I always thought of slavery as a legitimate constitutional crisis.
The slaves were legally the slave owner's. There's nothing illegal about owning property, the constitution's pursuit of happiness is based in Locke's right to property, and the government's job has always been to protect property.
Of course, it didn't usually turn out very well for the slave's, and if men are all created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inaliable rights, presumably it's the government's responsibilty to protect those to.
That's a real thing, and the choice was made about whose rights took precedent a century and a half ago, but there isn't some individual vs. collective right narrative going on there. Is just the enforcement of a bunch of individuals vs. another bunch of individuals.
You guys are silly.
Roman on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I always thought of slavery as a legitimate constitutional crisis.
The slaves were legally the slave owner's. There's nothing illegal about owning property, the constitution's pursuit of happiness is based in Locke's right to property, and the government's job has always been to protect property.
Of course, it didn't usually turn out very well for the slave's, and if men are all created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inaliable rights, presumably it's the government's responsibilty to protect those to.
That's a real thing, and the choice was made about whose rights took precedent a century and a half ago, but there isn't some individual vs. collective right narrative going on there. Is just the enforcement of a bunch of individuals vs. another bunch of individuals.
You guys are silly.
Slavery was really just about whether the slaves were "men" or not. If they had turned out to be complex automatons, I think things may have gone differently. We still allow ownership of other sentient beings, and if to own one you can put it to work. The problem was entirely that they took people and tried to claim they were not people.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success. When I. Think individualism vs collectivism in this context, the idea that springs to mind is a small group banding together to strike out for great success based on their own merits and ideas (think startup) vs a community coming together to hold a block party. Both involve people working together, but the former is people working together for individual success (they each want to get rich, and don't neccessarily care about the group as a whole gettin rich) and the latter is people working for the community benefit of having a party that is enjoyed by all. Mark Zuckerberg worked with people to start up Facebook, but would anyone really say he wasn't an individualist looking out for number one?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Another topic I would like to discuss is the use of wealth to buy privileges. Part of what the article describes is the attitude wealth "creates" of desiring uniqueness and thinking you are the best and deserve benefits. How do people feel about manifestations of these attitudes like paying the Maitre D to be seated faster, paying for priority boarding on an airplane, or paying to skip lines at Disney world? These are all anti-equality, and harm the people who would have been served faster if not for the rich guy buying the right to skip the line. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a push for individual privlege in these cases.
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I don't think anyone much cares about those petty kinds of privilege as and when invoked, being as they're essentially benign.
It's when that privilege extends to things like, say, donating $10 million to a political candidate who is otherwise unelectable because that candidate support's all the donor's pet issues/will get the Justice Department to stop investigating them on corruption charges if they get elected. That's that shitty kind of wealth privilege that gets people fucking pissed. Rightly so, I think.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I don't think anyone much cares about those petty kinds of privilege as and when invoked, being as they're essentially benign.
It's when that privilege extends to things like, say, donating $10 million to a political candidate who is otherwise unelectable because that candidate support's all the donor's pet issues/will get the Justice Department to stop investigating them on corruption charges if they get elected. That's that shitty kind of wealth privilege that gets people fucking pissed. Rightly so, I think.
I agree completely. What you are describing is more a problem of corruption than privlege though. If we institutionalized this behavior by saying "you can buy an end to any investigation into your activities for $1MM," that would be a privlege (and one which seems terrible to me).
Another topic I would like to discuss is the use of wealth to buy privileges. Part of what the article describes is the attitude wealth "creates" of desiring uniqueness and thinking you are the best and deserve benefits. How do people feel about manifestations of these attitudes like paying the Maitre D to be seated faster, paying for priority boarding on an airplane, or paying to skip lines at Disney world? These are all anti-equality, and harm the people who would have been served faster if not for the rich guy buying the right to skip the line. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with a push for individual privlege in these cases.
No one gives a flying fuck if a rich guy pays for a priority boarding ticket, that'd be like moaning that first class is nicer than coach. People object to the wealthy knowingly or unknowingly (because of privilage and entitlement) rigging the system to get richer at the expense of the poor.
People object to the sort of attitudes that lead a man to say "if you're unemployed just borrow some money from your parents and start a business!" while slashing funding to education and healthcare so they don't have to pay taxes on their vast incomes.
If you think people are pissed at the wealthy because they have nice things you're deluding yourself. People are pissed off at the wealthy because they use their wealth to activly screw over everyone else.
