Butch Femme Planet - View Single Post - Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

SoNotHer · 11-03-2011, 12:03 PM

"Now that my brain is functioning again, I can address the things above.

I'm about three hours from finishing up Stephen Pinker's latest book The Better Angels of Our Nature. The core of the book is that as time has passed humans *have* become more compassionate and less violent. Yes, LESS, violent. Consider the following:

AJ, I think you may have to be my go-to person for injections of optimism. I've added the book to my wish list, and I'll wait for the soft cover. Thank you for the reference.

1) It is vanishingly improbable that anyone reading this knows someone who was burnt at the stake as a witch. I'm not saying someone in your lineage, I mean someone you've met.

But you have heard of "water boarding" and you may well know one of the 400K in the United States who have been victims of political torture, which, it turns out, is still sanctioned in 100 countries.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/ovc_archives/r...e/welcome.html

2) No one here has ever been to a live bear-baiting.

I have seen a toothless, chained bear in Russia used for panhandling. Certainly we know other acts of animal cruelty exist everywhere, such as the release and termination of an exotic animal zoo in Ohio last month.

3) It is vanishingly improbable that anyone here has ever had to fear being stabbed at the dinner table by someone wielding a steak knife.

:-)

4) No great power has shot at any other great power since the end of WW II. I'm not saying that there's been no wars, but no *great power* wars. China and Japan fought multiple wars in the past but haven't fought one in 65 years. France and Germany, England and France, Germany and Russia *all* had periodic bouts of warfare through the 17th, 18th, 19th and the first half of the 20th century. In fact, Europe is now experiencing the longest contiguous peace since, get this, the height of the Roman Empire! WW III never happened, sometimes despite all efforts to make it happen.

Greece is at a tipping point, and much of the EU could follow if the economic situation grows worse. Just because an active volcano has a long period of dormancy does not mean it can't or in fact won't erupt.

5) The number of crimes that could earn one the death penalty in western nations has gone from a whole raft of items to a very few (murder, possibly treason, possibly child rape). And in most European nations you simply can't *get* the death penalty no matter how heinous the crime. A century or two ago, you could get the death penalty for insulting the crown!

True. But we are still in fact using the death penalty as the final act of insult and injury in a series of injustices.

6) In the west, marital rape has gone from 'just the way things are' to a criminal offense. Spousal abuse has gone from a punchline on 'The Honeymooners' to something no sit-com would *ever* put in because it is socially unacceptable (again, that doesn't mean it never happens just that when it does, the abuser is not going to find a sympathetic ear when he claims that 'she had it coming').

You do know that marital rape and spousal abuse continue in large numbers and most likely affect/have affected someone you know, including yours truly. "One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime."

"Between 600,000 and 6 million women are victims of domestic violence each year, and between 100,000 and 6 million men, depending on the type of survey used to obtain the data."

http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/

7) Spanking, in the west, has gone from 'this is how you raise children' to child abuse. If half of what I endured as a child happened to a kid today, that kid would be removed from the home.

Funny, one of my students is writing about this (others have). It's clear she's struggling with whether or not to continue this with her own children.

8) War has gone from something noble and 'the aspiration of every man and nation' to something repellant to large numbers of people.

As much as I really want to believe this, how can I when main stream films now resemble a hybrid of video games and porn films - thread bare, derivative and scant dialogue and character development for the sole purpose of taking the viewer to each new orgy of violence (war-driven or otherwise). For example, I just saw the trailer for Immortals last night at the gym. It seemed to me like one extended battle scene that picked up where 300 left off. Please tell me how many top grossing straight-dramas (adult and not a comedy) you can find that don't have at least one act of glorified violence in it:

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm

If the military branches have started to capitalize on gaming technology and the gaming mindset. The ads now make it seem as though the transfer from basement Xbox or Wii to live military engagement is seamless or perhaps the video game done one better.

So yes, I think that human societies can become more compassionate and peaceful, up to a point. I do not think we can nor do I think we should try, to have any kind of utopia. We *know* what happens when people try to create utopias and we should not trust anyone who suggests we should do so. I do think humans are moving to a stage in our cultural development(s) that violence is increasingly being constrained. The circle of moral concern has expanded to include more and more groups of people.

Has it expanded, or have alternate realities allowed us to detach from violence and its consequences even more? Whether or not we want to claim an absolute state of paradise, if we don't pursue Utopia, is dystopia always the default? And does dystopia, or the idea of it, scare us less? Does it feel more comfortable and more in sync with our natures?

As far as your paradise or purgatory question, I think neither. But I do think that now is a better time to be alive, for larger numbers of humanity, ever. Even in poor nations the average life expectancy has crossed over the 40 year mark and in rich nations it is pushing up toward 90. At the end of the 18th century the average lifespan was ~37 years. At the end of the 19th it was about 45. At the end of the twentieth it was about 75. We have almost *doubled* the number of years people live on average in about a century and almost trebled it in about two centuries.

Actually, that trend is reversing and will no doubt continue to reverse, "particularly among women."

http://www.americanscientist.org/iss...sal-of-fortune

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...h-inequalities

Literacy, is spreading so fast that we notice illiteracy but not literacy. Two hundred years ago we would take illiteracy for granted and notice literacy.

Well, we know literacy is tied to crime, and we know we are filling prison beds with amazing numbers here in the U.S. "One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study....Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending."

I've been teaching since 1985 (another frightening statistic in itself), and those is purely non-scientific and empirical, I am seeing problems with vocabulary, reading levels, understanding grammatical concepts like fragments and run ons and other issues that I have not seen to this degree of seriousness. Whether it's in offering the correct pronunciation of the word "library" (not lie-berry), or the introduction of a word like "gist" or simply explaining to my students that cutting and pasting from an encyclopedia is not researched writing, I am amazed at the education my adult students didn't get and what the implications are for this going forward.

I'm really most curious about this question of designing ourselves out of our natures. I'm curious about the purpose and power of visions and alternative presentations of "reality." Can we redesign ourselves? Should we? And are our visions like Rawls' intrinsically important to growth evolution, or are they just another alternate reality, another distraction?

And on that note, I'm more than ready for lunch. Now where did I leave that steak knife? ;-)

