NancyLebovitz comments on [POLITICS] Jihadism and a new kind of existential threat - Less Wrong

-5 Post author: MrMind 25 March 2015 09:37AM

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Comment author: seer 26 March 2015 09:42:24PM 4 points [-]

I like the idea that it will take inspiration-- the development of a new religion or variant of Islam or alternatively some brilliant satire-- to create something to move people away from IS. It's pretty clear that mere decency isn't motivating enough.

No, the problem is that the West has been slowly rejecting the very concept of decency over the past century.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 26 March 2015 10:07:28PM 1 point [-]

We are hardly limited to having only one problem.

I'm willing to grant that I've been seeing a slow-moving war on empathy in the West, but I don't think that's the reason Daesh has been influencing people.

Comment author: seer 26 March 2015 10:53:27PM 4 points [-]

That's not what I was talking about. I mean how over the past century anything decent has been rejected as at best bourgeois, and at worst sexist and homophobic.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 27 March 2015 02:05:21AM 0 points [-]

In that statement, what exactly do you mean by "decent"?

Comment author: seer 27 March 2015 02:14:40AM 4 points [-]

I was using the word because Nancy introduced it into the discussion. From the context, the practical meaning is "decent" as perceived by a more-or-less typical person in most of human history.

Comment author: AnthonyC 27 March 2015 01:35:49PM 0 points [-]

I think seer and Nancy are using two different definitions of "decency."

"modesty and propriety" vs. "polite, moral, and honest behavior and attitudes that show respect for other people"

Also, if we take google's usage-over-time statistics, the big drop in usage of the (English) word "decency" happened in the 1800s: http://bit.ly/1D5ZF55

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