Reasonable people may disagree about ...

[aeon]

Well, that's the feminist story which doesn't strike me as sober representation of affairs.

Indeed, and it was not meant to be.

It's muddled with the fallacy of moral progress and the idea of equality meaning that women should act like men, which is not justifiable from an evolutionary standpoint.

All other things being equal, I tend to think the free exercise of agency and autonomy is a moral good, and by extension, so is increasing the numbers of people that have the opportunity to choose for themselves. That said, the point is the elimination of the should and the supposed to—women will do as they wish, in accordance with their knowledge and gifts, within the limits of their resources, as constrained by their situation. The biology, and the evolutionary processes that led us to where we find ourselves today are not changeable in any substantive sense, and were not the target of desired changes. Culture certainly was. At the same time, I acknowledge that there are different approaches to feminism, and expressed activism certainly differs. Some of this expressed activism suggested women could (and should) be freed from their biology—never explaining how that was to happen.

It's not like these roles have been arbitrarily decided by some cabal of men who just wanted to rule everything forever; it's the necessary consequence of masculine energy manifesting into political systems.

Agreed. For some, the goal was to cultivate a move toward equity in the gender energies witnessed in those political systems.

I don't understand, for example, why is it considered empowerment when women work for a corporate boss, but oppression and injustice when they work for their families. It seems much more influential, therefore powerful, to be able to raise and shape a child who will then go on to do the same outside of the family. The whole idea of empowerment really just seems like enfeeblement in most cases, in that it's trying to maximize what you're allowed to do while minimizing having to deal with the uncomfortable consequences of doing it.

Of course—that’s part of the ever-increasing economic production demanded by the machine, encouraged by a propaganda that has been molded to appeal to a certain feminist marketing zeitgeist—but what is promised and sold is entirely other than what is delivered.

Part of that is the purposeful devaluation and taking for granted of a thing of real worth—to birth and rear a child—because that can’t be easily commoditized in a manner which yields quarterly returns, and because that necessarily reduces the labor pool for other would-be (labor-based) profitable endeavors.

So then we went on to have a sexual revolution, and what of it? All we got is hookup culture, chronic loneliness, awkward consent soliciting and AIDS after we learned that there is no such thing as free sex—and men have suffered just as much from this.

Yes, but we also got sexual pleasure, greater freedom of sexual expression and identification, and increased sexual happiness—for a time anyway. The peak of all this (in America), 1986–1991, was 30+ years ago, and now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Now people are having less sex, and are less sexually happy—or so the data suggests. To be fair, during that time 30+ years ago, it was the peak of unplanned teenage pregnancies, and as the aggregate cohort, Gen-X was setting records for STD transmission.

Hookup culture has always existed—what has changed are the ways and means, and the myths we tell ourselves about it. Chronic loneliness—the human condition.

Awkward solicitation of consent? Ha, better than no solicitation, and no consent! Done on the regular, it becomes a natural part of engagement. Having been raped—both as a child and an adult—I think consent, awkward and cringey as fuck, is the most wonderful of things.

Not to mention the aberration of open relationship, or God forbid, open marriage, which is entirely predicated on the idea that it's okay when you can't satisfy your wife's emotional or sexual needs; no, it's actually a moral virtue that you are allowing her the freedom to cheat as you try to appear nonchalant while getting cucked. And it happens the other way around too obviously.

Different strokes for different folks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Those things aren’t for me, and beyond that, it’s none of my business.

Do be careful with your verb conjugation—you run the risk of being thought an incel—such is the association of certain words today.

We can say that any relationship where the wife is actually being denied any agency in running a family or abused is wrong, and it's also wrong in violation of the ideal of marriage. Similarly we can say that arranged or forced marriage is a bad idea, for it undermines the opportunity to form a truly loving bond on optimal grounds.

I’m with ya’ on that.

But marriage itself has always been the ultimate ideal of harmonious cooperation between men and women as lovers—a hierophany, if you will.

I will, and I do.

And I don't accept that some men who have failed to secure that harmony should be used as an excuse to dilute that specific meaning.

