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-- NonaFarahnik - 25 Feb 2010
Since I started this Talk page and I get to edit everyone's stuff pretty soon, I have some sort of power over what goes on here. As such, I am going to pretend that whoever else comments will listen to what I say. I find it offensive and counter-productive to our conversation when we malign another person's comments by acting so incredulous as to be demeaning. There is a fine line between when criticism stops being constructive and we should try our best to be mindful of it. Eben is the benevolent monarch and he knows what he is doing, even though I question the effectiveness of some of the language he uses with his scary red text. If we are bemoaning the lack of empathy in the way we treat other living things, we should at least be mindful of the fact that those other living things have feelings. We undermine the very purpose of this class when we scare people into silence, which is why some people never take a stab at joining the conversation. I Will edit your mean comments away. I AM THE MONARCH OF MY TALK PAGES AND MY TALK PAGES ARE FRIENDLY TALK PAGES :). | | | -- MatthewZorn 28 Feb 2010 - 23:21:18 - | |
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< | You're kidding, right? Like this guy? Why is it in our interest to perpetuate an idea of moral difference between ourselves and other living things? The argument should be even easier than just the difference between ourselves and other people. Do you even see why dropping those distinctions might be productive for us? I'm not sure you understood what Eben was getting at, and are blaming the method without understanding the message (something I've certainly also been guilty of in the same context). -- DRussellKraft - 01 Mar 2010 | >
> | You're kidding, right? Like this guy? Why is it in our interest to perpetuate an idea of moral difference between ourselves and other living things? The argument should be even easier than just the difference between ourselves and other people. Do you even see why dropping those distinctions might be productive for us? I'm not sure you understood what Eben was getting at, and are blaming the method without understanding the message (something I've certainly also been guilty of in the same context). -- DRussellKraft - 01 Mar 2010
Well, I'm glad to see that Eben has succeeded in filling you up all up with his rules. May I inquire discreetly: why is it in our interest to not perpetuate ideas of moral differences? I understand the message, think its worthy of consideration, I just don't think it is connected to the reality any of us live in. I think humans necessarily create these relationships and distinctions because they naturally flow from human psychology.
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MohitGourisaria - 02 Mar 2010 | |
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< | Matt, I honestly think your argument above is elitist and an expression of insecurity (in what capacity I do not know). First, it doesn't matter whether Prof. Moglen adopts theater to make his point. The Greeks did it, Dr. King used it, and you and I rely on it everyday to produce an effect (else, we would be passionless and ineffective cows, the type you invoke in your argument). So let's not attack substance on grounds of style. Second, to understand what kinship means (and I do not claim that I do), one has to recognise one's own position in the universe in tandem with everything else that exists. The label of being American or being white (or any other classification on your continuum) is a convenient measure propagated by those who can then rule over you by shackling you to those classifications. The reason that you do not feel akin to the apple you eat is that you fail to understand how that apple has come into your hands in the first place. The reason an Afghani kid's life may be less valuable to you is that you derive your sense of self-worth (or ego) through your American citizenship, race, or your "superior" position in society. Speaking as someone who (according you your position) probably shares no kinship with you, let me state that there are more universal, and less detrimental, ways in which one can discover his relationship with other sentient beings. | >
> | Matt, I honestly think your argument above is elitist and an expression of insecurity (in what capacity I do not know).
I do not disagree, the above argument is an expression of someone who has come from relative elitism and I am very insecure about so many things. But what am I to do about it? I'll never not come from elitism. So pardon me while I ignore what I perceive to be an insulting throw away, sip on my Dom Perignon, and respond to your more substantive thoughts.
First, it doesn't matter whether Prof. Moglen adopts theater to make his point. The Greeks did it, Dr. King used it, and you and I rely on it everyday to produce an effect (else, we would be passionless and ineffective cows, the type you invoke in your argument). So let's not attack substance on grounds of style.
Everyone uses theater, the most effective orators in history used theater, so we should ignore it here? You are all really such a lovely audience. Theater is inextricably tied to substance. The ability to see and recognize theater (especially when it is using to cover for an unpersuasive argument), is, in my mind one of the key aspects of being an attorney. Picture yourself as a poker player in Las Vegas. You don't think the ability to read people at the table is critical to revealing the substance of their cards?
Second, to understand what kinship means (and I do not claim that I do), one has to recognise one's own position in the universe in tandem with everything else that exists. The label of being American or being white (or any other classification on your continuum) is a convenient measure propagated by those who can then rule over you by shackling you to those classifications.
I'm glad to see you are working here for the benefit of Mr. Moglen. I agree, there are many overrated aspects of my classification as an American and citizenship in general. But have we ever considered the merits of citizenship?
