CHAPTER TWO -- H Arthur M. Jackson
Copyright 2001, 2003, 2006
THE ENLIGHTENED COMMUNITY
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b. THE ENLIGHTENED COMMUNITY: One that promotes the belief and implements the idea that human beings are the source of meaning and value and that assisting each member to become an Enlightened Person must be the focus for society's ultimate concern. The Enlightened Community is in the tradition of what early philosophers called the good society. See VOLUME II, Chapter 3.A[1] for more discussion about the Enlightened Community.
Plato in THE REPUBLIC wrote about the good society and therein presents his vision of ethics. And in the 1800s communes -- thought of as utopian communities based on ethical behavior -- were widely discussed, and many established. However, with the arrival of the Twentieth Century this area has not been a major concern of writers. Probably this is because the good person and the good society seemed anachronistic as decade following decade filled with the evil of wars, economic disasters, etc. Plus, in more recent times discussing ethical behavior seemed like a basically pointless activity since it was taken to be only culturally relevant. In addition communes have been considered to be failures and the thought of developing broader societies based on such ideas seemed naive and unachievable. Certainly my definition of an Enlightened Community is outside of current mainstream thinking, as is also true of the concept of the Enlightened Person. Partially, the foregoing is true because most writers who address these issues utilize the God concept that focuses answers in an entirely different realm. Many persons who don't actually use the God concept have had their thinking effected by this idea such that they are pessimistic about human potential and indifferent about anything that proposes that all individuals might live an ideal life, or even that this is a meaningful goal. As a result they think ideas such as mine are grandiose, unrealistic, out of touch with human history, etc. Therefore, such persons stand as roadblocks wherever they have the power to stop conversations.
Bucking the trend discussed above, two modern writers have addressed the area of the good society. Walter Lippmann wrote, THE GOOD SOCIETY (1943) [2], and John Kenneth Galbraith wrote THE GOOD SOCIETY (1996) [3]. However, they both demonstrate the currently impoverished vision of this concept. They each focus almost entirely on the economic aspects of a good society. They take the approach that if citizens have economic well being than everything else will take care of itself. In fact they both make strong statements against just what this book is attempting to do, use a Science of Ethics as the foundation for a new civilization. (See VOLUME II, Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion of Lippmann's[2] and Galbraith's[3] books.)
Although an Enlightened Community would rarely function as a commune, nevertheless, considering all of the foregoing, the most useful area of study for a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom might be the work done in the area of utopian theory and communes. These thinkers have explored much of the relevant theory and concepts an Enlightened Community must consider. Better yet they provide empirical data some of which might be able to be utilized by Science of Ethics.
[p. 2]
Of course it is most specifically the ideas on utopias that have been rejected by modern thinkers. In fact characterizing someone's writing as utopian is equivalent to calling it worthless. However, we must ask whether or not this rejection has been done for adequate reasons. The charge is made that human beings have been shown to be incapable of living a utopian life: They are said to be too flawed, too imperfect. But as I work to make clear in Chapter One human nature must be seen in an evolutionary context to be understood in this regard. The true culprit lies in current social, psychological, and religious theories that societies now utilize. Any close study of societies shows them to be based on serious errors. In my mind these errors make it likely tht our "human problems" lie in human societies not in the individual human being. It seems to me the blame lies in our institutions and the theories they are built on not in "human nature." Likewise, any close study of human beings shows a deep potential waiting to be released. This is shown best in times of natural disaster, but is there under all circumstances.
In the spirit of the foregoing paragraph some material on communes is presented below, not with the idea that an Enlightened Community must be a commune, but rather for the theory and experience that seems to be relevant. It is drawn from a very valuable reference[4] by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. She describes her book as follows: "The focus throughout is on how groups are built and maintained.... I hope to demonstrate... that in the past a number of utopian communities have in fact been successes.... [But] there are important organizational considerations to be taken into account in building a viable community."[p. vii]
In applying the experiences of communes to thinking about the Enlightened Community it is essential to look closely at the theory that supported these communal efforts. Each of them conflicts in numerous ways with the assumptions of a Science of Ethics. Therefore, the successes and failures must be analyzed in this light. And it is within this context that I measure success and failure. On the other hand actual data is the true criteria which must be used to assess the value of all the ideas in a Science of Ethics.
