Emotion and rationalism. The first only somewhat in our control, and the second is who ‘we’, as a concept, are. Our self awareness is rational. Without that piece of rationality, our sense of self wouldn’t exist.
Barbarism and civilisation. The first is crude and unsophisticated and emotional, and the second is emotion bounded by rationality. Without rationality, our species’ great accomplishments in science, and architecture, and poetry, and music, and…etc wouldn’t exist - but none of us are able to separate ourselves from our emotional reality. I don’t think we want to separate from our emotional reality. That would be boring, and there is no worse outcome. Vulcan (the one Spock is from, not the one in Alberta) is not a place I’d like to hang out. We do need to constrain our emotions to advance as a…civilisation - under all meanings of the word ‘advance’.
Our western civilisation is presently glorifying the individual, and individual freedom as a goal. A big part of the American model is about freedom. That’s free as in ‘not coercion’, not free as in cost - it would struggle be less about free as in cost. America as initially instituted wasn’t all that great at ‘not coercion’, but it has been getting better in fits and starts over the centuries. I think freedom doesn’t reach far enough. It needs to be more ambitious. Freedom makes for more vibrant and adaptive civilisations, improves cooperation among the society’s members, and therefore works better as a civilisation than coercive societies, but it’s the civilisation we should be glorifying. Not just the freedom part.
We are emotional beings. We act and decide everything emotionally. Too often, we justify the decision with rational arguments after it has been made. Our tribal, evolutionary origin as algae to shrew to ape to man carries the barbarity we once needed, on into the present, where it is a liability.
Getting in touch with our feelings is a worthwhile challenge, as it lets us leash them, and use them to further civilisation, while restraining them from blowing civilisation up. Leashing lust to love. Leashing greed to accomplishment, to motivation. Leashing hate altogether, and confining it to hating ‘bad’ actions. Leashing tribalism to the species and planet, instead of just our own direct relatives, to drive cooperation, which ends up advancing the civilisation faster. It just works better that way.
As I’ve nattered on about on this blog before, cooperation works. We, as a species, have accomplished all we have by collective action, and specialisation. No one is even close to being expert at everything. Anyone who thinks they are, hasn’t learned enough realise the size of the task. The OOWSNN (orange one who shall not be named) is a barbaric throwback. There is no place for expertise in his world, he trusts his ‘gut’. His gut and his ‘stable genius’ (There is no such thing as stable genius, genius is inherently unstable, but that’s for another time). He is utterly uncivilised. Emotion is all he has, and his favourite emotion is hate. If America accepts his barbarity as a model of appropriate behavior, their civilisation will cease to exist. Their society will stop working, even collapse altogether.
Getting in touch with our emotions, so we can let them run wild is not a sustainable action. You are granted a hormonal lift by achieving status and joy. You are granted a hormonal low with fear. If that pursuit of status is left unconstrained, the easiest route is knocking somebody else back. Building stuff is hard. Tearing down other’s accomplishments shows dominance, and gets you an emotional kick, but doesn’t make anybody better off. It’s barbaric.
Back to the OOWSNN again. His pursuit of tearing down anything Obama accomplished drives much of his activity. His emotional need to have others show submission is who he is. Instead of harnessing the desire for status into outperforming others, he has fallen into the trap of thinking power, the ability to coerce others, is enough. It is, in the barbaric evolutionary quest to to spread his seed, but it is terribly uncivilised.
The seven deadly sins are sins against civilisation, against society as a whole. Hubris, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth. They’re are all selfish, emotionally driven sins. They are a definition of barbarity. Most cultures have the same concepts, even without the imperfect example of the Christian church to propagate the idea (and too often embrace parts of the idea). Those sins are granted power by fear, so minimising fear in a community is a prerequisite to advancement.
We are lucky to live in a time when those seven concepts have such a perfect, living avatar. It’s part of what makes the evangelical embrace of OOWSNN so disorienting. He is defined by those emotional traits. He embodies fear.
