From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Mar 18 2003 - 22:32:34 GMT
Dear Platt,
You wrote 7 Mar 2003 08:51:13 -0500 (while discussing 'As He died to make
men holy, let us die to make men free!'):
'Unless "killing" is implied in the context of song, "dying" would mean
committing suicide to make men free. I don't think the terrorist method of
attempting to remove Saddam is the way to go.'
I experience this as an extremely shallow argument. I'm sorry.
This is the short, SOMish way of criticizing you: 'shallow' (a specific form
of 'low-quality') is an attribute of your argument understood as an object.
The explanation of my criticism still fits in the SOMish way of criticizing
you (but is also necessary to explain a MoQish way):
You're jumping from 'making men free without killing, risking to be killed'
and 'removing Saddam Hussein from power without killing, risking to be
killed' to 'committing suicide to make men free or to remove Saddam Hussein
from power' and from 'committing suicide to attain goals' to 'the terrorist
method'.
My reference to 'the legacy of M.K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King' should
have made clear that suicide nor terrorism where what I meant.
You can disagree with the possibility of a way to make men free and to
remove Saddam Hussein from power that is based on this legacy, but arguing
in this way fits for me in a pattern that is less evolved towards DQ than
the pattern I try my way of arguing to conform to.
Your way of arguing fits in a pattern in which one tries to 'win' an
argument by associating the viewpoints of opponents with practices that are
generally considered undesirable by choosing the least favorable
connotations and denotations possible of the words they use. This
intellectual pattern of value, modeling exchange of ideas on social level
contest, is a relatively low quality pattern of value. It has some value to
keep people from killing each other with real weapons, but it risks
estranging people from each other if they too often oppose each other in
'debate'.
The higher quality intellectual pattern of value I favor (but not always
practice, I admit) focuses on associating the viewpoints of others with the
most favorable connotations and denotations possible and/or to represent
them in a way that is most meaningful to me. It is this favorable reading of
other people's viewpoints which I compare and contrast with my experience.
In reply I reformulate my experience in words that will probably be best
understood by the other. This pattern gives a better change of bringing us
together and not estranging us from each other.
You asked 16 Mar 2003 10:26:52 -0500 whether I would 'be willing to expand
on MOQ "Quality" as pure experience and how we can best catch and correct
ourselves when confusing moral patterns with objects. Some specific examples
would be most helpful.'
The above is an example. The posting you replied to supplied another
example: writing about 'the quality of ignoring low-quality postings' is
un-MoQish, because it approaches both these 'postings' and 'ignoring them'
as
objects with high or low quality as attributes. Translation into MoQish
would search for the patterns of value of which these postings and specific
ways of dealing with them are elements.
Maybe 'un-MoQish' is not completely right. The MoQ includes (and transcends)
Subject-Object Thinking as a high-quality intellectual pattern of value.
It's not necessarily a problem to write about 'quality of objects', IF you
transcend that way of thinking whenever confusion threatens of objects (or
subjects) and patterns of value.
In pure MoQish (that can't be confused with SOT) 'experience OF' and
'quality OF' can only be legitimately used when we refer to patterns, i.e.
to repetitive experience. We experience the repetition (either in time or in
space). The quality of those patterns has only two varieties: stability and
versatility of patterns. Apart from that (static) quality, 'Quality' only
contains one other variety of quality: Dynamic Quality, i.e. the experience
of new patterns coming into existence.
It's no use distinguishing 'pure experience' from 'experience of objects'.
In the end all experience is experience of patterns. It is the metaphysical
assumption that all experience presupposes objects (and a subject) that must
be avoided. An alternative metaphysics may not be necessary.
By the way: If we don't want to confuse patterns of value and objects, we
shouldn't call objects 'social', 'intellectual' etc. (like you did 16 Mar
2003 11:36:51 -0500, when you called the UN a 'social institution'). We
should only use these level categories for patterns of value.
Further with my reply to what you wrote 7 Mar 2003 08:51:13 -0500:
You wrote:
'I'm sure Europeans can distinguish between American jackboots and
Fascist/Communist jackboots.'
in reply to my:
'The way [of removing Saddam Hussein from power] you favor may chain the
world for decades to come to American jackboots.'
I agree that American jackboots are probably less undesirable than
Fascist/Communist jackboots. Do you agree that American jackboots are
undesirable and avoidable?
You continued with (among other things):
'To believe that passive resistance could have defeated the global ambitions
of Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia is naive. For the King/Gandhi technique
to work, the opposition must have a social moral conscience that is able to
engender feelings of guilt.'
Germans, Italians, Japanese and Russians also have and had 'a social moral
conscience that is able to engender feelings of guilt' even though one would
have to use partly other cultural (non-violent) levers to activate them then
to activate the British 'social moral conscience'. It might take a lifetime
of 'experimenting with Truth' (as Gandhi described it) to find which levers
to use to activate the 'social moral conscience' of an Arab autocrat like
Saddam Hussein, but my (Quaker) belief that there is something divine that
can be reached in or through everyone dictates it is possible. It is not for
me to decide whether that would take too much time and too much Iraqi
suffering and I wouldn't blame Iraqi's for choosing a violent way of
removing Saddam Hussein from power instead. I do blame the US for choosing a
violent way of removing Saddam Hussein from power instead, because the US
doesn't fit the job description of a global policeman and has a lot of
(unrepented) historical responsibility for Saddam Hussein being in power and
being the almost incurable autocrat he is now.
You continued with (among other things):
'As for American's promotion of self-interest, if self-defense is considered
to be morally indefensible, then we plead guilty.'
In a well-ordered national society the state has more power than any other
player. This is justified by using this power almost ONLY in the national
interest (e.g. to keep low-quality, 'criminal' patterns of value in check)
and only to a very limited degree in the interest of the individuals or
groups making up that state. The power of the state should in turn be held
in check by some form of democracy. We call a state whose power is used to
guarantee a privileged position to individuals or groups making up that
state 'corrupt'.
A well-ordered global society also needs such a player that has more power
than any other player, so it can keep low-quality patterns of value that
operate on a global scale in check (e.g. 'terrorism'). Any player in that
position also has the obligation to use that disproportionate power almost
ONLY in the global interest. If not, it creates/sustains a low-quality
pattern in which only the 'right' of the strongest counts. In the absence of
global democracy, a disproportionally powerful player has an extra moral
obligation to hold itself in check and NOT to use disproportionate power to
safeguard its own interests.
A state may defend itself, e.g. against attempted assassinations of
politicians, but only proportionally, not by incarcerating or assassinating
all its potential opponents. Being more powerful than its opponents a
constitutional state may only use a limited part of its power to defend
itself.
You continued with (among other things):
'Forming a UN police force to enforce human rights as defined by a country
like Libya should frighten every freedom-loving person.'
Of course a UN police force should enforce human rights as defined by the UN
as a whole in some democratic sort of way, in which a country like Libya
would only have a relatively small vote. Please try to represent my
viewpoints as I meant them or interpret them in the most favorable way you
can, otherwise I will have to ignore too much of your replies (if only for
lack of time to keep explaining myself).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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