When will modern Western morality end?

[Typh0n]

Well, I wouldn't even say the USA really has "equal values" yet.

It needs to be pointed out there two kinds of equality, when people in the US or even Europe speak of "eqality"; there is equal rights and then there is equal status. Unless the US converts to communism or socialism there will never be equal status, but there is(at least on paper ) a strving for everyone to have equal rights. Equal rights is having the same oppurtinity for education, jobs, etc, leading to an inequal distribution of titles, wealth, and resources. Social inequality is a product of unequal intelligence, capacity, work ethic, and motivation, just as much as it is a product of discrimintion against minorities.

"Equality" is, if you ask me, pretty much a fanstasy and daydream. We can strive for equal rights, and Im all for that, because fair is fair, but this shouldnt be confused with what socialists call "equality".

 

[zago]

At the same time, what makes people happy is pretty much often the same thing

This is where I would differ (but I agreed about the individual basis). What makes people happy is vastly different. I like to sit at home and read about science and history. Some people like to travel. Some people pour their hearts into their careers. Some people like to go clubbing. Etc.

This is partly why, objectively, a Western system of freedom and equality is BETTER than one of slavery or whatever. Once you choose an appropriate metric, which I have taken the liberty to do (happiness), it's pretty simple. The metric is what makes this objective. That's why I said in my previous post that the only necessary assumption to this was that suffering is bad and happiness is good.

To say those aren't "good" ideals is to be willfully ignorant. It is to take the perspective of a rock, dead matter. If you think there is more truth to that, you might be right in a certain sense, but in that case the truth has utterly no value. So again - why even bother?

 

[Magic Poriferan]

It seems odd that you are looking to an end to morality as we know it in terms of relatively recent developments being repealed, so to speak. That's not usually how it goes. Morality will be different in the future, but history suggests to me that what will happen is that some things we consider long-standing, normal behavior will be considered abhorrent or crude.

Here are some examples.

Eating meat.
Having a child incidentally.
Nationalism.
Gender roles.
Being religious (for a really Richard Dawkins sort of future).
Inheriting wealth.
Physically dangerous sports.
Denying some set of "intelligent" animals (like apes or cetaceans) autonomy.


You have to think outside of the box. You have to think of something that would seem totally radical to believe right now, because the things we believe right now were radical once. I think humans push ahead into new territory at a faster rate than they retread their steps.

 

[Rasofy]

All we need is a big big crisis, which would lead a shitload of people to believe in a communism of sorts as a solution.

Then a bunch of caviar-leftists would be elected and fuck up all the rights people take for granted.

 

[Alea_iacta_est]

All we need is a big big crisis, which would lead a shitload of people to believe in a communism of sorts as a solution.

Then a bunch of caviar-leftists would be elected and fuck up all the rights people take for granted.

This'll do for a plan XD: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-Communism

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It seems odd that you are looking to an end to morality as we know it in terms of relatively recent developments being repealed, so to speak. That's not usually how it goes. Morality will be different in the future, but history suggests to me that what will happen is that some things we consider long-standing, normal behavior will be considered abhorrent or crude.

Here are some examples.

Eating meat.

I thought of this, too. If we could create meat in labs that tasted exactly like lamb or pork, I would be ok with this. Apparently they're getting closer with this.

Physically dangerous sports.

Not sure that I see this, happening though. Do you mean sports with a full contact, aggressive element, like rugby, football, boxing? There are a lot of other sports that don't fall under that category that could be said to be physically dangerous. Actually, I'm not sure that there are many sports that could really not be considered dangerous, except stuff like tiddlywinks. A few baseball players have died by getting hit by a pitch. That's why they wear those hard helmets nowadays.

Denying some set of "intelligent" animals (like apes or cetaceans) autonomy.


You have to think outside of the box. You have to think of something that would seem totally radical to believe right now, because the things we believe right now were radical once. I think humans push ahead into new territory at a faster rate than they retread their steps.

Morality bugs me, because I like to think of it as universal, but then, I know, for instance, what one of the first blockbuster films was.


Also there's the problem of the unconscious which fucks up moral issues a lot too.

 

[Totenkindly]

It needs to be pointed out there two kinds of equality, when people in the US or even Europe speak of "eqality"; there is equal rights and then there is equal status. Unless the US converts to communism or socialism there will never be equal status, but there is(at least on paper ) a strving for everyone to have equal rights.

Implementation of ideals, not "ideals on paper," is what counts IMO.

Equal rights is having the same oppurtinity for education, jobs, etc, leading to an inequal distribution of titles, wealth, and resources. Social inequality is a product of unequal intelligence, capacity, work ethic, and motivation, just as much as it is a product of discrimintion against minorities.

Why would we be arguing about the former? Obviously if people aren't investing in their own success, then it's not inequality, it's laziness.

I'm discussing the latter -- the cases of actual inequality, and the way the system is set up to promote rights and opportunities for some above the rights and opportunities of others. (Well, actually I was discussing how conservative and traditional US values still actually are, with its ideals of which groups have more right to control power and influence within the social and political structure, in contrast to the OP somehow trying to suggest that the present values were already laws of the land... which they really aren't. How can those values so quickly go out of vogue when they are not even the established values of the culture yet?)

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Not sure that I see this, happening though. Do you mean sports with a full contact, aggressive element, like rugby, football, boxing? There are a lot of other sports that don't fall under that category that could be said to be physically dangerous. Actually, I'm not sure that there are many sports that could really not be considered dangerous, except stuff like tiddlywinks. A few baseball players have died by getting hit by a pitch. That's why they wear those hard helmets nowadays.

