I don't address most of what you write, because you're full of shit. I didn't make anything up. I summarized and paraphrased, and that's what happens when a person actually states a position and makes an argument.pErvinalia wrote:I addressed this, and quelle surprise, you ignored it. What you claimed one of those sources said was made up and full of bullshit rhetoric. I linked the original piece.Forty Two wrote: I don't know what red herrings you're referring to. I did refer to the more recent sources I linked to as on the "cutting edge." So, I admit we're talking an extreme view, but over time, as I also noted, extreme views sometimes move to the middle.
Therein lies a fundamental disagreement as I do not agree that poverty is a system. Poverty is a state of lack of wealth or resources. If poverty is the system, then there is no distinction or difference that is not systemically unfair. Poor people can't eat at expensive restaurants or buy expensive cars and houses. That's not a systemic unfairness - unless, as I pointed out before, one subscribes to a particular kind of ideology. I can think of a prime example of that kind of ideology.pErvinalia wrote:Unless you think poverty is the fault of every individual poor person, poverty IS systemic. Poverty breeds poverty, and also lowers IQ in some cases (not mine, obviously... ). I.e. poverty is a system itself.Not systemic. Advantages yes, but "the system" unless you're talking about some sort of unequal treatment by the State or the government is not doing it. Free people making free choices and some having better and others having worse outcomes is not a system.JimC wrote:
Nor is it surprising or unethical for parents to use whatever resources they have to support their education. What we do need to recognise, though, is that there is a systemic advantage that accrues to the children of the wealthy in terms of their chance of gaining tertiary qualifications, and that children in poverty have considerable barriers in their path to the same goals, even given equal ability and motivation.
That's the reality of life, but life is not a system. This is the problem with the ideology that I'm referring to. You refer to a fact of life - that people with more food in their pantry get to eat more food than people who have less food in their pantry -- and call that a systemic problem. It's not a system in the sense of an organized scheme or method.pErvinalia wrote:
Additionally, it is a feature of our societies that it is easier to obtain educational, health, and financial benefits, and better quality ones at that, when you are richer. That is systemic.
I would never disagree with the statement that it's easier to obtain most things that cost money when you have more money. That's, of course, a general reality. However, it's not inherently unfair that people have more money than other people.
I never said he was, and i've explained to you and him more than once already that I'm talking about the extreme, cutting edge progressive position that we should ban those advantages. I'm not arguing after a strawman, because I never attributed the argument to someone who didn't advance it. There ARE people who advance that argument. That's the argument I'm addressing. I don't give a flying fuck if you agree with them, or if JimC personally doesn't agree with them.pErvinalia wrote:Jim has just explained twice to you now (as well as a large number of times before) that he isn't interested banning these advantages. You are arguing against a strawman. He specifically talked about acknowledging that these advantages are real and significant and then providing support to those who suffer significant disadvantage. Why aren't you addressing this?I guess that depends on how much a society is doing in the first place. Would an ethical society ALWAYS do a lot more, or is there an amount of financial support for disadvantaged people that finally allows one to say that an ethical society would not have to do more. And, interestingly, from ideological base where these kinds of arguments come, it's often presented as a solution that to help the "disadvantaged" everyone must proceed in accordance with a State program so that it's all the same. The example there are those that would eliminate private schools altogether and have everyone have to follow the same path in public schools. Those people exist and are right minded. And, their ideology says that it is "systemically" unfair that the "system" allows people the freedom to start a school, accept students, and educate them for a fee, because "not all" of the members of that society can get in or afford it. To make the "system" fair, we have force and compel people attend a public school, so that nobody moves at a faster pace than anyone else. The wealthy parents send their kids to private school disproporationately, they say, and so they tend to get into better universities, and hold better and more professional type jobs in the end.JimC wrote: An ethical society would do a lot more in terms of means-tested financial support for disadvantaged people who have demonstrated the ability and desire to improve their chances of employment by study.
Those making the moral judgment that this is "bad" or "bad people" send their kids to private schools, or that there is a moral argument for banning private schools altogether, are illiberal and authoritarian. They have good intentions, I will grant, because they want to help the less fortunate, so most people will probably say, but their solution is to impose authoritarianism control over the day to day lives of individuals and families. They would ban as immoral a group of people in West Bumfuck, Kansas, or East Jabib, Western Australia, from getting together, buying a building, and inviting people to buy education services from them, and they would say anyone who would want to send their kids to that place is a bad person. And, they'd do that under the rubric of kindness, fairness, compassion and progressivism. And, similarly, they would compel everyone to attend a cookie-cutter, soul-crushing State-run education facility, all out the kindness of their hearts to help the "disadvantaged." And, they would call themselves, quite often, "liberal." (at least in the US).
I have addressed the issue of providing support to those who suffer significant disadvantage. You have this constant insistence that I talk about what you prefer to talk about. If you scroll back to the start of this sub-conversation wherein the issue of private schools and reading to kids came up, you'll see what we were talking about. Assistance to the needy is a different issue than that, and I brought up specific issues related to reading to kids and related to the immorality of sending kids to private school. If you and Jim don't agree with those extreme views, that's great, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about and analyze those views here. We aren't limited to only discussing views that someone here personally holds and advocates, and discussing those views, which exist and are advocated by some people, is not a "strawman."