Part answer: The Global Brain.

“Growing up (as I did) in the province of Québec, you learn not just the joys but also the perils of bilingualism. A separate national identity, revolving entirely around “Francophonie,” became a raging issue that led to social unrest, terrorism, threats of separation and a referendum that came within a hair’s breadth of breaking up Canada.” – Charles Krauthammer

terrorism: Oklahoma city bombing;
social unrest: US race street riots; and
threat of separation: The Civil War.

What does Canada have to compare to that?
terrorism: The October Crisis;
social unrest: Montreal Massacre;
threat of separation: A Referendum (Say! Not the blood thirsty Ballot!)

I think there is a communism that will not fail to deliver. The Israelites in the desert, or Jesus with his disciples, or the community of the Spirit (for they were all filled by the Spirit) in Acts 4:31ff – are all examples of classless societies (in the guise of first feudalism-God the suzerain, then a monarchy-Christ the King, and then ?-the Spirit the ?). And why they worked, I think was because the principal of justice was in their midst. But they all appear to have been temporary societies, they appear to have failed in time. Or did they? What do you think?

- something I posted on Jono’s blog that I had just that day developed a little more extensively in my head, but not yet in writing. The musing continues:

Of course everything I’m saying is debatable – but that’s part of the point – it is being debated, which means there is something there. The Levites, a class, but potentially a misappropriation of the word. [1 In addition there are some interesting discussions out there (Gottwald, Bloch) that’d suggest so much as that the ancient Israelites in Egypt ran a sort of ‘peasants revolt’ against the Egyptians with revolutionary focus and unity on YHWH and his promised city. Appropriating that thought to the Jews at the time of Jesus – that is Jesus and his coup of Jerusalem. And then for the folks in Acts – the revolutionary focus is on the Spirit and the Coming Kingdom.

… none of God’s social experiments ‘worked’ or at least had staying power. The desert community that together ate the same meal over and over again soon forgot their YHWH, his political system not practical or enlightened enough or something. Thus more practical gods, say the fertility inducing Baal, and more human leadership, say that one would have in a king, were sought after.

Christ’s little order of merry disciples didn’t have much staying power either – donkey riding, palm leaves, and miracle menus didn’t keep the disciples from packing it in and going back to fishing.

And the little community in acts – their spirit centeredness quickly seems to fade into the “larger political system” – note how by the end a Levite (!) sold some property and brought the money to the feet of the apostles. Difference established that seems out of kilter to verses prior.

… there is a curious progression here … . An evolving relationship to an incarnation of god and a morphing notion of the coming city/community are both at the centre of these revolutionary-like groupings of people.

Concerned about how irritating or how boring you are in conversation? Wonder no longer. However, I will wonder how well this device will do attending a viewing of John Cleese’s How to Irritate People. And lest I become irritating myself, there still remains the looming question of whether thought on boredom is even at all possible, to say the least measurable.

The free market imperative: “Innovate!” [1]

Communist China’s political idea: “Continuous revolution”. [2]

The Presbyterian motto: “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda” [3]
Within all three of these statements is contained a force of iconoclasm reconciled with a force of reconstruction.

The innovator takes on set methods with a new method – one more cost effective, more efficient, and more thrilling. The communist storms illegitimate bases of authority to open up space for more principled engineering. The reformer hammers institutionalized diversions from the truth to open a space for the return of truth.

While Calvin opposed claims that he was an innovator, I’d argue that the sense of the word is different than the one used today. Innovation, continuous revolution, and continuous reformation share in a sense of moderation. Well done they navigate between the past and the future, between the way things just are and the new that is better.

The relationship of the three concepts, each coming from different spheres – political, economic, religious – contribute an interesting figure to consider, because the three concepts are potentially so similar.

Upon the reconciled grounds of these three concepts, could the three spheres be reconciled?