Never mind my "lust and trust" quip. The person who said it was describing the transition from eros to a more complex love, casual to more serious. I like it because it belongs to an important time and place for me (gay liberation in the early 70s).

But to get serious, we need to reference some Greek terms. It isn't that the Greeks experienced emotions that we do not, but they developed a vocabulary which is maybe more efficient than English's terms.

philia (affectionate friendship)
eros (sexual desire)
agape (unconditional love)
storge (familial love)
Philautia (self love)
mania (obsessive love)
meraki ("to do something with soul, creativity, or love)
ludos (playful, noncommittal love - from Latin)
xenia (the moral obligation of hospitality)
eroteuo (this verb can mean to love, say, an artwork, or a house)

These are not different parts of love, they are different kinds of love. All the various kinds of love, in your phrase "love as a whole", are what attaches us to one another, and without which we would not exist.

It takes a lot of love to make us human.

A human infant will not thrive without loving care--not just food and warmth, but touch, stimulation, eye to eye contact, and so on. From infancy onward, love in its various kinds builds the complex fabric of both personality, mind, and society.

a Grecian urn — GregW

Keates and his overwrought urns and lines of verse!

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I've always been reluctant to embrace this statement. Truth defining beauty defining truth: one large abstraction defining another even larger one.

There are many manifestations of beauty for which we should be grateful. Men, trees, mountains, planets (now that we have closeups), galaxies, flowers, horses, houses, towers, oceans and beaches, lakes, rivers, springs, cars (mostly in the past--now they all look alike), sculptures, paintings, film, photos, music (especially music), and more -- much more.

But is a beautiful horse, car, or tree "truth"? Was Keates thinking of a beautiful object conforming to Plato's forms? What about horse shit, car wrecks, and rotten trees? Bombed out Gaza is not beautiful, but there is a grave truth there.

Does Keates think that scientific truths are beautiful? (Don't know enough about the man.) What about Germ Theory; fission; DNA; gravity waves; the speed of light; continental drift? These are, as far as we know, real, true, and reliable. Are they beautiful in the way Greek sculpture, architectural proportion, urn-shape and urn-decoration is beautiful?

Perhaps. But "truth" seems dicier than beauty. Most people would probably agree that Mount Fuji is beautiful. Suppose it blew up (it could; it's considered an active volcano.). Suppose many were killed in the blast. Would it still be beautiful?

Truth, as Trump has demonstrated, is slippery. I think it is true that Donald Trump's policies are a threat to democracy and our economy. Millions will dispute that view. So is it true?

I don't know how it is for others, but when I was young, I was much more needy than I am now. I would expect a person's notion of love to change with age. — Athena

In my youth, sex had an intense urgency; love was more intense than, too. Our "first love" is remembered until we die, and that intense feeling is, perhaps, once and done. The love between mates may cool yet deepen over the decades, and if death parts us from them, we remember them with painful loss for a long time, also till we die. Now, in my old age, sex isn't urgent at all, and in love I feel complete. I have loved and been loved in return. I live alone now, content. I suppose I am waiting to die -- though I am certainly not rushing it.

Indeed, I work at delaying it. I am still delighted to learn new things. My current book is "The British Are Coming: From Lexington to Princeton". I've heard American history since 7th grade, but now I'm finding the (new) gory details of the revolution from both British and American POVs fascinating. It took 78 years to get here, but I'm glad to have arrived.

Isn't love more than lust, more than physical or sexual desire? — GregW

Love is more than lust. It can also entail comfort, security, warmth, and acceptance. The 'feeling' of loving or being loved isn't exclusively a sexual sensation but may be accompanied by it. We are embodied beings; thought, emotion, and physical response are combined. Even the sense of God's love may have a sexual dimension (thinking here of the Ecstasy of St Theresa of Avila). She wrote:

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.

"The body has a share in it." That is the case, and the necessity of our embodiment as physical beings. What St. Theresa experienced included 'awe' -- a sense now totally degraded in that damned dead-horse-word "awesome". But 'awe' means "a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder." Run of the mill love or sex may be 'awesome', but a terrific experience of love might invoke actual awe.

Like when I walk along the river on a sunny day, I can not help but be overwhelmed by a good feeling and feel gratitude for this experience. — Athena

We have an inventory of feelings, senses, and emotions which arise from experiences in the physical world as well as from encounters with ideas, such as those found in great speeches, powerful poetry, or moving novels, and science books. Perhaps what you feel on your sunny river walk is not love, but not therefore worth an iota less. I also am moved by beautiful landscapes as well as by wild storms -- thunderstorms or blizzards. Even an ordinary day with wind and strong gusts can be a significant experience. A good storm is physically exciting, objectively frightening, and altogether fascinating.

