Envy is the original leftist sin. The antidote is gratitude. Envy makes the leftist miserable and motivates them to make others miserable. It leads to resentment, which leads to violence. Jordan Peterson has commented, written, and taught extensively about this.
Envy, ahhh yes. I feel it when reading your articles. And let’s be honest, I want mine to be as good. But it will never be. So I swell with envy (not to the point of vengeance, pitch forks and torches). I am guilty.
I have the privilege of knowing well a foremost scholar of John Rawls. He has dedicated his life to the subject of John Rawls’ Justice as Fairness. I, therefore, out of loyalty and a sense of obligation have read Rawls in depth. John Rawls was a Christian, who dutifully served his country in the Philippines during WWII. He witnessed first hand the murder of thousands of Filipinos used by the Japanese as human shields. Rawls appears to have lost faith in religion, or its ability to prevent chaos.
Rawls experience forged in him a curiosity of why, … why do men live in peace, how might they form a better society? What makes a cohesive society? Rawls saw competition, maximizing John Stuart Mill’s utility curve, as turning men into beasts, and nations too. He boiled all this down to a philosophical problem of justice — who is entitled to what. He proposed a philosophical, almost theocratic logic that formed a Socratic perfection: justice as fairness and fairness being that which one would want for himself if he did not know what his life would become — a standard predicated upon ignorance of social position, standing, intellect, skill. The Original Position. What John Rawls did not acknowledge is “Whose ox gets gored?” He assumed a reasonable plurality could arbitrate this. And the sun would rise, the world would turn, the stars would shine, harmony would follow, peace would reign, , … forever. SOCIAL JUSTICE was the missing key.
Society, all societies, are exercises in redistribution. Some produce more meat, some harvest more grain, some sew, some cobble shoes, some dictate, … some better than others. And this is due to many factors. I boil it down to DNA — a chemical reaction that if given sufficient sustenance, conditions, and energy, will thrive and carry on.
Some are given the energy, the drive, the need, and the means to achieve athletic feats or intellectual breakthroughs. Some are given the strength for combat or the emotions to care for others. Some are not. Many compensate and do these things well anyway. Societies, even repressive ones, cannot keep excellence down, they can only subdue it. Despotic monarchies might flower as intellectual bastions like 18th century Britain and France, or they might languish as Russia. The process is somewhat random, driven by my theory, Justice as Chaos.
Justice as Chaos holds that we can never know who, what, when, how, or why things happen. Better to have a society that protects the basic natural rights of life, liberty, and respect for achievement. Individualism. Why? Is this utopia? No. Utopia does not exist. But why? Because chemical reactions, strands of DNA do compete, and must compete for energy. Resources are scarce. Competition always emerges when a resource shortage becomes life threatening, or the perception arises that a period of existential scarcity is about to come. This is shown by the evolution of mankind. And men who see others with more, not only envy them, they fear them for having more. Mankind acts on fear. This is natural.
Why is competition natural, irrepressible, and primal?
Because our world is chaos and here is why. Everything we know and don’t know about the universe is summed up as energy. Matter is energy. E=mc2. A fraction of a butterfly’s weight of U235 was destroyed and converted into energy at Hiroshima. Theoretically, and actually, energy is can be converted to matter and back again.
Which brings me to humans. We are energy. And what is the first rule of physics, the study of energy? Energy is chaos. This energy is what humans take, gather, conserve, store, and convert into survival, sustenance, reproduction, action, and ideas. Rawls ignores chaos, history and humanity. He is working in logic, not even fuzzy logic. But Man is random. Given to bouts of reason, interrupted by emotion, envy, frenzy, all sorts of unimagined mortal sins, … chaos. Man is constantly aware of his tenuous situation and holds deep down an instinct to take, seize, survive, and kill. Sometimes, Man does this randomly or for no reason. Chaos. Compassion, cohesive society, and human dignity drown amongst the bouts of chaos.
Envy, a subject that turns the subject of Justice as Fairness into a question of who will be called upon to give, who will take, how much, and why. And energy based creatures such as man will sooner or later resist. The Original Proposition will fail; the strong will want to renegotiate. Chaos will emerge. A concept of fairness frozen in a hypothetical moment, like faith alone, cannot sustain a society. Envious, energy driven chaos will flood the zone. Societies must be designed to let off steam, slow things down, and give pause for reflection. Religion helps. Natural rights help. And an authority dedicated to the preservation of liberty which serves as a safety valve to vent emotion, envy, and vengeance before it compounds helps. But nothing is perfect. We are after all, human.
