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Ethical Reasoning by Foundation for Critical Thinking
The change we need is being unnecessarily delayed. What is suggested is that we bypass the long arduous process described here. In addition, research the already identified root cause of our wicked societal problems and adopt massive support for the solution as already defined in HR 2990.
What follows here is an explanation of the process necessary to identify the specific core problem in order to create the necessary support to change our civilization to meet the life standards being formulated by the OWS, 99%, and what the masses had thought already existed. There is nothing wrong with this because like so many things, developing a new society is a learning process requiring education or re-education and reorientation to the real meaning of freedom, justice and democracy most of us have taken for granted. As things become overbearing for more of us we need to get back to basics and apply our improved techniques of understanding to this reorientation. Critical reasoning is a good approach to this. This long, tedious process has already been done by several others. That work has already culminated in a solution.
Civilization can't come to grips with the reconciliation of democracy, justice, and freedom. We are an advanced species with every capability necessary to do so. We are however not a very mature species for our age and knowledge. It is time we jump that hurdle or face the stark reality that unless we do we are rapidly shortening the lives of billions and maybe even the species. The Earth will eventually rid itself of its toxins while all life is sustainable -- that includes us, or a massive percentage of us. It's time we take synergistic interaction with the Earth dead seriously.
Is this, however, somewhat of a purpose for an elite, powerful, egocentric pathological group of monecrats? Maybe they actually do believe there is an eco crisis and realize their version of civilization, which is crony capitalism, will not support human life in the numbers we have now. The current austerity worsens then accelerates and in a generation or so, we could purge the world of half its humans. It wouldn't be an openly discussed or an agreed on plan but more on the order of a meeting of the minds; a similar if not identical mindset among the global monetocracy. (The suffix "cracy' means a (specific) type of government.) If a Plutocracy is a government, by the wealthy then Monetocracy is government by money. We do in fact live in a highly dysfunctional monetocracy that has devastated the planet. They are close to the same thing but money and its institutions are the system the plutocrats stand behind so they maintain the ability to continue plundering the world. This is the most accurate description of governance in our modern civilization.
What they do is not ethical but it is unimaginable they would consider genocide even if they had that capability. I don't think the .2% are evil, they just think very, very differently and on a different and highly motivated and narrow view of how the world should work. Since they control the money, they see everything through the prism of finance and monetary matters. Actually they are correct to do so because of the fundamental role the money system plays in civilization - but their self interest cannot be divorced from the system long enough to see a better method for humanity than under which they operate. They don't want to. Why should they since they are the beneficiaries of it. It is powerful beyond human bounds. It is private and that is wrong. None of the founders imagined this as an acceptable outcome for the nation they created.
The private control of the most powerful system in the world is a reversible situation, but the monetocracy can't fix the problems because it is the problem. The "fixing' falls to the rest of us. It is possible with focused demands to extract this system from them and put it squarely where it belongs - in the hands of the people. Congressional market purists are still trying to pass tax cuts. Senators and other crony capitalists now want to lower taxes on health insurance companies despite record profits. This is not what surprises me, though. That they are promoting this amidst a financial crisis and depression type unemployment is astounding. This demonstrates unequivocally as they seem to do almost daily, their pathological "rigged "market worship at play, their absolute lack of civility toward the 99% of us, and a truly unusual, misguided lack of understanding about the real world. Being this committed to a failed philosophy especially one so contrary to deep democracy, freedom and justice is a significant pathology not worthy of a democracy.
Look, nobody in the 99% wants a bailout or charity from them or government. They aren't mad about their wealth success. The 99% now understands this nation and a part of its wealth are an inalienable right and they are taking action as the plutocrats try to squeeze us out entirely, consistently and relentlessly. The 99ers are outraged about having their own wealth stolen from them by a system so far out of alignment it has created worldwide protests aimed directly at the problem -- the financial world, systems, and institutions. If we are serious about solving this, not only the current crisis but the centuries of devastation it has wrought on civilization, then a solution that cuts right to the core of the problem requires understanding, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning.
