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My main gripe with the language of progressive politics is the redefinition of words like "fair." Intellectual honesty demands that you call things what they a
by oldmanjay 12y ago
My main gripe with the language of progressive politics is the redefinition of words like "fair."
Intellectual honesty demands that you call things what they are. Marketing demands you redefine things to make people feel the right warm-and-fuzzies. What you did is the latter.
- iamcurious 12y agoI'm curious. What is the definition of fairness and how does it not apply in that comment?
- the_af 12y agoHow so? It is fair to the country that a greater number of people have access to good quality education. The lesser unfairness that this causes in the people who don't care about public education is acceptable. Same as the lesser unfairness that public roads cause to people who don't use roads is also acceptable. This is the greater good we are talking about.
- nmrm2 12y ago"What is justice/fairness?" is one of those philosophical questions that will never be closed. Claiming that there exists some ground truth definition of fair is, frankly, naive. Terms like "just" and "fair" are over-loaded and refer to an ephemeral concept for which there are multiple, competing explanations and theories. No consensus or ground truth exists, so it's always fair game to introduce new explanations and theories. This has been the case for at least thousands of years. Progressive politics didn't "redefine" fairness in any meaningful sense. Whose definition of "fair" isn't a "redefinition"? Rawls? Plato?