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Can a sophisticated individual rise above ideology? All thought is saturated with egocentric and sociocentric presuppositions. That is, all thought contains highly motivating bias centered in the self or in ideologies such as political, religious, and economic theories. Some individuals are conscious of these internal forces but most people are not. Those individuals who are conscious of these biases within their thinking can try to rid their judgments of that influence. Those who are not conscious, or little conscious of such bias, are bound to display a significant degree of irrational tendencies in their judgments. An intellectual might be properly defined as those who are primarily or professionally concerned with matters of the mind and the imagination but who are socially non-attached. “The intellectual is thought of not as someone who displays great mental or imaginative ability but as someone who applies those abilities in more general areas such as religion, philosophy and social and political issues. It is the involvement in general and controversy outside of a specialization that is considered as the hallmark of an intellectual; it is a matter of choice of self definition, choice is supreme here.” Even anti-ideological is ideological. If partisanship can be defended servility cannot; many have allowed themselves to become the tools of others. We have moved into an age when the university is no longer an ivory tower and knowledge is king but knowledge has become a commodity and educators have become instruments of power; the university has become a privately owned think-tank. The subordination to power is not just at the individual level but also at the institutional level. Government funds are made available to universities and colleges not for use as they deem fit but for specific government needs. Private industry plays even a larger role in providing funds for educational institutions to perform management and business study. Private industry is not inclined ‘to waste’ money on activities that do not contribute to the bottom line. ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’ Thomas Kuhn, in his famous book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, explains the difficult we have with recognizing and accepting experiences that contradict our anticipations. As Kuhn observed: He concludes: “What a man sees depends upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see.” Kuhn provides us with an experiment performed by Jerome Bruner and Leo Postman undertaken to illuminate this human characteristic of seeing only what we are prepared to see. Subjects were shown standard playing cards mixed with the anomalous card a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. Subjects repeatedly and erroneously identified the anomalous cards as a six of hearts or a four of spades. Some, even after the experiment was over, displayed confusion and even anger at the experiment. Only after repeated exposures to the cards did the subjects slowly feel something was askew here. Only after forty exposures did the subjects correctly identify the cards. Quotes and ideas from “Knowledge and Belief in Politics” Bhikhu Parekh

The book I mentioned agrees that we are constantly changing and thus we require a morality that is capable of adapting to such changes. In other words with a comprehension of morality that is able to use our imagination to adjust to our ever changing world.

Of course we are constantly changing and that is why we need to develop a science of morality based upon our newly acquired cognitive science. Example is "Moral Imagination" by Mark Johnson. Sunday school morality tries to convince us that we get dogma from another world that never changes and it is this attitude that will destroy our species if we do not become self-actualizing self-learners ad awaken to our situation. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged And where did the parents and the peer group get it. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes, now you are talking. What we call logic is the product of our container schema. Most cognitive activity happens backstage, i.e. in the unconscious, which is unavailable to direct conscious analysis. The unconscious might be compared with the inside of the atom. They both are worlds not directly available to intuition; these worlds must be comprehended based upon what happens outside their enclosure. Humans talk, listen, and draw inferences without conscious effort. “A large part of unconscious thought involves automatic, immediate, implicit rather than explicit understanding.” A large part of reasoning is accomplished within this unconscious domain of the brain and this reasoning is grounded in our everyday experiences. Humans and, I suspect all creatures navigate in space through spatial-relations concepts, i.e. schemas. These concepts are the essence of our ability to function in space. These are not concepts that we can sense but they are the forms and inference patterns for our movement in space that we utilize unconsciously. We automatically perceive an entity as being on, in front of, behind, etc., another entity. The container schema is a fundamental spatial-relations concept that allows us to draw important inferences. This natural container format is the source for our logical inferences that are so obvious to us when we view Venn diagrams. If container A is in container B and B is in container C, then A is in C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram A container schema is a gestalt (a functional unit) figure with an interior, an exterior, and a boundary—the parts make sense only as part of the whole. Container schemas are cross-modal—“we can impose a conceptual container schema on a visual scene…on something we hear, as when we conceptually separate out one part of a piece of music from another…This structure is topological in the sense that the boundary can be made larger, smaller, or distorted and still remain the boundary of a container schema.” “Image schemas have a special cognitive function: They are both perceptual and conceptual in nature. As such, they provide a bridge between language and reasoning on the one hand and vision on the other.” ‘Logic’ is a word with more than one meaning; but it, like ‘science’, ‘Kleenex’ etc, has become a word with a common usage. In our common mode of speaking ‘logic’ means Aristotelian Formal Logic. Aristotle said “A definition is a phrase signifying a thing’s essence.” Essence is the collection of characteristics that makes a thing a kind of thing. Such a definition expresses what is called a concept. Aristotle equates predication (all men are mortal, I am a man) with containment. Predication is containment. To make a predication is to create a ‘container’ that contains the essence of a thing being predicated. This containment leads us to the obvious logic (formal principles of a branch of knowledge) of containers. If container A is in container C and container B is in A then B is in C. This container schema is where all of these Latin terms, such as Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, come from. This is, I think, the source of all of the principles for syllogisms. In other words just imagine containers and various juxtapositions of these will lead one to the principles of Aristotelian logic. I suspect many Greeks scratched their heads and wondered “why didn’t I think of that?” Focus for a moment on the logic “if A and B then C”, the container schema, and basketball’s three-point jump-shot. If you do then you will understand why the syllogism seems true without any consideration required. Quotes from” Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Yes, I posted on PhysOrg. It is an empirical fact that everything that we think, know, and perceive is subjective.