The reason that you do not feel akin to the apple you eat is that you fail to understand how that apple has come into your hands in the first place. The reason an Afghani kid's life may be less valuable to you is that you derive your sense of self-worth (or ego) through your American citizenship, race, or your "superior" position in society.
You are making pretty bold claims about someone who you probably do not even know in the slightest. I'll leave open the possibility that I vastly underestimate your power to decipher me and my sense of self-worth based on a pile of text on a website and our various inane interactions. The reason an Afghani kid's life may be less valuable to me is that I do not have any idea what a day in the life of an Afghani child is like. (To be honest, the Afghani's kid's life isn't less valuable to me.)
But, I'll willfully concede to your larger point. Maybe I am trying to hide myself behind a wall of illusion, but I'm doing the best that I can. I'm getting better. Its just hard having been here for so many years. Many years from now, I hope that's not the case.
Speaking as someone who (according you your position) probably shares no kinship with you, let me state that there are more universal, and less detrimental, ways in which one can discover his relationship with other sentient beings.
Let me end any further distortion of my argument here: I am not arguing that humans are not kin. I just do not see kin as a black and white, binary thing. I see a continuum or degrees of kinship. I see the potential usefulness of these distinctions in the real world, and I am trying keep an open mind in the face of Eben's intellectual assault. Scottish clans had wonderful benefits for their members for centuries. Do moral distinctions necessarily exist? Perhaps. I'm not sure. But from my understanding of history, these perverted notions of kinship have existed in practically every historical era and were useful constructions, at least in some way, for the reality in which people faced. I have not seen convincing evidence that the world would be a better place devoid of kin distinctions--after all, the grass could just be greener on the other side. The real issue for all of us to consider is whether obliterating kinship distinctions will offer us any repose our thoughts and make us feel any different at the end of the day. For me, I currently think no, because it is quite divorced from my understanding of human nature and the reality I live in and any reality I have been familiar with. To echo Nona "the human condition seeks [some sort of] constructed social identification." | | | | |
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> | But, there is definite usefulness to the presentation of the idea. The truth, to me, lies somewhere in between what Eben is saying and what is the common perception. I admire Eben's ability to stake out extreme positions effectively (substantively or stylistically) on such issues in order to help send our minds wandering. It does not really matter if he is wrong, because he often needs to stake out "wrong" positions (through theater, perhaps) to get things where they belong, get our heads out from hiding in the sand. And it is because I am trying to keep an open mind that I am hesitant to follow Eben here, now. But, I see that his viewpoint has more than a little help from its friends, which I think is good. Is Joseph Stack's victim closer than an Afghani child to me in kin? Maybe. Maybe not. If the answer is no, it has nothing to do with mitochondrial DNA.
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01 Mar 2010 - 02:53:20 - KayKim? - | | | Once again, I have to know if you're kidding. I actually assume so in this case. If so, what's your point? -- DRussellKraft - 01 Mar 2010 | |
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Maybe I'm kidding, maybe I'm not. The point is all about relativity. Every judgement we make is in relative to our cultural values and what we perceive as "happiness" or "justice." But these concepts are not universal, and, we should be wary to make judgements about other people's happiness when we cannot be them. And, if you ever do want to bring these people happiness, you better understand it.
| | | Daniel Gilbert makes a similar argument illustrating the nonsense of the Rawlsian Veil in a book called Stumbling on Happiness. He looks at adult conjoined twins and asks whether if they could separate, would they? From our vantage point, we would think this life were terrible. Indeed, non-conjoined twins thought that a conjoined condition was absolutely miserable. Yet, the conjoined twins answered that they would not separate if they could. I remember a similar event in my own experience when I once saw a person who was paralyzed from the waist down who said it was "the best thing in his life that had ever happened to him." It is all relative--including the concepts of happiness and justice.
I put to you that from our vantage point, we would also think this conjoined life would be lots of other things, many of which aren't subjective. That is to say that from any vantage point, those twins will for example be in different rooms less frequently than they would ceterus paribus as nonconjoined people. In general, make any change and ceterus also wouldn't be paribus. But that's irrelevant. The exercise of the veil is to show that a) There are alternate possible futures, and that b) we probably don't live in the "best" of all possible worlds, even by our own normative lights. It's an attempt to make you ask what we might change to make it better, still by your own subjective conception. -- DRussellKraft - 01 Mar 2010 | |
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I have nothing more to say, but that's OK.
| | | But the "Rawlsian Veil" requires some sort of evaluation on happiness and justice. But "all claims of happiness are claims from someone's point of view — from the perspective of a single human being whose unique collection of past experiences serves as a context, a lens, a background for her evaluation of her current experience. As much as the scientist might wish for it, there isn't a view from nowhere." (Gilbert) Nowhere, being the place we would need to be behind the veil of ignorance.
-- MatthewZorn - 01 Mar 2010 |
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