Every Person Has Value!

[Flint]

"Ummm, I actually tend to agree with Flint on this one."
@marichiko: Well, don't sound so excited about agreeing with me (?!)

"Maybe those who argue against this point are forgetting about negative values?"
@monster: Positive and negative are completely subjective. See also below:

@Elspode: Validity is not a measure of inherent value, subjective or otherwise.

[Flint]

"It is important to remember that "one subjectivity is not inherently superior to another", because, after all, it's subjective. Therein lies the beauty of the subjective approach: because every subjectivity is valid, we are freed from the chains of judgement."
@Torrere: Beautifal. The internet exists, for me, so that I can read statements like this. Somehwere, out there, people are thinking.

[Flint]

"If we're subjectivists, we're not allowed to introduce anything external."
@smoothmoniker: Ouch. That stings, yet it doesn't. What you say is true. The subjective approach doesn't allow you to introduce objective values, but then again, that's the whole point. The subjective road isn't travelled down in a quest for value judgments. Is it (subjectivism) practical? Not as a dogma. But as a resource it is extremely useful. We are bound by certain neuro-chemical behaviors which are the product of evolutionary adaptation, yet we have also evolved the ability to reason our way around some of these attributes.

Originally Posted by Flint

"Ummm, I actually tend to agree with Flint on this one."
@marichiko: Well, don't sound so excited about agreeing with me (?!)

OK, by wild co-incidence I happen to agree with Flint. Most people can eventually find SOMETHING they agree on. It was a random event - one I'm sure that will never happen again, (yawn).

How's that?

Wanna hear my joke, yet?

[Torrere]

Moral judgements are a fallacy in and of themselves. They inhibit your ability to learn.

In this subjective world, you learn by melding someone else's subjectivity with your own. This is how a child learns, by absorbing their parents' subjectivity. This is how a student learns science, by studying the opinions of his professors. Every person's subjective point of view is worth learning from, even the smallest child's.

Marichiko has no respect for ax murderer psychopaths: even the attempt to feel empathy for them "makes her sick". But, as mjisnomis said, "there is no one you can't learn something from". Marichiko, by being judgemental, has lost the opportunity to learn from ax murderer psychopaths.

That's the same mistake that white people made earlier in this century: without respect for our negro brothers, we lost the opportunity to appreciate African culture. We lost the voices of a million African-American minds. Racism crippled our culture; we refused to learn from the perspective of African-Americans.

We're trying to compensate for that now with the cultural diversity movement. By surrounding ourselves with people of all cultures, we augment our opportunity to learn.

But if you're going to learn the most that you possibly can, you have to be open-minded about all individuals and all cultures. Making Holocaust remarks about Nazi Germany is just as bigoted as Jim Crow.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We're trying to compensate for that now with the cultural diversity movement.

Ah yes, cultural diversity.

~In school ~
Class, this is Jamal. He wears his hair in dreadlocks, yada, yada, yada...
Me - I think that would be hard to keep clean.
They - Why you racist, biggoted, bastud!!
or
Me - I think I'll grow dredlocks.
They - How dare you mock Jamal, you racist, biggoted bastud!!

~At work ~
Keeping with our corporate cultural diversity program we've brought Apu into the department.
Me - Hi Apu, I've read that in your homeland, cows are sacred and wander the streets unmolested. Do they get hit by busses very often?
They - You racist, biggoted, bastud!! How dare you question Apu's culture?
or
Me - Hi Apu. Did you go to college here or back home?
They - How dare you question Apu's credentials? You racist, biggoted, bastud!!
or
Me - Hi Apu. Is that a Madras shirt?
They - What kind of crack is that? Don't ridicule Apu's custom of dress, you racist, biggoted bastud!!

You'll note neither Jamal nor Apu were reacting, but the people pushing the agenda.

From what I've seen, the corporate cultural diversity program is a politically correct sham.
"Oh looky, looky World, we have people from 3 billion countries working here. OK? Fine, goodbye."
"Attention all employees.....You will think, act, eat, breath and crap, according to the employee's handbook, pages 1 through 88jillion. That is all."

[Kozmique]

Think of the human population as a large organism. Is every cell in the body equally valuable? Are some worth more than others? Is a toenail cell as important as a brain cell? What about cancerous cells?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Do brain cells hang with heart cells?

[Undertoad]

"I used to think the brain was the most interesting part of the body. Then I realized... look what's telling me that!"

- Emo Philips

Originally Posted by Torrere

Marichiko has no respect for ax murderer psychopaths: even the attempt to feel empathy for them "makes her sick". But, as mjisnomis said, "there is no one you can't learn something from". Marichiko, by being judgemental, has lost the opportunity to learn from ax murderer psychopaths.

That's the same mistake that white people made earlier in this century: without respect for our negro brothers, we lost the opportunity to appreciate African culture. We lost the voices of a million African-American minds. Racism crippled our culture; we refused to learn from the perspective of African-Americans.

Your analogy is absurd and actually disrespectful to Afro-Americans. To feel empathy for someone is to put yourself in that person's place and try to understand how they think and why. It makes me nauseous to put myself in the place of a "person" (I use the term advisedly) who is without conscience or remorse and preys off other human beings. The study of the condition of psychopathy and what factors cause a person to devolve into being a psychopath has much to tell us about the workings of the human personality, and most of all, how to recognize and stay clear of these dangerous people.

The individual psychopath has nothing that I want to know about. I spent 6 years with a man who I afterwards found out had been diagnosed as an "asymptomatic" sociopath - meaning that he had the cunning to "pass" in normal human society without most people detecting him for what he was. It was a devastating experience that I wish I could have passed up on. YOU can go hang with the psychopaths. Good luck, and you can't make me feel guilty that I want nothing more to do with such people.

[Torrere]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Your analogy is absurd and actually disrespectful to Afro-Americans.

Thank you. You are entirely right.

I think that these "everything is subjective" arguments blow away like dust in the wind if you actually want to do anything. Actions speak a lot louder than words, and I think that bullshit is much more readily detected in actions than it is in words. I am rather embarrassed by the last two posts that I've made in this thread.

[farfromhome]

In this forum, I believe that BS is equally detected through words. And that is no slight to anyone in this thread. I am fascinated. Keep it up.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Flint

"Maybe those who argue against this point are forgetting about negative values?"
@monster: Positive and negative are completely subjective. See also below:

Did I say they weren't? You forgot to include the in the quote.

[monster]

...to spell it out, my point was that even if you may consider a POV as having a negative value, it's still a value and therefore the POV has validity.......

Originally Posted by monster

...to spell it out, my point was that even if you may consider a POV as having a negative value, it's still a value and therefore the POV has validity.......

Granted I may have a bank account that is $300 overdrawn and therefore has a "value" of negative $300. That bank account is still worthless when it comes to paying the rent or buying food, however.