Reversible progress: Gay rights, abortion rights, the safety net...
It's always a mistake to assume that progress is ratcheted, and can't reverse. It can.
A setback in gay civil rights legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi isn't the end of civilization as we know it, of course. But then, each individual defeat on abortion rights after Roe vs. Wade wasn't the end of women's privacy (aka right to choose) in reproductive decision making. Forty-odd years of isolated decisions on abortion policy have added up to a significant retrenchment of family planning and fertility control services.
Gay civil rights has been moving along relatively smoothly for forty some years. There were some significant defeats in the beginning, and if you think gay marriage is a critical issue, there were quite a few defeats in the 21st century--before what seemed like a final victory was delivered by the SCOTUS. More reverses may occur. Kudos to PayPal for cancelling its operations center plans in NC.
The safety net which was first strung up in the 1930s, and periodically improved (and seemed permanent by the 1970s), has been under attack for 30 years now. It has holes in it that weren't there before, and the whole thing is closer to the floor than it used to be, meaning you are going to impact the pavement rather heavily if you fall off the tightrope.
I'd like to think that we have to worry only about cretins and southern vipers like Trump and Cruz, but I don't trust Clinton either on this score (her husband ended welfare "as we know it" while he was figuratively screwing the working class with NAFTA and literally screwing Monica.) She might not take scissors in hand to snip away at the safety net. She is more subtle: She'll conclude deals with TPP partners (and a nest of Wall Street rats) which will result in further disinvestment in the American Working Class. The main group supporting her with enthusiasm in the primaries seems to be those who have been sufficiently disenfranchised that they have nothing to lose.
She isn't going to do much for poor blacks and hispanics either. She can't. The tide that would lift all boats is going to be channeled rather carefully to lifting a bunch of yachts instead.
If Sanders should win the nomination and then the election, and if the democrats do not capture both houses of the Congress, he won't be able to deliver much either. Of course, it could come to pass that things work out very well -- socialist Jews in the White House; Democrats chairing all the important committees; Justice Thomas dropping dead soon after the election like Tony Scalia did -- just in time; a liberal court for the next 20 years, the beginnings of the New American Socialist Party which supplants the Democrats and ushers in the expropriation of Big Pharma, the liquidation of the 1% (liquifying their assets and probably not the people), a conversion to green, etc. Yes, yes, yes -- I get carried away in my imagination sometimes. But it's a pleasant thought.
A setback in gay civil rights legislation in North Carolina and Mississippi isn't the end of civilization as we know it, of course. But then, each individual defeat on abortion rights after Roe vs. Wade wasn't the end of women's privacy (aka right to choose) in reproductive decision making. Forty-odd years of isolated decisions on abortion policy have added up to a significant retrenchment of family planning and fertility control services.
Gay civil rights has been moving along relatively smoothly for forty some years. There were some significant defeats in the beginning, and if you think gay marriage is a critical issue, there were quite a few defeats in the 21st century--before what seemed like a final victory was delivered by the SCOTUS. More reverses may occur. Kudos to PayPal for cancelling its operations center plans in NC.
The safety net which was first strung up in the 1930s, and periodically improved (and seemed permanent by the 1970s), has been under attack for 30 years now. It has holes in it that weren't there before, and the whole thing is closer to the floor than it used to be, meaning you are going to impact the pavement rather heavily if you fall off the tightrope.
I'd like to think that we have to worry only about cretins and southern vipers like Trump and Cruz, but I don't trust Clinton either on this score (her husband ended welfare "as we know it" while he was figuratively screwing the working class with NAFTA and literally screwing Monica.) She might not take scissors in hand to snip away at the safety net. She is more subtle: She'll conclude deals with TPP partners (and a nest of Wall Street rats) which will result in further disinvestment in the American Working Class. The main group supporting her with enthusiasm in the primaries seems to be those who have been sufficiently disenfranchised that they have nothing to lose.
She isn't going to do much for poor blacks and hispanics either. She can't. The tide that would lift all boats is going to be channeled rather carefully to lifting a bunch of yachts instead.
If Sanders should win the nomination and then the election, and if the democrats do not capture both houses of the Congress, he won't be able to deliver much either. Of course, it could come to pass that things work out very well -- socialist Jews in the White House; Democrats chairing all the important committees; Justice Thomas dropping dead soon after the election like Tony Scalia did -- just in time; a liberal court for the next 20 years, the beginnings of the New American Socialist Party which supplants the Democrats and ushers in the expropriation of Big Pharma, the liquidation of the 1% (liquifying their assets and probably not the people), a conversion to green, etc. Yes, yes, yes -- I get carried away in my imagination sometimes. But it's a pleasant thought.
Comments (96)
I share the sentiments though, a lot of progress has been made just in the last couple of years, and I too worry that things could go the complete other direction. I may be ignorant of politics, but it seems to me that the justice of the supreme court appointment may be more significant than the presidential election... you know... until a communist Jew comes along.
Everyone is super conservative though, and are not super happy about our new Prime Minister, mainly because he'll share the wealth. Last week he was in Edmonton apparently explaining why he raised unemployment benefits everywhere except Alberta. I live in little town about an hour outside of Edmonton, with about 300 residents, and it has two liquor stores, a gas station, a bar, a grocery store, a pharmacy, auto repair shop, Chinese restaurant, and a coffee shop. That's unreal to me, and every little place is like that.
Still, no where in Canada is like the southern states I'm sure.
I think abortion is in order if both partners in a committed couple agree, in case of rape, incest, and abuse. I think abortion is a terrible crime, equivalent in seriousness to murder, when done as a result of promiscuous sexual activity, or out of desire to further economic goals (such as desire to have a child later in order to have a career, etc.)
Respect for gay people (though not unquestioned approaches towards the morality of homosexuality) should also keep being promoted. Gay people, because they are first and foremost human beings, deserve to be respected and treated with dignity. Nevertheless, this does not mean that their moral choices with regards to homosexuality should not be questioned.
Regarding gay marriage, I don't understand what's the need for it. Gay people can live together without being married, and since marriage is a religious institution, it should follow religious laws. As Cruz said, the state has no right over the pulpit on this issue.
Quoting Agustino
Yes. In developed countries, there are several means available to prevent unwanted pregnancy before the pregnancy begins -- condoms, birth control pills, IUDs, implants, vasectomy, tubal ligation, and so on. If a woman does not want to get pregnant, there are means at hand to avoid it. Mistakes can happen of course, like, "Oh no! I didn't know the gun was loaded."
Quoting Agustino
I don't think so, but that's a different discussion.
Quoting Agustino
I am moving in that direction; people do have a right to their own body, of course, but we limit that right. IF, for instance, one has a readily communicable disease like multi drug resistant TB, we say "No, you can't just do whatever you want. You will take this medication every day on time, or you will be institutionalized until you are cured." Similarly, if one has HIV, doing nothing about it is not a socially acceptable option IF one is going to have sex with uninfected people. True, prophylactic treatment (Truvada) is available for the uninfected, but still, if you have HIV, then do something about it or don't have sex.
Where there is involvement in a relationship, then the decision should not be unilateral.
Quoting Agustino
Really! People always want to both have their cake, and to eat it too. I think chromosome 8 is devoted to this behavior.
Quoting Agustino
Right. Gay people are first and foremost human beings. Being human at all and moral choices go together. I don't think sex is morally problematic more than lots of other moral choices (like deciding to not serve in the military, or becoming a vegan, or not lying on one's tax forms.
Quoting Agustino
We've hashed this out before, but I am not a gay marriage enthusiast. Love is love, true enough, but two men do not bring the same elements to a relationship that a man and a woman bring. I am happy about that, actually -- as a gay man I never wanted to marry. (I wanted a long relationship with another man, I had it, and it was voluntary.) It is the case that gay and straight men can both be nurturing, but there seem to be clear advantages to having a heterosexual couple model marriage for a child rather than 2 men. (This assumes that the heterosexual couple are capable of modeling the best aspects of marriage. A lot of straight couples are no more capable of modeling happy marriage than two kangaroos are.)
Almost all people are heterosexual. Granted, sometimes some people stop being straight for a period of time, but they generally resume straight behavior later. Only a small proportion of the population is always gay, (like moi) and it seems to me that we are best off focussing on the advantages to us of a male/male relationship rather than attempting to imitate a male/female relationship.
And, of course, morals apply within a gay male relationship.
Yes this was my point. Giving women alone the right to abortion, opens up the situation of the father literarily having no say in what happens with what is, in the end, his child as well. Very unfair!
Quoting Bitter Crank
Maybe it could be chromosome xyz, I could care less, but I find such behaviour to be on the fringe of immorality.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think sex can be morally problematic, but I'd put most of the problems, as you know, with regards to promiscuity rather than hetero or homosexual sex.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree with most of this :)
I just wanted to respond to this point, which, I'm sorry is utter bullshit, and a fanciful far-right talking point (along the lines of "every society which has embraced homosexuality has collapsed"). Whatever drove the Roman Empire to collapse, a decline in "moral values" (as you understand them) was likely not among them. Rome was a conquering, warmongering empire: it is nonsense to claim that it was suffused with "moral values" until such time as it embraced libertine sexual mores.
Rome embraced Christianity as its state religion, and then collapsed about 150 years later. So, perhaps it was Christianity which brought about its collapse. That being the case, we should ever strive to expunge this foolish superstition from public life in the United States, and instead base our laws and private moral judgments on a foundation of reason.
I know this is way off-topic, but for the love of god, people: "its" is for the possessive. "It's" is a contraction of "it is." I give non-native English speakers a bit of a pass on this, but you're from the American Midwest, where English is the lingua franca (sort of). >:o
How do I understand them? I don't believe you understand how I understand moral values. As I said many times, I don't consider homosexual sex in and of itself a particularly harmful vice. Much more serious is sexual promiscuity, whether in homo or heterosexual relationships.
Quoting Arkady
This is historically false. There was a small ruling class who embraced libertine sexual mores in different periods of Roman history, but definitely not the average citizen.
Quoting Arkady
I don't understand why you consider Christianity and reason to be opposed to one another. Personally I don't. I see reason in the teachings of Christianity. For me, for example, original sin is a concept that describes the world. First it describes the tendency of all things to decay (second law of thermodynamics) and secondly it describes the statistical tendency of human beings to choose wrong over right. I see nothing superstitious about this for example. And like this with many of the other doctrines.
"Have no other gods before Me" - As virtue is what makes life worth living, it must never be sacrificed for anything else
"Thou shalt not make thyself an idol of anything in Heaven" - Do not take words and concepts to be the same as their referents, especially when dealing with the mystical. Experience is essential.
"I am a jealous God" - vice is its own punishment, and virtue is its own reward.
etc. etc.
