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ProfessorPlum

(11,329 posts)
Sun May 13, 2018, 10:56 PM May 2018

The Two Ways to Look at Injustice - the Underdog and the Overdog

The world is an inherently unjust place. Some people are on top, some are on the bottom. There is oppression, exploitation, luck, and injustice. Until we have a perfect society, that is just the way things are.

The two main political philosophies arise out of how we react to that injustice. We can either think "things need to change" or "things are a-ok as they are".

"Things need to change" is:

rooting for the underdog
realizing that poor people are not necessarily inherently flawed
that some people achieve wealth and power through the luck of their parentage and birth
that programs that help people who are hungry, jobless, cold, and sick improve the world for everyone
that healthcare and education are for everyone
that disadvantaging people based on attributes they can't change is terrible
supporting strong labor
protecting people against fraud and negligence

"Things are a-ok" is :

rooting for the already wealthy and powerful
believing that rich people are better than everyone else, and are rich because they are virtuous
that poor people are failed humans who deserve to be poor
that helping people makes people weak and dependent
that people should pay for their own healthcare and education
crushing labor in favor of capital
allowing the rich to poison everyone and commit fraud freely

Most people on this site seem to be, like me, people who want to fight for a more just world. Rooting for the Overdog seems like such a lifeless way to live life.

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The Two Ways to Look at Injustice - the Underdog and the Overdog (Original Post) ProfessorPlum May 2018 OP
R#2 & K for, I'm with Zoroaster!1 (Seriously) UTUSN May 2018 #1
K&R Paka May 2018 #2
The corollary to this is - how do you get people to become "A-ok"ers. ProfessorPlum May 2018 #3
The two ways from different view: Renaissance and Enlightenment principles Hortensis May 2018 #4

ProfessorPlum

(11,329 posts)
3. The corollary to this is - how do you get people to become "A-ok"ers.
Mon May 14, 2018, 07:00 AM
May 2018

And you do that by demonizing the poor. Talking about how diseased and criminal they are. Whipping up fear of the other. Racism. Fear of immigrants. Xenophobia.

All the while celebrating the rich, who after all, wear nice suits and ties and always have their nails trimmed. Never mind the millions/billions they are stealing in white collar crime. Just hate the poor.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
4. The two ways from different view: Renaissance and Enlightenment principles
Mon May 14, 2018, 07:48 AM
May 2018

of humanism and the liberal beliefs arising from that, which emphasize individual worth, goodness and rights. Our liberal democracy, constitution and legal codes are mostly based on these philosophies.

The second way would be the age-old belief in a natural order, which has been codified in most religions and is inherently conservative. Most of America's conservatives believe in some mixture of the humanism they were raised with in our liberal democracy and this much older belief.

Belief in a natural order holds that people who behave morally and work to help themselves tend to be rewarded for it (by society and deity) and that people who don't are naturally punished and thus deterred. They believe this natural system results in stable, moral societies mostly lead by good, prosperous people and that interference with it by government overthrows the natural order and leads to depraved and degraded societies.

Conservatives also tend to have a darker view of humanity than liberals and believe that people will misbehave (including refusing to work) if they are not dissuaded by punishment. Many will support very severe punishment (if God believes people earn hellfire, it must be justified).

Their concepts of morality are also focused more on preserving stable, healthy society and less on supporting individual rights that could undermine society, and boy did I see an outstanding example of how that can go wrong that on my first jury duty here in the deep south. Pure kangaroo court "justice," the jury ignoring their duty as the trier of facts to rubber stamp a clearly multiply dishonest prosecution that also amazingly ineptly failed to make its case. Guessing the DA knew the jury would have their back. Fortunately, because I really didn't want to play out 13 Angry Men, including accusing the sheriff's department, DA and testing lab of incompetence and obvious malfeasance by all, for a woman we all knew shouldn't be driving (suffering from intense clinical anxiety, physically disabled, and on prescription narcotic pain medications, muscle relaxants, and psychotropics, with other accidents in the past), I turned out to be the alternate. (Btw, my second and third jury duties both went well; all did their duty under the law.)

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