True civilization is based on refining one’s manners, thoughts, feelings, and strengthening one’s willpower. Some identify civilization with dazzling advances and innovations in sciences and technology-from trains to spaceships, broad streets and skyscrapers to dams and nuclear power stations, telecommunication systems to electronics. But these are no more than means of an easy, luxurious life. Modern facilities can help “modernize” life’s outward appearance, bul this does not mean that people of that society are civilized.

It also provides an environment that encourages people to develop their potentialities. And truly civilized people are those who serve their community, in particular, and humanity, in general, according to the thoughts, feelings, and abilities developed and refined within that environment. Thus civilization is not to be sought in riches, luxury, and a comfortable life in large, richly furnished houses, or in production techniques and amounts of goods consumed, for such things are no more than elements of material pleasure and physical well-being. Rather, true civilization is to be found in purified thinking, refined manners and feelings, and sound views and judgments.

Civilization lies in people’s spiritual evolution and continuous self-renewal toward true humanity and personal integrity-to realizing their full potential as the “best pattern of creation.” People must realize that civilization is not, as some blind imitators of the West believe, something to be bought from a store and worn. Rather, it is a final destination that can be reached only by following a rational way passing through time and circumstances.

Civilization differs from modernism. Civilization means changing and renewing people’s views, ways of thinking, and personal habits; modernism means changing their lifestyles, pursuing physical pleasure, and developing living facilities. But many people are not aware of this distinction, for their generations have been bewildered with misused concepts and misled in their way of thinking. As a result, their belief, language, national ihonghts, morals, and culture have been corrupted.

Western people who enjoy technical facilities more than others, as well as the so-called Muslim intellectuals who consider themselves civilized and view others as uncivilized, commit an unforgivable sin against civilization and culture. Such people should know that just as civilizalion does not mean modernism, being an intellectual is quite different from being a school graduate. The number of true intellectuals who have not studied at an educational facility is not insignificant when compared to the numbers of high school or university graduates. Misusing such fundamental concepts may cause a long-lasting deception characterized by people confusing white with black, justice with injustice, enlightenment with ignorance, being intellectual with being ignorant, and civilization with savagery.

A community’s enlightenment and freedom from confused thoughts, expressions, and convictions require the existence of a group of true intellectuals-not just school graduates. A community must have specialists in different branches of science, but such people cannot enlighten it. That task can be achieved only by those true intellectuals who, in the awareness of their age, live at the level of the spirit, are awake to existence in soul and intellecl, and use their willpower in accordance with the truth’s dictates. By combining scientific truths with the Unseen’s inspirations in order to form an inextinguishable source of light, their souls and intellects are revived and they are able to open the way to their community’s revival through the messages they disseminate. Only such intellectuals can bring a true civilization into existence.

Every new civilization is born through attempts based on a unique love and belief. Without these two elements, it is impossible to talk about civilization. If despotic pressure or intervention are added to this lack of love, belief and zeal, even conquering space and discovering subatomic worlds will not be enough to found a civilization.

A community whose ordinary people have no belief, love, zeal, or feeling of responsibility, whose ordinary people live aimless lives unconscious of their true identity and unaware of the age and environment in which they live, cannot be considered civilized. Even if they have changed all their institutions, achieved a high standard of life, and adopted a “modern” lifestyle, they are not civilized. Civilizalion is an intellectual and spiritual phenomenon that has nothing to do with technology, dress and finery, furniture and luxuries. The bloodshed, continued but disguised colonialism, unending massacres and conflicts, unchanging human attitudes, unrefined manners, unenlightened intellectual life, as well as materialism’s dominance in science and worldviews and other signs of savagery, prove that neither the “developed” peoples nor their “developing” imitators have founded a true civilization.

It is unfortunate that some members of the intelligentsia in developing countries have mislead their people by letting them believe that modernizing their lifestyles-or “becoming totally dependent on Western countries”-would make them civilized. Such indigenous Westernized modernists do not hesitate to carry out what some Western countries “inspire” in their minds.

We hope that the world will witness true civilization once more. The signs of this civilization, which will be founded on belief, love, knowledge, and universal moral values, are already on the horizon. This sacred cause can be realized if the new generations that have undertaken it continue on their way with a strong belief, willpower, and ever-deepening resolve.

Authoritarian Parents

Authoritarian parenting, also termed dictatorial or harsh, is low on warmth/nurturance, strict on discipline, high in parent-to-child communication but low in child-to-parent communication, and high on expectation. This style has been predominant throughout Western history: “It was effective in status quo times, for example in agrarian-industrial societies” (Dinwiddie 1995).

Authoritarian parents show little affection and “seem aloof from their children” (Berger 2001, 283). Parents instruct and order, do not consider the children’s opinion as a group, and discourage verbal give-and-take (Gonzalez-Mena 1993). Obedience, respect, and tradition are highly valued. Rules are non-nogoliable, parents are always right, and disobedient children are punished-often physically. However, parents “do not cross the line to physical abuse” (Berger 2001, 283). As children obey their parents in order to avoid punishment, they become passive. Authoritarian parents also expect a level of maturity higher than the norm for their child’s particular age group: “The authoritarian parents assign the child the same responsibilities as adults” (Scarr, Weinberg, and Levine 1986, 306). Responsiveness is low, as the approach is parent-centered and stresses the parent’s needs.

This almost noninteractive style has serious developmental drawbacks (Daniel, Wassell, and Gilligan 1999). Children are more susceptible to antisocial peer pressure during adolescence, a time when peer influence is the greatest (Collins et al. 2000); learn not to discuss issues with their parents (why bother if you are always wrong or ignored?); and are influenced greatly by their peers. Often frustrated, they distance themselves from their parents by rebelling against the latter’s values and beliefs.

Steinberg et al. (1994) reveals that boys in this category have the highest level of violence. Steinberg (1996) shows that these teenagers are less self-reliant, persistent, and socially poised, and have lower self-esteem. In addition, there is a strong inverse correlation between such authoritarianism and good grades. Other research indicates that they lack social competence and rarely initiate activities: “They show less intellectual curiosity, are not spontaneous and usually rely on the voice of authority” (Parenting n.d.).

Permissive Parents

Permissive parenting, also labeled as neglectful or disengaged parenting, is high on warmth, very low on discipline and structure, low in parent-to-child communication but high in child-to-parent communication, and low on expectation. This style was popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The fact that many German children and adults had followed Hitler led people to attribute this to Germany’s authoritarian home environment, which demanded unquestioning obedience. Thus their parents “conditioned” them for Hitler. (Dinwiddie 1995). Hoping to counteract such undesirable side-effects, they became permissive.

Permissive parents are nurturing, warm, and accepting. Their main concerns are to let children express their creativity and individuality and to make them happy (Neal 2000), in the belief that this will teach them right from wrong (Berger 2001). Permissive parents find it hard to set clear limits, provide structure, are inconsistent disciplinarians (Huxley 1998), and reward bad behavior regularly (Dworkin 1997). Children are not pushed to obey guidelines or standards that, even when they do exist, are not enforced (Barakat and Clark 1999).

Permissive parents take orders and instructions from their children, are passive, endow children with power (Gonzalez-Mena 1993; Garbarino and Abramowitz 1992), have low expectations, use minimal discipline, and do not feel responsible for how their children turn out.

Ironically, these children turn out to be the unhappiest of all (Neal 2000). They are more likely to exhibit such psychological problems as anxiety and depression (Steinberg 1996), are the second group (after authoritarian) most likely to commit violence (Steinberg et al. 1994), and engage in antisocial behavior (Simons, Lin, and Gordon 1998). Research links permissive parents with delinquency, substance abuse, and sexual activity (Snyder and Sickmund 2000; Jacobson and Crockett 2000].

In effect, parents teach their children that they can get their way by manipulating others: “Children learn a false sense of control over adults that increases their manipulative behavior” (Huxley 1998). Later on, they do poorly in school, have higher rates of misbehavior in areas involving adult authority, and “may also grow up manipulating around rules because those are not firm” (Thinking n.d.).

As they have not been taught how to control or discipline themselves, they are less likely to develop self-respect. This lack of discipline and structure engenders a desire for some type of control, and so they put “a lot of energy into controlling parents and trying to get parents to control them” (Gonzalez-Mena 1993, 157).

Their unmet psychological needs make them “vulnerable to being easily discouraged by everyday problems and turns the child away from full and satisfying participation in the world” (Garbarino and Abramowilz 1992, 42). This, in turn, hinders their social development, self-esteem, and positive self-concept. Without high expectations to realize, “children of permissive parents generally have difficulty controlling their impulses, are immature, and reluctant to accept responsibility” (Parenting n.d.).

Steinberg (1996) shows a strong correlation between permissive parenting and poor grades in families where parents are not involved in their children’s education and do not initiate a give-and-take relationship with their children. Other negative outcomes are sleep disturbances (Dworkin 1997) and feelings of insecurity.

Authoritative Parents

Authoritative parenting is high on warmth, moderate on discipline, high in communication, and moderate in expectations of maturity. This style is becoming more pervasive in the West. Authoritative parents are warm and nurturing, create a loving home environment, and provide a high degree of emotional support (Ingersoll 1989). Unlike permissive parents, they are firm, consistent, and fair (Barakat and Clark 1999).