Christianity is artful, and simply makes reasonable sense, at least as I understand it, and as most theologians have in fact understood it :)
You said that homosexuality is "on the fringe" of immorality (or was it just plain ol' heterosexual promiscuity that you were objecting to?).
Quoting Agustino
You claimed that a "decline in moral values" brought on the collapse of the Roman Empire. Given that this was in the context of sexual morality, I take it that that was what you were referring to. If not, you'll have to specify exactly which "decline in moral values" you're talking about, as apparently centuries of warmongering and conquering didn't quality as such a decline.
Quoting Agustino
Fine. But Rome embraced Christianity as its state religion, and then collapsed about 150 years later (after having existed for over a millennium). Therefore, said embrace was a cause of its decline. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
No I said people who want to have their cake and eat it too are on the fringe of immorality, and it was referring to women and abortion:
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Arkady
Yes sexual morality is a very important part of morality and it did play a major role. When sexual morality declines it is a sign that people are no longer motivated by anything in life, and so resort to base pleasures not knowing what else to do. Life has become too easy for them.
Quoting Arkady
You have to demonstrate more than a correlation to prove causation my friend. It may be as you say (I don't have anything against the idea a priori) but I just have no reason to believe it at the moment.
Quoting Arkady
You commented on my post so I just replied back, no more point than that.
You do realize that women are the ones tasked with actually bearing children, right? Given that they're investment isn't equal, I don't see why both partners should get an equal say.
Quoting Agustino
Or perhaps it just shows that people are not bound by overly prudish mores which demonize sex as something evil? What evidence do you have that sexually libertine people are "no longer motivated by anything in life," other than your general dislike of sex?
Quoting Agustino
Yes, that's entirely the point: you say that a decline in moral values in the Roman empire led to its downfall, and I counter by pointing out that its decline also sharply followed its embrace of Christianity as a state religion, which is just as likely an explanation (which is to say, not very likely).
Quoting Agustino
Right...but my question was regarding the content of your post. What was the point of any of it?
So men should have no right over the child compared to the woman just because they do not hold the child in their body for 9 months? That's unfair, sorry to tell you. A woman cannot have a child without a man, and therefore, she should not be able to decide to kill a child without the man's approval as well. In fact, if any one of the two partners objects, the abortion should be strictly illegal.
EDIT: There has to be an exception in this case, when the woman's life is put in danger by the birth, she should have full rights to decide by herself.
Quoting Arkady
You seem to be under the impression that I think of sex as something evil. I don't. I think sex is one of the best things available to man. It's just that in order to truly enjoy it, people must be in committed relationships, devoted to one another and growing in intimacy together. If they are in that position, I would encourage them to have as much sex as possible. I have outlined this here many times before, as well as my reasons for holding those beliefs (namely that people who engage in promiscuous sex harm themselves and their own psyches first and foremost).
Quoting Arkady
Sorry to say my friend, but I actually love sex, I don't dislike it :) . At the same time I also respect women and other people, and do not look to use their bodies as means to an end, but rather treat them as ends in themselves.
Quoting Arkady
We have reasons to believe, a priori even, that moral decline will likely lead to social decline. Why? Because moral decline, including loose sexual behavior, leads to social conflicts, jealousies, alienation, etc. But this is not everything. If you study the history of other great empires, including the Ottoman Empire for example, you will see a similar trend towards the end. I have no reason to believe Christianity is the cause of social decline on the other hand. None a priori, none a posteriori.
Quoting Arkady
Which post? My response to BC or to you?
I didn't say they should have no say, but I should think that the person who assumes the greater risk and greater burden should have the greater say. Would your last statement (my bolding) apply even in cases of rape or sexual coercion?
Quoting Agustino
Another baseless claim. People can (and do) fully enjoy sex even when not in committed relationships. Sex can range from a one-night stand fling for fun from a multi-decade, committed, monogamous relationship. You present no evidence of what people do enjoy, you're just telling them what they should enjoy. And while you may not regard sex as "evil," you do regard it with moral opprobrium when it doesn't occur in circumstances in which you approve.
Quoting Agustino
Sometimes people use each others' bodies just for fun. Kantian protestations aside, there's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion, provided both partners are willing.
Quoting Agustino
We have no reason to believe that: you simply regard sex as sinful, and so it's plausible to you that sexual immorality was the cause of these societies' decline. In fact, the most sexually repressed societies in the modern world seem to be among the least successful.
And this "great empire" nonsense is just more of the socially conservative bullshit that I called out earlier: there's zero evidence for it, but they repeat it anyway (and it's of a piece with the similar claim that all societies which have embraced homosexuality have collapsed). The Ottoman Empire, for instance, collapsed in the wake of WWI: what did sexually libertine mores have to do with it?
The best you can possibly offer is post hoc ergo propter hoc-style reasoning, which I did with Christianity and the Roman Empire. You have nothing to counter this.
Quoting Agustino
Your response to me, above, which contained religious bromides.
No, it shouldnt apply in such cases.
Quoting Arkady
That's your opinion. People may also think they are nourishing their bodies when they are dreaming that they are eating and feeling the taste of the food, but in truth they are not.
Quoting Arkady
Their mere claims that they enjoy it are not sufficient to objectively sustain the assertion that it is in fact good for them.
Quoting Arkady
Yes I do.
Quoting Arkady
That is wrong, because it means they are not respecting each other's bodies for what they are meant to be. It does not give full dignity to the other human being OR to yourself. The fact that you think otherwise does not change this objective fact. And it just serves to prove how you think of other people as objects, and think that this is fine so long as they accept it. How disgusting.
Quoting Arkady
I don't. It's your hatred of religion which seems to make you think that a man has to be religious to think there is such a thing as sexual morality. You just cannot concieve that pure reason can bring one to this conclusion... how boring an atheist fundamentalist is :-d
Quoting Arkady
The collapse started prior to that, with expanding harems, people treated more and more poorly, growing separation of the ruling class, sexual promiscuity, etc. there have been books written on the subject, I can recommend you a few titles (Macfie's End of Ottoman Empire was a good one!). The problem with people like you is that you don't actually know much history, but your mouths are big, and you talk loud, and naturally assume the moral high ground. You have displayed no understanding of the importance of sexual morality in your post, quite the opposite, you have displayed quite a crass moral blindness.
Your seeming hatred of religion seems to blind you to values that were relevant even to atheists. Even Epicurus and Spinoza advocated sexual restraint.
It's relevant to show that Christianity's doctrines are reasonable :) (and in fact, if they weren't reasonable, I would not agree to them in the first place)
I agree.
Quoting Agustino
Yes. So? They may still be enjoying the experience. The fact that they're not actually nourishing their bodies has nothing to do with it.
I see. So, they believe they enjoy it, they have a sensation of enjoyment, they may say that they enjoy it, but they don't really enjoy it? This reminds of that quote from The Simpsons, when Moe says something to the effect of, "Rich people aren't happy: from the day they're born until the day they die, they may think they're happy, but they're not really happy."
Incidentally, I never said that sex was good for people (though in some ways it may be: it is, for instance, a good cardio workout, it's fun, etc). What is enjoyable or pleasurable needn't be "good" for a person. I enjoy beer and pizza, but I can't for one moment pretend that it's good for me (that, of course, doesn't imply that it's unethical to eat beer and pizza).
Quoting Agustino
Ah yes: vapid invocations of "dignity." Yet another bullshit social conservative trope. (I don't mean to pick on you, but I see this rhetorical strategy in social conservative talking points distressingly often: simply say that "dignity" of the human person necessitates your desired course of action or state of affairs, and voila, opposition melts away without the need for all of that pesky argument and intellectual disputation. (Steven Pinker's essay "The Stupidity of Dignity" is an artful takedown of this strategy)).
"Meant to be" by whom? This seems an argument by assertion. And, to boot, you toss in an ad-hom about me being disgusting or some such thing.
Quoting Agustino
I don't necessarily hate religion (though I do strongly dislike some aspects of some religions, a dislike which might rise to the level of hatred in some cases). And, no, one needn't be religious in order to demonize sex, but it helps.
Quoting Agustino
So, harems and sexual promiscuity brought down the Ottoman Empire (or at least contributed to its cause), in addition to a melange of other factors that you toss out? Riiight...it was the harems.
And, in addition to post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, you accuse me of historical ignorance and moral blindness, more ad-homs. What you call moral crassness, I call moral advancement away from a harmful, Puritanical viewpoint which demonizes sex and the pleasures of the body in the name of morals and virtue.
I also note that you ignored my observation that modern societies which are the most sexually repressed also seem to be the least successful by a number of metrics. However, this is only a vague impression on my part: you no doubt have reams of statistical data to counter my naivete. I look forward to seeing it.
Quoting Agustino
Right...my point being that nothing in that post pointed to Christianity's doctrines (which would those be, by the way?) being reasonable.
In which case they are deceiving themselves.
Quoting Arkady
*facepalm*. If they enjoy that which is not good, they are neither ethical nor moral.
Quoting Arkady
In which case it is immoral. Desire for something other than the good is immoral.
Quoting Arkady
Yes it is good for you to enjoy a beer over with friends.
Quoting Arkady
If you do not consider human beings worthy of the dignity of being treated as ends in themselves and not as means to some (selfish) end, then I am sorry for you. You have just lost what is the most important thing in life, which makes all other things worth having: virtue.
Quoting Arkady
By their nature. As for arguments by assertion, isn't that what you've done in every single post in this thread? i've given you multiple concrete examples, and you have failed to provide anything but generalities about some repressive societies, who knows which, doing worse than some permissive societies... really... get a grip.
Quoting Arkady
You have an obsession about demonizing sex dont you? So you think Jesus, Buddha, Epicurus, Spinoza, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, etc. all demonised sex? All these vastly intelligent men demonised sex, and you, the great intellect of mankind, are the only one who can appreciate sex. Give me a break, and stop embarrassing yourself.
Quoting Arkady
Yes it was the harems. Read the fucking book. Why did I give it to you? So you stare at the cover page? If that's what you do with books you'll never understand anything. And don't read only a part of it, read all of it.
Quoting Arkady
Oh look, the the baby is suddenly alarmed by the truth, after he has continuously and falsely accused me of demonising sex, hating sex, thinking sex is sinful, etc.
Quoting Arkady
Yes it is characteristic for those who are blind, and yet arrogant, to think that they can distinguish advancement from regression. Too bad that the greatest minds who have ever lived have, almost unanimously, disagreed with you. Literarily everyone. Theist and atheist alike. Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, etc. But of course, you, the great genius of mankind will tell us what is proper about sex, and naturally assume the moral highground in your speech. No arguments needed for you. What arrogance.
Quoting Arkady
Examples please. I can't talk with nonsensical generalities like these. Which societies are you referring to. And yes, I do have reams of statistical data to counter your naivete - the whole of human history, and the greatest minds who have ever lived. You should talk less, be more humble and read more.
