Unemployment rate is heading down.

[BentSailor]

No-one said that slavery was a value, you are playing games of sophistry again, PB. The "prevailing social conditions" of any time are supported by people living by the values of the time. If we were to keep our value systems rigid, we would still have slavery because the values of the time were such that slavery was acceptable. It is only by changing the values from those of the time that slavery became unacceptable.

When you support that which is contrary to your values, your values have become malleable.

Not so. When you change your values easily, they have become malleable. If you change them only with effort, they are flexible. Supporting something contrary to your values doesn't mean your values have changed, only that you don't have the courage to fight for what they imply.

[PBzeer]

Good thing you're malleable, otherwise you might hurt something.

[BentSailor]

Originally Posted by PBzeer

Good thing you're malleable, otherwise you might hurt something.

Anymore vacuous statements failing to even address the argument against rigid value systems or have you reached the stage in your usual pattern where you pretend your snark is nothing like the snark you complain about in others?

[PBzeer]

It was people of non-malleable values that brought change, not political ideology.

[BentSailor]

Actually, it was people who changed their value systems from that they were given from their parents. Whilst not malleable, they were flexible and most definitely not rigid. Which is the point I was explicit in clarifying. I'm guessing you're as much against actually reading people's mea culpa posts as you are the rest of them.

And, again with the sophistry, value systems and political ideology are not mutually exclusive concepts mate. The people who moved to change the system such that we abolished slavery, made illegal racist segregation, made moves to allow women to vote and participate in the work-force against the misogynistic opinions of employers, etc were progressive and fought against conservatives by the very definition of the words. Conservatives are against change and the progressives were pushing for it. Their values were not the values of the previous generation or, in many cases, even the majority of the population. Unless you are stating that value systems are created fully formed when a person is born - said values must have changed at some point from those of the society that found such situations to be in line with their current values.

[Daveinet]

Originally Posted by BentSailor

Actually, it was people who changed their value systems from that they were given from their parents. Whilst not malleable, they were flexible and most definitely not rigid. Which is the point I was explicit in clarifying. I'm guessing you're as much against actually reading people's mea culpa posts as you are the rest of them.

And, again with the sophistry, value systems and political ideology are not mutually exclusive concepts mate. The people who moved to change the system such that we abolished slavery, made illegal racist segregation, made moves to allow women to vote and participate in the work-force against the misogynistic opinions of employers, etc were progressive and fought against conservatives by the very definition of the words. Conservatives are against change and the progressives were pushing for it. Their values were not the values of the previous generation or, in many cases, even the majority of the population. Unless you are stating that value systems are created fully formed when a person is born - said values must have changed at some point from those of the society that found such situations to be in line with their current values.

Hmm, and what has that gotten us. My wife wishes she didn't work, but has to because she makes more money than I do. The big jump in housing cost occurred at the same time women entered the workplace. I have nothing against women, and even have a pier in a technical position, which I respect her knowledge and understanding. But your argument is based on an assumption that society is better as a result of progressive ideas. To make that argument, you must first prove your assumption.

[BentSailor]

Originally Posted by Daveinet

Hmm, and what has that gotten us. My wife wishes she didn't work, but has to because she makes more money than I do. The big jump in housing cost occurred at the same time women entered the workplace. I have nothing against women, and even have a pier in a technical position, which I respect her knowledge and understanding. But your argument is based on an assumption that society is better as a result of progressive ideas. To make that argument, you must first prove your assumption.

That's easy so long as you believe in equality. Black people no longer being held as slaves, black people no longer having the law support segregation, women being given equal voice in politics, women being given the right to work should they choose to. All of these would be classified as improvements in society by those that believe a society should have, as a foundation, equality of opportunity. If you don't believe in said societal foundation, then perhaps those things are not improvements to you.

For your argument to work, one needs to accept that women entering the workforce was the cause of housing costs rising (I've yet to see any serious research showing this to be the case) or even that women, in general, think that having equal opportunity is not an improvement over a society where they do not have said opportunity due to entrenched sexist values.

You may not have anything against women, and your wife may not want to work (hell, I know I'd be happy if I didn't have to), but nothing you said convinces me that the equality in today's society is not an improvement of the society that preceded it. Of course, I freely admit that equality is a value I live by.

[SloopJonB]

Originally Posted by BentSailor

For your argument to work, one needs to accept that women entering the workforce was the cause of housing costs rising (I've yet to see any serious research showing this to be the case)

Probably because it's so obvious that no-one has felt it necessary. As we all know, when a couple is purchasing a house, the FAMILY income is what determines what they can afford. As family incomes rise, so do house prices (actually land prices) because the real estate market is essentially an auction.

[BentSailor]

Then it is the bidding raising house prices, not the opportunity of women to work in the same jobs on the same pay as men. One might as well say that abolishing slavery is the reason the government is in debt - because with it we'd be able to afford alot more.

It also ignores the need to separate temporal correlation with actual causation. For example, women's rights was something big in the early to mid-sixties and yet the following graph shows that period of time being a slow downgrade of house values, followed by the seventies boom before returning back down the the value it started before said boom.


Sorry, but people saying that something is so obvious there is no need to prove it is bollocks. Otherwise we'd have to accept whatever drivel the rabid right-wing and delusional left-wing serve up as being "so obvious, it doesn't need proof".

[danjarch]

This really hurts to say. I mean it really hurts, but Bents closer to reality on this score. Slavery isn't as old as most think. At least in the American slavery since. The surfs and peasants of yore were either more like share croppers, or bonded to the land. They really couldn't be bought or sold in the same sense that American slaves could.

But a new world demanded new solutions. After running out of decent labor from Europe, the western world started bringing it in from Africa. At first it was the same terms but then the new world started running out of land, at least land anywhere near close to the existing settlements. So morals changed and ancient, and largely foreign practices were adopted by Europeans.

That lasted all the way up to the industrial revolution. So it wasn't exactly a revolution in morals that changed attitudes. Forced labor doesn't do craftsmanship. Force me to work for peanuts and I'm going to do a lousy job, that's for sure. It's also not surprising that the moral (industrial) revolution happened in the north first. Longer winters mean less time to grow the agricultural products that can be done with slave labor as well as feeding idle men over the winter really cuts into profits.

So while the south could farm almost all year, and use the short winter to repair all the buildings and equipment. The north had to find other ways to increase their earnings. So far from a rock solid set of morals, you find societies morals in a constant state of flux. All of which depends on the demands of life.

That goes for women's lib as well. Most women are working because they have to. That's not new by any means. The change is that instead of spending the day in drudgery, scrubbing dirt out of laundry, getting the eggs out from under a nasty chicken that always tried to peck her, she's now spending it in an air conditioned building ringing up groceries or performing open heart surgery.

It is true that the modern woman could choose to stay home and many do. But that also has it's problems, since they would no longer have to get started at the crack of dawn and stay busy until sundown, just to keep up with the house work and vegetable garden. Boredom and a general since of not pulling ones weight would lead to a general sense of depression. So even the women that don't work tend to be involved in civic groups and politics that they wouldn't have been involved in the past.

So again, morals a more fungible then you may want to claim, but that's life.

P.S. that's also why there has been an explosion of single parent homes. Sure the welfare state has aggravated that, but without the modern appliances and supply of cheap necessities, the single moms and dads would disappear. Single parents would return to the old ways of surviving. For some men and women, that would mean settling for a less then desirable mate. For others, that would mean sending kids to live with relatives until some things changed.