From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 08 Dec 2002 - 15:04:34 GMT
Joe,
> The US is not just a country, it is an idea. It was created on paper
> before it was instituted in reality. It cannot just propose the ideals of
> egalitarianism, basic human rights, participatory democracy and
> church-state separation for its own citizens and not also consider them
> to be beneficial to all the citizens of the world. That is simply a
matter
> of ethics concerning fallow human beings, a stance which democratic
> and egalitarian Europe solidly agrees.
Yes, of course, but there is a difference in the ways we try to accomplish
that, in Europe we try to find common economical grounds to set up a
decent discussion- ground, where IMO the US where freedom and
equality are seen as the highest ' goods ' in terms of values that is, is
trying to compel this.
The question remains and is at the heart of this discussion, even your
true belief that freedom and equality have to be universal things don 't
give the right to compel this_ what must be compelled and what not !?
What in a sense will the US or its foreign policy do with people who
are not willing to engage in such matters !? Are we, and I do mean
Europe and the US, prepared to dispatch some of their freedom and
equality so that they were to be willing to live by our rules !?
Do we keep in my mind that we, indeed, have fought over many
occasions for our freedom and human rights !?
Won 't we give such an equal chance to people who are currently
not free !? There is a difference in fighting for your rights to be free,
like the Russians did, and the fact that those rights were handed
over to you by some foreign authority, like the US is proposing for
Iraq.
You forget here the notion, of what is called the revolutionary pathos.
People has to " know ", like the Russians after Leningrad, after they
defeated Napoleon, that ' they ' fought, that friends and family died
for the cause, people are still remembering that ' they ' stopped ' Hitler.
That is important for the evolution of cultural and social capital, that is
what people need for their own sense of equality to be created.
Taking that away, for any reason, is IMO taking away their own
right of existence.
> > > Kenneth
> > > > > Again Joe, I detect something of a disapproval for European ways
> > > > > of handling things, again you seem to indicate you 're right and
> > > > > we 're wrong ! I don 't know who said this but eventually this
> > > > > will tear us apart, the isolation where the US holds itself in,
> > > > > will fall down on itself.
> > > Joe,
> > > > Actually, that is because you are as wrong to ignore or dismiss
> > > > this threat as Chamberlain was to ignore another less religious
> > > > fascist threat 60+ years ago. Your very lack of resolve in deman-
ding that all citizens of a country respect its laws, including those that
> > > > demand tolerance for others, is perceived by such people as a
> > > > weakness to be exploited, and exploit it they will.
Kenneth,
> > > If this is so, than it can means only two things, in Europe we're
> > > all memetical blind and I wonder how that came about_ in what way
> > > we' re rocked to sleep !?
On the other hand than ' knows ' the US something more, something we
> > supposingly ignore_ and in the same token I wonder !
In a sense, what America does can be again that religious fact where I
keep harping about, the notion that the US wants to clear up what can be
defined as the " irrationality of man "_ again, the notion of the Lamarckian
creation is not far away.... And, Kaplan writes, " in politics we
deal with people who lack rationality ".
Joe,
> What is being dealt with are Radical Muslims who have substituted
> Islamic dogma for rationality, and who insist upon forcing the selfsame
> substitution upon all the peoples of the world. That is simply
> unacceptable to those of us who value our physical and intellectual
> freedom.
True and I do accept that, but again the ways to fight this are between
the US and Europe complete different.
You can see this as a notion of authenticity, wherein the Muslim- world
is trying to be itself, in a beastly way. And, of course we have problems
with that, but didn 't the question about authenticity also recalls that
any-
one should live according its own nature and not due to what others
have to say !?
The Muslim- world is memetically in termoil, as we are indeed too, be-
cause we have no answer for the problem where with we are faced_
unless you call bombing is an answer to everything.....
The invasion of what stands for authenticity in the Muslim- world by
what stands for the Western world was a few decades ago a concern
of the few, now it has become a problem of the masses.
Technological, economical and political movements and evolutions
are inherent to that kind of uprise. The pursue of authenticity within
the expanding generalisation of the world is something that peoples
are willing to accomplish socially, culturally, political and religiously.
This is a paradox of individualism, along the borders of authenticity
new ' collective forms ' are forming, far more greater and far more
dangerous than the ones we encountered before. And along those
borders the only way you can be hearded is to shout more loudly
than the ones among you travel.
And if your voice isn 't hearded or is regarded as non- existent, and
not once but for decades, you throw bombs with a big bang....
That ain 't something that is made out of nothing, none of us are
mindless, stupid memebots, we have a history, a common culture,
equal social and political rights, universal human rights are just
around the corner, but in the meanwhile, and that something I always
pronounced loudly upon this list, we have our memes and if those
in their ways of propagation act selfish, and you don 't understand this,
if thus, like Russell writes, the " mental integration " has failed for you
or for the US and its foreign policy than you can 't create a harmonic
relationship with what is out there.....
Many regards from a chilly Belgium,
Kenneth
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