Thursday, August 30, 2018

Mormons, Two Meanings of Justice, and Future-Socialism


https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-28/how-utah-keeps-the-american-dream-alive

“What’s happening here? The state population is now about 13 percent Hispanic, but only 1 percent black. Part of the explanation is probably the Mormon Church’s century of institutional racism.”

Race-ism is best foundation for social-capitalism. Swedish model of social-capitalism was working just fine when Sweden was all Scandinavian... but then Diversity came along. (By Race-ism, I mean, "Ism means belief, so Race + Ism = Belief in the Reality of Race and Racial Differences; and the need for Racial Consciousness".)

In a way, Mormons became the way they are because they excluded others, but it was also because others excluded them. In this respect, they are like Jews who were excluded by others but also excluded others. Thus, Mormons developed a ‘ghetto’ mentality.

There are Two Meanings of Justice.

1. Legal Justice and Righting wrongs. So, if Bob does something wrong to John, Bob owes John compensation. It is about redress and punishment for violation of the law or social contract. This concept of justice is represented by "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" in the Bible. By its standards, if someone didn't do you any wrong, there was no injustice, and he owes you nothing.

2. Tribal Justice. A sense of shared survival and success. This concept of justice is found in the Exodus. Moses feels a sense of obligation to lead ALL Jews out of Egypt. He doesn't owe them anything as he hadn’t done them wrong(on a one-on-one basis) in his capacity as an individual, but as a Jew, he feels responsible for other Jews. This concept of justice says it is not enough for a person to be successful as an individual and care only about himself. He must belong to a community and work for the common good.
Greek mythology is more individual-oriented. It's about the rare hero who rises above the rabble and demonstrates his superiority, like Perseus in the slaying of Medusa. To be sure, through his extraordinary feat, he saves others of his kind. And Theseus protects his community by slaying the Minotaur who gorged on human offerings. Still, the emphasis is on individual feat and personal glory. It is about how the hero stands APART from the rest.
In contrast, the stories in the Bible emphasize how every individual's deeds relate to family and tribe. Communism, a secular form of Judeo-Christian worldview, tried to realize this Jewish-communal-sense-of-justice on a universal scale, but it was too grandiose and unwieldy. Just like a tower erected too high will collapse, so will a bridge built too long.
The ideal of communal justice works best on the ethnic/tribal level and even on the national level IF the nation is racially & culturally homogeneous or reasonably so. This ideal that a people must all make-it-together and not leave others behind is found in the Zhang Yimou film NOT ONE LESS, a kind of 'no child left behind'. It only works within a shared racial community.


Mormon capitalism is bound to their brand of social-culturalism. But, it will fray if the Mormon community becomes overly diverse. Mormon theology is hardly profound stuff. What has made Mormons special has been (1) a sense of community based on shared race and history (2) Muslim-like emphasis on daily rites, some of which are sufficiently strict to prevent members from giving into excessive vice.

When it comes to family formation, Mormons have an intuitive sense that generating children amounts to a kind of future-socialism or bio-socialism. In a way, having children is 'socialist' in the sense that you have to share your earnings with others. Purely from an economic viewpoint, children are 'parasitic'. They do no work and leech off the wealth of parents. Parents must buy them food, spend time with them, clothe them, provide medical care, and etc. It is very taxing, economically and emotionally. So, why do it? Because it is a kind of future-socialism. Why is future-socialism rewarding in ways that paying taxes to provide benefits to total strangers isn't?
Because there is a special bond of love & happiness between parents and children. Also, unlike faceless strangers who live off the tax revenues of others(via the confiscatory state) and show NO gratitude(and often demand MORE free stuff as a 'right'), children are happy and grateful for what they receive from their parents, even just an apple or orange. It's socialism of emotions than just of materials. (This is why prolonged welfare dependency is corrupting to both parents and children. When kids see their parents struggle to make ends meet, they feel appreciation and gratitude, even a bit of guilt because parents work so hard for the family. But when kids see their parents as mere leeches off the state, they feel no sense of obligation because it wasn’t the parents who provided for them. So, do they feel grateful to the state? No, because the state is faceless and abstract as far as they’re concerned. It is just a system to milk.) Also, if children are raised properly with sound nurturing of identity, culture, history, values, arts, and appreciation-for-nature, they carry on with the heritage even after their parents have passed away. Indeed, they see it as their obligation to do so. And in earlier times, they would have taken care of their parents. This was a big theme especially in traditional societies. Kids were seen as organic Social Security. Parents provide for their children, and later, the children-as-grownups provide for their parents-grown-old. So, family formation has always been a bio-cultural socialism into the future. Parents share their wealth with kids, and in turn, kids feel obligation to their parents and the culture they all sprung from.

This sense has weakened over the years because the state or industries came to provide for old people. Also, with the fading of identity and real culture, there is less of a sense of inheritance from parents and bequeathing to children except in monetary/material matters.
If a people no longer believe in what they are in the racial-cultural-historical sense, they feel no need to pass the torch to keep it going. Today, most young people culturally identify with celebrities and what Chris Hedges calls the Empire of Illusion, a frivolous(but intensely charged) Fantasy World, than in the richness and depth of the line-of-my-people.

Orthodox Jews and Mormons still have strong identities, and they feel their cultures must be kept going through the ages as living inheritances and timeless inspirations. And the ONLY way to ensure that is to have children and teach them well. More than anything, one’s wealth, knowledge, experience, and genes must be SHARED with one’s children. That is the deepest and richest kind of socialism. Bio-Socialism.

No comments:

Post a Comment