Quote:

They share an infantilised view of themselves and of the world around them....
no matter how poor people are, no matter how lacking in advantage, they are still moral agents capable of making choices between right and wrong, between forging ahead with their lives or lashing out against their neighbourhoods.

But that's what they are doing - "forging ahead" in a world defined entirely by material gain and maximized personal pleasure.

They are not "infantilized" - they are no longer "moral agents" because hairless apes who just happen to be alive don't have "moral agency".

This is what happens when the remaining scraps of Judeo-Christian morality wear too thin to be sustained or transmitted.

Sorry, Ben, this 'Judeo-Christian morality' thing...?
You don't need religion to tell you right from wrong. Right and wrong vary widely from one religion to the next. Some folks religion tells them it's ok to kill non-believers. Some 'Christians' think it's ok to kill abortion doctors.
I know folks who haven't spent much time in church, and they seem to have a pretty good sense of right and wrong.
Blaming this on a lack of religion...

Paying for restrictive gun laws. Break into a shop in Texas, and the proprietor just might defend himself and his shop. Thanks to UK gun laws, the populace is defenseless.

From Reuters:

Sales of baseball bats and batons have shot up more than 5,000 percent in the last 24 hours on Amazon's British website, as London suffered its worst violent unrest in decades.

Thanks to UK gun laws, the populace is defenseless.

That is so true. But some liberals are saying how much worse things would be if the mob had firearms. I'm sure some of them are carrying. But how much better would it be if the mob knew that the shop owner sitting inside with a shotgun was willing to use it? Armed police also make a difference. If the cops were armed, do you think the little punks would rush up to attack them?

OK, so the article still indulges in a touch of strawman-ism (so maybe they're not "just" thugs, but how many real conservatives consider thugs as JUST thugs?) - but at least the referenced article gets the point that in the end, no matter what else their circumstances, the looters made a choice to behave the way they did.

What both sides seem to lack is self-respect, moral resourcefulness, social wherewithal.

What's missing here is a sense of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. These young hoodlums have been absolved of all personal responsibility by expecting to be coddled and cared for by the government, and NO ONE has disabused them of this notion!

... but at least the referenced article gets the point that in the end, no matter what else their circumstances, the looters made a choice to behave the way they did.

THIS. This EXACTLY. They KNEW exactly what they were doing and CHOSE to abdicate their personal responsibility to themselves, and they made their choice. Let them suffer the consequences thereof. Of course, now we're going to see the barristers coming out of the woodwork to defend these little thugs (the ones that get caught, anyway), claiming it was "cirmcumstances" that led up to this. Slaps on wrists all around!

Absent any real consequences, the thugs will continue to loot and burn. I say read the Riot Act and shoot looters on sight. The truth is, most poor people are not criminals, but most criminals are poor.

This is what happens when the remaining scraps of Judeo-Christian morality wear too thin to be sustained or transmitted.

Obviously you don't need to be Judeo-Christian to be moral - or to refrain from pillaging and looting.

Let's lay this where it belongs - years of crap parenting. I would truly love to see parents held criminally liable for the criminal acts of their minor children. But in a world where officials hesitate to punish parents for something as simple as basic as their children's truancy, it'll never happen.

Blaming parents is just another form of removing the blame from the ones responsible for their actions.

Noting from a few friends of friends in that part of country, not one of them think poverty has anything to do with it. It's just an excuse for people to get drunk, destroy stuff, and take what they want. And my own personal belief is that without guns, no one is going to be able to stop them very well.

This is very simply the law of the jungle: who can, may.

Since the populace of Britain have allowed themselves to be disarmed, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

The only reason the LA riots went on as long as they did is nobody gave enough of a shit to shoot the looters. Except the Koreans, anyhow.

If you're worried about something like London happening here, don't. We shoot back.

You don't need religion to tell you right from wrong. Right and wrong vary widely from one religion to the next.

Yes, and? haven't you gotten the memo? there is no such thing as "right" and "wrong". That's a value judgement, and who are you to apply your values to anyone else?

During one of the last rounds of riots in LA, there were pictures of Korean shop owners with rifles and shotguns on the roofs of their shops. It is interesting that the US flash mob/beat-downs are in places with very severe gun restrictions. Google Wisconsin State Fair beat down and Philadelphia flash mobs.
I would love to see this nonsense go on in Nevada, Texas or Florida.

"This is what happens when the remaining scraps of Judeo-Christian morality wear too thin to be sustained or transmitted. "

Which is why after Shintoist, Hindu, and Buddist countries are imploding hellholes.

Earlier this year Japan was dealt a devastating blow with the tsunami. People were mourning, scared, and starving for basic resources. So they banded together and helped each other. There was no rioting. A Judeo-Christian background is not a prerequisite to a strong, moral culture. (And I am saying that as a Christian.)

Seriously, that's got to be the second moost irritatingly smug thing I've ever heard.

So what was the first Elle?

Socialism as a philosphy has been actively trying to program people to have no respect for private property, and to totally disconnect effort from achievement and work from finanacial reward. Why is everyone so surprised that individuals raised under it would loot?

ummm, I make no excuses for these actions, but this is exactly what one can expect to happen when all aspects of hope for a better future are removed. Europeans have lived under a huge facade for way too long, buoyed by the US financing most of their defense. Can you imagine the austerity measures that europe will have to take when the US can no longer afford to defend Europe? My biggest fear is that we are creating the same breeding grounds here.

dunno, Ron. Hope is something you make for yourself, nobody gives it to you. You have to be willing to climb that mountain, it doesn't come to you.

