February 2008 - Ethics Box

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Ethics Box - February 2008

Are self improvement and self advancement the same thing. (LINK)

February 23rd 2008 15:41

All anyone wants is to have a feeling of being all together in one place at one time. Time tells us we are here on earth on a temporary basis but still we yearn for more. We want to know where we were and where we are going.

One must know the basic facts of his life's progress in order to direct it. We are the director of our life ideal. We also know we are finite and limited in many ways and look for other entities that are not. We need to trust and cooperate with our creator and hopefully receive grace or something extra we do not have in the process.

Self-improvement is a law of nature. It is self evident. It makes us tend toward perfection. It makes us to make good judgments of what self-improvement is. Self-improvement and self-advancement go hand in hand but are not necessarily the same thing. Self-improvement is about the individual person seeking things that make him a better person down deep in his own soul. Self-advancement is tied into this but we all know many who advance at the expense of others. Personality and Character are things above and beyond such relative things as advancement in social and economic standing, in fact they are almost apart from it.

I have studied St Franics DeSales. In one biography, it tells about a Bishop who was in search of his own spiritualiy, came to visit him and the Bishop cut a hole in the wall to observe DeSale's in his own room to see if De Sale's was the same when he was alone as he was among people.

We are attracted to people who seemed to be happy at no matter what they are doing. We watch a worker who is happy at their job without worrying about self-advancement. A good personality is a happy one. All the grace we seek or intervention from a superior being is based on seeking good over evil. There is a place in this world for everyone. Being the right man or woman in the right place is likely to be a happy person.

I worked on the factory floors while going to college and had a very difficult time connecting the college class room with the many wonderful men I met in the factories. I met many people in my life up to Generals in the Army, Presidents of corporations and "saintly" priests but the two foremen in the factories probably had the most impact on my life. This prompted my advocacy over the years to find ways for workers to have a voice in their destiny on earth and not be subject to an elite class because of false rankings in society. In my last post about "unnetted journeys" I pursue this. It is a fortunate person who knows where he can be happy and has the sense to remain there. However, their destiny should not be limited by artificial man made classifications that do not match up with their natural and divine destinies.

We will pursue this futher in continuing posts. Life is, after all, a quest for happiness. A successful life is one in which we measure a large participation in happiness while we judge the opposite as a failure. We all get to meet our Creator eventually on a one
and one basis. What will you report? The Cross was always there but so was "Living in the Resurrection".

Refer to "unnetted journeys" in the last post.

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Posted By: Tapsearch Com Editor - Category: Ethics

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Exploring Communications by Rank (LINK)

February 20th 2008 21:21

Educated Class vs. Real Life Experience- From : Brian Alger's, author and educational consultant site ( A good site to explore )

Do you really have a voice about your destiny and your life ideal?

Artist and author Ray Tapajna explores the gap between the realities of the street and the realities of the classroom. He states that factory work gave him more knowledge about life than the classroom. In a sense, the conclusion of his education gave way to the challenges of authentic learning. In Learning Styles: Whose styles are these and what are they for?, Ray provides a number of interesting insights into his own learning...

The Language of the Educated
There is a language of the educated that holds rank over common sense thinking.
The experience of learning and the experience of being educated are not the same thing. Sometimes, however, there is a tacit assumption that learning and education are synonymous. If we consider learning to be an unavoidable lifelong experience then it would be true to say that learning does occur while we are being educated. At the same time, it is not correct to assume that the vibrancy and pervasiveness of learning is captured within education. While the language of the educated and educators speak about learning, they often do so from a narrow, isolated and self-serving perspective. Learning is something far more significant than being educated.

The tension that exists between what our education has taught us and what our own learning experience inform us represents a kind of void - or an emptiness between schooling and life. In exploring his own experiences, Ray Tapajna contrasts his own education with his life experiences. To do this, he challenges the underlying assumptions embraced by the "language of the educated" and notices a sense of disconnection to "common sense thinking." This common sense thinking, I believe, orignate in his own life experiences that have tended to conflict with what he had learned inside education.

