It's safe to say the if Occupy had been really effective, the powers that be would not have stayed the hands of the police. It was very much amateur hour at the OK Corral. — Bitter Crank

That is a nice way to put it. I got on board before it all fell about, and rode through to end following someone being killed in our camp. As I have learned more about the 1% taking advantage of the housing crisis, and what has happened to property values since then, I strongly regret what happened to Occupy. Which is a story that really could add to this thread.

If we don't end the race wars we will all loose. Ignorance and stupidity are our worst enemies. Most of us were fighting too hard to just survive to tackle the social problems we think are important today. WWII was a big game changer. And throwing stones at people as though we always had the abundance we have today might be a reflection of a lack of information?

According to Pew Research, slightly less than 7% of children have racial mixed parents. I assume that figure does not include the children of Irish/Italians. Advertising agencies like to people product ads with mixed-rave couples and their children. Maybe this is just a cheaper way to advertise to white and black audiences at the same time. — Bitter Crank

I would say those mixed racial commercials are just jumping on the bandwagon. It is the politically correct thing to do, unless a person is a racist bigot. I am waiting for the couple to be gay.

My experience of Occupy is it got taken over by the homeless and the message of Occupy was lost. It was too many young people who were clueless and not enough mature and experienced people. At least the meetings I attended spun out of control and accomplished nothing. Everyone wanted to be a leader and no one wanted to follow nor were they fighting the homeowners' fight with the banks and politics.

The Oregon Broadcasting Station has filled its schedule with shows about how badly all people have been treated, Chinese immigrants, Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, fleeing Jews, Native Americans, all Asians, as well as people of color. Far too little is said about how badly all poor people have been treated and how bad life was for females who were not part of the privileged class when women had no rights, not even the right to their own clothes and could legally be hit when they displeased their husbands.

However, to the credit of OPB, it has mentioned some former slaves became slave owners. It was like owning a car today. People who could afford it owned a slave, and many of us came from slaves because we came from Europe where feudalism sold people with the property they lived on, and they had no freedom to leave that property. Aristotle said a man should have an ox and wife and a slave, those wives did not have the freedom of women today. Or we could turn to India where girls are married off at 8 years of age, so their parents don't have to feed them, and may even benefit from the marriage. In the US the age for marriage for girls was 14 and the husband was not necessarily the man of her choice and forcing a wife to have sex was not considered a crime.

We need to be fully honest and swallow the fact that humans have not been very nice and we did not have such good lives until after the second world war. No group of humans is better or worse than another. Humans are humans. Our abundance since WWII has given us the best period in human history, but back in the day, no one had indoor plumbing and a supermarket full of food year-round, no matter how wealthy they were. Mental retardation was a result of malnourished children and that reality was not that long ago.

I would tell the story with the intention of convincing people another reality is possible. I think if we are moral or not is a matter of culture and that education and media are forces of shaping culture. I would like the book to be inspirational, not sour and dour, amoral or nihilistic.

Bill Gates of Microsoft fame seems pretty intent on doing good, and philanthropy is very old with citizens paying for great public works wanting to be well thought of since ancient times. But that, at least to some extent, depends on culture.

Disney is no longer the creator's manifestation but itself is a commercial hijack. Walt Disney died in 1966. Hum, I can see if I were to write the book, I would have to deal with the difficult challenge of continuing the enterprises these people begin and preserving the integrity of the creator.

:lol: God creates the Garden of Eden for humans, and then throws them out into a wilderness that is not so pleasant. How can this maintain the integrity of God in His creation? How could they remain gentle when their reality is brutal?

Many criticisms of Christians are framed as putting too much responsibility upon individuals for their choices. Your description does not account for the thought in the City of God or the Imitation of Christ. — Valentinus

Do you think the City of God or the Imitation of Christ are more important than other philosophies and mythologies?

I can understand how some factions of Christianity are criticized for putting too much responsibility upon individuals but doesn't that tend to be more so for Protestants than Catholics? I am not sure what is wrong with putting responsibility on individuals because that is saying we have a degree of power over our fate. It is compatible with Hinduism and Confusious.

Thank you. And the Church was not all wrong when it objected to putting the Bible in the people's language and being interrupted by laypeople.

Das Kapital is not exactly what I in mind. I am an old-fashioned female and my concern is much cultural than political. If it had been Dr. Seuss's goal to profit from writing I don't think he could written a book. He wrote because he had something to say and wanted use language to help children learn to read. Profiteers using his name to sell books that are not Dr. Suess's books is wrong to me, Random house buying Golden Books is wrong to me. What the managers of the Hersey town have done to name and the town is wrong to me. My book would be about people with values succeeding and people taking a ride on their success and destroying the geese that lay the golden eggs.

Don't forget that many forms of Christianity do not accept the idea of a devil or demons or any of the cartoon violence in Revelation. For many Christian theologians the Bible is allegorical and not to be taken literally under any circumstances. — Tom Storm

What are the names of those theologians, so I can look them up?

