We believe that love and knowledge are the twin and intertwined strands of Life, our most precious possession;
that we should mobilize all the forces of creation against all the forces of death;
that voluntary co-operation one choice at a time, rather than competition, is the path for the advance of humanity;
that we should preserve the physical resources of our planet as a heritage for those to follow;
that, in consequence, we should avoid the pollution or destruction of our water, our air, and our own bodies;
from which follows that we shall eat only fresh, natural, pure and wholesome food [spiritual and temporal] free of chemicals and artificial processing, and shall live a simple, natural and creative life-style, absorbing all that we can from the sources of love and knowledge in and around us;
that we shall endeavour to be in harmony with all life;
we specifically agree that we shall live in each other’s thoughts, and freely grant the use of our thoughts from each to all, from all to each;
we believe the advance of humanity begins with each of our individual efforts, each being one necessary part of a whole body;
we believe that whatever is physically possible and morally right can be made financially possible;
we believe in the Fatherhood of God, the Motherhood of Nature, and the Brotherhood of Man
The phrase: “whatever is physically possible and
ReplyDeletemorally right can be made financially possible” in the Kangaroo Pledge is a specific reference to Social Credit. All of the Kangaroo Poets are, to varying degrees, libertarian-objectivists, but they depart from the main-stream of that thought on several ‘social’ issues. We are in possession of some things to which we cannot claim exclusive ownership. An example is language. Although the individual’s style of use of a language is that individual’s intellectual property, he cannot claim to own the language itself – he is a share-owner of the language; he is one individual in the set of all those individuals who use the language. Without such share-ownership, the language has no utility – its purpose is communication, and this requires co-operation and agreement on the meaning of words. Each user of the language covenants or contracts with all other users in agreement on the basic denotations of the language; but connotations may vary from individual to individual. The language is owned ‘in convention’ by its heirs and users. Social Credit is in full agreement with the libertarian-objectivist concept of selfishness, and is equally opposed to any form of imposition of personality, particularly any creed, doctrine or morality-imposed impetus towards altruism, but Social Credit does differ philosophically, religiously and practically on those ideas and things which are held ‘in convention’ by groups. Man is a trader; he cannot exist in isolation as an individual; he must have some intercourse with other human beings; he must be a member of some groups. Social Credit does believe that each individual must be free to consciously choose his groups, one choice at a time, including those groups which are initially chosen for him, without his conscious consent, by the circumstances of his birth and environment. [In so far as C.H. Douglas is correct in defining Social Credit as ‘the policy of Christianity’, the practice of Confirmation (of the objectives of Baptism) when a child reaches the age of cognition, demonstrates a subsequent freely-made consent to a choice initially made without his consciousness or consent. If he rejects Confirmation, he rejects the original choice made by others.] A large part of Social Credit thought deals with seeking the means to facilitate such choices, to prevent and to rid oneself of all choices and covenants made by others on our behalf – because each of us must seek our own salvation, or pursuit of happiness, (whatever we may define that to be) without accepting any thought or any thing which comes from others, unless we have accepted it by our own free will in a conscious fair-trade relationship with its source.