Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Random Thoughts 19
Life really is all about contracts. In everything we humans do, it involves a contract of some sort, implied, verbal or written.
We have social contracts, business contracts, financial contracts, purchase contracts, sale contracts, partnership contracts, corporate contracts, marriage contracts, contracts on every aspect of human life. Unfortunately, most people forget that the world is made up of such contracts.
Just as unfortunately, people tend to forget that the role of government, and about its only legitimate role, is the enforcement of all these contracts, should someone fail in their obligation to meet one of the contracts’ particulars.
It matters not whether a contract is written down or merely implied, it remains an obligation of each individual to uphold his or her end of the bargain. We agree to certain laws and rules governing our social structure. These are not necessarily written down but by custom and tradition they are just as valid as any business contract.
Courtesy is part of our civil contract, unfortunately as aspect that it all too often ignored in modern society.
When parents bring a child into the world, they have, without their explicit endorsement, agreed with the society in which they live to raise the child with the values and mores necessary for the child to be prepared to be a member of that community and social structure. A baptismal is sort of a formal ceremony to recognize this responsibility with the church acting as the agent of enforcement.
Do good, the church says, then you will go to heaven and that is your contract. Do bad, and you will not go to heaven or paradise or whatever afterlife the religion observes. Again, a contract.
You go to the grocer to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and you exchange whatever currency is the medium of exchange in your community and that too is the result of a contract.
Even social relations basically are contracts. When you enter into any relationship, you are offering your expectations, to be satisfied by another, while you are agreeing to try to satisfy the expectations of your partner. It is a simple but again just as valid contract. It may sound cynical but it is true just the same.
Today, in the U.S., we are seeing a crisis of confidence in the national institutions with the failure of many of those institutions to meet the expectations of individuals who literally failed to read the fine print, or as in the case of many in the large financial institutions, of individuals seeking to avoid personal responsibility for their own mistakes in judgment and efforts to make a game out of reality. Unfortunately, in such situations, the fallout hurts other people.
In the U.S., however, over the last century, it has become socially acceptable to protect people from their own foibles and failures, much less mistakes, and expect the government, as some neutral third party to provide the protection.
Again, unfortunately the problem is, that most people fail to realize, that government is not a disinterested benign third party. First it is a creation of society and second the same type of fallible human beings that the government is trying to protect from mistakes and failures makes its decisions.
We have social contracts, business contracts, financial contracts, purchase contracts, sale contracts, partnership contracts, corporate contracts, marriage contracts, contracts on every aspect of human life. Unfortunately, most people forget that the world is made up of such contracts.
Just as unfortunately, people tend to forget that the role of government, and about its only legitimate role, is the enforcement of all these contracts, should someone fail in their obligation to meet one of the contracts’ particulars.
It matters not whether a contract is written down or merely implied, it remains an obligation of each individual to uphold his or her end of the bargain. We agree to certain laws and rules governing our social structure. These are not necessarily written down but by custom and tradition they are just as valid as any business contract.
Courtesy is part of our civil contract, unfortunately as aspect that it all too often ignored in modern society.
When parents bring a child into the world, they have, without their explicit endorsement, agreed with the society in which they live to raise the child with the values and mores necessary for the child to be prepared to be a member of that community and social structure. A baptismal is sort of a formal ceremony to recognize this responsibility with the church acting as the agent of enforcement.
Do good, the church says, then you will go to heaven and that is your contract. Do bad, and you will not go to heaven or paradise or whatever afterlife the religion observes. Again, a contract.
You go to the grocer to buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk and you exchange whatever currency is the medium of exchange in your community and that too is the result of a contract.
Even social relations basically are contracts. When you enter into any relationship, you are offering your expectations, to be satisfied by another, while you are agreeing to try to satisfy the expectations of your partner. It is a simple but again just as valid contract. It may sound cynical but it is true just the same.
Today, in the U.S., we are seeing a crisis of confidence in the national institutions with the failure of many of those institutions to meet the expectations of individuals who literally failed to read the fine print, or as in the case of many in the large financial institutions, of individuals seeking to avoid personal responsibility for their own mistakes in judgment and efforts to make a game out of reality. Unfortunately, in such situations, the fallout hurts other people.
In the U.S., however, over the last century, it has become socially acceptable to protect people from their own foibles and failures, much less mistakes, and expect the government, as some neutral third party to provide the protection.
Again, unfortunately the problem is, that most people fail to realize, that government is not a disinterested benign third party. First it is a creation of society and second the same type of fallible human beings that the government is trying to protect from mistakes and failures makes its decisions.
