I don't have authority and nor does anyone else. 'Whatever works for you' when it comes to matters of belief is an admission that we cannot comprehend objective truth and therefore we shouldn't argue or discriminate with anyone's subjective truth.
Well, precisely. You're not in a position to argue. You're not in a position to take a stand on the extent to which parents have the right to school their children apart from state institutions. You're not in a position to take a stand on faith schools. You're not in a position to state that showing depictions of the crucifixion to a child should be seen as constituting psychological abuse.
For those positions to be coherent, you need to have some notion of what constitutes an individual and what accords with their well-being that goes beyond 'whatever works for you' and in your view approaches the status of a universal truth.
No one else can ever share my subjective experience of a cup of coffee, let alone how I perceive the universe.
So, a fortiori on the psychological abuse thing: how can you ever really know what works for people, if you're not them? You're just not in a position, on your own showing, to judge.
The 'whatever works for you' stance looks liberating. But I think it binds one's hands pretty tightly.
But you can end up with a reductio, if I don't know how other people are feeling. Thus, I don't know that an infant being shown a crucifix is being abused, but it gives me the shudders to see it. My shudders aren't worked out logically, but via compassion.
'Whatever works for you' is only OK until the line is drawn. If children are being traumatised or imprisoned, 'whatever works for you' has gone beyond the line.
If the result of 'whatever works for you' is that our children grow up to harm other people or to be cruel to animals, for example, when our own faith beliefs lead us to love others as ourselves and look after the world and what lives in it, then it is not OK that they rejected our beliefs as those they have picked up go against ours.
In my previous post I was trying to refer to the title of whether Christianity should be taught to children. If ColinSmith says something is meaningful, then I think that needs to be more clearly stated if one is teaching children. I seem to have failed though!
But you can end up with a reductio, if I don't know how other people are feeling. Thus, I don't know that an infant being shown a crucifix is being abused, but it gives me the shudders to see it. My shudders aren't worked out logically, but via compassion.
The trouble here is that you don't know what the internal experience of that infant, or that parent, or that community, for that matter, really is. Particularly in view of the Resurrection, which casts a vastly different backward light on the cross.
Here's an extremely minor parallel. Vietnamese elders, particularly old ladies, have a tendency to grab wee children by the fatty pads over their cheek bones and shake them till their heads rattle, all the while saying, "Dep qua!" which translates as "How cute!" I've had this done to me when I was a cute young thing (yeah, really) and it fucking hurt. And it freaked me out. But the wee children aren't crying or wincing or acting in any way as if they are in discomfort. They are giggling, laughing, continually approaching the elders. I have never seen one object or cry. Clearly my "minor child abuse" constitutes "Hey, grandma is awesome" in their context.
Similarly, when we raised our infant in the community of the cross, we did not prevent him from seeing crucifixion scenes.* Rather, we explained them as simply as possible: "That is a picture of something Jesus did a long time ago because he wanted to help us. Jesus isn't there anymore, he's with us, and you can talk to him any time you like." This got nothing more exciting than an "oh" and a beeline for the Lego pile.
Basically, if you don't know if it's child abuse, look at the effect on the children. Abused children show characteristic patterns, such as avoiding the abuser (or quite the opposite, clinging to the abuser in the hopes of placating him/her). They have a tendency to act out the abuse, either in reality or in art (pictures, storytelling, doll play, etc.). They tend to suffer in school. They have difficulty building solid trusting relationships with other adults. And so forth, and so on.
This is not something I find across the board in those raised Christian. Is it ever found? Yes, because there are child abusers within the church, God help us, as there are everywhere. But if the crucifixion was the source of child abuse you seem to think it is, cradle Christians would show noticeable traits of people brought up with abuse--not one here and there, but the whole community. And that just isn't so.
* To be sure, there are certain representations of the crucifixion that I would not expose any unprepared and unwilling person to, regardless of age (for example, The Passion of the Christ, or that ghastly ghastly metal thingy in a church in New York). The problem with those is that they are so extremely vivid that even for adults they tend to overwhelm our understanding of what was going on, at least for the moment. But they are few and far between.
Thus, I don't know that an infant being shown a crucifix is being abused, but it gives me the shudders to see it. My shudders aren't worked out logically, but via compassion.
You mean passion, not compassion. Compassion would mean that you know you feel what the child is feeling: which you say you don't. So, what you're attributing to the child is subjective projection.
