There are lots of great ideas that are not getting any visibility. — Rich
I feel that society has a lot of problems that could be altered by philosophy. I feel we need to challenge norms and preconceptions still. I think we need a radical confrontational philosophy not one that delineates and attempts to justify the norms, nor just a dry fairly helpless theorising. — Andrew4Handel
I feel that society has a lot of problems that could be altered by philosophy. I feel we need to challenge norms and preconceptions still. I think we need a radical confrontational philosophy not one that delineates and attempts to justify the norms, nor just a dry fairly helpless theorising.
Is it philosophy that is lacking here?
Decentralizing power and giving power back to local communities is the key to positive change, in my estimation. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
We can either spin our wheels trying to stomp out weeds such as police brutality while other weeds grow or we can attack the whole system at its neo-liberal roots.
In other words, using police brutality as an illustration, the solution to the police brutality in places like Ferguson, Missouri won't come from putting progressive elites in power in Washington, D.C., it will come from giving power and control to ordinary people at the local level.
It's not an either/or. Working to address and diminish racist police brutality is a priority in itself, just like stopping Jim Crow laws and segregation was an issue in itself. If MLK and the Civil Rights movement had waited until they attacked the whole system, Blacks would still be drinking from separate water fountains and kept away from lunch counters. — Thanatos Sand
Or the oppression of African-Americans in the Jim Crow South was simply transferred to other people such as those employed in Third World sweatshops.
If you think that you can convince me that it is not a zero-sum game I will listen.
But I am convinced that the change the OP seeks will only be realized by ending the game.
I have no idea what you mean by progressive elites. Elites are politicians like Obama, Clinton, and Trump who work for elite corporations, banks, and rich people. Progressives working to help the people and not working to primarily serve those entities are not elites. And we do need them in office since they are the ones who pass the laws. Just a few weeks ago, an elite Centrist Democrat shelved the vote on Medicaid-For-All in California. If he had been a progressive, he would have let the vote go through. Representation matters.
And local people don't have any power over the elites. It's progressives in office like Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General who made a huge difference in the Civil Rights Movement and was a vital ally to it and its leaders like King. He was able to send down the national guard to make sure colleges were de-segregated. Local citizens can't come close to the needed power/authority in accomplishing such things. — Thanatos Sand
Power needs to be decentralized and given back to local communities.
Do you agree or disagree?
I am talking about a system that is global in scope. Neo-liberalism affects everybody. I simply used Ferguson, MO as one small illustration.
If you are not looking at it from the perspective of neo-liberalism and globalization you are not talking about the same thing as me.
I have no reason to believe that a "progressive" in office who does not recognize and consciously oppose neo-liberalism is going to make any difference.
I think we need a radical confrontational philosophy not one that delineates and attempts to justify the norms, nor just a dry fairly helpless theorising. — Andrew4Handel
Minorities are selectively oppressed as part of the general suppression of the working class--which is populated by people who retired from wage work, work for a living now, or would work if they could get a job. If you depend on a wage for your sustenance, then you are working class.
There are people --poor and otherwise -- who are just plain lazy and shiftless. People whose multigenerational experience has been about nothing but poverty tend not to be go-getters. This shouldn't surprise anybody. Poverty is a grueling, dehumanizing, discouraging condition. Their experience tells them that hard work is not rewarded. Some poor people do get ahead -- poor immigrants, for example, usually in the first and second generation, because they have experience which tells them that their hard work will pay off. (It may pay off to some degree for a while.)
Capitalism and its markets have proved to be a very effective way to marshall capital, put capital to work, and generate profit for a small percentage of the population. The logic of capitalism does not countenance the widespread distribution of wealth. ("What would be the point of doing that?" the capitalists say.)
Freedom IS a very good thing; let's have more of it! But economic freedom in a capitalist economy requires enough wealth to play the game of economic freedom. Now, having $10,000 in the bank for emergencies gives one a cushion against small disasters. But economic freedom under capitalism requires having a few million in the bank, and the backing of investors.
No rich person has expended much, if any, effort in producing wealth. Ultimately, labor produces all wealth (except for crooked speculation using non-existing assets). Real property (factories, railroads, airlines, shopping malls, warehouses, etc.) is theft--taken from the working class.
"Getting rich" is a dream which many people entertain. Most people have a better chance of getting rich by their own labor than a snowball has in hell. The changes of winning the multi-state power ball lottery for $100,000,000 is about 80,000,000 to 1. Dream on.
There are some bits and pieces of "American Exceptionalism" to be sure. Some of it is good (The ethos of the City-on-the-Hill Puritans, and some of it is bad (genocide and slavery, for instance). The good and bad tend to be mixed in together.
But in most ways, the United States is pretty much like every other nation. That's because people are pretty much alike. We are one species with a particular evolutionary history, and we all tend to act alike, given similar circumstances. Pick a nation, any nation on any continent, and it is likely that bad things happened there. Not just bad things to one or two people, but bad things happening to hundreds of thousands of people. Humans have a long history of wiping out people who are in their way. The American genocidal experience seems like such a deviation because it is recent and present. But bear in mind, the people who started genocide and slavery were Europeans. As a specifically "American" society developed, it incorporated good and bad parts of European culture, including capitalism.
I've shown you why your belief is wrong and you've failed to counter that, too. — Thanatos Sand
For me philosophy is nothing to do with defending our societies and our actions now. — Andrew4Handel
It seems to me that Philosophy is in the best position to challenge ideas and examine the logic of existing ideas.
It isn't case of taking sides but challenging foundational assumptions. Where are these radical academic philosophers?
When I studied philosophy as part of my degree I saw plenty of avenue for radical opinions but the course material didn't encourage this avenue. The course material raised some profound issues but then tried to fit them into the existing value system. For me philosophy is nothing to do with defending our societies and our actions now.
I'm in the UK I think we are still dominated by class hierarchies and stereotypical right-left divides/dichotomies. It is such a tired political scene leaving a sense of apathy. Trump has given some British people a false sense of superiority and colonial smugness — Andrew4Handel
Minorities are selectively oppressed as part of the general suppression of the working class--which is populated by people who retired from wage work, work for a living now, or would work if they could get a job. If you depend on a wage for your sustenance, then you are working class.
Let's just leave it at that. — Thanatos Sand
Let's just leave it at that. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
and you have failed to address anything I said. — Thanatos Sand
The fundamental fact for a majority of colored people in white societies is that they are poor, have very low status, and continue to be the object of discrimination, abuse, scorn, and so on -- and they don't have many resources to draw upon to improve their situations.
Poor white people (white trash) are in the same boat. They are scorned and discriminated against, have low status, are abused, and so on -- and they don't have a lot of resources to draw upon to improve their situations, either.
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