[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[Ben Golden]

I'm new to this forum, so please let me know if I'm formatting this 
incorrectly.

It seems there are at least three conflict sets of values, each from a 
different frame of reference.

One is a conflict between biological and social values.  For a soldier, war 
has little value biologically, as risking my life for the good of my country 
is not a biological value.  Militaries work very hard to overcome soldiers' 
static biological instincts with static social ones that they define.  SA's 
point about military leaders' need to see dynamic quality on the 
battlefield, while valid, is not necessarily applicable.  A good soldier, as 
defined by an army, is not one who sees dynamic quality, but one who 
executes orders as commanded.  Note that the quality of a soldier is 
independent of the quality of the army, both of which are independent of the 
quality of the country they serve.  This conflict is, I believe, the one 
that Platt is arguing along.

The second conflict is between social and intellectual values.  This 
emcompasses the discussion about whether a military action is moral--in this 
case moral is defined intellectually.  Killing an innocent girl on a battle 
field is, intellectually, immoral.  But from the social perspective of the 
army, in which the stated goal is to defeat the enemy in a given area, 
killing the girl is not immoral; it's an elimination of a threat.  It's 
easy, in an intellectual society, to say that the social/military 
perspective is simply wrong.  But consider wars from previous eras.  The 
Greek army wouldn't have made a big deal if a soldier killed the child of an 
enemy.  Warring armies in medieval Europe place no value on the life of a 
peasant.  It's only recently that civilian casualty became seen as having 
negative value.  This conflict, I think, is where Ian and Arlo are 
expressing opinions.

The third conflict is a purely intellectual one, having to do with different 
countries and the values of their interests.  Platt argues that America's 
interests have higher value than those of other countries.  Ian and Arlo 
argue that America's interests have lower value than the static intellectual 
values they advocate.  This leads Platt to support the social pattern army 
(reinforced by the intellectual pattern America) over Ian and Arlo's 
intellectual pattern morality.

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