by Redemption
"And Andrew, there have only been a couple of dozen new words so far, no more than you were exposed to every few years, or if you undertook a short course on a new subject - it's just that they have been thrust on you all at once, and your physical and mental conditions make it harder for you."
V
D: New Words (2):
Rick: "You may not be aware that the word 'scientist' did not exist prior to 1840. In engineering it's hard to believe that two centuries ago there was no term for 'energy'. Till then it was generally and vaguely referred to as 'force'. The concept of energy and its differentiation from force was developed by an English physicist (29), enabling significant progress that was not previously possible in that field.
"He also put forward the wave theory of light, introducing new terms and concepts that are now accepted. At the time he was laughed at, ignored or scorned by the foremost experts of his era. The term Young's Modulus in material properties also bears his name. Each of these three areas of his activities advanced through new terminology and would have been hindered without it. And there are many more examples if you want to dink."
=
"Alright, you've made your point about new words, and I'll have to admit, reluctantly I suppose, that I was (am?) a Tolkien fan. I learned hundreds of strange new words and customs, civilisations - even languages - just because I wanted to. So from now on I guess I'll have to stop complaining and try harder to learn and use them," Andrew says wearily.
"But If that's the best they could do for their basic plan on how to win 'the War', I fail to see how they could have managed to execute their plan and be successful. We all have ideas; bringing them to fruition is another matter. Where was the magic? Was that a 'strategy plan' - the AAA Institutes, advertising, opinion leaders, the book, F(r)ee and such things - and was it Rung 'E' by chance?"
"Indeed it was. Right on both counts. Rung 'E' was the Strategy Plan. You're getting the hang of Frip Analysis. Implementing Smiles and winning the Bold War was an unprecedented task against formidable obstacles. They brought to bear an array of additional weapons and tactics I'll tell you about now. More new words I'm afraid. Maybe it's difficult for you now, but not in retrospect, now will it?"
BOLD WAR 2020
Part IV
LOOKING BACK
CHAPTER 25 Bold War - in retrospect
"Words, bloody words," Andrew mutters, only half-heartedly, as she gets him a drink.
"Up until now, Andrew, the film and our discussions have been looking forward from your time to see how things might be achieved. Understandably it has been difficult for you to see in prospect how proposed lines of action could lead to desired results. Now we are going to look back and see how results were achieved - in retrospect - much easier. For you, looking back from the future. It's an aspect of Frip Analysis - routine for us, what you have been helping us with, and what you will be able to do for yourself in due course. Train yourself to project into the future, think through what is desirable and then look back to the present to see what needs to be done to achieve it. To help you understand and appreciate Smiles and the overall processes, I've arranged, subject to your approval, for you to undertake a Smiles course next week."
"Er - yes. Good." Andrew feels mixed emotions. Discomfort at undertaking Smiles at an advanced age when all around him have grown up with it. Anxiety at trying something new, uncertainty as to whether he can handle it in his present condition, confusion about the way events are unfolding, and an inner thrill at the way Christiana looks deep into his eyes again. Perhaps, he feels reluctantly, or knows, Smiles will unearth and prove the measure of the potential he has lived with, undiscovered and unused, all his life. No longer will he be able to take comfort in being critical, questioning, sceptical. Will it attack his Sed? Shine a bright factual light into the rusty corners of his inner being? Reveal hidden and unused abilities that he, an 'intelligent' man, allowed to atrophy? Demonstrate what he has been missing all his life through his own negligence? Or stupidity?
"So where was the magic? What was the secret?" he asks, reverting to the present. "How did they get people involved and transformed?"
"The secret? The secret was that there was no secret. There certainly was no magic - just a series of methods and processes. Some new and some adapted for the purpose. Modified and enlarged, integrated with latest thinking and research. All co-ordinated into an amalgam, a composite approach. Defining the Bold War assisted in mounting a concerted effort to overcome the combined enemies of mankind, to focus people's minds and efforts. It's amazing how people more readily cooperate and change when enemies are identified.
