Old 09-9-2007, 05:47 AM   #1
coberst
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Default Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

Guilt is both a curse and a salvation. I conclude that guilt is perhaps one of the few internal mechanisms that can prevent human self-destruction.

Rational analysis and recognition of self preservation can drive us to correcting problems that have immediate and visible impact on our life but it is this internal friction we call guilt upon which we must depend for avoiding long term consequences resulting from our behavior.

Guilt is difficult to analyze because it is ‘dumb’. It is a feeling of being blocked and frustrated without knowing why we feel that way. This develops when embraced by powerlessness while clutched by the unknown. Guilt is a bind of life.

A feeling of guilt emanates from our peculiar ability to apprehend life’s totality but unable to move in relation to it. “This real guilt partly explains willing subordinacy to his culture: after all, the world of men is even more dazzling and miraculous in its richness than the awesomeness of nature. Also, subordinacy comes naturally from man’s basic experience of being nourished and cared for; it is a logical response to social altruism.”—Ernest Becker.

Stewardship-- the conducting, supervising, or managing of something... the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care...

Stewardship is a word used often in the Bible and was at one time used often in England. It was used in England because the youth of the landed aristocracy was taught that they were responsible for the care of the family properties in such a way that they passed on to the next generation an inheritance equal to but more appropriately larger than that received. Each generation was not the owner but was the steward for the family estates. Any individual who squandered the inheritance was a traitor to the family.

I am inclined to think that each human generation must consider itself as the steward of the earth and therefore must make available to the succeeding generations an inheritance undiminished to that received.

In this context what does "careful and responsible management" mean? I would say that there are two things that must be begun to make the whole process feasible. The first is that the public must be convinced that it is a responsible caretaker and not an owner and secondly the public must be provided with an acceptable standard whereby it can judge how each major issue affects the accomplishment of the overall task. This is an ongoing forever responsibility for every nation but for the purpose of discussion I am going to speak about it as localized to the US.

Selfishness and greed are fundamental components of human nature. How does a nation cause its people to temper this nature when the payoff goes not to the generation presently in charge but to generations yet to come in the very distant future? Generations too far removed to be encompassed by the evolved biological impulse to care for ones kin.

How is it possible to cause a man or woman to have the same concern for a generation five times removed as that man or woman has for their own progeny?

I suspect it is not possible, but it does seem to me to be necessary to accomplish the task of stewardship.

Guilt may be our only hope for human acceptance of the responsibility of stewardship.
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Old 09-9-2007, 08:18 AM   #2
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

By realizing it?

Guilt may be a preservation technique, but if you ignore it, or feel like nothing can be done to rectify what it is you feel guilty about, it seems quite the opposite, and has probably been involved in many cases of suicide.

I feel guilty about not really wanting kids, or would feel guilty about never having any (and I feel like I'm getting old enough as it is!), because at the base of your argument is that there will be another generation at all. of course, there're billions of people in the world, and there's the argument about quantity and quality, and we do only live on our 1, small world, but at the same time, I think I'll still feel like I've failed at something if I don't have kids.
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Old 09-9-2007, 08:54 AM   #3
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

Cavernio

It appears that guilt flows from self-consciousness and we will often feel the kick of guilt, which can have a negative or a positive effect. If we do something to pereserve our planet for future generations then guilt will be a positive effect.
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Old 09-9-2007, 11:35 AM   #4
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

Becker apparently makes a standard error of classic psychology, human motivations are more complicated than simple carrots and sticks.
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Old 09-9-2007, 01:26 PM   #5
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

But even if you're choosing based on the relative size and deliciousness of a number of carrots, weighed against the size of the respective sticks, the general principle remains the same, does it not?
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Old 09-9-2007, 04:43 PM   #6
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

What are you talking about? Look, to a large extent classic psychology makes the assumption that human beings are a tabula rasa and that all motivations, desires, etc. are imprinted in a fashion on human beings. More generally and importantly though there's a common assumption of external motivations and deterrents as universally explanatory mechanics of behavior. Suppose I feel like doing something or not doing something just because? Suppose I am neurologically hard wired to, say, not like the taste of apples, or heterosexual sex, or whatever. At any rate, human beings have many animal instincts which account for a great deal of things classical psychology has unfortunately thought itself to be able to explain by stupid carrot-and-stick dynamics.

