weak sense of moral outrage enables belief the world is fair, just

[undergroundpanther]

People who see the world as essentially fair can just maintain this perception through a diminished sense of moral outrage, according to a study by researchers in New York University's Department of Psychology. The findings appear in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science, which is published by the Association for Psychological Science.

Psychologists have long studied system-justification theory, which posits that people adopt belief systems that justify existing political, economic, and social situations or inequities in order to make themselves feel better about the status quo. Moreover, in order to maintain their perceptions of the world as just, people resist changes that would increase the overall amount of fairness and equality in the system. Instead, they often engage in cognitive adjustments that preserve a distorted image of reality in which existing institutions are seen as more equitable and just than they are.



http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/nyu-nss022807.php

Some fools claim we create our own reality, oh the lies the fortunate and comfortable among us tell themselves and want us to swallow as if it was all good... This study verifies what I have observed in certain people's POV..and WHY they cling to it.The pleasant"empowering" lie of self serving optimism is flying in the face of very real,tragic inequality and abuse in this world.And frankly the degraded ethical standards it takes to buy such sunny beliefs about a world as fucked up as this, is nauseating to me.

[NYC]

1. Thrasymachus.

...Thrasymachus is the most interesting of Socrates' interlocutors in Book I of the Republic. He defines justice as the advantage of the stronger, it seems, because he thinks something like this:

The stronger rule in any city or society and so control the education and socialization of their subjects. But, like everyone else, the rulers are self-interested. Hence they educate and socialize their subjects with their own advantage, not that of their subjects, in view. Consequently, the values--including the ethical values--that subjects acquire are not ones that it is in their own best interests to have, but rather values that serve the interests of their rulers. The actions that subjects value as just, for example, are actions that benefit the rulers, not the subjects who do them.

But these alleged facts about cities or societies and their rulers are not, of course, available to the subjects themselves. They see their ethical values as serving their own best interests at least as much as anyone else's. But this, in Thrasymachus' view, is simply because they are unaware of the influence their rulers have had in shaping their whole outlook on the world...

Similar?

I find this article extremely interesting. I guess it explains a lot.

(The above is from Plato's Republic.)

[undergroundpanther]

2. I think it is spot on.

Yeah plato also said it is impossible to teach a person to have inner character.

I think what he meant by that was maybe this.. you cannot teach a person who is a psychopath, a narcissist or self serving optimistic liar to look at how abusive reality as it really IS and to feel empathy for others suffering, that they do not feel or want to feel ..so they can stop themselves from being an asshole.

Once you kill your conscience, yeah it gets you some perks but at the same time what is it worth? Either way we all die and suffer in this world in this big brutal prison where nobody gets out alive.I choose ethics because it IS unnatural to this world to care,because it is my choice I have made to not do things as the"leaders" or this world demands..
For my own freedom of thought ,it was required I give up this insane hope of most of this world growing past it's brutal bullying sadistic selfish asshole.I lost the idea this world was just or fair or even safe at a very young age. Seeing evil can do that. See enough evil you will get PSTD.

[NYC]

4. I think this is solidly, and perhaps unalterably, true:

...you cannot teach a person who is a psychopath, a narcissist or self serving optimistic liar...

You cannot teach them anything. They do not want to learn.

[undergroundpanther]

9. yep.

That is why The world is fucked. Too many psychopaths, narcissists and deluded fucking morally retarded optimists who keep on smiling at a disaster narrowing their vision to compartmentalized disconnected pinpoints to avoid seeing the whole truth.

[NYC]

10. How depressing.

I agree with you.

[karlrschneider]

11. The subjects are, in a way, like the cave-dwellers

Unable to differentiate between the reality and the shadows. It always seemed to me, though, that Thrasymachus and Socrates arrived at the same basic conclusions through vastly different routes and perhaps for different reasons. Perhaps the actual problem is that we have lost the ability to determine what our own best interests really are. Or even the ability to define them.

