For the intellectuals of our group

[Wollfen]

I do study a bit of the philosophers and such of the late 19th and early 20th centuries a bit. I have been watching some YouTube videos on some of their works. If you are up to it, this video gives an insight into not just individuals around us but also collectively as a nation too when it comes to interacting with those around us. I hope some of you find it interesting and maybe even enlightening. It goes for 8 minutes.

 

[Turboomni]

Interesting ,,,so who can you trust,,who is true? Can we even trust ourselves?

 

[Jeff]

That is fascinating, terrifying, and timely. Thank you.

 

[1970FuryConv]

Although an 8-minute video, I think the key point is that we project our own problems, weaknesses, and evil on others. Rather than face the truth that we have no long-term evidence, we make a summary judgment of others, based on our experience of ourselves and how we ourselves think.

I agree that maturity is facing our own problems and taking full responsibility for our own actions, rather than projecting our problems on and then blaming others.

I am also grateful to Carl Jung for his ideas on behavioral psychology and synchronicity. He is part of a great leap forward from Freud's ideas.

 

[Big_John]

Excellent and interesting video.

I agree that maturity is facing our own problems and taking full responsibility for our own actions, rather than projecting our problems on and then blaming others.

Taking that thought to a much simplified and personal level, this video by Prager University and Adam Carolla gives some good advice on changing yourself for the better.

 

[Fratzog]

Although I'm not a student of philosophy Jung's projection of attributes concept has some appeal. I would suggest however a full awareness of this process is predicated on an understanding of the nature of truth without which we are unable to discern what negative traits are in the shadows and what is of positive value. However that understanding of truth can be a tough nut to crack. Two of my favourite modern thinkers on this topic Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson have differing views on what constitutes truth. My own bias is towards Sam's empirical definition although Jordan's holistic Darwinian approach has me thinking. The following two clips represent critiques of each position. Be prepared to do some mental gymnastics.

 

[Fury440]

I agree that maturity is facing our own problems and taking full responsibility for our own actions, rather than projecting our problems on and then blaming others.

This is so true. I've come to the conclusion our society is heading for a crash and a huge attitude adjustment. Our mantra seems to be, all problems are solved by making a new rule. The basic problem evolves to a society that does not believe anything is their direct responsibility since the latest "law" passes the buck to someone unknown.

When I was a kid, many moons ago, my life style was not shaped by silly petty laws, it was carefully molded by my elders using a series of "attitude adjustments". If I used bad language at home, my mother would simply explode and my attitude was quickly "adjusted". Today such language is everywhere and most of the "bad" stuff has been added to the dictionaries and used freely on TV.

In years gone by, people learned that sidewalks were for people and roads were for cars, trucks and horses. Potholes and such were a normal so if you traveled it was your responsibility to watch where you were going. Now the world is being divided into walk, bike and vehicle lanes all nicely marked with colored lines and universal symbols painted everywhere. Along the way most vertical surface have nice signs to inform users how the various laws should apply. People however assume everyone will read the signs and follow all the laws. It is common to see people with ear buds and their noses in their smart phones wandering more or less aimlessly walking into each other, poles, buildings, parked cars and live to tell about it. Others randomly J-walk and get smacked by fast moving cars being driven by drivers busy texting. Any survivors then demand more laws to protect their right to be idiots.

In my world, no one has the "right" to be an idiot! This is a life rule written by Mother Nature and she enforces it to the letter.

 

[1970FuryConv]

This is so true. I've come to the conclusion our society is heading for a crash and a huge attitude adjustment. Our mantra seems to be, all problems are solved by making a new rule. The basic problem evolves to a society that does not believe anything is their direct responsibility since the latest "law" passes the buck to someone unknown.

Thanks, Bill
One of the great problems in the US is giant rule-making bureaucracies. I cannot find anywhere in the US Constitution where it says: "Bureaucracy shall be the 4th branch of government, which makes rules that limit personal freedoms without approval from Congress or the President." Yet, liberals have set up such freedom-removing institutions "for our own good."
I agree with Henry David Thoreau: the government that governs best, governs least. We need to turn off bureaucracy and turn on our consciences, such that we starting thinking for ourselves again. Intrinsically, I believe every person has an ongoing conversation between mind and spirit (brain<>heart). This conversation helps us to do right by helping others and to not do wrong by hurting others. Too much reliance on rules is hurting proper function of conscience, with many resulting problems. Ben

 

[Jeff]

Thanks, Bill
One of the great problems in the US is giant rule-making bureaucracies. I cannot find anywhere in the US Constitution where it says: "Bureaucracy shall be the 4th branch of government, which makes rules that limit personal freedoms without approval from Congress or the President." Yet, liberals have set up such freedom-removing institutions "for our own good."
I agree with Henry David Thoreau: the government that governs best, governs least. We need to turn off bureaucracy and turn on our consciences, such that we starting thinking for ourselves again. Intrinsically, I believe every person has an ongoing conversation between mind and spirit (brain<>heart). This conversation helps us to do right by helping others and to not do wrong by hurting others. Too much reliance on rules is hurting proper function of conscience, with many resulting problems. Ben

I don't really get how this works. Are you saying that because we have rules for some situations that you are not sure what to in other situations where there is no rule to guide you?