As for revelation being allegorical, the allegory of the beast is one of my favorites! Wasn't Rome dominated by military men when that was written? The economy of Rome came to depend on its ability to conquer people who had the resources Rome needed, and that made the taxing citizens to pay for the military essential, and military men were able to take over the rule of Rome. To me, that is the beast, and the reality of the US. Our consumer economy is worshipping the wrong the God and yet Christians seem to strongly support this? It is all rather confusing to me.

Hi Athena. We have been discussing myths but, unless I missed it We have not been looking at specific myths. When I grew up we had several myths for children, mostly for entertainment but sometimes acting as warnings. Godilocks and the 3 bears I would say is entertainment but the boy who cried Wolf was definitely a warning.
But what about current children's myths? Do any exist in competition with TV? A modern child hearing of Peter and the wolf would think: Why weren't the parent in jail for child neglect?
Do you personally know any myths? — Ken Edwards

Back in the day, we read children the classic stories which we also call moral stories and folk tales, and then we asked "What is the moral of that story". The answer would be a cause and effect. The Little Red Hen didn't share her bread because on one would share in the work. The Fox didn't get the grapes because he gave up and comforted himself by saying the grapes were probably sour anyway. The Little that Could made it over the hill because he didn't give up and kept encouraging himself by saying "I think I can. I think I can." I deeply regret this did not remain part of education with parents understanding the importance of reading these stories to their children, but I have seen indication of education picking them up again.

Golden Books for children added to these stories with modern tales and popular characters. However, when Random House bought Golden Books in 1998 I think they lost their focus on virtues with a focus on money. Hum, if I had the money for travel and research, I would enjoy doing a book about how money has corrupted the forces of morality we once had. This being the result of organizations based on values, being bought up for by people only interested in profits.

Among other things, this means loosing our culture. For sure cultural changes were necessary but the complete loss of our culture could lead to the fall of our civilization?

I want to pick up what you said of other religions and philosophies such as Confucius and Hinduism. Eastern philosophy/religion begin with a belief in "The Basic Goodness of Man" but it seems to me they also assert that we need to work on letting go of our lower selves and developing our higher selves. That is, unlike Christians believing we must be saved by a supernatural power, our development is a matter of our own effort. I seriously do not believe if we are racist bigots here, we will not also be racist bigots when we cross over. Like if Christians think we should not be racist and bigots, here and now is when to correct the problem and clearly being saved by Jesus has not worked the miracle that needs to happen.

That explanation of the creative process is beautiful. :clap:

Spinoza's argument against free will was not to say there was nothing to be done about changing one's experience and of those around you. Consider the following proposition: — Valentinus

Thank you for that contribution. :clap: The similarity between Spinoza and Hinduism and Buddhism has been noticed by many. I find your post quite agreeable with my own thinking.

I think if we all knew Eastern thought, we might see an end to religious wars because to me it makes perfect sense.

And if we consider the gods to be concepts, instead of supernatural beings, then there is no problem with pantheism. Civilizations with a pantheon of gods created more and more gods as they realized new concepts. This got out of control, resulting in Amenhotep IV's grandfather ordering a search of the archives for the true god, and Amenhotep IV then declaring there is only one god and attempting to end the worship of other gods. Which I explain to support my opinion of gods being concepts. We also have knowledge of the Greeks inventing gods as they needed them, and changing the nature of Athena when Athens became a democracy.

in the Christian tradition it was often viewed as the war of good against evil. — Jack Cummins

The notion of evil is curious to me. Doesn't it go with a belief in a supernatural being of evil and demons? I can see a big problem with ignorance and things like drinking from a polluted well spreading disease, but what is evil? Do we need a concept of evil or will the notion of ignorance service?

thinking hurts a lot more than just making shit up. — 180 Proof

For sure, the notion that we can fly is making up shit, right?

You maybe right but I doubt whether there is a well-defined line of demarcation between the two. To my reckoning, the fact of the two being, in a sense, out of phase - technology preceding science - has no bearing on what many have acknowledged viz. that at the heart of every piece of tech we've invented lies a scientific principle. Take for example the wheel - it's a good way to get around the problem of friction. — TheMadFool

Sure there is science behind technology, but when the science is not known it doesn't matter. It matters a lot when the science is known. That is when we step away from superstition and realize our power to overcome evil.

We have culture wars in the US between those who trust in science and those who don't. There are real consequences to this, such as over a million avoidable deaths, and a huge avoidable economic problem resulting from following a leader who lies to us, and I am blown away that someone who lies to us can be very popular. But it is more than this. It also involves having faith in what we can achieve, or faith in supernatural beings of good and evil, and rushing to self-destruction like lemmings rushing over a cliff. It is a barbaric criminal justice system, versus a correction system that actually corrects the problem. So much changes with science that I think the difference is important. Technology without wisdom is a very dangerous thing. Our morality is higher with science and our reality can be very bad without it.

