"If you doubt this, ask around. I wager you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it."
I'll take that wager. I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends. Then there is the deep tribal impulse that is satisfied only at the exclusion of others, almost as a principle. Suggesting they employ the starman in their discussion won't make a difference because it's not a rhetorical problem, it's just how their priorities reflect on how they act in their daily lives.
The issue is in assuming the most charitable version of an opponent when we have their actions to guide us instead. For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe. And we should respond as such based on their actions.
And if you assume they want safety, fairness and justice for everyone, their responses will vary from 'sure, why not' to 'of course, that's exactly why we're liberating, cleansing and reappropriating'.
Many of us are just selfish bastards, and that's a character flaw.
I may be unlucky, but I have met a number of people who are not just selfish or tribal but actively sadistic. They would do something that does not benefit them if it meant discomfort and disadvantage for their outgroup. This is a little beyond just disinterest or lack of consideration, they actively prefer it. These are people who are constrained only by the rule of law, such as it is.
One of the companies I worked for seemingly attracted this type of personality. Of the people like this I've met (and been actually very cautious around), maybe 90% worked at that specific company.
I've found this tends to come from life experience suggesting this is the only way to survive. It can be incredibly difficult to come at this from a place of compassion, but I've found that when I do - when I create real value in their lives through acts of community and cooperation - I can slowly open a door for them to see other ways. It takes time and a lot of compassion. But it's totally doable, and it can feel real good to see people build compassion from nothing.
Perhaps it didn't come across, but when I say they are sadistic I mean things like I wouldn't trust my pets around them.
One of them, and I will use this as an example and let it be, is the nephew of an insanely rich family, not as rich as some but quote wealthy and grew up privileged. One afternoon he was raging about the dog park near his condominium, and was describing his plan to scatter hard boiled eggs with needles inserted in them to discourage the dog owners from using it.
Sure, he needed help. Who knows, maybe his family, though affluent, was abusive. I had no interest in finding out.
yeah :-( I see it as "I'm hurting so much, I want you to also hurt." or "I want you to know the pain I feel."
I think we underestimate how much other people are suffering (mostly because most cultures I know teach us not to cry) and feel our own pain, therefore inflicting pain on them to try to equalize it. I think an easier (and less pain-inducing) way is for us to just get better at sharing our suffering.
Hardware. But these people were product line managers, marketing, etc. A few were ex-sw-engineers. I didn't observe anything consistent except they had gathered at this place.
>I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends.
This is why Hierocles the Stoic had the right idea when he pushed people to move one circle over. This is a far more practical goal than striving for a "just world".
Each one of us is as it were entirely encompassed by many circles, some smaller, others larger, the latter enclosing the former on the basis of their different and unequal dispositions relative to each other. The first and closest circle is the one which a person has drawn as though around a centre, his own mind. This circle encloses the body and anything taken for the sake of the body. For it is virtually the smallest circle, and almost touches the centre itself. Next, the second one further removed from the centre but enclosing the first circle; this contains parents, siblings, wife, and children. The third one has in it uncles and aunts, grandparents, nephews, nieces, and cousins. The next circle includes the other relatives, and this is followed by the circle of local residents, then the circle of fellow-tribes-men, next that of fellow-citizens, and then in the same way the circle of people from neighbouring towns, and the circle of fellow-countrymen. The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race.
Once these have all been surveyed, it is the task of a well tempered man, in his proper treatment of each group, to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre, and to keep zealously transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones ... It is incumbent on us to respect people from the third circle as if they were those from the second, and again to respect our other relatives as if they were those from the third circle. For although the greater distance in blood will remove some affection, we must still try hard to assimilate them. The right point will be reached if, through our own initiative, we reduce the distance of the relationship with each person.
> The outermost and largest circle, which encompasses all the rest, is that of the whole human race.
Interesting, I think there are at least a couple more outer rings which encompass non-human animals too. In western culture we’ve decided a smaller ring goes around pets (dogs, cats), and then maybe farm animals then sea creatures. Hopefully we can “draw these circles together” too.
I think we can try to improve kinship and simultaneously strive for a more just world. They probably enhance each other.
The problem with nationalism is the effort stops once the circle encompasses 'your' people (or in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, forces those outside to accept they are on the inside).
