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Benevolent Paternalism

Ultimate said:
I said nothing of the sort. Anyway, managers aren't there to love their employees, they're there to make sure the place is run efficiently. They should also, of course, be good empathisers and be prepared to listen to people, and the best managers are like that. Your claim that they're more likely to have their own interests at heart suggests you just have a chip on your shoulder. I don't know how many jobs you've had, but did you think, in all of them, that the managers didn't give a toss about you? Not at all?
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Yes, you did:

The concepts of 'strong' and 'weak' people can only be defined very loosely, but I'm thinking of things like health, robustness, intelligence, wisdom, rationality etc. And 'more dominant personalities' I'd have thought was self-explanatory. We all know people who are more inclined to dominate than others. Some people have a strong desire to be in charge, simply because that's the sort of people they are.

And on the animals, yes I was thinking of the great apes and their hierarchies, because they can easily be compared with humans, but it seems to apply to all mammals, especially where the strongest male rules the group and mates with all the females in the group until he is overthrown by another male. The human equivilant of this is politics.
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You have a gift for missing the point. I'm not suggesting that you need to by buddy buddy with the boss. What I'm saying is that Capital's (the boss's) financial interested are usually directly oppositional to the workers. In that case, the boss will almost always make decisions for his own financial gain and against the workers.
 
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DotCommunist said:
long way away from your idea of benevolent paternalism- now you are advocating that people who know what they are doing hold sway in their workplaces. You've just took the goalpost and ran with it into the distance
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All I'm doing now is stating what, as far as I am concerned, is the obvious, but which you seem to think is evil. However, I think I know what you are saying, but no, I'm not contradicting myself, just talking about a slightly different subject. I'd rather not go back to a big debate on the original Benevolent Paternalism idea, simply because I'm a bit tired of it now, but as I said earlier, the model I sketched there (perhaps in a somewhat clumsy and misleading manner) doesn't necessarily reflect my political views. I never said I thought that was the best way to run things. It was just a 'what if' scenario. And you have said yourself that you knew that already. As far as I'm concerned, the only real mistake I made was to underestimate how opposed a lot of people on this forum are to anything with an organised leadership of some kind. And as I keep saying, presenting leaders as pantomime villains is just daft.
 
Sorry to cut out in the middle of this absorbing debate, but I'm going to have to stop now, because I know that staying up late in front of my computer doesn't do me any good. So goodnight - hopefully you'll be available tomorrow if you want to carry on.
 
Ultimate said:
All I'm doing now is stating what, as far as I am concerned, is the obvious
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even wishy washy useful idiot liberals would hate the ideas you present. Centuries spent trying to break out of the mould you posit. Its been done. It doesn't work.
 
I called one nation toryism earlier but it isn't that is it? It's fucking feudalism. Have a word with your self
 
Ultimate said:
Sorry to cut out in the middle of this absorbing debate, but I'm going to have to stop now, because I know that staying up late in front of my computer doesn't do me any good. So goodnight - hopefully you'll be available tomorrow if you want to carry on.
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Be sure to say your prayers and kiss your momma goodnight. :)
 
Ultimate said:
All of them. Leadership is inevitably tyrannical - that's your stance, isn't it?
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Not really.

Leadership should always originate from the people effected by decision-making. It should never be far from the people who have ultimate responsibility.

Leadership imposed from above, as it is in "benevolent paternalism", is inevitably tyrannical.
 
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Ultimate said:
Jackboot coming towards my face? To call that laughable would be a huge understatement.
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Are you unable to read? it certainly appears that way. No-one mentioned a jackboot going anywhere near your face.
Your foot is what was mentioned.

You're a joke, and so are your political friends. Up to now I thought you were intelligent but misguided, so I was prepared to talk to you as such. But I can only describe the views you've expressed above as utterly stupid.
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I've bothered to deconstruct your "benevolent paternalism", and point out what I believe to be flaws. Your recourse, when faced with such questions, has been to stick yourself on a loop of repeating your original (unsupported) contentions.
Where I'm from, people who repeat themselves ad infinitum are generally seen as stupid, stupidity usually being the primary cause of not being able to make a decent argument.

You sound like a bunch of backward schoolkids wanting to rebel against your teachers. By flashing your bums at them.
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Ah, the last refuge of the incapable - infantilise the opposition, and then pretend you're more mature so that you can disengage with a shred of your imagined dignity intact! :D


So I won't bother to continue this debate, but I'll probably carry on reading your anarchist fantasies, just for a laugh.
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If you're calling the replies to your ideas about politics "anarchist fantasies", you very obviously don't have the first idea what anarchism actually is. :facepalm:

And I might also throw into those discussions a few counter-arguments based on my usual grown-up, common sense, real world perspectives
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Normative arguments may be normative, but normativity doesn't make them valid. Also, people who fall back on denoting their arguments as coming from "the real world" tend to be doing so to lend their argument spurious validity, because they know that the factual basis of their argument is a bag of arse.

just to see you lot make prats of yourselves in your little delusionary world. If I've nothing better to do. You can insult me as much as you like, but I'm not the least bit offended, because you are so pathetic. You call me ignorant, but your definition of an ignorant person seems to be someone who doesn't agree with you.
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You know what I love? Watching someone froth at the mouth because they're not mature enough to accept being gainsaid. Fucking hilarious!!!
 
Ultimate said:
I'm not at university anymore. I use this forum for relaxation.
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Ah, I see. You're no longer at university, so you stop learning, stop engaging on an educative level, you just come and chat a line of political shit that's thin on anything approaching a factual basis, and expect people to fawn over your insight.
Sorry, not the way things wrk. You chat shit and people will call you on it.
 
DotCommunist said:
Basically if you start a discussion based on the idea that 'hey maybe the Man does know best, no not the mean one, the nice Man'

people will laugh at you
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Not least because some (many?) of us have had experiences which have violently revealed the lack of difference between the mean man and the nice man.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Not least because some (many?) of us have had experiences which have violently revealed the lack of difference between the mean man and the nice man.
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have you ever encountered a copper socially and seen them switch effortlessly from 'one of the lads' into bicycle saddle sniffing mode? Only twice for me.
 
Ultimate said:
The fact that you interpret it that way says more about you than it does about me.
Pot / kettle.
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Lets try and set this out simply for you:

Your opening post posits a state or a world where those best qualified for a job do that job. So far so ordinary and (in the proper sense of the word) meritocratic.
However, you pay absolutely NO attention to how "best qualified" is decided, or how value-laden those making the decisions might be. A notable feature of earlier incarnations of "benevolent paternalism" was that those making such choices generally chose "a chap like me" - i.e. people who'd been through the same or similar educational establishments as the chooser, and were a member of the same class.

Unless you first address such issues so that any meritocracy is actual rather than perceived, then all you do is validate the current order, as the current order will make sure that those doing the choosing are "chaps like me".

Simple enough for you?
 
DotCommunist said:
have you ever encountered a copper socially and seen them switch effortlessly from 'one of the lads' into bicycle saddle sniffing mode? Only twice for me.
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I used to frequent a "coppers' pub", so I've seen plenty of them turn from matey-as-fuck to utter cunt on a sixpence. Then again, given my formative experiences with them, I was suspicious of copper mateyness from a young age. :D
 
Ultimate said:
That's better - try talking English occasionally. Anyway, you are saying you have a problem with the idea that the people who know best should be in charge? Of course the people who know best should be in charge. That's not tyranny, it's common sense. And I'm quite sure most people outside this forum would agree.
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Who decides "who knows best"?
"Common sense" is to find the answer(s) to such questions before moving ahead with your project.
 
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ViolentPanda said:
I used to frequent a "coppers' pub", so I've seen plenty of them turn from matey-as-fuck to utter cunt on a sixpence. Then again, given my formative experiences with them, I was suspicious of copper mateyness from a young age. :D
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I used to work in a cop shop. I've seen what happens when a guy is sitting in an interrogation room and a cop decides to get friendly. It usually results in a prison sentence for the object of their affection.

(I've also seen cops do incredibly kind things for no reason other than they saw someone in need. Go figure.)
 
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Yuwipi Woman said:
(I've also seen cops do incredibly kind things for no reason other than they saw someone in need. Go figure.)
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I don't believe any sane person goes into the job to be an arsehole, and while organisational culture might wear you down and bring out the evil, there is still a spark somewhere in some people. Within the confines they can try to be what they joined up for. Brave defender and good egg. But its an unwarranted cup of tea or a friendly word weighed against murder and suppression.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Are you unable to read? it certainly appears that way. No-one mentioned a jackboot going anywhere near your face.
Your foot is what was mentioned.
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Yes you did. You said, "I always seem to be the one with the jackboot coming towards his face." I assume you meant my face? Who said anything about my foot?
 
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