- My computer was acting up (ie I screwed up) so please forgive me if you've
already received these responses
- I apologise also for sending more than one within 24 hours, but I've been
trying to send this for the past several days...
Part 1:
> And for the record I write as
> someone with great admiration for the culture of the USA (inherited from the
> best of English culture)
The Irish guy says:
Bollocks! ;)
> Thesis one: Those who resorted to the terrorist attacks last week susbcribe
> to intellectual patterns of pathologically low quality
> I think it is a mistake to say that the perpetrators are driven by
> biological values;
Right, they are not brigands or looters - and the whole outlook is indeed
psychotically puritan (a neurotic builds castles in the air, the psychotic
lives in them), so social values are involved too. They have intentionally
repressed/ritually killed their own biological instincts for survival. I
guess the feeling of euphoria that comes with believing you are about to
transcend death into instant paradise can count as biological. Richard
Dawkins ("The Selfish Gene") said "Promise a young man that death is not the
end and he will willingly cause disaster." (
"http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4257777,00.html ")
The analogy to the original "Hashishin"/Assassins is appropriate. The young
recruits were shown a secret garden of delights while in a drugged-stupor
that they were told was a vision of paradise. They not only were fearless of
death, but welcomed it in the service of the order. What we have seen is not
something new, but something ancient, which has errupted onto our modern
landscape as though through a time tunnell, using jetliners instead of
swords.
In Dawkins' books, he advances the hypotheses of "Memes" - the Mental
counterpart of Genes. These can vary from the simple (a chain letter) to the
complex (a philosophical idea). The chain-letter e.g. utilises its
environment (the Mind) to propogate itself like a virus.
A Multi-Level Marketing scheme, and a destructive cult might be other
virus-like memes.
Caveat: "Racial" and "Mental" hygiene have been bywords and excuses for
among the worst abuses of humanity, and I think we should exercise great
caution and propriety when using biological analogies for social and
intellectual phenomena. It is especially dangerous to use the "virus"
analogy in a military context. It is a too-short distance from
"exterminating the virus" of Taliban to "removing the biological foundation"
of Taliban, I think. We have all been down this road before.
The Islamic Exclusivist Technocratic Cult (as opposed to Islam with its
Classical Juristic tradition and international outlook) that may have
organised these obscenities, is an awe-inspiring horror. It uses Death, or
the anticipation of death and afterlife, as a kind of drug - the ultimate
high, transcending all the other "lesser" values of life. They would
probably say that they have found their Fifth Level...
> the
> most important thing to my mind is that it is low quality (another way of
> saying that it is untrue)
Fair enough. Off on a tangent: I think this is a time when SOM (as a subset
of MoQ) comes into its own. In a court of law, we want either a "guilty" or
"innocent" verdict to ensure a high-quality society / efficient justice. The
same can apply for intellectual systems: we need "truth" and "falsity".
Sometimes MoQ provides too many moving targets for its own good. A
binary-outcome system is better sometimes than a system which is
self-referential with multiple levels and a continuum of judgement possible.
>and also that it is now virulently attacking the
> larger, dominant culture.
Be careful though, not to fall into the trap of majoritarianism - a
priveleged member of a static society might describe any force for change as
a virus too. The Taliban or any other faith-based gun-club might claim that
"Western liberalism/decadence" is a virus too. Timothy McVeigh and his White
Christian Brethren would surely agree.
>I do think that this terrorism can be compared to
> a virus or a cancer, but it is not a question of biology vs intellect, but
> of cancerous intellect vs (fairly) healthy intellect (just as a cancerous
> cell is still a cell, not, eg a bacterium).
Their memes feed on desperation on all Levels, and promise paradise and
total transcendence through mass destruction in their "cause". I think it's
a combination of Social and Intellectual forces though, in a kind of
reinforcing feed-back loop. It makes use of low quality surroundings as
negative reinforcement.
Also, Alvin Toffler proposed a hypotheses that there are three "Waves" of
civilisation (Social order): Agricultural, Industrial, and Technological. He
predicted that conflicts would eventually arise between societies
contemporaneously inhabiting different Waves (levels?).
> Thesis two: The West, especially the US, bears a responsibility for
> encouraging the conditions within which this pathological intellectual
> pattern has been able to flourish.
http://rawasongs.fancymarketing.net/ny-attack.htm
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan: statement on
the terrorist attacks in the US
"RAWA had already warned that the United States should not support the
most treacherous, most criminal, most anti-democracy and anti-women
Islamic fundamentalist parties because after both the Jehadi and the
Taliban have committed every possible type of heinous crimes against
our people, they would feel no shame in committing such crimes
against the American people whom they consider "infidel".
But unfortunately we must say that it was the government of the United
States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating
thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. In
the similar way, as is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed
boy of the CIA.
.... will the US subject Afghanistan to a military attack similar to
the one in 1998 and kill thousands of innocent Afghans for the crimes
committed by the Taliban and Osama? Does the US think that through
such attacks, with thousands of deprived, poor and innocent people of
Afghanistan as its victims, will be able to wipe out the root-cause
of terrorism, or will it spread terrorism even to a larger scale? "
> In other words, it is rather like someone who smokes bearing a
> responsibility for the lung cancer that sets in many years later. To be
> fair, I think the vast majority of US citizens have been sublimely unaware
> of the consequences of their actions, but ignorance is no excuse in the
> sight of the law.
Though perhaps distinctions should be more firmly established between the US
body politic collectively, and the the poor unfortunates who have been
murdered. If I smoke and get cancer, it's not just some random part of my
body that gets killed, if you get me. Although if we see this as an attack
on the US way of life, it would be inconsistent not to then see if the
American way of life can change any of its habits that could
provoke/engender such occurences in the future.
>To list some of the prinicipal factors: i) the idolisation
> of material gratification,
- Social level being co-opted by the biological and inorganic, or lower
social values of rank/status.
- The social level thus co-opted by above pursuits, "eats" up other
peoples/nations social, biological and inorganic spheres. Like an
unthinking amoeba... foreign policy set by the boys in the back room, cause
we're all too busy watching "Friends" and shopping at eBay.
>most especially cheap oil;
Mmmm, dunno. Ya gotta burn to earn... (yeehaw)
A fat lot of good the hydrocarbons were doing lying under the ground for 65
million years after all.
However, the Middle East states (and their ruling classes) are the creations
of Ameropean Imperial powers, carving up the turf in their Great Game.
Recycling is the life of the MidEast, in the form of Petrodollars:
Mideast>Oil>Ameropea
Ameropea>Dollars>Mideast
Mideast>Dollars>Ameropea
Ameropea>Armaments>Mideast
Boom-boom-boom. Repeat process.
Armaments are great. Their entire reason for existence is to destroy
otherwise useful capital. There is the potential capital of its user that is
essentially destroyed once it is used in their creation, and then there's
all that capital (of the, uh, "usee") destroyed when it is actually used.
Oh sure, there's the deterrent thing, security and stuff. Which leads me
to...
--> Part two:
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