Self Destruction
by Roshi Hogen Berman

I dislike people who start a speech or essay with excuses about possible errors in what they have to say. It sounds like they are trying to tell us that, "If you think I'm wrong or if you find errors in my presentation, these are the reasons for it, and because of those reasons I know you'll forgive me for passing out all this erroneous information."

While I acknowledge having this attitude towards such people, let me admit to not being a history buff, but I do plead guilty to spending many rainy afternoons browsing through the reference section of our great public library. In addition, I believe it's necessary for us to understand something about history to ensure we do not keep repeating the same mistakes over and over. I subscribe to the Confucian theory that we should analyze historical events and learn from both the good and bad incidents of the past; surely we can understand that both good and bad experiences are excellent teachers. I hope that towns, cities, and countries, learn, as I did, from past actions, good or bad, and are a little wiser the next time similar circumstances arise. I'm certain we are all a little wiser today than we were yesterday and the day before. This is particularly true when we recall and suffer from the mistakes in judgment we made.

In my reading of world history, I've arrived at a few interesting conclusions about how we should attempt to "run" this world today; but of them, one in particular interests me most of all. That conclusion is that we, the members of the society that we live in, program ourselves or rather our social structure and thus our society, country, etc. for destruction. We, as individuals or as a nation, become greedy, spoiled, and excessively affluent and as we are able to acquire more than we need or can effectively use in this lifetime, for some reason we still cling and grasp, grabbing for more and more. We fail to realize the wisdom expressed by Lao Tzu, 2,500 years ago, in his writings called the Tao Te Ching, that a man is truly wise and happy if he recognizes when enough is enough - and such a one always has enough. We seem to think, "What I don't use I'll leave to my children. It'll make their life easier. They will not need to struggle and work as I did." Believe me, I understand this attitude, but I'm not certain we are doing the children a favor. We might be better off spending all of our money in this lifetime educating those children so that they can help themselves. It is like the story, "Give a man a fish and he relieves his hunger for today. Teach him how to fish and he relieves his hunger forever. " One thing is certain we cannot take that wealth or those material assets with us when we die and experience rebirth, nor can we send it on ahead (sure would be interesting if we could).

Speaking of history and the things people do or don't do, if we stop for a moment and think about the various countries that were once world leaders or superpowers, you will see that the leaders and perhaps the general populace (in some cases) all had or have some common attitude and personality characteristics that existed prior to, during, and/or after their reign as a world power.

For example:

(1). Prior to becoming powerful, wealthy, etc. one or more generations of citizens were restless and dissatisfied with the status-quo; in many respects they could be classified as revolutionaries or perhaps a more polite term would be "adventurers".

(2). After their country achieved a position of strength, power, wealth, and world esteem the people reached a peak, held it for one or two generations, and then began the decline, the regression and weakening of their society. This happened because they had so much wealth and material assets; their children were never hungry (hungry for material wealth, knowledge and things, not necessarily food), they played their way through universities and did not worry about how they were going to live afterwards. Those children, that next generation, was not motivated to learn or work - expecting the world to be given to them rather than having to earn it.

On these bases the people and the country began to lose its vitality; it began to degenerate. Generally historians attribute the degeneration of cultures in the past, and the same thought is equally applicable today, to a decline in the populations morality and intellectual capabilities; not education levels necessarily, but what is learned and retained after being exposed to that education. Usually when there has been a lowering of moral standards and a concurrent decline in intellectual capability, there is an accompanying lowering of performance expectancy and most certainly desired standards; usually mediocrity becomes the excepted standard and anyone who demands excellence is thought to be an ogre or some form of fool. Look around your world, do you begin to see for yourself what we have been talking about?

As a nation's succeeding generations become more and more complacent, they no longer strive for progress; they become satisfied with the status quo, with customs, traditions and most assuredly, welfare systems. They see nothing wrong with taking extra long vacations and advocating a policy of "enjoying life to it's fullest". As these ideas spread throughout a country, the nation as a whole begins to decline and regress. Each subsequent generation makes its contribution to this decline and thus are the architects of the country's destruction as a world power. We can see many examples of this process as we study the history of such countries as Egypt, Rome (Italy), Greece, France, China, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, Russia and more recently, the United States.

