A Comment On Ethics

Tremendous growth within the the realm of the physical sciences has completely changed the way Human Beings interact with their environment. The possibilities and potential that the direction of our growth has brought to the world have come quickly it seems, and as a result we have had a hard time integrating these new found treasures into our lives. Our aquisition of this hearty knowledge-base has come begrudgingly for sure. After centuries of blood and sweat. But somewhere along the way a threshold of sorts was reached, where we went from acknowledging the causes of "higher" powers, to focusing on our assumption of material causation.

This new method of living we have embarked upon has risen simultaneously from our hard-won scientific knowledge and the diminishing role of the religious life that was once the center of our communities. One might say that the one lead directly to the other. Most of the intillectual underpinnings that the various religious attitudes were based upon stand in direct conflict with the view that the scientific method has afforded us, and this has damaged our ability to take these sentiments seriously. Individuals may or may not hold private thoughts on the matter but at the levels of institution and community, reasons of God have become displaced.

As a society, we went from riding on horses to space flight within a scant few generations. Instantaneous communication, air travel, nuclear physics, our knowledge of organic chemistry, etc... have all given rise to a scene that is totally different then the one our parents told stories about. One that has taken hold only recently from the perspective of history, and this has had an incredibly disorienting effect on our concept of the Human place in the world.

If one were to think about it, most of history's spiritual masters have based their claims of transcendental reality on a personl, and introspective view of the world. Providing what amounts to anecdotal evidence to back their arguments. All the while our new scientific method has come to use finely tuned instruments to extend the range of Human senses. From the perpspective of science, anything that is to be recognized must first register on the appropriate instrument in order to be counted and qualified. The rub being that "Spirit", and "Divinity" are not among those classes of being that register on a machine.

This is important to point out not as a defense of the type of life a sense of God opens to us, but because of the sheer contrast between this older view of the world and the modern approach we now take. The main consequence being just *where we place ultimate responsibility for the state of the world. For the shouldering of responsibility comes with it the authority and power commensurate with the task. And with the dampining of our view of a transcendental causation the onus has fallen into our own lap. Communally, we went from recognition of God, to recognition of our own selves as stewards of the environment and this has had a profound effect on our concept of ethical behavior.

This change we have undergone is not disimilar to the change that any individual person undergoes as he moves out of childhood, into the world of adult community. Where once everything began and ended with a nod from the parent, now begins to come from the adolescent themselves, and ends with the recognition by that individual of the consequences as they effect their Human society. Not how some other, seperate entity sees it. As someone ages, in otherwords, they become more able to make their own decisions and bear there own responsibility. So it is with the maturation of the Human species.

Collectiviely we have gone from complete deferal to "greater" forces, to the beginnings of an understanding and recognition of our *own powers. To continue with the anology, the state of Human affairs in general is alot like that of a person as we find them in their early twenties. Old enough to be out from under the thumb of his/her parents, but not quite experienced enough to make wise choices. But we must be careful with this necessary transformation that we are undergoing. This flowering of individual conciousness if you will. We must not forget where we came from.

What has lagged behind this growth in *sheer ability is our underlying moral-sense of right and wrong. This is important because it is precisely this sense of value that guides our behavior. We (as Americans anyhow) have lost our moorings and begun to worship our own selves in place of the Gods we have turned out. And as a result we have become drunk on our own power. With this older style of thinking, as superstitious as it was, there came with it the potential for a certian humility that is lacking within us today.

This humility. This lack of arrogance is found by comparing the human condition to that perfection of Divinity. The "religious persepctive" helps keep a person, and whole communities for that matter, from dangerous acts of huberis by providing a perspective that allows us to see a wider picture of the world then merely the Human place within it. And this engenders the thought, behind ones own motive, that as Humans, we natuarlly have limitations. And its ok to be limited... That is the order of things. We stand above the animals, and God stands above us.

Now that these concepts are no longer seen as guiding lights, the eye we've previously cast toward the authority of higher purpose has been closed, and another has opened to a sense of our own granduer.

