Most people have two or more "personas". They adapt to their environments by filtering their speech. At work, I have one filter and when I'm at home I have another. Sometimes I omit certain words because they are crass in one environment but perfectly acceptable in another.
My friends and I play a game sometimes. The goal is to shock the other person or people in the group by saying the most offensive, gruesome, or blasphemous thing possible. The more heinous the better. But it also has to be clever and in an attempt at humor. If someone says something stupid they are ridiculed by the others so the horrible things uttered have to be something the others will understand and appreciate as purposely horrible. The idea is to make fun of the easily offended, ourselves, and to challenge and understand each other's perspectives.
I would say that the quality of a friendship is marked by the level of freedom you have to communicate and be honest. The lower the filter the better the friend. This is why some siblings are not friends. Why some husbands and wives are not each other's best friends. People play roles in relationships and being honest can break the role and challenge their place. If someone does challenge their role in the relationship and the relationship can not adapt to this change then it will suffer.
Your best friend is oftentimes the person you can talk about you're family and spouse about in a way you might not be able to with anyone else. This is why high-quality friendships are so valuable. It gives a person a refuge to experiment with their thoughts as we don't always know what we think about something until we verbalize it and doing this with someone who can listen and offer constructive analysis will allow someone to understand their thinking better than just blurting out something in a moment of emotional distress toward someone they usually use a filter for.
Honest communication is about trust because our secrets are only secrets because of the perceived judgment of others. We hold back and filter our thoughts to hedge our bets about how others will respond. We don't use taboo language around people we don't know very well because we know that words can start fights. So we slowly test the "waters" using language. We throw in a lesser curse word like "ass" or "butthole" in an effort to gauge the other's reaction. If we are safe we might throw out a "shit" or "fuck" or a somewhat controversial idea to see what happens. Good communication is a dance with each person reading the others' moves and attempting to engage in a harmonious way. A bad conversation is the opposite, where both try to lead or one isn't paying attention or one is trying to antagonize the other.
As the dance continues the two will start to feel freer as they have created boundaries around what language works. The content of the conversation is only part of the equation of communication. Each person is doing at least two things. One is attempting to understand what the other person is saying. This can take focus and conscious effort. Listening is a skill. Although at times it can take less focus and comprehension can be effortless if the words are familiar and the topics mundane.
The second thing that a speaker is doing, other than listening is watching and reading the other person's body language and tone. Facial expressions, eye gaze, stance, and other factors are all being subconsciously attended to and studied in an effort to discern friend from foe. To see a potential attack coming or to find signs that make it safe to loosen up the filters and become more friendly. Although this instinctual process is far from perfect and we are often lead astray evolution has honed these instincts in the direction of survival so they are more often accurate.
When a person pushes the bounds of common etiquette with harsher words than would normally come out of a stranger people can often be perturbed. The normal behavior of strangers is to tread lightly until rapport is established. By being polite and respectful with their words and physical space they are saying to others that they know how to play the game. When someone treads too hard against these social mores they are testing the boundaries of others. If someone pushes too hard they can be met with any amount of disdain. From a look of contempt to a shot to the head, people don't take kindly to being tested or perceived disrespect.
Friends, on the other hand, can look past the words used and look for the spirit in which they were said. People infer meaning and intent when communicating. Sometimes people do this so much that they try to finish each other's sentences. This is rude in that it breaks up the flow of the speaker's thoughts and can derail a thread of thought. The person who is being interrupted has not established boundaries with the person who keeps interrupting them. This can often be because the speaker is also prone to interrupting and so allows it in others. Hypocritical people who interrupt others often don't like it when you interrupt them. This is due to a lack of self-awareness or some kind of narcissism where rules apply to others and not to the self.
Friends will typically give the benefit of the doubt when someone says something that is either uncharacteristically or surprisingly rude, harsh or offensive.
People also know how to pretend to be friends. This is oftentimes what is happening between two new coworkers. They have the pressure of filtering themselves correctly in the workplace environment, which is actually at least three environments. The first environment is the one that involves clients. The second is the one that involves peers. The third is the one that involves hierarchies and bosses. And there are more I'm sure. The new coworkers also have the added pressure of trying to get to know their coworkers. They have to be able to pretend to be a stranger's friend. This is usually awkward as real friendship is gained over time and with experience and so the awkwardness that is felt is due to the inauthenticity.