Yeah, unless you're an Orwellian. As the song says

"When you believe in things
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer ..." — 180 Proof

Not when they are beautiful things because it is as we make it and when we believe in beautiful things that is what we make.

//and I’m not saying that as a preamble to saying that ‘God did it’, only to highlight how superficial our knowledge might be.// — Wayfarer

How do you justify that statement? It seems a little sour and dour to me? I really don't think my love of discovery and science is superficial, but rather what makes being alive so much fun. How much fun would the game of life be if we knew everything and there was nothing left to discover? I mean like, you just pissed in the wonderful hamburger and now no one wants to eat it. :vomit:

It isn't just about facts, but every much about our spirit.

It may be that philosophy can make use of blending as a concept for putting ideas together, rather than being just about refuting arguments. — Jack Cummins

If that is not the result of philosophy it is not worth doing. :grin: What you said speaks of complex concepts, and truth often is this and that. I hate arguing with an argumentive person who treats the act of communication as a war to win rather than the path to enlightenment. Being put on the defensive is a sure way to end developing thought.

↪Gregory
Nor is there any mention of the word 'soul'. I did an MA thesis on this topic, if you like I'll PM you a hyperlink. Your thinking is muddled. — Wayfarer

Trinity of the soul. The first part of that trinity dies when our bodies die. We are judged and may or may not enter the good life (heaven) and the third part of the soul trinity returns to the source, no matter what.

Spirit, how we feel. Our spirit can be up or down, angry or peaceful. The Spirit of America is a high morale, the feeling we get when we believe we are doing the right thing.

We can pursue spirituality without religion, I agree, but the reason I was asking about the value of myths is because I believe that the value is in reenforcing social truths, and social truths are necessarily social, so what role would they play in a individual pursuit? Perhaps it’s like art, where we can both discover and express ‘truths’ with others? — praxis

Democracy with liberty and justice for all.

Yeah, science and even math, in certain respects, seems to have come full circle. Both had origins in occult practices (grain of salt recommended), along the way, they discarded this filial association, and now, they're back into doing business in the gray zone between science as we know it and, for lack of a better word, religion. The child has returned home. — TheMadFool

I think we assume science and technology are the same thing. They are not. Human beings have always had technology but we did not always have science. Learning a technology does not improve our understanding of life and does not lead to wisdom as science greatly improves our understanding of life, moral judgment, and makes democracy as rule by reason possible. Technology does not lead to wisdom as science does. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. It is not the education of men.

Why do people need crutches, dram and/or drugs? Same reason they need "religious beliefs and ideas": because thinking hurts a lot more than just making shit up. — 180 Proof

That thought does not lead to freedom and it does not support liberty and leads to authoritarianism. It leads to suffering, not happiness.

I think this describes one of the pitfalls of modern culture well - it caters to these lower needs in a cycle of neverending non-satisfaction. — Pantagruel

Absolutely and I do not believe this was so before changing education and then removing legal motives to be better human beings, such as divorce laws that discouraged divorce and censorship policies and speaking of the duties that go with rights.

Last night I listened to a show about prisoners and how unjust our justice system is. At one time I thought I would be a probation officer so I studied our prisons and visited prisoners and wrote those further away. I was impressed by the youth and the fact that they were not prepared for life. One clearer said he looked forward to the rehabilitation that he thought our criminal justice was. One of the Netherland countries has an excellent rehabilitation system, so it is possible. Some of our prisons do educate prisoners and this key. In one prison the prisoners have a class and access to the classics and learning the concepts in the classics has been transformational.

My favorite word is "concept". We can only be as good as we know how to be and we should not take that for granted! We used to use the Conceptual Method for education that teaches children progressively more complex concepts, and we used literature to help them understand life.

But the whole idea of stoicism is that one consciously trains oneself to learn to master and control exactly what constitutes satisfaction of these lower motivations. — Pantagruel

Yes and no. I love your explanation and with it, it is a yes! But you are speaking of complex concepts and we need to know the simpler concepts that go with the complex concept, as you did by explaining D and B.

When Jefferson wrote of the pursuit of happiness, he meant the pursuit of knowledge with the unquestioned concept that knowledge keeps us out of trouble and leads to fulfilling our higher-order desires. This goes with literacy in Greek and Roman classics and Cicero. And having self-control, as William James, explained, gives us freedom! Freedom! from being controlled by our lower urges that can make us as puppets on strings, and prevent us from actualizing ourselves as thinking human beings. Undeveloped people are not the masters of their lives that we become. Some may find happiness as you said, but many do not.

