Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 3 21:27:03 EST 1997
Article: 9232 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Lincoln and big government
Date: 3 Mar 1997 17:58:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In "James C. Langcuster" writes:
>American liberalism, as Edmund Burke maintained, was the result of
>organic growth, of the face-to-face interaction of which you speak.
>In a manner of speaking, its the difference between natural and
>prescriptive rights, between Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke.
Interesting issues, and I should know more about the relevant history
than I do. It seems to me though that face-to-face interactions can
give rise to more abstract institutions, like the common law and
representative government, and to social trends, like commerce,
urbanism and manufacturing, which make men more independent of
face-to-face relationships and lead to political ideals like liberty
and equality that further emancipate them. (In America the Westward
expansion could have an emancipatory effect similar to that of urbanism
etc. in older countries.)
Burke said that the way Americans acted was natural to them; the
_Federalist_ said America would test whether government had to be an
outcome of history or could be designed. Both may have been right.
>Furthermore, I would contend something akin to liberalism would have
>emerged from face-to-face interaction over time.
Liberalism would not have triumphed so thoroughly if it did not
correspond to some fundamental human tendencies. The question remains
whether there are other fundamental human characteristics that in the
long run it has no place for.
>liberalism was seen as a means of edifying social institutions by
>insulating them from the stultifying effects of government patronage.
How far does this go? It can thereafter be seen as a means of edifying
individuals by insulating them from other social authorities felt to be
external.
>if you condemn liberalism in general, aren't you condemning the entire
>American political tradition, while ignoring paleoconservatism and
>paleolibertarianism as theoretical alternatives to modern liberalism?
Quite possibly, or maybe just saying it was grand while it lasted. At
present it seems to me that paleo views intend to recreate something
that can't be put back together. America was based on a compromise
between the principle of individual consent and traditional moral
institutions that weren't really consistent with that principle.
That's OK, since no society is really coherent theoretically. It does
make it increasingly hard though as classical Americanism becomes the
historical memory of a few men to take it as a practical goal.
>Like you, I foresee a devolution of power back to the grassroots,
>providing a climate in which other forms of liberalism and possibly
>even distributism and/or other competing schools can take root.
Liberalism is a public order and it seems likely to me that the
devolution will be occasioned by the radical deterioration of public
order. So I don't foresee a new form of liberalism. You might have
something that at least in effect is like distributism evolving in
particular small communities.
>Unlike Fukayama, I certainly don't foresee history culminating in an
>grandiose "End of History."
I think of what is called the End of History -- the end of "history" as
a meaningful progression -- as identical with the disappearance of
public order.
>On the other hand, given the nature of global capitalism, I foresee
>any rival to modern liberalism being forced to make significant
>concessions. There still would be the issue of open borders, uniform
>standards, etc.
Open borders will stop at the gates of walled communities, as in the
traditional Middle East. Uniform physical standards are likely.
>To put it another way, is the mess we have today an unavoidable
>consequence of a political tradition with roots extending at least as
>far back as the Glorious Revolution?
It's a question. Another way to put it -- what would have had to be
different for the outcome to be different?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 4 15:37:33 EST 1997
Article: 943 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: socialist supporters of Honest Abe
Date: 4 Mar 1997 11:48:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
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In <331fb9eb.12561994@nntp.ix.netcom.com> personosrep@rorriw.net writes:
>the subject of communism is about as urgent and recent as last years
>basketball scores. It is well to understand history as an aid in
>protecting the future, but I think we have little to fear from a
>deposed ideology like communism.
I don't agree. Communism wasn't some isolated thing that need not
concern us after it failed. It brought together a lot of things that
are still very much with us:
A historical conception of truth, especially moral etc. truth.
A materialist conception of history.
Moral etc. conceptions as an expression of material interests.
The supremacy of economics.
The need for radical and forceable restructuring of society in
accordance with knowledge and goals possessed in articulate form only
by the few.
Rejection of claims of immediate loyalties -- to country, specific
people, community, family, whatever -- in favor of those of
comprehensive ideology.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Tue Mar 4 15:37:38 EST 1997
Article: 92831 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 3 Mar 1997 23:46:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R. Grit) writes:
>> If God does particular things in the world, why couldn't one of
>> those things be helping us to recognize where he acts?
>[The aspect of threat is often ignored in many theologies, but see the
>reaction of e.g. Mozes, Jesaja.]
Quite true. God is terrifying. Knowledge of God would be an end to
all our intentions, projects, understandings, etc., at least as we now
know them, and so from our present viewpoint would be hard to
distinguish from death. (I say "our" even though readers may have
already passed fully through that death.)
>In occurrences perceived as revelatory by the subject involved one of
>its main features is that the participant recognizes the revelation as
>a possibility beyond his or her own human possibilities. From that we
>are forced to say that God recognizes God through us.
But since we recognize God in revelation I prefer my formulation at the
top.
>> You speak of "symbol." One can speak of all language as symbolic,
>> or one can contrast symbolic language with literal language. Do you
>> mean to say there is a more literally true way to describe what we
>> speak of when we say "Incarnation?"
>
>In my view to speak about "literal language" is a bit odd. Viewed
>correctly there is no such thing as literal language (IMO)
Nonetheless people distinguish between greater or lesser degrees of
literalness. My impression is that people who say that "Jesus was God
Incarnate" is a way of saying that Jesus made himself radically open to
others, or to God, or some such thing, intend the latter language to be
more literal.
>There is a huge (unbridgable) difference between a word and the thing
>referred to.
If the gap between word and object is so great it's hard to know why we
bother with language.
>As we are forced to acknowledge that we cannot adequately describe God
>at all, it seems to me we are free to try anything.
This seems to assume that we have had no revelation that tells us that
some accounts work better than others.
> and they've endured -- understood literally rather than symbolically
> -- at the heart of Christian belief ever since.
>I would have agreed had you said "they have withstood the severe
>attacks pretty well". Especially in protestant Christianity from the
>end of the 18th century onward (Schleiermacher!) the creeds have been
>attacked savagely.
Which raises the question whether liberal protestantism has proven to
be a self-sustaining faith. If not, and various forms of creedal
literalism are, then it seems the former is missing something essential
that is present in the latter.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Fri Mar 7 21:08:10 EST 1997
Article: 92999 of soc.religion.christian
Path: news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What is sexually taboo in a Christian marriage?
Date: 6 Mar 1997 22:37:54 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5fio85$12t@geneva.rutgers.edu> bjm10@cornell.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) writes:
>I would say that pornography (that incites lust for others) and
>pain-inducing acts (a perversion of love) are probably not right, but
>I see no other prohibitions. As has been already mentioned, there are
>no specific prohibitions of oral sex, prostheses, etc.
This seems overly legalistic -- you look to see if there's a specific
prohibition and if not everything's OK at least unless there's some
clear immediate problem.
I think it's more complicated than that. A living moral system
consists of a system of habits and attitudes that given our permanent
situation as human beings promotes our good. So the question seems to
become what effect acceptance of o.s., prostheses, buggery,
pornographic videos of one's spouse or what have you has on the overall
system. Do they for example have the overall practical effect of
undermining in people's lives the natural purpose of sex
(reproduction), its other social purposes (unity of husband and wife as
a basis for the household and childrearing), and further spiritual
purposes (mutual respect and love) by turning it into a technology of
pleasure?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!newsgate.nytimes.com!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Fri Mar 7 21:08:11 EST 1997
Article: 93067 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 6 Mar 1997 22:38:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <5fio6v$128@geneva.rutgers.edu> jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>If you also imply that some knowledge - comparable to other everyday
>knowledge (always knowledge about the finite and conditioned world) -
>is 'added' in revelation, I have to disagree. This knowledge is quite
>different.
This seems to me to imply too straightforward a gap between God and the
world. God called this world good and both the Psalmist and St. Paul
said it makes God manifest. So it seems that knowledge of the world is
or implies knowledge of God. Also, if God acts in this world then
knowledge of some specific events in this world (for example the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus) is knowledge of God.
>we can try to rethink and reformulate the fundamental christian
>revelation starting with the gospels. In my opinion, that is exactly
>what many protestant scolars tried (e.g. von Harnack) and still try to
>do.
But given the organization and guiding ideals of modern scholarship it
seems to me extremely improbable that such an effort will succeed.
Instead we will get a series of attempts to assimilate the Gospel to
more general nonreligious principles.
