From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jul 17 18:20:24 EDT 1993
Article: 1935 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 17 Jul 1993 15:07:17 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 129
Message-ID: <229il5$l82@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul16.165406.1121@midway.uchicago.edu> <226t2h$b9h@panix.com> <1993Jul17.144640.15939@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>>Two parents and their children, father bears primary responsibility for
>>support, mother bears primary responsibility for day-to-day care of
>>children.
>
>Why is this better than a family with two parents and their children,
>mother bears primary responsibility for support, father bears primary
>responsibility for day-to-day care of children?
For something as important and as demanding as childcare
responsibilities, it is important that there be a reasonably clear and
concrete allocation of responsibilities so that people can grow up
knowing and accepting what they are going to be responsible for. That
allocation will work better if it is consistent with the innate
tendencies people actually have. There are no societies in which the
allocation is as you describe, while the allocation I describe seems to
be universal or nearly so. That suggests that my allocation is more
consistent with people's innate tendencies, and therefore is likely to
be easier to follow and more stable.
>Or better than the norm in many cultures of extended families living
>together where grandparents bear primary responsibility for day-to-day
>care of children?
Which cultures are these? With the short life expectancies and large
numbers of children that characterized traditional cultures the
surviving grandparents must have been very busy people.
Assuming the pattern has ever been more than temporary and localized, do
you think such a pattern is a realistic possibility for our own society?
>Also in that [European peasant] class and time period, most often both
>parents worked in the fields [ . . . ]
There was both work that was done in the fields and work that was done
around the home. Men were primarily responsible for the former and
women for the latter. It's true, of course, that when a lot of work had
to be done in the fields all at once (harvesting, for example) everyone
would help.
>Generally the wife [in the old European upper class] was responsible for
>public dealings because the social structure was such that entertaining
>was the primary means of public interaction (business being a vulgar
>concept left strictly alone by anyone capable of affording to do so),
>and in such a spectrum, men were generally considered an appendage and
>women ran the social scene.
In 18th century France women were often very influential for the reasons
you mention, but they were influential because they were influential
with important men. Also, most of Europe wasn't France and most of the
pre-industrial revolution period wasn't the 18th century.
On your account of things it's hard to understand why before the
industrial revolution there were no female public officials (other than
the occasional virgin queen) and no higher education for women. It's
also hard to understand why it was necessary in the 19th century to pass
married women's property acts to permit married women to deal in their
own property.
>The legal matter of standing hsa invaded the social scene [ . . . ] In
>issues of sexual conduct, this becomes the consenting-adults standard;
>it appears in other places in other ways, but the usual criterion I see
>now is that of specific damage done to others, and it is followed
>strictly.
This seems like one reasonable description of what's happened. The
obvious issues are why it's happened and what the consequences are.
>>>Or does your permission to discriminate include permission to go into
>>>Jewish neighborhoods with sticks breaking windows? Or permission to
>>>restrict emigration from the country to those of races the government
>>>likes? Or permission to set the penalty for killing a Jew at a $25.00
>>>fine, while the penalty for killing a Christian is the usual life
>>>imprisonment and the penalty for a Jew killing a Christian -- or failing
>>>to step off the sidewalk for a Christian, or being suspected of robbery
>>>by a Christian and convicted according to a new standard whereby any
>>>Christian's word against a Jew will suffice for conviction -- is death?
>
>[T]he government has the power to do all of these things. And when you
>permit the government to use its power in discriminatory fashion, you
>give it license to do so.
I really don't understand your point. The government has the power to
treat differently people who have high school diplomas and those who
don't, or people over 65 and people under 65. The government does not
have license to decree that all persons who lack high school diplomas
and all persons over age 65 shall be exterminated.
Incidentally, I don't think I said anything about different treatment by
the government of Jews and non-Jews or people of different ethnic or
religious affiliations generally. I did say that private discrimination
should be allowed, but you agree with me on that point. Also, if you
approve of the State of Israel, as I believe you have implied you do, I
assume you do not object to the differing treatment by the State of
Israel of Jews and non-Jews (with respect to the Law of Return, for
example).
>>Death has also been the penalty recently for suspicion
>>of unfriendliness to left-wing efforts to replace traditional
>>arrangements with new social forms.
>
>Give instances.
The Soviet Union before 1953 and Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge period.
>I mean that governmental authority has specifically decreed and carried
>out the policy that all X shall die.
I know more about the situation in the Soviet Union. In that country
there was no explicit policy that all persons suspected of
unfriendliness to the new order shall die. That's what tended to
happen, though. The parts of the criminal code dealing with political
offences ("counter-revolutionary activity", "counter-revolutionary
agitation", "member of the family of a traitor to the fatherland",
"suspicion of espionage", "socially dangerous element") were applied
very elastically, as they had to be for the secret police to meet their
quotas (about 7 million in 1936-1938 alone), and the evidence against
the accused typically consisted of coerced denunciations followed by a
coerced confession. Any indication of disatisfaction was enough to set
the process in motion (I believe Solzhenitsyn was arrested for an
offhand slighting reference to "the man with a mustache" in a letter)
and it was unusual for the process to end other than with conviction and
sentencing to a labor camp. The ostensible punishments were normally 5
to 10 years, but conditions in the camps were such that most of those
sentenced died within 2-3 years.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 18 10:51:44 EDT 1993
Article: 1945 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 18 Jul 1993 07:30:23 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 67
Message-ID: <22bc8f$c23@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul17.144640.15939@midway.uchicago.edu> <229il5$l82@panix.com> <229n2h$hrb@agate.berkeley.edu>
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alandb@uclink.berkeley.edu (Bryce Gordon Traister) writes:
>In article <229il5$l82@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>
>>For something as important and as demanding as childcare
>>responsibilities, it is important that there be a reasonably clear and
>>concrete allocation of responsibilities so that people can grow up
>>knowing and accepting what they are going to be responsible for. That
>>allocation will work better if it is consistent with the innate
>>tendencies people actually have. There are no societies in which the
>>allocation is as you describe, while the allocation I describe seems to
>>be universal or nearly so. That suggests that my allocation is more
>>consistent with people's innate tendencies, and therefore is likely to
>>be easier to follow and more stable.
>
>Liberals and conservatives alike seem to agree on the basic Enlightenment
>principle of social progress [ . . . ]
It's clear that there has been progress in the natural sciences and in
technology, and that there have been changes in society. It is far less
clear which and to what extent changes in society have been
improvements, and conservatives have characteristically been sceptics on
the matter.
>Take Mr. Kalb's argument as an example. Unable to prove the existence of
>a "childrearing gene" on the X chromosome, he makes the observation that
>"this is the way it's always been," and then infers the existence of this
>still-missing gene from this empirical piece of data. In this way,
>biology is enlisted to support a position that is otherwise demonstrably
>ideological.
I say nothing about genes. I speak about innate tendencies, which I
understand to be tendencies that are not caused by specific
circumstances. My argument is that it is reasonable to treat universal
or nearly universal patterns, that keep on reappearing in a tremendous
variety of circumstances, as innate. I then argue that since some
pattern is needed it is more sensible to choose the one that appears to
be innate. What is your complaint about the argument? Is your point
that since the argument doesn't have the demonstrative force of a
mathematical demonstration, and since the conclusion could be rejected
by someone ideologically inclined to do so, accepting or rejecting it
depends on ideology?
>One need not be an essentialist to recognize that "things as they are"
>now include women wanting more than what conservative ideology reserves
>for them exclusively.
I don't see how a social view that views women as primarily responsible
for childcare reserves anything for them exclusively. Also, you speak
of "essentialism", which I understand in this context to be the view
that differences in appropriate social role are part of what make men
and women what they are. The view I presented does not assume
essentialism. It is sufficient if:
1. It is beneficial for there to be a established allocation of roles
relating to childcare such that each child is educated for a particular
role and to view the appropriateness of that role as part of what makes
him what he is; and
2. No allocation seems better than the one that is traditional in our
society as well as others.
It's true that everyday acceptance of essentialism as to sex roles is a
consequence of my view. So what?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 13:34:08 EDT 1993
Article: 1954 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 19 Jul 1993 09:46:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 157
Message-ID: <22e8js$d2o@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul17.144640.15939@midway.uchicago.edu> <229il5$l82@panix.com> <1993Jul18.160449.24358@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>"For something as important and as demanding as national defense, it
>is important that... people can grow up knowing and accepting what
>they are going to be responsible for."
>
>Does this mean you advocate drafting at birth and accepting no recruits
>who were not on the 'track' since childhood?
In a society in which war was continual, success in war was critical to
the survival and success of the society and warfare absorbed a large
part of the social effort; in which the term of service for a soldier
was 15 or 20 years; in which soldiers for some reason (unit loyalty and
cohesion, perhaps) could not be freely substituted, so that everyone
agreed that it would be a very bad thing for any particular soldier to
perform badly through incompetence or lack of commitment; and in which
there was little military technology and no overall military hierarchy
or discipline, but rather warfare was an art carried on in small local
encounters for which formal instruction and organization were of little
use, I would advocate such a thing. I suppose what one would do is
bring up all the boys to be soldiers, and promote a conception of
manhood that emphasizes the military virtues. There are a great many
societies that have done just that.
>I suggest that it is important instead that adults, who are old enough
>to understand what they are getting themselves into, make the decisions
>regarding who of the available among them is best fitted and best
>capable of raising children.
The proposal seems to be that the support and care of children be
handled the same way other functions are handled in modern society:
adults, who have been educated to make decisions rationally based on the
purposes, abilities and resources they happen to have, deal with each
other to find ways and means of achieving the goals they find they have
in common.
A problem with such a proposal is that it gives no reason to think that
either of the parents will find childcare an attractive choice. In
fact, it tends to make childcare an unattractive choice. One
consequence of the "grownups who make their own choices for their own
reasons" approach is that it becomes much harder for one grownup to rely
on what another grownup is going to be doing for the next 20-40 years.
Taking care of children is a heavy longterm obligation that is very hard
to lay down. A person who undertakes it sacrifices a great deal of
independence and earning power and in order to be confident of a decent
life for herself and the children will have to be able to rely on
someone or something for support. In the new order you propose and that
we see growing up around us, husbands will be far less reliable than in
the past. Presumably bureaucratized childcare and the government will
fill the gap to some degree, but for a variety of reasons (that we can
discuss) that doesn't seem like a good outcome to me.
Another problem with the proposal is that it makes it far less likely
that any particular person will want to support a particular childcarer
and her children. If men aren't brought up to believe that it is part
of being a man to support their families they will tend to devote more
of their efforts to things that carry a more certain and quicker reward,
and that don't compromise their independence. Again, the
(unsatisfactory) response will be reliance by mothers on government
support for themselves and their children.
Another comment on the proposal is that what seems to lie behind it is a
feeling that it is wrong to bring someone up to be something he didn't
choose to be himself. The problem with that feeling is that people are
always educated to fit into their society and no-one ever chooses his
society. The role characteristic of modern society is that of the adult
who pursues his own interests as he conceives them within the limits of
the law and of his abilities and resources. No-one chooses to be
socialized into that role any more than any girl ever chose to be
socialized as a future wife and mother or any boy chose to be socialized
as a future breadwinner.
>I shudder to think what would have become of me if my mother had primary
>responsibility for my day-to-day care instead of my father; she had
>simply no knack for it no matter how hard she tried, and he did.
I can't comment on your family life because of ignorance. It's worth
noting, though, that the loosening of roles relating to family life in
the United States since the '50s has been accompanied by declining
wellbeing for children.
>I suggest that the allocation has in fact tended toward the arrangement
>you describe, not because it fit with any "natural tendencies" aside
>from maybe the natural tendency of the carnivorous primate to get its
>own way by brute force if necessary; but instead by the simple fact that
>until recently, violence was done mainly by muscle rather than machine.
[ . . . ]
>Violence is now primarily and most effectively carried out by machine,
>which removes the automatic imbalance. One can therefore make one's societal
>decisions without regard for who is most physically capable of forcing
>their will upom whom.
Your view seems to be that men's greater physical strength is natural,
but that differences in strength and other physical attributes are not
accompanied by any differences in natural behavioral propensities.
Anything is possible, I suppose, but some things seem far less likely
than others. In any case, most decisions regarding childcare (e.g., who
will change the baby) are not enforced by violence carried out by
machine unless someone in the household has a gun and an itchy trigger
finger or the police install a television monitor to keep track of
what's going on.
[historical disputes deleted as requiring too much effort to continue]
>You challenged the premise that there were any grounds on which people
>would condemn a lifestyle wholeheartedly under the current arrangement:
I reviewed my postings and can't find any place where I did so. I did
say that people growing up in a society that treated all ways of life
that might be chosen as equally worthy of choice would become
increasingly brutal and stupid. I did not say that our own society
perfectly exemplifies such a situation, although I do think we are
tending in that direction.
>The question you still haven't answered is whether you are willing to
>protect people's right of private discrimination to the point of per-
>mitting them to break laws not related to discrimination directly, in
>the interests of showing their displeasure with another race.
Of course not.
>Someone who breaks any given law for racial reasons gets tried,
>convicted if the evidence warrants, and punished in precisely the same
>fashion as someone who breaks the same law for totally nonrelated
>reasons, by my standards; do you agree or not?
Yes. Again, I can't think of anything I've written that implies the
contrary.
>Israel has a purpose I can deal with; it's a single-nation, nationalist
>state.
>I reserve the right to discriminate against people who discriminate
>against others on grounds of race, on the grounds that I think they're
>slime, and stupid slime at that.
I don't see how the preceeding two statements (which did not appear
together in your posting) can be reconciled with each other and with
(what I recall as) your indications of support for Israel and your
statements that the Jews constitute a people rather than a religion.
>The United States was not formed with that purpose and does not
>presently exist with that purpose: it claims it's trying to be a haven
>where those of all original nationalities can be free and have certain
>basic guarantees of equal treatment.
That claim is certainly something that's evolved a great deal and has
been variously interpreted. Also, there have been other
characterizations and claims regarding America such as the claims
relating to popular sovereignty, which suggest that if the people want
to downplay some parts of their heritage and emphasize others they can
do so.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 13:34:10 EDT 1993
Article: 1955 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 19 Jul 1993 10:43:58 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 68
Message-ID: <22ebve$i0d@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul17.144640.15939@midway.uchicago.edu> <229il5$l82@panix.com> <229n2h$hrb@agate.berkeley.edu> <22bc8f$c23@panix.com> <22c7u0$192@agate.berkeley.edu>
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alandb@uclink.berkeley.edu (Bryce Gordon Traister) writes:
>>Is your point
>>that since the argument doesn't have the demonstrative force of a
>>mathematical demonstration, and since the conclusion could be rejected
>>by someone ideologically inclined to do so, accepting or rejecting it
>>depends on ideology?
>
>That is precisely, and the only real, point to my post.
This thread started with Jason Christian's concerns regarding the
conditions necessary to avoid a state of war within society. One way to
avoid war is finding common ground through rational discussion. Another
is overwhelming force in the hands of one person, and a third is fraud
through which one person leads everyone else to misconceive their own
interests and goals. It appears that you reject the first since it
appears that you are unwilling to treat an argument as a rational
argument that should be responded to on its own terms unless the
argument has the force of a mathematical proof. Since no arguments that
yield substantive conclusions about the social world meet those
standards, it appears that you believe rational discussion about
politics between you and me is impossible because we differ
ideologically. I don't think you have more force than I do, and I'm on
my guard against fraud. Is it to be war between us, then? Or do you
have some theory that in the absence of common ground all differences
can nonetheless be negotiated? Negotiation normally involves attempts
to find common ground through taking the arguments presented by the
other party seriously, but you seem to reject that process.
>>It is sufficient if:
>>
>>1.
>>It is beneficial for there to be a established allocation of roles
>>relating to childcare such that each child is educated for a particular
>>role and to view the appropriateness of that role as part of what makes
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>him what he is;
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>[T]he logic of the argument is the same: Mr. Kalb knows what makes her
>what she is ("science") so he and society should train her to be what
>they know she is in advance.
The logic requires only that it be beneficial for people to believe
certain things about what it is that makes them what they are, not that
it be an eternal truth that people have an essence independent of
society of which those things are part. For example, it might be
beneficial for people to believe that all human beings have the right to
a minimum material standard of living simply by virtue of their
humanity, and in some society children might be brought up to accept
that one of the things that makes us human beings (or at least members
of the society) is our right to support and our obligation to support
others. Someone might thoughtfully support the institutions of such a
society without being committed to the view that that all human beings
or all persons in the society have an abstractly-demonstrable essence
that includes an entitlement to material support.
>>It's true that everyday acceptance of essentialism as to sex roles is a
>>consequence of my view. So what?
>
>"So what?" This is where the argument really begins, and this is where I
>stop.
?????????
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 13:34:13 EDT 1993
Article: 1956 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: The Big Lie about "special rights"
Date: 19 Jul 1993 10:49:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <22ec92$iga@panix.com>
References: <221smf$jf3@panix.com> <1993Jul16.114502.16209@midway.uchicago.edu> <226h5p$jh8@panix.com> <1993Jul19.121716.17505@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1993Jul19.121716.17505@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>In article <226h5p$jh8@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>>I could understand the point if
>>there were laws prohibiting discrimination against heterosexuals as well
>>as laws prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals, or if there were
>>a prospect of such laws being enacted.
