Activist judge – it means different things to different people…

Benjamin A. Neil

Towson University

Abstract

This paper explores the application or misapplication, as it were, of the term “activist

judge”. Much has been written about the concept. However, there is currently little agreement as

to the real definition of the term or its overall use as to members of the judiciary. It is hoped, that

this discussion will shed some light on the continuing dichotomy of the terminology and its

application.

Keywords: activist judge, restrained judge, liberal, conservative, judges

Introduction

One of Alexander Hamilton’s arguments for the new Constitution in the 1700’s, was that

the judiciary would be the “weakest” branch of government. By 1996, however, presidential

candidate Bob Dole said in a speech that federal judges are a president’s “most profound

legacy.” It has been argued that in two centuries, the weakest branch has become a most

profound legacy because judges have taken from the people control of the most significant issues

that affect our culture, communities and families. (Jipping , 2009)

The people themselves should have the power to decide the laws enacted by their

elected representatives without judicial interference or imposition. Most Americans, however,

are not alarmed by this loss of liberty because they do not understand the Constitution or the

American system of government. The National Constitution Center (Sept. 2, 1998) recently

found that 41% of American’s do not know the number of branches of government, and onequarter

cannot identify a single right guaranteed by the First Amendment. While only 35% of

teenagers know the first three words of the Constitution, 59% can name the Three Stooges.

The Restrained Judge – Servant of the Law

Columnist Thomas Sowell cut through all the distractions and misleading rhetoric when

he wrote: The real issue is not the number of judges but what kind of judges. There exist two

basic choices, a restrained judge who is a servant of the law, or an activist judge who is the

master of the law. (See: Jipping, supra)

A judge’s most important task is interpreting the law. Since the law (whether a statute, a

regulation, or the Constitution) already exists, interpreting it is simply determining what it

means. The meaning of individual words determines the outcome of cases and, therefore,

determines how the government conducts itself.

A restrained judge believes that the meaning of these words already exists, that the

meaning came from the legislatures or the people who enacted those words into law in the first

place, and the judge’s job is to find it. Activist judges, in contrast, pursue their own agendas and

believe they can give those words any meaning they choose. A restrained judge takes the law as

he finds it, while the activist judge believes he can make it up as he goes along. America’s

founders described a restrained judge as one who uses “judgment” and an activist judge as one

who uses “will.”

In explaining why the judiciary should be the weakest branch of government, Alexander

Hamilton explained that if judges should be disposed to exercise will instead of judgment, the

consequences would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body.

That is another way of saying that restrained judges allow the people to run the country while

activist judges take over that job themselves. (Hamilton, 1788)

Restrained judges allow people to make the law and the people’s values to define the

culture. The people are meant to decide issues such as public safety, educational standards, or

whether or not religion plays a significant role in public life. Activist judges take that freedom

away from the people and dictate these and other issues, typically with liberal and secular values.

As a result, judicial selection is the most important issue in national politics today. (Jipping,

supra)

The Activist Judge – Master of the Law

The common term today is “activist judges.” Activist federal judges have declared

themselves the power over state legislatures, school boards and city councils. As a result, the

federal government grows ever more invasive, as the states become ever more subservient.

Congressman Ron Paul explains that Federal judges are undermining republican

government by imposing their preferred politics on states and local governments, instead of

respecting the policies adopted by those elected by, and thus accountable to, the people. “Some

may claim that an activist judiciary that strikes down State laws at will expands individual

liberty” said Paul. Proponents of this claim overlook the fact that the best guarantor of true

liberty is decentralized political institutions, while the greatest threat to liberty is concentrated

power. This is why the Constitution carefully limits the power of the Federal government over

States. He goes on to say,“Courts that are free to overturn State laws at the whim of a judge or

from the pressure of an activist group’s lawsuit literally nullify the 10th Amendment’s

Limitations on Federal power”. (DeWeese,2006)

Judicial activism has also been described as legislating from the bench. According to

judicial analyst and former superior court Judge Andrew Napolitano, There is no such thing as an

activist judge. An activist judge is one who’s ruling you disagree with. And if you agree with

what the judge has done, you call them heroic and honest.

The job of the judicial branch is to interpret the law whether it is unclear or in question.

When laws or rulings of lower courts are challenged, Supreme Court justices must examine the

law and determine if the intention of the law has been upheld. Often, justices must determine

whether federal or state laws are constitutional, or if Congress has passed a law without any

constitutional authority to do so, judicial rulings then become the basis for future legal

arguments- this is known as legal precedent, or “case law.” “To conservatives, activist judges are

those who permit or compel activity in which the opinion of conservatives can only be done in

the legislative branch,” Judge Napolitano said. “To liberals, activist judges are judges who

prevent the government from doing the things the Legislature wants to do.”(Napolitano, 2006)

So the core of the argument is the rule of the judiciary. Supreme Court justices are

appointed for life. The reasoning behind lifetime tenure is that sometimes justices must make

decisions that are unpopular or counter to the will of the majority. Because they are not elected,

they are free to uphold the law in spite of potential political fallout. Chief Justice William

Rehnquist said, judges should uphold the laws, regardless of whether that makes them popular or

not.

Legislating from the Bench

Fairleigh Dickinson University in their PublicMind poll [March 15, 2006] asked the

question,”Are the federal and state courts legislating from the bench?” The surprising results of

the poll were that Americans, regardless of whether they classify themselves as independent,

Democrat, Republication, liberal, moderate, or conservative, believe that the courts are

overstepping their role as interpreters of the law. 75 percent believe that legislating from the

bench is a serious problem in federal courts, and 67 percent believe it is a problem in state courts.

These results coincide with a separate CBS poll in which 77 percent believe that a judge’s

personal ideology should not affect judicial decision – making.

The American Bar Association President Robert J. Gray Jr. denounced as “politically

motivated” attacks against judges stemming from high profile cases, saying that they highlight

the lack of civility in contemporary public discourse regarding the role of judges in American

justice. “The draconian stance against the judiciary by some of this country’s lawmakers is

troubling,” said Gray. The role of the judiciary is clear. Federal and state judges are charged with

weighing the facts of a case and following the law, responsibilities they carry out with great

dignity and sensitivity. Bitter partisanship over nominations to the federal bench and the vitriolic

attacks on allegedly “Activist” judges may change, according to Gray. (Gray,2005)

Justin Daar wrote in the “American Chronicle” that we have lost faith and confidence in

our judiciary system to do what is right. Judicial activist judges have turned our legal system into

a sick mockery of justice to the point where many people would rather keep quiet and accept

whatever injustices are meted out on them rather than take their chances in a perverse game of

‘judicial’ roulette.( Daar, 2005)

Alexander Hamilton addressed the issue of judicial activism and how it would be

prevented under the new American Constitution in “Federalist Paper 81.” Hamilton wrote,

“Particular misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may now and then

happen; but they can never be as extensive as to …..affect the order of the political system. This

may be inferred with certainty…from [the judiciary’s] total incapacity to support its usurpations

by force.”

