[MD] Barbarian attack

[Platt Holden]

Scott:
 
 Scott said:
> Does it matter who? What matters is the perception. The religious
> fanatics, and the much larger population of conservatively religious
> people in the Middle East, know that they were invaded by foreign powers
> (colonialism), and that they are ruled by secular governments (e.g., in
> Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria), that Western governments have preferred this
> undemocratic rule (when they are not ruling directly), knowing that if
> there was actual democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood or its offshoots
> would win (as just happened in Palestine). The majority of the populace
> in many Middle Eastern countries think that their governments are
> inimical to their values. So what I am asking you is: if that were the
> situation with you: that is, that if you saw your culture being
> threatened by foreigners and your government wasn't stopping it, would
> you condone violence to preserve your way of life?

If you are asking if I would defend with my life the constitution and 
form of government of the U.S. that guarantees protection of 
intellectual values the answer is "Yes." If you are asking if I think 
the terrorists were are justified in initiating an attack against the 
U.S. by flying planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon I  
say "No."  Nor do I think terrorists are justified in indiscriminately 
targeting innocent civilians for killing, turning their children into 
human bombs, or beheading captives on TV when ransom demands are
not met.  

> Platt said:
> Further, do you detect a difference in the traditional morality of Al-
> Qaeda and the Western democracies with one being superior to the other?

> Scott:
> The "traditional morality" I am referring to is not that of Al-Qaeda.
> What I am referring to is centuries-old Islamic culture of hundreds of
> millions which is in fact being threatened.

The response in Iraq to the beginnings of democracy indicate that many 
Muslims do not consider themselves threatened. Turkey is a Muslim 
country that has accepted many Western values. Many Muslims have also 
integrated peacefully into U.S. and European society. So I don't see  
evidence that the general Muslim populace around the world feels 
threatened and fully sides with Al-Qaeda or other radical elements. If 
I'm wrong, then a clash of civilizations seems inevitable.   

> Now I don't think much of
> that culture (I wouldn't want to live in it), and I think in the long
> term it is doomed, just as the similar culture that existed in the West
> a few centuries ago was doomed, thanks to the industrial revolution and
> so on. It didn't go quietly either. All I really want to say here is
> that your characterization of the situation as "descend[ing] to the
> level of biological values (terrorism)" is a cheap sound-byte. I know,
> you got it from a sentence in Lila. It's still cheap, that is, a way to
> turn a very complex situation into one of good guys and bad guys.
 
I wonder which if any of the following excerpts from Lila you consider 
"cheap sound bites" and if you disagree with any of the the ideas 
expressed:

"Second, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the 
social order over biological life-conventional morals -proscriptions 
against drugs, murder, adultery, theft and the like." (c.13)

"Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the 
intellectual order over the -social order-democracy, trial by jury, 
freedom of speech, freedom of the press." (c. 13)

"It says that what is meant by "human rights" is usually the moral code 
of intellect-vs. -society, the moral right of intellect to be free of 
social control. Freedom of speech; freedom of assembly, of travel; 
trial by jury; habeas corpus; government by consent-these "human 
rights" are all intellect-vs.-society issues. According to the 
Metaphysics of Quality these "human rights" have not just a sentimental 
basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis. They are essential to the 
evolution of a higher level of life from a lower level of life. They 
are for real." (c.24)

"A culture that supports the dominance of social values over biological 
values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does not, and a 
culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over social 
values is absolutely superior to one that does not." (c.24)

"The idea that biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone, that 
you can talk crime to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns cannot 
directly control biological patterns. Only social patterns can control 
biological patterns, and the instrument of conversation between society 
and biology is not words. The instrument of conversation between 
society and biology has always been a policeman or a soldier and his 
gun." (c.24)

"What's coming out of the urban slums, where old Victorian social moral 
codes are almost completely destroyed, isn't any new paradise the 
revolutionaries hoped for, but a reversion to rule by terror, violence 
and gang death-the old biological might-makes-right morality of 
prehistoric brigandage that primitive societies were set up to 
overcome." (c.24)

"We must understand that when a society undermines intellectual freedom 
for its own purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but when it 
represses biological freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely 
morally good. These moral bads and goods are not just "customs." They 
are as real as rocks and trees. The destructive sympathy by 
intellectuals toward lawlessness in the sixties and since is derived, 
no doubt, from what is perceived to be a common enemy, the social 
system. But the Metaphysics of Quality concludes that this sympathy was 
really stupid. The decades since the sixties have borne this out." (c. 
24)

"And this is a war in which intellect, to end the paralysis of society, 
has to know whose side it is on, and support that side and never 
undercut it. Where biological values are undermining social values 
intellectuals must identify social behavior, not matter its ethnic 
connection, and support it all the way without restraint. Intellectuals 
must find biological behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, 
and limit or destroy destructive biological patterns with complete 
moral ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys germs, before those 
biological patterns destroy civilization itself." (c. 24)

Platt