I’m not sure I followed you here—if you mean gay men seeking to be wed, fair enough. That’s in line with my first-expressed idea. But because the State has stuck its fingers into the pie, and language is lacking, we get a ham-handed effort in the name of secularism and (prepare to cringe!) inclusivity.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[AureaMediocritas]

Oh totally you're welcome.
I like winter and I like flowers. It could also be seen as 'something that thrives in adverse conditions', though that may be a stretch.

@Sidis Coruscatis
While I disagree it's good hearing your perspective about it.

Which is your favorite flower?

When reading your reply, I was reminded of a quote by Jordan Peterson. "The purpose of life, as far as I can tell, is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant." Like a flower pushing through frozen earth, I hope to get to that point someday. Sometimes, I wonder how much suffering one must endure though. I appreciate your interpretation, nevertheless.

Thank you for your reply.

 

[uuu]

There’s an interesting political issue here of course because lunch can never be really free and has to be paid for - the issue is not whether it’s free or not but who pays and where does the money come from.

I suppose that if the lunch was prepared by a farmer who had produced the food on their own farm than it would be sort of free, but it would still cost them in labour and raw materials. Always there will be someone who has to pay in some way.

While I understand your point, I was using free lunch in that point as a shorthand for the specific policy of "Students should be able to eat nutritious food at their school cafeteria without paying"—with the understanding, of course, that the lunch is paid for by taxpayers.

We definitely do differ there in how we view things. I think the idea that you can have objective/non emotional based morals and principles is an illusion. The more "extreme" a perspective the less willing a person is to look at a different perspective, convinced they are right.... And it is entrenched in emotion. Emotion won't be convinced by compelling arguments.

Of course, it is inevitable that emotions will influence our decisionmaking to some extent or another. The question is what we do with this knowledge. While there are certain situations in which empathy is a very important skill, when it comes to policy decisions that will affect millions of people, or certain personal decisions such as relationships and career moves, in my opinion, it is important to be able to appraise the situation rationally and apply consistent principles.

Emphasis on be able to. You are welcome to do the rationalist appraisal and come out the other end and say, "Yeah, the numbers say X, but my heart says Y and I'm going to go with my heart." Or even: "Yeah, the numbers say X, but my ability to understand the numbers is itself clouded by hidden emotional biases, so I am going to go with Y." But I think that these kinds of statements put your decision on firmer footing than someone who just defaults to following their instincts because they can't or won't think through a situation rationally. You know that you are favoring the emotion-informed choice, and are taking ownership of your actions.

To put it another way, when I say that I think there is merit in being able to derive your beliefs from moral first principles, I am not claiming that this is an ideal that I or anyone lives up to. It's just a direction of aspiration.

Even moderates can be influenced by emotion - we all are. I'm not sure I really understand your abortion example because I don't perceive that as the moderate position? My position would be, "it's complicated, I can see why some people want it legal and others don't" so my position would actually be just to not make a decision on either position because neither of them seem particularly clear or convincingly right. So maybe I'm perceiving moderate positions differently, too.

Fair enough—I guess "centrism" is a bit of a multidimensional concept. You can be in the center because your view is exactly in the middle of the two extremes, or you can be in the center because your degree of certainty is not high.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

It should never be an issue when it comes to providing for the disadvantaged especially the kids even though all the middle and upper classes ever see as a tax burden. Not investing in the young will always imperil the future as there will be not only be less to go around but there will be even fewer people to care for the old so in reality the comfortable and privileged classes are shooting themselves in the foot if not the head. I guess living in a $700,000 dollar ticky tacky affords a degree of detachment from reality the rest simply can only dream of while working for poverty wages. Middle class sure does love their garage queen trucks/suvs and sure why not throw in a new bass pro boat in there as well.

