Recently the onerous issue of football
players protesting during the national anthem returned to the public square
under the category of all things blacks find wrong with America loosely
affiliated with law enforcement brutality. With the D-Day commemoration just
past it is worth considering the moral rightness or wrongness of holding the
national anthem hostage to knee-taking millionaire protesters. Lebron James
brought the subject up in a tweet regarding compliance with disrespecting the
national anthem for partisan racial purposes as the sole morally correct choice
in a right or wrong disjunctive paradigm. I wrote a post on moral norms last
year that reviewed some of the philosophical ground from one approach
concerning macro-social behavior that I will include following a couple of
comments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxDiQhNO780 metal instrumental
Colin
Kapernik’s original organization of national anthem protests seemed like a kind
of intifada against the anthem itself, or an interminable protest without an
end in sight because of the lack of particular demands for releasing the
anthem-hostage. Black Americans since the end of the civil war in 1865 have
fared collectively worse than some other Americans economically speaking
because of their racial, cultural and color clash with integrating normally
with lighter-skinned people with better education and technically more
proficient culture back in the day.
Slavery was an economic choice of avaricious ruling classes of prior centuries
that made educating and integrating former slaves a problem for everyone else
to the present day. Race as a political issue is easy to recognize and use for
dividing the body politic helping to keep income inequality among abstract
American masses going. Race as a motive to drive blacks to street protests and
riots during the Covid 19 milieu may bring about the needless deaths of 10 to
20 thousand blacks that may contact the illness from marchers infected during
marches.
It is said that the Tsar when
experiencing attacks on himself and the Russian aristocracy would prompt a
program of Jews to keep the masses distracted; race politics serve much the
same purposes in keeping the masses occupied with intractable problems without
solutions arising to end problems that require a more egalitarian income
equality for all non-rich American regardless of race.
Millionaires of pro sports taking a
knee of protest during the national anthem are perhaps willing pawns of the
most rich that pay them. Taking a knee during a half-time show in support of national
income equality was an alternative possible time-slot that would have
disambiguated the perceptible attack on the national anthem, nation and one
race against another.
2nd
Peter Chapter 2…
“9 The Lord
knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptations,
and to reserve the unjust unto the day of
judgment to
be punished:
10 But
chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust
of
uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous
are they,
selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of
dignities.
11 Whereas
angels, which are greater in power and
might, bring
not railing accusation against them before
the Lord.
12 But these,
as natural brute beasts, made to be taken
and
destroyed, speak evil of the things that they
understand
not; and shall utterly perish in their own
corruption;
13 And shall
receive the reward of unrighteousness, as
they that
count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots
they are and
blemishes, sporting themselves with their
own
deceivings while they feast with you;
14 Having
eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease
from sin;
beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have
exercised
with covetous practices; cursed children:
15 Which have
forsaken the right way, and are gone
astray,
following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who
loved the
wages of unrighteousness;
16 But was
rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass
speaking with
man's voice forbad the madness of the
prophet.
17 These are
wells without water, clouds that are
carried with
a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is
reserved for
ever.
16418 For
when they speak great swelling words of vanity,
they allure
through the lusts of the flesh, through much
wantonness,
those that were clean escaped from them
who live in
error.
19 While they
promise them liberty, they themselves
are the
servants of corruption: for of whom a man is
overcome, of
the same is he brought in bondage.
20 For if
after they have escaped the pollutions of the
world through
the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled therein, and
overcome, the
latter end is worse with them than the
beginning.
21 For it had
been better for them not to have known
the way of
righteousness, than, after they have known it,
to turn from
the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22 But it is
happened unto them according to the true
proverb, The
dog is turned to his own vomit again; and
the sow that
was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
things, be
diligent that ye may be found of him in peace,
without spot,
and blameless.
15 And
account that the longsuffering of our Lord is
salvation;
even as our beloved brother Paul also according
to the wisdom
given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in
all his epistles, speaking in them of these
things; in
which are some things hard to be understood,
which they
that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as
they do also
the other scriptures, unto their own
destruction.
17 Ye
therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things
before,
beware lest ye also, being led away with the error
of the
wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
18 But grow
in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord
and Saviour
Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for
ever. Amen.”
The anthem attack, or anathema rap,
could be construed as a support for globalism and basic anti-Americanism from
millionaires of the hyper-meritocratic ilk that have made income inequality in
the United States about the greatest on Earth. General racism can be a great
diversionary issue to cover and conceal the deeper and objective problem of
income inequality that is keeping the half of the populace living with just
4-5% of the national income.
Correcting that problem is the
greatest economic challenge facing the nation now along with the shared
top-rank problem of ecological sustainability economic transition. Income
inequality has occurred in every society under the old order of classical
economics, yet it is mal-adapted today with the demographics of the people of
the planet and the natural tendency to repress intellectual potential of the
masses of the poor not just national, but globally. More egalitarian income
allocations and opportunity will promote greater human efficiency in maximizing
human potential for productivity, invention and learning.
Racism that is subjective is
psychological and personal and will always be present. Objective social
structures and measurable, quantifiable income inequality can however be
corrected by the will of competent congressional legislation and government
such as may exist if competent individuals are elected and the broadcast media
doesn’t always screw everything up because they are owned by the wealthiest
Americans.