Original sin is not a doctrine of Christianity? To have no idols is not a doctrine of Christianity? To have no other gods before God the Father is not a doctrine of Christianity? Do you even know what you're saying? And I have shown what those doctrines mean.
How can one be deceived that one is enjoying oneself?
Quoting Agustino
This just begs the question (if you mean "good" in an ethical sense).
Quoting Agustino
Yet more bullshit invocations of "dignity." I don't regard that using another person's body for sex provided they consent debases their dignity, so saying that I don't consider humans worthy of "dignity" is nonsensical.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, and I gave a "concrete" example about how the embrace of Christianity brought down an empire. See, fallacious post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning cuts both ways. You also ignored my rejoinder that the centuries of warmongering and conquering apparently don't constitute a "moral decline" in your eyes, but sexual licentiousness does. Are you prepared to make that claim? Otherwise, you shall have to look elsewhere for the causes of the decline and fall of the Roman empire.
And yes, I will match your generalities with generalities of my own. I will counter your low-quality evidence with low-quality evidence of my own. Up your game, and I will respond in kind.
Quoting Agustino
This seems an appeal to antiquity and authority. You will notice that the most recent philosopher on that list lived in the early modern era. Why might that be? And no, I don't have an obsession about demonizing sex: I only point out that you demonize it.
Quoting Agustino
Uh, what? You gave it to me, and I'm staring at the cover? Are you feeling well?
Quoting Agustino
This is just more appeal to authority and more ad-hom. Don't you have anything to offer besides dead philosophers and social conservative bullshit bromides? Arguments, please.
Quoting Agustino
You can start with the Middle East to look at sexually repressive societies which are less-than-successful.
I must have missed this reams of data you offered. You gave weak, ill-founded assertions about the Roman Empire, and then yelled at me about some book about the Ottoman Empire which you once read. How is this "data"?
You do realize that there are different denominations of Christianity, which differ in some aspects of their core beliefs?
And assuming that the above are doctrines of Christianity simpliciter, how is any of that reasonable?
It does because it uses them as means to a (selfish) end. That is using them as an object, because only objects are used as means to ends rather than as ends in themselves.
Quoting Arkady
Simple. Joy is not merely a subjective state, but also an objective state, pace Spinoza, Aristotle, etc. As Spinoza put it, joy is man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection. If no such objective passage happens, then the joy in question is illusory, a mirage.
Quoting Arkady
Sexual licentiousness is worse in moral terms than centuries of warmongering and conquests.
Quoting Arkady
I can add the moderns too. Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein... need I list more for you? :) The fact that you refuse to admit that most of human beings who have ever lived would be horrified at your lack of sexual mores is just you being intellectually dishonest. It is a true fact, whether you want to admit it or not. But of course you don't want to face up to that fact. And these are people from radically different cultures, from different corners of the globe, who grew up in different circumstances etc. Why do you think absolutely all religions have sexual mores? Why? Sexual morality has been extremely important to mankind for all its history, and whether you'll admit this or not, the evidence is overwhelmingly FOR this conclusion.
Quoting Arkady
Yes my argument is that you should not assume that you are right and demand evidence by stomping your feet when 90%+ of mankind who has ever lived has disagreed with you. You should at least have the decency to be humble and if you think you have a case try to make it.
Quoting Arkady
Any evidence that the ME is less than successful because it is sexually repressive? In fact, Europe has made its biggest advances in the Renaissance, not exactly the most sexually open period :) .
Quoting Arkady
There are books written about the role of morality in the collapse of both empires. Do you want me to provide you with a few?
Quoting Arkady
What's unreasonable about it?
More argument by assertion. I suspect we just have clashing intuitions on this matter. I am prepared to be bowled over by the force of your reason, but all you offer is warmed-over Kant. So, why should I be prepared to accept your view of sexual morality?
(Of course, I can reply that married couples can also use each others' bodies as means to an end, but then you'll invoke some social conservative magic-talk about marriage being a "complete sharing" of oneself with another, so that one married partner is not really "using" the other, etc. See, I've seen all of this before.)
Quoting Agustino
You do realize that "pace" means you're expressing a contrary viewpoint? Anyway, pleasure is most definitely a subjective sensation. One can no more be in error that one is in pleasure than one can be in error that one is, say, in pain. Again, you are simply asserting what people ought to enjoy rather than acknowledging what they do enjoy.
Quoting Agustino
Wow: so mass murder and subjugation of entire populations is less egregious than consenting adults doing what they want in the bedroom. Ding ding ding! We have crazy person liftoff.
Quoting Agustino
This would seem to be an argumentum ad populum. The vast majority of people who ever lived would probably also have been appalled by equal rights for women: that doesn't make it wrong.
Quoting Agustino
Are you serious? Are you unacquainted with, say, the misery of life under the Taliban? Would you care to pit, for instance, the per capita GDP of Afghanistan against that of Western nations?
Quoting Agustino
Sure, I am very interested in books that offer evidence that a decline in sexual morality brought down the great empires of the world. I just hope they offer more than post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.
Quoting Agustino
For one thing, they command obedience to an imaginary character named God. And a character who is petty, cruel, and childlike in many ways (drowning all of mankind because it's grown sinful? Really? Stone to death disobedient children? Really? Don't waste my time with this foolishness.)
If married people do this, it is also wrong. When love comes first, and sex comes second, merely as a shadow, that is when it is not an experience of using someone for your own pleasure, but a completely different kind of experience.
Quoting Arkady
Yes Kant has stated this. It's a valid argument. Do you have any objections to this argument? We're not here to discuss whether you should accept my view or not, we're here to discuss the merits of the arguments themselves.
Quoting Arkady
Where did you get this from? Pace means with deference to - it means acknowledging someone has said it before you.
Quoting Arkady
Pleasure has both an objective and a subjective component, and lack of either one is an imperfect, illusory pleasure.
Quoting Arkady
This is genocide - not conquest. Conquest doesn't aim at killing, but rather at expanding empires. So again, I wasn't talking about genocide. But yes, sexual immorality is worse than most other moral sins, apart from things like murdering out of pleasure, torture, etc.
Quoting Arkady
Nope. You are wrong. The vast majority of people who have ever lived believed women to be MORALLY equal to men. And I don't agree with any other equality between the sexes other than moral equality. Again, proof that your understanding of history is very shallow, and comes only through the lens of the moderns.
Quoting Arkady
What does GDP/capita being greater have to do with sexual permissiveness? :S
EDIT: examples of pace... https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ByIll8zCfIsC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=pace+definition+philosophy&source=bl&ots=z3c6hIfRO2&sig=-OXtVjPFYVFX_3h6pkzyz0yzf5Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW8oyXwoDMAhWDlQ4KHaO2D44Q6AEIWzAO#v=onepage&q=pace%20definition%20philosophy&f=false
Yes, just as I thought: more social conservative magic-talk. If one desires sex with one's partner primarily to gratify oneself, then one is "using" another person, regardless of whether it takes place in a loving relationship, or is part of a one-night stand.
Quoting Agustino
Valid argument? Perhaps: you'll have to lay it out with clearly-defined premises and show that the conclusion follows in order for it to be literally "valid." In any event, I can likewise construct a valid argument:
(P1) Sex, anytime, for any reason, is morally acceptable.
(P2) Mary and Bob had extra-marital sex.
(C) Mary and Bob's actions were not immoral.
See? Perfectly valid.
Quoting Agustino
From my general fund of knowledge about words. You may look it up, if you wish.
Quoting Agustino
Well, sure, we can objectively say that so-and-so is subjectively in pleasure. It doesn't follow that they can be in error about being in pleasure (do you believe that someone can be in error about being pain?).
Quoting Agustino
Right, because no one was killed in these campaigns of conquest. :-} In any event, "genocide" is the concerted, targeted effort to wipe out a select group of people based upon, for instance, religious, ethnic, or national criteria. "Mass killing" doesn't equate with genocide. For one thing, mass killing can be carried out indiscriminately. And thank you for reasserting your status as a moral lunatic by admitting that you hate sex more than you hate mass killing. Like I said: demonizing sex.
Quoting Agustino
Sweet Jeebus, man, do try to keep up: you appealed to what the "vast majority" of people in history would have found appalling, and then used that to buttress your claims about sexual morality. I replied that the vast majority have people who ever lived would have blanched at equal rights for women, and you reply with the non-sequitur that they believed that women were morally equal. So, these morally equal creatures were apparently nonetheless unworthy of equal property rights, equal voting rights, ability to get an education, etc. You continually point out how lacking my historical knowledge is, but you don't realize that even if you were historically correct about views on sexual morality, it does nothing to prove your claims.
Quoting Agustino
Look, I'm happy to talk to you, but if you can't even recall your own questions from two posts ago, then there's nothing I can do for you.
Pace
preposition pa·ce \?p?-(?)s?; ?pä-(?)ch?, -(?)k?\
Definition of pace
: contrary to the opinion of —usually used as an expression of deference to someone's contrary opinion —usually ital.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pace
None of this says that "pace" implies agreement.
Here's another one:
"used before a person’s name to express polite disagreement with what they have said"
http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/pace2
I think if (1) women did not go to war, (2) war could break out at any moment, you too would make sure your society doesn't allow women in politics. It was just a pragmatic issue and had nothing to do with equality.
Quoting Arkady
Yes I agree. One shouldn't desire sex with one's partner primarily to gratify themselves, but rather to gratify their partner :) .
Quoting Arkady
Yeah, you missed the point, I can see...
Quoting Arkady
In-so-far as it means "with deference to" I use it to express intellectual gratitude for the idea, not necessarily agreement.
Quoting Arkady
Killing was not the intention of conquest, it's merely a side effect.
Quoting Arkady
Mass killing for no reason is different than conquest. It's sad you cannot see that. I see nothing wrong with conquest. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc. were impressive people. Certainly more impressive than Bill "BangYourWife" Clinton ;)
Quoting Arkady
It does go to show that you can't assume the moral standpoint and bang your feet like a child. I refuse to engage with you in any more detailed dialogue because you are a sophist. A priori you want to disprove me, you're not interested in the truth. So I don't bother much except to show you how silly you are.
Oh, I see! So, denying women the right to participate in politics was for their protection! (Of course, I talked about their right to vote and not necessarily hold political office, but no matter: I'm sure that denying them the right to vote was for their protection, as well. And I'm sure that denying them an education was so that they didn't worry their purty little heads with all that fancy book learnin'?).
Quoting Agustino
Good luck with that.
Quoting Agustino
Then perhaps you'd be kind enough to explain? (You do realize the difference between a valid and sound argument? No doubt you do, but I ask only because you've shown no such familiarity here.)