After 45 years working and 25 of it in the IT discipline, I know one thing: Communication is hard work. Correctly conveying the intentions and meanings in your mind and thoughts, and then receiving the same from others, with varying levels of experience, understanding, education, skills etc., is an ongoing challenge. It is accelerated in difficulty, as subject matter becomes more complex, when more people are involved and a host of other barriers to effective communications including the medium etc. This is why the "Dollar', - money, is such a great invention. Some have said it is the only invention of man everything else being derivative from something preceding it. Money is the most basic and best-understood form of communication. Unfortunately, the way it has been hijacked by private interests it has become highly dysfunctional as monecrats destroyed countless lives in so many ways because of the process that brings it into existence in the first place. In a functional structure money is a pretty simple proposition. In order to maintain dominance however, the money masters have obfuscated and added layers and layers of complexity to this rather simple concept putting understanding out of reach for busy hard working Americans -- the 99%. Unfortunately this operational method has been so ingrained into our everyday life it has become unquestioned in large part. Even as the 99% have correctly aimed their wrath at the Wall Street 1% most still do not comprehend the root cause. They attribute it to greed mostly. And certainly that's true but what is incorrect is to think this is just a bunch of crooks in the system. What is fundamentally imperative is that the 99% understand the system itself is dysfunctionally rigged. Even before exotic derivative instruments, we were headed toward this situation and the hyper greed kicked in because despite already owning a huge percentage of the world they wanted more and they wanted it faster. And don't believe for a minute that lending to people who couldn't afford it was the problem. It is a problem but not for properly functioning banks prior to hyper greed and the new financial instrument created to bundle mortgagees and then sell them and derivatives on them. No, I'm sorry Fanny and Freddie are guilty of a lot things but they didn't cause this mess the wall street bankers are solely responsible for that. Banks operating their loan departments correctly would have had the reserves to deal with defaulting mortgagees. A Few banks might have gone broke making bad loans but it would not have brought he financial world down had they keep these loans under control and not created this $600 Trillion Bubble of derivatives on top of it. Sorry folks this falls directly on Wall Street genius's. To identify the problem and let the world know they knew the origins of the problem the 99% occupied and occupy Wall Street. To solve it they will need to continue to Occupy Wall Street as the occupy and petition Washing D. C.
Let's assume the people of the world, likely starting right here in America, decide to take matters into their own hands to rectify the financial systems. The short quick version is they organize, and determine to identify the root causes of our current civilization and nation's dysfunctions that caused them to come together in the first place. They form a root cause analysis-working group to do so. There are simple restrictions on who is appointed: just that it is determined they have the necessary skills to identify, rank in order of most devastating effects on humanity, and present the results in a comprehensive inclusive way. (They will discover the monetary system as the root cause of our worldwide problems.) When accepted, they aggressively promote a 3 to 5 point agenda of structural change in our systems our politics and our governance. The will educate and garner support. They get laws passed maybe even amendments to correct the real problem once and for all. They elect politicians interested in representative and not themselves. More rigor is applied by citizens to candidates intentions.
The important exercise of analysis to discover the root cause problems retarding and retracting liberty and justice for the 99%, should include a wide variety of knowledge, disciplines and the skill to cross over from one to the other. To validate the work products of this process and the causes uncovered it includes the entirety of research and facts used to develop the enumeration of causes as well as the inferences, assumptions and conclusions. All reasoning must be consistent with ethical reasoning and law validated by ethical standards. They follow guidelines and use other tools to ensure the efficacy of their work -- for real, no rubber stamps. Education takes place for everyone on the choices and their meaning etc. There are limitless deceptions and fallacies that will be invented and recycled in an attempt to derail it. The document should address obvious objections and outlandish fallacies with the same rigor. (They are not talking about another Simpson -- Bowles here, either, that continues to mask the real problem because they themselves do not have a clue about the monetary system dysfunction or they would address it. This analysis must do through analysis of all systems but a finally thorough and complete analysis of the monetary system and its impact on money in circulation over time and connections to economic dysfunctions will be a primary objective of this work.)
