Re: The terrorism meme

From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 17 Nov 2002 - 20:26:33 GMT

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    ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
    > Who decides who belongs where? The terrorists? If I remember right we
    were
    > protecting Muslims from the invasion of Kuait and the attempted invasion
    of
    > Saudi Arabia. We were invited there by those governments. Some people
    > don't like us there, but they don't run the governments of those countries
    > -- although they'd like to.
    > I can't see where they have any more right to than the people who are
    > actually running them.

    ' Invited ' or ' pressurised ' or an improrer manner to impose in order to defend the interests !? Any of these reasons will give the terrorists an angle to place their bombs
    ! Even if you were invited in the real sense of the word, terrorists will see this as an involment in the internal affairs of the country. In their minds they have any right and if the government, like they say, is a puppy on the US leach, they even will put themselves above the govern- ment itself. Than the whole institution of the country, and this means as well cultural, socially, etc are at stake. On the other hand, even denying that they have any right is working against the realms of democratical values, which the US is willing to seed everywhere.

    Grant,
    > What seems to be equally of no concern to the terrorists is how many other
    > people besides Americans die in the process. People who are in no way
    > involved in helping America keep Saddam out of Kuait and other Arab
    > countries.

    Yes, that is the psychological pressure where I talked you about in earlier posts. By killing Icelanders who make a trip to Hawaii they set pressure upon the government of Iceland who in turn, they hope, will pressure the US to take action to solve the problem. That is what happened in the blast of WTC, with no concern of fellow Muslims_ of course, fellow Muslim or not, they were working in a US building on US soil, enough reasons to kill them.

    Kenneth,
    > >Oh but they do, Grant, they do ! Be sure of that !
    > >Thet don 't have a " problem " with you though, they just want you out !
    > >That' s all !
    Grant,
    > No, that's not all. They want American culture out. They want our movies
    > and our business practices and our ideas of freedom out of their
    countries.
    > And they only way they can see to do that is to drive us out and make our
    > culture criminal in the lands they occupy.

    You have to see this from their point of view ! There is a certain amount of institutionized Americanism in the world, their own, more traditional way is under treat here. Not because by the way that America or Europe spreads technology, and I would even say morality and philosophy but by the ways we want to make them part of our con- sumption- mentality_ that leads in their eyes to perversity, the fall of tra- ditional values, people will be tempted to take part.(FM)

    Underneath lies in a certain way " a belief ", a religious actor by with we all measure good and evil. Politics, economical values, even sex and familiy relations are inbedded in such a kind of belief_ the sociality as such is a result of such actors. The mistake we make and they too, no doubt about that though is that in the manner we blame Islam we try to see our own rightness about things. We say that we are superior, but on what grounds we claim that !? They claim they got the only and true religion, on what grounds !?

    We say that democracy ( like Berlusconi a few months ago) is superior to what he called tradional ways of life_ is it really !? This is a question about cultures, about rights and duty' s, about what we and they call universal values. It is also a question of what we and they see as our own/ their bias_ of what makes them bound together as Muslims or we as Christians. IMo, those basic elements are different and therefor not compatible. We see the human being in a different perspective.

    > >The problems lies within you_ that there are people willing to sacrifice/
    > >willing to kill innocent Americans to get to their goals.
    > >As long the US don 't see/ don 't understand, is willing to comprehend
    > >that their support/ their committent jeapardizes other fractions their
    > >existence, you gonna stay in trouble.
    Grant,

    > Yes, the problem do lie within us. It lies within the way we are creating
    > the 21st century and a global economy that reaches out to everyone on the
    > planet while they want to keep the world in the 14th century. We can't
    turn
    > back time and evolution just for them. I suspect most muslims would
    rather
    > participate in the new global culture but the people who control their
    > religion are threatened by it. They can't participate if their government
    > makes it a crime to do so and punishes people who do.

    Yes, but like one said, if we are truly a democracy, if we see ourselves as critical, liberal intellectuals we must open our hearts and minds for the cultural- critics out of the radical- funfdamentalistic Islamitic corner.
    (PC)

    Grant,
    > Are you claiming that 40,000 people don't die in traffic accidents every
    > year in America? Or that 100,000 don't get injured? And the figures the
    > government releases is just propaganda to make us drive slower? I might
    > believe you if the carnage on our highways wasn't accompanied by vivid
    > pictures every day on TV. It doesn't seem reasonable that we could lose
    > that many people and not be changed by it. But during the Vietnam war, we
    > lost more people in traffic accidents than we did in Vietnam. It's part
    of
    > our way of life. The obituaries are in the newspapers every day. The
    > pictures of crashed cars are on the front pages of our newspapers. The
    > insurance companies print the statistics of the claims they have to pay
    out.
    > The evidece is there for everyone to see.

    No, I claim that in general the public, Ortega's Y Gasset' masses simply don 't care ! Where do think the feeling, that when you're in grieve, comes from that you stand alone in/ with your sarrow !? People talk about your loss for a few days and zoef there goes their attention to another subset of the news....

    For the last three months I am helping out a woman who lost her 20 year old son in a carcrash, do you really think that any of her collegues asked her out simply to talk !? To share the grief in some way !? No way, Grant, that is one of individualism its paradoxi, even in your sarrow you have to stand alone, but like I said we 're not up to the full consequences of such a way of life. We don 't have yet the memetic ability to do so !

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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