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Virtuous Sacrifice: The Sacrifice for Virtue

Mar 20, 2022 //
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Virtue ethics has been a thing for a long time. It’s about embodying certain characteristics that make someone a good person. Aristotle, who coined the whole system, advocated admiring the virtuous sage and copying their behaviour; the sage being someone who embodies characteristics that ought to be copied. It’s a bit of a circular process that certainly deserves some criticism, but it’s hard to shake the notion that there are certain characteristics that make a person more virtuous. Aristotle gave out a list, but I’m not going to focus on every single one because some of them are dumb.

I mean, you can have a look… try to figure out the dumb ones!

The thing about virtues is that they require personal sacrifice. Courage is the best example, because courage without risk to the self is incoherent. It no longer functions as a concept. Honesty, for instance, is certainly not incoherent when there isn’t any risk, but lying about something benign would usually typify some kind of pathology. Honesty is only a virtue when the sage has something to lose by being honest (we’ll call “something to gain” the loss of an opportunity to gain to keep our sacrificial theme simple). Patience is only a virtue when it would feel real good to lose our shit on someone. Temperance is literally the sacrifice of indulgence, which, if you’ve ever indulged, is a lot of fun. While loyalty is not on Aristotle’s list, it is a common sense virtue that only has value during instances of temptation; its value coming from the sacrifice associated with it. Aristotle liked to think of virtues as the perfect balance of moral homeostasis, but it is very easy to frame them instead as the subjugation of the self for the sake of a higher purpose.

Ask yourself: is this a better depiction of virtue than a soldier throwing themselves on a grenade to save their peers?

To be virtuous then, is to act for the benefit beyond oneself. What this means is that individualism is inherently an unethical philosophy, and systems built on individualism are by definition immoral. By focusing entirely on ourselves, we limit the risks we are willing to absorb for others. We may want to think of the tenets proselytized by individualism such as efficiency and productivity as virtues, but we would be sacrificing the core of virtue ethics. Personal sacrifice for the boss’s profit may seem virtuous to admirer’s of “good work ethic“, but where is the reciprocity necessary in an ethical system? Do bosses exist outside of that system? Probably wouldn’t be great if they did! What’s good for General Motors is not good for the group; I mean, unless General Motors became a collective… *cough*.

Hm. This collective may be a bit problematic.

Again, there are problems with virtue ethics. For one, they’re very tribal. Loyalty to the group may detract from perfectly good or better alternatives, for instance. Friendliness literally points to a circle of friends, and no one can tell me that the same level of friendliness extends outside of that group. For those wondering about which of Aristotle’s virtues are dumb, they’re the ones only attainable by rich people like liberality, magnificence, and magnanimity (listed as great-souledness in that weird list I found on Google). Dude made a living selling philosophy lectures to those with the means to pay for fucking philosophy lectures; he had to play to his audience. However, this illustrates very well the problems of virtue ethics as a system. Virtues develop within the tribe for the benefit of that tribe, giving them a degree of subjectivity as well as a parochialism that I certainly reject.

Our virtuous ethics; their dishonourable sinfulness

I may not be a virtue ethicist, but despite my reservations, I can’t argue with the fundamental principle that ethics require a vision beyond oneself. If we recognize this truth, then we become much more resilient to socially destructive propaganda trying to pass itself off as virtues: independence, self-interest, etc. If a character trait seems designed to prevent unionization, it probably is!

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Categories Philosophy

Bernie Sanders and Collective Action

May 3, 2019 //
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In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Bernie Sanders recently went on Fox News to discuss his vision for America. I say “recently” in the sense that Blog for Chumps is updated only ever infrequently, so this is about as Breaking News as you’re going to get. I’m only going to focus on the one section that I’ve set up in the hyperlink there, when Sanders is asked, if he likes high taxes so much, why doesn’t he take the initiative and pay more? Be the Leninist vanguard of the Keynesian welfare state!