You don't need religion to tell you right from wrong.

No. But you do need some sort of construct around which to build rules of civilization and morality. And religion, for all the faults of the various religions, does provide a construct.

But, it doesn't have to be a Judeo-Christian religion.

And I'm not saying that a secular society cannot have morals. I'm saying there needs to be a construct. Something strong enough to curb a person's natural instincts at self-enrichment even at the expense of others.

Civilization does not come naturally to human beings. Community does, but civilization does not.

Relative morality, however, does not provide that construct and erodes the existing constructs. The modern socialist-liberal state is built on relative morality.

This moral laxity has contributed to the decline of Western civilization. Whatever makes you feel good is moral. You can't judge another person's or culture's actions as immoral.

=========================

Theodore Dalrymple weighs in on the riots:

The riots are the apotheosis of the welfare state and popular culture in their British form. A population thinks (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class) that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts; and therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice. It believes itself deprived (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class), even though each member of it has received an education costing $80,000, toward which neither he nor—quite likely—any member of his family has made much of a contribution; indeed, he may well have lived his entire life at others’ expense, such that every mouthful of food he has ever eaten, every shirt he has ever worn, every television he has ever watched, has been provided by others. Even if he were to recognize this, he would not be grateful, for dependency does not promote gratitude. On the contrary, he would simply feel that the subventions were not sufficient to allow him to live as he would have liked.

At the same time, his expensive education will have equipped him for nothing. His labor, even supposing that he were inclined to work, would not be worth its cost to any employer—partly because of the social charges necessary to keep others such as he in a state of permanent idleness, and partly because of his own characteristics. And so unskilled labor is performed in England by foreigners, while an indigenous class of permanently unemployed is subsidized.

and

Finally, long experience of impunity has taught the rioters that they have nothing to fear from the law, which in England has become almost comically lax—except, that is, for the victims of crime. For the rioters, crime has become the default setting of their behavior; the surprising thing about the riots is not that they have occurred, but that they did not occur sooner and did not become chronic.

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/eon0810td.html

"I have great respect for people who build things, and despise people who tear and burn things down"

Croydon's House Of Reeves Furniture Shop, proudly passed down from one generation of the Reeves family to the next since 1867, survived the Blitz, burned to the ground by mindless scum:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023975/London-riots-2011-Man-21-arrested-Croydons-House-Reeves-arson-attack.html

Anyone willing to donate 10 pounds to help Reeves rebuild can sign up to do so here:

http://www.pledgebank.com/RebuildReeves

Blaming parents is just another form of removing the blame from the ones responsible for their actions."

I blame the parents for their kids becoming thugs.
I blame the thugs for the actions of the thugs.

Again, we are hard-wired for this.

We're hard-wired as social animals ... i.e., for community.

But we're not necessarily hard-wired for civilization.

Civilization includes more than just being nice to (or not killing) the people that live near us and upon whom we depend for mutual survival in a hostile world.

So what was the first Elle?

Any post by BOTU?

"Again, we are hard-wired for this. It's why humans can live in social groups without killing each other, regardless of whether they believe in Jesus, Allah, Zeus or the Great Pumpkin."

Maybe most, but not all of us. Certainly not the rioting youth.

I'm of the "one riot, one ranger" camp. I suspect most of that loot wasn't worth dying for.

Yes, blame the parents -- mostly single mothers who, thanks to Big Sister, don't need those feckless would-be patriarchs around trying to "take charge" in a household.

Fatherless homes in a fatherless community will get these results every time.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan was oh so correct, and the proof is in the pudding, as they say in jolly ol' England.

I blame the parents for their kids becoming thugs.

Eh. I know a few thugs who seem to have had decent parents. People can go wrong for lots of reasons.

I find it very interesting that people are using the terrible tragedy and outrage of these riots to try to advance their own personal causes. Not just here, but on every web forum I've seen. Gun control or freedom, large or small government, Christianity, economy, welfare programs, etc etc etc etc.

It's like the rule where every large forum on the internet eventually has someone that brings up Hitler or nazis. For some reason people love to point at a tragedy caused by evil people and say, "Do things my way, or THIS will happen!"

Of course, almost no one's talking about the famine in Africa. I think it's partly because they have one every 4-5 years and we've become desensitized to it.

"So what was the first Elle?"

Family stuff.

My cousin had a baby some eight years ago because she wanted something that would love her unconditionally. This past summer she got married to an unemployed, alcoholic, ex-meth-addict with PTSD, brain injury, and anger management problems. Cousin then proceeds to give me "sage advice" based on her "life wisdom" because I clearly need it since I am an uptight Christian and she is a tantric-wiccan** with otherworldy wisdom and six whole years older than me. The conversation went as well as you might expect.

** This is seriously how she describes her religious views.

Back to your regularly scheduled comment thread.....

@Sarah:

Comic Irony?

> But, it doesn't have to be a Judeo-
> Christian religion.

Goddammit to Hell, when are you people going to quit starting your sentences with a "But" and a comma? Who does that? You're interrupting a conjunction with unnecessary punctuation even before the assembly is complete. Why? It's like a high diver who opens his mouth to take a breath just as soon as he hits the water. What is this shit?

