All discourse about how the world COULD BE organized to achieve a better quality of life is SPECULATIVE, of course. The problems lying in the way of even minor changes (like revitalizing the labor union movement) are difficult enough. Reorganizing production along humane socialist lines is, as you said, orders of magnitude more complex. Do I think it's going to happen? Not likely.

My socialist mentors always warn against utopian schemes. On the other hand, our reach should exceed our grasp. There is nothing eternal about the way economies are organized now.

Should it be based on performance? Experience? Drive? Charisma? — schopenhauer1

Who becomes a manager should be based on election by workers. "Management and oversight" is a useful service which helps people perform well, when the purpose is to enhance work, rather than just squeeze out more from fewer people. There are people who have been managers over me who I would happily elect as a manager, and their are other people who should never be in the position of management.

... but as with the other thread about economics, what is the best model? — schopenhauer1

Well, which is the best model depends on what values you want to optimize. In the Standard [capitalist] Model that we have, profit is optimized. Optimizing profit makes sense in the capitalist system.

Society can elect other values to optimize: environmental safety; worker satisfaction; high quality products or inexpensive products; and so on. Worker satisfaction is a reason primary value to optimize, since most citizens in any given country are workers (or will be workers, or were workers). So, optimizing working conditions AND achieving adequate production to meet social needs makes sense,

There are several aspects to optimizing worker satisfaction:

1. Workers have control over their workplace, its operation, and its purpose. In this scheme, workers elect (or hire) coordinators, quality control specialists, occupational safety and health inspectors, and the like. The workers decide what kind of products to produce, what level of quality (with respect to cost), and quantity.

2. Workers decide what they need in terms of their own support and maintenance. They may not be producing for profit, but they are also not working as a voluntary hobby.

3. Most consumers are workers, and consumers need to work with factories to match production to desire (obviously, not on a one to one basis, or in picayune details). If workers need cooler clothing to wear in increasingly hot weather, and maybe with insect repellence built in, these needs can be communicated.

4. Workers and consumers together will have to form councils to determine what a reasonable standard of living is for a given area. Today, people live within the limits of a wage somebody else determines. People will have to decide for themselves what is reasonable for the amount of time they want to put into work. If they want to work less, they might have to share more goods, like sharing bicycles, tools, laundry equipment, or camping gear.

Greater independence and autonomy will, paradoxically, require more interaction and cooperation among people.

What happens to rich people in this sort of society? Well... first, their cash becomes worthless in a economy where work and consumption is connected. Their property will be socialized. a few thousand people in a country of many millions won't own everything. The rich will have to find useful work, just like everybody else, and it will literally be good for them. (The alternative will not.)

Do you mean, "least warlike" peaceful, or "inner peace" peaceful? Or "most contented" peaceful? Namibia and Mongolia have the highest rate of nations for sedative abuse, so maybe they are the most peaceful.

Canada, Denmark, Portugal, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Japan, Austria, Slovenia, Czech were the 10 most peaceful, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace, for whatever that's worth. On their list the USA ranked 103 out of 163 -- not very peaceful.

I think poetry would be one of your best sources.

I Sing the Body Electric
by Walt Whitman

Love III
by George Herbert (16th century poet)

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
by Christopher Marlowe (16th century)

You, Therefore
by Reginald Shepherd

Turbidophilia
by Peter Pereira

A Birthday
by Christina Rossetti

American Wedding
by Essex Hemphill
In america,
I place my ring
on your cock
where it belongs...

A Poem for the Old Man
by John Wieners

Federico García Lorca
Frank O’Hara

Please Master... and other poems
by Allan Ginsberg

we're talking about human females and not zebra females — Heister Eggcart

There was a popular pre-WWII eastern European group of female performers whose nightclub act featured their appearing totally nude, except for paper mache zebra heads and black hooves. Sometimes stripes of black and white paint were cleverly applied to their luscious bodies. They would run around the nightclub, whinnying, tastefully titillating the men, emphasis on tits, undoing bits of men's clothing, and such frivolities.

You might have been discussing whether their lives were worth living.

How do you know that all human life isn't worth the suffering on Earth? How can you possibly know that? Being just one among many billions of lives on Earth certainly gives you no grand insight about the purpose of the whole thing. Do you think you are in the position of judging all of human life, and determining that it's not worth the suffering? — Agustino

If Herr Heister Eggcart can't know that all human life isn't worth the suffering, then by extension I would assume that Monsieur Agustino can't know that human life IS worth the suffering.

