What is true love about?

I got the impulse to inquire in the different dimensions of love  by the comment of OM here considering health care systems: ‘I draw a line at saying that anyone has a ‘right’ to anyone’s labor', and from the discussion on love in Real Love thread at IA.

Writing poems and eulogizing around the feeling and experience around love is great and brightens momentarily one's spirit. I have my fare share of these experiences and they are great even in retrospect, but I don't really miss them nor eulogize them. They come and go, and life is just fine without them. Those experiences have at least not directly significantly changed my life or the life of those around me.

  Hence I am cautious in valuing these kind of heightened states as a sign of  a person being highly evolved in  love and compassion. Om, you point out rightly in your comment here that there should be a clear distinction between different types of love, maybe even different words for them.

  Many spiritual teachers and gurus have successfully managed to productize their own subjective heightened  love and being experiences. Truly helpful here is having these experiences infused with the eastern values around these universal love experiences. With the help of those type of values they start to see themselves high above others, and to project that interpretation of themselves out to others. Through the projective identification by those others they can start to collect disciples. That is done also by promises of similar enlightenment to those who surrender to the guru and serve him/her without any or very little financial compensation for the work done. This means practically that the followers work for free to advance the career of the guru.

  The principle that a person should not have right on anyone else's labor seems pretty contradictory to me when seen from this perspective. The religious and spiritual traditions clearly grant rights to the spiritual teachers and gurus to their followers labor through the values those traditions cherish and encourage. This way many spiritual teachers have  managed to create a huge wealth. This wealth is seen as his/her rightful possession, in spite of the fact that the wealth was created mainly by the unpaid work done by others. This kind of one directed flow of the fruits of people's labor is created by skillfully manipulating the followers to believe that this selfless service guarantees them enlightenment or a place in heaven in spite of plenty of evidence of the opposite.

  Do these power patterns have something to do with love? People who are themselves involved in this type of activity definitely see it at that way. And I accept that perspective to be valid. It is love at a certain level. In love people's need to own the right to the fruits of their labor gets at least partly dissolved.

   When I look at this issue from a wider perspective than the religious power structures, I can see   how people's right to their labor and the fruits and of it have not got realized in many instances neither in the past nor at the present time. This type of functioning is easier to perceive as explotation as it is not tangled with love. People don't volunteer on it. It is simply a result of some people having control and power over others. It can appear in form of CEOs’  who get paid for the work he/she does much above the real value of their work for the company. And those workers who actually bring in something of real value can get much less compensated. I realize it can be difficult in real time to pick up those people and pay them in a righteous way for their labor. My conclusion here is that it is nearly impossible in a financially righteous way to compensate for the  labor and work for people. The principle of not allowing anyone else right to the fruits of one's labor, is difficult to realize considering how entangled these fruits actually are among humans.

   The general and often unconsciously accepted  way of functioning among us humans seems to be this: People accept to receive or even to take the fruits of another person's labor whenever it is possible without getting in prison or otherwise punished. We however tend to insist on not someone else having right on our own labor. This is a useful principle, when you  need to collectively defend against the utilizing of your labor by the rich and powerful. And this is mainly the direction towards which the 'right' to use someone else's labor has been tilted towards. It is widely accepted in most societies, and often is put in the category of opportunity. That categorization makes this kind of functioning as an important strategy of gaining wealth and success.

  The idea of having the direction of flow of wealth tilted more from the healthy, rich and capable people towards supporting the infirm so that they too could  become healthier and more capable to contribute more to the common wellbeing, is easily seen as a threat, and to be detrimental to the whole society.

   However I wonder about the validity of this fear. When it comes to sharing of the fruits of one's labor with the less fortunate people, there suddenly is no love, no willingness to share. People are blind to the fact that the wealth they own may not really be based on their own labor, but on their control and power over other people, and on their possibility to get at least part of the fruits of other people's labor to themselves.

   I wonder, as the issue of the fruits of people's labor is so deeply entangled, why cannot the less competent and infirm people be allowed to benefit from our shared wealth. Why is it that only the rich, or the greedy and skillful intelligent manipulators can benefit from it?   This kind of awareness can work wonders, when it is collectively shared among enough people in a society. To me this is an important step towards  more universal love and sharing.

  There is so much covered egoism and power abuse hidden in the ways people take advantage others' need  of love and compassion, that thinking about it makes me feel almost wanting to throw up from sheer disgust.

   People are through religious and spiritual organizations are often strongly encouraged to donate to charitable work, but  that work is also enveloped in the needs of imago building of the organization. Often the imago created is clearly more important than the true evaluation of the usefulness and results of the charity work. I suspect some of religious organizations resist a more inclusive welfare system granted to people by the state through collecting taxes, because that would be a very real threat to the power of those religious organizations focusing on charitable work.

 How is it? Are people in the spiritual organizations willing to help and support others in unseen ways that they or their organization does not indirectly benefit from. Not much I suspect.   In modern democratic societies paying taxes is a form of supporting others that is less egoistic in hidden ways. When taxes are collected in a well-functioning modern democracy, there are more interest and possibilities to true follow up of the effect of the  money used on the well-being on different groups of people among the citizens.

  This kind of collective love that is not dependent on your loyalty to a certain belief system cannot be forced upon. There are clearly big differences in societies, and their shared values, in their capacity to encourage people to evolve towards true collective responsibility and love. When in a society enough people expand in their true capacity and span for  love and care, it starts to come a lived reality in the collective structures of the  society. This type of development seems to have very little to do with the advanced states gained through meditation, where people feel universal love, and start to feel they are enlightened. Just look at India, who has a tradition rich with spiritual masters, gurus and swamies with these types of experiences.

    I feel fortunate to have been in Scandinavia, where people are more advanced in their collective embrace and love of their fellowman than in most other places in the world. This awareness is very much about perceiving that we truly are not separate and independent from each other. The health and wellbeing of my neighbor influences in many ways also my health and wellbeing independently of how much material wealth I manage to amass to myself. People with this type and level of awareness  can also see that the need to amass excess wealth comes from the insecurity, that the in hidden ways unequal, and unfair values and structures create in people.

   With values and societal structures that push people towards greed, and push them to have excesses for the bad day, you cannot create societies embodying true love.

  If there is little interest to inquire with an open mind in these issues, it is rather futile to foam about an environmentally sane future either.

Irmeli
           

Re: What is true love about?

Thanks for this, Irmeli, I can't read it til later, just skimmed. 

But just in case you misunderstood me, saying that I don't hold the view that someone has a right to someone else's labor is not at all the same as disagreeing with a pov that people would do best to be supportive, caring, sharing, generous, benevolent, etc. If someone is considered to have a right to someone else's labor, that gets enforced, and that use of force is to me the antithesis of appropriate behavior between human beings. In every context.

So I'm all for generosity and benevolence, and not at all for force.

Perhaps you didn't go there with what I said, but many do, so I am jumping in with this thought, and then gotta go do stuff today, back later.

Thanks again for this thoughtful post, I look forward to getting into it.

Love, OM Bastet 

Re: What is true love about?

I thought you were by that comment referring to my statement  that people in Scandinavia consider it to be a human right to have a good enough health care for everyone.

 I’m curious why did you  in your response say that you don’t accept that someone has right to someone else’s labor, as I have made no claim that people here consider that to be a human right. We truly and deeply don’t accept that. To what were you referring to in my post?

However I find it to be lucky that you made that statement  even if you meant  by it something I cannot even now fully understand. After a little exploring of that statement, I found it to be a real treasure chest. Behind it lies truly many unquestioned values and beliefs and subconscious fears.

