Getting From B to C Really Is a Problem

9/10/2021

Yesterday morning I happened to catch a snippet of conversation between two radio show hosts criticizing a local teacher who had stirred up a bit of controversy by seating pecked and unpecked students separately in his class. The teacher also allegedly awarded the pecked extra merit points simply for being pecked.

There are very few birdemic measures in Hungary at the moment, and the radio show hosts took turns expressing their alarm and revulsion over the teacher's "dictatorial and discriminatory" actions.

As I listened, I thought, "Hey, these guys have actually managed to think their way from point A to point B."

Then one of the radio hosts said, "Of course, it would be a different story if the government officially introduced a measure that mandated separating unpecked students from the pecked students, but it hasn't, which means the teacher has clearly stepped out of bounds."

"Quite right," the other chimed in. "If such a restriction were in place, then there would be nothing to talk about. Nevertheless, as of now, the teacher's actions are blatantly authoritarian.

I turned off the radio. "They managed to get from A to B," I thought, "but C is clearly beyond them."

6 Comments

bruce charlton

9/10/2021 07:25:08

To these folk; the government now determines what is *good* by diktat - the source of morality has been transferred from God to The System.

'Higher; morality means (merely) diktat from higher in the system (e.g. the EU or United Nations is a source of higher morality than national governments).

The teachers sin was to usurp the absolute authority of The System to determine what and *when* a thing is 'good'. Even when it is just a matter of timing; virtue entails waiting until the moment when The System tells you to enforce segregation - and it is an arrogant act of rebellion to pre-empt legislation.

Francis Berger

9/10/2021 08:31:46

@ Bruce - Yes, well put. The teacher really should have demonstrated more "humility."

I thought this little exchange revealed much about the current nature of morality and authority.

9/10/2021 07:49:39

They're setting the narative for the govt to do it. Just as in the US all the lobertarians "if the govt imposed a vaxx mandate it would be tyranny, but if a private company" (public actually, stock market traded, why does a public company suddenly become private to lolbertarians for this argument?) "did it, it would be ok." And then companies did just that. These guys were bought off by the corps to prepare this agenda that was already planned.

9/10/2021 08:29:05

@ Jb - Yes, distinctions between government, corporations, institutions, and organizations are irrelevant. We are dealing with the System - an intricately-linked global bureaucracy. What we are seeing now is the implementation of "public-private partnerships", which is just another way of saying totalitarianism.

Ingemar

9/10/2021 18:18:27

This illustrates the essence of "saying the quiet part out loud."

Modern governance relies on the epistemic assumption that morality is created by dictate. The opposite of that states that dictates at best clarify what true morality is but does not itself create morality.

What about God? This is a classical Catholic take but the reason why God is able to dictate morality is that Being subsists in Him. The reason why classical Christianity is so insistent upon the unchanging nature of God is because if He changes then there is no basis for what was true yesterday being true today and forever.

I think most people have an innate sense that Truth, Reality and Morality don't change, but in varying degrees, a bit of unTruth, unReality and imMorality suits them.

Mike Bryant

9/11/2021 08:12:16

Nietzsche warned that once the search for truth through science and philosophy failed you'd end up with nihilism where there is no true world or truth is whatever you say it is.

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Getting From B to C Really Is a Problem

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