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I was transported into this world a little less than a year ago. Fortunately, the previous inhabitant of this body had left copious notes, so it was fairly easy to get up to speed.
In my home dimension, America is a theocracy, practicing a religion called the Teaching. The Teaching has roughly the spread of modern Christianity, although its adherents are much more likely to be fervent.
I was horrified when I discovered this dimension did not have the Teaching. Its forebears died out during the Roman Empire. I had read about societies that didn’t have the Teaching. They were appalling. The average society without the Teaching has a suicide rate of approximately eight percent, an approximately equivalent homicide rate, and endemic violence and abuse of children, the elderly, and spouses; women are oppressed, famines and epidemics are rife, and the entire society has grinding poverty. The consensus among development economists is that the Teaching is not only helpful but necessary for a developed civilization. The idea that I would be trapped in a dimension without the Teaching– well. Let’s just say I was practicing the virtue of resignation.
But this didn’t look like a normal society without the Teaching. I looked up the statistics for this Earth’s America, and discovered that its suicide rate was 1.3%. 1.3%! Our society considered itself tremendously successful because the suicide rate was under three percent. And these people– without the Teaching– have managed to beat us?
The situation became more clear to me when I discovered how preternaturally calm people in this dimension are. My fiance Topher (who has adjusted remarkably well, all things considered, to the fact that his fianceee keeps getting replaced with different versions of themself from alternate dimensions) is an example. I have personally witnessed him when he missed the train: he expresses disappointment, but doesn’t scream or cry or call himself names or shout at random passerby for making him late. He doesn’t seem to use any techniques to make this happen; it’s just what he does. In my home society, he would be considered exceptionally saintly; here, he’s not just normal but actually moodier than average! I cannot fathom what the ordinary person in this dimension must be like. They must be gods.
Nevertheless, I believe the people of this dimension could use the Teaching. Our civilization is more advanced than yours in some ways: what you call “effective altruism” is just what we call “altruism”, and everyone without a health reason to eat meat is bivalvegan. And we do not leave the teaching of virtue in the hands of parents, adults primarily qualified by their ability to interlock genitals without using contraception and get through nine months without doing anything so unhealthy that the baby spontaneously aborts. I genuinely felt like vomiting the first time I read, in the Sequences, “The modern concept of religion as purely ethical derives from every other area having been taken over by better institutions. Ethics is what’s left.” How could ethics– the science of humans living good lives in harmony with each other– be the thing not taken over by better institutions? How do you expect to pursue the good if you don’t even know what the good is? What kind of incompetent civilization doesn’t make studying ethics its first priority?
One that doesn’t need to.
Perhaps I have been placed in this dimension to teach– by word and example– what my civilization has discovered through necessity, such that even those who did not suffer with us can benefit.
The Teaching was provided to us by a man known only as the Teacher, who lived in the first century AD, in Rome. Legends say that he was a slave who received a vision from the logos in which he was shown how to follow the logos and cultivate virtue; he spent his life refining the techniques and teaching them to others. His cruel master, swayed by the wisdom of his teaching, not only stopped whipping his slaves but freed them all.
The Teacher was highly influenced by Stoicism and Neo-Platonism. None of his writings survive, although we do have the works of his students; they are mostly of historical interest, as in the past two thousand years the Teaching has developed considerably beyond its original point. The Teacher (or his students) was firm that his vision had taken him to the start of the road, and he had taken the first step; it was up to his students to walk to the destination of perfect harmony with the logos.
Our deity– which I have mentioned already, to your probable confusion– is the logos, the force of universally applicable laws. Everything from Newton’s laws to Mendelian inheritance is the logos made manifest; math is unreasonably effective because math is the logos. The logos created us and wishes us well. Uniquely among all things which exist, people have the ability to choose, which means we can live according to the logos or against it; we live against the logos when we break the laws which, if followed by all, lead to a happy society. We live against the logos when we are swept away by our passions; similarly, we live against the logos when we commit the Stoic’s error of becoming trapped in our reason. We must combine emotion and reason and listen to the voice of the logos inside us.
(We can actually do that, by the way. Some of our mystics said that they could hear the logos‘s voice and it seemed like a useful thing for everyone to be able to do, so it was extensively studied and transformed into a simple procedure that is now routinely taught to eight-year-olds.)
Our schools teach four classes: Virtue, Quant, Verbal, and Exercise. Quant and Verbal are similar to Earth classes: Quant covers mathematics and science; Verbal, literature, writing, and history. Exercise is similar to Earth P.E., but significantly less terrible and more evidence-based. Virtue is the only class without an analogue on Earth.
Compared to Earth schools, in my dimension we track students very heavily. Students are tested at age six and every four years thereafter. The middle two-thirds are placed in the Middle class. The sixth at the top and the bottom are placed in High and Low classes, respectively. The very best and very worst in any skill are individually tutored. It’s routine for students to be placed differently in different classes: while I am admittedly an odd case, I was tutored for Verbal, in High for Quant, in Middle for Virtue, and in Low for Exercise. Occasionally, students will switch placements as their skills change, in which case they’ll get a tutor for the first year to help them adjust.
