I find it disingenuous to entangle serious materially-based political concerns with abstract irrelevant political concerns.
Whereas the blues and greens obviously shouldn’t (and in real life, probably wouldn’t) care what color an alien sky is, there are serious political disputes often tied to such abstract concerns regarding civil liberties, regarding the application of the law or the non-application of the law, regarding the right of the wealthy to victimize the poor, etc..
When people get caught up in complicated political institutions that propound dogmatic beliefs, those institutions were rarely or never founded to be dogmatic by accident. Cynics use theological justifications for their material (occasionally psychological) considerations:
Christianity was used to justify the class structure (serfdom & lordship) of feudalism
Social Darwinism was used to justify colonialism, then eugenics
American nationalism is used to justify unlimited wars and crackdowns on civil rights
Muslim ‘terrorists’ use Islam to justify what they see as the only plausible method of defending their country from imperialism (the mass of their goals isn’t to spread ‘terror’ but actually to regain political control of their own countries)
The point is that while fighting the justification may not be in itself a relevant concern, influencing the material concern that spawned the theological justification to begin with is often very important. Are corporations people? --Nobody really gives a fuck about the abstract question because everyone knows they aren’t (83% of the American population).
The trouble is that the question of corporate personhood is merely an excuse to shift more power into the hands of corporations. While debating whether corporations are people is a waste of time, it is not a waste of time to fight the material reality of corporate personhood which means having even less democratic elections in the US than we already have.
You might also say that the blue-green feud is analogous to the debate about the existence of a God or gods having created the universe (if there were an impermeable or near-impermeable layer of obsidian between the cave-dwellers and the surface making discovery of the truth practically impossible). The question only becomes relevant when the blue and green leaders are trying to become president of their underground community: the green candidate is backed by the Green-Dye-Makers’ Guild and the blue candidate is backed by the Blue-Dye-Makers’ Guild, and convincing voters either way will bring in either Guild innumerably more customers. (The same critique, of course, is applicable as each is rallying war forces.)
Furthermore, if it never did become a debate concerned with material reality, then people can think whatever they want. As long as they accept that since blue is our best guess, the only responsible thing is to base our social models on the idea that the sky is indeed blue until proven otherwise. Because in real life, the truth of these things is never as obvious as the sky-color example, it is perfectly admissible to allow minority opinions.
I’m not sure that the question of corporate personhood is analogous—because, as you pointed out, the abstract claim (Corporations are people) isn’t strongly believed. When laws based on this “premise” gain ground, it seems clear to me that it is not because of most people believe the abstract argument.
On the other hand, if it is true that
“Cynics use theological justifications for their material (occasionally psychological) considerations”
Doesn’t it also follow that opposition to these theological justifications would also serve as opposition to the material considerations? If a belief in Social Darwinism can be used to justify eugenics, then mustn’t it be a setback for eugenics if Social Darwinism is widely disbelieved?
It seems my argument is this: you can’t have it both ways. Either a given ‘abstract’ belief influences policy and is (therefore) worth fighting about, or it doesn’t and isn’t. Unless your claim is that all beliefs are held cynically, which seems to me not a possibility worth considering.
I find it disingenuous to entangle serious materially-based political concerns with abstract irrelevant political concerns. Whereas the blues and greens obviously shouldn’t (and in real life, probably wouldn’t) care what color an alien sky is, there are serious political disputes often tied to such abstract concerns regarding civil liberties, regarding the application of the law or the non-application of the law, regarding the right of the wealthy to victimize the poor, etc..
When people get caught up in complicated political institutions that propound dogmatic beliefs, those institutions were rarely or never founded to be dogmatic by accident. Cynics use theological justifications for their material (occasionally psychological) considerations:
Christianity was used to justify the class structure (serfdom & lordship) of feudalism
Social Darwinism was used to justify colonialism, then eugenics
American nationalism is used to justify unlimited wars and crackdowns on civil rights
Muslim ‘terrorists’ use Islam to justify what they see as the only plausible method of defending their country from imperialism (the mass of their goals isn’t to spread ‘terror’ but actually to regain political control of their own countries)
The point is that while fighting the justification may not be in itself a relevant concern, influencing the material concern that spawned the theological justification to begin with is often very important. Are corporations people? --Nobody really gives a fuck about the abstract question because everyone knows they aren’t (83% of the American population).
The trouble is that the question of corporate personhood is merely an excuse to shift more power into the hands of corporations. While debating whether corporations are people is a waste of time, it is not a waste of time to fight the material reality of corporate personhood which means having even less democratic elections in the US than we already have.
You might also say that the blue-green feud is analogous to the debate about the existence of a God or gods having created the universe (if there were an impermeable or near-impermeable layer of obsidian between the cave-dwellers and the surface making discovery of the truth practically impossible). The question only becomes relevant when the blue and green leaders are trying to become president of their underground community: the green candidate is backed by the Green-Dye-Makers’ Guild and the blue candidate is backed by the Blue-Dye-Makers’ Guild, and convincing voters either way will bring in either Guild innumerably more customers. (The same critique, of course, is applicable as each is rallying war forces.)
Furthermore, if it never did become a debate concerned with material reality, then people can think whatever they want. As long as they accept that since blue is our best guess, the only responsible thing is to base our social models on the idea that the sky is indeed blue until proven otherwise. Because in real life, the truth of these things is never as obvious as the sky-color example, it is perfectly admissible to allow minority opinions.
I’m not sure that the question of corporate personhood is analogous—because, as you pointed out, the abstract claim (Corporations are people) isn’t strongly believed. When laws based on this “premise” gain ground, it seems clear to me that it is not because of most people believe the abstract argument.
On the other hand, if it is true that
“Cynics use theological justifications for their material (occasionally psychological) considerations”
Doesn’t it also follow that opposition to these theological justifications would also serve as opposition to the material considerations? If a belief in Social Darwinism can be used to justify eugenics, then mustn’t it be a setback for eugenics if Social Darwinism is widely disbelieved?
It seems my argument is this: you can’t have it both ways. Either a given ‘abstract’ belief influences policy and is (therefore) worth fighting about, or it doesn’t and isn’t. Unless your claim is that all beliefs are held cynically, which seems to me not a possibility worth considering.