I dunno, as a filthy socialist European I don't like some of them (though I don't get mad or anything); the resources should apportioned by who shows up and in an open an transparent manner - the Airline priority boarding is okay because its known and bookable beforehand, and everyone will get a seat on the flight anyway, but skipping in line at a restaurant or entertainment venue means someone might not get anything that evening, and the hidden nature of the cost and the spiraling competition aspect.
More importantly is the kind of attitude petty privilege can create; the idea that you can use money to get out of things or rig what should be equal opportunity systems for your own ends.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's not what privilege means in the context of this conversation, SKFM. Privilege is either the deliberate or unbeknownst stacking of the deck in favor of a particular group of people.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
I object to the kinds of privilege where people that got educated through the GI bill and started a business with government subsidized loans then cynically attempt to destroy those very programs in an effort to reduce their tax burden. That they simultaneously lobby congress to make their wealth more effective in these endeavors, acting as a kind of force multiplier, is just the shit icing on the crap cake, as it were.
Somewhat related is the Citizens United case. You want a case of the collective getting shit on in the name of individualism? I think that fits the bill. You can't throw around nine figure campaign contributions without necessarily shitting on a few collectives here and there. It's a decision that concentrates and amplifies the power of speech for the wealthy few. It essentially makes the money they just had lying around more valuable in a way it simply doesn't for people that will never be able to afford to even hit the $2500 campaign contribution limit in their lifetime. Also encapsulated therein is the concept of corporate personhood, the newest rugged individual on the block, now with 100% more speech!
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
spool32 on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's not what privilege means in the context of this conversation, SKFM. Privilege is either the deliberate or unbeknownst stacking of the deck in favor of a particular group of people.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
What you said conforms to my understanding, except that I have never heard of this idea that privilege can be deliberate. It seems strange to me to attribute a benefit obtained through deliberate activity like a bribe to privilege (this seems to make privilege so broad as to be meaningless), instead of just saying "they bribed someone and received special treatment." If you only have the ability to bribe someone because of your status, that is different.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Your post further confirms that you do not understand what privilege is.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's not what privilege means in the context of this conversation, SKFM. Privilege is either the deliberate or unbeknownst stacking of the deck in favor of a particular group of people.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
What you said conforms to my understanding, except that I have never heard of this idea that privilege can be deliberate. It seems strange to me to attribute a benefit obtained through deliberate activity like a bribe to privilege (this seems to make privilege so broad as to be meaningless), instead of just saying "they bribed someone and received special treatment." If you only have the ability to bribe someone because of your status, that is different.
Deliberate privilege would be more along the lines of living in Saudi Arabia. Unless I am mistaken. This applies both to the explicit laws governing the actions of women, all the shit associated with being part of a strong controlling monarchy, and I believe they have a whole slew of laws about the rights of certain religious groups.
This is an extreme example of course, privilege can still be considered deliberate even if it is quite so over the top.
Your post further confirms that you do not understand what privilege is.
So please explain where I am going wrong.
You don't see a problem with using money to break a system in a way that benefits you and disadvantages someone else. As in you cannot even concieve of a moral element to it, you think it's just something you can/should do. That's a pretty privilaged attitude.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's not what privilege means in the context of this conversation, SKFM. Privilege is either the deliberate or unbeknownst stacking of the deck in favor of a particular group of people.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
What you said conforms to my understanding, except that I have never heard of this idea that privilege can be deliberate. It seems strange to me to attribute a benefit obtained through deliberate activity like a bribe to privilege (this seems to make privilege so broad as to be meaningless), instead of just saying "they bribed someone and received special treatment." If you only have the ability to bribe someone because of your status, that is different.
Deliberate privilege would be more along the lines of living in Saudi Arabia. Unless I am mistaken. This applies both to the explicit laws governing the actions of women, all the shit associated with being part of a strong controlling monarchy, and I believe they have a whole slew of laws about the rights of certain religious groups.
This is an extreme example of course, privilege can still be considered deliberate even if it is quite so over the top.
There is nothing insidious about this though. It seems both trivial and unhelpful to call apartheid privilege, because there is nothing to "expose." The imbalance it right out in the open.
Please tell me what is wrong with the following statement: Privilege is getting out of a speeding ticket because you are white and the cop is too, where a black person would not get out of the ticket. Getting out of a ticket because you bribed the cop (where a white or black man could bribe the cop) is not privilege.