Quoting Agustino
Yes, if only those pesky barbarians had just laid down their arms and surrendered at the first sight of Caesar's legions, much spilt blood could have been avoided. Oh, well. It's really their fault, I suppose. (One might make the argument that conquest in and of itself is grossly immoral, but I suspect you'll invoke some special pleading for that, too.)
Quoting Agustino
Then you are using it at odds with its accepted definition. But whatever floats your boat.
Quoting Agustino
Wow. You are just trolling at this point, right? I hope for your sake that you are. Otherwise, you are truly a moral lunatic.
EDIT: I now recall your comment in another thread that you said something to the effect of Hillary Clinton being the most immoral person you know of. So, given your above statement about Bill Clinton, I see that, in addition to demonizing sex, you also hold the requisite social conservative's irrational hatred of, and obsession with, the Clintons (funny that Bill Clinton gave the Republicans what they want with regard to a balanced federal budget, welfare reform, and a tough-on-crime bill, and yet they hate him anyway. Perhaps Sanders has the right idea: just skew left wing and say fuck the Republican agenda: they're just going to hate him, no matter what, if he's elected President).
Quoting Agustino
I see. So, you present no arguments, only warmed-over Kant and bullshit social conservative bromides, and then accuse me of sophistry. And I want to "disprove you a priori." I'm also uninterested in the "truth" which you assert you've presented, but for which you've presented no argument. I stand duly chastened.
A Chinese friend of mine told me that mistakes like "it's" and "its", and with all of the "there/their/they're"s are things native speakers are far more likely to do, because they learned to speak before write, and learn both in a fundamentally different way than a native of another language learning English.
I even replace words with other words that just rhyme all of the time... not that I don't actually know the difference, but just speaking-wise, they're too similar.
Actually I do know the difference between "it's" and "its". I aim for perfection but sometimes I miss. It's my fingers' fault -- they have a somewhat independent existence on the keyboard, separate from a brain that is apparently associated with me. Note that I correctly made the plural "fingers" own their fault by placing the necessary apostrophe after the "s" and not before, which would have fingered only one digit as the guilty party.
If you read the entire corpus of my work, (please don't) you would find more egregious errors than possessive errors. You would, no doubt, notice that my use of the semicolon is inconsistent with the level of competence expected by the National Council of English Majors, of which I am a member. I also seem to have a compulsion to use dashes and parentheses more often than is advisable. I am also ambivalent as to whether a comma and a period must always be inside of quotation marks, or may be on the outside sometimes and if so, when.
It may also be the case that my use of the perfect continuous conditional is sometimes in error, and I am not sure how to distinguish the p.c.c. from the subjunctive just off hand.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
Some people like diet no-caffeine Pepsi. It is clearly not good for people because it contains no nutrients (other than water). Carbonated water is harmful to teeth. Animals have no need for artificial sweeteners. Caramel coloring may be harmful (don't know). This product does not even have the salutary effect of offering a mild stimulant, yet it costs as much as full sugar caffeinated Pepsi. Clearly it is a fraud in a can (one of my favorites).
Drinking it is immoral?
Drinking excessive amounts of soda or pop or tonic, whatever one calls it, is probably unhealthy to some degree, the same way that eating excessive amounts of bacon is unhealthy.
Being unhealthy doesn't make it immoral, it makes it ill-advised.
Bungee jumping is ill-advised too (imho) but its ill-advisédness doesn't make it immoral.
"Morality" is a useful guide, but conservative rules on sex are not the only appropriate guidance we can use for achieving a good life. Doing what is salutary for the maintenance of health, and avoiding what is clearly bad (for health) are also appropriate - and demanding - considerations. Promiscuity in the form of unprotected sex is clearly a bad practice in this time of HIV, Ebola, Zika, and increasingly antibiotic resistant gonorrhea. People who insist on reckless sex and fail to reduce risk and harm achieve immorality, in my opinion, in the same way that people who refuse treatment for TB are immoral. Putting others at needless and life-threatening risk becomes immoral by a different route than your rules of sexual propriety.
Sex-for-nothing-but-fun or "treating your body like an amusement park" (as Mrs. Costanza accused George of doing [Seinfeld], is not harmful and won't be harmful if risk and harm are reduced to negligible levels. Husbands and wives secretly whoring while at conventions, on the other hand, introduces a probable harm into a marriage even if not so much as a virus particle is transmitted. The harm is in acting on a downgraded valuation of one's spouse.
1. effective military resistance and offensives by various peoples on the borders of the empire
2. reliance on slave labor and a slowing down of economic growth (linked to decline in geographical expansion)
3. splitting the empire between Rome and Byzantium
4. paradoxically, both the end of the empire's expansion and earlier unsustainable expansion
5. corruption
6. adapting Christianity as the state religion destabilized the previous sustaining value system
7. the infiltration of "barbarians"--less of an invasion and more a migrant movement
and numerous other causes.
Rome didn't so much "collapse" as gradually subside. The western empire didn't end in an apocalyptic event as much as it gradually fizzled out. From year to year, the fizzling out was probably not all that noticeable in many places; decade to decade and century to century, yes. My guess is that world civilizations are being slow-cooked like the proverbial frog in the pot of heating water. We won't notice it on a month-to-month basis. Too slow, too gradual. One day somebody will find a still-intact old magazine (LIFE or National Geographic) and see what the world used to be like, and then it will all become very clear. The curtain had long since fallen. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that.
The last Osman was encouraged by the Young Turks to spend as much time in his harem as possible. Why? To keep him busy and out of the way. When the time came he was relieved of the harem and hustled off to some other location. It wasn't the ladies in the harem that collapsed the Ottoman empire, it was done by the usual methods of bringing down deadwood elites.
As if property rights were a big thing in the old days. It was mostly families who controlled property, typically the elders anyways. People were not as independent as they are now - one couldn't do what the fuck they wanted with their property, there were a lot of socially mediated restrictions, from the family as well as from society.
Quoting Arkady
As women did not go to war, and did not understand the art of war, it was a peril to allow them to vote. Because they did not understand matters of war practically, they were likely to simply vote for the wrong candidate, and it was a pragmatic matter not to allow women to vote. This was perfectly normal given the circumstances of the world at the time. And by the way, you should be aware that women in ruling classes typically played major roles behind the scenes in politics. Livia, wife of emperor Augustus was very influential. Faustina the Younger (likely to have committed adultery) was treated extremely well by her husband, emperor Marcus Aurelius, despite her moral failings. There simply is not evidence that women were mis-treated historically. There are no documents, no writtings to justify such a view. In all of history, until the 19th century, no one complained about the role of women. And the first to complain, were MEN, who were annoyed that they couldn't fuck around (because adultery was punished socially at the time), and so wanted to free themselves, and thereby were interested to change the role of women in society. Charles Fourier is one, and so is K. Marx.
Quoting Arkady
Again, you're under the illusion that most average people had the ability to get an education. This is false, education was largely a privilige of the rich, and even rich women got an education, although a different one than men. Men would be trained in the art of fighting, the art of war, horse-riding, politics, philosophy, while women would be trained in cultural and social matters. If you read about the role of women among the elite, for example in the Roman Empire, you'll be surprised by how influential women actually were, even in politics. In some parts of the world, like in the Korean Peninsula, there were women leaders: for example, Queen Seondeok of Silla and her main political enemy at the time was also a woman leader, Lady Mishil of Silla. But of course your retarded modern feminism knows nothing of this. Just open a book of history. Please, before you open your mouth again. Just don't embarrass yourself anymore. You've already shown you know and understand nothing about historical matters.
Quoting Arkady
Explain what, that you purposefully and willfully refuse to understand the meaning of my words, and keep fighting against all sorts of strawman and derailing my message? Really, all your posts have had 0 intellectual content and purely rhetorical one.
Quoting Arkady
No. Being capable to fight, being capable to conquer, etc. are virtues. The fact that modern Western society no longer accepts traditional male virtues, has rendered modern men to be alike women - weak and frail. There is a growing alienation amongst men, especially in the working classes, as they no longer have any ideals to live up towards. Their natural propensities are given no means of expression, nor are they given the opportunities to engage in the activities men generally engaged in. Instead, they are told to go to clubs, drink, and have sex. That's what the modern message is towards men. It has dumbed man down.
Quoting Arkady
I asked you what you found wrong with the Kantian argument, and for about 4-5 posts you have been stomping your feet like a baby and diverting attention from the argument. Here's my position stated in another thread, if you would actually be interested to learn rather than rebut me, you could profit more from this discussion. But your hatred of sexual morality just blinds you.
Quoting Agustino
Something that harms yourself is immoral, BC. Just like there is a moral imperative not to harm other people, there is also a moral imperative not to harm yourself. That's why things like gluttony are immoral.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I argued above and in other threads that sex for nothing but fun is psychologically harmful in-so-far as it involves objectify the other, not controlling one's sexual appetites, and renouncing the real potential that exists in sex.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, sexual debauchery definitely was also in the list. I highly advise you to start by reading this article: http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
Many proeminent historians agree that moral collapse was one of the leading causes of the Empire's collapse.
Again, you're refusing to admit that sexual debauchery played a role, even though many historians seem to think it did.
This is a philosophy, not a political forum. I can care less about winning you over, all I care about is the merit of the arguments. I have presented three arguments regarding the sexual matter, you have addressed NONE of them. I have given you multiple historical examples illustrating why women did not hold political office, and why they shouldn't have held political office in such times, nor have been allowed to vote. You on the other hand, who believe something as ahistorical as female oppression, have the burden of proof on yourself, to show, if women were indeed oppressed through history, why is there so little evidence for it? Why aren't there records of women protesting against their oppression historically? We have, for example, for slavery during colonialism multiple sources which attest to their oppression and unjust suffering - hundreds upon hundreds of attempts at slave revolts. Why are there no such sources regarding women? Furthermore, you ignored my historical argument about sexual mores. If the sexual mores that I propose are indeed wrong, you have to tell us how come MOST of the greatest minds who have ever lived have believed and encouraged them, be they atheist, be they theist, be they white, asian, male, female, etc. How come, that people who have sprung up in different corners of the world, across different times, and different places, and different cultures have believed almost the same thing regarding this subject? You dismiss it saying that just because so many believed it doesn't NECESSARILY mean it is correct. I agree, and argumentum ad populum is not necessarily true. But it certainly begs for an explanation, even if it is indeed false. My explanation is the intuitive one: people believed like this, because they have perceived, from their experience and that of their fellow men, that such behavior leads to a fulfilled life. You will have to argue that people have been (1) stupidly retarded, or (2) oppressive and outright evil, seeking to promote values that oppress certain groups, and then explain how come people in the West have suddenly become enlightened and are no longer (1) or (2). And keep in mind that you will accuse virtually ALL of the geniuses in Western history of stupidity by making your argument.
