Recycle Language Concepts. Cultural Brilliance.
Re-Use the best of the Past:

  Paratge, Ma'at or Ma'aht.

The Duty to "Paratge" -  Old Roots 

Pronounce "paratge" in two syllables like "garage" = or  three, like "par-azghe-E":
In Catalan, perhaps the word "paraje" - 'tolerence', see ://www.wikiwords.org/dictionary/paratge/220274/439266/
In Hawaiian, perhaps the word "malama" = 'care', see ://www.noogenesis.com/malama.html/
Is that so, Mr. President Obama?


Update:see discussion of a current surface news-travel treatment of the Cathars, missing entirely this Cathar concept of paratge; and omitting the essence of the belief system.  Once expunged, wrongful or not, the myth of the irrelevance of the conquered continues. Crusades against the Christian Cathars and their Occitan language and concepts killed perhaps our Western last hope for tolerance as a cultural value.  See Cathars. Shoddy Research Rewrites History.

I.  Paratge 

Paratge stems from the old Occitan language of midi-France, the area known as Languedoc, and words from that language spilled over into England through people who spoke it in medieval times. But the Occitan concept of  "paratge" got lost as English forms took over.

Some still speak Occitan, in southern France, Pyrrhenees, Italy - there are some six dialects, see Occitan Language at ://www.omniglot.com/writing/occitan.htm/ See there its alphabet and pronunciations, and listen to a bit of it.  There are numerous related languages, spanning large geographic areas. It is not dead, just marginalized out of sight.

The Christian religious branch known as Cathars ("dualists" - another topic, and they were designated as heretics, see ://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/primarysourcesalbigensiancrusade.html/ spoke Occitan, but the term also appeared in other French areas, and areas where that religious group did not dominate.  See FN 1.

The concept: 

Paratge is a word that combines
a) medieval chivalrous ideas of honor, gentility, courtesy, with an additional obligation,
b) a duty to do what is right.

A duty to a natural order and balance moral code - "Paratge".  That is more than a religious precept - do this because a deity says so, says someone.  It is a universal.  Paratge stood for what ought to be done to foster the natural order, balance.  A noble subject, such as a Duke, could even remind a Pope of the duty to paratge. The duty to paratge makes sense as a duty to an ethos.

Blasphemy, say we capitalists. Our system does not thrive on that stuff. Is that so?

Have we gone too far without it? 

There are stirrings of concern about the bents of our linguistic group, the Western Financial and Military Mogul.  For example, there are criticisms in news and financial analyses of Goldman Sachs and its direction, its goal of profits period, regardless, with an old societal service component down the tubes, see The New Republic, Has Goldman Sachs Lost Its Soul, at ://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121551520/  "You lie!" shout the emboldened boors, modeling after those who are clueless.

Recycle.

This is not a religious piece. This asks, instead, that if other cultures have concepts for living together in a degree of harmony that ours does not, could we benefit from finding them and recycling, reusing them.  And if our culture does not have a concept, is that because there is none such, or because we beat it out of somebody.

Linguistics.  Cultural concepts. 

When languages disappear, or are superseded, concepts also get shoved aside in favor of the ones who win, who either defeat or sell the people on the new.

For example, the Cathar Christians, when their lands were being invaded by the French and other Christians who followed Rome's version, were horrified that the French "Christians" did not have the concept of paratge to govern their actions.

The French Christians from the north had no concept for it, no respect for it. Instead, they brought "deceit, brutality, vandalism, lying, hypocrisy, even mass-murder."  See ://www.midi-france.info/190403_paratge.htm.  Rub the lamp. Oops.  Lamp went out. And this is progress? This is religious improvement?

Paratge in our history: 

Here is a fair use quote from this very large site on the Cathars and the Crusades (the Albigensian Crusades) against them, that virtually wiped them out, finally and with slaughter: This is from the Canso (Song of the Cathar Wars) and first lines shown in Occitan.  There are other, long quotes in Occitan and translation at that site.  Here, at this piece, the defenders at Muret had lost:
"Toto lo mons ne valg mens, de ver o sapiatz,
Car Paratges NE fo destruitz e decassatz
E totz Crestianesmes aonitz abassatz."

"It diminished the whole world, be sure of that,
For it destroyed and drove out paratge,
It disgraced and shamed all Christendom."


A Canso is a song in the form that troubadours used, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canso_%28song%29/ - a good starting point. Read about the Song of the Cathar Wars at ://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/ctit.htm/' and part in narrative form at ://www.deremilitari.org/resources/sources/ctit3.htm.  Note that the Song begins in the voice of a supporter of the crusaders at the Siege of Termes, and refers to Brabanters. That is part of Belgium-Netherlands, showing from how far afield the crusaders came.