Authoritative parents discipline through rational and issue-oriented strategies in order to promote their children’s autonomy while ensuring conformity to group standards (Marion 1999). They establish and enforce behavior standards (Glasgow et al. 1997) and stay in control. “Family rule is democratic [rather] than dictatorial” (Berger 2001, 283). Parents use reason, negotiation, and persuasion-not force-to gain their children’s cooperation (Marion 1999). Their listening-demanding ratio is roughly equal.

Children are given alternatives, encouraged to decide, and accept responsibility for their actions and decisions. The end result is self-empowerment (Barakat arid Clark 1999). When the children’s opinions are valued and respected, both children and parents benefit (Marion 1999; Gonzalez-Mena 1993).

Authoritative parents set developmentally appropriate limits and

standards for behavior. They make it clear that they will help their children. If their demands are not met, they are forgiving and understanding rather than punitive (Glasgow et al. 1997; Berger 2000). Overall, this parenting style is high on mutual understanding and based on reciprocity.

In fact, both parties benefit. Developmental opportunities are provided for children, as the quality of interaction and nurturance is high and expectations are realistic (Garbarino and Abramowilz 1992). In addition, such parents are more likely to encourage academic success (Glasgow et al. 1997), which has a positive correlation with good grades (Steinberg, 1996). This can be attributed to parental involvement in their children’s education and their use of open, give-and-take communication through family reading, writing, and discussions.

Research also shows that these children are less influenced by negative pefir pressure and develop successful peer relationships (Collins et al. 2000). As authoritative parenting provides a balance between control and independence, il produces competent, socially responsible, self-assured, and independent children (Gonzalez-Mena 1993). Children are more likely to develop high self-esteem, positive self-concept, greater self-worth, less rebellion, and generally are more successful in life.

Furthermore, they are the best adjusted of all children. According to Thinking (n.d), they ranked highest in self-respect, capacity to conform to authority, and greater interest in the parents’ faith in God. They also respect authority, are accountable, and control their impulses. Steinberg (1996) shows that they are more confident and responsible, less likely to use or abuse drugs or alcohol, and less likely to be involved in delinquency. These children also reported less anxiety and depression and the least amount of violence (Steinberg et al. 1994).

Conclusion

Western culture places great importance on planning for children and their upbringing. Hence, parents-to-be spend a great deal of time thinking about everything-from which brand of diapers to use to which college they want their child to attend. However, less importance is given to parenting style. Research has proven repeatedly that parenting styles have a “direct correlation with how children will grow up, how they live and whether they will abide by the rules in society” (Thinking n.d.). Therefore parents-to-be must analyze different parenting styles, their effects, and what works best for them and their child.

References

• Barakat, I. S. and J. A. Clark. “Positive Discipline and Child Guidance.” 1999. Online at: http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/hesguide/humanrel/ gh6119.htm [25.3.2000].
• Berger, K. S. The Developing Person throughout the Lifespan. 5th ed. New York: 2001.
• Collins, A. W. et al. “Contemporary Research on Parenting,” American Psychologist 55, no. 2 (2000): 218-32.
• Daniel, B., S. Wassell, and R. Gilligan. Child Development for Child Care and Protection Workers. London: 1999.
• Dinwiddie, S. “Setting Limits: Steering down the Rocky Road of Childrearing.” KidSource (Feb.l99S). Online at: www.kidsource.com/better.world.press/ setting. limits.html.
• Dworkin, P. “Permissive Parenting May Be Hurting Kids’ Sleep.” Science Daily Magazine (9 Oct. 1997). Online at: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/ 1997/10/971009063543.hlm.
• Garbarino, J., and R. Abramowitz. “Sociocultural Risk and Opportunity.” In Children and Families in the Social Environment. Ed. J. Garbarino. New York: 1992.
• Glasgow, K. L. et al. “Parenting Styles, Adolescents’ Attributions, and Educational Outcomes in Nine Heterogeneous High Schools.” Child Development 68, no. 3 (1997): 507-29.
• Gonzalez-Mena, J. The Child in the Family and the Community. New York: 1993.
• Gordon, T. Parent Effectiveness Training. New York: Plume, 1970.
• Huxley, R. “The Four Parenting Styles.” Parent-ingtoolbox (27 Sept. 1998), On line at: www.parent-ingtoolbox.com/pstyle1.html.
• Ingersoll, G. M. Adolescents. Englewood Cliffs: 1989.
• Jacobson, K. C., and L. J. Crockett. “Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Adjustment: An Ecological Perspective.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 10, no. 1 (2000): 65-97.
• Marion, M. Guidance of Young Children. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs: 1999.
• Neal, K. Lecture at George Mason Univ. (16 Oct. 2000).
• “Parenting Styles/Children’s Temperaments; The Mutch.” Aboutourkids. Online at: www.aboutourkids.org/parenting/p_styles.html
• Scarr, S., R. Weinberg, and A. Levine. Understanding Development. Orlando: 1986.
• Simons, R. L., K. Lin, and L. C. Gordon. “Socialization in the Family of Origin and Male Dating Violence: A Prospective Study.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 60, no. 2 (1998): 467-78.
• Snyder, H. N., and M. Sickmund, “Challenging the Myths. 1999 National Report Series.” Juvenile Justice Bulletin. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Feb. 2000). Online at: www. ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2000_02_2/contcnts.html [2000, May 25].
• Steinberg, L. Beyond the Classroom; Why School Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need To Do. New York: 1996.
• Steinberg, L. et al. “Over-time Changes in Adjustment and Competence among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Families.” Child Development 65, no. 3 (1994]: 754-70.
• Steinberg, L., and A. Levine. You and Your Adolescent: A Parent’s Guide for Ages 10-20. New York: 1997.
• “Thinking Smart about Parenting.” Online at: www.goodliving.virtualave.net

New Findings in Biology

Olfaction was long considered a uniquely mammalian trait. Scientists have disproven this by showing that many intertebrates can smell. For example, birds were thought to be unable to smell, although they have nostrils in their bills. John Audubon, a famous nineteenth-century bird artist, reached this mistaken conclusion by observing vultures confronted with a covered and an uncovered animal corpse, he concluded that they could not smell. The minute weight of the birds’ olfactory bulb consolidated this widespread misconception. Recent research shows that birds use smell when finding and distinguishing food, choosing proper nesting sites and mates, and following avian navigation routes. Ken Stager, an orinthogist at Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, used turkey vultures to disprove Audubon’s vulture experiment. Marine biologist Betsy Bang, who measured the olfactory bulbs and tissues in the brains of 151 bird species, calculated the olfactory bulb’s mass as being between 3% to 37% of the brain’s entire mass. This shows that the ratio, and not the weight, determines a bird’s ability to smell.

Other examples are as follows:

•Pigeons perceive small amounts of odorants. If their olfactory bulbs are blocked, they become lost.

•Certain seabirds (e.g., white chinned petrels) are sensitive to the chemical emitted by their main food (plankton), and so follow an olfactory path over the sea.

•European starlings smell the best region for their nesting site.

•Chickens detect inedible bugs (e.g., bright-colored bad-tasting caterpillars) through smell and sight.

•Salmon return to their hatching sites years later by using the unique olfactory memory of these sites left in their brains.

Smelling is far more developed in mammals, especially dogs and cats, which can sense parts per billion or trillion and can identify millions of different odorants. Science would benefit greatly if such abilities could be reproduced in sensors. But first, how does the human nose smell?

Perceiving Odors

Scientists divide human olfaction into steps. First, a potential odorant emits an odor’s basic elements: volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We perceive an odor when molecules are transformed into an odor by binding the receptor proteins.(1) After binding with certain types of VOCs, these receptor proteins cause depolarization. The electrical charges produce unique signals, which the epithelium’s sensory cells transmit to our neural network (axons).

These signals then are carried to a cluster of neural networks in the brain (glomeruli).(2) Ultimately, the impulse reaches the hypothalamus and describes the scent through a process of classification and identification.

Quantifying Scents

Human odor panels or gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) are used to identify odors. Such quantification is problematic, however, because it is hard to quantify the VOC’s perception in the nose as a unit of odor. Quantifying mass, volume, temperature, light intensity, and the molecular concentration of a soluble substance in a solution are reasonably objective and can be measured as a multiple of a standard unit.

But a standard olfactory measure does not exist, for it varies according to time and environment. Odor concentration is expressed as a multiple of a threshold: 50% of human “sniffers” must detect-not necessarily identify-it. This threshold is defined by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), and is accepted as the absolute threshold of odor perception. It takes 5 or 10 odor units for the human panel to identify the odor. GC/MS also can identify the odor’s chemical composition.

Electronic Nose

After developments in electronic sight and hearing, scientists sought similar progress in odor perception. Research began at the University of Warwick (Coventry, England) in the 1980s. Its participants coined the term “electronic nose,” now commonly known as “e-nose.”(3) Their progress made it a commercial commodity with many applications.

E-noses have moved from being metal oxide devices, to conducting polymers, and now to laptop-size or pocket-size odor sensors. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich) has made one the size of a wrist-watch. However, current e-nose use is largely restricted to labs and military applications. Scientists are trying to match or surpass the human sense of smell’s accuracy and sensitivity, after which they will work on surpassing that of the canine species.

Uses and Advantages

E-noses have a wide application in agriculture. Since they can detect minute differences, an e-nose using polymer materials can determine whether a tomato is sun-ripened, picked green, or internally damaged, and whether apple juice comes from a concentrate or is authentic but pasteurized.

Volunteers often test such products. But who wants to determine if corn oil is rancid or canola oil is oxidized? E-noses, having no such “qualms,” detect changed odors in oil samples and provide far more accurate reports.

