is "step in the right direction" a myth?

[dsayers]

I have a theory that I would like to expose to scrutiny for the sake of discovering the truth. My theory is that "steps in the right direction" is a myth perpetrated by the immoral to trick good people into supporting immorality.

 

I guess the best example is in politics. Take minarchism for example. I would argue that either the initiation of the use of force is immoral or it is not. That if it is, there's no reason to abide any form of government and that if it's not, there's no reason to dial back any form of government. Yet all too often, I hear people refer to political action, voting, specific policies, and anything that would move towards minarchism (but not anarchism) as "a step in the right direction."

 

The problem is that morality is not analog. A behavior is either moral, immoral, or amoral (having no moral component). I wanted to finally open this theory for discussion in response to a recent thread talking about theft-funded government schooling switching from modal A to model B where both models are theft-funded. It was described as "a step in the right direction." If my theory holds, then no "step in the right direction" could be taken short of acknowledging that theft is immoral and ONLY accepting funding from voluntary sources. But this could not be described as "a step in the right direction" but rather "accepting reality." Namely that theft is the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights and therefore cannot be valid.

[square4]

Suppose someone was doing five immoral things, but then he stops one of the immoral behaviors, yet continues to commits four. An outside observer could call this a step in the right direction, because it really is an improvement, even if you see morality of actions as a digital yes or no. There are less violations of people's rights. On the other hand, if an active participant in the remaining immoral actions would call it a step in the right direction, this would be strange. It would be an implicit acknowledgment of the fact that there is more to do, while failing to do so. The idea of taking steps in a direction might draw a picture of a long road to be traveled. It might give the false impression that morality must be reached slowly, instead of at once.

[PGP]

Perhaps government is inherently a construct that reduces complexity in the world. ie. people believe that by giving up all the things they give up for government that the functioning of government is framing their existence. By having their existence framed within the rules and laws and norms of the construct, the great complexity (feared) and chaos that would otherwise ensue is avoided. So, at the moment an-other might feel safer waking down the street or indeed planning for the future with the knowledge that government-imposed framework for society allows calculation of probability more efficient and the range of probability outcomes narrower. 

Perhaps the existence of government is like other social and hierarchical constructs as it allows people to focus on the narrowest possible range of variables to survive and reproduce. I suggest that the existence of the construct is primarily due to this adbication of responsibility, of self-determination and of confidence in the individuals effectiveness and capability in the relative "lack of order" that not having a gov could be perceived as.

This could be viewed as a yielding to (or recognition of) a lack of robustness and resilience on the part of the individual. So, an individual who tends towards anarchism might be expected to have the traits of independence, robustness, critical thinking, resilience, self-confidence, capability and adaptiveness as examples. I suspect that high-IQ is probably a necessity also.

So, before morality comes into the picture at all, the pre-requisite of these traits precludes (atm) most people from even the possibility of embracing anarchy.

Perhaps, if this is correct, it is the new "constructs" of social and economic interaction and the "rules" that must be put in place as a replacement for government before a critical mass is achieved.

Just a thought, could be crazy, might be stating what has been said before, but I'd be interested in feedback.

[Jamiroquai]

Though I agree with you to an extent, what if you look at it from more pragmatic-colored lenses.For instance, suppose you support a political candidate who opposes the initiation of violence (sort of a paradox but humor me), wouldn't that be a moral action? Trying to rid the country of unnecessary violence, or at least getting a step closer to achieving that goal, do you think that action would also be immoral?

 

Because I think if we turn your question on its head, the immoral behavior could be not supporting even the possibility of less violence in the world.

 

Perhaps we're getting too theoretical at this point, but what do you think? I think looking at everything through strict morality can often leave you running in place, at least when it comes to changing the world.

[TheRobin]

Maybe a step back from he wrong direction more than a step in the right one. Like, if you get beaten ten times a day and then that changes to only twice, it's still not right, but at least less bad.

[The Red Prince]

I guess I can move my original conversation to this thread, I think it's worth a serious discussion. From an objective viewpoint the public school system in question is funded by theft through taxation; and by nature, this is immoral. The question is, who or what is doing the immoral act? Is it the citizen, or is it the state ( individuals having an invested interest to keep the usual system of coercion intact)? If you cease an immoral action for practical purposes as the superintendent/governor have done in this case; if they have yet to understand that the system itself is immoral (funding through taxation) have they not progressed literally away from a worse situation anyhow?

 

I think your theory applies to the state as a whole, but not in this case. I can clearly see your contention to be true in the case of the propaganda we see ad nauseum; and this even applies to tactics an abuser employs on their victims, but we're speaking about a movement of victims not perpetrators. Truth and ethics by nature are practical, so even if one doesn't possess the terms, if you move in the direction of autonomy, freedom, practicality, for all, you are moving morally.

 

Also, if one even knew the the system as a whole was theft through taxation, how would one go about it? Fighting it head on is irrational, you would have to be very strategic. You would have to enlighten the population which is never instantaneous, as well as show proof incrementally to support your point and garner support through sheer practicality. To take away public school teacher's tenure, and implement merit pay is a good first step, because it opens up doors to better even more efficient options that were not otherwise available.

 

I was under the impression that ethics were universal, not subjective, I could be wrong. I positive step is a positive step.

[Songbirdo]

Not to trick people into supporting immorality, but attempt to satisfy their outright rejection of it so the immoral action can continue.

 

Give them a little bit "in the right direction" and they will be content enough with the progress to not press the issue for a while.

 

After that initial satisfaction, the perpetrator uses the steps in the right direction to justify to others that "at least it's being worked on" even if progress is really slow or stagnant. Freezes the discussion again as we must wait for meaningful results. 

 

Better yet is when the topic comes up in the future "At least it wasn't as bad as it used to be, remember then?" This further freezes the rejection of the underlying immorality.

 

You see this same trend in bad relationship disputes and for promises to make changes. 

 

So, yes. I think it is a myth.

[Pepin]

I would propose that there are two measurements that you are speaking of: the ethicacy of particular actions which are being committed; and the rate of change at which these actions are being committed.

 

The first measurement looks at say incarceration for drug use, disregards the magnitude, and either finds that the incarceration is moral or immoral.

 

The second looks at how many people were being incarcerated, and compares it to how many people are being incarcerated now. Based on the assumption above, that incarceration for drug use is immoral, it is concluded that an increase in incarceration is worse than a decrease.

 

In regard to rape, we can all agree that it is bad if rape is occurring at all. Yet, I believe we can also agree that less rape is better than more rape. The closer to your preferred amount of rape, zero, the better. The further away from zero, the worse. Again, the measurement always involves a comparison to previous magnitudes.

 

In regard to government, I would say that less force is better than more force. I am not able to think about this in terms of "getting on course" as there is no driver to steer, nor any road to drive on. I don't understand how anyone could take political action seriously. But if laws against prohibition, prostitution, and so on are repealed. I think this is good.

[dsayers]

if laws against prohibition, prostitution, and so on are repealed. I think this is good.

 

If I may nitpick: If it can be repealed by man, it is not a law

 

My counter argument is that if the reason the legislations are repealed is anything other than consistency/conforming to the real world, then the results will not be consistent or conform to the real world. How many times throughout history have legislations been enacted that were repealed elsewhere or enacted after having been repealed? If the methodology by which the conclusion to repeal was unprincipled, it will be temporary at best. Meaning it wouldn't be a step, but a stumble. An accident. Nothing to praise. Not indicative of anything but a lucky guess.

[Maciej Bembnista]

It is also my experience, that corrupt people speak about "steps in the right direction", but at least they are not denying or misleading the rightness of direction. Consecutive, they are corrupt (maybe not open enough), and not wrong/immoral.

 

I don't think, that "less force is equal to more force" (of course ), less force is surely preferable.

To keep you distracted from proper way of thinking (proper methodology) by giving you "less force" as a reward, can be seen as immoral, but you you'd have to be sure about intension of this action, since direction is right.

This people in my opinion are not our bitter enemy, they are just false friends (being counterproductive/self-defeating), but the problem can be unsolvable.

 

Stef: "Evil is deep knowledge of good used to violent this goodness".

 

I don't think, good is violated by "steps in the right direction", I do agree that it is a wrong step according to methodology.

 

 

 

 

m.

[powder]

I don't know if I would call it a myth but I would say that the idea is misguided at best.  

 

theft, rape, assault, are immoral, period.  acknowledging and understanding this is to end it completely and instantaneously, not gradually or incrementally.  When this is understood by a larger majority, how to curbing the violence will no longer be an issue.

 

Like dsayers says, any other reason for eliminating violence is just a lucky guess and will not be sustainable, history bears this out.  

[dsayers]

bump

[DataBrain]

There's obviously nothing wrong with a "Step in the right direction" as long as we don't stop at the "step" and worry about reaching the "direction." Unfortunately, too often, we take a step in the wrong direction to fix a problem caused by a government program by layering another government program on top of it. Minarchism, at least, lowers the amount of evil done by the state, but it most certainly does not make it good. I would say that we would need to first become a Minarchist state, and then transition finally into anarchism.

 

The last step that would ever be required after the "Step in the right direction" of Minarchism would be to make taxes non-compulsory, but socially encouraged (like tipping your waiter). As long as we reach the end in the direction we are stepping in, I don't see why stepping in the right direction is a wrong thing to do. We can, in the end, reach a perfectly moral society which still has government-funded roads, courts, police, etc.

[Troubador]

Just as a point of inquiry for my own benefit how is morality digital and not analog as you put it? I get the following statement about an action either being moral, immoral or morally neutral. In that sense I understand what is being said. Where I get lost however is surely acts do not have equal moral equivalence. What I mean is surely murder is objectively worse than physical assault for example? Viewed like that could it not be said moral and immoral acts do in fact exist on a scale?

 

I would like to share the op's frustration as I think the words "a step in the right direction" are often used in place of "well that's good enough." The end of slavery was a step in the right direction for example and I tentatively suggest objectively so, but conversely it was also on its own not good enough. It's also worth noting that on the other hand sometimes will never be "good enough". Sometimes people will use the obvious evil like slavery is bad which we can all see clearly and rightly condemn, but then sally forth off in a negative direction ie with affirmative action et al.

 

The beauty of "a step in the right direction" is it invites the question "that's great, so what's the next step?"

[dsayers]

I think it's a common mistake to assign a much greater scope to morality than it actually has. Morality's purpose is to test whether a voluntary behavior is internally consistent or not. What makes it a useful tool is that it is objective.

 

Value is a subjective consideration. Take a bottle of water from me and I just go turn on the faucet. Swipe the canteen off a guy in the desert, and you may have issued him a death sentence. If you kill that guy, do you just owe his family a bottle of water?

 

Morality tells us that stealing a pencil, raping a person, or dropping a nuclear bomb are all immoral. It's not morality's purpose to determine the extent of the damage.

[Des]

There's obviously nothing wrong with a "Step in the right direction" as long as we don't stop at the "step" and worry about reaching the "direction." Unfortunately, too often, we take a step in the wrong direction to fix a problem caused by a government program by layering another government program on top of it. Minarchism, at least, lowers the amount of evil done by the state, but it most certainly does not make it good. I would say that we would need to first become a Minarchist state, and then transition finally into anarchism.

 

The last step that would ever be required after the "Step in the right direction" of Minarchism would be to make taxes non-compulsory, but socially encouraged (like tipping your waiter). As long as we reach the end in the direction we are stepping in, I don't see why stepping in the right direction is a wrong thing to do. We can, in the end, reach a perfectly moral society which still has government-funded roads, courts, police, etc.

I estimate that the best plan for ending our participation in organised immorality (primarily statism), is:

1. Keep speaking the truth until enough people have corrected their internal errors.
2. Keep re-evaluating the "until" condition in that loop of step one. What does it take to fulfil that condition and end our participation in organised immorality, without having to do immoral acts to exit from participation, and without having to sacrifice our lives (which are the very reason we care about morality [none of us will care when dead]), to exit from participation.
3. Plan the exit from all organised immorality, and publish the date of the exit, widely, so that people can prepare (e.g. I must take insurance against missile strikes, so that someone's money is riding on: me not suffering a missile strike).
4. Hand out shares in assets (and liabilities) that were regarded as public, and cut over to acting morally, on pre-published date
5. Trade shares (sell what you can least understand or influence, buy what you can influence to increase in value).

While we are on step one, I am not very interested in adjusting the immoral system(s), because I don't know if anyone will really benefit in a way I care about. I go vote, but never ask anyone else to vote differently from what they would vote otherwise. I avoid facebook politics and twitter politics, I just post links to Stef's videos. links to my few vids, and say what I think, and reply to the 3 people who care to respond.

[Armitage]

Perhaps government is inherently a construct that reduces complexity in the world. ie. people believe that by giving up all the things they give up for government that the functioning of government is framing their existence. By having their existence framed within the rules and laws and norms of the construct, the great complexity (feared) and chaos that would otherwise ensue is avoided. So, at the moment an-other might feel safer waking down the street or indeed planning for the future with the knowledge that government-imposed framework for society allows calculation of probability more efficient and the range of probability outcomes narrower. 

Perhaps the existence of government is like other social and hierarchical constructs as it allows people to focus on the narrowest possible range of variables to survive and reproduce. I suggest that the existence of the construct is primarily due to this adbication of responsibility, of self-determination and of confidence in the individuals effectiveness and capability in the relative "lack of order" that not having a gov could be perceived as.

This could be viewed as a yielding to (or recognition of) a lack of robustness and resilience on the part of the individual. So, an individual who tends towards anarchism might be expected to have the traits of independence, robustness, critical thinking, resilience, self-confidence, capability and adaptiveness as examples. I suspect that high-IQ is probably a necessity also.

So, before morality comes into the picture at all, the pre-requisite of these traits precludes (atm) most people from even the possibility of embracing anarchy.

Perhaps, if this is correct, it is the new "constructs" of social and economic interaction and the "rules" that must be put in place as a replacement for government before a critical mass is achieved.

Just a thought, could be crazy, might be stating what has been said before, but I'd be interested in feedback.

That's what I thought too. Government or any kind of power at best provides some stability. It is wrong and will eventually collapse under its own contradictions, but it buys some time for people like us to do some spreading the word and raising children. We have to remember that in a free society there won't be no institutions, but possibly more, thanks to the market and individual ownership. 

 

Anarchism is an incredibly advanced stuff. I worked through a lot of bullshit to get to it. The only defining characteristic of a philosophical man is the ability to get to the truth, but it takes years. I too worry about the deceptive stepping stones to anarchism or atheism, but it seems to be the person's IQ that is responsible for progress or stagnation. And the quality of teachers, who need to be both nice and strict. 

 

I know a thing or two about social philosophy from an outside study and it seems to be pretty much all this evolution from very wrong ideas like feudalism to less wrong, like nationalism and democracy until one reaches the idea of sovereignity as an individual at least in some areas (following the 6 months of minarchism to anarchism). It's a work with masses, with relative concepts, and it's messy. The only alternative to this is choosing the best candidates to fix themselves and peaceful parenting.