Open Letter to Woke Students

[Immanuel Can]

…, your assertion that "Heywood's just providing his personal gloss on things" is false!

Of course it’s true. Who else’s gloss is it? He’s the author of all the quotes you floated.

All I’m saying is that you can find one author to say practically anything. That’s why it’s good to read multiple books on a subject. And I’m going to assume you have, so your dependency on Haywood exclusively would be unnecessary…

Unless you haven’t.

[Immanuel Can]

So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

Probably the same "source"…

Which “source” Gary? You failed to name any.

There has to be some basis for their claim that they can deserve “rights” their society denies to them. What is it?

[Harbal]

So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

They didn't say they had a right to vote, because they didn't have a right to vote, which was the issue their campaign was founded on. They said they should have the right to vote, and were demanding that they be granted it. The "source" of the justification for demanding that right lay in the unfairness of others having rights that they were being denied. Only human authority grants rights; it's a social thing.

[Gary Childress]

So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

Probably the same "source"…

There has to be some basis for their claim that they can deserve “rights” their society denies to them.

Why? Would you not grant women the right to vote unless it's written in the Bible? Just follow your conscience. Don't let the Bible or any other mortal-made book make the decisions for you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Here I quote Gary, and for my own purposes:

In the end, it all comes down to humans trying to negate one another in order to feel the vitality that comes with empowerment (or even with being bearers of the one "truth"). And empowerment always comes at the expense of someone who must be disempowered in order for there to be empowerment. As I've stated repeatedly, life thrives at the expense of life. Do I like it? No. I've lost my "sanity" in the clash of cultures and people. I basically watch a few others now fighting for room at the top of the pile of spiritual corpses that comprise what's left of high society, while the ones still fighting for the top of the heap laugh at my ineptitude in the process. It's not pretty, at least not to me. The world is a broken place. God ought to be asking for our forgiveness, not the other way around.

The part about the negation that comes about when specific truths are advanced (as against others) interests me. I am of the opinion that though there may be many different truth-possibilities, and ways to speak about truthful things, that we have to make choices, and when we choose we necessarily *negate*, so to say, some other choice or a whole line of choices. My desire, my inclination, is toward hard choices, difficult choices, demanding choices, and therefore I show a tendency to turn against weakness, indulgence, appeals to pity, and in a sense what is connected to the sort of *toleration* that is de rigueur in our time. I recognize this is not an attitude that one can, say, display or act on publicly, and this fact also interests me: one must accept all the deviancies, indulgences, decadence and weakness of our age (meaning those tendencies we are aware of in ourselves) though one may well be inclined to actually despise and hold in contempt those whom one cannot admire.

Oddly, it is essentially an attitude of Christian tolerance that is at the root of the impotence to act intolerantly now (against decadence, corruption. social sickness, etc.) In fact -- and here I will comment on Gary's pathetic declarations (pathetic in the original sense of the word) -- it is in its essence that one notes in Christianity the sheer opposition against *the way the world is* and the way that life really is. The ultra-sensitive Christian simply cannot bear it that life is as it is. And for this reason Christianity has seemed to me an *imposition* that is set against the world.

Gary puts it nicely when he says that the creator of this world, and the entire situation, should be held to account. It is *Yahweh's* fault!

The world is a broken place. God ought to be asking for our forgiveness, not the other way around.

In case no one has understood, Christianity reverses the blame: it is the sin and disobedience of Adam & Eve that is the cause of the Earth's terrible condition. Supposedly -- and this is really a sick idea when you think it through -- it is the Advent of Jesus Christ into the world that will, eventually, *restore* the Earth. It is a really bizarre and neurotic belief-system when examined with a certain focus.

But what is it that we need? We either abandon the notion of *god* and *divinity* or any priorly-established moral code (operating meta-physically to the manifest world), or we re-envision what we mean when we refer to *god*. To do that we either a) go back in time, or back into say Pagan belief to seek out *realistic* definitions of what god is and how god operates, or b) we arrive at our own and cut them out of new cloth.

