espritch
03-30-2008, 08:47 PM
I started this thread in response to a post by Wordy in the Religion and Our Climb to Civilation (http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=701) thread. I thought this was interesting but not entirely germane to that thread (also, that thread has regressed to two posters trading insults), so I decided to start a new thread to address the topic.
espritch, that was why I took up the book "secular conscience" by Austin Dacey
google says they have a debate about it on RDF but I want us to have it here.
I think that book is directly related to what Garrett take up here.
'The Secular Conscience' by Austin Dacey - RichardDawkins.net
19 mar 2008 ... In his incisive new book, The Secular Conscience (Prometheus Books, March 2008), philosopher Austin Dacey calls for a bold rethinking of the ...
richarddawkins.net/article,2383,n,n
I can't comment on the book as I have not read it. It sound's interesting.
Social Democracy Party and the Communist Party tried to give a secular ethics since 1895 or so. Describing what a worker hero would be. Honest while the enemy the Capitalists was dishonest. Pure in heart while the Capitalist was full of lies like God and such. Pure in taste for art while the Capitalists was full of decadence like classical music and high brow poetry and worker heroes should be pure in their sexual conduct while the capitalists was perverted in their sexual conducts like doing masturbation and oral sex which socialists saw as filthy perversions.
that socialist "pureness" spilled over on how they looked at schools. Their children was teached at home to not care about science or academic study.
Such was perverted nerd stuff. To be a good worker was to be good at mechanical skills like taking a car apart and putting it together again or chopping wood and digging a trench or such.
It sounds like socialism as practiced is just another form of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, whether based on religion or political notions, has always been curiously obsessed with the idea of purity, especially sexual purity. Hitler was a notorious prude. This is, I think, a pretty good indication that real ethics and purity have very little to do with each other. Purity is about social control, and since sex is very fundamental to human nature, controlling sex is a crucial part of exercising social control. Control, however is not the same as ethics.
Fundamentalism is also traditionally anti-intellectual, whether it is religious or secular. Intellectualism requires questioning of established doctrine and this is the last thing any fundamentalist wants people to do. Fundamentalists, whatever their preferred "ism", are ultimately authoritarians.
I overdo it a bit but the "ethics" was very strong but narrowed due to the competition to not be like the enemy. Fine art was wrong cause they enenmy liked it.
Bullying was norm and sanctioned. It slowly changed when an educated Doctor (Physcician turned School Doctor) felt bad about the bruteness of the taken for granted fighting going on. When I was ten years old to fight was norm. That was expected of us. You where a Sissy if you didn't fight back.
But the ethics on how the fight was done. Those rules was upheld by the bystanders. Most likely they took it from the Boxing and Wrestling rules from Sport. Workers had their own Sport Clubs that hated the Capitalist sport. They had their own Sport mass media and didn't read about the Capitalist sports like Tennis and Golf and such.
Socialist Ethics was very strong as I remember. For us worker kids it was almost a crime to listen to classical music, only Capitalists would do such perverted thing. As I remember Jazz was beginning to be accepted cause Louis Armstrong was black and did Jazz but the more intellecual Jazz was frowned upon. Rock and Roll was a kind of musical revolution and was hated cause it was more commercial in approach. Socialists saw it as Capitalist and very sexually decadent. The way Elvis moved his body while singing was seen as pervert. Jazz musician hated Rock and made "mocked up versions of it " to show how bad as music it was". Within a few years Jazz died out cause Rock had the ability to change style and come up with new exciting gimmicks and there was so many new good looking guys to admire for the teens. Jazz ws more conservative in that sense.
The more intellectual among the working class heroes tried to adopt "Blues" as their music cause that was pure while Rock was commercial exploitation but Blues was incorporated in Rock so that didn't work so well either. Rock musicians invited their idols among the Blues singers and guitarists and played duo with them and that made them ok to listen to for all fo us. The Jazz people saw Blues as too primitive but tried to make it into their Jazz style too but the demand for such music was dwindling. Jazz musicians survived by doing secret studio work and to play gigs at theater and churches and at political rallies.
As far as I know the socialist secular ethics almost died out. Fighting now is not fair as it was when I was young. We would never kick somebody in their face and it was seen as very coward to kick somebody lying down. the fight was over of somebody fell to the ground. Get up and fight or you admit you lose and to admit one lose a fight was very degrading but to lose was end of fight. Nowadays they take turn to kick the person lying down in head until they die. That seems to be the norm today so the secular ethics has disappeared among the workers.
Oh I forgot. To steal was absolutely un ethical when I grew up. Now the it seems to be the norm. We never locked the door to the house where I lived. Nowadays they rob people while they are asleep or even during the day. Unthinkable when I was young. Even crooks had ethics in my youth. Robin Hood mentality, only steal from those who had plenty. Now the norms has vanished.
