Hi Wavedave and Platt.
For Platt.
Your last post (9 Sep.) really hit the nail on the head. I will savour it for a
while (I needed it after Squonkstail's "mutiny" :) before returning to the
microscopic points that could be expanded on. Thank you so far and back to
business..
Let me sum up.
1) Platt says that the Sep.11 terrorism (in a MOQ view) are biology infringing
upon society, thus the counter-attack is to be compared to "pest-control"
2) I object to the conclusions that he draws from the LILA text regarding this
point.
3) Platt refers to the MOQ tenet of social value as the shore against
biological value, i.e. "crime" from society's point of view.
4) Dave says that biology in this context is to be understood in an animal
sense where killing is for survival alone and has no moral overtones.
5) Platt refers to an article about animals that shows that they display cruelty
and kill beyond the said limits. He concluded.
> In some species, males will kill their own kind over territory and for
> mates. Some even kill their own offspring. So "natural" killing does
> indeed occur outside the limits you impose.
Dave replies:
> I agree that "natural killing" and "animal aggression" on the
> biological level occurs in broad range of circumstances. But I'm sure
> that it's distribution follows some kind of "Bell like" curve with the
> "eating" type, the predominate kind by far. I would also suggest that
> science will never find on any "wolf mullahs" on the biological level
> planning and promoting "killing" events and prove these actions are
> based on "God told me to do it" cells. I'm afraid that if we want to
> find thoses "cells" we need to be looking on the right level, the
> social level.
Comment:
I still agree with Dave, but would like to point to the article's somish
character that only leave two options: Matter or Mind (instincts or free will in
this case) and the author obviously leans toward the latter and sees mind in
the form of emotions (cruelty, aggression etc.) I would also have liked to
expand on this fascinating topic in the light of the MOQ (where the
matter/mind option is replaced by the 4-level model) but'll return to the case
at hand and say that Platt still has a point because Pirsig in LILA says that
"crime" is biological value as it appears from social value's point of view.
And yet I don't think it applies here. The infamous incident was not a crime
in the American society that police is supposed to cope with, nor was it a
military attack that the armed forces are prepared for, but rather a - well -
value level clash. A perverted pre-emptive strike from the radical Islamites
who are from a social-value focussed culture on a culture that is intellect-
value focussed. Maybe the Al Qaida look upon own weakness as the real
enemy, and the act was meant for the home market - hoping that the US
would hit indiscriminatingly back and thus create an united Islamic front.
Therefore an Iraq campaign is the thing they hope and pray for .... and
should not be contemplated. Saddam is a worse enemy for the
fundamentalists in power than out of it. IMO.
Bo
PS
It's the 11th and I have listened to umpteen commentaries, the "funniest" in
spite of the tragedy was a New Yorker who said that the city was back to
normal because the inhabitants were as as impolite and tough-mouthed as
before, which was a relief from the scary gentleness just after the attacks.
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