Our government has a series of institutional checks and balances that keep any one of the

three branches from superseding the others. The checks and balances between the Legislative

and Executive Branches are well known. But what Hamilton is writing about is the lesser known

check of the President over the Supreme Court. As outlined in Articles II and III of the

Constitution. The Supreme Court is dependent upon the Executive Branch, as is the Congress, to

“execute” their wishes. Nothing gets done unless the President agrees.

The Supreme Court can decide whatever they want about anything and nothing is going

to happen unless the President agrees to execute that decision. Political convention states that the

rulings of the Supreme Court are executed by the President as a matter of course, however, there

is no Constitutional requirement that this must be done. It has been done before, in 1832

President Jackson refused to execute the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Worchester v.

Georgia, and the Court responded by not issuing a similar ruling for the rest of Jackson’s term.

Tom DeWeese, Publisher and Editor of the DeWeese Report and President of the

American Policy Center had this to say, “Activist judges have been a plague on American liberty

for decades. Many of their rulings, based more on political ideology and political agendas then

on the rule of law and the actual provisions of the United States Constitution, are undermining

and destroying the reserved powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution

and the guarantee of a republican form of government to each and every state under Article IV of

the Constitution. Activist judges are destroying state autonomy and local self-government and

are a threat to individual liberty.”

The Current State of Affairs

Now, there is a looming danger that federal judges with political agendas will use their

bench powers to overturn voter-approved ballot measures and state legislative efforts regarding

such public policy issues as the legal definition of marriage. All of this is in pursuit of a radical

agenda of political centralization, statist public policy and social engineering profoundly hostile

to Constitutional democracy and individual liberty. (DeWeese, 2006)

The current climate of hostility to the judiciary cannot be written off as a product of the

lunatic fringe. Attacks on “activist judges”--- a phrase that, like “the elites”, has become a code

word for liberals. The truth is that the real issue is not the activism of judges but the principles

upon which they are acting. Justices Roberts and Alito now form a voting bloc with Anthony

Scalia and Clarence Thomas. All are in fact, activist judges on behalf of right-wing ideology.

(Jacoby, 2006)

The most activist court? The Rehnquist Court, which in terms of the annual average

number of federal statutes overturned by the Court ranks first. When it comes to rejecting state

and local statutes, the late Warren Court was second most activists in American history. Here we

see liberal activism, strongest in fact during the Great Society period and into the Burger period

before fading. As the reconstituted Court slowly grew more formable to the state of the law. But

the Rehnquist Court wasn’t far behind. Modern conservatives have tried to curtail the liberal

activism they inherited from the Warren Court, while simultaneously seeking to develop a new

conservative activism of their own. (Keck,2004)

Whether a court decision is activist has nothing to do with which direction it leans

politically. Before 1937, the Supreme Court was activist in the conservative direction. That was

just as wrong as the later liberal activism. Judges who are committed to judicial restraint are

simply committed to letting the democratic process work. Under the Constitution, a few basic

traditional rights are protected from change by the legislative branch. All other questions of

policy are subject to the democratic process.(Meyer,2008)

Even though the term “judicial activist” has dominated public debate over courts for a

generation; there is no consensus on its meaning. Political scientists opt for objective criteria,

saying that anytime judges strike down statutes or policy decisions by elected branches --- no

matter how uncontroversial their reasons --- it is an instance of “activism”. ( Savage, 2009 )

Senator John McCain lashed out at liberal judges for making law rather than interpreting

the Constitution and ripped the current Supreme Court for injudicious decisions. He said

“America’s courts have strayed far from the edict of the Founding Fathers, who laid out, ‘not just

guidelines,’ not ‘helpful suggestions,’ but a clear set of limits.” “The moral authority of our

judiciary depends on judicial self-restraint, but this authority quickly vanishes when a court

presumes to make law instead of apply it. A court is hardly competent to check the abuses of

other branches of government when it cannot even control itself”, Mr. McCain stated. However,

Barack Obama’s criteria for a good justice is someone who shares “Ones deepest values, one’s

core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works.” (Curl,2008)

Determination of Policy and Law

All judges hold their offices “on good behavior.” They freely take an oath to uphold the

constitution of their various states and the U.S. Constitution. In taking their oaths, such jurists

understand that they have no authority to rewrite the foundational laws of this republic by

judicial fiat. Yet, from the U.S. Supreme Court down to a variety of state courts, that is exactly

what they have been doing…. and they have been doing it with impunity. They have come to

behave like judicial brigands crawling over the gunwales of the ship of state with daggers in their

teeth, intent on storming the wheelhouse of our democracy. The only way to bring chronic

judicial outlawry to an end is to hold the perpetrators of this historic societal crime to account by

removing them from office. (Wilson,2008)

Elected legislators, not unelected judges should determine policy and law. The

conservative majorities under Chief Justices William Rehnquist and John Roberts have

overturned or gutted more legislation than any Supreme Court in more than 70 years; the

Constitution should be strictly constrained, without straying beyond its original intent and

explicit wording. The greatest damage in the past generation to the concept of returning power to

the states has been the reinvigorated doctrine of federal pre-emption, whose champion is icon

Roberts. Under this doctrine, even long-standing state control has been subordinated to the

dictates of the federal government.

Another conservative icon, Justice Antonin Scalia voted that federal power invalidated

the California medical marijuana law and the Oregon assisted – suicide law, even though both

represented the direct expression of the will of the people by initiative and referendum. Judges

make decisions by following the law, not their personal agenda or views shaped by their life

experience.

Most judges, conservative or liberal; try to be impartial, but legal issues are complex, and

judges are human. The default position in a close case is invariably influenced by one’s life

history and present beliefs. It is not believable, for example, that consciously or unconsciously,

Justice Scalia’s strong conservative and religious beliefs played no role in his violating his

federalism principles to vote to invalidate state medical marijuana and assisted-suicide laws.

Probably two of the most activist decisions in our judicial history were the Brown v.

Board of Education and Loring decisions of the Supreme Court. Brown prohibited government –

enforced segregation in our schools, and Loring invalidated statutes in 16 states that prohibited

consenting black and white adults from marrying each other.

On the other hand, the 1857 Dred Scott case by the Supreme Court was the quintessential

strict constructionist decision, both by its method and its explicit wording. Justice Roger Taney

wrote that his generation might not approve of slavery, but the people who wrote the

Constitution did, and therefore, absent a constitutional amendment, slavery would be forever

enshrined in our laws. Even Justice Scalia has admitted that the Dred Scott decision was an utter

disaster for the judiciary and the country. Yet it was, by every definition, a strict conservative

decision. (Wachtler and Gould, 2009)

Complaints Concerning Judicial Activism

Complaints about judicial activism have plagued Supreme Court confirmation hearings

for decades. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor fielded dozens of questions on judicial activism in

1981. Justice Stephen Breyer was urged to resist the siren calls of judicial activism in 1994. The

term appears 56 times in the record of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings, and

it seemed omnipresent at the Roberts and Alito hearings.