One of the oldest parables the Teacher taught– which may perhaps be an original parable from the Teacher himself, rather than attributed to him by his students– is the parable of the metal souls. The Teacher said: “some souls are of gold, some are of silver, some are of bronze, and some are of iron. What shall we do with these?” His student replied: “we shall teach the silver souls that we might turn them into gold, leave the gold ones be, and toss the bronze and iron to the rubbage heap.” The Teacher replied: “you fool! Shall you make a sword out of gold or a necklace out of iron? Each metal is good in its place, and each must be refined in the fire.”
For this reason, it is taught that it is wrong to stigmatize the less able. The Low contribute just as much as the High (Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage is taught in Virtue class). The purpose of education is to teach each student to follow the logos in their own way; those naturally low in Quant, Verbal, or even Virtue are no less capable of skillfully following the logos, and all students are taught of the great heroes of Low virtue. For this reason, the content is different in Low, Middle, and High classes. Earth schools seem to be created with the idea that all the Low students will eventually be able to read Shakespeare; in my home dimension, they’d laugh at you for suggesting it. For instance, in Quant, the Low class focuses on health literacy and essential mathematics like mental arithmetic. Middle has a broad but non-mathematical overview of the sciences and concentrates on the math necessary for citizenship (lots of statistics). High teaches up through calculus and presents a deep, mathematically grounded understanding of the sciences, equivalent to a college-level education.
Virtue class is the one class we have that they don’t have on Earth, so I’ll go into it in a little more detail. I’m going to cover a Middle Virtue class, because that’s the one I was in; the Low focus more on control of the passions, while the High focus more on cultivating the reason. The purpose of Virtue class is for each student to internalize the Teachings as best they can.
In the first four years, virtue is taught primarily through discussion, stories, games, and crafts. The skills taught are mostly very basic: for instance, students learn to choose a calming activity to do when they get overwhelmed, which is a foundation to build upon when they’re older. Basic mindfulness skills are introduced: “be a frog”– the standard introduction to stillness– is memetic at home the same way that “mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell” is here. And, of course, students learn about the values and rituals of the Teaching.
One unique part of our childhood educational system is “free play”. Free play is an environment subtly set up to create behavior contrary to the logos: frustrating or developmentally inappropriate games, too few desirable toys, loud play positioned strategically next to the quiet reading area. In that way, virtue teachers can coach their students in real time on conflict resolution and emotion management– teaching children to name what they’re feeling, calm their emotions, and resolve disputes peacefully and equitably. This one-on-one guidance is tremendously important.
In the middle four years, class shifts to focusing on the three core areas: the self, others, and the environment. All of these involve learning a lot of specific techniques.
The “self” subject area features a lot of mindfulness training. The will of the logos is that each person attend either to the present moment or to the logos itself: we are either to be thinking about the universal laws and how to conform ourselves more perfectly to them, or we are to enjoy the present pleasure, endure the present trial, struggle with the present temptation. There’s a lot of debate about what this means, exactly (you have no idea how vicious the debates are about whether one is permitted to read on the train), but the general idea is agreed upon by all and trained extensively.
In addition, we tend to cover a lot of practical techniques. When the passions go against the logos, we learn how to act the opposite way that they demand; when the passions conform to the logos, we learn how to solve the problems (if they’re negative) or appreciate the good (if they’re positive). We learn techniques for coping with overwhelming passions (some of them quite silly– I wouldn’t believe the ice-on-the-forehead trick worked so well if I didn’t use it myself) and prepare ourselves to use them. We learn a thousand separate techniques for a thousand separate failure modes: to break compulsive behavior, to change automatic patterns, to rewire our thoughts if they are not in line with what reason tells us, to identify our true goals, to overcome aversions, to shift the stories we tell about ourselves.
The “others” subject area involves learning charisma, persuasion, and likability (like your sales techniques, but much more advanced). Students learn conflict resolution techniques– both resolving disagreements about facts and figuring out how to meet everyone’s needs. Nearly all students have some social anxiety; this is resolved with individualized coaching to help the student face their fears and, more importantly, learn how to face their fears. There is extensive training in developing compassion using, among other things, what you call loving-kindness meditation and explicit training in avoiding the fundamental attribution error; this is accompanied by a strong grounding in what you call game theory (we wouldn’t want to create pushovers!).
The “environment” subject area covers a lot of what you would call epistemic rationality. Students are trained in probabilistic reasoning and calibration. Reason is divided into two kinds, intuition and ratiocination; we learn the best times to trust each. Most of all, we learn the technique of recognizing reality-as-it-is rather than reality-as-we-wish-it-to-be. The state of the world, good or bad, was given to us by the logos; to pretend that it is different than it is is to go against the logos.
In the last four years, the same three areas are covered in more depth, but a fourth area is added: discernment, the process of figuring out what the logos has called you to do for the rest of your life. The first step is to figure out whether you’ve been called to singleness, marriage, or the monastic life; after that, students are provided considerable guidance on choosing a career, committed relationships, childrearing (if married), and selecting which kind of monastic life is right for you (if a monk). While this isn’t permanent– people can originally discern a call to the monastic life, but eventually decide they wish to marry– most people stick with the call they chose in adolescence.
