Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From jk Fri Dec 4 10:56:33 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: Mikhail on the theory that sex is icky
Distribution: world
References: <1992Nov30.213628.17940@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Dec1.165353.17982@husc3.harvard.edu> <1992Dec3.170200.7181@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
In <1992Dec3.170200.7181@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>I think Kant is especially interesting here. What Kant didn't like
>about sex was that it involves taking someone else as not being an end
>in themselves, but merely as a means for pleasure. Now, supposing
>that you accept this as a valid argument, how do you get around it
>when you need to?
>The answer is sex in a relationship. If we have a relationship where
>each person gives themselves to another in a non-exploitative way,
>then we are not making the other person into something other than an
>end in themselves.
Can you tell me where Kant develops this argument? I find it
interesting without feeling I understand it. One possibility that
occurs to me is that in order to avoid mutual exploitation ("I'll let
you use me as a means to your pleasure if you do the same") it is
helpful for the relationship to have an objective purpose beyond the
relationship itself. The connection to having children would provide
such a purpose.
> Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/IWR/Ruprecht-Karls University
Out of curiosity, what is the Brahms Gang? (I think I've seen it in
other .sigs as well.)
From jk Fri Dec 4 11:13:08 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: What's Innate and What Ain't and So On (was: Re: Entry level salar
Distribution: world
References: <92335.195549RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <1992Dec1.055156.10900@netcom.com> <1992Dec3.182502.21490@s1.gov>
In <1992Dec3.182502.21490@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>". . . Surveying the worldwide distribution of matrilineal
>horticultural populations, David Aberle (1961) found them generally
>located outside of, or bordering, forested areas, and in areas
>where large domesticated animal were absent. In the ecological
>niches of matrilineal-uxorilocal systems, population pressure on
>strategic resources is minimal. Warfare is infrequent or totally
>absent, as are its psychological and social results - aggression,
>competition, strong differentiation between public and private,
>devaluation o women, and female infanticide. . . Why do women enjoy
>high status in matrilineal, uxorilocal societies? Descent-group
>membership, succession to political positions, allocation of land,
>and overall social identity are all based on links through females.
>Women thus become the focus of the entire social structure.
>Although positions of public authority may be assigned to older
>males, actual power an decision making may be concentrated in the
>hands of senior women."
This is quite interesting. It seems to show that societies in which
women tend to become the focus of the social structure are societies
in which there is no need to take decisive collective action on
serious issues (no population pressure on resources, no warfare). In
such societies the differentiation between public and private is weak,
apparently because the central functions of the public sphere (defense
of the society and arbitration of competing claims to scarce
resources) aren't much needed. Even in such societies, however,
formal public authority is in men's hands
To me, this passage is a striking confirmation of the claim that in
all societies the public sphere is predominantly masculine and the
domestic sphere predominantly feminine. In a society in which there
aren't many problems that can't be dealt with within the domestic
sphere, women play a more central role in what goes on than elsewhere.
However, the vestigial remnant of the public sphere -- formal
political authority -- remains in men's hands.
From jk Sun Dec 6 20:40:19 1992
From: jk
To: payner@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Sex vs procreation, was (Re: Repression and Pornography)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,alt.sex
References: <1992Dec2.230627.17511@panix.com> <1992Dec4.154108.4311@netcom.com> <1992Dec5.153055.1378@panix.com> <1992Dec6.184709.12481@netcom.com>
In alt.feminism you write:
>Generally, we have a desire for sex -without- procreation.
>Obviously, sometimes children are desired, but these times seem to be
>the exception rather than the rule.
Some people are troubled by the idea of sex completely divorced from
procreation. I suppose the question is whether such people have
archaic hangups, or whether those who aren't troubled have been
lobotomized. I have more sympathy with the former group, but haven't
worked out a position well enough to post one of my usual 150-line
rants on the subject.
>Were the cultures studied all contemporary, or were historical cultures
>studied as well?
I believe contemporary -- the study was done by anthropologists rather
than historians. From literary sources it seems clear to me that
romantic love existed in ancient Greece and ancient China, for
example.
>I do appreciate the input, it has been years since I read about this.
Do take a look at the _Times_ article if there is a library near you
which would have it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur." (Cato)
From jk Sun Dec 6 20:45:08 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec3.154309.17785@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec3.230115.21360@panix.com> <1992Dec4.175522.29878@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec6.191621.15347@netcom.com>
In article <1992Dec4.175522.29878@midway.uchicago.edu> mec6@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>Can we say that the
>burdens and advantages of being a housewife are "roughly equivalent"
>to the burdens and advantages of being the primary breadwinner? How
>do we measure that? Who's going to measure it?
If there's no way to compare the relative burdens and advantages of
the two, then neither sex has grounds to complain about unfairness if
one is expected to fill one role and the other is expected to fill the
other.
From jk Mon Dec 7 10:06:17 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Gender differences - Sophie Germain
Distribution: world
References: <92341.150659RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <92341.201123RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
In quilty@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Humberto Humbertoldi) writes:
>NORMAL evidence for
>a conclusion ALWAYS involves controlling for conflating variables.
If this were true, there would be very few conclusions about human
beings or human society that we could legitimately draw. We need to
draw such conclusions in order to act at all in (for example)
politics. Is it your view that there is no such thing as political
rationality?
From jk Mon Dec 7 10:11:59 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.feminism,soc.men
Subject: Re: Entry level salaries (was: Re: Elle MacPherson causes rape?)
Distribution: world
References: <1992Nov24.031056.7566@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> <1992Nov24.175617.1801@netcom.com> <1992Nov24.224539.5053@ils.nwu.edu> <1992Dec6.223912.28141@serval.net.wsu.edu>
In <1992Dec6.223912.28141@serval.net.wsu.edu> joerd@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu (Wayne Joerding - Economics;S20000) writes:
>And, I hope that the activities of building house
>and such gave her the same type of experience at spacial visualization,
>cause and effect, and other skill important for science and engineering.
Did you feel it was more important to develop in your daughter the
skills important for science and engineering than other capacities
(for example, her esthetic sense and social skills)? If so, why?
From jk Mon Dec 7 10:20:35 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec4.175522.29878@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec6.191621.15347@netcom.com> <1992Dec7.014514.9789@panix.com> <1992Dec7.034038.1587@midway.uchicago.edu>
In <1992Dec7.034038.1587@midway.uchicago.edu> mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini) writes:
>jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>If there's no way to compare the relative burdens and advantages of
>>[sex roles], then neither sex has grounds to complain about unfairness if
>>one is expected to fill one role and the other is expected to fill the
>>other.
>Except for the general unfairness of having arbitrary expectations at all.
The issue, then, is whether sex roles are arbitrary, or whether they
are justified because they make life better for most people.
From jk Mon Dec 7 10:36:47 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec4.175522.29878@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec6.191621.15347@netcom.com> <1992Dec7.014514.9789@panix.com>
In quilty@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Humberto Humbertoldi) writes:
> It's not hard to compare these things at all. Just look at
>relative numbers of hours worked by "housewifes" versus
>"breadwinners". Just look at distribution of real disposible income.
>Just look at poverty and malnutrition rates. In all of these
>"breadwinners" are clearly favored in standard of living.
My understanding is that the disparity in hours worked is even worse
in the case of two-income couples. On the other points, you seem to
be comparing men and women generally rather than husbands and wives
living in households in which one is the breadwinner and the other the
housewife. In the latter situation it seems unlikely, at least in a
Western society, that (for example) the housewife would be
malnourished but not the breadwinner.
>None of this is particularly very hard,
>in principle, to examine. For a very good series of articles on the
>subject, see Zillah Eisenstein (ed), _Capitalist Patriarchy and the
>Case for Socialist Feminism_.
Thank you for the reference. This spring I hope to have more time to
devote to these issues, and take a look at the ZE book then.
It seems to me that there are often serious difficulties in principle
in comparing the pleasures and pains of differing kinds of lives, such
as the life led by a breadwinner and that lead by a housewife.
Attempts to do so are of considerable interest, though.
From jk Tue Dec 8 10:42:06 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: sex-role stereotypes (was Re: Challenge to Robert Sheaffer)
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec5.110306.21929@panix.com> <1992Dec5.174329.9418@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec6.031104.27555@panix.com> <1992Dec6.054709.2326@panix.com> <92341.074953RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
In <92341.074953RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
>Could someone tell me what stereotypes ARE?
I understand the word to relate to the collection of expectations that
people generally have regarding persons or things of a particular kind
(office parties, lumberjacks, children, French restaurants, men) that
don't necessarily correspond to the actual characteristics of each
individual of the kind.
From jk Tue Dec 8 16:31:20 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: sex-role stereotypes (was Re: Challenge to Robert Sheaffer)
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec5.110306.21929@panix.com> <1992Dec5.174329.9418@midway.uchicago.edu> <1992Dec6.031104.27555@panix.com>
Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>[T]here are many people who don't want to live the lives prescribed by
>[traditional sex-role] stereotypes; and such people are going to be
>desperately unhappy if they are forced into stereotypical roles. This
>resentment, and lack of flexibility within a society, makes that society
>more brittle and less able to adapt to changing circumstances (e.g.
>technological impacts on working patterns). Thus, even if the
>stereotypes you advocate were widely and strongly held, there would be
>movements against them; and feminism (for example) would be reinvented.
>If you try to force it to go away, you'll end up with the kind of anger
>that was present when women were trying to get the vote; and either the
>stereotypes will start breaking down, or you'll have a repressive
>society.
This sort of thing is difficult to predict. Whether sex-role
stereotypes exist or not, there will be social role stereotypes that
people will be expected to conform to that fit some people's
inclinations far more than others'. If role stereotypes are weak
society may be more flexible in some respects, but it may be less
efficient in others (the weakening of the stereotype that people should
earn their own living and look after themselves and their families is an
example). In addition, the weaker or the more abstract role stereotypes
are the more people there will be who don't know what they're up to, and
such people create problems of their own.
So no matter what the situation is with regard to sex and other role
stereotypes, there will be problems and some people will be
desperately unhappy. The issue you raise is which sets of problems
would permit social stability without tyranny. Here I think that it
is important how people understand their problems. If people believe
that their problems are caused by the doings of other people that
could be changed by political action, society is likely to be
unstable. If they believe that their problems are caused by people
they know personally or by things that are part of the natural order
they are less likely to revolt. So to me it seems more workable
politically to base social duties (that's another term for role
stereotypes) on traditional family relations than on overtly political
things like those that make up the modern welfare state.
As to how to get there from here -- the obligations that people accept
as legitimate depend greatly on their general understanding of the
world. Feminism didn't appear in an ideological vacuum. It required a
lot of consciousness-raising, and feminists sometimes look back at
previous waves of feminism that eventually receded and worry about
backsliders among the younger generation today. So there is some
prospect that what consciousness raising has done further consciousness
raising could undo. To the extent anti-feminists are able to persuade
people that there are natural differences between the sexes and that our
society will be happier if like previous societies it accepts and builds
on those differences, people's views as to what is acceptable could
change.
From jk Wed Dec 9 16:57:54 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Sophie Germain - Gender Differences
Distribution: world
References: <92343.182407RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Why shouldn't I get off-topic like everyone else?
In quilty@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Humberto Humbertoldi) writes:
>I know perfectly well -- as I see do you -- that hardly any
>interesting intellectual achievement originated in Europe.
This is true in the sense that since everything that happens can
always be attributed to earlier developments elsewhere, nothing has
originated anywhere since the Big Bang.
>You don't
>specifically mention the Arabs in the above -- but why not mention
>here that nearly the whole "European" tradition of Philosophy and
>Literature would have completely died in the "middle" ages had it not
>been for the preservation and elaboration of the thought of
>mediterranean antiquity by the Arabs.
What do the Arabs have to do with the preservation of the European
tradition of literature? I never heard that they had any particular
interest in Virgil, for example. As to philosophy, the European
philosophers of the Middle Ages certainly owed a great deal to Arab
writers but not enough to explain your "completely died" remark. For
example, we don't owe the texts we now have of the Greek philosophers
to the Arabs. (We might have had to wait longer for some of them if
the Turks hadn't taken Constantinople, so maybe the Turks contributed
to European philosophy in that sense.)
> And obviously, EVERYTHING
>interesting originated in China, and what little didn't start there
>came from India.
Is this comment meant seriously?
From jk Wed Dec 9 17:20:13 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: why poor women are obese
Distribution: usa
References: <1992Dec9.165938.15284@cs.cornell.edu>
I've decide to go on an off-topic binge.
In <1992Dec9.165938.15284@cs.cornell.edu> jean@cs.cornell.edu (Jean M. Petrosino) writes:
>Check out the politics that surround this issue--it is more expensive it eat
>properly, and to know how to eat properly.
I'd suggest that anyone interested in this issue go to a food store
that a lot of poor people patronize and see what's sold there. My own
experience is that such stores tend to sell more junk food (beer,
soda, corn curls, Slim Jims) and less cheap-but-nourishing food
(gallon containers of milk, 20-pound sacks of potatoes, cabbages) than
I would have expected.
I'm not sure why knowing how to eat properly should be expensive. In
America in 1992, information is the cheapest thing there is. In
addition, most traditional diets that I know of seem nourishing
enough.
Does anyone know of any studies of diet and nutrition by social and
economic class?
From jk Thu Dec 10 16:21:32 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Mysogynist Bullshit
Distribution: usa
References: <1992Dec10.142534.16313@cs.cornell.edu>
In <1992Dec10.142534.16313@cs.cornell.edu> jean@cs.cornell.edu (Jean M. Petrosino) writes:
>And
>by the way, can any of you men tell me why high heels are considered so
>attractive?
Why not ask the people who buy them and wear them?
From jk Fri Dec 11 06:41:44 1992
From: jk
To: mec6@midway.uchicago.edu
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
References: <1992Dec8.110927.27573@panix.com> <1992Dec10.193817.18786@panix.com> <1992Dec10.234129.27323@midway.uchicago.edu>
In alt.feminism you write:
>>They would be assigned to women because they would be the only roles
>>that would exist.
>That's what I call a "leap of logic."
You deleted the language immediately following, that filled in the
leap. Why?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur." (Cato)
From jk Fri Dec 11 11:21:32 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Separate but Equal?
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec8.110927.27573@panix.com> <1992Dec10.193817.18786@panix.com>
In muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>[I]f there is only one set of roles, and they are assigned to
>everyone, then there would be no "unfairness" towards people because of
>their sex, yes? That's certainly my view of it. I would be quite happy
>if our society simply said "these roles need to be fulfilled, and
>everyone is required to try to make sure they are."
A couple of possibilities:
1. Suppose there really are innate differences between men and women,
so that most men are now and always will be better suited for the
traditional male role and most women for the traditional female role.
Now suppose a society abolished the traditional female role and
provided that the functions formerly performed by wives and mothers
would be carried out by functionally rational hierarchical
organizations of the sort men tend to act through. (For example,
childcare would be provided by daycare centers rather than by Mom, who
would be a fulltime paid worker like everyone else.) Then it would
make sense to say that the society is unfair to women because of their
sex, because the roles established by the society don't give most
women the opportunity to make use of their special capacities.
(Compare Plato's _Republic_, in which male and female Guardians had
the same role -- war, government and philosophy -- but the men were
usually better at it; contrast the matrilineal societies Loren Petrich
recently mentioned, in which women are more prominent than in most
societies because there is very little need for the activities
belonging to the public sphere.)
2. Suppose most men and most women would be happiest in a society
that had appropriately-defined sex roles, but some would not. Then a
society with no sex roles would be unfair to the majority with respect
to sex roles, because it would sacrifice the interests of the majority
in favor of that of a minority.
From jk Fri Dec 11 11:31:10 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Women in Mathematics: One Final Thought
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec10.003006.2661@netcom.com> <1992Dec10.234736.9523@netcom.com> <1992Dec11.043431.4423@midway.uchicago.edu>
In <1992Dec11.043431.4423@midway.uchicago.edu> mec6@quads.uchicago.edu (rini) writes:
>So, let's see: from [Sheaffer's] argument (I only changed a couple of nouns
>here) smart boys who study hard in school should expect to be failures
>in the job market, right?
I think his point is that the job market looks for whatever it looks
for, so smart boys who study hard but find they don't succeed as much
as oafs have no particular grounds for complaint. There may be
important things that oafs are better at than smart and studious boys.
Of course, if the smart boys do succeed, that's OK too.
From jk Mon Dec 14 15:22:21 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.chat
Subject: Re: Still have to pay NY taxes for items bought in NJ?
Distribution: panix
References: <1992Dec14.183836.2881@panix.com>
In <1992Dec14.183836.2881@panix.com> smeyer@panix.com (Seth Meyer) writes:
>What's this about NY residents buying in NJ to avoid 2.25% extra
>taxes, having to pay NY taxes as well? I've even heard stories of NY
>tax collectors writing down NY liscence plates seen in NJ parking
>lots!
NY imposes something called a "use tax" that requires people who buy a
thing outside of NY and then bring it into the state to pay a tax
equal to the difference between the sales tax they paid where they
bought it and the higher sales tax NY would have imposed.
The tax is pretty generally ignored by consumers except in the case of
automobiles, where the registration procedure gives the state a
convenient means of enforcing it. Every once in a while the state is
able to enforce it, though. I once knew someone who bought an antique
through a Connecticut dealer who had to pay the tax because the
dealer's ex-wife gave the New York authorities the dealer's customer
list.
>What about us Jersey people who have bought items in NY? Are we
>entitled to get money back from the state of NY?
No such luck, at least if you take possession of the item in NY. If
you buy it in NY but have them ship it to you in NJ you don't have to
pay NY sales tax. You would be legally required to pay NJ use tax,
but there's no good way for NJ to enforce the liability and very few
people would pay it.
From jk Tue Dec 22 19:59:56 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,sci.skeptic,soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Dr. Goldberg Replies to "Patriarchy" Debate
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec14.202915.12466@s1.gov> <8w56VB1w164w@cellar.org> <1992Dec22.191603.5991@s1.gov>
In <1992Dec22.191603.5991@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>[Brian Siano's research: matters are a lot more complicated than one
>sex ruling the other . . .
Does this observation apply to feminist claims as well as to
criticisms of feminism?
From jk Wed Dec 23 17:31:10 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Distribution: world
References: <1h69a2INNjqr@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU>
In <1h69a2INNjqr@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU> irwinke@storm.CS.ORST.EDU (Keith Irwin) writes:
>I'd like to know what people think about New Agers (ie, Europeans and
>Euroamericans) appropriating the spirituality of various indiginous and
>small scale cultures.
What does it mean to appropriate someone's spirituality? Is there
only a limited amount to go around?
From jk Wed Dec 23 21:35:33 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Cultural Appropriation and the New Age
Distribution: world
References: <18844@mindlink.bc.ca> <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com>
In <1992Dec23.192222.10975@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
> In yuppie shops in Berkeley, you will find "primitive" artwork from
>Central America, Armenia, and Asia, much of it straightforwardly part of the
>religious practice of the people who made it (this includes paintings on
>leather, cement statuary, tapestries, various icons, etc.).
> The work is usually divorced entirely from its original context and
>is in fact being offered for the esthetic pleasure of the urban dweller with
>(often significant) disposable income.
The same thing is true of most of the things you see in museums, at
least the objects made before modern times. Does that bother you as
well?
From jk Thu Dec 24 03:16:44 1992
From: jk
To: help@anon.penet.fi
Subject: Curious
How does the anon service work and how can I use it?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur." (Cato)
From jk Thu Dec 24 07:30:34 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Communitarianism & Body Parts
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec24.060446.7642@ncar.ucar.edu> <1992Dec24.071450.12320@ncar.ucar.edu>
In <1992Dec24.071450.12320@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
> "People should come to see organ donation `as a social duty, as an act on
> behalf of our fellows and the community...that is to be routinely expected'
> and that would reduce `the wastage of a precious human resource,' said
> the Communitarian Network."
> [source _Boston Globe_, p. 17, 22 December 1992]
Does this necessarily mean that the writer thinks it should be
compulsory? There are lots of things that I view as "social dut[ies]
. . . to be routinely expected" that I don't think should be legally
required. (Examples -- common courtesy, helping out at the scene of
accidents, public service in general.)
From jk Thu Dec 31 15:36:13 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Distribution: world
References: <1homreINN4si@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Dec30.125203.17331@panix.com>
In msmorris@watsci.UWaterloo.ca (Mike Morris) writes:
>I think Pound
>liked Sappho and the Confucian Odes. I think Pound was a knowledgeable
>critic and great artist in his own right. So, this means that I weigh his
>expertise highly. I suspect he found something commonly poetic about
>Sappho and the Shih King. If there are other experts who are
>as widely read as Pound who think the same (an example might be Kenneth
>Rexroth), then I would say that there is something quite objectively
>beautiful which is common to Sappho's poetry and to the Shih King.
>Whether this beauty is transcendent or not, or universal (recognizable,
>say, to poets of all thinkable schools of poetry), is another question.
You say that Pound was "knowledgeable" and a "great artist" with
"expertise" that you weigh highly. You also speak of something being
objectively "beautiful". Does it make sense to speak that way if the
poetic merit of a work consists solely in the likelihood that a member
of a particular community that devotes a lot of time and attention to
poetry would praise it? (I take it that would be the alternative to
saying that poetic merit is something that transcends the judgements
of any reader or group of readers.)
Possibly your point is that Pound had knowledge and expertise
regarding the standards of the community he identified with, and
produced works that were good by those standards. If so, I don't see
why anyone who doesn't happen to belong to that community should care,
unless he (i) is an anthropologist, or (ii) believes that the
community in question possesses an understanding of poetic merit that
goes beyond its own arbitrary standards.
