It is about science. Science improves our understanding, and the issue with you came up when you said you do not agree with what I said about all the unconscious thinking we do.

Science also helps us understand what hormones have to do with our feelings and decisions. It may be my bad but I thought that was important to the discussion. All animals, are programmed for the survival of the species, not just self nterest. This is especially so for social animals that live in groups for their mutual survival.

How are we to understand anything if we do not include science in our understanding? What is the bases for our arguments without science?

"I did not present the idea that we are driven by pleasure/pain as a theory, just a self evident truth or axiom."
Hum, how often do you exercise and do you restrict your food to what is healthy? Obviously, both exercise and healthy eating are essential to feeling good. So why are people obese and sickly and crippled by the excessive weight on their knees? We feel better when we exercise and restrict our diet to healthy food, but most of us are reluctant to it. Why? Nature rewards us for making good choices but many of us are not making good choices. However, some people are making good choices, why?

:yikes: you didn't say
"Obviously I don't agree with that."?

Terrapin Station
4.7k
Most of our thinking is unconscious.
— Athena

Obviously I don't agree with that. So repeating the idea, or acting as if I must not be familiar with conventional views (that followed what I'm quoting above) isn't going to have any effect in terms of persuasion.

I'm not denying autonomic functions, doing things by muscle memory, etc. I'd say that there's no good reason to say that any of that is akin to mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station

Yes, it is akin to mental phenomena. Science has provided a clear explanation of that.

What do you means here

" . . As if one can't disagree with conventional wisdom in the sciences."?

I must admit when the point being argued is not part of the agrument, things can be confusing. You appear to lack knowledge of the resent science and most of this knowledge hasn't been around long enough to be conventional wisdom. With the knowledge we have recentaly gained I think hope for humanity has greatly improved. However, we have a lot of work to do to make it common knowledge.

What you said makes no sense to me, because it had nothing to do with science, but maybe we can move towards science by examining why humans are patriotic? Could it be because we are programmed by nature for the survival of our group and its way of life and ideals? Thousands of people have died in wars defending democracy. Why? It sure as blazes was not limited to self-interest. People don't throw themselves on grenades out of self-interest, they do not run up a hill defended by an enemy shooting guns and sending bombs because of self-interest. They do it for love of family and country. Now they may get into this situation because of self-interest, wanting an adventure or wanting the excitement they imagine war to be, but they used to be drafted into wars and went if they wanted to or not. Even if you can still find self-interest in their choice, it would not be there if they did not care about others. And if people do not care significantly about others, they tend to die in concentration camps or other extremely bad situations because they loose their will to live. Over and over again survival stories are about how thinking others made it possible for them to endure and survive.

PS science is vital to our liberty and our progress and our ability to save our earth. It would be sad if you do not value science.

"For example, a mother may sacrifice much for her child, but those sacrifice's make the mother emotionally happier."

Oh yes, hormones affect how we feel and what we do, and the same is so for all animals. However, our mental capacity adds another layer to this. Animals do not stay in a relationship because of notions of love and duty and our notions of love and duty can make us appear irrational. Nature has programmed us not for our individual survival but the survival of our species. All animals are programmed for the survival their species.

If you do not agree with what said, then you are not familiar with the science. I will be interested in what you have to say after you are better informed.

Your limited understanding of human motives is really sad. :cry: Some of us hold ideas to be more important and we will make great sacrifices to for our family, our country, an ideal like democracy or fascism, or communism and for future generations we will never know.

I hate the selfish gene talk. I think it is has caused us much suffering. And I know it is a lie because I did not live for self-fulfillment. Before my children left home, my archetype goddess was Demeter, the mother goddess. I sacrificed my desires to fulfill my family duty as society once said we should do. When we understood what family order has to do with democracy. That is our duty to family is also our duty to our country. I can not comprehend feeling our lives are meaningful if we do not have a sense of duty? If we do not live for others, then how do have a sense of self-worth?

"You must buy the idea of unconscious mental phenomena. I do not."

Most of our thinking is unconscious. At least 80% of it is automatic thinking. Automatic thinking makes it possible for us to drive cars or dance gracefully. Before we learn these skills we must focus intensely on the effort and we are very clumsy. But it is much more than this. We live by the habits we develop and this leaves our minds free to think of more important things. And advertisers love the fact that they can influence our thinking without us being aware of this.

Recently we have gained a lot of knowledge of how our brains work and if this interest you look it up. You will find exciting information on youtube by googling "fast and slow thinking".

The gods argued with each other too. Arguing about what is desirable and what is not desirable is how gods and humans increase their understanding until they come to a consensus on the best reasoning. Really what could be better than this? As birds were born to fly, we are born to reason. Democracy is an imitation of the gods. We are as the gods because we have the capacity of reason. Arguing is how the gods resolved their differences and when Christians learned of this they largely replaced their the model of a kingdom with the model of Greek gods. Unfortunately, we stopped educating for this understanding and now we are in trouble. We are locked in power struggles that are devoid of reasoning and we are destroying our democracy and our planet.

