On 12 Jan, 19:01, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:> On Jan 12, 11:43 am, alectrum
hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 11 Jan, 23:12, Erwin Hessle
erwinhessle.com> wrote:>
>>> On Jan 11, 4:34 pm, monkeym...@hactrn.ch (Monkey Mind) wrote:
>
>>>> Another aspect of generosity is letting go of the measuring up,
>>>> judging, and categorizing. Â Instead of the limited choices of "is this
>>>> good or bad? right or wrong?" one gets the rather less constricting
>>>> "oh, so it's like *this*!"
>
>>> I think this is really important and is one of the biggest obstacles
>>> people have in perceiving the unreality of things. There appears to be
>>> a very strong and common need to *evaluate* both actions and
>>> qualities, and one of the things I constantly stress is that each and
>>> every standard against which these evaluations are made are obviously
>>> and demonstrably *imaginary*. This whole "Thou shalt/shalt not"
>>> phenomenon that you mention can - with the right frame of mind - be
>>> easily brought to the ground with a long or short series of *whys*.
>
>>> It's nothing other than Hume's old "is-ought" problem. The falsity of
>>> any moral or value-based statement can be easily demonstrated by the
>>> fact it's impossible to sensibly terminate a string of whys without
>>> resorting to "it just is!" Some people reject the approach and instead
>>> appeal to "common sense" as a justification for a belief in moral
>>> qualities, but the natural conclusion - unappealing though it might
>>> sound at first - is the right one, that objective values are wholly
>>> imaginary and have no basis in reality.
>
>>> As far as your specific reference to "generosity" goes, the connection
>>> is that for as long as you apply these evaluative judgments to
>>> yourself, you're going to apply them to other people, too, and that's
>>> going to put barriers up. It's only one small step from "I shouldn't
>>> be eating so much" to "you shouldn't be wearing baggy pants," at which
>>> point you may as well go home. Focusing on what "should be"
>>> contaminates the perception of what actually *is*.
>
>>> I include this whole evaluative tendency under the heading of
>>> "morality," and the moral layer of narration is probably the most
>>> pernicious of all, since if you manage to let go of the idea of what
>>> you "should" be doing, then all you really have to go on is what you
>>> are naturally *inclined* to do, and that's paying attention to reality
>>> right there. For this reason I consider any religion or spiritual path
>>> whatsoever that contains a moral element to be wholly obnoxious and
>>> entirely counterproductive.
>
>>> Erwin Hessle, 8=3
>
>> I can see where you're coming from with this, but religious and
>> spiritual paths are not only for philosophical thinkers that can
>> aprehend your line of thinking. Â Many children and young people are
>> educated in a religious or spiritual way, or even a non-spiritual one
>> that emphasises moral values such as Humanism.
>
> They certainly are. I consider such things to be wholly obnoxious and
> entirely counterproductive.
>
>> This education doesn't
>> happen by ramming religious texts down the throats of youngters but by
>> asking them to consider and think about their actions and the actions
>> of others through real life experiences and examples.
>
> I don't think it's quite a simple as this. If it was just a question
> of "asking them to consider and think about their actions" then it
> would be one thing, but in practice that consideration is almost
> always a prelude to the conclusion "therefore don't do that." There is
> an underlying morality that is being pushed in such education.
Well - that depends. If the educationalist is prepared to preface all
such "don't do that'ism" with "I may be wrong'ism" and "you should
seek other people to enhance your views'ism" then morals may be more
safely conversed with young people. Of course the ultimate preface is
"think for yourself'isms".
I think that in certain cases morality is a subject which (whilst may
be despised by the parent) is one which young people themselves may
themselves bring up. Young people without any moral guidance are in
danger of falling into passivity, and may naturally seek guidance on
moral behaviour, especially if the prevailing norm is one that
perceives them as bad - eg. homosexuality. To simply abandon a child
with a right or wrong attitude (according to the parent) is outragous
and damaging. However - to expose a child to the various viewpoints
and teach them about the relativity of mans viewpoints could actually
bolster their natural inclinations towards their behaviour.
You yourself, below in the text describe why christian morality is
irrelevant, but without it you would have to denounce something
horribly biologically innate that discriminates between an optimum
model of a human being and one that is not.... like myself for
instance, or like a black person to a white child that has never been
exposed to blacks - or maybe to a spider with 9 legs.
>> They are free
>> to throw of these values as they grow to adulthood and adopt other
>> ways of thinking.
>
> They certainly are. Education in any form can never guarantee that the
> subject will completely and eternally accept the teaching.
