When The Wall Street Journal is considered centrist and The Economist leaning left, we are living in interesting times.
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When The Wall Street Journal is considered centrist and The Economist leaning left, we are living in interesting times.
Interesting and complicated times, yes.
But something else notable is happening. The “intellectual” (an ever more arcahic term) bases of left and right have largely collapsed, utterly undercutting soggy old verities.
What quasi-front page editors and censors whether at NYT, Huffpost, Murdochlands or Yelp still implt they mean by “left” “center” and “right” is some version of Marxist on the left and Libertarian on the right (althogh authoritarians of monarchical and theological strains still exist, those are thoroughly disreputable to the scribblers).
These labels are now mostly insane, stupid, or ancient artifacts reanimated. Marxism now competes with LiteralNoahsArkian nutty Abrahamistic sects for the title of most reality denying and faith based, while Libertarianism whether Randist (Atlas Shrugged’s immortal pistons scene) or Nozickian (how long has it been since I met a fervent “Libertarian” who even knew his name?) are hopelessly outdated by facts and events.
“Fact based” is the ideology that has become the secret gold of the realms of power, even as fantasy is the tool powerful institutions use to sell and control.
Happy Sunday everybody!
david fb
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Nozickian (how long has it been since I met a fervent “Libertarian” who even knew his name?)
Never heard of him.
There, Nozick argues that only a minimal state limited to the narrow functions of protection against “force, fraud, theft, and administering courts of law”[8] could be justified, as any more extensive state would violate people’s rights.
Nozick challenged the partial conclusion of John Rawls’s Second Principle of Justice of his A Theory of Justice, that “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to be of greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.”
He rejected the notion of inalienable rights advanced by Locke and most contemporary capitalist-oriented libertarian academics, writing in Anarchy, State, and Utopia that the typical notion of a “free system” would allow adults to voluntarily enter into non-coercive slave contracts.*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick
These are ideas I agree with even if I don’t have Nozick’s scholarly qualifications. Born November 16, 1938, were he alive he would be two weeks my senior. It was a good month to be born!
…hopelessly outdated by facts and events.
Maybe that’s why the world is in such a mess, it followed the wrong tine at the fork in the road.
The Captain
- Marriage is one example of a “non-coercive slave contract.”
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Lately I have seen a bunch of uTube videos touting “Terrifying News that Will Change Everything.” Click bait crap to avoid. Maybe I should use the thumbs down button…
Thumbs up, thumbs down, just loading the page, watching more than 30 seconds, all of these actions cause the algorithm to push the video up the list of what might be shown/pushed to people.
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Hey Captain!
I hoped you would favor my post with a look as I did wonder if you were a conscious or unconscious Nozickian, because I definitely knew your èare one, and an honest one at that (meaning accepting and seeking to ameliorate some of the problematics that accompany so radical a stance).
I am a long time (1971) student, deep admirer, and critic of both Rawls and Nozick. They laid “it” out for their own time with clarity and mutual respect. I think time and human economic/cultural evolution has passed them both by. They both were what once were called “moral philosophers”. Morality may be going…
Meanwhile, here tonight at my favorite bar/cafe on my small Mallorquin town plaza (a good substitute for Boccaccio’s villa outside of Florence during the plague where people came to survive never discussing what they fled) I witnessed a family: a Russian patriarch (50ish, Rolex watch, trainer sculpted chest cum arm muscles [legs were meh], beautifully tailored casual linen shirt and vacation shorts with almost worn out sandals), his (still) stunning blonde 40ish wife (rivière of diamonds accented with sapphires around her neck, otherwise totally vacation casual light dress tailored to disguise mid-aged fattening), two daughters, four sons – three sons of draft age. The father, speaking excellent Amsterdam style international English, spoke to the proprietor about the Real Estate market, especially high rentals vs. ownership.
The world is moving right along to I do not know where.
david fb
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Oh, and look at this
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/10/world/europe/russia-recru…
that showed up while I ate my pincho morino and gawked and eavesdropped.
david fb
Marriage is one example of a “non-coercive slave contract.”
This tells me you understand neither slavery nor marriage.
—Peter
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I hoped you would favor my post with a look as I did wonder if you were a conscious or unconscious Nozickian, because I definitely knew your èare one, and an honest one at that (meaning accepting and seeking to ameliorate some of the problematics that accompany so radical a stance).
