YouLoveMe

Acknowledge Your Own Contradictions (Synthesis) Ambivalence kills--but sometimes it should, You are now religiously conflicted, Perhaps you should stay so, that might be good, Perhaps you should stay self-contradicted. My advice to you now entails a risk, Unknotting yourself creates real danger, So prepare yourself for my stop and frisk, Pretend it comes from a helpful stranger. Here it is: In religion, you are torn, Part of you wants stardom, as in biz eth, Part of you wants to walk a path unworn, Believes that stardom is ethical death. To find roots, you need to make up your mind, If you don't, your home you will never find.

Religion is the Most Suffocating Domain (Antithesis) Religion puts us in a cosmic box, No one is really good in each domain, Muhammad--an eth, biz, pol, and art fox, Science?   I don't think so.  You have to strain. My gifts are a tall mountain less than his, But that's not really the issue I have, Of course I'm not a universal wiz, But I may be a universal mav. Do I want meaning wrapped up in a bow, Attached to a partial, doubtful story? For me, I suspect the answer is no, For me there may not be a greater glory. It may be my fate forever to roam, I may never find a religious home.

I'm OK, You're OK (Synthesis) The voices in my head are who I am, Superego's "share!", id's "dare!"--you're both there, Voices of blood, sad bile, mad bile, and phlegm, A Lib voice of flair, a Con voice of care. Sometimes I'm sick of Me who talks and writes, I want more Me who never says a word, Mostly, I don't think my master's voice blights, Mostly, I think my servant's voice is heard. I'm OK, you're OK, my mother's book said, Toff Me says, "Bosh, that's pop psychology," Pop Me says, "Toff, we're inside the same head, Pop is good, no need for apology." Toff Me says, I agree with You, full stop, If You can, please switch around Toff and Pop.

My Overweening Ethical Ambition is Wrong (Antithesis) You're a practical ethics fanatic, You think that biz eth should rule everywhere, You are impractical and dramatic, You want to sit in the high prophet's chair. Sadly, your prophetic line is folly, You've made the same error as William James, He confused truth with what works, what feels jolly, You confuse good with competitive games. Nobody's going to listen to you, You're attired in the emperor's new clothes, Your words like your body will soon be through, Sorry!  The truth hurts, as the saying goes. Please know what I say, I say out of love, I'm you, you're me, I'm your tool, you're my Gov.

My Lack of Ethical Ambition Is Wrong (Thesis) In politics and arts, I'm ambitious, In business and ethics, I'm not at all, I don't want to do a deed pernicious, I don't dream of heights, I don't want to fall. I'm preaching a biz eth gospel that's dull, For most, I think it's safer and sounder, Don't let a storm wave tear open your hull, On the rocks of evil do not founder. But all the identities yearn for more, My lib and con souls both want to be saints, Ruled and rulers dream of a divine shore, Of perfection that transcends earthly taints. In ethics not just arts may I aim high'er, Run the risk of be'ing burned by sacred fire.

This bus it carries all comers, this bus, On this bus you follow the rules, this bus, This bus, it's cool in the summers, this bus, This bus goes to excellent schools, this bus. This bus, it is bound for glory, this bus, Its last stop is for the holy, this bus, Its top deck's a golden story, this bus, In its long bar, some drink Stoli, this bus. We ride all our lives on this bus, this bus, Inside are forests, parks, and homes, this bus, On it we feel joy and we fuss, this bus, On it we write poems and read tomes, this bus. I believe in biz eth, and this vision, Can both be true?  Must there be excision? This bus, it is bound for glory, this bus.

God and SIRU are Dead (Antithesis) I get on the bus at the charter school, The 6 is full of Newark's brightest and best, In the aisle there is an obstinate fool, Who won't move back, who with tact is not blessed. The driver should do his job, he does not, A rider near me asks the fool to move, The fool says you're lucky not to get shot, This space belongs to me, it is my groove. The fool's from Africa, fresh off the boat, The asker, too, but many years ago, The charter kids, too.  They are taking note, Me, too.  But how long back?  I do not know. Can we make America great again? All of us African women and men.     

