From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon 09 Dec 2002 - 00:21:35 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 !?
>
I cannot understand this. Freedom cannot be compelled (that in itself is
a self-contradictory notion); it can only be permitted. And if people are
not equally free, then true and open discussion between them can
never be held.
>
> 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 !?
>
Actually, the entire problem is that these people suffer from dual
unfreedoms - to dictatorial regimes which manipulate enslaving
religious ideologies in order to perpetuate themselves. Until they are
freed of these constraints, we can never be sure what they themselves
would truly prefer.
>
> 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.
>
The Iraqi people are crushed under an iron heel. They would dearly
love to be free of their oppressive dictatorship, but all who stay and fight
for it are murdered by a brutal military regime with all the weaponry, that
is not above using weapons of mass destruction upon them. Those
who leave declare their desire for their country to be free, but can do
nothing in and of themselves to effect this liberation except appeal for
the assistance of the rest of the world in removing that enslaving yoke
from the shoulders of their countrymen. The US hears their pleas, just
as it heard enslaved Europe's; Europe should remember its own history,
when it was helped to freedom by others, including the US, and do for
others what was done for it by opening its own ears to the pleas of
others who desire the same.
>
> 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.
>
The Iraqi people have no right to exist under Saddam; they are
enslaved; living and dying at his whim. HE is the one who has taken
that away, and they pine for it. But I do not think that one can say that
people who are suffering under a military dictatorship too strong for
them to overthrow unassisted would be having their right of existence
removed if the rest of the world provided the liberating assistance they
so desperately need and desire.
>
> > > > 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 !?
>
Actually, most of the Muslim world is not living as they wish; they are
living in the way that the ruling cabal of mullahs and dictators self-
servingly enginneer for them, in order to keep their own hides in power.
>
> 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.
>
When people are taught only useless religious dogma in their schools
instead of the knowledge and skills required to effectively compete in
the modern world, their array of conceiveable choices is being dictated
to them by those who wish to keep them ignorant and enslaved, fearing
that knowledge of freer and more informed alternatives would cause
them to chafe at their religious and governmental chains. It reminds me
of when it was a capital offence in the pre-civil-war US south to teach a
slave to read, because they might get 'uppity'. As long as the ignorance
of the citizenry is maintained, their anger can be channeled away from
those who maintain that ignorance towards enemies, outside their
borders, chosen to receive that anger. It is simple memetic diversion at
its most cynical, enslaving and cruel.
>
> 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.....
>
The extremists intimidate the moderates into acquiescent silence, so
that only the extreme voices are heard. Those who respond to them
with a desire to act, especially the poor wifeless religiously educated
young males, are shipped off to terrorize other nations in a vain search
for a houri-filled paradise rather than causing troubles for their own
country's religious and governmental totalitarianisms. This is the
antithesis of individualism; it is human beings memetically reduced to
the status of programmed berserkers and faith-based missiles.
>
> Many regards from a chilly Belgium,
>
It's not too warm in NW Florida, either (we have has freezes recently).
>
> Kenneth
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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