A stranger is not a friend and so pretending someone is a friend in the workplace is a kind of guise. A ruse that if played wrong can be disastrous. Navigating this type of scenario is probably best done by not caring about making friends but instead caring about being a good team member. By volunteering to do jobs and help others one creates the best kind of coworker relationship, one that takes the job seriously. If one never tried to be besties with others they remain neutral and honest. They should have a plan in mind as to why they are working there and part of that plan should be to cooperate with others.
A friend applies their morality to their friends and a friend should be honest about their moral philosophies and stand by them enough to disavow a friend that strikes too hard at the values they uphold. This does not mean that a friend shouldn't be open to new ideas or be challenged but it does mean that there is a certain point at which a person should make a stand. A moral pushover or weakling can not be respected by people being honest.
Pretend I'm Your Friend
When looking at the intellectual work of others it is nearly impossible to not immediately judge the words through a filter of judgment based on current biases. This is an impediment to understanding the content from the perspective of the person communicating it. This means that the meaning and purpose of the content will probably be misinterpreted. In order to learn from others, we must lower our subjective judgemental filter and attempt to ingest the content from a more objective perspective. A great way to do this is to pretend that the other person is already your friend.
This means that you take the stance that the other person most likely thinks of themself as smart enough to have an opinion and morally righteous enough to offer advice. If it were a friend you would at least start from a place of respect and attempt to hear the spirit in which the content is being communicated. Is the person trying to help? Is the person uniquely qualified to know something about the subject? Is the person just hungry or upset or drunk? Suppressing your own instinct to react immediately, especially in a defensive way, can allow the person to express their idea fully. If you allow someone to express their idea fully then you can expect to express your rebuttal or thoughts fully as well. If you interrupt them then you can expect to be interrupted back. Or in reading something contentious or from someone you disagree with, you can better see where the person is coming from by pretending the person is not an evil person but instead just a type of friend. Maybe not your best friend but at least someone you can listen to.
When I hear something or read something that seems on its face to be completely ridiculous and wrong I try to remind myself to pretend that the other person is a friend and see what happens. Sometimes this doesn't change the outcome of the experience but it at least allows me to not immediately create a villain in which to fight. This helps with controlling the emotions that I experience that get in the way of understanding. Many times the result is as dismissive as it would have been but it doesn't take over my mind and allows me to move onto something else without so much energy wasted. Sometimes doing this actually allows me to understand the other person in a way that gives me a glimpse of their perspective, leading me to empathize or relate to them in a way that leads toward a paradigm shift. Even if just a small one. The best-case scenario is you make a new friend. I worst-case scenario is that you understand your enemy better.
If someone kills my son by running them over and it would have been morally and legally justified to have shot them before they ran over my son then why can't I simply walk up to them anytime after they killed my son and shoot him in the head? Why can I shoot someone who breaks into my house tonight but I can't go to their house and kill them tomorrow?
What changes between the initial interaction; for example, someone is in a shootout with the police and therefore the police officers are justified in killing the attacker and catching them later in a hotel where the person is taken into custody? Why not shoot them right there?
Is it due to an uncertainty rule? Because at the moment you are certain who to fire at but in the future, you may not need to fire at them. The police, under the guidance of the rule of law, are instructed to inflict the minimum necessary force to enact peace. Also, they have an incentive to de-escalate any interaction. Any time someone is enforcing rules on another person there is a potential for reactive violence. By escalating an interaction an officer increases the likelihood that they will become injured or killed.
Or is it due to a hierarchical rule? As in, the lower level enforcers are only allowed so much power. Whereas the real power to sentence is in the judge's hands. The elite group of, hopefully, intelligent people who have the power to kill. (If the state has a death sentence.)
I believe that in the past the rule of law was much less adhered to, not that it is overly adhered to today. Also, enforcers of the rules would have more leeway and flexibility to enforce and enact justice as they saw fit. They might just hang someone on the spot. Kill them without any words spoken. So long as the sentence was carried out it didn't matter so much how.
Is it a way to appease the masses? By creating a large hierarchical structure that dictates procedures and rules the burden of power is diminished. Having judges, juries, and law enforcement agencies all involved with enacting justice any mistakes can be recognized and corrected as opposed to a dictatorship, where one person is in charge of all acts of justice and therefore is either allowed to continue their reign or they are ousted, one way or another.
If people are allowed to enact justice on their own like vigilantes and a mistake is made the person may never be found, which satisfies no one, or, even if they are caught, we may never know the truth as the other person is dead and can not defend themselves.
Back to uncertainty, if someone watches someone murdered there is a good chance that within a short period of time they might be able to recognize them as the attacker but the lesson from so many inaccurate eyewitness testimonies is that one can't always trust their own recollections. So the uncertainty principle should be accounted for in the personal case as well.
