Archives for category: collective identity
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Democracy?!? Which democracy?

March 3, 2016 //
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Mencken, democracy perfected

Just stumbled upon this meme.

It gave me the creeps.

If such an influential personality like H.L. Mencken had such a warped understanding of the democratic process what can we ask from the proverbial ‘regular guy’?

One question haunts me.
How come so many otherwise bright people fail to grasp the obvious fact that ‘democracy’ is what happens before the voting process?

Voting itself is nothing but logistics, arithmetic and honesty. A process more or less akin to a social survey, one through which the electoral commission determines ‘the will of the people’ at a certain moment. A ‘mechanical’ process that has nothing to do with the living thing encapsulated in the concept of democracy.

…’living thing encapsulated in the concept of democracy’…

Do you think I’m exaggerating?

Then let’s go back to the Agora (the meeting place where the ancient Greeks congregated to discuss the public matters at hand) and watch carefully what happened there before each issue was decided upon.

Everybody who wanted to say something about a subject of interest had the opportunity to make his voice heard.

Yes, that’s the real essence of the democratic process! That’s why the Founding Fathers insisted so much about ‘The Freedom of Expression’. That’s why ‘the right to speak up’ comes First, before all others!

You see, the right to vote has no real meaning if the voters are kept in the dark, if they didn’t had access to all the information available prior to the deciding moment.

People will make a choice regardless of how much information they have, at a given moment, about something, precisely because they think they know everything that is to be known about that something.

That’s why people privy to more information than the ‘general public’ have come to reach the conclusion that the ‘ordinary voter’ is stupid.

winston-churchill-government-quotes-the-best-argument-against

Because instead of putting everything on the table and letting ‘the people’ decide in earnest, for some time now some of the ‘pundits’ have been playing a dangerous game of  ‘hide and seek’.
One which has resulted in the profound distrust felt by ‘the people’ about the ‘political establishment’. And in the barely masked contempt displayed by the ‘political elite’ towards the rest of the society.

So, instead of having an open discussion about issues and an atmosphere of trust between the various segments  of the social organism we have to pry bits and pieces of information from those who guard it dearly and such mutual distrust that, if we’ll look around carefully, we’ll notice that we’ve been living, for some time now, way inside ‘paranoia land’.

Can we still pretend that our societies are governed in a democratic manner? That each of us tries to shed some light over his area of expertise and by doing so contributes to all of us avoiding as many of the ‘potholes’ as possible?

‘Cause this is the real essence of democracy.
Not finding the best possible solution to every problem but avoiding the known/foreseeable potholes.

No matter how many of us will study a problem we’ll never find the best solution. After five minutes some fresh information will come about and the erstwhile ‘best’ becomes ‘obsolete’.

Compare this situation to somebody stumbling in a pitfall waiting for all of us, coming  back to warn the rest and not one of us heeding to his cries…

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, fail better, Frames of mind, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, politics, Transparency, Trust

How much lower…

March 3, 2016 //
0
vluchtelingen-wegversperring

‘Hungarian self-defense’

 

… must we sink in our own, self induced, decrepitude before we’ll be able to notice the stink we, ourselves, have draped around us?

Before figuring out that it’s us who are ultimately responsible for our own fate?

Before figuring out that by allowing this kind of crap to be traded above our heads, and sometimes even by helping to its distribution, we soil the most precious of our ‘belongings’ – our souls?

This image has probably been ‘Photoshopped’ by somebody.
I’m not going to discuss that person’s motives here. We live in a free world and everybody should be able to express his/her feelings.

What I find extremely interesting – and dangerous – is the fact that this picture has been so widely circulated over the internet that it ended up in my mail. A short Google search confirmed that it comes from somewhere in Holland only the guy who sent it to me, horripilated, lives in Canada…

So, what’s the use for us to clamor virtuously about human rights and then make fun, shamelessly, of people who find themselves in a horrible situation?