I recently saw some discussion of the various bits of news out of Hungary to the effect that political leaders there want to go beyond Hungarian nationalism towards Hungarian racialism.
“ For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe.”
I think is a way oversimplification of geopolitical situation in Ukraine and Russian motives.
Not by as much as you might think when your standards have been informed by more conventional models of state-led evil. Vranyo is a cultural disease whose impact cannot be overstated. I'll leave it to a Russian to explain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1pOahq4TCk
Sure, but I'm not trying to capture the geopolitical situation there. It's only an example. Some people do think this way (for example displaying the Z as a tribal symbol) and that's enough reason to not just assume charitability or altruism on another's part.
Indeed, not all but some of the attackers instead want to kill the men and rape the women in Ukraine -- rather than caring that much about their own tribe.
Some double digit percentage of the male population whether you are, starts doing that, if they have the chance.
It's reproduction, evolution, been going on for hundreds of thousands of years
I believe they were specifically referring to the behavior of Russian soldiers who were reportedly sending valuable objects from Ukraine back to their relatives as well as executing civilians.
I think OP means Russia’s actions are much better understood by their national interest and history, rather than by the individual barbarity of their troops. Russia should not be in Ukraine and should not be firing missiles into population centers, but they are. Their reasons for doing so appear more complicated than mere evil.
To be explicit, if you count conflicts from Napoleon on up to WWII, from Russia’s perspective they have fought defense wars on the north european plains once every ~33 years. Their greatest existential threat is a united europe, who frequently meddle in its affairs and approach further by way of NATO expansion despite in some cases explicitly promising otherwise. Ukraine, a previous warsaw pact country, is a prospective NATO member who not only represents a convenient corridor into Russia but also controls a large stretch of coast (Russia wants this) and has massive plains for food production and tank conveyance.
Under this interpretation, Russia seeks to resist expansion of a european alliance composed of several former enemies and retain access to key strategic locations outside its borders. Russia’s motives are much more tangible under this perspective, and who knows maybe there’s a solution we’re not seeing from that perspective than one that places outsized emphasis on individual atrocities. It’s a war, after all, and doesn’t appear to be stopping despite the upset faces of spectators.
You make a reasoned argument why Russia might want to invade Ukraine while ignoring Russia's actual actions. Russia keeps changing it's stated 'reasons', with Russian's themselves saying the silent part you ignore out loud. They say Ukraine is not a real country, Ukrainians are not a separate people from Russians, and that because Ukraine tried to go it's own way it must be folded back into mother Russia and along with Belarus create a new slavic union. Ukrainian is being removed from the schools in Russian conquered land. Ukrainian books are being removed. Russia has human trafficked 2 million people from Ukraine to Russia at this point. None of that is to protect Russia from NATO. Why do you cover Russia's visible actions with a pretty pretense? Russia has said it is fine with Finland joining NATO, greatly expanding NATO on Russia's border. Your argument makes no sense outside the theoretical paragraphs in which you write it.
> Why do you cover Russia's visible actions with a pretty pretense?
Some of Russia’s individual politicians and news outlets no doubt have genuine nationalistic motivations surrounding Ukraine, but it is not clear to me that these are the predominant motives for spending Russian lives and risking Russian security by engaging their forces in an armed conflict. The rhetoric and actions you cite is probably believed and condoned by an increasingly nonzero percentage of the population, but I’m personally not convinced these are much more than pretexts useful to the state in providing political cover to what is ultimately a sovereign chess move (prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, demotivate it and others from future attempts). Russia benefited massively by their previous USSR-era relationship with the surrounding baltic states, and Putin, a former USSR man, has said [1] that the breakup of the warsaw pact was one of Russia’s greatest geopolitical tragedies. I believe his greatest defensive focus is on re-establishing a buffer zone between it and western powers, and likely it’s longer term goals include acquisition of warm water ports and influence over the oil trade.
This does, of course, not justify any of Russia’s actions on a moral basis. I expect many Russian officials will be tried and convicted of war crimes. It merely provides a basis by which european leaders/armchair presidents (me) can ground Russia’s actions and plot countermoves.