These are experiences not to be 'desired' but to be had when they are available.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum.

Love is a combination of lust and trust. Desire for love -- either to be loved or love someone -- has an essential physical component that accompanies the emotion and thought of desire (for love). Love is said to make the world go round. Nobody ever said that the desire for the beautiful and the good makes the world go round. Of course, "love" requires an object. Free-floating objectless love is... what?

I tend to discount the ancient philosophers when they say things like "non-lovers desire the beautiful and good". Or that the beautiful and the good is loved by all.

Sure: who wouldn't desire what they think is good? Who wouldn't desire what they think is beautiful? Quite possibly Plato, you, and me would not find the same things good and beautiful. I suppose Plato and Socrates spent some time coming to a pat conclusion about what is supposed to be considered beautiful and good. You and me might be in complete agreement with Plato and Socrates, or not. Plato and Socrates also might not have experienced sexual/love desire the same as me.

Were it up to me to disclose anything to anybody, I'd advise the aliens that they get the hell away from this solar system at warp speed before a) something bad happens to them and/or b) they acquire some of our very bad traits.

It would be clear to long-time planetary observers that our species possessed considerable intelligence as an admixture of brains and primitive behavior which would make us unsuitable as participants in enlightened societies.

Now, IF these intelligent aliens insisted on hanging around earth, I would suspect that they were pursuing a plan to exploit our animal behaviors in some way not to our advantage.. Perhaps they need some low value soldiers in a war. They would have recognized soon that we could be coaxed into berserker behavior. We have reached a large population from which enough crazy berserker-types could be recruited. And if the rate of human death in the alien's war were quite high, so what? What good were we to them?

High levels of intelligence and technology do not tell us much about the state of the aliens' hearts (if they even have hearts). They could be bright, shiny, and ever so smart but still be children of the Prince of Darkness (to employ earthenware).

Welcome!

I think of myself as a "big picture" thinker; however "big picture" thinking had better anchor itself in relevant details if is going to be of any use. The world is a very detailed place but we (humans) have a large but very limited capacity to process all the possible details.

If you are looking for a cheap book to read in the toilet, Amazon is selling "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money" by John Maynard Keynes for 39¢. Such a deal!

All important observations! I have a high efficiency toilet which empties the bowl with 5 quarts of water, much less than inefficient toilets. The bowl can also be emptied by rapidly pouring 32 oz of water from a height of 3 feet (+/-) above the bottom of the bowel.

Part of this is owning to gravity and fluid dynamics (don't ask me what, exactly). I wonder what role the shape of the bowl plays. Are some shapes more efficient than others?

A horse might be able to produce a flush by urinating into a toilet bowl. However, while you can lead a horse into the bathroom, you can't make them urinate.

Ask yourself: are you reluctant to use a trough urinal in a busy public toilet? Do you feel inhibited in that setting? What sort of risk do you perceive? Do you require some sort of partition between individual urinals? Do you use a toilet stall to urinate? Just how pee-shy are you? Does it bother you if other men speak to you (about anything) in a public toilet? Do you wash your hands after urinating? Do you use a piece of paper to pull open the public toilet door when you leave? How clean does a public toilet have to be for you to feel OK about using it?

There are several good films and books on the history of toilets. Here's an interesting one from England: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ftazg

AI, which never toilets itself whether it's full of shit or not says:

The history of the toilet spans millennia, evolving from basic pit latrines to modern flushing systems. Early civilizations like the Sumerians and those in the Indus Valley used pit toilets and rudimentary sewage systems. Over time, toilets evolved into chamber pots and later, "garderobes," which were enclosed rooms with a seat and a hole leading to a pit or cesspool. The first flushing toilet was designed in 1596 by Sir John Harrington, but it wasn't until the 19th century that flushing toilets became more widespread, thanks to advancements like the siphon system by Thomas Crapper. — AI AI AI

I remember reading a book about bathrooms in a bookstore back in the 60s which was about the architecture standards and requirements of bathrooms. Like, precisely how high should a toilet bowl be? How far off the floor should the rim of a urinal be, and how best to prevent splattering? Plumbing requirements, sanitary issues, how many toilet stalls and sinks in public facilities (like college arenas, concert halls, airports, etc.)

Worth noting: about 1/3 of the Indian population practice outdoor excretion (because they have no alternative). There are numerous disadvantages to having several hundred million people shitting outside -- poor sanitation, disease transmission, bad aesthetics, safety risks (for women, particularly), etc.

One thing about the modern toilet and bathroom: whether public or private, a high level of industrialization is needed to produce, transport, and install all of the utilities and equipment in several hundred million bathrooms. This wasn't possible until very recently.

