Of Causation and Responsibility: A notion of socially moral responsibility makes little sense unless individuals are reasonably accorded the freedom and dignity to think for themselves. There is no morality or virtue in simply performing rote details for which one is chained so as not to deviate. In considering notions of Responsibility and Causation, it can be interesting to watch Literalists, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Atheists, and Scientists try to rationalize ways to save or improve America, without respecting the superiority of a caring, inviting, reconciling God. They seem prone to take some material, maybe a Higgs boson or a writing on a piece of paper, like a Constitution or a Bible, and then try to rationalize from it, and it alone, all causation for a system of moral guidance for a nation or world. Does the Higgs boson "cause" expression of mass, or does the expression of mass "cause" the Higgs boson? Given a world of continuous, unprecedented, unexpected change, can any static interpretation of any writing on any piece of paper show the single, absolute, literal, best way to address each newly unfolding event? How can the Source of causation and moral judgement be reasonably conceptualized as being vested in any Being other than a caring, inviting, Reconciler? Without a conception of a Reconciler, how can inanimate words in themselves, on any piece of paper, carry any causation or moral guidance for the future? How is moral responsibility carried forward through the generations? Well, by free-thinking individuals, raised in families, that accord reasoned respect for a caring and inviting Reconcilier. How is moral responsibility not carried forward? By destroying families and surrendering freedom to predators who rule collectives under pretense of being infallible mouthpieces for God or Nature.
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There is a complication: What to do about the mass of people who decline to take moral responsibility to think for themselves, who do not want responsibility, who want a leader to take responsibility from their shoulders, even in exchange for becoming little more than beasts of burden? Free thinkers may be conceptualized in two ways: One kind would want to teach people as much as reasonably possible to take responsibility for themselves. The other kind would simply want to use people who want to be used. The moral advantage is to the first kind. The financial advantage is to the second kind.
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That accumulation of Information which exists and contemporaneously influences the present unfolding of ouur bodies, brains, and conscious thoughts may be termed "the collective unconscious."
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It exists such that throughout the entirety of one's cone of experience, one will never be consciously aware of, nor able to reduce to measure, all particulars by which it may enter into one's field of consciousness.
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One does not pre-plan one's thoughts. One's thoughts rise to one's conscious self awareness of them, but somehow pushed and pulled there by the Collective Unconscious.
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Why should anyone trust anyone else who expressly says his moral philosophy reduces to litte more than a justification for maximizing his personal gratification, with no spiritual connection to any person whose orbit is not entailed in his sense of pleasure? When someone denies faith in a larger moral purpose, why should I trust that person to remain true to any profession, when he thinks he can personally gain by being false? In effect, he is saying: Come, let us take their stuff as we take advantage of them.
From A.T. -- Re: "the existentialist version of the Golden Rule merely meant that anyone could decide that what was good for himself is necessarily good for all of humanity -- a concept dear to the progressive elite, who know what's best for all of us."
This is the progressivism of the existentialist who believes neither in any value of freedom that is larger than himself, nor in any Reconciler who is superior to materialistic determinism. This is the nihilist who believes God is dead. This is what comes of any mortal's trying to substitute himself for God, instead of exercising his participatory will in humble regard for God. The problem with Progs is that they are stupidly oblivious to their limits, but are quick as a whip to inflict that stupidity on everyone else.
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