Ethics Box - Exploring Personality and Character for sake of self-improvement

Tapsearch Com Editor and Artist Ray Tapajna with EthicsBox.com - studies Personality and Character for the sake of self-improvement. His mission is to probe ways for a new "Solidarity" for self, others and society under the guiding thought that each of us want to feel all together in one place at one time. It is also obvious that workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade and hopefully the EthicsBox will prompt a change. See a posts about the "unnetted" at Bizarre Politics com and The Rationale com. Later we will get into the power of the spoken word and how all of us can improve ourselves in this discipline too. It is obvious workers have no voice in the process of Globalization and Free Trade.

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Ethics Box - June 2008

Love and Hate distinctions (LINK)

June 30th 2008 18:11

We continue our exploration into personality and character related to self improvment. We do this in an environment of the unnetted in the global economic arena with workers evidently having very little voice in their destinies. We hope our efforts provide a better platform for the unnetted to speak out. One of the greatest men I ever met was a shop foreman in the factory where I worked while going to college full time. I met many others on the way including some of the best Jesuit educators, a General in the Army, top political leaders and presidents of large corporations. The shop foreman influenced me the most. His caring nature in a pressure production environment was unique. He took care of those under his charge and taught me several manual skills never knowing he was teaching me much more. It came down to love. It was a love full of distinctions and this is what we will try to explore now.

We base much of our study on our notes from Father McQuade whose course I took in college and which remained with me my entire life. Father McQuade also had a local TV broadcast in Cleveland Ohio for some time.

The dictionary has many definitions for the word love. It seems there should be more different words to describe all the loves there are. Perhaps this is why we get confused at times about what it is all about. First of all there is the Perfect Love of God. Most spirituality is based on pursuing this perfection that is absent from our own human nature. This Perfect Love is also a logical explanation of supernatural Love outside of ourselves confined to human nature.

Here are some definitions from the dictionary. My shop foreman posess most of these variations based on brotherly love.
Love is an affection based on admiration and benevolence.

Love is a warm attachment, enthusiasm or devotion.
Love is an object of such attachment or devotion.
Love is an unselfish concern that freely accepts another in loyalty.
Love is the fatherly concern of God for man.
Love is the brotherly concern for others.
Love is man's adoration of God.
Love is an attraction based on attraction of sex.
Love is the affection and tenderness felt by lovers.
Love is the cherishing who are the objects of our love.
Love is amorous episode. ( however in our modern times, the quality of love breaks down with the term - "making love". - as in the song title " What does love have to do with it."
In all love implies intense fondness or deep devotion. Love of self also has many new meanings in our times.

There are more distinction to be made about both love and hate. Ususally this distinction is recognized in ordinary diction by the way people use "like" and "love" , "dislike" and "hatred". It is common to hear someone say " I like so and so, but I do not love him" , or " I dislike so and so , but I do not hate him". Evidently, liking a person means we are loving them on the sense level, just as "disliking" means hatred on the sense level. The common usuage of words, then, shows there is an affectve complacency and an affective repugnance that involve the higher facculties of man, and one that does not. Love in this higher sense level implies not only a natural attraction towards an object but also good will. Hatred implies not only a natural adversion, but also ill-will. Obviously, our love is predominately for persons and our hatred, would be irrational to have ill-will toward anything less.

Failure to make this distinction would be a serious obstacle to the work of making love the dominant place in our lives. One who fails to see that he has little or no direct control over his sense loves and sense hatreds will be constantly discouraged at the lack fo success where succes cannot be expected. He will be constantly blaming himself for not loving what is good and experiencing a sense love for what he knows is evil. It must be the object of all training in personality and character to make love the dominant note of life, and a love for the real good, a rational love, which is quite independent of the sense of love of the lower level. Love does not include the possibility of the " devil made me do it ".

Through love we can bury these natural aversions in the benevolence which may characterize our attitude adn that, after all that is true love.
One who hates strongly is likely to be mean, bitter, sour in life, and pessimistic in philosophy and their interpretation of God. Stong emotions overflow into all parts of our lives.

Based on our perception from the notes of Father McQuade - we will continue with our exploration of love and hate bringing in joy and grief in our next post.

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Emotions can rule the game (LINK)

June 24th 2008 19:02

We continue to explore self improvment of personality and character and how we can pursue our life ideal. Emotions play a big part.

