Lost on the Road to Oz

By Kelly Weems

The first section begins with an in-depth look at two opposed views about how we should live. We are all born as hedonists; it is both pleasant and easy to be selfish. In contrast, we all must be taught to be idealists because it is not easy to give up self-interest for others through reciprocation, abdication, and love. In the second section, we explore the rise of hedonism to become the value(less) system of the entire western culture, by clever elites propagandizing the media, consolidating their power through ultimately buying the government to reduce those with power to but a handful of ultra-wealthy. Also, in this section, we look at sentimental Christians who have come to oppose the pain of economic, mental, and spiritual growth, and largely enabled the hedonists by abandoning centuries-old values and by voting for enabling governments. Third, we examine the consequences of our shift in thinking. It is values, customs, traditions, and religions which are the cohesion of nations. Without them, nations cease to be. This book ends with a reflection on Oz and the fact that Dorothy could have returned home at any time and avoided all her misadventures by simply clicking her heels. The answer was there all the time, but she failed to see it. Perhaps the answer to our Nation's difficulties is also right in front of us but unseen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667848952

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Lost on the Road to Oz

© Copyright Kelly Weems, 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Dedication

For my wife, Brenda,

who made possible our 60 great years together.

Table of Contents

Foreword

INTRODUCTION

SECTION ONE: TWO WAYS OF SEEING OURSELVES

1. HEDONISM: MAN’S FIRST PHILOSOPHY

2. THE PHILOSOPHY OF IDEALISM

SECTION TWO: AN EXPERIMENT IN HEDONISM

3. TWENTIETH CENTURY GROWTH OF HEDONISM

4. CHRISTIANITY IN A HEDONISTIC LAND

SECTION THREE: CONSEQUENCES OF UNBRIDLED HEDONISM

5. AN HONEST STATE OF OUR UNION

6. HEDONISM DESTROYED OUR CHILDREN AND EDUCATION

7. HEDONISTIC CAPITALISTS DESTROYED OUR ECONOMY

SECTION FOUR: A NEW ERA?

8. TODAY’S BATTLE FOR AN IDEALISTIC WORLD

9. THE DICTATORS’ HANDBOOK

CONCLUSION

About the Author

SOURCES AND INSPIRATION

Foreword

The first time I saw a version of Albin Polasek’s sculpture Man Carving His Own Destiny I was moved by the boldness of a man chiseling himself from rock. The determination of his face and strength of his torso shouted resolve, self-reliance, courage, and especially, audacity. By many today, it appears to be a powerfully illustration of self-creation.

But after studying the work further, I chuckled. The audacity had obscured the mendacity. What is the source of the rock from which he is emerging? Was he born into a coffin of stone from which he had to free himself? Did he not have to have a tool with which to carve his tools? How did his carving hands carve his hands? That other figure of supreme self-reliance and independence, who lived on Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau, relied on his neighbor as a source of his tools. On whom does Polasek’s man rely? Yes, Man has free will and is largely responsible for the ultimate shape of his being. But he is neither the sole nor the greatest Creator of men.

Kelly Weems

INTRODUCTION

"You ask me what forces me to speak?

a strange thing; my conscience."

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

It is to be expected in a democracy, with free speech, that its citizens would have widely differing views. But the vitriolic animosity among the citizens of America today is reminiscent of the tensions of 1860 when those both for and against slavery had lost all sense of moderation. Those tensions degenerated into a horribly bloody war pitting brother against brother and state against state. If reason had prevailed , President Lincoln’s proposal for the government to purchase the slaves would have been implemented. This had been done earlier in England and would have avoided armed conflict and also it would have cost the government much less than did the war. If our nation’s citizens continue to ignore reason and they descend into emotional obstinacy, there may well be another blood-soaked civil war. Even sane citizens are speaking of succession. If we learn anything from history, it is that the next step is likely to be a shooting war.

