9 ms·

> I read a book once which argued that the problem with modern political discourse is it pits the "I don't want things taken from me" (liberty!) people against

by panic 5y ago

> I read a book once which argued that the problem with modern political discourse is it pits the "I don't want things taken from me" (liberty!) people against the "XYZ is a human right" (entitlement!) people. And that a better way to frame the cultural argument is "XYZ is my responsibility to society." I don’t know if it’s the book he’s talking about, but Simone Weil makes this argument in the beginning of The Need for Roots[+]—that the correct way to think about our relationship to society isn’t “rights” (someone else’s problem) but obligations (our problem). [+] https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/need-roots.pdf https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/need-r...

a9h74j 5y ago
I don't recall which of Simone Weil's works this is from, but in terms of suggesting the ineffectiveness of rights, she presented this dialog of one person pleading with a much more powerful one: Pleading: But sir, you must respect my rights. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.
- stavros 5y ago
  How is an "obligation" not the exact same thing as a "right", just from the other person's perspective? Pleading: But, sir, you must fulfill your obligations. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.
  - stock_toaster 5y ago
    I think the whole point is that it is from the other perspective (they are "jural corelative"?)[1]. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelative
  - hdjrudni 5y ago
    You didn't flip the dialogue, you just substituted different words. Replier: I should fulfill my obligations to society. Pleader: le suffering Replier: Ya..I should really do that now. It's my duty. That's the difference, the perspective. You aren't asking someone to fulfill their obligations, people are taking it upon themselves because the mindset has shifted. It's now upon you to do the right thing, not hand-wave say "you have rights..but it's someone else's job to realize them"
    - stavros 5y ago
      That's not inherent to the word "obligation" any more than saying "I must do this, it is your right". It's fine as a concept, but saying "instead of talking about rights, we should talk about obligations" doesn't clarify anything, because my right is simultaneously your obligation.
      - lostcolony 5y ago
        Right, but in so doing you're also switching the grammatical subject. The original statement assumes the same subject, moving from rights -> obligations implies a different meaning. I.e., when speaking of myself, "my rights" vs "my obligations" are very different things. Likewise when speaking of society, "our rights" vs "our obligations" also lead to a different dialog. The onus is on what we owe to others, rather than what we are owed, even though such a contract necessarily implies both.
        DarylZero 5y ago
        Yeah, that makes sense in egalitarian societies, but in real world societies, it means the slaves aren't allowed a voice.
        stavros 5y ago
        That's exactly my point: Changing the word that's used doesn't matter, what matters is getting people to think of others instead of themselves.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  There aren't any fundamental rights which require someone else to provide them to you. For example, your right to free speech does not oblige others to provide a platform for you. Now, "rights" can be created by law, but those are a different meaning of the word. A more apt word would be one of "privilege", "license", "obligation" or "power". For example, it is often said that the President has the right to veto legislation. No, he doesn't. He has the power to veto legislation. The words right, privilege, license, obligation, and power are probably the most misused words in the English language.
  - arminiusreturns 5y ago
    What Ive noticed on this topic as a staunch proponent of individual rights from their enlightenment and renaissance roots is that far too many people pontificating on this subject don't even know the difference between a negative right and a positive right, nor do they understand the perils and antithetical nature of collective rights.
    - forgatmigej 5y ago
      The right to be ignorant is a negative right - which might be why it is so well spread and used :)
  - notriddle 5y ago
    Your post isn't really an argument. It's just contradiction. The whole point of calling rights "ineffective" is to say that this idea of fundamental rights that other people aren't obligated to provide to you has no utility. Your definition doesn't really contain any evidence to the contrary.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > The whole point of calling rights "ineffective" I never wrote that. I welcome you addressing what I did write.
      - 5y ago
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Doesn't that cut both ways? Pleading: But sir, you must respect my laws. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.
  - didibus 5y ago