We all seem to be largely agreed that *moral codes* do not pertain to God. Or, for us, God as in fact *died* (there either is no god or god is retreated out of this world and perhaps never really did set foot in it) and the former picture is no longer sufficiently representative -- and therefore is being jettisoned. Not by an act of the will necessarily, but because it became unbelievable.

Now, back to these *traits* I refer to: It is these traits that have with such power come out of the social woodwork and now seem to define, significantly, the social landscape. The rioting, destructive hordes that you must tolerate though you might actually wish that they all be shot (which is so in my case)(and I did once recommend that those who invaded the Capital should have been shot and the invasion avoided thereby). The sexual deviancy is particularly appalling to me. Meaning those parades through all major cities of gays, lesbians, transexuals, cross-dressers, etc. I tolerate them but in truth I hold to a wish that they would all be mowed down with 50 calibre machine gun fire. And what to say of the throngs of sickos, dope addicts, druggies and mentally ill who are camped on the streets of our cities? Where has all this come from? How has all this come about?

[I have a special category for the Critical Theory advocates and I do regard them as sick, twisted, and ultimately dangerous and destructive. It is Ideological Sickness however, and this is of another sort. If they cannot be defeated socially and culturally, and if their power grows too much, eventually there will be open civil battle, and these events result in tremendous destruction and negativity.]

There is a rising social tide that involves the renewal of an intolerant spirit, yet we have supposedly a society based on Liberal values and, therefore, we have agreed to be widely tolerant of that which, perhaps in ourselves and for ourselves, we cannot in fact accept. But isn't there a point where the will to toleration ceases -- must cease? And what replaces it? Crackdowns, lockups, retribution essentially -- manifestations of the will to no longer tolerate. I did not invent this scenario and by referencing it I am not *making it happen*. It will happen though, just as it has in the past.

But I'm a loser and think the way losers think. I have only pessimism to offer. Sorry. Maybe ask AJ if he'll help you become a radiant "butterfly" so you can escape all the "spiders" of depravity sulking around in the jar or whatever. I'm done with this world. All I can do is make others depressed and therefore seek therapy for themselves where "psychiatrists" and such will teach them to be "thankful" and "affirm" life.

This statement -- actually an entire series of statements and beliefs -- can be critically examined with benefit. A loser is a loser because of the way he thinks, no? A winner operates with a different knowledge-set. The loser gave up a long while back, or perhaps never had clear and efficiently-organized knowledge. If *pessimism* is understood to be a self-defeating attitude, then pessimism must be overcome if one is ever to *win* (whatever winning means). But what interests me is that at the very core this general attitude is 100% Christian. Why? Because the Christian philosophy is essentially an expression of ressentiment that life is as life is. The *sensitive Christian soul* cannot bear the way things are. If that Christian soul has some vitality he will lunge forward with a countermanding activism against *how life is*. But if he is really sickened he will fall down before the task. He cannot bear it. Samual Beckett wrote "I can't go on/I'll go on". The defeated, collapsed Christian says

I can't go on

and lays down to die.

It's all my fault. If I weren't such a "negative" person everyone would be happy all the time and get along marvelously. Maybe bumping me off will therefore make humankind happier in the aggregate. Give it a try. See if all the ugliness and despair goes away when you get rid of me. I'm the source of it all. There can't be progress without eliminating sick and unclean people like me. Once we're gone life will be a non-stop festival.

Aside from the core *appeal to therapize* the victim of a self-defeating, pessimistic-unto-death attitude (many have tried, all have failed), the issue of *fault* interests me.

Some one has made it possible for the ones with this attitude to be tolerated. Someone has made it seem *right* that patient toleration and *help* be extended to the pathetically inclined. They are upheld and *supported* by weak-minded, even perhaps *immoral* people (but not my definition of morality is atypical). What if no toleration were extended?

I have been reading and rereading Beyond Good and Evil and the section "What is Noble?" Simultaneously, I have been rereading Ronald Beiner's Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right. And look: there is a PN review!

I only want to say that in a major and definite sense the so-called Far Right -- which should I think be distinguished from the intellectual Dissident Right -- is intolerant of the Liberal Rot that has run rampant and out of control. If I have *conservative* ideals, and I do, even though I am very well-versed in the philosophy of the Progressive Left, it is to attempt to recover, starting from inside my own self, a philosophical and existential stance that could be said to be *realistic* and *empowering*.