I realize your chief goal was to argue against the idea that poetic
merit can only be a matter of subjective judgement. It seems to me
that pointing out that it might be a matter of arbitrary community
standards instead isn't that much of an advance. Maybe I'm being
overly touchy, though.
From jk Thu Dec 31 15:39:51 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: SF + PC
Distribution: world
References: <18974@mindlink.bc.ca> <1homreINN4si@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Dec31.080324.10336@netcom.com>
In <1992Dec31.080324.10336@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
> Of course it's circular. You must terminate your explanatory
>regress by something other than an appeal to authority if your explanation
>is to have any weight at all.
Do you think claims as to poetic merit are more circular than other
claims? If so, what are some examples of non-circular claims?
From jk Thu Dec 31 19:41:49 1992
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Homeschooling (was Re: Education and the Environment by Gregory A. Smith)
Distribution: world
References: <1992Dec31.152903.25127@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> <31DEC92.17162343@vax.clarku.edu> <1hvedcINNdg4@agate.berkeley.edu>
In <1hvedcINNdg4@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
>And what really bugs me is that the people who are killing
>public education by pulling their kids out of public
>schools have the audacity to blame the problem on
>"liberal educators with their social agendas" and
>other imagined demons.
Your view that it is the parents who are pulling their children out of
public school who are causing problems with public education is
surprising. Parents who don't want to rely on the public schools have
the choice of private schools, which are enormously expensive, or
homeschooling, which is enormously time-consuming. Do you think
parents would be making those choices unless they thought they had
very good reasons?
The problem with public schools is not too little financial support --
from 1960 to 1980 constant-dollar expenditures per pupil doubled
(source: National Center for Educational Statistics, _Digest of
Educational Statistics: 1983-1984). So it appears to be the way the
resources are being used that is at fault. If that's right, the view
that professional educators may be among the ones creating the
problems may be less of a fantasy than you seem to think.
From jk Wed Jan 6 04:44:40 1993
From: jk
To: rcrowley@donne.zso.dec.com
Subject: Re: Homeschooling
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
References: <1i2sbaINNd2j@shelley.u.washington.edu> <1993Jan4.203556.7692@ninja.zso.dec.com>
B.A. Botkin compiled _A Treasure of American Folklore_, published in
1944 with a forward by Carl Sandburg. It's since been republished -- my
copy was printed in 1983 by Bonanza Books.
It's about 900 pages long. I think he also published collections of the
folklore of New England, of the South, and so on, all in similar formats
and with the same publishers. I've also seen those reprinted.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long
ago." (Hazlitt")
From jk Wed Jan 6 14:41:03 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.upgrade
Subject: Re: Ksh users and the Sun- READ THIS if you use ksh
References: <1993Jan5.145752.11566@panix.com>
In <1993Jan5.145752.11566@panix.com> alexis@panix.com (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>ps- to make bash your login shell, just type "chsh mylogin bash" at the
>shell prompt. "mylogin" is your user id.
Do you have to do anything to your startup files? I have a bunch of
aliases in my .kshrc file that bash ignores even when I rename it the
.bashrc file.
From jk Wed Jan 6 20:32:14 1993
From: jk
To: jhawk@panix.com
Subject: Re: Ksh users and the Sun- READ THIS if you use ksh
Newsgroups: panix.upgrade
References: <1993Jan5.145752.11566@panix.com>
.bash_profile with a source .bashrc worked perfectly. Thanks for the advice.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn." (Montaigne)
From jk Thu Jan 7 10:09:49 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: This Group
There has been no traffic on this group at my site for the past several
days. Does that show that the participants have chosen silence as their
weapon in the struggle against modernity, or does the explanation lie
deeper?
From jk Fri Jan 8 12:51:16 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
References: <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu>
In <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
> Being a (Burkean) conservative, I am opposed to revolution. On the
>other hand, things seem to be approaching a condition in which revolution
>appears to be the only available recourse, given my deeper beliefs. More
>specifically, I have little hope in the culture in the United States today,
>and it appears to have taken hold so tenaciously that the usual means will
>not be of much avail.
What sort of revolution do you have in mind? Surely not the extralegal
seizure of power by an armed Burkean elite, followed by the forcible
implementation of their political and social program. Pascal's comment
that tyranny is the attempt to get in one way what can only be gotten in
another is very much in point on that idea.
If don't like the way of life you see around you, my suggestion is that
you and likeminded people develop a better way of life. It's still
possible in this country as a legal and practical matter to live
differently from the majority (consider the Mennonites, the Hasids or
the New York homosexual community). If your beliefs about how people
should live are valid, doing so would benefit you and your family and
friends immediately; it also might possibly work as a way of beginning a
general reform of culture, which political revolution clearly would not.
Maybe your point, though, is that a radical break with your society (for
example, choosing to associate mostly with people who disagree with the
goals that are publicly accepted as authoritative, cutting your
connections with big organizations, homeschooling your children, or
whatever) seems somehow unBurkean. It's certainly not what Burke would
have considered ideal, since he thought that man was a social animal and
he didn't like ideological factions. On the other hand, he took facts
very seriously and recognized that necessity can sometimes justify
revolution of one kind or another. For Burke, I think, society is the
condition of achieving the goal of human nature but it is not the goal
itself and it does not create the goal.
So I suppose my advice is to cheer up and join with other people in
living as well as you can under the conditions you have to deal with.
"Living well" may include politics, but in matters of culture it is not
primarily politics.
From jk Fri Jan 8 17:34:54 1993
From: jk
To: mail-server@cs.ruu.nl
Subject: Index
>From comp.sys.atari.st Fri Jan 8 11:40:40 1993
>Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
>Path: panix!cmcl2!yale.edu!spool.mu.edu!uunet!mcsun!sun4nl!ruuinf!atari
>From: atari@cs.ruu.nl (Atari-ST Software)
>Subject: Re: Editor???
>Sender: network-news@cs.ruu.nl
>Message-ID: <1993Jan8.104611.6336@cs.ruu.nl>
>Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 10:46:11 GMT
>References: <1993Jan7.142811.20499@fwi.uva.nl> <1993Jan7.211440.6408@newshost.lanl.gov> <1993Jan7.215054.29914@csi.uottawa.ca>
>Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science
>Lines: 79
In <1993Jan7.215054.29914@csi.uottawa.ca> cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
>>In article 20499@fwi.uva.nl, storm@fwi.uva.nl (Richard G.C. Storm (I89))
>
>For PD stuff, there's lots of stuff out there:
>
>Emacs clones
>vi clones
>origami (a "folding" editor - before I got Sudden View, I used
> Origami. It is pretty nice.)
>Alice - a German editor, very similar to STeno (the GEM Desk
> Accessory). I probably should upload a copy...
>
>Check on atari.archive.umich.edu, in /atari/Editors. There's got to
>be something there that you'll like.
Also available in The Netherlands!
________________________________________________________________________
We, Computer Science department, Utrecht University, are running an
anonymous FTP server on one of our systems. In addition to the FTP
service we're also running a mail server, for those of you without
direct Internet access.
--> How to get 'EDITOR-INDEX' via anonymous FTP:
Site: ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17]
Login: "anonymous" or "ftp"
Password: your own email address (you@your_domain)
file: /pub/ATARI-ST/editors/INDEX
--> How to get 'EDITOR-INDEX' via e-mail from our mail-server:
NOTE: In the following I have assumed that your mail address is
"fred_flintstone@stone.age.edu"; of course you must substitute
your own address for this.
| Please use a VALID DOMAIN ADDRESS.
| Use 'hip!hop!user' if you must.
| Never use an address which has both '!' and '@' in it.
| Bitnetters use user@host.bitnet
Send the following message to
mail-server@cs.ruu.nl
or the old-fashioned path alternative
uunet!mcsun!sun4nl!ruuinf!mail-server
begin
path fred_flintstone@stone.age.edu (SUBSTITUTE _YOUR_ ADDRESS)
send ATARI-ST/editors/INDEX
end
The path command can be deleted if we receive a valid from address in your
message. If this is the first time you use our mail server, we suggest you
first issue the request:
send HELP
A complete "ls-lR" listing of the archive is kept in the top-level
directory, it will be updated every night. To get it, issue the command:
send ls-lR.Z
That's all for now. If you encounter problems using the FTP service
and/or the mail-server, feel free to drop me a line (by e-mail, please).
Regards,
- Ate -
--
Ate Brink, Systems Administrator
Moderator of the Atari archive at the Utrecht University (ftp.cs.ruu.nl)
Email: ate@cs.ruu.nl
atari@cs.ruu.nl Use this if you want to upload a program to the archive
From jk Fri Jan 8 17:38:24 1993
From: jk
To: mail-server@cs.ruu.nl
Subject: Indices
begin
path jk@panix.com
send ATARI-ST/editors/INDEX
send ls-lR.Z
end
From jk Sat Jan 9 10:22:56 1993
From: jk
To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Subject: Re: Dickinson (was Re: Paglia)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
References: <6JAN93.16594170@vax.clarku.edu> <1if7vvINNds8@aludra.usc.edu> ,<1993Jan8.183017.23003@ecrc.de>
The poem you quoted is one of my favorites too. It's hard to make
converts by argument, though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn." (Montaigne)
From jk Sat Jan 9 20:57:48 1993
From: jk
To: rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> <1993Jan8.175345.26614@panix.com> <1993Jan9.065659.28424@news.vanderbilt.edu>
In alt.revolution.counter you write:
>If I could make an excuse, which is something
>generally to be avoided, I would say that it was pretty late at night when
>I made the post, and now it is not so clear to me what prompted it.
It didn't seem all that unclear to me I read it.
One motive for being a conservative is the thought that the world goes
beyond anything any of us can figure out, so it's necessary for a good
life to take advantage of the knowledge implicit in social usages and
habits that arise over time in order to get beyond what we are able to
do individually. Then you look at the world around you and you see that
the social usages and habits that are becoming more and more dominant
are motivated by a rejection of the notion that there's anything of
value in the world that goes beyond things that small minds can
apprehend immediately -- things like physical pleasure or at least
comfort, and social position or at least equality.
It can be depressing, to put it mildly.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn." (Montaigne)
From jk Sun Jan 10 09:12:36 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: apparently a dilemma
References: <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> <1993Jan8.175345.26614@panix.com> <1993Jan9.065659.28424@news.vanderbilt.edu>
rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu writes:
>If I could make an excuse [for "revolution" posting], which is something
>generally to be avoided, I would say that it was pretty late at night when
>I made the post, and now it is not so clear to me what prompted it.
The post seemed to express a state of mind that is comprehensible enough
to me.
One motive for conservativism is the thought that since the world goes
beyond anything any of us can figure out, the good life requires us, in
order to get beyond what we are able to do individually, to take
advantage of the knowledge implicit in social usages and habits that
arise over time. It's just as well that's what the good life requires,
because it's a practical impossibility to avoid basing most of what we
think and do on faith that what other people think and do is valid.
Unfortunately, when we look around us in America in 1992 it seems that
the social usages and habits that are becoming more and more dominant
are motivated by a rejection of the notion that there's anything of
value in the world that goes beyond things (like social position and
physical pleasure, or at least comfort and equality) that the smallest
mind can apprehend immediately. You begin to wonder exactly what it is
that conservatism is supposed to conserve.
It can be upsetting, to put it mildly, and the thought that dominant
social trends are not the only or the most important things that exist
is not always as consoling as it no doubt should be. The point of
conservatism, after all, is that society is important even if it's not
ultimate.
From jk Sun Jan 10 14:43:14 1993
From: jk
To: deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Subject: Re: Hello!
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Jan10.105130.29523@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
>Gentleman! I seem to have stumbled on to an interesting group.
Hi, David -- it was good to read your post. The group's quite new, and
I just joined a few days ago myself. I'll be posting something
publicly in response to some of your points, but thought it was worth
while welcoming you more personally.
>Frankly, computers drive me nuts (i.e., they refuse to think like me!).
You'll get used to them. Like they say, you have to deal with
technological mass society using the stuff that's available in
technological mass society.
>I frankly cannot find any merit in monarchism or reactionary (no insult
>intended) Catholicism. However, I'd be glad to discuss these issues, as
>I suspect that we share similar views on many issues. Judging from the
>other newsgroups I've looked at, this is (potentially at least) an island
>of sanity in a sea of political correctness and vitriolic name calling!
I'm not a monarchist or Catholic, or even much of a Christian. If you
want to have a discussion that's not completely brain-dead, though,
it's good to find people who are aware of what some of the issues are
and aren't shocked to find that people disagree about them. I would
say the same about discussions with European New Rightists.
On USENET, the alternative to P.C. seems to be libertarianism, which is
quite popular among computer and other technological types. A.r.c. is
the only forum I've seen here where discussion from a non-liberal and
non-leftist perspective seems possible. (Of course, one very good
thing about USENET is that you can post anything practically anywhere,
and you're likely to get some sort of response. I find even that
better than simply talking to myself.)
>Have you heard of G.R.E.C.E., Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, or
>Michael Walker and his magazine, The Scorpion? This publication can be
>reached at: Michael Walker, Lutzowstrasse 39, 5000-Koln-1, Germany. A
>very in-depth intellectual journal, practically the only source in
>English of European New Right thought. If interested, you could also
>read Tomislav Sunic's book, "Against Democracy and Equality: The
>European New Right", Peter Lang Pub., 1990. Sunic's book doesn't do the
>subject justice, in my opinion, but it's a good start.
I'll check out The Scorpion, at least if the NYPL gets it. I believe
Sunic has published in _Chronicles_, although I don't recall that I was
particularly impressed by his piece. Is there anything you'd recommend
in German?
>P.S., since some of you like to sign off with quotes, here's of few
>of my own favorites:
You should look into the wonders of the .signature file. A whole world
of computing excitement lies before you . . .
Jim
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn." (Montaigne)
From jk Sun Jan 10 14:45:43 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Hello!
References: <1993Jan10.105130.29523@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Totalitarianism exists where the attempt is made to force one absolute
>truth, one good, one idea, one God, as the only truth [ . . . ]
>Essentially the ENR (the term New Right was coined by their enemies)
>is pagan in spirit, and passionately pro-European [ . . . ] The ENR
>would argue that the past 2,000 years has been a slow process of the
>de-paganizing of Europe.
Sounds like someone has been reading Nietzsche. One question: what do
they identify as the lost non-Christian and non-totalitarian Europe to
which they owe allegiance? For example, are there any pre-Christian
European thinkers that the ENR particularly likes? Any particular
pre-Christian European societies? Why did Europe become Christian if
Christianity is unEuropean?
>I believe that the process of social disintegration has gone so far
>that breakdown and revolution are inevitable. Moreover, the logic of
>liberal totalitarianism (and remember, American conservatives are
>simply right- wing liberals) is such that I doubt that any group which
>tries to resist assimilation into the mass culture will be allowed to
>exist [ . . . ] True, the authority of the State to do this is always
>under attack. But the collapse of State authority and instability will
>only lead to a greater, stronger tyranny. Anarchy = Tyranny.
I have more sympathy with this view than I would like, and sometimes
find Plato's account in Book VIII of his _Republic_ a compelling
description of what we are seeing. There, you no doubt remember, he
describes how society devolves from a mythical perfect order to a
military aristocracy based on honor, and then to a commercial oligarchy
based on profit, a democratic consumer society based on freedom,
equality and hedonism, and finally to a tyranny. The process moved
fairly quickly in the small states with which Plato was familiar, but
has moved very slowly in Western society as a whole. The fear, of
course, is that the vast scale and slow speed of the transformations we
are seeing makes them all the more complete and irresistible.
From jk Mon Jan 11 11:50:14 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: ENR
References: <1993Jan11.001202.7408@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
In <1993Jan11.001202.7408@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>In many ways, our modern
>political ideologies are secularized Christian heresies.
No doubt, but heresies are not the same as the thing itself. One can
think of religion as something that does not dominate the world but
instead provides a transcendental point of reference that enables us to
make sense of the world and our action in it, and find those things
good. Somewhat similarly, the concept of "truth" doesn't dictate
anything and doesn't refer to anything that we can altogether grasp, but
it gives a reference point for organizing and making sense of our
understanding of things. Modern political ideologies are rather
different.
>I should point out that ENR's "paganism" does not necessarily mean the
>revival of ancient religions - I am aware that some are doing this - u
>but rather, they mean by paganism a certain mentality, a "new hellenism"
>which can provide menaing and spiritual impetus to a rejuvenated Europe.
I would be interested in knowing more about which Greeks they have in
mind. People find affinities between Plato, the tragedians, various
post-Socratic philosophers, and Christianity, and Simone Weil would have
said there are affinities between Christianity and the Iliad. Maybe all
those people are wrong, of course -- I don't have a fully-developed
theory on the subject.
>(Karl) Popper accused Plato of being "the first totalitarian". Not sure
>the ENR would agree. Plato, in the Republic, is fixed on the one aim of
>building a strong, stable state, but there is no hint of the messianic
>desire to make the whole world adhere to his blueprint. An interesting
>problem.
Plato considered his republic possible, but just barely. He understood
the difficulties of politics, which the totalitarians think can be
obviated through the use of force. So I wouldn't call him a
totalitarian.
>I'm not sure if the transformations you mentioned are taking place as
>slowly as you might think [ . . . ]
What I had in mind (using the language of economics) was feudalism ->
capitalism -> consumerism -> [?], a series of transformations related to
those Plato describes, and that have taken hundreds of years. There are
no doubt other ways of thinking about the matter.
From jk Mon Jan 11 15:10:54 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US? (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
References: <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> <1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu>
In <1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu> norris@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Chonak) writes:
>Has anyone given any thought to the possibility of breaking up the US into
>several countries of more reasonable size?
It's hard to imagine much support for this. Abstract American
nationality is one of the few things we Americans have in common that
rise above day-to-day concerns, so people hang on to it tenaciously.
It would be odd in this newsgroup to criticize a proposal on the grounds
it is not immediately practicable, though. Quite possibly, arguing for
such a measure would be a way of dramatizing the need for public values,
such as those you mention, that go beyond what we now have:
>Here are some possible benefits (just off the top of my head, so to speak):
> -- each new nation would be more homogeneous in culture and values
> -- the break-up would be an instant step toward greater subsidiarity
> -- no more flag-worship: the new nations would identify patriotism
> more with place and people, less with 'democratic' ideology
Quite possibly the proposal would seem sensible as part of an overall
program designed to advance the sorts of things you mention. As such,
it might have the virtue (apart from any practical benefits if actually
carried out) of drawing attention to your cause.
From jk Tue Jan 12 10:08:10 1993
From: jk
To: mm68@unix.brighton.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Mail-Server Help Needed
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
References: <1993Jan11.114912.4644@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
In comp.sys.atari.st you write:
>I have been trying (in vain) to get the mail server at
>atari@atari.archive.umich.edu
>to send me the Heat and Serve C Compiler with the mail body containing the
>line
>send languages/sozo133i.zoo
>which I was told of by someone, but I keep getting no such directory
>and a BART error from the server. Can anyone help?
>Also, does anyone have any other addresses for good atari software via
>mail-server or ftp?
You should say "send Languages/ . . . " All directory names have
initial capitals.
The FAQ for this newsgroup (the part about software) lists archives with
mailservers. If you have trouble getting it I should be able to send
you a copy.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we
disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn." (Montaigne)
From jk Tue Jan 12 10:30:05 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Time to break up the US? (was: Re: apparently a dilemma)
References: <1993Jan8.062824.12094@news.vanderbilt.edu> <1993Jan11.024218.21875@athena.mit.edu>
In drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>Another thing that Americans have in common is The Constitution, and
>the cluster of political values it is based on. Since we have so
>little else on which to base our sense of "nationhood" (especially
>because we are an immigrant nation), The Constitution is held sacred
>here to a degree that Europeans find hard to believe. Unfortunately,
>it seems that counter-revolution (as far as I can tell what you people
>mean by the phrase) would require doing away with the Constituion, and
>many of the political values under it.
Depends on what you mean by "the Constitution". If you mean the body of
doctrine currently applied by the Supreme Court, you are right. That
doesn't seem the relevant meaning, though, since doctrine has changed
radically from time to time while reverence for the Constitution has
remained largely unchanged.
People's political goals differ. But there aren't many goals that would
be inconsistent with text of the Constitution (possibly with a few
amendments), together with some body of doctrine that bears a
relationship to the text of the Constitution similar to that borne by
current constitutional doctrine. If constitutional values are stated
appropriately, almost anything can be gotten out of them and the process
need not even be in particular bad faith. So I don't agree with your
final sentence.
From jk Thu Jan 14 11:22:48 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.bbs.internet
Subject: Re: Internet Access in NYC
References: <16B4D534.AVERNON1@ua1vm.ua.edu>
In andras@well.sf.ca.us (Andrew Raskin) writes:
>> ><< panix >>
>> >name ----------> PANIX Public Accss Unix
>> >dialup --------> (718) 832-1525 'newuser'
>> >fees ----------> $19/month or $208/year + $40 signup
It's worth noting that you can get UNIX, email and news (no ftp, etc) at
2400 b.p.s. for $10 a month or $100 a year and no signup.
>Panix is a public access unix which I used for a while before changing
>accounts. The single biggest problem with panix is that Alexis (hi
>Alexis!) is a dunce and I still feel ripped off for ever giving him my money.
This comment is simply extraordinary. I don't know what leads Mr.
Raskin to say this, but it makes him sound like a crank.
>If you login to panix you find out that the Sparcstation 2 is there
>sitting in a room, and panix is running on a Mac because they have not
>figured out how to hook a Sun into the network.
I'm writing this from the panix sun.
>Panix always has stupid problems with simple things that should work right
>but never do, the second problem I had while there was that nothing is
>secured properly.
Not that I or any other user I know of has ever noticed.
