The fundamental difference is that those who follow a personal moral code do not seek to impose it on others. It's exactly that impulse to impose that makes conventional morality little more than an expression of the base will to power.

Morality devoid of the impulse to impose is simply what a personal moral code is.

Note that not imposing one's views upon others does not mean one cannot discuss views, or judge others.

In normal relationships it would currently be a very damaging, insulting expression of distrust, because of the social expectation of sexual exclusivity that patriarchy depends on. — unenlightened

Ah, but then you have put the cart before the horse, haven't you?

Your claim was that the fundamental driver was uncertainty of fatherhood. But apparently social bonds of mutual trust and fidelity are more important. So important in fact that to put said uncertainty above trust would be essentially unthinkable in a healthy relationship.

To loop that back to patriarchy is, as I said, putting the cart before the horse.

Do social values of modern consumerist societies not seem broadly more masculine to you? — Baden

No, they don't.

They seem neither masculine nor feminine to me. Confused and ungrounded are some of the milder terms I would use to describe modern society.

Refuse to call it a patriarchy if you like but then give your theory as to why this has been and continues to be the case. — Baden

Men used to be in charge because physical security was much more of an uncertain factor historically, and warfare a much more physical activity.

So ultimately the structure of society (especially large societies) is a result of power dynamics (security dilemma, prisoner's dilemma, etc.), much in the same way political realism views geopolitics.

Ironically, in the past there used to be some counterbalance through moral systems, usually in the form of religion (but also, for example, chivalric codes). In the modern day of moral relativism and moral confusion, all that's left are the dynamics of power, which is why nothing has truly changed.

Now to your ridiculous argument that parents do not test their children's DNA, as if modern men do not care about their fatherhood! On the contrary, it is the result of the patriarchal society that we live in, whereby society is so structured as to control women's sexual behaviour sufficiently well that men are fairly confident, not always justifiably, of their fatherhood. — unenlightened

If your argument is that the uncertainty of fatherhood is the fundamental driver of human society for the past 2,500 years, then access to DNA testing should have to be revolutionary. But it turns out it's really not.

This isn't ridiculous - it's a strong indicator of whether your argument holds any merit.

Yes, yes. And you seem to believe that this is a fundamental driver of human behavior.

How many normal couples you know have a DNA test done to confirm the father? Very few, I imagine. I know none. So perhaps it's not as fundamental as you believe.

Also, why is it an 'idiotic question' to ask whether you believe we currently live in a patriarchy? I think that is a pretty key question since it determines whether we're limited to judging your theory in a historical context or in a contemporary one, and I think there's very little substance when judging it by a contemporary one.

You seem to believe we currently live in a patriarchy, correct?

Are you talking about the modern age? Because it's rather hard to see 'economic dynastic implications' being the driver of the behavior of modern people. Equal inheritance is the norm as far as I know.

In a matriarchy there is no sexual politics, in the sense that it does not ever matter who fucks who. — unenlightened

Don't you think that's a bit naive? Women can be just as possessive of their partners as men.

You said it was "as simple" as a show of force. The show of force was provided, and the Americans pushed ahead with their plans anyway. Your premise is nonsense.

A simple show of force by Russia would have put Ukrainian aspirations to NATO into limbo. — ssu

Russia provided that show of force the same year NATO proclaimed its intention to incorporate Ukraine and Georgia. So I guess it's not that 'simple'.

And if Russia succeeded in absorbing/subjugating Ukraine, it would then have four more NATO countries at its borders! — SophistiCat

There's no evidence that the Russians intended to absorb or subjugate Ukraine.

Since 2008 the Russians have argued for a neutral Ukraine, and even as recently as March/April 2022, during the peace talks which the United States shut down, a neutral Ukraine was still on the table.

In my opinion it clearly shows the West's culpability in this conflict.

An interesting look into the lead-up to the Ukraine conflict through analysis of WikiLeaks documents:



Main talking points:
- Were Western politicians aware of the risk of conflict in Ukraine?
- Was Ukraine's ascension into NATO really planned?
- Russian and German viewpoints.

None of this suggests any essential link between biological sex and violence because masculinity is a way of characterizing traits and behaviours that can apply to either sex, though they are ideologically associated with men. — Baden

The one-sided focus on men in these kinds of debates gives a very different impression.

