[Buddha-l] sam harris at the aspen institute

[jkirk]

There seem to be double standards for things that are tried and turn out not
to work properly. More non-authoritarian or anarchisticish approaches are
tried once and when they turn out "not to work" are abandoned rapidly. The
story of its failure will then be cherished and continuously repeated in
order to avoid new attempts. Authoritarian systems don't "work" either, but
somehow they last. If we apply the same rule to religions, that have been
tried for thousands of years then we must conclude they haven't "worked"
either. If we compare the number of members and the number of Buddhas and
saints or even members living up to their religion, then the result is near
to zero, statistically speaking. 

The children of the Lord of the Flies were already conditioned by an
authoritarian, competitive society. They simply recreated in more
rudimentary and direct ways what they had been taught through example. The
society they created is not different from ours as far as I can see (which
is hardly beyond my own nose, long as it may be).

Joy
=============
Hi Joy

The reason experiments like Summerhill were abandoned because they didn't
work is because they were not based on a structure of power and authority
that exists to maintain itself at the expense of everybody else, regardless.
Nevertheless, since children become adults, among whom the requirement to
get along with other people is rather paramount (as opposed to doing one's
own thing regardless of everyone else's safety and enjoyment of life),
leaving children to their own devices exclusively would seem
counterproductive to everyone except to an "anarchisticish" type.  The same
holds for such reformist or socially innovative groups as the Shakers, and
other early American groups, to create benevolent societies where all beings
were respected....... in oppositon as it were to the Puritan types, who
simply melded into the body politic, as the latter suits the Puritan type,
as you suggest. The reformist groups died out.
Joanna 

 

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