I would urge anyone who wants USENET or UNIX access in NYC to try panix.
There are hundred of satisfied users here, largely because of the
remarkable job Alexis has done running the system.
From jk Fri Jan 15 11:03:22 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
References: <1993Jan13.063755.21640@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Jan14.045026.9606@athena.mit.edu>
In drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>If "Americanism" is a matter of genetic descent, then
>immigrants are automatically non-American, as are their descendents to
>the n-th generation. Under the present form of Americanism, someone
>who is willing to "play by our rules" can be admitted as an American.
I don't think anyone has suggested a genetic test for being an American.
The suggestion, I believe, is that a national community, like other
communities, is something that arises over time among people who live
together. It requires more than a willingness to play by a set of
formal political rules, but doesn't require ideological or genetic
conformity to some fixed standard.
The idea, as I understand it, is that our patriotism as Americans should
be attachment to the land and people of America. Such attachment
requires a certain degree of cohesiveness among the people, which takes
time to evolve, but not purity in accordance with some set criterion.
>"America for the American people!" doesn't sound so bad, but remember
>that that's pretty much the same as "Germany for the German
>people!"...
Is the Hitler argument a strong one for you? _Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein
Fuehrer_ is a call for a mass society organized in accordance with
simple and thoroughgoing logic. That's the opposite of what the
counterrevs I know of want.
From jk Fri Jan 15 11:18:06 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Hierarchical government
References:
In drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>Interestingly, the US government is much more hierarchial than many
>other countries.
True, and from my standpoint that's a good thing. On the other hand, we
have less regional diversity than most other countries. (Compare what
you see in a 500 mile auto trip in the U.S. to what you'd see in a trip
of the same length in Europe.)
>BTW, what do you counter-revolutionaries think about elections? Are
>they a good way to select the officers of government?
Saying "you CRs" is sort of like saying "you leftists". Once you get
out of the mainstream there are a great many possible positions.
By and large, I like elections. They're a way of making government
officers answerable to someone other than themselves. They make the
government more stable by making the people feel part of it. By giving
serious public responsibilities to the people they give the people the
opportunity and the obligation to rise to those responsibilities.
From jk Fri Jan 15 11:44:40 1993
From: jk
To: norris@mit.edu
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Jan13.063755.21640@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Jan14.045026.9606@athena.mit.edu>
I just replied to Dale Worley's comment on your most recent post because
I couldn't keep quiet. I hope I got the view you were presenting right,
although I tried to fudge my attributions of opinion.
I should say that I've enjoyed reading your posts. This newsgroup seems
to be turning into a very useful forum for discussing political views
that are neither conventional, left-wing, nor libertarian (up to now the
three possibilities on USENET).
Do you know what happened to the integrists? I used to be on an
integrist mailing list (COUNTEREV-L) that never had any traffic. Maybe
they're all monks who have taken a vow of silence. I wish they'd return
-- at this point the more perspectives we have the better.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein." (Rilke)
From jk Sat Jan 16 10:13:35 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What's this counterrevolution stuff, anyway?
References: <1993Jan13.162612.29852@panix.com> <15JAN199316281080@mivax.mc.duke.edu>
seth@mivax.mc.duke.edu (Judge Not) writes:
In article , jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes...
>[I]n the absence of religion we get chaos and tyranny, neither of which
>are our true element.
>
>Is there an objective measure of our true element?
Our true element is the element in which what is best in us can
florish. That measure is as objective as other matters regarding what
we should and should not do.
>Does your true element correspond to mine?
I don't know you, but I would think they are very likely to correspond
in fundamental respects at least.
>Do I have the right to force my element on you?
What should be done if people's true elements differ in important ways
depends on circumstances. If "Judge Not" is a pen name for Mr. Dahmer,
who until recently was living in his true element, then I do think I
have the right to force my element on you. A less extreme case is
someone whose true element is Viking Iceland. If most other people
find that their true element is the 20th century Swedish welfare state,
then that someone is out of luck. On the other hand, if your true
element is metalwork and mine is woodworking, maybe we can work
something out.
>In the absence of religion we only get atheism.
"Only" suggests atheism has no consequences. Why shouldn't one's
fundamental understanding of what the world is like have consequences?
>Chaos and tyranny can exist quite well in religion, as past Popes have
>shown (I use pope for an example since I was born catholic; my intent
>is not to discredit catholicism).
My claim was that atheism is sufficient for chaos and tyranny, not that
it is necessary.
>There are many well-ordered societies without choas, tryanny, religion
>or "political hierarchy". Usenet is one.
Usenet does not bear the responsibility for dealing with suffering,
death, human failure and self-destructiveness, economic scarcity, or
the ability people have in other settings to get their way by force.
It also doesn't aim very high -- people who get overly caught up in it
are sometimes told to "get a life". What's sufficient for a small
fragment of society like Usenet need not be sufficient for society as a
whole. (BTW, there *is* a hierarchy in Usenet -- I, for example, do
not have the power my systems administrator does.)
>In the absence of hierarchy you get freedom.
For human beings, "freedom" makes sense only in a social world since
almost everything we want, from hamburgers to winning the Nobel Prize,
depends on society. But the social world includes people who are quite
different from each other and whose intentions may conflict. Sorting
out the conflicts and establishing long-term and complex forms of
cooperation requires some sort of hierarchy, it seems to me. So
freedom requires hierarchy.
From jk Sun Jan 17 09:55:47 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: comments
References: <1993Jan17.021355.29793@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>The universal culture that Mr. Martin sees is in fact the product of
>the world market, run by and for multinational corporations whose only
>interest is to maximize their power and profits, regardless of the
>damage this does to the environment or the living cultures of humanity.
Any institutional power multinational corporations may have doesn't seem
particularly important to me. The important thing is the market itself
as one of the two institutions (the other being the bureaucratic state)
that are reorganizing all of life in accordance with hedonistic
individualism and instrumental rationality.
I should admit that like a lot of right-wingers I don't have a very
good theory about how to deal with the market. You can view the market
as simply a collection of practices and institutions that have arisen
because over time people have found them practically useful in
day-to-day life and that continue to exist only because people continue
to find it useful to order their lives in accordance with them. From
that standpoint, I think, conservatives should find the market good.
On the other hand, people have weaknesses, like treating means (success
in the market) as ends (the good life). How to deal with that
particular weakness is a serious problem. Mere good intentions don't
last. Luke-warm hippies turn into dedicated yuppies. Many individuals
and even whole communities (like the Amish) have found a religious
solution and that may be the only real answer, but it's not one that
political measures can contribute much to. Part of the problem, of
course, is that the desire for market success leads people to try to
promote this weakness in others by advertising and so on. (Plato
comments on this aspect of the problem.)
>I might add that G.R.E.C.E. and the European New Right are opposed to
>"the American way of life" which closely corresponds to the kind of
>"global village" Mr. Martin is advocating. The "values" of this "west-
>ern" culture, are in fact the negation of values and culture and are
>nothing more than the worship of hedonism, consumerism, fad "ideolog-
>ies", the fetish of the market and "democracy", uncritical acceptance
>of universal and egalitarian ideals, unrestrained capitalism, and a
>loss of attachment to ethnic loyalties, cultural amnesia, and the
>"massification" of the people leaving them in state of incredible
>ignorance, easily manipulated by the media and the admen, themselves
>victims of a vociferous and hypocritical moralism.
This way of speaking is all very well in its place as long as it's
borne in mind that other conceptions of Western culture and the
American way of life are possible. It is the task of CRs to promote
such other conceptions.
>That we are not equal should be seen in a positive, not a negative
>light. We are talking, of course, about two kinds of equality:
>physical/mental equality, and equality of rights. The first kind can be
>demolished easily: no one is equally strong, equally smart, equally
>brave, equally healthy, equally industrious, etc. Because this is so,
>we work together best as a hierarchical whole - but not simply through
>cooperation, rather through cooperation and authority. To put it
>bluntly, the strong dominate the weak and the clever dominate the
>strong.
It's worth noting that hierarchies are not absolute and inequalities
include differences other than stronger/weaker on a single scale. The
owner is no doubt at the top of the hierarchy in a building project,
but he's also absolutely dependent on the other people involved to get
anything done. The architect is in charge of design but his design has
to be something the owner likes and the chief contractor can deal with.
He has to rely on engineering standards to tell him what can and can't
be done and may be recognized as the artistic inferior of the man who
carves the ornamental stonework around the doors and windows.
From jk Tue Jan 19 07:13:41 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Efficient markets-->fragmented enterprise (was Re: distributism)
References: <1993Jan19.004302.4866@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>Certainly the number of people who are self-employed or who are working
>for family operations is much less than it used to be, though again it
>would be nice to see some solid, reliable stats.
Depends on how far back you go for the "used to be". The percentage of
the workforce employed by large corporations is noticeably less than 20
years ago. Part of the reason for the change is the trend toward
employment in the service industries, in which there are fewer
economies of scale than in manufacturing, and part is the increase in
the efficiency of markets as a means of coordinating economic activity
due to improvements in communication and information handling.
("Outsourcing" of parts by manufacturers is an example of how such
improvements can lead to the fragmentation of productive activity among
multiple small enterprises.)
>In any case, it seems to me that "the market", no matter what the
>composition of the participants may be, tends to reduce, as we agree,
>the kind of republican virtues needed for our society to work, _but_ I
>would argue, the kinds of people this process produces are less likely
>to want (or be able) to run their own businesses, and more likely to
>accept the uniformity, but stability, of a large employer.
The market can be viewed as a machine for turning anything and
everything into money, and I think the recent developments I mentioned
have made it a better machine for that purpose. As a result, those who
have become fascinated with the process of turning things into money
make lives out of playing that game at as high a level as they can.
These are the entrepreneurs and high-stakes careerists, and there are
more of them now than in the recent past. I would agree that the
majority is more interested in a stable income, and I expect a lot of
politicking to revolve around whether to give market forces and
consequent fragmentation and instability free rein (which would
maximize money) or to impose controls in the interests of stability
(which to the extent the controls worked would let most people enjoy
their money more and also protect established business interests from
entrepreneurial upstarts). Competition from foreign producers nudges
us toward the former outcome and the desires of most people toward the
latter.
In either case, republican virtue loses, because if you have a
first-rate machine for turning everything into money then everything
has a price, and people tend to think of things that way because it is
convenient to do so.
From jk Tue Jan 19 07:15:59 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Monarchism
References: <1jfis8INNqeg@mirror.digex.com>
rcheek@access.digex.com (Richard Cheek) writes:
>[D]emocracy is in need of a stabilizing element. Such would see the
>national interest as being identical to its own, that would be of such
>wealth that it would be above, generally speaking, simple corruption,
>and that might operate as a neutral (mostly) referee in societies
>struggles among its various interests. Such an office it seems is
>clearly a monarchy.
A lot of people see the Supreme Court as playing this role in the
United States today. The justices aren't rich but they're financially
secure and rarely have further personal ambitions so that simple
corruption has never been a problem. Those who don't like what the
Court has been doing for the past 50 years or so should consider that
the problems may be cultural rather than institutional.
>It is interesting to note the contrast in how modernist handle defeat
>and hostile organizations vrs that of conservatives. When the modernist
>is deafeated, he quickly forms alliances with theose factions that
>might be inclined to deal with him, the conservative typically pouts
>and drops membership. The modernist will accomodate what he can't
>resist openly and fight what he can, one issue at a time, getting
>around to each issue in its own time, as he nibbbles away at his
>opposition. Conservatives tend to go for the whole pie or nothing at
>all, usually ending up with nothing at all.
The modernists have always believed history is on their side, so that
defeats are only local and temporary and anything that shakes things up
will end with things sorting themselves out for their advantage. The
conservatives have agreed that history is against them, so once they've
lost something it's dead forever and they might as well drop out of the
struggle.
From jk Wed Jan 20 15:39:35 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: More on the free market
The recent discussions here about distributivism, multinational
corporations, and so on have led me to puzzle a little over the relation
between the free market and the modern political and cultural trends
under discussion.
That relation goes deep and is hard to grasp completely. The most
systematic account is the Marxist theory that man is fundamentally a
producer whose social relationships and understanding of the world
develop in accordance with the requirements of the current means of
production (for example, the state of technology). The Marxist theory
is defective, though, because it leaves too much out: man is not only,
or even most fundamentally, a producer of economic goods.
Even though I don't have a systematic theory, I'll offer some thoughts
to anyone who's interested:
For a long time a fundamental trend in the West has been the liberation
of desire from social and personal restraints. The political
manifestation of that trend has been the pursuit of liberty, understood
as the liberty of the individual to do whatever he happens to feel like
doing, and of equality, understood at first as the equal absence of
formal restraints on the will (e.g., everyone who wishes to do so is
equally allowed to sleep under bridges) but now increasingly understood
as the equal absence of material restraints on the will (i.e.,
equalization of life chances).
The free market has contributed to this trend in several ways:
1. By leading to more efficient production and distribution of
transferable goods, thereby multiplying the objects of need or desire
that can be obtained and enjoyed without regard to anything social other
than the payment of money. Instead of relying on family and friends for
the necessities as well as the pleasures of life, people can set up in
their own condos, and amuse themselves by drinking beer while watching
their VCRs.
2. By making it profitable for producers to undermine restraints on the
desires of their customers through advertising and so on.
3. By its success in doing what it set out to do. An enterprise that
is outstandingly successful, like modern science or the modern free
market, gains prestige and attracts and focuses the efforts of many of
the most energetic, capable and articulate people in society. As a
result, the outlook and standards characteristic of the enterprise
become dominant in society at large. In the case of the market, that
outlook includes the sense that all goods are convertible into money,
which means that no good and no desire is by its nature better than any
other.
However, the free market also imposes certain restrictions on the
liberation of desire because the market needs producers as well as
consumers. Producers have to pull themselves together in order to
produce, and doing so requires discipline and the sacrifice of immediate
gratification to long-term goals. It follows that the trend toward
liberation eventually requires the state to step in to correct what are
felt as the deficiencies of the market (e.g., repressive social
arrangements and unequal outcomes).
The state, though, will find it difficult in the long run to do so on
any large scale because at some point its actions will start interfering
with production, either directly (through taxes, regulations and the
like) or indirectly (through undermining the discipline that makes
production possible). At that point a crisis will occur, the likely
outcome of which will be some form of tyranny due to the inability of
the people to agree on any other attainable outcome.
Comments?
From jk Thu Jan 21 10:09:25 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
References: <1993Jan13.063755.21640@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes (in a post that only reached my site
just now even though it was sent over a week ago):
>An 'abstract nationality' is the negation of nationality. Consider the
>USSR. Or Rome.
It's interesting how much of a hold an abstract nationality can have on
people, though. "Civis Romanus sum" was a proud claim, and the idea of
the Roman Empire remained compelling long after 476 A.D. And I read
somewhere that even prisoners in Soviet labor camps found it very hard
not to respond to appeals based on their still being "Soviet persons".
From jk Fri Jan 22 10:12:35 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Mastodon Poetry (was Deconstructing Angelou)
References: <1jmvhtINNoft@morrow.stanford.edu> <106040@netnews.upenn.edu>
In article <1jmvhtINNoft@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
> ... the mastadon, the dinosaur
> who left dry tokens of their sojourn
> here on our planet floor ...
It's good to see an addition to the genre of mastodon poetry. The only
other example I know of is a parody of _The Waste Land_:
"You have no guide nor clue,
For you know only puce snakes and violet mastodons,
Where the brain beats, and a selzer is no anwer, a vomit no relief . . ."
I seem to remember a few paleolithic and earlier references in Kipling
("When the Cambrian measures were forming, we were promised perpetual
peace . . ."), but I don't think he specifically mentions mastodons.
Can anyone suggest any other examples?
From jk Fri Jan 22 22:24:02 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
References: <1993Jan21.235301.10403@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu writes
>Let me be more specific about my examples: Rome itself started out as a
>real, organic people who were very proud to say "Civis Romanus sum". By
>the time "Rome" had become completely abstract and universal, it was
>simply a system of government and a set of shared language(s),
>culture(s) and vague ideals. Eventually, every- body in the empire
>became a citizen - precisely at the moment when Roman citizenship had
>become a meaningless concept.
It would be interesting to know more about this. It is my impression
that the complex made up of Roman government, language, culture and
ideals kept their magnetism for a long time. Many barbarians very much
wanted to be part of the Roman world, for example.
China may be a similar case -- the magnetism of a similar cultural and
political complex lay behind the expansion of China from a
comparatively limited area in the valley of the Yellow River to its
present extent. My understanding is that Chinese civilization and
culture and the Chinese empire have always had a very close connection
-- our word "China" comes from the Chin dynasty that united China in
the 3rd century B.C., and the Chinese term for a Chinese person is "man
of Han", after the Han dynasty, while in Canton the expression is "man
of Tang", after the later Tang dynasty that first made Canton part of
China.
>I certainly would not reject such universal ideals out of hand, but I
>would like to make the point that such universalisms tend to erode the
>foundation of particular loyalties on which the universal (or at least
>partially universal) loyalty is built.
It seems to me that we need both universalism and individualism, but
neither should be at the expense of the things in between. How you do
that is the great problem. Probably it is best if the universal
element in society remains ideal (like the concepts of "Greece" before
Alexander, "Christendom" in the Middle Ages, and "Europe" in early
modern times) while our practical life and loyalties remain with things
that are closer to us. Maybe it crushes the human spirit for the
universal element in society to be something that has too much
practical reality. (Again, it would be instructive to consider Rome and
China, the universal empires of their day.)
Remind me to bring all this stuff down to earth some day . . .
From jk Sat Jan 23 20:27:52 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Nation? Constitution? Where?
References:
In cla04@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>How about 'Yugoslav' as an abstract nationality that failed?
It certainly seems to have failed. Maybe abstract nationality works in
the case of a state with claims to universality (Rome, China, USA,
USSR), at least until the basis of those claims is generally repudiated
(USSR).
>GOD BLESS LANCASHIRE
>Univ. of Keele,
>Staffs
^^^^^^
Do you feel in exile at Keele?
From jk Mon Jan 25 15:44:06 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
References: <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu>
In <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu> nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye) writes:
>It [abortion] can't be [wrong] because one is preventing or
>destroying a potential human for the same reasons -- the IUD prevents
>the fertilized ovum from implanting and therefore must have caused far
>more potential humans not to have developed than abortion.
My impression is that most people who regard abortion as wrong from
conception have major problems with the IUD.
As I understand it, the objection such people have is not an objection
to destroying potential life. Rather, the idea is that once the ovum is
fertilized a particular human life has come into being and it is wrong
to destroy that particular actual life, at least without a very good
justification. My life, one might say, is the same particular human
life that I had when I was two, and still earlier in my mother's womb
all the way back to conception. So if there's something wrong about
murder that transcends utilitarian concerns, one might believe that the
wrongness has to do with the fundamental wrongness of destroying a
particular human life as such.
>Unfortunately, since the soul is a supernatural concept, there is
>nothing which natural science can tell us about it, much less prove its
>existence.
If someone regarded the taking of a particular human life as the feature
that made abortion bad, but identified human life with human sentience,
then by "soul" he might simply mean sentient human life, say that
abortion becomes bad when the child is "ensouled", and find natural
science relevant to determining when that is.
From jk Mon Jan 25 15:58:27 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Mastodon Poetry
References: <1jmvhtINNoft@morrow.stanford.edu> <106040@netnews.upenn.edu> <1993Jan24.220725.18380@grebyn.com>
In <1993Jan24.220725.18380@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>Now it's going to come up sooner or later anyway, so we might as
>well decide from the start: will we allow poems containing references
>to either of the two types of extinct woolly pachyderms?
I'd be inclined to, although of course some critics hold that a mastodon
is to a mammoth as tragedy is to melodrama or comedy to farce.
> happy mastodon/mammoth poetry hunting,
I'm having trouble. I did electronic searches of both _Paradise Lost_
and the Bible (available by ftp from SIMTEL), and discovered that
neither Milton nor the Psalmists mention either animal, at least
explicitly. I've not given up, though.
From jk Tue Jan 26 11:03:03 1993
From: jk
To: akiy@siva.cs.titech.ac.jp
Subject: Re: Paradise Lost
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
References:
In rec.arts.books you write:
>I was wondering if anyone out there had any pointers/tips on reading
>this massive work. I'm no English person and I haven't read the
>bible, which I'm sure are some disadvantages. Should I stoop so low
>as to buying a Cliffs Notes? Or are there any good companion books
>out there that explain the allusions and overall "meanings" to help me
>on my journey?
C.S. Lewis wrote a very readable introduction to Paradise Lost (I think
it is actually called "Introduction to Paradise Lost"). I wouldn't
disdain Cliff's Notes either -- anything is justified if it helps you
get by the references to things that a 20th Century Japanese would have
no reason to have heard of, and the difficulties of Milton's diction and
syntax (early readers complained that Milton "wrote no language"). I
would also look at Samuel Johnson's life of Milton in his _Lives of the
Poets_ for some background about the man.
Once you get by the difficulties, it's a great poem with grand
conceptions and magnificent and powerful language. Reading it when I
was 19 was one of the formative experiences of my life. It had never
occurred to me that anything so splendid could exist.
Good luck.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein." (Rilke)
From jk Tue Jan 26 14:17:02 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
References: <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu> <1993Jan25.231311.46762@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
In <1993Jan25.231311.46762@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> hippee@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>The only question for me concerns the apparent choice which one has when
>one becomes "infected" with this particular parasite [an unborn child].
>I would, however, beg to remind anyone who would challenge on these
>grounds that would remove the lice from their hair, the worms from their
>dogs, and the ticks from their cat.
Your reminder would dispose of the matter if it were unreasonable to
believe that the unborn child is of more value than a louse, a worm or a
tick. Is that your view?
