I guess we need to realize that there are certain truths involved e.g. what we value are assertions (e.g. happiness is good) in morality. — TheMadFool

But that does not mean enjoying an ice cream or other superficial pleasures. When Thomas Jefferson wrote of the pursuit of happiness he was working with Aristotle's understanding of it and it meant the goal of human thought, an enriched life following the pursuit of knowledge. Not a wild weekend of binge drinking or getting a new car.

Truth in this sense is more like a founding principal than a decision about what to do, how we are to decide in a moral quandary. — Antony Nickles

Nicely said. Truth is a founding principle of democracy but I don't think that is well understood today. George Washington did not brag about how great he was but was concerned about being right with the help of God. Not to preach religion but to be humble. And your post suggests that humility as well. There is far more to know than can know, so we should always be humble as proceed.

The American culture I read of in old books is so different from our culture today.

I agree that a broad education is important. It does bring up the issue again of avoiding a rote understanding of truth. I take this as the difference between "knowing" the truth and accepting it (telling myself rather than being told). As well as understanding its depth of meaningfulness, we come to its importance as a personal process, a journey of my life maybe as much as my acknowledgement of its implications. The reading of Cicero that stuck with me was that it mattered to the truth who I was as a person, which I read as that I am part of the state of a truth. That this can be done well or poorly, rather than right or wrong. That we are not here concerned about ends (things going well). — Antony Nickles

Oh my, that last sentence seems like a good left jab that I was not expecting and my head is spinning. :lol: I was thinking yes I agree with what you are saying all the to that last sentence.

Take the threat of covid for example. If we do not eradicate it right now, it will become endemic instead of pandemic. That means it will be so much in our population it will be like the cold of the flu, something we live with forever instead of an irradicated disease.

Endemics, on the other hand, are a constant presence in a specific location. Malaria is endemic to parts of Africa. Ice is endemic to Antarctica. — Intermountain Health Care

We really need to get this right or we are not getting rid of Covid.

Another example, Mao meant well when he ruled how farmers would plant and how food would be managed, but he was scientifically wrong and that lead to millions of people starving to death. Trump ignoring the scientific evidence about pandemics is the same thing, with almost the same results of millions dying, but this time the problem might not go away.

Another example is Biden's Budget Plans. If he is right the US will be greatly benefited. If he is wrong it could mean economic disaster.

Democracy means nothing if it is not "concerned about ends". The moral is, if we don't get it right, things will go very wrong.

Michael, I see two ways to go with your post. I told a friend I got into an argument with my sister over some social issue and she looked at me with horror, and asked why I was even discussing that with her? I know there is a lot I do not discuss with neighbors to avoid unpleasant feelings. And I was really enjoying exchanging thoughts with @James Riley until all of a sudden we had a dismisunderstanding that became very unpleasant. That makes me question do we want to engage intellectually with people we want long-term relationships with? :lol: I was told if I want a man in life, I must give up my books.

Second, I think it is natural that we want our children to grow up appreciating the culture and values we teach them. This is very important to Jews, Christians, and others. This is a big issue with ethnically different people. When indigenous peoples' lives are severely disrupted by colonizers, it is very destructive to individuals and the tribe. Well-meaning missionaries destroyed tribes and when an Asian moves to the west, they want their children to remember the family's culture and values. Personally, I want all those differences preserved because it is what makes humans so interesting. But how much can public education accommodate those differences, or should it even try? Should we have one culture and specific shared values?

Oh my, maybe you rather have a robot that can be programmed, for your child, rather than a human one that might disappoint you. Perhaps a robot for a wife too? But you want to be very sure they are not sentient. You know as in the British TV series "Humans". When they are sentient they can be troublesome and even dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sm23e0a5_w

I think this is pretty on topic. Your idea of an ideal mother is far from what I think a child needs. But it does make an interesting discussion.

My question is: How valuable is the help of those who do not actually care? Can a system that is based on salary replace genuine human kindness? — Wheatley

It depends on the quality of the therapist. The quality of the therapist depends on personality and training. There are several methods that can be used to resolve our mental health issues and different people will like different methods.

Because a therapist does not have a personal relationship with the client, this can be very helpful! I think most people have grandparents and chances are good they are wise, caring people but nobody listens to them.

Those of us who are grandparents have learned the hard way to keep our mouths shut or say things very, very carefully. The day of respecting our elders and family fidelity has passed. We are now all about our emotions and we know if you are unhappy it is our family's fault. Those toxic relationships you know.

The bottom line is people see therapists because family relationships are not working. Or occasionally medication is needed and the family is not qualified to deal with that.

This is off topic but you do understand what oil has to do with all industrial economies and what military might has to do with controlling oil, right? What does the plutocracy have to do with those realities?
— Athena

You got me. You win. The Plutocracy couldn't possibly have anything to do with the economy, oil, or the MIC.

but what do they have to do with our family values and social order?
— Athena

Nothing. You got me. You win.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. If you have a problem, blame government. — James Riley

Well, before families got together and decided to adopt the German model, families used to run everything. After families adopted the German model, an evil government/bureaucracy arose to subdue them, oppress them, turn them against each other, and milk them like a borrowed cow. Now families, oil companies, CEOs, majority shareholders and other common, salt-of-the-Earth folk suffer; while evil bureaucrats are each worth millions and billions of dollars, setting policy and regulations and forcing to common working oilman to send in all his hard earned money to keep the bureaucrats in the standard of living to which they want to become accustomed. — James Riley

Your smart-ass answers are the last straw. We are done.

If you don't like government/bureaucracy and what it is doing, that is primarily because you, the family and the community don't control it. As stated, the problem is not big government. The problem is who controls it. — James Riley

Great, what is it about the bureaucracy I do not like? How was the bureaucracy different before adopting the German model?

Nobody is laughing, except the MIC (Plutocracy). — James Riley

This is off topic but you do understand what oil has to do with all industrial economies and what military might has to do with controlling oil, right? What does the plutocracy have to do with those realities?

