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I have a statue of the Archangel Michael with DMK 2002 on it. It fell over and broke and when I picked it up inside was the head of a cherub inside looking right at me. maybe a flaw but to this day it gives me chills. really curious, Zuech1 ( talk) 06:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia's recent news item on human rights in North Korea is uniquely appalling. I should say that I have, at times, questioned whether such reports could be accurate, doubting that a society can be entirely hellish toward all of its inhabitants at once, and to the extent I might believe it, it causes me to doubt, for example, ideas for spreading life to other planets, on the basis that we may be of such monstrous essence that it would be better for all life to perish, without so much as a microbial Noah to survive the steam-cleaning, than to risk writing and rewriting such scenarios across the infinite heavens. But what I'd like to ask in particular is whether there is any theory of morality that has addressed, either to assert or repudiate, that in such societies morality can become utterly irrelevant because they are already in need of destruction.
For example, imagine the Bombing of Dresden in World War II is imminent. Supposing it is justified to prevent Nazis from oppressing all Europe, could we say it would be wrong for a psychogenic arsonist to burn down individual buildings in the city for his personal amusement? Would it be wrong to steal a car that the world wants to see bombed anyway? Would it be wrong for a man to beat the wife who we're about to try to drop a blockbuster bomb on? Is anything wrong in such a situation -- even to the extent of collaborating with the regime's mindless ravings in the hope of being someone akin Lenin's "wreckers" and helping the society to lose all connection with reality and destroy itself?
Now I do intend this to be a question, not an argument; I recognize that there were those among the early Christians who developed a profound morality in opposing a regime little better than the worst of our own era (and only due to the blessings of technological backwardness). I'm just wondering if there is an overall analysis of the concept. Wnt ( talk) 09:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Not only do they consider that they are moral, it may well be that the regime has considerable support and that they consider themselves morally superior, as this article claims: https://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/02/19/northkorea/ . I have read other articles that claim the similar things. See Moral relativism. DanielDemaret ( talk) 16:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], I am curious to whether you think Moral relativism relates to what you would consider and "overall analysis of the concept." or whether I have misunderstood the question. DanielDemaret ( talk) 16:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], in the long run we're all dead, our planet is dead, the universe is dead. The question of why and how to live in the meantime is the heart of existentialism. It's easy to act morally when social pressure supports moral action and you expect a payoff to moral behavior (or a penalty for randomly burning down buildings). On the other hand, it's exactly when moral (or ethical) actions carry a heavy cost and the results are uncertain that moral decisions are thrown into the sharpest relief. They are stripped bare of habit, self-interest, and social expectation. I would say that morality exists in North Korea or it doesn't exist anywhere at all. Since you were wondering about analyses of this concept, I think you're basically looking for existentialist ideas of ethics and morality. Of course there are a lot of divergent views under that heading. -- Amble ( talk) 19:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
If there were no morals at all in North Korea, would they still be able bring up children in their 11-year compulsory school? There has to be love in there somewhere for this to work, doesn't there? DanielDemaret ( talk) 23:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], I have just read human rights in North Korea . It brings to mind how people were treated in several western european countries up to few hundred years ago. In fact, I think I could make a case that human rights were violated even worse in England, France and Sweden three hundred years ago. There seemed to be a race as to who could invent the most cruel methods of execution. Hanged, drawn and quartered was just one out of a hundred. The way poor people starved all over Europe was appalling. Foreign aid, food, came from Italy to starving Sweden, for example, asking nothing in return. There were a number of problems. First of all, the Italians would be burned for being Catholic, as was the law in Sweden. Secondly, even when they finally agreed to unload the food, Swedish poor people were not allowed to touch it, because of their way of interpreting Lutheran ethics at the time. They had to invent hard nonsense labor for the poor to do since the idea was that only people who worked were allowed to eat. Trials were a sham by the standards of any modern country. North Korea may have no worse morals than 18th century Western Europe had, and we still attribute morals to Western Europe . There was a reason that France had a revolution and that millions of Swedes, those who could afford the ticket, fled to the USA even in the 20th Century. There is one big difference. For those who could afford to travel and were not indentured, borders between countries did not restrict people from travelling. This would have made it obvious to people in France at the end of the 18th century that they were ill treated compared to Switzerland, for example. It is the isolation of people and their ideas that makes North Korean violations possible today. The relatively modern idea that states may restrict movement across borders. DanielDemaret ( talk) 06:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone shed any light on why nappies should come in packs of 74? Or why dishwasher tablets should come in packs of 51? It must relate to projected usage but I wonder why the quantities wouldn't be rounded up for easier accounting... The Rambling Man ( talk) 18:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
I've been reading about the issues of racial discrimination in the United States, mostly between the Civil War and the 1960s. I'm curious that while there were campaigns by individual African Americans and bodies such as the NAACP, there is almost no mention of liberal white attitudes of the time. For example, while the Kate Brown (plaintiff in racial discrimination case) article doesn't mention the intervention of a white man, when I read up on the case itself she was indeed helped by a Mr Hinds ( see here). Was the intervention of Mr Hinds, a white person coming to the assistance of an African American, a very unusual thing? Did no white person make any attempt to intervene, for example in the beating of Isaac Woodard, or when Rosa Parks was arrested, or in countless other cases? Why was it up to the (federal) courts to force the repeal of Jim Crow laws, rather then white public opinion? Astronaut ( talk) 20:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
While it is interesting that the south switched from Democrat to Republican (although the exact timing of the change seems in dispute), it doesn't really answer my question. I'm rather looking for examples of individual liberal-minded whites intervening in the manner of Mr Hinds, rather than politicians or civil-rights workers. Astronaut ( talk) 15:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Part of the Vance Miller article is the intriguing idea that, in November 1995, he was sentenced to 18 months on counts of kidnapping and affray following an altercation with his neighbours over a missing kitchen unit. Is something missing here, or did the guy get charged with kidnapping because he took the kitchen unit? The source is print, so I can't check it. Nyttend ( talk) 23:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Humanities desk | ||
---|---|---|
< February 20 | << Jan | February | Mar >> | Current desk > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
I have a statue of the Archangel Michael with DMK 2002 on it. It fell over and broke and when I picked it up inside was the head of a cherub inside looking right at me. maybe a flaw but to this day it gives me chills. really curious, Zuech1 ( talk) 06:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia's recent news item on human rights in North Korea is uniquely appalling. I should say that I have, at times, questioned whether such reports could be accurate, doubting that a society can be entirely hellish toward all of its inhabitants at once, and to the extent I might believe it, it causes me to doubt, for example, ideas for spreading life to other planets, on the basis that we may be of such monstrous essence that it would be better for all life to perish, without so much as a microbial Noah to survive the steam-cleaning, than to risk writing and rewriting such scenarios across the infinite heavens. But what I'd like to ask in particular is whether there is any theory of morality that has addressed, either to assert or repudiate, that in such societies morality can become utterly irrelevant because they are already in need of destruction.
For example, imagine the Bombing of Dresden in World War II is imminent. Supposing it is justified to prevent Nazis from oppressing all Europe, could we say it would be wrong for a psychogenic arsonist to burn down individual buildings in the city for his personal amusement? Would it be wrong to steal a car that the world wants to see bombed anyway? Would it be wrong for a man to beat the wife who we're about to try to drop a blockbuster bomb on? Is anything wrong in such a situation -- even to the extent of collaborating with the regime's mindless ravings in the hope of being someone akin Lenin's "wreckers" and helping the society to lose all connection with reality and destroy itself?
Now I do intend this to be a question, not an argument; I recognize that there were those among the early Christians who developed a profound morality in opposing a regime little better than the worst of our own era (and only due to the blessings of technological backwardness). I'm just wondering if there is an overall analysis of the concept. Wnt ( talk) 09:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Not only do they consider that they are moral, it may well be that the regime has considerable support and that they consider themselves morally superior, as this article claims: https://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2010/02/19/northkorea/ . I have read other articles that claim the similar things. See Moral relativism. DanielDemaret ( talk) 16:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], I am curious to whether you think Moral relativism relates to what you would consider and "overall analysis of the concept." or whether I have misunderstood the question. DanielDemaret ( talk) 16:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], in the long run we're all dead, our planet is dead, the universe is dead. The question of why and how to live in the meantime is the heart of existentialism. It's easy to act morally when social pressure supports moral action and you expect a payoff to moral behavior (or a penalty for randomly burning down buildings). On the other hand, it's exactly when moral (or ethical) actions carry a heavy cost and the results are uncertain that moral decisions are thrown into the sharpest relief. They are stripped bare of habit, self-interest, and social expectation. I would say that morality exists in North Korea or it doesn't exist anywhere at all. Since you were wondering about analyses of this concept, I think you're basically looking for existentialist ideas of ethics and morality. Of course there are a lot of divergent views under that heading. -- Amble ( talk) 19:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
If there were no morals at all in North Korea, would they still be able bring up children in their 11-year compulsory school? There has to be love in there somewhere for this to work, doesn't there? DanielDemaret ( talk) 23:34, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
@[User:Wnt], I have just read human rights in North Korea . It brings to mind how people were treated in several western european countries up to few hundred years ago. In fact, I think I could make a case that human rights were violated even worse in England, France and Sweden three hundred years ago. There seemed to be a race as to who could invent the most cruel methods of execution. Hanged, drawn and quartered was just one out of a hundred. The way poor people starved all over Europe was appalling. Foreign aid, food, came from Italy to starving Sweden, for example, asking nothing in return. There were a number of problems. First of all, the Italians would be burned for being Catholic, as was the law in Sweden. Secondly, even when they finally agreed to unload the food, Swedish poor people were not allowed to touch it, because of their way of interpreting Lutheran ethics at the time. They had to invent hard nonsense labor for the poor to do since the idea was that only people who worked were allowed to eat. Trials were a sham by the standards of any modern country. North Korea may have no worse morals than 18th century Western Europe had, and we still attribute morals to Western Europe . There was a reason that France had a revolution and that millions of Swedes, those who could afford the ticket, fled to the USA even in the 20th Century. There is one big difference. For those who could afford to travel and were not indentured, borders between countries did not restrict people from travelling. This would have made it obvious to people in France at the end of the 18th century that they were ill treated compared to Switzerland, for example. It is the isolation of people and their ideas that makes North Korean violations possible today. The relatively modern idea that states may restrict movement across borders. DanielDemaret ( talk) 06:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone shed any light on why nappies should come in packs of 74? Or why dishwasher tablets should come in packs of 51? It must relate to projected usage but I wonder why the quantities wouldn't be rounded up for easier accounting... The Rambling Man ( talk) 18:01, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
I've been reading about the issues of racial discrimination in the United States, mostly between the Civil War and the 1960s. I'm curious that while there were campaigns by individual African Americans and bodies such as the NAACP, there is almost no mention of liberal white attitudes of the time. For example, while the Kate Brown (plaintiff in racial discrimination case) article doesn't mention the intervention of a white man, when I read up on the case itself she was indeed helped by a Mr Hinds ( see here). Was the intervention of Mr Hinds, a white person coming to the assistance of an African American, a very unusual thing? Did no white person make any attempt to intervene, for example in the beating of Isaac Woodard, or when Rosa Parks was arrested, or in countless other cases? Why was it up to the (federal) courts to force the repeal of Jim Crow laws, rather then white public opinion? Astronaut ( talk) 20:53, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
While it is interesting that the south switched from Democrat to Republican (although the exact timing of the change seems in dispute), it doesn't really answer my question. I'm rather looking for examples of individual liberal-minded whites intervening in the manner of Mr Hinds, rather than politicians or civil-rights workers. Astronaut ( talk) 15:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Part of the Vance Miller article is the intriguing idea that, in November 1995, he was sentenced to 18 months on counts of kidnapping and affray following an altercation with his neighbours over a missing kitchen unit. Is something missing here, or did the guy get charged with kidnapping because he took the kitchen unit? The source is print, so I can't check it. Nyttend ( talk) 23:37, 21 February 2014 (UTC)