This entire discussion brings echoes of Paul to my ears.
It seems that my saying that I've met all of my positive obligations is like me saying that "I am not a sinner". Well, we *ALL* know that anybody who says that they aren't a sinner is probably the biggest sinner on the block!!!
But I'm not talking about "sin".
I'm talking about my positive obligations that have to each of you because we all live in a society together... and, again, it seems to me that my positive obligations to each of you is met... and if it is your position that I am not, in fact, meeting my obligations I would like to know what I could do to meet them.
And if it is the case, like with sin, that it's not possible for anybody except for Doctor Dobson Himself to be without sin, I'd like that established too (this seems to be closer to stillwater's position... did I get it right?).
So when we get to either you accept the validity of the obligation or you don’t and I say "awesome!", how do we still have a problem?
It's stillwater who doesn't believe that I have met all of my obligations (see comment #154)... and yet, when I ask for specifics, he won't tell me what obligations I have not met (and tells me that only I can know what my obligations are).
Either only I can know what my obligations are or you can know what my obligations are too.
If you can know what my obligations are to the point where you're pretty sure that I'm not meeting them, I would hope that you'd be able to say what the ones I'm not meeting would happen to be.
If we all have so many, so very many, obligations that it's not likely that any given person is meeting them all, then I'd say that "obligations" is probably not the right word for what we're talking about and we should use a different one.
I still think there’s a fundamental confusion about what a positive obligation is.
This is why I have been asking for examples.
Apparently, I have to purchase certain products, give to certain charities, volunteer for certain social functions, and recycle (bottles, blood, and organs).
I can appreciate that this list may not be exhaustive... and that, oddly enough, much of it does not look perfectly analogous to helping a drowning person at little to no cost to me (except for the organ donor thing... hey, if I'm dead, I certainly don't need them anymore, right?).
I mean, I suppose we're kinda doing it now... but it doesn't really feel like we're doing anything but commenting on a post on a blog. Could "academia" sit down with "the conservatives" and ask what they want?
I have no idea who would be enough of an authority to ask the question. I have less of one when it comes to who would answer it.
I’m pretty sure that philosophical skepticism is not what grounds conflicts between in- and out-groups.
No, and I'm not saying it did. I'm saying that it's a useful tool, on both sides, to explain how the other side isn't *REALLY* this, that, or the other. The in-group hasn't *REALLY* addressed the fundamental problems faced by the out-group... or the out-group isn't *REALLY* interested in joining us over here anyway.
There is a degree of skepticism that is insurmountable.
Is there anything that you could possibly say to someone on the other side that would demonstrate to them that you don't have a false consciousness?
Is there anything that you could possibly say to Descartes that would demonstrate to him that you were not in the Matrix?
Now, when it comes to why there are fewer conservatives in academia, there are a lot of reasons behind it. There ain't just one and, more's the pity, the reasons combined create a positive feedback loop. To point out that both sides are happier with the way things are is to invite comparisons with the last 100 times that the in-group has said "both sides are happier with the way things are"... whether or not both sides are happier with the way things are.
For me the choice is not one between "closed borders where nobody comes in, and there are no illegal immigrants" and "what we have now".
The choice is between "what we have now" and "what we have now *AND*, on top of that, people coming in from all over the world... like China, or England, or India, or Egypt, or Australia."
Most things have upsides and downsides. Let's look at alcohol usage:
I think we can agree that the Irish provide the example of all of the things that can go wrong with alcohol. Indeed, looking at them, you can easily come to the conclusion "We ought to prohibit alcohol!"
But what happens when we do that? Well, look at what happened with the prohibition of alcohol. The wacky thing is this: THE IRISH DID NOT CHANGE. They went to speakeasies, they started Mafias, their drunkenness continued unabated.
It was just the good things about alcohol that went away... you know, stuff like good friends sharing a bottle at the end of a rough week. A glass of good wine with a plate of food at the end of the day. A beer while mowing the lawn. A capful of peppermint schnapps in a hot chocolate on a cold day. The little, pleasant, *MODERATE* things didn't happen anymore.
Just the excessive.
The removal of prohibition allowed for the little, pleasant, MODERATE things to happen again even though the prohibition was not intended to end those things (though that was the price the WCTU was willing to pay) but to end the depredations of the Irish... indeed, prohibition *MAGNIFIED* those things at the expense of the little, pleasant, moderate things.
