Christoicism - What is Engaged Philosophy and Why Should I Care?

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It's nice and all, to sit here and talk about philosophy; but most people don't give a shit.   And that's a damn shame.   There are three reasons for this:

1) Religion: Religion is a philosophy that includes spiritual beliefs and a deeply held personal shared cosmology.   (Leaving aside parody or joke religions like my favorite Pastafarianism)  Religion requires faith, and faith demands a significant percentage of a person's executive function.   That's not to say that they don't exist, it's just harder.   The problem with this is that a functional democracy that isnt a theology requires a secular society.   Religion without spirituality is a hollow shell; and spirituality is inherently subjective.   When you imposeit on someone else at the state level you cheapen faith and you cheapen the state.  I am not the only one to think this.  I have plenty of blog topics on the subject.  

2) Pure Philosophy: These are philosophies that answer existential questions about reality.  They are the definition of the Ivory Tower.  These are technically  "logic, metaphicsm epistomology and meta ethics" but arguably also "applied philosophies" that are super reliant on those otherwise good mechanisms which includes Analytic Philosophy, Ancient Greek Philosophy (Plato or Socrates), or Rationalism.   I'm also going to include any applied philosophy or religion that gets so caught up in theory here that it becomes meaningless in the real world.  "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"  "How many steps can I walk on the Sabbath without breaking it?", Creationism vs Rationalism (Fuck your Darwinism science if your theory comes in I'm out of a job!), The World Is the Way it is Because Aristotle Said So Because Some Ancient Bishop Is Respected and the Church Embrace that, or in LDS connotation-Pepsi has Caffine so Ban all Vending Machines from Selling it!  Either way, its so frufru and out there that the average Joe Lunchbox who is barely making ends meet could fucking care less.

3) Applied Philosophy: If you think of or have heard of a phlosophy this covers everything else, but it focuses on the pragmatic.  But in my experience that pragmatism can get a little TOO pragmatic and just as lost in the weeds the other direction.   Examples include: A company doing something horrific for short term profit at the expense of its long term brand, Dismissing a moral argument because something is legal (Slavery was legal, concentration camps were legal, gamified abusive social media for minors is legal, "We had to destroy the village to save the village!" etc.   At some point the practical application of the philosophy just breaks down and the so called practical principals are sacrifice for convenience, the greater good etc.  Its a mess.

I am going to say something shocking.  The religious fundamentalists who say that Secular Socity is not founded on common values are right; after a fashion.  The Founding Fathers were fans of an participants of the Enlightment, so each of them had a philosophy in mind when they helped to create the 1789 Constitution.  Other democracies since have State values such as "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) but as beautiful as those are they are not a robust philosophy.   Europe values Dignity, which is not at all manifest in the United States legal theory at all; and the UN Declaration of Human Rights has served as a guiding psuedo philosophy for the foundations and principals of most modern nations states since its application.

A Declaration of Human Rights is not a philosophy.  If your brain is the hardware, then what you do, remember and consider is the software as are skills etc.   A Philosophy is an Operating System for your moral compss if you have one.  The closest thing the United States has is the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and to a lesser extent for serious political junkies the Federalist Papers. These are also not philosophies.

They leave the Republic to vulnerability of attack from Demagauges and Moral Crusaders used by Vile Men.   A Secular Society cannot have a religious underpinning but unless the Philosophy is sufficiently flexible to allow any member of a democracy to see it as viable; there isnt much difference between imposing a religion and imposing philosophy except in one critical area.  History has now sufficiently shown the cost; the United States Empire and the corruption and rot and planetary damage it has caused from Technofascism and willful neglect of the damages caused hy slavery, capitalism and Climate Change.  

So What Is An "Engaged Philosophy?"

"Both is Good" is indeed right.  An Applied Philosophy without the Pure Philosophy underpinning becomes "Destroy the Village to Save the Village" and a Pure Philosophy without Applied Philosophy becomes "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin."   Apotelic Kindness on the other hand, ensures that your philosophy is only as good as it is MEANINGFULLY APPLIED to an iterative recursive adjustable scale.   It must adapt to the real world but constantly apply the questions that it asks about the world and do its best in a meaningful scale.

But its more than that.  This ensures that a state can use the philopophy as a foundation for the values of a state; whether a busy mother with 10 children who knows a few axioms or a scholar who wishes to dive into the guts.  The shared language must be applicable to all.  It doesnt have to be Christoicism, but *Any Engaged Philosophy* is better than NO philosophy at all.   Once you embed the theory with applied mechanisms to ensure that it can work at a large and small scale it becomes useful as a blueprint for the state or anyone else.

Let me repeat that with different words because it is important.  The 1789 Constitution is called the blueprint of the country because it is not just an outline of the Basic Law of the United States,    The power of the story is titanic; I spent years helping the Mythic Imagination Institute because I believed in their msision and still do, but a story is only as strong as its author; and with multiple authors you need a FRAMEWORK to keep the plot and theme.

Too much metaphore?  

Then let me boil it down.  The Constitution isn't working.  The philosphies; economic and otherwise of the20th and 19th centuries aren't working.  EVERY single one of them isn't.  So I'm creating something that is, and the single biggest factor that all of them have in common as a failing point is mentioned at the top of the article.  Christocism itself would say that if something better comes along adopt it....

But I've been waiting a long damn time....so I'm doing what I can.  You want answers? You want specifics? I'll give them too you but in chunks.  There is a technical writing technique called "Information Mapping" that involves breaking things down which is what I'm doing here.  The key point isnt to explain everything that Christocism does, but show you what an ENGAGED philosophy is and isn't.

Until next time.