By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
I never much liked Paula Deen’s cooking. Filled with butter and gravies and things like Krispy Creme Donuts for hamburger buns, Paula seemed too culinarily eccentric … to foodie excessive … too health oblivious even for a southern cook in 1813 much less 2013. Her story though, like her southern twang, had a certain charm to it: single mother of two left penniless makes ends meet by selling food-to-go out of her home kitchen and works her butt off until she reached the top of the sundae’s cherry with three shows on the Food Network and some spin off shows for her two sons.
That all ended Friday as a deposition of Ms. Deen was released. In that dep (in a case Lisa T. Jackson v. Paula Deen et al. involving a claim of racial and sexual discrimination by an employee of her restaurant, Uncle Bubba’s), Ms. Deen admitted to using the no-no of racial epithets in the past — the distant past, like 50 years ago. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of Paula’s deposition to see just what I mean:
Q
Okay. Have you ever used the N word yourself?
A
Yes, of course.
Q
Okay. In what context?
A
Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.
Q
Okay. And what did you say?
A
Well, I don’t remember, but the gun was dancing all around my temple.
Q
Okay.
A
I didn’t — I didn’t feel real favorable towards him.
Q
Okay. Well, did you use the N word to him as he pointed a gun in your head at your face?
A
Absolutely not.
Q
Well, then, when did you use it?
A
Probably in telling my husband.
Q
Okay. Have you used it since then?
A
I’m sure I have, but it’s been a very long time.
Q
Can you remember the context in which you have used the N word?
A
No.
Q
Has it occurred with sufficient frequency that you cannot recall all of the various context in which you’ve used it?
A
No, no.
Q
Well, then tell me the other context in which you’ve used the N word?
A
I don’t know, maybe in repeating something that was said to me.
Q
Like a joke?
A
No, probably a conversation between blacks. I don’t — I don’t know.
Q
Okay.
A
But that’s just not a word that we use as time has gone on. Things have changed since the ’60s in the south. And my children and my brother object to that word being used in any cruel or mean behavior.
Q
Okay
Realizing perhaps too late, the Deen Food Empire (books, utensils, cutlery, you name it) sprung into action. First a very public apology for sins past, then a new revised one on YouTube, the town square of our age, where Paula looking quite shaken literally begs for forgiveness. PC gods served? You tell me:
On cable TV shows up and down the msnbc roster, Deen was decried as racist, uncaring, and calls for her banishment from polite society became overwhelming. So much so that the Food Network pulled the shows and consigned Deen to places we reserve for the likes of George Wallace and Sheriff Bull Connor. But is that fair?
Deen grew up in place far away –temporally and culturally — from most of her critics and, as one who grew up in the same locales, I can tell you that her sin was a popular one in the South in the 60’s . Everybody who wasn’t white and rich had a name: wops, pollaks, heebs, rednecks, pope lovers, crackers, and yes those christened with the “N” word. And each group used the words liberally to each other and even among each other. I never saw a fight over the name calling but there were some close calls.
Surely it wasn’t a very hospitable place for African-Americans who bore the brunt of discrimination, but neither was it a hospitable place if you were poor, or Catholic, or ethnic, or anything other than wealthy, white and Protestant. That didn’t mean people weren’t civil to one another. By and large they were, but there was a palpable feeling of place and hierarchy that was enforced with a rigid caste system administered by state and local governments. That sat pretty well with the white elite who ran things back then.
But you should know those in power considered folks like Paula Deen no better that the “n*iggers” they brought in to do their cooking and cleaning and to raise their kids. Those “people” were there and free only by fiat of the government in Wershington and, by god, if that was the case they were going to be useful, or so it was thought.
