[MD] Barbarian attack

[Platt Holden]

Scott:

Platt said:
> 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.

Sorry, I don't follow you. What culture do you think is superior to 
ours? An alien culture from outer space perhaps? How would you judge 
whether it was superior or not?      

> > 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 only thing I see being threatened is a culture that supports 
biological terrorism, and that culture is limited to radical Islam 
represented by the Taliban,  Al-Qaeda, and the current governments of 
Palestine and Iran. There may be small splinter groups as well.

> 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.

Last I looked, Turkey was a democratic constitutional republic, a 
member of NATO and being considered for a membership in the EU.
 
> 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.

I think we agree that the majority of Muslims do not support biological 
terrorism.

> [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.

I don't see in any of Pirsig's writing that the motivation behind  
criminal acts changes the biological nature of those acts. If you can 
point to such a caveat, I would be happy to be corrected.

> 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?

No. I do not approve of the initiation of physical force except in self-
defense. 

> That the
> fact that Israel is a democracy legitimizes their settlements in
> occupied territories (a violation of the Geneva Convention)? And so on.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Israel was attacked shortly after its 
formation and extended its borders as an act of self-defense against 
further attacks. Even today, surrounding countries have as an official  
policy goal the eradication of Israel -- a violation of every 
international agreement known to modern man.

Platt
 
>From Pirsig:
> "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)