I agree that the problem of war could be solved, but I don't see any prospect of this based on history.Originally Posted by JonLaw
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I agree that the problem of war could be solved, but I don't see any prospect of this based on history.
I think we all agree that the issue of war should be be solved, and even that it can be solved given the right social structure, but will it be? I just can't see society aligning itself into a peaceful monolith, and, barring that degree of universality, I doubt the petty envies and fears can be forestalled permanently. We're too imperfect for that.I agree that the problem of war could be solved, but I don't see any prospect of this based on history.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
I agree; that's correct.
The reason wars happen now is mostly because of outdated ideologies and leadership styles, complicated by the greed and fears we still have.
A few people cause most of the problems, such as Islamic fanatics and kinds of governance that allow greedy dictators to take power (e.g. Syria, Russia, North Korea). The 3 revolutions are proceeding, however, and so (with ups and downs, progress and reverses) eventually good governance can prevail (with no guarantee except the likelihood of continued human evolution). The US has a big defense department mostly because someone has to guard against these rogue states and groups that are stuck in the past.
I think we first need to figure out a way to get there from here.
Right now, the only thing I have figured out is that it's definitely a possible outcome and it's certainly the preferable outcome. The other side of that coin is the war of all against all, which is where we want to not go. That's definitely a possible outcome, too.
I have no idea how to get there.
History gives us lots of examples on how not to do it on a system-wide scale.
The future always casts a shadow on the present.
That's because we haven't actually accomplished it yet.
We also lack any sort of plan to get there that could actually work given actual reality and our actual situation.
There are lots of ideas that involve magical thinking, fantasy, and wishing really hard. However, those approaches have a track record of not working, so we can't use those.
The future always casts a shadow on the present.
Sheldrake almost certainly has Schizotypal Personality Disorder, which is basically the magical and delusional thinking typical of people with Schizophrenia, just without the outright hallucinations. His kooky ideas about vision are classic Schizotypy.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Just a couple months ago I remember asking Iraqi Kurdish Reddit posters in /r/WorldNews about the fight against ISIS. The world felt very small.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
This is the Openness to Experience axis of the Big 5 personality model.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
I think you are projecting your own thinking, here. My own ideological beliefs are based on a genuine wish for a better world, not on fear. Fear-based thinking is something to avoid.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Society can really afford only about twenty years of people in or partially assuming child-like roles. When people fail to abandon the ways of youth upon coming of age, the real children suffer. So it is with Nomads (originally called reactive generations in Strauss and Howe). Generation X had to endure the consequences of Boomers failing to take adult roles in the economy (Boomers failing to fill the industrial and blue-collar service jobs because they wanted to 'find themselves') and the Silent trying to do in their late 30s and their forties what they missed out on in childhood.
Boomers could have done much more good in creating prosperity on assembly lines than in protesting ineffectively about wars and environmental damage.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It depends on how you define "magical thinking," but we need a vision of where we can go in order to get there, and prayer (especially group prayer) can help humanity to move that vision in peoples' consciousness. So some kind of "wishes" and visionary thought is definitely something to use, although as you say it is far from sufficient.
I have the idea, though folks like vandal would disagree, that from the late sixties into the mid-1980s many people projected strong visions of peace, such as the "harmonic convergence" of August 1987 and the annual "world prayer" begun on Dec.31, 1986, and it was right during and after this concentration of these kinds of events in the mid 1980s that the Cold War and several associated wars came to an end. So it may indeed have a "track record" of success.
So, we need to keep a vision of peace such as John Lennon's "Imagine" in our hearts and minds. Just knowing what peace is, and that it is possible, as well as what conditions foster it, are necessary to achieve peace. Even a "plan" involves a vision and using imagination. Indeed in this case "where there is no vision the people perish." As Rev. Ike said, "God answers prayers with ideas." In other words, from inspiration come the ideas from which are created the plans to bring peace into reality.
Actually, it is exactly the reverse. Sheldrake points out correctly that when we see something, we are there, with the object. There is not a little Rupert or a little Odin or a little Eric sitting somewhere in our heads perceiving. Nor when we see an object, is there a virtual display of the object in your head. When we realize the truth of what Sheldrake is saying, our "schizoid" (your word) separation from the world is healed and we are connected to the world again. The materialist view describes all the equipment, and that's fine, but to say that vision is our equipment is like saying the music we hear through our radio IS the diaphram and the electronic tubes of the radio set. The conventional view that our minds are locked inside our brain, is specifically schizophrenic.
