Naked economic Individualists add property and freedom of contract, Classical liberals take those and add freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc. Modern liberals take all of those and add positive rights, such as for education and health care . . .
-
-
addressing material issues first is probably good pragmatic policy. less things to distract from grappling with these spiritual problems. racial resentment and youth alienation are not really going to be solved by a check in the mail every month though. (7/N)
-
it seems to me that really the issue is the desire to grasp and control everything. spiritual solution means accepting, eventually, with difficulty, that not everything can be controlled and that the past can't be changed. justice doesn't mean revenge. (8/N)
-
there is NOTHING that can be done to repair the misdeeds of the past. there will be misdeeds committed in the future as well. count on it. we can organize ourselves to offer alms and aid for those in need but that should not be contingent upon past injury. that isn't justice (9/N
-
restoration of a sense of dignity and trust in institutions is necessary to heal the spiritual injury our society has suffered. economic justice is a good first step but only because it is the humane thing to do, not because it is sufficient. it can't possibly be. (10/N)
-
the only thing I know of that can restore the sense of dignity in an individual is addressing the monkey-mind. status games, social maneuvering, holier-than-thou performed pieties, ideological purity tests, and language control schemes are all monkey trouble and must stop (11/N)
-
monkey trouble is the origin of social injustice. reversing the polarity of the monkey trouble will not result in social justice. accepting the past and finding common cause amongst community members working for shared dignity is my vague hint of a solution. (Fin)
-
I agree with much of this. I'd like to see the "spiritual" talk operationalized in empirical language, but spiritual language is not bad while we work all that out. There are different kinds of monkey trouble, and getting all monkeys to lower weapons at the same time is a trick.
-
operationalizing it usually involves suggestions for spiritual practice, which I don't do for masses of people writ large. it's always a personal, pragmatic thing.
- 2 more replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.