It is astonishing to me that I should be taken to task for speaking in favor of the Golden Rule, something that’s been advocated by every school of wisdom from Christianity to Confucianism to modern secularism over the period of the last 5,000 years. I think it shows what a bad place we’re in.
I guess it depends on which “golden rule” – for my Dad it was always “he who has the gold, makes the rules.”
Jesus of Nazareth’s formulation was “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Confucius’s was “do not do unto others what you would not want to have done to you.” The Hindu formulation is that one should always treat others as one would wish to be treated by others.
Who’s taking you to task?
I should know better than to comment at OTB.
Ah, I should have guessed.
Oh I found it. Why am I not surprised?
I’ve been debating in online forums since the BBS days and rarely have I come across someone with such a lack of introspection, a supreme confidence in their own sweeping judgments while, at the same time, lacking any regard for the ideas of others.
The problem with moral reciprocity as a value in political blogs is that partisans believe that those who are not on their side are the equivalent of child molesters, and thus the partisan’s moral reciprocity will not be moral.
Who is my neighbor?
Which is how we’ve gotten to where we are.
This is another example of how the situations of the political parties are not reciprocal. For too many Democrats politics really is the moral equivalent of war. When your only real vision is the government, winning is the only thing. That’s why I think that there really needs to be a change of focus for Democrats. A federal solution is not always the best solution. But it is the solution that provides the largest number of highly paid appointees.
I regret that Orwell, Kafka and Kipling have faded from the lexicon.
I regret that Mr. Dooley has faded from the lexicon.
“This is another example of how the situations of the political parties are not reciprocal. For too many Democrats politics really is the moral equivalent of war.”
You have no idea how hard I laughed at this. Not because it isn’t true for some Democrats, but because of how true it is for at least as many conservatives/Republicans. Remember that all liberals hate America, if you listen to the equivalent people on the right, and it probably doesn’t hurt to remember that a lot of Republicans were willing to vote for a child molester just because he was the kind of guy who would piss off liberals (Moore).
More broadly, I still think most of the complaints about political correctness are just complaints about not treating others with decency and getting called out on it.
Steve
As I’m sure you know, I don’t think that. I think that most of the rank and file are very well-intentioned and many office-holders were well-intentioned until they learned the reality of the situation, which usually takes no more than one term. Sometimes less than a week.
For a lot of Democrats politics is the only game in town. It’s a matter of survival. Is that true for Republicans, too? I don’t think so but there are so few Republicans hereabouts I really have no basis for making a judgment.
Basically, I don’t think I mean “the moral equivalent of war” the same way you do. I mean that it’s a matter of survival. That expanding the power of government is part of their career goals.
Consider the Daley brothers or Rod Blagojevich. They’ve never done anything in their entire lives other than politics. Blago would be lucky to be a day laborer without politics. (I was going to write “hod carrier” but nobody probably knows what that is any more.)
@steve, “a lot of Republicans were willing to vote for a child molester.”
You are exemplifying my point perfectly.
How I simplify political commentary:
Shithead
noun Slang: Vulgar.
1. a stupid, inept, unlikable, or contemptible person.
syn: nazi; fascist; racist; homophobe; xenophobe; right winger; tea bagger; child molester; …
Wasn’t objecting to the Golden Rule, only the fact that you seem to think lecturing people about it is a get out of jail free card. Honestly, that thread was disgusting. Claiming that children are being exploited in order to excuse the crime (which in many cases is simply seeking asylum, i.e. not a crime) of being unwanted is deplorable. Treating the poorest and least powerful as if they are scamming you by being human is not good. And then the thread went downhill from there. Cheers!
Against my better judgment I’ll respond to you. Poor civil servants are being excoriated for putting the safety and welfare of children first. They are following a process. How does it put the safety and welfare of children first? By verifying the claims that are being made first and placing the children in facilities appropriate to them while the verification process is being conducted. Facilities for adults or even for children of ages other than their own puts them in harms way.
