From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2005 - 07:02:06 GMT
Dear Platt,
Your 26 Jan 2005 18:01:04 -0500 post does not explicitly confirm or deny my
23 jan statement that:
'You apparently prefer the MoQ of "Lila", without sharp definitions and
boundaries of levels [over that of Pirsig's annotations in "Lila's Child"].'
You implicitly deny it however by attempting an own definition of the
biological level:
'life at the biological level depends on killing to survive'
Your next sentence ('This is a "hard-wired" reality that applies to humans
as well as animals.') implicitly claims that this definition of yours
accords with my Pirsig-derived definition that biological patterns of value
(or life) should be 'hard-wired', configured by DNA.
You then claim:
'I can distinguish between those who employ biological behavior to attain
their ends and a society which employs a soldier with his gun to combat such
behavior'
Can you explain to me how you distinguish between a terrorist using a gun or
a bomb with the intention of creating an islamist society and a soldier
using a gun or a bomb with the intention of protecting a democratic society
using your definition? Can you explain your implicit claim that terrorist
behaviour (by definition: ruling/attaining ends by creating fear) is
configured by DNA?
I don't know enough about President Johnson's "Great Society" to judge to
what extent it really failed, as you and Joe Klein claim and if so, why. I
take 'throwing money at urban problems' to mean 'spending money with the
intention to reduce urban problems in a way that is not well thought out
(e.g. how to avoid unintended consequences)'. Of course there are good and
bad ways to use tax money against urban problems. The Dutch social security
system is certainly more sophisticated and better able to avoid unintended
consequences than Johnson in his time. I mentioned before the 'social-fiscal
number' one needs in the Netherlands to be entitled to most government
supported services (social benefits, proper health care, secondary education
etc.). People who claim social benefits because they cannot work need
medical support of that disability by medics officially appointed for that
purpose. People who want unemployment benefits have to make efforts to find
work and prove that they do. If their efforts have no effect, they can be
obliged to take courses that better qualify them for other work or to accept
the work the social security officials directs them to. Etc.
Both carrots and sticks to counter urban problems require tax money. Dutch
prison population figures indicate that the Dutch combination of carrots and
sticks has better results than the American one.
You wrote:
'Every society must fight both internal and external criminal violence to
survive.'
I prefer to rephrase that as:
Every society requires BOTH carrots AND sticks to protect itself against
internal and external threaths. A democratic governemnt first tries to
convince its citizens to pay the amount of taxes it needs to organize these
carrots and sticks.
If a majority supports a certain level of protection and taxes, it can
legitimately use violence (and fear of violence) to 'convince' a small
minority. If you, with your experience of American democracy, call this
'extortion', one can doubt whether the USA is fit to export its democracy to
cure tyranny elsewhere... You seem willing to pay only for sticks and not
for carrots like development aid and social security (and you express your
unwillingness in demagogic terms like 'extortion'). That doesn't seem wise
to me.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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