Ideas have consequences. I think that is a fundamental Misean point if that is what you mean.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
I mean actions have consequences, and adherence to the Silver Rule is an indicator of the well-being of any society. Breaking the silver rule on small scale results in suffering for the victims, but breaking the silver rule on a large scale results in suffering for far more than just the original victims. And when enough people in a society are okay with that, it just goes downhill until there is some sort of correction.
Maybe.
But for me that would imply some type of utility graph or societal equilibrium theory that I am incapable of thinking about.
I can say there are consequences to actions and ideas - if one calls a consequence a "correction", I guess I can go with that
Yeah, there is no way to say that American society is necessarily better or worse than Canadian society or German society, at least not objectively. But in regards to my own values, I believe American society is better than North Korean society. Of course, others can disagree (the elites in North Korean society).
Yeah. I definitely wouldn't say there is some equilibrium that "corrections" will tend towards. But I do think that after a certain amount of suffering in any given society there will be consequences that will tend to reverse the suffering to some degree.
This lecture is absolutely astounding:
There is little, if anything, that the Dalai Lama teaches in this lecture that is not completely consistent with a Misesean view of Human Action. Powerful stuff.
In particular, I would direct your attention to the 1 hour mark (the Dalai Lama delivers his lecture in Tibetan and his assistant translates) - at 1h:02m, he begins talking about Karmic action as the subset of causes-and-conditions which arise as a result of the action of a sentient being. When the Buddhists say "Karma is getting what you deserve" doesn't quite mean what we Westerners hear. Instead, they are saying that the world is causal and, therefore, the effects of whatever chain of events you set off by your own action are to be understood as self-caused. When you act in a way that sets off a chain of events that results in your own suffering, it is as if you are inflicting yourself with suffering at the moment you first act. This is why they teach that the cause of all suffering is ignorance, that is, ignorance of the long-run consequences of one's own actions.
Where I disagree with the Buddhists is on the attainability of nirvana (a kind of absolute satisfaction). I think Epicurus had it right with his conception of ataraxia (simply, absolute satisfaction) as a receding horizon point which can never be actually attained. Ataraxia, unlike Nirvana, is not a place that can be arrived at, it is only a direction that can be traveled in.
Clayton -
Nothing lasts forever man.
This goes into various areas, for the individual and the individual's relation to society, but the breakdown of the Golden/Silver Rule appears to me as a cultural one, but I'm more inclined to disect higher and lower culture. It reminds me of a clip I watched of Boyd Rice on a talk show discussing Satanism with some Christians in the early 90's. The Christians proclaim that if you do something bad or negative, you'll pay for it later, in the after life, in judgement before God. Boyd responded that [LaVeyan] Satanism teaches that if you do something bad, you'll pay for it now. The alcoholic and his endless drinking pays for it with debt and bad health, the criminal pays in time, etc. Now, LaVey was influenced by the likes of Nietzsche, Redbeard's "Might is Right," and possibly Rand, so even in his little Satanic Bible you find the NAP appear.
I think you can see affects of this in more localized areas, as if you went into a small country town and everyone's nice and cordial compared to that of being in a city and there's a "culture clash" of sorts, and it may appear that everyone's cold, blunt, and in a hurry.
Alright, so this is my 3rd time writting this. Sometimes this forum is weird.
Clayton,
I think you're misunderstanding Nirvana. Nirvana has nothing to do with satisfaction and is actually about removing craving and desires.
The problem situation in Buddhism is that ultimately all things are suffering because ultimately all things change. To end suffering you have to remove all of your desires, wants, cravings, etc. . . and anything else that keeps you attatched to this world. So, to reach nirvana you would actually have to give up your desire for satisfaction and never be seeking after it, in fact not even wanting it or really caring about it one on or another.
It's much more complicated than this and ultimately ineffable, but essentially Nirvana is an understanding of reality and divorcing yourself from this world (and all other worlds in Buddhist cosmology) to end the cycle of rebirth and suffering.
@Zephyr:
For your forum issues, check this:
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/23624.aspx
I am using the term "satisfaction" in the Epicurean/Misesean sense in which it is formally synonymous with the cessation of any desire or craving. I understand that the everday meaning of satisfaction is not synonymous with Nirvana.
In my understanding, Buddhism is a more extreme or absolute version of Epicurean philosophy which says exactly the same thing - it is yearning or desire which is the root cause of suffering because whenever yearning arises and it is not satisfied, it results in suffering. Elimination of yearning or desire eliminates the possibility of suffering. However, Epicurus took a more moderate view regarding the eliminatability of yearning and felt that complete or absolute cessation of yearning was impossible because it is the necessary impetus to action - if you do not yearn, you will cease to act and if you do not act, you will cease to live.
Also, I think both Epicurean and Buddhist philosophy miss just how much headroom there is on the positive side of the equation, i.e. the possibility of expanding one's desires and attaining pleasure in the fulfillment of desires. Living this way in the modern environment (that is, not in the Ancestral Environment in which our ancestors evolved) is dangerous because there is a significant mismatch in many cases between what "feels right" and what is actually good for us. But, with the aid of study and discipline, I believe it is possible to overcome these hurdles and go beyond the conservative approach of Epicureanism/Buddhism to elimination of suffering and actually begin talking about flourishing, or the pleasure-filled life.