Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
> >
> > Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> > >
> > > > > Hiding behind your absolute relativism dogma doesn't help you. It only
> > > > > assures that you are what John Clark says you are. Relativism is the
> > > > > last refuge of the indecisive fool.
> > > >
> > > > I see. If I never change my position in light of more
> > > > considerations then I am hidebound and certainly a dogmatist.
> > > > If I do then I am an indecive fool. In any case you "win".
> > > > This is childish and quite boring.
> > >
> > > Relativism and non-dogmatism are not the same thing. Dogmatism is
> > > holding a position in spite of evidence; relativism is failure to
> > > hold a position at all.
> >
> > Agreed. And in point of fact, I am not a relativist either.
>
> Ah, the funniest statement I've seen all day. First she declares that
> she is not a dogmatist, despite dogmatically clinging to silly beliefs
> like that bin Laden and al Qaeda don't really want to kill us despite
> their declarations that they do. Then she claims to not be a relativist,
> despite repeated and unceasing declarations that we need to understand
> those societies better, that they are a religion of peace, despite
> muslims holding a near-monopoly on terrorism around the world, and that
> we need to change our foreign policies to match what other countries and
> societies want, that our society consumes too much, doesn't consider
> other cultures enough, etc etc etc....
>
> Samantha is the epitome of the dogmatic relativist.
What you are the epitome of is quite obvious so I won't even
sink to naming it. I gave no such dogmatic belief as you
claim. A cleaner reading is not that bin Laden and parties want
to kill all of us but they want certain policies to end and
consider targetting us legitimate until they do. That is still
an atrocious position to be sure but it is not as simplistic as
your wording. Understanding other societies or calls to is not
being a relativist, it is being a realist and having a healthy
respect for others different choices. Relativism would be
claiming all positions were equally of merit regardless of their
nature because there is no objective morality. Objective
morality is not served by effectively taking a position of "my
country right or wrong". What we most need to understand is
that we have been flaming buttholes ourselves in several areas
and that some of the level of terrorism is a result of our own
policies and actions and cannot be resolved without
understanding this and changing some of those policies and
attempting to fix some of the messes we have caused. A MidEast
full of armed highly trained fanatic fundamentalists is one of
our messes.
Islam is a religion of peace in part like most of the world's
major religions. There is nothing relativist in the slightest
about pointing this out. Nor is there anything relativist in
pointing out that casting this as a war against Islam is likely
to produce hideous consequences determinal in the extreme to all
of our hopes and dreams. A near monopoly on terrorism heh? Do
you really believe that the US and Israel and many other
countries and peoples have never resorted to what can
legitimately be called "terrorism". Let's not be absurd here.
Mike, get it right or make yourself the laughing stock of the
list.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:17 MDT