10 tips to get out of debt
by Gail Vaz-Oxlade, For CNBC
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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From the internet...
How can you get out of debt and back on the road to recovery? Renowned financial author and Til Debt Do Us part host Gail Vaz-Oxlade takes a tough-love approach to helping couples in a financial crisis to face reality. Here are Gail's top 10 tips to get out of debt..
Cut Your Credit Cards and Set A Budget
Every family that finds themselves in debt should cut up all their credit cards and live on a cash budget, keeping a log of each and every expenditure made. Use the following formula to set a budget. Keep in mind that the "life" category includes everything from groceries, to gadgets to entertainment. Housing: 35%, Debt: 15%, Life: 25%, Transportation, 15%, Savings 10%.
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Reduce Your Interest Rates
Reducing your interest cost is one way to fast track your way out of debt. Some people have interest rates as high as 30%. When they pay their monthly minimum, all they're doing is paying off interest rather than chipping away at the principal. By calling to negotiate with creditors, high interest rates can be brought down. If you call and a representative says they can't help you, ask to be connected to a supervisor until you get to someone with the authority to reduce your rates.
Bring In Extra Money
Do anything you can to bring in extra money to throw at your debt, even if you work a full time job. Consider overtime at work, dog walking, baby sitting, tutoring, or using any skill that's unique to you to bring home the bacon…some creative ideas we've seen on the show: web designing, party planning, teaching music lessons and much, much more!
Get Your Priorities Straight
When deciding how to tackle debt and putting a plan in place to save for the future, you have to consider all of your options. Ask yourself the tough questions and prioritize…if going to grad school is important, then maybe you can be a student but take on a part-time job. If having a child is important, do you need to take a full maternity leave? Should you consider buying a home - maybe renting is a smarter option? Make a list of things you want to do and discuss them thoroughly with your partner to help make the best decisions for you and your relationship.
Chip Away At The Debt
To reduce debt, make a list of every single debt that you have and rank them in order of the highest interest rate, not the highest balance. Pay off the highest interest rate card first. Every time you have extra money, throw it at the debt you've targeted until it's gone and then stop using that card! Reward yourself by making a checklist and crossing out the debt, you'll feel better as you start to see it disappear. When your debt is paid off, take the money you were allocating for debt repayment and put it towards savings.
Keep Things In Perspective
Getting out of debt isn't easy, but you have to remember that you cannot let debt consume you and hurt your relationship. You and your partner need to work through the debt together, making sacrifices but focusing on what's important as well - your family and your relationship. Get a babysitter and make time to do something special with your spouse so you can remember why you fell in love, set time aside to do group activities as a family to involve the kids as well. Don't let your debt get the best of you.
Getting Out of Debt Doesn't Mean You Can't Ever Spend Again
When working your way out of debt you can still spend on things that are important to you, you just need to plan and save for them. So for example, if you're planning to get married, don't rush out and cancel your wedding - re-think your wedding plans and see if there are cheaper alternative ways to spend on what you want. If you really love to travel, don't cancel your trip for the year, figure out a way to do it on a tighter budget and save a little each month for it so you don't have to put it on credit cards.
Stop Eating Out
Eating out costs way more than buying food and cooking at home, not to mention that the latter option is much healthier as well. Make cooking dinner a family activity, something that can be done to together to make the experience more enjoyable - and when you're done cooking, sit down and have dinner together, discuss the day's events and catch up. Having dinner parties at home is also a way to cut down on entertainment with friends. If you're planning a romantic dinner consider taking the kids to their grandparents' and having dinner at home rather than in a restaurant. If you're going to get together with friends, consider the same thing. Remember, it's not about the food, it's about the company.
Get Organized
When it comes to working your way out of debt it's all about organization - believe it or not getting your documents in order will help you pay down your debt because it puts you in control. Organize your paperwork so you know where every important document is and so that all documents are easily accessible. Use a collapsible file folder, label the tabs clearly and most importantly, do this with your spouse so you both understand the system.
