It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
I am quite sure that's relevant. Feel free to elucidate.
There is at least one academic journal of Mediaeval studies so at least some of the experts use that spelling. Even if they universally did not, I would still use it because I like it.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter.
And yet it’s still in the dictionary and is unquestionably an acceptable spelling, regardless of whether those you consider authoritative use it or not.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
Many forms of childrearing that we now know are abusive were considered to be good for children and were done in good faith - but that doesn't mean that those things can't be named as abuse.
That many people now consider abusive, generally, in various places in the world, yes, is what I would say, depending on what one is talking about.
I think pointing to the historically recent development of teenagers as a social category in the West as indicating that people in previous eras didn't know about adolescence doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. People knew that there was a stage between being a dependent child and being an adult, because they could observe it. It's why apprentices existed for instance. The idea that medieval people were just stumbling around not being aware of puberty as a distinct period of human development is a bit weird. Also, @Louise 's post goes into great detail on the subject of the average age of marriage and you don't appear to have acknowledged it at all.
When you use words and phrases like "didn't know about," and "were just stumbling around not being aware of," that takes for granted that my view is that the modern view is right and they're wrong. I think we have some genuine new insights now, but that's not the same thing.
I didn't add an extra reply to @Louise because I didn't see that it changed anything. I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
Yes, as Lewis said, a woman in the South Seas wearing very little clothing, and a woman in Victorian England wearing lots of clothing, could be equally chaste or unchaste, despite cultural assumptions.
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
There is at least one academic journal of Mediaeval studies so at least some of the experts use that spelling. Even if they universally did not, I would still use it because I like it.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter.
And yet it’s still in the dictionary and is unquestionably an acceptable spelling, regardless of whether those you consider authoritative use it or not.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
Many forms of childrearing that we now know are abusive were considered to be good for children and were done in good faith - but that doesn't mean that those things can't be named as abuse.
That many people now consider abusive, generally, in various places in the world, yes, is what I would say, depending on what one is talking about.
I think pointing to the historically recent development of teenagers as a social category in the West as indicating that people in previous eras didn't know about adolescence doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. People knew that there was a stage between being a dependent child and being an adult, because they could observe it. It's why apprentices existed for instance. The idea that medieval people were just stumbling around not being aware of puberty as a distinct period of human development is a bit weird. Also, @Louise 's post goes into great detail on the subject of the average age of marriage and you don't appear to have acknowledged it at all.
When you use words and phrases like "didn't know about," and "were just stumbling around not being aware of," that takes for granted that my view is that the modern view is right and they're wrong. I think we have some genuine new insights now, but that's not the same thing.
I didn't add an extra reply to @Louise because I didn't see that it changed anything. I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
Yes, as Lewis said, a woman in the South Seas wearing very little clothing, and a woman in Victorian England wearing lots of clothing, could be equally chaste or unchaste, despite cultural assumptions.
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
Unless I'm misreading what you say here, and welcome the correction if I am wrong, it seems like you are taking an position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality.
Which is interesting and a little disturbing if that is what you meant. Legal and moral things from the past included a lot of things and it seems unproblematic to me to say that child labour in factories that regularly killed and maimed children was always wrong and a sign of a disgustingly brutalised society. The fact that it was legal and morally unproblematic seems like a low bar to me.
Also it seems like the consequences of this opinion is that it would be fine to have laws in future regarding hand-to-hand gladiatorial combat by children if the majority decided it was a good idea and the laws were changed in the correct way.
A young person in my life enjoys books based on this premise but I cannot remember what it was called and do not really want to try searching.
It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
I am quite sure that's relevant. Feel free to elucidate.
I’m not. Freud was developing these ideas at the beginning of the 20th century - and as in other areas of science our understanding of human development has moved on some way in following century. I think there are far more current theories that can be considered in relation to these issues.
I thought that Freud's idea of the unconscious has endured, note not subconscious. It led to other notions such as projection, invaluable in discussing interpersonal relations.
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
The reasons the Republican Party is where it's at is the direct result of the policies that Miller, Longwell, French et al lobbied for and pushed, and having 'lost' the party, their bright idea is that by pushing the Democrats to the right, the Trumpists will be finally beaten and they can go back to their sinecures within Republican circles (Longwell has been more or less explicit on this point). It was telling that when the Iran war kicked off their most pressing issue was policing one fairly minor left streamer.
