A Point I Want To Make

The problem I have with the above statement is that you have assumed i'm using the word responsibility in the wrong way. I would never profess to choose according to merit "who is responsible for what", rather I am talking about personal responsibility, or responsibility as a virtue or attitude.

The word, however, and I have had many people tell me this, is probably a bad one to use.

I'm a little confused at the moment, I'll think about this one.

 

Goddamn the pusherman.

The dealer sells the noble weed.

 

so you are all for heroine addicts wandering the streets and legalising it would prevent the user having to hold up a store.

pathetic.

Good law enforcement is the way forward.

Heroine addicts are the scurge of the planet, losers that may as well be put down with only one goal in mind which is to get another fix. Leaving dirty needles everywhere, stealing from people, being a total menace. SCUM.

My friend Brett's brother was an addict and one night my friend brett had loan sharks wanting his brother's money repaid to them. The brother was nowhere to be found. Who do you think they turned to for the money. It is a dirty, horrible, pointless habit which needs to be stamped out.

 

Nothing to be confused about LIAF it's totally simple like I keep saying. So far all I've said is ONE thing. I've said one thing -- the same thing -- about two different entities, merit and responsibility. I've said that both merit and responsibility are defined by what is DESIRED by the party making the pronouncement or judgement of merit or responsibility.

Thus:

1)"He merits something" really means "I want something." Specifically, it means "I want to encourage or inhibit certain kinds of action by the person in question depending upon whether his actions please me or displease me."

2)"He is responsible for something" likewise really means "I want something."
It means "According to your actions I want to impose upon you to either encourage or inhibit future actions of the kind in question depending on whether they please me or displease me."

Both "merit" and "responsibility" really only mean "I want something [with respect to some other person -- or even myself]."

That's all I've said so far just this ONE thing: they both just really mean "I want something".

See the shift from third person to first person? "He merits" or "He is responsible" really means "I want."

But yes of course there's the significance of what this one thing means. Remember I said there are tons of ramifications. Here's a part of what it means:

1) It means "merit" and "responsibility" are really subjective not objective entities. They are pseudo-objective entities. They are presented as if they were objective -- but they are not they are really subjective.

2) It means there is a REASON they are presented as if they were objective when in fact they are not. The reason they are presented as if they were objective is to deceive people and manipulate them and to have a pretext to discriminate against people and perpetrate inequity. Just look all around you. Look at any number of individuals. Of institutions. Of entities. I hardly need say more.

3) It means whenever somebody says you merit or are responsible for something what's really going on is they WANT something. So you need to examine their motives to see if they are good or bad. It's in your self interest. And when you say someone merits or is responsible for something we need to look at your motives to see if they are good or bad. It's in our self interest.

4) It means "merit" and "responsibility" -- really don't exist! All we're really dealing with here is human desires. All that's really going on is what people want. And this means YOU don't merit anything. It means you don't deserve any more -- or less -- than anyone else -- and neither does anyone else -- even though you might have thought otherwise. Because merit and responsibility don't really exist. They're just fabrications made out of desires, people trying to get what they want. Instruments of deception, manipulation, discrimination in the hands of those skilled at using them.

This is MORE than enough for today. I hope there'll be some feedback again. Understand any of this? Wanna discuss any of this?

As a practical exercise I could address Gary's last post according to this. But I'm out of time.

And Cooloner could have told you pretty soon I'd go off on a thing like this. And at these lengths.

(Personal responsibility? That too is just doing what you want in the final analysis. Either good motivations or bad motivations.)

 

Objectivity begets subjectivity-unless you're a zombie.RE:conscienceness changing substances have been used since time immemorial by humans and that is never going to change.The subjective opinions about their use were influenced by the groups and the individuals within the groups that used them.For example,some posters here would poison users and others would lock them away for long periods of time.I guess,SDS,following your example,these solutions are obviously what the posters want and are a microcosm of the wants of huge amounts of people everywhere.Lack of responsibilty and/or merit is the criteria these posters have used.What they want done to the "miscreants".I want differant results than they do.Subjectively speaking of course.Have I missed the point?.

 

All objectivity is subjectivity. Because everything we experience we experience through ourselves.

Yes. It's what these posters want. And we need to get to their motivations to find out if what they want is good or bad. What does Gary want?

I want different results too. I want good results, the best results, for everybody.

No you have not missed the point and thanks.

It's all very simple. Except the wool has been pulled over people's eyes with stuff like "merit" and we need to make things clear again. That can be tough. Old illusions die hard.

 

You have continually missed my point in order to prove your own. You're not talking about responsibility, you're talking about merit.

To say what one wants to achieve can be more subjective than taking responsibility, so personally i think you should take this silly wordplay argument and dismiss it as useless.