Not you, me, or some woman in Moline. — T Clark

If you don't care for one actual wretched woman in Moline, how can you care about the abstraction of "the human race as a whole"?

Three points:

One. About half the people in the world are electing to procreate at a sub-replacement rate. The sub-replacement rate is less than 2 children per woman. Sub replacement is the norm in Europe; Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, United States and a number of other nations. It is as low as 1.31 in Portugal. France is at 1.96. The lowest reproduction rates are in Singapore, Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. In developed countries population growth is from migration, or where there is insufficient immigration the population is shrinking.

In the developing countries, the rate of population stability is higher -- perhaps 3.4 children per woman. (Mortality rates, particularly child mortality, are significantly higher in some countries. Niger, South Sudan, DRC, Somalia, Chad, Burundi, Angola, and Mali all have birth rates above 6.0. Niger's is 7.6. This actually represents progress. In 1970, Rwanda and Kenya had birth rates above 8.0. Their birth rates are now 3.9 and 4.3 respectively.

So, At least half of the world has decided that the delights of existence are insufficient to justify more reproduction than it takes to replace themselves.

Two. I agree with you that the economic system to which most people in the world are subjected is based on at least, controlled, and not-horrible exploitation, but exploitation none the less. A good share of the world's people are subjected to fairly bad exploitation, and some people experience downright horrible exploitation.

The Standard Model in the much of the world is this: I will pay you less than your value as a worker and I will keep the extra value you produce for myself. In exchange for this fabulous and generous deal, I will probably? keep you employed until it is no longer convenient for me to do so.

The result of the Standard Model is that some people get more and more rich at the expense of those who get more and more poor. At the present time, the Standard Model has produced less than a dozen splendid people whose combined wealth exceeds the combined wealth of about 3.5+ billion riff-raff. In the industrialized world, the Standard Model applies, but it has been spoiled by roughly a billion lazy, selfish, greedy workers who demanded a larger share of the wealth they created.

The NON-Standard Model is that production should be for human use, and not for profit. The Non-Standard Model greatly reduces the level of exploitation of even the billion lazy, selfish, greedy workers who don't know what hard work is. (For best results, apply your sarcasm sensors here.)

Three. Even in the best of all possible worlds (a famous caveat), life will not be perfect and free of suffering. There will be, for instance, snakes.

We could do a lot better. I don't recommend that anyone hold their breath waiting for that happy day when we figure out how.

Get a grip. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Get lost.

People forget that unions gave American workers many of the positive aspects of work that we enjoy today - 40 hour week, benefits, health insurance, and so on. Unfortunately, the level of worker organization you are talking about no longer seems possible. — T Clark

All true.

Why? For one, employers have gained too many legal protections against worker organization, and are themselves alert and and organized. Their anti-union activities are effective. Two, the unions that do exist are too often a.) in bed with the boss; b.) corrupt; c.) ineffective d.) too small. Militant members make for militant unions, and workers are not, at this point, militant.

Workers are not militant because the concepts which make strong resistance possible have been buried. Public relations efforts portray worker organizing as conflict that is undesirable, disruptive, unproductive, against the public good. The public has become well educated in the corporate, pro-capital view of the world.

A new element -- the marginalization of the low and semi-skilled worker in the US--and even some skilled and professional workers, by automation (computers and robots), is game changing, not for the better, from the perspective of a worker seeking a good job.

What bothers many professional workers is that tighter management control often diminishes the intellectual satisfactions of work. One of the bastions of intellectually satisfying work -- the college faculty job -- has been degraded by replacing full time teachers with low-paid term-to-term temp-teachers.

One could go on for pages and pages...

Violence against a comrade may well stiffen the backbone.

Does gay bashing make gay men submissive? No, I don't think so. It might make us more cautious. You know, most gay men do not get beat up by straights, at least in my experience in the US, since 1970.

Yes -- some gay men get beaten up by straight men because they are are gay, and news of these beatings is as close to a fist in the face and kick in the ribs as most gay men get.

OK.

It's been my experience that gay men are a lot like straight men (and gay women are a lot like straight women). Rage is rage. Brutal is brutal, it doesn't make all that much difference what the sexual orientation is. A lot of people (gay straight male female) lack the skill to engage in fighting, so rage isn't going to get expressed as artfully as it is in Hollywood movies.

I'm not suggesting the "we are all really just the same, except who we go to bed with" cliche. Gay and straight are different in a number of significant ways.

What song helps us understand homosexual relationships? — Mongrel

Just off hand, I can't think of any specifically gay songs about gay relationships. Not a lot of songs (of the sort I might listen to) have been written about gay men's relationships.

