James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 7, 2019
Ken Shelton, whom many of whom my readers are suspect are so because they don’t know him. Ken is a highly successful publisher, academic, international lecturer and keynote speaker, leader in his church and community, novelist, consultant and a generous sharer of his wisdom, humor and his candid take on life.
His missive “Voices from the Dust” deals with crimes against persons and society and our collective ambiguity. He writes:
For much of my life, I have gone to a University and lived in a Community that wants to sweep all dirt under rugs: to become see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys for the sake of not rocking boats owned by goats and donkeys; to “lie for the Lord” in order to keep the establishment afloat, using the logic: if we keep all criminals out of jail (and conceal all case records), we can keep them out of hell. It’s better, after all, not to cut off the head of King Laban if he is related to Coach Saban—even if Cougar or Bama nations dwindle in unbelief. Let’s save one and all, give preferential treatment to sinners and criminals and tip and tilt the scales of justice toward mercy and grace, forgiveness and forgetting, leniency and clemency, since everyone and everything is beautiful in his or her own way—so be happy and live another day! I wonder . . .
Ken alerts our minds and consciences, not to think as he does, but to ruminate a little over what he chooses to share. That’s a dangerous undertaking as what we think is guided by our emotions and not our reason. Proof of this is that we look for confirmation not refutation when it comes to our beliefs.
Ken uses sarcasm and misdirection. I use simple declarative sentences: We have lost our moral compass and thus our way.
I also wrap ideas in schematics, equations and formulas, and candid admissions of changes in my thinking. These exchanges are respondent to my changing sense of the nature of human existence.
My dear friend Margie responded to my missive, “Crossing the Treacherous Waters of Differences." You began to question your belief in Catholicism and that your 'library is full of books by scholars who support the myths in our religious culture and belief system."
My analysis: YOU READ TOO MUCH! I also have read many books by great scholars who support my beliefs - it's called THE BIBLE.
So a couple of Germans decided that God was invented and then died. Life goes on - miracles still happen. You stated that atheism and agnosticism are more prevalent today and many scholars that you have read are leaning more to those beliefs than Christianity. YOU READ TOO MUCH! (By your own admission, you have renounced your Catholicism that you were taught as a child in favor of (?)
You can't just believe there is a God - you have to believe IN him. When people can explain how the earth was formed or the miracle of life forming from a single cell, then I'LL QUIT BELIEVING.
In the meantime, keep getting better and no more reading by any German authors.
When the Bridge is Too Far to Cross
Self-Demands (protecting our delicate egos) and our Role-Demands (who and what we are and do)
Ideal-Self (how we think we should be) and Real-Self (how we actually are)
The conflict between these demands and selves determine if we define the actual situations we encounter clearly or not.
THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Samuel Butler (1835 – 1902). A Kindred Spirit
In reading a lot, you are bound to come across someone who has had a similar approach to life as that of yourself. Butler attacked progress and respectability with his utopian novel “Erehwon” (Nowhere spelled backward). I have done the same with a series of books on Corporate America excess. He self-published as have I, not concerned about sales, again, as like him I never have had to make my living as a writer; nor had he. But where we have a special connection is that he wrote his scandalous THE WAY OF ALL FLESH (1903) between 1873 and 1884, but insisted it not be pushed until after his death, while DEVLIN, also semi-autobiographical has been published within my own lifetime.
Then there is Plato’s theory of forms (theory of ideas).
Plato perfected his style over time by the systematic process of dividing a position into parts and then making generalizations that would advance his ideas. He called "form."
Plato’s “theory of forms,” maintains that there are two levels of reality: the visible world of sight and sound. We can recognize beauty in a painting or hear it in a voice, and therefore have a general sense of beauty whichever form it takes. This is not rational, but abstract but has as much meaning as the rational and concrete. They are complementary forms.
This capacity to recognize beauty is perception in the abstract and therefore invisible to our lives in the mind. We take the conceptual beauty with us as memory and it lives in our minds as an extension of ourselves.