So how can we determine certainty? What if you are certain that you know the killer's face so you find them and kill them just to find out that the person you killed is the twin of the actual killer. This is a rare case and one would have to be convinced that the killer had a twin and that is plausible that you killed the wrong one. In a normal case, we have evidence, argumentation, and consensus to take on the task of providing relative certainty.
DNA and other forensic sciences have made a great deal of progress in the pursuit of certainty scientists are not perfect. Cameras and other recording devices have done some work here as well even though they can be doctored. Lawyers attempt to plead the case of each party and we trust reason through argumentation to win the day. We trust that judges know the law and will consider the case objectively, without prior judgments or prejudices. (Not perfect either.)
Are juries a good idea? If it is a truly random set of people who end up on a jury then the odds of getting someone with a below average IQ is very high. The odds that the jurors will not have some prejudice against the defendant or prosecutor is slim to none. Most people have a rudimentary understanding of the law at best. Many people have a hard time paying attention. People are vindictive, jealous, overly agreeable, easily confused and distracted by sex. But when a jury convicts someone we can blame them and since they all agreed there is a consensus. They represent the public and act as a kind of intellectual microcosm of the society's "will".
One solution is to mix the jury concept with the judge concept and create a random selection of three judges to oversee all cases above a certain level. Less significant cases would be overseen by a single judge where appeals would allow for second opinions and oversight. In more significant cases, especially violent ones, the three-judge panel would decide the case and appeals would be taken straight to the federal level where three judges would oversee the appeal. For this system to work there would have to be either more judges, less litigation, or a combination of both.
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The system can't be perfect but how do we minimize its flaws?
How many people are we willing to wrongfully punish and how many people will we let go who should be punished? How many people are rightfully accused and rightfully punished? How many are rightfully accused but wrongfully punished? The justice system is a reflection of society's attempts to answer these questions. Throw in some corruption, ignorance, and prejudice and you have the idiosyncratic character of a society's justice system.
The American system seems to have become bloated and mismanaged and has created corruption of certain aspects of the justice system. Namely, too many laws creating too much wasted litigation and punishment. Crimes are invented and rarely discarded but when a law is discarded the real victims are those who were rightfully imprisoned at the time but who are now suffering the consequences of the punishment for a crime that is no longer deemed wrong.
What considerations should be examined when looking at business ethics on social media?
Is it ok to promote yourself through multiple accounts? Why not just create thousands of accounts and follow yourself?
Is it ok to compile other people's articles just to get views?
Is it ok to pretend to be someone else or create bots that pretend to be something else?
Is it ok to friend everyone on Facebook and then spam them with ads or emails? Linkedin?
In an age where attention is currency what behavior/s should be shunned or prohibited from being exhibited?
Nudity? Violence? Or should it all be allowed in the name of transparency, freedom, and entertainment?
Is it all ok if it's on the internet? Is it even real?
Or is it a reflection of the culture at large? The internet acts as a metric for human activity and thought. It also facilitates human activity and thought. It is a feedback look that can internally track and analyze its own variables as long as someone programs it to do so. If the internet is merely information we can treat its content as we do any piece of information:
1. Attempt to understand it.
2. Asses its importance.
3. Asses its validity.
4. Accept, deny or remain agnostic.
Roughly speaking we should be skeptical of anything online including the motivations, authenticity, and context of any content produced. This is why reputation and trust are so important to establish online. If you want people to trust you-you need to have integrity online just as in real life (Probably because the internet is real and the activities existing on it are real). Since your online reputation is an extension of your offline reputation you should take it seriously.
But with the internet, it is easy enough to hide behind an online persona so you may be able to shield your offline persona from any damage you desire to cause. I can't imagine it is likely that any good can come from the purely anonymous online threat, lie or shaming that comes from those protecting themselves with fake accounts. But just because I think it is repugnant what is the line at which force must be taken?
After watching the newest stand up special by Dave Chappelle I realized that while I understand why there is racial solidarity among many black Americans I will never really understand what it is like to share a collective burden with those that share my skin color. I respect Dave Chappelle and find him to be very intelligent and exceptionally funny so I had to ask myself, "why does he fight for his race?"
If I think about it I can see why the potential for solidarity amongst black people in America is so strong. This is due to two main factors; the history of slavery and their proportion in the population. Even today the history of slavery seems to be on the mind of the majority of black people, especially in the generation that is attempting to go out into the world for the first time. Those two aspects seem to combine to produce a unique solidarity among many black people and it is nearly impossible for me to relate to as a white person in America.
