The more I learn, the more I realize that a lot of political leaders who do horrible do what they do for a reason, with some exceptions. This isn’t an endorsement of their actions or their reasons, but Putin, Netanyahu, and (kinda) Biden/Obama/Bush all have reasons for what they do. The rare exceptions are the super corrupt ones. Boris Yeltsin, Viktor Orban, Trump, the office of US president generally, Scott Morrison, etc.
In other words it’s not so much good vs. evil as corruption vs integrity.
But isn’t good implied in integrity and evil in corrutio n?
Corrupt people are always evil, but evil people are not always corrupt. That said the evil people with integrity are usually just racist so maybe my entire assessment is wrong.
Good and bad both exist because we want to go somewhere, or we want a certain development to happen. Therefore, the development that we want to see happen is “good” while everything that stands in its way is “bad”. Yes, it is that simple, assuming you have a clear picture of where you want to go.
But not everyone wants to go to the same place, or reach the same way of living, so it’s more complicated.
Oh and i forgot to mention: If the world existed in perfect balance, with nobody ever wanting to change anything, neither good nor bad would exist in the world. The world would just be.
‘There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.’
‘It’s a lot more complicated than that—’
‘No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.’—Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
No. Life is not a Marvel movie. Instead, the world is driven by material conditions, and the continuous effect these conditions have in guiding future conditions. The capitalists overtook the fuedal lords not because they were more moral, but because of the steam engine and the expansion in industrial production. The Statesian north didn’t free the slaves of the south out of any moral reason, but to gain access to more wage laborers better fit for industrial production. Socialism is overtaking capitalism because imperialism is dying, and rates of profit are falling.
There’s no idealist “good vs evil.” If you’d like, I wrote an intro Marxist-Leninist reading guide that might help!
Socialism is overtaking capitalism
I wanna live in whatever world you’re talking about. It sure feels to me like fascism is overtaking capitalism.
Fascism is capitalism
The PRC is the biggest economy in the world by PPP and is beating the west in many metrics while the west is falling in those same metrics, and the PRC is socialist. Capitalism’s decay compels the rise of socialism.
Capitalism’s decay compels the rise of socialism.
This is the part I would disagree with. I don’t think history has a foreseeable trajectory. I don’t think anything is inevitable. Saying otherwise is giving too much credit to narrative.
Nothing is inevitable, no, but the laws of capitalism do compel socialism. Centralization of markets into fewer and fewer hands naturally prepares the foundations for collectivized and planned production.
Man I don’t see that being true at all. From my perspective, it makes fascism, oligarchy, and authoritarianism the much more likely outcomes after capitalism decays away. You’re assuming that the workers gaining class consciousness is inevitable. Centralized industry is just fruit ripe for the picking by a proletariat uprising. I really doubt thats how it will go down.
Not really, fascism is something that happens to capitalism in crisis and isn’t sustainable. Oligarchy is similar. As for “authoritarianism,” all states are, even worker-owned ones, what matters is which class is exerting its authority. It doesn’t need everyone to magically gain class consciousness, it’s economically compelled.
The PRC is the biggest economy in the world by PPP and is beating the west in many metrics while the west is falling in those same metrics
Yes
And the PRC is socialist.
Yes but only sort of. The PRC as still ton of social inequalities, a ton of billionaires and many things I would consider basics in a socialist society like free education still are present. If anything they seem to keep getting more and more capitalist as time go on. I agree that the progress of China over the last few decades is still a huge win for socialism but I don’t see the death of capitalism you seem to be suggesting any time soon
Socialism isn’t equalitarianism, it’s the workers collectively directing society, made firm by public ownership being the principle aspect. This is true, for China, and they are in the later parts of the primary stage of socialism, as shown here:
Capitalism globally rests on US Imperialism, and as that’s dying the wheels of history are turning forward.
the wheels of history are turning forward
Does anyone know if Francis Fukuyama is doing ok?
the world is rich versus poor, has been and always will be.
change my mind.
We outnumber the rich millions to one, and when we finally all realize that the rich are going have a really bad day.
comrade dreamworks
Is it really so simple?
No.