Masculinity and femininity nowadays are seen as traits present in both men and women, but when discussing the so-called 'darker side' of masculinity the discussion is always about men. Not about masculinity, and (obviously(?)) not about women.

Even still, it's unhealthy to associate these essential traits with inherently negative things. The message it sends to boys and young men is that there's something wrong with them. Sadly, I think that's a message many of them have already taken to heart.

What this reminds me of is how certain religious groups like to label the woman as inherently flawed and sinful. Forgive me for being skeptical when such a group claims to be taking an open-minded, balanced approach to things.

There's a sense then in which men are controlled and formed in ways detrimental to their personhood by the social roles that are expected of them. — Baden

I'm well aware. That discussion must be had, but the tone matters, and it's the tone I saw in this thread and others that reeked.

Shaming men for being men, whether explicitly or implicitly, is certainly not the way forward.

Western society in general seems to lack positive male role models and has a conflicted view of masculinity at best, so really it needs to be taking a long look in the mirror instead of complaining about the faults of its offspring.

Really hard to see where you are coming from.

Rape is punished by heavy jail sentences. No sane person would defend an act of rape. Convicted or even suspected rapists may wear that mark for the rest of their lives, even after their jail sentence is done. When the justice system fails, it's not uncommon for people or communities to take matters into their own hands.

I'm not sure what more you would expect from a society.

At the end of the line, a justice system is also limited by the degree to which it protects the accused. Putting people behind bars for a long time requires conclusive evidence, and rape tends to be difficult to prove.

The assumption here is that punishing rapists is easy. The truth is, punishing any crime in modern society is exceedingly difficult, which is why a lot of crime goes unpunished across the board. Western societies have chosen to err on the side of the accused - innocent until proven guilty. That has upsides and downsides.

Attributing these things to some sort of unspoken deal by men to oppress women frankly sounds insane to me.


As with many criticisms of 'patriarchy' which I've seen espoused here, it assumes these unfortunate circumstances are there for no other reason than men wishing to oppress women.

Yet, what we find is that when things are changed according to the anti-patriarchy crowd's wishes, these circumstances don't change. Which then again is taken as proof of patriarchy.

The reality is, they are just as powerless to change the state of affairs as the people whom they so readily criticize. That's not the effect of patriarchy. That's reality being stubborn.


Normally, I wouldn't think anything wrong of criticism, even if ill-conceived. However, this criticism of 'patriarchy' is particularly insidious, because it is a veiled attack on all men, as are many modern feminist critiques. It is man-hating at its core.

Katrina Doxsee isn’t CSIS. And then everything said before and after doesn’t at all give your impression.

And then there is whar Putin has said about this. It was Putin that referred this to 1917. — ssu

Be sure not to watch the whole thing, because you may just have to face the fact that she's not the only one who puts it forward and they all seem to agree.

This endless cope upon being faced with unwelcome information is getting rather tiresome.

Yeah, maybe shooting down helicopters is just a form of protest. — ssu

CSIS doesn't seem to think his intention was a coup.

26:55 - They seem to actually confirm my idea.

You are protecting your tribe and all it stands for. — universeness

Bullshit.

You're succumbing to peer pressure in a vain attempt at forming an ego. But I'm guessing you view that as something 'manly' too.

Had you felt you were protecting anything, you wouldn't be here confessing your shame.

I would now say, I was involved in, and was influenced by, a violent manifestation of masculinity and patriarchy. — universeness

What is masculine about senseless violence?

I find it quite worrying that people attribute such things to masculinity without batting an eye. In my view, this is nothing other than misandry - man-hating.

Ironically, the view you profess fuels the problem. Apparently senseless violence is considered manly, and therefore naive, young men trying to be manly will be drawn towards it.

Germany ready to put 4,000 soldiers permanently in Lithuania

As Wagner is moved to Belarus, it seems NATO is not taking chances.

Maybe the action was genuine, and Prigozhin hadn't anticipated that his protest against the top brass would be interpreted as an attempt at a coup. He'd have to be pretty naive for that, but it's possible albeit not very likely.

