Controversial Political Opinions

[pbrower2a]

(06-17-2022, 09:51 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(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.

People in their twenties have needs, and survival needs come before latching onto permanent roles in adult life. Many of the jobs of twenty-something adults are well suited, due to low pay and little security, to those who can still sponge off middle-aged parents faring far better than they. At one time working-class kids quickly went into trades with predictable career ladders or took factory jobs that at the least "were a living". Retail clerking and food-service work have never pretended to be "a living". As factory jobs disappeared,  kids from blue-collar families saw such jobs as appeared as offering no long-term stake in the overall economy. 

It is worth remembering that the factory also created its share of white-collar work that college grads could latch onto. Employers had their expectations, but new grads could fit those. At one point, college grads were told "do not do factory work, but go ahead and work in manufacturing" because there are plenty of jobs in manufacturing (accounting, marketing, engineering, research) that do not require one to get one's hands dirty or break a sweat. 

In one's twenties one may have little obvious stake in the economic system (which may explain why young adults had little use for the Republican Party even before Trump made a mess on 1/6/21) and may still be sorting out what they want in family life because their incomes do not support it. "Twelve in one room in A-may-REE-caw!" is no longer an expectation and fear solely of Puerto Ricans in West Side Story, new movie version or old. If economic conditions create the reality of "twelve in one room in A-may-REE-caw!", then such is hardly good for family life.

I think I know Millennial expectations well. They demand no Voyage to the Interior as we Boomers wanted. If economic conditions allow a solid family life without destitution, then such is fine. They want solid pay but neither crony capitalism nor monopolistic gouging.  They have lowered expectations for formal education in that they expect it to lead to a career without the concern for expanding one's intellectual universe or becoming a better person. (The original purpose of the medieval university was to improve the student, which is a good thing for us all and worthy of a cost largely passed onto us all. Obviously most college grads today are not going to become feudal lords or hierarchs in the church, but it is clearly best that those who are to become the administrative and commercial leaders as well as the school teachers and clergy not become rogues.  We need as leaders people who recognize that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"; for people unable to find anything else in life but who make above-average income, cocaine might be a temptation. 

Yes, we must improve ourselves or keep our standards high if they were already there. Good bosses are well worth subsidized education that might result from taxes paid by people completely unsuited to the intellectual rigors of college.  

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".

We still have big problems. One is that our institutions are tailor-made for advancement by pathological narcissists good at game-playing but horrible in developing harmony within the institutions that they lead. Ordering people about is how one runs a plantation with plenty of slaves or a concentration camp. Again, the appropriate but old and undervalued purpose of undergraduate education is the improvement of the persons who will become the cultural, commercial, administrative, and technical leaders. 

We have put too much emphasis on the MBA programs and too little on developing people who can make personal sacrifices of economic advantage on moral grounds. Treating people badly? Mafia-like groups and totalitarian regimes are highly adept at that. Who wants a dystopia? Privileges of being treated a little better than the thralls maybe attractive once things are hopeless in an order that melds the worst of capitalist plutocracy and Stalinist or fascist command-and-control? Maybe we need to forestall such a possibility.       

Ethical failure creates more trouble than does a lack of creativity or technological prowess. 

Following one's passion is one potential way to bliss... if one is really, really good. Symphony orchestras hire more string players than do the pro sports teams. Sure, a string player makes much less as an employee of the Detroit Symphony than a regular for the Detroit Tigers, Lions, Pistons, and Red Wings combined... but there are 70-year-old violinists, cellists, and violists with great symphony orchestras. Most pro sport careers never get a real start, and those that do are typically over by age 32. 

Many will never achieve their passion... but maybe they will do well enough as traveling salesmen. Life is compromises, and some are worthy. 

Back to education. I remember when the ethos "Do what thou wilt" (Aleister Crowley) was in vogue. That means acting without concern for the well-being of other., looking for ephemeral (if costly and ultimately self-destructive) bliss instead of saving and planning, and having exploitative relationships if any, was in vogue. Nothing -- not education or economic reality -- stopped it for some. That explains much of the MBA and corporate-raider culture. Considering the mess that is our Multiversity as a norm, maybe we need to abandon the educational smorgasbord and revert of the Great Books approach. That's not to say that we need use the same Great Books from the old pattern (Confucius was not part of the Great Books, but in view of the success of Chinese-Americans he might be a good inclusion; you know how essential I consider Orwell) so that we can see what is wrong with political deceit. OK, science and mathematics can't well fit the Great Books approach. In view of cinema shaping minds, and not all for ill, maybe we need to look at the Golden Age of American cinema (and some others) from a Great Books approach. I see a connection between The Divine Comedy and Casablanca. 

Not everybody is college material, and many who aren't college material don't go to college. I can see college being more heavily subsidized if people see more control of the result -- people more likely to be mentors than exploiters, people worthy of shared conversations, and better leaders of local communities. We need local journalists willing to expose garbage ideas (including demagoguery, totalitarianism, and crank theories) for what they are. We need people who recognize that being a small-town clergyman is one way to improve life for a few hundred people -- you know, visiting the infirm in hospitals and nursing homes -- is a good thing to do.