A good political ideology must be concordant with human nature. Ideologies that are not, however inspiring they might sound, will inevitably lead to frustration and ultimately to disillusionment...
Reason is a tool like so many others that has multiple uses and can be just as easily wielded to destroy as to build.
If your Reason says I have no reason to prefer me before you, mine before yours, my people place and culture etc to yours or anyone else's, then Reason just becomes a tool used to saw off the branch we're sitting on.
There is no Reason that can prove that it makes more sense or that it's better in any way to trade my IS for your OUGHT, which is why these campaigns often come with a side dish of heavy moralizing.
Also, the Progressives (even including the Jacobins and their Church of Reason) always easily discard Reason when it interferes with their emotional needs and political goals, and this is clearly demonstrated by how they never turn their Reasoning scalpel on any of their preferred victim groups, from yesteryear's peasantry up until today's holy and sacred Marginalized. (Their claims must all be swallowed whole if you want to pray in their church.)
Reason is just another weapon, a sword even, that extends from the hand of the human beast and its needs, fears and motivations etc, all the limitations Bo mentioned.
The problem with taking on preservation as _reason_ enough to boost one's own values/bias, is that it is a secondary or derivative process that seeks to maintain what comes before (out of routine, familiarity, you can call this prejudice--- I have a whole post on lazy==smart not linked herein). This mismatch of intentions between the value and the activity is a systemic aporia in itself (akin to the usual suspects in paradoxic life -- imcompleteness theorems etc). This is glossed over in this post. In prosaic terms the term hypocrite is slung at this point, but you know, I hope to be better than that. With reason.
I call it out as self-indulgent, as it does not take the medicine it suggests for 'progressives'.
As well, throwing reason into this gap, or any systemic aporia, as a kludge, in defence/attack, is not good enough thinking, it's just leads to dogmatism and laziness in a bad way -- self-indulgence of one's preferences. This, then, is self-believed to be one's 'character', and those with other preferences/prejudices are not granted that same recognition... within the world-building of life all-together and in discussion (we are human because we have meetings) and what remains becomes a sickening political football fought over and won by demagogues and psychopaths. Like life in Russia/China today.
In this hopefully less self-indulgent take I am heavily influence by conservative ( and Catholic) anthropologist Mary Douglas. I.E. I take my own medicine. I am not yet cured, I know.
The progressive thrives on the lie that we can and should be collectivists. The truth is anyone who would act against his or her family for the 'greater good' is a fiction and thank goodness. If you tell a perspective fiance you would sacrifice your family to save a greater number of people and she doesn't recoil in horror from you as a moral perversion.. you may deserve each other.
But the truth is they don't believe it anyway. They intend to be the ones who decide what the 'greater good' is, as all those in politics do, and it always happens to feather their own nests.
If someone is selling collectivism, that person intends to be a master and intends you to be a slave.
No exceptions.
Collectivism is an evil at least as old as Plato. These 'philosophers' admire the 'efficiency' of the insect hive, and they do see it for what it is, one entity, the queen, with all the other insects serving her.
But that is an inferior evolutionary strategy. As slow as humans reproduce, we still dominated the evolutionary game, as did all BINARY sexually reproducing creatures, because altho insects reprodyce quickly, evolutionarily the queen is the only operant creature.
In sexual pairing EVERY pairing has the potential to advance the species, to produce a Newton or Bach.
The collectivists don't just want us to eat bugs and be happy. They want us to BE bugs. Worker ants in the WEF hive. We aren't to reproduce. THEY are. Hence the push to sterilize kids and for homosexuality.
"In the case of, for example, long instilled prejudices against homosexual relationships, conservatives were likely wrong."
Why and how were we "likely wrong"? In a piece where the solidity of logic involved in conservatism is touted, the omission of the rationale behind the divergence from this one Christian tenet stands out like a sore thumb...
