On Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 10:22:34 (-0400) Julio Huato writes:
>Bill Lear wrote:
>
>> So, we should cheer on the Nazis as
>> they exterminate and rampage?
>> We should deplore the slaughtered
>> Czechs and Poles, Jews, gays,
>> leftists, and others?
>
>I truly resent this insulting when-will-you-stop-beating-your-wife
>kind of argument. With all these references to Nazism and stuff, it
>is really disgusting.
>
>How can anybody read in what I wrote a defense of the Nazis? It is
>really low. I could easily pay Bill in kind here, but I am not going
>to reply that way.
Too bad you are too busy pouting to actually engage what I wrote. I
didn't say you were defending Nazis. You said that a society that
lost out to one that is more brutal and aggressive is less "efficient"
(your word, not mine). I think that kind of thinking is shallow. We
should never think of the Nazis, or their modern counterparts, as
"efficient" just because they triumph through murder.
Surely the clear answer to this is that we call a spade a spade:
murderers and state terrorists should be regarded as outlaws, not
"victors" who put in place something more "efficient". And also
clearly, any decent society based on solidarity (etc.) should be able
to defend itself and should, perhaps more importantly, be able
to prevent the growth of aggressive tendencies from within.
>> Efficiency, elegance, beauty, fairness,
>> and solidarity are things we should
>> value. Brutality, waste, and selfishness
>> are things we simply declare to be
>> out-of-bounds, and thus not subject to
>> any "efficiency" measurement.
>
>You contradict yourself. Efficiency is maximal social wellbeing. It
>is about the value of human life. How can brutality, waste, and
>selfishness be out of bounds?
Because we declare them to be --- we reject admiration of Nietzsche's
"Splendid Blonde Beast" and all that goes with it. There is no
contradiction at all in what I wrote. Efficiency is not only "maximal
social wellbeing", it is also a measure of the waste incurred in
getting there. The Nazi's could very well have triumphed and put in
place a very nice ("efficient") society, with lots of art, fine
automobiles, elevated science, etc., for the victors, but the human
waste left in their trail would lead me to call that society
inefficient.
Bill
