How Religious and Political Ideologues Sabotage Entire Societies By Promoting Selfish Privilege And False Narratives.

In a "Stoicism" discussion group, 
someone posted this: 

One man replied this way:

"This would be more accurate if they chopped down the tree in the last image. Then everyone will be equal. Equally poor off which is what their approach really creates."
---

Now, I realize going into this, ...
 I'm not going to have an immediately large impact on anyone's worldview;
no matter what I say, and no matter how I say it. 
 Human psychology doesn't work that way.

In fact, 
I expect very little in the form of positive reply, in the forum where this discussion was happening.

Most "Stoics", from what I've seen, are political Conservatives. 

However, 
for me, this is good mental exercise.

Perhaps I'll even be able plant a few seeds along the way. 

Here's how that discussion unfolded:

I offered this, in reply:

What you've said there is a socially, politically, and economically Conservative view.

And I'm open to being enlightened about examples where that's true.

But I hesitate to endorse it, since I can only think of examples where what you've said doesn't ring true.
You might still be correct about it, when it comes to specific situations.
But I'll need help discovering examples where you're correct.

Examples where the meme is correct:
Wheelchair ramps
that allow people who can't use stairs
to still do business in buildings that have steps.

Also, really every accommodation made for every form of disability.

Education would be another example where the OP's meme should be taken under advisement.

People born into wealth
enjoy privileged access to higher forms of education; access which they merely inherited rather than having to personally earn that greater access.

Because of that Conservative approach,
when it comes to access to higher forms of education, ...

America has to import most of our brain-power from other countries (the "Genius Visa"),
as we struggle (and fail) to fill all of our most intellectually skilled jobs.
That actually hurts our economy by handicapping our collective ability to compete in every domain of the global market.

Also, of course, making it hard for disadvantaged people to attain higher education
results in a society where the statistical-average of the population is severely under-educated.

That, in turn, perpetuates a society where the masses can be easily manipulated by propaganda. 

That, in turn, results in very poorly informed voters,
which results in poorly informed votes,
which results in very poorly informed laws and elections,
which results in America scoring very poorly on every measure of a free, successful and safe society.

If we keep the playing-field disadvantaged for billions of our citizens, ...
we will continue to worsen every domain where America struggles.

We're all in this together.

United, we stand.
Divided, we fall.
-----------------------

 Next he replied with this:

" we are not “all in this together”. Aka “workers of the world unite”.

This meme is proposing equality if “outcome”.

This can best be shown with the creation of the Dept or Education.

They created a uniform standard for the entire nation, and forced a continual and escalating rate of “dumbing down” the entire level of US education when compared to 50 years ago or the rest of the world.

Rather than enabling “choice” and “mobility” of students by parents, we try to ensure “equitable “ outcomes. Which ensures uniform mediocracy.

Typical leftist/liberal approach that fails to recognize that people as a rule are NOT equal in ability or motivation.

 We can ensure equal opportunity to access but we can never ensure equal outcome unless we set the bar to the abilities of the lowest performer."

---------
 In further reply, 
I offer this: 

I am glad you raised these points.

That lets me know which further clarifications I need to make.

Here are those:

* By "we", I didn't mean workers.
I meant everyone.

*Despite preferring the 1st and 2nd panel, 
the 3rd panel 
is the closest to "equal" some conservatives could accept in a compromise. 

The person with the lesser access
only gains access to enough fruits to survive; but not long and not well.

The final panel is totally possible.
However,
Liberal citizens are poor leaders and planners.
Conservative citizens are active saboteurs.
And our entire govt is playing us. 
So it'll never happen. 

*America's public education system
has never worked towards equality of outcome.
 
A uniform standard?
 Yes. I agree with you about that.
That IS something they've pushed.
 And that is a big part of the problem (link). 

Their primary purpose is to create worker-lemmings and indoctrinated loyalists. 

Meanwhile, American's popular religion
continues to support that game. 

How?

Partly by pushing the idea that being "long suffering" is a virtue.
 That's exactly how a slaver wants his slaves to think. 
 Nietzsche was correct to notice this about Christianity. 

How else?

By pushing the idea that "what matters most is the NEXT life.
So don't worry too much about trying to improve this one;
- especially since "The End Is Near" and this world is prophesied to be destroyed soon anyways. 
 

 
The secondary purpose of our rigged educational system is to allow the already-advantaged to rise above and secure their positions at the top. 

 And yes. In case anyone's wondering, ...
There is a racist motivation underpinning the politics of that game. 

It's a numbers game.
Keep tweaking the system, to ensure we generate:
a.)
 a predictably small number of highly functional masters of the game,
and
b.)
 a predictably large number of slave-minded sheep;
to use as disposable wage-slaves and other forms of fleece-able and disposable assets. 

Meanwhile, a stupid and divided society
is something the Conservative party and the Liberal (link) party both want. 
 
Why? 
Because the American Government 
is quite literally a mafia (link)

This is why I refuse to endorse either party. 
Even voting for "the lesser evil" no longer makes sense (link). 
 
The main difference between them is that the Conservative side has always wanted to take that to a further extreme; in a very literal incarnation of a  ~Hunger Games~ dystopia. 

For a very very long time now, 
political Conservatives have been pushing the most and the worst false narratives (link for a primary example: here), 
in order to justify those extremes of narcissistic greatness and entitled selfishness;
- a degree of selfishness bordering on sociopathy.   
 
Meanwhile, ... 

* When it comes to enabling “choice” and “mobility” of students by parents, ... it's a catch 22.

Financially strong parents can afford to transport their kids to the better schools. So then, all they need is permission from the govt to do so.

Struggling parents can't usually spare the resources for that.

So then we would be talking about a system that continues to make the rich richer and the poor poorer;
- by continuing to grant opportunities which only the already-advantaged can utilize.

