From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 05:01:28 BST
Excellent David ... if I may just pick up on one of Ant's quotes you used ...
Ant said "I .. see it 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."
As you said it's not about "destroying the losers" in any quality
beauty contest.
I keep saying the binary arguments are destructive, (even "good"
people like Sam and you can end up on the wrong side of a false
divide) what we need is constructive synthesis.
More power to you.
Ian
On 8/6/05, david buchanan <dmbuchanan@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Sam, Ant and all MOQers:
>
> Sam said to Ant:
> By the way, for the record, I've never agreed with Platt that terrorists
> should be seen as biological... 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.
>
> dmb says:
> You've got to be kidding. If hero-worship means using misquotes out of
> context that totally misconstrue the meaning and confuse the issue, then you
> must be President of the fan club. Basic reading comprehension skills are
> all a person needs in order to see that RMP is NOT making the kind of racist
> remarks that have been under scrutiny here. Here'show he uses "that
> language". The emphasis is Pirsig's...
>
> "It is immoral to speak agains a people because of the color of their skin,
> or any other genetic characteristic because these are not changable and
> don't matter anyway. But it is not immoral to speak against a person because
> of his cultural characteristics if those cultural characteristics are
> immoral. These are changable and they do matter.
> Blacks have no right to violate social codes and call it 'racism' when
> someone tries to stop them, if those codes are not racist codes. That is
> slander. The fight to sustain social codes isn't a war of blacks vs. whites
> or Hispanics vs. blacks, or poor people vs. rich people or even stupid
> people vs. intelligent people, or any other of allthe other possible
> cultural confrontations. Its a war of biology vs. society.
> Its a war of BIOLOGICAL blacks and BIOLOGICAL whites against SOCIAL blacks
> and SOCIAL whites. Genetic patterns just confuse the matter. And this is a
> war in which intellect, to end the paralysis of society, has to know whose
> side it is on, and support that side, and never undercut it."
>
> dmb continues:
> If I may be allowed to summarize the main point here; racism is immoral and
> race is totally freakin' irrelevant to the issue anyway.
>
> Ant said:
> >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".
>
> dmb says:
> I also think the terms are too stark. Its not like we determine which
> society is better and then destroy the loser for not being good enough. I
> think the idea behind the assertion that "it is not immoral to speak agains
> a person because of his cultural characteristic if those cultural
> characteristics are immoral" is that it allows us to condemn terrorists
> without so much confusion about what it is we are speaking against. I think
> the problem with it is obvious; terrorist kill non-combatants in such a way
> that it is much more like murder than war.
>
> But let's not pretend that a person has to be crazy or under the spell of
> some evil culture before they will believe that its noble to give one's life
> to protect a nation or a cause. We give medals for that shit too. That's
> what soldiers are expected to do in every nation.
>
> And let's not pretend that Tim McViegh and Eric Rudolf are anything other
> than white, Christian terrorists. We have our share of muderous thugs too.
> Every culture has them. But these are not the biological criminals discussed
> in chapter 24. See, what they all have in common is a conviction and a
> passion for social values. They want to be the dead heros of that cause and
> be remembered for it just as in Homer's day. Its not about biological
> pleasure. Despite all the talk about heavenly virgins, what they seek is
> honor. I know. I think its twisted too, but if we really want to understand
> their motives, I think we need to be a little more realistic and a little
> less condescending. These guys are not from Mars and if the situation were
> reversed, what would you do?
>
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