When you grow up and see others that look like yourself you gravitate toward them. If you are a minority it is easy to see the one or two others like you in a school classroom and because you already have something in common you can group up with them with little effort. If you are white and most of the other kids are white then you have to come up with other characteristics to justify affiliation. An immediate characteristic that divides groups, other than race, is sex. Boys tend to group up with boys and girls with girls. Or you might group up based on economic class, shared homerooms, sports, clubs, religion, neighborliness, or a myriad of other factors. I think most of my friends growing up were found in sports, religion, and neighborliness.
I can't truly understand what it would be like for a minority child going to school and dealing with life. I don't know what it is like to so quickly be identified as less common, less understood, and less represented by the general population. To be thrust into a historical environment that is tainted with injustice and resentment and not knowing exactly where you fit into all of it.
I can imagine a young black student learning about American's history of slavery and racial violence. The young man seeing the poverty and violence in black communities and not knowing what to do or how to help. Seeing the white group as "in charge" or oppressive. The funny thing is that most white people do not give a fuck about white people or keeping the race going. We just don't think about it. There are so many white people running around and most are ethnic mutts so racial identity just doesn't show up until you start to learn about it on the news and on social media. Everything is Black this and White that and you have to sit back and think, "what the fuck are they talking about?" because you don't actually understand what it is like to care about your color or the people that share that color.
I can see that when you are in a minority group you know a larger percentage of that group's total population and you take on more responsibility to represent that population. This kind of group identity is reinforced and fostered in conversations that people have day to day. If you can be a champion for your group you can garner significance in your own mind and you may be rewarded by your group for acting in a way that bolsters your group's position. The critical question is whether it is actually significant and worthwhile. To what end?
When I was growing up and I hung out with my friends we never talked about color. We never talked about how we had that in common because there was nothing to say about it. I didn't know the ethnicities of my friends and I didn't care. I remember talking about how I was a jew but I was one of the only jews in my small town and we didn't practice Judaism so I didn't hang out with other jews. I suppose if I had I might have talked about what it was like being a Jew. I did have a period of time where I felt like I was Jewish. I learned about the history of the Jews and I felt a connection to all of it. I wore a yarmulke to school, I watched a lot of World War II stuff, I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and I thought that it all mattered.
As I thought about it more I realized that the Jewish people didn't care about me and that I had no right to take credit for anything that I didn't do. I was never enslaved or persecuted other than by those around me and the government I was born under. No Jews knew I existed or cared that I cared about their group. What benefit was it for me to identify as Jewish anyway? It seems that the benefit is only in the continuation of an ideology based on race and religion and not to the individuals that prop it up. At least not in secular America. In the past, it was essential that groups maintain power in order to defend against groups and maybe that is what the black community is expressing with Black Lives Matter and the like.
If the goal is to create peace then harboring and sustaining modes of thinking that divide peoples will have the opposite outcome. If the goal is racial superiority then, by all means, stick to maintaining the significance of your racial identity. If the goal is legal equality and your race is not being treated equally by the law then you will find allies from many groups as legal equality benefits humanity as a whole. If the goal is to have equal outcomes for all people then you will have to work hard to turn us all into identical robots and even then the uncertainty of life will emerge and bewilder your delusional mind.
You don't get to take credit for a group's virtue, only your own. If you identify with a group then you have to take on all the good and bad connotations that identity entails. If you see yourself as a white person then you have to take on all the good and bad done by white people but that is an impossible task and one that can only lead to dysfunction and pain. Take responsibility for yourself, be a part of groups that produce positive results for humanity, and be wary of those that take on the guilt and pain of others.
I do not want to dismiss the plight and angst of anyone just because I don't relate to it, so I try to understand it from their perspective and I think I understand how it would be enticing and rewarding to defend one's racial group. I genuinely do not have a group, other than my loved ones, that I would fight for at this time and I think that America is one of the best places to live. The future that I hope for is not one marked by group divisions but of individual peace, trade, and collaboration but there are still battles to be fought and it seems that humanity will continue to progress toward prosperity because of those battles.
I don't fully understand what the goal of this article is. I was watching a lot of online personalities talking about all the societal conflicts that exist in America and in other countries and I kept thinking that while we often talk about the benefits of diversity we do not always talk about the negative side when it comes to a specific type of diversity; diversity of ideology and moral philosophy. There are belief systems that we adopt in an effort to succeed in communities and families and as individuals and when these beliefs are directly threatened by others we feel the need to defend our "side" of the argument. It's important that others know where our moral boundaries are because they represent our strategies for living and thriving so it is no wonder that they are fought for so dearly.
