An Ideal World

Re: Ideal, I raise, I fold


once again the point must be reitterated;
it is the journey, not the destination, that ultimately becomes "a life".

"what else is there to do?" indeed!



Yes, me;

it is my believe that, with numerous, and sometimes highly destructive exceptions, those who offer themselves into the arena of 'public service' do at least, begin with the hope of making this a better world!
The problems are huge though, and frequently wear down the intentions of the best to the level of 'holding the line' and not allowing any further decay.

Education holds the greatest promise for the future, for even if the knowledge imparted is coloured by factors as diverse as religion, and ethnicity; education eventually creates people who are able to think, and after a few generations of 'actual thought' that could usher in a new age of enlightenment!

[who's too idealistic?]

Yes, BoGoWo! That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Well, the kind of think I've been trying to sort of maybe talk about. Even if the world never even comes close to ideal and we all die trying, at least we had a bash at it, we can say that much. The alternative is to just sit in the rowboat eating until you run out of food, or to join the army.

Re: Ideal, I raise, I fold


You nailed it on the head. I may be pessimistic that our species has the strength to overcome the obstacles ahead of us but I for one am not going to give up trying. As a whole, my house of cards is so much more than the few posts here and a very common thread throughout is our need to join together as a species and eliminate all prejudices to provide better than acceptable living conditions for everyone and eventually everything on this planet. That cannot be accomplished without education. You are quite correct that it is the primary utility we have at our disposal to even remotely secure a chance for an ideal world some day.

Ooh wow, I think I actually agree with you for once nipok.

Re: Ideal, I raise, I fold


shall we say that 'education' is the 'glue' that will keep the cards from collapsing into chaos! :wink:

All noble sentiments, and praiseworthy. We should never lose sight of the star we guide on, but understand that you can't get there on a sloop-rigged 24 foot day-sailer. Some things can not be eliminated, and if we deceive ourselves into thinking they can be, disappointment is the least we can expect. Poverty can not ever be eliminated, it is a relative thing and in a world with finite resources there can never be enough to satisfy.

Emotion-driven thoughts, words and behavior are the norm for human-beings. Anxiety, fear, jealousy, covetness, hatred, and feelings of superiority are one side of the coin. The negative emotions lie at one end of the scale, and all those emotions that we prize fall someplace along the road to the other end. Emotions, more often than not, drive most of our responses to the world. The sorts of words and actions employed by folks in pursuit of an "Ideal World" are often highly emotional. We praise rationality, but so seldom are thoughtful and reasonable. Can people be made more rational and less driven by emotions? Perhaps the Ideal World is one in which humans no longer exist. How will you change the human heart, and if you succeed is the result still human?

The desire for the triumph of "good" over "bad" also suffers from a difficulty in determining what each of those terms mean. It is when we choose to value one thing, or idea, over another that the notion of "good" and "bad" arises. Food, to a starving man, is good, but for the 350 lb. teenager it may well be death. Is death "good", or "bad"? It must be "bad" because it is so universally avoided, right? Imagine the nightmare world that would result if no one ever died, not ever. Children in such a world would be impossible, famine and grinding destitution would be common. There could be no growth, and whatever would progress be? What would bring pain to an end for those mutilated in the inevitable accidents. Inevitable, because within infinity all things are certain. Even if one might avoid the ill effects of aging and disease, wouldn't YOU become tired and wish for cessation after four hundred, or four thousand years of the same thing over and over? Death gives meaning to life, and without death, life is diminished. Death may be the "enemy" on the surface, but in the end Death is our friend and boon companion. Tempis Fugits Momento Mori.

