"Work or else you'll be denied the resources you need to live, food, drink, shelter, peace etc" — Pilgrim

If you work at something you like doing, that isn't a problem. In fact, the problem is imagining work as a problem just because it usually is one. It doesn't have to be. A sentient toaster that likes nothing more than to toast bread would be the happiest toaster around.

OK, so what I meant with regard to this:

So, narrative in itself is not always primary in news except in the trivial sense regarding the infinite number of "facts" available to us in any particular situation and the necessity of choosing from them to properly describe any event (.i.e. decisions of salience) — Baden

...is that in the trivial sense there is obviously an attempt to assemble facts in a subjective way in order to make a coherent and sensible report of any news event. To take again the example of a fire, one decision of salience might be to report on the flammability of the material the building is made of rather than its colour.

But the claim that:

The insescaple bias in news reporting is due to a simple fact: News never simply presents facts, which can be objective. It always also builds narratives, which are never never objective; never, because they must be built, not observed. — hypericin

Points to something more nefarious above and beyond this simple level of selectivity, and that's absolutely worth looking for in news reporting, but a distinction between levels should be made and the OP as written is too sweeping ('always', 'never' etc.) in its presentation to be of much analytical use.

And that it isn't entirely neutral doesn't mean objectivity, truth or the facts have been totally lost or don't exist at all. That is just something reeking to post-modernism in it's extreme. — ssu

Sure, that's more or less what I was trying to point out re news.

What do you want me to explain, the definition of 'salience' or the context in which I'm using the phrase?

This is the realm of narrative, not objectivity. — hypericin

Well, of course, facts need to be structured in order to be communicated coherently, but it's possible to overstate the issue here in terms of a discussion on bias. For a start, news reporting is obviously not purely in the realm of narrative and divorced from objective reality. That would be a better description of fiction (and even then facts usually make up part of the mix). Sometimes, for example, the facts do take centre stage and the narrative is fairly benign and aimed at providing a minimum of structure, so there's no significant bias to be concerned about. In a report on a fire in a major building, the narrative might be nothing more than "fire is a dangerous risk and something we should be concerned with", the facts concerning injuries/fatalities and how the fire started and when etc. taking center stage. Alternatively, the fire may have been caused, as in the Grenfell tower fire disaster, by a chain of irresponsible and self-serving decisions by the authorities, and may have much wider and more important social and political implications. Here narrative (and bias) takes centre stage, and they can serve an important ethical function, i.e. raising awareness of a problem and its causes in order to help prevent it from recurring (as well as, obviously, doing the opposite and obscuring the problem depending on the interest of the news providers).

So, narrative in itself is not always primary in news except in the trivial sense regarding the infinite number of "facts" available to us in any particular situation and the necessity of choosing from them to properly describe any event (i.e. decisions of salience) as per its basic function. And this is just a magnified version of how we talk to each other and communicate generally. We structure our facts into coherent narratives that communicate much more (including about us) than objective reality. So, what's important in my view is the basic recognition that communication, of whatever form, is never entirely neutral. Then you can use that knowledge to examine the inevitable biases at different levels, personal, cultural, political etc. of any given example thereof including news.

But there can be nothing objective about this, this basic act of telling a story (true story, or not). — hypericin

Just to note that from a linguistic perspective, the genre of narrative as story is often defined as being fundamentally different from the genre that covers most news articles (e.g., as per MAK Halliday and SFL, the 'recount' genre). A narrative in this sense that explicitly goes beyond events to tell a particular story has a setting, a protagonist, a building of action, a climax etc. A news text only has to be, (at its most basic) a list of events (though there is potential further structure in terms of how those are listed).

I thought I was suggesting you... don't have a brain. But, maybe the whole problem runs deeper than that. Hmm... Yes! The proletariat are stuck in the status quo and cannot effect any damage on the prevailing "grey" (dull, inert, obscured) matter of capitalism. A nose job is urgently required...