Objectively speaking, organizational
management is virtually a science. Correcting police management deficiencies
through numerous means including legislative should be easy to accomplish.
Correcting income inequality isn’t too easy because of the political and media
power of concentrated wealth that may control American democracy as a kind of
black-box.
In brief the richest control maybe 20%
of national capital and are few in number of less than 1% of the 1% of
wealthiest Americans. A grossly over-paid hyper meritocratic class of elite
managers are aristocrats loyal to the most rich and their existing structure of
income inequality. The corporate management class is globalist as are the elite
rich and keep American wages suppressed through numerous means including cheap
foreign labor, illegal immigration and low minimum wages. One simple remedy to
keep U.S. wages competitive with cheap foreign labor would be to pass a law
requiring corporations to share profit-dividends with their workers who could
build capital even while their wages are low. Another remedy would be free
public education through graduate school; free education eliminates basic
inability of the poor to afford education at higher levels easily affordable
for the prosperous.
The present structure of national
income inequality is not the best one for meeting the demographic and
environment challenges of the nation and world in the present- the existing
structure is built on certain empirical assumptions of the past environmentally
and educationally that are no longer valid. Free enterprise and capitalism can
function within structure that is far more egalitarian and efficient at
promoting human health, education and security in addition to ecospheric
restoration to robust health.
Contemporary democracy ought to evolve
to a transparent state with a well-informed electorate living within egalitarian
income equality criteria who understand the demographic and environmental
limits and challenges facing themselves and the entire planet and working to
solve those challenges. Everyone should have basic income security and with
free enterprise and capitalism reformed to a more egalitarian and
ecospherically configured condition.
Hume- Is, Ought and What Not of Moral
Norms
"All prescriptive theory" is
quite a large field that isn't even finished. Formal logic and the square of
opposition has the A proposition being 'All are". One learns to be very
careful with that. All are x or none are x can allow zero exceptions to be
true. Hume wanted to disprove cause and effect relationships, so he necessarily
would have pointed out the looseness of 'is' propositions to 'ought' or should
propositions, quite reasonably.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/
Prescriptive theories can be applied
in fields beside moral philosophy, and in some case the formal logical tests
would be applied equally and in others the tests fall outside of simple formal
logic and within larger structures for analysis that might best be compared to
dead reckoned sailing judgments. Rather than being logically rigorous
propositions formally the use was analytical. One could say for instance that 1
+ 3 equals 4 and the answer they provided is 5, and they ought to have written
'4'. That kind of statement is reasonable.
Moral propositions though, unlike Kant's
categorical imperative that has some logical validity in a dead reckoning sort of
way, are descriptive of actually existing human behavior and suggestions to
improve that in some cases. In others it could be a simple observational use of
the word 'ought' for a moral circumstance where variant behavior did not comply
with the prevailing idea of the normal correct behavior.
An example for that might be that a
baby is crawling across a street amidst heavy traffic, the mother is lying on
the sidewalk knocked out from a falling brick, and a passerby walks past the
scene and allows the baby to be squished by a truck when he could have easily
rescued the tyke from the road. While not legally responsible to rescue the
infant, a police officer that saw the scene from a distance says to his partner
the "the rogue ought to have saved that baby".
https://www.livescience.com/solution-to-worst-prediction-in-physics.html
Experience of exigent circumstances
are rather subjective and conditional, yet descriptive and normative
(prescriptive) ethics describe situations in space-time, Situations that are
recurrent can be emergent though not unique. Consider the Nurmagomedov vs.
Porier UFC 242 fight- It was like a martial arts match where each knew various
katas or forms. None were unique or original, and there are lots of
prescriptive analysis about what ought to have been done to get outcome A, B.
or C. Prescriptive ethics about what people think they should do probably never
would be over regarding humans. Hume's Fork (good point) about empiricism and
rationalism going separate paths, disregarded by Kant, might be a subject of
more modern philosophical research in the developments of 20th century
empiricism and Ayer's book 'Language, Truth and Logic' wherein only empirically
based statements-more scientific ones, had validity and the remainder were
psychological and subjective. W.V.O. Quine broke that paradigm in 'The Two Dogmas
of Empiricism'. Epistemologically speaking the separability of the world and
statements about it was renormalized or returned to something closer to a
Kantian rather than Humean position. I think a lot of moderns like Dewey's
paradigm of everything being subjective, and so they like Hume's ideas. He
seemed to want to dismiss common ideas about the relation between words and
objects-fair enough, yet he went too far in several ways, from a much later
point of view in regard to subsequent developments.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics
Normative ethics are also known as
prescriptive ethics, they are usual contrasted to descriptive ethics. Hume
created an epistemological battle taken up by Kant. The resolution of the
epistemological war was settled by logic and logical analysis of the relation
between words and objects. Ethics falls into valleys between the hilltops of
epistemology and logic. Subjectivists like Hume later tended to justify moral
paradigms with epistemology that broke the ties between rationality and the
world itself experienced by individuals. Prescriptive theory is an ethics about
what people think they should do in a particular circumstance, descriptive
theory is about what people actually do.