Quite literally then I require a different god-concept.

[Immanuel Can]

So when they said we have a "right" to vote, to equality or to integration, what source of "rights" were they invoking to combat the rights-denial of their societies?

They said they should have the right to vote, and were demanding that they be granted it.

On what basis did they assert that "should"? What made their disenfranchising society obligated to agree with them?

The "source" of the justification for demanding that right lay in the unfairness of others having rights that they were being denied.

You're already assuming the conclusion they wanted to get -- that they had a legitimate "right" to vote -- but you're not explaining why they thought they had it, or how they could possibly expect a society that did not agree with them to come to agree that they had such a "right."

"Rights" are not trump-cards. One can't simply pull them out of thin air or a wish, slap them on the table and say, "You owe me this, because I want it." One has to have some explanation of why that "right" is rightful to give to that person: otherwise, it's just a frivolous demand.

Only human authority grants rights; it's a social thing.

If we agree with that, then the suffragettes and freedom marchers had NO right: what that tells us they were attempting to so is to give themselves a privilege that their society denied was any "right" of theirs at all. So that assumption would destroy the legitimacy of their claim.

Their societies had already ruled on their status. It had already been decided, by the majority and all those with social power, that women were not to vote and schools, busses and businesses were not to be integrated. So by what "right" did they defy "the human authority" that "grants rights," to demand a "right" that their society had never so far granted them?

That's what you're not answering. They needed more than a claim that "human authority" gave it to them, because factually, it was the thing that denied it to them. So on what basis could they launch a contrary appeal?

[Immanuel Can]

Probably the same "source"…

There has to be some basis for their claim that they can deserve “rights” their society denies to them.

Why?

Because if they had nothing, then they had no basis on which to assert they had any "right" to vote or to integration. They were blowing smoke. And their societies had already ruled against them -- it had declared they had no such "right." Therefore, they had to have some reason to say, or even to believe, that they were entitled to a "right" their society already insisted they did not and could not have.

How did they come to believe something so contrary to their society, then?

[Harbal]

They said they should have the right to vote, and were demanding that they be granted it.

On what basis did they assert that "should"? What made their disenfranchising society obligated to agree with them?

I don't imagine anyone was obligated to agree with them, but, fortunately, enough influential people eventually came round to agreeing with them, and the law was changed. I am not particularly well informed about the suffrage movement, but I don't seem to think God played a major role in it.

The "source" of the justification for demanding that right lay in the unfairness of others having rights that they were being denied.

You're already assuming the conclusion they wanted to get -- that they had a legitimate "right" to vote --

If other members of society have a right that you don't have, why is it not legitimate to demand to know why you don't have it? If the man who lives next door to you has the right to park his car on the street right outside his house, but you don't have that right, aren't you going to feel agrieved, and feel that you are just as entitled to that right as he is? I doubt that even you would mention God in your letter of protest to your local authorities.

"Rights" are not trump-cards. One can't simply pull them out of thin air or a wish, slap them on the table and say, "You owe me this, because I want it." One has to have some explanation of why that "right" is rightful to give to that person: otherwise, it's just a frivolous demand.

But the (human) authorities that grant rights can just pull them out of thin air if they have a mind to.

Only human authority grants rights; it's a social thing.

If we agree with that, then the suffragettes and freedom marchers had NO right:

That is correct; they did not have a particular right, which is why they were campaigning for it.

what that tells us they were attempting to so is to give themselves a privilege that their society denied was any "right" of theirs at all. So that assumption would destroy the legitimacy of their claim.

They weren't asking for a privilege, they were asking for a right that others already had, but they didn't. Your comment about the legitimacy of their claim makes absolutely no sense to me.

Their societies had already ruled on their status. It had already been decided, by the majority and all those with social power, that women were not to vote

There was a time when no one had a right to vote, because there was no elected body to vote for. When there was, I believe it was only male members of the landed gentry who were eligible to vote. Women, and the lower classes, were simply not included. It was probably more a case of no one saying they could vote, rather than saying they couldn't.

