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I can think the status quo sucks and that proposed attitudes and alternatives suck too. Seeing a lack of acceptable options doesn't mean I am supporting any of

I can think the status quo sucks and that proposed attitudes and alternatives suck too. Seeing a lack of acceptable options doesn't mean I am supporting any of them. That is a false choice. And, besides, maybe I am addressing the same problems in another way, it's just not apparent given the false choice framing. For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. And maybe it's none of your business how that's going so far.

krapp 6y ago
> For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. ... that would mean you found an acceptable option. Whereas if you were against racism, but never bothered to do anything about it, then you would be implicitly supporting the status quo. Support goes beyond simple ideology. It includes social pressure, enforcing or reinforcing cultural norms and systems of privilege, even where and how you spend your money.
jacobr1 6y ago
I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about the empirical evidence of a few (important) policies or disagree about about a few key moral values (or tradeoffs between values) it is that we are no working from the same moral frameworks. We are finally seeing the legacy of postmodernism becoming mainstream and it doesn't operate from the same assumptions that were crafted in the enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment values still dominate background presumptions for meta-ethical discussions, but this is why you see references to religion in this thread, the aesthetics of the discourse have many similarities.

krapp 6y ago

> For instance, maybe I think fighting racism through political confrontation and segregation is a dead end, so I am fighting racism on a local or personal level. ... that would mean you found an acceptable option. Whereas if you were against racism, but never bothered to do anything about it, then you would be implicitly supporting the status quo. Support goes beyond simple ideology. It includes social pressure, enforcing or reinforcing cultural norms and systems of privilege, even where and how you spend your money.

jacobr1 6y ago

I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about the empirical evidence of a few (important) policies or disagree about about a few key moral values (or tradeoffs between values) it is that we are no working from the same moral frameworks. We are finally seeing the legacy of postmodernism becoming mainstream and it doesn't operate from the same assumptions that were crafted in the enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment values still dominate background presumptions for meta-ethical discussions, but this is why you see references to religion in this thread, the aesthetics of the discourse have many similarities.