I suppose you could use Cheney and Halliburton to answer that question, but Cheney and the neocons are not the cause of the reality, they are only people with a good understanding of those realities and therefore know how to position themselves to take advantage of the realities. We could call them plutocrats and we most certainly can question their morality, but what do they have to do with our family values and social order?

Very accurately and succinctly said. I am very torn on this issue. I don't like the government compelling private citizens to do anything, but we must provide relief and hope to the less fortunate. I feel that the central problem is that of our culture, which is too individualistic and not communal enough to override basic human nature and the defensive mechanisms of the human mind. — Michael Zwingli

How about listening to women? A matriarchy is very different from a patriarchy. Since women have held seats of power, a whole lot more has been done for children and vulnerable people in general. The difference in the focus of women's lives compared to the male focus concerns me and I am not sure this difference will be maintained as women leave their homes to have careers or work in factories. The meaning of being a good woman has changed and what might be the ramifications of this change?

Well, just make sure you keep blaming the government while those who are responsible laugh all the way to themselves. — James Riley

Here is what you are saying,

The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.[2][3] Throughout history, political thinkers and philosophers such as Winston Churchill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Spanish monarchist Juan Donoso Cortés and Noam Chomsky, have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict; corrupting societies with greed and hedonism. — wikipedia

This thread is about social order, and especially about relying on the government for our needs or our families. I have said in the past our social order was based on family order and independence of government, that this is no longer true. I do not see your argument as addressing the family matter. How would you say a plutocracy determines our social order and family values?

Big money is not the cause. Without it, we would be much worse off for several reasons. One reason is fiat money.

There is nothing funny about our military spending. It is economically essential and right now China has far more advanced military technology and is in a position to win a nuclear war. We are seriously vulnerable right now.

Our school children get a free breakfast and lunch and if the family is low income the family can get a SNAP card for food, and medical care, and possibly assistance for housing and their education is free to them. There is not enough to meet the growing need for assistance, but paying for more is a challenge, and if we did not have a successful economic system (most of the time) none of that would be possible.

In the past, we didn't have any of that. Family had to depend on family and charity. By law, fathers were held responsible for providing for their families, and mothers were held responsible for caring for them.
I do not object to the government relieving mothers and fathers of their responsibilities, but there is a price for doing that and the price is not just money.

Ah, perhaps then you agree with Jesus when he said the poor will always be with us. He's been interpreted as saying that we should accordingly be generous to them. But we're not a generous people, are we? Except perhaps sporadically and by impulse. We care far too much about ourselves, our rights, our property, to trouble ourselves with others, and resent it when we're made to even indirectly. Why should other people have the benefit of our money? Here in God's favorite country we're not that far away now from the times in which John Steinbeck's character Tom Joad lived, and are different only to the extent that social welfare programs exist. — Ciceronianus

I am agreeable with everything you said and have nothing to argue or add to what you said, until your last paragraph. Yes, I agree with Jesus that we will always have the poor with us, but the 1970 recession taught me important things about myself and poverty. Up until this time I was one of the "nice people" doing my good thing for "those people", you know, the one's in need. I thought poverty was a meaningful experience that those of us born white and middle class could never have. The 1970 recession made me one of "those people".

The reason White middle class people could not have the meaningful experience of poverty is, number 1, they are privileged. They could play at poverty but as long as poverty is a choice it is not the real thing. As long as there are jobs to be had and family and friends to turn for help, poverty is a choice and not real thing. The recession meant no jobs and family and friends didn't have eoungh to share. We could not assemilate the young into the economy and when older people were laid off, they often lost everything. After years of tightening my belt, everything was worn out and breaking down and there was no money to replace it. That is when I became concerned about economics and the role government plays, which lead to understanding what mineral resources have to do with economies and little things like WAR.

This can get way off topic. Many things play into poverty and many things play into good times. Government plays a much larger role in this now than in the past. WWI was a huge turning point, and WW II made war a permanent factor in our lives. We are on a treadmill that does not turn off, but someday it may come to a sudden stop and once again our survival may depend more on family than the government and career opportunites. We can look to Rome for a better understanding of all of this.

You said you understand what I have said, but I see no indication that you do. From you I see a completely different explanation of why things are as they are, and an objection to me not throwing away my explanation and accepting yours. But a pultocracy does nothing to change family order. Our present technology society has dramatically changed our sociial order as we are no longer ordered by family order. In our technological society a family can be any combination of people we want to call family and it can be very temporary, that does not work in the same way our past understanding of family worked. In the past family fidelity was more important than our emotions and the popular practice of calling one's family toxic and something to avoid. Programs for children modeled a health relationship of children and adults, not children in the roles of adults. We did not expect second graders to be as accedemic as college students being prepared to serve the state, not family.

How about this one. "In the past, personal and political liberty depended to considerable extent upon governmental inefficiency. The spirit of tyranny was always more than willing; but its organization and material equipment were generally weak. Progressive science and technology have changed all this completely." Aldous Huxley

I have tried to teach you HOW that came to be but you don't understand. — James Riley

When was the change made and why?

I did. I stipulated to it. Like umpteen times. But apparently not to your satisfaction. — James Riley

Please refer me to where you have paraphrased what I said about everything being controlled by policy instead of by individuals and I will pick up from there. What are the good reasons for changing the powers of government? Why is social security possible today and not in the past?

It's probably good that you stop. Because it's apparent that you don't understand that I DO understand what you are saying — James Riley

Prove it.

However, I don't think we've really tried very hard to have a state of us, where we view us as family, looking out for each other. — James Riley

I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow-citizens: my present purpose is to point out the general rule which enables them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue; but they maintain that virtue is useful, and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made. They have found out that in their country and their age man is brought home to himself by an irresistible force; and losing all hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore do not deny that every man may follow his own interest; but they endeavor to prove that it is the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall not here enter into the reasons they allege, which would divert me from my subject: suffice it to say that they have convinced their fellow-countrymen. — Tocqueville

Thanks to the change in education, not many people know what a virtue is, nor that we once thought a virtue is synonymous with strength. Like Darwinism, Dawkins's selfish gene dominates our thinking, not the literature of the past that advanced a different morality.