Cities are still working on the problem of handling the huge volume of sewage that we produce: Chicago, for instance, is doing a decades long project to build deep storage tunnels and surface reservoirs to hold back 17.5 billion gallons of sewage when it rains. Without the system, a normal rain storm results in dumping a lot of untreated sewage into the Chicago "sanitary canal" which eventually ends up in the Mississippi River.

There is a very good reason WHY people have to be paid to work.

I spent quite a few years trying to find a way to get payed at jobs I didn't like much and at the same time pursue a psychologically and spiritually satisfying life. I did not find such a way. Sometimes I worked at jobs which I very much liked, and which provided some of the satisfactions I was seeking. Then it was fairly easy to enjoy life on and off the job. But that was not the usual experience.

Another approach I used was saving money so that I could afford unemployment (which on its own wasn't quite enough). The periods of not working for 6 to 9 months were very helpful. But, one has to be single and live simply to pull this off.

A critical difference between a life-deflating job and one that is life enhancing is the will of management (usually in a specific person) to dominate and control VS encourage innovation by individuals to reach the goals of the organization. There were two jobs which featured the latter approach: the first was at a university library unit that served media users (a la 1970s). The Library boss was extremely controlling, while the subunit where I was working was run by an innovator. The second was 10 years later at an urban AIDS project where the education group was all about inventing novel (and effective) means to increase knowledge and reduce risk taking. Again, the agency boss was, among other things, an arbitrary and capricious controller, while the head of education was a professional MPH who recognized the need for fairly off-beat ways to reach target populations.

The amount of pay was somewhat inverse to the level of enjoyment. The worst jobs I had tended to be the highest paying. "More pay, more shit." Up to a point, anyway. I didn't reach the "high pay low shit" experience.

To summarize: this entire world we currently live in is primarily built on fear, ego, and greed. These factors affect not just everything we do externally, but especially what happens to us internally. So many people nowadays are mentally unwell, or they live in fear, or suffer from depression, because of the deeply embedded illusions we are falling for. The stories we are telling ourselves and each other right now are deeply sickening and inhuman, which is a great shame. But there is still freedom to be found: you can dispel these illusions, reject the inhuman system, and begin to live authentically and freely. — Martijn

Your writing brings to mind Erich Fromm, a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. One of his most popular books was The Sane Society. In a nut shell, the book asserts that we live in an INSANE society where sanity and craziness are inverted.

I'm not sure there are any entire societies that are sane. There are certainly communities within societies that are more or less crazy, more or less sane. But sanity in a crazy society is a difficult project.

I'm also not convinced that craziness is a unique feature of our contemporary society (say of the last 125 years). If we go back 10,000 years, won't we find the individual person contending with the demands of the tribe, family, village, local king, priest, etc?

The root of our individual and collective problem is the combination of animal drives coupled with a complex mind. I'm not elevating the mind above animal drives, because they are inextricably combined. Other animals do not live stress free lives by any means, but they don't usually adopt remarkably crazy adaptations to life. For instance, they don't become obsessed with the latest fashion, the latest diet, the latest political theory, the latest and greatest art, their location in the layers of prestige, and so on. That's our specialty.

Do lions and wolves become depressed? I don't know. Briefly, maybe, but probably not for years and years. (I've experienced long periods of depression -- now happily gone in my old age.)

Why am I not still depressed? Because retirement allowed me to get the hell out of the rat's nest and rat race of working. (It wasn't 'the work' per se; it was the negative aspects of the work-system. I flourished in some work places, failed to thrive in most of the others.)

It has been a big story. I don't think it became 'big news' just because media elected to make it big. According to BBC reporters on the scene, there were many people from around Europe who had traveled to Rome specifically to be present (from his death to his replacement). Plus it is a jubilee year and that had brought extra visitors in.

Then too, the Roman Catholic establishment knows how to put on a good show and they have a great stage there at St. Peter's, and that helps. If it were left up to Methodists to manage the funeral--or worse, Baptists--it would have been more of a blip in the news cycle. Size matters, and there are a lot more Catholics (1.2 billion) than Anglicans in the world.

I was somewhat surprised that there was not more coverage of the reaction of Catholics in Chicago. But then, once Mr. Prevost became a priest he moved on and up from his Chicago roots. There were a couple of interviews with former classmates in Chicago which were about what one would expect.

Would it be a good thing if the conclave was open? The rule about sausage and law not being made in public comes into play here. Who knows (other than the cardinals) what goes on under the veil of the holy spirit and mysterious proceedings? What horses were traded? Who was shafted in the process and by whom? Etc.