We might want to add to the story of the gods, Sumer's story of creation, about the river that displeased a goddess by overflowing its banks, and how the goddess created a man and woman out of mud to help the river stay in its banks. Many aborigine people around the world had creation stories that made them caretakers of the earth. Surely we would make better decisions if we thought we were the caretakers of our one and only planet. :grin: Add to this the Greek understanding of the gods and reasoning or the NE native American story of the man who taught them to live with reason, and we might return to a reality we can enjoy.

Ah shoot, I had a burning need to add a PS to my last reply and I really hope you will respond to what I say of liberty and freedom and the education we once had that made us different from Germany. I want to point out today we have young men who idealize the Nazis and think their freedom means the right to discriminate against others and kill Jews to make American great again and that this is what Trump is talking about when he speaks of making American great again. Freedom without good moral judgment is not a good thing and it is not what got children to return to their studies.

"I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk."

Woo, I had no idea that is how people interpret what I am saying. I have a lot of faith in humanity and that is why I say education for a technological society with unknown values is not a good thing. Democracy was not always an unknown value but now it is. We understood moral judgment is based on reason, but since leaving moral training to the church, we think morals are about religion. :roll: During the age of enlightenment many opposed Christianity because it stood against democracy and the freedoms we assume today, and today we think Christianity gave us democracy. :worry: Only those with high morals can have liberty, but since we put an end to education preparing the young to make good moral decisions, we scream we don't someone else to teach our children morals. We have zero understanding of what is required for a democracy to thrive.

I am not saying humans are the problem. I am saying education for a technological society with unknown values is a big problem.

PS It is not freedom that gets children to care about each other and learning. Freedom will get you Lord of the Flies without strong leadership from those who understand liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please but the right to choose what is right and it requires knowledge to do that well, so we give up our freedom, for a higher standard of living than living a pack of wolves. Lord of the Flies and pack of wolves refers to Nazi Germany and it was our education for good moral judgment that made us different, not Christianity and obedience to authority.

When the bottom line is the dollar, the decisions may not favor the people.

When the bottom line is a healthy democracy, consideration of human needs and interest are more likely. The Roosevelt administration poured a lot of money into the arts and public buildings decorated by artists of all kinds, painters, sculptors, ironworkers and it poured a lot of money into a forest and national parks and protected this national resource for everyone, not just for those who can pay the fees. This is no longer a national choice and while children once had a time for singing together, and making music, and art classes, this has mostly been cut out of school budgets, along with PE classes once thought essential for a healthy nation. Education for a technological society has not been education for cultural development and love of humanity.

"I would suggest some sort of feudalism-democracy fusion where planetary systems are governed by elected officials like a senate, congress, or parliament, and are given significant internal autonomy, and they are lead by an executive, with checks and balances of power, appointed by a Monarch."

How about simply relying on a computer? That is the obvious choice isn't it? None of the human faults and far more capable of accumulating data and applying it to decisions. Isn't this the most efficient choice?

"I also want to reiterate how our education and means of production are involved with each other. Expressed another way, the way we work and what is taught are bound up with each other. A significant change in one is talking about a significant change in the other."

Education motivated by the enlightenment was not education for technology, but did encourage science as our liberty and advancement require science. Education did it have much an economic purpose. Education for technology is the result of modern warfare dependent on technology. I am quite sure the economic benefits of adding vocational training to education were unexpected. Industry wanted to close our schools in the US when we mobilized for war. Closing schools would have put an end to child labor laws as industry wanted to return to child labor and argued the war caused a labor shortage. I wish we could discuss this more because it applies to us today when we decide the present purpose of education and how to spend our education dollars. And technology is so changing our lives we really need to re-evaluate our vision of the future and how to prepare the young for that future.

"However you could say that a moral judgement comes after life starts to exists so the judgement is created by the data. Life just happens to tend in a certain direction."

No life does not just tend in a certain direction. It can only move in the direction of good or become nonexistent. That is the point of the story of the destructive monster. If the tendency were in the favor of destruction, all would be destroyed, long before you and I got here to argue the matter.

As far as moral judgment coming after the manifestation of matter and then the manifestation of man, that is agreeable. Chadian said, "life is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man." We are possibly god's consciousness unable to be aware of self through any other manifestation other than man, and as far as we know this is exclusively true on the planet earth.

What I realize is the tightening of opportunity and the horror that our children maybe not be competitive and may themselves become jobless and homeless, even if they are greatly in debt for school loans and have college degrees. Our children no longer have the luxury of being children but are expected to perform as college students totally dedicated to their educations. No more careless and free days for children, not even recesses or PE but total dedication to preparing for a high tech job. Any other purpose of education is axed from the school budgets cheating artistic and talented children from the educations they need to actualize their potential and killing the culture that all civilizations need. Never in the history of humanity has life been so unfit for humans. But on the other hand, never has life been so good.