So what can I do to understand the circumstances and perspectives that lead to so much conflict? What can be done when so many hold so many others as the "enemy" of their way of life? This article is an investigation into my own thinking about the social conflicts I see represented mainly by the media I consume. I insert videos and articles in sections to give readers an additional source of information as well as to make the article more entertaining. I hope you enjoy this haphazard romp through my mind under the influence of online media.
1. Inside America
A. Protests Do modern protests work? In my mind, it doesn't seem that anyone is changing their minds based on what is said or done at protests. There are countless YouTube channels dedicated to showing off how stupid and uninformed protestors are from all sides. Protestors don't seem to want to debate or persuade the other side. Their message is one of self-righteous bullying with screaming, destruction, violence and provocation. No one in power seems to care what these people want and nothing productive comes from them.
So, why do people form large groups, stand around public areas and accomplish nothing? I think it is partly due to the idolization of prior public figures who, in the past, gained prominence through protests. People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi are touted as historical heroes for their roles in generating awareness around an issue on a large scale through their use of protests which garnered public solidarity. It is also partly due to the massive entitled immaturity and megalomaniacal personalities of many of the protestors.
Modern protestors do not have the same kind of morally salient principles that famous advocates such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi had. These prior protestors based their grievances on rational moral arguments such as legal equality, taxation, and freedom. Today's protestors already benefit from a radically more equal and free society so when they fight for values such as endless immigration, radical socialism, and identity politics it doesn't have the same moral weight as in the past. Modern protestors do not make the kinds of persuasive arguments required for their causes to have an impact on the general public especially when the outrage seems out of proportion with what they fight for.
Protestors who demand that others bend to their will via government policy are immature because they don't understand that others do not want to subjugate themselves to the will of others and they are megalomaniacal because they imagine themselves as so morally righteous that they are willing to use force to enact their desires. They would rather demand the government cow-tow to their desires to enforce their rules and their whims without oversight or justification. Instead of appealing to individual freedom and moral reasoning they appeal to authority to solve the issues they claim without fully thinking about the consequences of enacting such regulations. Also, the government doesn't work on behalf of screaming groups. The checks and balances of the government, while often times slow to change and corrupted by power, at least offer a process for analyzing proposed policies on behalf of all the people instead of just enacting dictatorial mandates from small groups.
The only protests that seem to work come from a peaceful demonstration founded on moral reasoning that gives voice to groups of people who were previously unorganized. Government policies should not be determined based on the emotional outcries of entitled college students and irrational maniacs. If people use screaming, force and violence to accomplish their goals they will only get resistance from those that value civil discourse. Only through moral reasoning will the masses be convinced that a cultural change is necessary and it is only when it is in the government's best interest that it will respond to changing cultural expectations.
An example of this is the recent federal change in marriage laws for gay people. It took years of people discussing the moral underpinnings and practical implications of gay rights before enough people agreed and for the federal government to make a major change in the laws. This is how democracies work. They take time, argumentation and general agreement for change to occur which requires patience and reasoning on behalf of those who care to make America a better place.
B. Political Conflicts (Left Vs. Right) I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos of Jonathan Haidt explaining the differences between the left and the right. What I have gathered is that they both offer important perspectives regarding how societies should organize policies. One issue, I see, is the lack of balance in each approach. Too much collectivism, as pursued on the left, leads toward the subjugation of the individual, excesses in wealth distribution, authoritarianism and denial of the corruptible nature of humans in power. Leftists believe that if only the societal environment were more perfect then so would be the people be within it. Unfortunately, the only way to control the societal environment is through engineering and control. Hence, they see the government's role as being the force for that control.
Alternatively, the conservation of status quo policies and purity, as pursued on the right leads to another form of authoritarianism which doesn't allow for changing ethical considerations, global cooperation, and secular values. In their pursuit of order and tradition, the right has a hard time adapting to new information, especially when it has religious or cultural implications. This thinking leads toward policies that discriminate against those who do not fit into the tradition or those who pursue more hedonistic endeavors. The right wants to use the government to confirm dissidents to their frame of reference and maintain the purity of a system that they see as moral and effective. Gay rights, drug laws, and foreign policy come to mind as things the right hasn't dealt with well in the past.