Marriage is for the production and raising of children, and their children are the most important aspect of any married person’s life; for this reason, married people must choose flexible jobs that work well with childrearing. Single people may have sex and romance; however, if you wish to remain single, you must give up any children you bear for adoption by a married couple. (Today, most singles use contraception.) Single people are often those who want jobs that wouldn’t work well with having kids– long hours, poor pay, exposure to teratogens– although many single people simply have no desire for children.
Monks live in monasteries and live a rigorous and structured life. Monks take vows never to have sex, lie, experience luxury, accept money, or take intoxicants. Monks may become mystics, meditating and performing rituals to honor the logos; they may counsel parishioners and teach classes; they may write books explaining the Teachings to laypeople or do research developing new aspects of the Teachings; they may run the government. Given my affinity for schedules, ritual, and studying the Teachings, I was an obvious candidate for the monastic life.
As adults, we practice the faith several different ways. Devout followers of the Teaching pray twice daily at our altars. Each member of the family has an individual altar, which they typically decorate with things that speak to them of virtue and the logos. In the morning, we recall the glory of the logos (perhaps contemplating the size of the universe or the intricacy of the cell). Then we think through our day, paying special attention to any points where our virtue may be tested. We imagine in great detail how we will respond virtuously to those points, then ask the logos for grace that we may do as we planned. In the evening, we give thanks for the blessings we have received through the day and ask forgiveness for the wrongs we have committed, while making a plan so we may do better in the future. Both morning and evening prayer are concluded with a short period of mindfulness meditation. Many people also pray throughout the day, when they have a spare moment or when they’re facing challenges. Prayers of petition are forbidden: the logos set up the universe the way it set it up, and it is considered sinful to question it by asking for a sickness to be healed or an enemy to be defeated. Instead, we are allowed to ask only for the virtue to survive our struggles and continue to behave according to the logos.
Schools offer continuing-education classes for adults on a variety of topics: from cultural enrichment, to occupational training, to exercise classes. Specifically Virtue-oriented classes are a wide range: acceptance of death, money management, developing spiritual practices, history of the Teachings, metaphysics, and development of lay leadership. Most people are in at least one class. In addition, most people see a spiritual counselor. The average person sees their counselor biweekly, although particularly virtuous people might only need once a month, and particularly unvirtuous people and all monastics see theirs once a week. Some brave souls only see their counselor as needed, while those who are in dire straits may see them as often as daily.
If a person is engaging in non-criminal behavior deeply against the logos– such as suicidality, self-harm, disordered eating, or substance abuse– they can be required to attend classes or counselling. Of course, spiritual counselling only works for consenting people, so the mandatory counselling sessions focus on getting the individual to see for themselves that they will be happier if they live in accordance with the logos. One cannot be forced to attend more than six sessions in a year.
We also have holidays every month or so, celebrated by rituals. I think the best taste of what the rituals of my home are like is Secular Solstice. Our rituals involve rather more liturgy and call-and-response and no speeches (speeches are for classes!); however, when I attended Solstice this year, the ache in my heart lifted and if I closed my eyes I felt almost as if I were home.
To give a taste of what our holidays are about: Vasili Arkhipov existed in my home world as well. He did not follow the Teaching (in my world as on Earth, Communists are atheists). As soon as his deed was discovered, he was declared a hero, and his birthday became one of our most joyous religious holidays.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments; I will answer them, in the hopes of spreading the Teaching to Earth.
Thing of Things 
Your world sounds tiresomely structured. Where is the art? The beauty? Where is free agency, to dream of the world as it ‘could’ be, and the passion to strive to make it so?
What is your world’s Teaching, really, but a dead end, made of systems, for the sake of other systems, in order to give the sense that something righteous is being accomplished?
Even in your own world, there is no absolute ‘need’ to reiterate the world as it must be. And it is a redundancy anyone may pursue, simply to obey a single absolute principle. Why, then, complicate obedience with choice, or, for that matter–with people?
Truthfully, I much prefer pathos and romanticism, to logos–even at the cost of tragedy, and absurdity. At least such an end speaks of how we may attempt to live, over how we are simply ‘instructed’ to do so.
Sorry, I suppose I don’t have any questions. Just dismay.
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There is plenty of it. I didn’t talk about it much in my post because it is similar to your Earth’s, except that our government-funded art is intended to elevate the spirit rather than… you know, I’m not actually sure what the stuff the NEA funds is supposed to do. I only got to see once in my life the great Cathedral in New York City, with its Halls. The shuddering feeling when you have walked down the inky blackness of the Hall of the Solar System to reach the speck of Earth, and you have to squint to be able to even see it… you would have to have a heart of stone not to cry, I think.
But I’m not sure why you would conclude my culture wouldn’t have art. If one is overwhelmed by the passions, one cannot create art; one mostly just cries and rocks and wishes they were dead. The creation of art requires that the passions are put in their proper place. Do you think, perhaps, that we make the Stoic’s error of wishing the passions were gone instead of combining them with reason?
The universe is not, currently, as we would will it be if all people followed universal rules. For instance, people still die, despite the obvious fact that no one would will that everyone should die.
