Good day, good people.
My goal is to listen to my moral sense, my inner muse, and not be distracted by the society around me or the detractors in it. A moral sense is flexible and can respond with charity when necessary or any act or emotion. It is honest and always on a razor’s edge. These are dianoetic principles.
For devotees of the English language: Dianoetic is an adjective. It means relating to logical reasoning.
I have written previously about moral sense when I said, “We live in a Me Society.” James Q. Wilson is the author of The Moral Sense. He died in Boston, Massachusetts on 2 March 2012 of leukemia. He was an American academic and taught at Harvard for 26 years.
Wilson believed the human has a basis to make good-moral judgments and knows the difference between right and wrong. And therefore, the person has a moral sense which consists of the aspects: sympathy, fairness, self-control and duty. These are not moral rules or laws. Wilson said, some believe “. . . modern man has lost his moral bearing or religious commitments so that he is now governed only by immediate impulse or calculating self-interest.” According to Wilson modern man is living in a Me Society.
Courage is included in duty, but has these additional attributes: mental or moral strength enabling one to venture, persevere and withstand danger fear or difficulty firmly and resolutely.
Integrity is not mentioned separately because it is a part of duty, fairness and self-control or self-discipline. Dr. William J. Bennett in his book, The Book of Virtues, describes self-discipline. “In self-discipline one makes a ‘disciple’ of oneself. One is one’s own teacher, trainer, coach, and ‘disciplinarian’. It is an odd sort of relationship, paradoxical in its own way, and many of us don’t handle it very well. There is much unhappiness and personal distress in the world because of failures to control tempers, appetites, passions, and impulses. ‘Oh, if only I had stopped myself’ is an all too familiar refrain.” Dr. Bennett served as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Reagan.
Caring: It is to feel anxiety, interest, solicitude or trouble for another — compassion and empathy. One cannot have empathy unless he has been in the same circumstances. As an example: Willard Mitt Romney has not compassion or empathy for the Middle Class or the poor, because he has never been either. His conscience and moral sense are elastic, malleable, and adjustable for his benefit — financially speaking of course. Does Willard have what is important? I do not believe he does.
Robert La Follette was the Republican Senator from Wisconsin from 1906 to 1925. In April of 1917 he said, “I have never experimented with the dubious business of trying to serve two masters: the people of this country and the interests of Wall Street.” La Follette had in mind members of Congress then who did not and now who do not put the interests of their employer, the American people first. Considering the sources of Willard’s large donors, his background and connection with Wall Street and its venality, his master will be “Wall Street”, and he will not put his allegiance to “the people of this country” in the forefront.
What he does have is fear. Fear that if his tax returns which have been requested many times, but not released for multiple-previous years see the light of day, disclosures of his off-shore banking and tax havens activity would be detrimental to his presidential campaign at the least. Otherwise, he would have released them like his father did, twelve years of tax returns, when he ran for president. To date, honesty does not seem to have core values for Willard and Paul. Their core value seems to be to try to get elected at any cost — moral sense be damned. And with Karl Rove involved in Willard’s and Paul’s campaigns, we know Rove’s dictionary does not include a definition of moral sense and the words do not occupy his vocabulary.
Willard fears more devastating videos or recordings will be released demonstrating and reconfirming beyond any doubt his disdain for the Middle Class and the poor. This is the real Willard. On the campaign trail he continues to try to pretend and persuade he is not the real Willard. Mitt Romney.
Common Sense according to my close-personal friend, Merriam-Webster, is: good sound-ordinary sense: good judgment or prudence in estimating or managing affairs especially as free from emotional bias or intellectual subtlety or as not dependent on special or technical knowledge.
A friend of mine told me, “I was recruiting sales people. I asked one of the people who provided me with the examinations and questionnaires, if they had an examination to determine if one had good common sense?” My friend said the fellow responded, “If I did, I would be enjoying the remainder of my life on an island and be independently wealthy.”
Loyalty: Faithful to a lawful government. Faithful and devoted to a private person, particularly to a person to whom fidelity is held to be due. One needs to be faithful or tenacious in adherence to a cause — a liberal democracy which treats all citizens with equal opportunity and fairly. A liberal democracy is not defined in a political-party’s term. A liberal democracy is one in which its citizens have liberty and freedom. One vote one time is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship. And where there are elections, there still may not be liberty and freedom. Stifling of free speech is not freedom.
Tolerance: It is a permissive or liberal attitude toward beliefs or practices from or conflicting with one’s own. It is having sympathy or indulgence for diversity in thought or conduct. It is desperately needed in America and around the world. There is no benefit in engaging in anti-Semitism, bigotry, homomania or racism or any other form of intolerance.
Our nation’s soul is in peril. Society does nothing about the addictive prejudices that afflict and disease our land. Additionally, the silence regarding them is an insidious blight in our society. When it comes to mounting a campaign against prejudices, it is the moral-silent majority. When it comes to reeducating the addicted, it is the silent Moral Majority. Our citizens are guilty of the crime of indifference if they allow intolerance to be acceptable behavior. Does Willard have what is important? I do not believe he does.
Dignity and justice which allows every citizen in an oppressive and repressive regime to be the best they can be will allow that nation to progress. If not, it will stagnate. Equal opportunity for every citizen in every area of society produces dignity and justice. Patriarchal societies are the worst offenders. If there is no justice, history will repeat injustice ad infinitum and impunity will reign.
A good soul is a term used to describe a good person who has what is important.
How wonderful it is that so many people in the world have what is important and how unfortunate it is so many have not.
What is your thought on the contribution you can make to the betterment of our society?
I hope this article will give you something to consider and discuss. To be successful you must understand other people’s opinions and care about them.
I care about your opinion. Contacting me with comments and constructive criticisms at http://bit.ly/z5MgmK with honesty and pleasantness their constant companions will always be welcomed.
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