Welcome to the forums. I hope, too, you can have a productive experience here. I’m still relatively new here myself, however I’ve taken on the Anarcho-Capitalist’s side. Did you have something specific you wanted to talk discuss?
@Free Radicals, not really. I guess there’s always how I think “anarcho-capitalism” is an incredibly unfortunate term for propertarian anti-statism.
@Liberty Student, what performative contradiction is there in disliking any sort of prejudice? If it’s that I’m being prejudiced against prejudice, there’s 2 main problems with that:
“Prejudice” implies irrationality. You’re presuming that I don’t have a good justification.
Human action is necessarily always rational. The term “rational action” is
therefore pleonastic and must be rejected as such. When applied to the ultimate
ends of action, the terms rational and irrational are inappropriate and meaningless.
The ultimate end of action is always the satisfaction of some desires of the
acting man. Since nobody is in a position to substitute his own value judgments
for those of the acting individual, it is vain to pass judgment on other people’s
aims and volitions. No man is qualified to declare what would make another
man happier or less discontented.
Rationality and Irrationality; Subjectivism and Objectivity
of Praxeological Research
The way Mises defines rationality - as behavior using means to achieve ends - isn’t the same as (1) most people in day to day conversations use it and (2) isn’t the only way to comprehend the word. Prejudice, in the Misesian sense, is, of course, rational: it’s a conscience application of the human mind. In another sense - a sense more commonly used - one could call prejudice ‘irrational’, because it (supposedly) is based on a lack of comprehension and understanding of certain relationships. Just like doing a rain dance is rational in the Misesian sense, but a lot of people would call it ‘irrational’.
What if someone makes the wrong assumption about what will satisfy their subjective desires?
I didn’t say I was prejudiced against prejudice, I said I disliked prejudice. You’re distorting my statement to make me look like I’m saying something totally nonsensical when I’m not.
You judge prejudice (dislike) before you know what the prejudice is. What if I say I am prejudiced against rape? What if I say I am prejudiced against rotten tomatoes? What if I say I am prejudiced against the state?
Humans don’t function “rationally” by being impartial. Everyone has a bias, everyone prejudges because perfect knowledge is not possible.
If you had said prejudice of certain sorts, ok, that makes sense. You’re judging the prejudgment on its merits. But you said of any sort, which means you had prejudged other people’s prejudgments. And frankly my good sir, people prejudge, as you did in your OP when you assumed that you’d get the
Replace prejudice with “Preference” and you will see why people have a hard time following you.(I being one of them)
If what you mean by prejudice is:
To make a judgment about an individual or group of individuals on the basis of their social, physical or cultural characteristics.
It would be extremely naive of me to assume you don’t practice preferences to some degree along those lines. (We all do, it’s part of being human) It’s what makes a world culturally rich, and not a dull state of affairs where we are all exactly the same.
I guess my terminology was badly chosen. I meant discrimination against people for race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion (criticizing religion doesn’t count as prejudice), etc.
I guess my terminology was badly chosen. I meant discrimination against people for race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion (criticizing religion doesn’t count as prejudice), etc.
Though most of us would share your dislike for discrimination we must keep in mind that such a strategy of prejudice was probably socially optimal to our ancestors. It possible that our distant ancestors saw less than 100 humanoids in a lifetime and thus all the more reason to be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t resemble their bodily color, etc. It was only with increased population density that we developed a different set of prejudices, but such genetic factors are not easily swept away with “I have a dream” speeches