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Who are these adversaries you speak of? How have they attacked the US of A? As an example, for a long time, spiritual and scientific enlightement was the calli

Who are these adversaries you speak of? How have they attacked the US of A? As an example, for a long time, spiritual and scientific enlightement was the calling card of the Warszaw pact countries: they just couldn't figure out how to earn money off it (free university education and intensive scentific curiculums in primary and high schools were common). For China today, they are thoroughly convinced they are doing the same by restricting access to "bad information" (like "Western nations" are now starting to do with eg. porn, and did similar stuff with "fake news" during the pandemic) — the difference being that they did figure out how to earn money while doing that. In the Middle East, people die and kill in the name of their version of "enlightenment". Now, not saying there never was any enlightenment in the Western world, but it was built on slavery, exploitation and being first to many an industrial improvement (like using coal or oil to drive progress, that the whole world now suffers for). Yes, I'd rather live in a "Western" country than any of the "adversaries", but they are only a risk to our way of life if we do not believe it is the right, enlightened way. Because if it is, we are willing to pay for it. Are we?

nis0s 1y ago
> Yes, I'd rather live in a "Western" country than any of the "adversaries" It’s important to reflect on why you say this because when push comes to shove, the moral relativism rings a hollow tone. The preceding parts of your post are just part of the education instilled in you from having been exposed to enlightenment-influenced frameworks.
- necovek 1y ago
  Not really, it mostly speaks to the fact that I've been indoctrinated through my upbringing, education and environment that this is the "true" enlightenment. Even for people on the "other" side, they ask the same questions and they see the hipocrisy (it's not hard to see how capital corrupts) and get stuck. This is why morality moves in cycles even in the Western world: morality is a human construct created through reason to best enable civilization and progress. I did not add that statement accidentally to "off myself": I did that to acknowledge that this is hard to overcome, and that none of us has a moral upper hand, really (me included).
  - nis0s 1y ago
    I think people often conflate morality with mores. Morality is timeless (it’s always been unfashionable to kill someone, to lie, to display envy, and so on), while social mores can fluctuate with changing political, cultural or philosophical view points. On top of that, sociopolitical self-preserving interests can muddle the discourse on what is moral or not, which is what you’re saying, more or less. The point being that ultimately the truth of an immoral act is unchanged by whatever abstractions we layer upon it. So, we make exceptions to ethics for selfish reasons, not moral ones. What matters then are the outcomes for all the reasons we make exceptions, just as you think there’s some justified reason for moral relativism. It’s okay, people can do what they want, they just have to be honest about the trades they make when they do this. From a geopolitical perspective, moral relativism is a nice diplomatic tool, it just has the troubling effect of producing unnecessary contrarianism in populations that would benefit from understanding the implications of that moral relativism.
    - necovek 1y ago
      > it’s always been unfashionable to kill someone, to lie, to display envy, and so on Even if we restrict ourselves to recorded human history, there are plenty of examples where killing in particular and imposing one's will by force more generally was glorified. This is really a very modern development (last hundred years?). Just look at how women have been treated 50 years ago as the "weaker sex" (and to an extent, still are today). But going back to morality of the Western world, how does that compute in terms of recent excursions in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria... All exceptions needed in the last 20 years? My point is that I subscribe to the notion that "morality" has been developed as a human, reasoned construct to help with self-preservation when cohabiting in large social groups (aka civilization) — I am outright disagreeing with you. Compare with the "morality" of humans brought up outside society (kids lost in woods and similar). Too many counter-examples throughout history to consider it innate, IMO.
      - nis0s 1y ago
        The simplest living beings have some idea of self and other, and life and death, and so understand, even implicitly, what it means to be killed and dying. So a primal impulse to fight back kicks in whenever something feels mortally threatened. Bacteria might not be able to communicate that they don’t like being killed, but I don’t think their view of it changes despite that lack of ability to communicate. More complex and conscious organisms, like monkeys, take offense to lies and deception. Or dominant animals with higher-level cognition might punish members of their groups who display jealous traits. Who taught these animals human social mores? No one, they’re going purely off instinct. There are primal instincts which drive some of these behaviors which have absolutely nothing to do with human culture or society. To paraphrase what I’ve already said, morality doesn’t change, but only how you think of it does. Humans are the only animals who elegantly communicate their selfishness about moral behaviors, and get away with it. And I don’t get the point of the rest of your post about the Middle East, but I am going to leave it at that.

