(no subject)
Jan. 15th, 2006 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
somedaybitchpeople should be careful what they wish for. we may decide to listen, take our toys and go home, never to be heard from again.
eta: my generation is the largest in this country. i lived as a constant target of nuclear annihilation for the first 25 years of my life so that Western Europe wasn't a constant target of Soviet occupation. so really, don't tell me what Americans don't understand.
want to protest the air strike in Pakistan? golden. if the CIA's intel was faulty, and they knew it was faulty, and they weren't working with the permission of the Pakistani government, then i'm going to protest the air strike as well. but please don't use it as a platform to make a sweeping condemnation of my country's citizens when the issue was a specific action of the current administration.
i'd love the rest of the world to step up to the plate. but they don't. and they don't because they think it's not their place. and i disagree.
eta: my generation is the largest in this country. i lived as a constant target of nuclear annihilation for the first 25 years of my life so that Western Europe wasn't a constant target of Soviet occupation. so really, don't tell me what Americans don't understand.
want to protest the air strike in Pakistan? golden. if the CIA's intel was faulty, and they knew it was faulty, and they weren't working with the permission of the Pakistani government, then i'm going to protest the air strike as well. but please don't use it as a platform to make a sweeping condemnation of my country's citizens when the issue was a specific action of the current administration.
i'd love the rest of the world to step up to the plate. but they don't. and they don't because they think it's not their place. and i disagree.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 11:38 pm (UTC)That's the one bit I found actually enlightening in this article, because that's it; that's what the finger should be on.
America has sold itself and others an ideology, a dogma, a mantra that fits in one word: liberty. What that means, exactly, we're not sure. That you're free to bear arms and to kill each other; that you're free to work but not to strike; that you're free to be executed by the state or emprisonned without access to court (free press or free court, I'll tell you which one I pick first); that you're free to not support each other through a universal social care system: that's what Europeans see. They don't much see any of this as desirable.
America may believe that liberty is the one and only organizing principle of worth (the one and true God), but it's not. There are others. Justice is one. I, personally, want to see Europe come together around that unifying principle: justice; and it's trying, but it's a hell of an undertaking, when it has to contend with twenty-five different nations; it's a very slow process and painful, but it's worthwhile.
If a society is just then it is free, as it is just that men should be free, unless they have broken the rules of their society, and then their freedom is restricted according to those rules. If a society is free, however, it is not by necessity just, as freedom implies no imperative of justice, the way justice implies an imperative of freedom. You can be completely free to live in an unfair society. You can be completely free to die.
There are many ideologies in the world. Worshipping freedom is all well and good, but what if its just another false idol? The author of this article doesn't spend nearly enough time thinking about that. Political philosophy doesn't seem to be his strongest point.
And if the US take their toys and go home, as you say... Well. I suspect the world will get over it, as it's gotten over a lot of other things. I don't know that the US, as a civilization, would remain intact in isolation.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 11:48 pm (UTC)So, who defines those rules, though? The majority? God? What constitutes a just rule, and what doesn't? I'm all for justice, but oh my goodness does it depend on who gets to define it.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 12:07 am (UTC)As we live in democracies, which is as just a system as we have found so far, what is just can only be determined by the majority's consensus (as is what is good, fair, desirable, and so on); in the exact same way that the limits of freedom -- which cannot be absolute, short of inviting a state of all out war with each other -- those limits are fixed by the democratic majority.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 12:28 am (UTC)Because if you are in such a situation where majority rule decides what is just, you'd better darn well make sure that there are limits on what the majority is allowed to rule on. I think that's a problem that many libertarian-leaning Americans have with the government in this country. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, fine. But when the government starts coming in and saying, "This is not the way you should live, and most of us agree," well, I'd say that's hardly a good reason to stop someone.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:12 am (UTC)So who, then, rules on justice in your society? Are you not a democracy? Doesn't the majority of your people elect the president, who in turns nominates the Supreme Court judges, who are confirmed by the elected representatives of the people, and pronounce themselves on what is just according to the constitution which was, at one point, adopted by the people? (I'm streamlining, but you get the idea.)
Or is the individual a judge onto himself? If yes, who sets the limits of his dominion?
But when the government starts coming in and saying, "This is not the way you should live, and most of us agree," well, I'd say that's hardly a good reason to stop someone.