Incidentally, I don't have a clear idea of how on your view revelation
could be formulated in human language. The latter deals it seems with
the things of this world, revelation with things that are wholly
different. Also, a scholarly formulation intends to be valid for all
competent and honest inquirers, which seems contrary to the nature of
revelation in your understanding.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Fri Mar 7 21:08:13 EST 1997
Article: 93069 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Apostolic Succession
Date: 6 Mar 1997 22:37:49 -0500
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In <5fio7a$12d@geneva.rutgers.edu> Charley Wingate writes:
>If one takes an existential viewpoint, then "duck" is a name, not a
>property. And it seems to me that scripture endorses this point of
>view, because it is Adam who gives the animals their names.
On the other hand God called his creation "good," and the names "God"
and "Jesus" seem to have some special status, so it appears that
scripture recognizes in at least some cases the real presence of
properties in things and even a real connection between symbol and
thing signified.
As to Adam, it is clear that human language (like other things required
to make us fully human) has a conventional or cultural element and I
don't see why the story need be read as doing more than recognizing
that. I named my children, but what they are does not depend on what I
named them. If I had always referred to them as "doohickeys" they
still wouldn't belong in the same class as the weird little things for
the kitchen my wife is always getting.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Sat Mar 8 14:04:53 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Progress on Emerson quote!
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Status: RO
According to Irving Howe, self-described democratic socialist, the
following passage appears in Emerson's journals for 1846:
Every reform is only a mask under cover of which a more terrible
reform, which dares not yet name itself, advances. Slavery and
Antislavery is the question of property and no property, rent and
anti-rent; and Antislavery dare not yet say that every man must do
his own work, or, at least, receive no interest for money. Yet that
is at last the upshot.
>From my own (post-60s and post-1989) perspective I would say that the
"more terrible reform" is the abolition of all social relations not
based on consent. Propert rights and the taking of interest are I
think consistent with the principle of consent, but family life has got
to go, and those with fundamental moral objections to the contemporary
liberal regime must be treated as moral outlaws indistinguishable from
Timothy McVeigh (see the recent fuss over the November issue of _First
Things_).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Mar 8 15:29:04 EST 1997
Article: 954 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: Origins of public education
Date: 8 Mar 1997 10:12:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In <3321417C.7A68@worldnet.att.net> Howard G Walker writes:
>> They have not been taught that the founders of the public education
>> movement in the North were mainly Unitarians and socialists.
>They were mainly illiterate farmers who wanted their children to be better
>than they were.
This is puzzling. Most farmers in the North (and for all I know in the
South) were literate. Certainly the people likely to found a movement
of any kind were so. Where do you get this?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Mon Mar 10 07:13:49 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: SCM Catalogue
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Mar 10, 97 09:16:45 am
Status: RO
> I think the issue is that, if one makes a NEW LAW, one makes far more
> efforts to enforce it than one does in the case of old laws which
> have always been around.
Still, new laws must be made or old ones restored from time to time.
Reform is always clumsy, because it takes time for novelties to be
worked into a system of habits and feelings, and it feels clumsier
because we aren't as used to the abuses and anomalies it introduces as
we were to the old ones. It is sometimes needed and must be lived
with, though. Are you being perfectionist yourself?
> This has to do with the development of technology and with the
> perfectionism of the modern mind.
My current hobbyhorse is that the technological outlook is the reason
for all specifically modern difficulties. There's no way to keep it
from causing problems.
> It entails that laws which were not intrusive fifty years ago
> would probably now operate intrusively.
Would it work better if instead of a rule against fornication there
were a rule against "conduct unbecoming?"
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Mon Mar 10 16:34:37 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: SCM Catalogue
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Mar 10, 97 02:05:06 pm
Status: RO
> > Would it work better if instead of a rule against fornication there
> > were a rule against "conduct unbecoming?"
>
> Have you ever heard the knowing way in which kids at conservative
> college talk about these rules?
No. Young people do seem cynical today, not just on this issue.
Suppose they look at the point of college as the acquisition of a
better meal ticket and talk in knowing ways about requirements for
graduation, how to get good grades and recommendations, etc. What
follows?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Mon Mar 10 16:42:32 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <970310155357_76032.3101_JHC80-2@CompuServe.COM> from "Patrick
Evans" at Mar 10, 97 10:53:58 am
Status: RO
> In all your discussions, you have yet to explain WHY anybody's sex
> life (other than your own & your children's) is of any interest to
> you.
For one thing it's a better world if children are brought up better,
and it seems to me that functional and stable families are more likely
if there are social standards on sexual conduct. For a lengthy
discussion and further references see http://www.panix.com/~jk/sex.html.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Mar 10, 97 06:10:46 pm
Status: RO
> This has led me to believe that Social disapproval - the disapproval
> of friends, neighbours and colleagues - is far more important than
> any kind of political action.
Sure. Still, government is everywhere, and it should act as if sexual
morality were a good thing. For example, schools shouldn't teach
children how to fornicate properly, people ought to be allowed to
refuse to lease apartments to couples intending to use them for immoral
purposes, and the law ought to treat the breakup of a marriage as a
very serious matter.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Tue Mar 11 06:26:39 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <970311044450_76032.3101_JHC94-1@CompuServe.COM> from "Chris" at
Mar 10, 97 11:44:51 pm
Status: RO
> Because you disagree with how they live their lives doesn't
> automatically grant you the right to change it.
I don't understand this turn of phrase. No one is proposing that he be
made a tyrant empowered to enforce some private theory he thought up
himself.
The idea as I understand it is that the standards regarding sexual
matters are among the basic principles ordering society, rather like
the rules of property or Francesca's example of honesty. If you think
they aren't, ask yourself why people have generally treated them as
such, and why their partial abandonment has had the consequences it
has.
Would you speak the same way of a proposal that an educational
institution try to establish standards of honesty and courtesy? If you
would, would it make a difference if the institution (as a Catholic
college for example) is based on particular assumptions as to man and
proper human conduct?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Tue Mar 11 06:49:20 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: SCM Catalogue
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <970311043915_885684329@emout06.mail.aol.com> from "Donna
Steichen" at Mar 11, 97 04:39:18 am
Status: RO
> I think justice requires that the matter be clarified. If she is
> indeed citing a real situation, the institution in question needs to
> be identified, and the facts of the purported incident be somehow
> documented, lest readers are left assuming that all conservative
> Catholic colleges are unbalanced on the subjects of chastity and
> abortion, yet populated by students who fornicate like rabbits.
If Francesca doesn't name names and provide documentation what we're
left with is that there was a situation at a Catholic college that
struck her a particular way and she's had other impressions that point
in the same direction. Knowing that is an addition to my knowledge,
but it doesn't make me rush to the assumption you mention. Since the
man involved was a friend and I gather (from the "honesty"
hypothetical) that he did some things he shouldn't have done I can
understand failure to name names.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Tue Mar 11 15:15:38 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199703111151.LAA18593@bobtail.uk.sun.com> from "Jeremy Sharpe -
SUN UK - Assistant Accountant" at Mar 11, 97 11:51:28 am
Status: RO
> in general, the enforcement of one one set of values does smack of
> Big Brother.
This seems overly abstract. It's impossible to intervene
comprehensively in human life, as governments do even if they only keep
the peace, without promoting some views of what is good at the expense
of others. Since governments act by use of force, it seems to follow
that enforcement of one set of values is essential to government.
> In general, a Conservative should be a sceptic, and I agree with Pat
> that classic Conservative thought (as well as classic liberal - they
> share many of the same roots) believes that the least is the best
> government. This is certainly the position of Burke.
Again, overly abstract. Burke for example liked having an established
church.
> At then end of the day, a Conservative should be a pragmatist;
> legislation in the moral arena tends to be either ignored,
> ineffectual, or prey to the extremes of the law of unintended
> consequences.
Timing and judgement is everything. "Tends to be" can not for the
conservative be an ironclad rule.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Tue Mar 11 15:37:28 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Status: RO
> In my mind, the government is an amoral body. It functions to
> protect us from foreign invasion, keep the roads paved and the
> streets clean.
Government can't be an amoral body, though. It has to justify what it
does -- its use of force -- by reference to some sort of moral
standards. As a practical matter almost anything it does will raise
collateral moral issues that must somehow be addressed. And in order
to survive, for example in the case of the foreign invasion you
mention, it must be able to inspire self-sacrificing devotion, a
difficult task for an amoral entity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Wed Mar 12 13:37:42 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex, Lives and Privacy
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: from "Francesca Murphy"
at Mar 12, 97 11:05:12 am
Status: RO
> I don't even know if I THEORETICALLY believe that government should
> have a completely hands off attitude to issues such as sexual
> morality.
