Re: Standards of behaviour

On Thu, 24 May 2007, psychohist wrote:
> That would be nice, I agree.  I question whether it is realistic.  Do
> you really think people can be reliably counted on to humanize, say,
> the hundreds of thousands of stockholders in that faceless cor****ation
> they are sueing?

That example is so abstract as to be impossible to address.  But I do 
think there are plenty of examples of outpouring of aid to strangers in 
far off lands which is more the sort of humanizing that I had in mind, as 
is the fact that Americans actually cared about Abu Ghraib or how we treat

others in war at all.  As any charity can tell you, simply showing 
pictures of suffering goes a long way.

> You yourself seem to be arguing elsewhere for dehumanizing 2% of the 
> population.

Am I?  Were have I advocated treating psychopaths inhumanely?

> I don't think the evidence is on your side here.

Actually, I do.

> I would agree that Marxist governments attempting to implement
> fundamentally utilitarian philosophical theories have failed rather
> badly in that respect.

That's one way to describe 100 to 170 million corpses.

> On the other hand, I think classical Chinese governments based on 
> neocon****ian philosophies did rather better than contem****aneous western

> governments based on traditional morality.

During what periods and by what measure do you define "better"?

> In today's world, one of the highest concentration of governments based 
> on traditional morality - of various traditions - is the mideast, which 
> isn't exactly an area I'd hold up as exemplary.

I know you'll probably find this difficult to believe but few of the 
governments in the Middle East are based on real traditional morality, 
even within the context of Islam.  That's about all I should probably say 
unless you want this to ****ft into a critique of various real world 
religions and their merits and flaws.

> I think that our own government - a 'government of laws, not of men',
> and based on contractarian philosophy and ethics rather than on
> traditional morality - has done all right as well.

Yes, but the United States has always had a strong religious tradition and

culture as a foundation.

> We've been in our share of bloodbaths, but perhaps not more, 
> pro****tionally, than traditional western governments of the 'ancien 
> regime'.  We've also lasted as long as a typical dynasty or monarchic 
> house, and we haven't collapsed yet.

Correct.  But we've also never abandoned a core of religious and moral 
traditions, either. Governments only work well when they compliment the 
culture that they are built on.  If the government doesn't fit the 
culture, it will work about as well as machine where the nuts don't fit 
the bolts.

John Morrow