I've just been reading some Maslow and he presents a really nice theory of the need for the idea of God. Maslow distinguishes between D-motivations and B-motivations, that is, motivations that are powered by deficiencies (hunger, insecurity) and those that are higher and constructive, "being-motivations," growth, creativity, love. B-motivations in turn tie in with his theory of peak experiences, in which cognition of reality is achieved in its most fundamental sense. Everything is perceived "idiographically" as the most perfect exemplar of its own class. Maslow suggests that we have a fundamental desire to be perceived in this way, in our own inherent perfection. And that God is a projection of this need, the being which is able to perceive us as we most truly and perfectly are. — Pantagruel

I am not sure I completely agree with Maslow but I would like to read his explanation of the need for God. Is there a specific book title I should look for? For me, a concept of God helps us have a broader point of view than the lone individual, a much higher stand for humanity and what we can be, than if we have no concept of God. For me, God is also logos and the Tao, the way and our understanding of it.

Jack Cummins — Jack Cummins

I love agreement and I am glad you are accepting of Eastern philosophy. I have read, at one time Catholicism and Buddhism were so close they almost blended. I absolutely think knowing Eastern philosophy improves our understanding of Jesus. Jesus being a mythical character such as other mythical characters that carry Greek thought (logos). Bahia' is a blend of all religions. A high point in Catholicism is when it turned to Aristotle and other Greek philosophers to justify the power and authority of the Church, but this did not pull Europe away from the superstition that came talk of Satan and demons. Superstitious notions that got worse with translating the Bible into languages common to Europeans and Protestantism.

If Christianity saw the Bible as an important book of mythology and interpreted it abstractly instead of literally, I would find the religion much improved. I am quite sure Jews never intended for their stories to be taken literally. I am also quite sure at least 5 Bible stories are Sumerian. Abraham originating in Ur a former Sumerian city. And much of the New Testament seems to blend Sumerian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek thought. Can we come to peace with a better understanding of this blending?

Thanks for replying to my thread. I went out for a walk in the park after writing the question and have spent the evening going through the replies, and worked upwards.

I do believe that the ideas of William James are essential to the understanding of why religion is important. I also believe that other writers' views are important too, including those of Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade and all ot those who have explored the psychological and comparative aspects of religion.

When you speak of the possibility of destruction in relation to this, I do wonder how nihilism fits into the picture. Personally, I do have times when I feel that there is no objective meaning. I cannot always separate this from depression on a personal level. In other words, it is not always clear whether my own depression leads to lack of belief in any higher power being involved in the enrollment of life, or the opposite way round. Nevertheless, I am still inclined to the view that personal and collective survival matter still matter, but I can see that it is a dodgy area because once we get into the area of a godless world it is possible for all meaning to collapse. — Jack Cummins

Many of the US founding fathers were Deist. They thought religion was important but did not hold the Christian belief in a God intervening in our lives. They saw the God thing as a machine that was put into operation and then God lets it run without interfering. More Toa, that way, and we need to come in harmony with it. I think Eastern thought is very important to our understanding. And that Christian Mythology of our founding is a disaster!!! What a mess to have Christianity without education in the Greek and Roman classics and come to almost worshiping Neitzche. That is a terrible combination! That brings us to the "Power and Glory" that was the invasion of Iraq against the judgment of the rest of the world, as well as Trump and followers storming the Capitol.

Absolutely nihilism fits into the picture. When there is no agreement on truth and how we should be governed, there is only power and people are reactionary and that leads to rule by the most powerful! We defended democracy against this, but without liberal education, we do not understand that. And with evangelical Christianity without liberal education, personal power gets confused with God's power. Today no one knows, democracy is rule by reason, and because we do not know that, we can not defend it and stop voting for idiots that impress us with the look of power, instead of with good judgment and good character, and the ability to work with others.

This point is so much important. I totally agree with you that educational system is flawed since the day when states decided teaching us the "principles" to just work and pay our taxes. Probably yes we are more practical but we lost the path of wisdom and questioning everything.
When I say questioning I mean the key of not feeling "full" of what ever our teachers in the school/university teach. — javi2541997

Okay, we had liberal education starting with the day we entered school. Our school system strongly opposed government interference in education until 1958 when the US replaced liberal education with education for technology and began IQ testing, and educating everyone to be products for industry. That is the 1958 National Defense Education Act- education for the Military-Industrial Complex and adopting the German philosophy that goes with it. German philosophy has replaced Classic Greek and Roman thinking which was the cornerstone of liberal education. All that leads us to the storming of the Capitol and I would give anything, even my life, to have a voice like Bill Gates has. Do you know Neitzche's superman? That is Trump and his followers and what Germany had when Hitler was in power. I hate listening to the news and everyone questioning how such a thing could happen and being a nobody who no one with power listens to.

Complex and abstract terms like “God” “Heaven” “souls” are learned to us in our way of life when we are getting to the adulthood. — javi2541997

I have a very old book explaining logic and it clear states we can never know enough to be absolutely sure of what we think we know. When we get older we totally get the meaning of "the more you know the more you don't know". Maturity is being okay with that.

We have been awashed with the lying that technology is like a God and empiricism gives us that God's truth. Thanks to education for technology we are smart but we are no longer wise.

I hope my country realizes that education for technology has destroyed wisdom and that we return to education for wisdom. That is liberal education.