The South changed and evolved in the ’60s and ’70s with the Civil Rights Movement as Dr. King’s words touched hearts both white and black and brightened them all. For those who wouldn’t listen, scenes of pregnant women blasted with water cannons and vicious police dogs attacking kids was surely enough. White people who drove pickups and worked in plants and farms started to realize that the folks who lived across the railroad tracks and who drove older pickup trucks and worked in plants and farms weren’t really much different from themselves and they had the same lack of control over their lives. The wedges of words that the ruling élite had no interest in curtailing melted away and it is clearly true that the advent of political correctness shown a glaring light on those southern dinosaurs who couldn’t or wouldn’t change.
Which brings us back to Paula Deen. Paula likely grew up in one of those same southern small towns like I did. She also likely made a distinction between “black people” (as they were called then ), who worked hard and raised their families as best they could under grinding poverty, and “n*ggers” who were seen as lazy, irresponsible, thuggish and no account. She likely came to learn that names reflect stereotypes and they can be and are often wrong; that people don’t fit nicely into boxes; and that, as Edmund Burke so wisely reminds us, you can’t draw up an indictment against a whole people.
Paula evolved and the South evolved. But the question remains for Paula and those like her: When is the sentence for violating political correctness over? When can you freely admit a mistake made decades ago without fear of reprisal? Not the criminal kind administered by the state, but the reprisal from the overlords of decorum who sit in ivory towers or corporate boardrooms and wax philosophic on all manner of society’s ills and largely for their own benefit ? When will a society committed to free expression allow itself to deal honestly with its past and say publicly a two-syllable word that most find offensive?
In my view, you don’t need a word that no one can utter. You don’t need to continually explain and apologize for sins made years ago in a culture far, far away if you’ve done it once and sincerely. And perhaps most importantly, you don’t need to feel society’s wrath for simply telling the truth about that society.
Paula Deen is no hero, but she is certainly no villain for growing up as she did and living as she did. When we master that fact perhaps we can overcome the racism that divides us even as we accept that our differences spring largely from things over which we have little control, and that we can come together in spite of ourselves if we forgive as freely and as often as we decry.
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
That being said, no trial on the merits is had so really no claim of proof or final judgement on the racial discrimination charge can be claimed either way.
leejcaroll,
Precisely spin control (aka propaganda). The dismissal is on technical grounds – lack of standing – not on the merits.
Deen;s people can spin it that it was dismissed because the claims weren’t true but one only has to read the decision (at least the parts I have seen here) to see it has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth or lie of the racism claims. She is the best ad for the truth of them from my perspective
Experts: Paula Deen is done despite legal win
The embattled celebrity chef wins one in her ongoing legal woes, but it might be too late, say PR executives.
Maria Puente, USA TODAY
August 12, 2013
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/08/12/paula-deen-legal-woes-diminish-but-career-damage-is-done/2645967/
Excerpt:
The damage has been done.
Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen’s legal woes — arguably the most inflammatory of the claims against her — diminished on Monday, but is it too late to resurrect her once-flourishing career and empire?
Deen herself issued an upbeat statement after a federal judge in Savannah, Ga., threw out claims of racial discrimination made against her in a lawsuit filed by a former employee, Lisa Jackson, who is white.
“We are pleased with the court’s ruling today that Lisa Jackson’s claims of race discrimination have been dismissed,” Elana Weiss said in a statement e-mailed to the Associated Press. “As Ms. Deen has stated before, she is confident that those who truly know how she lives her life know that she believes in equal opportunity, kindness and fairness for everyone.”
Maybe so, but in the rest of the public relations and career management worlds, heads are shaking and faces are grim.
“The irony is thicker than her gravy,” says Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com. “As I’ve said all along, you have to play in the court of law and you have to play in the court of public opinion. Like O.J. Simpson, who won in the court of law but lost in the court of public opinion — Paula ‘s in the same situation. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube now. It’s going to be really challenging for her to piece this together.”
Whatever route Deen and her camp decide to go now, what’s done is done. “Unfortunately, this doesn’t change a lot of things. She wasn’t accused of a crime and found innocent.”
