Is might right, Veeky Forums?

5/10

It seems like people are making a distinction between "might is right" as a description of the state of nature and "might is right" as a prescription.

I guess what I really wanted to ask is what we think about "might is right" as a moral prescription.

Absolutely fucking stupid and fundamentally upsets any potential social/politcial order because it produces no incentive to buy into a social contract.

I don't see how any productive, orderly society could ever arise from that.

Might is indeed right, but if you don't incorporate the mind with might, you're just a dumb brute who will get annihilated by people who are smarter than you.

How can might make right if the causes of right and wrong are decided by the victor?

That's a non-question. The mightier one is always the victor, and as you said, the victor decides what is right.

Right. The victor decides who was right and wrong. But right and wrong are concepts made malleable by more than competition. Nike is sister to Kratos. She's only one of the defining characteristics of ethical discourse. Ethics deals with more than just victory.

I am taking the "might is right" principle to mean that the definition of what is morally right is at the mercy of those who hold the most power in society. Those with less power must bend their moral view to adapt to the view of those with more. It's not a black and white system; a person could be in a position of little social power (e.g. a poor person) but have strength of spirit which makes them fight for their moral view, persevere until they gain social power, and then turn the tables so to speak. But either way, it is power which causes the ebb and flow of moral transformations throughout history and in the present time.

Right and wrong are virtues derided by the principles of faith and belief. They are subject to internal struggles because of their necessary involvement with strength and death. Dead men tell no tales, so the victor decided the law. Because faith and belief exist, the impoverishment of right and wrong becomes apparent. These edicts look more and more like childhood axioms instead of rules to live by. For example, a faithful person writes into a rock a beautiful poem. His town is overrun and people die, the poet dies. Years later descendants from the pillagers see the rock and think the poem is beautiful, the culture is turned on its head within half a century, stemming from this arbitrary poem on a rock and the subsequent schools of thought formed. Both the poet and the pillagers entered the arena of ethics, and morally, the weak abides the strong, but ultimately the destiny of ethics is to provide utility to a better way of living, not to contest with life itself.

these vapor-fascist pics are the stupidest shit i've ever seen in my life and i hope whoever makes them commits suicide

this please

I know this is bait, but I would implore you if you are actually interested, to read the Melian Dialogue in Thucydides, and then think about that in the context of the Peloponnesian War (i.e. how it was applied by the Athenians and how it was applied to the Athenians in the end).

It's really not funny, six million jews died.

Yes, this is what so many of these "defenders of the west" types seem to miss when they claim to love Thucydides.

The combined weight of these posters do not exceed 350lbs

If it's not might alone can correct it.

this, its even worse because i love that movie.
FUCK

the combined weight of these posters do exceed 350lbs

Might is.

What is "right" is determined by might - any form of might - but it's not really right because it's enforced by might. That's convoluted but what I'm saying is that "might is right" is descriptive, not prescriptive. To take it as universally prescriptive is to miss the point. You can certainly alter your behaviour in reaction to this apprehension of how values form, but don't mistake "right" for something mythical and objective. You might as well invent any fiction to justify your right to something, which is a better example of might than impotent, ineffective violence.

>To take it as universally prescriptive is to miss the point.
Not unless you mean it to say there is no such thing as right, that all normative views are ultimately arbitrary and a simple consequence of those who hold might.

savage

t. fatso in the middle

Even cringier are the vapor-Catholic or "classical/traditional" Europe shit. Nice a statue of Mary or some neoclassical/Arno Breker sculpture with photoshop effects - what the fuck does this tell me about "Europe"? At least futuristic/hyper-modern Nazi aesthetic makes sense.

that's Goering.

Adorno was right

No. It is another nihilistic and directionless idea like Nietzsche's idea of the will to power. It is noy a bad idea, but it has no sense of higher purpose or transcendence.

t. brainlet

I’m unsure of how you mean it but those in power create truth/knowledge, to be sure

I think that the statement is different in its original context, where it's a display of the Athenians hubris, not an actual indication of what Thucydides believed.

this. sick anime pics you fucking dweebs.

“Might is right“ is inherently postmodern

In that example, the mightier culture was the one that produced the poet who left something influencing enough to overtake the later society's culture.

Might is still right. It just needs to be properly understood what makes someone or a culture mighty, and more importantly, what the true lifeline of an individual or culture is. It doesn't end at physical death.

If you want to live in an elephant seal society do not be surprised that you'll get crushed by a bigger elephant seal. But humans are social animals, and there's more than dominance.