Be Willing To Part With Toys
Sometimes to get out of debt you'll have to sell something that's really important to you or that you love. The reality is dealing with the heartbreak of losing material things will be far less than dealing with the damage that these things can do to your finances. If you have to sell a car, house, piece of jewelry, artwork or anything else, take a deep breath and realize that what you're doing will help your future and your finances - and just let it go.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Essence of 'The Will to Power', 'The Master/Slave Relationship', and How It Affects Modern Philosophy, and Modern-day Living...The Dialectic of The Will to Power vs. The Will to Democracy
Life is full of opposites...and much positive energy and results can be derived from engaging opposites -- opposite perspectives, opposite concepts, opposite theories, opposite personalities, opposite characteristics...-- into contact with each other, playing both sides towards the middle in a way that brings creative new integrative possibilities into existence where none existed before...
As Carl Jung has stated, the energy comes from the tension of the opposites interacting with each other...sometimes in the heat of attraction, passion, and sexuality, other times, in the heat of argumentation, disagreement, and conflict...Either way, I call this the 'dialectic force of Nature/God/Evolution'...
The first 'dialectic philosopher' in the East goes back to whoever created the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'...the 'feminine' and 'masculine' forces in Nature and Evolution...I have this philosopher pinned as Lao Tse. However, the roots of Chinese philosophy go very, very deep, and it could have been someone unknown before Lao Tse who created the yin/yang dialectic concepts...
Over in the West, back in Ancient Greece, before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, I have Anaximander pinned as the first Western dialectic philosopher. Anaxamander's philosophy was both very mystic and primitive on the one hand, but interpreted in a particular way, it becomes very profound and wise, and just as relevant today as when he created it somewhere back about 650-700BC...
Anaxamander's idea -- and I am paraphrasing and interpreting -- was that opposites are born from Chaos (The Apeiron, The Universe, The Boundless, The Infinite, The Shadows...Jung/Gestalt Psychology)...From Chaos and The Shadows are born opposites (night vs. day, hot vs. cold, men vs. women...) which are differentiated from each other and enter the World as we know it, and experience their differences in contact with each other. From this contact of differences, boundaries become apparent, and a Battle For Power ensues...(Nietzsche's 'Will to Power'...)...
Out of this 'battle for power', 'winners' and 'losers' become apparent based on the difference of 'superiority' and 'inferiority' (Adler)...and based on this principle of superiority and inferiority becomes the beginning of what Hegel would come to call over 2000 years later, 'The Master/Slave Relationship'... Translated into Marxian Philosophy, this becomes 'The Bourgeoisie' vs. 'The Proletariat'...translated into Capitalist Philosophy, this becomes 'The Employer' vs. 'The Employee, The Union, The Workers'...translated into Feminist Philosophy, this becomes the old 'Dominant Husband vs. Submissive Wife role positions'...translated into Religious Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Catholics and the Protestants, the Christians and the Muslims, the Palestinians and the Jews...translated into Political and Economic Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Capitalists and The Socialists, The Liberals and The Conservatives, the Republicans and The Democrats...the Politicians and the Citizens...
Everywhere we look the 'fight for power between opposites' is evident....
In some cases, we at least partly strive to 'balance this power' in the idea of a 'democracy' or 'egalitarianism'... The idea of 'balancing opposite powers' goes back to Heraclitus in the West (following in Anaxamander's footsteps but taking Anaxamander's philosophy to a different level in the idea of 'balancing opposing forces'); and again to the East and the idea of 'balancing yin and yang forces for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining health'...In contrast, the idea of 'an imbalanced power force' between yin and yang forces -- either yin dominating yang, or yang dominating yin, becomes associated with the idea of 'medical pathology'...This idea can easily be transferred to psychology and to much, if not all, of life....
Thus, even in the realm of 'yin and yang (masculine/feminine; testosterone/estrogen) relationships', we can talk about Hegel's idea of the 'master/slave relationship'...which has roots in the ancient 'Power Philosophy of Anaxamander'...
