
Can We Do Better?
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Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- About the Author
- Dedication
- Copyright Information ©
- Acknowledgement
- Annotated Chapter Headings
- Definition of Terms
- Chapter 1 The Bloke Who Wrote this Book
- Putting More Cards on the Table
- An Ordinary Person Writing an Unusual Book
- Critiques, Questions and Invitations
- A Wide Net
- Be Curious
- Dignity, Reverence, Reason, Critical Thinking and Accountability
- 2020 and 2023
- Cherry Picking and Connections
- My Hope and Purpose
- As You Journey Through the Book
- A Punctuation Quirk
- Idiosyncrasies of My Writing
- Some Terms
- Imagine and Envisage
- A Companion Workbook
- An Anthology of Poems
- Chapter 2 A Quick Look Ahead
- The First Three-Quarters of This Book-The Contrast of Yin and Yang-Dispositions and Issues
- The Decline of Yin and the Rise of Yang
- What We Might Do With this Awareness and Understanding
- The Final Quarter of the Book
- Country
- Some Questions
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 3 Human Destructiveness
- Pause, Reflect and Absorb
- Man-Made Problems
- Men and Women
- Women-Lead Solutions to Man-made Problems
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 4 Too Many and Too Few
- Too Few Who Help and Too Many Who Harm
- Simple but Powerful Values of Good Samaritans
- Imagine and Envisage
- The Workbook and the Anthology
- Chapter 5 Patriarchy and Chauvinism - The Domains of Male Dominance
- Enough Glib Masculine Stuff
- Now is the Time for Men and Women to Nurture Citizenship, Stewardship, Leadership and Eldership
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 6 Enough Redundant Man-Made Dogma
- From Now On
- Before We Forge Ahead
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 7 Slow Down
- Hope
- Questions to Stimulate Clarity
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 8 Where to Look for Peace, Clarity and Direction - and Where Not to Look
- An Example of the Use of an Internal Locus of Values and Clarity
- An Internal Locus
- The Next Few Chapters
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 9 A Way to Slow Down and Become More Peacefully Aware
- We Need a Helpful Process
- Chapter 10 Personal Benefits of Breath Meditation
- A Computer Analogy
- The Benefits of Attentive Listening
- The Benefits of Being Mindfully Present
- Mental Voices to Tune Into
- Mental Voices to Tune Out
- Perspective and Proportion
- Practice is the Key
- Talking Less and of Sitting Still
- Practise the Practice
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 11 Societal, Big Picture Benefits of Breath Meditation
- Breath Mediation - a Fear-Stopper, a Fantasy-Stopper, an Opinion-Stopper, a Judgementalism-Stopper
- Sensitivity to the Dignity of Justice
- Dignity and Critical Thinking vs Presumption, Pretention and Fantasy
- The Dignity of Justice and the Justice of Dignity
- Imagine and Envisage
- Chapter 12 A Process for Listening to the Rhythm of Your Breath
- Examples of Breath Meditation
- Practising Breath Meditation While Reading This Book
- Chapter 13 Reality and Possibility
- Confabulation
- Chapter 14 The Jekyll and Hyde Species
- The Incongruities of Humanness
- Channelling Einstein
- The Dark Mr Hyde Side
- 'Our' Mr Hyde Harms and Destruction
- China, Russia, the USA and Populism - Today's Mr Hyde States
- Rampant Corporatism and the Fossil Fuel Industry - Other Expressions of Mr Hyde
- Chapter 15 Us Quixotic Humans - Another Expression of Mr Hyde
- Why We Tilt
- Quixotic Oblivion
- Self-Reflection
- Chapter 16 Liminality - Betwixt Jekyll and Hyde
- Questions Arising from the Poem
- Breathe
- Chapter 17 Forthcoming Questions and Reflections
- Chapter 18 Forks in the Road
- Forks in the Road, Discernments, Choices and Directions
- Take Your Time
- Therefore
- The Companion Workbook and the Anthology
- Chapter 19 Counter-Intuitive Questions Are Next
- Counterintuition
- Lots of Questions, with Some Overlap, and Some Repetition
- Chapter 20 Questions about You and Me
- Chapter 21 Questions about Design, God, Eternity and Creation
- Before You Race to the Questions in this Chapter
- Design and a Designer
- Back to the Questions
- The Notions of Eternal, and Creation
- Ignorance, Conservatism and Fundamentalism
- Ignorance and Beliefs
- Ignorance and Arbitrariness
- Existential Drivers of Fantasy
- Prior to Science and Reason
- Arbitrary Superstitions in the 21st Century
- Possibility
- Remember - Dignity and Rationality
- Before You Move On
- Chapter 22 Questions about Faith, Meaning and Purpose
- Assumptions about Meaning and Purpose
- Presumption and Pretention vs Authentic Meaning, Purpose and Faith
- The Pleasure of Whimsy
- A Call to Awareness and Caution
- The Irony of Faith and Beliefs
- Beliefs
- Ulterior Motives for Faith and Spirituality
- Meaning Without Presumptive Faith and Fanciful Beliefs
- Pause
- Chapter 23 Questions about Imagination, Speculation and Fantasy
- More Penetrating Questions about Our Quirky, Esoteric Human Dispositions
- Human-Centred Idealisms
- Egoic Imaginings as Self-Indulgence
- Can We Do Better?
