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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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We raise our children to be compassionate and we look for spouses who are compassionate.

We raise our kids to lead with compassion in interpersonal settings where it is relatively easy to notice free-loaders (and for them to be punished for callousness as well). When dealing with freeloaders or people who not only can't participate in beneficial exchange but will actually punish you for trying, we tell them to stand up for themselves and not be gulls.

People get cut off all the time in interpersonal relationships (even the "pro-'Be Kind'" side is down with this). But they don't get to sue for human rights reasons to get back on the gravy train.

Many of us would find the sort of "compassion" suggested on a policy level that leads to defectors and the mentally ill corroding society absolutely asinine were it promoted to kids. It's not even acceptable when dealing with animals at the zoo.

We know a lot of people are not confused about this because "help your own, avoid freeloaders or impersonal systems that can create or incentivize freeloaders" is basic conservative ideology in America. Let's not even speak globally.

So is there an entirely different approach to beating back compassion when it comes to the homeless problem?

The problem isn't just compassion it seems. Eric Adams seems to want to change NY's position on right to shelter. But he can't do so unilaterally. He basically seems to be working to limit (or soft ban, if you're being a cynic) asylum seekers - another compassion case - but is also seemingly stymied by the political and legal situation.

How much of it is really legal and political barriers that favor those who can navigate such systems (and do have that version of "compassion")? If homeless people could be committed at will, it hardly matters what litigious bleeding hearts at some charity think. If the UK Home Office could simply summarily deport, it hardly matters that people protest. I suspect far more people - who consider themselves compassionate - are annoyed by the inability to just get rid of people, and are constantly given the runaround with the "it's the courts! Nothing we can do!"

To put it another way: I'm not sure that it's the general public that needs to be retrained here.

I'm not sure that it's the general public that needs to be retrained here.

Depends on if you believe people ultimately deserve their government. Who's at fault for the fall of Afghanistan? Besides Biden and Obama, I think the conservative circles blame the Afghans. Ukrainians are (so far) willing to die to preserve their state and government, and Afghans aren't. Meanwhile Israel is willing to die to live, and the big question mark is what about Taiwan.

My point is, even if the courts are "technically" impeding deportation, it still goes back to the general public. The UK did Brexit, after all, so it can leave the ECHR, and Parliament can certainly seek to overrule its own high courts, and I think its recent legislation did basically dictate that courts define Rwanda as safe.

"it's the courts! Nothing we can do!"

There's an American version of this.

"We can't ban public camping, the courts ruled on this. Except of course when President Xi visits. Then we clear the streets."

We know a lot of people are not confused about this because "help your own, avoid freeloaders or impersonal systems that can create or incentivize freeloaders" is basic conservative ideology in America. Let's not even speak globally.

Jonathan Haidt identified the group who bucks this trend as WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich and Democratic). It can feel like these people's values are dominant in the population if you live in a WEIRD enclave but as you mention, globally and even just in more conservative areas they really aren't, even if they are still able to hold an outsized amount of influence due to the concentration of mediatic, economic and political power in WEIRD enclaves. Haidt identified that WEIRD people tended to compress all moral judgement to the harm/care and cheating/fairness moral dimentions, wheras conservatives (and non WEIRDs) had a more multi-dimensional moral judgement.

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