I find this quite interesting. Having lived all my life in the U.S., I have little knowledge of socialist societies. I knew the Russians invaded Finland before WWII and imposed communism there for a time, but I didn't think Sweden had ever been dominated by socialism. Is that still true or am I misunderstanding something?
Garrett, isn't that social science? Are social science not still a kind of proto-science, not matured enough to have reliable models of us humans.
I don't say it is pseudo-science. They are honest in their research but they guess a lot and not much of evidence.
The problem with social sciences is that they are "soft" sciences which basically means they are very difficult. The questions being asked have so many parameters that it is very difficult to isolate individual causes and effects and to test hypothesis. Unfortunately, where there is a lot of uncertainly, there is a lot of room for pseudo science theories to get insinuated among the legitimate research.
But I agree that this is how "science" has presented it up to now and the critics have to give example on great civilizations without religion. I don't remember such.
I don't think anyone was actually arguing that there were great (or even not so great) civilizations that had no religion. I think the argument was that religion was not the cause of civilization (or necessary for it).
Soviet Communism was seen as very "religious" by the New Left here in Europe around 1968 that was why we started the New Left movement all over Europe. Not I but all of us who was around 20 years joined cause that was the way to grow up in those days. I did it reluctantly cause as a strong atheist I saw how religious the Communists Marxists et al behaved.
They treated Marx as the Fundies treat the Bible. Our Left created small sects having same patterns of behavior as small NRM sects have. Peer pressure to conform to dress codes and what music to listen to and books to read and especially the way one spoke, the politically correct rhetoric.
The only difference we had to religious groups was we had no gods but all else was very similar.
So all this about Russia and the rest being atheists seems to be a formal outer put on show.
I have long regarded Communism as a kind of secular religion trying to pass itself off as a social/political theory, so we are in agreement on this.
Civilization needs shared ethics to function well. I think we need to be careful to define ethics in a way that exclude "purity" and cultural norms and addresses primarily the way individuals relate to each other and the shared sense of responsibility for the shared concerns of society.
The real question is, can a secular society have and enforce a shared ethic without the authority of a God and the threat of eternal damnation or a dictatorial state and the threat of Gulags. I think the answer is yes. If so, then it is possible to build a civilization without religion (either the theist or atheist varieties).
If not, then we are pretty well screwed as a species, because eventually some authoritarian nut job is going to find a way to blow the whole planet to hell in the name of his "ism".
espritch, that was why I took up the book "secular conscience" by Austin Dacey
google says they have a debate about it on RDF but I want us to have it here.
I think that book is directly related to what Garrett take up here.
'The Secular Conscience' by Austin Dacey - RichardDawkins.net
19 mar 2008 ... In his incisive new book, The Secular Conscience (Prometheus Books, March 2008), philosopher Austin Dacey calls for a bold rethinking of the ...
richarddawkins.net/article,2383,n,n
I can't comment on the book as I have not read it. It sound's interesting.
Social Democracy Party and the Communist Party tried to give a secular ethics since 1895 or so. Describing what a worker hero would be. Honest while the enemy the Capitalists was dishonest. Pure in heart while the Capitalist was full of lies like God and such. Pure in taste for art while the Capitalists was full of decadence like classical music and high brow poetry and worker heroes should be pure in their sexual conduct while the capitalists was perverted in their sexual conducts like doing masturbation and oral sex which socialists saw as filthy perversions.
that socialist "pureness" spilled over on how they looked at schools. Their children was teached at home to not care about science or academic study.
Such was perverted nerd stuff. To be a good worker was to be good at mechanical skills like taking a car apart and putting it together again or chopping wood and digging a trench or such.
It sounds like socialism as practiced is just another form of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, whether based on religion or political notions, has always been curiously obsessed with the idea of purity, especially sexual purity. Hitler was a notorious prude. This is, I think, a pretty good indication that real ethics and purity have very little to do with each other. Purity is about social control, and since sex is very fundamental to human nature, controlling sex is a crucial part of exercising social control. Control, however is not the same as ethics.
Fundamentalism is also traditionally anti-intellectual, whether it is religious or secular. Intellectualism requires questioning of established doctrine and this is the last thing any fundamentalist wants people to do. Fundamentalists, whatever their preferred "ism", are ultimately authoritarians.
I overdo it a bit but the "ethics" was very strong but narrowed due to the competition to not be like the enemy. Fine art was wrong cause they enenmy liked it.
Bullying was norm and sanctioned. It slowly changed when an educated Doctor (Physcician turned School Doctor) felt bad about the bruteness of the taken for granted fighting going on. When I was ten years old to fight was norm. That was expected of us. You where a Sissy if you didn't fight back.