Humans are strangely both visionary and incredibly shortsighted. We can imagine and then accomplish marvelous things and at the same time we often miss the elephant in the room. The British politicians laughed at the idea of the American colonies revolting. The French nobility laughed at the idea of peasants chopping off their wig-topped heads. The Russian royal family laughed at the idea of serfs revolting. Millions of Jews laughed at the idea that the Nazis would confiscate their property and worse. All these groups were unable to see that lots of small things lead to big changes. Many Americans refuse to see that, throughout the US and western Europe, open conflict grows imminent. Identifying that there is a problem is the first step in solving one and Houston (make no mistake) we have a problem.

Violent feelings, in the past, have been controlled by our ideas and values to secure responsible actions. Our problem is that our ideas, our values have become weaker, no longer moderating our feelings. Unrestrained, our feelings have polarized and become radically different. Equality is the banner of one side; Excellence is the banner of the other. Both have great merit. But this conflict has left us a divided nation, sorely weakened. We struggle for excellence but seem to be wallowing in the quagmire of mediocrity. We struggle for legal equality but seem to have less with each passing day. To end this shamble, our nation must seek a new way. Now is the time for all good citizens to stop hurling platitudes at one another. It is time to use our reason. It is a time to forget Liberal and Conservative, Democrat and Republican and to remember we are all Americans. For this reason, the less inflammatory and ancient, but nevertheless accurate, Greek terms Hedonist and Idealist will be used here. These terms should help us to transfigure our present passion without logic into logic with passion. We must do as proposed by a wise man thousands of years ago. He urged, Come, let us reason together (Isaiah 1:18). Socrates, also one of the world’s wisest men, had said earlier, The unexamined life is not worth living."

When we examine our lives and our troubled nation, it is our minds, our reason, which will give us reliable understanding. Our emotions are weak guides to a good life. Platitudes are food for our emotions. To understand things and make intelligent choices, we must, instead, rely on our reason. H.G. Wells once said sadly, The most important thing we learn from history is that we don’t. But, as we anguished over the questions: How did we get here?, What do we believe in?, and Where do we go from here?, where else do we find answers? My goal is to rationally explore Man’s thoughts in literature, philosophy, world religions, psychology, history, sculpture, paintings, government statistics, current events, and writings of political leaders of the past, all in an effort to truly understand what has occurred during my lifetime, especially the past few years, in my country.

My conscience compels me to tell of my life’s experiences as well as to try to understand them. If you are old enough to remember evenings spent swinging on the front porch, you probably grew up with many reasonable assumptions. Assumptions like: your neighbors spoke English, were at least nominal Christians; neighboring families were supported by the working dads who were confident that with hard work they could make their families’ lives better, and mothers who kept the house, cooked meals, did the laundry. The parents shared child raising with moms giving soft understanding and with dads who were sterner. Wait till your dad gets home was all that most moms had to say to get children to act responsibly. You knew all your neighbors, spoke to most, trusted them enough to leave the doors always unlocked, and relied on them in an emergency.

There was a pervasive sense of optimism, founded on the generally accepted belief that life had purpose and meaning. My Mom’s and Dad’s Great Generation had fought and won WWII in an epic battle against Hitler’s dictatorship and Japan’s imperialism, bigotry, and tyranny. My uncles and thousands of others returned from overseas and went to school on the GI bill and developed the job skills that led to U.S. world economic leadership. Americans paid the cost of the Marshall Plan whereby Europe was put back on its feet and helped create prosperity in Japan and anywhere else that democracy and enlightened capitalism held sway. For a few decades more Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living ever achieved by humans as well as the most freedom ever experienced in the history of mankind. This is not to say that all was perfect. For example, minorities and women did not have equal opportunities. But real progress was being made.

