Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> >1. Draw your devastating conclusions from the experience
> >of the inperfect democracies we had so far.
>
> I draw my conclusions from the millions of years of human behavior -- under
> every kind of society that has existed.
Classical Athens, Heian Kyoto, Khajuraho [Medieval Cambodia],
the circle of the early 19th century American Transcendalists /
Unitarians.... There *have* been some (to borrow a phrase from
Elsa Morante's novel _History: A novel_) "flowers not weeds".
>
> Human in modern societies have become TOTALLY DEPENDENT on their machines.
> These machines are going to "run out of gas" this coming century -- forever.
This is a different issue, and, as your story suggests,
we may already be past the point of no return
(Time for some Sartrean/Camusean "L'homme revolte",
or like the Knight's Squire at the end of Ingmar
Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal"!)....
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> TITANIC SINKS
[snip]
Agreed: And I think the captains of both the Titanic
and the Lusitania should have
been I-N-C-I-N-E-R-A-T-E-D (legally,
if not Philarianly(sp?)...)....
However! The American Tuskegee Airmen in WWII apparently
didn't lose a single escorted bomber to the
Luftwaffe. (There was a lovely HBO movie about
them!) As one of them in the movie says to another
who is messing up:
Straighten up and fly right!
--
No matter what happens, in the end we're
all dead no matter what we do (at least until
the scientists get on the ball and conquer
Death!). Until then, as Emmanual Levinas
wrote: To be free consists simply in acting
as if we were free (I mean this entirely
seriously, coming from the tradition of
Kantian/Husserlian... philosophy).
I ABOMINATE those who make it possible
for others to be martyrs, but, in the end,
when it is not p[ossible to live well or even
to live at all,
humans *can* BEAR WITNESS to right against
might ("Just say No!").
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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