These methods are conducted to affirm to the highest level possible, of openness and lack of hidden agendas. Alignment of all of this must not violate the principles of the deepest meanings of Freedom and justice for ALL through deep democratic processes. These are the principles defined by our founders to overcome the natural human tendencies toward its egocentric nature. Ethical reasoning is the best, clearest method of validating our root issues and defining our resultant governing principles because it defines a basis and differentiation between what is acceptable human interaction that cuts the lines of all religions, and all law and is common to the vast majority. It is the minimum common denominator of acceptable human interaction. Before listing the essentials of ethical reasoning there is a more atomic level of freedom and humanity that is always overlooked in our usual declarations of freedom, and justice for all through democracy. Those need delineated explained and accepted by the general population if we mean to understand and establish, rebuild and re- structure our institutions and systems with honest and correct purpose.
These more basic levels or components of freedom are now an integral part of the freedom we refer to in our founding documents. They certainly are not treated that way as we have devolved in the last 50 years into harsh, more dysfunctional, almost an acceptance of aberrant behavior that at least borders on psychopathy if it isn't that. This is a big setback in a time of worsening fiscal environment creating a massive amount of human pain when we should all be striving to better understand or evolve toward a higher plane of freedom and understanding. This will be necessary if we are to move on. Hopefully we will look back 50 years from now and see it was a step backwards on an uphill evolution to much improved human conditions.
From john Bradshaw's book "The Family":
Five Freedoms Expressed In order to be fully functional, each human being needs to express freely the five basic powers that constitute human strength. These are: the power to perceive; to think and interpret; to emote; to choose, want (desire) and love; and to take risks through the use of imagination.
1. The freedom to see and hear (perceive) what is here and now, rather than what was, will be or should be. 2. The freedom to think what one thinks, rather than what one should think. 3. The freedom to feel what one feels, rather than what one should feel. 4. The freedom to ask for what one wants instead of waiting for permission. 5. The freedom to take risks in one's own behalf instead of choosing to be secure and always playing it safe.
These freedoms amount to full self-esteem and self-integration. Enormous personal power results from such freedoms. All of a person's energy flows freely outward, coping with the world while getting personal needs met. This allows the individual to experience full freedom and full functionality.
The founding fathers when expressing the need for freedom, justice and equality were more intuitive and expressed them in physical dimensions. Let's face it they were being treated tyrannically. They did not have the capability or knowledge of the human condition to the extent we have now. They wouldn't have been able to break those needs into more atomic components which research since has done but their language suggests strongly they understood these on some basic level. This caused them to allow room for an evolving country and the species as well. They were definitively and intuitively suggesting these were core human freedoms ("We hold these truths to be self evident --that all men are created equal", and "endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among them (not limited to) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.") and set up government around those core beliefs .
And what did they mean by "happiness'? From their book Spontaneous Evolution Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman tell us:
First, do not confuse the instrument of wealth--money--with wealth itself.
So what is wealth, really? The term wealth is derived from the old English word weal, which means "well-being." In its original context, wealth literally represents comfort, health, happiness, or satisfaction. The Founding Fathers were clearly aware of the meaning of wealth when they penned in the Declaration of Independence that individuals "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Lipton, Bruce; Steve Bhaerman (2009-08-31). Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (and a Way to Get There from Here) (p. 293). Hay House, Inc. - A. Kindle Edition.
Along with this freedom came responsibility for yourself but that wasn't meant to be a winner takes all/ dog eat dog world. The founders felt the need to facilitate this. Certainly all of them were on differing planes of understanding but they were all reaching toward a greater enlightenment and the visionaries intuitively understood there would be advance in even what was discovered about the human condition and wanted to allow a secure path to expand the discourse and allow for expansion of freedoms as we better understood them.