I was not aware that William James was interested in religion and psychology. I have his book about the psychology of education and only knew him as an authority on education and for advancing pragmaticism.

Allan Bloom argues the problem with nihilism in his book "Closing of the American Mind-How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy And Impoverished The Souls Of Today's Students". I find it depressing and therefore hard to read. To me, believing in nothing, not even the differences between males and females, and the importance of family is extremely depressing. Vive la France, at least leave us the pleasure of being man and woman and procreation.

Anyway reading your post, I immediately thought of Bloom's explanation of nihilism and my answer to your question is we must have something to believe in, something to live and die for because if there is nothing we want to live and die for, life is pretty miserable.

I know the US public schools attacked our national heroes and then dropped them and I see this as very destructive of our democracy. Democracy is based on a belief in humanity and education. It is about achieving human excellence and having liberty based on the highest morality. We need our role models and concepts of human dignity and honor and those have been under attack through education. Now we do not understand why we should not storm our Capitol building and take by force anything we think we should have control over. Our Capitol building is no longer sacred and may never again be an open experience for us to have because present conditions demand turning it into a fortress. I don't think a civilization can get any lower than this. The US may appear to survive, but this is not the democracy we inherited. It is more like the Germany we defeated in two world wars and education has brought us to this.

The bottom line, civilizations must have shared values or they self-destruct.

When this pandemic is over, I am going to make an effort to find a group I want to be with that is more creative. At the senior center, I participated in a group about political issues and I did not do well. Well, no one did well. This is frustrating. I think

— Cobra — Athena

is speaking of something I need to better understand. Or, perhaps the group needs to be artistic and not political? Wow, I am missing something here and I sure am glad Cobra step in. She has increased my appreciation of times when being impersonal might be preferred, but it can not be so impersonal that it destroys individual liberty and power.

:lol: This is looking a little more complex sense Cobra stepped it.

An ability to discuss personal things impersonally is a good skill to have; — Cobra

This was said when I was in a public speaking organization and I think I have just experienced why that is important. After reading your comment, I watched several TV shows with people of color discussing their issues. Most of them expressed anger towards White people and the problem of with White people pushing back. I thought of what you said and only one show was informative without making me feel threatened.

However, I don't think I understand what you are saying well enough to apply it to how I word myself.

and even eliminate idealism (and false-fact telling) for the sake of "identity protection" - even when discussing non-trivial identities, but trivial identities have completely polluted/distorted the benefits we can extract from it's use. — Cobra

I am not sure what that means. What is a trivial identity?

Well, you are certainly saying what I think needs to be said. And I think what

Ken Edwards — Ken Edwards

said is a good idea.

Of course, I developed my own community of people my age, but if it were not for the internet I would die from a lack of intellectual stimulation. In a way, having a sense of community may be easier for older people such as myself, because we have senior centers with activities that bring us together and people who attend these social functions are there to socialize. But when I lived in a small town, people kept their jobs and we at least recognized each other. In the city it seems people change their jobs often and there is always someone different at the store or at the bank. I am living with strangers and it is not the same as a small town. But the small towns are even less intellectually stimulating.

I think Ken Edwards, hit a nerve because neither the city nor the small town are Haight Asbury or Greenwich village. I don't think there are many places for artistic/intellectual types of people to actually have a community and we need each other to bounce ideas off of. We need a social life that is good with differences!

Thanks, Jack and Ken, I am enjoying imagining such a community and wondering where I might find just the right place for me.

Education in the US did tackle the power issue. It is popular to say education has always been preparing the young to be products for industry, but that does not agree with the old books I have read. William James (1842-1910) was an education authority and he strongly disapproved of the German purpose of education because it did not encourage original thinking.

If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacities for conduct. This is most immediately obvious in Germany, where the explicitly avowed aim of the higher education is to turn the student into an instrument for advancing scientific discovery. The German universities are proud of the number of young specialist whom they turn out every year,- not necessarily men of any original force of intellect, but men so trained to research that when their professor gives them an historical or philosophical thesis to prepare, or a bit of laboratory work to do, with a general indication as to the best method, they can go off by themselves and use apparatus and consult sources in such a way as to grind out in the requisite number of months some little pepper-corn of new truth worthy of being added to the store of extant human information on that subject. Little else is recognized in Germany as a man's title to academic advancement than his ability thus to show himself an efficient instrument of research.

In England, it might seem at first sight as if the higher education of the universities aimed at the production of certain static types of character rather than at the development of what one may call this dynamic scientific efficiency. Professor Jowett, when asked what Oxford could do for its students, is said to have replied, "Oxford can teach an English gentleman how to be an English gentleman." But, if you ask what it means to "be' an English gentleman, the only reply is in terms of conduct and behavior. An English gentleman is a bundle of specific qualified reactions, a creature who for all the emergencies of life has his line of behavior distinctly marked out for him in advance. Here, as elsewhere, England expects every man to do his duty. — William James

He goes on to explain how to develop a child for original thinking. In the US vocational training became a strong part of education when we mobilized for war in 1917. The US used its schools to mobilize for war in the first and second world wars. That meant increasing the focus on American values. However, it was always the purpose of education in the US to Americanize the flood of immigrants who had no experience with democracy. Democracy demands knowledge of democracy and leadership. Liberty demands good moral judgment. The Greek and Roman classics and learning Latin and math were important. Math being a method of teaching logical thinking, along with diagramming sentences. William James thought it important for a child to verbalize the subject to be learned, and take action such as making a map or working in a garden plot.

