Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Burning ghost wrote:There is no need to take every word with offensive when he has said nothing particularly obtuse. How he moves from the sensible propositions above to his views on women's rights and such, is still bewildering to me for the most part.
How he gets there: Conservatism favours gradual change over revolution, keeping the elements that have worked in the past (baby/bathwater). But sometimes radical action is required, even for people who are naturally conservative, in order to restore those working elements when they are under threat (retrieve the baby from the drain). Example: WW2. Women have the mentality of undisciplined children and therefore need to be ruled over as children are by parents ("Women! Know Your Limits!" - Harry Enfield et al). Female suffrage, and the kinds of political parties for which women tend to vote, break down the social structures that keep women in line. Therefore female suffrage needs to be revoked so that men can decide what's best for them in their own interests - as benevolent dictators.

I can see why he thinks Burke supports him in this, with his views on such things as chivalry and noblesse oblige. With a bit of over-simplification, selectivity and collective vilification you can go a long way in whatever direction takes your fancy.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve wrote:
I can see why he thinks Burke supports him in this, with his views on such things as chivalry and noblesse oblige. With a bit of over-simplification, selectivity and collective vilification you can go a long way in whatever direction takes your fancy.
The coins of chivalry and noblesse oblige can be reversed so that women are chivalrous towards men, and so that nobility is what is expressed by duty and ability not inherited wealth. The devil does not have to have all the good tunes.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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I think the chivalry and noblesse oblige are shorthand for an undefined relationships, of our expectations of each other, that hold a society together. As opposed to the idea that society can be purely a matter of legal rights, or that it can be a rational construction based on abstract principles.

So, to take the example of women's rights, if women are not being maintained by their fathers and husbands then laws that assume they are will no longer be appropriate so they need to change. It would be a mistake to think that the existing laws must be enforced simply because they are the law, or because they embody some sort of fundamental philosophical truth about the nature of women.

But one should equally be wary of replacing the existing laws with a new set of laws that claimed to fix 'the rights of women' or that claimed to embody an alternative philosophy about the nature of women. Rather, any laws should just try to fix particular problems.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Daschund: You have to understand one thing: Governance is ethics. Conversations about whether Nietzsche is a conservative can be entertaining, but they are what you might call classificatory: How shall we classify Nietzsche? How shall we define a conservative vis a viz Burke? You argue classificatory matters, and you pretend they are ethically substantive. They're not. If you want anyone to think you have any substance to your convictions, you'd better learn how to argue about the ethical justification for your conservatism, otherwise your just a tedious bore.
[/quote]



I will respond to your criticisms and those of Londoner anon ( within the next day or so , as I am very busy in Australia at present with family obligations.

Regards,

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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Burning ghost wrote: March 12th, 2018, 2:23 am Hereandnow -

Sausage dog is the common term for "dash hound."

Yes, the term "Sausage Dog" is common slang for "Dachshund" in England and Australia. In the US, however, the public call them "Weiner Dogs", (a weiner is a sausage in North America).

But it is wrong to break down the term dachshund into its two syllables dachs and hund and say that dachs = sausage.

Dachshund in a German word; "dachs" = the German term for a European badger", while "hund" = the German word for dog.

So a Dachshund is literally speaking, a "(European) badger dog". This came about because Dachshunds were originally bred in rural Germany ( c 1500s, I think) to hunt European badgers (farmers wanted to get rid of the badgers from their land as they were regarded a pest). In time, using Dachshunds for hunting Europoean badgers became a sport in the sense that fox hunting was a sport. There are still sporting Dachshund Clubs in Europe and the US, though I disapprove of them, as I think the practice of using "blooded" Dachshunds to hunt down prey is very cruel ( just as fox hunting is cruel). Hunting or "Sporting" Dachshunds are called TecKels ( German) BTW; my Dachshund is merely a harmless, domestic pet, though, and in Germany miniature pet Dachshunds like mine are called "Dackels".

