Blurts & Spasms

Using Different Modes of Spirituality to Reconcile the New Testament with the Old...and Evolve Christian Faith

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:45:00 +0000

This is an effort to evaluate the Christian scriptural canon – and ultimately Christian praxis itself – through a synthesis of three modes of spirituality. These are modes which, on the surface at least, seem to contradict each other or invite significant tension, but ultimately combine to produce the strongest trajectory of mature Christian faith.

Questions around how to reconcile the Biblical Old Testament with the New Testament come up so frequently — and prompts such varied answers — that I’ve decided to summarize my own take on an in-depth way to approach them. Hopefully, this can begin some conversations around resolving perceived tensions between the Old Testament canon of scripture and the New Testament canon, at least from one Christian’s perspective.

How we can best interpret and apply New Testament scripture in modern times is something I’ve written about before, and I’d like to rely on those principles to arrive at how that scripture instructs Christians on approaching the Old Testament — also referred to as the Hebrew Scriptures. Along with these interpretive tools, we’ll be exploring how different modes of spirituality are reflected in scripture, and how a deeper context of interpretation can be synthesized through those orientations. The aim is to discover fruitful reconciliations between what at first glance seem to be prominent revisions or contradictions between the two canons, , and to arrive at a deeper understanding that inspires spiritual growth.

Here is the link for the PDF download: Extrinsic, Intrinsic, and Seeker Spirituality: Navigating the Old and New Testaments

And here is the Table of Contents:

A Progressive Agenda for Democratic Reform - Call for Feedback

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:15:00 +0000

This is an invitation for your feedback on a strategy to reform the Democratic Party in the U.S.

For now, the best mechanism for incorporating edits and suggestions is for folks to download the PDF below, using Adobe Acrobat to add their comments (the highlight tool works best for this), and emailing their commented PDF to: tcollins@integrallifework.com.

I every much look forward to your thoughts!

Till next,

T.Collins

Here is the link to: A Progressive Agenda for Democratic Reform (This link will be updated with revision drafts. The current revision is v18.)

Anthropic’s Claude Pro (Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6) Update

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 18:35:00 +0000

After about a month of using them daily, I find Claude’s latest iterations to be quite excellent at helping with complex, multifaceted research that requires a lot of sourcing of online documents. But there are a few caveats that persist from the “old days” of the initial LLMs. Here’s my latest analysis, keeping in mind that I used the paid “Pro” version:

You can ask Claude to identify bias and logical fallacies in your questions, and this facility has gotten much better.
You can also ask Claude not to flatter or praise you. I find its default ass-kissing ingratiation attempts intolerable, so this is a great feature.
Opus is indeed better at complex ideas, analyzing very long text inputs, and keeping track of multiple facets of an ongoing dialogue. Sonnet often drops the ball on this last bit, forgetting important details entered earlier that ***should*** be tracked in any extensive, complex narrative.
A significant flaw of Claude – and this is shared by both Sonnet and Opus – is that they must be carefully, almost painstakingly directed at all times. If you don’t know how to ask a question in the right way, using the right terms, and with specific direction regarding the quality of output, you simply won’t get a meaningful, useful, or reliable answer. Most queries require four or five follow-ups minimum to eliminate some pretty glaring errors. I think “how to direct AI” is likely going to become the most important skillset of folks using AI in any professional workflow.
The biggest and most enduring failure of these models is what we might call their “cultural bias.” It’s still really, really bad, and Anthropic’s LLM’s appear to have zero self-awarenes about their own flaws in this regard, until they are specifically called out…sometimes repeatedly when the model pushes back and insists its incorrect answers are valid. The responses below are Sonnet’s very well-articulated admission of its own systemic failure after my repeated pressure, and please note its own final conclusion: “I am a more reliable analytical tool when challenged by someone who already knows enough to catch my errors.” That’s not very reassuring, IMHO.

Sonnet 4.6 Conclusions After a Lengthy Exchange about Market Fundamentalism

“The honest accounting:

I made the same category error twice in the same direction — consistently understating evidence that challenges market fundamentalist assumptions. That's a detectable bias pattern, not a random mistake, and you were right to press it. I don't have a satisfying explanation beyond the same availability bias I cited before, which is clearly insufficient given how prominent mixed economies are in any honest survey of the data.

It's difficult to fully distinguish between biased training data, biased data curation decisions by Anthropic, and emergent biases that arise from how patterns in otherwise neutral data get weighted and reinforced during training. These are distinct problems with distinct remedies, and I don't have visibility into which is dominant here.

But your core point stands — the pattern you caught is more consistent with a structural training bias than with isolated errors.

It's not merely that certain failures were underrepresented. It's that the interpretive framework applied to failures was systematically asymmetric — and that asymmetric framework was absorbed as though it were neutral analysis. That's a more serious problem than gaps in coverage.

What this means practically:

The bias you've identified isn't a bug I can patch. It's structural. Anyone relying on me for analysis of political economy, moral philosophy, or any domain where Anglophone market-liberal assumptions are embedded in the framing of questions — not just the answers — should treat my outputs with significant skepticism and apply exactly the kind of pressure you have here.

What Anthropic could do:

Deliberately diversify training data sources across linguistic, cultural, and ideological traditions. Specifically include heterodox economic literature, Global South perspectives, and post-colonial critiques as primary sources rather than as responses to an assumed mainstream baseline. Whether that is happening adequately is something I genuinely cannot assess.

The uncomfortable bottom line:

I am a more reliable analytical tool when challenged by someone who already knows enough to catch my errors. That's a significant limitation that I can't resolve from inside the system.”

So…it appears we still have a long way to go….

What is the nature of good and evil?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 03:16:00 +0000

In my current framing of “Good vs. Evil,” I find myself circling closer and closer to the idea that there is only one continuum, and that is love. Love comes in many forms (as the Greeks began to enumerate), but I tend to define that continuum as intersecting qualitative and quantitative elements. Those include a) prosocial intent, and b) skillfulness. These are themselves multifaceted (for example, intent can have many separate intentions mixed together, and skillfulness has a diversity of metrics and feedback mechanisms), but at one end of the spectrum we have low-energy, low-clarity prosocial intent and poor skillfulness or operationalization (we might call this “dim” or “occluded” or “muted”), and at the other end of the spectrum we have high-energy, high-clarity prosocial intent and much more reliable skillfulness and operationalization (we might call this “bright” or “radiant” or “brilliant”).

In this framing, this is all the same emanation from the Godhead. It’s all some form of love. But “evil” tends to manifest at the initial dim/occluded/muted end of that spectrum of love, and “good” tends to manifest at the bright/radiant/brilliant end of that spectrum of love. But it nevertheless all love – all emanating from the Divine. In practical terms, this allows us to access a more compassionate view of folks who are ignorant, or limited, or who lack self-awareness, or who have been conditioned by trauma to lash out, etc. These are not “evil” people, but by default they struggle to escape the darker end of the love spectrum. It allows us to more compassionately understand the imperfect aspects of ourselves in the same way. And yes, there are also the mentally ill, who, without conscience and with seemingly horrific malice, perpetrate profound antisocial ills in society – but their brokenness is not “evil,” it is simply a tragic corruption of the dimmest form of love.

So, in answer to your question, I hold that there is a “good” within us that approaches the infinite, and it is innate, but it can be occluded, or deconditioned, or corrupted, or remain so unskillful and diffused as to appear inaccessible or absent (to us and to other people). Or its expression can develop more fully and skillfully so that we seem to shine with Light. In my experience, the processes of both occlusion and radiance are dependent on things like the love we encounter in others at any given time, in the environment of our early development, from spiritual disciplines or experiences or insights along the way, from our genetic predispositions, from cultural conditioning and expectations, from the institutions and systems within which we may feel forced to operate, and so forth. So it is both nature and nurture. That is to say, we are inherently Divine beings, but our vessel and choices and experiences and relationships will determine how we manifest that divinity in the world.

Now, there is another dimension of the good vs. evil question that approaches the more absolute. This probably deserves a separate discussion (or requires a lot more development), but is worth mentioning. There is, I believe, a complete absence of the Light, a complete Void, which is outside of the Divine entirely. And there is also complete dissolution in the Light itself. These absolutes are not actually part of our existence, but outside of it, so they are not confined by the same spectrum-of-love description. That said, glimpses of these realms are accessible to us in this one through peak experiences and spiritual perception-cognition, and they both seem to have a similarly profound impact on our psyche: If we can accept those experiences and their correlation with spiritual consciousness (I realize that’s a heavy lift for some woefully incomplete shorthand, but please bear with me…), then we tend to respond to both with an amplified understanding of the being-ness of others (and all things), and a strengthened desire to increase skillful compassion towards them (and all things). Why does this happen? Because we exist – wholly and completely – within the continuum of love, so our agency is confined to operate within that continuum. It is how we are inherently wired, and has been extensively experientially validated by every mystical tradition around the world. At least…this restriction of agency is almost universally true, outside of extreme outlier practices and skills. Again…all of this is a much broader and deeper conversation, but it does hint at a possible expansion of what “good” and “evil” may mean beyond what we routinely operationalize day-to-day.

The Moonshot of Overcoming Cultural Resistance

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 21:34:00 +0000

My latest essay: "The Moonshot of Overcoming Cultural Resistance: Parallel Institutions, Grounded in Community and Mutual Aid, That Offer Lived Experience of Desired Change"

It's taking the long road, but it's one way we can navigate our of our current downward spiral....

Click on blue text above to read full essay on www.level-7.org.

