successful/virtuous

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>Does "successful" mean "virtuous"?<< --Depends. In terms of species survival, our lack of success would lead to the extinction of all human virtue. Virtue exists for the sake of the survival, security and compassion that keep cultures viable. Without human bodies, there is no virtue, only physics. If we undermine our survival as a species, it is the opposite of virtue.>>I also wonder who "we" are supposed to be.<< --Every human being in your consciousness. If you're aware of them, on some level you and they are a "we". They might be trying to kill you, and you might be trying to defend yourself (or pre-emptively killing them, just in case) but you are still a "we" on the level of consciousness. This is all hogwash, so ignore it. But it's true. >>Again, you seem to believe in the possibility of universal enlightenment, that the

many can become wise.<< --The many ARE wise, in every area where they get accurate information and aren't blinded by the stupider passions. Removing the blindness, which is related to stereotyping and shadow projection, is both possible and necessary for our species to endure. It cannot be done by force, and it cannot be done by isolation. Continual engagement across lines of divisions is necessary. The unconscious already does it. We just have to listen and follow consciously. Or not. >>I hate to make an argument from authority, but this *is* a Jung list, and Jung consistently states precisely the opposite. A little progress in that regard is the best that one can expect. Otherwise, as always, forestalling disaster depends on political men of prudence.<< --Political men are a product of their times and of the interconnections in their social networks. They

don't magically appear from the heavens. They emerge when the time is right from the groups that have been focusing on what matters. A little progress is enough, as long as one is actually trying. >>Is there a difference between resolving conflict and avoiding it? Because I'm not sure I see it. << --Then you haven't been very involved. Peacemaking isn't something you do while watching TV, Dan.>>Perhaps we should approve of the president's port deal, then.<< --I'm not clear on the particular security risks, on the corruptability of the company and/or its government, etc. I don't think there's any reason to reject business deals with Arabs just because they're Arabs. But if there are potential security problems, then that might be a good reason to block the deal. I don't get the sense that everyone who is against it has done a great deal of research on it, more likely they

think, "Arabs? We're letting Arabs control our ports?" So I'm going to stay out of that issue, not knowing enough about the actual security risks involved.>>Most of us don't want to travel there, and the great majority of them don't have money to travel anywhere.<< --Who are "us" and "them"? Do you mean people from the UAE or Arabs in general? I've met quite a few Americans who have been to Arabic-speaking countries, but you're probably right that most Americans have their heads in a turtle shell, not too eager to experience the world so affected by the policies and politicians they vote for.>>I think that the Muslim "street" sees the West, esp. the United States, as a threat to its way of life.<< --True. We could have done much, and could still do much, to counteract that perception. When information and energy flows in both directions between two

social networks (regardless of national or religious boundary lines) war is much less likely. But we tend to deal with the Islamic world as if we're peering through a microscope, surprised to see eyes peering back, and more surprised to see anger in those eyes. >>This perception is imo not altogether wrong, esp. when Western media blather on about putative universal human rights and the necessity for imposing them on other people.<< --Suicide bombings are wrong because they violate basic human rights. They are not wrong simply because they challenge our strategic or economic interests. Moral outrage does exist, and sometimes it's a good thing. You may disagree with how some people want to HANDLE human rights, and that's a political discussion worth having. But to believe that basic, equal human rights (i.e. the right of children not to be blown up in the street) mean nothing is a bit too

much on the "moral relativity" side for me. I have a visceral reaction to the use of force against innocent people, and it makes no different if they're Americans or Israelis or Iraqis. I feel what I feel for them, not in terms of some abstract political principle, but physically and emotionally. You may have concerns about a world court and US sovereignty. But that would be a totally separate argument from the question of whether suffering is good or evil, whether rights are inherent or relative. >>When it comes to these international relationships, I say live and let live whenever possible.<< --I wish it were that simple. Global business interests and geopolitics connect two worlds, and will not go away. The only question is whether ordinary people, people like you and me, make some attempt to put a human face on our culture by interacting with the people affected by

