Reading through "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

Eva:

We seldom, if ever, see a room full of 30 students who manage to achieve that Pareto efficiency greater than 100%. It is more like 2 out of 30. And then, that has consequences later in life, and folks sort themselves out, and send their kids to local schools, and then, lather, rinse, repeat. Soon enough, entire school districts have lined themselves up via this process of determining outcomes.

At some point, we finally start to bring up the 'I' word; inequality. It wasn't so popular back when it would have benefited from the focus, during the unequal taking of education.

And so, we freshly focus on inequality, and start blaming the buildings, the books, the teachers; anyone except the unequal takers, their values, their behaviors. It's all about outcomes.

It is a democratically popular theory, to focus on outcomes. Sure enough. Is it an ethical theory?

Why support public education, if it has nothing to do with eventual outcomes? Are public schools just state institutions of babysitting for 12 years? And if education has any impact at all on outcomes, then, the current focus on inequality of outcomes is even more ridiculous than proposing a redistribution of grades in school. Those earning their A's should subsidize the grades of those earning the F's. Those earning the B's should subsidize those earning the D's. Those earning the C's are the Holy Average, the goal of those seeking to wipe out inequality.

If successful education leads to success, and inequality of success leads to inequality of outcomes, then inequality of education leads to inequality of outcomes. Redistributing the outcomes in units of '$' is nuttier than redistributing education outcomes in units of grades.

And yet that is what some of those "C" students can do -- maybe 1 out of the 30 -- those capable of at least counting votes, who grow tired at the thought of climbing hills and who instead look around that classroom of 30 and count heads, and realize that 28 votes is the path to power over the 2.

And so; is public education a tribal value because it results in a hyper-efficient Pareto process, where 30 students in a classroom effectively take their education, and in so doing, make life easier not only for themselves but for everybody both inside and outside the classroom, or, is public education a value because it emits the odd 2 out of 30 who will someday be ridden like public property ponies, or at least, easily bamboozled by the 1 out of 30 who will buy votes with empty promises of redistribution of grades and their outcomes?

The flaw, if the tribal value is anything like the latter, is that it is the 2 out of the 30 who are most capable of avoiding the clumsy tribal forks, when those clumsy tribal forks are devoid of anything but the ethics of the brute force of numbers. And yet, hardly any dodging at all is actually required, because the 27 are being pandered to by the 1 climbing over them who is counting heads and buying votes with hollow promises of nothing. In the resulting world of increasing disparity between the haves and have nots, where does the ethical blame fall? And until that is answered, the result, to me, looks just like social justice. So, as far as I am concerned, the tribe can take all the time in the world to figure this one out. Maybe in your lifetime. Maybe never.

regards,

Fred

Post 41

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 6:26am

Eva:

Politicians -- the 1 out of 30 -- focus on 'fixing' education by way of the buildings, books, electronic whiteboards, artificial surface athletic fields, auditoriums, computers in the classroom, etc., because that is what they can do--throw OPM at the 'system' with the goal of making it 'give' better education. Because what they can't do is make people 'take' their education.

The following, IMO, is key to the foundation of inequality: education is primarily taken, not given; it is at most well offered. Education has been well offered in this nation for decades, in spite of the instances of clumsy political indoctrination, it is still well able to offer education. This nation should and has made sure that education is well offered. Our focus on 'the system' as being the only source of failure in the process is itself crippling those we claim we want to help. We've beaten 'the system' to death. It is well beyond time to assign responsibility to the primary perps-- the unequal takers of education.

Not democratically popular. Well no shit.

regards,

Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 2/07, 6:28am)

Post 42

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 6:40am

Fred,

I'll give your student analogy to Pareto another look.

As such, Pareto means the ability of goods and services to clear the market with the greatest efficiency. from this pov, what's most 'moral' is simply the system which works best.

In brief, unbridled competition doesn't seem to work.

