From: Michael Butler (mbutler@ocv1.ocv.com)
Date: Tue Nov 05 1996 - 14:20:02 MST
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 22:56:48 +0000
banjo said:
> I'd say that "commerce is the minimum level of civility with which
> we can, or ought hope to, hold as a standard for dealing with strangers".
Gee and my mother just taught me to be polite, to walk on the outside,
to open doors for women, and not to swear.
[SNiP]
i'm sorry i don't understand what you're trying to say
I say:
What a pity--I thought it was clear enough.
(2) The kind-acting person who runs the candy store may actually like
kids, or not--but if the kind-acting person who runs the candy store
catches a kid stealing, there will be consequences (in my rosy,
Norman Rockwell tinted view, they will be rather limited and will
not include death, dismemberment, lawsuit or jail time).
Contrariwise, the candystore owner-operator had better not cheat his customers.
This contrasts with the other relationships mentioned:
commerce is not (1) mother-love, and it's not (3) a life-risking
encounter with a potential exploiter (maybe I should have made (3)
a pimp at the Port Authority instead of a crack dealer).
How's that for an explanation?
I place "commerce" with, in part, following the rule "don't cheat
people, it isn't fair."
I consider it a "least hypothesis." Perhaps you were never taught
this. It is polite, it has very little to do with walking on the outside,
opening doors for women, and not swearing, as far as I can tell.
I agree with you that commerce is not all.
MMB, at but not for OCC
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