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Hi Irmeli, I don't know whether we are offtopic now, so I'll keep this brief.

It would have been best if I asked you what you meant. Failing that, I was indeed responding to the sentence you just mentioned, but responding to its echoes of lists of “human rights” I have read elsewhere which include, hidden and unexamined, the necessity of some people having a right to the labor of others.

Stated as such, explicitly, of course, most people, as you suggested, don't endorse that view.

I'm of course interested to know what unquestioned values, beliefs, and subconscious fears you believe are involved. Do you mean in my statement “I can't accept…..” or do you mean in “Some people have a right to…..”?

Blessings, OM

Re: What is true love about?

Oh, and unquestioned by whom, and how would you know “unquestioned” unless you asked whoever was involved whether they questioned or not? [Well, YOU would probably know intuitively, haha, and you would probably be correct.!!]

Best, OM 

Re: What is true love about?

There is no fear in love. Thank you, Irmeli,

Nicole

Re: What is true love about?

OM: I was indeed responding to the sentence you just mentioned, but responding to its echoes of lists of “human rights” I have read elsewhere which include, hidden and unexamined, the necessity of some people having a right to the labor of others.

The concept of human rights is an important milestone in human moral development. The idea of individual human rights for everyone becomes cognizable only at postconventional level in Kohlberg’s stages of human development. Collectively enough people in a nation must be at least at this level of moral level before human rights can become rights in the form of  laws.

The existence of United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important document of enough people in the world having evolved morally to that level in a certain point in history. These rights include civil and political rights, right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, equality before law, economic and cultural rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education.

Of course these rights when including everyone in a society do mean factual transfer of income from the wealthy  to poor. This is not something that is hidden and unexamined. This is done consciously from love and compassion towards all fellow citizens. This is already pretty close to universal love. However there is also healthy selfishness behind it as people start to see that the society becomes more stable and healthier this way. E.g. only through guaranteeing good education for everyone democracy can function as it is supposed to. This is made possible by people paying taxes for that purpose. Those who don’t have own children have to participate in paying for the education of the children of others. In this way in a modern developed society children have kind of right to parts of the labor of  adults who are gainfully employed. From here the step to seeing that the gainfully employed should also participate in paying for the healthcare of  children, the elderly, or sick adults, who cannot pay for it for themselves. It is relatively easy to collect taxes also for this purpose, when there is a collective will to do this. Then usually the right to good enough health care for everyone becomes a law. Then of course the poor and sick people indirectly have right to parts of the income of wealthier people. If this creates indignation and a person cannot accept this , to me it is an issue of moral development.

   OM: I'm of course interested to know what unquestioned values, beliefs, and subconscious fears you believe are involved.

  In my initial post I tried to inquire in the idea of somebody having right to somebody else’s labor. This is an old way of  functioning among humans. People start to question some forms of this, when reaching to postconventional levels of moral development. At the lower levels of development through the law might is right the stronger people have had right to the labor of the weaker. This applies in many hidden ways also today in modern developed societies. Brute force and violence has just been replaced by skillful manipulation.
 
 In my initial post I tried to examine some of the forms this type of manipulation to get right to someone else’s labor can take. Today as in earlier societies the rich have right to parts of the labor of the weaker and poorer people. If in a society there are huge differences of income, there must be plenty of this type on injustice in a society.

  It is worth to observe, that this type of right to another person’s labor starts to become an unaccepted injustice only, when enough people in a society reach to postconventional moral development.

Irmeli
 

Re: What is true love about?

Been enjoying your posts here, Irmeli.  I find that even the idea of product of “a person's labour” in the way it's been mentioned above doesn't stand up to even two minute's analysis.  Most economic product namable on the planet derives from energy use (= mainly hydrocarbons + electricity, with muscle labour a very distant second), such that any product accumulated in any given person's hands is almost entirely not of that person's 'production.'  What is more, the extent to which any given person has say in directing productive uses of energy will be seen to depend upon many social investments in that person, including primarily family (ie social) stability, education and health.  Stability, education and health, for their part, require extensive hardware and software infrastructures, including the build-up of such over generations of development, including the development of the appropriate required sciences.

This is not to mention all the roadways and water-mains and sidewalks and garbage collection required to make any system work, nor the important development of a legal system to tune and fine tune the organizational agreement by which people live.

For any given person, the creation of wealth is thus almost wholly produced by factors not me, which is to say by interlocking, transgenerational social and non-human factors and systems. 

I also entirely agree with Irmeli's musings about tax as a mechanism of income distribution.  I would perhaps go a little further to say the income distributed only “belongs” to the person from whom it is distributed in a hightly technical and to me unconvincing definition of economic production.  I mean, why else would you find the strict correlation between high tax and high economic productivity?  The US military knows much about this link.

Re: What is true love about?

It feels good that you enjoy my musings around this topic.This topic is important to me.

 I have often wondered about the profound split in these matters in spiritual contexts.
There are plenty of descriptions of deeply personal experiences of no I, of universal love and even Unity. But when looking at the practical life of these people, there is often prominently present my money, my earnings, my possessions, my talent, my enlightenment, my insights, my ideas, my position in an organization etc.

To be honest I don't even know if my thoughts and ideas are mine. I often have the feeling that they are not. I only know that thoughts and ideas appear, and I may act upon them.

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

So has my level of moral development been categorized, and my ability to think for more than two minutes been assessed? Or were those just impersonal assessments?

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: What is true love about?

Dear OM I feel really sorry if my posts have come across to you that way.

I have tried to emphasise I'm talking about collective issues here, LL stuff.
My perspectives in this matter are pretty much coloured by the fact that I live in Scandinavia, yours by that fact that you live in USA.
Hence I would not draw too far reaching conclusions at all on anyone's individual moral development here.
You have also probably been pretty busy, and not found time to read accurately what I wrote about. Another possibility is that I have not been able to express myself clearly enough.
 I tend to have all the time some fears about how my English is understood. I only hope that I have picked up the correct words. Once I observed afterwards that I had used a word that meant something quite different than I believed it meant.

With love and respect

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Not a question of moral development per se, but as to an analytic perspective, I suppose the answer to your question depends what and how you think about “product of a person's labour.”  I personally find the perspective that “I own what I produce” not very enlightening, maybe about a minute and 45 seconds' worth.

Re: What is true love about?

So to put this back into the topic, it seems to me that true love is not compatible with the initiation of force among humans. My point of view is that the highest level of moral development is the advocacy of voluntariness in all human dealings. My point of view is that the initiation of force by some people toward others, no matter for how noble a cause, always ends up creating divisiveness and other undesirable downstreams. 

My point of view is that if ”we” want ”them” to behave in certain ways, especially wrt other people, and they don't seem to be doing it voluntarily, the only principle that doesn't create moral problems and practical problems downstream, is education and persuasion (including boycotts and other intense actions,) bottom line, everything is voluntary. My point of view is that no real “good” comes, and no real love is generated, when some people are forced to be (in someone else's opinion) charitable. And everything done via government and taxes is force.

Just in case anyone finds it relevant, I've been thinking about this stuff for about 45 years, and I am still open to new input about it, so I will be studying your posts, Irmeli and Tom. They might be able to expand my perspectives. I indeed have changed my mind about several aspects of my point of view, in the last few years.

Blessings, OM 

Re: What is true love about?

OM:My point of view is that the highest level of moral development is the advocacy of voluntariness in all human dealings. My point of view is that the initiation of force by some people toward others, no matter for how noble a cause, always ends up creating divisiveness and other undesirable downstreams.