Well, okay, in high school there's a tendency to tech to the middle, regardless of where the 'middle' lies, to achieve a balance between 'optimal graduation rates and actually learning something, College, no; hence the shock to many students.

Lastly, yes, the movie was really stupid in many levels....

Eva

Post 43

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 6:52am

Eva:

The three tiered system of shared risk/reward that evolved as capitalism was the ethical response to this reality. Yet it is democratically popular to believe that inequality is purely the result of collusion and nefarious deeds.

Well, no shit that is democratically popular. And in caving in to that popularity(it is always easiest to run downhill), it has all but become a self-fulfilling belief.

We don't fix that by accelerating our shed risk models; we fix that by once again re-acquiring risk/reward and the education provided by its consequences.

And, that is something that will never be democratically accepted.

So what does that leave? The shed risk models will be pushed until the wheels fall off.

regards,

Fred

Post 44

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 7:32am

Fred,

Representatives of an elected democracy take a look to see how much risk in involved in investment and business decisions.

Your claim is that 'a fly by the seat of your pants' non-model model works best.

The reps then turn to economists and ask, 'is this true', and the economists respond, 'no'.

They augment this 'no' with historical data and examples as to how totally open markets cause disasters. A good example, as cited, is the history of 19-century american banking.

You cry 'foul', liberal/collectivist bias, whatever.

Whatever, indeed.

Eva

Post 45

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 9:52am

Eva,

Pareto means the ability of goods and services to clear the market with the greatest efficiency. from this pov, what's most 'moral' is simply the system which works best.

In brief, unbridled competition doesn't seem to work.

I notice that you put moral in quote marks. You don't believe that there is an objective moral take available?

I'd ask you "Moral, by what standard?" Your assumptions here are that a group of elites can centrally control people in ways that are better for them (in this discussion, in the area of economics and commerce). And a further assumption is that they will do so... as if history is littered with examples of those exercising great control (with or without majority acceptance) have provided good outcomes. And yet another assumption is that morality is measured by the most good for the most people without regard for any notion of individual rights. And a further assumption is that anyone is able to judge what is "good" for anyone, or any group, without a standard of value. And just how might that be derived apart for the concept of the individual's life and his/her enjoyment of it?

Actually the closest we've ever come to "unbridled competition" was during those years where we moved at a faster pace towards greater prosperity for more people than ever before in history. And those times where the elites have governed are - to the degree that they interfered with liberty - the times that more harm was done to more people than any other point in history.

You have taken the Progressives' version of history and the progressives' version of economics to heart. But none of that matters because until you grasp that it is possible to construct universal moral princples that derive from the individual's right to his/her own life, with that life as an end in itself, and that those principles will govern what each individual can do by right, versus only by permission, and that those principles will supercede any group priviliges or granted legal rights, then you will forever be stuck trying to understand the revised history, the political drive to have elites tweak the system, the impossiblility of reconciling majority to individual - and the gang rape metaphor will continue to be a source of annoyance.

Post 46

Friday, February 7, 2014 - 10:57am

Eva:

Representatives of an elected democracy take a look to see how much risk in involved in investment and business decisions.

Risk taken by whom? Borne by whom? Investments made by whom? Business decisions made by whom?

You are describing a representative elected pure democracy, not one limited by a constitution of liberty. In the former, we elect disinterested emperors and hand them scepters. In the latter, we elect state plumbers and hand them plungers.

I've been inartfully arguing for the benefits of non-shed risk models, in which the focus and education provided by exposure to risk is directly aimed at the risk takers. You are describing a model where disinterested third parties evaluate risk neither taken by them nor borne by them, as in, giving it the old college try, thank God its Friday, the weekend is here...

The same cancer is apparent in third party payer; the total lack of immediate commerce between service provider and client, replaced with an infinite ring-a-round-the-rosy of accountability missed. The socialization of everything is leading the tribe into a flabby cul de sac going nowhere.

