Not Entirely Arbitrary
Lifted from the comments, a difference of worldview:
From subsequent rumblings in the linked threads,
Some replies bemoan patriotism and a sense of affinity with one’s country, while others denounce “supremacist systems and the myth of meritocracy.” At which point, readers may object that being born in a relatively congenial part of the world is not a “privilege,” or by implication a basis for guilt, or a Gotcha! to be exploited by others. Any more than being born somewhere less congenial is a sin, a thing for which to atone.
Readers may also note how an alleged randomness, in which differences in outcome can only be explained by pillage and oppression, and in which nothing has ever been earned, can, for some, be ideologically convenient. And a habit of mind.
“I think they know they ‘got lucky’ but don’t really care,” chides one of the subsequent commenters. “Everything is luck and random chance,” insists another. Note the implication that the comfort and agreeableness of a society is merely a matter of chance, of luck. As if the preceding cultivation of values and behaviour played no part whatsoever. As if culture and civilisation didn’t matter.
You can of course say that a newborn played no part in preceding events and cannot take credit for them. But those preceding events were in large part a product of collective effort, of a preference for one kind of society over another, and of people, including one’s ancestors, behaving accordingly. The “relative safety” of the country in which one is born is not some arbitrary, unrelated thing. It doesn’t arise simply by “random chance.” A person doesn’t just happen to be born into a context that their parents also just happened to be born into.
I could not have been born to Mr and Mrs Jeong in South Korea, any more than I could have been born to a Yemeni peasant couple, or a Californian billionaire. Much as I – the person talking to you now – could not have been born in 1652. The newborn me was a result of a particular lineage, of choices made by specific individuals and the genes of those individuals – who can of course say the same thing about themselves. To imply that anyone’s birth is a random thing, as if it could have happened anywhere, at any time, as if the particulars were immaterial, is, it seems to me, a little odd. Indeed, arse-backwards. And I doubt that many parents see the birth of their child as some random occurrence, unmoored from any context or preceding events. I’d imagine it wouldn’t seem random at all.
Or, as Mr Burkett puts in in the thread linked above,
Unless you imagine a queue of souls waiting to spawn in some small but arbitrary body on a continent chosen by the spin of a wheel. Or cosmic bingo balls.
Update, via the comments:
Ian adds,
In one of the threads or sub-threads on X, Geoffrey Miller and others point out that civilisations are built by, among other things, lineage, ancestry, and no small effort over vast stretches of time. Often with a view to posterity and giving one’s offspring a better life. This prompts someone to reply, rather sniffily, “It’s only by chance you were born to said ancestors.”
As if one could have entirely different ancestors who are entirely unconnected to the ancestors one does actually have. As if, while having entirely different ancestors, you could somehow be exactly the same person you are now, and not someone else. A hypothetical being. The assertion – that a specific person being born in a functional society was some random, meaningless occurrence and somehow unfair – is often deployed by people whose goals are rather questionable.
One commenter, a “pansexual she/her,” insists that civilisations are built by “stealing and oppressing other people.” Other, more edifying variables are not deemed interesting. I’m guessing that our “pansexual she/her,” the one who doesn’t think that lineage and genetic continuity play a role of any importance, isn’t herself a parent. And therefore hasn’t had the strange pleasure of seeing her children develop the features and attributes of various relatives. A sister, an uncle, a grandfather.
Regarding which, commenter Uma Thurman’s Feet adds,
Which is sort of why the Rawlsian tosh mouthed above, and mouthed so triumphantly, with such self-satisfaction, is ultimately unconvincing. Not only is it glib and arse-backwards, it also rather jars with the imperatives and experience of parenting.
Consider this an open thread.
I can’t congratulate myself for having been born where I was any more than I can condemn someone else for the circumstances of their birth.
I can’t say that I was born to certain advantages because I deserved them and that fellow over there didn’t.
OTOH, there’s a type of terminal envy associated with covert narcissism where the envier is bitter as hell that someone was born to better circumstances than he, and — this is the important point — he absolutely will not lift a finger to better his own lot.
“Must be nice to have X, Y and Z” he says with venom. And if you respond with “Well, you could enroll in the uni” or “You could train to do something” or otherwise point out obvious ways of improving his situation, he won’t take the advice.
Instead, he stews in his resentment, and if he’s not a complete slug, he’ll gladly join a movement to tear down those he envies. Out of pure spite.
Jordan Peterson identifies resentment as Cain’s motive in killing Abel, and resentment powers most of the destructive movements in human history. Resentment cankers the soul and it pretty much guarantees you’ll never be content in the world.
Band name?
It sounds like nihilism.
