Quid pro woe

Is it OK to hate someone because of their race, religion, or national origin? The answer seems to be yes, as long as you can find some historical basis for being a member of a victim group. At least, this is one of the justifications for anger against whites in the American Black community. Here is the question: Just because you have a justification for a belief or a position, should you take it? If the goal is lifelong happiness, it is hard to see how this approach leads to happiness. This is the Reverend Wright question. Blame, heat, rage, and somehow feel better, feel happy, find peace and contentment, build an enduring monument to your life? I don't think so!

Cult vs Culture

The current definition of a cult is a group of people led by a charismatic person. These people may have practices that are different than mainstream beliefs. Recently, a cult in Texas was found to be forcing young girls into marriages with older men. They also may have been using physical abuse to maintain order within their ranks. Law enforcement was quick to act.

The definition of a culture is a way of living, a way of life. The way of life in inner city communities has excessive street violence, often observed by young children who are permanently altered by this exposure.

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/155/3/342

The culture of single, never married women raising children leads to more a more impoverished childhood.

The culture of the inner city leads to more abuse of women (16% of mothers by boyfriends/husbands).

Perhaps, a more directed effort from the leaders of the inner city communities is needed to reduce the culture of violence, never-wed single parenting, and to increase control of impulsive violence for both men and women. The fact that cult leaders can bring about behavioral change in cult members raises hopes that community leaders can bring about change in members of subcultures.

A different approach

Instead of the concept of ethics (right and wrong), DocBrain is experimenting (in his head) with a different paradigm: checks and balances.

The concept of ethics is based upon a belief that there are definite rights and wrongs. While this may indeed be true, it tends to polarize people into camps, creating victims and victimizers (villains). It requires empathy with each position to find the clear way to rightness. On the other hand, the concept of checks and balances admits to no right or wrong, just a golden mean, a point of balance that is where we want to be.

Here is an example. A man, addicted to drugs, murders a woman in cold blood while robbing a bank.

Ethics:

• Empathy with the woman: It is wrong for her life to have ended this way.
• Empathy with the man: He was a victim of drug abuse, probably due to a genetic abnormality in his brain that led him to being addictable. In addition, he probably had a genetic abnormality in his brain that made him violent, and another that made him less caring of laws. He was just unlucky that she was in the bank. How could her choice to be in the bank be his fault? Perhaps a look or a word from her was the trigger that set him over the top? Don't blame the vessel for the contents.
• So, while the death was wrong, the man is not entirely to blame, for we, as a society, could have been more attuned to his special problems and needs.

Checks and Balances:

• A woman was killed in a bank robbery. Do we want more events like this to happen? No. OK. We need to understand what caused this man to do his act and to find ways to identify people who are like him and keep them from doing such acts in the future.
• Can we guarantee that the man who killed her won't do it again? No. OK. He cannot be let out in open society ever again.
• Can the man who killed her do anything to bring her back? No. OK
• Can the man who killed her do anything to restore balance in society? Yes. He can submit to human experimentation, work to create wealth to pay off his debt to the woman's family, or just commit suicide and reduce the burden on society for his life and needs.

Does checks and balances represent a practical solution for complex problems? Lets try one more.

Young woman in a persistent vegetative state for years:

• Do we want to prevent the husband from getting on with his life? No. OK. Go and get on with your life. No reason not to.
• Do we want the pvs woman to die? No. OK. Lets all chip in and pay for her care, and take turns visiting her.

Comments welcome!

Ethics and Change

What is the summum bonum, the highest good? One conclusion is that one should live so that one's actions should lead to the greatest happiness. This formulation ties good to happiness. Happiness in this definition is distinguished from pleasure, which the result of short term satisfactions or instinctual gratifications.

Ethics itself is based on the following paradigm:

1. Victims are unhappy.
2. Search for victims (usually those who are less than equal, or who seem to be taken advantage of).
3. Empathize with them.
4. Apply laws and resources to remove the victim status.
5. The victim is now no longer a victim and is happy.