Quoting Arkady
Low class MEN AND WOMEN lived harsh lives Arkady. There wasn't much difference between the suffering of one and the suffering of another. Low class people had lower status, be they male or women. The distinction wasn't between sexes, it was between social class.
I will address this for others interested, so don't feel like you've got to respond. It is true that pleasure is a subjective sensation, but pleasure is not always good (ie, en-joyable). For example, when someone is raped, they most probably will feel pleasureable sensations. But guess what, most people would feel ashamed and bad for feeling pleasure during such an act. Therefore pleasure is not always good, and it does not always constitute joy. This is simply a fact. However, joy always requires to be associated with pleasure, but that in itself is not sufficient to constitute joy. Joy cannot be degraded to the simple level of pleasure. Like I said in my previous post, joy has two components. One subjective, and one objective. For joy to occur, both components must happen at the same time. If I feel pleasure, but there is no objective improvement in my condition, then my pleasure is an illusion and cannot be called joy (such as when taking drugs). If I feel pleasure, and there is an objective harm done to my condition, then my pleasure isn't only an illusion, it is a great source of active suffering (such as in the case of rape). If I don't feel pleasure, but there is an objective improvement in my condition, then I am affected by some condition which constrains my judgement or affective system in such a way that I cannot feel the subjective state that is normally associated with the objective state. This happens if I am depressed for example. I may succeed in getting my loan from the bank, but I will not feel pleasure in the achievement, even though, objectively, it is an improvement to my condition.
OK, I'll check this article out -- but it is a fairly long article, I'm heading off to a funeral right now (just ushering -- never met the man) and I may say something before having the alleged enlightenment to be derived therefrom.
From which century?
I was referring to "many historians" believing that. Which century was that? That was indeed a credible view in the past... but not recently... if by many you mean more than like ten people... then yeah probably, but if by many you mean a considerable portion of all modern historians then definitely not.
No doubt not that recently, if by recent you mean in the last 30 years. Don't forget that progressives have highjacked the intellectual elite of the West - in Universities studying social sciences, the ratio of liberals to conservatives is 9:1. No doubt they have introduced their biases. However, the fact of the matter is that the data we have access to has not changed. We have access to historical documentation from the periods in question, where people who lived then recount the collapse of their societies.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/few-conservatives-on-university-campuses . There's been many articles like this one remarking the problem recently.
http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/160113_LiberalProfessors2_Johnson.png
Again, this is not that different from the historical progression that we have witnessed in the past. Read the article I posted to BC.
Big liberal conspiracies aside, allowing you to make untrue statements, that are clarified with only accepting the historians you agree with in the first place... totes setting that aside...
Data has changed a shitload. Sociological, scientific, multicultural data has changed, which makes us evaluate, and consider different things credible than in the past.
A better question though, as obviously we'd never agree about this, but why does it matter, and what can we learn from it? How do we prevent it from happening to our society too? What kind of steps are you willing to take? Just complain, and tell people how bad they are as they ignore you and civilization crumbles around your righteous pure ears?
That's because they're bad at their jobs. Can't make much progress with people that's politically identified label means holding you back.
What does this have to do with historical data, in the form of primary and secondary sources regarding the periods in question? Again, revisionist history is just that. It imagines whatever it wants into the past. Traditional history is the one that actually takes the evidence we have available to us, and does not impose our imagination on the past.
You should know that waves of progressive mentalities have occured before the collapse of other empires and civilisations in the past as well. Fact of the matter is, that a society which is morally ignorant can never survive, even for the reason that barbarians will destroy it. Look what's happening. ISIS is screwing us, and we're just waiting like sitting ducks to be destroyed because we don't want to harm others. We think we're moral. But we have lost the hard virtues, of justice, duty, courage, etc. The West will either change, or it will perish in the next 100 years.
Quoting Wosret
Read the article I posted to BC if you want to know. It's a recent article as well, writtein in late 1980s or early 1990s.
Quoting Wosret
It's not a conspiracy, it's a statistically proven fact.
Quoting Wosret
If you've reached the peak of the mountain, a move left, or right, or backwards or forwards is a move down ;)
ISIS isn't coming to get you, and have never been, nor will ever be an actual threat to you or I.
Those articles aren't recent enough for me, and are by single people. You can find people that will say just about anything about anything. I was suggesting what is more orthodox among modern historians, and that Rome fell because of moral decay isn't.
You continue to act as if information is free of interpretation. If there are far more liberals occupying a field it means that there is a big conspiracy forcing out the far superior, more accurate and truthful conservative historians. Like creationists claim about scientists that support creation science. It isn't that they're bad at their jobs, it's just a conspiracy to silence them.
You could always jump off the fucking mountain, join us down here on the ground.
I can't be ignorant, and selective. I can't willfully dismiss, and not know about something. For most of human history evil spirits caused disease and illness, so taking the entirety of history, and ideas about it, and see how disease and illness hasn't changed in that time, why would moderns be saying something different?
Right. And you are knowledgeable about your own nature :S. Why should I believe that? Again, you may dismiss the ignorant masses. But you cannot dismiss the geniuses we have had through history, many of them much more intelligent than you can find today. It is these geniuses who noticed the collapse of societies, not the superstitious idiots, who by the way, were generally immoral by the time societies were collapsing.
Quoting Wosret
That's what you think. I disagree.
Quoting Wosret
Yes it is. The article I linked with is recent. it's within the last 50 years, that counts as recent by any standard. That Rome fell because of moral decay is an accepted view in history, and you have to show me why the intellectual elite in the last 30 years wants to argue differently. What changed? Oh yeah, I'll tell you what changed. The current intellectual elite is highly promiscuous, has no sexual mores, and so do not want to admit the truth. That's what changed. Because, as I said before, no new historical evidence was uncovered in the form of primary or secondary sources in order to change our perceptions.
What is happening is that these idiots calling themselves social scientists these days, do all sorts of stupid experiments, regarding for example sexual matters, on a population which is already highly biased, and in a culture which already determines the behavior and thoughts of most members. Thus they spawn all sorts of abominative theories, which make no conceptual sense, but nevertheless have empirical backing. No one bothers to criticise the methodology, nor the population sampled, nor the effectiveness of the statistical method in addressing such questions. And then some revisionist historians will go like "Ummm we know that people are promiscuous today, and so we shall re-read all of history as if this was always the case hurr hurr" ... this isn't scientific research, this is a sham.
Quoting Wosret
Well there is: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/?page=all
Quoting Wosret
Is this what Aristotle, Plato, and the other highly intelligent people in history believed? No :) . So taking popular superstition and comparing it with modern science will not do any good. If you want, compare highly intelligent people from back then, with highly intelligent people from today. Stephen Hawkings is a small baby compared to an Aristotle.
Quoting Wosret
I don't want to join the dirt, sorry. Virtue is its own reward. Much rather prefer the freedom of the skies. Virtue must not be sacrificed for anything else in the world, because, as Socrates taught, virtue makes everything else good for men, and without virtue NOTHING can be any good whatsoever.
You're just repeating yourself, you never answered my questions about why this even matters, nor addressed my criticism that information isn't without interpretation, and the tools people have for more realistic, reasonable interpretations were far fewer than what exists today.
No, demons wasn't what the likes of Aristotle, or Plato thought. They still believed in that shit, but it just so happens that they thought different equally wrong nonsense based on primitive notions caused diseases of the body. Like elemental, or humorous imbalances. Plato never struck me as particularly impressive, or interesting like Aristotle did (he was a twat), but it's mainly their scope of topics, and how little there was to know about anything at the time. It's impossible to become a polymath today, because each field is far too developed and complex. A few centuries ago if you read a few dozen books you'd know everything that was known about everything. You just sound romantically enchanted by the past.
Yeah, I'm sure you're great.
Right. Now that you let off a little heat, hopefully we can return to a civilised discussion.
Quoting Wosret
Well you yourself answered the first question. It matters because it will enable us to prevent the collapse of our civilisation, and it will enable us to build communities in which people can live good, decent and reasonable lives. As for how this is to be done, the answer is by first learning from the past, which is what we're doing here.
Information isn't without interpretation I agree. However, you have to realise that we have the writings of historians who witnessed those events, and they describe what happened. The fact that they noticed moral decay in their society is a fact. It's unquestionable. It's not something that can be interpreted. Something that is up to interpretation for example, is why did moral decay occur? Some say because of relaxed religious control, others because of too much well being, others because of orientation towards money rather than virtue, etc.
Quoting Wosret
Proof?
Quoting Wosret
Well he certainly struck some of the greatest minds in Western history as impressive, including Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein...
Quoting Wosret
No, that's not true. It's impossible to become a polymath because society doesn't want it. It wants to mass produce workers, not geniuses. Our whole educational system is set up in such a way that is not conducive to the production of genius. To become a genius you have to be devoted to study. People today go to schools or universities and they party, get drunk, etc. (and when they don't do that, useless information and rule-following is enforced upon them) Of course they won't become geniuses... what are you even thinking. No doubt no more geniuses exist in such a culture. Genius requires hard work and total dedication, not fucking around.
Quoting Wosret
Those theories are not that far off to be honest. Of course it doesn't have the predictive power of modern medicine, nor a detail of the actual mechanisms of disease, but it's a good first attempt, which still makes some sense if you don't read it literarily.
Quoting Wosret
This is very shallow thinking :S
Quoting Wosret
What does my greatness or lack of it have to do with philosophy or with our arguments? :S
We know more about the physical sciences, but we have lost the knowledge we had about spiritual and moral matters.
So you don't agree, some information doesn't require interpretation, and people directly perceive the causes of events.
Aristotle it's less clear, as he was certainly a naturalist, but not by discarding the supernatural as a separate domain to the empirical natural world, but by attempting to fuse the two. He definitely believed in a god, and inherent purpose in nature, though I don't recall him saying much about spirits. Plato on the other hand, Socrates definitely thought that he was on a divine mission, that he heard the voice of a spirit, his daemon, and believed in gods, and an immortal soul. Funny you'd hold the greeks up so highly though, considering how gay they were. Have you read the symposium? It gets pretty gay there near the end. Plato, I'll say seemed to be in favor of equality for women, far more so than Aristotle, but Aristotle was more feminine, for sure. He dressed flamboyantly, cared a lot about his looks, mourned his hair loss, and spoke with a lisp, which became emulated, and was responsible for the perception of the intelligentsia as feminine, which was later adopted by the gay community.
We seem to have different historical heroes.
More conspiracies... there are sociological studies that show that conservatives are just more afraid of things than liberals, and tend to perceive things as more threatening. Scoring much lower on "openness to new experiences". Stop being so paranoid, and thinking everything conspiracies.
No, elemental, and humorous imbalances is ripe nonsense, something someone comes up with when they have no fucking clue.
What do you have to show for apprehending that golden lost knowledge besides a feeling of superiority? Could you actually present an excellence that produces any kind of effectiveness, or dividends? How could you demonstrate it distinct from a delusional conceit?
