Human Nature

[Alan V]

I think that morality comes first to most people. Morality viewed by lens of ideology however; people support say libertarian policies because they think them just and because they see them as good for themselves. It's not that majority of people are monsters who would take welfare from grannies and kids for shit and giggles (though number of them is insignificant), they simply see this welfare as something morally bad and I suppose in their own view they're thinking that they are helping said grannies and kids by voting on politicians wanting to cut it.

I don't agree, at least not for Americans. The folks here act politically not out of moral concerns but out of "how might this affect me?" Most Americans don't give a shit about whether cutting welfare or school-lunch programs hurts others if it means their tax bill is lower.

At least, that's what they vote for -- and I take them at their word. If they cared about that stuff would they incessantly vote for lower taxes and concomitant cuts in government services? These voters aren't worried about teaching welfare-queens any big lesson, they're more concerned about I-me-mine.

That assessment seems more true of Republicans than Democrats.  Ronald Reagan's welfare-queens critique was a great rationalization for many people to act selfishly.  Ayn Rand appeals to many Republicans for the same reason.  As a result, they have lost the ability to moderate their selfishness, and Trump is the reductio ad absurdum of such thinking.  The end result is an oligarchy of the rich.

[Alan V]

I'm resigned to the fact that some few people are good, others are  bad, and the large majority -- their supporters, by and large, because politicians and media stars have to play to headlines -- fluctuate between what we agree is good and evil.

This is my present assessment as well, though I used to think of the majority as good.  The majority may be well-intentioned, but their intellectual laziness makes them stupid more often than not.

[Angrboda]

I suspect my casualness and lack of expectations may in part be due to my Taoism.  One's philosophical outlook may play a role in steering one toward or away from misanthropy.

I was hoping wabi sabi ideas might moderate some of my current misanthropy, and they have up to a point.  People are imperfect and incomplete -- those are just facts to accept.

However, that does lead to blaming human nature rather than specific individuals for their failings.  It's not altogether an improvement of misanthropic perspectives, since it really doesn't make sense to say that people are "perfectly imperfect" as some do, or that they are really okay that way.  If anything, it makes people seem deterministic and tragic.

What specific Taoist ideas have you found helpful?  I recently reread Lao Tzu, and found his ideas even less helpful and more muddled than when I read them earlier in my life.  "Lack of expectations" sounds rather like stoicism and its determinism.

It doesn't sound like Taoism is a good fit for you. Taoism is something that reflects my nature as much as it offers prescriptions for it.

[Alan V]

It doesn't sound like Taoism is a good fit for you.  Taoism is something that reflects my nature as much as it offers prescriptions for it.

Yes, I suppose most people must choose their beliefs based on how they serve their personal interests. So that is one answer.

[Angrboda]

It doesn't sound like Taoism is a good fit for you.  Taoism is something that reflects my nature as much as it offers prescriptions for it.

Yes, I suppose most people must choose their beliefs based on how they serve their personal interests.  So that is one answer.

I'm not sure how you got that out of what I wrote.

[Ivan Denisovich]

I think that morality comes first to most people. Morality viewed by lens of ideology however; people support say libertarian policies because they think them just and because they see them as good for themselves. It's not that majority of people are monsters who would take welfare from grannies and kids for shit and giggles (though number of them is insignificant), they simply see this welfare as something morally bad and I suppose in their own view they're thinking that they are helping said grannies and kids by voting on politicians wanting to cut it.

I don't agree, at least not for Americans. The folks here act politically not out of moral concerns but out of "how might this affect me?" Most Americans don't give a shit about whether cutting welfare or school-lunch programs hurts others if it means their tax bill is lower.

You certainly know more about US politics than I.

At least, that's what they vote for -- and I take them at their word. If they cared about that stuff would they incessantly vote for lower taxes and concomitant cuts in government services? These voters aren't worried about teaching welfare-queens any big lesson, they're more concerned about I-me-mine.

Voting for lower taxes and cut for gov services could have a moral reasoning too - taxes being seen as punishment for success and gov services as unfair competition or form of handout that breeds dependability. Now that would be insane view (though I read this crap about taxes as punishment quite often in internet arguments) but as far as I am concerned neoliberalism and fascism are insane ideologies. Of course from the fact that moral reasoning could be seen in voting like you mentioned above one can't reach for conclusion that it necessarily is. It's merely one possibility though I would argue that ideology first and money as plus is a stance that might be more common that people think. It would in fact explain otherwise irrational choices of working class people voting for neoliberals. To be fair however thinking that there will be economic benefits would be obvious counterpoint and something in favor of money being deciding factor.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't agree, at least not for Americans. The folks here act politically not out of moral concerns but out of "how might this affect me?" Most Americans don't give a shit about whether cutting welfare or school-lunch programs hurts others if it means their tax bill is lower.

You certainly know more about US politics than I.

At least, that's what they vote for -- and I take them at their word. If they cared about that stuff would they incessantly vote for lower taxes and concomitant cuts in government services? These voters aren't worried about teaching welfare-queens any big lesson, they're more concerned about I-me-mine.

Voting for lower taxes and cut for gov services could have a moral reasoning too - taxes being seen as punishment for success and gov services as unfair competition or form of handout that breeds dependability. Now that would be insane view (though I read this crap about taxes as punishment quite often in internet arguments) but as far as I am concerned neoliberalism and fascism are insane ideologies. Of course from the fact that moral reasoning could be seen in voting like you mentioned above one can't reach for conclusion that it necessarily is. It's merely one possibility though I would argue that ideology first and money as plus is a stance that might be more common that people think. It would in fact explain otherwise irrational choices of working class people voting for neoliberals. To be fair however thinking that there will be economic benefits would be obvious counterpoint and something in favor of money being deciding factor.

