Necessity - Part Three

How do you assess necessity in terms of moderation?

Civility is obviously necessary, yet how can the uncivil, the unnecessary and the immoderate be fairly and effectively addressed?

How, if at all, is it possible to moderate the effects of stupidity?

How, if at all, is it possible to moderate the effects of selfishness?

What are your aspirations, hopes and ambitions, and why, and how do you know they are not excessive?

What do you own, and how do you know? 

How do you know your attitude towards simplicity is suitably moderate?

You may regard selfishness as a type of stupidity.  It is usually indicated by a failure to distinguish appropriately between necessary dependence, necessary independence and necessary interdependence.

There is much evil in the world.  It is mainly associated with stupidity, including the stupidity of intelligent yet arrogant individuals.

There are stupid cultures and non-stupid cultures.

How do you tell the difference between the two? 

How do you know your activities are consistently part of a non-stupid culture?

How do you avoid being part of a stupid culture?

How well do you assess your ethics in terms of reasonableness, kindness and moderation?

How do you assess your influence?

A non-stupid culture is associated with investing in ethics, better communities, well-informed kindness and thoughtful reciprocity. 

The ordinary public wants to be addressed in simple yet flattering words expressed with confidence, regardless of the absence of evidence, reasoning or courtesy in relation to those words.  That is how advertising usually works.

How do you distinguish between flattery and courtesy? 

Flattery, of course, is a form of psychological manipulation, though stupid people are too gullible to know when they are being duped.

Duping people is often called selling.

There is no point in attempting to establish quality news services of consistent integrity, in any society, when most of the ordinary public is evidently too stupid and lazy to understand or appreciate the quality analysis of anything.

How do you tell the difference between the sophistication of well-informed kindness and the stupidity of codependency?

Perhaps you are surprised by the use of the word 'stupidity' in a publication with the title of Civility Today.  Yet this is a factual publication of the highest possible quality.

How do you usually acquire facts about yourself and your needs?

How do you usually acquire facts about other people and their needs?

How do you usually acquire facts and other resources to help you meet your needs, and other people's needs?

What does the word 'stupidity' mean to you?

Perhaps more people would read Civility Today if it was called Trickery Today.

Yet this publication is certainly not for stupid people.

Trickster politicians focus on appealing to ignorance rather than appealing to reason.  They appeal to the ignorance, stupidity and laziness of the gullible masses by claiming to lead.

Trickster politicians, in fact, provide no leadership at all.  They merely attempt to follow ephemeral trends, particularly if the initiators of those trends are people they admire.

It is impossible to have a thoughtful discussion with a stupid voter or selfish politician.

Mass market advertisers and trickster politicians keep their messages overly simple for the stupid.

They are only civil to the people they admire, or at least they pretend to be.

Manipulative people tend to be sycophants.  They may even be psychopaths.

There are currently very few areas of the world in which a simple and healthy life of intelligent frugality and well-informed kindness is actually is possible in the long term.

 

The oceans are not suitable and nor are the deserts, polar regions and areas at high altitude, even with advanced technologies available.

 

Conservation areas are understandably out of bounds and so are heavily polluted areas.

 

Perhaps you do not regard health as a necessity, either for people or environments.

Is well-informed foraging and moderate gathering the only authentically healthy way for humans to exist?

Indigenous populations discovered and respected the ways of nature over many generations, at least in comparison to most other people.

Indigenous populations taught sustainable ways of meeting their own needs within their own communities and environments across the centuries, until other people prevented them from doing so.

Neutrality is necessary when attempting to ascertain the truth, through all forms of objectivity.  

Yet most people prefer to follow their curiosity rather than the truth when seeking to understand reality better, and when seeking to ignore reality.

Curiosity is never neutral.  It involves emotions, values and tastes.

How do you follow your curiosity about hygiene?

And how do your emotions, values and tastes respond?

How do you ascertain the truth about such matters?

Perhaps you prefer to ignore the truth.

Perhaps you are seeking guidance on investing in trustworthy collaborations: socially, financially, objectively, emotionally, morally and aesthetically.

Most people take the lazy route to collaborative possibilities.  They prefer to contact known individuals and known organisations and ignore the unknown, regardless of the considerable limitations of the known and the true qualities of the known and unknown.

Of course, ignoring the unknown is very easy.  It simply involves pretending it does not exist.

It is much like saying that Australia, its human inhabitants and their necessary rules of living sustainably did not exist before the arrival of people of European origin in this part of the world.

It is easy to dismiss the unknown as unimportant. It is also lazy, stupid and selfish.

Perhaps you regard civility as a practice devoted to the dedicated, the intelligent and the kind.

That is only partly true.

Civility is also a devotion to the truth, as accurately as sensitively as possible.

Truth is a necessity.

Where do you usually attempt to find the truth about frugality, extravagance, empathy, sympathy, gullibility and hubris?

How do you attempt to distinguish between the factual, the fictional and the fraudulent?

How do you distinguish between necessary systems and unnecessary ones?

How appropriately do you highlight the good?

How have you assessed your intellect?

What have you discovered about patronage in relation to necessity?