Hey Platt:
I sense that you are a sporting gentlemen, so I hope you don't mind if I
fence with you a bit on this one.....
PLATT:
> From time to time a few on this site have asserted that the MOQ is a
> morally bereft, i.e., useless as an ethical guide. Of course, ethical
> questions are often complex and difficult to answer regardless of the
> standards one wishes to apply, religious or otherwise. But the claim
> that the MOQ offers no worthwhile standard is wrong.
RICK:
No doubt, arguments like this have been presented here. However, I think
your presentation is a bit of a simplification. Let me quickly present you
with but a single example of a more accurate representation of such an
argument --- One may argue that the MOQ generally fails to provide any real
guidance on how to identify what level any given pattern is from. Thus,
using the MOQ to support any argument is really as easy as characterizing
your position as belonging to or being supported by a superior level.
Here's a textbook example....
PLATT:
An example is the recent moral fight here in the U.S. concerning a statue of
three firemen raising the American flag at the site of the NY Trade Center.
The actual event depicted by the statue involved three white
firemen....those in charge decreed that the statue should show one white,
one black and one Hispanic firemen. One side argued it would be wrong to
ignore/change the truth of the event. The other side argued that it would
be wrong not to symbolize all who died in the attack by representing their
racial diversity. The MOQ clearly decides this issue on the side of those
who want to uphold truth. The MOQ says it's immoral for truth (an
intellectual pattern) to be subordinated to social values (diversity) since
that is a lower form devouring a higher one.
RICK:
What you have done here is commit an egregious example of the problem I
described above. That is, you have enslaved the MOQ to support your own
personal view of events by cloaking them in 'the Truth'. What you quite
partisanly call "the truth of the event" is really little more than a
concern for 'a historically accurate representation of Thomas E. Franklyn's
famous photo". Moreover, I find it bizarre that 'the event' you focus on to
find 'the truth' is the photo... not the disaster....
You want some truth??? Here's some truth... 2.7% of the city's 11,495
firefighters are black, 3.2% are hispanic. 343 firefighters died in the WTC,
12 were black, 12 were hispanic. The TRUTH is that those men really died as
heros, just like their white counterparts. The TRUTH is that the memorial
is supposed to commemorate 'those who died', not 'those who were in the
picture'
You ominously suggest that ..."those in charge decreed that the statue
should show one white, one black and one hispanic...". But why not instead
take the point of view that... "those in charge decreed that the memorial to
honor the fallen white, black, and hispanic firefighters should be modeled
after the famous photo"??? From this perspective, your concern for
'historical accuracy' is no longer disguised as something as paramount as
'truth'... but revealed as mere 'trivia'.
Now, we can move onto the real question that everyone has been debating
(and the one I'd think the MOQ is truly concerned with). Which is, "What
memorial would be BEST for society? An historically accurate one, or a
racially diverse one?" I think the answer is obvious, but I won't press my
view on you.
The truth is Platt, that many of the truths we cling to are only true
from a certain point of view (Obi Wan? Is that you?). The truth is, there
are an infinite variety of ways to describe the events surrounding the
statue, and the photo, and not one single one of them is 'the TRUTH'. The
truth is, no description is what it describes, the map is never the road, no
characterization of events is 'the truth' (not even yours). And I'd expect
you to know that.....
that's game
rick
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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