Random Thoughts 18
When thinking about people and human relations, I think we sometimes forget that at our core we are but a very adaptable species of the primate family of the kingdom of mammals.
What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that we are animals. Granted we are animals that have highly developed communications skills and a sense of self-awareness, but we still are animals and evolution has left us with the usual animal instincts toward procreation and self-preservation.
With our highly evolved social structures that dictate much of our behavior, people far too
often forget that deep down, the two things that actually motivate individuals is their desire to live or survive and the instinct to pass on another generation.
People, generally, are not instinctively altruistic. Most people are driven by their instinct for self-preservation and the necessity of satisfying their basic needs of food, shelter and protection from the elements. Only when those needs are met will most people find the capacity for altruism. Granted, there are exceptions, but altruism is more a choice than an instinct.
The human individual also has the instincts of a pack animal to an extent as well as some of the instincts of herd animals. Most humans have a need to have the acceptance of either type of animal and find solace in the hierarchical structure of the pack and safety in the comfort of numbers in a herd.
The other thing people are most likely to forget is that governments, organizations, corporations, and other social groups are made up of individuals and it is how those individuals think that eventually is reflected in how that entity deals with the world around it.
It seems to me that if you keep these elements in mind, then it becomes easier to explain and understand human history and current human behavior.
It is our socialization as we grow up in whatever social construct we are born into that shapes our abilities to control and channel the basic instincts. What we so often fail to remember is that there are many social constructs on planet Earth and many of those constructs are not necessarily compatible with the others.
Those raised in the American Occidental Democratic Republican Capitalistic Tradition are imbued with certain values and expectations that have been the world around them. To them, the way they live becomes the “norm” and any other cultural construct is either wrong or abnormal.
There are those who cannot understand or even conceive of a world that, let’s say, has no computers, cars, trains, planes and the Internet. It is difficult in this era to conceive of a world where information moves not at the speed of light but perhaps at the speed of sound, if not slower. This also is the source of much of the problems in the world today.
With information moving at the speed of light, then change comes at people at almost the same pace. Humans, as they are now evolved, have not yet adapted to such rapid change. Change is difficult in its own right, but the speed of change apparently does not allow time for the modern human to perceive, process and the adapt to the new whatever. Evolution doesn’t work in this environment in that the species can not codify the necessary adaptations before new adaptations are required.
What does this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that we are animals. Granted we are animals that have highly developed communications skills and a sense of self-awareness, but we still are animals and evolution has left us with the usual animal instincts toward procreation and self-preservation.
With our highly evolved social structures that dictate much of our behavior, people far too
often forget that deep down, the two things that actually motivate individuals is their desire to live or survive and the instinct to pass on another generation.
People, generally, are not instinctively altruistic. Most people are driven by their instinct for self-preservation and the necessity of satisfying their basic needs of food, shelter and protection from the elements. Only when those needs are met will most people find the capacity for altruism. Granted, there are exceptions, but altruism is more a choice than an instinct.
The human individual also has the instincts of a pack animal to an extent as well as some of the instincts of herd animals. Most humans have a need to have the acceptance of either type of animal and find solace in the hierarchical structure of the pack and safety in the comfort of numbers in a herd.
The other thing people are most likely to forget is that governments, organizations, corporations, and other social groups are made up of individuals and it is how those individuals think that eventually is reflected in how that entity deals with the world around it.
It seems to me that if you keep these elements in mind, then it becomes easier to explain and understand human history and current human behavior.
It is our socialization as we grow up in whatever social construct we are born into that shapes our abilities to control and channel the basic instincts. What we so often fail to remember is that there are many social constructs on planet Earth and many of those constructs are not necessarily compatible with the others.
Those raised in the American Occidental Democratic Republican Capitalistic Tradition are imbued with certain values and expectations that have been the world around them. To them, the way they live becomes the “norm” and any other cultural construct is either wrong or abnormal.
There are those who cannot understand or even conceive of a world that, let’s say, has no computers, cars, trains, planes and the Internet. It is difficult in this era to conceive of a world where information moves not at the speed of light but perhaps at the speed of sound, if not slower. This also is the source of much of the problems in the world today.
With information moving at the speed of light, then change comes at people at almost the same pace. Humans, as they are now evolved, have not yet adapted to such rapid change. Change is difficult in its own right, but the speed of change apparently does not allow time for the modern human to perceive, process and the adapt to the new whatever. Evolution doesn’t work in this environment in that the species can not codify the necessary adaptations before new adaptations are required.
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