Is that right considering the fact that we couldn't really help it? — bahman

Exactly. I didn't know the gun was loaded.

"The court knows no humour". — Akanthinos

That's why jokes should not be subject to rules or laws.

Of course Christianity did not invent compassion. Compassion is a most worthy thing, honored all over the world since time immemorial, more in the breach than in the observance. So every reminder helps.

Exactly.

The #me2 movement includes many people who acknowledge what the difference is between a wolf whistle and rape, It also includes "lumpers" who don't. Hence the accusations against Senator Franken and Garrison Keillor that they touched a woman inappropriately (on one woman's rump, on one woman's back). Keillor was disowned by his longtime employer, Minnesota Public Radio, and also the Washington Post for something not even remotely resembling an assault. Ditto for Franken.

Harvey Weinstein represents one end of the spectrum, Keillor the other end. They are a very long ways apart, but in many people's minds, since they were deemed to be on the same continuum, they are both guilty.

I once knew that 1+1=2, but I forgot. Therefore you have taught me a fact in arithmetic. Similarly, people have learned things at various times, and then forgotten them. Or a few people learned them, but not everybody. Some ancient Greeks learned a thing or two about democratic government, but what they knew didn't get passed around and remembered by everybody -- like the Romans, for example, or later Greeks.

Similarly, what our hunting and gathering forebears knew didn't get passed down along with their genes.

(I wonder if 'full of shit' has the same resonance outside the states.) — dog

During a period of international conflict having something to do with some guy named Napoleon, A Hapsburg minister referred to a French minister as "a sock full of shit". So, from that I take it that "full of shit" probably has resonance outside the states.

His assertion, initially, was that Christianity was responsible for teaching us things like equality and compassion for the less fortunate. The investigations of anthropologists have clearly shown this assertion to be false. — Pseudonym

Anthropologists have shown that Christianity doesn't teach compassion for the less fortunate? Anthropologists have shown that Christian teachings have nothing to with our conceptions of personal worth and equality? News to me.

Are you suggesting that hunter-gatherers taught us these things? How did they do that, considering their isolation for most societies around the world?

They contend that the #MeToo movement has led to a campaign of public accusations that have placed undeserving people in the same category as sex offenders without giving them a chance to defend themselves. “This expedited justice already has its victims, men prevented from practicing their profession as punishment, forced to resign, etc., while the only thing they did wrong was touching a knee, trying to steal a kiss, or speaking about ‘intimate’ things at a work dinner, or sending messages with sexual connotations to a woman whose feelings were not mutual,” they write. The letter, written in French was translated here by The New York Times.

#me2, and #Balancetonporc aren't the same as the anti-free-speech practitioners of political correctness, but they have something in common:

The all want a society where individuals will not be confronted by unwanted interest or opinions with which they disagree. A desire for a safe world appropriately means not being subjected to rape or being mauled in a locked room from which they can't escape. Opposing rape is right and proper. What's not so appropriate is to confuse the stolen kiss, the proposal in the form of a hand on the knee, or a wolf whistle with rape and sexual assault. It seems akin to demanding protection from the virgin-ear piercing utterance of a disapproved political opinion, or a slur of some sort, for which "safe spaces" need to be erected.

There is a quid pro quo here: we will not have a free and open society if ordinary sexual expressions, as well as disapproved political expressions, are verboten.

And what is it about women that they should never be whistled at or touched on the knee? What is it about the female personality that requires their person to be so inviolate? Women spend a considerable amount of time and money on making themselves sexually attractive in public (so do men), but then object when their carefully constructed attractiveness is not ignored. It's crazy, ladies. Neurotic.

We either take the bible as a whole or we pick each idea we like from it and ignore the ones we don't. If we do the latter then the bible need not be mentioned aside from a brief credit as to the origin of the idea, if we do the former then the atrocities it condones need to be accounted for by normal moral standards. — Pseudonym

I recommend that you keep the ideas I like, and skip the rest.

Certainly the behaviors described in the OT, especially during the conquest of the "promised land" by the Hebrews was brutal, which conquest generally was, in those days--and more recently, too. Yes, the approach was genocidal in intent, even if it wasn't genocidal in fact. And certainly, we shouldn't take the behavior of Israel in it's formative years (all BCE) as exceptional. Warfare and conquest was brutal pretty much across the board. I don't like it, but that's the way it was. Of course, we civilized moderns NEVER do anything wantonly brutal, ghastly, genocidal, cruel, murderous, etc. as we carry out 20th/21st century policy.