It's hard for me to imagine what a government would be like that did
so. Certainly it couldn't play much of a role in things like education
or welfare. I'm not sure what family law would be like -- how could a
court make custody decisions in accordance with "the best interests of
the child" if it weren't allowed to have an opinion on what constitutes
a morally sound environment for the child? Would recognizing
homosexual marriage or the marriage of a man with both his parents
constitute a "hands off" attitude? Even in the case of national
defense, how could government decide whether to treat the catamite of a
man who died winning the Congressional Medal of Honor in the same way
as his wife without taking a stand on sexual morality?
The difficulty as I see it is that the essence of government is not
taking out the garbage, it's making life-and-death decisions relating
to the requirements for the survival and functioning of the political
community. I don't know how such decisions can be made rationally if
the conception of the good guiding the decisions is artificially
restricted to exclude consideration of certain goods and evils,
especially if the goods and evils touch us and the social order as
deeply as sex does.
> Take the situation we have today in the UK and the US, where, in
> fact, perhaps a majority does not morally disapprove of divorce. The
> social disapproval is just not there. Can we in this situation -
> WITHOUT the social underpinning - have laws propping up marriage
> through taxation etc?
There are of course limits on what can be done if people don't follow.
Also, the taxation idea sounds like the sort of thing a neocon would
propose (sneer, sneer) -- everything is economics and social policy,
only a "conservative" spin is going to be put on it. Still, one reason
people think divorce is OK is that the authorities evidently look at it
that way, and I think it's worth the effort to preserve right principle
in the law even though times are bad and it doesn't have much immediate
effect on practice.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From owner-newman@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Wed Mar 12 14:00:08 1997
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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 13:58:45 -0500
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: Sex at orthodox colleges
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <970312075711_-1539661398@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "Donna
Steichen" at Mar 12, 97 07:57:11 am
Status: RO
> I do not know what this woman has experienced or observed, or even
> where she is writing from, but let me assure you that she is quite
> wrong about the colleges I know best.
All encouraging and no doubt true. Still, most colleges have thousands
of students and if there are cynics among them it would be surprising
if they were equally frank with everyone. For my own part I am
grateful for informal impressions and it seems to me that a small email
list is a good setting for exchanging them. I would hate it if
everything said here were held to the standards of a public adversarial
proceding.
> On the other hand, it seems entirely reasonable to me that rules such
> as "no visitors of the opposite sex in dorm rooms" and "no
> unchaperoned overnights with members of the opposite sex" should be
> firmly enforced.
So far as I can tell the only dissent you're likely to get on that
point is from a couple of the younger guys (whippersnappers?) on the
list.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!news-xfer.netaxs.com!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers.rutgers.edu!dziuxsolim.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Thu Mar 13 09:55:32 EST 1997
Article: 93299 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What is sexually taboo in a Christian marriage?
Date: 12 Mar 1997 21:13:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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NNTP-Posting-Host: geneva.rutgers.edu
holzman@tezcat.com (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>It boggles my mind
Good to hear it. Minds need to be boggled.
>that you can believe that your God made sex pleasureable by design,
>but that the vlaid purposes of sex can be anything BUT pleasure, even
>between a husband and wife.
Pleasure is part of life, but making it the purpose of life strikes me
as self-centered and unimaginative. It's a big world out there, and
there are things in it that are more important than pleasure.
Also, pleasure usually arises as an accompaniment to something we are
doing for other reasons so most often it doesn't even make sense to
take it as our purpose. As an example, love gives us pleasure, but to
the extent we are seeking pleasure it isn't love. So if we make
pleasure our goal we lose the joy of love. Unless, I suppose, we're
talking about our love for a particular flavor of ice cream or
something of the sort.
In the case of sex, pleasure goes along with it. A lot of other things
do too -- trust, betrayal, love, jealosy, lechery, obsession, devotion,
manipulation, babies, family life, divorce, etc., etc., etc. It's not
obvious that making pleasure your guide is the way to make sense of it
all.
>How does sex-as-pleasure between a husband and wife undermine sex-as-
>anything else, anyway?
Every purpose subordinates other purposes to itself, so if you take
pleasure as your goal other things become instrumental. It's a
temptation that needs somehow to be held in check, especially in the
case of pleasures as vehement as those of sex. Experience shows that
if sexual pleasure becomes a goal in itself it disrupts some of the
things people need for a happy life.
A lot of these questions are practical ones -- how does life usually
work out if people make pleasure their goal? Also, is the right
pattern supposed to be something everyone works out for himself, or do
things go better if many lifetimes of experience give rise to general
social understandings that people rely on and feel they can rely on
others to respect?
>And if sex is naturally pleasureable, why is /the/ natural purpose of
>sex reproduction? /A/ natural purpose sure, but /the/ one and only?
The word "natural" is ambiguous. When I talked about the "natural," the
"social," and the "spiritual" purposes of sex I was using "natural" to
mean something like "physical." The word of course also has other
meanings, like "in accordance with human nature."
Taking "natural" in a broader sense: whether the fact something gives
us pleasure means that its natural purpose is pleasure depends on the
role of pleasure in human life -- whether it or something else is our
natural goal. My view is that pleasure is not our natural goal, since
some pleasures are harmful, and since we experience most pleasures, and
the best pleasures, when something else is our goal. Also, other
things just seem more important than pleasure.
It's true that we do some things, like having an ice cream cone, simply
because they're pleasurable. The examples that come to mind are mostly
rather trivial, though. Sex touches us very deeply, and in many
aspects of our lives, so it would be odd if it turned out that pleasure
was the best guide for dealing with it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!arclight.uoregon.edu!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers.rutgers.edu!dziuxsolim.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Thu Mar 13 09:55:33 EST 1997
Article: 93349 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 12 Mar 1997 21:13:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>If you say that "knowledge of the world is or implies knowledge of
>God" this is not something everyone will immediately recognize as
>true; it will also not be the outcome of scientific analysis (no hard
>evidence). Therefore, this religious knowledge must be quite
>different from "ordinary everyday knowledge" as well as from
>scientific knowledge.
You seem to regard some combination of ordinary everyday knowledge and
modern natural science as forming along with everyday human experience a
self-contained and self-sufficient system with clear boundaries,
acceptable to every sane person, that excludes knowledge of God.
Religious faith is therefore an add-on rather than something required to
make sense of what we know otherwise.
It seems to me that sort of view is what St. Paul denies along with
many others (e.g., me, Aquinas and his "grace completes nature").
>This is especially so because believers don't regard "God" as "an
>interesting hypothesis" - i.e., true as long as "it works" - but as
>Ultimately Real and True.
I'm not sure of the point. No one can have an outlook that consists
only of interesting hypotheses. Each of us must have a view on what is
Ult. R. and T. Views on that thing differ. It is not clear to me that
the views of religious believers on the subject are more loosely
connected to scientific knowledge and ordinary everyday knowledge than
other views.
>Prove to me that "knowledge of the world is or implies knowledge of
>God" you will not be able to answer me in a way that will satisfy
>everyone.
The same goes for "knowledge of the world may not require knowledge of
God."
>It seems that people do need to be grasped in the totality / deepest
>roots of their existence in an act that does not originate in
>themselves (Paul's sudden conversion!). Their eyes and ears must be
>openend by Someone else before they are able to see the world as a
>presence of God.
To believe that they are thereafter seeing correctly is to believe that
the world does in fact proclaim the glory of God, and that to know the
world is in part to know God and those who think otherwise are missing
something.
You seem to insist on looking at questions of knowledge from the
standpoint of the nonbeliever. Why should the nonbeliever be the
standard? Or if you're going to make the nonbeliever the standard why
not go all the way with Descartes?
Also, the religious outlook is more common than your statement seems to
suggest. The view that God is absent from the world is I think rather
uncommon. You may be surrounded by people who profess it but why take
the people who surround you as the standard?
>I don't see how modern scolarship differs from "pre-modern" scolarship
>in this respect. Both are in themselves unable to go beyond "general
>nonreligious principles". Viewed correctly the early creeds can only
>be regarded as feeble attempts to describe in predominantly Greek
>Neoplatonics concepts what they regarded as true - tracing the core of
>those statements we will find they unavoidably end in a logical
>paradox.
