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A Plan for Moral Fables

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There are eight ways to morally disengage. This allows humans to do bad things and not feel bad. The reverse of these are eight ways to morally engage and not do bad things. I can use these sixteen moral principles to make fables that will illustrate the lessons. Humans naturally morally disengage. We don't have to try to do these things. The eight ways that people morally disengage are: moral justification, sanitizing language, exonerative social comparison, diffusion of responsibility, displacement of responsibility, minimizing the injurious effects, attribution of blame, and dehumanization. Five years ago I wrote on article on how we can reverse these ideas for 'Moral Engagement': https://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2020/04/moral-engagement.html When I held political office that is the only article that I printed out and hung on my wall for the entire four years, as a reminder to myself. These fables could be done in many different ways. One way that all of them could...
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The Wolf and the Sheep V1

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Fables contain a type of narrative wisdom that connects with humanity in a more truly human way than boring knowledge divorced from story. Not that humans ever really learn the lessons anyway, but there's a reason that stories persist. Wolves and sheep are a classic subject of Aesop, and new versions are still being made. One version is: One day a flock of sheep were grazing in a field when a wolf appeared. The wolf attacked and killed one of the sheep. The next day the remaining sheep had a meeting. "Did you see how the teeth flashed and killed our friend?" said one sheep. Another agreed, "Teeth are very dangerous." The sheep voted and decided to remove their teeth so that they wouldn't be in danger. The next day the wolf appeared once again. The sheep were even easier to kill. Moral of the story: Disarming yourself makes you easier prey. This is a common human mistake, the mistake of misidentifying the cause of danger and taking action that mak...
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Adam Smith on the Rise and Fall of Wealthy Societies

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There were two great works published in the year 1776, 'The American Declaration of Independence' by Thomas Jefferson, and 'The Wealth of Nations' by Adam Smith. Humans are naturally poor. Think about the most natural state of humanity that you can think of, people with pointy sticks and huts made out of sticks and mud. So, the first question is, "How does a society become wealthy?" Smith is clear on the answer to this. In Book 1 of 'The Wealth of Nations' he says: "The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.” He has multiple chapters on the division of labor. Here's another quote from Book 1 that expands on the idea: "It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a wel...
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The Tortoise and the Hare V4

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I listened to an audiobook recently that was written mostly in the second-person point of view, in future tense. That's unique. It was surprisingly good. I'm going to play with that idea here. I read the Oxford World's Classics version of the tortoise and the hare recently, translated by Laura Gibbs. It's under the section for fables about the underdog. Here it is: "The hare laughed at the tortoise's feet but the tortoise declared, "I will beat you in a race!" The hare replied, "Those are just words. Race with me, and you'll see! Who will mark out the track and serve as our umpire?" "The fox," replied the tortoise, "since she is honest and highly intelligent." When the time for the race had been decided upon, the tortoise did not delay, but immediately took off down the race-course. The hare, however, lay down to take a nap, confident in the speed of his feet. Then, when the hare eventually made his way to the finish ...
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A Little Writing Exercise - Part 1

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I feel like I need some fictional writing exercise to upskill and get the juices flowing, so I've decided to play with the opening of 'Replay' by Ken Grimwood, because I think it's a beautiful opening to a book. Maybe the best I've ever read. Last night I read through a small portion of the opening and wrote down sparse notes. This morning I attempted to reconstruct the original from my notes. This is a writing exercise I picked up from Benjamin Franklin. Let's see how I did. Here are my notes: on phone died never heard her heavy slammed chest phone fell cracked paperweight week before similar we need? pause not final sitting kitchen table breakfast nook formica table Here is my reconstruction: Jeff Winston was on the phone with his wife when he died... "We need..." she'd said, but he never heard the rest of what she was going to say. Something heavy slammed against his chest, crushing the breath out of him, making it difficult to breathe. The phon...
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Notes on the Paradox of Tolerance

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Part of the continual churn of death and destruction in human history is from the paradox of tolerance, which too few people are aware of. Frank Herbert has an excellent statement of it in his 1976 novel 'Children of Dune': "When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." Babington Macaulay gives some good little examples of this type of error in volume 3 of his 1860 'Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays': "It would not be very wise to conclude that a beggar is full of Christian charity, because he assures you that God will reward you if you give him a penny; or that a soldier is humane, because he cries out lustily for quarter when a bayonet is at his throat. The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by all bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few wor...
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Notes on the Rise of China and the Fall of America