Excepting the sociopathic, almost everyone does strive to be "good". I've known the most callous criminals who sincerely believed that they were "good" people. A young man whose MO was to mug elderly women, insisted that he was only taking what was needful from people who didn't need it anyway. "So the old lady fell and broke her hip, how's that my problem?" True, their notions often seem at great odds with the rest of us. One person may believe that teaching children to respect and obey their elders is "good", and another will be just as convinced that it is, if not "bad" then unimportant. One culture values privacy and individualism while another may more highly value social integration. The values of radical Islam are fundamentally different from those of more moderate Muslims, and of Western Civilization; which view of "good" is right, and which is wrong, or "bad". BTW, because I can put myself into the shoes of the radical I can more clearly understand the need to oppose his True Belief in an Ideal so foriegn to my own.

This all seems to bring us to a sort of moral relativism where "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong", are left to the individual/culture to determine. If that is the case, then Existentialism, in one form or another, is perfectly reasonable. The down side is that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Kim Dynasty, and a host of others is no better, nor worse, than Ghandi, Dr. King, the dali Lhama, or that nice little old lady down the block who feeds every stray cat who wanders by. Why shouldn't "might make right", women and children be reduced to slavery, or kings rule by divine right, if there is no moral difference?

We need a moral frame work. Something that will give us some standard on which to judge our thoughts, words and actions. This standard should be readily understandable and accessible to anyone no matter where in time and space they live. Literacy, education, and swiftness of intellect should be no more important in understanding that standard than if the person is slow-witted, uneducated and unable to write their own name. What could such a standard be?

I believe that standard is: That which tends to reduce, or mitigate, suffering is "good". That which would reasonably increase suffering is "bad". That is the starting point, from which we can rationally order our lives. It is impossible to know the outcome of all our thoughts, words and actions, but if we are mindful of them and carefully weigh them, we may reduce suffering to some small extent. We can control ourselves, but trying to control how others think, speak, and behave directly is largely futile. Trying to change the world is virtually impossible for most people, but anyone can change themselves. A powerful political figure may kill millions, but will they be able in the end to truly change hearts? You can not make people stop hating, but you can stop yourself from hating. You can cultivate patience, charity, honesty, generosity, courage and all those other "good" and desirable things you imagine to exist in an Ideal World within yourself and in your own life. You are pretty much powerless to make those changes in others by preaching, wishing, or using coercion. Make your own life a well ordered garden of plenty, and an example that in time might inspire some one to emulation.

If you can't create even a similance of "An Ideal World" within yourself, how can you possibly ever create Shangri-la. All Utopias eventually become dystopias, except when the perfect garden is within.

I'm getting the following feeling here, from war to the extremes that create human eMOTION.
Wars, it seems, may very well be a necessary evil towards the ideal world. A world, once the parameters have been set satisfying every intellect existing within a world which has the technology and medical advancements to make all human life predictable and overall 'good & pleasant', will be able to be sustained (we're talking about a human morality model here, not the possible duration of life on earth. Even the question of poor soil will be evaded with sufficient regeneration agriculture technology)where eg. 1million people live(not 6billion or any future assessment scientists may now be making in this unfairly distributed world, resource wise) with perfect satisfaction of their sensory excitement. They will be able to do with their lives as they please and there desires will be instructed in a body of doctrine or principles bound by the moral system now used. For it is sustainable and you have all the luxury of 'capitalism' (you have want you 'want' and 'need in luxury', there's room -famine really means not enough food for set of people, population grows, quantity of food stays, famine. Let them die, let's go back to a sustainable population, famine resolved. If you allow all human life to live with dignity over 200years without any intervention on the premature ending part but with great effort towards lower reproduction; you will have a world in which there's room. This was just a small explanation on the transitional period. Details- and there's technology to share everything which our planet or the universe has 'randomly' divided. So there is a communistic, sharing system. And it is sustainable on a global scheme because the drawbacks have been eliminated(no need for actual productivity in an ideal world, the system is fit to suit humans; not vice versa).
What asherman seems to be using and implying is the use(nec. for human nature and individualism and 'good & happiness' to exist) of opposites and excitement (perhaps even negative in extreme degrees, so we can enjoy the positive things to the fullest. Which is now commonly agreed on and set to be a certain emotion. Which brings us to the point of eMOTION, later on). In other words, overall we have harmony, but to be in harmony with the state of harmony we need chaos, disorder. In order to enjoy bliss, we must experience true bliss(we can't all go around laughing our asses of all the time), but then without depression of some period we would thing our daily life is the bottom of happiness instead of the normal state, the state of harmony. We need to go up and down and return to zero state again, meditation perhaps. No wait, scratch that :^)
The point is for emotion to exist, we need motion. We need to experience as much as possible to understand as much as possible, to feel satisfied.
And we can do that without risking our lifestyle in any way. eMOTION, for all to exist, to be in constant motion(it is our only constant) but to be in harmony nonetheless.

