When do children/young adults gain full rights of privacy? by pizmobeach

Honestly I think y'all might do well to read some of the work of Alice Miller.

Yeah verily, some times you get a child who has issues or behavioral tendancies which cannot logically be connected to parenting or environment - not often but it does happen, the "Dark Spark" as I call it and my fascination with it derives from that anomoly, obviously.

That's not to say parenting cannot make an impact there, but too many try to dam up the river instead of guiding it's course, which never has good results.

Magaonsdaughter, were my mother still around she'd prolly express quite a bit of sympathy for you, herself knowing all too well what it was like to have a son with a will of iron, which forged in the flames of an injust and abusive society had refined itself into serious steel long before puberty and it's resultant seperation instinct ever kicked in - that's a damn tough thing to deal with, especially given that children are natural anarchists and if a rule doesn't MAKE SENSE (to them, in their experience), then so much for the rule, and they'll defy any attempt to enforce it...

Believe me, I feel you - I get into that one with my niece all the time, since no OTHER adult including her mother has ever earned her respect and trust instead of demanding it outright, despite repeated betrayals of same... of course, sometimes she'd rather not talk even to me, cause I tell her the *truth* instead of some fluff faery tale or how things ought to be (and aren't, and you try selling a bullshit story about how society and the law work to a kid, that *will* come back on you when they realize it's a lie!) even when that truth is very unpleasant.

But just because some "rules" are oppressive, offensive, nonsensical or exploitive in nature - does not necessarily mean that ALL rules are, she has a hard time accepting or understanding this since so many of the "rules" of her school and even household are complete bullshit, and children with their more vague understanding of the world are far more often to "paint with a large brush" concerning things than we are.
So one of my challenges is to get it through to her that yes, sometimes rules HAVE a purpose, sometimes they DO make sense, while fighting that one uphill due to the amount of bullshit ones thrown at her by society, which most certainly doesn't help the case, yanno ?
About the only tack I even have left with this is the fact that I am an anarchist and can point out some folk obey rules NOT because of threats and consequences, but because thing just won't work any other way, like our highway and road system for example - but the contributions of our fucked up so-called society work against me at every turn and corner, which leads me to something else...

No one likes to talk about their failures, but I have, essentially, failed completely to make any damn difference with my nephew - I thought for a while there was a possibility, and I WILL keep trying, cause folks *can* change and I don't have it in me to write him off - but he's learned the benefits of lying, cheating, stealing, backstabbing, snitching out his "friends" for gain, and social classism and entitlement at it's worst, helped along by his freakin father and the nastiness of a knives-out divorce, culminating in being instructed by his father to sabotage his own education in order to deprive his mother of custody while snooping and spying on all she does, initially an unwitting pawn but eventually a willing particpant in making his mothers life hell any way he can, aided and abetted by his father and grandparents social-classist attitude towards have-nots...
Tell me folks, what MESSAGE does it send when society REWARDS sociopathy and PUNISHES altruism ?

Were it not for the fact that my niece has a decidedly non-violent disposition and a general bent towards altrusim to begin with, this'd be freakin hopeless - not to mention the older niece coping with the trying to control the berserkerang on top of an already foul temperment....

It ain't easy, that for damn sure - but you do not parent a child by BREAKING them, and when you decide that their will, their rights, mean nothing, you've essentially decided THEY mean nothing.

Quote:
Everyone's looking for someone to blame. Society. Culture. Hollywood. Predators. Looking everywhere but the right place. Children are very simple, Mr. Jerusalem. Very easy devices to break, or assemble wrong. You want to know who did this to these kids? Only their parents. That's the thing no one wants to hear. Every time you stop thinking about how you're treating your kid, you make one of these. It really is as simple as that. It's got nothing to do with the failure of the society or any of that. It's got everything to do with the responsibility of making a human.
-Transmetropolitan

To abdicate ones primary responsibility as a parent is, IMHO, an unforgiveable crime.

As I say about my work when the goin gets tough,
"It don't stop bein your job when it stops bein easy!"

Problem is, folks look at a kid who has some of those traits, and use the old born-bad adage as an excuse to throw their hands up in the air and give up - to abdicate their responsibility, surrender their intentions and feed their kid into the gaping maw of a society gone all wrong BECAUSE people do that.

I am of course quite gratified by folks who do not, Magons, but all I can offer in text is understanding and gratitude.

Our world is what we make it, and on most days fails to impress me about the notion that our continued survival as a species is a good thing, but some days surprise me.

-Frem
PS. I think what horrifies me worst is that said nephew, despite what he has obviously become, is practically held up on a pedastal, while the neice who tries and struggles to do right even if badly, is viewed as a fool and a loser.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 9:23 AM

Oh, forgot these, some useful Alice Miller links.
http://education.gsu.edu/csal/icwl/abs01/ihelfield1.htm
http://www.thisisawar.com/AuthorsAlice.htm

-F

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:06 AM

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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
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I'm not saying they were amoral, but their morals and our morals would not match. The concept of the pater familias, as husband/father having absolute rights over their wife and children, including life or death does not match our own code of morality.

There's still families that work this way now, sometimes the abusive parent is brought to justice, sometimes people look the other way.

Point is, there's always going to be people who do bad things, the question here is how of it was commonplace, and what were the reactions generally? We say they didn't have laws against some kinds of murder, but certainly at least family members would get pissed off if a husband killed a wife they were related to, or even a more general murder case. And how much of the bad behaviour is being exaggerated in the retelling?

I mentioned most of the examples of different value systems you gave already, and pointed out that that concepts of JUSTICE differ. But reactions to a murder, reactions to rape, crime committed against the self-identifying members of a community. SOMEONE generally tends to react, someone tends to care. The grieving Muslim parents of a girl who was killed because a rapist and his wife charged adultery to cover their asses (cases you would have only heard about because some people from that Muslim culture found the injustice offensive enough to bring to global attention). The father of a Greek girl who was stolen away and raped. The family of a Roman wife and her children who an angry husband killed. They CARE.

And if that tends to happen across just about every society, historical or current that you might care to name, then that's something that's fairly universal.

perhaps we do disagree on a fundamental level.

The way I see it, family members may or may not grieve for someone who has been murdered by the state -remembereding that insome areas of the world, family members carry out honour killings - with relish as well. Makes no difference, its about what we as a society support as a shared value. Do we support killing of newborn infants? No we do not, but some cultures did. It wasn't considered a heinous act, but a necessity.

I also have to fundamentally disagree with your concept that murder and rape are universally considered to be wrong. Murder and rape are legal names, so if we call them killing and non consensual sex, it makes a huge difference. Non consensual sex has been incredibly prevelent in many societies, prevelent and supported. Until relatively recently it was considered okay for women to submit to non consensual sex with their husband, in fact it wasn't illegal. Many societies have encouraged non consensual sex as part of acts of war. And as for killing, actually acceptance of killing has been the accepted norm for most societies. Each society has its own rules for when and where killing is acceptable, but its relatively few places where it has been taboo.

I also think that killing and non consenusal sex, when they were named rape and murder were considered henious but often not because of the impact upon the victim and the victims family. It was always been commonplace for lowly people to kill one another or be killed and no one much cared. It was killing of rulers or people of import (including fathers) that was considered outrageous. It was about touching the powerbase frankly, and that has never really changed. And as for rape, rape outrage was about women possibly being impregnanted by somoene inappropriate or 'spoiled' as a marriage commodity. It was little about individual rights, because until fairly recently, NO ONE had rights. You lived, died, suffered or prospered by your rulers whim.

