Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

In ethical discussion, it is sometimes used to summarize a moral economy wherein privilege must be balanced by duty towards those who lack such privilege or who cannot perform such duty. It has been used recently primarily to refer to public responsibilities of the rich, famous and powerful, notably to provide good examples of behavior or to exceed minimal standards of decency.

While there is little about hierarchy I admire, the movement from status to contract being the characteristic of progress, let alone progressive societies, the notion of Noblesse Oblige is something I do agree with.

I'm not from the "rights imply responsibility" school, if rights imply anything, they are not rights, they are rewards for good behaviour. The judgement of "good" is usually left to some external entity that will often judge according to its own self-interest.

Privilege on the other hand is different, this is a state above rights that individuals attain, or are assigned, and consequently I think they do impose an obligation to aid rather than capitalise on the advantage privilege confers.

Privilege arises in all kinds of ways, intelligence, health, wealth, good education, good parents, good looks, skills, strengths, in fact I guess most of us are privileged in one way or another. Some people find the concept that they are privleged so painful that they invoke all kinds of reasons why they should be the beneficiaries of noblesse oblige rather than executors of it.

Others take their privilege and use it to leverage themselves into some kind of moral high ground from where the hoi polloi can be despised for lacking what they are fortunate to possess. And please don't think the "self-made" are excused from this, the privilege of self-discipline is just another example.

There was in my past a self-made man who did nothing but pillory those who had not shown his fortitude. Gah, if they had, if many had, how smug, self-satisfied and righteous could that individual feel?

Climbing to a state of self-satisfaction over the limitations of your fellow human beings does seem an unpleasant way to live, IMVHO.

The subject is a quote from Bob Frankston. Its the reverse of an idea I've had for a while, that if you make things a little bit easier they will occur a lot more often.

This is where I believe the explosion in cultural productivity (and other forms) is arising. Note I'm not claiming that the quality of production is increasing (though for the adept I'm sure that is true), the new entrants reduced barriers permit are also reduced guarantees they can leap as high as the incumbents.

But as Linus Pauling observed, "The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away."

And how are we to identify the good ones, when admittedly the "crud" will grow faster than the good? Collaborative peer to peer filtering via cheap, easy, personal global ("blogal?") publishing?

"Telcos are to the economy what railroads were to the 19th century and maybe what airlines were to the 20th ... building this great big capacity for things to be transferred." John O'Sullivan, CEO Optus

It explains a lot.

Particularly looking at railways in NZ where a share-holder driven company rode the infrastructure down to where the State has a $NZ300M bill to bring it back to scratch. An expensive lesson that hopefully teaches a wider lesson about structural seperation and how it is possible for the commons to own an infrastructure and let multiple service providers operate over it.

The other aspect of John's analogy is, "Where's my car?" Private ownership of self-drive automobiles provides a lot more passenger miles than railways.

And finally, last September I was musing that the next paradigm for telecommunications would be the ocean, Optus's CEO thinks the age of rail still exists in telecommunications. Our timetable, our services, no choice... sorry, when I look at the shabby glory of the Wellington Railway Station, I don't think it still holds that significant a place in the whole transport story.