There, aren't you glad I volunteered to provide you with these interesting facts, Burning Ghost ? :D
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Belindi wrote:The coins of chivalry and noblesse oblige can be reversed so that women are chivalrous towards men, and so that nobility is what is expressed by duty and ability not inherited wealth. The devil does not have to have all the good tunes.
Yes, chivalry and a sense of moral duty and due respect can be shown from anybody to anybody else. But I think a conservative would argue that an essential characteristic of such things is that they are voluntary/informal and that therefore, not being enforced explicitly by law, their continuation is helped by a sense of respect for tradition. They also argue that enforcing things by law weakens the impulse to do them voluntarily and creates a dependency culture. This, it seems to me, is how the coalition between Litertarianism and conservatism works, when there are some ways in which they seem incompatible.

Earlier:
Frost wrote:Trump is a classic New York Liberal
If it's possible to identify any political position in Trump at all, I agree that he's firmly on the Classical Liberal/Libertarian side of that coalition - the central place of "The Deal" - the idea that we are all individuals doing deals with each other. He knows that he has to pretend to believe in God and be anti-abortion and in favour of "family values" to keep the coalition together.

Steve Bannon speaking at the "Family Research Council" meeting in October last year was interesting as he explicitly referred to this coalition there. And it was interesting to gain an insight into the thinking of evangelical religious types on the subject of sexual predators like Weinstein and Trump: the view that some of them expressed that it's the fault of modern, weak, liberal (in the modern sense) men that alpha males like that get away with it. Their view seems to be that if we lived in an age of chivalry, amoral libertarians like Trump would be properly controlled by some modern equivelant of a slap round the face with a glove and the challenge to a duel. That appears to be at least one version of the vision of how the coalition works. Fascinating.
Londoner wrote:I think the chivalry and noblesse oblige are shorthand for an undefined relationships, of our expectations of each other, that hold a society together. As opposed to the idea that society can be purely a matter of legal rights, or that it can be a rational construction based on abstract principles.
Yes, I agree. The emphasis on these informal non-legally-binding social structures appears to be at the heart of the Libertarian/conservative coalition.
So, to take the example of women's rights, if women are not being maintained by their fathers and husbands then laws that assume they are will no longer be appropriate so they need to change. It would be a mistake to think that the existing laws must be enforced simply because they are the law, or because they embody some sort of fundamental philosophical truth about the nature of women.
I presume this is why Dachshund appeals to concepts like genetics and innate human nature with respect to both gender and race. The argument has been that women are inherently pre-destined to be maintained by their father or husband and people with dark coloured skin are inherently pre-destined to be violent.
But one should equally be wary of replacing the existing laws with a new set of laws that claimed to fix 'the rights of women' or that claimed to embody an alternative philosophy about the nature of women. Rather, any laws should just try to fix particular problems.
One of the interestingly difficult problems that arises from this is the concept of gender-equality in pay, that has been in the news recently.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007 wrote: March 12th, 2018, 8:21 am
Belindi wrote:The coins of chivalry and noblesse oblige can be reversed so that women are chivalrous towards men, and so that nobility is what is expressed by duty and ability not inherited wealth. The devil does not have to have all the good tunes.
Yes, chivalry and a sense of moral duty and due respect can be shown from anybody to anybody else. But I think a conservative would argue that an essential characteristic of such things is that they are voluntary/informal and that therefore, not being enforced explicitly by law, their continuation is helped by a sense of respect for tradition. They also argue that enforcing things by law weakens the impulse to do them voluntarily and creates a dependency culture. This, it seems to me, is how the coalition between Litertarianism and conservatism works, when there are some ways in which they seem incompatible.

Earlier:
Frost wrote:Trump is a classic New York Liberal
If it's possible to identify any political position in Trump at all, I agree that he's firmly on the Classical Liberal/Libertarian side of that coalition - the central place of "The Deal" - the idea that we are all individuals doing deals with each other. He knows that he has to pretend to believe in God and be anti-abortion and in favour of "family values" to keep the coalition together.