[undergroundpanther]

17. Yep I hear ya.

And it's strange how by becoming"civilized"and building"empires" and following and aping leaders and famous people who more often than not psychopaths and narcissists have gotten us so messed up ethically inside as people. We have swallowed so many lies, fell for so many mind fucks and yet people still stubbornly believe in this crap. Belief and faith in systems and fantasy will kill us all unless we discard them and say no more, step out of this mental fishbowl we grew up in question it all until we can form an internal moral center , an inner locus of control,and act on our conscience regardless of what high profile assholes think, and quit letting others lead our desires pretending as if they could even know what anyone else's best interests are..

[NYC]

20. Perhaps it's my reading comprehension,

but I didn't agree with Socrates. I fully agreed with Thrasymachus.

I think the cave dwellers and the shadows are similar to what Thrasymachus said, but the cave dwellers are not deliberately deceived into believing the shadows.

Manipulation through education is with us today.

[undergroundpanther]

22. Agree with you there..

Socrates didn't have the whole picture.However his cave analogy works as a description of the condition,but it isn't all of it. I find some of the Gnostics were more accurate of this situation than socrates was.
Plato was right on one thing tho. That you cannot teach a psychopath virtue.

[MoseyWalker]

3. Don't rock the boat

some are destined to, and some are destined to sit quietly in their seats until the boat sinks somewhere in frozen waters off the coast of Arizona.

[lvx35]

5. You know, there is a balance though.

People who sit around endlessly griping about the horrors of the world often seem less productive than positive people. Take Al Gore...He has been really effective on global warming, and I think I big part of it is that he actually has hope, actually believes we can change.

[undergroundpanther]

6. Why are you assuming the gripers sit around?

Alot of self serving optimists meddle and fuck things up thinking they are doing something grand.

People who see things as they are, know that optimism has a purpose, but it's purpose is not to blind yourself with it to deny what is happening and play make believe to feel good at the expense of a conscience..
Alot of gripers don't sit on their ass some do help.The gripers have enough humility to realize when things are futile and know when to stop and try something else. Optimists would rather dull their moral sense to hold on to their beliefs and some do the same thing over and over,hoping reality will conform to their beliefs..

[lvx35]

7. personal experience. :)

Literally, if I get too depressed I stop putting one front in front of the other. It goes back to the old military concept of morale, high spirits just make people more effective.

[undergroundpanther]

8. I wouldn't talk in absolutes

Because honest moral outrage can get stuff done too. Sometimes way more effectively than pep talks and cheer up mentality can, especially among people who have enough moral wisdom to BE outraged in the first place.

Maybe the apathy you see is from the optimistic lies people tell themselves,better to keep plodding than risk getting outraged and really do something that makes real changes ,because change is scarier than the status quo no matter how corrupt to some..

[lvx35]

12. Maybe you are right.

maybe you are right. But either way, the key is action. The outrage which motivates is clearly a good thing, but there is a kind of outrage which paralyzes us. Outrage should be inspired, it should make you feel strong and righteous, not powerless and weak.

[undergroundpanther]

15. We don't control reality

But being realistic about the human condition does not mean automatic depression or paralysis.. even if you KNOW you are fucked and you feel weak because if you have a strong inner moral sense, your own standards and outrage at what is can sustain you when optimism becomes obscene almost offensive flying in the face of what is.Optimism with the way things are now seems almost disgusting in it's fakery to me.

[lvx35]

16. Ah, but we do control reality...

To some degree, because we all have power.

And that's just the thing about optimism that I like, it allows us to identify possibilities which we otherwise would not, it allows us to see our own power. Of course, too much optimism doesn't help, because the possibilities we recognize aren't real. But too little isn't good either. Maybe a better word for optimism would be "hope" in the context of current events.

[undergroundpanther]

18. Faith in things unseen

Is faith in fantasies that haven't passed. Ooh that hope it's like a drug for some people. They are so sure they'd die if they went without it.Hope has side effects,it blinds if it is clung to as if it had power to effect change, hope makes sure change stays in the dreams..
Hope is for some,toxic. I long abandoned hope.
Because hope is so easily crushed in a world such as this.
You think you control reality? Really. Do you think when you die the world ends?

We do not control reality, we navigate it and try to find homeostasis in a chaotic unpredictable often dangerous very indifferent to our suffering,and hope this world. Hope makes the task of finding homeostasis a act of Sisyphus.
I hate hope.Because hope leads to disappointment more often than not.
And I for one would rather not go through that sort of emotional turmoil of having to constantly repair my belief systems to make the intolerable tolerable to myself.I ask you at what level of stress and indifference meted out by reality as in the negation of your desires to 'control reality' does it take for those rose colored cultural lenses you look at everything through to crack you up?..I admit reality is sick, intolerable, cruel..and try to help it be tolerable without hoping for anything to change. I expect nothing so I don't get disappointed anymore. Having no hope has made me more capable of change, ironically.

[lvx35]

19. Well, aren't you a little ray of sunshine. :)

First, I would say hope is a state of mind that lets you recognize possibilities. Second, faith in things unseen allows us to do things we could not otherwise do. A very grounded example of this would be the Axiom of Choice in mathematics, its not justified by observation in itself, but I hear many things wouldn't us assuming it to be true..

Maya Angelou says we are each rainbows in the clouds. You say we are homeostasis seeking organisms in a cruel and indifferent world. But she isn't suffering, she is a wealthy and beloved, people line up in the thousands to see her. Can you really look down on her? Can you say your way is so much more effective?

The thing is we do create reality. The wetware in that head of yours executes the code you give it, nothing less, nothing more. And that executing program is all you or anybodies life will ever be. Everything you will ever know is inside this machine, based on values that you input that you choose. When you look at people like Angelou, or Clinton, or Bush, you see that these people with faith in things unseen are extremely effective at actually doing things where many others will fail.

So yes, if you choose to have no hope, good for you, but again, we mustn't talk in absolutes! :)

[undergroundpanther]

23. Umm you are the one trying to be a ray of sunshine in the middle of the night.

While Maryland(where I live) is currently under a flood watch. *smirk*.

>First, I would say hope is a state of mind that lets you recognize >possibilities. Second, faith in things unseen allows us to do things >we could not otherwise do. A very grounded example of this would be >the Axiom of Choice in mathematics, its not justified by observation >in itself, but I hear many things wouldn't us assuming it to be >true..

Ok but hope is not what fuels my search it is curiosity and it is asking why. No hope or faith required.And solutions cooked up by all these vistas of possibilities often create more problems because these over optimistic people can get pretty damn shortsighted..In thier rush to succeed with thier ideas and concepts..And the pushing they do to "be productive" ect.

Maya Angelou says we are each rainbows in the clouds. You say we are homeostasis seeking organisms in a cruel and indifferent world. But she isn't suffering, she is a wealthy and beloved, people line up in the thousands to see her.

So to you , having trappings of success is a justification of a belief system in of itself?
I'm sorry but I have a different criteria,success in this world is not all that big of a deal to me.
Being rich, popular and idolized is not one of my goals in life.
I am not a pretty rainbow in the clouds, I am underground Panther in the sky. I can go in the deepest caves where the monsters live and tread clouds and play a harp too in technicolor. What is your point? Seems you desire me to BELIVE as you do? Because my difference bothers you so you have to change My POV to make me play your game.Well what if I have been there done that and it did not work for me?


Can you really look down on her?
I can look at any belief system in any way I choose to. If it is not for me it's not for me 'nuff said... She is not a better person than ANYONE else is.She is a human in this world struggling. She's a effective SALESMAN too.Selling her beliefs to people who believe they need to believe in something because they might perish from the truth because of all the anxieties it brings to the'tranquil" dreamers I guess..And people flock to the guru to soothe the anxiety when they cannot deal with too much reality at once.

Can you say your way is so much more effective?

For me ,my way IS more effective. Maya Angelo is not all that profound to me.I find books like the Trimorphic Protonoia,A man in dialog with his Ba, and the book of two principles to be more my speed for spiritual writings.

She is to me, a typical new age writer that has a following saying the same stuff alot of other new age writers are saying, but in her style.. I find her stuff well..useless to me.. and she does not answer the questions I am asking deeply enough.It kinda nauseates me.The "course in miracles" alot of new agers get all bubbly over is full of neurolingustic programming and it is downright evil I cannot stand it it offends my spirit it's so toxic..

If you want to be a fan of Angelo go ahead be one. If you get something from her writings take it.If you want to be just like her someday and have thousands admire you and be"envied" go ahead, I'll pass on that,thankyouverymuch..

You are who you are and I don't mind you being you. You see different, fine.

I am what I am, and I'll see what I see whether you like it or not..

[lvx35]

26. Alrighty then...

"I am what I am, and I'll see what I see whether you like it or not.."

Doesn't leave a lot of room for argument, does it? Say hi to the 'new age' Angelou if you see her.

[rman]

24. People who think the world is fair aren't going to take action to improve

the world - why would they, if they think it's just fine as it is?

The upside of griping about how unfair the world is, is that there's at least a chance that more people will start to see how unfair things are. And if anything is needed to bring the real drastic changes required to make the world better, it is enough people who want to improve things.

[lvx35]

27. A great fortune cookie I got:

"The world is perfect, including your desire to change it"

I think there's room for an optimistic outlook in an action filled life.

[undergroundpanther]

28. You got it

If all is fair and you chose reality and can CONTROL it all is good and NOTHING really changes.

[karlrschneider]

13. Well, griping is better than nothing at all, at least if somebody hears the gripe.

I'm not knocking optimism, per se, but when the rubber meets the road, an activist pessimist does more good to fix problems than any optimist who's willing to let things sort themselves out. Oh, that's what you said...:D

[Lilith Velkor]

25. Gore actually has MONEY

...some of which he has spent making a film GRIPING about global warming, which got attention due to his FAME.

He has about as much effect on global warming as I do, but his influence is much greater due to wealth, power and fame, not hope, belief, or "positivity."

[lvx35]

29. I'll bet he would disagree.

I'll bet he'd say his attitude has a lot to do with where he is. But what I was refering to is Al Gore's approach in his movie. He presents problems, he presents solutions and hope. The balance is why it is effective. People have been griping about the environment for years, but the really effective things I have seen are solutions. Things like recycling.

The world is miserable already, they don't need to realize it. Its already there. What the world needs is inspiration, hope, and direction. I am so fucking sick of people going around yelling "wake up" as if there is going to be this big miracle and all the sudden everybody will know what to do. Giving direction and action are so much more effective. You can try and fail to make a conservative agree with your environmentalist worldview all your life, but at the end of the day its not that hard to get him to buy energy efficient light bulbs, or consider buying energy saving appliances. direction, direction, direction.

[Lilith Velkor]

30. Maybe he would

A lot of wealthy and influential people lack the humility to admit they are as fallible and subject to circumstance as anybody else.

I don't get that impression from Gore, though. I think his attitude has more to do with what he does with his money and power than how he got it in the first place. YMMV.

on edit: "Wake up!" is sufficient when the house is on fire, know what I'm sayin'?

[lvx35]

31. yes I do know what your saying.

:) Sorry, I woke up with the Melissa Etheridge song from Inconvenient Truth in my head this morning and its been driving me bonkers. I started playing right after my alarm went off and I pressed snooze. "I've got to wake up...."

I hope its not a trend, I can't stand more mornings like this.

[Lilith Velkor]

32. I'm the same way about the Pan's Labyrinth soundtrack

Plays in my head for days.

The music from Spike Lee's Requiem was so persistent I actually had to teach bits of it to myself on piano.

I haven't seen Inconvenient Truth yet. I can't. I'm too haunted by what happened to New Orleans.

[Solly Mack]

14. I'll recommend that

[orleans]

21. k&r n/t