voters but get stumped. Part of the problem is that classical
educations do not always translate into common sense in real life- one
still must scrub the floors in those ivory towers. But I think most
attend college/grad studies with a work goal in mind these days. I
remember shop classes and vocational schools in public highschools but
perhaps that would invite a lawsuit by the ACLU these days- who knows?
And manufacturing/labor needs have changed drastically in our day due
to automation, robots and technology as well as every aspect of modern
life from home to office. So there is this vacuume. On the other hand,
I find great solace in my books and interests but since I refuse to
produce anything for the market, I guess I am worthless. :-) Oh- and I
decided to quit going to funerals altogether save my own.
The military is another consideration as a form of "education" and
employment.
I came across your screen name in my old class notes- just a line or
two re Plato and his visit.
Another problem with setting up a culture/form of government is that
you still are left with human nature!
On Sep 2, 10:14 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm no expert on the Greeks to be sure. I remember that women got to
> leave home when they were about 60 to go to funerals! I understand
> the 'men of their time' arguments - and we tend to forget Greece is
> really middle eastern - but I have real problems with the 'high'
> philosophy and no grasp of the wrongs on the treatment of slavery,
> indenture and women. It hardly suggests much of a route to a
> materially enlightened society. The Italian aristocracy was almost
> exclusively homosexual in the 17th century and much of the Middle East
> remains 'homosocial'. In scientific argument and practice we often
> work hard at excluding wads of common sense and religious muck under
> pretense of objectivity, yet we are really trying to include all
> options that aren't ludicrous (and we entertain these too to some
> extent). I find human thinking that ends up with notions that a sex
> or race is 'unequal' or unmeriting not wrong but intolerable, but this
> doesn't lead me to believe we can't have abortion or not give deaf
> people hearing if we can (and so on) - the intolerable remains a
> heuristic open to situational particularism. Equality doesn;t mean I
> won't lift the heavy box, think sport should be unisex, regard men as
> potential sexual partners and so on - but it does mean I don't approve
> of daft notions of banning girls from playing soccer because they
> can't share the changing rooms. And it does mean I tend to despise
> argument that excludes what should matter in the pretense of
> objectivity. Our people who can't do much academic are not sub-human,
> but I suspect much intellectualism is - including daft economists
> suggesting inter-generational mortgages, or that we have to have a
> super-rich for the benefit of all. I am not led to conclusion much
> and think this is a result of perverse schooling and a fixation with
> 'strong leadership'. My guess is we need moral assertion on the basis
> of likely outcomes on social issues and that we are ignoring an
> interesting history of this at our peril, including the distraction
> from actual change that wordy words becomes when we lack courage. The
> key in this is probably deep in a form of mentality that can't work
> out the metaphor of fiddling while Rome burns or banksterism as a
> criminally organised road to serfdom. Socrates called the unexamined
> life pointless and its easy to agree faced with yet another class of
> students who don't read, populations who vote 'on the economy stupid'
> knowing nothing of economics - yet he was wrong. What we have failed
> to do is provide the technology of it that people can use.
>
> On Sep 2, 1:05 am, rigsy03 <rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I dug up the file this afternoon- Spring "73- no mention of the
> > professor's name but a reference to Tuft's- another university. He was
> > older and soft spoken- his shirt sleeves had been shortened for some
> > reason. I got an "A" for the final grade so I must have hooked into
> > the material and my notes look complete and tidy. The course covered
> > more than Plato- it was called Greek Thought/Classics Dept.- and I was
> > taking 3 other courses that quarter. But this simply opened a can of
> > worms=memory.
>
> > So all these years, Plato just sat waiting with a collection of Modern
> > Library books- so out of sight-out of mind! In the meantime, I had my
> > hands full with ordinary life plus in Plato's world I would have been
> > stuck at home. I thought the Greeks preferred young boys and wives
> > were for breeding- though Pericles seems to have loved Aspasia...
>
> > On Sep 1, 5:56 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > You may have been taught without a caste or read Plato through someone
> > > who liked him rigsy. I even teach Kierkegaard as a Danish humourist.
> > > I found PLato as despicable as Joseph Heller in 'Picture This' or
> > > Popper in vol. 1 of The Enemies of the Open Society. There seems no
> > > reason to regard an elite who can learn at least some of what's hard
> > > to special privileges, but at the sane time trying to mash the stuff
> > > into people's heads by academic means seems cruel. I share something
> > > of Vam's view that a small number in power create a system that causes
> > > great discomfort and disempowers others (social mice are a good study
> > > in point). Finland gets a lot of its people to high standards of
> > > education (one can google the PISA studies) - so there's a lot we
> > > could do.