That's not what privilege means in the context of this conversation, SKFM. Privilege is either the deliberate or unbeknownst stacking of the deck in favor of a particular group of people.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
What you said conforms to my understanding, except that I have never heard of this idea that privilege can be deliberate. It seems strange to me to attribute a benefit obtained through deliberate activity like a bribe to privilege (this seems to make privilege so broad as to be meaningless), instead of just saying "they bribed someone and received special treatment." If you only have the ability to bribe someone because of your status, that is different.
Deliberate privilege would be more along the lines of living in Saudi Arabia. Unless I am mistaken. This applies both to the explicit laws governing the actions of women, all the shit associated with being part of a strong controlling monarchy, and I believe they have a whole slew of laws about the rights of certain religious groups.
This is an extreme example of course, privilege can still be considered deliberate even if it is quite so over the top.
There is nothing insidious about this though. It seems both trivial and unhelpful to call apartheid privilege, because there is nothing to "expose." The imbalance it right out in the open.
Please tell me what is wrong with the following statement: Privilege is getting out of a speeding ticket because you are white and the cop is too, where a black person would not get out of the ticket. Getting out of a ticket because you bribed the cop (where a white or black man could bribe the cop) is not privilege.
Except that it is privilege, just of a different sort. Think prosperity gospel.
I would say the rich are a product of their culture just like most of us. It's striking to me that I think the CEOs of for a topical comparison, George Romney's generation were more sympathetic to the idea that flaunting your wealth kind of makes you look like an asshole than the CEOs of Mitt Romney's generation. Which makes sense, because they grew up during the Depression and WW2. That'll smack humility into pretty much anyone. So you rise to the top and don't bitch too much when your yacht isn't the size of JP Morgan's but a mere 30 feet and you only have a very sizable home of 6 or 7 bedrooms instead of a palatial estate.
And then when people who grew up in the 50s and 60s become CEOs, they've never really known anything but plenty, so they go totally insane and have gigantic egos so have temper tantrums if anyone implies they got anything except by hard work.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
For me privilage is being born into wealth and not being able to percieve that life is harder for people that were not so lucky. For example the Mitt Romney quote I mentioned earlier, when he said that, it literally did not occour to him that not everyones parents have tens of thousands of dollars lying around that they can throw down on a start up business and not care if they lose it.
Or simple things like not caring that lots of people can't get healthcare because, fuck it, I pay for my own health insurance, why can't everyone else? Or that some people are not able to go to collage because their parents can't afford to bankroll their entire life for four years.
That's real privilage, when you're incapible of seeing how your birth gave you oppertunities other people will never get.
I always thought of slavery as a legitimate constitutional crisis.
The slaves were legally the slave owner's. There's nothing illegal about owning property, the constitution's pursuit of happiness is based in Locke's right to property, and the government's job has always been to protect property.
Of course, it didn't usually turn out very well for the slave's, and if men are all created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inaliable rights, presumably it's the government's responsibilty to protect those to.
That's a real thing, and the choice was made about whose rights took precedent a century and a half ago, but there isn't some individual vs. collective right narrative going on there. Is just the enforcement of a bunch of individuals vs. another bunch of individuals.
You guys are silly.
Slavery was really just about whether the slaves were "men" or not. If they had turned out to be complex automatons, I think things may have gone differently. We still allow ownership of other sentient beings, and if to own one you can put it to work. The problem was entirely that they took people and tried to claim they were not people.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success. When I. Think individualism vs collectivism in this context, the idea that springs to mind is a small group banding together to strike out for great success based on their own merits and ideas (think startup) vs a community coming together to hold a block party. Both involve people working together, but the former is people working together for individual success (they each want to get rich, and don't neccessarily care about the group as a whole gettin rich) and the latter is people working for the community benefit of having a party that is enjoyed by all. Mark Zuckerberg worked with people to start up Facebook, but would anyone really say he wasn't an individualist looking out for number one?
Zuckerberg hit it big largely because his father could afford to hire a software developer as a private tutor when he was in middle school.
Talk about fucking privilege. And painting the bullshit Zuckerberg has done as the "American Dream" really does not give it a terribly positive image. In your mind, is the American Dream just being a huge fucking asshole? Because that seems to be what most of the people you're citing have done to differentiate themselves from the collectivists.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
To me the American Dream is working as little as possible for the greatest gain. Don't like efficiency? Go back to your cave, you terrorist.
