Self-recognizing as bad habit seems to be vague then. You are stating a truism rather than a normative course of action.

I don't think there is an easy answer to this, but I would say that a bad habit should change when it is self-consciously recognized to be a bad habit and the necessary resources to make a change are available. This applies to individuals and cultures. — Leontiskos

At what point though is it incumbent upon the person with the "bad (cultural) habit" to change them, ethically? When it leads to harm? When should a cultural habit that leads to possible harm be excused?

That is, when speaking of the war, Germany did not seek to change itself. Instead, an external set of agents sought to change Germany. — Leontiskos

Sure, but there was something in German society at that time whereby when the leadership was defeated, and the country basically conquered militarily, there was no further uprisings/insurrections. That is to say, the country had traditions, or a sense of "unification" (in its government/leadership) whereby formal treaties of war are respected and followed (even if they had the most despicable forms of rule of all humanity prior to that formal surrender). One can imagine a different cultural milieu, in which insurrections of ex-military or rogue groups, kept the fight going continuously, even using terrorist methods of asymmetrical warfare. Places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East, would be a different story in terms of how a military defeats a region. Of course, this might have less to do with culture than political arrangements (fractured leadership, ethnic divides, non-unified sense of national identity).

So…
...Can we not apply Occam’s razor, rid ourselves of physicalism, remain metaphysically agnostic, and follow the scientific method where it leads? Leave the empty suitcase behind and go where the plane takes us? What is the real barrier to doing so? — Baden

Metaphysics, in my view, provides "aesthetic frameworks" rather than definitive answers. For example, a physicist proposing the "many worlds" hypothesis to address quantum problems would have a vastly different metaphysical outlook than someone who believes in only one universe. This brings us to the question: "What is physical?" Is space-time physical? If the many worlds exist, are they physical? The term “physical” starts losing clarity if it encompasses everything.

Still, I believe we can distinguish between physical and non-material realities. Physical reality consists of things we can observe, measure, and interact with directly. Physicalism is most useful when it suggests that reality is, in principle, measurable. What lies beyond measurement—whether events, objects, or processes—is hidden, as object-oriented ontology suggests.

There are major problems with physicalism, though:

Philosophy of Mind: Describing the brain's workings (mapping the terrain) is not the same as understanding conscious experience (the terrain itself). If you call that "physical," you're offering no new insight.

Supernatural phenomena: Some suggest a pantheistic view, where all possible forms and arrangements of reality are "God" or part of a process theology. But at this point, it’s just a matter of semantics over what we call metaphysical realities.

I'll spend some time on your longer post, Schop. — J

:up:

Yes, because there is a greater level of intentionality involved in the badness of the second person. They are doing the bad thing more purposefully and intentionally. — Leontiskos

I basically agree. Now, the more complex question though, is when does it become incumbent upon people of a certain culture to evaluate a possible negative cultural trait/feature to see if it needs to change?

If in a previous culture, dogs were allowed to roam around a village, sometimes getting injured, sometimes getting lost, mostly doing "ok", getting fed by all the people of the village, and then in the new culture, dogs are supposed to be solely the responsibility of a certain person/family at a certain boundary of property for the safety/well-being of others who might be affected as well as the animal's welfare, at what point should the previous culture adopt/adapt to the new culture, if at all? At what point might one take the new cultural feature (FOR ETHICAL/PHILOSOHPICAL/REASONED considerations) and change the previous culture, if at all? [Please note, I don't mean change to "fit in", but because one has reasoned it's in some way axiologically perceived as a better/improved cultural habit.]

This of course, is a very mild example. There are more extreme ones revolving around education, "rights", martyrdom, and a whole host of things. It also gets tricky because "culture" can easily be misconstrued with "political philosophy" (think the individualism of Anglo-American culture vs. the social democracy of Scandinavian countries perhaps).

