Empires appear gentle and white -
a far-reaching force that ravishes all.
But how does one challenge a hurricane?
How does one replace the dark that appears white -
with a truly sun-filled world?
We had a long conversation over dinner that evening at the lagoon-side restaurant in Venice, right across from the marina. Near the end of the dinner the conversation shifted onto the subject of the principle of the universal kiss. Since Steve and Ushi seemed unfamiliar with the concept of the universal kiss and the background behind it, it became my privilege to enlighten them. Surprisingly, that turned out to be an easy task.
"You didn't by any chance talk with a woman by the name of Helen?" Steve interrupted me at one point. "A woman by that name has taught at our university years ago. She was dealing with exactly those concepts. In fact, she had used these concepts later for healing."
"Yes," I replied with a smile, "I did talk with a woman named Helen, back in Leipzig. She lives in the new high-rise facing the railway station plaza. Except, she didn't talk to me about Adam Smith. Evidently she wasn't concerned with the problem-end of the challenge, but with the solution. She always always laughed about our petty little problems and said, 'What have they got to do with anything? Do the problems change the principle involved?' Evidently one doesn't need to know war to understand the principle of peace. Likewise one doesn't need to understand Adam Smith's Greed-Based Fascism to understand what Adam Smith denies, the principle of the universal kiss. She developed the concept of the universal kiss out of a process of healing. She said it was quite a new concept. Evidently she is the same person that you know. But, what does it matter?" I added.
"It matters a lot," Steve replied. "In the universal oneness into which we are bound together by the humanity that we all share, each of us has a distinct name. Humanity is not a homogenous mire. In fact, our individuality is an element of our being human. Humanity is not a construct of principles, but a construct of human beings understanding and acknowledging those principles to the best of their ability. That makes a huge difference. In this regard Helen is a giant. Her name will always be associated with her accomplishments in bringing those principles to light, just as Adam Smith's name will remain in infamy until hell freezes over and the name of Adam Smith becomes forgotten."
"It actually was a fellow named Jason, who correlated Helen's discovery with Adam Smith" Tony interjected. "We met him in Vancouver, Canada."
I told Steve how Jason had scolded me for wanting to finance our beach project by ourselves. "Jason told me that this is immoral. He didn't say that it was fascist, though he should have. Every imperial notion, even the slightest notion, is a fascist notion. He said that the way we had planned the beach project was fascist selfishness, because it denies the very principle that we set out to promote; the principle of the universal kiss. He should have said that we made the same mistake that the people of the Renaissance made in 1508 by excluding Venice from the new light that had been dawning.
"Jason also told me that by our resorting to financing the project ourselves, we were proceeding from the same defective premise that society proclaims in its cultivated ignorance. The defective premise reflects the assumption that humanity is presently NOT made up of human beings. Jason told me that we were proceeding from the same false assumption. He said that we believed that society at large would NOT find the impetus in their humanity to contribute to the project in the same manner as we were prepared to contribute. Jason told us that we assumed that society would have to be molded by us to become human beings. Jason had laughed us to scorn over that. In essence he had scolded us for us calling the project 'our project' instead of a 'project of civilization' for the universal celebration of our common humanity. Jason told me in essence that there was no universal kiss involved in our proposal, just as there had been no universal kiss involved in 1508. The Renaissance powers had made the same mistake that we made, in 1508, by rejecting the principle of the universal kiss when they excluded the Venetians and tried to wipe them off the map. He suggested that the difference between them and us was only superficial and that the rejection of the underlying principle was the same."