My belief is not limiting my ability to understand your continued reference to the German model of bureaucracy. Did you know that this is like the fifth time you've brought this model up? — James Riley

This is where I am going to stop because I see no reason to think you understand the difference between the bureaucratic order we had, that made the individual very important, and the bureaucratic order we have today that crushes individual liberty and power. When this is not understood, nothing else of importance can be understood stood.

That is unfortunately true. The leadership of the Third Reich (who probably never even read Nietzsche) cherry-picked utterly uncontextualized terms and phrases from his writings, and applied them in grotesque ways as suited their own purposes. Nietzsche was a highly analytical and complex thinker who dealt with some of the more difficult questions of the philosophy of mind, and had the misfortune while publishing his thoughts, of being a highly introverted personality which was itself urgently suppressing the effects of a latent mental illness. This has made him an easy mark for characterization as some type of "Proto-Nazi" monster by those who have not bothered to study and come to grips with the meanings presented within his opera. There is a good presentation of Nietzsche's personality online here if you are interested: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA005/English/RSPI1960/GA005_c01_1.html — Michael Zwingli

You said that well and I am so glad you easily grasped why I associate him with the Nazis. And it is the same today with modern Nazis. I really don't think our present Nazis are deep thinkers. :lol: I fault education for technology for this problem! In the US, education was modeled after Athens education for well-rounded individual growth and we used the Conceptual Method, teaching increasingly complex concepts. That 1958 National Defense Education Act, replaced that education with the German model of education for technology and left moral training to the church which brings to Hegel.

Hegel was also amazing but his thoughts are tangled with Protestantism and an idea of God and nationalism that some people find objectionable and that brings us to Tocqueville.

The following contains the explanation of despotism that seems to perfectly describe what is happening. That is one of the last things of which he speaks after beginning with praising how Americans do not depend on the government but work together to take care of those things needing to be done, such as building a courthouse or organizing a posse; forming unions and granges. Each one of his subjects could be food for thought for new threads and if you want to start a thread and build on what he has said, please pm me.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm

I would like to read your Nietzche link but it does not fit on my screen and I do not know how to resolve that problem.

How about Cicero and the notion of right reason? It is a democratic value to know the truth because right reason is essential to things going well, and wrongly reasoning can lead to trouble. Education for good moral judgment is about understanding cause and effect and the importance of right reasoning. This also goes with Socrates' concern about expanding our consciousness because if we don't know enough, we are more apt to make bad decisions. And the miracle of democracy is having many points of view, a broad consciousness.

Ignoring the pandemic because of not wanting to close businesses and loose votes, cost Trump the last election because of the number of people who voted against Trump's reasoning. If the goal is to eradicate a deadly disease, Trump obviously did not have the right reasoning. I think moral judgment based on truth is very important.

The weakening of the concept of "perpetuity" both in general and in particular: familial, social, environmental, etc., has definitely weakened the concept of "family", and nearly destroyed the concept of "lineage". Genealogical research has today become no more than an exercise in curiosity. The weakening of perpetuity has also resulted in modern cultures having become "rootless", and in the citizens of modern societies having become absorbed in their "selves" (self-absorbed), as that rootlessness has increased and the importance of place and of extended family have diminished. — Michael Zwingli

I think you have made a very important point and the efforts by Native Americans and people of color support that point.

Native Americans are doing a good job in fighting against that rootlessness and so have people of color stressed the importance of family and knowing our roots, but the fight of people of color is different from the Native American one. Native Americans have a chance of reclaiming their ancestral land, and that just doesn't work as well for people of color, however, people of color are making progress on claiming historical sites and being sure their story becomes part of our national consciousness.

National anthems are symbols, just like national flags and any other type of nationalist symbolic device. Their purpose, whether there is war or there is peace and prosperity, they have in common with all similar devices: the psychological, and especially emotional, binding of the individual and his affections to the state. — Michael Zwingli

That is well said, and this thread is about our liberty and power being crushed by loyalty to the state, and what family order has to do with having liberty and power. The US has stood ready for war ever since Eisenhower established the Military-Industrial Complex and education for a technological society with unknown values.

My parents came unglued when I told them I was looking for fire hazards in our garage and had to report them. That night at the dinner table, it was made clear, our evil enemy required people to carry ID and to report their family and neighbors to authority. We now carry ID from the day we are born and Texas has really gone overboard on reporting family and neighbors to authority.

As I just said to James, people are aware the US has changed and they are desparate to get back their liberty and power. But refusing to masks in a pandemic and refusing to get vaccinated is not going to make things better.

Read what I said again: "can and should."

If you keep blaming big government instead of those who use it as their personal tool, then you clearly don't know how it can or should work. Did they teach you about how money buys government? Or did they just teach you that we live in a democracy/republic/federal system and all the good little citizens are in charge and actually slitting their own throats with their own government?

You keep raising 1958, the German model, bureaucracy, etc., as if government is this thinking individual evil person who pulled all that out of thin air as a way to better manage the serfs. I keep telling you to quit doing what the Plutocracy has trained you to do: blame big government, so you don't focus on what they are up to. It's like taking a gun and throwing it in jail while letting the shooter walk. It's like the shooter saying "Don't blame me, blame the gun!" And then you are like "Well, let's render the gun inoperable and all will be fine. It makes no sense.

Thanks for the education on Alexis, et al. I digested all that forty years ago. I'm looking at what is happening in the U.S. today. — James Riley

I think your belief is limiting your ability to understand the change in organizational power that comes with adopting the German model of bureaucracy and the education that goes with it. It may be futile to continue this argument but I will try.