Hubris - Take money from the military and build that wall. That phone call was perfect. Article Two says I can do what I want. Extorting election help the day after Mueller disappoints in the congressional hearing (I got away with that, so let’s go bigger!).
Greed - There is no part of his existence that doesn’t overflow with greed. The trait he most appreciates/embodies.
Lust - Grab’em by the pussy. When you’re famous, they let you do whatever you want. Serial cheating on his wives.
Envy - Best exemplified in his drive to undo whatever Obama did. His talk of getting a Nobel prize like Obama did.
Gluttony - golden toilets, coerced, constant praise, it’s in every part of his life. Too much of whatever he can get his mitts on. He always wants more.
Wrath - Mueller. The whistleblower. Anyone who doesn’t support and praise him. Most clearly seen in his 2:00 AM rage tweets.
Sloth - His executive time. Golf every week. Not reading / preparing / briefing / understanding anything. Just going by his gut, the whole glutton stuffed thing.
Somehow, the bulk of the evangelical population of the USA thinks that having him represent the opposite of the core moral foundation of Christianity doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be the leader of the society. Maybe they think he is the Antichrist, and they are so looking forward to Rapture that they think they should hurry the end of the world along. We should ask his porn star friends if he has a triple six birthmark hidden away somewhere.
(aside)
OOWSNN is a classic (if extreme) narcissist. In his world, which is the only world that exists, the only point of reference that exists, the way you get ahead is to hold things over others to coerce them to act as you want them to. He learned that the right way to coerce someone is not to threaten them, that gets you in legal trouble. It’s to ask a favour, while holding back something they want. That Ukraine call was perfect. He isn’t trying to bend reality there, that is his reality. It isn’t his reality in the delusional way he had bigger crowds at his inaugural address than Obama, it’s his reality for real. He honestly doesn’t see why anyone would have an issue with that call. That was exactly how the world works. It’s exactly the way to get things done. It. Was. Perfect.
(end aside)
The seven virtues (that OOWSNN is completely unhindered by); Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Courage, Faith, Hope, and Charity, are about sharing and togetherness, and self control. Putting the emotional part of ourselves to good use. The first four were big with Aristotle and Plato, long before being pulled into biblical thought. Those are all about moving forward as a group.
Thoughtful action. Fair action, with earned reaction. Limiting your resource consumption to what you need. Putting yourself at risk for others. They are the structure of cooperative action. The scaffolding for building a more just existence. The fuel of society. Very civilised.
The remaining three are more tied to religion, in the Judaic tradition (which is what I’m most familiar with, so am confining my comments to), but don’t need a higher being to pursue. Belief in things bigger than your individual reach. Believing things can get better, that we can help make them get better. Giving to those with less. They are the driving force behind advancement (moral advancement at least) and not leaving others behind when you do. It’s the motor of civilisation.
Those ideas are around in many cultures and sets of belief because they work. It makes the human organism function better if the individual cells we all represent follow those principles. The secularisation of the culture doesn’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water. The Judaic belief set has some really good stuff in there (along with a bunch of bad. Leviticus is a bit harsh).
The kick with those sins/virtues is they aren’t opposites. They are compliments, if done right. Those sins are the emotional driving force, but our rational brain can steer them (civilise them) to where they will help society. Hubris, Greed, Envy, and Wrath can all be leashed and made reasons to accomplish more.
Don’t just believe you’re better than others, be better than others. Do more. Achieve more. If something pisses you off, work to change it. If someone has something you want, work to achieve it. Earn more. Deserve more. Tie those emotions to justice. To temperance and prudence. Wrath is one you have to be careful with, cus it’s really, really stupid, and will go off on it’s own and do all sorts of crazy stuff, if you don’t watch it like a hawk.
Ambition can morph into Hubris, Gluttony and/or Greed pretty easily, but it only comes into being from harnessing those same sins. It needs to be ambition within the constraints of the virtues, ambition to good ends - using good methods. Just ambition. Courageous ambition. Prudent and temperate ambition. It lubricates the motor - fuels the motor (sorta like a two stroke fuel mix).
