We have observed that the reasonable (not immoderate) exercise of the many societally recognized virtues, such as empathy, honesty, truth, accuracy, loyalty, equality, and sensitivity, are universally and eternally laudable and beneficial to society. By contrast, we have learned, by empirical experience that certain generally accepted virtues in the extreme, or practiced in discrete contexts can have negative, and even hazardous effects.
For example, the commendable practice of loyalty, to one’s family, friends, and country provides a needed and comforting sense of belonging and identity; the latter virtue an existential ingredient in Man’s empirical development of self-image and personal place. Yet, even though a reasonable degree of patriotic and familial loyalty is fully compatible with the (unrelated) virtue of compassion for others, many (MAGA) citizens see immigration as a wrongful “pollution” of the American population. These selfish individuals who have transmogrified their purported (virtue of) loyalty to the Nation to the degree of xenophobic bias, have overtly opposed the Nation’s traditionally empathic admission of needy immigrant families, and so have perverted the otherwise, admirable virtue of loyalty.
Contemporary, industrialized society understandably values the pragmatic virtue of efficiency, indisputably, significant in the commercial context of the profitable, mass production of goods and services. Nevertheless, the misapplication of such virtue has resulted in a grave and observable detriment, to the dynamic functioning of integrated society, on a universal, and permanent basis.
We take no pleasure in the empirical confirmation of our consistently expressed fear of the application of the otherwise, commendable, and pragmatic virtue of efficiency, being blindly and irresponsibly applied in the context of the humanistic features of society predictably, resulting in irretrievable, harm. As stated in a number of our past essays, the ill-considered application of the “virtue” of convenience and efficiency, in the singular societal context of human behavior, most notably, inter-personal interaction, was inarguably, destined to be antithetical to its requisite dynamics and healthy existence.
Human beings have chosen to live in society due to their innate need for personal contact and interaction with other humans. Such personal interaction is the foundational, experiential basis for the existence of independent, self-awareness and personal identity, the latter, developed by the empirical interactive responses of other humans. In addition, the elements mandatorily comprising personal security and vital societal cohesion are positively confirmed and buttressed by personalized communicative contact. In past writings, we have expressed our deep concern that the substitution of the comforting, mutual recognition of identity, by the parties to a conversation (in person or by telephone) and its inherent facility of spontaneity of relevant response, by the impersonal and “highly efficient” smartphone, would be individually and societally disastrous.
As feared, the World has rapidly become defined and utterly subsumed by the digital world. Mental health, especially of the young, has been negatively affected in a world, dominated by singular handheld screens; such robotic tragedy, further exacerbated by the prophylactic necessity to eschew personal contact during the pandemic. It is our disturbing observation that children seem to have become a different species, adept at navigating the digital world, but often, as reported, depressed and inept at impulse control. In our view, the ubiquitous and thoughtless homage to the “virtue” of facile efficiency has permanently altered society for the worse.
The ages’ societally lauded, virtue of personal ambition, or aspiration for “success,” may be considered a true virtue, perhaps, even a pragmatic necessity, in our enterprising Capitalistic economy. However, the context of such useful virtue, observed in the persona of many individuals, has often demonstrated perverted extremes and neurotic aspirational misconception. Such perversion has driven such nuanced individuals to an insatiable lust for the proverbial, “gold medal” in their misguided aspiration to be the “winner” in a subjectively proclaimed competition, for the amassment of (excessive and, pragmatically speaking, useless) wealth. No one can, as a practical matter, live better, or happier on two billion than on one billion, or, for that matter on ten million, dollars. Neurotic enslavement to a personal financial scoreboard for such insatiably, misguided individuals is their skewed personal perception of the measure of “virtue” operative in their nuanced definitional success.
In our writings, we have, principally and consistently, defined healthy and rationally determined “success,” rather, as the realistic and joyful personal perception, later in life, of self-fulfillment; the latter an intrinsic, and eternal, contextually applicable, “virtue.”
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