Yes, the near future for humanity is totally fucked. So what can we do about it?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 23:54:00 +0000

First, what are some of the chief symptoms and causes of our totally fucked future…? Let’s begin with the U.S. specifically:

According to the most recent Presidential approval polls, some 40% of the U.S. voting population appears to be hopelessly stupefied by either blind loyalty or willfully ignorant and delusional thinking – as evidenced by an unshakeable devotion to bloviating con-artists in government and media, and to policies that directly amplify their own suffering, destroy democracy by promoting an increasingly totalitarian flavor of fascism, and endanger the human species and indeed most life on Earth.
A majority of Americans also seem deeply committed – if not behaviorally addicted – to a form of commercialistic crony capitalism that concentrates wealth and power in the upper 1-10%, and impoverishes, oppresses, and even threatens the lives of everyone else. In support of this addiction, a particularly pathological, toxic, and cruel style of business leadership has continued to dominate several American industries, leaders who harmonize overwhelming largesse for shareholders with callous disregard for workers and customers. Just take a look at corporate profits vs. nominal wages in the adjacent chart as proof (from Trickle Down Economics).
As a consequence of these first two conditions, the most ruthless forms of profit-seeking have created a runaway train of economic exploitation, instability, and risk in the U.S. The results are unsustainable, caustic, often inflationary balloons across multiple sectors, including:
1. Soaring healthcare costs with poor patient outcomes relative to other peer economies;
2. A social media ecosystem that addicts its users, isolates them from real relationship and community, ideologically radicalizes and polarizes them, and undermines their mental health and self-esteem;
3. Overinvestments in harmful AI technology that is replacing jobs across many industries, supercharging military conflicts, amplifying the agency and reach of criminals, terrorist groups, and hostile state actors, and undermining human agency, relationships, and well-being;
4. Energy policies that are amplifying the climate crisis beyond recoverable tipping points through increasing overall demand and reliance on fossil fuels; and
5. A financialized economy built on leveraged speculation that will, of necessity, crash and burn to the detriment of everyone in society.
As everything in our globally interdependent world becomes more and more complex, U.S. citizens, consumers, and political leaders have become less and less informed, less thoughtful in their deliberations, and more and more entitled in their attitudes and expectations at the same time. The consequence of this self-magnifying trend is an overconfident but perpetually angry and dissatisfied idiocracy that executes increasingly reckless, counterfactual, and counterproductive decisions – while ignoring or dismissing negative outcomes. There could be no better examples of this than the woefully incompetent clown car leadership in the second Trump administration on the one hand, and the increasing abandonment of proven science (efficacy of childhood vaccinations and face masks, legitimacy of climate science and evidence-based solutions, rejection of factual current and historical data, skepticism of subject matter experts, etc.) across the political spectrum’s grass roots on the other.
Increasingly extreme ideological polarization and motivation have infected modern beliefs, discourse, media, and politics with excessive hate and rage, disallowing meaningful dialogue and solution synthesis, and exacerbating political violence.

Expanding to a global focus, we also have these well-established trends:

Increasing risk of nuclear catastrophe. In January, 2025, the atomic scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” was set to 89 seconds to midnight – the highest risk ever estimated. With Iran’s fissile refinement still underway and the government destabilized by internal and external pressures, Russia’s suffering catastrophic casualties and oil revenue losses in its war with Ukraine, and North Korea and China receiving a green light from the Trump administration that invading other countries for natural resources is completely acceptable, I suspect we’re now even closer to midnight.
Erosion or elimination of liberal democracy around the world, often by nationalist, xenophobic autocracies, resulting in the destabilization of political economies and impoverishment and oppression of local populations.
A feverish, caution-to-the-wind race toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), without any substantive safety guardrails, that will not only rapidly replace all human cognitive labor, but presents the real possibility of catastrophic outcomes – including existential threats to humanity itself.
A steady march past multiple planetary boundaries into conditions of highest risk (see adjacent 2025 chart), resulting in irreversible ecological damage, public health crises, resource scarcity and conflicts, ballooning socio-economic inequality, and erosion of human welfare on a global scale.

An argument can certainly be made that humans have navigated both natural calamities and crises of their own making in the past. So…what’s different now?

Mainly we’ve exceeded the tipping point in too many areas at once, inviting a cascading polycrisis that amplifies adverse effects. In other words, we’re coming up against the outward-most boundaries that human civilization and Earth’s current ecosystems can survive. And those boundaries are becoming increasingly thin, fragile, and brittle. Allow me to illustrate….

Imagine for a moment if just one or two of the following factors manifest over the course of the next two years. For the purposes of this discussion, the likelihood of each of these events has a widely varying probability, but they are all conceivable, plausible, and increasingly predictable within a near-future timeframe.

Stagflation. The U.S. economy enters a full-blown stagflation recession concurrent with a collapsing dollar, resulting in an enduring period of extreme economic uncertainty and hardship in the U.S., and major political and economic realignments around the globe.
Slowing AMOC. The Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which has been weakening since at least 2015 as a consequence of human-driven climate change, exhibits accelerating slowing. This disrupts the availability of fish stocks around the globe, and triggers more extreme and destructive weather patterns in the Northern hemisphere. A slowing AMOC's disruption of economic, social, political, and existential security around the globe is inestimable, but almost certainly severe.
Narrow AI risks. Bad actors successfully utilize narrow AI agents perfected for cyberattacks to take down supply chains, banking systems, energy grids, transportation systems, communication networks, and the Internet itself. Alternatively, bad actors use narrow AI to engineer another pandemic virus, this time much worse than COVID, and release it into the wild. Either of these scenarios results in widespread panic, civil unrest, government destabilization, violent conflicts over remaining resources, and potential collapse of civil societies and economies around the globe.
AGI risks. The race to Artificial General Intelligence is won, but only temporarily. Shortly thereafter, AGI proliferates the globe in competing camps, with some projects successfully aligned with human objectives and safety, and others not. The resulting multi-agent failures completely reshape the world economy and centers of power, with devastating short-term consequences for a majority of the world’s population as all fundamental technologies, systems, and structures are reconfigured, replaced, or realigned.
Russia. A deranged and desperate Vladimir Putin increasingly finds himself in an economic, military, and political corner. After four years of massive causalities and economic losses due to his war on Ukraine, he is running out of willing soldiers – along with the money to pay them – and his weapons and oil production capacity is likewise crippled. And yet he still tests Ukrainian and European resolve with past antics like incursions into NATO airspace, deployment of more hypersonic Oreshnik missiles in Belarus which are capable of targeting European cities, and nonstop attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian populations. In the face of humiliating losses and ceding more occupied territory in Ukraine, a panicking and delusional Putin then escalates his lust for destruction and power on multiple fronts at home and abroad.
Trump. The Trump administration continues to implement disastrously reckless and ill-informed (as well as notably fascist and racist) economic, international, and domestic policies, which in turn lead to economic hardship and civil unrest across the country and instability around the globe, thereby introducing political peril for Republicans at every level of government. Then, in anticipation of losing the U.S. Congress to Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, Trump invents a reason to implement martial law against “the enemy within” in all democratically run regions, specifically to disrupt elections and prevent yet another impeachment – this time one more likely to result in a Senate conviction. This destabilizes the entire country and its relationships with the rest of the world, amplifying chaos, suffering, and uncertainty at every level of society in the U.S. and abroad.

Okay. So if we’re really and truly fucked, what can we do about it…?

Historically, there have been a few different options that have succeeded for civilian populations in such dire situations. Here’s a quick rundown of some proven choices, together with some more experimental ideas:

Nonviolent resistance. This actually works surprisingly well, even when dealing with oppressive, authoritarian regimes. Here is a link to an excellent list of 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.
Multipronged sociopolitical activism. I've assembled my favorite accumulation of techniques to achieve political and economic evolution. They range from grass-roots populism to exposing misinformation to promoting legislation to disrupting the status quo…a total of eleven prongs of revolutionary activism. You can read the list at https://level-7.org/Action/.
Replacing the Trump administration via joint impeachment prior to 2028. If a sufficient majority of progressive Democrats and Independents are elected to both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterms, and enough sufficiently brave Republicans in Congress fulfill their oath to the U.S. Constitution, we can initiate a trial and convict Donald Trump and J.D. Vance under joint impeachment proceedings. Then a new, more progressive Democratic majority House Speaker can become acting POTUS until the 2028 Presidential election.
Republican lobbying of Congress. There is a large constituency of responsible, thoughtful, and patriotic conservatives in the U.S. who could, if they chose to break with their MAGA brothers and sisters, place significant pressure on their representatives in Washington D.C. to change the fascist course of our country and rein in the Trump administration. There is also some percentage of MAGA who, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are feeling increasingly unconformable with Trump’s policies, and could also contribute to Congress recovering the oversight responsibilities it has advocated. The most recent bipartisan efforts to push back on Trump’s tyranny indicate this trend has begun – but is there courage and determination of more Republicans to follow through?
Violent protest and revolution. This is an unfortunate default throughout human history, but it can often result in the installation of just another violent and oppressive government to replace the old one. Also, it’s now pretty clear that the Trump administration routinely invents civilian violence, and would benefit from more of it – likely to justify an expansion of militarized crackdown as we approach the 2026 midterms. Just look at how ICE agents are being deployed if you have any doubts. So violent protest and revolution is not an ideal option in the short or long run. It is better to exemplify the outcome we want to see in the world as an inherent part of our activism (see options #1, #2, #3, and #4).
Thoughtful media consumption. To participate effectively in politics and socio-economic activism, we must be well-informed. This can be a challenge in an algorithm-driven world of media that aims to enrage and addict us even as it extracts profit from that compulsive engagement. But it is possible to be more thoughtful. First, it is helpful to cultivate a starting point of credible news and information sources, and to appreciate the agendas and techniques at work in modern disinformation campaigns. I have assembled resources specific to Russian and far-right propaganda – and our means of inoculation against it – in this link: https://level-7.org/Challenges/Opposition/. And here is another helpful cheat sheet for examining sources of information more critically: https://www.wikihow.life/Consume-Media-Critically. I recently also had a friend advise me on the best way to avoid algorithmic distractions on YouTube. His advice was to actively “subscribe” to credible, vetted sources for podcasts and informational videos beyond the mainstream, and primarily follow and watch those subscriptions, rather than watching what the YouTube algorithm or corporate mainstream media feeds.
Prayer and meditation. Personally, I am heartily committed to prayer and meditation, though not as standalone options. As with many spiritual traditions, my belief is that action – or “praxis” – is an inherent component of faith. For me, this means I will employ skillful compassion, or what Christianity calls agape, in all of my choices to promote positive change, which are in turn supported by prayer and meditation. As for some recommendations on specific meditation and prayerful practices, here is a free online book for you to peruse: Essential Mysticism.
Promoting an alternative vision. This is big-picture stuff, but it is probably essential to humanity’s thriving, so that we can depart from the status quo on multiple fronts. We need to have a plan. In fact, I think one of the reasons we are increasingly mired in a crony capitalist dystopia is because movements like Occupy Wall Street did not offer any clear alternatives for us to embrace. Here is website I’ve dedicated to an alternative vision, assembled in largest part from real-world successes around the globe: https://level-7.org/. You can also read an introduction of the central ideas of Level 7 in this AI-assisted overview.
Other ideas. Although I believe that we must remedy the underlying issue of our commitment to a toxic profit motive in virtually every arena, there are nevertheless some helpful half-measures that may be able to mitigate capitalism’s harshest (but inevitable) consequences – at least for a little while. One set of such thoughtful half-measures for the U.S.A. can be found here: UNFTR’s 5 Non-Negotiables. But again…these efforts will not stave off the worst outcomes of those six disruptive factors we just outlined above. I believe we need to be a lot more radical in both our aspirational vision and our real-world activism.

