Material heaven makes a psychic hell

[scourge]

If we look past the world of strictly what is tangible and start thinking of life as an experience, we can see how modern society has made itself hell:

• No values. There is no overall sense of quality or moral good, other than ideological objectives, which distill down to different forms of radical altruistic egalitarianism.
• Quantity over quality. So that all must participate, we reduce the rare and exceptional, and replace it with learning by rote, success by participation, value by conformity and other non-quality assessments.
• Ugly. We call our design utilitarian, but what makes more sense is to call it administrative. It is not there to make life better. It is there to minimize complaints by being so average that none can complain without appearing to be putting on airs.
• Individualistic. Each person by the nature of being equal now needs to prove themselves. They compete on needless tasks, become egomaniacs for no purpose, and attire and adorn themselves with “unique” combinations of hobbies, clothing and personal drama in order to make themselves seem important.
• Conformist. The price of individualism is conformity; if anyone in a crowd is not an individualist, all individualists are threatened, because that non-individualist might invoke some principle of reality larger than the individual. All chase the same trends, memes, crazes, manias, and images. What they see in movies, they buy.
• Anti-exceptionalism. Utilitarian society is designed to accommodate the broadest swath of average, not the exceptional. As a result, it takes from the exceptional and redistributes to the average as a means of hobbling the exceptional so that everyone else feels satisfied at their own level of performance. It’s a peanut gallery, lynch mob, hive-mind and circular reasoning apparatus that exists only to justify itself.
• Idiots rule. To support egalitarianism and also a hierarchy of popularity and income, societies generate tests to find the “best.” Since these are egalitarian, they are not based on actual ability. The result is lots of zampolit style people who master details and know the right political dogma, but cannot adapt to new stimulus and thus are terrible leaders.

http://www.amerika.org/social-reality/welcome-to-hell/

[BillHopkins]

About "No values"...

...except ideological objectives. What?

One niggling problem I have with Prozak's ideas is this reoccuring issue.

1. Why are not ideological objectives (like egalitarianism) 'values'.
2. What would Traditionalist values be if not ideological objectives of a particular sort?

[scourge]

I believe the problem with egalitarian and utilitarian ideology is somewhat akin to an endless loop error which counterproductively consumes resources, preventing other processing functions, all because of a faulty computer program (or ideology).

The egalitarian and utilitarian goals are not constructivist in that upon completion, they are not building blocks toward an even greater goal. Rather, the goal of the equality ideal is more of itself and the same for the greatest good for the most people one. It doesn't go further - just more insistence of the same against something undesired as with any revolutionary goal. This differs from an evolutionary goal in my view.

If you execute a computer program like a web browser, it is in preparation for something greater that the browser is helpful toward like forum communication or research. We do not start the program in order to keep instantiating more copies of itself until memory is full and nothing else can be done on the machine.

I'm pleased Brett or Prozak can grasp that as well because he or they can usually explain it better than I.

[BillHopkins]

is your argument for what seperates mere 'ideology' from a 'set of values' this:

Any ideology that commits this novel 'endless loop' fallacy that you talk about is not a set of values?

I've never heard this before, and anyway, even if it is true I don't see how Traditionalism is much different without engaging in semantic games. Can't traditionalism be framed in terms of your 'endless loop' fallacy: endless insistance on the same (hierarchy) against something undesired (equality)?

Or is it that if an ideology does not have "an evolutionary goal", it is not a set of values. If so, when in hell did this become the criterion of what constitutes 'values'? 

I don't think presenting liberal post-modernity as though it is 'valueless' has any intellectual credibility (i'm opon to enlightenment though). I suspect it is merely an appeal to the conservative temperament, for talk of 'valuelessness' is emotionally loaded for conservatives. If it is this then it is a stupid appeal, because it ignores the difference between not holding any values at all, and merely holding different values. Simple as that.

There are plenty of people working in society for 'values' (or something 'intagible', or 'higher' than mere consumption of goods and services, which i think is a better criterion than an 'enless loop' criterion or 'evolutionary' criterion). i.e. Anti-discrimination, ending racism, gender equality, rights for asylum seekers, a 'fairer' distribution of resources, the list goes on.

It's better to identify the problem cleary ('wrong values') rather than engage in sophistry to give one's position more emotional appeal ('no values').

[scourge]

We'll first need the descriptive horse to pull along the prescriptive cart.

The endless loop that expands itself each iteration is an observable effect. Consider the American egalitarian/utilitarian example with these historic milestones:

1. revolutionary republicanism
2. regional abolition
3. women's suffrage
4. multiracial suffrage
5. homosexual marriage

I don't believe this is novel, but instead an alternative form of slippery slope or circular reasoning.

So, you would like radical equality to be clearly classified as value, non-value, good or poor value in order to concisely evaluate it. In my view (not necessarily the blog author's view), radical equality is an effect, not a value at all.

If we are interested in causal remediation, we need to look beyond the radical egalitarian side effect and into what keeps instantiating it. I have offered "fear of inadequacy" a few times. That isn't a value either btw.