Tom Abeles wrote: > First, western law is based on precedent- case law- the past. It is > reactive even in its pro-active mode. It establishes the "game", the > rules or box in which we play and spends its time plugging "leaks" > where some party has been able to "work around" the rules of the game. > It removes the need for "trust" and thus becomes problematic in a > world where players from different games meet on the field. Hence the > current push for a model based on democratic neo-classical economics > as the "gold standard"
I don't know. Would you consider the phrase, "All men are created equal", "Freedom of Speech" or "Freedom to Learn" as democratic neo-classical economics? I think that these are social hopes that have evaded people since before the Axial Age. In fact, these phrases may well have guided Athenians in their first democracy. What I am saying here is that all the 'acies' and 'isms' and all the prefixes and suffixes boil down to people trying to do things for the common good. You could follow a course along the lines of Freud where he discussed that people sacrificed individual freedoms to form society because of the security is provided, but then what we're really talking about is a balance of personal freedom and security of the individual through community. We could talk about the commoditization of the law instead of it's dependance on precedents. We could talk about Marx's 'commodity fetishism' in this context as well. Toss in culture jamming, and things begin to look a little strange. :-) We could divide the world into 'East' and 'West' as philosophy goes. We could talk about 'North' and 'South' like the U.N. does. We can talk about precedents and the fact that even academic arguments are reactive even in a pro-active mode. And we're still right where we are. The past - the precedents - are necessary. But the Western legal system also has people in it who can decide that precedents do not apply. If there is a failure in the 'Western' Legal system, I would have to say it's the people giving precedents more weight than they should - not the process. The process was designed to allow for change... it just isn't used very much. > > Few discuss the metaphysical underpinnings and how the Internet plays > here, especially where value systems are equal but not commensurable. > > Second, we are currently engaged in a discussion about the "Digital > Divide" on this list. This is actually imbedded in a faith-based > belief system about the ability of science and technology to be a > major component in building a world of equality (however defined). > Part of this faith is again imbedded in a western scientific model > that all truths must be able to work together or else one is not a > truth- That holds for natural science and the constructs of > mathematics by definition. It does not hold for social systems which > may have value systems that are incommensurable. In other words, my > life-style or world view (as an individual or a country, for example) > may not be able to be merged with that of another. This is actually what Einstein's Theory of Relativity does talk about, only with physics. Most people haven't read this deeply into it. Two people can see the same light from different perspectives, and both be completely right. But they don't have to agree. I've been toying with the idea of weighted perspectives on that, along the lines of fuzzy logic, such that a medium could be found. It's really a classic problem which Boolean thinking doesn't allow for. And if there's one thing I have a problem with, it's boolean thinking. I don't know that the fuzzy logic will help, but at least it's a change from what we know doesn't work. As such, it might work in this as well. The weight of perspectives shifts as the observer shifts. As far as 'faith based belief system' - well, I don't know. I think ordering a pizza could be called the very same thing. I'm not trying to be flippant here, just realistic. Believing that you will wake up in the morning is a faith based belief system. So, I don't know where to go with that in the context you are using it. > The hope imbedded in the Digital Divide argument is that with the > Internet we can find a way to bring parties together in some cosmic > Noosphere of harmony because once we are all connected, we will find > the common ground. I think that it's more appropriate to say that to decrease the digital divide, we need to find the common ground first. Catch-22. > > Thus the issue raised in this thread, particularly by LDMF, calls the > question- one that Huxley raises in Brave New World and Stephen raises > in A Diamond Age, for example-- It runs counter to much of the > sentiment within the socially liberal communities and definitely is > counter to the "true" or Enlightenment Liberals-both of whom have > faith that social systems, like science can find a uniform and > commensurable set of values that brings the world into harmony- On > earth that is and not in some etheral life in a spiritual world. Maybe there's just a few 'do-gooders' trying to make the world a better place. I wouldn't call myself liberal, though others may... I don't know that generalisms cover the digital divide. In fact, I believe that there are different nodes within the digital divide, and we're in the process of creating a distributed network through these nodes to address problems. As far as the spiritual world... I think we can use all the help we can get. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran Coming on January 1st, 2006: http://www.OpenDepth.com "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