Kanter resumes, "For the current communal movement to succeed, it needs thinkers as well as doers, intellectuals as well as activists, who will discover and report what is known, provide new ideas, warn of dangers, and suggest alternative directions. I hope the findings of this book can contribute toward that end."[p. vii] To the degree that Kanter's writings and information can clarify the value of the concept "Enlightened Community" and provide insights for achieving it, to that degree will her writings also perform an invaluable benefit to efforts to implement a Science of Ethics.
Kanter writes in terms of utopia. I think in all cases where she uses this term it is compatible with my term "Enlightened Community" and the ideas she expresses are consistent with my thinking. She says, "Utopia [think: an Enlightened Community] is held together by commitment rather than coercion, for in utopia what people want to do is the same as what they have to do, the interests of the individual are congruent with the interests of the group.... Underlying the vision of utopia is the assumption that harmony, cooperation, and mutuality of interests are natural to human existence, rather than conflict, competition, and exploitation, which arise only in imperfect societies."[p. 1] And this is the underlying assumption of Science of Ethics. When an individual or society is controlled by raw "tribal" propensities rather than their "wisdom" potential they are governed by "conflict, competition, and exploitation" (us vs. them) rather than "harmony, cooperation, and mutuality of interests" (they are us).
Kanter continues, "For the most part, the vision of utopia has been the vision of community."[p. 2] The whole idea of an Enlightened Community focuses on the importance of community. It is only within community that a human being can be fulfilled. It is only within an Enlightened Community that a person can receive the assistance necessary in order to become their best self. It is the mutual support coming out of the feed back loop between the individual and their community that makes possible the Enlightened Community and the Enlightened Person. The individual relies on their community for the wisdom and support necessary to move beyond debilitating ignorance. Society's influence on the infant is overwhelming. That is why I say we cannot help all who desire to become Enlightened Persons until we have Enlightened Communities.
[p. 3]
The following words, in my mind, also capture the spirit of the goals of a Science of Ethics. Putting them into practice would be a prime responsibility of an Enlightened Community. Kanter indicates that communes sought to provide "...a refuge from the evils of the factory system, characterized by dehumanizing competition and the excessive labor of the many for the benefit of the few."
"Horace Greeley, whose ideas influenced utopian experiments in the 1840s, captures many of the beliefs of these utopians: 'There should be no paupers and no surplus labor; unemployment indicates sheer lack of brains, and inefficiency in production and waste in consumption of the products of a national industry that has never worked to half its capacity and has resulted in social anarchy; isolation is the curse of laboring classes, and only in unity can a solution be found for the problems of labor; therefore, education is the great desideratum, and in association the future may be assured.'"[p. 5] Kanter's quote by Greeley captures perfectly some of the goals and issues that an Enlightened Community would be concerned about and motivated to deal with in better ways then currently exist.
Kanter remarks that, "Historically, three kinds of critiques of society have provided the initial impulse for the utopian search: religious, politico-economic, and psychosocial."[p. 3] Of course for a Science of Ethics all of these things are part of the same issue and must be dealt with together.
"[The psychosocial] critique revolves around alienation and loneliness, both social isolation and inner fragmentation. It holds that modern society has put people out of touch with others and with their own fundamental nature."[p. 7] I would say that the foregoing is basically true and that this is the primary challenge of a Science of Ethics and a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom. However, as indicated other places it's not that modern society has separated the person from the group. Rather, it's that society has not yet created an environment in which the goals and behavior of each human being is congruent with the goals and behavior of every other human being.
The following quote expresses the above ideas in more detail. It includes almost perfectly the goal of an Enlightened Community though "religious, spiritual values, and sinfulness" would be interpreted in the context of a Science of Ethics. "[T]he initial impetus for the building of American communes [as indicated earlier] has tended to stem from one of three major themes: a desire to live according to religious and spiritual values, rejecting the sinfulness of the established order; a desire to reform society by curing its economic and political ills, rejecting the injustice and inhumanity of the establishment; or a desire to promote the psychosocial growth of the individual by putting them into closer touch with their fellows, rejecting the isolation and alienation of the surrounding society."