Awkward it is, but there is a lot of awkward juxtapositions within Christian (or any other religion's) institutions. For example, the matter of the church's wealth in the presence of poverty. Granted, the church isn't as rich as it used to be, what with various dioceses bankrupted after sexual scandals, another awkward matter.

Sex, wealth, earthly power, etc. is much less awkward (but not nicer) in secular institutions, because they set out to be in the world and of the world. So one isn't surprised (and not delighted) to find corruption in the corporate suites on Wall Street, Hollywood, Washington, Canberra, Moscow, or wherever. But the church (broadly) is supposed to be in the world but not of the world. It's a tough act to pull off--no easier now than 1000 years ago.

The "figure" may transcend nationality, but the pope is also a real-life politically, geographically, socially, theologically, and intellectually rooted person. He is elected, after all, by cardinals who do not have to transcend anything too inconvenient.

Pope Leo the 13th -- 1878-1903 -- was big on advocating for the rights of workers, calling for fair pay, fair working conditions, and the right to join unions. As far as I know, he did not consign capitalists to the lowest pit in hell. I'll take care of that when I become pope. Will I have to convert to Catholicism first?

There always was, is, and will be endless bitching and carping regardless of who is elected pope, president, mayor, or dog catcher. As the Bible says, the people are grass, quick to wither. So, some are thrilled and some are appalled by Pope Leo XIV's election.

A North American Pope seemed the least likely source; I thought an African or Asian pope would have signaled where it is that Catholicism is most actively increasing in population.

I agree. Life is good. And time goes by so fast when you are alive!

Say what you will and accept the consequences. Or, tailor what you say to suit the sensibilities of people who do not accept the notion of absolute free speech.

Obama's election. Conservatives could not deal with a black man as president, so to cope they tried to "other" him and went down a rabbit hole of birtherism, qanon, pizzagate, antivax, stolen election nonsense where conspiracies and enemies are everywhere. They're still falling. — RogueAI

No doubt a good many conservatives disliked the idea of a black Liberal president, but they were able to get on with life as we know it. Some people to the right of Attila the Hun, however, were filled with acute cognitive dissonance. The rabbit hole of birtherism might be a specific reaction to Obama, but I don't see the rabbit holes of stolen elections, Q-anon, pizza gate, anti-vaxing, and so on being unique to the Obama election reaction. It seems like there is always a sizzle of conspiracy out on the edge of the pan that never turns into a full boil (which would be very bad news).

Trump promoted the stolen 2020 election conspiracy quite deliberately and in the long run, successfully, as a strategy to keep his base motivated.

Good points.

I think the adults who need safe spaces, trigger warnings, and other such things are operating on a level similar to infants.

I would like to concede that I don't think it was always this way. — Brendan Golledge

No, it wasn't always this way. I'm 79. I'm glad that I was an idealistic young man in the 1960s and not now in these years of national decline and climate crisis. Who is responsible for so much of the decline and climate crisis? Capitalists, of course. Consumers who drank the various flavors of Kool Aid the capitalists were selling. Blame the liberals, conservatives, communists, fascists, farmers, factory owners, democrats (small 'd'), dictators, Democrats and Republicans. All of us. The moral issues before us now are far more grave than a war in SE Asia which was a life and death matter for millions. Now we have life and death conundrums affecting billions--all of us.

A lot of things aren't the way they used to be (and at the same time, some things haven't changed a bit). I'm not confident we will find a lot of common ground to discuss morals and politics.

I am tired of the general low quality of discussion on this forum, so I don't even really care anymore. — Brendan Golledge

Says you while scrapping the bottom of the barrel of comments.

I am not very impressed with female moral behavior in large groups. — Brendan Golledge

In general, I'd say one should not be very impressed with human moral behavior in large groups. As Immanuel Kant said, "Nothing straight was ever built with the crooked timber of mankind." Nothing truer was also never said

And you gave no examples of inconsistency on the right. — Brendan Golledge

OK, so "law and order" and the January 6th attack on the capitol by right wingers.

It's nice if there are smart women out there, but I was talking about statistical trends rather than individual people. — Brendan Golledge

Smart women have always been a trend, just like smart men.

I don't find much similarity between your interpretation of the left/right divide and what I understand of Kohlberg's stages of moral development. The idea of stages of moral development is reasonable; Kohlberg's explication may not be altogether reasonable. His view of women's moral development (as opposed to men's moral development) has been criticized. Your interpretation is decidedly not reasonable.

