Isn't it mindbending, the way things play out in the media pursuant to partisan politics? Fundamentally tribal I reckon; the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the friend of my enemy is my enemy and so forth. Beyond what is right and wrong, how is one to judge what to do when something is wrong? Is that predetermined by my relationship to the perpetrator of the wrong? In my best humor, I was thinking of those 30s movies where the mother stands before the judge about to send her son up the river - "Your honor, he's a good boy." The judge harrumphs... "Yes, well: thirty years." We all stand equal before the law irregardless of subjective consideration.
I think this through after reading someone skewering Nancy Pelosi for her apologetics towards her political associates while condemning her political rivals for the same behaviors. Incredible double standard; palpably phoney. Yet by another standard (tribal affinity) she is virtuous for having done her duty and sticking up for her friends. Mindbending.
The columnist cited the philosophical 'original position' as proposed by John Rawls, a Harvard law professor, with regard to fairness. As I understand it, what we perceive as fair or unfair is based on our condition, i.e., if I am a woman I should want 'things' to be fair for women; a workingman, a person of color, a particular religious persuasion and so on. It seems very subjective but the ethic is everyone has this self-interest and there should be, in a free society where these conditions are acknowledged, respected and validated, a consensus whereby such matters are negotiated in good faith, the general welfare in mind. Said tribalism impedes the process. Atavism. Gauche social behaviors, throwbacks to the universal 'unfair' treatment of women, engender rationalizations excoriating or excusing based on further superfluous social conditioning.
It's all such Social Psych 101-102! The onus of 'the other' and subsequent attitudes and biases. Identity politics, they say. Then, along the same lines, Philosophy One Oh Whatever... Ethics. Yes, it's still there in mine gray cells: the Catagorical Imperitive!
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." Kant on morality.
We knew that: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I really am jaded by these double standards. Suppose I could go on but, in this world, so will they. It does require some little spiritual consciousness never discussed in the quagmire the political theater presents. This maxim sounds good - just try to live up to it, eh?
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