Tocqueville foresaw a change, away from family order to bureaucratic order. Do you have any thoughts on what makes the two possible forms of social organization different?

At a 1917 National Education Association conference a teacher quoted a poet in India, Tagore. "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 effective in crushing out individual liberty and power." That defines the enemy we fought against. Then we turned around and adopted this enemy's bureaucratic organization and later the enemy's education for technology for industrial and military purpose. We are now what we defended our democracy against, and people feel this in their bones, and their desperation to restore their personal power, they have refused to wear masks in a pandemic or to get vaccinated when this became possible. We are living with insanity because there is no understanding of how we became as our enemy. There was a time when the most important authority in our lives was family, not the government.

To each his own. Nothing is more simple or lacking in complexity than pointing a finger at "big government" with no understanding of how governments can and should work. How the Plutocracy prevents that understanding is anything but simple, and they even have people thinking big government is evil. But yeah, you can keep following their lead if you want. — James Riley

Excuse me, I studied government policy and administration at the college level. Did you say I do not understand how government works? The most important thing I have said about the shift in power and authority is the change in the bureaucratic order that now crushes individual liberty and power and controls everything by policy. If this form of organization stopped with the federal government, I would not object, but it has consumed every aspect of our lives. Individualism has been destroyed and we are all reduced to being members of a lonely crowd with a despot controlling even the minute details of our lives.

It was the German model of bureaucracy that the US adopted that made Tocqueville's fear of what would happen to Christian democracies, a reality.

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest—his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not—he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances—what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits. — Tocqueville

↪Outlander I think you might have misread Athena's use of this expression. Rather, I think she(?) used it as exemplary of the social thinking against which she is railing with this thread, the fact of which becomes clear from her following sentence:
NO ONE WANTS TO BE JUST A HOUSEWIFE! How well I remember the "New Woman" magazine and the destruction of the value of a full-time homemaker.
— Athena

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and as Hitler and Neitzche, the cry is to be superior and crush the weak.
— Athena

As did Adolf Hitler, Athena, you completely...utterly misunderstand Neitzsche, which is easy enough to do as he often wrote in allegory, but I enjoin you to read him a bit more deeply, and with some guidance if that is found necessary. You cheapen he who was a profound thinker when you place him in category alongside someone like Hitler. In a nutshell, Neitzsche's "will to power" did not describe the striving to be superior over others, it described the striving to self-mastery, and the "Ubermensch" is he who has perfected self-mastery. Joshs renders a clear though succinct exposition of this in my current "will" thread. Wait...am I still on the "Philosophy Forum" site??

Loyalty to the family has gone to hell and dependence on the state has increased.
— Athena
Personally, I believe family is more important than individuals. Love of state over love of family is reminiscent of Hitler's fascism.
— Athena

Your thesis in brief. I agree with your observations for the most part, but I disagree with your conception of the mechanism at work. I don't think that the percieved "decline of the family" is caused by an increased dependence upon the state. Rather, I think that the erosion of the concept of family, and particularly of "lineage", attended the revolutionary genesis of the American nation. This country was formed as a reaction against aristocracy, and by extension thereof, as a reaction against the concept of "lineage". This anti-lineage stance was early on codified within American law within such principles as "the Rule Against Perpetuities". The results of this today are that the concept if "lineage" has been so weakened in the American mind, that the expression of that concept is usually met with reactions of incredulity.

When you do away with the "lineage", all you are left with for a concept of "the family", is the impotent "nuclear family", which is not a strong enough conception to withstand the onslaught of society's claims upon the individual person, and the claims of the nationalistic spirit for the affections of the individual. Why do you think we have the national anthem, the "pledge of allegiance" to the flag, various allegorical stories about the "founding fathers" of the country (many of which are utterly fabricated, like the G. Washington "cherry tree" fable, or embellished to the point of unrecognizability, like the "Paul Revere's Ride" nonsense), and other similar nationalistic devices? These are simply items of propaganda meant to secure the affections of a people left rootless by the destruction of the concept of "lineage", to a giant abstraction called "the state". This, of course, supported by more recent types of propaganda emanating from socialist thought (oddly placing nationalism and socialism in bed together), has been wildly successful in America, and are the reason for the diminishment of the weak "nuclear family". I might agree with @James Riley about the importance of community within a tribalistic or small communistic context, but within the context of "the state", the word "community" loses all of it's meaning, since the state makes all of the claims upon the individual that the community once did. This claiming obscures the fact that there is no true community within the context of the state. In the end, all who buy into the state's remonstration about "community" are left as no more than isolated individuals dependent upon and utilizing the state's willingness to mediate all traditional community functions in the creation of a type of "community by proxy", which leaves the state as the intermediary and arbiter of all function. — Michael Zwingli

It appears there is no awareness of intentional propaganda to double the workforce, such as the USSR saying "the full-time homemaker is a non-productive member of society". The point I was making seems to have been completely missed. the very dramatic social changes we have been through did not just happen. They follow a change in education.

It does not matter if I miss understand Nietzsche. It matters how his philosophy encouraged Nazi behavior in the past and present. This includes believing one's self to be above the law and storming the Capitol Building. His effect has gone far, far beyond those who read his books. So to has the effect of Hegel's philosophy had a much greater ramification than influencing those who read his books. At least Charles Sarolea was concerned about Hegel's and Nietzsche's popularity and the possibility that Germany was preparing war.

We might argue which came first the egg or the chicken? As I said happened in the USSR when women were "liberated" there was a rise in divorce and abortions rates and increasingly women and children fell below the level of poverty. It was realized working mothers made it necessary to provide child care. In the US marriage law was weakened following WWII and increasing jobs for women made it possible for them to get divorced, or for their husbands to be less concerned about the family they leave behind. This is a little complicated and it is not this or that but an interaction of this and that and the end result is we are no longer living under family order and we no longer valuing women as we did in the past and children are not growing up as they once did under the care of a mother. More and more is falling on the state, and more and more some religious folks are talking of how bad things are.