There are distinctions between what is just, what is right, and what is legal; these are not equivalent. But it's 2 AM and I really can't get into that. Also, because a society is based on the principle of justice, doesn't mean that everything is subject to legislation. To decide what is and what isn't subjected to majority oversight comes, initially, under the social contract that establishes the society (roughly, the constitution). The contract also establishes how the majority will express itself (direct democracy, indirect, presidential, parlementary, etc.) Then, social evolution follows its course.
To address your example: what do you do in that situation? Do you take up arms against your fellow citizens and your government to enforce your individual idea of what is just, as some libertarians advocate? Or do you engage in the life of your democracy, encourage social evolution, education and informed debate, and convince the majority?
It's a gross caricature (we're in the land of political philosophy as well, not politics), but those two options represent different ways of envisioning a society, what our priorities are, and why we may choose to come together.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:10 am (UTC)See my response to wg below, too.
Perhaps the point I'm making is, any idea for which "social evolution" is mandated is most likely an idea that goes against one of those core self-evident truths of the Constitution -- all men are created equal, everyone has the right to life, liberty, pursuit of their desires. But even so, there is a large variation of cultures that can be "socially engineered" in these directions. There is also a whole huge gray area, though. When the government starts deciding what is moral, what is socially acceptable, where does it stop? Why doesn't it stop with self-evident truths? Is a society where everyone believes in the state and thinks the same way necessarily better than one in which a diversity of cultures co-exist?
As an example, I don't think that in this country, gay marraige will ever be condoned by the majority. That doesn't mean that I have to convince them to accept it morally, or that I think that it's a backward view that has to be evolved out of the society. But I will argue that by the rules set out in the constitution, it is unconstitutional to deny people of the same sex to get married or to have the same partnership rights that heterosexual couples have.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 10:36 am (UTC)How so? Isn't gay marriage, to use your example, covered by three of those liberties out of four at least?
When the government starts deciding what is moral, what is socially acceptable, where does it stop? Why doesn't it stop with self-evident truths?
Because, if you give the Constitution to read to four people, or the Declaration of Human Rights, or any other such text, you'll end up with six different opinions on what it means and what it condones. One of them is bound to decide that it applies to him, but not to the yellow people, who aren't half as equal as he is; therefore it's quite socially acceptable to keep them on a leash. One will proclaim he's got the One True Interpretation and set about to beat it into the other three. And so on. If we were capable of governing ourselves in such a way, without courts and legislation and enforcement, we wouldn't even need a Constitution.
Now, the society may decide that a mild state of civil war is a small price to pay for the right of the individual to govern himself. That's its prerogative.
Is a society where everyone believes in the state and thinks the same way necessarily better than one in which a diversity of cultures co-exist?
If there are self-evident, i.e. universal, truths, then we are essentially the same. There has to be a common basis for people to live peacefully together. Do we emphasize this common core, or do we glorify the differences that can tear us apart? That is also a choice the society must make.
that doesn't mean that I have to convince them to accept it morally, or that I think that it's a backward view that has to be evolved out of the society. But I will argue that by the rules set out in the constitution, it is unconstitutional to deny people of the same sex to get married or to have the same partnership rights that heterosexual couples have.
By arguing such, you are participating in the social evolution of your country, as a politically active minority. You seem to somehow want to equate moral and social, and then divorce morality from legality or constitutionality, as if those were entirely separate. By making your legal case you are asking your government, through the courts, to legislate on what is socially acceptable; it'll be left to your government to enforce the decision (interpretation) of the courts. Which is as it should be. If you don't like what your government is doing, you should use your institutions to make your case. The health of a society is measured by such an active citizenry.