- Pause
- Chapter 24 Questions about Presumption, Pretention and Pontification
- Definitive Opinionated Statements vs Open Enquiring Questions
- We Hip Moderners
- The Easy-Lazy-Assumptive Way
- Can We Do Better
- Chapter 25 Questions about Ego and God
- Egoic Presumption or Faith?
- Ego - God
- Chapter 26 Questions about Story-Making
- Story-Making
- Chapter 27 Questions about Evolution, Chemistry and Biology
- Dry Ordinariness vs Esoteric Titillation
- Chemistry and Biology, not Religion
- Chapter 28 Questions about the Human Brain
- Not as Advanced as We Assume
- Hope for Values and Rationality as Guides to Human Existence
- Chapter 29 Question about Power, Violence and Degradation
- Times Before the Corruption of Power
- The Agricultural Era
- And then - The Juggernaut of Institutionalised Religion
- Religion and State
- Industry, Commercialism and Technology
- Modern Times
- Chapter 30 Questions about Our Conflicted Nature
- Our Self-Leveraging Transactional Dispositions
- Can We Do Better than Transactional Self-leveraging
- Chapter 31 Questions about the Spirituality of Reverence, Dignity and Rationality
- Hope for 'A Spirituality of Reverence, Dignity and Rationality'
- Spirituality Today
- Embrace Reverence, Dignity and Rationality - and Keep Them Close
- Chapter 32 Questions about Possible Ways Forward
- 2%, 2% and 96%
- Moving Forward
- Not Presuming and Pretending
- Chapter 33 Sitting with These Questions
- Chapter 34 Ignorance
- Four Broad Types of Ignorance
- Can We Do Better
- Chapter 35 A Snapshot of the Timeline of Ignorance
- The Rise of the Ignorance of Institutionalised Superstition Following the Rise of Agriculture
- Today
- Junk-Science and Agnotological Ignorance
- Ignorance and Social Evolution
- The Tyranny of C-Words
- Populism and Ignorance
- Can We Do Better?