Although there is a fine line between teaching and indoctrination that
western educationists pretend not to notice after they have left
university - for sake of their jobs.
>> If all religions etc threw off the moral element of their docterines
>> that you consider counterproductive, do you think more children would
>> be raised as better human beings?
>
>> If so, why?
>
> The problem with this question is that if there is no "moral element"
> then there can be no standard against which "better human beings"
> could be assessed. In the absence of moral elements, the concept of
> "better human beings" becomes nonsensical, because the latter is
> itself a moral judgment. Personally, since I deny the existence of
> objective moral qualities, I consider the phrase "better human being"
> to be always and inevitably meaningless, and I therefore think that
> you have asked a non-question.
I don't think so. The question 'what is a 'better human being' - does
not have to be judged in moral terms, but can instead be judged in
socialogical terms. To my mind, the human race is divided and unified
along genetic lines that all contribute to the species - even those
that are not genetically optimum species can contribute something by
their existance. A better human being is simply a person who achieves
the most their genes allow them to, as opposed to a person who is
weaken by false beliefs so that they do not achieve their best.
Actually, most humans fail the standard whether they are disabled like
myself or not - but as the chef said to the rat in Ratatouiile - ah,
but that is not match for wishfull thinking!!!
> However, I'll give your question the answer that you were probably
> looking for by rephrasing it as "if all religions etc threw off the
> moral element ... do you think more children would be raised as better
> human beings, 'better human beings' being defined in terms of the
> particular morality being pushed."
We can assume the same term for a sociological or even a neurotype
model.
> I think the answer to this is "yes," for the simple reason that people
> do not make what I would describe as "useful" moral judgments as a
> result of the system of morality that they have been taught.
You have to agree - if YOU had to teach morality to kids and why it's
not a good thing, you would not use such narrow models, so you are
talking about education along narrow lines.... yes?
> For
> instance, I'm assuming that you do not regularly indulge in mass
> random killings as you are walking down the street.
Never been my thing. :)
> Do you think that
> you refrain from such random killings because you have been taught in
> a classroom that "random killing is wrong," because you are just the
> type of person who is inherently not inclined towards random murder,
> because you know that it is overwhelmingly likely that you will be
> severely punished for doing so, or because you recognise it would be
> much harder for you to get the cooperation you desire from others if
> you make a habit of randomly killing people? If it is either of the
> latter three options, then your restraint does not arise from your
> "moral education," but from something else
Well yes - I would agree that I do not kill people because it's
generally consider bad or because I may 'go to hell' or whatever
punishment any orthodox religion tells me awaits. Actually - I was
brought up with no moral education at all. I kinda think that maybe
you got too much? :)
> The Christian doctrine of humanity is that humans are fundamentally
> evil and worthless, and that if they were not kept in line by some
> sort of divine dictator with the power to mete out eternal punishments
> then they would be constantly committing what are commonly regarded as
> "evil" acts. I dispute this utterly. Without restriction of any kind,
> people will tend to do the things that they are naturally inclined to
> do, which in the first instance means satisfying their basic needs,
> and in the second instance means satisfying their "higher needs," such
> as satisfying a natural curiosity, or appreciating beauty, or whatever
> else you want to mention.
Maybe it would just make them eat a lot, shit in the park and screw
their friends girlfriend? (I notice jealously seems to be mostly
biological?)
> Is it possible that some people will be "naturally inclined" towards
> acts that you would describe as "evil"? Certainly, but as I have
> pseudo-demonstrated I do not consider that these people would be
> inhibited from following through on those inclinations by a moral
> education, and that such a moral education would do essentially
> nothing towards encouraging such an inhibition.
I would consider killing a section of humanity - or genocide - to be
'evil', as it is against the human species we all belong to. It has
been shown that autistic indivuduals are specialist, and that by cross
breeding specialists you may end up with rain man people eventually -
but that's not to say that they don't have worth. Now Erwin, look at
this from my point of view. I'm a reasonable intellegent woman who
get's on better with her own people, and not particularly well with
ordniary folks. At the present time there are charities like Autism
Speaks who are waging a multi-million dollar war against my kind and
would like to develop a 'cure' (or rather a pre natal genetical test)
to make sure there aren't more of us. Is this evil? By my standard
which are not moral, but just about survival and the genetic strength
of the species, that is evil.
Morally wise - all the Autism Speaks people believe in what they're
doing is 'good', and it comes as a huge shock to them when an autist
says.... btw - I think your cure would be the mental and sensory
equivalent of eating cardboard everyday when you have a cold.... but
forever.