> Russia has said it is fine with Finland joining NATO, greatly expanding NATO on Russia's border.
Not even a year ago Russia implied a military consequence if Finland was to join NATO [2]. A few months after this statement was given Russia invaded Ukraine, though this ironically emboldened Finlanders into being majority in favor of joining NATO.
About people justifying/supporting his actions to defend their own interests? I don't think it really matters, unless you're realistically expecting Russia's population to revolt.
Your response in no way explains why you choose only NATO expansion as a cause (and thus pushing the blame on the west) but ignore Russia's many comments that they are protecting ethnic Russian speakers (which does not make NATO the ones ultimately responsible for forcing Russia to take action) and denazifying the country. Why is that? Are we not to take Putin at his word but instead your tea reading skills? Why does your simplification take all responsibility for a war waged without a specific NATO triggering action by a non-NATO leader and place it on NATO?
Sounds like pushing a narrative of western/NATO blame for a war Putin chose on his terms/his time, without any specific NATO trigger event forcing Putin's hand at this time.
Those individual politicians and state media are mouthpieces for authoritarian Putin, but you respond as if Russian politicians have their own agency and Russian media are CNN and not so controlled that they face imprisonment if they call the current war a war.
BTW Russia no longer keeps up the pretense that what occured in the eastern occupied territories was spontaneous, but admits in obituaries online that soldiers killed in the current conflict are being 'honored' for their service in the '2014 Ukraine' operation and '2014 Maiden' operation. What prompted that Russian sponsored uprising? Ukraine coming closer to the EU, then at the last minute having their corrupt politicians trying to switch to a Russian economic block, nothing to with NATO. Also, autonomy for Russian speakers.
So 2014 actual Russian military involvement in taking control of 10% of Ukraine? Not in response to NATO but to Russia losing their Ukrainian puppet leader.
Verbally stated current reasons, only partially related to NATO. Just as much stemming from a desire to continue the 2014 actual conflict (in the guise of protecting/freeing ethnic Russian lands) which was not related to NATO.
You also ignore Russian aggression in Transistria (A war, that Russia supported, that Russia sent troops to maintain post conflict) where again NATO was not raised as the issue, but ethnic Russians = Russian interest.
Russia calls Ukraine Little Russia. Russia says Ukraine is not a real country, does not have a real culture. Russia says anywhere Russians live is Russia. But your response is 'NATO' because your reading of the tea leaves indicates it.
Your argument is nothing but whitewashing an authoritarian rulers decision to go to war.
If you enjoy Putin quotes here's a good one...
"Don't believe those who try to frighten you with Russia and who scream that other regions will follow after Crimea," said Putin on Tuesday, going some way to allaying those fears. "We do not want a partition of Ukraine. We do not need this." The Guardian March 18 2014. Notice this was after the 2008 NATO application from Ukraine. Putin does not say 'Unless Ukraine continues down a path towards NATO alignment'.
> Sounds like pushing a narrative of western/NATO blame for a war Putin chose on his terms/his time, without any specific NATO trigger event forcing Putin's hand at this time.
Henry A. Kissinger is pushing the same narrative. Would you call HAK poorly informed on the matter?
I would say that Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer have strong biases in favor of "Great Power" theory, which at its basis denies smaller, weaker countries in the "area of influence" of a great power any kind of autonomy. Mearsheimer has spent much of his career developing and extolling great power politics and, well, Henry Kissinger is Henry Kissinger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_diplomacy).
One notes that Russia is a great power only because of its nuclear arsenal; that is, in fact, what separates the great powers from weak countries that have any independence only at the pleasure of the nearest great power. That should concern you if you are fan of nuclear non-proliferation, by the way.
> I would say that Henry Kissinger and John Mearsheimer have strong biases in favor [...]
I would take Kissinger's view on the topic seriously, same way I'd take Knuth's opinion on typesetting seriously - to make analogy. The fact that I might agree or not should not cloud my judgement or yours.
Calling Kissinger biased is smokescreen: everybody is biased.
I do take Kissinger and Mearsheimer's views seriously, and I did not call Kissinger or Mearsheimer "biased". Instead, I attempted to address my understanding of the reasoning behind their statements (Mearsheimer certainly; I believe the same to be true of Kissinger). That reasoning led to many of the successes and not a few of the failures during the Cold War; it is worth taking seriously.
