Thanks for the link. It seems like a misleading article to me though. For example, one of the reasons Gen Z are more "moderate" and "conservative" about saving money is because they probably have relatively less of it. In the US at least, the average person is getting relatively poorer as more and more money is funneled to the rich (or at least that has been the trend from Gen X to millennials and is likely to be continuing (http://fortune.com/2018/02/19/millennials-less-money-generation-x/)). Also, what Gen Z considers socially moderate now was left-wing generations before precisely because with each generation we become more progressive. I can't access the actual study but the idea that generation Z is more moderate/conservative than baby boomers because less baby boomers considered themselves moderate/conservative isn't sensible. It was a whole different environment then and you have to focus on specific issues rather than mere self-identification to actually discover anything worthwhile in term of comparison across generations. As in, it doesn't matter if more Gen Zers call themselves conservatives than baby boomers if at the same time far more of them are in favour of gay marriage etc. than baby boomers (which they are). Anyway, if you have direct links to studies rather than news articles about them, please pass them on as looking at them makes it easier to analyze the issue properly.

You could. And by the same principle you might, if you identified as being a member of the opposite sex, be considered in some societies as being possessed by the ghost of a woman etc. You couldn't have gender dysphoria though.

No, young people who want to see social justice are, on the whole, not ridiculous. They may sometimes be over-zealous and mistarget and get things wrong, but their orientation is spot on, and most of them are miles ahead intellectually of their detractors on the right. That it's become fashionable in right-wing circles to attack so-called SJWs and that that's gained some currency in the general population (in the US at least) is of no importance in the greater scheme of things. It's mostly a tool to make the right feel better about themselves. To criticize satire is even worse in my view. Political satire is essential to a healthy democracy and the right wing are more a target of comedians simply because they provide more fodder for them. Because many of their representatives (with plenty of exceptions but a much higher percentage at least than on the left, and certainly many more than before in the era of Trump) are markedly ignorant and intellectually backward and that should be highlighted. (I would be happy to demonstrate that with examples if necessary, but I think we all know it to be true)

ust wanted to add: the fundamental problem with the Left at the moment is that having had cultural hegemony for so long, they've forgotten the basic principle of civil discourse: the capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism, the capacity to reflect on the possibility that for all one's certainty and moral conviction about one's analysis of the situation, one may yet be wrong, and the other fellow right.

When one forgets that, one starts to pre-judge everything that comes out of one's interlocutor's mouth, one ceases to listen, one ceases to learn. The Right has certainly been guilty of that in that past, in times when it was ascendant; now it's very much the Left's turn at making this fundamental error. — gurugeorge

It's almost unbelievable in the era of Trump that you could unselfconciously come out with this statement. It's almost like you're satirizing yourself. Sure, there are actors on both sides guilty of a lack of civil discourse and an irrational certitude of their own opinions, but none come close to Trump, who now, along with the 90% of Republicans who support him, is the right.

Yeah, there have been some analysts who reckon Gen Z is more Right-leaning than any generation since WWII. — gurugeorge

Who? Show me the evidence because your post lacks substance. Do you have anything apart from some wishful thinking mixed with a few ad-homs against professors and others you don't like?

And that's why the Left is becoming a laughing stock. It's a kind of intellectual slapstick, the intellectual and moral equivalent of stepping on a rake. — gurugeorge

Except it's not. The right is. And that's what the complaints about political satire amount too. The right is hurt because it's not taken seriously in intellectual circles. The response is to bash intellectual circles as if they're the problem. As if intelligent people who know things and study things are the problem and the real laughing stock. It's projection at its most basic. Sure, you'll find the odd irrational professor who goes too far, but again, academics are generally miles ahead of their detractors on the right who generally resort to childish tropes like "nutty professor" to attack them. And academics are actually needed. We need academics and research and science and so on to push back against climate denial, creation science and other such demonstrable foolishness coming almost exclusively from the right. What we don't need are politically inspired talking heads who usually know nothing about the subject they're criticizing but think that by virtue of the fact that they have a public platform they should be taken seriously. Well, they shouldn't, and they aren't, outside their own commercially profitable echo chambers.

Nationalism will win for the foreseeable future, because globalism (or rather, the kind of globalism we've had up till now) is fundamentally incoherent and insane, while nationalism is actually coherent and sane: the relatively ethnically-homogenous nation state remains the largest viable political unit. — gurugeorge

Nationalism is one of the major causes of war and conflict and the most nationalistic countries are the most dangerous and the most insane. E.g. North Korea or, historically, Nazi Germany etc. This is why international organizations such as the UN were formed in order to quell nationalism and encourage global cooperation. So, this is just demonstrably flat wrong. Not that it even needs to be refuted as it's again just another one of your bare assertions not backed up by a scintilla of evidence. Also, what do you mean by suggesting an "ethnically homogenous" nationalist state is saner than the alternative (if that's what you mean)? Are you saying you would prefer America, for example, to be more ethnically homogeneous?

