From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Thu Jan 15 2004 - 21:12:11 GMT
Dear Stephen,
You asked me 20 Dec 2003 16:23:01 -0500 to help you recognize the political
correctness that all Americans share. You already agreed with one aspect of
it 20 Dec 2003 16:58:38 -0500: the idea that 'the USA is the greatest
nation, because it is being uniquely built on ideas held to be universal and
self-evident rather than upon "us v. them" mentality'. I could add the idea
that 'the greatest of these' ideas held to be universal is the idea that men
are born to be free.
This political correctness enhances social cohesion among Americans, but
also limits possible intellectual agreement of Americans with non-Americans.
From my point of view any 'greatest nation' idea is nonsense, because
nations are or should be becoming obsolete anyway, because they hamper
further social development. From the point of view of others, who favour the
nation they belong to themselves over America (e.g. a lot of French) it's an
expression of loathsome American arrogance.
I don't think (as I stated before) that the USA is unique in being built on
ideas that have to be taken for granted and that have to be paid lipservice
to in order to be taken seriously in intellectual discussion (another way of
phrasing 'held to be universal and self-evident'). The ideas that Americans
value so highly are not unique to them either (incidentally they were
borrowed
from the French thinkers that spawned the French revolution). The
not-so-great thing about Americans is, that they tend to make an unbalanced
selection from those borrowed ideas (putting 'freedom' on top and relatively
neglecting 'equality' and 'brotherhood').
O yes, 'ideally public statements on government policy would be evaluated on
a ... true/false basis rather than a ... social acceptability, social status
of speaker, basis'. (And evaluating -taken to imply: 'consciously'- anything
on any basis is always intellectual in my definitions. Intellectual patterns
of value based on social acceptability and status considerations are
evolutionary backward, because they are inconsistent with 'freedom, equality
and brotherhood' taken as a whole and also -incidentally- with the American
constitution, I gather.) The point (made in my 'economics of want and
greed') is, that humans simply don't have the capacity to evaluate
everything. We wouldn't ever come out of our beds in the morning if we would
have to evaluate every minute movement we have to make to get to work. We
have to rely on habits and behavioural patterns copied from others. We have
to make the existing political system do (and can rationalize that as 'well,
it the best available option we have' as long as we haven't properly and
fully evaluated it).
'Intellectual patterns are based on social patterns' to me primarily means,
that we cannot 'survive' beyond biological subsistence (i.e. lead a really
'human' life) with participation in only intellectual patterns of value.
Intellectual patterns of value cannot all our behaviour all of the time.
Mind is a flash-light that can only illuminate small bits of the dark at a
time.
You wrote 20 Dec 2003 16:58:38 -0500:
'Anyone who wants his or her ideas to be heard in the US will refrain from
saying that another country is better and will qualify any criticism with
the "USA is the greatest nation" disclaimer whether they believe it or not.
Though both the liberals and conservatives do make the disclaimer, I think
it is imposed from the conservative side.'
Criticism is always heard better if it is qualified to reduce the risk of
breaking the relation in which it is expressed. It's a social level
phenomenon that relations are strengthened by making common cause AGAINST
others. The intellectual patterns of value that determine the content of
criticisms and qualifiers are irrelevant. 'Imposition' of such content from
any side in an intellectual debate seems meaningless to me.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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