 

LIAF I'm surprised and confused by your reaction. You said you were speaking of responsibility as a personal attitude or virtue. And I think I addressed this. I don't think I missed your point. I said that personal responsibility is what one wants for one's self, just like all "responsibility" really reflects what someone wants.

No I'm not talking about just merit. I'm talking about BOTH responsibility and merit. They BOTH are nothing more than what people want. They both are fundamentally subjective. They both ultimately are defined on the basis of human desires. And it matters whose desires are in play.

Why is this not a silly useless wordplay argument? Because language is the basis of communication and the medium of society. Because people use words to manipulate people. Propaganda and rhetoric are not silly wordplay games. They are dead-serious instruments of control. The advertising industry is a multibillion probably multitrillion dollar testament to the powerful importance of language and word subtlety. Politics and religion are others.

What I'm trying to do here LIAF is explain something that will help keep others from deceiving you (and anyone else following along). I'm trying to do you a favor for god's sake.

If I am missing something please let me know. As if you thought I weren't on your side.

 

Responsibility can be an objective thing as can merit.

Setting out to say what one wishes to accomplish can be subjective.

Why not talk in terms of sub and ob? Because your mind is not taking any objective responsibility at the current time.

 

Obviously you're not with me at this point for one reason or another in that you're saying merit and responsibility can both be objective. My position is that they are both subjective. One cannot make a determination of merit or responsibility -- or anything else-- outside of the context of at least some desire.

Suppose we are walking along a riverbank and there are thousands of stones along the bank. I point to a stone and ask you "What does this stone deserve or merit?" You cannot say what it deserves or merits -- the question is absurd -- because you have no particular desires with respect to that stone. But if I ask you what the person who murdered your friend merits or deserves you can render me an opinion because it is a situation with respect to which you have particular desires.

There are also other arguments showing that determinations of merit and responsibilitiy require human desire to make any sense.

Just like a ladder, merit and responsibility don't work unless they have a foundation on which they can be grounded. That foundation is desire. Thus merit and responsibility are always ultimately subjective.

The reason I want you to understand that merit and responsibility are derivatives of desires is so you will examine the underlying desires so you won't be duped. It's like looking at moleculles in terms of their underlying component parts, atoms, to have a better understanding of what's really going on.

What is it that you would suggest my mind should ""take objective responsibility" for? I of course do not endorse the existence of objective responsibility. But if you tell me what you think I should do I can interpret it in terms of what your desires appear to me to be and I can respond with what my desires are.

I realize this may not seem worth it to you but maybe someone will understand and benefit. It's worth it to me because I want to be understood. People like to be understood and to make contributions.


***

And to regroup once again the basic point I have made in this whole thread is that merit and responsibility are not fundamental entities, they are derivative entities, fabrications that are really made out of desires. Just like molecules are not fundamental entities, they are derivatives of, constructs of, atoms.

And then there are the ramifications of what it means that merit and responsibility are fabrications which I also spoke some about above.

That's all I've said so far.

There's more of course if we ever get there.

 

So you're endorsing going by what your desires are?

Isn't that incredibly subjective?

 

OK LIAF I'm going to cover a whole lot of material here. More or less briefly. Everybody knows my stuff is too long me included. I lose people that way. Attention spans are short in a culture of sound bites. This will be relatively brief but pretty dense. We can discuss it all later in more depth.

(You know the basics already. Merit and responsibility are derivatives, fabrications. In reality they consist of nothing more than human desires.)

Merit and responsibility are subjective? Yes. Entirely subjective. So why not just use the word "subjective"? Why say "based on desires"? You asked me this already, I can't remember what I said and I'm not going to waste time looking back, but the right way to say it just occurred to me today when I was on a walk. It's not good enough to say "subjective" because this word doesn't go far enough. I mean the thing that makes something subjective is that it is based on desire. So one might as well go all the way, get down to the real basics and say "based on desires" instead of just "subjective".

Human choices, decisions and voluntary actions are all based on desires. And yes we could say human choices decisions and voluntary actions are "subjective". But we might as well go all the way and tell it like it really is. They are based on desires. "Subjective" is not good enough, does not get us all the way there. Talking in terms of desires instead of "subjective" will serve us better in the long run.

This is already getting too long! I will have to end it soon.

So now to answer your questions above. Am I endorsing going by what my desires are? Oh man what a question! LIAF you hit a bombshell! The answer is I don't have to endorse going by my desires because I -- and every other human being who ever existed -- am helpless to do anything other than go by my desires! I don't have to endorse my desires because I will always, helplessly, do what I desire. I know this is a big statement. It has lots of repercussions. It means every human voluntary action is helplessly selfish. But if that's the truth hey we all need to know it we might as well face it. So the matter of me ''endorsing" my own desires is irrelevant or superfluous. People always do what they want! I guarantee it.