From jk Wed Jan 27 12:16:50 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.restaurants
Subject: Re: Newsgroup: "panix.restaurants" created.
Keywords: restaurant restaurants
Distribution: panix
References: <1993Jan26.233922.10522@panix.com>
In jsb@panix.com (J. S. B'ach) writes:
>)Favorite Indian food in the East Village -- Mitali.
>)
>Favorite in the West Village--Mitali West
Why not try Jackson Heights? The Jackson Diner is wonderful, and I'm
told there are others that are equally good.
From panix!jk Wed Jan 27 12:19:42 EST 1993
Article: 4885 of talk.philosophy.misc
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!jk
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
Message-ID:
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
References: <1993Jan26.165502.3349@cnsvax.uwec.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 14:07:18 GMT
nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye) writes:
[I had written:]
>>As I understand it, the objection such people have is not an objection
>>to destroying potential life. Rather, the idea is that once the ovum is
>>fertilized a particular human life has come into being and it is wrong
>>to destroy that particular actual life, at least without a very good
>>justification.
>You deleted the stuff about how I couldn't see any practical difference
>between removing the ovum before and after fertilization. I still
>don't.
I thought you were comparing removal before and after implantation
(hence your IUD discussion).
>The sperm and ovum were just as much alive before fertilization. The
>only difference is that the ovum now has some new chromosomes. I don't
>see anything magically different about that.
The difference is that neither the sperm nor the unfertilized ovum can
be understood as the bearer of a particular actual human life, while
the fertilized ovum can.
It's possible for me to identify myself with what I was when I was a
2-year-old, when I was a newborn, when I was a 9 or 6 month foetus, and
so on all the way back to conception, because most of my fundamental
characteristics and propensities were fixed then and my subsequent
development can be understood as a process of unfolding and further
determining what was already there.
It's much more difficult for me to identify myself with the
unfertilized egg that after fertilization became me because the
unfertilized egg could have developed normally into a man or a woman, a
Eurasian, white or mulatto, a brilliant mathematician or a congenital
idiot, and so on. In addition, it seems that the unfertilized egg was
no more me than the sperm that eventually fertilized it, and until
conception there was no particular reason to tie the two together.
>>If someone regarded the taking of a particular human life as the feature
>>that made abortion bad, but identified human life with human sentience,
>>then by "soul" he might simply mean sentient human life, say that
>>abortion becomes bad when the child is "ensouled", and find natural
>>science relevant to determining when that is.
>
>I have no objections if you want to redefine "soul" that way, but the
>standard definition is "the immortal part of man, separate from the
>physical body", which implies that is is strictly supernatural.
In your original post it seemed as though you were trying to describe
the possible arguments against abortion and why you thought they didn't
work. My intention was simply to restate the argument in a way that
didn't require anything supernatural (which seemed to be your objection
to to arguments tying the impermissibility of abortion to sentience).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein." (Rilke)
From jk Wed Jan 27 16:01:26 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
References: <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu> <1993Jan25.231311.46762@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1993Jan27.044244.2582@news.eng.convex.com>
In mfragass@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Michael Fragassi) writes:
> But then, the issue becomes whether one believes preservation of this
>potential is more important than the quality of the life of the mother and the
>child-to-be.
Here you seem to suggest an argument for abortion based on the quality
of life the child would have had if he had not been aborted. There's
something puzzling about that line of thought in any but the hardest
cases (e.g., some congenital defect that would make the child's life
short and painful). Is that really the sort of argument you have in
mind, or are you thinking instead of benefits to the quality of life of
other children (such as brothers and sisters who would be burdened in
some way by an additional sibling) or society at large?
From jk Thu Jan 28 10:25:41 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
References: <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu> <1993Jan25.231311.46762@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1993Jan27.150732.46798@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
In <1993Jan27.150732.46798@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> hippee@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>My position is that a human life is no MORE worth any other.
The objection to restrictions on abortion about which people usually
feel strongest that such restrictions are restrictions on human
autonomy. Is it also your position that human autonomy is worth no more
than (to use your examples) the autonomy of a louse, tick or worm? If
so, on what do you base your apparent opposition to such restrictions?
Not on human welfare, I assume, unless you are similarly concerned about
the welfare of lice, ticks and worms.
>The point,
>however, does not hinge on this. Instead, the point is that the individual
>who is doing the living on someone else (the parasite) should have the
>permission to do so or face the prospect of an attempt by the host to be
>removed.
Would it be relevant if the relationship of absolute dependency (the
parasitic relationship) were the reasonably forseeable consequence of
the host's voluntary actions? It seems to me that in that case the
host's knowing and voluntary conduct could do the work of consent, and
her obligations could depend on the nature and value of the parasite.
For example, if someone does something that makes a tapeworm dependent
on her, too bad for the tapeworm. On the other hand, if someone
knowingly and voluntarily does something that has the reasonably
forseeable result that I am dependent on her for my very existence for 9
months, it doesn't seem unfair to say that she has to put up with me for
that period.
From jk Thu Jan 28 14:58:35 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Abortion (was Vegetarianism)
References: <1993Jan24.140528.3259@cnsvax.uwec.edu> <1993Jan25.231311.46762@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <1993Jan27.044244.2582@news.eng.convex.com> <1993Jan27.152539.46799@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
In mfragass@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Michael Fragassi) writes:
> As to _why_ they reject that ethical standard, is basically because of:
>[ . . . ] their belief in special "sanctity" of human life
>(which is not necessarily the same as having the soul, but does hinge on a
>belief in a Creator of mankind) [ . . . ]
I'm not sure that belief in a creator of mankind is relevant to belief
in the special sanctity of human life. Presumably, the creator of
mankind would also be the creator of everything else. And many people
don't believe in a creator of mankind but nonetheless have moral
objections to treating taking a human life as something to be weighed in
the ordinary scales of cost/benefit analysis. Such objections seem to
be based on the view that the value of a particular human life
transcends other values and therefore has a sort of sanctity.
From jk Fri Jan 29 22:13:26 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Random thoughts on the American Dream
Summary: It's a dumb idea
As promised, random thoughts:
The United States is a country that exists because people chose to come
here, so people think it is a country with a purpose. Since one name
for that purpose is the "American Dream", conceptions of the American
Dream shed light on what we agree is important. It appears from recent
discussions that the American Dream has become the dream of career and
consumption. We believe that happiness consists in a steadily rising
social position, in moderate pleasure, and above all in comfort.
Such an outlook is natural in a peaceful and prosperous country with a
diverse population, with no aristocracy or established church, and with
political institutions based on consent and economic institutions based
on property rights and exchange. In such a country it is difficult to
accept any goals as superior to those that people in fact are generally
inclined to pursue in day-to-day life. The conventional conception of
happiness that arises in such a society is likely to have nothing
refined or demanding about it.
Many people find such an conception of happiness unsatisfying and try
to do better without having a very clear idea of what would constitute
an improvement. These attempts take several forms. Some people pursue
adventure -- experience that is not constrained by social conventions.
Others idealize equality -- the principle that career and consumption
must be equally accessible to everyone. However, neither adventure nor
equality remedy the defects of the American Dream. Adventure leads to
disillusionment because it leads nowhere. On the other hand,
thoroughgoing egalitarianism destroys everything it touches because to
exist is to be distinguishable from other things, while the more
limited idealization of equality we are familiar with in America leads
to weariness because of its promotion of mediocrity and its pettiness.
Of course, when not taken seriously adventure and equality have their
rewards. The pose of adventurousness is advantageous because it
presumes that one's goals are superior to what others are satisfied
with. Presenting oneself as an egalitarian has similar advantages
because it undercuts any presumptions of superiority other people may
may have while putting oneself in the position of dictating how the
world should be organized. The problem is that since these rewards are
fraudulent they are the rewards of waya of life that are even less
noble than the pursuit of the American Dream.
The radical flaw of the American Dream is that it locates the good
within experience rather than valuing experience for pointing to a good
outside itself. Its deficiencies are the deficiencies of experience
considered without regard to what it is experience of. Since our
experience of other people is determined more by how they treat us than
what they are, the American Dream is of social position rather than of
love. Since what we experience most immediately if our experience of
things is good is pleasure rather than the contemplation of reality,
the American Dream has no room for truth or beauty.
Experience is not of itself, but is of something that is not
experience. It follows that to devalue what is not experience is in
the end to devalue experience. Making experience intense does not make
it into a self-sufficient good, nor is equalizing experiences a
compensation for what experience in itself lacks.
It follows that the American Dream should be abandoned. Although it
may be viewed as the natural consequence of the American political,
economic and social order, we are not doomed to keep pursuing it after
we have realized its hollowness if we can see something better to put
in its place. What must be put in its place is a conception of
goodness, truth and beauty as goals that are transcendent but not
wholly inaccessible.
The difficulty with such a change is that transcendence is rather at
odds with a democratic capitalist order based on actual desires, on
counting, and on efficiency. But "actual desires" can include
anything, even the desire to know God. The search for transcendence
could transform even a society such as ours if we first accept it in
our individual lives and build it into our family life and our
friendships. And even if the effect on society generally is small or
nonexistent, the attempt can transform our own lives.
From jk Sat Jan 30 07:42:20 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.questions
Subject: Re: Is This A Long .signature Work-around?
References: <1993Jan2.013709.19365@panix.com> <1993Jan4.151247.14763@panix.com>
In eravin@panix.com (Ed Ravin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.151247.14763@panix.com> fnord@panix.com (Cliff Heller) writes:
>>When someone is especially abusive, for example, 3+ screenfulls of quoted
>>text followed by a 1-3 line statement that boils down to "yeah, me too", I
>>usually e-mail a constructive flame.
>Which, of course, just wastes more bandwidth, disk space, etc. Part of
>being a good sysop is knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Right
>Alexis?
Is this a sensible objection? 3 screenfuls times 40,000 USENET sites is
a lot of bandwidth and disk space. An email flame that's half a
screenful long times 2 sites (the offender's and the flamer's, assuming
he keeps a copy) is much less bandwidth and disk space. If there's even
1 chance in 120,000 that the flame will deter a single future offense,
it seems worth the investment of system resources.
From jk Sat Jan 30 20:47:44 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: More Americana -- "I am an individual!"
The overwhelming response to my last article and the insistent demands
for another lead me to post the following discussion of another aspect
of American society, the demand that we all be treated as individuals.
It is often said that each of us has a right to be treated as an
individual; that is, in accordance with qualities we possess
individually that are relevant to the purposes of the judgment. In
connection with employment decisions by employers this right is
understood to require that people be evaluated based on individualized
determinations of what they can do rather than characteristics that
have no necessary functional relevance. For example, most Americans
believe that a person applying for a job as a garage mechanic should be
judged based on demonstrable ability to do the job, rather than hired
because he is an Eskimo and Eskimos generally are talented mechanics,
or rejected because she is a woman and women are usually less committed
to the job or the other mechanics would feel more comfortable working
with a man.
The justice of such a demand for individual treatment is thought to be
undeniable because it is based on the desires for equality and freedom,
which are assumed to be fundamental social goods that we all desire and
therefore should permit each other to have. If our treatment by
others, and therefore our opportunities and our position in society, is
determined only by what we can do, then we are free to choose whatever
life we wish with no limitations other than those imposed by our own
abilities, willingness to work and luck. Or such is the belief.
This aversion to treatment as a member of a group is far stronger today
than in the past. At one time people might have been inclined to
accept or demand the treatment customary for people with their position
in society. However, a system of social position is determined by what
people take seriously, and not all constellations of social preferences
result in a system that provides most people with a satisfactory role
in life. Social position today is increasingly determined by function
in a rationalized system for producing and distributing exchangeable
goods. As a result, traditional social roles such as "wife and
mother", that carried with them a broad range of rights and duties that
taken together could serve as the basis for a good life, are no longer
taken seriously, and the rights and duties attached to them seem
arbitrary and unjust. The social roles that are now taken seriously,
such as "assistant vice president for marketing", are too abstract to
support a general understanding of who one is and how one should act
and be treated. In the absence of a system of social categorization
that people feel comfortable building their lives on, people reject
treatment as members of a categories.
In spite of its apparent inevitability in modern society, the demand
for individual treatment raises both practical and theoretical
difficulties. One practical difficulty that it is often difficult to
specify the qualities relevant to a purpose and to determine
objectively whether someone has those qualities. For example, most
responsible jobs can be done well in many different ways, and the
qualities needed for success, such as good sense or imagination, are
difficult to demonstrate objectively. In such instances, the
correctness of hiring decisions can not be verified since there could
be any number of explanations for any particular decision.
One response to this difficulty is to judge the correctness of the
hiring decisions of an institution by looking at the over-all pattern
of hiring. For example, if only 15% of the mathematicians hired by a
state university system are women and only 1% are black, such
disproportions might be thought to be proof that hiring decisions are
based in part on sex and race. If so, one solution would be to give
the hiring process a corrective bias, perhaps by means of a requirement
of proportional hiring or quotas.
An obvious objection to crude means such as quotas is that in the name
of individual treatment they treat people as members of categories. To
the extent such means are rejected, though, enforcement of
anti-discrimination rules requires the extensive formalization of
procedures that is required to make the basis for employment decisions
verifiable. The responsibilities of each position and the knowledge
and skills required to carry it out have to be clearly defined. In
addition, the qualifications for a position and the criteria for
performance have to be limited to what is objectively demonstrable.
Since it is impossible to measure a person's contribution to an
organization in such a mechanical fashion, such measures have the
effect of rewarding the wrong people for the wrong things and so are
bad for morale and efficiency. They have the further effect of
surrounding dealings with members of protected groups with defensive
measures, thus hindering their integration with the operations of the
organization. There is also no guarantee that they substantially
better the lot of members of protected groups.
The theoretical problems with carrying out the demand for
nondiscrimination are still more important than the practical problems.
One such problem is that the right to be treated as an individual means
nondiscrimination in employment only if, for example, it is wrong to
establish a garage partly for the purpose of providing employment for
Eskimos or giving men who prefer the company of their own sex a
congenial place to work; otherwise, one's status as an Eskimo or a
woman would be relevant to the purposes of the employment decision. It
is not at all clear why such purposes are necessarily wrong. In some
circumstances discrimination on the grounds of characteristics like
race may be wrong. For example, if government regulation or a web of
law and custom makes it difficult for those discriminated against to
establish a decent way of life for themselves some sort of remedy is
proper, and under some circumstances an antidiscrimination rule might
be the best remedy available. However, it is doubtful that such
circumstances are common in present-day America. Moreover, if such an
oppressive degree of discrimination were general it is hard to see how
the remedial laws would get adopted.
Most importantly, a general demand for individual treatment and
nondiscrimination is inconsistent with the social arrangements that are
necessary if people are to live decently, at least if to be treated as
an individual is to have one's membership in any group smaller than
society as a whole that people generally take seriously -- and that is
what the groups defined by characteristics like ethnicity, sex,
religion and family are -- treated as socially irrelevant. For such a
demand to be satisfied, one can have no rights or obligations with
respect to any such group or its members. One cannot even treat the
members of one's own group more favorably than others without engaging
in discrimination.
Under the view of morality such a demand presupposes, our right in
society is to pursue our own goals consistent with our obligations to
society in general, and our obligations are exhausted by our
obligations to society at large -- to obey the law, and to the extent
one participates in governing society, to bring about and maintain a
state of affairs in which there are no significant subordinate social
groups that are not open to all and subservient to the particular goals
of the members. Such a view of society and morality has had its
supporters at least since _The Social Contract_ was first published,
but it can lead only to disaster. Loyalties start by being parochial.
Accordingly, a society in which parochial loyalties are forbidden could
not long exist because it would soon become a society in which there
was no loyalty of any sort and degenerate into a war of all against
all.
Finally, it is worth noting that the motives for opposing
discrimination are not necessarily noble any more than the motives for
engaging in it are necessarily malicious. In practice, to demand
restrictions on discrimination is to demand that others be forbidden to
deal and associate with whom they choose, that they be required to
demonstrate acceptable motives for choices in such matters, and in all
likelihood that they be required to treat preferentially people from
certain protected categories defined by the government. In the absence
of very special circumstances, such a demand is simply tyrannical.
From jk Sun Jan 31 08:38:45 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
In <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> norris@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Chonak) writes:
>A good posting, Jim.
Thanks!
>"...Protestantism itself had become part of the engine of secularism. It
>had lost its own Christian sacramental tradition and was coming to society
>with a thought system that was simply more of the same desacralized
>cultural message that had been in the rest of society....A nation that is
>based on a religion that cannot tell you what is sacred in a communion
>chalice in one generation cannot tell you what is sacred in a human uterus
>in the next generation."
Mr. Deane's friends in the European New Right would agree with you, and
would add that Protestantism is the logical outcome of Christianity
just as the American Way of Life is the logical outcome of
Protestantism.
How do you deal with that claim? The Protestant reformers thought they
were restoring early Christianity, and there is some precedent in the
New Testament for anti-sacramentalism. I'm thinking specifically of
the rejection of Jewish dietary and similar laws, and of passages like
Romans 14, where Paul rejects in principle the view that any of the
things of daily life (foods offered to idols, days of the week) need be
treated as particularly pure or impure.
I suppose the answer might be an appeal to the authority of tradition.
But the Gospels can be critical of tradition as well. (See Matthew 15
and Mark 7.)
(I should say that I don't have a good position on any of this stuff
and don't know enough to contribute much to a discussion. Even a few
snappy one-liners on the issues would be helpful as points of
reference, though.)
From jk Sun Jan 31 08:47:41 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: The End of Thought (but not of long posts)
The midwinter sale on statements of my personal views on everything
imaginable continues! (For some reason, the Clinton transition team
didn't ask me for any position papers, so I find myself with excess
stock on my hands.) So here's my theory about why people are so dumb
today:
The nature of modern society has resulted in a deterioration of
thought. Thought requires taking both truth and diverse beliefs
seriously. In a society in which people typically do not have a
definite position or responsibilities, people take only their own
comfort and advancement seriously and therefore do not think.
Instead, people adhere either to the view that all beliefs are equally
valid (democratic openness) or to the view that the beliefs of one's
own group are the standard of truth (sectarianism). Democratic
openness is more common since making distinctions among beliefs serves
neither the desire for comfort nor the desire to get on in the world.
If one does adopt definite beliefs he will very likely become a
sectarian. The usual social function for the belief in a standard for
truth other than the beliefs of one's own group is that it permits
cooperation between opponents, but if there are no opponents whom one
must take seriously and who take one's own beliefs seriously this
function need not be served.
The ruling elite of a modern society adheres to sectarian democratic
openness. It is sectarian because it needs definite views in order to
act, and it embraces democratic openness because it has no basis for
choosing anything more substantive and because its position requires
its views to reflect the principles on which its society is based.
"Sectarian democratic openness" -- the view that all views are equally
valid, but the views of one's own group are the standard of truth --
seems contradictory, and logically it is, but people try to live with it
anyway because they see no alternative.
Other features of modern social life also have their effect. For
thought to have weight and solidity, it must reflect knowledge that is
both extensive and intensive. A life of security and comfort as a cog
in the social machine results in knowledge that is superficial,
one-sided and narrow. Substance of thought also requires breadth and
depth of shared experience, which are not compatible with purely
consensual social relationships. Thought requires courage and
independence, which are rare qualities in a society in which most
people are dependent on large organizations for their social position
and livelihood. It requires that leisure exist and be treated as
important, which is impossible today because only the process of social
production and the struggle for a commanding position within that
process is taken seriously.
Finally, thought can be clear only by reason of the systematic
understanding of the world that it expresses. Systematic understanding
calls some things true and others confused or false, and implies an
elite of those who systematically understand. Democracy rejects
systematic understanding in favor of feeling, which makes no such
invidious distinctions, and therefore rejects thought on principle.
The deterioration of thought can also be considered under the aspect of
the decline in the clarity and richness of language. The technical
complexity of modern life means that language is used more and more to
deal with things of which people do not have concrete experience.
Because people do not speak well about things they don't know much
about, the result is that language becomes less exact and expressive.
In addition, modern society, in which few things are fixed and consent
is the master principle, gives fundamental importance to persuasion
rather than thought and so leads people to use the language of
advertizing and propaganda.
With the disappearance of any connection to social reality other than
the pursuit of success, thought has turned on itself and become
self-destructive. More specifically, the task of thought about morals
is now the destruction of individual moral responsibility and therefore
of morality, of thought about politics the destruction of the division
of power and therefore of politics, of theories of knowledge the
destruction of objective inquiry and therefore of learning, and so on.
What then should be done? Schemes to save the world from itself never
work, and in particular you can't force people to think. Although
mindlessness may have social causes, politics is too crude an
instrument for the damage to be repaired very directly. Nonetheless,
it is possible for each of us to love knowledge and pursue it even if
circumstances are not favorable and other people do not see the point
of what we are doing. Thought, including our own thought, is not
wholly the creature of society but rather can relate to something
absolute beyond society. That, after all, is why it's important.
From jk Mon Feb 1 11:21:49 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Preparing for the comming collapse of the federal governm
References: <93029.40790.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM> <728437505snz@keris.demon.co.uk> <1993Jan31.185653.17363@sequent.com> <31JAN199319075812@venus.tamu.edu> <1FEB199304060469@venus.tamu.edu>
In <1FEB199304060469@venus.tamu.edu> ebb7683@venus.tamu.edu (BLACKMAN, EDWARD B) writes:
>>A treaty which violates the Constitution is not valid,
>That's arguable. The Constitution itself says that it, and treaties made
>in accordance with it, are the "supreme law of the land". If a treaty made
>in accordance with the Constitution contradicts the Constitution, there's no
>way to know which is right, since the Constitution doesn't have a provision
>providing for a means to a resolution in such a case.