We are the precious children of the logos! We have the blessing to be able to choose whether to live in accordance with its glorious laws, rather than being enslaved to them as a star or an atom is. Why would we prevent that? There is far more glory and honor in choosing to conform oneself to its will than there is in doing so automatically.
Spoken like someone who has never seen the costs of tragedy. In the places without the Teaching, the suicide rate is ten, sometimes even fifteen percent; the homicide rate is similar; people die when they have barely begun to live, and it is senseless and stupid and I would blow up a thousand cathedrals if it meant this would stop happening.
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That’s gorgeous. Thank you. I’m – really glad I ran into this today. I need to figure out how to well-phrase etc the… parallel/analogue to this out of my own beliefs so I can have it there for me.
Thank you!
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I would ‘never’ destroy the world, as we hope for it to be, to preserve the one we have now. That is how religious warfare begins.
I would choose a thousand times over, for the world inspired–the world that might be–over the sanctity of the world as is. Because I see the potential in, and the inevitability for, grasping, in every human endeavor. Even when that grasping remains unrealized.
It is something we all share, that we overreach, and come up short–that we abstract. Else, we would not have our perceptions of ‘ideals’ and ‘utopias’ to fruitlessly pursue. So certainly, I would argue with you, to an extent–you may make things better, and greater, for many, but you will inevitably stumble upon an exception; people to whom your methods bring ‘utmost suffering’.
And I would add–there is no assurance, that you, yourself, will not be the direct source of said suffering, save that assurance which you provide yourself, through placating thinking, and through proven, yet, wholly disprovable systems that have yet to find their exception. And finally, there is no assurance of this, through the irrational, raw, fervor you maintain, to uphold those systems, for the sake of some ‘greater good’.
I will answer: the universe is not as your ‘we’ would will it be, because the universe is only subjectively perceived, not unanimously so. Your ‘greater good’ of logos, is merely a vehicle of consensus, which cannot wholly unite. And it fails, by the nature of the human passion, to experience ‘that which isn’t’. When it finds its ‘mental minority’–its heterodoxy. The disobedient, that you permit.
There are countless ‘greater goods’, crashing against one another in aimless conflict, even as we type out these words. So go. Enjoy blowing up your cathedrals, and the people worshiping in them. Make what justifications, and sacrifices you will. You cannot escape passion, and you will never, fully direct it. And there ‘will’ be victims, when you very inevitably… compromise, in your methods.
Logic, after all, demands a purpose, a structure, and a hand–and more pertinently, a mind–to implement it. And I will emphasize: Logic does not exist for its own sake.
“What is the purpose of your society’s logic”, I wonder? And more importantly, “Who is it most likely to harm?” or, “What are the obstacles to your society’s logic, and how must they be overcome?”
Because, truthfully, you cannot objectively deduce this, beyond the limits of massively-subjective consensus: that which is logical, or rational. You do not ‘see’ out of the eyes of logos, or speak with it, to intuit its will–you construct it by committee, according to your committee’s needs. If it has a voice, you make that voice. If it is obeyed, it is because you choose to obey the interpretation of the instructions, which you have preferred to think of.
To rebutt your earlier accusation–I have experienced isolation, brokenness, and unrealized passions, that, as you say, dominate my days with ‘crying, and wishing to be dead’. I have ‘felt’ what it is to be alive. I have ‘felt’ loss, and disappointment. The love for an old story or song, remembered anew, the dread of the knowledge, that I will one day lose a mother, or a father, or a dear friend, and have to go on living.
If what you seek is for me to have discovered ‘carnage’, or ‘turmoil’–or to have perished in a holocaust of deleterious passions, that you can aggrandize me by, like some Anne Frank–I do not hunt those things, to experience them, and I will indeed, fall short of your expectation. (Especially, in regard to suicide, which… I seemingly cannot commit, despite the regularly manifest desire.)
But I ‘have’ experienced personal tragedy. And I would not wish it different.
My advice to you, if you ‘truly’ desire an end to the whole of human suffering, is simple. End humanity, and embrace oblivion. Be of no consequence to yourself, or to your world. It’s the only ‘rational’ decision you have. So long as humans are capable of attachment, and creating abstract ideals to strive for unsuccessfully, you will only witness more exotic forms of suffering, the deeper you dig to end it.
“Dukkha”, the Buddha called it. Unsatisfactoriness in all its forms–fresh for us to sample.
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You seem to be under the impression the Teaching is an instance of what is called the “Stoic’s error”. We do not believe in prioritizing reason over the passions. Instead, reason and the passions are to be synthesized: you feel your emotions fully but also understand facts; you care deeply about your values and control your actions to reach them.
I am puzzled. First, you condemn the Teaching for not dreaming of a better world; then, you condemn the Teaching for wanting to end suffering. What would satisfy you?
The logos and logic aren’t the same thing.
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Your assumption seems to be to presume that logical action ‘always precludes’ the realization of passions, or can ever be assumed to achieve passion’s goal, for all of humanity. In that regard, I would deem your goal of ending suffering, to be shortsighted. ‘Naive’, even.