    Exactly, people are missing that rights and laws are an agreed upon arrangement to find a set of compromise for everyone to live together happily, which results in stability and often overall growth in economy, invention, social enjoyment and entertainment, etc. You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat. There is no longer any plot of land anywhere that is not owned by someone else. Think of those plot of land as plates. One who doesn't own any of it is hungry, you tell them to get their own food, but they can't take from any of the plates of anyone else, so you can't use any land to try and get your food from. Now this person tells those who have all the food, hey I have the right to food as well, and people say, I don't think that's a necessity, well why is your right to your land and your plates of food a necessity as well? You can't have it both ways. If you want to have the right to own the plates of food, you must also provide food to others somehow, because you've taken up all of the abilities to get food from others.
    - pas 5y ago
      > You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat. You can, and a lot of people do say this. And it was said many times in history, and ... people were maimed for it regularly. (And every day we get the reports, pictures, videos about people inside a fence saying that those who are outside should just go and try their luck somewhere else.) The whole point is that wordgames are not going to get us the desired utopistic society where people feel that obligation to act to uphold others' rights in accordance to their power/ability for doing so. It needs a culture that cherishes this, enforces this, perpetuates this. In essence we need a control loop that keeps society on track, and this system has to be aware of all the usual problems (the optimal set-point of intolerance of intolerance, top-down systems tend to consolidate power, bottom-up systems can easily oppress minorities, political arbitrage of resources for favors is an ever present problem, and so on).
- bendbro 5y ago
  That seems like a bad example. In modern society rights are generally enforced by the support of the population via some judicial (or extra-judicial) system.
kortilla 5y ago
That’s pretty lazy thinking. Those are the same things. Your “rights” are everyone’s “obligations”.
sophiebits 5y ago
From the post's author, the mentioned book is: > The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier. There are a lot of insights in there but beware that the writing is kinda problematic in some ways, so it doesn’t get my full endorsement. https://twitter.com/apenwarr/status/1476590932619567104 https://twitter.com/apenwarr/status/1476590932619567104
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
didibus 5y ago
I like this: > Sometimes liberty is differentiated from freedom by using the word "freedom" primarily, if not exclusively, to mean the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; and using the word "liberty" to mean the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all involved It's from Wikipedia, and it implies this is the modern take of the definition. I think it's how I think of it as well. So it is neither of the two you mentioned, but a combination of them with the focus being the balance between them. Liberty would assume all have rights they are entitled too, and that none shall arbitrarily restrict ones ability to do as they please, where non-arbitrary is defined as not restricting of other's rights. I don't think it really puts people against each other. Some people simply disagree with liberty and favor freedom instead. Which would mean, some people want to be free to do whatever their power allows them too. You can think of it as whatever I can get away with because I'm more powerful. It would mean if I'm stronger I can strongman my way into doing more things, same if I'm richer, more influence, etc. Fundamentally it's a disagreement with your objective. If you don't accept that the less powerful still deserve certain rights, or that power should not dictate rights and restraints, there's no amount of discourse to be had, you will be optimizing for different outcomes. I also find the framing of rights as someone else's problem misleading. It is not someone else's problem, oftentimes it is because of restraints society imposes, the other person's problem is due to their restraint on other people's rights. For example, that I can't just walk in your house and sleep in your empty bedrooms as I please, and eat the food sitting idle in your fridge, or build myself a cabin using wood from your trees and on your land, those are all restraints society is imposing on me. So if I'm now homeless and without a job, I cannot just do these things to provide for myself shelter and food. But if you believe everyone has the right to shelter and food, and you are restraining my ability to get them as such, you need to offer an alternative, it isn't entitlement, it's the trade for accepting the restraints being pushed on me. For me, it's the fundamental agreement, you accept the restraints from laws in exchange for rights. If the rights don't come, you're not getting your side of the deal. Now off course people can impose restraints with power instead, and that's almost always what used to happen and still to a large extent does today, but at least we seem to try harder today to be just.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
> the correct way to think about our relationship to society This right here is the problem. I'm very familiar with Simone Weil's ideas, and also the criticisms. Her entire philosophy can be reduced to "Ubuntu": We are who we are, because of who we all are. The problem is that this doesn't follow with a free society. Or individual liberties. It's basically that the "individual freedom" is reduced to the lowest common denominator of what the society will comfortably tolerate. And that, by definition, is tyranny.

