And I'm back!!!!!!!!!

I've been away for quite a while and I really don't have a great excuse other than that I was busy but I am going to try and be somewhat consistent now. I've posted on a variety of topics in the past and today again I want to post on something that I feel is rather important, ethics.

Socrates says that an unexamined life is not worth living. I believe he makes a rather powerful point and one that bears important scrutiny. Introspection is the key to growth and development of our ethical, moral and spiritual lives. When we examine our lives on a continual and regular basis we place our development as a key component of our being. We need to be able to reflect on our life and decisions in order for us to weigh who we are to who we can become or want to be. For Socrates, the Ideal life is one spent in search of the Good. What is the Good? The Good is Knowledge and evil is nothing but ignorance. The goal of human existence is to discover that Good and that Good is universal. It is a ethical, intellectual and spiritual good.

Socrates asks the quintessential question: what is the good? This question can be considered from a variety of perspectives like good business, good morals, good friends and so on. But thats not what Socrates is really referring to, rather he is talking about the idea of the Ideal or the Right. He informs us that the good life is the life of virtue, material growth is not seen as being part of the good but rather self-development, the fostering of virtues. In our modern world especially in this country, self development isn't important but material growth is what is important and the basis of what is termed success. Most of the East, Middle East and other such regions accuse the West but more specifically America of materialist culture, a culture which centers around monetary gain, material comfort and amassing of a personal fortune. This criticism applies to corporate America and the now burgeoning upper class. When the average salary or compensation differential between a CEO and employee is 400 to 1, such claims don't seem to be too far off the mark. CEO have enormous golden parachute packages, were even if they were to perform badly and their companies loss millions if not billions of dollars, they will still get multi-million dollar packages. On the otherhand, most employees are not given remotely even decent severance packages if anything at all. Such focus on increasing one's coffers fundamentally shifts society's vision for what is important. Maybe the focus so be something less material and more principled.