More that I can think of just have (or were given) a gay sensibility --

Like It's raining Men by the Weather Girls


or Jet Boy Jet Girl by Elton Motello (he gives me head -- it's straight-up gay)

True story. — Mongrel

Horrible story.

According to the OP, this sort of thing has been happening for thousands of years, resulting in homosexual men being smart enough to be submissive to straight men because you never know when one of them is going to turn out to be Crazy. But we need not think of this as a bad thing. — Mongrel

I went back and looked carefully at the OP and I just don't find anything about gay men there, let alone about crazy straight guys. But what's the lesson? Don't go home with strangers? Avoid crazy MFs? That last, certainly -- if one can tell.

Some gay guys specialize in straight men, others avoid them (for sexual purposes, at least) like the plague. I've always thought that life was complicated enough trying to sort out a bar full of faggots, let alone trying to sort out the straight nice guys from the straight male psychopaths.

The submissiveness of a gay man is beautiful. We all stand to learn something from it. — Mongrel

What kind of submissiveness are you talking about? Is the bottom being submissive or is he cooperating to get what he wants? Is the top being dominant or is he also cooperating to get what he wants? Some guys are definitely into the dominant/submissive angle. Others, not so much. Some, not at all. Some are versatile -- can be top, bottom, submissive, dominant. Flexi-fuckers.

Here's a Country Western Dialogue on who is responsible for the state of man/woman relationships.

I didn't know God made honky tonk angels
I might have known you'd never make a wife
You gave up the only one that ever loved you
And went back to the wild side of life
— Hank Thompson

It wasn't God who made honky tonk angels
As you said in the words of your song
Too many times married men
Think they're still single
That has caused many a good girl to go wrong — Kitty Wells

I don't know what to suggest for those who can't. — T Clark

Workers of the world unite? You have nothing to lose but your chains and a world to gain?

Tie the boss up and tell him he stays in the broom closet until he is ready to meet your non-negotiable demands?

Seize the means of production and begin production for human need instead of profit?

Corral the Board of Directors of Apple Corporation and give them a deal: Meet our non-negotiable demands (distribute the $100+ billion in cash you are all sitting on to the poor) OR you each will be forced to eat one IPhone 7. Don't want to eat a phone? Then start writing checks?

There is always someone worse off than you. — Thinker

And the guy two ledges down had no hands or feet; on the third ledge down was someone who had jumped, didn't know the third ledge was there, and ended up too injured to finish himself off. So sure, there is always someone worse off. I find knowing that some people are worse off singularly unhelpful.

Want to fix yourself – help someone else. — Thinker

This, on the other hand, is the very model of modern good advice. At least for the problems that stem from self absorption, isolation, loneliness, alienation, and all that -- making meaningful, helpful connections with other people has great value--to both parties.

Pyrrhus — mcdoodle

Is he the one who invented the pyrrhic victory?

The only major external force I can identify that may be regularly affecting my mood is my boss at work, who is quite heavy-handed, and has taken away much of the autonomy I enjoyed working for my previous boss. To deal with this, I believe I have the necessary CBT-based tools.

So I'm left wondering if it's my system of core beliefs about how I think the world should be (or how I've been conditioned to think it should be) that is resulting in this residual feeling of depression, and whether there is some way of thinking that could bring my beliefs more in line with how the world really operates. — CasKev

Real depression is a disorder of the brain. Maybe it is endogenous. If so, external changes might not make that much difference. If it's exogenous, then changing your life might well reduce your depression. To a large extent, you did that with medication and CBT. Good.

Some people's depression is clearly endogenous. People with severe major and chronic depression usually can't point to an exterior cause. It's internal chemistry.

For those whose depression is exogenous (it's still real, however, mediated by internal brain chemistry) it's difficult to generalize about whether a change in life will reduce depression or not. Changing jobs might make a difference. Depending on the next job, things might be better or worse...

It is certainly worthwhile to resolve cognitive dissonance, but I don't think most people are depressed by such a cause alone, but doing so might help a person feel better.

I tried to make major changes in my life, I tried therapy, I tried medication. It all helped to some degree. What made the most difference was retirement from work, and the end of a spouse's difficult and finally fatal illness. There was a period of grieving, but then I discovered I was free of many burdens, and what had been a steady drain (depression) finally was gone.

This was serendipitous change. I hadn't previously been successful in engineering a sufficiently dramatic change in life.

However, one can carry on reasonably successfully, depressed or not. Care in managing one's choices and feelings is essential. Good luck.

So, leadership is measured by how much money you make? I don't understand what you're trying to say.

