You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Ethics’ category.
Investigate the two options given. Which one requires a cultural commissar to ensure you’re doing it right? I think most people are still going to pick “A” in private, but due to negative pressure and threat in society might choose “B” in public.
It is only your integrity that is at stake. We are defined by the choices we make and do not make. Too much of stable Western society is a peril for people who believe A, but meekly accept B to think that their actions are somehow ‘right’.
One of the curses that progressives that have gone awry (the woke) bring to the table is often the disregard of objective fact. For the faux-progressive sets, the more oppressive factors that you happen to bring to the situation makes your insights somehow more relevant and more important (‘truthier’) than someone who has experienced less oppression. So much of faux-progressive time is spent comparing, ordering, and reordering postures and arguments in accordance with perceived levels of oppression that the actual truth of the matter becomes lost in the internecine conflict that inevitably occurs.
We as a society need to decide that objective truth matters and strive to base our decisions on the version of events/details that most closely coincides with the material reality we all share. In short we need to return to and reaffirm the ideas of the Enlightenment and of the Classical Liberalism that followed.
Be very concerned when certain groups of people consider themselves untouchable and their ideas sacrosanct. Religious belief on the right and on the left (gender religiosity) is poisonous for a society that values free speech and communication.
James Lindsay purports to find a common thread among the new critical theories that have garnered attention in the United States and to a lesser extent, Canada. For the purposes of the podcast, he summarizes what Marxism is and some of the related terminology (including marxist-feminism 18:50).
Different points of view and different analysis are necessary when evaluating ideologies and systems present in society. Lindsay is a critic of Marxist methodology and it is important to hear his critiques.
“We often hear that Woke Marxism is a new ideology in the world. I’ve even said so. Well, it isn’t. It’s just an old one repackaged in various ways without any essential changes made to it at all. Critical Race Theory is Race Marxism in the same way as what we usually call Marxism is Class Marxism. Radical Feminism is Sex Marxism. Gender ideology and Queer Theory are Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Marxism, or just Gender Marxism or Sexual Marxism to be more concise. Fat studies is Fat Marxism. Disability studies is Ability Marxism. Critical Education Theory (Critical Pedagogy) is Knowledge Marxism in terms of what it means to be formally educated or literate within the existing system. Postmodern postructuralism is Language Marxism. Postcolonial Theory is National Origin Marxism. And on it goes, with all of these cobbled together by intersectionality, which is Identity Marxism.”
Sometimes a concept is so good one must ruthlessly crib from another source – So here ya be, the notion of Chesterson’s Fence and how important it is to understand the reasons why something was done in the first place.
“Second-order thinking will get you extraordinary results, and so will learning to recognize when other people are using second-order thinking. To understand exactly why this is the case, let’s consider Chesterton’s Fence, described by G. K. Chesterton himself as follows:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
***
Chesterton’s Fence is a heuristic inspired by a quote from the writer and polymath G. K. Chesterton’s 1929 book, The Thing. It’s best known as being one of John F. Kennedy’s favored sayings, as well as a principle Wikipedia encourages its editors to follow. In the book, Chesterton describes the classic case of the reformer who notices something, such as a fence, and fails to see the reason for its existence. However, before they decide to remove it, they must figure out why it exists in the first place. If they do not do this, they are likely to do more harm than good with its removal. In its most concise version, Chesterton’s Fence states the following:
Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place.
Chesterton went on to explain why this principle holds true, writing that fences don’t grow out of the ground, nor do people build them in their sleep or during a fit of madness. He explained that fences are built by people who carefully planned them out and “had some reason for thinking [the fence] would be a good thing for somebody.” Until we establish that reason, we have no business taking an ax to it. The reason might not be a good or relevant one; we just need to be aware of what the reason is. Otherwise, we may end up with unintended consequences: second- and third-order effects we don’t want, spreading like ripples on a pond and causing damage for years.”
Speaking your mind can be a dangerous activity. In the halls of academia though, it is purportedly the name of the game. Please go and read Dr.Bert’s full post and enjoy her eloquence and clarity of thought in full.
I thought I would highlight some of the points that should be of interest to those who believe in academic freedom, and freedom of speech in general.