I'm curious to know why you believe gay marriage will never be accepted. Your society "socially evolved" past slavery and segregation, gave women the right to vote and to abort, but somehow this can never be?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:44 pm (UTC)i think it will be, and in the near future, relatively speaking, so i share the same curiosity to Eve's statement.
i grew up in a household where "never" wasn't used, at least not outside the context of stove!hot, theft!bad, lies!no. but there was, er, never, anyone telling me that something wouldn't be or that something wasn't possible. my dad was one of the few physicists i know of that didn't use "never" as a word to describe the possibilities of physics, quantum mechanics, aspects of the Universe, religion, whatever. and he always said that for every time throughout history some "jackass" said something would "never be!" - like breaking the sound barrier or splitting the atom or the world is round and revolves around the sun - they were always proven wrong. he had a very "maybe" attitude; if someone wants it bad enough, or people devote enough thought and attention to it, or study the problem enough or do enough research or whatever, the "maybe" is always possible.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:02 pm (UTC)The sacrifice that people have to make for liberty, on both sides, is to live and let live, and give up the idea that everyone everywhere will agree with you or can be forced to do so. Within certain boundaries. The general idea is that it's very difficult to legislate behavior, or views. And yes, often the way to come at social change is through debate and education. Yes, if I want to push my political views, that is certainly how I will do it.
I gotta stop, gotta get to work.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 05:51 pm (UTC)People are free to believe what they like, though; it's one of those self-evident truths, isn't it? The problem arises when the actions resulting from their beliefs harms others/impinge upon the freedom of others to believe what they wish.
The configuration you describe makes me think of pornography: it's legal (within certain boundaries, e.g. distribution, age of consent of participants, and so on; at least it is here; I don't know about every single American state), yet it's still immoral for a lot of people, who object to it actively; but the majority, expressing itself through its institutions, decided it was just that adults should be free to choose their own form of entertainment, regardless of moral judgement.
Possibly that group will be in the minority at some point. Does that mean their view is wrong?
No. It doesn't have to mean either. Something can be just and/or legal while being immoral (wrong) within a particular moral framework. Which is why the distinction between justice and morality is fundamental and must remain.
Should it be 'evolved' out of the society?
Evolution is not a conscious process -- socially or biologically -- although we're learning to nudge it here and there; if those attitudes must become extinct so that we may better adapt to our environment and survive alongside each other, then they will disappear. If a civilization can't adapt...history is replete with examples of what happens then.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 06:08 pm (UTC)Exactly. I was going to say that next. Of course, that opens up all sorts of slippery issues, too, in terms of what exactly it means to impinge on someone else's rights.
but the majority, expressing itself through its institutions, decided it was just that adults should be free to choose their own form of entertainment, regardless of moral judgement.
Again, exactly. Plus, even if the majority don't agree and do try to legislate away the behavior, it isn't going to work. Look at prohibition. Look at the drug war. That kind of behavioral policing is not something that a strong overarching state can do well, when it starts trying to stick its hand into what is "moral."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 06:06 pm (UTC)My real question is: How does a libertarian vote, then, if at all, between R and D?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 06:28 pm (UTC)I think the libertarians just point and snigger at both. Seriously though, the choice really does boil down to "douchebag vs. turd sandwich". Sometimes, they vote for the folks who they think will be able to get the least done. Republican congress, democrat President? Great!! :) Sometimes it comes down to "who's going to meddle the least in the things I like to do?" or "I like X's economic and foreign policy, but their stand on social issues blows." I'll vote for X if I feel that X will have more success pushing through the policies I like, and little success on the fronts where I dislike.
You should check out www.reason.com for some good libertarian articles (especially this one -- "Once you realize activist has become a bipartisan epithet for judges who reach conclusions different from one's own, the label makes sense, although it's not very informative. Since one man's judicial activism is another's sound interpretation, poopyhead would do just as well."). I don't agree with everything they say -- I'm probably more of a centrist than anything. Like a lot of voters, I waffle. And I protect my own interests.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 11:19 pm (UTC)government should be small. they shouldn't be legislating the individual's private life choices [marriage, etc] because it's not government's place. they shouldn't be expected to carry the burden of every perceived ill because they do it badly and they can't afford it. there should be large, LARGE, personal responsibility.
the word conservative has changed and currently refers also to a moral/legal context and i'm not sure where that change happened because i don't believe it started with Bush. truly. it was shifting before that.
you should hear me at work bitching about what the courts, (and it's worse at the state level) are legislating to the cops. it drives me fucking crazy. i'm socially liberal and very non-governmental interference. that's, i guess, now "old school" Republican, and what get's labelled more often "libertarian". every time the 9th Circuit (arguably the most schizophrenic appeals court out there) makes a ruling for law enforcement about search/seizure, reducing what constitutes probable cause for detention, i pitch a fit.
