Or the Eye of Horus...
Through history, the challenge for mankind has been the struggle around not only the Ravages of the environment (extreme disasters and disease) but the political organizations and related conflicts that arise out of necessity, groups of people needed to defend themselves from the natural disasters and their neighbors that may have coveted their wealth and lands. This struggle tends to led to war and the related illnesses and mental destruction that such horrors follow.
As societies formed, usually there is a group of people that have prospered and grown over time, with ownership of the wealth in the form of money and property. From our philosophy, at the Federalist 2.0, we convey this building of wealth and related power over the population a challenge that needs boundaries defined and managed. The related vices that are unleashed as individuals find themselves wealthy enough to do anything they want with little to no consequence thus releasing the deep recesses of their soul and exposing the negative traits that bound mankind into a vicious cycle that tends to NOT release that society until there is a violent overthrow that resets the cycle.
The Christian faith, and other faiths, see the challenges of wealth, but is best articulated by this verse quoted by Jesus Christ and documented in several places, but for this post, we will use the quote from Matthew:
"I'll say it again-it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of A needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!" Matthew 19:24
It is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a Needle than for a man with wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Why is that? And what about that concept applies to the notion of governance and how one manages their own affairs and the affairs of society? The Federalist 2.0 philosophy argues that as people grow in power, either through wealth or through positions of power, the ability to keep one’s desires and vices at bay becomes ever more problematic. And once a person has succumbed to the ravages of vice, they tend to not pay attention to qualities that reduce or eliminate the tendency for individuals to lie, cheat and steal (and physically/psychology hurt people).
Now, that assumes these persons of wealth of course have not been exposed to morality and or a personal formation that guides their decisions toward wisdom. People can be poor, middle class, or rich and have excellent morals and values. They can also be poor, middle class, or rich and be horrible, manipulative people that resort to their vices and the natural tendency to lie, cheat and steal (and harm others). Formation is the key to any individual’s life, if a person is properly formed, then no matter how much money they have, they will learn how to use it wisely. But as time passes history has shown that societies tend to removes those mechanisms that help form each other (religion for example). The number of people that have not been properly exposed to morality as a skill increases, and these people will create an environment that descends into chaos. As luck would have it, those with the most power escalate the violence are the rich, unformed, individuals.
So, once an unformed individual acquires a level of wealth, that wealth will need to be defended, and what better way to defend that wealth than through oversight of the population. This defense happens in many different forms, through government mechanisms or through non-profits or through philosophies that advocate a perspective that becomes the perfect trojan horse for those that seek to keep their wealth. The secondary challenge is for those unformed individuals that have not earned their wealth honestly and become wealthy through the mechanisms of government. These unformed people have no skills for producing real wealth and have developed the necessary skills to manage government and the wealth that the government takes from those that are productive.
Through these mechanisms, mankind and human beings can and will become corrupt, seeking to further their desires for power or for continuing their immersion in their selected vice or vices, leading to the temptation and reinforcement to lie, cheat and steal. Those vices range from the pride in having power, the immersion in good food and too much gambling/alcohol/sex to the very desire to express their emotions such as rage or anger. These vices, once engaged and not properly checked by those that surround them, become the primary driver for those that are rich and unformed. This motivation leads to decisions, in a policy sense, that may benefit the rich but endanger or limit the options for some portion of the population or puts that population at risk in some manner.
We then lead to the necessary challenge around the poor, is it better to be poor than? What does it mean to be rich? What is the Kingdom of God? Within this one verse, many hundreds of discussions could be engaged, but for our sake, in this post, we will focus on the political policy impacts that make sense.
Being Poor
It is clear when this saying was spoken, the notion of and concepts of entering the Kingdom of God, was through the actions and acceptance of a religious figure. The idea being that when an individual performed a sin, as a poor person, the resulting consequences were swiftly felt. The sins of mankind lead to lying, cheating, and stealing and harming others, as a person that has limited wealth, if you fell upon these actions, you felt the pain of the consequences quickly (helping you to be formed if the person is paying attention). If one lied, cheated or stole something, there was a loss of face, a job and or property. Where the rich, though some may fall upon these consequences, the results were at best delayed or most likely not felt if they were not formed with some moral anchor. In short, the feedback mechanism to help form a person, helps keep them on track morally, when you are rich, this forming mechanism can be easily broken or limited. (Especially if you are NOT brought up and trained in the value of morality.)
