Great essay! It was a pleasure to read. I hope it wins.
On the subject matter, I came to a similar conclusion (virtue) while contemplating where 'we went wrong' (lol).
There's a paragraph towards the end which (in the future) could be expanded upon, because my fear is that until we come to grips with our fetish for the material world, are blindsided by ego, and take for granted the primacy of unbridled money/finance as means of exchange, then we won't be able to dig ourselves out of our hole. I'm not saying I have the solution, but like with your essay, identifying the problem is necessary before creating more technique.
"There’s a symbiosis between all of these practices, and when one falters everyone suffers. All of them know their place in the social order, and the responsibilities entrusted to them. How they do their duties depends on cultural context, but all of them follow the principle of honest connections with other human beings. There is an understanding of what excellence in practice entails. It isn’t just a set of skills, but a respect for the traditions and history of their professions as well as the culture they live in. It would make no sense for an architect in the Midwest to design building like medieval Japan. He is necessarily constrained by their cultural norms and traditions. The way virtue is shown in a mercantilist empire like the United States will be far different than a theocracy like Iran, but both can manifest an excellence in varied forms. While this is a hindrance to some, it allows them to fit practices into the complex ecosystem and unspoken rules of his culture, and societies can’t function when they are totally disregarded. Human beings are not blank slates, and societies cannot simply have their past wiped away."
As a Westerner who's had the benefit of living in the East, the first thing I always think about is the absence of an understanding of our awareness, what is the mind (monkey), the nature of this reality-illusion we're in, the ego and consciousness, our souls (for the spiritually minded), etc. Christianity has given us a lot, but blindsided us to much more, which we dismiss dogmatically unfortunately. In many societies in the East, from India to SE Asia, China and Japan, spirituality and religion coexist in a healthy (and imperfect) manner. I think this is something to contemplate and maybe see if there are learnings we can apply in the West, especially because Christianity has declined, but also because Christianity per se places a certain weight onto our material reality and (speaking broadly) as an organized religion does not value a more enchanted and mystical reality.
And this feeds into the issue of virtue, because your conclusion (which I share in my own way) is we need to find a way to enrich our cultures with values favoring communities and human to human benefits. In our present reality undue emphasis is placed on money and accumulating wealth, which becomes the measure through which we compare ourselves and measure success. So virtue then becomes a weakness, an impediment to competition.
Anyway. I enjoyed reading the essay. Thanks for writing and sharing 👍🏼
Gosh, in your entire article complaining about how horribly things are falling apart and poorly managed, you mention the Democrat party exactly once and in that paragraph you make sure to do the Equity thing and lament how bad the Republicans are as well. Ninety-nine percent of the "Problem" that needs "Solving" in this country is Democrats. Maybe the other one percent of the problem is people who won't say that.
"Hello, my name is Alan Schmidt and this is my essay on how to increase our problem solving capacity:
Don't.
Thank you for reading my essay."
Loved it by the way
That smug, contrarian kid who loves to annoy the teacher will always live inside of me.
Great essay! It was a pleasure to read. I hope it wins.
On the subject matter, I came to a similar conclusion (virtue) while contemplating where 'we went wrong' (lol).
There's a paragraph towards the end which (in the future) could be expanded upon, because my fear is that until we come to grips with our fetish for the material world, are blindsided by ego, and take for granted the primacy of unbridled money/finance as means of exchange, then we won't be able to dig ourselves out of our hole. I'm not saying I have the solution, but like with your essay, identifying the problem is necessary before creating more technique.
"There’s a symbiosis between all of these practices, and when one falters everyone suffers. All of them know their place in the social order, and the responsibilities entrusted to them. How they do their duties depends on cultural context, but all of them follow the principle of honest connections with other human beings. There is an understanding of what excellence in practice entails. It isn’t just a set of skills, but a respect for the traditions and history of their professions as well as the culture they live in. It would make no sense for an architect in the Midwest to design building like medieval Japan. He is necessarily constrained by their cultural norms and traditions. The way virtue is shown in a mercantilist empire like the United States will be far different than a theocracy like Iran, but both can manifest an excellence in varied forms. While this is a hindrance to some, it allows them to fit practices into the complex ecosystem and unspoken rules of his culture, and societies can’t function when they are totally disregarded. Human beings are not blank slates, and societies cannot simply have their past wiped away."
As a Westerner who's had the benefit of living in the East, the first thing I always think about is the absence of an understanding of our awareness, what is the mind (monkey), the nature of this reality-illusion we're in, the ego and consciousness, our souls (for the spiritually minded), etc. Christianity has given us a lot, but blindsided us to much more, which we dismiss dogmatically unfortunately. In many societies in the East, from India to SE Asia, China and Japan, spirituality and religion coexist in a healthy (and imperfect) manner. I think this is something to contemplate and maybe see if there are learnings we can apply in the West, especially because Christianity has declined, but also because Christianity per se places a certain weight onto our material reality and (speaking broadly) as an organized religion does not value a more enchanted and mystical reality.
And this feeds into the issue of virtue, because your conclusion (which I share in my own way) is we need to find a way to enrich our cultures with values favoring communities and human to human benefits. In our present reality undue emphasis is placed on money and accumulating wealth, which becomes the measure through which we compare ourselves and measure success. So virtue then becomes a weakness, an impediment to competition.
Anyway. I enjoyed reading the essay. Thanks for writing and sharing 👍🏼
Great essay, enlightening, edifying, and entertaining. Thank you.
Gosh, in your entire article complaining about how horribly things are falling apart and poorly managed, you mention the Democrat party exactly once and in that paragraph you make sure to do the Equity thing and lament how bad the Republicans are as well. Ninety-nine percent of the "Problem" that needs "Solving" in this country is Democrats. Maybe the other one percent of the problem is people who won't say that.
Our issues go far beyond Team Red vs. Team Blue
No not a Red/Blue issue at all. https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/corporations-that-have-taken-a-knee-to-trump-will-be-punished-says-susan-rice-5988563