From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 21:53:43 BST
Hi Platt,
>I'm guessing, but maybe you're trying to say things were better before
>the Hippies of the 60's made it cool to have indiscrimate sex and shoot
>up on drugs.
Before they (really it was the beats like Ginsburg and Kerouac) made it cool
to disparage morality as a repressive drag that heroic people ignore. I
looked up "Kerouac" on m-w.com to check my spelling, he's described as
writing in a "non-conformist style" - exactly! That "you should do what you
shouldn't do" is what I am opposed to, as it is an obvious contradiction.
Being a non-conformist just because conformity is seen as bad is what I am
opposed to. I just want to affirm the connection between what we should do
(what most would probably do) and what we should do (what we ought to do).
To admit the empirical truth about what we should do instead of trying to
construct an elaborate lie to exempt ourselves from morals we don't like.
Should means should.)
>Maybe this is an example of the newer and better morality that on one
>hand you disparage, on the other hand endorse. The idea that whatever
>most people do in Zimbabwe is moral in Zimbabwe is the new moral
>relativism and equivalency being taught in schools and colleges today in
>the name of diversity, tolerance and political correctness. If the people
>in Mascatchooan throw every third baby girl into a bonfire as a cultural
>rite, there's nothing wrong with that. Who are we to tell them that it's
>wrong? We must tolerate the customs of other cultures and celebrate
>the diversity of life. Those values are much higher than what happens to
>individual human beings within those cultures.
>
>Swallowing such a line of malarkey is the road to hell on earth. If that's
>the "new and better" morality that bothers you, I'm with you all the way.
I would not tolerate those customs if anyone tried to introduce them into my
own, I would say it is wrong and you should conform to the culture of the
time and place you live in. Likewise, if I were a Zimbabwean, I would not
tolerate someone from America practicing their cultural imperialism on my
culture, or perhaps I would, if I decided I'd rather have a life like
americans have in the movies.
It's funny you say that I 'on the one hand disparage, on the other hand
endorse' the new and better, because it seems like you are the one with a
hand in each camp. You don't offer a way of separating your "new and
better" from the hippies version, except to say that your "new and better"
is better than theirs is, is "more dynamic" or "intellectual" or "free" or
something. They feel theirs is pretty intellectual and free too. I do
offer a way, which is to let the patterns of culture do the 'newing and the
bettering' while firmly and absolutely maintaining that you should do what
you should do, that morality should be respected. It's not a contradiction
as you seem to believe, it is more like a system of internal checks and
balances. We don't need to explicitly say that everything stinks and should
be cleared of debris, dusted off and scrutinized, and then thrown out unless
it somehow is able to justify itself, in order for things to improve, we can
say that things are wonderful and watch things improve organically, as they
always have.
> > What are you proposing as an
> > alternative to both Reason and God, exactly? Atheistic Unreason?
>
>No. Aesthetics and DQ.
Well, Platt, you know what your faith in Aesthetics and DQ is like...
Aesthetics (and conceptions of what is DQ) are determined. There is a
reason why a person feels something is aesthetically beautiful or good, and
it is based on the very deep cultural education/species memory that they are
born with and into. Call it innate, that's fine, but I know where
innateness comes from. If we disparage SQ enough, we can damage the
innateness of aesthetics to the point where it is meaningless, we all will
just randomly find different things beautiful because there will not be a
reason for anything to be beautiful. We'll just throw out the old paintings
in the musty museums, because there is no point in anyone ever looking at a
Rembrandt or a Klee again, education is meaningless, aesthetics is innate
and not learned by seeing what the culture has decided is aesthetic.
> > I agree with that, but you know what? I think it shows an innate
> > appreciation of static patterns that relate to other patterns
>harmoniously,
> > or according to static patterns that define harmony. And I think that
> > innateness is also a constituent static pattern of human beings.
>
>I think you have something there. Responses to DQ today emanate
>from the combination of static patterns that make up in human beings. If
>DQ created the world it makes sense that DQ created patterns in the
>world that would recognize itself.
If SQ directed the way that DQ created the world it makes sense that DQ
would create a world that would recognize itself.
