To know universal truth is pretty sacred to me and I have a strong preference for the secular path to knowledge and truth. Or we can ignore science and continue doing what science has told us is destroying our planet and then turn to our holy books for comfort. :brow: I often think our opinion of ourselves as intelligent creatures is highly overrated.

I do not believe there can be a definition setting out what it is to be a human and I am not an essentialist. And arguably the groups who have sought to define what is human have tended towards genocidal projects. — Tom Storm

The Greeks asked impossible-to-answer questions and then set out to answer them. That is how the progress of humanity that led to the modern world began. We need to agree on the definition of words, but starting an argument about a definition will not lead to useful thinking. It is a distracting power game that I rather we avoid. My project is education and a better world. I hope this discussion leads to useful thinking.

However, that said, intellectually disabled persons are not representative of being human. I suppose to put it in classical terms of essence and accident, their disability is an accident whilst their humanity is essential. I also agree with the Aristotelian classification of the human as 'rational animal', in that we're clearly descended from and related to all other species from a biological perspective, but that the ability to reason, think and speak distinguishes humans from other animals in a fundamental way. — Wayfarer

Some of the arguing in this thread is outside my interest, but I like your distinction of what is the essence of being human and what is accidental, such as a person without intellectual capabilities. It causes me to think and I appreciate your opening statement about those among us who are incapable of joining mainstream society. To what degree can they be socialized? How important is our socialization to being a human? Your thoughts bring to another.

I am thinking of aboriginal tribes that are destroyed by invaders who radically change their way of life, leading to the end of their social structure, and leading to alcoholism, and death. We destroyed the aboriginal tribes in North America and this caused untold human suffering. The same happened in varying degrees wherever Europeans went. It seems we have traveled the world with the opinion that our social order and values are the only legitimate ones and those who are different from us are not equal to us. They are lesser humans. I hope we do some thinking about what is essential to being a human.

↪Athena
You have asked an interesting question and it is fairly difficult because people vary so much. However, there may be some underlying aspects of human nature, or essential aspects of motivation. Maslow speaks of the hierarchy of needs which begin from physical to the social ones with the need for self-actualization as the highest ones. All these aspects may be linked to what a human being may become.

Part of the issue of what is essential to being human is the way in which life circumstances can bring out so many different aspects and education may be about cultivating the best possibilities. There is the question of nature and nurture as a questionable area with genetic determinants but what happens in early life may be extremely influential, as stressed by the child psychologists, including John Bowlby. The role of trauma may have a critical effects on core development of personality.

The process of becoming is a life long art, and what happens at any stage can either make or break a person. However, it may be that working on oneself, in spite of difficult life experiences, as the idea of 'the examined life's may be about reflection on the narrative of experience, as an important process of being human in a consciously aware way. This conscious awareness can be about becoming a person in a unique sense. — Jack Cummins

As always, your thinking is compatible with mine, which is always so surprising to me because we are so different! Why does so much of our thinking appear to be the same? Our life circumstances are very different.

Yes, I am concerned about lifelong learning and I totally believe, in the past, education for citizenship in the US was about lifelong learning. Voters are supposed to learn so they can figure out the best reasoning and base their votes on the best reasoning for what is good for the nation, not want is good for them personally at the moment. Democracy comes out of philosophy and the belief that humans can learn and live by reason. The pursuit of happiness means gaining knowledge. As you said "The process of becoming is a life long art," Our democracies are not worth defending without that understanding.

"the idea of 'the examined life's maybe about reflection on the narrative of experience," This is the wonderful benefit of having long-lived people. When we are young we need to fill ourselves up with life. Our later years are a time of reflection as we are full of life and wonder what the meaning of it is. We have so much to offer but in a technological society centered on money, what is best about being human, is wasted.

We naturally pay more attention to what threatens us so "The role of trauma" can play a controlling force in our lives, but so can a loving supportive family play a controlling force in our lives. We must keep both in mind, so we know not only want to avoid but what to seek and manifest. ‎Daniel Kahneman's books about thinking are very important to our understanding of being human and how our brains work.

Human beings can be as animals. They can be reactive and may go through life with almost zero thinking! Just because we have thoughts in our heads it doesn't mean we are thinking. Some people believe the Bible is the word of God, and others can not understand how a thinking person can believe that. How do I say this? There is a difference between holding a thought and reacting, and being a thinking person. This video clarifies the difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU

Pleasing God does not require thinking. In fact, the Bible is very clear about the wrong of wanting knowledge. Having a successful democracy does require thinking. Preparing the young to be products for industry is equal to training dogs. It is not education for thinking. At least not in the US. I think some countries are doing much better in preparing citizens to think.

Oh dear, I want to pull this back to what this has to do with being human. :lol: Humans come in different flavors. Some of them do more thinking than others. How we are taught to think really matters, but now I am on my soap box and that isn't what I want to do. I want to know what others think.

But in the spirit of sportsmanship — L'éléphant

I do not think any other animals can have a notion of spirits.

You all have made this thread everything I hoped it would be and more. :heart:

I've never explored this question in depth as I suspect it is largely a product of perspective and I'm not sure it is of significant use to me. I generally hold that humans are clever animals who use language to manage their environment. Most humans seem to require social contact and some form of validation and emotional comfort and an experience of love (however that looks for them). How do we develop our characteristics? Not sure it matters to me. In talking to people who have suicidal ideation, the most common themes (apart form traumatic histories) are that they feel isolated, misunderstood and devalued by family/friends/society. Seems to me human desire to connect meaningfully with others and how successful we are in achieving this, tends to determine whether we are content or resentful. — Tom Storm

Having a good notion of what a human is, and how they come to be as they are, is essential to education and the society it manifests. The language of the Bible and the language of science will manifest very different civilizations. Back in the day, women stayed home to care for the family and their domestic language and mental patterns were very different from the language and mental patterns of college graduates. We classify things and concepts, so we can be conscious of the things and the concepts and then manifest the civilization we value through conscious effort.

Not all people seek love. For many, what is most important is the power to get what they want. That power to get what we want is more apt to get us what we want than "love". Social status may be more fundamentally important than love? I am glad you made me aware of this in the context of this thread.

"devalued by family/friends/society" My concern is our education for technology has greatly increased the problem of feeling devalued and the violent outbreak of suicides and mass murders that we are experiencing today. Thank you for participating in this thread.

Let's see if I can tackle these ones together. Right up there with DNA is identifying the shape of the skull and the hand and footprints. I am thrilled by the explanations archeologist give for their discoveries of these things and related artifacts, such a as chipped stone, signs of a controlled fire, etc.. That kind of goes with

Since we are immersed in history, — Angelo Cannata

. There are times we conclude something is the sign of humans because of what we believe we know of the history of our development. We have determined there were different species of humans, with different characteristics, and drawing that line between a human and the more ape-like animal we evolved from is an interesting prospect.

I am not sure about language being a determinating factor? Our language and bird languages share commonalities. And back to Angelo's concern what is that history? Sumerians did not have a language for classification that is essential to our sciences. The consciousness we have today is very different from past consciousness, and this is right up there with my concern that we can be human and not be every intelligent. All this thinking comes out of thinking about education. How should we prepare children for life? My intended goal is to break through assumptions that might be a problem when making education decisions.