Speaking of the Iran war, there's a stream where Miller and French discuss it, one of the upshots of which is 'isn't it great that we get to pay for this in arms rather than lives'. The lives of Iranians (and Iraqis) presumably don't count.
It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
I am quite sure that's relevant. Feel free to elucidate.
I’m not. Freud was developing these ideas at the beginning of the 20th century - and as in other areas of science our understanding of human development has moved on some way in following century. I think there are far more current theories that can be considered in relation to these issues.
I think he's interesting. I've been delving into mental health lately and, talking to a therapist, once compared him to "electron dot diagrams." She agreed, said that while his models are a bit dated and crude*, there's a reason people keep him around.
And in general, I do think that psychological development is certainly lurking in the background of this conversation, whether the models employed are Freudian or post-Freudian.
Personally, as I'm a dad raising two boys - early and mid puberty respectively - I'm kind of in the thick of it at the moment. Thankfully we're all antifa, and I'm glad the culture we live in now is so much healthier than the world I grew up in.
which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
(...) I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
Unless I'm misreading what you say here, and welcome the correction if I am wrong, it seems like you are taking an position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality.
That's quite a different thing, although many people who aren't professional philosophers get confused.
Subjective morality means that I am the only authority on what is moral - for me, but if my subjective morality says I ought to impose it on other people they have no authority to tell me I shouldn't. Indeed, most theories of why we have morality if it's subjective are precisely so that we can get other people to comply with it. (Most authors that I'm aware of are untroubled about why they should pay attention.) There are several varieties.
Moral relativism implies that something about the moral obligations upon people varies relative to their society or circumstances. Often this goes along with a claim that societies that judge other societies are flatly wrong regardless of whether their standards say they should. Again, there are varieties and one can be relativist about some areas of morality but not others.
This is more obvious than it seems. For example, theft may be forbidden, but theft only exists in relation to property conventions, which vary between societies. Likewise highway conventions vary from society to society.
In a society that is pre-industrial and pre-agricultural revolution, the amount of labour required for survival is much higher than in an industrial society. Child labour is necessary. It makes no sense to condemn them for not having child labour laws.
I think it's entirely consistent to also think that societies that have child labour laws are morally better (societies that can transition should do so) while thinking that societies that can't do so aren't doing anything wrong.
Likewise societies where agricultural production regularly falls below subsistence in bad years need some moral rules about how to produce enough children to do the work but not too many. Again, it seems to me consistent to think that whether or not some moral rules were better than others, agents were morally bound by the conventions in their own societies since regardless of which way was best the important thing was that people used the same rules.
There is at least one academic journal of Mediaeval studies so at least some of the experts use that spelling. Even if they universally did not, I would still use it because I like it.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter.
And yet it’s still in the dictionary and is unquestionably an acceptable spelling, regardless of whether those you consider authoritative use it or not.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
Many forms of childrearing that we now know are abusive were considered to be good for children and were done in good faith - but that doesn't mean that those things can't be named as abuse.
That many people now consider abusive, generally, in various places in the world, yes, is what I would say, depending on what one is talking about.
I think pointing to the historically recent development of teenagers as a social category in the West as indicating that people in previous eras didn't know about adolescence doesn't stand up to historical scrutiny. People knew that there was a stage between being a dependent child and being an adult, because they could observe it. It's why apprentices existed for instance. The idea that medieval people were just stumbling around not being aware of puberty as a distinct period of human development is a bit weird. Also, @Louise 's post goes into great detail on the subject of the average age of marriage and you don't appear to have acknowledged it at all.
When you use words and phrases like "didn't know about," and "were just stumbling around not being aware of," that takes for granted that my view is that the modern view is right and they're wrong. I think we have some genuine new insights now, but that's not the same thing.
I didn't add an extra reply to @Louise because I didn't see that it changed anything. I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
<snip>@ChastMastr you are always posting from a perspective of a fixed moral universe according to what you would consider to be orthodox Christianity, that applies even when others do not believe in said orthodox Christianity. I would consider that to be against moral relativism, although I didn't intend any kind of negative implication but just a neutral statement of the kind of viewpoint you have on it. <snip>
But what you actually said was
For someone who is normally against cultural relativism, I am surprised by your eagerness to embrace cultural relativism when it comes to children getting married in the recent past.
(my bold) which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
Yes, as Lewis said, a woman in the South Seas wearing very little clothing, and a woman in Victorian England wearing lots of clothing, could be equally chaste or unchaste, despite cultural assumptions.
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
Unless I'm misreading what you say here, and welcome the correction if I am wrong, it seems like you are taking an position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality.