And, please, do not make any mistake!
I’m not speaking exclusively about the refugees here.

Some of the manifestly dissatisfied Europeans who are protesting these days are not as much against the refugees themselves as they are against the hapless manner in which the European bureaucracy has been (mis) managing so many things recently.

Just as some of the political leaders who are lambasting the European Commission on this subject are not interested in improving the European Community but in ‘scoring swag’ with the disillusioned (and somewhat naive) electorate.

We need to break this vicious circle!

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Categories altruism, Choices we make, collective identity, Frames of mind, Politically induced fragility, politics, Respect Mutual., Social justice, Trust

Working at both ends of the problem

February 13, 2016 //
0

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“Administrators at the Success Academy—a network of high-performing charter schools in the New York area—are standing behind what they call a model teacher, who was caught on camera ripping up homework and berating a first grade student for answering a math problem incorrectly.”

 

I totally disagree with this kind of behaviour.
Having said that let me offer you a glimpse of what’s going on in the minds of those who accept or even promote it:
Shouldn’t we be working at both ends of the problem?
Educate the educators about how to motivate the children to learn without crippling their souls AND educate the employers and their agents (managers) about how treating your work force with due respect would yield way better results than using mockery/belittlement as a motivation tool?
“Dr. McDonald, the N.Y.U. professor, who also sits on the board of the Great Oaks Charter School on the Lower East Side, said that the behavior in the video violated an important principle of schooling.

“Because the child’s learning was still a little fragile — as learning always is initially — she made an error,” he said in his email. “Good classrooms (and schools) are places where error is regarded as a necessary byproduct of learning, and an opportunity for growth. But not here. Making an error here is a social offense. It confuses others — as if deliberately.” “

When is it that any of us should stop learning?

And shouldn’t we also be educating ourselves about the fine difference between spoiling a child and helping him/her into becoming a fully-fledged adult (a ‘man’ in the un-gendered meaning of the word)?

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“Saudi women need to ‘think like men’

Gender segregation in Saudi Arabia has sometimes led to “immaturity”, a Saudi businesswoman and member of Jeddah’s municipal council has told BBC HARDtalk.”

 

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Categories authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, Frames of mind, gender roles, human rights, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but

On why having meaningful conversations with your children is so important.

February 12, 2016 //
0

sex education

“Last week, we heard the story of a West Texas high school that plans to expand its sex-ed program after its abstinence-only policy resulted in a mass outbreak of chlamydia amongst its students.”

Let me ask you something.

Could it be that most of the ‘modern’ children live in ‘bubbles’?
That they have (meaningful) contact almost exclusively among themselves and seldom with older/younger generations?
This being the reason for which ‘sensitive’ information passes so hardly from one generation to the other.
And this is valid for way more subjects than just ‘mere’ sex!
“It’s not the kids who aren’t mature enough to learn about sex, it’s their parents who aren’t mature enough to let them.”

 

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, Culture, Frames of mind, gender roles, limited rationality, Psychology, Trust

“The Parable of the Drunk”

February 4, 2016 //
1

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“When we’re trying to recreate an intellectual milieu, even one that’s relatively recent, we invariably discover that the vast majority of the sources we need to do such a thing have been swallowed up by oblivion and lost forever. Sometimes those that remain—e.g., Plato’s dialogues—remain because they were the best of the best, works of great importance. But this isn’t always (or even usually) the case. Sources often survive for largely accidental reasons. Regardless, the temptation to exaggerate the significance of what we have has proven irresistible for generations of intellectual historians. As the philosopher Aaron Haspel puts it in Everything (2015): “The parable of the drunk looking for his keys under the street lamp, where the light is better, explains vast swaths of intellectual history.” (John Faithful Hamer, Touch They’re Real in his blog Committing Sociology)

As always things are not as simple as they seem at the first glance – otherwise we wouldn’t have had a parable to start with, would we?