Isn't that oddly passive? A bit like puzzling over how the Philips Head driver just happens to fit a Philips head screw. We use language so that we can talk about the world. If it didn't work, we would use a different language. — Banno

Yes I fully agree. Please see my full reply (which includes more-or-less my birdseyeview of language and its efficacy) in the post to J above:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/939555

"The cat is on the mat" and 1) the idea of a cat on a mat, and/or 2) the fact of an actual cat on a mat, it's still puzzling, from a certain angle, why we can rely on language to make reliable connections of this sort. — J

But why should it be so puzzling with theories of evolutionary adaptation/exaptation? That is to say, clearly our species has a linguistic capacity. Academics like Steven Pinker (The Language Instinct) and Terrence Deacon (The Symbolic Species) even think that language is THE defining human feature. It seems to me, evolutionary development holds the key to why our species is able to parse the world out in discrete objects, and arrange them together using various verbs/prepositions, describing them with adjectives, and the like. I wrote this a long time ago, but I think it applies here.. This might be my most articulate and developed explanation for this set of phenomena revolving around human capacity for language, and language's subsequent ability to recognize natural patterns (what I now am calling "correlation-distillation"). Let me know what you think:

there are language/mathematical/logical communities that DO special things. For example, the conventional math-languages used in the sciences and engineering DO solve problems of a much more complex nature than the problems that other language games solve. It creates predictive models for which other language games do not have the ability to predict. How can this language game be so useful compared with others, in mining complexity in natural phenomena and in secondarily creating synthetic technologies from those original mined complexities?

And here we can say there is perhaps a realism to the complexities of these special language-games. Perhaps a realism that is above and beyond mere forms of life only. Contingency would imply caprice- that the efficacy would work as well as any other convention.

Perhaps these complexities, or what I call "patterns", are part of a bigger picture of explanation. Language-games may be true (pace Wittgenstein), but some language-games are based in a realism of necessary pattern-recognition that is necessary by way of evolutionary necessity. Animals that do not recognize patterns, would not survive. Thus there is a realism underlying the conventionalism or nominalism of Wittgenstein's project.

However, I was trying to map his picture of human reality with other metaphysical and epistemological conceptions- namely realism, contingency, and necessity. One can construe Witt's metaphysics of these language-games to be be in purely nominalist or conventionalist terms. However, there may be some inherent, universal aspects to them which can characterize them to be necessary. It is necessary that humans inference, for example. It can be argued that general inferencing (this story/this phenomena/this observation is a specific or general case of X... This general case of X can be applied to specific cases of Y) may be a necessary human capability, dictated by evolutionary forces. In other words, in theory, any mode of survival is possible, in reality, evolution only allows certain modes of survival to actually continue. One such mode of survival, is inferencing. Since humans have no other recourse in terms of built-in instincts beyond very basic reflexes- our general processing minds, must recognize the very patterns of nature (through inferencing, and ratcheted with trial-and-error problem-solving, and cultural accumulated knowledge) which other animals exploit via instinctual models and lower-order learning behaviors/problem-solving skills.

.....

He is moving from primitive inferencing- something that is universal and even tribal cultures utilize, to Logic (capital "L") as conventionalized by Greek/Western contingent historical circumstances. Inferencing + cultural contingencies of the Greek city-states + further contingencies of history led to our current conventions of logic. So it is a mix of taking an already universal trait and then exposing it to the contingencies of civilizations that mined it thoroughly and saw use for it.

However, that's not all. ONCE these contingently ratchted inferencing techniques were applied to natural phenomena, we found not only that the conventions worked internally in its own language-game, but that it did something more than mere usefulness to human survival/language-game-following. It actually mapped out predictions and concepts in the world that worked. New techniques now harnessed natural forces and patterns to technological use, far beyond what came before. Math-based empirical knowledge "found" something "about the world" that was cashed out in technology and accurate predictive models. This is then something else- not just conventionalized language games. This particular language-game did something different than other language games.

My own conclusions from this is that the inferencing pattern-seeking we employ as a species, to survive more-or-less tribally and at the least communally, by way of contingency, hit upon real metaphysical patterns of nature. Thus my statement in another thread that while other animals follow patterns of nature, humans primarily recognize patterns of nature in order to survive.

