From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 30 2005 - 11:10:58 BST
Hi Ant,
> Firstly, I think Pirsig's paragraph here is primarily referring to
> criminals within a particular society (where there is some agreement
> concerning what constitutes criminal behaviour) rather than referring to
> inter-societal conflicts which require more analysis of what constitutes
> criminality. As some Muslim cultures perceive Blair and Bush as war
> criminals while the latter's capitalist culture perceives certain
> Fundamentalist Muslims as criminals (who would be considered as freedom
> fighters within their own culture), there is little point in referring to
> such paragraphs from LILA to justify behaviour for either side. Both
> sides just see the other side as deviant and justify their subsequent
> behaviour accordingly.
I think this is very dangerous. If 'some muslim cultures' perceive Bush and
Blair as war criminals etc, does that mean that they are right to do so? How
does this avoid the 'moral equivalence' point that MSH and I have discussed
before?
More deeply, the issue is one about whether the act of blowing up a bomb on
a subway station is counted as criminal or not. Your argument seems to hinge
on a culture existing which sees those perpetrators as 'freedom fighters'. I
agree with you that such a culture exists, but do you actually think that
this culture is making a correct assessment? Or are we not in a position to
judge? (in which case, abandon the MoQ)
It seems that the logic of your position is that you actually agree with the
ideology of those who carried out the actions. That is, in Islamic theology,
the question is whether the perpetrator committed suicide and murder (in
which case the action was evil and the perpetrator is going to hell), or
whether the perpetrator was a martyr pursuing jihad (in which case the
action was good and the perpetrator is off to the garden of great delights).
If the former, then the action was criminal, and the action can be described
as a biological act (ie biological means and biological result). If the
latter, then the action was not criminal, and was primarily a social act
(with intellectual components). You seem to be arguing for the latter - in
which case, as I say, the logic of your position is to agree with the
ideology of those who carried out the actions. Disturbing.
By the way, for the record, I've never agreed with Platt that terrorists
should be seen as biological - we've had many discussions of it in this
forum before - and I share your distaste with the language of ruthless
elimination of germs. (See
http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/0109/0113.html for what I,
pretty much, still think) However, in Platt's defense I think that his
language CAN be defended by appeal to RMP, who is just as guilty of using
that language. ("it's a war of criminal blacks... against social blacks").
Denying that he can do this seems to have more to do with hero-worship of
RMP than the plain sense of RMPs words.
> Finally, while I do agree with Sam to some extent that the key issue is
> deciding which is the better society (i.e. which society best contributes
> to the evolution of life), I would rather rephrase it in less black and
> white terms, and see it as a process as indicated in Northrop's and
> Pirsig's work as rationally deciding what elements from all the major
> cultures we would like to use -- as one global community - to improve our
> quality of life in the future. At the bottom line (as indicated in
> Buddhism and Taoism) there is no "us and them" (whoever and whatever "us
> and them" are) but just an "us".
It's in Christianity as well; it's probably the heart of Christianity, so
far as I understand it, and what the crucifixion was all about. See this
post on my blog, which purely coincidentally, I posted a few days before you
sent in your response. Funny that.
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2005/07/them-and-us.html
Sam
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