The universal cry: Structure the Status Rules Such That I Rank Higher.The post is worth reading as well.
If you assume all political discourse...birth-control mandates or anti-immigrationism...sums to this, you're not far off.
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Jehu's post is mostly about women, and insofar as that is true he has rediscovered Sailer's Law of Female Journalism: "the most heartfelt articles by female journalists tend to be demands that social values be revolutionized in order that the journalist herself will be considered hotter-looking". Of course Jehu has generalized it, and it is also largely true generalized.
Leonard,
This particular post is about women, but it's a continuation of a general theme at the Chariot. My meta-point is that since nearly all political activity is, at the bottom, about this, people shouldn't drag moral language into things that have no real moral salience. They're issues of self interest, and properly dealt with with a slugfest of naked self and group interest. Cloaking them behind universalist sophistry is just plain disgusting.
Eh, most of these blogs support libertarian policies because the authors are +SDs in intelligence, physique, and were born to decent parents in first world countries. In other words, they would personally benefit from such policies, while the costs would be born by other Americans.
For the most part, people try to balance their feelings of universalism with their feelings of personal interests. High IQ attractive first worlders with secure positions and all their needs met can afford more universalism. Others can't. I don't think its so terrible to acknowledge that hypocrisy is just a manifestation of these two conflicting drives. The drive to be fair, and the drive to get what you need for yourself. So let people draw some arbitrary ingroups sometimes, be they citizenship, or race, or favorite sports team. Noblesse oblige requires a little noblese, its only from positions of power that people feel comfortable with
genuine charity to outgroups.
I feel pity for a -SD IQ American afraid to lose his assembly line job to an immigrant and fall into poverty. You all seem to look at him on disdain. He's boxed into a corner. He's defending his ability to provide for himself, his family, his community, in the only realistic was he can. Just because you have better options then him doesn't mean you would act different in that situation.
I don't know if not using universalist sophistry would be better. Having people need to pay some lip service to universalism seems have an effect on how selfish a philosophy people expound. Better to have people talk about "illegal" immigrants then talking about rounding them up in front of the firing squad because they aren't human and who cares.
Anon,
I appreciate the thoughtful comments. I wish I had a name to attach to the comments, but I recognize the desire for privacy.
As to universalism:
Jehu isn't a universalist in the least.
I am a universalist, but not due to disdain. I am a universalist because I feel more pity, but no more for the dirt-eating Cambodian (Haitian, Laotian, etc.) farmer who wants to immigrate than I do for the -SD American who will fall towards American levels of poverty.
I think that the more distinguishing feature of libertarian universalism is the libertarianish autism-spectrum inability to identify as part of a group...and thus the inability to identify said -SD American as meaning anything more to me than said Cambodian.
Also...the research is pretty inconclusive...while the -SD person may FEEL as if his job is threatened by immigration, the economic/statistical analysis of the situation is highly unclear, even in the case of the -SD person. Everyone else, it's (fairly) clear that their economic situations improve from immigration.
I thoroughly sympathize with the idea: If reality is such that my life isn't good, and I can use political pull to nudge stuff in my direction...I will tend to, even though it decreases net welfare. This is why I oppose the ability for the government to intervene in most cases. Because net-effect bad small interventions is really bad given lots of government activity.
Really interesting line on universalist philosophy. I'll have to think on it.
oI don't feel universal pity at the same level. I don't because I think the line between modern civilized society and barbarism is much smaller then you think. And when you get barbarism, its nice if everyone around you looks the same as you and has a bond with you (and I think the ancient genetic bonds much stronger then modern bonds, with things like religion and nationalism in between).
Why the difference of opinion? Some of it may be differing reasoning and assigning different values to things, but I don't want to get into that. Mostly I think its because you're an exceptionally gifted person that has had most things go very right for you, and you are strong enough you believe you could handle such barbarism if it came.