Here Sheldrake explains vision
http://youtu.be/HUP87PCcT1Y?t=8m14s
Sheldrake is one of the leading advocates today of pan-psychism, which you professed to agree with
http://youtu.be/UaFtQwF-Ans?t=46m50s
Sheldrake may disagree with conventional views, but that does not make him a schizophrenic. If you listen to him speak, that is obvious. He is rather one of the most brilliant and innovative scientists of our time.
Odin, when you base your discussions on ideas and evidence, and move away from angry namecalling, you will graduate from my ignore list. (FWIW) You might want to try it.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 02-21-2015 at 04:45 PM.
I'm sorry, Eric, but this is so nonsensical it's not even wrong, and I do not mean this as "angry namecalling". I am somebody who actually has a degree in Psychology and I am kindly trying to educate you. I'm a Panpsychist because I have philosophical issues with the concept of Emergence with regards to the Hard Problem of Consciousness, not because of Sheldrake's nonsense, which is laughed at by nearly everyone in the field.Actually, it is exactly the reverse. Sheldrake points out correctly that when we see something, we are there, with the object. There is not a little Rupert or a little Odin or a little Eric sitting somewhere in our heads perceiving. Nor when we see an object, is there a virtual display of the object in your head. When we realize the truth of what Sheldrake is saying, our "schizoid" (your word) separation from the world is healed and we are connected to the world again. The materialist view describes all the equipment, and that's fine, but to say that vision is our equipment is like saying the music we hear through our radio IS the diaphram and the electronic tubes of the radio set. The conventional view that our minds are locked inside our brain, is specifically schizophrenic.
Here Sheldrake explains vision
http://youtu.be/HUP87PCcT1Y?t=8m14s
Sheldrake is one of the leading advocates today of pan-psychism, which you professed to agree with
http://youtu.be/UaFtQwF-Ans?t=46m50s
Sheldrake may disagree with conventional views, but that does not make him a schizophrenic. If you listen to him speak, that is obvious. He is rather one of the most brilliant and innovative scientists of our time.
Odin, when you base your discussions on ideas and evidence, and move away from angry namecalling, you will graduate from my ignore list. (FWIW
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Out of curiosity, what is your problem with it specifically?
Actually, that's a quote from both of my social theory professors. To paraphrase, all (social) paradigms or ideologies are driven by fear, because they fundamentally have to view a desirable world as being a very specific order, if just anything worked, you wouldn't need a paradigm. Every (social) paradigm, every ideology, also has a failure state, one where their concept isn't utilized. Within that failure state is what they are ultimately most afraid of.
And I didn't just take their word for it. I've read plenty of this stuff on my own. I have yet to find a high level social theory, paradigm, or ideology that wasn't primarily fear driven. Even post modern ideologies are fear driven, and the entire philosophy is driven by the idea that implication and subtext are more important than fact and actual text. Something that mild (I mean compared to the idea that you will be exploited and completely alienated from true meaning your whole life or that red tape will become so all consuming that society decays and dies or that change might lead to a social instability so great that society collapses and we all kill and eat each other), is completely fear motivated (in post modernism it's the fear that nobody is capable of being real or honest).
So it's not something I'm projecting, so much as something that I was told explicitly and examined and found to be by and large true. Largely meaning I've never found any major social paradigm that wasn't fear driven.
But not exclusively, or primarily, fear-driven; necessarily. You statement implies that all paradigms are exclusively fear-driven.
Fear that you refer to is just an aspect of the human condition; a reactive compulsion that we need to gradually learn to tame and control as we develop.
Your point is correct that people, when they create and follow ideologies, are driven by fear, or the desire to avoid current or past conditions that they fear. All social orders or states, including anarchy, are also based on an ideal and a vision that will take us beyond those conditions. No social order can exist unless it first exists in peoples minds and hearts; that's the paradigm or theory.
