Carl-Richard

The part where it starts to get creepy is when you try to understand basic things, but you literally can't. The only thing you "understand" is how insufficient "understanding" is. What you usually referred to as understanding is just simply a puny thought, coming out one at a time. It's so insignificant compared to "this."

I deliberately put "development" in italics, because development is not progress. Progress is a more loaded term. Development simply means a trajectory of "coming to being" (ontogenesis). The development of reality as a whole is the trajectory from simple to complex, and humanity follows the same pattern. What can be defined as a local regression is always a part of a larger scale of development. The death of one cell is a part of the larger evolution of an organism or a species. While one organism dies, and a new one is born. This is the cyclical nature of development. The fall of the Roman empire was important for the development of humanity and provided important lessons for future generations.

@ZenSwift Cool! My paternal grandmother used to make textile art. This is from an art exhibit in the local town hall: https://www.ralingen.kommune.no/raadhuskunst.464118.no.html It looks kind of basic, but when you remember that it's all woven fabric, it's impressive.

Openmindedness means you're open to new things. It does not mean you stop making distinctions. There are different interpretations of Islam, and some of them are less conducive to self-actualization and spiritual work than others, and some are also less openminded. Are you open to a pluralist, non-literalist interpretation of Islam? Pluralist and non-literalist religiosity appreciates many different religions and many different interpretations. It's more openminded than absolutist and literalist religiosity. Although the former is more inclusive than the latter, it doesn't exactly include the latter. Therefore, if you present a closeminded view to an openminded space, you shouldn't expect to be included.

@Raptorsin7 This is the crux of the issue: the environment is the bedrock of the individual. The environment is not equivalent to personal responsibility – it is what makes personal responsibility possible. This is basic ecology, sociology, psychology. It does not suffice to hand-wave it away by saying "oh yes, that's one part of the equation too." When you're pointing to the real-life examples of the successes of personal responsibility, you're pointing to places of structural privilege. It's not a coincidence. If that is the case, what is it that the left doesn't understand about personal responsibility? People who condone looting are fringe radicals high on schadenfreude.

"700 years setback" is an unclear statement. If you mean that society lost 700 years of development, that would mean you would have to literally turn the clock back 700 years. That is obviously not the case, because not everything from the Roman Empire was lost. Technological innovation did not stop, and neither did philosophical thought. Single examples do not give a comprehensive picture, because reality is a complex system. That is also why development is non-linear, because apparent setbacks are only partial, never total.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/01/medieval-history-why-are-the-middle-ages-often-characterized-as-dark-or-less-civilized.html One paragraph later:

This is true. People have different ideas about how dangerous the virus is and how safe the vaccines are, and some of these ideas are more paranoid and less well-informed, and some are not. It's still the case that the individualistic meme that is circulating in the West at the moment has a strong absolutist, ideological bent. It's more or less equal to "my right as an individual is to act like an isolated unit separate from the larger society". To then perpetuate this belief and call it collective responsibility, from a system aware view, is quite ridiculous. But it's true that the individual and the collective is always weighed up against each other. However, it's nevertheless the case that system awareness is lacking in society, and it's impacting the perception of the problem. Society as a collective is a huge system of complex relationships that stretches out horizontally, and this is what the virus is working on. In response to such a problem, an absolutist version of the individualist meme, that has a strong vertical>horizontal bent, quickly becomes problematic.

Yes. I didn't participate

It's semantics, I know, but you said it's a murder case. Murder is a legal term, and murder cases are about establishing the extent of liability and punishment. I guess retroactive responsibility isn't necessarily a legal issue. Ok let's say I give a low score. What's your point?

Systems thinking (the cream of leftism) and mysticism are related, yes.

It's a constant derived from another equation .

You're talking about a structure aware practice of law, which essentially doesn't exist . I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to let structures affect liability. Just fix the structures.

Alden's number is the constant you need to calculate the ratio of island-bound socioeconomic privilege and the weight of deez nuts.

You're conflating retroactive responsibility (e.g. liability) with proactive responsibility (taking action). The former is often a legal issue while the latter is mainly a moral issue. You don't necessarily go to jail for failing to take action and become a value-contributing citizen, especially if you're privileged (e.g. you're leeching off inherited wealth). On the other hand, if your environment is shit, the probability of it turning into a legal matter is much higher. However, this doesn't mean underprivileged people don't have liability.

He got debunked by his own comment section lulz

Why you trolling a perfectly good conversation?

Stop ?

The reason personal responsibility is mentioned less is because it's obvious grade school level stuff that nobody denies the importance of, meanwhile the entire right-wing ideology is about actively denying the importance of structural change, so of course that is where you'll see the pushback. If you were to actually educate yourself on the meaning of empowerment as a social intervention, you'll see that it has both systemic and individualistic aspects to it. It's also the case that structures provide a base for individuals to exercise their power in the first place. You can't build stable family dynamics on a pool of lava. You need to start on a firm ground. This is just a rehash of the bootstrap meme.

You're going way beyond that. You're making claims like "the individual is the MOST important factor." Leftists are not making such claims, and they're not denying the importance of personal responsibility either. Ask a community psychologist (they're all leftists btw) what is more important for the health of society: collective or individual action? He/she would answer that it's a malformed question. They're interdependent. Like Rillies said, this is exactly what the model describes. To paraphrase Fritjof Capra: "there are no things, only relationships."

Place a group of individuals in a pool of lava and you'll see how the equation truly works. I recommend getting familiar with the theory behind what we're talking about. Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecological systems theory is a good start: https://iteducationlearning.com/bronfenbrenner-theory/ Your analysis is biased towards the center.

I would assume you did that as a privileged person from a stable neighborhood/family. We'll have to fix the neighborhoods and wait and see. Again, start on-the-ground.

I'm going to assume that this is not a metatheoretical observation of human nature, but rather of "those people". I'm going to argue for the former: that when it comes down to the fundamentals of sensemaking, it doesn't help to point the finger. What you're reacting to is not the naive adherence to authority. It's rather the ramifications of collective responsibility. This can be demonstrated very simply: What do you mean by "studying the evidence with an independent mind"? You mean reading news outlets? Academic papers? Scientific theory? Are these not authorities? Are you the sole source of that information? From whom did you learn how to interpret that information? The truth is that no one is independent, neither epistemologically nor socially. That is the psychosis of radical individualism. One is always reliant on authority, and this doesn't suddenly change just because you watch one youtube channel over another. What you're really opposed to is recognizing your duty as a member of a society; to see how your individuality is intrinsically tied to the collective, how absolute freedom is not a given, how spreading disease is not a point of pride, and how threatening people's right to survive is not an exercise of individuality. If society is dying, you're dying. No society, no individuality. Is this me arguing against independent thinking as an ideal? Nope. I'm just saying that in practice, it's not something as straightforward as making a choice. If people could just "reclaim their minds" and instantly become objective, independent, sober dispellers of untruth, would we have any disagreements in the world? Polarization is a fact of life. The ability to worry about weighing petty issues like polarization over human life is a good showcase of the levels of social privilege that is granted by a stable collective.

Is this really what is happening? Where are the well-funded schools and stable neighborhoods that don't take advantage of them? You're getting lost in hypotheticals here. We're talking about on-the-ground issues.

@BadHippie If you've followed the threads closely like I have, you would know what I'm referring to. It's mainly a point about the format in which points are presented, not the ideology behind them.