In animal science and poultry, e-noses provide detailed reports about spoiled food. Judy Arnold, a microbiologist in Athens, GA, researches food quality for the Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

In 1998, researchers discovered that e-noses can detect gases produced by spoiled poultry products. They claim that an e-nose can determine freshness, period of time in a refrigerator, and the amount of fat in white meat. Such an objective evaluation benefits poultry farmers and producers by eliminating returns of “funny-smelling” poultry. E-noses also can detect meat’s decay rate and bacteria, overall quality and freshness, the composition of mixed meat-part products (e.g., processed meat), and how long a ham has been dry-cured. Given this, the e-nose’s ability to examine a bundle of scents makes it very useful. It can perform hundreds of preliminary assessments that would occupy a chemist for months.

The military uses e-noses to detect land mines and traces of chemical-biological weapons. This is important, for over 100 million land mines litter 62 war-torn countries. Although dog-sniffers are useful, this practice is inhumane (dogs are often injured) and impractical (they need lots of training).

E-noses also are better than metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar and infrared imaging-the former detects even tiny pieces of metal, whereas the latter often images pebbles. As e-noses can identify traces of TNT or similar explosives to the 100 parts per quadrillion level, their detection rate is far more accurate and efficient. Nomadics, a Still-water, OK-based company, produces a cigar-box-sized e-nose for this purpose. Tufts University produces an optical e-nose that is designed and functions much like a mammalian nose.

Environmentalists use e-noses to analyze air. For instance, e-noses can report the chemical makeup of odors emitted by a farm’s store of manure, detect the compounds causing that odor, help minimize leaks, and determine a new diet that will decrease such odors. With their ability to detect toxic VOCs and compounds leaking from a factory’s or waste site’s storage areas, e-noses will help environmentalists force industry to change its practices. The major difficulty here remains sampling, as concentrations vary with time and place.

Caltech has used Department of Defense funding to develop a device that identifies odors in seconds. Its 32 components swell like sponges when exposed to a particular vapor, and its resistance (hence conductivity) changes accordingly. As it can detect any type of odor, doctors at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles are studying medical applications. Currently, it is applied to patients’ breath to help diagnose upper respiratory infections.

The major advantages of e-noses over human noses in these areas are objectivity; ability to measure odors over long real-time periods; and immunity to fatigue, infection, mental state, hazardous material, and adaptation (gradual loss of sensitivity).

How E-noses Work

E-noses have three functional components: a sample handler, a gas sensor array, and a signal processing system. Its output identifies the odorant, estimates its concentration, and relates its characteristic properties. A sensor recognizes different types and concentrations of odors through its arrays, each of which has a different sensitivity. The resulting combination provides the response pattern that enables the e-nose to identify odorants.

In a typical e-nose, a vacuum pump pulls the first air sample into the tube housing the electronic sensor arrays. The air sampling unit exposes the odorant to the sensor, after which VOCs interact with the surface and the sensor’s active material until reaching a steady state. The sensor’s response is recorded and transmitted to the signal-processing unit. When completed, a washing gas cleanses the sensor. After the reference gas is applied to the unit, the sensor is ready to measure again.

E-nose Technologies

The sensor is the e-nose’s key element, and the sensor type is its defining characteristic. There are 5 types of e-nose sensors, as follows:

Optical sensors: Optical fiber sensors work through fluorescence and chemoluminescence. The tube’s glass fibers contain a thin encoated active material in their sides and at both ends. As VOCs interact with the organic matrix’s chemical dyes, the dye’s fluorescent emission changes the spectrum. These changes then are measured and recorded for different odorous particles.

Fiber arrays with different dye mixtures can be used as sensors. These are fabricated by dipcoating (binding a plastic solution to a substrate), micro electromechanical system (MEMS), and precision machining. The main advantage is that this adjustable tool can filter out noise. Also, since many dye forms are available in biological research, sensors are cheap and easy to fabricate. But the instrumentation control systems are complex, which adds to the cost, and have a limited lifetime due to photo bleaching (the sensing process slowly consumes the fluorescent dyes).

Optical sensors are sensitive and can measure low ppb (parts per billion); however, they are still in the researach stage of development.

Spectrometry-based Sensors: This group consists of a molecular spectrum-based gas chromatography (GC), an atomic mass spectrum-based mass spectrometry (MS), and a transmitted light spectrum-based light spectrum (LS). The first two can analyze the odor’s components accurately, which is a plus. However, their use of a vapor trap to increase concentration can alter the odor’s characteristics. LS devices do not consume the sample, but do require tunable quantum-well devices. GC and MS devices are commercially available, while LS devices are only at the research stage. All spectrometry-based sensors are fabricated by MEMS and precision machining, and can measure odors to a low ppb level.

The GC tube decomposes the odorant into its molecular constituents, and MS forms a mass spectrum for each peak. The spectra then is compared to a large precompiled database of spectral peaks to classify and identify odorants.

MOSFET (Metal-oxide-silicon field-effect-transistor): The basic principle here is capacitive charge coupling. In other words, VOCs react with the catalytic metal and thereby alter the device’s electrical properties. The device’s selectivity and sensitivity can be fine-tuned by varying the metal catalyst’s thickness and composition. MOSFETs are micro-fabricated and commercially available, but can measure only parts per million. They can be manufactured by electronic interface circuits, which minimizes batch-to-batch variation. However, the gas produced by the VOC-metal reaction must penetrate the MOSFET’s gate.

Conductivity Sensors: The sensor types used here are metal oxide or conducting polymer. Both operate on the principle of conductivity, for their resistance changes as they interact with VOCs. Metal oxide sensors are common, commercially available, inexpensive, and easy to produce (they are micro-fabricated). Their sensitivity ranges from 5-500 ppm. However, they only operate at high temperatures (200°C to 400°C).

In conducting polymer sensors, VOCs bond with the polymer backbone and change the polymer’s conductivity (resistance). They are micro-fabricated together with electroplating and screen printing, are commercially available, and can measure from .1 to 100 ppm. They operate at room temperature, yet are very sensitive to humidity. Moreover, it is hard to electropolymerize the active material, which makes batch-to-batch variation inevitable. Sometimes VOCs penetrate the polymer chain, which means that the sensor must be returned to its neutral and reference state-a very time-consuming process.

Piezoelectric Sensors: These devices, which measure any change in mass, come in two varieties: quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices.

QCM sensors have a resonating disk and metal electrodes on each side. While applying the gas sample to the resonator’s surface, the polymer surface absorbs VOCs from the environment. Thus its mass increases, which increases resonance frequency. As the U.S. Navy has long used QCMs, this technology is familiar, developed, and commercially available. A QCM sensor is fabricated by screen-printing, wire bonding, and MEMS. Althoug it can measure a 1.0 Ng mass change, its MEMS fabrication and interface electronics is a major disadvantages. QCM sensors are quite linear in mass changes, their sensitivity to temperature can be adjusted, and their response to water can vary for the material used.

MEMS techniques should be handled carefully, for the surface-to-volume ratio increases drastically as dimensions approach the micrometer levels. Measurement accuracy is lost when the increasing surface-to-volume ratio begins to degrade the signal-to-noise ratio. This problem occurs in most micro-fabricated devices. SAW devices have much higher frequencies. Since 3-D MEMS processing is unnecessary, SAW devices are cheaper. As with QCM devices, many polymer coatings are available. The differential devices can be quite sensitive. However, interface electronics require more complex electronics than those of conductivity sensors for both QCM and SAW sensors. Also, as the active membrane ages, resonance frequencies can drift and so must be detected for frequency by time. SAW devices are commercially available and sensitive to mass changes at the 1.0 pg level.

Pattern Recognition

Any e-nose’s primary task is to identify an odorant and perhaps measure its concentration. After the signal processing step comes the crucial step of pattern recognition: preprocessing, feature extraction, classification, and decision-making. A database of odors must be formed for comparison purposes.

Preprocessing accounts for sensor drifts and reduces sample-to-sample variation. This can be done by normalizing sensor response ranges, manipulating sensor baselines, and compressing sensor transients.

Feature extraction involves dimensionality reduction, a crucial step for statistical data analysis, since the database’s examples usually are subject to financial constraints. The higher dimensionality caused by sensor arrays is reduced to relevant pattern-recognition information and thus extracts only significant data. As most dimensions are correlated and dependent, it is better to reduce dimensionality to a few informative axes.

Feature extraction usually is accomplished by classical principal component analysis (PGA) or linear discriminant analysis (LDA). PCA is a linear transformation that finds the maximum variance projections and the most widely used technique for feature extraction. But as PCA ignores class labels, it is not an optimal technique for odor recognition.

LDA seeks to maximize the distance between class label examples and minimize the within distance, and thus is a more appropriate approach. LDA is also a linear transformation. For instance, LDA might better discriminate subtle but crucial odor projections, whereas PCA can remove the high variance random noise in a projection.(4)

The classification stage identifies odors. Classical classification techniques are KNN (k nearest neighbors), Bayesian classifiers, and ANN (artificial neural networks]. KNN with, say, 5 nearest points will find the 5 closest matches from the precompiled database. The closest match will be assigned as the tested material’s odorant class.

Bayesian classifiers first assign a posterior probability to the classes in the lower dimension and then pick the class that maximizes the predetermined probability distribution. ANN is closer to biological odor recognition. After being trained by the odor database, it is exposed to the unknown odorant in order to recognize the largest applicable response odorant class. The classifier estimates the class and places a confidence level on it.

