Every thought is a suggestion that affects the way we think, act and react in the future. Similar to a snippet of code added to computer software, it affects the reality we create. Like computer code, thoughts can be malicious or beneficial, which is why we need to use critical thinking to evaluate the consequences of ideas that are capable of influencing our thinking in large ways.
The anonymous story below is one of many being shared around the Internet. The purpose of such “arguments” is to shape public opinion and reaction. This one attacks the concept of “socialism”, which is conveniently left undefined. On the surface, it looks like a jewel of clarity, a profound indictment of socialism, but, is it? What is socialism? What is the intent of the author? Where is the author coming from? Did the author write this piece of his or her own free will? Was she or he paid to write it? If he or she was paid to write it, by whom were they paid and what is that person or organization’s purpose in manipulating public opinion?
None of the possibilities above can be explored or substantiated without the person, or persons, responsible for this piece stepping forward. Although we’re unable analyze the underlying purpose or intent behind this article without input from the person, or persons, who wrote it, we can analyze the content of the argument itself and see that human behavior is not as simple and clear cut as this story makes it seem.
What is socialism? What is capitalism? What is communism? Are they mutually exclusive? Is it realistic, or even possible, for us to lump together complex elements of human behavior and then define them meaningfully with single words or slogans? Should we let other people think for us or should we learn to think for ourselves? Should we let other people control our behavior or should we learn to control our own? What’s going to work best for ALL of us, as individuals and societies? Should external rewards, like the promise of money, power, privilege and grades, be all we use as motivation to develop skills and excel at what we do? What about harnessing the power of natural passion that is released when we strive to be who we love to be and do what we love to do? Why isn’t society and its institutions helping us do that? What about partnership versus competition? What about oneness AND separation versus a belief in separation only? What about common goals AND individual goals versus individual goals only?
There are many questions to ask in response to this article because ALL things are interconnected, both one and separate. Join the discussion and add your questions and comments. Don’t take one example of human behavior and generalize it out to blanket every aspect of human behavior. We are much more than we think and we need to understand that.
“Read and absorb…. it says a lot and it tells you about our future if we stay on this same path (Author Unknown).
An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said ok, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.
But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little.. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F.
The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great; but when government takes all the reward away; no one will try or want to succeed.
Could not be any simpler than that…”
I would expect nothing else from this experiment. What the “professor” fails to take into account is the nature of education in our society. It’s based on a competitive model that pits us against one another in a survival-of-the-fittest, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed framework of external ideals. High grades indicate great promise, which is expected to translate into greater opportunity and higher pay. For many people, this narrow framework of ideals is incompatible. Instead of being motivated by the promise of money, power and privilege, many of us are motivated more by the promise of love, truth and joy in our lives. Being who we love to be and doing what we love to do is more important to us than being rich.
As babies, we live by value fulfillment and practice idealism. When we think of or see something we like, we want to do it too. When someone smiles at us, we smile back. If it feels good, we smile a lot. When we see people walk and talk, we want to walk and talj too. When we like something, or think it’s important, we work hard to make it a reality. When this natural process of development is replaced by something more restrictive, we suffer from the loss.
Our current education system literally treats us like dirt, gravel to be more precise, because it sifts us through a series of mesh screens to grade us. It fails to give us credit for having anything of value to contribute to society unless we fit nicely into predefined molds of cultural expectation. As individuals, we all have our own likes and dislikes. You want results – encourage us to be who we love to be and do what we love to do in the service of all! Let imagination, stimlated by natural passion, playfulness and collaboration, fuel our development. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong, good or bad, guilt or punishment – there just IS; there’s what works for us and what doesn’t, what makes us happy and what doesn’t. This simple understanding is all we need to create a loving, truthful and joyful reality, individually and collectively. In a value fulfillment world, the only person we compare ourselves to or compete against is ourselves.
Socialism in a value-fulfillment world does not kill individual initiative, it supports it by satisfying basic needs like water, food and shelter, which is the reason we create societies in the first place. Without realizing it, we brought the jungle with us into society. If it’s no longer needed, why not let it go?
Pete – http://realtalkworld.com
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We create our own reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves, and the world around us.
If we do not CONSCIOUSLY choose our own beliefs, we UNCONSCIOUSLY absorb them from our surroundings.
If we are accountable (responsible) for our actions, how can we afford NOT to question our beliefs?
How you define yourself, and the world around you, forms your intent, which, in turn, forms your reality. – Seth
The more we love ourselves, the better we treat ourselves, and the world!
Change the world and yourself for the better with Philosophy On T-Shirts! (POTS)
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Greetings Pete, this is Robert. I finally got my password. It’s really strange but it worked. I hope I can change it. About the poetry, I would like to get back to doing more of it. Then maybe those Angels will hang around more. But blogging makes poetry hard to get around to.
About the story from Texas Tech. This professor doesn’t even seem to know what socialism is. Perhaps this professor was affected by the conservatism of Texas culture and bought into the misconception perpetuated by conservatives. Directly from my dictionary, socialism is “a theory or system of social organization in which the means of production and distribution of goods are owned and controlled collectively or by the government.” People who self-identify as socialists tend to agree only with the collective ownership aspect, although I think government ownership is also socialism.
Socialism never says that everyone has the same outcome. The closest any system comes to that is communism, which is not the same as socialism. However, conservatives have long equated socialism with communism, making the general public make this connection, for the most part, and thus making socialism a dirty word to most Americans.
Actually, in my view, we are all socialists to some degree. Any public institution, at the local, state of federal level, is socialist. So are employee owned businesses, such as Winco Foods. Furthermore, companies such as Microsoft whch give stocks to their employees, might also be considered socialist. The state of Alaska, which distributes oil money to all Alaska residents, ironically, is socialist, despite being one of the most right-wing states. Public employees and employees of companies such as Winco and Microsoft certainly recieve different salaries, hopefully according to objective assessments of the contribution of each employee. Thus, neither should students receive the same outcome. I know of no nation in which students all receive the same grade. In fact, school is very competitive in mainland China. Moreover, students are not employees, so the analogy of a class to a socialist society is inaccurate. I would say the closest link I can think of relating a classroom setting to socialism would be one in which all members of the class take responsibility for the overall performance of the class. The better students still receive better grades, but would be expected to help the struggling students to understand more. This is a form of cooperative education. I remember a similar program going on at UC Riverside, when I was taking undergraduate classes there. but in this case, we had cooperative group projects which small groups of students worked on together. It was an interesting experience. I remember each group was graded by other class members. I think members within the group also graded each other, but I don’t remember that clearly. But these steps are examples of group ownership of the class, which are a fform of socialism.
p.s. I started a thread with a link to the economics article on the Thom Hartmann site, and mentioned this site. I hope you don’t mind. Perhaps some of those people will check out this site.
Hi Robert!
Thanks for mentioning Real Talk World on Thom Hartmann’s site. I’ll write on his site when I’m set up for business on my site. Great response to the Experiement in Socialism? article.
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