I think that, rather than striving to create an ideal world, we should just basically be good people, that's what I think. I don't think war is a necessary evil at all, I think avoiding war at all costs would perhaps be the ideal thing to do, because it wouldn't involve murdering people, and it wouldn't be likely to cause more wars or more violence - worst case scenario, everyone would kill us and they'd live happily ever after. that's fine with me really, we're all people, we're all on the same side, as long as soem of us survive, we win! Hoorah! I know that's a bit extreme, and I'm not sure I completely agree with myself, but basically my idea of an ideal world is a world in which everybody does the right thing, whatever that may be, rather than a world in which there is no death or everyone has the same design of house, or anything like that.

A strong basis to create such a world perhaps. But I'm rather intrested in the continuous model, in which all things are consistent and stable, they can go on for thousands of years in this state of perfection.

"I think avoiding war at all costs would perhaps be the ideal thing to do, because it wouldn't involve murdering people, and it wouldn't be likely to cause more wars or more violence - worst case scenario, everyone would kill us and they'd live happily ever after."

Not to struggle against those who seek your extinction is a pretty steep cost for "peace". The idea that once we are dead, that the Nazi/Communist/Radical Islamic Terrorist will "live happily ever after" somehow fails to brighten my day. The victory of such repugnant Ideologies is not to build an Ideal World, but one dominated by their own twisted and narrow notions. Given Argote's advice, the victims of Nazism should have marched singing into the "showers", Vichy France was more right than a defiant Britain, and Idi Amin would still be in power.

Though in may be politically fashionable to avoid violence "at all costs" that is the road of extinction for humanitarian values, not the pinnacle of them. There are systems, groups and individuals who must be opposed though it costs millions of lives. We grew up with mother's admonition, "it takes two to make a fight". Mothers forget that schoolyard fights are a testing ground, a means of selecting one's friends and place in the schoolyard hierarchy. Generations of Dad's knew that and taught junior to toe the line, take the blow, bleed and yet retain ones honor. If the analogy went no further perhaps Mother's advice might still lead to a "better" world. Unfortunately, the world is not a school-ground and those True Believers who are willing to die to destroy Western Civilization don't care a bit whether we die as men, or as sheep, so long as our system is erased from the world.

When enough people would rather die than oppose evil, then evil will win. Glad that I won't be around to see that terrible day.

but when enough people become tolerant of violence (as a means to anything) that, in itself becomes an evil.

So it's a question of either be willing to die for your ideals and not kill. Or kill (and maybe your ideals won't die with you in the long run) and die(but perhaps at a later time, a time in which the ideals may already be commonly accepted).
And will this fundament be the only and sole remaining fundament of the ideal world, or is it tranisitory, if not is it part of the basis, a member of equals. What exactly? This 'if' for idealism. The condition of idealism perhaps.

This is going to seem like a very simple argument, but if a bunch of Islamic terrorists are evil for killing lots of people for what they believe in, then aren't we evil if we kill them for what we believe in? I mean, killing a murderer is still murder. I don't like to use the word "evil," but by Asherman's criteria, the cost of survival is being what he calls evil - maybe you think it's a necessary evil, but then maybe that's exactly what the Islamic terrorists think about what they do.

In this black and white example, the western not-killing religion, society, civilization would still stand a good chance of surviving without resorting to killing (to save their own life and way of existence, not-killing). Only if the islamitic killing is not vital but an acceptable tool religion, society, civilization would decide they needed to eradicate all others, THEN we would NEED to kill to survive and thus maintaining this non-killing ideal, would be doomed to fail in such an instance.

