From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sat Jun 05 2004 - 06:09:30 BST
Dear Platt, Johnny, Mark H., Adam and all,
Platt tried 4 Jun 2004 09:59:33 -0400 to ironically dismantle Mark's quote
of Chomsky:
'Glad to see Chomsky's eloquent justification for invading Iraq.'
Chomsky only speaks about 'challenging' and 'dismantling' 'structures of
authority, hierarchy and domination in every aspect of life' in the quote
given, however. There are other ways of doing so than invasion. Any way the
dominated people themselves don't sufficiently participate in and consent to
means changing those structures rather than dismantling them. The majority
of the Iraqis now seems to experience the coalition forces as decreasing
their scope of human freedom rather than increasing it. (According to my
newspaper, which refers to Pentagon polls of the Iraqi population showing a
steep decline in appreciation for prolonged occupation since the invasion.)
I didn't agree with Mark when he wrote 24/5:
'If a nation violates, suppresses, destroys, or in any other way impedes or
diminishes even a single person's chance for equality with his fellow
beings, it is MORALLY IMPERATIVE that that corrupted nation be destroyed.'
It is not and Chomsky shows why:
'unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and
should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.'
Dismantling 'corrupted nations' and 'structures of authority, hierarchy and
domination' in general is only morally imperative if no moral justification
for them can be given.
No society can be held together without (some) authority, hierarchy and/or
domination. I know very few social patterns of value that do without (i.e.
in which 'status/celebrity' is not associated with either of these). The
relatively moral societies and social patterns of value are those in which
people have a choice in how they want their society to be organized (i.e.
what authority they want to recognize, what hierarchy they prefer to
organize society and who deserves to dominate others) and in which they
exercise that choice consciously.
So: relatively immoral societies should be dismantled and relatively moral
societies preserved and supported. They should not be dismantled because
they 'impede or diminish chances for equality' or 'decrease the scope of
human freedom'. Every society does so and needs to do so to survive. They
should be dismantled because there are alternative ways of doing so that
increase the scope of human freedom at a higher (i.e. intellectual and
spiritual) level.
So in the end I also disagree with Chomsky. Or rather: I would like to amend
him:
Every society can be justified, essentially by stating that there is no
'realistic' or 'better' alternative for limiting human freedom. It is the
quality of that justification (i.e. the relative 'truth' of that statement)
that co-determines the relative morality of a society. Freedom at the social
level itself should be distinguished form freedom at a higher level.
Limiting freedom at the social level is essential for the health of
societies. From a point of view of assessing societies it is the freedom
they allow at a higher level (including freedom to dismantly those
justifications...) that determines their relative morality. (And then again,
systems of ideas resp. intellectual patterns of value keeping them together
also need resp. imply limitations of freedom at that level to survive resp.
exist and should be assessed by the freedom they allow at the spiritual
level.)
Would that do to swing the Chomsky thread back to the MoQ? I have changed
the subject line expecting that you agree it does.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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