Unity

[Elliot Temple]

ayn rand, "Apollo and Dionysus" in return of the primitive.

> This is the essence of a genuine feeling of human brotherhood: the brotherhood of values. This is the only authentic form of unity among men—and only values can achieve it.

if you evade conflicts of values, instead of address them, you are preventing authentic unity.

superficial people see criticism, expressing disagreement, arguing, not claiming to already have unity with people with different values, etc, as bad for unity. actually they are necessary to achieve unity. unity isn't automatic.

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/

[Rami Rustom]

That raises the question, why do people think that criticism is bad?

One common answer people have to this question is that criticism
causes bad feelings on the person that said the idea being targeted by
the criticism. So their premise is that criticism causes bad feelings,
and they don't even question (criticize) their premise.


Consider the fact that the American news media (at least the left
leaning ones) covered the emotional aspect of the multiple-victim
public shootings (the bad feelings that the victim's families
experienced due to the shootings) while not covering much criticism of
the possible things that caused the shootings. So, for example, they
didn't question whether or not the shootings occurred only in places
where guns were banned. John Lott researched this question looking as
far back as 1950 and found that except for 2 of these shootings, they
occurred only in places where guns were banned.

So why is the media not covering the critical thinking? Well its
because they do what sells, and the American people vote on what sells
by changing the channel to the stuff they want to watch. Well I guess
the American people have spoken, they want emotional reactions instead
of critical thinking.


Why is our world like this? Were we better before, or were we worse
and we're actually improving?

I know that on average (looking back thousands of years, or even just
200 years back) we're improving. But I wonder if we've taken a step
back in the past few decades. And if so, why? Why did we take a step
back? What was the agent of change that cause this back-step? What
meme did it?

It seems to me that the meme has something to do with honoring
emotions. When did this start? Why did it start? What other memes are
related?

I know that there's stuff out there about guys "tapping into their
inner female (the emotional side)". When did this start? Why did it
start?

-- Rami

[Elliot Temple]

On Mar 31, 2013, at 9:24 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>> ayn rand, "Apollo and Dionysus" in return of the primitive.
>>
>>> This is the essence of a genuine feeling of human brotherhood: the brotherhood of values. This is the only authentic form of unity among men—and only values can achieve it.
>>
>> if you evade conflicts of values, instead of address them, you are preventing authentic unity.
>>
>> superficial people see criticism, expressing disagreement, arguing, not claiming to already have unity with people with different values, etc, as bad for unity. actually they are necessary to achieve unity. unity isn't automatic.
>
> That raises the question, why do people think that criticism is bad?
>
> One common answer people have to this question is that criticism
> causes bad feelings on the person that said the idea being targeted by
> the criticism. So their premise is that criticism causes bad feelings,
> and they don't even question (criticize) their premise.
>
>
> Consider the fact that the American news media (at least the left
> leaning ones) covered the emotional aspect of the multiple-victim
> public shootings (the bad feelings that the victim's families
> experienced due to the shootings) while not covering much criticism of
> the possible things that caused the shootings. So, for example, they
> didn't question whether or not the shootings occurred only in places
> where guns were banned. John Lott researched this question looking as
> far back as 1950 and found that except for 2 of these shootings, they
> occurred only in places where guns were banned.

that's an important statistic -- if it's true.

you don't give a source or any comments about investigating whether it's true.

>
> So why is the media not covering the critical thinking? Well its
> because they do what sells, and the American people vote on what sells
> by changing the channel to the stuff they want to watch. Well I guess
> the American people have spoken, they want emotional reactions instead
> of critical thinking.
>
>
> Why is our world like this? Were we better before, or were we worse
> and we're actually improving?
>
> I know that on average (looking back thousands of years, or even just
> 200 years back) we're improving. But I wonder if we've taken a step
> back in the past few decades. And if so, why? Why did we take a step
> back? What was the agent of change that cause this back-step? What
> meme did it?
>
> It seems to me that the meme has something to do with honoring
> emotions. When did this start? Why did it start? What other memes are
> related?

no way is honoring emotions new.

> I know that there's stuff out there about guys "tapping into their
> inner female (the emotional side)". When did this start? Why did it
> start?

ok *that* may be newer. but i don't think it matters much. that has to do with challenging and deviating from small parts of standard social roles (while still following most of them). i think it's part of the "i'm such a non-conformist" thing which lots of people like to pretend, and they do a couple things to help pretend it, but mostly they do conform.

-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/