("Quit starting"... Exactly. Damn, I'm good. If you're reading this at home or a lonely office cubicle, and it would not disturb others, you may gently applaud if you wish.)


And what is the STINK of this other shit?

> it doesn't have to be a Judeo-
> Christian religion.

I'm jusso cot-damn tired of that childish formulation:

• It doesn't have to be Judeo-Christian

• It doesn't have to be a man and a woman's love to make babies

• It doesn't have to be English-only

• A person doesn't have to create or contribute wealth to have earned the best health care

This is obviously, so very obviously, the whining of the five-year-old spirit who wants to be adult for awhile by making up new rules. There's no reason we can't keep the ice cubes in the oven and bake our cakes in the freezer!

When your idiot-child soul is still smarting from a punishment or humiliation by an adult –or when as an adult you realize that civilization has made convincing judgments about what you can hope to make out of your life– it's fun to console yourself by pretending that the rules are arbitrary, rather than subtle and nuanced. And then you make up some new ones, unforeseen unpleasantries for the next guy to strike down. This is all essentially magical thinking.

But it's not true. I think Ben-David is often a goofy little prick: But when he says "Judeo-Christian tradition", he's not kidding.

London is not like other cities. Its history is bloody, obviously. But despite the ugliness this week, London has been at the absolute forefront of civilization for a long time. Britain taught the much of the world what it means to be modern. See this study, which Cosh linked with one of the best blurbs in Blogdom:

"Using sophisticated mathematical models, a group of four economists has proven..."--well, the stunningly obvious: that the best thing a country can possibly do for its economy (and probably its general well-being) is to go back in time and get itself subjugated good and hard by the British Empire.

If you want to be childish you can hold your breath 'til you turn blue and insist that Judeo-Christian ideas about virtue and justice weren't the source. But London's London, and Islamic Kuala Lumpur is not London. Nor is Hindu New Dehli. Nor is Sihk Punjab. Nor is anyplace in the Far East.

People have tried to rule the world and to be good to each other with other traditions. But if you want the decency and wealth that come from the pinnacle of modernity, Judeo-Christian is a great way to go. Today's non-believers wouldn't be leading lives of safe atheism without the historical context of Judaism and Christianity. (And don't forget: Whatever the momentary problems Britain is having with socialist culture at the moment, London has overtaken New York's Manhattan as the center of world finance... An overtake perhaps consummated by DC's 2008 power grab.)

(See also this short one Everyone in our generations should read Guns, Germs and Steel.)

It doesn't have to be my thundering, fuzzy ball sack.

_______________________

> I find it very interesting that people
> are using the terrible tragedy and
> outrage of these riots to try to
> advance their own personal causes.

Exactly what the rioters are doing, right? Pretending that there's an external force compelling them to steal shoes and ruin the livelihoods of others? Maybe you're onto something. Maybe the quintessence of civil insurrection is "Whadderwee talkin' about, here?"

I can't believe I agree with Conan:

you do need some sort of construct around which to build rules of civilization and morality.... Something strong enough to curb a person's natural instincts at self-enrichment even at the expense of others.

Civilization does not come naturally to human beings. Community does, but civilization does not.

Relative morality, however, does not provide that construct and erodes the existing constructs. The modern socialist-liberal state is built on relative morality.

This moral laxity has contributed to the decline of Western civilization. Whatever makes you feel good is moral. You can't judge another person's or culture's actions as immoral.

Conan also correctly critiques Amy's "we're hard wired for civilization" - an odd response to spontaneous looting - with:

We're hard-wired as social animals ... i.e., for community.

But we're not necessarily hard-wired for civilization.

Civilization includes more than just being nice to (or not killing) the people that live near us and upon whom we depend for mutual survival

... and in this case, the barbarians are actually attacking those upon whom they depend.

This is where all the "game theory" crap about cooperation hits the fan of selfish, irrational human nature.

Without a concept of themselves as anything other than hairless apes, these folks cannot formulate or justify basic impulse control, delayed gratification, or cooperation. Why should they?

None of that is "hard wired" despite the highfalutin BS that The Goddess constantly tries to peddle.

I can't believe I agree with Conan:

you do need some sort of construct around which to build rules of civilization and morality.... Something strong enough to curb a person's natural instincts at self-enrichment even at the expense of others.

Civilization does not come naturally to human beings. Community does, but civilization does not.

Relative morality, however, does not provide that construct and erodes the existing constructs. The modern socialist-liberal state is built on relative morality.

This moral laxity has contributed to the decline of Western civilization. Whatever makes you feel good is moral. You can't judge another person's or culture's actions as immoral.

Conan also correctly critiques Amy's "we're hard wired for civilization" - an odd response to spontaneous looting - with:

We're hard-wired as social animals ... i.e., for community.

But we're not necessarily hard-wired for civilization.

Civilization includes more than just being nice to (or not killing) the people that live near us and upon whom we depend for mutual survival

... and in this case, the barbarians are actually attacking those upon whom they depend.

This is where all the "game theory" crap about cooperation hits the fan of selfish, irrational human nature.

Without a concept of themselves as anything other than hairless apes, these folks cannot formulate or justify basic impulse control, delayed gratification, or cooperation. Why should they?