I shall try to do better.

I use standard punctuation. When I quote I use quotation marks. "quote"

How did we grow from Egalitarianism to Plutocracy? Bands of 5 to about 80 individuals generally comprised the social grouping in primitive human societies. We find this sort of social grouping presently in our closest non human relatives such as gorillas and chimpanzees. These human groups were normally “egalitarian” in structure in that there would ordinarily be a leader who was often followed but each member fit into a structure within that society wherein each member maintained equality with respect to social, political, and economic rights and privileges. These bands slowly morphed into tribal structures, which typically contained hundreds of individuals. The tribe held many family groups, called clans, and they were normally fixed in place rather than being nomadic. The tribe held land in common, everyone knew everyone else. Just as bands these tribal groupings maintained an “egalitarian” system of governance. Information and decisions were spread across the whole group. While there was a “big man” he had no independent decision making authority. The “big man” obtained his status through achievement and not through inheritance. The tribe had no bureaucracy. Bands shaded into tribes and tribes into chiefdoms. Through the year 1500 AD chiefdoms were still spread over much of the land now called the USA. Chiefdoms ranged in populations from several thousand to several tens of thousands. The rise of chiefdoms started about 7500 years ago. Because individuals had to be controlled such that they did not just kill people strange to them the chief had to be invested with authority to discipline the population. Commoners had to show ritual respect to the chiefdom. At best the chiefs used this redistributive system to do good by providing services to the group, at worst the chiefdoms functioned as plutocracies. In modern society plutocracy is the standard rather than the exception; as is so evident to even the most disengaged and uncritical observer. As we see the movement from social structures such as bands where egalitarianism was the way of life to chiefdoms and from there to present day plutocratic economies one is forced to ask the question “Why do the common people tolerate the transfer of their hard earned wealth to the plutocracy?” Throughout the ages the plutocrats have managed to accomplish this feat in four different ways: 1) disarm the population; 2) make the masses contented through distributing ‘bread and circus’; 3) promise happiness by providing ‘law and order’ when chaos is pervasive throughout the land; and 4) through organizing religions and various other ideologies. Ideology was a common mode for controlling the masses in all social formats, and these various ideologies often morphed into religion. Temples and public works were means for keeping focus upon the cape rather than upon the Matador. These means kept the focus off of the chief they also provided the rationale for transferring wealth and the necessary bureaucratic organization into the hands of the plutocracy. Religion also provided the bonding required for the common people to offer their lives in combat for the society. All of this makes the society better able to overcome adversaries in wars of conquest. Quotes from Guns, Germs, and Steelby Jared Diamond

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is processed by our cognition. I would say that being processed by our cognition is the definition of subjective. Since all humans share a common biology, i.e. a common cognitive processing structure, objectivity is our shared subjectivity. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Therein lay the rub. We have only our Sunday school morality to guide us in solving today's moral problems.

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity.