So by what "right" did they defy "the human authority" that "grants rights," to demand a "right" that their society had never so far granted them?

There was no right by which they defied authority; they were demanding a right that other people had, and they did not, and I imagine they were demanding it on the grounds of fairness. I would be very surprised to learn that they were demanding rights -or given them- on the grounds that God said they should have them.

That's what you're not answering. They needed more than a claim that "human authority" gave it to them, because factually, it was the thing that denied it to them. So on what basis could they launch a contrary appeal?

Why don't you explain how women came to have voting rights, then.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's what you're not answering. They needed more than a claim that "human authority" gave it to them, because factually, it was the thing that denied it to them. So on what basis could they launch a contrary appeal?

It is amazing, if weird, to watch you perform these conversational acrobatics. First, you yourself hold the position that human rights have as their origin and sole back-up that of the God that you define. Rights, the possibility of any right, is granted by that God and, in the final instance, will exact a criminal payment if rights are not upheld. What those *rights* are, within the Christian traditions, comes to us through the Hebrew prophets who, shall we say, heard the Voice of God and made God's will plain to man through Judaism and Christianity.

I wonder if you would recognize that other god-concepts also put forward moral systems, and make the statement that these morals, and moral truths generally, descend to man from God? I am uncertain if, in your close-minded mental world, you would recognize other god-concepts (the pagan gods) as being *manifestations of god* (apperceptions of divine impulse as I might put it) or if you would say that only, and strictly, through the Judeo-Christian revelation that morals come into our world. I would ask for clarification but -- as often happens -- you will likely avoid answering.

This issue is so easy, so truly easy, to resolve. It goes like this: any statement you, the Hebrews, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Vaishnavas, or anyone else would make, or could make, about 'revelation' of Divine Commands, all of this only and strictly comes through men. There must be a seer, a hearer, a receiver, an interpreter, of whatever these ideas, demands or impulses are. No god that anyone defines *sky-writes* his will, its will, in such a way that all men can see it objectively. Thus there is no *empirical* evidence that you or anyone can refer to. It is all subjective and hearsay.

For those who hear your sermonizing they respond to you in more or less the same way as I just did.

When you ask: "Where did the notion of *rights* come from?" you ask a question for which you have an answer -- the answer. Everyone who reads you know that answer.

But the basis of the answer that, for you, seems absolutely right, is from where I sit absolutely wrong. For the reason I mentioned: any seer, any prophet, any god-oriented person, has only their subjective apparatus as the vehicle through which the impulses of god (I do not know how to put this) come to that person. Then, as with the Hebrews, that seer transcribes the vision into a verbal form. Now, you might believe, as many do, that *the voice of god was heard*, and naturally you cannot conceive of any other possibility because, literally, your belief-system hangs upon that belief.

But from where *we* stand we say, as we can only say, that no matter what may be the *ultimate truth* about this issue, the sense of *rights* comes only and exclusively through men and their subjective musing, plungings, and transports. Full stop Brother Immanuel.

That means, in the end, that they all come from men. Note the genitive case (of, from).

I can say *Revelation comes from God and through men* and *Revelation comes from God and [is] of men*. But I have certain problems if I say, without any further qualification, that *Revelation comes from God*.

Rights in European culture have a unique and complex origin. The idea of *rights* comes from numerous sources, or came to be defined in jurisprudence and in moral philosophy in different ways.

Rights only have validity, in our culture, and anywhere, if someone respects the right. And it does not require a god-believer to respect a defined and established right, especially when it can be defined, and had been defined, through other means (that is, not through theological definition).

Their societies had already ruled on their status. It had already been decided, by the majority and all those with social power, that women were not to vote and schools, busses and businesses were not to be integrated. So by what "right" did they defy "the human authority" that "grants rights," to demand a "right" that their society had never so far granted them?

The right to sit with White passengers on busses was an attained right, and it was attained through boycott. Yet too there was another element to how it was attained: moral guilt and blame. True, that there was also the Christian belief that every soul is equal, and should not be discriminated against, but it could be argued, and was argued, that everyone (Whites and Blacks) are better off having their own seats, their own hotels and schools, and all the rest. That could have been a *moral* argument as well. Indeed some Blacks made that argument when they desired separation.