An emotion is a whole experience in perception not only of any given situation but its meaning to us and the bodily reaction to that perception. There is the knowing element by which one becomes aware of a certain situation. Then there is the desire element of attraction or repulsion that comes spontaneously with the perception of the happening; and finally there the bodily response in the corresponding actions of nerves, glands, internal organs and so on.

We usually are cautious in giving into emotions and play down their part in pursuing the life ideal. However, we should find ways to trust our emotional powers. We know that emotions can make us do things we otherwise can not do. For example a person can get out of their sick bed when something serious changes the circumstances. We know self-survival can change the pattern of our emotions. When confronted with a severe danger, we forget about our fatique.

From the nature of such emotional experiences, it is easily seen just what is meant by emotion. Anyone who has had a spiritual conversion, know how the emotions can carry all a bigger load of life's problems. Emotions become an experience or mental state driven by a strong degree of feeling and usually accompanied by motor expression often quite intense. As efficient "movers" our emotions are great helps to good actions. Often one can do things by the aid of emotion which one could never do in a state of calm as many artists will tell you. Laying down on one's life for a good cause is one example of the power of what emotions can do.

The driving powers of these emotions is universally recoginized. We know what anger, envy, greed, revenge, hatred or love can get us going. With emotions being such a large influence in our lives we must study it carefully. The mild emotions are love and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and grief. The emergency group are hope and despair, courage, fear and rage.

Love and hate are of course, opposites. Love is an affective agent which I experience is that which I perceive as good for me. ( However, the real definition of love has to be observed and not to cover actions that really are not truly love- "making love" may be something completely different from real love. ) Hatred is a repugnance which I feel for that which I perceive as bad for me. Both of these play a large part in every life. Both affect our attitudes and have much to do with the expression of our personalities in subsequent actions. And the quality of personality is manifested by the nature of the loves and hatreds possessed.

In judging our own personalities and characters by the nature of our loves and hatreds, we must make a distinction. We can love and hate on two levels. One level is the sense level and the other the rational level. When one experieces delight in the idea of a good cigar or a piece of chocolate, it is love on the sense level. When one experiences delight in a great poem, it is on the rational level.

(We will continue our next post abut the importance of making distinctions about love or hate experiences for the sake of our personality and character in the pursuit of the life ideal.)

Sources: Father McQuade and notes from the Personality and Character course.

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Can Will Power be trained (LINK)

June 11th 2008 02:59

Continuing our discussion about improving personality and character, we explore the concept of Will Power and if it can be trained.

There is a notion that some people are just born with a strong will and others with a weak will. On the other hand, many consider weakness of will a matter of choice and they will scold others for this weakness. Someone who breaks the law will plead a weak will in self justificaton. The overbearing types will plead a strong will.

One school of thought says the will is a muscle, which by constant exercise can grow stronger. For example, you can sit quietly for ten consecutive minutes and practiced being in a contended state of mind. According to the "muscle" theory this is supposed to make the will stronger. Others wonder about the very idea of "strength" being applied to the will itself.
Those who have enter the world of contemplation, know it can be a very difficult thing to control the will in a quiet wait.

We also have example of very brave men who are afraid to go to the dentist and soldiers who can discipline themselves for heroic action but can't resist the girls or drink on a furlough. A person can train his will to run a complete marathon but then fails to control an appetite for food.

Apparently, the will is as strong as the motives are. We eventually do what personal experiences tell us what we like in terms of priorities in life. Once we grant the will the power of our motivations, we can open up many ways to improve our personality and character. No one acts in a difficult situation without a reason to do it. We find the "muscle" of the will in our motivations. A strong will is one that has sufficient reason for doing what is right. So in the end we return to the intellect which provides us with motivations. The intellect has to be trained to be on alert- the motivation for the best choice in any matter must be present to the mind when needed. It is important to cultivate intellectual habits of keeping motivations actively in the mind and ready when needed. The habit of acting on motives will provide the strength the will needs to make the choices related to the ideal life. The Christian seeks out Christian ideals for inspired motives. The non-Christian needs to find their route to this inspiration too in their search for the life ideal.

Source includes notes from Father McQuade SJ JCU course

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October 2008

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September 2008

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