A thread on individual and communal responsiblity

[Terxpahseyton]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The central question:

How much is action the responsibility of the individual? And how much is it the responsibility of society and its structure?

Having said that, it seems important to me for you to see where exactly I came from, what motivated me to create this thread. View my contribution as creative input rather than a binding OP:
My main argument will be wrapped as an reply to the following quotes.

Inspired by the recent discussion in the Merica: man announces he will sell a body part for 35K thread.

SPECIFIC INTRODUCTION

It's such a strange philosophical fetish to always and forever think that the right to something means the right to commodify it publicly on the market.

Property is a social fiction. By subsuming the human body to the concept of property, you are rendering the human experience to a social fiction. Instead, we should render property unto the human experience, rather than the other way around. In this case, we believe in property not as the highest order of freedom, but the self-and-social human experience itself as containing the highest realm of freedom. So property serves that, rather than the other way around.

This is where they explain to you that animals are territorial, sometimes, and that proves private property is natural, somehow, because.

[...]Comfortably believ(ing) that private property is above his existence on the order of things.

I admit, I was more at peace when I used to believe that. It made my finance-intended career track a lot easier to stomach. Actually, it should have done the opposite but so powerful is the drug of believing that freedom=property that it will distort its own logic to keep itself going.

DinoDoc, you make this too easy, but I guess that what happens when you (i.e. me, not you) once believed the world is flat and now you know it's round, and someone argues why it's flat "you'd fall off the bottom!" But I understand, it's self consistent logic, and I used to be there. It's more intelligent logic than a lot of the nonsense it successfully argues against, so I give you credit. I'm having a go, please forgive me.

So sure someone can sell their bits because it's their body, but the market where you sell your bits is a social fiction designed to coerce you to sell your bits to your detriment to someone else's betterment. It's why Wall St types prefer less personal wealth for a greater share of the pie, it's about Being the Man. "Master of the Universe".

Think about that.

"Master of the Universe"
This isn't about having nice things and getting laid, that stops being an issue at 6 figures. This is about being the Master of the Universe. And if they get everyone to believe, most of all their over-medicated selves, that property is the universe, then they can be your master. And you will sell them your kidney and call it freedom. And it will be for $1,000 once the market bids the kidneys down, which will pay your rent and cost them one fancy dinner.

Ahhh freedom.

@Hygro
Either we have a fairly decent unconditional basic income or a system of "property" very much different than right now or you will have people who may benefit from selling parts of their body.
All the talk about social fiction - which I wholeheartedly agree with - doesn't change this set of options from what I can see.

Sure thing. I was pointing out the inherent problem in justifying self-agency because of private property. There are certainly a lot of real world considerations more important than that philosophy, but those real world considerations are held back by the same people who would have that very philosophy. Like being against anti-poverty measures that would allow us to tackle this issue from a stronger starting position.

(I reckon it's a lot easier to inspire altruism when people think their society isn't rigged, btw.)

[...]

THE SOAP

@Hygro
I have to admit I didn't read the genesis of the debate I commented before commenting, that is on me. And I saw how that kinda naturally lead to you pointing out the relativity of private property.
However, I think what the "ideology of private property" comes down to is a very practical angle. You may have those POVs justifying it on a philosophical level and you did a decent (and if I may say very entertaining) job in opposing that, but in the end - what truly justifies our system of property is IMO NOT philosophy, but practicality. Saying, private property is just a very convenient philosophy to actually implement in contrast to more "enlightened" but harder to implement philosophies and this is what I wanted to stress.

And if I say "practicality" it IMO not only refers to the abstract dimension of state power enforcing it, it IMO also refers to a nasty nasty human dimension of mass psychology freely worshiping that enforcement. And in a twisted way of irony this is in the end what private property philosophy is based on.

To illustrate:
I have heard (in the main German public political talk show on Sunday evening) that we would need to raise dirt cheap cloths by a marginal rate to double the wage of Bangladesh workers. Marginal for us, double for them.

In practical and more general terms - all rich developed nations could peruse the following public policy: We only accept products of which people were involved - in whatever capacity - which received X minimum wage.
Okay, that would be naturally hard to enforce because it would concern territories not under our sovereignty. But really, it is only an inconvenience if you think it through. We are the capitally rich fracks. We have the power. We can just say: Either you cooperate with our minimum wage demands and work with us to enforce them AND we grant you fee-free import rights - OR you don't and we struck down some mean-ass fees on you.

I admit, it at first would probably cause some international trade turbulence and wealth destruction. But on the mid term? Easy case. Governments would have to bow, their people would be happy - net wealth and happiness would see steep increase compared to not doing it. Dame, the Western World may very well even get all the more wealthy on the mid term for the more rapid wealth increase in the East!

We could do that WITHOUT considerably harming domestic wealth. Because there is such a stark disparity between domestic and abroad wealth.

But we don't.

Why? I admit, the universal sort of merciless competition of people (of course also on a national level) is part of it. But it is also a lot more than that.

It is also people being so conditioned to think in terms of the system that they don't think in terms of own actual wealth threats and of actual wealth gain of other parties - I.E. the bigger picture.
They think in terms of principle.
And the principle is to make use of exploitation as force wherever possible -

Mindlessly.

They reason at home everyone can be mindlessly exploited to the best of ones ability because some magical balance would be struck or alternatively that they would magically end up on top or alternatively that all people were mostly mean-spirited psychopaths.

As flawed as that reasoning is already - is gets infinitely more but nothing but inhumanely perverse when applied to Bangladesh.

Drones of unethical consumption.

Sickening. But it is what people choose, out of their own accord.