Anyway, the answer to the question does education tackle the questioning of authority, depends on what country and its period in time. The major countries in the west have gone from liberal education to education for technology and use the German model. You know the model that lead to Hitler and Trump in the US, because the focus has shifted from independent thinking to reliance on authority. Right now there is a lot of fear of the US and growing demand for authority over the people. That change in education goes with the change in bureaucratic order. You know, being told you are to do the job exactly as the person before you did the job.

That takes us to the importance of being personal. When everything is run by policy everything becomes impersonal, then a government can do what the Nasis did because they are just following orders.

don't think that it is about privilege but about respecting individuality and difference. But I can see that this does involve debate. However, I will let Athena discuss further as she created the thread. — Jack Cummins

It is interesting to me how some people around the world come up with the same ideas, but we are kind of clustered in groups that do have different points of view. You and I seem to share the same notions and obviously, there are not a lot of people jumping in here agreeing with us.

I think Unenlightened also shares the same values, but not exactly the same, and that makes for good conversation.

The US based Social Security on age not need, to protect the dignity of older people. Much later the US created the Older Americans Act, which entitled older people to social benefits. Of course, we have free education for children, and the states vary in how much assistance children get. Unfortunately, and the reason for this thread, is the US stopped transmitting its culture and left moral training to the church, and now it is divided and at war with itself. The US adopted the German models of bureaucracy and education, and THIS LEADS TO EXCESSIVE OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY AND IMPERSONALNESS. We fought two world wars against what we have become. And Jack, I am alarmed that you have experienced the same impersonalness on the job. That means more of the world is under the spell of this authoritarian, impersonal social order than I thought.

Oh dear, I am sorry to disagree with but I do not see myself as an anarchist. However, I think I like the spirit of which you speak and we might call that the Spirit of America? The spirit of America is a mural in the US Capitol Building. She brandishes the Sword of Justice and so does the Lady of Justice who holds the sword and scales. They go with the Statue of Liberty who holds a book for literacy and a torch for enlightenment. Back in the day, one of the British philosophers argued in favor of our democracy and said those who have liberty have the most self-restraint. Only those who have high morals can have liberty and that is what makes education so important to a democracy.

Briefly, I am in favor of government. Why do you object to it? I like the idea that we debate things until there is agreement on the best reasoning, and from there, we have rule by reason. I think that group effort is very important to good governing. Without rules, how do we know how to play the game? :grin:

I also love what empowering women has done to our sciences and thinking and how that is being manifest in government. There is more and more talk of preventing the abuse of children. Living below the poverty level is abusive to children. Now we must be very careful here because too much government interference becomes a negative, but a civilized society would not be blind to abuse because that is a setup for future social problems. And just living in a society where people do not seem to care about the children, is abusive to the children. At least that is how things looked to me when I was a child living in constant insecurity.

I like your questions and your comment. And I almost worship Jack because he is well-read and we agree on what is really important yet he manages to turn just about everything into a pleasant discussion. His questions are sincere, not antagonistic.

My thought is humans are very limited. We are lucky if we can remember the names of 600 people and know a few facts about them, like who their parents are and who their children are. By the time our numbers reach 6000, we are alone with strangers. At this point, prejudice plays a strong role in whom we are attracted to and whom we avoid. For example, when I was young and attractive, my alarm went off if passing a male but not if passing a female, because males could be a threat to me and females were unlikely to be a threat. Our prejudices serve the purpose of protecting us when we have overwhelmed our ability to know each other.

That is where rules of good manners become very important! I love my grandmother's 3 rules.
1. We respect everyone because we are respectful people. It doesn't matter who the other person is because how we behave is about who we are, not who the other person is.
2. We protect the dignity of others. Now that can be hard to do when the other is antagonistic and insulting. I have a hard time not reacting in a shameful way, so I try to avoid people who bring out the worst in me.
3. We do everything with integrity. This is right next to being honorable.

So while a lot of responsibility falls on us for a moral society, taking that responsibility is about having liberty and favoring individuality. There are two ways to have social order, culture, or authority over the people. Authority over the people, even if it is blind justice, destroys liberty, and that makes a moral culture very important. I think changes in public education have destroyed the culture we had in the US and this could end our liberty and democracy. We have put technology above the enlightenment goal of raising the human potential. I love technology, but I think loving people, and the variety of people, is more important. I wish we would give back to children their childhood, and as we did in the past, allow them to choose their own course after they have developed their unique identity, talents and skills, and judgment. Preparing them to be products for industry beginning with the first day they entire school, is horribly wrong!