Well, it’s worth noting how the invocation of randomness dovetails with the conceit, expressed in one of the threads, that if one society can be deemed more congenial than another, or in some ways objectively better, this can only be due to pillaging and injustice. The alleged randomness, of things being unearned, becomes ideologically convenient.
“Everything is luck and random chance,” as one commenter put it. With an air of satisfaction.
That’s a work of verbal art.
Seriously, Bravo!
I mean that.
Thank you. I’m still not quite sure how to process compliments.
It’s one of my more endearing, indeed fabulous, qualities.
That.
If my “privilege” came about so randomly, why are you demanding reparations from me? Evidently, the proper response to your ancestors’ slavery is well, shit happens, y’know?
It is really a Medieval mindset, “You are a cooper because your father was a cooper as was his father so you never will become the Duke of Earl let alone a shopkeeper, just be glad of your luck your last name isn’t Stallmucker”.
Their warped ideas, of course, then fail to explain how someone like Ben Carson with the bad luck of being born in the projects had the random chance of becoming a world renowned neurosurgeon.
The ideology of envy and sloth.
Indeed. It’s all “inshallah”, right?
These two apparently disparate groups have far more in common than you’d think.
Yes, it’s a very common progressive assumption. And it’s astounding, how it blithely dismisses the willed choices of entire cultures – as if none of these things actually matter. It’s exactly the opposite of the ’empowerment’ they think they want for non-western cultures.
How the hell do they think civilizations come about?
Agree, but there is a flip side to this. The envy itself is flat out wrong of course but even many elites think this way about themselves because many of them didn’t earn what they have. They didn’t advance from where they started, politics possibly excepted. And because they don’t understand where anything comes from, the cargo-cult thing, they project their inadequacies onto others in their economic class who actually did earn it. They avoid recognizing the Ben Carsons because such people further their own feelings of inadequacy. They effectively don’t exist. If everyone is just a function of pure luck then it’s ok to enjoy the BMW that Daddy bought them. If that last sentence doesn’t seem to make sense to those here reading this, it’s because you do not understand the static-state mindset of such spoiled people.
This is why I strongly believe, like Andrew Carnegie, that wealthy people should not leave large sums of money to their children. Provide them with a good education. Maybe…maybe low interest loans starting out in their own business. Do not rob them of the self worth that you developed by earning it for yourself.
Oh, and
Racehorse name
In one of the threads or sub-threads, Geoffrey Miller points out that civilisations are built via, among other things, lineage, ancestry, and no small effort over vast stretches of time. This prompts someone to reply, rather sniffily,
As if one could have entirely different ancestors who are entirely unconnected to the ancestors one actually does have. As if, while having entirely different ancestors, you could somehow be exactly the same person you are now, and not someone else.
This!
Indeed. I suspect we have all encountered resentful losers of this sort.
On the other hand, I have known resentful “progressives” who did make some effort to better themselves–they went to work every day, etc. But that did not make them any less resentful of those who were born in better circumstances or who were more successful through their own talents.
And I have known many malevolent progressives who managed to conceal their envy and resentment–at least from those of us who knew them only casually. These were, presumably, the more clever ones. Narcissistic and Machiavellian.
I find it a very religious mindset actually. Gnostic perhaps (as if people’s souls are floating around, and ‘blind chance’ assigns them to one body or another, and upbringing, parents, culture, have nothing to do with their personality). Or Hindu/Buddhist (being almost a kind of reincarnation). Even a kind of theism (depending on how you interpret ‘random chance’).
Calvinist even.
One commenter, a “pansexual she/her,” insists that civilisations are built by “stealing and oppressing other people.” Other variables are not deemed interesting.
Another, rather petulant chap snaps, “I’m glad you’re proud you’re [sic] ancestors were out here enslaving and raping people. says a lot.”
It gets a bit random.
It occurs to me this could quickly get out of hand.
It’s that static-state mindset. Most people, even a few “conservative” people whom I have known, see the world this way and it drives a lot of the resentment. I even had teachers, one AP history teacher, who seemed to believe this. For the life of me, I do not understand why political and society-minded conservatives do not put their efforts into publicizing/educating the public on this fact.
I usually get over it after the Belmont Stakes.
“Thank you. I’m still not quite sure how to process compliments.” Hardly surprising!
I put it down to my natural modesty.
If one society is preferable to another, or if one individual does better in life than another, and if it’s all just “luck and random chance,” then presumably there are no lessons to be learned. Nothing to emulate or to try, nothing to avoid. No experience to pass on, or wisdom, possibly wisdom earned at some cost.
