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.
> 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?
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:20 MDT