In decision-making, risks and application-specific knowledge are considered in order to modify the classification. All decisions are reported-even a nonmatch.

Conclusion

As this article indicates, we can expect great progress in this area. And with each step forward, science and technology will continue to point toward the Greatest Artist’s most subtle designs and allow us to appreciate them better.

Footnotes

1. There are over 100 million receptor proteins of about 1,000 different types.
2. A human olfactory bulb contains approximately 2,000 glomeruli.
3. The terms “electronic nose” and “e-nose” are incorrect, for these devices cannot be considered “real” noses. The correct terminology should be “electronic arrays for chemical sensory and identification.” However, “e-nose” has gained wide acceptance in the literature since it first appeared during a 1991 NATO workshop in Reykjavik, Iceland.
4. Such nonlinear transformations as Sammon nonlinear maps and Kohonen self organizing maps also are used in feature extraction. These preserve the distance between pairs of examples when reducing dimensionality to 2 or 3.

References

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• Perkins, Sid. “Eau, Brother! Electronic Noses Provide a New Sense of the Future.” Science News 157 (19 Feb. 2000): 125-27.
• Schiffmann, Susan, and H. Troy Nagle. “The How and Why of Electronic Noses.” IEEE Spectrum (Sept. 1998): 22-32.
• Stern, Peter and Jean Marx. “Making Sense of Scents.” Science 286 (22 Oct. 1999): 703.
• Wolfgang, Gopel, and Tilo Weiss. “Design for Smelling.” IEEE Spectrum (Sept. 1998): 32-34.
• www.planetee.com/planetee/servlet/DisplayDocument?ArticleID=6899.
• www.sfn.org/briefings/smell.html.

Life in Utopia

In More’s classless society, everyone does the same work, is equal, has the same rights, and must work at least 6 hours every day at whatever they do best. As Utopia is an agricultural society, all people work the land. This creates the same conditions for everyone and ensures ample supplies to suppress the animal fear of want.

All clothing is plain, simple, and designed for utility and practicality. Finer material would give no better protection from the cold or make people appear better dressed. To prevent ostentation, Utopians exchange homes every 10 years and eat in mess halls. Hereditary distinctions are unknown, for children move from household to household, depending on which skill they want to learn. Since there is little distinction in occupation, dress, lodging, riches, or use of free time, pride is almost non-existent.

Utopia’s collective agriculture displays the division of labor. Everyone learns the rudiments of agriculture to better serve the common good. “No one will have to do this hard work against his will for more than two years, but many of them ask to stay longer because they take a natural delight in farm life.”(1) This ensures Utopia’s food supply and gives everyone access to civilized life. If an excessive surplus is produced, a holiday is declared so that no one works without purpose.

Utopia’s separate groups (e.g., magistrates and the prince, priests and intellectuals) are not a social or economic class. The syphogrants and the prince are elected autocrats. Their power derives from-and can be removed by-the people. Specialists are not isolated, but rather leaders in an institution in which all can participate. Learning is valued and respected as a means of fully developing one’s specific capacities, not as an indication of social standing.

Why Is Utopia Desirable?

One of More’s reasons for suggesting a Utopia was to end exploitation. More was most likely revolted by the luxury of sixteenth-century Europe’s ruling class, which he saw as a result of the peasantry’s impoverishment. If poverty were to be excluded from Utopia, luxury must suffer the same fate. More saw no benefit to the common good if peasant labor benefited only a very small minority.

As a classless society cannot have pride, Utopians consider it a social vice and pass this view on to their children at an early age. As Hythloday says: “Men and animals alike are greedy and rapacious from fear of want. Only human pride glories in surpassing others in conspicuous consumption. For this kind of vice there is no room whatsoever in the Utopian way of life.”(2) Lack of pride rids Utopia of class and potential social discord, for a commonwealth without pride is like a single united family.

An even division of labor and a lack of pride clears the way for life’s pleasures. There can be no better good than striving for the maximum happiness of all, at the least cost or disadvantage to oneself and society. More believes that money, a symbolic capital that people desire, is the problem, and so Utopia has no money or capital. Thus freed from worrying about food, bills, and other necessities, they enjoy such physical pleasures as fine dining, eating, drinking, and merrymaking (though without alcohol). There is music, a pleasure to the mind and body. For similar reasons, each house has a large garden into which much love and leisure time goes. Their desire to have the best garden, the most pleasing sanctuary, is perhaps the only competition among families.

Pride is replaced by spiritual fulfillment. They pursue philosophy and religion in their quest for virtue and contemplation of the truth, respectively. Their society’s primary virtue is natural reason: the reasons for humanity’s creation. For them, living according to nature is to be humanitarian. More mentions this: “As nature bids us mutually to make our lives merry and delightful, so she also bids again and again not to destroy or diminish other people’s pleasure in seeking our own.”(3)

Religion gives great satisfaction to most Utopians. This is unique to More, for neither Plato nor Marx accept religion. Utopia’s king decreed that all citizens should believe in at least two things: the soul’s immortality and the existence of rewards and punishments in the next life. In religion, Utopians find peace and contemplation of the truth. As education is the most efficient way to overcome corruption and crime, it is entrusted to priests. As a result, few laws are needed and existing ones require only the most obvious and easiest interpretation.

Utopia’s government consists of magistrates and a prince who handle the country’s affairs. This does not contradict communism, as government’s sole purpose is to maintain the status quo and prevent idleness. The government is designed in the most responsible way. All matters must be considered for a day and cannot be passed without 3 days of contemplation. It is a capital offense to consult together on public affairs outside the senate or the people’s assembly. Raphael says: “They take care to deliberate wisely rather than speedily … considering the public good.”(4)

Conclusion

More’s Utopia has a major failing: it is static and unchanging, instead of evolving, and allows no place for growth and development. Thus only a miracle or a prince gifted with a measure of divine power could bring it into existence. More understood that his Utopia was not a possible solution, but had no idea of the historical process that might lead to a future socialism.

Utopia is only put forward so that readers will understand that Utopian values are really the fundamental values of human nature, and that the world is imperfect. As Hythloday says at the end: “I must confess that there are many things in the Utopian Commonwealth that I wish rather than expect to see among our citizens.”(5)

More does not call for a revolution, nor is he a leader of the proletariat who wants to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Instead, More is like his Utopians, simply contemplating what would be nice, a daydream maybe. While More’s Utopia anticipates the characteristics of a modern classless society, he proposes no means by which to obtain this blissful paradise.

Footnotes

1. Thomas More, Utopia, ed./trans. H.V.S. Ogden (Illinois: ARM, 1949), 29.
2. Ibid., 38.
3. Ibid., 48.
4. Ibid., 33.
5. Ibid., 83.

The Process of Discovery

Kamerlingh Omnes, a Dutch physicist dedicated to achieving ultracold refrigeration, opened this field in 1908 by liquefying helium at -452 F (4 K or -269 C).(1) This achievement enabled scientists to cool materials to very low temperatures and study their properties.

Scientists knew that a metal’s resistance fell as the temperature was lowered, but did not know what the limiting value would be when 0 K (the absolute minimum temperature) was approached. In 1911, Omnes began investigating the electrical properties of metals at very low temperatures. Many contemporaries, including Lord Kelvin, believed that resistance eventually would level off to a nonzero value. While passing a current through a very pure mercury wire whose temperature was being steadily lowered, Omnes noticed that its resistance vanished at 4.2K. He remarked: “Mercury passed into a new state, which on account of its extraordinary electrical properties may be called the superconducting state.” This marks the birth of superconductivity.

Scientific and commercial potentials were obvious. A resistance-free metal wire could carry current for a long time without any loss. Omnes tried to determine the amount of such a loss. After letting a superconducting loop run for a year, he determined that there was no significant current loss. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his discovery.

In 1933, Walter Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered that superconductors are both perfect conductors and perfect diamagnets, for magnetic fields cannot penetrate a superconductor’s interior. When a material is superconducting and a field is applied, the current flowing on the superconductor’s surface generates a magnetic field that cancels the applied field inside the superconductor (the Meissner effect). Since the magnetic field generated inside the superconductor opposes the applied field, superconductors are diamagnetic. This shielding of an applied magnetic field occurs only if the applied field is not very large. Superconductivity is destroyed at a certain point.

Theoretical Progress and Surprises

Theoretical progress was much slower, however, almost as if superconductivity had been discovered too early. The scientific community’s incomplete understanding of quantum mechanics made it impossible to understand the mechanism behind superconductivity. Some phenomenological theories were developed during the 1930s and 1940s, but a clearer picture only began to emerge in 1957.

Three American physicists, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schriffer, used quantum field theory and many-body physics to develop the BCS theory, which explains superconductivity for elements and some alloys.(2) In essence, the theory states that a superconductor’s electrons condense into a quantum ground state and move together coherently. Pairs of electrons (Cooper pairs)-not single electrons-achieve current transfer. These physicists received the Noble Prize in 1972.

Another milestone came in 1962. Brian Josephson, a Cambridge University graduate student, predicted that an electrical current could flow between two superconductors separated by thin insulating barrier. He made a suitable device (the Josephson Junction) by inserting an insulating material between two superconductors. Sending current through one superconductor, he saw it pass through to the other one. Known as the Josephson effect, it is one of the most important components in superconducting electronics. Josephson was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in 1973.