Everything that we think, know, and perceive is subjective. I suspect that applies to situational as well.

Science of Morality, Anyone? Where, in American culture, is the domain of knowledge that we would identify as morality studied and taught? I suspect that if we do not quickly develop a science of morality that will make it possible for us to live together on this planet in a more harmonious manner our technology will help us to destroy the species and perhaps the planet soon. It seems to me that we have given the subject matter of morality primarily over to religion. It also seems to me that if we ask the question ‘why do humans treat one another so terribly?’ we will find the answer in this moral aspect of human culture. The ‘man of maxims’ “is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality—without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.” George Eliot The Mill on the Floss I agree to the point of saying that we have moral instincts, i.e. we have moral emotions. Without these moral emotions we could not function as social creatures. These moral emotions are an act of evolution. I would ague that the instinct for grooming that we see in monkeys is one example of this moral emotion. We can no longer leave this important matter in the hands of the Sunday-school. Morality must become a top priority for scientific study.

Virtual World versus Real World Wo/man worships and fears power; we enthusiastically give our loyalty to our leader. Sapiens are at heart slavish. Therein lay the rub, as Shakespeare might say. Freud was the first to focus upon the phenomenon of a patient’s inclination to transfer the feelings s/he had toward her parents as a child to the physician. The patient distorts the perception of the physician; s/he enlarges the figure up far out of reason and becomes dependent upon him. In this transference of feeling, which the patient had for his parents, to the physician the grown person displays all the characteristics of the child at heart, a child who distorts reality in order to relieve his helplessness and fears. Freud saw these transference phenomena as the form of human suggestibility that makes the control over another, as displayed by hypnosis, as being possible. Hypnosis seems mysterious and mystifying to us only because we hide our slavish need for authority from our self. We live the big lie, which lay within this need to submit our self slavishly to another, because we want to think of our self as self-determined and independent in judgment and choice. The predisposition to hypnosis is identical to that which gives rise to transference and it is characteristic of all sapiens. We could not function as adults if we retained this submissive attitude to our parents, however, this attitude of submissiveness, as noted by Ferenczi, is “The need to be subject to someone remains; only the part of the father is transferred to teachers, superiors, impressive personalities; the submissive loyalty to rulers that is so widespread is also a transference of this sort.” Freud saw immediately that when caught up in groups wo/man became dependent children once again. They abandoned their individual egos for that of the leader; they identified with their leader and proceeded to function with him as their ideal. Freud identified man, not as a herd animal but as a horde (teeming crowd) animal that is led by a chief. Wo/man has an insatiable need for authority. People have an insatiable need to be hypnotized by authority; they seek a magical protection as when they were infants protected by their mother. This is the force that acts to hold groups together, intertwined within a mutually constructed but often mindless interdependence. This mindless group think also builds a feeling of potency. The members feel a sense of unity within the grasp of their leadership. ‘Why are groups so blind and stupid?’ Freud asked; and he replied that mankind lived by self delusion. They “constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” The real world is too frightening to behold; delusion changes this by making sapiens seem important. This explains the terrible sadism we see in group activity. Questions for discussion Is there a vital difference between human sciences (such as psychology) and natural sciences (such as physics)? Is it possible for humans to create a virtual world that is more important than the real world? What is the difference between a virtual world and the real world?

