Discuss:Ethics, Behavior, World-view:At what cost?
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At what cost?
charmed_quark - Tue Dec 16 22:43:17 2003
I wanted to pose a question that is tangential to what joryea and truc_ha have brought up.
Ideas are insufficient. Change requires effort and risk For a cause that you believe in, what effort are you willing to make? what risk are you willing to take?
Would you change your habits? quit your job? move to another place? give up contact with loved ones? risk your 'wealth, life and sacred honor'?
To tell the truth I sometimes doubt my own resolve, there are many easier paths than being a catalyst of change. But I think that it is a prerequisite question, before seriously discussing what to change or how to make a change.
[ Edited ]
--charmed_quark Tue Dec 16 22:43:17 2003
sunny - Fri Dec 19 17:58:50 2003
To verify, your proposed question or problem is:
In order to affect change an individual must make concesssions to fit the requirements of their vision and its implementation.
This problem is a tautology. The issue you are addressing is not the requirement of the acceptance of your own rules, as this is necessary and given. The issue addressed is the hipocracy in creating rules that are impracticle/impossible to follow, rules that contradict or are contraindicated by reality (ie: sexual abstinence). By choosing an identified path (even to refrain from choice), you are necessarily making the choice to accept the necessary risks and to hold fast to the requirements that it places upon your life, liberty, and happiness. If you find that your choice would have destructive, life destroying consequences, then it must be that you have fatal flaws in your premises or logic that must be addressed before proceeding. If your logic is rational and soundly and firmly based on objective reality, good and meaningful decisions for affecting change can definitely be made.
This is not just a statement of optimism. It is a statement based upon objective reality, and there are conditions. If you base your decisions for change upon concepts that have no basis in reality, then the outcome of your choices are necessarily indeterminant. Arbitrary or indeterminant concepts necessarily lead to indeterminant results. This is true regardless of any overlap that the results have with objective reality. Indeterminant and true but 'borrowed' concepts do not contain useful knowledge. They are empty of intellectual value and should be discarded (arbitrary concepts) or correctly understood from primaries (borrowed but true concepts).
[please refer to: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Ayn Rand, Harry Binswanger, and Leonard Peikoff - ISBN 0452010306
You are right in that there are definitely things that should never be comprimised in any way in the light of potential change, specifically; any form of self-sacrifice, any cusp between a choice and your chosen values, any choice that would directly or indirectly violate the objective liberties of others.
--sunny Fri Dec 19 17:58:50 2003
joryea - Mon Jan 5 17:01:50 2004
I very much understand the notion of "changing ones self". It has had an enormous effect upon my life, and how I go about doing every day things. One reason why many changes are very hard to enforce, is not only lack of motivation, but living in a reality drunk upon its own existence. On "TV" for instance. Lots and lots of garbage to help uninfluence your goals for change.
It seems you can only change so much within the confines of society. Seems...
stated by sunny: "If you base your decisions for change upon concepts that have no basis in reality, then the outcome of your choices are necessarily indeterminant.
Reality has a way of looking solid, yet constantly changing. So many will think solid of what another would find motion. For example: Yoga and meditation, as well as dancing with the art of chi and vibration (vocal and not), may very well lead one to an unknown, yet purposeful conquest within our shared reality (ie: changing what we know to be true within our realities known barriers... perhaps).
I feel it's always good to change for the better, especially if you know the changes will have deffinite good impacts upon you and others around you. Taking one step at a time towards these higher achievments is a start. Motivation is the key :)
Change can be scary. Perhaps faith takes place during these times of uncertainty. Purposeful faith.
again, sorry about the spelling.. library.. not sure where spellcheck is.
--joryea Mon Jan 5 17:01:50 2004