But the ethics on how the fight was done. Those rules was upheld by the bystanders. Most likely they took it from the Boxing and Wrestling rules from Sport. Workers had their own Sport Clubs that hated the Capitalist sport. They had their own Sport mass media and didn't read about the Capitalist sports like Tennis and Golf and such.
Socialist Ethics was very strong as I remember. For us worker kids it was almost a crime to listen to classical music, only Capitalists would do such perverted thing. As I remember Jazz was beginning to be accepted cause Louis Armstrong was black and did Jazz but the more intellecual Jazz was frowned upon. Rock and Roll was a kind of musical revolution and was hated cause it was more commercial in approach. Socialists saw it as Capitalist and very sexually decadent. The way Elvis moved his body while singing was seen as pervert. Jazz musician hated Rock and made "mocked up versions of it " to show how bad as music it was". Within a few years Jazz died out cause Rock had the ability to change style and come up with new exciting gimmicks and there was so many new good looking guys to admire for the teens. Jazz ws more conservative in that sense.
The more intellectual among the working class heroes tried to adopt "Blues" as their music cause that was pure while Rock was commercial exploitation but Blues was incorporated in Rock so that didn't work so well either. Rock musicians invited their idols among the Blues singers and guitarists and played duo with them and that made them ok to listen to for all fo us. The Jazz people saw Blues as too primitive but tried to make it into their Jazz style too but the demand for such music was dwindling. Jazz musicians survived by doing secret studio work and to play gigs at theater and churches and at political rallies.
As far as I know the socialist secular ethics almost died out. Fighting now is not fair as it was when I was young. We would never kick somebody in their face and it was seen as very coward to kick somebody lying down. the fight was over of somebody fell to the ground. Get up and fight or you admit you lose and to admit one lose a fight was very degrading but to lose was end of fight. Nowadays they take turn to kick the person lying down in head until they die. That seems to be the norm today so the secular ethics has disappeared among the workers.
Oh I forgot. To steal was absolutely un ethical when I grew up. Now the it seems to be the norm. We never locked the door to the house where I lived. Nowadays they rob people while they are asleep or even during the day. Unthinkable when I was young. Even crooks had ethics in my youth. Robin Hood mentality, only steal from those who had plenty. Now the norms has vanished.
I find this quite interesting. Having lived all my life in the U.S., I have little knowledge of socialist societies. I knew the Russians invaded Finland before WWII and imposed communism there for a time, but I didn't think Sweden had ever been dominated by socialism. Is that still true or am I misunderstanding something?
Garrett, isn't that social science? Are social science not still a kind of proto-science, not matured enough to have reliable models of us humans.
I don't say it is pseudo-science. They are honest in their research but they guess a lot and not much of evidence.
The problem with social sciences is that they are "soft" sciences which basically means they are very difficult. The questions being asked have so many parameters that it is very difficult to isolate individual causes and effects and to test hypothesis. Unfortunately, where there is a lot of uncertainly, there is a lot of room for pseudo science theories to get insinuated among the legitimate research.
But I agree that this is how "science" has presented it up to now and the critics have to give example on great civilizations without religion. I don't remember such.
I don't think anyone was actually arguing that there were great (or even not so great) civilizations that had no religion. I think the argument was that religion was not the cause of civilization (or necessary for it).
Soviet Communism was seen as very "religious" by the New Left here in Europe around 1968 that was why we started the New Left movement all over Europe. Not I but all of us who was around 20 years joined cause that was the way to grow up in those days. I did it reluctantly cause as a strong atheist I saw how religious the Communists Marxists et al behaved.
They treated Marx as the Fundies treat the Bible. Our Left created small sects having same patterns of behavior as small NRM sects have. Peer pressure to conform to dress codes and what music to listen to and books to read and especially the way one spoke, the politically correct rhetoric.
The only difference we had to religious groups was we had no gods but all else was very similar.
So all this about Russia and the rest being atheists seems to be a formal outer put on show.
I have long regarded Communism as a kind of secular religion trying to pass itself off as a social/political theory, so we are in agreement on this.
Civilization needs shared ethics to function well. I think we need to be careful to define ethics in a way that exclude "purity" and cultural norms and addresses primarily the way individuals relate to each other and the shared sense of responsibility for the shared concerns of society.
The real question is, can a secular society have and enforce a shared ethic without the authority of a God and the threat of eternal damnation or a dictatorial state and the threat of Gulags. I think the answer is yes. If so, then it is possible to build a civilization without religion (either the theist or atheist varieties).
If not, then we are pretty well screwed as a species, because eventually some authoritarian nut job is going to find a way to blow the whole planet to hell in the name of his "ism".