Unproven assertion. Not to mention that groups don’t act.
Unproven assertion.
Well, you didn’t. Or rather you did only partially.
He’s not. I understand that conservatives have a very hard time picturing anything new, but fact is, the world doesn’t happen to be bound by their narrow minds.
Correct, groups don’t act, individuals do. You still never answered my point. Are you asserting that these individuals have acted, and that this action has lead to culturally organized communities randomly? Or is it due to state coercion? Maybe something else?
Your point being ?
I already said :
Also, I’m eagerly waiting for Giles to provide evidence showing that children are more racist than their parents.
I reject any cultural identity that is not an individual one - only a unique individual identity suffices for me. Within each and everyone one of us, there lies a least the potential of a unique culture. A culture is just a conceptual landscape, a collection of memes. Culture is not some kind of fixed and monocentric “natural order”, and many of the high-order abstractions of culture are simply spooks. And there is no such thing as a “pure” monoculture - cultures inherently overlap and influence eachother and change over time. Culture is not uniform or atomistic and it is contextual to time.
The arch-conservative reaction to this this dynamism and overlapping of culture is to ignore or oppose it in the vain attempt to preserve monoculture when it is losing the cultural competition. All culture influences culture, and it becomes more complex and pluralistic over time. All culture is multi-culture. The more that economic incentive becomes the driving factor of life, the less collective “culture” of this sort matters. Placing “culture” above economic incentive is - economic suicide in the industrial world.
It may be important to distinguish “multiculturalism” as such from “cultural relativism”. Multiculturalism is more like Neitzsche’s perspectivism - the aknowledgement of the fact that there are multiple, overlapping cultures that are dynamic both in themselves and in relation to eachother. However, it does not necessarily entail the judgement that all cultures are equal, which is cultural relativism. All cultures are indeed not equal, but that’s not an argument against multiculturalism per se.
Arguably, the post-Marxist cultural relevatism that is often taught in colleges is a bastardization of multiculturalism. The origins of multiculturalism lie in a sort of individualistic pluralism - the idea of a global monoculture is anti-thetical to it. However, an overt sense of nationalism and tribalism is also anti-thetical to it. Both of them go against free competition in culture, only a global monoculture would take this to its most extreme possible level. Even at the level of “the nation”, monoculture breaks down.
The state didn’t invent polyculture - in some sense the state is itself a product of culture and it fixes certain cultural memes into laws. A uniformly forced cultural standard is not polyculture, it is monoculture. Polyculture is inevitably comparatively decentralized, while at the same time overlapping at various points. The state does not allow for such overlapping - it is extremely monocentric in nature. “The natural order” is not so strictly monocultural, unless by “the natural order” you really mean “the status quo”. Enough with such naturalistic fallacies! And down with crackpot realism!
But this is what Hoppe’s argument consists of, an explanation of why conservative culture would indeed come to be predominant in a free society as a result of economic factors, to say that he puts culture above that is to misconstrue his entire argument.
Whether or not this is true is not relevant. In any case, the state will inevitably destroy an institution by either abolishing it or coopting it. The same applies for culture.
That’s a strange thing to say since nobody has ever claimed that much.
Which naturalistic fallacies would these be?
Of course, he only does that by assuming as an absolute a priori rule that “cultural conservatism means a low time preference”. While in actual fact, there is no way for him to prove such an arbitrary assertion, and appealing to praxeology in the attempt to prove it is a sick joke. And furthermore, the field of free market economics has generally proven that arbitrary discrimination is an economically self-damaging policy that tends to slowly be disincentivized through competition over time, particularly in the context of our industrial era. It is inherently only in the more agrarian and less developed areas that discrimination is more sustainable as a policy. Such large-scale discrimination simply does not completely survive industrialization.
And this does not necessarily specifically have anything to do with multiculturalism. The state can formalize cultural conservatism just as well. It can illegalize any concievable unpopular cultural practise. The proclaimation that the state is “multicultural” by default is rather grandios and goes against the evidence of the bulk of history. And the state has not “abolished traditional culture”. Your claims of this sort are always over the top and unproven. It should be clear that the co-existance and overlapping of cultures does not require a state in order to occur. The idea that it is necessary for it to occur, or that people are “naturally” atomistic to the point of total isolation from people of other cultures, is frankly rather Hobbesian.
Essentially, the entirety of conservative social philosophy is an endless series of naturalistic fallacys from my POV.
I don’t so much think that he is assuming that, as much as he is defining it as such. Or at least, he defines it in terms of certain features all of which are indicative of low time preference.
Once again, I think that if one were to define cultural conservatism in terms of a lifestyle that exhibited low time preference, one could should praxeologically why it would tend to dominate. Or in fact, one does not even attempt to appeal to the low time preference aspect of this, rather, one need only to look at the features with which we choose to define cultural conservatism and trace their consequences in a free society. Which I believe Hoppe has done.
Hoppe admits as much, in fact this has no impact of any of his other claims concerning immigration or segregation.