The Realities of the Worker
Somewhere somehow workers have to be encouraged to speak out and write in their own ways about the ills of our society. Why should an educated class without any real world experience run the show? We now have elite groupings who have exported middle class jobs creating a working poor class in the USA.
Ray provides an interesting set of statistics that reveal trends in our economic decline. Barbara Ehrenreich provides a first-hand account of the effects of the working poor on people's lives.

The idea of an educated class without any real world experience is one that captures a fundamental problem. While we would have to admit that education is a real world experience, the point here is really that it is a separate and distinct kind of experience that is often disconnected with the many other "stations of life" that we move through.

Perhaps part of the problem may be that the underlying assumptions of education have become so immersed and subsumed by purely economic orientations to "progress" that education is economy. In a sense, a student is from a very early age a "worker" in training. It may also be that our economic drive is sustained by an ability to avoid, or at least marginalize, what we might call "real world experience" or "common sense thinking" since these kinds of experiences and thinking would challenge underlying assumptions, change priorities, and encourage fundamental change. The language of the educated is, in this sense, the language of avoidance.

If You Are Not Part of Any Network You Do Not Exist
When we talk about networks, they are not solely related to the internet and the computer world. Today, networks might be the stock exchange, bankers, the European Union, the coca fields, clandestine labs, secret landing strips, politicians, bureaucrats, the statistical Americans who are part of some data classification etc.... however, if you are "missing in action" from any of these groupings, you are not counted. You are outside, looking in just as those who are discouraged and no longer seek employment. And if you have given up trying to find a job- you are not part of any data network and are considered employed not unemployed. - Has Globalism "un-netted" you? -If you are not part of any network, you do not exist
Education is a data network that seeks our attendance and our attention. If we are part of the network, then we are awared with degrees. If we stand outside of the education network, then we are ignored and/or marginalized in society. Our education systems have labels for these people - drop-outs.

Our education systems instill a belief that to be "successful" you must be a contributing member of society. A degree is a symbol of achievement that impliess a readiness to contribute. The problem is, we are usually not invited into deeper conversations about what the nature of success or what a contribution to society means. We are told what they mean. Yet, if we blindly accept and organize our lives around economic definitions of success and contribution, then we isolate ourselves from ourselves.

In a sense we are taught to believe that we need to be part of the data network - that if we are counted and statistically labelled we are then in some manner a successful contributing member of society. If we fall outside of the data network and remain uncounted then the implication is that we are not a successful contributing member of society. The inherent stupidity in this proposition is obvious, yet it is a proposition that drives much of our culture and influences our personal experiences in life.

A Voice In The Matter
Workers have no voice in the matter although they are the core of any economy.
It is much the same in education. The curriculum is the economy. Students have no real voice in the matter of education, although they are the core of learning.

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The challenges we face to help undo this facade of learning through 'education' is one that weighs heavy. As a few of us here on PEI move forward with ways to re-engage, or in fact engage for the first time, young learners who have dropped out by grades 3, 6 or 9, we, ourselves, are learning too.

We are learning that the numbers are high and that our children are in big trouble. Not only do they not have any 'common sense thinking' but they have created an impermeable culture centred around not caring about their personal potential.

What we know is that in each child there is creativity and so we are trying to spark this gem that has laid dormant in them for too long. All we need to do is look around at our grown-up selves and see the results of 'economic progress'. One word comes to mind...'DEAD'.

The gap between street smarts and book smarts is broad indeed. If we can't take the school to the streets then perhaps we take the streets to the schools. That, in essence, is what we're proposing with the efforts from our little group here on PEI. How we do it is still in the makings.
Hi Brian.
Experienced educators from UPEI, Holland College, the PEI Eastern School Board as well as social workers, business people and researchers in our community gathered together to begin what is now known as the Learning Transitions Research Group (LTRG). The purpose of the group: to explore further the issue of student disengagement during the transitional years (grades 3,6 and 9).

Rob Paterson and I were part of this group, but have since split off and have begun action toward the idea of taking the "streets to the schools". We are working closely with the Superintendent of the Eastern School Board who wants us to develop a pilot so that it can be tested in one of our local high schools.

With Rob's background in social entrepeneurism and mine in theatre and the arts, we've been hammering away at the idea of learning through experience by way of mentors. Hands on, so to speak.