Sanders, despite the positive reaction from the crowd, actually answers this question rather poorly. He states that he pays what he is obligated to pay, and then turns to whataboutism to ask for Donald Trump to release his tax returns to see if the President is following those same obligations. Of course, the question was not about meeting obligations, but exceeding expectations in order to conform with the ideology that Sanders allegedly espouses. Namely, higher taxes on the wealthy.

There is a much better response to this question: ignore it entirely and respond to the underlying ideology that drives it instead.

Social change is not an individualistic concept. Slavery was not abolished because one slave owner decided he didn’t think it was such a great idea anymore, and then everyone else fell in line like plantation-owning dominoes. Democracy didn’t come about because some monarch took it upon himself to diffuse his absolute power. Democracy is by definition a collective concept; imagining an individual shifting the gears of government, on their own, toward a government that literally requires the will of demos, is patently nonsensical.

Voting

I live under a monarchy. I’m going to cast a ballot, and just hope that everyone else follows my shining example. NO OTHER EFFORT REQUIRED! YAY FREEDOM!

There is a prevailing myth about Rosa Parks that she was just some random woman who had had enough, and her stubbornness ultimately lead to the dissolution of the segregated seating on Montgomery transit. Yet Parks was already an active activist and member of the NAACP before her refusal, and then she engaged with the activist community in a lengthy bus boycott to overcome the racist practice. Her decision and the consequences that followed were heavily steeped in collective action.

It’s neither individuals nor their actions that change the world. It is when individuals organize into groups that they become effective. The Civil Rights movement overturned segregated buses, just as revolution brought about democracy. Bernie Sanders paying more in taxes would do absolutely nothing to implement his goals. The question is attempting to twist hypocrisy into a situation where the very premise it is pushing is meaningless. However, there is an even darker side to the way this question (and those like it) is framed.

What this question is suggesting, beyond twisted hypocrisy, is that individual action is the solution to social problems. Billionaires just need to start changing their minds about a system that privileges them indiscriminately, and income inequality will become a thing of the past. The peasants can just wait for the king to give them rights. The slaves can wait for their masters to have a change of heart.

slave master

I tire of owning people. I guess you can have your freedom…

Immanuel Kant famously wrote that ought implies can. You are only morally obligated to make change in situations where you are actually capable of doing so. If individuals can’t change the world, then it’s not their fault. Poor people certainly can’t impact policy on their own, so they just shouldn’t worry about it. The moral duty to change the world falls entirely on the corporation, I suppose, since corporations are the only entities with the means to do so.

Individually, maybe, we bear no responsibility for the world, but we are useless as individuals. Collectively, however, we are capable of much, and that is where the responsibility lies. Here’s what Sanders should have said:

“I assume you’re asking this question because you want to frame me as a hypocrite. However, you’re assuming that anything I do makes a difference. The reason I’m sitting here talking to you at all is because I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of a grassroots campaign, years in the making, that has relied almost entirely on a collection of regular people who believe this kind of policy is needed. My taking of any action on my own means nothing; it’s what we’re doing as a group that’s making a difference. In fact, in even asking this question, you’re asking the American people to look to me, or people like me, to improve their lives by, in this case, individually paying more than is legally required in taxes. Don’t do anything else, just wait for ol’ Bernie to pay more in taxes. That will start the revolution! That’s not what they should be doing, and shame on you for suggesting it! What they should be doing is joining this movement, join a union or an activist group, and push forward change that doesn’t rely on any one person to make a statement. ”

SANDERS

No idea if I’ve captured his cadence or speaking style, but who gives a shit. I think I just want Bernie Sanders to refer to himself as “Ol’ Bernie”

 

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Categories Politics

The Fallacy of Individualism

Sep 4, 2017 //
4

You ever notice how incredibly stupid the idea of individualism is? It’s essentially saying, “I’m going to make it on my own in this crazy world, and I’m going to do it wholly dependent on literally everyone around me.” We depend on our bus drivers to get us from point A to point B, and if we drive, we depend on our car manufacturer to provide that same function. We depend on our grocers to sell us food, who in turn depend on wholesalers, truck drivers, farmers, and so on, in order for them to get the food to sell us in the first place. We depend on strangers on the street to not stab us for no reason as we go about our day. We depend on our roommates to cover their share of rent. We depend on our actors to provide us entertainment. We depend on our athletes to provide vicarious exercise for our slovenly lifestyles.