So we aren't talking about leaders, we're talking about great leaders. What percent of people would you say are great leaders. — T Clark

The Humphrey Institute at the U of MN used to have a graduate department called "Reflective Leadership". I worked two years there as a clerk. I never did get a good explanation as to what "reflective leadership" was supposed to be.

They did, however, talk about different types and styles of leadership. In 40 years of working, I met two excellent leaders: one specialized in developing (1970s) educational technology. He led by coaching faculty to try new approaches and displaying unbounded enthusiasm. Some of it worked, some of it didn't.

The other great leader oversaw AIDS education by a non-profit. She led by quiet suggestion, long leashes, and technical and professional quality (she was an MPH).

Some leaders who were not so good:

Some bad leaders generally insist on extremely tight control of professional staff who presumably have the skills and training to work much more independently.

Some leaders are really great starters but are bad at on-going management (like the head of the AIDS non-profit). Other leaders head off innovation but are good at keeping things running for years on end.

Great leaders can both tolerate innovation and manage the long run.

<1% for great leaders; maybe 2% or 3% for very good leaders; 50% for adequate leaders and 25% for tolerably, but poor leaders, and 21% for leaders who end up destroying organizational resources.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

I have a history of major depression — CasKev

You, me, and a billion other people. Welcome to this club too.

... humans are basically animals with highly evolved intelligence and consciousness, who develop coping mechanisms ... to deal with the absurdity of life... — CasKev

Yes. The universe does not supply a ready made meaning for life, and for 99.9999% of all earthly species, that is not a problem. Birds and bees and four-legged beasts go about their day whether the universe has any meaning or not. For our species, however, whether or not the universe has a meaning can become a problem.

People who are depressed sometimes fixate on the meaningless of the universe, but it is important to remember that depression caused the fixation. The universe neither makes one depressed, nor is so fascinating in its meaninglessness that it attracts our fixated stare. People who are (mercifully) not depressed generally don't worry about these kinds of problems. Like the birds, they just get on with their day -- hoeing the corn or teaching math or doing the laundry--whatever it is we do.

I was chronically depressed for decades; medication and talk therapy helped. That and a major (unplanned) change in life circumstances have largely eliminated the problem--and just in time--I'm in my 70s and maybe don't have a long time to enjoy not being in a funk all the time. The less depressed I feel, the less a meaningless universe is a problem.

It is our task to create meaning. This isn't an unmixed blessing. Define the universe as one big meaningless pile of garbage and that's what one is stuck with -- so be careful.

Or, maybe, never mind the universe. Just give your life meaning you can actually live with. We are only here for a while, and we don't have to solve all the problems a meaningless universe can give us.

None of that addresses the way that everybody bows before science. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, sorry, it does. The reason why people heed the results of science is that the results of science (and scientific thinking) are more reliable than anything else we have. Not perfect, just better than anything else. POMO demonstrates why the alternative to reliable and rational results are worth less than a crock full of bullshit.

You were complaining about young people. My comments about young people addressed your condescending view that they were too stupid, or too passive to question science. Not too stupid or too passive: Too unprepared. And by the way, you should be grateful they are so inept, since they aren't prepared to call out POMOism for being the bullshit it is.

We could / should have a lexicon of odor. Perfumers do (woody, spicy, floral, fecal, etc.). Professional tasters are able to distinguish all sorts of things, as are "noses". We just have not given many of these odors names. We know what shit smells like:

The odor of human feces is suggested to be made up from the following odorant volatiles:[11]

Methyl sulfides
methylmercaptan/methanethiol (MM)
dimethyl sulfide (DMS)
dimethyl trisulfide (DMTS)
dimethyl disulfide (DMDS)
Benzopyrrole volatiles
indole
skatole
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S)

The pleasant odor of cinnamon is owing to cinnamaldehyde and eugenol, plus some other minor volatile agents. Clove, cardamom, lemon, anise, and so on all have distinct component odors which we could learn, and name -- which we would need to do, since clove only covers one generalized odor.

There was a popular women's perfume back in the 1980s that smelled--to me--like an old fashioned insect spray (it wasn't RAID). I swear some women were putting it on with a hose. Gawd awful.

I don't know why we don't pay more attention to odor. My nose isn't as sharp as it used to be, but I used to enjoy crushing all sorts of plant leaves to smell them. Some of them (like mountain ash) were very interesting. Matricaria discoidea, a common low-growing upper midwestern wild plant that one finds along sidewalks, has waxy blossoms that smell very specifically like pineapple. Then there is the unimaginably bitterness of some plants--which were of course of interest to me.