Why do I have a spear up my nose? — S

Someone mistakenly supposed a spear shoved up your nose would eventually pierce grey matter and kill you?

(Of course, art and philosophy bleed into each other on one end just as philosophy and science do on the other, so you can get "arty" philosophy that's less big-T orientated, but still must attempt some level of conceptual stability (to be able to be coherently expressed in terms of concepts) to be philosophy at all.)

Yes, well put, art is an act of disruption achieved through the use of intuition and technical ability (in the mode of communication used), and its success lies in effecting some affect. Philosophy is more about creating concepts and relationships between them that form a stable pattern that inevitably is beholden to ideas like truth and logic etc. as these are considered to be the roots of stability of such patterns. And so philosophies insofar as they are built to last are inevitably big Ts, more or less stable patterns of concepts, competing with other big Ts in meta-conceptual space whereas art doesn't need to be conceptualized at all. In fact, good art is the most efficient way to disrupt layers of conceptualization and problematize them in order to allow for change and development and avoid stagnation. Philosophy can do this too, but it's more about laboriously replacing one pattern of concepts with another. So, art is anti-big T in an important way—it aims at its best to directly shake up our truths, to get us to rethink them without having to play on truthy territory, so to speak, so, I don't know, but maybe one cure for philosophical big T ennui is a trip to the art gallery or some creative exercise in that area.

Another way of putting it that just occurred to me is that to do good philosophy you really have to know what you're doing whereas to do good art, you don't, you just have to be what you're doing.

Such metaphysical power you attribute to your supreme court. Natural rights theory is nonsense anyhow. They are both legal rights (and conditionally ethically justifiable) only the right to have children is significantly less controversial for obvious reasons. And that's fine with me. The latter isn't going to be widely recognised as a moral issue until and unless it starts causing problems in practice (highlighting the incoherence of referring to it as a natural right).

Support level for gg is at roughly mandatory-daily-enema level, so I think it's safe to close this.

Banned @gurugeorge (eventually) for being a racist. We went to considerable efforts by PM to warn him and give him a chance to demonstrate he wasn't. His last comment to me by PM showed these efforts were wasted as it included the idea that it's "a hard pill to swallow" for blacks to accept that they are inherently less intelligent than whites, but they are. Ergo, the banning.

Anyway, we're going on the basic (Googled) definitions on this:

Racism is:

1) "The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races." (as in gurugeorge's case).

2) "Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior."

Though gg happened to be a right-winger, we consider racism and anti-semitism not a fundamentally left-right issue at all by the way, but a problem right across the political spectrum. And we will give fair warning in all but the more extreme cases.

Well, that's no fun. — Banno

Depends what you mean by fun! :grin: :meh:

Agree. Definitions are kind of like snow anyway, or snowflakes at least, which we define as distinct entities, but when we try to get our hands on them they tend to melt into each other.

The few left behind bitch about the US only because they missed the boat. — Hanover

Oh well, I'm sure we'll get another chance to board the Trumptanic when you get your buoyancy issues sorted. :up: :flower:

You want me to move it or delete it?

It depends on who "they" are. If "they" are other relatively reasonable people as tend to predominate on this site then it's more productive to engage purely on the level of reason even if you ultimately will continue to disagree. However, if "they" are people who have no intention of engaging on the level of reason as they are not willing or capable of doing so, and if you being reasonable and them not being reasonable suits a destructive agenda of theirs then it makes sense to allow yourself other options, which may include censoring, marginalizing, positive propaganda, abusive argumentation or whatever. Think of it from a game theory point of view. Rule number 1: Don't play a dominated strategy. A high horse is no good to you if your interlocutors are busy turning the ground beneath you into a swamp.

I think we can stop saying "natural endowment" and just use "genetics" as it's just a weasel word term anyway.

And we could do the word game with "white" too. Take the scientific definition of white:

"White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue), because it fully reflects and scatters all the visible wavelengths of light".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White

Now if snow is defined as being white and substance X is not white, it's not snow. But as a lot of snow is not quite white, we have to redifine white or snow is not snow even on earth!