Sheldrake is also respected by many respected minds, in many fields. Nor does it matter if anyone laughs at him. There is so much nonsense that today's authorities accept as unquestioned truth, that it means nothing at all if some brilliant philosopher-scientist like Sheldrake is "laughed at." Nothing at all. Sheldrake is just one of those visionaries who is a bit ahead of his time. And he is so cogent, coherent, workmanlike, eloquent and sane that to call him a schizophrenic is, well, nothing more need be said. Such namecalling is not an "education" of anyone.
You may find that Sheldrake has a lot to offer for your philosophical issues. So do those whom he himself has learned from, such as Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson. If you look, you can find the answers among the works of "pan-psychist" thinkers like them.
The root of the malaise in our country is the boomer's obsession with hair-brained ideals and ideological dogmas. This can be seen in the current historiography which celebrates the heritage of classical Greece before 338 BC but then primarily glosses over the following eras only resuming large-scale interest at the early 1700s and the start of the enlightenment. Restorationism on the other hearkens back to the roman, medieval and the pre-protestant part of the early modern period. Roughly 338 BC (especially after 146 BC) to around 1713 AD.
The Romans at their best were like America at its worst. The Greeks at their best were more like America at its average.
Many have contempt for the Middle Ages -- and rightly so for an era of few achievements beyond survival. Of course the world would be very different if Charles Martel had lost at the battle of Tours or if the Mongols had conquered continental Europe. (Who knows -- maybe they would have saved Byzantium after conquering it? Maybe the epicanthic fold characteristic of East Asians would be commonplace among the aristocracy of continental Europe, and the clause qu'un sang impur/ abreuve nos sillons would be literal as well as figurative truth).
If I must choose between the Jews, Muslims, heretics, and sorcerers of Spain to the Inquisition -- I am with the Jews, Muslims, heretics, and sorcerers of Spain. An auto-da-fé by some Protestant sect would be no better than under than the Spanish Inquisition, and it would probably chase the talented people necessary for entrepreneurial investment and scientific advancement from America elsewhere while America becomes an Evil Empire. A hint: German cinema around 1930 could rival American cinema for quality. By 1939 German cinema was $#!+ and American cinema was wonderful -- because America had gotten so much talent that fled Nazi Germany (much of it Jewish, of course) from Germany. Imagine how good Indian cinema would get if it got much of the technical talent from Hollywood as Hollywood attracted talent from German Jews -- and how awful American cinema would be as it is stripped of talent and must adhere to the strictures of a right-wing, militarist, exclusivist ideology.
If anything we Americans need to rediscover the Enlightenment, the peak of high-quality intellectual achievement. In music alone one has the mature compositions of Bach, Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, and Rameau... not to mention Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. In painting one has the second-greatest (and most politically-flexible) era -- the Impressionist era.
If anything, one of the hallmarks of modernity is (paradoxically) the ease of access to the past, including antiquity. But antiquity is far from sacred. The human sacrifices to Baal in Carthage and the sick 'games' of Rome get my contempt.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
I don't think that fear is always a part of the human condition, and at times when it's not, ideology is generally at it's weakest, and for a pretty good reason: It's pretty stupid to believe that any ideology can make things better than basic provision. For instance, within the past 10 years the world as a whole has gotten remarkably better. Crowd sourcing is an overblown buzz word when used in a business context, but it's between amazingly awesome for charity. Even GWB got something right when he started his AIDS and malaria relief programs, I disagree strongly with Bill Gates business ethics but the Gates foundation does appear to be doing amazing things.
However here in the west we've become fear driven. But instead of doing what we've been doing in the rest of the world: seeing a need and meeting it, we wing our hands and cling to feeble ideas of the way things should be. When I was on vacation this summer, some friends if ours were griping about the faith based organization's approach to AIDS relief, and I said "well who else is there?" I've contributed for years to organizations that didn't line up well with my ideological belief system for one reason and one reason only: they're doing it better than anyone else. I've sent kids to school, I've supplied families with potable water, I've provided major medical services to disaster victims all through organizations who I disagree thoroughly with. Why? Because the only place where methodology matters more than outcome is academia, and I'd rather make sure someone has clean water than to make sure someone is doing precisely what I want. The only tone that isn't true for almost everyone is when we are afraid of what someone else might do.
