|
On Axiology
(Reaction to Hillary Clinton's DNC Speech) 07/30/2016 |
I haven't yet grown into my ears . . . .
Yo, dawg.
|
|
|
Facebook post April 8, 2017
OK, I just read this, well annotated by the L.A. Times.
I need to do some homework. Are the rich really not paying their fair share?
On the one hand we hear our friends on the left complain how they're not.
On the other hand I feel I have a pretty thorough understanding of our progressive tax structure, which has the rich paying most of the taxes now; and it has been that way for a very long time.
According to this Wikipedia article the top 20% have already been paying 86% of income tax while the poor have been paying none, or negative: they've been receiving credits and subsidies. (See also this piece by the estimable Peter G. Peterson Foundation.)
So if having the top 20% pay 86% of taxes isn't fair, my question would be, what is?
Is soaking the rich more than we already are really a solution, both to poverty and to the national debt?
I think more about elevating the poor. But then I realize from my own experience how you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I've wasted most of my life trying to elevate people who didn't want to be elevated, pushing strings instead of flying kites.
So there's a mystical internal motivation thing that has to exist, otherwise any exercise is futile.
One of my very wealthy clients grew up poor. He can remember when the only food in the house was potatoes and cheese. He tells me he woke up one day and said to himself, "I'm not doing this any more. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Now he's a multi-millionaire, and I am humbled to say I've helped him get there. He gives a lot to charity, pays a lot of taxes, and is one of the happiest guys I've ever met. His wife is happy and content, his children are healthy, safe, and secure, he feels a lot of self-respect, and I am happy to have been involved in the whole story.
And if you interview wealthy people, you'll find most of them have a story like that somewhere in their or their ancestors' lives.
That's the kind of thing I think we'd be better off studying than expecting a government that is already in intolerably, unsustainably deep debt to spend even more borrowed money leading struggling people to become more dependent on it, distracting them from the actual task at hand, which is to look deep inside themselves and assume command of their own lives.
Saint John Chrysostom spoke of "the riches of poverty." One of those riches is a kind of simplicity that focuses attention. It's this wonderful thing that happens when people hit bottom that changes their lives; and I have a feeling that by depriving them of that life-changing experience, like well meaning but incompetent parents who spoil their children, lulling them into habitual mediocrity, we deprive ourselves of a lot of future millionaires and billionaires: generous taxpayers and benefactors.
Wow. Mind-blowing Opportunity Cost.
This idea may sound radical and even cruel, but pretty much every ultra-wealthy person or family I've ever met or learned about has a story like that somewhere in their past. It was the catalyst.
If you ever wonder what makes rich people rich, that is it. At some point in the past, somebody stared poverty and/or death in the face and decided to sprint in the opposite direction.
Woudn't you?
But this is a life of extremes, and who needs that? Research has shown that there's a Sweet Spot beyond which more income & wealth aren't that satisfying; and that is why I write plans and budgets: to help people find their own Sweet Spot.
As a Scandinavian, where I come from everybody's tax rates are higher and you don't see the kinds of extreme wealth and poverty that we see here; and Scandinavia is a pretty happy place. The point is, they don't soak the rich; they soak everybody.
It seems to me that, culturally, we need to find a way out of this pattern of extremes into which we've gotten ourselves, and my gut tells me that forced wealth redistribution doesn't strike at the heart of the matter; in a way, perhaps unintentionally, it may actually exacerbate the situation. While it's mechanistic, my gut tells me the real solution is spiritual.
I keep thinking about how every human being is a wonderful combination of one mouth, two ears, two hands, and an infinite mind with infinite potential.
And fractals. I'm obsessed with fractals. It is as though plants and animals were smarter than human beings are. Just by being their natural selves, working with their own design, while we humans struggle, envy, covet, cheat, and spin, they do exponents effortlessly.
What can we learn from them? As I examine both their design and ours, I wonder this all the time.
With our two hands, we are designed to produce more than we consume; and with our two ears, we're designed to listen more than we talk.
In Scandinavia, we also have a strong ethic of both hard work, and moderation. Laziness is disgraceful. "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" the Bible says. "Idle hands are the devil's playground" and so on. We recognize how easy it is to get lazy, and how socially destructive laziness can be; it's like a cancer with a tipping point beyond which all is lost. So we build cultural firewalls to prevent us from going anywhere near the Lazy Zone.
Now Scandinavian countries definitely have Socialist histories and leanings . . . and as I ponder this, one thing that occurs to me is how an advantage of both Socialism and Communism is that by definition, Socialists are socially-minded and Communists are community-minded. What that means is, they have a more acute awareness of how your behavior affects me, and of how my behavior affects you.
As the authors of The Narcissism Epidemic point out, Narcissism is a kind of contagious, socio-pathological disease. They use a plane analogy: when one person reclines their seat, everyone has to recline theirs to accommodate. Or, you know the old apple-in-a-barrel analogy: one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So on and so forth.
