Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Burning ghost »

Burning ghost wrote: February 10th, 2018, 10:28 am
Hereandnow -

For a more softly, softly approach, first off ... :
The matter of desert goes to human freedom: you don't deserve X if you didn't do it, and you didn't do it if you are not free, that is, metaphysically free, free as in, unbound to the conditions that would make a claim on your behavior.

You'll have to rewrite this.

For now I can simply paraphrase it so it makes sense with one reading (if I am wrong you need to amend it yourself):

"What someone "deserves" is dependent upon their "freedom": you don't deserve X if you didn't work for it, and you didn't work for it if you were bound to the conditions that would make you capable of producing X."

To break this down further into a more concise form:

"Just because someone is born intelligent and encouraged to work hard doesn't make their hard work any more deserving of reward than some lazy/hard-working person regardless of how skillful they are."

I say nonsense. Further more, I ask is this simply Marxism? If so I am willing to accept that Marx does point out some telling critiques of capitalism, but the other option is insane and murderous. Their is a reason that we find zombie apocalypses so engaging. They shed light on something within the modern human psyche; that is the fear of monotony and meaningless equality. Who wants to have the same as everyone else if it means we all have to be the same shuffling mumbling beings unable to communicate?

I do think capitalism has reached a certain critical point where we're looking at it more cynically due to the mass social media and the poverty stricken of the world being brought to face the perceived wealth of the west (I've seen this first hand, many people think westerners **** money.) I was bias too before I actually travelled to other countries, soon enough your imagination has to acclimatize to the reality of your preconceptions. I thought other countries would be more "run down" and more "rustic", only to find they were more advanced in some ways. No doubt the reverse idea is planted in many heads and they don't have the chance to verify their views by visiting different countries and are merely fed impressions via the media (and Hollywood façade.)
Is my paraphrasing correct or incorrect? If not then please rewrite what you said so it is not so open to different interpretations. You may have missed this post because it was within a reply to Sausage Dog. I want to understand what you're saying - and see if you understand it and to what degree.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Greta wrote: February 17th, 2018, 6:28 pm The post is a long time ago. BG, I thought HAN's earlier post was terrific, although I disagree with the Marxist notion of the rich spending other people's wealth. Where is there equal distribution of wealth in large groups anywhere in nature, or in history? Progress depends on inequality and, in fact, is largely created by it. The issue is how we handle inequality and, in that, there's room for improvement:

1. Status and stigma accorded by wealth. This is gratuitous because the actual wealth or lack is its own reward and punishment. In time, educated people will increasingly consider others on an individual rather than stereotypical basis.

2. The degree of inequality. If politicians let go of their mindless ideologies they would notice that a natural law applies where a certain threshold of inequality brings instability and breaks down synergies. Ideally politicians would prioritise stability and harmony over the self-centred demands of political donors.
Progress, I agree, and also change itself, depends upon inequality . This has a metaphysical application and is a prominent idea in Taoism. The corollary is that if change disappeared so would this temporal and relative world. The poor are always with us. This is not support for the inequality status quo as Conservatives would have it but is basic fact against which progressive people must always strive towards stability and harmony. We don't always need revolutions but can prefer incremental gains. The political dinosaurs are clever and can spot the tiniest of incremental gains by progressives.

Donors and huge donations to political parties obviously influence politicians some of who are naturally greedy and fearful personalities. It's unrealistic to rule that nobody is permitted to give a dollar to a political party so isn't what we need a practical conversation of what the limit is to be?
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Burning Ghost:
You'll have to rewrite this.

"What someone "deserves" is dependent upon their "freedom": you don't deserve X if you didn't work for it, and you didn't work for it if you were bound to the conditions that would make you capable of producing X."

To break this down further into a more concise form:

"Just because someone is born intelligent and encouraged to work hard doesn't make their hard work any more deserving of reward than some lazy/hard-working person regardless of how skillful they are."

I say nonsense.


The hard part is in the analysis. We are all throw into the this world, and some of us get lucky, others not so much. It could be luck in the genes, in the family fortune, and so on. It is an assumption that this initial condition is not derserved. I mean, you would have to include some discussion about what happened in past lives, or the evil in your soul prior to descending to the earth (both of which would be question begging or absurd), or the like to talk about deserving to be born with Down's syndrome or born into a financially afflicted family. So right there, deserving what you did in fact get thrown in to has no ethical dimension whatever. Einstein no more deserved to be a genius than Ted Bundy deserved to enjoy raping and strangling women than the village idiot deserved his lot.