But halfway through the entire song, another anonymous voice takes over, supporting the Cathars - it looks like the quote above is from that section. Another Cathar supporter site:  the Historia Albigensis, by Peter of Les Vaux de Cerney, see ://www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/historiaalbigensis.html/

Paratge in action:  Common good governance; history of mutual respect

Go back to the Crusades. Saladin, in the Holy Land, says the site Languedoc site, says of Richard the Lionheart (of England) that his horse was killed. And Saladin sent him another.  Amazing, to militarists today.  Is this so?  West values gain.  Not then. Not in itself.
,
We looked it up:  it is so  This site says Saladin gave two equine replacements, see ://www.biographybase.com/biography/Saladin.html/ And Richard then offered his sister to marry Saladin's brother. Scroll down the crusades-encyclopedia site for more history, French, English.

Then the idea of paratge dissolves as the "West" develops according to Rome. Read more about Saladin, in the stories from his lands, at ://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197003/saladin-story.of.a.hero.htm/  It appears that he indeed knew "paratge".  A multi-cultural concept.  An honorable one.

So, Christianity took the other road. And here we are. What if the Popes had lost. What if their military and administration skills failed, and nobody bought their version of dogma, interpretation of matters subject to multiple interpretations. Would a western culture of tolerance and respect, a different culture from competion and accumulation, have won.

Saracens.

Extremists of any belief system have no paratge?  Explore the issue. Our extremists, other culture's extremists.  Is openness to paratge an important difference.

Read about the Saracen invasion and linguistic and other traces still in southern France, at ://www.paratage.chez.alice.fo.histoire, at ://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://paratge.chez-alice.fr/histoire.htm&ei=lYsuS7q6K5GxlAe8vK2qBw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CB4Q7gEwBTgU&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dparatge%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DWP8%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20/

Remember little dark Buckwheat in Our Gang?  Early film?  Find Buckwheat in southern France.Traces of the Saracen.

II.  Ma'aht  -  or Ma'at

The ancient Egyptians had a concept like paratge - see the same Languedoc history site.  Ma'aht apparently is ancient Egyptian. We'll vet the site and its information further, but stay with the idea for now.  Ma'aht connotes cosmic balance - like the natural order of paratge. But ma'aht adds to it its result - contentment, joy, light.  It is a goddess who represents ma'aht, and the idea of ma'aht even underlies the later Christian concepts of heaven and hell. See http://www.midi-france.info/190403_paratge.htm/

The goddess Maat - these spellings can be so different that it makes researching online difficult - stood for " "truth,  balance, order".  Honor.  Justice.  But the term is more a concept than an actual deity.  Without Ma'at, the world would revert to chaos.  See Egypt:  Ma'at, Goddess://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/maat2.htm/  She represented an abstraction, the "rational and orderly working of the universe" - see ://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM/  She was more the linchpin than the gods of power. 

The Orient incorporates these - in Buddhist ideas like karma, and the "right" - this is a really interesting site.

The Greeks also had the idea - in logos, or order, or pattern.  In the beginning was the logos - how and when was that concept of basic order then changed to a mere "word"?  The Christians turned the logos or pattern or order idea into their "God".  See ://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/EGYPT/MAAT.HTM/

Linguistics and how meaning changes with who plays with it.  The earliest transliteration we find has "logos" from the famous Bible verse in John 1:1 or so transliterated into "in original was the saying and the saying was toward the God and God was the saying this was original toward the God" etc., see http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/joh1.pdf/

That indeed looks like someone else was doing the saying, and aiming it at God, that it did not originate with God, and that would fit the Egyptian model of Ma'at on top (Wisdom up there?).  Even Michelangelo has the lady looking over the deity's shoulder to see how he's doing.  See Sistine chapel.

Nothing is ever clear if you look. Things are only clear if you don't look.

III.  Malama - Hawaii

Malama is care, fairness, trust, inventiveness, respect, freedom, kindness, equality, cooperation. Not malama is obedience, shame, coercion, punishment, criticism, violence, fear, contempt, competition, deceit, defensiveness.  See the full lists at ://www.noogenesis.com/malama.html/  How is it applied, or not - see Socialist Mop, and Malama.
.

IV.   A Little Play:
How to Rebalance the West's Flaws

Speak, O Past. (Actor rubs the lamp). 

(Chorus Intones) We are sick of Gain meaning All.  We are sick of government faction fights and global warming fisticuffs in high places, and healthcare issues becoming toxic.

And yes there's more.  There is seeking self-interest at the expense of what is right, with religions as profit-minded as Wall Street, and the winner of toys is cheered on culturally as the loser dissolves into a puddle and the winner does little victory tippytoes and fist bumps supporters.