Basically the drunkard is doing the only reasonable thing available to him. Searching in the lightless park would be completely pointless but what if somebody else had lost a wallet in the lighted area?

Aaron Haspel is also right. Our intellectual history consists indeed of whatever cultural artifacts have been lucky enough to survive. Considered important enough by a sufficient number of people so they helped preserve it to the present day.
Or, evidently, both!

I’d like to direct your attention to ‘Considered important enough by a sufficient number of people’.
You see, the drunkard was looking under the street lamp because ‘This is where the light is’. He was reacting rather sensibly to a real situation.

But what if the reality of something is not so easily ascertainable? What if it’s a ‘second degree’ reality, one that is constantly (re)created by human intercourse? Like people choosing which book to keep and which one to throw into a bonfire?

fahrenheit451

Or even a ‘third degree’ reality? One that is imagined by someone who tries to assess the wishes of somebody else?

“Politicians are fooled into thinking corporate welfare is important to voters because politicians spend an inordinate amount of time with the powerful people to whom corporate welfare is vitally important. That’s why every candidate who has tried to win Iowa has prostrated him or herself before ethanol.”

You certainly guessed it. This paragraph will be about the ‘fourth degree’ reality. The one we, the voters, bring upon ourselves at the ballot box. After having carefully considered each candidate and his or her programme. Or having voted with ‘that particular one’ just because  …

The point I’m trying to make here being that this ‘fourth degree reality’ is not at all ‘virtual’, in the manner the second and the third ones are. In fact this ‘fourth degree’ reality is exactly the one where we have to live. Where we are faced with the consequences of the choices we, ourselves, have made while bringing it about.

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, effective communication, fail better, Frames of mind, limited rationality, man induced fragility, politics, The kind of world we live in

Shape shifters

February 4, 2016 //
0

cruzmeme

“That was done by somebody named John Fugelsang, who somehow thinks he’s funny. At least he has the courage or naivete (you decide) to own up to such stupid overgeneralizing, of a company-line liberal sort that panders to a sycophantic gaggle of Cruz-hating left-wing foamers. [I’ve hosted the image locally in case the creator sees this essay and tries to delete it from his social media out of shame and embarrassment…sorry, man, too late–it’s on the record now!”

“The Candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada/(Hawaii) to his mother who was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth,” the board said, explaining Cruz/(Obama) met the criteria because he “did not have to take any steps or go through a naturalization process at some point after birth.”

Wow… That settles it… Both are indeed ‘natural born citizens’ so the only relevant thing here is the manner in which people relate to a ‘delicate’ subject.
Some tend to let themselves be driven by sentiment rather than reason while others change their minds according to their most immediate interest.

September 9, 2015, at a rally in Washington against the deal with Iran:

“Despite being rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Cruz and Trump enjoy an unusually cozy relationship. Cruz, who invited Trump to the rally because he would bring the spotlight, praised the real estate mogul as “my friend” and the two men embraced on stage.”

““I hear it was checked out by every attorney and every which way and I understand Ted is in fine shape,” Trump told ABC News just before speaking at a Capitol Hill rally blasting the Iran nuclear deal. ”

Fast forward to January, 2015.

“Donald Trump doubled down on rival Ted Cruz’s citizenship Monday night, again questioning whether the Canadian-born Texas senator is eligible for the presidency.
“My new battle is with a gentleman named Ted Cruz,” the billionaire real-estate mogul said at a rally in Farmington, N.H. “The Canadian, the man from Canada.””

“But Trump has begun to raise an issue that could have deeper resonance. He criticized his principal GOP rival as trying to portray himself as “Mr. Robin Hood — he’s gonna protect you from the horrible Wall Street bankers,” when he took a loan from Goldman Sachs, his wife’s employer, for his Senate campaign, which he didn’t fully disclose.”

