From: Dave Long (dl@silcom.com)
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 10:13:35 PDT
> ... that philosophy ... offers no guidance on how to
> reconcile "party on" with "being excellent." The former tends towards
> selfish-indulgence, and the latter to self-denial.
Hmmm. So "party on" maps to fortitude (keep on keepin' on), and
"being excellent" maps to temperance? Bill and Ted would then be
(according to plato, stoics, and the catholic church, any earlier
references?) only two virtues short of the full cardinal: prudence
(are your inputs valid?) and justice (are your outputs correct?).
I'm not sure those phrases imply the same things to me as they do
to you. "Party on" can't be self-indulgence, as it isn't possible
to party alone. It's an inclusive phrase, near to the golden rule:
a party is best enjoyed when the other guests are all enjoying it,
as in conviviality. "Being excellent" I'll admit admits a wider
range of interpretations, but if you take it to be an exhortation
to only play positive sum games (as opposed to avoiding negative
sum games, which is merely "good"), then it doesn't involve much
in the way of denial[0].
getting back to justice:
> The conclusion I drew was that "Love your neighbor as yourself" actually
> -did- resolve the paradox, by stating that way to benefit yourself was to
> benefit others. Thus proving Jesus superior to Bill & Ted. :=)
Jesus et. al. Between the christian, the muslim, the hindu, the
buddhist, and the confucian, we can find consensus on the golden
rule. It breaks down where people disagree over utility weights
(and not in all cases, only the extreme ones), but is preferable
to "treat your neighbor as impulse dictates", and also to "treat
your neighbor as your other neighbor wishes".
As Mr. Baker mentioned[1], using the golden rule in marriage may
look like a prisoner's dilemma. I think the key as you mentioned
is that given committed love, the individual payoffs disappear to
be replaced by their sums, resulting in mere monolemma.
-Dave
virtute convivamus?
[0] I still need to check the primaries, but here's a stupid idea
for the day: Nietzsche and Gandhi both said similar things, but
in a skew-symmetric way.
G: Be just (for I assume you will be strong)
N: Be strong (for I assume you will be just)
[1] <http://www.xent.com/sept00/0125.html>
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