The same holds true for Immigration. My wife is an immigrant. She is the type of immigrant that would make pretty much anybody say "we need more of those!" She's college educated, smart, funny, cute, literate, a good worker, and has a sense of humor. Oh, and she speaks English. AND IT WAS A HUGE PAIN IN THE BUTT TO GET HER HERE. I won't rehash my immigration story for you but, lemme tell ya, it was a chore for two bright, educated, English-speaking folks to immigrate for the purpose of marriage... how much worse to immigrate for reasons unrelated to insanity?
It results in the only people being willing to come here are the ones willing to shrug at the pile of paperwork and just walk here anyway.
We're going to get the people who just walk here anyway anyway.
Without open borders, there are good, pleasant, MODERATE people who would show up but are not because it's such a pain in the butt... and they would make our country better.
I think that all I'm doing is describing things and people are getting upset that I'm saying that things ought to be this way.
Nope. I'm just describing them.
For example:
There are people out there who are hungry.
(We all agree on this.)
We have a responsibility to provide food to the people out there, our citizens anyway, who are hungry. Certainly The Children.
(We all agree on this with the exception of a crank here or there.)
The majority of the people out there argue that our responsibility to provide food to the hungry people out there (especially The Children) entails making sure that they get the food we're trying to give them.
(I think we're all still nodding at this point. Right?)
The majority of the people out there think that food stamps and WIC ought to be used *ONLY* for nutritious and healthy food. Not for Doritos. Not for Pepsi. And *CERTAINLY* not for Alchohol!!!
(Are we still nodding? I'm not saying "I think X" but that "the majority of people think X". We still good?)
Now here's the premise that, when introduced, will get people all in a lather:
Money is fungible.
(My question: Are you still with me or would you like to say that any one of these premises strikes you as being untrue and I need to justify my take why I see any given one of them as being true? Because if you aren't with me so far and if you think that my descriptions of reality aren't accurate, this is where the disconnect may actually be.)
And, again, I have this to say: We have a disconnect when it seems to me that *ALL* of my obligations are met and you say that, no, not all of them are.
At that point I have to ask "which ones am I not meeting?"
Because it seems to me that the answer ceases to be "only you can know" quite quickly. Indeed, if it stayed "only you can know", we wouldn't be having any disagreement whatsoever.
You can see my questions and my responses feeling like my questions weren't answered and you can see stillwater explain that he has, in fact, answered my questions.
For the record "only you can know what you need to do" is not really a good answer when I'm asking, specifically, what obligations I am not happening to meet because, and this is important, it seems to me that I am, in fact, *MEETING* them.
I do not see a 1:1 overlap between "Team Red" and "Conservative".
I am fairly conservative. I am not Team Red.
If you go to Redstate, you will find a great deal of Team Red sentiment... you'll also find arguments for big government conservativism, neoconservative foreign policy, and an intermittent attitude that "deficits don't matter".
Now, if you want to argue that Conservativism (much like Marxism) ought be defined by self-defined conservatives IN PRACTICE, there's a lot of merit to that particular argument... it does leave some stuff out, though.
It's definitely a loosey-goosey term. I was more going for the "it has to have a discernable melody". Not necessarily one easy enough to hum... but "I know it when I see it" and John Cage and Slayer are both way the heck over there.
(Ironically, John Cage performed Water Walk on national television a year after the year in which this thought experiment is performed.)
It's not agreement on conclusion or even necessarily on process (I have some tribe members who aren't particularly self-reflective at all, for example... they don't read, they don't write, the internet is for pr0n, and they watch stuff like Deal or No Deal unironically. And I'd take a bullet for them.)
Why this one and not that one?
Surely it doesn't amount to a sense of humor... surely not.
On “Fleshing out the University (Pt .4)”
This entire discussion brings echoes of Paul to my ears.
It seems that my saying that I've met all of my positive obligations is like me saying that "I am not a sinner". Well, we *ALL* know that anybody who says that they aren't a sinner is probably the biggest sinner on the block!!!
But I'm not talking about "sin".
I'm talking about my positive obligations that have to each of you because we all live in a society together... and, again, it seems to me that my positive obligations to each of you is met... and if it is your position that I am not, in fact, meeting my obligations I would like to know what I could do to meet them.
And if it is the case, like with sin, that it's not possible for anybody except for Doctor Dobson Himself to be without sin, I'd like that established too (this seems to be closer to stillwater's position... did I get it right?).
"
As I've said, again and again, it seems to me that all of my positive obligations have been met.
If it is your take that they are not, in fact, being met, please tell me what I could do to meet them.
"
So when we get to either you accept the validity of the obligation or you don’t and I say "awesome!", how do we still have a problem?
It's stillwater who doesn't believe that I have met all of my obligations (see comment #154)... and yet, when I ask for specifics, he won't tell me what obligations I have not met (and tells me that only I can know what my obligations are).