I too would be thrilled to discover that birds and dolphins, dogs and apes had language in the way we use the term. I don't think they do. Parrots have remarkable bird brains, and dogs are pretty smart -- that doesn't mean they have "concepts" in their brains. Apes are an iffy area. Their brains are are so close to ours. The jury seems to be out as to whether Noam Chimpsky et al were using language or whether he or she was manipulating signs with fingers or a keyboard.

This needs to be further developed, but I see it as related to the difference between signalling, which lacks abstraction. — Marchesk

When our retriever wants to go outside in the morning, the first step is a gentle whine. If nothing happens this is followed by nose poking. Then louder whining, finally a loud bark in one's face. This is signaling; the dog has learned to escalate if we aren't paying attention.

Oliver Sacks relates in Seeing Voices how a small group of deaf people who had very, very poor childhood education were limited by the concepts they lacked. When they were taught American Sign Language as adults, their minds were greatly expanded. Words and concepts have, it seems to me, a necessary connection. Words and concepts go together. No words, no concepts. No concepts, nothing to say. No concepts, much of the world will be either invisible or just background. No words, nobody will know what kind of hell a concept-free existence would be (for humans).

If the purpose of the military is to protect its citizens, Why is that left up to the federal government? — MonfortS26

Because 50 state governments would have one hell of a problem coordinating their collective defense against foreign enemies. Imagine the 48 states trying to decide how to defend themselves from Germany and Japan in WWII: 48 governors, 48 legislatures, 48 treasuries, 48 military organizations... it makes one ill thinking how badly that would end.

The individual states all have the means (more or less) to defend themselves within their own borders. They have city police, county sheriffs, highway patrols, riot squads, and so forth. They all have "national guard" units.

War between states, like Florida attacks Alabama? Connecticut seizes Rhode Island? Minnesota annexes both Dakotas and then sells them to Canada? California secede? 49 states decide to erase Texas from the face of the earth?

That's why some central power needs to be on hand.

Why are humans so concerned about whether their many, highly elaborated languages, or even simple languages, are the sole property of themselves? "Only humans... do such and such" seems to suggest an insecurity about their worth. That bees, dolphins, parrots, border collies and the British all exhibit language seems like more a cause for celebration than unease.

You have observed an infant learning how to talk. What seems to be happening? They are busy processing all sorts of experiences, they hear language, and they start matching words to -- what concepts? or things? experiences? "Mama" or "Papa" is associated with two particular people; it's too specific at first to be a concept. the child's favorite food gets a sound, maybe "ba ba" for "bottle" (as in "milk" or whatever it is the baby gets in a bottle). The connection between a food, sound, and specific word gets clearer. Then some words "din din", for instance, have more general meaning -- a concept. At din din one gets food of several kinds, and mama and papa eat something like the same thing. Sometimes din din is good, sometimes it gets unceremoniously spat out. And so on.

Pretty quickly the child's language starts manifesting structure and concept. Just listen to them.

So Fritz, or whatever this border collie's name was, could learn something like how to identify which object went with which word. It's a pretty big accomplishment for a dog's brain. I don't think Fritz generalized specifics, though. I don't think he could go fetch anything that was round and yellow and soft.

Bees communicate specific and useful information to other bees by using their bodies' movement capabilities. There is a certain amount of evaluative information in their bee-talk: a lot of flowers or not a lot. It's amazing that bees can do this, but I don't think they deal in concepts.

Dolphins... I just don't know. Their environment and sensory apparatus is so different than ours. They can, for instance, echo-analyze further beneath the skin than we can. I don't know how deep their perception goes. We just can't echo-analyze anything (except by ultra-sound gadgets).

I think it is the case that many animals have some sort of interior life of their minds, such as they are. Cows that much prefer to be milked from their left and not their right side for instance. (An unhappy cow's kick is not something to invite.) Or dogs that manipulate people to behave in preferred ways, just as people manipulate their dog to behave the way we want them to. They don't have to have language and concepts to twist us around their clever paws.

Women truly are great thinkers – however – they think differently than men. — Thinker

If a woman is out by herself on the savanna and she notices that she is being stalked by a leopard, how will her thinking differ from a male's?

In what way did Marissa Mayer demonstrate uniquely female thinking in her management of Yahoo?

In what way is Theresa May's thinking been superior to say, Jeremy Corbyn, with respect to Brexit?

Was Mrs. Clinton's thinking superior to Mr. Sanders?

In what way was Margaret Thatcher's thinking different from any other (male) Prime Minister?