Tobias
719
Essential is both scientific thinking and good moral judgment that is based on knowing truth, universal/nature's laws, and good manners. This is not materialistic but intellectual and that is the pursuit of happiness. It is the path to raising our human potential and it is worth defending. The men who understood this ended our relationship with monarchy and the Biblical kingdom of kings, subjects, and slaves. Technology can greatly benefit us or put us back to being subjects.
I am saying education for technology is making us subjects rather than free citizens. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. Liberal education is for free men.
— Athena

Essentially I agree with you. I see a number of tenets in your post that would be important when we want to change things, please correct and me and fill in the list further:
1. The focus on technology should make way for ctizenship and reflection
2. The ideals should be democratic and inclusive
3. The teaching should be secular, though good manners and love for other should be instilled
4. intellectual progress should be emphasized over material progress
5. Virtue should be taught like in ancient Athens but without institutions like slavery.

This is what I got from your posts on the subject. I agree with this general inventory, but there are a number of questions and tensions that needs to be resolved.

1. Contrary to Europe the US could do without education for technology. People could live of the land as there was plenty. Europe was a continent densely populated with warring states vying for dominance. Now, also in the US let alone in Europe it is not possible to live of the land. Neither are people satisfied anymore working on conveyor belts in taylorist and Fordist fashion. Technology is needed to make modern urbanized society function and maintain the level of wealth people are accustomed to. So what would be the role of technological education in the reformed education system?

2. The cultural model is still very Western oriented and also rather idealized Western. It refers back to the Greek times like we imagine them to be. However we live in a pluriform society now. How do we incorporate African, Asian, Islamic and native American traditions in an education system that is inclusive an democratic.

3. What is the relationship between community an independency/ autonomy? The ethical outlook you describe to me makes me think of American values as independence and autonomy, providing aid to each other in the spirit of fellow travelers on a road to prosperity. That image is appealing but in our densely populated cities with high crime and poverty rates, a sense of community is necessary. How and to what extent do we incorporate that?

4. intellectual progress should be valued higher than material progress, but there are many people in dire material circumstances. The intellectual can only thrive when material needs are met. Moreover in our current day and age, material gains a seen as a measure for success. What measures for success might be adopted and will have an appeal to compete with material wealth?

5. What virtues should be taught. You refer to Aristotle, but Aristotle defended slavery and the subjugation of women. That has of course for a large extent to do with the age in which he lived. However, his philosophy tends to favor a certain style of dominance. He emphasized the active formative principle, over the passive material principle. Form determined matter. That division can still be seen today in how we deal with nature with nature for instance, leading perhaps to 'education for technology' . Moreover, earthliness and femininity were over the ages considered as connected, leading to the skewed vision of men being rational and in charge and women in the care of the household and fertility. We can therefore not simply copy Aristotle's virtues. What virtues do we teach?

Those are some consideration I have when reading your ideas. It is not meant as criticism of them, but to chart out some avenues to take them further and make them more concrete. — Tobias

Wow, I like that list, and today different thoughts come up. Especially this one leaps out at me. "intellectual progress should be emphasized over material progress." That is exactly my impression of what democracy is about, the development of intellectual progress. That was about the humanities which then manifest a culture for being the best human beings we can be. That is collectively not just individual superiority. Our old textbook stressed the importance of cooperation and sharing, but this also comes with not taking something for nothing. We developed a good human nature and then took it for granted.

I think we are now stressing competition, not just in school but throughout our country. Competition is supposed to reduce cost, but at what cost? Nurses began fleeing from our hospitals when the departments were pitted against each other, in a competition to do more with less. Nursing is about caring and in the past they worked cooperatively. With the change came hoarding supplies and no longer sharing or cooperating with other departments. Now even though we graduate many nurses, we don't have enough of them, and for the same reason, we graduated many teachers and don't have enough of them. When our medical people and educators are working for a monetary reward instead of intrinsic satisfaction it is destructive to work morale and the quality of caring. The problem of burnout is increased because the worker is being fed that intrinsic joy of work.

You ask, "What is the relationship between community and independency/ autonomy?" Family is about more than the individual and so is being a teacher and a nurse about more than the individual. Actually, any job can be about everyone and a good community because there can be intrinsic pleasure in doing just about anything. Or any job can lead to resentment and hating one's life. It is what we make it. To love being an American is to love what we stand for and feeling a part of something much bigger than ourselves. This is all about relationships. And when technology and profits were applied to our medical care, and education, they became dehumanizing. I don't mean individuals are less likable but that work situation is less likable. Enjoying our jobs depends on two things, having a positive attitude and a positive work environment.

The democratic model for industry is more like a family where everyone cares about each other and the shared goal of the business succeeding. In the US we have autocratic industry where often managment and labor are pitted against each other. That is very destructive to individuals, families and our whole nation.

The US has started marginalizing people as Europe did. We can't do anything without someone checking our ID and all our credit and criminal records. I remember when we had real protection of our privacy and only when we applied for high-security jobs were the records opened. I remember when we were judged on our character, not our wealth or specific work experience. Most jobs can be done by normally intelligent people, and as a nation can benefit from commerce and immigrants, so can most organizations benefit from new blood and different points of view. When the job is open only to the person who has been specialized and has had specific work experience, there will be stagnation and a lot of unemployed people.

Some colleges are realizing practices that keep people closed out, have a serious downside. And this is not just about the colleges or employers and individuals. It is about our culture and the health of our civilization. I am saying being technologically correct can be destructive and this increases all social problems. When using the democratic model, the doors are open and the training is ongoing and inclusive. By inclusive I mean, we can learn how the whole operation works and the individual has a chance to hold any position. People are not specialized, narrowly defined, and marginalized. Getting ahead in life is just a matter of developing our talents and interest and being likable people.

Blocking people from college educations and opportunities goes against democratic values, but our technological society began running on technology instead of human values. We are now smart but not wise. I would not be surprised if we continued to develop the problems Nazi Germany had. The mindset of technology and superiority and control, control, control has consumed us and is hurting us.

Essentially I agree with you. I see a number of tenets in your post that would be important when we want to change things, please correct and me and fill in the list further:
1. The focus on technology should make way for ctizenship and reflection
2. The ideals should be democratic and inclusive
3. The teaching should be secular, though good manners and love for other should be instilled
4. intellectual progress should be emphasized over material progress
5. Virtue should be taught like in ancient Athens but without institutions like slavery.

This is what I got from your posts on the subject. I agree with this general inventory, but there are a number of questions and tensions that needs to be resolved.

1. Contrary to Europe the US could do without education for technology. People could live of the land as there was plenty. Europe was a continent densely populated with warring states vying for dominance. Now, also in the US let alone in Europe it is not possible to live of the land. Neither are people satisfied anymore working on conveyor belts in taylorist and Fordist fashion. Technology is needed to make modern urbanized society function and maintain the level of wealth people are accustomed to. So what would be the role of technological education in the reformed education system?

2. The cultural model is still very Western oriented and also rather idealized Western. It refers back to the Greek times like we imagine them to be. However we live in a pluriform society now. How do we incorporate African, Asian, Islamic and native American traditions in an education system that is inclusive an democratic.

3. What is the relationship between community an independency/ autonomy? The ethical outlook you describe to me makes me think of American values as independence and autonomy, providing aid to each other in the spirit of fellow travelers on a road to prosperity. That image is appealing but in our densely populated cities with high crime and poverty rates, a sense of community is necessary. How and to what extent do we incorporate that?

4. intellectual progress should be valued higher than material progress, but there are many people in dire material circumstances. The intellectual can only thrive when material needs are met. Moreover in our current day and age, material gains a seen as a measure for success. What measures for success might be adopted and will have an appeal to compete with material wealth?

