Monument to Misanthropy, by JD

In June 1979, a man using the pseudonym R. C. Christian approached the Elberton Granite Finishing Company on behalf of "a small group of loyal Americans", and commissioned the structure now known as the Georgia Guidestones. Christian explained that the stones would function as a compass, calendar, and clock, and should be capable of "withstanding catastrophic events."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/georgia-guidestones

The Georgia Guidestones were unveiled to a crowd of 400 people on March 22, 1980. The main structure is composed of four massive granite monoliths, each weighing around 20 tons, and a 9-ton central pillar, all of which support the square 11-ton ‘capstone’. The completed monument stands some 19 feet high. 

Perhaps taking a lesson from the discovery of the Rosetta Stone (an inscription in multiple languages which facilitated the decoding of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs), the four Pyramid-Blue granite side-slabs are etched with 4000 individual characters, which present the ‘guide’ in eight different languages. In addition the capstone has the words “Let These Be Guidestones to an Age of Reason” inscribed upon it in four ancient scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Babylonian cuneiform, Classical Greek, and Sanskrit.

The public face of the monument's designers and builders later identified himself as - Robert C Christian (still the same pseudonym) and had this to say -

"Stonehenge and other vestiges of human thought arouse our curiosity but carry no message for our guidance. To convey our ideas across time to other human beings we want to erect a monument. A cluster of graven stones…which will silently display our ideas when we have gone. We hope they will merit increasing acceptance and that through their silent persistence they will hasten in a small degree the coming Age of Reason."

First thing to say is they do not look very impressive. The stone monuments of the past were more enigmatic, more awe inspiring, more elegant and artistic. This one is unimpressive, there is nothing significant about the geometry or the design or the dimensions.

Nor is the orientation a difficult thing to achieve. If it is trying to impress with its alignment then the sundial at Samrat Yantra Jaipur is more elegant and better in every way.
http://users.hartwick.edu/hartleyc/jantar.htm

https://www.worldtimezone.com/travel/travel-india-jaipur08.html

So why did they build these Guidestones? It appears to rely on words for its message, something none of the world's other stone monuments ever relied on. It is nothing more than speculation that the Giza Pyramids were once covered in hieroglyphic inscriptions. Indeed, the smallest of the three still carries a lot of the original granite casing and, from what I could see when I visited, there was just one single 'I built this' cartouche on the otherwise smooth unblemished face.

Only The Pharisees of Verbal Orthodoxy, to use Aldous Huxley's memorable phrase, would imagine that words are the best or only way to transmit wisdom and knowledge.

Reading the banal 'message' it strikes me there is too much emphasis on 'reason' as the basis for their proposed brave new world to come. That makes me suspicious....didn't the world try that once before? With rather dubious results.

I regard them as a Monument to Misanthropy and not, as they claim, "....guidestones to an Age of Reason." I have already had my say on 'the age of reason' and that is still valid because, as history has shown, the ideal of reason does not necessarily produce reasonable behaviour. https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-cream-of-reason-revisited-by-jd.html

There are ten 'commandments' inscribed on the stones and these appear to be an inspiration to the current 'save the planet' movement which is the latest fashion among our political leaders.

The first inscription reads - "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." There is an unfounded assumption here that there are too many people in the world. Is that true? Many famous names have expressed that opinion, among them Bill Gates, Sir David Attenborough, Boris Johnson (in a Daily Telegraph article in 2007) as well as the PM's father, Stanley Johnson. The fact that Boris has seven children (or is it eight) and his father has six makes me question the sincerity of their belief.

If they ever bothered to look out of the aeroplane window while they are travelling they would see a lot of greenery and a lot of empty spaces in the world. Too many people? A doubtful assumption.

Another of the 'instructions' to humanity is to "Unite humanity with a living new language." I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean but wasn't there a failed attempt to invent a new language called Esperanto a few decades ago? How did that work out?