by panic 5y ago

a9h74j 5y ago

I don't recall which of Simone Weil's works this is from, but in terms of suggesting the ineffectiveness of rights, she presented this dialog of one person pleading with a much more powerful one: Pleading: But sir, you must respect my rights. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.

stavros 5y ago
How is an "obligation" not the exact same thing as a "right", just from the other person's perspective? Pleading: But, sir, you must fulfill your obligations. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.
- stock_toaster 5y ago
  I think the whole point is that it is from the other perspective (they are "jural corelative"?)[1]. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noblesse_oblige [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corelative
- hdjrudni 5y ago
  You didn't flip the dialogue, you just substituted different words. Replier: I should fulfill my obligations to society. Pleader: le suffering Replier: Ya..I should really do that now. It's my duty. That's the difference, the perspective. You aren't asking someone to fulfill their obligations, people are taking it upon themselves because the mindset has shifted. It's now upon you to do the right thing, not hand-wave say "you have rights..but it's someone else's job to realize them"
  - stavros 5y ago
    That's not inherent to the word "obligation" any more than saying "I must do this, it is your right". It's fine as a concept, but saying "instead of talking about rights, we should talk about obligations" doesn't clarify anything, because my right is simultaneously your obligation.
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      Right, but in so doing you're also switching the grammatical subject. The original statement assumes the same subject, moving from rights -> obligations implies a different meaning. I.e., when speaking of myself, "my rights" vs "my obligations" are very different things. Likewise when speaking of society, "our rights" vs "our obligations" also lead to a different dialog. The onus is on what we owe to others, rather than what we are owed, even though such a contract necessarily implies both.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        Yeah, that makes sense in egalitarian societies, but in real world societies, it means the slaves aren't allowed a voice.
      - stavros 5y ago
        That's exactly my point: Changing the word that's used doesn't matter, what matters is getting people to think of others instead of themselves.
WalterBright 5y ago
There aren't any fundamental rights which require someone else to provide them to you. For example, your right to free speech does not oblige others to provide a platform for you. Now, "rights" can be created by law, but those are a different meaning of the word. A more apt word would be one of "privilege", "license", "obligation" or "power". For example, it is often said that the President has the right to veto legislation. No, he doesn't. He has the power to veto legislation. The words right, privilege, license, obligation, and power are probably the most misused words in the English language.
- arminiusreturns 5y ago
  What Ive noticed on this topic as a staunch proponent of individual rights from their enlightenment and renaissance roots is that far too many people pontificating on this subject don't even know the difference between a negative right and a positive right, nor do they understand the perils and antithetical nature of collective rights.
  - forgatmigej 5y ago
    The right to be ignorant is a negative right - which might be why it is so well spread and used :)
- notriddle 5y ago
  Your post isn't really an argument. It's just contradiction. The whole point of calling rights "ineffective" is to say that this idea of fundamental rights that other people aren't obligated to provide to you has no utility. Your definition doesn't really contain any evidence to the contrary.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > The whole point of calling rights "ineffective" I never wrote that. I welcome you addressing what I did write.
    - 5y ago
willcipriano 5y ago
Doesn't that cut both ways? Pleading: But sir, you must respect my laws. Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.
- didibus 5y ago
  Exactly, people are missing that rights and laws are an agreed upon arrangement to find a set of compromise for everyone to live together happily, which results in stability and often overall growth in economy, invention, social enjoyment and entertainment, etc. You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat. There is no longer any plot of land anywhere that is not owned by someone else. Think of those plot of land as plates. One who doesn't own any of it is hungry, you tell them to get their own food, but they can't take from any of the plates of anyone else, so you can't use any land to try and get your food from. Now this person tells those who have all the food, hey I have the right to food as well, and people say, I don't think that's a necessity, well why is your right to your land and your plates of food a necessity as well? You can't have it both ways. If you want to have the right to own the plates of food, you must also provide food to others somehow, because you've taken up all of the abilities to get food from others.
  - pas 5y ago
    > You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat. You can, and a lot of people do say this. And it was said many times in history, and ... people were maimed for it regularly. (And every day we get the reports, pictures, videos about people inside a fence saying that those who are outside should just go and try their luck somewhere else.) The whole point is that wordgames are not going to get us the desired utopistic society where people feel that obligation to act to uphold others' rights in accordance to their power/ability for doing so. It needs a culture that cherishes this, enforces this, perpetuates this. In essence we need a control loop that keeps society on track, and this system has to be aware of all the usual problems (the optimal set-point of intolerance of intolerance, top-down systems tend to consolidate power, bottom-up systems can easily oppress minorities, political arbitrage of resources for favors is an ever present problem, and so on).
bendbro 5y ago
That seems like a bad example. In modern society rights are generally enforced by the support of the population via some judicial (or extra-judicial) system.