5. What virtues should be taught. You refer to Aristotle, but Aristotle defended slavery and the subjugation of women. That has of course for a large extent to do with the age in which he lived. However, his philosophy tends to favor a certain style of dominance. He emphasized the active formative principle, over the passive material principle. Form determined matter. That division can still be seen today in how we deal with nature with nature for instance, leading perhaps to 'education for technology' . Moreover, earthliness and femininity were over the ages considered as connected, leading to the skewed vision of men being rational and in charge and women in the care of the household and fertility. We can therefore not simply copy Aristotle's virtues. What virtues do we teach?

Those are some considerations I have when reading your ideas. It is not meant as criticism of them, but to chart out some avenues to take them further and make them more concrete. — Tobias

1. The focus on technology should make way for citizenship and reflection.

It is a good thing this is a philosophy thread because people here may understand a different point of view. As I see the problem it is confusing technology with science.

Science comes out of philosophy. It is an art of asking questions and a method for finding the answers. Technology is just facts. You memorize the facts and follow the instructions and all is good. When Germany's war criminals were put on trail, their defense was they were just following orders. Tragically the world is not understanding that they were educated to follow orders and not to think. "Mine is to do or die, not to question why". Education for technology is not education for thinking. It is education for memorizing, being programmed and following orders, and relying on "experts". A result of this education is storming the Capitol Building when a president of the US told his followers to do so. Hilter would have to admire Trump's accomplishment. Trump was sure pleased with himself. People today are followers, not thinkers. They were not taught to think as our young were taught to think when we used the "Conceptual Method" of education.

So what would be the role of technological education in the reformed education system? — tobias

A RETURN TO THE CONCEPTUAL METHOD OF EDUCATION. Teach children how to think and help them know themselves before taking the next step of becoming an adult.

2. How do we incorporate African, Asian, Islamic and native American traditions in an education system that is inclusive an democratic. — Tobias

I am glad you are aware of Athens' role in the manifestation of western culture however that awareness seems limited and useless when it comes to understanding democracy. Truth is universal. A 3 is a 3 for African, Asian, Islamic, and Native Americans. Humans are born dependent and this is true for African, Asian, Islamic and Native Americans. Scientific truths are universal. What separated western civilization from the east was thinking in terms of universals. It is this way because nature makes it so. This was a break from the rest of the world and a belief in gods. Egypt and Persia had amazing civilizations and a lot of technology, but technology is not science. You can do your thing as you believe a god wants you to do, but that is not going to work as well as knowing the relationship between cause and effect, science. Our focus needs to be on universal truths.

3. a sense of community is necessary. How and to what extent do we incorporate that? — Tobias

Science is proving a sense of community is essential to our health and happiness. And through science, we know, that large, dense cities are dehumanizing and civility breaks down. We need to use science for better social organization and I believe this will resolve many human problems. We have experience with communes and planned communities. However, China is ahead of us when it comes to connecting people. They are working on a building that can contain a small city and they are building a new silk road that could greatly diminish the power of the US. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative . For sure your question is one we should think about, and the answer will not be education for technology. It will be education for humanity. As in learning the humanities.

What is the simple definition of humanities?
humanities, those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself. — Brittannica

4.

What measures for success might be adopted and will have an appeal to compete with material wealth? — Tobias

The best thing we can do is educate our children to consider the answer.
Not that long ago few people expected to have big incomes. We didn't buy a lot for our families and we relied on them almost completely for our joys in life. Many people have thought what matters most is meaningful work and women worked for very low pay caring for others because it gave them a sense of purpose. We were proud of our national and community parks that were open to everyone because they were free to all. We did not close the disadvantaged families out. What does a great nation do? What do people who love humanity do? What values do we want? We have gone long enough with education for a technological society with unknown values. It is time to question our values and why we took the father out of the home and now take the mothers out of the home too. Really is this what is best for humanity?

5.

What virtues should be taught. You refer to Aristotle, but Aristotle defended slavery and the subjugation of women. — Tobias

You are asking me a mear woman? :lol: If I had my way all decisions would be based on what is best for the children. I think the Cherokee had it right. Let the women rule, but leave some responsibilities to the men. But that is different from seeking truth and I think that is equally important.

On the wall before me is a list of 52 virtues. That is not all the virtues but the list is adequate. Children should learn all the virtues and how to use them in their lives. This must be a daily practice so that this virtuous thinking is a habit that automatically comes up when triggered. Confucius and Aristotle spoke of the importance of developing good habits, virtuous habits. We used to think virtues were synonymous with strength.

How about this, it is off subject but your questions stimulated the thought. What if we are in the resurrection? The resurrection is the work of geologists and archeologists and related sciences.
Possibly all souls are being reborn at this time. What if, it is our duty to learn all we can and to rethink everything we think we know? :wink:

ssu
5.8k
a growing conflict between sophisticated, cosmopolitan people
— Athena
I think this is a general way populism works. The populist favors "the ordinary people" and creates a dividing line between the people and the elite...or people they call as the elite. Now this elite can be the political, the financial, but also the educational elite. Hence if a leftist or conservative / nationalistic political movement can be very popular in academic circles, a populist movement isn't as it likely will depict the "academic world" as part of the problem. — ssu

:grin: Can we have something like a supreme court that decides what knowledge and education is good for democracy and what is not? When Bill Clinton was our president in the US, I noticed schools were teaching good character. That is education for democracy. It is learning virtues and good character and today we use the term life skills.

That NSDAP gathered it's first support in beer halls in Munich shows the populist approach of this movement.

And in any way, populist movement intend to annoy "the elite" with their crude message as they do want to divide the people to us and them, not to gain overall popularity in all sections of the population._ssu

Why do you know such things? I would not be repeatedly trying to discuss what this thread is all about if it were common knowledge. Is it common knowledge where you are? Do the schools teach that history? The US is sooo narcissistic that it can not see what is happening because they only know their own history, not what happened to Germany.

I do see Marx and Prussian as complimentary. The military takes care of their own. There was a shift from the military being rather limited, and certainly, the officers were an exclusive group of people above the peasants, to a greater equality created by technology and wars that involve everyone as a military-industrial complex. Economic decisions are vital to the military-industrial complex.
— Athena

Do note that this changed already during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon and Revolutionary France gained such powerful military because implementing an universal draft and making military service compulsory. And also creating the "wartime economy", start of the military industrial complex. The other militaries of the time had been smaller professional armies. The defeat to Napoleon was the initial start for Prussia to reform it's military, starting with mimicking Revolutionary France with the levée en masse, the universal military conscription, and carrying out several reforms like creating the Auftragstaktik, which then became the "Prussian Model". — SSU

We almost have a disagreement on this point. It is not a disagreement on facts but on meaning. What you said is true but it misses the point of what I said. A military-industrial complex is about more than the military. This relationship between the military, industry, and government is what makes the Prussians stand out and is what makes the political organization, and decisions about such things as education, stand out as unique to Prussia and Germany until the world followed their example. A good economy is more important to the modern military than the number of young people who can be sent to the frontline because the fighting men have been replaced with weapons. We don't see this in Ukraine as we saw it in Iraq and Afghanistan. We dropped million-dollar bombs on Iraq, and what we do is tied to our technology. Next to wanting every man and woman fully employed to support the modern military, their children are educated for technology to serve military and industrial purposes which are organized by the government as they never were before adopting the German model of bureaucracy. I am saying every citizen today is serving the beast, not their families, and they don't know it.