I find the tenth 'commandment' to be more sinister: "Be not a cancer on the Earth—Leave room for nature—Leave room for nature." Did the designers of the Guidestones really believe that humanity is a 'cancer'? Cancer is abnormal cell growth in the body. Is that an intelligent description of humanity? And 'leave room for nature' inscribed twice? In case they hadn't noticed, 'nature' already occupies 100% of the planet; we are, after all, part of nature i.e. a naturally indigenous species belonging to this planet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions

A few years ago I saw Jay Lakhani on TV giving a lecture. What he was telling his audience was that the natural world wants to kill us. Mankind is vulnerable and basically defenceless against 'nature' - everything from the sabre toothed tiger to the eruption of mount Vesuvius and a multitude of perils in between. Lakhani was a theoretical physicist and, among other things, was a tutor at Eton.
http://www.hinducounciluk.org/2020/12/07/tribute-to-a-great-hindu-leader-speaker-and-visionary-shri-jay-prakash-lakhani/

According to Genesis 1:26 mankind has 'dominion' over all living things as well as over the earth. We are obliged to adapt the earth to ensure survival and to feed ourselves and over the centuries we have been very good at it. But in making life comfortable we have perhaps made it too comfortable and produced the current breed of 'woke' wimps, frightened of their own shadows but, more importantly, with no faith in our ability to adapt to the changing climate, if indeed it is changing as dramatically as they think it is.

And why is the modern world now inhabited by a multitude of weak-minded woke wimps or more specifically the no longer Christian west? Two relevant quotes I have used before:

From Ernst Shumacher in his book "A Guide For The Perplexed":

'the modern experiment to live without religion has failed'

....and Ian MacDonald in his book "Revolution in the Head" wrote ':

'once the obsolete Christian compact had broken down, there was nothing - 

apart from, in the last resort, money - holding Western civilisation together.'

It is not just the decline of religious faith which has produced this weak generation, there is also the lack of faith in humanity's ability to adapt as mentioned above. Practical skills have more or less disappeared in the West such that we have probably two or possibly three generations who have never done any real work so would not know where to start in the politically inspired drive to Build Back Better: a risible slogan if ever I saw one!

And do not assume that this weakness in western civilisation has not been noticed elsewhere.

This quote is attributed to the founder of Dubai, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum; he was asked about the future of his country, and he replied:

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going to ride a Land Rover…but my great-grandson is going to have to ride a camel again."

“Why is that?", he was asked.

And his reply was: “Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times.Easy times create weak men, weak men create difficult times.Many will not understand it, but you have to raise warriors, not parasites."

And add to that the historical reality that all great empires...the Persians, the Trojans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and in later years, the British rose and perished within 240 years.They were not conquered by external enemies; they rotted from within.

The greatest generation consisted of 18 year old kids storming the beaches at Normandy. And now, two generations later, some 18 year old kids want to hide in safe rooms when they hear words that hurt their feelings.

They also want free stuff from the government because they think they are entitled to it.

The "camels are on the horizon"for sure.

Our society has indeed rotted from within and if the 'woke' continue to whine "I want the world and I want it now!" they are in for a very rude shock when they realise they will own nothing and they will not be happy!

I leave the final words to the late George Carlin because he was much more eloquent than I will ever be:

"The planet is fine! Compared to the people, THE PLANET IS DOING GREAT: Been here four and a half billion years! Do you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years, we’ve been here what? 100,000? Maybe 200,000? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus four and a half billion and we have the conceit to think that somehow, we’re a threat? That somehow, we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us: been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drifts, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference?"
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/comedy/george-carlin-saving-planet-transcript/



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A few further musings...

- A brief history of the Georgia Guidestones was published in September of 2009 here: http://dailygrail.com/features/georgia-guidestones-and-the-apocalypse

-There is no such thing as 'anthropogenic global warming' and if there were such a thing, it would be good. Svante Aarhenius who 'invented' the concept certainly thought so! (I referred to it here - https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2019/09/climate-crisis-by-jd.html)

- The 'greens' often complain about the mess mankind has made but they forget, if they ever knew, that we created the so-called mess using 'stuff' which came out of the earth. Eventually all of that 'stuff' will be assimilated back into the Earth and will become once again invisible.