The creeds were not exercises in scholarship. They were drafted by
bishops rather than university professors or members of the Academy.
Bishops were not in general trained in the secular learning of the day
and most of them I suppose didn't have much contact or concern with its
standards. The situation is very different today, and these things
matter.
Also, concepts reflect purposes. The dominant purpose of modern
scholarship is technological -- to analyze reality in a way that enables
us to manipulate it to whatever ends we choose. The concepts that arise
>from such an effort are not I believe helpful in understanding religious
matters. Classical scholarship had more room for such things as the
contemplation of the transcendent and the objective validity of
evaluative judgements. That I believe also matters.
>Similarly, if we try to reformulate them we do so on the basis of what
>we regard true (and we will also not be able to avoid paradoxes). The
>kind of "modern scolarship" that uses and restricts itself to explicit
>atheistic means will not even bother to reformulate them!
In the end of course one must deal with particular attempts.
>To recognize God's revelation on earth is itself a divine revelatory
>gift.
It is for us, I would say, because of original sin. So for me this is a
statement about us and our flaws rather than about the relation between
God and the world, and whether the world shows forth God.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From BORK-owner@u.washington.edu Thu Mar 13 16:50:41 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
To: "Conservative Law List"
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Federal judge strikes down School Prayer in Georgia (fwd)]
In-Reply-To: <33285BAF.D37@sprynet.com> from "wfb" at Mar 13, 97 12:55:27 pm
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> The 1993 law said ``non-sectarian, non-proselytizing
> student-initiated, voluntary prayer'' must be permitted during any
> school-related event.The judge said the law was unconstitutional
> partly because it ``creates excessive entanglement between religion
> and the state'' by forcing school officials to continually monitor
> the content of prayer and the conduct of dissenting students.
It's amazing what people will say if they turn their brains off. Why
didn't he rule that the establishment clause is unconstitutional (under
the establishment clause) because it forces judges to force everyone to
monitor all speech in every setting connected in any way to government
for signs of religious content?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From jk Thu Mar 13 16:39:31 1997
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Federal judge strikes down School Prayer in Georgia (fwd)]
To: bork@u.washington.edu
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:39:31 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <33285BAF.D37@sprynet.com> from "wfb" at Mar 13, 97 12:55:27 pm
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> The 1993 law said ``non-sectarian, non-proselytizing
> student-initiated, voluntary prayer'' must be permitted during any
> school-related event.The judge said the law was unconstitutional
> partly because it ``creates excessive entanglement between religion
> and the state'' by forcing school officials to continually monitor
> the content of prayer and the conduct of dissenting students.
It's amazing what people will say if they turn their brains off. Why
didn't he rule that the establishment clause is unconstitutional (under
the establishment clause) because it forces judges to force everyone to
monitor all speech in every setting connected in any way to government
for signs of religious content?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From jk Fri Mar 14 06:09:11 1997
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Federal judge strikes down School Prayer in Alabama (fwd)]
To: bork@u.washington.edu
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 06:09:11 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <970313214533_-1539451665@emout05.mail.aol.com> from "NMMJR@aol.com" at Mar 13, 97 09:45:37 pm
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> Personally, I think there's a wonderful equal protection ground for
> striking the Alabama school prayer law down. I don't like the idea
> of a government deciding what's nonsectarian or nonproselytizing -
> and I see no rational difference between a sectarian prayer and a
> nonsectarian prayer.
Do you prefer to have a court order all government officials to decide
what's religious and what's nonreligious and forbid the former?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From BORK-owner@u.washington.edu Fri Mar 14 19:53:51 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
To: "Conservative Law List"
Subject: Re: Federal judge strikes down School Prayer in Alabama
In-Reply-To: <332983D6@gismtpgate.gi.com> from "Maher, Steve" at Mar 14, 97 08:46:00 am
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> Government MUST have prohibitions against any sort of religious
> involvement, for reasons we all know. Even the founding fathers--
> devout men all-- knew this, and made it the very first tenet of the
> Bill of Rights.
I don't understand why govt. must not have any sort of religious
involvement although of course I've heard the reasons that are
advanced. It's rather difficult to separate religion from other
departments of life. It's true of course that the founders didn't want
Congress to set up a Federal religious establishment or interfere with
state religious establishments -- the Federal govt. was one of few and
defined powers.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From BORK-owner@u.washington.edu Fri Mar 14 20:00:52 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
To: "Conservative Law List"
Subject: Re: Federal judge strikes down School Prayer in Alabama
In-Reply-To: <970314152633_-1338324352@emout08.mail.aol.com> from "NMMJR@aol.com" at Mar 14, 97 03:28:01 pm
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> I find it more offensive to have a government saying "some prayers,
> and we get to decide which ones" than to have a government saying "no
> prayers".
How do you like "let's promote ideals that the government chooses, and
have holidays and propaganda in the schools and solemn ceremonies and
tell people those ideals are the basis of a good society and worth
dying for, but they have to be ideals that exclude religion?"
> BTW, am I the only one here who does not believe the due process clause of
> the Fourteenth Amendment makes the First Amendment apply to the states?
I think that's obvious.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!panix!news.eecs.umich.edu!news.radio.cz!newsbastard.radio.cz!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!news.nacamar.de!howland.erols.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers.rutgers.edu!dziuxsolim.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Mon Mar 17 07:16:04 EST 1997
Article: 93548 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: What is sexually taboo in a Christian marriage?
Date: 16 Mar 1997 21:29:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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holzman@tezcat.com (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>I said "make pleasure A purpose of sex."
>
>Y'all talk about enjoying sex like it's a byproduct, an accident.
>
>I'm telling you it's a feature. Sex is pleasureable because it's
>*meant* to be pleasureable.
As I said, pleasure's part of life. Healthy things (eating, friendship,
exercise of strength and skill, rest when tired, whatever) are normally
pleasurable to healthy people. That is no doubt meant to be so.
My objection is to making pleasure the goal we are aiming at except in
minor things like choice of ice cream flavors. "This was meant to be
pleasurable" is not the same as "this was meant to be our guide." Major
things have too many consequences and implications to take pleasure as a
guide. It is relevant but it's not the standard for decision. It can
and often does lead us astray.
Sex is not a minor thing, it's a basic feature of life. To me it makes
as much sense to say "in sex we should do what is pleasurable" as to say
"in building skyscrapers we should do what is pleasurable." At some
point in sex or constructing large buildings the details do get minor
enough to become matters of taste. There can be legitimate arguments
about where that point is, but "it's all a matter of taste" is not an
argument.
>You've gotta limit yourself to a single purpose?
When purposes conflict one takes precedence. Also, there are advantages
to singleness of heart.
>>As an example, love gives us pleasure, but to the extent we are
>>seeking pleasure it isn't love. So if we make pleasure our goal we
>>lose the joy of love.
>
>That doesn't square with my experience. Why do you believe this?
It seems to me very close to a logical point. To pursue pleasure is to
be concerned with our own feelings and sensations while in love we are
concerned with our beloved.
>Purposes cannot work in harmony?
When they do there's nothing to discuss. They often don't.
>>Experience shows that if sexual pleasure becomes a goal in itself it
>>disrupts some of the things people need for a happy life.
>
>Such as?
Stability of relationships.
>And can you explain why your God would have designed us to enjoy sex if
>that enjoyment's such a bad thing?
I don't recall saying it was.
>The crux of our disagreement, then, would seem to be whether one has to
>limit one's self to a single purpose.
It may have to do with the coherence of moral life. Purposes conflict,
and when that happens one of them wins. It seems to me that moral
integrity involves a certain consistency of conduct oriented toward an
overall goal reasonably thought good.
>In the case of something done many times, such as sex, the disagreement
>appears to expand to whether one has to limit one's purpose in all
>instances of that thing to one thing.
Here the issue may be whether our lives are better if we think of
sexual transactions as in themselves important or trivial.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
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Article: 93552 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 16 Mar 1997 21:32:13 -0500
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>All I wanted to make clear is that the way of acquiring knowledge of
>(not "about") the divine differs radically from our getting to know
>wordly things or persons.
This seems not quite right to me. It suggests that we have a self-
contained way of getting to know worldly things or persons that doesn't
depend on our somehow having knowledge of God. It seems to me (painting
in broad strokes!) that knowledge of particulars requires some degree of
knowledge of the whole, and knowledge of the whole includes knowledge of
God.
