So you don't believe in free will, basically. Fair enough. If I wasn't religious I'd probably be a hardcore determinist who believed that all choice boil down to Nature + Nurture.
But honestly, I’m thrilled I’m not living in that worldview. 'Cuz underneath all the soft language and poetic compassion you just dropped, you’re low-key stripping humans of one of the things that makes them human: the ability to actually choose. And once you take that away, you don’t just remove responsibility; you kind of gut the meaning out of existence.
Does that mean I think our freedom is unlimited? No again.
I do feel that our choices live in a very limited place; there is so much that is not in our control. For me, two of the most haunting truths are knowing that
(1) we are given permission to stray and destroy and
(2) ultimately we are led, we are so helpless and small and limited.
Still, I am grateful to live in a reality where my choices are real and meaningful, where moral accountability exists, where I can build something beyond whatever my DNA and childhood tried to script for me.
And yeah, sure, liking how something feels isn’t proof it’s true. I’m not pretending it is. I’m just saying: my worldview leads me to disagree with you - and I'm glad it does.
I’m an atheist and I tend to agree with you. The very idea this article espouses is dangerous in that it negates the concept of personal responsibility, without which we are cooked as a society. And no, I do not want my mugger to live in a dorm room and get expensive therapy. Call me revenge riddled, but I want him actually punished. Stripping away the revenge thing, would be muggers need deterrence. It may be different with children, different approaches may be needed with different kids. But discipline should still be one tool in the toolbox. Even if free will is a construct, in order for society to not descend into savagery, we must all act as if we have free will. And demand that others act as if they have free will. Also, do the pieces of human detritus who strangled the Bibas boys to death get a free pass because they had no choice? Yes, I know the article excludes that sort of savagery but the ideas here, taken to their logical conclusion, give baby stranglers a nice dorm room, good food and therapy. That will only serve to encourage the monsters who raped Jewish women until their pelvises broke. The monsters only understand one language, and that is the language of pure violence.
These kinds of approaches always fail because of a simple paradox. You're commenting on, and at least to a degree being critical of, society for not handling reality as you see it better. But wait - aren't they already doing their best? If everyone is programmed, your can't advocate for anything because there's nobody home. Just a bunch of automatons. We just lucked out that for about 75 years or so, the world has, until recently, anyway, been going on a generally positive direction that allows people in your generation to avoid being fatalists who conclude there's nothing to do about anything but grab as much feel-good evolutionary advantage as you can - power, wealth, fame, sex, etc. Your attitude applied to today's younger generation who is giving up on accountability in institutions just leads to anarchy and deconstruction.
The source of every good thing to point to in human society - literally - whether you agree it exists or not, is the belief in human agency and the capacity to take responsibility to make the world a better place and yourself a better person and improve the lives of those around you. This means they all also have agency and the entire concept of chinuch - as it's defined, not as it's practiced - is a training ground for entering the society of the time within a framework of agency and responsibility.
Without that, too many individuals are both too weak and too mistrusting of the generations before them and existing institutions to make any difficult choices and will always take the easy way out - doing their worst in the process.
So you don't believe in free will, basically. Fair enough. If I wasn't religious I'd probably be a hardcore determinist who believed that all choice boil down to Nature + Nurture.
But honestly, I’m thrilled I’m not living in that worldview. 'Cuz underneath all the soft language and poetic compassion you just dropped, you’re low-key stripping humans of one of the things that makes them human: the ability to actually choose. And once you take that away, you don’t just remove responsibility; you kind of gut the meaning out of existence.
Does that mean I think our freedom is unlimited? No again.
I do feel that our choices live in a very limited place; there is so much that is not in our control. For me, two of the most haunting truths are knowing that
(1) we are given permission to stray and destroy and
(2) ultimately we are led, we are so helpless and small and limited.
Still, I am grateful to live in a reality where my choices are real and meaningful, where moral accountability exists, where I can build something beyond whatever my DNA and childhood tried to script for me.
And yeah, sure, liking how something feels isn’t proof it’s true. I’m not pretending it is. I’m just saying: my worldview leads me to disagree with you - and I'm glad it does.
I’m an atheist and I tend to agree with you. The very idea this article espouses is dangerous in that it negates the concept of personal responsibility, without which we are cooked as a society. And no, I do not want my mugger to live in a dorm room and get expensive therapy. Call me revenge riddled, but I want him actually punished. Stripping away the revenge thing, would be muggers need deterrence. It may be different with children, different approaches may be needed with different kids. But discipline should still be one tool in the toolbox. Even if free will is a construct, in order for society to not descend into savagery, we must all act as if we have free will. And demand that others act as if they have free will. Also, do the pieces of human detritus who strangled the Bibas boys to death get a free pass because they had no choice? Yes, I know the article excludes that sort of savagery but the ideas here, taken to their logical conclusion, give baby stranglers a nice dorm room, good food and therapy. That will only serve to encourage the monsters who raped Jewish women until their pelvises broke. The monsters only understand one language, and that is the language of pure violence.
Robert Sapolsky has a great book called: "Determined," in which he expounds on these very ideas at length.
These kinds of approaches always fail because of a simple paradox. You're commenting on, and at least to a degree being critical of, society for not handling reality as you see it better. But wait - aren't they already doing their best? If everyone is programmed, your can't advocate for anything because there's nobody home. Just a bunch of automatons. We just lucked out that for about 75 years or so, the world has, until recently, anyway, been going on a generally positive direction that allows people in your generation to avoid being fatalists who conclude there's nothing to do about anything but grab as much feel-good evolutionary advantage as you can - power, wealth, fame, sex, etc. Your attitude applied to today's younger generation who is giving up on accountability in institutions just leads to anarchy and deconstruction.
The source of every good thing to point to in human society - literally - whether you agree it exists or not, is the belief in human agency and the capacity to take responsibility to make the world a better place and yourself a better person and improve the lives of those around you. This means they all also have agency and the entire concept of chinuch - as it's defined, not as it's practiced - is a training ground for entering the society of the time within a framework of agency and responsibility.
Without that, too many individuals are both too weak and too mistrusting of the generations before them and existing institutions to make any difficult choices and will always take the easy way out - doing their worst in the process.