David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, a public relations and branding agency based in Suwanee, Ga., says the legal development is too little, too late.
“The narrative has been set,” he says, with an unflattering chapter added less than a month ago, when The New York Times published a profile of Deen’s former cook and “soul sister,” now living in a trailer. The story only reinforced the idea that Deen is “not the sweet lady we thought she was.”
He says “it’s death by 1,000 cuts. You get one thing to go away but you still have others popping up it seems almost simultaneously.” One aspect of the lawsuit may be gone, “but where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.”
For one thing, Lisa Jackson’s lawsuit still stands, only now it’s focused only on claims of sexual harassment…
In his 20-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. agreed with lawyers for Deen and Hiers that Jackson has no standing to sue her former employers for what she claims was poor treatment of black workers, regardless of her claims that she was offended and placed under additional stress.
But the facts of the situation remain, notes Bragman. “It (the race-based claims) wasn’t dropped because it wasn’t true, it was dropped because of the race of the person in the claim.”
Her messy attempt at damage control made things worse, he says. “The handling of it was so bad, and that’s ultimately what took her down.”
UPDATE: Judge in Paula Deen suit throws out racial discrimination claims
This doesn’t mean Deen isn’t a racist, or that Jackson’s claims were untrue. I haven’t read an opinion, but it’s my understanding that the court didn’t think Jackson had standing to make the claim. I would agree that such a ruling is proper, given the allegations in the complaint.
There is an interesting article in the NYT regarding Deen and her treatment of some of the African American members of her professional family.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/us/paula-deens-soul-sister-portrays-an-unequal-bond.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
In the great pantheon of racist and racist behavior it is my opinion that Deen is small potatoes.
How can anyone today compare with the nightriders of decades ago. How can an insult today compare with burning someone’s home, or dynamiting a school room, or beating someone trying to vote, or disappearing someone trying to register African Americans to vote?
Deen would be hardly worth a mention except that there are so many who want to defend her and claim that her behavior is not racist and far from objectionable.
Deen is important precisely because so many defend her racist behavior. It is important to be clear about the meaning an content of her actions and her statements.
I have no idea who the real Deen is today. But she has a long history of racist behavior and racist remarks. It is that behavior and those remarks that we should call by their true name.
I am sure there are those who will disagree and make their views known here.
That is fine with me. Let the evidence lead where it may.
Thank you Elaine….. I think I like that term microaggressive…… It has a large impact…. With very subtle undertones that racism/hatred still exist …. In conjunction with Genes…. Latest propaganda nazi agenda piece…..
Paula Deen, Microaggressions, and Why the N-Word Isn’t Even the Major Issue
Posted: 07/08/2013
By Ernest Owens. Communication & Public Service scholar, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-owens/paula-deen-n-word_b_3558332.html
Excerpt:
I remember the first day I attended the University of Pennsylvania. Being then an 18-year old black male from an inner city public school from the South, this was my first time experiencing life on the East Coast. I was the only black guy in the lecture hall that day and it didn’t bother me; I had already gotten use to hearing about the low percentages of blacks in Ivy League institutions. In other words, I knew what I was signing up for.
I sat in the middle of the lecture between two white peers and we started to become acquainted. The initial discussions became more about our academic interests and where we came from. And then, I began to get the more “interesting questions”:
What was your SAT score?
What was your class rank?
I don’t mean to be rude, but if you don’t mind sharing your opinion… how much do you think affirmative action plays into college admissions here at Penn?
What became a small discussion that I initially thought would be a friendly introduction to new friends actually became a subtle way of trying to question my merit and acceptance into college. The other white and Asian peers in that lecture room did not get such a badgering of questions because I guess it was implied that they already belonged there.
Say whatever you like, but I received that interrogation because I was a black male in a college where people love to use affirmative action as a scapegoat for the actual hard work I did to make it in.
That experience ladies and gentleman is an example of a microaggression. That is what Paula Deen did to her employees and that is what many of us try to ignore within ourselves as being racially charged.
