From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Wed May 26 2004 - 20:47:01 BST
Dear Mark H.,
You wrote 25 May 2004 18:57:35 -0700:
'all people, to one extent or another, hold non-rational beliefs. To point
the bigger finger at Americans is misleading. I'm sure you could find plenty
of examples in your own country' and
'I always get a little nervous when I sense that non-Americans are spending
an inordinate amount of time bashing American policy, no matter how
warranted. Unless American policy is in their face right now, such as what's
going on in Iraq, my feeling is that non-Americans should expend most of
their political energy examining their own societies, helping to bring about
moral improvements there'
Let me assure you (as I did Platt before) that 'America bashing' is not my
intention. If it were I would not have been so shocked by the statistic that
59% of the American population compared to 2,5% of the Dutch population
believes Revelations to be a reliable prediction of the future. I think it
exaggerates the difference, but I still think that Americans may hold more
non-rational beliefs than Dutch and that this would be dangerous for global
society as a whole.
If I would go to a good-sized mall in any Dutch city, stop 100 people at
random, ask them if they believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, put
on earth by God to be crucified for their sins, so that they may have a
clean slate, live a good Christian life, then be rewarded with eternal bliss
in heaven, I'm sure that only a minority would affirm.
http://religionstatistics.bravehost.com/statofrel1.htm suggests that the
percentage would be some 12 - 16% (and 40 - 48% for the USA).
American policy is in the face of almost all of the rest of the world.
'Examining my own society and helping to bring about moral improvements
there' refers to global society nowadays. To some extent your description of
American society is true for that global society as a whole:
- large influence of pre- and irrational ideas,
- power nevertheless in the hands of a largely rational (if selfish) elite
and
- political systems shaped to serve primarily elite interests.
In my perception it is too negative however. It doesn't allow for enough
distinction between say Iran and Korea on the one hand and the Netherlands
and the USA on the other, with maybe China and India in between (with still
considerable difference between the Netherlands and the USA...). From a
Dutch perspective the American habit of concentrating on personal freedom is
misleading. Freedom is essentially negative. DQ not only frees from static
patterns of value, it also creates new ones; its leads on in a specific
direction. The goal may not be fixed, but the direction of 'moral evolution
of society' should have more substance than just 'more freedom'. In a
discussion on what it means if a patterns has 'higher quality' in December
2001 and January 2002 terms like 'stability', 'versatility' and 'harmony'
where mentioned.
Maybe this is something to explore further in the 'MOQ and The Moral
Evolution of Society' thread.
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 : Wed May 26 2004 - 20:56:59 BST