You are the stars

[Eric the Green]

(07-29-2016, 03:36 PM)taramarie Wrote: There have been many different ideals i have heard from 40s boomers. Always 40s. They seem to be the most idealistic. But i will give you one example. One who was born '49 from America was a communist. He was getting a hell of a lot of hate from others. So i pulled them off him, let him speak then i asked him how he thinks this will become reality when clearly the majority of people in his society are against communism. He had nothing. He just kept saying oh wouldn't it be nice to live in a society like that? Pipe dream is all that it is. I said to make this reality the majority have to be in favour of such a society existing as they have to live in it. If the majority are against it it will not happen. The same applies to other ideals and it is wise to take note of how the majority feels about other ideals that boomers stand for because it is the younger generations (xer and us millies) who will be shaping it. If xers dismiss boomers for hypocrisy they evidently saw in their elders and us millies have been only getting this news 2nd hand from that era as we were not alive at the time how do those 40s idealistic boomers figure we will settle on one ideal and shape society around that ideal? I did not say all boomers were dying for their ideals. I was referring to the cultists at the time. Galen mentioned several in particular.

As I said, though, Marxists and communists are rare among our generation. Galen thinks every liberal is a communist; a common ploy by American right-wingers. What Galen mentioned is irrelevant. Jonestown had nothing to do with alternative religion or spirituality.

I raise caution about the idea that "I said to make this reality the majority have to be in favour of such a society existing as they have to live in it. If the majority are against it it will not happen. The same applies to other ideals and it is wise to take note of how the majority feels about other ideals that boomers stand for because it is the younger generations (xer and us millies) who will be shaping it." For one thing, the majority does not shape opinion; not all things are decided by votes, and a minority takes the lead in shaping opinion. Idealists always must do that. The creative minority creates culture and society. And young people get older real fast, and become more conservative. We need people of all ages to create the world. All ages have plenty to learn, and we can all be young again and learn.

Quote:"The ideals of the Enlightenment were about liberating people and creating progress"

Then why is it younger generations are not liberated? (regarding job opportunity, affordable housing, massive student debt if we want to live our dream only to find lack of jobs in many departments, and saddled with the debt that boomer leaders gathered for the country to lump it on younger generations to fix while they go into retirement....sometimes we also have to fork over for that too as some have not prepared for their retirement. My mother included (who also loves her credit cards too much....guess who has to fix that on top of my student debt, fact i have to live with her to feed her so i cannot move out....not that i would be able to afford to anyway. Thanks boomer leaders for the lack of job opportunities and the lack of affordable housing!) So grateful for the progress!

I already said my piece about beer above in an earlier post. You should try different types. On the rare occurrence that i drink i choose fruity tasting ones. Ever hear of craft beer?

Boomer leaders were not the only ones who have stalled progress; we can thank GI Ronald Reagan for most of that. He started piling up the debt and shaping society to benefit only the 1%. Those who blame boomers for trickle-down economics don't know what they're talking about. We supported Reagan the least. Those who fail to blame trickle-down Reaganomics for our lack of progress don't know what they're talking about either.

But none of that has to do with the Enlightenment 250 years ago. That is just the movement people value the most in "Western Civilization." The libertarians like Galen just distort it, and use it to persuade us that we must look only to "The West" for our ideas and ideals, and to say that it supports their proposals to abolish government and laws and to allow the strong to abuse the weak in our society.

So they denounce movements and philosophies that help us to see beyond western individualism as denying "western civilization." But we need to see beyond individualism. Galen does not; and his misguided critique of me, and boomers, and philosophies like those of Alan Watts, stems from his unwillingness to see the obvious point that we are not separate individuals but, as you say, part of Nature, and part of the greater reality. That is the point I'm making; not that we don't need more progress today beyond what the older generations of today have achieved.