You still have never suggested a practical alternative.
Dave,
The administration is separating families in order to deter people from crossing the border. It has nothing to do with trafficking. So the answer is to stop doing this. Even Trump is blaming it on the Democrats. If immigration authorities really suspect that a parent is not really a parent, they can run DNA tests.
Please present evidence for your theory. Not just motive.
There’s an alternative explanation. The number of children showing up on our southern border jumped sharply in 2014-2016. Children were being separated from adults during the Obama Administration, too. The apprehensions of families with children and unaccompanied children has stayed high (although not as high as it was in 2015) and, consequently, there’s been a jump in the number of separations.
BTW, to do DNA tests they’d need a budget for it. Congress would need to appropriate the money. ICE doesn’t have a slush fund they can use for whatever they want.
Update
What I’ve found so far is that Flores v. Reno (1997) requires the federal government to either a) let the families in on their own recognizance or b) separate the children from the parents in detention. That lends some credence to your theory in the sense that the Trump Administration doesn’t want to just admit people on their own recognizance and may have issued a directive to that effect. The number of people who show up at the hearings under such circumstances is vanishingly low. But it doesn’t sound quite as sinister as you seem to want it to be.
Basically, you’re left with open borders or separating families. Congress should act to broaden the administration’s alternatives and give them a budget to deal with families.
“You are exemplifying my point perfectly.”
Sorry PD, I should have said probable child molester.
Steve
“I should know better than to comment at OTB.â€
You are a better man than I. Rattling the animal cages has a certain entertainment value. And it such easy pickins. I truly believe if I went there to announce Trump had found the cure for cancer it would be all down thumbs….
Basically, you’re left with open borders or separating families. Congress should act to broaden the administration’s alternatives and give them a budget to deal with families.
No, you’re left with the status quo. Which is very far from the Mexico/US border being an open border. The thing about the Golden Rule is that applying it yields empathy and understanding, which then causes the environment (where ICE deported several million but there wasn’t Jeff Sessions promising to treat a mother from El Salvador as if she were a human trafficker) that Trump ran against, backed by evangelical Christians who seem to possess less awareness of the Golden Rule than Aleister Crowley.
“The thing about the Golden Rule is that applying it yields empathy and understanding, ”
I think there are two arguments going on here regarding the Golden Rule.
First, there’s the golden rule as applied to personal relations between individuals – in that I would include debate in online forums such as this one and OTB. Here the Golden Rule would seem to advise against name-calling, casting aspersions, poisoning the well, etc.
The second is in terms of policy and here the Golden Rule doesn’t work very well for a variety of reasons which should be rather obvious. Policy is formed by and affects groups of people – political communities with their own shared coherent preferences and ideals. An individual’s notions of the “Golden Rule” cannot apply to a group. And indeed we see this every day as people are perfectly willing to throw out the Golden Rule when it comes to groups they don’t like – such as evangelical Christians and immigrants.
So I don’t see a link between the Golden Rule and immigration policy, or at least one that can be applied consistently. We all might want to go to whatever country we like, for however long we like, and do whatever we like while we are there, but no nation or political community is willing to grant that benefit to others. So there is inevitably a disconnect.
An individual’s notions of the “Golden Rule†cannot apply to a group. And indeed we see this every day as people are perfectly willing to throw out the Golden Rule when it comes to groups they don’t like – such as evangelical Christians and immigrants.
What’s happening to evangelical Christians? Being forced to adhere to the same laws we all adhere to?
And there are many political communities who are willing to grant rights. Witness the popularity of the DREAM act.
More importantly–
I’ve been debating in online forums since the BBS days and rarely have I come across someone with such a lack of introspection, a supreme confidence in their own sweeping judgments while, at the same time, lacking any regard for the ideas of others.
Gotta be honest–your ideas are pretty much textbook authoritarian. Politeness yes, but the state supersedes individualist ethics. The quirk being that the state is run by Republicans, but by and large the culture has become mainstream liberal. That’s my sweeping judgement.
