tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12798432.post8136399718311311583..comments2024-03-21T03:51:26.136-07:00Comments on RFK Action Front: I and thouRFK Action Fronthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13367576871260141948noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12798432.post-76036723771353324582008-07-26T14:25:00.000-07:002008-07-26T14:25:00.000-07:00Excellent thoughts once again. I think you've loc...Excellent thoughts once again. <BR/><BR/>I think you've located the heart of the matter exactly when you write:<BR/><BR/><I>how do we decide which system is better? What standard of morality do we use? What is that "something"? </I><BR/><BR/>I agree that it's challenging but I think the debate could be incredible (and I also believe -- perhaps too idealistically -- that with a robust debate we could probably come up with a rough consensus for our time and place).<BR/><BR/>For me that "something" is reducing suffering. Suffering happens in the lot of ways in our world -- hunger, disease, war. I think there is a broad consensus that there is too much suffering in the world and reducing suffering is a net good thing. <BR/><BR/>I don't care <I>how</I> we reduce suffering so long as we can show <I>that</I> we are reducing suffering in measurable ways (and this is where there can sometimes be common ground between Dems and Republicans). If a market-based approach produces more jobs, less pollution, less disease, or better health care I'm open to it (although it seems to me that experience shows that market-based approaches usually need to be tempered with regulation and a mechanism for redistribution to protect the common good). <BR/><BR/>I think Dems do a good job of focusing on the common good and Republicans often do a good job of focusing on individual agency -- and it probably takes a combination of agency and communion in order to reduce suffering in the world. <BR/><BR/>Interestingly -- <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls" REL="nofollow">Rawls</A> has done some great work on thinking about these questions (the whole <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance" REL="nofollow">"veil of ignorance"</A> test) and Warren Buffet has become a fan of Rawls and sometimes quotes him in his public speeches these days. <BR/><BR/>Again thanks for your insightful comments and engaging writing.RFK Action Fronthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13367576871260141948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12798432.post-77831949989955836232008-07-26T12:56:00.000-07:002008-07-26T12:56:00.000-07:00Hi there,Thanks for taking time to respond to my c...Hi there,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for taking time to respond to my comment. Of course I'm a child of our times, like you, so I like what you said here:<BR/><BR/><I>I am making an argument that modern secular people are free to select the best from any wisdom tradition (and yes that includes traditional religions including Christianity) to assemble a moral code that reflects the best thinking from throughout history. And here's the important point -- the strength of this moral code has to be argued on its merits -- one has to be able to show WHY a particular approach is better for society rather than just appealing to dogma or saying god handed it down on a stone tablet.</I><BR/><BR/>If pressed, I would have to admit I certainly live my own life by these principles. <BR/><BR/>But a traditionalist conservative might argue, and I'm not trying to start one of these kind of arguments, that having to defend morality on rational grounds already misses the point. The Western Canon, the Old Books, the Sacred Texts, the Monarchy (oops... hahaha)--these are things we must not question. Because once we start saying the emperor has no clothes, (he probably doesn't and never did) many other authority figures also appear naked. To change metaphors for a moment, the slope down that way is long and slippery. Ultimately, we have to appeal to something to make a judgment between moral systems. Now, I definitely don't want to go here, but how do we decide which system is better? What standard of morality do we use? What is that "something"? <BR/><BR/>Anyway, I appreciate the back and forth. I'm a Republican, but I prefer the company of progressives, since they are usually nicer, more civilized, generally cheery, and doers of good. Like the blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12798432.post-19140830319525102842008-07-26T11:24:00.000-07:002008-07-26T11:24:00.000-07:00Hi Melancholy Korean:These are insightful and thou...Hi <A HREF="http://www.melancholykorean.com/selected-comments/2008/7/26/rfk-action-front-progressive-assumptions-about-religion.html" REL="nofollow">Melancholy Korean</A>:<BR/><BR/>These are insightful and thoughtful comments. Thank you for taking the time to read the post and thank you for taking the time to share your insights and extensive study on the matter. <BR/><BR/>I share your disdain for Christopher Hitchens' current writings on religion (although I think his earlier book on Mother Theresa had moments of brilliance). I find his current arguments brittle in ways that distract from his point. I haven't read much Richard Dawkins (and I know you didn't mention Dawkins but he and Hitchens are often talked about together these days) but I agree that there is a heavy dose of fundamentalism to the modern crop of atheist/scientific attacks on traditional religion. <BR/><BR/>In addition, your comments on Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the French Revolution, and the Nazi reliance on modern technology (supplied by IBM) are both excellent and fascinating. <BR/><BR/>(I will point out though that while Nazis used modern technology -- their movement was widely supported by German Christians. And yes the Confessing Church opposed the Nazis but they were in the distinct minority.)