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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29605 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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So what about it is unfair?

Come to think of it what is your understanding of fairness here?

Fairness is an individual having to put into society before taking out and enjoying themselves. At least until we have a state of affairs where that can be an individual choice.

It's unfair that a rich scion can simply coast off the work of others and never have to struggle or put in, while the vast majority strain and buckle under their responsibilities.

So fairness in this sense is only submission and dependence to a given social group?

What of the Randian argument? What of the unfairness of society leeching on the gifted?

What of, in this conception, the unfairness of inequality between states? It is unfair in this sense that Western countries get to have the infrastructure built by their older generations whilst the third world does not?

Not to fall into clichés but can you explain how this is not literally "from each according to their ability, to each according to his needs" state socialism?

The socialists have a strong point. I doubt they’d be so popular otherwise.

The Randian argument is hogwash to me. Objectivism and objectivity as a whole are flawed viewpoints. Religious systems are the only way we can make sense of the complexity of society. I’m simply arguing that the modern world has drastically decoupled wealth, power and status from actual virtue.

It's unfair that a person can work all their life, save their assets, then get run over by a bus (or die of a heart attack) too. Doesn't mean there has to be some government solution to that.

We have driving laws and healthcare precisely as the government solution to those problems.

The government should and does work to prevent people getting run over by buses. We fight against the arbitrariness of disease and ill health in pretty much every facet, as @self_made_human can attest.

Pretty much all of society in some sense is working towards making things more 'fair,' otherwise we are just in a state of nature with the mighty taking what they will from the rest.

I think you're assuming a lot here, many proponents of civilization and the escape from the state of nature believe in procedural fairness, and explicitly decry this sort of equalizing.

It's the whole giant gap between the French and English traditions of Liberalism. And a convincing argument can be made that they are inherently at odds because enacting cosmic justice is almost always procedurally unfair.

It depends on whether you value inherent human dignity more versus human work and discipline.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Both value discipline highly, and dignity is an essentially empty word that just maps onto whatever moral framework we're using.

The dignity of Englishmen prohibits redistribution by the State. And French popular democracy's founding myth is one of pure discipline in the Bataillons.

I wager the difference is actually whether you believe in natural law (in the classic Aristotelian sense) or not. Thomas Sowell, who despite being partial had the benefit of having been on both sides, correctly identifies this in The Quest for Cosmic Justice.

Are we fit to reorder the universe or is that God's job?

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