"[These three themes] stress the possibility of perfection through restructuring social institutions."[p. 8]
"The primary utopian idea is human perfectibility."[p. 33]
"The beliefs underlying the development of utopian communities stem from an idealization of social life, which holds that it is possible for people to live together in harmony, comradeship, and peace. Utopian thought idealizes social unity, maintaining that only in intimate collective life do people fully realize their human-ness.... [In the view of sociologist Charles Horton Cooley] primary groups are fundamental to the development of human nature -- to fostering sentiments such as sympathy, love, resentment, ambition, vanity, hero worship, and a sense of social right and wrong."[p. 32] There is more than adequate evidence from studies of communes and social groups to support the foregoing point of view.
[p. 4]
However, it appears to me that up to this point communes have achieved their success by emulating the hunter-gatherer life style. They have not moved to the next level. At that next level each member of the group must be motivated and supported to achieve their full positive potential as made available by the language ability. This would be accomplished by helping to improve the Ways of Wisdom and as appropriate utilizing them to guide behavior.
Kanter explains the importance of education in communes as follows, "Education has been central in utopian thought.... Many communities place great emphasis on their educational institutions, establishing schools that are often of such a high quality as to attract many non-utopian children from the outside, and providing continued opportunities for adult learning, including lectures and study groups."[p. 37] It is this feature that most strongly aligns the commune tradition with the goals of Science of Ethics. Whenever true education -- i.e., when not used as a code word for indoctrination -- is stressed in any society a force is liberated that must move toward a Science of Ethics. The "wisdom" potential is stimulated, developed, and nourished by a liberal education, and every step encourages the next step toward wisdom even though the paths may be circuitous and even tortured. Education is critical to a Science of Ethics. It may well be that setting up schools will be an essential step in the development of an Enlightened Community. As indicated elsewhere these schools would include education to become an Enlightened Person. And it is through this process that the individual would develop all the potential inherent in their language ability. This would be done in such a way as to be fully congruent with their participation in an Enlightened Community.
"In a number of communities, perfectibility means constant attempts at self-improvement, constant striving for perfection in word and deed."[p. 37] And for a Science of Ethics in general and a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom in particular the perfectibility of the individual and of society is an essential assumption. However, until one has a viable idea of better and worse -- "wisdom" potential vs. "tribal" propensities -- such effort is as likely to be destructive as constructive. Up to this time all such models have contained within their core assumptions detrimental ideas that have produced harmful effects to varying numbers of persons.
"Another utopian value is order. In contradistinction to the larger society, which is seen as chaotic, uncoordinated, and allowing accidental, random, or purposeless events to give rise to conflict, waste, or needless duplication, utopian communities are characterized by conscious planning and coordination whereby the welfare of every member is ensured."[p. 39] And this is equally true of an Enlightened Community. However, order would include a much broader range of behavior and social activities than permitted by any of the communes. The order would come out of the Enlightened Person's needs and the Enlightened Community's efforts to fulfill those needs in such a way that everybody benefited, or at least none would suffer.
"A third utopian value is friendship. Just as the social world can be brought into harmony with the natural laws of the universe, according to utopian thought so can people be brought into harmony with one another."[p. 43] And of course friendship at its deepest level and in its fullest meaning is an essential ingredient in an Enlightened Community. Almost everything done in an Enlightened Community would have friendship for the rest of humanity as a key element of its goal. To ensure that every single person was able to achieve this kind of friendship would be a fundamental value.
[p. 5]
Unity of body and mind (harmony) is a utopian value. "Harmony [as a utopian value, means] the merging of values, ideas, and spiritual matters with physical events, the union of mind and body, spirit and flesh."[p. 49] To me the foregoing is the core of a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning. And, to achieve a sustainable belief that one's life has meaning requires an honest congruency in knowledge, understanding, and ideas tested by their universal applicability.
"Utopians are characterized by a spirit of experimentation." [p. 51] And, as Kanter indicates, this is another utopian value. Not only are utopian communities major social experiments, in which unique forms of human relationships are explored, but within the communities themselves new ways of doing things are often explored that may better enable the utopia to implement its ideas. For example, "Job rotation ensures everyone gets a chance to do both the most attractive and the least attractive tasks, and the least attractive may sometimes get the highest reward in the form either of 'credit' against goods from the community store or of increased leisure time."[p. 43] In an Enlightened Community experimentation would be done in a much more rigorous way and firmly within the scientific meaning of this term. Such experimentation would be part of the empirical process that would justify the claim that a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom builds solidly on a Science of Ethics.