But wait, you might say! I make my own money, and I use that money to induce others to perform those tasks for me! I am independent! But alas, no, you’re not. You depend on someone to pay you. It is perfectly conceivable to imagine a world where your employer decides not to pay you, or pays you insufficiently for what you’re worth, and then you become dependent on lawyers, judges, and the legal system in order to obtain redress. It’s also quite reasonable to suppose that there could be those you induce to take your money who do not then provide their service at all, or do an insufficient job. I suppose you could say that you could induce fair labour treatment using only the threat of the violence you personally could commit, but I can’t imagine a society like that ever thriving.

We depend on loved ones for comfort. We depend on our mentors for guidance. We depend on strangers for security. Like I said, we depend on literally everyone around us for literally everything we do. Others too depend on us in turn. You can’t criticize collectivism on the basis that it eliminates human individuality because human society is a collective. It can’t function otherwise! Certainly people are individuals with their own unique traits, but they exist in a collective within which they depend on others for absolutely everything. Individuality only serves to add colour and diversity within the collective, but it cannot possibly act as a substitute or civilization would crumble into dust.

So why do people so ravenously defend this ludicrous idea? Well, if you look at every movie, you’ll see a lone figure who abides by (his) own rules because society could not exist without (him) to keep it afloat. Sometimes it will be a small group, but generally even then there will be one (male) who stands above the rest who is the most individual of them all. We see it as social progress when that one individual is black, or female, or even a black female, though there are those who decry even that, as God forbid a woman be a lone heroine who stands outside the common rules of society to show how inadequate they are. Now I kind of want Hollywood to remake a bunch of John Wayne movies with a female protagonist. Sure it’s hypocritical of me because I’m calling it individualist propaganda in this very paragraph, but just imagine how many people it would piss off. Totally worth it.

It’s why we focus on Martin Luther King Jr. alone, despite the massive community organizing that propped him up. The Civil Rights movement wasn’t an individual, it was a collective (a movement is, by definition, a collective), but that is a narrative rarely heard. Gandhi had millions of people alongside of him, and he didn’t do all that work on his own. We love our generals, despite them being completely worthless without a collective surrounding them functioning smoothly and efficiently.

This leads us to our next question: why would nearly every piece of media perpetuate asinine individualist propaganda that doesn’t make any sense when given two seconds of casual thought? The answer, as always, is capitalism. People will be less inclined to complain if we can blame them as individuals for not pulling up their bootstraps hard enough to get out of poverty, even though, again by definition, the collective is responsible for that very situation. If we disconnect people from the intrinsic connection of human community, they won’t band together in support of that very community. Keep people distanced from one another, and they’ll be more likely to connect to things rather than to each other.

If we recognized the basic structure of civil society as a collective, we would be guided toward a more democratic method of organizing the mechanisms within it. Compassion would replace greed, as greed is individual whereas compassion necessitates an other. Communities would be measured by the success of the whole, not the success of its smallest minority. I’m not advocating a Utopian ideal, just an inclination toward a more natural social order.

Post-script: There will be those who criticize collectivism as willing to sacrifice the individual for the sake of the group. You have to keep in mind that we already do sacrifice individuals for the sake of the group; it’s called the justice system. We put people in jail who disrupt civil order. It’s not uncontroversial. The bigger concern, from what I’ve witnessed in individualist philosophies, is the willingness to sacrifice groups for the sake of the individual.

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Categories Philosophy, Social Criticism
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