When elected officials guess wrong with their taking a look at Solyndra, is there ever any discipline applied? Do they lose their job? Are they fired? Are they impeached? Does their compensation package take a hit? Do they continue to get a lifelong public pension? Who picks up the tab? Tomorrow, are they any wiser about their looks at? Under a model of free association, those who bear the cost and also gain from the education are those freely associated with the effort, including, customers, stockholders, and employees. Not taxpayers far over the horizon, lather, rinse, repeat. Under free association, a proper role of government is to police after instances of that free association commerce unwittingly showing up as forced association with others.

In your model, it is the role of government to bring about that forced association with unwilling others.

regards,

Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 2/07, 11:11am)

Post 47

Saturday, February 8, 2014 - 6:31pm

Steve,

re # 45,

Morality may be seen as having an objective basis that's grounded in biological preservation. To this end, ethics is seeing the world in ways that produce a favorable outcome for the two basic biological functions, procreation and metabolism.

This objectivity can be understood on many levels whose answers cross-cut and contradict each other.. For example, group cohesion, which is obvious for survival, can demand high risk for any particular individual that virtually assures his/her particular non-survival.

So it's not 'progressive' to seek to understand the collective dimension of ethics because it's right in one's face. To ignore this is in order to focus only upon the individual is not 'philosophical', rather, philosophy gone retarded.

Rand was somewhat of a genious to have developed 'a' philosophy of the individual at a time when collecticivism was all the rage. For the sake of argument, i'll simply say that she was simply trying to climb the mountain from the other side, as to seek a balanced redress, so to speak.

Therefore, because the biology of ethics is itself debatable, it would follow that objective ethics is a necessary componet in form only. In other words, if our means of 'best biological adaptives' disagree, we cannot be said to have established an objective basis with respect to content.

This is why the notion of 'objectively individualist ethics' is hopelessly foreshortened, at best. For example, is it 'objectively adaptive' to conform-- or to express oneself sincerely?

To this end, ethics might be better seen as a study as to how humans are rigged by nature to consider 'rightness' goodness' and 'justice' as ideas that flatly contradict biological survival. This, in any case, is what the Greeks designate as 'anthropon' versus anyer'. Only the later are capable of ethics.

So feel free, please, to rant away and call those with whom you disagree 'rapists of tribal mentality'. All you're really saying is that tribal customs are functionally adapt to increase the possibility of group survival. That means, ethically speaking in the most 'objective' way possible, taking everything from a dissident non-conformist is highly advisable both on the material and symbolic plane. Cannibalism is, of course, an option.

Welcome to anthropology 101!

Eva

(Edited by Matthews on 2/08, 6:41pm)

Post 48

Saturday, February 8, 2014 - 8:35pm

Eva,

Morality may be seen as having an objective basis that's grounded in biological preservation.

Right away there is the question of whose survival? The gene pattern, the individual, the biological family, the tribe or the species?

Morality may be seen as having an objective basis that's grounded in biological preservation. To this end, ethics is seeing the world in ways that produce a favorable outcome for the two basic biological functions, procreation and metabolism.

Biology is the place to start, because there is the constant alternative of death, and because life has specific requirements. From that point we can say if life is a value, then that which it requires is a value. But when you say that 'favorable' outcomes only apply to procreation and metabolism you have made restrictive assumptions that aren't required. You pulled them out of thin air and don't address the assumptions that they smuggle in.

What furthers the life of the ameboa is not going to be the same as what futhers the life of man. Each organism's nature will determine what is of universal value to them.

And when you say that procreation is a favorable outcome you have already decided that the standard of value is not the individual. By what reasoning was that done? When you chose the word 'favorable' what was the standard there? Favorable to whom?
-------------

For example, group cohesion, which is obvious for survival, can demand high risk for any particular individual that virtually assures his/her particular non-survival.