"Utopians value their own uniqueness and coherence as a group."[p. 52]
"In general it is important for utopians to believe that life is an expression of their ideas, that there is no separation between their values and their way of life. Utopian communities offer to members life's services -- food and shelter, a job, education for the children, care in old age -- in the context of an explicit set of shared beliefs about how people should live."[p. 54] And there can be no Enlightened Community that doesn't have these characteristics. But, at the same time, the Ways of Wisdom require additional elements including motivating each individual to become their best self and providing resources to make this possible.
"The ideas forming the communal life-style -- perfectibility, order, friendship, merging of mind and body, experimentation, and the community's uniqueness -- all represent its intentional quality, with harmony as their principle theme: harmony with nature, harmony among people, and harmony between the spirit and the flesh.... Some utopian ideas offer romanticized versions of social practices that may be described in quite different terms. 'Mutual criticism,' for example, can be viewed as 'brainwashing'; friendship can be used to justify the sacrifice of individual needs to collective demands; and emphasis on harmony can cloak an unwillingness to deal with conflict or with the fact that individuals have discrepant desires."[p. 54]
And the above paragraph provides hints as to why ideas about the Enlightened Community and the Enlightened Person must be seen as hypotheses to be tested and altered as the data exposes mutually contradictory values or behaviors. It is by comparing empirical observation with theory that ideas must be tested. We must always be alert to the danger of missing what is really going on because we have defined goals too narrowly, or sometimes too broadly.
"Utopian thought makes a number of assumptions that contradict other viewpoints.... It proposes, for example, that human relationships need not be contingent on competitive, win-or-lose assumptions, but rather that cooperation is natural and that any interpersonal tensions can be eliminated through social structural patterns or re-education.... that is, what people want to do is the same as what they have to do."[p. 55] "[T]hat conflict between values and practical realities need not exist; that a single, harmonious value-based way of life is practical."[p. 56]
[p. 6]
The foregoing ideas are the assumptions upon which a Science of Ethics is based. If these assumptions are wrong then all the ideas about an Enlightened Community and the Enlightened Person expressed herein are also likey to be wrong. If such turns out to be the case this book must either be revised to reflect the better data, or scrapped and chalked up to another example of castle building in the air.
However, after having said all that we need to recall the message of Chapter One: We all have raw "tribal" propensities that can easily distract us from the effort of becoming our best self by using our "wisdom" potential to fulfill our "tribal" propensities through interpreting them so they apply to the whole human species. The essence of an Enlightened Community is to help its citizens become Enlightened Persons utilizing their "wisdom" potential rather than to be victims of their raw "tribal" propensities.
I think examining the Hutterites -- a group Kanter (for good reason) neglected to mention in her book -- demonstrates people's potential to be guided almost totally by their raw "tribal" propensities. This 400-year-old fundamentalist religious communal group appears to be doing very nicely: growing, cleaving, and growing some more. I'm sure some people leave the group each year because they cannot handle the suffocation. However, I'm not aware of any psychological or sociological studies of these persons.
The Hutterites are discussed by Daniel Dennett in his outstanding book, DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA[5] where he refers to a useful article by David Sloan Wilson and Elliot Sober ("Re-introducing Group Selection to Human Behavior Sciences," in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, vol 17, pp 585-608). In this article it is mentioned that the Hutterites regard themselves as the human equivalent of a bee colony. Their success makes it obvious that this propensity does exist within the human gene pool. And, it is our "wisdom" potential that provides us the opportunity to avoid that pattern and reach a whole new level of evolutionary development. But up to this point our "wisdom" potential functions weakly and sporatically while our raw "tribal" propensities continue to guide almost all of our daily choices.