I have gotten annoyed with seeing much of the discussion of Ms. Deen’s demise focus primarily on her admission of the N-Word during her deposition. Under the context in which she admitted using it was in the past and under debatable circumstances, I’m not fixated on that much. Let’s face it, we all know that either we have used it or knew someone that did use it (whether meant to be offensive or not)… and within that context, none of us should really point the finger.
However, given the context of the other racially insensitive things said by Ms. Deen, that is where the real focus should actually be on. Paula Deen admitted to wanting to put on a wedding that would feature black male servers dressed as groomed plantation slaves that complimented the Confederate days of the South. Perhaps her thoughts were not intentionally showing a direct hatred for blacks as many people are trying hard to make it appear as such, but it was still disrespectful and needed to be addressed.
The conversation should not be fixated under the debate of whether or not Ms. Deen is a racist, but more in terms of the use of microagressions in this country. Microaggressions are demeaning or subtle insults against minorities that can be verbal, behavioral, or environmental but either intentional or unintentional. In my opinion, Paula Deen is guilty of being microaggressive, not a flat out racist.
The two white boys at my college that were interrogating me were being microaggressive. So was the Asian woman who automatically clutched her purse when she saw my friends and me crossing the street in broad daylight. So was singer Miley Cyrus when interpreting what “feels black” as an opportunity for her to wear gold chains and “twerk.” And that school in Ohio who recently attempted to ban “afro-puffs and small twisted braids” was definitely being microaggressive.
Paula Deen deserves the flack she is receiving for being a businesswoman that was irresponsible for representing the brand of other major companies and failing to conduct herself in the upmost appropriate manner. At the end of the day, she was unprofessional and proved herself to be a liability for the respect of the many brands and industries she was paid to attract, not distract, people in consuming. Her own failure to check her microaggression at the door with employees who recognize such behavior in their lives everyday is what cost her reputation… not just simply admitting to using the N-word.
One of the major problems with our society is very apparent: we love to portray an issue as being black or white while also defining behavior as being such also. The media and many commentators on both sides of the issue have tried to make the N-word be the focal point because of their own blindness of discussing their own microagressions. What people has considered racist is the usage of the N-word and other such bold slurs because they know that such insults are very visible indicators. But with the attempted culture reshaping of such slurs in society, many people begin to ignore the other forms of racism that can be taking place when we don’t even recognize it.
For those who want to make the argument that “black people use the N-word too so Ms. Deen shouldn’t be fired”… please read the rest of that deposition and then learn to stop creating petty scapegoats for unacceptable behavior. I personally don’t prefer the usage of the N-word by anyone and despite hip-hop’s admission of it (along with other homophobic, misogynist, and taboo references) that will never be my excuse to find it relevant in my vernacular.
Bron: I doubt Helen Keller disagrees with me; she was born with severe sensory deficits. If her mythology reflects reality, eventually she was able to mentally establish the equivalence of the felt sign language for “water” with the sensation of water. So I am glad you brought her up: How was Helen Keller ever taught the concept of “equivalence”?
She was not, it was inherent in her, because the sensing of it is an evolved trait that existed in her ancestors, all the way to pre-humans, and is observed in many of our cousin species, both close and distant (which may be a result of parallel evolution).
Why would Helen Keller disagree with me? My position is that anybody in Helen Keller’s state deserves to be cared for and educated to the greatest of their potential. Obviously Helen had far more potential than was apparent before she learned to communicate; do you think she would selfishly deny others with disabilities the resources to reach their potential?
You are wrong; Helen Keller was a radical socialist, a suffragist, an advocate for people with disabilities, and helped to found the ACLU in 1920.
As usual, you attempt to answer with snark, apparently without reading, a lazy thinker and lazy debater.
tony c:
well Helen Keller disagres with you.