When we were in Ireland we drove down a similar road trying to find the bed and breakfast where were planning on spending the night. It went on and on with sheep occasionally jumping out in front of the car. One sign said 1 mile to our destination the next said 3. When it started to get dark we gave up, carefully turned around and ended up spending the night in Killarney.
I grew up driving on extremely narrow, and some dangerous, roads on Maui. On my first trip to Ireland in 1990, I had no problem driving on the left side of the roads and managing many narrow roads. And on my second "driving" trip in 2005, my sister-in-law and her husband accompanied us on their separate rental car. What was fascinating was her husband's efforts and difficulty at keeping up with my wife and me on Ireland's west cost for ... a few weeks. Haha! 🤣
Envy is the identical twin of covetousness. Both of which lead to lawlessness of various types: theft, lust (both sexual and for others’ property), murder for gain, and evil speaking of others. This is not a complete list. Envy and covetousness are as old as Cain’s murder of Able, as is Cain’s rejoicing that “Surely my brother’s flocks falleth into my hands” (Moses 5:33–Pearl of Great Price)
Lucretia's article at the Civitas Institute is both thorough and well-written - not an easy task for a disquisition on constitutional history and the separation of powers.
I could complain that the article initially gives short shrift to the criminally underreported story that judicial review is emphatically NOT in the constitution. However, the discussion of Marshall's limited use of his freshly usurped power, and the (unfortunately temporary) subsequent avoidance of judicial review by the Supreme Court, is enlightening.
The judicial sleight of hand is to assert that judicial review means judicial pre-approval. No court can constitutionally enjoin the elected Commander in Chief.
hardest part about getting around Ireland is driving on the left side of the road. What left side, I ask you?
Where is that? The West?
Yes, the Dingle peninsula.
Thank you. Try Co Mayo
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/53fb2c55e4b0cf1a1bc835b0/1409587038802-VGIOO0S568K34IZ55YW5/Light+of+Ireland+Book+Cover.jpg?format=1500w
Envy is the original leftist sin. The antidote is gratitude. Envy makes the leftist miserable and motivates them to make others miserable. It leads to resentment, which leads to violence. Jordan Peterson has commented, written, and taught extensively about this.
Envy, ahhh yes. I feel it when reading your articles. And let’s be honest, I want mine to be as good. But it will never be. So I swell with envy (not to the point of vengeance, pitch forks and torches). I am guilty.
I have the privilege of knowing well a foremost scholar of John Rawls. He has dedicated his life to the subject of John Rawls’ Justice as Fairness. I, therefore, out of loyalty and a sense of obligation have read Rawls in depth. John Rawls was a Christian, who dutifully served his country in the Philippines during WWII. He witnessed first hand the murder of thousands of Filipinos used by the Japanese as human shields. Rawls appears to have lost faith in religion, or its ability to prevent chaos.
Rawls experience forged in him a curiosity of why, … why do men live in peace, how might they form a better society? What makes a cohesive society? Rawls saw competition, maximizing John Stuart Mill’s utility curve, as turning men into beasts, and nations too. He boiled all this down to a philosophical problem of justice — who is entitled to what. He proposed a philosophical, almost theocratic logic that formed a Socratic perfection: justice as fairness and fairness being that which one would want for himself if he did not know what his life would become — a standard predicated upon ignorance of social position, standing, intellect, skill. The Original Position. What John Rawls did not acknowledge is “Whose ox gets gored?” He assumed a reasonable plurality could arbitrate this. And the sun would rise, the world would turn, the stars would shine, harmony would follow, peace would reign, , … forever. SOCIAL JUSTICE was the missing key.
Society, all societies, are exercises in redistribution. Some produce more meat, some harvest more grain, some sew, some cobble shoes, some dictate, … some better than others. And this is due to many factors. I boil it down to DNA — a chemical reaction that if given sufficient sustenance, conditions, and energy, will thrive and carry on.
Some are given the energy, the drive, the need, and the means to achieve athletic feats or intellectual breakthroughs. Some are given the strength for combat or the emotions to care for others. Some are not. Many compensate and do these things well anyway. Societies, even repressive ones, cannot keep excellence down, they can only subdue it. Despotic monarchies might flower as intellectual bastions like 18th century Britain and France, or they might languish as Russia. The process is somewhat random, driven by my theory, Justice as Chaos.