As both a Scandinavian and a Russophile, this is what I get from Socialists and Communists: not class warfare or envy, not hatred of the rich, not a desire for mechanistic forced wealth distribution, but a proper respect for Commonwealth; an awareness that everybody affects everybody else, that public life matters, that we can not afford anything that might spread diseases like Narcissism or Indolence.
Russians call it "Sobornost." Marines call it "Esprit de Corps." And the ancient Greeks understood that an Idiot wasn't an unintelligent person; an Idiot was someone who, despite their ostensibly high intelligence, was not interested in, and did not care about, public life. In many ways all of these cultures - Scandinavian, Russian, and ancient Greek - offer remedies to the kind of narcissistic Radical Individualism, or Idiocy, that has caused so much suffering in American life.
In Blue Zones around the world, people never stop working. They love to work and consequently, they forget to die. The healthy rhythm of work, play, love, worship, live simple music, dance, friends, family, coffee, wine, and simple unprocessed foods keeps them alive.
Wealth isn't just measured with money. It's the stuff that causes money like work habits, knowhow, tools, competent management, and solid working relationships built with honesty, trust, and honor.
Even land itself isn't really wealth. Land is valuable when it's managed well. The management is what makes the land valuable. Land is not inherently valuable. It's only valuable when it's well-managed.
"Well-managed." There's that Axiology thing again. Funny how it keeps popping up. We have to agree what "well" means. Value judgments are necessary. Filters are necessary. Reality-checks are necessary. Calibration with . . . what?
Do you suppose it goes without saying? Are you thinking to yourself, "Everybody knows what 'well' 'good' 'beautiful' and 'true' are"?
My friend if that were so, why do you suppose we're struggling so much to agree amongst ourselves who would be the better President?
I say, a it's a combination of broken Epistemology and broken Axiology. Both our Truth-Meters and our Better-Meters are broken.
I need to do some homework. Are the rich really not paying their fair share?
On the one hand we hear our friends on the left complain how they're not.
On the other hand I feel I have a pretty thorough understanding of our progressive tax structure, which has the rich paying most of the taxes now; and it has been that way for a very long time.
According to this Wikipedia article the top 20% have already been paying 86% of income tax while the poor have been paying none, or negative: they've been receiving credits and subsidies. (See also this piece by the estimable Peter G. Peterson Foundation.)
So if having the top 20% pay 86% of taxes isn't fair, my question would be, what is?
Is soaking the rich more than we already are really a solution, both to poverty and to the national debt?
I think more about elevating the poor. But then I realize from my own experience how you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. I've wasted most of my life trying to elevate people who didn't want to be elevated, pushing strings instead of flying kites.
So there's a mystical internal motivation thing that has to exist, otherwise any exercise is futile.
One of my very wealthy clients grew up poor. He can remember when the only food in the house was potatoes and cheese. He tells me he woke up one day and said to himself, "I'm not doing this any more. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Now he's a multi-millionaire, and I am humbled to say I've helped him get there. He gives a lot to charity, pays a lot of taxes, and is one of the happiest guys I've ever met. His wife is happy and content, his children are healthy, safe, and secure, he feels a lot of self-respect, and I am happy to have been involved in the whole story.
And if you interview wealthy people, you'll find most of them have a story like that somewhere in their or their ancestors' lives.
That's the kind of thing I think we'd be better off studying than expecting a government that is already in intolerably, unsustainably deep debt to spend even more borrowed money leading struggling people to become more dependent on it, distracting them from the actual task at hand, which is to look deep inside themselves and assume command of their own lives.
Saint John Chrysostom spoke of "the riches of poverty." One of those riches is a kind of simplicity that focuses attention. It's this wonderful thing that happens when people hit bottom that changes their lives; and I have a feeling that by depriving them of that life-changing experience, like well meaning but incompetent parents who spoil their children, lulling them into habitual mediocrity, we deprive ourselves of a lot of future millionaires and billionaires: generous taxpayers and benefactors.
Wow. Mind-blowing Opportunity Cost.
This idea may sound radical and even cruel, but pretty much every ultra-wealthy person or family I've ever met or learned about has a story like that somewhere in their past. It was the catalyst.
If you ever wonder what makes rich people rich, that is it. At some point in the past, somebody stared poverty and/or death in the face and decided to sprint in the opposite direction.
Woudn't you?
But this is a life of extremes, and who needs that? Research has shown that there's a Sweet Spot beyond which more income & wealth aren't that satisfying; and that is why I write plans and budgets: to help people find their own Sweet Spot.
As a Scandinavian, where I come from everybody's tax rates are higher and you don't see the kinds of extreme wealth and poverty that we see here; and Scandinavia is a pretty happy place. The point is, they don't soak the rich; they soak everybody.
It seems to me that, culturally, we need to find a way out of this pattern of extremes into which we've gotten ourselves, and my gut tells me that forced wealth redistribution doesn't strike at the heart of the matter; in a way, perhaps unintentionally, it may actually exacerbate the situation. While it's mechanistic, my gut tells me the real solution is spiritual.
