On Sunday, January 27, 2013 5:51:24 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: > > On 1/27/2013 4:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Sunday, January 27, 2013 2:51:04 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: >> >> On 1/27/2013 2:14 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sunday, January 27, 2013 12:34:37 PM UTC-5, Stephen Paul King wrote: >>> >>> >>> What I really what to know is: what motivates the need to find >>> oppression? >>> >> >> What motivates the need to deny oppression? >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression >> ''*Oppression* is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, >> cruel, or unjust >> manner.[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression#cite_note-1> >> It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state >> of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or >> physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and anxiety." >> >> My argument is that the entire idea of oppresion is flawed unless >> there is a clear and objective means to show the metrics that is used. >> > > I would say that is never a valid argument for anything. If I can't give > it a number that is objectively true in all cases then it doesn't exist? > Like, if someone cuts keeps you locked up in a dungeon for 20 years there > is nothing you can say about it unless someone can point to some kind of > metric showing how much worse it was in the dungeon than out of the dungeon? > > > Hi Craig, > > Is it correct to generalize from a single case to a class? >
A class of people? Sure, I don't think that every plutocrat is a terrible person, but the separation of classes into extremes is the problem. If you have a really really small class who own half of the world, and the other half of the world is owned by billions of people who are pre-occupied with surviving and have no disposable income or political access to speak of, how could that not be a problem? > > >> What defines "burdensome", "cruelty", "unjust"? >> > > Why would these concepts suddenly be mysterious? Why do we have to become > lawyers to address simple vocabulary that a 10 year old understands > clearly? In general, anytime that someone contributes to your life in a way > that you do not appreciate, and obstructs your ability to free yourself > from that condition, that is burdensome, cruel, and unjust. > > > I am pointing the vagueness and subjectivity involved and arguing that > making judgements based on such subjective aspects should be confined to > case by case situations. To demonize an entire class or group of people > because of the bad actions of a few is bigotry, no? > No more than demonizing a single person for a their bad actions. > Thus my complaint against the entire line of thinking that flows from the > idea of oppression. > Put it this way. If an alien race began offering fantastic sums of money for human slaves, and your family was captured by the local Sherriff and sold to the aliens, where you are split up and shipped off for menial labor on their home planet forever - whatever you call that is what I am talking about. We don't have to use the word oppression. What word would you suggest for the systematic exploitation of people against their will? > > > >> All subjective eye-of-the-beholder valuations. >> > > You mean the universe? > > >> Oppression cannot be objectively defined, >> > > I just did. > > > I single case does not define a class, and I was not talking about > observations, I was considering evaluations: namely what does it mean to be > oppressed. > It means being subject to regular violation of your control over your own well being. It means denial of your humanity. It means victimization, threat, shaming. It means denial of the validity and equality of a whole class of people by a dominant class. All kinds of things. Why is defining it an issue? What does it allow us to do if we define things rigidly that can't be done if we merely understand them thoroughly? > > > >> as I previously pointed out how one could claim a state of oppression and >> there is no way to measurable show that the oppression does not exist - it >> is impossible to prove a negative. >> > > There is no measurable way to show that measurement is an appropriate > political standard. The entire legal system has no problem with > establishing all kinds of measures and metrics of what constitutes these > qualities though. They aren't always in agreement, but they aren't uncommon > or puzzling. > > >> Oppression now become a means to oppress itself, to pit one group >> against another. >> > > So when the rich enslave the poor its not oppression, but when the poor > claim to be oppressed, that is oppressive to the rich? > > > Is membership in a class a permanent condition? Can the rich become > poor and the poor become rich? Again, the class argument is flawed. > Then you will have no problem when those who have been enslaved turn the tables and enslave you. When you are on a seaweed plantation on planet Zorlak, you can tell your neighbors in the electric punisher booth how it isn't the aliens as a class who are to be blamed. > > > >> >> So I ask, what is the motivation to even consider the idea of >> oppression if not to inject subjectivity further into relations between >> humans that already hard enough to figure out? >> > > Liberty is always the motivation to eliminate oppression. Liberty has no > meaning if it cannot be used to inject subjectivity into relations between > humans. > > > Oh, nice, switch to something else. > Why is it something else? One of the definitions of liberty is the absence of oppression. > > >> When one can look at the measurable results of policies and find where >> and when people thrive >> > > (Socialist Scandinavia) > > > So go live there. See ya! > http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=beautiful+Scandinavia Noooo, don't make me, lol. > > > >> and where and when they do not, >> > > (Capitalist Sub-Saharan Africa) > > > Capitalism exist in sub-Saharan Africa? Really? For a few or for all? > I think that your definitions are off > Capitalism is the the dominant form of economy in most places in most countries in the world as far as I know, although not in the places where I would want to live: http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/socialist-vs-capitalist-a/330526 > > >> there is no need to even mention the word oppression or injustice. >> > > Huh? Democratic countries are destroyed because multinational corporate > interests are threatened, and there's no need to mention it? Why would you > not mention oppression or injustice? I mean I could understand if someone > was an heir to a fortune from these enormous crimes that they would not > want to mention them, but why would anyone else want to protect them? > > >> When evaluating policies, does it not only matter that the results are >> beneficial by some agreeable measure so that we can cast aside all >> subjective aspects? >> > > To cast aside all subjective aspects then we would have to exterminate all > human life on the planet. > > >> We can see in history that collectivist policies have almost >> uniformly caused harm (measureable in the numbers of people in mass >> graves), so why do they keep being tried? >> > > Because privatization uniformly leads to tyranny. > > > Where has this occurred uniformly? Seriously, Craig, this is bullshit! > Where hasn't it occurred? What country has been completely privatized without tyranny? > > Has there ever been a collectivist revolution which was not motivated by > the injustices of the regime which is the target of the revolt? > > > Read about Mao's China sometime. > I'm not saying that the horrors of revolution matched the injustices of pre-revolution, but a revolution could hardly gain traction without resonating with a lot of unhappy people, could it? > The South could have kept their slaves - all of them, forever, if they > just hadn't have been so incredibly evil about it. They had to rape them > and beat them and torture them routinely for pleasure. They had to expand > their unquenchable perversion westward and in perpetuity. That is what > pissed off the abolitionists enough to make trouble. This is the inevitable > result of the denial of oppression and survival of the fittest fallacies. > Slavery is the pristine example of unregulated capitalism. > > > Frankly, this is a display of utter nonsense like likes of which I > cannot believe! > Nobody can make you believe. What part of it in particular is inaccurate? Slavery being the pristine example of unregulated capitalism is an opinion of course, but the rest is an obvious interpretation of the facts, which if they could be contradicted, I'm sure that you would take the opportunity to do that instead of offering just the emotion of disgust. Who was it that said we should avoid emotion and focus on reason? Craig > > -- > Onward! > > Stephen > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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