[MD] empathy

[Jan-Anders]

Hi Dan

Sorry for the delay.

Methaphysics can be considered as looking on something at a distance, to 
get an overview or an abstract map showing the outlines of the 
landscape. RMP used this method to show that there is a set of 4 levels 
with different characteristics. Inorganic, organic, social and intellectual.

The Methaphysical of Quality is much about this perspective to 
understand what creates goodness and badness. There is much more to say 
and that is one of the basic fundamentals for this forum.

We can look at the evilness of money like this:
Take a team of hockeyplayers. The Coach is responsible for which 
talented players he want to have in his winning team. The players are 
very specialized in their different roles in the team and rely on the 
coach for the overall strategy. No player is more important than the 
other. The goalkeeper may be a hero but he can't make it alone. The 
importance of the coach is very important to concentrate the individual 
players so their total force is pointed towards the goal and not being 
contraproductive.

We need inorganic materials for our wealth, just as biologic and social 
materials. The society also need money and legislation in force.

I think evilness is when there is a bad or no distance to the whole and 
isolated sectors tend into suboptimizing, where one of the levels are 
favourized. People who find one single working truth and treat this as 
the one and only, acting without a perspective and respect for the rest 
of the surounding world. To much attention to one level can be evil.

There are thousands of examples of this kind of evil selfishness. Whats 
the environmental movement other than advocating for a broader and more 
equal perspective on the balance between inorganic and organic? Accusing 
physicians and chemistry professors for having a one-sided view on their 
own expertice.

The "philosophy" of Ayn Rand is another good example of this evilness. 
Yes, we need talented enterprisers who knows how to build and organize 
people at work and managing business. But that doesn't mean that other 
sectors like the Fire Department or the Police in the society are of 
less importance. Ayn Rands mistake is exactly the same as the one soviet 
communists made when they tried to eradicate the noble class in Russia. 
You can be very correct in a limited sector of facts but without the 
metaphysical distance, you're lost anyway.

I can see that this is sometimes Marshas problem when she is sometimes 
losing the distance.

I think RMPs metaphor on climbing up on the mountain is also about this. 
To get an overview over the landscape.

Distance is also crucial to be able to laugh at things and to create 
weird movies like the Monty Python's Flying Circus. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0amC660MOk

I can really feel the pain inside these poor roman soldiers.

J-A

Dan wrote 2011-03-19 22.58:
>> >JA:
>> >  I see money and economy systems as pure intellectual matter. To be a good
>> >  economic man you must loose your social bonds and act rational.
> Dan:
> That seems right. But what about the love of money? Do you see that as
> the root of all evil? And if so, how do we reconcile being a good
> economic man with loving money?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Dan
>