Justice as Chaos holds that we can never know who, what, when, how, or why things happen. Better to have a society that protects the basic natural rights of life, liberty, and respect for achievement. Individualism. Why? Is this utopia? No. Utopia does not exist. But why? Because chemical reactions, strands of DNA do compete, and must compete for energy. Resources are scarce. Competition always emerges when a resource shortage becomes life threatening, or the perception arises that a period of existential scarcity is about to come. This is shown by the evolution of mankind. And men who see others with more, not only envy them, they fear them for having more. Mankind acts on fear. This is natural.
Why is competition natural, irrepressible, and primal?
Because our world is chaos and here is why. Everything we know and don’t know about the universe is summed up as energy. Matter is energy. E=mc2. A fraction of a butterfly’s weight of U235 was destroyed and converted into energy at Hiroshima. Theoretically, and actually, energy is can be converted to matter and back again.
Which brings me to humans. We are energy. And what is the first rule of physics, the study of energy? Energy is chaos. This energy is what humans take, gather, conserve, store, and convert into survival, sustenance, reproduction, action, and ideas. Rawls ignores chaos, history and humanity. He is working in logic, not even fuzzy logic. But Man is random. Given to bouts of reason, interrupted by emotion, envy, frenzy, all sorts of unimagined mortal sins, … chaos. Man is constantly aware of his tenuous situation and holds deep down an instinct to take, seize, survive, and kill. Sometimes, Man does this randomly or for no reason. Chaos. Compassion, cohesive society, and human dignity drown amongst the bouts of chaos.
Envy, a subject that turns the subject of Justice as Fairness into a question of who will be called upon to give, who will take, how much, and why. And energy based creatures such as man will sooner or later resist. The Original Proposition will fail; the strong will want to renegotiate. Chaos will emerge. A concept of fairness frozen in a hypothetical moment, like faith alone, cannot sustain a society. Envious, energy driven chaos will flood the zone. Societies must be designed to let off steam, slow things down, and give pause for reflection. Religion helps. Natural rights help. And an authority dedicated to the preservation of liberty which serves as a safety valve to vent emotion, envy, and vengeance before it compounds helps. But nothing is perfect. We are after all, human.
When we were in Ireland we drove down a similar road trying to find the bed and breakfast where were planning on spending the night. It went on and on with sheep occasionally jumping out in front of the car. One sign said 1 mile to our destination the next said 3. When it started to get dark we gave up, carefully turned around and ended up spending the night in Killarney.
Ive been pondering the idea that Republicans should find a way to celebrate freeing the Democrats’ slaves. Juneteenth seems like a good day to do it.
I just read that it was several of those Juneteenth freed slaves that founded the Republican Party of Texas.
I grew up driving on extremely narrow, and some dangerous, roads on Maui. On my first trip to Ireland in 1990, I had no problem driving on the left side of the roads and managing many narrow roads. And on my second "driving" trip in 2005, my sister-in-law and her husband accompanied us on their separate rental car. What was fascinating was her husband's efforts and difficulty at keeping up with my wife and me on Ireland's west cost for ... a few weeks. Haha! 🤣
Thank goodness there’s not much traffic.
Envy is the identical twin of covetousness. Both of which lead to lawlessness of various types: theft, lust (both sexual and for others’ property), murder for gain, and evil speaking of others. This is not a complete list. Envy and covetousness are as old as Cain’s murder of Able, as is Cain’s rejoicing that “Surely my brother’s flocks falleth into my hands” (Moses 5:33–Pearl of Great Price)
Whatever camera you are using Steven, it's a beauty: the videos are so crisp, clear and shake free.
Lucretia's article at the Civitas Institute is both thorough and well-written - not an easy task for a disquisition on constitutional history and the separation of powers.
I could complain that the article initially gives short shrift to the criminally underreported story that judicial review is emphatically NOT in the constitution. However, the discussion of Marshall's limited use of his freshly usurped power, and the (unfortunately temporary) subsequent avoidance of judicial review by the Supreme Court, is enlightening.
Play the video at 2x speed, if you dare. That first oncoming car - major clench factor.
The judicial sleight of hand is to assert that judicial review means judicial pre-approval. No court can constitutionally enjoin the elected Commander in Chief.