I agree with you on the voluntariness, but with the caveat that as we are dealing with LL stuff, it is enough that a majority of people volunteer.

Detrimental lasting divisiveness has not appeared regarding these issues in Scandinavia. Nowadays there exists almost full consensus on these legal rights. There are differences in opinion how to collect the money, and how extensive these benefits should be in the different areas. The principle itself has become almost self-evident among people here. This is the air that I have been breathing all my life.

OM: And everything done via government and taxes is force.

That has never been my perception. I see all around me that the tax money gets relatively well used and I feel deep satisfaction if I can on my part contribute to that wellbeing and maintenance of infrastructure.

I'm much more suspicious of charitable work done by private organizations, churches etc. I understand that this kind of work is necessary and useful also. These organizations have however less transparency, and I have learned that this increases likelihood for some sort of corruptive use of the donated money.

I have to see long lasting good results before I trust these organizations.
Also my trust on the governemt on its use of tax money is based on what I see happening around me.

When the results are disappearance of deep poverty, good homes, good education and health care for everyone, I pay taxes gladly.

Irmeli 

Re: What is true love about?

Just got back from my day, it's already way after 10 PM. Been thinking and introspecting all day, and have gotten through some of the emotional charge I carried around this issue, so thanks to all for triggering that “healing” or that transcending and including, whatever jargon term applies — and I did print out the thread and start reading your first post in detail, Irmeli, and I'm really excited to talk further. I tossed out the word “rights” in the same way others do, but actually that is a very superficial way. I can see you want to dig deeper, which is thrilling for me. I don't find many people interested in examining the whole concept of “rights” and what they are and what they mean in behavioral terms. What the Kosmic address of the concept is, and what shared meanings are there around it. 

Rather than stay on the superficial level of our viewpoints about who has what rights to what, I think it would be more exciting and more Integral to inquire into the very concept itself. So if you want to do that, perhaps we can talk. Should it be another thread?? This is your thread, so you get to say !!!!

“Rights” is a political concept, but politics flows from ethics/morality, and the concept can't be delved into without going into ethics/morality. I hope to find time to write a bit tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, I apologize for being a bit knee-jerk based on superficial reading, and I look forward to really digesting everyone's views so far. And hope others will join in. It's a conversation very worth having, and I have been waiting to encounter some people I respect, to talk about this stuff with. Well, I do know some, but I mean NEW people, haha.

Blessings, OM

Re: What is true love about?

OM:Rather than stay on the superficial level of our viewpoints about who has what rights to what, I think it would be more exciting and more Integral to inquire into the very concept itself. So if you want to do that, perhaps we can talk. Should it be another thread?? This is your thread, so you get to say !!!!

For me it could be either way. In this thread I have tried in my post to keep a down to earth less theoretical style and approach.
For a more theoretical inquiry into the concept of rights, there could well be its own thread. In that case can you make the opening post?

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Ok, you've all enticed me to jump in here.

I too struggle with socialist vs. free market ideology battle when it comes to healthcare, but my nondual aspirations tell me that ethics of it really lie in the middle somewhere.  I see Irmeli's concern with OM's statement “no one has the right to another person's labor,”  and, yeah without explanation it sounds pretty absolutist, but I think we can all appreciate the fact that if I get sick–and i'm broke–it's not anybody's legally binding responsibility here to take care of me (this is all on the Individual basis mind you), so if there were a law saying someone had to, then couldn't any of you be arrested if I croak?  Compassion says, “We must all help him!” but fairness says, “what if I have my own health problems to deal with?  What if I'm the only one here who helps, and therefore takes on the entire burden of the cost?”  That's not fair.  No one should individually be held accountable. The solution is for someone else to CHOOSE to help me on their own accord, rather than a law.

Now collectively, the libertarian / socialist choice (this is ignoring the corporate insurance issues which are also a large part) of universal health care is basically saying “Do we as a society choose to care for those without the means?”  That is compassionate, but is that fair?  I guess in Integral speak, the solution depends on both the center of gravity of a society and whether or not that society has the means to be able to do it.  I can't see Orange Republicancs rationalizing it (“people need to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps” etc.), or Blue/Amber getting behind it (unless there's relatively little Red in the society, coupled with religious / nationalist leaders backing the social medicine cause, maybe “through the word of the Lord” etc.). 

That's the debate now in the U.S. Do we have the means given the economic state of the nation to do this?  If so, then does the majority choose compassion?  I say we should in the cases of normal health care, disability, and hard times, but what about the cases where people repeatedly use the system, wont quit smoking, doing drugs and watching TV, and don't pay a dime in taxes?  In such a large society, that's inevitable, and if someone can show me the numbers that such a demographic is a small and (will remain a) sustainable number, then I will sign on.

/2 cents

Edit: Andrew Sullivan serendipitously posted an agreeable reaction on the issue of “healthcare as a right”  that I agree with.

   

Re: What is true love about?

Isn't the question really, can we afford not to provide health care? It isn't in anyone interests to maintain a sick, vulnerable underclass. For me it's a bit like arguing for clean water, sure there are places where that isn't available, and people suffer very badly. However in developed countries we have that literally on tap for everyone.
This isn't about an unopposed right to other people's labour, people sell that labour to an employer, such as a health care system, who basically acts as a broker between the health care professionals and the recipients of care.
To start excluding “self inflicted” ill health is to make the major assumption that social and environmental factors have no influence on these issues.
Europeans, it seems to me, are largely confused about why this is such a big deal in America. It's not easy from here to get your head round why anyone would be opposed. There are different healthcare systems all over Europe, with different ways of funding them. Sure, they will all have some element of rationing, particularly for expensive procedures..in some cases that may be simply a waiting list , and those who can afford to can opt out and pay to go privately and be treated sooner. The crucial thing though, is they can't opt out of contributing to the overall system.
Why wouldn#t a blue/amber society want to know its kids will be treated if they are ill? Its the sort of underpinning structure that should sit easily in that framework. RIght there with schools, cHurch and applie pie.
Liz

Re: What is true love about?

Liz I agree but as an Integral geek, I gotta address the Blue thing about their kids: Yes and no.  I can't speak for all Blue, but what comes to mind is the tea-bag / tea-party protesters, which I see a lot of outraged Blue/Amber taking part i.e. attacking (on the grounds of Gov. largess) the Obama plan and then simultaneously defending Medicare).  Also think of the absolutist Blue/Amber branch of christianity (the name escapes me) where many often forego a sick child's life by denying modern medicine because the faith's doctrine says so.  Blue will do what it is told so, yes they could get on board if their leadership would.

Re: What is true love about?