Those people all look fairly attractive, so I would say that they are probably fairly happy, and emotionally well adjusted.
Yep, that's one of the major reasons why I consider homosexuality to be a minor sin only. In fact, I'd argue that young men should be gay in the sense that they shouldn't be interested in women, but rather in their own development until a certain age. Their own development occurs better amongst males. Young men should learn the art of fighting, should do sports and develop their bodies, and should become enterprising and disciplined people, ready to make a name for themselves in life.
Quoting Wosret
Some information is just re-statement of facts. And yes I do believe there are such things as facts, although I agree that facts can be interpreted in different contexts/ways.
Quoting Wosret
I think he was right.
Quoting Wosret
I think Socrates was also right.
Quoting Wosret
Well maybe they just don't want to experience that particular new thing, why should that be considered bad? I don't want to experience getting raped. Does that mean that I'm afraid of it? Or that I'm not open to new experiences? No, it simply means that I consider that activity bad, and I don't want to engage in it. If some stupid social scientist gives me a survey asking me if I am conservative or liberal and then asks me if I want to participate in having sex with a random stranger, of course I will refuse. But that's not because I'm afraid of new experiences, it's simply because I think that action is wrong. And yes, I, like Socrates, am more afraid of doing something unjust than of death.
Quoting Wosret
Right. I wonder why peasants came up with ghosts instead... :S
Quoting Wosret
That's one my purposes in life, to illustrate through practical example, that while it seems that the irresponsible man full of vice triumphs in this world, actually that is an illusion, and in the end it is the rightful man who comes out on top. So yes, I'd say it does. I've generally been successful at what I've done, some say even highly so. But again, I think the main reward is that I feel good about myself, I feel happy about helping others, and I am not afraid of death, because I know I am doing my best to live a good life. I don't feel superior, I feel very very fortunate to have had the chance to learn and be a light unto myself and unto others.
Quoting Wosret
A tree is known by its fruits, hence why I seek to show it through my life :)
Quoting Wosret
LOL. Okay. If that is what happiness is for you, then I have nothing more to say... If this is the human potential and the good life for you :( And if this is the end product of modernity - let me say that this is just laughable. A Julius Caesar, a Plato, an Aristotle, etc. would be rolling in their graves if they knew.
His much vaunted "moral decay" is really the loss of a culture which views the individual as essentially worthlessness and in need of saving. That's why he so invested in saying, commanding and being seen to be tough immorality. He is lamenting the lack of demands put on people in Western culture. Aside for whether any individual is happy of not, his problem is we think we are worth too much. We've eliminated the joy of being "saved" from our own worthlessness, at least amongst the "liberal elite" and anyone who shares similar cultural values. We've replaced the what Agustino calls the "spiritual" with ourselves.
I don't think people are inherently worthless, they just make themselves worthless by forgetting who they are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-vnLHaTe3g . Simba's relationship with his father is much like man's relationship with the divine.
In fact, my use of original sin shows that I don't think people are inherently worthless. Just like the gas laws, original sin refers to the statistical, probabilistic, and NOT inherent behaviors of people.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The individual makes himself worthless, and puts himself in a position where he needs to be saved.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes, the West has forgotten duty, and because it has forgotten duty it will either remember it, or it shall disappear, as all other civilisations have disappeared. That the West thinks of itself as immortal is a grave delusion. The barbarians are at the gates. Hannibal ante portas...
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
My moral decay is the loss of a culture which can detect and correct worthlessness.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes and no. We have become too selfish, that much is true. In that sense, yes my problem is that we think we are worth too much when in truth we are not. And no, in the sense that if we thought we are great, and we were indeed great, there would be no problem with thinking ourselves to be great.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes, we've replaced the spirit with ourselves, and so we have sought to make man into a God, into a standard for judgement. That is why we have become so selfish and perverted. Anamnesis as Plato said. Forgetfulness.
"Moral decay" is a useless measure for exactly that reason. It doesn't actually name anything that's happening in society. It's post-hoc blaming of the nearest thing (the promiscuous, the gays, the Jews, etc., etc., etc.), in the vein hope there is something that can avoid the collapse which is already in motion.
Societies collapse because of the distribution of resources and how they are used. We know this outright. We've seen it in the historical record. We've actually seen it in modern Western communities. This isn't a mystery. What people notice is various things happening in society as it goes down in flames. Most of the time, these have just about nothing to do with the collapse, with the case of the collapse set in motion many years before or beyond the immediate control of the society (e.g. the presence of invading armies, economic depression precipitating internal conflict, long standing ethnic tensions, etc.,etc. )
Yes it does name a change in people's behavior. It may not name the cause of the change, but it names and identifies a behavior which is bad, not the cause of that behavior.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The only thing that can avoid the collapse is mobilising a sufficiently large group of people, and creating communities of righteousness within the larger society, which slowly take over it.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I would say they collapse because people's lives become too easy, and people become unmotivated, they no longer understand what greatness is, or what matters in life, and a prevailing nihilism befalls upon the world.
Have a look at the article I posted, it explains the rise and fall of empires quite well.
Utter falsehood. You do think them worthless. Without the divine, humanity is scum. That's your position. The notion you've been struggling with ever since I've known you, right back to your first posting about God on the PF. You've never been able to view humans as worth anything in themselves. You're always demanding the must aim higher to save themselves from their inherent debasement. You are still chasing that which is never us, just like the consumerist who is never content the thing they just bought. The divine only manages to avoid lack of fulfilment in this role because it is imaginary. Since it can't be attained, the hollowness of reaching a desired state can't be achieved. One never gets to the divine, to become worthwhile, such that their sense of worthlessness renders the divine sour.
[quote="Agustino]Yes and no. We have become too selfish, that much is true. In that sense, yes my problem is that we think we are worth too much when in truth we are not. And no, in the sense that if we thought we are great, and we were indeed great, there would be no problem with thinking ourselves to be great. [/quote]
I wasn't talking about selfishness there, but rather one's own understanding of their worth. The point is about whether one has joy without the divine. When one understands themselves to be a legitimate part of the world, on their own terms, rather than a monster who needs the divine to make their lies worthwhile. My point is you lack this insight. You continue to outsource the worth of live because you think they have none on there own.
The duty to what exactly? (Further) subjugate the rest of the world under its military might? To (again) wipe out cultures and communities, (continuing) exploit other places such that we maintain overwhelming economic and military superiority?
You are delusional here. Make no mistake, the West will end sometime. Empires are built on the subjugation of others. Sometimes the fall because, at some point or another, they weren't destructive enough to those around them to hold themselves as a sole power. In some ways it is the life cycle of empire. The West won't end in the near future (still too much economic and military power for that), but it will pass on at some point, as is the case with all empires. Eventually, some force will develop with is strong enough to effectively oppose the West and it will crumble (as the British Empire, as the Ottoman Empire did, as Rome did ). And it won't be because they did not remember a duty to avoid casual sex. It will be because successive generations abandoned empire building for other interests (in some cases the interests of others).
[quote=]Yes, we've replaced the spirit with ourselves, and so we have sought to make man into a God, into a standard for judgement. That is why we have become so selfish and perverted.[/quote]
Yet, we are not. Selfishness and pervasion heave been present in abounds in God fearing societies for centuries. Including you much vaunted examples of Rome and the Ottoman Empire. No, we replaced the locus of worth with ourselves. We've kicked the divine out. We feel we do not need it for our lives to be worthwhile, not in the sense of abandoning rules of individual actions (e.g. sexual morality), but in the sense of whether our lives our joyful and worthwhile. No saviour required, for we we matter in ourselves. And this is what you find most objectionable about Western culture, that joy has been turned over from God to ourselves.
Yes, because the divine is more human than human themselves are. As St. Augustine states, God is closer to me than I am to myself.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
That, by definition, is impossible. You seem to be under the impression that the divine is something other than human, whereas I'm saying that the divine is humanity's real nature.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Duty towards themselves and their fellow human beings.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The West has less than 100 years to live, the way things are going at the moment. Mark my words. You don't realise the dangers of immorality to social cohesion and capacity to lead a good life in society.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No I actually find (1) selfishness, (2) the enthralment of money, and (3) lack of sexual mores to be the most serious problems of the West. For me, your statement that joy has been turned over from God to ourselves - I could really care less about that (because the way you've phrased it, it's incoherent to begin with - as I said, joy without God makes no sense by definition). Someone who loves and respects themselves and their neighbours, and follows virtue, is a believer in God as far as I'm concerned. You seem to think that belief in God is something different than this.
That's nonsense. The question at hand wasn't whether people were behaving badly, but rather whether that behaviour was responsible for social collapse. Merely naming the change is exactly the problem. It isn't actually tied into the question of what is causing the collapse of society.
[quote=Agustino]The only thing that can avoid the collapse is mobilising a sufficiently large group of people, and creating communities of righteousness within the larger society, which slowly take over it.[/quote]
Indeed... but to what? And this is the great illusion of the scapegoating of "moral decay." In many cases the "moral" decay has nothing to so with the social change that avoids collapse or rebuilds a society. Much collapse and rebuild occurs on cycle depending on the resources and economics of the time. Beating-up the "Moral" decay frequently has nothing to do the the rebuild. It just people violently venting anger that they were unlucky enough to be stuck with a terrible time.
Allow me to post this summary at the end of the article I posted before:
It's not only resources Willow. It's that people no longer want to work - they are no longer motivated. People in the West no longer want to sweep streets. They want the fucking immigrant to do it for them. They no longer want to clean toilets. All of them want to work in large corporations, sit with their bums on a chair in front of computers clicking a few buttons, finish work early and recieve a good paycheck, with free weekends and easy access to alcohol and sex. This decadence in values, starting with a switch from a community centered life, to an individualistic, selfish centered life, followed by greed and lust for money, and ultimately followed by moral and sexual collapse which leads to indifference to the good of the community and of other people is what makes our resources become dwindled due to horrendous management. We don't have resources anymore not because our neighbors have become too powerful - but rather because we have become too WEAK. Our people are not interested anymore in preserving and increasing our resources. Everyone cares just about themselves. No sense of community exists.
Laughable. (1), (2) are not new. Empires have always been about those. (2) has been made available to many people in the West because of their economic power and production (now its not just the King's treasury which worried about how to spend lots of money, for lots of people gain significant funds and have to distribute it). (3) has always had a presence too, present Western culture just doesn't make an example of them.
The turning of joy over to humans is what you care about most. It the focus on the individual and their worth which hurts you the most (which you incorrectly perceive as "selfishness" ), for it means the loss of community based categories as sole providers of joy. Now one doesn't need to be a part of a church, a monogamous relationship, a nation, etc.,etc., etc. to feel joy. They can have that all on their own.
