Values

[randomc]

The gauntlet of British Values has been repeatedly thrown down over the last few years in my country, and it's a bugger to define without referring to globally held values. Comes down to stuborness and familiarity I suppose, but as far as i'm concerned this is an admirably British trait - we have to change what we're used to because of WHAT zeitgeist silly theory? We'll change, but stop trying to make us believe in stuff - whatever British Values is, that's not it. We're the lazy, pissed offspring of Descartes and Plato in our philosophy, and the progeny of a bunch of grumpy Scottish empiricists in our approach to life. Just fuck off.

 

So then, US values?

 

How do you US lefties on this site hold yourselves apart?

 

[StringJunky]

Which is your country?

[randomc]

go on then stringjunky, your alternative values or your alternative state

[StringJunky]

You've lost me. For example?

[randomc]

Ok, i suppose we're talking about state and national character and the extent to which these ideals still intersect. I think they do still do quite a bit (nationalism), and i don't know what you think because you're being all standoffish

[moth]

The gauntlet of British Values has been repeatedly thrown down over the last few years in my country, and it's a bugger to define without referring to globally held values. Comes down to stuborness and familiarity I suppose, but as far as i'm concerned this is an admirably British trait - we have to change what we're used to because of WHAT zeitgeist silly theory? We'll change, but stop trying to make us believe in stuff - whatever British Values is, that's not it. We're the lazy, pissed offspring of Descartes and Plato in our philosophy, and the progeny of a bunch of grumpy Scottish empiricists in our approach to life. Just fuck off.

 

So then, US values?

 

How do you US lefties on this site hold yourselves apart?

 

 

That seems to be Pink Floyd's view too, "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way"

I think their advice was: run rabbit run.

 

I don't think you'll find too many hard core lefties in the U.S. Too much distrust and outright hatred for the federal government to hand everything over to the bureaucrats.

For some reason the mistrust does not extend to corporations for some reason.

Handing Exon Mob the oky doky to dispose of their garbage in you're state seems to make you a contender for president.

If you complain you'll probably get called a lefty.

[randomc]

 

That seems to be Pink Floyd's view too, "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way"

I think their advice was: run rabbit run.

 

I don't think you'll find too many hard core lefties in the U.S. Too much distrust and outright hatred for the federal government to hand everything over to the bureaucrats.

For some reason the mistrust does not extend to corporations for some reason.

Handing Exon Mob the oky doky to dispose of their garbage in you're state seems to make you a contender for president.

If you complain you'll probably get called a lefty.

I don't know, i think the pink floyd view is pessimistic. Buddihism would probably do well in Britain! The reluctance to believe, is how i would characterise the ideal i'll call "British", even though i think it's an engine of general fuckoffness centered somewhere around Birmingham, and extending far beyond this country's borders.

 

Seems like in the US, if you're left you're statist left, as far as the broad swipe of values is concerned.

Edited March 28, 2015 by randomc

[iNow]

i don't know what you think because you're being all standoffish

Not standoffish. Confused. Your train of thought is difficult to follow and your posts not articulated clearly or terribly well structured.

 

I am genuinely unclear what point you're making or what question you're asking, and I have the sense that you've eaten a mushroom, put a tab of acid on your tongue, or are at least enjoying some dank weed, but that's all irrelevant and I'm not judging. I believe you're well-intentioned even though those intentions remain cryptic, and I'll take a stab at running your ambiguous gauntlet.

 

We've evolved in such a way that group cooperation was heavily selected and our survival deeply contingent upon it. Grouping mechanisms have themselves helped other life prosper and have done so long before humans and apes and mammals ever entered the scene. Even simpler life forms and molecules and atoms themselves tend to group. It's chemistry and quantum behavior and one might argue that the aforementioned grouping and tribalism is practically inherent.

 

Writ large, and on human scales, this means we're predisposed to group ourselves and simplistically this tends to manifest as a preference for those who are like us. Our family, our community, our tribe, our party, our side, our team, our town, our city, our region, our state, our country. It's us/them even when it comes to arbitrary things like food preferences, hairstyle, clothing combinations, but it's especially important in terms of the expected behaviors and actions and activities allowed within each group.

 

That's what values are, after all. They're just a set of local expectations that allow us to be rapidly confirmed as a member of a group... To be defined as acceptable and to then consequently receive the benefits that a membership in said group confers. Whether those benefits are access to food and water, protection from neighboring or warring tribes, availability of mates to produce offspring, extra hands to help raise those offspring, provision of care and medicine when sick or injured... Really it's anything that group membership allows us to benefit from, and groups magnify our ability to do more and realize greater outcomes than we'd ever manage on our own. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, values are what give shape to that whole, and those who accept and follow those values are the ones able to be included within it.

 

Again, in some sense values are just what we use to define a group and to enforce membership standards within it. The need is for us to adhere to those standards and values if we wish to maintain membership. If we do not, or if we hold different values, we will likely be ostracized and lose access to the benefits membership in the broader group affords us.

 

Given this, I suppose then that the trick to advancing collectively and in the long-term is to continually redefine the group itself ever larger and ever more broadly. The group must be forever expanded if we are to continue advancing in a values-based system.