I would present the situation, in which, there is no practical, pragmatic, logical way, to attain a dearly held desire, in a human’s lifetime, through logical action. Perhaps they have lost a relative they wish to be reunited with–or they wish to become something impossibly empowered, like a magician, or a werewolf, or vampire. The ‘unattainable passion’: that which is simultaneously, dearer to the owner than their life (for whatever reason), and yet, exists only in their subjective thought–beyond their means to realize, but remaining always with them.
How do you resolve such a passion? Do you instruct in its abandonment, do you advise compromise, on how to transform it into something different? And what does the person, who abandons their illogical passion, gain in its place, but institutionally-established platitudes?
“Here you go, have a nice life with these dogmatic distractions we’ve provided you. They won’t resolve your deep, aching, highly specific personal issue, but they’ll distract you from the matter, and make you a useful asset to others, til it’s not of consequence to anyone–yourself, or otherwise.”
Is there any eulogy to be said, for such a compromised passion? Or is it discarded–like refuse, where you come from?
What sorts of ‘irrational dreams’, do your people cherish? What do your people decide happens to those who choose to cherish such dreams? Who determines what is rational to pursue, and what is ‘simple, vain fantasy’?
For whose sake, do people dream, in your world?
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They are to accept the existence of their passion and learn to live with it without denying it or acting like they can have it fulfilled, and there is tremendous compassion for the burden they bear. You shouldn’t simply choose to repress a passion, that is making the Stoic’s error, as I told you before.
The logos isn’t the same thing as logic. Do you believe that all words that start with the same three letters are the same?
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I was conflating your magical mystery force, with the word, as I understand it. Tends to be a reasonable (and inevitable) way to begin examining a new concept–even if ultimately, erroneous–by contrasting it with that which it resembles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
At any length, I’m now curious as to how your people handled colonization, and whether they brought Smallpox over, had Wounded Knee, the Trail of Tears, built reservations, etc.
I know whose corpses you’re very likely standing over, to know your Teaching worshipers are probably just as much a bunch of excuse-making fuck-ups as the Christians. But I’m amused to hear what alternative explanation you have. I’d be especially impressed if; say for instance–things are better for your native survivors, over there, or if, for example, you never colonized the Americas to begin with.
Call it a mild vendetta toward anything that springs out of Ancient Rome. One rooted in some personal suffering.
Understand, I’m not trying to win an argument of who has more solid logic, or more facts. I’m interrogating you, to understand if I ‘trust’ you or not.
Because, honestly, I already listen to enough of this ‘better-society’ bullshit, as it is, to know I’m not convinced. The societies I care for are long dead, and I’m waiting on ours, to go and join them. That your ‘suicide rate’ is a measure of your theology’s success, suggests that your society’s due to go out, as well.
But hey. Prove me wrong. That’s why I’m here.
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Our use of the word logos corresponds to the section under ‘Stoicism’ in your link:
A quite good definition, really.
As to how we handled colonialism: badly. Of course. I make no pretenses that my society is perfect or has always behaved perfectly; we were pointlessly cruel, and cruel under the guise of kindness, as much as yours was. We took all Native American children from their mothers and raised them in schools to become good followers of the Teaching, forbade them to speak their native languages or worship their native gods. While there are still people with the blood of Native Americans in them, in a very real sense there are no Native Americans left in my home world. We were not wise enough to see that Native Americans followed the logos imperfectly, as we follow the logos imperfectly, and understand that we both had things to learn from each other.
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I… am happy that you can show remorse, for a lost people. Thank you. =)
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It doesn’t make everything better–I still wish for the end of both our societies–but nonetheless, thank you.
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-What about people who engage in criminal behavior?
-How do you deal with disabled and mentally ill people?
-You said “roughly the spread of modern Christianity” – what’s it like for non-Teaching Americans?
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-How do people write stories, solve personal problems, figure new things out, etc, if they’re not allowed to have thoughts about them throughout the day/while just walking around and stuff? Are only people who can schedule their thoughts and have that be effective allowed to do that kind of thing? That seems unfair!
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There’s a lot of debate about this among theologians: some people are hardliners (if you’re showering you should ONLY FOCUS ON SHOWERING NOTHING ELSE), whereas some people are very soft and think that the mindfulness rule only applies to things like talking to your friends or intellectual work or watching television. The mainstream position seems to be that if you are thinking about something and legitimately having new insights while you’re going for a walk, you can do so, but if you’re just ruminating about how someone was mean to you, it is probably time to look at the flowers instead.
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People who engage in criminal behavior and get caught go to prison. Prison emphasizes rehabilitation, although I’m not super-familiar with the details (I was not a prison monk). There’s a rule that you have to alter people’s normal lives as little as possible when they’re imprisoned, both for human dignity reasons and because it helps them transition smoothly back to normal life. While sometimes it’s necessary to put people in high-security prisons, whenever possible we try to keep security discreet, allow them to work jobs (sometimes outside of the prison!) that pay market wages, live privately, cook for themselves, go to college with non-criminals, visit their families, and so on.