I disagree with the Great Power reasoning mostly because it is explicitly amoral and moral standing is important (at least from a morale viewpoint :-) if nothing else). That's completely unimportant. On the other hand, all of the honest-to-gosh International Relations people I've heard from (at least those under 70) also disagree with it, for a variety of reasons, and I take that seriously too.
I further believe your last sentence is a gratuitous misreading of what I wrote.
ROTMetro was making a moral statement about Russian aggression. Henry Kissinger can be as omniscient as God himself and that still wouldn't be a counter to a moral claim.
Never underestimate Kissinger's inability to consider what Mearsheimer calls 'the moral dimension'. That's more than a bias. That he holds an ammoral, great-power world view to back up his psychopathically immoral actions over the years should surprise no one - millions of needless deaths can arguably be laid at his feet.
Maybe keep those limitations in mind if you intend to defer to him on Ukraine/Russia.
> why you choose only NATO expansion as a cause (and thus pushing the blame on the west)
Firstly we disagree here on the blame being on the west. The blame is not on the west for expanding NATO, the blame is on Putin for choosing to attack yet another sovereign nation for its own national policy goals. Since you also accuse me of "whitewashing an authoritarian ruler's decision" I'll also state explicitly I think Putin is a callous, paranoid relic of the cold war and should be removed from power for this and his many other stains on the world. He should not be in Ukraine, Ukraine is morally rigeous in fighting back, and I expect more countries will join NATO as a result of Putin's actions. The only reason I'm focusing on Russia's rational basis for invading is because we'll be doomed to keep repeating this same dance with Russia until we incapacitate it (I don't really want to die via thermonuclar warhead) or find some other solution grounded in the actual concerns that seem to motivate their behavior.
> Sounds like pushing a narrative of western/NATO blame for a war Putin chose on his terms/his time
I want to see Putin fail miserably and face justice. He is not justified, only paranoid and warped. He will continue to act this way until NATO finds a way to make him stop, which won't be by frowning intensely at him and hitting him with sanctions. Russia's power comes from things like its oil & gas exports, and nationally it wants things like a warm water ports (i.e. one that doesn't freeze 1/3 of the year) which it currents gets by leasing Sevastapol from Ukraine. It furthermore wants these things on its own terms, and does not want a NATO-aligned Ukraine suddenly deciding that it cannot access them. Why do you think Putin was so anxious to specifically annex Crimea?
It's not really a secret btw that NATO wants Ukraine to join [1] (section 69), and Ukraine is of great strategic interest to Russia for the reasons I've outlined in my above comments and many more. Certainly we can at least agree on that, morals of Russia outright imposing its will on Ukraine aside. Obviously it's wrong, but Russia doesn't care if it's wrong.
> But your response is 'NATO' because your reading of the tea leaves indicates it.
Because geography dictates it. Ukraine provides easy and wide passage to Russia and provides a place for NATO (US) to install military equipment, bases, anti-missile systems (yes I know what you're going to say, but yes Putin has bitched incessantly about these [2] despite being nominally "defensive"). Ukraine hosts one of Russia's only viable warm-water ports. Ukraine joining NATO means that Putin can no longer bully smaller states into serving its needs and instead would need to risk a war against an alliance of nuclear powers if it wants to achieve policy by other means. NATO controlling Ukraine means that NATO has actual leverage over Russia beyond sanctions, which Russia does not want.
I think allowing Ukraine to join NATO and deploying a peacekeeping force would either force Putin to back down or escalate us to a nuclear war if Putin decides Ukraine is strategically worth a first strike. No idea honestly, maybe it stays conventional and then Russia leaves with its tail tucked between its legs. Maybe China, who does not seem to be a fan of Russia's maneuvering, does not get involved. Maybe it does, and Ukraine's civilian casualties pale in comparison to what could follow.
My hope is that NATO can find a peaceful solution. There could be a diplomatic solution involving giving Russia Crimea as a condition to Ukraine joining NATO, which might avoid full-scale conflict and kick the can down the road for when Putin decides it cannot trust NATO to honor its word. Likely there are far better solutions that leverage geopolitical realities I have not thought of, as I am not a politician, historian, military expert, or geographer. Or the world can strongly condemn them in the media and send Ukrainians guns, because that seems to be working so well.