Which is interesting and a little disturbing if that is what you meant. Legal and moral things from the past included a lot of things and it seems unproblematic to me to say that child labour in factories that regularly killed and maimed children was always wrong and a sign of a disgustingly brutalised society. The fact that it was legal and morally unproblematic seems like a low bar to me.
Also it seems like the consequences of this opinion is that it would be fine to have laws in future regarding hand-to-hand gladiatorial combat by children if the majority decided it was a good idea and the laws were changed in the correct way.
A young person in my life enjoys books based on this premise but I cannot remember what it was called and do not really want to try searching.
Re “it seems like you are taking a position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality”—I don’t think so, no. I think there’s an absolute real morality that people in all times and places are aiming for, getting some things more right and others less right, depending on the lenses we have in any given time or place (how good or bad, how clean or dirty those lenses may be).
Also it seems like the consequences of this opinion is that it would be fine to have laws in future regarding hand-to-hand gladiatorial combat by children if the majority decided it was a good idea and the laws were changed in the correct way.
A young person in my life enjoys books based on this premise but I cannot remember what it was called and do not really want to try searching.
It seems to me that one thing that's particularly missing from the analysis that's the subject of this thread is consideration and critique of Freud's theory of psychosexual development, particularly in relation to patriarchy.
I am quite sure that's relevant. Feel free to elucidate.
I’m not. Freud was developing these ideas at the beginning of the 20th century - and as in other areas of science our understanding of human development has moved on some way in following century. I think there are far more current theories that can be considered in relation to these issues.
Amen. “There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex, you may have heard about his odd complex…” (Tom Lehrer)
Oh look. A bunch of neocons ex bush staffers who are trying to push the Democrats to the right.
Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
The reasons the Republican Party is where it's at is the direct result of the policies that Miller, Longwell, French et al lobbied for and pushed, and having 'lost' the party, their bright idea is that by pushing the Democrats to the right, the Trumpists will be finally beaten and they can go back to their sinecures within Republican circles (Longwell has been more or less explicit on this point). It was telling that when the Iran war kicked off their most pressing issue was policing one fairly minor left streamer.
Speaking of the Iran war, there's a stream where Miller and French discuss it, one of the upshots of which is 'isn't it great that we get to pay for this in arms rather than lives'. The lives of Iranians (and Iraqis) presumably don't count.
Again, I don’t agree with everything they say—I have not read stuff by the Bulwark/Dispatch people, or David French, that sounds like the way you characterize them, quite frankly. I haven’t read or heard everything by him, but David French does not seem cavalier about people’s lives in what I’ve heard in his “French Fridays” on The Holy Post where he has a monthly podcast with Skye Jethani. I’d far rather have these people running the Republican Party than the MAGA crowd.
I’ve found all of these sources to be a good balance with other stuff I follow, just to avoid being in a “blue bubble.” I don’t believe that those of us on the left have an exclusive copyright on being sane, honest, or decent people.
Still don’t get “Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.”
Just to add, I think that people of sound mind and good will can disagree about things, have a solid foundation of things they do agree on, and be able to debate respectfully, trying to bridge the gaps and see the good in what the other is saying, without demonizing each other. I see that in the anti-MAGA conservatives I’ve listed above. Frankly, for the last batch of years, I’ve found them a breath of fresh air. I’m definitely more liberal than they are, but having people you can disagree with and still respect morally and intellectually is very important, in my view, and I don’t consider them fascists at all.
For what it's worth, if I use the label "fascist," I do not intend pejoratively. While I know it is an ugly word, I do think it refers to a political style that takes power as its own end without concern for ideas or purpose. That's an approach to politics. It's a bad one, but I don't mean that to be a flippant insult. To call someone a communist, similarly, is to describe a political ideology that one subscribes to. There's no shame in being a communist if one is actually a communist. You might as well own it.
I also believe that it's quite easy for privately "nice" people to be fascists, and there are folks in my own family who I love dearly who I'd probably also regard - at least - as "small-f fascists," much the same way there are folks who'd call me a small-s socialist even if I'm not in favor of allowing the state to completely take over the economy.
In politics, I think it's quite fair to say "I love you and I think your political views are absolutely, irredeemably evil." Redemption is for individual humans, not for ideologies, moralities, or political parties. And I can easily say that I think someone is morally reprehensible and respect for their humanity. The demon isn't the human, it's the corrupted morality the human is propagating.