But what does “judicial activism” mean? To borrow from Justice Antonin Scalia, it often

“doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t say whether you’re going to adopt the incorporation doctrine,

whether you believe in substantive due process. It’s totally imprecise. It’s just nothing but fluff.”

Without context or a clear definition, a charge of judicial activism is an empty epithet, the

legal equivalent of calling someone a jerk. It hampers the exchange of ideas and lowers the level

of public debate, wasting time (and pages) that could be devoted to serious discussion of the

issues. With appropriate context and clarity, however, the term can be a valuable tool for a

meaningful discussion about the judicial role. (Kmiec,2009)

Criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court often centers on allegations that the Court decisions

reflect inappropriate “judicial activism”. Hundreds of law review articles every year address the

issue, (Kmiec,2004) (noting that the term had been discussed in over five thousand articles since

1990.) While the popular press also commonly critiques so-called activist decisions. (See

id.@1443 n.8. “In the past decade (from 1994 to August 2004), “judicial activism’ and its

cognates have appeared 163 times in the Washington Post and another 135 times in the New

York Times.”)

Even hundreds of judicial decisions have decried judicial activism. While there is no

intrinsic reason why an activist judiciary is inevitably or inherently problematic, the phrase

typically carries a very negative connotation—at least in modern discourse. (Sunstein,2005)

(observing that for some the “word” activist isn’t merely a description” but is “always an

insult”.) Not all forms of judicial activism are universally condemned. Some of the decisions for

which the Supreme Court is generally applauded, such as Brown v. Board of Education (347

U.S. 483 (1954), were in some respect activist decisions. (Roosevert III, 2006)

Ronald Dworkin has extolled the virtues of an activist judiciary in the protection of

constitutional rights. (Brubaker,1984) Judicial activism is arguately “a way for a Court to line up

for its obligation to serve as citadel of the public justice.” (Brown,2002) While this defense of

activism certainly resonates, it presumes that Justices embrace a certain honest sincerity

regarding constitutional interpretation, as opposed to a more result-oriented ideological

approach.

Critics of judicial activism challenge this sincerity and claim that activist judges simply

impose their policy preferences on society, without electoral accountability or fidelity to the

Constitution. (Marshall,2002) As calls to rein in the activist judiciary have entered popular

discourse, however, the term “activism” has become devoid of meaningful content as it often

reflects nothing more than an ideological harangue. Nevertheless, the underlying concern – that

activist judges may act improperly – is legitimate in light of our commitment to democratic

values. Yet to evaluate this concern, we need both a precise definition of judicial activism and

more rigors in its testing.

At the core of the criticisms of judicial activism lies a concern that the judiciary is acting

outside its proper judicial role. Some complain that the activist judiciary is acting “like a

legislature” instead of a court. (Kmiec, id @ 1471, Judges are labeled judicial activists when they

“legislate from the bench”) Exactly what it means for a court to “act like a legislature” is less

clear. Sometimes, the criticism suggests the Court is creating law rather than applying it. Indeed,

the key objection is that an activist Court somehow acts non-judicially. As Justice Black noted

in objection to a right to counsel ruling, “we are deciding what the Constitution is, not from what

it says, but from what we think it would have been wise for the Framers to put in it.” (U. S. v.

Wade, 1967, 388 U S 218, 250) Such “non-judicial” behavior is the form of action that must be

reflected in a social scientific measure of judicial activism.

The term “judicial activism” apparently is an effective rhetorical tool in ideological

argument, but no consensus exists regarding its specific meaning. Instead, the phrase is used as

an epithet to bludgeon legal and political opponents. (Segal and Spaeth,1993). As Judge

Diarmuid F. O’scannlain observes, “judicial activism is not always early detected. Because the

critical elements of judicial activism either are subjective or defy clear and concrete definition.”

(O’scannlain, 2000)

Judge Frank H. Esterbrook suggests that the term is “empty” and simply a “mask” for the

critic’s own substantive position on the court. While Justice Scalia has characterized criticisms of

judicial activism as “nothing but fluff”.( Law, 2002) The most common standard for evaluating

judicial activism is the extent to which judges invalidate legislative enactments. Judge Richard

A. Posner suggests that a basic element of judicial activism is a court’s willingness to act

contrary to the will of the other branches of government, as in striking down a statute. ( Posner,

1996)

Sunstein contends that it is best to measure judicial activism by seeing how often a court

strikes down the activity of other parts of government, especially those of Congress. (Sunstein,

2005, supra, p. 42.43) Judicial activism is in fact “most often associated with judicial

invalidation of decision by elected representatives.” (Marshall,2002)

Political scientists generally contend that the most dramatic instances of a lack of judicial

restraint – or conversely, the manifestation of judicial activism – are decisions that declare acts

of Congress and, to a lesser extent, those of state and local governments unconstitutional.(Segal

and Spaeth 2002, supra) This standard is commonly invoked and probably the most common

measure of judicial activism. (Peters,1997)

Overturning or ignoring applicable precedent may also constitute a form of judicial

activism.(Kmiec,2004) When Justices overturn precedent they more clearly trammel the actions

of their predecessors than the privileges of the coordinate branches, but these decisions are often

challenged as activist, given the general standard of judicial fealty to precedent. The framers of

the Constitution considered precedent to derive from the nature of judicial power, and intended

that it would limit the judicial power delegated to the courts by Article III of the Constitution.

(Anastasoff v. United States, 2000, 223 F. 3rd. 898 @ 900, Vacated as moot en banc, 235 F. 3rd

1054). Regularly overruling or distinguishing away precedent might therefore be considered

inappropriate judicial activism. The Justices have themselves occasionally criticized their

brethren for judicial activism in ignoring the Court’s precedents. (Kimel v.Fla. Bd of Regents,

(2000) 528 US 62, pg 98,99,Stevens, J. dissenting.); Engle v. Isaac, 456 US. 107 @ 137 (1982)

(Brennan, J. dissenting).

Another form of judicial activism involves not the decision but the opinion or remedy.

Writing an unnecessarily broad opinion with applicability beyond the unique circumstances of

the case before the Court might be considered activist. Alternatively, the nature of relief ordered

might appear to have an “activism” dimension. In some cases, courts have involved themselves

in the “day - to – day running of public institutions” or demanded public expenditures amounting

to millions of dollars.” (Young, 2002) These seemingly activist judicial measures, regardless of

whether the underlying decision invalidated a statute or overturned a precedent. They certainly

assume power generally reserved for other governmental institutions.

