human values

#21
C C Offline
(Dec 13, 2016 04:04 PM)Carol Wrote: I am not sure that is a helpful list? [...] In general, the terms used in that list are too vague to be helpful.  Like social justice- Muslims may believe this is Sharia law and is essential to the good life, and non-Muslims are horrified by such an idea, and there are areas of primitive people where our laws and Sharia laws are a bits nuts.   We might all want justice but what is it?


That's pretty much why so-called "universal" values would tend to be general (or vague) at the outset, though. Once they get down to the narrower level of how different societies might express or realize _X_, the concept may become more "culturally subjective" and heterogeneous in character. Relativism enters the picture in undermining, say, the West's claims of having an objective or fairer version of _X_. Then the latter propaganda is interpreted as a facade for some kind of "prescriptive imperialism" that's really just a strategical component in the plan of one part of the world trying to dominate or manipulate another.

The reverse would be an initially weaker minority of poseurs (which have exotic values in contrast to the society they're infiltrating) pretending to partially or wholly conform to the ideologies of the host population. While some of them are instead gradually, politically planting the seeds of their own system. A example would be the initially small cult spreading Christianity across the Roman Empire, eventually subverting the latter's pagan traditions. (I wouldn't overly depend upon the accuracy of such historical tropes, though; it's just an arbitrary plug-in selected for illustrative purposes).
Reply
#22
Carol Offline
Everything you said is true, so where do we begin?

You see the problem we have today is in the past Christianity dominated. There was a division of the North of South over slavery with both sides using the bible to justify their position on slavery. But there was agree about the 10 commandments, and gender roles, and family order was our social order. None of this is for sure today. The religious conflict between Christians and Muslims is so irrationally because these folks agree with each other a whole more than they agree with atheists. The God of Abraham religions share the same root of belief and prophets.

In the US we used public education to teach a set of American values, and we don't even know what those are today. We stopped transmitting our culture when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was passed, and we began educating for a technological society with unknown values, leaving moral training to the church. Now we not only have social upheaval, but none are prepared to evaluate our values and organize life around them, as they were prepared to do when we had liberal education from the moment a child entered school. All children were prepared for independent thinking and a unifying culture. Having neither today threatens our democracy and liberty.

It is not hard identifying the problems. What we need is a start at resolving them. Pretend this is the very beginning of civilization and there is no unifying religion. Now how do we organize ourselves for a nation with liberty? If you were the king or pharaoh, what would your declarations be? If the people don't like them, they will not follow them.

This time, what the experts say may not be helpful, because what needs to happen depends on our ability to think things through and work together.
Reply
#23
C C Offline
To play Devil's advocate...

(Dec 13, 2016 06:48 PM)Carol Wrote: You see the problem we have today is in the past Christianity dominated.


Compared to what (actually possible and likely) alternative situations dominating in a Christian-less world, that would have been problem free? We exist as much due to the "bad things" playing a role in the past as the "good things". By "we" I mean precisely and selfishly that, not other populations that would have replaced us in the scenario of a different timeline devoid of Christianity.

Would there be a "USA" with a set of American values to worry about? Taking into account butterfly effects alone (never mind the major changes), it seems unlikely.

Quote:In the US we used public education to teach a set of American values, and we don't even know what those are today. We stopped transmitting our culture when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was passed, and we began educating for a technological society with unknown values, leaving moral training to the church. Now we not only have social upheaval, but none are prepared to evaluate our values and organize life around them, as they were prepared to do when we had liberal education from the moment a child entered school. All children were prepared for independent thinking and a unifying culture. Having neither today threatens our democracy and liberty.

You mean the old WASP world now vilified by an academic establishment which also seems to very much have its own clear standards for what's "up" and "down" and who the "heroes" and the "villains" are?

Quote:It is not hard identifying the problems. What we need is a start at resolving them. Pretend this is the very beginning of civilization and there is no unifying religion. Now how do we organize ourselves for a nation with liberty? If you were the king or pharaoh, what would your declarations be? If the people don't like them, they will not follow them.