I attempted to show it was germane by pointing out that anyone who adopts a ‘whatever works for you’ philosophy wouldn't have a problem with their child adopting a different belief to the one they hold, whereas someone who has a more exclusive philosophy would want to ensure (as much as possible) that their child adopted the same belief.
That may be your subjective truth, but it isn't necessarily true for anyone else.
The truth for me is that if truth is subjective it is fine to impose it on other people. There is no objective reason anyone need respect not to impose subjective truth. If what works for me is imposing my ethics on you then it is irrelevant to me whether that works for you. Whereas if it's an objective truth then whether or not its moral to impose it upon someone else does not depend upon what works for me.
(This is something that philosophy lecturers try to get undergraduates to appreciate.)
It depends how it is taught and who does the teaching. As a child I loathed Sunday School and would never have shown any interest in Christianity if that had been my only exposure. However, I loved the Anglican church services, particularly choral matins and joined enthusiastically in singing the psalms and canticles. By my teens I was a reader of the lessons and soon an assistant organist. My belief and interest grew all the time and has never wavered. I think that I appreciated the adult practices which were nothing like school lessons.
I don't have authority and nor does anyone else. 'Whatever works for you' when it comes to matters of belief is an admission that we cannot comprehend objective truth and therefore we shouldn't argue or discriminate with anyone's subjective truth.
Well, precisely. You're not in a position to argue. You're not in a position to take a stand on the extent to which parents have the right to school their children apart from state institutions. You're not in a position to take a stand on faith schools. You're not in a position to state that showing depictions of the crucifixion to a child should be seen as constituting psychological abuse.
For those positions to be coherent, you need to have some notion of what constitutes an individual and what accords with their well-being that goes beyond 'whatever works for you' and in your view approaches the status of a universal truth.
No one else can ever share my subjective experience of a cup of coffee, let alone how I perceive the universe.
So, a fortiori on the psychological abuse thing: how can you ever really know what works for people, if you're not them? You're just not in a position, on your own showing, to judge.
The 'whatever works for you' stance looks liberating. But I think it binds one's hands pretty tightly.
I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
And yes, a 'whatever works for you' stance' is liberating for the individual but it does bind one's hands when dealing with other people, including one's offspring. And rightly so, in my view.
That may be your subjective truth, but it isn't necessarily true for anyone else.
The truth for me is that if truth is subjective it is fine to impose it on other people. There is no objective reason anyone need respect not to impose subjective truth. If what works for me is imposing my ethics on you then it is irrelevant to me whether that works for you. Whereas if it's an objective truth then whether or not its moral to impose it upon someone else does not depend upon what works for me.
(This is something that philosophy lecturers try to get undergraduates to appreciate.)
Eh? That it's my subjective truth means it certainly isn't going to be exactly true for anyone else. That's sort of the point.
But I would have thought the Golden Rule precludes you from imposing your subjective truth on anyone else given that you wouldn't want them doing it to you.
I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
I rather expect that you'll have a hard time unpacking that in such a way that it forbids a parent from educating their child but provides for your posting on this web site.
I rather expect that you'll have a hard time unpacking that in such a way that it forbids a parent from educating their child but provides for your posting on this web site.
I am very far from imposing my views on anyone, least of all on this website where my views conflict with the majority of members.
And besides, I am not proposing to forbid parents from teaching their child (as if that was even possible): my concern is the what and how of teaching.
'Whatever works for you' is only OK until the line is drawn. If children are being traumatised or imprisoned, 'whatever works for you' has gone beyond the line.
If the result of 'whatever works for you' is that our children grow up to harm other people or to be cruel to animals, for example, when our own faith beliefs lead us to love others as ourselves and look after the world and what lives in it, then it is not OK that they rejected our beliefs as those they have picked up go against ours.
Whatever works for you is not carte blanche to inflict your views on your children. It's the exact opposite: it demands that you respect your child's right to find whatever works for them.
Equally, whatever works for you demands that you do not cause harm to other people or cruelty to animals because whatever works for you has to be reciprocal. It's not a freedom to do whatever you want: it demands that you respect other people's right to live according to what is right for them.
Thus, I don't know that an infant being shown a crucifix is being abused, but it gives me the shudders to see it. My shudders aren't worked out logically, but via compassion.
You mean passion, not compassion. Compassion would mean that you know you feel what the child is feeling: which you say you don't. So, what you're attributing to the child is subjective projection.
