From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2005 - 22:48:50 GMT
Dear Platt,
I hope you understand that I am a little disappointed by this discussion
with you. You react to my e-mails as if you feel cornered and want to get
out with sharp replies. It's only an intellectual game! No biological or
social pattern of value anywhere in sight that is being threatened if you
admit that you may have taken a wrong turn sometime back in our discussion.
(If you want to maintain that terrorism belongs to the biological level,
your definition 'life at the biological level depends on killing to survive'
seems a mistake.) Where is our common light that only shines out through
different windows?
You rhetorically asked 7 Jan 2005 12:17:00 -0500:
'Why is it so hard to make this distinction [between a terrorist using a gun
or a bomb with the intention of creating an islamist society and a soldier
using a gun or a bomb with the intention of protecting a democratic
society]? Perhaps you can enlighten me?'
Did you wilfully or mistakenly oversee that I asked (emphasis added):
'Can you explain to me how you distinguish between a terrorist using a gun
or a bomb with the intention of creating an islamist society and a soldier
using a gun or a bomb with the intention of protecting a democratic society
USING YOUR DEFINITION?'
Of course I can easily make a distinction between people wanting to create
an islamist society with guns and bombs and people wanting to protect my
society in the same way. It is in the different quality of the societies
they support. The point is that I can't make a distinction between the two
using your definition, so I can't see that the difference amounts to a
difference in level (biological versus social). Should I really spell out
every word to make you admit that you see my point? You don't have to agree
if the social and/or intellectual patterns of value you participate in don't
allow. I already suggested a way out: simply say (like) David B. that you
consider Pirsig's annotations in 'Lila's Child' superfluous and that you
prefer 'Lila', a MoQ without definitions of the levels.
If you go on in this way, you are running into all kinds of problems.
Terrorism, defined as 'ruling/attaining ends by creating fear' (a definition
which you didn't question) does not fully fit your definition of 'life
depending on killing to survive' (maiming can be enough to create fear).
'Terrorism' is not a living organism or species. Quite a lot of living
organisms and species (whom you wouldn't want to exclude from a definition
of the second level) do not depend on killing to survive. Quite a few
democratic governments (partly) depend on creating fear to attain ends. If
one underestimates the role of persuasion in democratically governing people
(like you seem to do), every social security system is based on terrorism
according to this definition: 'transferring earned income to the unearned
under threat of violence'.
You wrote:
'I agree that laws backed by force are necessary for a society to function.
But laws established by force or threat of force, i.e. extortion rather than
persuasion are the stuff of tyrannies.'
What is the difference between 'backing' a law by force and 'establishing'
one by force (if that really is the line you draw between tyranny and more
enlightened rule)?
What role do you see for persuasion in backing/establishing laws (e.g. tax
laws) in the USA and in general?
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 : Fri Jan 28 2005 - 23:20:21 GMT