Now those fears might be grounded and they might not. There are plenty of valid reasons to be afraid. But to say that they're motivated by anything nobler? No.
I agree, insofar as in the main, the neocon faction. The very idea that the US can remake other nation states in its own image is idiotic.
That ideology is a "Bad Vision".I'd go further, we've already had one disaster in the election of Shrub II. Shrub II's brother is just as bad. I suppose that idiotcracy begets idiotic leadership.
Yup. I see nothing good in the stuff they skipped. Serfdom, Crusades, and the Dark Ages don't really have much to do with the plight of the common man.This can be seen in the current historiography which celebrates the heritage of classical Greece before 338 BC but then primarily glosses over the following eras only resuming large-scale interest at the early 1700s and the start of the enlightenment.
I think the USA already has part of what you so desire.Restorationism on the other hearkens back to the roman, medieval and the pre-protestant part of the early modern period. Roughly 338 BC (especially after 146 BC) to around 1713 AD.
"Panem et circenses" has arrived again. Junk food and junk reality shows show how far we've gone the way of the degenerate Roman Empire. In fact, our perpetual state of indulging in costly wars of choice indicate that the US has become a plutocratic disaster via
idiotacracy. Cf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot#Etymology
MBTI step II type : Expressive INTP
There's an annual contest at Bond University, Australia, calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term:
The winning student wrote:
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end."
And this, in spite of the existence of some incredibly talented Boomers in manufacturing. But the problem is, none of them got much clout. A more destructive type of Boomer tended to get the power in the corporate arenas of manufacturing. I once had a severe issue with one, in the midst of a series of reorgs during an attempted turn around at a place. It was the closest I ever came to work place violence and / or quitting with nothing else lined up. But ultimately, I powered through it and later was called upon to give a deposition - the firm ultimately discovered just how much of a crook the guy was and turned him over to the law.
One marker of what you are alluding to is the fact that the great cities and cathedrals of Europe mostly got started during 146 BC to about 1400AD. All of the supposed "Renaissance" and "Enlightenment" players utilized that which had been created centuries prior. Just because of the fact that The Church had so much power during the portion of that period after 500AD, all those who rebelled against it, rightly and wrongly, rewrote history to make the "Protestant Great Thinker" the hero of all time and to make the earlier players into derogatory stereotypes meant to imply there was nothing of value from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
IMO it runs into the same philosophical problem as Dualism, or using scientific facts to justify ethical statements, trying to get logically from here to there.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Ideologies are usually dangerous and fear-driven. They are dogmatic and centered on power. But a paradigm is often more than an ideology; it is a vision of where we need to go. They are less fear-driven. Merely providing for people does not change the ruling systems or the paradigms and ideologies they are based on. The world has gotten better in some places in the developing world; I don't see that charity has much to do with this, it is the authoritarian capitalist approach in China and expanding capitalism in India, for example. But maybe Gates does what he does because he gets an idea of what he can do, and makes plans and carries them out.
Results do count, I agree. You cited the people and organizations who contribute to helping people, including yourself. Don't these organizations you think are working or whom you support have to have a plan for what they are doing, and a genuine concern for the people they are helping? That may not be an ideology, but it may be an ideal or a moral principle-- especially among the "faith-based" organizations. They consider that they are doing God's work, and they might not do it otherwise.However here in the west we've become fear driven. But instead of doing what we've been doing in the rest of the world: seeing a need and meeting it, we wring our hands and cling to feeble ideas of the way things should be. When I was on vacation this summer, some friends if ours were griping about the faith-based organization's approach to AIDS relief, and I said "well who else is there?" I've contributed for years to organizations that didn't line up well with my ideological belief system for one reason and one reason only: they're doing it better than anyone else. I've sent kids to school, I've supplied families with potable water, I've provided major medical services to disaster victims all through organizations who I disagree thoroughly with. Why? Because the only place where methodology matters more than outcome is academia, and I'd rather make sure someone has clean water than to make sure someone is doing precisely what I want. The only tone that isn't true for almost everyone is when we are afraid of what someone else might do.
Now those fears might be grounded and they might not. There are plenty of valid reasons to be afraid. But to say that they're motivated by anything nobler? No.
