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In a way I actually agree with nearly everything you say, I just think you haven't taken what you say to its logical conclusion. The thing you seem to be missi
by duairc 13y ago
In a way I actually agree with nearly everything you say, I just think you haven't taken what you say to its logical conclusion.
The thing you seem to be missing is that there are no “neutral” beliefs. There's no “middle” in terms of ideology. Doing “nothing” is de facto maintaining the status quo, and acting to maintain the status quo is a positive action just as much as acting to abolish it is. The belief that the status quo should be maintained is a positive belief just as the belief that it should be abolished it is. Right?
The thing is, by the very nature of ideology, those who wish to maintain the status quo rarely have their beliefs subjected to the same level of scrutiny as those who to abolish it. Therefore it is very easy for those who wish to maintain the status quo to believe that their beliefs and actions are sane, rational, reasonable, etc., because everything seems to reinforce that, while those who wish to abolish it are often portrayed as insane, irrational, “extremist”, etc., and as someone who does wish to abolish the status quo, it's very hard not to internalise some of that. Being constantly bombarded with that, having all of your beliefs constantly scrutinised from every angle inevitably manifests itself as incapacitating self-doubt that's very difficult to overcome sometimes. Sometimes the only way to cope with this is to temporarily suspend this constant questioning of everything you believe in.
It is far more common that people who wish to maintain the status quo are slaves to dogma than that people who wish to abolish it are. Often, the latter do not have a choice about whether or not their beliefs are rigourously questioned every five minutes. But the former can comfortably go their whole lives without ever having their beliefs rigourously questioned by anybody.
Edit: I think an NSA agent participating in these programs out of a belief that they are “serving their country” and who refuses to question what “serving their country” actually means is a slave to dogma. I do not think that somebody who believes that their communications should not be monitored or recorded without their consent and who refuses to question that belief is a slave to dogma.
- JackFr 13y agoThis is weirdly Orwellian. If doing nothing is a 'positive action', than the words 'positive action' have no meaning. If think you mean to say that the effect doing nothing is to support the status quo, and morally equivalent to positive action supporting the the status quo, I still disagree, but you're on firmer ground. Apart from that, all you need to do is thematically replace privacy rights & surveillance with class struggle & worldwide revolution and this is pure Bolshevism.
- duairc 13y agoIf you read my post carefully, you'll notice that I put “nothing” in quotation marks. You're close when you guess that I mean that “the effect doing nothing is to support the status quo, and morally equivalent to positive action supporting the the status quo,” but you have the direction of causation backwards. What I was trying to get at is that it's actually impossible to do “nothing”: you're always doing something, and if you're not, you're dead. The thing is, many actions which act to reproduce and maintain the status quo are ideologically defined as “nothing”: they're so normal that they're invisible. I don't understand why you equate class struggle and global revolution with Bolshevism, or the implication that there's anything Orwellian about those things. That's completely disingenuous. There are several well known political traditions which advocate class struggle and global revolution but which at the same time have always fiercely been opposed to Bolshevism. Anarchist communism, left-wing communism, etc...
- md224 13y agoThanks for the measured response. I hadn't really considered the strain that status quo beliefs/narratives put on those with marginalized beliefs/narratives. I actually live with a number of kids who are into anarchism/radical politics, so I've gotten a lot of exposure to more radical narratives. It's really disorienting/fascinating to meet people whose world-views differ so thoroughly from the norm. I guess I just figured that those with radical beliefs became kind of immune to mainstream views, having rejected them. But you bring up a good point; it can be taxing to be viewed as a fringe element when you feel like you're the one who's right. I can see that being really frustrating. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure I agree with this: > The thing you seem to be missing is that there are no “neutral” beliefs. If one knows nothing about an issue (concerning some status quo behavior), it would be wise for them not to take an action on that issue without first learning more about it. But until they learn about the issue, would we really consider them to have a "positive" belief on the issue? What about when they knew a few scattered facts but didn't necessarily have the whole picture? Again, we would not want them to take a stance. (Or, at least, I wouldn't.) Would that count as a "positive" action? I'm not certain if inaction is necessarily endorsement. True, you are allowing something to happen... but you're allowing a lot of things to happen every day, things that perhaps should be changed or stopped but that you don't have the relevant knowledge of or the means to address. Anyway, I'm generally with you on the NSA stuff... not feeling too comfortable with what they're doing. But radicalization and ideology kind of fascinate me (mostly from a philosophical perspective) so it's always interesting to explore these interactions (though they often devolve into flame wars, sadly). EDIT: Perhaps you could claim one has a moral obligation to research and judge the impact of the social/economic system(s) they participate in. That feels like a separate (but related) discussion altogether.