The wording is odd. The C. says that the C. itself and laws made "in
pursuance thereof", and treaties made "under the authority of the United
States", are the supreme law of the land. That might be read to mean
that treaties can override constitutional provisions but laws can't. I
have no idea whether that reading is supportable.
From jk Mon Feb 1 15:53:29 1993
From: jk
To: TROTTEJE@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu
Subject: Re: censorship left and right
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Feb1.163807.18891@news.vanderbilt.edu>
In alt.revolution.counter you write:
>Mr. Kalb's recent posts on the subjects of the American Dream and the Decline
>or rather, the Death of Thought, were splendid.
Thank you -- it's pleasant when something one has written is praised,
especially when the person giving the praise demonstrates that he can
write himself.
>Perhaps, Jim, you would
>elaborate on the claim (to paraphrase) that genuine thought requires gen-
>uine depth of experience, something not generally available in a consensual
>society?
I will do so publicly, I hope within a day or two. (Thank you for the
question, by the way. It's an interesting issue.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Mon Feb 1 17:08:58 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.restaurants
Subject: Re: PLEASE DON'T MOVE TRAFFIC TO nyc.food (was Re: PLEASE MOVE...)
Distribution: panix
References: <1993Feb1.205933.27413@panix.com>
In <1993Feb1.205933.27413@panix.com> des@panix.com (Don Samek) writes:
>What's _wrong_ with panix.restaurants!?
Nothing, but why not open the discussions up to other people in NYC?
From jk Mon Feb 1 22:10:51 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: censorship left and right
References: <1993Feb1.163807.18891@news.vanderbilt.edu>
TROTTEJE@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu (Jackson Trotter) writes:
>Mr. Kalb's recent posts on the subjects of the American Dream and the
>Decline or rather, the Death of Thought, were splendid. Perhaps, Jim,
>you would elaborate on the claim (to paraphrase) that genuine thought
>requires genuine depth of experience, something not generally available
>in a consensual society?
If we deal with things only to the extent we consent to them we come to
know them only insofar as they conform to our desires. But thought is
the attempt to understand something that is real and therefore does not
depend on what we want. So thought is called forth by having to deal
with things we don't consent to.
>I for one wonder whether the objection to government funded art which
>deeply offends the sensibilities of most Americans is the same as
>policing speech. But then again ...
I don't think so. If the American people want to patronize art, then
like other patrons they should be able to support the art they like
best. If they delegate to someone the choice of what to support they
ought to be able to revoke the delegation if they don't like the
choices that are made.
An objection to congressional oversight of NEA grants might be made on
the grounds that politics has no place in judgements of artistic merit,
but such an objection would seem disingenuous under the circumstances.
People who think art should be political and who pooh-pooh
"disinterested judgements of merit" shouldn't be shocked when art
becomes political.
From jk Mon Feb 1 22:15:06 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.restaurants,nyc.food
Subject: You're in nyc.food!(was: PLEASE DON'T MOVE TRAFFIC TO...)
Distribution: panix
References: <1993Feb1.205933.27413@panix.com>
mara@panix.com (Mara Chibnik) writes:
>jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>
> >Nothing, but why not open the discussions up to other people in NYC?
>
>How long have you lived in NYC, Jim?
15 years.
>If we tell all of Them about Our best places, they'll get all crowded
>and we won't be able to keep going there.
So go to places no one would ever go to on a bet. Like a good
(comparatively) cheap French restaurant in Brooklyn. There have been
three in the time I've lived here and they've all folded because they
couldn't get enough business. (OK, I'm being cranky, but it's only a
couple of months since the last one tanked and it's still a sore
point.)
On a more positive note: there's a Filipino restaurant I like on the
east side of 8th Avenue between 39th and 40th street. $5.50 gets you
two entrees (say you're having a "combination"), rice and soup. No
lines to get in. Bring your own beer and watch your purse (an admirably
slick thief stole a friend's while we were there).
From jk Tue Feb 2 13:16:33 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
In <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> norris@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Chonak) writes:
>Well, I do hold (b): that the American way of thinking is the result of
>the predominance of Puritan Protestantism in its origins. I keep
>promising myself to dig up Prof. John Rao's article about Americanism
>as based on secularized Puritanism: still individualistic and
>anti-authoritarian, but now rejecting the idea of revealed knowledge or
>even the existence of any absolute truth.
I'm not sure Puritan Protestantism really have all that much to do with
the fundamentals of how things have turned out in the West, of which
America is only part. If you want to see a depiction by a great writer
of a world in which there is no revealed knowledge, or absolute truth,
or truth of any kind, or even thought or language, read Samuel Beckett.
If you want to see materialistic and hedonistic individualism logically
worked out, read de Sade. If you want to see a call for the abolition
of all institutions between the individual and the state, read Rousseau.
If you want to see hatred of exploitation (which in the absence of an
objective morality is simply the desire to destroy anything and anyone
that interferes with having one's own way) made into the fundamental
principle of politics, read Karl Marx. None of those guys were Puritan
Protestants. (Rousseau was from Geneva, but I seem to recall that they
didn't want anything to do with him.)
Obviously, America's particular history and circumstances color
everything that happens here. But the basics are the same here and
elsewhere even though emphasis may differ. Since in some respects
things have developed farther here than in other places there is a
temptation to blame whatever features of modernization people don't like
on us. That's a mistake, though. If France weren't ready on its own
for Disney World and Italy for liberalized abortion, those things would
have flopped there.
From jk Tue Feb 2 13:22:04 1993
From: jk
To: norris@mit.edu
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
Hello, Richard!
In alt.revolution.counter you write:
>[On the strictly religious point: I tend to doubt that the line from St
>Paul to Zwingli is truly a straight one, mainly because I see the
>sacramental principle as rooted in the doctrine of the Incarnation, and
>thus a permanent part of the Faith. From what we know about the early
>church, it's hard to argue that they were anything other than
>authoritative teachers and liturgical worshippers. But that's a topic
>for e-mail rather than this group...]
Interesting points, which I will mull over. I know too little about
this to discuss it. Is there anything you would suggest reading?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Tue Feb 2 13:35:55 1993
From: jk
To: comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
Subject: Re: More Americana -- "I am an individual!"
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Feb1.224256.5622@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>
Thanks for your comments. When you write something you never know how
it will be read, so it's a pleasure to read a subsequent post that fills
out and extends what you wrote yourself.
Hope to hear from you again in a.r.c. if time permits you to
participate.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Tue Feb 2 15:39:00 1993
From: jk
To: norris@mit.edu
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
I just reread my post in response to your most recent one and wondered
whether the tone might be overly argumentative. If so, I'm sorry --
it's easy to get carried away by one's own rhetoric.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Wed Feb 3 11:16:54 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1993Feb3.020218.10289@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>
In <1993Feb3.020218.10289@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen) writes:
>[I]sn't the point that [ . . . ] de Sade, Rousseau, and Marx are
>essentially foreign to the _Geist_ of the west, though (God help us!) in
>recent years, as the West has gradually abandoned its Christian (not to say
>Puritan) roots, the influence of these men has increased?
Are they so foreign to the spirit of the West? They were Westerners and
have been very influential in the West. Also, for me at any rate it's
hard to imagine them appearing anywhere else. Their thought has a
certain adventurousness and cold-blooded determination to reduce
everything to a rational system based on a few clear principles that I
don't think you often find elsewhere. (Are the Chinese Legalists an
exception?)
Admittedly, the Western tradition includes a lot of things that conflict
with each other, so what you may be saying is that writers like the ones
I mentioned leave out things that are essential to the value of that
tradition. To use a religious analogy, we could call them heretics
within the Western tradition, and add that their heresies have been
enormously successful.
From jk Wed Feb 3 17:45:42 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: More Americana -- "I am an individual!"
References: <1993Feb3.154058.17498@news.vanderbilt.edu>
In <1993Feb3.154058.17498@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
[Discussion of kinds of value: credentialed value, true economic value
given perfect information, intrinsic value as a human being]
> Now these categories may overlap, but I do think none can be entirely
>absorbed into the other, at least not in a practical sense. But the
>conflicts that can arise between them, such as the third and the first,
>or the second and the first, generate a number of the problems which
>Mr. Kalb discussed.
These different senses of "value" are indeed relevant to the issues I
discussed. One way in which they enter the situation is that people who
have an uncertain grasp of their own intrinsic value as human beings
tend to overemphasize value that is recognized by other people and
demonstrated through exchange (in other words, economic value). Once
economic value is taken to be the measure of human worth bitter
arguments begin over whether economic values are "just". One response
to such disputes (the socialist response) is to try to equalize the
economic value of persons. Another common response is to try to prove
such values are just by making them correspond to credentials.
From jk Wed Feb 3 17:51:32 1993
From: jk
To: ray@netcom.com
Subject: Nietzsche Nitpick
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.philosophy.misc,misc.test
References: <93026.005450KEL111@psuvm.psu.edu> <1993Jan27.074149.2571@netcom.com> <1993Jan31.011022.22986@netcom.com>
In talk.philosophy.misc you write:
>Friedrich Nietszsche
That's "Nietzsche".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Thu Feb 4 06:40:29 1993
From: jk
To: oppedahl
Subject: Mara's Post
Mara Chibnik writes:
>Everyone else: the answer was pretty obvious-- even to Carl-- and
>I have no intention of answering it here or discussing this
>project further except with women.
For whatever it's worth, the answer isn't at all obvious to me. Does
she have any reason to think it was to you? (I don't care what the
answer is, but I was somewhat interested in her reaction to your
question.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Thu Feb 4 12:42:53 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: .....capitalism and "taking care of others"
References: <1kr9qqINNhon@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
In <1kr9qqINNhon@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> tyadav@athena.mit.edu (T.Y.) writes:
> Secondly, if TCOO is a genuine human need (moral or otherwise) I would
> think that individuals would CHOOSE to do it voluntarily. Why does one
> need the govt to FORCE everyone to do that? Can't charity be run by
> free enterprise, competitively like a service industry ?
[Note: "TCOO" means "taking care of others."]
One point to consider is that the things people take care of are
affected by generally accepted views of who is responsible for what.
Minimal government does not mean there are no social standards that
people take seriously. (One complaint I have about activist government
is that it reduces the importance of such standards.) So to the extent
government is clearly not responsible for (say) feeding the hungry, but
people nonetheless don't want other people to starve, the view is likely
to become generally accepted that each of us has some personal
responsibility in the matter and charitable giving is likely to
increase.
From jk Fri Feb 5 06:11:06 1993
From: jk
To: jfb@macsch.com
Subject: Re: Good arguments for atheism
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated,alt.atheism
References: <1993Feb4.011015.23659@draco.macsch.com>
Some comments on your article in alt.atheism.moderated:
>* One should not adopt beliefs unnecessarily. This does not disallow
>core assumptions about the universe such as the validity of the laws of
>logic or the rejection of some sophist claims or the constancy and
>uniformity of the laws of physics. These assumptions, however, seem
>necessary in order for reality to be intelligible.
For believers, though, their belief in God is not an add-on. It is
something without which reality is unintelligible. God is either
absolutely fundamental or he is nothing.
>Either God cannot be observed in which case there is nothing that one
>can observe that can make the term God mean anything. Or God can be
>detected by some test that can give some meaning to the term God.
>This meaning however will reduce the concept of God to something
>intelligible [ . . . ]
Here you seem to be taking the view that the meaning of terms is
exhausted by correlative physical observations. That can't be right --
for example, the meaning of statements of core assumptions about the
universe is not exhausted by any set of observations one might make.
>* There can never be any evidence that is sufficient to show that God
>exists or that necessitates hypothesizing the existence of God. This
>follows from the skeptical principle that says that extraordinary
>claims demand extraordinary evidence.
"Extraordinary claims" are those that are surprising given our
fundamental understanding of the world. For a believer the claim that
God exists is not an extraordinary claim.
>An all powerful God can eliminate all evil and suffering.
The expression "all powerful" is not wholly clear. Is God's presumed
inability to make a rock so big he couldn't lift it a limitation on his
power? More to the point, if the world contains anything that is not
God that thing must be imperfect in some sense. For all I know it is
that imperfection that we experience as evil and suffering.
>God is good because he conforms to some external standard of good that
>is in some sense greater than God. Therefore, God cannot be the
>ultimate being.
God's will is free in the sense that it perfectly expresses his nature,
which is goodness itself, not in the sense that he does things on a
whim. So he needs no external standard for his actions to be good.
>The actual history of Christianity shows that Christians are guilty of
>intolerance, forced conversions and genocide on a massive scale.
Would people have acted better if they had not been Christians? The
events of the past 70 years or so suggest the contrary.
>* Christianity is founded on certain miraculous historical events.
I would say that it is mostly founded on its capacity to make sense of
our lives and the world in which we live.
>* The Bible on which Christianity is based claims that God is good. The
>God of the Bible, however, is morally repugnant. We know from reading
>the Bible that the Christian God orders mass murder, approves of
>slavery, approves of the repression of women, and establishes brutal
>laws. This testimony is self contradictory and absurd and therefore
>ought to be rejected. The Bible similarly contradicts other claims
>about God including his alleged omnipotence and omniscience.
The Bible records how people came to know God. What's written there is
naturally affected by what the people involved were like as well as
what God is like. Maybe an analogy would help: if Marco Polo says
some things about 13th century China that sound odd, the possibilities
include the following: (1) Marco Polo didn't know anything about China
because China didn't exist and never has existed; (2) China existed and
Marco Polo spent a lot of time there, but he had his own quirky way of
interpreting what he saw that we have to try to correct for; and (3)
Marco Polo was right about China and we should listen to what he says
even though it sounds odd to us because of our own hang-ups.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Fri Feb 5 10:45:05 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.chat
Subject: Re: Standardization?
Distribution: panix
References:
In carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink) writes:
> Considering what the staff go through, I'm surprised they don't call
>us "pains".
I always preferred "the panicked".
From jk Sat Feb 6 06:59:59 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Aristocracy
No single way of life can fully develop all human virtues.
Accordingly, a society that can draw on the particular strengths of
people from a variety of social classes can be stronger and better
governed for it. One problem with American society is that it is
uncomfortable with the idea of social class and differences among
people generally. Our talk of celebrating diversity goes along with
denying or (when denial is impossible) attempting to eliminate the
significance of such differences.
One consequence of our suspicion of differences among people is that
our society lacks an aristocratic element. That absence is our loss.
The value of an aristocracy is that it can serve as a source of
cultivated and self-possessed men whose attainment of positions of
power results from something other than a consuming desire to rise in
the world, and whose public careers have a larger element of public
spirit and a smaller element of individual self-interest than is common
in America today. Such men add something specific to public life that
it is difficult to get in other ways. The necessary outlook is most
likely to be found among those who are born into definite and respected
positions in society and are unlikely to rise or fall very much as a
result of their own efforts. Such men are aristocrats; the defining
characteristics of an aristocracy are that family is a title to
membership and lack of personal distinction no reason for expulsion.
The principled objection to aristocracy is that it is irrational; the
self-interested objection is that it is painful to be excluded. The
former objection is met if a society is a better place for its members
generally with an aristocracy than without. Position and honor are
justified by their social function, and it is not a demand of reason
that they be conferred solely by reason of characteristics that are
specific to individuals. The self-interested objection is not
specifically an objection to aristocracy, but rather is an objection
that will be made in any society by people who are envious of that
society's elite. It is not obvious that such people will be fewer or
the pain of exclusion less in a pure meritocracy or quota democracy
than in a society that has an aristocratic element.
To what extent could aristocracy exist in America? To some degree and
in some places we have had one in the past (think of the Adams family).
The aristocratic principle is contrary to the equality that has
uniformly been declared to be part of our national creed and that is
increasingly becoming legally enforceable here. But it is not
impossible that it could return. It seems to be something that
constantly tends to arise in society, and to the extent we eventually
become dissatisfied with our national creed and stop fighting
aristocracy it we might yet see it again.
From jk Sat Feb 6 14:29:52 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Culture, tyranny and stuff
Yet another addition to the series of articles setting forth my personal
views on a variety of subjects, this time on certain aspects of the
relationship among community, culture and politics:
A good life requires participation in a way of life that is shared with
other people. The shared way of life may have arisen in any of several
ways. Most often it will have simply grown up among people who live
together. Ethnic communities are of this type, and the difficulty of
leaving such a community shows the depth and breadth of what is shared.
A common way of life may also arise more consciously, as in the case of
a community with a way of life based on religious doctrine. Such a
community may be fragile initially, because doctrine will not be
applied or understood in the same way by people whose habits and ways
of life differ. Later, the requirement that a member leave the
community if he comes to reject community doctrine may continue to
cause fragility. However, to the extent that the habits and way of
life of a community become thoroughly permeated by religious doctrines
that provide a satisfying way of understanding oneself and the world,
the community's way of life will be much more stable than that of a
mere ethnic community. Doctrine helps maintain a community because it
is the communal element in thought, and thought that is stabilized by
doctrine may help a community respond to changing circumstances or
outside influences in a way that permits it to retain its integrity.
Primitive communities with custom but no doctrine readily lose their
integrity, while the Jews and the Parsees have retained theirs for
thousands of years because they are religious as well as ethnic
communities.
Modern economic conditions and methods of communication have greatly
reduced the cohesion of communities based on either ethnicity or
religion. Today's ruling class prefers to base its rule on rational
hedonism and treats ethnicity and religion as nothing more than
vehicles for communal self-assertion. The predominant view in the West
is that ethnicity and religion are irrational because they are not
universal, and that they have the vices of irrationality -- excluding
what ought to be included, forbidding what ought to be permitted and
requiring what ought to be optional. In short, from a modern
perspective they are exclusionary, repressive and tyrannical, and may
not justifiably serve as the basis of social order.
If ethnic and religious bases for social order are rejected, an attempt
may be made to base it on universal values such as liberty and
equality. Since such values do not have enough content to provide a
basis for an entire way of life, such an attempt is likely to take a
pluralistic turn -- to promote the creation of communities based on the
common values that particular people happen to have within a larger
political and social order that, although not a community, is
universally acceptable because it is universally beneficial.
Such a solution is not likely to be practicable in the long run. The
benefits conferred by a pluralistic political and social order must be
benefits that are desired by almost everyone without regard to taste.
These will be the benefits comprised in prosperity. But it is unlikely
that a social order viewed by its members merely as a source of
material benefits can long endure.
Such an order is likely to be destroyed from the outside or inside.
The threat from the outside is obvious -- any society must be defended
against foreign enemies, and men sacrifice themselves only to defend
what touches them deeply. The threat from within is less obvious but
no less real. A pluralistic society is justified to its members by its
ability to confer material benefits on all; however, in practice these
benefits will vary greatly among the communities of which the society
is composed because the material well-being of each community depends
on its way of life and its members' natural endowments. As a result,
the social truce that is the essence of a pluralistic society is likely
to be broken by fights over the distribution of such benefits.
It may be possible to compose such disputes for a time, especially if
prosperity is generally increasing. The measures necessary to do so,
however, will require ever more extensive government action to
redistribute wealth among the communities. Such action has the natural
effect of destroying the life of the separate communities that make up
the society and were originally the setting in which the good life
could develop. As a result, the pluralistic society of many
communities will become a soulless unitary society. Since people
cannot bear to live in such a society, they will feel an irresistible
impulse to attempt to turn it into a community through the adoption of
values beyond material well-being, and pluralism will collapse.
It is unlikely that such an attempt to turn a pluralistic society into
a community will be successful. Values cannot be adopted by fiat;
people must recognize them and incorporate them of their own volition
into their way of life. Pluralism evolved because people could not
agree on values, and the jealousies that lead to the collapse of
pluralism will not make such agreement more likely. Furthermore, a
state bureaucracy forced to choose values beyond material prosperity
and security is unlikely to choose anything other than compulsory
equality or state power, both of which are inconsistent with community
and both of which lead to tyranny, which thus appears to be the final
stage in the evolution of pluralism.
From jk Sun Feb 7 07:10:40 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: panix.chat
Subject: Re: Peak activity?
References:
emlee@sun.panix.com (Edward M. Lee) writes:
>I recall that at MIT, [peak activity] was more like Sunday, before
>classes on Mondays, although you can depend on quite a few people
>online even on Christmas.
It seems Panicoids are slightly more mainstream than MITsters, then.
The only time I've ever been the sole user online here was this past
Christmas, at about 7:30 in the morning.
From jk Sun Feb 7 07:13:03 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Consciousness and morality and all that
References: <1993Feb5.213527.17962@midway.uchicago.edu> <1993Feb6.210846.1012@midway.uchicago.edu>
pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:
>Any moral system is ultimately based on a set of assumptions that
>aren't supported. Eventually, you just have to take the axioms of an
>ethical system as given. Which means that none is any more or less
>arbitrary than any other. They can't be judged, then, on their
>correspondance to Truth, since they are all ultimately backed by
>Nothing. The only real criteria for ethical systems are practicality,
>usefulness, effectiveness, and correspondance to genuine human
>emotions.
Here you say that all moral systems are equally arbitrary, and also
that there are real criteria for choosing among them. That seems
inconsistent to me. Suppose, for example, there were one moral system
that came out best on your "real criteria". What would be wrong with
saying that system corresponded to moral truth?
From jk Sun Feb 7 15:08:31 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: SOMETHING NEW FOR THIS GROUP: CHINESE PHILOSOPHIES
Distribution:
References: <2B74B5E2.8723@news.service.uci.edu>
eaou079@orion.oac.uci.edu (Francisco Szu-Chien Su) writes:
>Let's discuss, first of all, Confucius' thoughts, and let's imagine how
>Plato or any other Western philosophers would respond to Confucius'
>philosophy. Any of you who are familiar with Confucius, what do you
>think of Confucius' argument of the "proper language" and the ways one
>should follow to become a "gentleman"? In addition, what do you think
>Plato, Aristotle, or any other Western philosophers would respond to
>Confucius' thinking?
I think Confucius was more practically minded and much less interested
in abstract philosophical issues than most Western philosophers. To
compare his views to those of the philosophers you mention:
1. One can think of Plato as a radical and Confucius as a
conservative. In his _Republic_, Plato views his ideal society as
something that needs to be constructed in accordance with a plan
rationally worked out _de novo_. He views his own society and
tradition as essentially flawed, so creating the good society would be
a very difficult task requiring (if it can be done at all) a lot of
very high-handed conduct. Confucius, on the contrary, views his ideal
social order as something that in a sense already exists and could be
made fully actual by letting things be what they already naturally
were. The call for the rectification of names is obviously related to
this belief that there is a single legitimate political order. The
Emperor, the officials, the gentlemen, fathers, sons and common people
already had their natural place in the scheme of things, and the chaos
of Confucius' time was caused by people -- especially the upper classes
-- ignoring what they knew or should have known was their duty and so
overreaching themselves. If they had any doubt as to what their duty
was they could instruct themselves by correctly interpreting the
records of antiquity or the _Songs_. (In contrast, Plato wanted to
make up his own myths about the past and to do away with the Greek
equivalent of the _Songs_.)
2. If we look at Aristotle's _Politics_ some reasons for the
difference in outlook suggest themselves. Aristotle deals with the
variety of political constitutions that existed in the Greek world and
considers the characteristics of each, particularly with respect to
durability. His viewpoint is that man is a political animal, but there
have been a variety of states of which none is perfect and none lasts
forever. That was the natural outlook for someone who grew up in a
world that had never been politically unified and in which it was the
self-sufficient city rather than the universal empire that was the
political ideal. As a result, Aristotle's outlook is far less reverent
and far more analytical than that of Confucius. The difference in
perspective also results in Aristotle's ethics being rather more
individualistic and less self-effacing than Confucius'.
3. What Plato would have said to Confucius if they could have gotten
together and talked things over is an interesting question. Plato and
Confucius both thought of the Good as something transcendent of which
people generally had only a confused notion. Each would have agreed
that there needs to be a ruling class educated into habits of
self-restraint and public spirit, and that music, poetry and so on
should be part of that education. They might have disagreed on the
usability of actually-existing institutions in making a better society.
In part that disagreement may have been due to differences in their
surroundings that caused Confucius to think of all under heaven as part
of a single political order and Plato to think of political orders as a
multiplicity from which one could pick, choose and construct anew if
need be. In addition, Confucius' world was run by feudal lords and
noblemen who at least theoretically recognized obligations like those
Confucius thought appropriate, while Plato's world tended to be run
more explicitly for the benefit of whoever happened to be in power.
From jk Sun Feb 7 20:16:00 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Consciousness and morality and all that
References: <1993Feb6.210846.1012@midway.uchicago.edu>
pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:
>The criteria for deciding between [moral systems] are pragmatic or
>practical. You decide which is best based on utility, naturality, and
>effectiveness. You can then determine which system is best -- i.e.
>most useful. It is the best mora; system. But that has nothing to do
>with its truth. It is still arbitrary. It is not THE moral system, or
>the RIGHT moral system -- simply the best moral system. Truth has
>nothing to do with it,
If it really is the best moral system, what sense does it make to say
that it is arbitrary, or to deny that it is the right moral system and
consists of true statements about morality?
You seem to believe there is something distinctively good and right
about using utility, naturality and effectiveness as criteria for
judging moral systems. That's very odd, because what you say elsewhere
suggests that you believe that using those criteria is no less
arbitrary than consulting Leviticus or flipping a coin.
Which is it? Are your criteria as arbitrary as everyone else's, or is
there really something special about them?
From jk Mon Feb 8 07:20:05 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Culture, tyranny and stuff
References: <1993Feb8.022402.6090@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>[E]thnic communities are by definition religious communities. Their
>theology is not set in concrete though - it is a way of life, rather
>than a creed.
When I try to puzzle out the relationship among religion, ethnicity and
community I quickly get into very murky waters. What you say here
could be extended to the claim that the three are identical, that the
historical and cultural world that makes people what they are
(ethnicity) and their relations to the other people who share that
world (community) and to what transcends that world (religion) can't
really be separated. On the other hand, it seems that people can
change their religion more easily than their ethnicity, so a single
ethnic group can include people of differing religions, and that people
can share a religion who differ in ethnicity. Do you know of a good
treatment of these issues?
>BTW, is this a sleepy newsgroup or what? Is everyone else on the net
>a flaming lib or something? (Hmmm...interesting word imagery, there)
>Where are the counter revolutionaries? When do we get to storm the
>barricades? Where's my musket?
Muskets will be issued in 1995, at which time the global economic crash
of 1994, the failed Clinton presidency, chaos in the former communist
countries and the former EEC, and Shintoist fundamentalism in Japan will
make circumstances ripe for a CR coup. Congrats for getting in on the
ground floor. How'd you like to be Duke of Northeastern Massachusetts?
From jk Mon Feb 8 19:27:59 1993
From: jk
To: v035550@stortek.com
Subject: Re: micro emacs documentation?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
References: <1993Feb8.160733.9670@stortek.com>
In comp.sys.atari.st you write:
> Recently, I inherited a bunch of discs that had a bunch -o- public
> domain stuff on 'em. Contained on one of those discs is micro
> emacs for the ST. Problem is, there is ABSOLUTELY NO documentation
> anywhere. I am uncertain what the version number is, but could
> some kind soul please send me the file called "keybind.doc."?
> When I press the 'HELP' key the editor asks me to "please visit file
> keybind.doc." I sure would appreciate it. Many thanks.
I use microemacs 3.10s and think it's a great editor -- endlessly
customizable, you can use the mouse and your desk accessories, and if
you also use something other than the ST you can get a version for the
other system too.
Unfortunately, though, my version doesn't use keybind.doc so I can't
help you on your specific request. Why not get the ue311 files from
atari.archive and get a complete set of the latest version?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." (Blake)
From jk Tue Feb 9 09:18:40 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Culture, tyranny and stuff
References: <1993Feb8.022402.6090@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, <1993Feb9.001604.25323@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>"Duke of Northeastern Massachusetts"? Sounds fine by me! What kinds of
>feudal rights are we talking about, BTW? How about _jus primae noctis_?
Historical note: No-one has been able to find a reference before the
18th century to the j.p.n., so like the chastity belt the institution
seems to have been a modern fantasy. It's possible the idea was
inspired by the religious custom of devoting the first night "to the
Lord" by keeping a vigil.
>All the trends are pointing towards a massive destablization of
>existing social structures. It is not a question of if, but of how and
>when.
I think it was Horace Walpole who said there was "a lot of ruin in a
country". On the other hand, catastrophes do happen. They're more
likely to occur in a strictly logical system, and there seems to be a
tendency in modern life to work things out logically (the market is
wonderfully logical, and the bureaucratic/judicial state aspires to be
so). Another request for references: does anyone know of any sober
discussions of how to tell whether Chicken Little is right or not?
>BTW, I passed my German translation exam (w/ a dictionary) - I can agonize
>my way through a text, but if I had to speak the language, I'd be dead
>meat.
Congratulations! After you go on to French you'll be able to favor us
with translations of ENR texts . . .
From jk Tue Feb 9 12:29:40 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,soc.women,alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Nannygate
References: <1993Feb8.144352.13019@news.unomaha.edu> <1993Feb8.164750.1288@netcom.com> <1l6lmiINNkr@gap.caltech.edu> <1993Feb9.032329.18970@netcom.com>
In article <1l6lmiINNkr@gap.caltech.edu> peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah Peri) writes:
>It seems to me that something has badly broken down here. Is the
>[nannygate] problem mostly in the difficculty of finding a legal worker?
>Is it in the intricacy of the paperwork? Is it in the laws themselves
>-- should the laws be changed to better reflect the reality of the
>situation?
You can find legal workers if you look, but the quality tends to be a
lot better in the illegal market. I know a married couple who had a
string of energetic and well-educated Polish women (one was an artist
whose dad had been head of the writer's branch of Solidarity; another
was a medical doctor; another was a professional linguist) who liked
children and who came to the U.S. for 2-3 years to earn dollars to help
them get started in life back in Poland. The couple's choice was
between having women like that look after their children and complying
with a government regulatory scheme that isn't enforced, and they made
the choice that a lot of parents would have made.
People generally aren't inclined to take obligations imposed by the
government seriously unless they are (i) obligations like the obligation
not to steal that would exist whether the government acted or not, (ii)
obligations like the obligation to obey traffic rules that would cause
immediate problems if people ignored them, or (iii) obligations that the
government shows it is serious about by enforcing them. Some people
feel strongly obligated to obey laws simply because they are laws, but
not many. How many of the Americans who post on alt.feminism file their
use tax return and pay the tax when they buy something out of state?
(States that have a sales tax require their residents who buy things in
another jurisdiction and pay no tax or tax at a lower rate to pay an
amount equal to the tax saved as "use tax" when they bring the thing
home. The requirement is generally ignored by consumers except in the
case of automobiles, for which the registration process provides an
occasion to enforce payment. Here in New York the state occasionally
takes opportunities to enforce it for other big ticket items.)
So I suppose if more of an effort were made to find and deport illegal
aliens and punish families who employ them people would be more inclined
to feel that someone had serious objections to the aliens' being here
and might be less inclined to deal with them. Also, if people who
failed to pay the social security taxes of the teenage babysitter who
watches their kids every Saturday night were routinely thrown in the
slammer, people would take them more seriously. Until that happens,
though, I expect people to keep on breaking the law.
From jk Tue Feb 9 14:42:02 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1993Feb3.020218.10289@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> ,<1993Feb4.030231.2900@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> <1993Feb9.052318.522@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
In <1993Feb9.052318.522@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Christianity before the Refor-
>mation was very different from the Catholicism that came out of the
>Counter-Reformation. The medieval Catholic Church was more a "way of
>life" for most people (ritual observances tied to the harvest cycle,
>annual holy days, baptism/marriage/burial, certain quasi-magical
>practices, etc), with only a handful concerning themselves with
>theology.
It's hard for me to sort all this out, possibly because I don't know
enough about the relevant history.
No doubt medieval society was more folkish than modern society in
religious as well as other respects. However, pre-medieval Christianity
was a creedal rather than a folk religion. Otherwise it would not have
spread to Greek, Jew, Latin and barbarian, and there would not have been
so much attention paid to defining the nature of Christ and the other
articles of belief. I believe that in Byzantium the interest in
theology remained quite general. And even during the medieval period in
the West there were heresies that were quite popular in some places
(like southern France), so creedal matters don't seem to have been the
concern solely of a few intellectuals.
On the other hand, even during the struggles of the Reformation for many
of the people religion was more a matter of loyalty to the institutions
of their country than of doctrine. I wish I could remember the name of
the Englishman who commented that in his time there were 100,000 country
fellows who were ready to fight to the death against popery, but
couldn't have said whether "popery" was a man or a horse.
Any comments from someone who's well-informed in these matters?
>I think that contrary to
>our assumptions, creedal religions (and we tend to assume that
>religions are *by definition* creedal, which is purely a Western
>assumption) are not more stable or more permanent than non-creedal
>religions (i.e., ethnic "ways of life"), in fact, we could even argue
>the reverse, based on recent history.
What are the examples from recent history? My _a priori_ reason for
believing the contrary is that thought is a means of adapting to changed
circumstances, and thought requires that essentials be distinguished
from non-essentials so that the essentials can be preserved through
change. A creed is a statement of the essentials of a religion.
>[T]he tendency is to drift towards whatever direction is
>considered the doctrinal "core" of the belief...in Christianity, this
>has tended towards the kind of egalitarianism which we see so prominently
>displayed in liberal theology today, whether Protestant or Catholic [ . . . ]
Why should modern egalitarianism be considered the doctrinal core of
Christianity? And what non-creedal folk religions have resisted
modernism better than doctrinal religions?
From jk Tue Feb 9 16:11:17 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Culture, tyranny and stuff
References: <1993Feb8.022402.6090@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Feb9.001604.25323@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Feb9.150639.23826@news.vanderbilt.edu>
In <1993Feb9.150639.23826@news.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
>[I]s there an increasingly strong polarization between
>liberals and conservatives in this country, and is the middle getting
>wiped out in the crossfire?
I'm inclined to think so. If the responsibilities of government are
limited, political issues have limited importance and compromise is
easy. If government is responsible for the well-being of each of us,
then the fundamentals of how each of us lives become political issues
that people do not want to give on.
> What are your impressions? Personally, I think a lot of people who
>are not really temperamental conservatives are being tugged in that
>direction because they feel government and society have spun out of
>control.
It's been interesting recently how many mainstream types have been
talking about the American social crisis. Claims that there have been
changes as in the past but no clear deterioration seem to be wearing
thin.
From jk Tue Feb 9 22:27:41 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Proposal for alt.revolution.counter
References: <1993Feb8.000935.23017@news.ysu.edu> <16B6FEB79.C96@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>>The purpose of this group would be to give a discussion area for people who
>>>espouse political ideologies _opposed_ to the ideas of the French (and
>>>subsequent) Revolutions.
>
> Is this a serious posting? Are there really enough people
> with this interest?
If USENET has room for alt.sex.bestiality, why not
alt.revolution.counter? Among other things, you should remember that
the net is international and many European countries have significant
monarchist movements.
> If so, then what are the main ideas of the French Revolution
> that they are opposed to?
Liberty, equality and fraternity. For classic discussions in English of
why that trio cannot be accepted without restriction as the basis of a
political system, see _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ by
Edmund Burke and _Liberty, Equality and Fraternity_ by James FitzJames
Stephen (Ginny Woolf's uncle). If you don't have time for a reading
list, you might consider that some people think (i) the purpose of
politics is the promotion of the end of human nature and (ii) that end
is virtue in community rather than the unrestrained pursuit of whatever
desires one happens to have (liberty) without any preference given to
one desire over any other (equality). Such people may be somewhat odd
but they do exist, and they tend not to like the French revolution and
its slogans.
> Any why the French revolution?
> The earlier American revolution was also a semi-democratic
> revolution against a monarchy (although the precipitating
> events were probably more the fault of the Parliament).
The American revolution was largely a defensive matter in which the
colonists wanted to preserve from Parliamentary revision as much as
they could of the status quo that had already evolved in the colonies.
The French revolution was intended entirely to destroy the existing
order of things in favor of a new order to be discovered by abstract
reason and enforced by terror.
> Also, isn't it a little late? This is an intriguing bit of
> weirdness and I'd like to hear more about it.
Fundamental political issues are never settled. Ten years ago people
would have said it was a little late to undo the Bolshevik revolution.
The French revolution was three times as long ago as the Bolshevik
revolution, so maybe it will take 30 years to undo instead of ten.
That only means that alt.revolution.counter will have a longer run than
the alt.gorby.* hierarchy.
> Note that I'm posting this on the tiny chance that the original
> proposal was serious. My nonsense detectors were pegged reading
> the whole of the original.
To coin a phrase, there are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in your philosophy. I will be looking forward to your
participation in a.r.c.
From jk Wed Feb 10 12:20:44 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Is Christianity, in the end, Protestantism? (was Re: Random thoughts on the American Dream)
References: <1kf1j7INN5av@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1kktdbINNrlk@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <1993Feb3.020218.10289@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> ,<1993Feb4.030231.2900@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> <1993Feb9.052318.522@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Feb10.023655.19402@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
In <1993Feb10.023655.19402@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The basic argument of social historians (and I
>am not one of them, being interested in intellectual history) is that
>concern with religious dogma was confined to small educated elites, and
>later to the growing bourgeoisie (i.e., it was an urban phenomenon as
>well).
I was under the impression that there were heresies that were locally
quite strong, as in the south of France. Is there a particular
explanation for such situations? Also, would _cuius regio eius religio_
(or whatever the expression was) have worked if religious dogma had not
continued to be mostly an elite concern?
>As for the issue of egalitarianism,
>I would have thought that the connection was obvious, but I'll leave
>that for another time.
I would agree that a sort of egalitarianism is an element of
Christianity. What I questioned is that the modern version (which
includes the notion that all desires are equal) corresponds to the
doctrinal core of Christianity.
>Yes, I know jus primae noctis is a myth (though I suppose there might be
>historians who might disagree - I'm not a medievalist), but it was too
>good a joke to pass up. Lessee...how many angels can dance on the head of
>a pin? Oh dear - that was a myth too, wasn't it? Debunkers are such spoil
>sports.
Sorry for being such a sobersides -- I felt bad about what I wrote after
I posted it but it was too late. Could I retrieve the situation by
saying that come the counterrevolution you'll be able to implement the
j.p.n. in your own domains if you want? (Maybe you could adopt a "this
time around it's no more Mr. Nice Guy" theory of ducal government.
Personally, I plan to style myself "the Old Oligarch" and be part of a
Council of Ten ruling New York with an iron grip.)
>As to non-creedal religions? Well, remember by this I mean "ways of life",
>and I think, in spite of its current love affair wwith modernism, Japan ia
>is indeed a good example of a "way of life" which is adaptable enough to
>meet numerous challenges precisely because Japan exists due to its "sense of
>itself", not due to adherence to any creed.
I'm not sure Japan is so special. Would a Japanese contemplating Europe
and his own country say "we've remained what we always were but they've
really changed"? Also, it seems likely to me that material abundance,
which is very recent there, will utterly transform the Japanese way of
life. It's perfectly true that habits can survive for a while the
conditions and beliefs that gave rise to them, but not forever, and when
outmoded social habits change they can change as suddenly as outmoded
theories.
Maybe I just don't grasp well enough what you mean by "non-creedal"
religion. Would you say that Europe has a creedal religion
(Christianity) that has all but disappeared and also a non-creedal
religion (its way of life) that survives?
As to creedal religions, I would say that Christianity is still with us
to some degree after almost 2000 years, which is more than you can say
for the folkways of the ancient Greeks, Romans or Visigoths, and when
Christianity has had to adapt to new conditions to my impression is that
the tendency has been to ditch the folkways and concentrate on doctrine.
>BTW, to what extent are the West and Christianity linked? An examination of
>Spengler and "faustianism" would be appropriate at this point. It seems to
>me that there are salient features of the West which are in conflict with
>Christianity. Certainly, the Christianity of Europe has been different from
>early Christianity and Christianity outside of Europe. Wht caused these
>differences?
One could also ask the extent to which it is the Christian or the
non-Christian features of the West that have led to our current
situation. The ENR and the integralists might disagree on that point.
My own view is that if Plato could predict the situation then it's not a
result of Christianity.
>What about Chicken Little? Well, to see if the sky is falling or not, just
>look up.
It's notoriously hard to predict the social future, though.
>All this just skims the surface of these issues, I'm afraid. See you in a
>couple of days.
In this post it seems that I've mostly just asked questions that I don't
know the answers to. I'm not sure that qualifies even as skimming the
surface. Which is nice in a way -- it means I've found some issues I
can stick with for a while.
Good luck in the computer center!
From jk Thu Feb 11 09:08:32 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.sex,alt.feminism,soc.women
Subject: Tulsa (was: Sam Phillips (was: Sluts & Goddesses))
References: <1993Feb10.133630.9945@fuug.fi> <1993Feb10.213110.19473@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
In <1993Feb10.213110.19473@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> jay@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Jay Novello) writes:
>an6569@anon.penet.fi writes:
>>The 26-year-old
>>actress recently cut a rap single she wrote called "Choice". ``It's
>>about choices a woman can make about abortion, in posing nude, in
>>wearing whatever she wants to wear without people calling her a slut.''
I'm willing to seize any lead-in at all for a palindrome:
Tulsa nightlife: filth, gin, a slut.
Does anyone know of any feminist palindromes? The ones I can think of
go the other way. Some glorify dominant males, and even colonialism or
military glory:
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama! [Said of Teddy Roosevelt]
Able was I ere I saw Elba. [Supposedly said by Napoleon]
Others reinforce sexist social and religious myths, such as the story
that in the first human couple it was the male that was dominant:
Madam, I'm Adam. [Supposedly said to Eve by Adam, who apparently was
taking the initiative in the relationship]
The only recent head of a government that I can think of with a
palindromic name (Lon Nol) was an ally of the United States in the Viet
Nam war.
What does it all mean? Can anyone who knows Malayalam explain things to
us?
From jk Thu Feb 11 10:41:34 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: 1989 and all that (was: Question of a newbie gentleman)
References: <1993Feb8.000935.23017@news.ysu.edu> <16B6FEB79.C96@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <16B70112A2.C96@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <1993Feb10.195839.8367@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>
In <1993Feb10.195839.8367@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> comjohn@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Mr. John T Jensen) writes:
>Indeed, I think that 1989 and all that finished
>off the French Revolution.
I've wondered about this. The appeal for many people of the claim that
the end of Marxist communism means the end of history seems to show that
people have a hard time imagining any further development in fundamental
political conceptions and ideals; in other words, that the line of
political development from the Middle Ages through the French Revolution
to modern times has come to an end and can no longer guide further
developments. So the time may indeed be near for reintroducing into
political life some of the things that the French Revolution and its
progeny drove out.
Any other ideas on this?
From jk Thu Feb 11 21:52:52 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: nyc.general
Subject: Re: MORE ADL BIGOTRY?
References: <160.2684.uupcb@factory.com>
ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) writes:
>Ray Normandeau of the Queensbridge Tenant Council stated that the fact
>that the ADL capitalizes the word Hasidic but NOT the word Black when
>referring to ethnic groups immediately indicates how the ADL feels
>about Blacks.
