Value for Wednesday of Week 46 in the season of Assessing

Political Equality

People have always schemed to gain political advantage over others. In the long age of kings, political equality was not even discussed but since democracy began to emerge in the late eighteenth century, more and more, people have sought and sometimes demanded political equality. For women in the United States, the right to vote did not come until 1920. Today in the United States, as across much of the world, the bigger issue is money, privilege and influence.

An unfortunate series of Supreme Court decisions has, de facto, replaced the principle of one person, one vote with something more akin to one dollar, one vote. Competitive politics is a zero-sum game. Abstract principles that lose sight of that fundamental fact can never achieve the goal of political equality.

When the Framers debated the United States Constitution, they were concerned whether the average person had the ability to exercise sound judgment in political affairs. Despite an increasingly well-educated population, that concern remains with us today. The number and complexity of issues have outstripped the ability of the average person to keep pace. With the rise of popular media, we have witnessed the tragic destruction of news in favor of entertainment. Political equality will demand an informed and astute citizenry. We have a long way to go but the goal remains the same.

Real

True Narratives

Voting rights histories:

The women's suffrage movement in the United States:

African-American voting rights in the United States:

Voting rights and Native Americans:

From the dark side: unequal treatment, generally:

Technical and Analytical Readings

Photographs

Documentary and Educational Films

On women’s suffrage

President Lyndon Baines Johnson's 1965 voting rights address

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had no such thing as political equality in mind when he composed his Serenades for ensembles, many of them written in the highly resolved key of D major. Yet in these compositions we hear the mutually supportive voices of essentially equal partners in music. That is the nature and essence of political equality.

Albums:

Music: songs and other short pieces

Visual Arts

Film and Stage

This Is Our Story

A religion of values and Ethics, driven by love and compassion, informed by science and reason.

PART ONE: OUR STORY

First ingredient: Distinctions. What is the core and essence of being human? What is contentment, or kindliness, or Love? What is gentleness, or service, or enthusiasm, or courage? If you follow the links, you see at a glance what these concepts mean.

PART TWO: ANALYSIS

This site would be incomplete without an analytical framework. After you have digested a few of the examples, feel free to explore the ideas behind the model. I would be remiss if I did not give credit to my inspiration for this work: the Human Faith Project of Calvin Chatlos, M.D. His demonstration of a model for Human Faith began my exploration of this subject matter.

A RELIGION OF VALUES

A baby first begins to learn about the world by experiencing it. A room may be warm or cool. The baby learns that distinction. As a toddler, the child may strike her head with a rag doll, and see that it is soft; then strike her head with a wooden block, and see that it is hard. Love is a distinction: she loves me, or she doesn’t love me. This is true of every human value:

justice, humility, wisdom, courage . . . every single one of them.

This site is dedicated to exploring those distinctions. It is based on a model of values that you can read about on the “About” page. However, the best way to learn about what is in here is the same as the baby’s way of learning about the world: open the pages, and see what happens.

ants organic action machines

Octavio Ocampo, Forever Always

Jacek Yerka, House over the Waterfall

Norman Rockwell, Carefree Days Ahead

WHAT YOU WILL SEE HERE

When you open tiostest.wpengine.com, you will see a human value identified at the top of the page. The value changes daily. These values are designed to follow the seasons of the year.

You will also see an overview of the value, or subject for the day, and then two columns of materials.

The left-side column presents true narratives, which include biographies, memoirs, histories, documentary films and the like; and also technical and analytical writings.

The right-side columns presents the work of the human imagination: fictional novels and stories, music, visual art, poetry and fictional film.

Each entry is presented to help identify the value. Open some of the links and experience our human story, again. It belongs to us all, and each of us is a part of it.

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The Work on the Meditations