the systems we buy from and vote for. Compartmentalization breaks down, eventually, and you can't affect anything in the world without being affected by it. >>It is absolutely none of our business whether Saudi women are allowed to drive cars, or whether the Saudis mutilate criminals in soccer stadiums, just as it is absolutely none of Europe's business whether Americans practice capital punishment, and absolutely none of Americans' business if Europe prefers high taxes.<< --"None of our business" may be a valid political principle, at least when applied at the right times. And we'd probably agree that using intrusive tactics to try to change other cultures tends to backfire. But I can still have a feeling connection to Saudi women, or Iranian intellectuals, or any other human being who affects my consciousness. It's not about ideology for me, it's about the human connection across

lines of division, a connection that exists the moment a person's emotional state influences my own. In nature, energy and information transfer widely according to their own laws, and those laws are not the laws of our human religious and political systems, which are a mere subset of nature. A sand castle cannot say, "The ocean is none of my business". >>It should in particular not be the business of the West to insist on democracy everywhere.<< --I agree. Democracy has to emerge on a grassroots level when the cultural "operating system" is prepared for it. It can't be engineered from above. Some Arabs and Muslims are ready for Democracy, and some aren't. I agree with you that the US can't bomb democracy into being, while at the same time, I understand and empathize deeply with Muslims who want freedom and democracy and who have to put up with more regressive groups in their own part of the world. I believe

we can assist them, but military intervention must be used very selectively, if at all. >>This all leaves out the problem of Israel, always the elephant in the room. I believe that many Arabs will not rest until Israel is destroyed, and we can't let that happen. Not because of Israelis' "universal human rights." Not because of any mythic human right to self-determination. No - but because the Jews are a superior people and a superior culture, and because they are our own.<< --I would say Israel must be protected because its destruction would involve the slaughter or at least the dislocation of many human beings. If you wish to talk about "superior culture" than talk about preserving and nurturing superior aspects of Arab culture as well as Israeli culture, against regressive aspects on both sides. There are Jews who believe God wants them to cleanse Palestinians from the land they believe God gave them. They have basically

the same regressive culture found in hard-line Arab groups. Some Christian fundamentalists in the South have the same kind of culture. In any religion or nation, there are competing social networks, each evolving at a different rate, and one network or another will have dominance at any given time. At the moment, the most dominant (or at least the most media-exposed) Islamic social networks are regressive. But there are many "superior" threads in Islamic and Arab culture, which carry the potential for a more evolved political and social system. "Because they are our own" is a weird concept to me. I've met a few Israelis, and I've liked them. They are "my own" in the sense that they've been a part of my life and had an effect on me. They are not "my own" just because they are Jewish or Israeli. I would have liked them just as much if they'd been Arab, and in fact they remind me of some Arab acquaintances who have just as much influence on

me. My wife is Australian, and she is "my own". Are all Australians therefore "mine" in some way? Just how many cultural, political or economic connections do you need to have with a group to consider it your own? If you think just having a common enemy is enough, I have to disagree. We and the French had a common enemy or two... are they "our own" too? Seems like a rather nebulous concept, if it's based more on politics than empathy.>>What we export is not such a bad indicator of who we are. Movies and records extolling greed, secularism, domestic violence, gangsters, unlimited acquisitiveness, adultery, unwed motherhood, homosexuality, hedonism, individual "self-determination."<< --I wouldn't compare the Americans I've known with characters in American movies. Perhaps people imitate movie dialogue because it's pop culture, but I really don't feel our movies accurately reflect who we are, so much as what we repress

in daily life. To make things worse, a lot of the people who judge us by our movies don't even watch the better ones, the ones that portray us accurately. As for homosexuality, hedonism and self-determination, I wouldn't condemn them, since the greater evils are perpetrated in the name of sexual purity, virtue and collective destiny. Give me a gay, fun-loving individualist over a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist any day. >>Not to mention bad food.<< --You got me there. Agreed. >>Such are a decent indicator of what half of us have become, in any event (and what our own fundamentalists are reacting against). I sympathize with Arab wishes to resist this tide. And it is difficult not to blame an unfettered capitalism.<< --Agreed again. But keep in mind, Islamic fundamentalists believe our system is waging