 

[aeon]

It should never be an issue when it comes to providing for the disadvantaged especially the kids even though all the middle and upper classes ever see as a tax burden. Not investing in the young will always imperil the future as there will be not only be less to go around but there will be even fewer people to care for the old so in reality the comfortable and privileged classes are shooting themselves in the foot if not the head. I guess living in a $700,000 dollar ticky tacky affords a degree of detachment from reality the rest simply can only dream of while working for poverty wages. Middle class sure does love their garage queen trucks/suvs and sure why not throw in a new bass pro boat in there as well.

I hear ya’, loudly even, but those who think life can be lived with carefully-mapped quarterly returns don’t see, or give a fuck, about anything beyond the term of their financial instruments. And when you’re on top of the mountain, the clouds below obscure your vision of the unwashed masses at the bottom, all scrabbling for a piece, and trying to dodge the shit rolling down from above.

Because they are above the clouds, they see a bright future ahead, and you and I aren’t part of that...except as grist for their mill, where the unworthy are ground and pressed into low-grade gold to pave the driveways of their McMansions.

Reset’s Comin’!,
Ian

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

I hear ya’, loudly even, but those who think life can be lived with carefully-mapped quarterly returns don’t see, or give a fuck, about anything beyond the term of their financial instruments. And when you’re on top of the mountain, the clouds below obscure your vision of the unwashed masses at the bottom, all scrabbling for a piece, and trying to dodge the shit rolling down from above.

Because they are above the clouds, they see a bright future ahead, and you and I aren’t part of that...except as grist for their mill, where the unworthy are ground and pressed into low-grade gold to pave the driveways of their McMansions.

Reset’s Comin’!,
Ian

So does this apply with the first world to the third world? because from where I stand the first world have it pretty fucking nice compared to those below our cloudline.
Not everybody on top of the mountain is cruelly indifferent to the plight of others - many just don't consider it or have an angle with which to see anything else. And people who move up from the unwashed masses into a nice little something else, are quick to forget the plight of where they came from.

If all we have that unites us is our resentment towards those better-off, then we'll always be scrabbling for a piece of something.

I'm not saying there isn't some inequity at work. Only that we have to be mindful of how we parse through things or that inequity is prone to echo through us like some kind of perverse human megaphone for bad lifestyles.

And I take it @aeon didn't mean it to be that way. If anything I've noticed you're consistently trying to catch yourself for seeing things too unidimensional. Which to me is a good thing, though having a lil black & white helps paint the picture too.

 

[slant]

So does this apply with the first world to the third world? because from where I stand the first world have it pretty fucking nice compared to those below our cloudline.
Not everybody on top of the mountain is cruelly indifferent to the plight of others - many just don't consider it or have an angle with which to see anything else. And people who move up from the unwashed masses into a nice little something else, are quick to forget the plight of where they came from.

If all we have that unites us is our resentment towards those better-off, then we'll always be scrabbling for a piece of something.

I'm not saying there isn't some inequity at work. Only that we have to be mindful of how we parse through things or that inequity is prone to echo through us like some kind of perverse human megaphone for bad lifestyles.

And I take it @aeon didn't mean it to be that way. If anything I've noticed you're consistently trying to catch yourself for seeing things too unidimensional. Which to me is a good thing, though having a lil black & white helps paint the picture too.

Yeah the class line and class dynamics are really scary to witness, especially if you've seen both sides.

I was born in poverty, and my partner is more middle class. We have different perspectives on life and money but we both enjoy living frugally.

When I wasn't making it, all that I remember is complaining about wealth inequality and the injustices. I remember it was very difficult for me to see people who were wealthier than me as anything but the enemy.

It seems to be almost an impossible life switch to make- to go from living in poverty to "doing well" or even "making it" and not having this identity crisis. Somehow the poor are more morale, somehow the rich are evil, when really it's the system that's an issue and everyone is trying to operate within a system.

I would even argue that with limited resources there will always be issues with people not having access to the same things or to what they need. If we have the opportunity to provide for ourselves better, it seems like anybody would take that opportunity.

Greed is real and exists, but taking somebody who is not in your social class and making them the enemy because they have more then you seems like a recipe for unhappiness. In theory, then, the most moral person of all is the homeless person- why don't we give up our housing and also be homeless in solidarity? Instead, us who live indoors, are being greedy.