Our society has developed into a culture in which individual rights matter, in which human suffering is considered a bad thing, in which happiness is considered to be right, but this is not and never has been a universal way of seeing the world.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 11:29 AM

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Do we support killing of newborn infants? No we do not, but some cultures did. It wasn't considered a heinous act, but a necessity.

Ehm. That might not be the best argument point to make. Just pointing it out so hopefully the thread doesn't get hijacked by that argument again.

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Until relatively recently it was considered okay for women to submit to non consensual sex with their husband, in fact it wasn't illegal.

The women didn't think so, which was why it's slowly changed.

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Many societies have encouraged non consensual sex as part of acts of war.

Mentioned that as the tribal thing, also mentioned that it was important for a victim to be recognized as like tribe or at least human to prompt the reaction.

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And as for killing, actually acceptance of killing has been the accepted norm for most societies. Each society has its own rules for when and where killing is acceptable, but its relatively few places where it has been taboo.

Mentioned that as society specific forms of justice...

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rape and murder were considered henious but often not because of the impact upon the victim and the victims family. It was always been commonplace for lowly people to kill one another or be killed and no one much cared.

Their families did. You keep missing that point. It's an important one. Something doesn't have to have a huge emotional impact on a societal level to be considered to be some kind of human reaction to rape or murder.

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It was killing of rulers or people of import (including fathers) that was considered outrageous. It was about touching the powerbase frankly, and that has never really changed.

Societal level, except for the father thing, which is personal level. I note that the Romans considered patricide, matricide, and fratricide the very worst of all crimes.

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And as for rape, rape outrage was about women possibly being impregnanted by somoene inappropriate or 'spoiled' as a marriage commodity.

Again, not by the women. Some truth to this exists in the sense of patriarchal culture, but I also know that for as much as there was a blame the victim mentality, there were also parents who were hurt by the horrors of what their daughters had suffered, as much as there were parents only concerned about the arranged marriage and dowry aspects.

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You lived, died, suffered or prospered by your rulers whim.

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]In many pre-industrial societies, peasants comprised the bulk of the population. Peasant societies often had well developed social support networks. Especially in harder climates, members of the community who had a poor harvest or suffered other hardships were taken care of by the rest of the community. Peasants usually only had one set of clothing, two at most. Also, a peasant usually owed their lord 20% of their earnings. They also owed the priest or bishop 10% of their ownings. Of course, knights could, and would usually demand tributes for keeping them alive. Overall, the peasant usually retained only 10-20% of their total work and earnings.

Peasant societies can often have very stratified social hierarchies within them. Rural people often have very different values and economic behavior from urbanites, and tend to be more conservative. Peasants are often very loyal to inherited power structures that define their rights and privileges and protect them from interlopers, despite their low status within those power structures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant

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this is not and never has been a universal way of seeing the world.

I think that while there's been different interpretations of the basic reaction I've outlined that have evolved (sometimes recently) or gained acceptance in the broader mainstream (also sometimes only recently), the initial basis and concepts have always existed, and remain unchanged.

I believe humans are humans, no matter where you are or what specific customs they may have.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 12:38 PM

I kind of don't understand what you are saying. If you are saying that societies have 'evolved' that means that everyone should hold the same values as the US. That is not true.

Regardless of whether people felt sad or didn't like what happened to them or their relatives is not the issue. The issue is whether that conduct was considered acceptable by the population at large. Clearly what has and is considered acceptable varies from culture to culture, creed to creed and throughout history. Do you not think that is an accurate statement? You keep dismissing what I say as being societal laws, but isn't that the point we are discussing?

As for us all being human, I'm not sure what you mean by that. We are not born with an inate value system anymore than we are born with a soul. We have not been 'designed' to be good or moral. We have evolved to survive. We have certain common evolutionary needs, such as the need to care for infants so that enough of them survive to adult hood in order to perpetuate the species> We have the capacity to feel pain,pleasure, emotions, to communicate and to put our prehensile thumb to interesting uses. But if we live somewhere we're our survival has depended upon killing the fattest kid in the village every midwinter's eve and eating them, then that is what we will do.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 2:33 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"When parents bring a "bad" kid to a psychologist for example, what they are usually saying is, "I have done the average amount of work all my other friends have done to control this child's behavior, and it doesn't work. Fix him so I can do what everyone else does and get the same results.""

People have done studies over the years with monkeys (it being frowned on to do them with humans).

Some mothers are classified as 'good' - ie they are patient, observant, not easily frustrated, consistent in their demeanor and care. Some are average. Some are bad - ie they do not feed or groom the infants regularly, do not heed distress calls, fail to watch them, and worst of all easily abandon their helpless infants to meet death.

Some infants are easy - responsive, observant, even tempered. Some are average. And some are bad - constantly distressed and clinging, or aggressive, or bone-headed.

It turns out that only the 'good' mothers can raise the 'bad' infants successfully (ie infant survival to adulthood).

And the 'bad' mothers can only raise 'good' infants successfully.

(And in real life, a bad mother who abandons an infant will sometimes have the infant adopted by a good mother.)

Children are born different. They aren't endlessly mold-able lumps of clay. But some parents have the knack of raising even difficult children, and many don't.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 2:52 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Are you using these casual observations of animal behavior to justify human parents spying on their children through their cellphones?"

In a word: no.

I was hoping to try and introduce some balance. It's never 100% in any direction.

The child is not TOTALLY 100% FREE of intrusion. (If so, they would never get fed, cuddled, cleaned, laid down to sleep at the parents' initiative.) The parent is never 100% TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE. And the balance shifts in different areas at different times until the child is as much free as other adults within the community.

It struck me that people who were putting parents 100% on the hook couldn't be doing that unless they were assuming the parents were 100% in control - and they simply aren't. And that that assumption - parents are 100% in control - is the outlook of a very young child.

In terms of evolution, I think logic does kind of dictate certain outcomes. One is that if the young are dependent, and if they live in a group, then the group has a vested evolutionary interest in their behavior. Behavior on the part of the young that puts the group at risk is not survivable. Therefore, the group has input into the infants' behaviors.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
The child in not TOTALLY 100% FREE of intrusion.

But the issue at hand is not "intrusion" in terms of parental influence, physical handling, or material provision. I don't think anyone here is arguing that parents/society shouldn't guide the behavior of their young.

The issue at hand is if parents SHOULD grant their children the same privacy rights/privileges they themselves demand and enjoy. Yes, parents should guide their children's behavior--but must that guidance involve treating the child as a second-class citizen without privacy rights/privileges?

I don't see how your animal models answer whether guidance should include invasion of privacy.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:07 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Honestly I think y'all might do well to read some of the work of Alice Miller."

That is a very Western and modern concept of personal fulfillment, something that evolution doesn't care about.

All that evolution requires is that enough young survive to generate another batch of young. The adults may die at 40. They may be miserable, stressed SOBs. They may ravage their environment. But if at least 2, or better 7, of their young procreate that is all that counts.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
It turns out that only the 'good' mothers can raise the 'bad' infants successfully (ie infant survival to adulthood).

And the 'bad' mothers can only raise 'good' infants successfully.

Not all monkeys can raise difficult children. At least, not without substantial effort and self-correction.