An expectation of or being entitled to "happiness" -- if not the outright desire slash preference for happiness itself -- is a recent development. Perhaps in conjunction with the brutal life, people thousands of years ago had a different mindset than us. We would be an ideologically alien "species" to them. That they would want to "organize themselves into a nation of liberty" would simply be our own modern thought orientations being projected upon them (our treating such an impulse as innate or a priori rather than it being a later intellectual creation or what happened to fall out of a long sequence of twists and turns in societal evolution ).

Their virgin situation isn't ours, wherein an immense complex and potpourri of cultures, groups, newer needs and addictions, commitments, treaties, grudges, paranoid conspiracies, views, ideas and systems introduced and invented over thousands of years are already in play with their tangible, intermittently clashing and harmonizing results.

Fabricating a "solution" in the context of either a primeval or an idealized condition of humanity isn't a remedy for the opposite of that (our condition).

Our social engineering "cures" produce new ailments and counter-responses because civilization is a sensitive entity that reacts in complicated ways to even those therapeutic disturbances (not just the ones of supposedly detrimental policies and neighborhood behaviors). Our advanced communications and information-age have increased the magnitude of that sensitivity.

The "treatment" is just the already ongoing, perpetual process of addressing and managing the next round of problems --> solutions --> problems with old and new conceptions. Which a percentage of factions in our multicultural and poly-ideological sphere will either offer resistance to or hijack, which in turn contributes to whatever watered-down mediocrity or stalemate eventually results (which is still preferable to any disastrous outcomes that might have otherwise happened without the political phobias and psychotic scrutiny).

Quote:This time, what the experts say may not be helpful, because what needs to happen depends on our ability to think things through and work together.


There will be an ample dose of "experts" and bureaucracy whenever there's a dominating central government with its own Institution of Values demonizing or praising, penalizing or funding, the practical efforts of communities at the local level. According to however close or how far away they are to its Weltanschauung.
Reply
#24
Carol Offline
This is excessively frustrating and tedious.  We need to stay on the page of the original post, and have the benefits of the preview page, to eliminate the confusion of quotation marks that happens when we move a post to the preview page.

Quote:CC wrote

To play Devil's advocate...

Compared to what (actually possible and likely) alternative situations dominating in a Christian-less world, that would have been problem free? We exist as much due to the "bad things" playing a role in the past as the "good things". By "we" I mean precisely and selfishly that, not other populations that would have replaced us in the scenario of a different timeline devoid of Christianity.

Would there be a "USA" with a set of American values to worry about? Taking into account butterfly effects alone (never mind the major changes), it seems unlikely.

No, this is not about comparing to the US with the Christianless world, but comparing the democracy we had with the mess we have today, and I am trying to do something about the ignorance of what culture has to do with liberty or the complete loss of liberty. I wish you began your argument with this quote "There are two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people."

The democracy we had is dying with older Americans.

Quote:You mean the old WASP world now vilified by an academic establishment which also seems to very much have its own clear standards for what's "up" and "down" and who the "heroes" and the "villains" are?
Yes, that is what I mean. We have done to our nation what was done to Germany when the Prussians took control of Germany. We have put Prussian military bureaucracy above the people, and we have centralized public education and destroyed our national heroes, and we now praise efficiency. All of this is what the Prussians did when they took control of Germany. And we have replaced Greek and Roman philosophy with German philosophy. The democracy we had was unknown before literacy in Greek and Roman classics and it is again unknown today.

Quote:An expectation of or being entitled to "happiness" -- if not the outright desire slash preference for happiness itself -- is a recent development. Perhaps in conjunction with the brutal life, people thousands of years ago had a different mindset than us. We would be an ideologically alien "species" to them. That they would want to "organize themselves into a nation of liberty" would simply be our own modern thought orientations being projected upon them (our treating such an impulse as innate or a priori rather than it being a later intellectual creation or what happened to fall out of a long sequence of twists and turns in societal evolution ).