Our means, our methods and our motives have up only until reacently been steeped in the Judeo-Christian set of morals. This is significant because, as alluded to above, the answers each one of us provides to the "big questions" are the basis for our behavior. Who are we? Why are we here? What are our purposes? What is appropriate for a Human Being? And because the communal mind functions as the underpinning of an individuals Psyche, without the support of the wider community to which all people are beholden there is always a sense within the person of not being able to fully find integration into the ordered whole; there is always a sense of being a rogue or "on the fringes." And this has the effect of a slow poison on the sense of self.

Although it seems that the advance of scientific thinking has lead directly to the retreat of our sense of Spiritual matters, this adjustment of the object of value, from something supernatural to something concrete and of-this-world, has not come without a certain benefit. The advances in communications technology, methods of transportation, and knowledge of the body and of medicine, etc... that have been made possible by our devotion to this method, point to necessary improvements in our condition. As do the glory of spaceflight and the marvel of the internet revolution. That a large portion of this effort has been put forth by entities that owe there existence to the capitalist system must also be recognized, but it has come with a very high cost. We have been guilty of "throwing the baby out with the bath water".

The change in perspective brought about by science has made it impossible to see beyond that which science itself has illuminated, and that means it has become impossible to see beyond what we already know. A catch-22. Ironically, through the shift in our object of worship to our own selves, Human intuitions, feeling, and judgment have become suspect. And all-but-completely the reign of numbers and "cold fact" has taken over and this has reduced decision making to one of mere calculation.

This state has been described as ironic because the way self-agrandizement has lead to a weakening of trust in that which was once held in esteem (i.e. Nature herself). The only convincing argument has become one that can be rendered with facts and figures and compassion has taken a secondary roll. The roll of intuition, and this non-quantifiable sense of compassion have been thrown by the way side in favor of mathmatically rendered arguments.

An example, if you will, of the way things have changed and how we've become totally divided from each other: By the creation of lives that are too *individual in perspective and sense-of-value. The information revolution has created a world where one neighbor can steep his own self in a completely different virtual world then the other people he shares actual *physical space with. With a completely different profile, if you will, of information that he consumes he habitually puts himself in different mental "space" and over time develops thoughts and feeleings that his neighbors would find alien to there own minds. They themselves picking and choosing a completely different set of information to base their own lives on. And this seperates people from each other. This directly causes people to distrust each other for lack of common ground on which there minds can meet.

This scenario is made possible by the loss of a communal standard of *transcendental origin. The emphasis on a code of conduct that exists outside of our ownselves is necessary to insure individual persons don't become lost in the various worlds of there own design.
Nov.26.2020

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A Comment On Privacy

The topic of privacy has always been an issue that has received much attention and debate. Why is it so important to individual lives and to the life of a community? As we progress even further into our modern age there has been an incredible push by certain peoples to strip more and more of our private lives away, and to shine the spotlight of public awareness and opinion into areas that were once held as personal and confidential. Just how far should we take this as we grow into the future? Should our entire lives be made a spectacle and splashed onto the web for others around the world to scrutinize? How much authority should our political administarators have to interject themselves into the business of the citizenry?

Imagine a world where a person is watched as they used the bathroom, or visited there doctor, or took a shower, or had a candid conversation with a loved one. Should a person be allowed to have a diary or write in a private journal? Consider also whether a company should be allowed to keep a secret, or if a government should be allowed to keep things from its constituents? These are all fundamental questions, and turning them over, one can't help but wonder whether there needs to be retained a place somewhere for people and orginizations to occupy that this spotlight isn't allowed to shine. Essentially, where does individual privacy end and public scrutiny begin? These have always been difficult questions to answer, and with the rise of our technologically amplified world, have become necessary to answer again in our modern age.

