Re: The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing By Lee Harris

From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 10 Dec 2002 - 18:20:35 GMT

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    > > ----- Original Message -----
    > > From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
    > > > > When you say it "works" or "doesn't work" what do you mean?
    > > > > What does it do or doesn't do that you think it must do?
    > > > >
    > > > It provides those who adopt it with a higher average standard of
    > > > living than other models, just as democracy provides citizens with
    > > > a greater voice and more personal freedom than other models (at
    > > > least than any alternatives that have been tried).
    > >
    > > i think that above and beyond all that (which is somewhat
    > > subjective, wouldn't ya say?), capitalism and "democracy" (yet to be
    > > actually implemented, wouldn't ya say?) "work" because they have the
    > > dynamic capacity to adopt strategies "on the fly" to prevent other
    > > ideas from gaining enough footing to replace them. the reason
    > > americans are conned into making a duality (communist or capitalist,
    > > dictatorship or democracy) is because it keeps out other ideas and
    > > prevents the CREATION of new ones. it discourages, dissuades and
    > > otherwise destroys competition. the only reason these two ideas
    > > stand at the forefront is because they can infect more people, not
    > > because there is some qualitative superiority inherent in them.
    > >
    > I would phrase it another way; these systems are perpetually
    > evolutionary, and can change, in response to voter desires, to take
    > advantage of the novel ideas and opportunities that the voters wish to
    > implement. They are dynamic and evolutionary, rather than static and
    > fixed, and engage in continuous elaboration and experimentation.
    > Their futures are not dogmatically predetermined, so they can
    > effectively respond to the unexpected exigencies of an unfolding
    > history. And this is a GOOD thing. >
    >
    Let me attempt to explain this in another way. There is always a gap between the intolerable and the unattainable ideal of the perfect; the perfect keeps changing, as novel opportunities result from technological advance, so the intolerable advances, too. If the actual situation falls to the intolerable, revolution results, but before this can happen, people vote to change things; thus, a democracy maintains itself between the intolerable and the perfect, in a perpetually evolving yet always tolerable spectrum.
    >
    > > alfred > > >
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    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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    =============================================================== 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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