Philosophy Now Forum

the basic and fundamental line of the
"Declaration of Independence" come right at the start....

"we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"

but this fundamental line is denied by the right...
the basic superiority of some is a given.. so let us work out
the various arguments for the superiority of some...

the superiority of the wealthy: this is the common one..
by the very virtue of wealth, that alone tells us the wealthy
man is superior... personal wealth is the deciding factor for
the superiority of some...both bush lite and IQ45 tell us a different
story...both men, sons of very wealthy men, at one point, trump senior
was one of the wealthiest men in America.. and bush lite, son of a ex-
president, was a son in a family rolling in wealth and ran around the very
wealthy circles of America...and both men, village idiots...
although I will grant bush lite is smarter, but that isn't really saying much..
wealth is not a guarantee of superiority or intelligence or morals...
what exactly is wealth? a lot of pieces of green paper.. nothing more...
achieving wealth can ignore such values as beauty, truth, honesty,
to name a few... in fact, values such as these can prevent the achievement
of wealth... and what values are promoted over and over again in the
business world, what values are promoted over and over again
in businesses all over America? certainly not honesty and not
the pursuit of beauty or truth.... the only value that is pursued
in the business world is profits, money....no other value counts or
matters... I am ordered to make money, all other values are not
pursued... I have called this nihilism because this pursuit
of money/profits is done over the value of human beings
and their own personal values... it doesn't matter if I value
love or peace or freedom or beauty... those values don't
create profits and that is the only value that business want...
so we cannot use profits or money to see our way clear to
a superior person....

what about titles? and titles like money are temporary..
titles come and go.. I have had many titles over these many years
and I can't even remember them all because they are so unimportant...
you can't eat a title and you can't stay warm with a title and you
won't find love with a title...to love a title means you are in love
with something slightly less than wind...

and what about material possessions? can we discover a superior
person because they own many things, houses and cars and big TV set?
Material possessions are as temporary as titles and money... how many
cars have you owned in your lifetime? I am guessing over 10...
cars are as fleeting as the titles and money....as is material possessions...
no, we won't find a superior person owning many cars or homes....

the real problem with this understanding of being a superior person is
that there is no real criteria that allows us to conclusively know
who a superior person by wealth or titles or material possessions....
it is assumed we call someone superior by wealth or
titles or material possessions... there is no real way to figure
out or explain who superior person is, by these means...

and what is left? the idea that all men are created equal
because we have no way to defend superiority in others...
what standard or criteria can we use that will allow us
to understand who is superior? None that I can tell.....

if no one is superior, then that leaves us with only one choice,

"we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men/human beings are
are create equal"

as we are unable to define or explain what a superior man/human being
might look like....and what values do they hold that make them superior?
We cannot know nor can we explain what a superior man/human being
might look like.....we have but one choice.... equality....

Kropotkin

Read the first line and it completely blew me mind. Ubi sunt que ante nos fuerunt?

However, absit iniuria, all is not well. What exactly is wrong with this business of equality is not so clear though. Is anyone else seeing this?

agent smith, thank you, I think?

as for other possibilities for the idea of superiority of human beings
have been in blood/family, nation, race, religion,

blood, that is the entire idea behind royalty.. the royal family
is considered to be superior.. and yet, we see in actual royal
families the exact same failures we see in other families.. or said
another way, Is Prince/well now King Charles of England really
a superior person? or his children, Harry or William? blood
cannot be held up as being superior because again, what
criteria can we use to justify such a belief?

and nation, how can we use the theory of nation to prove
or justify a belief in the superiority of certain people...
and yet, Americans will happily sacrifice other nations
children in some vain attempt to hold onto this belief of
superiority.... an example of this is the indiscriminate bombing
of Vietnam during the war... or the more recent example of
separating families, children from their parents...we know better
is the overall theme of most American history....
or has everyone forgotten the genocide of the American Indians?

and what about race as a factor in judging the superiority of
people? many feel that the white race is superior to the black race
and in fact, the white race is superior to all races, but how do
we justify such belief? No matter what "facts" you might bring
to bear, there is no criteria that we can use that will allow
us to justify such a belief? How do I prove that the white race
is superior to all other races?

that the Christian is superior to the Jew, is another false belief...
for how do we prove it? with the word of god? good luck
with that one....and all other criteria has no supporting
evidence or facts support such a theory that Christians
are somehow superior to all other religions....there is simply
no evidence to prove such a thing....

which is true of all theories supporting the superiority of some
people, races, religions, blood/family, nation, skin color...
there is simply no way to create a fair/honest criteria to
prove such a point...and lacking some proof that some
people are some fashion is superior others, we must accept
equality as the fairest position possible...for within equality
we accept the notion that no matter how hard we try,
we cannot show why some are superior and why some
are not...there are simple no standards/criteria that allow us to
make that case of superiority for one, a few, many or all....

and lacking that standard/criteria, we must fall back to
a default position of the equality of human beings....

" we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men/human beings
are equal"

Kropotkin

now as I am fond of saying, I shall say it here...

equality is and must be our default position,
ok, now what?

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 5:29 am .both bush lite and IQ45 tell us a different
story

The problem is...so do the Clintons and Obama. Clinton, as just one example, was key in ending the Glass-Spiegal restrictions that directly led to all sort of capital increases in the wealthy AND led to the crash of 2008 - iow a vast tranfer of money from everyone else to the rich. Obama claimed he was going to clean house around monied interests, but who did he fill his cabinet with? People who Wall St. was quite happy with.

Let's look at net worth:
Oops...
both Clinton (the man) and Obama have more money than the Bushes...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... _net_worth

Perhaps they had less wealth before, but they sure made a killing on key actions and have been well compensated for them ever since.

It might be more profitable to seem anti-Wall st. anti-wealth. Then they have to bribe you more.

None of these people think we are their equals.