In stark contrast to my experiences, most of those who do not remember those porch-swing times and have come to accept a second view of human purpose and goals, often, even irrationally, feel that today is a superior era. They do not wish to be told of a lost, better time. They call themselves Progressives and point to the progress made in free trade, globalization, and the rights of minorities and women. But those opposed to the progressives are coming to see that the price has been too high for what little has been gained. They feel that we have greatly diminished as a people and as a nation. More and more, these Americans see themselves as a nation of ignorant, impoverished, powerless slaves with few rights or freedoms and controlled by a handful of faithless, selfish, elites, greedy bankers, CEOs, and politicians. Because so many think their lives have become narrower and narrower, less and less civilized, more and more violent, they are tired of hearing How does that make you feel? They want to hear Good paying jobs available. In 1890 to1950, we dreamed of making unparalleled progress. Today, many would be delighted to just regress back to the 60’s and 70’s when the poor were not as poor or as plentiful. They want practical, pragmatic answers not pie in the sky visions of everyone loving everyone and the government paying for it all! Especially those of us over 60 are concerned that our trek, during the last 70 years, on the yellow brick road to the chicanery of the land of OZ, leads us ever downward. Like Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (by L. Frank Baum), can we not as a nation finally realize that we have been hoodwinked and seek urgently to find our nation’s way back home?

A good first step towards understanding the dilemma of our nation is to understand the points of views of both the Hedonists and the Idealists. The first quarter of this book examines the foundations of these conflicting philosophies or points of view, their sources, their outlooks, their strengths and weaknesses. The second quarter investigates the reasons why, after World War II, the balance between the two views was shattered with hedonism growing ever stronger while idealism diminished. In the third quarter are some consequences of this imbalance for our citizens, children, education, economy, and government. Lastly, is a look to the future.

SECTION ONE:

TWO WAYS OF SEEING OURSELVES

In the 1940’s when I was a boy, cartoons often depicted characters faced with difficult decisions as having two over-watching imps, one on each shoulder, one angelic and one devilish. Each tried to guide the characters’ decisions. Light heartedly, the cartoons were depicting two parts of our character or, in the words of Sigmund Freud, parts of our subconscious. These conflicting parts of our make-up play a vital role in our worldview and our values. One looks inward; the other outward. And rare, the twain do meet.

CHAPTER ONE

HEDONISM: MAN’S FIRST PHILOSOPHY

Our country and Christianity are both direct descendants of Greek culture. The Greeks gave western civilization its first theater, democracy, and lovers of wisdom (philosophers). These philosophers were fascinated by the unusual animal called Humans. The Greeks’ study of mankind led them to conclude that humans are born self-absorbed and retain an innate desire to be selfish, greedy, lazy, and largely motivated by sexual desire. They often confuse wishes with reality. Greek philosophers carefully explored this desire of children to ignore and childish adults to reject and escape the real, harsh world and do as they pleased. The Greeks called those who lived only for themselves, hedonists. Their hedonistic god was called Dionysus or Bacchus.

Twenty-five hundred years later, Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, similarly proclaimed that the human subconscious mind has an unrestrained, amoral, illogical, chaotic repository of forbidden desires which strives for the satisfaction of instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure principle which he called the id. (Ho hum; same song, second verse; at least, id is easier to spell than Dionysus"). The majority of Greek serious thinkers quickly discarded the hedonistic view as a permanent way of life; first because they saw in it no life-guiding meaning or purpose. And most importantly, they saw it as a repudiation of life’s greatest gift, our reason. They also saw in Hedonism the following fatal flaws.

First, Doing your own thing does not produce bread to eat, a place to sleep, or protection from thieves. The only ways for full-time hedonists to live is as a parasite, a moocher or a looter. As parasites and moochers, they must have an enabler. If, however, one wishes to live without any responsibilities and is lucky enough to find an enabler, one MUST REALIZE THIS. You are here-after the enabler’s slave. Imagine junkies flying high in their own private, don’t worry, be happy world. Know that the provider of their drugs, their enabler, is their master. The junkies are their slaves. Formerly, the junkies, the dependent, inadequate, and