Those are the kinds of problems that plague any moral position. But I was thinking of violent sports like boxing and MMA, even though you actually run a higher risk of injury in football. Maybe a lot of X-treme sort of sports, too.

I think the only thing I listed that I'm sure will happen is that people will look back on nationalism as wrongheaded, in much the same way we look at nobility or colonialism (which, ironically, nationalism did so much to destroy). But that's why I am sure of it. That is how it goes with polities. There's always some flavor in one epoch getting shoved aside by the one in the coming epoch, and the previous epoch's polities are always seen as obviously horrible.

 

[Hawbawbowba]

It could end after a number of factors or pressures makes it end. Like Rome.

I don't think they are good ideals and they assume/ignore a whole lot. They just sound nice.

Slavery can be manifested in different ways but picking cotton isn't coming back. Colonialism has never ended.

It may sound unrelated but if enough people can find a means to opt out and not pay into the society (such as internet alternatives/currencies and clever agorism) then it could definately fracture the size and influence of the empire. There are think tanks among global elites in regards to citizens' potential for self sufficiency (think alternative fuels and food making) as well as internet control under the guise of copyright law protection, neither of which appreciate individual freedom.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It could end after a number of factors or pressures makes it end. Like Rome.

I don't think they are good ideals and they assume/ignore a whole lot. They just sound nice.

Slavery can be manifested in different ways but picking cotton isn't coming back. Colonialism has never ended.

It may sound unrelated but if enough people can find a means to opt out and not pay into the society (such as internet alternatives/currencies and clever agorism) then it could definately fracture the size and influence of the empire. There are think tanks among global elites in regards to citizens' potential for self sufficiency (think alternative fuels and food making) as well as internet control under the guise of copyright law protection, neither of which appreciate individual freedom.

The day is coming soon when we won't need jobs and can just get rich off of competitive StarCraft. Take that, NWO!

 

[inventor]

- Social equality
- Human rights
- Social liberalism
- Liberal democracy

.

I don't think we believe in any of those things, we just give a good show.

 

[Hawbawbowba]

The day is coming soon when we won't need jobs and can just get rich off of competitive StarCraft. Take that, NWO!

I'm not sure but I think you are teasing me. Anyway, it's either a) government clamps down on the internet or b) people using the internet can limit government participation (by some degree or another).

 

[zago]

The case could definitely made that slavery is still dominant today, we just call it something else. There are different levels of slavery.

 

[danseen]

It seems odd that you are looking to an end to morality as we know it in terms of relatively recent developments being repealed, so to speak. That's not usually how it goes. Morality will be different in the future, but history suggests to me that what will happen is that some things we consider long-standing, normal behavior will be considered abhorrent or crude.

Here are some examples.

Eating meat.
Having a child incidentally.
Nationalism.
Gender roles.
Being religious (for a really Richard Dawkins sort of future).
Inheriting wealth.
Physically dangerous sports.
Denying some set of "intelligent" animals (like apes or cetaceans) autonomy.


You have to think outside of the box. You have to think of something that would seem totally radical to believe right now, because the things we believe right now were radical once. I think humans push ahead into new territory at a faster rate than they retread their steps.

I'd think that the Enlightenment led to our current value system. Without that, we wouldn't even have social equality as we know it.

 

[danseen]

Science is subjective? When I let go of a ball, it doesn't particularly matter what my opinion is, does it? The ball falls.

Subjective things are subjective. Objective things are objective. Go take a cold shower. You need to wake up.



Why believe in anything if you think everything is subjective?

yes, so human neurology, the fact people are born into different circumstances, etc. doesn't lend to individual views of the universe?

 

[danseen]

You're right I didn't. Your response made very little sense. Were you actually asking why social values can't return to those of the 18th century?

Yes.

 

[danseen]

Isnt this an objectivistic satement?

yes, it is. But it doesn't invalidate subjectivity.

 

[zago]

yes, so human neurology, the fact people are born into different circumstances, etc. doesn't lend to individual views of the universe?

No, not very much, for several reasons:

1. A proton is for me what it is for an ancient Aztec. Physics transcends culture. So does rationality and critical thinking. A particularly smart Aztec could have questioned the significance of human sacrifice, even though he was cultured within it. Etc.
2. All human societies have shared a number of universals that is not hard to find via google search.
3. Whatever a human's "conceptual scheme" is isn't particularly relevant, but rather somewhat superficial. Happiness is happiness (biologically) regardless of the "about" behind it. That's deep similarity.

 

[Mole]

It's not when will Western values of freedom and equality end, it is where do Western values end?

The answer is pretty clear.

They end at tribalism, they end at China, they end in Islam, they end at every dictatorship.

Western values have no place in the tribal conflicts of Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, the Central African Republic.

The Western value of equality comes to an end in China, although the Chinese have adopted the Western value of economic freedom.

And Western values come an end in Islam when 57 Islamic States of the Organisation of Islamic Co-0peration (OIC) publicly rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in favour of Sharia.

And of course Western values come to an end in every tinpot dictatorship.

However Western values are spreading, and there has never been so many democratic States as exist today.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

I'd think that the Enlightenment led to our current value system. Without that, we wouldn't even have social equality as we know it.

The enlightenment, if anything, made racism stronger than it ever was before, so I can't say equality entirely came from that.

But anyhow, it's not the whole picture. Morals do not fall into a before and after enlightenment box. There are constantly changes going on, with some variation in the speed, but the enlightenment wasn't the only burst of radical thinking in history.