Donald Trump and Dictatorial Taste

[Eric the Green]

(07-11-2022, 04:03 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(07-10-2022, 08:07 AM)David Horn Wrote: I guess it's time to pitch The WEIRDest People in the World, How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich.  Henrich is an anthropologist of some renown, and wrote this book after collaborating on several cross-disciple papers with fellow Harvard faculty members.   
The book is a weighty read, and the data are numerous and varied, but the essense of the book is the postive but totally inadvertant effect the Roman Catholic Curch had on Western society by purposely destroying the family/tribal model over roughly 10 centuries.  In short, lack of focus on family and tribe made collaborative efforts with strangers more likely and far more profitable.

Christianity has a long and proud history of fostering cooperation and fostering good relations between otherwise unrelated groups (of course, it also has a long and not-so-proud history of being misused in abetting all manner of more "worldly" agenda, to put it mildly, but that's another discussion).

Alas, being tribalist in the sense of looking out for one's family does not have to mean they are one' sole concern, only that they are one's first concern. Tbh, I think the world would be better off if about 80% of people focused primarily on their own immediate families. Prioritizing the world as a whole should really be the reserve of the elderly, the wealthy and those able to afford the lifestyle of an intellectual.

Think of it like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You have to secure the foundation before you reach for levels of higher consciousness.

In the words of Nassim Taleb: "If your goal is to become a philosopher king, become a king first, then a philosopher".

Ha ha! Sadly, that priority does not work. Power corrupts. If one is not first a philosopher, and you first become a king, you will be a tyrant, and you will damage your realm and then fall.

Maslow kind of reversed Jesus, and I think in this case, Jesus had it right. I guess I have to reject Maslow, and continue to admire Jesus. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His Righteousness, and all else will be added to you. https://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/6-33.htm

There's a new age, counter-cultural motto we need to adopt instead of looking out for our selves and our families. "Think globally, and act locally." We do what we can that we have access to, and keep in mind the larger planetary priorities and the effects of all of our actions on the planet. 

We are not better off if most people think only about their families. That is why we have not become homo sapiens yet. If we think only about short-term needs and about ourselves and our own, and cannot anticipate the long term and the larger effects of our actions, we are not smart. Nature, with less brains and dependency on four legs or roots with no opposable thumbs, is still smarter. Our thinking apparently only allows us to reduce our subconscious awareness and concentrate on manipulating the world around us to meet our immediate needs and goals. That is not smart. That is exactly what's wrong. That is what is heating up the planet and knocking down the forests and despoiling the environment, and what causes wars, and launches class and religious conflicts.

Nature is still smarter than we are. It works as a whole, and species are embedded in the whole system. Left to itself, it expands, creates and flourishes. We are deluded by our way of thinking to feel separate and apart and that we can control things individually. Unless we can somehow get smarter, or unless the smarter people can outvote the dummies (sadly not the case yet, as Biden is way down in the polls and Democrats still behind in the midterms), we are DOOMED.

When we make ourselves into gods and try to run things all by ourselves, we mess things up. If we let go and let God, and let the Spirit within or Universal Mind run things, we create the New Jerusalem or return to Eden.