Cart, healthy blue has a strong social and community ethos and is great at setting up the underpinning fabric to support those structures. Far from trying to overcome blue's natural impulses, it would make much more sense to harness that energy. If skillful means are the way forward, then maybe an emphasis on local, community based halthcare would do well. Blue's problem would be, I think, with seeing the excluded getting the benefits. It needs some work on building undersanding that community includes everyone……in fact any community that doesn't cater for everyone is less than whole. It just needs that preception of “community “to become a bit more inclusive.
Having sophisticated health facilities available is a common good. And if everyone contributes (assuming those who don't pay via taxes would have their portion met by the state), it may actually make more sense.
I attended a lecture last week with Ed Hubbard, author of “Escape from the box-the wonder of human potential”. Interesting guy, has a great story to tell, but very unevenly developed in different lines.http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Box-Wonder-Human-Potential/dp/0963923137. Anyway, one of the things he was saying about American healthcare was the example of his wife having routine blood tests. Bill came in for $750. He passed it to the Insurance. Then another came. He rang the insurance and they explained. Under the terms of the contract, the lab are allowed to repeat tests up to 3 times. I used to work in a clinical biochemistry lab, I completely understand that's the case. However, rather than have a base price which includes for a percentage of retests, what actually happens is they bill 3 times. Under the terms of whatever contract they have, the insurance pays out.
Somebody is making an awful lot of money from the current system, while families of people who are unlucky enough to get sick face financial crisis. It's not necessary. We wouldn't tolerate this behaviour from plumbers or accountants or the local grocer………..sorry ma'am, I have to charge you twice for all your fresh food, it's down to the wastage, you see. Sure, sir, I'll repair your boiler once but I'll charge you for it 3 times. Why? It's the system, sir, don't blame me, I didn't make the rules………….

Liz

Re: What is true love about?

Liz: Healthy blue has a strong social and community ethos and is great at setting up the underpinning fabric to support those structures. Far from trying to overcome blue's natural impulses, it would make much more sense to harness that energy.

I like this. Blue or amber does not seem to form  problem, when a service or function has become well established, and is the way respectable people are expected function.
They may resist reforms, but then the wise policy would be to, as Liz points out, to try to make use of their natural tendencies, their need for stability and security.

I had a look on statistic about health care costs. In Finland, where healthcare includes all citizens, the public sector is responsible for 74 % percent of the costs.
The costs, public and private together, were 8,2% of the gross national product in 2006/2007. With this we get pretty good healthcare. There are some areas that would need improvement, as mentally ill people, but my experience is on the whole the system works relatively well.

Those who prefer the use of the services of the private sector, also get part of the costs paid by the public sector. The discussion here goes on if this support should be dropped away totally. People using private services would still have to pay for the costs of the public healthcare through their tax payments. This is not even discussed.

In USA health care costs were 2006/2007  15,3% of gross national product.

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Hi Cart, I think more than compassion is engaged in the healthcare, and more generally the socialist, debate.  By “socialist,” forget talk of communism: Henry Ford was a socialist: he saw the social and individual value of cooperation, and made scads of capitalist lucre from it.  Isn't “socialist” a proper technical term for Ford?

Here's a question for you: if your health is in any way a product of other people's work, should you not be implicated in some real way—iow, by law—to pay into maintaining and extending to others the system that, so extended to you, produced your health?

Another question: if your ability to earn money is entirely dependent (as it is) on there being a viable economic system, itself requiring oodles and oodles of public infrastructure, including a health infrastructure that ensures your employees and customers have a healthy economy-contributing life, is everything “you produce” a simple product of “your labour”?

I personally don't understand the notion of “free-markets.”  I'm was a lawyer for many years, and came to quite a deep understanding that “the market” is a worked-up thing that operates, at a deep level, on centuries of law codified in library shelves upon library shelves of legal dicta, statutes, by-laws, regulations—the works.  My god, the US tax code itself measures 10 feet on a library shelf in oversized books using undersized font printed on onion-skin paper.  Then there's the Securities Act, the Trade Act, the Bank Act, the Creditor's Security Act, etc etc etc.

Tax, for its part, goes to pay for, among other things, some useless and wasteful,  economy-essential items like health-care, education, roads, sewars, water supplies, etc, etc, etc ….

In those respects, which respects account for the majority of tax expenditures, military expenditures excepted (I will get to this below), tax is but a measure of the necessary outlays required to establish bottom-level necessities but for which a productive economy would not even exist, which is why high economic productivity without exception entails high tax.  If you want low tax, go to Namibia, I say.

But there's more to this story.  Also required for economic functioning is a system whereby large-scale risks beyond any corporation's ability to absorb are distributed across the economic-user base.  Risk of course inheres in innovation, and innovation is essential to economic functioning.  Thus where large-scale innovation is concerned, the US, in its curious genius but with a self-deluded propagandistic twist, has put in place a form of innovation risk-sharing called the military industrial complex.  The sharing, of course, arrives via the tax system; the innovation occurs through military and other government-entity financing.  Here's a short list off the top of my head of products produced by, if not 100% then not but for, the government-financed sector:

transistors
internet
computers
radar
fuel cells
aviation technology
almost all high-tech electronics
factory-line automation
nuclear technology
laser (underlies virtually all modern communications)
satellite technology
GMO crops
biotech
many if not most drugs

I could list products for another 300 lines if I had the time to research this matter.  Compared to that list, the normal economy begins to look like the marketing arm of the government economic sector.

Where is the “free-market” in any of this?  What I see is: the US spends up to $0.5 trillion yearly on front-line, risk-shared innovation financed through tax-doled military contracts.  It calls itself a very innovative economy.  I agree!  Yes, there exist individual free play and flexibility of choice in that market, but those rights are state protected legalities and would not exist but for the system and the state.

Add up even just the items I've mentioned in this post and one already must unavoidably posit that the entirety of our lives is embedded in a system not of any individual's making.  Everything on this planet gets recycled and recycled and recycled in a bootstrapping, self-propagating system composed of system-points we tend to call individuals.  Even the language I'm now using is entirely borrowed from the system.  Though I use the English language extensively, I personally have not contributed one new word to it. 

What Irmeli is IMO indicating is a need to openly discuss a proper, openly truthful and responsible management of the system in which we live.  That system includes a large dose of concern for others—that is fundamentally the definition of a system—and in that system my concern for myself cannot be separated for my concern for another.  If people are allowed to drink and drive at will, other than the drinker's interests will be affected.  Most of life is like that: choices I make for myself ripple broadly to affect many others.

Re: What is true love about?

Well put Tom.  

Thanks for the illuminating view of our current system!  I never thought of the military industrial complex as such.

But I actually didn't mean to convey that I supported what I said about the individualist scenario I described.  I only meant that to be a simplistic scenario and in no way representative of what my personal politics are, and given your well informed post, I doubt we differ too much.

-b

 edit: sorry, but time doesn't permit me an as-thought-out-of  reply as yours!

Re: What is true love about?

This discussion is thrilling me!

Thanks Tom for a keen evaluation. Having worked in Aerospace & Defense for over 35 years, on Lasers, Radar, Computers, Sensor technology, navigation…you hit the nail on the head.

Bryan,
You also are bringing important considerations to this exploration.

OM,
You have injected passion by engaging your emotions.

Irmeli, Subtlety rising from your depth. {;-)

One thing I would add to this discussion is a definition of 'Wealth' I got from Bucky Fuller's writing. Wealth consists of two factors, finite material resources and 'metaphysical Know How'. Since the 'know how' is always increasing, wealth is always increasing. The old assumption of 'not enough to go around' is obsolete.

This needs to be integrated into the understanding of economics along with purpose of human wellness and happiness.

Thanks Liz for bringing that focus of healthcare back into the conversation.

You guys just really rock!

Re: What is true love about?

Wow, gee, I was gonna go start a new thread, and carefully reply here only to the few points in Irmeli's first thread that I have digested so far, but in the meanwhile that I was gone living 3-d life, the discussion has broadened and deepened, so now I don't know what to do with my essay. And it'll take me a week at the current rate to be able to informedly post anything else. 

So here goes, and if anyone objects I can replace this essay with a link to a repost as a different thread.

I agree, this discussion is the best on the topic I've seen yet, and I've seen a few. But then, I expect nothing less from this awesome group !!