Some people (male and female) are superior thinkers, and most people (males and females) are not.

As Ghengis Cohen said, "Well, if they are not, they should be!"

What makes the poll irrelevant (as written) is that when rated on the trait of aggressiveness, (where all the terms are well defined) males and female humans tend to end up in the middle in a bi-modal distribution, the statistically average male being slightly more aggressive than the statistically average female -- in the United States and Europe, at least. Saudi Arabia? Clearly not.

The males and females we remember (and who will probably end up representing their sex) are the people out towards the tail of the distribution -- but not way out. One doesn't have to go out to the 01st and 99th percentile to find examples. Percentiles 1-20 and 80 - 99 is enough of the tail to find actual and normal examples of noticeable submission and aggression in both sexes.

Submissive males and females are unlikely to end up in major decision making roles--not that there is anything deficient about them. Aggressive males and females are the ones who will be running things, not that there is anything superior about them--look at Donald Trump. No outstanding virtues there.

Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama are both good leaders and I don't think either one of them is AGGRESSIVE (capitalized for high testosterone levels). Besides, there are other features of personality. Confidence, probity, caution, good delegation ability, perceptiveness, planning ability, etc. Then there is stupidity, vacillation, crudity, self-centeredness, inability to plan one's way off an unfenced lawn, and so on which sometimes is found in very aggressive individuals.

How about the smell--has that changed? The sensory memory that comes to mind when I think of the downtown subway stops, like Park, is the smell of urine, old machine oil, and dirt. It's not an altogether unpleasant odor, but I don't think it has a future on Macy's perfume counter.

I do remember that screeching sound, too--from the 1969-70.

I have read about what seem to be deliberate, and ritualized burials among Neanderthals--who, as it happens, are mostly not us--but the evidence I read was very fragmentary. There seemed to have been flowers and other plants placed in the grave -- this was, just from recollection about 45,000 years back. 45,000 years didn't leave much of the bouquets, if that's what they were, behind.

A better example of "primitive" mentality is the skeleton of a severely and congenitally deformed adult from way back then. This person would have required quite a bit of care to have made it to adulthood. Accidental survival for this stone-age someone is highly unlikely. Clearly a family/tribe cared to take care of this person.

A desire for the transcendent may exist innately in the species, but if VagabondSpectre didn't disprove it, you haven't proved it either.

My guess is that the stone age painters in caves (25,000 years ago, +/-) were doing it for some sort of magical purpose. The circumstances of the workplace - deep in the cave, very poorly illuminated, etc.) would suggest something more than casual sketching on a warm afternoon in the park. BUT this is a guess, or wishful thinking -- not a fact.

Was it magic or transcendent religion? It matters which NOW, because we distinguish between the two. (Magic is religion you don't like, religion is magic you do like.)

We don't know whether a religious impulse is innate today, because culture is self-perpetuating and it becomes impossible to disambiguate the innate from the learned. My guess is that it is innate, but...

In the end, it doesn't matter. Whether learned or innate, tending-toward-transcendent thinking and acting is abundant. Can tending-toward-transcendent thinking and acting be extinguished? I suppose it could -- given intense isolation of children, which would amount to extreme child abuse. A few isolated children who were deaf managed to come up with a simple sign-language among themselves.

The 25000 year old paintings were the product of culture, not just some previously uncultured innate urge. If tending-toward-transcendent thinking and acting behavior is innate, we would find its roots in a period which has left nothing but stone tools and chipped stone behind.

I think the best educators see themselves as stewards of intellectual traditions and facilitators of a two-way process where they can (and are happy to) learn from students as much as students learn from them, not as authorities talking down to their intellectual inferiors. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I'm in my 70s. When and where I was in college in the '60s, post-modernism had not made a significant appearance. Most of the teachers were, of course, interested in a two-way conversation. But... let's face it: 20 year olds normally don't have a lot to offer in 17th century literature--especially if their background was rural and semi-rural. Small town high schools. I was an English major from one of those small town high schools, as were many of my classmates. Most (many, at least) of our parents had not attended college. 17th century literature -- and much else -- just wasn't familiar stuff. We were empty vessels, happy to have a steward of intellectual tradition pour it in.

Maybe it is the case that highly sophisticated adolescents from well-funded suburban schools then and now were/are vastly more sophisticated. Later experience leads me to think they are, at least in some ways. But intellectual maturity doesn't develop a lot faster now than it did then.

