I, Vincent Frank De Benedetto, political philosopher, and citizen of said world, assess and rate the state of the world in 2024 as:

POOR

GRADE:   C-

While we're not clubbing each other over the head anymore in greedy pursuit of the tobacco, oxen, or the wife of another--we're still not that far removed from such behavior, either; we still live in a world where billions spend most of their lives slaving for the benefit of another, in a socio-economic arrangement antiseptically called capitalism; where million-dollar marketing machines remain in high gear to persuade billions to buy this or that consumer item, including health products and even food, whether such items are healthy or needed, or not, in further pursuit of profit or ego. In fact, such commercial coercion must occur as long as capitalism is our chosen economic system, for without constant sales capitalism comes to a grinding halt--think 1929 global depression.

Additionally, we're still too stupid to categorically avoid violence, either small-scale or large-scale called "war," as a means of resolving difficulty or obtaining desired or required products or services or other outcomes, the acquisition of all of which includes the serving of a healthy helping of ego (think Vladimir Putin waging war against Ukraine to fulfill his objective of a rebuilt or at least enhanced Russia); as we remain too stupid both to prevent, and to cogently redress, large-scale calamity such as this or that war, or the pandemics of 1918 and 2020, while at any given time millions anesthetize themselves, as well as squander the remaining moments of their lives through diversion or "entertainment" such as television or overeating, especially as containing the ubiquitous, legal, and highly-addictive numbing agent called "sugar," or through use of narcotics both legal and illegal, with even the former subject to the broad view that they are of dubious value, while the latter though nothing but pernicious, counterproductive, and destructive of person and nation, find increasing sympathy for broad legalization, worldwide. All, for relief from the pain of simply living, for the masses, and for the relatively few owners, especially those of large-scale, to generate, increase, and maximize their profit.

Moreover, let us not forget the decreasingly broad and increasingly specific global environmental phenomenon called climate change, that is, at once, scorching the earth and boiling the seas, wreaking every manner of havoc on an already beleaguered human race. And in the face of all of this, instead of working overtime to burnish and indeed radically enhance the power of the human mind to shrewdly buttress and fortify our chances of somehow squeaking past all these problems, we're in the process of a full-on and full-time commitment to the opposite:

1. Compromising through the legalization of drugs the capacity and ability of the human brain to function optimally, so we might, just might THINK our way out of these problems.

2. Compromising precisely the same thing through a slowly but apparently inexorably increasing reliance on non-human brains, referred to benignly as "artificial intelligence," to think for us, rendering our own already mediocre ability to really think almost summarily compromised.

While traditionally, societies are also held together through organized systems of fantastical improbability called religions, global society lacks any genuine and real moral code or code of profession, such, for example, as found in Agape, which is "Brotherly Love" in the language of Greek philosophy. Lacking any real coherent, cohesive moral code, especially the Love Ethic, human beings in 2021, instead of Love toward each other based on our common humanity, remain at each other's throats individually and collectively, the character of the conflict occurring, and understood, variously both by kind, and degree. Said trend in a vicious cycle is at once fueled and reinoforced by the occasional national or world leader of substandard intellect and/or morality whose presence and influence tends to galvanize large swaths of varying populations unwilling or unable to see through said retrograde behavior and influence. In the latter day think Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

All of which is, of course, why a heinous crime such as occurred against George Floyd on May 25, 2020, or the George Floyd of 1998, James Byrd, Jr., can, does, and will continue to happen. I will never forget brother Byrd and if you're unfamiliar with his life, acquaint yourself with it, at least once. Warning: it's not a pretty picture. After learning of his fate you will be upset, even dispirited--as you and indeed we must all be until we bring the categorical power of love to bear to right this sinking ship of humanity.

The polar opposite of this substandard socio-existential tableau is Actualization, whereby society elevates itself to actually meet the zenith, or highest state or condition, including moral condition, of which it is capable. This elevation is the objective of my prose, poetry [site pending], music [site pending], radio [site pending], and other work.

Please contact me to join, or otherwise support, my project and my work, and make it your own.

Brothers and sisters: we will never pass this way, again.

NOTE: some of the above sites were live but for various reasons no longer are. Support for my work, especially financial, will make it easier for me to go live again with those sites and thus resurrect that important work. Ultimately, however, it is this writing, yet live here online (and similar writing though few in number), that remains the final philosophical and practical document for the permanent and genuine liberation of humankind.