We are at crossroads. Do we want to manifest the human dream of the enlightenment or do we want to be the efficient Borg? The ultimate Nazi power minus the racial prejudice. The old world order was family order. The New World Order is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens. I loved the original Star Trek shows and all the warnings of the danger of being a computer-controlled society, but those shows were not family shows. The role models were not mothers and fathers. And at this point in time, our bottom line is the dollar, not humanity. We want the world to spend more in arms because it is good for our economy. It is unfortunate if a child looses a parent or grandparent or his/her own life because s/he can not afford the foods and medication to manage diabetes but that is really none of our business. Arming Saudi Arabia is our business. :lol:

"If their raison d'être is staying in power, what difference does the public good make to them? The public be damned!"

:strong: Absolutely! President Carter was right about our need to conserve oil and Reagan lied to us about us having plenty of oil and not needing to conserve it, but Reagan won the election and he became one of our favorite presidents despite the fact that his term resulted in a huge shift of money and power that is not in the best interest of citizens. He slashed domestic budgets when an economic recession meant a very high unemployment rate and the young could not be assimilated because there were no jobs for them. In this time of great need, we cut two parent families off welfare forcing young fathers to abandon their families so their families could get help and this prevented young people from marrying, causing a surge in unwed mothers. We threw our young and poor overboard and pour all our national resources into a military buildup because our abundance of oil depended on control of mid east and ever since then we have been taxed to maintain a war ready state and despite the high taxes our national debt continues to spin out of control because of the military spending.

Today Trump wants us to know we need to accept lower wages so we are competitive on the world market, and he wants to cut all domestic programs. He will do anything to sell weapons to boost our economy. Like arming Saudi Arabia is in the world's best interest? People who think decisions have been made in our favor might need to rethink our reality. Supporting the Military Industrial Complex is not what our democracy used to be about. The MIlitary Industrial Complex doesn't so much need our sons and daughters, but this high tech military force needs our tax dollars, and we must have control of global oil because all industrial economies depend on oil and he who controls oil controls the world.

Government on the state level, and then the federal level, forced communities to provide education for all children regardless of their parents' ability to pay for that education, because those who understand democracy know the importance of education that transmits a culture for making us a strong and united Republic. And they know parents may not be capable of educating their children for citizenship in a democracy. We are in crisis now because since 1958 we have not educated our young to understand democracy and the requirements of liberty and not even the teachers educated since 1958 are prepared to prepare our young for democracy. It is really stupid today to expect parents who lack the necessary education to prepare their children for citizenship.

In the book of the 1917 National Education Association Conference, it is very clear education had nothing to do with vocational training or preparing the young for jobs that required technological training. Actually, we were seriously unprepared for modern warfare because our young were not prepared to build bridges, use or repair- cars, planes, tanks or even use a typewriter, or do anything else that required education for all the technology we take for granted today. Very clearly we did not expect parents to prepare their children for citizenship, especially not immigrant parents, not even were Christian parents well versed in the Bible prepared to prepare their children for life in a democracy. Lessons for democracy come from the pagans (Greek and Roman and classics) not the Christians.

I seriously hope everyone rethinks the idea that we can rely on parents or today's teachers, to prepare the young for citizenship. If you think you are ready to prepare the young for democracy, can you list 10 principles of democracy or 5 events in history that bring us to democracy? I will be surprised if you are not as angry with me as everyone else is when I ask them to list the principles of democracy. Like Socrates, I tend to piss people off, but if we do not realize the error of thinking parents and not schools hold the responsibility of preparing our young for citizenship, our democracy will fail and indeed appears to have all the symptoms of failure now.

"Good is what's right in the long term"
— Devans99

I agree 100%. We are immoral when we are ignorant and unaware of the bigger picture. We have democracy because of the reasoning of Cicero, a Roman statesman who studied in Athens. He explained that we are compelled to decide in favor in the good, therefore, failure to make the right choice is a matter of ignorance.

Of course, it can be argued that our emotions may overrule our reason, but this is relatively rare compared to making bad decisions out of ignorance. Unfortunately, in this time of fast foods, many people are very short-term thinkers and rural people tend to have very little knowledge of the world yet think they know all they need to know to make good judgments. This is a serious educational problem.

I don't think anyone knowledgeable of history would think things are worse than they were 300 hundred years ago. Not even freemen had the freedoms we have gained since the concepts of democracy and science have spread. However, I would say the US democracy is in decline, but I think education can turn this back around.

For me, moral is a matter of cause and effect and it is weighed in favor of life.

In Greek philosophy the question of good and bad comes up many times. They asked...
Is something good or bad because the gods say it is so, or do they say something is good or bad because it is good or bad?

That brings us to the thought ... If life favored immorality, destruction, all would be destroyed like a monster of destruction that devours everything until there is nothing left but to devour itself.

It is concluded what is good is good because it promotes life and what is bad destroys, and even the gods are subject to this reality. They do not create it. This leads us to rule by reason for if our reasoning is good, things will go well, and if our reasoning is bad things go wrong. So it does matter what we think and what we do.

"I agree with your sentiment on education, but again, who decides on what is good moral judgment and what isn't?"

