1. ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION
AND ITS RESOLUTION
WTM FAQ 1.9 Should people be sceptical of the claims made about biologist Jeremy Griffith’s work?
The absolutely astonishing claims made about FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition—such as it being ‘the understanding that ends all prejudices, like racism, forever’; that it provides the ‘true liberation of women and the reconciliation of the sexes’; and that it is nothing less than ‘The book we have been waiting for, it is THE BOOK THAT SAVES THE WORLD!’; indeed, that it presents understanding that brings about the transformation of the world, as in our name the ‘World Transformation Movement’—warrant initial extreme scepticism and suspicion of delusion, hubris or over-promise. HOWEVER, the amazing fact is that they all withstand scrutiny; a person can begin reading the book and the more they read into it the more they will realise the claims being made are actually true.
So while these seemingly outrageous claims do attract extreme scepticism, they are actually true, and therefore should be stated. You don’t hide an illuminating lamp—in this case the understanding needed to save the world from fast approaching terminal distress and dysfunction—under a bed; no, you put it on a pedestal where it belongs. For example, a sceptical person said that we shouldn’t ‘refer to THE Interview or FREEDOM with all capital letters. It’s just too evangelical. Book titles only need one capital. It’s like referring to Him with a capital H’. But imagine if the human race was about to die from a horrifically crippling and traumatising and sickening disease which humans were living in such denial of that they weren’t even aware of, but which you could see and not only that you had the cure for, what would you do? Hide amongst the masses or somehow shout your message from the rooftops? Putting FREEDOM in capitals and referring to the human-race-saving interview as THE Interview are among the least of the things we can do.
Another sceptical person said that ‘Absolutism is dangerous. [To say] “This is the ONLY place talking about the real issue of the human condition” That’s false…To claim exclusivity doesn’t stack up…There are many MANY organizations that are on point with regard to the human condition and how to improve it and this is one of them…it certainly isn’t the only one.’ But the truth is that this is the only place talking about ‘the real issue of the human condition’. As Jeremy Griffith’s writing finally makes clear, ‘the real issue of the human condition’ is our species’ core insecurity over having destroyed the paradise of our original all-loving existence, and as a result, how we as a species have lived deep inside Plato’s metaphorical dark cave of extremely committed denial of the issue of the human condition—a terrible existence that Jeremy’s accountable instinct vs intellect explanation of the human condition finally ends the need for. As Jeremy points out, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wasn’t exaggerating when he wrote of ‘O, the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall, frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed’; the issue of the human condition has been too frightening to confront while it was unable to be ‘fathomed’ or understood. So Jeremy’s treatise is the only place that is actually going anywhere near the issue of the human condition; that’s not some form of blind ‘absolutism’ or hubristic claim—the issue of the human condition has finally been brought out into the open by Jeremy’s work. And importantly, all these ideas can be tested, in the market place of ideas and in our everyday life—tests that show just how accountable, reliable and truthful they are. As Albert Einstein said, ‘truth is what stands the test of experience.’ (With regard to the accountability or ‘provability’ of Jeremy’s instinct vs intellect explanation of the human condition, there is a very full treatment of that issue in FAQ 1:10, ‘Is this theory testable?’)
Certainly, what appear to be outrageously hubristic claims can initially be off-putting, but in time they become appreciated for their forthright honesty in indicating where the solution to our problems lies.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
An elaboration by Jeremy Griffith on what has just been said.
This comment about not putting an illuminating lamp under a bed but on its pedestal is actually a comment Christ made when he was accused of deluded hubris; Christ said: ‘Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?’ (Mark 4:21). It is necessary to say the truth about how important this information really is—especially since it is bringing relieving understanding to the most important yet most denied subject of all of the human condition. Since it’s well known that denials fight back with a vengeance when faced with annihilation, and the human condition is the most denied of all subjects, it follows that the inevitable ‘vengeance’ against having the human condition exposed has to be met by extremely strong counter resistance or the ‘vengeance’ will win out. That counter resistance begins with an unequivocal defence of how important these understandings of the human condition really are. Socrates was given the option of either recanting his honest words—in particular his assertion that we have to face not avoid the issue of the human condition when he said ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’, and ‘the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance’—or being put to death, and because he didn’t bow to his persecutors, and accepted death, that act of defiance set the stage for the great flowering of Western civilisation. The truth about the human condition has to be stood solidly up, put squarely on its ‘stand’, otherwise it will be smashed out of existence. Christ understood this principle. He knew that all his denial-free, human-condition-confronting-not-avoiding honest words about human life were going to meet extreme resistance and that he would have to totally defy that resistance and stand by the importance of his human-condition-exposing honesty even though the persecution was going to be so great it would mean his crucifixion (Freedom Essay 39 has a wonderful description of the life of Christ and its importance). Christ’s defence of truth against denial created Christianity, the most followed faith in the world. The WTM is not about creating a faith, but about ending the need for faith, belief and dogma, but the human-condition-confronting-not-avoiding nature of our work requires the same need for firm defiance of denial. Socrates didn’t bend to his persecutors who wanted to reimpose denial, and Christ didn’t bend to his persecutors who wanted to reimpose denial, and we in the WTM mustn’t bend to those who want to reimpose denial on us.
So while we are forever being told to ‘dumb it down’, make what is presented less confronting, basically take my writing back into the cave of denial where everyone is living, we mustn’t and won’t do that. This has to be the denial-free liberating truth that it is, because, as Christ also said, only ‘the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). So our website, and its contents, has to be the uncompromised and uncorrupted, but completely compassionate, first-principle-based, biological truth that it is. We can certainly make the access presentations, such as our advertisements and promotional material, not so forthright, truthful and confronting, but watering down, or dumbing down, our main presentation is not an option. Just as Christ was the uncorrupted embodiment of the truth, we have to be the uncorrupted understanding of the truth, because then what we’re presenting will be the sanctuary of sanity it is in a sea of madness that everyone will come to treasure and wrap their arms lovingly around because it’s saving their life and the human race and the world (see Freedom Essay 55 on the frightening endgame situation that the human race has now reached). Sure, people will initially be hugely sceptical and deaf, but we mustn’t bend to that scepticism and deafness—and we haven’t bent and, like Socrates and Christ, we were also horribly persecuted, in effect killed/crucified, for being so truthful and ended up successfully fighting the then biggest defamation action in Australia’s history against our persecutors. So we walk confidently and authoritatively through all the outrageously dishonest and vengeful accusations swirling around us, and by doing that, in time, the truth catches up with the lie, and everyone treasures the safe haven of truth that we have defended in the rapidly increasing sea of madness everywhere else on planet Earth. (See Freedom Essay 56 on the defiant stand the WTM has taken against attacks on its work.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You can read the extraordinary commendations for Jeremy Griffith’s work on the Commendations section on our homepage, including former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association Professor Harry Prosen’s, in which he describes FREEDOM as: ‘THE BOOK THAT SAVES THE WORLD!’. You might also be interested in FAQ 1.17: Shouldn’t your website be toned down, all the ‘hyperbole’ removed and the ‘congested’, ‘loud’ and ‘aggressive’ layout replaced with a gentler, more welcoming format?; and Freedom Essay 54: The accusation of hubris.
