Animal reality, the reality experienced by animals, is on my mind.  Look at Mali (spelled มะลิม, Thai for "jasmine", pronounced ma-LEE), my young golden labrador, the one with the snout and happy to be  close to Angie, our family เพื่อน (pronounced purr-un, meaning "friend").  I always wanted a dog, but the possibility only arose very recently.  She is immensely lovable and so forgiving, seemingly incapable of resentment.

It brought back to me the issue of how much of the THEE taxonomy is available to animals.  By available, I mean is 'animal reality' something that is experienced and used naturally and spontaneously by a dog (say) as we use our psychosocial reality.  Most people, but not TOP website members, are unaware that More...

Purify the mind.  Is that a strange idea for you?

Most of what I write about in THEE is common-sense knowledge. All I am doing is putting it into order and explaining how different aspects of social life need to be more finely discriminated. 

I like explaining how bits of living relate to each other, especially when those relationships are misunderstood or taken for granted. However, now and then I come across something which is being ignored. Usually on a rather temporary basis but sometimes over many decades.  Rarely longer.

That sort of thing happened today: with the notion that you ought to purify your mind.

I was doing some internet research on the various ways that people deal with the hurts that attend living.  Any pain or suffering leads More...

No doctrine can deliver virtue or character.  So none can ensure that using power to apply the supposedly beneficial doctrine will be safe and wise.

Character flows from our humanity, the same source as the power that we use.  It is wonderful that this humanity and this power is irrepressible.

However, our humanity is a tricky thing and using power is even trickier.  We are not  dealing with good that is unproblematic.  Humanity is built on an endless conflict between one good and something else that is also good.  Of all these conflicts in relation to using power, and there are many, perhaps the most significant is that between what is good for our humanity and what is good for our society. 

As you know: evil is choice of the lesser good, and of these two, More...

«Egoism and altruism» is a hardy perennial of philosophers and now a staple for academic psychologists.  Are people basically self-interested or basically concerned for others?

Trick question.  Once the issue is posed like this, any hope of understanding oneself or acting sensibly is lost. 

People act in their own self-interest.  They must.  Some are certainly more self-centred than others.  People are also capable of concern for others and demonstrate benevolence.  They must.  Otherwise it would be hard to live in groups.  Again, there is variation amongst people in the degree of altruism.  For some of you, it might be hard to live with yourself if you were irredeemably selfish. 

The issue is never what academics or philosophers assert people 'are'—and which, supposedly, is what you are or what I am.  The issue in real life is always about what am I going to do at this moment in this situation given who I am.  The variations here are almost infinite.

Yes, we do have tendencies and styles.  But we are not More...

I just read about a new tax scheme that has had over $20m of research expenditure.  It's basically a good scheme but, frankly, the research was mostly a waste of money.  It would be simpler to see that taxation has gone wrong and wronger as an aspect of political manipulation.  We experience the effects of bad choices in the past. The misuse and abuse of the tax system has had little concern for the well-being of the country: at least any country that claims to be a democracy.  The bad choices were made because the focus was on election campaigns.  If you stop viewing taxation as an ideological issue of higher or lower taxes, you may start to see some easy solutions.

Many social issues have simple easy solutions.  Especially if the problem seems complicated and overwhelming.  The mess is so extreme because it is the effect of bad choices.  The issues then become overwhelming because of political factors. 

Exactly the same thing happens in people's lives. More...