 

[1970FuryConv]

I don't really get how this works. Are you saying that because we have rules for some situations that you are not sure what to in other situations where there is no rule to guide you?

No, I'm saying that in most situations, we don't need rules because we have our conscience to guide us. There's a limit to that, because we need laws to put criminals behind bars. Still, the government makes way too many rules because the government thinks that it's the government's job to replace our conscience and guide us. I was talking about how the government is redefining and reducing freedom with too many bureaucratic rules. Society is following suit thru home owner's associations.

 

[Jeff]

No, I'm saying that in most situations, we don't need rules because we have our conscience to guide us. There's a limit to that, because we need laws to put criminals behind bars. Still, the government makes way too many rules because the government thinks that it's the government's job to replace our conscience and guide us. I was talking about how the government is redefining and reducing freedom with too many bureaucratic rules. Society is following suit thru home owner's associations.

Thanks Ben. I was reacting to the last sentence of your earlier post about reliance on rules hurting proper function of conscience. That's the part I didn't understand.

I do understand that everyone has different tolerance levels for rules. It might be related to having different tolerance levels generally. I can't tolerate hearing sub-woofers in the middle of the night and my experience shows that I cannot rely on my neighbor's conscience not to use them in the middle of the night. Thus, I wouldn't mind a rule against sub-woofers in the middle of the night. The folks using the sub-woofers probably think that would be government overreach and a restriction on their freedom.

One other thought - each person has a conscience, but corporations do not. They are pretty much legally obligated to maximize profit for shareholders while following the law. The consciences of the individuals in the corporation don't really play a role. How would reliance on conscience deal with corporate behavior? (This doesn't apply to private companies, where the owner/operators are free to apply their own morals.)

Last, I don't think you should give a free pass to the President and Congress or to conservatives. Federal agencies are created and funded by Congress and run by the President. Every agency rule is authorized by a statute passed by Congress. The creation and growth of the federal bureaucracy has been a bi-partisan project. This is not to say that federal agencies don't have an incredible amount of power, but it is power granted by Congress.

It looks like we're way off track from projection, but I guess that's how conversations go in person too.

 

[1970FuryConv]

Hi Jeff, thanks for your reply
Regardless of who is to blame, I still think there are way too many rules, at all levels of government. I believe that society ran better when there was a lot less rules and a lot less government. Under that circumstance, people did use their conscience as their guide, with amazing results. For instance, the founding fathers, managed to put together the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution without any bureaucracy.

Some examples of too many rules:
1 The NHTSA published documents saying that children should be in car seats until age 8. I am a parent and I think it should be my decision, according to my conscience, when my child comes out of a car seat. My wife, a long time ago, actually had a cop pull her and ask her questions on how old our child was who was sitting in the back seat with a seat belt on. I believe that is none of his business. I don’t believe it’s a judge’s business, a police officer’s business, or bureaucrat’s business when I take my child out of a car seat and put the child solely in a seatbelt. None of them provide for my children, either shelter or food or clothing or love or anything else. In my opinion, these bureaucrats are the same type of people who regulate what cars and trucks you can have in your yard and what you can do with your house and how high your fences can be and whether you can have statues or a flagpole or whatever. They are limiters of freedom to the detriment of society.
2 Another problem is that judges don’t get to use their conscience. For instance there are lawyers who file spurious patent lawsuits to exploit gaps in people’s patents and leech money out of legitimate companies. Because of too many rules, judges can’t throw out the lawsuits as spurious and a waste of the court’s time, but instead must award large monetary penalties.
3 Another bigger example is the US tax code. The last time I checked, which was a few years ago, it was already over 10,000 pages. Who knows what’s in it? So people have to waste money hiring accountants to do their taxes because their government (a supposed public servant) with an abundance of rules, has made it too complicated for the people to do their own taxes. IRS bureaucrats are empowered to enforce all these rule.
4 According to Forbes magazine, September 13, 2016, page 44, federal regulation has grown 1700% since 1950. This study they quoted, by a group called McLaughlin and Williams, stated that there is a book called Code Of Federal Regulations. (not code of federal laws) The group claimed that 1 million of these regulations are either duplicative, have unintended consequences, or perform poorly. Regardless of how they made their analysis, the fact that there are millions of bureaucratic regulations in such a book makes me think that bureaucracy in the US has become too powerful.