German had workers' compensation, and a national pension plan, and a national health plan, and a healthier population than Britain had when war began. That gave Germany a very important military advantage.
— Athena
And it should be noted that for example the national pension plan was made by Bismarck, one of the most conservative figures in German history. The thinking was more to counter the demands (and the threat) from the socialists than to embrace government welfare thinking in my view._ssu /quote]

That was perfectly said. :grin: Yes, Bismarck was trying to appease the socialists, and appeasing the people works very well. Charles Sarolea was a Belgian philologist and author who tried to warn the world Germany was preparing for war the first world war. He was very concerned that Germans submitted to the domination of Prussian. I see it all today as the people of the US submit to the military-industrial complex and a man like Trump comes to power because that is what power-hungry people want. Christians strongly support him as their ministers tell them how to vote, and the words of Jesus seem to be forgotten. Especially in Texas where the law now pays people to report on anyone involved in an abortion. Jesus was very clear about the wrong of reporting people to authority, but we are overstimulated and grossly unaware. The power of the state is excessive.

Tobias
709
I agree with you for a very large part. I guess the erosion happened before the onset of the Reagan/ thatcher years and maybe before the onset of the sixties. These phenomena would then be symptoms of our technological age. It is still a thorny issue though. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a very similar critique of technological society as what you give. We have eroded our ability to ' let things be' and came to see them as resources, as objects with which we could wield power. I think his critique holds water. The problem is it drove him straight in the arms of the Nazi party because he thought both the US and Russia were ' metaphysically the same' i.e. overtaken by the wish to produce.

Therefore, even though I really like your critique, it is always tricky to point out where it exactly began. Heidegger had these views in the 1930s... The uncorrupted society and nature has been a theme in 20th century Western consciousness. All too often it is forgotten that that society, in which we taught for citizenship was hardly inclusive. Only in todays mass society do we have really a mass citizenry. Hitherto citizenship was only for the happy few, the well to do and in the US the White Anglo Saxon and Protestant. The dark side of the coin of the old days is easily overlooked. What you call 'culture' another class of people might call oppression. Culture was only homogenous in tribal societies. A monolithic culture in a country that is a melting pot of peoples can only be sustained by domination of a certain class who determines what 'culture' is.

Nonetheless, I share much of your critique. I am also thinking of ways a new 'metaphysics of culture' that is, a binding force drawing people together, might emerge. I think it is indeed not around technology or technological education. I also do not think a return to the past is the answer. — Tobias

Many people have said what you said and assume returning to education for democracy and good moral judgment means returning to the past. I do not know why they make that assumption. It is a belief that is devoid of understanding democracy and Aristotle and Cicero. It is failure to understand Jefferson's meaning when he wrote of the pursuit of happiness, and understanding the pursuit of happiness is tied to not allowing everyone to vote. And lastly what part of being excluded because I am a woman do you think I have forgotten? Hell, my best friend told me I should stop reading because my husband didn't like me reading and when I returned to college, my father told my husband that he should be the one in college, not me because he is the man. My father guided his son into engineering. He would have nothing to do with me studying anything besides home economics. I remember well when our society was organized along the lines of Aristotle's belief that a man should have a wife, an ox, and a slave. The men in my life were like slave owners when everyone expected women to behave like slaves and obey the head of the male house.

Before 1917 the purpose of education was to teach good citizenship and Americanize immigrants as Jefferson understood the necessity of education in a democracy. We did not have vocational training until 1917 and that was because we had not developed technology and didn't need people prepared with vocational training until we entered WWI against Germany, a nation that, thanks to the Prussians, had long had education for technology for military and industrial purpose.

Many immigrants had no experience with democracy and education had to teach them about our very different institutions and the Protestant work ethic was a big concern. As religious as the Puritans were, they were intently focused on being industrious and accumulating wealth because of Calvinism and believing only a few people were chosen for heaven, and how well a person did here on earth was proof of them being favored by God of not. They set what was to be the American culture and Protestant work ethic. But this was religion, not technology and the obscene drive for wealth we have today. :worry: Am I making any sense? Yes, that was very White Anglo-Saxon Protestant exclusion. It was more religious than secular Greek/Roman democracy.

The US imitated both Athens and Roman and I have a problem with the Roman/religious influence. Cicero, a Roman statesman wrote a lot and his books were essential reading when we had classical education. No one saw democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. To this day, we are ignorant of democracy without that literacy.

BOTTOM LINE-
Essential is both scientific thinking and good moral judgment that is based on knowing truth, universal/nature's laws, and good manners. This is not materialistic but intellectual and that is the pursuit of happiness. It is the path to raising our human potential and it is worth defending. The men who understood this ended our relationship with monarchy and the Biblical kingdom of kings, subjects, and slaves. Technology can greatly benefit us or put us back to being subjects.
I am saying education for technology is making us subjects rather than free citizens. Education for technology has always been the education of slaves. Liberal education is for free men.

Isaac
7k
the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and the i958 National Defense Education Act replaced domestic education the US had with Germany's model.
— Athena

Directly contradicts...

I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.
— Athena

The 'culture [you] had' was the one which decided to 'adopt the German model of bureaucracy and replace the domestic education the US had with Germany's model'.

If the 'culture you had' was so great as to lament its loss, then how come it made such a 'terrible' choice? It was clearly either stupid, or unethical, neither worthy of lamenting the loss of. — Isaac

What do you mean by "Directly contradicts"?

I would not say that civilians chose anything except to win the second world war and then to defend against the communist who came to power with violence. The Soviet Union held a philosophy of violently imposing communism on the world and the world knew they had the technology for atomic bombs. Sputnik proved they also had the missile technology needed to send atomic bombs anywhere in the world the communist wanted to drop one. The 1958 National Defense Education Act was the result of Sputnik. That act had a four-year limit but obviously, it became a permanent change in education.

None of this was an intentional change in culture and that is why I write. I can not think of one decision voters have made, except to elect leaders and some states agreed to give women equal rights and to end segregation. I don't think there was much thinking about either of those radical cultural changes but they were reactions to education for democracy, except in the Southern Bible Belt where religion results in conservative thinking. So one reason to change was to make our democracy more equal, but the South has opposed both equalities for women and people of color, conserving a culture with some democratic notions but mostly built on conservative religious reasoning much as Muslim radicalism prevents equality.

I mean voting for progressive changes in our democracy may not take into consideration negative consequences. A big negative consequence is an amoral society and increasing anarchy resulting from no longer preparing the young for citizenship and leaving moral training to the church. It was not an intent to destroy our culture but to make it better, more equal, and more democratic.

Tobias
707
We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.
— Athena

I do not now your age exactly, but culture is no monolithic entity. My mother is born directly after the second world war. She grew up in the 60s and lived in the 70s... there were so many cultural strands, the rise of the left, flower power, pacifism, conservatism, militant anti- communism... Which 'culture' would it be when your generation is gone? I think the culture you refer to has been taken down already by a double punch: flower power from the left and chicago school shareholder capitalism from the right... — Tobias

The 1958 National Defense Education Act happened before the 60's and 70's. That act ended the transmission of the culture, that Eisenhower called our domestic education. Moral education was the left to the church as though that could do for us what education for citizenship was doing for us.

We began educating for a technological society with unknown values. That's what we have now. A technological society with unknown values and no one prepared to establish national, secular values.
Hopefully, this forum can begin resolving that problem.

