Couple of things
- Here is what is right with kids these days. Kudos to Young PPA for showing commitment to fighting poverty and for getting youth involved in that fight.
- I've started The Safe As Houses Water Challenge to monitor my daily consumption.
- Related to that, Jason Winders talks about possibly changing how we monitor usage, though I think a large problem might be from how his residence determines usage. If you live in a building where your own usage isn't directly monitored, but instead determined from an average of all of the tenants, wouldn't be that more of a problem with how that building breaks up its bills and not an indictment of the system?
- This would seem to be a good idea, as long as there is a component in there to ensure flexibility (it's often hard to see what your needs might be two years out). I only have two minor points to quibble over ... first, I agree the non-profits should be asked to contribute to OneAthens, but asking for financial commitments might be like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. Second, I'm hopeful the study we have on reveals that we need a new jail because, quite frankly, I feel it's fairly obvious that we do need a new one (where we get the funds to build said jail is a whole different discussion).
- Is it just me, or are these kids making a silly argument? In essence, they just want local governments to pay the difference of the money that a business doesn't make, one they concede is not essential and a poor use of the resource?
- While continuing her obsession with The Georgia Gang, SpaceyG makes a ridiculous argument in the comments at Peach Pundit that I've heard before ... namely, that unless you either are of one particular demographic or have personally experienced something, you have no right to hold an opinion on it. Here, she focuses on women's rights, namely abortion, but this is, of course, patently stupid. Using this logic, whites can hold no position in the fight for civil rights, heterosexuals can't be concerned about gay rights and unless you have personally experienced a horrific disease such as AIDS or cancer, don't bother expressing any opinion on how to best fight these illnesses. Straw(wo)man, I call thee out.
- Can I still point out how awesome it was Georgia beat Auburn ... and that the whole friggin' stadium was clad in black? I didn't make it to the game, opting to watch it on a large projector on Milledge Avenue with Ed and Matt, but it was easily the most fun I've had watching a game not called 'Georgia over Florida in 1997' (something Doug points out as well).Let's just say that when Knowshon Moreno and the whole sideline began dancing, so did Ed and I ... and that with any remotely positive Bulldog play after that, we began humming In Da Club by 50 Cent (and I mean any remotely positive Bulldog play). I suggest that you all go buy the T-shirt today.
- I've started The Safe As Houses Water Challenge to monitor my daily consumption.
- Related to that, Jason Winders talks about possibly changing how we monitor usage, though I think a large problem might be from how his residence determines usage. If you live in a building where your own usage isn't directly monitored, but instead determined from an average of all of the tenants, wouldn't be that more of a problem with how that building breaks up its bills and not an indictment of the system?
- This would seem to be a good idea, as long as there is a component in there to ensure flexibility (it's often hard to see what your needs might be two years out). I only have two minor points to quibble over ... first, I agree the non-profits should be asked to contribute to OneAthens, but asking for financial commitments might be like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. Second, I'm hopeful the study we have on reveals that we need a new jail because, quite frankly, I feel it's fairly obvious that we do need a new one (where we get the funds to build said jail is a whole different discussion).
- Is it just me, or are these kids making a silly argument? In essence, they just want local governments to pay the difference of the money that a business doesn't make, one they concede is not essential and a poor use of the resource?
- While continuing her obsession with The Georgia Gang, SpaceyG makes a ridiculous argument in the comments at Peach Pundit that I've heard before ... namely, that unless you either are of one particular demographic or have personally experienced something, you have no right to hold an opinion on it. Here, she focuses on women's rights, namely abortion, but this is, of course, patently stupid. Using this logic, whites can hold no position in the fight for civil rights, heterosexuals can't be concerned about gay rights and unless you have personally experienced a horrific disease such as AIDS or cancer, don't bother expressing any opinion on how to best fight these illnesses. Straw(wo)man, I call thee out.
- Can I still point out how awesome it was Georgia beat Auburn ... and that the whole friggin' stadium was clad in black? I didn't make it to the game, opting to watch it on a large projector on Milledge Avenue with Ed and Matt, but it was easily the most fun I've had watching a game not called 'Georgia over Florida in 1997' (something Doug points out as well).Let's just say that when Knowshon Moreno and the whole sideline began dancing, so did Ed and I ... and that with any remotely positive Bulldog play after that, we began humming In Da Club by 50 Cent (and I mean any remotely positive Bulldog play). I suggest that you all go buy the T-shirt today.
posted by Jmac at 9:27 AM
26 Comments:
Yeah, but...it's easy to hold positions when you know that they can never be applied to you.
JMac is right. You might as well say that you have no right to express an opinion about the Bulldogs unless you yourself played college football.
I just hope he remembers his own argument next time somebody starts yelling about "chicken hawks."
I don't think she was saying that men are not allowed to have an opinion about abortion in general. In her original post, she made a comment about whether Nancy Shaefer is relevant to women voters or something along those lines. So, presumably, the argument that the men on the thread need not weigh in was because you all are not women voters and therefore cannot say whether Nancy Shaefer is relevant to you.
I never thought I'd see someone call the work done by millions of activists and social workers working to help with poverty, civil rights, disease and so many other blights characterized as "easy".
The 'chicken hawk' argument is not one I've ever heard JMac use, but I'm willing to give it a modest defense.
People have every right to hold opinions on things with which they have no direct experience. And so do chickenhawks. People can spout on about war policy, and advocate blowing up this or that, all without any past history of serving in the military themselves as well as no intention of doing so in the future. As an intellectual or rational position, there is nothing wrong with this.
The problem with chickenhawks is not that they are intellectually incoherent (well, they might be, but that's a different issue), it's that they are chickens. There's is a moral problem, not a rational problem. It is the nature of the particular issue of war, which necessarily involves sending people off to shoot at other people and get shot at themselves. This should only be done in the most extreme of circumstances, presumably, and if you think those circumstances are present but you refuse to help out in the cause yourself then that makes you a chicken. You want other people, and other people's children to die for something that you claim to believe in but are not yourself willing to die for. That is hypocrisy, and it is a moral failing.
But this doesn't apply, say, to men who are pro-life or to American football fans who think soccer is stupid. There is no inherent moral hypocrisy contained in those sorts of positions-without-experience.
If men believed that life is worth protecting and ensuring that all have some access to whatever benefits there are in living, wouldn't men do whatever it took to ensure that children birthed are provided loving and nurturing homes, most likely by opening up their own homes to such children through fostering, adoption, or procreating them directly?
I think that is how people who denounce the hypocrisy of the pro-life tend to see it as a moral failing, Xon.
Polus,
I don't know that you should be discussing adoption unless you are an adopting parent, adopted person or adoption case worker. It's easy to hold positions when you know that they can never be applied to you.
Yawn
Keep going, Jeff. This is entertaining.
True or false: you, as a male, are not affected by any pronouncements you make regarding women voters.
IMO, you may have all the opinions you want regarding whatever you want. But they hold more weight when they come from people who either will be taking the consequences of their pronouncements or who are experts in the affected area.
True or false: you, as a male, are not affected by any pronouncements you make regarding women voters.
Patently false. Undeniably false.
There may not be a personal or physical effect resulting from one's opinions, but there is surely a communal, moral and ethical result? Why should we trivialize one for the sake of the other?
Because one has a disproportionate effect on certain groups of people.
You may hold any belief or view on any subject you wish -- but those most affected by it are those whose opinions should hold the most weight because they reap the consequences.
In fact, that's the basis of the various neighborhood decisionmaking processes -- because, given their druthers, what's considered best by society, or even by a small group of people who claim to represent it, may have a very negative effect upon the people it actually falls upon.
I see where you're coming from, and I understand the absolute necessity to give more scrutiny and attention to the views of those with personal experience and/or expertise, but I just flat-out disagree that one group's values or beliefs must be marginalized to accommodate the other.
To use an extreme example, employing the line of argument you advocate was the same type that rationalized things such as the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.
Oh....glad to see you awake.
"..As a male, are not affected by any pronouncements you make regarding women voters."
I have a mother and a wife. I am absolutely concerned with their rights and opportunities. To suggest I am not affected by that which affects them is plain wrong.
Nicki, you have a ton to say about poverty and the poor. So are you poor? Should your ideas be discounted because you are not poor?
"There may not be a personal or physical effect resulting from one's opinions."
Do you consider the way your wife or daughter are treated to be personal?
That's the opposite of my point, JMac -- we might as a country have decided that the japanese needed to be interned, but we're not the japanese. and it's a lot easier for us to decide what to do about the japanese for precisely that reason.
All due respect, is it the opposite of your point? This whole thing is quite circular, isn't it?
I mean, since Americans were affected by the attack, they rationalized the internment. It's quite possible some Canadians looked at that policy and said 'you're throwing the baby out with the bath water, aren't you' and we replied 'stuff it, they attacked us.'
Granted, I'll concede it's an imperfect argument, but I think it somewhat illustrates my point.
I suppose here's the crux of my problem with this line of argument ...
It concedes that it's 'OK' to hold particularl positions on certain issues, whatever they may be.
However, it claims that it's 'wrong' or 'not equal' to actually work to implement those positions unless you're a card-carrying member of that particular value/belief system, demographic, etc.
It's incredibly exclusionary, which is something that I am really not at all and have a most difficult time processing.
Charles/Polus, I'm not sure those are analogous. But maybe they are, I'll have to think about it.
The initial problem is simply that it's not an entirely realistic argument that is directed at the pro-lifer. It's not clear, for instance, what exactly the pro-lifer is expected to 'do' for the support of all the unwanted born children. This sounds like a pretty big task!
The chickenhawks have a very simple way of joining the cause they claim is necessary.
This whole thing is quite circular, isn't it?
No, merely imprecise. Americans are affected by internment, but not like the japanese, who are actually interned. Everyone is affected by social policy, but not to the extent that the people whose rights are constrained are affected.
And Xon, I never liked that argument. To me, it's a lot more elemental than that. And arguably whatever one does may be judged not acceptable to the arguer.
I think there are other elements to this argument worth exploring. First, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to claim to quantify the effects of social policy. The pro-choice movement affected women’s empowerment as a whole which in turn, affected many children raised in that initial era, regardless of the child’s gender. Who knows how far such policy reached or the magnitude to which it affected various individuals? Additionally, we have been discussing policy as if its effect is uniform and stable among all members of a group it is intended to assist. Suggesting that the civil rights movement had the same effect for African Americans in Portland, Oregon versus Selma, Alabama is over simplifying.
In truth, many have their own experience and perspective on social policy. Social policy is written for the betterment society as a whole even if it first appears to benefit particular groups. All of America benefited from the civil rights movement in far more ways than we can ever measure. To discount the experience of people in reaction to a particular policy without being able to fully quantify effect and knowing that geographies, inter group differences, local political environments and other circumstance could affect individual experience is short sighted.
And even if you could measure all effects from a policy and ensure the exact some experience for each person (which you cannot), what have you accomplished?
More divisiveness?
Social policy is written for the betterment society as a whole even if it first appears to benefit particular groups.
Or, at least, it ought to be. Whether it actually does better society as a whole is another question. But I'm with you on your overall argument.
I am not sure why it isn't analogous, Xon. "Anti-abortionists want other people, and other people's children not to die for something that anti-abortionists claim to believe in but are not themselves willing to sacrifice/invest for." In other words, they want these women to care for or give away for adoption these not-yet-born children, but are unwilling to provide the social or legal mechanisms which will support the women throughout the birthing process and the neonates as they mature into self-sufficiency. Perhaps they think that a free market growing from grassroots up that trades in babies will provide?
