From: Jeremy Webb (jeremywebb@atlasinteractive.com)
Date: Wed Apr 17 2002 - 06:42:10 MDT
As far as I can tell, no extremist ever thinks of themselves as an
extremist, but it is really a statement about how we judge the actions of
others. The statement "extremism is evil" will therefore always necessarily
be true, because by our very use of the word we are stating that we have
already judged the perpitrator that has become the recipient of this label
as having acted in an excessive manner and excess in western morality is
nearly always judged an evil (CF Aristotle - the Nicomachean Ethics - the
section on "the doctrine of mean").
Going back to lurk mode...
Jeremy
-----Original Message-----
From: Technotranscendence [mailto:neptune@mars.superlink.net]
Sent: 17 April 2002 12:22
To: extropians@extropy.org
Cc: mail@HarveyNewstrom.com
Subject: The Morality of Extremism
On Wednesday, April 17, 2002 2:32 AM Harvey Newstrom
mail@HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
> I disagree. I hate this quote. Extremism is evil, even if it is for
a
> good cause. Then ends do not justify the means. We must keep logic
and
> rationality in mind on every issue. No issue is so important that we
> break the rules, don't consider the consequences, or give ourselves
> special considerations that we do not allow for others. This is the
> trap that all evil empires and religious cults fall into. The cause
> becomes so great that we don't have time to plan, we don't have time
to
> consider, we don't have time to be careful. When the speed becomes of
> the essence so that delays are unacceptable, corners are cut, security
> is lost, mistakes are made, and catastrophes happen.
Whoa! How do you define "extremism" -- before going off on a moral
tangent here?
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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