The following has some repetitiousness because it is stream-of-conversation, not a polished essay. Pls forgive.

Irmeli, one certainly can't argue with your perceptions and experiences. And I understand that it all seems quite sensible and logical and benevolent to you, that it's what you grew up with and most people who grow up in a particular system don't dig deeply into the premises of their system, or contemplate many alternatives, or look too closely at evidence or examples of the (inevitable) darksides or downsides of their system. 

I'm sure you see many people who are happy, healthy, and satisfied with the welfare state system, and people who willingly pay the taxes involved.  I'm suggesting there is a price being paid, both ethically and practically, a price most people wouldn't be aware of unless they looked, but a price that is nonetheless evident, and would become more evident over time. Independently of who has what rights to what, there is a price being paid. I'd prefer that people be aware of it, so they can more consciously decide whether the benefits are worth the price. Better minds than I have devoted decades of study of the wider social and individual (LL and LR and UL and UR) costs and benefits of various economic systems, and I don't really want to spend much time rehashing their ideas. The folks I mean include Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Frederic Bastiat, and others.

I'm also wishing that more people would become more aware of the premises, the moral premises, involved in their system, whatever that system is. I accept that some people don't see an issue with using force to take money, time, or labor or resources from some folks to give to others, especially if the former would give willingly even without there being force involved. Some people don't even see anything undesirable about using force on people who are unwilling to voluntarily do whatever it is.

I have to part company with those folks on that matter, for reasons I described partly earlier. It's a moral matter, to me. I have concluded within myself that the more voluntariness a system has, the better it is in both the long run and short run for the most number of people in the most number of ways. Thus I speak of the “moral principle” of voluntariness, and that's what I mean. To me, it's the “highest” way people can relate to one another. It's the way that I believe/observe most naturally flows as a consequence in the behavior of people who are at higher levels of spiritual and moral/ethical development. IMO it's the one of the clearest expressions or consequences of “love,” which is why I think the topic fits this thread.

 Be that as it may, what I'd like to do is zoom out a bit, and get a bit bigger picture of what is going on, and why. I'd like to bounce around some idea about “rights” and see how we might all expand our ideas on that topic. Some Libertarian fellow years ago wrote a long treatise about the concept of “rights,” and while I never studied it, I gather the gist of it was that the more one delves into the idea, the more amorphous and tenuous and evanescent and vague it becomes. Yet the concept is, of course, the cornerstone of the Modern what-we-consider advances in political relating and systems. 

But it's one of those cases where everyone thinks they know what the concept means, and they can tell you two sentences' worth about it, and if you ask for more than that, they kinda go blank and start stuttering. I certainly was in that category. “Well, everyone knows what 'rights' are.” Well, we can LIST a lot, the right to this and to that, but what does it mean?? Well, people should respect other people's rights. And government is our way of enforcing people's rights. Governments are not supposed to violate rights. Yes, but what does that mean? What is a right? How do you know something is a right? How do you conclude what is and isn't a right? And for whom? And what if someone disagrees that you or someone has a particular right? What then? And exactly what behaviors violate rights, and how do those behaviors violate rights? And how come governments are supposed to enforce rights, and how are they supposed to do that, how are they authorized to do that, and how do they go about doing it? And how do some of them violate rights, rights we think the people have but the government thinks they DON'T have those rights? Who's right about that??

Anyway, most people couldn't even begin to answer questions like that, me among them before I started studying the subject. This guy who wrote about the concept, I wish I could remember who — from my very imperfect memory of what he said, he said that rights boil down to being claims that certain things are “right” to do in interpersonal interactions. Rights exist when and only when people CLAIM them as a “right” way they (or others) should be treated. So the very concept is a moral concept.

And he said, I think, that rights don't exist unless they are agreed to by others. Rights are not God-given, that examination reveals nothing tenable. “God-given” is simply an attempt to give more moral authority to the claim that someone has the “right.” Rights are not “inalienable” — that is simply a claim that the speaker regards them as inherent in the Beingness of whoever is claimed to have the rights, an imputation of inherentness or immanence which doesn't hold up to examination. “Inalienable” is simply yet another attempt to give more moral authority to the claim that someone has that “right.”

Rights really can't be found or discovered or observed. And rights are not granted by a government, they seem to exist in some way prior. He seemed to reach the conclusion, as I recall, that rights were simply a social agreement, and not worth the paper they were printed on, speaking metaphorically, unless all parties kept to the agreement.So you can claim a right, for yourself and/or others. And you can deny a right. That's all. It's all talk.

It would be important to know how he interfaced rights and government, but I don't recall, nor do I have any well-thought-out formulations about that, beyond the superficialities I mentioned above. This is an area, the whole concept of rights, and the upstream premises and downstream implications of the concept, that I am still exploring and haven't reached clear conclusions about. I just have some strong opinions about various aspects of the matter, as you can tell !!!

Anyway, most of the time when we say X has a right to Y, we are really saying “I believe X should have Y.” And that's ALL we are saying. Anything else is a matter of implementation, and people can differ about methods. So it's a matter of belief, not proof, and it's a matter of ought to or should, not perception or observation. No one observes that X has a right. We claim rights, we impute rights, we deny that rights exist, we violate claimed rights. But they are not givens in the world, even in the world of ideas.

In many cases, such as in welfare states and as is rampant in the US, many people are willing to “give up their rights” in exchange for some other benefit or value. IOW, I or others might say “I believe you have a right to x,” and you might say “Perhaps, but such-and-such is more important to me, and I hereby give up that right in favor of this other kind of interaction in society.” (The classic example is people voluntarily (though often subconsciously and ill-informedly) partially giving up their “right” to freedom/liberty in exchange for what they perceive as “security.”)

This situation points to rights as social agreements, and argues against their “inalienable” nature. They are very “alienable,” even disposable. But then, “inalienable” is simply an opinion, a point of view. When I say X has an inalienable right to Y, I am simply asserting that I don't believe or endorse or grant that anyone can claim X does NOT have a right to Y, and I am asserting that if I regard X's right to Y as being “violated” (or voluntarily given up) I have the moral authority to continue to claim that X has a right to Y and that the right is being violated, or even if a right given up by X, I still claim it for X!! And am entitled to take appropriate steps, to remove the violation, or persuade X to not give up the right.

In the case of the spiritual teachers and gurus, and everyone in those situations who regard them as having a right to the labor and resources of the followers, I wonder if that's a loose use of the term, perhaps even a metaphorical use. But my opinion is that since all parties are regarding the situation as “right,” then the claiming and “granting” of that right (from one side and the other) is indeed going on. It's just that no force, no government is involved in any way; it's all social agreement and social expectation and social pressure.

[If a government were to step in and enforce said right, a lot of Modern-stage outside folks would be up in arms, literally, that the followers would grant the gurus such a right and the gurus and followers would allow the government to enforce it. Which shows how tricky the whole matter is !!!!! The outside folks would say “No, the gurus don't have that right” and they would be speaking from THEIR perspective, whereas the gurus and followers would all be quite happy with their situation, and whoever as a follower didn't like the situation, could leave without coercion or penalty. There is no “enforcement” of the “right” in that sense.

Not like in countries where husbands/men are granted “rights” over their wives or women in general, that folks in some other countries find morally horrifying, and where there are severe penalties enforced for any woman trying to leave the situation geographically or behaviorally or even by endorsing some other idea. Yet some of the women actually believe that indeed husbands/men DO “have those rights” and “willingly” go along with the system!!!! What do outsiders do in THAT case where the sufferer grants the right to the persecutor!!!!? Do we regard it as “right” that an outsider come in and break up the situation using force, or try to educate/persuade the parties? Whose “rights” supercede, and in whose opinion?]