(The lamp stirs).  Suddenly, out wafts -- what? Paratge.  Out comes -- what?  Ma'aht.  What?  What are those?  What are they telling us? Why are they here?

We haven't a clue at first, because we don't have the concepts to define paratge and ma'aht in ready form in our language.  We acknowledge no duty to paratge, to ma'aht. Is that so?  If we have no concept for something, do we even see it. Here is a clue:  If we do paratge, we are wimps in the eyes of those who strut and count.

Paratge and ma'aht.  Find them at The History of the Languedoc, at ://www.midi-france.info/190403_paratge.htm/



Conclusion:   O, scholars, rub the lamp again ....  how to get paratge back, ma'aht, malama.  Too late for Copenhagen or Washington?  Or civil discourse over tea with bags.  Define "heretic." Whose power interest is served. What did the Crusades kill:  an ethos of egalitarianism, honor, fair play.  What survived.  Gain, force, militance, intolerance, abuse of the helpless, molestation of children all institutionally sanctioned or shoved under the clerical rug. The Crusades killed essential values.
.............................................................................

FN 1  This site gives information about the Cathars, and their language that included that word, "paratge".  They were a large and prosperous Christian religious group, who did not follow Rome or the Pope, but had their own rituals - with elements later included in the Roman (read the site) and  located in southern France and a swath east toward Italy and west into the Pyrenhees, we understand. Visit ://www.midi-france.info/190403_paratge.htm

In the middle ages, this group were deemed heretic (look up the crusades against them - were they largely so the Roman church could get its vast land holdings and property, increase political power? go vet).

The language of the Cathars was Occitan.  The old Occitan language was the language of many prominent early English (Eleanor of Aquitaine, and King John I, for example).  Teach languages and history on a par with the theorems.  How else to open windows on perception.  How else to train to hear others.

Is this so:  some political leaders or devotees are simply bad sports when they have lost something they had wanted very much.

Bad sports. Does that idea relate to paratge. Poor sportsmanship. No sense of paratge. Dirty tricks, all that to sabotage the others before, during and after the event, denigrate the win, take away the victory. In elementary school, people would be expelled for it. Is it time to assess paratge in leadership and compel some to repeat Third Grade Sportsmanship 101.
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Forced pregnancy. The concept of force in pregnancy is contrary to western religion that wisely for centuries touched not the issue. After all, Mary was not forced.  She was told the idea. She agreed. Be it unto me. Let the woman agree or not.

Eve was not forced.  She herself went to god and asked.  And begat only three timed times, with the     third pregnancy, Seth, to replace Cain.

Amy Coney Barrett was not forced, was she?  Should only women who have been forced to remain     pregnant have standing on the issue?  See the roses at https://www.facebook.com/amyconeybarrett/

So, only those forced have standing to address abortion issues.

Fog of abortion.  Leave it be.

Fog of abortion. Forced o[regnancy. Leave it be, until time of breath at least.

Serve on a condo board.  A condo community in many ways is like a colony. A board is given and gives itself broad authority to impose conditions it wants, on unit owners.  Or, a board can set operating procedures that are transparent, consent-based. A board may even avoid its expense areas, if it desires, by shifting "commons" to individual owners and without consent. Just do it.