"Inspiracy, Mentology and Provolution were all part of the Bold War, as were auxiliary concepts, some of which you have seen in the film. They were all part of changing people's mindsets - from complacency and ineffectiveness to awareness and empowerment, from boredom to vitality, from resignation to rejuvenation.
"Continuing the war analogy, liken it to a battery of Rockets that can be fired at the enemy - different rockets for different purposes depending which of the enemies has to be overcome. Loaded into this figurative launcher are four categories of weapons - Carrots, Sticks, Brooms and Levers."
Andrew is incredulous and dismayed. "For heaven's sake - do we have to bring gardening and domestic implements into the war?"
"Don't be like that Andrew. I suggest you take good note because the following weaponry is, collectively, the last rung, Rung 'F', of the long Ladder between the present and your world. Carrots attract by offering something familiar and desirable (to donkeys, he wonders?) in order to start people thinking about and doing what you know is good for them. Appeal to their subconscious acquisitiveness and need for security. F(r)ee is an example. Sticks influence people by pressure. There is a threat, perhaps underlying or implied, of a sanction or punishment. Works on their real or subconscious fear. Can you think of an example?"
"The Negligence Commission?" he ventures.
"Right on. The threat of being called before Negcom influences people's choices and actions. Just a minute, I don't remember telling you about Negcom."
"Never mind," Andrew counters. "What are the other weapons?"
"Brooms and Levers - you'll hear about them soon." She looks at him with an air of enquiry greater than usual.
"Carrots, Sticks, Brooms, Levers! Will this never end? You're crazy!" he exclaims.
"Not if it works and if it helps you (and anybody else) understand and remember," she says. "Now, in the next hour or so we're going to fill in the gaps you've been waiting so impatiently for. The remaining 'hows'."
"How about,… , before you do that," interrupts Andrew, "before you go on, it occurred to me and I meant to ask earlier. You are obviously a product of the new system. Can we talk about you for a change? I'm sure there's nothing so good as a real-life example of how it worked."
Blushing, Christiana responds. "Normally I wouldn't bring my personal life into a professional situation, but under the special circumstances… well… OK.
"From early childhood I've been through several age-versions of Smiles. My case has been different from most because…," looking through the window, "…I never knew my parents. I was brought up by relations, but Smiles helped fill the family gap. The end result with me is fairly average. I have the 10Q"
"Your parents…?"
"I'd rather not talk about them," she says hastily and not very distinctly, but with enough firmness for him to drop the subject. "As for 10Q, I know you're incredulous they can all be developed in one person, but that's now par for the course. If some are missing an otherwise 'normal' person is considered disadvantaged and under-privileged. Which is the view most people now have of your generation because of what they (and you) missed out on.
"We don't feel special," she continues before he can find a riposte. "These are human attributes that have always been there, it's just that you didn't know how to access them, bring them out, - educt and use them. In the same way, there wasn't
anything world-shattering about any individual component of the Smiles course. They just had to be marshalled into the right package and pursued with enlightenment and vigour, in a way that PP2 would respond to - naturally and beneficially."
"Is there nothing you can't accomplish in this day and age?" he asks with a tinge of envy.
"Of course there is - we're not perfect. Even though we're far advanced in comparison to the previous generation, we still have a long way to go. We've tried to build into the process a methodology for continuing improvement. Of course there are variations between people. My ex-husband started later and had opposition from his father, disinterest from his mother. We have different views, different needs." Her voice becoming unsteady, she adds "We finally separated last year."
"I'm so sorry," Andrew says with feeling, "Things seemed otherwise so perfect for you. Children?"
She shakes her head and there is an awkward silence. Andrew rebukes himself for causing her discomfort, a condition foreign to her confident and accomplished persona. He coughs and asks "More unveiling of the mysteries - what happened to the Institutes?"
