Chuck said: I don't get it - you reject moral absolutism and yet you make an exception for "conscience"? It seems like you want to have it both ways. Sloopy: I'm trying to make a distinction between moral codes and our sense of . . .the sense of . . .the feeling of . . . uh . . . OKAY YOU GOT ME CHUCK! A SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG!
It's highly problematic, as I could easily say that it's like a sense of humor, but we all know that a sense of humor hasn't been evenly distributed throughout the population. But it's a sense of that it's not right to exploit others, it's not right to kill wantonly.
In essence, I'm talking about what makes it WRONG for Bill Gates to have the wealth of all of Singapore, while people starve in his own country?
Slavery used to be okay but it's not anymore. 150 years ago, slave-owners used to justify themselves in various ways. "It's for civilization"; "The Negroes are the inferior race, so we must take care of them"; "It's the white man's burden" etc., etc.
They justified their owning of slaves in a variety of ways, but they all came back to that owning slaves was good for them AND SOCIETY.
I don't think humans are purely selfish animals. I think they have to believe that they're doing good for the group. Anything, if it can be justified as "the greater good" will become conscionable. Even a holocaust.
So that's why in my original letter I wrote that spiel about "looking out for my own ass." In a tone shift, I was deliberately trying to appear disgusting, but show that people associate with their immediate group, and it goes from their. Any revolutionary potential will come from workers associating with themselves as a class.
If I was clumsy, oops. I'll try again.
Comradely yours,
Sloopy
None.
