I wrote the below sometime in 2019 but didn't publish it until now.
"They" say that with age comes wisdom, the ability to discern truth. I'm now 77 and I don't feel in any way wise. Take religion. Is there a God? I don't know. But I do know that pajama bottoms for those with male genitalia should have flies. Regarding climate change, I don't know.
I wrote this in 2019 and failed to publish it until now.
Once in a while you need to walk to a different corner of a familiar room and view it from that angle.
Most would think that 77 years is a long time. I don't feel that it is. Possibly because I see my life in four phases, or 'acts' might be better. There was that that ended with high school, then there was the Army as an enlisted soldier followed by the Army as an officer and finally the longest (in years), yet the shortest period followed retirement from the military. The older one becomes the faster one gets older. And there will be no fifth act.
"This delayed frontal cortical maturation means that adolescents aren’t at adult levels of expertise at various cognitive tasks, like recognizing irony or Theory of Mind—the ability to operate with the knowledge that someone else has different information than you do." This quote from the magazine, Nautilus, kind of explains the bad behavior of college students but doesn't explain that of the administrators and professors.
The existence or essence of free will continues to be discussed, argued and studied by philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists, among others. Even laymen like me seek a final answer. So I'll throw my druthers into the game and say that superficially free will doesn't exist as we understand it: the decision to think or act in one or another way or not at all. I do not believe that we are controlling how we act or think, rather that the end result is merely the summation of our memory of historical experiential evidence.
Does evil exist supernaturally or is it integral to humankind?
From AI on 12/29/2024:The philosophy of evil is a complex and multifaceted topic that explores the nature, origins, and implications of evil. Here are some key aspects:
The Problem of Evil: This is a central issue in the philosophy of religion, questioning how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God. The problem is often divided into two forms:
Logical Problem of Evil: Argues that the existence of evil is logically incompatible with the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God.
Evidential Problem of Evil: Suggests that the presence of evil makes it improbable that such a God exists.
Types of Evil: Philosophers distinguish between different types of evil:
Moral Evil: Evil resulting from human actions, such as murder or theft.
Natural Evil: Suffering caused by natural events, like earthquakes or diseases.
Theodicies and Defenses: Various responses have been proposed to address the problem of evil:
Free Will Defense: Argues that evil is a necessary consequence of granting humans free will.
Soul-Making Theodicy: Suggests that experiencing evil is essential for spiritual growth and development.
Secular Perspectives: Some philosophers explore evil from a secular viewpoint, focusing on its ethical and psychological dimensions without invoking religious explanations.
A tentative agreement between the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) has been reached. Well, almost. Now the teachers are refusing to return to work until the mayor agrees to pay them for their time off to picket. Amazing! During this whole charade, why has no one mentioned the one most important purpose of a school system: teaching children? CPS and CTU are complicit in their abysmal failure to achieve this basic purpose yet no one is addressing the issue. You have CPS and CTU arguing over how much more of the taxpayers' money will be wasted. CPS has offered the teachers a 16% salary increase over the next five years. The mayor has proudly announced that most teachers will be making $100k or more at the end of the five year period. Would your boss reward you with any amount of pay increase if you failed to achieve a measly 25% success rate at work? Look at the statistics. In language arts, mathematics, and science, approximately 75% of CPS students are below standard. And only 25.9% of eighth-grade students are passing Algebra I. What I don't understand is how only about 25% of students are passing in three major measured areas, while 75% of students graduate. Wait, I do understand and so do you. Once graduated they are no longer the system's responsibility. Push them out the door unqualified to perform in the workplace or succeed in higher education.
No one is asking the taxpayers' if that is acceptable and if they are willing to pay even more to reward failure. Seems to me that there are some important groups under- or un-represented in the whole process: the students and the taxpayers. Who is listening to them? And do they even care to be heard? Talk about millions, even billions, of dollars spent on education goes right over the taxpayers' heads. Break it out into dollars spent per taxpayer, and a few might demand to be heard, to demand excellence. Afterall, it's "for the kids."
In Chicago an interesting dynamic is occurring as I write. The ultra left city administration is in a contract dispute with the radical left teachers' union. Strangely, we have a situation where the administration is unable to pay its current obligations and the union is unable to teach the children. Both are failing miserably, yet both proclaim the moral high ground. Regardless of the outcome, the teachers will at least receive an unearned pay increase and the city will incur additional unpaid debt. The union will likely get a promise of additional support staff and reduction in class sizes. I'm not at all sure what the housing demand is about but it surely will be expensive and it does seem that the union is brokering to get deeper into the city's business. If the city and federal and state agencies can't afford to provide cheaper housing to new teachers, the poor, and homeless now, how would they ever expect it to happen just because it's promised in writing? Whatever. Both will claim that a fair and balanced agreement was met. The losers have been and will continue to be the tax payers and the students. What does the future hold? The Chicago student population continues to decrease at what should be an alarming rate and upper middle and upper income home owners (property tax payers) are leaving just as fast. The city will go deeper into debt and a greater numbers of students will graduate high school neither prepared to succeed in college nor survive in a competitive economy.
So, what's the difference what the city promises? If it can't pay for the current education system, it doesn't matter if it contracts for more obligations it won't fulfill. Give the union what it wants. Promise it all, then ignore it.
Every school year two or three seemingly silly psychologies come along that are wholeheartedly adopted by the K-12 education community.