↪Athena Referring to the Prussian military model I really didn't think about Max Weber, actually. After all, there are different models and ideologies that are German / Prussian. Starting from the fact that Karl Marx was born Prussian! (But for some reason we don't look at Marxism as part of the cultural heritage Prussia has given to the World)

But yes, Weber is also one of my favorites and his views have been very influential. Indeed in his works on bureaucracy are important as it's been a framework on how bureaucracy has been studied. It's not only that Americans have adopted Weber, it's quite universal at least in the West. The faceless Weberian bureaucrat has been seen an antidote antidote patronage, nepotism and corruption. Of course as person living in the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries he didn't live to see what modern bureaucracies developed into (someone as smart as Weber could have made interesting observations) and for him modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world. We have to understand that a professional, impartial and meritocratic government bureaucracy have been the exception throughout history. In Weber's time there was in Germany still the Kaiser and when you do have an autocrat, bureaucracy can be passed by going directly to the monarch. Hence sociologists that lived in the late 19th Century had still much things around from the past like the last remnants of feudalism in their day to day life. — ssu

I do see Marx and Prussian as complimentary. The military takes care of their own. There was a shift from the military being rather limited, and certainly, the officers were an exclusive group of people above the peasants, to a greater equality created by technology and wars that involve everyone as a military-industrial complex. Economic decisions are vital to the military-industrial complex. Communism is also about economics and the well-being of everyone. These concerns are not like apples and oranges but what kind of apple do you like best. German had workers' compensation, and a national pension plan, and a national health plan, and a healthier population than Britain had when war began. That gave Germany a very important military advantage. America followed that example, short of the national health care, but it did pay a lot of attention to physical education when war was on its mind before our focus on technology decreased the need for healthy young men to send into war.

"and for him (Weber) modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world." That modern industrialized world is a military-industrial complex.

I am quoting from Wikipedia to ask a question.

The full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (English: National Socialist German Workers' Party) and they officially used the acronym NSDAP. The term "Nazi" was in use before the rise of the NSDAP as a colloquial and derogatory word for a backwards farmer or peasant, characterising an awkward and clumsy person, a yokel. In this sense, the word Nazi was a hypocorism of the German male name Igna(t)z (itself a variation of the name Ignatius)—Igna(t)z being a common name at the time in Bavaria, the area from which the NSDAP emerged.[11][12][/quote

The link may say even more important things, but what jumps out at me is "Nazi" was a derogatory word meaning backward farmer or peasant. Trump appeals to these people. He was a Wrestlemania star
It is a total humiliation to have a president who behaves like this, and he still has a large following. — Wikipedia

Hitler began in the countryside, not in the cities. We have a growing conflict between sophisticated, cosmopolitan people and those who are not, those who favor their religious beliefs and those who favor science. Some people are strongly opposed to opening our borders to immigrants, while some are in favor of immigrants and even see them as a wonderful addition to our diversity. Some want to hide the shame of slavery and discrimination and others want to resolve these problems. You mentioned being community-minded and I think country folk are community-minded, but we didn't live close together in little towns and live separate from our farms as Europeans did. We lived on our farms and separate from each other. We have been proudly independent. We had church charity and to this day many people in the US are opposed to government services. Especially Mormons are opposed to relying on the government. The whole Republican Party puts the concern for the budget before concern for saving lives. These are strong conflicting ideas of right and wrong and this kind of conflict can beg for a Trump or a Hitler to take control and end the conflict.

Then comes covid those who accepted isolation and wearing masks and those who did not. Many saw the scientific point of view as just government spinning out of control and wanting to control us, instead of science and wanting to get control of a virus. This is a life and death matter with serious economic ramifications and therefore it is not easily ignored. Add to this global warming and a war that demands our attention and it is like being in a pressure cooker.

What are the characteristics of good citizenship? What are the characteristics of good leadership? I was amused by this last election. For the first time, we had candidates promoting themselves as people of science, and my vote was based on my faith in science and fear of those who vote as their minister tells them to vote. When we fear our neighbor's decisions are harming us, it is hard to have a good sense of community. The different reactions to covid were life-changing. I have become intolerant of Christians and this really bothers me. Is Europe more secular than the US? I think this has very strong education and political ramifications. If we did not rely on the churches for moral education perhaps we would return to education for citizenship. I think this is essential.

Did you jump to a conclusion about me without asking questions? I think most of us have the bad habit of jumping to conclusions without asking questions. I am working very hard to break that bad habit and heaven knows, breaking bad habits is very difficult.

As for evil being a thing, I think Mongols and plagues were seen as evils or as God's way of punishing people. A problem with Christianity is one can not be sure if it is Satan or God causing terrible things to happen. A violent spirit that leads someone to kill others is an evil thing and I don't think people choose that. Such people may believe they are possessed by Satan. They may actually want to be stopped from acting on their thoughts and feelings. I don't think these things occur for supernatural reasons but I think some believe it is all caused by good and bad supernatural beings.

Thanks to @Banno for one of the most important defenses of those caught up in Naxi Germany, that I have ever seen. https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil

The Nazis in general were not evil people but people educated to be controlled and were controlled by the bureaucracy above them. Almost the same conditions as the US today because the US adopted the German model of bureaucracy and the i958 National Defense Education Act replaced domestic education the US had with Germany's model. The US has a different history with a constitution that assured human rights, but I don't think that history will continue to move the US in a different direction than Germany took. As many pointed out in this thread, some of the evils done were an imitation of what started in the US, such as putting native Americans on reservations, and eugenics.

We are no longer teaching national values when we enter wars and I am afraid the culture we had will be completely lost to the US when my generation dies.

Neitzche
— Athena

Nietzsche!!! :D

The post does not say much. Nietzsche might be popular in the US but only in some circles, literary criticism, as a progenitor post modernism maybe. Nietzsche is abused, used, held as a conservative and a revolutionary. But anyway, I think Nietzsche would be on your side in this debate. He abhorred mediocrity and 'herd spirit'. He admired the ancient thinkers just like you do. He abhorred democratization in the sense of populism because it made men ripe for tyrants. Nietzsche does not seem to be your target. I would recommend you to study him. Take your eyes from wikipedia and videos about the Prussian education system, and read Nietzsche. I thin you will find it wonderful.

I also do not think bureaucracy is a European disease. The US have their own fair share. Fordism, Taylorism... We are not living in the 19th century anymore, however if you want to understand it correctly, study the 19th century and study Germany, because it was the German golden age. If Germany is your enemy you have to get to know him and know the US as well. Nazism was only one side of the German coin... — Tobias

I strongly recommend you be respectful and stop using your too soon drawn conclusions as the base of your arguments. God, you really pissed me off. You make another comment like your Wikipedia insult and that will be the last time I read your post.

Banno
16.9k
↪Athena
Hana Arendt's essay on the banality of evil would be a good start. — Banno

I had time to read an explanation of Hana Arendt's essay. I love it! I think we saw it when people stormed the Capital Building in the US. I think this thinking is very much about Max Weber and the Prussian model of bureaucracy and education for technology.

I have a job that is all about compassion and it is also under the authority of a government bureaucracy and seriously lacking in compassion. At monthly meetings, I see the spirit of this bureaucracy is also capable of sending people to concentration camps. Those who are above me, work in fear of not enforcing the rules and losing their jobs or perhaps losing the whole program for everyone. They know enforcing the rules is harsh and against being compassionate, but they do it because they fear the consequences of not doing it.

