Controversial Political Opinions

[JasonBlack]

(06-03-2022, 04:42 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good points. I don't know if I would have adhered to them, though, or else in fact I didn't, because I myself did not see having a father or even a mother as that important to my own upbringing. My parents were happily married, but I was not happily tied to them or to my siblings. So from my point of view, "family" seems less important to me than it does to many others. And I did not want to do my "duty" and do service work in my early 20s, because to me then, my education and my participation (such as it was) in the outstanding youth culture of that time and in the activism of those times was more valuable to me than "doing my duty," and I didn't think indeed that we are here to "do your duty", but to "live our best life". But that is how I felt then, and I understand other viewpoints. If I were 20 years old today, and saw the crappy youth culture and the cost and trends in education today, I might well choose to join the Peace Corps or something, and I admire those who do this.

It is important not to have children if your own behavior or situation will affect them badly. I didn't. Being children of an unhappy marriage may be even worse than being without a parent, especially if that parent soon finds a better marriage mate who is willing to provide and care for and love their step-child. So one-size-fits-all moral pronouncements don't work too well. Morality is based on the golden rule, not on specific duty or institution requirements. In our age, people are discovering that they can find the lifestyle that works best for them, and determine their own ethics, not just obey what family or society requires them to do as a duty. And living a life of duty is not living a genuine or authentic life. A real life is centered in the heart chakra. But that then imposes on them the need to choose one's course of life wisely. That may not always be so easy. So that's why more-conservative or red-state/county people might choose instead to obey social and authoritarian dictates. And then, of course, to knock and rail against those who choose not to do that. Our level of social evolution feeds the culture wars.

I think you can be forgiven for not having a sense of duty in your early 20s. Almost no one really understands it at that age, including me. For people who have to come to their own conclusions (rather than people who just naturally follow orders, although society needs some of these too), the concept of "duty" doesn't make sense until they have something to protect or be responsible which they care about. For example, I think it's less useful to think in terms of "virginity" and more useful to think in terms of "does this person have the potential to be a supportive wife, or simply a person I can have a bit of fun with?". The former inspires men to be dutiful, the latter does not.

Quote:In our age, people are discovering that they can find the lifestyle that works best for them, and determine their own ethics, not just obey what family or society requires them to do as a duty

I guess to those people, I would ask "how is that working for you?" imo, the relevance of "duty" to the conversation of dating is less "who do you want to be with?" or "what conventional/unconventional roles do you want?" and more "do you actually have the patience, discipline and communication skills to make things last when you do find someone you're compatible with?". 

On a collective level, the question of "how is that working for you?" is still relevant, and it's even easier to answer: about as poorly as could possibly be expected. Sure, there are a lot of economic problems that are out of most people's direct control, and this is going to take its toll on mental health but we can and must control how we manage our most important relationships, both platonic and romantic. Too much "follow your passion" has led to a culture of lonely, unfulfilled and, quite frankly, mentally ill swings of serial monogamy. It turns out that most people have a tendency to choose people who are very bad for them, whether it's men being attracted to women with borderline personality traits or women being attracted to bad boy, sociopathic rebels (there is even a body of evidence that show that men find sex with "crazy" women more satisfying, and these are double blind, so the guy doesn't know he choosing a girl like this). 

As a society, we talk a lot about mental health issues, but frankly, most of what we encourage as a solution to such problems is just doubling down on what caused them in the first place. Decades of research have shown us the brutal effects that fatherlessness has on young boys, the positive effects of stable monogamous relationships on mental and physical health, the significantly higher happiness ratings of people who exhibit the combination of patience and assertiveness to work through nasty relationship problems, etc. 

Sorry, but...the undeniable truth is that American society needs a lot more work when it comes to doing your duty. Rising Civic generations begin taking the helm during 4th turnings for a reason. After 2/3 decades of only knowing shit not working, even more individualistic people start to think "ya know, maybe we should...actually develop some rules to follow".