Re: RE: Naders Big Chance

>>>>> "dave" == Dave Rolsky <[email protected]> writes:

  dave> On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Kendall Clark wrote:

[lots of substantive claims snipped]

  dave> I world where each person is judged entirely on their own
  dave> merits.  

How horrible. Really. *Entirely* on their own merits? I would do very,
very poorly indeed. What about people utter lacking in merit? If
judged *entirely on my merits*, I'd likely never have gotten the
education I have, probably wouldn't get much medical care, etc. 

That seems -- though pushed perhaps further than you intend -- to be a
kind of naive Darwinian view in which the weak are neglected and there
forms an aristocracy of the meritorious, which would likely be as
ruthless as every other aristocracy.

I was on full scholarship at SMU for the duration of my PhD. I know
others who certainly merited that more than I. I got it largely
because I was a known quantity.

When I was born I had this fucked up leg that required a brace so I
could learn to walk. Short simply of being a human person -- which
isn't *my own merit* in any legible way -- I didn't deserve that leg
brace. I certainly hadn't earned it.

There is something to be said for human *investment*; that is, giving
goods and opportunities *precisely* to those who seem *not* to merit
in order to help them develop their innate capabilities and virtues. I
am still enough of an Enlightenment thinker to believe all human
persons have innate capacities and capabilities that, when given
nurturing environments in which to flourish, will, well, flourish.

Judging the allocation of social goods *entirely on the basis of
individual merit* seems to make this kind of investment difficult, if
not impossible. It certainly seems to undercut the (uniquely human?)
possibilities of redemption. (One might retort that 'possibility' is a
kind of merit, but I don't see how it's an *individual* merit; we all
have it, I think.)

(Hmm, sorry, but I'm wound up: the last thing one might say about
'entirely on one's merits' is that merit is always relative to some
framework of value by reference to which an individual accomplishment
or fitness is meritorious. In an orthodox Christian framework in which
'the end of man is to love God and enjoy him forever' the willingness
to unthinkingly accept and obey the orders of one's superiors within a
social hierarchy is meritorious; as is the possession of a penis. So
at the very least, 'entirely on one's merit' needs a framework of
value to be coherently useful. Or something like that.)

I find a far more desirable world to imagine is one in which in which
human rights are maximally respected and achieved, irrespective of
one's merit. I 'merit' what the UDHR claims for me only because I'm a
human person like any other.

You might also imagine a kind of Singerian "eutopia" where everyone's
interests are respected appropriately -- which would probably end up
looking very much like Maximal Human Rights World.

What's most interesting about all this is what we could call the
grammar of utopian thinking (which I recall Immanuel Wallerstein
working on a bit -- I'm interested in hearing if anyone knows of
others who've worked on this too; there's probably some in the
Hegelian tradition); sure, it's utopian, but there are constraints and
criteria, I suspect, that allow one to discriminate. I wonder what
those are?

<&rummage-around-in-the-library;>

Ah, yes, here we go. Wallerstein, from his 1998 *Utopistics* (The New
Press):

	Utopistics is the serious assessment of historical
	alternatives, the exercise of our judgement as to the
	substantive rationalit of alternative possible historical
	systems. It is the sober, rational, and realistic evaluation
	of human social systems, the constraints on what they can be,
	and the zones open to human creativity. Not the face of the
	perfect (and inevitable) future, but the face of an
	alternative, credibly better, and historically possible (but
	far from certain) future.

Maybe I should read in addition to owning it... :>

Kendall