> Russia's many comments that they are protecting ethnic Russian speakers
This is a pretext to justify entry into conflicts that benefit Russia's national interests. I don't think we disagree there based on the rest of your paragaphs so I won't bother justifying that statement, merely confirm we're on the same page. This is especially true...
> in the guise of protecting/freeing ethnic Russian lands
...for Ukraine. I am incredibly skeptical that Putin gives a shit about any group of Russians unless he has a national interest in doing so.
> Those individual politicians and state media are mouthpieces for authoritarian Putin, but you respond as if Russian politicians have their own agency and Russian media are CNN and not so controlled that they face imprisonment if they call the current war a war.
They no doubt do what Putin wants when ordered but have their own thoughts and opinions. Some, like the oligarchs who own Russia's business interests privatized after the collapse of the USSR, likely do have the power to influence Putin by force and every account I've read of this dynamic asserts that Putin's relationship them is akin to a neo-feudalistic court more than god commanding his disciples. Not really sure why you reacted so strongly to my original "some", but I guess more clarification on my personal stance since you think I'm a Putin apologist.
Did I forget to stress that I hate Putin and will celebrate when he is no longer in power?
Not because of your follow up stance, but in general, I'm sorry for projecting something onto you. I apologize for trying to attribute any motivation to you, and responding to your thoughts in anything but a constructive discussion. Thank you for explaining yourself even after my emotional vomit. Thank you for posting your additional reasoned thoughts. My shame at judgemental posts both today and yesterday just reminds me why I don't go to social media other than HN and need to stay away from non-technical discussions.
No worries, I personally don’t think you should feel any shame for expressing yourself and if it means anything understand why you saw my original post and thought me framing Putin/Russia’s actions as something rational was offensive. I primarily post on this website for challenging discussions, and your comments really made me work to develop my own understanding of the issue and I thank you for that. No hard feelings, and I really respect you personally for choosing to make this comment. I hope any stress I might have caused is forgiven, and hope you continue to post on HN :)
> firing missiles into population centers, but they are. Their reasons for doing so appear more complicated than mere evil.
From what I heard, they do this because their whole way of fighting was designed around land wars with neighbors which is where huge quantities of artillary and "dumb" rockets are cheap enough to transport by land but have to flatten large areas to be effective. In contrast, the US fights mostly overseas so they want more mobile weapons which also means more efficiently targetted. And now we have a convenient "moral" idea that precision weapons are good and broad-desctruction weapons are "bad". That moral just happens to favor the west, today. It wasn't like that back in WWI and WWII so back then, westeners didn't care about such morality - they wouldn't be able to place themselves on top.
Whenever people start making moral judgements based on ideas like war crimes, human rights, or terrorism, I feel they're blinded by the fact that these concepts conveniently favor western countries and their capabilities so it suits us to think they're what makes a country "good".
First, Russia has precision cruise missiles so that is NO excuse for their leadership, nor for you excusing them.
Second, of course bombing civilians was immoral during the great wars. The fact that they're TARGETTING population centres at all is evil, regardless of technology, antagonist or time on history.
Third, if people in Western countries did subsequently develop a distaste for such immorality, that's to their credit. It doesn't make them hypocrites, it puts them further down the road of human development than those who didn't.
Fourth, it's not only Westerners that value human rights, deplore war crimes and terrorism and those that do are often the first to publicly criticise their own countries records and hypocrisies. The fact they can do that made their countries "better", it's what helps make them "good" today.
The problem being that until the invasion NATO was falling apart because Western Europeans didn’t see Russia as a threat. Even Ukraine didn’t believe Russia would invade. So… Putin has made the Russian position worse. He will have a very heavily armed Ukraine on his western flank, with or without NATO backing. Behind them he will have a newly rearmed Germany.
> To be explicit, if you count conflicts from Napoleon on up to WWII, from Russia’s perspective they have fought defense wars on the north european plains once every ~33 years.