Thank you so much for your question because it is the most vital question that could be asked. We have a democracy because of the Age of Enlightenment and a belief that educated people can have liberty and be self-governing. Education for good moral judgment is training in logic. This education does not teach the young what to think, but how to think.

We used to read our children moral stories. "The Little Red Hen" and "The Fox and the Grapes" or "The Little Engine that Could" are moral stories. After reading the story to the children we ask, "what is the moral of that story?" The answer is a matter of cause and effect. Cicero, a Roman Statesman who was essential reading to our forefathers, claimed doing wrong is a problem of ignorance, and well-informed people will not make bad choices. So the generation that is now dead, thought doing wrong is a matter of ignorance because that is what education taught. They were also taught we defend our liberty by obeying our laws and we are responsible for those laws.

It was understood with rights come duties. Liberty is not the right to do anything we please, but the right to decide for ourselves what is right, and this right comes with education for good moral judgment. Science is vitally important to this right. Religion tells us of life manifested by a God. Science tells us how God makes things work, and with this knowledge, we have overcome disease and feminine and doubled our life expectancy. This is awesome because those who spend a lifetime learning, gain wisdom, and in the past, their wisdom befitted society. That was before we got so technologically smart and instead of respecting our elders, decided they are outdated and should be ignored. But I hold out hope that there are enough of us to regain the respected position elders once had and that with the internet we will rescue our liberal democracy.

As for the question about our free market system- is it good for the world, for the US to sell weapons to the likes of the prince of Saudi Arabia, a country that kills citizens to defend the power of the royal family and wages a long war with an undeveloped African country causing the deaths of children? Our European allies have ended the sale of weapons to Suadi Arabia. Like the moral stories, might this freedom of the market have bad consequences? Is selling soda pop to underdeveloped nations causing an epidemic in diabetes and good thing? Without morals how can our free market system be a good thing? Are we being responsible? In a democracy who is responsible?

Why wouldn't our present situation meet the definition of fascism?

This thread is about education, democracy, and liberty. Compared to liberal education,education for technology is dehumanizing. Liberal education internalizes authority and education for technology externalizes authority- making the people dependent on the experts. Liberal education made everyone a generalist and education for technology makes everyone a specialist. Liberal education taught independent thinking. Education for technology uses groupthink. Liberal education taught logic and in 1958 that ended with a focus on memorization. Now people scream bloody murder when a child's education is slowed down with subjects that require them to think and are not restricted to preparing them for their place in the beast.

Liberal education used the Conceptual Method. With this method, the student learned increasingly complex concepts. Technological education used the Behaviorist method, and that can be used for training dogs. This is also the dropping of logic and relying on memorization. Right answers are rewarded and wrong answers are punished. This leads everyone to think there are right or wrong answers, and in general, there is no understanding of the complexity of concepts such as democracy or human rights. Black or white thinking is bad for the democracy we had. A liberal education is education for good moral judgment, and education for technology dropped moral training and left it to the church as Germany did. That destroys liberty because no one is prepared for liberty, and this goes with a bureaucratic order that makes thinking unnecessary and only requires people to obey policy without question.

Two things are needed for fascism, experience with democracy and industrialization. In 1958 we placed liberal education with the dehumanizing education for technology and we are preparing the young to be products for industry, and find their place in the mechanical society where privacy and freedom of speech are being destroyed. Are people perhaps thinking because we have a democracy we are not fascist? Really what makes us different from the efficient, mechanical society we defeated in two world wars? We don't speak German?

I am working for returning to, the education for democracy we had because only when that democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended. Imagine what would happen to Christianity if it set aside the Bible and focused on education for technology. Well, that is what happened to our democracy. We stopped transmitting the culture that made us a national leader for human rights and now we are good with improving our economy by selling weapons to anyone who wants to buy them and it is not democracy and human rights we put first, but nationalism. This is not what we defended our democracy against?

"There are both specific and general features of fascism, but large bureaucracies in themselves aren't one of them."

For me, the difference is who is control. All governments are a combination of autocracy and democracy. Perhaps Saudi Arabia with its ruling prince and royal family is the most autocratic? Then there is communism that is autocratic because the government attempts to control so much. Then there is fascism and socialism and laize fair capitalism. Our modern societies, no matter what country we are talking about have much more power to control all matters of life through bureaucracies. Large bureaucracies are about controlling and this degree of control of relatively new isn't it?

How much control a national governing power has over citizens is a matter of philosophy or religious belief isn't it? Not that long ago Christian nations gave kings privileged rule on the belief a god ordained who would be masters and who would serve and there was no concept of human rights, nor the dignity of man meaning everyone. Peasants had no political power short of a rebellion or revolution. Between 1920 to the present, has our government gained more control over our lives? How about property managers? Does anyone live in a rental? Have people living in rentals noticed a difference in the last 20 years? Is the head of a household still the authority or has some of this authority shifted to the property manager? How about the need to carry and show ID? Has anyone noticed a changed in the last 20 years? How about our right to privacy? Has anyone noticed a difference in our legal privacy? How about the government's control of the media? The government gained media control and control of research during the Eisenhower administration and Reagon's research on welfare fraud and followed by the media reporting on welfare fraud, is an example of what someone in power can do. So was our invasion of Iraq the result of manipulated media. Has anyone noticed a difference? How about people loosing their jobs because of saying the wrong thing? Has our attitude about freedom of speech changed? Change happens over many generations and the young have a very different experience than we had before changes started taking effect and one form of control justified the next.