"They got off to a flying start in late 3AB," she says, brightening. "Kent enticed or bullied a magnificent assortment of people from high places - magnates, top business people, leading professionals - to the most prestigious location possible. He chose people he judged would see and appreciate the role of Smiles in society, benefit from it personally and then want to relay it to their respective fields of activity or influence. Ed, Pip, Raj and several others gave them 'the works', an in-depth participating seminar incorporating the Smiles concepts. That engendered a fertile / co-operative / competitive / constructive milieu in which participants learned a lot about themselves and expanded their skills to areas they previously hadn't thought about.
"They discovered unexplored parts of their minds (and bodies). Areas of feeling and thought and expression were opened so that they departed the course with enhanced skills, inner calmness, different mindsets and expanded horizons. And outward determination that others must share their experiences and elevated insights into 'life'. As Kent said at the time with a tinge of envy, 'They were half way to reaching the changed mindset I had achieved, without having to endure a near-death experience.'"
~
Johnson Phillips appeared on screen. "Looking back to that time, I was suspicious about attending but figured if Buchanan was organising and paying for it, at that location, with those other big-shots flying in, it had to be significant. Personally I'd felt for a long time there had to be more to life than I was getting out of it. I respected his judgement, so if he was on to something…
"Now that I've completed it… I mean, I've been before to courses supposed to be like that but weren't… New vistas opened up… God, I see now it was so shallow before… Mostly wasted…Get on with it man… The rest of my life is beginning…as I will make sure it does for my family and company. And those other big-timers weren't as bad or selfish underneath as I'd thought, given a chance to show it. Expect they too will run it through their companies as fast as they can… mad if they don't. I recall Buchanan spilling water at that conference - now he's stirring up tsunamis. Forget the butterflies. Good for him. Wonder if I can beat him at it?"
~
Christiana: "They also started that year a series of courses for sports stars, show personalities and respected community figures, with spectacular results. Those 'centres of influence' co-operated with Yvonne and the advertisers to come up with a sophisticated but low-key targeted promotional campaign. It created intense interest. Two AAA Institute streams developed. The industry stream grew rapidly after companies gingerly tested the water and saw immediate benefit flow to and from staff who underwent training. Good businesses have a close feedback loop - they knew quickly, almost instinctively, it was good for them, what they had been waiting for if only they had been aware of it. Follow-up was emphasised within company operations and through the Internet.
"Kent led the way in Mogul Mining, after a briefly frosty reception by his Human Relations Department, using the 'Buried Treasure" concept as a direct link with his company mining operations."
V
D: Buried Treasure:
Kent: "Most people at one time or another have dreamed about winning a lottery or finding a treasure that would make them happy - get what they want, do whatever they like. But the greatest treasure we can have, and to my shame it took me all these years to realise, is not money or material things. These are shallow and transitory. The things that make people happy on a durable basis are up here… " pointing to his temple "…fulfilment, inner peace, helping others.
"I know I'm sounding like some of those misplaced do-gooders I used to despise but I want to emphasise to viewers I am not a psychological misfit or a religious fanatic. I am saying this as a hard-bitten businessman who has belatedly realised a fundamental truth and wants to convey it to others. This inner treasure is available to us if only we know how to access it. It is buried, but only a centimetre or so below the surface - of our heads. So close and yet so far removed. Available and waiting if and when its owner (PP2) wants it. Just remove the over-burden (not your scalp) and there it is, in all its glory. Like gold it has no value until you recover it, only when it's brought to the surface. And it doesn't need expensive machinery or capital resources - just Smiles.