God and SIRU are on the Bus (Thesis) A 9 a.m. drunk reels on to the 6, He falls, hits his head, it's an act, it's real, He's got a sippy cup with beer--new tricks! The driver does his job, stony, like steel. The opposite lady chats up the drunk, They know each other from the neighborhood, I'm back a few seats, in a White guy funk, I have a funky thought, this scene is good. A very big lady in a wheelchair, Gets lifted up into the waiting bus, The driver does his job with precise care, Soon we're on our way without too much fuss. What if God is a stranger on the bus? God is real in each of the five of us.

I'm Riding the Wave, I'm Fine if You're Not (Synthesis) I choose to go with Peter, Will, and Scott, For me, their line cashes out morally, You may think that I am falling for rot, I'm with them in writing and orally. I think ethics should be like other fields, Where some try to be stars and most do not, Where calc is one tool an ethicist wields, Where good can come from a hedge fund hot-shot. I've grown to respect business ambition, Though in myself it's always been lacking, I'm old and deep-set in my condition, Ethical ambition deserves backing. Will I excel at ethics in old age? I'm ready to enter a diff'rent stage.

The New Wave is a Pitiful Ripple (Antithesis) Yes, biz eth is linked to Peter Singer, Objectivity is a goal of both, But they differ; Singer is a ringer, To his calc line on good, let's, please, be loath. Money with consent is a good measure, A philosopher's util dreams are not, Capitalism has unlocked treasure, Singer-ism is biased tommy-rot. MacAskill tries to correct Singer's flaws, But falls into his own dark rabbit holes, Consequentialism breaks moral laws, Opt for virtues, identities, and roles. It is all just a new panopti-con, Just tell its sellers, I'm not buying, mon.

The New Wave (Thesis) We're at the start of an ethical wave, A Benthamism that's more specialized, How much pain, how many lives can we save? How many QUALYs can be re'alized? I want to catch the wave, to learn to surf, I embrace my responsibility     to think big, to go beyond my own turf, All to the best of my ability. Let's work to make ethics computable, We'll make our share of mistakes in trying, But our errors will be refutable, Let's be the Wrights and figure out flying. This eth new wave is where the action is, It grows right out of the ethics of biz.

I'm an American.  My sky is blue, I think my country's model's amazing, Then again, France is quite amazing, too, French peeps are creating, also razing. I'm attached to ethical profusion, To a hundred sects growing and blooming, Might that bring anomie and confusion? Is an American collapse looming? I'm optimistic about my nation, I'm also optimistic about yours, Yes to U.S. decentralization, Yes to French bipolarity--toujour(s)! Dispersed or bipolar ethical comp? Neither one, I wager, wins in a romp.

The French Revolution Was More Effective, Not Just More Radical (Antithesis) Left, right, ideology--all French terms, The French Rev. faced issues the U.S. ducked, It said no to noblesse, to ancien germs, U.S. silence on slavery left us flucked. Madison's ethical devolution-- I know it deeply tickles your fancy, But it's a problem, not a solution, There's more chaos in Newark than in Nancy.   The violence that scars American life, Is a huge neg ex of ethical comp, There's dynamism, yes, but also strife, Better laicite and Catholic pomp. I know that you do not agree with me, Ethical comp's a bad way to be free.

The American Revolution Was More Radical, Not Just More Effective (Thesis) Madison was a brilliant radical, He separated the church from the state, Compare poor Robespierre, fanatical         in making God and guillotine conflate. The French Rev. was not a free thought success, It enacted its own state religion, The U.S. Rev. moved away from duress, Worship your God, spare or callipygian! May Madison's dream one day be complete, May we govern ourselves, though we be small, May state religion go down to defeat, May the whole world one day answer his call. We Yanks should deeply respect our French peers, May they toast us with their wines and our beers.                 