Well, I partly agree. I think it's projection plus identification, a very knotty area. Formerly considered a psychological domain, the discovery of mirror neurons has provided a possible physiological base for projection, although there is also skepticism about this.
because whatever works for you has to be reciprocal. It's not a freedom to do whatever you want: it demands that you respect other people's right to live according to what is right for them.
Are your personal morals generalisable, just because they work for you?
The trouble with individualist relativism is that it has no basis to make demands on others. Unless you can explain what the basis is.
For the record, I take the view that societies are composed of individuals who are mutually dependent, and we are relationally responsible to and for each other. I think that is not a hundred miles from your own position as worked out above.
'Whatever works for you' is only OK until the line is drawn. If children are being traumatised or imprisoned, 'whatever works for you' has gone beyond the line.
If the result of 'whatever works for you' is that our children grow up to harm other people or to be cruel to animals, for example, when our own faith beliefs lead us to love others as ourselves and look after the world and what lives in it, then it is not OK that they rejected our beliefs as those they have picked up go against ours.
Whatever works for you is not carte blanche to inflict your views on your children. It's the exact opposite: it demands that you respect your child's right to find whatever works for them.
Equally, whatever works for you demands that you do not cause harm to other people or cruelty to animals because whatever works for you has to be reciprocal. It's not a freedom to do whatever you want: it demands that you respect other people's right to live according to what is right for them.
You're not seeing it; "demands" and "has to be" are just as universal and binding on everybody as any of the faith positions you think you are freeing people from. "Whatever works for you" becomes the master idea beneath which other people are allowed to run their personal ideologies--so long as they do not conflict with the master idea. The more you unpack it, the more obvious this becomes.
because whatever works for you has to be reciprocal. It's not a freedom to do whatever you want: it demands that you respect other people's right to live according to what is right for them.
Are your personal morals generalisable, just because they work for you?
The trouble with individualist relativism is that it has no basis to make demands on others. Unless you can explain what the basis is.
For the record, I take the view that societies are composed of individuals who are mutually dependent, and we are relationally responsible to and for each other. I think that is not a hundred miles from your own position as worked out above.
It's.... complicated. I know people who would definitely say we should all be vegan, even though logically that is not saving any animal from being killed for food but ensuring all animals bred for meat never exist at all.
I think the only generalisable component of my morals would be do as you would be done by, and to be honest I'm not terribly good at following that rule.
I agree that my position isn't far from yours, but people are assuming that I am using whatever works for you in a self-centred way whereas I intend whatever works for you to be the basis of how we interact with other people. In other words, my atheism works for me but if being a Christian, Hindu, Druid, whatever works for you that's fine so long as they accept that being an atheist works for me.
I'm not saying that it works for me could ever be a defence for going through life harming others.
You're not seeing it; "demands" and "has to be" are just as universal and binding on everybody as any of the faith positions you think you are freeing people from. "Whatever works for you" becomes the master idea beneath which other people are allowed to run their personal ideologies--so long as they do not conflict with the master idea. The more you unpack it, the more obvious this becomes.
I accept that my fairly extreme form of individualism restricts people's ability to encourage/ teach/ indoctrinate others in their particular beliefs.
But I am not freeing anyone from a faith position. My whole point is that anyone can take up any faith position they like. What they should not do is impose their faith position on anyone else. And in this case anyone else would include their children.
I'm arguing for a society that is as fragmented and individualistic as possible without the whole thing falling apart.
But I am not freeing anyone from a faith position. My whole point is that anyone can take up any faith position they like. What they should not do is impose their faith position on anyone else. And in this case anyone else would include their children.
‘What works for me’ may well include obligations to others (it certainly does for you, as you have acknowledged upthread), and ideas about the education and nurture of children that are not relativist or devoid of content. You do not seem to be allowing (for) this, and by using the word ‘impose’ you are importing underlying values from your master ideology through rhetoric.
Education and nurturing are more about sharing what you believe to be valuable and/or useful rather than demanding others think like you. If you find that your life is enriched by a faith you believe to be true, and/or it gives you more comfort and meaning than alternatives, why on earth would you not preferentially share it with your children? On a ‘what works for me’ basis, it makes no sense not to.
I'm arguing for a society that is as fragmented and individualistic as possible without the whole thing falling apart.
Why?
Can you explain why that is better than, say, “a society that is as collective, caring and cooperative as possible, while allowing individuals’ the freedom to live their life in any way that does not harm others.”