In the end, that would just further dumb-down and disenfranchise the majority.

A better solution is to completely re-structure the entire educational system, so that everyone has complete access to go as fast-or-slow as each student's ability;
 -while providing extra help
for every student who is willing to push themselves to ever-increasing-function with that assistance. 

You-and-yours would get those better opportunities you want.
But so would the severely disadvantaged. 

And that would be a good thing. 

We either want a much more intelligent, productive, and safe society ... or we don't.

We're either willing to inve$t into building that better society, or we're not.

If we' re not, then we need to stop complaining about how stupid, divided, and violent our society is.

#Choices. 

Moving on to the next point, ... 

*re "people as a rule are NOT equal in ability or motivation. "
--
About that, 
I offer this:

Genetics play a very small role in that.
Statistically-few people are born less-able to reach a high level of mental and societal function. 

Free Will plays exactly zero roll in it. 

Most of the differences are the result of difference in physical environment and social environment.
And most of *that* is due to:
whether or not
a child is born into a disadvantaged household. 

Consider:

If we empower a single generation with the resources they need to function on-par with the already-advantaged,
we'll break the cycles which perpetuate
society-wide diminished function.

We would still have a majority of people who are better suited as workers than bosses.
But they'd be more technically skilled, more reliable, and more capable of working cooperatively. 

This, in turn, would facilitate America's urgently-NOW need to take every (literally every) industry up to a modern level as leaders in our world's newly forming economy.

This isn't the 1950s.
-not that the 1950s model was ever actually good.

 Consider, for example,
how much it hurt society to have every father gone too much (working long hours), 
and too exhausted when he was home
to actually do the parenting his kids needed. 

Besides being gone too much,
and then being rendered impatient whenever fathers were home (due to overburdened stress), ... 

 In order to keep their sanity,
most immersed themselves in reading the paper, smoking a pipe, and anything else that might help them create a mental calm-zone where they could isolate and heal from a long day's workplace bullshit. 

And when that wasn't enough, 
they went to bars, golfed, went on fishing trips, etc;
 - further lowering the amount of actual fathering fathers were providing. 

As the economy worsened, mothers were forced into the workplace; 
 leaving kids with even less parenting. 

 Meanwhile, schools provided very little family-raising instruction.
And what little they did provide ... was mostly wrong;
- creating abusive parents who imagined abuse counted as discipline. 
 
Making matters worse,
most churches compounded that problem; with "wise instruction" for more ways to abuse kids. 

So even when parents were around, they were impressively bad at the job of raising kids. 

Every generation of children
is the next generation's parents and workers.

Steeped in so much dysfunction,
 families and societies were failing to keep a good pace of advancement.  

At an ever-increasing rate,
many countries are outpacing us. 

We can't keep trying to apply 1950s social, political and economic strategies to this new world; a world that won't be nice and WAIT for us to catch up.

Part of what it means to have a "conservative" brain
is:
a fear of change.

I'm not saying this to insult or posture.
 Firstly, my brain merely leans left. 
I'm not a far-left extremist.
 Also, 
liberal-brains have equally problematic quirks; 
like an unrealistic worldview based on what they WISH was true instead of what is. 

 This is why Liberals keep living in a fantasy world where:
a.) 
 half the govt is fighting for an ideal world (neither side really is)
and
b.)
where liberals and leftists can AFFORD to "take the high road" with less-extreme and more ethical propaganda models.
They really can't afford to take that high road. It's making them lose their political battles; far too often. But they keep imagining that the real world allows them to WIN with more ethical strategies. So then they keep getting confused and frustrated when it doesn't. 

-Although, I learned that truth the hard way, thanks to my ex.
 She was ... unfettered by ethical constraints.
She was, thus, FREE to create and win every opportunity to TAKE more and more
of both:
what was equally ours
and
what was rightly mine. 

 In doing so, she was hurting herself in profound ways ... that she'll never be honest nor courageous enough to realize. 

Thus, she will remain ~her own worst enemy~ and a liability to everyone who relies upon her for anything. 

I only mention that here 
because these striking parallels are not a coincidence.

These are lessons that the whole of the human experience teaches;
 if we're sufficiently ready to learn and grow. 

In any case, the demands of our real-world are changing at an ever-increasing pace.

Literally none of the old ways 
will suffice in the new economy.

Our farmers will be forced to farm differently.

Our factories will be forced to manufacture differently.

Our scientists will be forced to innovate differently.
etc etc.

- Or else
we will fall so far behind as a world power
that we'll become prey to more successful societies.

We can't rise to that challenge
by perpetuating severe disadvantages to the already-struggling.

We are creating low-functioning humans and human systems, with predatory social and societal management.

And then we're incorrectly blaming the resulting dysfunctions on other causes.

And then we're using those false narratives
to justify
the under-able being
left behind,
left to suffer, 
 and
left to die.

Underpinning all of that nonsense, is this:

A common belief in Libertarian "Free Will".


Free Will is an illusion (link). 

I'm raising this issue, here, 
because:
 Free Will Theory 
 is a foundational falsehood 
that is holding us all back from reaching our greater potential as a species. 

That freedom does not exist.
It cannot exist.
No one ever had that type of Free Will. 
No one ever will have it.

We are each a product of the environmental machinery that our biological clay is continually shaped by. 

If we want a better society,
we have to replace all the old machinery; 
-not just selective parts for selective people. 

The sooner everyone realizes this,
the sooner we can start solving our common problems
with an objective cause-and-effect approach to society-management [link to example: here]

Until then, we'll keep sabotaging human social systems (including entire societies, and even the whole of our species) 
with angry and ill-informed notions about how most people "freely choose" how they reason, how they function, and if they'll prosper.