>But wouldn't you say that this "making sense" is different from
>understanding the "material cause" or the characteristics of something
>in this world?
Sure. I just don't believe that there is knowledge that is solely
knowledge of material causes and the like.
>Much of comtemporary thinking of trancendency is willing to accept that
>our wordly being is "mysterious", but it doesn't imply faith in God.
The issue then becomes how satisfactory that contemporary thought is.
>To put it plain and simple: there is no knowledge of God apart from
>God's revelation.
And I say there is no natural knowledge without some implicit natural
knowledge of God.
>A lot of people today would refer to themselves as agnosts (rather than
>theists or atheists). Contemporary philosophy speaks about the loss of
>the "great unifying stories" (of religion as well as science... e.g.
>the work of Lyotard).
People say this, but how true is it? It's hard to avoid the boring-but-
true comment that you've just described a great unifying story of
contemporary philosophy.
>What does the color, shape, quality, "cause" or even "meaning" etc. of
>such worldly items have to do with knowledge about God?
Nothing can have color, shape, etc. without being part of a cosmos
ordered by reason, and we can't recognize those things without
participating in that reason.
>The sam applies to persons. What does the fact that I have a particular
>friend have to say beyond the valuable fact that it is my dearest
>friend?
To have a friend is to recognize another person as valuable in himself
and therefore to recognize an objective order of goods.
>Another matter: do you refer to Descartes as an atheist?? You can't be
>serious about that, but perhaps I fail to see your point here.
Sorry to be so elliptical. My point was that if you follow Descartes in
his method of doubt but don't accept his proof of the existence of God
you end up in a hole in which language and thought become impossible.
Read Samuel Beckett for a travelogue. Since language and thought are in
fact possible, or at least we can't question their possibility, the
method of radical doubt is one that we must reject.
>I think your distinction between scolars and bishops does not hold. It
>is artificial. It was not the case in earlier times and it should not
>be now.
I don't think there were bishops in the patristic period who taught
part-time in the Academy in Athens. It was of course a different
mattter when the universities were branches of the Church.
What knowledge is depends on what the world is like. To be a scholar is
to give one's loyalty to a particular conception of the former and
therefore of the latter. The conception of knowledge that dominates
universities today has no place for God, while in the earlier times that
you mention God was at the center.
>Can you abstract the fundamental relation between God and the world
>from our present condition as sinful?
Even fallen man has some natural virtue and therefore some natural
knowledge. Otherwise his sinfulness would become rather an abstract
conception since nothing else would be possible to him in too strong a
sense. Cf. Romans 1:18 ff.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Rise, Sir Lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal--rise, sir!
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 17 21:40:32 EST 1997
Article: 9270 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Albania and us
Date: 17 Mar 1997 17:07:39 -0500
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In <5gj16r$fst@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (Andy Fear) writes:
>it seems that in the US, and indeed in the UK, the liberal
>establishment is determined to breakdown the notion of statehood.
At least here it seems an attempt to base the notion of statehood on
universalistic liberal ideology as embodied in legal institutions
rather than nationality in the sense of common descent, ethnicity,
culture, etc. The strategy in part is to destroy or coopt nationality
and religion so legal institutions and ideology will be the only
possible basis for cooperation and social order. That will be the NWO.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 18 06:13:58 EST 1997
Article: 991 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: Communism
Date: 18 Mar 1997 06:05:28 -0500
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In jonaw@not-a-speck-o'spam.nr.infi.net (Jonathan Waterbury) writes:
>> Our elected officials have passed laws implimenting, to various degrees,
>> all 10 planks of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.
>There's a concept called "sets." If you can remember ever hearing of
>that, try to apply it to what you posted. Hint: SETS OF IDEAS OVERLAP
>REGULARLY.
There's also a concept called "proper subset" that applies to sets of
ideas far less regularly.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 18 06:13:59 EST 1997
Article: 992 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Southern patriotism and Catholi
Date: 18 Mar 1997 06:10:30 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In jonaw@not-a-speck-o'spam.nr.infi.net (Jonathan Waterbury) writes:
>I don't know what you or anyone else means when using terms like
>"traditional values." The notion that people in a state, region or
>nation would have the same idea in their minds when a phrase such as
>that is spouted is unpleasantly out of touch with anything resembling
>democracy.
On the contrary. Democracy is possible only if people's judgements of
good, bad and so on have enough in common to create common loyalties
that can be taken for granted, and make common deliberation possible.
The obvious ways in which that kind of unity might come about are
through development of a common tradition or through propaganda and
thought control. The latter usually doesn't work, and in any case is
inconsistent with democracy (other than democracy modelling itself on
the late unlamented people's democracies).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 18 06:13:59 EST 1997
Article: 993 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: secession
Date: 18 Mar 1997 06:13:39 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In jonaw@not-a-speck-o'spam.nr.infi.net (Jonathan Waterbury) writes:
>Do you have *any* concept of what the economic workings of the planet
>are today?
My impression was that they were such that small independent states can
do very well. If you're selling to a world market what different does
the size of state make?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 19 13:46:11 EST 1997
Article: 1000 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: Communism
Date: 18 Mar 1997 10:58:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In jonaw@not-a-speck-o'spam.nr.infi.net (Jonathan Waterbury) writes:
>> >> Our elected officials have passed laws implimenting, to various degrees,
>> >> all 10 planks of THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.
>>
>> >There's a concept called "sets." If you can remember ever hearing of
>> >that, try to apply it to what you posted. Hint: SETS OF IDEAS OVERLAP
>> >REGULARLY.
>>
>> There's also a concept called "proper subset" that applies to sets of
>> ideas far less regularly.
>And your point is....?
Nothing very insightful, just the obvious point that it is no response
to an assertion that X accepts all 10 points of a political manifesto
to say "each of us has some ideas in common with almost anyone."
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 19 13:46:16 EST 1997
Article: 1001 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: secession
Date: 18 Mar 1997 11:10:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 29
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In jonaw@not-a-speck-o'spam.nr.infi.net (Jonathan Waterbury) writes:
>> My impression was that they were such that small independent states can
>> do very well. If you're selling to a world market what different does
>> the size of state make?
>Got any examples?
Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Singapore and Taiwan come immediately to
mind.
>Seems to me that the smaller the state is, proportionatly more energy
>is needed to keep up its separation from its neighbors. In a
>hypothetical case such as this, where the "south" secedes from the
>rest of this nation and animosity levels would be somewhat high, the
>efficiency of both new nations would be compromised severely.
Small countries don't spend proportionately more on arms than large
ones. On the face of it secession would reduce domestic animosity,
which has the greatest effect on efficiency.
And why do you think the North and West would have so much animosity if
the South seceded? Sweden's managed to get used to Norway's secession,
and so far as I know Singapore and Malaysia aren't at sword's point in
any way that interferes with the economic prosperity of either. Quite
possibly the North and West would show equal generosity or realism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!panix!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Wed Mar 19 13:46:21 EST 1997
Article: 93628 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 18 Mar 1997 22:26:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>in order to understand "worldly" things and persons we don't need any
>knowledge of God.
>We also need to see individuals / particulars in the perspective of
>"some whole" (house > street > town > ....). And each whole implies an
>even bigger whole, until we arrive at the notion of The Whole that
>noone can see any more but that can be extrapolated from our knowledge
>of the other "wholes".
>The Whole exceeds our usual empirical knowledge of particulars and
>other wholes; therefore The Whole is qualitatively different from other
>wholes
But this seems to mean that our knowledge of worldly things is not
self- contained. It depends on knowledge of (or at least implies
commitment to) something that transcends it. At what point can we cut
off the sequence leading to the Whole and say "up to here we're talking
about something real but beyond here we aren't, so this is where we'll
stop?" If there's no point at which we can do this, then why the
sqeamishness about the Whole? Or if it's not real, but we have to talk
about it and act as if we accepted it anyway, hasn't something gone
wrong?
>nothing can be proven to exist merely because we happen to be able to
>think it
True enough, but what about things we cannot help but think? I don't
have any proof that that other men have subjective experiences much like
my own, or that the world didn't suddenly spring into existence a
microsecond ago, or that I'm not hallucinating this discussion and
everything else that I think has ever happened to me. Nonetheless I
believe all these things, and it seems my knowledge of "worldly" things
depends on that belief. The question is whether "The Whole" is similar
in that regard.