If we look to the Far East we can see Japan rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of a lost war to become a major economic power in the world. However, look closely and you will see the handwriting on the wall; it is plain for anyone who takes the time to look that a decline in the fiber of the social structure and the morality of its younger generations has begun. Perhaps the next generation will drive the final nail into the country's coffin and the decline to some mean level for the culture and country will be experienced. I think that Japan, and many other countries are aware of the lessons taught by history but, like you and me, they don't always know how to apply what has been learned and resolve the problem.

On the other end of the spectrum we sometimes find a country, or countries, that are extremely poor and thus very weak militarily and socially. They are apt to embark on a series of terrorist or military adventures that purposely lead to their destruction as an independent national entity. In other words they program their destruction. They (i.e. the people in power) believe that by attacking a wealthy and powerful nation they will either be defeated quickly and then taken under the wing of the wealthy country and supported as one would an adopted or foster child, or they will be abused by the powerful nation and win world sympathy and thus be aided by other "more sympathetic" countries. In a very broad sense this was the type of program engaged in by Japan's government at the start of World War II when they attacked the United States. They expected to lose and, in six months or so, negotiate for peace. Because they were originally a small country with few natural resources, after the negotiations they expected to be allowed to keep part of the South Asia territories that they had defeated during their military adventures in those areas (which were rich in natural resources). That, in the past, was generally the result of negotiated peace treaties; thus they based their gamble on lessons learned from history.

The fly in their ointment was that the United States, which they had thought of as only a paper dragon, had risen up and became angry and would not accept a negotiated peace. They demanded total capitulation from Japan, which meant the loss of all occupied and defeated territories as well as the loss of face. However, in spite of losing the war, as pointed out above, what Japan was unable to accomplish then, she may accomplish via business and economical acumen as the Phoenix rises from the ashes of the United State's atomic bombs. The problem with Japan's adventurism and that of any other poor country trying to improve its status and standards of living for it's people is that they usually are forced to drag some other innocent countries down with them and the result is many people who are not really involved suffer for the perceived desires of the greedy and power hungry few.

All of this historical fact and experience is true, there is no way that we can deny it, yet in both of these countries a very strange phenomenon is being experienced; a phenomenon that defies the implications of the regression from power of these two countries. I mentioned that the United States and Great Britain were once "THE" superpowers in the world and have slowly but surely been relegated to take a back seat to the status of others. Although the United States is still the most formidable world power and a world leader, the decline in its status as a provider nation to that of an in-debt nation should be obvious to all. The peculiar aspect relative to both of these countries is that they are denigrated by the people and the governments of many nations (most who are poorer than the US or GB), their weaknesses are pointed out daily in the news media, and everyone that has political ambitions of any kind (outside the US and GB of course) take their shots at them. But, take a look and see what countries the citizens of almost all other nations in the world are trying to migrate to, legally or illegally. Look at the citizens of those countries risking their lives and savings trying to enter the US and Great Britain anyway they can. Many of these illegal and legal immigrants are from countries like Japan and West Germany that are the economic giants of the day.

What is it that exists in these two countries that attracts people from the world over? Perhaps it is just the opportunity to be as great as you desire, as wealthy as your ingenuity and sweat will let you, without governmental restrictions. In fact, almost always with the governments help. But perhaps the greatest gift the United States and Great Britain have to offer these immigrants is total freedom; freedom to work, live, speak, move about and do what ever it is they want to do, their individual way. Just total freedom; which to many may be like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But historically, even these hungry (in every sense of the word) immigrants by their hard work and frugal living, begin to design the destruction of forthcoming generations that will reap the harvest of their forefather's efforts. Then the cycle of self-destruction will repeat itself again and again. Why? It is nothing more than a simple cause and effect relationship. Mankind has to start thinking in terms of what's good for the species instead of exercising individual greed, which in the long term destroys the species. Not destruction in the sense that it blows up or kills off mankind causing humans to become extinct; rather it destroys in the sense that it weakens the moral fiber of the species and causes generations to become weaker and weaker until they reach a point where a few individuals decide they can no longer tolerate this condition and they rise up and revolt, there-by starting the cycle building towards a stronger population and after a few generations the resolve weakens and on and on it goes. The cause of the problem is never really attacked and eliminated. Thus man suffers and in this sense destroys himself.

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