But applying that to humans, it doesn't mean the "bad" parents shouldn't try to change their parenting style. Or that society shouldn't comment/advise/teach the "bad" parents how to change to offer the least damage to their offspring. It should behoove the group to have even the bad offspring of bad parents survive.

Evolution loves diversity, right?

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
But if we live somewhere we're our survival has depended upon killing the fattest kid in the village every midwinter's eve and eating them, then that is what we will do.

I find this utilitarian, amoral worldview very disturbing.

I think that is what SOME of us will do. It may even be law. But there will be some who can't stand the idea and move away. There will be that group in the village which protests the immorality of eating kids and try to change the law. And still others will form an underground rescue contingent who help fat kids escape before they are eaten.

Human beings have morals. They may not always be the same morals, but most of us have a sense of something we call "right" and something we call "wrong" that goes beyond survival and procreation. Those who do not have that sense are usually called psychopaths and seen as defective.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:36 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

How much can one blame the parents, or society for that matter, if children grow up to make stupid choices? It depends on the child, the parents, the society and other more subtile factors within all three. My older brother and I are extremely different. We were raised by the same two parents, we were raised with similar values, we were both loved growing up, but we turned out very differently. Can my parents be blamed, or inplicated, in some of the things that didn't come out favorably about us? Maybe a few, with him more than with me I suspect. With me a good chunk of my problems are pure genetics and they were doomed to happen either way. But that's not to say my parents were perfect, things happened that were anything but desirable in my growing up years, but they were no worse than that which happens to many other kids in the world and plenty of children had much harder things happen to them outwardly than I.

If a kid is born with antisocial personality disorder and has had it ever since the beginning, then I don't know how much can be done to keep it from being a problem, because it already is one. There are a few things that can be done to delay or minimize the trouble it causes the world, but still, its there. If a child has learned to act in that fashion (Frem's learnt sociopathy theory) then maybe there's more that can be done to fix it, I believe that is easier to fix than innate sociopathy.

I think that the question of inherrant rules or mores is hard to answer because we can always find at least one exception to each rule of morality that other cultures, before or currently, have broken routinely and still existed for a while, though not forever because that stuff builds up eventually and the society falls apart and then changes occur and its different and the cycle starts over. I think what we can say is universal is love. All cultures are linked in our love for family, for spouses, for our children, for friends and dear ones. I think that might be what Byte is getting at. Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down. If there wasn't love we wouldn't have survived and become who we are. Humanity would have destroyed itself many times over. Love is universal. I believe that God has given us that ability to love and to seek. Some other things that are inherrant are our desire to seek knowledge, to understand how things work. Some undesirable things that I feel are universal are greed and the lust for power, whether that be in regard to political power, having more of something than others, seeking to be revered at whatever cost, seeking to have power over others.
So the good and the bad things are universal in all societies. All the other stuff looks different as things go, but I see what Byte is saying. And I believe that a society where there is no morality, written or otherwise, is doomed to fail, sooner rather than later, especially if they don't have some of the good atributes going for them and their quest for the bad, greed and power, outweighs their quest for love and positive ways to learn and grow.

Frem, I feel that most people on this board didn't have a childhood as bad as yours. We all know that you, and a few others, had horrible childhoods. But I wouldn't say your experience is the most common so some of the things that you found to be true in your life may not feel quite as applicable to us or our kids as they are to you in your life. I'm just guessing that that's why your views on this are so extreme. Because in your life and in your work you've seen the worst of the worst and so you're thinking about things through a different perspective."A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 3:59 PM

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I kind of don't understand what you are saying. If you are saying that societies have 'evolved' that means that everyone should hold the same values as the US. That is not true.

No, I'm saying, starting from an initial basis, societies and individuals in those societies will have broad interpretations and off shoots of the basic idea. And those offshoots and interpretations can vary over the passage of time.

But some form of the initial basis, on some level, can be found in all societies.

I can simplify this a lot, as well.

Say you have a neurotypical five year old child, which is usually just about or before the time that a child starts to become familiar with social mores and nuances. Say that child sees their mother raped, beaten, and or killed. What will be the reaction of that child? Say it happens to a stranger that looks like their identified ethnic group. Then a stranger of a noticeably different ethnic group. Provided the child hasn't already been prejudiced against the different ethnic group, the reaction in all cases is likely to be pretty similar.

I doubt even becoming socialized is enough to fully destroy that reaction (though certain kinds of training even later on may possibly succeed).

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 4:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Human beings have morals. They may not always be the same morals, but most of us have a sense of something we call "right" and something we call "wrong" that goes beyond survival and procreation. Those who do not have that sense are usually called psychopaths and seen as defective.

Ayep, the problem comes between what I consider natural morals and socially-installed ones, and the conflict between those messages is something I feel is the root of much aberrant youth behavior.

Human beings are naturally cooperative, social, empathic critters, and when your socially-installed morals conflict with natural impulses, that's when things start to go wrong - look at how religions which deny ones own humanity, starting with sexuality, create such twisted, hypocritical parodies of human beings and hold them up as some kind of standard.

As to what happens when a child stands in open defiance, we've gone over that, and I've more to say, but in its own thread, which I shall post shortly.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 4:09 PM

Quote:
We have not been 'designed' to be good or moral. We have evolved to survive. We have certain common evolutionary needs, such as the need to care for infants so that enough of them survive to adult hood in order to perpetuate the species> We have the capacity to feel pain,pleasure, emotions, to communicate and to put our prehensile thumb to interesting uses. But if we live somewhere we're our survival has depended upon killing the fattest kid in the village every midwinter's eve and eating them, then that is what we will do.

But we have evolved to have certain aversions. And there is, in fact, an instinctual aversion to dead humans that everyone has, and by extension, there is also an aversion to staying around dead humans.

And, if you talk to people that have not undergone special training who have killed another human, whether intentionally, or accidentally, the experience tends to leave them quite shaken.

There's arguably an aversion to creating dead humans. Where that aversion is not present, I would concur with Frem and CanttaketheSky - sociopath. I will say, however, that sociopaths exist in all societies, though in some societies they can hide it and get along better than other societies.

Your story about murder cannibalism as cold climate survival neglects to consider that no cold climates cultures resort to cannibalism in the winter. So no, that is not an evolved aspect of human instincts or tendencies.

And once again, I note that widespread murder, even for cannibalism reasons, is not conducive to survival of a social group - also contrary to human instincts.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 4:26 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Children are MOSTLY empathic creatures.

BTW Byte - the infamous 'they' have done studies looking for brain patterns with children looking at people being hurt (implied) and people being intentionally hurt (implied). An extra area of brain activation indicates children distinguish between accidentally hurt and intentionally hurt, or fair v unfair.

Similar studies are done in adults looking at emotion expressed by people of different colors, white, black, red, yellow --- blue. It turns out that people can negate empathy based on skin color, but when that color is digitally turned to blue, empathy returns. Adults will respond with empathy to a blue person, but not the exact same person whose skin color is African American black.

"But we have evolved to have certain aversions." Maybe snakes.

And then --- there are people who don't respond like normal people at all.

BTW - I am all in favor of a society of confident, honest, caring, self-actualized people living sustainably within their environment. But evolution doesn't REQUIRE it. Well, except for the sustainable part.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 5:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
But if we live somewhere we're our survival has depended upon killing the fattest kid in the village every midwinter's eve and eating them, then that is what we will do.
I find this utilitarian, amoral worldview very disturbing.