Bron: For humans all things are learned,
We disagree. What you teach a child is to be called “fair” does not change their sense of what is equal, which is what I am talking about. The child will still know he has two pieces and the other has none and that is different, which is the opposite of equal. As is a “bigger” house, a boat when he has none, money when he has none, etc.
What you teach a child as the name of the condition is indeed learned, but that is just language. Humans and animals have an inherent sense of whether two things are the same; and the more intelligent they are, the better they can detect this “equivalence” between objects, states, relationships, etc. Analogies are used by humans almost exclusively in their daily reasoning; the rules of thumb that “X is like Y” in some respect so what works on Y should (or might) work on X. Such rules of thumb rely on detecting equivalence.
The brain is hard-wired to do this, even at the neural level: Neurons learn, by electrochemical habituation, to respond in one way to certain inputs (recognition of equivalence, which can be graded in shades of “almost”) and to not respond to others (recognition of non-equivalence).
Both animal and human neurons do this; your childish insistence that humans are fundamentally different than animals in their thinking is just mysticism you use to insulate you from feeling bad about your treatment of them or make yourself feel special. Stamp your feet all you want, animals feel emotions, think, are conscious, self-aware and feel love, friendship, anger, joy and happiness.
Bron: Fairness doesn’t exist in nature, it is a human construct/concept.
Even ignoring your loaded Aynish redefinition of words, Fairness is indeed a concept, albeit not limited to humans, because it describes a state of affairs in nature. “Theft” doesn’t exist in nature, it is a concept too, but Corvids guard against it in the wild because they steal from each other. “Trespass” and “private property” do not exist in nature, but big cats mark their territory and kill or drive off competitors, and even recognize the signposts and avoid confrontation by skirting marked territory.
Cats and Corvids don’t have language, but they do understand the rudiments of ideas, which are generalizations of things happening in nature.
Equivalence and non-Equivalence appear in nature and get recognized by neural structures. Neural structures feed other neural structures, and this builds up abstractions.
Because we can detect if abstract conditions X and Y are equivalent; we can detect that if I am X and you are Y, then person Z treats us differently. That IS something that happens in nature, and both animals and humans can recognize that disparity, feel deprived for no good reason, and sense “unfairness.” In-equity of treatment by person Z.
Bron says: Life just isnt fair.
True, but there is a fundamental difference between life, or nature, being unfair, and another person being unfair. We can understand (sometimes with grief) that nature can kill or maim, but there is no intent. (In fact, as an aside, I think one of the most pernicious effects of religion is the incorrect attribution of such harm to an intelligence, which leads to confusion, blame, self-doubt, guilt, anger and rage at such unfair treatment.)
Bron says: Fair has nothing to do with right and wrong.
Of course it does. In one famous work of fiction, Cain murders Abel out of jealousy, because Cain is jealous that Abel’s offering to their common master is praised, and his offering is not. In other words, Cain detects inequity, he thinks their work in preparing their offerings was equivalent, but the praise is not equivalent. Heck, he sacrificed first-born lambs, and Abel gave up fruit and vegetables!
So Cain, in his fury at this inequity, determines to murder Abel. Do you think that is fair? Does Abel deserve that level of punishment, or any punishment at all? Is Cain wrong to murder Abel? Is Cain wrong to blame Abel? Isn’t it misdirected anger at their untouchable master?
Fair has everything to do with determining right and wrong, fair punishment (justice, meaning justified, meaning fair), fair reward (aka “just” reward, meaning justified, meaning fair).
Murdering somebody for personal gain is wrong because it is unfair, stealing property is unfair, dictatorships are unfair (all in the sense of inequity, meaning non-equivalent treatment).
Bron says: Is it fair that some people are born attractive, with superior bodies and intelligence? Is it fair that some people die at 20 and others live until 95?
No. Again, those are natural phenomena; nobody gets to choose their genetic makeup (although soon you might be able to blame your parents for making conscious choices in your genetic makeup that you grow up to resent or dislike).