Hey - I get told I'm evil by some parents, because I see people trying
to wipe up out - you know - all of us people who do what we are
naturally inclined to do?
I don't think there is a right and wrong about it all, although
everyone tries to make it a moral issues. It's a purely selfish issue
- survival of autistics v curbie parents of autistics.
If I had a few "don't do that'ism" for kids it would start with, don't
murder autistic by pretending they are not a valuable member of the
gene pool.
> In fact, being taught that something you are naturally inclined to do
> is "wrong" may well increase the likelihood of it being realised,
> since it will create a conflict. Without such a conflict, sheer
> practicality (such as the desire to avoid punishment, or the practical
> necessity of cooperation being usually required for survival) may well
> be enough in itself to inhibit such actions.
It doesn't work like that. The human race is one that is like a
network with several nodes, and by all the nodes working then it
functions. One human being on a node does not always have the same
practical necessitys as HB on another node. Infact - there maybe
biological motivators for humans on one node to kill and compete with
another, or not to cooperate, or to basically discriminate against.
> Furthermore, I consider that a belief in morality is far more likely
> to result in what would commonly be described as "evil acts" than an
> absence of such a belief. We can cite the persecution of homosexuals
> and witches for instance, all of which require the belief that
> "homosexuality and witchcraft are wrong." In the absence of such a
> moral belief, there is no justification for such persecution. The
> greatest of all of what you would describe as "evils" can only arise
> from idealism, which is inseparable from morality. Without a strong
> conviction that something is "right," the motivation to commit heinous
> acts in the cause of furthering that something just isn't going to be
> present. Of course, justification is not always required for
> persecution, but we can assume that if we were to remove justification
> then its frequency would at least lessen. I think that a belief in
> morality is far more likely to lead to "evil acts" than an absence of
> such a belief, because in the absence of such a belief most of the
> motivation for oppressing others disappears, and the whole question
> comes down to personal interest, and if other people had no motivation
> for oppressing you then I predict that the frequency with which
> personal interests would conflict would be far less great than it
> currently is.
Only within a circle of beings that was identical to you racially and
neurotypcially. Sorry - my people get killed every day and the
perpetrators say "awwww, poor killers having to put up with living
with THAT." They get less that a year locked up and then make lots of
money running campaigns and going on talk shows. Yuck.
> In short, I think that "moral education" just doesn't do what it says
> on the tin. I dispute that a "sense of right and wrong" is the primary
> or even a particularly significant factor in restraining people from
> committing what you would describe as "evil acts" and I assert that a
> "sense of right and wrong" can in fact frequently be the direct cause
> of what you would describe as "evil acts." For this reason, I would
> tend towards supporting the hypothesis that refraining from
> indoctrinating children into believing in objective moral qualities
> would result in them exhibiting what you would describe as "more moral
> behaviour." I do not think that a "sense of right and wrong" is
> particularly relevant to observed moral behaviour, and I therefore
> think that indoctrinating children into believing that it is is
> unlikely to be conductive to them exhibiting "better moral behaviour,"
> and will more likely be conductive to them exhibiting "worse moral
> behaviour." I do not think that teaching children such a fundamentally
> mistaken and bizarre theory of the universe is either theoretically or
> practically wise.
>
> What I think would be far more productive to teach is the idea that
> although all actions are morally neutral, people wish to protect
> themselves from harm, so they group together to apprehend and either
> prevent or punish people who try to do so. It is simply not necessary
> to encourage people to believe that causing harm is somehow "morally
> wrong" in order to do this, and I don't think teaching such a belief
> does anything towards preventing people from causing harm, as I have
> said. Neither does abandoning a belief in morality preclude you from
> such apprehension and punishment, since these latter two actions are
> also morally neutral and can be indulged in at will. The whole thing
> can be boiled down to practical expediency.
>
> If you want to encourage a world in which people act more "morally"
> according to your standard, then I do not think that teaching children
> to believe in fairy stories about morality will accomplish this. In
> fact, as I have explained, I think it will discourage it. Teaching
> people false fables about the nature of the universe is highly
> unlikely to be productive.
>
> Erwin Hessle, 8=3
If just the absense of teaching morality would help the survival of my
people then I'd agree with you. Unfortunately I think it will end up
in a long and stubborn war against genocide in which the enemy does
what comes naturally to them.... and that is, as most autistics know -
kill or hurt the outsider.
Regards,
Alectrum.
