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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27883 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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they ignored the inherent selfishness in the heart of every man

I don't follow. Are you saying that social liberalism/progessivism is more successful with secular people because it is better at appealing to their selfishness? I.e. that it lacks a "pie in the sky when you die" incentive to be socially conservative?

Because it's not clear to me that social liberalism/progressivism have success by appealing to people's selfish wants. If they only appeal to gay people, drug dealers, or psychopaths, then sure, but they don't. The average straight white American male liberal does not stand to benefit from DEI, gay marriage, drug liberalisation etc. (Maybe a little from the latter.) You could argue that it appeals to people based on the idea that societies that are socially liberal/progressive are happier, but I doubt that you think that this is true, so the issue would be people's ignorance rather than their selfishness.

If anything, the success of social liberalism/progressivism often seems to come from (a) appealing to people's benevolence and (b) elevating benevolence to the status of the sole moral virtue. It's a kind of moral appeal, albeit one to a monomaniacal system in which universal compassion is the sole moral criterion.

Are you saying that social liberalism/progessivism is more successful with secular people because it is better at appealing to their selfishness?

I suppose that that's one way to put it. But I don't think there's much of an active appeal to selfish, it's more that very few demands are made of people at all. You can live the life of a pig and demand the same respect given to a Socrates, because who are you to judge? Ad aren't we all owed a certain level of dignity simply by being born human?

The average straight white American male liberal does not stand to benefit from DEI, gay marriage, drug liberalisation etc.

Subscribing to the dominant creed has always brought advantages. You will not be harassed by the ruling class or their lackeys, you will be allowed into polite society, you will potentially have access to good jobs, you will be thought of as an upright and morally good person. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the power and status that you stand to receive are valued highly by certain personalities.

If anything, the success of social liberalism/progressivism often seems to come from (a) appealing to people's benevolence and (b) elevating benevolence to the status of the sole moral virtue.

Partially, but also a lot of fear and control of the narrative. I remember hearing people openly discussing how homosexuality was immoral and how gay marriage was an unconscionable oxymoron in the 90s and early 2000s. Now those conversations rarely ever happen, not because the anti-gay marriage side was discredited, but because the war for the feelings of America was won by the pro-gay marriage side through propaganda and shaming. Many of the people who opposed gay marriage 20 years ago still oppose it, only they now no longer dare express their opinion to anyone other than close confidants because it's unfashionable and it carries the risk of social ostracization or worse. And so, the younger generations grow up not knowing that an anti-gay marriage position exists and simply believes that the way things are now is "normal," and Social Progressivism wins another victory.

I suppose that that's one way to put it. But I don't think there's much of an active appeal to selfish, it's more that very few demands are made of people at all. You can live the life of a pig and demand the same respect given to a Socrates, because who are you to judge? Ad aren't we all owed a certain level of dignity simply by being born human?

So you think that modern liberalism/progressivism isn't demanding and judgemental? It seems the opposite to me.

Subscribing to the dominant creed has always brought advantages. You will not be harassed by the ruling class or their lackeys, you will be allowed into polite society, you will potentially have access to good jobs, you will be thought of as an upright and morally good person. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the power and status that you stand to receive are valued highly by certain personalities...

Partially, but also a lot of fear and control of the narrative

So even selfish people can follow moral constraints out of fear, a desire for social approval, and social incentives?

So you think that modern liberalism/progressivism isn't demanding and judgemental? It seems the opposite to me.

It "coerces to freedom" as Ryzard Legutko put it. You can live how you like, as long as it's not "discriminatory" and doesn't imply that some ways of living are better than others. You can choose any color of Model T you want, as long as it's black. You will not be judged for your choice of indulgence, but you will be judged harshly for questioning whether it is right to indulge.

So even selfish people can follow moral constraints out of fear, a desire for social approval, and social incentives?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Why would not be possible to simultaneously be selfish and do something out of fear? Can you speak more plainly?

It "coerces to freedom" as Ryzard Legutko put it. You can live how you like, as long as it's not "discriminatory" and doesn't imply that some ways of living are better than others. You can choose any color of Model T you want, as long as it's black. You will not be judged for your choice of indulgence, but you will be judged harshly for questioning whether it is right to indulge.

That's one of the norms in modern liberalism/progressivism, but there are others, e.g. equity and compassion. The more someone tends towards "progressivism" in my sense, the more that these other norms dominate over liberty.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Why would not be possible to simultaneously be selfish and do something out of fear? Can you speak more plainly?

Sure, I just wanted to go step by step in constructing my argument.

If selfish people can act out of fear, including secular fear (i.e. not just the threat of divine punishment or the promise of rewards in heaven) then the secular conservative can think that a secular conservative society is possible in principle, despite people being selfish.

In practice, many of them have had a tragic vision and thought that it wasn't possible. In the case of David Stove, for instance, I think it was he thought that a society made up of people who think like him is impossible because people tend too strongly towards irrationality:

Unlike Muggeridge, however, I do not believe that rational thought is a danger to humanity, in the long or even in the medium run. Whether a society of atheists could endure, was a question often discussed during the Enlightenment, though never decided. If the question is generalized a little, however, from 'atheists' to 'Positivists,' then it seems obvious enough that the answer to it is 'no.' Genetic engineering aside, given a large aggregation of human beings, and a long time, you cannot reasonably expect rational thought to win. You could as reasonably expect a thousand unbiased dice, all tossed at once, all to come down 'five,' say. There are simply far too many ways, and easy ways, in which human thought can go wrong. Or, put it the other way round: anthropocentrism cannot lose. The jungle will reclaim the clearing (even without heavy infestations of conservationists), darkness will beat the light, not quite always on the local scale, but absolutely always on the large scale.

(From "What's Wrong with Our Thoughts?")

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