<BR/><BR/>I believe I am making a different argument than those cited in your comment. To be clear: I am not making a Hitchens/Dawkins atheist attack on religion nor am I saying we should rely on ancient western philosophers instead of ancient religious prophets. I am making a variation on a (small "m") modernist argument. I am not advocating modernism for modernism's sake (which can devolve into its own fundamentalism or just randomness and chaos). Rather I am making an argument that modern secular people are free to select the best from any wisdom tradition (and yes that includes traditional religions including Christianity) to assemble a moral code that reflects the best thinking from throughout history. And here's the important point -- the strength of this moral code has to be argued on its merits -- one has to be able to show WHY a particular approach is better for society rather than just appealing to dogma or saying god handed it down on a stone tablet. I'm arguing that aggregating the wisdom of history, selecting the best ideas from any tradition, and showing why they are better for society will be superior to the thinking of a small band of ancient tribespeople or individual prophets.RFK Action Fronthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13367576871260141948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12798432.post-73751420657895294362008-07-26T08:57:00.000-07:002008-07-26T08:57:00.000-07:00I will gladly put my 21st century secular moral co...<I>I will gladly put my 21st century secular moral code -- developed through thousands of years of philosophical debate, scientific discovery, and social efforts to overcome intolerance and hatred -- up for comparison against a moral code developed by an ancient tribe that was always calling for god to rain genocide down upon neighboring tribes.</I><BR/><BR/>I wouldn't be so hasty. <BR/><BR/>Look, there's a lot to dislike about fundamentalist Christians--many of them combine ignorance with arrogance. They don't know anything, many don't read books and they have a suspicion of "elite" education (God forbid people get an education) but they think they know. That's the sure sign of a fool. But that same flaw characterizes many liberals and even plain old public intellectuals like Hitchens when they discuss religion. Their misunderstanding is perhaps understandable, but it's their contempt for religious belief that makes them fools.<BR/><BR/>This is a big topic, but I want to focus just on one of the assumptions behind the comment I've higlighted above. <BR/><BR/><I>through thousands of years of philosophical debate, scientific discovery, and social efforts to overcome intolerance and hatred</I><BR/><BR/>Sorry, no. If you want to count Western philosophy starting with Socrates, well, he was put to death in 399 BC by a democractic Athenian mob looking for scapegoats during a time of severe political instability due to Athens' defeat two years earlier in the Peloponnesian War. Socrates' pupils were aristocrats and anti-egalitarians, some of whom tried to overthrow the democracy and establish tyranny and who were sympathetic to the Spartan enemy--these are the men who populate the dialogues that started our philosophical tradition. Do you really want to go there? I mean, while we have a tradition of free speech in our country, I'm sure many, many progressive bloggers would have loved to see Socrates and Plato get the guillotine. Their ideas were radical--radically conservative. Aristotle, who was the opposite of Plato in many ways (Joyce illustrates this beautifully in the National Library scene in Ulysses) wrote that some people were natural born slaves. Speaking of slavery, the greatest abolitionist of them all was William Wilberforce, a born again Christian! <BR/><BR/>I'm not sure that the Christian philosophy practiced and debated in the West after Justinian closed the Academy in 529 AD bolsters your argument. I'm also not sure how something like the French Revolution, run by "enlightened" thinkers would had contempt for religion and who took "scientific rationalism" to its logical extreme, helps you either. The science of organizational behavior and modern operations theory helped the Nazis murder so many Jews. Killing millions of people on that scale requires an enormous technical apparatus, you need a powerful system to handle this, and it was all helpfully provided by science and early computers. <BR/><BR/>There's nothing worse than having to listen to someone who seems to be an idiot. You feel this with fundamentalist Christians. Well, I feel this with supposedly "literate," "historically aware," "intelligent" progressives who spout conventional wisdom, echoed by superficial "thinkers" for centuries, but who think they're saying something new. Please.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com