Re: Mind's Eye Towards a modern morality

I don't mind being backward Gabby. I don't, of course, propose any
return to the kind of religion suffered by so many for so long and the
often revolting treatment of women. Here is a fairly simple treatment
of much that's been going wrong in the financial system.

"While most economists agree that the world is facing the worst
economic crisis since the
Great Depression, there is little agreement as to what caused it. Some
have argued that
the financial instability we are witnessing is due to irrational
exuberance of market
participants, fraud, greed, too much regulation, et cetera. However,
some Post Keynesian
economists following Hyman P. Minsky have argued that this is a
systemic problem, a
result of internal market processes that allowed fragility to build
over time. In this paper
we focus on the shift to the "shadow banking system" and the creation
of what Minsky
called the money manager phase of capitalism. In this system, rapid
growth of leverage
and financial layering allowed the financial sector to claim an ever-
rising proportion of
national income—what is sometimes called "financialization"—as the
financial system
evolved from hedge to speculative and, finally, to a Ponzi scheme.
The policy response to the financial crisis in the United States and
elsewhere has
largely been an attempt to rescue money manager capitalism. Moreover,
in the case of the
United States. the bailout policy has contributed to further
concentration of the financial
sector, increasing dangers. We believe that the policies directed at
saving the system are
doomed to fail—and that alternative policies should be adopted. The
effective solution
should come in the way of downsizing the financial sector by two-
thirds or more, and
effecting fundamental modifications."
explain
The paper can be found at the Levi Institute along with loads more.
The rub is that banking is mostly parasitic and we need a return to
primitive banking that supports productive projects. The reason I
think we need to review morality and come up with a modern one is that
I find almost no one can understand stuff like this. One can barely
get students to look up the papers and our news programmes are aimed
at a teenage mentality. We are both over-complicating and
trivialising decision making so that ordinary people can't take part
other than as voting dupes. The pressures on me are not to explain so
most people can understand, but to take part in esoteric debate to
earn my academic corn. Pol Kid sets out some of the dangers and Gabby
often has - yet if we are to retain democracy (I'm not a fan, but it
sure beats not being able to vote - though here in the UK I never have
a real vote) we have to find ways to stop it being abused by a
financial-political class.

My own suspicion is that rational debate is essentially violent and
hence doomed to fail other than as a domination strategy (or as
refined chattering). There are structural answers about - such as
having the people make law and government administer it. There have
been at least half-way successful changes in, say, feminism and gay
rights (surely moral causes both in repression and emancipation
stages). I would recommend 'The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp' to
get in the swing of things and begin to consider how 'there is no
alternative' mentalities screw us.