"Whereas [Charles Horton] Cooley proposed that a person gains full humanity only through complete identification with a primary group, Freud indicated that mature human development requires separation of egos, independence of the self from the group. Because the group is an agent of repression for the ego, in Freudian thought there is an inherent and irreconcilable conflict between the individual and society. Only weak individuals exist solely through collective impulses. In short, Freud believed that strong emotional ties, similarity of life circumstances, and absence of private property -- all of which characterize the commune as well as the primal horde -- produce a uniformity of individual mental acts that he deplored: 'The dwindling of the conscious individual personality, the focusing of thoughts and feelings into a common direction, the predominance of the affective side of the mind and of unconscious psychical life, the tendency to the immediate carrying out of intentions as they emerge -- all this corresponds to a state of regression to a primitive mental activity.'"[p. 56]
Certainly, Freud raises some valid points in his concern about anyone existing "solely through collective impulses," "The dwindling of the conscious individual personality," or "predominance of the affective side of the mind." The Hutterites are living proof that these issues are not merely hypothetical. The light at the end of the tunnel means establishing an Enlightened Community and Enlightened Persons who would maximize their individuality and their intellectual development not diminish them. However, these things can expand a person only with the support of their society. The society can only provide this support because the achievements of past generations have allowed them to reach the level of knowledge and understanding wherein each member will support all the others in developing their full positive potential. It seems to me that one of the serious deficiencies of Freudian theory is its focus on the individual and its failure to see the societal dimension of therapy and the good life. I think Freud was caught up in the alpha male propensity, and envisioned that state as the goal to achieve. Freud's student, Alfred Adler, was closer to the mark on this issue. Adler's social psychology is more compatible with the ideas of becoming an Enlightened Person functioning within an Enlightened Community.
[p. 7]
I am in basic agreement with Cooley's remarks quoted above. I feel that many of today's problems come out of the core concepts of Western society developed by seminal thinkers such as Freud, Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, etc. These concepts form a chasm between the individual and society that cannot exist if we are to have Enlightened Persons and Enlightened Communities.
Harmony between an Enlightened Person and an Enlightened Community is one of the primary assumptions of Science of Ethics. But this issue must be dealt with in a totally honest and scientific way. It must address all relevant issues in sufficient depth to ensure that hidden problems are not being created. It is critical that no area is being overlooked that might undermine the process of developing Enlightened Persons and an Enlightened Community. Looking at all the relevant areas is the point at which all previous efforts to build a better world have faltered and eventually, therefore, collapsed or become harmful. Hypocrisy is a key problem. When individuals are forced or encouraged to say or do publicly what they don't believe privately, a destructive pattern is being established.
"Discrepant desires" is a core ingredient of the foregoing. Science of Ethics holds that there is no conflict between an Enlightened Person and an Enlightened Community. However, the foregoing requires the goal of long-term satisfaction, not short-term gratification. And, moving from current conditions to this ideal state will not happen easily. Levels of Membership in a Wisdom Group (see VOLUME II, Chapter 1) [5.b] is one tool proposed for developing the knowledge and experience to build such a group. It would be aimed at helping more and more people reach a level where "discrepant desires" can be handled so as to keep Enlightenment developing.
"If utopian theories were fully tenable, then many more viable and longer-lasting utopian communities would be found than has been the case in the United States. Only a few dozen American communes have survived more than two or three years. The experiences of the few successful ones indicate the kind of social organizations that are important to implementing a utopian dream, as well as the limitations to utopian theory inherent in these very practices."[p. 56] "The dream of utopia must be compared with the realities of creating viable utopian communities."[p. 57]
"This period [the 1840s]... offered an essentially secular and optimistic culture. The feeling prevailed that the perfect society could be founded on earth and within the context of an established political order."[p. 62] And it is this vision that a Science of Ethics seeks to restore. It has been essentially lost in the modern world because past utopian ideas relied on too many false assumptions. Now we have the knowledge and the experience to more properly focus the vision. Now we can implement the dream.
"Building viable utopian communities has proven to be difficult: translating the utopian dream into reality is fraught with issues that in time may even distort the original vision."[p. 63] To me part of the problem contributing to the foregoing arises because "Utopia" starts with the assumption that the proponent has a "true vision" that only needs to be implemented. Their idea of utopia is not presented as a hypothesis. There is no effort to test and correct it. In contrast to the foregoing, "Enlightened Community" and "Enlightened Person" must be seen as theoretical, testable, and able to utilize experience to make necessary revisions. The goal is to find out how to build societies made up of people who can develop and maintain a sustainable belief that their life has meaning. This is the kind of utopia Science of Ethics proposes. And it is not proposed that these communities would necessarily exist as secluded groups. They would most likely be made up of people living independently in a larger community.
