From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Apr 08 2002 - 20:53:44 MDT
>> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>>>Well, I never said the Palestinians were alright and I didn't
>>>"take their side" or such was not my intent. My intent was to
>>>point out that it is ridiculous to act as if they are totally in
>>>the wrong and that what the Israelis are doing is justifiable.
[...]
>> Yet here you say, quite plainly:
>>>>>If I was Palestinian at this time I would do everything possible
>>>>>to strike back at Israel. If I was Arab I would tend to support
>>>>>any means the Palestinians used to fight back, generally
>>>>>speaking.
>> You are quite plainly taking a side here, and completely accepting the
>> inhumane use of terrorism against civilians as an acceptable military
>> tactic.
>Excuse me. I am saying that the Palestinians have every reason
>to be fighting mad and that they have been done dirty. I am not
>saying every tactic they use is ok.
I find myself inclining more and more to the view that people fall into the
worst disagreements because they allow themselves to confuse assertions of
the moderate, partial form `Some A is B' with the universal claim `All A is
B'. However, only in mathematics or logic--abstract constructs--is the `All
is' form even likely to be true, because out here in the real world
everything is composite, rimose, concatenated, transitional... There's
something to be said for the late Sir Isaiah Berlin's view of pluralism,
here cited from his final essay, published in the New York Review of Books,
Vol XLV, Number 8 (1998):
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/berlin.html
===========
I came to the conclusion that there is a plurality of ideals, as there is a
plurality of cultures and of
temperaments. I am not a relativist; I do not say "I like my coffee with
milk and you like it without; I am
in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps" -- each of us with
his own values, which
cannot be overcome or integrated. This I believe to be false. But I do
believe that there is a plurality of
values which men can and do seek, and that these values differ. There is
not an infinity of them: the
number of human values, of values that I can pursue while maintaining my
human semblance, my
human character, is finite -- let us say 74, or perhaps 122, or 26, but
finite, whatever it may be. And the
difference it makes is that if a man pursues one of these values, I, who do
not, am able to understand
why he pursues it or what it would be like, in his circumstances, for me to
be induced to pursue it. Hence
the possibility of human understanding.
I think these values are objective -- that is to say, their nature, the
pursuit of them, is part of what it is to
be a human being, and this is an objective given. The fact that men are men
and women are women and
not dogs or cats or tables or chairs is an objective fact; and part of this
objective fact is that there are
certain values, and only those values, which men, while remaining men, can
pursue. If I am a man or a
woman with sufficient imagination (and this I do need), I can enter into a
value system which is not my
own, but which is nevertheless something I can conceive of men pursuing
while remaining human, while
remaining creatures with whom I can communicate, with whom I have some
common values -- for all
human beings must have some common values or they cease to be human, and
also some different
values else they cease to differ, as in fact they do.
That is why pluralism is not relativism -- the multiple values are
objective, part of the essence of
humanity rather than arbitrary creations of men's subjective fancies.
Nevertheless, of course, if I pursue
one set of values I may detest another, and may think it is damaging to the
only form of life that I am able
to live or tolerate, for myself and others; in which case I may attack it,
I may even -- in extreme cases --
have to go to war against it. [etc]
========================
Damien Broderick
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