I had science and technology confused, until I listened to a professor's explanation of the difference, and his explanation made perfect sense to me. It is like the difference between information and knowledge. Technology is information. The Egyptians had practical math and technology, but not science. The difference is knowing the triangle and how to use it for building and painting, but not the universal principle of triangles. Science is knowledge, understanding the universal laws, and Greek morality was built on concepts of universal truth, something that seems totally lacking for nihilistic people.

Technology leads to the Star Trek Borg, a spacecraft that gathers humanoids from all the different planets and plugs them into the spacecraft in such a way that they become part of the Borg and can not walk away and have a human life. The Star Trek caption was taken by the Borg and plugged in and the crew had to rescue him. Of course, that was a comment on what is happening to us. :lol: Being part of the Borg or having a job where every position is described in detail and everyone who does the job does it exactly the same as the person before. That is very impersonal and efficient.

Because of the other forum I do, I have concluded 'the idea that the good life depends on technology and nothing is better', is so pervasive, minds can't even question the human value versus the technological value. Replying to you, I am reminded of how Strek Trek addressed this theme over and over again.

Here is an explanation of the Borg and in the other forum there is no resistance to it because everyone is nihilistic and is choose technology instead of humanity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-01AQryzPs

:lol: That is hysterical :rofl: . Philosophical discussions are redundant because Wikipedia has all the answers. Requiring nothing of us right? Don't worry in another forum a gentleman refuses to accept the value of classical education or even to acknowledge a difference between New Math and practical math in learning reasoning. The difference being New Math is very abstract and we don't interact with it as we do with practical math.

I like your concept of the difference between knowledge and information being our relationship to it. Did you happen to watch a US show called Star Trek? People live on a spaceship and explore the universe. The show made it possible to consider many different human situations, including living in computer run societies. It was a TV series and also movies.

In one Star Trek movie, Spock dies and in a following one, he was brought back to life. Doc. asks Spock what it is like to be dead. Spock asks Doc if he was ever dead, and with shock that Spock would ask such a ridiculous question, Doc says "no", he has never experienced death. Then with a bit of irritation to Doc's ridiculous question, Spock says, then there is nothing for you to reference. In other words, without the experience it is not possible to understand the experience. This fact of life is quite irritating for people of color because White people do not experience life as they do and therefore lack motivation to change the reality. Or as a convict man once told me, "you may think shit tastes bad, but you don't know how bad until you eat it". The Quabala a Jewish tradition mentions God can know facts of lives but can not experience being human. I am sure that line of reasoning lead to edifying Jesus- a god experiencing human life.

There does not appear to be much interest in this discussion and I wonder why? We are turning our lives over to technology and creating a future very different from the past, and I thought people would want to discuss this? Knowing the difference between information and knowledge might play a role in how we create the future.

Interesting to contemplate the combination of technology and the pandemic. I think the effect of the pandemic will hit the young the worst because they are developing ideas of who they are and what life is all about and they coming into this and are growing up in isolation. Many of them have electronic devices and communicate with complete strangers and I suspect have very superficial relationships that are not like the school buddies children have had for 200 years. What if that is all a child knows for the early developmental years? Then add to this learning of life in a society that pushes the idea that computers and future robots are better than human beings? This is beginning to look like a science fiction on another planet.

Have you seen the TV series "Human's"?

Humans is a science fiction television series that debuted on Channel 4. Written by the British team Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, based on the Swedish science fiction drama Real Humans, the series explores the themes of artificial intelligence and robotics, focusing on the social, cultural, and psychological impact of the invention of anthropomorphic robots called "synths". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_(TV_series) — Wikipedia

I know this is picky but I am not comfortable with the word "knowledge" being used the same as the word "information". Knowledge implies experience and information is factual but not experience. The Internet has a lot of information but the information is not equal to knowledge. It is only knowledge if it is experienced. What do you think? I think this is an important distinction if we are going to maintain the value of humans? What happens in our brains is unique to humans and it differs from computer information.
(last paragraph reworded for better clarity)

When I did my degree independent thought was considered as the mark of excellence. However, in courses I have done more recently independent thinking is not about independence at all, but just backing up arguments with published opinion. I had a tutor told me, 'You might as well suggest that people fold up pieces of paper all day, unless you back it up with empirical evidence to show that what you are saying works.'

I think this probably goes back to the whole idea of post truth, which I mentioned in the discussion on relativism. Even though I have found some of the postmodern authors, such as Lacan and Baudrillard useful for helping me think through ideas, I believe that postmodernism has contributed to the erosion of individual expression and the importance of uniqueness. — Jack Cummins

Oh, I can not say the word that is on my mind. :zip: Ah, how about this- just like human beings can not psychoanalysis nations can also need psychoanalysis. My grandmother's generation would be outraged by that opinion. I understand the importance of empirical information but it had nothing to do with being independent thinkers until recently.