None of that is "hard wired" despite the highfalutin BS that The Goddess constantly tries to peddle. It obviously hasn't spontaneously developed among these brutes - despite their living in a major Western capital.

Cute girl in a cocktail dress!

The 'Hawk is swoopin' today.

What point are you making?

(I'm pretty sure you're wrong... This is just a courtesy comment.)

Pix

Americans might think you could arm yourself with bats, crowbars, sticks or the like, but it's a crime in the UK to be in public "armed" with such an "offensive weapon," no matter if you are defending yourself, someone else, or your own property.

This is how drastically the Brits have allowed themselves to be bullied by the "authorities".

"We now live in societies too big for our brains"

Personally I think this statement is psycobabble.

People have been interacting and migrating and trading with strangers for the last several thousand years. Rudeness isn't some aberation in human behavior. It is the norm unless you have social penalties that enforce social mores. In smaller societies it is merely easier to identify the criminal and the anti social and either force them to conform, or for extemely disruptive behavior, there is shunning, casting them out, or inprisonment and/or execution.
How small a group is small enough to avoid anti social behavior? If you read enough history and anthropology, I think you will eventually conclude, the answer to that question is "one"

Izzy lands a roundhouse.

Seriously, Amy, I get it with "150 people" thing, just like 7.9 waist-to-hips ratio or whatever it was. But your adoration of these scientific fortune cookie factoids gets out of hand sometimes... Even as such overwhelmingly larger biological influences, like a loving mother with a loving father, are cruelly mocked.

Another bad one: Gladwell's 10,000

Of course, almost no one's talking about the famine in Africa. I think it's partly because they have one every 4-5 years and we've become desensitized to it.

No, nobody is talking about it because they are all caused by the same things: tribalism and socialism.

Every time they try to get a decent society going (like Zimbabwe) some fuckhead installs himself as dictator, creates a faux-communist state, and installs his family and tribe members in power. He then proceeds to steal all the productive resources from the people and give them as patronage gifts to his tribesmen and his supporters.

And then everyone starves, they beg for aid, we help them, and the cycle begins again.

There's only so many times you can go to the sympathy well before it dries up and you say "Fuck you. You did this to your self for the nth time, find your own way out."

What brian said.

Harry Browne (RIP) said something like if you really care about the Africans don't send aid. Spend the money on an army to kill their leaders.

Expecting that human beings will simply assemble themselves into a civilization with reconized rules of right and wrong without recourse to something strong enough to subjugate natural tendencies to compete with and attempt to dominate each other is naive.

"Again, cheater detection, reciprocal altruism, tendency for moralistic punishment, etc." - Amy

In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a behaviour whereby an organism acts in a manner that temporarily reduces its fitness while increasing another organism's fitness, with the expectation that the other organism will act in a similar manner at a later time. - Wikipedia

The small groups into which human beings organized themselves did not always behave in a reciprocally altruistic manner toward other small groups nearby.

Clan and tribal rivalry (and even warfare) characterized early human development and still afflict parts of the world today. As a hunter in a tribe, I might share my food with others in my tribe (because they would do the same for me), but probably won't with a neighboring tribe with whom I compete for that food. In fact, I might even lead my tribe on a raid of that other tribe's food supplies.

Modern civilization transcends tribalism. Rather than descend upon the Safeway with my tribe to violently take what food we need, I work a job and trade the fruits of that labor (wages) for what they have to offer (food).

As a city dweller in modern America, I don't need to resort to violence in competition with another person for a cab on the street - because something stronger than both us has subordinated our baser instincts to its code of behavior. That would be civilization.

But civilization requires some kind of framework to which a human being can subordinate his baser instincts - especially toward people he does not know and who are not part of his immediate community.

And the framework may not have to be a religion, but whatever that framework is, it must have the power of a religion to mold behavior and subordinate a person's baser instincts.

The rioters need a better morality construct than the social justice model they're using. Social justice teaches a "no fair" and "where's my [unearned] share" mentality. It teaches people to see only economic disparities. And it teaches people to act on their feelings with no regard for the civilization around them.

The rioters need to get religion.

Hawk again.

So true Crid. My laugh of the day.

If you want to be childish you can hold your breath 'til you turn blue and insist that Judeo-Christian ideas about virtue and justice weren't the source. But London's London, and Islamic Kuala Lumpur is not London. Nor is Hindu New Dehli. Nor is Sihk Punjab. Nor is anyplace in the Far East.

People have tried to rule the world and to be good to each other with other traditions. But if you want the decency and wealth that come from the pinnacle of modernity, Judeo-Christian is a great way to go. Today's non-believers wouldn't be leading lives of safe atheism without the historical context of Judaism and Christianity.

Decaf, dude.

I never wrote all religions were equally effective building blocks for civilization. Or that they build equally effective civilizations.

I wrote that if you want to build a civilization, you're going to need a foundation strong enough to subjugate the wilder aspects human behavior. And religion is strong enough to do that.

Western Judeo-Christian civilization has given the world an unprecedented standard of living, level of scientific understanding, and degree of freedom.

Islamic civilization collapsed after successive Mongol invasions and plagues.

Eastern civilization turned inward and pretended the outside world didn't exist.

Western civilization, on the other hand, has endured invasions (Vikings, Moors, Mongols, Saxons, Turks, etc.), plagues (Black, bubonic, and more), a mini Ice Age, violent internal conflicts, and the abrupt crumbling of several foundations of its philosphy and science (heliocentrism, body humors, etc.).

