Doubt

Do you ever doubt your own ideas?

From an interview with MIT professor emeritus, Noam Chomsky, American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, logician, social critic, and political activist:


Q:  Do you ever doubt your own ideas?
A:  All the time. You should read what happens in linguistics. I keep changing what I said. Any person who is intellectually alive changes his ideas. If anyone at a university is teaching the same thing they were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead, or they haven't been thinking.

Q:  How would you explain your large ambition?
A: I am driven by many things. I know what some of them are. The misery that people suffer and the misery for which I share responsibility. That is agonizing. We live in a free society, and privilege confers responsibility.

Normal life in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; the capital city.
I took this picture from the window of my nice hotel.
Of course.

Q:  If you feel so guilty, how can you justify living a bourgeois life and driving a nice car?
A:  ... When I go to visit peasants in southern Colombia, they don't want me to give up my car. They want me to help them. Suppose I gave up material things -- my computer, my car and so on -- and went to live on a hill in Montana where I grew my own food. Would that help anyone? No.

Q:  Have you considered leaving the United States permanently?
A:  No. This is the best country in the world.
_____________________________

Today's competing demands for our attention leave little time for conscience, compassion, or conviction. Our social culture suggests we must first attend to our polarized politics and personal discontent. Today, those are the heart issues of mass media, and they are the common content of casual (if sometimes intense) conversation. Add to those the momentary spikes of interest in celebrities, sports, and meaningless memes. Perhaps none of those are legitimate issues of human existence.

We are so deeply indebted to African friends who introduced us to
their world.  :)  We have family and friends in distant places now,
and we get to stay connected with many of them.

Pictured here is the 'rowdy neighborhood'.  Among the world's
nicest people, they dragged Marilyn everywhere so they could
introduce their grandmothers, their cousins ... they did their
best to teach us.  Still, we as yet understand only  a little
of how the world really works.

Central and foremost, the good of others takes precedence (my opinion*). Governments rule, religions separate, empires conquer, tyrants oppress, dictators murder, and today's economic war ravages the world. The poor are artificially trapped in poverty along with their children, generation after generation. The wealthy and powerful extract wealth from workers, from communities, and from nations.  

Chomsky suggests that those of us who live in comparative ease, regardless of our how we arrived, carry a measure of responsibility in it all. Is he right?

There are indeed so many opportunities to help, to make a way forward for others. and to offer hope.


*The second highest priority, we're told, is that we would do well by our fellow man.  That we would do for them as we would for ourselves.  Such a measure of justice and equality will change us and the world we touch.  Mt.22:39.

The Co$t of War

Source

War actions have a price tag, but military actions are not the centerpiece of modern warfare.  Since WWII, the predominant national initiatives are economic dominance, power in the international marketplace and in the financial industries.  It's economic warfare, and the Great Recession was just one of the results.

The developed world, led by the U.S. and E.U., continues to push the limits.  

The Economic War costs more, does more damage, harms more innocent people, and causes more deaths.

The poorly regulated financial industry now plagues the entire world.  Developed countries are at risk and have suffered significant loss.  Developing countries are even more harshly affected.

The great recession continues to adversely affect national productivity, workforce participation, and economic growth.  Developed countries suffers similarly.  Developing countries of the world suffer even more as the effects persist.

See the Brookings Institute analysis here.

Curious how the war is progressing?

Guilt

guilt

Why no visible remorse?  Among the concerns, Tsarnaev expressed
no guilt or regret for what he'd done or for the horror he'd brought
to the lives of so many in Boston and the country.

ɡilt/

noun

1. the fact of having committed an offense or crime.

"it is the duty of the prosecution to prove guilt"

synonyms: culpability, guiltiness, blameworthiness; wrongdoing, wrong, criminality, misconduct, sin"the proof of his guilt"

2.  the sense (or emotion) of having violated a personal moral or ethical standard.
      "the weight of his guilt brought sadness to his life"

Personal awareness of guilt

 occurs when a person realizes that they have compromised their own standards and bear responsibility for that violation.  It is closely related to the concept of remorse.

Then, why do law-breakers persist without recognition of their own guilt?

One of the rarely-mentioned roots of law-breaking is the sense of doing that which is right despite what the law demands. Justified breaking of law?  Good reason for bad action?  Consider the protesters who demonstrate despite ordinances that try to shut them up; from Vietnam era objectors to today's occupiers, the law is used against them.

Consider the store clerk who steals from the register, thinking they are robbed in the little they are paid, or the shoplifter who thinks they've been cheated out of fair opportunity by the business community.  How about the crooked traders who think the marketplace is their adversary, or the terrorists who thinks that attacking another country is a small but deserved recompense for what their people have endured.

Inner-city gangs?  They're often a survival mechanism.  They are families of a different cultural frame where the young can find a place of respect, of opportunity, an exit path from their imposed economic cell block.  It appears to be an "us" against "them" context where "us" is the right side and every other is less right.

