Political Consensus

[questor]

What would happen if all Americans could reach a consensus on questions such as --what
makes a good society? what are proper family values and morals? what makes a good citizen? where does your freedom stop? what are your entitlements? what are your obligations to society?
do you think it is possible for a liberal and conservative to agree on what is moral?
do you think they could agree on what qualities a good citizen should have?
the world is viewed quite differently by liberals and conservatives. they can view the same event and come up with two opposite descrirtions as to what happened. this dichotomy of views is the cause of most of the social problems in the US and seems to be getting worse.

[pgrmdave]

I think that it is important that there be opposing views, that there be dialogue and debate between two or more positions, so any society which would completely agree would, in my opinion, not be a good society.

[questor]

do you agree one should not murder another, steal from another, lie to another? do you believe you have the right to gather with people of your choice? if so, we have reached a consensus on these issues. argument usually ensues when there is disagreement on issues that may not have a black or white answer, but are open to areas of confusion as to semantics, purpose, outcomes,or educations. i would say that conservatives agree on more than 70%of issues and liberals do likewise with other liberals. the difference is that conservatives and liberals probably have differing views on 70% of issues. i think there should be more agreement on issues which make a good society. this is where a consensus would improve our lives. take affirmative action, is this a good thing for society?
it may help certain people but does it also punish some other more deserving people?
does the lowering of academic standards help society, or does it cause more harm than good? the big picture needs to be agreed upon and then different views can be accommodated within that framework. arguing just to argue doesn't help anyone, does it?

[Tormod]

I think the questions you ask are interesting, but they are too broad. Affirmative action is an extremely broad topic which covers many areas of society.

I think you can ask just about any person in American society and they will agree to most items on any list. However, there is bout to be disagreement on semantic issues, as you point out.

This is not negative. Rather, it is proof of a healthy society. Societies were opinion is regulated have shown to be tyrannical, often to the extreme (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, Communist China).

One problem, as I see it, is double standards. The American socety, as well as most other societies, has it. A lot of people say "You shall not kill" yet they support state sanctioned executions, for example. And some will say that abortion is murder, while others disagree.

These topics are extremely difficult to reach a consensus in, because they will depend on a persons upbringing, cultural heritage, environment, personal experience, religious faith (or lack thereof), faith in the system, and so on.

There are also more factions in a society than conservatives and liberals, even if we take these factions as subsets of any larger group of people. You have radicals, which again can be conservative or liberal or even extreme (left- or right-wing to spice it up). There are reactionary movements which will go against any change, and there are social democratic movements which will attempt to fuse conservative politics and socialist economics.

So the picture is extremely difficult to analyse completely.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by questor

do you agree one should not murder another, steal from another, lie to another?

___I agree that murder is wrong, but not necessarily killing; to whit I reserve the right to kill anyone trying to murder me.
___Stealing I think is wrong in most circumstance as well, but again if I am starving & you refuse to feed me when you have the means, I reserve the right to steal some of your food.
___Lying I view the same; if you come to my door & say where is Bob I'm going to kill him, I reserve the right lie to you about his whereabouts.

___Before you argue about my use of the term "right" as above, simply replace it with the phrase "I will try to". No such political consensus as you suggest seems likely or even desirable.

[questor]

Turtle, you said:

Originally Posted by Turtle

I agree that murder is wrong, but not necessarily killing; to whit I reserve the right to kill anyone trying to murder me.
we have a consensus that self defense is a defensible act, but you must prove intent of the attacker.

___Stealing I think is wrong in most circumstance as well, but again if I am starving & you refuse to feed me when you have the means, I reserve the right to steal some of your food.
you have no right to steal anything. after you are sent to jail for this act, society will feed you for free.
___Lying I view the same; if you come to my door & say where is Bob I'm going to kill him, I reserve the right lie to you about his whereabouts.
i think the consensus might be that lying to save a life is permissible. the consensus also
is that lying to advance your own purposes is not permissible.

___Before you argue about my use of the term "right" as above, simply replace it with the phrase "I will try to". No such political consensus as you suggest seems likely or even desirable. :shrug

just for conversational purposes, where would you say you learned your moral values, and do you think your moral values if practiced by everyone would contribute to a good society?
would you prefer to live in a lax, non-judgemental society, or a society based withstronger law enforcement? and would you consider yourself liberal or conservative? i ask these questions because of my own curiosity.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by questor

just for conversational purposes, where would you say you learned your moral values, and do you think your moral values if practiced by everyone would contribute to a good society?
would you prefer to live in a lax, non-judgemental society, or a society based withstronger law enforcement? and would you consider yourself liberal or conservative? i ask these questions because of my own curiosity.

___I learned some moral values from the usual sources; parents, teachers, peers, etc. I suppose the rest I arrived at by myself from personal experience.
___I agree with pgrmdave that complete consensus may not make a good society.
___On the judgemental & law enforcement question, I have to say it depends on the circumstance.
___Same sort of outlook on the liberal/conservative question; it depends on the topic.
___Somewhere here at Hypography I started a thread called Tit-for-Tat wherein we discussed behavior from a game theory view. I think Tit-for-Tat is a more direct restatement of the Golden Rule & maybe the closest moral behavior guide to the consensus you seek.
Tit For Tat
___I answer these questions because you asked.

[questor]

Turtle, thanks for answering. i think i would prefer the golden rule because it is proactive
and espouses a positive line of behavior rather than reaction to someone else's possible reprehensible behavior. tit for tat argues that you must retaliate to a perceived bad behavior toward you with the rules of engagement not neccessarily promulgated before the incident. eye for an eye is tit for tat and could indeed give an evildoer pause to consider his behavior. this of course would lead to the death penalty, cutting off fingers, hands, tongues, sterilization and other punishments which are not currently in vogue in the States. since societal rules have been formed over many centuries are are codified in the ten commandments, jewish law, islamic law and our constitution.these pronouncements
form a pretty sound base for what is right and what is wrong. i doubt if many people could
improve upon them. i think the rules are present and i think those that deviate from them diminish society. therefore those who follow their own ''morality'' while behaving outside
conventional boundaries diminish society. i am not talking about a strict Draconian society,
but one in which a consensus is established about what makes a good person, a good family, a good society and a good government. this is not now what we have.

[Turtle]

___No concensus yet. Tit-for-tat IS proactive & promotes cooperation above default. Building a moral behavior on authoritarian pronouncements rather than reason is in my view a mistake. Have a read of Stanley Milgram's seminal work "Obedience to Authority"; the most religiously moral people in the experiment obeyed the most modest admonishments from "authorities" to harm others.
___You say we can't improve & need no new rules because we have had them centuries; how's that working out for everybody?

[questor]

Turtle, you said:
___No concensus yet. Tit-for-tat IS proactive & promotes cooperation above default. Building a moral behavior on authoritarian pronouncements rather than reason is in my view a mistake. Have a read of Stanley Milgram's seminal work "Obedience to Authority"; the most religiously moral people in the experiment obeyed the most modest admonishments from "authorities" to harm others.
___You say we can't improve & need no new rules because we have had them centuries; how's that working out for everybody?

are you saying that each person born has to formulate his own ideas of morality and proper behavior based on his ability to reason? this pretty much leaves the field open to let all people do what they wish whenever they feel like it. observation should convince that a great number of people find it difficult to reason at all. you're also saying that the many centuries of excellent minds agreeing on proper social behavior has no significance. if we have to depend on each person's use of reason, i think we would quickly have anarchy and there would be no reason for law.