calibrator{at}freenet.de wrote:
> On 1 Feb., 00:57, mdj  wrote:

>> How many of us havn't stood atop a tall building, and marvelled at how
>> the people below look like ants...
> 
> Absolutely! Perspective is not only a visual phenomenon!
> 
>> It's the breaking of artificial taboos that's artificial, not the
>> feeling of guilt. When you hurt another person, it's the realisation
>> of how you'd feel were the roles reversed that prompts the feeling
>> of guilt.
> 
> This is were I differ fundamentally. In my book you "learn" guilt
> from your parents (socialization): They prime you and give you
> fundamental right/wrong, good/evil, black/white principles.
> In the cases where this job isn't done right (and our civilization
> is based on the people doing this job well) you know the outcome:
> People who kill mercilessly for pennies, their clan or their "honor".
> They have a completely different perspective on right and wrong.
> You don't have to look into one of these infamous favelas to see
> this in action - other ghettos will do, too.

And these examples all flow from the ability or inability of people
to experience the other as self.

Tribalism is also an evolutionary predeliction, and it draws a very
"unfine" line between "us" and "them", in
which "we" have rights and
"they" don't.

A necessary precondition for life is a cell wall, a distinction
between what is inside and what is outside.  "Good fences make good
neighbors."

The common ground in all socializing ethical philosophies is that we
can erase that distinction at the cognitive level and appreciate the
outside as if it were inside, by including *all* in the definition of
"us".  In this way we are able to treat all as we would have them
treat ourselves.  It is also an enlargement of self perception to
include all.

The differences between them are largely in exactly how inclusive is
"all":  all people, all living things, or all things (since all have
the potential to become living, and, in fact, give rise to life).

> Of course, breaking taboos is willfully done - and hence artificial,
> too.

And is the way that we all find out what happens if they are broken. ;-)

-michael

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