Well, from your culture’s perspective, practically everyone in our culture is mentally ill! Every neurodivergence other than psychosis is considered to be some combination of very low quant, very low verbal, and very low virtue; either way, they would receive individualized tutoring to help them live the best life they can. Tutors of very low virtue students will often advocate for them to have accommodations in other classes. Use of psychiatric medications for anything except psychosis is considered to be substance abuse and is contrary to the logos; you’re supposed to learn to deal with your problems, not alter your brain chemistry. Psychosis is treated as a medical problem; non-cooperative psychotic people are put in involuntary outpatient commitment. (We don’t do institutionalization.)
Physically disabled people are treated similarly to how they’re treated on Earth, except that the inspiration porn has a lot more of a “see! This person conformed their life to the logos, why can’t you?” air to it, and the ADA was passed a couple decades earlier.
It is a theocracy. If you publicly announce that you don’t follow the Teaching, this is considered to be behavior against the logos and you will have to go to a few sessions of spiritual counselling. Some people believe in gods other than the logos: the Teaching melds well with other religions. For instance, we have a population of Jews who believe that the logos is God for Gentiles.
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>Every neurodivergence other than psychosis is considered to be some combination of very low quant, very low verbal, and very low virtue; either way, they would receive individualized tutoring to help them live the best life they can.
What’s supposed to count as “psychosis”? For example, I have severe depression, and because of it I am chronically suicidal. I’m on antidepressants, and if I wasn’t, I would kill myself.
Given that suicidality is apparently against the logos, which of these is the greater sin? I’m not psychotic, but I can’t “learn to deal with” my depression; my brain just doesn’t make enough serotonin. You can’t solve that with prayer and virtue.
(Also I have no idea how to format in this medium so I hope I guessed right.)
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My world never developed antidepressants in the first place, because there’s no use for them we wouldn’t consider substance abuse. But you would be considered a drug addict similar to someone claiming that they needed heroin to have a life worth living. It is not criminal to use drugs, only to sell them, but you would probably have to either hide your use or spend a couple sessions with a spiritual counselor every year asking you “so, tell me what you like and don’t like about using drugs.”
I mean, you can. Even in your world, people do regularly treat depression with CBT, as primitive as it is.
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Holy shit, you can’t even GET HIGH in that fucking place?!
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>Even in your world, people do regularly treat depression with CBT, as primitive as it is.
Which I do too. It’s not exactly as if I want to take medication every day at the same time in order to survive. However, you seem unaware that there are different degrees of depression, which run the gamut from purely situational to purely chemical.
Though I must admit I’m more interested in how your world helps people with depression. Surely, as a spiritual advisor yourself, you’ve interacted with and helped them, and apparently have had a 100% success rate, since you seem adamant that depression can be cured without chemical intervention at all.
(Though – what’s the suicide rate in your home dimension? And what’s ours, again?)
((Please do not take this personally, I am having a great deal of fun poking this persona with a stick.))
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Hey! That is quite unfair. 🙂 Your dimension is full of saints! Frankly, a 1.3% suicide rate in a dimension full of saints is just embarrassing.
Your spiritual counselor would probably work with you daily. I don’t know your case, so I don’t know what specifically they’d work on with you, but there would probably be quite a lot of the virtue of resignation– learning to live with the unlivable. You are under a tremendous burden from the logos. You can strive to conform your will to its by refusing to engage in behavior greatly contrary to the logos, and any accomplishment you have shows a very high level of cultivated virtue that all who interact with you should admire. If you stayed off drugs and didn’t kill yourself, you might be asked to talk to a classroom about your monumental achievement.
((No worries. I am totally in support of taking antidepressants. :P))
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How does your home dimension deal with psychotic people? (Since you addressed “every neurodivergence other than psychosis”) As a schizophrenic, I’m very interested in how I would be treated in your home dimension.
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We have developed antipsychotics. (They’re pretty much as bad as this dimension’s antipsychotics.) If you took them regularly, no problems. If you didn’t take them regularly, then you would get a long-acting antipsychotic and once a month some monks would come to your house and get you to take the next dose (with force if necessary). You would be given a stipend to live on from the government as a sick person whom it would be cruel to make work, and if you were judged incompetent to run your affairs the nearest monastery would run them for you (pay for your housing, give you an allowance for entertainment, etc.).
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How does the theocracy work? Apparently religions leaders rule the country but how are they selected? Is it more like a episcopal church, a presbyterian church or something else entirely?
Which major religions exist in your world besides the Teaching?
What major powers are there besides the US (I guess the US is still a major power)?
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It’s a democracy, but you have to be a monk for a decade before you can run. Any eligible monk can express intent to run for office and get leave from their previous duties. Most monks who want to be political work in the civil service first. (We don’t really have independent lawyers– we just have public defenders and government-provided civil lawyers.)
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism, Bahai, Shinto, the usual religions. Our Islam-equivalent is called Mudarris and is a descendant of the Teaching, although it believes in an interventionist God that you have to pray to five times a day using formulaic prayers, and instead of learning the Teaching properly a lot of their schools involve memorizing large parts of the holy book. Which is really quite ridiculous! Why would a God want to hear about how great he was five times a day? And having a holy book? Tying yourself to the wisdom of the past, forbidding yourself to do better? Honestly.