Lust can be steered to Love (If it’s Lust for something inanimate, it’s covered under Greed and Gluttony - or is a mental health thing at the extreme, whatevs). The rational part of the brain can use that raw impetus to drive us to seduction...the good kind of seduction. Earning the love of the object of Lust through courageous or admirable actions. Just actions. This is the motive force behind a big part of the creative arts. Discussing or representing famous examples that end badly or well - Romeo and Juliet - Lived happily ever after. Lust can be steered to art and consideration of beauty. Raw lust is porn. Civilised lust is cinema and art - poetry and song.
Gluttony is kinda defined as excess, so should locked away with temperance and prudence. Wanting more is fine, even good where it drives (just) actions. Gluttony is sorta defined as wanting more than is good for you, however, so just don’t. If you think longer term, gluttony loses hold. Our rational selves can consider consequences, and considering consequences is really useful, so we should, and that limits Gluttony.
Sloth is where the fuel mentioned above comes in. Turning the raw impetus of the first sins to motivation and ambition moves people off sloth. For me, sloth is a symptom of depression, and it’s always a symptom of missing motivation. What people see as sloth in others, is evidence of their own lack of motivational skills, or mental illness having a go. At least it seems to be, as far as I can tell. Sufficient motivational skills can overcome the mental illness’ efforts as well, but is a big ask without other help.
For me, both my physical and mental health leads to Sloth. I fight it, when I recognise it, and try to achieve stuff anyway. I seem to fall short a lot, and if I worked harder I wouldn’t be as likely to fall short, so I need to work harder. See how it all works? That need to work harder gets me out of bed on a lot of days. On the good side, Gluttony and Wrath are hard work, so Sloth helps limit them. Somehow the OOWSNN overcomes this, but I think the Wrath and the Gluttony just wear him out, and Sloth is what’s left behind. I start with Sloth, so have a simpler time of it…maybe?
The big reason that moral framework of virtues and sins hangs around in different arrangements in different, successful cultures is they make the human organism work better. They are the key to a society that outperforms others. It is the most dangerous part of our present retrograde alignment to those virtues. At a time when we need the leading societies of the planet to be working well, the leading ones are going backwards.
Competitive Capitalism works as a social organisational model, when tempered by the virtues. Greed is not good. Gordon Gecko was supposed to be an antihero, not a model. It is a useful way to organise an economy, because with smart regulation, it self regulates, and is just. That regulation is needed to keep that vital ‘competition’ part going. Without the smart regulation, without the competition, it just becomes a hereditary aristocracy. That is the path America is treading.
Democracy works as a political model, when tempered by the virtues. Tyranny of the majority is a bad thing. Those truths that the American founders claimed to be self evident aren’t self evident, but they help to make a society work, so they are a good idea. I wish they were self evident, it would be easier to convince people to believe in them. They do fit in nicely with the virtues, if done right.
‘All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ A bit punctuation impaired, but nice words. Now, it seems to me, that as a practical matter, those rights get alienated quite often - so it could be the words don’t mean what I think they mean, but the dictionary agrees with me. The founders, through their actions, were pretty hit and miss on the alienation part.
I think they meant to say they shouldn’t be alienated. Working to that more perfect union, and taking what they could grasp in the moment. That they shouldn’t be alienated doesn’t mean that powerful people won’t be pretty effective at alienating them when they try. As I mentioned, the guys who wrote that weren’t very good at following through on those ideas, and, in fact, alienated those rights from most of the people they were writing them on behalf of...or I guess they just weren’t writing them on behalf of all the people they were excluding them from, and meant ‘men’ in the strictly white, landholding male sense...whatevs. That doesn’t mean they aren’t a good ideas. Babies and bathwater again.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As long as those are consistent with that justice, prudence and temperance stuff, it seems to be a good idea. A very civilised idea. Of course, if everyone is supposed to be able to pursue happiness, justly, it means everybody needs a fair shot. They need equal opportunity. I mean, once you look under the hood of America, equal opportunity isn’t a ‘thing’ in that country (and is underrepresented in all countries at the moment). You’d think that with those fancy words in the constitution and how ardently many people claim to believe in it, that equality would at least be something to aim at. They have made real advances on doing that, periodically, so that’s nice. A more perfect union and all that.