Likely, you base desert on an assessment of hard work alone, leaving alone such initial endowments. And there is something to this: study hard, sacrifice, and there should reward for this, as opposed to spending your time on the couch. But there is always the question: this desert-to-reward correlation, where does it come from? Is there some absolute standard to which we can refer? How is it that this much effort and hard works creates a desert of X? More work makes for more desert, but work is sacrifice and it is hard to measure objectively: what is easy for you is hard for another, so then, what happened to the standard of hard work determining desert? It became relativised. The determination of desert is a relative matter, that is, relative to others.
But what is it about others, and ourselves, that we have be mindful of? Is it simply productivity? But productivity is bound to ability and ability is given unfairly, and the unfairness of this is ethically, that is, in terms of desert, vacuous: no one deserved what they got.
Further more, I ask is this simply Marxism? If so I am willing to accept that Marx does point out some telling critiques of capitalism, but the other option is insane and murderous. Their is a reason that we find zombie apocalypses so engaging. They shed light on something within the modern human psyche; that is the fear of monotony and meaningless equality. Who wants to have the same as everyone else if it means we all have to be the same shuffling mumbling beings unable to communicate?
But I said I thought Marx was right about one or two things, not about the call for revolution. He was right that the wealthy put the money of workers in their own pockets.

I do think capitalism has reached a certain critical point where we're looking at it more cynically due to the mass social media and the poverty stricken of the world being brought to face the perceived wealth of the west (I've seen this first hand, many people think westerners **** money.) I was bias too before I actually travelled to other countries, soon enough your imagination has to acclimatize to the reality of your preconceptions. I thought other countries would be more "run down" and more "rustic", only to find they were more advanced in some ways. No doubt the reverse idea is planted in many heads and they don't have the chance to verify their views by visiting different countries and are merely fed impressions via the media (and Hollywood façade.)

Depends on where you visit. go to Shanghai and things look very "first world". Head out to Shangxi province and things get dicey. Go to India, anywhere,and you will find a very challenged system. If there is one compelling argument in favor of stronger immigration laws it is simply so the US does not turn into India, over populated far beyond control. Nothing to do at all with race, just too many people. They crowd everywhere, fill in empty spaces. Smartest, most decent people I've ever known, and they just shake their heads: what have we done?

Capitalism is a necessary evil. Desert is more a pragmatic term: we have to assume people get what they deserve and they deserve what they put into the process because things WORK well with this assumption. Not because they really deserve what they get.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Hereandnow -

I am presuming my reiteration of your words was correct:
Your words >"What someone "deserves" is dependent upon their "freedom": you don't deserve X if you didn't work for it, and you didn't work for it if you were bound to the conditions that would make you capable of producing X."

To break this down further into a more concise form:

My words >"Just because someone is born intelligent and encouraged to work hard doesn't make their hard work any more deserving of reward than some lazy/hard-working person regardless of how skillful they are."
As a brief aside: I am still puzzled by the oblique use of "desert." You mean "dessert" (as in just desserts), whilst "desert" means "to abandon." That can cause confusion so watch out for that (mistakes happen - not berating you just trying to make everything clear.) Maybe you have a different purpose but I'll just take it you mean "dessert" because that seems the most obvious choice.


The hard part is in the analysis. We are all throw into the this world, and some of us get lucky, others not so much. It could be luck in the genes, in the family fortune, and so on. It is an assumption that this initial condition is not derserved. I mean, you would have to include some discussion about what happened in past lives, or the evil in your soul prior to descending to the earth (both of which would be question begging or absurd), or the like to talk about deserving to be born with Down's syndrome or born into a financially afflicted family. So right there, deserving what you did in fact get thrown in to has no ethical dimension whatever. Einstein no more deserved to be a genius than Ted Bundy deserved to enjoy raping and strangling women than the village idiot deserved his lot.


