OF BELIEF and what we have made of IT
I mounted the rostrum in Geneva, Switzerland, to address the League of Nations and to appeal for relief from the destruction which had been unleashed against my defenceless nation, by the fascist invader. I spoke then both to and for the conscience of the world. My words went unheeded, but history testifies to the accuracy of the waning that I gave in 1936. Today, I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor. In this body is enshrined the principle of collective security which I unsuccessfully invoked at Geneva. Here, in this Assembly, reposes the best-perhaps the last- hope for the peace of mankind. Ras Tafari (Haile Selassie)
If to be “imprisoned” were solely the concerns of social and judicial institutes, as some sort of inimitable consequence of justice and its process, then one should think the world would be better off. But the world as a giant essence finds ways to imprison itself beyond the familiar confines of fetters, chains and regimented penitentiaries. Possibly because its bounds is of a kind different from that which has been mentioned. Be it through eccentric ethos, ideological oddities, religious extremism or misguided popular sensibilities, we as thinking beings, defined by decades of urbane scholarship, constantly imprison ourselves—by constantly deceiving ourselves (and one another) with misguided faiths in bodies of deceits, falsehood and falsities. We seal our fate as a race of peoples, and as individuals, with that which is the enemy: the enemy which is the world; the world which regrettably is us.
History has revealed man and faith/belief as two constancies (one an entity, the other a concept) in steady relationship with each other, as both cannot in extant independently be. Sadly this is the founding basis for two prospects: of which one is the indispensible actuality of belief. And the other, the configuration of such belief and how it (the mechanics of it) aligns with our varying degrees of Innatism (if we are to momentarily suggests the tenets of Subjective Impressions are non-existent), presenting itself nonetheless as a sine qua non for successful epistemological, ontological, material and metaphysical pursuits. This faith could present itself as of a diversified reality to man: faith in intellectual and physical exertions, faith in some higher understanding, faith in a ‘seemingly crude definition’ of true purpose, faith in material determinism, faith in a thought system or faith in a noumenon. Regardless of which ever reality this amorphous totem chooses to commend itself to us, it is widely accepted that the set of man’s actions are to an extent ordered by how he chooses to work this unsubstantial, and as certain non-believers would tag ‘unsubstantiated aspect of human reality’ (bearing in mind the common noun ‘non-believer’ is of a nomenclature encompassing in the light of the material and metaphysical). Continue reading