Banno
16.9k
↪Athena :brow: — Banno

The question of the thread is What to do with the evil, undeniably with us?

SpaceDweller said.
"if you favor lifetime prison instead of death, that's is not rehabilitation either, it's waste of time for the prisoner and waste of resources for society since that person will not be able to return to society.
— SpaceDweller

It is easy to hate a mass murderer and perhaps realize it is not safe to leave this person on the streets unsupervised. What made this person like this? I think SpaceDweller argued in favor of killing these people but other things also make people useless to society and is it a waste of resources to care for them?

A broken neck can leave a person paralyzed. What good is this person to society? Various things can leave a person mentally incapable of having an independent life or maybe even learning to behave like a civil human being and require them to depend on others to keep them alive. They may or may not be pleasant people. What do they contribute to society? Many of us may face the reality of Alzheimer's Disease and become a burden on others.

What is the criteria for respecting a human's life? What does this judgment have to do with evil?

I spent this morning in a mandatory meeting and we were told why the organization is having so many problems and why our superiors can do nothing about them.

A major problem is the organization I am in is dependent on other organizations and those other organizations have no interest in what our program is doing other than the list of rules. Those who make the rules for how we serve elderly people have education in public service but not gerontology (the study of aging). That is, the rules are being made and enforced by people who do not know the population we serve. This is a huge problem because being over 70 is nothing like being 35. We are working with dependent and vulnerable people and the people making the rules have no understanding of what it is like to be one of them.

The organization could be doing a lot better if it were a religious organization with a focus on giving compassionate care, instead of a hierarchy of power and legalities and rules. And leave the volunteers free to do what needs to be done. Being American used to mean being our own authority and being trusted to do the right thing but today's bureaucracy has changed all that.

if you favor lifetime prison instead of death, that's is not rehabilitation either, it's waste of time for the prisoner and waste of resources for society since that person will not be able to return to society. — SpaceDweller

What else would qualify a person for a death sentence because keeping them alive is a waste of resources? How about paralyzed people or severely mentally challenged people?

According to Hana Arendt, Is evil something like the wind? Does it have a cause? Can it affect life on earth? Do our actions or thoughts attract it or push it away?

Banno
16.9k
↪Athena
Hana Arendt's essay on the banality of evil would be a good start. — Banno

I am a rather busy person. Can briefly say why Hana Arendt's essay is about?

Agent Smith
4.3k
And you appear to be ignoring information.
— Athena

:blush: Yep, you're on the mark. It's just it doesn't feel right to attribute anything to a particular group of people or to a country as a whole. When we do that, we do it for the sake of simplicity, but there's the real and deadly risk of oversimplification. — Agent Smith

I was hoping to change my post before anyone responded to it. I should not have made a "you" statement.

@SSU is the only person I have come across in many years of trying to have this discussion who knows enough about bureaucratic choices and organization to have something interesting to say. I think most people find the subject of bureaucracy just too boring to bother learning anything about it and that leaves them powerless. Understanding very little they are easily manipulated.

Long before Hitler gained real power, he became a speaker for the National Socialist party. The party
surveyed people to find out what made them the angriest and then they rented places for speakers who would talk about what made the people angry and how they would change things so they would be happy voters instead of angry voters. Trump took that route to the presidency. He even came to my small city and used the fairgrounds and told us over and over again what I great community we have. There was no substance to what he said, only people-pleasing comments. He did that all across the country. Of course, he is not the only one to do that but these speeches and TV ads were not always the work of professionals who find out what we want to hear and how to package their message so we will vote for them. People who really do not have a lot of information vote for someone who makes them feel good. You talk about "it doesn't feel right", and I think you agree you ignore the information. THIS IS NOT HOW TO HAVE A DEMOCRACY! THIS IS NOT WHAT EMPOWERS THE PEOPLE.

Reactionary politics is all about feelings. Since we ended education for independent thinking and left moral training to the church, we have developed the reactionary politics that as @SSU pointed out resulted in a complete collapse.

Stability and security is what all authoritarians proclaim. And usually, they portray every opponent of theirs as being against this and that those before them were evil and had no desire to serve the people, unlike them (the populism). The situation is so dire, that tough measures are needed. And many fall for that — ssu

But reactionary politics destroy everything because people are acting on their feelings, not their knowledge. They know they do not understand and do not have the power and they seek a leader who will take good care of them.

Education is vital to democracy and that is not education for technology.

Banno
16.9k
with us.
— Hillary

part of us
— Hillary

Shall we let it persist, shall we restrict it, even annihilate it?
— Hillary

evil has shown itself
— Hillary

Again, you are reifying what people do; that strikes me as a poor way of approaching the problem. — Banno

What is a better way to communicate the ideas?

What are using to form your opinion?

Agent Smith
4.3k
There's nothing American or German about governance/politics. All we have to remember is that when we make a choice, it's not the best of the best but the best of the worst (least worst). — Agent Smith

To make a choice people must be informed and they are not informed. People are totally clueless about the bureaucratic changes that have been made and what this has to do with our children having a very different education since the 1958 National Defense Education Act, ended the transmission of the culture we had. They are completely unaware that because of these changes we value each other differently and this is a huge change in how we experience ourselves.

Welcome to the Borg. Please verify who you are with official ID and tell us what is your IQ and what is your area of expertise.

ssu
5.8k
↪Athena Referring to the Prussian military model I really didn't think about Max Weber, actually. After all, there are different models and ideologies that are German / Prussian. Starting from the fact that Karl Marx was born Prussian! (But for some reason we don't look at Marxism as part of the cultural heritage Prussia has given to the World)

But yes, Weber is also one of my favorites and his views have been very influential. Indeed in his works on bureaucracy are important as it's been a framework on how bureaucracy has been studied. It's not only that Americans have adopted Weber, it's quite universal at least in the West. The faceless Weberian bureaucrat has been seen an antidote antidote patronage, nepotism and corruption. Of course as person living in the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries he didn't live to see what modern bureaucracies developed into (someone as smart as Weber could have made interesting observations) and for him modern bureaucracy was part of the modern industrialized world. We have to understand that a professional, impartial and meritocratic government bureaucracy have been the exception throughout history. In Weber's time there was in Germany still the Kaiser and when you do have an autocrat, bureaucracy can be passed by going directly to the monarch. Hence sociologists that lived in the late 19th Century had still much things around from the past like the last remnants of feudalism in their day to day life. — ssu

Oh I think I love you!

:kiss: Now this discussion can flower. This is the first time in many years on many forums that someone has said something that can move the discussion forward. :grin:

Yes, the government programs we have today would not be possible without this bureaucratic order. I don't see the number for post? On the first page about halfway down I give quotes from Huxley, Tocoquiville, and Tagore

Athena
2k — Athena

(click on Athena to see the thread) that draw our attention to the problems with this bureaucracy.

I believe everyone understands our change from the past as the consequence of technology, without considering bureaucratic technology. My argument is the change in bureautic technology is essential to programs such as Social Security, but it also has social, economic, and political ramifications. This would not be as true as it is, if we had maintained education for good citizenship and independent thinking and if we continued to transmit the culture we had.

With the change in bureaucratic order, came education for a high-tech society with unknown values. Now may I draw your attention to Eisenhower's farewell speech warning to not rely too much on the experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY We replaced education for independent thinking with "group think" and the best way to become aware of this social change is to compare Star Trek, Kirk with Picard. Kirk is the John Wayne of outer space and Picard is the "Group Think" generation.
If you can get this and then think about Trump and Biden you can see the importance of social change.