You’d be surprised how many complex issued boil down to some barely constrained lunatic who hates you and wants you to die…
Found the top of the bell curve
Proof. We seek to prove that regardless of the existence of an objective morality people will only adhere/accept their own personal morality, thus making objective morality irrelevant.
We have three cases:
- Objective Morality doesn’t exist: If there is no objective morality, people can only default to their own morality.
- Objective morality exists and doesn’t align with an individual’s own moral compass: Imagine objective morality was defined by some Aztec or eldritch god and tells you it is morally imperative to torture people. If you have a sense of empathy your moral compass will not align with this and you will choose to disobey this morality. Hence, if an objective moral compass exists and does not align with one’s own morality, the individual will reject it and default to their own morality.
- Objective morality exists and does align with an individual’s own morality: Trivially this means an individual is still just following their own default morality.
In all cases the individual will only act on their own morality regardless of the existence or nonexistence of an objective morality. Hence, objective morality is irrelevant. QED.
Because the existence of objective morality has no relevance one can assume objective morality doesn’t exist which, by Occam’s razor, is already the most likely case. Your ideas of right and wrong or good and bad will never be objective in a way that would matter. It is, in my opinion, a much better idea to explain what you think the positive effect of your “moral” actions are because those cause effect relationships can be objective. “I think we should provide free basic needs to everyone because a significant portion of crimes are committed as crimes of necessity, and I would like my country to feel safer” is much more objective than “I think we should provide free basic needs to everyone because it’s the right thing to do.”
Anyone can claim their ideas are “right” or “good” without any explanation of why. I mean that’s basically the strategy of the Republican Party. “Being trans is wrong” “Anti-capitalism is evil” etc. And you saying “Anticapitalism is good” is just as empty and meaningless.
Also, fun fact the proof above works for the existence of god as well. Basically just swap out morality with god and ta-da it is morally irrelevant if god exists, you’re only going to do what you personally think is right regardless.
Idealist horsecrap,
Nah, it isn’t, at least most of the time.
What do you even mean? Good and evil are moral terms, and the world doesn’t even have objective morality, let alone ‘is’ it. Making a meme where your position is in the ‘right’, doesn’t make it true or even sensical.
Your comment does the same thing you’re critiquing OOP for doing. What gives you the authority to claim as fact that there exists no objective morality?
Edit: tbc, I also don’t believe in object morality, but what I have issue with is the apparent contradiction you’ve made
The fact that I can observe people have different moralities.
Lots of hella smart people have made this topic their entire life for literally thousands of years, and the debates are still ongoing. An individual’s observations mean little
An appeal to majority, authority, or tradition (your comment might be all 3) does not supersede my own reason and experience.
Your reasoning is bad- I was just trying to point it out gently without being too explicit about calling you out for the arrogant moron you are.
I’m happy for you to point out the flaw in my reasoning, so far all you’ve done is criticise me.
Good, as in “service to others” and evil as in “service to self”. Evil in this sense is unstable and ego drives Entropy by its nature by the same laws as cancer. Good is harder since decisions are also subject to entropy, requiring free will as the outside energy source. That’s just my perspective <3
“Good” is whoever ends up winning at the end.
The world is ignorance/greed VS knowledge/cooperation.
I am more and more learning about how personal interests often conflict with societal interests (as simple as it may sound). We are globally going to understand soon enough that democracy isn’t worth shit as long as feedback loops that allow personal interests to creep in are “meta”.
Loads of people have lots of ideas on how to run countries and communities, but ideology and doctrines are not really proven concepts.
And the other big problem is that to declare new forces within existing infrastructure (creating counter power to prevent positive feedback mechanisms), societal interest must still be powerful enough to not require a revolution to be enacted in a sensible and effective way.
A lot of countries have already in my mind gone way over that threshold, it’s recognisable when actual societal interests, long term initiatives and big questions about the future are not asked anymore because the political power is working at consolidating their position and redistributing favours they owe to the soon to be oligarchy.
But you can’t really allow anyone to be a defeatist because cynism is the last nail in the coffin, staying awake and fight hoping that enough will join soon enough is the only way to keep existing.
