Watching this while reading “Your children are under attack” (2005) by Jim Taylor. I am hit by a realization. I’d love some feedback on this.
1) The corrupted culture is not a conspiracy/organized force attacking our children … its simply a systemic reflection of detached commercial and public interests giving the people “what they want”, as opposed to, “what they need”.
Here is what I mean. Parents love their children, and do the hard work of giving and teaching their children to do what’s good for them, as opposed to following their base drives and impulses. Going to school instead of watching TV all day. Doing hard things, instead of being lazy. Healthy food instead of sugar all day. Etc.
But systems don’t care. They simply give the market what it wants. They sell sugar, sex, status, appearance, thrills, etc because that’s what sells. This is what makes the most money and wins the most votes in a society unconstrained by a stronger social code, so the system as a whole naturally selects in that direction if it’s allowed to.
(I am here ignoring the people who are actively pushing the destruction of the “social code” e.g. Hollywood, this is addressed next)
2) Constraining the system/establishing the equilibrium. Conservative societies enforce the social code that controls for the natural devolution of values as in #1. However, it can be very oppressive, e.g. Islam. Humans may seek to liberate themselves from oppression, pushing against the restrictions of the social code. IMHO this is a good thing, for the moment.
However, just the necessary homeostatic equilibrium in the human body, or the thermostat in a house. If the temperature is too cold, you raise it, but once you are at the desired temperature, continuing to raise it makes things worse.
So, continuing to “liberate” a society eventually pushes it into the state where the natural drives of the system lead to failure. This is the “progress”. This is what Jordan Peterson likely ultimately means in his question of “When does the Left go too far”.
What we ideally want is to stop liberating once we’ve reached homeostasis, but in practice, this is likely nearly impossible because people will likely not agree or know exactly where that is. Maybe the only answer here is to strengthen both sides such that they exist in an uneasy standoff somewhere near the middle.
Watching this while reading “Your children are under attack” (2005) by Jim Taylor. I am hit by a realization. I’d love some feedback on this.
1) The corrupted culture is not a conspiracy/organized force attacking our children … its simply a systemic reflection of detached commercial and public interests giving the people “what they want”, as opposed to, “what they need”.
Here is what I mean. Parents love their children, and do the hard work of giving and teaching their children to do what’s good for them, as opposed to following their base drives and impulses. Going to school instead of watching TV all day. Doing hard things, instead of being lazy. Healthy food instead of sugar all day. Etc.
But systems don’t care. They simply give the market what it wants. They sell sugar, sex, status, appearance, thrills, etc because that’s what sells. This is what makes the most money and wins the most votes in a society unconstrained by a stronger social code, so the system as a whole naturally selects in that direction if it’s allowed to.
(I am here ignoring the people who are actively pushing the destruction of the “social code” e.g. Hollywood, this is addressed next)
2) Constraining the system/establishing the equilibrium. Conservative societies enforce the social code that controls for the natural devolution of values as in #1. However, it can be very oppressive, e.g. Islam. Humans may seek to liberate themselves from oppression, pushing against the restrictions of the social code. IMHO this is a good thing, for the moment.
However, just the necessary homeostatic equilibrium in the human body, or the thermostat in a house. If the temperature is too cold, you raise it, but once you are at the desired temperature, continuing to raise it makes things worse.
So, continuing to “liberate” a society eventually pushes it into the state where the natural drives of the system lead to failure. This is the “progress”. This is what Jordan Peterson likely ultimately means in his question of “When does the Left go too far”.
What we ideally want is to stop liberating once we’ve reached homeostasis, but in practice, this is likely nearly impossible because people will likely not agree or know exactly where that is. Maybe the only answer here is to strengthen both sides such that they exist in an uneasy standoff somewhere near the middle.
Thoughts?