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
Yes, and that's almost exactly what poshniallo said immediately after, and I let it go because it seemed a more sensible interpretation - until you jumped in (hours later) with olol Confederacy at me and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist. 100% ass covering is my required mode of operation around here.
I really hate this thing where I have to wind back the forum and repeat a tangent for people who arrive late. All the posts are right there, and they're even sorted by date and time.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
Yes, and that's almost exactly what poshniallo said immediately after, and I let it go because it seemed a more sensible interpretation - until you jumped in (hours later) with olol Confederacy at me and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist. 100% ass covering is my required mode of operation around here.
I really hate this thing where I have to wind back the forum and repeat a tangent for people who arrive late. All the posts are right there, and they're even sorted by date and time.
Oh please, I logged on and check the forum when it was convenient for my schedule, not yours. Sorry.
I also never called you a racist so stop being so fucking sensitive.
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
Yes, and that's almost exactly what poshniallo said immediately after, and I let it go because it seemed a more sensible interpretation - until you jumped in (hours later) with olol Confederacy at me and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist. 100% ass covering is my required mode of operation around here.
I really hate this thing where I have to wind back the forum and repeat a tangent for people who arrive late. All the posts are right there, and they're even sorted by date and time.
Oh please, I logged on and check the forum when it was convenient for my schedule, not yours. Sorry.
I also never called you a racist so stop being so fucking sensitive.
... until you jumped in... and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist.
You are really bad at this today.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Wait, the Confederacy was about the failure of collectivism against the rugged individualism of the north?
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
Yes, and that's almost exactly what poshniallo said immediately after, and I let it go because it seemed a more sensible interpretation - until you jumped in (hours later) with olol Confederacy at me and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist. 100% ass covering is my required mode of operation around here.
I really hate this thing where I have to wind back the forum and repeat a tangent for people who arrive late. All the posts are right there, and they're even sorted by date and time.
Oh please, I logged on and check the forum when it was convenient for my schedule, not yours. Sorry.
I also never called you a racist so stop being so fucking sensitive.
... until you jumped in... and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist.
You are really bad at this today.
Nope, you responded to bullshit that wasn't in my post or at all what we were talking about. It's not my problem what other chucklefucks come in and say and until it's actually said it's probably best not to address it.
Either take it to PMs or go find a room and hatefuck each other already. Stop cluttering the thread, plzkthx.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
I think that's because they're taking all that other stuff for granted. Things that have been around for awhile fade into the background regardless of their effect, they don't "count" as help. (See also: Medicare vs. Socialized Medicine)
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
There's also the problem that they see themselves as entitled to all that government aid because of taxes they've paid in over their lifetime, but young whippersnappers are sucking on the government teat and we need to lower taxes because socialism!.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
So much wrong with that video. Bankruptcy, food stamps and welfare are all the government helping out, right? And I didn't miss some of his other idiocy? I really want to make sure I fully understand all the parts of that which are nonsense.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
So much wrong with that video. Bankruptcy, food stamps and welfare are all the government helping out, right? And I didn't miss some of his other idiocy? I really want to make sure I fully understand all the parts of that which are nonsense.
Yes. Bankruptcy law is meant to protect people from being thrown in debtor's prison (generalizing, yes), foodstamps and welfare are both government programs so that we don't have millions of people dying in our streets.
Actually welfare only exists if you have children, are elderly, or disabled in all but the most liberal states, furthermore the more children you have the less money they give you. The lack of existence for welfare for most people just means there's a lot more homeless people, although they don't die on the street thanks to food stamps and other programs (in most cases, obviously homeless people do die on the street, but I got quite an education in a protracted discussion with a bum in vegas)
The welfare system Craig T Nelson relied on to get him through hard times was drowned in a bathtub by Clinton to appease the right wingers. The US has a shockingly terrible safety net.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
So much wrong with that video. Bankruptcy, food stamps and welfare are all the government helping out, right? And I didn't miss some of his other idiocy? I really want to make sure I fully understand all the parts of that which are nonsense.
Yes. Bankruptcy law is meant to protect people from being thrown in debtor's prison (generalizing, yes), foodstamps and welfare are both government programs so that we don't have millions of people dying in our streets.