"...obvious for survival..." - Survival of who? The individual? The group? The species? Here we still have judgments being made but without specifying a standard. That statement implies that the survival of the group demands the sacrifice of the individual - it is already a moral code based upon an altruistic standard where the life of individual isn't the primary value and therefore can be sacrificed for the good of the group.
--------------

So it's not 'progressive' to seek to understand the collective dimension of ethics because it's right in one's face.

But it isn't. Unless you start by accepting the implied premise that the group is the designated beneficiary of morally required sacrifies by the individual. So far what you've done is start from an assumption that collectivism is the accepted premise. That might mean you've chosen to put it "right in one's face." But it isn't for those of us that want our premises to stand on reason rather than just empty assertions.
--------------

Therefore, because the biology of ethics is itself debatable, it would follow that objective ethics is a necessary componet in form only.

You say "therefore" but I haven't come along with your argument because it lacks foundation. The ethics you tied to biology is nothing like what Rand put forth, and yours started out as a group justification of using the individual as needed to further group needs of metabolism and procreation. So, it does not follow that objective ethics is a necessary component in form only.

Some things are necessary values, if life is your fundamental value. Like enough food, air and water to sustain yourself. But these values are not provided automatically, and you aren't born with the knowledge of how to acquire them. Our nature is such that we must learn what we need to gain these values. In a social context, we must have social conditions that we maintain that facilitate our pursuit of our goals. It is for the purpose of living that we must have a moral code and to understand those actions that will be right to attaining our values, we need a code of ethics.

--------------

In other words, if our means of 'best biological adaptives' disagree, we cannot be said to have established an objective basis with respect to content.

I'm not sure what you are saying. You'll have to unpack that sentence further.

---------------

This is why the notion of 'objectively individualist ethics' is hopelessly foreshortened, at best.

That is fine academic speak. I could label anything "hopelessly foreshortened" and without any objective meaning, sound like there was some intelligent reason to not disagree me.

----------------

For example, is it 'objectively adaptive' to conform-- or to express oneself sincerely?

You are still harkening back to your strawman argument of the only possible, but unfortunately foreshortened notion of a minimal ethics that somehow relates to group reproduction and metabolism. You've divorced the concepts of conformity and honest expression from both a context and from the individual - and from that point of view it isn't answerable. But only because it is tied to the strawman argument which will always deprive it of any context.

----------------

So feel free, please, to rant away and call those with whom you disagree 'rapists of tribal mentality'.

Really? That's your objective understanding of my arguments? Rants where I call anyone that disagrees with me a rapist with tribal mentality? Is that seriously what you think of my arguments? Wow! Either you are choosing to ocassionaly toss your intelligence out the window and write without it, or you toss truth out the window every now and then and write without that.

---------------

All you're really saying is that tribal customs are functionally adapt to increase the possibility of group survival.

No. I've never said that. And I wouldn't say that.
-----------------------------

We could start like this: Tell me something that you think is immoral, or unethical. And tell me why - give it a foundation.

Post 49

Saturday, February 8, 2014 - 9:37pm

Steve,

>>>whose survival? The gene pattern, the individual, the biological family, the tribe or the species<<<

Precisely my point: 'objective' ethics from what pov? If sacrificing you in warfare is adaptive, then objectively speaking the group ethic is justified.

My point, of course, is that there is no justification for saying ethics= me and what's objectively good for 'me' is 'ethical' other than you, I, or whomever get warm and fuzzy thoughts for feeling this way. In other words, declarations by fiat that ethics=what's good for an individual are objectively speaking, baseless.

That, again, is because what we know of objectivity is that it's subject- independent by definition. So what you're doing is bootlegging in a highly personalized perspective into something that by definition is more adequate to group survival and saying, 'Oh, I'm going to declare the value of the individual as an 'axiom'.'

>>>>'favorable' outcomes only apply to procreation and metabolism you have made restrictive assumptions that aren't required.<<<<

Uh, no, actually not. all bilogy is reductable to two these two life processes as stated.