I think you're better off viewing this as "potential" and "wisdom". We're all born capable in certain ways; we're all capable of far more than we know if only we were all directed by wise choices. Einstein is deserving and his prize was not monetary, it was personal understanding and developing his chosen interest - he was quite vocal about his bemusement with public opinion and fame; he found it quite funny. If he was born into a different financial situation and his family could not afford for him to go to university, he wasn't driven or encouraged enough to pursue his interests, then he may have just remained a clerk and been good and satisfied with that work to some degree. Ted Bundy, if parented better may have ended up being the "Einstein" of his times. Through behavorial genetics is it quite clear that although we have more or less propensities in this or that area, or toward this or that psychological fragility, the environment plays a role - I agree with you there, but I will not take that to mean the only thing that matters is environment.

What you are seeming to say above is that those who are capable and develop their potential should be punished for their achievements rather than rewarded (be it with praise or influence.) I find that to be a deeply flawed argument and I don't really see how I would need to say why I find it flawed.
Likely, you base desert on an assessment of hard work alone, leaving alone such initial endowments. And there is something to this: study hard, sacrifice, and there should reward for this, as opposed to spending your time on the couch. But there is always the question: this desert-to-reward correlation, where does it come from? Is there some absolute standard to which we can refer? How is it that this much effort and hard works creates a desert of X? More work makes for more desert, but work is sacrifice and it is hard to measure objectively: what is easy for you is hard for another, so then, what happened to the standard of hard work determining desert? It became relativised. The determination of desert is a relative matter, that is, relative to others.

But what is it about others, and ourselves, that we have be mindful of? Is it simply productivity? But productivity is bound to ability and ability is given unfairly, and the unfairness of this is ethically, that is, in terms of desert, vacuous: no one deserved what they got.


I don't base "desert" on the assessment of hard work alone. I could work all month trying to write a script, produce a painting, or train myself to operate on a human and remove their appendix. The thing is if I have natural talent for these things I still need to train and commit effort to achieve my aims. People who have committed to certain areas of interest are rewarded (in general) due to their ability and skill. It is easy for the lazy or fickle minded to sit by and watch then complain about how "unfair" their lot is. What is certainly difficult is being able to discover your talents and put them to best use. Luck is involved, but overall talent will shine through if combined with hard work (in the correct area.)

What you are saying is the person sitting on the couch in their spare time deserves as much as the person willing to commit to an area of interest. Or that the person who chooses to pursue an interest, as a career goal, even though they lack training and skill in this area should be held in as high regard as a professional who has spent their entire life honing their "god given" talent. Life is not FAIR. Only children look at the world in such a way. What is the matter of growing up is understanding that life is not fair and making a go of it anyway. To shoulder the burdens of life and have resolve to march forward as best you can to fulfill your "potential".

This brings me to "wisdom." The above I regard as the beginning of "wisdom"; which I take to mean the ability to move toward the "betterment" of your situation by making the right sacrifices at the right time in the right place. Combine wisdom with intelligence, hard work, creativity and natural ability and you've found someone on the level of "genius" who'll influence the world and find great rewards in their personal life and by way of natural progression, social status (although some of these people tend not to be recognized until after they're dead; but I'd argue they still met with "personal" achievement by producing something they admired at the time.)

I think we can at least agree that when your care break down you are going to trust someone to fix your car who is capable of fixing your car. You are not going to judge them by the amount of effort they put into the task at hand. So when, if I have, referred to "productivity" I am referring to efficiency not effort. A blind man can fire arrows all day and try and hit a target, but I'd put my trust in a sighted person to hit the target first. By some fluke the occasional blind man will hit the target first time, but they are neither consistent nor skillful in the art of shooting because they cannot see their target - the idiot is the blind man who trains at such an art, whist the wise man is the one who repeatedly hits the target and improves and hones his skill. One is more productive in than the other because they've chosen the path that moves them toward reaching their inner potential. The idiot may sit on the side lines and cry about their lack of talent, but they likely have talents, but lack the wisdom to explore themselves and find them, because they are not willing to suffer after watching someone of skill achieve so much with seemingly little effort (and it DOES happen that some people fall into the right path and suffer less - but I think this is more due to them being surrounded by "wise people" and that "wisdom" carries on.)

If I have misinterpreted what you've said please point out where. If you think I've made blunder please point out where.

note: I am not saying it is black and white, but I am saying that it is a play between "wisdom" and "hard work." What can happen at the high end is the "corruption" of wisdom, or rather missing components of "wisdom" due to them being carelessly abandoned - due to lack of diligence and arrogance.