- Chapter 36 Ignorance and Arbitrariness
- No Favourites in Arbitrary Ignorance
- Fear, Ignorance and Arbitrariness
- Your Experiences and Observations
- Chapter 37 The Lure of Romantic Ignorance, Intrigue and Drama
- The Plot Thickens
- Enter Gossip, Intrigue and Paranoia
- Today
- Sorting Fact from Fiction
- Questions about Possibility
- Chapter 38 Bullshit, Lies and Ignorance
- Bullshit and Us
- Chapter 39 Our Choice - Wilful Ignorance or Intentional Reverence, Dignity, Reason and Honesty
- Irony, the Mirror of the Human Mind
- Chapter 40 Another Poem about Us Humans
- So Much Irony-So Many Contradictions-So Many Blind Spots
- Ego, Ignorance and Irony
- Chapter 41 A Look at Ego Through the Eyes of Eastern Philosophy
- Ego - Hitherto and Hereafter
- This Chapter
- Ego - The Common Denominator in All Human Stuff
- My Understandings of Ego
- Ego According to Western Psychology
- An Eastern Perspective of Ego
- Ego = Unawareness = Unconsciousness = Left Hemisphere Defaults
- The Plot Thickens - Again
- Ego in the Form of Inflated Self-Importance
- The Presumptive, Over-confident Ego
- Your List
- Chapter 42 Ego - The Voice in Your Head
- Egoic Voices and 'Me'
- The Egoic Voices of Tribalists, Fundamentalists and Populists
- The Egoic Voices of Institutional Abusers
- The Pervasiveness of Egoic Voices and Stories
- Hope in Yin-Mindfulness
- Questions for You and Me
- Chapter 43 Levels of Egoic Unawareness - Unconsciousness
- The Collective and Cumulative Effects of Collective Unconsciousness
- Chapter 44 Strategic Ecological Wisdom Vs the Egoic Self-Leveraging Me
- First People Awareness in Contrast to Political and Religious Unawareness
- Chapter 45 Realising our Potential Through Sentient Awareness - aka Mindful Consciousness
- Chapter 46 More on What Ego Looks Like and Sounds Like
- More About 'Me'
- Egoic Impression-Management, Self-Leveraging and Control for 'Me and Us'
- Ego and Me-Focussed Mental Control Mechanisms
- The Scope of Egoic Wanting
- Ego - Secreted in the Shadows
- When I Saw What Is Secreted in the Shadows
- Ego and Oblivion vs Awareness and Accountability
- 2018-2022 Politics and Corporatism
- Questions
- Man-made Egoic Blind Spots and Aversions
- Chapter 47 The Virtual World of Ego
- Goggled Virtual Simulations
- The Virtual World of Populism
- Fundamentalist and Extremist Simulations
- Egoic Simulation and Mind-Management
- Questions
- Chapter 48 Ego and Bullshit
- Bullshit, Spin and Stories
- Goggles and Virtual Bullshit
- The Sneakiness of Bullshit
- Increased Reality = Increased Dignity
- Chapter 49 Ego and Arbitrariness
- Whimsical Ideas about God, Spirits, Heaven and Hell, Karma and Reincarnation
- Ego and Existential God-Stories
- Be Vulnerable
- Dignity and Rationality in the Midst of Vulnerability
- Chapter 50 Presumptions, Pretentions, Opinions and Beliefs - Where 21st Century Ego Hides and Abides
- Us Egoic Moderners
- The Masculine Ego - The Elephant in the Room
- Ego Hides in Assumed Masculine Ideals and Arbitrary Ambitions
- Ego, Judgementalism, Issues-Mongering and Conflict
- Gossip, Labels and Name-calling
- Enter the Role of Dignity and Rationality
- Some Questions
- Chapter 51 Projection - Ego's Most Prominent Ploy
- Projection Is
- Why We Project
- Projection, at All Levels, in All Domains
- Projection - One-Eyed, Resistant and Inexorable
- Situations of Egoic Projection
- God - The Most Common Human Projection
- The Endless Horrors of Projective Hyde-Like Men
- Questions
- Chapter 52 Moderating Projection at a Personal Level
- A Blend of Sentience and Sensitivity is the Key
- Decrease Projection - Increase Accountability
- Mindfulness
- Practising Mindfulness by Practising Reflective Listening
- Mindfulness and Character
- Concluding Questions
- Chapter 53 The Centrality of Ego in Self-Help Material
- Self-Help Stuff and Ego
- Our Transition from Religion-to Ideology-to Modern-Day New-Age Fluff
- Irony Abounds
- The Good, the Stupid and the Harmful
- In Summary - Four Sources of Egoic Fantasies and Lies
- Chapter 54 Principles for Reading Self-Help Material
- Inductive Anecdotal Stories
- Chapter 55 The Egoic Drivers of New-Age Pontiffs and Conspiracy Spruikers
- Chapter 56 Loss of Dignity Through the Rise of Ego
- Pre-Agriculture to Now
- Pressures Arising from the Shift to Agriculture
- Then-on Top of This-A Massive Shift to Egoic Institutional Ideologies
- Next, the Tyranny and Devastation of Colonisation
- The Indignity of Egoic Euphemisms
- Blaming the Victims
- A Way Forward
- Chapter 57 Insights from Two Genesis Narratives
- Two Crucial Myths that Determined the Course of History
- The Effects of These Narratives
- Fake Love
- Fellers
- Chapter 58 The God Presumption
- Atheists and Believers
- The Mess that is Religion
- God-Delusion-God-Virus-God-Syndrome
- Presumption, Faith and Beliefs
- Yabber, Babble, Jibber-Jabber and Twaddle
- God-talk and Speculation
- More on Beliefs
- The Projection - God
- Unicorns and Horses
- The Role of Imaginative Whimsical Fantasies
- Our Religious Hotchpotch
- My Conclusion
- Chapter 59 Monotheistic Religions
- Monotheistic Religion, Culture and Politics
- Dignity and Critical Thinking - Alternatives to God-Projections and the Abominations of Religion
- Chapter 60 In the Name of Dignity and Reason
- Therefore -Enough Left Hemisphere Aberrations. For the Sake of Dignity and Reason - enough!