Now this 'master/slave relationship' is a little more complicated than we usually assume it to be, and Hegel was the first to point this out...Indeed, the relationship of the 'master' and 'slave' is often a relationship of 'co-dependence'...and 'attraction' as well as 'repulsion'...People want freedom and yet they are afraid of freedom and in the words of Kierkegaard, Sartre and Eric Fromm often get 'terrified by freedom' and 'back up' to 'Escape From Freedom' (Fromm)...
They often 'retreat to the Master/Slave Relationship' in order to 'escape the terror of their own individual freedom'....
Regarding the issue of 'co-dependence', the Master and The Slave are often tied to each other in a co-dependent relationship in which both perceive that they need each other -- just as often, they resent and hate each other for the same reason. They both have a different type of 'power' and a different type of 'weakness'. The Master knows how to 'lead' and how to 'tell other people what to do' but at the same time, often he or she is either incapable of, and/or unwilling to, do the work the Slave knows how to, and is capable of, doing...
Thus, take away the Slave, and the Master becomes terrified -- he or she loses his or her power and doesn't know what to do because he or she doesn't know how to do the work that The Slave was doing...The Master feels a deep emotional and behavioral void and vacuum in the absence of the Slave...unless the Master knows how to, and is capable of doing, the work just vacated by The Slave...
Now the Slave may feel terrified of running away from The Master for any or all of a variety of different reasons: provocation, intimidation, prosecution, persecution, victimization, loss of food, shelter, and/or money...
Which heightens the Master's power....
Until the 'cycle of power' changes...
This was the essence of the wisdom of Anaxamander's 2700 year old philosophy...
The cycle of power always changes...
People do injustices upon each other...
The Master exploits injustices onto the Slave...
But The Slave, over time, learns how to exploit injustices back onto the Master...
And over time, the powerful (the Master) becomes weaker, while the less powerful (the Slave) becomes more powerful...
To the point, where one day the Slave becomes Master of either his or her own freedom, and/or the Slave becomes Master over The Master...(Adler, 'superiority striving', 'the mastery compulsion')...
But there are a lot of steps -- and steps backward -- to getting here....
For both the Master and the Slave...
The Master needs to learn how to 'give up control'...to 'listen' to the Slave...and to 'learn' from the Slave...to learn from the Slave how to do those things that the Master may not know how to do properly...
And the Slave needs to learn from the master how to take more 'initiative' and 'risk'...to have more 'courage to leap into the unknown'....'to take chances'....to 'jump across the Nietzschean Abyss from Being or non-Being to Becoming'...
In short, the Master needs to learn more 'social sensitivity skills', more how to 'give up self- control',
While the Slave needs to learn more 'self-assertiveness skills', more how to 'take self-control'...
The Master too often has no ears to listen...
While the Slave too often has no mouth to speak...
The Master usually has too much 'yang'...
And the Slave too much 'yin'...
They both have 'gaps', 'holes', 'voids' in their personality....
They both long for freedom and strive to achieve and/or maintain power, while avoiding self-accountability for their own respective 'weaknesses',
They both can learn from each other...
Such is the nature, essence, the ongoing dialectic, between The Will to Power and The Will to Democracy and Egalitarianism...
In the combined words of a number of historical, philosophical friends of mine...
'Thus, Anaxamander, Lao Tse, Hegel, Nietzsche, Zarathrusta
And dgb...
Spoke...'
-- dgb, March 5th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
As Carl Jung has stated, the energy comes from the tension of the opposites interacting with each other...sometimes in the heat of attraction, passion, and sexuality, other times, in the heat of argumentation, disagreement, and conflict...Either way, I call this the 'dialectic force of Nature/God/Evolution'...
The first 'dialectic philosopher' in the East goes back to whoever created the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'...the 'feminine' and 'masculine' forces in Nature and Evolution...I have this philosopher pinned as Lao Tse. However, the roots of Chinese philosophy go very, very deep, and it could have been someone unknown before Lao Tse who created the yin/yang dialectic concepts...