[p. 8]
The foregoing will not happen in the absence of continuous effort. Because this effort involves working with several theoretical concepts with limited empirical data supporting them (Enlightened Community, Enlightened Person, sustainable belief that one's life has meaning, the Ways of Wisdom, etc.) attempts to clarify where the problem lies when things don't work will not be easy. However, to the degree that we can remember that we are involved in a scientific process with empirical, not absolute answers, or known outcomes, the more likely we are to maintain the necessary flexibility. Only such clarity and flexibility in our approach will make it possible to correct errors and omissions to help more and more individuals achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.
"The Shakers, Amana, and Oneida, along with Harmony (1804-1904), Zoar (1817-1898), and Jerusalem (1788-1821), are among nine 'successful' nineteenth century utopian communities, lasting thirty-three years or more. They can be contrasted with twenty-one 'unsuccessful' groups lasting less than sixteen years, including Brook Farms, New Harmony, and other Owenite and Fourierite ventures. The differences between the success of these thirty groups lie in how strongly they built commitment."
"The primary issue with which a utopian community must cope in order to have the strength and solidarity to endure is its human organization.... The idealized version of communal life must be meshed with the reality of the work to be done in a community ...." "The organizational problems with which utopian communities must grapple break down into several categories:"
"How to get the work done, but without coercion." "How to ensure that decisions are made, but to everyone's satisfaction." "How to build close, fulfilling relationships, but without exclusiveness." "How to choose and socialize new members." "How to include a degree of autonomy, individual uniqueness, and even deviance." "How to ensure agreement and shared perception around community functioning and values."[p. 64]
"These issues can be summarized as one of commitment; that is they reflect how members become committed to the community's work, to its values, and to each other, and how much of their former independence they are willing to suspend in the interests of the group. Committed members work hard, participate actively, derive love and affection from the communal group, and believe strongly in what the group stands for."[p. 65]
The above ideas provide some important thoughts that are applicable to an Enlightened Community. However, one point mentioned by Kanter that is especially important to a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom is, "How to include a degree of autonomy, individual uniqueness, and even deviance." The whole point of an Enlightened Community is to provide an environment in which each individual can become their best self. This is not a second order goal. It is the primary goal.
Kanter's ideas make clear that communes are a useful area of study for actual empirical data that can be drawn upon prior to starting the process to establish an Enlightened Community. As indicated elsewhere a Center for the Practical Application of Wisdom would be the responsible body to analyze all available data and develop plans for establishing an Enlightened Community based on the best available interpretation of this data.
[p. 9]
3. All the organizations of an Enlightened Community must ensure that their goals, procedures, and efforts support in whatever ways are appropriate -- considering their specific mission statement -- the ability of all persons involved to become their best self.
All current societies ask the members to live for somebody or something else. Usually, this is for family, church, nation, or often their work. Science of Ethics would work to change all this. But it's not clear precisely how this can happen. It is not self-evident how to build an Enlightened Community and exactly how it would function. Nor is it obvious how to develop Enlightened Persons when there are no such individuals to start groups or serve as models. One way to begin building an Enlightened Community and helping individuals move toward becoming Enlightened Persons is to start gathering the necessary data including practical experience. Part of this process might involve monitoring and collecting all the facts possible on social structures within the community. The goal would be to assemble information on everything that impacts development of each individual's best self. This data would be used to establish experimental, bootstraps procedures to utilize each individual's best impulses and strengths (their "wisdom" potential) to collectively help each other move in the right direction. The more groups that follow this path, the greater the number of individuals who will be helped to achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning. In order to follow this idea procedures would need to be developed to help groups utilize the theories and research coming out of Science of Ethics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, economics, philosophy, folk religions, and other fields of scientific study of human beings individually and in groups. All experiences possible would be incorporated into a feedback loop to provide raw data to help these sciences improve their theories and become more useful in helping to produce both Enlightened Persons and Enlightened Communities.
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