Extinction and the Dread of Insignificance Becker compares three great thinkers Otto Rank, Wilhelm Reich, and Carl Jung to conclude that the three provide us nothing with which to connect their conclusions except that they dissented from Freud. However, there is agreement on the answer to the fundamental question, “What causes evil in human affairs?” This agreement is also the agreement in all of the human sciences; “man wants above all to endure and prosper, to achieve immortality in some way”. Wo/man wants, above all, to reject the knowledge of mortality; s/he does so by seeking to assure immortality in some way. Mortality is connected to our animal nature and thereby wo/man reaches for some way of being transcendent of that nature. As our mental capacity increased we rejected other animals with a vengeance because these other animals “embodied what man feared most, a nameless and faceless death. Our fears are buried deeply within our unconsciousness by repression, that great discovery of the science of psychoanalysis. This repression “is achieved by the symbolic engineering of culture, which everywhere serves men as an antidote to terror by giving them a new and durable life beyond that of the body”. I have recently finished reading “The Art of War” an article in the March 12, 2007 edition of “Time” by Lev Grossman. The article is about a, largely computer generated, movie regarding a war in ancient Greece. The movie’s title is “The 300 Spartans” and Zack Snyder is the director. The movie is, except for the human actors, a virtual world created by digital movie techniques. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595241-2,00.html “Snyder is one of a small, hypertechnical fringe of directors who are exploring a new way to make movies by discarding props, sets, extras and real-life locations and replacing them with their computer-generated equivalents.” “With so much computer-generated make-believe going on, the actor’s physicality is the movie’s only link to the real world…every frame was manipulated and color-shifted to create an intense, thunderstorm palette…The result is a gorgeous, dreamlike movie that’s almost perfect. Every frame is neat and composed, like an oil painting, not a hair or a grain of sand out of place. All noise and dissonance have been digitally eliminated. Maybe that’s the only way to make a war movie right now, or at least, the only way to make a war movie that’s not an antiwar movie…That’s why it’s a piece of mythology. It’s what we would hope for. “300” is a vision of war as ennobling and morally unambiguous and spectacularly good-looking.” That’s one hell of a special effect. And this movie is, I find, an insight into the meaning of “evil in human affairs”. We are all directors of our individual and our community’s virtual reality. I suspect we have repressed such conscious thoughts about mortality that we are inclined to dispatch with a shrug any talk of such matters; do you ever consciously seek to “achieve immortality in some way”? Quotes from “Escape from Evil”—Ernest Becker

Turtles and Humans Have Much in Common I had once concluded it to be natural that when confronted by a new idea humans tended to do a turtle; withdraw into their shell until the coast was clear. After some time posting in cyberspace I have modified my view somewhat. I think that we tend to display two types of turtle responses to our encounter with new ideas. The terrapin withdraws quickly into its shell and the snapping turtle hisses, spits, and snaps when such an encounter happens. I suspect that cyberspace has allowed many people to display a more vulgar attitude than they would in face-to-face encounters. I think that age is a factor in this equation. The young tend to be snappers and the older tend to be terrapins. I think that our teachers and professors have imprinted on the minds of their pupils that there is a legitimacy aspect to knowledge. That knowledge introduced by the teacher is legit and the rest should be avoided when possible. Instead of graduates eager to learn and to earn we have constructed an educational system that qualifies citizens for a life of mindless production and consumption. Instead of turtles we need cats as a model for schooling. A cat travels through the forest alert and curious to all that is in her range of perception. Instead of withdrawing into a shell the cat stealthily examines everything in its path. After a quick examination the cat very well may dart away for cover. The cat is, I think, more likely to survive in a dynamic and dangerous world than is the turtle. Everyone is ignorant of 99.9999…% of the knowledge in the world. Understanding this fact I think is the first step toward setting each one of us free from any embarrassment we might feel about our ignorance. We should use our ignorance as a catalyst for discovering the joy of learning to understand what ever portion of the world’s knowledge that interests us. We were born smart enough but we weren’t born intellectually sophisticated enough to handle this high tech world we have invented. What is the difference between “being smart” and “being sophisticated”? I would say that we can use the handyman and his tool box as a good analogy for comprehending this difference. The number and quality of the instruments in a handyman’s tool box is a measure of his smartness and his experience using those tools is a measure of his sophistication. If a handyman has only a hammer then every job is a job that will get hammered on. If that handyman has a great tool box but has experience only with a hammer then that handyman will look for things that can be hammered into place. What’s in your tool box that you can use efficiently? Do you know how to become more intellectually sophisticated? Become a self-actualizing self-learner.

Self-actualizing self-learning is Viagra.

Snail Yes, metaphors are political weapons and they can affect your world view and even they cause some to die and some to kill. Global capitalism is empire. Courtesy of George Soros and his book “Open Society” I shall introduce my new metaphor; ‘global capitalism is empire’. Global capitalism is more extensive than any other empire--the sun never sets on global capitalism--it rules entire civilizations--it is almost invisible and posses no formal structure--it governs those who belong to it and those who do not belong to it are toast--it has a center and a periphery--it is constantly seeking new conquests--the empire generates deep disquiet at the periphery--it is non territorial seeking to always be ‘off-shore’--it turns land, labor, and capital into commodities--it penetrates non economic areas of civilization.