I never knew of "the Rule Against Perpetuities". or even imagined a dead person had any power after death. That is an interesting subject. I noticed a failure of leaving behind estates and no longer thinking in terms of a man's home being his castle, did play into a weakening the family. So have the values of a technological society played into the weakening of family.

"When you do away with the "lineage", all you are left with for a concept of "the family", is the impotent "nuclear family", which is not a strong enough conception to withstand the onslaught of society's claims upon the individual person, and the claims of the nationalistic spirit for the affections of the individual"

That is nicely said however, I thought we have a national anthem because we go to war and when we are in a state of war we need to be strongly united and working together. Well, we did in the past. Our high-tech military has made that totally unnecessary. Now because we are not firmly united against a foreign enemy we are at war with ourselves. Our culture war is tearing us apart. Religion and changing social values are very much a part of our culture wars. It seems extremely few women want to be valued as we once valued women, but I think there are good reasons why we should.

Until merit hiring we had nepotism.

Nepotism is a form of favoritism which is granted to relatives and friends in various fields, including business, politics, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, and other activities. The term originated with the assignment of nephews to important positions by Catholic popes and bishops.

Nepotism - Wikipedia — wikipedia

We still have nepotism because it is human nature, but legally and by policy people are supposed to base decisions on merit. But that does not prevent family businesses and I am glad of that. The Maccabees fought a war with the Greeks because the Greeks were doing merit hiring and not basing the decision of who got a job on the person's linage. Merit hiring kind of goes with democracy. And at this point can I thank you a lot for opening this expanded discussion of family verses a lack of family values. You have made this a much more meaningful discussion.

"but within the context of "the state", the word "community" loses all of it's meaning, since the state makes all of the claims upon the individual that the community once did. This claiming obscures the fact that there is no true community within the context of the state. In the end, all who buy into the state's remonstration about "community" are left as no more than isolated individuals dependent upon and utilizing the state's willingness to mediate all traditional community functions in the creation of a type of "community by proxy", which leaves the state as the intermediary and arbiter of all function".

wahwho! :cheer: "The Lonely Crowd" by David Riesman; ‎Nathan Glazer‎; ‎Reuel "Democracy in America" by Tocqueville and the new despot we will live under. And Hegel the state is God and how about the Bible and God's kingdom, but that kingdom does carry family values, Paradoxical. Do we want our children growing up without being bonded to family and being only members of the state desperately seeking their own happiness without family bonds?

Everything except time and nature is within the power of the Plutocracy. And they are fighting those, too. — James Riley

It is only Satan. The Bible has told us of the last days and here we are. I think that is as much of a fact as I believe Plutoncrats are the problem. In other words, I don't believe those explanations and think things are more complex than those simple beliefs of evil powers.

Perhaps the reason people have false beliefs is related to a wish to fantasise and fabricate 'the truth' because reality can be so grim and painful. There are all kinds of false beliefs, including ones about oneself. Of course, there may be false ideas which are believed fully or partially, and, at some point, an individual may need to face up to the false nature of beliefs, but as so many aspects of life are ambiguous it is possible to hold onto all kinds of fantastic ideas, even to the point of delusional ideas, or even 'psychotic' departures from accepted ways of thinking. The imagination can play all kinds of tricks, as a defense mechanism against the brutality of painful experience of facts. — Jack Cummins

Jack, my post to Corvus is a rather long explanation of the US no longer looking like the God-blessed nation we thought we had. I think your notion of our fantasies is correct.

The pandemic, growing homelessness, increased tornados, floods, hurricanes, fires. Who wants to believe these things will not go away?

Before I used to believe the USA is a great nation with exemplary democracy, politics, strong economy and power. However with the recent event of Corona pandemics and the government changes, my beliefs on the USA have changed a lot. Mind you, I am not the right person to say anything about USA issues, as I said earlier, the total amount of time I have visited and stayed in the USA is maybe about a couple of months as a tourist.

Before I used to like the USA so much, I even wanted to emigrate, work and live there. But recently I was so glad that I was not in the USA. So, I must admit the recent news media reports about the USA has changed my views and beliefs on the USA tremendously.

I don't believe that the USA is a safe and good society to live anymore. Maybe they are not as powerful as I used to believe. The society has deep and bitter divisions just like any other societies and nations in modern times. The divide between the rich and poor is utterly severe, and they don't have a good healthcare system for the middle class or poor people. To see a doctor, maybe one needs very expensive private health insurance, and even then if one needs complicated treatment in the hospital it could cost arm and leg for the treatment having to be paid by selling home and all the life savings if one had any.

And then there are many other issues that I can never understand with the country such as gun ownership issues and the acute violence problems in the society. And in military power, it is supposed to be a superpower, but the way they exited from Afghanistan and the other countries once they had stepped in, without any resolutions as if they were retreating after losing the battle as if they were scared, and running away from them.

So, all these recent events contributed to changing my beliefs on the USA I suppose. But again, I don't trust my belief 100% on anything being a sceptic and agnostic most times.

It would be like, I am believing what an elephant is like, without ever having seen one in my life. All I know is, I know nothing as Socrates said, and my beliefs could be just groundless fuzz illusion. One thing for sure is that the beliefs are formed autonomously within me by the media propaganda. I keep telling myself, I should not trust the media reports 100%.

Anyway, I thank you, and I feel privileged having been able to discuss the issues with you, who I guess, is a native American citizen born and bred in the country for all your life. — Corvus

You are wise. The US today is not the US of the past. We did not pay much in taxes before WWII and since WWII we have continued to pay almost as much in taxes and during the war years. We did not maintain a large military force and we did have military bases around the world, and we were very reluctant to go to war. Our wars since WWII have been very controversial with much public disapproval of the military actions. It is not fear of the battle that keeps us out of war, but disapproval. The forefathers of the US made it very hard for the US to go to war, but this has been changed. Some of us are strongly opposed to making it easier for a President to take us to war.