Coach done lost his goddamn mind in there.
Right, just wanted to make sure I caught all of the idiocy and didn't miss anything. Thanks!
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The slaves were legally the slave owner's. There's nothing illegal about owning property, the constitution's pursuit of happiness is based in Locke's right to property, and the government's job has always been to protect property.
Of course, it didn't usually turn out very well for the slave's, and if men are all created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inaliable rights, presumably it's the government's responsibilty to protect those to.
That's a real thing, and the choice was made about whose rights took precedent a century and a half ago, but there isn't some individual vs. collective right narrative going on there. Is just the enforcement of a bunch of individuals vs. another bunch of individuals.
You guys are silly.
Slavery was really just about whether the slaves were "men" or not. If they had turned out to be complex automatons, I think things may have gone differently. We still allow ownership of other sentient beings, and if to own one you can put it to work. The problem was entirely that they took people and tried to claim they were not people.
I don't think anyone was seriously trying to claim that individualism equals doing things entirely on your own. When we say someone is a self made man, we do not mean that he literally accomplished everything in his life on his own, just that he was the architect of his success, and used the efforts of other people and the resources society provides to achieve that success. When I. Think individualism vs collectivism in this context, the idea that springs to mind is a small group banding together to strike out for great success based on their own merits and ideas (think startup) vs a community coming together to hold a block party. Both involve people working together, but the former is people working together for individual success (they each want to get rich, and don't neccessarily care about the group as a whole gettin rich) and the latter is people working for the community benefit of having a party that is enjoyed by all. Mark Zuckerberg worked with people to start up Facebook, but would anyone really say he wasn't an individualist looking out for number one?
It's when that privilege extends to things like, say, donating $10 million to a political candidate who is otherwise unelectable because that candidate support's all the donor's pet issues/will get the Justice Department to stop investigating them on corruption charges if they get elected. That's that shitty kind of wealth privilege that gets people fucking pissed. Rightly so, I think.
I agree completely. What you are describing is more a problem of corruption than privlege though. If we institutionalized this behavior by saying "you can buy an end to any investigation into your activities for $1MM," that would be a privlege (and one which seems terrible to me).
No one gives a flying fuck if a rich guy pays for a priority boarding ticket, that'd be like moaning that first class is nicer than coach. People object to the wealthy knowingly or unknowingly (because of privilage and entitlement) rigging the system to get richer at the expense of the poor.
People object to the sort of attitudes that lead a man to say "if you're unemployed just borrow some money from your parents and start a business!" while slashing funding to education and healthcare so they don't have to pay taxes on their vast incomes.
If you think people are pissed at the wealthy because they have nice things you're deluding yourself. People are pissed off at the wealthy because they use their wealth to activly screw over everyone else.
More importantly is the kind of attitude petty privilege can create; the idea that you can use money to get out of things or rig what should be equal opportunity systems for your own ends.
You should probably do some research on this stuff.
Somewhat related is the Citizens United case. You want a case of the collective getting shit on in the name of individualism? I think that fits the bill. You can't throw around nine figure campaign contributions without necessarily shitting on a few collectives here and there. It's a decision that concentrates and amplifies the power of speech for the wealthy few. It essentially makes the money they just had lying around more valuable in a way it simply doesn't for people that will never be able to afford to even hit the $2500 campaign contribution limit in their lifetime. Also encapsulated therein is the concept of corporate personhood, the newest rugged individual on the block, now with 100% more speech!
I'm okay with that.
We said 'slavery', you said 'the Confederacy'.
In your haste to be sarcastic, you may have missed the important fact that those are two different things!
Not really, since we were talking about the Civil War, and the Confederacy was only formed to protect slavery.
So in your haste to prove me wrong you get el zilcho!
You're off waaay base here. What I said had nothing to do with north vs south or the Confederacy. I said that slavery was an example of the potential for bad results from collectivism. You're extrapolating that to suggest I'm making some comment about the civil war, when I'm not. We weren't talking about the civil war anyway... we were talking about examples of how individualism turned out to be oppressive. Slavery was mentioned, and I said "no, I think that's actually an example of the opposite thing".
I don't see how you can argue that slavery was an example of collectivism in the slightest. Just, historically that's incorrect. And you can't talk about slavery in America and pretend you're not also talking about the Civil War.