Between Napoleon and the present day Russia has only been invaded twice. By countries trying to liberate themselves in WW1 from the Russian Empire, and by Germany and others in WW2 (also partially a liberation, e.g. Romania tried to liberate the territories which Russia annexed at the start of the war).
> Their greatest existential threat is a united europe, who frequently meddle in its affairs.
Russia has constantly tried to annex everybody (even Putin jokes about this) and you cry about "meddling". Nobody would be meddling in Russian affairs if Russia was broken up like Austria (the previous Jail of Nations).
And wasn't that Romanian land given to the USSR by Germany in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? So the Nazis were "liberating" land they had already agreed to give to someone else.
"Their greatest existential threat is a united europe, who frequently meddle in its affairs and approach further by way of NATO expansion despite in some cases explicitly promising otherwise."
This is a lie. 'not one inch eastward' never referred to NATO expansion to other countries. At least according to the man who received it, Gorbachev.
If interference in a neighbours affairs and then threatening the very existence of that neighbour are undesirable then I'm sure you'll agree there is no more apt example of the silliness of starmanning some Russians who support its present expansionist actions.
You can seek all the interpretations your want. The example wa to illustrate my point that there's no rhetorical solution to find between an imperialist wanting some land and the sovereign nation holding it. Not between the adversarial geopolitical leaders and not between victims' families and war criminals.
Yes, that probably explains the majority of violence that occurs in the world.
There also exist a set of people that are born with wiring that if not specifically counteracted can have them act in violent and antisocial ways, without trauma needing to have occurred.
"you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer,
fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it"
As an optimist and humanist, a shocking revelation for me was hearing
of the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa. (I
think via a talk by Chomsky or Zizek)
Many atrocities were committed by both sides during the Apartheid era.
Enough said.
Years later the Government of National Unity wanted to heal the
country, to bury festering resentments and feuds. Perpetrators and
victims were brought together under supervision to talk openly and
work toward forgiveness. It's a great idea in principle. Although the
commission is widely considered successful, a strange thing occurred,
something that we also buried at the Nuremberg trials.
A quite small but significant group were not merely unrepentant, they
used the commission as a platform to attack and abuse their victims
again. "I'm really glad I tortured your children, let me tell you
about how they screamed", and so on.
Sure, always aim to "star man" in debate, but one must be hard enough
underneath to expect occasionally to be shot out of the sky, not by an
uncharitable or entrenched interlocutor but by an plain old evil
asshole. They exist. They're not "psychopaths" or even "trolls", but
get a thrill out of acting so as to add chaos and pain to the world.
It was very probably Zizek who talked about this. And definitely a
talk rather than words I read. Sorry I can't be more helpful. For the
Nuremberg angle then see Adam Curtis's "Pandora's Box" in which the
trial of Eichmann is centre stage of one episode. Eichmann effectively
cannot comprehend there was anything morally questionable about the
'final solution' and instead of apologies or reflection he repeatedly
doubles down and hammers home his reasonable justification for the
slaughter.
You are 100% correct. That quote is garbage. What it's really saying is - "ask around, I'll wager you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who won't pretend to want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone. In reality, when you explain what fair and just actually means, they will secretly reverse course at the first opportunity".
Just look at the foreign policy of every country in power. Look at the willingness of any power group to give up that power without intense military or financial pressure. Let's see - slavery, wars of conquest, ecological destruction, finding black men automatically guilty, rape, child abuse, monopolies, wealth concentration, regressive California property tax policy, etc.
I think you are being overly negative. Being more concerned with problems we are most familiar with is natural and not at all a "character flaw". Caring more about people we personally know than strangers isn't any kind of moral failure. The world is full of suffering and problems, and it is simply impossible to give the same level of concern to all. So we focus on our inner circles. It isn't a "deep tribal impulse..satisfied only at the exclusion of others". It is simply that the world is very big with very big problems and no one, not even the kindest, most caring individual among us, can give equal weight to all problems and all suffering.
I think you're straw-manning. Decreasing degrees of concern for those farther removed isn't a problem until you reach zero concern or empathy for people you don't know/don't look like or don't share a language or god with. That is how you justify taking their freedom, raping or killing their defenders and stealing their land.
Letting it get to that point, so as to put your tribe first is selfishness and IMO a deep character flaw. A flaw in so many of us that the idea of star-manning is, in so many cases, naive.