On May 18, 7:45 pm, "pol.science kid" <r.freeb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> no i guess Schopenhauer said.. religion is philosophy of the masses...
>
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 11:48 PM, pol.science kid <r.freeb...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> d the generally revolting treatment of women
>
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> > Your post touches many relevant points.. but right now the point about
> > religion comes to my mind... its true religion has been a source of
> > morality for the most people...like it was schopenhauer(?) who
> > said religion was the morality or ethics of  the masses.. dont remember
> > clearly ... anyways... see what i observe is.. the ethical hold of religion
> > is fast disappearing...i rather see religion being appropriated for
> > political propaganda..or communal menace... plus.. i wonder how you can
> > remove religion form the past legacy in invoking it for morality afresh...
> > religion does not have a glorius history.. i dont know really know.. havent
> > read religious history... i often wonder how it would be if there was a
> > community.. functioning politically, terrtorially integrated and sovereign
> > composed of all atheist people...   i guess our brains or minds are too
> > steeped in history to be entirely radical(Routine and familiarity have
> > such a powerful hold)... how many would support the system of ethics not
> > enforced by an idea of the divine or sacred.. or God.. but it would be
> > wonderful if we had something of the 'Kantian' ethics .. based on
> > humanity... i wonder if any doctrine to live by has the force of religion..
> > is religion a condition of the mind? i guess any system can turn
> > tyrannical..
> > from a personal example- i had a friend.. who was an atheist.. a very
> > radical dude..until.. he suddenly changed.. we find out after one summer
> > break hes turned into a devout christian(going to church regularly and
> > sometimes quoting stuff from the bible!)..we totally freaked out.. see he
> > was originally from a tribe...their own tribal religion was sort of weak he
> > had once told us... but to continue.. all our friends had a very negative
> > reaction to his sudden change... though none of us were really atheists we
> > sort of had an aversion to devout practising of religion... it was also
> > weird because he was an atheist... and then suddenly hes so full of faith
> > and everything... our reaction was wrong..though it didnt ruin our
> > friendship(we stilll loved him and realised we were being fools).. in our
> > rush to be free of all this dogma and superstiton sorrounding us  we
> > dismissed his individual choice.. and didnt respect his decision.. we were
> > acting like some dogmatic superstitous people ourselves.. my point of this
> > lame story was that maintaining balance is a tricky thing...
> > ... i am a cynical person too you know... but i guess you would know
> > better cos youre older than me.. but i have been proven wrong in my
> > estimate of the people around me.. which is reassuring... you view of the
> > young generation is valid.. its true.. but i think we cant possibly become
> > worse than we already are.. in the whole sum of things...
>
> >  On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 9:43 AM, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> My stance towards most moralising is one of incredulity, yet I'm a
> >> moraliser and believe most of our problems lie in our lack of personal
> >> and collective morality.  Economics as our political and business
> >> class practice it is fundamentally immoral against a scientific world-
> >> view,  My view of science is that it is full of values and the notion
> >> of it as value-free is a total and totalising dud.  Only lay people
> >> with no experience of doing science hold the "value-free" notion of
> >> science.
>
> >> You can explore some of the moral issues arising in modern science in
> >> a lengthy book review at London Review of Books -
> >>http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/malcolm-bull/what-is-the-rational-response.
> >> The book's topic is climate change.
>
> >> Coming up to 60 I regard the world as a abject failure against the
> >> promises I thought were being made in politics.  I'm a world-weary old
> >> fart now, tending to see the generations coming up as narcissist
> >> wastrels who don't know what hard work is (etc.) though I think the
> >> blame is ours, not theirs.  I think the problem is our attitude
> >> towards morality.  The tendency in history is to focus on religion for
> >> moral advice - this is utterly corrupt and we have forgotten that much
> >> religious morality is actually a reaction against unfairness and the
> >> wicked control of our lives by the rich.  It is this latter factor
> >> that is repeating itself.
>
> >> Much moralising concerns sex.  This all largely based in old fables
> >> for population control we can still find in primitive societies such
> >> as 'sperm control by fellatio' (Sambians) and non-penetrative youth
> >> sex (Kikuyu) etc. - and stuff like 'the silver ring thing'.  The
> >> modern issue is population control and that we can achieve this
> >> without sexual moralising - the moral issues are about quality of
> >> life, women as other than child-bearing vessels and so on.  We have
> >> failed almost entirely except in developed countries - to such an
> >> extent the world population has trebled in my lifetime despite
> >> economic factors driving down birth-rates in developed countries
> >> without the kind of restrictions such as China enforced.
>
> >> We are still at war.
>
> >> Our economics is still based in "growth" and "consumption" and notions
> >> human beings should work hard - when in fact the amount of work we
> >> need to do probably equates to 3 days a week for 6 months of a year.
> >> 75% of GDP is in services and only 6% in really hard work like
> >> agriculture.  We could have a great deal more through doing less and
> >> doing what we do with more regard for conservation and very different
> >> scientific advance.  My view is it's immoral that we won't take
> >> responsibility for this and review our failures.  I believe this
> >> failure inhibits our spiritual growth and renders us simply animal.
>
> >> Human life may be much less than I value it at and just a purposeless
> >> farce.  The first step in a new attitude towards morality is to
> >> consider living with a scientific world-view.  The implications of
> >> this are complex and probably entail shaking ourselves from a false-
> >> consciousness to be able to see what is being done in our name.  We
> >> need a modern morality not based in the creation of fear and demons to
> >> enforce it, or the feeble existential view of the individual.  We are
> >> social animals and need to get back to some basics developed with
> >> modern knowledge, not in past religious and empire disasters.
>
> >> Religion has a role in this in my view - religion we might recapture
> >> from sensible history - I'd recommend David Graeber's 'Debt: the first
> >> 5000 years' as a read here.
>
> > --
> > EverComing
>
> --
> EverComing