Does it indicate that? I am a white Protestant. When I write "white
Protestant" I capitalize the second word but not the first. I believe
most other people do the same. It is not my intention to show respect
for Protestants but not for whites.
>Furthermore Normandeau states, there is apparent hatred on the part of
>the ADL towards inter-racial marriages as the Hasidic man could very
>well be married to the Black woman.
>
>Furthermore the locale could very well be the privacy of the couple's
>own home.
But could those have been the artist's intentions? The cover seemed to
express a wish that two communities -- Blacks and Hasids -- "kiss and
make up". If that's right, then the artist intended us to view the man
and the woman as members of the separate communities. That intention
would be lost if we viewed the woman as a Hasidic Jew who happened to be
Black. (My impression is that Hasidic Jews feel a religious obligation
to marry only other Hasidic Jews. Someone should correct me if I am
wrong.)
>The ADL is wilfully and deliberately trying to cause an "unnecessary
>inflammation of a difficult situation."
To avoid inflaming matters it may help not to think badly of people when
we can avoid doing so.
From jk Fri Feb 12 10:34:55 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Integrism
References: <199302112152.AA16212@yfn.ysu.edu>
In <199302112152.AA16212@yfn.ysu.edu> ae852@yfn.ysu.edu (Jovan Weismiller) writes:
>Integrists would say "la Foi Catholique d'abord!" (the Catholic Faith above
>all). That is, Integrism is an ideology which takes as its first rule of
>praxis the question "What is the position of the Catholic Church on this?"
>[ . . . ] The Integrist on the other hand has
>a large body of specific teaching enshrined in official Church documents
>and interpreted by experts over the last almost two hundred years by which
>to be guided in specific situations.
>Some of these experts are Joseph, le comte de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, Rene de
>la Tour du Pin, Emile Keller, the Vogelsang Schule in Austria,
>Maurras himself, Denis Fahey and F.X. Cahill.
What about discussions predating the French Revolution? Did any of the
Medieval disputes over the relationship between ecclesiastical and
secular authority lead to declarations that are still viewed as
authoritative within the Church? Do Integrists quote Hildebrand? (My
questions are very ignorant, for which I apologize.)
Also, what is the status of Integrism within the Catholic Church? I
seem to recall that Maurras got into trouble with the Church. De
Maistre, the only writer you mention that I've read at all, has his own
way of thinking. Is he really read as an expert interpreter of the
specific teachings set forth in official Church documents?
From jk Sat Feb 13 11:48:43 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What Revolution are we against?
References:
drw@euclid.mit.edu (Dale R. Worley) writes:
>I'm beginning to suspect that it's the Industrial Revolution, not the
>French Revolution.
Please expand. Thousands of cybermonarchists and hi-tech
paleoreactionaries are now on-line, eagerly awaiting your views.
From jk Sat Feb 13 12:05:19 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: nyc.general
Subject: Re: MORE ADL BIGOTRY?
References: <160.2684.uupcb@factory.com> <1lgpiiINN6ck@calvin.NYU.EDU>
In <1lgpiiINN6ck@calvin.NYU.EDU> roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
> From a purely gramatical point of view, I would say that whether you
>capitalize "white" depends on what part of speech it's being used as. In
>"white Protestant", white is an adjective modifying Protestant, which is a
>noun.
I don't think so -- proper adjectives are capitalized, just as proper
nouns are. Compare Democratic infighting (battles within a particular
political party) with democratic infighting (battles that everybody can
take part in).
>The real debate is whether Protestant is a proper noun or not; it
>should only be capitalized if it's a proper noun.
I would say it should, whether used as an adjective or a substantive,
unless being used in a descriptive sense to refer to people who are
protesting. When used (say) of the Lutherans it no longer means "those
who protest" but rather has to do with a particular set of traditions
within Christianity that began with acts of protest almost 500 years
age.
> Is "black" an adjective or a noun? I guess it depends on context.
>In "The black man bought a newspaper", it's clearly an adjective. In
>"Blacks have darker skin than Whites", I would say both "Blacks" and
>"Whites" are adjectives, although I suppose one could make a case (a weak
>one in my book) that they are both adjectives modifying the unwritten word
>"people", in which case neither would get capitalized.
Here again I would say use as an adjective or a noun is irrelevant.
Logically it probably makes most sense to capitalize "white" and "black"
when used to refer to the two main racial groups in this country.
People usually don't do that though, and I go along with the general
custom. The original poster thought that failure to capitalize "black"
showed a lack of respect; I disagreed on the grounds that people usually
don't capitalize "white" either.
From jk Sun Feb 14 09:47:24 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: which revolution etc.
References: <1993Feb13.204104.6114@news.vanderbilt.edu>
TROTTEJE@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu () writes:
>Given Mr. Kalb's affection for the heretic Blake (whose poetry is
>nonetheless sublime, I'll grant) one would have thought he might be
>sympathetic to the notion that it is the Industrial Revolution "we" are
>against.
Heretics are worth reading because they see some things very clearly,
even though they don't have a grip on the whole picture.
In this area I don't claim to have a good grip on the whole picture
either, and my request that Mr. Worley expand his remarks was not ironic
even though my wording was rather facetious.
My previous .sig quote, from Rilke, was somewhat to the point:
"Alles Erworbene bedroht die Maschine, solange
sie sich erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein."
("The machine threatens all that we have gained as long as it presumes
to exist in the realm of the spirit rather than that of obedience.")
The Industrial Revolution has given men power over their physical
surroundings. In many ways that is a good thing. If you are a parent
(as I am) it is difficult not to prefer a world in which modern medicine
exists to one in which it does not.
On the other hand, power magnifies vices, and one standing human vice is
our tendency to convert means into ends. Another vice that has been made
worse by the Industrial Revolution is our tendency to forget our
limitations and in imagination to cut the universe down to the size of
our desires, our beliefs and our ability to control.
As to what "our" attitude to all this should be: it seems to me that
reacs are people who have noticed that modern institutions and ways of
thought ignore important things, and so are led to prefer earlier
institutions and ways of thought. Earlier times cannot literally be
restored, though, since what they were was an outcome of myriad
circumstances that no longer exist. In addition, what earlier times
were became what is now, so it is likely that problems now can be traced
to problems that existed then. So our goal must be to find ways of
realizing under changed conditions valuable things that have been lost.
Obviously, doing so would require changes in any of the new conditions
that are simply inconsistent with ultimate goals. Some of the things
associated with the Industrial Revolution are no doubt in that category,
but very likely many are not.
In addition, it's not clear to me which things associated with the
Industrial Revolution can be changed. At some point the reflection that
our ability to reconstruct the social world is limited has to enter the
discussion.
>Of course, Blake's "Satanic mills" have been for the most part displaced
>by the labyrinthine corridors of the managerial-techno revolution, but
>one might plausibly argue that a "neutral" technology is merely abstract
>nonsense.
It would be nonsense if man were fundamentally an economic producer. In
that case, the state of technology might reasonably be thought to
determine the organization of production and therefore of society
generally, and the necessary organization of society might be thought to
determine ideology. That's a view that many people have held, but I
prefer to believe that technology does not imply ideology, and that one
may sensibly distinguish between a power such as technology and the use
that is made of that power.
>In any case, the Industrial Revolution was driven by an ideology born of
>the bloodless abstractions of the French Revolution--at least in part,
>since we mustn't forget the Calvinist contribution.
I thought it mostly emerged in provincial England before the French
Revolution out of the solution of practical problems by practical men
with no particular concern with abstractions.
>Indeed, one might speculate that the French Revolution owes something to
>the Jansenist loathing of matter. Beneath all schemes of total
>liberation (Rousseau, et al.) lurks this gnostic dualism which seeks,
>above all, liberation from the "world-prison."
Very likely.
>The ancient gnostics satisfied their dreams of liberation by postulating
>a "Hidden God"--a God beyond God, a nihilistic conception if ever there
>was one [ . . . ]
I know nothing about the gnostic notion of a Hidden God, but from the
words it sounds like no more than the notion that God is transcendent
and therefore not to be identified with anything else, including our
conceptions of him. What more did the gnostics mean?
>All modern ideology of the progressivist stripe is gnostic in this
>sense, that it seeks total liberation from imprisoning institutions,
>unseen ideologies. The revolt against nature, against any defining and
>limiting "human nature" assumes an "authentic" ineffable selfhood which
>"yearns to be free" from the dross of its created--and, therefore,
>dependent or creaturely--status.
Nietzsche is interesting on this point because he doesn't believe he
doesn't believe in any authentic ineffable selfhood either. It's part
of what makes his thought so wonderfully incoherent.
Back to the Industrial Revolution -- what did Voegelin think of it?
From jk Sun Feb 14 21:50:01 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What Revolution are we against?
References: <199302142230.AA08163@yfn.ysu.edu>
ae852@yfn.ysu.edu (Jovan Weismiller) writes:
>Interestingly enough, there _are_ some raving loonies (my description)
>in the Integrist movement who _are_ Luddites. My question to them is
>always, "How do you plan on getting rid of the surplus population?,"
>since if we get rid of technology and go back to pre-Industrial
>Revolution ways, the earth will not be able to support the great
>majority of its current population.
Are any of them willing to compromise? I understand that quite high
yields can be attained without machinery or chemical fertilizer if
you're willing to be otherwise scientific in your approach to
agriculture. (If we had a few organic gardeners or Amish in the group
I'm sure we could hear more on the subject.)
From jk Sat Feb 20 08:38:43 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
References: <1993Feb19.142322.2431@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
chang@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>> 1) Children are told to express themselves about things which they have
>> no knowledge or experience about, and then that their opinions are
>> equally right.
>
>i think the reason children are taught this is because at when kids
>are young, it is not as important to teach them particular ideas or
>ways of thinking, but rather to help establish their sense of self and
>individuality.
I don't see what is worth having about a sense of self or individuality
that depends on the notion that all opinions, no matter how uninformed
or confused, are equally right. It seems to me that children should
learn that some things really are better than other things, that
experience and effort can help us know what those better things are, and
that a lot of people have been putting a lot of effort into that project
for a long time so it's smart to learn from your elders. Then children
will be able to develop a sense of self based on the notion that there
are a lot of good things in the world, that society is a collective
effort to realize those good things and has often been successful in
doing so, and that one has the ability -- which will grow over the years
-- to participate in and add to that effort.
>i don't disagree with you as much on this particular example [death
>education], but on your general approach, which seems to be that we
>shouldn't expose children to a wide variety of concepts. heaven knows,
>they might start thinking about these issues, and before you know it,
>we have...
Children like to be told things they can rely on. In teaching children
it seems to me best to start off with basic and concrete things that
people do in fact rely on in day-to-day life -- basic skills like the
three R's, basic facts like where things are (geography) and when things
happened (history), basic moral virtues like honesty, kindness, respect
for elders. Attempts at abstraction or serious inventiveness generally
misfire. Consider the "new math".
>> 3) In sex education courses, children were
>> a) shown movies of couples actually having sex
>
>oh no! not sex! it's only the most natural undertaking known to
>humankind...
All societies surround sex with taboos, so I suppose sexual taboos are
natural. I don't know of any society in which it's customary to engage
in sexual intercourse in public, so in particular some degree of sexual
reticence seems natural. It's true that at least since the time of the
Cynics some people with a taste for abstract thought have considered
taboo and reticence contrary to nature, but that only shows that
educated cluelessness has a long history.
>> 4) In a "values clarification" course, one child came home not
>> knowing whether or not stealing was right.
>
>that proves the success of the course, not the failure. it shows that
>the student has learned to think critically, not to blindly follow his
>or her parent's teachings. the best way to ensure a widespread
>following for an idea is to have a good idea. compliance through
>ignorance does not sound very compelling to me as good public policy.
Critical thought about morals or anything else is a fine thing as long
as there is the necessary background of accepted standards and
practices. Discussion of whether an idea is a good idea requires, among
other things, a general consensus as to what "good" means. That is why
the education of children mostly consists of teaching them accepted
standards and practices, and critical thought comes after that basic
material has been mastered. In this respect morals is no different from
anything else. Students of physics don't start off by being asked about
their personal theories of the universe, and basketball coaches who want
winning teams begin by drilling their players in fundamentals.
Brilliant innovations come later.
>> 6) Children were often told not to tell their parents of school activities.
>
>i don't think that is necessarily good nor necessarily bad. in some
>situations, it might be good and vice versa. i think your view is too
>constrictive of the child, though, as if we need to strangle the child
>if we are to keep control.
You are speaking as if the issue were whether children are to be subject
to authority at all. That's not the issue raised by the example, though
-- the children were being *told* by the school what not to do. Rather,
the issue is whether it should be the parents who are responsible for
the children's well-being or the state. I think it should be the
parents. The average parent cares for the child more than the average
educational bureaucracy and is certainly no more misguided.
Incidentally, I don't understand your use of the words "constrictive"
and "strangle". What relevance do they have to whether children let
their parents know what the schools are having them do?
From jk Sat Feb 20 08:41:56 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
Distribution: usa
References: <1993Feb17.123907.2384@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <38627@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> <185448@pyramid.pyramid.com>
pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
>[P]eople are actually free to create themselves, but that they can only
>exercise true freedom by choosing knowledgably between real
>alternatives. The unexamined life leads to unexamined choices which
>yields unintended consequences.
People obviously aren't free to create themselves, and they can't know
and examine anything without first accepting a tremendous amount without
question. That's why being a parent is such a responsible position.
Our children are dependent on us to such a degree that we make the world
they live in. That's not a right of the parent -- it's a necessity for
the child.
>I often wish they/we/I didn't have to wait until being full grown adults
>to become aware of *this* option.
It might be nice if we sprung full-grown from the head of Zeus, but we
don't. We can't lift ourselves by our bootstraps, and we can't make
choices at all without already having values, beliefs and habits of
thought. So we all have to start life by getting those things from
someone, and I think the world will be better if people get them from
their parents than if they get them from the state.
>I'm very glad for a public school system which is not afraid to present
>"what's so" about this world, and I'm sorry that you fear it.
Public schools have trouble teaching children to read and write. You
seem to think they are well suited to supplant the influence of parents
in more complex and subtle matters. That puzzles me.
From jk Sat Feb 20 08:45:06 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.feminism,sci.anthropology,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Is Male Dominance Universal? (was Re: More Goldberg Responses to "Patriarchy" Debate)
References: <1m3aseINNiit@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov (Richard Spear) writes:
>humans have developed upon the template of 'infraprimate' physiology and
>behavior [ . . . ] the forces that retained (and continue to promote)
>this relationship and sustain patriarchal polities are social now, not
>biological.
Is it your view that patriarchal patterns of behavior that were once
based on biology are now exclusively social because human evolution has
eliminated all biological propensities to engage in such patterns?
From jk Sat Feb 20 10:53:51 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: 1989 and all that (was: Question of a newbie gentleman)
References: <1993Feb17.005600.1176@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> <1993Feb19.012412.15816@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, <1993Feb19.235720.5742@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>In article , jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>
>>>When the state is a natural product of a society, which functions for
>>>the benefit of the society, than I see no problem with the State as
>>>such [ . . . ]
>>To accept "statism" is to accord divine status to the state [ . . . ]
>I don't see how your definition of statism follows from my acceptance of
>the state as a natural part of the social order.
It doesn't. You said "what's the problem with statism?" and I presented
a definition of statism that refers to a set of views that many people
tend to hold and that is indeed troublesome. I also presented an
account of how people might come to accord divine status to the state.
>The point I was trying to make was that the state exists to perform
>certain functions, and that only when the state becomes an end in
>itself, to the detriment of everything else, only then do I have an
>objection.
I don't disagree. To accord divine status to the state is to make it
not only an end in itself but even the supreme end of all ends. Neither
you nor I approve of doing so.
>Of course reality is not socially constructed, and since the state is a
>part of reality, its ability to manipulate reality as a whole is limited
>by factors beyond its control, but this does not mean that the state, or
>society, or whatever, is not capable of bringing about change, for
>better or for worse.
I agree with you. Not everyone does, though. Many people are unwilling
to admit that we did not create ourselves, and that reality is not a
social artifice that can be reconstructed to further whatever goals one
happens to have. Think of discussions of whether there is such a thing
as "intelligence" and (if so) whether it has a genetic component, or of
whether there are innate differences between men and women.
>People did not invent the state to create values - people invented the
>state to enforce the values that they already held. What those values
>should be is the proper realm of religion and philosophy, not the state
You seem to be of the view that values exist apart from actual social
institutions, and that as such they can be known through theological and
philosophical science. If so, I agree with you but not everyone does.
My point was that the contrary view can lead to statism as I defined it.
BTW, congrats on your new-found quoting skills.
From jk Sat Feb 20 10:58:59 1993
From: jk
To: sheaffer@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Is Male Dominance Universal? (was Re: More Goldberg Responses to "Patriarchy" Debate)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.feminism,sci.anthropology,sci.philosophy.tech
References: <1993Feb18.210444.6165@netcom.com> <1993Feb19.212836.9523@netcom.com>
>(What LAME arguments! Why do I waste my time arguing with this
>guy?????????)
An excellent question. Fitch and Argic are the two usual occupants of
my omni-group kill file. He's not stupid, but he views discussion
*exclusively* as a vehicle for self-assertion.
Actually, I'm amazed you're still pursuing this discussion. How
rewarding can it be to keep on answering the same dumb or mendacious
objections?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Rem tene; verba sequentur." (Cato)
From jk Sun Feb 21 09:58:01 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Progress and Utopia
References: <1993Feb20.193008.8266@news.vanderbilt.edu>
TROTTEJE@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu () writes:
>Christopher Lasch, in a recent article in the journal "Salmagundi"
>(Fall 1992), writes (in a footnote): "the idea of progress, in its most
>compelling form, is quite distinct from the expectation of Utopia. It
>rests on the expectation that the widening of men's horizons, the
>constant expansion of the desire for a more abundant existence, will
>generate an indefinite expansion of the productive forces necessary to
>satisfy this desire. The idea of progress owes nothing [contra Voegelin
>et al.] to the millennarian imagination, nor does it provide any more
>than an incidental support for totalitarianism.
The idea Lasch describes strikes me as utopian, but it views utopia as
something that is perpetually coming rather than something that will
fully exist at a particular time. Nonetheless, the progressive believes
that each specific utopian desire (the abolition of war, for example)
may be realized at some particular time in the future. The idea of
progress is the idea that future as a whole is utopia.
Obviously, so conceiving utopia makes a difference in some respects. If
utopia is always under construction and never quite arrives the
totalitarian temptation to try to create it all at once with strong-arm
methods does not arise. Nonetheless, the progressive feels a kinship
with the totalitarian, viewing him as a progressive in a hurry.
Accordingly, the progressive tends to support the totalitarian on the
grounds that the changes the totalitarian wants to make are changes in
the right direction, and changes in the right direction are what the
progressive lives for.
>[I]ts persistence, long after the ideological collapse of utopianism in
>the 1940s, indicates that it does not depend on the vision of future
>perfection.
What does Lasch mean by "the ideological collapse of utopianism in the
1940s". Has he forgotten the 60's so soon? Didn't he ever learn to
pronounce "Nicaragua" with a trilled "r"? Also, I don't see all that
much difference between a vision of future perfection and a vision of
future approximations to perfection that become indefinitely closer.
(All you Spengler fans: doesn't Oswald say something about Western man
and the infinitesimal calculus that is relevant here?)
From jk Sun Feb 21 10:01:26 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What Revolution are we against?
References: <199302142230.AA08163@yfn.ysu.edu> <1993Feb18.215452.11902@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, <1993Feb20.003242.6676@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Classical liberal assumptions were already firmly in place in England by
>the 17th century - consider Hobbes, Locke, the English Civil War, the
>so-called "glorious revolution" of 1688, etc. At this same time, the
>enclosures of common lands and other modernizing efforts in agriculture
>were helping to bring about the revolution in agricultural output which
>made the English Industrial Revolution feasible...since these
>modernizing efforts in agriculture were a direct result of liberal
>ideology, I would say this is a pretty clear indication that ideology
>can drive a revolution in the organization of production and not the
>other way around [ . . . ] [A] revolution in the means of production
>based solely on 18th century technology could still have gone far - just
>look how long water power was used after the invention of the steam
>engine.
I suppose one could add that people develop knowledge and skill to do
the things they are interested in doing (Romanesque sculpture or modern
industrial production, as the case may be), and also point to people who
have rejected available technology because it didn't fit in with the way
of life they wanted (firearms in pre-Meiji Japan; the internal
combustion engine among the Amish).
One question is whether the striking success of one line of endeavor
leads people to conform themselves to the outlook and habits associated
with it but when problems appear support tends to fragment. If so, at
some point problems regarding the further development of industrial
technology could lead people to abandon the habits of thought that until
that time had been associated with that development, while continuing to
use the technology already developed.
What would you consider the classical liberal assumptions? I would say
that the main one is that the common good of society is safeguarding the
pursuit by each man of his own good as he himself defines it. That
assumption doesn't seem to depend on any particular state of technology.
One question is the extent to which by itself it leads to hedonistic
materialism. One might say that to accept that assumption is to treat
whether something pleases someone as the criterion for whether that
thing is that person's good, which is the hedonistic criterion. One
might also say that to the extent the accepted conception of the common
good relates only to things that everyone in fact agrees on, the objects
it is concerned with will tend to be material things because material
things are easier to demonstrate. Other views may be possible, though.
>[M]odern technology and modern methods of production are not necessarily
>the same thing.
True enough. One question is what limitations there are on social
organization and outlook if one wants to preserve modern technology.
>Liberalism has never been able to explain how - once it has rejected
>tradition and religion, and established "liberty" and "equality" - it
>has never explained how it can possibly keep the process from going
>even further...a la communism, the welfare state, libertarianism or what
>have you.