I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
That's just your subjective truth.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
And yes, a 'whatever works for you' stance' is liberating for the individual but it does bind one's hands when dealing with other people, including one's offspring. And rightly so, in my view.
If throwing everyone who doesn't worship the Emperor works for the Romans or cutting out the hearts of captives works for the Aztecs, then why should that bind their hands? It may bind your hands from imposing your view that religious intolerance or persecution are wrong on people who think religious persecution is perfectly alright.
But I would have thought the Golden Rule precludes you from imposing your subjective truth on anyone else given that you wouldn't want them doing it to you.
Only if the Golden Rule happens to be part of your subjective truth.
In any case, the Golden Rule is a purely formal instruction. An action described in one way may be against the Golden Rule, but if you redescribe the action in a different way, it might be permissible. For example, impressing upon your children the truths you are grateful that your parents impressed upon you does not violate the Golden Rule.
Or are you maintaining that there is one objectively valid interpretation of the Golden Rule as applied to any situation?
I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
There's a big difference between the theoretical and practical here. For example: my toddler believes potties are scary, hitting is funny, and Mac and cheese is the only appropriate food for dinner (although chicken nuggets and french fries are tolerable). Of course I am actively teaching him how to use a toilet, that we do not hit, and that there are other nummy foods that we eat. If I did not it would literally be neglect.
Likewise, I believe in God... I could rattle off the Apostles' creed for you right here if you like; I believe it. For me, to not teach that to my child would be neglecting his spiritual growth. As he grows up he can make his own decisions and develop his own beliefs, but for now I am responsible for giving him a foundation.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
I am probably wrong, but I took that as meaning that it is a universal truth for him - If I have a universal truth - but other people have their own.
I think the ‘likewise’ is interesting. My son is perhaps only a little older than @amybo’s child. Potty-training is still a recent memory,
And ... well, we trained him using a standard, UK-style, pedestal toilet, such as our house is provided with. And the starting point from which he was transitioning was what are here called nappies. We were aware, of course, that globally there are many alternatives to these two poles. We could have wrapped his tiny bottom in sphagnum. We could have allowed him to roam free over the garden making deposits where he wished. We could have elected to mock-up a Chinese-style ‘bombsight’ toilet, or taught him to crouch one-legged in a field, dextrously manoeuvring his dhoti. We could have installed a bidet, or instructed him in the Qaada al-Hajaah.
But we did none of these things. We failed to consider the vast range of options, and evaluate them on their merits. We did not concern ourselves on the objective grounding or otherwise of any of them. We did not worry ourselves over whether we could truly know or share his experience of urination. No; we merely taught as we knew, and trusted that these basic understandings were needful, and adaptable to other situations.
We may, of course, have overestimated the transferability of these skills. No doubt he would find it difficult to adapt to, say, Japanese or Islamic standards of hygiene.
But do you know what really wouldn’t have worked? Not teaching him anything at all, for fear this might interfere with and constrict his development as an individual.
Ah, a sparkling analogy between potty-training and teaching Christianity. When you think about it, what could be more obvious?
Yes, har har! What could be more different than the pragmatic realm of mundane concerns like potty training, and the sublime heights of religion and philosophy?
Which is precisely where I think this thread keeps going wrong.
There is, however, a vast difference between an analogy involving real life and real things we use and the unverifiable assumption of God or a spirit of Christ being taught about, rather than taught as something believed to be real.
I wish my parents had taught me Christianity. I found it for myself, but I would rather not have had the empty years without faith - and I would have had the basis to develop a more thoughtful understanding much earlier.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
I wish my parents had taught me Christianity. I found it for myself, but I would rather not have had the empty years without faith - and I would have had the basis to develop a more thoughtful understanding much earlier.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
Could you say briefly how you think your parents should or might have 'taught' you Christianity? What is the essential element you have in it that you did not have before?
Education and nurturing are more about sharing what you believe to be valuable and/or useful rather than demanding others think like you. If you find that your life is enriched by a faith you believe to be true, and/or it gives you more comfort and meaning than alternatives, why on earth would you not preferentially share it with your children? On a ‘what works for me’ basis, it makes no sense not to.
I'm arguing for a society that is as fragmented and individualistic as possible without the whole thing falling apart.
Why?
Can you explain why that is better than, say, “a society that is as collective, caring and cooperative as possible, while allowing individuals’ the freedom to live their life in any way that does not harm others.”