>>>>That statement implies that the survival of the group demands the sacrifice of the individual - it is already a moral code based upon an altruistic standard where the life of individual isn't the primary value and therefore can be sacrificed for the good of the group.<<<

No, I'm not implying, I'm asserting. This is just the way societies see things. And without society, as Aristotle said, you cannot survive.

In other words, individualism is a matter of negotiation with society who knowingly holds the trump card. This is why it needs to be studied, as a sychologist, which is my project. If it were as easy as reading rand or listening to Neil Diamond wail, 'I am , said I', there wouldn't be a problem.

In other words, ethics as a guidepost to individualism are important precisely because the claim to an objective ethic favors the group.

Eva

Post 50

Sunday, February 9, 2014 - 8:59am

Eva,

A group cannot value - only individuals can do that. A group cannot think or demand, only individuals (together or separate). A group cannot be sacrified, only individuals. A group is nothing but a group of individuals - take away all the individuals and there is nothing left - empty set. A group is not a real thing, a material thing, a living thing, it is just a mental construct that we use when we are mentally associating individuals by some characteristic (e.g., all individuals in the town hall this evening would be a group - if more than one shows up.) The very word "group" in this context is a form of verbal short-hand for "group of individuals."

A group cannot have a purpose that isn't provided for it by individuals, and acted upon by individuals. Contrary to what you said, an individual can live without society - not as well, but it can be done. But society doesn't even exist without individuals. When people join together (and we'll assume that the joining is voluntary) they do so because they believe it is of value to do so. They have a purpose in joining.

Groups can't have a moral code, all it can have is one or more sets of moral codes as held by the individuals. It has no brain, no mind, no heart, no purpose, and no values apart from what the individuals bring as their own. There is NO group morality, only a group whose individuals all or most of whom have similar moral codes.

If biology were to bring with it a morality (which it can't), it would bring that morality to each individual - not to a group. But it doesn't. Our DNA is mechanistic and it builds an organism via embryology, and then maintains that structure over its life - mechanistically. We make a mistake to embue it with purpose that is like the human mind's concieved purpose. Nor does it it value. Nor does DNA choose to examine facts and pronounce the ethical rightness or wrongness of some human action. We owe our construction and physical maintenance to the mechanism of DNA, but they aren't the purposes or values anymore than the bricks of the court house could be justice.

When a group 'decides' to follow some policy (and it isn't the group that decides, but rather the individuals by some political or social understanding), they do so because they are forced to by other individuals, or because they decide it is right, or because they believe it is in their self-interest.

"Group" is much more of a modern myth than a reality. Sociology, political science, Marxist history, economics, and philosophy have all imbued "group" with properties that it doesn't have. They have all failed dismally in remembering that we are always talking about individuals and that the questions should always be, "How does being among other individuals where the other individuals exhibit X affect the individuals" - it is only the individuals who can react to the other individuals.... because, once again, there is no "group" as an entitiy - only individuals whose context for purposes of answering a given question are alone or associated with other individuals.

-------------------

Ethics is individual or it is a con game or pseudo-ethics because with no such entity as a group there certainly is no such thing as group ethics. That doesn't mean you can't have ethical issues about how individuals deal with other individuals - including those categorized by this or that group. But it is individual ethics because a group can't value or act - only individuals.

You said I was declaring the value of the individual life as an axion. Yes, that is exactly what I did. That is the starting point - the individual's life as his/her primary value. Do you deny that? You can't make such a declaration with anything else... because other things (groups, rocks, light from distant stars, etc.) don't have to have values that they choose and that they act to achieve in order to stay alive. To go from that declaration of a primary value for the individual into an objective code of ethics, an objective code of morality, you need those values that are common to all men (an understanding of human nature as it applies to this context). The individual values that are left over (not universal) are preferences. Those values that are picked up and taught and passed on to the next generation become part of the culture, social mores, etc. - but that only happens if the individuals take the actions that make it happen.