One thing consistent across morals and politics is inconsistency. People may profess a moral value and then act against it. Why? Because behavior is not guided by simple rules. Rather, our algorithms guiding our behavior are complicated. That said, we tend to behave in somewhat consistent ways.

at least they can see the inconsistency of the left and reject it. — Brendan Golledge

And the left can see the inconsistency of the right and reject it.

Pre-conventional morality is only concerned with power. People in this stage don't have genuine moral opinions, but only act off of reward and punishment. So, they will do whatever authority tells them to do, no matter how transparently stupid it is. — Brendan Golledge

Kohlberg assigns pre-conventional morality to infancy and pre-school. Can we say that adolescents and adults operate at this level? I don't think so. Some people claim that they performed acts deemed to be immoral because they were "only following orders". It's a cop-out under the duress of an indictment. The indicted made a series of moral decisions which placed them in the position of being ordered to perform immoral acts.

Morality has to account for the fact of power at all stages and from all POVs. Conservatives who say "I voted for Trump but I didn't vote for this!" are rethinking the implications of Trump's power. The left has also had to account for the fact of power. Having the power to allow public drug use (thinking here of highly addictive drugs like narcotics, meth, cocaine, fentanyl) has brought on intolerable behavioral problems, high levels of homelessness, and social dysfunction, which have proved intractable.

Another feature across politics and morals is short-sightedness. It's sometimes unavoidable, and sometimes it's a choice. Plastic was a wonderful thing when it was first introduced widely to consumers some 75 +/- years ago. We didn't foresee the trillions of plastic containers which we are stuck with now. On the other hand, someone with a memory voting for Trump might have foreseen that he would, if possible, enact extreme policies. He had described them clearly enough.

As an exemplar of sophisticated, mature moral judgement in a woman, I suggest you look at Dorothy Day, an anarchist / socialist who became a Catholic and spent a lifetime working for economic and political justice. She died 45 years ago and is now being considered for sainthood. Her own view on the matter was "Don't call me a saint: I don't want to be dismissed that easily!"

It's difficult to even imagine an entirely--or largely--unregulated large economy. How would an economy even become successfully large without regulation and governance in place at an early stage of development?

As you say, regulation becomes a problem only when it protects consumers from irresponsibility and outright predation.

Trump/Musk's rip-snorting chainsaw attacks on government agencies (USAID, Education, CDC, etc.) are an example of the kind of dis-regulation desired by ideologues. They want to disable services to the undeserving, like third-world people with tiresome diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS, and so on. In their view, students will conform to the locally run school or be damned. They find the third word of Center for Disease CONTROL offensive.

The way in which AIDS and other diseases came to the first world from the third world is a warning about how dis-regulation is a really stupid blunder. Disabling the IRS at least makes ideological sense -- the fewer agents available to audit the returns of wealthy tax evaders,, the better.

In all, the ideological urge against regulation is cynical. it's like the attacks on universities masquerading as a suppression of antisemitism. It's bullshit.

the quote isn't precisely apropos, but its thrust is in the ballpark: "If at age 20 you are not a communist, you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not capitalist you have no brain." - George Bernard Shaw, possibly.

The young are more likely to settle on radical sounding politics and moral severity for the same reason they are likely to settle on any other far-out sounding thing -- music, clothing, slang -- whatever. One's youth is embarrassing later in adulthood.

Then too, as much as young people won't/don't/can't admit it, the young tend to be kind of stupid (this opinion based on my experience). It's unavoidable. Why, after so few years, would they be otherwise?

For my part it took many years, several decades really, to become the sensible person I now wish I had been at 18.

@Athena. The military part of the complex has had an influence on civilian rhetoric, rituals, and practices.

Language that was once used exclusively in the military has leaked out into police, fire, first responder forces. Those who died while on duty used to be called fatalities or dead. Now they are called "fallen". Employees of the army used to be called soldiers; now they are called warriors. A fallen warrior has become a secret object.

I found considerable discord at the funeral of a brother who had retired from the army. The family wanted to use several 'martial' gyms and the Methodist pastor rejected their choices as inappropriate. The church did not have American flags in the front of the church. This change had apparently caused a number of veterans to leave the congregation. The ashes urn was covered with a liturgical cloth, rather than the flag which some people wanted. More angst.

@Athena

The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives — BC

Bought the book and regret it, somewhat. There wasn't much in it that I hadn't heard about at one time or another, and the book is 17 years old. Not that things have changed that much, but some of the examples cited are off-putting--like references to MySpace, a former and now pretty much defunct active social site.

Nick Turse, the author, names dozens of consumer brands that receive revenue from sales contracts with the military, everything from cake mixes to toilet cleaners to bowling alleys.