"Smiles provides direct access to this Buried Treasure, which you can 'mine'. And a nice touch, unlike ordinary treasure or minerals, use doesn't diminish the resource, it increases its availability and magnitude - it is inexhaustible. Some treasure - wow!. Because it's available to all, society has a major communal asset made up of billions of individual treasures. A true 'national treasure', international 'wealth', but buried and unrecognised - the most gigantic 'cover-up' in history. And, as Rose tells me, hidden treasure is also hidden power and 'it will sweep all before it'.(30)
"In Smiles we refer to the unfortunate Mr Unaware. He had a fortune left to him in a will and deposited in a bank. But the bank was unable to find him and so he went through life as a pauper, undergoing all kinds of difficulty and privation. He died feeling the world was a cruel place, it wasn't fair, nobody cared. For many years he had spent the daylight hours begging outside the very bank that was holding for him the means for an abundant life - if only he realised it. As for Mr Unaware, so it is with our own personal treasure - think about it.
"It's like those 3D pictures. There is a picture hiding within the picture, just below the surface, not readily noticeable; most people would be unaware of it unless told. But it is there to be seen and appreciated by those who know it's there, and know how to view it.
"I pushed Smiles within my company. Not as a 'must' but as an opportunity - their choice. Some readily started 'mining', the rest jumped in as soon as they saw real evidence of treasure trove - the El Dorados unearthed. Personal and corporate success arising from use of Smiles spread quickly through Mogul."
Trevor: "In the old days Kent would have kept its use a secret from outsiders for as long as possible to gain maximum competitive advantage. Now he wanted to do the opposite and we had to hold him back so that when it was released on a wide front it would have maximum effect. It was offered openly to all, knowing increased benefit to others was not detrimental to Mogul in the long run. There is more than enough generated benefit to share around. Johnson Phillips and others were hard on his heels - they enjoyed 'the race'."
=
Christiana: "The second AAA Institute stream started early 4AB and catered for non-corporate participants. As hoped, the strong response from combined effects of advertising and F(r)ee allowed the group to be highly selective in choice of participants, ensuring excellent early results and a quality source of future Eductors. In a clever way one of the advertising streams pictured 'life after Smiles', a Frip view that took for granted improved situations were actually in place. It was such a powerful and logical and desirable set of images that thousands said 'Yes! Aha! Of course.
Why not? I want to be part of it.'
"Kent's hopes for positive results from the program were realised. With well-designed Smiles and integrated follow-up the results were phenomenal. 'It was like an exotic disease - virulent yet benevolent,' was his expression at the time. ('Well, after all, smiles are supposed to be infectious,' he went on to say.) The change in people's energy, their positiveness and exuberance were certainly catching.
"The negative carping of cynics and naysayers subsided as it became evident they were wrong - in a big way. Many of them then fell over themselves to get in on its obvious benefits. With waning opposition the movement blossomed so that within five years it was self-generating, self-sustaining, and the accepted way."
"What about the education system?" Andrew asks.
"As predicted they were mostly unenthusiastic to begin with and then unable to match the quality when they tried - too little, too late. UK ended up with a composite arrangement of AAA's independently staffed within the overall umbrella of the education system. In most countries AAA's remained separate in providing Smiles, and some expanded to include conventional education subjects, with heavy use of technology. Almost universally, first preference became 'the AAA way". Students needed it, employers insisted on it, people in the street demanded it. Politicians said it was a good idea, they'd always been in favour of it, especially eduction."
V
D: Eduction:
Christiana: "Some universities shrunk to be the specialist institutions of earlier centuries, but First State University was an exception and an interesting case. It became the foremost exponent of Smiles in the USA education system. Which is surprising because initially it took a strongly conservative stand against it. ('Kept a very straight face,' said Rick.) The situation came to a head when students with their union mounted a class action in 6AB charging that the University was uncaring and irresponsible when positive results of easier and better education had been demonstrated from early Smiles programs elsewhere. AAA graduates easily outperformed others and were more mature - and happy. Conventional students without Smiles were thus disadvantaged and suffered in learning and life, and First State was negligent in not providing Smiles, they claimed. (During the hearing an enraged student who topped his high school but failed university took an automatic rifle and peppered a large Smiley face on the white wall of the assembly hall.)