> It's a moral system just like how Big Judge in Sky is a moral system. You're only determining what's good and bad in accordance with this one moral system. And most of humanity does not.
Well, at the very least "Big Judge in Sky" is not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so there's that.
The fact that most of humanity most of the time fails short of our best understanding of morality doesn't mean that that understanding is a relative cultural construct. To make a parallel, even if all of humanity believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that still wouldn't matter one bit. The Earth would still do its thing. It's kind of like that with morality too.
It was wrong to have slaves even when having slaves was accepted. It was wrong to rape and pillage even when that was the norm in conquest etc.
> You should address the factuality of the statement instead of bordering on an ad hominem.
It's possible I misunderstood parent's intent. I actually took this part "woe betide those that mess with that institution" to mean smth like "don't you dare mess with the US". That would be an out of place, over the top threat. If I misunderstood the intent I'm sorry.
> Every hegemonic power in history have exhibited the same characteristics: securing its interests.
I don't disagree with you on this one (at least if by "its interests" we understand: "the interests of that nation's ruling elite"). It doesn't however mean that that's morally right. It is entirely possible that all hegemonic powers are acting immorally all the time.
I think they meant that if anyone had the power to protect people's rights, they would also have the power to violate people's rights, and they would use that power in the same way as today's rights violators. If so, I think they are absolutely right on that point, and it holds true regardless of what you believe those rights are.
I certainly think some things are inherently wrong, but doing those things are not any more difficult than doing other things, and it's probably easier to do them than it is to prevent them. We can't rely on an organization or institution to protect us because any such group will always promote and protect each other first. Instead, we need to promote a culture of direct action on an individual level, praise and encourage whistleblowers, activists, saboteurs and others who do what they think is right to weaken the power of institutions over individuals. We won't always agree with their goals, judgement, and morals, but as long as they don't use methods that are unequivocally wrong (such as violence against non-violent people), we should support them because individual action is in aggregate much better (and much less dangerous) than institutional actions.
Well, at the very least "Big Judge in Sky" is not in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so there's that.
The fact that most of humanity most of the time fails short of our best understanding of morality doesn't mean that that understanding is a relative cultural construct. To make a parallel, even if all of humanity believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that still wouldn't matter one bit. The Earth would still do its thing. It's kind of like that with morality too.
It was wrong to have slaves even when having slaves was accepted. It was wrong to rape and pillage even when that was the norm in conquest etc.
> You should address the factuality of the statement instead of bordering on an ad hominem.
It's possible I misunderstood parent's intent. I actually took this part "woe betide those that mess with that institution" to mean smth like "don't you dare mess with the US". That would be an out of place, over the top threat. If I misunderstood the intent I'm sorry.
> Every hegemonic power in history have exhibited the same characteristics: securing its interests.
I don't disagree with you on this one (at least if by "its interests" we understand: "the interests of that nation's ruling elite"). It doesn't however mean that that's morally right. It is entirely possible that all hegemonic powers are acting immorally all the time.