>There *are* laws which prohibit discrimination
>against heterosexuals on the basis of sexual orientation, but which no
>longer cover homosexuals (in Colorado.)
>I don't know if you believe this or not, but in any
>case I suggest you knock it off.
Knock what off? I said I could understand a point if a condition were
fulfilled, and you say the condition is in fact fulfilled as a result of
a complicated legal situation. I have no idea what justice there is in
your claim, but I will remember that you have made it and that it might
for all I know be true.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jul 19 15:01:55 EDT 1993
Article: 443 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: ARCHIVES: The hatred and rational thought of Jim Halat
Date: 19 Jul 1993 14:50:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <22eqe8$ev0@panix.com>
References: <2223ip$e8@news.acns.nwu.edu> <222d22$nmk@panix.com> <1993Jul19.154319.24496@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>In article <222d22$nmk@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>
>>That seems an odd claim to me. I believe that until the early '70s
>>homosexuality was listed as a disorder by the American Psychiatric
>>Association (or whatever it's called). The change in the listing had
>>nothing to do with advances in medical knowledge, and many psychiatrists
>>continue to disagree with it.
>
>Another complete falsehood from Jim Kalb. This had a hell of a lot to
>do with the fact that no objectively verifiable pathology could be
>discovered.
What is the falsehood? Failure to discover something is not much of an
advance in medical knowledge. In any case, you have no grounds for
claiming that my assertion (which was an assertion as to my beliefs) is
a complete falsehood.
>The opposition [to the change] came from psychoanalysis, which is
>hardly the same as saying there was a legitimate scientific opinion on
>the other side *at all*, much less any substantial one.
So it appears that you concur in my belief as to the continuing
disagreement of many psychiatrists? Offhand, I'd be inclined to say
that if intelligent people (psychoanalysts) living in the same world as
the rest of us and educated in the same general way as the rest of us
spend their professional lives dealing with a subject matter (human
psychology, including sexual psychology), the conclusions that some
significant number of them come to ("homosexuality is a disorder") can't
be put in the same category as "niggers are dirty", which is the
category the poster I was responding to wanted to put them in.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 05:17:05 EDT 1993
Article: 1979 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Childrearing
Date: 19 Jul 1993 19:53:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <22fc52$idh@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul18.160449.24358@midway.uchicago.edu> <22e8js$d2o@panix.com> <1993Jul19.212617.24988@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
eeb1@quads.uchicago.edu (E. Elizabeth Bartley) writes:
>I attribute the decline in children's well-being primarily with the rise
>of the one-parent family. Whether they're reared primarily by one
>parent and have the family expenses paid by another or whether the jobs
>are split down the middle, children on average do better if they have
>two adults helping to care for them.
You are right, of course, that two parents are usually better than one,
but my impression is that the decline has also been marked among
children in two-parent families. I have no statistics at hand, though.
More generally, it seems to me that the rise of the one-parent family is
not an event that can be isolated from other cultural trends, for
example the decline of the view that a man's most important role is his
role as breadwinner and family man, or the view that the most important
thing for a young woman to do is to find a good and reliable man to be
her husband and support her and her children. The decline of those
views means fewer stable marriages, which means more one-parent
families.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 08:55:49 EDT 1993
Article: 2001 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 20 Jul 1993 08:55:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 102
Message-ID: <22gq08$m43@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul18.160449.24358@midway.uchicago.edu> <22e8js$d2o@panix.com> <1993Jul20.003028.3361@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>>A problem with such a proposal is that it gives no reason to think that
>>either of the parents will find childcare an attractive choice. In
>>fact, it tends to make childcare an unattractive choice.
>The social problems of which you speak are virtually nonexistent among
>the segment of the population who planned their pregnancies; they
>arise almost entirely out of accidental conception.
Can you give me any reason to believe that? You seem to be saying that
young people who choose to begin a project that will extend 20 years
into the future, and that will involve open-ended and unpredictable
burdens of which they have no personal experience, almost never have
serious trouble with the practical allocation of responsibilities
relating to the project, or if they do the trouble almost never has any
connection with their upbringing or previous notions regarding such
responsibilities. That's hard for me to believe.
>What I'd like to see, and what you do see a fair amount among the
>segments of the population that plan their pregnancies, is women not
>having children unless and until *they* have the capacity, financially,
>emotionally, and in terms of time and energy, to care for the child by
>themselves regardless of what the baby's father does. I don't think that
>ought to be necessary, but I'm highly in favor of it being done, just in
>case.
If that were the general practice, how many women would ever have
children? Also, your strategy seems to be for each woman to make sure
her husband is dispensible. Taking "I don't need him and he doesn't
need me" as the foundation of a woman's relation to the men in her life
strikes me as a way to ensure that most mothers are single mothers.
>All of that said, however, you have yet to demonstrate a reason why
>men are less likely to be reliable because women now sometimes work
>for a living.
That isn't the issue. The issue is whether men are more likely to be
reliable if they are brought up to believe that being a reliable husband
is part of what it is to be a man and if it is accepted that married
women can legitimately count on their husbands for support when they
become mothers.
>The result of a system in which an adult does not support themselves is
>that they are considered incapable of supporting themselves; i.e.
>mentally deficient.
It seems to me that if there is an arrangement whereby people make an
essential contribution to an enterprise and receive economic support
from that enterprise, those people are supporting themselves.
Therefore, it seems to me that housewives and stay-at-home mothers are
supporting themselves. Your apparent belief that such women have always
been considered mentally deficient strikes me as odd. It's not at all
consistent with the stories I've read that people in earlier societies
told about themselves.
I might add that acceptance that women are primarily responsible for
childcare and men for support does not at all imply that women will
never work in the cash economy. Life is very long, after all, and has
its contingencies. Things like child mortality rates and the
availability of home labor-saving devices also have an obvious effect on
the portion of a woman's life that will be devoted to childcare.
>During the time when women were socialized to be housewives, significant
>numbers of them were miserable and protested. Now that they are
>socialized to be people who pursue their own interests as they conceive
>them within the limits of the law and of their abilities and resources,
>they tend to prefer it that way.
Some people are always dissatisfied with their lot in life, while most
people think of it as inevitable and are somewhat alarmed by
alternatives. I doubt that Americans in 1993, even American women in
1993, are more satisfied than most people in most times and places.
>I think there are legitimate reasons for people from a given national
>background to congregate by themselves. This includes people from
>assorted European nationalities generally considered to be of Caucasian
>race; it does not, however, include that race as a whole. I think that
>place-ties, language-ties, and culture-ties form legitimate bonds that
>similar pigmentation does not.
But what we call "nationality" is not the only unit of place, language
or culture. Someone might be a Lancastrian, an Englishman, a native of
Great Britain, and a European. Each of those words indicates membership
in a particular cultural complex that arose in a particular place. I
believe that Europeans have at least in much in common culturally as
people from India, whom I believe you would accept as belonging to a
single nationality. Also, it seems to me that the cultural contrast
between (say) Europeans and East Asians is greater than the cultural
contrast among people from (say) the various countries of Western
Europe.
>I would have no objection to a club that allowed only members of English
>background; I think that clubs that allow anyone white and nobody else
>are being silly.
Suppose there were a club that allowed only members of European
background? Or if that's too indefinite, how about only members of
northern European Protestant heritage?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 12:53:01 EDT 1993
Article: 2002 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Childrearing
Date: 20 Jul 1993 08:57:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <22gq4c$map@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul19.212617.24988@midway.uchicago.edu> <22fc52$idh@panix.com> <1993Jul20.012303.4954@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>I'm not too sure what you consider to be statistics for well-being.
Delinquency and drug use, which you mention, are obviously in point.
The decline in SAT scores is also relevant, as is the increase in
alcohol use (up 56% from 1972-1979) and the increase in the number of
"kids having kids". One crude but eloquent measure is death rates. The
death rate for whites aged 15-24 rose 16% from 1960 to 1979 while the
age-adjusted death rate for the U.S. population as a whole declined by
over 23%. Specifically, the death rate from motor vehicle accidents for
that group rose 42%, from suicide 139.5% and from homicide 231.8%, while
the death rate from all other causes fell 23.9%. (Source: Uhlenberg and
Eggebeen, "The Declining Well-Being of American Adolescents", in the
winter, 1986 issue of _The Public Interest_.)
>But how do you measure the number of people who grow up chafing
>constantly at the restraints or incapable of love because they have no
>experience in it, being raised in a family in which 'reliable' was the
>*only* criterion for marriage and affection was considered irrelevant?
The same way you measure the number of people who grow up unhappy
because of the things fostered by a society based on the pursuit by each
individual of his own self-interest as he conceives it (such as the
decline of loyalty and of long-term bonds to others, the tendency to
treat money as the universal standard of value because money is the only
value that everyone can be assumed to accept, and the tendency to open
all goods to competition and the consequent tendency to near-certainty
of failure in all departments of life).
By the way, which families are you referring to in which affection is
considered irrelevant?
>>More generally, it seems to me that the rise of the one-parent family is
>>not an event that can be isolated from other cultural trends, for
>>example the decline of the view that a man's most important role is his
>>role as breadwinner and family man, or the view that the most important
>>thing for a young woman to do is to find a good and reliable man to be
>>her husband and support her and her children. The decline of those
>>views means fewer stable marriages, which means more one-parent
>>families.
>
>Truth by Blatant Assertion. Provide evidence for this alleged causation,
>please.
What sort of evidence are you looking for? Do you deny that if people
think it is very important for them to do something they are more likely
to do it?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 13:53:00 EDT 1993
Article: 2015 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: The Big Lie about "special rights"
Date: 20 Jul 1993 13:52:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <22hbdg$ntd@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul19.121716.17505@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <22ec92$iga@panix.com> <1993Jul20.133218.11537@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>The point is, there are *in fact* laws (probably unenforceable, as
>the recent legal decisions in Colorado indicate) which give
>heterosexuals special legal protection against discrimination
>on the grounds of sexual orientation. No such law exists in
>the case of homosexuals.
The legal effect of constitutional changes that on their face invalidate
part but not all of a statutory scheme (which I assume was the issue in
Colorado) is a matter of judgment, and depends on things like whether
the overall purpose of the statutory scheme would be advanced or
frustrated if the remaining portions were given effect. I have not
investigated the matter, but your postings give me no reason to trust
your judgment as to the legal situation.
>However, the lie being spread is that such a law is being sought, or
>actually exists. What I suggested you "knock off" are postings which
>tend to give credence to this particularly noxious bit of
>disinformation.
I don't recall any posting in which I suggested that any law whatever
relating to this subject matter exists or is being sought.
[from another posting:]
>Knock off the tiresome notion that there is, anywhere, a law which
>protects homosexuals but not heterosexuals.
Where was that implied?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 17:50:19 EDT 1993
Article: 446 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: ARCHIVES: The hatred and rational thought of Jim Halat
Date: 20 Jul 1993 13:55:55 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <22hbjb$ob5@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul19.154319.24496@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <22eqe8$ev0@panix.com> <1993Jul20.135724.12490@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>Save your beliefs for your minister or the Gallup poll. To this group
>and others, I suggest you give facts and arguments, not groundless
>assertions of beliefs.
I stated a belief as to what psychiatrists had done, labelled as such.
In some respects you have confirmed that belief, and your complaint
seemingly has to do with the conditions under which null results (that
you tell me are all that have been achieved) can sensibly be called
"scientific advances". Your manner, though, doesn't give me any
confidence that either your factual account or your statements as to
scientific method can be relied on. If you want to persuade people, you
shouldn't come on like a crank.
>>So it appears that you concur in my belief as to the continuing
>>disagreement of many psychiatrists?
>
>I said "psychoanalysts".
I was under the impression that psychiatrists were physicians
specializing in psychological matters, and that psychoanalysts were one
class of psychiatrists. Is that wrong?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 17:50:25 EDT 1993
Article: 2016 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Childrearing
Date: 20 Jul 1993 13:54:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <22hbfu$o35@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.012303.4954@midway.uchicago.edu> <22gq4c$map@panix.com> <1993Jul20.160928.1396@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>I deny that if people get into something because they think they are
>obligated to, they are more likely to stay there and do the work
>necessary to keep from being a harm instead of a help than if they
>entered into it because they wanted to.
Do you think that notions of obligation are useless? If you were
bringing up children (excuse me if I am wrong in assuming you are not)
would you tell them when they are young that they "should" be kind to
others, tell the truth, work hard and so on? When they got a little
older, would you try to get them to feel they "should" get an education
and become self-supporting and law-abiding citizens?
It seems to me that normally one of the things people want to do is
become self-respecting adults, and one of the constituents of
self-respect is the sense that one meets one's obligations.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 20 17:54:45 EDT 1993
Article: 2025 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 20 Jul 1993 17:54:38 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 83
Message-ID: <22hpiu$k22@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.003028.3361@midway.uchicago.edu> <22gq08$m43@panix.com> <1993Jul20.162845.2218@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>I suggest that *everyone* has serious trouble with the allocation of
>responsibilities relating to childcare. The only difference is in one
>circumstance, they can discuss it and find the arrangement that works
>best for them, and in the other they are handed an arrangement which can
>never get better.
People can always discuss things. I think they are more likely to come
to a workable solution if they start off the discussion with reasonably
consistent expectations as to what each owes the other in the situation,
what the relevant considerations are, and what sorts of solutions are
likely to make sense. It's easier to fine-tune or to make necessary
modifications to something that already exists than to create something
out of nothing.
>And I'm sorry; "I don't need his money, we need each other in our lives
>because we love each other," does not strike me as an unhealthy way to
>run a marriage.
You seem inclined to reduce everything to either money or personal
sentiment. My inclinations are different.
>Men are generally brought up to believe that keeping their word is
>important, that commitment to a single individual for whatever of your
>lifetime is left after you've found them is part of being a whole human
>being, that marriages are to be worked on hard before being broken and
>that the latter is traumatic for everyone concerned and a matter of last
>resort.
Less so than in former times, judging from divorce statistics and from
surveys of people's sentiments on these matters.
>I do not think that the sense that someone else could not get by
>financially without you is necessary to the premise that it is part of
>what it is to be a man, or a woman, to be a member of a family.
I think that every society tends to raise its children to view doing
whatever it will be socially necessary for them to do when they are
adults as part of what it is for them to be an adult. To the extent
family relationships are thought to be a matter of personal sentiment
that can be dispensed with from a practical standpoint, children will
not be raised to view loyalty in family relationships as part of what it
is to be an adult.
>Why don't you let *them* say whether they're more satisfied or not?
>The fact is that under your system they worked and fought to get to
>this system, and under this one they do *not* try to get back. You
>are not the judge of what circumstances of living other people will
>prefer, and they've spoken for themselves rather loudly on this one.
I think men and women *should* consider whether the current system of
things is satisfactory. Why can't I point out problems with it?
>Members of European *background*? Sure. Meaning either raised in Europe
>or raised with a heavy emphasis on the 'Old Country' in their upbringing
>or in their later-developed interests. There are such groups at most
>universities under the guise of Romance Languages clubs or the like;
>and a perfectly good thing they are too.
Many scholars (very few of them right-wing) reject the "melting pot"
theory and so reject the notion of a single "American people" in favor
of a view of America as a multicultural aggregation of peoples, each of
which retains its separate identity. On such a view, it seems that your
requirement of a close connection with the Old Country would not make
much sense. Do you disagree with that view? Do you believe that there
is a single American people that includes Afro-Americans, southern white
Protestants of British Isles descent, and secular Jews?
>The standard remains: is it blood that's your test, or heritage? Would
>a German Protestant with a quarter Jewish ancestry be eligible? Would
>a black Frenchman?
Heritage seems far more important to me than blood, at least outside the
family circle. Others' tastes may be different, though, and in practice
the two often go together. Out of curiosity, if an atheist who had been
raised by Buddhists discovered to his amazement that his maternal
grandmother had been a Jew, would he be eligible as a Jew to return to
Israel?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 06:16:44 EDT 1993
Article: 567 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: matters of style
Date: 20 Jul 1993 17:56:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <22hpmu$kco@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.170226.16038@news.vanderbilt.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
TROTTEJE@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu () writes:
>Mr. Kalb, does the a.r.c. stylebook have anything to say about gushing
>displays of autobigraphical kinship?
Regular participants are allowed one per year, but only if the three
subsequent posts contain detailed and heavily footnoted discussions of
Heidegger.
>Also, titles of books in foreign languages should be translated for the
>cretins among us. Oui?
Surely you don't mean to include the dead languages!
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 07:32:11 EDT 1993
Article: 2042 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Childrearing
Date: 21 Jul 1993 07:24:47 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <22j91v$qib@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.160928.1396@midway.uchicago.edu> <22hbfu$o35@panix.com> <1993Jul20.232230.20782@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>Put someone in a situation where the obligations you say they are under
>seem to them to be arbitrary, unnecessarily harsh, in conflict with
>elements of their nature so profound as to give them serious
>psychological disturbance, or of a nature that involves permitting
>others to take advantage of them, they are likely to rebel.