Well I find it disturbing that you think your values and your moral framework are shared by all of the world. Needless to say, eating fat kids is not part of my moral framework and I would find it abhorrent.

Quote:
I think that is what SOME of us will do. It may even be law. But there will be some who can't stand the idea and move away. There will be that group in the village which protests the immorality of eating kids and try to change the law. And still others will form an underground rescue contingent who help fat kids escape before they are eaten.

You are speaking from the perspective of someone who holds a particular set of moral ideals and values. For you, eating children is abhorrent. For many cultures both cannabilism and child murder has not been against their values. You will always find it abhorrent because you were not raised that way.

Quote:
Human beings have morals. They may not always be the same morals, but most of us have a sense of something we call "right" and something we call "wrong" that goes beyond survival and procreation. Those who do not have that sense are usually called psychopaths and seen as defective.

I think we have a value system that we learn from our parents and our culture. If we behave outside that system, we are often labelled and punished, but as even you have pointed out, they are not the same. Therefore they are learned not inherent.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 5:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

But we have evolved to have certain aversions. And there is, in fact, an instinctual aversion to dead humans that everyone has, and by extension, there is also an aversion to staying around dead humans.

Possibly, but I don't see how that relates to rights being inherent.

Quote:
And, if you talk to people that have not undergone special training who have killed another human, whether intentionally, or accidentally, the experience tends to leave them quite shaken.

That would be people who share similar values to yourself ie they live in 21st western culture. Having said that, my fathers generation went to war. A couple of his friends were involved in some fairly brutal stuff and have been quite gleeful about it. They are not psychopaths, they just viewed the Germans as a evil race that needed to be defeated.

I agree that in most cultures there are limits and boundaries to who is killed and why, but again that does not support your contention that there is an inate aversion to kill in humans. I'd say that humans have evolved - like other primates - as a social species, that is we need to live in groups to protect our helpless young - and with the ability to be aggressive, often to protect our young or the resources needed to survive. That means that we have evolved to have empathy and to turn off that empathy when we need to react with violence.

Quote:
Your story about murder cannibalism as cold climate survival neglects to consider that no cold climates cultures resort to cannibalism in the winter. So no, that is not an evolved aspect of human instincts or tendencies.

I was using a silly example to demonstrate a point. However, for your information New Zealand is a cold climate and Maoris were cannabals. Cannabilsm may or may not have evolved in response to protein shortages.

Quote:
And once again, I note that widespread murder, even for cannibalism reasons, is not conducive to survival of a social group - also contrary to human instincts.

well sometimes it is, if people need are vying for limited resources. You might think of Easter Island as an example, where there was widespread murder and cannabilism because of the depletion of resources. If you ever read 'The Road' you can see another supposition of how society might end up if global catastrophe happened.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 5:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:
I kind of don't understand what you are saying. If you are saying that societies have 'evolved' that means that everyone should hold the same values as the US. That is not true.

No, I'm saying, starting from an initial basis, societies and individuals in those societies will have broad interpretations and off shoots of the basic idea. And those offshoots and interpretations can vary over the passage of time.

But some form of the initial basis, on some level, can be found in all societies.

I can simplify this a lot, as well.

Say you have a neurotypical five year old child, which is usually just about or before the time that a child starts to become familiar with social mores and nuances. Say that child sees their mother raped, beaten, and or killed. What will be the reaction of that child? Say it happens to a stranger that looks like their identified ethnic group. Then a stranger of a noticeably different ethnic group. Provided the child hasn't already been prejudiced against the different ethnic group, the reaction in all cases is likely to be pretty similar.

I doubt even becoming socialized is enough to fully destroy that reaction (though certain kinds of training even later on may possibly succeed).

Ah, but that is about reactions rather than rights. we all react the same to certain stimuli - we react with similiar emotional and physical responses to certain things. we flinch from pain, cry with grief, laugh when happy etc etc. Being social creatures, we form bonds with other people. we grieve when they die and are upset when they are hurt. we also react with aggression (the fight or flight response) when there is a perceived threat. The ability to kill is also a necessary survival mechanism. So although we don't like being on the receiving end of aggression, we also have that capacity to use it ourselves.

That is all true, not particurly limited to humans either, most of that is present in all primates and some of it in other social animals.

I can't see that it has anything to do with the question of innate rights.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 5:59 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Human beings have morals. They may not always be the same morals, but most of us have a sense of something we call "right" and something we call "wrong" that goes beyond survival and procreation. Those who do not have that sense are usually called psychopaths and seen as defective.

Ayep, the problem comes between what I consider natural morals and socially-installed ones, and the conflict between those messages is something I feel is the root of much aberrant youth behavior.

Human beings are naturally cooperative, social, empathic critters, and when your socially-installed morals conflict with natural impulses, that's when things start to go wrong - look at how religions which deny ones own humanity, starting with sexuality, create such twisted, hypocritical parodies of human beings and hold them up as some kind of standard.

Have you read The Moral Landscape, Frem? I just started it, but it's an absolutely fascinating look at the natural tenancies of human nature as a whole, backed up with studies of the brain, and how those tenancies should really dictate what is right and wrong. I think you'd enjoy it.

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:39 PM

Quote:

Possibly, but I don't see how that relates to rights being inherent.

Well, this was a nuance of the argument we got into, whether some morals are universal, and therefore if everyone has some reasonable expectation of not being threatened by certain immoral actions. In the very least, the expectation that people aren't always trying to kill or rape you are protections that if they did not exist, and there were no moral qualms, life would be impossible.

Quote:
A couple of his friends were involved in some fairly brutal stuff and have been quite gleeful about it. They are not psychopaths, they just viewed the Germans as a evil race that needed to be defeated.

Tribalism. Very ancient human response and also instinctive. Behind the tendencies of some populations not seeing foreign populations as humans, and using them as slaves or gladiators.

Would they kill people from their same nationality? I doubt they would. So you see, they're not really "murderous," they do have some qualms against it. But a person can be trained (by society) to dehumanize certain other people. But that does not mean that is the natural state of that person.

Quote:
Cannabilsm may or may not have evolved in response to protein shortages.

I said before, but Cultural cannibalism is not really done for survival. It's a symbolic ritual, performed on enemies of the tribe (after being murdered) or members of the tribe who had already passed on (not murdered). Even cannibal tribes don't actually kill their own just to eat them, though sometimes they're kill their own as a punishment for a crime, just like any other society.

And I'm not sure European cultures should judge, as they've practiced symbolic cannibalism since someone came up with the concept of the Eucharist. What makes that okay and the other type not?

Cannibalism DOES sometimes occur among groups that are not adapted to an environment being caught unprepared, but that is an extreme situation and the people would not normally have practiced cannibalism, and that s therefore not a good measure of their normal behaviour.

Aztec were known for human sacrifice; what is little known is that the Aztec empire was composed of a number of ethnicities, and the religious leaders were not sacrificing members of their own tribe. And they still had an aversion to death and murder, resulting in them trying to appease Cortez, who they mistook for a God of War come to destroy them (and weren't far off).

Quote:
You might think of Easter Island as an example, where there was widespread murder and cannabilism because of the depletion of resources.

I've heard people call out Easter Island before, but my understanding is that the causes of the decline of the civilization actually are still in dispute.