So, if I like model railways or carpentry I should share my interests with my children to the exclusion of interests I don't like (but which they might)?
As for individualism versus cooperativism, I'm afraid I do see the latter as leading to social conformity with a curtailment on individual freedoms. For example, a cooperative society might well agree that things like abortion and euthanasia are damaging to society but I regard both as essential individual rights.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
I am probably wrong, but I took that as meaning that it is a universal truth for him - If I have a universal truth - but other people have their own.
It HAS to be a universal truth. If it is only a subjective truth then others can arrive at a different truth, such as the needs of the collective are paramount, and then apply that to limit my individualism.
I wish my parents had taught me Christianity. I found it for myself, but I would rather not have had the empty years without faith - and I would have had the basis to develop a more thoughtful understanding much earlier.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
Could you say briefly how you think your parents should or might have 'taught' you Christianity? What is the essential element you have in it that you did not have before?
In relation to the first question, I have already alluded to a sharing pedagogy upthread. I suppose I would most likely put that in a community of practice framework, in which learning is achieved through legitimate peripheral participation, if you are looking for a more theoretical grounding.
In relation to the second question, my comment above was mostly about the journey and not about arrival. An earlier start on that journey, in a nurturing and supportive environment, would have been better for me.
Comments
Well, precisely. You're not in a position to argue. You're not in a position to take a stand on the extent to which parents have the right to school their children apart from state institutions. You're not in a position to take a stand on faith schools. You're not in a position to state that showing depictions of the crucifixion to a child should be seen as constituting psychological abuse.
For those positions to be coherent, you need to have some notion of what constitutes an individual and what accords with their well-being that goes beyond 'whatever works for you' and in your view approaches the status of a universal truth.
So, a fortiori on the psychological abuse thing: how can you ever really know what works for people, if you're not them? You're just not in a position, on your own showing, to judge.
The 'whatever works for you' stance looks liberating. But I think it binds one's hands pretty tightly.
If the result of 'whatever works for you' is that our children grow up to harm other people or to be cruel to animals, for example, when our own faith beliefs lead us to love others as ourselves and look after the world and what lives in it, then it is not OK that they rejected our beliefs as those they have picked up go against ours.
The trouble here is that you don't know what the internal experience of that infant, or that parent, or that community, for that matter, really is. Particularly in view of the Resurrection, which casts a vastly different backward light on the cross.
Here's an extremely minor parallel. Vietnamese elders, particularly old ladies, have a tendency to grab wee children by the fatty pads over their cheek bones and shake them till their heads rattle, all the while saying, "Dep qua!" which translates as "How cute!" I've had this done to me when I was a cute young thing (yeah, really) and it fucking hurt. And it freaked me out. But the wee children aren't crying or wincing or acting in any way as if they are in discomfort. They are giggling, laughing, continually approaching the elders. I have never seen one object or cry. Clearly my "minor child abuse" constitutes "Hey, grandma is awesome" in their context.
Similarly, when we raised our infant in the community of the cross, we did not prevent him from seeing crucifixion scenes.* Rather, we explained them as simply as possible: "That is a picture of something Jesus did a long time ago because he wanted to help us. Jesus isn't there anymore, he's with us, and you can talk to him any time you like." This got nothing more exciting than an "oh" and a beeline for the Lego pile.
Basically, if you don't know if it's child abuse, look at the effect on the children. Abused children show characteristic patterns, such as avoiding the abuser (or quite the opposite, clinging to the abuser in the hopes of placating him/her). They have a tendency to act out the abuse, either in reality or in art (pictures, storytelling, doll play, etc.). They tend to suffer in school. They have difficulty building solid trusting relationships with other adults. And so forth, and so on.
This is not something I find across the board in those raised Christian. Is it ever found? Yes, because there are child abusers within the church, God help us, as there are everywhere. But if the crucifixion was the source of child abuse you seem to think it is, cradle Christians would show noticeable traits of people brought up with abuse--not one here and there, but the whole community. And that just isn't so.
* To be sure, there are certain representations of the crucifixion that I would not expose any unprepared and unwilling person to, regardless of age (for example, The Passion of the Christ, or that ghastly ghastly metal thingy in a church in New York). The problem with those is that they are so extremely vivid that even for adults they tend to overwhelm our understanding of what was going on, at least for the moment. But they are few and far between.