> > > The problem as I see it is that we educate to make people 'successful'
> > > in a society that has gone wrong instead of to change it. And the
> > > vast majority can't cope with what we have made this education and I
> > > now believe this is cruel. I guess what I want to see is a society in
> > > which people can fit in without a caste system or some equality in
> > > mediocrity. Democracy isn't it for me - I tend to see it and its
> > > economics as religious and past sell by date. We need something more
> > > peaceful that recognises its been the best game in town and its
> > > faults.
> > > Education based on making individuals 'moral' or 'virtuous' really has
> > > to come after structuring social freedom - we have to be brave enough
> > > to try this. A young American student burst into my office some years
> > > ago (I don't hold a regular position or teach much now) after a
> > > business ethics class. He was appalled by the teacher (my ex-boss - a
> > > jerk) and claimed the lesson was just about teaching excuses for bad
> > > management behaviour. The ethics teacher was one of the most
> > > unethical perverts it had been my misfortune to meet. Soon there was
> > > a queue and I was asked to run an alternative. I'd conclude after 20
> > > years that much management teaching simply reinforces prejudice and
> > > the wrong way to do things. I'd sum it up with something research
> > > methods students with work experience say - 'you don't expect us to do
> > > any of this at work do you Neil - telling the truth there is like
> > > writing a resignation letter'. They are soon assured i don't.
>
> > > My feeling is that much early religion may have been about rebellious
> > > moral assertion - freedom from indenture. This has been lost and
> > > maybe we need something like this back. This is probably what I mean
> > > by something 'more simple' Lee. Teaching (effectively) 'honesty is
> > > the best policy' seems wrong in a world that doesn't reward honesty -
> > > even if one does this through difficult concepts. We need a movement
> > > to make life happier and more decent and then maybe John Rawls would
> > > make sense. But we can't do it by teaching Rawls. Or by designing
> > > the life for Plato's few through massive training in which we become
> > > so moral we deign to share wives, in a manner that rather suggests we
> > > own them.
>
> > > On Sep 1, 4:08 pm, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Just joining in... with a Wow !
>
> > > > Much of what Neil deprecates in ineducable human beings is also
> > > > evident in this very group discussion ... morality, ego, ethics,
> > > > or read Plato social order / values / effects ... and much talk, many words, wider
> > > > canvas, saying for the sake of saying, an activity that satisfies ...
> > > > but really going nowhere, reaching noplace.
>
> > > > Lee's relative morality is a fact... not the truth. The difference is
> > > > that facts are truths of the moment and truths are facts for life.
> > > > Facts can be spotted, by individuals on account of what the moment or
> > > > one's situation in life means to him, and by the collective on issues
> > > > which Neil is acutely concerned about. In contrast, truths are only
> > > > available, if at all, either when one is breathing for the last time
> > > > or to one who has lived through expelling that "last" breath while
> > > > still relatively young !
>
> > > > The founder of Lee's spiritual order has no such " relativistic "
> > > > ambiguities in what he prescribes, both as ethics and morals. They
> > > > very explicit, and abundantly clear when implicit. So does the Buddha.
> > > > So is Spinoza. And Kant. Or, Gandhi and Luther King. And Faulkner,
> > > > Steinbeck, Camus. And the reason why are clear, even when they admit
> > > > the relativistic paradigms commonplace or narrate the saga of human
> > > > failings, is that they have a vision IN TRUTH that is simple... Say, A
> > > > SOCIETY IN WHICH PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE THE NEED TO, AND THEY ACTUALLY DO
> > > > NOT, SETTLE ANYTHING WITH VIOLENCE ! If you take a representative
> > > > worldwide survey 99% of the population would find it most agreeable
> > > > thing to happen. The 1% who'd disagree are those who actually hold on
> > > > to power and spoils for themselves through the exercise of violence.
>
> > > > It is this which is SIMPLE. The rest of it complex, more complex,
> > > > absolutely knotted and compounded to boot. But that didn't deter them
> > > > from proceeding down to laying out the content and elements of this
> > > > ONE simple truth... and what it implies for each one of us as
> > > > individuals, our morals and our ethics.
>
> > > > What comes in the way of us actually subscribing to such morals and
> > > > ethics is IGNORANCE... of what ? that vision, that simple truth. And
> > > > EGO comes into the picture because it loves this ignorance, of not
> > > > having to subscribe to and subject itself to such rules for itself,
> > > > morals and ethics, because the fact of our moment is that they do not
> > > > pay. Why ? Because the people who will make the payment do not
> > > > subscribe to such rules and, in fact, require that we who are looking
> > > > to be paid also do not do so !
>
> > > > This in fact is the nature of the argument I see for ourselves. And
> > > > that we do dissipate ourselves in mere words, learning and desire to
> > > > say the last word !
>
> > > > On Sep 1, 7:10 pm, rigsy03 <rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Democracy is simply a new system
>
> ...
>
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