Does thinking about modern injustices as pockets still trivialize immorality?

 Hello! 

My main post is my response to Aaria and Sophia, but I still have a short thought about Varden's idea of pockets. I generally strongly agree that Varden "made Kant cool." It was a bit humbling to read how well she summarized criticisms of Hobbs, Locke, and Rousseau that I wasn't even able to begin to put into words. It could just be semantic, but I'm curious if characterizing existing as pockets is still overly binary for how we think about the development of our society towards Kant's ideal principle of politics. I feel like relegating the injustices of societies to mere pockets of anarchism, barbarism, or despotism makes them seem like we can analyze our aspects of our society as either being entirely anarchic, barbaric, or despotic, when in reality these negative states could be better represented as ever present drives within our psyche that can either be allowed to develop or repressed. This framework can enable us to better self-examine our own behavior even when we don't intuitively think of ourselves as bad people. She may be getting at this idea when she emphasizes the power of philosophy for self-improvement–I just worry the pocket metaphor may encourage a perception of immorality as something foreign to ourselves.


See you tomorrow, 

Aidan

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