Either only I can know what my obligations are or you can know what my obligations are too.
If you can know what my obligations are to the point where you're pretty sure that I'm not meeting them, I would hope that you'd be able to say what the ones I'm not meeting would happen to be.
If we all have so many, so very many, obligations that it's not likely that any given person is meeting them all, then I'd say that "obligations" is probably not the right word for what we're talking about and we should use a different one.
"
If "I have an obligation to do X" does not, in fact, mean "I have to do X", then we are using words very, very differently.
"
I still think there’s a fundamental confusion about what a positive obligation is.
This is why I have been asking for examples.
Apparently, I have to purchase certain products, give to certain charities, volunteer for certain social functions, and recycle (bottles, blood, and organs).
I can appreciate that this list may not be exhaustive... and that, oddly enough, much of it does not look perfectly analogous to helping a drowning person at little to no cost to me (except for the organ donor thing... hey, if I'm dead, I certainly don't need them anymore, right?).
"
Hey, b and c totally make my answer to a irrelevant.
Good enough for me.
Whew.
"
Could this be done in theory?
I mean, I suppose we're kinda doing it now... but it doesn't really feel like we're doing anything but commenting on a post on a blog. Could "academia" sit down with "the conservatives" and ask what they want?
I have no idea who would be enough of an authority to ask the question. I have less of one when it comes to who would answer it.
"
I’m pretty sure that philosophical skepticism is not what grounds conflicts between in- and out-groups.
No, and I'm not saying it did. I'm saying that it's a useful tool, on both sides, to explain how the other side isn't *REALLY* this, that, or the other. The in-group hasn't *REALLY* addressed the fundamental problems faced by the out-group... or the out-group isn't *REALLY* interested in joining us over here anyway.
"
There is a degree of skepticism that is insurmountable.
Is there anything that you could possibly say to someone on the other side that would demonstrate to them that you don't have a false consciousness?
Is there anything that you could possibly say to Descartes that would demonstrate to him that you were not in the Matrix?
Now, when it comes to why there are fewer conservatives in academia, there are a lot of reasons behind it. There ain't just one and, more's the pity, the reasons combined create a positive feedback loop. To point out that both sides are happier with the way things are is to invite comparisons with the last 100 times that the in-group has said "both sides are happier with the way things are"... whether or not both sides are happier with the way things are.
"
Out of all of those that I agree are positive obligations on my part, I am meeting them.
To the extent that you and I disagree about my obligations, are you allowed to resent me for not meeting what you feel are my obligations?
When it comes to others, am I allowed to resent them for not meeting what I feel are their obligations?
On “Incoherent Democracy, Again”
I see people as a positive good.
For me the choice is not one between "closed borders where nobody comes in, and there are no illegal immigrants" and "what we have now".
The choice is between "what we have now" and "what we have now *AND*, on top of that, people coming in from all over the world... like China, or England, or India, or Egypt, or Australia."
Most things have upsides and downsides. Let's look at alcohol usage:
I think we can agree that the Irish provide the example of all of the things that can go wrong with alcohol. Indeed, looking at them, you can easily come to the conclusion "We ought to prohibit alcohol!"
But what happens when we do that? Well, look at what happened with the prohibition of alcohol. The wacky thing is this: THE IRISH DID NOT CHANGE. They went to speakeasies, they started Mafias, their drunkenness continued unabated.
It was just the good things about alcohol that went away... you know, stuff like good friends sharing a bottle at the end of a rough week. A glass of good wine with a plate of food at the end of the day. A beer while mowing the lawn. A capful of peppermint schnapps in a hot chocolate on a cold day. The little, pleasant, *MODERATE* things didn't happen anymore.
Just the excessive.
The removal of prohibition allowed for the little, pleasant, MODERATE things to happen again even though the prohibition was not intended to end those things (though that was the price the WCTU was willing to pay) but to end the depredations of the Irish... indeed, prohibition *MAGNIFIED* those things at the expense of the little, pleasant, moderate things.
The same holds true for Immigration. My wife is an immigrant. She is the type of immigrant that would make pretty much anybody say "we need more of those!" She's college educated, smart, funny, cute, literate, a good worker, and has a sense of humor. Oh, and she speaks English. AND IT WAS A HUGE PAIN IN THE BUTT TO GET HER HERE. I won't rehash my immigration story for you but, lemme tell ya, it was a chore for two bright, educated, English-speaking folks to immigrate for the purpose of marriage... how much worse to immigrate for reasons unrelated to insanity?
