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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32947 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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The answer to this is obviously yes. Of course a man who doesn't even have his own place is an inferior romantic partner. Who would want a guy who isn't independent. Are blacks more misogynistic? Almost certainly, anyone who disagrees isn't familiar with black culture. Or for something more concrete look at rates of rape and domestic violence

I mean you could make that argument, sure. Thing is, though, the mainstream media and progressives are trying to argue that these guys are single purely because of poor character, from their point of view, the races are =. (its on the inside that counts.) The question is: are the following things listed good indicators of a persons moral character?

Being poor, uneducated and not independent is typically a sign of either laziness or low intelligence. Is that considered poor moral character?

Being poor, uneducated and not independent is typically a sign of either laziness or low intelligence.

Sure, in reality. But in the leftist model of how the world works? Being poor, uneducated and not independent is a sign that you're oppressed, and thus deserving.

maybe in a liberal model sure, but a leftist one i'd hard disagree there.

Sure at a societal level progressives seem to believe that but not at a personal level.

Being poor, uneducated and not independent is typically a sign of either laziness or low intelligence. Is that considered poor moral character?

Such a thing would have to assume that all outcomes are a result of the efforts of those individuals, and that there were no outside factors either giving them a significant boost, or holding back the people in the lower class. This pretty much were a lot of the debate lies. I dont know if there is a good answer. But i will say that simply believing that everyone who is poor and lacks a degree is a lazy bum is quite suspect as an explanation. Unless it could be proven otherwise.

Character is not determined by work ethic alone. And it is not fair. Neither is work ethic, one does not choose to have low conscientiousness. We live in a causal universe, all our outcomes were determined at the precise moment the universe came into being. Our society makes efforts to let people with merit not be held back by circumstances imposed by something other than merit, this is a good strategy because it helps us maximize global utility, but it's not fair. This is perhaps the strongest moral argument for something like "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their need". It is indeed a lie that anyone can be president, precisely one person per election can be and their victory was preordained by the uncaring forces of physics.

So on balance the question of character really does come down to "will a relationship with this person benefit me" and there are many to which the answer is no. We should probably do something about this as a society.

one does not choose to have low conscientiousness

Do you think that anyone chooses anything? Or are you arguing that having low conscientiousness is different from, say, having voted Green?

Well choice is an illusion and all that but as far as choices go scores on these traits seem stable and not like something that can be modified later in life the way that party affiliation can be. So they're meaningfully different in that sense. Society needs to treat conscientiousness as a choice because it makes the whole system run and justifies necessarily unequal outcomes, but that doesn't make it so.

scores on these traits seem stable and not like something that can be modified later in life the way that party affiliation can be

As far as I know, there is a genetic component, but conscientiousnes can be modified. Not as easily as how people vote, but not as impossible, like willing yourself to not have schizophrenia.

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