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.
[ 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.