So we sometimes talk about “granting a right” but what does that really mean both ethically and behaviorally? Who can grant a right to whom, and for what? Or do we maintain that rights can only be claimed or given up by the one who “has” them, but not “really” granted by someone to someone who then “has” them but didn't have them before the granting? What does all that mean? And what are the consequences of the various opinions about these matters?

In sum, I think it's likely that “rights” as a concept are not something inherent for humans. I think that a person's talk of “rights” is a shorthand way of expressing their values, of expressing their accepted ethical and moral imperatives or principles, their “should's” and “ought's” of human interaction. Often I think the discussions would be clearer if we trashed the word/concept and spoke more directly and clearly.

Then, in such things as declarations of universal human rights, we'd see more exactly what was being asserted or affirmed, and how it would work out behaviorally, so we'd see more exactly what was going on or being proposed, what the consequences were to everyone involved.

I still think “rights” is a useful concept in social discourse, but I am aware of its slipperiness and fuzziness and superficial use/understanding. I wish more people were.

Well, that is all I can think of to say right now, pun not intended !! Looking forward to what others say, as I still have many questions and much openness on this topic. IMO an Integral approach to the subject involves (at least) a lot of looking at many questions and issues like the above. And then making some assessments, some interpretations, and then moving into actions in particular situations, based on those assessments and interpretations of the ideas and of the folks and of the situations. Is anyone aware of other discussions about “rights” going on in Integrally-oriented circles?

OK, one more thing.

Here's my version of how I'd do a Declaration of Universal Human Rights, and then a version I don't endorse. This is not precise or comprehensive, it's just to get the flavor of the difference. And this is just a first draft.

My version:
I value expressions of love, encouragement and generosity. I will work toward a world — and encourage others to work toward a world — in which everyone has what I consider adequate food, clothing, healthcare, shelter, education, and access to improvement and expression of their lives as they see fit, as long as they don't interfere with anyone else's ability to do the same. I will work toward a world — and encourage others to work toward a world — in which all people are tolerant, benevolent, generous in assisting others in whatever ways are needed and wanted. I will work toward a world in which everyone is free from coercion and violence and from being misled or lied to – from anything which interferes with their ability to thrive and flourish as alive creatures — and I will work toward a world in which those who engage in such behaviors (coercion, violence, misleading, lying, damaging life) are restrained from doing it again (and if possible moved more toward valuing and loving others' freedom and rights.) I will work toward a world of peace, of love, and of maximum freedom/liberty/voluntariness, as the preconditions for universal respect, goodwill, cooperation, collaboration, synergy, and co-creativity in service of the value of Life. I believe it is possible to have all the above values at once. (IOW, what I wrote here. And of course I've left out a lot of what would be in my ideal world.)

Another version I don't endorse:
Everyone has a right to adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, etc. If they cannot obtain these things on their own, and if others don't voluntarily cooperate to provide them with these things, I endorse using the threat of fine or imprisonment, via the method of taxation by government, to make “those who have” give to those who don't have what I consider to be “adequate” in those rights, and to make those with skills, provide their services to others under set terms. I endorse all this under terms that the majority agree upon, and those who don't agree either have to behave under these threats, or leave the country. It is acceptable to me to trade the values of freedom and voluntariness for the values of generosity and standard of living, and I accept all the consequences of that trade. I believe it is not possible to have maximum amounts of all those values at once.

(Some political thinkers have remarked on the tyranny of democracy. What most of us have, to attempt to avoid that, is constitutional republics. But no system can withstand the will of the majority, even if that will is expressed as apathy toward groups fighting among themselves as to who will grab the power of government to better themselves and they don't care at whose expense that's done.)

OK, OM, be quiet now.

Thanks for plowing through all that. It's been years accumulating before getting put into words today.

Love to all,
OM

Re: What is true love about?

Dear OM
Your essay was such a Herculean effort I have been moved to try to make some kind of response. It brings up a lot of things that require thought. Central is your point that we all make assumptions based on our own experiences. Our frame of reference is of course constructed by what we know. For those of us who have always had health care free at the point of access, it is really hard to understand the mindset of a wealthy, developed nation, which seems to be unsure this is a positive step, or one for which they are willing to pay. It wouldn’t have to be in tax dollars, it could be done with insurance schemes, just insurance would be compulsory to a minimum level as it is with driving a car.

The rights discussion is an interesting one. The understanding I have carried with me over the past 20 years or so is that I have a right to pursue my personal business without interference from others, until and unless I start to encroach on another person’s freedom to pursue his business in the same way. At that point we need to negotiate boundaries, and for society to work, we need to broadly agree and accept what those are.
 However, as you say, that’s all very well but what does it actually mean?
I agree with you that we all make assumptions based on, well, lots of things. What seems like commonsense, our own moral stance, our understanding of how the world works, our personal experiences all go to frame what we think is reasonable. We then assume there is some kind of consensus that other reasonable minded people will think something similar. That’s a huge leap but we all do it and it’s not always easy to see our own implicit assumptions and make them explicit.

So what would our common ground be? What would we aspire to? How far would be hope for people just to be nice and play along, and where would we want legislation to safeguard things? This is a bit daunting, however we are not the first people to have thought about this stuff. I went back and had a look at the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Here’s the preamble, the language is not great, whereas , wherefore, hereafter, sort of legalistic speak I presume (note to self -wonder if Tom talks like thisJ ), but I would think this part tries to address the underlying assumptions and set a framework of common ground.

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,


Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,


Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,


Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,


Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,


Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.


 So it’s a statement of intent. I don’t find anything objectionable in it, but nor do I want to assume no one else will. Also it was written in 1948, so reflects the concerns just after the end of WW2. If we were writing it today, would we make it different? And the big question I suppose is does it fit with an integral framework. Certainly it has span, it’s world centric, but does it deal with issues like individual responsibility?

One of the reasons I suspect the rights discussion gets diverted is because it pays too little attention to what the payback is –if rights are socially constructed and socially conferred, then it seems to me there must be some social expectation of conduct or behaviour . Or is it a question of treat everyone right and trust they will reciprocate? Is the assumption that responsibilities sit alongside rights uniquely mine and not something others share? Is it acceptable to just give and give and give…………love until it hurts and then just keep doing it, or is that just being idiotic and ignoring the realities?

There are 30 articles to the document and I was curious about whether anyone would be interested in looking at what needs to change, or whether it stands uncontested. The link to the whole thing is here http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/  I think I’ll try picking a couple of what I think are areas where we would broadly agree, just to see if people will agree on anything…….if anyone is still reading and hasn’t lost the will to live! 

Article 1.·         All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


Now that seems fairly straightforward………well, OK some have more reason than others and different people have consciences that tell them different things are OK, and there’s the rights thing which is open to debate……………..and what’s the spirit of brotherhood anyway and where is the sisterhood in all of this?  

Article 2.·         Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.


I assume this is the bit that makes it Universal. However that would not sit easily with dropping bombs on anyone else’s house, so how come the UN gets involved in “peace keeping forces” and declarations of war?


Article 3.·         Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.


Everyone in principle, or everyone no matter what they have done to trample over other’s rights. WE have entire state systems depriving people of liberty and what triggers it varies from nation to nation. How does this sit with jailing people for non violent offences? Or violent ones?


Article 4.·         No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.


That seems uncontroversial to me


Article 5.·    No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment .   


