4 ms·

I think we'd all handle difference in capability better if everyone believed that all human beings had something fundamentally in common that made us all equal

by yters 7y ago

I think we'd all handle difference in capability better if everyone believed that all human beings had something fundamentally in common that made us all equal in terms of human rights. The subtext of all the resistance against demonstrating difference in capability is that if some individual or group is more capable, then in our Darwinian might makes right mentality that many seem to subconsciously adopt, those of superior capability must rule tyrannically over those of inferior ability. On the other hand, with a Christian ethic of everyone created in the image of God, and that those with superior ability have the noble duty to serve those of lesser ability, then we would on the contrary seek to discover the full spectrum of human differences and capabilities instead of hiding from it.

dwaltrip 7y ago
This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case. I think it may be possible to develop practices and communities that provide similar benefits without the supernatural baggage, but it will take some work. I've been looking a bit into spiritual naturalism lately (and related groups), but it seems it is still quite early days for these movements.
- yters 7y ago
  I liken it to the law of gravity: everyone falls down cliffs whether they believe in gravity or not. Similarly with the Christian ethic: it'll work regardless of whether everyone believes the underlying rationale. In fact, that is what happened in the West, its social construct is based on the Christian ethic, and continues to function despite most of the West no longer believing the underlying reason.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    Ah ok, yeah I'm game with importing values and perspectives, which as you state has already happened to a certain degree. It is a non-trivial process through, and I do believe we need to build up a new shared foundation, supporting layer, rituals, etc. that don't have the supernatural baggage.
    - yters 7y ago
      It isn't possible without the 'supernatural baggage'. You need a basis for why humans are different, but if everything reduces to natural processes humans are fundamentally the same thing as everything else.
- jariel 7y ago
  "This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case" Just past 1/2 of the world's population believe in the 'Abrahamic God'. [1] I think it would be a total misinterpretation of spirituality to put it in terms of 'god is real/not real'. Even within Abrahamic faiths, at the end of the day, God is generally 'unknowable' and these ideas of God being 'a guy up in the clouds' are borderline heresy. Point being: the Abrahamic 'God' is a concept, not a 'dude', and it shares a lot in common with other spiritual foundations. The developing morality in humanity may be a function of some greater purpose/force/unknowable power that the Abrahamic God alludes to, and possibly shares with other metaphysical ideals and religions, which provides us the basis for a Spiritual version of equality referenced by the OP. I would argue this is really important, because as we move into the age of materialism and individualism, it's going to get ever harder to justify general artefacts of morality and kindness. We are losing a lot of common ground that we used to take for granted at least in the belief we were all 'Children of God' so to speak. I believe the social implications of our current secularism is quite profound, in some ways good, but in some ways bad. The article presents of foundational data to probably what many of us already knew; I don't suggest there's going to be a problem if we just try to act like adults about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
oconnor663 7y ago
> in our Darwinian might makes right mentality that many seem to subconsciously adopt, those of superior capability must rule tyrannically over those of inferior ability. I think a less extreme version of this might be that people can simply pretend that one thing is the other thing. One class dominating another class through violence and exploitation, would have a big incentive to hide behind the "no exploitation here, this is just a different in capabilities situation" defense. Arguably a lot of past exploitation has involved exactly that kind of rhetoric.
- yters 7y ago
  Fantastic point! Yes, I believe that is exactly what is happening with Darwinian racism: one group exploiting and dominating others is hidden with a scientificish veneer. Very much a Plato's 'nobel lie' thing going on, similar to the mythology justifying the Vedic caste system. Darwinian racism is just a modern caste myth to justify exploitation. It reminds me of a kid when I was younger who would steal from us and then consider himself smart for taking advantage of other people foolish enough to trust him. Arguably the same has happened with the Caucasian race in recent history: they took advantage of a bunch of less technically advanced people groups, and then justified it with the Darwinian racial myth, since after all they were smart enough to justify their exploitation with such a sophisticated myth, thus proving the myth correct.
jrs95 7y ago
What’s the difference between the superior serving the inferior and ruling over them tyrannically as you’ve described? It’s very easy to exert power over someone and justify it by saying they’re better off that way. The reality might just be that people with power tend to use it, and regardless of the morality of any given culture that will ultimately still be the case.
- yters 7y ago
  Service means you as the superior recognize everyone has an inherent moral and rational free will with which they make their own decisions. Your primary role is to serve as an advisor, like how the president is the ultimate decision maker, but surrounded by a company of experts. Or, serve as a keeper of peace and safety, protecting the average citizen from evil doers through enforcing the just law that applies to all equally, including the law enforcers. Both of the above are very different than the benevolent ubermensch you describe, which assumes those of lesser abilities are inferior beings, like pets, which can be coddled and provide entertainment, but ultimately are lower down on the totem pole, like a Rick and Morty dynamic. What you describe is Aristotle's concept: that some humans are inherently the tools of superior humans. The Christian concept flips that on its head: the more talented humans should voluntarily serve as tools for the less capable. On a practical ground, this is the optimal social structure on pragmatic grounds. If the Christian Imago Dei concept is correct, then all human beings have an inherent information creation capability possessed by nothing else in the world. Information creation is what powers the prosperity of a society, and thus the most prosperous society is the one that maximizes the ability of all to create information, as opposed to just optimizing things for a small elite.
mrandish 7y ago
> then in our Darwinian might makes right mentality that many seem to subconsciously adopt, those of superior capability must rule tyrannically over those of inferior ability. This is not the cause of prejudice you may assume it is. Two reasons: 1. Many people can separate the idea of statistical traits falling on a population-wide bell curve from it having any relevance to any individual within that population. 2. Prejudiced idiots will continue to be prejudiced idiots with or without such data. Regardless, the data is what it is. Pretending it isn't won't fix anything and trying to supress it won't work either. "Equality through obscurity" will fall for the same reasons "Security through obscurity" fails. Your comment re "Christian ethic" is so bizarre I'm not even going to address it. People can and do have equal rights despite having different traits. Every human is born with innate value and natural rights separate from any individualized traits.
- yters 7y ago
  Within the standard evolutionary worldview, where humans are just part of a continuum of life stretching back to lifeless chemicals in a primal ooze, there is no logical basis for inherent human rights. Any such rights can only at best be a pragmatic social construct to be discarded on a whim. At any rate, it sounds like you are unaware of the history of your culture.
  - naasking 7y ago
    This is likely a category error. Natural facts don't necessarily have anything to do with moral facts. There are plenty of non-naturalistic arguments for natural rights.
    - yters 7y ago
      There at least has to be something ontologically different between humans and other creatures for humans to have special status. But everything in naturalism is just reducible to physical laws, so everything is ontologically equivalent. Can't have a moral order with monism, since you need multiple things to have an order.
jamesrcole 7y ago
> our Darwinian might makes right mentality Natural Selection is, roughly speaking, about changes to genes that help propagate those changes. There’s no normative element to it.
- yters 7y ago
  Normativeness is attached to equivalence between fittest and ontologically best. At any rate, we think we're better than cockroaches, so whatever makes humans better than cockroaches makes one individual better than another individual. There doesn't have to be anything objective about this moral view. It is the logic of the subjective preferences of sentient evolved creatures.
  - jamesrcole 7y ago
    This has nothing to do with Natural Selection itself. It's incorrect to say this is "Darwinian"
    - yters 7y ago
      Natural selection supposedly gave us the traits that make us think we're better than cockroaches.