While traditionally conservatives have supported smaller government intervention and liberals have supported freedom the current political expectation seems to be in how each party can spend more of the public's money in the way they see fit. Even the designations I am using, right and left, exemplifies the divide between the principles each party grounds their policy strategies. They are opposites, mutually exclusive and therefore zero-sum. If one wins the other loses and since both believe so strongly in their positions they are willing to fight (hopefully not to the death) for their ideas. How can a government move forward for the people if the people running it have opposing goals?
There are three solutions to this division that I think might help. One is to give each side less power over the other. Lessen the role of government as the libertarian's desire and force people to deal with each other on a more individualistic basis. The second way is to help those of one political bent or the other see the similarities that exist between the two groups. Focus on shared goals and common threats in order to bind America together. The third idea is to promote compromise and humility. Both groups need to recognize the limitations of their philosophies and work toward balancing the conversation using evidence and morality as a guide.
Here is a Ted Talk Jonathan Haidt gave about the division between the Left and Right.
C. Ideological Conflicts (Communism Vs. Capitalism) Ideology is the underlying system of beliefs that inform a person or group's perspective on fundamental values. Where morals describe specific dispositions toward right and wrong, ideology describes the matrix in which morals intermingle and influence each other and inform broader decisions and behavior. Just like the divide between the political left and right, opposing ideological principles cause many of the conflicts that we see growing inside of America today. It is in the fundamental philosophical dispositions that we judge actions and make decisions. When two groups have opposing solutions to big problems it is our shared ideologies that, as Jonathan Haidt says, "Binds and blinds" us together and keeps us compromising with the "other".
Take, for instance, the concepts of capitalism and communism. These are opposing value systems that inform political policies and social interactions. They impose rules for behavior and dictate levels of state power and allocation of resources. Capitalism relies on principles such as respect for property rights, individual ownership of resources, trade (with varying degrees of regulation), prices are generally determined by markets, voluntary association, and individuality. These principles inherently produce financial inequality but distribute financial power among more people (groups) allowing for more fluctuations in both failure and success.
Communism explicitly opposes the principles of capitalism in that communism relies on central power and decision making based on the assumption that decisions about resource allocation can be done perfectly if only it were under a singular control. Communism requires that property and thus resources be controlled by a small group of decision-makers, trade is replaced with rations, prices are determined via committee, no freedom of association and focuses on the forest (group), neglecting the needs of the trees (individuals).
So, how can people within a country that hold such fundamentally opposing ideologies ever get along? If they can't then what can be done? During the Cold War, the negative effects of the communist philosophy were actively resisted and persecuted, potentially to the detriment of individual freedom but for reasons of maintaining the system that has produced massive increases in wealth and standards of living that all classes have benefited from. It is ironic that those that hold the group above the individual (communism) would accept a philosophy that requires everything to be controlled by a central agency. (Communism requires distribution of resources based on needs and therefore some agent must calculate those needs.)
Where do ideologies come from? I think the first place to look is in childhood, where people are first introduced to moral concepts. There is a reason that most religious people adhere to the religion of their parents. Parents play a major role in determining the kinds of environments, conversations, and interactions that shape how children develop their moral philosophies. If parents promote collectivism over individuality they are priming their child for a worldview conducive to communism. This isn't to say that understanding the benefits of community and compassion for others is not a virtue but when it takes precedence over the individual it can lead to a top-down approach to society as opposed to the bottom up ideation of focusing on the individual first.
Schools are also responsible for shaping the minds of children but there is so much to say about the systematic problems with the American public school system that I do not know where to start. Teachers tend to be women, women tend to lean left, which leans communistic, for one (I know this is a huge generalization). K-12 schools do not focus on philosophy, logic, argumentation or morality and if they did it would probably produce outcomes as mediocre as the current system produces in terms of performance, life skills, and promoting individual potential. It seems that post-high school academia is the biggest culprit of promoting anti-capitalistic ideologies. Colleges are primarily run by those on the left and those that see the government as the answer to society's problems and thus many college students begin to learn about how communism, in its "ideal form", would produce a utopia that we would all benefit from.
I think as time goes by and people see the disadvantages of traditional school systems a more diverse and practical system will emerge, primarily online. People will be less indoctrinated by public schools and colleges, leading toward a more balanced and practical acceptance of moral philosophies that do not require massive government control. At least that is my hope. Again, it comes down to balance. A system that has no room for individual freedom of choice skews the world toward slavery and a system that is void of order leaves no room for stability. Without the rule of law trade can not thrive but with too many restrictions there can be no peace.
Here is an article about moral conflicts and how difficult they are to resolve.