Content has changed somewhat in the last few decades. "Eroticism and Family Life in Ancient Greece and Rome" wasn't offered in the 1960s. A juicy topic like that -- or "Magic and Religion in Ancient Greece" intrigues young (and older) students more than the history of the Peloponnesian War. It's easier to engage. And these topics aren't a dumbing down -- there are still only a limited number of ancient texts to go on.

The problems I see in POMOism are these:

It is heavily over-focussed on power or sexuality, and over reliant on the idea that reality is "constructed". The language style which POMOism promotes is often obscurantist. POMOism itself is "received wisdom" of a sort--not entirely open to dialog, especially opposition. Primary assumptions of POMOism may be in error.

It is one thing to talk about gender and power relationships in literature. It is something else altogether to talk about physics or biology a la POMOism (and, in fact, most scientists don't). Yes, many things in the cultural environment are constructions of the culture itself. But the physical universe isn't one of them. That is the key to the Sokol Hoax (and a few others like it). Altogether fallacious nonsense was strung together with the proper terminology and opaque style, and to many POMO practitioners, it sounded just great. If a type of thinking can't tell shit from shinola, it's time to give it up.

Now that Gay Pride month is here -- sorry--Lesbian, bisexual, Queer, transvestites, hag-drag, transgender, regendered, degendered, multi-sexual, questioning, a-sexual, friends, and regrettably, male gay pride -- it's a good time to talk about the limits of biology (LBQTHSTRDMQAF and GM, regrettably, Pride)

It will offend, but I maintain that biology determines sexuality. Culture gets to determine the style of pride march wear, it doesn't get to construct new sexuality. Transgendered folk -- whether just a change of clothing or vaginal or penile constructions with breast and hormone augmentation -- are still the males and females they were born as. They might very well be happier looking like the sex they wish they were and are not, and that's good for them. But their wishes in the matter do not redefine biology.

Nature bats last (which means, if you haven't heard that expression, a human proposes, nature disposes).

All material presented in formal education is unquestioningly taken as authoritative and supreme (BC's emphasis). "This is what other people have thought. This is what other people have concluded. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, most teachers are confident when they lecture, and "authoritative and supreme" springs from many non-scientific wells.

I think that the flaw at the heart of any controversy over the curriculum in formal education is the premise that students will, and should, unquestioningly accept whatever their instructors present. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Come on. The truth is, many 16-22 year old students are unprepared to mount a skeptical assault on the content of the curriculum. They simply don't have enough practical real-world experience to feel the need to question their teachers. Skepticism takes maturity and the accumulation of more knowledge capital, and all that takes time.

You seem to be expecting students to have far more maturity than they actually do. So you walk into Medieval History 101, or Intro to Geology, or an English Literature survey class and you think the average freshman is going to challenge the professor? With what?

I can follow along, it sounds like a difficult piece to learn. My guess is that it would be a pleasure to play, once you get the fingering and everything else (like the notes) down.

Anybody have opinions on why Buddhism is declining (if it is)? Is it theistic competition? Is it ethnicity factors? what?

All the modernism and secularism that corrodes Christianity will, eventually, corrode Islam and other religions as well. When corrosion will begin to affect any particular group of believers is difficult to predict.

One of the factors affecting Christianity in some areas (definitely in North America, possibly Europe) is ethnic affiliation. 75 to 100 years ago (and further back) ethnicity tended to be closely related to one's religious affiliation. Germans in midwestern states were mostly Catholic or Lutheran, depending on the part of Germany they came from. The Irish, Italians, and French were generally Catholic. Other western Europeans scattered among (including Germans) Methodist, Presbyterian, and what used to be the Congregational (now United Church of Christ). Jewish congregations tended to be ethnically affiliated too.

In the 1960s and 70s, ethnicity faded and became a lot less important to Europe-originated people. With fading ethnicity, came a fading allegiance to ethnic churches, and in many cases, to churches at all. What faded here was not so much theology as ethnic loyalty.

Now, what I just said applies to places where ethnicity and religion were closely connected, In many parts of the US this connection isn't obvious.

Like with movies...

There are films that I have seen that have dreadful content but are terrific films. The Godfather, for instance, is about criminals, and their criminality isn't hidden. But the film is "beautifully acted and filmed". Films that endure tend to have that quality -- excellence in production and acting, whatever the content is. Opera often lavishes beauty on tragic scenes, where Mimi dies in La Boheme, or where Madam Butterfly longs for the American navy officer who will (we know) cast her aside (and does).

Un bel di vedremo:



An "ugly film" usually has "ugly" content -- scenes that are difficult to watch -- without top notch quality in acting in and production.