I don't find much significance in the fact that General Mills sells Cheerios to the army, or that Apple sells its consumer devices to the marines. Much more significant are military contracts with research universities. Research is generally funded by grants and contracts--government or corporations, generally. Engineering research (mechanical / electrical / chemical / molecular / biomedical...) is shaped by the needs of the grant-making entities. Which devices, which kind of circuit, which chemical/molecular processes, which drug, etc. receives the greatest attention is determined by the source of the money.

A research department could focus on green energy generation or it could focus on better drones to deliver bombs to blow stuff to smithereens. It might focus on cancer research or bio-weapons. All sorts of alternate possibilities. Since money, intelligence, time, and space is always limited, grants determine what will get done and what will not get done.

Another downside of the military/industrial complex is that in order to keep military planners and civilian producers happy, a steady (and probably increasing) share of money goes for weapons and a decreasing share remains for civilian purposes. Again, money, intelligence, time, and space are always limited, and more nuclear powered aircraft carriers cuts down on upgrades to civilian water and sewer systems. Compare that shiny new bomber and the rusting bridge you use every day.

A worthy guide is Dante's inferno. — tim wood

Dante's Inferno makes me nervous. The Nine circles of hell are: Limbo (unbaptized and virtuous pagans), Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery.

The only one which I could not, under any circumstances, qualify for is Limbo. One way or another, I fit the rest. Hence, my concern.

Just for those who aren't familiar with the term, "The Pale" of Settlement was the area restricted for Jews created by Catherine the Great. The Pale of Settlement included all of modern Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova, much of Ukraine and Poland, and small parts of Latvia and the western Russian Federation. The only way to legally move from the Pale of Settlement into other parts of Russia was to convert to Orthodox Christianity. Or one could emigrate.

People living "beyond the pale" (in gentile areas) had a higher social ranking than Jewish people within the Pale of Settlement. So, paradoxically, being "beyond the pale" might be a good thing.

What puts Socialists either "within the pale" or "beyond the pale", depending on how you want to slice it, has nothing to do with kittens. It is that we want to take your real property away from you. We're not interested in your crappy furniture from Target or your cheap clothing from Walmart. We're going to take your wealth-producing property--that apartment building you rent to people; the jewelry store you own; your factory producing widgets... If you are a billionaire, you'll probably be stripped of everything down to and including your shoestrings.

@Athena I just came across this book on Amazon:

The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (The American Empire Project)
by Nick Turse (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

Part of: American Empire Project

A stunning breakdown of the modern military-industrial complex—an omnipresent, hidden-in-plain-sight system of systems that penetrates all our lives.

From iPods to Starbucks to Oakley sunglasses, national security expert Nick Turse explores the Pentagon’s little-noticed contacts (and contracts) with the products and companies that now form the fabric of America. He investigates the remarkable range of military incursions into the civilian world: the Pentagon’s collaborations with Hollywood filmmakers; its outlandish schemes to weaponize the wild kingdom; its joint ventures with Marvel Comics and Nascar, and he spotlights the disturbing way in which the military, desperate for fresh recruits, has tapped into the online world by “friending” young people on social networks.

A striking vision of a brave new world of remote-controlled rats and super-soldiers who need no sleep, The Complex will change our understanding of the militarization of America. We are a long way from Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex: this is the essential book for understanding its twenty-first-century progeny.

$10 on Kindle

Trump is our Hitler — Athena

I loathe Donald Trump in so many ways that it is difficult to disagree here. I'll at least say, "Not yet."

Trump isn't in the same league as Adolph Hitler. Trump is more like the pissed off dictator of a banana republic. That doesn't make him harmless, of course. Banana republic dictators tend to be bad news.

As opposed to a grand scheme authored by Hitler, Trump has a box full of personal resentments. He's a film-flam man whose ambition has been both met (2016 and 2024) and frustrated (2020). He's been investigated, indicted, tried, and in some cases found guilty. His alleged financial genius has been shown to be frequently fraudulent. He has been aided and abetted by a Republic Party which has gone in for far-right wing lunacy. Knowing his risks, he prudently stacked the Courts with as many sycophants as he could.

Now he is in a position to get even. That is largely what he is doing, but not entirely.

His policies toward migrants isn't personal, I gather. It's just policy. His proposals to absorb Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Gaza are crazy (not that insanity would prevent an attempt). His concern about antisemitism on campus is a smokescreen. His tariff schemes are lunatic--they can't produce the intended results.

Whether Donald Turnip personally resents woke politics, or whether he is just personifying right-wing resentment towards liberals, I don't know. But his efforts to dissolve the Department of Education, slash research budgets, lay off droves of government employees, appoint hacks to high positions, and so on is Hitleresque, and will degrade the quality of civil service to the public for a long time.