PS my grandmother walked away from a teaching job when the school interfered with her discipline of students, and more recently I spoke with women who gave up nursing jobs when the management of hospitals changed and the management style became more controlling. We are not talking about one aspect of our lives but a changed consciousness that is blind to everything but the good reasons for the change. I think past education made us leery of government and furiously defensive or our liberty and personal power, which also went with a strong sense of duty to God, country, and family. We were ordered by family order, not military order applied to citizens.

The purpose of education has changed many times in the last two thousand years. For most of this time, religion was the only education available to masses. The various philosophies that influence education complicate that matter. How do you come to life, through a religion or a philosophy or perhaps nothing other than education for technology?

What is human nature and what is the potential of human society? What must be done for a society to achieve its potential?

Exactly! Without education for the higher order thinking skills, the US is not worth defending, and the 2012 Texas Republican agenda opposed education for higher order thinking skills, and textbooks would be treating the creationist story of the Bible as science if people had opposed this and gotten a Supreme Court decision declaring the Bible story is not science. I treasure one of the Nova shows explaining the difference between science and religious mythology. If we do not understand the difference, we can not have the democracy that was inspired by the Age of Enlightenment.

This could be a whole nother thread. Our democracy is not compatible with the God of Abraham religions. I am passionate about this, because I do not think we would be in the mess we are in now if it were not for Christians getting us here, just as they did in Germany. Should I start a thread for this?

But we also need to focus on what education has to do with our democracy, and how that education was taken off course, and hopefully, that will unfold in this thread. Right now seem bogged down in the increasing powers of government and not well focused on the education issue. Do you seem to have some thoughts on the necessary education or are you just questioning what that education needs to be? I have shelves full of old books about education and nothing is more important to democracy than how it prepares the young for citizenship. That education was replaced by education for technology and Christianity is a huge part of the problem. Sorry to those of you who are Christians. I don't know how to beat around this brush and not risk offending people.

Ah, I was writing a book on the education problem but got derailed with the religious issue, and here it is again, confounding this thread. The Athenians had many gods and democracy did not come out of a religion with only one god. Some can read the Bible and see a god of war. :lol: This gets really funny when Christians are fighting Christians and both sides think God favors them. I think the notion that there is one god with favorite people is the worst notion people can have. Aztecs and others also thought they were a god's favorite people. This is a human invention, not a truth and not compatible with democracy. Arming these people with nuclear weapons would be the will of God why? He isn't big enough to fight his own battles? :lol: Greeks had a god of war, but not all the decisions were his. Trump is arming despicable people who are a serious threat to their neighbors, and Evangelist Christians think he is doing the will of God and is a good father to our nation. This is an education problem and Texas Republicans have fought hard to defend maintaining this error in education!

I am so delighted to converse with someone who is so well informed! Compared to my experience in other forums, what is happening is amazing! I would love to share my library with you and all those who really care about understanding how the US was changed bureaucratically and why this matters. May I suggest the reason my point of view is different, is my books were written when history was made, they are not a modern interpretation of what happened.

I speak of "Big Government" because that is the title of a 1949 book written by Frank Gervasi. His purpose was to praise Hoover's reorganization of the federal government at the request of Roosevelt. That is, Hoover a Republican and the former president working with Roosevelt a democratic president to give us big government. Then another book warns of the dangers of giving government these new powers. The author of that book agrees, at the moment changes are necessary, but in the future, these new governing powers could be abused. Then as we deal with the second world war, another book questioned where is the United States going with all these government contracts and will we regret these industrial ties with the government? And as everyone knows, Eisenhower who warned us of the Military Industrial Complex, put it in place. We demobilized after every war, until Eisenhower made our military mobilization permanent. Military mobilization is the keystone to a Fascist economic organization. Listen to Trump, he is not telling other nations to increase their defense spending because the world is on the verge of war, but making and selling weapons is good for the economy and as Trump sees it, making and selling weapons is so important to our economy not even when there is no question of a national leader using his power to kill a journalist, and engaging in a dreadful war that is causing the deaths of many children, our economic gain is more important than any human rights. The Military Industrial Complex is escalating the potential for war and the destructiveness of war around the world for economic gain. I would say this is pretty Fascist. It sure as blazes is not representative of our past values.

It must be said, all governments became more involved with national economic growth. Remember a thousand years ago, individual traders took all the risk and government did not regulate trade. But mass production requires mass resources and mass markets and the world was changed. I don't want to carry my thread into blind democratic and republican banishing. Nor blindly bashing the US for all the changes. However, when this materialistic agenda totally consumes our nation and education, that is going too far! We must return to defending our democracy and liberty in the classroom.

