From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Mon 17 Feb 2003 - 20:49:39 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> Should we have been tolerant of Nazism, of Stalinism, of Pol Pot's
> Khmer Rouge? NO. I am not discussing race, I am discussing
> memeplexes here; violent and virulent and cannibalistic and controlling
> religious ideologies. There is no such thing as the oxymoronic
> 'absolute relativism' that could possibly equate such mind-slavery with a
> freedom, choice and democracy stance.
Didn 't say we should Joe ! But the point I was trying to make was that
tolerance is always seen from our perspective, " we endure this, we endure
that.... the ' I suffer and I don 't care '- stuff...."
We see, from our perspective, and history prooved us right, that Hitler,
Stalin and Pol Pot were ' wrong '.
And yet, there is still the negative, normative orientation of the term
tolerance itself. What we tolerate must be ' wrong ', must be a violation,
must be a mistake, must be something that deranges us.
History prooved us right, no doubt about it, but in the case of Nazism
the enslavement of the German people prooved to be a freedom and
choise- stance_ for the ( most of the) German people at that time !
Don 't get me wrong Joe, I ain 't keen on Stalin and Pol Pot either,
but all positive characteristics of the term tolerance reflects our point
of view not theirs, and I think that this deserves attention.
This reflects ' cultural relativism ', this reflects that ' ours ' is better
than their ' theirs '.
The ' guilty- part is automatically identified, judged without trial
and what can be seen is that the boundery of where tolerance begins
and ends is arbitrary.
Now today, right- winged folks are stigtimized, 60 years ago they
were cheered at as liberators ( in Germany).
And of course, freedom, choise and democracy are the best thing
yet for all people, but you have to give history its credit too....
Kenneth,
> > It is within both parties their convictions that the other must be
> > personal blamed_ it is our personal fault that we are now faced, that
> > they present us the convert- or- die ultimatum.
Joe,
> That's one of their problems; they believe that all that are not clones of
> them are damned, and that they, too, are damned, unless they force the
> convert-or-die ultimatum upon all nonclones. This is just Borgian. And
> that sin't good.
But how do we solve this dispute without killing eachother !?
Of course, from their stance, we should be killed, but that ain 't the
option
I am keen on... So, any suggestion !?
Kenneth,
> > The only things, sofar and at the present date I can come with
> > is the question of how the individual is treated, how the indi-
> > vidual is seen within both camps.
Joe,
> No, one of the primary differences is the separation of church and state.
> In democratic countries people of many faiths, or none, may peacefully
> co-reside, and there is no official state religion to which all citizens'
> knees must bow - all are free to choose their owm paths. However,
> there is no distinction between church and state in Islam; the church IS
> the state, the government, and only one church and one path - Islam -
> is allowed.
Agreed, but in what I was trying to say, I expressed the same reasoning,
though ! Free choise opposites ' a precise clearly defined frame '_ an im-
posed framework ( here religion ).
Kenneth,
> > We move at a different rate along a different way of evolution.
> > Why are they than so eager to move up to our lane.....beats me !
Joe,
> The most radical among them are not interested in learning anything
> from us but how to use our technology to produce weapons with which
> they may kill us. They are trapped in a medieval mindset, which is
> much more dangerous than the Christian Dark Ages because it is
> coupled with the abilities to both produce weapons of mass destruction
> and to easily and anonymously travel the globe to wherever they desire
> to use them.
That is something I said a long time ago, that we and they are trapped
within our thinking- ways. We and they can 't escape the lineages set
out by ours and their memes.
But do they ' know ' they can 't win !? Are their memes, their ideas
about how the world should be governed so strong that those are
eager to kill the host in the process !?
Or do we help them a little bit !?
Regards,
Kenneth
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