What is your Ideology?

[Vraith]

I feel that art has taught me more about human nature and human condition than all the religious, philosophical, political, and scientific learning that I have received.

I wouldn't go quite that far...though if I had to ditch things, I'd ditch those things you listed before music, poetry...I could probably live without painting, but I'd notice the loss.

But in many, many ways I consider those things you listed as art-forms, and acts of creation, beauty, meaning.
The problems come because people treat them as if they're NOT art forms.
They and what we call "art" are not identical things...but they are not totally separate, are co-dependent or contingent on each other.

[Fist and Faith]

Here's what I think...

If you had been born and raised without ever hearing of Christianity, you would not be a Christian. There's no wiring that decides what religion you are.

The wiring we have is in the areas of things like strengths, weaknesses, desires, and fears. It determines what kind of answers we can accept. Some people cannot, literally cannot, accept that there might be an end to existence. Some cannot accept that there might be one, and only one, path to the Truth. Some people are terrified of death, and must believe in something that makes it acceptable. Some people feel something that makes them see death as nothing but a change. And on and on.

Many people follow in the footsteps of their parents and community. Many of them are lukewarm adherents, because it only addresses parts of their psyche. Some are strong followers because it addresses a large percentage of their psyche.

Some cannot follow in their parents' and community's footsteps at all, because that religion addresses little or none of their psyche. Some of these people find satisfactory answers elsewhere. Some never find anything that answers them, and are miserable.

[Avatar]

We don't do funeral services in my family. Just a wake, where anybody can get up and talk if they want.

Bodies are cremated (no service) and the ashes disposed of according to the wishes of the deceased.

--A

[peter]

Going back to V.s post - these things are all part of the 'humanities' are they not; creations of the mind that may blur and blend into and out of 'art' as is seen fit by the particular beholder. I have to bow to Orlion's clear experience in the area of changing ones deep ideological roots; the experience as described by him sounds both frightening and exhilerating at the same time [I'm guessing a degree of 'transcendensance' is going to be an absolute must for such an experience, and for one who cannot begin to still his mind even for the most basic of meditative activity it's hardly suprising I struggle with the idea of such a root and branch transformation]. To Fist's list I would add those who literally need no answers [and they do exist because I have lived and worked amongst them].

re the Funerals thing, I personally have no requirement for any form of acknowledgement of my passing and shudder at the idea of a group of people I haven't seen for years coming together to listen to a man I never knew saying things about me that aren't true. Those I love know how to honour me and there's an end on't.

[aliantha]

Funerals are for the living, as they say. But it seems to me that the living ought to at least make a stab at doing something the deceased would be on board with.

We don't do funeral services in my family. Just a wake, where anybody can get up and talk if they want.

Bodies are cremated (no service) and the ashes disposed of according to the wishes of the deceased.

--A

This sounds perfect, Av. I may have to put it in my will, just in case some idiot asks my brother to take charge after I die. (Not that my kids would do that. They know better. )

[Fist and Faith]

To Fist's list I would add those who literally need no answers [and they do exist because I have lived and worked amongst them].

That's me, too. But I think not needing any answers IS an answer. It took me a while to understand that; to stop looking for traditional types of answers. To understand that it's not an absence of answers. (Although I guess it could be for anyone who had never considered the questions. Not sure such a person exists, though.)

[peter]

I think they do Fist; in fact it was to those people I was refering in my addition - and not I hasten to say in a derogatory fashion. We are getting into 'noble savage' terrarory here perhaps, but I've encountered shepherds and other country workers whose contemplative pace of life in there familiar surroundings provides them all the answers they need without them ever having to ask the questions. When you 'probe' them on what they believe they are 'suprised', they don't understand what it is you are after from them.

[DrPaul]

My own ideology is radical democratic and green. However I also think Franz Borkenau (a former communist who became a liberal critic of communism) was right when he wrote that every ideology that attracts a non-trivial level of support embodies at least some valid insights about the human condition and at least some values that are necessary for a good society.

I would also say that some of the political polarisation we see in countries in the English-speaking world at the moment tends to obscure the possibilities of diverse combinations of positions on specific issues that don't fit easily within an established party line. For example, there is no logical reason why a person can't simultaneously be pro-choice on abortion and pro-free market on economics (and there is a wing of libertarian movement that says that such a combination is more logical than the alternatives) but it would be difficult for a person who holds this combination of positions to find a comfortable home within the significant parties represented in the US Congress or the Parliaments of Australia, Canada, the UK or New Zealand.

[Disclaimer: that combination of positions isn't the one I personally subscribe to; I'm pro-choice on abortion and social democratic on economics.]

[Morning]

What's a "radical democrat"? Do you uphold that the people, any people however dumb, murderous, ignorant or corrupt, is always right to impose their choice by a 50.1 to 49.9 vote?

[peter]

If this is the system you agree to before casting your vote [and in casting your vote you surely demonstrate tacit approval because otherwise you would campaign/fight whatever from outside it] - then yes. That's what 'consensus' government surely is?

[Morning]

If this is the system you agree to before casting your vote [and in casting your vote you surely demonstrate tacit approval because otherwise you would campaign/fight whatever from outside it] - then yes. That's what 'consensus' government surely is?

Therein lies the root of the problem. At birth, a social contract is forced upon me which I cannot denounce and for the duration of my lifetime the State enjoys the monopoly of force against me. In Portugal, specifically, there are many and all-pervasive monopolies stemming from the State and in league with the State. This is why democracy was good for greek city-states, but unfeasible in the Western world riddled with corruption and petty feuds.

So I do not agree with the system, because I disagree with the sentence "one man one vote": my idiotic neighbor's vote should not be worth the same as the care giving lady down the road's, because the one sells his ballot for the chance of building a taller chimney, and the other just wants to be left alone watching over her grandkids so she votes for the party that makes fewer promises.

What exactly can I do short of skydiving into the Parliament's glass canopy clad in nitroglycerin?

[peter]

Is the system in Portugal really so impervious to change that there is never even the remotest possibility of altering it from within? I do see the problem that you raise but surely it will always be possible for a coherant voice with a sound argument to make itself heard - and after that will mot 'the wisdom of crowds' [Ok - it's a risky one that ] kick in?

[Morning]

Is the system in Portugal really so impervious to change that there is never even the remotest possibility of altering it from within? I do see the problem that you raise but surely it will always be possible for a coherant voice with a sound argument to make itself heard - and after that will mot 'the wisdom of crowds' [Ok - it's a risky one that ] kick in?

It is. People here are a definite case study - always waiting for their master's voice, abiding by its diktat then complaining about it while doing nothing and settling for crumbs.

Warm weather. No major wars, plagues, famine, or natural disasters barring the 1755 earthquake. A socialist coup in 1974 that engraved nepotism into the whole country and laid to writ a Constitution where unicorns abound and the sins once chastised by the Catholic Church were replaced by those of individualism and free entrepreneurship. No right-wing parties. No libertarians. Soap operas, reality shows, pets and sports making up for 95% of declared interests. Huge parochialism turning a would-be advance by joining the EU into a credit-fest for showing off cars, travel pics, lawn gardens, branded garments. Close to zero functional literacy. Horrible demographics with a 1% pop loss y/y due to emigration and a 79/102 birth/death ratio.

I mean, it's a fucking hellhole. Not in the same League as Somalia or Rwanda, but as far from those as we are from Norway.

[peter]

Yeah man, but.......Warm Weather!

[Morning]

Exactly, a hellhole! I'd just burrow forever in some small town north of Rovaniemi.

[Morning]

One could always claim that ideology is hardware-driven:



(now wtf is wrong with the link)

((there, fixed it))