Being Rich
As a rich person, that is not properly formed and lacking wisdom, there are ways to remain rich, through the use of one’s wealth, there can be investments that one can make to become richer and to have more power in your lifetime. Usually, these people that pursue wealth blindly fall into this group that do not see the consequences to their actions. If they lie, they can pay someone off or make up for it in some other way financially, or they just discard the relationship and move on to the next one. If they cheat, they can buy off the judge or others to look away. And finally, if they steal, they can do so with little consequences if they have the money and power to guide the decisions of others in their favor. In all these cases, these people that are wealthy who fall into these bad habits, are short sighted in some manner, they are not properly formed, they don’t have the necessary final parts to connect all of the dots and make better decisions.
The Kingdom of God
This area, for the Federalist 2.0, is an area we are not going to define from a religious perspective or try to explain in a religious context. This religious pursuit can be left for the scholars as to what Jesus was saying when he presented this idea. But from a governance and policy point of view, Federalist 2.0, WILL define a notion that there IS merit for humans on this planet to “pursue the Kingdom of God” while alive. This notion of this pursuit could be for many things, maybe for the preparation for an afterlife, maybe to present a oneness with God or a higher power, maybe as an offering to God or a higher power as the best we can do. No person is infallible, we are all fallible, and some people, no matter how hard they try, they have challenges that shake loose the sins of their family and of their history. But if they are formed and understand morality and wisdom these people, when they commit their sin of aggression on others, can recognize and repent for their miss deeds onto others, no matter their issues, they whole heartedly are pursing the ideals of the “Kingdom of God”. These people then, strive and work to be more compassionate and loving and seek to hone their character, these are the ones that are worthy of a “Kingdom”, are they not?
So, putting this together, we see that someone whom is poor has an easier time pursuing the “Kingdom of God” while those that are rich have a more difficult time pursuing the “Kingdom of God” not by the registry of good deeds, but in the acceptance we are all flawed and the pursuit of a better character along the way, till the day they pass away, no matter how many times they fail.
So, it is possible for the wealthy that have not been formed to “Enter the Kingdom of God”, but it is more likely that a camel can pass through a needle. It is difficult if not impossible for many of mankind’s offspring to accept and nurture this idea… Envy, anger, jealously, sadness, emptiness, pride, hubris, greed, uncontrolled urges for food, sex, gambling, drinking… all of these emotions and more, when not put into check from a macro society scale, create havoc on the population such that pain and suffering can eventually be a norm.
It is clear this dynamic, when played out in a society where the unformed wealthy and powerful have taken full control and operate with abandon, their decisions for the guidance of the culture and society become suspect and as their wealth and power grows, more and more of the population suffers. Such that those that have fallen into this unfortunate dynamic, and in the most unfortunate manner are unable to see their sins on their fellow mankind, fall short in their pursuits. This dynamic is so sinister, that those that have the most wealth and are not morally grounded, can engage in decisions that at the surface shine with good intentions, but reveal a painful truth that leads to people suffering greatly and in some cases, people die by the hundreds, thousands or even millions.
Examples are not far, the government inspector that took money to look the other way for a contractor to use lesser materials, which results in harming people, the government policies advocated by an administration that forced people to spend money they do not have will have dire consequences on many families such as phasing out gas powered cars, to a government that takes over and limits or eliminates their political enemies through internment camps or through starvation such as the Russian/Chinese revolutions of the 20th century.
So if we can say these unformed people or persons will not have an opportunity to inherit the Kingdom of God, that there is more likely a camel passing through the eye of a needle, than their repentance and conversion to a sane approach to governance, one could say that these people might have the “Eye of a Camel” as a shortened version of “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God”. So, we can begin to label these people that are drunk with their wealth and power as having the “Eye of the Camel”.
