The Secret Knowledge Read Online Free PDF

cruelty to the righteous. As a child I read of the Tibetan monk who left his home, walked a thousand miles and discovered, hidden in his robe, an ant which only existed in his home village. So he walked the thousand miles back to replace the ant, to avoid doing it violence. But how many ants did he step on on the way?
    â€œPractice random acts of kindness.” Is it kindness to give a few dollars to a beggar who is likely to spend it on alcohol? Do I have the interest or ability to determine actually what his problem is, and if I should, how I should help him? Or is it just easier to give him the money? Of course it is, for it makes me feel good, as I may call it kindness.
    Is it kindness to pass a real estate bill, which while rewarding some, harms most and brings our country close to bankruptcy?
    The problems of the real world are real problems, and most of us are overprotected beings. You and I may pull the lever of Reward Me for the Right Answer—so far so good. But the effects will be far reaching, as our rewards have a semantic content, and our learned responses which we understand as “basic truths,” and, so, beyond question, will affect not only ourselves but others.
    â€œCapitalism is bad”? Not the capitalism that founded and supported Stanford or Harvard or Penn; not that which makes our clothes, and cars and guitars, and brings the food and so on, and not that which employs and supports us, or has supported the parents which supported us; and not those businesses we, in our dreams, would like to create (“Gosh, I’ve got a billion-dollar idea”). But we have gotten the pellet for repeating that capitalism is bad, Thomas Jefferson was an adulterer, and the loop is closed because we have been rewarded. So let us vote for higher taxes on business, although if we look around, California, with the highest taxes in the country, is broke, having taxed business away. And let us vote for a top-down economy, for certainly Government, which destroys most everything it touches, can run the auto industry better than businesspeople can. But by what convoluted logic does it make sense that a man who never made a car can make cars better than an industry of carmakers? Do you want your surfboard made by a surfboard maker or an oceanographer? But Thomas Jefferson had slaves.
    And this is a racist country. Q. Are you a racist? A. No. Q. When was the last time you heard a racist remark or saw racial discrimination at school or work? Ah yes, but I got the pellet. The pellet was fine, but it came with a price. The price was a limited ability to see the world. Do African Americans think it is a racist country? I’m sure they see subtle and not-so-subtle bias and prejudice every day. A Jew is aware of anti-Semitism of which the non-Jew is not. But under the law, this is not a racist country, and what other choice would you have? De facto, and de jure, this is a nonracist country, and the only other test I can see is that any taint of bias, any potential bias, whether it results in discrimination or not, must be eradicated at all costs. So let us enact hate crime laws, as if getting beaten to death were more pleasant if one was not additionally called a greaser. And let us ensure that the Government, to eradicate “hate speech,” will become the arbiter on all speech—that same Government whose very return address on the envelope awakens fear. Let’s give them more power, because I pulled the lever and I got a pellet. It’s a racist country, America is an exploiter. Capitalism is bad. Israel is corrupt.
    If we identify every interaction as possessing a victim, (find the victim, get a pellet), we are training ourselves away from the ability to ask what are the issues, how do I know, what are the biases of the reporters, how do the issues affect me, what, if any, is my responsibility? 15

    Perhaps there is another view of the world, in which every transaction need not be reduced to