It results in the only people being willing to come here are the ones willing to shrug at the pile of paperwork and just walk here anyway.
We're going to get the people who just walk here anyway anyway.
Without open borders, there are good, pleasant, MODERATE people who would show up but are not because it's such a pain in the butt... and they would make our country better.
That's why I support open borders.
"
Hey Stillwater.
I think that all I'm doing is describing things and people are getting upset that I'm saying that things ought to be this way.
Nope. I'm just describing them.
For example:
There are people out there who are hungry.
(We all agree on this.)
We have a responsibility to provide food to the people out there, our citizens anyway, who are hungry. Certainly The Children.
(We all agree on this with the exception of a crank here or there.)
The majority of the people out there argue that our responsibility to provide food to the hungry people out there (especially The Children) entails making sure that they get the food we're trying to give them.
(I think we're all still nodding at this point. Right?)
The majority of the people out there think that food stamps and WIC ought to be used *ONLY* for nutritious and healthy food. Not for Doritos. Not for Pepsi. And *CERTAINLY* not for Alchohol!!!
(Are we still nodding? I'm not saying "I think X" but that "the majority of people think X". We still good?)
Now here's the premise that, when introduced, will get people all in a lather:
Money is fungible.
(My question: Are you still with me or would you like to say that any one of these premises strikes you as being untrue and I need to justify my take why I see any given one of them as being true? Because if you aren't with me so far and if you think that my descriptions of reality aren't accurate, this is where the disconnect may actually be.)
On “Friday Night Jukebox”
Honey, you couldn't pay me to be 26 again.
On “Fleshing out the University (Pt .4)”
(Taking a break)
And, again, I have this to say: We have a disconnect when it seems to me that *ALL* of my obligations are met and you say that, no, not all of them are.
At that point I have to ask "which ones am I not meeting?"
Because it seems to me that the answer ceases to be "only you can know" quite quickly. Indeed, if it stayed "only you can know", we wouldn't be having any disagreement whatsoever.
On ““September,” Earth, Wind, and Fire”
A confession.
I hate Dark Side of the Moon. With the hate of 1000 suns. I change the station if I even suspect I'll be forced to listen to "Time" or "Money".
On “Fleshing out the University (Pt .4)”
OH! And I didn't see you write back to my essay!
I'll respond tomorrow. I have a positive obligation to my houseguest that I am neglecting.
"
The thread starts here, by the way.
https://ordinary-times.com/blog/2011/03/04/incoherent-democracy-again/#comment-112850
You can see my questions and my responses feeling like my questions weren't answered and you can see stillwater explain that he has, in fact, answered my questions.
"
I asked for specifics. Again and again.
Do you want me to start quoting the generalities you gave in response to my questions asking for specifics?
"
For the record "only you can know what you need to do" is not really a good answer when I'm asking, specifically, what obligations I am not happening to meet because, and this is important, it seems to me that I am, in fact, *MEETING* them.
"
Sigh. It's Friday night and I can't talk. But, dude.
"
I do not see a 1:1 overlap between "Team Red" and "Conservative".
I am fairly conservative. I am not Team Red.
If you go to Redstate, you will find a great deal of Team Red sentiment... you'll also find arguments for big government conservativism, neoconservative foreign policy, and an intermittent attitude that "deficits don't matter".
Now, if you want to argue that Conservativism (much like Marxism) ought be defined by self-defined conservatives IN PRACTICE, there's a lot of merit to that particular argument... it does leave some stuff out, though.
On ““September,” Earth, Wind, and Fire”
It's definitely a loosey-goosey term. I was more going for the "it has to have a discernable melody". Not necessarily one easy enough to hum... but "I know it when I see it" and John Cage and Slayer are both way the heck over there.
(Ironically, John Cage performed Water Walk on national television a year after the year in which this thought experiment is performed.)
On “Labor Roundtable: The Labor Movement, Redistributive Justice, and Procedural Fairness”
As for email, come on over to Mindless Diversions and leave a real email in the email field with one of your comments there. (I won't give it out!)
"
"Tribe" is a perfect word for what I look for.
It's not agreement on conclusion or even necessarily on process (I have some tribe members who aren't particularly self-reflective at all, for example... they don't read, they don't write, the internet is for pr0n, and they watch stuff like Deal or No Deal unironically. And I'd take a bullet for them.)
Why this one and not that one?
Surely it doesn't amount to a sense of humor... surely not.
On “Fleshing out the University (Pt .4)”
you’re anti-intellectual assessment
Ain't it always the case that this stuff happens in the discussions of anti-intellectualism?