Private morality vs. public political action

[Barney]

This was Ondrej's response to my friends who struggle with climate anxiety.

Go live meaningfully, not worrying about things you do not control. Don't try to split hairs over whether you "need" this or that. You need nothing. What is your objective? What things will facilitate that? Don't treat yourself like a slave but pursue your objectives. Be honest. Work hard. Be on time. Be presentable. Honor your father and mother. Be kind. Be patient. Be generous. Consider others as more important than yourself. Love your enemy. Bless those who persecute you. These are more important than climate change. And if climate change is true, they will be all that much more valuable.

I then pointed out that the same thing could apply to those who worry that America is about to turn socialist.

The only way to fix America is for the people, no, for me to practice the fruit of the spirit. "The people" is someone else. America is sick, it is on me. I don't know what I can do, especially since I am debating a guy in Britain (I could perhaps convince myself I was doing something having a debate with another American ). But it is on me to conduct myself in a fitting manner. I am deeply grateful of those who came before me and built up this unbelievable world (honor your father and mother). I am trying to make what I produce of the highest quality (patience, diligence). When I was going to work in person I was making sure to dress more professionally (dress appropriately). I have many times praised difficult reviewers of my work (bless those who persecute you) and lauded their importance (love your enemy). I perceive myself at the bottom of the hierarchy at the laboratory, although I'm not sure if this is a character flaw in myself; my own blindness. I could argue 'consider others as more important than yourself' but I'm not quite convinced this is appropriate (i.e. true). I think I should be comfortable with thinking of myself more highly than I do and then being the servant of all. ... In any case, I wasn't giving advice I do not apply to myself. I suppose it didn't take a text wall to say that but it's written out now...

I never doubted that you strive to do these things. My point was rather to ask whether you see this as an alternative to political action, or a necessary pre-requisite for it.

Jordan Peterson says this sort of thing a lot. Perhaps you got it from him.

there are many complex things that can be said about immigration, about many of the problems that face us, but there is a meta-question, which is not 'how do you solve a difficult question?', but 'how do you solve the set of all possible difficult questions?' The answer to that is quite straightforward: Speak the truth and play fair, and that works. ... Be the sort of people to generate the proper solutions, and then perhaps the solutions will arise of their own accord.

If he is saying: "you don't need to think hard about difficult things; all you need to do is be a good person, and the difficult questions will evaporate," then this is uncomfortably close to saying "if everyone strives to be a good person, they won't disagree on anything." Is that what he's saying?

This is my view: If anyone is not already striving to be fair, honest, reliable, hard-working, responsible - then they should stop whatever they're doing immediately and start working on that. They should withdraw from all political discussion and begin the slow and painful journey to righteousness. It is a prerequisite.

Now let's assume that we have a group of people who are striving to be righteous (which I take as a summary-term for the above virtues). Can we assume they agree on all political points that matter? Is there no well-meaning person whose views would lead to disaster if they were enacted? Is there no systemic dishonesty and injustice that we're not aware of, that skews our perspective however hard we try to avoid it? Is sin so easily solvable as that? The ancient Greeks believed it was that easy. Then Christianity came and suggested otherwise.

Worrying about climate change - on the left.
Worrying about America becoming communist - on the right.

Do we think that there's no conversation to be had about these things by those who are striving to be righteous? No mutual accountability, no residue of selfish behavior that we need each other to help root out?

[Ondrej]

My point was rather to ask whether you see this as an alternative to political action, or a necessary pre-requisite for it.

The first and second quotes stemmed from quite different thoughts on my end. The first quote was trying to address the question how should you live if you are suffering with climate anxiety. Which was just basically my thoughts on how one should live in general.

The second quote stemmed from my reflections on the Gulag Archipelago where Solzhenitsyn basically laid the blame for the rise of communism on everyone. Peterson also frequently talks about this.

With that particular quote I don't think Peterson is saying that we shouldn't think deeply about hard things. I think he is trying to push back against the activism culture which generates a sense of meaning and belonging by being part of a movement without necessarily knowing much about the problem or providing a solution. I think he is advocating getting your life together first and gaining some real world experience and learning how to actually solve problems. Then you and your culture will be well equipped to solve problems and you will have some wisdom to recognize how difficult solving problems actually is. To solve climate change you need hard working inventors, instead we are training our youth to be activists. He is pushing back against this.

Now let's assume that we have a group of people who are striving to be righteous (which I take as a summary-term for the above virtues). Can we assume they agree on all political points that matter? Is there no well-meaning person whose views would lead to disaster if they were enacted? Is there no systemic dishonesty and injustice that we're not aware of, that skews our perspective however hard we try to avoid it? Is sin so easily solvable as that? The ancient Greeks believed it was that easy. Then Christianity came and suggested otherwise.

I don't think I understand what you are getting at here. No, just because people are striving to be righteous does not mean they will agree. I can't quite get through the wording of the second question you ask. Some people with good intentions have bad ideas. I can't quite get through the wording of the third question either. It seems you are asking if we can be free of bias. Probably not but some things are certainly closer to fair takes than others. Sin? I'm not sure how you got to sin in general. I'm just not following your idea here.

Worrying about climate change - on the left.
Worrying about America becoming communist - on the right.

Do we think that there's no conversation to be had about these things by those who are striving to be righteous? No mutual accountability, no residue of selfish behavior that we need each other to help root out?

I think conversation between those striving to be righteous is basically the only way we will get anywhere. This is why the shadow-bans, deplatforming, shouting down speakers, safe spaces, etc of cancel culture is so bad. This is stemming critical theory which as far as I understand, holds that allowing the opposition the opportunity to speak enables the reinforcement of the reigning paradigm. You are not an individual with unique thoughts and ideas, you are a member of your group and simply act as a mouthpiece for that group in a grand struggle for group power. Silencing opposition through social justice activists pressuring platforms or institutions is a fairly stock mode of operation. If you speak with a conservative you are shamed for associating with a far right, fringe, radical, bigot, etc etc You are certainly not praised for hashing out the difficult discussions.

Nevertheless this is going on underground since we discovered podcasting. Main stream news doesn't allow enough time to air the questions but we no longer need a broadcasting network to discuss things as a civilization. We can do this from our homes using youtube and skype. But how do you silence people you have no control over? You write hit pieces and smear them as dangerous, alt-right, conspiracy theorists etc etc and then pressure youtube, twitter etc to suppress hate speech, disinformation etc etc. You point to the hit pieces as authoritative and dismiss the random guy on youtube as just some random guy on youtube but with dangerous or oppressive ideas. You set up fact checkers that are billed as being neutral third parties but by doing so create a lever whereby you can get rid of or suppress certain speech under the auspices of fact checking. We saw this all the time during covid where doctors and legitimate experts were taken down because it didn't follow the "correct" covid narrative.

Worrying about climate change - on the left.
Worrying about America becoming communist - on the right.

I want to drop these two links somewhere and this is as good a place as any:

America becoming communist through advancement of critical theory.
https://open.lbry.com/@newdiscourses:9/ ... rxism%2C:8 (1 hr)

Climate change
https://open.lbry.com/@JordanBPeterson: ... nk-bjorn:4 (2 hr)
Lomborg hits on an aspect of climate change that I haven't quite been able to put my finger on and express clearly, namely that a potential infinitely large problem seems to justify an infinite expenditure. But we live in a world with finite resources so one needs to prioritize. He just takes at face value the IPCC report and compares return on investment for various expenditures on various problems.