The Disappearance of Virtue From American Politics
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  The Disappearance of Virtue From American Politics
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Question: Do you concur with Sen. Sasse's sentiments?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
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Total Voters: 36

Author Topic: The Disappearance of Virtue From American Politics  (Read 3686 times)
Yank2133
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« Reply #50 on: May 30, 2017, 10:59:00 AM »

Sasse is probably my least favorite current politician. He has that faux boy scout earnestness and bland talk of exceptionalism that I so despised in Rubio.

Agreed.

He is a fraud, who talks a big game.
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Vosem
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« Reply #51 on: May 31, 2017, 04:39:02 PM »
« Edited: May 31, 2017, 04:44:54 PM by Vosem »

Sasse is one of my favorite incumbent Senators (I would be deeply excited to see him ascend to the Presidency), but I think a number of his specific critiques are off-base; in my experience, it is far more common to learn "virtue" from the schooling system (or, alternatively, through organized religion) than it is from parents. I'm also unsure that "virtue" as he defines it has ever been part of the political system; the radical transparency of the modern day has revealed things that were hidden in (say) the 1960s, rather than inventing them. He is correct about the decline of parenting, but it's very difficult to see that shift reversing without very broad shifts in culture which are essentially still heading away from what he wants (for instance, two-working-parent households are still becoming more and not less common, and parents cannot parent if they aren't there).

A great deal of opinion polling of "societal attitudes" shows that Millennials hold deeply individualistic and "yuppie" views. The strong Millennial vote for Democrats is a result of a wide variety of cultural issues (most obviously stratification by race, but also the far more secular and far more climate-change-accepting nature of the generation) and predicting that the Millennials will bring in "class consciousness" seems like a very long shot to me.
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Vosem
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« Reply #52 on: June 01, 2017, 02:45:54 AM »

Sasse is one of my favorite incumbent Senators (I would be deeply excited to see him ascend to the Presidency), but I think a number of his specific critiques are off-base; in my experience, it is far more common to learn "virtue" from the schooling system (or, alternatively, through organized religion) than it is from parents. I'm also unsure that "virtue" as he defines it has ever been part of the political system; the radical transparency of the modern day has revealed things that were hidden in (say) the 1960s, rather than inventing them. He is correct about the decline of parenting, but it's very difficult to see that shift reversing without very broad shifts in culture which are essentially still heading away from what he wants (for instance, two-working-parent households are still becoming more and not less common, and parents cannot parent if they aren't there).

A great deal of opinion polling of "societal attitudes" shows that Millennials hold deeply individualistic and "yuppie" views. The strong Millennial vote for Democrats is a result of a wide variety of cultural issues (most obviously stratification by race, but also the far more secular and far more climate-change-accepting nature of the generation) and predicting that the Millennials will bring in "class consciousness" seems like a very long shot to me.

What happens when the prosperity that is necessary to sustain the choose-your-own-adventure, consumption-centered way of life is no longer a reality for most people?

A failure of governance has taken place and reforms to bring it back become necessary.

I think that you're right about attitudes, and there's clearly not much solidarity among most millennials as of 2017. It's the banal material hurdles like unmanageable student debt and unaffordable housing that pose a problem for most, rather than a sense that there is some structural lack of economic justice. But if those problems continue to worsen, at some point they will be one severe enough to provoke a political response, no?

I'm a bit off from where you are in that I think they're severe enough to provoke a political response right now (and that the Sanders campaign effectively was such a response, though I think the extent to which his coalition could be transferred to another "socialist" candidate, or even himself in a crowded field, remain to be seen), and I would be saddened, if unsurprised, if Sanders or a candidate with a similar platform were to win in 2020. But, much like Trump himself, the broad cultural acceptance of the movement just isn't there (and it would have to be there among the entire population, not just millennials), and that would translate into a floundering in Congress and ultimately a lack of success in enacting a broad legislative agenda.