Hot diggity you know Tocqueville! Oh my goodness there is too much to say. What is the rule about quoting from the internet? I think we should be working with what he said about the despot of the future. The Prussian bureaucratic order is just want was needed to manifest the despot that was what Christian democracies would becoming. You are right, the culture change did not come from one source, but was withing us since the beginning. The Prussian bureaucratic order and education for technology for military and industrial purpose is just what was needed to manifest what Tocqueville warned us of.

"Napoleon's use of a citizen army was only possible because of the social structure that came before him" That is an excellent point, along with what Tocqueville had to say about a democratic army.

Oh my, I have never seen so many well-informed people in a forum as you all have here. You all are absolutely awesome!

Brilliant post.

I have said too much already, so I just to emphasize what I just said about education. The change in bureaucracy was necessary, however, adopting the education that goes with the bureaucratic order, creates a nightmare! We stopped transmitting our culture. Only when our democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended and we stopped doing that. Our national pride and reputation were not based on our wealth or military might. It was based on our values and we no longer know what those values were. In Athens, Athena was the protector for those who stood for liberty and justice. When Thomas Jefferson wrote of our right to pursue happiness, he didn't mean a bowl of weed, or a six pack, chips and watching a football game, but the pursuit of knowledge. We no longer know why our democracy is worth defending, so for some being a racist and killing Jews seems a good option for a meaningful life. With Trump they think this how to return our nation to greatness as disenchanted people followed Hitler.

Frank's question about merit hiring is too important to miss.

"I don't know what you're talking about. What's the alternative to merit hiring? Affirmative action?"

The alternative to merit hiring is hiring someone because you trust his/her judgment. That is a judgment much broader than being technologically correct. You might be aware that we pay very little attention to the merit of people we choose for President. Before we became so technologically smart, we judged one another on character and education was almost 80% about character development. Our liberty is dependent on not on our technological smarts but our moral judgment and the decline in moral judgment leads to an increasing effort to control the masses by law or policy. I am horrified by our lack of liberty because employers are trying to control so much by policies and they leave so little to our judgment.

The Prussian model defines every job within an organized, and everyone who fills a position will do the job exactly like the person before because the job is precisely defined and limited to a closed set of duties. All the thinking was done by a committee and all that is left is to obey orders. Education for technology compliments this bureaucratic order. That is, after the policy is made, no one is left to make changes, short of calling the legislators' attention to the problem and mobilizing enough public concern to force a change in policy. No human being can change or bypass the policy without this legislative process. No one is very important to the organization, because everyone is a replaceable part, just like the Prussian military run by policy and an organizational order that keeps the war machine running no matter who is killed. We went to war against this mechanical society and now we are it. Like amebas, they assimilate everything that enters them and spit out what they can not digest, and they must grow or they get weak and die.

Our human experience has been dramatically changed and this has an effect on young men who are proud to be violent Nazis or in the military. Compared to our past, we lack personal power and value so we may try to gain power and value by joining the organization and being assimilated into it. In the past, we put a priority on human dignity and self-worth. Today we respect the position of power, but not the person in the position of power.

Before adopting the Prussian bureaucratic order our government bureaucracy and all organizational bureaucracy was extremely inefficient. Everyone did his/her job his/her way. No one told them how to do the job, or what the boundaries of the job were. When someone died it threw the organization into chaos for months or even years, because the new person would have different skills and talents and do the job differently and everyone would have to adjust to the new person. That made the individual very valuable because if /she died it made a big difference. Today it makes very little difference because a new part can be plugged in and the mechanical society, like the Borg, continues. We could not have Social Security and other government programs without the Prussian bureaucratic order, but it is my thought, the shift in education turned what would be a good thing into a nightmare.

Amazing! You are so much better than people I attempted to engage with in other forums! Like I am in a state of shock and almost speechless to come across someone with such a good understanding of Fascism. Yup, this is heaven.

I would say Roosevelt introduced fascism to the US and I am sure he was strongly in favor of democracy. However, I think was blind to the problem of autocratic democracy. For sure Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt found fault with industrial leaders, but this did not lead to promoting the democratic model for industry. Instead of moving us in the direction of greater democracy, Roosevelt made our government more autocratic. That is, during his administration, the powers of government were greatly increased and especially the power to control industry with regulations and laws. I would call this Fascist. It left industrials the property owners, but was progressive in favor of labor, sort of? :chin: See the complexity here? He was government as parent taking care of the laboring class, adding the social programs Germany already had, Social Security and Workers Compensation, stopping short of a national medical plan. But did not increase the power of laborers.

Deming who also rose during the Great Depression, tried to convince Industry to accept the Democratic model for model but it was rejected so following WWII when the US was Americanizing Japan and Germany, Deming told Japan not to model its Industry after the US but to use his democratic model. Now that would have made our democracy stronger but that did not happen in the US.