I still think that whether running a company or being a parent or being a friend or in whatever role, humans will become more mature when they use their conscience to determine right and wrong, rather than being hemmed in by millions of regulations. If humans were maturely using their conscience, they would not be projecting their behaviors on others, or blaming others for their own actions. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Best regards to a fellow C-Body man, Ben

 

[Fratzog]

I believe that society ran better when there was a lot less rules and a lot less government. Under that circumstance, people did use their conscience as their guide, with amazing results.

You are addressing an issue that routinely gets overlooked by the left in their relentless drive to create a nanny state. We humans have evolved the ability to interact cooperatively and is one of the big reasons we now dominate all other life forms on earth. In this short clip Jordan Peterson discusses what he calls the universal ethic.

 

[1970FuryConv]

Hi Fratzog
I watched Jordan’s video. It was an excellent 4 minutes. Jordan offered $100 to a person, with the only condition being that the person share part of it with someone else. This was a deal offered in complete freedom and without any government regulation. The question for his discussion is: where did the generosity come from?

I believe that immaturity of conscience comes about when people are so hemmed in with regulations that they never have a chance to think for themselves, much less think to act right toward others, including giving to others.

OTOH, I think that maturity of conscience comes when people have the freedom to think and within that freedom to develop cooperation with other humans. I think this is true whether we’re talking about capitalism or philanthropy. Therefore, government is not a nanny state, but a necessary evil that needs to be limited to the utmost, in order that people have freedom to develop and grow and learn to cooperate. In this way, their conscience develops, such that they learn better and better how to act in right ways as they cooperate.

There will always need to be a framework of laws, because of the minority of humans who criminally act against the best interests of others. Still, I believe within that framework, freedom must be maximized to give cooperation and conscience the best chance to develop.

 

[Fratzog]

government is not a nanny state, but a necessary evil that needs to be limited to the utmost,

Going back to Jung's concept of the shadow, the sad truth is the majority of people are unable to reconcile the duality of their nature so that I would suggest that government's necessary role is to restrain the negative elements of human nature. We can minimise this role only through developing our capacity to think objectively and critically thereby reducing the need for government intervention. I suspect however the best we can hope for is efficiently restraining the shadow, we can never eliminate it so government will have an ongoing role.

 

[Jeff]

I believe that immaturity of conscience comes about when people are so hemmed in with regulations that they never have a chance to think for themselves, much less think to act right toward others, including giving to others.

Kudos to Fratzog for tying this back to Jung! I apologize in advance for moving it away again.

I asked earlier about the assertion that the existence of federal rules somehow inhibits the development of the conscience. Ben seemed to back off but brought it up again. I don't understand it or buy it, but am willing to be convinced.

I do agree that within a family, it can be harmful to put too many rules or too much structure on children because they need to learn to make judgments and decisions on their own. But I don't think the existence of millions or even billions of pages of federal regulations has the slightest impact on the development of my kid's conscience or my own.

We all have a different opinion on how much federal regulation there should be. There are some good reasons to have less, and it is fine to just want less as a general concept. But the theory that federal regulations inhibit the formation of conscience feels like a rationalization for a personal opinion. It elevates a personal opinion into a noble cause.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but it almost seems like something ginned up by an industry group to justify less regulation. The argument that they should be able to put more waste in a river to increase profits doesn't get very far, but the argument that federal rules destroys freedom has some legs. But it doesn't mean it is true. Again, how would it even work? Federal rules slow down the economy, cost jobs, and limit our ability to do whatever we want, but how do they inhibit the development of our conscience?

I also think it is important to properly assign blame. If this is a real problem, then the only way to address it is to identify the source of the problem and make changes. It doesn't do any good to blame liberals or federal bureaucrats if the federal bureaucrats are merely implementing laws that Congress (under both parties) has passed and under Presidential supervision. In the example given above about child-safety seats, it is most likely that the federal agency adopted guidelines or recommendations (not rules) about seats after Congress directed it to do so, and that your state legislature then made a law about it, and the cop that pulled your wife over was implementing that state law. If you hate that law, it seems like you should go after your state lawmakers and not liberal federal bureaucrats.

Regarding cooperation, isn't the formation of governments, from homeowner associations up to the federal level, a prime example of cooperation? It is people getting together with different points of view and collaborating to reach mutually agreeable solutions.

Now back to repairing my wiper reservoir bottle! Cheers.

 

[Fratzog]

Regarding cooperation, isn't the formation of governments, from homeowner associations up to the federal level, a prime example of cooperation? It is people getting together with different points of view and collaborating to reach mutually agreeable solutions.

I'd agree generally however public organisations don't have the same market forces that make them accountable directly to their customers. This can lead to government bureaucracy becoming bloated and disconnected.

 

[1970FuryConv]

LOL and scary