Yes! Go George Bush! Bomb those goddamn Iraqis and filthy little Afghanis to smithereens! Go Team America! The defense budget is too small! And who gives a crap about those dirty, lazy poor people… they deserve to be poor for being so damn lazy all the time! Ooh rah!!
Clayton -
Firstly, people aren’t all born with a full and confident sense of their own intrinsic dignity, therefore if your society, through its unequal power structure, tells you that you’re of less value, well, this certainly can have its harm. As for people valuing themselves relative to others, well, we exist in the world in a relational-interdependent fashion, how we relate to one another and are valued by one another is always going to be of profound importance to our experience of life.
Poor people not feeling deprived of dignity because their economic system supplies them with enough bread and circuses, as it were, enough palliation of their poverty, having your dignity respected and validated requires more than being tossed plenty of crumbs from the master’s table. Indeed, it’s quite materialistic to think in terms of crumbs from the master’s table compensating us for the abridgment of our right to equality and dignity.
That enough?
Put the Thesaurus down, and no one will get hurt… Seriously, why not try talking like a human being? I do not begrudge you your Marxist lexicon - suitable for discussion with your Marxist colleagues who are initiated into your terminology - but surely you recognize we are not Marxists here (well, we have a couple grumpy Marxists that hang around and give us hell), so you have to unpack your terminology into lay terms if you intend to actually have a discussion, rather than attempt to obfuscate with loquacious posts and sesquipedlian words (h/t thesaurus.com).
Clayton -
Well, I see that Wikipedia’s entry for “Right-wing” disproves the existence of these folks. So I must be hallucinating when I visit that web page. Surreal.
Clayton -
Hardly, what you consider to be “loquacious posts and sesquipedalian words” is simply called a long train of thought by people whose cognitive processes haven’t been conditioned for excessive brevity by too much twitter and texting. Yes, apparently too much time spent with one’s mind engaged in processing and communicating in the sound bites of internet forums and cell phone messages can cause what’s being called popcorn brain, a condition that makes one ill-equipped to deal with input and information that takes more than a second or two to process and that doesn’t yield instant gratification (indeed, according to a CNN article “Over time, and with enough Internet usage, the structure of our brains can actually physically change, according to a new study. Researchers in China did MRIs on the brains of 18 college students who spent about 10 hours a day online. Compared with a control group who spent less than two hours a day online, these students had less gray matter, the thinking part of the brain”). Well, those of you who apparently suffer from some degree of popcorn brain do tend to complain about the prolixity of my posts and have difficulty thinking about their theses (maybe this has to do with the diminished gray matter?!), but they’re actually not at all incoherent.
“Left-Rothbardians?” Mmmmm-hmmmm.
sesquipedlian should be “sesquipedalian” (typo)
Clayton -
Don’t get me wrong - I understand what most of what you’re writing. I didn’t accuse you of writing non-cognitive posts, as many trolls who visit these forums do, stringing together chains of words and phrases they do not understand into transparent gibberish. Nevertheless, you must acknowledge the difference between clerical debate with initiates and proselytic discussion with non-initiates. I’m saying, “You’re speaking to us like we’re initiates… but we’re not, why not try talk to us like potential proselytes.” Since, as you believe, our “popcorn brains” are so debilitated by all this right-wing indoctrination, it should be fairly trivial for you to do a little translation into our native moron-speak.
Clayton -
Not surprised that you, along with your fellow libertarians and pro-capitalists would find it difficult to be creatively idiosyncratic in such a fashion (or perhaps one might describe it as inventively individualistic, as the word idiosyncratic might sound slightly derogatory) without messing up, or bothering to realize that this forum oh-so-conveniently has a editing option.
Vive, is that you? Are you messing with us? Or is this Neodoxy? Dude, I purposely did not edit because you had already quoted me.
Clayton -
Is the President of the United States a worker or a capitalist?
Clayton -
Now to deconstruct your post:
Show me one atom or molecule of dignity. Then you may show me how voluntary trade violates this dignity.
Ah, yes, the acting abstraction. Please read The Principle of Methodological Individualism.
Sticks and stones may break my bones…
Yes, individuals do indeed place values on themselves and others.
My goodness, you need to read The Elements of Style. Regardless, are you suggesting that all poor people do not feel deprived of their dignity because they are being appeased, or just that some poor people do not feel deprived for the same reason?
In what sense are you using the word master? Are you suggesting that in voluntary exchange, there is an owner and a slave?
You might want to stop using metaphors. I don’t tend to think of dollars as crumbs, and I can’t imagine what sum of money would equal a loaf of bread.
I’m still waiting on secondly.
KK. Here we go:
Increased market liberalization and opportunities increases employment. It is very difficult to be successful as a business owner in this country, because the government has made it so difficult through taxes, regulation, and legal threats. Free market would make it simple and profitable to open a business.
I feel 30 IQ points lower. I don’t think I shall try that again.
I intended to provide further analysis, but having to deconstruct the sesquipedalian verbiage of my posts for too long might put stress on your poor brain.
This may be of use to you.
Please read Marxism and Methodological Individualism.
…but psychological repression will most certainly harm me!
Why, they’re marvelously benevolent benefactors to their subsistence-wage-earning and virtually-indentured-by-economic-circumstances employees. And yet I recall reading that recently the misery index was at its highest level since 1983. But I stand corrected by you dear gotlucky, yes, everything is just hunky-dory for America’s poor.
Not using the narrow-minded definition Austrian fanboys tend to understand it as. Have you ever considered the fact that through structural adjustment and its high degree of influence and control over the economy, the capitalist elite have created the economic conditions that prevent the subject populations from developing and providing a better range of opportunities for themselves?
“I feel 30 IQ points lower. I don’t think I shall try that again.”
its a side effect of escaping the dunning kruger loop. as you become smarter, you realize how stupid you actually are, replacing your earlier inaccurate ego concept. keep going.
“Have you ever considered the fact that through structural adjustment and its high degree of influence and control over the economy, the capitalist elite have created the economic conditions that prevent the subject populations from developing and providing a better range of opportunities for themselves?”
its funny how people can be so right and yet so wrong. marxism is like fighting evil with stupid. like in heart of archness three when noah stabbed rip riley instead of the pirate.
A capitalist, given his position as the high-and-mighty enforcer of the capitalist agenda. This is an absurd statement that makes you out to be thoroughly naive about the nature and power of economic power.
Perhaps the same would happen to you by summoning the cognitive wherewithal to actually read the OP and contributing some substantive feedback.
And this addresses Bierce’s point how?
While you can copy and paste, it appears that you cannot read. My challenge stands, show me one atom or molecule of dignity. Otherwise, you may retract your assertion that dignity is an intrinsic quality of anything.
Are you suggesting that abstractions act?
I’m sorry that your self-esteem is founded upon the opinions of others.
What have I corrected? All you did was dodge my question. Why do you dodge so much? Wouldn’t it just be easier for us all if you responded to what’s written instead of going on tangents?
There you go again. It’s a simple question. The answer should be simple too. In what manner are you using the word master? Are you suggesting that for each voluntary trade, there is an owner and a slave? Or are you suggesting something else?
Feel free to respond to what’s written. You don’t have to dodge. Then we can have a conversation instead of us witnessing your mental masturbation. We are not voyeurs here.