Over in the West, back in Ancient Greece, before Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, I have Anaximander pinned as the first Western dialectic philosopher. Anaxamander's philosophy was both very mystic and primitive on the one hand, but interpreted in a particular way, it becomes very profound and wise, and just as relevant today as when he created it somewhere back about 650-700BC...
Anaxamander's idea -- and I am paraphrasing and interpreting -- was that opposites are born from Chaos (The Apeiron, The Universe, The Boundless, The Infinite, The Shadows...Jung/Gestalt Psychology)...From Chaos and The Shadows are born opposites (night vs. day, hot vs. cold, men vs. women...) which are differentiated from each other and enter the World as we know it, and experience their differences in contact with each other. From this contact of differences, boundaries become apparent, and a Battle For Power ensues...(Nietzsche's 'Will to Power'...)...
Out of this 'battle for power', 'winners' and 'losers' become apparent based on the difference of 'superiority' and 'inferiority' (Adler)...and based on this principle of superiority and inferiority becomes the beginning of what Hegel would come to call over 2000 years later, 'The Master/Slave Relationship'... Translated into Marxian Philosophy, this becomes 'The Bourgeoisie' vs. 'The Proletariat'...translated into Capitalist Philosophy, this becomes 'The Employer' vs. 'The Employee, The Union, The Workers'...translated into Feminist Philosophy, this becomes the old 'Dominant Husband vs. Submissive Wife role positions'...translated into Religious Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Catholics and the Protestants, the Christians and the Muslims, the Palestinians and the Jews...translated into Political and Economic Philosophy this becomes the tension between the Capitalists and The Socialists, The Liberals and The Conservatives, the Republicans and The Democrats...the Politicians and the Citizens...
Everywhere we look the 'fight for power between opposites' is evident....
In some cases, we at least partly strive to 'balance this power' in the idea of a 'democracy' or 'egalitarianism'... The idea of 'balancing opposite powers' goes back to Heraclitus in the West (following in Anaxamander's footsteps but taking Anaxamander's philosophy to a different level in the idea of 'balancing opposing forces'); and again to the East and the idea of 'balancing yin and yang forces for the purpose of obtaining and maintaining health'...In contrast, the idea of 'an imbalanced power force' between yin and yang forces -- either yin dominating yang, or yang dominating yin, becomes associated with the idea of 'medical pathology'...This idea can easily be transferred to psychology and to much, if not all, of life....
Thus, even in the realm of 'yin and yang (masculine/feminine; testosterone/estrogen) relationships', we can talk about Hegel's idea of the 'master/slave relationship'...which has roots in the ancient 'Power Philosophy of Anaxamander'...
Now this 'master/slave relationship' is a little more complicated than we usually assume it to be, and Hegel was the first to point this out...Indeed, the relationship of the 'master' and 'slave' is often a relationship of 'co-dependence'...and 'attraction' as well as 'repulsion'...People want freedom and yet they are afraid of freedom and in the words of Kierkegaard, Sartre and Eric Fromm often get 'terrified by freedom' and 'back up' to 'Escape From Freedom' (Fromm)...
They often 'retreat to the Master/Slave Relationship' in order to 'escape the terror of their own individual freedom'....
Regarding the issue of 'co-dependence', the Master and The Slave are often tied to each other in a co-dependent relationship in which both perceive that they need each other -- just as often, they resent and hate each other for the same reason. They both have a different type of 'power' and a different type of 'weakness'. The Master knows how to 'lead' and how to 'tell other people what to do' but at the same time, often he or she is either incapable of, and/or unwilling to, do the work the Slave knows how to, and is capable of, doing...
Thus, take away the Slave, and the Master becomes terrified -- he or she loses his or her power and doesn't know what to do because he or she doesn't know how to do the work that The Slave was doing...The Master feels a deep emotional and behavioral void and vacuum in the absence of the Slave...unless the Master knows how to, and is capable of doing, the work just vacated by The Slave...