Also, I had not heard of cannibalism being the predominant reason, at all, even among the disputed theories.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:45 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I'm guessing that Magon's' example of the fat kid in the winter was to point out that a majority of people are followers, they do what they do because its what others do, because that's what they know, because that is what is accepted. It is the smaller portion of people that really question and figure out for themselves what they personally think is right and then act on it, even when it isn't popular. We talked about the five stages of morality in my human development class ages ago in my freshman year at college. I don't remember exactly how it went but most people are stage 3 or 4, stage 5 is less common and is kind of what Mal is. He does what he believes is right regardless of what the people around him think, he'll break the law if that's what he needs to do to take care of him and his, and others along the way for that matter when he can. Of course Mal is also a "petty" thief, but hey. The point I'm making is that the portion of a society that will stand up against eating fat children, hundreds of them (:)), is small while the portion that goes along with it, even if it makes them feel uneasy, is large.

Upon the matter of war: Dehumanization of the "other" is a strategy for keeping sane and getting through being a soldier. Its easier to do one's job and kill the enemy if the enemy doesn't feel as human as you are, if they're seperate.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 6:51 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"I've heard people call out Easter Island before ..."

It was depletion of resources that led to cannibalism, as proposed by Jared Diamond and others, not that cannibalism caused the collapse. I thought that was pretty clear in the post that I read.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/067003
3375

While it sure is nice to have a humane society, I still don't know that it's necessary. After all, evolution has led to some pretty brutal but successful schemes for species survival.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Well, this was a nuance of the argument we got into, whether some morals are universal, and therefore if everyone has some reasonable expectation of not being threatened by certain immoral actions. In the very least, the expectation that people aren't always trying to kill or rape you are protections that if they did not exist, and there were no moral qualms, life would be impossible.

I don't feel you have demonstrated your argument at all, sorry. I can think of countless societies, countless times in history where at least some strata have lived with this hanging over them. I actually think its the norm rather than the exception, frankly. You haven't demonstrated in any way that there are universal morals, only that we have a number of survival traits.

Quote:

Tribalism. Very ancient human response and also instinctive. Behind the tendencies of some populations not seeing foreign populations as humans, and using them as slaves or gladiators.

Byte, you are arguing against yourself. Who cares if it is tribalism, societal law, or any other argument you have put up. The issue is that people can and do kill, and that there is nothing inherently 'inhuman' about doing so, seeing as all or at least the vast majority of societies accept some form of killing.

Quote:
Would they kill people from their same nationality? I doubt they would. So you see, they're not really "murderous," they do have some qualms against it. But a person can be trained (by society) to dehumanize certain other people. But that does not mean that is the natural state of that person.

Again, so what? Sorry to be rude, but you and I seem to arguing at cross purposes again. It doesn't matter what their reason is , people have the capacity to kill and sometimes it is considered acceptable by a society to do so.

Quote:

This is common misunderstanding in regards to the reasons behind cannibalism. Cultural cannibalism is not done for survival. It's a symbolic ritual, performed on enemies of the tribe (after being murdered) or members of the tribe who had already passed on (not murdered). As I said before, even cannibal tribes don't actually kill their own.

Cannibalism DOES sometimes occur among groups that are not adapted to an environment being caught unprepared, but that is an extreme situation and the people would not normally have practiced cannibalism, and that s therefore not a good measure of their normal behaviour.

Can you prove that? Can you prove that cannabilism did not start in a society as a result of food shortages and then go on to become ritualised? I doubt it, but even if you can, you simply disprove your own argument that all killing is inherently abhorred by all societies and that morals are universal.

Quote:
Aztec were known for human sacrifice; what is little known is that the Aztec empire was composed of a number of ethnicities, and the religious leaders were not sacrificing members of their own tribe. And they still had an aversion to death and murder, resulting in them trying to appease Cortez, who they mistook for a God of War come to destroy them (and weren't far off).

Again, so what about the reasons. I don't think you understand anything of what I have said. whether they killed prisoners, slaves or their own children, for whatever reason they did it, ritualised killing was part of their culture. Again you disprove your own argument.

Quote:
I've heard people call out Easter Island before, but my understanding is that the causes of the decline of the civilization actually are still in dispute.

Also, I had not heard of cannibalism being the predominant reason, at all, even among the disputed theories.

I never claimed it to be. I said that people responded to a decline in resources by decimating the population through civil war and cannabalism, whether for revenge or for food shortage reasons was part of what went on. Not a pleasant way to resolve a situation, and not a conscious one either, but nevertheless, a response that might be considered to have an evolutionary purpose.

I'm not sure that I have the energy to carry on this discussion. I can't actually understand where you are coming from. Every point you make appears to support my claim that moral values and rights are not universal, and disprove yours that killing and rape is somehow universally not tolerated.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I've heard people call out Easter Island before ..."

It was depletion of resources that led to cannibalism, as proposed by Jared Diamond and others, not that cannibalism caused the collapse. I thought that was pretty clear in the post that I read.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Jared Diamond
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/067003
3375

While it sure is nice to have a humane society, I still don't know that it's necessary. After all, evolution has led to some pretty brutal but successful schemes for species survival.

Yep, that is where i got my info. I'm a big Jared Diamond fan.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 7:38 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

CTS

I tried to find a link for you re good/ average/ bad monkey mothers and easy/ average/ difficult offspring, but couldn't find it. Unfortunately the search terms seem to be too general to get a helpful set of results.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 8:46 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Human sacrifice is disgusting, societies who practice it, especially sacrificing their children, their next generation don't last long once that luh suh becomes common, and good riddens to the ones in charge who instigate it and to the sheeple who go along with it. Its sad that the rest of the people are dragged down with them but it seems to happen that way.
:(

Magon's I would venture to say that the problem is how you charactorize your arguments, the cold manner in which you portray your position. To you it feels like a discussion devoid of feeling, but to others it can feel very different reading it. I see what you're saying, but I can understand how your manner is unsettling to some readers. At first I didn't like you much but then somehow we connected and I saw past that cold exterior and actually think you're a nice person. But it can be daunting, Of the three, you, Signe and Kiki I see your humanity most, then Signe's and then at the bottom of the list Kiki's. It must be there and in this thread your humanity (in an emotional sense) feels lacking, but I've been watching the three of you for nine months now and so have come to the above ranking of who is most relatable among the three of you. I only lump you together because you often portray similar, though not the same, arguments.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, October 27, 2011 8:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
Have you read The Moral Landscape, Frem? I just started it, but it's an absolutely fascinating look at the natural tenancies of human nature as a whole, backed up with studies of the brain, and how those tenancies should really dictate what is right and wrong. I think you'd enjoy it.

Oh.. ouch.
Umm, I think Siggy would get a lot more out of that book than I did, given that my own understanding of the related philosophy and psychology is of a far more practical rather than theoretical, bent.
Still, I'd pay good money to be a fly on the wall if this guy and doc perry ever had a long sit-down discussion, oh yes.

For me it mostly comes back around to nature-versus-nurture, and my non-subscription to either the blank slate or born bad theories.

You see, Doc Perry managed to outright prove that treating children in the manner some folk call appropriate parenting causes detectable brain damage on a scale in relation to the severity of that treatment, which right there says to me such poisonous pedagogy is unnatural for if it were it would not result in damage, right ?

