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Sunday, September 1, 2013 - 10:58amSanction this postReply
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Excellent essay. Bullseye.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 - 11:41amSanction this postReply
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Joe,

This is actually a good advancement in thought (philosophical progress). I'm not talking about you, Joe, as you have always been ahead-of-the-curve with regard to understanding altruism. I am talking about general philosophic progress. Two key points are the theory that altruists are engaging in an enterprise of moral perfectionism, however mongrol -- something that is completely unintuitive to a casual observer --as is illustrated by this paragraph:
From the emotional trauma inflicted on their children, it should be obvious that altruism is never really about helping others. That is the excuse, but not the goal. The real goal is a sense of moral pride, a sense of superiority, that comes from practicing the moral system.
So that these altruists are motivated in an egoistic way, but in one that is perverted (i.e., motivated to achieve pride and personal superiority). And add to that the second issue of how it is that an altruist, while supposedly "helping" someone, simultaneously has the incentive to demonize them -- and we are talking real philosophic progress on this issue!

Great essay, Joe.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 9/01, 11:44am)


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Post 2

Sunday, September 1, 2013 - 3:11pmSanction this postReply
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Ed,
...these altruists are motivated in an egoistic way, but in one that is perverted (i.e., motivated to achieve pride and personal superiority)."
With 'motivation' you step into the world of psychology. Pride is a good thing when it is real... and the questions are whether it is deserved, and if it is honest.

If a person has low self-esteem and feels inferior, then they might develop a defensive mechanism to keep feelings of shame or anxiety at bay. And the defense chosen might be an artificial facade of superiority gained by making moral attacks on another.

Attacking one's child as somehow not enough while making claims of great sacrifice and martyrdom certainly fit that description. That pride would be dishonest because it comes from a false sense of superiority and because it isn't a natural psychological reward for real achievement, but a defense designed to avoid an aspect of reality (whatever subconscious conclusions underlie the low self-esteem and poor practices of consciousness.)

Even as a defense it can't work to eliminate the low self-esteem and its effects. It only paints the person further into a psychological corner where they are farther from seeing reality and have far fewer options available to deal with interpersonal relationships. It blocks real avenues of pride, and blocks real avenues towards joy in the interpersonal relationships. It is a case of person committing fraud on themselves - selling themselves a technique for getting relief from feelings of inadequacy or being unlovable or unworthy... a technique that won't do those things at all, and will actually make things worse.

They are likely to end up with a shallow, brittle, bitter view of their life, and their kids, and their past. That view will define boundaries for their future moves - limiting their options, coloring their views, blinding them to aspects of reality, setting them up to only see the worst, expect the worse, and get the worse.

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Sunday, September 1, 2013 - 7:10pmSanction this postReply
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You're right, Steve.

I should have said "false pride."** And that was good insight and elaboration, too.

Ed

**the second-hand, sham, knock-off, cover-up, scam, cloak, instant, effortless, excuse-making kind of "pride"

:-)


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Thursday, September 5, 2013 - 8:52amSanction this postReply
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How much of this philosophy has been absorbed passively from a history of many generations of women basically treated as property and brood mares with little political freedom or access to reliable birth control?

Might the women of those admittedly oppressed generations at least have tried to make the most of their condition by attempting to ascribe more meaning from their forced sacrifices in ways the article outlines?

Might their successors, as so many others, have simply accepted those stories at face value with no further thought and then continued to live the altruistic mindset in their own parental undertakings?

My point is that these mindsets have causal effects and I think the subjugation of women in past times combined with natural human mental laziness between generations has contributed to the modern malaise the article describes.

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