Seriously? So those with gender dysphoria are actually just making a lifestyle choice, based on what society thinks about gender? You don't put yourself through gender reassignment surgery unless you're really serious. Really, personally serious. — Pattern-chaser

Gender dysphoria and gender reassignment surgery are socially situated phenomena. You don't get to make personal choices outside the prevailing social mythos without ending up in jail or a lunatic asylum. Or to put it another way, the communicable choices available to you are preset by your sociocultural context. In a hypothetical closed society where gender really does unambiguously equal what sexual equipment you display, the concept of gender dysphoria doesn't exist to be communicated and you can't have it. Just as up until recently you couldn't have ADHD. But in contemporary society, sex doesn't unambiguously equal gender and you can (which also makes an absolute equation of sex and gender either an expression of a lack of understanding of current social norms, or a misguided attempt to close the barn door after the proverbial horse has bolted).

Welcome Dan, and thanks for your postings so far. :up:

Isn't it the case that in so far as a philosopher has a coherent body of work, a coherent philosophy, he/she is attached to a theme? And that theme, being the current around which his/her individual ideas (little truths) flow, must, in order to be taken seriously, be their (big) "Truth". So pronouncing the truth becomes something like just asserting identity? Or do you mean a more explicit proselytizing that we fall into when we can't see beyond the boundaries of our own world view?

When they got the results they were pissed of at someone because he had given the wrong answer and they had all copied it. — Sir2u

Brings back memories. :lol:

Here's an example of the type of thing allowed in the old forum and allowed here with regard to logic problems:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3934/is-this-argument-form-valid-contradiction-through-disjunctive-syllogism

No significant issues arose because, apart from logic problems, homework help was strictly banned in the old forum too. Again, posters can learn from each other by getting involved in discussions or asking questions.

:up:

This is the one I thought you were referring to originally:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2648/metoo/p1

Actually, there are two #Metoo threads, and the administration (me) got them mixed up. Your one is in politics and current affairs now.

Do you really believe that someone looking for help with their homework is "cheating"? Because if you do than maybe others will think that about me when I ask for help... — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Having been a teacher I can tell you the way we tend to look at it is that if you have made a full effort and in order to get further you need help then that help is legitimate (as long as someone is not actually doing the work for you).

Oh, congratulations, Tiff! :party:

Was it just logic or am I mistaken in thinking we had a Math help thread as well? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Well, it was a category rather than a thread. Maybe those two were lumped together though.

It is easy to spot through the wording of their question if they are asking you to help them cheat or that they really don't grasp an idea. I am speaking of the later rather than the former. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Those aren't mutually exclusive though. And if someone merely doesn't understand an idea, they can use the questions category. I mean, we probably already have helped people with their homework, but they need to not say anything about it being homework and approach it from a different angle—like ask a question or start a discussion on the general theme. Plausible deniability and all that. Explicit homework help is likely to result in us getting an increasing flow of drive-by slackers here.

The sound of one heel clicking is unassailable.

We only had a specific logic homework help section at old PF. Help on other types of homework wasn't allowed. We do have the learning centre including the questions category, but as Hanover implied a general homework category is likely to be abused.

If you want to learn about something, probably the best way is to start a discussion on the topic. Just don't make it look like you want other posters to do your work for you. And if you have an urgent assignment you need help on, I'd say you're better off going elsewhere.

The guideline for that section :

"If you'd like to query a philosophical point that's not easily Googled and that is not a homework assignment, start a discussion here. And remember to mark it as a question. OP's intended to foster debate and discussion that just happen to include questions can be posted in other categories.

Please accept the comment that answers your question."

@José Ricardo

If you have a short philosophical question, the answer to which can't be easily googled, you can ask it where Michael pointed to. We don't do homework as such though.

There isn't one.

It seems a fairly clear-eyed analysis to me. But not a reason to give up. All the suggestions are doable with a little political will.

I anticipate you'll be banned here too, largely because you ramble and have nothing intelligent to say. — Hanover

We'll have to ban angel Sapientia first I think. :sad:

Rudy Giuliani does not exist — Michael

That's a relief.