War is only one thing we disagree about. Many of us want strong gun control laws. We also disagree on education issues and religious issues. A very serious disagreement is those who have more faith in science than religion. This pandemic has strongly pitted us against each other. Those who support Trump and those who oppose him, are also those who trust science and don't trust science. We have not been so divided since the civil war. This thread is about beliefs, and nothing is taken more seriously than those of us who trust science and those of us who don't. This is not a good time to visit the US especially not for people who do not look like Anglo-Saxons because we are so tense people are lashing out.

One more very serious problem is we have never had so many homeless people! The sight of so many homeless everywhere we go is terrifying! This is as serious as the pandemic because it screams to us things are not as they should be. The more we try to resolve the homeless problem, the bigger it gets. This is very frightening! It strongly attacks our own belief in our nation.

In so many ways we are not the country we defended and one has to ask- what do we think we are defending with our very costly military might? In my youth, the only time I saw a man sleeping on the streets, was when a man had gotten drunk and passed out. Now we see homeless women and children. We have not had this since the Great Depression. We speak of multi millionaires and see homeless women and children. This is so horrifying!

P.S. People do have the right to unionize. Unfortunately, they don't have a right to prevent scabs or other efforts by the Plutocracy to increase the labor supply, thus reducing demand and value of labor. They just run over seas to the billions of people getting 30 cents an hour. The Plutocracy's rising tide lifts Chinese boats. — James Riley

“Right to work” is the name for a policy designed to take away rights from working people. Backers of right to work laws claim that these laws protect workers against being forced to join a union. The reality is that federal law already makes it illegal to force someone to join a union.

Right to Work | AFL-CIO — AFL-CIO

The price of the $5 dress is sweatshops and low wages. This is a consumer choice, not just the plutocracy's choice.

Greenspan would have loved to have had the control of money that he thought he did. He was wrong to deregulate banks, and that crashed all the industrial economies. That was not within the power of a plutocracy. There are different economic theories and for sure big government can not control money. One reason our government can not control spending is that the amount of money that is being spent is beyond comprehension.

Same guy. But he was not alone. Most men of the Enlightenment were headed down a liberal, if not radical road. — James Riley

I think that needs to be clarified by saying most educated men. The masses were not educated except by their church. Some churches had well-educated leaders and many did not. The well-educated men were literate in Greek and Roman classics (classical/liberal education), but even their colleges were tied to religion, not science and technology. On the other hand, the Masons were more excited about what science might reveal and really focused on the Enlightenment and New Age. They might have been deist, but not so much interested in unenlightened religion. I feel like this needs to be brought out because Christian control of education would lead us to believe Christianity gave us an understanding of democracy and that is not exactly true. No one saw anything to do with democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in the classics and if we are to defend democracy we need to be literate in the classics, not the Bible.

↪Athena Let me clarify a point: There is a great deal of difference in quantity and quality between a low level of inequality and an extremely high level of inequality. Perfect equality is unobtainable, but a low level of inequality can be obtained. A low level of inequality might be where the average high pay, average large asset holdings, is only 10 times the average low pay, average low asset holding. So, a 25,000 a year wage earner would be on the low end, 250,000 would be on the high end. A low level of inequality also means that most of the people would hold most of the assets. There would not be room for Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. — Bitter Crank

:lol: Zuckerberg sponsors public broadcasting shows, and with my limited hearing I hear "suck a bird". Not until I saw your spelling of the name did I realize what I hear is not exactly what is said.

On to the point you made. I wish my poor brain would do math and then that economic explanations came with the math. I think it is stupid as hell to demand higher wages and then blame the government for inflation! And what kind of sense does it make to restrict how rich a person can get? Restricting how people get rich makes sense to me, but not the amount.

Now taxing the wealthy makes sense because I knew a man who won a shrimp picking plant in a poker game, and this resulting in him having so much money he had to invest it to avoid paying too much in taxes. Of course, his investment would mean more money the next year, so he would have to invest even more money! That meant his need to invest lead to the community having new businesses and more jobs.

But the shrimp picking plant put many people out of work because before the machine came in, the shrimp was picked by hand and this meant more people got a wage off of the same industry. I thought it would have been so much better if the people who lost their jobs, could have bought the plant and each taken a turn at doing the far fewer jobs, with everyone getting a wage. But- maybe someone getting rich and starting more businesses was better for the community? Only with math can we know that. Capitalism is not just getting rich, it is developing a growing economic base for increasing wealth.

And all those silver and gold mining towns that went belly up when the mines were exhausted were very poorly managed because the profit from the mineral should have been invested in a source of income that would replace the income from the mine, then all the landowners and businesses would have kept the value of their land and businesses. I think that is how government should work. It is really stupid to build up property value and businesses and let it all die because of poor planning.

:lol: At this moment in time, I wonder if anyone would believe I normally argue in favor of socialism. But it is my nature to be contrary and no matter what someone says, I am going to think of an argument.

First, we, as a society, need to distinguish between true capitalism and the faux shit spouted by today's self-identified capitalists who are quick to socialize their costs, hide behind big government's skirts, and refuse to take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Once we understand that difference, then the only objection a socialist might have to capitalism is how the capitalist came into possession of "his" personal property in the first place.
18 hours ago — James Riley

Oh yeah! If it were not for government contracts there would not be so much wealth. This is one of the biggest problems with big government! There is virtually no control of the money.

Corporate personhood should NOT exist legally because a corporation is not a person.

All human beings should have the right to unionize just as capitalists have a right to form corporations.

But this might be getting off-topic and in a philosophy forum, some interesting things might be said of the power and purpose of the different human unions? Should we start such a thread?

Private property rights is one of the primary liberal tenets. They were further caveated by Smith and other capitalists with the notion of "enlightened" self-interest. Don't milk your cow to death. — James Riley

Do you mean Adams Smith's book The Wealth of Nation's? Morality plays a strong role in economics and in family and I think I bit off more than I can chew but I look forward to returning tomorrow and chewing on all this.