When you think about it, it is amazing that so many people are working so hard to deny that morality and ethics are individual or that they are objective. It is like people saying, "What in the world are you doing examining a single rock to determine it's mineral content? Everyone knows that the only possible association of mineral properties exist in groups of rocks and besides they are all claims of mineral properties are subjective anyway!"

And look at the nonsense of declaring that society 'knowingly' does this or does that. How does society "know" - does it have a wet, oxygen burning mass of tissue pulsing with neurons? The same people that one often finds denying that man has any volitional ability, or can really 'know' anything, or even has any such thing as mind (only neurons and electro-chemical impulses), are often the same people who grant society, or classes of people, or groups purposefulness, mindfulness, goals, values, and a greater moral status than individuals. Everything has been turned so upside down and inside out for so long and in so many different disciplines that it has come to seem like normal!

Post 51

Sunday, February 9, 2014 - 10:29am

Individualists form a society in the frontier. They establish a democracy. Majority vote for using capitalism=individually owned property & trade as political system.
Society in #1 flourishes. More children are born per parent generation after generation, population grows. Children are born with diversity of genetic/physical ability/potential.
Many more humans continue to be born. The land becomes fully claimed (owned).
Many more humans continue to be born. Individuals with lower marketable abilities are now unable to make a living that can sustain themselves in the free market, but they continue to survive through generosity of others more able. At this point the society has built up huge savings due to its wealth and success in trading with foriegn civilizations.
Many more individuals with lower marketable abilities continue to born... and at some point their population exceeds the population of people who's abilities are above the threshold of self sustainabilty. Democratic system of government: majority now vote for increased wealth redistribution (socialism).
Wealth is redistributed and savings from #4 are reduced until the society goes bankrupt. Socialism reducing incentives to be productive (deduced from game theory) accellerate this process.
As society votes for greater and greater wealth redistribution in order to sustain itself from the fewer remaining sources of individual savers and producers, the most productive and wealthy try to escape the society and look for the frontier.
If society doesn't reverse is course towards wealth redistribution away from capitalism, massive starvation and death results. If society does reverse its course then the huge population of poeple with lower marketable abilities will have to accept living significantly more impoverished lives. But its hard to predict what such a society would vote for. We've seen NAZI Germany, we've seen Soviet Russia, and we've seen Mao China.

The US is at stage #7. What is most likely to happen? With the people of the US decide to reverse course before its too late?

Post 52

Sunday, February 9, 2014 - 10:50am

Steve,

All you've said is that group decisions are, reductively, the decisions of individuals who speak on behalf of said group. Wow.

The is more or less the same as saying, that all of chemistry reduces itself to the physics of electrons and of nucleon interaction.

In both cases, socio-anthropology (with or without Marx) and chemistry present facts and causes relevant to their own level.

What you're presenting, then, is a reducto ad absurdam. No levels of relevancy exist for you other than what might fit into your a priori notion of denying the legitimacy of collective decisions as expressed through an elected individual. It's as if 15 million Germans males of army age decided as individuals, all within the space of six years, to invade other European nations.

Is this, seriously, really the best way of looking ay WW2? Well, of course, not. So as such, you're being hopelessly selective as to how you pin the epistemological tail on the reductivist donkey.

For the sake of argument, a great Scandanavian socilogist named 'Elster' has, indeed, spent his career demonstrating how 'society' does, indeed become reified beyond the scope of real people making real decisions on behalf of other real people.

He calls his approach 'Nuts and Bolts' , the name of his most famous book. And yes, he writes that a 'knowing' society is a misplaced metaphor--yet would not be ridiculed as absurd, however, as is your use of rape to describe taxation for public health.

You're belaboring the point that yes, individuals form a sense of ethics based upon their sense if identity as individuals. It's your claim that this is somewhow based upon nature that's patently false.

