[MD] Barbarian attack

[Scott Roberts]

Platt,

 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.

Scott:
No, that is not what I was asking. What if the culture of those foreign 
powers is superior to ours? Well, we wouldn't know that it was superior, and 
would probably think it wasn't. But if it were, then -- according to your 
thinking -- you would have descended to the biological level to defend it.

> 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.

Platt said:
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.

Scott:
They were forced on the majority of Turks by westernized Turks, to the point 
of legislating dress codes. When the majority tried to reject Western 
values, the generals took over.

Platt continued:
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.

Scott:
The evidence is that Mubarak and company dare not allow free elections. And 
I'm not saying that all those who want Islamic government "fully sides" with 
Al-Qaeda. I would guess that the majority of Muslims consider that what 
Al-Qaeda is doing is unIslamic, just as the majority of anti-abortion 
Christians consider bombing abortion clinics to be unChristian. That does 
not, however, mean that the majority of Muslims want to integrate peacefully 
with U.S. and European society.

[Scott said]> 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.

Platt said:
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:

Scott:
The only thing I am calling a cheap sound bite is characterizing terrorism 
as "biological" when the terrorists think that what they are doing is 
defending their culture. While I agree with the abstract points that Pirsig 
is making in these quotes, the story in history is hardly so clearcut. Do 
you think that the fact that Britain and France were democracies legitimizes 
their colonization of the Middle East? That the fact that Israel is a 
democracy legitimizes their settlements in occupied territories (a violation 
of the Geneva Convention)? And so on.

- Scott

"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)