Apolytonian Enlightenment Movement (AEM)

[Thud]

The Apolytonian Enlightenment Movement is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal; that each man has the right to life, liberty, and property; that the press should be free to speak whatever it wishes; that the people can elect a just government to protect these rights; and that unprovoked aggression is morally wrong and unacceptable.

Any Apolytonian that finds enlightenment may join in the hope that his ideals will one day soon be reflected in all of Apolytonian society and government.

Members:
Thud
Shiber
Dejon
AdamTG02
Jdjdjd
Arnelos
Civman2000

[AdamTG02]

Count me in. Though I am most active in the Alpha Centauri Democracy Game, I'm a citizen here as well.

If this DG reflected better the kinds of values expressed here, I wager I'd be significantly more active.

[Meshelic]

popularity contest here? just kidding. A DIA scheme to recruit members? possibly. A hidden message geared towards preventing war with France? possibly. The AEM charter seems too general thus far for my tastes...

[Thud]

lol. Of course it's general. It could be anything, any devious plan my mind can come up with. Or it could simply be a way to organize support for an ideal, a petition if you will. Or it could be another useless organization that sounds pretty cool.

But I would lean toward the diabolical rather then the meaningless.

[jdjdjd]

Yes-count me in, and the first topic should be how to win the Space Race....(thats code for how to bug Hawk HQ before next election)

[Hot Mustard]

Thanks for including my name, Thud. How did you know I'd support this?

[Arnelos]

Count me in. I am fully dedicated to these enlightened values and the republican form of government which I believe will best protect them.

[civman2000]

Count me in! As one of the cofounders of teh DIA, i have always supported giving more powers to the people and bringing enlightenment ot apolytonia!

[Meshelic]

Originally posted by Thud

But I would lean toward the diabolical rather then the meaningless.

I shall include that quote when I mention you in any thread thereafter.

[Arnelos]

Thud...

Think it's time yet for an "Apolytonian Abolitionist Society"?

Methinks we're approaching just the right spot in historical development for it...

(not that I want to fight a civil war like the United States did over the issue...)

[UnOrthOdOx]

That would be kinda cool if we COULD fight a civil war. Break the nation in half and go for it...

[Donegeal]

I remember seeing a quote from someones posts that say "Being responsible means pissing people off". This is true. Please remember this when reading this post.

This is all fine and dandy, but not pratical. As a public servant in real life I have come to the determination that the general public is stupid. Yes, thats harsh, but I would like (yes I do want to be wrong about this) someone to prove me wrong. Please.. go to a local city counsil meeting. Its ridiculous! Civilians always wanting something from the government, but refusing to pay for it in taxes. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!

The problem with "enlightenment" is that people will always do what is best for themselves (its a survival instinct) and not what is best for the community.

To gather a further knowledge of what I'm talking about, please read "Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein. NOTE THAT I SAID READ, NOT WATCH, as the only thing incommon between the book and the movie are the names of the characters.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I wouldn't say 'stupid'. I would say ignorant. Stupid implies that the general public knows everything that is going on, and still continue their idiotic ways. They do not, they can not, all they can see is what THEY need, they are therefore ignorant to the demands placed on the government. This is why some suggestions, to one who DOES know the other side of things, seem stupid. In the persons mind, however, they are perfectly logical.

[Donegeal]

Yeah, I was going to call them ignorant, but I can't spell very well and it would have been hypocritical of me to call them something I can't spell.

[GodKing]

I do land development.
Trust me. People are stupid. Ignorance can be worked on. Simply educate the people you are dealing with. Unfortunately, as I have learned the hard way, even beaurocrats are stupid. They have their little corner of reality and often refuse to look at any sort of bigger picture. No. Stupid is the right word here. We can agree to disagree. Fine. But can we agree to not even recognize that the other side has a view?

More so than being stupid, I find that people just hate change.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I wouldn't say 'stupid'. I would say ignorant. Stupid implies that the general public knows everything that is going on, and still continue their idiotic ways. .

Oh, I would say stupid. Ignorant implies lack of education, whereas stupid implies lack of common sense.

Most of Americans are stupid.

I used to be average, but thanks to our incompetent educational system all my coworkers think I'm smart!

[DAVOUT]

The proportion of stupid people in the general public has not increased over the time. What we see to-day is that, in a peaceful and comfortable Europe, the democracy let anybody express himself because there is no vital issue at stake. The considerable increase in communications of all kinds is an increase in the noise, not in the signal. The people has recourse to the non-stupid only when they need them, the day before the catastrophe, or often, unfortunately, the day after.

[Arnelos]

I can certainly agree that stupidity is certainly part of the problem... though that's largely an issue of semantics.

I've seen people so absolutely blinded by what might be uncomfortable for them in the short term that they absolutely refuse to acknowledge the train wreck coming at them should they continue on the seemingly more "comfortable" short-term path...

