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Liberalism doesn’t try, and shouldn’t, because it takes the position that human beings should be free to seek their own goals rather than have them imposed. Th

by api 2y ago

Liberalism doesn’t try, and shouldn’t, because it takes the position that human beings should be free to seek their own goals rather than have them imposed. The alternative is to have a vision imposed by the state. History has shown this usually doesn’t work very well and often results in horrors. The horrors come when reality inevitably conflicts with the vision and the political leadership grabs a mallet to bash that square peg into the hole. See: communism, fascism, theocratic regimes, imperial adventures, etc. Star Trek is fantasy. In reality I’m not convinced that society would be so pleasant. Even in fiction trying to portray utopia you sometimes see glimpses. Why do they all listen to classical music? Why, because there is no culture of course. Nothing new has happened culturally since our era. I wonder what happens if you try to deviate in that culture? Where are those people? It’s never discussed. Maybe all record of them is just deleted silently and everyone forgets.

bitwize 2y ago
> Why do they all listen to classical music? Why, because there is no culture of course. Nothing new has happened culturally since our era. That's an interesting read on it, but the most likely reason is simply because the writers had a high regard for classical music. But nevertheless I'm reminded of the Zentraedi from Macross, who were created as a warrior underclass to protect the interests of the spacefaring Protoculture (ancient precursor beings; it's implied that humans are descendants of a stranded Protoculture colony). They are genetically engineered and raised with enough knowledge to fight interstellar battles, but not really do anything else. They know how to use their battleships and mechs and stuff, but not how to repair them. Even their language is a restricted, Newspeak-like version of Protoculture language with plenty of words suitable for battle but a dearth of words for other purposes (there is no word for "friendship" or "love"; there is only "ally" and "not-ally"). They have no culture to speak of. So the first love song they hear causes them to utterly go to pieces. It's what wins the war for the humans, as sure as our germs did against the Martians in War of the Worlds. This also calls to mind one of our real attempts at utopia -- the Soviet Union, whose citizens smuggled in Western music and fashion because their own culture had stagnated.
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
> Liberalism doesn’t try, and shouldn’t, because it takes the position that human beings should be free to seek their own goals rather than have them imposed. Ok, but then you're stuck with today's clusterfuck where nobody's goals can be realized because people refuse to work together and openly exploit each other. That sucks ass. We've got to be capable of more and can't realize that without imagining a society where we're capable of doing more than giving up.

by api 2y ago

bitwize 2y ago

> Why do they all listen to classical music? Why, because there is no culture of course. Nothing new has happened culturally since our era. That's an interesting read on it, but the most likely reason is simply because the writers had a high regard for classical music. But nevertheless I'm reminded of the Zentraedi from Macross, who were created as a warrior underclass to protect the interests of the spacefaring Protoculture (ancient precursor beings; it's implied that humans are descendants of a stranded Protoculture colony). They are genetically engineered and raised with enough knowledge to fight interstellar battles, but not really do anything else. They know how to use their battleships and mechs and stuff, but not how to repair them. Even their language is a restricted, Newspeak-like version of Protoculture language with plenty of words suitable for battle but a dearth of words for other purposes (there is no word for "friendship" or "love"; there is only "ally" and "not-ally"). They have no culture to speak of. So the first love song they hear causes them to utterly go to pieces. It's what wins the war for the humans, as sure as our germs did against the Martians in War of the Worlds. This also calls to mind one of our real attempts at utopia -- the Soviet Union, whose citizens smuggled in Western music and fashion because their own culture had stagnated.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

> Liberalism doesn’t try, and shouldn’t, because it takes the position that human beings should be free to seek their own goals rather than have them imposed. Ok, but then you're stuck with today's clusterfuck where nobody's goals can be realized because people refuse to work together and openly exploit each other. That sucks ass. We've got to be capable of more and can't realize that without imagining a society where we're capable of doing more than giving up.