Can you make heads or tails of this?
How can all humanity be in net debt?
To whom? Themselves?
What's the personal analogy of this?
"I'm too indebted to myself. I've run out of fiat! I can't muster the personal initiative to take another breath."
Or, my left hand owes my right hand too much - so both insist on austerity, and won't feed the mouth. Now my left ventricle owes my right ventricle. They're gonna cut each other off from the body-wide SWIFT circulatory system. You know what that means.
Same for nations? How? The fools are near fully separated from their fiat? By whom? Parasites bent on self-assisted suicide?
Capitalism is defined as the unrelenting race to produce our own parasites? So they can kill themselves AND us? Why? Is anyone asking what capitalists want to do with all the distributed fiat which they seek to sequester and hoard?
Not just any old sop, but Aesop himself nailed this over 2000 years ago. The proverbial belly had the last laugh, since the warring parts all died.
What part of Duh! don't future voters learn in Kindergarten anymore?
Not just any old sop, but Aesop himself nailed this over 2000 years ago. The proverbial belly had the last laugh, since the warring parts all died.
What part of Duh! don't future voters learn in Kindergarten anymore?
Hey Roger this is good from that wiki:
ReplyDelete"There is a scriptural use of the concept of co-operation between the various parts of the body by Paul of Tarsus, who was educated in both Hebrew and Hellenic thought. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he shifts away from the fable's political application and gives it the spiritual context of the body of the Church. The metaphor is used to argue that this body represents a multiplicity of talents co-operating together. While there may still be a hierarchy within it, all are to be equally valued for the part they play"
So we again are not "created equal" or "created equivalent"... but we are to value one another equivalently.
Dont tell that to the "some are better than others" crowd....
Or libertarians who are like the hand thinking that it is independent of the arm.... rsp,
Matt, if you choose to emphasize difference of individuals without acknowledging equality of persons, how do propose to justify equality before the law and equal rights? Are rights simply the product of positive law chosen arbitrarily and relative to context, or do human rights and civil liberties have a universal basis. What are the criteria involved?
ReplyDeleteThe criterion you cite is religious. When religious authority came to be no longer regarded as the ultimate appeal after the rise of science, the foundation was provided by an appeal to "natural law," which grounds normativity in rationality. The natural law tradition goes back to the classical Greeks and was elaborate by Aquinas. It was later picked up by early moderns in the Enlightenment. This still still regarded by many as the basis of universal rights originating in the 18th century.
The issue we face today is that we have moved away from the age of religion and the age of reason to the postmodern age, which views reality as constructed and therefore as relative. Are we to say that rights are arbitrary constructs, and can be different in different contexts (countries, legal jurisdictions) or is there some criterion of universality that makes some right "human rights."
This is the boundary between economic liberalism and social liberalism, for instance.
I am wondering what other people's take on this is.
Well, ultimately the Sun and the Moon and the Stars won’t be there; the whole Universe will go back to dust.
ReplyDeleteSo, I guess the idea of human ‘rights’ is constructed – reality is not.
A part of that reality is a gift: there is an energy within the heart of every human being, that allows us to rise above all of the negative aspects of human behaviour, if we choose to embrace it. Its gifts are kindness and generosity; clarity. We get to choose between the absence of this energy (hate and greed, ignorance and arrogance which rush in to fill the vacuum), and its presence (which keeps them out). It’s a values thing! Intelligence thing! Evolution thing!
I think that the evidence is pointing to a constructed reality based partly on nature, that is, biology, and partly nurture, essentially culture and its artifacts.
ReplyDeleteThe question is whether that construction process is relative or is determined by some objective substrate. For example, humans' construction is constrained by logic and a constructs of reality can be tested against observation. However, when it comes to the controversial and arguably the most significant aspects of life, neither logic nor observation suffice as criteria.
Yet the fact that humans understand each other and languages are translatable shows that a degree of universality extends across historical time, and geographical space, and different cultures, at least to some degree. For example, the world's wisdom traditions are in basic agreement that the Golden Rule is foundational.
I have also argued elsewhere that the world's wisdom traditions can be viewed in terms of a perennial wisdom that is causally explanatory and can be tested in the laboratory of a person's life. Moreover, this is recorded in a plethora of historical evidence and testimony extending back thousands of years and corroborated by recently existing Stone Age indigenous peoples.
Moreover, there is increasing evidence not only or reciprocity in pre-human species but also an expectation of reciprocity in some species.
The foundation of the modern construct of institutionally guaranteed rights can be argued to be naturalistic based on such evidence instead of being arbitrary and relative to the positive laws that establish them.
Indeed, a foundational assumption of modern law is that it is based on principle rather than simply on preference, which is the actual force of law rather then merely enforcement. To the degree that this actual force is operative, enforcement in unnecessary, and in a good society based on principle and where principle was followed, the need for enforcement would be minimal.
These are key issues in harmonizing economic liberalism with social and political liberalism in a liberal age in which freedom is increasing. Freedom has been called dangerous because if exercised without responsibility it can wreck havoc. And the fact is that without proper preparation, most people cannot handle freedom responsibility. This is a key aspect of what the process of socialization of children is supposed to involve.
