Two Types of People

There are two types of people. The first type is not too bad off and has some idea that leading an ethical life will have a payoff of improved conditions for self, others, and his environment. In other words he or she is in touch to some degree with the pro-life purpose line.  They feel that the socio-economic “pie” can be grown larger. They can have success in life by helping to grow it.

Those of the second type of people have closed themselves off from the pro-life purpose line so far through unethical activities that they do not conceive that the “pie” can be made bigger. For them the pie remains the same, or even shrinks in size. They cannot create or grow more socio-economics, and they don’t like the idea much of others doing so either. Their only idea of success, then, is to take a piece of someone else’s share of the pie. They do not feel like they are getting ahead unless they are stepping on someone else.

Strength of A Country

The strength of a country is determined by the ability of its people to think for themselves, come up with a valid solution and put it into effect. Following in the footsteps of a “leader” is a poor substitute for this which often does not meet the standard of viability.

Education in valid subjects, and especially of practical philosophy, self-study in subjects of interest, organization and participation by the individual will help to strengthen a country.

Overwhelming the individual with too much data without first educating him in fundamental data on which to align new data will drive the individual down scale to the point where he is willing to give up on the idea of thinking for himself. In this state he becomes easily led and is of no use in correction if the scene starts going in the wrong direction.

Taking up large amounts of the free time of the individual with activities that do not strengthen the self-determined ability to align data, such as watching mindless entertainment television or movies or playing video games, leaves little time for activities that strengthen the analytical mind. Actually, spending large amounts of time sitting in front of a screen and watching pictures that someone else created can weaken the spirit of those, like children, who do not have a well-developed ability to think for self. This is because the mind is composed of pictures, and sequences of pictures, which are meant only to be a record of experience, and not as something for the spirit to become effect of through too much passive spectating and not enough active, self-determined creation in the present time.

An individual or agency or authority that enforces false data or just a set of incoherent data on the individual will diminish his ability to grow a coherent data set of his own in that area of life that the data set pertains to. This will then diminish his ability to accept new valid data or reject further false data in that area.

Once the individual comes up with a good idea his next step is to put it into effect. He must be free to organize around a purpose to achieve his goal, and he must have sufficient ability in creating and participating in a group. If he is really good with it, he may even inspire a paradigm that others may use to also reach out in the direction of the goal.

How Large is Too Large for the World Population? -- A New Criterium

An earlier blog article has dealt with the qualifications of a human being. To review, man’s hallmark ability is his ability to work together in groups. When a group is operating in mob mentality mode it has zero chance of making progress in the pro-life direction, and so allows zero chance of achieving the hallmark of man. Therefore, for a being to be qualified as a member of the human race he or she must be able to monitor themselves so as to stay out of agreement with group think or mob mentality. Some of this comes from an innate desire to think for self, some of it may come from an education in what the mind is and what mob mentality is.

When there are so many bodies available that many of them must be “manned” with sub-human beings that are not able to think for themselves well enough to stay out of a mob mentality or group think, then the population is becoming or has become too large. There are two remedies that can be applied, and a general type of activity to stay away from—never use a solution that can be perverted into an abuse.

The first remedy is obvious—reduce the population, or at least reduce the rate of growth of the population, but do so in a way that does not violate basic human rights. This may not be an easy thing to do, so it is best done in combination with the second remedy— educate so as to improve the ability of the individual to think for himself.  Educate in practical philosophical principles. Encourage the individual to develop their own sets of coherent data in whatever subject they are interested or active in, as well as to study existing bodies of coherent data that are of practical use.

In order for man to succeed in civilizing himself there must be a high ratio of analytical thought to non-analytical thought.

Force in the Mind and Analytical Justice

 

The argument in current use in the US legal system of “not guilty by reason of insanity” is not valid simply because everyone, at the moment of committing a crime is insane. Insanity, like sanity, is just a function of past experience. Experience results in, on the negative side, non-volitional forces or impulses that may impinge on or push the analytical mind in a certain direction, and on the positive side, greater ability to face up to, communicate, control and participate in a given area of life.  Since an individual is responsible for his past experiences he is then responsible for any insanity that results. It is true that he can get into a state of too much mental force or impingement plus too little ability to face up to life, which results in a low level of responsibility and adds up to being a danger to himself and his environment. At a certain level this can be called insanity. It can be recovered from, though not always easily.  Yes, it can be necessary to take action to protect others from an individual in this condition, but the individual in question is still responsible for putting himself in this state.

Anyone who has committed a murder and is later judged to be competent to stand trial is evidence of this. A murder is so wrong that one must have been insane at the moment of commission. At that moment mental forces pushing in a criminal direction were strong enough and the will plus ethical knowledge were weak enough that the crime was committed.  It was not an analytical moment. The fact that he is later judged as having  competency in understanding right and wrong in the given area shows that the analytical mind has made somewhat of a recovery from a temporary insanity.

Whatever the particular reasons for it, the general reason for an individual acting criminally or unethically is too much of an impingement of mental force or impulse plus too little of ability or desire to face up to the present situation, and/or too little knowledge of how to deal with it in a positive way. In this situation it may become evident that the individual is beyond being able to cope on his own. Two solutions are available in this case to those in his environment:

1.       Remove him (or her) from the environment. End of story—at least for this environment, though it may be the beginning of another story for another environment.

2.       The second option is when at least some of those in the environment deem  the future potential worth of the applied self-determination of the individual to justify the effort to apply what can be called a system of Analytical Justice. The theory is simple:

·         The desired end result of Analytical Justice is the subject making progress in the area under question in a pro-life direction of his own volition. His volition in the area has been too weak to oppose the contra-life mental forces, so care must be taken in recovering it. Though force will be applied in the pro-life direction, too much force should be avoided, so as not to overwhelm such volition. The individual won’t be of much use in the future unless he can be brought back to a condition in which he operates competently from his own self-determination.

·         A  basic assumption is that there is something to recover-- the individual at some point in the past was applying his self-determination competently in the current area.

·         Make up a set of progressive steps or actions which may be applied to the individual in question and which result in a steadily increasing mental force in a pro-life direction, and therefore in opposition to whatever force is impinging upon him in the contra-life direction.

·         Make this set of steps known publicly, or at least known to whomever may be subjected to them at some point in the future. Hopefully this will have been done beforehand, since any such set of steps, if properly formulated, are generally applicable and will apply a pro-life force on any individual. Make particularly certain that the subject individual is well informed of them.

·         Do not have a large jump from one step to the next.

·         Beginning at the bottom, apply each step to the individual. Allow enough time between steps to observe whether a desired result has been reached. At some point the increasing pro-life force will be greater than the contra-life force impinging from the mind. The individual will find it less painful at this point to discontinue the unethical activity than continue with it. Yes, there will be mental anguish either way, but less in the direction of the ethical direction.

·         Do not continue with the steps beyond this point (so as not to overwhelm his self-determination), but instead stabilize the individuals application of his self-determination in the pro-life direction by:

1.       Making sure he has knowledge and competency in operating in his area.

2.       Helping him to face up to and take responsibility for mistakes or crimes in the area in which he is operating that make it difficult for him to continue.

3.       Monitoring his progress to ensure he continues in the pro-life direction in this area.

Let’s call this Analytical Justice to differentiate it from George Bush’s style of Justice, which is really punishment, and which has an entirely different purpose.