And it is not a fair outcome of nature, but you seem to have missed my point that while nature is unfair, humans can detect that unfairness and do something to alleviate it.
Bron says: How can there ever be a consensus on what is fair? There are as many opinions as to what is fair as there are humans in the world.
Not in the general sense. Wouldn’t you agree there is a super-majority of people in the modern world that believe murder is wrong, raping six year olds is wrong, and slavery is wrong?
But in the particular sense, you are more or less right, there are differences, and that is precisely what informs my own sense of the limitations on government. If there is no super-majority consensus on what is fair, the government should stay out of it, and let the “marketplace” of ideas and free speech deal with any differences. Or let the courts deal with it in suit on an individual basis with a jury considering all the particular details, until such time as the “problem” is learned to a degree that a super-majority consensus can emerge; if one ever does.
I stress super-majority consensus for the purpose of stability in law; I think people are fickle and their attitudes and understanding changes over time, and one protection against a 51/49 vote today becoming a 49/51 vote tomorrow is a super-majority consensus, like 55/45, which protects against a few percent drift in opinion one way or another. (And repeal of a law should not be the same percentage; I think that should be pure majority rule, 50% +1 vote, which would help limit the size of government to just addressing what most of us see as persistent inequities).
Bron says: [in order to make things fair] Do we throw acid on the faces of attractive people or do we give smart people a pill which makes them only as intelligent as the average person?
How would that be fair, if the person did nothing unfair to become attractive or intelligent? Even if they partially worked for it (study, dieting, working out, training) that is not work others could not have done.
I repeat, you missed the point. We agree that life and nature are unfair; some are gifted with talent or beauty, some just get lucky due to circumstances they had nothing to do with (like being born into a wealthy family), while others are unlucky, untalented, of mediocre intelligence and attractiveness and struggle through life trying to make their way.
Where we disagree is in thinking that whatever is “natural” is right or how it should be. What is “natural” would likely have both of us (and most posters on this blog) dead by now, back when life expectancy was 30 or so.
But we humans can address many of the inequities of life, the unintentional unfairness of life and nature and especially the intentional unfairness of people.
Nature, in its unintentional unfairness, leaves some people with advantages and some with disadvantages. I think it is inevitable that success is going to exist on a spectrum, for stellar to dismal.
To me what is “unfair” is the unlevel playing field. To me what is ideal is NOT an equality of outcome (which I think is impossible) but something more achievable, which is the opportunity to maximize the potential life success of each person. For some that requires more resources than others, but the “equivalence” I seek is the equivalence of each person being as successful and productive as they are able, in the direction of their choice. What I want to prevent is the waste of lives that could have been happy and productive, screwed up forever by nature’s inequities that went unaddressed (malnutrition, untreated disease, miseducation), or screwed up by intentional inequity (prejudice, bigotry, racism, sexism).
We humans are engineers, we force the “natural” world to work to our unnatural bidding all the time. We divert rivers, create dams and lakes (reservoirs) where there were none, we flatten hills and mountains for our own convenience and create rivers (aqueducts and canals) where they could not naturally exist. We make vehicles that travel faster than any natural animal that ever lived. We kill diseases no natural immune system could survive.
We bend nature to our will. Just because inequity exists naturally doesn’t mean we have to tolerate it, or tolerate it in people that have a choice in whether to treat others inequitably. It is up to us to decide what is fair; for me what I think is fair is a level playing field regardless of born circumstance (including wealth), and equivalent opportunity to go as far as each person’s particular talents will take them.
When we say people are equal before the law, we mean they will not be judged by anything but their actions and choices that were under their control, and they will not be favored or discriminated against for unrelated characteristics or actions or things beyond their control.