The primary sources of the stupidity I cite were:

1. When a train wreck is coming that people refuse to see... inevitably you have to rustle some feathers and slay a few sacred cows...
2. Once controversy is created, many people will STILL REFUSE to see the obvious danger, even though their own jobs are on the line. They'd honestly prefer to just quiet down the controversy and hope the problem just goes away...
3. When finally FORCED to come to terms with the oncoming trainwreck, many will seek the most expedient means possible of difusing the crisis, even when it means doing monstrously stupid things that anyone should be able to see will end up leaving them out of a job...
4. Finally, they lose their jobs due to public anger and wonder "what did we do wrong?!"

I've seen this recur 3 times running now in a local governance organization... it's amusing as much as it's sick.

As for people reacting to change unfavorably in the government bureaucracy... my father (who works in national security here in the U.S.) has a favorite line:

"When working for the government, if you haven't pissed off at least 1 person in the past week, you aren't doing your job right."

[Arnelos]

GETTING BACK TO THE TOPIC OF OUR ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT:

Unortho and others have proposed that Apolytonia should wholeheartedly embrace a completely jingoistic view ourselves and the world... and follow it with imperialism.

There are two different takes that an enlightenment movement can take on this development:

1. We can (as historically took place in RL) at least partially JOIN this pro-imperialism movement on the grounds that we would be "spreading the merits of civiliation" to the uncultured masses of the rest of the world. The serious flaw with this argument, however, is that we are currently inferior in technological terms and such an argument likely would have to wait until we rightly became the center of science rather than a periphery backwater of it.

2. The enlightenment movement can, as various 18th and especially 19th century liberals did in RL, OPPOSE the imperialism movement on the grounds that it is a usurpation of the rights of man, most especially the right to self-governance. This argument will undoubtedly take on additional force with the advent of "nationalism", a belief that historically was actually TIED TO LIBERALISM in the pursuit of unitary self determination for occupied or divided peoples (Belgium, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, etc, etc, etc). As such, we could forcefully argue, as such great men as William Gladstone and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman did during the late 19th Century, that imperialism is a moral wrong.

Either is a posibility and, indeed, it is even possible that the "liberal" or "enlightenment" movement will split itself in two over the issue (as indeed took place historically...).

However, it is something we could begin to discuss...

[ruby_maser]

Apolytonian Enlightment Movement?
Why not be more direct and call it the Leftist Opposition to Attacking France... then your acronym could be LOAF. Its catchy! I won't be joining, of course, but its got a nice ring.

[Thud]

See, Arnelos is an American. He's not so dumb. On the other hand, he most likely went to a private college... Which reminds me of another reason why Britons are better off than their colonial counterparts: They only have to pay something like 3000 pound tuition.

I can certainly see where you are going with this Arnelos. I myself, the Chief Peacenic, might be quoted as stating something about our Manifest Destiny.

As for your little quotation [not quote, my uneducated american friends ] I could swear I've read that in a book.

[Thud]

A quotation from the book Critique of Imperialism by Hobson is quite releveant to our situation:

The decades of Imperialism have been most prolific in wars; most of these wars have been directly motivated by aggression of white races upon "lower races," and have issued in the forcible seizure of territory... each imperialist Power keeps an increasing army available for foreign servie; rectification of frontiers, punitive expeditions, and other euphemisms for war are in incessant progress. The pax Brittainica [read: Apolytonia] always an impudent falshold, has become of recent years a grotesque monster of hypocrisy...

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Thud
See, Arnelos is an American. He's not so dumb. On the other hand, he most likely went to a private college...

"he's not so dumb"? you don't seem to smart yourself there if you are proposing that college and private college especially has anything to do with ones intelligence.

I would have to say it cuts down on provincial attitudes like yours though

[Thud]

Not so much colleges having to do with intelligence (I personally don't beleive a college education is necessary for many people), unless Arnelos majored in philosophy or something. Just doubting whether ones education would be totally complete with some american public high schools. They're okay, but they're over-stretched, over-burdened, and frankly not effective in getting through to the 'average' teenager. Still, I suppose they do get through to the 'intelligent' ones (or they really don't need to if they are already hard working and 'smart'), so your point is quite right.

Sort of irrelevant. Hmm... okay, to give it a bit of relevence I'll say this: Our culture is not yet enlightened. As if that was in doubt. But we are in the process of enlightenment (supposedly) so I suppose that counts for something.

Provincial attitude? You're talking to the founder of the AEM here, not some war-obsessed beast rolling in mud!

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Thud
Just doubting whether ones education would be totally complete with some american public high schools. They're okay, but they're over-stretched, over-burdened, and frankly not effective in getting through to the 'average' teenager.

Our culture is not yet enlightened. As if that was in doubt. But we are in the process of enlightenment (supposedly) so I suppose that counts for something.

you're right about our public school system being out of wack. Thankfully, we have people who still believe in it though; my sister is one of those underpaid teachers out there who still spends her own money to buy supplies for her class, always looking around for what tricks will get a child interested in learning. Its definitely a thankless job these days.

