re: privacy (addition)

J de Lyser (gd33463@glo.be)
Fri, 20 Dec 1996 06:28:49 +0100


I just thought of something regarding my last mail to Paul Wafker.

Paul wrote:

>My hope would be that by vastly increasing the openness and totally of my
>communication with them, their "dogmas" (about me anyway) would be able to be
>broken.

I forgot to illustrate the cultural aspect. Cultural differences are already
'public' and i think we've seen little hope for taking away those dogmas,
without creating a situation where everyone 'integrates' into one big world
'monoculture' something i think nobody here really wants (unless ofcourse
one based on THEIR values.)

To illustrate:
Let's imagine Paul, that a person 'X' who lives in Country 'Y', a country
where it is either Governement policy or cultural tradition to:

a) be Racist.
or...
b) physically mutilate or have sex with your children
or...
c) give your children drugs, so they will work harder
or...
d) persecute people for their sexuality, religion or political views

(i'm pretty sure you would understand person 'X' and countries 'Y' reasons
for at least one of these...)

Now you are person 'Q' living in country 'Z', where it is policy or
tradition to:

e) throw away enourmous amounts of food and other resources.
or...
f) spend huge amounts of money on medical care for pets.
or...
g) allow all kinds of sexual freedoms, drug addictions, and criminal behaviour.
or...
h) ask money for 'information' ;-)

I'm sure person 'X' would have some problems understanding at least one of
these...

Many of todays Dogma's are based on what is public knowledge already. Would
you understand and accept person 'X''s personal reasons, for doing, a,b,c
and d, if they were made clear to you by ways that you suggest ? Maybe you
would, maybe i would, but how many other people will ?

Think about that one for a while...

J. de Lyser
surreal@glo.be