Humans are a bad lot, I tell you.

Have you not heard of Religion? — Pseudonym

I was referencing your response to Erik, and the quotes about hunter-gatherers, not the Bible. I don't totally disbelieve what the authors said about hunter-gatherers, but I am suspicious of anthropologists' observations and conclusions. For one thing, HG groups are small, and whatever it is about them doesn't translate very well to societies with even 10,000 members, let alone 320 million to over a billion members. The other thing is the idea that these groups are the same now as they were 12000 to 15000 years ago, and earlier. Doubtful. Some anthropologists seem to suggest that civilization killed the hunter gatherer star. If so, tough bounce.

As far as the Bible is concerned,

Either we take the bible to be a load of irrelevant nonsense (my preferred choice), or we examine it as a philosophical text. — Pseudonym

The Bible is neither a load of irrelevant nonsense nor is it a philosophical text. There may be "irrelevant nonsense" in the Bible, and there is some philosophical material. But the Bible is mostly a multi-purpose text that was accumulated, revised, and edited to suit various purposes at various times.

In other words, its a problematic book, OT and NT both.

Are we supposed to believe that all the stories you read in these books are true?

when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum. — Noble Dust

Whatever defense we offer for our drab wretched lives is invariably total bullshit, but the cover story is important. It is better if it sounds good. "I live to bring beauty and joy into the lives of others" is nauseating, but it sounds better than "If you can't take a big healthy crap every morning, you might as well be dead."

Or... maybe not.

has never made an effort to develop her mind and the consequence of that, it appears, is that she's like a lost and helpless child. — praxis

Sounds like the President of the United States. Wolff of Fire and Fury fame says Donald Trump doesn't read. It isn't clear whether he can read. He doesn't listen to people either. He watches televisions.

A dog will provide you with a reason to get out of bed every morning. It will get off the bed and stand beside you and whimper softly. Then whine louder. Then poke you with its nose. Then poke harder. Then bark once, loudly. Repeat. You WILL get up because its bladder is full and its stomach is empty, an intolerable situation. It will do this every day throughout its long life.

I didn't like that either, but it sort of looks like vintage legit.

And it's wrong to say we will pump every last drop out of the ground. At some point the energy required to get a barrel of oil out of the ground will exceed the energy contained in the barrel of oil, and that will be the end of the oil industry. That, however, may be some time off. But before then, the cost of pumping oil will gradually eliminate fields from production.

ART DECO, decidedly beautiful.

Beautiful steam engine


Beautiful radio


Beautiful table lamp

↪batman The question I have is: "How much of our mental structure (conscious, unconscious) was evolved and is present in other animals?" I am quite sure that we were not the first draft of consciousness, or sub-consciousness. I suspect many animals evolved features that are present in our minds, only to a lesser degree, and in many cases, a lot lesser degree.

So a dog's mind obviously has less capacity to think than we do, but people have observed the outcome of "dog thought". Dog thought isn't very elegant, as far as I can tell. A lot of what they think about seems to be how to get us to do things they want us to do. Or, how to circumvent limitations (like fences) that we have placed on them.

We didn't evolve from dogs, but we have common ancestors and a lot of animals display varying levels of mental activity, sometimes fairly complex. Not just dogs; think of parrots and crows; primates, of course. And other animals.

I don't have time just right now to read the whole thread, but I want to add this, in case it hasn't been raised.

The brain where consciousness and subconsciousness reside is a system. It does a lot of things, everything from triggering heart beats, breaths, putting you to sleep and waking you up, to imagining the plots of novels, and deciding what kind of canned tomatoes to buy. The various facilities of what we call "the mind" aren't discrete parts as much as they are the products of this "system".

We probably over-rate the conscious mind. I don't know what exactly consciousness is, but I am pretty sure it is supported by a much more extensive not-conscious part of the brain that not only does a lot of heavy lifting, but also, in a very real sense, runs the conscious mind. Since we can't access what is going on second by second in the subconscious, non-conscious 'mind', we think the conscious mind dominates. It is a subtle process to tease out what the non-conscious mind is doing.

