Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments • Hacker News Board

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#111

Post by irishcoffee » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 2:51 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #101

stcredzero wrote: post #95

I find that the most anti-intellectualism, cheap-shot emotional abuse, and stereotyping on the Internet is motivated by moral sentiments through online pseudo "activists" who are really working out their anger and self-esteem issues under the supposed imprimatur of one cause or another. This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue. Att…

[deleted]

Apparently you've never been beat up, kicked, hospitalized, in Baltimore, spit on, while smothering your 17-month old daughter from harm.

Activism isn't passive. Hence the term.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#112

Post by Verdex_Alt » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:02 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #30

Verdex_Alt wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case then isn't most of the violence in the world not motivated by morals (ie in a vacuum), but also mostly committed by things like spiders, bacteria, cows (or do you ignore the plight of grass?), etc.

The article mentions several categories: We analyzed records of all kinds of violence, ranging from war to torture to genocide to homicide. That other stuff seems out of scope.

Why does it seem out of scope? In terms of biomass humans seem kind of insignificant. Some ants make slaves [1]. Some wasps torture cockroaches [2]. I don't know enough about them, but I imagine that bacteriophages would happily commit genocide [3].

I believe that humans are special because we're made in the image of God, but I mentioned the spiders et al because it felt like this whole thing was sliding into a philosophical realm where no one was defining their terms. Personally, I think if you're going to talk about morality and violence without indicating why you think humans are so important you should have a good reason why we aren't concerned about grass being oppressed because otherwise it's just opinions without consistency.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave-making_ant [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#113

Post by oska » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:03 AM UTC

slr555 wrote: post #16

When I was a theatre student a thousand years ago my teachers used to say every character you play feels like they have the gods on their side. Bad guys (with the possible exception of Iago) generally don't go around thinking "today I'm going to be particularly evil". They think what they are doing is right and will make the world better in some way. That is the challenge with moral relativism, people are very good a…

Since you referenced one of Shakespeare's plays, I think this is one of the great lessons to be taken from Hamlet. Hamlet finds himself caught up in a moral drama — Did his uncle murder his father? Did his mother knowingly condone the act or is just wrong to marry her husband's brother? Is his love interest betraying him by reporting on his behaviour? etc, etc. Hamlet eventually determines he will endeavour to step outside it, but unfortunately doesn't succeed and gets drawn back in, resulting in more violence and his own death.

The best answer to moral drama is often to try to rise above it, not by ignoring it but by addressing it from a higher moral level. But that higher level has to be real and not faked and there's the great challenge.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#114

Post by ilaksh » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:17 AM UTC

Propaganda is used to create the moral outrage needed to rationalize the violence needed to acquire the resources.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~paul20i/classweb/AFP2008/oilandwa...

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~paul20i/classweb/AFP2008/nativeam...

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#115

Post by stcredzero » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:35 AM UTC

oxide wrote: post #110

[deleted] wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

>which has given you the mistaken belief that it makes up a large portion of activism. but, the point made was that no causes are free of it, but neither are they made up entirely of it. (it being "intellectually malformed pseudo-activisism" in this case) I don't think anyone said it makes up a large portion of activism, or even implied it.

I don't think anyone said it makes up a large portion of activism, or even implied it.

However, such pseudo-activism makes enough noise, that I have seen the following: There are young people out there that have labeled in their minds some pretty unsavory activities as being somehow noble or intellectually worthy. There are young people out there who believe such shallow notions, like that the use of certain phrases and/or the wearing of certain articles of clothing by complete strangers gives them free license to attribute certain attitudes and ideologies to those strangers, and that the emotional abuse of such strangers is then somehow a morally worthy activity. (And if you point out that they are stereotyping, they look at you strangely.)

Pseudo activism and hateivism comprise only a sad fringe. However, it does make an outsized amount of noise, especially on social media. In doing so, it produces a kind of corrosive misinformation that reduces society's awareness of the underlying causes of systemic injustice.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#116

Post by danharaj » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:42 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #95

I find that the most anti-intellectualism, cheap-shot emotional abuse, and stereotyping on the Internet is motivated by moral sentiments through online pseudo "activists" who are really working out their anger and self-esteem issues under the supposed imprimatur of one cause or another. This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue. Att…

> This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue.

This is fucking garbage. It's garbage because the status quo isn't neutral, the status quo isn't necessarily just, and actually, the status quo is upheld with lots and lots of violence that isn't considered controversial.

For example, France is clamping down really hard on civil liberties and the UK just authorized bombing Syria because it thinks its righteous violence will cleanse the Earth of Daesh and the status quo moral framework of the West exculpates them of every civilian murder they commit. The moral framework of the West allows the most powerful nations on Earth to escalate to untold levels of violence over sporadic attacks that quite unfortunately kill dozens of people; then they retaliate destabilizing entire countries, uprooting the lives of millions, and causing thousands and thousands of direct casualties from their ordnance.

The point is that it's a massive, massive joke for anyone to distinguish themself from this group of people who engage in 'intellectually malformed pseudo-activism' because there are no apolitical stances and being complicit members of societies that shape the world through incredible violence is no different a hypocritical perversion of morality as anyone who rustles your jimmies on the fucking Internet.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#117

Post by russnewcomer » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:45 AM UTC

pekk wrote: post #77

russnewcomer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I expressed myself the best above based on your response, but partly that's because of the difficulty in discussing topics like this across religious traditions. I would disagree that violence is caused by the judgement, 'you are right, I am wrong'. I think that violence is ultimately caused by sin, vis a vis Augustinian total depravity. But the justification for violence, often among Christians, is…

Where "sin" means essentially not being Christian enough, I am skeptical that the correct diagnosis for violence is "sin" when people who identify as Christian do not seem especially less likely to commit violence than people who identify as adhering to some other worldview with moral entailments. Frankly, if you want everyone else to believe that Christians are less violent than people of other religions, you have t…

It seems, based on your comment, that you have experienced Christian practice not meeting Christian teaching, which saddens me.

Sin, in Christian theology based around total depravity, is not 'essentially not being Christian enough', but is rather a failure to obey God. As I said before, this is an area where different religious backgrounds or experiences make discussing this issue difficult.

I certainly don't mean to say that Christians are less violent, but that they should be.

This feels like a discussion quickly falling away from the article and off-topic for the thread, so if you'd like to continue it, feel free to email me, my username at gmail.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#118

Post by dmfdmf » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 3:59 AM UTC

danharaj wrote: post #116

stcredzero wrote: post #95

I find that the most anti-intellectualism, cheap-shot emotional abuse, and stereotyping on the Internet is motivated by moral sentiments through online pseudo "activists" who are really working out their anger and self-esteem issues under the supposed imprimatur of one cause or another. This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue. Att…

> This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue. This is fucking garbage. It's garbage because the status quo isn't neutral, the status quo isn't necessarily just, and actually, the status quo is upheld with lots and lots of violence that isn't considered controversial. For example, France is clamping down really hard on civil liberties…

The principle of relativity is for velocities not morality.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#119

Post by notdonspaulding » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 4:01 AM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #106

pekk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where "sin" means essentially not being Christian enough, I am skeptical that the correct diagnosis for violence is "sin" when people who identify as Christian do not seem especially less likely to commit violence than people who identify as adhering to some other worldview with moral entailments. Frankly, if you want everyone else to believe that Christians are less violent than people of other religions, you have t…

> Where "sin" means essentially not being Christian enough... "sin" in Christian theology is disobedience (and therefore rebellion) against God. Defining it as "not being Christian enough" is problematic for at least two reasons: 1. If people self-identify as Christian, how do we identify the liars and the self-deluded? 2. If we can't trust people to identify themselves properly, how do we identify each other as Chri…

    > So given all that, it's tautological from Biblical
    > principles that violent people are not followers of
    > Christ.

Then, given that all wars are inherently violent, is it your opinion that all wars are unjust?

Would you also consider that every human life that is ended prematurely by another "murder" (capital punishment, war, abortion)?

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#120

Post by Animats » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 4:06 AM UTC

This reads like the abstract of a paper. Is there a more detailed paper behind it? This author may be on to something, but there's not enough there to tell.