And dear Lord, have I watched very intelligent, deeply intellectual people defend horrifying ideas? Yes! I have! Being smart doesn't make a person worth much in my eyes, and I'm no intellectual slouch myself.
Still don’t get “Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.”
They don't like Trump even while endorsing the politics that led to Trump, and trying to return to the same politics.
I don’t think that they believe that those politics that they hold are what led to Trump. (I don’t actually think that the politics they hold are, either. One can hold conservative political views without being fascist.)
which may well have a connection with moral relativism, but is not the same.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
(...) I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
Unless I'm misreading what you say here, and welcome the correction if I am wrong, it seems like you are taking an position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality.
That's quite a different thing, although many people who aren't professional philosophers get confused.
Subjective morality means that I am the only authority on what is moral - for me, but if my subjective morality says I ought to impose it on other people they have no authority to tell me I shouldn't. Indeed, most theories of why we have morality if it's subjective are precisely so that we can get other people to comply with it. (Most authors that I'm aware of are untroubled about why they should pay attention.) There are several varieties.
Moral relativism implies that something about the moral obligations upon people varies relative to their society or circumstances. Often this goes along with a claim that societies that judge other societies are flatly wrong regardless of whether their standards say they should. Again, there are varieties and one can be relativist about some areas of morality but not others.
This is more obvious than it seems. For example, theft may be forbidden, but theft only exists in relation to property conventions, which vary between societies. Likewise highway conventions vary from society to society.
In a society that is pre-industrial and pre-agricultural revolution, the amount of labour required for survival is much higher than in an industrial society. Child labour is necessary. It makes no sense to condemn them for not having child labour laws.
I think it's entirely consistent to also think that societies that have child labour laws are morally better (societies that can transition should do so) while thinking that societies that can't do so aren't doing anything wrong.
Likewise societies where agricultural production regularly falls below subsistence in bad years need some moral rules about how to produce enough children to do the work but not too many. Again, it seems to me consistent to think that whether or not some moral rules were better than others, agents were morally bound by the conventions in their own societies since regardless of which way was best the important thing was that people used the same rules.
This is very interesting. I have recently been reading about Gramsci and Hegemony and Cultural Studies.
Gramsci seemed to think that cultures influence individuals even to the extent of accepting norms that are untrue about themselves, which in turn seems to require a grand narrative of Marxism and false consciousness.
It seems in that context that believing that sending your children to work in an extremely dangerous factory might have simultaneously been an accepted norm for working people in Victorian England and a "false consciousness" which set those people into incorrect cultural norms.
This thread is running away with itself a bit. As you post let's keep sight of own voice narratives by male, female or nonbinary survivors of abuse or coercion who might have perspectives on this. Those who don't have a direct perspective on this would do well to consider any direct perspectives that might also shed light.
I hesitate to describe the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland as Fascist but it has as times had elected representatives who have made racist and sexist statements.
Now their former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been convicted of child sex abuse.
In general it looks like a socially conservative but left of centre economic party, supporting the triple lock for pensions, the Winter Fuel Payment (which Labour removed then partially restored) and extra funding for the NHS.
Looks to right wing populism to me.
Actual medievalists don't use that spelling, and they're the ones I consider to be authoritative on the matter. Lots of lay people still refer to Thomas à Becket, they're still wrong.
This doesn't mean "Thomas Becket" (or "St. Thomas Becket," of course) is wrong, of course.
"à Becket" is wrong in the sense that all historical documents of the time refer to him as "Becket", and there is no evidence of "à Becket" until the late 16th century.
This is not a spelling difference - yes, we all know that Shakespeare spelled his name various different ways, probably not including Shakespeare, but regularizing the spelling of his name is not the same as changing it.
And regularizing the name of the Saint in question does not make various other usages over the centuries “wrong.” That’s my only quibble. I’m not going to go to various churches (etc.) and tell them that the name of their church (etc.), named after the Saint and Martyr they revere, is “wrong.”
I hesitate to describe the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland as Fascist but it has as times had elected representatives who have made racist and sexist statements.
Now their former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been convicted of child sex abuse.
In general it looks like a socially conservative but left of centre economic party, supporting the triple lock for pensions, the Winter Fuel Payment (which Labour removed then partially restored) and extra funding for the NHS.
Looks to right wing populism to me.
I do think there's something about a nation that builds a robust social welfare state with a strong emphasis on making sure it's for the benefit of our country. That can look like mercy, but it's more about making the nation into a super-patriarchal family for the insiders.