You are your conscious and non-conscious mind. There isn't "something else" or "somebody else" between your ears: It's all you, all the time.

Why does that even require explaining, is my point? Isn't it intuitively obvious or am I missing something in their rationale? — Posty McPostface

Conservative climate change deniers are perfectly capable of understanding the economic impact of climate change. However, like most people, their heart is where their treasure is, and a lot of climate change deniers have a lot of treasure in the energy sector (that stands to lose if we decided to get real about climate change).

They can't just pivot away from coal, oil, and gas to solar panels, windmills, and nuclear power. Their asset values will fall if they don't defend fossil energy. To whom are you going to sell an old coal mine these days? Better to keep it going.

I have no sympathy with the prospect of energy stockholders losing money -- tough bounce, but they don't look at it that way.

Very aware of the controversy. There was a "sex panic" at the time. Some people (like prosecutors) were conjuring up scenes of wild abuse in day care facilities, for instance, or repressed memories that suggested child abuse of all sorts was endemic/epidemic, and so on. Lives were ruined.

There is, of course, no question that sex abuse does exist, and that sex abuse has existed in the past. The facticity of actual sex abuse is the raison d'être of rooting it out where it doesn't, hasn't existed. Collective hysteria is a co-factor, along with an obsessive focus on abuse.

One would expect the severity of abuse to vary, and thus the consequences to vary. One would also expect a good deal of individual variability in the way the child copes with, and is, or is not, affected by whatever abuse occurred.

So, yes, in this kind of atmosphere, people can be induced to cough up the sort of memories they are expected to have. With coaching, one can also come to believe that the memories one coughed up are true to the "facts". And this whole process can be harmful to the individual and the community.

It's tricky: Everyone's life includes horrid embarrassments, for instance. It might be better to cover these horrid embarrassments with something more palatable. On the other hand, there are elements in one's history that are better to be remembered clearly, and better that one deal with them (and not just abuse issues). For instance, IF one attended a really crappy public school, it could very well have impeded one's progress in life. Better to understand that, then placing all the blame on one's self for for not being a brilliant success. On the other hand, maybe one attended a bad public school, and was also lazy. One has to face one's past (stored up there in the memory banks) and try to arrive at the truth.

Yes, but the question remains that how does one address this insidiously 'common sense' talk about the economy professed by conservatives and classical economists in light of climate change? — Posty McPostface

1. Don't bother arguing with conservatives.

2. Put the hay down where the goats can get at it.

3. Tell the truth. If people don't believe it, then there is nothing that can be done.

• You and your children's futures really are at stake. Global warming and extensive pollution caused by fossil fuels are already here, and are big problems. But it's not too late to reduce severity.
  
• Oil companies do not care about your future. They never have, they never will.
  
• Oil companies put their own interests first. That always have, and they always will.
  
• Fight the oil and coal companies
  
• The best way to demand more efficient cars is to stop buying less efficient cars.
  
• Work on consuming less "stuff" that you don't really need. You'll be money ahead, and contribute to less energy waste.
  
• Individually you can do nothing. Joint with other people, join groups that already exist, or start groups that can make a louder noise than you can by yourself. There energy conservation battles to be fought in your neighborhood, your city, your county, your state, and in your country.
  
• Get acquainted with mass transit and use it whenever possible. Increasing ridership means more resources and better mass transit.
  
• Don't assume you will be dead before all this becomes a problem. If you are in your early 60s, for instance, there is a very good chance you will still be around when bigger hunks of shit are hitting the fan than what we've seen so far. It's up to this generation to decide how bad it will be for our children and grand children, let alone those who come after that.

The cost of a getting a barrel of oil out of the ground has gotten more expensive. Drilling through the ocean floor costs more because of the rent on the drilling rig, the extra and more expensive labor, the time and materials it takes, and the cost of greater risk. Fracking is more expensive than drilling into a shallow well and sucking up sweet crude. So, why do they do it?

Because the world supply of petroleum is slowly getting smaller, and the average price is rising. As it rises, more expensive methods of getting oil become affordable.

Then there is the externality business. The fossil fuel industry has made itself very profitable by externalizing everything from pollution from drilling, shipping, refining, to using the product -- whether it be coal, oil, or gas.