Now the Slave may feel terrified of running away from The Master for any or all of a variety of different reasons: provocation, intimidation, prosecution, persecution, victimization, loss of food, shelter, and/or money...
Which heightens the Master's power....
Until the 'cycle of power' changes...
This was the essence of the wisdom of Anaxamander's 2700 year old philosophy...
The cycle of power always changes...
People do injustices upon each other...
The Master exploits injustices onto the Slave...
But The Slave, over time, learns how to exploit injustices back onto the Master...
And over time, the powerful (the Master) becomes weaker, while the less powerful (the Slave) becomes more powerful...
To the point, where one day the Slave becomes Master of either his or her own freedom, and/or the Slave becomes Master over The Master...(Adler, 'superiority striving', 'the mastery compulsion')...
But there are a lot of steps -- and steps backward -- to getting here....
For both the Master and the Slave...
The Master needs to learn how to 'give up control'...to 'listen' to the Slave...and to 'learn' from the Slave...to learn from the Slave how to do those things that the Master may not know how to do properly...
And the Slave needs to learn from the master how to take more 'initiative' and 'risk'...to have more 'courage to leap into the unknown'....'to take chances'....to 'jump across the Nietzschean Abyss from Being or non-Being to Becoming'...
In short, the Master needs to learn more 'social sensitivity skills', more how to 'give up self- control',
While the Slave needs to learn more 'self-assertiveness skills', more how to 'take self-control'...
The Master too often has no ears to listen...
While the Slave too often has no mouth to speak...
The Master usually has too much 'yang'...
And the Slave too much 'yin'...
They both have 'gaps', 'holes', 'voids' in their personality....
They both long for freedom and strive to achieve and/or maintain power, while avoiding self-accountability for their own respective 'weaknesses',
They both can learn from each other...
Such is the nature, essence, the ongoing dialectic, between The Will to Power and The Will to Democracy and Egalitarianism...
In the combined words of a number of historical, philosophical friends of mine...
'Thus, Anaxamander, Lao Tse, Hegel, Nietzsche, Zarathrusta
And dgb...
Spoke...'
-- dgb, March 5th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Singer Billy Bragg to stop paying taxes over bank bonuses
Singer Billy Bragg to stop paying taxes over bank bonuses
Mon Jan 18, 10:52 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer Billy Bragg has threatened to stop paying taxes, and called on others to follow suit, unless the government acts to limit bonuses paid by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
The 52-year-old singer, well known for his left-wing views and political activism, aims to tap public anger over "fat cat" bonuses at U.S. and British banks rescued with taxpayers' money during the financial crisis.
The huge bailouts have left the British government holding 84 percent of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and 43 percent of Lloyds Banking Group.
"I understand that the Treasury had little choice but to use taxpayers' money to safeguard savings and stabilize and restore confidence in the financial system," Bragg wrote on his page on the Facebook social networking site.
"What I don't understand is why, now that we taxpayers are the majority shareholders of these banks, we seem totally powerless to curb their excessive bonus culture?"
He quoted reports estimating RBS will pay its investment bankers around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in bonuses next month.
At the same time, he added, Britain's main political parties are warning voters that national debt will mean tough cuts in public spending after the next general election.
"I believe that the government have their priorities wrong.
"I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), Alistair Darling, to inform him that I am no longer prepared to fund the excessive bonuses of RBS investment bankers. Unless he acts to limit them to 25,000 pounds, I shall be withholding my tax payment on 31st January." In his Facebook campaign titled "NoBonus4RBS" he invited other British tax payers to do the same to exert pressure on the government to curb bonuses.
RBS has been forced to agree to slash payouts and hand the state a veto on its 2009 bonus pool, but the government has also said that going too far to restrict pay could dent the bank's ability to compete.
When asked about Bragg's initiative, a Treasury spokesman said: "We can reassure people there will not be a significant amount of taxpayers' cash going to bonuses at RBS."