Moral or Value Conflicts
By Michelle Maiese
Originally Published July, 2003; Current Implications section added by Heidi Burgess in April 2017.
A. Personality Personality plays a major role in how we interact with the world and it has a high genetic component. Where personality describes a person's character and interactions with the world in general, which takes into consideration all possible interactions, political attitudes describe a person's attitudes toward a more narrow set of situations; those that are social and hierarchical. Political attitudes dictate one's orientation toward how people should behave in a society and how the government should influence and regulate those behaviors.
Going into this section I assumed that it was a simple task to bridge the gap between personality and politics. I assumed that those that were more conservative would be more orderly, conscientious, and stable. I assumed that those that identified as liberal would be more open to experience, compassionate, and agreeable but after reading a couple of scholarly articles (listed below) I found that the correlation between personality traits and political behavior may be due to an underlying genetic variable that influences both. This does not change the relevance of the correlation but indicates a stronger and more primitive genetic influence in individual dispositions.
Taking into consideration that, based on the paper "Correlation no Causation"(linked below) , the genetic component accounts for roughly 50% for both personality traits and political attitudes we can better understand how people come to their beliefs and how they might be changed. This understanding should allow us to not be so angry with others knowing that they are not in complete control of their genetic predispositions or the environment they were born into. This does not mean that people aren't accountable and adults who have had exposure to moral arguments have an opportunity to go against the grain and align themselves with better ideologies. If people can better understand the influences on their ideologies they can better resist those that are not morally justifiable and hopefully be open to alternative ideas.
Here is a YouTube clip of Jordan Peterson discussing personality and political leanings.
Here are a couple of interesting articles that discuss personality and politics. This is a huge topic so I might write more about it in the future. For now, I offer some things to ponder.
Recently, in my investigation into ideology and politics, I have come across someone that seems to have a great understanding of human behavior and how it relates to both psychology and evolution. The following YouTube video is by Jonathan Haidt and describes how the individual evolved a reliance on the social world for meaning. Check it out and see what you think.
I think the only reason I bring up male and female differences here is to give a little context to why the two sexes differ on average in certain areas of life but I don't think that women and men differ on fundamental goals. In societies that are wealthy enough to concentrate on more abstract concepts we can argue about how to better things but when it comes down to it men and women need each other and our species cannot continue to thrive without cooperation between the sexes. We should celebrate the evolutionary advantages that the two sexes have been specialized to excel at and we should not pretend that all men and women are the same just like we shouldn't pretend that all people are the same. Also, keep in mind that statistical averages and tendencies do not dictate behavior, they only generalize observations about behavior. Statistics describe the past and individuals dictate the future. It is up to everyone to determine what they think is the right behavior in each moment and with better understanding people might be able to make better decisions that benefit themselves and others.
One statistical difference between men and women is their differing orientations toward people and things. Women tend to focus on endeavors that involve the nurturing, facilitation and the maintenance of people. This explains why they are over-represented in medical and social services, education and administrative assistance and why women are more likely to adopt political attitudes that have to do with helping people such as social programs, equal rights, and other liberal policies. Men tend to focus on things, so they lean toward endeavors that involve technology, transportation, and management. This last one seems like it would be a female endeavor because management often entails people but I think men end up in management because they treat the team as a system or machine. They can take the emotional aspect out of the equation and look at each person as a part of a system that's goal is effectiveness and efficiency, not as individual personal successes. This tendency is good for assessing the allocation of labor but not in maintaining morale. That is why good HR policies help facilitate work relationships and good managers do not neglect the human side of the business.
The feminine and masculine are the two sides of life. The yin and yang. The order and the chaos. The emotional and the rational. Just like everything else, balance requires the acceptance and understanding of other's feminine and masculine tendencies as well as your own feminine and masculine tendencies. Also, understanding how men and women differ in their communication styles can help forgo needless arguments and misunderstandings. There are many resources for understanding how men and women differ with respect to communication styles, expectations and goals so I recommend looking into to these differences to better understand how other's think and behave to understand what goes wrong in relationships whether at work, at home or in society. Anything that can help 50% of the population get along with the other 50% of the population seems helpful, although, I admit, it's probably not the biggest problem in America.
This YouTube clip discusses some of the differences that men and women have regarding social expectations and communication.
In the following Youtube clip, Jordan Peterson talks about how the sexes diverge when given the freedom to choose their occupation.
*The following article is not necessarily the one being referenced in the YouTube clip above. It is just one study I found that backs up the claim that Jordan Peterson is talking about.