There is no moral reason, or no theological reason that I can discern, that indicates why the Supreme God, if such is said to exist and is conceived to exist, would hold as Its primary tenet that "Let women have the vote!" as if intoned from a mountain top. It is more a convention of our society, and it is also a logical extension of Liberal predicates. Women were given the vote because women worked to achieve them, and as it happened the counter-arguments were not convincing enough on men's part to keep those rights from them.

But do women have *rights* at a metaphysical level? You could attempt that argument and it might be a good essai. But you could also make a considerable argument that they should not.

It may be true, and I will say that it is true, that our ethical and moral sensibilities are in a crisis. I can go that far. But I struggle to be certain about what *God* wants or does not want -- unless I recur to a cultural ethical matrix such as prophetic Judaism and Christian philosophy.

[Immanuel Can]

...you yourself hold the position that human rights have as their origin and sole back-up that of the God that you define.

Not responsive to the question. What we're asking about is how the suffragettes and freedom marchers justified their belief that they had "rights" that their society denied them.

So one thing we know: "society gave them their rights" cannot have been true in their case. So what would we say DID give them their rights?

That's a pretty simple question, at least in form. If you can't answer it, just be a good chap and say so. Nobody's being fooled by the misdirection.

[Harbal]

What we're asking about is how the suffragettes and freedom marchers justified their belief that they had "rights" that their society denied them.

No, they didn't believe they had rights, because they were very aware of not having them, and their campaign was about being given those rights.

So one thing we know: "society gave them their rights" cannot have been true in their case. So what would we say DID give them their rights?

They were without voting rights until an act of Parliament granted them, but even then not all women got them; that came later. They started out with no voting rights, and then got them through a change in the law. God wasn't involved.

[Alexis Jacobi]

...you yourself hold the position that human rights have as their origin and sole back-up that of the God that you define.

Not responsive to the question. What we're asking about is how the suffragettes and freedom marchers justified their belief that they had "rights" that their society denied them.

So one thing we know: "society gave them their rights" cannot have been true in their case. So what would we say DID give them their rights?

That's a pretty simple question, at least in form. If you can't answer it, just be a good chap and say so. Nobody's being fooled by the misdirection.

To me, to my way of seeing and understanding, it is simply not a very good, nor a relevant, question. Yet it is not hard to answer it. However, my answer will be dismissed by you because you are working one strict angle. Here, on this thread, and everywhere and in all that you write. Your position is as a confessing Christian. And theology, and theological assertions, and theological truths, are the only truths you recognize as having validity. All else you dismiss -- with justifications (given your beliefs).

The suffragettes based their view that they would reach out and claim those rights because it was an opportune moment to do that. Claiming the right, they validated them. Making them seem valid was the larger part of the struggle. They succeeded. Given the state of culture at that point, and given a whole string of events and social changes. They did not make an appeal to *God in Heaven* though, it is likely, some who held to the Christian faith may have attempted arguments based on Christian ethics.

In a sense you we might propose that their claim on *rights* was an expression of power (will to power if you wish). It does not matter how their claim would be justified, it was enough that they set it as their claim, and worked to get it, using all the machinations, strategies and techniques that all of us use when we want to get something.

I fundamentally disagree: civil society, a society largely determined by men and their power, ceded to those women who made their case for expanded rights -- the right to more meaningful work, education, to control their own financial affairs, to initiate divorce, and so many other things.

So what would we say DID give them their rights?

I have made it plain in 5 different ways. But note: you will not accept my answer because your answer must be ascendent.

Their claim to the rights they defined came because they conceived it as possible. The time was ripe. Social conditions made it possible, and indeed made it preferable, that women have greatly expanded rights. Many feminist men today will say it is infinitely better today than it was before. They agree with women's claims. They support those claims.

But God did not appear in the sky and declare women's rights. And there are some theological arguments that women's rights should be far more limited and far more contained.

Society gave them rights was definitely the case then. More than anything else.