 

More practically, perhaps our objective should be to continually expand and link our values not just to left or right or my country / your country, but to humanity as a whole; Not just to humanity as a whole, but to all mammals; Not just to all mammals, but to all life on earth; Not to just all life on earth, but to all life in the solar system, in the galaxy, in the supercluster, in the universe or the multiverse or the cosmos or to whatever encompasses all there is, ever was, and ever will be...

 

If we manage to link our values to THAT then perhaps that intersection you referenced will finally be set apart in a way that matters and could potentially be deemed "proper."

 

Anyway, I guess I was just following your lead, as now I'm probably not making any sense. Hopefully you won't accuse me of being standoffish (except, I must say that I hate that word... Seriously, use confrontational or contrary or adversarial or antagonistic or hostile or even prickly, but standoffish? No. Please, let's at least agree that this word should be discarded; abandoned and left to die and rot away in the graveyard of human language and vocabulary, okay?).

Edited March 28, 2015 by iNow

[randomc]

I can't find anything i feel like disagreeing with in what your saying.... i'll have to reread and come back to you...

are I am genuinely unclear what point you're making or what question you're asking, and I have the sense that you've eaten a mushroom, put a tab of acid on your tongue, or are at least enjoying some dank weed, but that's all irrelevant and I'm not judging. I believe you're well-intentioned even though those intentions remain cryptic, and I'll take a stab at running your ambiguous gauntlet.

 

 

This

 

OK, the premise is ambiguous, but the concept of British Values is expounded, and usually by the left interested press look you, as if it's a pivotal issue in this economic region, as if it's what people other than information-priveledged intelligentsiaare concerned with. And it's not what they are concerned with, they know who/what they are regardless of alcohol, or mushroom content.

 

So it's not in fact my ambiguous gauntlet. i don't feel like that's the way it is. The question of British Values has been proscribed to me, i'm merely trying to work out what to do with it. I agree with you that it needn't mean very much, but it does.

 

 

 

If we manage to link our values to THAT [previous paragraph]then perhaps that intersection you referenced will finally be set apart in a way that matters and could potentially be deemed "proper."

This seems to require a response but i'm not sure what to do with it. What are you trying to say?

 

And are you comfortable with the US left as an entity separate from comparable (i.e. other western) entities?

Edited March 28, 2015 by randomc

[swansont]

OK, the premise is ambiguous

 

…

 

 

And are you comfortable with the US left as an entity separate from comparable (i.e. other western) entities?

 

Yes, indeed, which makes questions like this difficult to decipher. How about presenting a non-ambiguous premise and asking clearer questions?

[Strange]

OK, the premise is ambiguous, but the concept of British Values is expounded, and usually by the left interested press

 

I associate the idea of (traditional) British values with a more conservative (small c)* attitude; e.g. complaints that they are being eroded by political correctness, atheism, lefty-journalists, foreigners, young people, the BBC, the poor, popular culture, the fact no one is taught Latin in school, or beaten round the head by coppers, etc.

 

I don't think there is any such thing as "British" values; they are largely the same as in any liberal ("Western") democracy.

 

* For people unfamiliar with British politics, there is a party called the Conservatives who are, sometimes, conservative. But the differences between the major parties is probably less than the range of views within each party.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Strange

[swansont]

 

I associate the idea of (traditional) British values with a more conservative (small c)* attitude; e.g. complaints that they are being eroded by political correctness, atheism, lefty-journalists, foreigners, young people, the BBC, the poor, popular culture, the fact no one is taught Latin in school, or beaten round the head by coppers, etc.

 

I don't think there is any such thing as "British" values; they are largely the same as in any liberal ("Western") democracy.

 

* For people unfamiliar with British politics, there is a party called the Conservatives who are, sometimes, conservative. But the differences between the major parties is probably less than the range of views within each party.

 

Is suspect that while some details are different, the overall situation is the same as in the US: that there are people who are talking about the loss of "traditional values", and what they are really discussing are attitudes and practices primarily of the historical majority. As people who have been historically marginalized have become somewhat more empowered, we find out that not everyone shares these "traditional" values, and closer examination shows that some of the historical traditional values are actually pretty awful.

 

I mean, in the US, "traditional" values include denying equality to pretty much anyone who isn't white, straight, male and Christian. So I'm not impressed by appeal to tradition.

[Strange]

Indeed. Some years ago a politician made an appeal for a return to "Victorian values". People were quick to point out that this included no votes for women, no protection for workers (even in dangerous occupations), a return of the workhouse, etc.

[StringJunky]

 

.... But the differences between the major parties is probably less than the range of views within each party.

Yes. United we stand, divided we fall. - another Pink Floyd quote.

We do tend to have a stiff upper lip, so, we value stoicism.

[iNow]

This seems to require a response but i'm not sure what to do with it. What are you trying to say?

Yeah, it was largely a nonsensical statement. You'll notice I borrowed nearly each word directly from your posts, but I suppose I was suggesting that if we think a bit bigger then things might be less fraught with tension and disagreement.

 

Just ignore that part. Part of me was trying to hold a mirror up to show that your comments were consistently unclear, but my attempt to do so was disjointed and I'll-conceived.

 

Just note my core suggestion: We will always be far more similar than we ever are different. Perhaps if we thought larger than local politics and us/them arbitrary ideological divisions for a change then things might drastically improve.

 

The following exemplifies my underlying reasoning above (take the 5 minutes to watch, specifically the portion after time point 1:40):