Not to be hypocritical but rather just to respond to your opening question, to use the Roman categories, I think the most undersupplied are Comitas and Clementia. I think that, especially in online discourse, there is far too little good humor, mercy, willingness to work towards common ground and forgive missteps.
This lack is certainly exacerbated by the nature of social media; in real life we value people who are friendly and easygoing, who support us and are easy to work with; in online discussions there is no way to "like" a "like", no way to incentivize agreeableness. The incentive is always to critique, to find offense, to point out a weakness, to comment an "umm akchually". Each such response can be liked and quoted and retweeted. But an "I agree, this is really well said" will not be.
I'm with German ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt on this: Anyone who has visions should go see a doctor. Tony Blair and George Bush had visions - look where that got us. Methodically and incrementally making a country's inhabitants' lives better. Isn't that what we want our politicians to do? If that's a vision, then it's one I can adhere to.
Ah, the vision thing. The reason there is not a Model Earth department in every university becomes quite clear when you run the numbers. What does everyone want? Equitable prosperity on a healthy planet. We are ruining the earth when the richest 1% of the world's population only earns $40,000 annually. If you ask any AI persistently what would the population be to restore the earth to a pre-industrial environment in five generations, you will get the answer of 350-500 million people. The only rational vision for our planet requires a reduction and reorganization of the earth's population to fit the already existing wealth. That is the obvious but forbidden truth that aborts any articulation of the vision you muse about. Would it be useful for this "vision" to enter the public discussion? Well, it would help to put a stop to all of the silly pretensions of our existing models, including the "underpopulation" problem (which is really a demographic complaint on the way to further ruin of the health of the earth) and socialism, which resolves the inequity issue but accelerates the degradation of the earth's health by multiplying the number of prosperous people without reducing the total population (see the spread of prosperity in China).
I agree, although I'd say vision is always undersupplied. People have always had a hard time stepping back and seeing how the world could be better in an actionable way, as opposed to utopias. It's like the "what's water" fish.
This is also a common transition when people hit midlife. The aperture widens, especially if you've succeeded in covering your basic needs and ambitions, and you start to wonder what you can do to make the world better. I think every generation goes through this.
Nan, I follow your work on CDR and appreciate the line of inquiry here. I have been walking down the philosophy road as well… a few thoughts.
* Socrates offers the cardinal virtues (temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice) in The Republic [Plato]. Justice is a bit murky, up for debate, and the topic of a large portion of the book. My interpretation is something like “the ability to feel anger and its causes,” especially in an altruistic way.
* The Prince [Machiavelli] notes the best leaders are the ones who possess virtù – something like ‘the will to power, and suggests it is perhaps preferable to exist with moral nihilism to be the best leader.
* Another interesting track is to consider how humans differ from animals. On Human nature [EO Wilson] notes four ways (altruism, religion, aggression, and sexuality) – these are not virtues per se, but a way homo sapiens map onto the world, and somewhat related.
I wonder if virtue could be thought of as 'moral force' - lifeforce that helps us shepherd 'the good' into existence, or resist something 'bad', from becoming real. Machiavelli might disagree with the good/bad dichotomy and simplify to 'the power to do'. This would put vision and virtue on different tracks, though.
60-70% of the people want universal healthcare. VISION: This video shows exactly how to do it. Put the market on the SUPPLY side, & and put a single-payer on the DEMAND side. The first political party that learns how to talk both social AND market principles will enjoy a long political ascendancy. Full exploration of all principles is given in the full playlist, called "New Addition to Economics."
The nameless virtue of minding one's own business.
I love this! I've linked it in a new post about how to develop positive visions: https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-like-a-good-king
Not to be hypocritical but rather just to respond to your opening question, to use the Roman categories, I think the most undersupplied are Comitas and Clementia. I think that, especially in online discourse, there is far too little good humor, mercy, willingness to work towards common ground and forgive missteps.
This lack is certainly exacerbated by the nature of social media; in real life we value people who are friendly and easygoing, who support us and are easy to work with; in online discussions there is no way to "like" a "like", no way to incentivize agreeableness. The incentive is always to critique, to find offense, to point out a weakness, to comment an "umm akchually". Each such response can be liked and quoted and retweeted. But an "I agree, this is really well said" will not be.
I'm with German ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt on this: Anyone who has visions should go see a doctor. Tony Blair and George Bush had visions - look where that got us. Methodically and incrementally making a country's inhabitants' lives better. Isn't that what we want our politicians to do? If that's a vision, then it's one I can adhere to.
Ah, the vision thing. The reason there is not a Model Earth department in every university becomes quite clear when you run the numbers. What does everyone want? Equitable prosperity on a healthy planet. We are ruining the earth when the richest 1% of the world's population only earns $40,000 annually. If you ask any AI persistently what would the population be to restore the earth to a pre-industrial environment in five generations, you will get the answer of 350-500 million people. The only rational vision for our planet requires a reduction and reorganization of the earth's population to fit the already existing wealth. That is the obvious but forbidden truth that aborts any articulation of the vision you muse about. Would it be useful for this "vision" to enter the public discussion? Well, it would help to put a stop to all of the silly pretensions of our existing models, including the "underpopulation" problem (which is really a demographic complaint on the way to further ruin of the health of the earth) and socialism, which resolves the inequity issue but accelerates the degradation of the earth's health by multiplying the number of prosperous people without reducing the total population (see the spread of prosperity in China).
I agree, although I'd say vision is always undersupplied. People have always had a hard time stepping back and seeing how the world could be better in an actionable way, as opposed to utopias. It's like the "what's water" fish.
This is also a common transition when people hit midlife. The aperture widens, especially if you've succeeded in covering your basic needs and ambitions, and you start to wonder what you can do to make the world better. I think every generation goes through this.
Nan, I follow your work on CDR and appreciate the line of inquiry here. I have been walking down the philosophy road as well… a few thoughts.
* Socrates offers the cardinal virtues (temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice) in The Republic [Plato]. Justice is a bit murky, up for debate, and the topic of a large portion of the book. My interpretation is something like “the ability to feel anger and its causes,” especially in an altruistic way.
* The Prince [Machiavelli] notes the best leaders are the ones who possess virtù – something like ‘the will to power, and suggests it is perhaps preferable to exist with moral nihilism to be the best leader.
* Another interesting track is to consider how humans differ from animals. On Human nature [EO Wilson] notes four ways (altruism, religion, aggression, and sexuality) – these are not virtues per se, but a way homo sapiens map onto the world, and somewhat related.
I wonder if virtue could be thought of as 'moral force' - lifeforce that helps us shepherd 'the good' into existence, or resist something 'bad', from becoming real. Machiavelli might disagree with the good/bad dichotomy and simplify to 'the power to do'. This would put vision and virtue on different tracks, though.
Wisdom.
Now, to find that can opener...
60-70% of the people want universal healthcare. VISION: This video shows exactly how to do it. Put the market on the SUPPLY side, & and put a single-payer on the DEMAND side. The first political party that learns how to talk both social AND market principles will enjoy a long political ascendancy. Full exploration of all principles is given in the full playlist, called "New Addition to Economics."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-3CSl7yo_I