People act politically for different reasons, both in voting and also in running for office, formulating policy, etc. I do believe some ground their decisions in their own moral imperatives, but others make decisions based on social utility, hunger for power, venality, and so on.

[Ivan Denisovich]

You certainly know more about US politics than I.


Voting for lower taxes and cut for gov services could have a moral reasoning too - taxes being seen as punishment for success and gov services as unfair competition or form of handout that breeds dependability. Now that would be insane view (though I read this crap about taxes as punishment quite often in internet arguments) but as far as I am concerned neoliberalism and fascism are insane ideologies. Of course from the fact that moral reasoning could be seen in voting like you mentioned above one can't reach for conclusion that it necessarily is. It's merely one possibility though I would argue that ideology first and money as plus is a stance that might be more common that people think. It would in fact explain otherwise irrational choices of working class people voting for neoliberals. To be fair however thinking that there will be economic benefits would be obvious counterpoint and something in favor of money being deciding factor.

People act politically for different reasons, both in voting and also in running for office, formulating policy, etc. I do believe some ground their decisions in their own moral imperatives, but others make decisions based on social utility, hunger for power, venality, and so on.

Sure. I would simply argue that morality matters far more for majority of people than it is commonly stated in whatever media I watch/read. For me this is the key to understanding other people voting decisions because as far as I can see using economics as predictor result in hilarity and befuddlement both.

[Thumpalumpacus]

People act politically for different reasons, both in voting and also in running for office, formulating policy, etc. I do believe some ground their decisions in their own moral imperatives, but others make decisions based on social utility, hunger for power, venality, and so on.

Sure. I would simply argue that morality matters far more for majority of people than it is commonly stated in whatever media I watch/read. For me this is the key to understanding other people voting decisions because as far as I can see using economics as predictor result in hilarity and befuddlement both.

Fair enough.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Ivan Denisovich

I want to say, first, that I agree with you.  It aint a kids story - at least unless your kids like a little blood and gore.  That's the background noise on a largely heterotrophic world, though.  So when I say that I think people are generally good..as opposed to generally bad....  general decent rather than degenerate - ofc being some thing doesn't mean we're not capable of another.  Not all this, or all the other.  Not always this, never the other.  Not the one thing just because we aren't the other.  

Conflict, genocide..these things exist and would exist regardless of the balance of our natures.  Conflicts over resources, for example - they don't have good endings for either party.  Genocide is bad...mmmkay...but it took a world war and atomic weapons to stop the genocide in ww2...and that's decidedly Not Great either.  I mentioned exclusively suboptimal decision fields earlier in thread.  This is what that looks like.  Where the moral conundrum is not which option is good..because none of them are good - but which is the least bad.  Do we commit self righteous suicide (and murder) by avoiding conflict over the last watering hole at any cost?  Might it produce less suffering in aggregate if we allow a genocide to reach culmination rather than fight to stop it.  

Some part of our disagreements (you and me, and people in general) come down to personal experience.  We both have anecdotes and a life where we've seen x y and z.  If your life has mostly been shitty people making life difficult, and you've mostly been a shitty person making life difficult, then there's no way I could argue you out of that apprehension.  IDK if what poland is doing in politics right now is a good sample for human nature in toto..there are what, 30-40 million of you..and you haven't always had these politics, have you?  People have chosen other politics in the past..and still do, no?  At any rate, if the trigger for you "admitting" that human nature might be good is people immediately around you and in polish politics changing......who knows what tomorrow holds.  

As far as apologia...not to me.  Christian apologia over moral conflicts is the doomed effort to try and find some way to make a bad thing good.  Not to come up with a sober accounting of the balance of moral good or ill.  They're angling for good in an unqualified and even blameless..especially blameless, way.  Because their god is good everything it does must also be good and because it is the moral standard in cannot be deficient.  I don't say these as matters of a moral fact - but as expositions of the belief.   That, I think, is a great example of our capacity for evil.  The whole bit about how, without religion, there would be good and evil - but it takes religion to make good man evil.  For me, coming from my moral pov... this view -is- a childs view of morality...but so is the idea that bad things would never happen to or because of good people (or acts).  That humans can;t be said to be generally good so long as things like wars exist. Exclusively suboptimal decision fields are interference in the business of moral accounting.  Stealing is bad.  Stealing a $5 necessity with $20 bucks in your pocket demonstrates "bad nature" in a way that stealing a $5 necessity when you're $30k in debt with zero bucks in your wallet just doesn't.  In both cases something is stolen.  You can see how this isn't (or shouldn't be) an issue for the moral accounting of a gods alleged acts.  So, for example, "god" tells people to steal fertile land from other people, and commit genocide in the process.  That strikes me as a recognizably human justification for doing some shitty thing...and the idea that god says so..again to me..says something about the people who actually ordered it or mythologize it.  They didn't say their neighbor bob said it was ok and/or required.  Or that they did it because it was a tuesday.  God brings the permissive and moralizing juice, the juice being necessary to the effort.  In their belief system or in their cynical estimation.

All of the people choosing their politics (that we don't agree with) based on their morality (which we also, presumably, do not agree with) - I'd be willing to wager they think they are doing good. That's really all that's required to comment on mans moral nature - which is distinct from mans competence as a moral (or utilitarian) agent...and the view I have on the matter is itself distinct from the christian view - which posits that we cannot help but intend and prefer the bad. All falling short of some ridiculous ghost standard..that the ghost itself also..apparently... falls short of.