In 1986, Alex Miiller and Georg Bednorz of IBM Research Lab (Switzerland) synthesized a ceramic compound that superconducted at 30K (-243C), the highest superconductor temperature ever reached. This compound contained lanthanum, barium, copper, and oxygen. Scientists do not know why it super-conducts, for it insulates at high temperatures and conducts electricity very poorly before it superconducts. Bednorz and Miiller received the Noble Prize in 1987.

This discovery inspired many researchers to combine elements to achieve superconductivity at higher temperatures. In January 1987, researchers at the University of Alabama replaced the lanthanum in the Bednorz-Miiller compound with yttrium and reached a transition temperature (Tc) of 92K. As a result, the much cheaper liquid nitrogen could replace liquid helium as a coolant. By trial-and-error experimentation, a Tc of 138K was reached in a compound consisting of mercury, thallium, barium, calcium, copper, and oxygen.

These new materials all contain layered copper and oxygen planes with other elements in between the crystal structure. Superconductivity occurs on the planes, and the rest of the crystal serves as a charge reservoir. The magnetic field gradually penetrates these new materials (called High Tc superconductors), causing a mixed state between the normal state and the superconducting state.

In 1997, existing theories were shattered when an alloy of gold and indium was used as a superconductor and a magnet. This is expected to have an important effect on magnetic data storage.

The most recent surprise came in November 2000. About 10 years ago, scientists learned that carbon-60 could superconduct at near absolute zero. By expanding the lattice structure, a Tc of 52K was reached. About a month later, the same group reached a Tc of 90K. Many believe that this temperature could reach well over 100K. Carbon-60 is the only material that has reached such high Tcs without having copper and oxygen planes in its structure.

Applications

Superconductors do more than just conduct electricity. Other important functions are as follows:

• The Korean-developed SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) can detect magnetic field changes that are 100 billion times smaller than Earth’s minute magnetic field, and uses the most fundamental properties of superconductors and quantum mechanics. Medical researchers use SQUIDs to study the human brain. Systems in which hundreds of SQUIDs are arranged in a helmet-like configuration containing liquid helium are commercially available. These systems detect the magnetic field produced by thousands of neurons. Although neurons produce huge fields when compared to the SQUID’s sensitivity, a magnetically shielded room is required to filter out fields produced by TVs, computers, cars, and so on. In these rooms, external stimulation applied to the patient’s brain enables specialists to locate tumors or other ill-functioning areas by mapping the brain’s functions. The human brain has two types of responses: stimulated and self-generated (spontaneous). By using the SQUID’s fast temporal response, one can locate non-invasively the epileptic loci, which causes some diseases. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s research also use SQUIDs at the detection level.

• Magnetic levitation became possible after scientists built superconducting magnets. Since superconductors have no resistance, a small voltage can generate huge currents and, therefore, magnetic fields large enough to float vehicles on these superconducting magnets with almost no friction. In 1999, a train in Japan reached a speed of 343 miles per hour. Japanese researchers are studying the possibility of a mag-lev linear motor car.

• Superconducting magnets have been used extensively in particle accelerators since 1987. Particle physics requires the acceleration of subatomic particles to speeds very close to the speed of light. This necessitates high magnetic fields that, in turn, need high currents-something for which superconductors are ideal. One event that made superconducting better known is probably the American Congress’ cancellation of the multi-billion Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project in 1993. A European consortium is now pursuing this research field.

•Superconducting wires improve an electric generator’s efficiency by more than 99 percent. In addition, such generators are about half the size of conventional ones. General Electric estimates that there is a potential $20-30 billion global market for superconducting generators. Unfortunately, the high costs of cooling systems rules out using this technology to supply cities with electricity. But the moment sufficiently high Tcs are reached, superconductivity’s impact in this area will be immeasurable.

•Other applications are high-performance and high-capacity electronic filters (currently used in some cellular phone systems); a petaflop-computer (1,000 trillion floating point operations per second-1,000 times faster than today’s computers); mine and submarine detection (the U.S. Navy); and storing energy to enhance power stability (American Superconductor Corp.); satellites; telescopes and other light detection instruments; and Internet routers.

Footnotes

1. F (Fahrenheit): A temperature scale registering water’s freezing point as 32F and boiling point as 212 F at one atmosphere of pressure. K (Kelvin): A unit of absolute temperature equal to 1/273.16 of the absolute temperature of the water’s triple point; equal to one Celsius degree. C (Celsius): A temperature scale registering water’s freezing point as 0 C and boiling point as 100 C under normal atmospheric pressure.
2. Quantum field theory: A body of physical principles that accounts for subatomic phenomena. Quantum many-body physics: The branch of theoretical physics that studies the new collective phenomena or “elementary” constituents of a many-particle system and the underlying quantum mechanics that determines their behavior.

References 

• Clarke, J. “Superconductivity: A Macroscopic Quantum Phenomenon.” Beam Line 30, no. 2 (summer/fall 2000): 41-48.
• Dull, R. W. and H. R. Kerchner. “Applications of Superconductors.” A Teacher’s Guide to Superconductivity for High School Students (1994). Online at:
• www.ornl.gov/reports/m/ornlm3063r1/pt4.html.
• Gunnarsson, O. “C60: The Hole Story.” Nature 1408 (30 Nov. 2000): 528-29.
• http ://superconductors .org
• Tinkham, M. Introduction to Superconductivity. 2d ed. McGraw-Hill Higher Education: 1995.

The four largest Muslim communities are located in Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, all Asian countries. Indonesia has more Muslims than Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia combined. Malaysia is home to more Muslims than Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait combined. Muslims are found in sizable numbers in Albania and Bulgaria; even China has 25 million Muslim believers.

Wherever one looks, Islam is on the move. As people increasingly find themselves rootless, disconnected, and alienated, they seek help in a comforting Islamic ideological refuge. In a world of incoherent violence, widening inequities, political oppression, personal corruption, and shattered families, many world citizens are massing behind the green flag of Islam. This movement is populist in nature, a bubbling up from below, a march of the distressed, oppressed, dispossessed.

Although most Muslims seek to improve their conditions through quiet, moderate, and peaceful means, some fringe groups have adopted violent methods, as have their Christian and Jewish counterparts.

Oblivious to their own ignorance and often harboring hidden agendas, many Western opinion and political leaders label all Muslims as militants, fanatics, and terrorists. According to these Western voices, Islam is the religion of the sword, Muslim activists are terrorists, and Muslim countries that challenge Western global hegemony are labelled “rouge” or “renegade” states.

The Muslim Viewpoint

Muslims have a quite different worldview. They see themselves as the afflicted, not the afflictors; on the defensive, not on the offensive; the objects of violence, not its initiators. In sum, Muslims consider themselves the victims.

To make their case, Muslims will take their Christian and Jewish neighbors on a quick world tour. They begin with Bosnia, where Serbian Christians killed nearly 200,000 Muslims and raped 22,000 Muslim women in the early 1990s.(1)

In Chechnya, the Russian army attacked a Muslim people who fought back furiously but found themselves slaughtered in large numbers by Russian troops. The Western world, including the United States, scarcely protested.(2)

In Kashmir, occupying Indian troops have oppressed, jailed, and executed large numbers of Muslim Kashmiris over the past decade.(3) During December 1992 and January 1993, Hindu mobs went on a rampage in Bombay, killing over 800 Muslims, destroying 5,000 Muslim homes, and forcing 200,000 Muslims to flee the city. In China’s western province of Xinjiang, the ethnically Turkish and religiously Muslim indigenous populations are dealt with harshly by Chinese occupying troops.(4)

In many Middle Eastern countries, Muslim believers are also under attack. In Iraq, for example, Saddam Hussein has carried out a war of genocide against the Shi’is of the south. In Israel, heavily armed Israeli troops do battle against Palestinian Muslim children armed largely with stones and slingshots.

Even in countries with an Islamic leadership, Muslims are oppressed and harassed. In Egypt, for example, Hosni Mubarak’s regime imprisons and executes members of Egypt’s Muslim opposition. Muslims are discriminated against and oppressed in many other parts of the world as well, examples include Malaysia, Turkey, Algeria, Uzbekistan, and Bahrain. This litany of anti-Islamic activity is recognized and discussed by Muslims everywhere. Why, they ask themselves, are they criticized and condemned when they are in fact the victims?

Meanwhile, the United States has often encouraged its allies to confront Muslim populist movements with force. As a result, the moderate Muslim masses are becoming radicalized and live in an environment of desperation. A vicious cycle of misunderstanding, misguided policy, and increasing violence has been set in motion. Before this cycle spins pout of control, non-Muslims must try to slow it down.

A necessary first step is to discard the simplistic stereotypes. Also, military force is not always an effective way to counter systems of ideas. Resurgent Islam’s steady flame will not be extinguished by the breeze of bullets or the blast of missiles.

It is time for everyone to take a crash course on Islam. It there is any truth in the Muslim belief that they suffer as victims, then it is time to admit this fact and to implement policies that will begin to remedy this situation. Our future relations with 1.2 billion of our brothers and sisters will depend on how we in the West choose to meet this challenge.

Footnotes

1. America’s arms embargo on Yugoslavia continued to be applied to Bosnia, even after the United States and the UN recognized it as an independent country, although most weapons and weapons-producing facilities were located in Yugoslavia.
2. Russia has invaded Chechnya several times since it declared independence in 1991. Since the fighting began in 1994, the country’s infrastructure and economy have been devastated, and many people have been killed. Media coverage is rare.
3. Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, has been the focal point of three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947. Citing Pakistani involvement in Kashmiri affairs, the Indian Army occupied Kashmir in 1989 amidst mounting unrest. Again, media coverage is rare.
4. In the remote province of Xinjiang in western China, the central government has ruthlessly cracked down on the Uigur Muslims who have struggled to attain regional autonomy and to protect their Islamic identity. More than 200 Uigurs have been executed in the past 3 years.