Greta -

It was not that long ago - just a few days. I was pressing for clarification AND thankfully I've got some. I press people whose views I find different to mine to get them to reveal their hand; no need for Sausage Dog, he is quite clearly a hardline "conservative" type with a provocative sense of humour.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Hereandnow »

Burning ghost:
As a brief aside: I am still puzzled by the oblique use of "desert." You mean "dessert" (as in just desserts), whilst "desert" means "to abandon." That can cause confusion so watch out for that (mistakes happen - not berating you just trying to make everything clear.) Maybe you have a different purpose but I'll just take it you mean "dessert" because that seems the most obvious choice.:
This all should be read before responding.

To me this is just a preemptive strike. You have this kind of mentality, which does not help you get at interesting truths and insights. You fight too much and it's not about fighting.

And please look up 'desert'. It's not pudding, here. "Just desserts" is an idiom.
I think you're better off viewing this as "potential" and "wisdom". We're all born capable in certain ways; we're all capable of far more than we know if only we were all directed by wise choices. Einstein is deserving and his prize was not monetary, it was personal understanding and developing his chosen interest - he was quite vocal about his bemusement with public opinion and fame; he found it quite funny. If he was born into a different financial situation and his family could not afford for him to go to university, he wasn't driven or encouraged enough to pursue his interests, then he may have just remained a clerk and been good and satisfied with that work to some degree. Ted Bundy, if parented better may have ended up being the "Einstein" of his times. Through behavorial genetics is it quite clear that although we have more or less propensities in this or that area, or toward this or that psychological fragility, the environment plays a role - I agree with you there, but I will not take that to mean the only thing that matters is environment.

What you are seeming to say above is that those who are capable and develop their potential should be punished for their achievements rather than rewarded (be it with praise or influence.) I find that to be a deeply flawed argument and I don't really see how I would need to say why I find it flawed.
You see it as flawed because you are not pay attention to the argument. You need to puzzle through it, not just look at the conclusion and think, that can't be right. For example. You argue Ted Bundy could have been terrific. I never argued he couldn't. You are not reading with comprehension; if you were, you would be attending to the argument itself: what does it mean that a person does not deserve her fortune at the outset? What are the moral implications of this when assessing a person's desert? Am I right in my claim that such an assessment needs to be relativized to others?
I don't base "desert" on the assessment of hard work alone. I could work all month trying to write a script, produce a painting, or train myself to operate on a human and remove their appendix. The thing is if I have natural talent for these things I still need to train and commit effort to achieve my aims. People who have committed to certain areas of interest are rewarded (in general) due to their ability and skill. It is easy for the lazy or fickle minded to sit by and watch then complain about how "unfair" their lot is. What is certainly difficult is being able to discover your talents and put them to best use. Luck is involved, but overall talent will shine through if combined with hard work (in the correct area.)

And where did talent come from? Talents, intelligence: they are all put under scrutiny here as to how they produce advantage or otherwise but are given arbitrarily. This goes to socioeconomic fortune as well. I thought this was clearly stated: We are thrown into this world and our lot is at the outset bound to this body of possibilities, and our struggles to succeed are bound to this. There is only one countervailing notion to this and that would be freedom. But even Sartre understood that freedom is confined to possibilities.

It might be best to call upon this distinction: there are agents and there are actions. Actions produce and yield consequences, and if merit were determined solely on this, no issue would arise. It would be like assessing one machine's worth relative to another. No one would say the assessment is morally arbitrary because machines are not moral agents. But we are, so the matter rests with what is it to be a moral agent when a term like desert is examined. As humans we care about our fortunes and failures, they are important in a very different way: they have value. Social success, being able to pay the bills, having a good material life, these are all valuatively rooted. As agents with valuative possibilities, we care.

Consider: throwing rocks at a tree is not an occasion for moral concern, but it is quite different if it were a person. This is because pain is a dimension of our moral existence. Morality is all about valuing agencies. There is no debate on this, and it lays the foundation for understanding moral terms like desert. When we are thrown into the world (and I use this Heideggerian term on purpose) we are immersed in a moral world, not a world of machines among machines. we could proceed with a metaphysical assumption that our lot in life has its grounding "above" in some overarching divine judgment, but this is not helpful, because we know nothing of such things. So we have to treat our throwness as morally arbitrary given: We are simply thrown into it, period.