However, I will agree with you that the concept of rights in the sense that we are talking about them is, by and large, a European category, and as such it is connected to Hebrew and Christian idealism. But as I have said, dozens of times, that god-concept though once very real and powerful, has largely collapsed. Look no further than all those you debate with here.

They no longer conceive of *a God* and, what is somewhat worse, they do not even understand that the origin of the ideas about rights was very influenced by theology (and a New Anthropology).

[Alexis Jacobi]

...just be a good chap and say so.

I have said what I have said. It would be nice if you showed yourself capable of understanding why it is that you cannot bend yourself to understand the argument. Meaning, you are fixed within an argument that results from religious fanaticism.

Be a good little chap and admit that that is so!

[Immanuel Can]

...it is simply not a very good, nor a relevant, question...

When you can't answer something, that doesn't make it a bad or irrelevant question. It just makes you an irrelevant talker, if you rattle on without being able to be responsive.

The suffragettes based their view that they would reach out and claim those rights because it was an opportune moment to do that.

That's like saying, "The reason that they did, is because it was time for them to do it." Hogwash. That's not even the question.

The question is what rationale they were invoking. It wasn't that their society was on their side.

Claiming the right, they validated them.

That's even funnier: a thing becomes a right just because somebody claims it? Nobody's buying that.

I claim your Ferrari.

In a sense you we might propose that their claim on *rights* was an expression of power (will to power if you wish).

That's just as funny. The suffragettes and the freedom marchers were LESS powerful than the society they were opposing. Yet they somehow were able to drawn on moral imperatives bigger than their society, and thus overcome the more powerful. Where did they get the power to overpower the more powerful?

Honestly, I don't think you're too dumb to see the question, or to understand its relevance. What I can see is that you're deliberately avoiding it.

[Consul]

Realistic socialists…

A contradiction in terms. And that’s not my opinion: it’s Socialists themselves who insist that a non-utopian Socialism is not real Socialism at all. The default assumption of all their propaganda, too, is that if “inequality” exists, the sole reason for it has to be “oppression.” And why they think that, we’re going to see shortly: it has to do with their insistence that “equality” is the natural state of things — which is clearly not the case.

* If the hope for a better world is utopian, then socialists are utopians.

"The Left, by definition, is the party of hope."

(Rorty, Richard. Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. p. 14)

* Oppression results in inequality; but socialist explanations of inequalities needn't be simplistic "sole-reason" or one-cause explanations like the ones of "the Foucauldian Left" (Rorty) as exemplified by critical race theory, which explains all racial inequalities solely in terms of white racism.

* To endorse equality (in certain respects and under certain conditions) as an ethical idea and ideal is not to deny naively that there are ineliminable natural physical and psychological differences between individuals. Socialists egalitarians seek to eliminate or reduce certain non-natural, i.e. socially constructed and historically contingent, differences which they regard as unjust or unfair.

There is such a thing as pseudomeritocracy in our societies that cannot justify inequality, particularly inequality of power!

Indeed there is. But you rightly call it “pseudo.” Real meritocracy has to be based on real merit. No part of the argument that phony versions are possible suggests meritocracy is not actually better than the alternative.

As for economic inequality, for instance, I read yesterday that more than half of the private wealth in Germany has been inherited rather than earned; and there is nothing less meritocratic than inheritance, which is just a lucky gift.

Woke Leftists such as Iris Young speak of "the myth of merit", and I agree insofar as there is often pseudomeritocratic injustice or unfairness behind what is sold as meritocratic justice or fairness; but I disagree insofar as I don't reject meritocratic principles and criteria as inherently unjust and oppressive. Merit isn't per se a myth.

I agree with the socialists that…"Every human society must justify its inequalities:…" (Piketty)

Wait. That’s dead wrong. In fact, it could not be more obviously wrong.

Which is the natural state of things: equality or inequality? The answer is obvious: inequality. So if there are inequalities, they are to be expected. What is extraordinary, and what needs a proper justifying, is any measure taken to produce equality when everything tends to inequality. Hierarchy is unavoidable, and often good. What line of justification can be raised that we ought to make the foolish look wise, the weak look strong, the lazy get the honour of the diligent, the dullard get the advantages of the inventive, the witless have the same advantages as the creative, and so on?