Judges fail to act within their proper role when they engage in “result – oriented judging”,

whereby their decisions are driven by their ideological preferences concerning substantive case

outcomes (e.g., liberal Justices preferring liberal policy outcomes and conservative Justices

preferring conservative outcomes.) (See, Kmiec, id @ 1475. 1476) As a result, based on

ideological predispositions, a liberal Justice would rule in favor of criminal defendants’ rights,

whereas a conservative Justice would oppose such rights. Such ideological judging has been

called “the essence of judicial activism.” (O’scannlain, supra @23,“When a judge is swayed by

his own sentiment rather than considerations of deference, predictability, and uniformity, he fails

by definition to apply the law faithfully.”)

What the Studies Show

Jeffrey Segal and Harold Spaeth also reviewed Supreme Court declarations of

unconstitutionality, examining votes in 170 cases between 1986 and 1998 in which the Court

found a law unconstitutional. The vast majority of the Justices displayed a significant ideological

effect—liberal Justices voted to strike conservative laws and uphold liberal ones, while

conservatives on the Court ruled the opposite. (Segal and Spaeth ,2002)

In a more recent publication in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Rorie Spill

Solberg and Stefanie Lindquist analyzed Justices’ votes to invalidate state and federal legislation

for the period from 1986 to 2000. (Solberg and Lindquist, 2006)

This study focused on whether the conservative Justices’ expressed desire to protect

states’ rights via an enhanced federalism doctrine actually structured their exercise of judicial

review, or whether their votes to invalidate state and federal legislation were better explained in

terms of the ideological direction of the statute at issue (id. @ 237). The authors found that the

Justices’ preference for certain substantive policies trumped their professed concern for

deference to state law and legislative policy. (Id)

In another recent study, Lori Ringhand conducted an analysis of the data summarized in

Gewintz and Golder’s New York Times editorial.(Ringhand, 2007) She confirmed their finding

that the conservative Justices of the Rehnquist Court were distinctly more likely to invalidate

federal legislation and overturn precedent than the liberal Justices. (See Ringhand, pg 7-8, 27) In

addition, Ringhand expanded on the limited editorial to find that the Court’s liberal Justices were

more likely to invalidate state legislation. (Id.pg 17- 19). However, she concluded that the

conservatives would overturn state legislation to advance conservative ends (Id pg 23) and even

did so in the most legally contestable cases.(Id.pg. 22.23)

Conclusion

To date, the empirical research exploring judicial activism has only scratched the surface.

This research is limited in part because it focuses primarily on one dimension of judicial activism

involving the invalidation of legislative enactments. (Cross and Lindquist,2007) There is much

more that needs to be dome before a definitive answer can be given as to what the term ‘activist

judge’ really means. It leaves one to ask, “activist as compared to what?”.

Like many catchwords, ‘activist judge’ has acquired so many different meanings that it

obscures more than it reveals. Abandonment of the term not being a viable option, clarification

becomes imperative.

What Happens When A Nation Gets Nukes...?

What Happens When A Nation Gets Nukes...?

Sixty Years of History Suggests An Answer...
by Fabius Maximus

The Triadic Predicate...

(my amazon review: http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Peirce-Selected-Philosophical-1893-1913/dp/0253211905 )

Imo, no genius exists on Earth, the extent__scope, depth and breadth__of C.S. Peirce; and these two exquisite volumes certainly do represent the best ordered collection of his complete life's work available__that is as per his early ideas, as well as his mature thoughts. I especially thought his 'normative' and 'nomological' perspectives were the best that's ever been written, even to this day__and that includes of the 100's/1000's of present secondary authors, who have written about Peirce... Peirce is not only the world's foremost logician, he's also the world's foremost epistemologist, esthetician and rhetorician. As the previous rewiewer noted; "His knowledge was immense and he is the only person that I know of who equals Aristotle." I couldn't agree more, and I being 67 years young, have read most all the philosophers, mathematicians, logicians, estheticians and rhetoricians...

My assessment rests on a lifelong study of philosophy, as well as the last 10 years being spent researching all links, books and materials available about Peirce. I've also visited his homestead, and the museum down the street, in Milford, Penn__It's really a shame more hasn't been done, by our Gov., to more thoroughly commemorate this greatest of America's public servants... If you want the philosophical truth between 'The Continental' and 'The Analytic' schools of thought, then this man's 'Pragmatism' is for you, as it's all Peirce's own, in only the way he could tell it, though he credits all the authors throughout history, who's shoulders he stands upon__He also offers the most honest assessments of all the other philosophers, he chooses fit to mention, or dis-mention...

I've been reading all the world's major philosophers, for years__but, it's always a pleasure to return to the master of em all__Peirce... As a matter of fact, I've had this book for over a month, but saved it for 1-1-2012, to start the new year off right__what a pleasure it's been... I don't think there's a word been said in philosophy, since Peirce's death, that can't be 'research-chased' back to this massive intellect__and that's no exaggeration, as it's been the largest part of my personal research project, over the last 10 years, of which I'm presently preparing an academic paper, and a few books. If anyone were to just type Peirce's name into Google, with a space + space, then type any important philosophical author after, since Peirce's late 1860's ideas on, and truly research the links, as to his primacy of ideas__you'll find em, as they exist, especially if the subjects of philosophy are also link searched__as that's simply how I found all the information linking Peirce to all modernity's most important philosophical ideas__pre-dating what academics has presently given false credits to other lessers__Just check out 'Peirce Law' as a primer, or his 1870 books on 'Boolean Logics and Maths...'

I've never been more impressed by one man's total ideas, than by Peirce's, and I'm basically an economist, who uses Peirce's logic to improve my economic writings... I recommend these two volumes, more than anything in print__as imo, it takes Peirce's 'critical common sense' logic, to even begin to understand all the other subjects' ideas, especially in today's overly hyped World__He's by far, the most grounded man on Earth...