the final issue for me personally though that side s me Republican is national security.
that said, i vote for the guy who best espouses what i think is important and i don't care one iota what his political party is. voting on party lines just to vote on party lines is the most unthinking, juvenile thing i think a person can do. vote for who you think can get the job done, who can protect what you want protected.
do they always do that? nope. the current President sucks at domestic policy, but, that's not why i voted for him and that's what my Congress is for.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 03:36 am (UTC)I would have to say that the legislation of private behaviors isn't something that's support lies in political affiliation. Gay marriage, abortion, pornography, etc - these topics are not part of the party platforms, for the most part because there's a whole range of people within each party that feel differently about them. There are Democrats that don't believe in abortion, there are some Democrats that don't believe in gay marriage (else the vote in CA for recognizing marriage as only between a man and a woman wouldn't have passed with a 61.4% margin during the primaries of a presidential election year). So, assigning those issues to only Republicans wouldn't work, because there are many of Republicans, like me, that don't believe in legislating away private behaviors.
It's just that the politicians that gain the public spotlight tend to be affiliated with those types of beliefs and that's where the stereotype builds. I've been told that if one was to poll the entire Democratic party, it would show that many of their politicians are not actually in line with the beliefs of the people who affiliate themselves with that party. How true that is, I'm not sure.
i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 01:18 am (UTC)the "majority" used to think that lynching someone by the side of the road was just.
the "majority" used to think that gassing Jews to death was just.
the "majority" in lots of places that aren't here think that women don't have a right to an education and should remain barefoot and pregant, and if those women try to protest that, the "majority" thinks it's okay to have them executed.
the problem with the majority in absolute terms is that it ignores the minority. the minority has the right to argue that what the majority is claiming is wrong, or unbeneficial, or illegal, otherwise that's simply mob rule.
Re: i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 01:50 am (UTC)Yes, I think it would be great if everyone agreed with me. To that extent, I will engage in "social evolution" to promote my views. But the ability to do something (own machine guns, marry your lesbian lover, what have you) shouldn't depend on the ability to convince the majority that they have to accept it. The constitution is the barometer that should measure it. And judges, whosoever chooses them, whatever personal beliefs they hold, are beholden to that document. That document was indeed drafted and voted upon, etc., and here's the kicker -- by a set of people who were extremely leery of the government telling them what to do.
Ah, I started responding to you, but also responded to the above comment too...
Re: i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 02:25 am (UTC)Re: i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 01:52 am (UTC)1. There's a difference between majority and democratic majority. No one said anything about absolute terms. 2. Isn't that exactly what I just said?
"You engage in the life of your democracy, encourage social evolution, education and informed debate, and convince the majority?"
that's simply mob rule.
And the minority using illegal means to change laws and swing majority opinion is terrorism or civil war.
Hence the need to operate within democratic institutions, which provide representation for the minority as well as the majority opinion. If the institutions themselves fail, well, then they need to be replaced, and you have a revolution.
Re: i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 02:24 am (UTC)Re: i'm with Eve, here.
Date: 2006-01-16 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 12:55 am (UTC)no homicides in the rest of the world? our crime rates are at their lowest.
we're not free to strike? uhm, okay. the recent transit strike wasn't called off by the government. their own [i]union[/i] called it off. we had a major grocery chain strike last year. it lasted, i dunno, 5 months, maybe more. the government didn't intervene. the parties settled. and you know what they strike was about? ridiculous demands for additional health care benefits above and beyond one of the most generous health care benefits packages in the country. and the result was such financial damage to the parent company that the striking employees saw not only medical benefits reduced but salaries as well, because the company almost went bankrupt.
that you're free to be executed by the state or emprisonned without access to court (free press or free court, I'll tell you which one I pick first); first, i don't agree with capital punishment. murder is murder to me. second, it's decided on a state by state level and the federal government cannot override that. third, legal representation is never denied a defendant. that's what public defenders are for. thus, since i'm pretty sure you know all that, i'm going to guess that you're referring to those declared as enemy combatants that are US citizens and i would agree completely that it's not cool. the issue is also transparent and the public is debating it. that's how it should be.
