Cards
A while back while attending a history course that examined the rise and fall of western civilizations, I remember entertaining the thoughts of kings and queens wielding unimaginable influence and power. Daydreaming, I wondered how a chosen few have always seemed to direct and organize masses of individuals. Just then I was snapped back into the present. The professor, who was in the thick of his lesson, said something very thought provoking. He said Aristotle examined civilization and determined that there were six components every civilization must possess to function and grow successfully. They are as follows:
1. A court to determine civil and criminal cases
2. Revenue
3. Religious or spiritual services
4. Arms
5. Art and
6. A surplus of food
I reflected with a degree of cynicism, “perhaps in Aristotle‘s time,” but could all the American citizens from Long Island to Long Beach simply fit into six forms of societal functionality? I started to challenge this notion, finding modern translations to these components. The best way to classify them was with a deck of cards. They are as follows:
1. A court to determine civil and criminal cases (Aces)
2. Revenue (Kings)
3. Religious or spiritual services (Queens)
4. Arms (Jacks)
5. Art (The Deck of cards as a creative tool)
6. A surplus of food (‐‐anything inspiring thought one may come away with)
Additionally, in my understanding, societies have always maintained a class or caste system, for this exercise know that within each class, under a specific component, a different function is assumed, consequently with greater or less responsibility towards society. The breakdown is as follows:
•Spades (Upper class)
•Diamonds (Upper‐middle class)
•Clubs (Lower‐middle class)
•Hearts (Lower class)
Lastly, I challenge all who enjoy this exercise to make parallels between one component and another (e.g. Does a lower middle class arms person assume lower‐middle class religious services?) I have taken great care in constructing this deck of cards, I hope it challenges and inspires you.
Aces
The Aces are the arbiters of justice; they provide greater insight in their interpretations between right and wrong conduct. In this exercise, judges are not only persons, but also forces both natural and synthesized.
Time
Time is the greatest incorruptible judge; time breaks down today’s perplexities, burns away that dross in our minds, and purifies our inner mechanisms like fire. In time we see well-shaped truths. *sold*
The Magistrate
To name a few widely known examples: Thurgood Marshal, Earl Warren, Roy Moore, Judy, and Mills Lane… um yea, even Mills Lane.
The Media
Magazines, advertisements, television shows, and movies provide us with status symbols, as well as paradigms of failure and success. We are incessantly posed with certain questions as we observe figures from our popular culture. Those questions are “who are you?” and “how do you measure yourself?”
Conscience
Even if we find ourselves status gratis, no marketing ploys confronting us to measure up or take a stance on a given issue/cause. Intrinsically, there is writhing movement, it tugs at our senses, tells us the way to live out that given issue/cause, like an internal compass.
Kings
The kings represent a source of revenue or wealth in society. A king’s function, aside from governance, has been primarily to SEEK wealth and allocate it to his subjects.
Valuation
Adam was the first of his kind to become critically aware of himself, his intellect, and ways to use them both for base and noble means. This card depicts valuation of resources. In this particular instance, resource is knowledge.
Investors
The king attempts to share his wealth, not just by trading resources, not only through wages for specialists under his employ, but also in equity. In order to buffer the risk of loss, and determine the power of his operations, the king will need lifeblood to fuel his operations, precious currency from various sources will intrinsically determine operational livelihood.
Incorporation
After a resource has value placed on it, the king will have offices and operations centered on exploiting the newfound resource. The chosen specialists for this task are like worker bees that oversee the resource’s packaging, and trade for the greatest potential gain.
Corporate/Cultural Identity
The king, now pleased with the product, and its operations, finally takes to crafting the identity of his organization. The sheep in wolves’ clothing wolf in sheep’s clothing signifies that ideas are what bind individuals. The ideas are personified as art and culture, and the corporate equivalent of this is branding. *sold*
Queens
Even though there remains disputes as to who or what we should worship and when, no doubt, worship and sacrifice are always due to whomever one chooses. In this exercise, the queens are a list of ubiquitous services found in most systems of beliefs.
Charity/Philanthropy
When an individual is truly wealthy, she or he can make a career at giving to worthy causes.
Chastity
A certain amount of discipline or restraint is necessary to ensure successes are made.
Martyrdom
On one side depicts a skeleton, rose clad, with holes in it’s palms like Jesus the Christ. On the other side, a grenade vested suicide bomber has also laid down it’s life for it believed in.
Prayer/Meditation
Reflection and repentance, the process of self-development starts from within. Aligning oneself with higher goals, greater goods and deeper purposes can prevent that individual from being swept away in daily turmoil.
Jacks
Jacks are the executive branches—enforcing laws, upholding the status quo and molding the zeitgeist.
Scholars
It is said the pen is stronger than the knife; this is because with literature subjects can be destroyed, defended or created. Weaponry has limited functionality—defense or destruction of a target. Most importantly, in literature subjects can be idealized and immortalized.
Lawyers
About the image, a clean-cut man sways Justice from her objectivity by pulling the blindfold off her eyes. At a corporate level, lawyers are an essential line of defense.
Soldiers/Revolutionaries
Whereas soldiers have constitutions and “isms” that they defend with there lives, revolutionaries have manifestos. What I find amusing--yesterday’s radical is today’s federalist; the prevalence in society of one’s views is the major difference.
Gangs
Stanley “Tookie “ Williams, founder of the Crips street gang once said “ The purpose for creating the gang initially was to eliminate all street gangs…and create a neighborhood watch…I thought I can cleanse the neighborhood of all these, you know, marauding gangs.” Ironically, they became the evil they were trying to exorcise. Gangs are fledgling law enforcement agencies, except they lack federal policy and organization that upper echelon defense groups enjoy.
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