That is exactly what I said and I still stand by every word of it. I
cited three examples of objective conditions that exist right now that
constrain what one can and cannot do and I asked what would happen if
one tried to behave outside of those constraints. Frankly, if a person
actually tried to act outside of those restraints imposed on all of us
by the objective conditions then one might very well be mentally ill,
but the constraints remain. Another objective condition is that humans
do not have the power to fly without technological aid. If a person
flaps his arms and tried to fly anyway he or she will not succeed. It
may well be that anyone who does make that attempt is mentally ill, but
the constraint remains and it is not the least bit ridiculous to
recognize that the objective condition exists and that it does impose
constraints on behavior.
On 8/4/2016 7:24 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
As promised, the discussion is over. However, I will correct the misinformation you state below by copying and pasting your own words from your original message. You did not outline objective conditions, you proposed three scenarios so extreme as to be unrealistic and absurd. You did not use objective conditions as examples at all. You used some “what ifs” that are, as I’ve already stated, ridiculously extreme responses to the objective conditions you now choose to outline in an attempt to change the course of events.
Here is what you said, copied and pasted from your message, so you can not claim you did not say what you did, indeed say.
"What happens if you decide that you are not going
<carjar82@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:to acquire or spend money from now on? No matter what your
proclivities might be what choice do you have? Or suppose you
decided that methods of electricity production have a negative
effect on the environment and so you will not use it. That means
that you will not consume food that is produced with any use of
electricity; you will not wear clothing that was produced with
any use of electricity; you will not live in a dwelling that was
built with any use of electricity. How far will you get and how
long will you survive? Or suppose you decide that it is your duty
to take care of every destitute person. Once you give everything
you have away to them and find that there are plenty of
destitute people left including yourself who is going to take
care of you?”
Alice, Roger. This is like listening to Hillary and Donald slinging
shit back and forth. I haven't the foggiest as to what the real issue
is, here. But from the sound of your "exchange" you won't be speaking
to one another again. Well my friends, that is how wars begin.
Now, before you shoot me, your humble messenger, tell me this, are
your responses "learned behavior", or are they deep within our DNA?
If the former, then the two of you will be able to lick your wounded
pride and come back to discuss whatever point you were trying to make,
but if it is deep within our DNA, let's just dig a hole and pull it in
behind us.
Carl Jarvis
(A man who knows better than to attempt to be a peace maker)
...but just can't help himself.
It's that old Rehab Teacher Gene that just keeps on keeping on.
CJ
On 8/3/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Okay, here are the three objective conditions that I used as examples.
One, we live in a money economy. That means that people acquire money
and spend it. Two, we live in a situation in which electricity is used
and the use of that electricity effects most every aspect of our lives
every day. Three, there are destitute people in this world and there are
a lot of them. Now, you say that these conditions do not exist and that
they are ridiculous extremes. If you really believe that then you have
no idea what is going on around you. If you really believe that we do
not use money, electricity and that there are no poor people then I
don't see how you can conduct your own daily life. Nevertheless, though,
these conditions do prevail and they limit both what one can do and what
one cannot do. If anyone is getting ridiculous it must be you for
denying these conditions. Now, let me advise you of something. If you do
not want to be insulted or be the recipient of offensive comments you
really should stop using insulting language and offensive comments too.
Every time you try to provoke me with obnoxious shitty attitudes you are
just inviting the same thing toward yourself. Also, if you choose to
interpret the fact that I have called you out on your shitty attitude as
an insult and so the conversation is over then so be it. Your insulting
obnoxious attitude is unpleasant to me anyway and I can do without it.
On 8/3/2016 9:52 AM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
Tantrums? I don’t think so. Are you defining that as objective
conditions, too? Again, I don’t think so.
I understand objective conditions in exactly the way you state in your
opening sentence.
Your examples do not represent objective conditions, because they are
impossible extremes.
Living in the world without money would be extremely difficult, but I
suppose it could be done if somebody, an unusual individual, to be
sure, really put his mind to it and established his own little barter
economy. But money or barter, it’s still currency in some form.
