From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Jan 19 2005 - 16:48:36 GMT
Dear Wim,
> You wrote 17 Dec 2004 09:05:06 -0500 that the carrot-part of my
> suggestions to reduce terrorism reminds you of the Lila-passage
> 'Intellectual patterns cannot directly control biological patterns.' You
> should know from our earlier exchanges that I do not consider crime in
> general and terrorism in particular a biological pattern of value.
I go along with Pirsig on terrorism having its roots in biological
patterns. "What's coming out of the urban slums, where old Victorian
social moral codes are almost completely destroyed, isn't any new paradise
the revolutionaries hoped for, but a reversion to rule by terror, violence
and gang death-the old biological might-makes-right morality of
prehistoric brigandage that primitive societies were set up to overcome."
(Lila, 24)
> I do agree that higher level patterns of value
> cannot directly control patterns of value of a much lower level and very
> low-quality, criminal patterns of value cannot be controlled by workshops,
> study groups, councils etc.. It does require the sticks Pirsig mentions to
> do so ('a policeman or a soldier and his gun'), but Pirsig forgot the
> carrots that work at (between) the same levels. Social security systems
> (starting historically from the solidarity within extented families and
> developing through solidarity within for instance religious communities to
> national level systems and international disaster relief) have also always
> been present as instruments of conversation between (potential) criminals
> and (healthy) societies trying to contain them. Pirsig doesn't mention
> whether his frustrated professor tried that.
His frustrated professor said he "tried everything" which one can presume
included carrots although not specifically stated. .
> You continued with:
> 'I believe democracy and free markets are a real alternative. That's the
> great experiment now being tried in the Middle East. We shall find out in
> the course of history if I'm right. Those who believe democracy cannot be
> forced on a country only need look at Japan after WWII to see they are
> wrong.'
>
> The key to reducing terrorism is indeed offering alternatives to potential
> terrorists, BEFORE they feel even semi-resentment, not beating the
> terrorists themselves or blocking their potential sources of the most
> dangerous weapons. Occupation may seem necessary if you are too late with
> offering alternatives AND if the occupied country is indeed the direct
> source of terrorism, which wasn't the case with Iraq. If you DO choose for
> beating rogue states (potentially) supportive of terrorism and for blocking
> sources of WMDs, you can't afford to leave alone countries like Syria,
> Iran, North Korea, Pakistan etc..
You're right about that. Our current administration is not about to "leave
those countries alone."
> Either you are consistent or you breed
> even more resentment (especially if a wider group, in this case Arabs and
> Moslems, identify with their cause). Beating and occupying them all would
> require a much stronger global government than you find acceptable.
That remains to be seen.
>It
> would be strange if someone like you, so much opposed to a strong
> government within the USA (feeling it hampers freedom and democracy there),
> would promote foreign occupation as THE means to create democracy and free
> markets.
You call it "occupation." I call it "liberation." As Pirsig rightfully
explains, force must be met with force.
> Japan is the exception rather than the rule. We could find a lot
> of circumstances making it different from Iraq (no broader cause comparable
> to the Arabian/Islamic one for opponents of occupation to identify with,
> the Japanese emperor as focus of Japanese identification spared from blame
> for the war and left in its role etc.). Anyway the Iraqis show all signs of
> reacting quite differently from the Japanese.
Maybe so. Time will tell.
> Your faith in the yearning for freedom all over the globe seems a rather
> weak reply (if it can be understood to be one at all) to my claim that the
> USA took upon itself the obligation to spend 0,7% of its GNP on development
> aid as defined by the OECD and doesn't meet it. It isn't much of an
> explanation of the hope you see in Afghanistan either.
Again, we shall see whether of not the yearning for freedom is any less
motivational for people in Iraq than in Afghanistan, Japan or any other
country.
> I do trust that you are serious in your disagreement with the values I hold
> (like 'solidarity'). The argument that you are simply holding different
> values, together with half of the Americans, is less of a seriouis
> discussion than I hoped for, however.
It's not so much the values as the pragmatic results. Your "solidarity" is
rapidly disintegrating in the Netherlands under pressures from your Muslim
immigrants, and the trillions of dollars transferred in this country from
the productive members of society to the poor has not only failed to
eliminate poverty, but in many cases made the lives of the poor worse.
Pirsig explains some of the reasons for this abject failure in Lila.
Hope your vacation was high quality in every respect,
Regards,
Platt
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