How do you define cruel and degrading punishment? Is there a consensus? I’d see chopping off limbs as inhuman and degrading…………I’d see capital punishment the same way. 


Article 6.·         Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.


Hmm, what law, whose law? Does a person mean the same thing in all legal systems? What protection does “recognition as a person “afford.
There are 24 more, and I’m sure it would be fun to unpick them. The only one I think is clear so far is the declaration against slavery and maybe even that would need to be defined in relation to rights and freedoms.It would be naive to think that human trafficking doesn’t exist.

Is there a way to express these ideas differently or more clearly, Is the Integral model any help at all? For me an Integral approach would bring an element of balance in terms of individual responsibility and collective action, as opposed to the big picture vision of rights being conferred.
Liz 

Re: What is true love about?

Liz said about the UN Universal Delclaration of Human rights:
So it’s a statement of intent. I don’t find anything objectionable in it, but nor do I want to assume no one else will. Also it was written in 1948, so reflects the concerns just after the end of WW2. If we were writing it today, would we make it different? And the big question I suppose is does it fit with an integral framework. Certainly it has span, it’s world centric, but does it deal with issues like individual responsibility?

These are interesting questions. When I look at the declaration from integral perspective I can perceive it reflects green altitude, and a kind of idealistic flatland notion of equality that is pretty far from the reality of the world today. It has forgotten individual responsibilities for the results of one's actions for those lower in the developmental hierarchy. And it doesn't recognize properly the fact that nations are developmentally at pretty differing phases.

I take as an example the Aritcle 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Societies today, and most likely also in future, have huge differences in how evolved and advanced structures they have (LR), and in the values they cherish(LL). Similar rights and freedoms are just not possible in societies that are develomentally quite different. It does not make any sense to start to demand that people in very undeveloped societies should have the same rights and freedoms than people in a more complex and advanced society has. That can create more problems than solve them. People and societies can be encouraged to take the next developmental step, if they seem to be ready for that, but people cannot jump over some stages.

Also how the concept of brotherhood is understood is fully dependent of one's developmental level. Does it include people in my clan, the society I belong to, people believing in the same God as I do, or all of humanity. If people are expected to perceive differently than they truly do, the result is only mood making, or strengthening of the false self. This line of reasoning can be applied to the other articles in the declaration as well.

 The concept of universal human rights, as it is written in the declaration, is seen from a flatland perspective having not yet a true understanding of the holarchical nature of human development. There is the assumption that all people are kind of born to this type of universal perspective, and would immediately be there if others would stop violating these human rights. However experience shows that you can grant these rights to people, who have not earlier had them, but they don't grant them to you, if this granting is later in their power, and they consider you to be a stupid idiot.

If the UN folks would rewrite the declaration now, they would possibly make the same mistake again and even worse. I had a look at the Human Development Report 2009. It deals with human development and mobility. According to that paper people being able to freely decide where to live is a key element of human development. Nations are encouraged to open their borders to immigrants freely to move in. The benefits of free immigration to the country of origin and to the receiving country are widely discussed in the paper.
 The very real problems in the societies, that have wellcomed masses of immigrants and refugees from developmentally very different cultures, are facing today, has been brushed aside almost completely. There are very good reasons why people in Europe are now much more hesitant in receiving of immigrants, who cannot easily intergate themselves to the society, and cannot find work. In the paper the responsibility of these problems is fully inflicted on the attitudes of people in the receiving country, and lack of support to the immigrants.

 In Scandinavia the immigrants have got plenty of support in many different ways, and still here are severe problems. Eg in Turku, the city were I live, we have new immigrants and refugees, that have arrived during the last 25 years, around 5% of the city population. Many of them are jobless. They live on social wellfare, which means a much higher standard of living than in their country of origin they ever had. Many, mostly Muslims, are not capable of integrating themselves to the values of Finnish society. They get often many children, who get free good education with extra support, because of their background. Still not too many make it to the college level. These immigrants or their children are responsible for over 30% of rapes and thefts in the city. Allowing all the willing people free access to our country would brake down the advanced structure of our society.

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Aha, ontopic!! Responding to one bit of what Tom said:

Tom I resonate with the perspective that none of us exists as we are independent of input and influences from others, so we need to acknowledge and behave from that truth. Many of the various suggestions seem fine to me. My ONLY quibble is with the initiation of force in relating to people, no matter who or how many endorse that. It seems to me that bringing force into the human equation works — sometimes subtly and longterm, but very surely — very much against the kind of community feeling you and some others have pointed to. It works against loving relationships, against true expressions of generosity and support, when some people must act certain ways under penalty of fine or imprisonment, and other people think that's an acceptable way to relate. That's just not too kindly, that's my impression.

The element of force is the only sticking point, for me. All the rest, it's all fine and we can work out what we think is best. I might think some plans are better than others for dealing with what we believe should and shouldn't exist in our society, but the only place I personally put my ethical/moral/spiritual foot down in when non-voluntariness enters the picture. So I am not an atomist or extreme individualist, that is not a part of my position, though judging historically one might think so. I'm not from any box, haha

And in the healthcare system, there's a lot of what I consider unethical behavior that goes on by drug companies, by insurance companies, by individuals, which constitutes initiation of force, as I define it, which lies and misrepresents and is IMO unethical and that should IMO be illegal, punishable (in some Integral way, whatever that might be.) If we simply got rid of all that, the current system would magically work a lot better, even if not ideally. Healthcare costs would go way down. 

I realized, for example, how government itself plays a role in driving up healthcare costs and insurance costs. If Medicare etc. pays providers less than the cost of services rendered, guess what the providers have to do to stay in business? Jack up costs for everyone else. This spiral goes on and on. No one spots the “price-fixing” by government as one of the causal factors.

What WOULD be the most LOVING system of all, FOR EVERYONE????

Hugs, OM

Re: What is true love about?

Thought this hilariously relevant:

(edit: clicking link is more readable than clicking image)

Re: What is true love about?

Relevant, even though inaccurate.

Humor is good ! Thanks !!

Hugs, OM

Re: What is true love about?

Hi Om, your question to my mind poses the utility of force generally.  The nation state was born of, among a few other items, the transfer of force to the state.  This transfer has proceeded apace over a few centuries to today where the state essentially holds a monopoly on force, generally governed by objective, accountable standards we call laws.  Quarantining force in this manner has thus allowed a legal system to replace, to some material degree, violence.  One can thus say that state violence (call a spade a spade) is a necessary stepping stone to reducing violence in life generally.

Do statistics bear that out?  They seem to indeed.  If one looks at violence statistics, they suggest that deaths due to war and homocide have been declining for so long as any relevant evidence is available (hundreds of years).  It's worth hearing what Steven Pinker says here about the myth of violence.  Force quarantining is working.  Life is becoming more stable despite common notions of things sliding wrongly and despite that emergent mental capacity for worry which has imo emerged as a higher developed structure.  For me any higher evolution requires for its emergence physical life stability.  Thus worry is a sign that things are going well.

On a larger scale of things, force is part of the universe.  We describe physical motivationals as 'forces,' and for good reason: what happens in stellar cores, what happens when galaxies collide, what happens when tectonic plates move is forceful.  FWIW, I view force as good, because I am everything that is.

Re: What is true love about?

Interesting perspective Tom. I do believe most people are safer from violence, over time. What you said might be one of the reasons.

Force and violence are different things, to me. When I talk about initiation of force, I mean people harming people or living things, including the environment, and including over time, future time. It's quite different from when we talk about nature, if one believes people can be held morally responsible, based on the capacity to choose. At least, I think it's more useful to separate than to see the similarities. Because one is a moral matter, the other is not.