Unfortunately we are in a period where they’re slipping quite quickly, and it’s just when a superpower would come in handy, darn it. Hopefully that impeachment thing will work well for them, and they can get back to leading the free world, instead of acting as an anchor, cus we could use them just now.
In any case, I started with a point a lot of words ago, and should get back to it. A virtuous world works better than a sinful one, because we need to work together to work well, and a virtuous world works better together. A world where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are tempered with fairness and justice - a world with a fair, competitive capitalist system, that everyone feels a part of - a world with a democratic system that keeps an eye on giving everyone a fair chance, or hell, a dictatorship that keeps an eye on giving everyone a fair chance (if that’s possible. It doesn’t seem to be sustainable, in practice - those sin things turn up and wreck it…of course the aforementioned democratic system might not sustain…whatevs). The point is, when that world exists, it just works better, so it’ll wins in the end.
Now, whatever part of the world is closest to following that set of principles will work better than the parts that don’t. So the leading countries will end up congregating towards that point...in the long run. We can make an effort to hurry that congregating along, if we try, so it seems that would be a good thing to try. We just need somebody to start a religion, or political construct that is followed widely, that is based on those principles and we’re off to the future!
All we need to do is get most people into systems that honor those constraints, and offer those freedoms, and the world works better. Because that seems to be true, it’s where we’re going to end up (because it works), so we can skip ahead through all sorts of bad stuff, and just do it now, it would be best for everybody. I think we should do it in a way that doesn’t involve most of the world’s people dying, in places that don’t feel that way-ish though, ‘Kay?
America has done a pretty good job the last while, of occasionally leading the world towards that kind of place (a civilised one), and it would be easiest if they got their internal stuff together and started leading the world again, cus the international institutions sort of expected an involved America, so it’s the easiest way forward. Some country, or group of survivors, or whatever, are going to end up leading things forward based on those principles, eventually, because they work - in the long run.
There are a few hiccups on the course we’re following just now, and there is some urgency with the whole climate crisis thing, the threat of nuclear war thing, the whole mass migration thing, and the mass extinction event thing - those can all interrupt cultural evolution selecting the group that works best, so follows those principles, so having a shining city on a hill that can act as a beacon would be nice. A model of civilisation!
Probably, America will end up splitting up/continue to split up into regional areas that perform better (civilised) and worse (barbaric), and overall, will at least partly continue to progress and lead, and generally continue to help civilisation along. Hopefully whatever parts work best can help mitigate ‘bad’ things, worldwide, as we progress. It might be quicker to break up the American union into parts that want to be more perfect, and parts that don’t much care, but that’s for them to decide.
The OOWSNN is moving the US closer to Californian secession as we speak. I mean, now they aren’t allowed to have cleaner air than the rest of America, even if the car companies want to help. The president says you must use more coal and huge, inefficient engines (largely because Obama said the opposite - see envy) and it isn’t going to work better, for a whole lot of people. Maybe they’ll be ordered to put lead back in their gasoline next. Barbaric.
California works better than most other parts of America (at least when it isn’t burning), and at least strives to be civilised in some ways (we’ll overlook the homeless situation and a few other bits for the purpose of that statement - it’s a relative thing). It means they can go their own way if they start to think they’re being held back. It’s where things are headed - hopefully without much of a war. If they succeed in seceding, other parts that work won’t be far behind. To skeptics, it happens slowly until it’s suddenly done. See Brexit (or hopefully not).
To tie all this up, we need to be striving for more than just more. GDP is not happiness. More stuff isn’t enough, or even very much. We need to be striving for civilisation, because that’s what works. A sustainable civilisation would be nice, but a series of occasionally renewing ones is more likely - is there a perfect one? We need to help the human organism work. We need to focus on working together, and using political forms and economies that work to get there. Civilisation. It works.