I wanted to fork the thread "War on Science" to deal with the more interesting discussion to me - Why isn't fairness, honesty and all the wholesome qualities of being human so often absent in politicians, scientists, business leaders and other guardians of society?
Of course humans have always been a little rascally - the lesser angels on our shoulder and so on. Still, I can't help concluding the dodgy moral foundations of our present way of life are making it worse, by making bad behaviour automatic. Capitalism for example celebrates sin. The punitive tax on tobacco is called a sin tax, however if one were to really tax sin, i.e. pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth then most items sold would be eligible. Most of life has become about indulgence - of every vice. We think it is progress to indulge every whim and fancy that strikes us. There is no progress in being human without a discipline and control on our passions, and yet the role models to the world - the business barons, the rock/movie/sports stars often get the greatest fame when seen doing the opposite. Rumi: 'Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. The world is always going to be a mad house, but if we change ourselves we can create a little bubble of sanity around us. -- I would like to quote a little passage from Jiddu Krishnamurti who has a sublime eloquence on these matters -- If you have to understand the nature of pleasure, you will find that violence and pleasure are intimately related. Because again, as one observes oneself, one will see that our whole psychology is based on pleasure — apart from what psychologists and analysts talk about, one does not have to read a lot of books to see this — not only the sensory pleasures, as sex, but also the pleasure of achievement, the pleasure of success, of fulfilment, of achieving position, prestige, and power. Again, all this exists in the animal. In a farmyard, where there is poultry, you see this same phenomenon. There is pleasure, in the sense of taking delight, or of insulting. To achieve joy, to reach a position and prestige, to be somebody famous, is a form of violence — you have to be aggressive. If one is not aggressive in this world, one is just downtrodden, pushed aside; so that one may well ask the question, ‘Can I live without aggression, and yet live in this society?' Probably not, why should one live in society? (In the psychological structure of society, I mean) One has to live in the outward structure of society — having a job, a few clothes, a house, and so on — but why should one live in its psychological structure? Why should one accept the norm of society which requires that one must become a successful writer, must be a famous man, must have...oh, you know, all the rest of it? All that is part of the pleasure principle which translates itself in violence. In church you say, love your neighbour — and in business you cut his throat; the norm of society has no meaning. The whole structure of the army, any structure based on hierarchy and authority, is again domination and pleasure, which is again part of violence. To understand all this demands a great deal of observation — it is not a matter of capacity — you begin to understand, the more you observe. The very seeing is the acting. Jiddu Krishnamurti
