Your OWN personal morality

I would work in a munitions factory?

Slumberjack wrote:

Class struggle is so 19th century, which frankly and with each passing day, seems more and more disingenuous from an institutionalized, western political perspective, and at odds as well with global environmental limitations.

I can't think of a single situation of conflict in the world that doesn't have a significant element of class struggle - and it's constantly being renewed, revived, redefined. The Occupy movement is a pretty obvious example. Aboriginal blockades against resource thieves and exploiters. Women's fight everywhere in every sphere for equality.

Quote:

What else does the proletariat struggle toward if it isn't a bourgeoisie lifestyle that has already been universally defined by Capitalism? 

Fairness, equality, democracy (i.e. controlling one's life and destiny). In my own experience, even strikes very rarely are waged over "how much we get". They are most often struggles of resistance against being ground down, robbed, humiliated.

If your notion of "class struggle" truly relates to every individual's desire to be rich - then 1) I'm against class struggle; and 2) it wouldn't exist. That's not what motivates workers, or women, or indigenous people, or people of colour, or colonized nations. It motivates individuals who are already rich. And their internecine struggle hurts all of us.

Quote:

As for morality, the idea that a type of morality exists that stands above, beyond, or outside of commoditized societies such as our own seems problematic.  Isn't the simple act of casting around for more blameworthy subjects than what we see in the mirror everyday; as tempting as it is; part and parcel of the narcissism we're being already ruled by?  From everything I've been able to cobble together, most of it amounting to precious little; it appears that our biggest challenge is our own language and linguistics, which for the most part needs to be invented anew, as opposed to being re-invented from the current use.  And even here we should take pains to reserve judgment where possible, because just about everyone knows of nothing else.

Now that part is challenging. I think I agree with a whole lot of it. But now I have to go and think. You always do that to me, SJ. Thanks for commenting here.

Well, I'm a well-known ecosocialist, so it stands to reason that my vision of a post-capitalist world has nothing to do with a shiny new luxury car or a monster house. On the contrary. And indeed, a lot of major struggles have moved into "new industrial zones", particularly in Asia.

The ruling class sure doesn't think class war is passé.

I did of course say "class struggle" to be a bit provocative, to the thought that any human being in the contemporary world could be "not a part of any sub-group". That is nonsense as long as exploitation, and oppression of women, people of colours other than pinky-white, lgbt people etc continues, as well as the never-ending land grab pushing out Indigenous peoples.

Yes, we are one planet, but many factions of the ruling class seem to act as if there were another one they could easily escape to after ecocide.

alien wrote:

  In case of murder (by a gun in this case) the final responsibility is with the one who pulled the trigger.  Without that individual act the murder would not have happened.  No amount of group-think and group-justification can change this fact.  You need an individual ethical code to guide your actions and to limit your contribution to unethical outcome. 

Its ‘group-think’ and group justifications that set the stage for atrocities and murder to occur.  The police truncheon has an entire apparatus of support behind the arm swinging it at someone's head.  He believes himself to be on the side of what's right.  Everything in this regard needs attention, like de-nazification in the late 40s, to Eichmann's hanging, to the latter day prosecution of war criminals.  Pity the selective nature of that endeavor is what we can say about it.

No. The defendants were going to get hanged one way or another. If anything it was Rodolf Hoess who insisted on personal responsibility.

But there's no need to leap to a Godwinism.

You asked for people's opinions; I think SJ gave you a VERY good one. Let's not go trying to corral him into an answer that fits your ideas.

How much is personal and how much is external depends entirely on the situation - especially when one is doing a job where personal morality is supposed to be kept out of it.

"Unethical" after all, means a lot of things to a lot of people.

Nonsense.

When someone is hired as a justice of the peace we expect that person to perform legal marriages whether s/he thinks they are ethical or not.

We expect a doctor or a nurse to perform tubal ligations, blood transfusions and abortions whether they consider them moral or not.

Someone in a position of authority might be called on to safeguard something which is unethical. Although there are some situations where one decides to abandon duty, you can't simply do that in every case of moral ambiguity.

Why? because not all of us have the same idea of what ethical means.

And furthermore, there are plenty of jobs in which it is not clear whether the outcome is ethical or unethical, and very often it is both, with a trade off.

You think it is cut and dried? Fine; I know a lot of others who think the same way. I do not.

Should you work for the government? Knowing that you might have to turn someone down for welfare, cut their benefits, not approve funding for something that might save lives?

Should you not become a cop? And maybe have to kill someone to save others (and Im not even getting into the morally ambiguous ones or abuse cases just a simple nutter shooting people and not stopping when called to or shooting back at the cops and trying to kill others). You can always 'quit' the job but usually not on the spot as the criminal is shooting at you or those you are purporting to swear to protect.

And you can refuse unlawful orders in the military

Unionist wrote:

I can't think of a single situation of conflict in the world that doesn't have a significant element of class struggle - and it's constantly being renewed, revived, redefined. The Occupy movement is a pretty obvious example. Aboriginal blockades against resource thieves and exploiters. Women's fight everywhere in every sphere for equality.

