Political Crossfire Forums

[Atlas Bergeron]

Fido wrote:
What I am saying is that knowledge without understanding, -and love is impossible without understanding,
you need to prove that "understanding is impossible without love", not vice versa, for your argument to have any validity

Quote: can only result in power without virtue. power without virtue? If you believe that knowledge and understanding directly equal power, then power without any "love" i.e. any "end" would be useless. I don't know if you would call that "without virtue"

Quote: It is only as good for one as his ability to destroy his neighbors, who will bend themselves to destroy him. Our whole society sees no practical value in life, in love, in understanding. this is an overstatement. They simply don't understand the true referents to which these concepts point, and thus have the illusion of not valuing them.

Quote: We preach peace and practice war. It would be the most complete justice if we were destroyed, because we trample madly over the environment and other cultures. We may get our notion of the individual from the speculations of priests, but we have no God but our individual selves. the rest was confusing, this is just rabble. I do not even know what you are trying to say anymore.

[Fido]

Quote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote:
What I am saying is that knowledge without understanding, -and love is impossible without understanding,
you need to prove that "understanding is impossible without love", not vice versa, for your argument to have any validity

Once more. I am telling you what my knowledge suggests and that I cannot disprove. I have never been able to find understanding without love, nor love without understanding. This makes me believe they are different facets of the same quality, perhaps, Wisdom.

Quote: Quote: can only result in power without virtue. power without virtue? If you believe that knowledge and understanding directly equal power, then power without any "love" i.e. any "end" would be useless. I don't know if you would call that "without virtue"

The only power that knowledge with understanding gives is over ones own behavior. All power over self ( from understanding) is virtue. Nothing is more capricious than power without understanding, which gives power over others without self control or virtue.

Quote: Quote: It is only as good for one as his ability to destroy his neighbors, who will bend themselves to destroy him. Our whole society sees no practical value in life, in love, in understanding. this is an overstatement. They simply don't understand the true referents to which these concepts point, and thus have the illusion of not valuing them.

If you want a fortune cookie, mine said the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. Some one is not good only because they are accidentally good, and usually miss the referents. Stop signs are only as good as any ones ability to understand their meaning. Our society does not teach compromise and mercy and love; but degrades these qualities as it attacks community. There is something to be said for culture besides where is ours. But for a start, Where is ours?

Quote: Quote: We preach peace and practice war. It would be the most complete justice if we were destroyed, because we trample madly over the environment and other cultures. We may get our notion of the individual from the speculations of priests, but we have no God but our individual selves. the rest was confusing, this is just rabble. I do not even know what you are trying to say anymore.

It really is a rabble of facts. So many of us reject society, and feel rejected in our turn. The fact is that most of us do so on the basis of a conception of the individual rooted in the religion and metaphysics of the middle ages which in every other respect we would reject. So long as we believe we can only know freedom and power as individuals, or know freedom by power over individuals we will be forever inviting revolution and violence. If we were to define the individual as an entity, complete, and sustaining of life and culture our definition would not be a person, but a family. Individuals are subdivisions of society, and as individuals are always outside of community, and always outside of the law.

[Corona]

Fido wrote: Corona wrote: Hegelian_Center wrote:
Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable;

Do you know all the rich people in the world?

I do not know many rich people, and even I can say they are miserable. You need only recognize that all humanity lives in a closed system, and that rich people are rich because of, and beside other people who are poor, and seek security at the price of another's insecurity, and have time and leisure at the price of others having neither.

It is an observable fact that all change is an attempt at problem solving. What solution is wealth if the very poverty you escape you force others to endure? Only one trying to escape reality would do so by concentrating the negative aspects of reality for all. Only those who wish to escape from life would make life a period of hazard, toil, and poverty in exchange for their own spiritual nirvana. Such people as the rich must indeed be miserable since they are the source of so much misery. Society, and even the world is a closed system, and misery is general. Do you suppose they could be less miserable because they are more wealthy, secure, leisurely, spiritual or cruel. They can only be less miserable by being more comatose, and they could not be more comatose without being dead.

