If it helps, this is how I look at it from a top-down level: The bad things that happen in the world are like a physical disease. Treating the pain and damage that disease causes is of great importance, of course, and in many cases, extreme methods of dealing with those things have to happen--sometimes, ya gotta amputate. But at the same time, working on cures and vaccinations has to happen, too. Because even though those things may not solve the problem for the current infection, they'll eventually help prevent new ones--and the far greater cost of managing them down the road.
And because it's pretty much impossible for individual people to manage such large-scale planning, that means we have to all go in on it to make that planning possible. It's not just about compassion for the individual who is suffering at the moment, but about working toward a goal of preventing that suffering from happening to more people, which ultimately has benefits for everyone, both people at risk for that suffering, and people who would be affected--financially, practically, etc.--by those who suffer. Honestly, it's never just the people directly affected by these "infections" who come to harm from them. The ripple effect pretty much touches everyone in some way or another, which is why everyone has to chip in on some level to fix it, even if they can't see any immediate personal benefit for doing so.
So, really, that's my political philosophy in a nutshell: Practicality, compassion, long-range planning and solutions and community effort for community benefit. Apply that to just about any political issue, and it's pretty easy to see where I'm going to land.
I get that other folks see the world differently, of course. This is just where I've come to roost after the last 20 years of studying how humans work, both on an individual psychological level and in large-scale groups and cultures. We're certainly a strange bunch of dextrous monkeys. :)
Anyway... Like I say, I do love you. Even if you are a stubborn old crank sometimes. :)
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momijizukamori
Re: Infidels
Date: 2011-07-15 06:45 pm (UTC)If it helps, this is how I look at it from a top-down level: The bad things that happen in the world are like a physical disease. Treating the pain and damage that disease causes is of great importance, of course, and in many cases, extreme methods of dealing with those things have to happen--sometimes, ya gotta amputate. But at the same time, working on cures and vaccinations has to happen, too. Because even though those things may not solve the problem for the current infection, they'll eventually help prevent new ones--and the far greater cost of managing them down the road.
And because it's pretty much impossible for individual people to manage such large-scale planning, that means we have to all go in on it to make that planning possible. It's not just about compassion for the individual who is suffering at the moment, but about working toward a goal of preventing that suffering from happening to more people, which ultimately has benefits for everyone, both people at risk for that suffering, and people who would be affected--financially, practically, etc.--by those who suffer. Honestly, it's never just the people directly affected by these "infections" who come to harm from them. The ripple effect pretty much touches everyone in some way or another, which is why everyone has to chip in on some level to fix it, even if they can't see any immediate personal benefit for doing so.
So, really, that's my political philosophy in a nutshell: Practicality, compassion, long-range planning and solutions and community effort for community benefit. Apply that to just about any political issue, and it's pretty easy to see where I'm going to land.
I get that other folks see the world differently, of course. This is just where I've come to roost after the last 20 years of studying how humans work, both on an individual psychological level and in large-scale groups and cultures. We're certainly a strange bunch of dextrous monkeys. :)
Anyway... Like I say, I do love you. Even if you are a stubborn old crank sometimes. :)