Elitism - The plague of self-righteousness

originally posted by: Metallicus
Your entire outlook is self-defeating. I know you don’t want to be “told” anything, but you don’t have positive outcomes from a negative mindset.

It all comes from the new *snowflake* attitude ......

Sports days today don't have losers ..... everyone's a winner. So there is no

incentive to do better next time?

Competition no longer exists Apathy wins

If you believe the world is against you it definitely will be

So no need for taking personal responsibility..... because when sh1t happens

Its always someone else's fault.

a reply to: Isurrender73

It's not a question of better or worse as much as it is what your personal skill set is worth. If you possess a skill set that 90% of the rest of the world has too, then you won't be able to command as much in terms of what you make.

If you possess a skill set that not many have and that is highly sought after, you command much more value.

There are some skillsets that don't require you to be a genius in order to dedicate yourself to them and get good at them and sell yourself as a master of them that no too many others are invested in, but most people seem to think they're stuck forever flipping burgers.

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with you with one caveat. We need to be directing the youth in the right directions. I don't think many of our youth are properly directed.

In the land of participation trophies we have our youth thinking they will get a degree and "deserve" a cushy desk job. Or that due to race or other socioeconomic factors that they simply can't achieve the success of others.

We need to be honest with our youth and push those who would be best suited in blue collar to pursue the available jobs.

Mike Rowe did a piece on this that I found very interesting.
www.salary.com...

originally posted by: Isurrender73
As long as we claim self-righteous authority we will continue to dictate the lives of those whom we can't understand which is the opposite of freedom.

Why did you leave out "political correctness", which is the most visible expression of "self-righteous elitism" in modern culture? Isn't the above an exact description of the phenomenon, which now extends to people enthusiatically inventing new excuses for exercising control, in the form of imaginary grievances? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw "self-righteous" in the thread title.

In England recently, a teacher lost his job for letting slip the comment "Well done, girls" to a class which included somebody claiming to be transgender. A career destroyed to give satisfaction to a narcissistic control freak who had suffered no genuine injury.
Anyone who can exercise control is part of an elite.

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: Isurrender73
As long as we claim self-righteous authority we will continue to dictate the lives of those whom we can't understand which is the opposite of freedom.

Why did you leave out "political correctness", which is the most visible expression of "self-righteous elitism" in modern culture? Isn't the above an exact description of the phenomenon, which now extends to people enthusiatically inventing new excuses for exercising control, in the form of imaginary grievances? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw "self-righteous" in the thread title.

In England recently, a teacher lost his job for letting slip the comment "Well done, girls" to a class which included somebody claiming to be transgender. A career destroyed to give satisfaction to a narcissistic control freak who had suffered no genuine injury.
Anyone who can exercise control is part of an elite.

100% agree. I am sick of the PC movement. Free speech needs to be free speech. The story of the teacher is tragic. There was no malice intended nor any harm done.

originally posted by: Isurrender73

Knowing would be impossible except if the programmers or God were to reveal themselves. This is why I find the argument of freewill verse predestination so intriguing.

If it's predestined than I was supposed to have this thought anyway. So it really makes little difference what we believe, because we still have to go out and act either or both scenarios out.

It is not impossible to know whether there is freewill or not - it can be noticed that thoughts simply arise without there being a separate thinker. Keep your eye on thoughts and sensations - notice that what you are is 'knowing' the thoughts as they arise. It can be recognised that you merely witness what is appearing. You are always present and aware and what is appearing presently (including thought and sensation) is constantly changing.

Is there really a 'thinker' of thoughts? Or do thoughts simply arise?

Is there any relationship between the thinker and his thought, or is there only thought and not a thinker? If there are no thoughts there is no thinker. When you have thoughts, is there a thinker? Perceiving the impermanency of thoughts, thought itself creates the thinker who gives himself permanency; so thought creates the thinker; then the thinker establishes himself as a permanent entity apart from thoughts which are always in a state of flux. So, thought creates the thinker and not the other way about. The thinker does not create thought, for if there are no thoughts, there is no thinker. The thinker separates himself from his parent and tries to establish a relationship, a relationship between the so-called permanent, which is the thinker created by thought, and the impermanent or transient, which is thought. So, both are really transient.

Pursue a thought completely to its very end. Think it out fully, feel it out and discover for yourself what happens. You will find that there is no thinker at all. For, when thought ceases, the thinker is not. We think there are two states, as the thinker and the thought. These two states are fictitious, unreal. There is only thought, and the bundle of thought creates the 'me', the thinker.

This quote is from Jiddu Kristnamurti. www.reddit.com...
Thought creates the 'me' - the 'me' who can do - the 'me' that could have free will - but really there is no 'me'!!

So it is not that free will is an illusion - there actually isn't anyone who could have free will!!

a reply to: Isurrender73
Never put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

That's an interesting theory but it doesn't have anything to do with actions taken. One can choose how to act on the thoughts that arise regardless of how they get there.

The scriptures say we have two voices good/bad (thoughts that arise) and it is our freewill choice to choose which action or path we take.

To look at thought apart from actions leaves an incomplete philosophy. Einstein believed 100% of our actions were socioeconomic but I disagree. I believe at some point it is possible to break free from the programming.

I have freewill, even if I am the only one.

originally posted by: MaxTamesSiva
a reply to: Isurrender73
Never put the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket.

I can choose the path of Buddah. I have done what is necessary to achieve and remain in Nirvana.

But I consciously choose the path of the bodhisattva. I prefer to tie myself through empathy to the world. In this way I have chosen to experience the joy and pain of others as I see this as a more enlightening path for myself.

I could change my mind, turn within, and be fulfilled any time I choose.

a reply to: Isurrender73
I'm glad you figured that out.

originally posted by: Isurrender73
To look at thought apart from actions leaves an incomplete philosophy. Einstein believed 100% of our actions were socioeconomic but I disagree. I believe at some point it is possible to break free from the programming.

Einstein believed that the human being had no control over thoughts or actions - I agree with him.

His belief in causal determinism was incompatible with the concept of human free will. Jewish as well as Christian theologians have generally believed that people are responsible for their actions. They are even free to choose, as happens in the Bible, to disobey God's commandments, despite the fact that this seems to conflict with a belief that God is all knowing and all powerful. Einstein, on the other hand, believed--as did Spinoza--that a person's actions were just as determined as that of a billiard ball, planet or star. "Human beings in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free but are as causally bound as the stars in their motions," Einstein declared in a statement to a Spinoza Society in 1932.
www.talkleft.com...

It is like you are watching a movie - you have no control over what appears in the movie - you are the witnessing presence.