“Cruz noted that Trump in September said Cruz’s Canadian birth did not disqualify him for the White House since his mother was an American citizen. Now, he has changed his mind.
“Now since September, the Constitution hasn’t changed,” Cruz said, “but the poll numbers have.”
Trump acknowledged as much, saying that Cruz didn’t seem like a threat before, but now is neck-and-neck with him in the Iowa polls.”

perspective09

During this exchange Cruz brought back into the limelight an almost forgotten movie:
cruz jumping the shark

“That’s the scene that brought into our parlance the use of the term “jumping the shark” to signify that someone’s relevancy had reached it’s zenith and was in decline.”

Prophetic words?
For which one of them?

Anyway, my ‘democratic conundrum‘ is still unsolved.

Gov. John Kasich, maybe?

kasich, the underdog

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Categories arrogance, Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, Frames of mind, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, Trust

Manipulation 101

January 31, 2016 //
5

I published yesterday a post on this subject. In Romanian.

Today I stumbled upon another article which uses almost the very same manipulative tools. In English this time.

legal public urination

“Of all the things one could think of that New York City needs more of, public urination doesn’t immediately come to mind. But New York’s City Council, which is so far left it almost collides with the right, is about to make it happen thanks to it’s Speaker, a Puerto Rican nationalist who supports terrorists and rejects the Pledge of Allegiance.”

” “Under a package of bills New York’s City Council will consider to ease enforcement of quality-of-life offenses that lawmakers say clog the courts and have been disproportionately enforced against minorities, urinating and drinking in public would no longer be treated as crimes.
According to the New York Times, one liberal official who sponsored this change noted it was designed to help minorities “reach their full potential.” So not being able to legally pee in public is what’s holding minorities back?”
“Not only is this train of thought disgusting, it is demoralizing to minorities. How is encouraging offensive, anti-social behavior helping them, or anyone, to “reach their full potential?” “
 Now can someone explain to me how can decriminalizing something be interpreted as an encouragement towards that something?
And what’s the use of making it a crime to urinate or to drink in public? A crime? Something that will be written into your rap sheet and follow you all your life?
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a 19 year old who had one too many beers. And had to take a leak. A cop happens to be in the area. Now tell me what are the chances that he’ll look the other way if you’re white? And if you’re black?
Do you understand, at least now, what the ‘liberal official who sponsored this change’ meant by ‘helping the minorities reach their full potential’?
Who’s going to give a real chance to a ‘minority’ with a criminal record? Who has the time to check that his only crime was ‘public urination’? Or that he had a beer in front of his porch? Not exactly in front of his porch, because he used to live in a ‘public housing facility’ but you get the general idea…
Reality check no 1.
How about providing some places where people can relieve themselves? Porta-johns for instance? Or functional public rest-rooms in all New York subway stations?
Reality check no 2.
Under the new legislation public urination would be still considered a misdemeanor, “Cops would have discretion to issue civil or criminal summons” but “The proposal would remove the possibility of permanent criminal records for public urination and violating park rules, mostly treating them as civil offenses, along with public drinking, littering and excessive noise.”
Now I’m wondering what the author meant by “But New York’s City Council, which is so far left it almost collides with the right, is about to make it happen thanks to it’s Speaker, a Puerto Rican nationalist who supports terrorists and rejects the Pledge of Allegiance.“?
What has the Pledge of Allegiance have to do with anything? What’s the relevance of the Speaker’s ethnicity, beyond the fact that belonging to a minority increased her awareness of the way the minorities are treated by some of the law enforcement officers?
And how come a ‘supporter of terrorism’ has been elected Speaker in the first place?
What’s going on here?
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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, effective communication, Frames of mind, human rights, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, politics, Psychology, Rule of Law, Social justice, The kind of world we live in, yes but

‘Equality’ versus ‘Equal Breadth of Opportunity’

January 27, 2016 //
1

I recently shared this meme on my FB wall:

when_i_was_poor_and_i_complained_about_inequality_they_said_i_was_bitter_2014-07-23

This is what happened next:
“No two people are the same.“”That’s why I prefer equal opportunities instead of equality.”
“No two opportunities are the same. What you might consider an opportunity I might pass up. It’s a very diverse world we live in, a wide one in which hopefully everyone can be accommodated.”