Violent extremists may justify themselves similarly.  They have little in common with the religion whose words they use.  They do, however, provide a venue for those who feel they have been beaten down or oppressed by mainstream power players.  

The oppression is usually legal.

The thing they often have in common is a sense of having been treated unjustly, oppressed by monied power.  Accurate or not, criminal activity can be perceived as the right response by the perpetrators.

Wealth = assets minus liabilities,

 not to be confused with income.

Such angry violence as we see today commonly arises from below, perhaps like the revolutions among the abused colonies over the centuries, or like the German Reich which emerged from the ashes of defeat and shame following WWI.

As for guilt, there is little such awareness among those responsible for killing millions or in the one who killed another in the name of ... whatever.

All such thinking is destructive, of course.  Violence, malice, a willingness to oppress or exploit or harm the innocent, all are wrong regardless of the provocation, regardless of the arguments and justifications offered, regardless of the scale or timeline.  That standard is not subject to human redefinition.

Wealth is extracted from the economy by the rich.
It comes out of the pockets of everyone else.
Fair practice, or the absence thereof?

Our national and international processes of law, enforcement, prosecution and defense, all were put in place to ensure a reasoned response, not an emotional one.  Our collective intent is fair and impartial justice in every circumstance on every occasion for every person.

It serves the currently privileged folks rather well, perhaps.  The rest get whatever trickles down, urologically speaking.

Fair treatment for all would be a good goal, perhaps; improbable, but good nonetheless.  Its absence is the root of discord in venues from one family to the whole world.

Econ 101/2

Understanding our current economy  isn't a simple task.  One course may not be enough.  

The brief provided here should fill in any gaps in our understanding.  

Entertaining Work

Perhaps the best part of work is getting things done, making progress, reaching good goals.

Remember the first time in school when you had a team assignment and you depended on the work of your teammates? Maybe it was a chemistry class assignment ... we hated it, mostly. We needed each to take responsibility and do their part, and it didn't work very well.

Ever thought about what happens when the players don't do their part?

1. Timelines extend.
2. Performance declines.
3. Frustration rises.
4. Goals morph.
5. Excuses escalate.
6. Blame erupts. 
7. Higher ups complain.
8. Stress increases.
9. Good workers get thrown under the bus as 'good' reasons for the failure.

It's only funny from a distance.  If you're caught up in the middle of it, it's depressing.

So how might someone in the middle provoke reasonable progress?
The missing piece is LEADERSHIP, of course.
You can help the process.

1. Identify and agree on the goal, the vision.
2. Explain goals in the big picture.  What’s the purpose?  Who is impacted by success?
3. Do your part and more.
   
4. Get commitments.
   • What are you going to do?
   • When are you going to deliver it?
   • How will you achieve your goal?
   • When will you work on this?
   • What will you do if you realize you might fall short?
5. Provide a path to success.
   
   • What resources do you need? How will you get them?
   • What skills might need developed?
   • Who needs to participate?
6. Respond to sincere failure gracefully. But, before you do, examine excuses.
   • When did you realize you would fall short?
   • What did you do when you faced obstacles?
   • When did you begin working on this project?
   • What did you actually do? Don’t accept, “I did my best.”
7. Create incremental milestones. Monitor progress; refine to goal.  
8. Give feedback now, not after all the work is done.
9. Don't throw people under the bus. Stand with people who fall short, if you are going to keep them on the team.

That's all leadership stuff, but somebody's gotta do it if we're going to reach the good goals.

Meaningful work and being able to benefit others with our effort is a great opportunity and worth doing well.  Passing the time, drawing a paycheck for minimal work isn't an adequate response, is it.   Serving well is more fun.

God Never Said

"God never said make the world a safe place.   He said bring sinners to him and he will do it."

~Paul Cline

True?  Well, not really.  He has given us plenty of direction and counsel regarding justice, defense of those mistreated, and right thinking.  This would be a good time for His help, though.  Conflict and upheaval surround the issues of making things right and safe and the way they should be.  We'd hoped our world would be more reasonable.

ISIS claims to be doing what's right, ridding the earth of those apostate Shiites.

Hitler claimed to be restoring the Reich and cleansing the earth of those Jewish vermin. Himmler claimed he was a decent person while he was doing it.

Planned Parenthood claims to be helping women by disposing of those babies, and Gosnell (pictured) claims he was a decent fellow, meeting the health needs of those poor folks. 

Making things right requires right thinking, of course.  

It's absence is the problem we face each day.

Happy Anniversary to Kermit Gosnell (it's been two years since his murder convictions and imprisonment for life without parole).  I wonder if perhaps his thinking will get adjusted a bit.

God, deliver us from such strangely inhuman people in this world.  What's the right response?

Gosnell the abortionist serial killer was not unusual, by the way. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)