>is metaphysics necessarily religious or theological ... this particular
>connection is not at all a necessary one ... Buddhist metaphysics
There have been atheistic metaphysicians, but that doesn't demonstrate
that metaphysics can be atheistic unless it is shown that their
metaphysical systems work. The Buddhists thought theirs did but they
may have been in error.
My own inclination is to think that the transcendent reality metaphysics
describes must account for the categorically good and be itself such,
and I have difficulty understanding goods except in connection to the
wills for which they are proper objects. Therefore I have a hard time
avoiding theistic metaphysics.
>"natural knowledge" can only lead to the "thought" of God - not the
>"reality" of God. I think Kant rendered the thought (!) that natural
>knowledge implies knowledge of a real God forever obsolete.
Kant as I understand him told us about two things that transcend natural
knowledge, his categories and concepts and the _Ding an sich_. The two
it seems have nothing to do with each other, so knowledge of a real God
is impossible.
I don't see why that view has such advantages that it renders other
views forever obsolete. For starters, how does he manage to talk about
the _Ding an sich_ at all, or say it has any connection whatever to
anything we can know or even talk about, if none of our categories or
concepts apply to it?
Also, if you accept Kant's account of human knowledge it seems very
difficult to make sense of revelation. If we can't at least incipiently
make sense of it by natural knowledge how can we talk about it or relate
it to anything in our lives?
>Contrary to you I accept D's method of doubt and reject his proof of
>God. I fail to see how you can adhere to the excact opposite.
Sorry, I continue to be obscure. I don't accept his proof of God, and
therefore view his method of doubt as useless except as a thought-
experiment. It puts us in a position in which knowledge, thought and
even language become impossible. We can't even trust our memory or our
ability to say that two things are things of the same kind. Since that
is evidently not the position we are in, or at least we can't help but
believe the contrary, the procedure does not illuminate our actual
condition.
>It seems to me that all our knowledge and virtue - every part of it -
>is stained and corrupted by sin.
Sin is our separation from God. You seem to be saying here that without
God we have no knowledge. Is that the view you started your post
contesting?
>By the way: sin is also not something we know "naturally" - it must be
>revealed to us. In Paul's terminology: without God's law (revealed) we
>would have no knowledge of sin at all.
I'll stick by Romans 1:18. I agree with your second sentence though
since my (and I believe Paul's) view is that God reveals himself and his
will to us through natural knowledge at least to some extent.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Mar 20 09:55:37 EST 1997
Article: 9279 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Albania and us
Date: 20 Mar 1997 07:26:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
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References: <5gikvm$odg@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com> <5gj16r$fst@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> <5gkfbb$kau@panix.com> <5gpiek$aml@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk>
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In <5gpiek$aml@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (Andy Fear) writes:
>: At least here it seems an attempt to base the notion of statehood on
>: universalistic liberal ideology as embodied in legal institutions
>: rather than nationality in the sense of common descent, ethnicity,
>: culture, etc.
>isn't it the case that the US has gained an identity by precisely
>using externals. hence the cult of the Constitution and even more
>bizarrely, at least to English eyes, the cult of the flag, It would
>seem to me that this is simply a reflection of the fact that the US is
>a new nation. The attack on it seems to be to tell the constituent
>groups in the US to forget the Universal and emphasise their
>particular background against those universal claims.
The US was a compromise between universalism and the cult of externals
on the one hand and particularism on the other. "American" had a
certain ethnic, cultural and religious content. A mainline protestant
of NW European and especially British ancestry not from a big city was
more American than anyone else. The purpose of the emphasis on
particular background is to eliminate that content so that "American"
will simply mean "adherent of universalistic liberal ideology as
institutionally embodied in the American federal government." If
particular background as such were the point then a White Students'
Association would be OK.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From jk@panix.com Wed Mar 19 07:34:19 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199703191231.HAA25159@panix.com>
Subject: Anglican Communion Primates and Homosexuals
To: anglican@du.edu
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 07:31:17 -0500 (EST)
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> > "The harshness and hostility to homosexual people within our church
> > [are] neither acceptable nor ... in accord with our Lord's love of
> > all people. We repent of this attitude and ask forgiveness of many
> > homosexual people who have been hurt, rejected and marginalised
> > because of this deep-seated prejudice," the bishops said.
How to act toward people who do things they shouldn't do is certainly a
problem for Christians. Picking out some particular sin and announcing
that members of the Church are to be held to a perfectionist standard
of love and forgiveness with regard to that sin seems the wrong way to
deal with it though. Why homosexuality and not embezzling church
funds? If at the same time there's a movement to declare the sin not a
sin then one has to wonder about the purpose and effect of such
proposals. The whole statement strikes me as disingenuous.
St. Paul proposes expulsion in cases of serious and persistent sexual
sin. The bishops would no doubt call that "marginalisation and
exclusion." It seems that it might be unpastoral and unloving to do
otherwise, though. When we sin we teach others to sin, and it is no
favor to us to treat our sin as not a sin. To be pastoral and loving
is to be concerned with the well-being of both the sinner and those he
might lead astray. Separation of the sinner from the community can be
both in cases of serious and unrepented sin.
So why take sexual sin so seriously? St. Paul mentions some reasons.
I'll add one of a practical nature. The Church must be able to expect
its members to act in ways consistent with the long-term growth of
Christian life. That growth isn't a matter of a single generation.
The continuity will be very seriously compromised unless children grow
up in stable families marked by loyalty among the members. Such
families won't exist unless sexual impulses are trained and measured
against standards that relate them to a concrete ideal of family life
involving father, mother and children. It therefore seems to me that
sexual disorder, and in particular acceptance of homosexuality, goes to
the heart of the well-being of the Christian community.
> > The reality is that divorce and remarriage, polygamy, same-sex
> > unions, single-parent families, and persons living together outside
> > marriage do exist.
> >
> > "As a church, we have to find loving, pastoral and creative ways of
> > dealing with all these situations," the statement continued.
Lots of things exist and the church should deal with them, it's true.
Somehow these sound like code words though.
> > The bishops called for further study within the church on the
> > subject of homosexuality, in particular with regard to the original
> > Greek and Hebrew of the Biblical texts.
A cynic would say that the bishops are positioning the issue as one to
be decided on high by experts who don't have to explain themselves to
outsiders. Perhaps I should say "those responsible for the wording of
the statement" rather than "the bishops." There may have been both
non-cynical bishops who relied on its literal meaning and their faith
in thier fellow bishops in signing the statement and cynical
spinmeisters responsible for the wording.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From jk@panix.com Wed Mar 19 13:50:28 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199703191841.NAA28750@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Anglican Communion Primates and Homosexuals -Reply
To: floydj@NRISO.NOLA.NAVY.MIL (JOHN FLOYD)
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 13:41:32 -0500 (EST)
Cc: anglican@du.edu
In-Reply-To: from "JOHN FLOYD" at Mar 19, 97 10:04:55 am
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> Granted that the statement coming out of the Province of South Africa
> gives some guys problems. This statement seems to suggest monogamous
> heterosexual committed loving relationships are the norm, but that
> the Church should treat homosexuals with compassion. This is rather
> close to the statement from Rome recently.
That doesn't seem quite right to me:
The bishops called for further study within the church on the
subject of homosexuality, in particular with regard to the
original Greek and Hebrew of the Biblical texts.
"We are unhappy at the tendency in some quarters to attack
homosexuals on the basis of simplistic interpretations of certain
scriptural texts," the bishops said.
If the Anglican bishops like Rome view homosexual conduct as a sin but
simply want to say that like other sinners those who engage in such
conduct should be treated with compassion, what are they talking about
here? I don't see the connection between your interpretation and the
need for further and apparently innovative scholarly study of
scripture.
> What would Jesus have done?
It's a real problem that goes far beyond the issue of homosexuality.
Social standards and our reactions to violations don't follow directly
from the Gospel. It seems that institutions etc. that don't have much
at all to do with the Gospel, like police, armies, jails, and various
other forms of organized social disapproval, compulsion and infliction
of pain, are necessary to govern men as they actually are. To the
extent the church is an association of sinners they are necessary
within the church as well. What attitude should a Christian take
toward such things?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From jk@panix.com Fri Mar 21 00:22:11 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199703210035.TAA10723@panix.com>
Subject: Re: The Church in SA & homosexuals -Reply
To: floydj@NRISO.NOLA.NAVY.MIL (JOHN FLOYD)
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 19:35:12 -0500 (EST)
Cc: jonw@beresford.co.uk, st_aidan@deltanet.com, Anglican@du.edu,
rsutter@du.edu
In-Reply-To: from "JOHN FLOYD" at Mar 20, 97 12:35:59 pm
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> And what does sleeping with Fluffy have to do with the matter of
> sexuality?
