I appreciate the shift from "/equality/" as some kind of universal and/or objective to "/respect/" as something closer to a localized, pairwise set of relations. If the earth is covered with humans who have significant mutual respect among our social networks/relations, that leads to a smooth if not globally equal function. With a fabric woven of human-human respect, I suspect the disparity of our mega-billionaires contrasted with starving children (many places?) would normalize very quickly. "Equality" is at best some kind of rule-of-thumb measure of how well that "respect" is distributed?
And isn't this the issue with Taliban/ISIS? Whatever metric of "respect" they implement is apparently far enough from our own so as to be nearly unrecognizeable? Economic wealth (in the sense of hoarded liquifiable assets, or money flow as income/rent) is an easy (too easy) singular collapsed objective function. I'm not sure I agree that it is not a fluid medium, though it definitely has some odd characteristics, maybe even to the point of being "superfluid" in some bad ways? I think the point of local smoothness is more important than the choice of variables (though I agree in principle with your "large fabric of variables" conception. What does the lowest paid staff at Mara Lago make, and do they have access to Donald Trump's hamburgers and fried chicken as it is prepared/served? Without arguing DTs *actual* wealth, the wealth/income disparity would seem to be problematic in any gated community, much less one as bizarrely extreme (in several dimensions of the fabric of variables) as Mara Lago. The article I linked earlier suggests a more significant equality in the American Colonies than I assumed, but mostly as a "frontier" with open ended opportunities (the lore of my own people is that their Scots-Irish ancestors fled indentured servitude through the Cumberland Gap, thereby peopling the Ohio Valley and the western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains in the process. Is it any wonder that the g*grandchildren of Rob Roy and William Wallace are fixated on "honor" over "wealth". "Honor" is not the same as "Respect", but perhaps closer than "Wealth"? https://www.politifact.com/article/2015/jul/02/founding-fathers-ordinary-folk/ > Yeah, talk of equality is sophistry, in the bad sense of the word. But, NOT > being a postmodernist, myself, I read *through* the word to a constellation > of ideals behind it, including dyed in the wool socialism, if not anarchism. > But unlike Nick's creation myth, I tend to think of it in terms of Respect > for Persons ... or simply Respect: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/respect/ > > In fact, one place the righties have it right is that to equalize everything > in a single dimension (e.g. redistribution of money) is ultimately > disrespectful and, hence, a violation of the principle of equality (if > understood as respect). Where they go wrong is in rejecting the idea of > equalizing according to a large fabric of variables, which is what motivates > equalization by money ... because ... wait for it ... money is a good, > reductive, singular candidate for hyper-reduction ... well, fiat money > anyway. So, only because we live in a largely capitalist society, does > equalization via money make sense ... because money is a medium, not a thing, > in itself. > > Obviously, I have my doubts about money as a fluid medium. But we've argued > that to death already. > > > On 8/26/21 1:22 PM, Steve Smith wrote: >> Marcus wrote: >>> You are made of matter following some trajectory that was initiated with >>> the big bang, and you will go where you will go. There is no “deserve”. >>> >> "The universe is flux, all else is opinion" - M. Aurelius >> >> and... >> "they're merely talking to hear themselves speak" - G. Ropella >
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