IMHO, culturally, our system of education is irrevocably tied to the same survival-of-the-fittest concept that underpins capitalism itself. The idea that the best and brightest will float to the surface despite their environment... though it could easily be misconstrued as an excuse to let the environments in which we teach our children deteriorate to the extent they have. Unfortunately, opportunities for advancement for underpriveleged children are not what they are for the wealthy (to say the least), and thus, we have a world of silver-spooners who take it for granted and can get away with it and latchkey kids that see no hope in life, breed nihilism and self-destruction that becomes they ghettoization of the inner city, and pass that sort of defeated-self ideology on to their children. And the gap just gets wider.

As for the process of enlightening, I hope we can get there. The devolutionary forces that have always existed in human nature are only going to grow as this world continues to globalize. Perhaps we are headed for another Dark Age.

But I'll try to remain optimistic

[DAVOUT]

All this is really pessimistic, and does not reflect the reality considered from a medium term point of view. Every year the greatest fortunes of many countries are published. I am always amazed by the rate of recent fortunes ; it is clear that over two generations old fortunes are replaced at a significant pace by recent ones. The relative advantage of wealth is neither absolute nor eternal; if it were, the wealthiest family of the 16th century would still be the wealthiest, which is not the case by far.

The solution for reducing inequalities can only be found in the education, and the efficiency of all educational systems must be dramatically improved. Who knows the effort made in the research on pedagogy ? Why are we still teaching as our ancestors were taught 100 years ago ? Fortunately the general availability of personnal computers will force everybody to create new methods which will completely change the whole picture.

[ThePlagueRat]

I will join this movement,
but will remain a spokesman of the free thought.

As the founder of our Thinkers Guild I do not deem this
this movement redundant. It's very much what we wanted to achieve... I think it's just another evolutionary step towards a liberal rule.

On the other hand:
The Thinkers Guild with it's many common principles will not join
into this entirely, because we cannot ignore our philosopher
Sun Tzu's opinions on foreign matters. The survival in an aggressive world is considered imperative by most guildsmen.
- or those left og them

[Arnelos]

Thud, et al,

FYI:

Since, for some really odd reason Thud actually made this a topic of public discussion...

I actually attended both a public high school AND a public university... Now, part of that description is deceptive, so I'll go into why...

The public schooling I received from kindergarten through high school was in the local jurisdiction with the highest medium household income in the United States, which meant I and others in my situation had vastly more resources expent on our educations than on the average public education in the U.S. More importantly, however, our jurisdiction had a gifted students program that started partially segregating students based upon test scores starting at age 8 and nearly completely segregating them (except for things like physical education) by age 13-14. The styles of teaching utilized on the two segregated groups are amazingly different.

Many jurisdictions throughout the country do this and spend vastly more funds on and devote far more teaching resources to students segregated out of the normal classes. It's something of a relic of 1940's and 1950's obsession in the United States for meritocratic schemes for identifying potential scientists and engineers for use in the space race and the Cold War. Personally, I don't even doubt that if the vast majority of students in the United States were given the same teaching and financial resources as were available to people in my situation, they would do just as well (and probably better, since they wouldn't be burdened with the sense of entitlement that tends to make people in my situation lazy and complacent...).

As for my public university education, I sought a degree in comparative politics and sociology as an undergrad (I had originally been seeking a degree in ethical/moral philosophy ). I was extremely fortunate, however, to be enrolled in the honors program and thus had contacts I could (and did) use to gain exposure to research in both my field and other fields (notably a great U.S. Dept. of Education study on university instruction).

In my opinion (and that of many) there is no substantive difference between a public university and a private university in the United States when it comes to your undergraduate education. Almost no employer cares where you get your bachelor's degree (including universities hiring professors), they care where you went for your advanced degrees. Based upon that, I chose to attend a public university, because I didn't think a private university was worth $30,000 - $40,000 a year when I could go to a public school for only ~ $10,000 a year to receive an undergraduate education of comprable quality.

AS FOR THE SECONDARY VS POST-SECONDARY U.S. EDUCATION:

The United States is remarkable for having one of the worst secondary (high school) education systems in the entire developed world, yet by far the highest quality post-secondary (university) education system in the world. This reality bears itself out in that now the majority of American college students spend their first 1-2 years in "remedial instruction" - studying things they should have been taught in high school... the problem is not, I believe, that the students are "stupid", it's that they're actually smart and the school systems aren't challenging them to the level of their capability...

---------------------

Oh, and Thud, my best friend from elementary school to present went to the University of Cambridge, St. John's College to study History - so, courtesy of him, I now know a thing or two about the British system

[Aggie]

Arnelos I agree largely with what you say. But in my experience, though employers do care where you went for your advanced degree, the breakdown isn't private vs public. There simply are some schools that have excellent graduate opportunities and some which are not so well respected. Though the breakdown seems to be based on faculty name recognition rather than much else and access to resources. Lets face it in an academic world you have to get funding for your projects to be successful. My experience is in the science/engineering area, but I do have excellent knowledge of this in the medical and law area too and it seems to apply, so we might just have experience in different fields.
Aggie

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by Aggie
My experience is in the science/engineering area, but I do have excellent knowledge of this in the medical and law area too and it seems to apply
Aggie

Texas A & M doesn't graduate dumbies, do they...