kortilla 5y ago

That’s pretty lazy thinking. Those are the same things. Your “rights” are everyone’s “obligations”.

sophiebits 5y ago

From the post's author, the mentioned book is: > The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier. There are a lot of insights in there but beware that the writing is kinda problematic in some ways, so it doesn’t get my full endorsement. https://twitter.com/apenwarr/status/1476590932619567104 https://twitter.com/apenwarr/status/1476590932619567104

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

didibus 5y ago

I like this: > Sometimes liberty is differentiated from freedom by using the word "freedom" primarily, if not exclusively, to mean the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; and using the word "liberty" to mean the absence of arbitrary restraints, taking into account the rights of all involved It's from Wikipedia, and it implies this is the modern take of the definition. I think it's how I think of it as well. So it is neither of the two you mentioned, but a combination of them with the focus being the balance between them. Liberty would assume all have rights they are entitled too, and that none shall arbitrarily restrict ones ability to do as they please, where non-arbitrary is defined as not restricting of other's rights. I don't think it really puts people against each other. Some people simply disagree with liberty and favor freedom instead. Which would mean, some people want to be free to do whatever their power allows them too. You can think of it as whatever I can get away with because I'm more powerful. It would mean if I'm stronger I can strongman my way into doing more things, same if I'm richer, more influence, etc. Fundamentally it's a disagreement with your objective. If you don't accept that the less powerful still deserve certain rights, or that power should not dictate rights and restraints, there's no amount of discourse to be had, you will be optimizing for different outcomes. I also find the framing of rights as someone else's problem misleading. It is not someone else's problem, oftentimes it is because of restraints society imposes, the other person's problem is due to their restraint on other people's rights. For example, that I can't just walk in your house and sleep in your empty bedrooms as I please, and eat the food sitting idle in your fridge, or build myself a cabin using wood from your trees and on your land, those are all restraints society is imposing on me. So if I'm now homeless and without a job, I cannot just do these things to provide for myself shelter and food. But if you believe everyone has the right to shelter and food, and you are restraining my ability to get them as such, you need to offer an alternative, it isn't entitlement, it's the trade for accepting the restraints being pushed on me. For me, it's the fundamental agreement, you accept the restraints from laws in exchange for rights. If the rights don't come, you're not getting your side of the deal. Now off course people can impose restraints with power instead, and that's almost always what used to happen and still to a large extent does today, but at least we seem to try harder today to be just.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

> the correct way to think about our relationship to society This right here is the problem. I'm very familiar with Simone Weil's ideas, and also the criticisms. Her entire philosophy can be reduced to "Ubuntu": We are who we are, because of who we all are. The problem is that this doesn't follow with a free society. Or individual liberties. It's basically that the "individual freedom" is reduced to the lowest common denominator of what the society will comfortably tolerate. And that, by definition, is tyranny.