Hey, try the new edition. I had completely forgotten I had already posted this. And, this morning I made the new version. So read that on as well. I see I have already gotten one reply, so I need to study that.
"
The Western "liberal" project has failed. This is what has appeared before us; we are seeing it, the failure of a system many of us have believed in since, say the time of JS Mill. He suggested that the goal of a well-functioning democratic society was "the greater good." This as well: "to allow a more well-functioning and cooperative society". This is an idea that comes from (https://www.philosophyincontext.com/ whih seems to be a great website. Instead of utilizing the usual liars it uses something on JS Mill written by a high school junior!
Western society claims to support good persons. But, you don't get good persons, unless you have a cultural system that trains persons to be good. Being a good person is the result of culture. If you say "just go and make money; I don't care how you do it," how does that support the goodness of the members of society? These people also support things that eventually undermine the legal system. So that's gone. What about politics?
The State has power, as it should, but the way we have it organized, so do the wealthy. Those who are the most successful at what we call "making" money therefore conspire to keep the population stupid. Education declines. We see the decline of all institutions.
That includes journalism, so you are never going to hear about it. Doctors, scientists, and politicians are all captured too -- by the allure of money and the development of clever ways to "make" it for one's self. For one's self alone. That is "self-interest." I don't think this is what JS Mill was talking about. I could be wrng, because I never studied his writing. So: Am I wrong? Let's have a "political conversation."
Let's show 'em that we can have a real discussion.
Mill’s advocacy of utilitarianism is briefly summarized in government as popular vote under the assumption that the ends define the means. “Utilitarianism is distinguished from other philosophies in that it only cares about the consequences of our actions.” In enacting laws backed by the populace then Mills stops at the idea that if these laws were supported by the voters then a utilitarian democracy is successful.
What he doesn’t take into consideration, however, is that this mentality, if taken to its logical conclusion, would justify the use of unethical means to ensure that these laws would be effective and enforced.
The voter, like those of ancient Athens, is in many cases susceptible to the emotional appeal of demagogues like Trump.
Mill is a "liberal" in that he believes the people are going to vote correctly. But how would they know how to vote correctly? If we say, "Well, it is up to them," that seems insufficient. I am not sure how they would learn to vote correctly. It depends on the education that they receive. So, my view is that there needs to be a culture. To reproduce a culture, a society needs to educate it's children. This is the matter of cultural transmission. Every "traditional" society does this, in order to exist. If you don't transmit your culture, you do not continue to exist. What happened with the West is that it becomes a project to "make money," not a cultural or educational project. So, there was no consensus on how to maintain the culture, and so we did not maintain that. We switched to a system of mis-interpreting Adam Smith to say that making money was all there was to life.
I am wondering if Cleary used the same website as I did in writing the original post here. because I remember the quote. Consequences come from causes and nobody was thinking aobut causes. Maybe they thought transmission of culture was something that would just happen automatically.
What seems to happen, for us today, is that instead of creating causes for intelligent voting, we create a bunch of dunder-heads. We could survive just based on money. Smith's principle does work, to a certain extent. New technologies produces regrigeratio, flush toilets and sanitation.
But not intelligent voting, so we have a lot pf people who although haging flush toilets do not know how to vote. Then, we bully them with expensive advertizing to get them to vote our way.
No ruling class was ever in favor of educating the population. That would threaten their power! But cultural transmission was necessary for survival. We lost sight of it.
Hey, try the new edition. I had completely forgotten I had already posted this. And, this morning I made the new version. So read that on as well. I see I have already gotten one reply, so I need to study that.
"
The Western "liberal" project has failed. This is what has appeared before us; we are seeing it, the failure of a system many of us have believed in since, say the time of JS Mill. He suggested that the goal of a well-functioning democratic society was "the greater good." This as well: "to allow a more well-functioning and cooperative society". This is an idea that comes from (https://www.philosophyincontext.com/ whih seems to be a great website. Instead of utilizing the usual liars it uses something on JS Mill written by a high school junior!
Western society claims to support good persons. But, you don't get good persons, unless you have a cultural system that trains persons to be good. Being a good person is the result of culture. If you say "just go and make money; I don't care how you do it," how does that support the goodness of the members of society? These people also support things that eventually undermine the legal system. So that's gone. What about politics?
The State has power, as it should, but the way we have it organized, so do the wealthy. Those who are the most successful at what we call "making" money therefore conspire to keep the population stupid. Education declines. We see the decline of all institutions.
That includes journalism, so you are never going to hear about it. Doctors, scientists, and politicians are all captured too -- by the allure of money and the development of clever ways to "make" it for one's self. For one's self alone. That is "self-interest." I don't think this is what JS Mill was talking about. I could be wrng, because I never studied his writing. So: Am I wrong? Let's have a "political conversation."
Let's show 'em that we can have a real discussion.
"
Mill’s advocacy of utilitarianism is briefly summarized in government as popular vote under the assumption that the ends define the means. “Utilitarianism is distinguished from other philosophies in that it only cares about the consequences of our actions.” In enacting laws backed by the populace then Mills stops at the idea that if these laws were supported by the voters then a utilitarian democracy is successful.
What he doesn’t take into consideration, however, is that this mentality, if taken to its logical conclusion, would justify the use of unethical means to ensure that these laws would be effective and enforced.
The voter, like those of ancient Athens, is in many cases susceptible to the emotional appeal of demagogues like Trump.
hey there, the "means" is defined as voting. So there! Voting defines the means.
Mill is a "liberal" in that he believes the people are going to vote correctly. But how would they know how to vote correctly? If we say, "Well, it is up to them," that seems insufficient. I am not sure how they would learn to vote correctly. It depends on the education that they receive. So, my view is that there needs to be a culture. To reproduce a culture, a society needs to educate it's children. This is the matter of cultural transmission. Every "traditional" society does this, in order to exist. If you don't transmit your culture, you do not continue to exist. What happened with the West is that it becomes a project to "make money," not a cultural or educational project. So, there was no consensus on how to maintain the culture, and so we did not maintain that. We switched to a system of mis-interpreting Adam Smith to say that making money was all there was to life.
I am wondering if Cleary used the same website as I did in writing the original post here. because I remember the quote. Consequences come from causes and nobody was thinking aobut causes. Maybe they thought transmission of culture was something that would just happen automatically.
What seems to happen, for us today, is that instead of creating causes for intelligent voting, we create a bunch of dunder-heads. We could survive just based on money. Smith's principle does work, to a certain extent. New technologies produces regrigeratio, flush toilets and sanitation.
But not intelligent voting, so we have a lot pf people who although haging flush toilets do not know how to vote. Then, we bully them with expensive advertizing to get them to vote our way.
No ruling class was ever in favor of educating the population. That would threaten their power! But cultural transmission was necessary for survival. We lost sight of it.