What drives us.  Can we change direction. Mazlow missed it. His hierarchy of needs provided that the person must have sufficiency and safety before it is feasible to reach for the more elusive qualities of life broadly seen as belonging, prestige and creativity.  Look beyond that tidy Mazlow list. Peer into the physics context of us, for the psychological piece. How do individuals and groups relate to others. What motivates:  opportunity to victimize, exploit, dominate emerges. From what source? The drive to Empire. The smallest child soon learns it is better to bite than to be bitten. Bremen Cathedral, Germany. Research the science-grounded Higgs boson.  You may not be a science major, but find principles explained at a beginning site: How Stuff Works, at https://science.howstuffworks.com/higgs-boson.htm  This research site explores in plain language how matter operates as currently understood (there are gaps), and the role of more edgy research into an additional particle concept that fills in gaps in our current understanding of basic forces. 1. The Higgs boson: Principles of the Higgs boson , still being sought, suggest that there is an additional particle that explains the forces affecting us in physics. This may open our thinking into another principle: an additional particle that in turn explains the forces of our minds also be found.  Our mental drives do not follow the rational. Never have. What research can help us to understand the forces driving us mentally even as we deny them, justify them because we benefit. Can we ever have inter-group amity as to race, gender, and so on, can we deflect the "natural" push to dominate, including by fearmongering, and instead go immediately to problem-solving. Can current institutions and interpretations, without a change of basic mindset, steer us away from ... ...  the Joy of Empire. The Empire Boson. The drive to dominate. Does it drive itself? 2. The Empire boson. Are we hooked on defeating others because we fear competition on merits, do not want justifications challenged. Empire. Self defense. Both sides buy in.  Violence toward otherst revs us up. It whiles away the hours in politics, religion. Rewards are there, making others into victims or inferiors makes the maker feel on top. That is a reward. For Alexander the Great, for example, Empire was a life of industry and valor, and so justified promotion of valor and measure it by those others subsumed. Even he, however, placed power and dominion below the higher life's aim of knowledge of excellence. 20th century Alexander the Great: Valor and industry paved his way to Empire. Our own history is full of drives to dominate or die trying. Illustration: is the rider in the white shirt there to observe, or intervene? A watcher, not a helper, because the activity is approved, "natural." Oh, yeah? The duel. International drive to dominate in history. Life is more meaningful with enemies.  What is the origin of that? See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-big-questions/201110/enemies-enhance-the-meaning-life The Empire boson. Unquestioning conditioning to support the natural particle. The more guns, the more likely the use thereof. Selah. Escaping the Empire boson. How to go in another direction from violence. 3.  The Colonizer boson. Empire Boson is also the Colonizer Boson.  The Colonizer boson. The drive to exploit. Can we turn ourselves around? 4. Boson theory. Is the Colonizer boson, a/k/a the Empire boson, the fifth basic force: The X19. See simple explanations for difficult things, like a fifth force as theorized also at How Stuff Works (for non-experts) again at https://science.howstuffworks.com/x17particle-fifth-force.htm Colonizer boson. What trickles down to the ordinary soldier. The psychology of war. If there is a particle component driving us to seek domination, warfare and exploitation "just because," present institutions and interpretations of religion and politics and ideology are inadequate to deflect it.  The deadly threesome has fallen too far into the lure of victimizing, the reward received for denigrating those deemed unacceptable, labeled inferior. The Empire boson got 'em. What satisfaction is there with the fifth force, without enforced superiority? The Empire boson wins. Can we reframe to a life without enemies out there. Read more:

We are superfluous,  You are superfluous, if you are not within the super-wealthy few who accumulate by the billions and rule rewards and punishments for the rest of us.  You are a tool. You can be replaced. Fungible.  You are a human fungible.The concept is not new: See it discussed in 2014:  In The New Yorker., Current coverage: The account of Trump-Kushner rise to power, American Oligarchs, a chronology. Any interest but theirs is superfluous. Ignore it.

Hyperbole is an obvious exaggeration.

A history of Trompe. `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar. Alice, in Wonderland, was soon stumped. Now. Alice (so say all of us)  asks the same question of Trump, literally pictured here, with Ivana and the help) from the 2003-ish coffee table book, "The Republicans." Except, at that time, Trump was a registered Democrat, see A.  below.  Who are you?  Follow the naming.

Young Trump posing as a Republican in a coffee table picture book, but was he a Democrat at the time.

Time for America to fill in the gaps in its history: go back and live through the middle ages.

We never had the benefit of that, and how the caste structure was finally overthrown, the peasants allowed a foothold, until other factors imposed by the same powers with different names, put them back under. Walls are familiar to Europe's children, who see them country after country.

How did Donald Trump

Pass.  What process vetted him.

When. Deathly silence.

Candidate loophole.

No full clearance? Relevant

To thinking voters.

Security clearance archive, Donald Trump

By what law are candidates excused from scrutiny. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/  February 17, 2017, Opinions, "Citizen Trump likely wouldn’t get a security clearance.

Who does God love best?

Merry What?

First, see Republican National Party Platform 1860 (return until memorized); Apply to Internet Partiality now in effect.

I.  Background. 

God likes me best, said the donkey, because Mary rode one to Bethlehem for the birth, and Jesus rode one in Jerusalem, or if it was a colt,  it might have been.

Wrong there, said the elephant.  Matthew has no donkey at all for the birth, and neither does Luke.

Contain the bully pulpit.

Answer me this. How can the president dump on any citizen, corporation, abridging rights of free speech with particularity, targeting, like CNN as an example, attacking their coverage. If allowed, then by what standard and with what proofs offered simultaneously, not like a great fog of "dishonest" or "unfair."

If CNN is wrong in something, let them acknowledge and correct as appropriate and fact transparency suggests or public outcry on its own requires.

Mestnichestvo in America.

Creeping Crud in the Social Realm.

Russia saddled. 

Russia couldn't rid itself of it, and neither can we 

If mestnichestvo takes hold even one inch more. 

Russia? Russia? Did somebody say Russia? 

Oops! Did I say something wrong?

I.  Topic.  Reasons to say no to Judge Gorsuch:  Our kids.  Reject his position to fix status by statute, to  limit in advance what education is appropriate for a child unable to attend school in a regular classroom.
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