"Fascism is usually characterized by strong-man rule (dictatorship)." And isn't that what Trump supports want, as those who supported Hitler wanted a strong-man rule. But what of the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower put in place. Do you know it was Texas behind the election of Eisenshower, Regan, and Bush? Oh dear, the problem with explaining what happened and why, is all messed with the complexity of it. What each president has done, was built upon what was done by earlier presidents. And in case you haven't noticed, it isn't citizens driving the development of the Military Industrial Complex as a world power. Might we say what is happening is so far beyond their self-interest, and understanding of politics that the average person has no understanding of what is happening behind the carefully orchestrated scenes. They are reactionary and I am saying this is a result of the change in education.

"Authoritarianism is a feature of fascism, but we can have authoritarian rule without fascism." Oh dear, more complexity. Christianity is authoritarian and is not compatible with democracy, but I don't want to add that to this thread. Perhaps in another thread, we can chew on that confounding complexity? I will just leave it at, one of my friends is a Trump supporter and she thinks he is being a very good father to our country. :lol: Just like individuals often need psycho-analysis to understand their irrational thinking and compulsions, so do nations need analysis. Kings are father figures and something is wrong with thinking we need a good father to run our country, but a Christian whose father is heaven, and whose god promises to send us good leaders, and who believes their prayers help the ruler be good authority over us, is not likely to be aware of the incongruity of democracy and being ruled by a father. Especially not when we have a national mythology that Christianity is why we have democracy. :chin:

"Is fascism a potential threat within the United States?" Last night I watched a documentary about the fascist movement in the US and I was glad at least one of these guys was throughout of military service when the evidence of his fascist activity was strong enough and the person with this information would not back off the military personnel that ignore the information as long as it could. Unfortunately, there are ties between our military and the fascist movement. Not direct ties. The military at this moment in time stands firmly against the fascist bullies and killers, but it is not the militaries interest to spend time checking out reports. It took years of research to gain an understanding of what war has to do with the rise in the KKK and Fascism that is not economic but is prejudice against non-whites and Jews. :brow: How do when have a coherent discussion of Fascism when it can mean two totally different things, economic or racist? I hope we keep in mind, Germany was a Christian Republic and so is the US. I say this because adopting the education that lead to Nazi Germany may not be best for our democracy and liberty?

"Fascism will arrive in the United States the same way it arrived in Germany: the established democratic mechanisms will be subverted and a core cryptofascist cabal in Congress will destroy the means by which subversion at the highest level would normally be prevented. The refusal to hold hearings for the last Supreme Court nomination in the Obama administration (Merrick Garland) is an example.

Subversion of the central political machinery has to be backed up by a core of citizen support for such a subversion. This core has to be willing to use crude methods to back up the subversion at the top. Is such a core in place, in large enough numbers? No -- I don't see any evidence of that today.
a day ago ."

No, and if we do not return to education for democracy, our democracy will become as dead as Athens democracy. The reasoning for what must do done has progressively been replaced with a different reasoning since 1958. When my generation is dead, there will be no one to remember when our nation was different. That gives us very little to remedy the problem. But more and more people are becoming aware of this. What they lack is the necessary understanding of what education has to do with all this, and why Christianity is a problem. Trump is not a good father figure and prayers are not helping him understand things like climate change and the need to stand for human rights around the world. Being okay with political leaders holding power by killing people is not good for America.

Frank, you are amazing. I was afraid of having another very bad experience, but with this new to me forum, and posters like you, I think I may have found my heaven. :grin:

In 1916 Scott Nearing, Ph.D. wrote of industry adopting the Prussian method, and also that the US used the English autocratic model for industry. Together the Prussian model and the English autocratic model make for a miserable life for most human beings. Our saving was a west where people could get land simply by working the land, and get away from the industrial North and stay away from the Slave South.

A better understanding at the beginning of the industrial age would have been nice. Anyone here familiar with Steam Punk? Frank, are right about accepting our reality as the way things are without questioning why they are like this and what might be different.

Yes, Prussia was the leader in education, however, in 1899 James Williams objects to the Prussian method because while it produces people who are good at research work, they are not original thinkers. In contrast, we had education for well round individual growth. The Prussian method produces products for industry. The focus of Egland's education was on character and ours was more along that line, but England was protecting its class society and the US was shooting for a greater quality and higher human potential. Ideally, US education would manifest the dream of the Age of Enlightenment of all humans achieving their full potential and participating in self-government. That is, the US was producing citizens for a liberal democracy with the understanding, that only highly moral people can have liberty instead of authority over them and understanding science's role in liberty. Prussians were authoritarian! Important difference. Huge difference! Anthill versus dignified and honorable human difference.

I am looking forward to addressing your post but held it off because your post is far more complex than the others, and I am short on time. I am hoping my replies to the others helps address parts of the complexity. I hate to do this but I must close and attend to my mundane life. Just know I highly value what you said and very much look forward to addressing your post.

I too took advantage of the school grant and work/study income. Nothing is all bad. If it were all bad it would not exist, but consider the differences between education for being a human and education for technology. :kiss:

I am reminded of the story of three wise men who were blindfolded and each one was told to touch a different part of the elephant and describe it. What we know of matters is usually limited and this can lead to false disagreements. How do you know big government and fascism are not the same?