Steve Bannon speaking at the "Family Research Council" meeting in October last year was interesting as he explicitly referred to this coalition there. And it was interesting to gain an insight into the thinking of evangelical religious types on the subject of sexual predators like Weinstein and Trump: the view that some of them expressed that it's the fault of modern, weak, liberal (in the modern sense) men that alpha males like that get away with it. Their view seems to be that if we lived in an age of chivalry, amoral libertarians like Trump would be properly controlled by some modern equivelant of a slap round the face with a glove and the challenge to a duel. That appears to be at least one version of the vision of how the coalition works. Fascinating.
Londoner wrote:I think the chivalry and noblesse oblige are shorthand for an undefined relationships, of our expectations of each other, that hold a society together. As opposed to the idea that society can be purely a matter of legal rights, or that it can be a rational construction based on abstract principles.
Yes, I agree. The emphasis on these informal non-legally-binding social structures appears to be at the heart of the Libertarian/conservative coalition.
So, to take the example of women's rights, if women are not being maintained by their fathers and husbands then laws that assume they are will no longer be appropriate so they need to change. It would be a mistake to think that the existing laws must be enforced simply because they are the law, or because they embody some sort of fundamental philosophical truth about the nature of women.
I presume this is why Dachshund appeals to concepts like genetics and innate human nature with respect to both gender and race. The argument has been that women are inherently pre-destined to be maintained by their father or husband and people with dark coloured skin are inherently pre-destined to be violent.
But one should equally be wary of replacing the existing laws with a new set of laws that claimed to fix 'the rights of women' or that claimed to embody an alternative philosophy about the nature of women. Rather, any laws should just try to fix particular problems.
One of the interestingly difficult problems that arises from this is the concept of gender-equality in pay, that has been in the news recently.
I think the basic premiss of the chivalry myth is that the more powerful individuals help the powerless. The emphasis is on power. After Nietzsche power devolved from traditional powers to solitary individuals. The cult of the individual worked well for urbanisation as urbanisation involved the new industrial relationships of employer and labourer. However the cult of the individual is like that of a machine unless the power is used to benefit men not products. So the chivalry myth expresses , besides individualism ,the ethic that the richer helps the poorer. Industrialists like Robert Owen and the Quakers for instance. The chivalry ethic of the powerful serving the less powerful is a moving icon that did not get stuck in older traditions but moved on from from rural to industrial social relations. The ethic remains viable in post industrial societies.

But only if it's enshrined in law, because unwritten rules of cricket don't work unless all the players understand them almost at a visceral level of understanding. Conservatives(big C) are optimists with their simplistic faith in reified 'human nature'. Anomie is a name for the process of mental divorce from traditional relationships. Anomie is still rife and has reached individual psychologies so that mental illness affects more people than formerly increasing unhappiness and crime. We need the laws to back up the moral code. After all, the moral code is what our law are built out of.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Burning Ghost
The argument of "desert" didn't seem to make sense to me. To me it seemed more like a wishful appeal to an idea that anyone can do anything and that any differences between people should be ignored, and/or punished, in order to create "safety" and thus allow people to become "different."
Because you don't take the term 'desert' to the level of basic assumptions. X deserves Y? Why? Answer this in a non question begging way, that is, such that your answer does not include a bunch of assumptions that can further analysis. If there are terms that beg the question, the job is to look closely at these. It is not so esoteric at all. Just inquire. X deserves Y because she mixed her labor with it, for example. There is some sense in this, and it is followed by more questions being begged: What motivated her to mix her labor, to do it as well as she did? And her gifts, her social advantages, her money?: if she deserves Y and desert rests with talents, intelligence and so forth, which it doubtlessly does, then the question of desert moves to these: How does she deserve these, the being born to wealthy and talented parents and the rest? THIS is the question you do not want to ask, and yet it is the only question that makes sense given the path reasonable inquiry has taken you on. And you know the answer already: no one deserves any of what they are given originally (unless you want to argue they do, and that there was some prior condition, bad deeds figuring into your karma, for example, carrying over into the present incarnation; but this is just metaphysical extravagance and has no place here).

So what do you do with this? A wishful appeal would be more along the lines of reincarnation or Christian promises that all will be well. Nothing of that is here. There is one question begged here, and that is why bother with desert at all? Who cares if one does or does not deserve their fate? Just drop the term altogether and let people be free to act as they are naturally "given".

There has been a great deal written on this, of course. I dare say, every secular philosopher that has ever tried to defend that Protagorean maxim, man is the measure of all things, has failed to adequately account for ethics. Very different from questions about non ethical propositional knowledge, like "grass is green". Here, it is the joys and horrors of our "outrageous fortune" that presents an entirely different dimension of understanding.

You don't want to hear my thoughts on this so I won't tell you. But here, it is important to know that if one abandons desert as a moral term at the level of basic questions and assumptions, then one has to embrace the consequences in what is morally permissible. It means one accepts the idea that all that restrains thought and behavior in matters bringing harm to others is a social convention. If we lived in an abstraction of word-relations, who would care? But the world is not like this. Here we make judgments about how people's lives can be lived. It's called voting.