Living without being touched in any way shape or form by electricity?
I think that would be impossible, but if you care to outline some
harebrained scenario, have at it.
Making a decision to help every destitute person? That would be a
decision of a severely unbalanced mind, as, actually would the above
two examples you used.
It’s the extreme, fanatical nature of the examples. To avoid money as
much as possible, to avoid using electricity as much as possible, live
off the grid as far as one can, or to help every destitute person one
runs across in one’s own little corner of the world, fine, but the
extremes you outline are not possible objective conditions, they’re
not realistic, they are far beyond real extant conditions.
I ask you to craft your reply carefully, and if you say one insulting
thing to me, this discussion is over. I will no longer tolerate your
offensive comments. Your choice.
.
On Aug 2, 2016, at 9:20 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Alice, objective conditions are simply the conditions that really
prevail. They are independent of what anyone wants them to be or
believes them to be. They can be changed, though, and if the current
objective conditions prevent certain actions then a directed change,
whether it is hard or easy to effect, may make the desired actions
possible. What puzzles me is that I pointed to some objective
conditions that actually do prevail right now and showed how they
make certain actions, whether desirable or not, either impossible or
very difficult to accomplish. Then I get from you that I am referring
to mental illness, something ridiculous and things that have nothing
to do with reality. That makes no sense to me at all. One of my
examples was how difficult it would be to continue existence in the
present day world without acquiring or spending money. Do you really
think that the money economy has nothing to do with reality? Or is it
that you think that completely ignoring the existence of money would
not interfere with your daily functioning. I do not understand how
you could possibly think that has nothing to do with reality. I
suspected that you had a different concept of objective reality than
I did, but I could not imagine what conception would lead you to say
what you did. So I asked what your conception of it is and you reply
that you will not tell me and that I should tell you. If it is not a
different idea about what objective conditions actually means then I
am at a complete loss of what you could have possibly meant. It made
no sense to me at all. Now, I can offer what I suspect. You have
taken a bit of a break from outright tantrums lately, but I suspect
that this could be another tantrum showing up again. Rather than jump
to that conclusion, though, I am trying to give you a chance to
explain yourself.
On 8/2/2016 7:53 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
ohhhh, nooooooooo…I’m not falling into that trap…
You tell me what it means, what you think it means, how you are
using, and we’ll go from there...
On Aug 1, 2016, at 8:16 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Alice, could you tell us what you think an objective condition is?
I get the impression that you do not know what the phrase means,
but I don't quite see what you do think it is.
On 8/1/2016 6:41 AM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
The examples you giving have less to do with human nature and more
to do with mental illness, because they are, dare I say,
ridiculous, extremes. The things you propose as what if’s also
have little to do with reality. They’re also, as you do point out,
impossible.
But after proposing these things you restate your position that
objective conditions determine human behavior. Sonow having
rejected your proposals as demonstrating nothing, I’ll restate my
position
that objective conditions do not determine human behavior or, more
to the point of the original argument, they don’t determine
whether the negative or the positive sides of human thought that
determines behavior will prevail, that in the same objective
conditions, an entire gamut of human nobility and human cruelty
can be observed.
What I offered as substantiation for my position are observations
of very different human behavior existing in the same objective
conditions. What wins out? Cowardice or bravery? Altruism or
selfishness? Helping others or helping one’s self? Working
together, sharing available resources or grabbing all one can get
for one’s self? Inviting strangers in to offer them shelter or
being only concerned with one’s self or even only with one’s own
family? Giving things away to those in need or selling them? At a
certain point, objective conditions and/or external, unconnected
circumstances might determine who survives and who dies, or maybe
even that everybody dies, no matter which choices were made, no
matter who has behaved in which manner. But those choices will
also have influenced that outcome, at least in certain cases, to a
certain extent. On Jul 31, 2016, at 8:02 PM, Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
wrote:
Okay, we don't have to go back twenty thousand years. Let's look
at right now. What happens if you decide that you are not going
to acquire or spend money from now on? No matter what your
proclivities might be what choice do you have? Or suppose you
decided that methods of electricity production have a negative
effect on the environment and so you will not use it. That means
that you will not consume food that is produced with any use of
electricity; you will not wear clothing that was produced with
any use of electricity; you will not live in a dwelling that was
built with any use of electricity. How far will you get and how
long will you survive? Or suppose you decide that it is your duty
to take care of every destitute person. Once you give everything
you have away to them and find that there are plenty of
destitute people left including yourself who is going to take
care of you? The point is that objective conditions have a lot, a
whole lot, to do with one's behavior. There are simply things
that one has to do and cannot do under certain objective
conditions and if those conditions are changed the range of
possibilities shift along with them. If there are things that it
is desirable for people to do and other things that it is
undesirable for people to do then by changing the objective
conditions they will have no choice but to change their behavior.
