Anti-Microbial Soap and America's War on Terror

There is much debate about what "spiritualism" is, particularly in relation to natural law. It is an important question because if you deny the existence of spiritual components of natural law, then you are pretty much free to believe in Machiavellianism: that the ends justify the means. If, on the other hand, you believe that, as Dr. King put it, "the long arc of history bends towards justice“, then you are apt to adopt a perspective that holds that the means and ends must be in harmony.

Natural law is the stuff that inquisitive minds have been seeking to discern forever. Whether speaking of deep meditation or the highest technological innovation, observation is the means by which we have sought to discover the laws of nature. Much modern focus on natural law takes place in the sciences, where manipulation of said laws are applied to serve "modern convenience” and "progress", as the mantras go. Much of this is true, but not without consequences that we might often call side-effects, runoff, or particulate matter.

Many scientific laws appear to confirm spiritual principles which, we'll say for purposes of this discussion, are principles that are meant to guide human behavior in light of the presence of a free will. Even narrower, let us say that a spiritual person adheres to the belief that ends and means are not separate, which is to say that the spiritual person recognizes being bound by the arcing consequences of that which arises from having a free will. The rational-materialists, the Machiavellianists whose imaginations have been strangled by Faustian illogic, believe that spiritualism and the laws of nature are unrelated. Furthermore, they would charge that any rendering of natural law beyond the generally accepted principles of science (however derived, for this in itself is nub of how we get at and accept truth) is a delusional construct. In most cases, the rational-materialist is not interested in observing and often bent on disclaiming the mechanisms of spiritual law. Biomedicine and its battle with bacteria, however, demonstrates the simplicity of natural law.

Antibiotics, heralded as the greatest invention of modern medicine, are facing a crisis. Their efficacy is waning, as germs have developed a resistance or evolved into "super strains”, due mostly to profligate use through standard medical practices. Darwin's observations on natural selection indicate that in the face of an inability to completely eliminate any given population, the likelihood of subsequent generations carrying immunity, resistance, and/or mutation increases. Such "uberfication" can also be found among rats, cockroaches and otherwise "targeted" vermin. Why the CDC or FDA didn't greet "antibacterial" fetishism in the form of soaps, detergents, air fresheners and hand purifiers with immediate alarm not only makes one question their underlying profit motives but also their ability to apply the very principles they ostensibly extol. Was there something particularly bacterial about the soap we've been using? Could applied science actually be implicated in causing the evolution of the very bacterial strains that petrify us?

We all know that one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to kill. We also know that among the Abrahamic traditions adherence to this principle varies. Few in our tradition are willing to go as far as the Jains, but could it be that the proscription on killing has a basis in natural law? Within Darwin's "discovery" appears to be a latent spiritual answer, one that can be gleaned from our losing battle with bacteria. Jesus says something about "reaping what you sow" and Newton something about "every action producing an equal and opposite reaction”. Hmm. Could this mean that killing bacteria leads to being killed by bacteria? The answer is before us. Yet the foolish pursuit for "better, more powerful" antibiotics continues unabated. Consider, however, how absurd it would be to hear a public official say "we should live in harmony with germs”. On the other hand, how successful do you think we'll be in eliminating germs that are as basic to life as life itself?

And so we come to America's brazen denial of natural law through its germ theory approach to "terror”, exerting pressures upon populations that are expressing equal and opposite reactions. But we're the cannibalists, the Machiavellians, who somehow believe that consumption of so much flesh will not result in inflammatory conditions like heart disease and hardening of the arteries. Some argue that the populations upon which we administer such "antibiotical" agents as depleted uranium, phosphorus, and bunker busters must be "cleansed" in order to prevent spreading the infection. But antibiotics kill indiscriminately, creating a toxic vacuum in which only more virulent populations survive.

The natural answer is to devise methods that are in harmony with the outcomes we seek to enjoy. Obama's speech in Cairo was one of the best speeches I've ever heard. The search for common ground through spiritual principles like "do on to others" is a profound departure from the previous administration, but remember Bush the first promised us "a kinder, gentler America" before invading Iraq. In the meantime, germ theory proceeds afoot under Obama: our military expenditures increased by 4%; no withdrawal from Iraq is in the foreseeable future; extra troops for Afghanistan; one million displaced Pakistanis... all in three months. The costs from the effects of the patent inhumanity of war for soldiers, their families, and national resources are huge. The festering consequences of believing in the fallacious (N)PR of germ theory are all about us, and still we ignorantly look for new and improved ways for only deepening our karmic bonds. What would Darwin do?