----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 3:38 PM Subject: Re: Abortion and so on
> On May 18, 2005, at 12:57 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > > > From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >> Something is clearly bothering you here, but unless you're willing to > >> state what it is, I can't see how it can be addressed in a rational > >> discussion. > > > > I've had an off-line conversation with someone who's on list and > > pro-choice. He has remarked on how clear my arguments were, but told > > me > > that he bet I'd not be able to get you or Gary to see them. > > That's entirely conceivable (so to speak), sure. > > > May I suggest that I am arguing with an unspoken presupposition of > > yours > > and Gary's. Those are the hardest for us all to get around, because the > > supposition is done so quickly, it's not recognized. In engineering > > applications, those are the ones that cause pretty capable people to > > miss a > > problem for weeks....and is why engineering groups are often helped by > > "creative naivety" that is to say someone who has the tools to attack a > > problem, but hasn't worked in that area. > > That's sensible and consistent with my experience as a programmer. I > can't beta test my own software, because I know what it's supposed to > do, so I don't deliberately do things to break it. Someone else has to > do that. (This is true of proximally all programmers, FWIW.) > > Self-editing is similar. It's easy to overlook technical *and* > narrative problems in one's own writing. New eyes are often necessary > to catch the lacunae. (The work-around for self-editing is to let a > finished story rest for a few weeks or months, then revisit it.) > > OK, so what in your view is the unspoken assumption at play here? Thinking about it, I think the assumption is implicit with Gary, but more explicit with you. That one's humanness is not innate. That society has the right to declare the humanness of one individual and the non-humanness of another fairly arbitrarily. So, it was proper for Jackson to commit genocide against the native Americans because there was a consensus among American citizens that this was so. I think you have stated a consistent position on this...and I accept as valid the position that the definition of humanness is arbitrary, but your definition includes Jews, blacks, Native Americans, etc. I strongly differ with your presuppositions, and I think there are ramifications that you haven't considered, but that will be addressed in a reply to a long post of yours that I'm still thinking about....and will be after I finish my analysis of economic data that will be rejected by JDG a priori. :-) We have significantly different beliefs on this matter, but I won't accuse you of being hypocritical; I acknowledge and respect your efforts at intellectual honesty. I guess what bothers me is that people that argue strongly against this sort of idea in other applications see no problem with accepting it here. Statements like there is no difference between the legality of terminating the life of a fetus that would do well on its own (if only it could be born) to save the life of the mother and terminating the life of a fetus that would do well on its own (if only it could be born) because of a health risk for the mother. The former is consistent with humanness being innate, and not arbitrary. The second isn't. The former is consistent with Christianity. I don't see how the second is. I think what frustrates me is that, for the most part, what I see as the source of the main difference in looking at things is ignored, and that one position on this is simply assumed to be true. In some ways, the explicit recognition that from my vantage point, that humanness in innate, not a bequeath of society, and that the abortion of fetuses that would be viable with normal care from any one of millions of adults is inherently problematic if one makes this assumption. It is only acceptable if one assumes that humanness is arbitrarily defined by society. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