A perfect example of why literacy in Greek and Roman philosophy is important. Jefferson plagiarized John Locke when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, only John Locke did not write the pursuit of happiness, but the right to own property. And when Jefferson wrote of the pursuit of happiness this was the Enlightenment concept of happiness based on Greek and Roman philosophy that happiness is the pursuit of knowledge. These guys were not talking about enjoying a video game or getting high. To understand our founding fathers' understanding of the pursuit of happiness, go to this link http://www.waterfromrock.org/2012/04/16/...happiness/ . Jefferson was quoting Cicero and meaning gaining knowledge as Socrates taught the importance of having an expanded conscience (coming out of science) and being virtuous. We do not understand our democracy and liberty without understanding Socrates and Cicero.

Quote:Their virgin situation isn't ours, wherein an immense complex and potpourri of cultures, groups, newer needs and addictions, commitments, treaties, grudges, paranoid conspiracies, views, ideas and systems introduced and invented over thousands of years are already in play with their tangible, intermittently clashing and harmonizing results.

That is exactly what the USA had, and the original purpose of free public education was to make the republic strong and united. Education for technology (vocational training) did not begin until 1917 when the US was mobilizing for the first world war. The colonies were filled with immigrants from different countries with different customs, and none of them experienced with democracy, nor enjoying liberty. The flood of immigrants grew and kept growing long after all the land east of Applicachia mountains was owned by a closing establishment, giving rise to serious economic and social problems.

Sara H. fahey was a New York English teacher when she spoke at the 1917 National Education Association and she spoke of what education had to do with addressing the growing social problem, and how education was about teaching American values to children, knowing their parents would learn them.

"The school should teach that a nation of free men means a nation that is keen to recognize the majesty of the law. Whatever we enjoy in our land is bought at a great price and conserved at a sacrifice. When there is no voice to say with finality, "This shalt thou do," there is anarchy. The conception of freedom which prompts men to conspire to bring about chaos by dynamiting property, or by murdering men in authority, or by violence, destroying all establisht institutions, is not the American ideal of patriotism. Pupils must be taught that unless a democratic government thru its majority can act as positively and as dependably as a king or an aristocracy, it is only a mob; it is a nuisance and a menace. They must also be taught that rights and privileges are conditioned by service; that selfishness will eat out the heart of any civilization....."

Quote:Fabricating a "solution" in the context of either a primeval or an idealized condition of humanity isn't a remedy for the opposite of that (our condition).

Why not? Cicero argued we are compelled to do the right when we know what that is, and today's science is backing that up, as well as helping us understand why there are deviations from good judgment.

Quote:Our social engineering "cures" produce new ailments and counter-responses because civilization is a sensitive entity that reacts in complicated ways to even those therapeutic disturbances (not just the ones of supposedly detrimental policies and neighborhood behaviors). Our advanced communications and information-age have increased the magnitude of that sensitivity.

The "treatment" is just the already ongoing, perpetual process of addressing and managing the next round of problems --> solutions --> problems with old and new conceptions. Which a percentage of factions in our multicultural and poly-ideological sphere will either offer resistance to or hijack, which in turn contributes to whatever watered-down mediocrity or stalemate eventually results (which is still preferable to any disastrous outcomes that might have otherwise happened without the political phobias and psychotic scrutiny).


You speak of what we defended our democracy against. Who/what is that authority above us?

Sara quoted a seer of India,
"Whatever their efficiency, such great organizations are so impersonal that they bear down on the individual lives of the people like a hydraulic press whose action is completely impersonal and therefore completely effective in crushing individual liberty and power." We did not always have the bureaucratic order for this and Tocqueville warned against this danger in 1830.

Quote: There will be an ample dose of "experts" and bureaucracy whenever there's a dominating central government with its own Institution of Values demonizing or praising, penalizing or funding, the practical efforts of communities at the local level. According to however close or how far away they are to its Weltanschauung.

