From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Apr 15 2003 - 07:04:55 BST
Dear Kevin, David B. and Matt K.,
Kevin wrote 17 Mar 2003 11:28:15 -0800:
'No philosophy is armor against tyranny. ... Historically, no philosophy has
stopped tyranny.'
David B. disagreed 22 Mar 2003 14:17:23 -0700:
'Don't you think the heart and soul of the Enlightenment project was the
development of political philosophies aimed at liberty and the overthrow of
tyranny? ... The fact that ideas cannot be used as force or as a weapon
doesn't mean anything. ... Its power does not lie in the realm of physical
violence, but it has changed the world nevertheless.'
Matt agrees with Kevin 23 Mar 2003 17:17:37 -0600:
'if the Jew is a better philosopher than the Nazi, that won't stop the Nazi.
... liberal philosophy hasn't stopped tyranny, liberal institutions have.'
But he also agrees with me 25 Mar 2003 08:32:41 -0600 when I wrote 25 Mar
2003 07:57:11 +0100:
'that liberal philosophy [can be] instrumental in creating and maintaining
liberal institutions' even though 'most _philosophies_, i.e. actual theories
of liberalism, play off of our changing moral and political intuitions,
rather than they themselves being the impetus of changing them.'
The point seems to me that philosophy and tyranny are understood by us as
referring to intellectual respectively social patterns of values. (I.e. we
are not talking about philosophy as a kind of habit that could come in
direct conflict with social patterns of value and we are not talking about
tyranny as a set of ideas justifying certain political behaviors. By the
way: that IS what tyranny was at some point in Greek history, a set of ideas
justifying a political system in which a tyrant/autocrat leads the polity.)
Like any set of levels of value in the MoQ, intellectual patterns of
value -being at the higher level- CAN influence social patterns of
value -being at the lower level-, BUT only marginally and at the normal
speed of the lower level:
- Trees can turn rock into sand, but only on a geological timescale.
- Inborn intelligence of humans (the biological pattern of value of homo
sapiens) has increased because of civilization, but at approximately the
same speed as normal biological evolution. (Slightly faster, which accounts
for the biological success of homo sapiens compared to other species.)
- Conscious, (philosophically or otherwise) motivated action CAN overcome
tyranny even though most philosophies/motivations only justify behavior
that's no different than it would have been without intellectual patterns of
value. Some DO change behavior though and the cumulative small changes in
behavior because of for instance ideas about 'freedom' and 'rights' DO make
tyranny gradually more rare.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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