| ▲ | Paracompact 7 hours ago |
| The author cites Arendt a fair bit, whose claim to fame was that entirely ordinary people could become voluntary instruments of atrocity. I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to dispose them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup. Once we believe that the members of one's own family, or company, or country, carry more moral value than others, we're doomed to a descent limited only by our ability to make these world-worsening trades. When I was a child, my dad would sometimes engage in small acts of corruption to please me or my brother. Taking somebody else's spot, telling white lies to get more than his share of a rationed good, that sort of thing. It never sat right with me. "Family first" has a very ominous ring to me. |
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| ▲ | reacweb 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Yes, the slogan "America first" is a forerunner of the worst kind of imperialism. |
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| ▲ | Quarrelsome 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | also "Make America Great Again" states that America is not currently great, which given its geo-political and economic position is just dishonest. Combined with "America First" you get an entirely clean canvas to be incredibly radical while cosplaying conservative. | | |
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| ▲ | brazzy 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to dispose them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup. In my opinion, there is another tendency even more significant in that regard. Namely, the visceral desire to see "bad guys" deservedly suffer. Once people are in that frame of mind, they strongly resist any attempts to understand and maybe prevent whatever the "bad guys" did, let alone questions whether it was actually bad. This is what fuelled lynch mobs, it's what makes MAGA types cheer when ICE murders immigrants, and it's what makes certain leftist circles chant "eat the rich" along with images of guillotines and wood chippers. When you point out that poverty causes crime, rightists get mad at you for "excusing" or "justifying" crime, and when you point out that poverty causes support for far-right politicians, leftists get mad at you for "excusing" or "justifying" racism. Of course, this interacts with your point: when someone from the ingroup does something bad, people are willing to look at their reasons and if found lacking it is only the individual that should be punished, whereas the outgroup is never afforded the luxury of complexity, and the entire group is held responsible for each individual's sins. |
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| ▲ | lynx97 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What you describe is deepest human nature. We are tribal, period. No amount of morales will change that, no matter how it sits with you personally. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Some groups of people are much less tribal than others. | |
| ▲ | QuadmasterXLII 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Wouldn’t that be horrible? If great masses of humans did act morally, and you didn’t have this justification that everyone does it? | |
| ▲ | saghm 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I feel like this is a false binary. Acting more morally some of the time is surely possible (both as individuals and as a society); we have at least some level of ability to choose our actions independent of our nature. | |
| ▲ | anal_reactor 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, I was about to say this. A human is basically testicles with a brain attached, and the natural goal of life is to make sure that the genetically closest material survives and reproduces. That's why it's common to have stronger relationships with your family than with randoms on the internet. The more different the genetic material is, the less you care - individuals of different culture, of different race, of different species, of different kingdom of life, and finally viruses that are just strings of RNA floating around and nobody advocates about their rights because fuck that. | | |
| ▲ | saghm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > A human is basically testicles with a brain attached > The more different the genetic material is, the less you care - individuals of different culture, of different race, of different species, of different kingdom of life, and finally viruses that are just strings of RNA floating around and nobody advocates about their rights because fuck that The type of mental model that ignores 50% of the world's population due to having that same proportions of chromosomes not matching one's mental heuristic of what constitutes a human is what I'd say "fuck that" to, personally | | |
| ▲ | anal_reactor 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Okay but you have to admit that this is not how things functioned through majority of human history. | | |
| ▲ | XorNot 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The excessive focus on the nuclear family is itself a very recent trend that would otherwise be viewed as very odd by many if not most historical social organizing systems. Given the diversity of social models which have emerged globally, I have no idea how you could possibly make that claim. | | |
| ▲ | anal_reactor an hour ago | parent [-] | | I have no idea how to argue with you because it feels like we can't agree whether the Earth is obviously round or obviously flat. |
