The Political & Philosophy Thread
- Thread starter End of Glory
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Saying you have a "fundamental freedom" to arm yourself suggests that the freedom somehow precedes your material existence. Which is to suggest that rights exist as a pre-existent, metaphysical force. It makes more sense, to me, to say that people that simply will defend themselves, it's part of an automatic response.
It doesn't make to glorify that response as a fundamental right, or anything like that. It's just what people do. Glorifying it sets a dangerous precedent. People don't possess natural rights; they're bestowed with rights through their installment in a sociopolitical environment.
A lone man in the wild has no rights. It doesn't even make sense to speak of rights in that scenario, unless you believe in some kind of unseen higher power.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
I reject such a secularist view of fundamental human rights so I guess you might say I fall into the 'higher power' category.
As a lone man in the wild, a scenario which you choose to use here, I would not expect a body of authority so-called to confiscate my spear and boomerang, which can be used to hunt, protect and if need be affirm my right to do the two previously mentioned actions.
I don't believe a sociopolitical environment is required to assert such a fundamental right as self-defense.
As a lone man in the wild, a scenario which you choose to use here, I would not expect a body of authority so-called to confiscate my spear and boomerang, which can be used to hunt, protect and if need be affirm my right to do the two previously mentioned actions.
I don't believe a sociopolitical environment is required to assert such a fundamental right as self-defense.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Fair enough.
I just don't see the need to qualify something as a "right" when it's just something you do, as if by instinct. In this case, it doesn't make sense to restrict rights to human beings, if all that is required is the instinct for survival. Plants have an instinct for survival. So instead of saying that all living things have inalienable rights, I think it makes more sense to say that nothing has rights until those rights are produced by socially reflexive systems.
But that's a secularist for you.
"Rights" have given rise to just about as many problems as have "identity politics."
I just don't see the need to qualify something as a "right" when it's just something you do, as if by instinct. In this case, it doesn't make sense to restrict rights to human beings, if all that is required is the instinct for survival. Plants have an instinct for survival. So instead of saying that all living things have inalienable rights, I think it makes more sense to say that nothing has rights until those rights are produced by socially reflexive systems.
But that's a secularist for you.
"Rights" have given rise to just about as many problems as have "identity politics."
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
Indeed it is a secularist for me!
I would make a distinction between lifeforms that may have an instinct to survival but not an ability to assert it intelligently and lifeforms that have an intelligence with which they may assert a right which goes beyond an instinct.
As we all know not all humans have the same degree of survival instinct. Or at least it would seem so to me, I have many very non-violent friends, extreme pacifism etc.
I would make a distinction between lifeforms that may have an instinct to survival but not an ability to assert it intelligently and lifeforms that have an intelligence with which they may assert a right which goes beyond an instinct.
As we all know not all humans have the same degree of survival instinct. Or at least it would seem so to me, I have many very non-violent friends, extreme pacifism etc.
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Okay, but in that case the most important element for identifying and/or clarifying "rights" isn't actually survival at all, but this reflexive capacity, as you suggest. The capacity to reflect means that one might consider a survival instinct critically, and perhaps even resist it: "I have the right to defend myself through violence, and in this situation it may or may not be necessary." In this case, it's not the survival itself in which we may locate rights, but in the reflection upon survival (and, by extension, reflection upon anything). And biological/neurophysiological studies have brought forth evidence to suggest that reflection, or consciousness, actually inhibits survival instincts because it means that the conscious subject thinks about surviving, which cuts into the instinctual response.
This takes us in a whole new direction of argument. Additionally, at this point we run into a nasty problem of conscious thought: does my consciousness, or reflexivity, actually contain some metaphysical trace of "right" - or (more likely, in my opinion), does it produce the impression of "right"? In other words, is it possible that rights do not actually exist at all to begin with, but that consciousness retrospectively assumes rights to have existed?
Sorry if I pursue this beyond others' interest, but this is a really fascinating subject for me.
This takes us in a whole new direction of argument. Additionally, at this point we run into a nasty problem of conscious thought: does my consciousness, or reflexivity, actually contain some metaphysical trace of "right" - or (more likely, in my opinion), does it produce the impression of "right"? In other words, is it possible that rights do not actually exist at all to begin with, but that consciousness retrospectively assumes rights to have existed?
Sorry if I pursue this beyond others' interest, but this is a really fascinating subject for me.
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CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
I wish I was smart or patient or interested enough to take you down the path of a really interesting discussion on this subject, but actually I'm a pretty basic-minded person, I'm crap at expressing views on the kinds of levels that yourself, Dak and rms participate on.
To your question about whether "rights" exist retrospectively in the human conscience as a means (I assume you imply) to justify violent action or if they exist outside of that scenario in some kind of objective way, hanging in the ether waiting to be wielded, I would say we probably do create the idea of "rights" upon reflection.
I don't think people think to themselves "I have this right" just before they draw on an attacker, I do think people instead justify their actions after the fact with concepts of "rights" like you suggest might be the case.
However, I would say the reason that consciousness gets in the way of survival (because it puts a barrier between animal instinct and action which doesn't exist in the non-human animal kingdom) is because as a human society there are certain cultural factors that cause us to challenge our initial survival instinct, consider the consequences of possibly shooting an intruder (rather than a moral question of murder which I hope I don't imply) and then after the consideration, we assert our right to survive with an action. Sometimes too late as you suggest with your reference to biological/neurophysiological studies.
Now, I would say that these studies don't actually show pure human nature without even needing to read them, but rather civilised human nature because it would be quite hard to study reflection vs reaction and how that comes into play with survival without finding some undisturbed source of people (ie isolated villages somewhere that doesn't have complex laws in place that serve as a barrier for survival instinct) and testing that source.
