Letters to the Editor
Timelagged
Published Letters: 244 Editor's Choice: 12
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Pure good vs evil, pure right vs. wrong.....
[Read the article: What "truly motivates" George W. Bush?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it interesting to see the author responding to comments following his last article, and by the way I welcome this in principle. However I have to object, as one of those who wrote last time, to this:
"The commenters argue, in essence, that Bush's behavior is exceedingly simple to explain. He is, they asset, simply Evil..."
I, for one, argued no such thing. To do so would be to reduce things to the same simplistic view that we're discussing. No, I have no doubt that this mindset exists, and that it can be generated and then exploited to bend the citizenry to support specific goals. That's just the point.
I suppose it could be interesting discussion to try to parse which came first or which is dominant, the using of religion and good versus evil philosophy as a tactic to justify and gain support for warlike behavior, or as a cause of the behavior itself. Surely there's a mix of both involved. Certainly Bush himself believes at least some of his own good versus evil rhetoric. But it would be naive to imagine that this is the only force at work, that power, money and imperialistic urges play no part. If the book addresses this part of the equation I'm happy to hear it. The article really didn't, and this is what I was responding to as were others.
As I pointed out earlier, there are other models that, like the "good versus pure evil", are used to justify acts of aggression. There are quite a few. Those employing any these arguments may well end up believing them, or may have believed them from the start. What I would resist is the idea that the world view is the only culprit, that the quest for power of all kinds cannot possibly generate such views, to be then used to further the quest. It's a bit circular if you ask me.
Perhaps I'm saying the same thing in response, repeating the theme of the entire discussion: Please don't lump all of the responses into one caricature as it seems to me you did in what I quoted above. While some of the comments (along the lines of: "Bush equals money, that's all") may indeed fit this characterization, mine certainly didn't.
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This comment is false
[Read the article: What "truly motivates" George W. Bush?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whoever commented "All cretins are liars..." (sorry, a lot of comments to go back through to find who it was) -- really excellent. I can't help thinking of Zeno's paradox recently: I keep feeling that we're at the end of our collective rope, but then I realize that we're only halfway there. Over and over and over.
For the rest, look at it this way: Any clear-eyed look at our early history has to conclude that the Europeans who settled in America, in clearing out an indigenous population, basically committed genocide in order to make room for themselves and their offspring. The rationale was that the natives were non-civilized people and thus somehow sub-human, not worthy of the same considerations as white Europeans. The concept of "pure good versus evil" wasn't the mind-set in play in that case. Not exactly. (Surely cycles of attacks and retaliation then set up the "pure evil" rationale also, but this wasn't the primary one.)
Now, if I wrote that this "viewing others as sub-human" was what caused the genocide, would that be on the mark? Well, partly. It misses a lot though. There was also thirst for land, and expansion, and resources. Now, you might argue "Yes, but if this dehumanizing view were removed, then the genocide would not have taken place."
Except that we have plenty of examples of two equally civilized societies at odds instead, such as two European countries. In these cases the aggression and quest to expand were certainly there. However another rationale was used to do so. One of these was the good-versus-evil argument, so central to the religious themes of the time. Others were based on lineage or right to ownership. There are lots. We're very inventive about good excuses.
Reducing someone to a cipher can be both a cause and a tactic. It's neither purely. It can create hatred and it can be used to justify acting on hatred you already had. Or it can be used to justify acting out of greed. All are factors.
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Playdough is silly putty in the neocons' hands
[Read the article: That hot new neoconservative philosopher named Plato]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Neither Plato nor his contemporaries had anything like talk radio, cable television, and the Internet. It becomes a kind of fundamentalism after a point to try to map these important inquiries from the world these people lived in to the one we live in today. Note please that I say to a point. It's certainly important to try always to peer back at the basic philosophies on which our system was founded, but it's mind-bendingly futile if you try to go too far with the comparison.
Remember that those who invented democracy also said that it required a well-informed electorate, there's the rub. They didn't have corporate news media to contend with, which is a recent phenomenon and is basically ruining the country. Heck, even Trent Lott says so now.
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Now THAT's funny
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As usual, the perfect take. He's quantum-entagled, that's what it is! We should have realized. And the various spokespeople like Tony Snow all possess spin that changes to match whatever talking point the others come up with, instantaneously, in keeping with Bell's theorem.
I knew TT was the one to finally make sense of this administration.
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Perfect
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Except for one adjustement: Fridman's version would be about "Making lemonade out of a sow's ear" or "if life hands you a lemon, you have all the marbles".
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Er, F-r-i-e-d-m-a-n
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]typo
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It would help if he could write
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My biggest problem with Friedman is his writing. I bought the flat Earth book and found it so badly written that I never got past the first chapter. Matt Taibbi did a good job of describing this in painful detail, I have the link somewhere.. ah here it is. Click on my user name to follow the link, which I'll paste here also:
http://www.nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm