Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:05 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 7:08 am As Scott points out, there is a tendency in some cases for the haves to want to preserve the status quo and the have nots to want to change it--depending on whatever degree the status quo can be shown to represent a justified state of affairs versus an unjustified one.

Too simplistic, Gary. If what you were saying is true, then rich people would always be conservatives, and poor ones would be progressives. But New York and Hollywood are two of the most Progressivist places in the US...and neither of the Progressivists groups there is reputedly poor. Likewise, how does one explain that the "flyover states," as the Progressives derisively term them, are mostly poorer than the states that call them that?

Wealth differences DO define the first major distinctions. But the reason you get wealthy on the 'non-conservative' side at all is due to how one defines the significant minorities they favor. By this I mean that to those wealthy and IN CONTROL of the general left-wing ideologies, they interpret groups rather than individuals as what matters. As such, these people can be 'conservative' with respect to what they might want of specific groups, ...like some identity factor they believe are distinct of themselves in respect to others.

Hollywood, for instance, may be mostly 'progressive' in appearance. But this is due to the nature of the means of HOW one gets and stays wealthy. Hollywood is dependent on appeal by larger populations to be competitive. But such success then requires respect of the 'majority of fans' who represent their significant minority of interest. It wouldn't go over well to assert that your success in the arts is due to your own innate worthiness or 'supremacy' by nature (even if they MAY believe this).

If you DEPEND on majorities to survive who come from ANY arbitrary background, then you will require means to credit those populations. Thus, the rich people who are more overtly successful DUE to voluntary appeal by the masses REGARDLESS of the individual makeup or economic classes [like media related entities, will tend to favor VARIATION. Since this variation is often about 'cultural' distincts and NOT the individuals apart from this artificial distinction, this proves to me that they are still 'conservative' in that they favor some interests in saving cultural factors of their OWN but still dependent upon the coexistence of others that are NOT their OWN. So they favor the 'democratic' vote of the culturally defined groups as who represent the smallest member of voting power rather than the individual.

So I think that the word, 'conservative' is not sufficient to describe distinctions of 'moral' differences between people not found in all of us innately. We are all 'greedy'. What makes the right-wing come across as MORE greedy than those who think similar on the left-wing supporters is only about a combination of things that not only relate to WEALTH, but to HOW their wealth is CONSERVED. If you are inherently wealthy due to an economic fortune NOT dependent upon variations of cultural distinction, you favor the right-wing politics to assure you persist; if your fortune is dependent upon the essential appeal of a broader class of cultural distinctions, you favor the left-wing politics to conserve your power.

Families who are wealthy due to banking or finance, will tend towards right-wing politics while those who are wealthy due to art will tend towards left-wing politics. Thus, the wealthy classes CAN have distinction of interests AND, given politics still requires money, regardless of the interests of the poor who side for either, it is the wealthy who define what ACTUAL party definitions exist in politics.

The poor who are best favored by 'cultural' distinctions will tend towards the left if it EMPOWERS them as a member of some cultural group that also happens to be less independently wealthy. If you are black and poor, for instance, you benefit more if you support identity politics that would enhance your likely success in a community where most blacks are contemporarily less representative of the wealthy and more plurally distinct among the poor. Given whites are presumed representative of the 'wealth', those who are poor often lose access to any benefits the 'progressive' left might leave out of them as a class among the poor. That is, they get forcefully selected out of any 'progressive' changes because the left treats people based upon identity as what CAUSES poverty. So those who are both poor and white are then also being forced to either accept themselves as sacrifices for some greater 'good' or align themselves with the very same but opposing cultural identity groups that believe in using cultural identity as a marker of success or failure. The poor whites who align with the contemporary 'right' are those who ONLY benefit BY embracing the stereotypes assumed of the wealthy stereotypes about white people as a whole WITHIN the poorer communities regardless of the facts. As such, you either are invisible (if you align with the left-wing politics among your poor community) OR you are visible ONLY where you are EXTREMELY representative of what is presumed of whiteness and success.

And there is also similar but opposing reasons why there are 'invisible' classes on the right-wing side who benefit best where they just KEEP QUIET. As such, even if they happen to embrace similar potential cultural identity stereotypes as strong as the more overt white-supremacists, they LET society think of them as a part of the left-wing classes or get isolated as rogues.

Wealth is thus a major factor of where you fit in politics but it also has to have some cross (or 'intersectional') coinciding factors, like race, that will always inevitably be present as some majority or plurality of either class defined by wealth.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:40 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:16 pm I would go so far as to say that the Trump phenomena could very well even be described as a case of have nots wanting to change the status quo.

Well, I'm not an American, but from where I sit, I'd say that's an ironclad certainty.

we know are not but are coy when asked where you are from (like me 5 times at least now).

why the secrecy?

Canadian is my personal guess.

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:40 am why the secrecy?

It's irrelevant.

I prefer to keep irrelevancies out of the way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:35 am

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:40 am why the secrecy?

It's irrelevant.

I prefer to keep irrelevancies out of the way.

oh Mr Coy Coy. its ok, i too like my privacy.

i do not see my iquary as illrelivent however.

how is Ottawa this winter?

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:40 am how is Ottawa this winter?

You should ask them.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:35 am

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:40 am why the secrecy?

It's irrelevant.

I prefer to keep irrelevancies out of the way.

oh Mr Coy Coy. its ok, i too like my privacy.

i do not see my iquary as illrelivent however.

how is Ottawa this winter?

.......68 here in Norman today - now 58.

cold front comming in and by morning it will be 38.

I personally love global warming, so far Oklahoma Winters are akin to my Houston and Los Angeles ones as a wee kid.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:42 am

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:40 am how is Ottawa this winter?

You should ask them.

we've "talked" now for at least 2 yrs, why not let down your guard and tell us your secret location?

still think you are Canadian.

if not Ottawa, then Toronto (using population stats to deduce).........of course Moncton might be closer to local, but not in the stats using blind guess pops which i am forced to use.

RIP Lexx Gigoroff(sp) - i think he was from that city/town, the creative genious of the 90's TV show "Lexx" - died too young - 52? with a turkey in the sink for Canadian thankgiving - heart attack probably.

oh sorry, 68 is around 20 and 58 is around 15 for you Canadians.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:42 am

gaffo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:40 am how is Ottawa this winter?

You should ask them.

my sis lives in Ottawa, but we don't talk much sadly.

as you may know -1 is a Canadian, and we got into a spat 2 yrs ago about his assurtion that his PM was the full authority in Canada, i pointed him out to the fact that the Governor General had the untimate rule (oly not used since ww1 - that authority remains under the later of the law of Canadian rule of law).

sadly he still disscount the governor general as anything more than cerimonial (as the Assuies did in the 70's until the Queen used the Assuie GG to remove thier PM Frazer? ) - wakup call for them, Canadians did not notice the Aussie travail of 40 yrs prior i guess.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:24 am By this I mean that to those wealthy and IN CONTROL of the general left-wing ideologies, they interpret groups rather than individuals as what matters.

This seems to be true. Leftists are generally collectivists.

But I think there are two reasons why some people want to be collectivists. One is that they've genuinely been fooled to think that the individual is no more than a product of the collective -- and this has unhealthy consequences, like the idea that free speech or independent thought are impossible, or that nobody can be trusted to understand a collective that is not their own, or their dumbest idea, historical guilt, in which they blame people who never did anything for the alleged "sins" of others.

But the second reason is more insidious: it's that one has to mass people in order to manipulate them. Aggregate them into a collective, and they not only become less critical and reflective of themselves, but also have an immense amount more power that the Leftists can mobilize to achieve their selfish goals...

Hollywood is decidedly composed of the latter types, gated-community-dwellers who claim to hate walls, climate activists who fly to their conferences in personal jets, and multi-millionaires with offshore accounts, all mobilizing the the masses to believe that it's better that government do everything for them. And I don't think they're stupid people: they know full well they're not living the creed they're hoping to foist on everybody else.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:02 am

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:24 am By this I mean that to those wealthy and IN CONTROL of the general left-wing ideologies, they interpret groups rather than individuals as what matters.

This seems to be true. Leftists are generally collectivists.