Reading this article, it seems entirely about taking initiative changing your own approach, without an explicit expectation. Asking someone else to star-man is expecting them to change for you, without showing any compassion or respect for their humanity or opinion. It presents a clear assumption that their approach to life is wrong, and so they should adopt yours. You're creating a setting where they cannot agree with you without also accepting inferiority and invalidating their entire life perspective. You leave no room for incremental growth or self reflection.
> "If you doubt this, ask around. I wager you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t want a safer, fairer, more just world for everyone if they could get it."
I wonder if more people actually want others to see our humanity than us to see the humanity of others. I would strongly bet on that actually.
I think a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends believe that others don't have concern for them. It can become a preemptive indifference: they don't care about me, why should I care about them.
What I want to work on and help people realize is that I care about you, even if I don't know you. And the work I do to get there is often me realizing how much people care about me. Maybe this is what he's getting at with the starman concept, to flip ourselves from thinking others are trying to hurt us and reacting to them with hatred or indifference, to believing they actually care about us.
And I agree that many people may not want to do this, so I'm mostly just trying to do it for myself. I wonder if his argument would have come off differently if instead of telling people what they should do, he said these are the tools he employs and how they work in his life.
That's true, but at the same time, calling a Russian soldier a selfish bastard isn't going to stop him from invading Ukraine. Presumably, your goal is to motivate somewhat neutral people to support Ukraine or condemn Russia. In that case, the only thing you can do is to refute rationalizations used to justify the invasion.
My point isn't to build support for either side (it was just an example), nor is it to accuse Russian soldiers of selfishness. It's to say that we can't just assume his (or anyone's) motivation is not selfish, or that there must be a middle ground we will surely find through improvement to our rhetorical approach.
As my friends from college (sample set of 10) got older I noticed where people split conservative or liberal (US centric sorry). My liberal friends are generally concerned for everyone in society and how they'll get screwed over or not.
My conservative friends are very concerned about anyone they know, and very worried about how they can't backstop them because of supporting the whole of society. 2 of them would fly / drive across the country at a moments notice to help me out for weeks. But they aren't concerned with people outside that circle. Of the 2 I had deep conversations with, they both were more focused on setting up social circles to support everyone else such as churches, local community, family, which to them is the fallback, not the government.
> a kind of platinum rule to improve upon the golden one
When I read this, I scoffed a little bit. A better idea than one proposed two thousand years ago? Say it isn't so! Why haven't we thought of this before?
I think you hooked rightly on the Ukraine and Russia conflict. Sometimes, there is not a "best version" of someone.
The author seems to reject that outright, saying we need to recognize our opponents humanity in order to effectively argue, with the premise that there's something good in there to tease out.
On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"? That reasoning is rather circular...
This kind of discussion is when I think the "real person inside" intuitive model of human psychology really breaks down. Philosophers have been arguing (circularly?) for thousands of years over the "true nature" of humans without any definitive answers.
Another model of human mminds that I find much more useful is as a complicated feedback system. A priori, these dynamical systems can have many different equilibria regions in their phase space, but none of the equilibria or attractors are anything like a "true characterization" of these systems. They are simply regions of related behavior that these systems can get temporarily or permanently stuck in.
For human psychology, this model simply says that humans can get into all kinds of "attractor" mindsets, e.g. self-sacrificing, defensive, fearful, etc. These mindsets have extrinsics such as sadistic behavior, altruism, consistent procrastination, etc. They also have intrinsics, such as feeling constant angst, holistic safety, or over-arching pessimism.
Under this model, at least, it makes sense that people may 100% in a vengeful mindset while at the same time recognizing that to also be a mind-region that feels pretty crappy. We can also then cognate about ways of moving ourselves our others toward other attractors that are "better" in some way.
In Control Theory, the question then becomes about what set of inputs we have available to tweak these mind-environment systems?
I did as well, and then paused because I've said to myself that I've come up with something like this before (facepalm emoji).
> On what basis can the author say that there's something good inside? Their "humanity"?
