From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 05:35:50 BST
Mark, DMB, (and Matt, Ant and RMP),
Using rhetoric (and mislplaced logic and science) to create a common
enemy ? Surely not ? May I lump Matt, Ant and Pirsig in there with
that list of dastardly names ? (See recent philosophology thread
posts.)
Water-cooler politics, academic debate, power politics, religious
zealotry, authoritarian tyrrany, genocide - it's all the same.
It's how humans work, beyond good and evil.
No black and white, just a matter of degree.
Don't get me wrong - the extreme ends of the scale are pragmatically
black and white - but the scale is all shades of grey, and pink, and
yellow, and hard and soft, and ... well, multi-dimensioned and
complicated enough.
As Mark suggests, in his closing remarks on anti-intellectualism, the
key is to spot the (human) signs, and expose them constructively,
before the power in the politics corrupts and tips over onto the
unhealthier side of the scales.
Ian
On 4/25/05, Mark Steven Heyman <MarkHeyman@infoproconsulting.com> wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> Hope you get this before you disappear for the work week.
>
> On 24 Apr 2005 at 12:32, David Buchanan wrote:
>
> dmb had said to Ham:
> ...........Do you not see how murderous the reactionaries have been for the
> last several hundred years? Do you not see that the Hitlers, the Stalins,
> the Bin Ladins and the Pat Robersons of the world are extremely destructive?
> The one thing these wildly different characters all have in common is an
> anti-intellectual, anti-Modern stance at the heart of it all. So I'm saying
> that one of Pirsig's BEST moves is to make a distinction between the social
> and intellectual levels. Its a tool that allows us to sort out all kinds of
> issues.
>
> Mark said to Arlo:
> Just want to say I appreciate your recent posts in response to Platt.
> I believe your analysis is right on, and would add only that when we
> focus on the left-right, lib-con, theist-atheist splits as the cause
> of social problems, we are playing into the hands of entrenched
> power. As you've suggested, real power wielded by elite minorities
> feeds the flames of these red-herring dichotomies. The reason is
> obvious: Every second we spend focused on false causes is time taken
> from useful analysis and action against the real problem.
>
> dmb says:
> I appreciate it too. In terms of political perspective, I think both of you
> guys (Arlo and Mark) are "spot on", as the Brits like to put it. But having
> said that, I'd have to disagree a little bit too. First of all I would like
> to point out that putting Pat Robertson in the same category with Hitler and
> Stalin was not meant to imply that christian fundametalists are busy
> building their own concentration camps or gulags. I mean, if I had said that
> Pat Robertson was a genocidal maniac you would be right to dismiss me as a
> dude with no sense of perspective or proportion. Please notice the phrase
> "wildly different characters" in my description.
>
> msh:
> Actually, I think you're not all that wrong to put Robertson in the
> same neighborhood with the REALLY bad guys, the list of whom I notice
> is lacking the names of several well-qualified American presidents
> and their henchmen. Though Robertson has relatively little power,
> the enslavement of similar minds is the first step toward the
> elimination of minds not similar. It's not as big a jump as one
> might at first imagine.
>
> dmb:
> Secondly, for the most part I agree that "entrenched power" uses the culture
> war and hot-button issues to divide and conquer. But I have to disagree here
> a little bit too. Or rather, I think that there is something quite real
> underneath these debates, behind those "red-herring dichotomies".
>
> msh:
> Yes, in reading what I wrote above, I give the impression that I
> think the dichotomies are illusions or something, and this is wrong.
> The dichotomies are real, but, unless one side or the other has real
> power, the schism is nothing more than sibling bickering. It's
> office politics, you know, small minds whispering round the water
> cooler. Nothing much happens until power starts taking sides, until
> the guy who hires and fires starts internalizing the gossip. Or
> until the guy with power sees that office politics provides the
> perfect distraction while he cleans out the safe. It's highly useful
> for the neocons (our currently entrenched Power) to have the
> Christians hate the Muslims while the Muslims hate the Jews while the
> Jews hate the Muslims. Hatred fuels violence, and violence builds
> empires. It is a simple, and as horrifying, as that.
>
> dmb:
> Basically, I think most of it is driven by an evolutionary struggle, one described
> quite well in LILA. The intellectual and social levels are at war and this
> is what I like to try to show you, gents. I have posted on this issue many,
> many times and so I was a little frustrated that it seemed to go past you,
> but then it occured to me that most of that work was done here before you
> guys arrived here.
>
> msh says:
> But struggles of any kind occur only where Power is facing off. I'm
> looking forward to exploring this idea of an evolutionary struggle
> between the intellectual and social levels, but we will never
> understand the nature of that confrontation until we recognize that
> it too is a struggle for power.
>
> But, to get us started, let's focus on what facet of of the
> struggle. It's quite clear to me that anti-intellectualism is as
> prevalent now as it was in Nazi Germany. College professors are not
> being killed, yet, but we are seeing an undeniable effort to silence
> them and that, my friends, is the beginning.
>
> Dmb, thanks for the LILA references; I'll reread them during the
> week. And let's see if we can give this thread some legs. Arlo?
>
> Best,
> Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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