Yes, it all does tie together. The poisonous rhetoric of the right wing fundamentalists is quite a detriment and roadblock to human progress. Other religions are slow to adjust to the self evident truths we further uncover as we break through the next level of understanding.
Deep democracy described by John Bradshaw:
"Human evolution and human history have been characterized by what the French call prise de conscience. Prise de conscience refers to the process of enlightenment and self-understanding that takes place in the growth and maturity of an individual or a group. Once the evolutionary process reached the self-reflecting level of human consciousness, there was a deepening human awareness of those elements that constitute human nature. This awareness extends to an understanding of the kinds of environments that allow our essential nature to flourish. Humankind is constituted precisely as human by virtue of our ability to reason, exercise free will, develop moral conscience, be creative and live by the rules of law. There seems to be very little argument that these human activities are enhanced more by democratic forms of human governance than by monarchial, dictatorial (whether patriarchal or matriarchal) forms of political leadership. But monarchy has ruled most of Western history.
The French and American Revolutions, the catastrophe of Nazism, the existential revolt against rationalism have helped raise our consciousness to a new awareness of the meaning of democracy. We are now seeing that a deeper democracy is the way to more fully actualize our essential nature. Only when our consciousness shifts toward a deeper internalization of democracy do we see the gaps in our governance of humanity.
The family is the matrix of character-the most likely place for us to develop the foundation for true virtues and to internalize real and abiding values. We need to learn more about these matters, as the family is clearly being threatened and is failing to deliver virtuous people. The relevance of this book is more urgent in view of the regressive cry for traditional values. We need traditional values. The information in this book makes that clearer than ever before. But the plea for traditional values that we most often hear today is asking us to go back to a monarchial system of hierarchical power and to reinstate the rules of the poisonous pedagogy. Dittohead co-dependents are not the virtuous people of character that we need for the new age of deep democracy. As chaotic as modern family life may seem, the high divorce rate and runaway children can actually be seen as expressions of an emerging deeper democracy. Unlike times past, many women and children are expressing their courage and individuality by refusing to live in families where they are beaten and abused.
Deep democracy, as the psychologist Arnold Mindell points out in his book, The Leader as Martial Artist, is a timeless feeling of shared compassion for all living beings. Deeply democratic people value every organ in their body as well as their inner feelings, needs, desires, thoughts and dreams. Since we cannot be any more honest or loving with others than we are with ourselves, charity must begin at home. And when we love ourselves in a deeply democratic manner, we will love our children, parents and siblings the same way. Once our families are deeply democratic, we will create a deeply democratic love of nature, society and the world.
The past was not bad. It is simply inadequate in the light of our new consciousness of deep democracy."
John Bradshaw. Bradshaw On: The Family: A New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem
These human characteristics are well known, understood and accepted in the realm of human behavioral science. They are, although likely still not in the mainstream of public awareness, unassailable facts. They deal with other fundamental freedoms of the human condition. When we understand these, we gain a deeper awareness and a deeper understanding of how the structure we create for self-governance must be shaped. That governance, as a part of our human evolution, must fully facilitate those freedoms. They are reachable within a society of abundance where material wants become secondary to humanity itself, naturally, not mandated. Our structures and institutions must facilitate these freedoms. This is why our monetary system needs replaced -- to align with our basic American values. Any system that continually and purposely shorts the circulation of money is on its face corrupt. It is anti _American because it is diametrically opposed to the values of liberty, justice and democracy.
