Ethics of an Intellectual

This is not about personal ethics.

After trying to read Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell and then Intellectuals by Paul Johnson, I had the same experience that every first year philosophy student has in a course called Philosophy of Ethics, or Art, or Psychology.  You stop believing in Ethics or Art or Psychology.  The thoughtful examination of any realm can crush your preconceived notions.  And with those notions gone, the confidence in the magic you thought the area had is gone.

Reading about intellectuals and their ability to lie, cheat, and steal depressed me.  And I am not talking about their personal lives.  Whether or not Shelley paid back all the loans he took or not (he didn't) is not my concern.  At some point the ideas he created must stand on his own outside of his own biography. Marx and his deceitful quotations are worse for an intellectual than any personal sin.

So what should be the ethics of an intellectual?

Present facts.  Present theories about the facts.  Present policies from the facts and theories.  Update the theories and policies when the facts change.

Ideology is not part of an intellectual life.

As Kenneth Thomas wrote:
When someone tries to get you to focus on only one part of a complicated picture, it's a safe assumption they are trying to mislead you. 

An intellectual's function is to "un-mislead."  It is to clarify the murky. To lead us away from the mud. 

The last supper

After reading Spong's A New Christianity for a New World, I have thought long and hard about the last supper and how we have ritualized it. 

Spong talks about how the God in the sky who dabbles in our affairs does not make much sense to our century and its knowledge. He writes about how a God asking for a blood sacrifice does not make sense to a more refined philosophical mind. 

And he talks about how the liturgy and how the sacraments will need to change to reflect this newer and closer interpretation into who we are and who Jesus is and what God is. 

The last supper. The linchpin of most Christian services. It has to change. 

It can no longer be the reminder that he died as a blood sacrifice for us and for our sins to be forgiven. We can no longer believe in a heartless god. 

For every milestone humanity has a celebration. Birth, adulthood, marriage, death. And the last supper is one of these: graduation. 

It was time for these men and women to go out on their own. To teach others. To share a wisdom of love, forgiveness and mercy. And to probably raise a little revolution. 

Do this in memory of me could very well be the poetic "remember what I taught you. Now go out there and do me proud." 

How do we celebrate that Jesus has taught us what we need to know to succeed in changing the world so that we all live and love better and closer? We celebrate the teaching represented by the disciples' graduation into full leaders of their own. 

I am not trying in any way to diminish the passion of the Christ. That passion has a deep and long lasting meaning for so many. I am only trying to deepen our understanding of what was happening and what it all means at all its different levels. 

political parties change

Is it time since the Republican party is going to be out of the favor of its donors and thus have less power to win key election. ( Romney and Gomez are two examples.) for their donors to start giving money to Democrats?  And what would that mean?  The policies espoused by the Dems would now be the ones of their donors.

After all, isn't this how the Republicans went from the slave freeing, free slave electing party to the one in a racist love fest?  Hoover and business interests caused its first change.

Is there a pattern of money changing the parties?  Is it going to happen again?

Like most things

I have finally gotten some of my life in order. And that means that the stress level has dropped precipitously. What does one do when one is completely acclimatized to the pot boiling at full blast?  And the heat is finally turned off.  Sure, you simmer, you release steam, and you start to get comfortable.

There are things to clean up.  Messes like unmatched socks.  Like unfiled taxes.  Like a career and avocations to pursue. 

Someday, things will get done.  Brilliant ideas will be posted to share and the world's problems will be solved.


But not today.  Today, I cool and relax.....

New magazine to read

I have been reading my usual politics and came upon the magazine Governing which talks about the implementation of the policies we want in place. Is it in these details where good or bad is determined? Does better governance create people and populations who then can trust government with programs like health care, food safety,

Update: end of May. Since I found this have I looked at it?  No. But my trusted sources tell me that the best managed survey can be rigged if the state wants to put effort into that instead of governing correctly.

And like most easily accessible sites, the articles are a few steps away from actually providing real guidelines.

for example: this article about the last mile in providing services. Here is the rub:

...the breakdown point needs to be isolated sufficiently to devise a solution. This requires a careful reconstruction of the program pathway with metrics that expose drop-offs in participation. The broken link may be hiding in plain sight, or it may be a broad systemic gap.

I really do wish I knew how to do that and could see examples.  What kind of people do this work and what do the deliverables look like?  

Latest readings

So Mark. The gospel. Where does the purple robe come from ? And the boy running and losing the bed sheet?

There is more than we have seen is all I can see.

I have recently completed Equilateral. Disconcerting. One never knows if the Martians are real. But the pain from our beliefs is.

Beliefs. Understandings and science. Interpretations. How cloudy they can be

How cloudy they can all be.

So much to learn

Currently I am reading about scenarios, deadbeats and religion. (Separately, though a book on all three together would be interesting.)

Does a change in the human landscape give rise to a new religion and do eventually deadbeats, in this case the non-inspired, run the bureaucracy?

I am starting research on state employee relations. My questions are: What are the different ways that state employess can be treated?  What processes are there? Where are the problems across states?  How have those problems been solved?

I have a novel to finish.  Time travel and magic

And one to start. Genealogical.

Watching plants grow, cutting them and harvesting them as well as their decomposition is all happening in the back yard.

Is it always this way with everyone where there are more things to do, more things to read, more things to learn and enjoy than is possible?