This third world perspective I bring up ALL the time, not to invalidate what people are saying but that we need to be grateful for what we have and we have more than the majority of the world.

The class anti poor anti rich divide is like a weird dehumanizing cultural thing and it's not cool on either side

 

[John K]

This is something I'm curious about. I don't know if this is your personal stance so I'll put this out for anybody who relates with it: if you imagine an embryo aborted by medical intervention, and then again imagine a postpartum infant similarly 'aborted'. what are your thoughts & feelings between the two?
Are they identical?

In many ways the question of abortion lies at the heart of the thread topic because it generates such powerful, emotionally based and entrenched opinions that spill over into the political area. Personally, I'm a Roman Catholic and my views on abortion are very much bound up with the idea that our soul is present from conception onwards. Our souls are immortal and separating someone else's soul from their body is in the main unlawful killing. The infant won't cease to exist as though it never was if it is aborted, because it's soul will return to it's maker and may even meet it's parents in the next life.

But I don't think for a minute that all this should be rammed down the throats of people who don't believe it. There are many folks who argue that human life does not begin until well after conception, and don't believe in any sort of afterlife. What is clearly wrong for me and people who believe as I do is not wrong for them within the terms of their own ethical code. I don't think this is an issue that should be settled through restrictive legislation, but through freedom of conscience.

While I understand your point, I was using free lunch in that point as a shorthand for the specific policy of "Students should be able to eat nutritious food at their school cafeteria without paying"—with the understanding, of course, that the lunch is paid for by taxpayers.

Yes, I realised that, but I was spotlighting the very good point you make that rational judgement is more able to navigate the various conflicting sides of these complex issues than emotionally charged beliefs which tend to latch onto a particular angle and are difficult to shift. The term free lunch for schoolchildren is emotionally charged, and a lot of folks would agree with it or reject it without thinking about what it means. If we say that children should be given lunches paid for by the taxpayer, it leads to a more balanced analysis of whether it's a good idea, what the impact on taxes would be, how feasible it is, and whether all or only some children should be included, etc.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

 

[uuu]

In many ways the question of abortion lies at the heart of the thread topic because it generates such powerful, emotionally based and entrenched opinions that spill over into the political area. Personally, I'm a Roman Catholic and my views on abortion are very much bound up with the idea that our soul is present from conception onwards. Our souls are immortal and separating someone else's soul from their body is in the main unlawful killing. The infant won't cease to exist as though it never was if it is aborted, because it's soul will return to it's maker and may even meet it's parents in the next life.

Indeed, thinking about abortion was what prompted me to make this thread (and most of the other politics threads I've been making lately). I tried to avoid mentioning the particular issue in the OP, because I didn't want to "prime" people into one mode of response based on their feelings about the particular issue of abortion, but I think that it is really a textbook case of this broader issue of "principles vs. pragmatism."

Now that the cat is out of the bag, let me lay out some of the thoughts I have been having, with the caveat that I sense that my views on this issue will change over time, and there is very little that I can state with confidence. And the second caveat that I will be talking about things on a very technical and philosophical level, which may be offensive to those who have strong personal feelings or associations with abortion.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I haven't decided yet whether I think an infant has a soul, or if this is a meaningful question to ask. But finding the right answer seems to be an extremely urgent matter, because life is sacred. Here I use the word sacred in the secular sense of "universally valued," with apologies to those who believe in divine revelation.

I am rarely persuaded by arguments about abortion that do not deal with the fundamental question of whether a fetus is alive. I understand that women's rights are an important thing to protect, and that there is danger in welding government power to intervene in difficult personal decisions. But there is no other area of the law in which your individual liberties include the right to harm a living human being. Even libertarians agree that the basic function of government is to ensure that your individual freedom does not include the right to interfere with the individual freedom of others.