And this is why you completely ignore the question of of whether people love, respect themselves and their neighbours. Notice you do not actually examine the beaver of various individuals in their communities, what they do for each other, the community projects they run, the way they play a part in their local communities. Instead, you talk about what (supposedly) governs people (money, rampant desire for casual sex), which are really only and image presented as ideal. You ignore people themselves. Thus, you come away with this impression that Westerners are somehow all money obsessed, sleeping with everyone and without communities ties at all.
Belief in God is something different to what you claim. Here it (though it is not always this) is the idea human are worthless and the need to band together under the "divine" to matter or have community ties. A position so caught-up in the joy of being "saved" that it ignores that many people don't need saving and their social ties and virtues.
Yes history repeats itself, indeed.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
A much more diminished presence, except in periods of social unrest and instability.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes, with Aristotle, I think man is a social animal and cannot ultimately be happy on his own - but requires his community for that (even Spinoza said it - the best thing for man, is man!). I also think that it is immoral for someone to pursue only his own happiness and disregard the happiness of others. I think it's immoral, for example, to trick your collegue at work so that you get a promotion instead of him. I think it's immoral to disconsider the interests of your beloved ones when deciding what to do with your future. Etc. etc.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Just go and have a look and see if people are loving to each other. What I see is that men abuse women they claim to love and treat them as exchangeable socks, what I see is mothers neglecting their children in order to advance their careers, what I see is young people wasting their time in nightclubs doing effectively nothing productive but wasting resources, etc. etc. Is this loving and respecting themselves and their neighbors??
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I disagree with this, it's simply not a correct description of my position.
That's economically driven situation. Our economies have changed such that those sort jobs are not available or being replaced by technology. The blame that "Ah, those people just don't want to do the work" is mindless scapegoating which ignores the underlying problem. I mean it doesn't even make sense to say immigrants cleaning toilets is causing the collapse of society. The service is still getting done. Even if it were the case that it was merely a matter of local people refusing to do it (rather than, you know, companies preferring immigrants for economic considerations, where people are living, the need for a living wage, etc.,etc. ), these mindless accusations of "moral decay" doesn't address the problem. That doesn't specify we need to a community which offers those jobs (or some other economic structure to deal with the loss of hose jobs) to local people and individuals who are comfortable doing that.
Economics itself is driven by the motivation of a peoples. A highly motivated group of people will be interested to work, grow and develop. A highly unmotivated group of people on the other hand, will not really care about working and developing. They will work only as much as required for survival. They will spend the remaining time in useless pursuits.
More like a significant underclass of people that weren't talked about in polite society.
Indeed... but you aren't offering that. You are talking about community in terms of fiction, of the God they all follow, of the country they all serve, not their ties to each other and what they build as a community. It's all bluster with you. Statements which soothe fear, which say they have belonging, without examining how people live or if they have substantial ties to others.
I do. I see everyday. I even see it amongst some "promiscuous" people people who are giving similarity interested people an expression of their interests. This is what I mean about ignoring people. You don't examine their interests or what they are doing. Someone one focusing on a career, for example, maybe about helping other people.
This is quite ahistorical. It was not "significant".
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I don't understand why you claim this is my position. It isn't.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Sorry, but the English of your sentence isn't very clear here and I can't understand what exactly you're trying to say. What do you mean by "see it amongst some 'promiscuous' people people who are giving similarly interested people an expression of their interests"?
A characteristic of young nations, companies and empires is that their people are enterprising. They are keen on finding solutions, and are willingly to try anything. They are also loyal to the group, and self-sacrifice for the good of others when needed. This pursuit of work just to get paid is something that comes only later on.
It was, though no-one liked to talk about it. "Ahistorical" in the sense that we are actually interested in considering them people and talking about their relationship to the rest of society, perhaps.
The difference between them and modern Western society, in term of actual behaviour, isn't all that different. Major shifts in Western culture have occurred in terms of sexual behaviour before long term relationships and in the ending of long term relationships, but most people are not promiscuous otherwise. It just doesn't interest them.
I claim this because it is your position. You are more interested in whether people are said to be in a community, whether they a pronounced to have ties or joy with others, than if they actually do or not.
I mean that I see some promiscuous people thinking of others in their sexual practices. It is a limited subset, but not every promiscuous person views sex as question of getting an object. For some people it is about what other people want too. The point is, even amongst those who you would single out as lacking community, there are people with communal ties. You are making the mistake only looking at what is said to be a part of community, rather than examining what people actually do.
In an established society and growing, were there is an excess of economic roles, the equation reverses. There aren't the places in the workforce for everyone and so it's not a problem which can be solved through motivation to do pad work. Interests shift outside doing work which obtains money because it isn't there and often plays a big part in serving the community (for all that work that needs doing which no-one is interested in paying for).
You are missing the point. When the interest in empire building wanes, the actions which would horde resources for oneself, and so prevent other powers from rising, ceases. After conquest and commerce, the battle is essential lost.
The seed for the fall of an empire is sown when it shifts from external interests to internal ones, for it is at that point expansion and its need for an endless supply of people for expansion ceases.
"Becoming weak" amounts to ceasing to be a warmonger and actually caring for the well-being of one's citizens here.
It not actually a question of selfishness (people still care for each other plenty in falling empires), but rather having no interest in empire building anymore. What you care about here is not community, but building empires.
Quoting Agustino
Agustino, I can't say with certainty that The Willow... has precisely described your overt beliefs in the quoted statement, but I think he has put his finger on some inchoate beliefs that are common to people who share your world view. Much of what you say makes more sense when viewed in the context of his appraisal.
You might not like this appraisal, but I don't consider it negative. You are as entitled to our understanding of what you believe, (without any obligation to agree with it) as we are to your understanding (without any obligation to agree with it). Both of our belief sets are derived from cultural lodes which we separately mine for gold.
BTW, I disagree with your characterization of original sin. Original sin has nothing to do with the statistical likelihood of sin, or probabilistic depravity. Rather, original sin is about the dead certainty of our fallen state and the necessity of our moral failure (in the context of Christian doctrine).
It seems to me that the founders of Christianity wanted to contrast our totally fallen state to the absolute salvation which Christ offered. Sometimes it seems like the church fathers unnecessarily cursed mankind for the sake of high contrast, and at other times it seems like they hit the nail on the had. Sometimes our species seems hell bent for leather to be as bad as we can possibly be--usually acting collectively, such as during the Holocaust.
On this point (about to be stated) we are going to part company: I consider original sin a doctrinal stumbling block because it frequently leads Christians to focus on their favorite depravity -- in your case, it's promiscuous sexual activity; in my case, it's promiscuous economic activity. You see sin in sex, I see sin in economic activity. Your favorite sinner is a promiscuous faggot, my favorite sinner is an upright capitalist.
Defensiveness, Pessimism, Materialism, and Frivolity seem more like features of individuals than societies, and in any case, don't seem to have any obvious connection to societal or national decadence.
Maybe an influx of foreigners -- but it would depend how they arrive. If the foreigners are mostly an army arriving in tanks, bombers, and troop carriers -- that could be very bad. On the other hand, an influx of foreigners might be invigorating. I would prefer a more controlled southern border, but there is no doubt that all the folks arriving from south of the border have invigorated a lot of commercial dead spots in towns where they have settled.
Welfare State? Fiddlesticks. That's just your pet axe getting ground.
Weakening of religion? Maybe, in as much as a religion is part of a cohesive culture. If it isn't part of a cohesive culture, then its decline won't matter.
What is "too long'? Rome was an intact, functioning, vital concern for a long time. Was that 'too long'? It's just not a actionable valuation.
Again, that seems more individual than collective, and traits such as 'selfishness' and 'love of money' are present in all societies from the get go.
If societies fall from external causes, than what difference does the decadence of the citizens make to the outcome?
Well, I suppose so! What else would one teach in history other than the history of the human race?
If I were going to describe "decadence" in a society, my list would look like this:
[list]
[*] a long term decline in essential economic activity (agriculture, production of necessities, and basic goods)
[*] a long term decline in the quality of governance involving
- failure of the government to raise sufficient funds to operate
- failure of the government to effectively protect the country internally
- failure of the government to respond to acute problems (floods, famine, epidemics, etc.)
- failure of the government to maintain an adequate defense for normal (not overwhelming) external threats
[*] a decline in the quality of social and cultural reproduction (population decline, inadequate education, decreasing longevity, deterioration of the preservation and renewal of cultural resources (literature, drama, music, etc.)
[*] a falling birthrate and a falling child survival rate
[*] a decline in mutual community support activities (a breakdown in the 'ties that bind' people together: festivals, religions, mutual aid, social interaction, accepted responsibilities, and so forth
[*] increasing anomie, alienation, isolation, fear of one another, criminal activity by people previously unlikely to engage in criminal activity, etc.
In other words, a decadent society is one which is rapidly failing to operate effectively for its own good.
What about morality?
Morality is a critical element in the mutuality of community bonds. A well-functioning society performs mutual service as a matter of course. Mutual service is considered a fundamental good, an obligation: make sure old folks are not neglected; that the young are not allowed to publicly flout community standards (talking about 6 year olds, here, not 26 year olds); make sure the sick get cared for; mutual respect for families; material contributions to the common good (support the school, the church, the fire department, the play ground, the annual fund drive for social services, the parks, community gardens, etc.).
A well-functioning society has clear standards of behavior AND can tolerate a certain amount of deviation. Every community has members who do not conform to some accepted standard but don't count as a threat. There might be the one Christian Scientist in a town of Roman Catholics. That's tolerable. There might be people who drink too much in a town of abstainers. That's lamentable, but tolerable -- up to a point. There are going to be bachelors and spinsters in a town of married people. "That's sad" but tolerable. There may be a socialist in a town of republicans. It will be uncomfortable for the socialist, but he's tolerable. Same for militant feminists, vegans, cat loving dog haters, and so on. They won't win popularity contests but they won't be lynched (well, usually not).
Many ordinary, even conservative, communities actually show a surprising level of tolerance for social deviation. I'm not convinced that diversity itself makes a society that much better, but tolerance of diversity is certainly a sign of robust confidence.
IN OTHER WORDS, SOCIETIES FALL APART FROM WITHIN. Of course, one can destroy a society from without -- literally bomb it to smithereens. We know how to do that. A few H bombs here and there and a small country won't grow back. More H bombs and bigger countries will go away for good. Use enough H bombs and we will all go together when we go, every Hottentot and every Eskimo. There will be no more misery when the world is our rotisserie, we will all fry together when we fry. Sing out a Te Deum when you see that ICBM and the party will be 'come as you are'.