Well that was entirely my point. Just like its attempts to “increase competition” its attempts to make society more conservative will fail. Simply put anytime the state attempts to coopt an institution it destroys the institution in question. Money and business are two very important example of this, as is, I believe, conservatism.
Leaving this issue aside, since I’ve never claimed such a thing. The plethora of anti discriminatory rules and regulations most certainly are “multicultural”.
Abolished? No, it has however done much to erode what might be described as “traditional culture”.
I understand what you mean, what I was asking was whether you would mind explicating as to why this is so.
Firstly, it is interesting that YOU brought your hero Hoppe into this, when I didn’t say a word about him. It is notable that you are unable to discuss the matter without appealing to Hoppe and making it about Hoppe.
That would simply be to insert one’s cultural bias in an economic analysis and to redefine cultural conservatism in a very broad sense. “A lifestyle that exhibits low time preference” is not “cultural conservatism” as such. There are plenty of people who are not cultural conservatives who “exhibit low time preference”.
Another point to consider is that ideology does not necessarily translate into action, which is to say that people’s motivations and actions aren’t necessarily completely consistent with their ideology. One can have an ideology of low time preference while living “life in the fast lane”. I’m sorry, but the assertion is simply arbitrary and biased. It does not causally follow that upon embracing an ideology of cultural conservatism one suddenly has a lower time preference. Furthermore, cultural conservatism tends to refer to more specific concepts (such as god, family and country), which should not be conflated with low time preference.
Yes, it does impact such claims, because they tend to minimize or ignore the extent to which such mass-segregation is unsustainable given economic incentives and the demand for travel. The demand for labor and travel in the modern industrial world makes such romantic visions of absolute cultural isolation unrealistic or unsustainable and unreasonable at best.
Your point is either irrelevant or out of context, since it doesn’t prove your grandios assertions.
The problem is that it is an error to conflate “multiculturalism” as such with “government regulation of culture”. That’s a non-sequitor or misrepresentation. “Multiculturalism” as an attitude could merely imply that people personally see no need for arbitrary discrimination, and it is perfectly concievable for “multiculturalism” to have a voluntary context as such, since people can choose to recognize and engage in cultural overlap. It would simply be fallacious to conflate cultural overlap as such with government control. Furthermore, a lot of these regulations tend to harm the people that they are supposed to help.
It is itself a manifestation of “traditional culture”.
I am perfectly able to discuss the matter without involving Hoppe, but I do not see the issue of bringing in a thinker who I believe has made great advances in this area. It is no difference from invoking Mises in a discussion concerning praxeology. You claimed that it is unreasonable to place culture above economics, and I agreed with you and yet stated that nobody has done so, and in fact Hoppe has done the exact opposite, I do not see what issue one could take with that.
Well, yes, I do think you’re correct here. One may simply change the terms in question, but then the best objection you can make is simply the terms in which the debate is framed. I don’t think I’ve ever stated that low time preference lifestyles are conservative, although most certainly a lot of features of conservatism are indicative of low time preference.
Correct, ideology does not translate into action. But that’s besides the point, I do not expect it to do so, rather, I merely expect people to live culturally conservative lifestyles consciously or not. As for God, family and country. The second of those almost certainly does result in lower time preference to the extent that individuals begin to provide for many future generations. As for God, I would most certainly argue that if one perceives they will be held accountable for their actions for eternity they are more likely to be more careful about the actions they indeed take.
All you’ve demonstrated is that people will continue to work with one another, Hoppe does not deny this. Rather, he affirms it.
No, it doesn’t. But I never intended it to, I only inteded it to show that government enforcement of what it perceives to be conservatism will fail.
That’s simply not true, and if you wish to assert it I’m afraid I’ll ask you to prove it also.
I’ll admit, it is conceivable, what I doubt is whether or not it is feasible.
Hey Giles, I’m waiting for your hard data showing that children are more “race conscious” (euphemism for racist) than parents. Or else I missed a post … ?
It was anecdotal, I never claimed otherwise either.
Oh I see. You know what ? Your whole ‘argument’ is anecdotal evidence.
Ok Juan.
Unfounded assertion.
Well, maybe we all know that brown people are natural murderers…So whites who avoid brown people are more likely to survive and pass their genes to their offspring ?
“far more”. Proof ? None.
Well, maybe bigotry is a bad thing…
What about saying that they must use coercion?
Discrimination, as a general feature of human nature, is not morally wrong. Rather, the moral issue arises in certain cases of discrimination. Is it right for someone to choose the white person over the black person, when the latter is more qualified?
I will dispute that children are necessarily race conscious - racism is rather stupid I think, and certainly acquired.
But this doesn’t matter - opinions of different races are necessarily subjective and there’s no point arguing about it, just as there’s no point arguing about the relative merits of different works of art etc. The key point is: is having racist prejudices coercive? No, no it’s not. So racism is ethically neutral.
Is that what the voice on the PC telescreen told you? I’m curious which cases are immoral and which cases are not?