You seem to believe that all societies up to the one you now hope to
construct have been so at odds with women's nature as to cause serious
psychological disturbance. I believe that if you investigate further
you will come to a more comforting view of things.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 13:24:23 EDT 1993
Article: 450 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: The disease theory of homosexuality
Date: 21 Jul 1993 13:23:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <22ju2p$1c4@panix.com>
References: <22eqe8$ev0@panix.com> <1993Jul20.135724.12490@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <22hbjb$ob5@panix.com> <1993Jul21.135336.3133@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.politics.usa.republican:450 alt.politics.homosexuality:17339
In <1993Jul21.135336.3133@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>You seem to think that I am giving a biased account of the matter, but
>you were the one who made the claim that this was politics. What is
>*your* stake in the matter, and where is your evidence?
I said that I believed that the removal of homosexuality from the list
of psychological disorders of the American Psychiatric Association (or
some such professional society) in the early '70s had nothing to do with
scientific advances. My evidence for that belief was only things that I
had read some time ago, so I characterized it as a belief rather than
asserting it. My stake in the matter is that of anyone who would like
to see things discussed without claims that a particular position in a
debate is _per se_ bigotry unless there are extraordinarily good reasons
for that claim (for example, unless the position is one that has no
significant support among those professionally engaged with the relevant
subject matter). My doubts about your objectivity are based on your
manner and language in general, and on your apparent accuracy as to
matters as to which I have some grounds for forming an opinion (your
characterizations of what I have said; your description of the holding
of the _Bowersock_ case; your description of the legal effect of
Proposition 2 on an ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on
sexual preference generally but presumably was primarily intended to
protect homosexuals from discrimination).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 13:24:27 EDT 1993
Article: 2043 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 21 Jul 1993 07:32:01 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 65
Message-ID: <22j9fh$qu9@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.162845.2218@midway.uchicago.edu> <22hpiu$k22@panix.com> <1993Jul20.234632.21836@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi Gayle Rivkis) writes:
>You have given absolutely no earthly reason why it is necessary to
>reduce half the population to a position of captivity in order to do
>this [ . . . ]
Agreed, but I don't see the relevance to anything I've said. If you
like the word "captivity" for "inescapable obligation to particular
other persons", you should remember that "ball and chain" is one of the
traditional synonyms for "wife".
>Loyalty and who pays the bills are not connected. Nor is the premise of
>a relationship entered into for reasons nonfinancial necessarily
>remotely able to "be dispensed with".
The degree to which loyalty is part of the arrangements whereby people
satisfy their practical needs is closely connected to how widespread and
deeply rooted loyalty will be as a social value. The Marxist view is
right to at least that extent.
>For the same reason I would be abominably rude to point out in passing
>you on the street that the way you were wearing your hair was hideous.
>It's called it not being your business. In the case of whether women are
>better off with the options open, it's their business; in the case of
>how any given marriage is run, it is the business of the two people
>involved. In your own marriage, you can run things the way you like and
>if your wife doesn't mind, it's not up to me. Keep your grubby little
>paws off the rest of us.
We can all agree that abominable rudeness is a bad thing. It's hard for
me to understand, though, how social customs and standards relating to
the relations between the sexes can be said to be none of my business.
Also, how does your theory of standing relate to your public assertions
that people who engage in racial discrimination are slime even though
their conduct should not be illegal?
>This is a two-way street. I've condemned the women who say that a
>woman who chooses to remain home and raise her children, in agreement
>with her husband on the arrangement (my father wouldn't have accepted
>such a concept), can't be a true feminist. It isn't their business
>how another woman and her husband wish to handle their own family
>any more than it is yours.
What about your statements that you "don't believe any human being over
the age of adulthood in whatever society they're in can or should be
supported by someone else", and that you "think an accepted standard in
which the definition of an adult includes earning your own bread is
necessary for a healthy society"?
>>Do you disagree with that view? Do you believe that there
>>is a single American people that includes Afro-Americans, southern white
>>Protestants of British Isles descent, and secular Jews?
>
>Yes, I do, but I don't think that it's the only heritage anyone
>who holds it can claim. I used to consider myself a Jew who happened
>to live in America; I've reconsidered. I'm a Jew, yes; I'm also an
>American.
Do each of the three peoples I have mentioned have its own separate
heritage as well as its heritage as Americans? If so, is that separate
heritage sufficient in each case to permit the people to establish its
own separate organizations without making them (in your view) slime?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 13:24:28 EDT 1993
Article: 2044 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 21 Jul 1993 07:33:50 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <22j9iu$r2b@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul20.162845.2218@midway.uchicago.edu> <22hpiu$k22@panix.com> <1993Jul21.011810.25091@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
eeb1@quads.uchicago.edu (E. Elizabeth Bartley) writes:
>Is it easier to come to a good compromise without any assumptions or
>with assumptions that give one person almost everything they want and
>the other almost nothing they want?
The former.
>[T]he last time I checked over fifty percent of married women work.
The last time I checked married women tended to decrease and married men
to increase their commitment to making money when a child is born, and
married women with young children brought home about 20% of family cash
income.
>Expect me to be insulted if you think one of the problems is that I'm
>not socially expected to be my husband's servant.
I have no reason to expect you to be insulted, then.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 13:47:56 EDT 1993
Article: 13999 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Going All the Way (was: Re: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 21 Jul 1993 13:47:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <22jvg7$3vc@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:13999 alt.politics.radical-left:2020 alt.politics.libertarian:6105
mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark O. Wilson) writes:
>|Minor question: what happens to debts when someone dies in
>|Libertaria?
>
>Charged against the estate. If the estate is not great enough to cover the
>debt, than the remaining debt is cancelled.
>
>BTW, this is how the law works currently.
In some (nonLibertarian) continental legal systems the heirs can elect
whether or not they will succeed to Dad's estate. If they elect to do
so, they are liable for Dad's debts even if those debts exceed the
assets of the estate, while if they elect not to they get nothing.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 21 19:58:08 EDT 1993
Article: 14000 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Going All the Way (was: Re: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 21 Jul 1993 13:49:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <22jvje$498@panix.com>
References:
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14000 alt.politics.radical-left:2021 alt.politics.libertarian:6106
mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark O. Wilson) writes:
>Mr. P sould give the stereo [that he purchased in good faith but was
>stolen from Mr. O] back to Mr. O. Individuals have a responsibility to
>ensure that the person selling them something actually has title to that
>thing. In this case the pawn shop owner is the actual loser since he is
>the one who misreperesented himself to Mr. P. as being the actual owner
>of the stereo.
The rules vary in accordance with the kind of property. For stereos the
rule is as you say. However, if I buy a negotiable instrument from some
guy in the park without actual notice that it was stolen, I own it. If
the thief fences the stereo and takes the cash proceeds and uses them to
buy a camera from me, I believe I keep the cash even if I knew the guy
was a professional thief. If it's approached as a matter of individual
rights, it seems to me that the "reparations for slavery" issue for most
people would come closer to the last situation than to the others.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 22 08:26:44 EDT 1993
Article: 452 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: The disease theory of homosexuality
Date: 22 Jul 1993 08:26:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <22m11o$opa@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul21.135336.3133@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <22ju2p$1c4@panix.com> <31883@ursa.bear.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
halat@panther.bear.com (Jim Halat) writes:
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) wrote:
>What is evident from your conclusion then, is that homosexuality *is* a
>disorder.
I have no reason or inclination to agree with the view that
homosexuality is a psychiatric disorder and have not said or implied
that I agree with it. All I can suggest is that you reread what I said.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 22 12:49:49 EDT 1993
Article: 572 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Just the FAQs, please!
Date: 22 Jul 1993 08:32:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <22m1cb$p6k@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
A couple of months ago I started preparing a list of books and
periodicals relevant to the discussions in this newsgroup which included
the subscription information and other references that people have
posted from time to time. I thought the list could be used as our very
own FAQ.
I just deleted the thing (it would be embarassing to explain how).
However, with the determination of a true counterrevolutionary I am
reconstructing it, starting with the information Mr. Deane just posted.
If any of you have something you would like to see included, would you
please email the information to me?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 22 12:49:52 EDT 1993
Article: 2079 of alt.society.conservatism
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: Factions and Minorities
Date: 22 Jul 1993 08:29:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <22m16e$p01@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul21.011810.25091@midway.uchicago.edu> <22j9iu$r2b@panix.com> <1993Jul22.005247.17779@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
eeb1@quads.uchicago.edu (E. Elizabeth Bartley) writes:
>So women tend to be childrearers more than men and men tend to be
>breadwinners more than women. That's no reason to instill a social
>presumption that women *should* be childrearers and men *should* be
>breadwinners.
If things tend to be a certain way then people will expect them to be
that way and will look for a particular explanation when things are not
that way. So the social presumption will get instilled unless
extraodinary efforts are made to avoid instilling it. I question the
worth of such efforts, because when important social functions like the
support and care of children are involved the tendency to expect
particular sorts of people to act in particular ways can have
irreplaceable social benefits.
As an example, being a breadwinner is a responsibility that is a lot of
work and lasts a long time. It's a big interference with the freedom to
do what one happens to feel like doing without anyone else having
anything to say about the matter, which is a treasured freedom for many
people today. Discharging that responsibility does not have many
immediate pleasures, so a very important part of the reward is the
thought that in doing it one is doing what one should do and being what
one should be, and other people agree, so that if one does it one will
be respected and if one does not the reverse.
It follows that there are a whole lot more likely to be people who are
willing to carry the responsiblity if there are people who are brought
up to feel that the responsibility is theirs in particular and that the
people around them, whoever they may be, will agree that it is theirs in
theirs in particular. The social presumption that men should be
breadwinners is the only practical way I can think of to bring about
that desirable state of affairs.
For consequences of the decline of the view that men should support
their families, I suggest you consider the rise in the illegitimacy
rate, the rise in the divorce rate in conjuction with the general
practice of awarding custody to mothers and the difficulty of collecting
child support from fathers, and the resulting feminization of poverty.
One poster has suggested that no woman should have a child unless she
expects to be able to support herself and the child without any help
from the father. That proposal seems realistic in that it recognizes
that in the future it will continue to be the women who in general will
carry the burden of childcare and that if they can't rely on sex role
stereotypes they will have to be prepared to do it on their own. I'm
not sure that such a situation should be thought of as favorable to
women, though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 22 19:01:06 EDT 1993
Article: 7627 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Was Lao-tse anti-progression?
Date: 22 Jul 1993 12:54:17 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 48
Message-ID: <22mgnp$jm6@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul19.143742.1@vax.cns.muskingum.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cckimmell@vax.cns.muskingum.edu (Kevin Kimmell - CompSci/German) writes:
> [Hoff] blames many of today's problems (mainly the West's
>problems) on man's constant "need" for progression (i.e. Computers,
>Space, Fuels, etc.) and says that our processes for solving problems
>creates more problems.
>
> I get the impression that he get's the impression that Lao-tse
>also felt this way. My question(s) is was Lao-tse against the idea of
>progression (in the sense mentioned above). That is, is there any
>indication in the Tao Te Ching that the quest for new knowledge is
>harmful.
I would say that's a main theme of the TTC. Consider:
"Banish wisdom, discard knowledge, and the people shall profit a
hundredfold . . . " (TTC, xix)
"Banish learning, and vexations end." (TTC, xx)
"There are those who will conquer the world and make of it (what they
conceive or desire). I see that they will not succeed. (For) the world
is God's own Vessel. It cannot be made (by human interference)." (TTC,
xxix)
"Who understands Tao seems dull of comprehension; who is advanced in Tao
seems to slip backwards . . . " (TTC, xli)
"The farther one pursues knowledge, the less one knows." (TTC, xlvii)
"The student of knowledge (aims at) learning day by day; the student of
Tao (aims at) losing day by day." (TTC, xlviii)
"The more skills of technique, the more cunning things are produced."
(TTC, lvii). [Part of a list of bad things.]
"When the government is lazy and dull, its people are unspoiled; when
the government is efficient and smart, its people are discontented."
(TTC, lviii)
"The Ancients who knew how to follow the Tao aimed not to enlighten the
people, but to keep them ignorant. The reason it is difficult for the
people to live in peace is because of too much knowledge. Those who
seek to rule a country by knowledge are the nation's curse." (TTC, lxv)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jul 23 13:19:54 EDT 1993
Article: 454 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican,alt.society.conservatism
Subject: Re: ARCHIVES: The hatred and rational thought of Jim Halat
Date: 23 Jul 1993 06:23:56 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <22oe7s$dl@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul12.193529.26571@microsoft.com> <1993Jul15.190128.18748@microsoft.com> <1993Jul22.171903.9457@microsoft.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.politics.usa.republican:454 alt.society.conservatism:2112
fritzs@microsoft.com (Fritz Sands) writes:
>We have discovered empirically in this society that 50% or more of
>marriages are unsuccessful enough that, if the financial costs and
>social stigma of divorce are not prohibitive, they break up. Perhaps a
>fundamental difference between conservatives and others is that, given
>that datum, conservatives want to crank up social oppression and others
>want to explore ways of forming relationships that do not lead to that
>level of unhappiness.
In America at least, liberals and libertarians speak as if they believe
that the happiness and success that people experience in their social
relationships are purely a result of characteristics that the particular
individuals involved just happen to have, and that upbringing and social
attitudes generally are irrelevant except to the extent such things make
matters worse by limiting people's freedom to do whatever they feel like
doing. If that belief is accepted what you say makes sense, but the
belief is false.
What we have a right to expect of people is a crucial part of our social
world with a profound influence on which of our undertakings we can
reasonably expect to lead to success and happiness, and it depends on
social attitudes that limit our freedom to do as we please. You seem to
believe that we would be happier in our relationships if we had no right
to expect anything whatever from others. I find that extremely
improbable.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jul 23 16:58:22 EDT 1993
Article: 456 of alt.politics.usa.republican
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.republican
Subject: Re: The disease theory of homosexuality
Date: 23 Jul 1993 13:49:58 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <22p8c6$b6l@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul21.135336.3133@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de> <22ju2p$1c4@panix.com> <1993Jul23.142452.5389@sun0.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
gsmith@lauren.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de (Gene W. Smith) writes:
>Laws about racial hate may have been passed with the idea of protecting
>minorites, but that means nothing when it comes to trial.
Take a look at the _Weber_ case, regarding voluntary plans involving
preferential treatment of minorities where there is no finding of
previous discrimination. Discussions of the effect of a finding that a
portion of a statutory scheme is erroneous on the validity of the
remainder are likely to be more directly to the point. I can't give you
any citations offhand, but I should think that most casebooks and
treatises on constitutional law would have something on the matter.
>As to the "Bowersock" case, your knowledge of that does not extend
>even to knowing its name, so I don't see how you can claim to be
>"objective" in discounting my observations on it.
I was relying on the account of the holding given by Naomi Rivkis, who
seems sympathetic to your general outlook on the relevant social issues,
in thinking your account was likely to be erroneous (as well as on my
impression of you, which grows ever stronger). She may or may not want
to comment on your extracts from the opinions.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 07:10:59 EDT 1993
Article: 14105 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 24 Jul 1993 11:51:00 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 64
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <22rlp4$rt5@panix.com>
References: <1637.151.uupcb@tfd.coplex.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14105 alt.politics.libertarian:6292
Also sprach steve.gustafson@tfd.coplex.com (Steve Gustafson):
>You [Mr. Hranicky] may have missed the posts I had made a while before;
I certainly did; I've been away from t.p.t for a while and don't read
a.p.l. If what follows deals with issues that have grown old and cold,
ignore it.
>at any rate, "property" is a meaningless word in the absence of law; and
>there is no law without government. Therefore, government invented the
>very notion of "property," government defines it, and government sets
>its limits.
Would you say that "obligation" is a meaningless word without government
and that obligation is a notion invented and defined by government, or
is there something special about obligations regarding property?
>Judge Posner['s] notion is basically, a law is unconstitutional if it
>makes the exercise of your Constitutional right more costly. Sunday
>closing laws are the canonical example. If the law requires you to
>close your business on Sundays, but your religion requires you not to
>work on Saturdays, the law has penalized you for adhering to this
>religious belief by mandating a Sunday Sabbath; and is therefore wrong.
It seems that the result would depend very much on circumstances.
Suppose Sunday is the only day of the week most people are off work, so
people would do a lot of shopping on Sunday if they had a chance, and
that most shopkeepers have a religious obligation to close on Sunday,
but doing so is very costly to them if competing shops remain open.
Then mandating Sunday closing would make it far less expensive for most
shopkeepers to comply with their religious beliefs without laying a
comparable additional cost on anyone who also had to close on Saturday,
since (by hypothesis) for most customers Saturday would be just one
ordinary working day out of six. Also, what does Posner think should
happen if in a particular locality with two-day weekends 60% of all
shopkeepers are religiously required to close on Sunday but would have
rather serious problems if they did so while others did not, and 1% are
religiously required to close on Saturday and would have *very* serious
problems if they were also required to close on Sunday?
>Of course, not all Constitutional freedoms are even -now- enforceable
>against employers. But the same principle applies generally. A law
>preventing religious discrimination in employment creates more freedom
>than it takes away.
Does that mean businesses should be forbidden to close on Sunday because
(as Posner says) Sunday closings burden people who can't work Saturdays
for religious reasons?