However, The change is not all bad. Eisenhower praised the Germans for their contribution to democracy and that is to have your point of view of what is good, without realizing the problems. Sorry for being so wordy, but we have culture wars and we are ripping ourselves apart right now. An end to racism and greater equality for women are good things but they do not come without problems. Perhaps you can name a few?

In the 1970's we announced a national youth crisis and my son and daughter were caught up in it just as many in my generation were caught up in being hippies. This led to my grandchildren being made wards of the state and I learned more about tranny than I ever thought possible in the US. I hope we can get into this. I hope we begin screaming about Texas paying people to report anything related to abortion and what went wrong in Nazi Germany, where the witch hunts began, and what can we learn about this evil of reporting family and neighbors to "authority".

Well your information is different from mine and it is a nice sunny day and I don't think I care as much today as I do on other days. However, all that talk about war isn't what people who study bureaucracy talk about. This is how people who study bureaucracy understand the organization used in Germany and adopted by the US.

The Weberian Model
The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist. Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the demands of citizens for government services. Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy, the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized, and governed by formal procedures. Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be better able to solve problems through logical reasoning. Such efforts would eliminate entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge, provide a system for managing and performing repetitive tasks that required little or no discretion, impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided, reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.[8
[https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/amgovernment/understanding-bureaucracies-and-their-types/

Weber was a sociologist and very influential. He was born in Prussia. I like many of his thoughts.

Now I am going to join a neighbor and work on my garden on this lovely sunny day. I hope you are also enjoying your day.

It is isolated.

In your statement you recognise evil as something distinct from good.

"I place evil... inside the universe, how is it dealt with?

You recognise that evil must be 'dealt' with...

Thus, isolation. — Varde

Good point and an exciting notion. I read in a very old book that the ancient Eyptians believed in the trinity of the soul. One part of the trinity died with the body. One part was judged and either got to enter the good afterlife or not, depending on the weight of the heart. No matter what, the third part reunited with the source. Christianity made the god spirit separate from who we are and made the trinity a supernatural father, son, and holy ghost, and created a separate being of evil to explain evil. This difference is a difference in how we judge each other and our relationships and how we understand good and evil.

I mean, focusing less on technology. Technology tends to de-humanize. — Hillary

Wow, nothing is simple. :grin: You make me think when humans transitioned from small nomadic tribes to cities they manifested a shared consciousness far beyond the limits of small tribes. As cities grew more and more ideas bounced off each other and greatly expanded our shared consciousness, and increasing our knowledge of nature, math, and science, and now the web unites the world and holds more information than ever before possible. Socrates and others saw information as essential to good moral judgment.

So now what can we make of the contradictions of good and evil? I mean this sincerely? How do we maintain our humanness and integrate our growing knowledge and technology with it? Like this technology should be our tool, not our master, but it seems to me it is coming up like the Borg, which consumes sentient beings and makes them part of the Borg. The Star Trek series frequently visited this idea of societies controlled by computers and I think, thanks to Prussian bureaucracy mixed with technology, we are a computer-controlled society but the components of the computer are programmed humans who are organized by policies, not just manufactured parts.

Hillary
1.7k
We have mastered technology and turned our backs on the gods
— Athena

We also could turn our back to technology.
14 minutes ago — Hillary

What does turning to technology mean to you? How would that improve our moral judgment?

Did you go to the local/national newspapers with the story? Did you contact any human rights-based pressure groups? Did you write letters of complaint and get copies sent to every local politician in the area. Did you look at any legal path due to the fact that your Jewish friend suffered racial discrimination?
Did you ask for help from protest groups who might consider organising a petition or organise a protest outside the place where this counselor works? How angry are you, the Jewish community and those around your Jewish friend at his/her treatment? You have had setbacks in your pursuit of justice for your friend, do these initial defeats/barriers mean you are done fighting already?

It is irritating people like us, who get things done, but boy, does it take a toll on us and I would say 99% of the citizens think we should be following policy and stop making trouble
— Athena

The fight is hard, sometimes very very hard and the rewards can be few indeed BUT YOUR FIGHT IS JUST! I think your 99% is a bit high, when others see your tenacity it can fire many towards supporting you.........eventually. — universeness

Wow, thank you for being so supportive. I work and I have every little energy so I have not done all those things yet, but I am working on them. I devoted today to following the steps that the hospital told me to follow, before calling in the big guns.

In the past, I took my social concerns directly to the newspaper and almost always got my letters to the editor printed, but the locally own paper was sold and the staff is out of town and very different from the past! In the past, I have also taken concerns to the local and state levels of public hearings. I had a lot more fire and energy back then and I miss my working relationship with the newspaper.

After failing to make progress with the medical facility I have asked for help from a local synagogue and I am waiting for a reply. I forgot about the Human Rights Commission, and thanks to you, I bookmarked the Commission page and have called and left a message. I hate confrontation, but with the support, you have given me and my sister pointing out how damaging that experience was to his effort to get counseling, I am willing to do as much as my time and energy allow me to do.

I would take more of a cognitivist anti-realist position on morality: there are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations of phenomena. I don't think the universe instantiates any "good" or "evil".
— Bob Ross — Hillary

Wow, if that were the case there would be no life that depends on good parenting. That would eliminate all mammals. The book "Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer speaks of the pre-moral state of animals. All creatures, including humans, are born with instincts and evolution has favored the development of instincts that promote the survival of the species. Human evolution has brought us to the consciousness level of the scientific method, and with philosophy, provides the grounds for good moral judgment.

However, a society that focuses on technology and neglects education in virtues and good moral judgment full fills the fear of Zeus. We have mastered technology and turned our backs on the gods. We are technologically smart but not wise.

Angelo Cannata
144
Certain things we talk about in philosophy are not so much concepts: they are much more experiences. Conceptualizing experiences can be useful, but it is not the best way to deal with everything. Many mistakes and misunderstandings in philosophy come for mixing these two perspectives. Saying that some evil is necessary for good to exist is a total conceptualization of evil and, as such, it looses sight of a lot of human aspects of it, especially personal involvement. On the opposite, complaining, crying, without any further action, happens when the intensity of experience overwhelms our ability to think. The solution is not in finding a balance between experience and concepts: such a balance cannot exist and, actually, there is progress, movement, becoming, exactly because of imbalance: a too perfect balance turns into absence of life, of progress. I think the solution needs to be dialectic, which means, a permanent action of work, movement, progress, self-criticism, among the different elements and imbalances.
So, facing the OP question “What to do...”, what is important is looking not for a conclusive answer, but exactly for something to do, which is, a kind of doing that must be never expected to stop, like instead conclusive answers are.
In other words, a conclusive answer to evil not only does not exist, but we need to be vigilant to avoid any temptation to find or to built it; a conclusive answer must not exist and we need to work actively to make impossible for it to exist. Conclusive answers to evil are worse than evil itself, because evil can change, but conclusive answers are aimed at not changing: they block progress.
So, from a philsophical point of view, facing the question “What to do with evil”, I think a good answer is working on philosophy to make it dynamic, permanently self-critical and in dialogue with experience and subjectivity, avoiding conclusive answers, conceptualizations that can make us disconnected, forgetful of personal human experience. — Angelo Cannata

Your post is exactly what I need at this moment.