                                                 Ethics is a Good Race to the Bottom (Synthesis)                                                     The P.D.'s a bad race to the bottom,                                                     The prisoners rat, and both end up worse off,                                                     Same for the poor folks who lived in Sodom,                               ...

                                          Ethics is Submission, not Domination (Antithesis)                                               You're dealing three card monte--it's a trick!                                               We need a message on which to agree,                                               A deterrent to cheating that will stick,                                               A forever code that can set us free...

                                             Ethics is the Ultimate Star System (Thesis)                                                 Capitalists come, capitalists go,                                                 Politicians, too.  Their dominion's short.                                                 Scientists fade--there are new ways to know,                                               ...

SIRU is Better than Aristo (Thesis) The Age of Jackson is the Age of Trump, Populist ethics meets populist wrongs, The land is smoky, there's a fire in the dump, The sky is blue with patriotic songs. The question is always, "Compared to what?" T saw the U.S. as ahead of France, SIRU was the nose, aristo the butt, The U.S. led in the ethical dance. Should I be bold, as T was?  Prefer SIRU? If I were French, my answer would be yes, Your U.S. ethics are closer to true, But I'm a Yank.  I have my own noblesse. I'll do it!--I'm our Pres, Peppa T. Pig! My SIRU coif beats your aristo wig!

SIRU is Worse than Idealistic Ethics (Antithesis) Haha!  But your case for SIRU is weak, I think I understand the reason why, The SIRU worldview is pale and oblique, You can't say it's a duty--you didn't try! SIRU's in a glassed-in Benthamite box, It misses the core of moral feeling, It can't explain what elates and shocks, It peeps up at us through its glass ceiling. Idealism is the truth of the mind, In denying that truth, SIRU is wrong, It entails no duties, no ties that bind. No nation's anthem is a SIRU song. Ethics that's right cannot be easy, We need to soar, to abjure the sleazy.

Believe in Practical Ethics and Choose an Idealistic Ethics (Synthesis) Practical ethics like SIRU are great, Just as T said, they're modest but they work, They say no, they bar evil at the gate, They're relaxed--you can worship God or twerk. Idealistic ethics are a mixed bag, The worst ones confuse evil with duty, The best ones give wings to soar over crags, Push us to live for truth, good, and beauty. Practical ethics better deter wrong, Idealistic ethics better inspire, SIRU and biz eth are parts of my song, So is Socrates's bright sacred fire. I think that Tocqueville would agree with me, Best-suited is not all ethics should be.

Our Better Institutions Support Rather Than Refute Tocqueville (Synthesis) Yes, our time's quite different from Tocqueville's time, We are way more schooled, long-lived, and richer, Our poets no longer like to use rhyme, Turf quarterback dominates grass pitcher. Institutions rule in biz, pol, and cult, We've been to the Moon and we'll get to Mars, We're not into duels to avenge insult, In biz, pol, and arts we have global stars. All of this supports Tocqueville and rep eth, Is there a long wagon train of his'try? I think we're all on it from birth to death, Our arc's been good, our future's a mys'try. Modern reputational ethics--yay! That's biased.  But it's what I gotta say.

Tocqueville's peeps were Northern yeoman farmers, They created the ethics that he saw, Now they are outnumbered by snake charmers, Goodbye to Jackson and the scared crow's caw. We're big civ now with big institutions, The U.S., France, China, it's all the same, Don't look to town meetings for solutions, Who knows your neighbor?  It's a Mega game. Old Athens, old America--they're dead, Rep eth now is digital and broken, You're a global tool with a fractured head, Rep eth's gone like an NYC token. I'm not Tocqueville, don't ask me for answers, Rep eth has died from multiple cancers.

Tocqueville Is Still Correct, and France Has Seen the Light, Too (Thesis) America is still honest hustling, France has yielded to American ways, May Ind'ia become equally bustling, May all lands dispel aristocratic haze! Your line's even truer than it was then, China's embraced your ethics of yes-sing, We're now more hard-working women and men,  We do not need a saint's or god's blessing. Optimistic rep eth lifts the world high'r, Desire to be seen as good makes us so, Populist ethics set the world on fire, To be truly good?--we don't need to know. You went to prisons for a year or two, One day inmates will be our brothers true.