Currency Wars On The Horizon__2011 to 2012…

You ain’t seen nothing yet__You wait till this specialty form of economic war gets under way… You think markets collapsed in Sept. `08, no, no, no__that was just the starting flag being dropped, for when a true currency war comes into full swing__all nations will bear the brunt of a storm so huge, you’ll wish for the devil to be in power, to solve such tremendous personal carnage. The last time the world experienced a major currency war__It brought us Hitler, and WWII, and all global foreign exchange markets had to be closed for twenty years, not opening again until 1957__under completely new law and trade structures…

What will such a currency trade panic truly bring…? So far, we’ve only witnessed about a 10% downturn in the real world economy. A full blown currency war will add another 15% to 20% downturn onto the already highly stressed global economies. Just what is a currency war…? It’s when all nations fear losing more jobs to other nations’ cheaper labor currency markets, and are actually losing more jobs than the public will put up with, so the local social unrest drives the politicians to make drastic policy action changes__which interprets into cheap currencies require physically and legally adjusting one’s own currencies to cheaper currency levels__which turns into a free-for-all of every nation copying the same policies__thus further destroying the internal credit values, just as China and India are presently doing, and many others also. But, when the larger and more important global economies get into this huge gambler’s game__the real markets start to topple__the major bond markets, which further implodes the rest of what’s left of these larger economies internal credit survival capacities__and turns to thoroughly negative credit productivities__and possibly the worst forms of social unrest imaginable…

So, if you think you’ve seen many people losing their houses already__you ain’t seen nothing yet. The scramble between government policy necessities, beyond these government’s monetary control and abilities, and the desire of the public to stay in their homes and feed their families, will become so acute__Marshal law will have to be declared in many countries__until the bimbos in power re-educate themselves to what was required back in the 1930’s, as this information is now most forgotten, and the ones that do understand it, are not in power positions, as they’ve been ostracized by the major academic and political pinheads, to the status of heterodox madmen, and are not listened to by hardly anyone in present power positions. Yet, the heterodox thinkers are actually the only ones who do know this old 1930’s history and truth, and the world’s very survival will hinge on how quickly the societies can push the proper people into the power positions__that will be absolutely needed. This scenario of power transition is completely unknown, as to how long this will take__but most likely the civil unrest, from a major global currency war will speed its occurrence… Let’s hope not too many starve, or are killed, before the nations awake…

Just an early warning, as many nations are already headed down this highly dangerous road… If you think you wanted collapse, to improve the system, you may just get your wish__but, it certainly won’t be as pretty as you may think…

Love And Madness__Rationality And Generative Wisdom And Justice…

The child is born peering into a world of pure love and madness. S/he’s been gifted with the potential to grow and develop into the greatest being the world has ever produced__but the obstacles to the possibilities of such growth are profound, beyond the recognition of not only the child, but the adult community as well. The child, with its pure state of observational modal thought and vision, clearly sees the love and beauty directed toward its being__but, on the other hand also clearly sees all the dysfunctional evil of the adult and peer communities directed toward it as well. How is s/he going to navigate this ocean of confused and conflated thoughts and actions…???

Some children are lucky enough to be born into homes with two loving and well adjusted parental adults__while others are born into a living hell, all the way from mixed dysfunctionality, to partial dysfunctionalities of certain members of immediate family and close relatives and friends of the immediate family. For the ones born into these more dysfunctional families__the child peers into a split personality, often so great, it may seem near impossible to navigate. Let’s say our child Jack, at age three is just beginning to become aware of his surroundings and finds them not being as happy as he may have liked them to be. He sees his mother mentally and physically abusing his younger sister, yet showing over-disproportional love for him. His father is passive to most all around him, being more rational and just not wanting to involve himself in all life’s emotional intrigues. His grandfather is abusing his grandmother a bit, but not too much. His grandmother, having a split personality, due to class conflicts between her family and her husband’s, is first offering all the love and kindness one can muster__then out of the other side of this lady’s mouth comes the most vile attacks against all adults and children in her path. Her mother, the great grandmother, since everyone is living under her roof, is the monster ruling the home with an iron fist, and a meanness of spirit no better than an ancient Roman Emperor. Jack’s grandfather, the old patriarch of the family, reserved yet protective of his mental turf, is usually quite conservative, but quite often pushed by ol’ great-grand-ma into wild fits of rage, that practically blows the roof off the big ol’ farmhouse__the cows, chickens, pigs and horses run for cover__the cherries shrivel up and die, an fall off the trees…

It’s quite a minefield of dysfunctionality this new king of virgin spirit and soul has been born into__and people wonder why the world isn’t a better place to live...? There isn’t a family on Earth that doesn’t have some of this same dysfunctionality hidden in one of its many closets. So, what’s Jack to do with his young life, when faced with all this love and madness…? He awakes every day, stumbles down the stairs, and is first met by his grumbling great-grand-ma, never having a kind or nice word to speak says; “Did you forget to wash your hands and face?”, since the stairway door opened directly into the kitchen, where she’d be preparing breakfast for the four generation tribe, living under her roof. Jack, sneering as much as he could get away with, since he’d already had his mouth washed out with soap, by this beast, grumbled to himself and washed up__only to next meet the new day’s conflicts and arguments. Jack, to himself is saying; “Let me get my breakfast and get outta’ this madhouse….” First though are his morning chores, whether it be collecting eggs or feeding the farm animals and bringing in more wood for the coming winter, as even at three he’s been given his chores, but after this, he’s free to roam around on his own, as there’s no danger on the farm, except during bear cub season and an occasional bob-cat, in winter...

Jack, now outside and thinking to himself, wonders how long before his sister’s chores will take to be done, so’s he’ll have a playmate__and further wonders how much talking he’ll have to endure to revive his beautiful younger sister from the damage he realizes is being heaped on her each day, while doing her chores, eating, playing or whatever__as he’s experienced this most every day of his yet very young life… Usually his sister exits the house either in tears or so angry it takes Jack as much as an hour of cajoling her to revive her beautiful play spirit back to functionality__but he realizes this is becoming more difficult with each passing week. He knows he’s losing the beautiful spirit of his sister as a playmate, and clearly sees it as the abuse coming from the spiritually violent home environment she must endure__while he being older, has learned more how to con his way with everyone, and navigate the wiles of these internal home evils__which he’ll never forget…

Jack’s visited far and wide, even at this early age, and has learned other families are even far worse than his, and has yet to find a family in even better shape than his own__and wonders how can this be…? “I’m miserable with my home situation, and yet these others are even worse, with far more abuse clearly visible, to the naked eye…?” “Just what makes my world so evil…?” “I can clearly see through the whole family dynamic, then out into the community dynamic, and my family employs many of the town’s people, and my uncle is about the most miserable man I’ve ever met, which now runs the major family farm’s business enterprizes__so is it the fact that this business abuse runs clear from the top down…?” And yes, as Jack would later learn from deep conversations from his grand-dad__the problem is endemic from the largest corporations, to the smaller corporations and businesses, all the way to the bottom of family employment in these abusive entities__and it’s nothing but a trickle-down effect of global abuse, from a money system__no-one is wise enough to repair…

Well, this is a pretty simple system, and was taught to Jack by the age of seven, to be no more than this simple psychology of otherwise logical actions__but with his love being pushed into madness at such an early age by family circumstances__he’s thinking; “How many times does my innocent lil’ ol’ frame have to endure such abuse…?” Little did Jack know at the time, this love and madness circus would rear its ugly head, almost all throughout his future life__and most of these problems would come directly from his very own upbringing. First was his mother, grand-mother and great-grand-mother pushing his and his beautiful and caring sister’s feelings into hells of madness, no child should have to endure__then the early hell of religious and mystical brainwashing, taking place every day, mainly from his bi-polar mother, who was loving and caring one second, and terrorizing of spirit, mind and soul, the next second__which would lead into all the areas of madness a pure innocent soul could barely endure...