Plato’s (427-347 B.C.E.) political ideas remain influential. His idealist philosophy emphasizes ideas and ideals (independent of material and historical contexts), virtue vs. vice, and essential human values, and thus challenges modem philosophy’s general dependence on materialism, excess “objectivism,” and relativism. His search for the ideal person and the ideal city based on justice and harmony still motivates us. Although Plato is criticized for the totalitarian nature of his ideal city, his ideas are helpful when it comes to understanding the limits of democracy, especially direct democracy.

Plato was born into an aristocratic Athenian family. In The Republic, he analyzes the main psychological and sociopolitical pillars of the ideal person and the ideal city. His analyses are affected by such contemporaneous sociopolitical crises as the Peloponnesian War and Socrates’ execution by popular decision.(1) Believing that these problems have individual and systemic causes, he considers both the just person and the just city as an indispensable whole. In other words, a good individual life can be lived in a good city and good people can create a good city.

According to Plato, absolute truths are objective facts beyond relativistic opinion. Things have ideal Forms, whether they differ from the real ones or not. He emphasizes that things are good or bad by nature, and thereby accepts psychosocial phenomena as primordial instead of socially constructed.

Justice, the pillar of the ideal individual and social life, is a crucial good value. Plato rejects the idea that “justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.”(2) On the contrary, justice, regardless of power, is based on virtue and is the main source of happiness. Justice is awarded in this life and the Hereafter, and injus tice is punished.

Ideal People, Ideal Society

The soul, according to Plato, is affected by three groups of motives: reason, spirit, and appetite. Human justice means maintaining harmony among these motives. Similarly, social justice depends on the harmony among the three social classes symbolizing these motives. Each motive might result in virtue or vice. The virtue of reason, courage, and appetite are, respectively, wisdom, courage, and moderation. But these motives can result in ignorance, cowardice, and licentiousness.

Since reason is the most significant factor for harmony among people and within the city, it symbolizes the guardians (the golden class). Spirit is symbolized by soldiers (the silver class), and appetite by farmers and artisans (the bronze class).

Plato considers knowledge, the source of wisdom, as coming from education instead of experience. Therefore public schools are crucial, as is the guardians’ task to censor other educational sources, such as poetry, to protect students from vice. Children begin to study music and poetry, the sources of a balanced and harmonious education, at an early age and are socialized independently of any family influence.

The guardians are the “soulcrafts” and holders of wisdom having absolute power.(3) Thus politics is a technical issue-there is no political race or opposition, and public opinion is irrelevant. The guardians answer only to wisdom and live a pure communist life, one without private property and family.(4) Military power is not used for imperialistic and other common militaristic purposes, but only for self-defense. Production is based on satisfying the citizens’ necessities and avoiding any accumulation of capital or market competition.

Plato explains four deviant types of political regimes as following: honor-oriented timocracy, wealth-oriented oligarchy, freedom-oriented democracy, and personal-exploitation-oriented tyranny. These regimes differ from the ideal reason-based regime (aristocracy), because timocracy is based on spirit, oligarchy on appetite, and democracy on a mixture of these two. Plato explains cyclical transformations of these regimes in light of the changes in the value structure, thereby stressing the significance of values and ideas on political transformation.

Plato and Modern Thought

Plato and modern social theory analyze several common issues, such as the importance of the division of labor. He considers people social creatures who must live within a complex and interdependent social life. Although he accepts social class as a consequence of division of labor, he rejects class warfare and class-based economic disparity. His understanding of this division, with its vertical and disciplinary structure, also differs from liberal social relations in terms of agreement or social contract.(5) In addition, he insists upon gender equality, for one’s class membership depends only on merit, which, in turn, is based on one’s quality of soul and education. For example, as “a male and a female doctor have souls of the same nature,” they are equal.(6)

Plato made great contributions to political theory by describing, generalizing, and systematizing psychological and sociopolitical issues. The Republic’s main contribution to political science is its sui generis emphasis on the role of ideas, values, and ethics in politics. He attaches importance to ideas and an intelligence not restricted by custom, instead of material/historical structural factors.(7) He questions “what ought to be” in politics, and stresses such moral and ethical values as justice and virtue as being the main criteria of normative social theory. As Wolin points out: “No one has ever surpassed Plato in insisting upon the moral urgency and centrality of political vision.”(8)

These contributions are very relevant now, for “the primary problem today is the reconciliation of the classical aim of politics-to enable human beings to live good and just lives in a political community-with the modern demand of social thought, which is to achieve scientific knowledge of the workings of society.”(9)

Some Critical Remarks

Plato’s ideas become problematic when analyzing the relationship between theory and practice, as follows:

•Sociopolitical issues exist in a dynamic structure and always face change and transformation. Therefore, even if the guardians grasp the knowledge, the impact of change on time and space might render their knowledge obsolete.

•Sociopolitical problems cannot be solved by transcending them because ignoring certain facts does not change the outer reality. Plato, however, seeks continued peace and stability by ending competition in politics, economics, and other spheres of activity. Moreover, he seeks to create harmony through social homogenization. As political theory’s essential aim is to solve real-life problems, it must “create a common rule in a context of differences,” instead of destroying social diversity.(10)

• Power is necessary to translate knowledge into practice, and only a stronger source of power can emancipate people from the pressure of another source of power.(11) Plato offers no specific methods to solve this vicious circle and make power subservient to knowledge.

Another, problematic aspect of The Republic is its totalitarian political ideology, which is neither necessary nor convenient for realizing Plato’s ideal people and ideal city (based on justice and wisdom). In his book, Plato supports indoctrination and social engineering instead of social contract and consensus. Such a totalitarian system has many potential problems, among them the following:

• It destroys the private sphere (i.e., the family), uses censorship to prevent any space for individual freedom, and violates basic human rights. Moreover, as the Soviet Union proved, it destroys the citizens’ motivation, creativity, and efficiency.

• A system that classifies people in a three fixed groups (gold, silver, and bronze) denies multiple identities and also results in discrimination.

• Politics is too important to be left to guardians. As it affects human life, ordinary citizens must be able to intervene to politics and determine their own interests and goals.

• A guardianship regime makes it impossible for people to recover their rights from manipulative dictators. The only way out is revolution, which is made all the harder by the systemic brainwashing received in the public schools.

• It is hard to find rulers who accept authority not out of personal desire but out of fear that they could be “ruled by someone worse than oneself.”(12) In this regard, Plato’s philosopher-kings might be very dangerous, for “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”(13) While disciplinary education may be somewhat suitable in semi-voluntary stitutions (monastic orders) or in the parent-child relations for a short time, it may be disastrous if applied to a whole society for a long time.

On the other hand, Plato’s non-democratic arguments include some good points that are used in modern political systems. For example, modern democracies are generally representative, instead of Athens’ direct variety, which Plato believes leans toward the tyranny of majority. The modern judiciary system, including a constitutional court and judges, symbolizes the dominance of knowledge’s quality over the majority’s quantity. Moreover, the main basis of a democratic state’s bureaucracy-meritocracy-refers to officials selected on merit, which is similar to Plato’s ideas.

Conclusion

Plato could not find the medium system and so tended toward totalitarianism as a reaction to Athenian direct democracy. Such a reaction derives from his bipolar mental world-everything is either good or bad. In this regard, his ideas resemble Zoroastrianism or the Confucian concept of yin-yang.(14)

However, as Aristotle stresses, psycho-social phenomena may be categorized into three groups, two of which are bad (excess and deficiency) and one which is good (means). For example, reason’s excess is demagogy, its negligence is ignorance, and its means is wisdom. The spirit’s excess is rage, its negligence is cowardice, and its means is courage. The appetite’s excess is licentiousness, its negligence is frigidity, and its means is moderation.(15) In this regard, the excess and negligence of political systems are Plato’s totalitarianism and Athenian direct democracy, while the ideal system is located in the middle way.

Footnotes

1. Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists (Notre Dame: 1996), 87.
2. Plato, “The Republic,” in Classics of Moral and Political Theory, ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis: 1996), 41.
3. Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Boston: 1960), 36.
4. In his ideal society, family ties are provisional and trivial.
5. George Sabine, A History of Political Theory (New York:1965),49.
6. Plato, The Republic, 125.
7. Sabine, A History of Political Theory, 63.
8. Wolin, Politics and Vision, 35.
9. Richard J. Bernstein, The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory (Pennsylvania: 1976), xxii.
10. Wolin, Politics and Vision, 61.
11. Ibid., 67.
12. Plato, The Republic, 48.
13. Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven:1987), 76.
14. Mulford Q. Sibley, Political Ideas and Ideologies: A History of Political Thought (New York: 1970), 69.
15. Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics,” in Classics of Moral and Political Theory, ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis: 1996), 268-71.