I want disagreeing BTW, just chiming in. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cool. :smile: :up:

Well, in terms of priority, it would seem that perception is prior to speech, both in evolutionary terms and in the development of the individual. But then we would do well to remember Aristotle's dictum that "what is best known to us," are the concrete particulars (the "Many") whereas what is "best known in itself" are the generating principles/principles of unity (the "One"). Prima facie, it seems that the intelligibility of being must be prior to knowledge in the order of being/becoming, while the reverse is true in the order of becoming. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, I didn't say that perception/basic experiential sensation isn't prior to language. Rather, I am simply saying that language seems to have a logic and so do the "empirical rules" that one can distill from repeated testing/correlation-distillation. These are different but related. Prior to the scientific/empirical rules, language, and its adjacent abilities (conceptual-thinking, capacity for inference, etc.) seem to need to be in place. Both need to be explained for a proper metaphysics, and in some theories (like information theories), they aren't so separated as part of the same type of thing going on.

Specifically, it's provided by Statistical mathematics which reaches for an approximation to the truth. Which is probably why it's reliable, unlike syllogism which fails to account for unknown error. Which points to my earlier misadventures of pointing out that knowing A; entails the possibilty of being wrong about A and asserting it is true. The problem isn't in the system of logic but the flux of the evidence.

'What is, is' only works if you're correct about what it is initially. — Cheshire

A thought came to mind about Kant's (still useful) way of breaking up the world. Logic is a way of recognizing rules. This is how information is parsed out. Scientific principles regard distilling correlations to a point of being able to distill rules (of the empirical). The two logics are different- one has to do with language pattern, and one has to do with empirical patterns. However, they are both intertwined, as the rules of logic seem embedded in language, something that comes prior to the empirical correlation-distillation that takes place in the cultural practice of scientific research.

So what I mean is, basically, as I see it, the Tractatus is simply a common sense point of view. X event happens in the world, we make statements that reflect these events. Actual events in the world (states of affairs) are reflected by accurate statements (true propositions). X state of affairs is reflected by Y true proposition (about/describing that state of affairs). — schopenhauer1

And so the question becomes interesting as to:
a) Why would our language/logic correspond to the world?
b) How do we know something is veridically accurate?

And thus this opens up interesting notions of information. Information theory seems to have some role to play for why "The grass is green" makes sense, AND then what it means to say, "It is true that grass is green". These are two different capabilities, possibly being conflated in this discussion, revolving around Frege. And Frege perhaps, did not have the tools to really go further with it. Modern ideas of information, linguistic evolution, and other forms, possibly outside of formal "logical systems", would help elucidate this. Yet this discussion becomes hermetically sealed to the dates of 1870-1950 when it is not opened up to these subjects which better tackle these confusions of the early analytics.

don't know what, exactly, suicide bomber martyrs feel just before they blow themselves up in a crowded cafe. Maybe not much of an adrenalin kick, maybe not much of a highly motivated limbic burn. After all, they don't want to give themselves away too soon, by looking like an hysterical crazy person, for instance. Maybe they feel a beatific calm. — BC

Glorification of martyrdom (achieved in cultural indoctrination) seems like it has to tap into the motivational power of the limbic system--which is provided by nature. Nothing too odd about that -- soldiers are prepared to fight (and die, perhaps) through indoctrination and "feeling the burn" of hitting the beach, going over the top of the ridge, moving forward under fire. Adrenalin plays a role here. — BC

What about holding hostages of another country which in turn holds your own people hostage? Your version is 20 years old. Though I know trends make a come back :death:

That confusion was addressed in PI. But on that, as I recall, you disagree. — Banno

I won't open that can of worms at this time.. Witt's theory of language in context/use and shift away from language as static correspondence, etc. However..

The SEP article that frank introduced has arguments - section 1.2 - for the need to introduce states of affairs. — Banno

In that article SOA are possibilities, where facts are what is the case from those possibilities. As far as I know, SOA that obtain are what Wittgenstein is saying is captured by true propositions.. Either way, whether modal possibilities of possible arrangements exist, versus the actual arrangements, he seemed to posit that there was a "something" that was being captured by true statement ("facts" or SOA that obtains).