Children are neither born with a personality OR a blank slate - what they have, are instincts, natural, hard-wired instinctive drives, which if fostered, nutured and allowed to flourish, make them a far, far different being than if those drives are strangled, cut short, denied, defied, and essentially ground out of existence so far as a society can manage it.

Some folk call the latter parenting - I call it nothing of the sort.
And here's where imma raise some hackles...

If you allow them to grow and flourish according to natures design, you wind up with a human being, obviously - HOWEVER, if you crush those impulses, twist and warp them, substitute something ELSE, something artificial, is the resultant creature actually a human being ?
I mean, if the potential still exists, but they no longer have any way to ever realize it...
Then what are they ?

I don't mean in physical form either - lesse if I can get it across.
Take a wolf cub, freshly born, and treat it like a dog, till it reaches adulthood.
Sure, it may still have the FORM of a wolf, it may still be a correct definition of species...
But is it still a wolf, really ?

Once you have taken all the essence of what a human being really is away, crushed it out of them and twisted them into something else much in the fashion Orcs were derived from Elves, according to Tolkien - then it is my opinion that what remains is something not-quite-human, almost a machine in human form simply following its programming.
Believe me, the powers that be have spent endless years and resources trying to develop just that, and affected much social, legal and political influence in both public consciousness and the public education system trying to achieve it, which is where yon jackboots come from and the core of my resulting disrespect for them and any notion of their own personhood given how willing they are to deny that of others.

So I think the question here, is WHAT MAKES US HUMAN ?
If not form and function, if not DNA and species - what then ?

Cause I think that's really the question we're getting at here.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 2:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Well I find it disturbing that you think your values and your moral framework are shared by all of the world...I think we have a value system that we learn from our parents and our culture.

Frem pointed quite succinctly that most of us have two value systems: one innate and inherent, and one we learn from society.

Some of you are saying we ONLY have the socially acquired value system. Frem, Byte, and I (amongst others) are saying we ALSO have an innate and inherent value system that is nearly universal.

As Frem said, some conformists deny their innate value system in favor of the socially acquired one. And the rebels defy the socially acquired one in favor of their innate one. In many cases, both value systems have a lot of overlap. A few psychopaths have no innate value system to begin with and aren't able to acquire it socially (value system impaired?)

Yes, I have a value against eating children that is shared by nearly all the world. If you want to find this FACT disturbing, so be it. (I dare you to prove that the overwhelming majority of the world does not share this value.) I believe this value is BOTH innate and socially acquired (case of overlap), which is accounts for the nearly universal embrace of this value.

But as I pointed out before, different segments of the population will react to eating children differently. Some segment of the population will not have any innate value against it or aversion to it at all. But some segment of the population will, regardless of social approval of such behavior. You see the non-averse segment as proof that there is no innate value system. I see the averse segment (despite social approval) as proof there IS an innate system.

I think a reasonable compromise might be that while almost everyone subscribes to a socially acquired value system, not everyone subscribes to their innate value system.

In the latter case, I believe almost everyone has an innate value system, but they choose to ignore it in favor of conformity. I will grant that the conformity instinct is much, much greater than that of innate morality.

But there are always those who buck an "evil" system--in every culture throughout time. Those are the ones who follow their hearts.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 2:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I tried to find a link for you

Kiki, don't worry about it. My initial response requesting a citation was because I had misunderstood what you had said. I tried to immediately edit the post, but I guess it wasn't soon enough.

Try to read that post again. I have since changed the point I was making.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 2:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Children are neither born with a personality OR a blank slate - what they have, are instincts, natural, hard-wired instinctive drives, which if fostered, nutured and allowed to flourish, make them a far, far different being than if those drives are strangled, cut short, denied, defied, and essentially ground out of existence so far as a society can manage it.

I don't know why, but I have never thought of it quite this way before. Somehow, the use of the word "hard-wired" drives the point home for me, much more than "innate" or "nature vs. nurture."

Thank you.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 2:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Cannibalism DOES sometimes occur among groups that are not adapted to an environment being caught unprepared, but that is an extreme situation and the people would not normally have practiced cannibalism, and that s therefore not a good measure of their normal behaviour.

Not to mention they do it with tremendous regret, showing they are eating DESPITE their value system, not because of their value system.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:10 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"... my non-subscription to either the blank slate or born bad theories."

You do seem to subscribe to the 'born good' theory however. And that is not necessarily true. Statistically speaking, there are children who are 'born bad'.

Also, I can't think of ANY society that doesn't teach its children to conform to a social norm, whatever that norm might be. If you could come up with an example of a society that raises its children the way you think it should I think you'd have a better argument. But from the most primitive tribe to the most technological society what I find is that parents - and the group - actively teach children what is expected of them.

Some societies are more brutal than others. Some are more humane. I would like for us to understand the psychological underpinnings of OUR society and its adverse impact on humans, and seek to reverse what we are doing wrong. For example, the economic model we follow is the one of the powerless being expected to compete to the death, while the powerful gain the rewards. (If you think that is an extreme characterization, think of all the children who die around the world due to economic deprivation. Then contrast that with the extreme wealth of a few.) I personally would love to see such a change come about.

BUT - evolution doesn't require that women consent to having children. It doesn't require that people live long, happy lives. And a 7 billion people, the current system seems survivable ENOUGH that evolution would favor it (until our physical environment gives out). I would go on to say that IN THE GENERAL case evolution may require a drive to overpopulation, and without some hard and even unhappy social inputs, following the human impulse leads to self-destruction down the road.

EVERY SINGLE YEAR BETWEEN 1996 AND 2005 66% OF ALL FCDS CORPORATIONS PAID NO TAXES.
I think the current tax structure is about right for corporations. - Geezer

Without the benefit of the surrounding society, a corporation dies. If society looks at a corporation and says 'work, or die', what work should be demanded of the corporation for it to earn its survival?

While Wall St. is going through the roof, Main St. is paying all the bills.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:54 AM

Magons, the fact that societies kill doesn't damage my argument, because firstly killing is not the same thing as murder, and my POINT is that on some level the REACTION to murder is present in every society. It can be very dependent on circumstances, but it's there.

There is absolutely no society that says "Murder yay!" or "Rape yay!"

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Well I find it disturbing that you think your values and your moral framework are shared by all of the world...I think we have a value system that we learn from our parents and our culture.

Frem pointed quite succinctly that most of us have two value systems: one innate and inherent, and one we learn from society.

Some of you are saying we ONLY have the socially acquired value system. Frem, Byte, and I (amongst others) are saying we ALSO have an innate and inherent value system that is nearly universal.

yes, i think that is right - that is where the difference lies between us. Dare I say it, we don't hold those values in common.

You summed up the difference in our thinking earlier on when you said

Quote:
So the whole concept of Creator-endowed, unalienable rights...that's all hogwash?

Clearly you believe that a god has created us all with those innate, universal morals that go hand in hand with inalienatable rights and that is what makes us human. And yes, I think that is hogwash. I don't believe in a creator or a god. I believe, well I know we evolved rather than be created and as with every other species on the planet, we are here because we evolved with enough traits to enable us to survive. We evolved as a social species, being able to care for our tiny, helpless infant young and we evolved as an aggressive species, able to use violence and killing when needed. And a host of other things that have meant we have been a successful species. Mind you, in the grand scheme of things we haven't been around that long. It's hard to know what makes us distinctly human, seeing as we share so many characteristics with other primates, but definitely the ability to make complex vocalisations, our tool making capacity and our enormous noggin with its brain that has a capacity for forethought. Our morals and values? Maybe. You might see them in that light, I see them as 'ways of living that have proved useful and therefore been accepted' but there is little that is innate in them, unless they are characteristics that have proved universally necessary for our survival ie care of infants.

