- 27 Jun 2018 19:46
#14928170
My latest deep thinks brought me to this question. I'm fascinated by people who seem to be obsessed with "empowerment" and wonder what exactly they're thinking. Obviously they tend to be people who do not feel very powerful. They are also typically obsessed with equality. What I wonder is, can merely achieving equality with someone else really be considered a form of power?
As a recent US Supreme Court case brought up, there was this gay couple who viewed empowerment and equality in terms of sending an old man who disagreed with them to a re-education camp. I'm not sure if that's really equality, it struck me as rather tyrannical.
A justification for this is sometimes that white Christians (or whatever) were tyrannical in the past, so being tyrannical back at them is how you even the scales. Aside from how class based (and not genuinely individualistic) this dialogue is regarding that example, notice how equality there is essentially defined as having a tyrannical power.
So what I am trying to ask is, how can social equality and social power actually go together if social power is, by most definitions, the ability to influence and force others to do things? Necessarily if you have power over them, you and they are not equals. I suppose the counter argument to this, in terms of the Christian baker and the gay wedding cake situation, is that they are equal in rights -- the baker has to bake their cake, and if they were bakers, they would also have to bake his cake. But that is also where the rub or catch is; they aren't bakers, only he is a baker, so trying to apply this kind of rights-based analysis doesn't actually make sense upon a deeper inspection because they are different kinds of people.
What exactly justifies or undergirds such a system of values, a fantasy that the plaintiffs could/might also become bakers? A fantasy that bakers are the same as everyone else, even though the expectations applied to a baker and a non-baker are completely different in this case?
As a recent US Supreme Court case brought up, there was this gay couple who viewed empowerment and equality in terms of sending an old man who disagreed with them to a re-education camp. I'm not sure if that's really equality, it struck me as rather tyrannical.
A justification for this is sometimes that white Christians (or whatever) were tyrannical in the past, so being tyrannical back at them is how you even the scales. Aside from how class based (and not genuinely individualistic) this dialogue is regarding that example, notice how equality there is essentially defined as having a tyrannical power.
So what I am trying to ask is, how can social equality and social power actually go together if social power is, by most definitions, the ability to influence and force others to do things? Necessarily if you have power over them, you and they are not equals. I suppose the counter argument to this, in terms of the Christian baker and the gay wedding cake situation, is that they are equal in rights -- the baker has to bake their cake, and if they were bakers, they would also have to bake his cake. But that is also where the rub or catch is; they aren't bakers, only he is a baker, so trying to apply this kind of rights-based analysis doesn't actually make sense upon a deeper inspection because they are different kinds of people.
What exactly justifies or undergirds such a system of values, a fantasy that the plaintiffs could/might also become bakers? A fantasy that bakers are the same as everyone else, even though the expectations applied to a baker and a non-baker are completely different in this case?
Orb Team Re-Assemble!