Foundations of the left

[RGacky3]

You all sound like you are either afraid of making moral judgments, or afraid of having your judgments labeled as moral.

Thats not what it is, all judgements are ultimately moral, however, the process of how to get there must be logical, not based on emotion. We shy away from moralism, not because we are a-moral, no one is, its because we want our arguments to be taken seriously.

All of this quibbling stems, I think, from a lack of belief in a God who cares. I am not a believer currently, and since I'm not, I writhe and quibble myself.

It has nothing to do with that, we are talking about human social interactions, not personal spiritualuality.

Even if you strongly believe in god you still have to go about social organizing in a secular way because not everyone believes in God, your ethics, from a basic standpoint, are generally the same as everyone elses, dispite whether or not you believe in God.

That said, it is a peculiar animal whose only objection to, say, torture, fraud against the elderly, or child prostitution, is that "it's not rational" or "it's not the most efficient way to liberate the working class," or (the worst) "personally I don't care for it, but who am I to say it's 'wrong' ?"

We all feel outrage and sadness when we hear about children sold into prostitution or any other kind of abuse. Why? It has no impact on working class liberation (for the socialist or anarchist) or increased profits (for the bourgeois or capitalist). But we share a sense of "something" that triggers our outrage. We need a word for that shared something.

I call it "morality". Yes, I understand that it's elusive, relative and arbitrarily assigned. But do you have a better word?

Its all Morality, everyone on the left, is motivated by a sense of morality, ultimately, trying to take that out of the equasion will get you lost totally. However, when making arguments and structure to try and fulfill that common sense of morality, you have to do through it in a logical materialist way.

I believe this is a major misunderstanding of materialism, that it throws out ALL morality, no it does'nt, it takes morality and tries to go about it from a materialistic standpoint.

[Robert]

Oh brother, after all that, I just notice the OP got banned. For what? He asked reasonable questions.

[#FF0000]

Oh brother, after all that, I just notice the OP got banned. For what? He asked reasonable questions.

He was a Fascist. Not "Fascist" as in the slur, but an actual goose-stepping Fascist.

[Robert]

Fascists give geese a bad name.

[Revolution starts with U]

It was in one of the OI stickies

[Jimmie Higgins]

But we share a sense of "something" that triggers our outrage. We need a word for that shared something.

I call it "morality". Yes, I understand that it's elusive, relative and arbitrarily assigned. But do you have a better word?

But it isn't necessarily shared across class-lines. Obama cries because that 9 year old girl was senselessly shot in Arizona, but he's unapologetic about the 9 year olds killed by the US military every day. It would be seen as immoral to steal someones home and leave them out on the street, but officially in our society, it's moral to evict people everyday for no fault of their own other than loosing a job or getting sick or just falling behind economically.

You can say, "no one wants to see others hurt" and that is more or less true and yet then when you bring this ideal into the real world, suddenly conditions start popping up: what if you hurt someone if you feel threatened, what if your country is threatened, what if your family, what if they need healthcare but you are against universal health-care, and so on. All those conditions are based on where we are in this world and society and the situations we find ourselves in: in general what our class experience and perspective is.

[Robert]

But it isn't necessarily shared across class-lines.

Sure it is, and so what if it isn't? You seem willing to express outrage at the killing of both 9 year olds in both circumstances. Why? Because it perpetuates exploitation of the working class? Or because it's immoral?

I will have to say that there is a difference between intentional killing and accidental killing. I really am not even going to argue about that.