionary biology, with a sub-speciality known as evolutionary psychology. Yet this is exactly what is done, not only by people on the political Right, who are generally unfamiliar with this science and who could care less, but also on the political Left, especially by gender feminists who often do know something about sociobiology but reject it because acceptance would destroy many of the premises of feminist ideology they are committed to as their de facto religion.

But, like it or not, and a trip to the zoo should make this clear enough, our own behavior and propensities are obviously related to that of other animals from the wild, especially mammals, but by no means excluding earlier forms of’ life from which mammals evolved. That is, all of us are, in effect, partly hirsute primates, partly arboreal creatures similar to lemurs, partly rodent-like, and so forth, all the way down to fishes. Hence the title of a 2008 book by Neil Shubin, provost of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Your Inner Fish. The subtitle spells it out: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the Human Body.

We are, in every cell of our bodies, descendents of earlier species and we retain characteristics of many of our remote ancestors, numbers of whom have modern-era analogs in life forms that are currently alive.

The science of sociobiology was invented by Edward O. Wilson and was popularized in his 1975 book: Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. The term “synthesis” is important inasmuch as this science makes reference to various fields of research, including zoology, archaeology, population genetics, anthropology, sociology, behavioral ecology, etc., and also social psychology, as well as, obviously, biology.

The purpose of this science is to identify, from both the evolutionary record and from examples of animal behavior by analogous species, what kinds of behavior in humans is adaptive and essential vs. what is optional and open to modification. Needless to say, this is what most makes the field controversial since there exist several political ideologies which outright deny that human nature is in any way behaviorally restricted by biology. For such ideologues, both on the Left and on the Right, and sometimes “other,” we are totally free agents who can do whatever we want and there will be no natural consequences. Sociobiologists regard this outlook as hopelessly naive, false to every relevant fact, and self destructive.

For example, human sense of territoriality is built into our psyches as an optimal way of organizing our lives spatially. All human societies have their own philosophies of territory, but all have some kind of territorial imperative to guide them. It is inescapable.

Sociobiology says that such feelings as altruism, whereby we help one another, sometimes selflessly, has adaptive evolutionary value and to live lives of pure selfishness not only is destructive in a moral sense but functionally.

We also are competitive by the design of nature, therefore social theories predicated on the view that all life should be non-competitive are completely foolish and unrealistic –if not suicidal. Sexual competition is very much built into our genes as well. Hence, while feminists and other so-called “enlightened” people descry such things as beauty contests as retrograde or sexist or the like, the fact is that life for all women is an on-going beauty contest and the sooner a girl realizes this fact the better her chances for making decisions that will help her find a mate she prefers and who will enable her to pass her genes on to a new generation.

When a woman does give birth, she exhibits a behavioral pattern that is intrinsic to most if not all mammal species, and numerous other kinds of animals, protectiveness of young. This is not some kind of “choice.” It is part of being human, especially for females.

Sociobiologists are currently trying to identify as many other biologically derived traits as possible. What is already clear is that some “free choice” behaviors are utterly stupid and that those who indulge in them are deluded or, as the case may be, trapped by a false ideology into doing things that are antithetical to one’s self interests. Chief culprit in this is gender feminist ideology, although it has competition for the Dysfunctional Prize from various kinds of religion, also from Marxist-Leninism and Neo-Marxism, from what is known as Political Correctness, from naive romanticism, from various forms of asceticism, and so forth.

That is, some ideologies are demonstrably ruinous to people, including some popular ideologies with millions of followers.

One set of objections to sociobiology has it that this science is a from of biological determinism. Actually what it is, is a recognition of limits that, when transgressed, lead to disaster. Usually, although not always, these very sensible limits are enshrined in moral codes which have religious foundations. However, some behaviors are not addressed all that well by various religions.

For example, is it some sort of truism that polygyny is non-viable given free will and that it is being relegated to oblivion? Or that if men can have multiple wives it should be equally valid for a woman to marry multiple husbands? The evidence is non-ambiguous once you seek hard facts and set aside ideology. Polygyny is not going away at all, it simply takes new forms, like Rock star groupies or serial monogamy. And as for polyandry, it only works for any length of time when all husbands are brothers. By the way, polygyny usually works best when wives are sisters. All of which is now known as empirical fact.

In other words, so-called social reforms that ignore the evidence of sociobiology are doomed to failure. This impacts mostly on human-plasticity ideologies of the Left even though a number of conservative religious beliefs also turn out to be ill-advised and guaranteed to invite misery.

As the well-researched Wikipedia article about sociobiology points out, there is reason to take the view that “socially progressive societies are at odds with our innermost nature.” That is, SOME “progressive” values do not work and have, as a predictable outcome, personal or social catastrophe. It is important to stress that this is also the case for various forms of religion-motivated causes. In other words, ideologies of both Left and Right, plus unclassifiable, can be empirically evaluated in terms of results. Or can be in the future; at this time there remains far more work for sociobiologists to do than they have accomplished.

As the article puts it, sociobiology ” begins with the idea that behaviors have evolved over time…[ and it ] predicts therefore that animals will act in ways that have proven to be evolutionarily successful over time…”

Mess with nature and nature will demand that you pay a price.

Or, conversely, co-operate with nature, and life, in all probability, will go smoothly with good outcomes.

The “mess with nature” issue is explored in great detail in a 2002 book by Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

The fact is that inherited behavioral propensities were chosen by natural selection and are adaptive to our species, or almost always are. In a select few cases the demands of civilization have rendered traits as problematic in modern cities or while using the latest technology, but the best thing to do is to recognize these limitations as unavoidable and not pretend they don’t exist.

This Sociobiology Resolution says that some occupations are, for evolutionary reasons rooted in biology, suited better for one gender than for the other. This should not be interpreted to mean a return to the situation a century ago, but, for instance, women in combat should never be allowed, nor mixed gender military units, and so forth. In civilian life, maternity leaves for women certainly are a good idea but the counterpart, paternity leaves for men, usually are near-absurdities.

Similarly, a man can certainly take sexual advantage of a female in some circumstances and the result would be considered non-consensual rape and a decided problem for a young woman. But when a women “takes advantage” of a male, even one who is younger, only an idiot would regard this as a disadvantage for him. The exact opposite is the case. We are well within our rights to protect the very young of either gender, but beyond puberty is another story altogether and law ought to reflect exactly this.

Because science does change and always needs to be updated by new evidence, it would be best to limit recommendations here to Resolution form. However, the strongest possible force should be attached to the principles described here. We need a realistic understanding of human nature and we need to put an end to all varieties of feminist nonsense once and for all, that is, all forms of feminism that are anti-evolution. We also need to put an end to denial of evolution by many on the political Right, who advocate a set of values that are anti-science and that harm the intellectual development of the young and, years later, of adults who have grown into voting citizens. This is especially important inasmuch as the source of wisdom of many conservatives, the Bible itself, is supportive of the concept of evolution, and thus this holy text is misinterpreted because of an error in theology. As Wisdom of Solomon says in verses 18 and 19 of chapter 19:

…”the elements combined among themselves in different ways, as can accurately be inferred from the observation of what happened. Land animals took to the water and things that swim migrated to dry land…” This may be the earliest statement of the theory of evolution in existence.

A Radical Centrist Vision for the Future > Appendix > E. Jon Roland’s Draft Amendments (next)

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