From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 04:42:58 MST
Lee wrote:
> Brett writes
>
> > Well speaking from personal experience, not
> > necessarily on this list, sometimes I ask
> > what I think is a polite question, to learn
> > that I've just interrupted the speaker who
> > was about to tell me, and others, the answer.
>
> Yeah, that happens occasionally to me too, but
> after all, that can hardly happen on-line! Oh,
> only if it *were* possible to interrupt some
> people! ;-)
>
> > Generally I think we have to calculate the risk
> > of not asking (and possibly not finding out)
> > against the risk of asking and perhaps this
> > includes the risk of revealing what we don't know.
>
> Very true. One tries to struggle against the latter,
> but it's practically in our genes not to want to
> appear foolish. But one should work with oneself
> to overcome this as much as possible. We don't want
> to descend to the unfortunate level of some American
> Indian tribes and many Arabic traditions in which
> one is *so* conscious of reputations that often one
> dare not answer a question that a respected person
> has failed to answer, and an instructor simply cannot
> take the chance of asking someone a question to which
> he doesn't know the answer.
>
> > I wonder sometime what prize insights don't come out
> > because some people fear ridicule.
>
> Worse, I wonder how retarded the asker becomes by his
> fear of embarrassment or ridicule. But infinitely
> worse is the effect on all others present, who,
> after a while are afraid to ask any questions at
> all. Isn't it totally stupid when an instructor
> snows an entire room of people, all of them
> reluctant to bring it to his attention that
> they don't understand? His time is wasted too,
> because he has no idea. (Unless he's an asshole,
> of which there are not just a few.)
When the subject matter is tough enough, even bright folk can wonder if the
message is failing at the receiver rather than the transmitter. I guess it
takes a certain amount of (probably healthy) ego to presume one alone has
perhaps understood, or correctly, not understood an absurdity, in a room
full of silent classmates.
<napoleon story snipped>
>
> > > > I respect all these [extropian champions] and
> > > > realise they have earned through their work the
> > > > right not to have to answer idle ill considered
> > > > questions from novices that have made no attempt
> > > > at backgrounding at all.
> > >
> > > You have a grave misunderstanding. No one is ever
> > > under any obligation, unless it's self-imposed,
> > > to answer any question. How could they be? [Asking]
> > > can't hurt.
> >
> > I agree that no one is under any obligation to answer,
> > but how have I misunderstood?
>
> Oh, just a couple of things pushed my buttons. Practically
> any sentence that suggests there are "rights" beyond legal
> ones makes me want to speak up and dissent.
Good point.
I've heard quite a bit about rights and responsibilities at times and that
they are "two sides of the same coin", "reciprocal" or whatever. Until
recently I didn't really have cause to dig too deeply into it. It became
more of an issue for me with the stem cell debate. I was trying to sort out
what was wrong (if anything) in the notion that an embryo as a "human life"
had rights. Intuitively I place embryos somewhere between sperm and fetuses
along a continuum of human life forms that are increasing "warranting" of
moral recognition. I think many others do too. But in political debate
intuition alone doesn't cut it, so I tried to come up with a way to answer
to the often only implied question "what is the moral worth of an embryo?".
Or "what 'rights' should society afford it with respect to say a healthy or
sick adult" to whom we have a "duty" of care?
I wonder if you'd agree with the notion that in secular societies there are
no rights except that which are underwritten by societies members to accept
responsibility to uphold them. Of course in large secular societies the
means of underwriting or formalising the agreement to protect each others
right is the law. I would add it is not enough for society to want to uphold
rights of its citizens it must have some realistic capacity to do so. From
this I'd extrapolate that whilst we may grant animals, fetuses, embryos
certain rights, we can't realistically grant them the same rights as full
social citizens because if we do what what results is a situation where to
honor those rights more needs to be drawn from the social reservoir of
responsibility than the societies citizens were able to put in, and as a
consequence, the honouring of some rights like treating spare IVF embryos,
or animals as the equivalent to persons, undermines the social contract
because society will not have the capacity to underwrite its promised rights
to persons. This is what makes me uneasy about the notion of secular
societies talking of god given rights. Secular societies cannot yet
underwrite the size of the payments that are promised in god given rights.
Secular societies don't have god's in their membership empowered to put up
the resourcing for such rights. So perhaps what happens is that they,
secular societies, try and fail and as a consequence are worse place to
underwrite those rights that are human sized rights.
Increasingly I'm seeing questions of rights and morality not as where do we
draw the line but around whom do we draw the circle. If we caste the circle
too widely and try and bring animals into it for instance not just humans
then perhaps we have less resources to back the rights of people. Sort of
how much should we spend protecting white rhinos sort of argument.
This is developing thought.
One thing though, if we only acknowledge rights in law, then that would seem
to beg the question was the principle legislated not a moral "right" before
it was given legal form? And if so don't moral rights exist? I guess I'm
saying I accept there can be no rights without responsibilities but that I'm
not sure that to have rights you always have to have formal laws. Perhaps
agreements are enough?
>
> Secondly, your statement rubbed my egalitarianism wrong.
> I often see, more I think now than years ago, certain
> European tendencies (sorry) towards authoritarianism
> that bug me. People can become not only afraid to ask
> Herr Doktor Doktor a question, but even start to consider
> themselves out of place and presumptuous for failing to
> *believe* everything that Herr Doktor Doktor says.
I'm not European (if your apologising to me). In Australia we have this
cultural conviction "that one man (maybe person) is as good as another - if
not a darn sight better!".
>
> Even right here on this list, we have had posters who
> first examine someone's credentials before assessing
> whether what they say makes sense. If the "assessment"
> is not sufficient, then whoever it is is dismissed as
> as a "nobody", and his or her arguments are deemed
> completely unworthy and ignorable. "Trust content, not
> speakers", as Eliezer says ;-) (as if he were an authority
> or something).
I'll confess to a bit of shorthand here. And I know it can be dangerous. But
if I invest the time in checking out someones ideas and find them solid in
one area I bring to the next encounter a great propensity to accept less
critically both what they say themselves, and also, to take some account of
who they recommend as also having ideas worth looking into. This naturally
only gets one so far and bright folk make mistakes and vary in their command
of certain areas but the stereotyping at least saves some time.
>
> So I don't like it when anyone, even Extropian Champions
> are paid excess respect, because it furthers this deplorable
> tendency. Naturally and properly, we each respect some
> speakers more than others, but when this respect starts
> being *recognized*, or constantly alluded to, then we lose
> the egalitarian spirit, and one feels like barricading the
> streets and rounding up the "nobility".
>
> Lee
Well, I feel pretty safe. No nobility here. And I speak for the continent
:-)
Brett
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