The Judeo/Christian religions see Man as being separate from other animals, a higher creature 'in God's image' and the whole concept of understanding good and evil. I don't accept any of these premises. You may find that 'amoral of me' but believe me, not believing in those things doesn't make me a worse person. I love my child, I'm faithful to my partner, good to my parents, kind to animals, and not because I believe in a terrible after death fate if I don't, but because I think they are good ways to live your life. And I learnt those values.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Magons, the fact that societies kill doesn't damage my argument, because firstly killing is not the same thing as murder, and my POINT is that on some level the REACTION to murder is present in every society. It can be very dependent on circumstances, but it's there.

There is absolutely no society that says "Murder yay!" or "Rape yay!"

One societies killing is another ones murder. You may say 'a criminal was executed today' - I would say 'a criminal was murdered by the state'

Murder is killing that is seen as not acceptable, or legal. It varies from culture to culture but it involves the taking of a life.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Human sacrifice is disgusting, societies who practice it, especially sacrificing their children, their next generation don't last long once that luh suh becomes common, and good riddens to the ones in charge who instigate it and to the sheeple who go along with it. Its sad that the rest of the people are dragged down with them but it seems to happen that way.
:(

Magon's I would venture to say that the problem is how you charactorize your arguments, the cold manner in which you portray your position. To you it feels like a discussion devoid of feeling, but to others it can feel very different reading it. I see what you're saying, but I can understand how your manner is unsettling to some readers. At first I didn't like you much but then somehow we connected and I saw past that cold exterior and actually think you're a nice person. But it can be daunting, Of the three, you, Signe and Kiki I see your humanity most, then Signe's and then at the bottom of the list Kiki's. It must be there and in this thread your humanity (in an emotional sense) feels lacking, but I've been watching the three of you for nine months now and so have come to the above ranking of who is most relatable among the three of you. I only lump you together because you often portray similar, though not the same, arguments.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

Yeah, coz I'm really into human sacrifice myself. Sorry Rione, but I don't appreciate this sentiment and I dont appreciate you ranking posters based on how you see their 'humanity'. If discussing evolution and scientific reasoning appears cold to you, that is kind of your issue. A number of us are obviously just expressing views that are different to yours and it has nothing to do with anyones humanity.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:30 PM

No, I said what I meant, and meant what I said.

Children are born with natural, hard-wired drives and impulses which naturally benefit their development and propagation/prosperity of the species - there's no "good" or "bad" in it, and only a western binary morality I don't whatever subscribe to would assign one to a mere potential, likely because of some inherent need to categorise it before they're able to comprehend it.

For example, the drive to eventually procreate, technically at one end of your morality "good", but in a sense of overpopulation "bad" - and yet it's the same damn drive either way, is it not ?

To assign morality to something that merely EXISTS, because of its existence is as ridiculous as calling an Axe "good" because it can be used to build homes or "bad" because it can be used for killing - it's an Axe, it EXISTS - what one *DOES* with it, is what matters most.

And repeatedly the "hands-off" strawman has been thrown, and I've bit my tongue, despite some really obvious statements to the contrary like my opinion of those who abdicate their duty as a parent by calling "born bad" and just washing their hands of it - does that sound like I favor a "hands-off" policy to you ?

What the hell is it with this absolute, black and white, yes/no binary thinking anyway, do y'all just have a bunch of mental dip-switches in your heads or something ?
Are you NOT capable of seeing all the beautiful shades of grey in between ?

Either you're not understanding my argument because you are incapable of it, or you are misunderstanding it because you want to, but either way I am questioning the worth of continuing to discuss this.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 12:48 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Magons and Riona,

I think Riona intended to communicate who she was able to relate to most easily based on her own value system, and it came out as a kind of 'humanity contest' by accident. I don't think she meant to position herself as a moral authority rendering judgment. I suspect that she meant to say that she finds it difficult to relate to people whose communications are sterile as opposed to being infused with emotional content buffers.

Because sterile language is the essence of scientific discussion, a scientific debate on this subject between professional-minded people must necessarily seem cold and unfeeling to someone who prefers empathic communication. Likewise, I suspect someone who can discuss death and executions and other troubling matters in the distant, casual voice of the intellectual must erroneously seem cold and foreboding to someone accustomed to warmer tones.

Hello Frem,

I think that binary reasoning is an encouraged component of modern thought, as best exemplified by our two primary opposing political entities. But really, I find that most of us are all guilty of it sometimes, defining things as ultimate extremes because it is easier both for categorization and to construct arguments against.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:30 PM

Wow, we've jumped around a whole bunch of issues, from rights, innate or otherwise, to universal, god given morality or learnt values, to parenting and whether children are born bad or not. Like trying to weave through traffic - always a dangerous thing to do.

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

For me it mostly comes back around to nature-versus-nurture, and my non-subscription to either the blank slate or born bad theories.

You see, Doc Perry managed to outright prove that treating children in the manner some folk call appropriate parenting causes detectable brain damage on a scale in relation to the severity of that treatment, which right there says to me such poisonous pedagogy is unnatural for if it were it would not result in damage, right ?

Children are neither born with a personality OR a blank slate - what they have, are instincts, natural, hard-wired instinctive drives, which if fostered, nutured and allowed to flourish, make them a far, far different being than if those drives are strangled, cut short, denied, defied, and essentially ground out of existence so far as a society can manage it.

Think I am pretty much in agreement with you here Frem. Nature and nurture. What we do share (and it is not alone a human characteristic) is that we need to nurture our young. And a particular kind of nurturing fosters in a child empathy, emotional intelligence and social skills - the ability to get along with others. Somewhere along the line these were seen as useful traits and they have been hardwired into us. All societies nurture very young infants, otherwise they cannot survive, how we treat older children varies from culture to culture.

I guess the definition of 'flourish' depends upon culture to culture. If I am a male who lives in Sparta, then having physical prowess and capacity to be a warrior will ensure my survival. Other qualities that we value today may not be so important.

I dispute the notion that any child is born 'bad', but I do ackowledge that they may be born with a small or non existent capacity for empathy, a lack of capacity to regulate emotions, and some other traits that means they will be difficult to parent and may lead to them being seen as problematic later on. That being said, the vast majority of people in prison will have suffered abuse as a child, so how much is nature and how much is nurture? Not sure if many people can answer that confidently.

Quote:
So I think the question here, is WHAT MAKES US HUMAN ?
If not form and function, if not DNA and species - what then ?

Cause I think that's really the question we're getting at here.

yes, I think that is what I have also been trying to address as well. seems some of us have different ideas. I'd say we are not as unique as we like to think we are.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello Magons and Riona,

I think Riona intended to communicate who she was able to relate to most easily based on her own value system, and it came out as a kind of 'humanity contest' by accident. I don't think she meant to position herself as a moral authority rendering judgment. I suspect that she meant to say that she finds it difficult to relate to people whose communications are sterile as opposed to being infused with emotional content buffers.