New metaphors can create new realities Lakoff and Johnson, coauthors of “Metaphors we Live By”, speak of a newly arrived Iranian student who had mistaken the constant refrain he heard from other students that “the solution of my problems” meant that they were talking about a metaphor that was unfamiliar to him but sounded very intriguing. This Iranian student was very disappointed when he discovered that these other students were speaking in frustration rather than of a new and wonderful metaphor. He had mistaken this ‘solution of my problems’ was some kind of chemical mixing bowl, “which he took to be a large volume of liquid, bubbling and smoking, containing all of their problems, either dissolved or in the form of precipitates, with catalysts constantly dissolving some problems (for the time being) and precipitating out others.” The authors see this as an accidently developed but marvelous new metaphoric means for viewing problems and their solutions. The normal metaphor for problem solving is usually the puzzle metaphor, ‘problem is puzzle’. This new problem metaphor, ‘problems in solution’, offers a deliciously new and useful slant on the nature of problems and the nature of solving problems in life. ‘Problems in solution’ metaphor would entail: • Problems never completely disappear • Solving one problem may precipitate another • Since we have little control of what goes into he pot we constantly find new ones and old ones under another guise • A catalyst for solving one problem my promote another • A temporary problem solution may be the most we can hope for • Problems are part of the natural order of things The ‘problem is puzzle’ metaphor leads us to believe that there is an ultimate right solution whereas the ‘problems in solution’ does not. All this does not mean that it is easy to change metaphors that we live by but it does point up the importance of metaphor and how metaphors affect our world view and our daily mundane existence. Can you think of a new but marvelous metaphor? Can metaphors help save us from our self? Is ‘war on terrorism’ a useful metaphor? For whom is it useful?

Critical Self-Consciousness I once asked a professor of philosophy what is philosophy about, she said “philosophy is about radically critical self-consciousness”. I have decided that CT (Critical Thinking) is the first important step on to this stage of critical self-consciousness. CT is philosophy light. Our mind tends to be dominated by the ego and the group when we have not yet become critically self-conscious. I am not an expert in these matters (such has never hindered me from expressing my considered opinion) but from the things I read regarding critical self-consciousness they make sense to me. Ego influences me by: I think it is true therefore it is. I want it to be true therefore it is. Group influences me by: The group name identifies me. The group influences my associations. The group is us and the other group is them. What we do is good what they do is bad. I suspect that the ego domination was the natural human condition during early evolution and slowly the ego morphed (transformed) into a group in some areas of consciousness (focused attention). I think that Madison Avenue (advertising agencies) and the oligarchy (non elective group running the nation in that group’s interest) have learned to manipulate our egocentric and sociocentric characteristics for the advantages of marketing interests. Our ego drives us to buy the BIG car and our group drives us to dominate the other group in the interest of our group. ‘To be critical’ is often, I think, confused with ‘to be negative’. To be critical is to stop, think, analyze, and seek comprehension and possible improvement. To be critically self-conscious is to focus the critical effort inward with the self as the object of criticism. I think that most of our personal and international tragedies are a direct result of our lack of critical self-consciousness. Is that a ‘bunch of baloney’ or do you find truth contained therein? I think that we can do a much better job building a better society if we developed a critical self-consciousness. What do you think?

It seems to me that an ecosystem is "a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts." How well have we adapted to atomic bomb technoogy? MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) is a pretty lame adaptation. How well have we adapted to the destruction of our planet by the polution introduced by our technology? Global warming is the answer.

Our success is killing us The aims of technology are achieved and our chances for survival are fatally diminished. The fault is not in our technology but in us. The fault lies within human society. McLuhan made us aware of the fact that technology is an extension of our self. I would say that we and also our ecosystem are both gestalts, a whole, wherein there are complex feedback loops that permit self healing and various means that protect us from our self. The dictionary defines gestalt as meaning a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts. When we interfere with the gestalt, i.e. our ecosystem or our self, we are changing some one or some few of the feedback loops that help us maintain equilibrium. Such modifications, if not fully understood, can send the gestalt into a mode wherein equilibrium can no longer be maintained. In 1919 Ernest Rutherford announced to a shocked world “I have been engaged in experiments which suggest that the atom can be artificially disintegrated. If it is true, it is far greater importance than a war.” Today’s stem-cell research could, in my opinion, be considered as more important than a war and also more important than Rutherford’s research success. The discussion regarding the advisability of continuing stem-cell research primarily focuses on the religious/political factor and on the technology but there is little or no focus upon the impact that could result to our society beyond its health effects. We are unwilling or unable to focus on the long-term effects of our technology and thus should put much of it on hold until we gain a better means to evaluate the future implications of our technology. What do you think about this serious matter?