The truth for me is that if truth is subjective it is fine to impose it on other people. There is no objective reason anyone need respect not to impose subjective truth. If what works for me is imposing my ethics on you then it is irrelevant to me whether that works for you. Whereas if it's an objective truth then whether or not its moral to impose it upon someone else does not depend upon what works for me.
(This is something that philosophy lecturers try to get undergraduates to appreciate.)
We don't often agree on much, but in this I am with you 100%.
I do not have a right to impose my views on anyone and no one has a right to impose their views on anyone else. That includes any parent who imposes their views on their children.
If I have a universal truth it's that the individual is paramount.
And yes, a 'whatever works for you' stance' is liberating for the individual but it does bind one's hands when dealing with other people, including one's offspring. And rightly so, in my view.
I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere
Eh? That it's my subjective truth means it certainly isn't going to be exactly true for anyone else. That's sort of the point.
But I would have thought the Golden Rule precludes you from imposing your subjective truth on anyone else given that you wouldn't want them doing it to you.
Corrected quoting code. BroJames Purgatory Host
I rather expect that you'll have a hard time unpacking that in such a way that it forbids a parent from educating their child but provides for your posting on this web site.
I am very far from imposing my views on anyone, least of all on this website where my views conflict with the majority of members.
And besides, I am not proposing to forbid parents from teaching their child (as if that was even possible): my concern is the what and how of teaching.
Whatever works for you is not carte blanche to inflict your views on your children. It's the exact opposite: it demands that you respect your child's right to find whatever works for them.
Equally, whatever works for you demands that you do not cause harm to other people or cruelty to animals because whatever works for you has to be reciprocal. It's not a freedom to do whatever you want: it demands that you respect other people's right to live according to what is right for them.
Well, I partly agree. I think it's projection plus identification, a very knotty area. Formerly considered a psychological domain, the discovery of mirror neurons has provided a possible physiological base for projection, although there is also skepticism about this.
Does harming people include omission as well as commission, and structural inequality? Should we all be vegan?
More importantly, where do these rules come from? They absolutely do not flow automatically from ‘whatever works for you’.
Are your personal morals generalisable, just because they work for you?
The trouble with individualist relativism is that it has no basis to make demands on others. Unless you can explain what the basis is.
For the record, I take the view that societies are composed of individuals who are mutually dependent, and we are relationally responsible to and for each other. I think that is not a hundred miles from your own position as worked out above.
You're not seeing it; "demands" and "has to be" are just as universal and binding on everybody as any of the faith positions you think you are freeing people from. "Whatever works for you" becomes the master idea beneath which other people are allowed to run their personal ideologies--so long as they do not conflict with the master idea. The more you unpack it, the more obvious this becomes.
It's.... complicated. I know people who would definitely say we should all be vegan, even though logically that is not saving any animal from being killed for food but ensuring all animals bred for meat never exist at all.
I think the only generalisable component of my morals would be do as you would be done by, and to be honest I'm not terribly good at following that rule.
I agree that my position isn't far from yours, but people are assuming that I am using whatever works for you in a self-centred way whereas I intend whatever works for you to be the basis of how we interact with other people. In other words, my atheism works for me but if being a Christian, Hindu, Druid, whatever works for you that's fine so long as they accept that being an atheist works for me.
I'm not saying that it works for me could ever be a defence for going through life harming others.
I accept that my fairly extreme form of individualism restricts people's ability to encourage/ teach/ indoctrinate others in their particular beliefs.
But I am not freeing anyone from a faith position. My whole point is that anyone can take up any faith position they like. What they should not do is impose their faith position on anyone else. And in this case anyone else would include their children.
I'm arguing for a society that is as fragmented and individualistic as possible without the whole thing falling apart.
Except belief in your form of individualism, which becomes the master ideology (as @Lamb Chopped has suggested).
‘What works for me’ may well include obligations to others (it certainly does for you, as you have acknowledged upthread), and ideas about the education and nurture of children that are not relativist or devoid of content. You do not seem to be allowing (for) this, and by using the word ‘impose’ you are importing underlying values from your master ideology through rhetoric.
Education and nurturing are more about sharing what you believe to be valuable and/or useful rather than demanding others think like you. If you find that your life is enriched by a faith you believe to be true, and/or it gives you more comfort and meaning than alternatives, why on earth would you not preferentially share it with your children? On a ‘what works for me’ basis, it makes no sense not to.
Why?
Can you explain why that is better than, say, “a society that is as collective, caring and cooperative as possible, while allowing individuals’ the freedom to live their life in any way that does not harm others.”