It's a bad example either way, I don't think it works for rugged individualism or collectivism. It is a good example of the rich protecting a way of life at the expense of the most vulnerable though and doing so by obfuscating and lying to regular people.
What you said conforms to my understanding, except that I have never heard of this idea that privilege can be deliberate. It seems strange to me to attribute a benefit obtained through deliberate activity like a bribe to privilege (this seems to make privilege so broad as to be meaningless), instead of just saying "they bribed someone and received special treatment." If you only have the ability to bribe someone because of your status, that is different.
So please explain where I am going wrong.
Deliberate privilege would be more along the lines of living in Saudi Arabia. Unless I am mistaken. This applies both to the explicit laws governing the actions of women, all the shit associated with being part of a strong controlling monarchy, and I believe they have a whole slew of laws about the rights of certain religious groups.
This is an extreme example of course, privilege can still be considered deliberate even if it is quite so over the top.
You don't see a problem with using money to break a system in a way that benefits you and disadvantages someone else. As in you cannot even concieve of a moral element to it, you think it's just something you can/should do. That's a pretty privilaged attitude.
There is nothing insidious about this though. It seems both trivial and unhelpful to call apartheid privilege, because there is nothing to "expose." The imbalance it right out in the open.
Please tell me what is wrong with the following statement: Privilege is getting out of a speeding ticket because you are white and the cop is too, where a black person would not get out of the ticket. Getting out of a ticket because you bribed the cop (where a white or black man could bribe the cop) is not privilege.
Except that it is privilege, just of a different sort. Think prosperity gospel.
Go do some fucking research Jesus Christ.
And then when people who grew up in the 50s and 60s become CEOs, they've never really known anything but plenty, so they go totally insane and have gigantic egos so have temper tantrums if anyone implies they got anything except by hard work.
Or simple things like not caring that lots of people can't get healthcare because, fuck it, I pay for my own health insurance, why can't everyone else? Or that some people are not able to go to collage because their parents can't afford to bankroll their entire life for four years.
That's real privilage, when you're incapible of seeing how your birth gave you oppertunities other people will never get.
Talk about fucking privilege. And painting the bullshit Zuckerberg has done as the "American Dream" really does not give it a terribly positive image. In your mind, is the American Dream just being a huge fucking asshole? Because that seems to be what most of the people you're citing have done to differentiate themselves from the collectivists.
Yes, and that's almost exactly what poshniallo said immediately after, and I let it go because it seemed a more sensible interpretation - until you jumped in (hours later) with olol Confederacy at me and I had to clarify lest some other bright spark decide to call me a racist. 100% ass covering is my required mode of operation around here.
I really hate this thing where I have to wind back the forum and repeat a tangent for people who arrive late. All the posts are right there, and they're even sorted by date and time.
Oh please, I logged on and check the forum when it was convenient for my schedule, not yours. Sorry.
I also never called you a racist so stop being so fucking sensitive.
You are really bad at this today.
Nope, you responded to bullshit that wasn't in my post or at all what we were talking about. It's not my problem what other chucklefucks come in and say and until it's actually said it's probably best not to address it.
Either take it to PMs or go find a room and hatefuck each other already. Stop cluttering the thread, plzkthx.
See, that's the problem. Because for an increasingly large chunk of society, when they say "self-made man", that is exactly what they mean. That is the entire basis for their retarded romantization of the rugged, bootstrapping individualist. It is something that is clearly stupid if you throw thirty seconds of cogent thought at it, but that's what a big chunk of people are starting to believe.
I think that's because they're taking all that other stuff for granted. Things that have been around for awhile fade into the background regardless of their effect, they don't "count" as help. (See also: Medicare vs. Socialized Medicine)
Which is beautiful in its terrible symmetry.
So much wrong with that video. Bankruptcy, food stamps and welfare are all the government helping out, right? And I didn't miss some of his other idiocy? I really want to make sure I fully understand all the parts of that which are nonsense.
Yes. Bankruptcy law is meant to protect people from being thrown in debtor's prison (generalizing, yes), foodstamps and welfare are both government programs so that we don't have millions of people dying in our streets.
Coach done lost his goddamn mind in there.
The welfare system Craig T Nelson relied on to get him through hard times was drowned in a bathtub by Clinton to appease the right wingers. The US has a shockingly terrible safety net.
Right, just wanted to make sure I caught all of the idiocy and didn't miss anything. Thanks!