This is a very important assumption, our throwness, because we are moral agents, yet the conditions of our throwness are morally arbitrary. What has this to do with desert? Simple: moral agents do not accept moral arbitrarity. We cry outrage when a child is abused, because the child is innocent and does not deserve such abuse (interesting to observe the way, say, the Hindus rationalize the casted treatment the Dalit: they are working off their bad behavior in a past life, so now, they deserve to be spat on and the rest).But since we are working with the assumption that our beginnings are morally arbitrary, and there is no previous determination as to desert, this makes the playing ground equal: No one deserves anything at the outset! And therefore, their actions/talents/abilities are not deserved (again, to make a case against this you have to talk about some prior spiritual condition, or the like), and we, as moral/valuative agents, are thus entirely detached, in terms of desert, from the successes and failures in our lives.

This is an argument, and it is an extension of the previous. It has parts that are controversial, and you are welcome to examine these. But don't tell me you just don't buy it without examining the particulars and addressing them.

Having criticized you for not reading closely, I would be remiss not read your thoughts:
What you are saying is the person sitting on the couch in their spare time deserves as much as the person willing to commit to an area of interest. Or that the person who chooses to pursue an interest, as a career goal, even though they lack training and skill in this area should be held in as high regard as a professional who has spent their entire life honing their "god given" talent. Life is not FAIR. Only children look at the world in such a way. What is the matter of growing up is understanding that life is not fair and making a go of it anyway. To shoulder the burdens of life and have resolve to march forward as best you can to fulfill your "potential".
With regard to desert and couch potato, first, we must treat people as if there is no distinction between agent and action because IT WORKS. Philosophical examination it healthy for an economy, accountability, responsibility. Our "moral" system does not care to, not should it look closely at desert. I have said this: We live in a world where much of our belief is justified pragmatically, not analytically.

This brings me to "wisdom." The above I regard as the beginning of "wisdom"; which I take to mean the ability to move toward the "betterment" of your situation by making the right sacrifices at the right time in the right place. Combine wisdom with intelligence, hard work, creativity and natural ability and you've found someone on the level of "genius" who'll influence the world and find great rewards in their personal life and by way of natural progression, social status (although some of these people tend not to be recognized until after they're dead; but I'd argue they still met with "personal" achievement by producing something they admired at the time.)
But this just presupposes what is at issue. It's not that I disagree with it, but the concern here is philosophical, which means things are taken to the depth of basic assumptions, the ideas that underlie "combining wisdom with intelligence" and so forth.
I think we can at least agree that when your care break down you are going to trust someone to fix your car who is capable of fixing your car. You are not going to judge them by the amount of effort they put into the task at hand. So when, if I have, referred to "productivity" I am referring to efficiency not effort. A blind man can fire arrows all day and try and hit a target, but I'd put my trust in a sighted person to hit the target first. By some fluke the occasional blind man will hit the target first time, but they are neither consistent nor skillful in the art of shooting because they cannot see their target - the idiot is the blind man who trains at such an art, whist the wise man is the one who repeatedly hits the target and improves and hones his skill. One is more productive in than the other because they've chosen the path that moves them toward reaching their inner potential. The idiot may sit on the side lines and cry about their lack of talent, but they likely have talents, but lack the wisdom to explore themselves and find them, because they are not willing to suffer after watching someone of skill achieve so much with seemingly little effort (and it DOES happen that some people fall into the right path and suffer less - but I think this is more due to them being surrounded by "wise people" and that "wisdom" carries on.)
When you say the idiot has talents but lacks the wisdom to explore themselves.... you are quite right, or, your case can be made given the everyday use of terms. People talk like this all the time. But move to the level of a deeper examination of these terms, and it is all fraught with unexamined assumptions. The reason we do not judge (unless we are in a court of law defending someone, perhaps) how much work a mechanic puts into the job is we live in a pragmatic world, and we care about the job done, not the desert of payment. Attention could move to desert, we could note that the mechanic is only working with one arm and we should understand this in assessing his performance. This is in the direction of the agent. If you take this to its logical end, you have a discussion like the one I have provided above: the very idea of deserving anything AT ALL is the matter here.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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I wrote: "Philosophical examination it healthy for an economy..." It should read that it IS NOT healthy for an economy...."
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Hereandnow -

My ignorance! I genuinely didn't know you could use the term "desert" that way! haha! We all have gaps in our knowledge, don't assume I was doing anything other than asking what you meant. I did look it up, but in the two dictionaries I did that never came up so I asked what you meant.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Hereandnow -

Okay! I think I have a better idea of what you mean now. I don't pretend to have an answer to the "best" or "eudemonia" (although that is probably what you are riling against because "eudemonia" is seen more as reason than emotion - even though the distinction is unclear on the neurological level.) Anyway, blah blah!