But I think there are two reasons why some people want to be collectivists. One is that they've genuinely been fooled to think that the individual is no more than a product of the collective -- and this has unhealthy consequences, like the idea that free speech or independent thought are impossible, or that nobody can be trusted to understand a collective that is not their own, or their dumbest idea, historical guilt, in which they blame people who never did anything for the alleged "sins" of others.

But the second reason is more insidious: it's that one has to mass people in order to manipulate them. Aggregate them into a collective, and they not only become less critical and reflective of themselves, but also have an immense amount more power that the Leftists can mobilize to achieve their selfish goals...

Hollywood is decidedly composed of the latter types, gated-community-dwellers who claim to hate walls, climate activists who fly to their conferences in personal jets, and multi-millionaires with offshore accounts, all mobilizing the the masses to believe that it's better that government do everything for them. And I don't think they're stupid people: they know full well they're not living the creed they're hoping to foist on everybody else.

We are in agreement (I believe) on the significant underlying problems.

I bought a three-way Chess game years ago that reminds me of a good comparison of what I think goes on. Given only one unique player can win, two of them are sure to lose. The players are as the 'wealthy and powerful' where the masses are the pawns. The single 'winner' represents the 'right-wing' type of politics where the left-wing are just the collective of the losers. They are all playing the game from a power background but only differ upon whether the PRESENT winner is you or not. If you are presently the loser, you favor some means to CHANGE it: thus 'progressive' changes to the present reality. The winner will want to CONSERVE their winning streak.

It's not a perfect analogy and would be something greater than merely three players. But they are all more representative of individual players who act as proxies to GROUPS simply for the fact that two or more people who agree to something in common will inevitably have more power than the literal independent persons they represent. And since things like 'culture', 'ethnicity', 'race', 'sex', or other artistic definitions of group associations are always more powerful for their emotional impact, these qualities DEFINE the players who get to play.

Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:44 am It's not a perfect analogy and would be something greater than merely three players. But they are all more representative of individual players who act as proxies to GROUPS

Well, you're right: there's a little weakness in the analogy, in that it doesn't contain the key difference we're talking about...namely, the extreme collectivism in Progressivism on the Left.

Conservatives do campaign publicly, as do the Progressives; but they don't tend to view the people they're talking to as collectives, but as individuals that can be appealed to separately, each with his or her own interests and values, and none of which are mere thralls of the culture or situation into which they were born.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:53 pm Conservatives do campaign publicly, as do the Progressives; but they don't tend to view the people they're talking to as collectives, but as individuals that can be appealed to separately, each with his or her own interests and values, and none of which are mere thralls of the culture or situation into which they were born.

That does seem to often be the case. I don't often hear conservative candidates talk about people as "working-class" or "the wealthy" or "elites".

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:39 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:53 pm Conservatives do campaign publicly, as do the Progressives; but they don't tend to view the people they're talking to as collectives, but as individuals that can be appealed to separately, each with his or her own interests and values, and none of which are mere thralls of the culture or situation into which they were born.

That does seem to often be the case. I don't often hear conservative candidates talk about people as "working-class" or "the wealthy" or "elites".

Indeed, that's so.

And ironically, because conservatives have a lot of confidence in the individual, they tend to believe in class mobility. Nothing is fate, from their view; the individual will face struggles, of course, but is not inevitably locked into his situation. If his rights are preserved, he can establish his own situation.

Ironically again, the Progressivists are the ones who still care about categories like "gender," "class" and "race." The Conservatives (outside of the radical right fringe which is very small and plays no real role in public life) tend to want to move past these categories, because they regard the categories as really superficial. The deep fact, in conservative though, is of the uniqueness and value of the individual and his/her potential, rather than his/her identity within some collective.

And ironically, the Lefist ideology called "intersectionalism," the belief that the Progressivist class categories can be "intersected" indefinitely (like, white-handicapped-female, or black-male-homosexual), means that at the end of the day, every person in the world is at a unique "intersection" of these categories -- and we're back to the unique value of the individual again. So even in Progressivist terms, their class-obsessed ideology makes no sense.

But it seems that Progressives are too ideologically possessed even to follow through the logic of their own ideology to its inevitable conclusion in the conservative claim that the individual has essential value.