From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Nov 21 2001 - 11:53:40 MST
Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > John Clark wrote:
> > >
> > > Charlie Stross <charlie@antipope.org> Wrote:
> > >
> > > > The question presupposes that cultural engineering is *possible*. With
> > > > all due respect, I don't believe it is
> > >
> > > I'd say cultural engineering is almost impossible but not quite, there is one
> > > successful case. Japan was probably the most militaristic state on the planet,
> > > it was virtually medieval with woman treated like chattel; in a very short time
> > > it was transferred into a modern democratic nation and probably the most
> > > pacifistic on the planet with an obsession for baseball and golf. I'm not sure
> > > if it should be called "engineering" however, we may just have gotten lucky.
> >
> > It's all a matter of mojo, John. With the twin spires of Hiroshima and
> > Nagasaki, the Japanese people finally realized that their high jefe, the
> > god on earth, Hirohito, just didn't have the mojo compared to those
> > Americans, so obviously the American Way was a better way to conquer the
> > world: economically, with generous helpings of photo-tourism and a
> > worshipful attitude to the American Past-Time of baseball.
> >
>
> I hope to hell that you are kidding. If not I think you are a
> very scary man.
It is frightening of how ignorant of other cultures and history you
actually are.
'splain to me why it was that MacArthur was treated by the Japanese
people with the sort of respect that they only gave to the Emperor prior
to their defeat?
>
> > This is why I, like Spike, advocate the use of overwhelming force in
> > war: the enemy needs to KNOW, all the way down to his gonads, that his
> > way is utterly wrong and ours is utterly right before he will accept the
> > sort of surrender we need to ensure that we don't have to fight them all
> > over again a few decades later.
>
> Do you actually believe that might makes right?
No, might is irrelevant to right, it is simply a tool for changing the
minds of those psychotically/suicidally bent on your destruction. Force
itself is a tool of psychological warfare, because in the end, all war
is psychological in nature.
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