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| ▲ | DharmaPolice 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >The more different the genetic material is, the less you care This is sort of true but it misses that we don't actually have DNA sensors built into our eyes. Instead we rely on heuristics like the Westermarck effect where we will (normally) tend to not find someone we lived with as a child attractive regardless whether they're a blood relation or not. We influence who (or what) is in our group through our behaviour, thoughts and associations. Look at the vast number of people who value their dog or cat over other human beings. It's unlikely their dog is closer to them, genetically speaking than any single human on Earth but they spend time and invest emotionally in their pet so they form a bond despite the genetic distance. If you see a child being hurt it likely invokes a slightly stronger emotional response if the child reminds you of someone in your own life. Often this will be someone who looks like you/your family (i.e. is genetically similar to you) but it might be some other kid you've grown attached to who is not related at all. So yes, we are driven by a calculating selfish gene mechanism but we're also burdened/gifted with a whole bunch of emotional and social instincts and rely on imperfect sensors not tricorders. It's why people can form group identities over all sorts of non-genetic characteristics (e.g. religion, nation, neighbourhood, sports team affiliation, political ideology, vi vs emacs, etc). | | |
| ▲ | anal_reactor an hour ago | parent [-] | | That's completely true because there are many aspects to what is "my group" and what isn't, but the key point is, people naturally care about their group more than they care about strangers. Thinking in terms of genetics provides a simple model that's good enough to explain a lot of phenomena. But yes, if you want to go deeper, you need to consider other factors - at first glance it seems like "culture" is the most important one. |
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| ▲ | carlosjobim 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| An even worse sign is when we believe that the members of one's own family, or company, or country carry less moral value than others. |
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| ▲ | estearum 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Uh oh, is this a reference to the radar meme/study? The one that conservatives keep claiming shows that liberals care more about out-groups than in-groups, but actually shows that either 1) many conservatives are illiterate and can't read a survey question, or 2) many conservatives literally don't care if right or wrong happens to acquaintances, strangers, their countrymen, humans in other countries, non-human animals, living things, etc? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moral-circles-heatmap | | |
| ▲ | carlosjobim 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not a reference to any study. It's common sense, and you see it everywhere, on every scale and throughout history. What children do you think have a better future on average: Those whose parents love them or those whose parents hate them? What companies do you think succeed in the long run: Those with people who love working there or those with people who hate working there and want to jump ship? What countries become the best to live in: Those whose populace dream of moving abroad or those whose populace love their native land? | | |
| ▲ | estearum 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I guess I'm confused as to who is allegedly providing the counterargument that they should love out-groups more than in-groups? | | |
| ▲ | carlosjobim an hour ago | parent [-] | | It's rare to see anybody literally arguing it, but it's more common than not in the real world. Oppression would be quite impossible throughout history if people weren't willing to oppress their own kind to the benefit of others. Even those arguing for loyalty to the in-group are rarely those who would themselves make any sacrifices for that group. | | |
| ▲ | estearum 40 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Oppression would be quite impossible throughout history if people weren't willing to oppress their own kind to the benefit of others. No what's far more common is that people change their perception (or have different perceptions) of who is "their own kind." You can actually see this happening in real time in the US with the emerging concept of "Heritage Americans." It's a way for losers and crybabies to narrow the scope of who is "their own kind" without having to openly declare that they simply don't love their countrymen. |
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| ▲ | PaulHoule an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's complex. My wife's father-in-law immigrated from Italy to escape the destruction wrought by fascism in WWII and seek economic opportunity. He was part of a diaspora of a small village in Abbruzze that settled around Binghamton, NY. I would say that they all love Italy and they all love the U.S. Those are people I know very well because I have been to so many parties, dinners, and other events with them. I've seen the same thing with people from India, China, Sri Lanka, etc. I'd assume that it's the normal condition of immigrants. |
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| ▲ | delaminator 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's pretty insulting, mate. You should look into what Conservatives have actually done. It wasn't Liberals that took children out of factories, mines and chimneys. Clearly you've never read Hayek. Sure, post memes as proof. | | |
| ▲ | estearum 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well it's not really a meme, it's a study. And it was an earnest question as to whether GP was referencing the study. They claim they weren't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also it sounds like you're referring to the British political parties Liberals and Conservatives, not the lowercase-l and lowercase-c political philosophies by the same names, which the study is actually about. |
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