A lot of your posts leave me with the impression that you think the right wing has all the facts on its side, but it only means you need to oppose them that much more heroically. This is a terribly perverse point of view, all the moreso because there are some facts that support left wing opinions too.
For instance, you’ll note that Vladimir_M is perfectly open about the scarcity of scientific literature supporting his gut feeling about peer effects. A parent came along to say she wasn’t worried about peer effects for her own children, not that it was her moral duty to throw their safety to the wind.
I’m not actually a parent yet, but I do plan to have kids and to raise them in a mixed-income neighborhood (somewhere in Cambridge MA).
I do think peer effects exist. Having worked in a local school full of both “underclass” kids and professors’ children, which is the mix you get in Cambridge, I do think the poorer kids have a somewhat negative effect on the richer kids. I expect there will be some negative effects to my kids from not living in a bubble. However, I love the area and I think that living there will be good for the family, better than going into the kind of debt Vladimir_M mentioned to afford all-rich neighborhoods or private schools. We like living in a city, we like not owning a car, we having no debt. Those things mean living near some poor people.
I accept the correction, but now I don’t see a difference between your points of view. Certainly what you write above is more delicately phrased than “poor people are crocodiles”, but VMs comment was also more delicately phrased than that.
Huh? Um, perhaps you have a point here, but why did you reply with that to my comment above specifically? I thought that, of all things, cross-class solidarity and opposition to the splintered modern society can be construed as just as much of a right-wing value as a left-wing one. Hell, fascists used rhetoric similar to mine.
“What is to be done?” I often scan answers to this question as left-wing, but perhaps that heuristic is a hundred years out of date.
Whether or not “pro-crocodile” and “anti-crocodile” map to “left” and “right”, there is something perverse about saying: the evil anti-crocodiles have it exactly right, so we pro-crocodiles have our work cut out for us!
Let’s call it what it is, OK? IMO there are two related matters here: 1) What is the size of the groups you’re willing to empathize with? and how much relative concern you feel obliged to show for each—your family? neighbours? ethnicity? social class? compatriots? culture? religion? species? 2) What’s your attitude towards social alienation and various unsavoury processes that accompany it? Is it just an inevitable side of humanity, to be ignored if possible? Only to be ignored if you’re sure it’s not about to explode? A moderately tragic natural disaster? A concrete ethical evil, akin to not helping victims in an accident? A disease of the nation-organism, which ultimately concerns all its other parts? A profane/sinful Awful Thing that’s an affront to your preferred Grand Design? I don’t have a clear answer for myself, neither logically nor emotionally.
(Great. You try to break shit down into more manageable bits—aligned with LW’s mission, it is! - and there’s an instant downvote.)
What is the size of the groups you’re willing to empathize with?
I think this question is a bit misleading, as if size is the only important (or most important) information about any group.
Let’s ask instead: “What groups you are willing to cooperate with?” (Because the empathy should lead to cooperation, right?) Now the question is: Is the given group able and willing to cooperate with me? The answer does not depend directly on the size—I can imagine an enlightened galactical society where everyone cares about the well-being of others; and I can also imagine a small group of people harming their neighbors to achieve short-term gains. It is not about the size of the group; it is about what those people do, what they think like.
What’s your attitude towards social alienation and various unsavoury processes that accompany it?
I’d rather not have it, but merely pretending that it does not exist is not enough. In a long term, if I am able to help people in bad situations, I will try. In a short term, I care about my survival, and survival of my children.
Is it just an inevitable side of humanity, to be ignored if possible?
I don’t know. World changes; what was impossible yesterday, may be possible today; but sometimes what was possible yesterday is no longer possible today. Instead of asking whether it is inevitable or not, we should discuss specific strategies, their costs and probabilities of success. There is a difference between asking whether “there is a solution” or whether “a specific strategy X is a solution”. (In this specific case, X being: “living and raising your children among people of lower classes”.)
Perhaps this deserves a specific top-level thread in “Open Thread”. But we should start by trying to define what “social alienation” approximately is (maybe it is an unnatural category consisting of several different cases); then discuss relevant factors; and only then start suggesting solutions.
But we should start by trying to define what “social alienation” approximately is (maybe it is an unnatural category consisting of several different cases); then discuss relevant factors; and only then start suggesting solutions.
...[the] inequality generated by Capitalism is morally wrong, because it fragments society and prevents us from relating to one another. Can the tycoon in his luxurious penthouse relate to the pensioner shivering in her flat, or the unemployed man waiting for the bus in the rain?
Giving one example—a hugely mindkilling one—is not the same as providing a definition. It can help me understand your feelings about “social alienation”, but I still don’t know what exactly it means—where are the boundaries of this concept.
Is “social alienation” any kind of situation when one group of people has problems imagining themselves as members of another group? Or is it necessary to have some asymetry, where almost everyone agrees that it is better to belong to group A than to group B? Is there a difference whether belonging to group A or B is caused by family one was born in, or by one’s abilities, or by one’s decisions?
A too wide definition could lead to: “Any difference in anything (including opinions, hobbies, values) is morally wrong.”
For more specific definitions we could perhaps discuss the possible paradox of morally acceptable differences causing morally wrong differences later, and how could that paradox be solved.
And then, later, we could discuss speficic strategies that could be used to solve specific problems.
I’m willing, even eager, to empathize with every human being. But that includes Singaporeans, and Republican squares raising their kids in the suburbs. You seem to have a blind spot or worse when it comes to those folks.
I can’t think of a definition of “social alienation” where I would like to see more of it. But I don’t know what you’re asking me to sign on for when you ask me to help you thwart it. I don’t like the sound of it.
