Moderates don't Exist.

[Yukaphile]

Is it, though? Or would you agree that, on paper, a female Doctor Who and James Bond would work, if told properly? I think proper execution is key. And they had wanted a female Doctor Who since back in the early 1980s. It still took decades to get it. Just like it will probably take us still more decades to get our first female President. Now a token female Vice-President in a secondary support position, that we can totally do!

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

@clearspira & @Yukaphile ah yes, the moral relativist argument. Made even sweeter when it's used in defense of moral values the people making the argument would otherwise be against.

Well you were doing that in the Enterprise thread.

[Yukaphile]

@AlucardNoir I don't get what it is you are saying? It's cultural relativism I am speaking against, and culture changes with time, and depending on the laws and economic struggles of the period, and other factors. There are still some universal human morals, I feel, but everyone disagrees, so it's really hard to pin down where they are past "everyone should think like me!" given our own innate biases.

I think clearspira is absolutely right to call the Aztec sacrifice volunteers victims. These people had been so bullshitted by the system, they think a gruesome death will save the world and earn them paradise. And it's hurting nobody but THEM. Exploited by corrupt priests. Victim-blaming is still a very powerful human impulse, and I HATE that...

[Yukaphile]

Cultural relativism and presentism, abused by those in the present with the benefit of hindsight and new knowledge learned along the way, still look back and sneer at those who are victims, assign incorrect motives to them, and it's just appalling. There needs to be a few ways we approach the study of history that has NOTHING to do with politics.

[AlucardNoir]

Its the fact that you are going fuck this and fuck that as opposed to trying to understand why they did what they did. It makes you look like an ignorant and judgemental prick. Life is not as simple as "They were bad people". And guess what? In a thousand years people will be saying the same about you.

For thousands of years the only laws we had were unwritten traditions passed from one generations to the other and enshrined not in legal texts but in religious doctrine. You know what was also enshrines in religion? superstitions and the whims of the "prophets" of the time. I understand why they thought they were right. But understand why someone did something does not in fact pardon that someone. Understanding why a thief steals a loaf of bread does not in fact make the theft any less of a theft.

Moral relativists are divided into three camps:
1. Moral relatives - people that based on observation understand that different groups or individuals might hold contradictory moral values.
2. Meta-ethical - people that think that in the above situation nobody can be considered to be objectively right or wrong, and
3. Normative moral relativism - people that go even further then the second group and think that because nobody can be objectively right or wrong we should tolerate all acts indifferent of our own moral views on the matter.

I understand all three of these positions, I just reject the latter two. There is one thing to understand why the Aztec practiced human sacrifice and to disagree with their position and condemn them for their actions. There is something entirely different to claim there is no objective right or wrong in this matter, let alone to be ok with the practice just because they thought it was morally right.

Don't get the wrong idea, the Aztec were by any definition a civilization. I'm not dismissing them out of hand as barbarian - as a culture foreign to my own. I an nonetheless passing moral judgment on their acts in regards to human sacrifice. I refuse to accept any and all excuses on account of their culture and religion.

IF something is moral it is by definition good, just and right, and if something is immoral it is by definition bad, injust and wrong. To acknowledge that other people think differently is one think, to reject the association of right with moral and wrong with immoral because other people might disagree with me is to claim what is moral is immoral and vice versa. To outright tolerate a diametrically opposite moral view points is to admit I have not the conviction of my own values. Those things combined are nothing less then nihilism. The rejection of the rightness of a moral value because of the lack of it's universality is the rejection of that moral value and the embrace of nihilism.

I am not a nihilists clearspira. I do not care what those I condemn thought of their own actions. Your own argument could very well be used in defense or Armin Meiwes who killed and eat a willing victime.

For me, to take your position and excuse the human sacrifice Aztecs did because of their religion and because of how some of the sacrificed felt would be to just reject my morals and become a nihilists.

I am not a nihilist, I am not a moral relativist and I am not a cultural relativist. For to embrace any one of those positions is to reject my morals, values and culture as well as morality and culture as a whole.

I'm not a moral busybody. I'm not an SJW or a practitioner of cancel culture but I do have moral values, as hard as it might be to believe. I do not condemn the past unilaterally as universally immoral (as some SJW are known to do) and I do not praise is unilaterally as some glorious thing that never was (as some on the far right and alt right are known to do). But I also am not shy about calling a spade a spade. If I find an action of the past as reprehensible I will call it as such and the morals of the time can go to whatever hell the people of the time believed in.