Not only was Jack to endure all these early stage madnesses, but at about age 12 to 15, he’d be pushed into one of the worst hell’s he’d ever thought possible__as this one would completely clean out his functioning emotional mind, and leave nothing but a raw functioning rational and logical soul__of pure emotional hell. This was the age of first loves turning to pure unimaginable hell, created by the over-forced religious brain-washing, by church and female members of a deeply fanatically religious family. Few can imagine the hell a mind goes through when love, religion, sexuality and rational reality collide__so head-on, the mind is actually pulverized completely. Now Jack, aged 15, must wander into the social world with an emotionless mind, except for anger__yet still retaining all his raw childhood soul memories, as they be too overwhelming to forget, and how’s he to function__other than as a Wildman…?

Well wildman, Jack thus became__jumping from one idea, hobby, intent, woman to another quicker than a frog playing leap-frog__but his emotions’ only tied more and more into a tighter knot than they’d ever been before__and through possession after possession, girlfriend after girlfriend and wife after wife, Jack finally hit the end-game wall__his entire brain/mind exploded from its raw reason and logic into pure psychological emotionalism__another hell, even deeper than all the hells he’d thus far experienced, as this one had no true feet on the ground, for its necessary guidance__what-so-ever. This newest self was lost in the self of itself__wandering in a soup of every conceivable idea the world has ever known__a virtual being in a canoe on and ocean of all knowing and all unknowing__all at once, being thrown into a very over-taxed brain/mind/soul. How in hell was Jack ever going to find his path back to any form of sanity…?

All Jack knew for sure were a few simple truths he’d always relied on all throughout his life__“For every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction”, and “Fight fire with fire…” So Jack latched onto these two premises and ventured into what he’d hated most all his life__the study of the psychology of emotions, since it’s the emotions of emotions he’s now trapped in__but where to start. Well, it was religion and the deep psychological problems of, that drove him into this final cavern, so he decided a full exploration of all the world’s many religions would be one place to start, but since Jack had always been one to mix all his ideas in a stew of motives and intents, he also included all the psychologies and anthropologies he could put his hands on__to study as well…

Never did Jack realize where this would lead, through all the ancient mysticisms, such as the Tibetan Book of The Dead, and The Egyptian Book of The Dead, Zoroastrianism, Totemism, Animism, I Ching, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Judaism, Christianity, Islamism, etc., on and on, all the way through Satanism and all the occult systems and tribal Shamanisms. But all this study only led to a further hell__being narrowed in cultural beliefs to the point this path of study finally came to a dead-end in a near suicide attempt__because there seemed to be no way out of this last form of madness, where Jack’s soul had been mangled by all the great traditions, that were so touted to be the cure-all for such problems__but were clearly not the path for this tormented mind and soul to take__so what was left…?

Jack, with gun in hand, heading to blow his head off, knocked over a pile of encyclopedia yearbooks, and out fell the science yearbook to lil’ ol’ Einstein’s quote; “The secret of the old one.” And snap__immediately Jack’s mind turned back onto the path of reason and logic, which the emotional hell had blocked from his view for some ten years__so now he knew his future path was to renew the earlier path he’d attempted some 15 years earlier__to find that ever existing rationality and modal logic of the generative wisdom and true justice…

“Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember. The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual. His thoughts are what he is "saying to himself," that is, is saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time. When one reasons, it is that critical self that one is trying to persuade; and all thought whatsoever is a sign, and is mostly of the nature of language. The second thing to remember is that the man's circle of society (however widely or narrowly this phrase may be understood), is a sort of loosely compacted person, in some respects of higher rank than the person of an individual organism." C.S. Peirce

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The Triadic Mind’s Eye__A Voyage Inside The Stereo-Graphic Mind’s Eyes…

When you look inside your mind, how far do you see…? Can you see both inside and outside your mind’s eye, or eyes…? Do you see a dyadic or a triadic+ multiplicity of its innate mechanics…? Do, or can you, see the stereo-graphic meeting of both hemisphere’s of your brain, as they both produce the independent images filtering into your mind’s eyes’ memory and perception spaces…? Just how far can you see into the biology of the deep extra-logical stereo-graphic sight, of your own mind…? Can you even see inside of your own mind’s eye, or just what it is seeing…? I know we’re all different, but I’m just wondering how different…???

Have you ever tried to go through that last and deepest closed door in your mind__or do you even dare open that last and deepest door…? I mean that when you are totally alone and contemplating those most scary depths of your mind, whether just an uncomfortable spot, or some area you feel holds possibly great evil, or some sorcery or witchcraft area__does such an area exist in your contemplating…? Well, it does in my mind, and has since I was a child. When I was real young, I was always afraid to enter the depths of my deepest thoughts, but when I got older, I even tried my damndest to pry open the door I knew had existed since childhood__but it wouldn’t open, until one day, it just flew open on its own__and such a flood-gate of information fell into my mind__it’s practically impossible to explain, but anyway__I’m gonna’ attempt it… I see this area as the fundamental mechanics of intuition__a mind’s eyes’ mechanics of perception, creativity, imagination and conception. I see this as the mind’s eyes’ extra-logical stereo-graphic sight, where the mind is filled to overflowing with initial information, feeding into memory, perception and later from these sources, producing our intuitional choices of this vast flood of informations and visions__as there’s really nothing to do with this much initial information capacity, except to try and focus one’s attention as much as possible into either intuitional or imaginational understandings__then on into either viable perceptions or self-constructed conceptions__whichever your choice may be…

Have you ever looked into your mind, and been completely overwhelmed by the shear amount of images to choose from, and how to filter em…? If so, where are they coming from…? I’ve always accepted the theory that all our super-objective ideas actually are accessible through our super-subjective apparatus, just as easily as our direct objective perception apparatus__but that all information comes from these two sources, though the super-subjective sources be the majority of our present moment sources__but where’d the initial super-subjective sources come from…? If I use objective conceptualism, I can see the mind’s eye-ism as a form of memory space mechanics, deriving information from the mind’s eyes’ deep fundamental direct, and indirect memory images__stored there through the entire course of life, by the automatic induction method of nature, herself. By this I mean, the natural perception taking in what it feels, sees, hears, tastes and smells__all its life, then storing this data in memory__and with our extra-logical sorting, to different memory spaces. To me, the initial conditions are this simple__but, do you actually realize how tremendously huge the giga-bites of global information this life storage system would really be…? And herein lies the complexity behind this door many are afraid to open__where the largest multitude of visions reside…