To me, this is still a (barebones) metaphysics. It's a realist metaphysics that puts a lot of value on declarative statements are mapping "reality" in some veridically accurate way. The barebones aspect is that the "reality" is given short shrift in his koans referring to "objects" and states of affairs, and "facts", etc.

Happy to go with you, but could you restate the question? Something off about the grammar. — J

So what I mean is, basically, as I see it, the Tractatus is simply a common sense point of view. X event happens in the world, we make statements that reflect these events. Actual events in the world (states of affairs) are reflected by accurate statements (true propositions). X state of affairs is reflected by Y true proposition (about/describing that state of affairs).

A state of affairs is not a something apart from how things are.

Folk are welcome to talk about states of affairs, but might do well to remember that they are a turn of phrase, not a piece of ontology. — Banno

That’s why Tractatus is confusing. It posits an ontology but doesn’t want to remain there too long. Objects, state of affairs. Call them “real” or tokens, but they are something that he is “corresponding” with propositions. I hired they could be thoughts if one is to make an idealism from it.

Added more

Even if we agree that a state of affairs does not differ from what a statement sets out, it does not follow that a state of affairs does not differ from a statement. A statement is a locution; a state of affairs is not. — Leontiskos

How do you know? You are referring to something. Yet your reference is cognitively something. That doesn’t have to be a state of affairs.

I'm happy to drop either "fact" or "state of affairs," as long as it's clear that, whichever one we retain, it's the non-linguistic referent of a statement. — J

Yikes! But I don't think so. We need to make statements in order to talk about anything, certainly, but that doesn't mean that everything we talk about is also made of statements. — J

I didn't mean everything was "made of statements".. I'll lead you to something, but first let me take the route there..

Why do you think the Tractarian vision of "states of affairs" and "true propositions" pointing to the states of affairs as anything really profound rather than common sense? That is to say, this notion that the world exists, we talk about it with statements that pick out possibly true ones.

SO how does a state of affairs differ from that which a statement sets out? — Banno

As I said:

Sounds like a performative contradiction to me! Can't get out of statements! — schopenhauer1

Agreed, but just about no one mistakes the statement for the state of affairs. But you know this, so I realize there's something I'm not understanding here. Expand? — J

Sounds like a performative contradiction to me! Can't get out of statements!

That would be an application of an overarching ontology to X. — frank

Right, but that's not "the whole world"- the overriding ontology though, true.

So, okay, getting back to evolution and history of universe, you said:

Language is for talking about things in the world, like evolution or cosmology. — frank

Yet you said:

It would be like the knight on a chess board describing the game of chess. It can't have that vantage point. — frank

Yet evolution and history of the universe are things we cannot have a vantage point about. Same goes perhaps about the evolution of language, or for that matter, "the ontology of language", or the "ontology of information", yet here we are sharing information, using language, evolved from a universe over the processes of time and space.

Metaphysics is different because it's talking about the whole world. — frank

Wait, metaphysics is about the "whole" world, now? Really? So when someone refers to the "Metaphysics of X", and it's only part of the world, that is not metaphysics? Metaphysics is ALL or nothing? In some conceptions, but ALL metaphysical conceptions?

It would be like the knight on a chess board describing the game of chess. It can't have that vantage point. — frank

So is evolution and the development of the universe also off the table even though we don't have those vantage points?

Yes. It's a secret that it's all nonsense. — frank

Non-sense in what way? There's several senses to non-sense.

Witt says that all such worries about how thought is related to cosmology amount to nonsense. If you're worried about metaphysics, you're trying to do something with language that it's not capable of. But the attraction of going back down the ladder and getting all worked up over metaphysics is always there. Who can resist? — frank

The problem with that sentiment is when you are doing a sort of "origin story" of "whence language". In a way, the species' evolutionary history and intertwinement with language DOES get metaphysical- pace academics and a host of theories revolving around "semiotics" or "information theory" or simply the "metaphysics of biology" or "what it means to be a human".

I think so. — frank

Can't I just say that he was confusing the two forms of truth? Actually, there might be three things being confused..

