Left-Wing Discussion Thread III

[Alvecia]

Why does that matter to empathy?

Because making everyone the same height does not help anyone.

Empathy isn't the action, it's the motivation.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Not really. Hierarchy's purpose is to help society flourish, each class doesn't exist for itself, but for society as a whole. Individualist conservatism perverts this.

So you're not trying to legitimize hierarchy, but hierarchy is legitimate because it has purpose and helps society flourish.

No, I do not claim hierarchy is perfect or can be. Just that it is useful but individualism perverts it by turning classes into special interest groups instead of mutuallt beneficial components of society.

I would say that individualism is very harmful to society, and that we (as humans) would be better off taking a more Confucian idea of being a symphony, rather than all being soloists. All playing different roles, being featured more prominently, etc., but all being invaluable to the production of the music.

And people think communism is idealistic and utopian.

I don't think it is at all, I just think it's not good, as I disagree with the premises.

[Tekeristan]

I like being me. :<
Hiveminds r spooky.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Yeah. It's self-interested dishonesty from those who want to be Christian but can't stomach Christianity's long standing attitude to homosexuality. It's not possible to eat your big gay cake and not take on the calories of Christian sin. You gotta choose. My reflex is that people should throw the religion in the bin, yours is to openly disapprove of homosexuality in a modern world where that's widely seen as pretty distasteful. Fudging it (tee-hee) isn't really an option that stands up to serious scrutiny.

Appeal to doxa is no different than appeal to tradition. Christianity disapproves of countless common practices, including fornication and usury. Christians have no business judging you or imposing Christian norms on you, neither is it your place to be shrill about Christianity's lack of reverence for doxa.

Interesting. Any imagined shrillness can be discarded, I assure, it's been recorded that I tend to either speak in an emotionless monotone or bark curses.

But there are a lot of politicians whose Christian norms form a professed major component of their program. There are even parties who declare their Christian convictions in their name. Would you say that this is theologically unjustifiable, and that these Christians are bad Christians? Is this position of yours a borrowing of the public/private distinction from liberalism or is it an avowedly theological position?

I must admit that from your recent posts I thought your politics had become the religious crusading type, all in favour of imposing religious orthodoxies on the populace.

[The Snazzylands]

So you're not trying to legitimize hierarchy, but hierarchy is legitimate because it has purpose and helps society flourish.



And people think communism is idealistic and utopian.

I don't think it is at all, I just think it's not good, as I disagree with the premises.

Maybe you don't think so, but it's a common criticism of communism.
I was just making the point that a system that relies on everyone putting society's wellbeing over their personal wellbeing would not be a lasting one.

I like being me. :<
Hiveminds r spooky.

Please silence your communication hole and proceed back to your station in the fungus tending chambers, Drone #19835729128.

[Tekeristan]

I like being me. :<
Hiveminds r spooky.

Please silence your communication hole and proceed back to your station in the fungus tending chambers, Drone #19835729128.

Ssscccrrreeeee

[Questers]

Any system can be good at some things, what makes hierarchy inherently better than any other system, or more pertinently, better than a flat system of equality?

Because humans are qualitatively different. Everything in the natural world functions through hierarchy.

If this is true (which it is) then there is no good argument for equality under the law either (that arises from natural state.) If I am stronger than you why can't I assert I have more rights than you in the law?

[The Widening Gyre]

Why is equality desirable?

Because all hierarchy has been and will always functionally be a tool for class warfare and oppression. Only through the destruction of class and other social distinction can society and its people strive to be its best self.

Any system can be good at some things, what makes hierarchy inherently better than any other system, or more pertinently, better than a flat system of equality?

Because humans are qualitatively different. Everything in the natural world functions through hierarchy.

So where's the hierarchy in that ecosystem?

[The Parkus Empire]

So you're not trying to legitimize hierarchy, but hierarchy is legitimate because it has purpose and helps society flourish.

I am not trying to say to have wealth is to merit wealth, or that disordered hierarchy causes society to flourish. Wealth without virtue and wisdom, harms society.

[The Parkus Empire]

Appeal to doxa is no different than appeal to tradition. Christianity disapproves of countless common practices, including fornication and usury. Christians have no business judging you or imposing Christian norms on you, neither is it your place to be shrill about Christianity's lack of reverence for doxa.

Interesting. Any imagined shrillness can be discarded, I assure, it's been recorded that I tend to either speak in an emotionless monotone or bark curses.

But there are a lot of politicians whose Christian norms form a professed major component of their program. There are even parties who declare their Christian convictions in their name. Would you say that this is theologically unjustifiable, and that these Christians are bad Christians? Is this position of yours a borrowing of the public/private distinction from liberalism or is it an avowedly theological position?

I must admit that from your recent posts I thought your politics had become the religious crusading type, all in favour of imposing religious orthodoxies on the populace.

No, it would not be proper to say their position is invalid by Christianity, because Christianity is not a political ideology and includes nothing prescriptive about politics, unless you called the old testament, but Christianity in the NT proclaims the very legal code from the OT to be defunct. So from a purely religious perspective, I can call such politicians neither good nor bad, because Christians then never imagined in their wildest dreams they might have political power, they only consider about obeying power hostile to them. But Christianity does say that your judgement by God corresponds with your judgement of others, and Orthodoxy in particular stresses that you ought to be absolutely loving toward everyone and judge just yourself, because you cannot be sure if the person you're judging will not wind up in heaven, with you in hell and needing their prayers for rescue. Judgement is almost certain to be a plot twist, as it were. Now aside from that, I am critical of religion-citing politicians because politics has largely replaced practice for the religious right, but also because our society is uniqiely pluralist, both descrptively and prescriptively, and it is absolutely against the western ideal to seek to quash the non-Christian; the non-Christian not only forms a sizeable demographic, but has earned a prominent place in society through significent contribution to it. The godless, in other words, is no longer an interloper in the western household, but a common titleholder. It is their society as much as ours, and refusing to accept that is invasive, and turns Christians into the interlopers.

