Can you see the blinders?

[coberst]

Can you see the blinders?

Quickie from wiki: “Blinders, also known as blinkers or winkers, are a piece of horse tack that restricts the horse's vision to the rear and, in some cases, to the side. They usually are made of leather or plastic cups that are placed on either side of the eyes, either attached to a bridle or to an independent hood. Many racehorse trainers believe this keeps the horse focused on what is in front of him, encouraging him to pay attention to the race rather than other distractions, such as crowds.”

Our culture and its associated educational system prepare young people for the work place so that as they reach adulthood they can easily assimilate into a work force that will help to maximize production and consumption, i.e. they will help maximize GDP. Our educational system graduates young people with a “set of winkers” sturdily attached to the cultural tack that will restrict the individual’s intellectual vision to those personal and community activities that will best enhance national GDP.

As a result our citizens are not prepared to deal with the complexities that result from our ingeniously developed high tech culture.

“Tradition” is a word for a complete set of blinders. Tradition provides us with sets of assumptions that we pick up, not through a process of contemplation, but through a process of social osmosis. Of course our family and our immediate community provide more provincial assumptions.

Our Western tradition is primarily forged from a Judeo-Christian heritage. Our idea of the universal moral status of each and every person is equal because we are created “in the image of God”. That which makes us equal is our essential human characteristic of reason. “That is, we all stand equally under the same moral laws, and so have the same duties toward ourselves and others. As rational, all are due equal respect as moral agents.”

“But the fact is that what we come to regard as this ‘universal’, ‘formal’, ‘limiting’ principle of reason (i.e. the principle of universal moral personhood) is only one among the many possible principles, values, goods, and ends we might reasonably come to embrace. It just happens to be the foundational principle for our moral tradition. But to say that it is foundational for our tradition does not make it a formal principle of reason itself.

Quotes from Moral Imagination by Mark Johnson

[gmc]

posted by coberst

Our Western tradition is primarily forged from a Judeo-Christian heritage. Our idea of the universal moral status of each and every person is equal because we are created “in the image of God”. That which makes us equal is our essential human characteristic of reason. “That is, we all stand equally under the same moral laws, and so have the same duties toward ourselves and others. As rational, all are due equal respect as moral agents.”


That concept of equality pre-dates Christianity and owes nothing at all to it. Indeed it is not until Christianity that you get concepts like hereditary monarchy and the natural order of society where some are born to rule and the rest to serve. It took a long time and a lot of bloodshed to overturn those ones.

[coberst]

gmc;1201893 wrote: posted by coberst



That concept of equality pre-dates Christianity and owes nothing at all to it. Indeed it is not until Christianity that you get concepts like hereditary monarchy and the natural order of society where some are born to rule and the rest to serve. It took a long time and a lot of bloodshed to overturn those ones.


It is my understanding that monotheism began with Judaism and thus humans as images of God began.

[Bill Sikes]

gmc;1201893 wrote: Indeed it is not until Christianity that you get concepts like hereditary monarchy and the natural order of society where some are born to rule and the rest to serve.


So there were no hereditary monarchies before the year 1, give or take? Is this really true?

[gmc]

Bill Sikes;1202129 wrote: So there were no hereditary monarchies before the year 1, give or take? Is this really true?


Not entirely-after all we have the god emperor with the romans and there were hereditary kings before but the notion of the divine right of kings comes from christianity and it's only later regicide becomes a crime against god. Of course you can see it as the cynical exploitation of religion for political ends by the ruling classes. before that if a king wasn't strong enough or lost support they got overthrown, many European cultures had what were almost elected kingships. The celts elected their king-so did others-Arminius (to use his roman name) for example was killed by his fellow germans because he was getting too big for his boots no one thought he had a hereditary or a divine right to rule and that killing him would send you to hell. The idea that the son of king would rule after him because god ordains it and his rule was absolute was a relatively new one.

That all are equal before the law as a concept most definitely pre-dates Christianity nor is it confined to cultures with judeo christian traditions like ours. On the other hand the notion that we all have an ordained place in society that we shouldn't aspire to change is very much a judeo christian one. If you want someone to put up with injustice persuade them it is god's will and they should accept their lot in expectation for a reward after death.

Judeo christian traditions get more credit than they deserve.

[Bill Sikes]

gmc;1202132 wrote: Not entirely (*huge* snip)


Just "no" would have sufficed, and been more accurate.

[gmc]

Bill Sikes;1202134 wrote: Just "no" would have sufficed, and been more accurate.


No strictly speaking it wouldn't have been accurate there were hereditary dynasties before then.