I have mentioned something along those lines on this forum before. I've talked about the "law" as a pragmatic tool that frames human emotions within certain bounds, so the "moral" person does not act out according to the law, but rather is moral for breaking the law if they believe it to be the righting to do. The "law" is merely a tradition that works to keep society in order and balance, well or not, toward the general idea of "equality" of choice.

We certainly don't deserve to be born, yet we are born. It is what it is and we are "thrown into the world." Of course all the many ponderings of humans has led to different ways to cope with this; be it with stoicism, skepticism, hedonism or many other ideas.

Before I go on I will return to the post you made. I had to get clarification from the first sentence before moving on because I assumed your position was more intricate than it appeared (I may berate from time to time, but I do it too myself - sometimes to a greater extent!)

Anyway:
But to ground this here, in this discussion of wealth and desert, it should be acknowledged that this assumption of desert can be a dangerous thing in that it puts accountability squarely on the shoulders of the individual, ignoring what it is that drives decisions and fortune. It can be used to ignore the plight of the poor, for example.


I agree. I would also say doing the opposite has equivalent dangers. Like I've said we can complain about the state of the world and we can do something about it too (or try.) Those that make people's lives better attract praise, when someone does something nice or helpful you say "Thank you." Do they deserve monetary praise? given that money exists I think they are better off having more money than less in order to spread their competence. And of course the old adage of "money corrupts" comes into play. I don't believe this is an all or nothing situation though.

To say we deserve to be born into the world is ridiculous of course. We are here and that is that. As individuals we must shoulder the burden of life the best we can as individuals rather than blame others around us - and I am not saying it is an all or nothing situation because I see what you're saying and that is why I used the term "wisdom", because I believe "wisdom" to be that which creates the best over all balance for everyone in society.

I think it was Dicken's who said he didn't look at beggars in the street with pity, he looked at them as being in a situation he may very well have been in himself. He didn't pity them nor did he praise those in higher positions in society, he judged the person as a person, the individual as an individual burdened with their lot in life and striving to deal with their existence as best they could. There is something of a distanced and mechanical look in what he says, but there is also nobility into too, because he doesn't allow the sense of victimhood or persecutor to be fed and fattened up. He disregarded the idea of desert.

What appears to have happened here is we've been talking past each other. I am not going to say it is all or nothing in either direction though.

Oh! This reminds me of something I read recently ... there was a shaman in North America who thought all shamans were frauds. He pretended to be a shaman and became initiated in their secrets - the art of deception which involved spitting out hair and blood to represent the "evil spirit" removed from the patient. He found that the technique, although "false", worked and helped the patient recover. He travelled around from place to place practicing his art (which although he didn't believe he understood that it did work the better and more convincing the performance) and said he only met ONE shaman he thought to be genuine. He thought he was genuine because he never accepted any payment when he treated people.

I think the above story outlines the heart of the issue. Once there is something to be gained human greed will act as a self deceit and make even the agent believe his own lies - I would say almost inevitably to some degree at some point in the life of every indivdual. The one to be trusted is the one who accepts no "payment" yet receives praise and renown.

To sum up, a person doesn't deserve recognition for performing a unique and skillful "act". Nevertheless they will still be given it in some form or another. I was not suggesting all the woes of the individual are down only to the individual anymore than I believe the woes of the individual are down purely to the circumstances they are thrown into. Our degree of personal freedom is bound by both and plastic. Some have more room to move than others and I think too much room to grow into and too little room to grow into are equally dangerous for the individual and society at large.

What I protest against is any idea that those who happen to fall upon success do so arbitrarily. Some do, and some don't. For some being born in the gutter makes them a force for change and a force for "good", and for others being born with a silver spoon in their mouths may make them a force for change and a force for "good."

Thanks for your replies.

I guess we'll need to expand this into the "institutions" next? That is precisely where we have to start looking at different sets of propositions about how institutions came into being and why they came into existence.