I think Nicki is right that the motivation behind the argument is elemental, and I don't find the argument that satisfactory for me, but that's not to say that people don't use it in this manner. You declared that there is no inherent moral hypocrisy in the man's pro-life position, but then there's no inherent moral hypocrisy in being for war, either. The moral hypocrisy, as you pointed out, comes when that position is linked to an unwillingness to engage personally with the consequences of that position. Analogously, it's not being a pro-life man or woman that makes one "inherently morally hypocritical," it's being pro-life without directly giving aid to children who would have been terminated or killed and without indirectly benefiting them through constructing a society where kinship structures are more accommodating of a lack of marriage, where there is communal support for the community's children, where preventative measures and the education to use them are more readily available to those most in need of them. I think it is clear what pro-lifers should do in the context of this style of argument: adopt the unwanted, educate the youth on how to have safer sexual practices, provide socially conscious mechanisms for fostering mothers and children who choose not to commit the crime of abortion (given the total ban the pro-life position demands).
(Realism doesn't mean exact numbers and figures, does it? You're a just war realist: you want us out of Iraq and think the war there has had very negative consequences all-around, and you can detail your arguments for such. But, in giving this position, you don't need to describe what kind of aircraft will transport the troops home or what will be done with the military hardware left in the hands of the fractured Iraqi police.)
Though, I think this is different in form from being unable to express an opinion on a thing if one has not experienced this thing and from one's opinion on a thing being less relevant for expression where one is not a member of a group the thing deals with categorically. There are three, or so, different accounts of opinions being connected to groupings determined by things. My responses were towards your account, Xon.
Johnathan, I don't see why it is exclusionary to notice that people who are or have been treated unfairly have some greater insight into their own mistreatment than those who either were the mistreaters, were ignorant of the situation, were conscious of it but did nothing, or were themselves mistreated but came to accept and approve of the mistreatment. Perhaps it is exclusionary to say that the opinions of these other people should not be listened to at all. But, where is this discourse of opinions taking place, and how are the positions given? Should an alcoholic who thinks discipline is stupid and for the weak have the social permission to attend an AA meeting and berate those who are struggling with the addiction? Should an atheist who thinks belief in superstitions is the death of the world have the social permission to go to churches to disrupt their services by disproving the religious truth-claims? Should an anti-war zealot who thinks the military industrial complex has hoodwinked the patriotic and thus has murdered innocent Iraqis and Americans have the social permission to attend Support The Troops parades and harangue the attendees?
It's not so much about the right of someone to have and issue speech as it is about the extra-legal permissibilities we have to self-identify with others who share similar situations. Internet discourse breaks down when people enter into it thinking they have a right to say to anyone anything without contemplating that not all of our social and political interactions exist, or even should exist, as legally grounded. Again, as Xon pointed out, we're dealing with a moral failing, here. Namely, arrogance.
The arrogance of a falsely and disingenuously made assumption.
"...they want these women to care for or give away for adoption these not-yet-born children, but are unwilling to provide the social or legal mechanisms which will support the women throughout the birthing process and the neonates as they mature into self-sufficiency."
This is a very broad characterizing of many individuals and assumes a singular intention an action. The Catholic Church is firm against abortion but operates homes for children, adoption agencies, social service networks and other service organizations to rival many state programs. That's just one example. The United Methodist Children’s home helps children who cannot find foster placements.
If you are talking about the faux moralists in government and their saber shaking while foot tapping, I agree with you. But to say all who disagree with the performing of abortions are not willing to help the parents is incorrect.
It can be a broad assumption or generalization if it's taken to be such. It could also be a narrow indictment of the people guilty of that specific failing or sin and not those innocent of the charges.
Again, it's not an indictment for someone merely for being pro-life. It's one for those being pro-life without alleviating the sufferings coming with our fragile life.