1) The ability to parse the meaning of words (cat, on, mat) - a cognitive ability, related with our species' ability to use language, often associated with various brain regions, studied extensively by cognitive scientists, linguists, anthropologists, biologists, and the like..

2) The ability to use the words to make meaningful statements (the cat is on the mat)- also a cognitive ability to, related with our species' ability to use language, often associated with various brain regions, studied extensively by cognitive scientists, linguists, anthropologists, biologists, and the like..

3) The ability to use statements to make statements about states of affairs of the world- this is a culturally learned notion whereby we are taught that observation and experimentation might lead to a corresponding "fact" of the world (It is true that the cat is on the mat). It is true that the cat is on the mat, is considered "true" in a "factual way", because of repeated observations or experimentations. The cognitive ability to understand word meaning, and meaningful statements (1 and 2) are assumed.

No word means anything until it's used, as opposed to mentioned. — frank

That itself is a (possibly not true) assertion.

In this case "know" means to understand what's being asserted by the use of the word. No word means anything until it's used, as opposed to mentioned. — frank

Truth can't be broken down any further. It can't be taught. You just know [understand what's being asserted by the use of the word] it is. — frank

This doesn't make sense to me. Does he mean that E=MC2 is somehow intuitive to us? Or that "that particular grass is green", is true? Or that "The grass is green" is intuitive? Because I would think only the last instance makes sense.. And then I was correct, this is just a difference in how "truth" is being used. "Truth" for Frege becomes simply about the ability to parse meaning of statements (The grass is green), rather than corresponding to the world, (It is true that grass is green).

He thought that truth can't be defined. Definition implies breaking something down into smaller pieces (a zebra is a horse with stripes, for instance.). Truth can't be broken down any further. It can't be taught. You just know what it is. — frank

I figured the answer would look something like this. What is the "know" here though? Meaning of words (denotation), meaning of statements (declarative statements- the cat is on the mat) or states of affairs (what is the case going on in the world)?

Maybe, but Frege denied that correspondence is a definition of truth. — frank

Fine, can you articulate his idea of truth without reference to more obscure ideas that obfuscate it? Just speak plainly.. In a couple sentences, what is Frege's idea of Truth?

I have a sense (no pun intended), that what is going on here is something along the lines of the truth of the meaning of a proposition (that we can discern propositional meanings), and the TRUTH of the world (that those propositions accurately portray states of affairs of the world). But not sure.

If you read the SEP article on states of affairs, it talks about how they have the form of thoughts. In other words, we don't think of the world as disconnected objects, we think of it as states, which implies the verb "to be.". The way I've been putting it is that we imagine the world can talk.

Remember in the Tractatus, Witt says the world is all that is the case. He's expressing this same idea, but he's going to move toward saying logic is not in our field of view when we look at the world. So if one got the notion that since (phenomenologically) the world talks to us in complete thoughts, that logic is the structure of the world (this is basically Stoicism), then Witt says your language here has gone on holiday. You're spouting nonsense. Logic is not informative about anything.

That's one way to think of it anyway. — frank

@fdrake

I think these questions revolve around the difference between meaning versus the "states of affairs". Once you understand that connection, you are getting closer to most of the issues at hand that revolve around correspondence.

Humans are an inter-subjective species. We by-and-large can successfully communicate meaning, and have an understanding. This is a type of consciousness- one that can convey meaning of the world. "True propositions" (reflections of actual states of affairs going on in the world), is more a question of how we cache out "Truth". Meaning, however, is largely inbuilt. Meaning itself, "The grass is green", is something that comes naturally to humans.. "It is true that the grass is green", is more of an extra layer which we learn, whereby truth is assumed to be an extra layer of "error-checking" (i.e. repeated observation, experimentation).

Perhaps this is why philosophy of language should not be examined in a vacuum. For example, I realized I had a reply in another thread that perhaps has relevance here:

It is because the primary language was acquired in that "critical period" that we both can understand meaning of words conveyed. From there, you can ask "whence meaning from language", and one can play around with concepts like "language acquisition modules" and "language meaning comes from use", but that is contesting the "how", not the very fact that communication, is often, by and large, pretty successful and typical. Yes, language can breakdown, but it more often than not, it doesn't.

