Thread by @letsthinkdeeply

I want to start talking about a severe gap we have in understanding the future of the United States and of the World. I will do it in small bites and explain what the implications are for what is happening now. It starts slowly so bear with me. Please feel free to join in.
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Morality and ethics are complicated subjects. Logic is at times complicated. Religious people look to their teachings for guidance in the boundaries of morality. But to continue the discussion you have to add the concept of sovereignty.
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For the religious, sovereignty is ceded to higher beings or God. For non-religious sovereignty is given to reason, culture, leaders or others. But in all systems there are anchors for morality, which in turn are translated into ethics, or the rules we follow in life.
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Within ethical and moral structures we define concepts of honor, honesty, right and wrong, acceptable behavior, and justice. The Greeks primarily thought of ethical behavior as arising out of reason or as a natural self organizing order. (I know it is more complicated)
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For a somewhat deeper discussion review this or similar summaries. plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics… The common theme, however, is that a culture, government and people must find agreement or submit to these constructs. Even radical anarchists argue for intrinsic morality.
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The Greeks also talked of the three primary ingredients of reason and persuasion: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos being higher order ethics, logos being the derivation of logic and pathos encapsulating feelings and emotions.
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But we have moved into an unbalanced internally inconsistent view of these processes and have a fracture in the way we see morality. It arises from common themes of sovereignty, rights, relativism and abosolutism. Source: kevinbinz.com/2017/05/04/eth…
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The conflicts in logic and ethics must be resolved for us to have cultural stability. Having different anchors does not cause revolution except in a few instances such as the conflict over slavery. ( this separates cultural stability from questions of tragedy and injustice )
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We have shifted from ethos and logos more toward pathos. We are outraged by individual tragedy and injustice, triggering violent unstable outbursts. The underlying triggers may be heightened sensitivity, perceptions of historical wrongs, many other grievances and manipulation.
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But the underlying instability is caused by deep fractures in ethical consistency. There are many causes of this: incompatible thinking, lack of balance, indifference to suffering, injustice, and layer upon layer of self contradictory reflex driven patches to our system.
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Why is this important? Patches to the system are going to have unintended consequences. In the heat of Pathos, we throw logic to the wind. We will solve these problems by cleaning up the patches and making changes in ethics to drive a moral framework to which most can agree.
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There are many basic constructs at risk. Do we still believe in individual freedom? Do we believe in justice? Do we have moral principals we can agree to? Do we believe in a balance between freedom and responsibility? Do we believe in equality? What are our moral limits?
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Unfortunately these require compromise and synthesis, but in a “free” country this has to be derived through consensus. If we derive it from pathos, authoritarian orders, stifling of knowledge and debate, we will no longer be free.
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There has been an erosion of our principal beliefs, but if we want to be a beacon of hope, we need to cleanup our mess, listen to each other, and synthesize new solutions with wisdom and deep examination.
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Pathos in the streets, abandonment of democracy, greed, power, hatred and globalism will not get us there, we need a new path.

If you want more or deeper discussion, tell me.
/end

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