As for Bill Gates being wealthier than you it is just a case of society being set up in such a way so as to reward those who supply people with something they desire (be it useful, practical, aesthetic or ethically pleasing.) That combined with a general understanding of economics leads him to becoming wealthy. Does he deserve it? If he accepted no money and still produced what he did I am sure people would admire him and praise him for making something they liked - he deserves that praise because it is genuine human praise detached from "wealth" (money.) Given that our neurochemistry is reward based and that learning and discovering gives us a literal rush of "pleasure" I am not sure we can so easily dispense with the idea of "desert", but we can certainly reframe it as being something that is expressed in our modern world, abstractly, by the use of currencies (at least in part!) We could perhaps talk of money as the "lie" we come to believe as "true". I am with you there, and no doubt we've all met people who simply wish to create money from money without any over all "life plan." Bill Gates is certainly not someone I would berate because he actually tries to make a real difference to society for the better now (whether he is being counter productive or not is another matter, he at least keeps educating himself and tries to fund organisations that look toward making the world a "better" place.)
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Something of general interest regarding the "ordering" of society:
In Java, where I have done field work, small children, simpletons, boors, the insane, and the flagrantly immoral are all said to be "not yet Javanese," and, not yet human. Unethical behavior is referred to as "uncustomary," the more serious crimes (incest, sorcery, murder) are commonly accounted for by an assumed lapse of reason, the less serious ones by a comment that the culprit "does not know order," and the word for "religion" and that for "science" are the same.

- The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz, p.128
This could be said to frame the idea of what someone deserves as being a part of adherence to "order." Those outside of the framework are not really deemed guilty of "bad" acts, but rather viewed as being in general disorder and not wholly culpable.

It is fitting to look at the use of the term "uncustomary" to replace what we call "unethical." This to me strikes as being more honest about the situation of individuals within a society. What is "customary" is what works to hold th estructure of society together. Equally it could be expressed as opposed to stagnation by way of understanding that people change from "children" or "insane" to ordered individuals within society.

It is not moral relativism because it adheres to certain sets of rules by which society flourishes in the first place. Any system or moral scheme that doesn't fit the human condition will necessarily break the human condition and therefore society. Growth and development and part of the structure, it is plastic not set in stone. Within modern society there is conflict today over what is deemed "normative," there is flux in the political sphere because we're adjusting to clashes of previously more segregated cultures and expecting others to, out of the blue, adhere to our spectrum of "normative" behavior. There is an underlying commonality though.

Again, I put extremem emphasis on communications and globalization here. The effect of the internet has barely hit us yet, and what has hit has made tidal waves in how we distribute information and communicate on a micro and macro basis - it is monumental and historians are likely goin gto be sifting through our current situation for centuries to come.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

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Burning ghost wrote: February 20th, 2018, 5:37 am Something of general interest regarding the "ordering" of society:
In Java, where I have done field work, small children, simpletons, boors, the insane, and the flagrantly immoral are all said to be "not yet Javanese," and, not yet human. Unethical behavior is referred to as "uncustomary," the more serious crimes (incest, sorcery, murder) are commonly accounted for by an assumed lapse of reason, the less serious ones by a comment that the culprit "does not know order," and the word for "religion" and that for "science" are the same.

- The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz, p.128
This could be said to frame the idea of what someone deserves as being a part of adherence to "order." Those outside of the framework are not really deemed guilty of "bad" acts, but rather viewed as being in general disorder and not wholly culpable.

It is fitting to look at the use of the term "uncustomary" to replace what we call "unethical." This to me strikes as being more honest about the situation of individuals within a society. What is "customary" is what works to hold th estructure of society together. Equally it could be expressed as opposed to stagnation by way of understanding that people change from "children" or "insane" to ordered individuals within society.

It is not moral relativism because it adheres to certain sets of rules by which society flourishes in the first place. Any system or moral scheme that doesn't fit the human condition will necessarily break the human condition and therefore society. Growth and development and part of the structure, it is plastic not set in stone. Within modern society there is conflict today over what is deemed "normative," there is flux in the political sphere because we're adjusting to clashes of previously more segregated cultures and expecting others to, out of the blue, adhere to our spectrum of "normative" behavior. There is an underlying commonality though.

Again, I put extremem emphasis on communications and globalization here. The effect of the internet has barely hit us yet, and what has hit has made tidal waves in how we distribute information and communicate on a micro and macro basis - it is monumental and historians are likely goin gto be sifting through our current situation for centuries to come.
I agree with most of this and can only add that it's inevitable that cultures clash, and that the best we can hope for is incremental agreements between clashing cultures instead of thoroughgoing revolutions and wars.