That is to say, all these questions can revolve around how it is humans have this inter-subjective understanding of meaning, and thereby how "Truth" is judged in regards to "state of affairs" (of the world - metaphysical), versus our epistemological underpinnings (a species that conceptually and linguistically communicates and invokes/evokes "meaning" in a psychological sense). But all of this is getting obscured by this talk of Frege.. As if, to make shoe-horn it.. That's just my sense.

Yes, I’m using the language in the hope that you know what they mean. I’m not sharing with you meaning, or anything weird like that. If we could share meaning, or the words conveyed meaning, you’d understand what I meant even if you didn’t understand the language. — NOS4A2

This doesn't make sense to me. It is primarily because we share the same language that we can understand the language.

No, you apply your own understanding and meaning to the words. You can do this because you acquired language in your formative years, not because I passed you some meaning with this text. — NOS4A2

It is because the primary language was acquired in that "critical period" that we both can understand meaning of words conveyed. From there, you can ask "whence meaning from language", and one can play around with concepts like "language acquisition modules" and "language meaning comes from use", but that is contesting the "how", not the very fact that communication, is often, by and large, pretty successful and typical. Yes, language can breakdown, but it more often than not, it doesn't.

"Shared meaning", "consciousness", "inter-subjectivity", "uniqueness", "sameness"—all of these words lack any referent in time and space, despite what the grammar suggests. As such, there is nothing of the sort. Their existence can be seriously questioned, and should they be used as indications of worth and value, the discovery of their non-existence risks leading one to nihilism. — NOS4A2

You were the one who mentioned "unique and original properties of human beings", implying that those exist. If those properties exist, then the very language to convey those properties, by necessity must exist, as you are presupposing the very words to convey this idea in the first place.

Language you might say doesn't have meaning, yet someone asks for X, and someone answers with something about X.. There is something going on whereby language meaning is understood and conferred, revealing an inter-subjectivity of meaning.

What you seem to indicate is a metaphysics of objects in space/time is all that we can posit. Yet, here we are, overlaying upon objects meaning, whereby we have some sort of understanding.

From there I wager we can sweep away the notion of the universal essence, or other imagined connections, which presuppose a sort of ectoplasm between human beings. We can stop tying human beings together with false concepts and words to achieve an artificial basis of value, and discover value in the unique and original properties of each human being. — NOS4A2

Yet these words need shared meaning between individuals for this to be achieved. It need not be ectoplasm, but it needs an inter-subjectivity whereby the words mean roughly similar things. Thus, uniqueness itself is something one must understand to understand others are unique. But then, there is a sameness already built into the language meaning.

And thus, what is this shared "space"? Well, it isn't location, as you say. But there is a sort of type of consciousness that humans share.

How is that a rabbit hole? Irish resistance against British rule lasted multiple centuries. The Dutch resisted Habsburg and Spanish rule for hundreds of years too, and fought an eighty-year-long war to end it.

The suggestion that the Palestinians are somehow uniquely violent or unable to compromise simply has no basis in reality. — Tzeentch

The 80s year war between Spanish Empire and Dutch was indeed a long and bloody one, no doubt. In some ways, the modern ideas of smaller nation states freeing themselves from larger imperial entities, came from this and the Thirty Years Wars.

But this is exactly my point- what makes something a political versus a cultural feature? Look at a another example from the Dutch- how they handled Belgium's plea for independence in 1830. So, can there be a difference between how war was carried out in the Early Modern Era, versus the later modern era? So even the Irish centuries of war, by the time it came to violence in the 20th century, was more-or-less resolved within 30-40 years. Belgium was granted independence in 1830 with an initial violent suppression that then let up a year later. As time moved forward, conflicts get resolved more quickly.. Due to various factors like technology, "Enlightened" thinking, and such, cultural values can change. Obviously that can go for better or worse.. Germany obviously is an example going the other way. I can even say that the militarism of the 1870s contributed to WWI and certainly WW2 in Germany, and so that yes, culture played a factor there.. But at the same time, other cultural forces, like Enlightenment values (prior to WW2), allowed Germany to move forward rather quickly after their defeat. Just like the 80s year war and the Belgium independence possibly played a factor in the rather passive role of the Dutch in the 20th century.