(Btw 'pissed' means 'drunk' not 'angry' in real language.)

We only wanted the beer. All that killing and thieving was just an accident. Let's face it, we were pretty pissed. Mitigating circumstances...

This issue also concerns other "rights". It is not clear to me why people have a right to have children and where that right would come from and how it would be justified. — Andrew4Handel

It started with our ancient ancestors popping out their urchins and no-one objecting to that because, well, they wanted to have children too and even if they didn't, why should they care? They didn't generally have to take care of those that weren't theirs after all. And besides who even knew where the little squirts came from in the first place? Probably a gift from the gods (to be returned at will). And then it went on with people building civil societies and making laws without ever concerning themselves about whether they or other people should have children because, well, again, who cared? There were other more important things to think about than the Joneses kiddies. So no laws got made that stopped people having children, and they just presumed it was their right to do so, and when everyone presumes something is their right, and finds nothing wrong in it, and no-one stops it happening, then it effectively is their right, and doesn't need any justification.

Then came some philosophers and bureaucrats who tried to spoil the party with their moralizing and doomsaying at all the wannabe mommies and daddies out there. But unless you listened to Malthus (and thankfully not many did as he was hopelessly, outrageously, wrong) or lived in China, you didn't give a damn, and just continued to presume you were all good and effectively exercise the right to churn out the sprogs willy-nilly. And so it goes on today. The "right" doesn't come from anywhere. It's simply asserted in the absence of resistance, and since having children is perfectly natural and not generally considered harmful, it's the resistance to it that needs to be justified morally not the reproduction.

And besides all that God told us to do it. In some book somewhere.

Of course when the thief dies and gives the property to his kids and they to their kids and so on... you get the U.S.

...what is the time period after which a stolen item becomes rightfully the property of the thief? — Jake

Never.

But the whiteness is aptly expressive of his moral and virginal purity, no?

Is this a discussion of Rand or Social welfare states? — Marcus de Brun

Well, it's a conversation about the worth about her ideas, I suppose. And I'm restricting myself here to criticizing this one. Anyway, your response above is much more qualified than she's "entirely correct".

She points to the failure of socialism to foster intellectual independence and personal freedom. Freedom in the truly American or Thoreauian sense is her objective, not the end of socialism. She is perfectly correct to call for the revision of socialism when it impinges upon freedom of the Howard Roark variety. — Marcus de Brun

And that's much more qualified than what she said. I can only go on the quote given.

I happen to live in one and am very fond of socialism. — Marcus de Brun

Sounds good to me but I suspect Rand is doing somersaults in her... tomb? :)

unless, all those welfare state conceptions have been reversed and rejected. It is precisely these trends which are bringing the world to disaster, because we are now moving towards complete collectivism, or socialism. A system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody, and we are moving that way only because of our altruist morality. — Marcus de Brun

Rand is entirely correct here. — Marcus de Brun

The counter-argument is every advanced social democratic welfare state. Is Denmark a disaster? Is Norway a disaster? Seeing as they are richer with higher indicators in life quality on just about every measure than the much more Randian U.S., I would say not only is she wrong, but she's wildly, hopelessly, wrong.

So, Altruism: 1, Social Darwinism: 0

Anyway, I suggest you Google some information on the advanced welfare states as you seem to be completely unaware not only of their wealth, and high quality of life, but of their very existence (absent any other explanation for your support of Rand's obviously absurd claim above).

That would only happen if we as a society reject reason and logic as the arbiters of truth. — Harry Hindu

Well, I wasn't presenting a hypothetical but describing a current reality. There's no "would" about it. That's demonstrably the way things are. On top of that, I want to make it clear that what I said is not an injunction not to be reasonable nor to reject reason and logic as the ultimate arbiters of truth, nor is it an expression of a lack of interest in reason, but just the observation that in reality winning in the marketplace of ideas (insofar as winning is defined for a given idea as the extent to which it holds social sway) is not solely down to reason.