as for public health care, we're perfectly free to provide it. any state can choose to do so on a state to state basis. no one needs to wait for the federal government to enact laws for its citizens. as to whether it should be socialized, i don't think it should because they can't afford it and they do it badly. does our health care system need revamping? you bet. i don't think that's the way to do it.
my mom is a widow with no income. her access to my stepdad's retirement, he served in that evil US military, ensures that she has everything covered.
i don't have that. but i can walk into a county hospital tomorrow and not get denied health care if i couldn't pay. anywhere in the country.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:41 am (UTC)Lowest compared to what? Never mind, that wasn't my point, anyway. My point is that, from the outside, your freedom-based society doesn't, as if it were an evidence, fit the ideals of a lot of Europeans who, for example, chose not to have the freedom of bearing weapons in exchange for lesser odds of a Columbine. A madman with a knife will always do less damage than a madman with a semi-automatic rifle.
we're not free to strike?
If it's illegal, then you're not free to do it; what occurs in practice, that's another matter. I realize, however, that I was talking only about the law of NY State. I'm not sure what point you're making with the 5-month strike example. That people should only be granted freedoms they'll use wisely and to the benefit of all? In which case, they probably shouldn't carry guns.
i don't think that's the way to do it.
The difficulty is, of course, to juggle both the economics and the political principle. That's were political priorities come in.
first, i don't agree with capital punishment. murder is murder to me.
All right; but the rest of Europe doesn't know you, Terri. They only see the news. My post was in response to the article, not your personal opinions.
it's decided on a state by state level and the federal government cannot override that.
The death penalty exists at the federal level, though, no? And it's upheld by federal courts. So there seems to be a majority consensus not to challenge it; or are the representatives not upholding the will of the majority in this matter?
but i can walk into a county hospital tomorrow and not get denied health care if i couldn't pay. anywhere in the country.
I'm not asking to be annoying, I'm just curious on that point: do you have access to all services, or only the ER? What about meds? Can you get them prescribed and supplied for free?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:57 am (UTC)Yes. But it's up to the states -- it's not a federal thing, and you have to have exhausted all other options. Social security disability is federal, but each state also has medicaid programs that help to supply for those who can't afford it. And as for the rest of us, Americans shoulder a whole heck of a lot of the burden of research for new medication because we pay for it. Nothing ever comes free. Someone, somewhere is paying for it, whether through higher taxes, or more expensive medicine, or lack of ability to discover more, or (god forbid, because I know the pharmaceutical companies are all evil) loss of profit and/or capital for research.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:15 am (UTC)it's not illegal, that was my point. it's not illegal for a union to strike.
first, i don't agree with capital punishment. murder is murder to me.
All right; but the rest of Europe doesn't know you, Terri. They only see the news. My post was in response to the article, not your personal opinions.
i pointed it out because i don't agree with it but it's legal in my state because they voted as such.
it's decided on a state by state level and the federal government cannot override that.
The death penalty exists at the federal level, though, no? And it's upheld by federal courts. So there seems to be a majority consensus not to challenge it; or are the representatives not upholding the will of the majority in this matter?
the federal government cannot supercede state law unless that law is unconstitutional.
no homicides in the rest of the world? our crime rates are at their lowest.
Lowest compared to what? Never mind, that wasn't my point, anyway. My point is that, from the outside, your freedom-based society doesn't, as if it were an evidence, fit the ideals of a lot of Europeans who, for example, chose not to have the freedom of bearing weapons in exchange for lesser odds of a Columbine. A madman with a knife will always do less damage than a madman with a semi-automatic rifle.
Scotland, for example.
gun laws don't fit the ideals of a lot of Americans either, and here they're free to work with their legislators on a state and federal level to get that changed.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 09:50 am (UTC)My mistake, then. I remembered reading, during the NY strike, that the union had been condemned to pay a million dollar a day by the courts because what they were doing wasn't legal.
the federal government cannot supercede state law unless that law is unconstitutional.
Right. But can it make laws for itself? Is there something about the states that stops the federal government from giving up the death penalty in federal cases?
they're free to work with their legislators on a state and federal level to get that changed.