Also, I'm not sure why antidiscrimination laws increase freedom. As it
is now, the only kind of working situation most people can choose is one
in which the employer and work environment maintain a sort of
religiously neutrality. If there were no laws against religious
discrimination then many businesses would still organize themselves in
that manner, and such businesses would have an advantage competing with
other businesses for employess who liked that kind of environment. On
the other hand, if people wanted to set up Born Again Baptist Bakeries,
Inc., committed to integrating making a living with a certain sort of
Christian life, they could do that as well, and prospective employees
could decide whether that or a more neutral situation was what they
wanted.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 09:20:32 EDT 1993
Article: 14134 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 25 Jul 1993 09:20:23 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <22u1an$rc3@panix.com>
References: <1637.151.uupcb@tfd.coplex.com> <22rp32INNnrb@snoopy.cis.ufl.edu> <22s7m4$lpa@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14134 alt.politics.libertarian:6328 alt.society.anarchy:1885
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>You could have a property system maintained by custom among
>a relatively small group of people with a uniform culture and
>a rather strong regard for tradition; the individuals them-
>selves could enforce it. Serious problems arise when the
>community grows rather large, because different people have
>different ideas about property. The same is true when
>different cultures collide. A well-known example is the
>conflict between the American Indians and the European
>colonists, who had very different ideas about real estate.
It's worth noting that the American Indian and European notions of
property differed not only for reasons specific to the particular
cultures involved, but also because of differences in levels of
technology and other things that tend to be communicated from one
society to another when the societies are in constant contact. The
importance of the latter sort of factor appears from the current
tendency for notions of property to become more similar internationally
(consider the recent collapse of commmunism).
>The Europeans solved
>the problem by transferring the definition of property
>entirely into the legal system, and more or less unifying
>it. I think we have to account ourselves heirs of that
>solution; that is, our idea of property is bound up with
>an idea of law (in the sense of precise, written texts,
>not customs or gestures) and of government (that is, a
>public agency with a monopoly on violence and a claim
>of sovereignty over territory).
It's also worth noting that in the common law countries the definition
of property was determined mostly by the courts, who viewed themselves
as applying customary understandings to particular cases. A similar
process in antiquity had led to the development of the Roman code of
civil law, which the continental countries eventually adopted wholesale.
One final thing: international definitions of property are sufficiently
consistent and reliable, even in the absence of world government, to
permit international trade and investment on a very large scale.
(I should say that I too view Anarchocapitalism as unrealistic. I am
prejudiced in favor of views that treat social practices and
understandings as prior to government, though.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 13:26:01 EDT 1993
Article: 14135 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 25 Jul 1993 09:25:39 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 58
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <22u1kj$rjd@panix.com>
References: <1637.151.uupcb@tfd.coplex.com> <22rlp4$rt5@panix.com> <22s8at$mg6@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14135 alt.politics.libertarian:6329
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>Historically, it has turned out that some people derive so
>much utility from bigotry (because they enjoy its exercise
>or can sell it to others) that it forms a strong
>counterweight to the more rational forces militating
>against it.
If "bigotry" includes all instances of taking race, sex or religion into
account in employment decisions, then there are often rational forces
favoring it. For example:
1. Institutional purpose. My "Born-Again Baptist Bakery, Inc.",
dedicated to the integration of the born-again Baptist way of life with
making a living, could rationally discriminate against everyone who
isn't a born-again Baptist. "Old-Stock Rural Southern White Guy Auto
Body, Inc.", dedicated to fixing cars in a working environment rednecks
find congenial, could rationally discriminate against everyone who
didn't fit the profile.
Liberalism appears dedicated to the elimination from political life of
any notion of a common good or common way of life other than the
satisfaction of the desires each of us happens to have as an individual
and social arrangements rationally designed to bring about such
satisfaction. The point of my examples is that antidiscrimination law
goes the next step and attempts to eliminate from the institutions and
processes whereby we make a living any notion of a common good or way of
life other than making money. If Born-Again Baptist Bakery, Inc. should
be treated as an illegal enterprise, then why should Ben and Jerry's be
any different? Both select employees based in part on what the employee
thinks is most important in life rather than based strictly on
qualifications relating to economic function, and so both select
employees based on personal characteristics that prospective employees
can't be expected to change and that don't relate to the efficient
functioning of the business. (I am assuming that Ben and Jerry's
prefers to hire people who agree with their corporate philosophy and so
would take the fact that people are Objectivists, for example, into
account in deciding whether to hire them.)
2. Institutional Efficiency. The need to manage diversity is not
necessarily a blessing. You have mentioned that American Indians and
Europeans tend to have different notions regarding property. No doubt
they also tend to have different notions relating to a great many other
things relevant to economic cooperation (e.g., the degree to which
authority should be shared in a common enterprise; the situations and
degree to which functional or personal considerations should take
precedence when they conflict; the requirements of a comfortable working
environment; what actions are respectful or insulting). If that's the
case, it seems likely that it would be easier for a business to achieve
smooth and efficient cooperation if it preferentially hired either
American Indians or Europeans than if it hired a random mix in a
locality in which there were substantial numbers of both.
I would suggest that anyone interested in these issues read _Forbidden
Grounds_, by Richard Epstein.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 16:12:33 EDT 1993
Article: 14143 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.radical-left,alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 25 Jul 1993 13:58:32 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 18
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <22uhk8$fe9@panix.com>
References: <22s8at$mg6@panix.com> <22u1kj$rjd@panix.com> <22u961$5vn@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14143 alt.politics.libertarian:6347 alt.politics.radical-left:2143 alt.discrimination:9754
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>By "rational" I meant the usual forces given by (classical)
>liberals (libertarians) as tending to eliminate bigotry
>without government or other public intervention -- for example,
>the higher wages one must pay or lower employee effectiveness
>one must get, presumably, if one hires on racial grounds
>rather than "merit."
To repeat a recommendation, I would suggest that anyone interested in
the relation between free markets and racial or similar discrimination
read Richard Epstein's _Forbidden Grounds_. Epstein uses economic
analysis very skillfully to show why in many situations discrimination
promotes overall well-being. My comments on efficiency were based on
his discussion.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 16:12:34 EDT 1993
Article: 14144 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 25 Jul 1993 14:00:24 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <22uhno$flo@panix.com>
References: <22s7m4$lpa@panix.com> <22u1an$rc3@panix.com> <22u9oc$69m@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14144 alt.politics.libertarian:6348 alt.society.anarchy:1888
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>I believe that the ability to trade and invest freely across
>national boundaries is evidence of the world government, if
>not the world government itself.
Is it possible that you and all the net.anarchocapitalists could agree
on a concrete state of affairs (e.g., Mediaeval Iceland) that you would
both approve? They might find the state of affairs politically correct
because it lacks what they call "government", while you might accept it
as workable because it would evolve certain devices to maintain order
that you would be inclined to call by that name.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jul 25 21:32:24 EDT 1993
Article: 14154 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 25 Jul 1993 21:24:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14154 alt.politics.libertarian:6360 alt.society.anarchy:1901
gr2a@kimbark.uchicago.edu (david rolfe graeber) writes:
>Private property in land was created by the state's policy
>of backing up "enclosures" of what had been village common lands,
>throwing millions of peasants off their lands into vagabondage -
>vagabondage being then made an offense punishable by death. Thus
>was a landless working class created who the enclosers could
>hire...
I had been under the impression that most land and the most productive
land was not village common land, that the main problem in creating a
free market in land was making land held under one of the feudal tenures
freely alienable, and that that problem was dealt with by various
technical legal means such as collusive lawsuits. A reference to the
statute making vagabondage an offense punishable by death would also be
helpful. I had thought the basic scheme under the Elizabethan poor laws
was to make the parish of origin responsible for poor relief and so to
send vagrants back home rather than to execute them.
> Among American Indians themselves there were wildly varying
>types of property regime [ . . . ]
I don't doubt it. Do regimes vary as wildly today? If not why not?
>Finally, as for your "recent collapse of communism" - well, apart from
>the fact that the issue of property is still being hotly contested in
>most of Eastern Europe and whatever the result is, it probably won't
>look exactly like what we have here - might I remind you that the _rise_
>of Leninist regimes began only seventy-odd years ago, that they were
>clearly tangled up in the shock of technological change that was
>occurring at the time, and that they involved massive changes in
>property regime that went in the exact opposite direction as you were
>claiming modern societies tend to go. In China collectivization was
>introduced in a society that had been used to private property in land
>for thousands of years!
I would view the history of the attempted redefinition of property under
Leninist regimes as a history of an attempt to defy in the name of
Marxism the Marxist theory that property relationships are determined by
the needs of the productive process at a particular level of technology.
The attempt failed and is being abandoned, which tends to confirm
fundamental Marxist theory on this point (at least in the case of modern
societies, in which economic life has achieved a considerable degree of
autonomy) even as it refutes the practical proposals of Marxist
political parties.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 09:30:37 EDT 1993
Article: 14201 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 27 Jul 1993 09:30:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14201 alt.politics.libertarian:6438 alt.society.anarchy:1925
gr2a@ellis.uchicago.edu (david rolfe graeber) writes:
> so I don't have enough things to do already that I have to
>go scurrying into the stacks of my local library looking up some
>statute because you don't believe me? Sheesh.
What's wrong with asking for more info? "I don't have a cite at hand,
but that's what I remember" would have been enough to keep the
discussion going if you had nothing right at hand.
>You said or strongly implied that property relations are determined by
>the technological level of a society. Ne c'est pas?
I said a couple of things. One was that if societies are in constant
contact the property relations in each will be affected by things that
are easily transmitted among societies, such as technology. Another (in
a later posting) was that the Marxist claim that property relations are
determined by the stage of development reached by the productive forces
has been confirmed by the collapse of communism. (I assumed that
"productive forces" means "technology", which I think ought to be OK.)
On the first point: one thing transmitted among societies is ideas of
how to do things, which is in itself an influence favoring uniformity.
That's especially true if some ideas (private ownership of the means of
production) can be seen by comparison to be on the whole more efficient
than others (public ownership) under what seem to be the relevant
circumstances, including the state of technology (microchips and so on).
Another result of constant contact among societies with no single
society clearly dominant is cultural diversity and therefore conflict of
standards, methods of valuation, modes of cooperation and so on. The
obvious way of resolving such conflicts (apart from conquest) is
exchange. Exchange places certain limitations on the rules governing
property (for example, both sides must view the property exchanged as
alienable) and it promotes uniformity in certain other rules as well
(for example, rules regarding fraud). Exchange also promotes the
development and use of a universal standard of value based on supply and
demand (that is, money).
So quite apart from interchange of technology and whatever tendency
toward uniformity such interchange may bring about, constant contact
among societies promotes free markets and property rules consistent with
free markets. That process continues today as countries around the
world modify rules relating to property to make foreign investment
easier.
>But if so, why should it be that most of the world outside of western
>Europe switched _away_ from private property rather than towards it when
>they started industrializing in a big way? [ . . . ] (A hint: maybe the
>actual process of changing an agrarian society into an industrial one,
>capitalist or state-capitalist (eg, in which workers work in factories
>for wages, whoever might own the factory) is a necessarily traumatic one
>which cannot be accomplished except through the liberal use of coercive
>force on the part of the state, and that's what Stalin was doing just as
>much as what the English gov't was doing two or three centuries
>before...)
The switch away from private property in communist countries was due to
the successful use of force by a small minority with a clear ideology.
Many other third-world countries also call themselves socialist but from
your reference to "the liberal use of coercive force" it appears that those
aren't the ones you mean.
A comparison of China and noncommunist Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong
Kong) suggests that under modern conditions an agrarian society can be
changed into an industrial one without using coercive state force
remotely on the Stalinist scale, as long as there is no switch away from
private property. The comparison, together with recent developments in
China, suggests that industrialization will be more successful to the
extent the Stalinist approach of state control and terror is rejected.
North and South Korea are another example. I suppose in Europe one
could compare Greece and the other countries in the Balkans, although
there the similarities among the societies are not as strong. (Hong
Kong is not agrarian, of course, but it is populated mostly by refugees
from agrarian China).
There are other examples of formerly agrarian societies that have become
industrial without using coercive force on a scale remotely comparable
to Stalin. Japan and the United States are two. I suppose one could
argue that our Civil War was an instance of the use of coercive force to
promote a change from an agricultural to an industrial society, but even
if the South had been allowed to secede industrialization would have
gone forward in the North.
> Finally, as to your specific question: why do regimes of
>property among American Indians not vary now as much as they did
>earlier...
My question wasn't intended to be specific to American Indians. Rather,
it was why today we see no tendency toward the mind-boggling diversity
of property systems worldwide that you tell me characterized (say)
hunter-gatherer societies of the past. There are 200 [?] independent
societies in the world. Why don't their property institutions tend to
diverge in accordance with local circumstances and cultural
peculiarities? What do you think the constraints are?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 09:33:08 EDT 1993
Article: 14203 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 27 Jul 1993 09:32:46 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14203 alt.politics.libertarian:6440
steve.gustafson@tfd.coplex.com (Steve Gustafson) hamintaur goft:
>>at any rate, "property" is a meaningless word in the absence of law; and
>>there is no law without government. Therefore, government invented the
>>very notion of "property," government defines it, and government sets
>>its limits.
>
>Jim Kalb hoc responsum refert:
>
>JK>Would you say that "obligation" is a meaningless word without government
> >and that obligation is a notion invented and defined by government, or
> >is there something special about obligations regarding property?
>
>To me there is a strong difference between obligations and property
>rights.
Property rights exist to the extent other people have obligations to
observe them. You seem to believe that those particular obligations
were invented by the government. My question was whether you would say
the same about all obligations, or whether there are some obligations
that are different in this respect from obligations regarding property.
>What actually happens out there is that Born Again Flour Co. tells Born
>Again Bakeries, "I understand you hired a cookie cutter who has a
>heretical interpretation of Matt. 9:7. Sack him, or we won't sell you
>any more flour." Then, Born Again Trucking Company says, "Get rid of
>the heretic, or we won't transport your cookies."
>
>To claim that these things have not occurred is to ignore history.
The specific problem you seem concerned with here is the secondary
boycott. There could be rules dealing with such situations that don't
touch primary discrimination (analogies could be drawn to labor law or
to the U.S. response to the Arab boycott of Israel, in both of which a
distinction is drawn between direct refusals to deal and secondary
boycotts). Incidentally, I wasn't aware that secondary boycotts of the
sort you mention have been a significant problem in connection with
intergroup relations. Are there any specifics you could mention?
>If preserving real freedom for real people requires taking away these
>"property rights," yes, at gunpoint ultimately, then so be it.
I suppose my point was that real freedom for real people ought to
include the freedom to form communities with a common way of life
directed toward some common good. One example of such a community is a
monastery. My Born Again Baptist Bakery, Inc. was intended as an
example of an institution that is part of another such community. To
suppress such an institution strikes me as an act of tyranny.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 15:23:46 EDT 1993
Article: 14206 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 27 Jul 1993 12:51:38 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 43
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References: <22u9oc$69m@panix.com> <1993Jul25.222932.19767@midway.uchicago.edu> <1993Jul26.231033.14133@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14206 alt.politics.libertarian:6443 alt.society.anarchy:1927
gr2a@ellis.uchicago.edu (david rolfe graeber) writes:
>But if so, why should it be that most of the world outside of western
>Europe switched _away_ from private property rather than towards it when
>they started industrializing in a big way? [ . . . ] (A hint: maybe the
>actual process of changing an agrarian society into an industrial one,
>capitalist or state-capitalist (eg, in which workers work in factories
>for wages, whoever might own the factory) is a necessarily traumatic one
>which cannot be accomplished except through the liberal use of coercive
>force on the part of the state, and that's what Stalin was doing just as
>much as what the English gov't was doing two or three centuries
>before...)
Another thought -- certain kinds of property mostly relating to land
(feudal land tenures, large-scale ownership of land by the church,
common rights in land, serfdom and slavery, tribal ownership of land)
were suppressed in the course of the economic development of the West.
The suppression of such forms of property was sometimes violent or
associated with violence (e.g., the French Revolution, the American
Civil War, the Indian Wars), but sometimes it wasn't. Also, the
violence had no very close connection with industrialization -- 19th
century England was a lot less violent than England had been in earlier
times, and in particular English criminal law became far less bloody in
the early 19th century.
The change in forms of property in the West was a very long-term process
(enclosures, for example, went on for centuries) that involved a lot of
different actors in a lot of different places and shows no tendency to
reverse itself, so some overall explanation based on underlying factors
that go far beyond particular acts of particular people seems called for
(like "such forms of property weren't adapted to free markets so they
disappeared because free markets were more efficient").
The case of state socialism seems different. Some industrializing
societies adopted that system and some did not, and where it was adopted
its adoption appears to have been contingent on particular events that
could easily have been otherwise. Also, the system involved a quite
unusual amount of violence and displayed other signs of inefficiency and
instability culminating in a tendency to abandon it and revert to a
regime of private ownership. So the two cases don't seem similar to me.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 18:06:36 EDT 1993
Article: 14218 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 27 Jul 1993 18:06:30 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14218 alt.politics.libertarian:6472 alt.society.anarchy:1933
gr2a@kimbark.uchicago.edu (david rolfe graeber) writes:
>you challenged me to provide a reference to the actual statutes I
>was referring to, clearly implying they didn't exist.