In identifying root causes, moving through the various manmade mechanisms, a very rigorous process called "Six Sigma' could be a helpful guide in ferreting out all the root causes. All methods and techniques must initially start with no assumptions and list all institutions, structures, and systems. Then assess them and their main driving forces to see how they work. Trace them back to commonalities among everything. Then they must be rated by impact and examined in order of impact for specific operational understanding. Next, examine their underlying assumptions and question vigorously to identify what's wrong with each component. After two or three rounds of digging for all the facts and artifcts, we are ready for final analysis and recommendations. Here are some of the standards necessary for acceptable, understandable and teachable results:
Therefore, we apply the rigor of critical thinking within systems development to develop solutions. Much of what follows will appear as common sense. Others might be offended at being, seemingly, told "how to act'. We may all be able to identify with both under differing circumstances. It is true we can resolve most ethical dilemmas using old methods like the golden rule and the Sermon on the Mount. In reality, using those or some similar method of reasoning boils down to curbing egocentrism. Humans are predisposed to egocentrism and is why we need to study things like civilization and ethics to understand how to overcome that thinking for our own long term benefit. People distort the golden rule and other useful maxims in all sorts of ways that require a more finely grained tool.
Here are some of the aspects of that ethical thinking, which is the foundation of critical thinking (Credit for this information follows it below):
- Ethical decisions require depth of understanding
- Egocentrism is a fundamental barrier to Ethical Reasoning -- Rational thinking is the goal
o Egocentric thinking strives for selfish interests while rational thinking considers the rights and needs of others as well
o Egocentric thinking strives to validate its current way of thinking while rational thinking strives to see things as they are
- We must learn to distinguish Among questions of ethics, social conventions , religion and the law
- The 8 elements of thought apply to the logic of ethical reasoning;
o Purpose: To act so as to help rather than harm other persons.
o Question: How should we act so as to help rather than harm others
o Information: Information about our options for action, with special emphasis on the information that helps us avoid harming others.
o Inference: Judgments about what helps or harms others
o Essential concepts: The concept of contributing to rather than undermining the well-being of others
o Assumptions: Humans are capable of distinguishing ethics from other modes of thinking, grasping fundamental ethical principles, and acting consistently with them
o Implications: If we behave ethically, innocent persons, and creatures are helped rather than harmed by what we do.
o Point of View: Seeing the world as a place wherein individuals and groups often act so as to harm innocent persons and creatures; seeing humans as obligated to help rather than harm others
- The uncritical mind systemically distorts the facts underlying ethical issues
- Intellectual standards assessing ethical reasoning include: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, fairness
- Essential ethical traits include: ethical humility, ethical courage, ethical empathy, ethical integrity Ethical perspective, ethical perseverance, fair-mindedness
- The stages of critical thinking development include in order: unreflective thinker, challenged thinker, beginning thinker, practicing thinker, advanced thinker, master thinker
This is not a comprehensive explanation of critical and ethical thinking. It was taken directly from "The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical Reasoning" by Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder from The Foundation for Critical Thinking. The link to their site is below.
http://www.criticalthinking.org/
It seems the concept of critical, ethical and systems thinking are tightly integrated. It is hard to imagine anything being ethical (or being validated as ethical) if not done through the rigor of critical thinking and using systems thinking method s for results expected.
In politics, education, institutions, and the market place - this is the missing link for understanding and consensus building. Learning these methods creates individual freedom. It allows you to think for yourself and determine fallacy from truth. We have over 80% of the nation believing Wall Street is the problem and we should act on that powerful consensus as a nation and address it. It doesn't mean they are right (although they are in this case -- it is self evident that this is happening due to the global monetocracy's deceit and fraud.), but it does dictate from a democratic view we address it and as soon as possible because of the urgency these numbers project about the future of our planet. From research, it is clear to me that is the case. The private banking system now tied inextricably to the Wall Street cabal has caused this. We need to change that system first.
We can do everything that is mentioned above or do enough research to discover that others have already done this , with the rigor necessary and then pass HR 2990 and have every OWS group in every congressional district mount the campaign to address their most egregious concerns, all of which are addressed in HR 2990 . There is no shame in being first with this major, civilization changing demand. Why not? HR 2990 is an existing well designed solution. HR 2990 has been validated by rigorous systems design as can be seen here:
