Ethics of Power

[Farm Boy]

it's actually not that big a deal to most people

That is an opinion from oer' the hills and far away.

 

[Zardnaar]

could you reiterate how the title of this thread connects to the OP?

They got the power and didn't use it.

 

[Angst]

They got the power and didn't use it.

ahhh so the topic is more, like... so i guess it's the (somewhat real) assumption that liberals are principally concerned with not rocking the boat too much, so we see little change, and not a lot of power is then applied, and not much change is seen?

that was a mouthful, sorry, i'm just trying to follow here. the above is long but a bit of a regular thread of assumptions (which i agree with ftr)

it's not because i want to grill you here, i was just genuinely confused.

 

[Zardnaar]

ahhh so the topic is more, like... so i guess it's the (somewhat real) assumption that liberals are principally concerned with not rocking the boat too much, so we see little change, and not a lot of power is then applied, and not much change is seen?

that was a mouthful, sorry, i'm just trying to follow here. the above is long but a bit of a regular thread of assumptions (which i agree with ftr)

it's not because i want to grill you here, i was just genuinely confused.

More that specific example. I'll reread.

USA doing nothing woukd be an improvement over what USA got.

We had a "do nothing" government that got voted out with it being a contributing factor. They did stuff but it was more perception and failing at the big issue despite campaigning on it.

 

[Angst]

More that specific example. I'll reread.

USA doing nothing woukd be an improvement over what USA got.

We had a "do nothing" government that got voted out with it being a contributing factor. They did stuff but it was more perception and failing at the big issue despite campaigning on it.

i think that makes sense? still not sure on the real connection. so how does it relate to ethics? like, everything does, but i'd just like to see how the issue connects to the thread title.

like, is your ethical statement that power is supposed to be used, while democrats thought too much applied power is unethical?

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also, sidenote, i agree with you that nothing would be an improvement over this. i remember thinking before the election that if biden remained in the race, somehow won, and then went full dementia zombie, doing nothing while his cabinet and harris did stuff, that would be far superior to the mudslide we're dealing with right now.

 

[Voidwalkin]

the messenger isn't adequate. the difference in media consolidation and entertainment news between the us and europe is ridiculously stark. it's dire when the most thorough mass media analysis of most issues is done by comedy shows. culture war stuff is a big part of it, but most gen x'ers+ still watch the news, where everything is fox or fox lite. and for education, the issue is that a vast swathe of the population has literally no conception of figuring out when someone is just trying to sell something. now, people actually do it a lot; they meet most issues with little trust, find errors in it, and then dismiss it,. they learn the tenets of skepticism and use it to reinforce biases. this is normal. but the situation in the us is that most information distribution is largely monopolized, even if its particularities of messaging are hugely divisive. this behavior is systematically enforced by a few actors that just want to get good advertisement deals.

Decline of local media is a thing, but I can't remember a time in which those "bridge building" stories ever got more than slight public acknowledgement. What was occurring was that the public accepted the government would do good works on faith and trust, that it would be able to create good jobs through good policy. This is no longer so.

They had those stories in stock, fewer cared by the decade. There was never much appetite, beyond the consensus of the governing and the governed that these were good things. Why that appears to have broken down is a question that I don't think media is particularly relevant to. Reagan had already hamstrung it and he's well before the prominence of the conservative media ecosystem. Other factors are more relevant, the decline of American manufacturing, most prominently.

the us is still #1 in raw bucks, and most of the economic issues it's facing are due to changes in industry. it sucks that coal and steel is going away/overseas, but the basic approach of modern liberal society is not just to abandon the cities, but to restructure the economy in a way that new sectors can be open for work, even for low-education areas. regardless (and this is the point of media), the right literally funnels more jobs overseas, and the media environment either tells you otherwise, or doesn't correct you. that people don't know what tariffs are until after the election has to be the biggest indicator of bizarre crap like this.

I kinda agree, at least with the first half.

Second, no. You could legislate such media, the right wing wouldn't watch it, and would switch to a different source more aligned with their views, going down any available rabbit hole, if necessary.

i have no idea what you mean here. i know about the number of issues, but they're mostly divided among vastly different sectors with vastly different problems and solutions. (your post is actually generally a little vague)

Noting it's a conducive social climate to cynicism and discontent, elevating radical allure. Ideological fracture is sure. People aren't going to do nothing while miserable. They'll change something, for better or worse.

There isn't much expectation that the state is to grapple with such things. Previously it didn't have to, traditional social structures would address this, but these have decayed into irrelevance or are non-functional. In a post about what influences thought and breakdown of the liberal post-WW2 order, I think it's pretty relevant. The population is much more willing to deliberately break any narrative, content to redefine community and values cross board, and are likely to continue to do so until the social environment is less rough.

eh. it's a red herring for people that are chronically online. it's actually not that big a deal to most people. but if you rather don't mind, can we just agree to disagree on this because i don't want this thread to be another "a lot of people yell at voidwalkin over progressivism"-thread.

OK. I don't mind when people do, though.

 

[Voidwalkin]

i think that makes sense? still not sure on the real connection. so how does it relate to ethics? like, everything does, but i'd just like to see how the issue connects to the thread title

At least to me, the question is to what(if any) extent is it moral to break with your ideological convictions, or act contrary to them, in pursuit of power.

Sometimes, that is necessary in democracies. You can attempt to win a population to your ethical convictions, but this is a long game. Where the short-term question of power becomes increasingly prominent is when the other guy appears to be prepared to limit your ability to express those convictions or be in a position to act on them legislatively again.

Whatever long-term conversion you had planned, in those circumstances, time pause them, and just win.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

Generally I don't think it's unethical to seek power in a democracy. What you do with it matters.

Say if Hilary won in 2016 and did absolutely nothing with said power I would argue the USA would still be better off than what we got. By nothing I mean no new bills passed the state of the government is frozen until 2024.

Our last election was 2023 and Labour got voted out for "doing nothing". Incoming government started repealing all sorts of things they actually did. People don't pay attention it seems.

Anyway your thoughts.

My thought is, if you don't want your political opponents to have the abilities that you would grant yourself, it's probably not a good idea.