It appears you missed my criticisms in regard to moral relativity. For me, there has to be some rational standard by which we can and should weigh our thoughts, words and actions. I provided the best standard I know of, though admittedly it has its own limitations.

One always has to make a choice of what to think, to say, or to do. Presented with the choice of willfully taking another life, we can choose either to do it, refrain from doing it, or to do nothing. If we start by saying that all killing is equally bad, then we probably won't choose to kill. If we believe that some killings are justified we may choose to kill, or not depending upon our understanding of the circumstances before us. To avoid choice, is to abandon ourselves to chance.

To take the position that all killing is equally "bad" is to surrender survival to those who are quite willing to use mortal violence. The individual is at the mercy of every outlaw. The threat of violence will cause the individual to flee, or surrender all their goods, including their life. The same two simple alternatives apply to similarly pacific groups. The consequences aren't just at the contact point between those who define themselves as prey, and those encouraged to use force to further their own agendas. The prey lives in constant anxiety that in the next moment, for any moment may be their last. If they wish to survive, they are at the mercy of those who are willing to use violence. There are many examples of individuals/groups and sub-groups who've accepted the idea that they are powerless and depend upon the mercy of those who hold the power of life or death.

The role of women in many Asian countries is one example. You see them hidden away and kept ignorant in their burkas. A short while ago, they were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, and even today are murdered almost at will if they fail to please. In China, they led lives of slavery to their mothers-inlaw and had their feet bound for "beauty" ... that is if they weren't killed at birth.

The Jews have historically been passive minorities, and what is their history? One pogrom after another, always with the Cossacks! Driven from one country to another and murdered to the applause of their neighbors. Who more natural to make scapegoats of? The Nazis believed, with some justification, that they would go in their millions to the murder factories without resistence.

Who is most vulnerable to the street thugs who live by robbery and terrorizing others today? When you were a child, who was most picked on and victimized on the schoolyard?

There are many examples, and today we don't even know the names of some such groups who became enslaved and driven to extinction depending upon the mercy of those who have no compuction against using violence.

The effect of this idea that all violence and killing is equally bad, something to be avoided at all costs, also has a very bad effect on those who don't hold such idealistic notions. Being able to victimize others with impunity encourages violence and dominance by force. That encourages arrogance and feelings of superiority in the bully. "How far can I go?" is a question that tends to increase the severity of attacks on the prey. It is hard to kill for the first time, but it becomes easier with repetition. Overcoming the taboos against killing is difficult, impossible for some. The heart resists the idea that even killing in self-defense, defense of others, as a judicial decree, or during times of war, is somehow different. Soldiers, justice officials, police officers, and most of all ordinary citizens are called on from time-to-tiime to kill. Killing, for most people never becomes "easy" even when society sanctions its need. For a few killing is as habit forming as heroin, and they come to enjoy it.

I have to go out now. I'm behind schedule, perhaps later in the day.

It becomes clear that we cannot start out from a system which we all are going to use, since you can't force your moralistic views onto another human being, moral diversity and freedom, especially in the formation of the distribution of this new goods of thought; but that you have to use a system yourself, which enables you to survive (all forms of violence, oppression, ignorance and other things someone without this view might attempt to inforce on you) and spread your goods of thought in a manner which is sustainable.

In other words, if you educate yourself in evasive, defensive and conservational(life) tactics, you might find a way out of any situation with non-harmful tactics. In direct conflicts such as a fight, I think of aikido, in other indirect conflicts such as diplomatic missions or negotiation I think of education that can be followed to these ends, I'm sure one will learn a way that does not include violence in any scenario(at least on your part, thus avoiding it once more). And so on, and so forth.

But, I suppose and admit, at one point there may very well be a direct choice with no meta answer, thus creating a predicament in which you n-v-have to choose, in this case, one ought to chose ie. non-violence.