Identifying, Understanding, and Defending Inviolable Core Values

Part 1: https://jjplace.co.uk/?p=322(opens in a new tab)

Part 2: https://jjplace.co.uk/?p=333(opens in a new tab)

This, part three continues the discussion of uniting people in a fractured internet. The last post discussed the importance of speaking to your audience and explained how. Now, this is about identifying the shared values and concepts that unite across the political spectrum. This isn’t just for the internet, however, this is a core part of any democratic political philosophy, nation building, and being able to function as a state when people have different backgrounds, ideas of the good life i.e religion, values etc. For the internet, however, it can help us see who is worth debating and who should be “bonked”. I then will finalise with discussing how we can defend these values. 

For a pluralistic society (aka, effectively any modern society) where different people have competing or at least opposed ideas of what is important for them, what lives they want to pursue, their belief system, etc. finding unity and consensus is essential. For a democratic society to not overstep the bounds of state power, this unity entails function, stability, security, and the protection of certain rights and goods. The unity must factor on recognising, respecting and supporting certain key values, which are in our interest to protect. 

How can we identify the values? This has been a very contested topic within political philosophy. I won’t bore you with the ideas (Though if you are interested, Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance is a classic example of doing so, and his ideas are quite influential on much of this discussion). In normal people’s language we can consider what sort of society would we want if we were creating one from scratch. What sort of concepts are also in your own interest to have, and that of others.

All people want to be able to live their lives, generally. That is relatively undeniable. Apart from perhaps extreme self-hating masochists or those who have come to love the idea of being told what to do by a tyrant (same thing, let’s be honest). What do we need to do so? I believe we can follow this thought. It also helps to imagine yourself not as you, but above society, imagining you are from a different background, religion, age, ability, gender etc. What would people, regardless of these factors, want?  I think also we can look at the real world and see what tends to unify reasonable people. We find the following values typically among those. 

Democracy 

An undemocratic society is an unfree society. It allows powerful elites to effectively rule without accountability, and with a lot of power. Now, democracy can manifest in many ways. Direct democracy, representative (most parliamentary democracies are this kind), deliberative, etc. In fact most democratic nations combine these approaches. Some, mostly liberal socialists, also argue to extend democracy into workplaces, others, mostly libertarians and classical or neoliberals, argue the market is a great form of democracy. Anarchists would argue a state is at odds with democracy. I am getting into any of that.  

What I am getting at is the concept of democracy is something we should all agree is valuable. All persons should have a right to not be ruled by another who can exert considerable power over them without accountability. The alternative is tyranny. We see this in authoritarian regimes. They defend it on the basis of order, stability, or because it is not in their culture (which is usually always a lie). Those who decry and demean democracy are not worth engaging with. Those who defend it, even though it defends the democratic right of others who they disagree with, is more likely reasonable. This is a value all defenders of Ukraine believe in. This is a value those in a genuine, democratic and free society, will and should believe in too. 

Rights 

All persons deserve a basis of rights, necessary to live their lives. I believe this, most reasonable persons, would agree to. To accept these rights is, in a sense, beneficial. You benefit from these rights. You have to affirm these rights for others, even those you disagree with and dislike, as to question these rights risks your own rights. 

Now, democracy means also that people’s will can and should influence the political policies, leaders, representatives, and general nature of society. However, there must be limits. This is usually why we have rights, constitutions, laws etc. which are beyond democracy’s input. If we, say, put up the voting rights of women up for debate, we could see a situation where half th epopulation lose a right we previously agreed was fundamental. Even if there was, say, a referendum on women voting, and women retained the vote, there is a signal that this right is negotiable. I am a firm believer certain rights cannot be negotiated. 

We have to debate and discuss what ought to be a right. When do we limit these rights?  Are there acceptable limits? Should ownership of productive property be a right? If so, to what extent? These are important discussions. However, a democratic society generally accepts certain key rights, i.e expression, religion. These tend to be what we call “negative” rights, or liberties, as in the freedom to be free to do something i.e. worship freely, rather than “positive” rights “the right to have a job” where the state or society must give you a right. We can discuss the broader questions, but core, fundamental, rights should be non-negotiable. Those who reject many of the key rights that are essential to ensure each of us can live our lives, and those who reject the concept of rights, can be claimed to be unreasonable and dismissed. 

On a geopolitical level, we affirm certain rights for nations such as the right to self-determination. We do tend to accept certain limits, for example, if a state is violating other rights and laws against its own people, invading another nation etc. This value of self-determination is especially compelling as a universally shared value for reasonable people. This is what the left, and the right, who support Ukraine tend to rally behind. It is for good reason. It is the basis of the modern world order, as empires collapsed and nations sprang up, for people to rally together and determine their own course as free and democratic people, not under the oppression of another. 

Liberty 

Rights, and democracy, are deeply tied to the idea of liberty, or freedom. As in, the idea to live the life one wishes. I have discussed, a lot, about the different definitions of liberty. It’s actually one of my favourite topics. However, most, reasonable, persons accept that a) liberty as a concept is valuable and b) regardless of what certain differences of opinion regarding what ie necessary for liberty or how it is defined, the general goal is to ensure people can live their lives. 

Some argue that it requires provisions from the government, to be “free from poverty”, some consider freedom to be about power dynamics, to not be “dominated” by another, as in, in an unaccountable position. Others emphasise interference from the state, or other agents, as the biggest obstacle to liberty. It is a long standing and sometimes irresolvable debate, although I personally think we can identify good, and bad, and analogous points across all arguments. Yet, we often see, among the reasonable, an acceptance that all should be free to live their lives, to choose their own destiny, and to not be forced to do another’s will. Defenders of Ukraine certainly think so. 

Respect 

The final shared value, which I touched on, is the idea of respect. As in, the respect for others to live their lives. As I said regarding rights, it is in one’s fundamental self-interest to do so. But, in an ideal world, we would go further, and respect and demand respect for others ability to live their lives with freedom, dignity, and protected rights. Respect does not necessarily entail love, or even agreement, with others in a democratic society. I may find many adherents of religions a variation of naive to downright supporting hateful views, but they absolutely have the right to do so. I respect their right to do so. 

Finding the limits of respect is very much what I have been discussing. I do not have to respect those who wish to take all these values away. In fact, we should challenge and not give power to them. I now turn to the topic of defending these core values that I believe all reasonable people, regardless of their ideas of the good life, their political, religious and other ethical views, believe. 

Defending The Values

Defending these values is no small feat. 

We have seen and are seeing many people around the world defending and dying for these values, and many others working very hard to get rid of them. Historically, this has been women, working men, or minorities demanding the vote. People demanding democratic representation. In more extreme examples, revolts and revolutions to overthrow regimes who deny people these rights. 

Right now, from extreme right in many western countries (The extreme left tend not to have much power) influencing major political parties (USA, UK) to abandon key liberties, to governments such as Georgian Dream, to authoritarians such as Putin, Assad etc. oppressing and murdering their own citizens and, in the case of Putin, other nations’ people. What unites these authoritarians, whether thy are religious extremists like the Taliban, secular strongmen like Assad, quasi communists like Maduro, fascistic leaders like Putin, or “Conservatives” like Trump, is a disregard for every single right and other people’s wellbeing, rights, and freedom. And especially democracy. 

To defend from these people, requires several things. 

1. Voting. Yes, many nations have flawed voting systems, parties that feel out of touch or simply do not represent our views, corrupted politicians, etc. However, these extremists feed on that. They use this to make you hate democracy. To vote against your interest. Many, understandably in my opinion, did not like Clinton in the USA so did not bother to vote. Trump won, and look what happened. Others vote for the extremists to “shake things up” but then see, how often did their rights, their freedoms, their nations’ stability, get eroded? 
2. Stop airing and treating them as equals. As we rightly learned (mostly) you do not debate on twitter with russian trolls and idiots, you mock them, you extend this. Thre are people who are not reasonable, they are not sharing some common ground, they want to take away everything that underpins a decent society, even if it isn’t much. They are not proposing an equally valid difference of opinion (i.e. should taxes be higher or lower to boost the economy) when they propose say, taking away rights, invading a nation for colonialist ambitions, to genocide, to fundamentally weaken democracy, or whatever else. 
3. Reach out to those who are at risk of being swayed. Those reasonable who may have understandable anger at the world, the system etc. can be manipulated. Explain to them, build common ground. These are reasonable folk if they affirm the key values. 
4. We, as a society, need to start considering reforms to education to help educate people on media literacy, AI detection, disinformation checking, and all that. This should happen in early ages, we also need to help educate each other. I actually think NAFO has been better than most government initiatives. Speaking of which
5. More grassroots movements to defend against those who threaten our values. They complement voting, but direct actions are necessary to protest, challenge those who threaten our valuable freedoms, rights, democracy etc. Whether they exist within or outside of government. Look at how Ukraine fought against Yanukovych. It was a grassroots, activist, unified movement against the tyranny of someone eroding core rights and democratic processes. We now see it online with NAFO, where disinformation has changed, because we took it upon ourselves. 
6. We need to think about others more. This isn’t meant to sound like some wishy washy, hippy liberal thing. But, if we only think of “Our side”, “Our people” when it comes to rights and freedoms, then we fail to meaningfully take seriously what it means to live in a modern, democratic society where we live alongside others we may not like or agree with. Too often people only care when it comes to them about say rights, freedoms, or laws “this right has gone” or “i don’t like these people anyway”. Once you start doing that, even if you consider yourself a person who likes democracy, who wants self-determination, you are on the side of the enemies of freedom, democracy, and justice. By respecting others, by building bridges, we can come together, overcome divisive discourse, disinfo, and fight against those who threaten everything decent in the world. 

This was the end of the series of blog posts where I talk about issues of democracy, division, finding unity, speaking to others, and challenging those who threaten democracy and freedom. In a way I have sneakily, or not so sneakily, been luring you into political philosophy, nowever, I believe these ideas are essential, and anyone who is interested in defending Ukraine, should recognise the value of what I have said.