Quote: (11-13-2014 05:56 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:
When talking about moral problems, it isn't always possible to legislate solutions. Attempts to "legislate" morality by political leaders have mostly been failures. The emperor Augustus tried it in Rome during his tenure in office. The Puritans tried it in England in the early 17th century. And some Islamic countries have tried it. But they have mostly been failures.
When I say that our society has confused liberty with license, and that the result is decay, there isn't any "prescription" or "solution" that can be offered except solutions based on culture, education, and indoctrination.
So here are my solutions, if you want them.
1. The entire educational system needs to be changed. Men's education is a subject I have written about before at Return of Kings. Re-read:
http://www.returnofkings.com/16957/leade...ng-for-men
Education needs to focus more on character, and less on stuffing a weak body and mind with politically correct liberal bilge.
I read that piece (even though the flashing annoying pop-up on ROK almost gave me epilepsy) and agree with its points. As a practical matter in a free society, I can see more physical education, more single-sex education (also backed by some feminists) and less political correctness as possibilities. Parents are pretty vigilant in the USA in opposing indoctrination they don't like, which of course has mixed results for your solutions.
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2. The popular culture needs to be elevate beauty, gender roles, and positive social values. Those who produce television and movies need to understand that they share a role in the molding of the youth, and that they need to act accordingly.
Most popular culture does, especially that targeted towards kids. For an example, look at Disney and Pixar. These films dominate children's film programming, and also elevate "beauty, gender roles, and positive social values." Feminists and homosexuals regularly complain about "heteronormative" values in those films. The market pretty much demands that they maintain those values, because parents control children's movie attendance and few parents would take their kids to a gay version of Snow White.
Things get off track in media catering to teenagers, which is part of teenagers' developmental rebellion against their parents. This is the Tipper Gore issue. She was right, but excoriated in a lot of the media because she wanted some kind of standards to warn about gangsta rap and death metal music.
Still, most of popular music follows the time tested script of "I love you, yeah yeah yeah."
The solution for the nasty stuff is more countervailing voices and morals and ethics education.
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3. The ethic of "profit over all else" is what has caused the exploitation of the young and women. This is evil. Corporations need to understand that they cannot just bleed the young, the old, and women, tell them what they want to hear, and cater to their most selfish instincts.
There should be advertising restrictions on not peddling shit to minors. Children now are only seen as resources to be exploited by corporations. Advertisers cater to their basest instincts. It was not always so.
Western society now has a big problem in that they have legal "persons," i.e. corporations, which are powerful psychopaths. Psychopaths in that the essential purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder return, every other value be damned. They are not just bleeding "the young, the old, and women," they are bleeding everyone they are not feeding, and they are feeding a lot less people than they are bleeding, on net. The psychopathy of corporations is assisted by the conscious or unconscious agency of thousands of directors, managers, shareholders and lobbyists to shape law and society to their benefit. They even have a justifying philosophy - "Objectivism" - which has been widely, even unconsciously, adopted in the economic sphere at the same time traditional social norms have been abandoned.
This is why we have plutocracy - the agency of millions of people with trillions of dollars, without a strong countervailing narrative. The opposition to this is derided as "socialism" or "communism" in the USA. In Europe, strong labor unions and the state regulation do a better job at keeping the psychopathy in check, at least economically.
America is looking for a populist politics which is not racially-based, but for the broad majority of working Americans. One reason I oppose racial nationalism.
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4. Religion needs to be recognized for its positive role in inculcating morals, culture, and cohesiveness. The popular culture needs to shop denigrating it. Laws that have banned it from the schools should be repealed.
The "law" that "bans" religion from state-run schools in the USA is the First Amendment. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, but no state establishment of religion. You really want to repeal that? In Europe, I think religion has had more of a free hand in schools, with a worse outcome for adult church attendance.
Religion is not "banned" in public schools, anyways. Students are free to organize their own prayer groups, etc in public schools. And of course private religious schools are legal.
It's only the imposition of religion on a captive audience of public school students which is illegal. What religion do you think should be imposed?
I am all in favor of more ethics and moral education, built around the Golden Rule and values of abstinence and modesty of all types. Establishing religions in schools? No.
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5. The popular culture needs to stop peddling the ethic that "nothing matters" and "who am I to judge?" relativism. This ethic leads to nihilism, negativity, and despair.
I don't think popular culture does that at all, other than the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody, which maybe is even saying that in an arch way. Tons of movies with high-stakes contests and conflicts, music promoting strong emotions of love and sometimes hate. I can't think of an example of a "nothing matters" movie or song (other than Bohemian Rhapsody).
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Basically, what I'm advocating is an entire spiritual revolution. That is the only thing that will work. Trying to force people to do this or that is not efficient. It does work in some situations, but usually not.
Sounds a little like Cass Sunstein's thesis in his book Nudge: the Politics of Libertarian Paternalism
He advocates more state speech to persuade people to benign ends. I agree the state should speak more on personal conduct and living issues. Now, the American government pretty much sticks to "Only you can prevent forest fires," and "Take a bite out of crime." They could say more and persuade more, without compelling or prohibiting more.
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The only real revolutionaries are saints and philosophers. The revolution starts in each and every man. I'm doing my part the best I know how.
I have written extensively on all of these things. Anyone who wishes to know can find my thoughts in my articles at ROK and my book.
As for forms of government, I prefer democratic republics. But they should be true democracies. We don't have that now. We have plutocracies controlled by the super rich for their own benefit.
So, those are my specifics. State and local governments should implement laws that are consistent with these principles, as outlined above. I consider myself a social conservative and a humanist.
Fair enough. I endorse Feisbook Control's idea that there are no utopian solutions, so we will all - RVF members, feminists, freaks, geeks and saints - have to smell a lot of shit not to our liking in the future living in this imperfect world. I just think that liberal democracy offers the most acceptable outcome. Even with the shit we have to smell, I can't understand how someone living in the USA, Canada, western Europe, or Australia/NZ can get that exorcised with life as it is now in those places. It's mostly freedom, opportunity, and prosperity, what's not to like? Everything is really tinkering and a constant process of political, social and economic adjustment.