Eisenhower's farewell address (sometimes referred to as "Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation"[1]) was the final public speech of Dwight D. Eisenhower as the 34th President of the United States, delivered in a television broadcast on January 17, 1961. Perhaps best known for advocating that the nation guards against the potential influence of the military–industrial complex, a term he is credited with coining, the speech also expressed concerns about planning for the future and the dangers of massive spending, especially deficit spending, the prospect of the domination of science through Federal funding and, conversely, the domination of science-based public policy by what he called a "scientific-technological elite". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address — wikipedia

What you have said destroys our individual liberty and power and that means we have fought two world wars for nothing. Millions of people died for nothing! Imagine the people of Athens or the founding fathers of the US, discrediting each other because they do not have empirical information. That is an insult to the speaker and the listener.

I studied public policy and administration at the University of Oregon. I know the research has flaws. By the time something is narrowed down enough to be the point of the research, the results of the research represent reality as well as a plastic-wrapped steak represents the animal it came from. There is a question of if the researcher should participate with the subjects being researched or be more like a computer collecting data and avoiding all interaction. When collecting that information it is important to have no facial and vocal reactions that may influence the person being questioned. But so many things can mess up the information gathering process and each method will get different information.

AND FACTS ARE NOT EQUAL TO MEANING. That is something that is much easier to understand in our later years. When we are young we are good at gathering facts. In our later years, our head is full of information and the neurons have grown and begin touching each other. That is to say we develop more complex thinking and a much better understanding of complex concepts. The experience is enlightenment, a much better understanding of meaning than we had in our younger years. Our reliance on technology instead of our elders is miss-placed faith. Biden will be a very different President than Bush Jr. was because as we age, if we have remained mentally active and intentionally pursued knowledge, we are as a fine wine and have much better judgment. Come on, a computer can not think like a human. Doesn't it make sense to turn to nature's best computer the well-programmed elder? In the not so distant past, children were taught to respect their elders, but society and education have turned the young against the elders, and we have some pretty serious social problems that technology can not fix.

"I believe that postmodernism has contributed to the erosion of individual expression and the importance of uniqueness." I so agree with you and that leads to the atrophy of civilizations and their death. Athens was aware of this problem. When it began expanding it became necessary to prepare people to govern the colonies. This flipped their education from developing human excellence to technological correctness, and soon, its problems became unmanageable and it became subject to Rome. Mythology warns us of the danger of the beast. Our reliance on technology is making the beast strong and I will repeat, we fought two world wars for nothing if this continues because if we destroy individual liberty and power, that leaves only the beast with power and authority and being a subject instead of a free man is a terrible thing.

I think that some people are better at trying to be robots than others. At work, I can remember how so many people just used to be able to be so alike. The more people expect me to act like a mould the more chaotic I become.

Perhaps it comes down to how we are treated as children. I don't think that I was forced to conform that much. Even at school, I was considered as 'arty' and left to my own devices a lot. My close friends are mainly arts orientated and seem to have difficulty conforming and being robotic.

So, I am really in favour of the right to be a creative bohemian outsider. It will be interesting to see what other people on the site think of your thread and whether they struggle if they are not given enough scope to be unique.

Extra: I just looked under discussion and saw all your previous one. I smiled at the one about toilet paper, and I think my mum hoards toilet rolls. — Jack Cummins

When my grandmother was a teacher, teachers thought it was their purpose to help children discover their own interests and talents. Learning math was about learning how to think logically, not learning how to have a high tech job. The focus was on independent thinking and that has been changed to "groupthink". The president the US had and his followers who wrongly thought they could stop the transfer of presidential power by use of force, are the result of a change in education and our social order. I am frantic as the changes have occurred without public awareness and knowledge of the ramifications of them. Our ignorance of what has happened makes us powerless.

This is more important than you may think. Taking responsibility for the goal of getting things done and being creative are essential for our sense of empowerment and satisfaction of doing a good job. The democratic model of management encourages this while obviously, the autocratic model does not. Under the autocratic model, we are to obey without questioning authority. Under autocracy having initiative can lead to being fired for being insubordinate. The autocratic model is efficient but not self-correcting and it can lead to very bad employee and management relationships that result in problems. The autocratic model becomes a family problem when employees treat their family as badly as they are treated at work. Autocratic workers are more apt to teach their children to obey than they are apt to teach them to lead, locking them into the lower class and abusive relationships.

Effectively we are like sea life that is trying to survive in a radically changing environment. The sea life has no way of knowing that things were not always this way. I expect more of humans but so far you are the only one on the planet who seems to be capable of knowing things were not always as they are and things are not as good as might want.

:lol: Bless you for the laugh about hoarding toilet paper! I wonder how many people will remember the horror of finding the shelves empty of toilet paper and cleaning supplies. When this last lockdown was announced, people panicked and bought up all the toilet paper again. :lol: I doubt that will go down in history books but for the people needing toilet paper it was a big deal.