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Power is not having to deal with the negative externalities of your own choices. It's okay to seek power, but it shouldn't be confused with virtue. You may act in ways that never require you to ask for help, but you might still act in ways that force others to. Moral hazard.
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This is my basic problem with libertarian virtue ethics focused on 'sovereign individual' type thinking. It often conflates power and virtue, and using power to force harder choices on others for personal responsibility. I'm fine with darwinist competition so long as you own it.
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Everything you say is reasonable. The point of the thread your post prompted is to point out that there are two deeply conflicting worldviews underneath. I think "the everything is interconnected and may be meaningless so let's just be kind" perspective is getting too much play.
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I think it actively devalues development of basic skills and sense of responsibility. And it is responsible for frequent misjudging of what should be choices between good and good.
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Skills are different from responsibility. I think the world has become rather full of people with lots of skills but almost no sense of responsibility. Moral hazard actors. And they get away with murder by acting like impossibly high skill demands on others is fine.
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Yes. The world is also full of people who don't aspire to either skill or responsibility. If you look at classical goals of education, it has been to combine skill development with outward focus. You can't do this without individual responsibility.
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We've actively disassembled every method that is used to instill these qualities together. Didactic writing is bad. Selling yourself is good. Utilitarianism and pragmatism rule. Individual feelings and happiness are paramount (or individual success is paramount.) etc.
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I think where you and I might agree is that any skill and real earned agency is valuable and any kind of learned helplessness is bad. So long as you are adequately mindful about the value/meaning you ascribe to your agency.
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"Let them eat cake" is a real syndrome. For a queen, the "obvious" solution to not having bread is to eat cake. That sort of thing seems to count as "skill" to some. And that "skill" is then used to justify lecturing starving people to not act helpless.
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I need to go, but I tried to describe treating this kind of pragmatic manipulation as competence in one of my last few posts...will try to find it when I get back.