Jan Cox Talk 3166 - Notes by Cfish

(Editors note - This audio is not likely to be published due to the audio itself - so please enjoy these notes until a verbatim transcript arrives someday)

Jan Cox Talk 3166 - June 28 2004  (37:28)
Copyright Jan Cox, Jan’s Legacy 2017
Notes by Cfish April 2017

Suggested Title: Man Invents Cultures that Need Fixing

Begin:  Considering consciousness and talk, I can’t resist pointing out a little something else on the subject of a stranger from another planet seeing only talk going on within the planet’s most important institutions.  Institutions with big buildings like the Pentagon, the Capital or the Vatican.

I was thinking how anyone with a natural gift to talk or write could walk in unannounced into the pentagon or Congress and listen for five or ten minutes and could come up with something utterly frightening to write about.  (symbolically, metaphorically)

05:00  And then remembering and picturing (we are still talking consciousness and talk) that nothing is going on in the most important institutions on the planet but talk.  And that anytime, day or night, a writer could gather a story in 5 minutes or less that when published in the papers would make his readers tremble. 

Another facet of this picture is for you to imagine that you are on top of a magical mountain and you can see all of humanity and then I ask you to answer this question: “ What is Man doing? “

I suggest to you that people are always trying to fix something. Hospitals an Doctors are trying to fix something. In an auto garage it is obvious, so lets move on to something more subtle and look at the important institutions, like Congress and the Pentagon.  Remember that all that is going on is talk, but what  they are trying to do is fix something. 

10:00  Look at the money and effort politicians and Congress spend to fix stuff. And then remember they are just talking to fix stuff. That is the first stage, where you might take it in and think you need a beer or a cold towel - but now the second stage.

15:00  Looking out at life, people are continually trying to fix stuff. And there are two tributaries to fixing stuff. The first tributary is man is continually trying to fix stuff that man broke. The more civilized the setting, the more time you spend fixing stuff collectively.

Living in the jungle, you may only have the occasional bow and arrow to fix.  Civilized societies have environmental protection laws, tax laws, national defense, etc. And criminals keep finding new ways to break them.

20:00  For example Congress passed laws to prevent another Enron fraud. But by the time they passed the law other criminals and swindlers are already moving on to a different fraud. And the attorneys are figuring ways for their clients to walk away.

25:00  The common man tries to fix stuff that man broke by bitching and whining. So the point of the first tributary is humanity is always trying to fix something that Man broke. Man initially got together to fix man’s unruly behavior.

There must be a thousand volumes, thousand pages each, of the criminal justice code. But as soon as a law is made, man figures out a way around it. For example murder, if the victim doesn’t die, you have to fix the law by inventing the charge of manslaughter, and the lesser charge of assault and so on.  Man made it and man has to continually fix it.

30:00  The second tributary has to do with culture. Set aside the physical and technological inventions of Man.  Consider everything that man has created for culture; religion, art, literature, criminal law, etc.)  Every feature of culture: man is continually working to fix some part of it. 

Which leads to the second tributary: that everything man creates is already broken.  (not saying he means to do it that way) Consider: Could you create, on your own, a religion that would not need repairs immediately?

Pick out any cultural creation (ex. government, criminal law, psychology, sociology, etc.) that has a form, outline, theorems, and consider/picture that as soon as it is created - doesn’t need fixing. 

35:00 If you are in a civilized setting, and picture, maybe looking down at the people in Paris, Rome, pretty much anywhere, what do people spend most of their time doing? They are mostly trying to fix stuff, intangible stuff.

A broken car and a broken knee will get your attention. But what I am trying to get you folks to consider is “Can man create anything cultural (criminal law, government, etc.) that doesn’t come into creation already broken?”

Broken is probably not the best word. How can you break something that does does not physically exist? 

end  39:16