To the last few sentences. I think there are profound disagreements about what “the good life” is - or indeed, if it is a singular thing. One of the annoying things about both the post-liberal right and some progressives is that they assume everyone has (or should have) the same desires as them. That’s not how desire works. And while some might respond “this isn’t about desire, it’s about reason, our concepts of the good life should be based on reason”, that’s not how human beings work.
Unfortunately I think it’s inevitable that these things get pulled into the Schmittian, zero sum game of policing the friend-enemy distinction that seems to be modern American politics.
I think conservatives would very much like to own the concepts of children, family, and religion and progressives play into their hands if they let them to do so.
IMHO Progressive takes on children, family, and religion should critique social conservatives for being overly dogmatic and unimaginative about the forms that these institutions take and critique libertarians for general cluelessness (if not hostility) about how these institutions operate.
At their best progressive takes on children, family, and religion should be both more pragmatic and more darn fun than the conservatives ones.
Sure but *on average*, we are all Indian. I myself am a married father. So I think these are good things. But they are not the only things. And it’s not like what a good marriage or good parenting should be are collectively agreed either.
My own take is that society benefits from having a good menu of life choices, along with an acknowledgement that no menu is complete.
I think conservatives are at their strongest when they make the case that there are hard things that are important to do for flourishing. Sometimes pragmatic and fun are just going to have hard trade offs, although knowledge and technology can ease the scarcity that force hard choices.
I'd agree with you on the critique. The way I tend to put it is that conservatives are t their weakest when proposing one-size-fits all prescriptions or denying the fact that they favor menus that have been built up to the benefit of historically hegemonic groups.
Agree. And the conservative focus on "hard choices" (and I do not want to state that there are no hard choices) can sometimes verge on the sado-masochistic. "It can only be good if it hurts".
I don't think *not* doing something as transformative to one's life as having kids can actually reveal your preferences about having kids. The idea only works when people have a reasonable chance of at least trying out different choices, and the trouble with having kids is that you can't really know how fulfilling (or miserable) your life would be without actually having your own children. All you've actually "revealed" is your relative satisfaction with your life as it is (or the scale of your fears about losing that satisfaction).
Fascinating point, I hadn't thought of this precise explanation. I think that until recently, you're probably right that I was (or must have been) relatively satisfied. But I think that relative satisfaction has increasingly dimmed in recent years for me, and there are probably lag time effects from realizing this to acting upon it (since it's difficult to just get married right when we realize it's what we want)
I appreciate your taking on my question, the last one quoted. But you dodged! I didn't ask how you live with the dissonance of believing in God! Anyone being honest has to acknowledge the universe and life are vast and mysterious and in many ways unknowable. It's not my instinct but I get reacting to that with the sense that there must be forces beyond what we can comprehend that as a descendant of Mediterranean culture one calls God.
But that takes you to Spinoza, not the Abrahamic faiths. Those are what are undeniably millenia of storytelling on top of parochial and primitive tribal fairytales. No less silly than asking someone to take seriously that misfortune can be ascribed to the trickster Coyote. That's the dissonance I was asking about.
I'm not sure I follow how this takes one to Spinoza. And I disagree with the premise that the Abrahamic faiths "are undeniably millennia of storytelling on top of parochial and primitive tribal fairly takes." It's obviously not undeniable. I'm denying it right now!
Haha. Fair enough. I guess what I really mean is there was thousands of years of the old mesopotamian pantheon. Then the Jews decided that instead of their city God being their go to God, he was the only one. The Abrahamic faiths are all descended from that. IOW, they're all worshipping a chosen representative of the Sumerian pantheon by a different name. I'm relying in my "undeniable" statement on the assumption that modern Jews, Christians, and Muslims would agree that the city states of early mesopotamia believed in primitive tribal fairy tales while not knowing that their God is just one of that same pantheon.
My Spinoza line is an attempt at taking seriously the instinct to ascribe the unknowable to the supernatural. My point is that instinct isn't really arguable either way. But then there's absolutely nothing in there that gets you from there must be supernatural power behind the unknowable to this one exact and complicated story about one of the Sumerian pantheon is the source behind the unknowable.