So, yes, I agree, it's a social problem. It's also a human problem. We're not rational animals; we're at best rationalising ones. Given that, reason alone is not necessarily enough to protect people from hateful ideologies. And in a world where the most powerful man is apparently a racist, that's fairly salient. So, where do we stand? It seems you are saying we should allow unrestricted free speech everywhere including on this forum because otherwise we are using illegitimate (unreasonable) means to combat unreasonable ideologies (am I correct?). Whereas where I stand is that I think it's not sensible to unnecessarily restrict yourself in terms of methods employed to fight these ideologies and their purveyors such that you give them (who are not directly interested in reason at all but merely in spreading their beliefs) any help in the marketplace of ideas. So if one way of combating their spread is to marginalize them, I say, that's fine.

So, we could frame this as me being unprincipled and you being principled, or me being realistic and you being naive, or me being a labeler and you being a non-labeler, or me being a consequentialist and you being a deontologist, or any other way you want that reflects well or badly on either of us, but if the agreed goal is to inhibit the spread of hateful ideologies then I think I'm on more solid ground than you in suggesting we don't handicap ourselves rhetorically or strategically any more than they do in this fight.

Read Lila too and liked it. He did present his own philosophy more comprehensively there. Preferred the story and rhythm of the original book though. But yes, I got something positive philisophically out of him and I don't feel the need to make any great claims beyond that on his behalf to those who don't consider him worthy. And I'd be suspicious of anyone wanting to do that for anyone recognized or not they admire.

That's an interesting analogy. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" introduced me as a teenager to philosophy and of all the books I've read, has probably been the most formative. So, I'm a big fan of his. But if someone were to complain he wasn't a very good philosopher, I don't know how I'd go about defending (or even want to defend) the idea he was. Considering he hasn't been recognized as such, it would be a fairly pointless uphill battle. I'd only want to say, his ideas resonated with me especially at that time in my life, and have had a lasting influence. And if he's not to the taste of the mainstream, fine. He was never a typical academic philosopher. Anyway, picking through a philosophy you're a fan of from a supposed objective point of view and trying to convince others of its merits on that basis seems a bit of a fool's errand.

Hah, thanks. (And I knew you weren't a Nazi, honest :) )

Devil's advocate type thing? Let us think about it.

Anyway, to add another couple of cents concerning this discussion: Part of the problem here is, I think, that we're always looking for simple narratives/injunctions to guide our behaviour. We're built that way. Two such on display here are:

1: Be nice (That's good)!
2: Don't label (That's bad)!

I think those injunctions need to be problematized and rejected in favour of (if we need some relatively simple principles):

1: Argue on the basis of the desire for a justifiable outcome (That's good!)
2: Don't be insincere (That's bad)!
3: Be aware of the distinction between strategy and morality and the various levels at which they are employed (That's good!).

Where the ethical comes in is in terms of goals. What is the strategy aimed at achieving? — Baden

(For example, am I labeling someone a Nazi just to disparage and hurt them because I don't like them personally, and/or because I have no other argumentative tools at my disposal (unethical). Or am I labeling someone a Nazi because they have demonstrated themselves to be so, and I think it's important people know, so that the Nazi be marginalized and deprived of some opportunity to spread their dangerous ideology (ethical)).

I'm making the pragmatic point that many people are fairly impervious to reason and more swayed by rthetoric, so if "winning" in the marketplace of ideas really was just down to using reason, I'd agree with you, but I'm saying it's demonstrably not.

So, I'm rejecting the implication as put here:

You see, in a free society, where free ideas are allowed to compete and the winners are those that are coherent, reasonable and consistent, Nazism would never be able to gain a foothold. — Harry Hindu

that the winners in the marketplace of ideas will be the ideas that are coherent, reasonable and consistent. It's more like the winners in the marketplace of ideas will be those of whoever is in power. To paraphrase Marx, the ruling ideology is the ideology of the rulers. And wrt to extremism, what determines whether it flourishes or not tends to relate more to the presence of social and economic turmoil that upsets the hegemony of the ruling class than levels of censorship etc. The power of the prevalent ideology tends to wane in proportion to how difficult it gets to put food on the table.