“What’s happening to evangelical Christians?”
You tell me? They consistently come up as one of your sweeping generalizations.
“And there are many political communities who are willing to grant rights. Witness the popularity of the DREAM act.”
And I never suggested otherwise.
“Gotta be honest–your ideas are pretty much textbook authoritarian. ”
Which ideas specifically? I ask because I’m certain your judgment is wrong and I’m interested in how you came to an incorrect conclusion.
An individual’s notions of the “Golden Rule†cannot apply to a group.
This is a very polite way of saying the individual submits to the group, is it not? And you’re defining the Golden Rule as mere civility and orderliness within a society where policies are not at all bound to ethics or empathy, right? Your basically turning radical Christianity into conformity that won’t upset the powerful.
You’re saying that the policy of tearing parents from children is fine, because it’s being committed by a group, but me calling an evangelical Christian a hypocritical asshole for supporting this policy is wrong, because I should be treating this person as I wish to be treated. Note that the one problem for me in this exchange is that I don’t care if i’m called a ‘hypocritical asshole’ but I do care about immigrants, whereas many evangelical Christians seem to care nothing about marginal others, but do really dislike being called hypocritical assholes.
So, no evidence that I’m a “textbook authoritarian?”
“This is a very polite way of saying the individual submits to the group, is it not?”
Humans are social animals. We form groups. Those groups have rules and norms that individuals do submit to.
” And you’re defining the Golden Rule as mere civility and orderliness within a society where policies are not at all bound to ethics or empathy, right? Your basically turning radical Christianity into conformity that won’t upset the powerful.”
No. That is all an assumption on your part, and, IMO, a completely dishonest characterization of what I said.
“but me calling an evangelical Christian a hypocritical asshole for supporting this policy is wrong, because I should be treating this person as I wish to be treated. Note that the one problem for me in this exchange is that I don’t care if i’m called a ‘hypocritical asshole’ but I do care about immigrants, whereas many evangelical Christians seem to care nothing about marginal others, but do really dislike being called hypocritical assholes.”
No, I object to sweeping group-based indictments which I think is something you do way too often.
Evangelical Christians seem to care nothing about marginal others? You know this how? Which marginal others? In what way, specifically, are they not caring? Or maybe it’s more complicated than that?
“You’re saying that the policy of tearing parents from children is fine,”
You’ll note that I never actually said or wrote that. So another example of you mischaracterizing my position.
This brings me to my issue with your conduct. I object to people who try to put words into my mouth, which is what you are doing here and what you’ve done several times in this thread. If you ever want to know my stance on something, all you have to do is ask. What I will not do give any merit to poorly considered inferences of what I supposedly believe or stand for based on your own faulty assumptions and biases.
Now, if you want to have a debate on immigration policy or anything, I’m all for it, but the golden rule needs to apply. I’m not wasting my time if you are going to continue to make stupid and baseless accusations like I’m authoritarian or that I am fine with seeing families torn apart. I would much rather stick to arguments on their merits and not engage in useless an self-serving mind-reading about what we imagine the other person believes.
Oh, and here’s an essay on the Golden Rule in action. Scott Alexander’s post is also highly recommended.
https://reason.com/archives/2018/06/04/two-minutes-of-listening-beats-a-two-min
You’re right. Scott’s post is excellent. I admire him greatly.
That Alexander piece overlooks how irrelevant gay marriage opponents are. I’m all for legal tolerance and will be able to live with wedding cakes not being made (but certainly not refusing to sell homes to gay people or serve them in restaurants) but you can’t make me take someone seriously who thinks friends of mine shouldn’t be married. I’m glad we have moved on and that the shoddy arguments are barely breathing.
It seems to me that if you flesh his argument out, he’s pushing to orchestrate a society that has nothing to do with reality, all for the sake of pretending that opponents of gay marriage haven’t lost the debate. You can’t cross the same river twice. It should be obvious that this is the case.