I think fairness in life is similar; that what is fair is relying upon the person, not the circumstances beyond their control. If we just let nature with all of its inequities take its course, we allow lives to be wasted and potential to go unrealized NOT because the person was unwilling or could not develop a skill or talent, but because they were just the victim of negative circumstance, while others were the beneficiaries of positive circumstance. That is something we can correct by bending nature to our will, by helping to level the playing field and reduce the contribution of negative circumstance to success or failure. Let positive circumstance alone; there is no need to throw out good fortune as we address bad fortune, just as we do not have to lose the benefits of a river to prevent it from flooding.
TONY C:
I dont think fairness is something like a sensation in humans, although it may be so in animals at the level of a chimpanzee.
For humans all things are learned, we start off not knowing how to do anything. In my opinion fairness is learned it isnt a sensation.
I can teach a child that him having 2 pieces of cake and his friend having none is fair or not fair. I look at a successful individual and think it ok for her to have a big house, a boat, a house at the beach and money in the bank and especially so if she earned it. Someone else looks at her and sees unfairness.
Fairness doesnt exist in nature, it is a human construct/concept. Life just isnt fair. Fair has nothing to do with right and wrong. Is it fair that some people are born attractive, with superior bodies and intelligence? Is it fair that some people die at 20 and others live until 95? How can there ever be a consesus on what is fair? There are as many opinions as to what is fair as there are humans in the world.
If you have to make things fair [I am not talking equality before the law] doesnt that mean that there is an unequal distribution of good things such as looks or intelligence? Those things are determined by nature which is neither good nor bad, it just is.
Do we throw acid on the faces of attractive people or do we give smart people a pill which makes them only as intelligent as the average person? Or do we give everyone plastic surgery and a pill to make them all very smart? Would it be fair then? Probably not because no 2 people have the same desires or wants.
So what is fairness?
Bob, Esq.:
That was not the implication I intended. I personally don’t have enough wealth to redistribute and don’t begrudge those who have it and keep it.
By “reflecting the values of egalitarian society” I meant personally treating people the same, especially with regards to race. Something Deen seems to have a problem with.
Nal: “Many in a position of privilege, like Deen, because of their enhanced visibility, are under greater scrutiny and any lapse from their obligation is magnified. If those under greater scrutiny want to maintain their position, greater care must be exercised.”
That is a cogent argument; and I agree.
Me: “Is it immoral for a person to exercise their free will to do something else with their wealth than promote Nal’s particular political agenda?”
Nal: I don’t remember ever claiming that it was moral/immoral to spend wealth promoting objective morality. Perhaps you could refresh my memory. If not, what’s your point?”
We seem to have gotten our signals crossed. If you recall, we were discussing Deen setting up charities for black youth which you claimed could be a cover for her racist life. You then made a comment about Deen having an extra responsibility of reflecting the values of egalitarian society.
The implication I picked up was she had, by virtue of her “privileged position” an extra obligation to redistribute that wealth in an egalitarian manner ala socialism/communism.
Thus my comments about socialism/communism and my question about Deen setting up a charity for dogs.
Bron: I think “fair” or “equal” or “sameness” is an inherent sense provided to us by evolution, we see animals less intelligent than us that sense them. As the saying goes, even a dog knows the difference between being intentionally kicked and unintentionally tripped over. The basic concept of “fair” is what gives rise to a sense of “right” and “wrong,” the sense of “equal” or “different,” in many ways this sense of two abstracts being the same or different is the fundamental building block of our reasoning process.
Chimps, gorillas, Bonobos and dolphins and elephants have all demonstrated spontaneous demonstrations of this sense in the wild, untrained by humans. For example, in chimpanzee society, grooming is a way of providing comfort to tribe mates that have been hurt, both emotionally (such as a mother suffering the death of an infant) and physically. So there are two situations observed in chimpanzee society that involve a male getting his ass kicked: In one, the alpha male just decides to pick on another male and beats him for no apparent reason; in the other, a non-alpha male makes a bid for leadership and picks a fight with the alpha male, and gets his ass kicked.