Reason is a tool like so many others that has multiple uses and can be just as easily wielded to destroy as to build.
If your Reason says I have no reason to prefer me before you, mine before yours, my people place and culture etc to yours or anyone else's, then Reason just becomes a tool used to saw off the branch we're sitting on.
There is no Reason that can prove that it makes more sense or that it's better in any way to trade my IS for your OUGHT, which is why these campaigns often come with a side dish of heavy moralizing.
Also, the Progressives (even including the Jacobins and their Church of Reason) always easily discard Reason when it interferes with their emotional needs and political goals, and this is clearly demonstrated by how they never turn their Reasoning scalpel on any of their preferred victim groups, from yesteryear's peasantry up until today's holy and sacred Marginalized. (Their claims must all be swallowed whole if you want to pray in their church.)
Reason is just another weapon, a sword even, that extends from the hand of the human beast and its needs, fears and motivations etc, all the limitations Bo mentioned.
Thanks to Bo Winegard and his excellent work!
Thank you for the kind words--
Bo W
The problem with taking on preservation as _reason_ enough to boost one's own values/bias, is that it is a secondary or derivative process that seeks to maintain what comes before (out of routine, familiarity, you can call this prejudice--- I have a whole post on lazy==smart not linked herein). This mismatch of intentions between the value and the activity is a systemic aporia in itself (akin to the usual suspects in paradoxic life -- imcompleteness theorems etc). This is glossed over in this post. In prosaic terms the term hypocrite is slung at this point, but you know, I hope to be better than that. With reason.
I call it out as self-indulgent, as it does not take the medicine it suggests for 'progressives'.
As well, throwing reason into this gap, or any systemic aporia, as a kludge, in defence/attack, is not good enough thinking, it's just leads to dogmatism and laziness in a bad way -- self-indulgence of one's preferences. This, then, is self-believed to be one's 'character', and those with other preferences/prejudices are not granted that same recognition... within the world-building of life all-together and in discussion (we are human because we have meetings) and what remains becomes a sickening political football fought over and won by demagogues and psychopaths. Like life in Russia/China today.
So, to break the echo chamber, here's my take (in the code blocks) at https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/mapping-the-gap-the-night-sky-is
In this hopefully less self-indulgent take I am heavily influence by conservative ( and Catholic) anthropologist Mary Douglas. I.E. I take my own medicine. I am not yet cured, I know.
Thank you for the link
Bo W
The progressive thrives on the lie that we can and should be collectivists. The truth is anyone who would act against his or her family for the 'greater good' is a fiction and thank goodness. If you tell a perspective fiance you would sacrifice your family to save a greater number of people and she doesn't recoil in horror from you as a moral perversion.. you may deserve each other.
But the truth is they don't believe it anyway. They intend to be the ones who decide what the 'greater good' is, as all those in politics do, and it always happens to feather their own nests.
If someone is selling collectivism, that person intends to be a master and intends you to be a slave.
No exceptions.
Collectivism is an evil at least as old as Plato. These 'philosophers' admire the 'efficiency' of the insect hive, and they do see it for what it is, one entity, the queen, with all the other insects serving her.
But that is an inferior evolutionary strategy. As slow as humans reproduce, we still dominated the evolutionary game, as did all BINARY sexually reproducing creatures, because altho insects reprodyce quickly, evolutionarily the queen is the only operant creature.
In sexual pairing EVERY pairing has the potential to advance the species, to produce a Newton or Bach.
The collectivists don't just want us to eat bugs and be happy. They want us to BE bugs. Worker ants in the WEF hive. We aren't to reproduce. THEY are. Hence the push to sterilize kids and for homosexuality.
"In the case of, for example, long instilled prejudices against homosexual relationships, conservatives were likely wrong."
Why and how were we "likely wrong"? In a piece where the solidity of logic involved in conservatism is touted, the omission of the rationale behind the divergence from this one Christian tenet stands out like a sore thumb...