nis0s 1y ago

> Yes, I'd rather live in a "Western" country than any of the "adversaries" It’s important to reflect on why you say this because when push comes to shove, the moral relativism rings a hollow tone. The preceding parts of your post are just part of the education instilled in you from having been exposed to enlightenment-influenced frameworks.

necovek 1y ago
Not really, it mostly speaks to the fact that I've been indoctrinated through my upbringing, education and environment that this is the "true" enlightenment. Even for people on the "other" side, they ask the same questions and they see the hipocrisy (it's not hard to see how capital corrupts) and get stuck. This is why morality moves in cycles even in the Western world: morality is a human construct created through reason to best enable civilization and progress. I did not add that statement accidentally to "off myself": I did that to acknowledge that this is hard to overcome, and that none of us has a moral upper hand, really (me included).
- nis0s 1y ago
  I think people often conflate morality with mores. Morality is timeless (it’s always been unfashionable to kill someone, to lie, to display envy, and so on), while social mores can fluctuate with changing political, cultural or philosophical view points. On top of that, sociopolitical self-preserving interests can muddle the discourse on what is moral or not, which is what you’re saying, more or less. The point being that ultimately the truth of an immoral act is unchanged by whatever abstractions we layer upon it. So, we make exceptions to ethics for selfish reasons, not moral ones. What matters then are the outcomes for all the reasons we make exceptions, just as you think there’s some justified reason for moral relativism. It’s okay, people can do what they want, they just have to be honest about the trades they make when they do this. From a geopolitical perspective, moral relativism is a nice diplomatic tool, it just has the troubling effect of producing unnecessary contrarianism in populations that would benefit from understanding the implications of that moral relativism.
  - necovek 1y ago
    > it’s always been unfashionable to kill someone, to lie, to display envy, and so on Even if we restrict ourselves to recorded human history, there are plenty of examples where killing in particular and imposing one's will by force more generally was glorified. This is really a very modern development (last hundred years?). Just look at how women have been treated 50 years ago as the "weaker sex" (and to an extent, still are today). But going back to morality of the Western world, how does that compute in terms of recent excursions in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria... All exceptions needed in the last 20 years? My point is that I subscribe to the notion that "morality" has been developed as a human, reasoned construct to help with self-preservation when cohabiting in large social groups (aka civilization) — I am outright disagreeing with you. Compare with the "morality" of humans brought up outside society (kids lost in woods and similar). Too many counter-examples throughout history to consider it innate, IMO.
    - nis0s 1y ago
      The simplest living beings have some idea of self and other, and life and death, and so understand, even implicitly, what it means to be killed and dying. So a primal impulse to fight back kicks in whenever something feels mortally threatened. Bacteria might not be able to communicate that they don’t like being killed, but I don’t think their view of it changes despite that lack of ability to communicate. More complex and conscious organisms, like monkeys, take offense to lies and deception. Or dominant animals with higher-level cognition might punish members of their groups who display jealous traits. Who taught these animals human social mores? No one, they’re going purely off instinct. There are primal instincts which drive some of these behaviors which have absolutely nothing to do with human culture or society. To paraphrase what I’ve already said, morality doesn’t change, but only how you think of it does. Humans are the only animals who elegantly communicate their selfishness about moral behaviors, and get away with it. And I don’t get the point of the rest of your post about the Middle East, but I am going to leave it at that.