I also think that the tendency of moderate anti-abortion activists to append "except in cases of rape or danger to the mother's life" signals a great degree of epistemological uncertainty. From a moral standpoint, those two cases are quite distinct from another. If a human being is threatening you, you generally have the right to use lethal force to defend yourself after exhausting other options. But in the case of rape, the baby cannot be held accountable for the actions of the rapist. If the fetus is a living being—and I reiterate that I still don't know the answer to this question—then abortion law should not privilege some fetuses over others just because of who their father was.

Despite these difficulties, I still lean pro-choice. But I wish that people who are pro-choice would state what they actually believe, namely, "I believe that women have a right to an abortion because a fetus is not a living human being," rather than the untenable claim that "I believe women have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies." Whatever they want is a very large set of actions!

As AureaMediocritas argued,

We have enough scientific evidence to know exactly when an embryo changes into a fetile form resembling a baby with limbs, tissue, and organs. Further, identifying the point in which they can experience physical pain in the womb, have dreams, feel fear, etc. There is a clear line scientifically with consideration to viability, and additionally an ethical line which is clear from a preservation of children's rights standpoint. However, these lines shift when you conflate the various virtues associated with the scientific evidence, which is why the gray area exists.

I think these are the right kinds of questions to ask, but it greatly troubles me that no matter how much scientific evidence we amass, there will always be a gray area of development at which a fetus appears in equal parts to be a human and not. For example, even if we get everyone to agree that "viable outside of the womb" is the standard for which fetuses have souls, a given fetus's viability outside the womb depends on a number of factors including gestational age, hospital quality, genetics ... At best, we will only have a probabilistic estimate, and this probabilistic estimate is itself subject to measurement error.

Even the Catholic response that life begins at conception is subject to this kind of deconstruction. Does conception occur at the moment of ejaculation? Or when the sperm touches the egg? Or when the egg starts/ends its first cell division? There are four steps in the fertilization process listed here: https://www.invitra.com/en/human-fertilization/
and it is safe to assume they can be broken down further. Which one is the moment of conception? Sorites paradox.

You might think that this is all pointless hairsplitting that doesn't matter in the real world, but with the proliferation of technologies like IVF and embryonic research, there are a whole host of moral questions that will hinge on technicalities about which kinds of low-cell-count organisms consisting of humans cells are babies, and which ones are just cell blobs.

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

In many ways the question of abortion lies at the heart of the thread topic because it generates such powerful, emotionally based and entrenched opinions that spill over into the political area. Personally, I'm a Roman Catholic and my views on abortion are very much bound up with the idea that our soul is present from conception onwards. Our souls are immortal and separating someone else's soul from their body is in the main unlawful killing. The infant won't cease to exist as though it never was if it is aborted, because it's soul will return to it's maker and may even meet it's parents in the next life.

This isn't exaaaactly what I was asking but my question was more a curiosity, and there's no need for me to beleaguer you. Thank you for writing out an answer.

But there is no other area of the law in which your individual liberties include the right to harm a living human being.

Isn't this false in the US? like, I'm thinking about self-defense laws, right to property laws, stand-your-ground laws, among others.
Also the way this question is phrased reminds me of 'Begging the Question'.

 

[uuu]

Isn't this false in the US? like, I'm thinking about self-defense laws, right to property laws, stand-your-ground laws, among others.

Those are exceptions, not the rule. I should have phrased it more precisely: "In other areas of the law, by default, your freedom does not include the right to hurt others."

 

[John K]

This isn't exaaaactly what I was asking but my question was more a curiosity, and there's no need for me to beleaguer you. Thank you for writing out an answer.

Sorry Winterflowers, I just assumed my reply answered the question from my perspective. I think a foetus is a person, so a new born baby is also a person. But a new born baby is almost as dependent on it's parents as a foetus is on its mother and so I'm not sure how there can be a hard dividing line between them.

 

[John K]

Indeed, thinking about abortion was what prompted me to make this thread (and most of the other politics threads I've been making lately). I tried to avoid mentioning the particular issue in the OP, because I didn't want to "prime" people into one mode of response based on their feelings about the particular issue of abortion, but I think that it is really a textbook case of this broader issue of "principles vs. pragmatism."

