Aswad
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Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
Odd. I'd have associated such envy and vindictiveness, as well as the 'race to the bottom', with capitalist rather than socialist societies.
Would you categorize Norway as a socialist society?
Let's just say it isn't hard, when raised here, to see how Ayn Rand ended up so viciously biased against socialism. When the fit ain't right, it rubs and chafes until the bone is jutting out. I would like to think the main difference is I kept the wound clean and well dressed instead of letting it fester. Thus, I see a spectrum with some good points, ranging from "meh" to "hot damn, that's excellent!", and a similar number of bad points, ranging from "bah" to "wtf, why aren't people being burned at the stake?!", with the vast majority being possible to separate into the functional parts and the dysfunctional parts.
This role is filled by science, statistics and established methodology in the Liberal Left party, and there's a fair bit of this influence in the Conservative party as well. Doctrine, unfortunately, takes the place of reason in the parties Labor and Socialist Left (with Labor having had an effective majority for 60 years, give or take). The more "common sense" dominated approach is the primary influence in the Progressive, Center and Conservative Christian parties, with Labor tending to incorporate anything that doesn't contradict doctrine from Progressive as soon as the elections are over.
The beurocracy has been described in terms similar to the US medical system as far as efficiency vs cost is concerned, by the same party that built it, and it is illustrative that we actually have two criminal codes in effect at the moment because it has so far taken more than 10 years to move from approving the new code to get done with the process that can lead to the justice department actually getting a mandate to implement an IT system that can handle the transition to the new criminal code (which is on the books). Eva Joly was invited to have a look cuz we felt she would give us another medal, but the results were so dismal that she was ditched to avoid having to present them. Much like the people that pointed out the vulnerabilities that were exploited on 22/7 were transferred sideways into dummy positions when they voiced their concerns.
As for envy...
Inequality in a socialist atmosphere quickly becomes the problem of having smart kids and rich people, rather than the problem of having dumb kids and poor people (no offense intended by the word "dumb", just contrast). The idea of community does pull up a lot of the population, with a main emphasis on the middle class (massively so). However, the inequality thing is illustrated by how a school banned children riding their bikes to school because some kids might not have bikes, or might feel their bikes were inferior, or might not have learned to cycle. It's about stopping others from having anything the middle class doesn't have. By "everyone" in practice we mean the middle class in a majority of cases, and the same goes for "we", "us", "society" and so forth, but we do also sometimes include the lower class. The debate about homework has not centered on what's good for learning, but rather on how it might prove an unfair advantage to children with parents that have the time and skill to improve the learning of their offspring.
I suspect we can agree this is by no means an optimal approach, and that it at least has a certain flavor of envy of the advantages of others, given that improving the lower classes' situation is always secondary to ensuring that nobody (in the sense "any people") has anything that not everyone (in the sense "the middle class", sometimes "the middle and lower class") has, except if connected enough to bypass such concerns (some are more equal than others, as Orwell pointed out). Most of our welfare system was in fact built by the non-socialist parties, often with the socialist parties voting against the measures. Everyone I know that has been on welfare at some point has had a better quality of life and more respect from the system in those few terms non-socialist parties have been in charge (about four terms since the end of the occupation).
As for vindictiveness, I could go on about that even longer, but I think I've strayed far enough off topic.
My main point in the post you replied to was that reason in itself dictates that we pay attention to methodology and refinement of same, which in turn leads to the inescapable conclusion that we must do certain things in certain ways, simply because none of the alternatives offer advantages. That, and that vindictiveness and envy are- as far as I can tell- among the things we cannot afford to do if we are concerned with outcomes. Ignoring outcomes is a shortcoming in terms of ends, and can only be justified insofar as the means to our ends would be more objectionable than the outcomes (i.e. lesser evil must prevail at a government and societal level, without considering actions and consequences as fully compartmentalizable and inherently incomparable, else greater evil is what we choose- which would be hard to consider moral, I think).
In the specific case in question, I'm inclined to say it comes down to people in prison not having the opportunity to actually fend for themselves, and thus the state is either going to have to say they have no claim to basic humanity and dignity (a recipe for an eventual social collapse at worst, and an increase in crime and hardening of criminals at best) or provide a standard of care that compares with what the average free citizen could be reasonably expected to be able to provide for themselves. That substantial parts of the population are unable to provide it for themselves, should be seen as the absence of something desireable for them, not as a problematic presence of something for the prison population, with the emphasis thus on providing the desireable standard of care for everyone (i.e. making sure free citizens aren't worse off than prisoners), rather than preventing a decent stardard of care for prisoners (i.e. making sure prisoners are as bad off as free citizens). It may seem similar, but it's a dramatically different attitude. One reflects a constructive cognitive structure, the other a detrimental one.
Vindictiveness motivates the process that hardens criminals and increases crime, while envy motivates the process that drives the focus from improving conditions for human beings to holding criminals down to the lowest common denominator (which, again, really has serious adverse effects). The degree of perceived autonomy is a central element of attaining low recidivism rates in our justice system (note also that acting responsibly is directly contingent on autonomy, more or less by definition). Howevermuch we might want to punish, we are not justified in acting on that motive alone, because it doesn't right the wrong or restore justice- and, crucially, it actually causes additional harm to the innocent general population. That harm, we are to some extent culpable for when we choose vindictive justice.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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