So this—to me—is also about authoritarianism. Enforcing social conventions in order to return to an uncivil (yet idealized) past is—again—textbook authoritarianism, just like assuming the individual submits to the group, which I was getting at before.
I think that should be acceptable, too.
“It seems to me that if you flesh his argument out, he’s pushing to orchestrate a society that has nothing to do with reality, all for the sake of pretending that opponents of gay marriage haven’t lost the debate. You can’t cross the same river twice. It should be obvious that this is the case.”
Interesting. Which argument are you specifically talking about? It’s a longish piece, but I don’t recall anything that advocates what you’re suggesting here.
“So this—to me—is also about authoritarianism. Enforcing social conventions in order to return to an uncivil (yet idealized) past is—again—textbook authoritarianism, just like assuming the individual submits to the group, which I was getting at before.”
Humans form groups and have social conventions which they enforce through various means. Individuals continually submit to these groups in various ways. This is a fundamental aspect of human society. You are part of that fabric whether you realize it or not. I don’t need to assume that individuals submit to a group because it is a fact for all sane people.
Secondly, your opinion on the whether an outgroup is uncivil or authoritarian is merely opinion absent additional evidence or context. Uncivil as compared to what exactly? Authoritarian as compared to what exactly?
He has an anecdote about how he knows few people who support banning gay marriage, yet apparently 40% of Americans wish to ban it. And yet he doesn’t reflect on how or why this came about. He doesn’t reflect on anything at all. ‘White privilege’ is obviously overused, but white people were not talking about white privilege 20 years ago. Not like this. What changed? The same goes for gay marriage and gay people. What changed? He just goes on and on and on and on–he is much a better thinker than writer, but he’s not all curious about any history. He just believes all social pecking order, like white people talking ‘white privilege’ are doing it for the Blue Tribe:
We started by asking: millions of people are conspicuously praising every outgroup they can think of, while conspicuously condemning their own in-group. This seems contrary to what we know about social psychology. What’s up?
We noted that outgroups are rarely literally “the group most different from youâ€, and in fact far more likely to be groups very similar to you sharing almost all your characteristics and living in the same area.
We then noted that although liberals and conservatives live in the same area, they might as well be two totally different countries or universe as far as level of interaction were concerned.
Contra the usual idea of them being marked only by voting behavior, we described them as very different tribes with totally different cultures. You can speak of “American culture†only in the same way you can speak of “Asian culture†– that is, with a lot of interior boundaries being pushed under the rug.
The outgroup of the Red Tribe is occasionally blacks and gays and Muslims, more often the Blue Tribe.
The Blue Tribe has performed some kind of very impressive act of alchemy, and transmuted all of its outgroup hatred to the Red Tribe.
This is not surprising. Ethnic differences have proven quite tractable in the face of shared strategic aims. Even the Nazis, not known for their ethnic tolerance, were able to get all buddy-buddy with the Japanese when they had a common cause.
Research suggests Blue Tribe / Red Tribe prejudice to be much stronger than better-known types of prejudice like racism. Once the Blue Tribe was able to enlist the blacks and gays and Muslims in their ranks, they became allies of convenience who deserve to be rehabilitated with mildly condescending paeans to their virtue. “There never was a coward where the shamrock grows.â€
Free country–believe what you want. But it’s an argument of bad faith to assume that liberals are talking about ‘white privilege’ simply to get Red America. What’s funny is that Alexander as cited as some sort of guy who rises above that, but who he appeals to–in my opinion–are people who do not want to deal with ‘white privilege’ being talked about because it’s relevant.
And that goes back to my earlier point: this is a fantasy for people who don’t want to deal with the present. The fact that he describes the relationship between the Nazis and Jews as a ‘conflict’ is genuinely off-putting. It wasn’t a conflict, and it sounds borderline Eichmann-like to use that cliche. It’s like he doesn’t really know much about what people are like, though I’m sure he knows statistics.
