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Tag: Ethics

Published on Leave a comment on The Test and Gift of High School: Individuality and Self-Respect

When codes of conduct conflict

When middle school principals urge their graduates to know themselves and be true to themselves, what they mean is their graduates will be joining lots of groups. And when they do, groups will sometimes pressure them to put what’s important to groups ahead of what individuals know in their minds and hearts is right. And being true to themselves means being true to what they know is right. That’s not always easy. In lives dominated by groups it takes concentration, character, and effort to stand up for what’s right. To keep personal integrity and self-respect intact.

What groups need to succeed and survive isn’t always compatible with what individuals need to love one another without competition and conflict. Groups need power and wealth to compete. They’ll fight for domination if they have to, even the ones who seem the nicest. And they’ll treat us like captive soldiers if they can get away with it. Being “good” doesn’t come first with groups if they have to do what’s necessary to survive. If they have to do what’s bad.

An Italian diplomat and historian named Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that the moral code that applies to individuals can’t apply to groups. The advice he gave political leaders was very different from what they were being told by the Church, but it applied to all groups. He was just stating the obvious, yet it caused a sensation. That was in the 16th century, and it still upsets people today. Middle school principals are warning their graduates not to get caught up in groups’ “Machiavellian” behavior when it conflicts with their moral code.

The taste of inferiority

High school does its job by testing our character so we come out of it more experienced with group pressure. So we’re more aware of what’s required to resist it when we know it’s pulling us in the wrong direction. When we’re pressured to “fit in,” to “go along to get along,” to be one of the “crowd.”

Middle school graduates with the right stuff won’t let themselves be compromised. But while they’re going all out with the excitement of high school, while they’re getting involved and having fun, they shouldn’t take their strength – their individuality – for granted.

For some adolescents pressure to be more like “others” can be dangerous. It can make them feel so bad about themselves they don’t even want to be themselves. They just want to disappear. That’s how it was for me at boarding school. I had nightmares about it over thirty-five years later. It even tasted bad. I never want to go through that again. Some of my classmates had the same experience and told me later. If high schools had cemeteries, their tombstones would all be marked “Self-Esteem.”

The test of performance builds confidence

If this happens to you, you can try to win the respect you crave from others and risk your health. Or you can take a different tack: look to yourself for self-respect. And learn that self-respect is a daily test of character that’s never done. Being true to yourself means taking nothing for granted. You may be confident that you’ve already learned self-respect, but confidence is just the beginning. Only performance, through high school and the world beyond, every day, lets us know for sure.

High school is a foretaste of the pressures you’ll be exposed to out in the world. Groups that provide us with the essentials and pleasures of a good life – jobs, causes, belonging, entertainments – can exact a high price in return. Many individuals just as confident as you have had to make serious compromises. To stay true to themselves many have had to say No to their groups and had to do without their benefits. You may have to face the same situation someday. I have, many times.

How your individuality and high moral code handle group pressure in high school could determine whether it’s easier or harder later. It’s good practice, good training. Take it on with enthusiasm because it’s all for your benefit and you’re getting off on the right foot. Because while you’re demonstrating confidence, you’ll also be building it.

Published on Leave a comment on Origin and Meaning: The Logic of Everything

The first Implication of Logic

The original act that began the sequence of Logic that began everything was an Implication of Logic:
• from a condition of statelessness, the opposite of Creation -- worthlessness vs. Worth, pointlessness vs Purpose, meaninglessness vs Meaning, lifelessness vs Life, non-being vs Being:-- that state must Be and it must be the state of Creation.
• from statelessness, the opposite of Reality-Knowledge: that state must be Real and that it must be the state of Reality.
* from statelessness, the absence of everything: that state must be the presence of everything.

Statelessness – the absence of Everything -- prodded the sequence of Logic into motion with the Implication of Reality-Creation because “absence of Everything” implied “absence of Logic,” a Logical impossibility and therefore a condition of unreality. Logic’s response was an act of Necessity and self-assertion: the presence and inviolability of Logic.

The original act that began the sequence of Logic that began everything was thus an Implication of Logic from statelessness, the opposite of Reality-Creation, the opposite of Being-Life. The Implication contained DNA genetics with coded instructions for the design, development, and activation of the state of Reality-Creation, the state of Being-Life, attributes with the Force of Logic that holds all Implications and their Interconnections together.

The first Implication caused the first Interconnection in the sequence of Logic that required:
• Connection-match between before-after in the sequence to move it forward
• Reciprocity to complete the Connection and its effect.

Existentialism: Meaning that flows from the bottom up

Precedent was set with universal Implication for Meaning-Worth: that it always begins with Implications drawn from circumstances on the ground, from the situation in the Now involving whatever Selves and stakes-considerations, whatever Values-Worth compose the situation. This is what is meant by "Existentialism." The Logic of Meaning-Worth requires context for establishing Meaning, and context must be provided by circumstances at the current “before” point in the sequence of Logic.