Which simply is the problem, because instead of seeking and/or preparing themselves for long term relationships (which even according to your account is the end goal), they engage in activities which do nothing to facilitate the achievement of the end goal, but to actually profoundly harm it, and move them farther from its achievement. The end goal is a long-term dignified relationship, in which both partners are loyal and care for each other, in which they grow together and live together in mutual company and love.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Again, this isn't my position. I am interested in facilitating a reasonable and fulfilled life for people, NOT in it being said about them that they live reasonable and fulfilled lives.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I am not even talking about this. What I'm talking about is that promiscuity should never be allowed to become the NORM of society. I am saying that promiscuity becoming the norm destroys social cohesion and ties. The majority of people should not behave promiscuously. Our problem in the West is that promiscuity has become the norm. That it should exist as a small subset, sure - that's how it has existed for most times historically.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
There is never an excess of useful work for a community. We have so many sick people, so many elderly, etc etc. who need to be cared for. I don't see that we live in a day and age of too little work available.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
YES! But in a different way from the way you put it. Decadence comes first, and it is rationalised AS morality after (which by the way is EXACTLY the rationalisation you are displaying in your post by labeling empire building as warmongering and other negative adjectives). We say we're no longer like the Romans - we don't need to train our young men to fight now, we're morally superior - we don't believe in fighting. But the truth is that first we became complacent in our wealth, and only then did we stop being interested to train our young in fighting. After this fact, we started rationalising why we're no longer training them to fight - why we no longer follow traditions - because we're moral - we've become morally superior. This drama has played multiple times in history.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Yes it is a question of selfishness. In the early stages, people sacrifice themselves for the well-being and prosperity of the community. They seek to grow and expand their community - they work for their community more than they work for themselves. In the later, decadent stages, they have forgotten the duty they have towards the community, and remember only the duty they have towards themselves. Empire building is the pinnacle of civilisation.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I have no problem with any of this, nor do I think TheWillow's comments to be negative, even if they were true. My point is that I simply don't think he has portrayed my position accurately, but he has shown merely how he understands me - the parts of me that he perceives and sees. I'm just trying to say that there is more there, which because he has tried to categorise within such bounds, he fails to see, and must necessarily ignore in order to maintain his image of me. Willow is at this point not arguing with me - he is arguing with the image he has of me, which I see as the problem.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not really... what versions of Christianity have you learned this from? It must be some form of Protestant or Calvinist versions. The Christian position, at least in Catholic AND Orthodox Christianity (I was born Orthodox Christian), is that man is naturally, inherently good - because he is made in the image of God. Original sin reflects the fallenness of this world. This means the natural tendency this world has towards evil - it means that in the long run, statistically, there is a higher probability of doing evil than doing good, a higher probability of sin than rightousness. Let's say 50.1% probability of sin. In the long term, as time approaches infinity, the probability of having sinned approaches certainty. BUT man is not necessarily going to fail morally - it's never certain that he will fail. This is simply more likely. There can be individual exceptions. On the individual level, we can have rightful people (for example Socrates). Historically we can have societies which are, during short periods of time, highly moral and hence exceptions. What original sin talks about however, is that, sooner or later, even those righteous societies will become unrighteous. That is why, contra Marx, no change in social structure can EVER produce the perfect society which will last forever. All social structures are inherently unstable - that is the effect of original sin. In physics, it translates as the arrow of time, which inevitably leads to death. That is why the punishment of sin is death. The punishment of this world is death - its arrow of time, its entropic tendency, its second law of thermodynamics, which will ultimately destroy it.
Theologically, this world is fallen because the ontological status of good and evil are inverted. In this world, death triumphs, and life perishes. However, logically, sub specie aeternitatus, life is what makes death possible, and thus life is prior and above death, for it subsumes and consumes death within it. Thus, in comparison to this eternal perspective, we say that this world is fallen.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think rather that the Church fathers wanted to awaken us to our true potential of being the sons and daughters of God. If, with Plato, we remembered who we are - namely that we are the sons and daughters of the supreme power, in whom we move and have our being, we would not act immorally. We only act immorally because a veil has fallen over our eyes, and we have forgotten who we are. All vice has its root in ignorance, after Socrates + Plato. And salvation is in what Plato and Socrates said: know thyself. We sell ourselves for too little - we are kings and queens, the price should be set very very high. But we give ourselves for nothing. That is the real shame of it all, the real worthlessness as Willow calls it. We're not inherently worthless - we're actually worth so much! But we don't know about it!
They wanted us to drop our wealth and possessions, drop our greed and lust, and pick up the Cross (kill our egos), and follow Christ (community). They wanted us to live lovingly with each other, not being interested in money, life, health or anything else more than we are interested in the well-being of our souls (psyches) - in virtue. The Church fathers wanted to show that unless we remember who we are, we necessarily make ourselves worthless - we sell ourselves for nothing! If I showed you proof today BC, that you are the son of a great king, would you not start carrying yourself differently? Would you not act differently, think differently, and BE differently? That was the power of the Gospel in the early years of Christianity. That's why people were willing to die for it.
And it's not that different from the truth shared by other religions, although they use different devices and metaphors for it. Buddhism says ultimate reality is emptyness - sunyata. But the Buddhist sunyata is the dynamic active emptiness which underlies everything and gives being to everything else. Just like in Christianity, God is the ACTIVITY that supports everything else - the prime mover - that in which we all move and have our being and without which we are nothing. This means that our self is communally mediated, and without the community (others) our self IS nothing. That is also why "whosoever loves one of those little ones, loves Me".
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think both are depravities, I merely think the former is more dangerous than the latter (at least at the moment). If I lived in the 1800s, I probably would have agreed with you.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well they do - they are features which were noticed in a majority of the population in those times of social collapse. And yes, they describe attitudes of the individual. When they are applied to society, it describes the attitudes and beliefs of the majority of people in that society. So what this means is that pessimism, defensiveness, materialism and frivolity should never be allowed to become the views of the majority. They must always be contained within society, never allowed to grow like a cancer and destroy everything else. They cannot be eliminated, that's why containment is the strategy.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Economically yes. But socially it's disastrous. They form their own communities within the larger society, and their loyalties lie with their own communities rather than with the larger society, thus they promote division, and they can never integrate and accept practices which are radically different from their own. That is why, conflict is always boiling underneath - who knows when it will erupt.
Quoting Bitter Crank
He speculates 250 years is too long. 10 generations of people. It's an important question, but I don't think the answer to it matters that much. What matters much more is that an answer can be given, it appears to me that you think no answer can in principle be given.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, they are present in the beginning, but represent minority positions. When they become social norms, THAT is the problem. A social failure to contain evil instead of allow it to spread and infect all of society.
Quoting Bitter Crank
If you read the article, you will see he contrasts this with the common historical teaching we find in many countries today, where children are taught history from the perspective of their own nation, thus embelishing their own nation's achievements, and diminishing its failures - labelling their opponents as tyrants, and themselves as emancipators, etc.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree with all elements from your list.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed with the non-bracketed part. 26 year olds are equally, if not more dangerous.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Agreed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I would even say it's good, so long as its maintained to a low level and never becomes the norm.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The article I posted actually agrees with this (despite the way he summarised his conclusions). He states, somewhere halfway I believe, that social collapse is FIRST started from within - lust for money, forgetfulness of duty, etc. and then fulfilled by external factors (such as barbarian invasions, etc.)
Bingo. I was raised in, and pursued with Methodist diligence, a Protestant, Calvinist view of the world. Sometime around 35 years ago (at age 35) I decided to ditch my religious heritage. Easier said than done. It was like trying to make DOS look like a MAC operating system -- it didn't work. Calvinism is still operating underneath all the replacement systems. It could be worse.
Bertrand Russell noted that atheists generally bear the stamp of the religion they rejected. Seems to be true. Officially, I don't believe in original sin or the rest of it, but when I think about or discuss Christianity, it's the Calvinist view that comes to the fore. Yes, it feels a bit schizoid sometimes.
Quoting Agustino
So, we can agree to agree.
Regarding failed states and collapsed societies and foreigners:
The Somali peoples have lived in the horn of Africa since ancient times. I don't know much about the place, but we have a lot of Somalis living in Minneapolis. They are most likely here to stay. They arrived with what seems like an intact culture. Their country of origin, however, is currently a mess. It's a failed state. A people can survive a failed state, and fairly severe disruption. Why has Somalia been disrupted in the 20th century? Ask the Italians, British, Russians, and Americans who have all taken a turn at screwing things up there. And ask the Somalis and Ethiopians too.
As for the Somalis, they tend to be about as insular as many of the non-Christian immigrant groups. Their second and third generations are English speakers, but are Moslems in the Land of German Lutherans and Catholics. Personally, I don't see any great advantage to this diversity -- its just a worse version of conservative theism, as far as I am concerned.
To be fair, the German Lutherans were once kind of insular and didn't speak English in their first and second generations either. Eventually they became the numerically and culturally dominant group, even more than Scandinavians.
Yes, I think it is good you have rationally abandoned the view (even though, it is understandable that some emotional intuition leftovers exist). I looked into it, but it doesn't make much sense to me. If people are inherently wretched by nature, regardless of what they do, then this ultimately acts to shift the blame from man to God, and thereby relieves the former of responsibility - by making wretchedness and sin a necessity. This ultimately defeats the purpose of religion, not to mention that it anthropomorphises God - believes that God can make inherently defective creatures.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, and such communities are indeed dangerous. It is many Muslim communities across Europe which are like these, esp. in France and Germany. Ultimately these cultures will never like each other. I have many Muslim friends, and they get along well with me, but with the rest of Western people they don't. They send their kids to school, and for example, their daughters get made fun of and peer pressured into wearing makeup, dressing loosely, etc. Their sons get made fun of for refusing to drink, or to date, etc. This makes them feel very alienated, and makes them try to organise into Muslim-only groups. And even when they don't get picked on directly, they feel isolated, because they see that they are different from everyone else around. Then they try to convert others to their religion slowly, those few who do come in contact with them. And to be honest, they can't really be blamed - if I was like them, I would do the same because obviously the culture here is oppressive to them. But the real problem is that we have organised society in such a way which permits these problems to happen. I think cultural considerations should go into the immigration process - not everyone should be allowed to immigrate to any country, because not anyone fits. First they must show that they can fit adapt, and integrate before they are allowed to move.
One could argue that the father should have some say in an abortion or the use of birth control or 'day after pill'. I think they probably should, in the case of a strong relationship between the two people producing the pregnancy. That said, the opinions of other males -- like a bishop, pope, mullah, potentate, enlightened passport, or what have you -- should not have any bearing on women terminating pregnancy. The same goes for other women: IF woman X wants to terminate a pregnancy, it's no business of other women.
What if the majority of women didn't want abortion to be legal.
I personally know a woman that would refuse to have an abortion regardless of circumstances.
What if she were the majority?
Do I want abortion to be illegal? No.
But I'm a man, so it will never effect me unless I accidentally have a child, and even if I do I can't choose whether or not to have the baby.