Some of us remember a different experience of our democracy in the US. We remember believing a good citizen took action when something was wrong, and that is no longer possible in most cases because we no longer have the communication and organization, NOR THE EXPECTATION OF CITIZENS, that we once had. Government blocks us from taking action far more than it did in the past, and there are too many of us for communication to be as effective as it once was. And I really don't believe education is teaching our young to be responsible citizens, but instead, everyone is prepared to follow orders and rely on the experts, just as Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech.

Today taking action can mean being a martyr because we have to push against huge organizations that are about making money and policy, not listening to and interacting with people. They may be doing plenty of surveys but those surveys serve their purpose not the people dependent on them. It is all very efficient and also very dehumanizing.

I pushed a friend to get mental health counseling and evidently, his Jewish name became a problem. He fled after the counselor when she asked "How long have you had this delusion of grandeur?" His problem is totally the opposite of that, and she made a "you statement" that none of should be making. Then she followed him and publically humiliated him. Someone who overheard her said she was an "ignorant bitch" and she said "Better that than a stinking Jew."

We asked for a grievance form and after filling it out we were told that is the wrong form for mental health department complaints. Then we were given a phone number and that is a dead end because the caller is told the mailbox is full. Then a got a second number and it turned out to be the same dead-end. On this path to resolve the problem, everyone we spoke with is following policy and has a "just following orders" Naxi attitude. That is, no one feels the least bit of responsibility for resolving this violation of a Jew. What happened is an evil, and no one cares, leaving us to feel powerless against evil and like unwanted intruders in their nice day. They are just doing their jobs and we should not be bringing a problem to them.

Daily my sister deals with the homeless and bureaucrats who are not doing the job they are paid to do. She used to be a bureaucrat and those who need her help have no idea how to deal with the bureaucracies they must depend on, which includes how hospitals are run as well as government. It is irritating people like us, who get things done, but boy, does it take a toll on us and I would say 99% of the citizens think we should be following policy and stop making trouble. This is not how things used to be. We remember "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". We remember being told it is our freedoms and good citizens that make America great, not the impersonalness and "efficiency" we are experiencing today.

the following is the result of googling the popularity of Neitzche in the US.

Despite that, for more than a century Nietzsche has been a hugely popular—and surprisingly influential—figure in American thought and culture. In American Nietzsche, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen delves deeply into Nietzsche's philosophy, and America's reception of it, to tell the story of his curious appeal.

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas ... — Amazon

When Hintz professed her reverence for Nietzsche in 1913, the American “Nietzsche vogue” (as it was referred to at the time) was only in its infancy. Indeed, what looked like a fleeting intellectual fashion in the 1910s proved so durable that by 1987 it had accomplished, in the words of University of Chicago classics scholar Allan Bloom, nothing less than the “Nietzscheanization” of the American mind. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom surveyed the wreckage of late-20th-century “value relativism” in American culture and traced it back to the 1930s and ’40s, when German-speaking intellectual émigrés fleeing Nazism brought Nietzsche’s philosophy with them as they found refuge in the American academy. According to Bloom, though they introduced Americans to Nietzsche’s terrifying insights into the bankruptcy of Western thought and morality, these refugee scholars also instructed them in the larger European cultural framework from which they had come. But as his philosophy made its way from the academy into the radicalized culture of the 1960s, it became transfigured into a blank check for late-20th-century “nihilism, American style.” — JENNIFER RATNER-ROSENHAGEN

You guys can find your argument in history as stated in the OP. Germany had reactionary politics and that is now true of the US.

The Conservative Revolution (German: Konservative Revolution), also known as the German neoconservative movement[1][2] or new nationalism,[3][2] was a German national-conservative movement prominent during the Weimar Republic, in the years between World War I and Nazi Germany (1918–1933). — Wikipedia

Why the denial of this instead of questioning the effect of adopting the German models of bureaucracy and education?

Plunged into what historian Fritz Stern has named a deep "cultural despair", uprooted as they felt within the rationalism and scientism of the modern world, theorists of the Conservative Revolution drew inspiration from various elements of the 19th century, including Friedrich Nietzsche's contempt for Christian ethics, democracy and egalitarianism; the anti-modern and anti-rationalist German Romanticism; the vision of an organic and organized society cultivated by the Völkisch movement; a Prussian tradition of militaristic and authoritarian nationalism; and their own experience on the front line during World War I, escorted by both irrational violence and comradeship spirit. — Wikipedia

That's indeed the red pill of the deepest red! Great thread. And we let our children still go to school? To turn them from colorful, playful little humans into brainwashed and programmed grey objectively thinking copies of the schemes the powers have in mind? Dear mother of gods... — Hillary

Well, now that is something I want to discuss. Public education is like a genie in a lamp, The defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genie. We changed that wish in 1958 and now have cultural determinism and chaos! This does not feel like the past where we had individual liberty and power and the services and businesses asked "how can I help you", instead of "how should I direct your call". Some of us older folks are experiencing culture shock and if we are renting it is very clear we are no longer the authority in our own home, but we live under the authority of property managers who ignore the repairs that need to be made but evict people who don't follow the rules. The number of people who have lost their careers because they said the wrong thing, horrifies me. They may have been very offensive but what happened to freedom of speech? Many years ago my grandmother walked away from her teaching job because the principal interfered with the discipline of her classroom, and today teachers assume they work under authority. I feel like I am stumbling to explain why I think something has gone very wrong.

In the 70s we announced a national youth crisis and blamed the parents. While the teachers are sure the parents just don't care and the parents are blaming the teachers for what is going wrong. We are not looking at the federal government and the changed organization and changed the purpose of education, and why some think Trump is our Hitler while others are very willing to lick his boots.

How different is present America from the segrationist America would be more interesting.

Totalitarian states actually give the perfect reason for people to adapt to it: it's simply survival. Yes, you can be a hero and fight the system, but you can easily pay the ultimate price, or your loved ones, without anyone even knowing about it.

Nazi Germany and post-war Germany are so different as the Third Reich collapsed so totally. In it's death throws it was genuinely destroying itself and the defeat was so bad that you really had a collective understanding that it didn't work and that it was utterly bad. This created the rare example of a country truly looking at it's past and condemning it. And that of course makes it so easy to hate.

In other countries, especially in Spain and Portugal, the fascist past is more problematic. It wasn't defeated in war. Spain just eased off the era of Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar's Portugal the Estado Novo, basically ended with the Carnation Revolution.

Quite different are the totalitarian systems which still have their supporters around who are respected "contrarians" and ideological minorities. — ssu

Excellent, full of things to think about.

The racist thing is a distraction from the wanting a totalitarian system and I am so glad you brought in the rest of the world. Through the internet, I know a Portuguese man and the brutality of fascism is still with him. Why not go with what works? Except as you said. in Germany, it was clear it did not work. But exactly what piece of it did not work? Oh man, this communication seems impossible because nothing is simple! It is mind-boggling that people could want Putin in charge, but in the US many people want Trump in charge and I can't explain this. But somewhere in this soup of thoughts is a burning need to be superior and in control, and to have no qualms about exploiti8ng or crashing others.

Why is being a Nazi attractive to some? Is that different from wanting to be in the Ku Klus Klan? Those questions beg psychological answers, but also organizational and sociologic answers. Many people thought fascism was the answer to preventing economy collapses, and many see socialism as more just, and do we want to get into our human nature and what drives us to choose one movement over another?

What made our democracy worth fighting for? I am saying we are no longer the democracy we defended. I will also say the New Deal is fascist but is that organization beneficial?