Hey, Pelican,

Yep. I'm with you 100% there in that last post. The funny thing is that we seem to have an in-built need to square other people away in neatly labelled little boxes. It speaks to our sense of order in the world, or something, I guess.

I'd always thought that claiming humanism was to make a statement fairly plainly that one didn't see the world as one giant filing cabinet. Until I discovered that on OLO the word does not exist alone and must always stand with the qualifier 'secular'...which ensures one is neatly inserted in a box again.

It seem the philosophy "If yer not with 'em yer agin 'em" rules, which rather socks humanism in the eye, doesn't it?

Bronwyn “I’m talking worldwide sustainability. In a globalised world where all transactions are interconnected, it's difficult for a nation to achieve sustainability in isolation. Solutions need to be global in nature though effected locally of course.”

That does not even attempt to address the caveat I posed to
“define what is sustainable”,
it merely attempts to lose it in gobble-de-gook and weasel words.

Next para. You cannot consider the question of resource management without considering population, since it is the population which quantifies the rate of depletion of the resources being managed.

“Wealth disparity” is what inspires some to hang on to what they got and others to aspire to having more of what they see others have.

Do away with wealth disparity and much of the populaton will have nothing to aspire to.

As for “own personal gain” it is like this, the best incentive is personal gain. No point in trying to inspire people with the opportunity to remain the same.

Cromwell had his levellers and Cromwell was postumously beheaded, there is no credibility in "social levelling"

Further, it is immoral to demand the inventor or innovator of a product or process should not be rewarded for his innovation or invention.
Such a strategy will lead to stagnation, where we all sit in the same fetid filth and share the same opportunity for premature death from the diseases which an “innovative reward” system would have cured.

We have seen the results of what you are promoting Bronwyn, the millions dead under Lenin and Stalin. It is all theoretic garbage and has failed generations of Russians and eastern European s.

The truth is, what you promote had to build a wall to keep people from escaping to what you are criticizing and what you are criticizing has people queueing up to join from places which are still trying your way.

You need to go back and study more before you hang your reputation on promoting the defunct ideas of 150 years ago.

Col Rouge

"That does not even attempt to address the caveat I posed to “define what is sustainable”, it merely attempts to lose it in gobble-de-gook and weasel words."

Point taken! I was trying as briefly as possible, and I admit not very convincingly, to address your question about whether it was national or worldwide sustainability I was talking about.

As for defining sustainability, I see that as fairly self-explanatory. And again I didn't really want to sidetrack too much from the debate at hand.

"You cannot consider the question of resource management without considering population, since it is the population which quantifies the rate of depletion of the resources being managed."

I agree, and if you re-read you'll see I clearly stated that population is "a very significant contributor".

"As for “own personal gain” it is like this, the best incentive is personal gain. No point in trying to inspire people with the opportunity to remain the same."

You missed my point here completely. I wasn't denouncing the concept of "personal gain". I agree, it's a motivation that can inspire us all to greater achievement. It can also lead to negatives which I think has to be acknowledged though I won't dwell on that here.

The point I was trying to make is that women are poised to be in a position to help create a fairer and more sustainable world, but that that won't happen if "we" (meaning women) become entirely focused on fighting for "our own personal gain" at the exclusion of working towards achieving broader changes for society as a whole. There was no need to jump on your bandwagon and start waving the big bogey of totalitarianism around wildly. I'm not some red under the bed.

I'm not trying to be smart, Col, but you really need to read my words more carefully before you jump in so strongly.

Whitty,

1) What Vanilla said.

2) If you think I was trying to put words in your mouth then I sincerely apologise. I hate it when people do that to me so I can understand your frustration.

As an explanation - not a defense: You have engaged with some pretty good arguments and I felt that your comment to me was just a rather jejeune brush-off and not worthy of your usual style. I supplied the other one in an effort to point that out and had thought by the way I framed it that I had made that point clear. Obviously I hadn't.

This may now seem to you to be labouring a point but: certain misapprehensions eventually become accepted and pass down into urban legend like Marie-Antoinette supposedly saying the cake thing; the bra-burning episode supposedly having been initiated by feminists; or even everyone from Rousseau to a down-home American lawyer having said the famous "I defend to the death your right to say it" quote.

The link between white feathering and feminism seemed (on these threads at least) like it was going the same way and I was trying, in my clumsy way, to nip that one in the bud. Thats all. No personal animosity. No frothing at the mouth.

Really sorry if I got up your nose.
p.s.
I'm not being patronsing but am really passing on a tip which I find helpful: I've often gone to the "user" file to look back over some posters' history. It helps me see where they're coming from a little better. If you did that on mine you'd probably find I often rabbit on about people applying generalisations e.g. "You people all think..." or "You always say..." etc. I just think there are hundreds of shades of grey in between black and white, o.k.?

Vanilla said:

"but I genuinely hope that the men on this forum learn to reassert their power and feel free to live however the hell they like."

*Looks at Calendar*.. nope..it's not April 1st....

hmmmm

How blessed we are to have a potential foundation for society where the complementary roles are seen in sacrificial and loving terms, rather than 'power'

"Husbands love your wives as Christ love the Church, and gave himself up for her"

Bronwyn “it's a motivation that can inspire us all to greater achievement. It can also lead to negatives which I think has to be acknowledged though I won't dwell on that here.”

You cannot separate the benefits from the supposed drawbacks of any system. As you know, everything we do comes at a price. The price for doing one thing may be it denies us the time to do something else. Same too with a system which respects peoples right to self determination, it relies greater on the achiever to act responsibly and philanthropically. Some will and some won’t but because some don’t does not justify denying self-determination to all.

Where government controls all and no one is rewarded for their personal effort, from which all may benefit, it stifles the innovation and inventive spirit which produced, among other things, the domestic appliances which we take for granted, including the internet. Product development stagnates because the government is not stimulated by competition to improve the product offering or research new products

Life itself, devoid of personal discretion, is reduced to mere existence

“if "we" (meaning women) become entirely focused on fighting for "our own personal gain"”

In the libertarian-capitalist model, because consumers are free to choose for themselves, a collective benefit is often the outcome of personal gain.

The personal gain from a successful business is only possible when it satisfies consumer expectations.

I do not distinguish between genders. I am an ardent supporter of Margaret Thatcher not because she was female but because she was an outstanding individual who, along with Ronald Reagan, another exemplary individual, prevailed over sowing the seeds to the downfall of one of the most evil social systems in the history of the world.

Apart from that, Reagan and Thatcher both believed, like me, that small government is a better solution than big government.

“There was no need to jump on your bandwagon and start waving the big bogey of totalitarianism around wildly.”

If it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, i assume it is open season and shoot at it.