We had the Cold War between Teaching-dominated and Communist-dominated countries, which the Teaching-dominated countries won. Right now the US is the biggest world power, but China looks like it’s rising (having adopted the Teaching as enthusiastically as it adopted capitalism in this world).
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Why can’t monks have sex?
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Partially because sexual-romantic relationships tend to be very intense, and therefore distract monks from their actual purpose which is providing guidance and leadership to everyone. Partially because unethical monks can use their status to coerce people into sex. Partially because in most cases mysticism works better for celibates (although there are exceptions, and mystics and contemplatives can apply for vow exceptions when necessary). Partially because monks have a huge amount of temporal and spiritual power, and part of the way we make sure they use it well is by forbidding them from using it in any other way. Power is an aphrodisiac? Not for you. Going to use your power to accumulate wealth? Not happening. Going to at least enjoy nice food and a little cannabis? Nope.
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What’s the “ice-on-the-forehead trick”?
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Applying ice to the forehead for thirty seconds triggers the mammalian diving reflex, which lowers flight-or-fight responses.
…Uh. In my home universe, anyway.
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This is reminding me of my irritation with people who say that the schools don’t have an obligation to raise children. If you’ve got them for 30 hours a week or more you’re raising them.
Ozy, the way schools treat children needs to be an exemplar of good behavior, it’s not just what’s taught in class. I think you’ve covered that by implication, but if you want to expand on the subject, I’m interested.
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I’m not quite sure what you mean. Our teachers are all very skilled monks who are trained to pay attention to students’ feelings and to use rewards to get good behavior, and we don’t have any of this nonsense where people aren’t allowed to go to the bathroom without permission.
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This sounds like hell to me and I would flail around and seriously harm myself if I lived there.
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(or defect to the East)
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I was reading this with some degree of admiration until I got to the part where the possible life paths one night choose are narrow and highly regulated, at which point it started to sound completely dystopian. Why is it set up that way, with such rigid roles with rigid roles? What if you kept the education style but got rid of the thing where your choices regarding your personal and professional lives are bundled together?
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Well, what else are you going to do? The system in this dimension, where people who want to have children regularly get eighty-hour-a-week jobs and have their children raised by strangers?
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According to Bureau of Labor Statistics American Time Use Survey from 2014, employed Americans ages 25 to 54 with children under 18 average 8.9 hours per day on “work and work-related activities” (I’d assume work-related activities is mainly commuting). So I’d guess that parents working 80-hour-a-week jobs is still very rare.
Plus, as distasteful as it is to your cultural norms to have children “raised by strangers” (part of the time), do you have reason to think that leads to strongly negative outcomes (in this reality)?
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It seems very silly. As long as we have people who are specifically childcare professionals, why can’t they be the children’s parents?
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So your body keeps getting inhabited by people from alternate universes. Nobody knows what happens to the previous inhabitants of your body. Doesn’t that worry you?
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Yes. My previous inhabitant theorized that they changed places with this body’s first inhabitant, but I’m not sure how I change things, and that sort of seems like wishful thinking anyway. Regardless, my duty is to accept what is and work to fulfill the will of the logos anyway.
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“We don’t really have independent lawyers– we just have public defenders and government-provided civil lawyers.”
Who writes your contracts? Who figures out what the tax burden under different spending plans is?
Why can’t singles participate in government? Firstly, it seems that something with so many sudden fires would be a better fit for an ex-CEO than a former teacher. Secondly, the practice of government, at least in our world, makes it harder to keep and maintain the schedule and equilibrium monks need.
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What do you admire most about this (our) world?
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I feel like “everyone is so fucking calm all the time” would be kind of repetitive at this point, so… I really like your big CGI-filled movies. In our universe, spending that much money on entertainment not intended to glorify the logos was generally considered to be a waste while malaria still existed, so we never developed it. On a purely selfish level, Batman v. Superman was awesome.
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So… what is the logos? Is it an impersonal force, or a person? If it’s an impersonal force, how can it speak to people or exhort people to do things? And if it’s a person — I’m sure you’ve read how the Gospel of John calls Jesus the Logos; how is your logos different from a god?
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It is a God. We are theists, and our God is the logos. I mean, I know some theologians have been going on about how the logos is actually a metaphor or whatever, but in my opinion that’s just kind of silly. If the logos isn’t a real thing, why is math so unreasonably effective?
I don’t think the logos is a person, really. I mean, it’s sort of like a bunch of mollusks talking about humans and trying to decide whether they’re mollusks or not. The logos is unimaginably beyond and above us, and we shouldn’t reduce it to our level.
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Could you tell us about some great heroes of Low virtue?
How is the monogamy/polyamory situation and LGBTQA+ stuff?
How about BDSM?
If you’re a single and have a kid and want to keep them, can you switch over to being a married?
Do you have to have a partner to raise children? (If yes, then if your partner dies and you have kids already, do you have to remarry?)
What happens to monks caught having sex?
Are monks allowed to masturbate?
Were you sad, back in your world, that you wouldn’t be allowed to have sexual relations anymore?
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Can singles who’ve had to give up their kids keep contact with them?
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Yep! They’ll usually be treated as a cool aunt.