Oh, OK then. There better be some tea and scones afterwards... *grumble*

By which standard would we be measuring our internal ethical rules and external judgments that allow us to change our internal moral compass or decide not to? — Benkei

It's not so much that we have ethical rules but that we have an ethical imagination extrapolated from and moulded by the sum of interactions both that we have experienced ourselves (direct conditioning) and that we have observed others experiencing (indirect conditioning), that both results in and is sourced from a complex set of dispositions, motivations, and orientations that is always in flux and that we loosely refer to by the term "values". So, it's less like we decide to change our moral compass (even when we think we do), and more like we react to it being changed whether we consciously acknowledge that or not. As in, it's less like we're sitting at the computer console of our values typing in new programs as new stuff happens to us, and more like we're a subroutine in a larger program struggling to get a foothold in it whereby we can function optimally (and where optimal functioning is not a purely pragmatic matter of externals, but runs deeper in terms of intra- and interpersonal fit—the working out of conflicts and contradictions within ourselves and between ourselves and others, respectively). Complicating matter is the fact that our ethical imagination encompasses both our actual values and our imagined values and a complex interplay between them that results in our ethical expressions not always reflecting what we admit to ourselves and others. So, I don't know, but I think the way you've described things is likely to lead to confusion on several levels including wrt the terminology.

E.g.
Ethical view: What is this? What we think and say we value or what is shown through our behaviour that we value?
Ethical rule: A conscious expression or an internal disposition? Hard and fast principles or context-dependent orientations?

It's not condemnation and approval that rightly causes us to revisit our ethical rules (Premise 5), but it's introspection. — Hanover

It seems like that but what motivates the introspection is a change in disposition that already signals our ethical "rules" have been revisited. The introspection is then more of a working out of the conflicts this raises.

We change our internal moral compass when, through evaluation, we realize our behavior is not adhering to some higher principle. I would think we should consider the condemnation and approval of others only to the extent we evaluate the responses of others as reasonable. — Hanover

The impetus can be anything that resonates. It can be approval or disapproval, it can be something we see others do, it can be something that's done to us, or it can simply be the environment we find ourselves in especially when that changes dramatically. The point is something moves us internally and we become aware of an imbalance or conflict or contradiction, the processing of which we recognize as ethical deliberation that may or may not involve reference to "higher principles" or any other particular ethical concepts but always involves either a recalibration or reinforcing of values.

So, how do we develop our ethics?

I'd say, for the most part, they develop themselves. Our ethical imaginations are fostered or stymied with experience and conditioning—we apply them to the contexts we find ourselves in, and when that application becomes problematic, a process of change occurs which involves and may be somewhat directed by introspection. But we should resist the temptation to imagine we have much conscious control over our values, or that what we tell ourselves about them is unpolluted by the same pragmatic social concerns that caused having them to be necessary in the first place.

tl;dr There's a whole mesh of processes and interactions external and internal, interpersonal and intrapersonal that contribute both to what we say about our values and how we act in terms of values that are difficult to disentangle, and it's an oversimplification to view the changes in this overall system as a series of steps or as a bunch of switches we can turn on and off as new information is absorbed.

I don't know what you're referring to. You can report posts you think don't comply with the guidelines.

You might get away with that in the Lounge, but you don't get to do it in the philosophical discussions.

Now we've got Blue Lux posting nine times (!) in a row. — John Doe

Deleted most of those.

My intuition is that there ought not be any hard and fast rule but it's more common sense. Five threads on the same topic are fine in theory if they're covering distinct aspects of the question in a manner that makes sense. Multiple posts in a row are fine if they're responding to distinct points within the thread which you might want to separate out for some reason. But neither are okay if you're just goofing around, insulting people, or throwing up random quotes. — John Doe

Agreed.

Moved.

Would Hanover volunteer to dominate... er, moderate? :wink: — 0 thru 9

*Shudder* :scream:

No problem. :up:

OK, I think it can find a place for it.

The only regularly active discussion of yours I know of is "Welcome to TPF". I've moved that into "About TPF", so that it can be seen on the front page as I think it's a nice morale booster and helps to give a welcoming feel to the site. As long as @jamalrob doesn't mind, it can stay there.

They wouldn't appear on the default front page unless they were active anyway, Tiff, and #metoo isn't. Moving it will have no effect at the moment.

Do we really need three discussions on gender right now? — Sapientia

No.

I say delete the most recent addition by Blue Lux. — Sapientia

Sensible idea. Done.

@Blue Lux Please stick to one of the two we have.

Sure, but if we called it, say, "The Marquis de Sade's Den of Iniquity", would that not lend the site a certain Je ne sais quoi?.

He's nothing if not Bannoistic.

No worries. Probably if we changed the name of the lounge to "The Secret Space" or something mysterious sounding, nobody would mind its discussions not being on the front page and would rush there to partake of its enigmatic ambience. Thinking aloud here..

That's an understandable point, but finding say, the shout box or the Donald Trump thread, etc. via mobile is fairly torturous — Maw

@Sapientia

I've moved the Lounge up the categories list, so you don't have to scroll after selecting categories on mobile (or on PC to see the full sidebar). Does that help?