If you're suggesting that in the future there will be what you describe as solidarity, I'll say that's contingent on a belief that ordinary life for millennials will worsen over time, not really consistent with American history, and finally would require a very broad shift in culture that doesn't seem to be coming, though it's possible to cherrypick some evidence that suggests it might be beginning. That's not to predict that it won't -- just that if it will, we're decades and a lot of unusual history away from it.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #53 on: June 14, 2017, 11:21:23 PM »

I agree. I cannot imagine Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford calling McCarthy voters "crazy" or the other side's voters "deplorable" or calling for the other candidate to be locked up. Carter took heat for telling Playboy he lusted in his heart. Trump bragged about what he could get away with as a celebrity, and we all know the result.

The 'lust in my heart' admission by Jimmy Carter humanized him and his (southern Baptist) sect. Well, don't we all have lust in our heart?

But Carter could control his lust. Donald Trump bragged about his lust. There could hardly be a bigger difference.

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JA
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« Reply #54 on: June 14, 2017, 11:25:40 PM »

I don't want to buy this book, but I wish that I could have have a closer look at its core argument, which simultaneously intrigues and repulses.

That said, for nowI'll gawk at its more pornographic highlights, without context, as they reveal themselves:



"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a simpler - and less controversial - way of making that same point.
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WMS
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« Reply #55 on: June 15, 2017, 02:45:32 PM »

After reading this thread, I am convinced that if Boomers want to have any credibility about virtue, they should perhaps start by volunteering for the Soylent Green treatment. Imagine the cost savings for everybody else! Wink
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Badger
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« Reply #56 on: June 16, 2017, 12:30:28 AM »

I don't want to buy this book, but I wish that I could have have a closer look at its core argument, which simultaneously intrigues and repulses.

That said, for nowI'll gawk at its more pornographic highlights, without context, as they reveal themselves:



"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a simpler - and less controversial - way of making that same point.

But doesn't really catch the true nature of Sasse's lassiez-faire attitude.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #57 on: June 16, 2017, 04:20:49 AM »

It's the lack of virtue in our economic and intellectual elites that does the harm. The economic elites call for great sacrifices among people not within those elites -- for the indulgence of the economic elites. The intellectual elites offer depravity in mass culture. In the former one has the ethos of the worst possible rulers -- gangsters, tyrants, and feudal lords. We can all see where such leads.

The intellectual elites at their best bring out the best in ourselves. At the worst the intellectual elites either become enforcers of the economic exploiters of lead the masses to a celebration of primitive depravity. Maybe we get entertained but we also get soiled. 
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SingingAnalyst
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« Reply #58 on: June 16, 2017, 04:45:08 PM »

It's the lack of virtue in our economic and intellectual elites that does the harm. The economic elites call for great sacrifices among people not within those elites -- for the indulgence of the economic elites. The intellectual elites offer depravity in mass culture. In the former one has the ethos of the worst possible rulers -- gangsters, tyrants, and feudal lords. We can all see where such leads.

The intellectual elites at their best bring out the best in ourselves. At the worst the intellectual elites either become enforcers of the economic exploiters of lead the masses to a celebration of primitive depravity. Maybe we get entertained but we also get soiled. 
The lack of virtue reaches beyond politics: it manifests itself in MLB players, who make millions of dollars per year, having bench-clearing brawls when someone is hit by a pitch (yes, I'm sure it's a low percentage, but it seems to happen a LOT these days). I posted about it in this Forum.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #59 on: June 16, 2017, 07:15:09 PM »

Professional athletes form an elite in economic results.. but whether they retain elite status once their (usually short) careers end is very much in question. The late Jim Bunning maintained elite status by becoming a high-level public official, and the late Alex Karras joined the intellectual elite as a film and TV actor. But those are oddities. Those who have adequate intelligence and can keep their lives clean might make good money as sportscasters.

