From: jhmau (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2003 - 17:06:56 GMT
Hi Wim,
What a beautiful post. It brought tears to my eyes.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wim Nusselder" <wim.nusselder@antenna.nl>
To: "MD" <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: MD The Quality of removing Saddam Hussein from power.
> 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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