Khaled said: The republican way of doing it, is for someone to deliver a 'contribution' to the dean's office, to elevate that poor girls grade.
Arlo replied: Yeah, you're right. And I suppose that father would have to explain to his daughter that it is okay for part of her GPA to be taken away and given to Mark, who's serving in the military. He'd have to fess up that it's not "taking away her GPA and giving it to others" that's at issue, its giving it to slutty, partying, lazy, stupid "classmates". dmb says: Exactly. Platt's allegory isn't about economics or even fairness so much as it's about self-righteousness and moral condemnation. It's an expression of the Protestant ethic that's always formed the basis of Capitalism. It's the kind of Social Darwinism that adds insult to injury. I mean, this is a mighty fine example of the way this ethic is used to make economic exploitation and injustice into something morally permissible, if not worthy of praise. That's what Max Weber was saying in his famous book, as I recently tried to explain. There's also a section about one of the biggest obstacles that Capitalism faced when it was just getting started. Apparently, the so-called "work ethic" doesn't come naturally and it was very hard to get increased productivity out of the workers. Weber tells a little story about a farm worker who was paid, let's say, $10 for every acre harvested and he usually finishes 3 acres pre day. But his employer wants him to worker faster or longer so as to finish 4 per day, so he offers him a raise. He say's he'll pay $15 per acre. But instead of getting all happy about being able to make twice as much money, the worker figures that $30 per day is what he's used to and so decides it would be better to harvest just 2 acres and call it a day, so he can go fishing or spend time at home or whatever, instead of earning extra money. For the worker, money is just a means to the end and the end is a good life. This is very frustrating to the employer, who needs workers who are motived by cash above all. And so people in Capitalist cultures who have internalized this ethic have been complaining about lazy slackers since the earth was young, usually with racist and/or nationalistic overtones. Moral condemnation has used to impose this Protestant ethic for hundreds of years. We all learned this as kids and so we teach our children. It says earning money is an end in itself, that's how we keep score in this world. And dedicated hard work is a moral duty above all others. Consider the lilies of field, eh? They only grow because they toil and spin forty, fifty, sixty hours a week. Do they not plot out their business careers and play the stock market? They stay thin by worrying and they dress modestly, mostly in earth tones. That's how God wants you to live, only more so. It's only natural - you know - because life IS competition. Ha! It has a way of turning things upside down, doesn't it? It's not really morality so much as judgmental cruelty disguised as morality. It teaches people to hate those who suffer, to blame the victims, to shut off their basic sense of empathy and decency. It's really depressing to think about how many American cheer for this cold, ugly thing. _________________________________________________________________ Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!550F681DAD532637!5295.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_domore_092008 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
