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There's a fair bit of back and forth on it, here's wiki to start it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere

There's a fair bit of back and forth on it, here's wiki to start it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere Most of the criticisms of the ideas of the public/private sphere root back to Aristotle, and unfortunately, Google has elevated more recent, post Marx criticisms of it (imo) since setting it up as an evil is the basis of popular current cultural theory, but it's a foundational concept that predates the view of history as progress. The idea of the private has more relevance today now that it's so rare.

watwut 6y ago
I was responding to this: > The private sphere -- family, close friends, personal intimacy, etc -- is where people are at their best. We can be honest there. We can show weakness, we can apologize, we can compromise and we can forgive. It family where publicly charizmatic people stop trying to be charizmatic and start being abusive. Also, it is not rare, both private part and abuse part went up during lockdowns. Aristotle and Marx have zero to do with it and the way people on HN bring super old classics in completely unrelated context is getting obnoxious.
- leftyted 6y ago
  > Aristotle and Marx have zero to do with it and the way people on HN bring super old classics in completely unrelated context is getting obnoxious. The Greeks are the source for a lot of our language and a lot of how we think about the world. Marx turned much of that upside down. It's fine if you don't agree with the idea of "intellectual heritage" (or the influence of that heritage). But I (and others) do, so clearly we're going to talk about it. It seems, uh, strange to fail to notice Marx's influence in particular given what happened in the 20th century and what continues to happen in China. Furthermore, the idea of the government as an instrument of violence used by the ruling class (which is so common these days, on HN too) is clearly straight out of Marx. > The private sphere is where the most severe abuse happens. Certainly plenty of abuse happens in the private sphere. My original post was hasty. My opinion is more complicated than "everyone is good in private". It's more like, at a certain point, "publicness" becomes a problem. And things that we can do in private (like goodness, love, and hatred) do not work in public. And yet we seem to be reaching for them anyway.
  - watwut 6y ago
    The geeks were not exactly experts in domestic violence and abuse. Not that it did not happened in their world, they did not really cared and victims had little options. The greeks also used goverments as intruments of violence. Quite a lot actually, freedom was reserved for small minority of people. The goverment was used as instrument of violence long before Marx. Fuedalism, whether German or Russian was kept by violence. Maybe the greeks are your source of how you think about world, but dont project it on rest of us when we are talking about abuse of people Greeks generally looked down at.
    - leftyted 6y ago
      This isn't a question of idealizing people who lived thousands of years ago, it's just an observation about how ideas pass through the centuries. Also, philosophers who wrote thousands of years ago are relevant today. It's not like we've answered questions like "what is knowledge?" "what is good?" and so on. I never said that "only since Marx" was the government an instrument of violence owned by the ruling class. I said that idea is a Marxian idea. And it is. Also, I never meant to imply that it's a wrong idea (I think it's wrong, but you don't have to). The fact that you're mouthing ideas from Marx without even realizing it while denying the concept of intellectual heritage is stunning.
      - watwut 6y ago
        I did not mentioned not implied idealization. I said they are irrelevant to topic at hand. Also, I think that you don't really know what Marx actually wrote. Nor do you know much about historical context surrounding Marx. Or Lenin and Stalin for that matter. Makes me think you likely dont have such a deep knowledge of Greeks either. Aristotele is completely irrelevant to topic of domestic violence. So is topic of "what is knowledge". "Mouthing ideas from Marx" is completely absurd mischaracterization of what I wrote. It is more of your manipulative attempt then an argument.
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        I at least have read Marx. The idea that the government is a tool of class warfare is distinctly Marxist, as he's the one that made an argument for why this is. This is why Marx advocates for the State, before it is dissolved, to be put into the control of the proletarian class, the do callee Dictatorship of the Proletariat (which isn't a dictatorship in the common sense of the word). At least from what I read, I don't think that they were arguing that Marx wanted the State to be an instrument of violence, just that he observed that the state was an instrument of violence for the ruling class, and made a good argument for why it would always be unless class itself was abolished. I think that they were referring to this intepretation, which is also compatible with what you said.

watwut 6y ago

I was responding to this: > The private sphere -- family, close friends, personal intimacy, etc -- is where people are at their best. We can be honest there. We can show weakness, we can apologize, we can compromise and we can forgive. It family where publicly charizmatic people stop trying to be charizmatic and start being abusive. Also, it is not rare, both private part and abuse part went up during lockdowns. Aristotle and Marx have zero to do with it and the way people on HN bring super old classics in completely unrelated context is getting obnoxious.

leftyted 6y ago
> Aristotle and Marx have zero to do with it and the way people on HN bring super old classics in completely unrelated context is getting obnoxious. The Greeks are the source for a lot of our language and a lot of how we think about the world. Marx turned much of that upside down. It's fine if you don't agree with the idea of "intellectual heritage" (or the influence of that heritage). But I (and others) do, so clearly we're going to talk about it. It seems, uh, strange to fail to notice Marx's influence in particular given what happened in the 20th century and what continues to happen in China. Furthermore, the idea of the government as an instrument of violence used by the ruling class (which is so common these days, on HN too) is clearly straight out of Marx. > The private sphere is where the most severe abuse happens. Certainly plenty of abuse happens in the private sphere. My original post was hasty. My opinion is more complicated than "everyone is good in private". It's more like, at a certain point, "publicness" becomes a problem. And things that we can do in private (like goodness, love, and hatred) do not work in public. And yet we seem to be reaching for them anyway.
- watwut 6y ago
  The geeks were not exactly experts in domestic violence and abuse. Not that it did not happened in their world, they did not really cared and victims had little options. The greeks also used goverments as intruments of violence. Quite a lot actually, freedom was reserved for small minority of people. The goverment was used as instrument of violence long before Marx. Fuedalism, whether German or Russian was kept by violence. Maybe the greeks are your source of how you think about world, but dont project it on rest of us when we are talking about abuse of people Greeks generally looked down at.
  - leftyted 6y ago
    This isn't a question of idealizing people who lived thousands of years ago, it's just an observation about how ideas pass through the centuries. Also, philosophers who wrote thousands of years ago are relevant today. It's not like we've answered questions like "what is knowledge?" "what is good?" and so on. I never said that "only since Marx" was the government an instrument of violence owned by the ruling class. I said that idea is a Marxian idea. And it is. Also, I never meant to imply that it's a wrong idea (I think it's wrong, but you don't have to). The fact that you're mouthing ideas from Marx without even realizing it while denying the concept of intellectual heritage is stunning.
    - watwut 6y ago
      I did not mentioned not implied idealization. I said they are irrelevant to topic at hand. Also, I think that you don't really know what Marx actually wrote. Nor do you know much about historical context surrounding Marx. Or Lenin and Stalin for that matter. Makes me think you likely dont have such a deep knowledge of Greeks either. Aristotele is completely irrelevant to topic of domestic violence. So is topic of "what is knowledge". "Mouthing ideas from Marx" is completely absurd mischaracterization of what I wrote. It is more of your manipulative attempt then an argument.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        I at least have read Marx. The idea that the government is a tool of class warfare is distinctly Marxist, as he's the one that made an argument for why this is. This is why Marx advocates for the State, before it is dissolved, to be put into the control of the proletarian class, the do callee Dictatorship of the Proletariat (which isn't a dictatorship in the common sense of the word). At least from what I read, I don't think that they were arguing that Marx wanted the State to be an instrument of violence, just that he observed that the state was an instrument of violence for the ruling class, and made a good argument for why it would always be unless class itself was abolished. I think that they were referring to this intepretation, which is also compatible with what you said.