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Mon Jan 18, 10:52 AM
LONDON (Reuters) - British singer Billy Bragg has threatened to stop paying taxes, and called on others to follow suit, unless the government acts to limit bonuses paid by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
The 52-year-old singer, well known for his left-wing views and political activism, aims to tap public anger over "fat cat" bonuses at U.S. and British banks rescued with taxpayers' money during the financial crisis.
The huge bailouts have left the British government holding 84 percent of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and 43 percent of Lloyds Banking Group.
"I understand that the Treasury had little choice but to use taxpayers' money to safeguard savings and stabilize and restore confidence in the financial system," Bragg wrote on his page on the Facebook social networking site.
"What I don't understand is why, now that we taxpayers are the majority shareholders of these banks, we seem totally powerless to curb their excessive bonus culture?"
He quoted reports estimating RBS will pay its investment bankers around 1.5 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in bonuses next month.
At the same time, he added, Britain's main political parties are warning voters that national debt will mean tough cuts in public spending after the next general election.
"I believe that the government have their priorities wrong.
"I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), Alistair Darling, to inform him that I am no longer prepared to fund the excessive bonuses of RBS investment bankers. Unless he acts to limit them to 25,000 pounds, I shall be withholding my tax payment on 31st January." In his Facebook campaign titled "NoBonus4RBS" he invited other British tax payers to do the same to exert pressure on the government to curb bonuses.
RBS has been forced to agree to slash payouts and hand the state a veto on its 2009 bonus pool, but the government has also said that going too far to restrict pay could dent the bank's ability to compete.
When asked about Bragg's initiative, a Treasury spokesman said: "We can reassure people there will not be a significant amount of taxpayers' cash going to bonuses at RBS."
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Friday, December 11, 2009
Health bosses accused of flu-mongering
Health bosses accused of flu-mongering
December 11, 2009
Comments on this story (32)
Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
Related
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Health bosses accused of...
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H1N1 pales against earlier... Most flu-shot allergies... Clinics offer both... Severe H1N1 reactions in 48... Seasonal flu shots added at...
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From selling sex to Osgoode...
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$1,400 eatery bribe sought...
RCMP plays cat-and-mouse...
Garlic outperforming gold...
Public health officials are misleading Canadians by continuing to characterize the H1N1 virus as a threat in the hopes of unloading millions of doses of unused vaccine, charges Ontario's former chief medical officer of health.
They are trying to save face because of an expensive overreaction, Dr. Richard Schabas said Thursday as lineups for the vaccine continued to dwindle.
He made his comments the day after the Public Health Agency of Canada unveiled a new advertising campaign aimed at encouraging Canadians to get vaccinated.
"Spending Christmas in bed or in an ICU unit is no fun and the only way to actually avoid that is for a large number of Canadians to be immunized," agency head Dr. David Butler-Jones told a teleconference.
He also said discussions are underway with the World Health Organization on what to do with the surplus vaccine.
Schabas, who is medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties, estimates that 35 million of the 50.4 million doses of vaccine that Canada has ordered, at a cost of more than $400 million, will not be used.
"They bought 50 million doses of vaccine and it's an embarrassment to them that it's not being used," he said, adding that it became available too late.
"I think if you are going to make that push, you at least need to tell people that the outbreak is essentially over and you have to say to people any future risk of H1N1, at least this year, is extremely small. ... You shouldn't mislead people." Schabas said.
The number of Canadians visiting doctors with flu-like symptoms peaked in late October, he noted.
"The real story is the disconnect between what the senior public health officials, provincially and nationally, have been saying to people and what's actually been going on," Schabas argued. "They have been misrepresenting the state of the outbreak and the level of risk."
Schabas said health officials have been preparing for years for a deadly avian flu pandemic and have had trouble switching gears to respond the mild H1N1 pandemic.
He added, people aren't buying into the fear as is evidenced by closing flu clinics. Toronto's eight remaining clinics were all to close Sunday but three of them shut their doors earlier this week because of little traffic.