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This century began with a single major world power, the USA, but it will not end that way. The power and prominence of China has risen and fallen multiple times over the last few thousand years, and it is on the rise again. Last century saw the decline of Europe, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and the eventual rise of the United States as the dominant world power. This century we're seeing the stagnation of the US. In this article I'm going to look at the primary reasons for China's rise and America's fall. The United States has continued to be thought of as capitalist even as government regulation has grown, as political corruption has grown, as socialist programs have been implemented, as taxes have increased, as property rights have decreased, as rule of law has decreased. At the same time China has continued to be thought of as communist, Marxist, and socialist even though it has eased regulations, reduced corruption, lessened socialist programs, lowered tax...
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The Tortoise and the Hare V3

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Once upon a time, in a land long ago, there lived a hare and a fox who were friends. They watched as a slow tortoise walked by. They laughed and jeered. Hare challenged the tortoise to a race. The tortoise accepted the challenge. The fox was the judge. The hare ran fast. The tortoise ran slow. The hare was so far ahead that it stopped to take a nap. The tortoise didn't stop. When the hare awoke and finished, the tortoise had already won. Don't stop. ________________________________________________ Find more at  JeffThinks.com  or  JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com  and  ResetMeditation.com
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We learn from history...

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I was reviewing the great book 'Why Don't We Learn from History' by B. H. Liddell Hart for a college course I'm designing, and I noticed that he uses the phrase "We learn from history..." a few times. Like everything else in the book, they are excellent insights. "We learn from history that in every age and every clime the majority of people have resented what seems in retrospect to have been purely matter of fact comment on their institutions. We learn too that nothing has aided the persistence of falsehood, and the evils resulting from it, more than the unwillingness of good people to admit the truth when it was disturbing to their comfortable assurance. Always the tendency continues to be shocked by natural comment, and to hold certain things too "sacred” to think about. I can conceive of no finer ideal of a man’s life than to face life with clear eyes instead of stumbling through it like a blind man, an imbecile, or a drunkard — which, in a think...
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The Tortoise and the Hare V2

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"Tell me again dad," said young Teddy the tortoise, "of the time that you beat the hare in the race." "Lay your head down, and I will tell you." "When I was a young boy, just like you, I was walking down to the lake one day. I passed a hare and a fox talking. As I walked passed them the hare said, 'Wow! Look at this guy, he's so slow that if he was going any slower he would be going backward.' They laughed, but I ignored them and kept on walking." Teddy lifted his head. "Why didn't you just do it then?" "Because I didn't need to. Now, lay your head back down and I'll tell you the rest of the story. When I was walking back from the lake the hare and the fox were still standing there talking. The fox saw me coming and pointed. The hare turned and laughed. He said, 'It took you that long to get to the lake and back? I probably could have rolled you there faster.' They both laughed. I stopped and looked ...
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The Tortoise and the Hare V1

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The Tortoise and the Hare is one of those rare stories that almost everyone knows and can tell. It's very old, back to the ancient Greek Aesop about 2,600 years ago. It has been translated, rewritten, and adapted many times over the millennia. I think there are two fruitful things we can explore. One, the variety of moral lessons that can be taken from the story, which can be formulated in different ways. Two, as a writing exercise for playing with perspective, point of view, and style. Here is a version called The Hare and the Tortoise translated from the Greek by V. S. Vernon Jones in 1912. A Hare was one day making fun of a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "Wait a bit," said the Tortoise; "I'll run a race with you, and I'll wager that I win." "Oh, well," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the ti...
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Einstein's One Problem with Socialism

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Albert Einstein wrote an article called 'Why Socialism?' in 1949. It initially seems odd. In the 1930s Einstein had escaped the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The Cold War had started in the 1940s, primarily between the US and the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union grew from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. So it seems odd that one of the smartest men in the world would think positively of socialism. Why would he agree with the philosophical foundations of the Nazis and Soviets? But, he makes some good points. For instance, he notes that science can't decide on ends, only on means, and that the goal of socialism is to change human nature for a futuristic society. "For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organi...
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