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02154: Re: [WDDM] Strategy [Dr. Rossin]

From: Antonio Rossin <rossin(at)tin.it>
Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 19:37:33 +0200
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Strategy [Dr. Rossin]

Fred Gohlke ha scritto:
Good Morning, Dr. Rossin

I'm sorry, I'm unable to see which text you marked 'red'. (I copy
messages to text files and use an old program [WordStar] to do my
reading and writing.) Even so, I believe I've found your comments.
If I messed it up, please correct me.


re: "Consider one's pursuing one's own interest according with
the requirements - to wit, the physical laws - of the
natural environment one lives in.

Consider one's pursuing one's own interest according with
the requirements - to wit, the authority's consent - of the
social environment one lives in.

Consider that there is conflict between the social and the
natural requirements of the complex environment one lives
in. For instance, a complex environment where the social
authority requires consumerism, or else war, and the
physical laws require respectfulness for natural resources
and peace.

Or else, nearer to the aims of this esteemed list, please
consider a conflict between

-- our allegiance to social authorities who want us to
accomplish good policies that have been decided by
themselves, ie top-down, and

-- our allegiance to natural environment that requires us to
accomplish policies that are directly linked to the
territory we live in, ie decided from bottom-up. Isn't it
this the difference between representative and direct
democracy?

I copied your entire assertion because I like the way you describe the
problem.
If my view differs, it is in my attitude toward 'the authority'. I
get the impression
you consider 'the authority' an entity properly distinct from the
people. I don't.
I believe 'the authority' has improperly arrogated to itself a
position distinct from
(and above) the people.

Good afternon Freed

and good point, yours.

Please, do not consider any 'the Authority' being external to the subject.
Please consider that each subject - each one of us - has a slot inside
one's
brain network waiting for some whichewer image or symbol or idea to pull
into and make it thereby become 'the Authority'.

The problem IMHO is not the thing having entered thereinto, but the
width of
the slot one has got built up into one's brain. I mean, if the slot
were a big one,
'the Authority' will be powerful accordingly, up to be unquestionable.
If the slot were naturally sizes, 'the Authority' will be naturally
sized as well, and
the interested subject will be able to question it at any time if this
were the case.




To me, this is the central problem we must resolve. We must side-step
the
vested interests that presently control 'the authority' and elevate
the best of
our number to take that control.

Well, let's do it as self-control. I men, controlling the slots inside
our brains.

I fear your focus is much broader than my own. I visited the links
you provided.
Unfortunately, I couldn't open the Antonio.Lucknow.ppt or
evans-experientialism files.
Even though the flexible-learning.org file is a bit beyond my level of
expertise, I think it
an important area of thought. Reading it reminded me of Dr. Alasdair
MacIntrye in
the sense that mental flexibility and social interaction are intertwined:

"Politics will be understood and lived as a practice, and it
will be about the pursuit of internal goods/goods of
excellence rather than external goods/goods of effectiveness.
It is only because and when a certain range of moral
commitments is shared, as it must be within a community
structured by networks of giving and receiving, that not only
shared deliberation, but shared critical enquiry concerning
that deliberation and the way of life of which it is a part,
becomes possible"

From The Political Philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre as described by
Dr. Edward Clayton
in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/p-macint.htm

I also looked at The Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) link. As I said,
I fear this greatly exceeds my area of interest.

Although I would prefer to develop through dialogue the concept of
selecting our
representatives from among ourselves rather than having them chosen by
the political
elites that control our major political parties, you might like to
look at

http://whither-democracy.blogspot.com/

It sets forth the rationale from one point of view. (The site will be
unavailable for about 10 minutes on Wednesday (5/13) at 2:00AM Pacific
Daylight Time.)


To summarize, I agree with your description of the difficulty of
resolving the conflict
between obedience to 'the authority' and the limits of our natural
environment.
It is my view that 'the authority' has usurped control of our
government(s) by the
self-interested actions of its principles over a period of 200 years
and that the most
rational approach to correcting the problem is to devise an electoral
method that
harnesses our tendency to pursue our own interest and equates probity
with
self-interest for those seeking positions of leadership.

Do you find any of that appealing?

Fred Gohlke

Do you question, "do I find it appealing any of that?"
I feel better tuned with your quoted Alasdair MacIntyre. I feel rather
appealed
with suggesting methods to reduce the Authority slots in our own minds.

Also, "Educate your child and you'll educate yourself". Eh?

What do you think about?

cheers, antonio





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