This is a great theory and the main thought process that bedevils teenagers and young adults. The 5 steps seem intuitive, but are they correct? And, if there are errors in some of the steps, it is possible that following the above steps may actually create less happiness and more misery, although you may get pleasure from doing it. This would make it...ah...unethical!

Here are the main problems that current scientific research has exposed:

1. Victims aren't always unhappy. Unhappiness is mainly due to internal makeup and less due to external circumstances. Obviously, hunger, disease, lack of shelter can produce some true misery, but otherwise people just get used to their surroundings, no matter how meager or how affluent.
2. A person who seems less equal can be that way because of internal factors. This can apply to groups as well as individuals. Internal self and group elevations are more effective and create more of an internal self-worth than external advantage programs.
3. A victim, yanked from his victim hood without having actually earned it on his own, will likely flounder. There is self respect and nobility in working for success and achievement that cannot be gained from largess. This is the American Way, nobility through achievement rather than through entitlement. It is wrong when the royalty is entitled; it is wrong when the poor are entitled.

So, when you hear "change" remember that the playing field should not be level. It is up to families and subcultures to instill in their children the values that will lead to lifelong happiness and success. Failure to do so should not be rewarded by society, lest we increase misery in the world.

Trickle up economics

According to Democrats, any tax plan that does not preferentially tax the rich is just unfair. The rich have more and so they should pay more, not only absolutely, but relatively. This will allow the government to have more money which it will use to:

• Hire people to administer the money through bureaucracies.
• Pay to big corporations that have contracts with the government.
• Give to individuals who do not work, who will use that money to buy stuff (food, clothing, shelter, utilities and luxuries) on the free market.
• Give to insurance companies to administer national health plans that provide a trickle-down, budget centered health care.

Somehow, they see this as better than allowing money to remain in the private sector. Private sector money distributes as follows:

• People hired to perform services and to produce goods. People decide how much to work, how hard to apply themselves, how much to learn and grow, and create increased value for their work by being more effective and more efficient in the workplace.
• Corporations spend money to develop new goods and services, to buy new equipment (that is made by people working for other companies).
• Working people spend their money on food, clothing, shelter, utilities and luxuries in the free market
• Private health plans compete for your business. While just a dream, there is a hope of trickle up, patient centered health care (see www.wiserwiki.com )

Certainly, if you are a person who does not believe in your own ability to succeed, a person who does not believe in the ability of any person to achieve a measure of success with effort, a person who believes that redistribution of wealth leads to happiness in those whose wealth is confiscated against their wishes and happiness in those who get additional wealth without their doing anything to merit that influx of wealth, then you may see redistribution as a good thing. However, there is little concrete data to support that position. The data does support the fact that those who do not believe in themselves do not succeed, but there is no data that supports largess as a contributor to self-belief. On the other hand, charity benefits the giver and places a burden on the taker to pay it forward or to use the gift to gain self sufficiency. Charity is private sector. No coercion is needed, just good will towards man. But, if you are a liberal, you probably do not believe that enough people have good will, or perhaps you believe that charity is demeaning. Again, little data to support that. It does produce a burden of repayment, but what is wrong with that? That is the human thing to do. Perhaps you believe that the rich buy your labor for pennies on the dollar, that you, and others like you, are underpaid. The truth is that, as long as someone is willing to do your job well enough to satisfy your employer for less than you want, you are overpaid. Unions allow individuals to stand together and refuse to work unless certain conditions are met. The solution is to become an employer yourself or to make yourself indispensible to your employer by honing your skills and knowledge. Increasing your value is within your power.

Happy Liberals

What does a liberal believe? Here is a definition:

1. The free market creates economic imbalances that should be corrected by government.
2. People are entitled to social welfare, and that should be provided by government.
3. Progressive governmental taxation, or incremental taxation based upon success in a free market society, is a good thing.
4. Those who work should pay into a system that supports those who do not work (ie, social security)
5. A single school system should be maintained by the government with taxes. The curriculum should be a top-down determination.
6. Assets accumulated during a lifetime should be largely redistributed by the government upon death.
7. People should be free to live their lives as they desire.
8. Identifiable groups who statistically do poorly in comparison to others in terms of education, employment, or social status fail because of external factors, not internal ones, and deserve special protection and rights.