Ironic that Tucker Carlson had a recent segment on Fox criticizing the concept of paternity leave that many conservatives jumped on board to agree with. Seems like the question should be Capitalism or Family Values, eh? — Maw

Yes. That is the main point of this thread but it could be lost in verbiage. Everything is so complex. I really do not understand the difference between socialism and capitalism. Fascism is private property but government control of industry. Which makes the capitalist very interested in government and next thing you know, they are running the government. Obviously, Fox News and Christianity play very important roles in our politics. Making Plato's objection to democracy obvious.

I have found information about Cicero and economics that I think might interest all of us. Accoring to Neal Wood, Cicero was....

An "economic individualist" who recommended the enlightened pursuit of self-interest and defended property differentials, he was the first major political thinker to conceive of the protection of private property as the primary purpose of the state — Neal Wood

I think we can assume he was not a liberal when it comes to property rights.

I think letters written by Cicero concerning ownership of property would complement what

James Riley — James Riley

Bitter Crank — Bitter Crank

have been saying about government protecting the rich, but at the same time we might see how this benefits everyone. I don't know, there is so much to understand about economics and I know I do not know enough. My best economic understanding comes from a geologist who wrote "Mineral Resources and the Destiny of Nations". Mineral resources have a lot to do with history and the future. However, if one is in the middle of game like Cicero was, the economic considerations are very different.

I'm not sure about your information, or what it's based on.

Cicero died in 43 B.C.E. I don't recall reading any writing of his addressing land ownership or loss of land by men of the legions. — Ciceronianus

As far as I know, he did not. And that is why I fault him for not understanding the economic problem.

[/quote] Owning land stopped being a requirement for military service as part of the reforms made by Gaius Marius in about 100 B.C.E. I don't know how many men of the legions owned land from that time forward, let alone lost land. Marius began the development of the legions as a professional force. They were provided with equipment, armor and weapons. They could receive land or additional pay on retirement.

Towards the end of the Roman Republic, generals like Sulla, Caesar and Pompey began to reward their legions with loot obtained during successful campaigns, and they became loyal to and dependent on their generals. The civil wars began which ended with the establishment of the Principate by Augustus, who standardized soldiers pay and guaranteed them land and money on retirement. Augustus and successor emperors sought to make the soldiers loyal to the emperor.

Yes, a mercenary army. Nothing like men joining together to defend their homes and family. That moved Rome from a nation of civilians to the Beast that had to be fed. The power and glory of Rome. Why do we admire it?

We get the reference to "bread and circuses" from Juvenal, who wrote in the late first and early second centuries C.E.

There certainly were wealthy people, some of them former slaves (freedmen), and slaves, and there were also people who were not wealthy, and neither slaves nor freedmen, but lived and made or didn't make money. The system certainly favored the wealthy. That's been the case throughout history, however.
21 hours ago

Rome, totally blew it with their white togas. Imagine how much better their economy could have been with a wide variety of clothes and seasonal changes in what we wear. Sorry, that is most certainly a female point of view and not to be taken seriously. I don't think the history of Rome could have gone any differently because of the need to constantly find new supplies of gold. And I see the same thing in the US. Jeese, I thought fracking was going to make us independent of foreign oil, and the news has made it clear the cost of gas is going up because the Arabs are not interested in producing more oil, and Britain is struggling, and Russia is arguing the decline in gas exports is not political.

I am not terribly worried about the poor if they can continue to have the essentials of life, such as family and community, Our focus has been pretty materialistic. Why would anyone want to be rich? Is there anything better than wealth? When there were two men in my life and I had to chose one over the other, I chose the man who had nothing but was the most caring. The man with all the wealth was a jerk. I am not materially rich, but through books and discussions like I can find here, I have a very rich life. I have known rich people who do not have rich lives.

Your post was beautifully written and we have plenty of agreements. But I do not know why we should object to...

"Government is a committee for organizing the affairs of the ruling class." Maintaining the capitalist machine which concentrates wealth is the priority of government (which includes the military). — Bitter Crank

However, that is a little simplistic. We protect entrepreneurship with pattens and anti-monopoly laws. In the past, 8th-grade dropouts began their own businesses and the US is known for its rags to riches stories. We are known as the land of opportunity. Overpopulation is a huge problem, but this is not a government-caused problem, nor are the rich to blame for it. We have exploited our national mineral wealth and spent the money but this is not a government-caused problem. We have very serious resource and population problems and I think we could do better. But on the good side is our education system that enabled millions of people to leave the farm and get good-paying city jobs. Following WWII and the GI Bill, a college education almost guaranteed upward economic mobility.

Look, most working people owe more than they own. Student loans, credit cards, and mortgages count against any assets they have access to, like their house--for which like as not a bank holds the title. Not only can they not lift themselves up, they are in a deep financial hole to start with. Sure, retired workers may be in better shape than younger workers, but they aren't "wealthy" by any stretch of the imagination. — Bitter Crank

I think we have very serious economic problems but who is to blame? The GI bill included low-interest home loans. I knew a retarded couple who bought a home through a special government program that made it possible for low-income people to own their homes. Homeownership is a huge good and the government has supported it, but lately, our government is failing us and bankers sure have become our enemy! This proves the problem with amoral education for technology that has lead to immorality at the top, not just the lowly criminal element, and a loss of personal liberty and power.

We can do better, but that will not be achieved by blaming others and understanding no more than some people are richer than others. Greenspan was wrong to believe deregulating banks was a good idea, and maybe our fiat money is a very bad idea. Both of those bad ideas seem to go together. Economies that depend on growth instead of on sustainability may be a very bad idea?

Botton line, we need a better understanding of the problems than blaming the rich and we need to take responsibility.