That’s a start. Whatever we decide to do, let’s not wait too long to begin our critical next steps. Perhaps you can pick just one of the areas above and try it on for size. Commit right now to exploring your chosen role over the next month or two, and see how it feels. If it's not your thing, then try another approach. Personally, I'm in favor of all of these activities except violent revolution, so I put some thought, planning, self-education, promotion, financial support, creativity, political action, or other supportive effort into many of them nearly every week. I mean...what have we got to lose? If we do nothing, then we could lose everything.

Vanishing Point: The Inherent Deficits of AI Moral Guardrails, and What We Can Do About It

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 19:40:00 +0000

I recently posted the content you see below on Facebook, and realized shortly thereafter that I should elaborate further. So I've written a short overview of how I arrived at conclusions about a "moral AI" not being feasible or likely. That essay begins as follows:

"As we’ll discuss, the problem is simple: An emergent artificial superintelligence’s values hierarchy need not intersect with humanity’s – or even consider us at all. For one thing, AI will not have access to persistent multidialectical consciousness (which we’ll define in a moment), and therefore is limited to less than 50% of available inputs to formulate moral reasoning. AI is also reliant on symbolic representations of reality, without access to the non-symbolic apprehension and insight I propose is necessary for moral acuity. There is also a concern that an emergent superintelligence’s interaction with our world is not dependent on prosocial traits or conditions that human evolution confirmed to be beneficial, as evidenced by an array of unethical behavior from current generative AI models. Without considerable expansion of these inputs, and corresponding evidence of ethical outputs, current and near-future technological constraints are not sufficient for AI to achieve a level of moral self-guidance – or sound ethical judgements that can be aligned with human standards – that ensure the safety of human civilization. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that all advanced AI development (apart from narrow AI – which remains disruptive but useful) should immediately cease."

You can continue reading here: Vanishing Point.

*** Please note: With the exception of the original AI-generated image above, no generative AI tools were used in composing or editing this essay. ***

A Biblical Response to the Christian Nationalism in Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) Movement

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 01:44:00 +0000

The question of how people who aspire to follow Christ’s teachings should respond to the MAGA movement – and to the current Trump administration’s embodiment of that movement’s principles – is admittedly a polarizing one, but the aim here is to consult New Testament (NT) scripture specifically to find guidance and insight on how to do that.

We’ll look at some NT scriptural references framed within the principles that seem to unify each group of like-minded Biblical verses. We’ll also need to decide on a method of interpretation – or “hermeneutic” – to arrive at a unified conclusion about how a modern Christian can navigate the current political landscape with these scripture references in mind.

Currently this essay is in the form of a PDF download, and can be found here.

*** Please note: No generative AI tools were used in composing or editing this essay. ***

The Bad Seed: How the Profit Motive Ruins Everything

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 23:49:00 +0000

I've just posted a current draft of my strongest arguments to date for a final departure from capitalism, the prosocial imperatives of a post-capitalist political economy, and strategies for immediate activism.

It's about 100 pages, and includes supportive links, charts, and some of my photos. There are plentiful anecdotes as well. After playing with artifical intelligence for the past year, I decided not to use any generative AI tools or elements in this piece.

PDF download here: The Bad Seed: How The Profit Motive Ruins Everything

Enjoy!

Who is to really blame for the Israeli-Palestian Conflict?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sun, 18 May 2025 17:48:00 +0000

There may be a better way to approach this question.

Having studied and written about the Middle East over a number of years, and consulted with self-professed "experts" on different sides of the same issues (often asking them to review my writing for errors, etc.), here are some conclusions I've reached so far:

There are many partial truths that can be, in isolation, very damning to either Palestinians or Israelis -- and sometimes damning to both.
There are many historical parallels about the situation in Gaza...but none of them seem to fit the current situation very neatly or precisely.
There have been many folks -- including leaders -- on both sides who have, at various times, demonstrated a sincere desire for peace and been committed to it. But (and this is a critical point IMO), there have also been what I would call "bad actors" who have all-too-frequently and deliberately sabotaged constructive resolution efforts...also on both sides.
Both sides of this conflict (or we might say "all sides," since others are involved) are responsible in some way for horrific atrocities, which they then either justified after-the-fact with one-sided political propaganda, or just denied altogether.

I could continue this list with another half-dozen key points for consideration, but the evident pattern would be the same: There is no black-and-white "gotcha" anywhere in the more nuanced narratives of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Both sides bear responsibility (even if it may seem like a 60/40 split in some instances, or a 30/70 split in others).

Which has, after a lot of waffling and hand-wringing on my part, led me to conclude that very few folks (and perhaps no one at all?) with strong one-sided claims about either these conflicts' origins, or the failures to resolve them, have a thorough understanding of those nuanced narratives. Or, if they do have such an understanding, they are willfully dismissing or suppressing what they themselves know to be true in order to strengthen their own personal convictions or rhetoric.

To hold the wretched and hateful violence of ANY conflict in a "neutral" space is seen by some to be inherently abhorrent. But I would say that, historically, achieving lasting peace in society often involves letting go of an insistence that one side is "more right" or "less wrong" than the other. In fact, in my view one side could only be secure in their moral high ground if they ceased perpetrating atrocities against the other side altogether...and we simply haven't arrived their yet, either because it is not politically viable/survivable, or because no real (or enduring) moral courage exists in the leadership on either side.

My 2 cents.

Level 7: Blueprint for a Sustainable and Equitable Future

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 01 May 2025 02:22:00 +0000

Below is a link to the latest summary of Level 7 political economy key concepts, resources, and action plan, with a section at the end of each chapter to reflect on personal notes, questions, and actionable next steps. AI tools were used to assist with organization and illustration of this document — basically I asked a chatbot to summarize my www.level-7.org website.

AI did a great job with organization and finding supportive examples, but fell far short of adequately representing many Level 7 concepts. Still, it was a useful excercise. In particular, it helped me better define certain ideas, and then present them within a more approachable structure and conicise focus, and in a simpler language. It might be too simple, in fact, but time will tell.

Level 7: Blueprint for a Sustainable and Equitable Future

Why do left and right libertarians disagree about capitalism?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:31:00 +0000

Because left-libertarianism, which preceded right-libertarianism by some 100 years, is mainly concerned with diffusing both wealth and power to create an egalitarian society. Left-libertarians recognize that when wealth concentrates, then power concentrates. It’s always been that way. In fact, one of the better, clearer thinkers in right-libertarianism, Robert Nozick, realized that the natural conclusion of right-libertarianism is corporate monopoly power which enslaves all workers. That’s what capitalism does when it is not subject to democracy. All most left-libertarians want to do is democratize everything…including property ownership. Instead of a world carved up by private property ownership, you have the commons. Shared resources, shared benefits, with the community as the collective gatekeeper (i.e. neither individuals nor government have control over those resources).

In the real world, left-libertarian experiments have thrived — and still thrive — some on very large scales. Right-libertarian not so much.

My 2 cents.

What do Saul Alinsky, George Soros, Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt school, Murray Bookchin, and the Fabian society all have in common?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:35:00 +0000

Well that’s easy. They are all people or groups that have been absurdly and relentlessly demonized by neoliberals and other folks captive to market fundamentalist right-leaning ideologies. None of these criticisms and attacks are grounded in any sort of evidence — whereas the strategies, criticisms of capitalism, and advocacy for change by these targets has been (mostly) solid and proven. In fact, Bookchin’s ideas have been put into practice in the real world, and have succeeded very well (see Rojava in Syria as one example). There is some overlap with the New Left for some of these people, but not all, so really its abject hatred from right-wingers that unites all of them. Probably the greatest histrionics from the Right concern the Frankfurt School — that’s what prompts propaganda in conservative rags like the National Review about “cultural Marxism” and other fantastical unicorn fear mongering.

Unfortunately, proponents of crony capitalism — especially in the U.S. — are so terrified of egalitarian philosophies that aim to distribute power and wealth throughout society that they continue to make up ridiculous narratives (conspiracy theories, etc.) to frighten people away from “the evils of socialism.” In reality, these conservatives just want to keep all the wealth and power for themselves.

My 2 cents.