Every year a number of seemingly silly theories are introduced to the K-12 education community, at a cost to the taxpayer and a generous profit to the education industry, of course. In desperation of finding that data enhancing silver bullet and in fear of their kids falling behind, these unreplicated theories are typically wholeheartedly adopted and promoted. Millions of hours of professional development indoctrination follow and then within a few years the supposed revolutionary theories fade, seldom without any recognition that subsequent studies have revealed them to be bunk or they have failed scientific replication. Many educators unknowingly continue practicing pedagogical silliness for years. Apparently, schools are ideal psychology laboratories and students and teachers ideal lab rats.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I suspect that most educators knew many of these theories were at least silly, unnecessary or grossly exaggerated if not pure bunk but went along anyway. To list but a few: learning styles; positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS); braining training; unconscious bias (implicit associations/bias); Macbeth effect; mindfulness; growth mindset; grit; power posing; left brain-right brain; brain gym; brain-based learning; and multiple intelligences. And there are a ton of experimental pedagogies that are self-debunking.
...and pushed on in the afternoon to "Edge Hill," the home of Colonel Thomas Jefferson Randolph, grandson of Thomas Jefferson, beautifully situated on a hill almost under the shadow of famous "Monticello."
How well I recall the giant form of Colonel Randolph, as he sat and talked of the olden days of Virginia, of ihs illustrious grandfather, and of the Legislature of Virginia in 1832, when the whole State was so deeply stirred by the scheme for the emancipation of the negroes. He was a member of that body, and he told me that a large majority of the members was in favor of the measure; but after careful consideration it was deemed wiser to postpone action upon it until the next session, in order that the details of the the scheme might be more maturely considered.
But before the Legislature reassembled there occurred a violent ebullition of fantaticism on the part of the Abolitionists of New England. The Southern slave-holders were held up to scorn and detestation of mankind, and vengeance of God and man was invoked against them for the awful crime of slavery.
The consequence was a complete reaction of public opinion in Virginia on the subject of abolition of slavery, so that when the Legislature next assembled, the whole project was dropped. Thus was wrecked the most hopeful scheme of getting rid of the institution of slavery that had ever been proposed since its introducton in 1619. We may lament that the men of Virginia did not rise superior to the feelings naturally begotten by this unfair and fanatical assault, but, human nature being what it is, we cannot be surprised that the affair terminated as it did.
Had it been otherwise -- had the gradual emancipation of the slaves been decreed by Virginia -- there can be little doubt that Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee would have followed her example; and in time the moral pressure on the cotton States would have been so strong that they, too, must have adopted some scheme of emancipation. That this blessed consummation was not realized must be set down to the account of the fanatical Abolitionists, because of their violent and unjust arraignment of the South for an institution which she did not create, but had inherited, and against which the State of Virginia had many times protested in her early history.
. . .
It is not always remembered by students of American history that the original draft of the Declaration of Independence as drawn by Thos. Jefferson arraigned the king of England for forcing the institution of slavery on the people of the colonies against their will. It is also too often forgotten that the first government on earth to abolish the slave trade was the Commonwealth of Virginia. It was one of the first acts of the Old Dominion after her independence had been established, long before England passed her ordinance against it. And when the thirteen colonies formed the United States, in 1789, the voice of Virginia was raised in earnest advocacy of the immediate abolition of the trade in negro slaves, but owing to the opposition of New England, in alliance with some of the cotton states, the evil traffic was given a twenty years further lease of life.
"But, Madam, there is one Difficulty which I know not how to get over.
"Virtue and Simplicity of Manners are indispensably necessary in a Republic among all orders and Degrees of Men. But there is so much Rascallity, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition such a Rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public Virtue enough to Support a Republic."
"would produce so much Taste and Politeness so much Elegance in Dress, Furniture, Equipage, so much Musick and Dancing, so much Fencing and Skaiting, so much Cards and Backgammon; so much Horse Racing and Cockfighting, so many Balls and Assemblies, so many Plays and Concerts that the very Imagination of them makes me feel vain, light, frivolous and insignificant.
"It is the Form of Government which gives the decisive Colour to the Manners of the People, more than any other Thing. Under a well regulated Commonwealth, the People must be wise virtuous and cannot be otherwise. Under a Monarchy they may be as vicious and foolish as they please, nay, they cannot but be vicious and foolish. As Politicks therefore is the Science of human Happiness and human Happiness is clearly best promoted by Virtue, what thorough Politician can hesitate who has a new Government to build whether to prefer a Commonwealth or a Monarchy?"
"For my own part I am so tasteless as to prefer a Republic. . . ."
"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it." (http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/592#Adams_0284_852)
Democracy assumes a set of capacities: the capacity for deliberation, understanding different ideas, reasoned discourse. This grounds government authority, the will of the people. So one way to talk about the effects of these technologies is that they are a kind of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the human will. Our phones are the operating system for our life. They keep us looking and clicking. I think this wears down certain capacities, like willpower, by having us make more decisions. A study showed that repeated distractions lower people’s effective IQ by up to 10 points. It was over twice the IQ drop that you get from long-term marijuana usage. There are certainly epistemic issues as well. Fake news is part of this, but it’s more about people having a totally different sense of reality, even within the same society or on the same street. It really makes it hard to achieve that common sense of what’s at stake that is necessary for an effective democracy."
"To avoid discomfort is to retreat from freedom of speech: to run away from the good, the true and the beautiful. Instead, universities must help students develop the resilience and character needed to live with and benefit from being challenged."