Realism doesn't require exact numbers and figures (cows outside my house...everywhere...hold on...)
but there still seems to me to be a substantive difference between "join the fight" (which we can say to a chickenhawk) and "adopt the unwanted, educate the youth on how to have safer sexual practices, provide socially conscious mechanisms for fostering mothers and children who choose not to commit the crime of abortion" (which we can say to the pro-lifer). Aside from nitpicking the items on that list itself (can we really reasonably demand that they 'adopt' the unwanted? Do we allow for their own financial realiteis to come into play when we make that demand?), it's a fairly tall order and is also a bit more vague than "if you are so behind this war, there is a very easy way for you to participate."
Another concern I have with the analogy is the difference between a chickenhawk, who is advocating killing people, and a pro-lifer who is advocating that people not be killed. Demanding that a person who is opposed to unjustified killing (which is abortion's nature acc. to the pro-lifer) must be willing to 'work' for this or that to support the nonkilled person doesn't hold together as an argument for me the same way that telling a person who wants to see people killed (and people who are going to fight back) that he should get involved himself to that end.
If my neighbor tells me she's going to kill her daughter, am I allowed to oppose her on that even if I myself don't feel that I am capable (or even if I am just unwilling) to adopt her daughter myself? It seems to me that I am clearly allowed to do so, morally speaking, without being a hypocrite. Which is why arguably pro-lifers are not susceptible to the same sort of accusation of hypocrisy that chickenhawks are.
And I do understand that you are only meaning the argument to apply to certain pro-lifers, not all pro-lifers. So I'm not positive how much distance there is between us here anyway. I am happy to grant that there are some pro-lifers who can be accused of hypocrisy.
If we have to take into account the financial considerations of adopting persons, I do not see why we couldn't take into account the financial considerations of participating in war as well.
Again, if it is not a tall order to fight in a war (which it is), it is not a tall order to adopt a child or make parenting easier for more (which it is).
As for the difference between killing and not killing, that's just the fun in inversions with analogies. Look, a person who feels very strongly about killing our enemies should take up the outlet to kill as many of them, but they don't because they are chicken, so the "gotcha" argument goes. But a person who feels very strongly that children should be born should take up the responsibility for them, but they don't because they can't afford to do so. Well, I'd just consider that a moral failure on the pro-lifer's account either to plan their finances ahead of time to be able to adopt with impunity or to remain committed to the incomparable and uncompromising good which every human being is in themselves to the point of sacrificing one's self for another.
I think your comparison to neighbors killing daughters is flawed, partly because you're already glossing over what you should be keenly aware of. Suppose it's your neighbor killing with cruelty his dog: if you save the dog, is it morally permissible to leave it there, in that house, in those conditions? Likewise, if it is a human son or daughter being abused most cruelly, are you truly suggesting that we'd abandon the son or daughter to him/herself, sans parents, in that house, the house of the child's attempted murder?
The rationalization is that other mechanisms are already in place to rescue and support the dog or the child. It's morally defensible to stop and remove the abusive person because we have in mind the other supports which will come and care for the child or the dog, whether the Humane Society, DFCS, ACR, church or community people who care for the child, &tc.
In the absence of all that, where the child or the dog is left to fend for themselves, then certainly it is a moral failure to decline responsibility for what you took upon yourself to protect. It would be like rescuing a starving man in the middle of Atlanta only to drop him off in the Atlantic. It is the same motivating principle behind why conservatives say that "welfare mothers" shouldn't be having babies they cannot afford: what we endeavor to keep alive or bring into this world is our responsibility to maintain with quality life.
The conservative paradox is that it refuses to accept that these responsibilities have become communal, are shared, amongst us, even though the call to be responsible can only successfully and effectively be answered by the community, and even though without this community support all charitable actions will immediately cease in the context of the individualistic language of conservatism.
Post a Comment
<< Home