by yters 7y ago

dwaltrip 7y ago

This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case. I think it may be possible to develop practices and communities that provide similar benefits without the supernatural baggage, but it will take some work. I've been looking a bit into spiritual naturalism lately (and related groups), but it seems it is still quite early days for these movements.

yters 7y ago
I liken it to the law of gravity: everyone falls down cliffs whether they believe in gravity or not. Similarly with the Christian ethic: it'll work regardless of whether everyone believes the underlying rationale. In fact, that is what happened in the West, its social construct is based on the Christian ethic, and continues to function despite most of the West no longer believing the underlying reason.
- dwaltrip 7y ago
  Ah ok, yeah I'm game with importing values and perspectives, which as you state has already happened to a certain degree. It is a non-trivial process through, and I do believe we need to build up a new shared foundation, supporting layer, rituals, etc. that don't have the supernatural baggage.
  - yters 7y ago
    It isn't possible without the 'supernatural baggage'. You need a basis for why humans are different, but if everything reduces to natural processes humans are fundamentally the same thing as everything else.
jariel 7y ago
"This only works if the Christian god is real, which the majority of the world finds not to be the case" Just past 1/2 of the world's population believe in the 'Abrahamic God'. [1] I think it would be a total misinterpretation of spirituality to put it in terms of 'god is real/not real'. Even within Abrahamic faiths, at the end of the day, God is generally 'unknowable' and these ideas of God being 'a guy up in the clouds' are borderline heresy. Point being: the Abrahamic 'God' is a concept, not a 'dude', and it shares a lot in common with other spiritual foundations. The developing morality in humanity may be a function of some greater purpose/force/unknowable power that the Abrahamic God alludes to, and possibly shares with other metaphysical ideals and religions, which provides us the basis for a Spiritual version of equality referenced by the OP. I would argue this is really important, because as we move into the age of materialism and individualism, it's going to get ever harder to justify general artefacts of morality and kindness. We are losing a lot of common ground that we used to take for granted at least in the belief we were all 'Children of God' so to speak. I believe the social implications of our current secularism is quite profound, in some ways good, but in some ways bad. The article presents of foundational data to probably what many of us already knew; I don't suggest there's going to be a problem if we just try to act like adults about it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

oconnor663 7y ago

> in our Darwinian might makes right mentality that many seem to subconsciously adopt, those of superior capability must rule tyrannically over those of inferior ability. I think a less extreme version of this might be that people can simply pretend that one thing is the other thing. One class dominating another class through violence and exploitation, would have a big incentive to hide behind the "no exploitation here, this is just a different in capabilities situation" defense. Arguably a lot of past exploitation has involved exactly that kind of rhetoric.