Open it, there’s nothing to be afraid of__the visions of what you’ll see will certainly amaze you__no matter what you think__all it takes is deep, deep concentration… It’s simply the gateway into seeing directly inside the mind’s eye and into intuition’s deepest secrets, even creativity’s secrets hide there__and epiphanies as well as lucid visions. As a matter of fact, it’s also the door to the gates of wisdom, though wisdom must be recognized as a generative process, or an evolving intelligence of the entire global bio-sphere… Once inside this amazing world, one can easily see how perception and abstracting information into the mind’s eyes’ conceptualism truly works__as the objective mind’s eye mechanics is simply the self-constructed conceptual inference mechanics, that can even be represented as the algebra of concepts, and has been by many, ever since Herbart’s first algebra of concepts, back in the late 1800’s, but anyway, I won’t go into these technicalities now… Going through this deepest of inner doors in the mind only requires perception’s deep extra-logical focusing, and concentration on entering a room in your mind, that holds a gold-mine of information, knowledge and wisdom__at least the view of what generative wisdom and pure justice truly are…

I know it’s a scary place to enter, as I’ve talked to many through the years about this very area of thought and vision__and many became freaked out to even discuss such depths of the mind__clearly deeper than what the average person is used to conversation going… This is going beyond all bounds of personal comfort, into the deepest personal and psychological exploration of self-contemplation__where you can actually see the very inner innate mechanics of the entire bio-brain, in action…

 
Follow, if you dare__It’s only self-knowledge__It won’t hurt you… I can state, those who did follow greatly benefited in understanding the subjective and objective inter-actions of their and others actions…

A Possible Science of Shamanism and Para-Psychology, Plus Extras…

I'm thinking what I posted below, may be able to be expanded upon__to possibly get to the heart of a simpler way of seeing the deeper, broader and more complex intelligence agendas. I don't really know yet, but I thought I'd just throw out a few ideas of how I happened to stumble a bit deeper into, what I'd consider the center of the brain, years ago__as I seriously believe as Uspensky stated years ago; "The super-objective state of mind, is found in the super-subjective state of mind..."

Now let me just say a few words about this__I studied and practiced Shamanism and para-psychology for about ten years, back in the `70's, as at that time, I'd more or less abandoned the academic and scientific worlds__as having drifted far too far from what I considered the common sense knowledgeable ground of reality and science__That's some 40 years ago... I made a ten year investigation of most all nations' native tribes, anthropologically, and through all the ancient and modern literature I could find about Shamanism, and its related psychologies and para-psychologies. Of course this required studying all the ancient religions as well, clear back to all the potlatch and phallic worship stages... The potlatch I found was the old tribal law systems for punishing greed, among other tribal dis-allowances. Phallic worship seemed to be more for centering power and worship toward the kings and shamans, to create community harmony__really an innocent purpose in those early eras, as greed was punished, and power was needed to defend the small communities... Often, the shamans were also kings__but, what did I learn about modern intelligence by studying and practicing this early form of Shamanism and relating it to the modern forms of para-psychology being most deeply studied by the Russian KGB, at the time...?

I learned how far the powers of the mind, whether straight_or on drugs_could be pushed without excessively harming itself or others__how deep an understanding of the mind's pure intellectual and emotional capacities reach__and exactly how much power either or both the emotional and intellectual sides of the mind are truly capable of... Before I investigated to this level of understanding, I was under the false illusion that the mind was truly capable of accomplishing almost unimaginable feats of both emotional and intellectual power. My greatest realization was to learn these were drastically false assumptions. Yes, the mind can be pushed, especially on the powers of LSD and a few other hallucinogenic drugs_to do some pretty amazing mind control scenarios__but almost never repeatable as to the desired scientific results. Yes, the mind does have the capacity on LSD to manipulate small crowds of people, but not in a totally controlled scientific fashion__but in a hap-hazzard way__being set by more the chemistry of the brain and the surrounding psychological settings. The Russians found these same results also, and finally most abandoned para-psychology research__except of course as pertains to propaganda__which addresses your point L_____ about the guy with the first blog post agenda__being set by pure propaganda, to swage others opinions to his desired goal__Bigotry...

So, though shamanism and para-psychology can not be scientifically effectively used for outright mind-control__these fundamental sourced ideas do have a tremendous power through the power of propaganda and suasion, to influence whole nations' agendas and intelligences__which most people are totally unaware of... In fact, at this very moment in history, the far left is trying to resurrect the old story of 'The Jewish Cemetary of Prague' a known Russian forgery conspiracy of an old 19th century book's satire about the Jews__It's just one of the modern world's new pseudo-conspiracies entering the top of all the web searche engines__the hard left are so gullible of falling for__'Zeitgeist on Steroids...'

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Hi L_____, and thanks for the question...

Modal thinking imo, first started with Socrates, in his playful manner of questioning the youth of Athens. As the article above also points out, Aristotle also mentioned quite a bit about modal thinking. The first I'm aware of it really being expanded upon is by the debates between Biruni and Ibn Sina when discussing his extensions of Aristotle's logic system, and adding in a rudimentary quaternion thought system, and his 'Flying Man' analogy of his metaphor of thinking and pure thought. The next to take up what the Persians had extented logic to be understood as, was Albertus Magnus, the teacher of St. Thomas Acquinas__then to the scholastics Scotus and Ocham... This was all as relates to modal thinking and modal logics, then described as the 'logica utens' and the 'logica docens'__which I believe is Magnus' interpretations of the Persians...

Muse of course goes back to early times also, as music and musing about our thoughts, but really takes on its modern form in Scotus' and Ocham's works__who were the midieval periods’ deepest thinkers. Both these men did extreme musings about the depths of thought about thought__or the modal logic, as it's become known since a short time after Scotus and Ocham. The play aspect of musing and modal thought seems to have more entered in the 18th and 19th centuries, in several different philosophers works, as they realized this deep thinking about thinking, many of us do, is actually ourselves playing with the thoughts in our minds, so deep, the easiest way to track it seems to be to make it a mind-game, such thinkers as myself choose to do__to recover the deeper meanings and actions of thought. I think it was Peirce to be the first one to connect all the pieces together, from the ancients to the moderns__that the deepest logics were much like children playing, as it's a flow of information processing that works much as children at play...

Peirce didn't put 'Modal Muse' together, but my interpretation of all these ideas just sorta evolved into uniting the two phrases together, especially after listening to so much Cat Stevens' music about his 'Muse...' It's in this album... LINK...

So, I'm the guilty one for inventing the phrase, 'Modal Muse'__but with all the historical perspective I'm looking at, it's quite apt. I've been toying with this area of thought for years now, and I finally saw through it all the way, because we are taking up Socrates next week, at our Philosophy meeting__and it's about his modal musing thinking in this area__and by all the pieces coming together at once__it just came out as the 'Modal Muse...' It's just a simple and fun way of doing deep philosophical logic thinking... A little playfulness makes it easier...