Prigozhin doesn't strike me as the type who would march on the Kremlin armed with nothing but the power of hope and a handful of troops.

The timing for a coup also seems illogical, since the Ukrainian offensive had just stalled after achieving very little.

My sense is that unless we get more information, this episode will be best judged by the effects it has on the battlefield.

If Ukraine suddenly starts winning on the battlefield, there is genuine chaos in the Russian camp.
If things stay pretty much the same, it was probably a fluke blown out of proportion by the media.
If the Russians launch a new offensive, it was probably a psy-op.

Boethius and Tzeentch haven't made much sense to the rest of us since the war began. We're not really expecting that to change. — frank

Unless 'the rest of you' stop hitting the hopium, I don't expect that to change either.

Patriarchy is the term that's used when the liberated women of the West entered the social, economic and political power structures only to realize that they were unable to change it in the ways some had envisioned.

This of course demanded an explanation, and in a somewhat typical fashion men became the scapegoat for this unfortunate state of affairs and the use of the term suggests projected misandry.

What's actually happening is that these spheres are fundamentally dictated by the dynamics of power, power structures, heirarchy and domination. Apparently, those things are equal to 'masculinity' (hence the term 'patriarchy'), and the fact that women's entry into the various fields was unable to change things for the better can squarely be attributed, of course, to men.

This view is of course nonsensical, since women wield power and create heirarchies (and thus dominate) too.

These dynamics always have, and always will, dictate the relations between people on a societal level. There's nothing about power, heirarchy and domination that's inherently masculine, and to attribute all of society's unfortunate but innate characteristics to men is, as I noted earlier, projected misandry.

Neither sex is responsible for it, and neither sex is able to change it. No one participates in it voluntarily. One might consider this view 'social realism', thinking along the lines of political realism. Simply a result of the structures and dynamics of power and mankind's flawed nature.

This whole episode was probably a little too odd to be taken at face value.

Cool down dudes, that's obviously a feint. Wagner troops are not enough to conquer the entire Russia, even less Moscow, or 17/4567th of Kamtchatka. These are hard numbers, sorry. Even Mearshaimer said it somehow somewhere somewhen. The rest is trite Crypto-Pluto-Nazi-Sionist-LGBT-Neocapitalist-Imperialist-Amerikan propaganda. The US has lost the war between Ukraine and Russia. But feel free to believe your lies. — neomac

Rebel Russian mercenaries halt advance on Moscow, Kremlin says fighters to face no charges

Oh, the exquisite irony.

Historically, it's the norm that people don't realize the ship is sinking.

The Lord of the Rings is quite relevant to mankind's predicament.

Virtually everything mankind does revolves around power, or illusions thereof. Technological advances, economic planning, social engineering, politics, and obviously things like war and conflict.

A lot of this is directly motivated by a drive for power, or indirectly through a prisoner's dilemma: "If I don't do it, the other guy will and surpass me in power (and subsequently oppress me)."


Thus, everyone is forced into this wheel of abuse and exploitation.


As long as there is even a single person who desires power or security at the expense of others, that wheel will keep turning.

There are many who believe they can stop the wheel from turning through the same methods by which it turns. This is perhaps one of the most dangerous illusions of all. "Peace" through control - the central fallacy of states. Fighting fire with fire only finds 'success' after the entire house has burned down.


For the individual, the only way out of this wheel is by relinqusihing their desire for power (ego), and their desire for security (life).

Only if one acknowledges there are things more important than one's ego and one's life, will they be able to pursue a genuine goal of peace and coexistence. Without that, it's simply impossible. Without that, one will fall prey to delusions born of one's contradictory beliefs; the crusaders, "do-gooders", ideologues, etc.

This is a typical dynamic. Because, as a lingering effect of religion, man is still aware that their desire for power is inherently undesirable and the cause of most, if not all, of man's trouble. So it hides in the subconscious under a facade of good intentions, where it's arguably even more malicious because of its hidden nature.


It's no coincidence that Frodo is a Hobbit. Hobbits are content with a simple life (suggesting a lack of ego), and have no aptitude nor desire for violence (suggesting a lack of convulsively clinging to life).

Nice post. :ok:

Who can discern the cause of our collective psychopathy? Perhaps it is the overabundance of social media, prescription drugs, something lurking in our sustenance, or the fluoride within our water... All I know is that we have become incapable of engaging in rational discourse. Decency is jettisoned when the prevailing narrative is challenged. It is met with outrage, hysteria, shunning, witch hunts, ad hominem attacks, or the hollow invocation of emotional platitudes—anything but a reasoned exchange.

This pattern of behavior first emerged in response to Trump's electoral triumph. — yebiga

My impression is that Trump's election, who ran directly against the neocon establishment, caused said political elite to press the panic button, and ramp up the propaganda.

Propaganda slowly drives people mad. It's literally the manipulating behavior of a psychopath, but applied on a societal scale. Lying, gaslighting, different kinds of blackmail, etc.

Regular people just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of malevolence.

They will subconciously realize something is wrong - they get nervous, anxious, frustrated, etc. - but the propaganda machine accounts for that as well by readily presenting scapegoats upon which those emotions can be projected.

And this is only one arm of the propaganda machine.


The other arm involves whipping people up into a self-righteous frenzy in pursuit of goals set by the political elite. These are essentially appeals to people's sense of moral superiority, seeking to bind their ideology directly to people's ego. Once the ideology is bound to their sense of self, they cannot leave the ideology without cutting off a part of themselves. This is why every discussion with such people turns hostile; they are in psychological survival mode. Losing means having to cut off a part of their ego.

Note the eerie similarity to the methods of nazism and communism; the assigning of scapegoats and the appeal to moral superiority.

You may get to vote for an actual person this time, Americans. Don't disappoint please.

I'm not sure the world can handle another four years of muppets and puppets on the throne.

The irony in all of this is that the "evil capitalist corporations" are actually public, and not private. In a similar vein, they owe much of their power to governments.

And governments essentially are nothing other than giant monopoly corporations either.

I would really recommend watching the following video to have a more historically aware sense of what these terms actually mean and where the current confusion stems from:



It's a long video, but well worth watching.

I really like Laozi's teachings. They never cease to instill virtue and a sense of moral duty in would-be leaders and people in general.

Virtuous people won't support corrupt leaders. And virtuous leaders won't abuse their power. To a society, the virtue of its people is truly more precious than gold.

Sadly, western society is way past that point on both fronts. And once that genie is out of the bottle who will take the power away from the corrupt, powerful elite?

Please elaborate! (Assuming you mean ‘the actual game-plan real politic’ of WC? And not the countless philosophies that have sprouted from within… and often opposed to… western civilization?) — 0 thru 9

What I mean is that concepts of Yin and Yang presuppose some form of sophistication.

It's hard to describe the behavior of apes through a concept like Yin and Yang (at least in the context of this discussion).

One could try, though. Does ignorance belong with Yin or with Yang? I think it belongs with neither, hence my previous remark.

Power here = ‘hard power’? Lawyers, guns and money? (so to speak. As opposed to the concept of ‘soft power’ which relies on influence. Cooperation and convincing, rather than coercion.) — 0 thru 9

Yes, but also science, politics, (what goes for) western philosophy has no other purpose than to further the pursuit of power. So both soft power and hard power.

Power for the sake of power, with no moral groundedness whatsoever. That's the axiom of what one might generalize as "western civilization". It's the language of Washington, of Brussels, of Davos and WEF, BlackRock, the central banks, etc.

The West has turned into a giant Nietzschean jungle.

The current western system is not philosophically coherent enough to be understood through Yin and Yang.

It has become a virtueless cult of power. Everything is understood through power. Everything revolves around power. Everything may be sacrificed for the sake of power.

Critically imbalanced, yes. In the sense that chimpanzee society works on the same principles.

If I say "Oppression is wrong", when I see oppression, I am horrified and enraged, I want to destroy it, correct it, and I'm filled with sympathy and deep sadness towards the victims. Morality requires this strong emotional reaction. — Judaka

I cannot agree with this.

Emotions may just as well mislead us in regards to morality. How many terrible things aren't done out of fear or anger? And why couldn't the ethical thing to do be something that we don't feel particularly strongly about?

'Oppression' in my view is way too vague a word to be useful in a moral context. It can describe a whole range of behaviors that may or may not be present when someone is accused of oppressing another.

Accurate language is important.

In the case of killing in self-defence, if it was necessary then most would say it's justified, I assume you feel the same. That would mean no triggering of any of the emotions associated with morality. You wouldn't hesitate to do it, you wouldn't stop someone else from doing it, and you wouldn't dislike that it was done, or any person who did it, so it was allowable and acceptable to you, right? Saying afterwards that it was still "immoral" because killing is wrong, well, that's just a bit hollow to me. It's your feelings that show what you find moral and immoral, not your words, right? — Judaka

Being forced to kill someone in self-defense is, I would assume, a deeply traumatizing experience. Tragically, it may leave people guilt-ridden for the rest of their lives, despite merely defending their lives.

In my view, Justice implies some kind of positive result. Therefore an act of killing cannot be Just. (despite possibly being legal/lawful).

Likewise, an act of killing, self-defense or no, cannot be moral.

In the particular case of self-defense, while the act of killing is still immoral, it would be hard to argue the person has committed an immoral act if they are involuntarily forced into a position where they must protect their lives. In that case, an intention to kill is not present, and without an intention there cannot be a moral act or immoral act.

The same could technically apply to any act which would otherwise be deemed immoral. If the act is 'accidental' the person has erred in some way, but it cannot be said they acted immorally, because an intention is not present. This is the realm of tragedy, ignorance, inevitability, etc.

An act of unintentional killing out of self-defense would fall in the tragic category.

That isn't so much a justification, but rather a means of rationally understanding the nature of the act.

I'm guessing you are not religious, but the way you talk about morality is as if hell is awaiting sinners.

Allowed by whom? Acceptable to whom? God?

Inevitably as one lives on may commit immoral deeds, and when that happens there is nothing left to do but take responsibility, learn something and live better afterwards. Not make petty excuses for why it was no big deal that one time.

If one is convinced of their moral principles, breaking them is a punishment all its own, and one would never do that voluntarily.

There's not some final punishment awaiting, other than the responsibility for and the consequences of one's misdeed, whether large or small.

I'm sure we could come up with many examples where lying is acceptable. Such as if it's to preserve something important, or because one is being threatened, or any number of other things. — Judaka

Note that you used the term 'acceptable', and not 'moral'.

Lets assume lying is immoral. In that case, lying is always immoral. Sometimes people still lie, when the circumstances are pressing enough. That doesn't make the act of lying any less immoral.

If one is forced to kill someone out of self-defense, that act of killing wouldn't suddenly become a moral act. It would still be deeply wrong.

Whether one deems the act 'acceptable' after the fact is irrelevant. Acceptable to whom? Society? The perpetrator's conscience? God? These are all concerned with avoiding punishment, whether at the hands of society, god or guilt. That has nothing to do with morality.

The damage has already been done. The only thing there's left to do is to accept one has committed an immoral deed, hopefully learn something and live better in the future.

Objective moral principles are fraudulent, they are to be applied as one wishes, when one wishes, towards whatever or whomever one wishes. There is no moral system that has ever worked differently. — Judaka

However, not only are there many exceptions but since one has complete control over whether they describe something as theft or something else, the judgement is really subjective and applied very flexibly. — Judaka

I think this is more a problem with people being fraudulent.

If people have no desire for developing and upholding a genuine moral code, then morality has no purpose for them anyway. They're fooling themselves and others.

And yes, that might very well describe the majority of people.

We even have different words for things, such as tax not being theft, [...] — Judaka

I'd say that's a typical example of deceptive language; the way we seperate immoral things that also happen to be very convenient (tax) from immoral things which are not convenient (theft).

That seperation, in my view, is completely unjustified. The 'reasonable'/'fairness' part of the argument, window dressing - the sales pitch you spoke about.

(thought you'd like that one). — Judaka

:wink:

[...] but if we're talking about how things actually are, [...] — Judaka

What do you mean by this?

If we exclude these politically motivated, convenient definitions of morality, then no, it's always been the same. — Judaka

I'm inclined to agree with this view. What I don't understand is, if the nature of morality is unchanging, aren't we looking for principles, hard 'truths', rather than pliable notions of fairness and reasonableness?