Hitler's Nazi administration was sloppy in many ways. Trump's administration is likewise sloppy. There is little professional quality, precision, and validity to many of his actions. This will make his various executive orders more difficult to undo.

Please focus more closely on the military-industrial complex. — Athena

OK. But would you please say more about what was it that the US copied from German / Prussian bureaucracy. Or, how was German / Prussian bureaucracy different than, say, French bureaucracy?

I don't believe that the US had the basis for a Military Industrial Complex (MIC) before WWII. What we had was a very large industrial establishment largely focused on consumer production/. The Great Depression suppressed consumer demand, of course. Military production ended the 1930s depression for us, just as it ended an earlier depression for Germany.

The US prepared for WWII by marshaling the huge industrial resources of the country for military production. Ford, General Motors, Kaiser aluminum / ship building, aircraft manufacturers, Westinghouse, petroleum products, General Electric -- everybody, basically -- switched to a command economy in military goods.

At the end of the war production shifted back to consumer production. There was a substantial lag-time between the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War which again required more military production. I haven't read much about this, to tell the truth, but I am presuming that the pattern of WWII military production was the basis for the MIC. Companies that were in a position to do so went after the large military contracts. Tight budget control over military production seems to have been absent from the get go, so there were a lot of "cost plus" contracts -- a gravy train.

Military production was spread around across congressional districts, so otherwise small companies in podunk towns received bits and pieces of production, and big companies received big hunks. The people liked having the steady jobs, which made the otherwise burdensome appropriations and taxes acceptable. This distribution of contracts produced public buy-in for the high-cost products.

Consumer production steamed full speed ahead; there was the tremendous boom in housing production after WWII, and a boom in all the stuff that people hadn't had the money or availability to buy. And there was new stuff, like televisions.

So the MIC developed in a "guns and butter" economy.

A critical aspect of the MIC was the production of political consent for the Cold War, military production, atomic bombs, B52 fleets, missiles, and so on--all very expensive, dangerous stuff. The military itself, were one interest group, members of congress who wanted to get reëlected were a second interest group, military product producers and their investors / employees were a third interest group, and the fourth interest group was the public who were daily reminded of the Soviet / godless communist threat to peace, freedom, motherhood, and God Himself.

The press and the public relations industry wasn't itself an interest group here. They were the instrument by which the public was fed information, misinformation, lies, fantasies, and so on.

The MIC was successful in its effort to sell the military/industrial POV to the public and congress. That was the danger Eisenhower addressed, and many trillions of dollars later, here we are.

I will soon have to leave this alone to pursue life support activities. But one more post.

What is your understanding of a military industrial complex? — Athena

A combine (mutually supporting) of the military and arms producers (corporations) which advocates for the specific interests of the military and corporations. The MIC is powerful because the number of agencies and employees is quite large and the financing is enormous. It is large enough to have a strong influence (able to steer, in some cases) national policy. It's a bad thing.

What does culture have to do with manifesting or not manifesting democracy or authoritarianism? — Athena

The culture is the all-encompassing ground from which politics arises -- anything between democracy and authoritarianism. The culture of France is quite different than the culture of Russia, for instance. Cultures exist over time, and the history of France and Russia are quite different as well. Culture is not concrete--it's not stiff, unyielding, and capable of supporting any amount of weight; it's more malleable, like a metal--with sufficient force it will bend.

How was Germany different from the US when the US mobilized against it? — Athena

My understanding is that Germany transitioned from a scattered batch of small statelets to a unified nation under Bismarck (a long story made crudely short). Germany played a large role in WWI, and lost; (Everyone 'lost' in that war, but the Central Powers were defeated.). The Allied Powers imposed a heavy penalties on Germany which were intended to keep Germany weak. Germany, beaten, bitter, and resentful ignored the penalties and rearmed -- in the process stimulating its economy.

Hitler and the Nazi Party led the process of rearmament and reorganization of German society with the intent of 'purifying' German society, acquiring lebensraum, and getting even with the Allies. The German Plan wasn't a state secret. The details were laid out in domestic propaganda.

In order to control the country, the Nazis shut down the previously existing political parties, purged the police, universities, and government of opposition, and in general terrorized the population so that doubters kept their mouths shut and followed orders.

The United States had emerged victorious from its Civil War and WWI. It had acquired lots of lebensraum earlier and had access to rich resources on its own soil. It was buffered by 2 oceans. it was generally wealthy and had a vast industrial base. It wasn't a paradise, of course. There were losers in the American system, and winners. Most people were in-between. The US was a secure society which had found the means to control politics, education, business, government, and so on without having to resort to terror or brutality (most of the time, anyway).