As for my use of the word fuck, well:

Fuck moral relativism, fuck cultural relativism and fuck nihilism. And if any of those things apply to you, fuck you too.

[AlucardNoir]

@AlucardNoir I don't get what it is you are saying? It's cultural relativism I am speaking against, and culture changes with time, and depending on the laws and economic struggles of the period, and other factors. There are still some universal human morals, I feel, but everyone disagrees, so it's really hard to pin down where they are past "everyone should think like me!" given our own innate biases.

I think clearspira is absolutely right to call the Aztec sacrifice volunteers victims. These people had been so bullshitted by the system, they think a gruesome death will save the world and earn them paradise. And it's hurting nobody but THEM. Exploited by corrupt priests. Victim-blaming is still a very powerful human impulse, and I HATE that...

My apologies, since the reply was aimed at clearspira I thought you were taking his side and being sarcastic, irreverent and otherwise snarky.

[Yukaphile]

Actually, no. I can see where he's coming from. I do consider the Aztec volunteers victims, as I do, for example, any willing civilian supporters of a Fascist police state (so long as they don't have a position of authority and are not directly involved in the atrocities). I think the defending of them is important, because as Chuck notes, TRUE tolerance is about arguing on the behalf of the people you disagree with, not those you agree with, those who are doing stupid things, and are doing it for what you think are stupid reasons. How many others would take that same view? I find it's very rare with all our puffed-up judgmental condescension, especially when looking back to the past, when times were hard, things were less clear-cut, and that distinction HAS to be made. Without it, you just get misplaced blame. But that seems to be a defining characteristic of our species...

[AlucardNoir]

@clearspira & @Yukaphile ah yes, the moral relativist argument. Made even sweeter when it's used in defense of moral values the people making the argument would otherwise be against.

Well you were doing that in the Enterprise thread.

In the Enterprise Bound review thread? I just went and reread all my argument and all I can say is go read a fucking book, you have no idea what moral relativism is. I didn't hark on that in that thread because it was irelevant to the topic, but really, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism and read that page. And if after reading that you still think your accusation of moral relativism from that thread still stands, congrats, you have no critical thinking skills.

Actually, no. I can see where he's coming from. I do consider the Aztec volunteers victims, as I do, for example, any willing civilian supporters of a Fascist police state (so long as they don't have a position of authority and are not directly involved in the atrocities). I think the defending of them is important, because as Chuck notes, TRUE tolerance is about arguing on the behalf of the people you disagree with, not those you agree with, those who are doing stupid things, and are doing it for what you think are stupid reasons. How many others would take that same view? I find it's very rare with all our puffed-up judgmental condescension, especially when looking back to the past, when times were hard, things were less clear-cut, and that distinction HAS to be made. Without it, you just get misplaced blame. But that seems to be a defining characteristic of our species...

I condemned the Aztec empire and said it was one of only two forms of government that were worse(for their people) then the NAZI's. He defended the Aztec by the use of cultural and moral relativism. I never condemned the people that died, I commended the state that killed them. He defended that stat by saying some of the victims were willing. And when he brought up the willingness of some of those victims I condemned the killing all the same and I condemned their beliefs and the Aztec religion. I really don't think you see where he's coming from.

[Yukaphile]

I don't see how. The very same arguments people use to victim-blame the German populations based on collective guilt and racial prejudices in the present we like to pretend we have "evolved" past can be used exactly to blame the Aztecs. They believed in the government, in what their culture had perpetuated and fed them since the cradle, metaphorically speaking, and when the powers that be keep repeating that over and over again, it gets very hard to see reality after a while, and you begin to believe the constant repetition, it sinks into your mind and becomes all that you are.

[AlucardNoir]

I don't see how. The very same arguments people use to victim-blame the German populations based on collective guilt and racial prejudices in the present we like to pretend we have "evolved" past can be used exactly to blame the Aztecs. They believed in the government, in what their culture had perpetuated and fed them since the cradle, metaphorically speaking, and when the powers that be keep repeating that over and over again, it gets very hard to see reality after a while, and you begin to believe the constant repetition, it sinks into your mind and becomes all that you are.

Can be used and was used in this thread are not the same thing Yukaphile.