Like in my earlier example, the princple would be that breaking promises is bad, and one shouldn't make promises one cannot keep.

One might say, but in certain situations it's reasonable to break a promise, no?

To which my response would be, whether it's reasonable is irrelevant. Breaking promises is immoral. Notions of reasonableness are just there to soothe our conscience or perhaps keep fear of eternal punishment at bay. But the damage has already been done, and all there is left to do is to try and live one's life better in the future.

Fairness and reasonableness are pivotal to my understanding of what morality is, so, perhaps we're just using the word differently. — Judaka

Probably so, but herein lies the problem.

People used to find it perfectly reasonable and fair to stone people to death for things we would now consider minor crimes or not even a crime at all.

Did the nature of morality change?

It's very difficult to talk about morality without a group as a context because the group's motivations and values are critical. For example, what's fair and reasonable within the context of a competitive soccer team will be different from a casual kids' soccer team. Whereas the competitive team might think it's fair to let the best players have the most field time and ball possession because of everyone's desire to win, it might seem fair to allow all the kids an equal chance to play in the casual kids' team. — Judaka

I'm not sure if fairness and reasonableness are terms I would use to discuss morality. They are too pliable and morality requires clarity, or it risks turning, as you aptly put it, into a "sales pitch for one's ideas" - becoming just another word for opinions and personal fancies.

But let me try to illustrate my point.

Let's say there's a kids soccer game and little Jimmy has to sit on the bench the entire game even though the coach told him he could play.

The coach broke a promise to Jimmy.

The soccer game, the team, the group, etc. are not morally relevant. What's morally relevant is the breaking of a promise, and it is between (in this case) two moral actors.

As I wrote, what you propose is basically Minsk 3.0. We know exactly how Minsk 1.0 and Minsk 2.0 have ended, so it is not a great surprise that Ukraine was not that willing to take another chance. There is absolutely no reason to think that Russia would uphold its part of the deal and plenty of reasons to think it would not. — Jabberwock

Actually, Mearsheimer argues that Putin was deeply committed to making Minsk work. (51:27)

And we know from recent revelations by former French President François Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel that it was NATO who chose to treat the Minsk Accords as a temporary armistice during which Ukraine could be armed and prepared for further war.

I would add that high-profile former officials leaking sensitive information like this is neither an accident nor is it a coincidence. They see what the United States has done in Ukraine, and they disagree with it.

So I'm afraid you've got this one completely backwards.

I'm not interested in setting rules for anybody but myself.

Morality mandates a perspective be taken as one member of a group, with an interest in the group's wellbeing, and any views that fall outside of this context are invalid. — Judaka

Any motivation that would clearly be contrary to the group's cannot be reasonably used as part of an argument for a moral position, [...] — Judaka

In my view, morality doesn't involve groups. It involves interactions between moral agents (individuals), which could perhaps even include interactions with oneself.

Personifying groups as though they think and act like individuals is virtually always an inaccurate representation of reality and tends to lead to all sorts of peculiar conclusions.

Secondly, I believe it is possible that the moral thing to do (or not do) can be contrary to the individual's (or for simplicity's sake, the group's) self-interest. That is self-sacrifice.


Onto your points,

Morality or discussions about morality aren't coercive by what you've described. It's people's relation to the ideas they hold which are. Fears of being wrong, of having to renounce their ideas,of ostracization, etc. - these are social or personal factors. Of course those are going to muddy the waters.

Anyone who is guided by fear rather than their honest reason will risk falling prey to delusion or deceit.

Even if one does speak honestly in a moral context, we can never be sure, [...] — Judaka

The fact is that people can virtually never be sure as to the genuineness of their interactions with one another. We can't look into other people's heads to figure out whether their behavior is authentic or some carefully crafted facade to mislead us.

That's an unfortunate fact.

But largely, to the honest intellectual it's irrelevant. Either what someone says holds merit, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, one can dismiss it. If it does, one is forced to pay heed. Truth is truth, after all, whether it is delivered by someone who intends to deceive or not.


In the end, morality is about actions and behaviors, and not about opinions. So with that point I agree - any moral opinion that is not put into practice (or about which we're skeptical whether it could be put into practice) may be taken with a large grain of salt.

Talk is cheap, as they say.