<p>Hey Marja,</p>

<p>Thanks for this. I’m sorry I’m late to the discussion. A couple of halting suggestions.</p>

<blockquote><p>Does patriarchy even exist any more? Men die sooner. Men get imprisoned more often.</p></blockquote>

<p>I guess this depends on what group of phenomena “patriarchy” is supposed to be encompassing. The strand of radical feminism I’ve always identified with has seen patriarchy as rooted primarily in men’s violence against women, and especially the sexualized violence of rape, wife-beating, abortion laws, etc. As much has been done to challenge all of these, they are still everywhere and still largely committed with impunity, and I think as long as, e.g., men are raping 1 out of every 4 women, and this has systemic effects on constraining women’s behavior and gender expression, patriarchy as I understand it is still in place.</p>

<p>It’s true that men get imprisoned more often, but as far as I know that’s always been true, as long as there have been prisons. Prison is oppression, but at present it’s almost exclusively form of oppression that some men inflict on other men. (Maybe that will change as more women become police, prison-guards, and political office-holders, but at present all those are still predominantly the province of states-men.) And I think the major causes of, e.g., men’s shorter life expectancies (labor conditions under state capitalism, violence among men, etc.) are also examples of things men do to other men. But hasn’t patriarchy, as a hierarchical structure, has always included internal hierarchy among the patriarchs, and intersected with cross-cutting forms of oppression?</p>

<blockquote><p>Is privilege the best way of thinking about it?</p></blockquote>

<p>I’m inclined to doubt it. But I’m increasingly uncertain that “privilege” is the best way of thinking about much of anything; I’m not sure if we have the same reasons for worrying in this case. I’m worried because I’m worried about how far the all-encompassing use of “privilege” to explain has shifted the focus from what oppressors do to what oppressors have. Of course there were reasons for that — unpacking invisible knapsacks and making privileged people aware of the limitations of their own standpoint and all that — but what we have now is a basically epistemological approach (about becoming aware of, and owning, how much “privilege” you do or don’t have) to the micropolitics of one-to-one or one-to-many power-relationships — an approach which provided a handy conceptual tool for the analysis and criticism of individual beliefs, attitudes, conduct, epistemic standpoints, etc. — but which seems to have been wrenched out of that context and awkwardly repurposed into an all-encompassing framework for viewing all forms of oppression, exploitation, bigotry, ignorance, alienation, interpersonal friction, or abusive behavior. I do think that one effect of this is that it has proved really, extremely awkward for any attempt to talk about power relationships that involve more than two sides, and hence also for horizontal, diagonal, or intersectional power (such as the hierarchies of power among men under male supremacy, for example; or the way in which “cis” women, trans women, trans men, gay men, genderqueer folks, children, etc. are all oppressed — but differently oppressed, in different directions, by patriarchal violence).</p>

<p>Everything else is really interesting and important; I just wish I had something more articulate to say about it.</p>

Fair enough. But then why describe Rand Paul’s beliefs, or the beliefs of other “small-government” conservatives, as “neo-anarchist,” when their beliefs and goals are exactly the opposite of what anarchists propose?

You write: “Rand Paul pushes this neo-anarchist belief that the government should get out of everything,”

We anarchists don’t believe that “government should get out of everything.” We believe that government should cease to exist, and take capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and all other forms of class oppression straight to hell with it. Rand Paul is as much of an anarchist as any other “limited government” conservative Republican, which is to say, not at all: he wants to trim some parts of government here and there, while leaving in place all the violent functions of government that prop up existing forms of oppression (in particular government militaries, government police, government prisons, and government borders; he is especially fond of government border laws and using government to attack Latino immigrants). Anarchism is an entirely different, far more radical proposition.

You write: “… including mine safety because ‘who would work at an unsafe mine?’ Well, the people who have two choices- an unsafe mine or starvation.”

I certainly have no wish to speak for Rand Paul. But speaking on behalf of anarchists, (“neo-” or otherwise), I will say that the traditional anarchist approach to this question is to give people more choices — in particular, not setting up a political apparatus and hope that workers will somehow be able to control it more effectively than corporate lobbyists; but rather organizing grassroots mutual aid networks and fighting, rank-and-file unions that allow mine-workers to effectively stand up to the bosses — so that they do not have to depend on the mercy of the bosses or the solicitude of politically-appointed bureaucrats to gain a safe and humane livelihood for themselves.

... I don't think Scott was claiming that a culture of personal responsibility would affect the number of sociopaths by persuading them to accept personal

You write: “In fact, many have tried, my favorite being G. E. Moore, who in 1903, wrote Principia Ethica… an entire (lengthy) book solely to attempt to define the word.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Moore was trying to do in Principia Ethica.

The major conclusion of the first chapter (“The Subject-Matter of Ethics”) is that good is indefinable (in the sense that the concept of good cannot be analyzed into any set of more basic concepts).

The rest of the chapters in the book are intended, not to define good (which Moore argued was impossible) but rather to criticize other ethical theories which he takes to be based on what he calls the “Naturalistic Fallacy” (the fallacy of passing off a substantive theory about what things are good, as if it were simply a definition of what good is); and then developing a method to develop a positive theory of his own (which is based not on attempted definitions of ‘good,’ but rather on the rigorous testing of intuitions about what is good in itself (as an end).

You write: “‘Cheating’ is not unethical here, and trying to force these things on other people without a thought to why, that is clearly arrogant ignorance. “

Well, so what’s wrong with “arrogant ignorance”? Certainly, if we accept your claims here, it seems that Westerners engage in “arrogant ignorance” all the time, accept it as O.K., or even virtuous, and have deep cultural reasons for doing so — just as you say is the case for the practice of “cheating” by Indonesians. But are you proposing that, even though Westerners apparently do this all the time and are O.K. with it, it’s nevertheless wrong — unethical — for them to practice “arrogant ignorance”?

If not, then why criticize them for it, when you won’t criticize Indonesians for “cheating”?

If so, then it seems that there are at least some things which you recognize as good (humility and knowledge) across the board, and other things which you recognize as bad (arrogant ignorance) across the board, regardless of culture, and regardless of how much the people practicing of it happen to approve of their own behavior. N’est-ce pas?

... Anthony, Sure, and to the extent that minarchos are better on these topics, it's correspondingly easier to work with them; and to the extent that a

... Do you mean Nozick? ... Rand and Nozick both hold that the minimal state as they envision it should raise revenue only voluntarily, through donations or

... I agree with you, of course; in fact, I think that Childs is spot-on to point out that if the goal is "objective" law, then that ought to entail that

... I agree that "the nightwatchman state" (1) is vague and (2) can include a defense of taxation. And that "minarchist" includes voluntary taxationists such

... Right, but if "Randism" means the views of Ayn Rand, her view *is* that competition in the protection of rights ought to be forbidden. Cf. "The Nature of