A previous series on The Middle Class Forum was titled “Are We Naturally Bad?” In that series and others I present evidence that we are not inherently bad, rather, we are inherently an altruistic species operating in systems that make us bad. This does not mean we were all born angels. We were all born [...]
Continue reading about Restoring Cultural Balance – Knowing Who We Are
We have devalued our belonging to people and place as our allegiance to paternal sources has grown. These allegiances include political parties, corporations and interest groups. We trust in these paternal sources, particularly as represented by corporate media and think tanks, while skeptical of human nature. This reverses where the “innocent until proven guilty” focus [...]
Continue reading about Restoring Cultural Balance – Become Paternal Skeptics
In the book Systems out of Balance my focus was illuminating how social systems work in ways we should not want. This alone was a movement towards restoring balance, since the first step in addressing a problem is recognizing you have one. The book includes a final essay titled “Restoring Balance” that provides some follow-up [...]
Property is neither a natural right, as John Locke claimed, nor a fence to liberty, as claimed by James Madison. The natural right claim is easily dismissed. If you live in Connecticut you do not own property in California unless there is some type of government to back up your claim. “Squatter’s rights” or “use [...]
Continue reading about Liberty and Tyranny – Private Property
I’ve been starting on my next book, Information out of Balance, featuring the ten misinformation principles. I will copy and paste what I wrote for Misinformation Principle #10:
Misinformation increases our vanity, cynicism and apprehensions
The abuse of our altruistic trust comes at a heavy cost, the focus of the final chapter. Vanity and apprehension are common [...]
Available from the Products and Services feature (right hand side of page) is a bookmark in pdf form that states 10 principles of misinformation. The first one relates to a topic recently discussed, that we are misinformed on what is natural or normative.
In Systems out of Balance I report on a version of the Travelers [...]
As I look back on my last entry, and on a recent flurry of comments, I realize how I’ve been diverted from my objectives of how I wanted to transition this web site. It will take some time, but I will be working on getting forums set up where people can post anonymously, thus removing [...]
My comment policy dictates that people leave their name and town of residence for their comments to be posted. The anonymity of the Internet is not a good thing in my view, fueling the movement away from community that is occurring in this country. Admittedly this may be a quixotic battle on my part, the [...]
I am not finished with revamping my web log for the post publishing phase of Systems out of Balance, yet I can’t resist tackling what I consider the most fundamental question we have to address for determining how our economic, political and cultural systems should function: Are we naturally bad?
I will tackle this question in [...]
The three most striking events in Christianity are the Crucifixion, Resurrection and Pentecost. Each provides their own lesson in regards to overcoming the sin of separation. As excerpted from “Essay 18 – Our Sense of Belonging” in Systems out of Balance:
“Christians have the ultimate expression of humility through the Crucifixion of Christ, which involved [...]
