Reliable sources report up to 80 percent of our prison and jail population have a diagnosable psychiatric illness and should be treated rather than imprisoned. We have over 2.5 million people in prison-more than any other developed nation. In America, we have a population of 300 million or about 4.5 to 5.0 percent of the world's roughly six billion, yet we consume over 25 percent of the world's energy. Yet we have constant war, constant destruction, and constant killing. Saadi Shirazi, an eloquent Persian poet (1210–1290), wrote a poem with the rough translation is “Bani Adam, the progenies of Adam.” The poem says, “We humans are organs of one body…An organ separated from body cannot function…So, we humans without one another cannot function…” He goes on to say, “If one organ of the body is ill and aches, the rest of the body experiences pain and becomes restless…” I do not know of a more eloquent and descriptive simile that illustrates a human being's connectedness and brotherhood with other humans. So, where are we? Why are we not rising to the superior orders in advancing the cause of humanity, human dignity, and enhancing connectedness in human family? It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.”
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In this essay, Pico della Mirandola invokes the writings and thoughts of all ancient wise men, going back to Moses, Zoroaster, Zerubbabel, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Platonic philosophers, and well-known neoplatonic philosophers, such as Plotinus, to conclude: “At last, the Supreme Maker spoke: we have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It has been called the “Manifesto of the Renaissance,” and a key text of Renaissance humanism. The result was the famous Oration on the Dignity of Man. In 1486, Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), the Italian Renaissance philosopher, at the age of 23, in his equivalent to today's PhD dissertation, proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural history, and astronomy, against all comers. Is this progress in civility, humanity, and human dignity? In 2010, in the same country, now known as Iran, they are stoning women for as insignificant of an offense as showing their hair or ankles or holding hands with a man in public. After all, the gentleman was a lady's man-no wonder he had special regard for Mithra. The father of the United States Postal Service (USPS), the polymath Benjamin Franklin, has referred to Mithra in official language as well as in amorous terms. Her name was Mithra, which in Zoroastrian parlance means dignity. The first person in charge of the Royal mail service was a woman. This marked the birth of the postal service, which he called “Peyk.” The cabinet of Cyrus the Great consisted of 12 Viziers (ministers or secretaries) several of whom were women. In managing his vast empire, to be in touch with his emissaries (rulers in distant parts of the kingdom), he developed a formal service charged with sending and receiving communiqués to and from his lieutenants. A passage in Isaiah 45 calls Cyrus the Great, “King of Persia, the Messiah.” Cyrus emancipated the Jews and established equal rights for men and women. Over 2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great, the Persian Emperor, to whom the Bible has more than 100 references, ruled his kingdom with dignity and beneficence.
More than 50 of the 282 codes deal with equality of humans, and specifically, with the dignity and rights of women. In 1770 BC, Hammurabi in Khuzestan, a part of Susa, Persian Empire, wrote a set of 282 rules, or laws, each dealing with the rights of the individual and the ultimate respect for one another. The imperative of love and charity seems to be missing from the basic construct of human interaction. One wonders if we have succeeded in overcoming greed, if we have learned to stop manipulating, exploiting, and using our fellow humans for selfish gain. But one wonders if we have made any progress in civility and humanity. After all, we put men on the moon with their safe return to earth more than 40 years ago. Looking over the annals of human history, it is undeniable that we have made progress in industry, mechanization, and discoveries, and have made stunning advancement in health, technology, and finance.
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