More Equal Than Others
Most people claim to value abstract ideals like truth, equality, and freedom, but what they really want are idealized ideals: a truth that confirms their hopes, an equality that excludes their opponents, and a freedom that frees them from the responsibility of true freedom.
10 AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE IDEOLOGY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
Helen Pluckrose • Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody
As for the circumstances into which we descend, what could be more unequal than our environments? Some are disadvantaged, others privileged by nurture and nature both—and from the beginning. Since neither nurture nor nature gives equality, where do we even get the idea? It cannot be induced from the facts of life; nor can equality be reduced to a
... See moreJames Hillman • The Soul's Code
Concepts aren’t tainted by their misuse.
A major thought error I see among my compatriots: you can’t just throw out every concept that was ever used to justify immoral actions or hierarchy. The claim that we need a more just society that honors inalienable rights is a universalist moral claim. The people who claim this also dismiss the following
... See moreA self-conscious ethos of egalitarianism, at any point in history, might take either of two diametrically opposing forms. We can insist that everyone is, or should be, precisely the same (at least in the ways that we consider important); or alternatively, we can insist that everyone is so utterly different from each other that there are simply no
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