You know that passage in Lila where he says something to the effect of "but
did anyone ever consider that evolution isn't going toward something, but
away from something?" It was probably intended, and is definitely
interpreted by DQer's, to imply "away from SQ", but think about it: it isn't
running away from SQ (why bother, since it could never escape it?), but
forward in the direction has, since the beginning, said is forward.
Innateness is found in existing patterns, it isn't disembodied.
>I wouldn't condemn anyone to reading original texts written by
>philosophers except for a few moderns like Pirsig who take pains to
>make their texts readable. My reference is from Will Durant's "The Story
>of Philosophy" where in writing about Schopenhauer's ideas he says,
>"This deliverance of knowledge from servitude to the will, this forgetting
>of the individual self and its material interest, this elevation of the
>mind
>to the will-less contemplation of truth, is the function of art."
Yeah, I think it is a pretension of mine to think I have to have the
original authors on my shelf. That particular quote doesn't say much to
contradict determinsism, but thanks for the permission to read secondary
sources anyway. (I really recommend Jonathan Edwards again on free will and
beauty, Freedom of The Will is quite readable, and there are also lots of
great interpreters out there. James Carse's book is excellent, and the Lee
book especially for it's relation to MoQ's dynamic elements:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691073252/qid=1051733289/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/102-3916440-4696936?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
>A "self-enlarging static pattern?" What? No cause? I thought you were
>a determinist. :-)
Every determinist comes up against the first cause, that's why it has to be
somehow contained in its own essence. Expectation is what I have come up
with as the essence. AKA, Morality and the Word, like MoQ and Christianity.
I like expectation because it softens those loaded words while making
explicit the transfer of the power of creation to the observer, bringing it
up to date with modern physics like John Wheeler's participatory universe.
(Jesus was explicit about this also, he called it Faith that creates the
fishes in the nets).
>Have you been swayed against your will by advertising? I give you more
>credit than that. :-)
My will is swayed all the time, and I do what it has me do willingly. If it
wasn't swayed by one ad, it was because it was swayed by something else that
was a stronger motive. Cumulatively, advertisments have an effect beyond
just getting me to buy that specific product or visit that store, they also
educate me about the cultural mores and build up a vocabulary of consumerism
and progress that overpower more traditional motives like literature and
religion.
> > If you think something is moral or cultural, then doing it probably
> > benefits culture and morality.
>
>Like Saddam Hussein? I don't think so.
Don't understand
>You, as a free individual, can turn to whoever you want for moral advice.
>That's what I meant by a free market.
And I can advocate that others live by certain standards, even standards
that I may have difficulty living by myself. The more difficulty I have,
the more important it is for me that others maintain the standards.
>But, those who commit crimes
>are moral transgressors and should be pointed out, punished and in
>some cases, jailed--all within a judicial system based on a constitution
>that protects the individual's human, i.e., intellectual rights, such as
>trial
>by jury.
Jail is to get people that commit crimes off the street, and to provide a
motive to not commit crimes stronger than the motive to commit them. I'm
talking more about Clinton's type of crime, which wasn't really a crime (it
wasn't adultery, which requires intercourse). I felt he did the right thing
lying about it. It was wrong to put it in the spotlight where it suggested
that everyone is having oral sex these days. (My feeling is that Clinton
did it purposely though, in order to promote sodomy and get people to start
mocking the idea that sodomy is not sex. Sodomy is not sex, he really did
not have sex with that woman.)
>I agree. Let's get rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's
>draining lower income people (who don't pay income taxes). By taking
>some of the money they would get by eliminating those taxes and
>putting it into private insurance and savings plans, they'll do a lot
>better
>in the long run. Being dependent on government for a handout is not the
>way to freedom, either economic or political.
Yes, I agree, especially about Medicare and Medicaid. Universal Health Care
really bothers me, as does the stepping stone of "prescription drug coverage
for seniors", which is nothing but another huge blank check to the the drug
companies. AIDS funding is also a huge blank check to the drug companies,
ninety percent of which went to DNA research for genetic engineering.
Johnny (whose retirement age is exactly when social security is predicted to
run out)
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