Fascists can seem very kind when you're on the inside of the cult. And authoritarian parents can similarly be very nice, helpful people (speaking of a friend I know who was raised by one) if you only know them socially.
Comments
I am quite sure that's relevant. Feel free to elucidate.
This and this.
And this. Moral and cultural relativism are indeed not the same thing.
@Pomona said
That many people now consider abusive, generally, in various places in the world, yes, is what I would say, depending on what one is talking about.
When you use words and phrases like "didn't know about," and "were just stumbling around not being aware of," that takes for granted that my view is that the modern view is right and they're wrong. I think we have some genuine new insights now, but that's not the same thing.
I didn't add an extra reply to @Louise because I didn't see that it changed anything. I never said that marrying in one's early teens in those days (and in many other cultures worldwide, not just Christian ones) was what everyone in a given society did--but even if mainly done by the nobility, it was considered within lawful and moral range by those cultures and their understanding of the line between being a child and being an adult.
Yes, as Lewis said, a woman in the South Seas wearing very little clothing, and a woman in Victorian England wearing lots of clothing, could be equally chaste or unchaste, despite cultural assumptions.
I literally don't know what "Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes" means at all. And I don't agree with everything people at The Dispatch or Bulwark say. But they are very much worth looking into, I would say.
Hardly "wrong."
https://stbchurch.com/story-of-thomas-a-becket/
And this, from educational institutions all over the place:
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=thomas+a+becket&as_eq=&as_sitesearch=.edu&as_filetype=&as_qdr=&lr=&cr=&tbs=&authuser=
This doesn't mean "Thomas Becket" (or "St. Thomas Becket," of course) is wrong, of course.
Unless I'm misreading what you say here, and welcome the correction if I am wrong, it seems like you are taking an position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality.
Which is interesting and a little disturbing if that is what you meant. Legal and moral things from the past included a lot of things and it seems unproblematic to me to say that child labour in factories that regularly killed and maimed children was always wrong and a sign of a disgustingly brutalised society. The fact that it was legal and morally unproblematic seems like a low bar to me.
Also it seems like the consequences of this opinion is that it would be fine to have laws in future regarding hand-to-hand gladiatorial combat by children if the majority decided it was a good idea and the laws were changed in the correct way.
A young person in my life enjoys books based on this premise but I cannot remember what it was called and do not really want to try searching.
I’m not. Freud was developing these ideas at the beginning of the 20th century - and as in other areas of science our understanding of human development has moved on some way in following century. I think there are far more current theories that can be considered in relation to these issues.
The reasons the Republican Party is where it's at is the direct result of the policies that Miller, Longwell, French et al lobbied for and pushed, and having 'lost' the party, their bright idea is that by pushing the Democrats to the right, the Trumpists will be finally beaten and they can go back to their sinecures within Republican circles (Longwell has been more or less explicit on this point). It was telling that when the Iran war kicked off their most pressing issue was policing one fairly minor left streamer.
Speaking of the Iran war, there's a stream where Miller and French discuss it, one of the upshots of which is 'isn't it great that we get to pay for this in arms rather than lives'. The lives of Iranians (and Iraqis) presumably don't count.
I think he's interesting. I've been delving into mental health lately and, talking to a therapist, once compared him to "electron dot diagrams." She agreed, said that while his models are a bit dated and crude*, there's a reason people keep him around.
And in general, I do think that psychological development is certainly lurking in the background of this conversation, whether the models employed are Freudian or post-Freudian.
Personally, as I'm a dad raising two boys - early and mid puberty respectively - I'm kind of in the thick of it at the moment. Thankfully we're all antifa, and I'm glad the culture we live in now is so much healthier than the world I grew up in.
* In multiple senses of that word.
That's quite a different thing, although many people who aren't professional philosophers get confused.
Subjective morality means that I am the only authority on what is moral - for me, but if my subjective morality says I ought to impose it on other people they have no authority to tell me I shouldn't. Indeed, most theories of why we have morality if it's subjective are precisely so that we can get other people to comply with it. (Most authors that I'm aware of are untroubled about why they should pay attention.) There are several varieties.
Moral relativism implies that something about the moral obligations upon people varies relative to their society or circumstances. Often this goes along with a claim that societies that judge other societies are flatly wrong regardless of whether their standards say they should. Again, there are varieties and one can be relativist about some areas of morality but not others.
This is more obvious than it seems. For example, theft may be forbidden, but theft only exists in relation to property conventions, which vary between societies. Likewise highway conventions vary from society to society.