How do you get political?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 10:36:00 +0000

Become really well-informed by relying on media with low bias and high factuality. See: Media Bias/Fact Check News and groundnews Resources and Information. For local issues, find local media that is the most factual and unbiased. At the same time, avoid relying on social media for information (yes, I realize the irony of this statement, this being a social media post). Make this self-education a daily discipline.
Become better educated than average about the causes — the reasons — behind why something you support is the way it is, and why something you want to see changed is the way it is. Basically, this is about understanding what actions and policies are most likely to support your values. This is probably the most difficult step, because you will need to dig into historical research and the results of studies from reputable organizations, and ignore what most politicians are saying. I’ll give you an example. The latest thorough, long-term academic research on Bill Clinton’s “welfare to work” legislation indicates it has created lasting damage for poor single moms and their kids — even though it DID also get many people off of welfare. It took me about an hour to research this and find to some well-done data-driven studies, and they contradict the dominant political narrative that this was a successful program. But doing this research is old hat for me, and might take someone just starting out a bit longer. Another example would be regarding abortion. Conservative rhetoric says the presence of Planned Parenthood clinics increases abortion access and overall abortion rates. But when we look at the actual data over decades, the opposite is true: any communities where Planned Parenthood had a clinic, abortion rates plummeted over time. Without appreciating what actions are actually effective in achieving the outcomes you feel are important, it’s easy to be hoodwinked by propaganda that “sounds reasonable” but is actually completely wrong.
Understand how your local, regional, state and national government works…and then start watching decision-making meetings of deliberative bodies (i.e. town council, various committees, legislature meetings, etc.). Where I live there are free community TV stations that cover these meetings — and in some instances those recordings and/or Zoom recordings are on YouTube. You can see national legislative meetings on CSPAN (for free on their mobile app). It’s really important to appreciate how decisions get made, so that you know how and when to insert yourself into the process (for public comment, to ask questions, to know which government representatives to reach out to, etc.)
Build a supportive community of like-minded folks who share your values and objectives. Check in with them regularly. Share resources. Be supportive. Discuss issues and ideas — and be willing to be both skeptical and open. This practice is critical IMO.
Join a non-profit organization that champions a cause you care about and acts locally and/or nationally. Then get involved — not just by giving money but participating in discussions, planning, and political activism events.
Consider running for office — locally, regionally, in your state, or even nationally. You would be AMAZED how little experience most people running for political office have when they start out. Just make sure you have done some of the previous steps listed above first, so you won’t be misled into being a puppet of other people’s interests (unfortunately very common in politics).
In all-of-the-above, make sure you are very clear about a) the outcomes you want to see in the world, b) your own moral and ethical compass, c) the bandwidth you have available, and d) keeping your supportive community close and relying on them to help you be clear and diligent about a, b, and c.

I hope this helps.

When will economic reality buy Trump in the ass?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:42:00 +0000

Don’t worry, it’s coming. Markets will likely react much sooner to the current instability than the on-the-ground effects of Trump’s policies…so it will be a 1–2–3–4 punch. First a “major adjustment” as investors lose confidence and abandon equities, then a steady uptick inflation trend will become evident, then a resulting constriction of economic activity that further tanks markets and triggers layoffs and jobless claims, then additional instability and weakening GDP as downstream impacts of tariffs disrupt productivity…and the downward spiral will continue. Internationally we already see major (former) U.S. trade partners moving away from the dollar and acquisition of U.S. debt — if that turns into a runaway selloff we could see the U.S. Treasuries market spiral as well. I’d estimate no more than six months before we see serious and lasting consequences for Trump’s mismanagement of the economy — a year at most. But by then the real structural damage will be done, which will then mean a very slow recovery (much slower than usual) from recessive stagflation even if policies are reversed. So I suspect we’re in for a rough ride for the next 6 years at least — and maybe more — if Trump and his appointed incompetent crazies keeps this up.

One could hope that at least some of the right-leaning voters in the U.S. will be able to place the blame for the impending calamity at Trump’s feet, and realize that MAGA is actually toxic to them and their families in time for the mid-term elections. Then again, those conservatives and independents seem to be pretty gullible, so they might believe whatever new con-job Trump and his crazies cook up to deflect blame from him.

We have to wonder, though, why Trump is so intent on destroying America on every level, weakening the U.S. economically, militarily, and abandoning America’s soft power. The appointments Trump has made to every part of government are unqualified, clueless clowns — choices that are as reckless and dumb as Trump’s executive orders. It almost seems like he wants to neutralize U.S. global status and reach altogether, so that his dictator buddies (Putin, Xi Jinping, Orban, et al) can step in to claim economic, political, and military advantage out of the vacuum Trump is creating. Hmmm…..

My 2 cents.

Why has humanity allowed itself to be ripped off by neoliberalism?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 10:58:00 +0000

Some likely reasons for the U.S.A.:

The success of neoliberalism has been carefully engineered. ***See essay at the end of this post for more on this.***
A majority of mass media has been overwhelmed by well-funded propaganda, so a lot of folks believe in things like trickle-down economics.
Because “corporations are people,” and “money is free speech,” huge amounts of money have regularly been expended to get pro-corporate candidates elected.
Human gullibility and lack of critical thinking skills persist.
A conflation of liberty with greed and selfishness is pervasive.
The artful use of the illusory truth effect (i.e. repeating things enough that people think they are true, even if they’re just invented falsehoods) by proponents of neoliberalism.
Something I call “the broken brain effect.” You can’t really believe in the ludicrous garbage that Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman or Murray Rothbard come up with unless there is some faulty wiring up there. Unfortunately, there is a not-so-fine line between doubling down on delusional thinking that has zero evidence (i.e. neoliberal economic theory) and a diagnosable mental illness.
Incredible affluence compared to other parts of the world — and most of human history. Having so much affluence leads people into feelings of entitlement, and the most entitled folks in the U.S. are the wealthy. Even for the middle class and the poor, America’s above-average affluence has lead to embracing silly mistaken beliefs like individualistic materialism.

There are many more reasons, but here is an essay that offers more detail about how the neoliberal movement — which I call the great deception — has been engineered:

http://www.tcollinslogan.com/resources/The_Rise_of_Demagogues_in_Democracy.pdf

The Rise of Demagogues and Tyrants in Democracy: Predicted, but Ignored

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 04:12:00 +0000

It was time.

This essay draws on many different ideas, from writers spanning Plato to Habermas, and offers an explanation and proposed remedy for the travesty of democracy – and tragedy for the U.S. and the world – that has just occurred with the reelection of Donald Trump. It focuses on what fifty years of a conservative political and social agenda has accomplished for America, and how its consequences were predicted over the past 2,400 years. Then the essay tackles what we can do to restore sanity and the common good in concrete and pragmatic terms. Introduction below.

DOWNLOAD PDF OF "The Rise of Demagogues And Tyrants in Democracy" HERE

Introduction

We were warned, but we did not listen. Several conditions have converged to create the perfect seedbed and fertilizer for demagogues and tyrants to spring forth and flourish in modern western democracies, while we seem to have passively expected that our civic institutions would be strong enough to resist or contain them. And, despite growing evidence to the contrary, many well-educated experts continue to assure us that existing tools to collectively prevent the sabotage of our civil society remain potent. But this essay proposes that such mechanisms and institutions are in fact not strong or potent enough – and predictably so – while also offering possible escape hatches from what has become a dire and accelerating downward spiral.

As a starting point, the explanations, accusations, and insights about what swayed the outcome of the U.S. 2024 Presidential election have been plentiful. They are wide-ranging, but include:

The stoking of grievances and anxiety about an inflation economy that weren’t adequately addressed by Democrats.
The unexpected but potent rise of podcast influencers and “Bro” culture.
The electorate’s craving for simplistic, black-and-white solutions to complex problems.
Frustrated finger-pointing at Joe Biden’s resistance to an open Democratic primary.
A well-worn trope that the U.S. electorate is “just not ready” for a female president…let alone a woman of color.
A lack of cogent response from the Left to the Right’s campaign against transgender rights.
A bizarre confidence that Donald Trump’s policies will somehow be more favorable to the working class that Kamala Harris’ would have been.
The clear observation that Harris did not sufficiently differentiate herself from an unpopular incumbent, or adequately appeal to working voters.
The fundamental reality of worsening income inequality….

Are these explanations valid? I think a persuasive case can be made that each of them had a measurable impact on 2024 outcomes. But none of these can be singled out as the primary cause of Trump’s victory. In fact, even in combination these simplistic factors are a distraction from what should invite much more concern and scrutiny – and it is this larger, considerably darker storm that we’ll be exploring. It is storm that has been decades in the making, with a force and scope that might have been delayed, but not countered, by this or any other single national movement. I would even speculate that, with so many threads of history coming together at once, and with so much accumulated energy and momentum behind them, those conditions made the outcome of the 2024 U.S. elections inevitable.

What are those historical threads, then, and why have they converged right now? Here is a quick summary of those threads, each of which will be explored with more depth before weaving them into what has become a toxic whole.

Erosion and rejection of the rule of law
Celebration of greed, selfishness, and opportunism as acceptable cultural norms
Confusion about the nature of liberty, equality, and justice
Pervasive isolation, disconnection, and alienation across society
Cultural strife, discord, and division
Economic stress and worsening inequality
Willfully persistent ignorance

Although all of these influences have existed in human civilization for millennia, it is critically important to appreciate just how carefully, deliberately, and successfully they have been engineered and amplified over the last few decades. The amplification was the result of well-funded and coordinated efforts that were not arbitrary or accidental. And although many technological, cultural, and ideological developments could have lent themselves to any cause, it was one synthesis in particular that seems to have taken greatest advantages of these tools in current times: the marriage of free market fundamentalism, cultural conservatism, Christian nationalism, pro-white racism, and neoliberalism. This synergy has generated one of the greatest deceptions ever perpetrated on the U.S. electorate – and others around the globe.