Gender Differences in Personality Traits Across Cultures: Robust and Surprising Findings Paul T. Costa Jr., Antonio Terracciano, and Robert R. McCrae National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
A. Narratives and Persuasion The first step to peace is the denial of force as a means to enact change. If we accept this axiom then we are left with the difficult task of persuading others through words. This is where argumentation and debate become valuable and essential to society. This rests on the right to freedom of speech which should not be taken for granted. The following podcast discusses moral argumentation in an informed way and talks about the power of narrative to help persuade others. If one can frame an issue in a way that is both relevant and relatable by using real-world examples, appealing to strongly held beliefs and not using insults one can persuade others without alienating them or attacking their identity.
B. Jonathan Haidt: How common threats can make common (political) ground
4. Closing Thoughts
A. Ascetic Preferences Vs. Justifiable Force (Morals and Laws)
On important factor to think about is the difference between what we would prefer people do and what we are willing to force people to do. We should not take lightly the application of force, especially through the rule of law. Nearly any law, if it is enforced, means the potential for violent outcomes and therefore we should take seriously those laws we promote. Also, keeping in mind that once a law is created it is nearly impossible to retract.
B. Religion?
I'm not mentioning religious differences much here because it is such a big topic that it deserves its own article and because others have discussed it thoroughly. Just google religious conflicts and you will get your fill. Obviously, people are passionate about religion and religious ideas are a large cause for conflict but the purpose of this article was to investigate things that I have not spent as much time on and to understand something new.
C. This last section contains the thoughts that sparked this blog article as well as additional media to ponder.
When you look at a population in terms of diversity of ethnicity, color or culture you will notice degrees of integration. Integration and harmony only come from shared value systems. Ethical boundaries have to be respected for individuals to get along so when people hold compatible belief systems they can collaborate and work productively.
Instead of focusing on the diversity of race, ethnicity, and culture we should be focusing on what we all have in common. What are our goals as individuals and as groups? Differences among us can be characterized as either superficial and insignificant or deep and important, and the distinction is important. In order to get along, we must be honest about what we care about and think hard about what we have in common. If it is nothing then we will fight and if it is everything then we are the same.
In a society whose population is less integrated, it can be presumed that there are conflicting value systems guiding individuals in each group. Individuals look out for the group and have to make moral judgments on behalf of the community. It is only individuals that can act.
People do not want diversity. A diversity of value systems causes conflict. What we really want is a shared value system that binds us in peace. We are all displaying our value systems and groups take on the value systems of their followers.
Why focus on differences? Shouldn't we focus on similarities? Like shared values and ethics. What happens when two groups hold opposing values? For example, if one values freedom and another values slavery. How can they ever work together? Why should one be a slave to the other?
Moral or Value Conflicts
By Michelle Maiese
Originally Published July, 2003; Current Implications section added by Heidi Burgess in April 2017.
"Bro Virtue Signalling, or BVS, is when someone who is super cool also espouses virtues in a cool way. It is important that the signal is not preachy or trying to actually make someone feel worthless. It has to be empowering being perceived as being a "big deal".
I thought of this while listening to The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast and the Your Mom's House podcast. In both of these podcasts the comedians that host them make fun of each other in the direction of persuading them of the value of good health. The fat shaming event that Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura engaged in earlier this year went viral and became a huge story. What's interesting is that the entire campaign was centered around a bet between the two out of shape comedians to lose weight. Whomever got the lower BMI rating would win and while the contest went on people from all over the world got in on the jokes and jeering.
This kind of subtle promotion of the virtue of healthier living with the use of crude and "bro" humor is one of the reasons why these comedians and podcasts are so popular. They are not devoid of ethics. They simply hide their virtue signals among vulgar language and sometimes brutal masculine japery. It speaks to the complicated nature of communication and friendship. Friends, especially males, do not always come straight out and say, "I care about you and I think your weight it is unhealthy," but instead say the same thing by saying, "I bet you can't run a mile, because your so fat." It's blunt and to those listening may come off as rude but it's bite is in proportion to the care the one has for the other.
Another example of this can be seen in the crowning of champions for various activities on the Your Mom's House Podcast between the two hosts Christina Pazsitzky and Tom Segura (husband and wife). In between the fart jokes and insane YouTube clips the two comedians throw in little virtue signals that promote a healthier lifestyle without being preachy. They have a running joke that one of them is the "water champion" and while no one is a clear winner the real goal of the competition is to promote the healthy behavior of drinking more water. Considering the two just had their first child I think that this is another example of how adults can mature while remaining true to themselves.