One of the longest standing issues within the debate surrounding privacy exists between the right of an individual to keep there own affairs private, and the right of government to gather information about these people. This, traditionally, has occured within the context of law-enforcement, as well as that of political dissent, and the potential for the abuse of power is balanced by the need of governments to maintain order and stability. Throughout our history several provisions have been made for how authorities could collect information and materials from private citizens, and the specific circumstances where these things could then be used against that person while prosecuting an offense. The thinking that informs all of this is still valid and applicable in our time, but needs to be expanded considerably to include the proliferation of "information-minded" companies that leverage there access to personal information in order to advertise there brand, and sell there goods and services.

Consider, if you will, all of the money that is generated through the use of this personal data. Billions of dollars are made by taking the product of a persons electronic activity, using it to create a profile of that person, and then using this profile to create a marketing campaign that generates larger profit for the company. Shouldn't the person, who's activity generated this information in the first place, be entitled to a piece of this profit? They certainly should be. Parallels can be drawn between this circumstance and those of famous people who choose to live there life in the spotlight. Images and likenesses are commodities that the famous use to make there own living, and are duly protected under the more modern laws, and the average user of a cellphone or the internet should be entitled to the same. Just like a person owns there own image, a person should also own the data he/she generates through there activity.

Beside the ever present threat that people in positions of trust will overreach there authority, and other than the use of personal histories to make a profit, there is another major reason that a certain amount of privacy should be maintained as we move forward into our electronic age. This reason revolves around the Human need for belonging, and the attendent fear of being rejected by those with whom you associate with and care for. This need for community is why we spend significant mental energy creating and maintaining what is known as a "social mask", or a persona. We do this because we want other people to like us, plain and simple, and it hurts us when they don't. We as people have tendency to ridicule and demonize others who aren't like our own selves and each one of us is required to expend energy in defense of this. Just like we are required to defend ourselves from any physical attack, from a vicous dog if you will, or an aligator.

This basic tenet of the Human constitution also gives rise to the various mental defenses we utilize throughout our day, with the attendent expense of ego-energy to sustain them. Because of this, a person needs a place where they can take there "mask" off and let down there guard without fear of reprisal or rejection. This is important because, periodically, a person needs to halt this energy-expenditure in order to rest and rejuvinate. And just like with any physical activity, where after a certain amount of time spent engaging in it, fatigue will overcome a person, having to maintain this mental activity for to long will also lead to fatigue and failure. In the physical realm, failure might take the form of a sprained muscle or torn ligament, in the mental/social realm it manifests itself as anti-social behavior.

The debate about privacy is a perennial topic. Advocates of breaking down any semblance of private life rely mainly on the argument that secrecy has the potential to allow people to act in malignant fashion. Ironically though, a lack of privacy can have the same effect. Without a place to step back from the world, a feeling of being chronically on one's guard can lead that person to being overwhelmed and in turn, produce a simillarly horrible effect. Even without intending too, different cultures with different standards of acceptable behavior invariably generate negative judgements of people from other places.

Even when those people are well within the limits set by there own societies, the now-global reach of our awareness has the effect of setting up a clash between people who don't understand the alien behaviors of other societies. Couple this with the ability of those peoples, in there ignorance of the ultimately arbitrary nature of cultural values, to use the electronic tools we now have to speak there minds freely and for all to see. Unjustified persecution can result simply because we know too much about the activities of other people. Not necessarily because those behaviours are inherently dangerous or violent, but simply because they are different. A private life is necessary to protect the social creature from these harsh criticisms, as well as to protect the individual from the overzelous activites of an authority intoxicted by its power.
Sept.15.2021.
Substantial revision: Feb.23.2022.

A Comment on Community

The potential for congenial Human interaction is a direct result of the availability of common ground on which people walk together. This "common ground" itself is born of a *similarity in the life-experiences of the participants, and provides a space of mutual understanding and agreement. This similarity is important for the way it engenders a sense of security and ease among people, without which relations remain strained at best.

