I have clearly always somehow felt that it was like this, but I never really realized that there were these two distinct types of "judgement," or perhaps better (but uglier) types "being judged". It is certainly an important (however small) idea, and one without capitalism and freedom in general must really be hard to deal with. Put it into the "Zen of Business" teachings.
I agree that there is a broader diversity of a thought, but there’s also a dominant, conservative streak when it comes to deferring to corporate authority. This is unsurprising since many people on this site get paid a lot of money by the same people being critiqued, but does represent a kind of self-selection toward servility.
I think you have pointed out something very important here concerning social strife. Even outside of this topic there is already a huge gap in understanding between those who perceive and those who judge.
It would be more precise to tell people to consider that other people have different value systems and that their view is not the standard everyone should be judged by.
I'm going to agree harder: it's a thing to be aware of as a fundamental mechanism which may or may not be related to agenda or judgement in any given instance.
If we can never be judged then you cannot judge those who support our current system of inequality of rights and wealth - they are just acting according to their two variables.
Oh wow, I have never seen this sentiment expressed outside weird rationalist circles. This is exactly how things are in my view, plus or minus some systematic biases whose negatives only become huge in great numbers.
Well if one never stops to think about its potential merits, it can surely only be perceived as dogmatic. One thing is evaluating a choice in its full context and not liking it, another is demanding to have your vision be understood and accepted without being willing to grant the same courtesy first.
No, that's fine, I understand it as a philosophy and have some sympathy with the motivations behind it. I also think it would be a horrible thing to put into practice for a variety of reasons.
I think you might find Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions interesting; he argues that it’s only about half of society that has this view you describe (expecting people in authority to be somewhat saintly, self-sacrificing, or monk-like), and the other half has a very different view.
I believe that individuals are allowed to hold private opinions (like Eich), and we as a society have decided as much.
As for HFT and Goldman Sachs, people are simply bashing based on jealousy of more successful individuals in a different sector, without actually investigating the topic. Like here, where apparently many don't actually read the GPL.
As for philosophy, that's a topic in itself, but let's just put it this way - I had one foot inside the door of a monastery (figuratively), instead chose a different path. Regardless, in worldly matters I prefer a rational approach to knee jerk sentimentality and sensationalism..
I had not considered a link between being against binary thinking and political-style management. Thank you for writing it, because I found it very thought provoking.
Another way to look at it is that the author isn't attacking concreteness. Instead, the author is taking generalizations and adding context for why that generalization exists. This helps identify when the generalization applies and when it does not.
I think viewing it as a pure good is the odd view. Most people recognize that, A. It's impossible (who is doing the evaluating?), B. That it leads to a single vision/set of experiences dominating, C. That it ultimately leads to dissatisfaction amongst the majority.
It is weird in the context of "modern thought," which is ironic perhaps, but it's not unusual... historically speaking.
Once you have generations of commentary, commentary on commentary, past crisis-resolution precedents, etc.... At this point you have a body of "jurisprudence." This is a lot like jewish torah, or most major schools of islamic jurisprudence. A rich one will contain enough examples, rationalisations and counter rationalisations that a very wide range of arguments can be made within the framework.
We like to think of ourselves as rational and rationalistic. rational principles with rational conclusions. The generation of America's founding fathers, and the French revolutionaries was particularly hubristic in this regard. Peak Enlightenment, rar!
But real life society doesn't work this way. We evolve. We make judgements instinctively, incorporating lots of conflicting anecdotes, principles and half principles. We create exception cases etc. A body of jurisprudence can act as a formal, social version of this. It's like a history of ideas.
I think that perhaps the idea that we should split society into shunning factions and the idea that we should care about where we shop (or browse) are entirely separate concepts that aren’t related.
“Intuitively wrong” is subjective. The idea that a self-selected, self-righteous minority should set the moral compass for the majority is the real indictment of modern society and ethics. If there is no way to achieve majority consensus on one decision (there’s always a collective consensus on whether to be on a platform), then it only makes sense that the platform owners should be the one to choose
I got the same impression, as coming from the modern style of "open-mindedness", which seems to be interpreted not as judging an idea by its merits alone, but by giving more weight to non-establishment ideas.
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