I'm not. I'm +3SD IQ, but I'm also very physically weak, and sick, and loaded with health ailments that are a part of my genes. And I've suffered through lots of tragedy, and I've spent a lot of time observing truly poisonous human behavior (politics, investment banking).
In short, I assign a greater probability to societal breakdown or backswing and I stand to lose more in it. My view on human nature is dim, and when the shit hits the fan I'd rather all those old school in group things you hate were working in my favor. Maybe that makes me a terrible universalist, but universalism is an indulgence of the strong. It's way up Maslows hierarchy.
Anon,
I will acknowledge a whole shitload of luck in the choosing-the-right-parents category. +4 sigma IQ, and +2 Sigma athleticism (5 hours of sports a day in HS as well as 2 varsity sports, 1 in college), and +2 sigma attractiveness (dozens of girlfriends before I found PUA).
On the other hand, I'm awful close to Autistic in my inability to empathize other people's understandings of stuff...like groupishness. I simply feel nothing in that direction. On haidt's authority/subversion axis, I score negative points (exaggerating only mildly). No one in my family for 2 generations on either side (more or less -- sister, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents...) has worked as an employee...they're all self-employed (or so close as to be indistinguishable). I have no groupishness in my genes. I'm genetically opposed.
2. I don't have a group. My wife is black. The other two girls I considered marrying were Indian and white. My sister is gay. So is my best male friend at my work. I have lived in Texas, California, and Illinois, Moscow, and Brussels. I don't have a home. I have traveled for work for most of the past 15 years. I don't have a circle of friends (in person)... and I never really have. I've had individual friends...but never a group. Groups are psychologically foreign to me...I am simply too strange of a human being to understand them.
I don't doubt that you're correct to some extent...though your critiques apply even more so to the modern monarchists (in general) than to me. They've got all that + they're all human giants, it seems.
But my semi-autistic-ness matters a lot too...and my complete inability to emotionally parse groups.
Of course we're all going to advocate rules/systems that are advantageous for people in our particular condition. That's a given and I'm terribly surprised that it strikes so many readers as some sort of a grand insight. I'd simply prefer, and I believe that less people need die in conflicts, if we do it (struggle over what the ruleset is) honestly rather than drag universalist cant into the matter. My point is that nobody in such struggles occupies the high ground and we need to get used to that and stop privileging combatants in that arena who can mask their actual motives the best.
If the population were a fairly homogeneous one with an average IQ around +2 sigmas I'd probably advocate a mostly libertarian ruleset.
Jehu,
Doesn't, "are the schools good," sound a lot better then, "there are no negroes in this neighborhood right?". Functionally the same, but I think the former has a certain effect on society over time. I've been in countries where universalism is not assumed in language and open out group hating is ok, it's not an improvement. There is some value in PC.
I just think people need to keep in mind that universalism is a priviledge of strength, and I think the strong really underestimate how important bonds are to the weak. At the lowest in group level haven't we learned what happens to the left half of the bell curve when you go and shatter their bonds. Yeah, I know they have more big macs and channels then ever before, but I'm not sure it was worth it for them.
Jehu,
I partially, but importantly disagree. There is a universalist position that says: Avoid all approaches that benefit some at the expense of all. Take $1 from everyone, and return $5 each to a small (10%) group is a shitty proposition, regardless which small group. There are some (namely me) who are opposed to all such propositions, regardless of whether I'm in the 10%. And to the extent that we universalist "don't screw everyone for the benefit of some" crowd can win the fights, everyone wins over time. To the extent that the Jehuvian particularists win fights...everyone gets screwed over time.
As before...I am opposed to particularism. A rule that we don't ever make rules that privilege any particular group makes everyone better off over time. That's the rule I'm fighting for.
Anonymous,
You can maintain polite, noble lies, only so long as people aren't using the 'elephants in the room' as concealment, or worse, as cover. When people start using things that reasonable men know to be false but agree not to talk about as building blocks of their arguments you've got a problem. Also there's the issue that only whites (and generally there, only males) are required to pay lip service to universalism. This places them at a disadvantage in any status struggles and builds up a massive pool of resentment that is likely to explode at a certain level of economic degradation. My gut says your intuition is correct, it won't end well.
Aretae,
I know you're against particularism, and you may even be part of the vanishingly small 'Baptists' portion of the 'Baptists and Bootleggers' coalition behind the required lip service to universalism. But the fraction of bonafide universalists is so small as to be negligible. Tribal conflicts, IMO, can only be resolved when we admit that we actually have such and that no tribe should be able to browbeat the others into submission. Once you accept that we're effectively at war (granted it's a mostly cold war), we can then talk of peace, or at least coexistence. The current regime keeps one group from openly acknowledging that they have interests, which I find repulsive.
I think that another thing to consider is there is, at least functionally, a horizon for universalism. It's one thing to be universalist within certain bounds - like, say, the borders of a largest nation when considering benefit and harm, but another to weigh the potential harm to Bushmen, Amazon tribesmen and Australian haberdashers when making decisions in Peoria.
On one side, it's a limits to knowledge thing. On the other, you can make an effort to not be purely self-interested, tribe-interested and not be so circumscribed in trying to achieve some benefit for *somebody* within the realm of possible effect.
Jehu,
I accept that group 1, group 2, and group 47 are all at war...and I'm arguing that we should stop shooting. Though...as before, I can't take too much credit. I don't fit in ANY group, and I seem to have misplaced the groupist module in my brain. Groupism basically causes disgust in me.
Do I read you right between the lines that you're saying: 2nd Sigma liberals use Universalism as a disguise for policies that actively benefit them, but hurt non-2nd sigma folks? Because of it's so-common usage, the universalism is itself suspect?
Perf,
If you have groupist intuitions/ emotions/ ethical tastes, that's A LOT easier to do. If you don't have ANY groupism built-in (because, for example, like me, you've never successfully fit into a group), then it's near-impossible to see the correctness of even the nationalist border.
Aretae,
Yes, I'd say that's at least a 'wooden man' version of my position. Universalism is so thoroughly abused (by the Second Sigma yes, but also pretty heavily by other groups as well) that it needs to be banished from the public square. The most expedient way to do that is to mock its exponents. At some point it can be partially rehabiliated again, but not before its star is greatly moved downward in the constellations. To call its present exponents Pharisees is to gravely slander the Pharisees, who did, after all, at least have pretty decent orthopraxis.
Aretae,
As to whether groups 1-47 should stop shooting at one another, I'd be perfectly pleased to see a ceasefire. But presently most of the groups are shooting at one particular group while insisting that that particular group isn't allowed to shoot back. Only once that group starts shooting back in earnest will peace become possible. People rarely stop fighting when they can at least convince themselves that fighting is to their advantage.
If I could sum up Jehu's arguement, universalism seems more like unconditional surrender by one side. Namely white men, especially white men on the left half of the bell curve.
Now, I don't have a particular problem with white guys going first. After all, universalism is the responsibility of the strong. The problem is that there appears to be zero reciprocity by the other side. I don't see minorities and women going, "hey, those white guys were nice to give us affirmitive action, welfare, and other advantages, maybe we should give them a little respect." Mostly I see black behaivor getting worse. Female behaivor getting worse. Immigrant behaivor getting worse.
As a simple example, a department at a company with a white manager will be told to hire some minorities. However, a department with an Indian manager may quickly surround himself with Indian co workers and underlings, setting up some sort of tribal fiefdom. Nobody is going to tell him he needs to hire a white guy, and he has no intention to. He wants his people around him, to strengthen his and their posistion.
That's the reality most people see. They don't see people getting all melting pot and trying to be good universalist. They see the barbarian hordes moving in, looting whatever they can for themselves, and then fuck you.
Maybe you think the barbarian hordes deserve a little looting. Possibly, though certainly I don't want them around. And I wonder if the environment can really bear losing the informal trust that disappears when your got so many competing tribes out to screw eachother.
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