While government officials now acknowledge the pandemic has turned out to be not as bad as initially feared, Schabas said they have been slow to adjust their responses.
"I think they got their knickers in a knot because they responded to their preconceptions. There was a preconception that a pandemic was going to be a terrible event," he said.
Ontario's 600-plus-page pandemic plan, like pandemic plans around the world, is modelled on a "moderately severe" pandemic with assumptions based on the 1957 flu pandemic. It anticipated 13,000 could die and up to 54,000 could require hospitalization.
The latest provincial numbers show 104 H1N1-related deaths and 1,656 hospitalizations so far.
Toronto Star
December 11, 2009
Comments on this story (32)
Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
Related
H1N1 pales against earlier...
Health bosses accused of...
Where to get vaccinated
Your H1N1 questions
Complete H1N1 coverage
More on SwineFlu
H1N1 pales against earlier... Most flu-shot allergies... Clinics offer both... Severe H1N1 reactions in 48... Seasonal flu shots added at...
Most Read
From selling sex to Osgoode...
$2 billion in tax revenue...
$1,400 eatery bribe sought...
RCMP plays cat-and-mouse...
Garlic outperforming gold...
Public health officials are misleading Canadians by continuing to characterize the H1N1 virus as a threat in the hopes of unloading millions of doses of unused vaccine, charges Ontario's former chief medical officer of health.
They are trying to save face because of an expensive overreaction, Dr. Richard Schabas said Thursday as lineups for the vaccine continued to dwindle.
He made his comments the day after the Public Health Agency of Canada unveiled a new advertising campaign aimed at encouraging Canadians to get vaccinated.
"Spending Christmas in bed or in an ICU unit is no fun and the only way to actually avoid that is for a large number of Canadians to be immunized," agency head Dr. David Butler-Jones told a teleconference.
He also said discussions are underway with the World Health Organization on what to do with the surplus vaccine.
Schabas, who is medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties, estimates that 35 million of the 50.4 million doses of vaccine that Canada has ordered, at a cost of more than $400 million, will not be used.
"They bought 50 million doses of vaccine and it's an embarrassment to them that it's not being used," he said, adding that it became available too late.
"I think if you are going to make that push, you at least need to tell people that the outbreak is essentially over and you have to say to people any future risk of H1N1, at least this year, is extremely small. ... You shouldn't mislead people." Schabas said.
The number of Canadians visiting doctors with flu-like symptoms peaked in late October, he noted.
"The real story is the disconnect between what the senior public health officials, provincially and nationally, have been saying to people and what's actually been going on," Schabas argued. "They have been misrepresenting the state of the outbreak and the level of risk."
Schabas said health officials have been preparing for years for a deadly avian flu pandemic and have had trouble switching gears to respond the mild H1N1 pandemic.
He added, people aren't buying into the fear as is evidenced by closing flu clinics. Toronto's eight remaining clinics were all to close Sunday but three of them shut their doors earlier this week because of little traffic.
While government officials now acknowledge the pandemic has turned out to be not as bad as initially feared, Schabas said they have been slow to adjust their responses.
"I think they got their knickers in a knot because they responded to their preconceptions. There was a preconception that a pandemic was going to be a terrible event," he said.
Ontario's 600-plus-page pandemic plan, like pandemic plans around the world, is modelled on a "moderately severe" pandemic with assumptions based on the 1957 flu pandemic. It anticipated 13,000 could die and up to 54,000 could require hospitalization.
The latest provincial numbers show 104 H1N1-related deaths and 1,656 hospitalizations so far.
Toronto Star
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
On The Prospect Of Any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'
There will never, ever be any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'. Hegel was dead wrong on this account.
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
What I mean by this, is that as long as we are living and breathing, we will always be in a fight for restoring 'balance in our lives' in a way that keeps us alive and fighting for life -- at least unless, or until, we decide to give up this fight.