Why do regulators let them get away with it? Because the economic might of the fossil energy industries is huge, and we are all dependent on a steady supply. Most governments are simply unwilling to take on the energy business in a frontal assault.

In order to understand how this works, the average citizen has to pay some sustained attention to the news, and do a little background reading. The popular mass news media do not, by and large, present a lot of information about all this. They do talk about the price of gasoline going up and down, but they don't really explain much. PBS does, but their programs tend to be an hour long (or maybe 90 minutes) which is a long time to pay attention. There are a few magazines that often do a good job of explaining this in ordinary language, but one has to go look for such magazines

Another factor is that most people (more or less correctly) do not see what difference they can make in the whole problem. A lot of people have almost no choice but to continue using energy (cars, gasoline, oil products, natural gas, electricity generated from coal, etc.) the way they always have. I can do without a car because I can't drive anyway and located myself where there is pretty good mass transit. I also use a bicycle. Millions and millions of people can't choose what I did because they don't live near mass transit, and they can't afford to move, and even if they did, it's tough raising children and doing all the things a family wants to do without a car, plus getting to work, getting to the day care center with young children, etc. etc. etc.

Still, things are changing.

Some states are on schedule to eventually achieve their long term goals of supplying their citizens with renewable energy. States like Minnesota have no coal, no oil, and no hydro electric resources worth mentioning. We do, however, have wind and sun. Wind generation is turning out to be a much better bet than solar for large scale electrical supply.

Unfortunately, a lot of the oil we use in the northern tier of states (and we use as much per capita as any body else does) comes from one of the dirtiest of all petroleum sources -- the oil sands of Alberta.

I don't know what will happen. I do know that Nature bats last, and we may end up being totally screwed.

Of course, and I got the metaphor. Sometimes I can't resist...

When ropes are made out of continuously extruded fibers of nylon the threads or fibers could be as long as the rope.

Your statement is true of long ropes made out of hemp fibers, for instance, or linen, cotton, silk, etc.

do we know the reason God planted the Tree in the garden — Abdul

In his short book, On Not Leaving It to the Snake, Harvey Cox takes the view that Adam and Eve were meant to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were meant to take responsibility for the choice to eat it, however. Instead, they allowed a snake to seduce them into eating the fruit.

The story is about claiming important knowledge, and making that claim honestly and taking personal responsibility for it.

Had Adam and Eve had been more responsible, "had more guts", they would have leapt over the fence, eaten the fruit and would have then gone looking for God to tell him about it, rather than hiding in the bushes.

I have been inclined toward human service work, and that's mostly what I've done. Once in a while it was fulfilling; most of the time, not too much. I gave of myself to various causes, and that part was good. I had a lot of sex, loved several men, there was lots of sturm and drang, and here we are in retirement, a widower and a bachelor again, and likely to stay that way.

Now my goal in life is to make it to the grave as gracefully as possible. I spend a lot of my time on filling in the holes of my now long passed undergraduate education. This task is very satisfying. For instance, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin has tied together a number of loose ends from three biology and geology classes in which I wasn't paying that much attention. The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery By Wendy Moore is a biography about John Hunter, a pioneering surgeon and anatomist in the 18th century. Knife Man filled in several small holes. So did three books by neurosurgeons. There are many holes left to be filled.

To what end is all this study and reading? No end really, other than to learn. It won't help me get a job (not at this point) and it most likely will not get me into heaven or keep me out of hell, or even make the hereafter a slightly less boring eternity. I have an unknown amount of time to fill, and learning is a pleasant way to fill it.

Futile? No more futile now than it was when I begin college in 1964. Had I learned as much back then as I have since learned, I could have been a college professor, one of the cushier jobs on the planet. But if I had done that, then I would have had to put up with decades of POMO, and that would have been at least as bad as dealing with the fakery and futility of the helping professions.

*credit to madmikesamerica for the info. — The scientific philosopher

A reading of the Bible yourself will reveal even more appalling stuff, and some very pleasing passages as well.

There are various threads running through the OT: there are the prophetic threads, the holiness threads, the historical threads, the liturgical threads, and so on. Warfare in Biblical times and places was brutal, and sometimes the intent was genocidal: kill the women, children, and men, making sure that nobody survives. The holiness threads include some fairly brutal guidance for people who behave contrary to the local norms.

So, as has been noted elsewhere, the Bible is basically adult reading material, and one has to parse out the brutal from the pacifistic passages, like Isaiah 52:7,

How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

We will pass over in silence the fact that sometimes "feet" were a euphemism for "penis". For instance, in one passage, there is reference to someone "covering their feet" and another someone shaved their feet. Probably not their feet, more likely their dick. Or, in a passage someone touches his father's thigh and swears loyalty. I bet it wasn't his "thigh" that he swore on.

But never mind that.

One has to remember that ancient Israel was founded in the middle of a cross roads between various competing power blocks, and had to defend itself, and even then didn't succeed a good share of the time.

It is possible to pull several quite different narratives out of the Bible for one's own use.

The labels may be pragmatically useful at various times, but they don't really tell us about who those people really are, or what they're really thinking. It just allows us, in some limited circumstances, to predict behaviour. — Agustino

So, if you don't identify and yes, label behaviors, traits, tendencies, fluidity, and all that, how is it that you eventually get to know who people "really are"?

Hmm I don't think such labels work very well. — Agustino

There are a set of labels that describe what you do for a living. I don't mean "moves fingers around on a keyboard" but rather things like "analyzes problems", "develops solutions", "identifies flaws in sub-routines" and so on. 2 or 3 labels of that sort don't cover what you do, but maybe 20 labels would.

When I say "label" I don't mean things like "stupid", unless deficiency of intelligence really is the feature being labeled. "Stupid" is a bad label because it just indicates dislike for something.

Sure, there is some fluidity in behavior, but behaviors are not so fluid that we can never guess what someone is going to do next.

The independent one seems to me to be inherently superior (not in an existential sense) to the other one, because the independent one can achieve a degree of freedom that is unavailable to the other one. In other words, he seems to have a "skill" that the other lacks. Am I wrong about this? — Agustino

The independent one is inherently superior IF he is going at being independent, and is good at charting his own course. Some mavericks who are very independent thinkers characteristically end up not getting the results they want because they are just not very good at being independent.

We couldn't have this discussion if we weren't using labels.

People like their own labels, they tend not to like the labels that get stuck to them.

Let me add that in happy families, the share of time spent on discipling children so that they feel enough guilt to behave well is pretty short. Children learn pretty quickly that there are some things they should not do, or they will get into trouble, and they don't like being punished (even if punishment is being put in a corner to be quiet for 5 minutes). A lot of time is spent on rewarding children for doing the things they ought to do -- little pats on the head, encouraging words, stuff like that. It isn't that children should be constantly punished for doing bad things, or that they should be constantly rewarded for doing good things. They learn, and once they learn, they tend to remember what is good to do, and what is not good to do.

Now, we have all witnessed families, haven't we? where one or both parents seems to be on the warpath with their children all the time. This isn't healthy or desirable, and indicates problems with the adults being a bit crazy. Or a lot crazy.

Yes, and no.

While it is the case that children, and some other animals besides humans, reveal some innate willingness to share and help each other, this doesn't automatically develop into a system of moral behavior.

Calling disciplining and training children "indoctrinating" tips your hand. But OK, yes, we have to indoctrinate children about:
Rule #1, there is a right and wrong in life
Rule #2, provide the details of what is right and wrong as they get older

Most people successfully teach there children rules #1 and #2. The details of what the rules are may vary a little bit, but not too much.

I am not at all sure that young children would develop useful guides to social behavior if left to their own devices. In any event, young children left to their own devices are not going to survive. We require care for quite a few years before we can survive on our own. The built in "tendency" to display "limited" empathy, sharing, and helping behavior is limited. Those desirable traits are not so instinctive that they will blossom into a fully fledged moral system. They need to be trained in.

"Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving" is a joke among people who feel guilty all the time, but in a way it is true. "Guilt" is the mainspring of moral behavior. We don't like feeling guilt, so we tend to behave in ways that minimize the likelihood that we will feel guilty.

I would lie, cheat, and steal if I wouldn't feel guilty about it. But I sometimes feel guilty for absolutely no reason at all. Having been raised as a good Protestant, there must be something I should feel guilty about. Guilt helps us behave well when there is no one around to observe us behaving badly--at least most of the time. Sometimes the grip of guilt slips, and then we do things we later regret--feel guilt about.

The trick -- and it isn't too difficult a trick because a lot of people pull it off -- is to raise children with enough guilt that they behave well, but not so much guilt that they are tied up in knots.

Why am I the same person throughout my life?

There are several factors.

1. You have not forgotten 99.9% of your memories. Most of your mental functions are non-conscious; your memories are alive and well in this department. When you need a memory, non-conscious brain operations will provide it to you. (((Or not. Things do get forgotten, and there is always that business of not remembering who somebody is that you "you know you know" but you can't think of their name. All that stuff is normal.)))

2. While it is the case, as Heraclitus said, that you never step into the same river twice, the world is pretty stable for all practical purposes. You are part of the world, and you too remain pretty stable. If you de-stableize too much, you will be declared dead. Since you are posting here, you are probably still alive. Just guessing.

3. Some of the atoms in your brain are coming and going in fairly heavy traffic because you seem to be still alive. But just because there is trafficking of atoms and molecules in your brain doesn't mean that everything in there is being chewed up and lost. Your body does get renewed completely several times during your lifetime (with a few exceptions, one being a lot of those neurons inside your skull), but the shape of the structure stays the same.

I know I do feel like I'm the same person, but say that the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, there will be an unimaginably huge amount of people who also think that they are me, does that mean all of them actually are? Does that mean that the woman who thinks she is a reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe actually is Marilyn Monroe? — A disturbed person

Forget about the many worlds of quantum mechanics. It's speculative and it isn't going to make any difference, anyway. It's not your problem.

The woman who thinks she is a reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe may enjoy thinking she is, and as long as she isn't annoying everyone by constantly trying to sing "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" or obsessing about her affair with President Kennedy, she's probably harmless.

4. Who else would you be?

I bet that whatever you feel, there is a lot of continuity in it. That is, you aren't constantly feeling like you have become somebody else, or are losing the continuity of identity that you had several days ago. Ideas sometimes occur to us that just aren't that helpful, and we waste time thinking about it. Like the many worlds business. There may be other universes, but as far as we know, we aren't going there.

So relax. Or get busy -- whatever is on your list of things to do.

So, thank them, in words.

I guess somebody already said it, but I don't see how we could possibly figure out whether we have free will or not, IF we start from the idea that there is a long, winding chain of causation. The chain of causation would result in our ideas about causation and free will, whether either or both exist.

Are there many chains of causation determining everything that happens, and clear causation (earth and apple attracting each other until the stem of the apple fails, falling on your face as you lay sleeping on your back under the heavily laden big-apple tree, breaking your glasses, and causing a severe injury to your eyes which causes you to go blind, preventing you from writing, etc...)? Can a system of causation create openings of non-determined situations which an animal can make a choice in?

I don't think that being in tune with one's interiority means being a complete narcissist and filtering everything through one's self. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I agree.

I believe that it means finding what transcends the self and connects all of us. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I'm not sure that we can transcend our selves, but we certainly can find connections.

Do you mean autotelic? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

No. Inner directed people rely more on their own, developed beliefs, priorities, and self-confidence to decide what they should do. They tend not to care so much about what other people think they should do. Other directed people tend to reference their peers, authorities, social norms, and so forth to get directions about what to do next. It isn't all one or all the other. Of course, we all rely on our own sense, and the sense of the group, when we make decisions. It's a matter of emphasis.

Thoreau's man who marches to the beat of a different drummer is inner directed. The man who votes with the majority (assuming the majority will be right) is other directed. One is not more moral than the other. The independent soul and his different drummer can be terribly mistaken about their marching orders.

I started this thread by suggesting that we are overdoing it. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It's a matter of preference, I think, as to whether we say we use labels freely or that "we don't like to label people". I'm a labeler. I sort people, places, and things into pigeon holes. It's the way I deal with the world. I like to know who's who and what's what. Labels help me do that. The trick is using the right label. Some people are crazy. "Crazy" isn't a very good label; it's too vague. "Narcissistic personality disorder", to use a currently popular label, is much more precise. Schizophrenic" is not as precise as it sounds. Neither is "felon" or "holy man" or "mechanic". Airplane mechanic? Ship mechanic? Auto mechanic? Good mechanic?