“[…]
‘I am a sociologist after all—and interrogate this current moment in which a certain contingent of social activists have deemed it not only justifiable, but proper, to silence any discussion about sex and negotiation of competing sex-based and gender-identity-based rights. Some might say, and I might agree, this is part of the larger ‘woke’ movement among those who identify with the Left. I might note that my political beliefs position me on the Left, but I believe in the importance of evidence, reason and logic, and a material reality in which we all exist).'”
Her resignation letter (from the Division of Women and Crime) really knocks it out of the park, it is a clarion call to those who remain on the non gender religious Left. (**ed. It was mistakenly reported here that Dr.Burt’s letter was to the Editorial board, when in fact it was from the Division of Women and Crime – change applied to the relevant parts of this post and apologies to Dr.Burt**)
“However, a division that traffics in mantras and refuses to engage with people raising valid concerns (dismissing people for ‘hateful wrong think’), is not a group I wish to be a member of. For those of you who consider me a ‘meany’, baddie, hater who is a transphobe, you’re probably relieved. But you are wrong. I am not a transphobe, and I do not hate trans people or males or anyone.
Just this week reports came out of a male who self-ID’ed into the women’s prison in Washington state and raped a female prisoner housed there. I think that’s something to discuss; your explicit position is that doing so is hateful transphobia that must be silenced for inclusivity and the well-being of transgender people. But what about females and transwomen who would be harmed by predatory males self-ID’ing into women’s spaces?
Many of you were part of the LGBT movement in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and some of you weren’t. I was. We didn’t effect change by refusing to engage, dismissing those who disagreed, and censoring any discussion of negotiating gay rights. We were successful because we talked. We tried to understand the positions of others and helped them see ours. Maybe your attempts to censor any discussion of sex will work to effect the change you wish to see in the world. Maybe it won’t. Regardless of the outcome, I do not find the division’s silencing discussion of issues, which are complex and multilayered and sometimes uncomfortable, acceptable in academia or in the Division of Women and Crime.
I wish you well, and I’m sad to go. But I refuse to go along silently with a group that calls discussion of gender/sex-self-ID ‘transphobic’ when there are real issues to discuss here that have everything to do with the safety of females and transwomen and nothing to do with hate or bigotry.”
Wow.
*applause*
It is a wonderful time to be alive. Our social sphere is a dividedly partisan uncharitable hot mess. Nothing gets done because the status quo recognizes that people working together have the capacity to radically alter society. Internecine conflict and partisan yelling matches are not an accident. They conveniently combust all the oxygen in the public sphere, keeping threatening systemic change far at bay.
Consider, we fecklessly embrace capitalism and the ruthless exploitation and environmental destruction that goes along with it. Yet, at the same time we have our scientific classes raising the alarm that we are rapidly making our planet uninhabitable. A few eyebrows are raised, but in general, the system continues to chug along. Here is one foundational parts of our capitalism system, the ever present race for the bottom and thus maximum profitability (at all costs).
It’s gonna suck when the earth strikes back and decides our defining passion for hoarding slips of paper is not a desirable evolutionary trait. Pete Dolack writes for CounterPunch:
“And as the race to the bottom continues — as relentless competition induces a never-ending search to find locations with ever lower wages and ever lower health, safety, labor and environmental standards — what regulations remain are targets to be eliminated. Thus we have the specter of “free trade” agreements that have little to do with trade and much to do with eliminating the ability of governments to regulate. And as the whip of financial markets demand ever bigger profits at any cost, no corporation, not even Wal-Mart, can go far enough.
Despite being a leader in cutting wages, ruthless behavior toward its employees and massive profitability, when Wal-Mart bowed to public pressure in 2015 and announced it would raise its minimum pay to $9 an hour, Wall Street financiers angrily drove down the stock price by a third. Wal-Mart reported net income of $61 billion over the past five years, so it does appear the retailer will remain a going concern. Apple reported net income of $246 billion over the past five years, so outsourcing production to China seems to have worked out for it as well.
The Trump administration’s trade wars are so much huffing and puffing. Empty public rhetoric aside, Trump administration policy on trade, consistent with its all-out war on working people, is to elevate corporate power. Nationalism is a convenient cover to obscure the most extreme anti-worker U.S. administration yet seen. Class war rages on, in the usual one-sided manner.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…