Repeat

Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.

[It's David Brooks.]

Atrios

But Why?
No particular interest in picking on Foer, [Jonathan Safran Foer Lists Park Slope Mansion for $14.5M] but I'm mystified by people who own giant houses.

I have about 2100 sq. feet plus a finished basement and a roofdeck and my house is way too big (rowhouses in the urban hellhole are bigger than people think). I don't know what I'd do with a house almost 4x that size. Spend your money on whatever you want, but I just don't get it.

67% white

John Holbo, a political philosopher of liberalism who lives silently, in a country ruled by its opponents, answers my question after deleting my comment.

Per the post: every major ethical theory has several problems. That means, pretty much, that all major ethical theories imply awful, repugnant results – or at least they can plausibly be made out to do so. Welcome to ethical theory!

My question, posted minutes before: "Utility as defined by whom? The Supreme Leader, the elite, or the masses? All have their absurdities."

related and repeat, a comment with a link back to here



The search for ideal authority is the search for a god. The preference for theory is the preference for authority, for the search for authority, with the goal of being its representative.

Universalism's search for singularities manifests in individualism and groupthink. And there is no god; there is no ideal authority; all there is, is animal. The primacy of practice is the primacy of the human, of us, of our experience, debates and decisions. The primacy of theory even at its best, is inhuman.

“The blood of those who will die if biomedical research is not pursued will be upon the hands of those who don’t do it."

Back to Holbo. A commenter makes an obvious point without making the reference: the trolley problem.  Universalism demands the end of intimacy