‘Can be’ or ‘will be’?

And who is the real looser here?

Let’s see what the broad picture looks like:

“The world’s super-rich have taken advantage of lax tax rules to siphon off at least $21 trillion, and possibly as much as $32tn, from their home countries and hide it abroad – a sum larger than the entire American economy.”

Meanwhile

education debt

And what’s wrong with that?!?
Everyone has the right to do what ever he wants with his money and why should anyone expect to be educated for free?!?

OK, let me put it differently.

Every society is like a big community, even if its members do not share an intimate knowledge of each-other.
At least theoretically an overwhelming majority of any nation share the same set of values and the same goal – the long term survival of both the population and the afore mentioned set of values.

Now please consider which society would be better at the game of survival:

One which would make it easier for as many of its members to develop as much of their individual potential as possible or one that would make it easier for a small number of its members to spirit away so much wealth that the rest would remain crippled?

One which would use the very concept of a ‘free market’ as broadly as possible – make sure that as many as possible of its members enjoy the widest possible autonomy – or one that would allow the ‘never as free as advertised’ market to degenerate into the ‘winner takes it all‘ situation we are bound to reach if we continue on our present course?

How could enough people afford to ‘wander around’ for long enough to find the opportunities that would fit them if they are saddled at birth with a huge burden – the ever burgeoning national debt?
Would enough people risk to take on any additional debt (in order to prepare themselves to make better use of the opportunities they might find) if too many of those opportunities, even if met diligently, do not pay enough to ‘eat’ AND pay back the debt?

How is a society going to survive, let alone thrive, if a lot of ‘opportunities’ (social needs) end up being ‘plugged’ by unfitting/under-skilled/’less than enthusiastic’ individuals? Or not at all?

On the ‘supply side’, what do you think of those who choose to dodge paying taxes?
On the ‘demand side’, what do you think of those who squander public money as if there is no tomorrow?

So what should we be talking about? Equality or Equal Breadth of Opportunity?
About the Bed of Procrustes or about a ‘Free Market’ where all participants are simultaneously autonomous and fully aware of their responsibility for their children’s future?

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Categories 1989 and the Global Financial Crisises., altruism, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, Economy, Frames of mind, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, The kind of world we live in, Trust

#BlackLivesMatter

January 26, 2016 //
0
lp
“A day after Leela moved in, she came home visibly upset. I asked what happened. Apparently, the doorman had blocked her from entering the building, refusing to believe that the keys she was carrying were legitimately hers. She had to convince him to check the approved tenants list before he allowed her to go to her own home.The incidents piled up. Things that may seem small to someone who doesn’t endure these experiences, but that in aggregate soured her daily life. The cabs that wouldn’t stop when she tried to hail them but hit the brakes and backed up when they saw she was with me. The clerks asking her to verify her ID every time she presented a credit card. The smiles at me from neighbors and barely concealed scowls at her when I turned away. The usual catcalls and crude comments when she walked alone. It quickly became clear that although we shared the same day to day life, her existence was profoundly different from mine.

The event that brought it to a head was when she pressed ‘PH’ in the elevator and the other occupant, a white male, asked which penthouse apartment she was going to clean. The idea that she lived there didn’t occur to him. When I heard about it, my indignation was palpable. It was the indignation and disrespect she lived with every day and that was alien to me.”
….
“What I didn’t realize was that we are stuck in our own heads far more than we can appreciate and that empathy has limitations. As a white male, I can convince myself that I understand racism and sexism, but it’s far more intellectual than visceral. My point of view is distorted by the culture I exist in.”
Peter Daou, “My Rude Awakening on White Males, Brown Females and #BlackLivesMatter“