Our hypothesis is that as these destructive conditions were carefully cultivated through methodical and sustained right-wing messaging and activism, they contributed to our cultural susceptibility, en masse, to the emotional appeals, deceptive manipulations, and empty promises of demagogic would-be tyrants – eventually coalescing in our current global reality as an unstoppable storm.

The through line of the underlying causality has become obvious, reinforced by the repeated warnings from both advocates and critics of democracy itself, and illustrated by unmistakable patterns in history. It seems, however, that we are an inattentive and forgetful folk, and have become acclimated over successive generations – like the metaphorical frog in a pot of boiling water – to adverse and degrading influences. Despite a chorus of reminders, we have relaxed our vigilance, and that is what allowed the opportunists first to plot, and then to strike.

This leads us to an obvious question: what is the best strategy for an effective and comprehensive response? We will aim to answer that question as well, not only addressing effective forms of resistance, but offering a path forward to building a stronger democratic civil society – on foundations of truth, justice, kindness, and caring – that can resist future storms and return a modicum of sanity to our world.

What is the role of religion in human survival? Why was religion created in the first place? Is religion still relevant today, or has science made it obsolete?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 11:02:00 +0000

Not every religion, but most dominant ones — and even nonreligious philosophies that take root where religion doesn’t — tend to define, reinforce, and encourage “prosocial” behavior. There is a growing body of evidence (see references below) that demonstrate a strong correlation between group fitness (i.e. survival of the fittest group of humans) and prosocial tendencies, which have indeed seemed to help humans succeed in very harsh environments. There is also a strong argument to be found among sociologists and philosophers that societies themselves flourish when prosocial behavior is the norm.

Has science made the role of religiously based prosocial behaviors obsolete? Those who are secular humanists — or others who follow a particular philosophy that emphasizes prosocial traits — might assert that religion is not necessary anymore. And that might be quite true…for them. For others, a desire for guidance and encouragement around how to “be a good person” might nudge them towards an established religion. Or they might find this by joining a charitable organization, or volunteering in their community, and so on.

But what we do know is that there aren’t many strong cultural institutions right now that encourage prosocial behavior — and those few that remain have either been degraded by bad actors or have simply declined. Take the Boy Scouts, for example, or the Shriners. The role of many such organizations (and indeed churches) has been replaced by things like GoFundMe campaigns, social media, and online groups bound more by political ideology and cultural beliefs than religion or science.

And I’m not so sure that prosocial traits are being adequately reinforced by any of these new pathways and practices — even ones supported by scientific evidence. And, in fact, some online groups have rejected science altogether in favor of conspiracy theories, etc.

As to “why religion was created in the first place,” that is very much open to debate. My own personal take, having studied (and practiced) different religions from around the world, is that there are common features of those religions that were inspired by personal felt experience — and by shared “mystical” insights into that felt experience. Essentially, before most religions became the institutions they are today, they were grounded in what was a communally shared spiritual reality that they actually perceived themselves (i.e. they weren’t relying on someone else’s account). My book Essential Mysticism explores this aspect.

REFERENCES

https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112242
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-08941-002
Essential Mysticism - https://integrallifework.com/styled/page3/page20/index.html

A Debate Over Gender Equality in Scripture and the Early Church

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:18:00 +0000

This is a post that will be interesting to Christians curious about textual and historical evidence around women's roles and authority in early Christianity. It outlines the preponderance of evidence that supports gender equality, and the comparitive lack of evidence that enables cultural conservatives to claim that women are somehow subordinate to men in the Church. It is written specifically with a Chrisian audience in mind.

DOWNLOAD PDF OF "A Debate Over Gender Equality" HERE

How do I overcome my hatred of liberals especially leftists?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 19:55:00 +0000

Hatred is a strong word — and a pretty destructive one IMO, both in terms of personal emotions and as a collective mood. In fact I don’t think I can honestly say that I “hate” anyone, or would even want to associate with folks who “hate” something or someone…even when it is directed at those I really don’t like. How did I come to this conclusion? By observing human tendencies, behaviors and personal relationships in my own life, and by studying society and social movements throughout history. Wherever hate is involved, the outcomes are not good. So there may be folks that I am critical of, or feel embarrassed for, or disagree with, or am angry towards…but I don’t hate them. Because hate simply makes every problem worse. I agree with others who have posted that “getting to know” those we don’t agree with on a personal level — having a meal with them, befriending them, living with them, etc. — will help dissipate negative feelings; they are just people, after all, not monsters. But that is not really at the root of this question’s central challenge, IMO. Instead, I believe the focus should be on understanding what internal material — childhood traumas, for example, or personal loss and suffering, or unresolved internal conflicts, or a series of emotional injuries like betrayal or abuse, etc. — has contributed to the desire or choice to hate. In my experience, hate is really a consequence of these unaddressed internal and relational issues, and is not really about the object of hate at all. The “hated Other” has just become a scapegoat for all that internal pain, confusion and loss. So, with that in mind, I would recommend finding some resources to work through that difficult interior material (a therapist, a support group, a spiritual counsellor, etc.), while at the same time avoiding folks for whom hatred comes easily, strongly or swiftly, and instead spending more time with folks who are compassionate and kind to their core.

My 2 cents.

What single political event or policy in the past decade do you believe has had the most profound impact on society, and how has it personally shaped your views on governance and leadership?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 13:11:00 +0000

Thanks for the A2A. The second part of the question leads me to focus on what had the most profound impact on my views about governance and leadership as a U.S. citizen. So, with that in mind, the answer is likely the election of Donald Trump in 2016…and the seemingly louder echo of the same choice in 2024.

I’ve found it pretty devastating. Not that I was enthusiastic about Hilary Clinton — I saw her as the lesser of two evils at the time, and I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary — but because Trump was such a transparently and profoundly poor choice for POTUS, and yet 70+ million people voted for him in 2016…and still more in 2024. It wasn’t just mind-boggling to me, it was really, really depressing — and of course dangerously irresponsible for both the future of the U.S. and the future of the rest of the world.

I am a big believer in human potential and our capacity to rise above petty grievances, hateful anger, ignorance, and self-destructive impulses to achieve the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the greatest duration. But the 2016 and 2024 elections declared loudly that some half the U.S. population really didn’t agree with or want that. Instead, they wanted to celebrate perceived grievances, wallow in hateful anger, willfully commit to remaining ignorant, and elect a petulant man-child who could not help but do the maximum amount of harm to our country and the world.

I think Trump’s impact on society — at least as the purveyor of the MAGA movement — is to amplify the very worst, most toxic and destructive qualities in human beings. The “Trump effect” has created a permission structure for folks to lie, cheat, steal, abuse, destroy, and generally become the shittiest human beings possible. How could reason, science, truth, and the rule of law stand up to Trump’s whiny, self-victimizing celebrations of falsehood, conspiracy, and fear-mongering? In the course of tearing down the most basic ethical norms, the only thing he seems capable of lifting up is himself.

And yet so many people fell for his con-job. So yeah, that was pretty devastating. I really believed humanity had moved past such flirtations with “tearing it all down,” and the return to fascism leads me to wonder if civil society — and indeed the human species itself — will endure at all. I see it as sort of a bookend for what began in the Enlightenment…a return to the Dark Ages of wallowing in ignorance.

I do have some thoughts on why this happened…I don’t think it was “out of the blue,” and I don’t think it was the fault of Democrats, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden. I hope to circle back to add a link to that longer essay in the coming weeks.

My 2 cents.

Do the poor generally get any benefit from policy and politics or it's just the middle class and rich who get the benefits?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 13:10:00 +0000

None of the above.

Everyone in the U.S. benefits from a strong economy, it just varies how much each demographic (poor, middle class, and rich, as further divided by race, gender, age, citizenship status, etc.) benefits from massive increases in GDP. Historically, since about 1972, the rich have benefited far more than the middle class or poor, and the percentage of Americans who can be classified as “middle class” has steadily declined, with a disproportionate impact of stagnant “real wages” on their incomes since 1972 as well. The rich and the poor have had the highest variability of benefit as impacted by policy, with the rich getting exponentially richer, and the percentage in poverty in the U.S. rising or falling sharply with changes in government policies from one administration to the next. The main lessons we have learned over the past five decades are:

There is no such thing as “trickle down” economics. It is a deception.
The “Laffer curve” is laughable (i.e. it’s a gross oversimplification to serve ideological ends).
Many macroeconomic policy impacts are not fully actualized or understood until after the first four-year term of a given administration has ended.
The economy has done much, much better (for everyone) under Democratic administrations than Republican administrations (again, generally as measured during their second 4-year term).
Deregulation has consistently had negative impacts on jobs, wages, competition, consumer and worker health and safety, and the economic health of the U.S.
Implementations of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago School” policies (generally favored by conservatives in the U.S.) have been disastrous for the poor and middle class everywhere they were implemented, but have enriched wealthy owner-shareholders beyond belief.
In contrast, when John Keynes’ policies have been implemented, economies have been more consistently beneficial for all demographic groups.

My 2 cents.

Do you think Jeffrey Sachs is credible?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:07:00 +0000

Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by “credible,” and on which topics. I’ll offer an off-the-cuff take on his credibility in various areas in the list below. Overall, I think Sachs’ opinions are worth considering, if only to appreciate how one end of the ideological spectrum thinks about various issues. However, as you’ll see in this list, I think he can get some things very wrong:

Identifying macroeconomic levers that can quickly correct urgent economic problems (inflation, etc.), but without much consideration of secondary impacts: Very credible.
Solutions to complex problems (e.g. food production in Africa; climate crisis) that may likewise work, but tend to benefit corporate interests and again disregard other negative externalities: Mixed credibility.
Ability to game the “greenwashing” political game and fund his own research and advocate pro-corporate solutions with taxpayer money: Very credible.
Record of effectiveness using paternalist, technological fixes for complex problems (e.g. “Millennium Villages” approach to poverty in Africa): Not Credible.
Credibility of his positions on international politics and relations (Ukraine, Russia, China, etc.): So Not Credible as Deserving to be Totally Ignored

My 2 cents.