The US didn't declare war on Germany for the sake of Europe or because we found Germany intolerable. WWII began in Europe in 1939 and much of Europe was under Nazi control before Pearl Harbor, 12/7/1941.

What do you think fascism is? — Athena

The term "fascism" is a bit slippery, but in general: it is authoritarian; it is nationalistic in the extreme; it tends to be masculine--not in the sense of "men vs. women" but in its rhetoric and symbolism -- Fatherland, for instance, as opposed to Motherland; military vigor; etc. It's regressive and anal retentive in its drive for order and control. German fascism was intensely antisemitic, but the same was not true for Italian fascism. It subverts religious institutions for its own purposes.

On Hitler: It's worth noting that Hitler and the Nazis never won a national election. He didn't have power on the basis of popular assent. His power depended on duplicity, cruelty, terror, and threat of death--and the threat was not idle.

It's difficult to make sense of Donald Trump's behavior. Lopping off large hunks of the CDC or NOAA, for instance, simply do not make sense. He's either stupid, very corrupt, slightly insane, or all three.

cromulent — flannel jesus

Congratulations. You are the first person to use "cromulent" on The Philosophy Forum.

"Cromulent" is a made-up one that has gained recognition, especially due to its appearance in the animated television show The Simpsons. It means "acceptable".

How many Americans would turn against Trump if they knew the truth? The Germans were good people just like you and I but they believed the lies — Athena

Trump might not be as much an aberration as left/liberal types think. Trumpism has precedents. If you look over the history of the US, particularly since the Civil War (now some 160 years ago), there have been several highly illiberal, fascistic movements -- the KKK; anti-labor / union busting organizations; America First / isolationism; actual Nazis and Nazi sympathizers; white supremacists / white separatists; Christian nationalists, etc. They are a plague in the body politic.

Why, then, are we not a fascistic country? The government played a role in suppressing movements which threatened to rock the boat -- on the right and on the left both. Americans, by and large, have not bought into extreme ideology. (Perhaps extreme right wing ideology has had more success than extreme left wing ideology.).

BTW, not all the Germans believed the lies; not all the Soviet citizens believed the lies; not all Americans believe the lies. Trump's administration is not 100 days old, yet, so give resistance time to congeal. There were, over the weekend, large demonstrations against Trump across the country. Demonstrations, of course, generally do not deliver knock-out punches. Anti Vietnam demonstrations went on for quite a long time before the war ended.

More significant resistance will arise in the courts (or not; we'll see). Perhaps Republicans will lose control of Congress in two years (2027). Or not; we'll see. There is a good chance that Trumps tariff frenzy my trigger a recession. We the People don't like recessions, and we may be spurred to resolute and decisive action. Or not; we'll see.

In the meantime we have imbeciles in high office, which is a disaster in itself.

Whether and to what extent volunteers save money for an organization is questionable. It partly depends on the effectiveness of the volunteer manager. There are, as you indicated, other reasons to use volunteers. like building a base of support and good public relations. Some grants require the grantee to raise a share of the grant and volunteer time can be given a cash value and be counted toward the amount required.

You are quite right that volunteering contributes to community. That's not a small benefit.

Effective organizations, though, depend on paid staff to operate, which is as it should be. That doesn't take away from the usefulness of volunteers.

If our continued existence isn't a philosophical issue, what is?

A bright and cheerful future! I can't wait.

Climate migration is going to increase. Even communities imbued with charitable generosity in destination zones will be able to absorb only so many people. Then what? Enter the autonomous drones?

When in history have they acted in the interest of the world as a whole predominantly and consistently? — ChatteringMonkey

I would be happy if governments acted in the interests of their own populations, predominantly and consistently, never mind the whole world. This concern is highlighted by Trump's current predations.

One can die — unenlightened

I'm working on it.

Of course we need collective action which has to begin here and there without evidence that everyone else will join in. It has begun and is accumulating. Some states, some utility companies, commit to low carbon electrical generation. Some others don't, some others do. But then it becomes apparent that wind and solar are actually cheaper than fossil fuels. And here and there other states, other utility companies order up some turbines and solar farms. Faster change would be better, of course.

How we could survive in a post‑collapse world — unenlightened

So, here and there some individuals and communities survive -- probably more because they were lucky than because they pivoted, adapted, and adjusted continually. The title is too optimistic. It should be "How we might POSSIBLY survive in a post-collapse world, but don't bet on it".

Or maybe I'm pessimistic because I'm old and all the pivoting, adjusting, and adapting that is called for sounds absolutely exhausting.

Millions if not billions of tons of methane. This is one of the tipping points, it’s already well under way. — Punshhh

Absolutely!