Now consider this:
Mothers usually have a ‘disproportionate’ influence over their (small) children.
This translates into the psychological well being of the mothers having a huge influence on the general behavior of the next generation.
In a so called ‘normal’ family – composed of a father and a mother – whatever ‘bad moments’ that happen to the mother can, and sometimes even are, mitigated by the father.
But the sad reality is that there are a lot more Afro-American single mothers than white single mothers – relative to the demographic composition of the population.
And we still wonder about how come the Afro-American teenagers and young adults are the cause of so many unpleasant incidents – relative to the demographic composition of the population, of course…
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Categories altruism, Choices we make, collective identity, Frames of mind, gender roles, human rights, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Social justice, The kind of world we live in

“The boiling frog theory”.

January 19, 2016 //
0

don't pee in our pool

First things first. Click on the picture and read the article.
It is interesting enough, even if it doesn’t say anything you didn’t already know – or at least presumed. That if enough people pee in the pool, the mixture of uric acid and chlorine, which produces some nasty chemicals, could become ‘powerful’ enough to affect a susceptible person.
The really interesting part being the fact that the scientists who have studied the matter do not seem to agree on how dangerous it is and what exactly, if anything, should be done about it.

But do we really need a scientist to tell us that we simply shouldn’t pee in the pool?
Regardless of whether the issuing chemicals would be powerful enough to harm us or not?

Then why do we hide behind slogans like ‘Global Warming is the New Religion’ when we discuss the subject of carbon dioxide being spewed into the atmosphere by the tens of billions of tonnes each year?

OK, I can understand that some of us are not convinced by the data put forward by the ‘alarmists’, specially after some of the scientists studying the matter have changed tack and have become ‘skeptical’ about the whole thing.
“I would say that the global warming is basically a non-problem. Just leave it alone and it will take care of itself. It is almost very hard for me to understand why almost every government in Europe — except for Polish government — is worried about global warming. It must be politics.”

“So far we have left the world in better shape than when we arrived, and this will continue with one exception — we have to stop wasting huge, I mean huge amounts of money on global warming. We have to do that or that may take us backwards. People think that is sustainable but it is not sustainable.” Ivar Giaever, 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics, speaking in July 2015.

So. Cutting down the tropical jungle to make room for palm trees grown for their oil and burning during the last two centuries fossil fuels that have been accumulated during God only knows how many millennia is ‘sustainable’! Yeah, right.

Do you remember the smog that used to hang over Los Angeles until some of us wised up to the matter?

Is it a matter of politics?!?
And money?!?
And what’s new about that? Or is it that some of those who have to gain from us continuing to burn fossil fuels, indiscriminately, have not understood, yet, that we are all together in this? That the atmosphere is nothing but the huge ‘pool’ where we all live?
And breathe…

To me it doesn’t really matter what ‘science’ has to say about this. In fact ‘science’ cannot speak, it’s the scientists who speak on its behalf.
Now, since they don’t seem to agree on this subject we’d better realize that ‘This is too important a matter to be left to the scientists’ and remember the Hippocratic principle which teaches us ‘primum non nocere’: ‘Above all, do no harm!’

If ‘it’s a matter of politics’ how about us telling the politicians how we wanted it solved instead of letting them scheme on it?
And then let the business people take care of the money part?

One other thing and I’ll wrap it up.
I can already see my libertarian friends frowning:
‘He had jumped on the big government bandwagon’.
Not so fast.
In fact this is not a decision that should be made by the government, be it big or small.

We are the ones who should make up our minds about this matter.
We are the ones who should close the faucets, use more efficient cars, collect the trash selectively, etc, etc, etc… and maybe even walk a little.
We are the ones who should instruct the governments we have elected to use some of our tax money to finance some honest research into renewable power sources instead of allowing them to transform the whole issue into another ‘pork barrel bonanza’…

wumo567852b7e8fa87-46431296

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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, cooperation, democracy, Frames of mind, limited rationality, man induced fragility, Money as goal, Mutual Respect
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