Thanks for so clearly articulating your points! Well worth thinking about.

Blessings, OM 

Re: What is true love about?

There have been great insights coming from many different perspectives in this thread. This whole thing seems to branch off to many different interesting directions. Just now I don't have time to go into these more, even if these perspectives have been eye opening to me. I have a busy weekened ahead. We are gathering together with friends and family.
Here however I bring one more perspective to this soup.

OM: I think it's likely that 'rights' as a concept are not something inherent in humans .

What would inherent mean in the light of human evolution? Shouldn't we ask instead, when in human evolution did the concept of rights come into existense? The concept is a fact of present day, and it exists now in multitudes of ways and levels that are regulating human interaction.

In Finnish culture there has existed from immemorial times something that is called Everyman's Rights. Also the Finnish words oikea (right) and its derivative oikeus (rights) are oiriginal Finnish words and not loan words, and they have similar counterparts in kindred languages. This means they are pretty old words. And hence these concepts have been inherent to Finnish culture from immemorial times.

The capacity to respect mutually agreed rights and laws is the cornerstone of a stable society. However people and nations evolve, and from time to time revisions have to be made in these rights otherwise evolution won't happen. LL and LR quadrants are essentially important  for individual evolution. Making changes to happen in the mutual rights between humans have traditionally been a pretty violent issue. Democracy makes a much more smooth revisioning and adjustment of the balance in the different rights possible.

There exists nowadays also the concepts a weak state and a strong state. In a weak state the parliament or government can legislate laws, but they are not obeyed. In Somalia the genital mutilation of girls is forbidden, but the majority of people don't obey, and the government cannot make them to obey. In Mongolia the traditional practice is that men acquire themselves a wife by robbing one. This is illegal, but still this day 30% of men get their wifes this way. In India the caste system in form of privileging some people or not admitting other people their legal rights, is forbidden, but is still going strong. These governments are weak in their law enforcement capacity.

In societies where people have evolved to orange or higher altitudes, and are more individuated, they have also internalized the idea of law obedience. Through this internalization also most laws are in agreement with what they understand to be right, what is righteous. And if there is something they find not to be righteous they can start through democratic means to fight for more righteous laws. However they obey the laws even if they don't like them.There is inherent law obedience in people. The rights and laws are seen as something that they can together change, when needed. In these places the State and government are also strong. Laws are obeyed, and those who don't  have to answer for that. Law enforcement functions well, and is not corrupted. Not obeying laws has real consequences. This can only happen, when the citizens have profoundly internalized the value of mutual rights and laws for a well functioning society. When this is fully internalized, it becomes an automatic way of functioning. It means also volunteering to function in this way. I find this to be the basis on which the modern democratic wellfare states are built on.


However I agree that the word rights gets sometimes used in misleading ways. I'll give a practical example from Finland. Here exists a law for the day care of children. It has gradually been complemented. Nowadays for every child who needs it, there must be a place for her in a communal day care system. The parliament is a place were these decisions are made. However it is the communes, who are responsible for creating that service, and collecting the taxes for it. The parliament cannot just ask the communes to create this service. They wouldn't do it, because it is pretty costly. Therefore these decisions of the parliament have to become laws. By becoming laws they also become the legal rights of citizens. Nowadays many parents understand that this communal day care is a legal right of small children. They also tend to believe, because this is a legal right, communal day care must be better for small children than to be taken care of at home. There have been criticism of the using the words legal right in this context at all. Rather there should be an emphasis that children under 3 years should be taken care at home rather than spending long hours at day care. There is plenty of research results on this type of day care not being good for small children under 3 year with normal heatlhy parents.

Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Irmeli: What would inherent mean in the light of human evolution? Shouldn't we ask instead, when in human evolution did the concept of rights come into existense?

Yes.  One could speculate that every possibility exists in some real fashion.  This water before me can become steam, so its steam nature exists as some form of specifiable law or actuality.  'Rights' could likewise be seen to be a potentiality existing in some real fashion, ie, as a real potential actualizable under proper circumstances.  Those 'proper circumstances' require, as Irmeli imo rightly says, evolution.

Irmeli: The capacity to respect mutually agreed rights and laws is the cornerstone of a stable society.

Yes also.  Social functioning—cooperative functioning—is fundamentally contractual, ie, based on agreement.  This agreement is usually tacit or implied—as in “naturally” walking down the sidewalk, not the middle of the road.  The explicit form of this agreement is contained in a society's laws and mores.

Re: What is true love about?

Tom: One could speculate that every possibility exists in some real fashion.  This water before me can become steam, so its steam nature exists as some form of specifiable law or actuality.  'Rights' could likewise be seen to be a potentiality existing in some real fashion, ie, as a real potential actualizable under proper circumstances. 
I have adopted this way of understanding on how phenomenon and concepts come into existence from Ken's book Integral Spirituality. The approach he presents there makes a lot of sense to me.
Some quotes from that book:
”That is something developmentalists have known all along: There isn't a single pregiven world lying around out there waiting for all and sundry to see. Different phenomenological worlds – real worlds – come into being with each new level of consciousness development.”
”If I want to know if something is real, I must get into the same state or stage from which the assertion was issued, and then look.”
”There is no pregiven world awaiting perception, only mutually disclosing perspectives awaiting enactment”.
I agree also with what you say, that concepts, ideas, phenomenon can exist as actualizable potentialities, when there are not proper circumstances to perceive them.
Irmeli

Re: What is true love about?

Namaste

I’ve been enjoying the discourse…very thought provoking! 


OM:
Rather than stay on the superficial level of our viewpoints about who has what rights to what, I think it would be more exciting and more Integral to inquire into the very concept itself.

OM:
Rights really can't be found or discovered or observed. And rights are not granted by a government, they seem to exist in some way prior. He seemed to reach the conclusion, as I recall, that rights were simply a social agreement, and not worth the paper they were printed on, speaking metaphorically, unless all parties kept to the agreement.So you can claim a right, for yourself and/or others. And you can deny a right. That's all. It's all talk.
　
Excellent points, OM.

Possibly the most important aspect concerning rights is ownership…and what all our laws are based upon…from business to personal…all of which, are connected to land rights as well.

This quote is particularly relevant…

The first universal perception of mankind is declared by the American Indian Chief, Black Hawk: “The Great Spirit has told me that land is not to be made property like other property. The earth is our mother!”
~Henry George
part II. The “Reduction to Inquiry.” p52 source: 
Property in land: a passage-at-arms between Duke of Argyll and Henry George
 
And consider the underlined passage below…  
from THE PROPHET (1923) by Khalil Gibran:

GIVING
Then said a rich man, “Speak to us of Giving.”
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.
You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
~Khalil Gibran
from THE PROPHET (1923)  
*underlining added*

And as far as Social Welfare…there is a stark disconnect to the relief these services provide vs. the burden and humiliation of having no other choice but to use these services, due to bank and land monopolies(in truth, the government is not in control)…see my profile page and blog for much more on this topic!
So, OM, am I correct in assuming this is the root of your aversion to force of certain laws pertaining to rights?

This one word is of great significance…UNLESS.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not!” ~ THE LORAX by Dr. Seuss
I care a whole awful lot about justice, rights, land, health, prosperity and success. All of our laws…bind me otherwise…to poverty, injustice, and oppression. Yet, my soul is unbound.

What do others think?
listening to Chevelle - Jars

LOVE

Betsy