Posted on 03/08/2012 9:15:15 AM PST by ProgressingAmerica
I would say that it’s the other way around. Socialism leads to utilitarianism, because when socialism is about dividing resources amongst the existing members of society artificially, which lends to the concept of designating some as deserving a share of resources and those who do not.
The flaw in the writer’s logic is that so-called “social justice” IS socialist dogma.
I think these are just two links in a larger chain. Driving all of this is the left's insistence on an empirical epistemology. Once that is establilshed as the dominant worldview then ultilitarianism follows as a matter of course. From that socialism, totalitarianism and genocide will come on each other's heels, like falling dominos. Just as night follows day. (unless of course the population is able to figure out that the logical conclusion of pure utilitarianism is solipsism. But that realization generally comes too late for anyone to do anything about it. Anarchy is restrained by an iron fist.)
Interestingly, although hardly anyone recognizes the fact, America's greatest literary figure, Edgar Allan Poe, recognized that the Utilitarians were playing dishonest word games, back in the 1840s. (See Poe Rebukes British Utilitarians.)
Your point is very important to a fuller understanding of the nature of the ideological conflict over the future.
Thank you for posting this.
William Flax
There’s a bit of irony there. Utilitarianism is about the greatest good for the greatest number. It shouldn’t be any wonder that the two run so closely together.
Socialism is rooted in the thought that we are all on a small planet with limited resources. Supposedly, if things were let be, we’d eventually run out of resources and perish as a species.
Socialism, everything that extends from that, is really the elites ensuring they have enough for themselves.
There is no real concern about the well-being of man overall.
I certainly agree with your sentiment about it being socialist dogma, but that’s not how it’s taught in class. ‘Social justice’ is taught as the purist form of justice.(at a minimum, one of the purist)
That’s how I tried to structure what I wrote. Partly, anyways.
The term is grossly misused by the Egalitarian Collectivists (Jacobins, Socialists & Communists). For a response to this misuse, see Not "Social" & Not Just.
William Flax
William Flax
You’ve been to college, and seen how all of this is done, haven’t you?
To add perspective on just how truly neither moral nor actually pragmatic are the Fabians & their perverted economics, see Keynes & The Keynesians.
William Flax
I may seem to be unkind, in that description. But if you look more closely, at almost any of their great projects in the 20th Century, both in how they approached them--via very selective sifting of any context;--and how they put them over, you will see my point confirmed.
Poe's little analysis of Mill, above, captured the basic intellectual dishonesty of the utilitarians; but that pales compared to the intellectual dishonesty of those using utilitarian arguments to pursue the fantasy of Egalitarian Collectivism. (And many of them are so far gone in compulsion limited thinking, that they are not even aware of what in the context of their programs they are ignoring to make those programs sound reasonable to those lacking good analytic skills.)
William Flax
There is a big gulf there. Try talking to a modern day Brit about the concept of Natural Law and they look at you like you are speaking Greek.
The way I'm being taught Utilitarianism I find to be alarming.(it's only one segment of the teaching, to be fair) Something that has been stated several times in class is that "in Utilitarianism, the individual does not matter" And that's also been in my book:
I used a program to smudge parts of the image, college books are from what I've seen heavily, heavily guarded by copyright.(I can't blame them, I'd want to keep this stuff hidden from public view if I were a professional propagandist as well) but I left the relevant line visible. You can plainly see, "Individuals don't matter with this approach", and it is referring without question, to Utilitarianism.
Yup.
So does democracy.
Constitutional Republics, when upheld, do not.
Ultimately, and in a practical sense, it is about who decides what greatest good for the greatest number actually is. Utilitarianism - and all of the other collectivist 'isms' - is the perfect hijackable vehicle for those driven by the will to power. History is my witness to the consequences.
Socialism, everything that extends from that, is really the elites ensuring they have enough for themselves.
There is no real concern about the well-being of man overall.
Nice! Socialism is fear and loathing. And the obsessive need to count other peoples' money.
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