Communism always seemed to me the logical final stage. If I'm right
that the basic assumption of classical liberalism is that the common
interest is safeguarding each man in the pursuit of his own interest,
then at first libertarianism is the essence of liberalism. But nothing
human stays the same. If safeguarding me in pursuing my interest is
good, then guaranteeing that I will attain my interest must be better,
and the welfare state becomes the ideal. Any qualms I may have that
Peter is being robbed to pay Paul (a.k.a. me) can easily be allayed by
the reflection that since society could have been organized in a variety
of ways, and some of those ways would have been more advantageous to
Paul and less advantageous to Peter, the assumption of neutrality
contained in the distinction between safeguarding and favoring someone
in the pursuit of his interest is unjustified. But if you start
worrying about the injustice implicit in social organization due to the
practical effect that any particular set-up has in favoring the
interests of some over those of others, you will only be satisfied by
social arrangements that make everyone's interests the same. The
communist movement was the attempt to create such arrangements.
This analysis, that treats communism as the natural goal of the
progressive movement, makes the events of 1989 seem extraordinarily
important to me.
From jk Sun Feb 21 13:47:50 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
References: <1993Feb19.142322.2431@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <1993Feb20.171233.2449@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
chang@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>you yourself seem to argue that what [1] we need to do is give children
>a solid foundation upon which to exist. that is the whole point of
>[2] giving them self-confidence and a sense of individuality, that
>their opinion matters and is acceptable. once they learn this,they can
>delve into [3] the much more difficult world of right and wrong and the
>various subtleties involved in that.
I would say that [1] comes first and mostly consists in enabling
children to participate in and contribute to the immediate communities
of which they are members, such as family and school. Children are
enabled to do that by learning and accepting the standards and practices
of those communities. [1] then gives rise to [2], which ultimately
enables them (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on maturity,
circumstances and character) to think critically about [3].
>i don't see how your approach provides any foundation for children that
>makes sense for their entire life. it seems more like a stopgap
>approach; since they can't discern right and wrong, we'll give them
>these easy to follow steps and they can base their lives on this.
What's wrong with a stopgap approach for children? Their minds are
_tabulae rasae_ with a lot of mental gaps that have to be filled up
somehow for them to function at all. They can't be instantly turned
into moral philosophers.
Actually, what I propose is better than a stopgap approach: it consists
in the children being brought up by their elders to accept the things
that the accumulated thought and experience of the elders and the
community to which the elders and the children belong seem to show are
the best things to base a life on. The elders and the community might
be wrong, of course, but that shows more the imperfection of life than
any essential flaw in my proposal.
>if you premise a sense of self based on a certain moral value system,
>then questioning that moral system entails undercutting that sense of
>self.
I think that's right. What I am is largely determined by what I think
is good and bad. My value is part of a system that includes the value
of things other than myself. What's wrong with that?
>basically, it means people will not question their basic moral systems.
Depends on how basic you get. Since you can only evaluate things with
reference to values that you already recognize, I'm not sure how one
could sensibly question his basic moral system as a whole. He could
sensibly question important pieces of it, of course. But even that is
not something to undertake lightly.
>however, if children are given a sense of self, independent of any
>specific moral system and believe that they in and of themselves are
>valuable and worthy of their own beliefs, then they can go and find what
>in the world is good for them.
"What *I* am is surely good and valuable and worthy, even though the
value and worth of everything else in the world is uncertain." Is that
a rational outlook? How come I am so much more morally fundamental than
anything else?
>i think it should up to each individual person to decide how much of
>their life they want to devote to society and how much they want to
>not.
How is it possible for each individual to decide what kind of moral
education he will receive?
>i think the reason we find the idea of showing a sex film to children
>to be shocking is that we raise children to be completely innocent of
>sex, which is of course a "dirty" thing that we need to protect them
>from it.
You seem to find the aversion to showing sex films to children to be an
oddity of our society that depends on our particularly rigorous notion
of sexual purity. If that were so, then in other societies it would be
considered quite an ordinary thing for children to watch sex films or
(in societies that don't have films) for children to watch people
engaging in sexual intercourse. Do you believe that is the case?
>i don't think developing a personal idea of morality can be classified
>as "brilliant innovation". it's something that each person should do;
>otherwise, their lives are meaningless. they are living other people's
>lives according to other people's moralities. now, if they choose to
>live thusly, that is fine also, but it has to be a choice, not something
>people are thrust into with no knowledge that they could live according
>to their own wishes.
It's normal for people to make their own what they learn from others. I
speak and write English correctly and view it as my language even though
I didn't invent it. I didn't invent my cosmological beliefs;
nonetheless, they are in fact my beliefs. I learned some points of
taste from my wife and a couple of other women; once learned, those
perceptions have become my own.
Also, since you have just stated a rule for what makes people's lives
meaningful or meaningless it appears that you believe that your morality
provides standards that apply to other people. Have you contradicted
yourself?
>many people go through life continually being uncomfortable with
>themselves. our society is completely neurotic about looks, not being
>too fat, etc.
Maybe those people would be better off if they would forget about the
idea that they had to create themselves.
>certainly, i must agree that a school *telling* the child not to tell
>the parents is no worse than parents inculcating a child with preset
>ideas. but i still don't see the huge harms in this. at worst, the
>child is presented with two differing authorities, which the child is
>used to looking up to both as unquestionable. faced with the fact that
>these two "unquestionables" are questioning each other, perhaps the
>child will learn that neither is unquestionable and will try to develop
>his or her own ideas.
Children do best if they feel secure and they don't feel secure if the
people they look up to are in open conflict. That's one of the reasons
marital discord and divorce are bad for children. They will have plenty
of experience of conflicting signals and demands as they grow older.
Why rush things?
>(i was assuming that the parents would disagree because they would be
>losing their strict control over the child).
What do you mean strict control? You overestimate the energy of the
average parent and underestimate that of the average child. By itself,
knowledge is not control. But in order to know when to exercise control
and what kind of control to exercise a parent has to know what is going
on with the child.
In addition, it's worth asking why the school, which by law has control
of the child for 200 days a year, wants to hide things from the parents.
Can you suggest a legitimate motive?
From jk Sun Feb 21 13:49:21 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
Distribution: usa,world
References: <1993Feb17.123907.2384@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <38627@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu> <185448@pyramid.pyramid.com> <1993Feb20.172904.2450@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
chang@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>the whole point is that children need to be prepared for their own
>lives. you act as if this form of parenting is the be all and end of a
>child's existence until he or she legally becomes an adult. maybe when
>the child is five, the child is almost completely dependent on the
>parent [ . . . ] i find it ridiculous that this same completely
>protective paternalistic attitude might even be applied to older
>children and young adults.
I didn't say anything intended to suggest this. The normal course is
that when children are small they are quite dependent on their parents
but as they grow older they become more independent. I have no problem
with that. I also don't see why the public schools should feel they
have to hasten the process.
>i think education needs to be revamped, and more private education will
>definitely be important, especially to encourage more innovation. but
>the political argument of state versus private education is seperate
>from the more fundamental issue we've been discussing, that of the types
>of good or bad education.
It's worth noting that parents are likely to be more in control of
private than public education because if they don't like what the
schools are doing they can change their children's schools.
From jk Mon Feb 22 11:13:18 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Puritanism and the Revolution
References: <199302150140.AA28135@yfn.ysu.edu>, <1993Feb18.231230.13268@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1m98jjINN2fd@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
In <1m98jjINN2fd@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> norris@athena.mit.edu (Richard A Chonak) writes:
>It
>would be more accurate to say that Catholicism has had to fight a
>perennial battle against doctrines which held man and the body in
>contempt: from ancient Gnostics who believed that matter was evil, to
>medieval Albigensians who forbade marriage, to Puritans who thought
>fallen man was "totally depraved".
>Orthodox Catholicism thinks matter and the human body are just great,
>since God made them.
Is it clear that Puritanism was to the contrary? That's not the
impression I get from the descriptions of Eden (including the love life
of Adam and Eve) in _Paradise Lost_.
> Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
> All is laughter, love, and wine;
But this statement would still make sense if the word "Catholic" were
deleted. Ireland and Belgium are Catholic countries where the weather
isn't particularly good, and neither is famous for laughter, love and
wine.
From jk Mon Feb 22 22:23:16 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
References: <1993Feb19.142322.2431@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <1993Feb20.171233.2449@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <1993Feb22.125536.2464@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
chang@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>i think we esssentially differ on two things: the goal of education, and
>comcomitant with that, which approach best reaches that goal. i view
>the goal of education as producing thinking individuals, that can think
>critically and independently. that does not mean rejecting the wisdom of
>past experience. it simply means looking at that wisdom from a different
>perspective. a person can understand the past, the assumptions made
>behind old social mores, and can adapt them to changing cirumstances as
>the old assumptions become outdated.
But critical thought, and the determination whether things are outdated
and what adjustments are needed to adapt to changing circumstances,
require criteria that stay the same through the changes. Otherwise
thought becomes arbitrary whim.
I would say that the goal of education is a good life. Thought can
contribute to that goal, but it doesn't exhaust it. By and large, and
for most people, feeling, habit and perception play a much larger role.
Some independent thinkers are needed, but not that many. Which is just
as well, since not many people will ever be capable of thinking
independently.
[Also sprach Nietzsche:]
"History teaches that the best-preserved tribe among a people is the
one in which most men have a living communal sense as a consequence of
sharing their customary and indisputable principles- in other words, in
consequence of a common faith. Here the good, robust *mores* thrive;
here the subordination of the individual is learned and the character
recives firmness, first as a gift and then is further cultivated. The
danger to these strong communities founded on homogenous individuals
who have character is growing stupidity, which is gradually increased
by heredity, anbd which, in any case, follows all stability like a
shadow. It is the individuals who have fewer ties and are much more
uncertain and morally weaker upon whom *spiritual progress* depends in
such communities; they are the men who make new and manifold
experiments."
When I think of the greatest thinkers and artists the people who come to
mind don't strike me as individuals with few ties who are uncertain and
morally weak. I don't think of those as characteristics shared by
Plato, Aristotle, the Greek tragedians, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas,
Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, and Bach, for
example. One or another of them may have had a few flaws or oddities,
but the same could be said of my relatives, and my relatives don't
include any world-class geniuses.
It's possible that in modern times a larger number of jokers creep into
the deck, like Rousseau or Nietzsche himself. But that seems to have to
do with the decline of the living communal sense that Nietzsche seems to
believe is something that a great thinker must oppose. If Nietzsche
were right, I would have thought that the less communal sense the less
rebellion. Instead, we find the reverse.
Also, what's the relevance to education? Do you propose educating
people to have few ties, and to be uncertain and morally weak? Assuming
Nietzsche is right, and the great thinker is necessarily on the outs
with society, why not give the great thinker a well-integrated society
to be on the outs with? I believe Nietzsche also said that whatever
didn't destroy him made him stronger. Why not give his like some firm
social mores to struggle with?
>what i suggest, though, is that all people should be provided with the
>tools to become independent, to surpass the teachers that gave them
>those tools in the first place.
The purpose of education is not to make life novel, but to make it good.
If every Tom, Dick and Harry is able to surpass his teachers, then
something has gone terribly wrong in what's being taught.
A few analogies might clarify things. Usually people would rather get
bicycles than the tools to design and make their own bicycles. Do you
think a way of life is easier to invent than a bicycle? Unless the chef
is very unusual, I would rather have dinner in a restaurant that served
food prepared in accordance with the authentic traditions of Tuscan
cookery than food prepared in some new way that no-one ever heard of
before because the cook just invented it. And if a cook decided to be
inventive I would be much more hopeful if he had mastered an existing
tradition of cooking so he knew some standards and was in a position to
know whether his new dish was worth preparing. Food is only a small
part of a way of life, so it makes sense to be even more cautious in
ethical matters.
>i am not premising my arguments on a relativistic principle. i really
>have no idea what has worth and what does not. the point, though, is
>that it should be the within the power of the individual to choose.
Does individual choice have worth or not? If you have no idea whether
it does or not, why propose it? If it does have worth, does it only
have worth for you or does it automatically have worth for everyone? If
the latter, how do you know that there aren't other things that
automatically have worth for everyone, like honesty or kindness?
>we can provide an individual with the power to accept or reject that
>moral education.
You believe the power to accept or reject is good and ought to be
inculcated in people. Someone else thinks that loyalty to the Corleone
family is good and ought to be inculcated. How do you know you're right?
>why does the fact that other societies have similar aversions make
>sexual puritanism justifies?
If something is accepted in one form or another in the great majority of
societies, one infers that it probably has a function.
>you learned english without choice, but now you should be able to learn
>different langugages. perhaps you will enjoy speaking french more.
Not likely. Do you think it was wrong of my parents, teachers and
society generally to put me in the position I'm in now, in which I'm
more or less stuck with English because it would be extremely difficult
for me to learn another language as well? After all, I didn't choose
for it to be my native language.
>(by the way, please define what you mean by cosmological).
The origins of the universe. The Big Bang and all that.
>on the issue of education, it is impossible to be completely neutral and
>liberal about it, to provide an absolutely unbiased education to people.
>some assumptions have to be made about education. however, my point is
>that those assumptions should be minimized. the only "moral" rule(i.e.
>rule that the child cannot "choose" to accept) i use is that people
>should be given the power to find their own moral rules. your
>philosophy does nothing to minimize the amount of social morality
>involved, and thus, it fails.
Why should anyone accept your rule? Instead of minimizing assumptions,
one might make the assumptions that seem to be true.
>people have no idea that they have a choice in societal expectations and
>perceptions. they have no power over prevailing social attitudes over
>what is fat, thin, beautiful, ugly. thus, they are doomed to lives of
>miserable wallowing. it's this lack of power which causes their problems
>(as well as a strange societal view of beauty).
In America people feel they can be what they want to be, and in
particular that they can make themselves thin, beautiful and so on. So
being not-so-thin and not-so-beautiful are not just conditions that are
part of life, they're blameworthy. Compared with European women
American women are always on diets and always worry about what they look
like in bathing suits. The belief that you *should* be able to be what
you aren't and misery when it doesn't happen go hand in hand.
>i think a crucial issue is that your view does not provide people with
>the motive nor means of developing as individuals. what is your view of
>a good society? are thinking individuals a part of it? or is it
>communal contentedness and general happiness? those assumptions are
>important.
Thinking individuals are part of it, but not everyone can be a thinking
individual if by "thought" you mean abstract thought about general
questions. I'm inclined to view what everyone can be as more
fundamental, and everyone can be honest, kind and loyal. Everyone can
love the good, beautiful and true in accordance with his capacity.
Everyone can contribute to society in some way or other. People who
think can make an irreplaceable contribution to society, and there is
something intrinsically noble about thought, but to me it seems
one-sided to make thought in itself the goal.
From jk Tue Feb 23 15:24:01 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What Revolution are we against?
References: <199302142230.AA08163@yfn.ysu.edu> <1993Feb18.215452.11902@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, <1993Feb20.003242.6676@news.cs.brandeis.edu>, <1993Feb23.042427.5706@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
In <1993Feb23.042427.5706@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Has Mr. Kalb read Tomislav Sunic's book? He has a section which outline some of
>the ENR arguments (or rather, the arguments of an individual who is a source
>for ENR ideas on the subject) which point to this very outcome of liberalism.
I haven't seen the book. Judging by the samples of Mr. Sunic's prose
that have appeared in _Chronicles_ I don't think I'd be able to read the
whole thing. Maybe I'll take a look at it for the references.
>I would argue
>that "communism" as we understand the word, is not necessarily the last stage,
>but rather, some form of totalitarian, egalitarian leveling is the final
>outcome of liberalism in practice. It may even be impecably "democratic" -
>Nietzsche's "last man" if you will.
By "communism" I mostly understand totalitarian egalitarian leveling.
It would be the ultimate horror if that state of affairs were indeed
impeccably democratic. I don't think that would happen, though, if only
because people would become too disorderly and brutal in their personal
lives for democracy to work.
From jk Wed Feb 24 12:26:51 1993
From: jk
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: mandatory civics education justified?
References: <1993Feb19.142322.2431@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> <1993Feb23.194150.2491@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
In <1993Feb23.194150.2491@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu> chang@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
>i would agree, except the problem is that we are inundated with that
>criteria that stays the same through the changes. for 18 years, we
>are bombarded with it continually.
Then why do people get so edgy when the subject of schools teaching
values comes up? And when schools do teach values, why does it tend to
take the form of "values clarification"?
>the problem is that nowadays, people do virtually no questioning and
>have an extremely limited self-awareness.
What past are you contrasting "nowadays" with?
I would say that nowadays the problem is more that people aren't brought
up with a coherent understanding of values that enables them to make
sense of their daily lives and the position in which they find
themselves in the world. If you like questioning and self-awareness,
then I would point out that such things are a lot easier for someone who
starts with a definite viewpoint than someone who starts with no clear
idea of things.
>that's a pretty dim view of humanity. i sometimes wonder why i have
>such optimism about people's capabilities. you're right to some
>degree. so few people i know are independent thinkers.
Why is it dim? People have many different strengths, but no-one has all
of them. There are good people who are not independent thinkers.
>i agree that education is to forward "the good life". but what
>is the good life? ignorance is bliss? let's live like a content herd
>of cows, eating away at the grass as totaly fulfillment of our lives?
>seems a little shallow to me, though i may be imposing my personal
>views here.
People who don't think independently aren't necessarily ignorant. If
the educational system is working at all well, what people are taught
most of the time for most people will be better than what those people
could have figured out for themselves. Which is good even for the
independent thinkers, because no-one can investigate independently the
validity of the great majority of the beliefs he has to rely on in
living. Also, the lives of people who are not independent thinkers are
not necessarily mediocre. You can achieve great things without being an
independent thinker, you just won't come up with any interesting new
ideas.
>> When I think of the greatest thinkers and artists the people who come to
>> mind don't strike me as individuals with few ties who are uncertain and
>> morally weak. I don't think of those as characteristics shared by
>> Plato, Aristotle, the Greek tragedians, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas,
>> Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Pascal, Newton, and Bach, for
>> example.
>you're just factually wrong on this one. an overwhelming majority of
>the great thinkers are outcasts in some form or another. i suggest
>you do a little biographical reading. it makes sense too. why would
>a person, completely content with the world, bother to innovate?
I don't want to take the time to discuss the biographies of the people I
listed. In response to your general point, I would say that it's
possible to think something new and good is possible even if you have
many ties and are self-confident and morally strong. You might take
delight in the activity of bringing something new and alive and
beautiful into the world. You might think that what's been done up to
now is good and take pleasure in developing it further. (Many great
thinkers and artists have admired their predecessors.)
>socrates was too wise for his own society (by
>the way, he is a perfect characterization of the independent thinker
>that you find a distaste for). he was not tolerated because he asked
>too many compelling questions. i wonder how he would fare if placed
>in one of your schools.
When have I expressed a distaste for independent thinkers? I referred
to independent thought as a noble activity that makes an irreplaceable
contribution to the world. Theoretical physics is a form of independent
thought, for example, and I think it's a fine thing. There just aren't
that many people who can contribute much to it, and there will be
problems if we don't drill people on the specifics of how to fix a TV
set because we want them to approach fixing it in the same way a
theoretical physicist would approach some cutting-edge problem.
As to what Socrates would be like as a schoolboy, I don't know. It
might depend on the school. He didn't like democracy or moral
relativism, so chances are he wouldn't like any school you would set up.
He might like a school of the sort I would advocate if he thought that
the view of life informing the school could stand up reasonably well to
criticism.
>you can make the school a wellspring for thinkers. this
>is its traditional role, which has been subjugated in modern society.
Can you give some examples of schools of the past that you approve of?
>we don't have to differ here. remember, making people self-aware and
>thinking does not mean that they go out and invent new concepts
>everywhere (though that would be great!). it only means that they
>understand why they live their lives, and if they disagree with it,
>then they have the power to do so.
Sounds reasonable in a way. Maybe the issue is how much of the existing
system of things people have to assimilate before they can criticize it
productively and how many people are likely to succeed in doing so.
>no matter how hard i try, i will never be
>able to get inside your brain and understand what you think and why
>you think it. therefore, you should have the power to choose your
>lifestyle, and i mine.
Is self-knowledge that easy, and are people that different from each
other? My knowledge of most things is based more on my and other
people's experience of other things of that type than on consideration
of the individual thing itself. Your notion seems to be that each
individual by his individual efforts can come up with a theory about
what is good for him and how to achieve it that is a better guide to
action than the theory people collectively can come up with about what
is good for people generally. I don't see why that should be so.
>"if anarchy is generally accepted in
>human societies, then it's okay." for the vast majority of human
>existence, that was how we lived.
What do you mean? As long as there have been human beings there has
been social order.
>as i recall, the original statement you made regarding this was that
>you did not choose your own cosmological beliefs. i find this
>fascinating. i sure chose mine, and i'm saddened that you did not.
Not sure what you mean. Do you accept the Big Bang? What moved you to
accept or reject it? Why the sadness? Isn't there enough sadness in
the world?
>how do reconcile your ideas with the
>fundamentally liberal ideas in the bill of rights? "one might make
>the assumptions that seem to be true." i have trouble seeing how this
>is compatible with "congress shall no make no laws respecting the
>establishment of religion..." the principle behind that is that
>people, not society, should make their own individual decisions.
The principle when the bill of rights was adopted was that the Federal
government would not set up a national church. The Federal government
was not the whole of society. The states could still have their state
churches, and many of them did. The colleges all had some sort of
religious affiliation, and many of them still do today.
>they don't have to enter into a mind-boggling
>metaphysical debate over the nature of the universe. but they should
>do some thinking, on a minimal level. that's all i'm saying.
I agree that everyone should do some thinking.
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.