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All modal intelligence has an agenda__The 'Modal Muse' is our 'self-designed/designer intelligence decision engine' at the deepest levels of all our brains. No-one can escape the fact that they are either playing the modal muse of emotions against intellect, or the modal muse of intellect against emotions. Seldom does anyone abandon their core agenda of their deepest felt modal operator/explicand/operand state__It's the C.I.A. of all our puny brains__That lil' ol' 'central intelligence agency' called our 'Modal Muse...'

Some think they can hide their agendas__none can hide these agendas from everyone__'You can fool some of the people all the time, some of the people some of the time, but never all the people, all the time...'

Few have the ability to stand in the middle, and purposely switch between 'Modal Muse' modes of intelligences...

The simple actionable 'Free-Will Modal Muse' stands guard over all__sitting/relaxing with the 'Muse of Laughter...'

"Never take the world seriously. It doesn't take itself seriously..."

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“Thank you for your reply in detail, Lloyd and congratulations on coining a new phrase. In doing a quick search, I was unable to come up with 'Modal Muse' in phrase, only other variants, and therefore my question to you regarding origin.

You have long suggested that anyone can understand the mechanism by which they actually utilize their mind, if they but apply themselves to the task. (Excuse me if I have phrased this not exactly as you intend, yet that was the meaning that I gleaned.)

From long observation of persons in similar circumstances who make dramatically different choices, and so arrive at completely different outcomes, I now would ask how you have come to the determination that 'all modal intelligence has an agenda'.”

Hi L______, and thanks again for the excellent question to take the analysis even deeper still...

Since the dawn of time, humanity has been trying to more deeply understand the functioning of the lil' ol' ball sitting atop our shoulders__at differing periods, this investigation has advanced, and at other times of many varried cultures__it has receded, in the effectiveness of the intelligence discoveries. What was earlier known becomes lost, obscured or outright changed__and societies have gone all directions of discovery and obscuration of the quest__This I think is un-debatable__But, the question must be asked as to 'Why...???' When we just ask this simple question, we quickly realize a much deeper investigation is warrented. All throughout the ages, the deepest investigators have been the philosophers, especially the epistemic and modal logicians and mathematicians__even though psychologists have also investigated the same areas of intelligence evolution and devolution__they have never developed the elaborate system of categories and models of understanding this complex ball o' mush, as have the philosophers__with their many avenues of investigative mind sciences. If you were able to do a total historical survey, I think you'd come to the same conclusions__as the psychologists never developed a way of defining the distinctions between belief and certainty__as have the philosophers__though the modern world has greatly confused and conflated these category distinctions and mechanics of understanding, the many philosophers helped to define. Where psychology lacks the best tools is in their inability to have ever produced a scientific method to defease/divide beliefs from experiential exaggerations into sound and reasonable facts__whereas philosophy, even as far back a Plato devised elaborate category systems to do and understand just this...

Upon my extensive reading of all history's psychologists and philosophers, I deemed necessary, as it was becoming a repeat of informations, I had amassed enough insight to see how these two sides of the mind functioned__all throughout history__at least satisfactory to my mind's insatiable thirst... And, what I realized was the fact that the philosophers, and especially the epistemologists and logicians were the clearest and best at keeping experiential ideas in the categories where they belonged, and also keeping the sciences of the world in the categories where they belonged__In fact, they all produced, or at least used others' category lists, all throughout history__In fact__Plato's categories lists can still be generally effectively used even today. Now, where the experiential psychologists were concerned, even if they produced categories lists as have many, such as Maslow and Batesman have__neither they nor any other psychologists honor the more profound and thoroughly more intricate categories of the philosophers, mathematicians and logicians__which sets psychology apart from history's flow of information, which in turn creates a very incomplete and narrower minded psychology system__as a whole__than is philosophy... This is all cultures' major difference evolution at the core agenda level of all psyches involved__It starts in the evolution of systems, and moves down through the cultures...

This is the main fact contributing to the modal intelligences' agendas you asked about__It's according to which school of thought one is more apt to adhere to__and this is in no way to be a concrete fact__as there are many people like you, I and others who do not fall into either of these categories__but do have the ability of knowing our free-will choices to jump from one side of the psychological experiential systems' thinking, to the philosophical intellectual logical systems' thinking__But, and this is a big But__Most of society is quite trapped emotionally and intellectually in one side or the other__as I noticed in reasearchings so many great and not so great minds of history__and all of us can overly easily notice right here on TQ, if we but look deeply enough at the wording... It may take a deeper understanding of possible wording associations for average and general minds to see this__but, I assure you it's there from my experience of seeing it in history and here at TQ__and is the source of the opposing intelligence agendas__And when anyone is pushed to the breaking point of their modal agendas__they will most always fall to one side or the other of the experiential emotional agenda__or to the experiential intellectual agenda... As I stated in earlier posts__'Only a few have the mental fortitude to hold the middle ground of absolute observation__without experiential modal agenda action taking center stage...' We are all guilty of this, including myself... I can point it out from my vast experience__but that doesn't mean I can be absolutely true to my own knowledge of it__at the same time... That's life...

“Certainly, I like to believe that it is the result of my own choices in the face of circumstances that the opportunity of life affords that has gotten me thus far on the journey, yet oftentimes I suspect that I have no agenda save to enjoy the most experiencing while avoiding both the giving or receiving of resistance or stress.

The path of least resistance, yet not really, as it seems that while I avoid challenge (save for good old physical sweat, lol....) challenge often seeks me out.

If each has their own agenda, and many seemingly unaware, that is a path for ponder. While I have ever reserved the option of choice, I tend to be user friendly in that I trust nature to supply the options. Thus far, nature has not disappointed me. That privilege has been reserved unto my fellow beings, myself included.”

Well L_______, from my observation of the motivated operations of individuals, most__all their lives__would never even consider they may have an agenda, and live happily to their death without realizing one way or the other__But, if any were asked to seriously contemplate such as their own agendas may be__What do you think the answers may be...???

Then, especially if pushed to confront these deep experiential motives__What do you think the outcomes would be__and the %'s of...???

I think it would be very surprising for all to actually see and realize their true operational agendas broadcast to all the people they meet__I think you'll find__most people are more afraid of these true experiential agendas being seen through__than all the poverty, greed and crime on Earth__because this would expose the truth of how the Rich are actually usurping the private ownership of all nations' peoples' rights and well-being__and slowly but surely, installing all property in their own private pockets__The truth of modern computerized market mechanics of 'The Global Corporate State...'__as long as the people's modal agenda__stays asleep...!!!

Remember__Inaction is as much of a modal agenda, as is action...

Hope I'm not being too pushy__but the world's on fire...