- It's Time
- Chapter 61 The Measure of a Man
- Chapter 62 A Few More Radical Reality-checks
- The Word Radical
- Exposing More Dodgy Themes
- What is There?
- Plenty of Room for Wonder and Fun
- More Vague Baseless Fantasies
- So Much Whimsical Stuff
- Not What We Need
- Who and What We Are
- Pause and Embrace Reality
- Chapter 63 Populism, Our Most Recent Expression of Dumb and Dumber
- The Drivers of the Popularity of Populism
- Populist Expedience, Madness and Indecency
- The Rise of Populist Power and the Demise of Dignity and Critical Thinking
- The Popularity of Populists and the Lure of Populism
- Questions
- Australia
- Chapter 64 Destabilisation - The Hallmark of Populism
- What We Can Do
- Chapter 65 The Mad and the Bad
- The Decline of Sanity and the Rise of Madness
- Mad-Bad Threats to Long-Term Stability
- Chapter 66 Sanity and Dignity
- Chapter 67 More on Russia and China - Their Extreme Expressions of Mad and Bad
- Russia and Putin
- Russia's, China's and America's incarnations of My Hyde
- China and the Chinese Communist Party
- Mr Hyde - Then and Now
- Postscript
- Postscript Questions
- Chapter 68 Yours and My Place in Big Picture Issues and Future Possibilities
- Chapter 69 Dignity, Reason and Character - In Contrast to Ego
- Bill - A Person of Ego
- The Need for Approval
- Egoic Stuff that Drives Us
- Our Next Two Profiles
- Chapter 70 Alan - A Person of Character, Grace and Dignity
- Chapter 71 Michael and Joan
- Chapter 72 Alan, Bill, Michael and Joan - Four Excellent Role Models
- Alan, Michael and Joan
- Bill
- Teachers, Role Models and Exemplars in Your Life and My Life
- Another Exemplar and Role Model
- Chapter 73 Uncle Bob
- Chapter 74 From Now On - Values and Rationality
- Choose and Embrace the Value that Resonates for You
- Chapter 75 Envisage
- Chapter 76 A Revolutionary, Mindful, Enlightened and Evolved Culture
- A Dignified, Rational, Effective and Enduring Culture
- Ecological Oneness - Not Take and Break
- Us
- Dadirri
- First People - Empiricists and Spiritualists
- Questions
- Chapter 77 Practical Learning from Australia's First Peoples
- First-People Gifts to Us
- Breathe-Digest-Apply
- Chapter 78 Principles, Priorities and Aspirations
- Chapter 79 Women's Voices and Women Role Models
- Some Cautions
- Chapter 80 My Acknowledgements and Commitments
- Chapter 81 Your Acknowledgements
- Breathe
- Chapter 82 An Internal Locus
- Not Beliefs
- Chapter 83 A Final Recap of Principles for Values and Rationality
- Chapter 84 Be the Difference to Make a Difference
- Our Final Questions
- Appendix 1 - Definition of Terms
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