From: Joey C. (eason13@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 18:37:48 GMT
Nations might have more quality than people, but ideas have more quality than nations, and individual people often introduce many hard to reproduce ideas (i.e. Euler)
Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:Hi All:
There's a passage in Lila that I think is relevant to the Saddam Hussein
problem.
"When the United States drafted troops for the Civil War everyone knew
that innocent people would be murdered. The North could have
permitted the slave states to become independent and saved hundreds
of thousands of lives. But an evolutionary morality argues that the North
was right in pursuing that war because a nation is a higher form of
evolution than a human body, and the principle of human equality is an
even higher form than a nation. John Brown's truth was never an
abstraction. It still keeps marching on."(13)
I confess ignorance of "John Brown's truth." What truth is Pirsig referring
to?
I presume "marching on" refers to to the American "Battle Hymn of the
Republic" which ends the first verse with: "His truth is marching on."
Interestingly, the last verse of the hymn goes like this:
"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
While God is marching on."
"Let us die to make men free." The French and all anti-war protesters
here and abroad ought to ponder those words carefully. But I digress.
It is clear that Pirsig is not anti-war. Given his evolutionary morality, a
war by society (rule by law) to eliminate biological criminals (rule by
terror, violence and death) is entirely justified.
"Where biological values are undermining social values, intellectuals
must identify social behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and
support it all the way without restraint. Intellectuals must find biological
behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and limit or destroy
destructive biological patterns with complete moral ruthlessness, the
way a doctor destroys germs, before those biological patterns destroy
civilization itself." (24)
I see nothing in the MOQ that morally prevents the U.S. and it's willing
allies from ridding the world of Hussein. In fact, one could make the
case that the MOQ demands Hussein's removal. The same goes for the
other remaining dictatorships in the world. On what moral basis should
they be allowed to survive?
Platt
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