"Sexuality" I take it is a collective expression for one's sexual
habits, practices, impulses, desires etc. It can include I would think
all sorts of exotica.
> I think Jonathan Webster is trying to say that the Church is a
> hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints.
Other possibilities include a country club for sinners and a
training/medical facility for aspiring saints.
To discover whether the issue is as you suggest we might ask what the
most comfortable, affluent, well-placed, socially influential,
worldly-respectable, religiously lukewarm or indifferent segments of
the churches and society generally think of the notion that on many
occasions we are morally obligated severely to curb our sexuality.
> We would be well advised to spend even half the energy spent
> slam-dunking homosexuals combatting the worst moral evil of our day,
> divorce.
So far as I can tell, most of the enterprise and energy is with the
anti-homophobes.
Be that as it may, though, we're not likely greatly to reduce divorce
until we understand a man's relation to his wife and a woman's to her
husband, and the relation to both to their children, as quite
fundamental to what each is. And that's not likely to happen without
reinvigoration of what are called sexist, heterosexist and sexually
repressive biases and stereotypes.
> The evidence is in, homosexuals do not chose to be so. It is
> probably both genetic and environmental. And my Saviours injunction
> is to see the Creator's image in all his creation.
The strengths and weaknesses, including the moral weakness, most of us
have are no doubt both genetic and environmental. The conception of
creation as fallen has kept me from feeling an obligation to view say
constitutional ill temper as an image of the Creator. Your outlook may
of course be different.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From neocon-request@abdn.ac.uk Sun Mar 23 19:29:06 1997
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From: Jim Kalb
Message-Id: <199703240027.TAA00357@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Keyes on the First Things Flap
To: neocon@abdn.ac.uk (neocon)
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 19:27:02 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <970323100438_-704126436@emout07.mail.aol.com> from "BillR54619@AOL.COM" at Mar 23, 97 10:04:39 am
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Status: RO
> It does not depend, either, upon the will of the majority. Always
> keeping in mind that the principle that all government, in order to
> be legitimate, must be based upon consent
What does this mean? "Legitimacy" seems to mean that when it gives me
orders that go against my will I should do what it says. So legitimacy
doesn't even become an issue until there is no consent. You can of
course fudge "consent," but it has to be done carefully or all
governments will turn out to be legitimate since they can't exist at
all unless people support them. Why bother? Wouldn't it be better
frankly to admit that the government is one thing, "we" are another?
> That's an argument I always make with respect to this whole abortion
> thing; I think that's where we are right now as a people. We're in
> the business of asserting as a right something that destroys our
> claim to rights in principle.
If "consent" means "consent of the majority of the people," and that's
who the "we" is that he's referring to, then this plainly is not where
we are. The abortion right does not exist by the decision of the
majority or their elected representatives.
> Why is it that I would contend that it doesn't necessarily actually
> destroy all legitimacy in the regime? For the same reason that I
> won't declare that a person who performs a bad act has a bad
> character.
For 25 years the regime has repeatedly declared through its
authoritative institutions (the Supreme Court, the ABA, law school
deans and other scholars acting collectively, the _New York Times_,
what have you) that the abortion right is of its essence.
> And the true sovereign, in the United States, ultimately, is the will
> and judgment of the people.
To what extent is this true? Sovereignty is limited by human rights
and international obligations, both of which as an operational matter
mean the decisions of a small transnational elite. Also, "the will and
judgement of the people" suggest that the people are a coherent enough
body to be capable of common deliberation and decision. Such a
conception of "the people" is radically opposed to inclusiveness and to
the right of individuals to posit their own values and expect equal
respect for those values, which are fundamental principles of the moral
philosophy underlying the contemporary regime.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Mar 24 10:09:43 EST 1997
Article: 9292 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: secession
Date: 23 Mar 1997 08:30:07 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Those interested in this subject should look at Jim Langcuster's global
devolution page at:
http://www.mindspring.com/~oldwhig/devolve.html
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
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Article: 93891 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 24 Mar 1997 01:55:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>On the other hand, I believe those who say (a) that not everyone has
>the experience of thinking this (b) that these thoughts may change and
>even disappear. So it seems possible to know the world without much
>reference to something that transcends us in an ultimate sense.
Not everyone has the experience of thinking about numbers greater than a
trillion, and the way someone thinks about very large numbers or
anything else may change, but the ordinary way of thinking that we all
seem to share commits us to such things and in fact to very definite
propositions about them, not all of which are known (to anyone in
particular or sometimes to anyone at all) to be true, and many of which
we may ignore, confuse or forget.
>All the things you mention can be veryfied (by way of experiment or
>intersubjective communication / verification).
>Notions of the Everything, the All can not be verifyied.
It cannot be verified that the world did not spring into existence a
nanosecond ago, and to verify the existence of other minds and the non-
hallucinatory nature of my experience by intersubjective communication
begs the question. Those are the things I mentioned.
>I - for myself - would add that "religious metaphysics" can only be the
>based on a particular revelation of God. For me it has more the
>character of a reconstruction of a particular revelatory event (a sort
>of backtracking) than that it is something we can construct from
>scratch. Aquinas must have held to that
Don't understand. Aquinas thought the existence of God and some
attributes of God could be proved without reference to particular
revelatory events.
>I assume you are not using [theism] in a negative sense.
Correct. I was using it to mean belief in a personal God who does
particular things, although come to think of it what I said didn't
speak to the second part of the definition.
>His basic distiction between "Idee" and "Existenz" makes it impossible
>to proceed from a "thought God" to an "existing God". After him no one
>has been able to construct a plausible argument. It seems no one can
>avoid the irrational leap from idea to existence.
I thought there were still people who accepted the ontological argument.
Be that as it may, I thought (apparently wrongly) that we were talking
about knowledge of God rather than proofs of God's existence. We have
knowledge of things we can't prove, or at least we have to accept that
we do unless we are to remain forever in the hole Descartes dug for us
(on my understanding of the nature of Descartes' attempt).
>I view D's attempt solely as an attempt to uncover that which is
>"beyond all doubt" ... I don't believe, however, that it makes
>everything else (other knowledge, thought, language, or whatever...)
>impossible. Everything else is just not "beyond all doubt"; that's all.
>As an attempt to provide a sound basis for true science - in whatever
>form - I think Descartes was clearly mistaken.
We agree it seems that Descartes was mistaken in "withhold[ing] assent
no less carefully from what is not plainly certain and indubitable than
>from what is obviously false" (_First Meditation_) except as a thought
experiment to test the degrees of certainty of our knowledge.
One point that is unclear to me is that you seem to say that as to God
there is an irrational leap from idea to existence, and as to other
things other than first-person present-tense subjective experience we
have knowledge but the knowledge is not beyond all doubt. Since in
your view our knowledge as a general thing is doubtful, does it involve
an irrational leap to accept it as knowledge?
>I rejected the idea that we have in our possession the perfect key to
>know the divine completely (that would be arrogance and blasphemy).
How many people say this? I've never heard *anyone* say he knew the
divine completely. Some claim certainty on particular points. Others
say a particular man (Jesus perhaps) or book is an unshakeable
foundation but admit that their own sin can nonetheless lead them to
misconstrue things.
>Is God's revelation (or 'just': creation) presupposed in your view of
>"natural knowledge"?
By "natural knowledge" I mean everyday knowledge of the sort all men
have or can acquire by ordinary means, together with what that knowledge
implies or presupposes. It leaves out special revelation.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Mar 25 07:19:07 EST 1997
Article: 1035 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Southern patriotism and Catholi
Date: 25 Mar 1997 07:17:14 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 51
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References: <33286962.3654@ibm.net> <19970314015600.UAA07306@ladder01.news.aol.com> <5glt76$5tl@panix.com> <33aa272f.158259354@news.esinet.net>
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In <33aa272f.158259354@news.esinet.net> shack@esinet.net (Shack Toms) writes:
>Within broad limits democracy can be justified to all parties on the
>basis of utility.
Do you really think that free institutions are possible if the ultimate
goal of all parties is to maximize their own utility, and the parties
have very different ideas of happiness? Suppose the country is
invaded. Will the invader be driven out by an army all of whose
members are intent on maximizing their personal utility?
