Ted Winslow wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > anyone who deliberately did less than her ability
> > allowed would soon become a social outcast
>
> A sadistic will to power may not characterize all political and other
> social relations, but it certainly characterizes some, and some much
> more than others. Moralistic conceptions of ethics are one of its
> common hiding places.
I was more or less deliberately provocative in my wording, and John Thornton has put the point in more temperate (and accurate) language. But even in my formulation I don't see the need to haul in any "sadistic will to power," which seems to me a pretty metaphysical concept which really is not needed to explain the social phenomena involved (past, present, future). I believe recent neuroscience has revealed organic tendencies to strike back at unfairness, even at a cost to oneself, and you can label that "punitive" I suppose -- but only if one remembers Miles's repeated mantra: genes are expressed in a social context, and "punitive" simply does not mean the same in different social contexts.
Incidentally, is there any pre-19th century term, in any language, which is even remotely a snynom for "sadism"?
I continue to gain a lot from Ted's posts, but I just can't accept this concept of ideal rationality (or its opposite), graspable independently of social relations.
Carrol