The summary is that freedom of the individual is compromised for the purpose of equality.

Question: Does this lead to increased happiness in society?

The new psychology of happiness theory is beginning to address the impact of liberal concepts on true happiness, initially with opinion, and slowly with facts. My reading of the latest data would suggest that the true liberal position does not lead to increased happiness. Before dismissing happiness theory, it is important to understand that it is based upon scientific research, which is the hallmark of a true liberal mindset. Conservatives are ruled by established beliefs; liberals are open to science. And yet, the science seems to support the belief that traditional "values" are the keys to true happiness, not based upon belief, but upon brain structure, genetic coding, and basic laws of interaction.

1. A happy life is not based upon economic success. Correcting fluctuations in wealth in the free market will not increase happiness, as long as people are above the level of being destitute.
2. A quid pro quo system, paying it forward, tit-for-tat, works better for spread of happiness than entitlement based "social welfare".
3. Voluntary giving to help others or hiring of others with your largesse is more noble than forcible confiscation based upon a tax code that penalizes success.
4. Individual responsibility is a prerequisite for personal self-respect.
5. An education system that is both bottom up and top down leads to a more complete knowledge base. Furthermore, a single school system that is based on the concept that ultimate success is getting a PhD and becoming a college professor is not in the best interest of individuals who would be artisans, poets, manual laborers, athletes, etc. We are a society where we can see excellence in areas other than the three Rs. Education needs to be overhauled to develop emotionally balanced people who are respected for their chosen careers and professions, instead of one where the intelligensia looks down on those who didn't quite make the grade.
6. There is a regression to the mean. Any inheritance is as likely to be squandered as used wisely by the next generation. Furthermore, wealth is not a zero sum game. If one removes the possibility of using one's wealth to further one's goals after one's death, this will negatively impact the zeal and creativity of people. This can do nothing but reduce happiness.
7. Are all lifestyles equal? Is a single 16 year old drug addict as likely to raise an emotionally stable child as a married couple in their 30's? Data says "No". So, how can all lifestyles be condoned or even tolerated, if we really care about long term happiness? This is just an example. The single 16 year old may have pleasure from the baby, but true happiness will be reduced for her as well as for society. That baby would have more happiness if adopted by the 30 year old couple.
8. Do groups do poorly because of external or internal factors? The success of individuals from all groups would argue that failure to succeed is in part individual characteristics, in part environmental (ie, the tragic surroundings of the child of the single drug-addicted 16 year old who cannot be an effective parent to teach proper life skills), and in part internal social expectation (peer group pressure), and only has limited external factor input. Furthermore, the things we look at to determine "equality" are not directly tied to happiness.

The data would support that the very things that liberals stand for do not lead to more happiness. Perhaps, that is why liberals have such a poor view of their fellow citizens and believe that we need to be under the iron thumb of government.

Falling for Grace

It's true. No matter how smart you are, how attractive you are, how rich you are, or how powerful you are, being gracious and polite takes you to the next level for most people.

Most people desire to be gracious, but occasionally aren't due to distress, dislike or disgust. Being able to control your impulses and remain gracious when under difficult conditions can be a good way of training your mind and emotions to serve you.

Then, there are those people who do not desire to be gracious. Being ungracious implies three things: honesty; power; and a degree of self-centeredness. A person who is not gracious does not care how others feel about him. He tells it like it is, and doesn't care about the fall-out. Some people are strongly attracted to such people. They appear arrogant, uncaring, and self-centered to their detractors, but powerful and honest to their supporters. Their certainty about their position often leads some to believe what they say without question. Their self-centeredness and naked use of power leads many to fear, dislike and become frustrated with interactions with these people.

The true skill is to be both honest and well-mannered, powerful yet humble, and to care about others without selling yourself down the river. Hitting that perfect balance takes knowledge, training, and practice. And yet, is probably one of the most important skills not taught in school.