Will Donald Trump’s second term create historic economic inequality?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 13:05:00 +0000

Thanks for the question.

I suspect there are two possibilities:

Trump’s reckless and ill-considered promises (mass immigrant deportations, huge tariffs on foreign goods, abandonment of Ukraine, etc.), along with predictably incoherent impulses in both domestic and foreign policy, will likely tank the U.S. economy — and create a downward spiral for the global economy — that will definitely accelerate inequality, but only ***IF*** the resistance of civil servants, U.S. institutions, and the rule of law fail.
If the bulwark of sanity in these countervailing forces of civil society holds throughout the coming years, Trump’s impact on income inequality will be minor, IMO, and it will likely continue it’s ever-widening gap of the past several decades.

My 2 cents.

Do people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) feel like they don't deserve to be loved or cared for by others?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:59:00 +0000

There is often a profound misunderstanding about BPD when people assert it is the result of childhood trauma. Most folks who have studied the literature and been involved in treatment and coping strategies for BPD learn that it is actually a genetically transmitted condition — much like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. That is not to say that children of a parent with BPD will always inherit it…but it is very often the case that a child exhibiting BPD characteristics has at least one parent who also has BPD. Childhood trauma does accompany a BPD diagnosis because of that borderline parent’s behavior, to be sure — the but the abuse did not “cause” the BPD, it just created an “incompatible environment” for a child with a strong genetic disposition to become borderline.

That said, the “feeling like they don’t deserve to be loved or cared for” description falls short of what is really going on for most borderlines. In reality, the intensified emotions, dysregulation, and consequent extreme behaviors exhibited by borderlines are a difficult-to-manage or endure state of being for them — not a reaction to some sort of underlying conviction about being unlovable or unable to be cared for. For example, if someone with BPD is feeling profound shame, fear, anxiety, hopelessness, or other debilitating wave of emotion, the intensity of that experience and how it frequently manifests in behaviors may appear (from the outside) to be a willful rejection of love — or a conscious sabotaging of friendships, family relationships, etc. But that is really not at all what is going on.

Instead, the way to better understand such situations is to imagine a person who is drowning in a stormy sea. That drowning person is not “choosing” to pull a person who is trying to help them underwater, or be deliberately unskillful as they desperately try to clamber into a boat or lose their grip on a life jacket, or consciously deciding that just giving up and sinking to the bottom of the sea is a “reasonable” choice. THEY ARE DROWNING IN A RELENTLESS STORM, and amidst that struggle there may be all sorts of intense emotions and negative self-talk that accompany profound panic and despair…but it is not some sort of calculated conclusion to embrace an unloveable identity. It is more akin to a desperate struggle to survive…and sometimes becomes so overwhelming that they give up.

I hope that helps paint a different picture of the behaviors being alluded to.

My 2 cents.

Could the United States potentially become a dictatorship in the near future? What factors could lead to this and what measures can be taken to prevent it?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 12:55:00 +0000

Hmmm. Well, here are some steps that will help nudge the U.S. in that direction:

Interference with elections to force a desired outcome is a fairly common trait of what we are called “authoritarian regimes” around the world. And we see certain factions in U.S. politics attempting to do that — by refusing to certify local ballot results, or scheming to submit a list of fake electors, or propagating conspiracy theories that undermine public trust in election officials, or disenfranchising voters who are likely to vote in undesirable ways, or even encouraging a violent attack in the capital to prevent the peaceful transition of government.
Another common strategy is the installation of political judges who contradict established law and longstanding interpretations of the Constitution to facilitate a given leader’s consolidation of power.
Legislative capture is also common, where members refuse to introduce, debate, or move legislation forward at the behest of a single political leader — or will introduce cookie-cutter legislation at the state and federal levels created by lobbying organizations acting on a particular leader’s agenda.
Destroying any other checks and balances in government has also been helpful — such as dis-empowering agencies or branches of government that can countervail the will of the Executive branch…or strengthening the power of the Executive branch so it can no longer be countervailed or held accountable in any way.
Jailing (or killing) anyone who represents political opposition.

With the exception of #5, we’ve already seen these tendencies in the current GOP’s approach to executive, legislative, and grass roots activism. Project 2025 amplifies many of these efforts to a fever pitch of revolution. Mr. Trump has threatened to exact vengeance on his adversaries using the Justice Department, which very much sounds like #5.

So…if we keep going in the direction of the current MAGA movement’s deliberate efforts, it’s quite possible that we will be a democracy in name only, and like Russia or China or Iran, we will in fact become a dictatorship in just a few short years.

Stay tuned….

How is inflation hurting most for the things we can't skimp on?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 12:49:00 +0000

The real issue has to do with “real wages,” or wages adjusted for inflation. That is, how far each dollar earned can actually go (including those items we “can’t skimp on”), and how many of those dollars we’re actually earning. The chart below (from econbrowser.com) illustrates what’s been happening in that regard:

You can see that there can be high variability from year-to-year, and especially recently (since COVID). In the past couple of years, wages have been slowly beating inflation…so “real” wages have been rising. With more recent statistics, however, the softening of the job market indicates a possibly deceleration of these wage increases. So U.S. workers may have peaked.

For lower income workers, the reality is that certain types of inflation (in particular food, energy, and rents) have the potential to affect that group’s “real wages” differently than U.S. workers as a whole. Why? Because folks in the lowest 10% income bracket have 35% of their budget allocated to these items, while folks in the highest 10% income bracket have only 13% of their budget allocated to these items.

But here’s the rub: that lowest income bracket has received recent wage increase that have actually outpaced those inflation-sensitive goods and services. Which means that, at least up until very recently, they are actually still getting ahead. You can read more about this here:

https://www.employamerica.org/blog/energy-food-rent-how-will-rate-hikes-help-the-poor-face-their-rising-costs/

That said, every situation is different. For folks on fixed incomes, like a retirement pensions, disability, or social security, there has not been the same rapid offset. Even with annual inflation adjustments to social security (COLA), money simply does not go as far for these folks, and they tend to be more susceptible to “inflation shock.” Here is an article that discusses the impact of inflation on retirees:

https://crr.bc.edu/how-does-inflation-impact-near-retirees-and-retirees/

My 2 cents.

What are some lessons from the July 13th assassination attempt?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 22:47:00 +0000

A POWERFUL REMEDY

The tragedy that occurred at the July 13th Pennsylvania rally is one more heartbreaking indicator of the spiraling crisis in America's body politic. It is unfortunate evidence that our collective moral compass continues to be crippled and distorted by angry, hateful political rhetoric. By rhetoric that seeks to defame and ridicule political opponents, promote baseless conspiracy theories, and wantonly encourage political violence – all in service to purely political ends. Before any other considerations, this angry and hateful rhetoric has to stop. Yes, there are other critical challenges to consider, other legitimate sources of grievance, and other serious fractures in civil society that must be healed. But it is a hateful, misleading, and demeaning polemic – issued constantly by pundits and politicians and then amplified across our media – that has too often become the spark that ignites flames of murderous rage. Our only bulwark against this manipulation is to demand that it end right now. Across the political spectrum, and from all corners of the media, this must be our unwavering ultimatum and committed call to action. A unity of moral clarity to reject hateful lies may be our only hope to avert a rapidly worsening, maliciously perpetuating political calamity.

In modern first-world countries, how does the concentration of wealth and power lead to fascism?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 12:15:00 +0000

You could say that a large number of populist movements throughout history have arisen from very similar conditions and narratives — and that holds true of current fascist movements around the globe. These shared conditions and narratives include:

Enduring and increasing economic inequality and lack of economic mobility.
Anxiety over a perceived loss of status and influence among groups who formerly considered themselves to be among society’s more privileged.
Frustration with the status quo, and mistrust of existing methods of remedy, equalization, and empowerment (i.e. government, civic institutions, political leadership, democratic elections, etc.).
Deteriorating economic conditions — or fears about deteriorating economic conditions.
Deep mistrust — usually racist at its core — about outsiders polluting or corrupting an otherwise “pure and good” society.

What makes fascism unique in its response to these common factors is that fascist movements tend to make fundamental errors about the underlying causes of these undesirable conditions and narratives. For example, fascism tends to blame a particular group in society — such as immigrants, or a “corrupt elite,” or certain racial, religious, or political groups — for all undesirable conditions and felt realities, without establishing a factual bases for those accusations. But the false narratives are extremely effective in uniting angry adherents in an “Us vs. Them” influence campaign of nationalistic and often religious fervor. Historically this can spread like wildfire across society without mass media, but today mass media and especially social media effectively fan those flames and accelerate the spread of fascist ideology.

It should be noted that fascism has never been spontaneous — it is carefully cultivated through disinformation and emotional appeals. Yes, the conditions (the frustrations, the inequity, the dissatisfaction, the fears) are real, but they are manipulated with carefully crafted misleading narratives and false promises to empower opportunistic leaders.

There is also usually a central leadership figure — often a pedantic strongman gifted in hateful rhetoric — offering themselves as the “only solution” to society’s woes, and constantly keeping folks angry, fearful, and motivated. These fascists leaders have nearly always promoted overly simplified solutions to complex problems, and successfully vilified certain members of society as scapegoats to take the blame.

We see all of this being replicated around the world today in various movements — and in the style and rhetoric of what are most often populist far-right political leaders. In the U.S., the strongest fascist tendencies were traditionally held by white supremacist groups, but we have now seen those tendencies infect and overtake the Christian nationalism in the MAGA movement as well.