I don't think that is a universal truth. (In fact, I don't think it's more than a half-truth in any sense.) It's certainly not any different in kind from any of the truths you say are merely subjective. You have no grounds for saying that is a universal truth but that religion or atheism are subjective.
If throwing everyone who doesn't worship the Emperor works for the Romans or cutting out the hearts of captives works for the Aztecs, then why should that bind their hands? It may bind your hands from imposing your view that religious intolerance or persecution are wrong on people who think religious persecution is perfectly alright.
Only if the Golden Rule happens to be part of your subjective truth.
In any case, the Golden Rule is a purely formal instruction. An action described in one way may be against the Golden Rule, but if you redescribe the action in a different way, it might be permissible. For example, impressing upon your children the truths you are grateful that your parents impressed upon you does not violate the Golden Rule.
Or are you maintaining that there is one objectively valid interpretation of the Golden Rule as applied to any situation?
There's a big difference between the theoretical and practical here. For example: my toddler believes potties are scary, hitting is funny, and Mac and cheese is the only appropriate food for dinner (although chicken nuggets and french fries are tolerable). Of course I am actively teaching him how to use a toilet, that we do not hit, and that there are other nummy foods that we eat. If I did not it would literally be neglect.
Likewise, I believe in God... I could rattle off the Apostles' creed for you right here if you like; I believe it. For me, to not teach that to my child would be neglecting his spiritual growth. As he grows up he can make his own decisions and develop his own beliefs, but for now I am responsible for giving him a foundation.
But all the shuddering and shivering and gyrating could lead to a new religion.
Just don't teach it to your kids.
They taught it me.
Calls to mind my favorite bumper sticker -- "Insanity is hereditary: You get it from your kids."
I think the ‘likewise’ is interesting. My son is perhaps only a little older than @amybo’s child. Potty-training is still a recent memory,
And ... well, we trained him using a standard, UK-style, pedestal toilet, such as our house is provided with. And the starting point from which he was transitioning was what are here called nappies. We were aware, of course, that globally there are many alternatives to these two poles. We could have wrapped his tiny bottom in sphagnum. We could have allowed him to roam free over the garden making deposits where he wished. We could have elected to mock-up a Chinese-style ‘bombsight’ toilet, or taught him to crouch one-legged in a field, dextrously manoeuvring his dhoti. We could have installed a bidet, or instructed him in the Qaada al-Hajaah.
But we did none of these things. We failed to consider the vast range of options, and evaluate them on their merits. We did not concern ourselves on the objective grounding or otherwise of any of them. We did not worry ourselves over whether we could truly know or share his experience of urination. No; we merely taught as we knew, and trusted that these basic understandings were needful, and adaptable to other situations.
We may, of course, have overestimated the transferability of these skills. No doubt he would find it difficult to adapt to, say, Japanese or Islamic standards of hygiene.
But do you know what really wouldn’t have worked? Not teaching him anything at all, for fear this might interfere with and constrict his development as an individual.
Yes, har har! What could be more different than the pragmatic realm of mundane concerns like potty training, and the sublime heights of religion and philosophy?
Which is precisely where I think this thread keeps going wrong.
I hope that's not what he believes because that's incoherent.
I also regret my period of being a tiresome ‘militant atheist’, which didn’t amount to much more than a display of hubris, category errors and repetitive assertions. Looking back, it was bizarre how much energy I invested in not being a Christian.
I can live with that. Life is full of contradictions and a degree of hypocrisy is essential for survival and well-being.
So, if I like model railways or carpentry I should share my interests with my children to the exclusion of interests I don't like (but which they might)?
As for individualism versus cooperativism, I'm afraid I do see the latter as leading to social conformity with a curtailment on individual freedoms. For example, a cooperative society might well agree that things like abortion and euthanasia are damaging to society but I regard both as essential individual rights.
It HAS to be a universal truth. If it is only a subjective truth then others can arrive at a different truth, such as the needs of the collective are paramount, and then apply that to limit my individualism.
In relation to the first question, I have already alluded to a sharing pedagogy upthread. I suppose I would most likely put that in a community of practice framework, in which learning is achieved through legitimate peripheral participation, if you are looking for a more theoretical grounding.
In relation to the second question, my comment above was mostly about the journey and not about arrival. An earlier start on that journey, in a nurturing and supportive environment, would have been better for me.