From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Dec 04 1999 - 07:47:48 MST
On Fri, 3 Dec 1999, Robert Owen wrote:
> I wrote:
>
> > Once an individual or group gets a distinct technology or numbers
> > advantage, then yes, we do seem to have a bad habit of falling
> > back on violence.
>
> Lebensraum. If I understand you correctly, Robert, then I emphatically
> agree that "gratuitous homicide" is the exception rather than the rule.
This seems true to me. I would be hard pressed to think of a situation
in which I would resort to violence unless my survival were threatened.
But on the other hand, if you told me I could kill you and take all your
property and have to pay no penalties for this (other than wrestling with
my guilty conscience) then I might begin to entertain such thoughts.
Interestingly enough if there is *no* possibility of penalties
(i.e. the golden rule gets exempted), then it would only be rational
for me to kill you if you happen to have more resources at your disposal
than I do. In fact it is rational to kill you up until the point
that the benefits that I derive from doing so become less than
the effort that it takes to do so. Interesting that a "rational"
argument can result in immoral actions if you eliminate the
self-interest of being treated morally.
If we look at the examples of gay or race bashing they almost always
involve a majority ganging up on a minority. Three white men tying
a black man to the back of a truck and dragging him to death???
Sounds like both a numbers and a technology advantage (or at least
technology that distances you from actually getting your hands dirty).
What was irrational here was whatever pursuaded them to think they
would get away with it.
>
> The problem is, if we think "national" morality is a scandal, this is nothing
> compared to "international" morality. It is curious how a species as
> apparently intelligent as ourselves has been so impotent in translating
> ordinary village civility into intercivility with respect to the relations of
> putatively civilized political entities.
Yep, if you can make them "aliens" (whether they be Iraqis or cattle)
then the barriers to killing them seem to fall quite rapidly. Presumably
this is due to our omnivore heritage where if there weren't enough
edible plants around, we ate meat to survive. There is even an
argument (I'm not sure how well founded), that access to high density
energy sources (such as bone marrow) was a requirement for a high
energy consumption brain to evolve.
>
> "Territoriality" seems to confer a civil waiver on competitors; even
> "gratuitous homicide", based entirely on indulgence in sadomasochistic
> anal wishes, is permitted with discretion by military officers because
> of its power to intimidate (or "terrorize").
>
I think psychologically, it has something to do with self-security
concepts. If you grew up with a fair amount of freedom and control
over your local environment you have that as a foundation and probably
don't have a very high need to expand the sphere. If you did not
have much freedom and had little control over your local environment
then you probably do feel a need to extend your control outward
from yourself (developing a safety buffer). I think the bottom line
is the degree to which you feel your security threatened by things
you do not control. If you abstract this theory up to interactions
between countries then I think it explains much of what we observe.
The problem in Seattle isn't going to go away just because the WTO
meeting is finished. It is only going to be resolved with the citizens
and local government officials come to a better understanding of how
much "control" each is willing to accept from the other.
My general impression is that many businesses and individuals do
not believe that whatever benefits we had from hosting the meeting
pale in comparison to the costs.
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:57 MST