My whole foray into 'naturalist/objective ethics demonstrates that to speak in such terms is to speak cross-purposes between group and individual survival. So personally, I consider the entire notion of subject-independent (ie 'objective) ethics to be a contradiction in adjectivo, ergo nonsense.

Eva

Post 53

Sunday, February 9, 2014 - 9:39pm

Eva,

When you say things to me like, "as is your use of rape to describe taxation for public health," I lose so much respect for you. How many times do I have to say that a mandatory health care system shares with rape the property of being non-consensual. Seriously. If you can't grasp the difference between free and forced association then the make-believe world of group ethics is a good place for you.

----------------

You are granting the status of a being that makes ethical decisions to a group - not to the individuals - but to the group. And you accuse me of logical errors! I have never said that people don't form groups, or belong to groups, or that group structures don't exist (formal and informal, explicit and planned as well as ad hoc and implied) or that actions don't flow out of groups or that those actions can't be judged right or wrong - but the ways in which humans interact in goups that result in actions taken ARE all reducible to individual actions. Liability claims are often parsled out, shared among different parties. Blame in criminal activities are also attached to the individuals. And the responsibility for the attrocities of Nazi Germanies actions have been put on individuals - The key political players, the SS, the people that turned a blind eye to the Jews being rounded up, to the people who voted for Hitler... all individuals.

-----------------

You're belaboring the point that yes, individuals form a sense of ethics based upon their sense if identity as individuals. It's your claim that this is somewhow based upon nature that's patently false.

So you say. I don't find any of the objections you've made so far to have any substance or even meet the form of the kind of response that a thinker would need to take seriously. "...that's patently false." Wow, that's that the kind of overpowering, all-encompassing argument that leaves one breathless.
----------------

My whole foray into 'naturalist/objective ethics demonstrates that to speak in such terms is to speak cross-purposes between group and individual survival. So personally, I consider the entire notion of subject-independent (ie 'objective) ethics to be a contradiction in adjectivo, ergo nonsense.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the formal demonstration has ended. Stay tuned for the marching band. Your "whole foray" you say. Tell you what, Eva, my whole foray into discussions with you about ethics, and non-consensual acts like rape feels like it has come to a natural end brought about by diminishing returns.

Post 54

Monday, February 10, 2014 - 8:28am

Steve,

As I mentioned in another post/thread, 'collective ethic' is a heuristic dervied from the commonly used 'ethos' of the social sciences.

In other words, if you define 'ethics' as what individuals do, 'ethos' is the belief system of said individual's group. So you either say that ethics and ethos stand in contrast, or say that individual and group ethics stand in contrast. 'Not that hard.

I've offered you several explanations as to why individual ethics cannot stand on a naturalist platform; moreover, why nature favors ethos, err... group ethics over the individual.

Perhaps you might want to stick to this particular topic and respond accordingly...perhaps not.

Eva

Post 55

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 7:07am

As I mentioned in another post/thread, 'collective ethic' is a heuristic dervied from the commonly used 'ethos' of the social sciences.

A theological anecdote, appropriate for worship by the acolytes of the Religion of Social Scientology. So in the secular context of a free nation, governed by law consistent with the 1st Amendment, it is time to wake up and smell the religion, and make sure it isn't Progressively permeating the machinery of our free state. Religion is not restricted to God, Baby Jesus, the Ten Commandments, and a draft pick to be named later.

Durkheim's theologicial slight of hand: 'My new religion, based on the following definition of "S"ociety, is not a religion: why no, it is a 'science' which catagorizes what all competing religions do as religion/" In the clawimg human mess of peers leg lifting over other peers that is theologic politics, he ordained that up until his true religion (based on worship of the Tribe), that competing tribal religions up until the modern era were worshipping the wrong God totem; ancient man, according to Durkheim, had mistaken 'God' for God, when the true God was really the Tribe..."S"ociety. Wrong unseen magic spirit in the sky.

