The Kids Are Alright

I also created a YouTube video for this topic.

I recently heard someone not much older than me talking about how he thought that the current generation is fucked up.  This was a fairly well-to-do guy who seemed fairly smart.  But I think that his perspective on the “new generation” was dumb.  It was superficial.  For one thing, he’s judging a large group of people based on limited information.  Additionally, parts of both the good and bad of each generation are outgrowths of past generations.

Generational divides always seemed artificial to me.  I was born in a year which falls in both the “baby boomer generation” and the “generation x”.  People have argued which I should be grouped in.  But I argued against both terms.  I don’t give a fuck what age group people are in.  That only partially defines them.  Definitions of “generations” of people never seem to cover enough of the people.  It seems to me that the terms are more defining the period of time rather that the people.  And conditions of periods of time are not affected by a single age group.  I understand that various age groups have challenges and accomplishments unique to their age groups.  But the variations are so broad that it seems to me that defining them within a generation is a bit of an overgeneralization.

Every period of time has good and bad folks, people with different and conflicting intelligences.  From those different people, each period of time has progress and degeneration.  Those states of progress and degenerations are expanded by the “next generation”.  What makes things better or worse is partly dependent on whether the progress or degeneration has more momentum.  For a long time, we’ve generally seen more progress than degeneration.

To take a few steps back, I see many people’s nostalgia as limited in focus.  An example is this guy who was interviewed in Louisiana for a documentary about new waves of segregation via some attempts at public funding of some local charter schools.  He was talking about how life was better when he was a kid in the 1950’s.  Now, we are talking about Louisiana in the 1950’s.  This was part of the heavily segregated south where public resources were routed more for the betterment of white communities.  But he didn’t see how he was reminiscing about his limited experiences in his white culture and that other people of his age in the same area did not have the benefits that he did.  If he stepped out of his own memories and looked at the broader range of experiences during the time of his childhood, he may have had different opinions of his past and the current age.

Moving forward, I believe that the overall momentum is toward positive progress.  Yes, there are still areas where things have degraded.  But we need to be careful about placing blame on “the new generation”.  Some things are picked up from past ages, then made better or worse.  Let’s take litter as an example.  An older person might look at a littering young person and simply blame that person or that generation or culture.  But the littering person may very well have picked up the habit from an older person.  I have seen parents discarding trash on the street in the presence of their kids.  Kids often pick up behaviors from parents.  So those kids may become litterers because of the example set by the parents.  What I am trying to say is that a lot of behaviors are cross-generational.

That’s not to say that people of any age shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions.  But the blame can be spread a lot further than just one generation.  Overall, we are all in this thing called life together.  We collectively make things better or worse.  Yes, we have to hold people accountable for their behaviors and affects on others.  But I am tired of the oversimplified blame game that too many people do.  We do need to place blame where needed.  But we need to look at the details and not just our limited experiences when blaming large groups of people or even individuals.  As far as age groups go, I see a lot more fault in past generations both in what was done and what has been passed on.  There are currently a lot of issues but they are continuations of issues which have existed for a long time.  That being said, there is a lot of misinformation about the current state of things.  I recommend Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of Our Nature” for some incites into how humanity is better today than in the past.  But even casual investigations show how each new generation in recent times have brought humanity overall into a better state.

I’m not a complete optimist.  There are environmental problems and areas of violence.  But these things, even the actions which people take, are mistakes compounded on mistakes.  There are a lot of difficulties ahead.  But it’s the kids of today who have the potential to continue the progress and lessen the degeneration, just as each generation has often, somehow managed to make some corrections of problems passed onto them from the past generation.  The degeneration which exists has its roots in the past.  So I say to those who want to blame the younger people for supposedly making things worse, look at your own age group for contributing factors.  Also, look a little broader and you will see more good than bad in many areas.

The fall of the roman empire and the decline of the middle eastern areas did not come about due to a single generation.  Many of the mistakes and extremism of the generations which caused the degenerations came from the conditions created by the previous generations.

