zip accident wrote:It's a world with about 200 countries in it, one of them has to be best at something. For everything there is to be best at, there has to actually be a best. It may not be meaningful, but it's true.
In a logical abstract sense, sure.
But is doesn't work that way in reality, does it?
For example, Sweden is the best at supporting its poorer citizenry by how it's taking the idea of "basic income" seriously - this is a different approach to welfare / tackling poverty / homelessness / etc. by simply guaranteeing a minimum income for everyone. Like the minimum wage, but not made conditional on being in work, jobseeking, receiving disability payments or anything else. The idea is that, if you're below the minimum income, regardless of the reason why, then you will be given this welfare to reach the minimum income. Think "universal credit" taken to the nth degree.
There you go, that's why that country is the best.
Oh, wait, what's that I hear? Are those the voices of conservatives I hear, freaking out over the concept of paying the poor completely unconditionally?
Or how about the fact the American Department of Defense - the world's largest employer - has a budget larger than the combined defence budgets of every other nation on Earth? So they're the best of the best at maintaining a gargantuan industrial military complex that makes guns and bombs and fighter jets to kill people. Yay! America, fuck yeah!
Because, you see, the other semantical thing about the word "best" is that it's the superlative of "good".
Good -> better (comparative) -> best (superlative).
And if we consider the word "good" - or, indeed, its antonym "bad" too - then, of course, it's fundamentally a judgement call. What's good for the goose ain't necessarily good for the gander too. Though maybe it is. Because the point is that you cannot really use "good" or "bad" in any blanket universal sense.
Some things are good for some people and bad for others. Some things are good at one time, bad at another time. Some things are good in one situation, and disastrously bad in another.
As mentioned, these words are intrinsically always asking the comparative question: "Good... at what?", "best... for whom?", etc..
These words, by their nature, can't be universal. So they must always be being said in a specific context - good at running marathons, best for me personally, etc. - even if, for brevity, that context is left unsaid and considered implicit.
Or, to put it another way, when you say "in a bunch of things, one of those things has to be the best", you're applying conventional logic. But, really, the world actually demands fuzzy logic - relative, comparative logic - as there are no underlying universal values (in both senses of the word) to be measured to make any of it objective.
Or, in other words, though nihilism is not much of a philosophy to live your life by, it is factually correct. God is dead, so get over it.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