Now that the cat is out of the bag, let me lay out some of the thoughts I have been having, with the caveat that I sense that my views on this issue will change over time, and there is very little that I can state with confidence. And the second caveat that I will be talking about things on a very technical and philosophical level, which may be offensive to those who have strong personal feelings or associations with abortion.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I haven't decided yet whether I think an infant has a soul, or if this is a meaningful question to ask. But finding the right answer seems to be an extremely urgent matter, because life is sacred. Here I use the word sacred in the secular sense of "universally valued," with apologies to those who believe in divine revelation.

I am rarely persuaded by arguments about abortion that do not deal with the fundamental question of whether a fetus is alive. I understand that women's rights are an important thing to protect, and that there is danger in welding government power to intervene in difficult personal decisions. But there is no other area of the law in which your individual liberties include the right to harm a living human being. Even libertarians agree that the basic function of government is to ensure that your individual freedom does not include the right to interfere with the individual freedom of others.

I also think that the tendency of moderate anti-abortion activists to append "except in cases of rape or danger to the mother's life" signals a great degree of epistemological uncertainty. From a moral standpoint, those two cases are quite distinct from another. If a human being is threatening you, you generally have the right to use lethal force to defend yourself after exhausting other options. But in the case of rape, the baby cannot be held accountable for the actions of the rapist. If the fetus is a living being—and I reiterate that I still don't know the answer to this question—then abortion law should not privilege some fetuses over others just because of who their father was.

Despite these difficulties, I still lean pro-choice. But I wish that people who are pro-choice would state what they actually believe, namely, "I believe that women have a right to an abortion because a fetus is not a living human being," rather than the untenable claim that "I believe women have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies." Whatever they want is a very large set of actions!

As AureaMediocritas argued,



I think these are the right kinds of questions to ask, but it greatly troubles me that no matter how much scientific evidence we amass, there will always be a gray area of development at which a fetus appears in equal parts to be a human and not. For example, even if we get everyone to agree that "viable outside of the womb" is the standard for which fetuses have souls, a given fetus's viability outside the womb depends on a number of factors including gestational age, hospital quality, genetics ... At best, we will only have a probabilistic estimate, and this probabilistic estimate is itself subject to measurement error.

Even the Catholic response that life begins at conception is subject to this kind of deconstruction. Does conception occur at the moment of ejaculation? Or when the sperm touches the egg? Or when the egg starts/ends its first cell division? There are four steps in the fertilization process listed here: https://www.invitra.com/en/human-fertilization/
and it is safe to assume they can be broken down further. Which one is the moment of conception? Sorites paradox.

You might think that this is all pointless hairsplitting that doesn't matter in the real world, but with the proliferation of technologies like IVF and embryonic research, there are a whole host of moral questions that will hinge on technicalities about which kinds of low-cell-count organisms consisting of humans cells are babies, and which ones are just cell blobs.

I think this is why I think legislation is not a good approach to this issue. There is no consensus - society is split on it in many places. What do we want to do - go back to the days when what you believe in is enforced at the point of a sword (metaphorically in law if not physically). I wish people were more open-minded about this sort of issue. By open-minded, I don't necessarily mean open to persuasion, but to the idea that others have contradictory but legitimate views. I'm more than willing to see that folks think human life begins well after conception - I wish that they could see where I stand as easily as I can see them.

 

[uuu]

By open-minded, I don't necessarily mean open to persuasion, but to the idea that others have contradictory but legitimate views.

This is a bold and intriguing idea. In a sense, perhaps my creation of this thread was an attempt to bootstrap an understanding of others' contradictory views.

 

[dZpADTLrPmX4c]

Sorry Winterflowers, I just assumed my reply answered the question from my perspective. I think a foetus is a person, so a new born baby is also a person. But a new born baby is almost as dependent on it's parents as a foetus is on its mother and so I'm not sure how there can be a hard dividing line between them.

no worries your good

I feel like my posts in general lately, have not been 'getting through'. So I may need to reflect on that.