yters 7y ago
Fantastic point! Yes, I believe that is exactly what is happening with Darwinian racism: one group exploiting and dominating others is hidden with a scientificish veneer. Very much a Plato's 'nobel lie' thing going on, similar to the mythology justifying the Vedic caste system. Darwinian racism is just a modern caste myth to justify exploitation. It reminds me of a kid when I was younger who would steal from us and then consider himself smart for taking advantage of other people foolish enough to trust him. Arguably the same has happened with the Caucasian race in recent history: they took advantage of a bunch of less technically advanced people groups, and then justified it with the Darwinian racial myth, since after all they were smart enough to justify their exploitation with such a sophisticated myth, thus proving the myth correct.

jrs95 7y ago

What’s the difference between the superior serving the inferior and ruling over them tyrannically as you’ve described? It’s very easy to exert power over someone and justify it by saying they’re better off that way. The reality might just be that people with power tend to use it, and regardless of the morality of any given culture that will ultimately still be the case.

yters 7y ago
Service means you as the superior recognize everyone has an inherent moral and rational free will with which they make their own decisions. Your primary role is to serve as an advisor, like how the president is the ultimate decision maker, but surrounded by a company of experts. Or, serve as a keeper of peace and safety, protecting the average citizen from evil doers through enforcing the just law that applies to all equally, including the law enforcers. Both of the above are very different than the benevolent ubermensch you describe, which assumes those of lesser abilities are inferior beings, like pets, which can be coddled and provide entertainment, but ultimately are lower down on the totem pole, like a Rick and Morty dynamic. What you describe is Aristotle's concept: that some humans are inherently the tools of superior humans. The Christian concept flips that on its head: the more talented humans should voluntarily serve as tools for the less capable. On a practical ground, this is the optimal social structure on pragmatic grounds. If the Christian Imago Dei concept is correct, then all human beings have an inherent information creation capability possessed by nothing else in the world. Information creation is what powers the prosperity of a society, and thus the most prosperous society is the one that maximizes the ability of all to create information, as opposed to just optimizing things for a small elite.

mrandish 7y ago

> then in our Darwinian might makes right mentality that many seem to subconsciously adopt, those of superior capability must rule tyrannically over those of inferior ability. This is not the cause of prejudice you may assume it is. Two reasons: 1. Many people can separate the idea of statistical traits falling on a population-wide bell curve from it having any relevance to any individual within that population. 2. Prejudiced idiots will continue to be prejudiced idiots with or without such data. Regardless, the data is what it is. Pretending it isn't won't fix anything and trying to supress it won't work either. "Equality through obscurity" will fall for the same reasons "Security through obscurity" fails. Your comment re "Christian ethic" is so bizarre I'm not even going to address it. People can and do have equal rights despite having different traits. Every human is born with innate value and natural rights separate from any individualized traits.

yters 7y ago
Within the standard evolutionary worldview, where humans are just part of a continuum of life stretching back to lifeless chemicals in a primal ooze, there is no logical basis for inherent human rights. Any such rights can only at best be a pragmatic social construct to be discarded on a whim. At any rate, it sounds like you are unaware of the history of your culture.
- naasking 7y ago
  This is likely a category error. Natural facts don't necessarily have anything to do with moral facts. There are plenty of non-naturalistic arguments for natural rights.
  - yters 7y ago
    There at least has to be something ontologically different between humans and other creatures for humans to have special status. But everything in naturalism is just reducible to physical laws, so everything is ontologically equivalent. Can't have a moral order with monism, since you need multiple things to have an order.

jamesrcole 7y ago

> our Darwinian might makes right mentality Natural Selection is, roughly speaking, about changes to genes that help propagate those changes. There’s no normative element to it.

yters 7y ago
Normativeness is attached to equivalence between fittest and ontologically best. At any rate, we think we're better than cockroaches, so whatever makes humans better than cockroaches makes one individual better than another individual. There doesn't have to be anything objective about this moral view. It is the logic of the subjective preferences of sentient evolved creatures.
- jamesrcole 7y ago
  This has nothing to do with Natural Selection itself. It's incorrect to say this is "Darwinian"
  - yters 7y ago
    Natural selection supposedly gave us the traits that make us think we're better than cockroaches.