The Prophet (pbuh)

New Whig has been almost silent for a while because the same issues persist unresolved, and this voice is too tiny to have any influence, despite apparently having half a thousand likes.  They will all work themselves out in due course. 

The issue of “free speech” versus Insulting the Prophet (pbuh) has been commented on here before.  New Whig has always endorsed Islam as one of the great faith systems of human history.  It currently gives meaning to the lives of about a quarter of humanity, and is likely to do so for centuries to come, in some form or another, preferably in harmony with other social systems.

Do we have the right to judge other people by our own standards?  If they affect us we certainly do.

“World Peace” may not ever be achievable.  War might be hard-coded into our DNA.  Neural networks appear to be inherent, perhaps through the switching mechanism included in the twisted strands.  We must aim for an international system that has institutionalised combat to safeguarded the innocent and the non-combatant. 

The division within Islam developed very yearly and survived because it served a useful purpose.  The pre-Islamic tribal nations of Arabia fought each other as did all ancient city-states, including nomadic ones.  The Prophet (pbuh) united that internecine strife towards the single purpose of spreading the faith, using conversion by the sword, the natural inclination of the newly converted tribal armies.  However, this exponential growth quickly expanded to its limit, at which point another barrier needed to be found to provide the front line of battle, and that is the internal division.  Perhaps this surface, brane, or whatever needs to be enforced and ritualised, so that it happens away from civilians.  War always was a good Economic driver, and perhaps should not be opposed on ideological grounds, just because other solutions are difficult.

New Whig takes a mechanical view of society so that principles of fluid dynamics can be observed when sufficiently large numbers of people mean individuals are elements of a larger social system in the way individual water molecules cease to matter in water flowing. 

Another issue persists when it is long overdue for hibernation that needs another post here: The Australian Monarchy.

HRH the Prince of Wales will make the most excellent King, but probably not for another decade.  By then, HRH the Duchess of Cornwall will have achieved the level of popularity that will ensure they will be crowned together with popular acclamation.  Hopefully, by then, the world will have solved its present problems and we will enter a new age, perhaps a Georgian revival, before Napoleon made a mess of things, with a new King George.

There is no risk that any new king will repeat any of his boyish indiscretions.  Look at Henry IV Part one.  Look at Murder in the Cathedral.  Once a person takes on a job, they become that job more than they are themselves.  One of the reasons for the complex Coronation ceremony is that it ensures that whoever the person was before, they will in their own minds believe themselves to be the job, not the former person.  It is a way of sanitising the top job, though it clearly does not always work. 

We live in a complex, global society that has only recently become fully, internationally connected.  It is as if huge tanks of water that previously had little, restricted pipes connecting them suddenly had the sluice gates opened, and the huge rush of water back and forth becomes very unstable for a while.  This is also seen in petrol tanks and holds that don’t have internal baffles where the end result is to be completely lop-sided with everything on one side.  If our international community does not achieve balance, the same will happen with a single continent dominating the world for centuries to come.  We must be optimistic, but realistically accept that it will still take some time, perhaps another couple of decades. 

Different sub-systems within the Global Economy react at different rates and at different times. 

Societies are living organisms in their own right, probably with a level of consciousness that we, as components, can only speculate about; just as our individual cells cannot know what we as an individual are thinking; and how some insects can have a collective memory and intelligence that is clearly far beyond the capacity of any individual ant or bee.  The behaviour of many organisms can only be explained as part of a larger ecosystem.  This over-consciousness is invisible to its components.  Societies of any species are examples, and people are no different from ants or bees in creating our own single-species ecosystem, which we call “society”, or “the community”, or define in demographic terms as a “city”. 

[It always intrigued that DNA seemed like a recipe book for the building blocks, but there seemed to be no “plan”.  How did any cell know what it was supposed to do?  Why would some cells become what they were, close to other similar cells in an organ?  There is no “plan”, that is virtual. What exists are switches.  The process to achieve it is coded in, not a description of what it is to be.  The more contemplation that is given to the wonders of existence, the more wonderful it becomes.]