Okay, I should rephrase: "I understand how the right ignores and justifies the problem, I just don't understand how they live with themselves."
If they have to lie to themselves about how things got this way in the first place and then force the rest of society to acknowledge those lies so that they can live comfortably with things being …
Okay, I should rephrase: "I understand how the right ignores and justifies the problem, I just don't understand how they live with themselves."
If they have to lie to themselves about how things got this way in the first place and then force the rest of society to acknowledge those lies so that they can live comfortably with things being the way they are, then what does that say about *humanity* more generally? Maybe this is how slavery went pleasantly by for so long too? The rich people who were able to afford slaves told themselves a story about "merit-based" success/failure in life, and that the slaveholders were the "successful" while the slaves were "failures", and so the playing field of merit left slave and slaveholder where they "ought to be." This false idea of "merit" existing on unequal playing fields is such a common thread in history that is oft-used to justify societal inequalities to sickening degrees. Until that part changes I really don't see the rest coming undone. The part where humans that had natural advantages over others never acknowledge those things and instead use their advantages to seat themselves atop society and declare themselves "merit winners" and then use their wealth and power to enforce societal inequalities so that their kids have a shot at doing the same thing they did. Until humanity stops gaslighting itself to make the rich feel better about themselves, we're going to be generationally-unequal until the extinction event comes, and when it does, only the rich will be allowed to board the escape rockets to newly-colonized Pandora.
Well said. But the slaveowners didn't use success/failure, per se, to explain how they were the slaveowners and not the slaves. They used white supremacism to argue that other human beings were inferior from birth and naturally suited to slavery. And we are still dealing with the aftereffects of those rationalizations and lies...like denying that systemic racism existed.
The can live with themselves because, like most people they are almost entirely self-focused and have little empathy for the Other. Especially the other who is a different color or sex or whatever.
Many people exist in a zero sum world where there are winners and losers--and if you are losing it is because someone took something from you... and if you are winning it is because you HAD to take things from the losers.
It is just the nature of things, eh? No real reason to feel too guilty about it, amiright.
Besides, if I don't do it they will do it to me.
There are "good" people, but in general people are not good--not without the existence of a cultural and economic system that basically forces them to be good (at least until they manage to corrupt it).
There is no substantive moral/ethical structure with a society to write and enforce it.
There is no arc of history bending towards a better world for all unless there is a continual effort to make that happen.
The question is not about making people better (because we can't) the question is about how do we build a system where people MUST be better--and how do we protect it from being co-opted and corrupted for as long as possible.
I think this gets to the heart of it. We're not remotely close to perfect, and any system designed by us isn't going to be perfect either. It will take constant updating and modification to keep it doing what it is supposed to do (forcing us to be good).
To me, the key is to get enough acknowledgement of this to be able to improve the system. Too bad that the truths that were self evident were all positive rather than having some negative in there.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people will seek their own and their children's advantage, almost invariably at the expense of others; that gaming the system and pulling the ladder up behind them is something most people will do if given the chance; that our tribal nature of in-group vs. out-group thinking isn't suited to societies of thousands let alone millions of people. That to guard against these tendencies Governments are instituted among people..."
TJ would need to flower that up a bit, and certainly I don't want to go down the road of man as inherently bad, but we are inherently flawed, and while it may have gone without saying 250 years ago, it could use more saying these days.
Good and bad are contextual judgments. We can only say that something is good or bad by looking at the outcome and judging that outcome WRT some goal that we have.
People are not good or bad. People are people. They behave in accordance with how they were shaped by evolution and then constrained by culture.
If the goal is to create large, powerful, equitable, and harmonious societies, then there are obvious goods and bads. Obvious positive and negative behaviors... and so we judge good and bad on THAT basis.
If the goal is to concentrate power and wealth, then there are obvious goods and bads, and we judge on THAT basis.
But without the constant dedication and watchfulness towards particular ends, an effort towards the first thing is doomed to founder on the rocks and shoals of human nature as we tend towards the second thing.
Okay, I should rephrase: "I understand how the right ignores and justifies the problem, I just don't understand how they live with themselves."
If they have to lie to themselves about how things got this way in the first place and then force the rest of society to acknowledge those lies so that they can live comfortably with things being the way they are, then what does that say about *humanity* more generally? Maybe this is how slavery went pleasantly by for so long too? The rich people who were able to afford slaves told themselves a story about "merit-based" success/failure in life, and that the slaveholders were the "successful" while the slaves were "failures", and so the playing field of merit left slave and slaveholder where they "ought to be." This false idea of "merit" existing on unequal playing fields is such a common thread in history that is oft-used to justify societal inequalities to sickening degrees. Until that part changes I really don't see the rest coming undone. The part where humans that had natural advantages over others never acknowledge those things and instead use their advantages to seat themselves atop society and declare themselves "merit winners" and then use their wealth and power to enforce societal inequalities so that their kids have a shot at doing the same thing they did. Until humanity stops gaslighting itself to make the rich feel better about themselves, we're going to be generationally-unequal until the extinction event comes, and when it does, only the rich will be allowed to board the escape rockets to newly-colonized Pandora.
Well said. But the slaveowners didn't use success/failure, per se, to explain how they were the slaveowners and not the slaves. They used white supremacism to argue that other human beings were inferior from birth and naturally suited to slavery. And we are still dealing with the aftereffects of those rationalizations and lies...like denying that systemic racism existed.
The can live with themselves because, like most people they are almost entirely self-focused and have little empathy for the Other. Especially the other who is a different color or sex or whatever.
Many people exist in a zero sum world where there are winners and losers--and if you are losing it is because someone took something from you... and if you are winning it is because you HAD to take things from the losers.
It is just the nature of things, eh? No real reason to feel too guilty about it, amiright.
Besides, if I don't do it they will do it to me.
There are "good" people, but in general people are not good--not without the existence of a cultural and economic system that basically forces them to be good (at least until they manage to corrupt it).
There is no substantive moral/ethical structure with a society to write and enforce it.
There is no arc of history bending towards a better world for all unless there is a continual effort to make that happen.
The question is not about making people better (because we can't) the question is about how do we build a system where people MUST be better--and how do we protect it from being co-opted and corrupted for as long as possible.
I think this gets to the heart of it. We're not remotely close to perfect, and any system designed by us isn't going to be perfect either. It will take constant updating and modification to keep it doing what it is supposed to do (forcing us to be good).
To me, the key is to get enough acknowledgement of this to be able to improve the system. Too bad that the truths that were self evident were all positive rather than having some negative in there.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people will seek their own and their children's advantage, almost invariably at the expense of others; that gaming the system and pulling the ladder up behind them is something most people will do if given the chance; that our tribal nature of in-group vs. out-group thinking isn't suited to societies of thousands let alone millions of people. That to guard against these tendencies Governments are instituted among people..."
TJ would need to flower that up a bit, and certainly I don't want to go down the road of man as inherently bad, but we are inherently flawed, and while it may have gone without saying 250 years ago, it could use more saying these days.
Good and bad are contextual judgments. We can only say that something is good or bad by looking at the outcome and judging that outcome WRT some goal that we have.
People are not good or bad. People are people. They behave in accordance with how they were shaped by evolution and then constrained by culture.
If the goal is to create large, powerful, equitable, and harmonious societies, then there are obvious goods and bads. Obvious positive and negative behaviors... and so we judge good and bad on THAT basis.
If the goal is to concentrate power and wealth, then there are obvious goods and bads, and we judge on THAT basis.
But without the constant dedication and watchfulness towards particular ends, an effort towards the first thing is doomed to founder on the rocks and shoals of human nature as we tend towards the second thing.