But what happens when an ideological regime dedicated to negating existing realities to build utopia takes over? A small clique of Cambodian French-educated intellectuals provides the answer by a term coined specifically to describe it: auto-genocide. How else can a regime whose vision caused an estimated 800,000 to 2.3 million “unnatural” deaths among an estimated 5.7 million people within 3.5 years be described?(1)

Before and after April 17, 1975

Building Trust: Independent Cambodia was led by Prince Sihanouk (1941-70), whom the vast majority of Cambodians regarded as semi-divine: “In general the majority of the Khmer people, particulary the peasants, loved the Prince … From the law of Kamma [karma] and reincarnation, Khner commoners believed that those who were born as kings, princes and princesses were beings descended from heaven [because of the good deeds they had] performed in previous existences … Prince Sihanouk was thus looked upon as a ‘super being’ who controlled the fate of all.”(2)

Rejecting the traditional “splendid isolation” of the Cambodian monarchy, Sihanouk travelled the country, met and talked with all types of people, donated farm equipment and other helpful things, and sought to solve their problems. In short, the people trusted him because he took the trouble to show he cared about them.

When General Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk on March 18, 1970 (with presumed American help) and abolished the monarchy, many peasants sensed disaster ahead.(3) They were right. Lon Nol was corrupt, had little grasp of Cambodia’s military situation, and was mentally weakened by a stroke in 1971.(4) His military campaigns were disastrous, his dictatorial tendencies encouraged many to join the Khmer Rouge, and he gradually seemed to lose touch with reality. As a result, he rapidly lost whatever popular trust he had and was “asked” to leave Cambodia on April 1, 1975.

Upon assuming control on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge presented Angka Leou (the Organization) as their public face. Their names were announced on April 14, 1976, but their use of false names and lack of biographical information made exact identification impossible.(5) For 2 years, they did not mention that they were communists who envisaged a socialist future. Nor did they explain their new policies to the nation.(6) Their isolation from the people was complete.

Instead of building trust, the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy ever pillar of traditional society. The family structure was shattered by forced evacuations from cities and continual arbitrary population shifts, gender- and aged-based work brigades, and communal eating. Roles were reversed: children were encouraged to report on their parents, indoctrinated instead of educated, and literally given the power of life and death over adults. Religion was outlawed; temples, mosques, and churches were destroyed or converted into other uses; and monks, imams, and priests were murdered. No public manifestation of religion was allowed. In its Utopian zeal, the Khmer Rouge outlawed everything that made Cambodia what it was.

In return they gave illusion, terror, pain, and lies. An internal Khmer Rouge document states that: “There is a little friction with the people, but we can abandon the people, there is no problem.”(7) The Khmer Rouge was concerned only mobilizing its people through ideology and discipline to retake southern Vietnam and protect itself against Vietnam. Along with many other Utopians, the ends justified the means.

Rational Economic and Development Policies: The French colonialists kept the peasantry largely rural and subjected to high taxes and usurious interest rates of as much as 200%. Rubber, corn, and rice were the main products, and industry was minimal. Vietnamese were important in fishing, rubber workers, and clerical workers, fishermen, and small business. The Chinese continued to dominate commerce and banking.(8)

With independence, foreign aid projects were regarded as means of personal enrichment.(9) Sihanouk’s paternalistic doctrine of Royalist-Buddhist Socialism stated that the ruler would provide for the people. With the elite and others becoming richer and able to travel abroad, conspicuous consumption increased even though the nation’s economy could no longer expand, for there had not been enough time to construct the needed infrastructures.(10) The countryside remained largely the same, while the urban areas consumed and did not produce.

Under Lon Nol, agriculture was wiped out by relentless US bombing, peasant flight, forced induction into various armies, and the destruction of land and draft animals. Industry was ignored, and aid money was siphoned off into people’s pockets. When Phnom Penh finally fell in 1975, Cambodia had no economy, agricultural or industrial, to speak of.

The Khmer Rouge immediately emptied the cities.(11) This controversial policy forced everyone into the countryside where, divided into “old people” and “new people,” they were expected to revitalize agriculture. Ideology, instead of analysis or rational thought, determined who would do what. Production quotas were wildly unrealistic in many areas. Most of what was produced was confiscated or bartered for Chinese products and expertise. Payment was a subsistence diet, and not even that for anyone who failed to reach the quota.

After printing a new currency, the Khmer Rouge decided to scrap it and abolish money altogether, for whereas money created markets, wealth, and private property, abolishing it would solve these “problems.”(12) Trade with China, the Khmer Rouge’s only significant ally, was based on barter. But money never totally disappeared. Along with jewelry and gold, money was used in black market transactions, and Khmer Rouge cadres were not immune.(13)

In a land with no agricultural, industrial, or educational infrastructure to speak of, the Khmer Rouge dared to dream of achieving a “Super Great Leap Forward”: “We have leaped Over the semi-colonial, semi-feudal society of the American imperialists, the feudalists and capitalists of every nation, and have achieved a socialist state straight away.”(14) Chou En-lai, Chairman Mao’s right-hand man, urged them not to repeat China’s own Great Leap Forward, but they thought they knew better.

The Khmer Rouge stated that Cambodia as a whole would modernize its agriculture within 10 to 15 years, while other areas would do so in only 4 or 5 years.(15) Agriculture would make everything possible: “The basic key is agriculture. Self-reliance means capital from agriculture.”(16) Recognizing their limitations in industry, Party documents of 1976-77 stressed light industry that would move toward heavy industry. But how was this to be carried out? Cambodia had no money and China was changing: the chaos of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) had weakened China and Mao was dead (Sept. 9,1976). In addition the Gang of Four, a group of staunch Khmer Rouge patrons consisting of Mao’s wife and three of her allies, was under arrest (Oct. 6, 1976).

Control over the Nation’s Territory: On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge controlled all of Cambodia’s territory. But this was not good enough-Pol Pot dreamed of restoring the old Khmer Empire, which had ruled much of southern Vietnam and still had a large ethnically Khmer population (Khmer Rrom). By mixing this irredentist desire with Cambodians’ traditional fear of Vietnam, Pol Pot unleashed a conflict that only a Utopian divorced from reality could understand. During April 1977, the Khmer Rouge began attacking villages in Vietnam. On January 1, 1978, the Khmer Rouge publicly announced Vietnam’s “aggression,” and full-scale war erupted.

This war was launched for several reasons:

•They had defeated American alone and so were invincible. On July 22, 1975, Pol Pot stated:”We have won total, definitive, and clean victory, meaning that we have won it without any foreign connection or involvement.”(17) Such a deliberate ignoring of history led him to change the date of the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s founding 1951 (an outgrowth of Ho Chi Minh’s Indochina Communist Party) to 1960, when he became the party’s deputy secretary, and to begin purging Cambodian communists trained in Vietnam.

•Cambodia needed “only 2 million troops to crush the 50 million Vietnamese.”(18) This ignored the facts that Vietnam had militarily defeated both the French and Americans and had a battle-hardened army with decades of actual military experience and plenty of weaponry. Compared to them, the Khmer Rouge army was a murderous joke.

•The general population would support them, despite official policies of destroying everything held dear by them, execution as practically the only punishment, starvation, overwork, and a lack of military training and supplies.

This bellicosity led to Vietnam invading Cambodia on December 25, 1978, occupying it on January 7, 1979, and staying until September 1989.

An Educated Population: After decades of French colonial rule that had seen fit to keep Cambodians ignorant, Sihanouk embarked on a massive campaign to educate young Cambodians. However, apparently neither he nor the people understood that education should serve the nation. The students and their parents saw it as a means to acquire social status, an escape from village life, and a chance to make money. The liberal arts and a bureaucratic career were preferred over careers in agriculture, any technical field, or industry. Finally, the government and the educational sectors could no longer absorb the graduates. Neither could the economy, which was controlled by the Cambodian aristocracy and elite, and Chinese and Vietnamese merchants. Thus, the intellectuals were largely irrelevant to Cambodia’s development needs, unemployed, and frustrated.(19)

The Khmer Rouge did not trust intellectuals, regardless of how useful their expertise might be. There are many cases of Cambodian intellectuals returning from abroad only to be executed. Former teachers, professionals, and students soon learned to deny their past and merge into the broad uneducated masses.

In most areas, formal education was abolished in favor of learning by doing and ideological indoctrination. Khieu Samphan, Cambodia’s nominal head of state, displayed this attitude in 1977: “… whether the dams and reservoirs thai we have built last only 5 or 10 years does not matter,” for the people would learn by doing…; a year later he admitted that the state of pharmaceutical products was ‘still of handicraft quality’ in order that the country remain independent, sovereignty, self-reliant, and self-sufficient, and in order to learn technology through practice.”(20) Clearly, modern technical and other education was irrelevant-only ideological purity mattered.

Conclusion

The Khmer Rouge failed because they refused to understand Cambodia’s reality: a small nation devastated by war; a society consisting of a mainly poor, uneducated, and illiterate peasantry; a class of intellectuals whose education was largely irrelevant; and two neighbors with far better armies and historical territorial ambitions on Cambodia (Thailand and Vietnam).

They also failed to understand their own people. With their oft-repeated maxim of “If you die it is no loss; if you live it is no gain,” how could it be otherwise? The Khmer Rouge were notorious for their purges, which became ever more bloody as their Utopian dreams could not overcome reality. After replacing the old sociely with a new one based on terror, incompetence, an almost total lack of medical care, starvation, murder, and basically forcing its people to live in Hell before they died, the Khmer Rouge nevertheless expected popular support-because their ideology mandated it. But as the purges gathered steam, many Khmer Rouge began defecting to Vietnam to join nascent armed opposition groups being trained by Vietnam, and many ordinary Cambodians lost whatever revolutionary enthusiasm they might have had.(21)

And what was the end of Pol Pot, the mastermind behind this negative Utopia? Forced to rely for his very survival on America, France, and Thailand, he and his forces were confined to gradually smaller and smaller border areas. When he died in 1998, whether naturally or a suicide is not certain, be was “cremated under a pile of rubbish and rubber tires.”(22) His replacement was Ta Mok, a man whose name has become a synonym for brutality and violence. After arresting and trying his former leader, Ta Mok eulogized him as follows: “He (Pol Pot) is nothing more than cow dung. Actually, cow dung is more useful.”(23)

Footnotes  

1 The post-war population figure is based on the 1962 census, the last one before Cambodia was forced into the Vietnam war. Cambodia: A Country Study (United States Government: 1990), 51. In America, this would be the equivalent of approximately 38.7 million to 111.2 million deaths out of a total population of 275.6 million (July 2000 estimate).