And your other question "Isn't that incredibly subjective?" The answer of course is yes absolutely. To be precise, it is totally (and not incredibly but quite credibly) subjective and for the same reason that I just gave: people always do what they want (in the broad context of all the considerations they take into account when voluntarily acting, for example, I may want not to go to work but I go anyway given all the ramifications of not going to work, given all the broad considerations I voluntarily go to work).

So LIAF as you already see of course the scenario I've painted now is that we've got all these people running around always doing exactly what they want and with no merit and no responsibility and no accountability.

Seems like a pretty bad, pretty impossible situation right?! Well don't worry we're going to do something about it. We're going to fix it. And we're going to do something BETTER about it than just talking in terms of fabrications like merit snd responsibility. Instead of a fake fix using misleading derivatives like "merit" amd "responsibility" we're going to get right down to the bottom line and fix it RIGHT.

Fixing it right, understanding it in the right way, will serve humanity better in the long run.

Next time.

That's all for now. Except I am going to write a second post now below separate from this one to do a little regrouping again.

 

Here's the regrouping post for today.

For those of you who have been following this.

Remember the basics. So called "merit" and "responsibility" are derivative entities in reality made out of people's desires.

This is important for everyone to know because it means whenever someone says you "merit" or "deserve" something or are "responsbile" or "accountable" for something what it means is they WANT something of you, so you need to examine their motives to see if they are good or bad. Because people will deceive you, manipulate you and discriminate against you in the names of the falsehoods of merit responsiblity and accountability. Be on your guard. I told you so.

It also means I have done you all a big favor. I have liberated you all from merit and responsibility. I have shown you the emperor has no clothes. He's a fake.

However as I say in the post immediately above we don't want to have people running around doing just anything they want. So in achieving liberation from merit and responsibility, which are false and deceptive entities, we're going to adopt new guidlines for what's ok and what's not. Guidelines that are clear and direct and not deceptive.

 

SDS realise that i am a little slow and that now that you have outlined your ideas more clearly I can see where you are coming from.

Now please feel free to continue with your train of thought. I am waiting with anticipation as to what you propose will "fix" the situation. This better be good

 

comme tu es compliqué J.T.!!tu retournes en philosophie??C.S.(Ulysse)

 

Good that you're following things LIAF.

To continue.

All human voluntary actions derive from desires. By definition. So all human actions are selfish in that their basis is to fulfill an element of one's own desire.

(It is also true that desires are the basis of human understanding. Nothing makes any sense or has any meaning unless one has some desire with respect to it. Does cxfwrv mean anything to you? No? It's because you don't know what it respresents so you don't have any desires with respect to it. But if it were code meaning "the enemy is advancing" or some such then it would have plenty of significance.)

So-called "merit" and "responsibility" are fabrications made out of human desires. Derivatives of human desires. One way to say it is that what merit and responsibility really represent is one's emotional reaction to the actions of others. Another way to say it is that merit and responsibility don't really exist.

So the world as I'm describing it like I said last time is a place where people run around fulfilling their own desires and there's no responsibility or merit because these don't really exist.

How to fix this? There is a need for guidelines for human behavior. It's called a moral code. The moral code guides people to keep them on the right track. (Unless one just doesn't care about such stuff. Then it's the law of the jungle.)

But how is one going to define "moral"?

Here's my suggestion.

Since all voluntary actions derive from desires and are selfish it is not possible in this sense for there to exist an unselfish act. All voluntary actions are invariably intended to fulfill one's own desire in some respect.

It is nevertheless possible to distinguish between two different kinds of actions: 1) those that benefit only the self and 2) those intended to benefit someone else as well as one's self.

So I define moral acts as those intended to benefit others as well as one's self.

I'll stop here since I'm short on time and will continue tomorrow.

***

(Mais oui mon ami ulysse. Du moins plus ou moins.)

 

LIAF or anyone else following this today I have more time and I'm going to go ahead and say a bunch of stuff kind of as an overview. It's like the major elements are now in place and I'm going to fill in some of the detail and bring things into sharper focus. Maybe I can basically finish things up everyone will smile . This may cover a lot of ground, unfortunately yes will no doubt be fairly long, and those of you following if any will just have to see if you can get anything out of it or not.

I've made this case that merit and responsibility don't really exist. They're just people's desires disguised under the names "merit" and "responsibility".

