RE ENLIGHTENMENT FALLACIES EQUALITY BUT MERITOCRACY BUT ALSO RACE

"The overemphasis of demographic characteristics works against an emphasis on ability, because ability is indeed distributed relatively equally among races and genders...." DK

These are difficult related topics to address briefly....

Just for a start:
Not only were or are all men not, ever, created equal,
but not even one man  was ever created equal to any other single one.

SOLITARY POOR NASTY BRUTISH AND SHORT

This is Hobbes' description of his imagined state of nature, where all men are created equal at the start, in that each one can theoretically kill any other one. Leviathan

Hobbes' state of nature is as purely hypothetical, in its way, and as unrealistic as a starting point for anything, as is Rawl's 
' original position '.

It may be better to think of them as utopian counterfactual worlds, and as a starting point for fallacies in reasoning.

RE ENLIGHTENMENT FALLACIES FOUNDING FATHERS CATCH PHRASES ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

"The overemphasis of demographic characteristics works against an emphasis on ability, because ability is indeed distributed relatively equally among races and genders...." DK

"The emphasis on race and gender as sources of prejudice and obstacles in the workplace in recent decades has been somewhat misleading.  Far too many minority and female Americans seem to feel that white males simply never have problems rising to the top of their field of endeavor by virtue of their "white male privilege." This is, frankly, silly.  Since the founding of the republic, simply being a white male has never been a guarantee of anything...." DK 

I just want to take a short look back, down memory lane, at what phrases like this may have meant, both before  1776, and then.

Most people, including most scholars, believe that this phrase came originally from Locke, and comments made by his contemporaries in New England and elsewhere.

That is not correct. It came from Hobbes. See: state of nature. If you look at Wikipedia only on Locke, or Jefferson, you won't actually see this point.

IT'S BEEN THIS REALLY SINCE LONG BEFORE 1776

"...to bring our long, bitter, useless political crisis to an end and move us into an era of consensus." DK, Feminism and politics

It was always political, structural, and ideological problems both sacred and secular, and inherent problems for a very loose bunch of disparate colonies that then went into wrongful rebellion.

Bostonian Congregationalists were executing Quakers, merely for being Quakers, in the 17th Century, eg Mary Dyer. 

ENLIGHTENMENT FALLACIES

Another installment in this continuing series.

European monarchs and emperors, ' enlightened ' or not, 

' despots ' or not, contrary to popular scholarly belief, did not want to expand, or to reform, the state itself, or the established social order, for the sake of doing so, or for themselves. 

They wanted, at most, to keep the state at its current size, and to preserve the established order, the ancien regime, rather than change it, and even to reverse changes, if anything.

They did want to expand their military, and defend their state, and their dynastic rights, as they saw the need; but for them, at least, this did not necessarily entail anything more regarding reforming or expanding the state for its own sake.

MEDIAN GLOBAL PER CAPITA INCOME THE DOOMSDAY DISCIPLINE

Gallup: $2,920.  Almost certainly, in my judgment, a gross exaggeration.

Almost half, say 40 %,  of all people actually probably live on $1.25 or less a day, per capita.  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17312819

 Re economists' globalist economic average income convergence, their greatest good for the greatest numbers, be careful what you wish for.

ENLIGHTENED DESPOT AND ABSOLUTISM FALLACIES

Sorry. ' Enlightened despot '.  Era of absolutism, etc, etc.

This, enlightenment despotism,  turns out to be yet another enlightenment fallacy.

It is not only that they did not have absolute power...the Czars did, to a great extent; the Sultan was an absolute despot, no doubt.

CLASSIC ECONO POST

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-krugman-on-friedman-on-japan.html?showComment=1288342076034#c2893555660923881042

THE DOOMSDAY DISCIPLINE I HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE BUT WHY NOT SAY IT AGAIN INCOME CONVERGENCE

is a phenomenon created and promoted by almost all economists, because they all support the concept of economic globalization and integration.

That is why I have called economics The Doomsday Discipline.

They abhor wealth and income divergence, and ignore the 800 pound convergence gorilla in the room.

Piketty, Rodrik, etc., included.

Steingart, I think, is an exception  (The War For Wealth), but, of course, he is not, as I recall, technically, an economist but rather a ' pundit ', a reverse Thomas Friedman, so to speak.

RE DK CURRENT POST

"But Trump could still win, and the United States will still face huge problems even if he loses, because of the almost complete disconnect between our leading economic and intellectual classes on the one hand, and the mass of the American people on the other.  The divide can't help but remind me of France in 1789 or Russia in 1917, and it is up to our leaders to start to close it."

We don't have any real classes here, economic or otherwise, and certainly no intellectual classes to speak of, and frankly never have. They, Trump etc., and certain intellectuals, can kid themselves......  

Sadly, all that was left behind by the rebellion against Britain in 1776.

WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY NEW GUESTS

Entry	Pageviews
United States	198
Portugal	2
Sweden	1

Who knows.

RE YELLIN INTEREST RATES

Why raise rates, when you are in a permanent globalization trap?

Terms search: inflation deflation, red herrings, convergence.

RE WHY THE ECONOMIC PAYOFF FROM TECHNOLOGY IS SO ELUSIVE THINK PEACE DIVIDEND

Because it never existed.

Just the latest fad that was designed to enrich only some people,  IT execs, etc., and poor manufacturers and assemblers, many of them elsewhere.

Reminds me of what used to be called a peace dividend. 
What a dream world.

As chimerical as a ' war dividend ' for most US wars, really....
The Romans had apparently asked, first, "what is there there worth having?"

ENLIGHTENMENT VERSUS RELIGION

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, popular religion, both Western Europe and Orthodoxy, were still very much based on omens, miracles, and witchcraft, even in Protestant areas of the book.

However, enlightened persons began to call all religion superstition. 

Yet, on the other hand, they also wanted popular religious observance to continue to serve the interests of the state in keeping order and obedience in society, and of those in rewarding clerical positions in church hierarchies. 

THE BOURGEOISIE enlightenment fallacies

It turns out that this so called class (an anachronism in itself) had more to do with the disastrous Reformation than with the, later, problematic Enlightenment. Wuthnow p 566, 567.

Amen

RE ENLIGHTENMENT FALLACIES BOURGEOIS INITIATIVE

...the first people who tried to translate the enlightenment ideas into practice were members of the government, all of whom, apart from Necker, were nobles.

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2013/06/re-wuthnows-discussion-of-cultural.html

THE ENLIGHTENMENT BEGAN IT SEEMS

in anti clericalism. 

Even this statement is not very revealing, by itself.

RE ENLIGHTENMENT

It is hundreds of years past time to get a little clarity on this most slippery of intellectual, historical, and political ideas.

Professor Kaiser has discussed the term, as set out in his posts below.

It is a very difficult term to begin to get clear about.

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/search?q=enlightenment

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2014/02/new-worlds-emerging.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2011/06/kindred-spirit.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-is-happening-to-israel.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-emerging-new-world.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2013/05/peace-at-last.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-chancellor-said.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2012/05/bad-news-good-news.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-new-world-disorder.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2016/02/institutional-failure.html

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-hegelian-president.html

RANDALL COLLINS' CURRENT POST WELL WORTH IT

What Has Micro - Sociology Accomplished?

NPR RE GORILLA VERSUS CHILD ANIMAL RIGHTS DREW PEARSON LIBERAL FALLACY

Say no more.