As some older people can become too set in their ways, some young people can be a bit too reactionary.  Erroneous judgments about the motivations of older people can occur.  I remember an event in my 20’s.  I was at a party, which was getting rather loud.  It was in an apartment complex.  An older neighbor called to ask that we tone things done, which we did.  There were people who talked about the “old farts”.  A couple of us went over to talk with the couple.  While there, we could hear how our music was louder in their apartment than their own music.  So we understood that it wasn’t about the oldness but rather it was about our own empathy and courtesy.  They could have turned their speakers up to compensate for our loudness.  But that would have then affected the neighbors on the other side.  

And that brings me to an important thing.  When possible, It’s better to learn a bit more about others before making judgements.  Conversation is best.  Empathy is key.  See what it’s like on the other side.  There are times when quick judgements are needed but we are often too quick too often.  Related to quick justments are what I call stagnate cognitive filters.  People in all ages and most cultures have cognitive filters which don’t get updated or get clogged with inaccurate information.  And I think that updating and cleaning those filters will open us up to new and better possibilities.

Physical Morals

Physical Morals

This topic is also covered in some videos on my YouTube channel.)

Preface

I would like to first state that this work is based on my personal understanding.  This is not intended as an authoritative piece of work.  It is more of a general outline which I hope will be useful to others.

Some people will question why a topic about physically defined morals is needed.  I see multiple reasons.  One reason is because too many people’s ethics are tied to supernatural beliefs.  Some even go as far as to say that morality requires religion.  But this is false.   There are lots of people who have a sense of ethics without religion.  Also, there are common morals across some quite different religions, which removes exclusivity from any 1 religion.  Another reason is that morals tied closely to supernatural beliefs are inconsistent and unstable.  A reason why some religions have a spectrum of people from fanatical killers to peaceful non-violent folks is because many religions’ scriptures support both.  For Christianity, some people claim that the old testament laws are superseded by Christ’s sacrifice while others point to his statements about all the old laws being valid.

A confusing factor is about post-religionist morals.  People who go through an “immoral” period after they leave a religion are used as evidence for the religious beliefs.  But I believe that this shows the opposite.  Using religion to teach morals is tenuous at best.  Not only are the old morals difficult to modernize with new knowledge (Religionists’ perspective on gays as example) but people sometimes have to regain ethical footing after leaving a belief system.  Ethics are more consistent over time and more easily maintained by people as their beliefs change if the ethics are grounded in the physical.  This is because the ethics are independent of the changing beliefs. Unethical behaviors not based in religion have little to hide from when the supernatural or god cards are not played.

I believe that humanity needs to wholly embrace ethics with physical origins. All religions have changed over time while most have internal conflicts.  Even the gods change over time, including the judeo christian ones (plural intended).  Additionally, the morals written down are those held by the authors at the time of the writings.  Regardless of what religionists claim, the morals in the texts of religions are based on people’s perceptions and information, often full of bias and inaccuracies.  As new information needs new ethics and understanding of behaviors becomes better, the ancient morals can’t keep up.  But physically based ethics can grow with modern understanding of things.  Physical ethics can use new knowledge to remove the harmful ethics and add new ones as needed.

So, how am I doing with regards to ethics.  In a way, I can be compared to how our societies are transitioning from supernatural authority to physical reality for ethics.  I was once a devout Christian.  I read the Bible from beginning to end 3 times by the time I was 17 years old.  But experiences in my late teens challenged my beliefs.  I struggled with attempts to believe in a god, the soul and so on for some time.  But I eventually realized that the only constant is the physical.  So I reoriented my perspective to a purely physical one.  Since my morality was so closely associated with the religion of my youth, I made some ethical mistakes.  The process is not complete.  But I strive to be a fully ethical person based on the physical model.  My biggest shortfall is in the personal category.  The personal ethics include balanced exercise and a healthy diet.  I’m still working on those things.

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Although I will be discussing ethical categories, ethics in 1 category affect other categories.  For instance, how we treat ourselves can affect chemical states in the brain.  This, in turn, can affect our emotions which can then affect our social ethics.  Personal knowledge can also affect social ethics.  A lack of understanding as to why we react in certain ways can lead to behavioral patterns which negatively impact our social ethics.