Watching from the sidelines, and not being an American, it seems to me you (plural) are close to arguing about definitions (what is to be called right wing?) but that is probably not your intent. If you taboo “left and right” what is left of your discussion?
A lot of your posts leave me with the impression that you think the right wing has all the facts on its side, but it only means you need to oppose them that much more heroically. This is a terribly perverse point of view, all the moreso because there are some facts that support left wing opinions too.
For instance, you’ll note that Vladimir_M is perfectly open about the scarcity of scientific literature supporting his gut feeling about peer effects. A parent came along to say she wasn’t worried about peer effects for her own children, not that it was her moral duty to throw their safety to the wind.
I’m not actually a parent yet, but I do plan to have kids and to raise them in a mixed-income neighborhood (somewhere in Cambridge MA).
I do think peer effects exist. Having worked in a local school full of both “underclass” kids and professors’ children, which is the mix you get in Cambridge, I do think the poorer kids have a somewhat negative effect on the richer kids. I expect there will be some negative effects to my kids from not living in a bubble. However, I love the area and I think that living there will be good for the family, better than going into the kind of debt Vladimir_M mentioned to afford all-rich neighborhoods or private schools. We like living in a city, we like not owning a car, we having no debt. Those things mean living near some poor people.
I accept the correction, but now I don’t see a difference between your points of view. Certainly what you write above is more delicately phrased than “poor people are crocodiles”, but VMs comment was also more delicately phrased than that.
Huh? Um, perhaps you have a point here, but why did you reply with that to my comment above specifically? I thought that, of all things, cross-class solidarity and opposition to the splintered modern society can be construed as just as much of a right-wing value as a left-wing one. Hell, fascists used rhetoric similar to mine.
“What is to be done?” I often scan answers to this question as left-wing, but perhaps that heuristic is a hundred years out of date.
Whether or not “pro-crocodile” and “anti-crocodile” map to “left” and “right”, there is something perverse about saying: the evil anti-crocodiles have it exactly right, so we pro-crocodiles have our work cut out for us!
Let’s call it what it is, OK? IMO there are two related matters here:
1) What is the size of the groups you’re willing to empathize with? and how much relative concern you feel obliged to show for each—your family? neighbours? ethnicity? social class? compatriots? culture? religion? species?
2) What’s your attitude towards social alienation and various unsavoury processes that accompany it? Is it just an inevitable side of humanity, to be ignored if possible? Only to be ignored if you’re sure it’s not about to explode? A moderately tragic natural disaster? A concrete ethical evil, akin to not helping victims in an accident? A disease of the nation-organism, which ultimately concerns all its other parts? A profane/sinful Awful Thing that’s an affront to your preferred Grand Design?
I don’t have a clear answer for myself, neither logically nor emotionally.
(Great. You try to break shit down into more manageable bits—aligned with LW’s mission, it is! - and there’s an instant downvote.)
The parent does not seem to be a response to the grandparent.
I think this question is a bit misleading, as if size is the only important (or most important) information about any group.
Let’s ask instead: “What groups you are willing to cooperate with?” (Because the empathy should lead to cooperation, right?) Now the question is: Is the given group able and willing to cooperate with me? The answer does not depend directly on the size—I can imagine an enlightened galactical society where everyone cares about the well-being of others; and I can also imagine a small group of people harming their neighbors to achieve short-term gains. It is not about the size of the group; it is about what those people do, what they think like.
I’d rather not have it, but merely pretending that it does not exist is not enough. In a long term, if I am able to help people in bad situations, I will try. In a short term, I care about my survival, and survival of my children.
I don’t know. World changes; what was impossible yesterday, may be possible today; but sometimes what was possible yesterday is no longer possible today. Instead of asking whether it is inevitable or not, we should discuss specific strategies, their costs and probabilities of success. There is a difference between asking whether “there is a solution” or whether “a specific strategy X is a solution”. (In this specific case, X being: “living and raising your children among people of lower classes”.)
Perhaps this deserves a specific top-level thread in “Open Thread”. But we should start by trying to define what “social alienation” approximately is (maybe it is an unnatural category consisting of several different cases); then discuss relevant factors; and only then start suggesting solutions.
Here’s a nice post to begin with, written by a local libertarian, Larks, in response to Eliezer’s “Traditional Capitalist Values”.
Giving one example—a hugely mindkilling one—is not the same as providing a definition. It can help me understand your feelings about “social alienation”, but I still don’t know what exactly it means—where are the boundaries of this concept.
Is “social alienation” any kind of situation when one group of people has problems imagining themselves as members of another group? Or is it necessary to have some asymetry, where almost everyone agrees that it is better to belong to group A than to group B? Is there a difference whether belonging to group A or B is caused by family one was born in, or by one’s abilities, or by one’s decisions?
A too wide definition could lead to: “Any difference in anything (including opinions, hobbies, values) is morally wrong.”
For more specific definitions we could perhaps discuss the possible paradox of morally acceptable differences causing morally wrong differences later, and how could that paradox be solved.
And then, later, we could discuss speficic strategies that could be used to solve specific problems.
Are you asking me?
I’m willing, even eager, to empathize with every human being. But that includes Singaporeans, and Republican squares raising their kids in the suburbs. You seem to have a blind spot or worse when it comes to those folks.
I can’t think of a definition of “social alienation” where I would like to see more of it. But I don’t know what you’re asking me to sign on for when you ask me to help you thwart it. I don’t like the sound of it.
Such values are pretty right wing for example.
I’m not even convinced this is a right-wing sentiment when it’s held by an American.
Watching from the sidelines, and not being an American, it seems to me you (plural) are close to arguing about definitions (what is to be called right wing?) but that is probably not your intent. If you taboo “left and right” what is left of your discussion?