David, you are out of bounds, in foul territory. I do not accept labels, they are dangerous, they can hide your true identity, they can get you killed. I’m not Nozickian, neither conscious nor unconscious. I’m just me. Sometimes you have to accept a label because no one has yet invented a better term. Atheism is a case in point. What do you call an atheist who believes in gods? What do you call a capitalist who gives his fortune away? What do you call a philanderer who cares for unwed mothers? Life is too complex to put simple, misleading, insulting, and dangerous labels on people. Once you dehumanize people with a label its easy to kill them, no blame, no shame, no remorse, just house cleaning.
BTW, why would I care about the extravaganza of a Russian patriarch and entourage?
Since we are into labels, are Smith, Rand, and Nozick now immoral philosophers? Are cannibals immoral or just protein deficient? A Jared Diamond hypothesis.
The Captain
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This tells me you understand neither slavery nor marriage.
If marriage is so good how come there are so many divorces? I know, I know, it’s not the institution, it’s the people who ain’t good.
BTW, have you heard about sadomasochism? Voluntary slavery with the emphasis on ‘voluntary?’ As in ‘non-coercive’ = ‘volunary’?
The Captain
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david fb,
The intellectual collapse has not happened on the left.
Our economy is built on trust. Do you know who picked your bananas? The internet has made conspiracy theories easy to spread, and some spread mistrust to gain power.
Choose your reality: Trust wanes, conspiracy theories rise, July 10, 2022
“Rejecting what they hear from scientists, journalists or public officials, these people instead embrace tales of dark plots and secret explanations. And their beliefs, say experts who study misinformation and extremism, reflect a widespread loss of faith in institutions like government and media… “Trust is absolutely essential to everything in society working well,” Reis said. “It’s one of those things that, like air, people don’t think about it until they realize they don’t have it, or they’ve lost it or damaged it. And then it can be too late.” For experts who study misinformation and human cognition, the fraying of trust is tied to the rise of the internet and the way it can be exploited on contentious issues of social and economic change.”
https://apnews.com/article/covid-technology-health-governmen…
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Funny.
After news shows intentionally became “entertainment” rather than a means to provide
news to the public, trust is slowly worn away?
Who would have thought?
Howie52
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Let me back up and explain my comments a bit more.
By equating marriage and slavery, you demean marriage and trivialize slavery.
Marriage is a mutually beneficial partnership. Both parties give up something to gain something they feel is more valuable. There are some freedoms to living alone. You can do what you want. But there are also costs - you have to do everything that must be done. In the modern world, that means you have to provide for everything you need and you have to do all that needs to be done. In a marriage - a partnership - each party can specialize a bit. Perhaps one can earn enough to support both, so that the other can take care of the home. (This might be the idealized 1950s marriage.) Or both can work and contribute to provide more things than either one could provide separately.
Humans are also generally social creatures. We feel better and we are healthier when we have regular social contacts. A marriage partner provides one way to get that social contact on a regular basis. I’m not arguing that social contact is a universal need among humans, but it is pretty common.
If marriage is so good how come there are so many divorces? I know, I know, it’s not the institution, it’s the people who ain’t good.
So why are there divorces? Well, people are human and make mistakes. Sometimes we make a mistake in picking a marriage partner. People also change. What was a mutually beneficial partnership in the beginning may change over time to the point where it no longer benefits one partner (or perhaps both partners) enough to be worth the costs of being married.
This is in stark contrast to slavery. Slavery is a completely one-sided arrangement. The slave holder takes away virtually all human rights from the slave and forces the slave to work solely for the slave holder’s benefit. It is the exploitation of one person for the benefit of another. The slave gets no benefit from his labors beyond perhaps the provision of subsistence level food and housing. The cost of feeding and housing a slave is merely another cost of business, much like feeding and housing farm animals is a necessary cost of raising the farm animal for food (cattle, pigs, chickens, for example) or for the work the farm animal can do (like horses and oxen). Once the animal has served its purpose, it is tossed aside. The same happens to a slave that is no longer useful. Slavery is among the most demeaning things that humans have come up with during our time on this planet.
