At the end of Book 3, I had this note: Everyone is miserable. Look at the Elites - they are miserable too because they know someone else will conspire to take all that they gained away from them. Every level suffers.

Over and over again I see only miserable people when it comes to socialistic governments. On the sides of many pages I have written the name of many dystopias. It is like the are all trying to show us that any form of government besides a enlightened, extended, commercial, limited, representative, federal, democratic republic (The U.S. Constitution and the 196 Indispensable Principles of Freedom by O. DeMille p. 100) will not work the way people hope it will. It took a lot of experience and trial and error to get to creating what the US Founders did.

In Book 9 (around lines 585) we are asked what are we filling our selves and our society with? Are we focusing on only of the parts of man (desire, action, reason)? and society?

I feel that as a society we are only focusing on the 'desire' of things or some would say equity for all but overall we have missed the boat because that is only one part of our being. To be balanced and whole we need all 3 parts combined. Trying to separate things out into castes and pretending to call it balanced is not right any more than only focusing on 1 or 2 of the traits that make us a human or a community. Until we unify the 3 traits as best as possible as an individual and a society we will be miserable in the end because we are incomplete. There will not be justice in the state if there are caste systems. Justice will occur when all the people are able to live their mission. When everyone is equal before the law and do not and can not infringe on the rights of others. Any other state is a shadow or an illusion. 

The author talks about the changes since the smartphone was released.   Think about the changes for a second of life before the smartphone and after.   I remember the day when I was working in the military and had a dial-up internet system that we used.   I remember advancement from floppy drives to hard drive discs to thumb drives.  I have lived through the time when you did all your work and then signed on to the internet, then sent your data, and then got off the internet.   Today, I am connected all the time; I don’t even have to do anything to connect to the internet.  All I do is click a button, and the system does the work.  Easy.   In fact, I will complain if the connection is not immediate.  There are so many things that I use the internet for.   However, I didn’t grow up with this.  I barely use social media now, and as a teenager, the "social media" was the gossip at school.  Not a large group, yet that was bad enough.  Now you can surround yourself with social media groups.  I don’t even know how many social media groups there are.
 
The research shows that most people spend around 16 hours per day that they are not fully present.  WOW.  Think about that, every time we look at our phone, we are not fully present in the moment. 
 
Mr. Haidt states there are several effects we are not thinking about and each of them is harmful to us.

1.  Social deprivation.  We are not playing or interacting with people face to face, including our children.
2. Sleep deprivation.  Heavy screen time is connected with shorter times in sleeping, and longer times in waking up.  Those who use the internet in bed have even more sleep problems.
3. Attention Fragmentation.  We just can’t focus.  We want a “constant stream of stimulation”.  It messes with our ability to think.
4. Addiction.  There are reinforced patterns that we are seeking for (like eating potato chips);  we keep looking for that dopamine hit.   Social media and gaming experts study this cycle, and it is working.  Think about the last time you kept scrolling on Facebook looking for something good, funny, or interesting instead of just turning it off and doing something good, funny, or interesting?  I am guilty of this one! 

For girls, the problem is usually social media, and for boys, it is gaming.  Girls show increased signs of depression as their hours on social media increase.  “There is a clear, consistent, and sizable link between heavy social media use and mental illness for girls, but that relationship gets buried or minimized in studies and literature reviews that look at all digital activities for all teens.”  One of the biggest side effects of more time on social media is the feeling of isolation that people have.  The book shares a lot of data and studies connected to these ideas.  For boys there is a “failure to launch” or they just don’t adult or join the adult world. Pornography and the virtual world consume boys.
Those working to raise teens during this time have a lot of challenges before them.  This is something that we need to keep talking about and sharing with others so we are more aware of the damage that is happening.  Being a parent has always been hard work; now it seems even harder because you are going to battle both sides, those that want your child to use their programs and your child (along with all their friends).  Tough crowd.
As I look at this, it really shows me how important it is to put the phones down and spend less time on social media and more time doing something productive with my life.  

"These people, who had experience on their own hides twenty-four years of Communist happiness, knew by 1941 what as yet on one else in the world knew: that nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning and ingenious than the Bolshevik, the self-styled Soviet regime. That no other regime on earth could compare with it either in the number of those it had done to death, in hardiness, in the range of its ambitions, in its thoroughgoing and unmitigated totalitarianism-no, not even the regime of its pupil Hitler, which at that time blinded Western eyes to all else.....Even in 1943 tens of thousands of refugees from the Soviet provinces trailed along behind the retreating German army-anything was better than remaining under Communism" (p. 342)

I have read other books that support this idea: Mao, Wild Swans, and Red Scarf Girl.  I don't think this is a way to provide equality for all unless you mean that some of the elites will decide how much everyone else will suffer, so that we can all have the same amount of stuff (nothing) and not voice our complaints.   For communism and the gulags to continue, they just need other people's money. 

I really hope that it does not get to this point:
"All you freedom-loving "left-wing" thinkers in the West!  You left laborites! You progressive Americans, German, and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of this amounts to much.  As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort.  You may suddenly understand it all someday - but only when you yourselves hear "hands behind your backs there!" and step ashore on our Archipelago. (p. 468)"

Are we that stubborn that we will refuse to listen to the voices of those who have suffered from oppressive governments?  