Humans form groups and have social conventions which they enforce through various means. Individuals continually submit to these groups in various ways. This is a fundamental aspect of human society. You are part of that fabric whether you realize it or not. I don’t need to assume that individuals submit to a group because it is a fact for all sane people.
Do humans enforce conventions? Some, sure, but not all. Much of our lives are not enforced, unless you’re a psychopath. Conventions are mutually beneficial. The idea that we submit to groups means that if we didn’t submit we’d do what? Go postal and harm others?
“He has an anecdote about how he knows few people who support banning gay marriage, yet apparently 40% of Americans wish to ban it. And yet he doesn’t reflect on how or why this came about. He doesn’t reflect on anything at all.”
Probably because that’s not what the post was about.
As for the rest, you’re going on again with ad hominem and opinions about what you think he believes while avoiding the actual arguments and positions he takes in the essay. Or the irrelevancy of one off-putting comment in an 8000+ essay.
As I noted above, I don’t tolerate it when people try those tactics with my own arguments. When it comes to others, including Alexander, I’m frankly not very interested in a debate that actually about your opinion of what he believes or what you infer his agenda to be, instead of what his clearly articulated stances and arguments actually are.
So I’m going to bow out of this one.
As far as human conventions, group dynamics, and norm enforcement, I don’t see your point in debating this. The research is quite extensive and about as repeatable and verifiable as social science can be. Humans are social animals that form groups that adopt and then regulate behavioral norms. That really isn’t debatable.
So what were the actual arguments? Sum them up for me if you will, please. I read that article several times and I’m really clear what his clearly articulated stances are.
I’ll add something on how to determine “authoritarianism”: it’s authoritarian when the burden is on one to prove authority is unjustified rather than on the authority to provide justification for it’s existence.
If you walk out into the road unaware a car is about to plow into you, and I grab you by the collar to pull you out of the way, I’ve taken upon myself the authority to restrain you, but it’s an authority I can probably justify for that single instance and indeed should and must justify.
“I’m in charge, obey” is authority that suffers no reasonable burden to justify its existence. It is in fact self-justifying, and therefore illegitimate.
MM,
Here’s the summary:
He goes on to suggest that tolerance is really about how you treat the outgroup, not the faux tolerance of accepting people who are already ideological allies:
The bulk of the piece is examples and arguments to support and explain this thesis. Personally, I find it convincing and not simply because it is already consistent with what we already know about group dynamics and norm enforcement, but because it also explains the “outgroup-philia and ingroup-phobia” as described by the Emporer anecdote in the first part.
Another way to put it, which he doesn’t mention in the piece, is when people claim they aren’t racist or they are tolerant to racial minorities because they have “black friends.” The point is that isn’t actually “tolerance” since being tolerant to people you already like and who are already part of your in-group is not tolerance at all.
That’s what I thought he was saying. Thanks!
I’ll just say this–Chesterton’s example is relevant because he talks about forgiveness and crime. I.e. forgiveness is meaningless unless you were wiling to forgive the crimes you don’t ‘agree’ with. And that’s a human failing–but crime is still crime. If Blue America is to forgive Red America–their real outgroup–they’re going to be forgiven for what by Blue America? Let’s say bigotry. Everyone Blue has to forgive Red America for their bigotry. But what exactly is Red America going to forgive Blue America for? Because the answers are not exactly crimes, except in the mind of Red America. But gay people, Muslims, and black people aren’t going to want to be forgiven by Red America. Plain and simple. They just want equality, which is a radically different dynamic than the one he sets up.
Which goes back to my earlier point–it’s less about tolerance than relevance. You can and should tolerate the outgroup, and work to understand them, but making them relevant is different. And the dynamic we have now is that Red America isn’t relevant, except for the fact that Republicans all of government. And that’s the scary part, because you get votes or separate innocent families, but you can’t bend the rules to make yourself relevant to your out-group. At least not in a democracy.