Exactly.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 10:48 am (UTC)they, too, cannot make a law that violates the Constitution or supercedes state law. if neither is the case, citizens can seek change through their elected federal officials if a law Congress has passed is not one that they agree with.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/pdf_files/FederalFacts.pdf
and
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=29&did=147
also
http://www.capdefnet.org/fdprc/contents/shared_files/docs/1__overview_of_fed_death_process.asp
the last is the most thorough as to government requirements and lacks the really irritating screaming font problem.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 08:39 am (UTC)Here's my view:
we're free to bear arms to protect ourselves, because we realize that we have to be self sufficient, as protection from law enforcement is in reaction to an action;
we're free to work, we're free to strike according to an agreement that we make as part of a union if we join one, and we're free to be business owners and make things happen through innovation instead of relying on others to do things for us;
the state will pay for your defense, if you cannot defend yourself against charges brought against you in the criminal courts and you are free to appeal your sentence as many times as you can - and in the meanwhile, the state provides food, shelter, education, recreation, and very good medical and dental care to all inmates;
if you need emergency medical care, the state will pay for it, because we're humane that way...many states pay for the health care of the individuals that are in the lowest economic groups - and for those who are in between, there are many social programs that will pay their way. We take care of our elderly through federal subsidies (social security and medicare) and now we even try to take on the cost of many of their medications as well. We take care of our children through meal programs, headstart programs and medi-caid programs that are administrated by the states. But, these are all dependent on need. it's preferred that people not need government programs.
In addition, we support each other through charitable organizations and religious institutions that help organize both donations and the skills of individuals to give to those less fortunate. Many people don't believe that government will ever do an effective job at helping individuals pick themselves up by their bootstraps and instead actually harms them by trapping people in a vicious cycle of dependence and need.
The welfare-state is not an option we prefer - because once people start paying your way, they decide they can tell you how to live, instead of just setting up basic protections and then letting you live how you should.
At it's heart, America has always been about bringing the adventurous, the independent, the innovators to its shores. Although we've become civilized in many ways, we're still the wild, wild, west of old...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 09:39 am (UTC)At it's heart, America has always been about bringing the adventurous, the independent, the innovators to its shores. Although we've become civilized in many ways, we're still the wild, wild, west of old...
And indeed this society has evolved out of America's history and its foundations. Following the article T linked to, my point wasn't that America's model is inferior to any other; rather, it was to explain that the model isn't superior simply because it is based on "liberty", as if this were the one and only unifying principle. There are others: justice, equality. And to the people who place those principles above others, the choices America has made (in terms of individual security, social solidarity, and so on) for the sake of individual liberties, are not ones they juge desirable or necessary. To a lot of Europeans, liberty is not the panacea of all political principles. They have a different order of priorities, and ultimately a different vision of man and why we come together as a society.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 10:50 am (UTC)i wasn't trying to imply that it was. i linked to the article because it was discussing the perception differences.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:45 pm (UTC)why worry about that game. it's not like your team's going to play either one of them... *eg*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 07:07 am (UTC)That's kinda al tangential to the various questions and answers going on here. and who knows if it helps or hinders the conversation... just an observation. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 07:20 am (UTC)Different vs better
Date: 2006-01-18 09:14 pm (UTC)I agree that there are upsides and downsides to every point of difference between Europe (as if that were one thing) and America (which can be spoken of as one thing, with caveats). I do not agree that this does not mean that one can not weigh the general impact of those collective differences and come to a conclusion as to which is better than the other.
- hossgal
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 02:06 pm (UTC)And I certainly agree that no model is better or worse (within democratic systems); which is why I dispute the oft-made assertion, in doctrines, policies or the media -- be it a hundred years ago or today -- that a particular model can be "spread" or "offered" or "taught"; as we have seen, each model is the result of an organic process, and I doubt that it can be succesfully and forcibly imposed upon others. Certainly, decades of post-colonial and post-cold war conflicts suggest the assertion to be more than misguided.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 07:52 pm (UTC)(notably, that Europe has no guiding principle that could rival with liberty)
First, I know that all of what you've said before this probably answered this question but can you sum up what the guiding principle is (or what they are) for me? I'm totally one of those Americans who rarely gives other countries much thought and tends to stay focused on my little area. Hell, I usually only care about what happens in my own city when it's going to affect me.
