- Feb 2024
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room101.jtodd.info room101.jtodd.info
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The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such thingsas are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtainthem. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which menmay be drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are calledthe Laws of Nature, whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two followingchapters.
I find the comment that a hope by their industry to obtain them drives men to peace interesting because I believe the same desire to obtain ones goal could lead men to war as well.
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Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power tokeep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such awar as is of every man against every man. For ‘war’ consisteth not in battle onlyor the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle issufficiently known, and therefore the notion of ‘time’ is to be considered in thenature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weatherlieth not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many daystogether, so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting but in the knowndisposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. Allother time is ‘peace.’8
The point that Hobbes makes here is very interesting to me, and one I agree with as war is just as much physical as it is mental. So "war" doesn't just mean physical fighting but also includes the constant threat and readiness for battle.
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- Jan 2024
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room101.jtodd.info room101.jtodd.info
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. If private property were abolished, all wealth held in common, andeveryone allowed to share in the enjoyment of it, ill-will and hostility would disappear among men.Since everyone's needs would be satisfied, no one would have any reason to regard another as hisenemy; all would willingly undertake the work that was necessary
I disagree with this point based on the sociological concept of othering- or the tendency we as humans have to separate or other ourselves from one another into groups based on likeness and often times these groups can and will clash creating hostility leading to ill-will, and even if private property was abolished these groups would still exist.
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We have already perceived that one of the main endeavours of civilization is to bring peopletogether into large unities. But the family will not give the individual up. The more closely the membersof a family are attached to one another, the more often do they tend to cut themselves off from others,and the more difficult is it for them to enter into the wider circle of lif
It almost appears as if Freud is describing a cult.
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Nor must we allow ourselves to bemisled by judgements of value concerning any particular religion, or philosophic system, or ideal.Whether we think to find in them the highest achievements of the human spirit, or whether we deplorethem as aberrations, we cannot but recognize that where they are present and, in especial, where theyarc dominant, a high level of civilization is implied
I believe one reason for this is because religious, philosophical, or idealistic frameworks often play a significant role in shaping the cultural and social fabric of a society especially in the sense of morally acceptable behavior and even laws citizens must follow.
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What is the use of reducing infantile mortalitywhen it is precisely that reduction which imposes the greatest restraint on us in the begetting ofchildren, so that, taken all round, we nevertheless rear no more children than in the days before thereign of hygiene, while at the same time we have created difficult conditions for our sexual life inmarriage, and have probably worked against the beneficial effects of natural selection?
This question confuses me to a certain extent because surely he does not believe that we shouldn't work to lower infant mortality rates because such efforts might negatively impact sexual lives within marriages especially based on this principle of us undermining our own happiness as I doubt anyone would argue that a mother with a deceased child is happier than that with a new born and in either case sexual relations within her marriage is probably the furthest thing in mind for either mother.
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room101.jtodd.info room101.jtodd.info
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I appreciate Young's distinction of the working class and middle class as often times they seem to be used interchangeably, especially by politicians who want to appeal to the "blue-collar working middle class",
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On page 58 Young opts out of the decision to comment on whether the superexploitation of black and Latino workers benefits whites as an entire group or rather only the capitalist class, and i wonder why as the answer to me appears to be simple.
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no single form of oppression canbe assigned causal or moral primacy
I think this is a very interesting point and agree. However, I would point out that for most people who fall into more than one category of an oppressed group in society there exist within ones self a hierarchy of the oppression they experience. It reminds me of a quote I once saw "When you look at me what do you notice first, that I am a woman or that I am black?"
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Here I'm not quite sure what Young means by "correlate oppressing group" as I initially presumed she meant a group that benefited or gained some privilege from the direct oppression of the other group but later on, on the page she acknowledges the existence of such groups leaving me confused on what exactly the correlate oppressing group is.
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