You are more informed than I am about art, clearly. It just seems to me that the velocity of change in the last third of 19th century was so much higher than in previous centuries, and the velocity has stayed fast. But then, the velocity of change across the board sped up in the 19th century, and has continued. So, what shall we attribute this to? Science, technology, industrialism, capitalism (its ability to mobilize and deploy resources very rapidly), population growth, two world wars (which also led to a fast mobilization and deployment of resources), empires (like the B.E.) which concentrate resources, and so on? All those things are disruptors of equanimity and settled belief.

On the other hand, nihilism seems to have gotten an early start in Russia which in the 19th century was not on the cutting edge of progress. And that, could it be, is because the absolute (and sometimes stupid) despotism of the Romanovs, and the social system in Russia, left little room for philosophical dissidents to maneuver? The church, the state (in the person of the Tsar), and the landowning class were a smothering layer?

Or was nihilism a broader, earlier development throughout Europe? I guess I'll have to turn to the Internet to get some background. Unless you happen to have a nice capsule history...

Imagine visiting a modern art gallery, and then going back to the same gallery a century later and seeing the same style of art on the walls, and it is still considered a modern art gallery. Practically inconceivable to me. — praxis

If you went to an art exhibit in 1817, 1917, and 2017, you would have seen huge changes in artistic production between 1817 and 1917; between 1917 and 2017, it's quite possible (depending on the selections, that you would think things hadn't changed very much at all in the previous century.

Besides, is constant change inherent to art? Is there something wrong with art if doesn't change faster than women's wear fashion? What makes art change rapidly? It could be that it is driven, or pulled along, by a very strong demand by art buyers for novelty. Should we hand out awards to cultures that maintain a style for a long time, or only reward cultures that are always changing?

Personally, Praxis, I'd probably find Egyptian stability stultifying, but there is something to say for less hectic change.

Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving.

I've felt guilty a lot -- sometimes for good reason, sometimes not.

Guilt is a critical piece of child development: guilt and fear. Sounds medieval? Well, I don't mean it that way. When children are raised, they are usually disciplined regularly (I don't mean cruelly beaten, or anything like that.) When children are punished for doing something their parents don't want them to do (like throwing a tantrum on the bus, in the supermarket, at church, whatever) the parents will spank the child, speak harshly, isolate the child for a while (solitary confinement in a "quiet space") and the like.

To the child, the punishment is frightening, because they fear the parent will withdraw their love and care. (We were always threatened with being sent to bed without supper, or being forced to get out of the car and walk home). The fear of punishment is learned, and internalized.

Guilt comes along with internalized morals: internalized fear. The child knows what he is supposed to do and supposed to not do, but sometimes does it anyway. Because the fear of punishment is internalized, he feels fear (called guilt) when he does something wrong.

Sounds awful, but this is what enables us to go through life obeying laws, not cheating, not stealing, not being unspeakably nasty to other people because they got in your way, and so on. In fact, it helps us be nice to other people, it helps us to be moral individuals.

Some people who have a brain disorder that interferes with the fear/guilt/obedience mechanism are classified as "psychopaths" or "sociopaths" to varying degrees. They don't feel guilt, and they can't feel responsible for what they do -- though cognitively they are perfectly capable of understanding guilt and responsibility. But they don't feel it, and feeling it is where the rubber hits the road.

So, a little guilt is a good and necessary thing, a lot of guilt is destructive.

When one feels guilty a lot, (like if one is religious, is gay, and can't square the religious condemnation of what one can not help but feel), then something has to give. Usually, and it's the best outcome, people decide their morals are too rigid, are incorrect, or just plain wrong. The alternative is to tear one's self to shreds feeling guilty for what one IS and can not change.

My solution to the Christian/gay/guilt problem was to decide that the church was wrong. Fortunately there were several religious organizations handy to facilitate this conclusion.

So, you can beat guilt. It doesn't mean you have to throw the moral bath water and the baby of principles out the back door. What you have to do is, maybe change the bath water and teach the baby better principles that come closer to matching your personal situation.

Good luck.

"In the name of mumble mumble mumble I hereby absolve you of all your sins. Go in peace."

Plastic bag -- come on! I'm more technically sophisticated than that!