Second, I'm coming from a background that's as far from a social/societal focus as you can get, where individuality as a person, as a state and as a country are incredibly important to how many of us define ourselves, so I have to ask why Europe is so often considered a single entity and what countries are usually being referenced when Europe is refered to as a whole. How different or similar, in your experience/knowledge, are countries in Europe when it comes to politics and social structures? In this article and others, I see a lot of references to Western and Eastern Europe? How different are they?
I'm not entirely sure if any of that made any sense, but trying to get your brain to work after not using it all that much for a few years is hard. *shrug*
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Date: 2006-01-17 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 01:03 pm (UTC)Thanks in advance!
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Date: 2006-01-20 10:48 pm (UTC)Caveat lector: In this post and the next I will discussing a political project, not politics, because to discuss what we're trying to do vs what we manage to do would take entire volumes. Since you asked about principles, I don't think that's required.
First, I know that all of what you've said before this probably answered this question but can you sum up what the guiding principle is (or what they are) for me?
I distilled it down to justice, because from justice flow all those other truths that we hold as self-evident since the Enlightenment, including liberty. Justice and equality, for example, do not flow from liberty: there is nothing in the principle of a free society that affirms that it must be just or fair; if you want it to be just or fair, you have to add something up; while a just society, by definition, must be free and fair, or it is not just.
I know it sounds like I'm using rhetoric for the sake of it, but not at all. I'm making a logical -- and by extent philosophical -- argument (whether I'm succeeding at conveying it is another matter entirely).
The French equivalent of "In God We Trust" is "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood." It has been so since the Revolution. Liberty is there, as you can see; it comes first, even; but it's not alone. Enlightenment and post-Revolutionary thinkers realized that to worship liberty for its own sake (and boy, after centuries of monarchy, did they ever want to!) would lead to unbridled individualism (opposite extreme of where they came from), which would lead to selfishness and in time to social degradation and the rule of the strong over the weak. Which is why they added "Equality" and "Brotherhood", to remind us that our neighbor, richer or poorer, noble or a common peasant, has the exact same rights we do, and that through people-wide solidarity, by remaining aware of each other at all times, we look after each other's future and each other's rights, and are the stronger for it.
Individualism in itself is not a flaw; but in this as in many other areas, we benefit from balance and awareness of our own nature if we must survive as a society, so that one principle, as fundamental as it may be, may not lay waste to all the others. (This search for balance is reflected, to an extent, in the make up of our political parties, which run the complete gamut from national-fascism all the way to communism.)
That we have need of this balance is the result of the violent collision between Enlightenment and Romanticism in the 18th century. The second came about in reaction to the first and gave us everything from individualism to country music to the nazis. If you want more on that I'll point you to some excellent books on the history of ideas.
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Date: 2006-01-20 10:52 pm (UTC)Yes, of course. Countries, in fact, can be said to have a psychology of their own, rooted in geography and history. Countries, like people, are shaped by their environment.
Take the geography of the continental United States. It's a huge country, almost a continent of its own, with amazing diversity of landscapes and resources: much water and fertile land, incredible space for people to spread. It's protected on both sides by large oceans, and above and below, it has two neighbors that haven't been geopolitical concerns in hundreds of years (if you exclude immigration).
Until the global economy took off, the United States didn't need to look anywhere but at itself for its own security and welfare. Of course, it was picked by people who didn't want to be told what to do or what taxes to pay as a great place to settle down. Of course, this fosters individualism. Why wouldn't it?
Now think of a country that has no water source of its own, or a single exploitable resource, or a very small population next to a large neighbor... its vision of itself and its place in the world will be radically different.
I realize this next point may turn out to sound insulting, but that's not my intention. Chronology is what it is, and time moves only in one direction, or so we've decided.
The United States also happens to be a young nation (it's not in fact a nation in the classical sense, but let's not get into that.) It's a quite young nation by some standards. And without anthropomorphizing recklessly, I will say that, much as an adolescent will turn inward until he grows into adulthood and settles into himself, so the psychology of younger nations will differ from that of the old ones.
(On this point, I found the disdain of the author of the article T. linked to, his contempt for Europe's attachment to "stability", to be almost too analogical for words: it reminded me of the teenager who, full of radical ideas and imbued with the righteousness of youth, feels nothing but contempt towards his middle-class parents for "selling out".)
All you never wanted to know about Europe tomorrow.