I keep thinking about how every human being is a wonderful combination of one mouth, two ears, two hands, and an infinite mind with infinite potential.
And fractals. I'm obsessed with fractals. It is as though plants and animals were smarter than human beings are. Just by being their natural selves, working with their own design, while we humans struggle, envy, covet, cheat, and spin, they do exponents effortlessly.
What can we learn from them? As I examine both their design and ours, I wonder this all the time.
With our two hands, we are designed to produce more than we consume; and with our two ears, we're designed to listen more than we talk.
In Scandinavia, we also have a strong ethic of both hard work, and moderation. Laziness is disgraceful. "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" the Bible says. "Idle hands are the devil's playground" and so on. We recognize how easy it is to get lazy, and how socially destructive laziness can be; it's like a cancer with a tipping point beyond which all is lost. So we build cultural firewalls to prevent us from going anywhere near the Lazy Zone.
Now Scandinavian countries definitely have Socialist histories and leanings . . . and as I ponder this, one thing that occurs to me is how an advantage of both Socialism and Communism is that by definition, Socialists are socially-minded and Communists are community-minded. What that means is, they have a more acute awareness of how your behavior affects me, and of how my behavior affects you.
As the authors of The Narcissism Epidemic point out, Narcissism is a kind of contagious, socio-pathological disease. They use a plane analogy: when one person reclines their seat, everyone has to recline theirs to accommodate. Or, you know the old apple-in-a-barrel analogy: one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So on and so forth.
As both a Scandinavian and a Russophile, this is what I get from Socialists and Communists: not class warfare or envy, not hatred of the rich, not a desire for mechanistic forced wealth distribution, but a proper respect for Commonwealth; an awareness that everybody affects everybody else, that public life matters, that we can not afford anything that might spread diseases like Narcissism or Indolence.
Russians call it "Sobornost." Marines call it "Esprit de Corps." And the ancient Greeks understood that an Idiot wasn't an unintelligent person; an Idiot was someone who, despite their ostensibly high intelligence, was not interested in, and did not care about, public life. In many ways all of these cultures - Scandinavian, Russian, and ancient Greek - offer remedies to the kind of narcissistic Radical Individualism, or Idiocy, that has caused so much suffering in American life.
In Blue Zones around the world, people never stop working. They love to work and consequently, they forget to die. The healthy rhythm of work, play, love, worship, live simple music, dance, friends, family, coffee, wine, and simple unprocessed foods keeps them alive.
Wealth isn't just measured with money. It's the stuff that causes money like work habits, knowhow, tools, competent management, and solid working relationships built with honesty, trust, and honor.
Even land itself isn't really wealth. Land is valuable when it's managed well. The management is what makes the land valuable. Land is not inherently valuable. It's only valuable when it's well-managed.
"Well-managed." There's that Axiology thing again. Funny how it keeps popping up. We have to agree what "well" means. Value judgments are necessary. Filters are necessary. Reality-checks are necessary. Calibration with . . . what?
Do you suppose it goes without saying? Are you thinking to yourself, "Everybody knows what 'well' 'good' 'beautiful' and 'true' are"?
My friend if that were so, why do you suppose we're struggling so much to agree amongst ourselves who would be the better President?
I say, a it's a combination of broken Epistemology and broken Axiology. Both our Truth-Meters and our Better-Meters are broken.
Facebook post January 12, 2017
|
Facebook post April 2, 2017
|
Do you suppose that good property management is obvious and goes without saying?
Would you fence a square garden on three sides and think you're managing it well, blaming the failure of your garden on the critters who exploit the vulnerable fourth side? Would you treat your house as though it were a landfill and think you're managing it well because you're being a good citizen by keeping garbage out of landfills?
How do you suppose pathological hoarders become pathological hoarders? Did you know that some of them collect things that way because they think they're being good property managers?
Broken Axiology . . . their Better Meters are broken. When they think they're making things better, they're actually making them worse.
How did we come to this time, when we're faced with such a distasteful choice between candidates?
Broken Axiology.
America, please take a hard look at your own Axiology. Wonder to yourselves, "Is my Better Meter off, and if so, how might I calibrate it? If it's completely broken, how might I repair or replace it?"
Would you fence a square garden on three sides and think you're managing it well, blaming the failure of your garden on the critters who exploit the vulnerable fourth side? Would you treat your house as though it were a landfill and think you're managing it well because you're being a good citizen by keeping garbage out of landfills?
How do you suppose pathological hoarders become pathological hoarders? Did you know that some of them collect things that way because they think they're being good property managers?
Broken Axiology . . . their Better Meters are broken. When they think they're making things better, they're actually making them worse.
How did we come to this time, when we're faced with such a distasteful choice between candidates?
Broken Axiology.
America, please take a hard look at your own Axiology. Wonder to yourselves, "Is my Better Meter off, and if so, how might I calibrate it? If it's completely broken, how might I repair or replace it?"
