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Old 06-19-2017, 02:21 PM   #780
Tyrone Slothrop
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Join Date: May 2004
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Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield View Post
It means what it says. In the past, moral compulsion had teeth. Concepts of what was right and wrong ruled (at least for the paroles and middle class). That's not the case so much anymore. The author gets into this a bit in criticizing the center left as bloodless. They don't argue that we must do what's humane. Take, for instance, the ACA. It couldn't be sold solely as a program to give the poor health care insurance, whatever the cost. It had to instead be sold as a cost-paring structure. The pragmatist will only save lives if it makes economic sense.

We're not a society elevating morality to the forefront. We're become more data obsessed, and employ cost/benefit assessments in place of old notions of right vs. wrong. It's not so much whether you should or shouldn't do something as much as what the upside and risks of an action present. Where decades ago, we might look at certain behaviors as objectively bad, we're more inclined today to view all actions as having certain risk premiums. "Oh, you got busted and had to pay a fine for that violation? Oh well... The potential payoff was good. The risk still made sense."

This isn't a criticism. I think morality is muddy and malleable. Risk and rational calculation are easier to measure and control.
Not sure who your "we" is, but it isn't "society." The people who voted for Trump were informed by a strong view of morality that Clinton voters did not share. Illegal immigration is wrong, and illegal immigrants are criminals who ought to face consequence. Law & order means that police should be respected and obeyed, and that people who threaten the social order should be punished. The undeserving shouldn't get help from the government. And so on. Trump was popular in part because he spoke forcefully and unapologetically to these morals.
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