this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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I mean, I get the sentiment but I disagree with it factually.
Decent has done pretty well overall in the last few hundred years. YES with some notable exceptions.
Do you know that quote about the "arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice"? I thought it was an MLK quote, and it is, but it apparently came from Theodore Parker who I didn't know. A look over his wiki page gives you some perspective on where we are right now.
it's important to somewhat dissociate what we think history is from what we absolutely know it is from experience.
Anyway. Fuck Trump I hope he chokes on a hamberder on tv and dies hilariously.
I get the attempt and appreciate the response, but the ol question comes back, what periods of time were considered decent by all?I can't name anytime in last several hundred years where there wasn't human imposed sickness via slavery, greed, war, desire etc that affected millions of other humans and decent humans "had temporarily won" I've heard some mention the summer of 1969 but that accounts for small % of humanity. I cling to the not-so-shitty moments too and maybe I'm jaded, but it doesn't seem like any decency has won, despite having some decent leaders along the way. say Obama and I meet you with rabid Rs lambasting his tan suit and Healthcare ideas as if he was the antichrist. Pepperidge Farm remembers Obama.
I'll read on the arc of justice, but IMO the universe has never had an objective morality where it gives a shit about right or wrong, so can make no cause for justice. because you see justice is derived from laws, and laws are derived from ethics and morals which are subjective. there is no subjectivity without an individual (human).
but overall, yes I agree; fuck trump with hamburgers, hilariously.
A good question - I think you'd have to define "decent" and "all" before we could hazard a guess though.
And agree on the morals of the universe, I think that was an artifact of the time it was originally concieved. The more common version I see omits "morals" and just says "the arc of the universe" which isn't so jarring. In other words the morals either are omitted from the concept or their inclusion is implicit in whatever morals exist in the universe to the listener - which in our case would be none, but others may see some.
This opinion piece has a similar view that moral isn't useful here and "justice" is only what we actively work to make it. IMO that's an unfortunate countering of the phrase's popularity and sort of robs it of some of it's inherent optimism by demonizing 'magical thinking' - which is a whole other bag of worms I have no intention of opening up.
I prefer the sort of basic idea that the unknowable is geared to good, we just have to see it. I disagree that that's 'magical thinking' in the pejorative, I just think that it's not wrong. Context is all of course, and in the largest context we can concieve, good is either the default or it's moot to the point that it may as well be for what we can know now.