a Christian or Zionist war against Islam. Capitalism without conscience is definitely a problem, but fundamentalists on one side inflame fundamentalists on the other as well. I agree that our culture is viewed as a kind of parasitic infection, a virus, by those who least benefit from its success. I just don't think that perception is based on who we are, but on the system we support, and because we support it mindlessly, it is our mindlessness that is being "punished", not any inherent evil in us. Any culture can become mindless, especially when it is isolated. Are we isolated because we are racist or xenophobic? In some cases, probably. But I don't think that's the major reason. Most people just want to live their own lives, and if they don't naturally come into contact with the rest of the world, it is because there are so many ways to get distracted, and with family, friends and jobs as top priorities, not enough get a chance to look beyond the

system that meets their needs. Add to that the problem of information overload and trust. Liberal activists have been warning about the dangers of global capitalism and US military presence overseas for some time now. They were just ignored, because a lot of people said, "Oh, they're just liberals. They just hate America, don't take them seriously." Is that evil? Perhaps. Liberals were subject to the same fallacy, ignoring warnings of rising fascism in the Islamic world, dismissing them as conservative hype. There may be something evil in that, but it is not the kind of evil that makes us feel like monsters, and not something we'd do if we were mindful and not distracted by more mundane problems. > --How are you measuring "prestige"? Are you saying >that groups dominated by women are taken less seriously >by men? >>Of course. Haven't you observed the same?<< --If groups dominated by men don't

take women seriously, they'll just have to watch women run circles around them. Entrenched systems either evolve or die. You didn't say how you measured "prestige", though. >>Watch what happens to medicine in the next 25 years.<< --An explosion of biotech and gene therapy, cures for cancer and AIDS? What are you expecting exactly? >>I'm not sure what you mean. Nature's responsibility, I guess. The archetypes' responsibility. If you mean, whose responsibility is it to "fix" it?, well, I'm not sure it needs fixing.<< --If the problem is men not taking women seriously, time will fix that. Boys may not do as well as girls in fields that depend on academic achievement, because there is a male culture of academic avoidance. Boys are taught to feel inferior if they fail, so they avoid failure by not trying. They view the whole thing as a status hierarchy, where girls

think more in terms of competence and mastering the material. That's a problem boys are going to have to solve, if they want to compete. Either way, nature says you adapt or become irrelevant. C. Lockhartwww.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

Lockhart wrote:

Dan says:

>>Does "successful" mean "virtuous"?<<

--Depends. In terms of species survival, our lack of success

would lead to the extinction of all human virtue. Virtue exists for the

sake of the survival, security and compassion that keep cultures

viable. Without human bodies, there is no virtue, only physics. If we

undermine our survival as a species, it is the opposite of virtue.

Doesn't your argument here assume that the appearance of the human

species was not inevitable?

>>I also wonder who "we" are supposed to be.<<

--Every human being in your consciousness. If you're aware of

them, on some level you and they are a "we". They might be trying to

kill you, and you might be trying to defend yourself (or pre-emptively

killing them, just in case) but you are still a "we" on the level of

consciousness. This is all hogwash, so ignore it. But it's true.

>>Again, you seem to believe in the possibility of

universal enlightenment, that the many can become wise.<<

--The many ARE wise, in every area where they get accurate

information and aren't blinded by the stupider passions.

, this amounts to saying that the many are wise except when they

are not. Which is formally true, but not very meaningful.

That said.....

The idea that the problem is one of "accurate information" is one that,

imo, the political left makes again and again - "If only we can just

get the word out about what the military industrial complex (or

whatever the bubaboo might be) is doing to them, they will come

around." This seems to be the thesis of that book _What's the Matter

with Kansas?_. The right understands, at least at this juncture, the

archetypal bases of persuasion better than does the left (even if they

don't use the Jungian lingo).

Removing the blindness, which is related to stereotyping and

shadow projection, is both possible and necessary for our species to

endure.