PERSONAL ETHICS

How we treat ourselves

Three key ethics in this category are fitness, diet and self awareness.  Of these 3, I want to primarily discuss personal awareness.  Self awareness affects the fitness, diet and other personal ethics.  For example, I didn’t notice how much I was getting out of shape.  But self awareness affects the other ethical categories.  I can contrast 2 people who illustrate this.  One guy was quick to anger.  When people would point out that his anger seemed out of proportion, he would get angrier.  While I knew him, he never realized how his anger issues were due to something in him.  He believed that it was always the stupidity of others which sparked his anger.  Another guy had similar anger issues.  He said that he once tended to be angry all the time.  But he realized that his anger was not proportional to the stuff which angered him.  He sought psychological and medical help.  It was eventually found that there was a neurological cause to his rages which could be addressed with medication.  These are examples of how self awareness affects social ethics.  But self awareness is also socially useful for general purposes.  Being aware of the nature of our reactions helps us understand that our reactions may not match the stuff being reacted to.  For instance, some people tend to have more negative reactions to things which are different.  But an adequately self aware person will look at the differences independent of his or her reactions.  Good fitness and diet can have effects beyond the personal as well.  Fitness and diet can affect mood,  which then affects how others are treated.

SOCIAL ETHICS
How we treat others and their stuff

A physical starting point supports a more socially progressive approach to ethics.  We can examine differences based on their real effects on people.  Certain standards remain, such as avoidance of theft and violence.  But we can appreciate diversity more from a physical perspective.  We can distinguish between real harm from imaginary harm.  Our social ethics evolve as our understanding does.  And we do endeavor to understand.  We don’t assume that ancient restrictions  are valid just because they are still taught.  We don’t assume that our initial reactions are necessarily correct.  We emphasize empathy.  We look at our impact on others.  As a community of people, we sometimes have to alter what we want if it negatively impacts others.  But we don’t restrict other people’s wants if they have no negative impact.  

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

What we put into the air and water has consequences.  Those consequences require new ethics which we have been ill prepared to deal with.  It’s rather enlightening to read about environmental history.  Human difficulties with modifying behavior to ensure a healthy environment have existed since before written history.  But the environmental degradation was more localized than current times.  Since earth is a mostly closed system, the impacts are accumulating.  We’ve made corrections but we continue to make excuses for not being cleaner.  It doesn’t seem to matter that people’s health and lives are impacted.  Environmental ethics take a back seat to economics and convenience.  My physical perspective shows me that I need to do better at a personal level.  But the responsibility for keeping Earth a healthy place requires changes by all peoples, companies and countries.  We can rebuild a healthy environment.  We have the technology and knowledge. We have the capability to create environments which are better for the current and future generations.  But it requires more use of our cognitive abilities and more intellectual honesty.

COGNITIVE ETHICS

I believe that there are also cognitive ethics which affect all the rest.  This may seem obvious to some people.  But I believe that how we process information and understand things are factors which are hugely neglected.  I am an example.  I was raised in an environment which was rather intellectually stunted.  Religion was a factor in this.  But it went beyond that.  There were a lot of topics which I was misinformed about.  The adults did not intentionally deceive me.  They believed the things which they passed on.  And I was taught to take too much stuff at face value.  But there was also the “gut” mentality.  You’ve probably heard it.  “Go with your gut feelings”.  “First impressions are often right”.  And so on.  But I came to realize that misinformation breeds misinformation.  And there is no such thing as first impressions.  How we judge things are often based on a combination of past experiences, what we are taught and neurological factors.  I had kind of a personal cognitive revolution.  I learned to look a bit more thoroughly at things.  My opinions changed as I learned, as did my behaviors.  I am still working on these things.  But that is part of the point.  I acknowledge that my information is imperfect and my judgements may be flawed.  I, for one, am still endeavoring to do better, to be better, to ask questions and learn… to evolve.

I read some interesting points regarding intellectual honesty which fit my discoveries.

• One’s sense of conviction should be in proportion to the level of clear evidence assembled
• Be willing to acknowledge and question one’s own assumptions and biases
• Be willing to acknowledge where your information is weak
• Be willing to acknowledge when you are wrong
• Be willing to realize when your opinions are colored by emotion
• Issues go beyond the individuals who are discussing them
• Be careful how you fill in the gaps
• Commit to critical thinking
• Be willing to look at ideas contrary to your own but be fact based