In a society that is pre-industrial and pre-agricultural revolution, the amount of labour required for survival is much higher than in an industrial society. Child labour is necessary. It makes no sense to condemn them for not having child labour laws.
I think it's entirely consistent to also think that societies that have child labour laws are morally better (societies that can transition should do so) while thinking that societies that can't do so aren't doing anything wrong.
Likewise societies where agricultural production regularly falls below subsistence in bad years need some moral rules about how to produce enough children to do the work but not too many. Again, it seems to me consistent to think that whether or not some moral rules were better than others, agents were morally bound by the conventions in their own societies since regardless of which way was best the important thing was that people used the same rules.
Re “it seems like you are taking a position that historical and cultural differences and norms are subjective morality”—I don’t think so, no. I think there’s an absolute real morality that people in all times and places are aiming for, getting some things more right and others less right, depending on the lenses we have in any given time or place (how good or bad, how clean or dirty those lenses may be).
The Hunger Games?
Also Battle Royale, a manga and a movie.
Amen. “There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex, you may have heard about his odd complex…” (Tom Lehrer)
Again, I don’t agree with everything they say—I have not read stuff by the Bulwark/Dispatch people, or David French, that sounds like the way you characterize them, quite frankly. I haven’t read or heard everything by him, but David French does not seem cavalier about people’s lives in what I’ve heard in his “French Fridays” on The Holy Post where he has a monthly podcast with Skye Jethani. I’d far rather have these people running the Republican Party than the MAGA crowd.
I’ve found all of these sources to be a good balance with other stuff I follow, just to avoid being in a “blue bubble.” I don’t believe that those of us on the left have an exclusive copyright on being sane, honest, or decent people.
Still don’t get “Very the ends are bad, but the causes ahh the causes.”
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXOXF3eG4urPliDLBegNJcc500CAJZfkJ&si=ILEwFuwbuNXOIZlx
I also believe that it's quite easy for privately "nice" people to be fascists, and there are folks in my own family who I love dearly who I'd probably also regard - at least - as "small-f fascists," much the same way there are folks who'd call me a small-s socialist even if I'm not in favor of allowing the state to completely take over the economy.
In politics, I think it's quite fair to say "I love you and I think your political views are absolutely, irredeemably evil." Redemption is for individual humans, not for ideologies, moralities, or political parties. And I can easily say that I think someone is morally reprehensible and respect for their humanity. The demon isn't the human, it's the corrupted morality the human is propagating.
And dear Lord, have I watched very intelligent, deeply intellectual people defend horrifying ideas? Yes! I have! Being smart doesn't make a person worth much in my eyes, and I'm no intellectual slouch myself.
They don't like Trump even while endorsing the politics that led to Trump, and trying to return to the same politics.
I don’t think that they believe that those politics that they hold are what led to Trump. (I don’t actually think that the politics they hold are, either. One can hold conservative political views without being fascist.)
This is very interesting. I have recently been reading about Gramsci and Hegemony and Cultural Studies.
Gramsci seemed to think that cultures influence individuals even to the extent of accepting norms that are untrue about themselves, which in turn seems to require a grand narrative of Marxism and false consciousness.
It seems in that context that believing that sending your children to work in an extremely dangerous factory might have simultaneously been an accepted norm for working people in Victorian England and a "false consciousness" which set those people into incorrect cultural norms.
It's not fun, but very educational. I recommend the experience.
Gwai,
Epiphanies Host
Now their former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been convicted of child sex abuse.
In general it looks like a socially conservative but left of centre economic party, supporting the triple lock for pensions, the Winter Fuel Payment (which Labour removed then partially restored) and extra funding for the NHS.
Looks to right wing populism to me.
"à Becket" is wrong in the sense that all historical documents of the time refer to him as "Becket", and there is no evidence of "à Becket" until the late 16th century.
This is not a spelling difference - yes, we all know that Shakespeare spelled his name various different ways, probably not including Shakespeare, but regularizing the spelling of his name is not the same as changing it.
You might be interested in this: https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/9353/galley/22981/view/
I do think there's something about a nation that builds a robust social welfare state with a strong emphasis on making sure it's for the benefit of our country. That can look like mercy, but it's more about making the nation into a super-patriarchal family for the insiders.
Fascists can seem very kind when you're on the inside of the cult. And authoritarian parents can similarly be very nice, helpful people (speaking of a friend I know who was raised by one) if you only know them socially.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host