By the way, I’m guessing that our “pansexual she/her,” mentioned upthread, the one who doesn’t think that lineage and genetic continuity play a role of any importance, isn’t herself a parent. And therefore hasn’t had the strange pleasure of seeing her child develop the features and attributes of various relatives. A sister, an uncle, a grandfather.
There’s another area where the mindset comes in. Why, it’s just ‘random chance’ that you are born with the genitals and chromosomes of a male or a female. Completely blind luck. Biology has nothing to do with it.
Attributing everything to ‘random chance’ is another Get Out of Jail Free card for today’s sociopaths.
Third album name.
Immigrants seem to believe that it is the place that makes white countries so pleasant and rich. It is not, it is the people. There is nothing inherent about Norway that should make the people there well-off and civilized. England is not that rich in resources.
We all are born into circumstances. What you do with that is what makes you a great person or a nuisance. My black neighbor was born on the South Side of Chicago, worked his way through college, became a pharma rep, worked hard, and retired at 57. He did have the advantages of being tall and handsome. He did not resent life or white people. I have mentioned before that Amy Wax was right–just staying out of jail and finishing high school would about double the average income of young black men.
Could?
I want to know more about these cosmic bingo balls.
I like to imagine that they are orange and leave a semi-sticky dust on your fingers. Please don’t go poking around for more information that might cause me any cognitive dissonance.
Heh. Yes, that would seem to be part of the general attitude.
That.
Yes, that would seem to be part of the general attitude.
Speaking of general attitudes…
Meanwhile on another campus they are whitewashing the demonstrators.
Interesting comments …. Twas fun to read. My own experience was born poor in a place of little opportunity. As I got older I developed conservative values and accepted that I would need to be resourceful and leave. Leave, I did.
I never resented anyone who had better ‘luck’ than me. I simply continued to learn, grow up and embrace reality. I had so many good things in my life … friends, music, curiosity, ambition, freedom.
If you do not embrace reality you will waste you time in a fantasy world which will generate envy and resentment. That will also prevent becoming a grown up adult person with good values and a balanced life.
Things that are not real will eventually piss you off and make you bitter … like so many of life’s failures on college campuses this very day who are protesting the Israel/Gaza conflict on the side of the Hamas Orcs
Those people think food comes from a grocery store. Cargo Cultish?
It is simply not possible to build and maintain a civilisation with material such as this.
Some people haven’t been slapped anywhere near enough.
I like that quote, but believe it is too Ayn Randian in its focus on the exceptional minority: In reality, much of progress is due to the numerous more ordinary people who make small innovations to technology and systems–and, most crucially, contribute to the building and maintaining of the culture which is the basis of all success.
Just being trustworthy, conscientious, and perhaps a bit bourgeois is big help.
However, alternative worldviews are available.
RAH, “Friday”
I probably could have succeeded in medical school…but I had other interests that led to a satisfying career. I’ve never been envious of doctors. Good for them. I have had several doctors tell me they wished they had my job. Such is envy.
I like to remind people that Danny DeVito is very short, bald, has an annoying voice but is rich and famous and has been married to the same nice lady for decades (IIRC). You are what you make of yourself.
My friend from Iran spent two years struggling to get out of Iran (in Kuwait etc), got a good engineering job here and when it was clear they would not pay him what he was worth he went out and started his own small company–with much hardship–but is now very successful. Did he have privilege? Hardly. He even still has a strong accent. But he worked himself into a position that no one else can do some of the things he does.
I find it a very religious mindset actually.
My thoughts exactly. Most of these types just aren’t smart enough to see the irony. They’re also the ones who begin every sentence with “I believe…”
This was interesting…
Do Our Rulers Really Believe What They Say They Believe & What To Do About It
This bears repeating. Frequently.
“If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life.” ― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
As a teen, I was complaining to a friend about something, and he replied, “Feet, you’d be jealous of someone with fifty dollars in their savings account.”
I rather took that to heart as a reminder that the envy strain is strong in me.
Yes, some people are born into wealth, and some place themselves into a middleman position that reaps millions and billions (Gates, Musk, and that lizard asshole to name three).
Over my life, through working jobs I hated, saving money, staying married, and paying the house and car off, I am not wealthy, but I have enough to do what I want to do. I could have done more, but I did what I could given the somewhat dented and bent tools I was given.
“And therefore hasn’t had the strange pleasure of seeing her child develop the features and attributes of various relatives. A sister, an uncle, a grandfather.”
I grew up the youngest of four, so I didn’t see an infant until I was married. The biggest change in my life was when I realized I love my kids and I wish we had had more. Seeing them grow up gave me a better understanding between what genetics hands you, and what you make of them. Also, how incredibly fragile and mallible their minds are. Didn’t someone say, “Give them to me young and I will mold them to believe?”