Read his Religious Formes. Here is the give away in his summary of Formes, where the 'still seminal' Duerkheim rolls his eyes into the back of his head and finally, somewhere, defined "S"ociety as only a True Believer could:

Society is not at all the illogical or a-logical, incoherent and fantastic being which has too often been considered. Quite on the contrary, the collective consciousness is the highest form of psychic life, since it is the consciousness of consciousness. Being placed outside of and above individual and local contingencies, it sees things only in their permanent and essential aspects, which it crystallizes into communicable ideas. At the same time that it sees from above, it sees farther; at every moment of time it embraces all known reality; that is why it alone can furnish the minds with the moulds which are applicable to the totality of things and which make it possible to think of them.

Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York, The Free Press, 1954), p. 444.

Sell it,brother Emil: because they're still buying it.

And if that is not enough to see where such deeply theological statements such as . 'collective ethic' is a heuristic dervied from the commonly used 'ethos' of the social sciences.

come from, there are these excerts from 'still seminal' Durkhein as well:

“If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion."
(Bellah, 1973, p. 191 [excerpt from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life])

"For we know today that a religion does not necessarily imply symbols and rites, properly speaking, or temples and priests. This whole exterior apparatus is only the superficial part. Essentially, it is nothing other than a body of collective beliefs and practices endowed with a certain authority."
(1973, p. 51 [excerpt from "Individualism and the Intellectuals"])

"...sacred things are simply collective ideals that have fixed themselves on material objects."
(1973, p. 159 [excerpt from "The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social Conditions"])

Bellah, Robert N. 1973.
Emile Durkheim: On Morality and Society, Selected Writings. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Isn't it remarkable? Nobody was fooled when they called "Christian Scientology" a science. But morph "Social Scientology" into Sociology, and suddenly people are seeing science in a room full of folks breathing through the soles of their feet, going on about the highest form of psychic life that sees all from above, and so on. It is laughable, but it worked where other forms of religious leglifting did not.

Yes, it is understandable why those of a certain bent -- uncontrollable fealty to their atavistic herd mentality/God genes-- would run headlong into the arms of this religion. But of what import is 'how many' did that in the context of a free, secular nation, when it comes to the peer to peer relationships of individuals living in freedom? Does this nation now suddenly, in modern times, support the concept of a majority view of religion imposed on every minority? If so, then fuck this nation with a chainsaw.

Now, please proceed along these lines of tribal worship, and see how it goes on a website named "Rebirth of Reason."

Fred

PS: I have more than once seen Durkheim referred to in Sociology texts as "still seminal." Seminal: containing or contributing the seeds of later development. So, how does one lose one's seminality? Is what is meant by 'still seminal' mean, 'until we throw him under the bus, as was necessary with Marx?'

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 2/18, 7:40am)

Post 56

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 9:30am

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/why-taxpayers-will-bail-out-rich-when-next-storm-hits-n25901

The latest example of our government's socialization of risk.

This is one example of what shed-risk looks like in action.

My favorite example was the picture with the following caption: The Naples, Fla., home of Robert A. Watson, at left, was moved in 2013 out of the highest-risk flood zone, while its neighbors continue to pay higher rates for flood insurance.

That is some selective risk-shedding.

None of that is possible without the government fat fingering risk-reward. Self government has no business getting involved in this. And yet it proceeds in full view.

Does capitalism get blamed for what a for-sale socialist government gets involved in? Please tell me this has something at all to do with democracy or majority rule.

regards,

Fred

Post 57

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 9:50am

Your banging on the door where the lights are on but nobody is home Fred, Eva is pretty good at regurgitation of her cherry picked facts that have been driven home by her lit department rhowever when it comes to induction to form concepts of her own in a well thought out logical system of thought...not so much as is evident in every post she makes.

What do I know though I am but a lowly fissile.

(Edited by Jules Troy on 2/18, 9:51am)

Post 58

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:53pm

I greatly prefer free association loving fissiles to forced association craving fusiles.

regards,

Fred

Post 59

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 12:24am