Take a look around the world. Those countries that have Western Judeo-Christian underpinnings to their social, economic, and political structures are the ones thriving (see Crid's comment on the value of being subjugated by the British).

> Decaf, dude.

So, like, then why the.... Whatever.

> I wrote that if you want to build a
> civilization, you're going to need
> a foundation

I think people want more than "civilization"... Especially in London.

Everyone has the fantasy of being neatly integrated into the most fulfilling circumstances they can dream of... without making any adjustment whatsoever.

Capitalist wealth for primitive religions! Intellectual adoration for dropouts! Movie stardom for the overweight!

Yea Crid, you're right. A lot of people out there are delusional about cause and effect when it comes to human behavior. The road to hell has two components to the caustic pavement. Good Intentions and wishful thinking.

Jesus FUCK I am sick of this argument.

The jews got lucky, most isolationist racist triabl systems dont survive as long or as well - Its one of the few things I've ever seen in history that approches a miracle.

As for chrisitnainty if a local whore who found religion hadnt fucked her way into the emporers throne room it would be a footnote in the annals of the roman empire.

As for chritsianity being a building block for society? Are you fucking serious? The only religion with a worse track record for running a culture is Islam.

The resaon christinaity worked out is beacuse 85% of the peons died in the black plauge forcing the nobility into a position where they had to rely on an increasing educated undercalss, rather than virtual slaves. And once the dirty little mud farmers reached a point where they began to think for themselves and agitate for better treatment it was the death knell of religous power in Europe

Modern day christianinty is 95% of the way to being total athiem as opposed to what it was when it began and when it grew to a global power.

What makes the west what it is has more to do with a four season climate with wild temerature variations and a diverse geographical landscape then a personality cult splinter group of a bronze age arabic relgion brought to prominance by an emporer indulging his favorite peice of ass.

What if the teenager who stole the trainers has schizophrenia?

Christ, it isn't even my country and I'm appalled at their idiocy... The eyes-shut fantasy of compassion and understanding evidenced in that sentence is absolutely impenetrable.

Those people are screwed.

"I find it very interesting that people are using the terrible tragedy and outrage of these riots to try to advance their own personal causes. Not just here, but on every web forum I've seen. Gun control or freedom, large or small government, Christianity, economy, welfare programs, etc etc etc etc. "

It's not a natural disaster. Not one single brick or Molotov cocktail was thrown by a hurricane. People did all this. Thus, discussions having to do with human relations are entirely on topic. Some of the conclusions that people reach may be silly, but no sillier than just ignoring the whole thing and hoping it'll go away.

So let me toss out something. One thing I've seen on this, and on the flash mobs in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, is people speculating on what the racial component of all this is. Here's my answer: none. True, the Wisconsin State Fair thugs (how dare they besmirch the home of Milwaukee Speedway!) were deliberately picking out white victims. However, they did not do that because they are black. They did that because they are thugs. The problem isn't racial. It is cultural.

Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia has been making statements lately that being black does not in any way excuse what the flash mobs there are doing. Good on him for saying so. However, I fear that his attempts to shame the mobs via a racial appeal is bound to have results that will disappoint him. Because the problem isn't racial, it's cultural. And Mike Nutter is no more a product of that particular thug culture than I am.

Thuggery knows no ethnic or racial (or gender) bounds. There seems to be a certain fraction of the human race that simply lacks any capability for, or concern over, moral decency. And it cuts across all racial and ethnic groups. For reasons not at all clear to me, Western-hemisphere politicians have been mollycoddling thugs and thug culture for a long time, and what we're seeing now is the result. If you give an ordinary person one of something, they are usually grateful. If you give a thug one of something, they expect two more, and they'll beat the crap out of you if they don't get it.

I think the thing that bothers people about this is that there are no obvious visual or social cues by which you can spot thugs in ordinary situations. Excessive bling and designer track suits aside, most thugs look and act like ordinary people in everyday situations. It isn't until after you've known them for a while that you realize they are thugs. And most thugs won't do anything overt like rioting until they perceive that social control is breaking down. But then... This, I think, is going to be humanity's great challenge of the 21st century. I've stated here before my pet theory that the amount of trouble caused by Cluster B's (a good proxy for thuggery) is proportional not to their percentage of the population, but to their absolute numbers. So as the worldwide population increases, the problem gets proportionally worse. Thugs create dysfunctional cultures and destroy better cultures, if they have the chance.

The London riots, however, have caused a lot of thugs-in-waiting to unmask themselves. I'm kind of wondering if we need to start subjecting everyone to temptation tests: put them in situations where they perceive that they can steal, or cheat, or destroy, without being caught. Then keep an eye on them and see what they do.

I think Amy's point about basically being less likely to screw over someone you know has some validity. An example of it showed up in the article when the twenty-something woman berated the wedding dress thief. The woman didn't just chastise her for stealing. She provided a quick back story of the store owner and told her it was like "stealing from her mum." It seemed like she forced the thief to take pause (however briefly) and maybe feel a hint of shame that she's destroying a well-earned livelihood for no good reason.

Now whether or not that hard-wiring holds up against a rioting mob's selfish and short-sighted attitude is another story. These lunatics are incapable of considering what will happen when they have to return to what's left of their neighborhoods.