Nature (and our interpretation of it) often provides beauty that we can feel. Hardwood forests turned red and yellow in the fall are beautiful, whether one is walking in them or looking at them from a distance. A swamp is just as natural, but often involves scenes (dead trees from being smothered in water) which we don't like looking at. Are any of us charmed by stagnant sloughs?

In fact, I'm starting to feel conservative is something of a misnomer with regards to many of my positions, especially with regards to economics, but there's no better label. — Agustino

Liberal, conservative, centrist, radical, socialist, fascist -- all the political terms that serve for facile quick identification fail once you try to get below their surface. Maybe this has been true for a very long time -- but I think it is a later 20th and 21st century problem. Part of the problem is abuse of terms, part of it misuse, and part of it is actual changes in political thinking.

America is a nation founded first and foremost on God. That is why, even on your dollar bills, it is written "In God We Trust". It doesn't say "In The People We Trust"... And quite the contrary, America would count as a constitutional republic, by the way, not a democracy. — Agustino

What, exactly, "America" was "founded on" depends on where and when in history you place the founding.

The initial settling of the English colonies was for the express purpose of making money. Even the Puritan "City on a hill" colony was expected to produce raw material (lumber, in particular) for shipment back to England. The Middle Atlantic colonies -- same thing -- and the southern colonies, more of the same.

A century and a half later (1776): There were religious people here, of course -- people you would recognize as faithful Christians, and there were churches and missionaries (like John Wesley). The colonies' upper crust was not very religious. Religion didn't come to a boil in the United States until the early 19th century--the Second Great Awakening. (The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800 and, after 1820, membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist congregations whose preachers led the movement.)

"In God We Trust" didn't end up on the currency until mid-19th century.

From the very beginning, man was religious. — Agustino

This is an assumption based on behavior observed long, long after homo sapiens achieved species status. We really don't know what our early direct ancestors were doing. They were sitting around the fire, but only long after 25,000 years ago (cave paintings, fertility figurines) do we have evidence of something as vanishingly insubstantial as "worship" activity. Maybe Neanderthal and early homo sapien peoples were profoundly religious -- maybe not -- there just isn't any evidence, one way or the other.

Belief in a transcendent order.
• Charity (real love, not the bullshit leftist version of it).
• Belief in the purpose and meaning of life.
• Duty (life is not here to enjoy it).
• Courage.
• Respect for tradition, culture and continuity.
• The sanctity of marriage.
• Chastity.
• Devotion and selflessness. — Agustino

Well, some of these are admirable traits. Whether all of them are essentially Christian -- and whether your take on them is essentially Christian -- is debatable.

I commend a biography of Dorothy Day -- "A Harsh and Dreadful Love: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement" by William D. Miller and "The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day" for a swift kick in your derriere by this likely-to-be-sainted Christian leftist.

"Belief in the purpose and meaning of life" is a nothing generality. What do YOU mean?

On Duty, I recommend James Thurber's short tale of the faithful bloodhound. “The paths of glory at least lead to the Grave, but the paths of duty may not get you Anywhere.”

Courage. Pretty much everybody needs courage. More so every day that passes.

"Respect for tradition, culture and continuity -- The sanctity of marriage, Chastity, and Devotion and selflessness.

There is an uncomfortable odor of fascist ideology here. I don't think you are a fascist. Yes, there are strains of Christian thinking that are very conservative. Dorothy Day was very conservative in her daily Mass attendance and her recognition of the authority of the church. That didn't stop her from being harshly critical of some highly UN-Christlike aspects of American tradition, culture, and continuity.

Had Jesus followed your advice, he would have stuck with carpentry, gotten married, and fathered children--all that for tradition, culture, and continuity. Ditto for the 12 Apostles, Paul, and various saints, martyrs, missionaries, etc. down through the last 2000 years (and longer, if you count the OT prophets).

Christianity is a sword--two sharp slicing sides. There is the dead-hand-of-history conservative side and the revolutionary claims of the Kingdom of God side, It's either-or.

That's precisely why Church bureaucrats are no longer capable to adequately deal with what is happening. They're not pragmatic enough. — Agustino

It seems like church bureaucrats are either not pragmatic enough or altogether too pragmatic -- whichever works least well.

I spoke of an innate desire for the divine. — Agustino

They're even born with desires that don't manifest right away, like the desire for intimacy. — Agustino

We don't know this. Why? Because, as you said, these "innate desires" don't manifest themselves right away. By the time the manifest themselves, most children have been thoroughly exposed to all sorts of divine-thinking by their parents, culture, school, church -- the machinery of tradition and continuity.