Posted: Mar 25, 2011 12:29 pm
Yeah, but there are those who are more powerful than other people. Like Men's physical mass is generally greater than females, we're stronger (generally), and our testosterone makes us more aggressive.
There's nothing fair about violence. That's a big part of my point. Being able to bench press 250 is doesn't make your jaw any stronger, and the same headshot that would knock out a girl will knock out a football player. Happens all the time in MMA; big guy takes a quick jab the wrong way, and the fight's over.
Does power=responsibility? It should. Artistically, it should. Aesthetically, that's how things should be, and that's how I try to be. However, I shouldn't expect it from other people. When I expect people to act badly and they do, I'm in a much happier situation than when I make myself vulnerable out of an assumption of morality.
Do children molested and exploited by adults have it coming? Does some shitty developing country have it coming when they're exploited by some sort of global industry that dumps a bunch of hazardous waste in their town or carpet bombs them in an attempt to kill some douchebag hiding in their midst -who may have it coming?
It's a hard truth, but yes. People are evil, and they do evil things like molest children and dump chemicals that cause cancer. I'm just making sense of human suffering; I'm not making a moral judgement. Polio isn't anyone's fault, but when a kid in a developing country gets it because their parents couldn't afford the vaccine, that's part of the risk of being alive. Being alive IS an active provocation to suffering, and eventually, death.
The powerful exploit the powerless (or less-powerful), it sucks (to be less than the most powerful) but it's not morally wrong or right (unless you believe that human rights are inalienable). But we establish our social codes to regulate this shit as best we can. It's wrong to hit women because it's generally excepted that it's wrong to hit women. But if some woman is coming at me with force, I'm going to beat her.
I think that's the crux of it; people don't really have any rights. It would be nice if we did, our governments tell us we do, and they both kill people and suffer death in order to defend these rights.
I've reached the conclusion that all morality derives directly from the artistic sense. It's great that human kind has been able to make the world represent some semblance of harmony greater than inherent anarchy, but when we assume we have inalienable rights, we leave ourselves vulnerable to a world that honestly has no real rules.
Good point about the place of human rights in the discussion, though.