Conservatives like Daschund look at afflicted people in society and believes those kids growing up in wretched environments deserve this. Do you see why I take such issue with this? It is not about Nietzsche, or Burke, or the Great Chain of Being. These are all ploys to justify systematic abuse of the least advantaged class, the kind of abuse found in underfunding in schools, structural poverty and ignorance and crime, while billionaires toy with their cash. You think this is about people just being able to be different?? No: it is the very serious business of determining the fate of millions.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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HAN -

You seem to know what I haven't thought even though I thought about that, as I assume every one had, since they were a teenager??? I am truly baffled why you think I would not want to ask that question or haven't answered it the same as you. I just did so, so damn long ago I no longer consider it worth driving at someone else because I assume people are not quite so dumb as you seem to assume me to be.

Maybe we're just the only two enlightened individuals on this forum, or maybe what you are appealing to is pretty much old news to everyone here (as it is to me.)
AKA badgerjelly
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007:
I've found "The Great Debate" by Yuval Levin an interesting comparison between Paine and Burke …
I just read some reviews of the book as well as an interview with the author on NPR. One question I have is whether it is even possible to be a Burkean conservative in the United States today given its history of Liberalism. What is it that is to be preserved in that tradition? Monarchy would clearly be a radical departure from that tradition. Although there are some who like like to see nothing more, “Christian values” are not representative of the values of the people today, and so to impose some version of them would be antithetical to Burke’s gradualism. He did not advocate a return to an imagined golden age. The Founders had hoped for a natural aristocracy, wise men who would put aside narrow self-interest and be guided by reasoned deliberation, but in an age where immensely wealthy self professed conservatives have determined that money is free speech (Citizens United) such hopes seem quaint.

Terms such as ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, and ‘libertarian’ has no fixed or unambiguous meaning. Many “conservatives” today in the U.S. (I cannot speak for what goes on elsewhere) are strong proponents of classical liberalism, that is, individual rights and autonomy, while many “liberals” favor a strong role for government. But many conservatives are opposed reproductive rights and advocates such things as school prayer and standing for the national anthem. Republican has become synonymous with conservative and Democrat with liberal. Republican, at least until recently, was identified with fiscal conservatism, but recent events belie that association.

