Re: MD Heroes, ethnocentrism, Qualtiy, and War

From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 23:25:47 GMT

  • Next message: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com: "MD Dynamic Quality."

    Hi Matt,
    Let us examine what you feel serves to have you confer upon it an, 'excellent
    piece of writing' shall we? Here we go folks...!

    Andy:
    To All,

    I recently came across a quote from Rorty that Matt cited in his essay
    again reading Consequences of Pragmatism. The quote is:

    “This means that when the secret police come, when the torturers violate
    the innocent, there is nothing to be said to them of the form ‘There is
    something within you which you are betraying. Though you embody the
    practices of a totalitarian society which will endure forever, there is
    something beyond those practices which condemns you.’”

    I think it is a very powerful quote and it has led me to think about social
    conditioning. These secret police will presumably only be following orders
    of their leaders. They are valuing social patterns over intellectual ones
    in MOQ terms.

    sq: Excellent piece of writing says Matt. But what is this? Are these violent
    people really valuing social patterns over intellectual ones? Me thinks not!
    The boys here are indulging in organic pleasure. Their endorphins are raging,
    and that is not a social pattern. The social pattern is not stopping the
    biological pattern from gaining control. Good show Andy! Excellent piece of
    writing!

    Andy 'Try that down our way and me and boys will sort you out' goes on:
    I think we can say the same thing if we were able to speak
    with the 9/11 hijackers. Likewise, the pilots of American planes, who will
    drop 3000 bombs in the first 48 hours of an invasion of Iraq with the
    complete knowledge that innocent civilians will be killed, according to
    military officials, are conditioned to place social values over higher
    moral ones - by following orders.

    sq: The 9/11 fundamentalists knew they were definitely going to die. Pardon
    me? But flying a commercial aircraft at normal flying velocity into the side
    of one of the tallest buildings in the world is a tad risky? The secret
    police and American pilots in Iraq are not acting in a similar value pattern
    at all. The Fundamentalists place social patterns over biological ones. There
    are no intellectual ones. The American pilots do in fact place social
    patterns over intellectual one; they are worse than the fundamentalists. Good
    Show Andy! As Matt so excellently points out, 'excellent and sobering!' I can
    see why so many feel Matt is the guru everyone thinks he is!

    TO BE CONTINUED....

    squonk

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