Of course, none of that is incompatible with the more philosophical point that, all other things being equal, the use of reason is, theoretically, the best way for each individual to search for truth. That's hardly more than a truism. And in any case, I'm in agreement with the principles of public free speech (with some minor limitations). What I reject is the idea that because it is desirable to apply this to society as a whole, it is desirable to apply it to every micro-environment in that society. What is more desirable in my view is that people are given a choice of environments of varying levels of free speech which they can freely choose to frequent in so far as it suits them to do so. What posters can't get here, they can get somewhere else, but if we all acquiesced to full free speech then this type of controlled environment, which is many people's preference, would be unavailable anywhere.

Exactly. That is why I said that we need to dispense with the labeling and engage in reasoning your way through arguments. Labeling does nothing other than reinforce your already deeply held beliefs (beliefs with emotional attachments). — Harry Hindu

But again, we're in a battle for framing as I've already alluded to. And labelling is to some degree unavoidable. So, the label you seem to want to put on someone like me is an "enemy of reason" or an "enemy of free speech". On those terms, you already win. And yes, it's true if I successfully label someone a Nazi or a racist, I already win (among the vast majority of people). So, if you can deprive me through an effort at framing of the legitimacy of taking advantage of explicit labels while you take advantage of implicit ones, you put me at a disadvantage (I'm using "you" and "I" in a generalized way here btw). All of that is just a matter of argumentative strategy. Where the ethical comes in is in terms of goals. What is the strategy aimed at achieving?

There's a line between being playful, ironic and provocative on the one hand, and trolling on the other. It's not trivial to define the distinction, but I think it's something like the latter deliberately seeks to disrupt for the sake of disrupting, whereas the former may do it more for the sake of humour, or even to make a subtle point. Sapientia's on the right side of that line in my view (even if he is a thieving bastard).

@Posty McPostface. I'd second what Pseudonym said above. Obviously, the primary focus is on philosophy, and, first and foremost, we want to make this a welcoming place for people at all levels of interest in the subject; we also want to provide a community atmosphere with opportunities for casual socializing (sounds a bit dry to put it like that but anyway...), and to provide some outlet for other topics outside philosophy to be discussed too. Then it's just a matter of trying to balance all that. Regarding psychology, those discussions currently find their place here primarily in the Humanities and Social Sciences category. And as the front page isn't arranged by category, the lack of a dedicated psychological category is unlikely to be an impediment to any of those conversations taking off, and only serves to underline the fact that it's not the main focus here. Which is fair enough I think.

[Edit: Cross posted]

What resonates with me from Street's post is that there's a meta-battle for framing going on above and beyond any particular debate. Those who tend towards a more aggressive form of argumentation are likely to describe themselves as 'passionate' and 'forceful' whereas those who don't will probably condemn that style as 'arrogant' and 'bullying'. On this level of framing then the gloves are off for the "nice" interlocutors too as they become the primary aggressors. The only difference really being that they want to have their moral-high-ground cake and eat it too. So, there's no inherent moral superiority of either style. That's just smoke and mirrors. They're strategies that can only be judged in terms of their moral appropriateness with regard to the contexts in which they are applied. For example, a parent bullying their child into doing what they want with harsh language is generally wrong, but a forceful verbal pushback against the purveyors of vile ideologies is very often appropriate.

When Harry Hindu quotes me in a post I don't get the usual notification — Michael

Odd. That was the most recent example for me too. :chin:

I've missed several notifications (and thus replies) too lately, particularly when there's been a couple of replies in a row. This happening to anyone else? Also, might as well use this opportunity to tell you that we've discovered if you edit into your post a tag to someone else after initially posting without one, it seems they won't be notified. Maybe it was that.