We're still in the very preliminary stages of this and are in collection mode. Every time we sit down to talk about where we are we come up with new ieeas and directions. Needless to say we are open to anything that will help. I, or Rob, I'm sure, will keep you posted on how it all unfolds. We meet tomorrow with our School Board guy to talk about our next move(s).

Posted by: Cynthia |

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Posted By: Tapsearch Com Editor - Category: Ethics

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Solidarity Fragmented (LINK)

February 19th 2008 20:05

Ethics Box is supposed to be about exploring personality and character but frankly it is difficult knowing where to start. If we start with the Dale Carnegie approach on how win friends and influence people, the question of motivation remains. If we go into a similar approach with the bibilical approach - "do unto others has you would have them do to you" as in the Gabriel Richard courses, the question still remains.

In attempting to get started, I re-read parts of Jacque Maritain, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, Mother Theresa and the Life Ideal course by Father McQuade. They all are very good but how do we relate this to living in a very competitive world. A boss will tell you, all that idealism is great but it does not put bread on the table. I read a study early on in my work career that 70 percent say they can not connect their workday with their spirituality. I am ending my workdays knowing it is true.

I already presented the question at Brian Alger's Journeys site- The Educated Class vs. Real Life Experience - Communications by rank - Unnetted Journeys. It comes down to this : Workers have no voice or real selection about their labor although they are the core of any economy. The workday has to be compatible with your personality and character or else something short-circuits

There was a long period in the history of Rome, where it was better to be a slave than a freeman. A slave had a roof over their head and had to the opportunity of raising a family because that meant a continous supply of slaves for the elite groupings in the empire. Those who chose not to be slaves, had very few options and were persecuted just because they wanted to be free. It was almost impossible to create an independent mercantile venture. This sounds alot like today in the U.S. You have to play the game or else you are outside looking in. Instead many of us just go to watch sports at stadiums just like they did in Rome. We hide from ourselves in the "games".

However, in our times, the impossible dream breaks out of the box once and awhile. Lech Walesa, an electrian and labor leader, caught the impossible dream in the Solidarity movement. Shipyard workers stop working until a dictatorial regime recognized them as workers with human dignity. The Solidarity movement played a great part in the downfall of the Soviet empire. However, it too fragmented later on. Was it too much of a good thing or did it break into pieces because the people were not ready for it. The idea was to not take power but to get away from power and let society transform itself . Is this how it is today? I think it is obvious society is not ready to do its things. In the U.S. we have a two party system both acting as government is god. They insist acting with only carnal knowlege which by itself consists of many broken pieces. The greates good of the greasted number can add up to only two people. The common good which represents the best for all could add up to zero in a vote. Liberalism works this way. Conservatives are not much different with someone like President Bush saying Jesus was his favorite philospher while he instigates pre-emptive wars.

First of all Jesus claimed to be truth and not a search for truth and so it is questionable if he was a philosopher. A philosopher is in search of truth studying being as being. Jesus claimed to be all being - the alfa and the omega - the beginning and the end. How do Christians tie this into their daily work.

I like to end this session with this thought - once you are caught in a debate between liberalism and conservatism - what's right and what's left, you have lost automatically. This is the way the elite works the crowds. While your eyes are on a very limited political process, a great betrayal of the common good is taking place. For example there is very little difference in Bush and Clinton when it comes to be masters over labor. They are as one when it comes to controlling your workday.

Lech Waleska says he is merely a "consumer" and does not know that much about business and economics. He says- all he knows is that 10 percent of the population of the world controls 100 percent of the flow of money and commerce and this is wrong.

Before we get into a study of Personality and Character we must also question who said we had to compete like this in a global arena and how can we confront who ever it is.
How do we bring the monastery to the streets ?

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Posted By: Tapsearch Com Editor - Category: Ethics

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Failure to communicate (LINK)

February 15th 2008 22:16

We have the internet and worldwide communications and yet many have no voice in the process itself, nor do they have a voice in Globalization and Free Trade. With Free Trade the main commodity being traded are human beings and not products. Workers are "commoditized". Production and farming shifts from place to place based on who will do the work for less and there is an endless pool of cheap labor.

The Free Traders use Adam Smith as their "economic philospher" but Adam Smith held labor as something sacred and the core of societies. His concepts were based on doing things right for the sake of labor

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