Reagan was a nice, likable guy, but he should have been providing sing-alongs around a campfire with a guitar at a camp for kids with cancer. — James Riley

:lol: That is a good idea. In a way, he was a wonderful President because he gave us wonderful feelings of patriotism. Unfortunately, that was good acting, and not based on reality. He lied to us about oil and the need to conserve. The only way to improve our economy and meet our need for oil was to use our military to overpower OPEC.

But back to your faith in big government, your mention of Reagan allows me to make a point. I said the Eisenhower created new relationships with research and the media. Okay, that enabled the Reagan administration to completely replace research on poverty with research on welfare fraud. The findings of research on welfare fraud were fed to the media to scapegoat the poor for the economic crisis caused by OPEC embargoing oil. Exactly how Bush was able to feed the media and take the US into an illegal war with Iraq. That was an action taken by neocons, and Bush and Cheney were neocons.

Why do you think big government that can be controlled by a handful of people is a good thing? The Civil War was very much about sovereign states having more power than the federal government. The Native American Federation and the Greeks and Celts basically all had city-states. We know Rome was the most powerful country in its time until it exhausted its supply of gold and could no longer pay for its military, leaving the church to bribe barbarians and prevent an invasion. I wonder if our fear of immigrants is related to the fall of Rome? They keep coming and coming and we are losing control.

What can be done to increase the power of the people? Almost lost in this thread is the notion that strong families have something to do with the people having power over their government. The media is an essential defender of our democracy, or it once was, before education of a technological society replaced education for citizenship.

We don't feed the lazy for them, we feed the lazy for us. We don't honor our agreements for the benefit of others. We honor our agreements because it is good for us to honor our word. I've oft used the example of Indians: We should not honor our treaties with them because we want what is best for them. Forget them. We should honor our treaties because our own Constitution provides that treaties shall be the supreme law of the land. We do it because it is who we want to be. We feed the lazy because we are good, right, strong, and not lazy. This is how we set standards that people want to aspire to. There will always be lazy, but there will be fewer of them when everyone looks around and says "Hey, would I rather be lazy and get something for nothing? Or would I rather be that guy who carries the lazy with broad shoulders and a smile on his face, embracing the suck, leaning into the load and enjoying the burn as he works his body? — James Riley

:heart: I love your reasoning and it is my understanding too, except we have a little difference of opinion about helping the lazy. I hold that enabling people to make bad choices is harmful. My city has made a gallant effort to help the homeless and I believe it was my activist work when Reagan was in office that woke people up to the need to help the homeless. The problem is our homeless population is growing and this is not sustainable. It has filled our city with undesirable people and this means more crime and is harming businesses and some neighborhoods. Just like when I brought people into my home and they stole from me, and/or became very angry with me because the more they took the worse they felt and it was my fault.

A simple example of misguided city intentions was announcing a work project open to everyone and a free meal. The idea was to give them meaningful work cleaning up the city and thus including them in our community as people with value. Make it possible for them to feel like one of us. Problem was, they fed everyone first and they all walked away without doing a lick of work. I am sure you would agree this did not have the intended effect of everyone feeling like a valuable citizen. That is the first step to getting out of the trap of feeling worthless and having no motivation to change one's unfortunate circumstances. How would you feel if you took and walked away?

Where is the locus of control?
— Athena

The people, not the Plutocracy. The Plutocracy forfeited their right to the status of people when they created the corporation. It was only then that they created laws making corporations people. But they are not. Only the people are people.

That is a good answer but I don't think it works. I think under socialism the locus of control is the government.

It is not the alcohol or the drugs that cause the dysfunction. Ask what kind of culture causes people to turn to drugs and alcohol?

For sure I question what culture has to do with addictions and the destruction of the family. I rather have someone who cares about me and is fun to be with, than rely on alcohol or a drug to feel good. But having that special someone depends on having social skills and also material things. Social skills must be learned and we might consider that an important part of education as it was in our past. And addictions are very much a chemical thing, it could be sugar, alcohol, or drugs or even watching the news, or exercising- these behaviors are about chemicals and hormones. And like wearing a mask to avoid covid, education could help improve decision making, but teenagers aren't likely to value the lesson.

Cultures can make families strong or weak and right now our culture in the US is doing many things that make families weak and this why I started this thread.
— Athena

I think you and I are saying much of the same thing and the agreement is there.

I think we agree on almost everything, and I think our nation has a problem with religion. Some of our forefathers objected to religion that advanced false notions, but there was agreement that religion is good for teaching moral values. Unfortunately, superstition goes with those moral lessons, and Christianity is about a kingdom, not a democracy. Especially an Evangelical Christian believes we must be saved by a supernatural being and all this boils down to in 1958 we replaced our education for good moral judgment with education for technology and left moral training to the church. This was the worst thing we could do.

this is a fight against the government's control of education.
— Athena

That is only true because government is controlled by the Plutocracy. There is nothing inherently wrong with goverment control of education. The problem lies in who controls government. Our foundind fathers believed in public education and they were right, in my opinion. But what happened to civics, etc.?

It is not just the Plutocracy that is causing a problem. It is also religion! Christianity has been the worst enemy of education and the best buddy of Plutocracy that doesn't want to waste time and money on preparing the young to be good citizens. Especially Christianity with zero literacy of Greek and Roman classics is problematic! Only when there is literacy in Greek and Roman classics is democracy defended. We are now living with a Christian mythology of our democracy and this is terrible! It is very much behind the culture wars we are having and amoral atheist are throwing fuel into the fire. [/quote]

Again, big government is not the problem and never has been (in the U.S.). The problem is, who owns the government? Money, or people? FDR was on the right track. But it was NOT government that created the MIC out of thin air or a vaccume. It was the private sector monied interests that did it. To kill government is to cut off your nose to spite your face. Kill instead the monied ownership of government. You see the giant turn in 1958 but money has sought to own government since the founding.

Well, there we disagree. The Military-Industrial Complex is what Germany had, The Bush family and Hitler referred to it as the New World Order. It did not come out of nothing. It came out of war and awareness of how technology can change war.