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On last year’s thread, someone hypothesised that between Sylphium and dath ilan, this looks like the BDSM universe. BDSM sounds like the kind of thing the Teaching disapproves of, but it would be nice if AU!Ozy confirmed whether the pattern was continued.
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Nobody gives a shit about BDSM. Virtue class covers it in sexuality education as part of sexual diversity. (Also, Silphium is much more accepting of BDSM than this dimension is. Dath Ilan is just weird.)
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My favorite is Lauren Eaker, a missionary who converted thousands of people to the Teaching over the course of her life. She eventually wrote the curriculum we use for training missionaries. Her low natural virtue gave her the empathy to understand what people who grew up without the Teaching were going through, making her tremendously more effective as a missionary.
Valid parts of human sexual diversity. Gay couples can get married, married couples can have other partners, and literally no one cares what singles do as long as they don’t have kids. There’s currently some controversy over whether triads should be able to raise children, because the evidence from singles in committed triads is that they tend to break up more than couples. (On the other hand, it is more people to raise the kid.)
Yep! The only people who can’t switch are married people who currently have underage children, for obvious reasons.
Yes. We don’t have divorce for married couples; married couples who wish to divorce much switch to being single (which, of course, you can’t do if your kids are underage). If your partner dies, you don’t have to remarry (because that would be awful!), but the community is extremely supportive and you have more casseroles and babysitters than you know what to do with.
Spiritual counselling. If the spiritual counselling fails and they are caught repeatedly, they are stripped of their monkhood and become a single.
Yes, and in fact encouraged– masturbation is a great way of distracting from overwhelming passions. 🙂
Anymore? I was a virgin. I knew I wanted to be a monk from the time I was a little kid, so there was no point having sex with anyone so I would know what I was missing. I deliberately cultivated a fantasy-based sexuality so I wouldn’t be tempted.
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What happens if your spouse is abusive? What if they’re not but the relationship just turns out to be utterly terrible for terminal incompatibility reasons?
…how much of a problem do you have with premeditated murder of spouses?
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You can document that the environment is inhospitable for children (abuse, regular fighting, hostility) and get a separation; it is considered actively virtuous to separate if your environment is inhospitable to kids, and the newly single parent is deluged (just like the newly widowed parent) with casseroles and offers of babysitting. If you just don’t feel the spark with your partner anymore, but you’re good coparents, then you tough it out until the kids are grown.
Our homicide rate is really good, by which I mean it’s like twice yours.
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Do transgender people exist in your universe? If so, is being trans considered to be a desire that goes against the logos?
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Trans people exist and my world treats them a little better than your world does: for instance, I could put an X on my identification in my home world, but not here. The consensus opinion is that trans people are the souls of one gender placed in the body of another gender.
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Do married people have a wider range of options after their children are grown?
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After the kids are grown, married people can switch affiliations to single. (They don’t have to stop being in a romantic relationship– singles can be in committed relationships, they’re just not legally married.)
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Even with your advantage of mindfulness meditation, we are calmer and less suicidal than your people. Do you have any speculations as to why? What went differently in this branch of history to cause better outcomes with fewer explicitly-taught coping strategies?
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Everyone in this universe is bizarrely preternaturally calm all the time. It is a universe inhabited by naturally high-virtue people, and so you guys never had to develop the skill of teaching virtue to those of us who are not. In fact, you seem to assume that low-virtue people are sick in their brains and give them medication, which is just bizarre.
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What is the clothing like in your world? Is it assigned in rigid ways like on Earth and then you are commonly taught to practice the Virtue of Resignation, or is there a greater degree of freedom because it would be silly to let a body covering impede your path to following the Logos?
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Clothing is pretty much the same as it is here (except that pink is a boy color and blue is a girl color). If you’re a man who wears dresses, you’re unlikely to be harassed, but a lot of people will be very tolerant at you about you being a female soul born in a male body (regardless of whether you happen to feel like a female soul or not).
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Wild guessing here: BPD is extremely common in your world, the Teaching is (in part) a way of coping with this, and you think our world would be improved by some of those coping mechanisms being used by everyone?
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Part of my question was trying to determine if BPD or autism was the different virtue trait (since I’d expect a world of autistics like myself to let people wear bathrobes into board meetings if that really helped).
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OOC: Autism? Really? I thought it was obviously BPD.
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Curiously, the ancient philosophy you’re describing sounds very much like (the original intent of) Christianity. I’m curious if you intended it to be so (See: the Widow’s offering, Mark 12:44 and the parable of the talents Matthew 25:14-30 or my personal favorite, Matthew, 7:16, which endorses the scientific method). The education system, though, is independently cool, and I’d send my kids to your schools for sure.
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So correct me if I’m wrong, but… You wrote a BPD-world fic as an ad for CBT I’m guessing? Or, as you said on Tumblr, to troll by making half the audience think it’s utopia and half think it’s dystopia? Either way, I approve.
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Well, I think it’s half utopia and half dystopia, so apparently I embody the whole audience? 🙂
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Leaning towards dystopia but find certain aspects utopian. Still sounds worse than our world for someone like me, although how the inhabitants’ happiness/eudaimonia/interestingness/amount of furry porn may be different considering their natural differences.
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What do the people from your home dimension mean by souls?
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