But certainly, the idea of glorification of "martyrdom", and educational role of violent resistance, and how how death is viewed in this resistance plays a role in how one carries out violence. And so, whilst not inherent in a "people", it can be harder for a certain culture to move forward because of this.

It took them eight centuries of resistance. — Tzeentch

Eh, I'm not going down a rabbit hole, but I'm just going to separate the "Troubles" from other parts of the history, as the part that started around the 60s and ended in the 90s is where that modern agreement really came about. I'm not saying that the factors for the Troubles didn't start much earlier.. Obviously there had to be the factors that started it...

Back in the late 1980s I had a late night job in Minneapolis. One night I saw a very young child -- 3 or 4 years old, 5 max -- on a sidewalk riding a tricycle by herself at 2:30 am. Shocking anywhere, but this was in a somewhat rough area. That wasn't trust -- that was neglect. Did I do anything about it? No. I kept on moving. So much for the caring culture. — BC

You can't save everything. If you see abandoned dogs running around, sometimes you can try to see if you can catch them and send to shelter, sometimes you can't, not convenient. The street example might have been too broad. What if the parents are right there and the kid is mindlessly riding his tricycle in the street? Makes sense in a sleepy little cul-de-sac, not so much a street connecting two main roads. Again, this is getting too in the weeds.

My sense is that the culture in many places--small town or city--has become more risk averse, and children tend to be supervised much more closely, though not necessarily the "helicopter" level of risk aversion. High expectations are a part of this: upward mobile -aspiring parents subject their children to a lot of organized activities from an early age -- dance, music, soccer, etc. which are (presumably) intended to help them launch into a rising class. Preschool is the first organized performance step to higher education, even before kindergarten. — BC

This is true. Just unregulated "outdoor play" isn't encouraged as much anymore. You do need a community in the right location for that though.. Unregulated outdoor play could be making forts or it could be learning to make drug deals and stealing catalytic converters. If you are in a forts-like community, that should be encouraged more.

Culture and experience comes into play here. Why didn't the Jews revolt? Strike back? Kill Nazis whenever possible? One reason is that they had been subjected to a severe regime of generalized hatred and repression, wherein they could expect zero sympathy from Germans (or Poles, Ukrainians, etc.) Another is that they were usually unarmed. They were further weakened by hunger, thirst, cold, or heat. — BC

In scenario 1, I was thinking on some stories where Jews did have a chance to fight back after Allies freed camps or even the rare escapees. I'd imagine someone under that much physical torture, the immediate response to people when fleeing/encountering the people that tortured you might not be so positive. I would totally think this different than the kind of situation of Gaza. I think people want to equate the two, as if Gazan violence is akin to psychosis induced labor/death camp conditions of violence.

Why did the Palestinians in Gaza attack Israel? They too were oppressed. Two reasons: First, they weren't subjected to the conditions of the Warsaw ghetto (at least not until October 8, 2023). Gazans actively traded. Food, water, civil services, medical care, etc. was available. Secondly, their culture included resistance -- a la Hamas. They were armed not only with guns and bullets but by rocketsl. Significantly, Hamas was dug in really well. Hamas seems to be / has been more integrated with Gazans than Hesbollah is/has been with the Lebanese people. Hamas seems to be an integral part of Gaza's culture. — BC

Yeah, so you seem to agree with what I said above.