Plato, however, does not develop this theory of forms, as he apparently felt no such need. It was self-evident. In essence, the “theory of forms” represents his attempt to cultivate our capacity for conceptual and abstract thought, as complements not in conflict with each other. This maturity of reason is something we still struggle with today. We escape from this reality by living in myth, which religion is, or become obsessed with "toys of the mind" (e.g. , social media and electronic games).
In The Republic and Phaedrus, Plato describes the soul as divided into three parts: sensual (appetite), spiritual, and rational. He explains our psychological complexity partly to provide justification for philosophy as the highest of all pursuits, and being representative of the highest part of the soul, or the rational part.
Psychology grew out of philosophy. What is interesting is that psychology has never found a more comfortable home since leaving its philosophical roots. At various times in the past century, psychology has mimicked mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and social science, never quite leaving religion. There are more than sixty disciplines and sub-disciplines in psychology today. Small wonder the expression “homeless mind” has come into prominence in recent decades.
Plato acknowledges and seeks to explain the fact that we all experience "inner conflict." This is the basis of his psychology. But his theory seeks not only to explain this inner conflict but also to present the rational part of the soul as superior. Philosophy, according to Plato, is essentially the practice of refining our rationality.
This Greek philosopher has had a pragmatic influence on me that is apparent in my writing. For example, Klaus writes:
In the finale analysis we really don't understand how we are made. They used to think that people who do all these bad behavior like a killer or anyone else it was because of their environment or their genetic makeup. They don't know why people do what they do. For example a person who gets pleasure from killing people can't be explained. Serial killers give no indication to the people they live around what they are really like. All these things don't happen because Adam & Eve ate an apple. As you said all these stories were written because people were trying to understand. I am not implying that bad things people do should be overlooked, but if there is a God involved, I sure would like to know what he is doing. As far as I'm concerned religion doesn't explain anything. I look at our two daughters who are different from each other. I look at our 3 grandchildren who are totally different from each other. When I taught art, I had students who were talented. It was never a parent, but some relative in their family. Look at yourself and what you accomplished or at your children. I am sure they are all different. Or your son in law who can't understand what you desire. If you can explain all this, I would love to hear about it. Plato would remind Klaus, in terms of form, that he is obviously more comfortable in the conceptual than the abstract. It is not a question “how we are made,” but how we relate in the abstract to each other in terms of love and hate, beauty and ugliness, today and tomorrow (see www.theperipateticphilosopherblogspot.com., “Ideas Control the World: Our Debt to Plato,” 12/14/05).
And yes, we are different but alike as well. Our culture, which is an abstraction, molds us subliminally into the person we become. When I was young, I was gone Monday to Friday on the road as a chemical sales engineer, then still young I was an executive traveling about the world and not always home on the weekends; then in South Africa, I was often gone visiting affiliate operations.across South Africa. Not surprising, the cultural influence of my four children is more in tune with their mother.
Culture is very prominent in my ideas. I wrote:
The structure of work determines the function of work; the function of work creates the workplace culture; the workplace culture dictates organizational behavior; organizational behavior establishes whether an organization will succeed or fail; or simply vegetate and ultimately expire. (Quality & Participation Journal, Winter, 2002).
I have differentiated Personality (what we acquire) from Essence (what we own, or with what we are born). Personality can and will change, Essence cannot be changed, but it can be developed.
That said, there are several MLB and NFL players in which three generations have made it to the big leagues. Obviously, they are different but alike in very similar talented ways, which are genetic.
While still on this matter of form, Eric Hoffer wrote “The True Believer” (1950). It corroborated another of my simple equations:
BB will be getting up. I think I’d better get some shut eye as I have a doctor’s appointment today.
Be always well,
Jim
Plato’s “theory of forms,” maintains that there are two levels of reality: the visible world of sight and sound. We can recognize beauty in a painting or hear it in a voice, and therefore have a general sense of beauty whichever form it takes. This is not rational, but abstract but has as much meaning as the rational and concrete. They are complementary forms.