I would argue that peoples closer in relation to pure human nature have much less retaliation to assert their "right" to survive and I mostly base this view in my experience living in indigenous Australian bush communities.
To your question about whether "rights" exist retrospectively in the human conscience as a means (I assume you imply) to justify violent action or if they exist outside of that scenario in some kind of objective way, hanging in the ether waiting to be wielded, I would say we probably do create the idea of "rights" upon reflection.
I don't think people think to themselves "I have this right" just before they draw on an attacker, I do think people instead justify their actions after the fact with concepts of "rights" like you suggest might be the case.
However, I would say the reason that consciousness gets in the way of survival (because it puts a barrier between animal instinct and action which doesn't exist in the non-human animal kingdom) is because as a human society there are certain cultural factors that cause us to challenge our initial survival instinct, consider the consequences of possibly shooting an intruder (rather than a moral question of murder which I hope I don't imply) and then after the consideration, we assert our right to survive with an action. Sometimes too late as you suggest with your reference to biological/neurophysiological studies.
Now, I would say that these studies don't actually show pure human nature without even needing to read them, but rather civilised human nature because it would be quite hard to study reflection vs reaction and how that comes into play with survival without finding some undisturbed source of people (ie isolated villages somewhere that doesn't have complex laws in place that serve as a barrier for survival instinct) and testing that source.
I would argue that peoples closer in relation to pure human nature have much less retaliation to assert their "right" to survive and I mostly base this view in my experience living in indigenous Australian bush communities.
rms
Active Member
Dak and Ein have been entertaining my low level of philosophical knowledge for many years now
Dak
mentat
I'm pretty sure Ein is going to take the idea of bush people in small villages being any more "pure in human nature" compared with urbanites, to task. I'm personally torn on that issue, because I can see where he's coming from but I do think that the more heavily we modify our environment the more we change.
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CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
Einherjar86
Active Member
Yeah, I feel like there isn't really any kind of human nature, but that's because I'm skeptical of any and all claims to nature in general. But that's a whole other conversation, and one that gets us further away from rights.
Ultimately, and ironically, "nature" is a concept that can only appear after human beings have already begun to augment their relationship to their environment (and I would argue that this kind of augmentation precedes humanity, even - after all, ants use technology). I get wary of descriptors like "natural" or "organic" because I see them as complicit in origin myths. The capacity to identify "nature" actually signals the condition of being separated from nature; it obscures the very thing it purports to illuminate. Even if we can locate indigenous bush people that have no word for "nature," there is no such thing as a place untouched by governmental appropriation.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
That is true, but I was suggesting that the less you see government appropriation, the less you see consciousness getting in the way of survival instincts.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Ah, right. Being completely honest with myself, I can't deny that there seems to be something to that. I'm not well-versed in anthropological studies, so I can't speak to the practices of what we might call pre-modern peoples, but certainly there must be differences in the way they seem themselves relating to their environments (I prefer this term over "nature").
That said, we can still insist that these people do possess consciousness, yes? And it's important to keep in mind that consciousness does not mean that we are conscious of everything about our minds. This is why, for example, studies on the potentially debilitating effects of consciousness were necessary (i.e. we assume that consciousness is a boon to our evolutionary status and survival, but remain unconscious as to how it actually might hinder our survival capacities). Even if aboriginal peoples inhabit places relatively uninterrupted by government or more complex social systems, they still possess some degree of consciousness toward their own existence. So even as an evolutionary achievement, beyond social conditioning or government regulation or what have you, consciousness begins to work against our instinctual behavior without us even knowing it.
This is kind of a mindfuck to think about: basically, "nature," in the form of evolutionary adaptation, actually produces something that separates us from our "nature." The term carries its own semantic deconstruction within it. This is why I resist appeals to nature or origin. In my opinion, it's impossible to really draw the line between, for instance, metropolitan London and Australian bush people and say that one group is "more natural" than the other. Either everything is natural, or nothing is, both of which render the term moot.
That said, we can still insist that these people do possess consciousness, yes? And it's important to keep in mind that consciousness does not mean that we are conscious of everything about our minds. This is why, for example, studies on the potentially debilitating effects of consciousness were necessary (i.e. we assume that consciousness is a boon to our evolutionary status and survival, but remain unconscious as to how it actually might hinder our survival capacities). Even if aboriginal peoples inhabit places relatively uninterrupted by government or more complex social systems, they still possess some degree of consciousness toward their own existence. So even as an evolutionary achievement, beyond social conditioning or government regulation or what have you, consciousness begins to work against our instinctual behavior without us even knowing it.
This is kind of a mindfuck to think about: basically, "nature," in the form of evolutionary adaptation, actually produces something that separates us from our "nature." The term carries its own semantic deconstruction within it. This is why I resist appeals to nature or origin. In my opinion, it's impossible to really draw the line between, for instance, metropolitan London and Australian bush people and say that one group is "more natural" than the other. Either everything is natural, or nothing is, both of which render the term moot.
Jimmy... Dead.
contemplative curmudgeon
Dak
mentat
Is anyone at all interested in serious military discussions (in a separate thread), that is: discussions about capabilities, tactics, strategies, geopolitical developments, etc?
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
This is a more recent interview with Sowell. In response to asking where he would criticise Obama he said it's like being a mosquito in a nudist colony. He says funny shit.
H.P. Lovecraft
Active Member
Sowell is an economic genius, one of the finest of the 20th century and I'm elated he still has the vigor to duke it out intellectually.