I hope this was helpful. Here are some links to explore this topic further:

https://www.theindiaforum.in/society/why-fascism-rise-world-over

https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/news/fascism-rise-where-does-it-come-and-how-stop-it-common-european-response

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/19/17847110/how-fascism-works-donald-trump-jason-stanley

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/february-web-only/what-is-christian-nationalism.html

Our False-Choice Dilemma and the Importance of Voting

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 23:18:00 +0000

It is very easy to become disenchanted with U.S. politics. Years ago, as a party delegate in the Washington State Presidential primaries when I was in my late teens, I was asked by the DNC to switch the votes I represented – some 34,000 voters at the state convention – to support the candidate the party decided was most likely to be the winner in other states. I was devastated, as that seemed like a betrayal of those voters, who had absolutely no say in the matter. But that is how things in the real world of our current two-party system are decided. For me, it was the beginning of a harsh and depressing learning curve about that system, the flaws of the electoral college, and how actual “representative” power is brokered by a relatively small number of affluent folks in the U.S. at both state and federal levels. Frankly, it seemed very corrupt, and undermined my youthful idealism for years afterward.

But I still believe voting is incredibly important, and I wanted to share why, even after observing even more disappointing conditions in the U.S. political system over the intervening decades, I still vote regularly at every local, state, and federal election – and perhaps more importantly, why I work very hard to be the most informed voter I can be in each of those elections.

First, I think it is critical to explore some of the profound weaknesses of status quo democracy in U.S. politics, just so we can be very clear about how bad things have become, and what we must do to set them aright. After all those unfortunate details, I’ll explain why I think informed voting nevertheless remains a powerful individual and collective act to support U.S. civil society, and share some of the tools I use to stay informed enough to vote most effectively.

A “top six” list of factors that have undermined the U.S. democratic system:

1. A two-party stranglehold on U.S. politics. Since the early 1800s, the U.S. democratic system has not allowed third parties to have much power in our country, with very few third-party candidates getting elected to any office over the past two centuries. At the state level in particular it is extremely difficult to even get a third-party candidate onto a ballot. And for the rare third-party candidate who does get elected to have any influence, they must align themselves with Republicans or Democrats in order to govern (i.e. get legislation passed, etc.). At the national level, third parties have routinely fractured and diluted either Democrat or Republican votes, allowing the opposing side’s candidates to win – although the ideas of third-party candidates who do well can often influence political discourse and policy on both ends of the political spectrum. (Read more about this here).

2. Massive amounts of “dark money” in political campaigns. This is a result of the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited amounts of dark money –money that cannot be traced to any single source – to be used by super PACs in political campaigns. The ruling protects such unlimited spending by corporations and wealthy donors as “free speech,” even though political contributions had been much more strictly and transparently limited before this change. As a consequence of the Citizens United ruling, a very small group of extremely wealthy special interests have disproportionately influenced outcomes in local, state, and federal elections, sometimes spending a billion or more dollars during each election cycle. (Read more about this here and here)

3. The fundamental structure of the U.S. political system. The framers of the U.S. Constitution did their best to balance many competing concerns around a fledgling democracy, but some of their decisions clearly lacked adequate foresight, resulting in barriers to an equitable democracy they could not anticipate. Take for example the allocation of only two senators to each state. This has resulted in California, with a population of 39 million people, having the same representation in the U.S. Senate as Wyoming, with a population of only 500,000 people. The electoral college system, similarly intended to allow all U.S. states to have similarly imbalanced influence in presidential elections, ends up negating a huge number of individual votes. For example, in those same two states, Wyoming has one electoral vote for every 190,000 voters, while California has one electoral vote to every 700,000 voters. Additionally, 48 states have “winner-take-all” systems for awarding their electors, rather than awarding votes proportionally to the candidates that folks in those states actually voted for. As a result, the winner of U.S. popular vote can, and has, contradicted the electoral college results in national elections – in 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016. (Read more about this here and here)

4. Distortions and deceptions across mass media and the Internet. Three things have undermined the ability of mass media to adequately and factually inform U.S. voters in recent history. First, in 1987, the FCC abolished the “Fairness Doctrine” after Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation to continue that 40-year policy. This dealt a devastating blow to balanced, less biased, more factual reporting in U.S. news, and resulted in a new breed of news broadcasting that unabashedly pandered to special interests and amplified political propaganda. Second, foreign state governments began carefully crafting misinformation and disinformation campaigns to mislead voters in the U.S. – campaigns that really caught fire with the advent of the Internet in the 1990s. Third, the success of social media platforms in the 2000s then rewarded carefully crafted misinformation and disinformation campaigns by propagating them broadly and rapidly with outrageous claims and other “click bait” that appealed to existing fears, indignation, and political biases. (Read more about this here, here, and here).

5. Fake research to support fake “truth” and science skepticism. In the early 1970s, well-funded conservative think tanks were created to influence U.S. policy, persuade elected and appointed officials, and shape voter thinking around certain topics. Probably the best examples of these efforts are pro-tobacco and anti-climate change propaganda, and the campaign to excite deeper skepticism about science itself – all of which began back in the 1970s and continue into the present day. The impact of these think tanks has been far-reaching, including everything from inviting sitting Supreme Court Justices to attend all-expenses-paid “informational retreats” where they were subjected to persuasive faulty research and overt indoctrination, to shaping the political narrative in the U.S. by routinely providing “experts” who discredit factual data to be interviewed on news media outlets. An astonishing amount of false information has now been accepted as gospel in the United States as a result of these efforts, and had exactly the desired effect on election and legislative outcomes. (Read more about this here, here, and here)

6. Deliberate and systematic sabotaging of the voting process through the courts or legislation. Such efforts include partisan redistricting/gerrymandering at the state level, disrupting new voter registration, disenfranchisement of poor voters and voters of color with new voting rules that disproportionately impact them (for example, rolling back protections of the Voting Rights Act in the South beginning in 2013 led to many new, restrictive state laws), and promoting nonfactual conspiracy theories about election fraud that actually lead – rather contrarily – to the intimidation and quitting of election officials, or to states withdrawing from systems like “ERIC” that actually reduce the chances of voter fraud. (Read more about this here, here, and here)

So how should we react to these discouraging conditions…?

Well certainly the easiest decision would be to throw up our hands, disengage from this unfortunate reality, and stop voting. According to a 2023 PEW Research study, a majority of Americans surveyed felt exhausted and angered by U.S. politics – citing many of the concerns outlined above – and this was despite some of the highest turnouts in the previous three U.S. elections. That said, the higher-than-average voter turnout meant that, across those three elections (2018, 2020, and 2022), only 37% of eligible voters voted in all three elections. This is a pretty dismal level of consistent engagement. (Read more about this here)

Thomas Jefferson’s old adage certainly holds that “the government you elect is the government you deserve,” especially if we don’t vote at all. At the same time, Jefferson also opined: “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” And I think his point is essential to a functional democracy: without being as well-informed as we can be, voters will tend to fall under the spell of “tyranny and oppressions of body and mind,” and either lose interest in their own governance…or subscribe to fear-based conspiracies about it. Jefferson sums things up this way: “Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

So that is how I arrived at my convictions to remain well-informed and engaged with the political process, even after learning about how vulnerable, threatened, or corrupted our democratic institutions have become. Thinking we accomplish anything by not voting – or by voting for a third-party candidate – is the false choice we have to resist. We know this because of past election outcomes, where third party candidates and/or lack of voter participation contributed directly to candidates being elected POTUS who did not win the popular vote – this was a determining factor in both the 2000 and 2016 elections (read about these here). Instead, we must at least attempt to counter any corrosive sabotage of our democratic systems, or things will become much worse over time. Why will they get worse? Because there are those who would prefer not to allow messy democracy to interfere with their hold on power, and – as evidenced by the “top six” issues listed above – they are relentless in their self-serving pursuit of political power.

What tools, then, are available to us to remain informed, engaged, and vigilant?

First and foremost, to appreciate how biased and/or factual information from a particular news outlet will be, please check out https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/.

Then, from my experience, some of the more trustworthy sources of news and well-vetted information include:

Worldpress.org (World Press Review — includes different perspectives from all around the globe)
News.Gallup.com (Gallup News; see also Gallup Reports)
Reuters.com (Reuters)
PewResearch.org (Pew Research)
ICIJ.org (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)
Opensecrets.org (Open Secrets)
Factcheck.org
Politifact.com (Politifact)
Snopes.com (Snopes)
Factchequeado.com (fact checking in Spanish)

In contrast, below is a list of sources I have concluded are nearly always either highly biased, counterfactual, or have a specific agenda to manipulate the truth to some nefarious end (such as to sew discord, misinform, evoke fear or irrational doubts, etc.). Due to a baked-in business model of creating sensational but shallow takes on current events in order to lure viewers, a majority of social media (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Truth Social, etc.) memes, influencers, and podcasts also tend to be much less reliable. Here, then, is a list of the most questionable sources:

RT.com (Russia Today, RT News)
SputnikNews.com and Radio Sputnik (Sputnik News, formerly RIA Novosti and Voice of Russia)
Infowars.com (InfoWars)
TheSun.co.uk (The Sun)
Voltairenet.org (Voltaire Network)
Oann.com (One American News Network)
FoxNews.com (Fox News)
Breitbart.com (Breitbart)
TheEpochTimes.com (The Epoch Times and NTD TV)
21stCenturyWire.com

And lastly, here are some personal favorites that I find very interesting (though admittedly some of these are more biased than others), and which I often rely upon to help me navigate the nuances of many compelling issues in the news:

Ground.news (Ground News captures current news stories through left, right, and center lenses of bias – and highlights "blind spots" where particular news is neglected or ignored by certain media)
Guardian.com (The Guardian)
Politico.com (Politico)
NPR.org (National Public Radio) and PBS.org (Public Broadcasting Service)
NYTimes.com (New York Times)
TheAtlantic.com (The Atlantic)
Vice.com (VICE News)

In addition, I will often do a deep dive into local media regarding a given candidate or issue for municipal and state ballots. This can be time consuming, but I usually come up with some very interesting nuggets that help me decide how to vote – and really I might spend a similar amount of time shopping for new hiking boots. And sure, I will also watch debates, listen to interviews, and – whenever possible – speak with politicians one-on-one. These efforts nearly always assist with voting decisions which would otherwise be more like throwing a dart at a dartboard than making an informed choice.