Many of the rest show their prole characteristics  (did you ever hear Mickey Mantle speak? Gaak!) throughout their lives. For comparable figures look at winners of the Super-Duper Megabuck Lottery who are the same people but simply end up with more money.

It's easy to remember Roger Staubach and ignore Larry Bethea (Cowboys' player who ended up committing an  armed robbery after his football career ended and killed himself as he was about to be arrested) or Cal Ripken, Jr. and forget Alan Wiggins, the latter getting hooked on heroin and dying of AIDs through dirty needles.

Pro athletes are hard to figure. Some use their athletic careers to catapult themselves into higher positions in the pecking order. Some revert to the losers that they were as kids. Go figure.   
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« Reply #60 on: June 17, 2017, 05:35:06 PM »

I don't want to buy this book, but I wish that I could have have a closer look at its core argument, which simultaneously intrigues and repulses.

That said, for nowI'll gawk at its more pornographic highlights, without context, as they reveal themselves:


"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a simpler - and less controversial - way of making that same point.

Isn't that a Nietzsche quote though?
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shua
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« Reply #61 on: June 22, 2017, 03:37:10 PM »

Here is an interesting critical article:
https://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/5095/i-was-told-there-would-be-more/

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vanguard96
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« Reply #62 on: June 23, 2017, 08:16:15 AM »

I heard yesterday during the end of Marketplace on NPR last night that during this Congress there have been 48 'disparaging' attacks on Trump by members of Congress. This is comparable to 46 for the last Congress session to this date for Obama. Conversely they mentioned in 2002 to this point there were 0 against Dubya. Of course at the time Congress was very much behind Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 before a lot of the issues with the Iraq War came to head.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #63 on: June 23, 2017, 09:10:55 AM »


The writer of the article to which you link cites the equine character 'Boxer' as a devoted worker with child-like faith in the system... Hitler and Stalin need plenty of such people to make their dehumanized orders churn out the weapons and provisions for aggressive warfare.  Once exhausted or crippled of such work one was expendable, like 'Boxer'. One started griping, and one went to a labor camp where one would be finished off by intensified toil on starvation rations. For humans that is the 'glue factory'.

Orwell was as much a critic of fascism as of Stalinism. Many now apply 1984 to Trump's America for the linguistic fraud, the inculcation of fear, and the disparity between official ideals and the vile reality. What is missing from fascism or Stalinism is the climate of personal fear when people dread the knock on the door at 2 AM from the Gestapo or the GPU.

Nasty systems, whether the plantation order of the Old South, fascist regimes, Stalin's Soviet Union, Japan of the WWII era, or Iraq under Satan  Hussein, compel people to work with promises of better (even if what is better is 'Pie in the Sky When You Die' for those who dedicate themselves most completely to providing the toil that the Master turns into his indulgence) things that never arrive. Such requires child-like faith in a brutal order... Education to bare literacy might even be excessive for a plantation slave, but bare literacy -- enough to allow one to be a factory laborer or cannon fodder in aggressive wars.  Anyone who runs afoul of the amoral exploitation by showing the dichotomy between demands and promises will be murdered.

...We are at the stage of economic development in which the production of more material objects  is unlikely to satisfy people except those with a 'hoarder' mentality. Except for fuels and food, most of our productivity in manufactured goods seems to go to replacement of worn, broken, or obsolete goods. Nobody is excited about getting more underwear, and most people excited about the newest electronic gadget are suckers. People can work, but much of the work now seems dedicated to paying off rentiers who make easy money by exploiting a scarcity that the rentiers maintain. Here's looking to you, President Trump!

The people who praise selfless toil of the common man  yet exploit that for their own extreme indulgence are the basest of hypocrites.

   
   
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publicunofficial
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« Reply #64 on: June 23, 2017, 01:34:33 PM »

Ben Sasse is going to run a 2020 campaign based entirely on teaching millennials to pull up their pants and stop taking selfies, and it'll crush Trump with like 90% of the Republican primary vote.
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