Stigliz noted in a recent VF article: "The rich don't need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. .... Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity, in which fair play, equality of opportunity, and a sense of community are so important. " Stigliz VF article
Here is a numerate description of the challenge. Fractal Inequality and Politics --The Numbers and Scope
The I Ching ("Laws of Change") Hexagram 42 "Increase" sets forth ancient wisdom on the attitudes needed to improve oneself and in turn the wealth of a society. Hexagram 42 commentary
"The idea of increase is expressed in the fact that the strong lowest line of the
upper trigram has sunk down and taken its place under the lower trigram.
This conception also expresses the fundamental idea on which the Book of
Changes is based. To rule truly is to serve.
A sacrifice of the higher element that produces an increase of the lower is
called an out-and-out increase: it indicates the spirit that alone has power to
help the world.
THE JUDGMENT
INCREASE. It furthers one
To undertake something.
It furthers one to cross the great water.
Sacrifice on the part of those above for the increase of those below fills the
people with a sense of joy and gratitude that is extremely valuable for the
flowering of the commonwealth. When people are thus devoted to their
leaders, undertakings are possible, and even difficult and dangerous
enterprises will succeed. Therefore in such times of progress and successful
development it is necessary to work and make the best use of time. This time
resembles that of the marriage of heaven and earth, when the earth partakes
of the creative power of heaven, forming and bringing forth living beings.
The time of INCREASE does not endure, therefore it must be utilized while it
lasts.
THE IMAGE
Wind and thunder: the image of INCREASE.
Thus the superior man:
If he sees good, he imitates it;
If he has faults, he rids himself of them.
While observing how thunder and wind increase and strengthen each other,
a man can not the way to self-increase and self-improvement. When he
discovers good in others, he should imitate it and thus make everything on
earth his own. If he perceives something bad in himself, let him rid himself
of it. In this way he becomes free of evil"
Other important cultural texts, including the social gospel and the Talmud, reference the same notion.
As Jack Balkin notes in Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology (Yale University Press 1998):
"Oppressive discourses, worldviews, belief structures, and mystifications all arise from the diverse tools of human understanding. The components of cultural understanding include beliefs and judgments. But they also include cognitive mechanisms that help produce and fashion beliefs and judgments. These cognitive mechanisms include, among other things, heuristics for decision, narrative structures and social scripts, conceptual homologies (A is to B as C is to D), metaphor and metonymy, and methods of ego defense. Each of these cognitive mechanisms can be beneficial and useful in certain contexts, but in others each can mislead and help produce or sustain unjust conditions." Link to Chapter 1
ATB
Geo
"Billonaires Behind the Hate"
Edited by Geomean, 26 August 2012 - 10:26 AM.
