OK but I don’t think that counters the important part of the point you responded to, which was to point out the fallacy of defining ‘arrogance’ as simply disagreeing with majority opinion. Whether the slave’s view that he is equal is correct is secondary. The main point is the obvious, IMO, fallacy of saying the slave is ‘arrogant’ to believe in his equality just because non-slaves outnumber slaves and disagree with him.
Anyway slavery in some general sense is not a good example because for the great majority of human history it was based on practicalities (conquest, punishment for crimes, collection of debt etc) and defending it didn’t depend on the slave owners finding an ‘arrogant’ pretext to classify the slaves as outside of the rule that ‘all men are created equal’, as became the case in the final decades of New World African slavery.
My brother made a claim at being libertarian once. He confidently said, “The government should only be involved in emergency services like 911 and fire departments, and building roads. That’s it. The rest should be free market.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Dude, you moved to a different state so your autistic son would be able to get government-provided therapy.”
That’s some mighty fine arrogance right there. Libertarianism seems like a good concept, until you need something above and beyond.
Who defines the underlying rightness or wrongness of an action? If other people are saying they all think something is right and you think it’s wrong - and then you expect society to follow your beliefs - then that’s arrogance. You’re saying your beliefs are superior to other people’s.
I say we argue about it. Being willing to argue a position, trying to persuade others - that’s not arrogance. My beliefs carry no more weight than another person’s. I think I’m right of course, because if I didn’t I would change my mind. But I think it’s important to distinguish between arguing in favor of something, trying to persuade others, being an advocate from actual arrogance:* exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one’s own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner* or showing an offensive attitude of superiority.
Which is different from a constitutional democracy… how? For example, the majority of Americans want prayer in school. Are you being arrogant by not allowing it?
ETA: It takes a LOT more than the majority to change the constitution, so please don’t bring that up as a counter-example.
Takes more than a majority though, it takes super duper majorities to amend the Constitution. Which is fine, if we’re going to alter the basic compact that defines us as a country, there should be broad consensus.
I agree. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What you’re saying is you have a belief and you try to convince other people to agree with you. That’s fine; it’s the basis of democracy.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a majority of 51% or 67% or 99%. My point is that the American government derives its legitimacy from the approval of the majority. It’s not based on what one individual thought was right.
Young Earth Creationists think scientists are arrogant for saying the Earth is billions of years old. All political philosophies are arrogant, saying that society will be better if they or their liked minded allies are placed into power. Anarchists could be an exception, but they’re arrogant for saying they know better than everyone else in the other direction.
American right-libertarians are arrogant to the extent they have claimed half the political spectrum to themselves. Unless they’re political nerds, most Americans couldn’t tell you what a left-libertarian is, or they’d say it’s a contradiction. It’s not so surprising, given the right wing bent of the country, so it’s just seen as the default.
From time to time some philosophies claim historical inevitability, though none seem to have a monopoly on it. Liberals claim history is on their side, often simply stating the current year as justification, hence the “It’s (current year)” meme. Conservatives sometimes portray themselves as the “common sense” fallback as a historical reaction to leftism, despite being yesterday’s leftists.
It is baffling that some believe the free market will magically lead to appropriate programs for needs like pollution avoidance, vaccination or flood control.
Either right and wrong is defined independently of what ‘most people’ think, or else there’s no such thing as right and wrong, only conventions of behavior, and laws, but neither or those things require ‘right and wrong’ properly defined. The choice of saying there’s no real morality is fine as someone else’s opinion, IMO, I’m tolerant of that. However I view it as nonsense to tell me there’s any actual moral weight to what most other people think. Therefore to the extent ‘arrogance’ is viewed as having moral color to it, it’s one more reason I reject your apparent argument that it’s ‘arrogant’ to have an opinion most other people disagree with. It’s really a fairly remarkably weak argument IMO, given the generally reasonable content of many of your posts I’ve observed.
And it’s not bolstered at all by the irrelevant tack of saying eg. ‘freedom of speech would be abolished if enough people agreed it should’. Yes of course as a fact of mechanical procedure it would. If one drafted an amendment saying ‘the first amendments prohibition is hearby repealed and from now a non-partisan commission of wise people will decide what’s allowable expression’ and somehow 2/3’s of Congress agreed and 3/4 of the state legislatures (or the state convention route) then it would replace the first amendment. Is anyone arguing that’s not what would happen given that far fetched premise? Nor is it particularly relevant how far fetched the premise is. It would not be ‘arrogant’ to still oppose that amendment and seek its repeal. It might be arrogant to violate the laws written in the wake of the amendment and expect to be above the consequences, but that’s really a different question. But ‘arrogant’ to favor free speech because most people have turned against it? That’s nonsense, IMO.
I would have to say authoritarianism, socially at least. I don’t think that the government should restrict people from any natural right. Economically, authoritarianism is ok, but I believe in more of a fusion of authoritarianism and libertarianism.
Socially, an authoritarian government could oppose a national religion, limit free speech, restrict marriage rights, restrict reproduction rights, and restrict gun rights. It could even disrupt our justice system.
I don’t think that we can afford to sacrifice our rights, and honestly, that we would even think to apply a system in which the individual is not valued.
Economically, I somewhat support authoritarianism with supporting higher taxes on the rich and federal minimum wage of $12.
However, I also think that the freer the market is, the freer the people are. If we deregulate the market small businesses will have a bigger chance to succeed.
As for its arrogance, authoritarians like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini have aggressively pushed their viewpoints on people who did not support them.
There are some good ways to use the government, but if we overuse them with authoritarianism to the point of totalitarianism, then our rights may be lost.