I can't speak for him, however when I do this, it's not about knowing for sure there's something good inside someone, it's choosing to believe that there is. I don't know if I will ever know someone's deepest intentions, and I have seen that when I believe they have bad intentions towards me, I can feel sad, angry, afraid, lonely, and more. However, when I believe they have good intentions towards me, I can feel grateful, safe, free, hopeful, etc. Given that I may never know how they're feeling, I therefore think I can choose what to believe, and by choosing to believe they have good intentions, I feel better.
Secondly, if I believe they have bad intentions, I often treat them poorly—ignore them, distrust them, attack them, etc. If I believe they have good intentions, I often treat them kindly—appreciate them, help them, show them how much I care, etc. So if I choose to believe they have good intentions, they may also be more likely to believe that I have good intentions for them based on my actions.
This logic may fall apart if one believes that we can know for certain another's deepest intentions, I just currently believe we cannot.
Even when individuals act with charity and compassion, they act according to their beliefs, interests, and needs. As Reinhold Niebuhr described in Moral Man and Immoral Society, a group of individuals acting according to shared interests, even when doing so compassionately, will inevitably come into conflict with other groups, socially or militaristically, when those interests conflict.
> right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, ...
It's not even that the Russians who think this are especially evil people, or irrational people, or people who are unlike us in any fundamental way.
The reason they think this way, and that you do not, is because they believe different myths than you do.
Let's say your worldview is defined by Ivan Ilyin [0]. You don't consider other people or ethics at all. The only thing that matters in the world is God. And God is displeased that the perfect Russia that He created has been spoiled.
The only way to heal the world and make God happy is to restore a certain kind of utopian Russia. That pure and perfect Russia is united in territory and belief, so it can't tolerate any division or fragmentation within itself.
Agents of the devil in the West are deviously dismantling and disintegrating that pure and perfect Russia, piece by piece. Westerners are carving off pieces of territory like Ukraine, and dividing Russian people with seditious Western ideas like democracy and gender fluidity and a free press.
So it's a supernatural struggle between good and evil. An existential battle like that means there's no room for this messy business of parliaments and voting, or compromising with different perspectives.
We need one strong leader, a true and pure leader, to inherit the mantle of past great leaders like Stalin and Peter the Great. He will be God's instrument to make the hard decisions and lead the nation in glorious struggle. This divinely inspired leader will create unity in the world by restoring and reuniting Russia itself.
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Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values? There is no common ground in wanting a safer, fairer, more just world. We have our own foundational myths that we rarely acknowledge or interrogate, and our myths don't intersect with Russia's myths at all.
"Where do you even begin to have a conversation when you don't share the most basic of beliefs or values?"
We can share it with the tens of thousands of educated Russian opposing the 'special operation', with the thousands of Russians in jail for protesting. Even with the silent millions who doubt all the bullshit they hear but perhaps aren't going to die on a hill over it. They all grew up with the same foundational myths as the irredentists, they just chose to look further.
It's a mistake to essentialise a country as diverse as Russia but we can agree that it's also a mistake to assume almost everyone wants the best for everyone else.
I watched a security video recently of 3 random people in a convenience store. The store clerk has some kind of medical issue, passes out and falls down.
The 3 random people decide that now they can rob the store with impunity, take a bunch of stuff, and then leave the clerk on the floor. Eventually someone else came in and helped the clerk, but it wasn't like those 3 people were part of some psychopath convention. They just independently decided that getting about $20 worth of free stuff was a better option than calling 911 or checking on the man.
I'll take that wager. I've met a lot of people whose concern for others drops off sharply beyond their own family and friends. Then there is the deep tribal impulse that is satisfied only at the exclusion of others, almost as a principle. Suggesting they employ the starman in their discussion won't make a difference because it's not a rhetorical problem, it's just how their priorities reflect on how they act in their daily lives.
The issue is in assuming the most charitable version of an opponent when we have their actions to guide us instead. For example, right now there are lots of Russians who think it's fine to invade, kill and steal, not for safety, fairness or justice for everyone. They just want better for their tribe. And we should respond as such based on their actions.
And if you assume they want safety, fairness and justice for everyone, their responses will vary from 'sure, why not' to 'of course, that's exactly why we're liberating, cleansing and reappropriating'.
Many of us are just selfish bastards, and that's a character flaw.