From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 27 2005 - 04:03:49 BST
Going to formulate another new thread here, because I find this question
to be quite significant.
I had been talking with Platt about his proclaimation that we are
justified in using military actions to procure oil, if that oil would be
denied to us on the free market, because... if I understand his
argument, "society" has the moral MOQ-based right to protect itself from
threats.
I had countered that "And how are you defining "survival"? Continuation
without alteration? Continuation with alteration? In other words, would
"society" in America come to a crashing end without oil? Or would it
just be a huge shift and reorganiztion and trouble and hardship? Does
that count? You see, if you define "survival" as "continuation without
alteration", then nearly anything and everything constitutes a "threat"
to society, doesn't it?"
We continue...
[Arlo previously]
And how are you defining "survival"? Continuation without alteration?
Continuation with alteration? In other words, would "society" in America
come to a crashing end without oil? Or would it just be a huge shift and
reorganiztion and trouble and hardship? Does that count?
[Platt]
It depends on the degree of suffering. Would you stand idly by while
your neighbors freeze to death? I thought you were "concerned" about others.
[Arlo]
I'm asking at what point something becomes a valid "threat" to society
and not just hardship or inconvenience. I'm also asking if the MOQ
considers a threat to the social level a protection of particular
nationalistic patterns (a "society" with a small "s"), or if that threat
has to be against the existence of the social layer itself ("Society"
with a captial "S").
With his talk against "murder", Pirsig indicates the "threat" the MOQ is
concerned with not is not the preservation of particular national
patterns of a society, but with Society itself. If there was no force to
prevent (or curtail) murder, then Society, the entirety of the social
level would collapse. This same level of concern underlied all Pirsig's
talk on "biological vice". That is, it wasn't immoral because it
threatened our particular national-social arrangement, it was immoral
when it threatened the very possibility that society would exist.
Without "oil" its hard to make the argument that Society would collapse.
People have lived for thousands of year in social arrangements without
oil, and would likely do so again if that happens. Do you feel the MOQ
morally justifies killing people to procure oil so that the habits we
have don't have to change?
The same, I feel, is true of "gay marriage". You (Platt) feel it is a
"threat" to society, and therefore the MOQ supports your disapproval of
it. But I've asked, is this because you believe that gay marriages will
destroy the emergent social level? Or is it because particular cultural
social patterns would have to change?
Finally, at what level of response does the MOQ justify behavior? Pirsig
is clear, of course, that biological threats to the existence of the
social layer are morally met with killing and aggression. But he is also
clear that once that threat subsides, killing a person is immoral. I
would take from that that killing someone to procure oil is not moral.
However, using social funds to ease a transition into alternate fuels
may be. Using social funds to ensure that a poor person could refinance
or obtain alternate heating so that no one freezes to death would be
another.
I don't relish going through a energy transition. And I'm well aware of
the hardships such a transition would bring. But I don't feel the MOQ
justifies murder of people just so that I can avoid these
inconveniences. Without oil, society would continue. I'd lose my
Harley, but if people have to die in wars so that I can ride it's a
no-brainer to me.
Arlo
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