As a libertarian of the left, I regard freedom as one of the highest human values. However, freedom is misconstrued when taken to be only freedom from constraint and freedom to choose. This is a recipe for anarchy in the pejorative sense, and that results in imposition of controls that inhibit valid exercise of freedom.
In addition to freedom from and freedom to, freedom for is also necessary for a holistic view of freedom, that is, freedom for self-actualization as the unfolding of potential as both a human being and also a unique individual. The chief responsibility of freedom is to use freedom responsibly. This is traditionally the subject mater of ethics and social & political philosophy, as well as the philosophy of education in a democracy (John Dewey).
This is key to reorienting economics from homo oeconomicus as homo rationalis to homo socialis, homo publicus, homo fabulans, homo moralis, and homo spiritualis.
@TomH
ReplyDeleteHi Tom - I think basically there is an inside and an outside to human consciousness (awareness). Most of the time the attention is flowing out through the sense organs; or out into the mind where all of the concepts, images and relations exist – a ‘worldview’ as it is known; charged with wants and needs. Sometimes people can be ‘hypnotised’ to accept worldviews that are not their own. Most people would say that the content of their mind is their reality, along with the reality of the sense organs. Central to this mind-borne reality is an ‘I’ – in one sense it is the impacts ‘I’s have upon one another that makes the world go around. Human rights and freedoms are generally interpreted in terms of the ‘I’, the mind-borne reality, and sense organs. When things are going your way the ‘I’ is ‘happy’: - when things are not, the ‘I’ laments. All of these in turn are dependent upon the age one is born into, civilisation and culture. We are all highly conditioned creatures. Imagine the different views on life you would have if you could simultaneously be aware in 1000 different personas, in 100 different ages etc as both male and female (Dr Who)! The consciousness of a Master appears to be both free of all of these impressions and intimately connected to them, just as a good actor would work his character.
A central message of the Master is, you are not who you think you are. By going inside, by shifting the awareness out of the world of the persona to the universe within, there is a mirror. There you will see who you are and what you are an infinitesimal part of. And it is beautiful! And it is profound. Then you might do your job (as you do your job), like everything else in the universe does its job – JIG guaranteed. People in the world scoff that such a thing can never exist – and I agree; for them. But you know, I know of over a million people in this world who already know what is inside of them, and many more who suspect that something must be there. And when they come out to play, they have different Ideals in mind. The tide, from my little lighthouse at least, appears to be turning. We are free when we feel free, even in the middle of the battlefield, or prison. Our sovereign right (and really it is a gift) is to know what we carry; freedom too – as far as I can make out the chief responsibility is to enjoy the heck out of it!!
:-)
Right, JR. The way Meher Baba explained is that most people in gross consciousness and only see the gross world.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the relative ever-changing sphere of diverse forms there are three "worlds" — gross, subtle and causal. They are not separate, but nested as it were. Knowledge of them is based on the corresponding "bodies" — gross, subtle and mental.
Meher Baba explained that these "bodies" are different angles of "vision" (cognition). The angle of the gross body is close up - the physical world, so that the medium and long views are not available. Stepping back (knowing from the angle of the subtle body) gives the medium view (the subtle world of life-energy), and stepping back further gives the long view of the causal world (mental world of intelligence).
Turning around gives the view of the absolute, unchanging that is one's real nature. Until one turns around, that is obscured by attention directed at the changing worlds of diversity.
One who has turned around completely and then turns back is simultaneously aware of the unchanging absolute as the formless self-aware substrate and real existence of the changing relative phenomenal worlds of invariant form, life energy and space/time/mass/physical energy.
Plato uses a similar metaphor in the analogy of the cave in The Republic, and it is also the basis of the ladder of love in The Symposium.
This teaching is perennial and found in virtually all wisdom traditions. It is now the subject of scientific study in the West in transpersonal psychology and consciousness studies, e.g., correlating biochemistry, biology and neurology with subjective cognitive-affective reports.
Yes, I have seen similar accounts of the journey of awareness from the external to the internal Tom.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this Absolute, this Universal Energy first appears as a feeling in the heart – we call it peace, joy tranquillity, serenity. It is without religion, dogma or creed. It is like a rope, and Kabir said climb it; it is what we are born to do – it is our job. We are human beings! We should be proud to be human beings. Everything in the universe has a job. When the head and heart emerge above the clouds, we discover Being and Self; a little spark that dances in the flames of a beautiful Sun. It is not an option. Without it, humanity wanders and wonders, panders and ponders, and gets incredibly lost, hungry and tired. “Life is a journey that is homeward bound ….”
If people want to see what is going on at the cutting-face on this earth, look at the movement towards peace. The Ideal: – “what you are looking for is within, peace is possible, it is within you, now”. This is practical for a human being!
For me, this is Roger’s longed for common ‘sense’ – a common thread at work. These are pioneers, the courageous ones!
Am sure there are people who stood at the back of Meher’s discourses and said: “what did he say”?
We are not indebted to ourselves, we are indebted to the wealthy, who tend to be dynastic.
ReplyDelete