Letters to the Editor
gorgongogol
Published Letters: 3 Editor's Choice: 1
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Be careful what you pretend to be...
[Read the article: The C.S. Lewis take on Gates and Wal-Mart]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Reminds me of a quote from Kurt Vonnegut, "Be careful what you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend to be," which I discovered here -- http://www.syntheticzero.com/politics.oct2001.php -- and the post makes a similar argument about politics:
"I don't expect that much from our government. I don't expect it to generate a utopian society, or to avoid grabbing for power or monetary influence, or to stop pandering to corporate interests. What I expect is that these activities will be moderated, or limited, or constrained, to a certain degree. So, to me, the question is not whether there are ulterior motives for our actions (there _always_ are), but to what extent are these ulterior motives being constrained, and why?
"To me, politics is not about achieving ideological purity, but it has to do with memes that get circulated within what is essentially a complex system. I do not believe in 'the' reason we're doing things --- I don't think there is ever a single reason, or an underlying 'real' truth. Every story about what we're doing is both right and wrong. However, there is something important about the official reasoning, especially in a society with some degree of voter feedback, and that is that whatever we do has to in the end roughly be constrained to what is acceptable to the official reasoning.
"In other words, in a society with some voting feedback (I will avoid the word 'democracy' since this implies a level of control by the people that is, of course, only a fantasy), the government does not have to be good, but it has to avoid violating the norms of our society to the point that it becomes obvious that the official story (for example, the story that we're a 'free' country) is a sham. In other words, our leaders do not have to really be fighting for justice and freedom, they just have to appear to be doing so..."
By the way, I also recently came across another quote -- http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012502780.html :P
"Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." -- The Duchess in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Cheers!
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Glorious Revolution
[Read the article: A salute to Anacharsis Cloots]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]hi, I've been making my way thru Amy Chua's _Day of Empire_ (I'm sure a much easier slog than Schama*) which takes a tour of world history and its great empires (or 'hyperpowers') under the lens of toleration** -- racial and religious. Anyway, I just hit the chapter on the Dutch trading empire that rapidly arose following the 1579 Union of Utrecht establishing freedom of religion and the 1581 establishment of the United Provinces*** and the Oath of Abjuration:
"As 'tis apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects... [When a prince] does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects ... may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is ... what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives."
What's neat is that if it wasn't for Spain's 1492 expulsion of the Jews, the Dutch would probably not have risen to prominence so quickly. By 1625, Chua sez, the (relatively tiny) Dutch Republic sat astride the world, commercially at least. That then set the stage for the Dutch "conquest" of England in the Glorious Revolution... but I haven't quite gotten to that chapter yet :P
cheers!
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* altho he comes up in Chua and btw does a great job illuminating Turner - http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/turner.shtml
** cf. Wright - http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/68
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic