/lit/ - Literature

I was going to post this in the other thread but it disappeared.
I have been thinking for a while now that right and left are sort of reverse images of each other on the two issues of market norms and sexual norms, although the right has yet to notice and critique this.

On the one hand, we have people on the left pointing out that the free market as it stands is an unjust system (the system produces gross inequalities), whereas defenders on the right will say that the market produces greater OVERALL wealth, and that one should not limit peoples FREE CHOICES with respect to their money; on the other hand we have people on the left defending a system which apparently produces great inequalities with respect to sex (Some men have a ton of sex: some men barely any, some none) and yet defending the system with similar arguments that the right uses to defend the market: there is more OVERALL sex in a hook-up culture, and one should not limit the FREE CHOICES of people concerning who they should and shouldn't have sex with.

Yet the interesting thing, for me at least, is that both systems are clearly "unjust" in the Rawlsian sense: if everyone were to go into a veil of ignorance and choose the market norms, subject to the condition (the "Strains of Commitment) "that they would affirm the norms no matter where they end up in the actual system", they would not choose our current market norms, because the people at the very bottom would not affirm such a system and would struggle to overthrow it. It is the same way with our current sexual norms: parties in the veil of ignorance would never choose our current norms, because the people who end up at the bottom could never affirm them, because they are fundamentally unfair.

The strange thing, for me, is that neither party in the US is able to coherently reason from these principles of justice to what sort of society we ought to have: the left rejects justice with respect to the sexual realm: the right rejects justice with respect to the market.

>>13769482
Yes you do find out what justice is but it is going to take a long while.


You also should know that Plato is one of those authors that you really have to work at in order to understand.
For example: when he makes a wacky assumption (like "aren't dogs by nature philosophical?") Plato is attempting to point out something, so pay attention to when and why this assumption is brought in: notice that right before this point in the argument the two interlocutors got stuck: think about why they got stuck.

Notice also when and why a digression is made at various points, and try to think through why this digression is made here.

It helps when reading to make the assumption that Plato is smarter than you OP, and that when he says something which appears stupid or strange that there is a reason why.

Also, if interested in Justice, read pic related next: it is a more autistic take on the topic.

>>13079250
Although I warn you part two is an utter slog.