Are we so willing to give away the freedoms we have so that government can decide what we can and can't do?

Are we afraid of liberty, freedom & choice just as George Bernard Shaw says: "Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it."

In the Essay A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind, Jean Rousseau was looking at all the wrongs of the feudal system.   He shares what he believes are the four inequalities between mankind. 

1.  Merit – individual differences
2. Power gained by those that use the individual differences
3. Rank gained because of the use of power
4. Wealth gained because of the use of rank and power.

 
We do have individual differences – that is so great!  Is not man amazing!  We see that we can progress and grow.  We have developed such a complex language to share our thoughts and communicate with each other.  We have developed so much good in the world, each in our own way.  I love my washing machine and refrigerator.  There are so many, many things that I am enjoying because many have individual differences and can progress!  With these same advancements, we see that bad things have occurred with them.  People have used their differences to gain power over others in good ways and in bad ways.  The good ways included having wonderful mentors, teachers, and leaders.  The bad ways are there also unfortunately, because we believe in choice.  We just have to look around us and see how people have used their individual differences incorrectly.  There is crime all around us, both at low levels and high levels of society.  So what do we do about it?  Rousseau suggests that if we take away property, we will not have as many problems.  If we return to the state of nature or what he calls the “savage” man.  Things will be better.  But will we? 

Rousseau states:  It is in fact impossible to conceive why, in a state of nature, one man should stand more in need of the assistance of anther, than a monkey or a wolf of the assistance of another of its kind:  or, granting that he did, what motives could induce that other to assist him; or, even then, by what means they could agree about the conditions.”
 
He continues, “... it is easy to conceive how much less the difference between man and man must be in a state of nature than in a state of society, and how greatly the natural inequality of mankind must be increased by the inequalities of social institutions.”
And
“Without my expatiating those uselessly on these details, everyone must see that as the bonds of servitude are formed merely by the mutual dependence of men on one another and the reciprocal needs that unit them, it is impossible to make any man a slave, unless he be first reduced in a situation in which he cannot do without the help of others: and, since such a situation does not exist in a state of nature, every one is there his own master, and the law of the strongest is of no effect.
“Having proved that the inequality of man is hardly felt, and that its influence is next to nothing in a state of nature, …”
 
As much as he points out the abuses of power that are true, I do not want to return to a state of nature.  I don’t want to return to the law of the jungle, where only the fittest survive, and where we don’t have a society or community of other people around us.   Maybe it is because I am not the strongest and the fittest out there.  But I think it is more.  As I reflect on the influence my family and friends have had on me, I see how much progress I have made as a person.  I see the amazingness of family and friends.  The power of a great education.  I think I have the capacity to have more sympathy towards others and more kindness to all mankind because I love my family.  If I didn’t have other people around me who cared for me and helped me to develop, I would be more animalistic.  I would have fewer skills for helping others, and I would have less empathy and compassion when I see those who suffer.  I don’t want to go back to the jungle; I want to march forward and keep progressing.  Revolution is not the answer, love is.  Rousseau will tell you we are worse off because of society, but I think we are better off.  We have so many, many amazing things in this world because of our metallurgy and agricultural advances.  True, we have used some of those advancements incorrectly and wrongly.  We have used power incorrectly and wrongly.  But we have also used it well and correctly.  We have raised the standard of living for so many people, and if we unite and work to lift others with us, imagine the world we can build. 

Paul Johnson in “A History of the American People” asks the readers this question, “[C]an a nation rise above the injustices of its origins, and, by its moral purpose and performance, atone for them?  All nations are born in war, conquest, and crime, usually concealed by the obscurity of a distant past.”

Yes!  I think we can.  Of course, it will be a lot of work – hard work.  But I think we can.  I think we can show the way that everyone can live a better way with freedom instead of with oppression.  The American Founders had so many things right when they set out to create a government where all men were equal before the law.  Yes, they had some things wrong and so do we.  Through a superb education, we can as families and communities, bring back all the great things of the Founding Fathers and work on fixing the wrongs.  It is up to us to gain the tools we need to fix our communities and nations so that we can all live better lives.  One of those inequalities is that man will use their wealth and power to legally plunder from others. Frederic Bastiat in his essay, The Law, shows us another alternative to Rousseau’s solution in how to deal with the inequalities in society.  Rousseau was correct in stating that institutions of religion and government support plundering people.  However, instead of revolution and the breakdown of societies back to a primitive state, I think we should consider Bastiat’s solutions of establishing or reestablishing a government where the laws are set up to guard against legalized plunder.   And to establish a family culture of education that the Founding Fathers had so that we can establish freedom and opportunity for more people to share their greatness with the world and help all mankind.  Imagine if we had an education like was described by Edmund Burke.

               "Burke told Parliament that nearly all Americans read the great classics on these topics, and then he said:                          This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources. In
                other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less [brilliant] caste, judge of an ill principle in government
                only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the
                badness of the principle. They [foresee] misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in
             every tainted breeze."  (Quoted in The US Constitution and the 196 Indispensable Principles of Freedom by Oliver DeMille, page 108)