Posted by: lujlp at August 11, 2011 5:54 PM

Whatever. I'd trust lujlp to know "the whole truth about Christianity" about as much as I'd trust Rick Perry to know the whole truth about Islam, or a TSA "officer" to understand the U.S. Constitution.

It's a worthwhile argument to have about how much the world has benefited from Judeo-Christian philosophies of life, vs. latter-day secular philosophies. IMHO both have been quite constructive and destructive in their own ways.

But... isn't it interesting that about 95% of America's and Europe's cultural leaders of the last several centuries just happened to claim Catholicism or Protestantism-- Christianity's most dominant flavors-- as their belief systems of choice, and/or were able to convince other leaders of their value? (Sure, it's an "appeal to authority" but that's only good at the local debate club. It doesn't make my statement any less true.)

Also, yelling "hypocrite" about these leaders, going back to monarchy, war, slavery, the civil rights movement, etc., is beyond meaningless. To be human is to be hypocritical. That goes whether you're a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, atheist or anything else.

But by all means lujlp, keep going about how historically Christian nations are hardly better and freer than historically Islamic societies. Even Amy has professed the difference.

If you honestly can't see any real difference in the quality of life between European and Middle Eastern societies, you're more delusional than any fundamentalist I've ever met.

On the drive home from work today I heard a clip on the local radio program. Actually it was a clip of a clip with the locals talking over it.

The first clip is a British broadcaster talking to a lady who was looting a furniture store. Some Americans were making fun of the situation and the local guy was making more fun of them.

this how I remember it:
Reporter: Why are you taking that stuff?...What gives you the right?
Woman: I am taking back my stuff.
Reporter: What?
Woman: My taxes.
Reporter: That's a furniture store.
Americans 1: She pays her taxes to furniture store? No wonder she is upset.
American 2: Not much of an education program.
American 1: or a foriegn policy
American 3: well they do probably have one with China with all the importing and stuff.

Part of the original clip is here: http://www.verumserum.com/?p=28109

Amy wrote:

Again, we are hard-wired for this.

Really? Can you specify the chromosome and the genes that prevent humans from rioting and stealing from their neighbors? Are we witnessing some kind of mass spontaneous mutation in the U.K.?

I can agree that there is a genetic aspect to moral agency-- there is a basic, and I'd say a rudimentary, physical capacity for social behavior like moral systems. Some people, perhaps sociopaths, may lack that basic capacity. But beyond that, there are social, nonphysical, abstract, even transcendent aspects of moral systems that genetic theories and evolution can only explain metaphorically.

It's why humans can live in social groups without killing each other

Except human beings live in social groups and DO kill each other, and history shows non-biological factors such as ideology and religion play a role when that happens, and when that doesn't happen.

You're not consistent in your own views about this, Amy. You attack Islamic jihadist ideologies because they result in violence-- how is this possible, if our moral compass is "hard-wired"? If belief is irrelevant to social behavior? I know you don't think that Muslims are somehow genetically inferior, or that moral lapses are best dealt with as a problem of eugenics. The simple fact is that our religions and ideologies are not interchangeable and they do impact our social behavior.

And don't you think many or most of those people were likely raised Christian?

Frankly, no, not in the U.K. From Wikipedia:

The Tearfund Survey in 2007 found 53% of people in the UK identifying themselves as Christian and only 7% as practising Christians. 10% attend church weekly and two-thirds had not gone to church in the past year. The Tearfund Survey also found that two thirds of UK adults (66%) or 32.2 million people have no connection with The Church at present (nor with another religion). These people are evenly divided between those who have been in the past but have since left (16 million) and those who have never been in their lives (16.2 million).

These aren't religious people.

in a society where people all know each other, the controls on human behavior -- hard-wired morality -- are in place. We now live in societies too big for our brains.

Then how do you explain the fact that most crimes occur between people who know each other? Once we become acquainted with more than 150 people, we start murdering and raping those that we know best?

I'd guess they all believe, as Ben-David does, that there's a big man in the sky looking down on them and assessing their every move.

Judeo-Christian culture and ethics are more than a vague theism.

Religious hoohah really seems to be working, huh?

On the contrary, Brits losing their religion doesn't seem to be improving things; but correlation doesn't prove causation, does it?

It's why humans can live in social groups without killing each other

Except human beings live in social groups and DO kill each other, and history shows non-biological factors such as ideology and religion play a role when that happens, and when that doesn't happen.

Yes, it happens. On the other hand, what do you think would happen if 5 billion chimps were on the planet, living in big cities?

There is a great quote from Steyn:

"In Britain, everything is criminalized, except criminal behavior".