2 Yang Sam, Khmer Buddhism and Politics from 1954 to 1984 (Khmer Studies Institutes 1987), 11.

3 Ibid., 49.

4 William Shawcross, Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia (Pocket Books, 1979), 186-87.

5 Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979 (Yale University Press: 1996), 327.

6 David Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and Revolution since 1945 (Yale University Press, 1991), 271-72.

7 Kiernan, Regime, 98.

8 Cambodia: A Country Study, 19-20.

9 Michael Vickery, Cambodia: 1975-1982 (South End Press 1984), 22.

10 Ibid., 23.

11 Many reasons for this have been given, such as fears of imminent American bombing, an inability to feed these people, the need for farmers to get back to growing crops, breaking up potential opposition, unearthing spies, or the rural people’s revenge upon the urbanites.

12 Kiernan, Regime, 55-57.

13 Vickery, Cambodia, 158.

14 David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, and Chanthou Boua (eds. and trans.), Pol Pot Plans the Future: Confidential Leadership Documents from Democratic Kampuchea, 1996-1997 (Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. 1988), 14, 36.

15 Ibid., 27. “Modern” was defined as high production, one hectare producing anywhere from 3 to 10 tons. Initially, there would be little modern fertilizer and no equipment. Before the war, Cambodia produced about 1 metric ton of rice per hectare (Hildebrand and Porter Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution, 62). Cambodia: A Country Study claims an average hectare yield of 1.2 tons from 1952-69. Regardless, Cambodia’s rice production figures were among the lowest in Asia.

16 Ibid., 30.

17 Kiernan, Regime, 94.

18 Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War (Collier Books: 1988), 298.

19 Ben Kiernan, How Pol Pot Came to Power (Verso: 1985), 1982.

20 Vickery, Cambodia: 1975-1982, 160.

21 Chandler, Tragedy, 236-37, 270-71.

22 Time 100 (23-30 Aug. 23-30, 1999). Online at www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html.

23 Don Pathan, The News-Times: International News (18 April 1998). Online at: www.newstimes.com/archive98/apr1998/inb.htm.

The other man takes the left fork for the sake of freedom. He appears outwardly comfortable, but feels no inner tranquillity. Reaching a desert, he hears the terrible sound of a beast getting ready to attack her. Running away, he sees a dry well 60 meters deep and jumps into it. Halfway down, he grabs a tree growing out of the wall. The tree has two roots, both of which are being gnawed away by two rats, one white and the other black. Looking up, he sees the beast waiting for him. Looking down, he sees a horrible dragon almost at his feet, its large mouth open to receive him. Looking at the wall, he notices that it is covered with laboring insects. Looking again at the tree, he sees that many types of fruits are growing on it, although it is only a fig tree.

He does not understand what has happened. He cannot imagine that somebody has caused all of this, for he cannot reason. Although inwardly distressed, and despite his spirit’s and heart’s complaints, his evil-commanding self pretends everything is fine and so ignores their weeping. Pretending to enjoy himself in a garden, he starts eating the fruits-for free. But some are poisonous and will harm him.

In a hadith qudsi, God says: “I will treat My servants in the way they think of Me.”¹ This man sees everything happening to him as unimportant, and thus that is the way it is for him. He neither dies nor lives well, but merely persists in an agony of suspense.

The wiser and well-disciplined brother thinks of the good, affirms the law, and feels secure and free. Finding beautiful flowers and fruits or ruined and ugly things in a garden, he focuses on what is good and beautiful. His brother cannot, for he concerns himself with evil and finds no ease in such a garden. The wise brother lives according to: “Look on the good side of everything,” and thus is generally happy with everything.

He also reaches a desert and encounters a beast, but is not so afraid because he thinks that it must be serving someone. He also jumps down a well and, halfway down, catches hold of some branches. Noticing two rats gnawing at the tree’s two roots, as well as the dragon below and the beast above, he finds himself in a strange situation. But unlike his brother, he infers that someone has arranged everything as a sign. Thinking that he is being watched and tested, he understands that he is being directed and guided as a test and for a purpose. His curiosity aroused, he asks: “Who wants to make me know him?” Meanwhile, he remains patient and self-disciplined. This curiosity arouses his love for the sign’s owner, which makes him want to understand the sign and the events, and to acquire good qualities to please its owner.

He realizes that the tree is a fig tree, although it bears many kinds of fruit. He is no longer afraid, for he realizes that it is a sample catalogue of the unseen owner’s fruits prepared for guests. Otherwise, one tree would not bear so many different fruits. He starts to pray earnestly and, as a result, the key to the secret is inspired in him. He declares: “O owner of this scene and events, I am in your hands. I take refuge in you and am at your service. I desire your approval and knowledge of you.” The wall opens, revealing a door (the dragon’s mouth) opening onto a wonderful, pleasant garden. Both the dragon and the beast become two servants inviting him to enter. The beast changes into a horse upon which he rides.

So, my lazy soul and imaginary friend, see how good brings good and evil brings evil. The brother who followed self-trust and self-willed freedom is about to fall into the dragon’s mouth. Anxious and lonely, considering himself a prisoner facing wild beasts, he increases his distress by eating apparently delicious but actually poisonous sample fruits. Their

function is to draw people toward the originals, not to be eaten for their own sake. He changes his day into darkness. Wronging himself by changing his situation into a hell-like one, he does not deserve pity and has no right to complain.

In contrast, the other brother is in a fruitful garden and surrounded by servants. He studies each different and beautiful incident in awe, and sees himself as an honored guest enjoying his generous host’s strange and beautiful servants. He only samples the fig tree’s fruits and, understanding reality, postpones his pleasure and enjoys the anticipation.

The first brother is like one who denies his favored situation in a summer garden with friends, and instead, becoming drunk, imagines himself among wild beasts in winter and complains thereof. Wronging himself and insulting his friends, he deserves no mercy. The other brother, who accepts trustingly what is given and observes the law, sees and accepts reality, which for him is beautiful. Respecting the owner of reality, he deserves mercy. Thus can we attain a partial understanding of: Whatever good befalls you is from God, and whatever ill befalls you is from yourself'(4:79). Upon reflection, we see that one’s inner self prepared a hell-like situation for him, corresponding to his own attitude of reality, whereas the other’s potential goodness, positive intention, and good nature led him to a very favored and happy situation. Now, I say to my own inner self as well as to the reader’s: If you desire success, follow the Qur’an’s guidance.

The Gist of the Allegory

One brother is a believer; the other is an unbeliever. The right road is that of the Qur’an and faith; the left road is that of unbelief and rebellion. The garden is human society and civilization, which contain both good and evil, cleanliness and pollution. A sensible person “takes what is clear and pleasant, leaves what is turbid and distressing, and proceeds with a tranquil heart.” The desert is the Earth, the beast is death, the well is our life, and 60 meters is our average lifespan of 60 years. The tree in the well is life, and the two rats gnawing on its roots are day and night. The dragon is the grave’s opening. For a believer, it is a door opening onto the Garden. The insects are the troubles we face, gentle warnings from God not to become heedless. The fruits are this world’s bounties presented as samples from the Hereafter’s blessings, inviting customers toward Paradise’s fruits.² The sign shows the secret will of God in creating. It is opened with faith, and its key is: “O God, there is no god but God; God, there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent.” For one brother, the dragon’s mouth (the grave) changes into a door to the Garden (Paradise). For the other, as for all unbelievers, the grave is the door to a place of trouble (Hell). The beast changes into an obedient servant, a disciplined and trained horse. In other words, for unbelievers death is a painful detachment from loved ones, an imprisonment after leaving the Paradise-like Earth. For believers, it means reunion with dead friends and companions. It is like going to their eternal home of happiness, a formal invitation to pass into the eternal gardens, an occasion to receive the wage bestowed by the Most Compassionate and Merciful One’s generosity for services rendered to Him, and a retirement from life’s burdens. In conclusion, those who pursue this transient life place themselves in Hell, even though they stay in what appears—to them—as a paradise on Earth. Those who seek the eternal life find peace and happiness in both worlds. Despite all troubles, they thank God and patiently conclude that all of this is merely a waiting room opening onto Heaven.

Adapted from Bediuzzaman’s Eighth Word.

Footnotes

1. Hadith Qudsi: This is a specific category of sayings from the Prophet. The wording is the Prophet’s, but the meaning belongs to God.
2. The tree with various fruits shows the seal of Divinity, Whose unique virtue is “to create everything out of one thing” and “to change everything into one thing”; to make various plants and fruits from the same soil; to create all living things from one drop of water; and to nourish and sustain all living things in the same manner but through different foods.

always regard

whatever pleases and

displeases yourself as the measure.

Wish that others

may receive those things

that are most pleasing to you,

and do not forget that

whatever conduct displeases you

will displease others.

If you do this,

you will be safe

not only from misconduct

and bad behavior,

but also from hurting others.