Why does "a statutory reference would help" have to be read as a
challenge? If you had had one at hand it would have been the quickest
way to give me further info. It's true, of course, that asking for
references rather than further discussion indicates an inclination not
to put oneself in another's hands.
> well, once again you are drawing your examples from one
>specific recent historical event (or closely related series of them),
>rather begging the question of whether this is how things generally
>have tended to work.
I'm mostly interested in what rules govern what's happening now.
Ideally, of course, one would show that the rules governing what's
happening now are a special case of universal rules.
>Assuming for instance that the main criterium for determining property
>relations is that of "efficiency" is a statement of ideology, not of
>fact, since it implies that the question "efficiency in doing what?"
>need not be asked at all. It ignores questions of culture - for example,
>do people tend to value leisure time more, or consumer goods, or certain
>types of status symbol -
Saying that efficiency becomes the main criterion under particular
circumstances is a descriptive rather than ideological statement. The
notion is that when a variety of societies are in constant contact so
that there is cultural interpenetration, standards of value within each
society become less coherent so that voluntary cooperation tends more
and more to be achieved by exchange. That process is encouraged by
technical advances that make varying standards more immediately present
to each person (people in Bangalore can see on TV what's doing in New
York) and that make it possible for more and more of the needs of life
to be met by exchange (if insurance, ready-to-eat food and VCRs are
available on the market you don't need family and friends as much).
Then, when people think about political and social issues, they tend to
emphasize the goods they continue to recognize collectively (in the
limiting case, the only such good would be exchange or monetary value)
and to view the overall goal of society as the maximization of those
goods (in the limiting case, growth of GNP). The nice thing about
taking efficiency in the generation of exchange value as the overall
goal of society, by the way, is that it allows people to avoid asking
"efficiency for what" -- exchange value can be exchanged indifferently
for consumer goods, for leisure, and for lots of other things, and in a
society in which it is accepted as the univerally-applicable measure of
value its possession confers status as well.
>and of course questions of power (which overlap with the cultural ones).
>I was trying to emphasize the role of power - "coercion", as
>libertarians like to say - in creating and maintaining forms of
>property, because it is often so glaring left out.
I'm not completely sure what the issues are between us. One issue may
be whether the current general form of society is as it is because
particular people have had the power to make it that way, so that if
different people had power and made different choices it would be very
different (and possibly much better), or whether things are as they are
because of impersonal social and economic laws that we can't do much
about. I'm inclined more to the latter view; you seem inclined more to
the former.
>What actually happens is that you develop a kind of autonomous sphere of
>exchange in which people from the different societies can deal with one
>another, but which is almost entirely "encapsulated" (I think that's the
>common term) - it is cut off from ordinary life and property relations
>and does not really effect it.
I would think that the degree of encapsulation would tend to vary with
circumstances such as effective propinquity (which would in turn vary
with things like the technology of transportation and communication) and
the advantages to be gained from extensive exchange (which would vary
with the state of productive technology). It seems to me that
encapsulation of foreign influences is not very effective today anywhere
due to reasons of the sort I just mentioned, and it's becoming less
effective all the time.
>if one looks at the matter in any historical depth, you find that (a)
>the mere fact of contact and exchange does not tend to bring about the
>rise of private property and commercial exchange _within_ societies
>which are not inclined this way already, and (b) the way that superior
>technology _does_ play into this is by providing things like rifles and
>gunships and the like, which have allowed Westerners to take over just
>about every country in the entire world and forcibly impose regimes of
>private property and market exchange.
I've suggested other ways in which technology, particularly of the sort
we have today, contributes to the establishment of regimes of private
property and market exchange. I suppose the issue is whether if Western
colonization had never taken place there would nonetheless be a
long-term worldwide tendency toward such regimes. I would think so.
The West did not impose such regimes on the former communist countries
or on China, all of which are moving in that direction, nor on Turkey,
Thailand or Japan, all ancient civilizations that were never colonized
and all of which have such regimes. Iran, another ancient civilization
that never became a colony, is experimenting with Islamic socialism, but
my understanding is that the experiment has not been very successful.
Also, now that the colonial empires are gone, why not more tendency to
diverge?
>People often forget that all of the "economic miracles" of Asia - Japan,
>South Korea, Taiwan (I leave out city-states which had no major agrarian
>sector) - were countries which were occupied by foreign armies, and that
>in each case the leaders of said armies imposed massive land-reform,
>basically expropriating all the big landlords without compensation, and
>that this in turn was meant to be an economic underpinning to
>industrialization.
Japan was industrial before 1945 -- remember that they beat Russia in
1905. Also, what was the foreign army that occupied Taiwan and imposed
land reform? Ditto for South Korea -- we occupied them for a while, but
it would have been odd for us to impose land reform on a country that
was not a former enemy. In any case, it's not clear to me why land
reform is needed for industrialization. If a city surrounded by
communist China or by the ocean can industrialize, why not a city
surrounded by feudal domains?
> My answer was not specific to American Indians either - my
>answer in the original posting, which you diced out and then treated
>as if it wasn't there.
I customarily dice out as much as possible. Otherwise these exchanges
become unreadable.
>This seems a strangely dishonest way of arguing: you asked originally
>"why has this diversity given away to uniformity." I answered: as with
>the Indians, so with almost every country on earth. They were all
>invaded by one or another western power and colonial regimes imposed on
>them [ . . . ]
You seemed to me to be talking about the Indians. If I was wrong I was
wrong, but suggestions of dishonesty make it hard to carry on a
discussion (there is no requirement that we carry one on, of course).
The point of my response (you can review it on your own system if you
want) was to ask why there is not now more of a tendency to diverge in
the 200 independent political societies that now exist. Given that
colonialization took place, each society is now free to define its own
rules of property based on its own culture and traditions (foreigners
might complain if the redefinition deprived them of rights they now
have, but citizens of powerful foreign countries don't have significant
stakes in all countries and not all such complaints could be made good).
The fact that there seems to be no tendency to return to anything like
the extreme diversity that once obtained suggests that constraints other
than brute external force are at work. Do you agree that such
constraints exist? If so, what do you think they are?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 20:01:40 EDT 1993
Article: 7747 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Lao-tse, and Pooh too
Date: 27 Jul 1993 18:07:53 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 11
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References: <233rgs$2a6@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
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dm771@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (William R. Williams) writes:
> Will a good Confucian please stand up so those of us into
>Eastern philosophy can have a debate? (Or should I play devil's
>advocate?)
I'm not sure I'm a good Confucian, but I like Confucius. What's your
beef?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jul 27 20:05:56 EDT 1993
Article: 14224 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism
Date: 27 Jul 1993 20:05:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 53
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14224 alt.politics.libertarian:6478
pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (D. J. Pajerek) writes:
>>God knows that millions of Americans feel themselves to be a part of the
>>same sort of treadmill. The demands of our merciless economy already
>>fall too often between parent and child, or between friend and friend.
>>This is not freedom; it is its opposite. Real freedom comes not only
>>from diminishing the power the state wields over us, but also from
>>diminishing the power the economy wields over us.
>
>I agree with your comments here, but I can also see the libertarian
>argument to the effect that the economy wields *no* power over us. You
>can always 'drop out' of the economy. I personally believe that this is
>quite a bit more difficult than that simple phrase contemplates, but
>how can this argument be developed?
People learn how do do things by observing and imitating other people,
and that principle applies to how to live as well as to how to play
basketball or write novels. It's a lot easier to observe and imitate
something concrete ("study hard at school and get a good job so you'll
make a lot of money and be able to buy whatever you want") than
something abstract ("strive to develop modes of dealing with the world
that enable you to realize your specific potentialities"). As a result,
most people are stuck as a practical matter with the concrete way of
living that is customary in their society and will not be able to do
better than that any more than most novelists will be able to write
novels that are much different or better than other novels being written
in their time and place. (We are all stuck with the way of life of our
society to some degree -- a way of life is a complicated thing, and it
isn't that much easier to invent one's own than it is to design and
build one's own car or invent and use one's own language.)
So it is important what way of life will be customary in a modern free
market society. It's hard to be optimistic about that. Such a society
produces a mind-boggling array of economic outputs, and is very good at
turning any input into an economic output. People living in such a
society are aware both of the seductive outputs and of the possibility
of getting them by treating the best of their time and effort as
economic inputs. Accordingly they will tend to do so. That tendency
will be powerfully magnified because it is a tendency that everyone
feels, and in the absence of other commonly held values will become the
tendency that molds society in its image. So people in modern free
market societies will tend to have lives that consist primarily of
the round of career and consumption that the original poster described
as a treadmill. Not very inspirational.
(For the sake of bringing this posting into some kind of coherence with
my postings in another t.p.t. thread, I should say that even though I
think there are major problems with life in modern free market societies
I'm not sure there is a practical alternative that isn't worse.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 28 06:12:07 EDT 1993
Article: 581 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: subscription info
Date: 27 Jul 1993 20:07:50 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <234g0m$8p9@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul27.010003.15248@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1993Jul27.183256.29996@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>But I'm still sore at American Spectator for their hit piece they did on
>Patrick Buchanan.
I thought they were trying to establish their respectability. After
all, they seem to be trying to position themselves as a Washington
insider's mag. The great strength of _Chronicles_ is that they don't
much care whether they are respectable and don't much care who
specifically is doing what to whom in D.C.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jul 28 13:42:36 EDT 1993
Article: 14233 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism
Date: 28 Jul 1993 11:02:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Distribution: usa
Message-ID: <2364eh$k10@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul27.161434.29058@kadsma.kodak.com> <234fsv$8fv@panix.com> <235oim$2me@panix.com>
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14233 alt.politics.libertarian:6507
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>I believe that the great concern of the majority of people
>in a capitalist society to obtain, possess, and use a great
>array of goods derives not only from their availability and
>custom, but also out of the need of capital to promote
>production and consumption.
I can't think of any specific effect capital has on the process. The
only reason capital needs to promote production and consumption is that
the owners of the capital want to make lots of money. But people who
make money by providing services rather than by investing their own
capital (lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, entertainers, even the
occasional computer programmer) also want to make as much money as they
can. Service businesses try to increase productivity and fatten the
bottom line no less than capital-intensive businesses, and both kinds of
business engage in advertising to promote demand for whatever it is they
are selling.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 29 13:19:30 EDT 1993
Article: 7796 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Lao-tse, and Pooh too
Date: 29 Jul 1993 08:56:07 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 77
Message-ID: <238hd7$mfu@panix.com>
References: <2376gt$288@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
dm771@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (William R. Williams) writes:
> Well, it's my understanding that the traditional debate
>between the two philosophies is along individual/society lines.
>Specifically, Taoism is directed more at an individual's
>freedom, while confucianism stresses the importance of subjugating
>one's own needs to those of the state and society. As a fierce
>believer in individual liberties, I fall in with Taoism.
But the Taoists weren't fierce believers, and the opposition of the free
individual and his needs to society and the state was characteristic of
neither philosophy. The Taoists didn't believe in opposing anything,
and certainly didn't believe in giving primacy to the needs of the
individual:
"The reason the universe is everlasting is that it does not live for
Self. Therefore it can long endure. Therefore the Sage puts himself
last [ . . . ]" (_Tao Te Ching_ i, 7, trans. Lin Yutang).
It's true that there are stories in which Chuangtse suggests an
opposition between individual and social interests (like the story in
"Autumn Floods" in which he says he would rather be like the tortoise
wagging its tail in the mud than be burdened with high public office).
I don't think that shows he accepts such an opposition, though, any more
than he accepts the other oppositions that he turns into paradoxes. As
is said in "A Happy Excursion", "The perfect man ignores self; the
divine man ignores achievement, the true sage ignores reputation."
Confucius viewed man as essentially a social being and society as part
of the universal order of things. So a man realizes what he really is
by being a good man. That view of human nature was mostly implicit in
Confucius, but became more explicit in his follower Mencius:
"A gentleman differs from other men in that he retains his heart. A
gentleman retains his heart by means of benevolence and the rites."
(_Mencius_ iv.b.28, trans. D.C. Lau) Elsewhere, Mencius refers to the
heart a gentleman retains but bad men lose as the "original heart" or
"true heart". (See vi.a.8, 10 and 11)
> In addition, Confucious was one of the driving forces behind
>the establishment of beaurocracies (no time to look it up) in
>China [ . . . ]
I don't think so. Confucius thought government was mostly a matter of
ethics and culture:
"Govern the people by regulations, keep order among them by
chastisements, and they will flee from you, and lose all self-respect.
Govern them by moral force ("_te_"), keep order among them by ritual
("_li_") and they will keep their self-respect and come to you of their
own accord." (_Analects ii, 3, trans. Arthur Waley)
His ideal member of the governing class was far from a bureaucrat or
careerist:
"A gentleman is not an implement." (ii, 12)
"He who seeks only coarse food to eat, water to drink and bent arm for
pillow, will without looking for it find happiness to boot." (vii, 15)
> Basically, my challenge to Confucians and Devil's Advocates
>out there is to show that respect for the government and society
>is more important than defense of personal liberties.
Confucius certainly didn't think that all actual governments were worthy
of respect. He did think that respect for social order, which includes
government, is part of what makes us human, and I suppose he would have
thought that a conception of personal liberties that is inconsistent
with such respect is a conception that doesn't make any sense. A more
practical point is that personal liberties and many other social goods
can't exist without a social order that is generally respected. Since
respect for social order is a precondition for personal liberties and
other goods as well, it makes sense to say that it is more important
than personal liberties.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jul 29 13:19:36 EDT 1993
Article: 14256 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism
Date: 29 Jul 1993 10:03:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Distribution: usa
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Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14256 alt.politics.libertarian:6589
gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>Once capital can be abstracted, it begins to act as a force
>on its own, independent of the desires and needs of any
>particular human beings. Stocks are bought and sold, and
>managers are hired, promoted, and fired, based on numbers
>which can never be large enough to allow them to rest.
>Capital desires growth, and only growth, and it never
>sleeps.
Why is capital different from money in general? Managers of service
businesses are also hired, promoted and fired based on numbers that can
never be big enough to allow them to rest.
Perhaps the idea is that in the real new world order, in which both
capital and heirarchical organization will become useless and the world
economy will consist of 5,000,000,000 independent producers each
entering into a number of separable transactions on a universal market
without direction from any particular individual or group of
individuals, the power of money will disappear because each individual
will decide for himself what his goals are and how much moneymaking
activity will be necessary to pursue those goals.
I doubt it. Even in those circumstances man will remain a social animal
that values what others value and accepts the goals that are universally
accepted by his fellows. In the situation just described, in which
there are no social arrangements that cause people to favor one
substantive goal more than another, the one goal people will continue to
have in common is acquiring the power to attain whatever their
particular goals happen to be. In a market society, that power (insofar
as it is something everyone is capable of possessing) is money. It
follows that in the situation described money will be the sole
universally-accepted good, and as such it will be the good that defines
the culture and the way of life of the new world society.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jul 30 06:08:19 EDT 1993
Article: 14274 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism
Date: 29 Jul 1993 19:33:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 52
Distribution: usa
Message-ID: <239mol$pp3@panix.com>
References: <238lav$sfp@panix.com> <1993Jul29.145824.8464@midway.uchicago.edu>
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dave@blackjoke.bsd.uchicago.edu (Dave Griffith) writes:
>Money is quite good for buying mass-produced objects [ . . . ] Money
>will still be good for custom objects and personal services, but the
>prices for these will be quite low due to extreme overproduction (the
>excess industrial workers have to do _something_).
I'm not sure there's a limit on the goods and services people will want
if they live in a society in which having such things is the way people
establish who they are. There was an amusingly convincing explanation
in _Bonfire of the Vanities_ of why the hero couldn't quite make ends
meet on $1,000,000 a year if he really wanted to avoid tackiness. No
doubt other monarchs envied Louis XIV and would have lived the way he
lived if they could have, and maybe Louis himself would have spent on a
grander scale if he had had more money.
>What money probably won't be so good for is purchasing connections.
>Connections, and the sorts of unique information they provide, will be
>highly valued in this new world order. They can really only be bought
>through skills, personality, and demonstrable results, not raw cash.
>Alongside of connections will be data access, which will probably be
>sold at the lower levels, but reserved for personal use and use of
>connections as the data involved gets rarer and more valuable.
>Moreover, data's evanscent nature makes it imperative that "the good
>stuff" be only used by yourself and trusted others. Otherwise it will
>quickly be copied to the point of uselessness.
You seem to be talking here of how to be successful in the market rather
than what the measure and the purpose of that success will be.
Generally, it seems to me that the tendency of the new age is to make
data easier to get and connections easier to form. That's why large
hierarchical business organizations and a lot of other things (e.g.,
financial transactions) are disaggregating. Of course, at any
particular time some people will have better connections and better data
than others and that will help them make money, but I would expect the
tendency toward instant universal access to continue.
>Also, as the amount of mass-produced personal goods the average person
>owns saturates, they will become less valued, and a snob appeal will
>start to develop in _not_ having many items. This is already starting
>in the Generation X crowd.
Sounds like the old "we're ever so much more perceptive and refined than
those gross people who buy big yachts and big cars" maneuver. That can
get expensive too. Have you priced utensils for the
ever-so-natural-and-rustic-and-austere Japanese tea ceremony lately?