Vladimir Lenin if memory serves.
That’s sort of why the Rawlsian tosh mouthed above is unconvincing. Not only is it glib and arse-backwards, it also jars with the imperatives and experience of parenting.
[ Post updated. ]
One way they end is by not giving these sorts of monsters what they deserve.
And also what the punks’ defenders deserve.
A worm ate my brain!
“[…] the “prolonged” attack on a stranger occurred in front of other people […]”
No mention of anyone lifting a finger to help.
That puts paid to those who say he’s unfit for high office.
If you get involved, you are likely to be arrested.
What’s more, most people do not have the strength and combat training to wrestle with a young thug and therefore would need to apply extreme violence without prior warning. And that would virtually guarantee getting arrested and prosecuted.
This illustrates why I strongly advocate portraying liberals as our deadly enemies.
And why should a citizen be expected to warn a thug before using violence to stop the thug’s violence? Only a commie or a shyster lawyer would demand that.
This is Chicago we’re talking about.
Heh.
But the same applies to New York, Los Angeles, and many other cities.
Only a commie or a shyster lawyer would demand that.
Never forget, the commies put hardened criminals in top management positions in the gulag. Because…they were victims of the dialectic and could be redeemed. The politicals, on the other hand, were irredeemable. A political was anyone who didn’t buy commie bullshit.
No one ever said Chicago had a monopoly on commies or shysters.
A true New Yorker would boast “but we have the best commies and shysters!”
Yes. Assigning to ‘random chance’ – a phrase that is doing a *lot* of rhetorical heavy-lifting here – all the powers of God, and obviating free will.
There’s a philosophical slippage that happens I think. Asking ‘why am I born like this’, ‘why are other people the way they are’ are legitimate questions. But then avoiding the obvious answers, for which there is all the evidence in the world, saying to yourself there is ‘no reason’, and then going from that to assuming it is up to ‘random chance’ (whatever that is) is to go from asking a good question to making up stories for yourself with no basis in truth.
I genuinely do think it’s a religious impulse. And there’s nothing wrong with a religious impulse, but you’ve got to be honest about these things. Maybe relying on this assumption of ‘random chance’ is encouraged by several religions. It seems in some ways the pre-Christian belief of transmigration of souls from body to body, reincarnation and so on and so forth, never went away, and this unexamined belief strengthens and encourages the progressive mythmaking about ‘random chance’ and ‘accidents of birth’.
Grandmother shoots home invader, but then saves his life.
She’s got a lot to learn about how to be a good citizen.
Seinfeld Kentucky Derby Horse Names.
Demonstrating that twiX is still the champ when it comes to wit aggregation.
Elon Musk has entered the chat.
Meanwhile in the hallowed ivy halls of Princeton our best and brightest are apparently shocked that they find themselves hungry during a hunger strike. I like the “immunocompromised” part, quite original.
Also at Princeton, at least this one has prepared for a hunger strike.
Racehorse names
Gold, Jerry! Gold!
That. It’s always Motte and bailey.
much of progress is due to the numerous more ordinary people who make small innovations to technology and systems
I don’t know – I work in the field of “technology and systems” and it is, frankly, mostly derivative shit. The vast majority of people working in software, for instance, have no idea what they’re doing. The real advances, the things that actually advance the state of the art, are pretty much universally the work of small teams of highly motivated and brilliant people.
Well, the effect can be to diminish the target’s sense of meaning and territory, to make them feel undeserving, disidentified, and to leave them vulnerable to policies that may diminish them further. As in the linked example, whereby a relatively functional society is degraded by a weakening of its borders and selectivity, and a massive influx of suboptimal newcomers.
A policy that would doubtless appeal to many of the discussion’s pronoun-stipulating participants. Provided, one assumes, that the newcomers didn’t move in next door.
Another point, one touched on by Wanye Burkett:
Assuming a person felt that the context of their birth – say, their being born in a functional society – was some random and meaningless event, I suspect that their parents would see things differently. And perhaps as something not random at all.
the effect can be to diminish the target’s sense of meaning and territory, to make them feel undeserving, disidentified, and to leave them vulnerable to policies that may diminish them further. As in the linked example, whereby a relatively functional society is degraded by a weakening of its borders and selectivity, and a massive influx of suboptimal newcomers
Bez. Men. Ov.
[ Compiles tomorrow’s Ephemera, counts squirrels on lawn. ]
The Hamasians are getting reinforcements.
The existence of brilliant and even genius level innovators does not refute my point.
