[MD] Soldiers as victims

Fri Jul 4 19:18:51 PDT 2008

Greetings Platt,

I think this quote is more helpful:

"The Metaphysics of Quality says there are not just two codes of morals, 
there are actually five: inorganic-chaotic, biological-inorganic, 
social-biological, intellectual-social, and Dynamic-static. This last, the 
Dynamic-static code, says what's good in life isn't defined by society or 
intellect or biology. What's good is freedom from domination by any static 
pattern, but that freedom doesn't have to be obtained by the destruction of 
the patterns themselves."
                  (LILA, Chapter 24)

Maybe I would naturally feel more patriotic if the country was being lead by 
men and women of the sort that framed the Bill of Rights and Constitution 
instead of the mental midgets that occupy the White House and Congress 
today.  As the one who decided (The Decider) to go to war in Iraq, Bush is 
as responsible for as many deaths as Husseins.  For the moment, the 
Intellectuals in this country have lost their minds.  That is why I, too, am 
happy with the Supreme Courts recent decision.

Marsha

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Platt Holden" <plattholden at gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Soldiers as victims

Hi Marsha,

Not at all. Pirsig is helpful here, citing individual rights, such as those
described in our Constitution's Bill of Rights (and recently upheld by the
Supreme Court), as resulting from the moral supremacy of the intellectual
level over the social level. He further makes it clear that the social level
(patriotism) serves an  important function in keeping biological forces,
used by totalitarian ideologies to abolish the independence of the
individual (Germany, Japan, Russia, North Vietnam, North Korea, Hussein's
Iraq), from dominating, warning that, "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." (Lila, 24)  So I have no
problem with social level patriotism when that patriotism is directed at
preserving our individual rights.

Platt

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 9:43 AM, Marsha <marshalz at charter.net> wrote:

>
>  From Wikipedia:
>>
>
> Anti-patriotism is the ideology that opposes patriotism; it usually refers
> to those with cosmopolitan views and is usually of an anti-nationalist
> nature as well. Normally, anti-patriotism stems from the belief that
> patriotism is wrong since it forces people born in a country, whether they
> like it or not, regardless of their individuality, to love the country or
> sacrifice themselves for it; consequently, people who oppose patriotism 
> may
> oppose its authoritarianism, while others may believe that patriotism 
> leads
> to war because of geopolitical disputes so it may be viewed from a 
> pacifist
> or anti-militarist point of view. Usually, this term is used in a 
> pejorative
> way by those who defend patriotism or nationalism, and terms such as
> cosmopolitanism or world citizenship may be used to avoid the bias that
> comes from the typical usage of the word anti-patriot or 
> anti-patriotism.[1]
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-patriotism
>
> Platt,
>
> Have you become anti-individuality?
>
> Marsha
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Platt Holden" <plattholden at gmail.com>
> To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 11:09 AM
> Subject: [MD] Soldiers as victims
>
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> In Lila Chapter 7 Pirsig describes how the killing fields of WW I 
> destroyed
> Victorian morality:
>
> "The period ended when, after having defined for all time what 'Truth" and
> "Virtue" and "Quality" are, the Victorians and their Edwardian successors
> sent an entire generation of children into the trenches of World War I on
> behalf of these ideals. And murdered them. For nothing. That war was the
> natural consequence of Victorian moral egotism. When it was over the
> children who survived never got tired of laughing at Charlie Chaplin
> comedies of those elderly people with the silk hats and too many clothes
> and noses up in the air. Young people of the twenties read Hemingway, Dos
> Passos and Fitzgerald, drank bootleg gin, danced tangos into the night,
> drove fast roadsters, made illicit love, called themselves a "lost
> generation," and never wanted anything to remind them of Victorian 
> morality
> again." (Lila, 7)
>
> But Thomas Sowell writing in The Washington Times presents another side of
> the story:
>
> "In France, after World War I, the teachers´ unions launched a systematic
> purge of textbooks in order to promote internationalism and pacifism. 
> Books
> that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended
> France against the German invaders where called `bellicose´ books to be
> banished from the schools.  . . . The once epic story of French soldiers'
> heroic defense against German invaders at Verdun, despite massive French
> casualties, was now transformed into a story of horrible suffering by all
> the soldiers at Verdun -- French and German alike.  In short, soldiers 
> once
> depicted as national heroes were now depicted as victims - and just like
> victims in other nations´ armies.  . . . Did it matter? Does patriotism
> matter? France, where pacifism and internationalism  were strongest, 
> became
> a classic example of how much it can matter. . . . During World War II,
> France collapsed after just six weeks of fighting and surrendered to Nazi
> Germany. . .  Charles de Gaulle, Francois Mauriac, and other Frenchmen
> blamed a lack of national will or general moral decay for the sudden and
> humiliating collapse of France in 1940. "
>
> Sowell concluded with a sobering question:
>
> "Our media are busy verbally transforming American combat troops from
> heroes into victims, just as the French intelligentsia did - with the 
> added
> twist of calling this `supporting our troops.´ Will that matter? Time will
> tell."
>
> Reminds me of the Hippie chant of the 60´s during the Cold War expressing 
> a
> similar lack of patriotism - "Better red than dead."
>
> The full text of the Sowell article is  at:
>
> http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/04/does-patriotism-matter/
>
> Regards, Platt
>
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