Frankly, the ones people like you and me would consider using don't come
cheap . . .
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jul 30 08:41:44 EDT 1993
Article: 589 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 30 Jul 1993 08:11:43 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>Heidegger seems to make a tripartite distinction. First, there are
>beings, things that are -- trees, clouds, tables chairs, animals,
>plants, human beings, and so on. Next, there is the Being of these
>beings, which is the meaningfulness that these things have. Heidegger
>characterizes the Being of beings as the presence of these beings [ . .
>. ] a being is present (to a human being) when a human being has an
>understanding grasp of the Being of the being, and this can be the case
>even if the being in question is not physically proximate to that human
>being.
The distinction seems somewhat like the distinction between noumena and
phenomena, except that a phenomenal object is an object as it appears to
our senses (or maybe our senses and our intellectual faculty of
apprehending things as objects) while the Being of an object is its
presence to all our modes of dealing with the object.
A question -- once the distinction between noumena and phenomena is
made, some people have been uncertain what the point is of talking about
noumena. Is there also an issue as to the status of beings that don't
have Being? How about things that have Being but not being? (I hope it
doesn't offend any pagans in the group if I give the Greek gods as an
example.)
>Being is cultural in nature, is something that is shared by a community
>as a whole; but this does not mean it is separate from Nature, for it is
>actually rooted in it and responsive to it) -- this totality Heidegger
>calls a world (or, in "The Thing," the Fourfold, where the four enfolded
>together are the realms of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities).
Does Heidegger talk about Nature? Is Nature being without reference to
Being? Is it the same as "earth and sky" in the Fourfold? What are
divinities for Heidegger -- paradigms of Being? And most importantly,
how in German does he distinguish being from Being when the convention
in that language is to capitalize all substantives?
>Rather, the Being of human beings is subject to the becoming of Being,
>in that the when and how of the becoming rests with this becoming
>itself.
Is that altogether true? Suppose I decide to become a computer
programmer or a Zen Buddhist. As a result of such a decision all sorts
of objects, institutions, traditions, states of mind, and theoretical
entities will come to have Being for me.
>This fostering and protective responding by human beings to presencing
>can take place knowingly or not; and it can take place either by
>responding positively to the initiative or by responding negatively and
>attempting to forestall the new world attempting to unfold itself.
Once a world has unfolded, does its continuance always involve
responding negatively to inconsistent new worlds attempting to unfold
themselves? Can several new worlds attempt to unfold simultaneously so
that we pick the one we will respond to positively and respond
negatively to the others? Later you say:
>That the becoming of Being has manifested itself as epochal is, for
>Heidegger, the consequence of human self-assertiveness, the result of
>the effort of human beings to master and control Being by fixing the
>meaningfulness of what is once for all and for all time.
Is it possible that some assertiveness is necessary to fix Being
sufficiently for life to go on at all? Does Heidegger think going with
the flow will be all for the good? If so, why? (Is there some
connection here to Mr. Walker's Age of Aquarius?)
>Now, in the age of technology, something is to the extent that it serves
>as a resource for production and only as such.
Does Heidegger see anything odd and unstable about that situation? It
seems he may think it is possible to evaluate epochs of Being:
>In fact, to the extent that the epochal development of Being exhibits
>any teleology at all, it is that of a decline: the paradigm of Being
>shows itself more and more as sheer control of what is for its own sake.
But if that's so, is there something overall that includes all these
separate epochs of being?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jul 30 19:11:30 EDT 1993
Article: 591 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 30 Jul 1993 18:55:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <23c8tc$l4@panix.com>
References: <23a2bd$6pt@news.acns.nwu.edu> <23b35v$k75@panix.com> <23bru1$ov2@news.acns.nwu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>But in contradistinction to Kant, the Being of a being is not imposed on
>the being in virtue of the constitutive activity of human consciousness,
>but rather arises out of the being encountered.
In your account "Being" sometimes sounded like "what a thing is from the
standpoint of a particular culture", but I take it from the quoted
language that that's a misinterpretation.
>>Suppose I decide to become a computer
>>programmer or a Zen Buddhist. As a result of such a decision all sorts
>>of objects, institutions, traditions, states of mind, and theoretical
>>entities will come to have Being for me.
>
>Well, think about your latter example. If one is to become a Zen
>Buddhist in the strong sense of that term -- that is, to achieve
>_satori_ --, then, while there are things that one can do to prepare
>oneself for enlightenment, one cannot will oneself into enlightenment.
>One must prepare oneself and wait.
If one did attain _satori_, though, it seems that would be a result in
part of a decision one had made to follow the way of Zen. It also seems
that _satori_ is something from a different world of Being than our
current one. Is it a possibility for Heidegger that some guy in Detroit
could start studying Zen and end up achieving _satori_, thereby becoming
an emigrant from the world of Being all his neighbors and fellow workers
at the auto plant live in?
>And going with the flow is _not_ always good -- at least not in the sense
>that any sort of presencing that one comes up against is good for one.
Here again it appears that presencing can be judged from some superior
standpoint.
>Hope all this was helpful.
Very much so -- thanks for taking the time.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 06:18:09 EDT 1993
Article: 593 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 30 Jul 1993 21:49:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <23cj3f$ed9@panix.com>
References: <23a2bd$6pt@news.acns.nwu.edu> <23b35v$k75@panix.com> <1993Jul30.211242.3743@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>How about things that have Being but not being? (I hope it
>>doesn't offend any pagans in the group if I give the Greek gods as an
>>example.)
>
>Well, I don't see why pagans would be offended by such a
>characterization.
Many religious people believe that the existence of their deities can't
be reduced to religious institutions, devotees' states of mind, and so
on. Maybe it's true that in 1993 such people aren't pagans.
>>>In fact, to the extent that the epochal development of Being exhibits
>>>any teleology at all, it is that of a decline: the paradigm of Being
>>>shows itself more and more as sheer control of what is for its own sake.
>
>I would argue that any "overall" epoch of being would itself be only a
>particular "epoch" and not the whole
If epochs of Being can't be judged by common standards, it's not clear
to me how there can be a decline from one to another. For that matter,
it's not clear how one world of Being can be more suitable for the Hairy
Ainu than another or why it's any worse to have one uniform world of
Being for everyone everywhere from now until the end of time than it is
to let things vary.
>that is to say: a universalistic conception is still only a particular
>conception of the universal, and not the universal itself.
The conception of a thing is not the thing itself, but it can be more or
less adequate to the thing. Why doesn't that principle apply to
conceptions of the universal?
The fear seems to be that universals would deprive particulars of
reality because to explain is to explain away. The doctrine of creation
seems to me helpful on that point (God, the universal cause, made
things, and the things he made are indeed real and irreducible).
Now that I've convinced you on these issues . . .
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 07:09:23 EDT 1993
Article: 597 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 31 Jul 1993 07:09:02 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <23djse$gtg@panix.com>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>As I mentioned in my remarks on Mr. Deane's post, Heidegger is about as
>close as you can get to Taoism (or Zen, I suppose) in the West. By this I
>mean that Heidegger's account of Being and its becoming is like unto the
>Chinese account of the Tao; but is not thereby identical with it. Ditto for
>Zen. I wouldn't want to say that your example is impossible, but I would
>say that IMHO it would be, in Heidegger's view, extremely unlikely.
If Heideggerism is close to Zen, and it's extremely unlikely someone in
the modern epoch of Being could become a Zen master, how did Heidegger
become a Heideggerian master? Is he someone through whom a new world of
Being is becoming manifest?
>So worlds can be judged as good or bad (or, better, appropriate or
>inappropriate to one -- once again, Heidegger is a relativist of sorts),
>but the modes of presencing which gave rise to them cannot be so judged,
>for this would be a confusion of hermeneutical levels. That which gives
>rise to a standard cannot be judged by that standard.
Is there a master hermeneutical level from which one can look at the
Mediaeval, the Cartesian and the modern epochs of being and judge them
as appropriate or inappropriate? This talk of "appropriateness" of a
world is confusing -- it sounds as if an individual has an essential
nature independent of his world that can be known to be realized more or
less in one world or another.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jul 31 12:15:11 EDT 1993
Article: 598 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Draft Resource List
Date: 31 Jul 1993 12:14:52 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 338
Message-ID: <23e5ps$rl@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Here's an extremely fragmentary draft list of periodicals, books,
articles and other resources that seem particularly relevant to the
matters discussed in a.r.c. Additions and improvements are eagerly
solicited.
GENERAL
Periodicals
_Chronicles_
Subscription department:
P.O. Box 800
Mount Morris, IL 61054
1-800-877-5459
Subtitled "a magazine of American culture", _Chronicles_ puts out
"theme" issues with an interesting mix of stuff mostly tending toward an
anti-internationalist and neotraditional outlook that bases conservative
views on modern modes of analysis. They also have an interesting group
of regular contributors.
Published monthly for $24 a year, $30 for foreign subscribers. U.S.
funds only.
[What other periodicals? _Modern Age_?]
Books
[I've just listed a few books that came to mind as relevant to the
issues, so the list includes non-CRs as well as CRs. Here as elsewhere
suggestions are welcome.]
Aquinas, Thomas _Works_
Aristotle _Ethics_ and _Politics_
Burke, Edmund _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
Confucius _Analects _
Locke, John _Second Treatise of Government_
Maistre, Joseph de _Works_
MacIntyre, Alasdair _After Virtue_
Marx, Karl _Works_
Plato _Republic_ and _Laws_
Rousseau, J.-J. _Social Contract_ and other writings
Sade, Marquis de _Works_
Stephen, James FitzJames _Liberty, Equality and Fraternity_
Tocqueville, Alexis de _Democracy in America_
Articles
Berlin, Isaiah "Joseph de Maistre and the Origins of
Fascism", in _The Crooked Timber of Humanity_
CHRISTIAN COUNTERREVOLUTION [copies a posting by Nils Monaghan]
Books
General
Plinio Correa de Oliveira: Revolution and Counter Revolution
Plinio Correa de Oliveira: Indian Tribalism, the Communist-Missionary
Ideal for Brazil in the Twent-First Century > Crusade for a Christian
Civilization Vol. 10 No. 4 / Vol. 11 No. 1 (joint publication)
Plinio Correa de Oliveira: What does Self-Managing Socialism mean for
Communism - A barrier? Or a Bridgehead? > Crusade for a Christian
Civilization Vol 12 No 3 Apr-Jun 1982
Plinio Correa de Oliveira: Unperceived Idelological Transshipment and
Dialogue > Crusade for a Christian Civilization Vol 12 No. 2, Oct-Dec
1982 (originally Port. Baldeaco Ideologica Inadvertida e Dialogo)
Denis Fahey: The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World (3rd ed.
1939, rpd Omni Publications, Hawthorne California, 1987)
C.S. Lewis: The Abolition of Man
E.F. Schumacher: Small is Beautiful
E.F. Schumacher: A Guide for the Perplexed
Tradition, Family & Property: Half a Century of Epic Anti-Communism (New
York, 1981)
Marion Michael Walsh: The New Christendom. How We will Build It
Marion Michael Walsh: A Manual of Christian Social-Political Action
The Christian Law Institute Position Papers, Releases and Reports
Contemporary Politics
Carlos Patricio del Campo: Is Brazil Sliding Toward the Extreme Left?
History
Carlos de Arce: Los Generales de Franco (Barcelona, 1984)
Luis Bolin: Spain - The Vital Years (J.B. Lippincott Company, 1967)
W. Foss & C. Gerahty: The Spanish Arena (Catholic Book Club, London)
John Grigg: Nobility & War > Encounter March 1990 Vol. 74 No. 2
Solange Hertz: Dicovering Cristabal Colon (Supplement to Apropos No 12)
Hon. Mrs Maxwell-Scott: Garcia Moren~o, the Regenerator of Ecuador
E. Waugh: Robbery under Law - the Mexican Object-lesson (Catholic
Book Club, London, 1940)
Nesta H. Webster: The French Revolution
Nesta H. Webster: The Socialist Network (London, 1926)
Nesta H. Webster: Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (1924, rpd
Christian Book Club of America, 197?)
Nesta H. Webster: World Revolution. The Plot against Civilization
(London, 1921)
Nesta H. Webster: Surrender of an Empire (3rd edition, 1931)
The Catholic Church
Hilaire Belloc: Survivals and New Arrivals (London, 1929, rpd 1939)
Michael Davis: Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
Part I 1905-1976 (The Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1979)
Part II 1977-1979 (The Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1983)
Michael Davies: An Open Letter to a Bishop on the
Deveopment of the Roman Rite (Chulmleigh,Devon, 1980)
Michael Davies: A Privilege of the Ordained (The Angelus
Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1982)
Michael Davies: The Goldfish Bowl: The Church Since
Vatican II (The Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1985)
Michael Davies: St Athanasius. Defender of the Faith
(The Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1985)
Michael Davies: The Legal Status of the Tridentine Mass
(The Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1982)
Michael Davies: The Catechetical Revolution. Blessing or
Disaster (The Antony Roper Memorial Lecture, 1984)
Michael Davies: Archbishop Lefebvre and Religious
Liberty (Augustine Publishing Co, Chulmleigh, Devon, 1980)
Marcel Lefebvre: A Bishop Speaks
Marcel Lefebvre: An Open Letter to Confused Catholics
(tr The Society of St Pius X - Great Britain, Angelus
Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1987)
Marcel Lefebvre: They Have Uncrowned Him. From
Liberalism to Apostasy. The Conciliar Tragedy (tr
Reverend Father Gregory Post, Angelus Press, Dickinson, Texas, 1988)
Biographies
Aidan MacKay: Hilair Belloc and his Critics [available from the GK
Chesterton Study Centre - vide list of journals & organisations]
Jay P. Corrin: GK Chesterton & Hilaire Belloc. The Battle Against Modernity
Maisie Ward: Gilbert Keith Chesterton (London, 1944)
Literature
Hillair Belloc: Hills and the Sea (1906)
GK Chesterton: The Return of Don Quixote
C.S. Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis: The Perelandra Trilogy
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Miscellaneous
H. Belloc: Advice (Harvill Press, London, 1960)
H. Belloc: A Moral Alphabet in Words of from One to Seven Syllables
(1899, rpd Duckworth, 1974)
Journals
Please note with regard to subscription information, that this may
well be out of date (particularly with the recent currency
fluctuations). Where possible I have tried to indicate the frequency
of publication, although in practice this will often fluctuate.
Action Familiale et Scolaire
Action Familiale et Scolaire, 31 Rue Rennequin, 75017 Paris, France
[ Articles from this publication are often published in an
English translation in Apropos ]
All These Things
5835 Bramble Ave, Cincinnatti OH 45227 USA
Apropos (previously Approaches)
Editor: Tony Fraser
Burnbrae, Staffin Road, Portree, Isle of Sky, Scotland
Quarterly.
Candour
Editor: Rosine de Bounevialle
Forest Hose, Liss Forest, Hampshire, GU33 7DD, United Kingdom
Monthly.
Gaudete
PO Box 338, Winsted CT 06098 USA
Verbum
[ address being checked ]
Organisations
American Catholic Lawyers Association
KTF, 810 Belmont Avenue, P.O. Box 8261, Haledon, N.J. 07538-0261, USA
American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property
P.O. Box 121, Pleasantville, NY 10570, U.S.A.
Tel: 914-241-7015
[ Publishes various books, and magazines/newsletters ]
Christian Affirmation Campaign
Flint House, 30 Clifton Road, Worthing, Sussex BN11 4DP
[ Publishes an occasional newsletter Open Eye.]
Christian Law Institute
Box 37070, Omaha, Nebraska 68137, U.S.A.
G.K. Chesterton Study Centre
15 Shaftesbury Avenue, Bedford, U.K.
[ A booklet 'Hilaire Belloc and His Critics' by Aidan MacKay,
the owner of the study centre is available for
1.50 UK pounds plus postage ]
EUROPEAN NEW RIGHT
Periodicals
_Perspectives_
Write to:
Transeuropa, BM-6682
London WC1N 3XX
England
_Perspectives_ , like _Scorpion_, is influenced by GRECE and the ENR,
but takes a more strongly regionalist, neo-pagan, and semi-anarchist
position than others in this tendency. Strong interest in regional
folklore & folk music, *as well as* modernism, futurism and the avant
garde.
Airmail to the Americas: 13 Pounds sterling
Surface mail outside Europe: 10 Pounds sterling.
Checks/postal orders made out to Transeuropa.
_The Revolutionary Conservative_
This is an odd magazine, sort of radical Tory with a sophomoric sense of
humor. A bit flippant at times, but interesting.
[Mr. Deane will tell us how to find it.]
_The Scorpion_
Write to:
The Editor (Michael Walker)
The Scorpion
Lutzowstrasse 39
5000-Koln-1
Germany
Right now, _The Scorpion_ is coming out at the rate of a year or more
per issue (the subscription rates are for 4 issues). Back issues are
worth getting. _The Scorpion_ is the only source for English
translations of GRECE writers such as Alain de Benoist and Guillaume
Faye (or will be until Tomislav Sunic publishes his translations of some
of M. Benoist's essays). The writing in _The Scorpion_ is of a very high
quality and though it comes out infrequently, it's been getting longer -
52 pages in last issue.