To the last few sentences. I think there are profound disagreements about what “the good life” is - or indeed, if it is a singular thing. One of the annoying things about both the post-liberal right and some progressives is that they assume everyone has (or should have) the same desires as them. That’s not how desire works. And while some might respond “this isn’t about desire, it’s about reason, our concepts of the good life should be based on reason”, that’s not how human beings work.
Unfortunately I think it’s inevitable that these things get pulled into the Schmittian, zero sum game of policing the friend-enemy distinction that seems to be modern American politics.
I think conservatives would very much like to own the concepts of children, family, and religion and progressives play into their hands if they let them to do so.
IMHO Progressive takes on children, family, and religion should critique social conservatives for being overly dogmatic and unimaginative about the forms that these institutions take and critique libertarians for general cluelessness (if not hostility) about how these institutions operate.
At their best progressive takes on children, family, and religion should be both more pragmatic and more darn fun than the conservatives ones.
Fair points, but I think progressives should also be able to say that *on average* getting married and having children are strongly correlated with happiness, meaning, and belonging, in part because most of the available evidence makes that clear: https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run
Sure but *on average*, we are all Indian. I myself am a married father. So I think these are good things. But they are not the only things. And it’s not like what a good marriage or good parenting should be are collectively agreed either.
My own take is that society benefits from having a good menu of life choices, along with an acknowledgement that no menu is complete.
I think conservatives are at their strongest when they make the case that there are hard things that are important to do for flourishing. Sometimes pragmatic and fun are just going to have hard trade offs, although knowledge and technology can ease the scarcity that force hard choices.
I'd agree with you on the critique. The way I tend to put it is that conservatives are t their weakest when proposing one-size-fits all prescriptions or denying the fact that they favor menus that have been built up to the benefit of historically hegemonic groups.
Agree. And the conservative focus on "hard choices" (and I do not want to state that there are no hard choices) can sometimes verge on the sado-masochistic. "It can only be good if it hurts".
I don't think *not* doing something as transformative to one's life as having kids can actually reveal your preferences about having kids. The idea only works when people have a reasonable chance of at least trying out different choices, and the trouble with having kids is that you can't really know how fulfilling (or miserable) your life would be without actually having your own children. All you've actually "revealed" is your relative satisfaction with your life as it is (or the scale of your fears about losing that satisfaction).
Fascinating point, I hadn't thought of this precise explanation. I think that until recently, you're probably right that I was (or must have been) relatively satisfied. But I think that relative satisfaction has increasingly dimmed in recent years for me, and there are probably lag time effects from realizing this to acting upon it (since it's difficult to just get married right when we realize it's what we want)
I appreciate your taking on my question, the last one quoted. But you dodged! I didn't ask how you live with the dissonance of believing in God! Anyone being honest has to acknowledge the universe and life are vast and mysterious and in many ways unknowable. It's not my instinct but I get reacting to that with the sense that there must be forces beyond what we can comprehend that as a descendant of Mediterranean culture one calls God.
But that takes you to Spinoza, not the Abrahamic faiths. Those are what are undeniably millenia of storytelling on top of parochial and primitive tribal fairytales. No less silly than asking someone to take seriously that misfortune can be ascribed to the trickster Coyote. That's the dissonance I was asking about.
I'm not sure I follow how this takes one to Spinoza. And I disagree with the premise that the Abrahamic faiths "are undeniably millennia of storytelling on top of parochial and primitive tribal fairly takes." It's obviously not undeniable. I'm denying it right now!
Haha. Fair enough. I guess what I really mean is there was thousands of years of the old mesopotamian pantheon. Then the Jews decided that instead of their city God being their go to God, he was the only one. The Abrahamic faiths are all descended from that. IOW, they're all worshipping a chosen representative of the Sumerian pantheon by a different name. I'm relying in my "undeniable" statement on the assumption that modern Jews, Christians, and Muslims would agree that the city states of early mesopotamia believed in primitive tribal fairy tales while not knowing that their God is just one of that same pantheon.
My Spinoza line is an attempt at taking seriously the instinct to ascribe the unknowable to the supernatural. My point is that instinct isn't really arguable either way. But then there's absolutely nothing in there that gets you from there must be supernatural power behind the unknowable to this one exact and complicated story about one of the Sumerian pantheon is the source behind the unknowable.