Wim Nusselder:
Thanks for keeping your remarks free of personal attacks and relevant
to the MOQ.
My analogy of terrorists and germs holds up for two reasons.
First, it is clear that the MOQ considers attacks against society such as
occurred in the U.S. this week to be rooted in biological values
designed to undercut and destroy social values. To quote Pirsig:
"Intellectuals must find biological behavior, no matter what its ethnic
connection, and limit or destroy destructive biological patterns with
complete moral ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys germs, before
those biological patterns destroy civilization itself." (LILA, Chap. 24)
Second, I hope that a doctor who found that my illness was due to
deadly germs in my body would deliberately and ruthlessly annihilate
them by all means at his disposal. The analogy holds up well when
you think of terrorists and those who support them as infecting the
global body politic. (In civilized law, accessories to murder are as guilty
as the murderers themselves.)
According to Pirsig (and I agree), the purpose for forming societies in
the first place was to defend against "prehistoric brigandage"--a
purpose that ensuing history has not changed. If ever there was a case
of prehistoric brigandage, the attack on the U.S. was it.
Good to hear from you.
Platt
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