This capacity to recognize beauty is perception in the abstract and therefore invisible to our lives in the mind. We take the conceptual beauty with us as memory and it lives in our minds as an extension of ourselves.
Plato, however, does not develop this theory of forms, as he apparently felt no such need. It was self-evident. In essence, the “theory of forms” represents his attempt to cultivate our capacity for conceptual and abstract thought, as complements not in conflict with each other. This maturity of reason is something we still struggle with today. We escape from this reality by living in myth, which religion is, or become obsessed with "toys of the mind" (e.g. , social media and electronic games).
Reality is so discombobulating that we supplant one obsession with another.
In The Republic and Phaedrus, Plato describes the soul as divided into three parts: sensual (appetite), spiritual, and rational. He explains our psychological complexity partly to provide justification for philosophy as the highest of all pursuits, and being representative of the highest part of the soul, or the rational part.
Psychology grew out of philosophy. What is interesting is that psychology has never found a more comfortable home since leaving its philosophical roots. At various times in the past century, psychology has mimicked mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and social science, never quite leaving religion. There are more than sixty disciplines and sub-disciplines in psychology today. Small wonder the expression “homeless mind” has come into prominence in recent decades.
Plato acknowledges and seeks to explain the fact that we all experience "inner conflict." This is the basis of his psychology. But his theory seeks not only to explain this inner conflict but also to present the rational part of the soul as superior. Philosophy, according to Plato, is essentially the practice of refining our rationality.
This Greek philosopher has had a pragmatic influence on me that is apparent in my writing. For example, Klaus writes:
In the finale analysis we really don't understand how we are made. They used to think that people who do all these bad behavior like a killer or anyone else it was because of their environment or their genetic makeup. They don't know why people do what they do. For example a person who gets pleasure from killing people can't be explained. Serial killers give no indication to the people they live around what they are really like. All these things don't happen because Adam & Eve ate an apple. As you said all these stories were written because people were trying to understand. I am not implying that bad things people do should be overlooked, but if there is a God involved, I sure would like to know what he is doing. As far as I'm concerned religion doesn't explain anything. I look at our two daughters who are different from each other. I look at our 3 grandchildren who are totally different from each other. When I taught art, I had students who were talented. It was never a parent, but some relative in their family. Look at yourself and what you accomplished or at your children. I am sure they are all different. Or your son in law who can't understand what you desire. If you can explain all this, I would love to hear about it. Plato would remind Klaus, in terms of form, that he is obviously more comfortable in the conceptual than the abstract. It is not a question “how we are made,” but how we relate in the abstract to each other in terms of love and hate, beauty and ugliness, today and tomorrow (see www.theperipateticphilosopherblogspot.com., “Ideas Control the World: Our Debt to Plato,” 12/14/05).
And yes, we are different but alike as well. Our culture, which is an abstraction, molds us subliminally into the person we become. When I was young, I was gone Monday to Friday on the road as a chemical sales engineer, then still young I was an executive traveling about the world and not always home on the weekends; then in South Africa, I was often gone visiting affiliate operations.across South Africa. Not surprising, the cultural influence of my four children is more in tune with their mother.
Culture is very prominent in my ideas. I wrote:
Organizational culture follows this formula:
The structure of work determines the function of work; the function of work creates the workplace culture; the workplace culture dictates organizational behavior; organizational behavior establishes whether an organization will succeed or fail; or simply vegetate and ultimately expire. (Quality & Participation Journal, Winter, 2002).
I have differentiated Personality (what we acquire) from Essence (what we own, or with what we are born). Personality can and will change, Essence cannot be changed, but it can be developed.
That said, there are several MLB and NFL players in which three generations have made it to the big leagues. Obviously, they are different but alike in very similar talented ways, which are genetic.
While still on this matter of form, Eric Hoffer wrote “The True Believer” (1950). It corroborated another of my simple equations:
BELIEF + BELONGING = BEHAVIOR
BB will be getting up. I think I’d better get some shut eye as I have a doctor’s appointment today.
Be always well,
Jim
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