North America air mail: 25 pounds sterling ($40.00 U.S.)
Surface mail: 17 pounds sterling
All curencies accepted. Cheques made payable to _The Scorpion_ except
for francs and marks (made payable to Michael Walker). For cheques in
currencies other than Pounds sterling, French francs, and Germans marks,
add 10%. Mr. Deane sends cash in U.S. dollars, as this avoids the
problem, but of course there is the usual risk of sending cash through
the mail. If you can send money orders in foreign currency, that can
work too.
_Third Way_
Write to:
Third Way
P.O. Box 1243
London SW7 3PB
England
Strictly speaking, Third Way is not part of the ENR, but the influence
is there, Mr. Deane thinks. This group emphasizes "common sense"
approaches to political problems, opposition to Maastricht, green
politics, cooperation between conservatives/nationalists of all
ethnic/racial/relgious groups, etc.
Outside UK, surface mail: 19 pounds sterling.
Outside Europe, airmail: 24 pounds sterling.
All payment must be in pounds sterling (Mr. Deane has gotten away with
cash, U.S. dollars, but he sends a little more than what the exchange
rate is, just in case). All cheques/postal orders/International money
orders payable to Third Way Publications, Ltd.
Books
Alain de Benoist:
_Vu de Droite, Copernic 1977
_Les Idees a L'Endroit_, Libres-Hallier 1979
_Comment peut-on etre Paien?_, Albin Michel 1971
_Les Traditions d'Europe, Labyrinthe 1982
_L'Eclipse du Sacre, Table Ronde 1986
_Europe, Tiers Monde: Meme Combat, Robert Laffont 1986
Tomislav Sunic, [?]
For a list of all the works by members of G.R.E.C.E and current prices,
write to 13, rue Charles Lecocq, 75015 Paris, enclosing two
International Reply Coupons
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Aug 1 13:06:14 EDT 1993
Article: 600 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 1 Aug 1993 09:00:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 77
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <23geop$nlj@panix.com>
References: <23cq7s$53f@news.acns.nwu.edu> <23djse$gtg@panix.com> <23f064$p03@news.acns.nwu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>Heidegger thought that what new initiatives of presencing happen to come
>forth at a given time and which ones win out in the end are a matter of
>fate, of destiny (_Schicksal_). The history (_Geschichte_) of Being
>consists in the sending (_Schicken_) of worlds, which (once again) is
>not in the control of no human being in particular (which is not to say
>that humans have nothing to do with it).
One might have thought that the future world of Being develops out of
the present world of Being, as contuously modified by the internal
dynamics of that world and by its nonhuman setting (that is, by being
apart from Being). That doesn't seem to be Heidegger's view, though.
He seems to think there is some third thing called "destiny" that is
neither Being nor being (at least if being is understood as inert
material appropriated by Being).
>The site from which judges the world in which one finds oneself is the
>world in which one finds oneself -- for while a given paradigmatic being
>may be dominant within a world, worlds are basically heterogeneous,
>suggestive of various ways in which that world may change, may be
>otherwise. One takes one's stand in judging in one or another of the
>disparate tendencies to be found in a world. (This view of the
>heterogeneity of worlds is proper to later Heidegger -- the Heidegger of
>_Being_and_Time_ thought the world was homogeneous, which landed him in
>difficulties when it came time to speak of authenticity, which suggests
>the achieving of an alternative to the present world for which the
>present world gives no purchase [ . . . ]
I'm not sure how authenticity becomes easier to understand if we assume
the world is heterogeneous. Presumably one judges the tendencies within
a world from the standpoint of one of those tendencies and the tendency
within which one stands always comes out ahead in the judgment. I can
understand how that process could lead one to be consistent in adopting
a single tendency to the exclusion of all others, but authenticity (as I
understand the matter) is different from consistency.
>For Aristotle, essence is basically past-oriented; but for Heidegger,
>essence is not only past-oriented but also future-oriented, what
>something was and what something will be. So the essence of a being is
>tied to presencing, which is the becoming of its essence.
Could one think of the Heideggerian essence of a being as a set of
ordered pairs, the first elements of which consist of all possible
Heideggerian worlds and the second elements of which consist of what
Aristotle would say the essence of the being is if he happened to
inhabit that Heideggerian world? No doubt Heidegger would reject
logical Platonism, though.
>A given being can belong to several different worlds, and to that extent
>its essence is heterogeneous; but it cannot belong to any old world, and
>to that extent its essence is not utterly indefinite.
It seems that a being that is a physical object could belong to any
world. For example, a computer that fell out of an airplane could
belong to the world inhabited by some tribe in New Guinea that never had
any other contact with the outside world as a "weird thing that someone
found and no one knows what it is or where it came from", or maybe as
"something the gods gave us to use as the king's footrest". Could you
give an example of a being that could not belong to a particular world?
>I don't know if the preceding is very clear -- I'm willing to try again, if
>you'd like me to.
I hope my questions are relevant enough to what you're saying to make
the process seem worthwhile to you. At some point I will have read some
Heidegger if I want to pursue these matters. I suspect that point will
be reached rather soon.
>In any case, judging a world takes place from out of a world [ . . . ]
But above you say "The site from which judges the world in which one
finds oneself is the world in which one finds oneself".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Aug 2 07:10:44 EDT 1993
Article: 604 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: subscription info
Date: 2 Aug 1993 07:09:00 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 45
Message-ID: <23iskc$op1@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul27.183256.29996@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <234g0m$8p9@panix.com> <23hdub$brj@balsam.unca.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
kepley@photon.phys.unca.edu (Brad Kepley) writes:
>>I thought they were trying to establish their respectability. After
>>all, they seem to be trying to position themselves as a Washington
>>insider's mag.
>
>I'm not sure that this extreme cynicism is what is required to explain
>the *hit* on Buchanan by TAS. Anyone who reads _Chronicles_ and TAS and
>TNR must recognize that there is a philosophical conflict going on in
>what can be considered "respectable" conservative opinion in the USA.
I didn't mean it quite so cynically. The basic point was that the
desire to be among those who know the score in D.C., the desire to be
respectable from the standpoint of mainstream opinion, and the piece on
Buchanan are all connected. I would also guess that they viewed the
Buchanan piece as in part a statement of who they are, and that the
intended audience for that statement was not limited to right-wingers.
>I am often pretty shocked by the blatant baiting in _Chronicles_ of the
>neo-conservatives (and those such as TNR and TAS that have befriended
>them).
I think they carry it too far. The idea seems to be "those guys stole
all our positions that they thought were saleable and adulterated them
with stuff that we don't like, and now they're getting all the attention
and grants and jobs that we'd have a shot at otherwise, and besides
they're not nice to us." As in the case of the desire of TAS for
respectability and success, there are of course highminded reasons for
feeling that way ("it was the end of the conservative movement which
otherwise might have done great things"). I'm inclined to think,
though, that if a political movement is somewhat successful making its
case it has to expect centrists to start appropriating its positions and
to continue (since they are centrists) to be more successful in an
immediate sense than the movement itself.
>In fact, I was amazed at the piece by Donald Devine in the last
>_Chronicles_ which seemed to run exactly counter to the general
>anti-neo-conservatism of _Chronicles_.
Fleming may be a grouch, but he's willing to publish things that go
against his own party line.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Aug 2 07:10:53 EDT 1993
Article: 14332 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 1 Aug 1993 22:10:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 162
Message-ID: <23ht2r$fic@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul27.163857.20055@midway.uchicago.edu> <2348t6$lqi@panix.com> <1993Aug1.200202.9660@midway.uchicago.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Keywords: longwinded, endless, diatribe
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14332 alt.politics.libertarian:6765 alt.society.anarchy:1963
gr2a@kimbark.uchicago.edu (david rolfe graeber) writes:
>> It seems to me that
>>encapsulation of foreign influences is not very effective today anywhere
>>due to reasons of the sort I just mentioned, and it's becoming less
>>effective all the time.
>
> of course it's not effective _now_! Nobody's even trying,
>or governments aren't, anyway.
It seems to me there are constant efforts to encapsulate all over the
world and there would be a lot more efforts if people thought the
efforts could succeed. Think of the efforts in Islamic and socialist
countries to keep out Western cultural influences or cultural
anti-Americanism in Europe. Even in the United States people worry
about failures to encapsulate -- Jews worry about disappearing as a
separate people because of assimilation, traditionalist Catholics worry
that their church is absorbing the values of a democratic consumer
society, all sorts of people worry about the homogenizing effect of TV,
and so on. None of the efforts seem to work very well, at least not on
a nation-wide scale. (Maybe it would be worthwhile to look at groups
like the Amish to see what the circumstances are in which smaller-scale
efforts can be successful.)
It's hard to encapsulate when there are televisions, radios, cassette
recorders, jet aircraft, automobiles and a world market on which a huge
variety of goods and services are available at a small fraction of their
cost of production by traditional methods. If people are permitted by
their government to acquire such things a great many of them will, and
one foreign influence leads to another. That's especially true if the
first foreign influence is something that makes communications easier.
>if the course of history, or technological development, do tend to
>spontaneously bring about _more_ private property, and not the other way
>around, then as one goes back in time, or to earlier stages of
>development, there should be _less_ private property.
Things don't have to happen in a straight line. It might be true, for
example, that markets and private ownership have always been
economically advantageous when technology is complex and changing, but
that the balance of advantage when things like military strength or
social stability are taken into account did not decisively favor private
property until prosperity became the key to both.
>For thousands of years, societies came into contact, technologies
>advanced, yet the variety of regimes was not effected.
You mentioned the extreme variety of regimes among the American Indians.
Presumably that variety existed at one time everywhere in the world. Do
you claim that that same degree of variety existed in all parts of the
world down to the time of European colonization?
>Then, in one hitherto rather obscure corner of the European continent, a
>regime based among other things on private property developed - one
>which proved so effective in military terms that these countries were
>able, over the course of the next couple hundred years, to conquer
>almost every corner of the earth and impose their laws and systems of
>government on them, actively intervening to transform the economies of
>the countries in question to make them dependent on western techniques
>and economic ties to the west.
You note that the modern European regime has been remarkably effective
in military terms. So were the Mongols, but I don't believe the
survivors in the countries they conquered imitated Mongol institutions.
Do you think the European regime has been successful in other respects
as well? Or do you think that it has been successful only with regard
to things (which presumably would include health, material wealth, and
political freedom and equality) that are of interest to Europeans but
that people elsewhere wouldn't care much about if the Europeans hadn't
colonized and transformed them? And why did the Europeans suddenly
became so powerful militarily? It seems to me it was mostly because of
other advantages attributable to their mode of economic and political
organization that would have been attractive to non-European societies
in any event.
> It is obvious that you are more comfortable living in a
>hypothetical reality of your own making than in history or the real
>world - hence your incessant "I would think that"s, offered in lieu
>of concrete examples.
I've given a number of concrete examples to support my speculative
points. Also, I'm posting from talk.politics.theory, where people like
to talk about general theories. That doesn't mean it's our only
interest in life.
> Well in fact, if we are talking about capitalism, as opposed to
>simply property regimes (capitalism being defined as something where
>some people have capital, and use it to generate profits, and employ
>others who do not have capital as wage laborers...) then it is pretty
>clear that capitalism and especially industrial capitalism could _never_
>have developed without its military wing.
I don't see why your account of what happened in India supports this
claim. In the absence of European military power would the traditional
Indian mode of producing cloth be outproducing European capitalist
methods today so that European capitalist arrangements would disappear
if they had somehow managed to appear? If elimination of competition by
military force is necessary for capitalism to develop, then how can a
country (Japan, for example) become one of the foremost capitalist
countries when it is militarily weak?
>But when you take a political or social trend that has been going on for
>a little while, but which you strongly support, and try to argue that it
>is the inevitable direction of all human history, then what you simply
>an ideologist.
Who made any claims about "the inevitable direction of all human
history"? My interest is the direction of current history, why it has
that direction, and whether the things that make it have that direction
are fundamental things that aren't likely to go away. Of course, in
order to understand why things are happening as they are, and to assess
whether they are likely to keep on happening that way, it's helpful to
reflect on why things happen in general so that you can see whether your
theory of what's going on now is supported by more general theories.
As to "strongly support" -- apart from this one, the last two threads
I've been involved in on talk.politics.theory have been one thread in
which I claimed that the universal market society to which we are
tending is one in which the sole socially-recognized value will be
money, and another thread in which I in effect claimed (the terms of
discussion were different) that such a society will be unstable, because
if the only value is money then people will eventually decide to get
what they want by the quickest means possible, and that the ultimate
outcome will be chaos and tyranny. I don't at all like the new world
order we seem to be headed toward. It's important to understand as
clearly as possible why things are headed that way, though, and to be
realistic about the problems and the possibilities.
>That's mainly what ideologies do. They take something that happens to be
>happening now, or seems to be happening now, and make it seem like an
>age-old part of nature, something against which one could not possibly
>argue.
The recent ideological disasters that I can think of have been caused by
people who have claimed that what is happening now has a cause that can
be identified, isolated, and eliminated by the application of sufficient
force. One characteristic many such people have shared is a bigoted
inability to imagine that those who disagree with them may be reasonable
people who hold their views in good faith:
>One does not have to have a brain the size of Cleveland . . . for
>Christ's sake! . . . It is obvious that you are more comfortable living
>in a hypothetical reality of your own making than in history or the
>real world . . . it's the image of history you were trying to push
>before I reminded you of what really happened . . . Nowadays people
>like you would prefer not to hear about it, to deny this happened if at
>all possible . . . these somewhat pointless conversations . . . right -
>like they must have stolen all those battleships and aircraft carriers
>from some other country when that country wasn't looking . . . well,
>excuse me for assuming my audience had common sense . . . it's my fault
>you are ignorant of history? if you don't know what happened, look it up
>. . . Then you must have assumed that Senegal and Kenya were actually
>Indian tribes. Ok. From now on when I mention countries I will specify
>what continent they are on ("Kenya, which is in Africa...") so as not to
>confuse you . . . everything that had given meaning and value to their
>lives was treated like so much shit by people who think like you . . .
>you leave out all references to the violence and coercion (as you
>continually tried to do until I insisted we talk about what really
>happened) . . .
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Aug 2 07:10:57 EDT 1993
Article: 605 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 2 Aug 1993 07:10:29 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <23isn5$oss@panix.com>
References: <23f064$p03@news.acns.nwu.edu> <23geop$nlj@panix.com> <23hpph$kse@news.acns.nwu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>Well, isn't presencing that third thing? It is not Being, but the becoming
>of Being; and as Being is not a being, neither is presencing.
I find Being and being somewhat more comprehensible than presencing.
"Presencing" seems simply a word that indicates that Being changes from
time to time, and since no explanation can be given for the changes they
are referred to some ultimate thing called "presencing".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com) "Who lives without folly is not so wise
as he thinks." (La Rochefoucauld)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Aug 3 16:06:55 EDT 1993
Article: 14360 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Encapsulation
Date: 3 Aug 1993 13:09:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 58
Message-ID: <23m64k$9nh@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
The notion of "encapsulation" that david graeber mentioned in a recent
post raises some interesting issues concerning the modern world.
It seems that almost any society will try to maintain its most important
values and institutions and will try to deal with foreign imports and
influences in ways that prevent serious disturbance. It is far more
difficult to do that today than in the past because of the vastly
increased volume of foreign imports and because many of the foreign
imports (movies, TV shows, popular music) are more difficult to
reinterpret to fit into local culture than the less expressive things
available in the past. The difficulty of encapsulation under modern
circumstances, which threatens all particular cultures, is a problem to
someone who believes that the alternative to culture is stupidity and
brutality, and that "culture" can exist only in the form of particular
cultures.
One way to deal with the problem is xenophobic fundamentalism. Although
local cultures are everywhere constantly challenged by foreign
influences, it may be possible to defend them by defining them in a
clear and concrete way that everyone (including the police) can
understand, and by forcibly excluding and suppressing foreign or
foreign-inspired things that conflict with that definition. A problem
with this approach is that it is difficult to give an explicit
definition to a culture that does it justice. Any explicit definition
is likely to leave out or distort enough of the things that make the
culture satisfying to those who live it to deprive it of the popular
acceptance by which it lives.
Another approach is the liberal approach of letting each culture stand
or fall on its own merits in competition at the individual level with
other ways of life. A problem with that approach is that a culture
exists to only the extent those participating in it are able to assume
shared acceptance of a way of life and to rely on others to bear the
responsibilities the way of life assigns to them. Such an assumption
can't easily coexist with the assumption that each participant will at
all times be free to decide for himself whether and to what extent he
wants to keep on participating in the way of life given the alternatives
open to him and (quite possibly) the degree to which continued
participation would be burdensome to him under the circumstances.
A final possibility, and one that seems actually to work, is
artificially to recreate the distance between cultures that once make
encapsulation so much easier. Hasidic Jews, for example, seem to be
successful in resisting assimilation in modern society at least in part
because their way of life (for example dress, eating habits and the
requirement of living within walking distance of other Hasidic Jews)
makes it difficult for them to mix socially and informally with other
people. The Amish cut themselves off from the greater society by their
insistence on a rural way of life that excludes electricity and modern
machinery. From what I can tell, both groups have been successful in
maintaining their particular ways of life while growing in numbers and
prospering.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!cmcl2!yale.edu!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pipex!mantis!mantis!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 08:50:43 EDT 1993
Article: 7947 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!cmcl2!yale.edu!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pipex!mantis!mantis!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: Why is there a "here" here?