As to your sadomasochism comments: Sadism and masochism are mental illnesses. They are not healthy or normal behavior. They should not be trivialized, either. And neither are a form of slavery. Sadism is the affliction of physical or mental pain on others solely for the enjoyment that brings to the sadist. Masochism is the same on yourself. Neither have the financial aspects of slavery. Slave holders can treat the slave quite well - and such was not unheard of in the historic practice of slavery in the US. But it is still slavery, which is different from these mental illnesses. Sadism or masochism - or the combination of both - has nothing to do with slavery. Not even your “voluntary” or “non-coercive” slavery.
I am aware of sadomasochism as a form of sexual play. But this is not the real mental illness. Some folks get a kick out of playing the role of a sadist or masochist. But it’s very important for both parties to understand it is play and should be stopped if either party begins to object. And that’s all I care to comment about that.
–Peter <== who claims 39 years of marriage as his credentials to discuss the topic of marriage.
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Most people know it is ‘chisme’ or ‘chismoso’.
A lot of cultures have a need for chisme.
Intelligent uneducated people use it to stop some of their boredom. It is fun. It is easy. It is slamming all sorts of nonsense together that can be about anything.
Instead of carping about it openly discuss how demand side econ pays them.
The main reason for divorce is anger.
You can be rich or poor. You can have good or bad health. Anger to an extreme divides two people.
The rest of the fought over stuff is the excuses.
I’m SHOCKED! Who is still interested in keeping up with the news? I have so much news fatigue. I find the news to be far more disturbing than any horror movie I’ve ever watched.
At least when people die in horror movies, I can take comfort in the fact that they’re pure fiction and no more real than Star Wars or Snow White. Also, the mass murderers in horror movies don’t have the support of half the population.
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Marriage is a mutually beneficial partnership.
Always or just in theory? Do not confuse the theory of marriage (good) with the practice of marriage (variable).
So why are there divorces? Well, people are human and make mistakes.
How about gold diggers marrying millionaires, a human mistake? How about wealthy males marrying arm candy? Polygamy? Infidelity? Menage a trois? Same sex marriage? All good?
I happen to believe that a happy marriage is most important for the offspring. Once I said this on the web and a bastard felt insulted because his was an unwed mother.
Sadism and masochism are mental illnesses.
Yes, sadly, but is is part of the human condition, you can’t sweep it under the rug.
It (slavery) is the exploitation of one person for the benefit of another.
You are conflating several subjects I posted about into an undifferentiated salad. What you are saying rings true but does not apply to my points.
–Peter <== who claims 39 years of marriage as his credentials to discuss the topic of marriage.
I congratulate you for your terrific marriage record!
The Captain
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Marriage is a patriarchal institution intended to control the inter generational transfer of status and property from the pater to his (usually male) heirs. Legitimacy could be guaranteed only by controlling the sexuality of women.
The Mosuo have a culture without marriage because women control property making paternity unnecessary.
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kin…
Marriage is a patriarchal institution
The 18th century called. They want their philosophy back.
Seriously, we have moved on from the 1950s. Women are no longer entering marriage to be taken care of by their husbands. (Ok - perhaps some are. But it’s not nearly as many as it used to be.) I believe they are mostly interested in the partnership I described above.
In talking with my nieces, they are in no rush to get married. They are working on their careers and education. Both have bachelor’s degrees (yep - there’s another bit of male centric naming there). One is working on her doctorate. The other is focusing on career at the moment. Both have moved some 2000 miles away from their parents, and are successful young women. They have had friends of the male variety, but no commitments yet, although both say they have not ruled out marriage.
I believe that marriage, when viewed as a mutually beneficial partnership, can be a very good thing.
–Peter
PS - Women are also marrying women. Kind of hard to have a patriarchal marriage without a patriarch at all.
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.The 18th century called. They want their philosophy back.
Seriously, we have moved on from the 1950s. Women are no longer entering marriage to be taken care of by their husbands.
Yes, and we’re moving on from marriage as a result. The marriage rate has been dropping for decades.
https://u.osu.edu/zagorsky.1/2016/06/03/marriage/marriagerat…
Marriage remains an important legal institution for the well off, but is fading away for the middle class.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/middle-class-marriage-is-…
I appreciate your nostalgia for the institution, I’ve been married 24 years myself, but we’re well off. In another generation or two the institution will have been replaced by something else.