Yes, but before 1958 we internalize authority and since 1958 we have externalized it. Christianity also externalized our spirituality and authority. Egyptians had a trinity of the soul, instead of a trinity of god, and never before did any king or pharaoh have the power of authority over the people, that Prussian military bureaucracy applied to the citizens have authority over the people.

So what do you think? Is it worth our effort to discuss human values?
Reply
#25
C C Offline
(Dec 14, 2016 05:27 PM)Carol Wrote: [...]
Quote:Their virgin situation isn't ours, wherein an immense complex and potpourri of cultures, groups, newer needs and addictions, commitments, treaties, grudges, paranoid conspiracies, views, ideas and systems introduced and invented over thousands of years are already in play with their tangible, intermittently clashing and harmonizing results.

That is exactly what the USA had, and the original purpose of free public education was to make the republic strong and united.

Quote:Fabricating a "solution" in the context of either a primeval or an idealized condition of humanity isn't a remedy for the opposite of that (our condition).

Why not? [...]


What good would it do to repeat it? You set the circumstances I was responding to: "Pretend this is the very beginning of civilization and there is no unifying religion. Now how do we organize ourselves for a nation with liberty?"

Then you leap to a more recent era, apparently in relation to my contrasting of our own current condition with your proposed ancient condition of humanity that's minus the historical and developmental baggage of today: "That is exactly what the USA had, and the original purpose of free public education was to make the republic strong and united."

I'm really not sure what context you're even abiding in now, when you ask "why not"? But regardless, the politically taboo "before 1958" period you want us to rewind to isn't what I was addressing there.

If Trump[*] magically disbands all the volunteer speech-police mingling in the general/everyday and academic population that keep an eye out for ideologically incorrect writing and talk (or the mere appearance of such), then maybe that's an area to neutrally discuss or investigate in the remote future. But in the non-fantasy world of the present it's an invitation to being interrupted by rabid misrepresentations being projected into the discourse by one side or the other, after which all hope of reason, consistency, and civility is lost.

- - - - - - - -

[*] As well as Trump also miraculously (and improbably) NOT unleashing / encouraging watchdogs of his own. The only reason that wasn't mentioned above is that it's less a factor in 'nostalgic' topics like the "Wonderful World of WASP" being judged hate or thought crime within that type of camp.
Reply
#26
Carol Offline
Sometimes communicating can be very difficult. For me, it seems like others simply are not picking up the concepts that I am talking about, and maybe I am not understanding you?

Quote:Their virgin situation isn't ours, wherein an immense complex and potpourri of cultures, groups, newer needs and addictions, commitments, treaties, grudges, paranoid conspiracies, views, ideas and systems introduced and invented over thousands of years are already in play with their tangible, intermittently clashing and harmonizing results.

What are you talking about? I was replying to you when I said that was the situation in the beginning of the United States. Back then a handful of people had to determine what our values should be, and then they had to get everyone to act as if we all agreed on those important values. The most serious work was done through churches and organizations like the Masons. Finally, we got to free public education that taught a set of American values, and all the concepts necessary for democracy and liberty. They used public education to create a society that could enjoy liberty with the least amount of government intervention.

Public education is like a genie in a bottle. The defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genie. We changed that wish in 1958 and no longer have the culture nor the democracy, we had previously. We began educating for a technological society with unknown values. Clearly, that puts us back at point one.

Quote: wherein an immense complex and potpourri of cultures, groups, newer needs and addictions, commitments, treaties, grudges, paranoid conspiracies, views, ideas and systems introduced and invented over thousands of years are already in play with their tangible, intermittently clashing and harmonizing results.


What is important at this time in history is not Trump, but the people who elected him. That means this is about our culture or lack of it. It is about our values or lack of values, or at least a lack of agreement about what those values are. We are at the end of one civilization and beginning of a new one. So in your non fantasy world, what are the desired human values? How will hope of reason, consistency, and civility rule if we can not define human values and agree what they are and how these become the foundation of our culture?
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)