What is the nature of the underlying commonality? I can think of at least two candidates. The benefits of trade,(efficacious) and hospitality to strangers,(ethical).There are also variations on "When you cut me do I not bleed?" (Shakespeare)which is a universal basis for ordinary human sympathy.

Ghost, would you please revise the following sentence which try as I might I find ambiguous?
It is not moral relativism because it adheres to certain sets of rules by which society flourishes in the first place.
I do like the quotation from Geertz. I may put that book on my reading list.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Steve3007 »

Interesting, BG.
Burning ghost wrote:It is fitting to look at the use of the term "uncustomary" to replace what we call "unethical." This to me strikes as being more honest about the situation of individuals within a society. What is "customary" is what works to hold th estructure of society together.
Perhaps a closer equivalent to the term "uncustomary" would be "antisocial". As you say, this denotes behaviour that is contrary to the expectations of society/custom - expectations that exist (at least theoretically) in order to promote societal stability. But, in our society, "antisocial" tends to be used for behaviours that are at the more trivial end of the scale. We'd find it odd if someone described murder as merely antisocial.
Burning ghost wrote:It is not moral relativism because it adheres to certain sets of rules by which society flourishes in the first place. Any system or moral scheme that doesn't fit the human condition will necessarily break the human condition and therefore society.
I think it arguably is moral relativism because it explicitly acknowledges that it is the customs of that particular society that are being violated, and not some kind of externally existing universal moral truth. Although, if that society is all that its members are concerned with, the distinction might be regarded as irrelevant.

Of course there will tend to be convergent evolution of some customs among various societies, but there will also be differences. "Sorcery" is an obvious example. It's interesting that our societies also used to have laws against that ("witchcraft"). Clearly the thought that some members of the tribe might have some hidden magical power that they secretly use against the rest of us is a deeply ingrained human fear. Nowadays, in our societies, perhaps that fear has partially survived in the form of conspiracy theories about such entities as "the deep state" and a general mistrust of the "sorcery" of those so-called experts that populist politicians can grow very successful by deriding.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Belindi »

Burning Ghost, I just bought "The Interpretation of Cultures" by Clifford Geertz. Thanks for the recommendation.
I also found the following quotation among Amazon's recommended books
The need and capacity of men and women to relate socially lies at the heart of Durkheim's exploration, in which religion embodies the beliefs that shape our moral universe.
I thought this was especially relevant to connection between scientific beliefs such as they may be, and religion.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Steve3007 »

Belindi wrote:What is the nature of the underlying commonality? I can think of at least two candidates. The benefits of trade,(efficacious) and hospitality to strangers,(ethical).There are also variations on "When you cut me do I not bleed?" (Shakespeare)which is a universal basis for ordinary human sympathy.
I'm not sure that I agree with those last two as universal common denominators that exist in all societies/tribes. A recognition that we are (as Shylock pleaded) all human beings doesn't seem to be universal. In fact, tribal cohesion often seems to require us to think the opposite of that.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Belindi »

Steve3007 wrote: February 20th, 2018, 6:26 am
Belindi wrote:What is the nature of the underlying commonality? I can think of at least two candidates. The benefits of trade,(efficacious) and hospitality to strangers,(ethical).There are also variations on "When you cut me do I not bleed?" (Shakespeare)which is a universal basis for ordinary human sympathy.
I'm not sure that I agree with those last two as universal common denominators that exist in all societies/tribes. A recognition that we are (as Shylock pleaded) all human beings doesn't seem to be universal. In fact, tribal cohesion often seems to require us to think the opposite of that.
Steve, I accept. Would you accept as underlying commonality the economic basis of subsistence whatever that may be? I have in mind climate, terrain, technological knowledge, natural hazards and so on.
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Re: Changes in society correlated with the rise of women's rights

Post by Steve3007 »

Belindi wrote:Would you accept as underlying commonality the economic basis of subsistence whatever that may be? I have in mind climate, terrain, technological knowledge, natural hazards and so on.
If we're looking for an example of a societal custom, or norm, which is universal across all human societies then I suppose we're looking for customs that self-evidently promote the success and survival of the tribe. So, yes, the economic basis of subsistence - the thing that the tribe has to do to avoid hazards and feed itself - seems like a reasonable place to start.
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