Thomas Jefferson was a member of the “Democratic-Republican Party” ( aka “Republican Party” aka “Jeffersonian Republicans”) became the “Democratic Party”. They stood in opposition to Hamilton and the Federalist Party, which, unlike today’s Republican Party, favored a strong central government. At the time of the Civil War the South was Democratic and opposed Lincoln’s newly minted anti-slavery Republican Party. With the Democratic support of the civil rights movement, however, the South switched its allegiance to the Republicans.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007 wrote: March 12th, 2018, 8:21 am If it's possible to identify any political position in Trump at all, I agree that he's firmly on the Classical Liberal/Libertarian side of that coalition - the central place of "The Deal" - the idea that we are all individuals doing deals with each other. He knows that he has to pretend to believe in God and be anti-abortion and in favour of "family values" to keep the coalition together.
Oh no no no, not at all. I meant American Liberal. Trump is nothing like a classical liberal or libertarian. He is demonstrating himself to be a big government interventionist that attacks other countries, just less than Obama was which makes many think that he is conservative or more libertarian.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Fooloso4 wrote:I just read some reviews of the book as well as an interview with the author on NPR. One question I have is whether it is even possible to be a Burkean conservative in the United States today given its history of Liberalism. What is it that is to be preserved in that tradition? Monarchy would clearly be a radical departure from that tradition.
Yes, obviously the preservation of monarchy, specifically, doesn't fit the US. But presumably it's the general principle of reverance for what are seen as traditional values that US conservatives like.
Although there are some who like like to see nothing more, “Christian values” are not representative of the values of the people today, and so to impose some version of them would be antithetical to Burke’s gradualism.
Yes, I think you're probably right. It's hard to tell because it's hard to take people out of their historical and geographical context and imagine applying the principles that they espoused now. It seems clear that Burke's views were intimately connected with his Irish roots, with the politics of the Whigs, with the "glorious revolution" of 1688, with the relationships and differences between the American and French revolutions, with the wrong-doings of the British Empire in Ireland, India and America etc. If Burke were alive now he'd have a different set of experiences which would result in a different person. But if we try to abstract the most general possible principle - evolution/gradualism and not revolution - then, yes, there's nothing in that general principle that says we have to hang on to what are regarded as traditional values simply because they are old.
He did not advocate a return to an imagined golden age. The Founders had hoped for a natural aristocracy, wise men who would put aside narrow self-interest and be guided by reasoned deliberation,
Not unlike the "philosopher rulers" envisaged in Plato's Republic? This does seem to chime with Burke's advocacy of representative democracy - the idea that we choose our rulers not to slavishly implement our whims but because we value their judgement.
but in an age where immensely wealthy self professed conservatives have determined that money is free speech (Citizens United) such hopes seem quaint.
Yes, perhaps.
Terms such as ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, and ‘libertarian’ has no fixed or unambiguous meaning. Many “conservatives” today in the U.S. (I cannot speak for what goes on elsewhere) are strong proponents of classical liberalism, that is, individual rights and autonomy, while many “liberals” favor a strong role for government. But many conservatives are opposed reproductive rights and advocates such things as school prayer and standing for the national anthem. Republican has become synonymous with conservative and Democrat with liberal. Republican, at least until recently, was identified with fiscal conservatism, but recent events belie that association.
This is why it seems that there has to explicitly be a coalition between libertarian and conservative. i.e. they have to recognize that they have differences but enter into a marriage of convenience. Reproductive rights is one of the most obvious divisions between them. Conservatives are naturally "pro-life" because they tend to stand for tradition, by which they generally mean religiously-based tradition. Libertarians are naturally "pro-choice" because they tend to believe in individualism, the idea that people's morals are their own private business and the principle that the only function of government is to protect contractual agreements between those individuals and property rights. Conservatives fret that we throw away the accumulated wisdom of our elders (odd though it may seem to us) at our peril. Libertarians/Classic Liberals believe in this abstract notion of the pre-government individual, with his natural freedom that no government has the right to curtail, unless he's threatening the freedom of another individual.
Frost wrote:Oh no no no, not at all. I meant American Liberal. Trump is nothing like a classical liberal or libertarian. He is demonstrating himself to be a big government interventionist that attacks other countries, just less than Obama was which makes many think that he is conservative or more libertarian.
He's nothing of the sort. The evidence suggests to me that first and foremost he is an apolitical Trumpian. He is motivated by the desire to be seen to triumph and doesn't care about anything else. The fact that he appears to intervene by doing things like adding tariffs to steel imports or talking to North Korean leaders doesn't make him an "interventionist". It makes him a "what can I do in order to claim that I have triumphed where my predessors have failed"-ist. What he actually does towards that end is incidental, and will probably be something different next week.

The reason I said earlier that, if we can call him anything, we can call him a libertarian is that the only thing in his past words (or the words of his ghost-writer) that seems to come anywhere near what might be called "a philosophy" is his "Art of the Deal" stuff: his hyping himself as the ruthless dealmaker who gets the job done by cutting corners and taking risks, and if those penpushers down at City Hall don't like it they can park their fat overpaid asses on this middle digit and swivel. All that Dirty Harry style BS. The thing that prompted him to reply to the criticism of his tax affairs, in that presidential debate, by saying "it's because I'm smart".i.e. "I do whatever my accountants' interpretation of law lets me get away with and I expect my competitors to do the same". Spoken like a true Libertarian.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Frost wrote: March 12th, 2018, 2:09 pm... just less than Obama ....
Which was much less than GWB, who had "gifted" Obama immoral, hopeless and destructive wars.