Rather presumptuous to think one knows what is necessary for our

species to endure, don't you think? Maybe nature is wiser than we are.

It cannot be done by force, and it cannot be done by isolation.

Continual engagement across lines of divisions is necessary. The

unconscious already does it. We just have to listen and follow

consciously. Or not.

>>I hate to make an argument from authority, but this *is*

a Jung

list, and Jung consistently states precisely the opposite. A little

progress in that regard is the best that one can expect. Otherwise, as

always, forestalling disaster depends on political men of

prudence.<<

--Political men are a product of their times and of the

interconnections in their social networks. They don't magically appear

from the heavens.

First you say that not only the exceptional, but even the many, may be

enlightened by means of information and deliverance from the stupier

passions, and then you turn right around and say that even the best are

but a product of their times and "interconnectivity" - as though no one

achieves escape velocity, as it were. So which is it? Is freedom from

one's ancestral and civic prejudices possible, or is it not?

I spoke of prudence - "practical wisdom" - which imo is developed in

those of a suitable nature thorugh practical experience.

They emerge when the time is right from the groups that have

been focusing on what matters. A little progress is enough, as long as

one is actually trying.

>>Is there a difference between resolving conflict and avoiding

it?

Because I'm not sure I see it. <<

--Then you haven't been very involved. Peacemaking isn't

something you do while watching TV, Dan

Well I suppose you mean that resolving a conflict that already exists

is different from avoiding it to begin with, which is true enough. But

I am not in a position to make peace on a macro level. I suppose you

will see that the micro level will do, which is again true enough.

..

>>Perhaps we should approve of the president's port deal,

then.<<

--I'm not clear on the particular security risks, on the

corruptability of the company and/or its government, etc. I don't think

there's any reason to reject business deals with Arabs just because

they're Arabs. But if there are potential security problems, then that

might be a good reason to block the deal. I don't get the sense that

everyone who is against it has done a great deal of research on it,

more likely they think, "Arabs? We're letting Arabs control our ports?"

So I'm going to stay out of that issue, not knowing enough about the

actual security risks involved.

>>Most of us don't want to travel there, and the great majority

of them don't have money to travel anywhere.<<

--Who are "us" and "them"? Do you mean people from the UAE or

Arabs in general?

The latter.

I've met quite a few Americans who have been to Arabic-speaking

countries,

What percentage of the general population, do you think?

but you're probably right that most Americans have their

heads in a turtle shell, not too eager to experience the world so

affected by the policies and politicians they vote for.

>>I think that the Muslim "street" sees the West, esp. the United

States,

as a threat to its way of life.<<

--True. We could have done much, and could still do much, to

counteract that perception.

I think you miss my point, which is that the perception is

substantially true.

When information and energy flows in both directions between

two social networks (regardless of national or religious boundary

lines) war is much less likely. But we tend to deal with the Islamic

world as if we're peering through a microscope, surprised to see eyes

peering back, and more surprised to see anger in those eyes.

>>This perception is imo not altogether wrong, esp. when

Western media blather on about putative universal human rights and the

necessity for imposing them on other people.<<

--Suicide bombings are wrong because they violate basic human

rights.

I challenge you to establish the existence of such a thing as a "basic

human right." What sort of being, if any, do they have?

Suicide bombing is a tactic. It is not what I would call a gentlemanly

tactic, but, as you say, the era of wars between gentlemen appears to

be over.

The notion that there are such things as "basic human rights," and

that of course we heirs of Montaigne and Jefferson and Mill and Mrs.

Roosevelt know what they are and consequently have the right to impose

them on other people, is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about.

Islamic regimes naturally resent and resist such presumption, and I

can't say I altogether blame them. Of course we must resist any threat

on their part to our own way of life, but I think we should also leave

them to their own ways of life within their own borders.

They are not wrong simply because they challenge our strategic

or economic interests.

There may be times when they are not "wrong" at all.

Moral outrage does exist, and sometimes it's a good thing.

Indignation is a poor counselor. Do you make good decisions in the

throes of moral outrage? I usually don't. That's why you don't punish a

child while you're still angry - you send him to his room until *you*

cool off.

