[Torus34]

I've toyed with the idea of having the topic line on my marker. The trouble with that is I also like, 'I'm not so sure about that these days ... .' Both describe the place in which I find myself more and more often in political/sociological/economic discourses.

They sum up, I think, the problem which obtains when one has struggled to break free of the ideological straitjackets now apparently de rigueur in American political discussions. And it's a problem. Make no bones about it. As soon as I attempted to renounce membership in this or that labeled group I came face to face with the question, 'Well, wiseacre*, through what frame will you view the human condition?'

Oops! I thought I was doing away with frames [Ed. 'Frames, straitjackets ... make up your mind,'] only to realize that I had to start somewhere. This proved to be the single step of a long journey.

So what was the broadest possible classification? Look at things in terms of the individual Everyman? Or look at things in terms of Everyman as a society? As I thought about that dichotomy I realized that the two views were, in fact, stereoscopic. Between them they provided a three-dimensional picture of the human condition.

So that's how I go about thinking of any given issue of the day. How does it affect the average man and how does it affect the society in which he/she's embedded?

And where do I come down on this or that issue?

Well, it depends ...

* Moderator: Yes, I fully intend to abide by the Terms and Conditions! I didn't use 'XXXXX' or 'XXXXXXXX' or even 'XXXXXX-XXXX'!

[magnocrat]

Its good to shake off the labels, often they don't mean much an they mean different things to different people. Human condition is a good point to view changes. In fact Sam Harris has suggested well- being as a moral yardstick in his book The Moral Landscape.
You have to decide where to focus your attention; your own nation or the world population. The scales weigh heavily infavour of the whole human world perhaps including some animals.
Askyourself in veiw of our dire situation on the earth should we be sending men to Mars?
More tricky still should we be performing difficult heart surgery when millions have no basic hygiene?