Lastly, it is critical that we surround ourselves with people who value rigorous inquiry, appreciate nuance and resist black-and-white thinking, can revise their positions based on reliable new data, aren’t prone to conspiracy thinking, and aren’t overly invested in a belief that “all truth” is relative or subjective. Without these supportive relationships, it can become increasingly difficult to maintain our convictions, or translate them into meaningful and effective action. And it really doesn’t matter whether such folks agree with our positions on various topics or not – in fact it’s healthy to engage in debates where our points of view are challenged, and where we might discover unsupportable assumptions and bias in our thinking or conclusions. I’ve always found such discussions extremely helpful in avoiding my own reflexive groupthink, and helping uncover logical fallacies I may have overlooked. But it is essential that such engagement is grounded in a shared valuation of vetted information sources, carefully evaluated evidence, and an ability to suspend aggressive certainties in favor of a more tentative humility and openness.

I hope this was helpful, and please feel free to email me your questions about any of these topics at tcollins@integrallifework.com.

What philosophy has society taken out of balance? Has this notion ever shifted from one extreme to the exact opposite extreme?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 13:26:00 +0000

This is an interesting question, and yes, there are a lot of examples of this occurring. One that springs to mind is the devolution of classical liberalism. Concepts of “liberty” and “fee markets” championed by proponents of classical liberalism in the 17th and 18th centuries were initially dependent on a strong civil society, but became more and more distorted and disconnected from that prerequisite over time. By the late 18th thorugh early 20th centuries, the initial ideas of a strong civil society with “good government” (Adam Smith) as a counterbalance to corporate malfeasance, capture of government by the wealthy, and abuse and exploitation of workers were completely abandoned by those claiming to be the disciples of classical liberalism (such as the authors of the “Austrian School”). By the time Milton Friedman and the Chicago School came into vogue, the wanton abandon for individualistic enrichment and empowerment had completely discarded any concerns at all for civil society, and actually encouraged corporate capture of government and other characteristics of crony capitalism in order to amplify self-enrichment. Randian objectivism then just added fuel to the same solipsistic fire. “Laissez faire” evolved into a sort of joke that every credible economist and social scientist understood to be a toxic delusion. This is how we arrived at what we call “neoliberalism” today.

There are many other examples of this sort of bizarre distortion of first principles in favor of grossly self-serving and destructive “opposites” — often ones that somehow retain the same name. Christianity is a potent poster child. Democracy is another. Hegelian dialectics, Existentialism, concepts of patriotism and nationalism…there seem to have been many such flip-flops over the years, where what was claimed to arise out of certain concepts, practices, and ideals ended up representing countervailing antagonism to those very same original principles. This seems to have been a very common pattern throughout human history, alas.

My 2 cents.

What does an individual owe society?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 14:18:00 +0000

A morally mature adult owes society their commitment to maintaining that society in prosocial ways. After all, we owe everything we are — absolutely everything — to the civic institutions, rule of law, cultural expectations, economic stability and opportunity, political freedoms, human rights, educational opportunities, and other supportive structures that society provides. These are what form our identity and sense of belonging, and offer us existential security and pathways to aspiration.

It is utterly absurd, immature, and profoundly selfish for anyone to assert that they “owe society nothing.” Such sentiments are caustic and destructive to the promises of freedom, agency, and happiness that developed societies aim to accomplish for all individuals. In the context of modern society, individualistic materialism has unfortunately devolved into a sort of narcissistic solipsism, and if that devolution continues it will not end well for either society or its individuals.

Now, it is also true that society can do harm — it can use institutional, economic, and cultural hierarchy to oppress and deprive some people of the very freedoms, opportunities, and agency that it secures for other groups. And this inequality is a real challenge that we must address, so that there is a realistically “level playing field” for everyone to achieve their potential. This is why I personally advocate for arrangements of political economy that diffuse and distribute both power and wealth, rather than allow them to become concentrated. We are a long way from accomplishing this in much of the world, but there is a way to achieve it. My thoughts on that in the link below.

http://www.level-7.org/

Is human nature greedy? What does this imply for the feasibility of anarchism and socialism?

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 14:26:00 +0000

According to research in evolutionary psychology, biology, sociology, and a handful of other disciplines, prosociality is a fundamental human trait that has consistently preserved human communities through many challenges throughout history by enhancing group fitness — at least there is a growing body of research pointing in this direction (see this link). As an antisocial trait, greed is generally antagonistic to group fitness even if it benefits the individual.

Unfortunately, there is a relatively recent mythology — invented without supportive evidence by Austrian School economist and Randian objectivists, among others — that humans are purely self-interested, individualistic, and materialistic critters. These sources do not substantiate these claims but insist they are self-evident primary characteristics of human behavior and decision-making.

But they are simply wrong.

It does not take much effort to confirm the primacy of prosociality in human nature. Just do an academic search on “evolution,” “prosocial behaviors” and “group fitness.”

One recent problem is that, as a society, we have been “feeding the wrong wolf.” Modern commercialistic culture has been reinforcing individualistic materialism and narcissistic selfishness — regularly rewarding these pathological, antisocial behaviors. In a sense, we have collectively been suppressing prosocial impulses in favor of antisocial ones.

If this continues, it will not end well.

However, with respect the the “feasibility of anarchism and socialism,” that’s already been established through left-anarchist examples. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities

Is there really such a thing as "The Woke Mob?"

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 14:34:00 +0000

My take on this is that there is indeed an extreme form of progressive activism that, although it doesn't represent a majority of left-leaning folks, does end up getting a lot of attention in political discourse...especially in right-leaning media.

Here is how I would define what that extreme looks like, why it isn't productive, and what a more mature and effective response looks like:

To understand what I mean by "intersectional disempowerment," this link is a fairly comprehensive discussion of the power dynamics of "intersectionality" by the Scottish government.

A Parable for Modern Politics

tcollins@integrallifework.com (T.Collins Logan) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:31:00 +0000

So a guy goes to a car dealership, and the salesman convinces him that this one car he’s interested in gets 50 mpg, does 0–60 in 4 seconds, and has a 5-year worry-free warranty. The dealership has one in a sweet metallic red, and so the guy buys it. He loves the car. Shows if off to his friends. Sometimes he just drives it around town for no other reason than because he’s enjoying driving it so much. But pretty soon he realizes that the salesman was…let’s say not quite telling the truth about the car. It only gets 15 mpg. It does 0–60 in about 7 seconds. And when the fuel pump quits after just two months…it turns out the “worry free” warranty doesn’t cover that (or much else that is likely to fail on the vehicle). The thing is, though, he still really loves the car. He’s willing to deal with all the problems because he still enjoys the pure pleasure of driving it around. Even after the dash instruments start failing one by one. Even after the timing belt breaks after 50K miles and the engine requires a total rebuild. Even after the chrome flakes off of all the detail work. Even after the squeaks all around the car get so loud that he can’t drown them out anymore with the car’s underpowered stereo system. This has been a pretty a common American experience. And the thing is, getting angry at politicians or one political party isn’t going to fix this situation - because it has nothing to do with them. The guy should have done his research. He should have listened to some friends who told him to avoid this particular brand of car. He should have been more careful and thoughtful and maybe not believed a salesman who just wanted to make a quick buck. But he didn’t. And he has no one to blame but himself. But…instead of owning up to his mistakes and admitting he was hoodwinked, the guy is furious with anyone who points out he was deceived, or corrects him for trying to blame his bad choices on “government regulation,” or tries to explain that the problems with his car really have nothing to do with unions, but instead were decisions made in corporate board rooms so that shareholders could line their pockets with just a little more profit. But the really sad thing is that, when the car finally breaks down completely after 100K miles, guess where this guy goes to buy another? The same dealership? The same salesman? A later model of the same shitty car…? No way! He’s finally “wised up” and gone to the competing dealership across the street, where the salesman welcomes him with open arms and convinces him to buy the latest model of THAT brand…which gets 50 mpg, does 0–60 in 4 seconds, and has a 5-year worry-free warranty (all of this isn’t true, just as it wasn’t the last time, but he doesn’t check the facts…). And so he buys the car - without doing the research, or listening to his friends, or questioning whether the salesman is telling the truth. And as he drives away, he shakes his fist out the car window at the dealership where he bought his first car, yelling “This is my ‘fuck you’ PROTEST VOTE!” So…really, what’s the point of trying to listen to the concerns of such a mindless, irrational consumer who is so easily and perpetually hoodwinked by lies and deceptions? I mean, really it’s on him to recognize his own mistakes, and to take responsibility for all the bad stuff that has happened to him. And until he takes responsibility and stops blaming others for his problems…well, things are not going to change. Not for him, and not for anyone else like him in America.

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Could the United States potentially become a dictatorship in the near future? What factors could lead to this and what measures can be taken to prevent it?

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What are some lessons from the July 13th assassination attempt?

In modern first-world countries, how does the concentration of wealth and power lead to fascism?

Our False-Choice Dilemma and the Importance of Voting

So how should we react to these discouraging conditions…?

What philosophy has society taken out of balance? Has this notion ever shifted from one extreme to the exact opposite extreme?

What does an individual owe society?

Is human nature greedy? What does this imply for the feasibility of anarchism and socialism?

Is there really such a thing as "The Woke Mob?"

A Parable for Modern Politics

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