Trump looks like a sabre rattler and could easily still turn out to be the worst, especially if he's in trouble in the polls and needs a war to bring the people together and the usual electoral bounce.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007:
He's nothing of the sort. The evidence suggests to me that first and foremost he is an apolitical Trumpian. He is motivated by the desire to be seen to triumph and doesn't care about anything else. The fact that he appears to intervene by doing things like adding tariffs to steel imports or talking to North Korean leaders doesn't make him an "interventionist". It makes him a "what can I do in order to claim that I have triumphed where my predessors have failed"-ist. What he actually does towards that end is incidental, and will probably be something different next week.
Never heard it put better. He is a commercial, and in advertising, if you are not cheating, exaggerating, and downright lying, you are not selling, because the assumption is that everyone is doing this, and if you are not, you cannot compete. And this is absolutely true in marketing and advertising. Trump's politics is sell, no matter what, and try to stay legal. He has no thoughts in his head besides this, and the horror of it is, he could get lucky.
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Re: Steve Pinker Lambasts American Left for Political Correctness

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Steve3007:
But if we try to abstract the most general possible principle - evolution/gradualism and not revolution - then, yes, there's nothing in that general principle that says we have to hang on to what are regarded as traditional values simply because they are old.
Revolution is an important part of the United State's heritage. Not only the revolution against English rule but the idea of self-government was considered revolutionary. The idea of re-inventing yourself part of our mythology. With regard to the past Jefferson said:
Our revolution commenced on more favorable ground. it presented us an Album on which we were free to write what we pleased. we had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up Royal parchments, or to investigate the laws & institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. we appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved in our hearts. (Letter to John Cartwright)
In the same letter he explicitly stated that no generation should be bound by the rights and powers of an earlier generation and can change the laws as they see fit. It is only the inherent and unalienable rights of man that cannot be changed, because they are not the invention of man but given by nature.
Not unlike the "philosopher rulers" envisaged in Plato's Republic?
Well the story Socrates tells in the Republic is of philosopher-kings who are guided by knowledge of the Forms. Unlike Socrates own “human wisdom”, that is, knowledge of human ignorance, they possess divine knowledge that no man actually possesses.
This does seem to chime with Burke's advocacy of representative democracy - the idea that we choose our rulers not to slavishly implement our whims but because we value their judgement.
The American Founders, including Paine, favored representative democracy, although I do not know how this formulation may have differed from Burke’s.
Conservatives are naturally "pro-life" because they tend to stand for tradition, by which they generally mean religiously-based tradition.


According to The American Historian (http://tah.oah.org/november-2016/abolis ... n-america/):
Before 1840 abortion was a widespread, largely stigma-free experience for American women. During that period, the American legal system used the quickening doctrine from British common law to decide the legality of abortion. Quickening occurred when the pregnant woman could feel the fetus move, typically between the fourth and sixth month of pregnancy. This was the only sure way to confirm pregnancy; before this time, any fetus was considered only a potential life. Women most often used herbal concoctions they had learned from other women, healers, or physicians to cure their “obstructed menses” before quickening. Post-quickening abortion was a crime, but only a misdemeanor. Some historians have suggested that laws against post-quickening abortions were primarily intended to protect the health of the pregnant woman—not fetal life—as it was much more common for women to die during abortions that used instruments rather than herbal abortifacients. Whatever the rationale, few abortions were prosecuted before the mid-nineteenth century because quickening was so difficult to prove. Only women themselves could testify to fetal movement.

This system of legal but quiet abortions fell apart in the mid-nineteenth century. The first “right-to-life” movement was not led by grassroots activists, but rather physicians, anxious about their professional status. Before then, physicians had been a largely unregulated bunch, without the institutional or cultural authority to corner the market on healing. In the early nineteenth century, a variety of other healers competed with physicians for business, especially the business of women’s reproductive healthcare. While many physicians believed that scientific medicine would benefit their patients, some, in order to hurt lay healers’ business, sought governmental licensing and regulation to weed out the competition. Physicians used anti-abortion laws, pushed in state legislatures, to increase their own stature and undermine their opponents.

… By 1900 every state had a law forbidding abortion at any stage …
Although many today oppose abortion on religious grounds there is no prohibition against abortion in the Bible. [In order not to derail this thread I will not discuss this claim or further claims about abortion here. What I have said was intended to be an aside.]

Steve:
The evidence suggests to me that first and foremost he is an apolitical Trumpian.
I would characterize him as first and foremost a plutocrat. I suspect his interest in coal and steel, like his political appointments, is based on cronyism, plutocrats securing and protecting the power and advantage of their wealth.
He is motivated by the desire to be seen to triumph and doesn't care about anything else.
I think that this is correct. Another version of him rushing in to save the students from being shot. He seems to believe that the United States under his leadership has the power to bend the world to his will.
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February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021