Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-25-2016, 11:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: What is "working in the world," though? What works is not just what puts out a working car or toaster, or even the best economic numbers. Working is what creates fulfillment and satisfaction. A good ethical or metaphysical worldview works better in those respects than a poor one.

Shallow as I used it just refers to whether the metaphysics on which the worldview is based has been examined. All worldviews are metaphysical, which means based on some basic axioms or truths. A "political" world view is unlikely to be one in which its metaphysics has been examined. Supply side or trickle-down, free-market economics is based on a metaphysics that says humans are competing individuals. But the examination of those concepts doesn't go much further than that. So that means it's "shallow." So is a "worldview" that says humans are members of struggling classes or races. Etc. I feel that you already know this obvious fact, but would rather have the argument. Well, I'll go along, for the moment....

I fear 'what is working in the world' depends on one's world view. For you, a metaphysical world view with a life examined using certain tools and methods is necessary. For someone else, economic security can be a dominant concern. Production of cars or toasters would seem far more important than meditating upon one's navel. You might come across as an aging California hippie who has used too many mind altering substances, totally out of it and irrelevant. A pay check. Getting the kids through college. That's what life is about.

When you say 'all worldviews are metaphysical' you are speaking from the perspective of a metaphysical world view. You can sincerely believe it. I doubt you can conceive it as being any other way, you are so absolutely rigidly stuck in your own perspective. I suppose you could make it so by definition if you claim world views are metaphysical constructs. Still, in the sense where I'm describing world views as being dominated by science, religion, politics, philosophy, or some other way of understanding the world, there are large bunches of people whose dominant ways of looking at the world are not broad category philosophy, narrower category metaphysical. There are lots of people whose sense of satisfaction and place in the world is far more defined by whether their football team is winning than by reading Aristotle or meditating on navels.

I hate to tell you, Eric, but you aren't particularly normal. Classic is also intensely dedicated to an extreme partisan position, but I'm feeling he's part of or on the edges of a very large number of people coming from more or less the same place. Your perspective, if not unique, would be very rare. I do get frustrated by extreme conservatives telling me how all liberals think, and by implication telling me how I think. I would not assume that other people think like you and are trying to satisfy the same goals you are pursuing and won't be satisfied if they don't achieve the same goals you seek.

I mean, it isn't important whether one has meditated today or not today. I haven't meditated for a long time. Haven't missed it. The important question is whether Tom Brady will be ready to go come Week 5. Go Patriots! Well, not really, but one's values define the goals one seeks, what gives one satisfaction. Values are diverse. One absolutely cannot assume that everyone pursues the same goals, that what makes one individual satisfied will please everyone else.