You may disagree with how some people want to HANDLE human

rights, and that's a political discussion worth having. But to believe

that basic, equal human rights (i.e. the right of children not to be

blown up in the street) mean nothing is a bit too much on the "moral

relativity" side for me.

A myth never "means nothing."

I doubt that there is any nation on earth where it is legal to blow up

children in the street. A universal moral sensibility, if that is what

we are talking about, is not the same thing as a "universal human

right" as that has been construed by modern political philosophy. The

latter allows for no prudential exceptions - it is, as you say

"absolute." It leads to the practical conclusion that universal

standards may be, and indeed should be, imposed by the "enlightened"

ones - sometimes even ex-post-facto, as with the slavery reparations

nonsense. (You can't justly punish people after the fact for actions

that weren't illegal at the time - how would you like your descendents

to be held accountable for things you do now that might be illegal in

two hundred years' time?)

I have a visceral reaction to the use of force against innocent

people, and it makes no different if they're Americans or Israelis or

Iraqis. I feel what I feel for them, not in terms of some abstract

political principle, but physically and emotionally.

That's fine, but you can't make coherent law or practical policy on

that basis alone.

You may have concerns about a world court and US sovereignty.

But that would be a totally separate argument from the question of

whether suffering is good or evil,

Suffering is necessary for consciousness, so it must be "good."

whether rights are inherent or relative.

What does "inherent" mean?

>>When it comes to these international relationships, I

say live and let live

whenever possible.<<

--I wish it were that simple. Global business interests and

geopolitics connect two worlds, and will not go away.

I don't really see any insurmountable problem - we've got money, you've

got oil, let's deal. No need for us to accept Sharia, or for them to

reject it.

The only question is whether ordinary people, people like you

and me, make some attempt to put a human face on our culture by

interacting with the people affected by the systems we buy from and

vote for. Compartmentalization breaks down, eventually, and you can't

affect anything in the world without being affected by it.

>>It is absolutely none of our business whether Saudi

women

are allowed to drive cars, or whether the Saudis mutilate criminals in

soccer stadiums, just as it is absolutely none of Europe's business

whether Americans practice capital punishment, and absolutely none of

Americans' business if Europe prefers high taxes.<<

--"None of our business" may be a valid political principle, at

least when applied at the right times. And we'd probably agree that

using intrusive tactics to try to change other cultures tends to

backfire. But I can still have a feeling connection to Saudi women, or

Iranian intellectuals, or any other human being who affects my

consciousness. It's not about ideology for me, it's about the human

connection across lines of division, a connection that exists the

moment a person's emotional state influences my own. In nature, energy

and information transfer widely according to their own laws, and those

laws are not the laws of our human religious and political systems,

which are a mere subset of nature. A sand castle cannot say, "The ocean

is none of my business".

This is an assertion about the whole. I doubt that it is true, but I

fear that a goodly number of people might believe it. I frankly don't

believe that there is any sort of occult psychic connection between you

and me and Saudi women and Iranian intellectuals. I find it a worrisome

teaching - it appears to be at least the underpinning for a claim to

universal rule as decried by me above.

>>It should in particular not be the business of the West

to insist on democracy everywhere.<<

--I agree. Democracy has to emerge on a grassroots level when

the cultural "operating system" is prepared for it.

As far as I can see, it doesn't have to emerge everywhere at all. It's

a form of government, not a sacrament. It's not necessarily right for

everyone.

It can't be engineered from above. Some Arabs and Muslims are

ready for Democracy, and some aren't.

"Ready" here implies that they should be ready , if not now than in

future. One hopes that they will finally be "ready" at some point. I

question this view. Let them have their own ways.

I agree with you that the US can't bomb democracy into being,

while at the same time, I understand and empathize deeply with Muslims

who want freedom and democracy and who have to put up with more

regressive groups in their own part of the world.

Don't forget that, according to Jung, there is something to be said for

living in a world that is numinous and, for want of a better term,

"medieval." Your pity may be largely misplaced. It seems to be directed

at those Arabs who are "Westernized" already - but there are places for

them.