But if we look around in ancient history, there is already the notion of the eye, the Egyptians talked of the “Eye of Horus”, the text in Wikipedia states it as follows:
“The Pyramid Texts, which date to the late Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC), are one of the earliest sources for Egyptian myth.[10] They prominently feature the conflict between Horus and Set,[11] and the Eye of Horus is mentioned in about a quarter of the utterances that make up the Pyramid Texts.[7] In these texts, Set is said to have stolen the Eye of Horus, and sometimes to have trampled and eaten it. Horus nevertheless takes back the eye, usually by force. The texts often mention the theft of Horus's eye along with the loss of Set's testicles, an injury that is also healed.[12] The conflict over the eye is mentioned and elaborated in many texts from later times. In most of these texts, the eye is restored by another deity, most commonly Thoth, who was said to have made peace between Horus and Set. “
Additional context at a different site says the following:
“When Horus reached adulthood, he sought to avenge the death of his father. Horus fought Set in a series of battles, and eventually vanquished his uncle. During these struggles, however, he lost one of his eyes. According to one version of the myth, Set had ripped out Horus’ eye, tore it up into six parts and threw it away. In another version, it was Horus himself who gouged his eye out, as a sacrifice to bring his father back from the dead. In any case, Horus’ lost eye was magically restored by either by Hathor (often regarded to be the consort of Horus), or by Thoth, the god of wisdom. As Horus’ eye was magically restored, the ancient Egyptians believed that it possessed healing properties. Amulets of this symbol have been made using a variety of materials, including gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, and have been used as jewelry by both the living and the dead.”
Finally, there is the description of this concept of the Eye of Horus from a mathematical perspective:
“Is the Eye of Horus a Magical Mathematical Symbol? Interestingly, the Eye of Horus is not merely a magical symbol but is also an example of the mathematical knowledge acquired by the ancient Egyptians. In the myth mentioned before, Set tore Horus’ eye into six parts. As a symbol, the Eye of Horus contains six parts. Each of them was given a fraction as a unit of measurement – the right side of the eye is 1/2, the pupil 1/4, the eyebrow 1/8, the left side of the eye 1/16, the curved tail 1/32, and the teardrop 1/64. These fractions add up to 63/64, and the missing part is said to either represent the magical powers of Thoth or to illustrate that nothing is perfect.
It is clear, this idea, over time, there is a tendency for a society to combat each other for power and wealth (example being Horus and Set) and that struggle is for reasons that are not supporting the overall progress of society, the term “Eye of the Camel” or “Eye of Horus” would be appropriate. We can then utilize this notion of the “Eye of Horus” in an effective manner, as those that are unformed wealthy which may be just short in their thinking due to their pursuit of vice, that 1/64 short sightedness is all that is needed to cause significant pain and suffering in the society. The overall myth of the “Eye of Horus” includes the idea of health and strength as well, but these notions are from a human perspective, not from a perspective of the divine. (Though one could argue here, Federalist 2.0 takes a stand to say that the Egyptian culture saw these as spiritual symbols, but mankind converted them to a representation.)
So in short, if you are unformed wealthy and support causes that have significant impact on others where you are preventing others from pursing their own “Kingdom of Heaven” and/or you are a political figure that has grown your power and use it to advance your own party or your own personal objectives at the expense of others trying to pursue their own “Kingdom of Heaven” by surmising that short term breaking of eggs (hurting some portion of the population) is necessary for long term survival of all, and yet profit in growing your power and wealth, then you and you alone deserve to be labeled as having…
The Eye of a Camel (Camel’s Eye) or the Eye of Horus (Horus Eye)
Perfect example of people that have the Eye of the Camel or Camel’s Eye are those that agreed to this poll taken on Twitter by a Social Media giant, Mr. Beast. It goes like this:
How many of you would be willing to take $10,000 at a cost of one person on earth dying at random?
44% says Yes
56% says No
The 44% that are saying yes, have a Camel’s Eye or Horus Eye. They believe their short-term gain at the expense of another is worth it, they are 1/64 short in their thinking…
In the creation of the Federalist 2.0, it is our goal and commitment to you the reader, to share with you the pieces of the original intent of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence and why it is critical that we claim this moral imperative to ensure the health and safety of our future generations and our capacity to continue as the Originally Planned United States of America.
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In the end, what do you have to lose?.... Maybe you can be Publius too
- Publius
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