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Old 09-9-2007, 06:04 PM   #7
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

Well the entire thing is based on a theory trying to explain human motivation to decide things when they choice to do so is free. Trying to use carrot-stick methodology like a hammer is going to get you into trouble for the reasons you've listed: many decisions aren't actually decisions, but simply outcome selection based on instinct and hard-wired behaviors. That doesn't mean -all- decisions are made that way either. I'd say it is a little of both.
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Old 09-9-2007, 06:15 PM   #8
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

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Originally Posted by Kilroy_x View Post
What are you talking about? Look, to a large extent classic psychology makes the assumption that human beings are a tabula rasa and that all motivations, desires, etc. are imprinted in a fashion on human beings. More generally and importantly though there's a common assumption of external motivations and deterrents as universally explanatory mechanics of behavior. Suppose I feel like doing something or not doing something just because? Suppose I am neurologically hard wired to, say, not like the taste of apples, or heterosexual sex, or whatever. At any rate, human beings have many animal instincts which account for a great deal of things classical psychology has unfortunately thought itself to be able to explain by stupid carrot-and-stick dynamics.
Where did you learn about psychology?
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Old 09-9-2007, 07:42 PM   #9
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

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many decisions aren't actually decisions, but simply outcome selection based on instinct and hard-wired behaviors. That doesn't mean -all- decisions are made that way either. I'd say it is a little of both.
I didn't say it wasn't a combination of both. In fact a lot of explanations can only be made with some level of understanding of both. As an example, there seems to be evidence that most people function better at their work when they get a sense of purpose, belonging, or identity from it. But is this really an instance of a carrot? This goes beyond the simple subjectivity of desire and begs the question, how can you receive external validation from something which is abstract and nonobjective?

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Where did you learn about psychology?
Well, I've done limited studies of psychology at Arapaho Community College and Metropolitan State College of Denver, as well as selective reading on my own free time. The larger part of my academic background is as a Sociologist though. If you have any specific rebuttals to anything I've said though raise them, I would be amazed if I was somehow correct about everything related to psychology.
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Old 09-10-2007, 09:14 AM   #10
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

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Originally Posted by Kilroy_x View Post
Well, I've done limited studies of psychology at Arapaho Community College and Metropolitan State College of Denver, as well as selective reading on my own free time. The larger part of my academic background is as a Sociologist though. If you have any specific rebuttals to anything I've said though raise them, I would be amazed if I was somehow correct about everything related to psychology.

I am not qualified to instruct anyone on the fundamentals of psychology. However, I can say that after many months of studying this subject I have never read anything that would support your discription of this domain of knowledge
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Old 09-10-2007, 09:30 AM   #11
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

It wasn't my intention to categorically dismiss classic psychology as entirely faulted in the manner described. To just to point out what I thought was one common error. Konrad Lorenz certainly made errors as well, quite likely in the alternate direction. The hydraulic theory of aggression, for instance, seems to be incorrect.
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Old 09-10-2007, 03:25 PM   #12
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

The questions I would like to ask everyone are:

1) Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?
2) Do you think that this human characteristic of guilt can be important for stewardship to happen?
3) Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?
4) Do you give a damn?
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Old 09-11-2007, 12:07 AM   #13
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Default Re: Knowledge begets responsibility which begets guilt

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1) Do you agree that the acceptance of stewardship responsibility for this planet is vitally important?
It is conditionally important if:

*Human beings want to survive in a sustainable fashion on this planet
*If space development doesn't render the issue irrelevant.

Quote:
2) Do you think that this human characteristic of guilt can be important for stewardship to happen?
Conceivably. Guilt is a negative feeling though; there have already been backlashes against global warming activists.

Quote:
3) Do you have a different idea whereby this stewardship might develop?
There are two main types of propaganda: guilt inducing and pride inducing. Conceivably both would be used in a large scale propaganda campaign, which is what would occur if government regulation was used to fight environmental degradation. Otherwise social consciousness would have to develop independently of government entities, which is possible but perhaps unlikely.

Quote:
4) Do you give a damn?
Off and on. These days it seems I barely feel anything, which sort of almost scares me. Pretty much all my feelings are sort of almost feelings. I make up for it to an extent by pretending where I think it is important to do so.
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