IT IS WHAT I CHOOSE EVERY DAY. By buying what I am buying.

There are two lessons to be learned here:
Freedom of choice means something, something important, mind you. But in itself also seem to mean not [I ]that[/I] much short of nothing.
Social conditions mean a lot, obviously. But they require the individual to see more than they do care to see right now.

And the question is: Who much is it the responsibility of the individual? How much is it the responsibility of society and its structure?

YOUR PART

Discuss. Bring up whatever you like. Go on tangent. Just free your head of thoughts you deem sort of relevant for the central topic at hand.

 

[Borachio]

Doesn't this rather depend on being able to separate the individual from the community?

I don't think any such separation is possible in practice. The individual and the community are mutually concomitant, aren't they?

 

[timtofly]

I am sure there are some "persecuted" groups who would disagree with you. Some people also stick out like a sore thumb whether by choice or not.

 

[Souron]

How much is what the responsibility of the the individual/society? It's hard to make all encompassing statements about such a question.

I guess generally structured groups are a tool of the people to do what they can't do on their own. As such, any individual responsibility may be deferred to the right community organization, as long as participation is voluntary.

 

[Hygro]

With power comes responsibility.

How much power do we actually have? How much power do we feel we have? How much tolerance do we have for shame? The more capacity we have for empathy, the more capacity we have to feel shame. The more we know how to act, i.e. use our empathy to motivate learning what we can and should do for the betterment of others, the more vulnerable we are to the repercussions of acting. Those repercussions are sticking out, upsetting people, of being shamed for it, and feeling the shame you cause others whom you are disrupting by behaving better than they.

This is why I wear silly party costumes and dance to weird repetitive music.


Terx, I think your post is spot on.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Emphasize in the quote by me

Doesn't this rather depend on being able to separate the individual from the community?

I don't think any such separation is possible in practice. The individual and the community are mutually concomitant, aren't they?

Of course they are!

That is the entire point!
The point I assumed everyone got without explicitly entertaining it... (saying that without wanting to insult you! After all this seems a thing which needs to be cleared up for everyone)

One depends on the other. A mutually dependable relation.
So where can we enter this relation?
At the individual level, of course.

The communal level only serves as a fiction, an abstraction, though which can also serve as a confided address to the individual level.

The choice we face is where to address the individual, the actual foundation of things. You. Me. Everyone.
And where we address the whole picture, the sum of things.

That is what this thread is about.

TO ILLUSTRATE:
Where do we you say:
"YOU are responsible".
And where do we say:
"LAW is responsible"

But just as important is - how we practice what YOU are responsible for. Because LAW is easy. People with very hard sticks and if necessary very deadly guns take care of that. But how do we take care of individual responsibility?
And how does this relate to dividing up responsibility between law and the individual?

 

[Hygro]

I'm not convinced our social reality and community is necessarily an abstraction or social fiction. I do however think what we call that community is an abstraction, and how we relate to community often involves abstractions.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I am sure there are some "persecuted" groups who would disagree with you. Some people also stick out like a sore thumb whether by choice or not.

I have to ask you to expand on your point(s) if you want me to be able to put them to use in relation to this thread.

How much is what the responsibility of the the individual/society? It's hard to make all encompassing statements about such a question.

Anything. Nothing. It all comes down to what you find interesting, or how you view society, what you object to about it, what you think about how it works, what you think about how it could work differently... I agree it is hard, I agree it is encompassing.
Which is why I can not give you the blueprint. That would be too much responsibility for the single fragile mind in my head (and you personally learned that I can be fairly strongly minded on things ). I'll have to ask you to do it all yourself. To the extend you care to.
Philosophize away man! It is what I did under the heading reading "SOAP"

I guess generally structured groups are a tool of the people to do what they can't do on their own. As such, any individual responsibility may be deferred to the right community organization, as long as participation is voluntary.

Hm that seems like a very theoretical approach. I mean where is participation truly genuinely voluntary? Aren't we all stuck with a set of options we have no choice but to choose form if we care in the slightest to get what we care for?
Simple example: I can not say to much avail: "Ey - I am not happy with the countries given as options to be citizens of". More, I can not even choose countries as I see fit.

 

[timtofly]

I have to ask you to expand on your point(s) if you want me to be able to put them to use in relation to this thread.

I don't think that it is a given that all humans fall into mutual concomitant positions when it comes to community. Life would be more efficient if that were true. There is not much more to say, other than no matter how hard humans attempt such a community, there will be a member of that community who will not fit in. They may be compliant, and choose to fit in, and live a miserable existence, even while seeming to be a contributor to the community and accepting the community as the only means of survival. They can also be disruptive to the community unless removed by some means.

 

[Souron]

Hm that seems like a very theoretical approach. I mean where is participation truly genuinely voluntary? Aren't we all stuck with a set of options we have no choice but to choose form if we care in the slightest to get what we care for?
Simple example: I can not say to much avail: "Ey - I am not happy with the countries given as options to be citizens of". More, I can not even choose countries as I see fit.

I think there are cases where consent is total. But I do agree that the social contract between people in their government is not 100% voluntary. This means that government authority can be limited by individual rights, such as pursuit of happiness (other rights have other reasons for being).

But despite the limitation of not being able to violate the human rights and individual autonomy, governments are quite free, morally speaking, to do things like enforce fair treatment of workers on imported products. If people in a nation agree that fair treatment is a important imperative, they can and should create such laws. The main thing stopping such laws is the lack of public support.

It's also important to keep in mind that responsibility is not a 1 sum game. Multiple people or entities can be responsible for something, but however many people are does not inherently diminish the responsibility of every single one of them. In this case, responsibility can be shared but not split between the community and the individual.