And when the measures the Socialists advocate to produce their mythical “equality” include robbery, bullying, the denigration of excellence, the forcing of compliance at gunpoint, the burning of private property, and so on, it is very clearly the Socialists and only the Socialists who need to be explaining what might justify the extraordinary measures they’re taking to induce an unnatural state of equalization.

The militant Woke Left is just one faction among the Left, and I don't support the former. The Illiberal Postmodern (Woke) Left isn't my political cup of tea.

When Piketty speaks of inequalities in need of moral justification, he doesn't mean inevitable natural differences between people, but non-natural, man-made social/cultural/political/ethical/economical ones that are historically contingent and hence changeable by us, because they are not determined by unalterable laws of nature.

"Inequality is first of all a social, historical, and political construction. In other words, for the same level of economic or technological development, there are always many different ways of organizing a property system or a border system, a social and political system or a fiscal and educational system. These options are political in nature. They depend on the state of power relationships between the various social groups and the worldviews involved, and they lead to inegalitarian levels and structures that are extremely variable, depending on societies and periods. All creations of wealth in history have issued from a collective process: they depend on the international division of labor, the use of worldwide natural resources, and the accumulation of knowledge since the beginnings of humanity. Human societies constantly invent rules and institutions in order to structure themselves and to divide up wealth and power, but always on the basis of reversible political choices."

(Piketty, Thomas. A Brief History of Equality. Translated by Steven Rendall. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022. pp. 9-10)

"Indeed, socioeconomic inequality has increased in all regions of the world since the 1980s." (Piketty)

A deceptive claim here. Socioeconomic inequality happens whenever one region progresses in some way. And it’s true to say that the West has outstripped the rest of the world in economic growth since 1980. But two caveats must be noted: one is that much of the inequality was caused by the collapse of the failed Soviet regime and other Socialist zones. The other is that the so-called “Third World” was actually rising out of poverty during this period, gaining in average standard of living — and almost exclusively as a result of free-enterprise initiatives at the grass roots level. This nearly-miraculous level of improvement was hardly reported at all in the Developed World, but is truly one of the miracles of the last half century.

That’s the problem with emphasizing “inequality.” All “inequality” tells one is the gap between two figures. And that’s very deceptive. If Tom earned $15/hr in 1970, and $25/hr in 1980, and Ravinder earned the equivalent of $2 in 1970 and $10 in 1980, it’s true that the gap between Tom and Ravinder’s income increased; but it’s also true that both Tom and Ravinder are far better off in 1980 than either of them was in 1970. Moreover, the increasing in Ravinder’s income, if he is in the Developing World, is far more likely to produce significant improvements in his life conditions than the raise gained by Tom will produce in his society.

Therefore, why should we accuse Tom of being unfair to Ravinder? So far, they’re both winning. And Tom’s advances have absolutely no connection to Ravinder’s. Plausibly, they are both earning their advantages.

The upshot is that “inequality” is the wrong thing to focus on. It’s just a fancy name for “covetousness” or “jealousy” — but with the particularly nasty Socialist twist that suggests that resenting somebody else’s achievements somehow makes the envious person “virtuous” and “on the side of the oppressed.” Of course, it does no such thing.

It's no wonder that the wealthy inegalitarians as "the winners" want us to focus on things other than socioeconomic inequality, so as to avoid the unpleasant question of the moral justification of their status.

What you write presupposes question-beggingly that the existing socioeconomic inequalities are morally justified (particularly in meritocratic terms), such that the poor and all the other "losers" are just enviers who mustn't complain.

On the one hand, there are positive long-term trends such as an increase of average income; but, on the other hand, there are negative trends such as an increasingly unequal distribution of private wealth. I see no moral justification for the existence of billionaires.

"Is a society equal enough if it guarantees all its citizens the same basic political and legal rights, or should it try to foster a much more general equality of condition?" (Nagel)

Here’s where we need to be careful: this is a loaded question. It uses the benign term “foster” for the measures that Socialists ordinarily favour: forced equalization, confiscation of property, humiliation of achievers, the elimination of the discontent, and the surrender of large populations to the alleged “tender mercies” of the Socialist elite. “Fosters” fails to cover what’s being advocated, for sure.