I've cooled down from the letter I showed you, I'm calmer now about our U.S. friends, Their ethics are mostly good, if not true, Conducive more than ours to happy ends. The family's the crucial institution, That's espec'ially so in regard to love, The American's have a solution, Taloned hawk--be nice!  Act like cooing dove. Fam'ly love is full of bad S & M, The bad seed of love needs to be repressed, Americans have tried--credit to them, Age-old injustice they've partly redressed. Love is a duty, like work it's complex, Bright-side SIRU helps save all of our necks.

Freud to Tocqueville: I Disagree (Antithesis)  I've changed my mind.  America is sick, Germany may be cured, the U.S. no, Its repressive optimism's a trick. A letter I just got: Here, let me show: "Freud, you're so over, why can't you let it go? You told good stories--but your science sucked! Your culture's screwed up, we here are not so, Real love is pure Yes! where no one is fucked." "False love's twisted, I readily agree, False lovers wear vi'als of each other's blood. But of that soul-sickness true love is free, True love is above rope, dungeons, and mud." America above all is extreme, Its is the planet's most dangerous dream.

Freud to Tocqueville: I Agree (Thesis) I've always thought America shallow, Their Jews are just as depthless as their goys, But their hatred of us has gone fallow, There, we're Americans with simple joys. In America, they want love that's fun, They want I'm OK, you're OK pop psych, In our lands we know love's a loaded gun, They confuse it with what they really like. American ethics--yes, it's better, They don't tear themselves apart as we do, They're simple souls of spirit and letter, Who choose to conflate the good and the true.   They listen to me so they can repress, Their shallow embrace of Eros I bless.

We need to play the ethics game each day, We all have a duty to eschew wrongs, Biz, pol, art, and sci don't work the same way, We can choose to sing or not sing their songs. Biz as work *is* a universal rule, The rep eth of work applies to us all, To be a Rationalist star is cool, Likewise to be average, to fight one's fall. I'm committed to Rationalism, Ethics is yet another game with stars, I'm committed to average Joe-ism, To a rep eth that's satisfied with pars. Seeking ethics is different and the same, To see how may help us play the great game.      

Ethics is the Same (Antithesis) Ethics is the same as science and art, It is also the same as pol and biz, Rationalism is a good new start, Ethics can be more like physics than fizz. Create reasoned standards for doing good, Diff'rent from those for biz, pol, art, and sci, Those standards will *not* generate a should, They *will* ban some acts: "Don't murder!--here's why." Ethical stars of Rationalism, Will be flawed, like those in other domains, About their worth, there will be a schism, All of us will owe something to their pains. I need not, but will, donate a kidney, I prefer that to going to Sydney.

Virtue is different from science and art, Sainthood is negated by its pursuit, Don't try to win!  You need a faithful heart, Vic'try in ethics is false at the root. So--is reputational ethics bunk? No.  Rep eth is good for the av'rage Joe, May I be av'rage instead of a punk! May I be a citizen, not a schmo.   Biz, pol, and cult comp are for the elites, They help to create the stars that we need, Rep eth is for us peeps, used to defeats, It makes us kinder, pulls out evil's weed.   The virtue elite is above rep eth, I am not.  It gives me ethical breath.     

Critical Game Theory: Humanistic and Radical Alternatives to the Mainstream

Why Business Ethics Matters: Answers from a New Game Theory Model

Is the Enlightenment still going on? No.  It's dead, Jim.  It has long been over, Madison was a queen.  I am a pawn, I'm a dork.  He was a four-leaf clover. It's not that I'm dumber, though I might be, It's that his time was war, while mine is peace, In my time we all love democracy, In his it was a pig coated in grease. Nobody cares about my calls for change, Back then, they listened to Locke and to him, The nation-state is our home on the range, Then, democracy was a dream, a whim. Do I want our Endarkenment to end? Dunno!  Where does the arc of justice bend?