Skip to main content

A New Virtue

There is a pseudo-virtue that I cannot help but see as necessary to make it through a successful workday. I don’t know what to call it except a collective mindset. Many tasks at any job can be done by one person but they are often time consuming and messy. If another person steps in the job runs smoother; we know this ad idiom, "two heads are better than one."

The ethic is not complicated but it contradicts a very American sentiment, individualism. Where I work, if one person fails to do something, everyone fails. If one person succeeds, likewise, everyone succeeds. Though not commonly perceived, such is life outside of work.

Independent of whether the society adapts the collective mindset, any single individual can have one making society a better place. I cannot consider this pseudo-ethic as a sane dictum of governance, I am a libertarian after all; though it would undoubtedly be pleasantly enculturated if each person took it upon him or herself to look after each other.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Chris! How are you. I've actually forgotten what line of work you're now in. But don't get too carried away with this collective mentality. I don't want you to move to Japan to work in human resources.
January 7, 2008 at 12:49 AM
Anonymous said…
Of course the government isn't supposed to have anything to do with collective mentality, that's the church's responsiblity. Any sort of benificial collectivism which people develop is necessarily voluntary and governments don't do voluntary.
January 8, 2008 at 8:51 PM
Chris Hoops said…
Hence: "I cannot consider this pseudo-ethic as a sane dictum of governance"
thanks for reading
January 9, 2008 at 3:24 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog


Café Finesse

A "gentleman's drink," "hood," whatever you want to call it, is a meticulous matrimony of espresso and steamed milk, knit together to become what is commonly known as a cappuccino. The cappuccino stands as one of the most misunderstood experiences available almost nowhere but offered everywhere. I cannot count the times I have ordered a cappuccino only to receive a mound of foam with abandoned espresso lamenting its extraction on the bottom. It is the wet kitten of coffee. The cappuccino is more than just espresso and milk. It is not only espresso and foam either. The ceremonial blending of the elements is as tender and sensitive and romantic as a first kiss. The cappuccino is not a coffee drink, it is the coffee drink. It is not espresso but a perfection of it. Ordering a cappuccino "to go," as they say expecting a paper cup, is somewhat of a culinary indiscretion, but carelessly serving steamed milk, foam and espresso is a barefaced disregard fo...
1 comment
Read more

On Immunization and Freedom

Health and freedom seem to be the ultimate end of any function of the government. Without life and good health, how can we be free, seek happiness or raise a family. Thus, the ultimate and deepest implications of immunization are societal as well as scientific. Small Pocks, HPV, German Measles, all take their toll on society because they are so contagious; their significant danger is the purpose for immunization and litigating a requirement for them may be a safe and easy way to end the curse of many preventable diseases. The controversy does not center on whether they work or not. Vaccination works. The odd increase in disabilities and ailments over the last 100 years is what causes so much tumult, in the public square, at the mention of vaccines. ADD, auto-immune, and neurological disorders have been on a steady rise as the commonplace usage of vaccines have risen. Many nations who do not have common vaccines have other problems, however; they deal with measles and whooping ...
3 comments
Read more

My Heart Bleeds

I am not a scientist or philosopher. I have not exhausted the depths of scientific discovery or waded into the philosophical postulations of all the “why”s and “how”s of existence and nature and purpose. Nor am I an artist –not in any traditional sense– but I do have a sense of what is communicated in arte. Even bad arta; an expression of one’s self, being, perception, and experience. One of my favorite artists is Bob Dylan. He confuses me and I have discovered why confusion is admirable. He doesn't communicate an answer or direct interpretation of life; but rather, the confusion we all feel about war and love, beauty and pain. Dylan, in many ways, combined a strange string of sounds and words that give a substantive realization to the pain that nurtures the human heart. Beauty is not found in an evasion of life, but rather an embrace of it. Recently, I had been given a bit more struggle than I cared to accept; but, as I was denied any control over my life and accepted th...
4 comments
Read more