Date: 4 Aug 1993 11:07:45 +0100
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 43
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References: <2953221917.4.p00261@psilink.com> <7443079339659@jaeger.mcs.anl.gov> <23m8i3$d8t@nwfocus.wa.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: sunforest.mantis.co.uk
Xref: panix alt.atheism:57823 talk.religion.misc:59689 talk.philosophy.misc:7947 alt.atheism.moderated:534
ken@halcyon.halcyon.com (Ken Pizzini) writes:
>Unless you can explain where God came from, you cannot invoke God
>as an explaination of where the universe came from; you just beg
>the question.
The answer is that God is a special kind of entity that has features
other things don't have. I always understood the line of thought to be
something like the following:
1. Everything has an explanation.
2. The universe as we know it doesn't provide an explanation for
itself.
3. Therefore, the universe has an explanation based on something that
is not part of the universe as we know it (at least, not part of the
universe as we knew up to this point in the discussion).
4. That explanation may have another explanation, which may have yet
another explanation, but an infinite series of explanations is no
explanation at all.
5. Therefore, at some point in the series of explanations the universe
has a final explanation based on something that provides an explanation
for itself as well as everything else. That something is called "God".
So the argument is that the existence of the universe is not
self-explanatory, so its existence can be explained only if there is
some special kind of entity somewhere the existence of which *is*
self-explanatory and also provides an explanation for the existence of
everything else. So I don't think the question is really begged. Some
obvious issues raised by the argument are whether we demand that
everything have an explanation, whether the concept of an entity that
causes itself and everything else makes sense, and whether such an
entity need be thought of as having the characteristics usually
attributed to God.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 08:53:22 EDT 1993
Article: 613 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 4 Aug 1993 08:53:16 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <23obfs$gob@panix.com>
References: <1993Jul30.211242.3743@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <23cj3f$ed9@panix.com> <1993Aug3.202203.11200@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>[Epochs of Being] can be judged by a common standard, but that standard
>can make no better claim to being universal than the various epochs of
>Being can. Hence, a "common standard" is simply another epoch of Being
>and as such is subject to the same process of change, etc., as any other
>epoch [ . . . Multiple worlds of Being are better because of] the
>realization that all men are *not* created equal, that their needs and
>motivations very, that their ways of viewing the world are different,
>that they have different perspectives of what exists, due to their
>different histories, constitutional nature, etc.
You seem to suggest in the second sentence that a world of Being can be
more or less suitable to particular men, but in the first sentence that
the judgment of suitability only can be made from the perspective of a
particular world of Being. No doubt from the perspective of a Western
liberal the world of Being in which Western liberalism is at home is a
world of Being that is uniquely suitable for everyone, because in the
world defined by Western liberalism everyone can pursue his
idiosyncratic tastes within a scheme of things that treats all tastes
equally to the extent possible consistent with the maintenance of the
scheme itself. Is your claim that your perspective is better than the
Western liberal's perspective anything more than an expression of your
perspective?
>when it comes to conceptions of the universal [ . . . ] [y]ou are asking
>a finite thing (a particular conception) to describe an infinite thing,
>and that is an entirely different matter from asking a finite thing to
>describe another finite thing.
No doubt it's hard, but life is hard and requires us to do things we are
unlikely to do at all well.
>>The fear seems to be that universals would deprive particulars of
>>reality because to explain is to explain away.
>
>A not unreasonable fear.
The problem with nominalism, of course, is that if there are no
universals particulars have no meaning. It's not even clear how we can
talk about them.
>"Let loose from the leash, to hunt the Bolshevik beast!"
Now you're talking!
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 08:54:58 EDT 1993
Article: 614 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Aquarius
Date: 4 Aug 1993 08:54:53 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <23obit$h7b@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug3.205656.11631@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The object then is not to fight the essential tendencies of the coming
>age, but rather to try to direct the "Aquarian" current in directions
>favorable towards a more conservative, "pro-European" perspective.
Whose object? I'm not a European and neither are you. Do you have any
theories as to what all this particularism stuff means to Americans of
northern European Protestant origins like you and me? I've read Sam
Francis' Middle American will-to-power schemes in _Chronicles_. I've
also read Editor Tom's accounts of exactly what Middle American culture
is like these days (e.g., the piece on Madonna's _Sex_ book and the
local opposition to it). I've also noted his return-to-absolute-basics
move and his tendency to take the situation in the Balkans as his model
for the future. Where will it all lead?
[signed]
Concerned Citizen
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 08:56:39 EDT 1993
Article: 9977 of alt.discrimination
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian,alt.discrimination
Subject: Re: Pseudo-libertarianism (was: Capitalism and those who decry it)
Date: 4 Aug 1993 08:56:35 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
Distribution: ssd
Message-ID: <23obm3$hf1@panix.com>
References: <23lv5v$142@travis.csd.harris.com> <3AUG199317460260@envmsa.eas.asu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14379 alt.politics.libertarian:6921 alt.discrimination:9977
auld@qed.uucp (Chris Auld) writes:
>When an enterpreneur places a sign above a store, he is effectively
>advertising that he will provide the service named. Effectively, this
>is an open-ended contract to provide the service to whomever wishes it.
>Now, if the enterpreneur fails to specify properly the subset of the
>population he will not serve (``This restaurant does not serve purple
>people''), he is effectively breaking a contract when he throws someone
>off his premises for arbitrary reasons, and violation of contract is an
>initiation of force.
The argument seems to be based on what the sign would reasonably be
understood to mean by a member of the community. I don't think it would
work if it were common in the community for a restaurant to decline
service on (say) racial grounds.
My impression is that signs specifying who will be admitted or served
have not been uncommon. I remember seeing signs in Boston saying "Men's
Bar", for example. If the feeling in a community is that discrimination
of a certain sort is legitimate, people won't have qualms about putting
up such signs. On the other hand, if people generally feel
discrimination is illegitimate there's not likely to be that much of it
regarding things that are publicly visible like getting served in
restaurants.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 13:10:07 EDT 1993
Article: 14380 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Left! Right! Left! Right!
Date: 4 Aug 1993 08:59:28 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <23obrg$hn1@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug3.223724.20350@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
mperic@nyx.cs.du.edu (marko peric) writes:
>Right and Left [ . . . ] how are they defined?
My own theory:
"Left" means "consistent with the predominant long-term political
tendency in the West away from institutions based on tradition and a
conception of the Good that can't be reduced to people's actual
preferences and toward a rational scheme that maximizes individual
liberty (understood as freedom to do what one actually wishes to do, or
what one will actually wish to do in the society to be created by
political action) and individual equality (again, in some left-wing
views the equality will be actual only in the society to be created).
"Right" means whatever resists or opposes the Left.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 21:24:07 EDT 1993
Article: 617 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 4 Aug 1993 21:22:00 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <23pnbo$er0@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug3.202203.11200@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <23obfs$gob@panix.com> <1993Aug4.172618.26873@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I recognize that my perspective is particular and coloured by my own
>essence/history or "world of Being" if you prefer. Thus, I am closer to
>the truth than the liberal who mistakes his particular essence for a
>universal essence.
If all there is is perspectives and no truth apart from perspectives, I
don't understand how one can speak of a perspective being "coloured" --
the locution suggests that an uncolored perspective is a possibility, at
least conceptually. I also don't understand how one can speak of one
perspective being "closer to the truth" than another.
>Yes, but we should not labour under the impression that our efforts to
>understand the Universal will stand unchallenged forever.
Sure, but what follows? That we should not treat our understanding of
the universal as our understanding of the universal?
>Particulars are things-in-themselves and have meaning to us because we can
>directly experience them: they do not need universals to have meaning.
We can't even say what they are without reference to universals.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Aug 4 21:25:51 EDT 1993
Article: 618 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Aquarius
Date: 4 Aug 1993 21:24:03 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 45
Message-ID: <23pnfj$f2n@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug3.205656.11631@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <23obit$h7b@panix.com> <1993Aug4.174346.27484@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>As to culture, America is still a part of Europe - though a sickly and
>unstable part.
So that's why there were references to "colour" and "labour" in your
latest posting! I thought Michael Walker's view was that America is
*not* part of Europe, and is in fact (for geographical and
world-structure-of-power reasons) necessarily opposed to Europe>. Or
maybe I'm thinking of some other Scorpion contributor. (Incidentally, I
seem to recall that astrologically speaking the Age of Aquarius was
going to begin around the year 2000. When will the Age of Scorpio
begin?)
>"Americans" have not been allowed to sink their roots here in America.
Things come and go. Maybe they mostly go. I seem to remember Ezra
Pound claiming that there was an American culture until the 1820's or
thereabouts. More recently there was the next-to-last inaugural poem:
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people . . .
which seems to assume more of a "we" than people are inclined to admit
these days.
>There is no "American" culture any more to speak of, barring what
>remnants _Chronicles_ might gather, but to the extent that America is
>true to its roots it is still a part of Europe, Revolution or no.
I don't agree that we are Europeans. At least I don't feel like one. I
suppose I'm a Euro-American, which is something different, just as the
Normans were different from the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons were
different from people in Saxony.
>One should prepare for rough times ahead.
I'm inclined to think that's right.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 6 11:11:31 EDT 1993
Article: 621 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: de Maistre
Date: 6 Aug 1993 11:11:18 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 63
Message-ID: <23tsam$oqc@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Recent comments on de Maistre prompted me to reread a paperback
selection of his writings. Here's what I make of it:
The revolutionaries thought that men could create a new and better world
by their reason and will alone. In response, de Maistre draws attention
to things we don't create or control that precede all our thoughts and
actions. Against Locke and the 18th century philosophers, he asserts
that thought is made possible only by innate ideas and knowledge only by
innate knowledge. Similarly, social institutions such as language,
nationality, sovereignty and law can't be constructed at will, by
agreement or out of simpler things, but must be accepted as things we
need but can't create, and when they do exist we can't make them
fundamentally different or better than they are.
Since the world is constituted in accordance with principles we can't
control and can understand only in part, and since those principles are
the source of all the good we know and ignoring or rebelling against
them visibly leads to catastrophe, the most reasonable way to deal with
these principles is to accept them as expressions of the benevolent and
infallible will of God -- benevolent because the world is good and
infallible because (among other considerations) we can't show God's will
is wrong from some independent perspective.
De Maistre discusses at length various aspects of the problem of evil --
why a world created by an infallible and benevolent God has so many bad
things in it. One answer is that divine omnipotence should not be
interpreted in a simple-minded way. It may be subject to logical and
similar constraints; for example, to deprive men of the power to choose
evil or to make divine punishment for sin invariable and instantaneous
would be to deprive "virtue" of its meaning. Other constraints might be
visible to us if we knew more than we do, which is very little.
Another answer is that evil is the remedy for sin. Many of those who
suffer are sinners; others would have become sinners if the divine
remedy of suffering had not anticipated the sin. Also, the suffering of
the innocent can be a remedy for the sin of others. We don't know why
this is so, but it is a universally accepted truth without which the
world, soaked as it is in blood, becomes far less comprehensible.
To tie all recent a.r.c. discussions into a neat package: there are
certain resemblences between de Maistre's thought and Heidegger's, and
for that matter Taoism. All view our world as constituted by principles
that we can't fully understand but must accept, and that are
manifestations that vary from time to time and place to place of some
ultimate principle that transcends discursive thought. All hold in
disdain chattering intellectuals who believe that the things that can be
made explicit and manipulated are the things that determine the course
of events, and all think it might be a good thing politically if they
would just shut up. (Actually, I'm mostly making the stuff in this
paragraph up to the extent it applies to Heidegger.) One difference
between de Maistre on the one hand and Heidegger and Taoism on the other
is that de Maistre thinks the world is good and therefore thinks of the
ultimate principle behind the world as something that has purpose and
therefore personality, while H. and T. think of that principle as an
impersonal thing that transcends good and evil.
Any other comments on de Maistre?
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Aug 6 20:26:14 EDT 1993
Article: 625 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: An exposition of Heidegger's philosophy
Date: 6 Aug 1993 20:26:09 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <23usr1$gpc@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug4.172618.26873@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <23pnbo$er0@panix.com> <1993Aug6.193641.9903@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The only truth that we can hope for derives from our own perspective.
>This is not to deny that there are larger truths, or that Truth exists
>[ . . . ] In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I gather that your views are far less radical than Heidegger's appear to
be from Mr. Carrier's account. It appears that you would say that truth
transcends all human perspectives, and there may be no single best
perspective, but some perspectives are closer to the truth than others.
Most of what I said was directed toward a more radical position than the
one you seem to hold.
>Your original question asked if it would not be better to have a single
>conception of the universal, for everybody, for all time.
I said "as good" rather than "better". My question was directed to the
radical position that comparative evaluation of perspectives is
impossible. If that were true, then it would make no sense to say that
the actual perspective of the Hairy Ainu is better for them than Ayn
Rand's perspective would be.
>Surely an ant has no conception of any universals, yet it knows well
>enough what a particular leaf is, or what a particular rock is, without
>any reference to universals?
Do ants speak? If they do, they make use of universals.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 7 06:33:17 EDT 1993
Article: 626 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Aquarius
Date: 6 Aug 1993 20:28:59 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <23ut0b$h1g@panix.com>
References: <1993Aug4.174346.27484@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <23pnfj$f2n@panix.com> <1993Aug6.195745.10233@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Mr. Walker feels that "America" could disappear as rapidly as the USSR -
>to the surprise, once again, of the unobservant - and Mr. Walker seems
>to be looking forward to it.
There was far more geographic separation among the different peoples of
the old _Soyuz_ than there is among the peoples of America. I'm not
sure what the map would look like here after a breakup. Also, the
ideology of the Soviet state was a lot more recent and a lot more
distinct from the various national traditions than is the case here.
Also, my impression is that there is more economic differentiation of
function and therefore more economic interdependence among the peoples
of America than was the case in the old SU. I could be wrong about
that, though.
>"America" is a gimmick, and gimmicks are not made to last.
"America" is the idea of a state to which ethnicity, gender, religion
and so on are irrelevant, because it is a rational political order the
sole purpose of which is establishing the equal liberty of all
individuals to do whatever they happen to feel like doing within the
limits imposed by the maintenance of the political order itself. As
such, it may be a bad idea that will end catastrophically, but far from
being a gimmick it's the culmination of a long political tradition and
one that that has eaten up all other political traditions.
>> The land was ours before we were the land's.
>> She was our land more than a hundred years
>> Before we were her people . . .
>
>Who are you quoting here?
Robert Frost. It's the poem he read at Kennedy's inauguration.
>But in the sense that we are descended from Europeans, and in the sense
>that our culture is a part of the greater European culture, and looks to
>Europe for inspiration, or derives from Europe, then, yes, we are
>Europeans.
True enough.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 7 08:03:56 EDT 1993
Article: 14457 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Property rights
Date: 7 Aug 1993 08:03:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2405n4$q3b@panix.com>
References: <23ugda$5v2@armory.centerline.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix alt.politics.libertarian:7120 talk.politics.theory:14457
sburnap@netcom.com (Steven Burnap) writes:
>: One externality is damage to reputation. Public refusal of service can
>: damage reputations, and might be considered slander.
>
>Not any in legal system I am aware of! Slander involves claiming
>that someone is guilty of something that they are not with the
>intent to harm. An opinion is not slander. Refusal of service
>is not slander unless it involves slanderous claims and then
>it is the slanderous claims that are slander, not the
>refusal of service.
Somewhat of a side comment: a refusal to do something for someone can
be slander if in the comunity the refusal has a particular meaning. For
example, if my bank refuses to honor my check when I have sufficient
funds on account the bank has slandered my credit. So if in a community
the only reason anyone could think of why I might be refused service was
that the restaurant knew something bad about me (e.g., I'm a deadbeat or
have a communicable disease) then refusal of service because of my race
might be slander. Of course, if refusals of service on account of race
and the like were common a refusal of service would not be slanderous.
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Aug 7 10:34:21 EDT 1993
Article: 14458 of talk.politics.theory
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarianism, Capitalism and Happiness
Date: 7 Aug 1993 08:06:07 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2405rf$q7n@panix.com>
References: <93Aug6.045305edt.48136@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.politics.theory:14458 alt.politics.libertarian:7121
auld@qed.uucp (Chris Auld) writes:
>I was responding to the statement `human happiness and economic
>effieciency are contradictory,' which is by definition false if Pareto
>efficiency is the measure used.
Definitions come into it if the definition of "human happiness" is "the
satisfaction of actual human preferences". That seems like the wrong
definition, though. It's clearly the wrong definition in the case of
children, and I don't think people change that much as they grow up.
(They do learn how to put up a front of reasonableness, of course.)
--
Jim Kalb Nirgends bleibt sie zurueck, dass wir ihr ein Mal entroennen
jk@panix.com und sie in stiller Fabrik oelend sich selber gehoert.
Sie ist das Leben,- sie meint es am besten zu koennen,
die mit dem gleichen Entschluss ordnet und schafft und zerstoert.
Back to my archive of posts.