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How do Governments Align?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6789211" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>On the whole, I don't think we are very far apart.</p><p></p><p>I do get into matters of good and evil, at least indirectly, when I give examples of different sorts of lawful and chaotic behavior but I think you are rather jumping the gun to introduce it here or to see it in this. And I'd rather not deal for now with the complicated issue of when the demands of the two axis conflict in a person trying to adhere positively to both. I admit though that I've hindered understanding with my wording in the phrase, "because he believes private property is a reprehensible concept responsible for much of the evils of the world", because unfortunately "evil" here must carry two distinct meanings. I would have been better off saying, "ills of the world" or "what is wrong with the world", in that statement, as the key thing to understand here is that obviously - if anyone deliberately holds to evil ways - then not everyone believes that Evil is what is really wrong with the world.</p><p></p><p>While the system I've outlined is by necessity absolute, I'm not meaning to say that with respect to the opinions individual believer it is not somewhat relative. In this case, when I put into the mind of an example LN the opinion that private property is responsible for much of the worlds evils, that LN person might well as I did phrase it in that manner or think of it in that manner - particularly if he's not overly intellectual and scholarly within the D&D cosmology we are describing. If the alignment is like a great wheel, with each alignment being a spoke or section thereof, then each believer is allowed to spin that wheel as he likes according to his own perspective and say, "What I believe in is the best. It is the most right. It is the most correct." This is true of every alignment, even evil. Each believer is allowed - indeed of necessity - must believe that his way is the right way, even if it is not in fact 'Good'. In the case of someone whom is Lawful Neutral, what is evil to his point of view is Chaos and what is all wrong with the world is ultimately always Chaos. Good and Evil are rather irrelevant and missing the point, as each departs from the Truth of Law and thereby introduce greater and greater error in the form of Chaos until it converges way around on the opposite end of the wheel - it's lowest and most despicable point - in ultimate Chaos. Thus, when a LN talks of what is 'good' he means Law, and when he talks of what is 'evil' he means Chaos. Conversely, you'd expect a CN when he says the word 'good' to mean Chaos, and when he says the word 'evil' to mean Law. So the CN will say that all the sum of evil is compulsion and subjugation of the individual's will and desires, and that the sum of all good is individuality and freedom. But these are not the sum of the terms 'Evil' and 'Good' we are using to label other spokes of the wheel.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes, but that's a bit advanced ahead, and I'd rather not overextend until we firm up our lines of communication. (Sorry, I'm reading military memoirs at the moment.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>First, it's wrong to suggest that thieves are typically viewed as Chaotic. Thieves are typically viewed as Evil. If the Law allows them to steal, we don't generally think of it less theft. And in particular, we must admit to the existence of a Lawful sort of thief, who has a certain code of honor which is reviewable and by which he thinks he may rightly be judged and which others may also be judged, and who is loyal to his criminal family. Again, the Mafia or other sorts of brotherhoods of criminals makes an important counter example.</p><p></p><p>Now, we may also admit to a situation where a person - typically a Chaotic Good sort who allows for situational ethics - finds himself in a situation where he must weigh between two courses of action, and choose which is the better path. So we might have an altruistic thief, who while he wouldn't generally endorse theft, believes that by doing so he prevents some greater harm from happening. Thus, yes it is possible for a Chaotic Good person to go against his beliefs and steal something, but only because he believes in something else more strongly - for example preserving life. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Robin Hood could be made even Lawful Good, if we were to put him in a situation where he could convince himself honestly that law which deprived the poor of their property was not lawfully made - as for example the law being made by a usurper king without right to the throne (which at least in the myth of Robin Hood, Prince John is said to be, although the reality is rather different). In this case, Robin Hood is allowed to disrespect the property rights of the wealthy, because he does not perceive himself as doing so and so doesn't perceive himself as stealing. And in any event, in such case the Lawful Robin Hood is proceeding from the theory that the law DOES have the right to deprive people of their property. The CG Robin Hood on the other hand is proceeding from the theory that it DOES NOT, so that whether the law is lawfully made or not is irrelevant. </p><p></p><p>But back to the notion of private property, I hold that it is a part of the general 'Chaotic' spectrum because I hold that chaotic here means what is unrelated, distinctive, unique, and changing and as such the notion of individuality is part of what is central to it. And, in as far as it applies to something of the mortal realm, it's just about impossible to have individuality or to protect individuality or to seek individual private ends and pursuits without private property. Indeed, private property is the quintessential individual right, without which the rest are pretty meaningless, and certainly from the Enlightenment on the notion of individual sovereignty is rooted in private property. That isn't to say that every chaotic philosophy will embrace private property, or that every lawful philosophy will reject it, but it is to say that the pure idea of Chaos rejects public property entirely and that any system that rejects this will be pulled hard by its rejection away from the ideas it claims to on the whole uphold. So sure, you'll find Anarcho-Syndicalist-Communalism attempting to marry hard Chaotic concepts with lack of private property, and you'll find ideas like Objectivism attempting to marry moral absolutism with highly Chaotic ideas, but in my opinion - other than being delightfully Chaotic in being inconsistent and even incoherent - these concepts prove very hard to put into any sort of practice that resembles the theory unless they abandon the inconsistent attributes. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You are half right I think, because you fail to note that while it is in keeping with Good it is not in keeping with Lawful Good. It is in fact an expression of Chaotic Good specifically, and if you depart far from Chaotic Good much you find that the expression is distasteful in some fashion. In particular, note that buried in that statement is the fact that the individual person is the judge of what ought to be done. That is to say, it is up to the individual to examine their own wants and consciousness and decide how they ought to behave. And as such, the axiom doesn't describe a single universal or even necessarily predictable mode of behavior. Each individual will interpret it slightly differently, and there are some cases where it will seem like it really matters - for example, the madman can rationally answer that he is treating you the way that he would want to be treated but you might not like it very much and in any event there will almost always be cases where how someone decided they would want to be treated is very much at odds with how you'd like to be treated. As such, if you investigate, you'll find that there are some people who criticize the 'Golden Rule' as being wrong (or immoral) on precisely that basis and I would argue that this attack on the morality or ethics of the 'Golden Rule' is very much congruent with a lawful perspective on ethics. </p><p></p><p>Similarly, the passive variation of 'the Golden Rule' - "Do not do unto others what you would not want done to yourself" - is one succinct summation of the ethics of Chaotic Neutrality. It remains very much rooted in the individual, but it is now largely passive with regards to the good/evil axis.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>And of course, CE disagrees with "the Golden Rule" on a very different basis than the claim that the problem is that it is centered on the self, claiming of course that one should not only always treat oneself better than one treats others, but that the only way to ensure a good result for oneself is at the expense of others - what you might call "Do unto others before they do it unto you."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Agreed, though I think it would be better to say "for his safety or that of others", since some chaotics may not care for the safety of others one whit.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6789211, member: 4937"] On the whole, I don't think we are very far apart. I do get into matters of good and evil, at least indirectly, when I give examples of different sorts of lawful and chaotic behavior but I think you are rather jumping the gun to introduce it here or to see it in this. And I'd rather not deal for now with the complicated issue of when the demands of the two axis conflict in a person trying to adhere positively to both. I admit though that I've hindered understanding with my wording in the phrase, "because he believes private property is a reprehensible concept responsible for much of the evils of the world", because unfortunately "evil" here must carry two distinct meanings. I would have been better off saying, "ills of the world" or "what is wrong with the world", in that statement, as the key thing to understand here is that obviously - if anyone deliberately holds to evil ways - then not everyone believes that Evil is what is really wrong with the world. While the system I've outlined is by necessity absolute, I'm not meaning to say that with respect to the opinions individual believer it is not somewhat relative. In this case, when I put into the mind of an example LN the opinion that private property is responsible for much of the worlds evils, that LN person might well as I did phrase it in that manner or think of it in that manner - particularly if he's not overly intellectual and scholarly within the D&D cosmology we are describing. If the alignment is like a great wheel, with each alignment being a spoke or section thereof, then each believer is allowed to spin that wheel as he likes according to his own perspective and say, "What I believe in is the best. It is the most right. It is the most correct." This is true of every alignment, even evil. Each believer is allowed - indeed of necessity - must believe that his way is the right way, even if it is not in fact 'Good'. In the case of someone whom is Lawful Neutral, what is evil to his point of view is Chaos and what is all wrong with the world is ultimately always Chaos. Good and Evil are rather irrelevant and missing the point, as each departs from the Truth of Law and thereby introduce greater and greater error in the form of Chaos until it converges way around on the opposite end of the wheel - it's lowest and most despicable point - in ultimate Chaos. Thus, when a LN talks of what is 'good' he means Law, and when he talks of what is 'evil' he means Chaos. Conversely, you'd expect a CN when he says the word 'good' to mean Chaos, and when he says the word 'evil' to mean Law. So the CN will say that all the sum of evil is compulsion and subjugation of the individual's will and desires, and that the sum of all good is individuality and freedom. But these are not the sum of the terms 'Evil' and 'Good' we are using to label other spokes of the wheel. Yes, but that's a bit advanced ahead, and I'd rather not overextend until we firm up our lines of communication. (Sorry, I'm reading military memoirs at the moment.) First, it's wrong to suggest that thieves are typically viewed as Chaotic. Thieves are typically viewed as Evil. If the Law allows them to steal, we don't generally think of it less theft. And in particular, we must admit to the existence of a Lawful sort of thief, who has a certain code of honor which is reviewable and by which he thinks he may rightly be judged and which others may also be judged, and who is loyal to his criminal family. Again, the Mafia or other sorts of brotherhoods of criminals makes an important counter example. Now, we may also admit to a situation where a person - typically a Chaotic Good sort who allows for situational ethics - finds himself in a situation where he must weigh between two courses of action, and choose which is the better path. So we might have an altruistic thief, who while he wouldn't generally endorse theft, believes that by doing so he prevents some greater harm from happening. Thus, yes it is possible for a Chaotic Good person to go against his beliefs and steal something, but only because he believes in something else more strongly - for example preserving life. Robin Hood could be made even Lawful Good, if we were to put him in a situation where he could convince himself honestly that law which deprived the poor of their property was not lawfully made - as for example the law being made by a usurper king without right to the throne (which at least in the myth of Robin Hood, Prince John is said to be, although the reality is rather different). In this case, Robin Hood is allowed to disrespect the property rights of the wealthy, because he does not perceive himself as doing so and so doesn't perceive himself as stealing. And in any event, in such case the Lawful Robin Hood is proceeding from the theory that the law DOES have the right to deprive people of their property. The CG Robin Hood on the other hand is proceeding from the theory that it DOES NOT, so that whether the law is lawfully made or not is irrelevant. But back to the notion of private property, I hold that it is a part of the general 'Chaotic' spectrum because I hold that chaotic here means what is unrelated, distinctive, unique, and changing and as such the notion of individuality is part of what is central to it. And, in as far as it applies to something of the mortal realm, it's just about impossible to have individuality or to protect individuality or to seek individual private ends and pursuits without private property. Indeed, private property is the quintessential individual right, without which the rest are pretty meaningless, and certainly from the Enlightenment on the notion of individual sovereignty is rooted in private property. That isn't to say that every chaotic philosophy will embrace private property, or that every lawful philosophy will reject it, but it is to say that the pure idea of Chaos rejects public property entirely and that any system that rejects this will be pulled hard by its rejection away from the ideas it claims to on the whole uphold. So sure, you'll find Anarcho-Syndicalist-Communalism attempting to marry hard Chaotic concepts with lack of private property, and you'll find ideas like Objectivism attempting to marry moral absolutism with highly Chaotic ideas, but in my opinion - other than being delightfully Chaotic in being inconsistent and even incoherent - these concepts prove very hard to put into any sort of practice that resembles the theory unless they abandon the inconsistent attributes. You are half right I think, because you fail to note that while it is in keeping with Good it is not in keeping with Lawful Good. It is in fact an expression of Chaotic Good specifically, and if you depart far from Chaotic Good much you find that the expression is distasteful in some fashion. In particular, note that buried in that statement is the fact that the individual person is the judge of what ought to be done. That is to say, it is up to the individual to examine their own wants and consciousness and decide how they ought to behave. And as such, the axiom doesn't describe a single universal or even necessarily predictable mode of behavior. Each individual will interpret it slightly differently, and there are some cases where it will seem like it really matters - for example, the madman can rationally answer that he is treating you the way that he would want to be treated but you might not like it very much and in any event there will almost always be cases where how someone decided they would want to be treated is very much at odds with how you'd like to be treated. As such, if you investigate, you'll find that there are some people who criticize the 'Golden Rule' as being wrong (or immoral) on precisely that basis and I would argue that this attack on the morality or ethics of the 'Golden Rule' is very much congruent with a lawful perspective on ethics. Similarly, the passive variation of 'the Golden Rule' - "Do not do unto others what you would not want done to yourself" - is one succinct summation of the ethics of Chaotic Neutrality. It remains very much rooted in the individual, but it is now largely passive with regards to the good/evil axis. And of course, CE disagrees with "the Golden Rule" on a very different basis than the claim that the problem is that it is centered on the self, claiming of course that one should not only always treat oneself better than one treats others, but that the only way to ensure a good result for oneself is at the expense of others - what you might call "Do unto others before they do it unto you." Agreed, though I think it would be better to say "for his safety or that of others", since some chaotics may not care for the safety of others one whit. [/QUOTE]
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