[Trotskylvania]

We're discussing whether homosexuality is a sin in Christianity, not whether it's a bad lifestyle or good one.

That is an easy question to answer.

Did the Romans practice it? Yes*

Then it definitely is a sin. Christianity was birthed as a counterculture to the mainstream hedonism of the roman pantheon so you can bet your ass anything that the romans did in excess is a sin.

Roman hedonism was at the very least, highly exaggerated and many times outright fabricated by early Christian sources

[The Parkus Empire]

Because all hierarchy has been and will always functionally be a tool for class warfare and oppression.

I firmly disagree. What are you basing this on?

So where's the hierarchy in that ecosystem?

Different animals and plants dominate others.

[Tekeristan]

Dominate is such a harsh word for the ecological system. Dependence sounds better.

[The Parkus Empire]

Because humans are qualitatively different. Everything in the natural world functions through hierarchy.

If this is true (which it is) then there is no good argument for equality under the law either (that arises from natural state.) If I am stronger than you why can't I assert I have more rights than you in the law?

Because then you would be subverting rule of law, which subverts society as a whole.

[The Widening Gyre]

I firmly disagree. What are you basing this on?

The history of class and social hierarchy in human societies.

Different animals and plants dominate others.

Point out where the dominant animals are in that ecosystem.

[The Parkus Empire]

Dominate is such a harsh word for the ecological system. Dependence sounds better.

And is indeed applicable to classes. Each class depends on the rest, although sometimes a class can go extinct (such as medieval warrior aristocracy, which became endangered with the advent of pike and longbow, and went completely extinct with firearms).

[Tekeristan]

Point out where the dominant animals are in that ecosystem.

They dominate so hard, that if the thing they're dominating so hard dies they die too.
Now that's some real kinky stuff.

[The Parkus Empire]

I firmly disagree. What are you basing this on?

The history of class and social hierarchy in human societies.

Different animals and plants dominate others.

Point out where the dominant animals are in that ecosystem.

That is pretty vague.

All animals who lead others, as well as animals with established territories.

[The Parkus Empire]

Because making everyone the same height does not help anyone.

Empathy isn't the action, it's the motivation.

An action done in anger is an angry act.

[Genivaria]

Dominate is such a harsh word for the ecological system. Dependence sounds better.

And is indeed applicable to classes. Each class depends on the rest, although sometimes a class can go extinct (such as medieval warrior aristocracy, which became endangered with the advent of pike and longbow, and went completely extinct with firearms).

The domination of the officer ranks by the aristocracy up to and past the Napoleonic Wars says otherwise.
That said any battle where a bunch of nobles get butchered by peasants is a good battle to me.
Crecy, Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Laupen you get the idea.

[Tekeristan]

And is indeed applicable to classes. Each class depends on the rest, although sometimes a class can go extinct (such as medieval warrior aristocracy, which became endangered with the advent of pike and longbow, and went completely extinct with firearms).

The domination of the officer ranks by the aristocracy up to and past the Napoleonic Wars says otherwise.
That said any battle where a bunch of nobles get butchered by peasants is a good battle to me.
Crecy, Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Laupen you get the idea.

The story of the longbow and the warhorse!

[Genivaria]

That is an easy question to answer.

Did the Romans practice it? Yes*

Then it definitely is a sin. Christianity was birthed as a counterculture to the mainstream hedonism of the roman pantheon so you can bet your ass anything that the romans did in excess is a sin.

Roman hedonism was at the very least, highly exaggerated and many times outright fabricated by early Christian sources

Wasn't the Cult of Bacchus banned by pagan Rome specifically because they got to out of control with their hedonism?

[The Parkus Empire]

And is indeed applicable to classes. Each class depends on the rest, although sometimes a class can go extinct (such as medieval warrior aristocracy, which became endangered with the advent of pike and longbow, and went completely extinct with firearms).

The domination of the officer ranks by the aristocracy up to and past the Napoleonic Wars says otherwise.
That said any battle where a bunch of nobles get butchered by peasants is a good battle to me.
Crecy, Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Laupen you get the idea.

Dominating the officer corps was an obsolete holdover (which lead to Russia getting BTFO by the Ogre). I am referring to when the fighting was primarily done by aristrocrats.

[Genivaria]

The domination of the officer ranks by the aristocracy up to and past the Napoleonic Wars says otherwise.
That said any battle where a bunch of nobles get butchered by peasants is a good battle to me.
Crecy, Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Laupen you get the idea.

The story of the longbow and the warhorse!

Longbows did indeed honorably slaughter nobles in droves at Crecy and Agincourt.
But sadly Longbows take too long to train with and weren't spammy enough.

[Tekeristan]

The domination of the officer ranks by the aristocracy up to and past the Napoleonic Wars says otherwise.
That said any battle where a bunch of nobles get butchered by peasants is a good battle to me.
Crecy, Agincourt, Stirling Bridge, Laupen you get the idea.

Dominating the officer corps was an obsolete holdover (which lead to Russia getting BTFO by the Ogre). I am referring to when the fighting was primarily done by aristrocrats.

Wasn't it primarily done with mercs and raised levies?
At least from what I remember hearing, I have not read into much medieval history.