If these students have sufficient free time for protests and hunger strikes, then they are not being worked hard enough by their professors.
I vaguely recall essays describing the very slow, incremental development of various technologies such as carriages and sailing ships: Numerous small innovations by nameless people.
Should we be concerned on your behalf?
.
Seven of them on the lawn today. Best score to date was nine.
Things could be worse…
We don’t get many deer in the garden. Badgers, yes, and foxes.
[ Pokes nose out of window. ]
And the neighbour’s cat.
No worries about hunger strikes with them.
No worries about hunger strikes with them.
That, or it will be a long one.
Well that’s a bit of the thing. You can have deer or you can have a nice garden. Or a garden limited to the few things deer won’t eat. We’ve been working on the latter for a while.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13399637/How-spot-psychopath-woman.html
”The key sign that indicates a woman might be a PSYCHOPATH“
“. . . be aware of your privilege . . .”
Oh, I am acutely aware of my privilege.
Which is precisely why I am so opposed to this little twerp shitting on the accomplishments of my ancestors who worked so hard and against such tremendous odds to create and maintain it.
from the link, something that has already been mentioned here:
Those smart psychologists seem to have been awfully easy to fool. Or biased.
Meh. That’s pretty much everybody today in western civilization. The vast majority of people have no bloody idea what they have, how it was fought for, the sacrifices made to create the privileges, the high trust, the relative safety that even the least privileged, least trusting, least safe of us has. The stupidity is so broad and so deep, it’s hard to even begin to describe it. If one even sees it.
I vaguely recall essays describing the very slow, incremental development of various technologies such as carriages and sailing ships
Pre-Industrial Era ship design is a bit of an interest of mine, and while there is always improvement around the edges of any technology for the vast majority of human sailing history great leaps have come mostly from encountering a different culture that developed technological advancements specific to their geography and stealing it: the Viking sunstone and clinker-built hulls, the lateen sail, the stern rudder.
Another obvious counter-example is the history of the determination of longitude, which prior to the Industrial Era was completely the result of work by a tiny number of elite polymaths.
Chance: back in college a buddy and I painted houses. One day up on ladders we debated free will vs. determinism for 3 hrs. I argued that even if we do not have free will we need to act as though we do or get paralyzed with our lack of agency. For example, if you believe you have free will you can struggle against your weaknesses. Without it, you just say “oh well, I’m just disorganized/lazy/dumb” and not try.
OT: Scientific American has a recent story arguing that women were hunters, not just gatherers. The argument is based on what tasks women have an advantage, like endurance. They could have argued from the thousands of tribal groups worldwide that were still hunting to survive into recent times. hahahaha no because there are none of them where the women hunted except for helping with driving game into traps/nets (that even the children helped with). They would rather make stuff up out of whole cloth than face reality.
Not really OT, as the chief focus of this blog is societal dysfunctions.
Think we got some here… they are apparently having problems with their internal emotional realities being toxified.
POE, Mandrake, POE.
This. While on the one hand, arguments against there being free will can be somewhat productive and intellectually stimulating for those of us who believe in it, I cannot understand why someone would argue against it. What does it matter whether I change my mind or not? Why do they go to such effort? Unless…
Also curiously, the hard core Calvinists are so rarely ever poor. Many poor people do have a somewhat similar hopelessness mindset but while the poor greatly outnumber the rich, so few of them seem to believe that their poverty is God’s idea.
And now every clever psychopath will consciously move his or her head around.
the researchers found that the lower the level of head movement, the higher inmates scored in the psychopathy assessment.
That doesn’t augur well for Joe Biden, Mr Stiffneck
The Left likes abusing words, in order to smuggle in un-argued conclusions.
A natural fact is not a privilege. There’s no state gate-keeper that’s handing out brains or beauty, or even good health.
Being born into a wealthy family is only conceivably a privilege if that wealth is itself gotten through some someone having their fingers on the scale. E.g., I don’t mind saying the brats of Communist Party princelings come from privilege, and especially of *unearned* privilege. Their money comes in great part from graft and tyranny. But if one’s parents are honest entrepreneurs, for example, there’s not sort of privilege involved.
It’s a terrible thing to be born without good health, or in poverty, or with dissolute parents. But it takes Rawlsian trickery to make good health, wealth and probity into crimes.
I didn’t make the connection at the time, but this is basically Disney’s Soul. We were all just one more random, preexisting soul waiting for our chance to be incarnated in some random body at some random point in time.
People are who their parents made them to be, then tweaked by their environment. Maybe thinking they’re a product of randomness is more comforting than thinking their environment (teachers, etc) turned them into soulless idiots.