Big government is not all bad, and it is not possible without the bureaucratic order we adopted from Germany. Fascism is private ownership of property and government control of industry. The bureaucratic order is what makes Social Security possible. What is another benefit of giving every citizen a number? How can this affect military decisions?

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

PS I studied public policy and administration at the U of O and I saved a textbook that I can quote from if there is a sincere interest in the subject. Also, many years ago my grandchildren were made wards of the state for about a year, and that experience radicalized me. I joined other grandparent in a fight for grandparents rights and we succeeded in radically changing the department that held responsibility for protecting children. I learned more tyranny and what logic has to do with opposing tyranny than I ever imagined possible in the US, when the state held control of what happened to my grandchildren. I am letting you know this because this a very sensitive subject for me. I am not saying this all bad. I am saying we need to be aware of the potential of governing powers to get out of control and also in this is the problem with merit hiring and the shift in power, and what education for technology has done to how we see the world.

Are you in agreement that the US adopted the Prussian bureaucratic order? I want to be sure of what others are saying about this. It is much easier to have this discussion with people who are familiar with the information. So if you are in agreement about the Prussian bureaucratic order, how do you come to this information?

What do you know of merit hiring? When did it start and why? What wwere the problems we were trying to correct when we switched to merit hiring? What could possibly be the problem with merit hiring? What does this have to do with college education and also the change in how hospitals are organized? What are the social and economic ramifications?

Eisenhower praised the German contributions to democracy soon after the war. I saw the letter he wrote in the document department of the University of Oregon library. I was looking for information about the National Defense Education Act and got excited and decided to find what else was happening in 1958. For sure education for technology and merit highering is a great social leveler and that is great for democracy, right? :wink: That is a trick question.

To answer your question about who should make education decisions. Traditionally, the people in each community are by law responsible for providing education without charge to all children, and they hold the responsibility of determining what that education will be. Only in times of war did the federal government get involved in education and then the purpose was to use the institution of education to mobilize for war. Earlier though, the North did make an effort to avoid a war with the South through education, but the South caught on to cultural attack and began publishing their own textbooks defending slavery and their way of life in the South.

Our federal government did not get strongly involved in education decisions until the 1958 National Defense Education, and just a few years ago it was believed our constitution prevented the federal government from getting involved in our education decisions. I think Bush's "No Child Behind Act" ended the question of the federal government controlling education? There are some good reasons for centralizing the control of public education but it sure is a threat to our liberty and perhaps we need to increase our awareness of the issues and the change? One of the first things the Prussians did when they took control of Germany was centralize education and focus it on technology for military and industrial purpose. We might want to be aware of the social, economic and political ramifications of this change in education?

We better think about what you said because it could be a total nightmare and we do not want to walk into that blindly. At the beginning of the industrial age, and with a strong Protestant work ethic, it was thought the best way to maintain social order is to keep people working. Fear of the masses was handled with long working days, 7 days a week and low wages holding people in such insecurity they remained hard-working Protestants who accepted low wages. Now we speak of decay and occasionally of revolution meaning a violent revolution. I do not think we want to leave humans with too many idle hours unless we prepare them for liberty.

I will support the idea that all harmful substances should be taxed as we now tax cigarettes to discourage their consumption, The tax should pay for all expenses caused by the use of the substance covering recovery from addiction and all medical cost.

Okay, I see Deigo T also made a cultural statement that would be fun to chew on. I like Frank's suggestion of beginning with Jefferson's interest in education. :grin: I feel like a kid in a candy store and there is too much to choose from but it all is the same. At least we all are western civilization and this is different from the east. But Islam is more western than eastern. :chin:

It is done. Look for Education, Democracy, and Liberty in the political philosophy forum.

"they have very refined tastes, preferring to eat ornamental plants and gardens in the summer, corn in the fall, and then... various stuff in the winter."

:lol: Yeah, I know. I once drove for meals on wheels. Several of my stops were up the side of a mountain and I learned the only flower these people could have is the rhododendron. The deer are very bold standing their ground with their young, munching on the nicely watered grass, and casually looking at people who drive up. Another problem these people on the mountain have is the trees planted when their homes were built, grew and now block their view of the valley. By law, they can not remove these trees. Sometimes, too much of a good thing isn't good. :rofl:

I love your explanation of the different animal gracing habits. I think that would mean smaller groups of goats moved frequently and maybe being selective in where they are used. Like I to daydream of having a few goats and spending my days watching them. But with this old body that may not be practical. However, for the young, living in the forest with the intention of keeping it healthy and going on a spiritual quest maybe ideal.

Our lives built on an industrial economy have advantages and disadvantages. What if some of us could be devoted to other things, like nature and our families? Wouldn't it be nice to experience living for something else rather than a paycheck and material things?

:grin: Look at all those jobs! Inefficiency may be good for keeping people employed. :lol:

On second thought, might all those jobs be done by a computer? :gasp: Oh dear, then what would we do? When I was in school, and the dinosaurs walked the earth, a teacher warned us we should be thinking of how we to live our lives when machines and computers do all the work. Perhaps we need a revolution of thinking to better manage our present reality?