From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Apr 18 2004 - 20:38:20 BST
Dear Ian,
You wrote 18 Apr 2004 13:07:55 +0100:
'I've always taken the view that the only difference between a metaphor and
a "literal fact" (whatever one of those is), is the time it takes the
metaphor to die and become accepted as a useful statement in its own right.'
Fine, so I suggested to Jon actually that it takes more than 228 years for
the metaphor of "America as experiment" to become accepted as "fact" on this
side of the ocean. The founding fathers "really being" scientists because
they used that metaphor is probably not something they said themselves. If
Jon introduced the metaphor of "founding fathers as scientists", it may take
some time for it to become fact, too, if ever.
Some metaphors never become a generally accepted fact. Jews "really being"
vermin, for instance, that required gas chambers as 'Endlösung'. And not
only because the "vermin" itself still militantly refuses to accept (some of
them by branding others inhabiting "their" "God-given" "homeland" as
"vermin").
I hope "experimentally" democratizing with military means populations that
do not consent is never going to be accepted as proper science. For me it is
global politics by a few governments that had no global mandate.
We now recognize the 'balance-of-power' politics of former centuries in
Europe as low-quality politics, because it resulted in gradually escalating
wars. It is superseded by first economical cooperation, gradually more
political integration and hopefully in the future the growth of a common
identity (in addition to, not substituting, national identities). That is
the alternative that Europe can offer the world according to the European
Cultural Foundation (my employer).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Apr 18 2004 - 22:57:23 BST