Environmental blockades and distinct expressions of personhood, where personhood is being denied, even those struggles undertaken within the confines of a traditional collective endeavor, to my mind anyway seem more related to struggles around 'bare life' and individual autonomy, than they are to struggle for positioning within a given political construct. A group of women demanding equal pay for performing the same work as a group of men would appear to re-constitute the demand for equal recognition as persons.  Class struggle in this regard can constitute, as it often does, a recapturing and diluting operation, or ideally from the historical record, a significant magnification of a desire already present, prior to being recognized by class struggle as deserving of solidarity.  In terms of indigenous struggle around the world concerning land, environmental and resource issues, etc, I don't know if it's always true that the examples at hand are representative of struggle motivated by class interests.  It seems in those instances that it is more like humanity being involuntarily pitted against the transnational state, with little if any help at all from the traditional elements of class struggle, at least here in Canada.

Occupy didn't go very far beyond the naming of a 1% interest.  The other 99% constituted humanity without any content in particular attributed to us.  It's true that traditional class interests of all sorts descended upon the encampments to appropriate what they could, but ultimately, what wound up being represented in its refusal to articulate a set of demands that the ruling interests could set to work on, was a category of human being that seemed exiled even from the status of proletariat.  Hence the general confusion that was registered throughout the corporate media at the time in trying to come to terms with what it was all about.  I suspect the media knew all along, but refused to analyze it for public consumption because the list of complaints would have been quite long, which would have risked providing too much space to the many who are entirely shut out of contemporary political considerations.

Quote:

Fairness, equality, democracy (i.e. controlling one's life and destiny). In my own experience, even strikes very rarely are waged over "how much we get". They are most often struggles of resistance against being ground down, robbed, humiliated.

We should be prepared to ask ourselves if the discourse and allowances granted with respect to fairness and equality in the workplace and in general society can ultimately be founded upon productivity requirements, or in other words, upon the happy, productive worker within the Capitalist framework.

One does what one believes to be right, or in many cases, one does what they feel they must do in order to survive.  When it involves others unwillingly is where lines begin to be drawn up between what people are willing to accept and what is generally deemed unacceptable, which in terms of the West at least is often constituted as manufactured consent.  Under the circumstances a pure moral pursuit would involve an undertaking along the lines of an extended shabbat from all endeavours that serve the interests of the state. Otherwise, immorality as its being discussed here is quite inescapable.

alien wrote:

We have had a few changes since then, including a solar system that got us completely off the grid, and a 44' x 14' greenhouse that allows us to grow our food year around. All with minimal investment and with our own labour.

That's mighty noble of you. I don't see how it answers my question.

But to say there is no moral purity and one does what one can is a bit of a contradiction to your claim of absolute personal responsibility.

Sorry. That circle doesn't square. You want to put it on yourself, fine, but you have no grounds to put it on anyone else.

alien wrote:

I make up my own mind, I choose the best compromise I can possibly choose, according to my own personal moral principles.

I believe most people pick and choose from the ones provided to them.

I haven't seen the word 'blind' used so many times in such a short poem since the one about the mice.

[url=http://still.my.revolution.tao.ca/node/54]Also...[/url]

Quote:

It used to be a lot of fun before the Bell curve shifted massively to the left.

Well this is concerning, from someone who also stated they use their own moral judgement.

Class struggle is so 19th century, which frankly and with each passing day, seems more and more disingenuous from an institutionalized, western political perspective, and at odds as well with global environmental limitations.  What else does the proletariat struggle toward if it isn't a bourgeoisie lifestyle that has already been universally defined by Capitalism?  The planet can't endure for much longer the pursuits of the bourgeoisie that are already with us, let alone to have these pursuits expanded upon by a couple of billion people through a successful, worldwide revolt of the proletariat.  One begins to see both the impossibilities and the absurdities.  And anyway, proletarian leadership cadres around the world have understood this binary paradox better than anyone, at least in terms of the allocation of resources, and judging by the extent of their authoritarian reaction in power once they've taken stock of their predicament.  The final swan song of the ideology of the proletariat is constituted in the stale, leftover bits that the professional, institutionalized left have been tantalizing the unwary with for well over a century and counting.

As for morality, the idea that a type of morality exists that stands above, beyond, or outside of commoditized societies such as our own seems problematic.  Isn't the simple act of casting around for more blameworthy subjects than what we see in the mirror everyday; as tempting as it is; part and parcel of the narcissism we're already being ruled by?  From everything I've been able to cobble together, most of it amounting to precious little; it appears that our biggest challenge is our own language and linguistics, which for the most part needs to be invented anew, as opposed to being re-invented from the current use.  And even here we should take pains to reserve judgment where possible, because just about everyone knows of nothing else.

This reminds me of Aikido message forums.