The original activation by Energy, the Force of Logic

Energy is the electromagnetic Force that interconnects the Implications of Logic, the gravitational Force that holds the Interconnections of Logic together, and the nuclear Force that keeps opposites apart.

The original activation by the Force of Logic -- by Energy, -- that activated Reality-Creation, was its activation of the seed of Creation: Oneness that contained genetic code-instructions for everything at that point in the sequence of Logic in those circumstances. It did not contain everything that was to come because it had not happened yet. That is, it had not been recognized by Mind-Consciousness, validated by Love-Values, and authorized by Logic, so it belonged to the “after” part of the sequence of Logic and was yet to become Known. It was yet to be part of the exploration, the advance-extension into the unknown that is Creation.

The original activation of Energy, the Force of Logic, was caused by an Implication of Logic from statelessness. The sequence of Logic at the beginning thus began with an Implication of Logic that awakened Energy from a state of rest to engage with Creation and perform its first application: activating Logic’s seed of Creation, that is. activating its coded instructions for the design and development of Reality and the seeding of new Life that is Creation.

The first act by Oneness, the seed of Creation

The first act by Oneness-Innocence, the seed of Creation-Life, was an act of organic growth in alignment with Logic, that is, in the sequence of Logic deploying its Energy. The first act was organic evolution from Oneness into the marriage between two attributes of Logic: Mind-Masculinity Reason-Thought with Love-Femininity Value-Passion. It was an act of Reciprocity that holds all of Logic's Implications and their Interconnections together. It was in essence an affirmation of Worth, an act of Love which is an attribute of Logic.

The Implications and Reciprocity of Logic give Mind its ability to think and reason, to analyze and judge. The Force of Logic’s reciprocal Interconnections gives Mind its power to think and reason, to analyze and judge with consequences, i.e. to act, to decide, choose, and connect, to make Mind-Thoughts causes with effects. The Interconnections and Reciprocity of Logic give Love its ability to feel, to care and value. The Force of Logic’s reciprocal Interconnections gives Love its power to feel and care, to value and judge with consequences, i.e. to act, to share, affirm, evaluate, and connect, to make Love-Feelings causes with effects. It is the Implications and Interconnections of Logic that bind Mind and Love together into one Creative Force.

The first act of Oneness was thus to form the first intimate-loving Relationship capable of Parenting a Child, thereby capable of forming the first intimate family Relationship. The Couple was the first Parents of Creation-Life: Father-Mind and Mother-Love. The first act by Oneness, the seed of Creation-Life, was thus to form the first Relationship between Selves that are attributes of Logic which is the Source of Oneness, the Source of Reality-Creation which is everything that Is and everything that is to Be.

All steps in the sequence of Logic, then and Now, are part of a logically Interconnected succession of Implications.

The original engagement of Energy that led to the activation of Oneness was caused by an Implication from Reality-Creation, the opposite of statelessness. All causes in the Laws of cause and effect are Implications of Logic.

The Logical impossibility of separation

“Absence of Everything” and “presence of Everything” kept apart by Energy nuclear Force are still Interconnected / held together by Implications of Logic / Energy electromagnetic Force and by gravitational Force that Interconnects Logic / Everything. So long as opposites kept apart by Energy nuclear Force are still Interconnected by Implications of Logic and Energy electromagnetic Force, so long as the “separation” between Mind and no-mind is maintained both by the gravitational Force of Logic’s Interconnections and the nuclear Force of Logic’s opposites, it is in this sense that there can be no “real separation.”

Yet the Child’s experience with unconsciousness does establish that there is a sense in which separation is real: within the Child’s dream – our illusory material universe -- when it is “made real” and the possibility of no-mind / extinction, the original illogical and therefore unreal condition of statelessness, hangs over the illusion.

Reciprocity: the original Thought of Self-awareness

The original Thought of Self-awareness, of Consciousness, i.e. Mind that includes the capability of Choice, and the original Feeling of Value that includes the incentive, the Motivation, of Freedom i.e. Love, both core attributes of Logic, was Reciprocity. Giving and giving back that formed a Parental Relationship, a couple united as one, capable of producing a third Self, a Child. An extension of Mind and Love, a shared Self, to join with family in a second Relationship, Parents with Child. The Child with the Authority of Logic, empowered by Energy and enabled by Free Choice, was brought into Being to play an indispensable role in the central mission of Creation: the Creation of Worth. The opposite of statelessness. The opposite of worthlessness.

All of this is implied by the Necessity of Logic for activating Reality and Creation, Being and Life. For applying the laws of cause and effect. All implied by the Authority, the Force, and the Loving Kindness of Logic.

What, then, explains ethics and metaphysics? The alignment with Logic in the circumstances in which it finds itself. In its context, that gives everything that is and is to come its Meaning.