From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Wed Sep 28 2005 - 22:01:01 BST
Arlo
I agree with this broad perspective.
When we talk about what we need to
preserve about our current arrangements,
about things worth fighting for, we have
to be pretty clear that the fighting will preserve
the things we value most, it seems to me it
usually destroys them. There are other ways to
defeat an enemy and preserve that which the
enemy wishes to destroy. Seems funny to
me how change averse the supporters of free
markets can sound.
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arlo Bensinger" <ajb102@psu.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:03 AM
Subject: MD Social Threats
> 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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