Good Evening Friends,



It is not necessary that we go into detail about structures of justification. We know what they are. We've been talking about them.



Man exists without justification. Because this is so we have created and we maintain structures of justification. What I mean is that - whether or not God exists and for our purposes we may put this question to one side - no divine extraterrestial authority provides direct feedback to us about our actions and the way we live our lives.



We try to convince that we live according to some "universal" principle or another; and the extent to which we are "successful" in life is the extent to which we believe we have acted in accordance with some vague universal principle, that we are doing the "right thing."



Money is an important structure of justification. The amount of it we have and the extent to which we can make the outside world think we are more successful than we are by upward class mimicry, that I have already said something about.



We should never underestimate the extent to which ideology is invested in economic theory (even separated as it is from politics these days), whether we or those who hold forth on economics for a living, are consciously aware of it or not.



For example we can ask: What precisely is the difficulty in getting living wage legislation enacted in the United States of America?



Answer: the difficulty is ideological.



Remember that Man is the desire to become God, as Jean-Paul Sartre said. Just one of the ways our behavior reflects this is the way we all, in our limited ways (all the classes of people) try to mimic the economic pharaohs of our society, who, themselves, are trying to mimic God in their extreme focus on wealth accumulation ("He has more money than God." - recall this idiomatic expression, as we talked about?).



Therefore, one's success and wealth (as well as the extent to which you can "fake it till you make it") is symoblic of his nearness to God. And one's nearness to God is symbolized by his success and wealth. This is so whether we are talking about a nominal atheist or "person of faith."



In fact, Slavoj Zizek gave another great talk, which naturally can also be found on the Internet, called "Why Only an Atheist Can Believe." He juxtaposes an atheist against the fundamentalist. He says that fundamentalist really do not believe. Their so-called belief is too concentrated, to oversimplify.



As I said before, we can concur by asking if the fundamentalist really believes, what need is there to maintain such elaborate structures of justification.



So, if tomorrow living wage was the law of the land for all those jobs called "McJobs" (or something like that) like working in Starbucks, the mall, or something like that, being a cashier or waitress somewhere, everyone else would feel under spiritual threat.



While no one is suggesting that a check out clerk in a supermarket would under such a scenario or "should" receive the same salary as a third grade teacher or a professor of literature, this makes no difference. If workers at McJobs were to receive a living wage tomorrow, everyone else would feel their position or nearness to God devalued in relative terms.

They would feel - although not able to articulate this - as though they were not as near to God as they thought they were. This would be quite traumatizing psychologically. It is humankind's desire to become God, I think, which lies at the root of the hierarchical nature of society in general.

People do not believe that someone working at Starbucks, forty, fifty, sixty hours a week on a regular basis, should make enough, with that one job, to meet all your expenses and have enough left over for modest luxuries - because... well, its Starbuck's! The third grade teacher and professor of literature, police officer, and firefighter would feel like they were being dragged down to a lower level.

This is so whether we're looking at an atheist or believer. Its irrational but true nevertheless. This is the ideological root of the opposition to living wage, and indifference to same on the part of "most" people, covering the entire spectrum of mainstream so-called left-right-center political opinion.

Perhaps I'll talk more about this another time. In the meantime, remember these two contradictory, paradoxical ideas. Man is the desire to become God (the ultimate source of justification) and Man exists without justification ("God" or an extraterrestial tutor).

I'm not saying that God does not exist, but effectively, God really does not exist, with respect to providing justification. Follow? Good.

There's one more point I'll take up before retiring tonight.

wingedcentaur