Thus, the 'teeter-totter' or 'swinging pendulum' process in life is always with us -- both internally and externally -- until our life is over.
Only then can we talk about any 'Final Synthesis' -- complete entropy.
Until then, nothing is ever, ever going to be 'final'.
Any thought of a 'final ultimate Life Utopia' is completely bogus -- and simply gives new fodder for the gristmill of a whole host of new 'Counter-Utopias'...and 'New Syntheses' which in turn may be either warmly or coldly perceived and received...or both...and nothing ever ends unless or until there is some ultimate Holocaust...and even out of the ashes of this potential Holocaust new forms of life will likely spring anew...like new saplings springing out of the remnants of a Giant Forest Fire...
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, updated Nov. 22nd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
What I mean by this, is that as long as we are living and breathing, we will always be in a fight for restoring 'balance in our lives' in a way that keeps us alive and fighting for life -- at least unless, or until, we decide to give up this fight.
Thus, the 'teeter-totter' or 'swinging pendulum' process in life is always with us -- both internally and externally -- until our life is over.
Only then can we talk about any 'Final Synthesis' -- complete entropy.
Until then, nothing is ever, ever going to be 'final'.
Any thought of a 'final ultimate Life Utopia' is completely bogus -- and simply gives new fodder for the gristmill of a whole host of new 'Counter-Utopias'...and 'New Syntheses' which in turn may be either warmly or coldly perceived and received...or both...and nothing ever ends unless or until there is some ultimate Holocaust...and even out of the ashes of this potential Holocaust new forms of life will likely spring anew...like new saplings springing out of the remnants of a Giant Forest Fire...
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, updated Nov. 22nd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
On The Dangers of 'Pigeon-Holing' Life Processes Into 'Neat' Verbal Concepts, Categories, and Theories: Aristotelean Either/Or Logic vs. Hegelian Dialectic Logic
At the risk of redundancy, I want to once again emphasize the dangers of attempting to pigeon-hole life into neat, verbal concepts, categories, classification systems, and theories...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or' -- or at least not entirely. It works to the point where we can say that this bull seal won the battle against that bull seal in order to win 'mating rights' relative to a particular female seal.
However, it does not work to the extent that 'bi-polarizing' life only works to the extent that you allow for the possibility of a 'middle, interactive-integrative dialectic zone'.
It is in this sense here that what Aristotle did was he left out the excluded 'middle zone' in his multitude of 'bi-polar classification systems'. He excluded the 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither completely 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
In this sense, evolution is often 'dialectically integrative evolution'.
'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. In this regard, the offspring represents a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' based on the almost infinite potential of 'intermixing' different genes from different males and females, or for that matter, even different viruses, bacteria, molecules, and atoms.
Every modification in life creates a new life form.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or' -- or at least not entirely. It works to the point where we can say that this bull seal won the battle against that bull seal in order to win 'mating rights' relative to a particular female seal.
However, it does not work to the extent that 'bi-polarizing' life only works to the extent that you allow for the possibility of a 'middle, interactive-integrative dialectic zone'.
It is in this sense here that what Aristotle did was he left out the excluded 'middle zone' in his multitude of 'bi-polar classification systems'. He excluded the 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither completely 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
In this sense, evolution is often 'dialectically integrative evolution'.
'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. In this regard, the offspring represents a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' based on the almost infinite potential of 'intermixing' different genes from different males and females, or for that matter, even different viruses, bacteria, molecules, and atoms.
Every modification in life creates a new life form.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Monday, November 16, 2009
More Thoughts On The Self-Destructive Direction of Uncontrolled Individual and Cultural Narcissism...
Practicing good ethics is like exercising each day and/ or like eating a good, calory restricted, healthy, nutritional diet...Tough work...but if you keep practising it more and more, day by day, you become much better, much more proficient at living an ethical, well-balanced lifestyle over time -- just like what it takes to get into a good, steady habit of healthy eating and exercising.
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
...............................................................................................................................................
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
...........................................................................................................................
-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
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A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
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-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
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