Why am I so dead set against merit and responsibility? It's because as I said they are tools of deceit, manipulation and discrimination. LIAF I take it you're British but here in the US the people who are always talking about merit and responsibility are conservatives, neoconservatives, Republicans and fundamentalist Christians. Actually I'm sure it's the same in Britain and anywhere else (and not to exclude other political and religious entities). The manner in which they use merit and responsibility for deceit manipulation and discrimination is basically like this: they say you made your own choice, it's you're own fault, you are responsible and therefore you deserve your disadvantaged socioeconomic status (in the political context) and you deserve to go to hell (in the religious context) and I don't have to do a fucking thing about it because it's all your own fault and that's what you deserve. It is completely revolting. It's among the most revolting crap on the face of the planet.

(Well, sometimes people who talk about merit and responsibility are actually trying to help you. But hey I'm telling you watch out. Particularly in the case of conservatives and in virtually all cases of religious theology that I know of. If it's religion based on merit then I guarantee you it's false religion.)

It's like I said earlier. People used to discriminate against others on the pretexts of nationality, race, ethnicity, skin color, eye color, left-handedness, sexuality whatever. All that has been debunked. Well at least some of it. Enlightened people understand these are not legitimate reasons why one person should have less than another. And I'm telling you that merit and responsibility are the LAST TWO FAKE PRETEXTS, albeit as I always say MONUMENTAL and highly culturalized and institutionalized pretexts, still used to illegitimately and in my view immorally discriminate against others. Because remember. Merit and responsibility don't really exist. It's just a person disguising their desires under the pseudo-objective names merit and responsibility. Remember. When they say "You deserve less" what it really means is "I want you to have less and I don't want to be involved in any way to have to help you and I want to keep having more than you have." Yeah well fuck you.

So what do we do instead of using the terms merit and responsibility? Go back to my very first post in this thread where I used as an example drug users and dealers. You don't talk about what they deserve. What you do is you talk about what you WANT. About what ends you want to accomplish. Because that's what merit and responsibility are anyway. It's just what you want. So you might as well come out and say it and don't fake it or hide it using pseudo-objective masking terms like merit and responsibility. And that way when you come right out and say what you WANT then it's up front and out in the open and people can SEE what it is you want and whether your intentions are really good or really not so good.

So what intentions are good? Well yesterday I talked about defining morality and having a moral code to guide actions. All human actions are selfish, intended to fulfill one's own desire so it's not possible to undertake a purely unselfish action. (I laugh when I think about people praying -- not that they're praying but how they try to make it unselfish -- which is impossible! They'll say stuff like "Lord I'm not asking you to help me win the game I'm JUST praying for guidance" {always the word "Just"...} or "I'm just praying that you help me play as a true sportman regardless of whether I win or lose" or "I'm just praying here before the game that your will be done" when what they REALLY want let's face it is to win the game! Just {no pun intended} come out and admit it, say what you want. You're not fooling anybody!) Anyway therefore I define moral actions as those intended to help others as well as one's own self. It's kind of like "The Golden Rule" but it's even better because more explicitely positive and less potentially equivocal.

But now think about this a little bit. It says "moral action is action that helps another person and not just myself". It DOESN'T say help Joey more than Johnny or Ashley more than Annie. It DOESN'T say one should be better off than another. It sure as hell isn't saying and sure as hell doesn't mean Joey DESERVES more than Johnny or Ashley more than Annie. Because REMEMBER merit ("deserves") doesn't even really exist!

Therefore there is an implicit EQUALITY manifest in the moral code that moral action is action that helps not just me but also the other person.

So the moral code is not just saying "take actions that help others." It's ALSO saying "everyone should benefit from the best possible, insofar as this is possible, on an EQUAL basis."

Now take a big step back and look at the whole thing. What have I really done here? I've gotten rid of the fake terms merit and responsibility. Instead of these deceptive terms I get people to tell it like it really is tell us what's on their mind tell us what goals they want to accomplish tell us what they WANT openly and up front. Then we can see if it's good or not so good. And we have a standard to judge by if it helps other people and strives for the best for everyone on an equal basis it's good and if not it falls short. So what I've actually done is developed a rationale for egalitarian socialism or communism or whatever you're wanting to call it and the WAY I have done this is by examining debunking certain words and false concepts and concentrating on how human society really works which is on the basis of human desires and cooperation. It's a thought process that gets you to socialism simply on the basis of examining human motivations and a concept of morality. I mean there are different ways of arguing in behalf of socialism and of course traditional arguments are economic or political or organizational in nature. But this gets there by looking at basic human motivation and morality.

***

I could pretty much wind things up right here finally. There is of course much more in terms of details and operative considerations. There are of course also unanswered questions and issues that need to be resolved and practical considerations that need to be addressed.

Two last things I want to say. First, it is hard to get out of the habit of looking at others in terms of merit. One has to constantly remind one's self. But second, the more one studies things in detail (genetics, culture, social factors, environment you name it) the more one understands people really do the best they can under the circumstances and from that one develops an emotional understanding and a compassion contributing toward motivation to do the best for everyone.