11-03-2011, 12:03 PM	#1
SoNotHer Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Professional Sandbagger and Jenga Zumba Instructor Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: In the master control room of my world domination dreams Posts: 2,811 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 6,587 Thanked 4,736 Times in 1,409 Posts Rep Power: 21474851	"Now that my brain is functioning again, I can address the things above. I'm about three hours from finishing up Stephen Pinker's latest book The Better Angels of Our Nature. The core of the book is that as time has passed humans have become more compassionate and less violent. Yes, LESS, violent. Consider the following: AJ, I think you may have to be my go-to person for injections of optimism. I've added the book to my wish list, and I'll wait for the soft cover. Thank you for the reference. 1) It is vanishingly improbable that anyone reading this knows someone who was burnt at the stake as a witch. I'm not saying someone in your lineage, I mean someone you've met. But you have heard of "water boarding" and you may well know one of the 400K in the United States who have been victims of political torture, which, it turns out, is still sanctioned in 100 countries. https://www.ncjrs.gov/ovc_archives/r...e/welcome.html 2) No one here has ever been to a live bear-baiting. I have seen a toothless, chained bear in Russia used for panhandling. Certainly we know other acts of animal cruelty exist everywhere, such as the release and termination of an exotic animal zoo in Ohio last month. 3) It is vanishingly improbable that anyone here has ever had to fear being stabbed at the dinner table by someone wielding a steak knife. :-) 4) No great power has shot at any other great power since the end of WW II. I'm not saying that there's been no wars, but no great power wars. China and Japan fought multiple wars in the past but haven't fought one in 65 years. France and Germany, England and France, Germany and Russia all had periodic bouts of warfare through the 17th, 18th, 19th and the first half of the 20th century. In fact, Europe is now experiencing the longest contiguous peace since, get this, the height of the Roman Empire! WW III never happened, sometimes despite all efforts to make it happen. Greece is at a tipping point, and much of the EU could follow if the economic situation grows worse. Just because an active volcano has a long period of dormancy does not mean it can't or in fact won't erupt. 5) The number of crimes that could earn one the death penalty in western nations has gone from a whole raft of items to a very few (murder, possibly treason, possibly child rape). And in most European nations you simply can't get the death penalty no matter how heinous the crime. A century or two ago, you could get the death penalty for insulting the crown! True. But we are still in fact using the death penalty as the final act of insult and injury in a series of injustices. 6) In the west, marital rape has gone from 'just the way things are' to a criminal offense. Spousal abuse has gone from a punchline on 'The Honeymooners' to something no sit-com would ever put in because it is socially unacceptable (again, that doesn't mean it never happens just that when it does, the abuser is not going to find a sympathetic ear when he claims that 'she had it coming'). You do know that marital rape and spousal abuse continue in large numbers and most likely affect/have affected someone you know, including yours truly. "One in four women (25%) has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime." "Between 600,000 and 6 million women are victims of domestic violence each year, and between 100,000 and 6 million men, depending on the type of survey used to obtain the data." http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/ 7) Spanking, in the west, has gone from 'this is how you raise children' to child abuse. If half of what I endured as a child happened to a kid today, that kid would be removed from the home. Funny, one of my students is writing about this (others have). It's clear she's struggling with whether or not to continue this with her own children. 8) War has gone from something noble and 'the aspiration of every man and nation' to something repellant to large numbers of people. As much as I really want to believe this, how can I when main stream films now resemble a hybrid of video games and porn films - thread bare, derivative and scant dialogue and character development for the sole purpose of taking the viewer to each new orgy of violence (war-driven or otherwise). For example, I just saw the trailer for Immortals last night at the gym. It seemed to me like one extended battle scene that picked up where 300 left off. Please tell me how many top grossing straight-dramas (adult and not a comedy) you can find that don't have at least one act of glorified violence in it: http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm If the military branches have started to capitalize on gaming technology and the gaming mindset. The ads now make it seem as though the transfer from basement Xbox or Wii to live military engagement is seamless or perhaps the video game done one better. So yes, I think that human societies can become more compassionate and peaceful, up to a point. I do not think we can nor do I think we should try, to have any kind of utopia. We know what happens when people try to create utopias and we should not trust anyone who suggests we should do so. I do think humans are moving to a stage in our cultural development(s) that violence is increasingly being constrained. The circle of moral concern has expanded to include more and more groups of people. Has it expanded, or have alternate realities allowed us to detach from violence and its consequences even more? Whether or not we want to claim an absolute state of paradise, if we don't pursue Utopia, is dystopia always the default? And does dystopia, or the idea of it, scare us less? Does it feel more comfortable and more in sync with our natures? As far as your paradise or purgatory question, I think neither. But I do think that now is a better time to be alive, for larger numbers of humanity, ever. Even in poor nations the average life expectancy has crossed over the 40 year mark and in rich nations it is pushing up toward 90. At the end of the 18th century the average lifespan was ~37 years. At the end of the 19th it was about 45. At the end of the twentieth it was about 75. We have almost doubled the number of years people live on average in about a century and almost trebled it in about two centuries. Actually, that trend is reversing and will no doubt continue to reverse, "particularly among women." http://www.americanscientist.org/iss...sal-of-fortune http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...h-inequalities Literacy, is spreading so fast that we notice illiteracy but not literacy. Two hundred years ago we would take illiteracy for granted and notice literacy. Well, we know literacy is tied to crime, and we know we are filling prison beds with amazing numbers here in the U.S. "One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 million Americans, is in prison, on parole or probation, at a cost to the states of $47 billion in 2008, according to a new study....Only Medicaid spending grew faster than state corrections spending." I've been teaching since 1985 (another frightening statistic in itself), and those is purely non-scientific and empirical, I am seeing problems with vocabulary, reading levels, understanding grammatical concepts like fragments and run ons and other issues that I have not seen to this degree of seriousness. Whether it's in offering the correct pronunciation of the word "library" (not lie-berry), or the introduction of a word like "gist" or simply explaining to my students that cutting and pasting from an encyclopedia is not researched writing, I am amazed at the education my adult students didn't get and what the implications are for this going forward. I'm really most curious about this question of designing ourselves out of our natures. I'm curious about the purpose and power of visions and alternative presentations of "reality." Can we redesign ourselves? Should we? And are our visions like Rawls' intrinsically important to growth evolution, or are they just another alternate reality, another distraction? And on that note, I'm more than ready for lunch. Now where did I leave that steak knife? ;-)