The October 7, 2023 massacre wasn't a spontaneous outburst, but had been planned, prepared for, practiced, and then performed. I don't have any insight into Hamas' reasoning. Did they think Israel would not conduct severe reprisal? Was Israel's retaliation worse than they expected? Do Hamas' managers think they are winning the war? — BC

And this is perhaps where culture comes into play.. Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Houthis, etc. Does a generalized view of "oppression" play out differently in different cultures. I mentioned the difference between the Irish Good Friday Agreement, let's say. They too were aggrieved, but compromised. Is that a cultural difference? Does compromise translate in some cultures more easily than others? One problem might be when one takes a cultural habit of "intransigence' and makes it into a universal principle of justice to rationalize it. Someone not actually from the culture, might mistake the two. Or it might be a mix of both.. But I'm not sure how much is political philosophy "JUSTICE" or cultural habit "JUSTICE". The first claims to be a sort of political rationale, the other is sort of an underlying worldview that comes from simply being in that society that is handed down from long-held beliefs of that culture.

In other words, it appears the denial of self-determination is in itself perceived as such a grave violation of human dignity that it alone is enough to spur people towards violent resistance. — Tzeentch

I think the spectrum/standard for extreme violence still stands by comparing the three scenarios here, that is to say in all cases (Basque, Troubles, Palestine), none of them would meet the standard of targeting/torturing/raping civilians, whether to strike fear, as leverage, or to provoke a response, or whatever else. See here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/937937

Of course, each one of those cases/regions is different, and culture plays a factor in this. At the end of the day, whether uneasy peace or not, the Irish resistance compromised with the British. The ability to compromise or take less than what one would originally want, again plays into cultural differences. If a culture values "justice" (heavily scare quoted here) or honor above all else, including the peace and prosperity of living in a self-determined state with "less than the original intended goal", then you will never get a peace, and violence becomes its own ends.

Anti-Nazi partisan groups largely focused on weaking German military infrastructure, not going on rape & murder sprees of uninvolved German civilians. I am not familiar with anything comparable to 10/7 among groups persecuted by the Nazis. Being oppressed shouldn't automatically turn one into a complete animal free from all moral considerations. — BitconnectCarlos

Good points.. I've been thinking about this a bit.. I noticed that there are probably degrees of response to oppression depending on the intensity and nature of the oppression...

1) You are stripped down to nothing, malnourished/starved, put to intense slave labor, tortured, and then put on an inevitable train to a gas chamber.. I would imagine people in this circumstance, are under such intense suffering that if given the chance to revenge the direct torturers that might be at the least, understood.. even if it went beyond that, to rampaging the countryside for a day or so.. That is because under the extent that that person was under temporary psychosis from being exposed to the deprivation, that might affect one's ability to even reason.

This scenario might be the most understandable in terms of violent reaction to oppression.

2) You are enslaved because of the color of your skin. You are lashed repeatedly for "non-compliance", or even perceived wrongs from your "masters". Your family can be sold to another slave-owner. You cannot get out of your living/work arrangements, have freedom of movement, etc. One slave starts a violent rebellion..

This scenario is not as extreme as the first scenario but still very dire. This would call for certain forms of violence. I am not sure it meets the level of "psychosis", but for certain individuals who have been broken by the system, this would definitely apply.

3) You live in a community that is bitter because they see their grandparent's homes were taken over by an enemy ethnicity/religion. You don't accept the circumstances of the current living situation, you either won't settle in another country, or they simply won't take you in. You are encouraged by other communities that you have been wronged. Your conditions are not enslavement or put into labor and death camps, but you lack some freedom of movement, and the ability to have a say in a government that represents your ethnic/religious background. You have a sense your land was stolen and you could be living a better life if you only had that land back..

This scenario doesn't seem to fall at all under the first two which would cause a form of psychosis in the intensity and kind of harm taking place.. It's not enslavement/death camp levels of suffering.

Here is where culture might come into play. As stated earlier, there are cultures, perhaps even situational ones, as created by the non-violence Civil Rights movement in the US, whereby one can try to affect change through sympathy. Or, you can use terrorist methods to invoke fear. Are some cultures more honor-based/justice-based/violence-preference based whereby the Civil Rights option would not even be an option? Of course, it's especially worrisome if it is the fact that the very terrorist reaction to the political non-determination, has created even worse conditions. It seems that it is culturally entrenched, if one doubles down on a (violent) strategy that has actually helped make the situation worse, not better.