Is dhw Safe??? (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, August 22, 2011, 23:49 (4820 days ago) @ David Turell


> > DAVID: Your educational system is not enough. Parents have to have proper social values to instill in their children. 
> > 
> > Children become parents. Improvements won't come overnight! Evolutionary changes take place over generations, and it will also take time for educational changes to make a mark.
> 
> As I view it, the world's morals went downhill since the 1960's. That is not many generations of the filth buildup; reversal could be just as quick.
> -But why? It's great to make this observation, but what is the real cause?-One thing I think (that puts me in common with some of the 60's radicals) is that objectification of man has separated ourselves from each other. In some respects, we place WAY too much value on individuals. Individualism is something to be celebrated, but that axe cuts both ways. The more you appeal to the individual, the more you pave the way for self vs. others judgments. -Probably the key defining moment in American culture from the 1960's was the women's lib movement. Stemming from that, we now have a 2-income society that was forged from the fact that having more income meant more competition to get more money from those households. Then due to commercialization, we got hooked on convenience... with mom & dad both in the office, we needed to buy things in order to make household chores more convenient. We started spending less time with our kids, letting them watch TV so we could have more free time with each other. Then kids started getting into the rampant commercialization of youth...-Transformers and Thundercats are two examples of kids cartoons that were developed with the sole purpose of advertising toy-lines. (They were both well-written, but still...)-The whole thing is a feedback loop of "buy now, so you feel good now." We enforce this issue ourselves. Until we start saying no (to rampant commercialization as a dominating force in our lives) we can't even begin to start winning back the small battles that will allow us to control our own lives. -Our problem is a new kind of sensualism. -Truthfully, religion did serve a functional role in the past, of attempting to combat sensualism. However, as many religious people would claim, most of the people who show up on Sunday now, only come in to talk the talk. God does NOT sit at the center of society, and I don't think it will. Not in OUR society. Not in Europe's society. I say this because we now live in a world, where it is NOT possible to discuss God in a truly universal fashion. Our differences are too different. -I agree with dhw... a humanistic approach must be fostered, and my central thesis is that we begin specifically with empathy/sympathy training. Yes, we can't talk about God in school (outside of comparative religions class) but we sure as hell can create classes that foster moral thinking.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"