Self knowledge is the essence of self-actualization. Freedom and self-actualization feed upon one another. The more freedom we have the more likely we are to self-actualize and as we do we gain more freedom. They share a symbiotic relationship.

The end of freedom I am shackled hand and foot spread eagle on the floor of my cell. I ask my jailer everyday to set me free. Finally he compassionately sets me free. For days I am exhilarated with the ability to freely pace about my cell. After a few weeks I begin to beg my jailer to set me free. After weeks he, being a compassionate man, sets me free from my cell. For days I am exhilarated at the freedom to wonder about and speak with other inmates. After several weeks I begin to beg my jailer to free me and finally he relents and releases me from jail. I am overwhelmed with the sense of freedom until I, overcome with hunger and basic needs, seek some work so as to feed myself. I find a job working on an assembly line and am exhilarated at the new found freedom. After a year I begin to seek other less strenuous and repetitive assembly line work. I wish to free myself from this robotic work I do everyday. What is the ‘telos’ (ultimate end) of this series of ever persistent desire for freedom? Is hunger for freedom similar to hunger for food, never satiated? I don’t think so. I think the search for freedom can culminate in an ultimate and satisfying end. Freedom, I suspect, is a search for self-determination. When we feel that we are master of our domain, when we are free to determine who we are and what we need to be our self we will have reached that ‘telos’ of freedom. I suspect this end is as unique as a finger print, it is an act of creation and can be made conscious to me only by me. I think each of us must learn for our self what we need to secure freedom’s ‘telos’. Probably most of us find only a degree of freedom, but if we never stop looking we may continue finding more of it.

Where does philosophy come from? Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature. It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”. The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”. The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it. The Folk Theory of General Kinds Every particular thing is a kind of thing. The Folk Theory of Essences Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior. The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is: The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics Kinds exist and are defined by essences. We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality. Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness. The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson.

One might say that globalism started with the founding of the silk trade routes when the city states in Italy were emerging.

What is globalism & globalization? http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2392 Joe Nye, former Dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, informs us: Globalism describes the existence of various forms of networks that interconnect multi-continental distances while globalization describes the degree of globalism. In short, Nye considers “Globalism as the underlying basic network, while globalization refers to the dynamic shrinking of distance on a large scale”… globalization is the process by which globalism becomes increasingly thick and/or intense. There are four distinct dimensions of globalism: economic, which is the flow of goods and services; environmental, which is the effect upon the worlds environment and health; social, which is the flow of ideas and the effect of those ideas and ideologies upon the worlds cultures; and of course, there is the military dimension where power is displayed world wise by all cultures with such power.

What moral attitude should we take toward Globalism? From the American workers view the positive side of Globalism is that many workers worldwide in very poor countries will experience a significant increase in their standard of living because the manufacturing of certain products that were manufactured in America are manufactured in their country. From the American workers view the negative side of Globalism is that the standard of living of many Americans will decline significantly because of the work that has gone to poor countries. From the American capital owning and financial brokerage view Globalism is the best thing since sliced bread. What moral judgment should all Americans take toward Globalism? I have no answers to this very difficult question. This is the type of question that leads some people, like me, to duck their moral principles. I suspect that Americans with capital will reap great advantage from Globalism but working Americans will be net losers. The workers and the capital owning citizens in poor countries will be large net winners. When I speak of America I should have said American workers. I am confident that America on average gains from Globalization but the workers do not get this net gain. The gain goes to those with capital not those who labor. Those with labor are net losers. In America if one looks at gross numbers I think it will clearly show a net increase. The problem is that this gain goes to those with capital and not to the workers with family incomes below $50,000. Less expensive goods are a gain for workers. I suspect the job insecurity and job loss plus the stagnate wages are not to the workers advantage.