No we should not “foster” any “more general equality of condition.” Why should we not? Because we should not reward indolence, stupidity, laziness, envy and greed. What we should do is ensure every person has sufficient opportunities to rise to the highest level they can achieve by proper diligence, creativity and effort on their part…but nothing beyond that. And the final result will inevitably still be “unequal,” because people have unequal gifts, diligence, willingness to face risk, and so on. Those that are willing to achieve should be allowed to do so, and to reap the rewards of their achievement.

Isn't greed capitalism's central virtue?

Given capitalist market economy, a welfare state or "social state" (Sozialstaat in German) helping (fostering, supporting, enabling) those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged due to bad luck gives them both negative liberty (freedom from…) and positive liberty (freedom to…).

However, while reading the new SEP entry on the very concept of equality of opportunity, I fully realized that different people mean different things by it; so this is a complicated topic, in which I am not an expert. Which kind of equality of opportunity is equality enough? One thing is clear: Socialists want to bring equality of opportunity and equality of outcome/result closer together, but they do not all agree on how close.

"Despite its familiarity and apparent popularity, the idea of Equality of Opportunity has proved at once contested and elusive. Such is the variety of ideas to which the term Equality of Opportunity has been used to refer, some have been tempted to question whether there is a coherent single core concept at stake at all (Westen 1985) or have called for it to be abandoned altogether (Radcliffe Richards 1997). For this reason, a substantial amount of the philosophical work that explicitly reflects on the notion of Equality of Opportunity involves unpacking and distinguishing the range of different ideas that fly under that banner (for example, Arneson 2018; Green 1989; Riva 2015). If there is a broad unifying theme between conceptions of Equality of Opportunity, it is the notion of a justified hierarchy or inequality which classifies some factors as being inappropriate determinants of persons’ success. Equality of Opportunity is contested partly because people differ over which factors do or do not qualify as obstructions on persons’ opportunities to succeed in the relevant sense. Different conceptions of Equality of Opportunity can be roughly ordered along a spectrum—from formal to substantive—according to the range of factors that are deemed obstructions on relevant opportunities."

Equality of Opportunity: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/

"Complete equality among persons being impossible, the real meaning of the idea is reduction or amelioration of inequality." (Nagel)

Again, why? If differences between people are the natural state of things, why should we suppose we are duty bound or morally obliged to force them to appear “equal”? And what measures are we thinking we would have to take to make all the achievements, choices, innovations, efforts and distinctions that create differences between people suddenly vaporize? There’s something terribly sinister about the desire to “equalize.” And that sinister nature has been exhibited by every Socialist regime throughout history.

Piketty is right in saying that "inequality is first of all a social, historical, and political construction." There are doubtless inevitable and ineliminable natural differences between people; but the target of egalitarianism aren't those but the evitable and eliminable non-natural differences between people. The non-natural inequalities criticized and rejected by socialist egalitarians take place in the normative realm of morality and are thus in need of moral justification.
Antiegalitarians try to naturalize non-natural, i.e. socially constructed and historically contingent, inequalities in order to sweep the question of moral justification under the carpet, and to declare that social inequality is natural destiny—so nothing can be done about it, which means that nothing needs to be done about it.

"… we should base social policy on the assumption that all persons are equally deserving of a good life, and that their society should try to make it possible for them to have it." (Nagel)

“All persons”? So a complete do-nothing should be the equal of a Bill Gates? And a Charles Manson should be given a guaranteed income at public expense? Or do you simply mean that in a compassionate society, we should not let people who have done no evil die in the streets? Because that last one seems fair enough, but does not require any Socialism.

"All persons are equally deserving of a good life." – I read this with an implicit ceteris paribus ("with other things equal") clause. That is, if other things stop being equal such as the moral characters of persons, then some persons are arguably not "equally deserving of a good life" (whatever exactly "good" means here).
However, does this mean that lazy persons (who aren't criminals) deserve a bad life in dire poverty or even to starve to death? I don't think so.