A certain amount of difference is, of course, necessary to maintain a base of perspectives large enough to tackle novel problems and unique situations. We do not know what the future will hold, as Alan Watts explained once, and we need a broad range of different types of thinking in order to ensure we can handle what comes our way, whatever that may be. He suggested that a complete monotone of thinking would be dangerous. It would leave us unprepared, when we were confronted with a situation that befuddled us, to overcome that situation. Where else could we turn for help if every other person we encountered labored with the same perspective that failed us to begin with? In a community of people all exactly the same, innovation would stagnate, or even cease to be, and if we all harbored the same thoughts *healthy progress would similarly flag. The interplay of novelty is stimulating to a receptive mind, this must be recognized and embraced.

It is, though, a hard fact of life to accept that Human Beings are mortal, and vulnerable creatures. The potential for injury and death surrounds us, and we have developed an acute perception that constantly scans the environment for threat, whether real or imagined. We fear being imposed on, and we fear a loss of control, and we see within "that-which-is-unknown" that very same potential that could deny us our life and dignity. This fear causes us to balk at the unfamiliar and turn away from things that are strange and unusual, and we do this at an almost instinctive level. The conditions under which we as humans were evolved, those of a hostile planet where Death has been an almost constant element in our lives, have produced within us this fear.

On the other hand, the things that we understand, and are comfortable with, are those that are *famliar. Understanding is what is needed most if we are to maintain that sense that we are safe. When we know a thing, we see at an instant where it came from, and can anticipate with resonable certainty what it might do, and how it will change the environment by its presence. We need this reassurance in order to act and live with grace, especially among other people. Without it we are lost. Human Beings are the most potent agents that Nature has created so far. Incredible capacity for wide ranging effects are inherent within us, both good and bad, harmful and helpful, and it is critical for our sense of security to understand the other Humans that surround us.

Just like the body, that over the course of hundreds of thousands of years has adapted to its wider physical environment, so too does the mind adapt to the information space it habitually occupies, although at a much quicker rate. Repeated exposure to certain information will begin to color a person's perspective. The assumptions we make about the world, what we hope for, what we fear, and the purposes we feel that are right to pursue in life, are all molded from, and formed by, the experiences we have of the world, and the meanings we glean from these experiences. In other words, all of these important facets of a personality develop through exposure to life. More and more these experiences of life that we have are coming through artificial channels, as opposed to face-to-face interactions with the natural world, and the world of real-people and community. Tracing the problem back, the first big shift happened centuries ago with the advent of the printing press, which made the wider dissemination of books possible. Even back then it was recognized that if individuals began to consume random, and *different literatures, that over time their viewpoints would diverge and instability would rise. Habitually accessing information that was different from what your neighbor was consuming would inevitably form in that person a different "world view," and this in turn would create divisions among people. And, to a limited extent, it did.

This problem has been magnified many times, over the intervening centuries, by the rise of electronic communications. Radio, television, and now the internet, have provided even more oppurtunity for people to steep themselves in information that is unrelated to their fellow community members. This situation is made even worse by earlier and earlier contact with these channels by children who are born into environments now saturated with electronics. From the earliest ages one child will be exposed to a unique and unrealted stream of impressions, while another will be inundated with a whole different set. The resulting personalities will, of course, be quite different. And the more we insulate ourselves from "the outside world," that is to say the larger would of nature and community, the wider these disparities will be. One question I have is: "Is there a critical threshold beyond which we should not venture, into the realm of *extreme individuality?" Another question: "What is a person's obligation towards adhearing to a code of conduct established by the others?"

A communal pool of common experience, on which we can draw from when interacting with other people, is necessary for our human society. Among other things, the role of school in the development of children is supposed to provide a medium for this commonality, but even then it is only so often that children are present and being similarly effected. What we need is to re-develop for ourselves ways in which we can comingle with our neighbors within an atmosphere of shared mentality. Traditionally, going to church was another common group experience we had, that bound us together in similar experience. So has been the act of going to the market. For, it is not enough that a person merely reads the same article as another person living a thousand miles away, people who occupy the same physical space, need to also frequent, from time to time, the same mental space. Not enough to create identical clones out of everyone, everywhere, but enough to provide a common foundation on top of which individuals can then reach where they will.
March 22nd, 2023