I believe we can assist them, but military intervention must be

used very selectively, if at all.

>>This all leaves out the problem of Israel, always the elephant

in the room. I believe that many Arabs will not rest until Israel is

destroyed, and we can't let that happen. Not because of Israelis'

"universal human rights." Not because of any mythic human right to

self-determination. No - but because the Jews are a superior people and

a superior culture, and because they are our own.<<

--I would say Israel must be protected because its destruction

would involve the slaughter or at least the dislocation of many human

beings. If you wish to talk about "superior culture" than talk about

preserving and nurturing superior aspects of Arab culture as well as

Israeli culture, against regressive aspects on both sides.

I acknowledge the superior aspects of Islamic culture. I do not think

that those aspects are in danger. The "Islamic homeland" appears to me

to be most of the Middle East, and many other places as well.

There are Jews who believe God wants them to cleanse

Palestinians from the land they believe God gave them. They have

basically the same regressive culture found in hard-line Arab groups.

Yes. Hence I believe the battle will have to be finally lost and won. I

doubt that there can be any lasting compromise on this one.

Some Christian fundamentalists in the South have the same kind

of culture. In any religion or nation, there are competing social

networks, each evolving at a different rate, and one network or another

will have dominance at any given time. At the moment, the most dominant

(or at least the most media-exposed) Islamic social networks are

regressive. But there are many "superior" threads in Islamic and Arab

culture, which carry the potential for a more evolved political and

social system.

"Because they are our own" is a weird concept to me. I've met a

few Israelis, and I've liked them. They are "my own" in the sense that

they've been a part of my life and had an effect on me. They are not

"my own" just because they are Jewish or Israeli. I would have liked

them just as much if they'd been Arab, and in fact they remind me of

some Arab acquaintances who have just as much influence on me. My wife

is Australian, and she is "my own". Are all Australians therefore

"mine" in some way? Just how many cultural, political or economic

connections do you need to have with a group to consider it your own?

If you think just having a common enemy is enough, I have to disagree.

We and the French had a common enemy or two... are they "our own" too?

Seems like a rather nebulous concept, if it's based more on politics

than empathy.

Western culture stands on two legs, Jerusalem and Athens. Now, I will

grant that much of the Athens leg of Western culture was preverved in

the Arab world when it was nearly lost in the West. Still - it is Greek

nonetheless. Australians are Europeans, just as Americans are

Europeans. We all stand on the same two legs. It isn't a question of

"liking."

Of course the French are our own.

>>What we export is not such a bad indicator of who we are.

Movies and

records extolling greed, secularism, domestic violence, gangsters,

unlimited acquisitiveness, adultery, unwed motherhood, homosexuality,

hedonism, individual "self-determination."<<

--I wouldn't compare the Americans I've known with characters in

American movies.

What the Arab "street" sees is the movies. That is the poison that

comes into their cities.

Perhaps people imitate movie dialogue because it's pop culture,

but I really don't feel our movies accurately reflect who we are, so

much as what we repress in daily life. To make things worse, a lot of

the people who judge us by our movies don't even watch the better ones,

the ones that portray us accurately.

As for homosexuality, hedonism and self-determination, I

wouldn't condemn them, since the greater evils are perpetrated in the

name of sexual purity, virtue and collective destiny. Give me a gay,

fun-loving individualist over a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist any

day.

OK, but don't impose him on the pious parts of the world - unless you

just *want* trouble. Most people, including me, do not agree that

greater evils are perpetrated in the name of sexual purity, virtue, and

collective destiny. In particular, to say that virtue is bad is like

saying that the good is bad, lol. Virtue is by definition that which

aims toward the good.

>>Not to mention bad food.<<

--You got me there. Agreed.

>>Such are a decent indicator of what half of us have

become, in any event (and what

our own fundamentalists are reacting against). I sympathize with Arab

wishes to resist this tide. And it is difficult not to blame an

unfettered capitalism.<<

--Agreed again. But keep in mind, Islamic fundamentalists

believe our system is waging a Christian or Zionist war against Islam.