Because sterile language is the essence of scientific discussion, a scientific debate on this subject between professional-minded people must necessarily seem cold and unfeeling to someone who prefers empathic communication. Likewise, I suspect someone who can discuss death and executions and other troubling matters in the distant, casual voice of the intellectual must erroneously seem cold and foreboding to someone accustomed to warmer tones.

Not sure why you feel you have to be Rione's interpreter here. I thought she made herself pretty clear. As for sterile language, seems I need to throw in a few more *gasps* and "isn't that awful" so that people don't think that I support infanticide, murder, or cannabilism. Lets see if that adds to the discussion.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 5:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Clearly you believe that a god has created us all with those innate, universal morals that go hand in hand with inalienatable rights and that is what makes us human.

Uhh...I was simply quoting the US Declaration of Independence to Signy, who I understand is a fellow American. Just making sure I understand right that she thinks one of our nation's political sacred cows is hogwash. Not that one can't disagree with the DOI. It is just unusual, and I wanted to double check.

(The quotation from our Declaration of Independence goes, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.")

Yes, I believe most of us are born with SOME innate, universal morals. Not all our morals are innate or universal, obviously. Think Venn diagram. A small circle for innate, universal morals, and a large circle for learned morals. Depending on the culture, the large circle could have either no overlap, small overlap, or large overlaps with the smaller circle. We spend our lives exploring different value systems to move our personal large circle to overlap more and more of our small innate circle.

My personal belief in god or no god has nothing to with my beliefs on morality. My beliefs on innate vs. learned morality are philosophical, not religious.

Quote:
I don't accept any of these premises. You may find that 'amoral of me'...

I don't think you are amoral at all. Clearly you, as a person, are not amoral. You defend the poor and disabled, you defend animals, you defend the environment. You get mad at people who hurt other people. That is not something that comes from an amoral person.

I said your worldview was amoral and utilitarian. That is, you believe human behavior has evolved to survive; right and wrong has nothing to do (wherefore the "amoral") with why people, as a species, do what they do. It is also a very utilitarian view (what works trumps what's right, every time). I find this worldview very disturbing.

But you, as a person, do not disturb me, no. I think it is because you do not act/live the way you believe? I dunno.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 5:42 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Not sure why you feel you have to be Rione's interpreter here."

Hello,

Apologies for the offense. Perhaps my instinct to intervene in the hopes of avoiding negative feelings was misguided.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner

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Friday, October 28, 2011 6:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

I said your worldview was amoral and utilitarian. That is, you believe human behavior has evolved to survive; right and wrong has nothing to do (wherefore the "amoral") with why people, as a species, do what they do. It is also a very utilitarian view (what works trumps what's right, every time). I find this worldview very disturbing.

But you, as a person, do not disturb me, no. I think it is because you do not act/live the way you believe? I dunno.

I act/live based upon my values, values which accept that all people deserve to be treated with equality and compassion, and a heck of lot of other stuff. These are my values that I have been learnt from my upbringing and from the values of the wider society in which I was raised. I believe they are very good values. But I also recognise that these values have not been shared by all of humanity throughout time. Sometimes I read history and I too feel very disturbed by what has been considered normal behaviour.

As for the rest of your post, I understand where you are coming from. I did misinterpret your 'creator' quote.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 6:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I act/live based upon my values,...

Right. You have moral values, making you a moral person (in the broad sense of "one with morals"). But you think our species does not, making our species an amoral species.

When I say you don't act/live your beliefs, perhaps it is better worded thus: your personal life does not reflect what you believe is true of our species.

I see myself as a very well-traveled person who is intimately familiar with cultural diversity. I grew up all over the world, in different continents and 3 regions with 3 very different religions (Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism). I truly understand about the disparate moral chasms that exist between cultures. I myself have not always subscribed to Western values. (And some people would argue that I still don't--not normal Western values anyway.)

BUT. I also have observed that by and large, humans are the same everywhere. By and large, they all want a decent and safe job that will put food on the table and books in their kids' backpacks, hope for the future, and someone to snuggle with on cold days. By and large, no matter where they are, they have an aversion to murder and rape and torture and theft. I have observed a universality, if you will, in human nature.

The question is, is this universal commonality amongst human beings one of amoral pragmatism (as a result of evolution) or some intrinsic moral fiber (which also can be a result of evolution)? Or both (small circle, big circle)?

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Friday, October 28, 2011 7:28 PM

Yet all cultures have some understanding of or definition for murder.

CTS: "That is, you believe human behavior has evolved to survive; right and wrong has nothing to do (wherefore the "amoral") with why people, as a species, do what they do."

I actually believe humans evolved certain sometimes contradictory tendencies, inclinations, and aversions, which came to reside in the section of our brain that could be called our physical conscience. I believe we evolved them because the alternative asocial and destructive behaviour was not conducive to the survival of the individual or the group.

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Friday, October 28, 2011 8:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I act/live based upon my values,...
Right. You have moral values, making you a moral person (in the broad sense of "one with morals"). But you think our species does not, making our species an amoral species.

When I say you don't act/live your beliefs, perhaps it is better worded thus: your personal life does not reflect what you believe is true of our species.

I see myself as a very well-traveled person who is intimately familiar with cultural diversity. I grew up all over the world, in different continents and 3 regions with 3 very different religions (Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism). I truly understand about the disparate moral chasms that exist between cultures. I myself have not always subscribed to Western values. (And some people would argue that I still don't--not normal Western values anyway.)

BUT. I also have observed that by and large, humans are the same everywhere. By and large, they all want a decent and safe job that will put food on the table and books in their kids' backpacks, hope for the future, and someone to snuggle with on cold days. By and large, no matter where they are, they have an aversion to murder and rape and torture and theft. I have observed a universality, if you will, in human nature.

The question is, is this universal commonality amongst human beings one of amoral pragmatism (as a result of evolution) or some intrinsic moral fiber (which also can be a result of evolution)? Or both (small circle, big circle)?

yeah, all good points. I'd of course go with the pragnatic evolutionary line, whether you wish to call that amoral is up to you.

On another tangent, but a related one, a lot of the opposition that Darwin experienced following his publication of this theories of evolution was not actually because it was disputed the concept of a god/creator but because it depicted nature in a way that had never been depicted before. Darwin and his ilk described the ruthless and often cruel struggle for survival and it was really, really horrific for Victorians to accept. They had the classical view of nature as being about perfection, harmony and order. It's almost impossible for us to understand how much it horrified them and how his theories literary stomped ungraciously all over those views.

I think the other thing that they could not tolerate was the idea that we were related in any way to apes. It also went against the view of the uniquesness of humanity and that we alone had been created in gods image. Evolution tells us that we are just another animal that has developed specialist traits in order to fill a niche.

I sense that some of the reactions on these threads - not necessarily yours - are quite similiar to this, perhaps because evolution is still not widely accepted in some parts of the States or because religion still has a fundamental hold over people's beliefs. Not sure really.

You are correct that people generally want safety and security, that they wants friends, and families, that they love their children and prefer harmony to strife. That is because we are social creatures, evolved to live in groups. We need to be able to get along with one another in order to survive. This is true of other social primates as well. We also have aggressive tendancies, and will fight one another. That is also a social trait. Conflict, often armed and in groups,has been a constant feature of our history. That is also true of other social primates. And in fact, aggression has played a key part of our survival. We may not like that part of humanity, but it has been a constant part of our species. It is what it is.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011 5:20 AM