On 7/31/2016 4:22 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
My examples did not have anything to do with money per se, but
OK, not money then, but the mentality and behavior described is
fairly clear.
And really, how much relevance does 20,000 years ago really
have, particularly given the dearth of records, accounts, and
other assorted evidence that can tell the story in depth?
On Jul 31, 2016, at 3:07 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender
"rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I would like to see you hoard money twenty thousand years ago
when not only did money not exist but the concept of money did
not even exist. The objective conditions just simply did not
allow for the hoarding of money and not much of anything else
either.
On 7/31/2016 2:45 PM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
Both the better and worse sides of human nature prevail in
every objective condition you can name. The objective
conditions actually have the least effect on how people
behave. Some people who have every good thing imaginable and
in excess are selfish pricks who wouldn’t throw a life
preserver to a drowning man, even if it cost them nothing,
whereas, although I know you scoff at this, others establish
scholarships, foundations, support scientific research, open
settlement schools, that’s not so common anymore, establish
libraries, and while none of these things significantly
diminishes their lives of privilege, it’s still preferable to
keeping it all for themselves and ripping off those less
wealthy than they are. . Some people in the face of
unspeakable deprivation and horror will hoard everything they
can get their hands on, and others will share whatever little
they they have with others around them.
On Jul 31, 2016, at 2:22 PM, Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Just believing or not believing that the better sides of
human nature will or will not prevail does nothing to make it
prevail or not prevail. If you really want those better sides
to prevail it will be necessary to work to change the
objective conditions under which they operate. Recently I
came up with an example that I kind of like. That is what do
you do if you want a stiff alcoholic drink in Saudi Arabia. I
am neither saying that the consumption of alcohol is good or
bad. I am simply saying that the objective conditions in
Saudi Arabia are such that it would be extremely hard to get
drunk no matter how much you wanted to. If you have lived
there all your life it is even likely that you will not want
to get drunk or even think about getting drunk. The trouble
with Saudi Arabia is that the sides of human nature that that
society encourages and discourages are not the sides that I
think should be encouraged and discouraged. The point
remains, though, that if you don't want certain behavior to
take place you have to construct the objective conditions
such that it cannot take place and if you want other
behaviors to take place you have to construct the objective
conditions such that they will be inevitable.
On 7/31/2016 10:11 AM, Alice Dampman Humel wrote:
As I said to Dick, cynic that I am, I can’t quite bring
myself to really believe that the better sides of human
nature won’t prevail, experience notwithstanding. There are
many, many examples in which it does, despite many people’s
tendencies to rip even those to shreds because they are not
100% perfect.
And now, I’m going to do a little of that: you speak of the
ethical humanist movement, but look at how shabbily the New
York chapter treated you and your husband. Where were all
their admirable principles of equality and the positive
sides of human nature then?
On Jul 31, 2016, at 9:54 AM, Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Of course, humann nature is what it is. We have the
potential for altruism
and cooperation, and we have the potential for aggression
and domination. If
we assume that every effort toward making our political and
economic system
will end in failure because the negative aspects of human
nature will win
out, then really, there's no point in trying anything that
might improve
life for all of us. One of the things that I really like
about the Ethical
Culture, or Ethical Humanist movement, is its emphasis on
working toward the
kind of society that will encourage the positive aspects of
human nature.
Miriam