It's not as principled as that. It's just the amoral markets doing what

they do, imo.

Capitalism without conscience is definitely a problem, but

fundamentalists on one side inflame fundamentalists on the other as

well. I agree that our culture is viewed as a kind of parasitic

infection, a virus, by those who least benefit from its success. I just

don't think that perception is based on who we are, but on the system

we support, and because we support it mindlessly, it is our

mindlessness that is being "punished", not any inherent evil in us. Any

culture can become mindless, especially when it is isolated.

Are we isolated because we are racist or xenophobic? In some

cases, probably. But I don't think that's the major reason. Most people

just want to live their own lives, and if they don't naturally come

into contact with the rest of the world, it is because there are so

many ways to get distracted, and with family, friends and jobs as top

priorities, not enough get a chance to look beyond the system that

meets their needs. Add to that the problem of information overload and

trust. Liberal activists have been warning about the dangers of global

capitalism and US military presence overseas for some time now.

Yes they have. But what is their proposed solution? Socialism, lol. The

problem with capitalism *is* socialism. That is, the problem with

capitalism is that, what socialism promises, capitalism can deliver.

Capitalism is innovative, creative, makes everyone rich, and thus tends

to level out the differences between the rich and the poor - it's very

democratic. That's what's wrong with it. My preferred solution would be

to recouple it with Puritanism - perhaps the only way it can really

work.

They were just ignored, because a lot of people said, "Oh,

they're just liberals. They just hate America, don't take them

seriously." Is that evil? Perhaps. Liberals were subject to the same

fallacy, ignoring warnings of rising fascism in the Islamic world,

dismissing them as conservative hype.

Liberals in my observation get led astray by their own optimistic view

of human nature and their belief in Enlightenment. They are doomed to

be blind-sided.

Liberals and most conservatives want the same things - they just differ

on means. My gripe, on the other hand, is with the preferred ends.

There may be something evil in that, but it is not the kind of

evil that makes us feel like monsters, and not something we'd do if we

were mindful and not distracted by more mundane problems.

> --How are you measuring "prestige"? Are you saying >that

groups

dominated by women are taken less seriously >by men?

>>Of course. Haven't you observed the same?<<

--If groups dominated by men don't take women seriously, they'll

just have to watch women run circles around them. Entrenched systems

either evolve or die. You didn't say how you measured "prestige",

though.

I don't "measure" it - that is the modern social "science" fantasy

talking. By prestige I just mean "honor" - being well thought of and

well regarded by other people.

>>Watch what happens to medicine in the next 25 years.<<

--An explosion of biotech and gene therapy, cures for cancer and

AIDS? What are you expecting exactly?

A relative loss of prestige with increasing female domination (this was

observed in the old Soviet Union). The "stars" who cure cancer and AIDS

will continue to enjoy high prestige, and will be mostly men - watch

and see if I'm wrong.

>>I'm not sure what you mean. Nature's responsibility, I guess.

The

archetypes' responsibility. If you mean, whose responsibility is it to

"fix"

it?, well, I'm not sure it needs fixing.<<

--If the problem is men not taking women seriously, time will

fix that. Boys may not do as well as girls in fields that depend on

academic achievement, because there is a male culture of academic

avoidance.

That is temporary. It is bad, too, as evidenced by what happens in

black communities where doing well in school is not only girly but

"acting white."

Boys are taught to feel inferior if they fail, so they avoid

failure by not trying.

There is something to that.

They view the whole thing as a status hierarchy, where girls

think more in terms of competence and mastering the material. That's a

problem boys are going to have to solve, if they want to compete.

I doubt that. Boys will just change the "rules" - by means of violence,

if necessary. This is to be avoided.

Either way, nature says you adapt or become irrelevant.

I don't claim to know that much about nature. A little humility is

called for.

Best,

Dan

"I'm no prophet, and I don't know nature's ways."

Carly Simon

C. Lockhart

www.soulaquarium.net

Yahoo! Messenger: grailsnail

Blog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/

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