(Note that this post is written under the assumption that the rich people in question worked to earn their money)

Rich people did not force anyone into poverty, they simply worked harder, achieved more, and had more foresight. Men get what they earn, and if a man has earned his wealth, I don't think he would feel pity for (or miserable because of) those who haven't earned anything. I think the only rich people who are miserable, are the ones that have NOT earned and worked for their wealth; the looters.

[Fido]

Corona wrote: Fido wrote: Corona wrote: Hegelian_Center wrote:
Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable;

Do you know all the rich people in the world?

I do not know many rich people, and even I can say they are miserable. You need only recognize that all humanity lives in a closed system, and that rich people are rich because of, and beside other people who are poor, and seek security at the price of another's insecurity, and have time and leisure at the price of others having neither.

It is an observable fact that all change is an attempt at problem solving. What solution is wealth if the very poverty you escape you force others to endure? Only one trying to escape reality would do so by concentrating the negative aspects of reality for all. Only those who wish to escape from life would make life a period of hazard, toil, and poverty in exchange for their own spiritual nirvana. Such people as the rich must indeed be miserable since they are the source of so much misery. Society, and even the world is a closed system, and misery is general. Do you suppose they could be less miserable because they are more wealthy, secure, leisurely, spiritual or cruel. They can only be less miserable by being more comatose, and they could not be more comatose without being dead.

(Note that this post is written under the assumption that the rich people in question worked to earn their money)

Rich people did not force anyone into poverty, they simply worked harder, achieved more, and had more foresight. Men get what they earn, and if a man has earned his wealth, I don't think he would feel pity for (or miserable because of) those who haven't earned anything. I think the only rich people who are miserable, are the ones that have NOT earned and worked for their wealth; the looters.

You know, between my wife's and my income we are probably in the 85th% of income. My eldest son, the attorney, is doing much better yet. We have worked hard. But this does not mean that we are not part of a closed system which contains a total of incomes high and low. Rich does not have any meaning without poor. Cold has no meaning without hot. Hot does not cause cold, but concentrated wealth does result in general poverty. You clearly do not understand how much of an effort is involved on behalf of the wealthy against the poor and middle classes -to suggest wealth does not cause poverty. There is such an effort to reduce taxes on the rich, and on their property while putting downward pressure on wages, and when wages become so low that they do not attract workers, to throw open our borders to slaves from Mexico, that it is clearly unjust. Life is cheap in this country if you buy it by the hour. This dirt cheap price of life is an invitation to war. It is only one example where the rich, to avoid misery, spreads it abroad upon the whole population.

You idolize the rich, you know. So many people blame the victims for their failures even while recognizing that the dice are loaded. Those are the very sort that gas themselves in their cars when it comes to their turn to lose everything. They find themselves guilty of the very failures they put on their friends and neighbors. One has to be very sharp, and lucky to make any progress today. But to have wealth amid poverty one must be insensitive to the needs of others and driven. Hard work has earned a lot of fortunes, but those fortunes were built on the bed rock of low wages. Nobody ever got rich selling their own labor power, but artists have come the closest, along with profession.

[Corona]

Bah, don't assume I idolize the rich from two or three of my posts, a man can be monetarily poor and still happy. Also, what would you do with this concentrated wealth, take it and give it to others? I understand that there is no rich without the poor, and I understand that the rich are rich at the poor's expense, but the poor are poor only so long as they allow it to be so.

[Fido]

Corona wrote: Bah, don't assume I idolize the rich from two or three of my posts, a man can be monetarily poor and still happy. Also, what would you do with this concentrated wealth, take it and give it to others? I understand that there is no rich without the poor, and I understand that the rich are rich at the poor's expense, but the poor are poor only so long as they allow it to be so.

A person is only financially poor so long as they measure themselves by that standard. There would be few poor people if people let poverty interfere with their happiness. It is because people are generally happy that they do nothing about the poverty except deal with it and get on. It is not misery that makes revolutions, but a crushed optimism, or failed expectations. This is why I try to remind people of how far our democracy has failed us. It is because this fettered people still thinks of itself as free. But what is the point of revolution if it only results in a shuffling of the same cards where one can draw a king and another can draw a two? I want to see a standard of honor prevail, and not because it is more peaceful, but more just. Until that moment... Up the revolution.