Other tribe mates respond differently to these two situations; if the male got his ass kicked for no good reason, several chimps will show sympathy and groom him. If he picked the fight and got his ass kicked, then often no chimps will groom him, or only one. No punishment is meted out to groomers by the alpha male in either situation; but the chimps demonstrate a sense of fairness: If you pick a fight and lose, no sympathy. If you were minding your own business and get beat up, that is unfair, and we will communicate our sympathies.
I am willing to deal in plausible hypotheticals, but I don’t see the ones you offer as plausible.
I do NOT think that “fair” is what the majority says it is. I believe what is “fair” is a recognizable feature of relationships between reasonably intelligent animals that have expectations (meaning they spontaneously construct mental models of how relationships “should” go, even if not projected very far into the future), and we (and others) have evolved to detect “fair” in varying degrees, to a massive degree in our case, as far as we can tell several orders of magnitude beyond what any other animal detects.
So no, I do not think “fair” is up to a vote; I think we have evolved brain mechanisms (physical neural circuitry) that senses what is fair treatment and what is not, much like sensing heat or pressure. But people with a lot to lose (or gain) often just don’t care if what they are doing is fair; selfish gain at another’s expense is also a part of human nature, as are the emotions of anger, hatred, sadism and other harmful states of mind.
My hope is that the majority consensus will eventually settle on rules that reflect what we inherently sense is fair, even the criminals: Other than the clinical sociopaths, psychopaths and insane, criminals know right from wrong, but do wrong anyway.
Pragmatically speaking we have to abide by what rules the majority does consider fair, since that produces the maximum perceived fairness. That doesn’t mean I can’t work within those rules to change their perceptions.
tony c:
so what is fair and egalitarian treatment? What the majority says it is? What if 51% dont believe in mutual responsibility? How will you defend your views? What if 51% say that it is OK to use their strength to oppress others, how will you defend the oppressed?
mespo:
no, morality needs an objective, rational basis.
Then there is no such thing as morality, it is just a whim of the moment based on the feelings of the majority.
Do you really believe morality is what ever society says it is?
So basically what you are saying is if I can talk 51% of the people into the idea that killing all children 8-10 years old born on March 22nd and April 5th is a good thing for society then that is moral.
The good can never be defined by the majority unless it is in alignment with what is good for an individual. Who I might add constitute the majority.
” morality needs an objective, rational basis.”
The good is what increases the likelihood of the propagation of the DNA of the species?
Bron: You do not need a philosophy of life to live, to know what is fair and what is not. I am an atheist, tip to toe, and I do not believe we are here for any higher reason. Chimpanzees and gorillas understand fairness (and get angry when treated unfairly), without having to consult Aristotle or any philosophical thinker.
That said, I believe life is worth living, I believe in fair and egalitarian treatment of others, I believe in mutual responsibility to each other, I believe in the value of punishment for those that use their strength (physical or financial or political) to oppress, coerce, harm or exploit others.
I believe there is inherent value in reducing human misery, whether that was caused by unfair humans or uncaring nature.
Bron:
“I disagree 100%, morality should have as its purpose the promotion of individual human life and not in some other realm but on earth.”
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The “good” can be defined anyway you like by the consensus. That’s really the point.
Bob, Esq.:
As I previously argued, racism is objectively immoral, therefore, egalitarianism (people should get the same, or be treated the same) is an objective moral value. As I previously pointed out, morality obligates certain behavior. All people, therefore, are obligated by that morality. All people, including those in a position of privilege, are responsible for their behavior being moral. Many in a position of privilege, like Deen, because of their enhanced visibility, are under greater scrutiny and any lapse from their obligation is magnified. If those under greater scrutiny want to maintain their position, greater care must be exercised.
I have previously argued that racism is objectively immoral.
I don’t remember ever claiming that it was moral/immoral to spend wealth promoting objective morality. Perhaps you could refresh my memory. If not, what’s your point?