It's a worthwhile argument to have about how much the world has benefited from Judeo-Christian philosophies of life, vs. latter-day secular philosophies. -qdpsteve

Sure it is so long as you stipulate the the life affirming freedom inducing strains in christianity didnt come about until after it began to lose it power over the political sphere

But... isn't it interesting that about 95% of America's and Europe's cultural leaders of the last several centuries just happened to claim Catholicism or Protestantism-- Christianity's most dominant flavors-- as their belief systems of choice, and/or were able to convince other leaders of their value? -qdpsteve

Not at all, 'protest'anism arose to 'protest' the corruption in the catholic church. Catholicism and Protestaniam are the ONLY flavors of christianiny. Also wonder of wonders most of the leaders of India have been Hindu, and most of the leaders of Egpyt before its fall at the hands of rome worshiped their pantheon. It is no great suprise that people tends to worship the god of their parents until they are converted to another realigon thru force, culturals shifts, or charismatic missionaries

But by all means lujlp, keep going about how historically Christian nations are hardly better and freer than historically Islamic societies. Even Amy has professed the difference. -qdpsteve

That right there is a gross mischearterization of what I said. If you are incapable of reading what I wrote you shouldnt attepmt to debate it. I quite clearly stated that when it had political power christianity was little better than Islam - and it was, look at the middle ages you sanctimonius fuckhead.

If you honestly can't see any real difference in the quality of life between European and Middle Eastern societies, you're more delusional than any fundamentalist I've ever met. -qdpsteve

Again a gross mischarechterization of what I said. Honestly how old are you? Is this why you didnt acctually bother to copy and paste my argument? Hoping noone would go back to read it and just accept your interpritation of what I said?

I never said anything about the quality of live between modernady europeand and islamic societies you lying peice of shit

The British working class has been largely irreligious for a very long time now:

http://www.anglicanism.org/admin/docs/nineteenthcenturyurbanisation.pdf

Some tidbits:

"In fact, eighteenth century visitations show that as little as 1-2% of parishioners took communion, this perhaps being a better indication of true religiosity than attendance"

"The Church of the 1850s began to become aware, through the writings of Dickens, Kingsley and the work of the Poor law Commission, that the working classes were largely alienated from the established Church. In the 1880s Charles Booth estimated that only 12% of the population were upper or middle class, yet they made up the majority of the church, especially the Church of England"

Working class Britons did not behave like this during the Blitz. By that time, most of their ancestors had barely set foot inside churches for centuries. The crucial difference between Britain then and now is not the fall of Almighty God, but the rise of the Almighty Welfare State.

They should have scheduled the next G-5 or G-8 or whatever G we're up to for London. There's no sense in wasting this riot.

Did morality get re-wired, or did force re-establish order? Civilization seems to be a fairly fragile thing. We experience it most of the time, but what would things really be like without police or the law or some method of enforcing the rules?

I'd argue most of us would behave the same as we always do, but enough would not.

Catholicism and Protestaniam are the ONLY flavors of christianiny. - lujlp

Hmmm.

The Orthodox churches are going to be upset to hear they've been booted out of Christianity.

And the Druse and the Coptics won't be too happy about their exlusion either.

And I'm not sure how the Mormons are going to react. They're normally pretty peaceful, but this could send them over the edge.

Conan--

The Druze are an offshoot of Islam; otherwise, you're right on target.

"Personally I think this statement is psycobabble."

Nope.

Example: what concern does your Senator have for you, personally? Your mayor?

Every social group has a set of code words for "barbarian", and I bet you use a few of them yourself, even when they don't apply like you think they do.

Redneck. Cop. Thug. Stoner. Goth. "Dollar General girl". Blue state. Yankee. Cracker. Tea Partier. Liberal. Conservative. Smoker. SUV driver.

Life is packed with "us vs. them". It's not like Amy hasn't looked this up, but here above are practical examples.

A phenomenon in my area is Six Flags Over Jesus - the church in a behemoth of a WalMart-style warehouse with a cross on top. Think the pastor knows all the members and their families?

And the biggie: think a big organization that doesn't know you personally has your interests first on their list?

"Did morality get re-wired, or did force re-establish order? "

Weather did. They've had rain the last two nights.

Radwaste, not only do I think that a lot of big organizations don't have my best interests at heart, I also know for a fact that a lot of people who do know me personally ALSO DON'T HAVE MY BEST INTERESTS AT HEART. Why? Because often their interests are in competition with mine.

As far as Amy being the authority on evolutionary pyschology, that may be true, but psychology is a soft science that in my opinion is at least 50 percent crap.

How do I recognize crap? Easy, I will pit my educational background in history, anthropology, and sociology not to mention several classes in psychology up against anyone elses theories and expertise. When reality and history and real crime reports and statistics don't match some evolutionary psychologist's bullshit theory, I don't reject the evidence, I question the theory.

When someone throws out something as asinine as people lose their supposed hard wired morality in groups larger than a very small village, I ask for evidence for that hypothesis. First, there is no evidence for any hard wired morality. Ever read Lord of the Flies? Yes, I know it is fiction, so try some actual colonial history instead.

Second you need to believe that at some number of acquaintances/social group members that the genetic trait (scientific for" hard wired)" for altruism and social cooperation , just" goes away"

So far I haven't seen any evidence for either of the above that would pass any kind of scientific scrutiny. People only think things are better in small towns and small groups because they have never lived in them. I have and I can assure you they are the same, but crime and perverions are usually well covered up because in small communities the sociopaths are usually wealthy, and often in charge.
If you want to understand how toxic small groups can be,I suggest you read , "Doc" "The Rape of the town of Lovell' by Jack Olsen.

Conan the Orthodox churches are catholic, the Druze arent even christian, and they wont even accept converts, according to dogma - dont know about acctual practices though

As for the copts, technically copts isnt a religion, it is a word like jew, denoting an ethinic strain which follws a particular religion, in this case egyptians/north africans who are christian.

Copts are divided into orthodox catholic, catholic and protetant churches

As for moroman, well they borrowed heavilly from a number of sources but fall within the protesetant side of dogma with a few interesting oddites added in

>> First, there is no evidence for any hard
>> wired morality.

> That's crap.

I think you two are arguing over the wrong wording, to the detriment of both arguments.

There are probably a few people born every year who are just plain incorruptible, even before their first sip of mother's milk. But you wouldn't call them hard-wired, because you wouldn't predict the cases, or presume to find it in their grandparents or grandchildren. The vast majority of people benefit from some golden-rule instruction in childhood, if only through competitive play with others.

I think most people have a natural capacity for decency, which in many can be readily nurtured. When the whole machine of civilization is running, people aren't irredeemably monstrous.

The poor looted during the French revolution, the story behind one of my grandmother's living room sets was that it was sold to an ancestor by someone who looted Lomballe's place.

Old people don't riot because they don't have the same energy.

I don't see why it can't be both... explainable AND wrong. Why can't one punish the looters while at the same time taking measures to fix soCietal flaws?

Conan the Orthodox churches are catholic, the Druze arent even christian, and they wont even accept converts, according to dogma - dont know about acctual practices though.

You may be confusing Eastern Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches.

The Eastern Orthodox churches are most certainly not part of Roman Catholicism. The Roman Church officially split with the Byzantine Church in 1054, but differences in rites, dogma, and liturgy were ongoing long before that.

The Eastern Catholic churches maintain separate liturgy and rites from the Roman Church, but all accept the judicial and spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome. The Eastern Orthodox churches do not. Examples include the Byzantine Catholic and Greek Catholic churches.

Many churches use the term "catholic" in their titles. This term does not indicate any connection with the Roman Catholic church. It is from the Latin "catholicus" and the Greek "katholikos" which both mean "universal."

The Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and some Methodist denominations believe that their churches are "catholic" in the sense that they are in continuity with the original universal church founded by the Apostles.

As for moroman, well they borrowed heavilly from a number of sources but fall within the protesetant side of dogma....

Dogmatically they may be similar, but the Protestants don't consider Mormons to be Protestants ... and the Mormons don't consider themselves Protestant. After all, they were not founded as an off-shot of Catholicism or a protest thereof.

The presence of Joseph Smith and the angel, Moroni, in their theology leave the Mormons outside the mainstream of Western Christian belief systems.

I don't know if the Christian Scientists consider themselves Protestant or not. And I can't say what the Protestant churches officially think of the Christian Scientists.

I don't know where the non-trinitarian churches (e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses) fall in this. They're not Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or technically Protestant. And, being non-trinitarian, they may not even be technically Christian.

Christianity is much more diverse in its philosophies, dogmas, and belief systems than simply dividing it into "Catholics and Others" would show.

Oh and my bad on the Druze. I heard them referred to as Christian in the 80s Lebanese civil war and never looked into them.

First I heard of the druze was in a sci fi novel I read as a teenager, one of the more interesting offshoots of the tree of abraham

Christianity is much more diverse in its philosophies, dogmas, and belief systems than simply dividing it into "Catholics and Others" would show.

Exactly. Thanks, Conan. This is something I wish "aggressive atheists" like lujlp would keep in mind. Making blanket statements about Christianity or Christians makes about as much sense as making blanket statements about Africans or Asians. There's liberal Christians, conservative ones, middle-of-the-road ones, GLBT Christians, etc. etc. ad infinito. And thankfully, most have enough of a fulfilling life that they're generally not big on spending loads of time picketing Planned Parenthood clinics, watching Oral Roberts, burning science textbooks, or eagerly waiting for the next great Sign Of The Apocalypse to appear.

Sure, it's fine to find some strains of a sector (in Christianity or any other belief system) quite preferable in their approach to others. Much as I try to defend Christianity, I've had my own tangles with smug/judgmental fundamentalists who've told me I'm goin' to hell, because I have generally liberal views about issues such as the teaching of evolution in schools, abortion and gay marriage. As a result, sure, it's only natural I tend to approach them cautiously, if at all. But I still try to treat each one as an individual, rather than a stereotype.

Exactly. Thanks, Conan. This is something I wish "aggressive atheists" like lujlp would keep in mind. Making blanket statements about Christianity or Christians makes about as much sense as making blanket statements about Africans or Asians. -qdpsteve

You really are an unethical peice of shit arent you? What the fuck did I say about christians as a group in this post? Or any post for that matter?

And please note of my "blanket" statments about christianity the only one thus far refuted has been by Conan, and that is more a matter of splitting dogmatic hairs, and was from a resopnse and not my original post.

So far you've labeld me incapable of understanding the religion(without refuting a simgle one on my points)

Lied about my saying there is no, or I see no, differnece between modern day christian and islamic dominat nations

And now you are comparing me, albeit in a very sublt manner, to racists? While once again failing to refute, or even mention for that matter, a single one of the points I made?

I am a fairly easy going guy, but you have pissed me off - congradluations, you are now one of the six people on earth I'd acctually enjoy kicking in the face.

You want to call me an idiot, and tear apart my arguments, I got no problem with that, but I wont abide having words I never spoke or said attributed to me in order for you to justify dismising me as a bigot and a moron.

You want to label me as such do it with the words I acctually write and not the bullshit you are pretending I wrote.