>Since the primary factor in most war is numbers of troops (or at least
>this has been the case until recently), the way to achieve the same
>result as fighting is to have a democratic election.
Numbers have never been as important as realism, vision, intelligence,
spirit, and discipline. Otherwise no empire could ever have existed
and no ruling class ever maintained itself in power.
>The result may differ in some respects from the "ideal" result that
>could be obtained by fighting for what you can get, but unless the
>difference is greater than the cost that would be incurred from the
>battle, there is no point in fighting.
You seem to think that the choice is between civil war on the one hand
and majority rule with everyone obeying the law on the other. Why
should that be? There have been peaceful constitutions not based on
majority rule. There have been societies in which the publicly
accepted principle was majority rule but particular groups were able to
better their position by manipulation, corruption, threats of
disruption or violence, etc.
>Actually, if everyone thinks the same way about things, democracy
>isn't needed. In that case everyone has the same goals, so the best
>government is probably formed by having the most capable leader be a
>dictator.
If everyone thinks exactly the same about things, government isn't
needed. Free institutions can exist only when government is limited.
Government can be limited only in a society in which government isn't
needed as to most things. If government isn't needed as to most things
it's probably because of a consensus as to how those things should be.
>The art of government is the balance of competing interests.
That's the art of being an honest broker. An honest broker can not
however ask his clients to make sacrifices, which governments must on
occasion do.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Mar 26 06:21:13 EST 1997
Article: 9312 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: MAO WILL SHINE FOREVER!!
Date: 26 Mar 1997 06:09:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
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References: <333204BC.242C@nyxfer.blythe.org> <01bc382b$70c5ed60$ca1f4081@mozart.rose.brandeis.edu> <5h5isi$j1l@gerry.cc.keele.ac.uk> <565792626wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <5h8b55$jsj@panix.com> <561755150wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <561755150wnr@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> rafael cardenas writes:
>> >Let Observation, with extensive view
>> >Survey the world from China to Peru...
>>
>> Why the inclusive language?
>Not my language, Samuel Johnson's.
My edition, taken from the British Museum copy (840. k. 4(6).) of the
first publication, gives "Mankind" rather than "the world."
>And one wonders whether it had occurred to him that the natural
>direction for Observation to conduct her survey was from east to west,
>thus taking in the Pacific but listtle else.
That would be westward from Peru to China. If you start with China in
the east and move west and south to Peru you take in far more.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Mar 27 18:25:17 EST 1997
Article: 1039 of alt.thought.southern
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.thought.southern
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Southern patriotism and Catholi
Date: 26 Mar 1997 08:44:42 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 77
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shack@esinet.net (Shack Toms) writes:
>>>Within broad limits democracy can be justified to all parties on the
>>>basis of utility.
>
>I believe that people operate to maximize utility given their goals
>(which may be noble goals).
So then your first sentence seems to mean "Within broad limits democracy
can be justified to all parties on the basis of advancing whatever goals
they actually happen to have." It seems to follow that absence of
democracy typically shows that people just aren't thinking clearly.
That seems very implausible to me.
>>Suppose the country is
>>invaded. Will the invader be driven out by an army all of whose
>>members are intent on maximizing their personal utility?
>
>Sure. That's what motivates anyone to fight. Of course a
>person's personal utility often includes a desire to make life
>better for others.
Maybe what puzzles me is your apparent view that what you call personal
utilities arise independently, by individual character and choice. So
if America is invaded or the mafia tries to take over your town you are
apparently confident that there will just happen to be enough men with
the right personal utilities to make it possible to organize a
victorious army.
>If I believe that the freedom of my locality to make laws that reflect
>our local culture is being threatened in common with other localities,
>then why wouldn't we join together to fight the common foe?
If the issue is presented clearly that sounds fine. Intelligent
aggressors normally obfuscate the issue. _Divide et impera_.
>The recent world wars, for example, stand out as examples of diverse
>people uniting to drive out a common foe.
Not all attempts to create an empire are successful. Hitler for example
made the mistake of invading Russia and declaring war on the United
States. Both Russia and the United States, in spite of diverse
populations and ostensibly federal forms of government, were in fact
empires, which made their steady participation in a collective campaign
to destroy Nazi Germany much easier to organize and maintain than it
would have been otherwise.
>>If everyone thinks exactly the same about things, government isn't
>>needed. Free institutions can exist only when government is limited.
>>Government can be limited only in a society in which government isn't
>>needed as to most things. If government isn't needed as to most things
>>it's probably because of a consensus as to how those things should be.
>
>Why isn't government needed?
I should have said "politics" instead of "government."
>If government is limited only because people will do what is
>"right" without it, then government isn't really limited at all.
>If you only have free speech until you say the wrong thing, then
>you don't really have free speech.
If the government doesn't regulate speech it's probably because of a
consensus that speech ought to be free. If there's no consensus about
how some aspect of social life should be it becomes part of the subject
matter of politics.
>And why can't the balance of competing interests require some
>sacrifices? Do you not believe that a person might consent to
>making a sacrifice?
You seem to be using the word "interests" to include for example the
"interest" a man might have in sacrificing his life for others. I was
using it differently.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
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Article: 94083 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 27 Mar 1997 23:24:54 -0500
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I should have added this to my last posting:
In <5h7j0c$lfr@geneva.rutgers.edu> jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>> >I rejected the idea that we have in our possession the perfect key to
>> >know the divine completely
>thousends of people say it implicitly.
One issue that occurs to me is whether to assert anything we must have
some knowledge that for us is beyond doubt. Descartes (on my
interpretation) took that line of thought to its final conclusion and
tried to establish all knowledge on a basis known with utter certainty
and clarity to be true. The effort was a failure, so now it seems
people want to say we have knowledge even though they admit its truth
is doubtful. Therefore rampant irony -- people make assertions but
feel it is simple-minded to be fully committed to them.
It seems that universal irony is in fact impossible. If true
skepticism is unattainable, though, and nothing like Descartes' program
is possible, it seems possible to deny fundamentalism -- acceptance of
some proposition as certain that someone might deny without illogic --
only by reference to a different fundamentalism. Pascal gets into
these issues.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!panix!news.columbia.edu!rutgers.rutgers.edu!igor.rutgers.edu!christian Sat Mar 29 06:19:32 EST 1997
Article: 94086 of soc.religion.christian
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Defining Fundamentalism (was: Jehovah's Witnesses Attack Fu
Date: 27 Mar 1997 22:44:25 -0500
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jrghgb@worldaccess.nl (J.R.Grit) writes:
>Well, it seems you hold to an extremely narrow definition of
>"verification" here; something in the sense of "absolute complete
>provability".
No unprovable leaps of faith. What's unreasonable about that?
>I prefer to go along with the (very common) idea of intersubjective
>verification by communication (more in line with thinkers like Gadamer
>and Habermas). This way we can account for our perception of ourselves
>as having permanence through time.
In order to account for and make sense of our experience we must I agree
commit ourselves to things that can't be proven, and in fact can't even
be rationally evaluated without begging questions.
>By the way, the idea of permanence through time can also not be
>excluded from Descartes method of doubt
Just so.
>In as far as we talked about "natural" knowledge of God everything we
>say must imply a proof of God.
Are you setting the standard for knowledge of God higher than for
knowledge of other things? As you seem to recognize, our perception of
ourselves as having permanence through time can't be proven valid.
Nonetheless you seem to accept the validity of that perception as part
of knowledge.
>We know finite things (persons etc.) because we actually see, hear,
>feel, taste or smell them.
But whatever it is that makes our knowledge of them knowledge *of*
something rather than fantasy or hallucination is not seen, heard, felt,
tasted or smelled.
Whatever it is that makes me able to recognize a man as a person rather
than a pattern of my own sensations is not perceived by the senses.
Ditto for whatever it is that makes me able to recognize Jesus Christ as
God.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Mar 30 13:03:04 EST 1997
Article: 9325 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: counterrevolution
Date: 29 Mar 1997 13:40:23 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <333CADF9.1072@mailbox.swipnet.se>
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In <333CADF9.1072@mailbox.swipnet.se> Hans Lebeck writes:
>I am a conserative person which wants to get some info. on GRECE and
>its allied organisations.
Both the a.r.c. resource list (http://www.panix.com/~jk/resource.arc) and
the traditionalist conservatism web page (http://www.panix.com/~jk/trad.html)
have sections on the European New Right. You could start there.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
Palindrome of the week: Depardieu, go razz a rogue I draped.
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.