From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Fri Oct 08 1999 - 15:44:39 MDT
Clint O'Dell wrote:
> Then give them a new logical moral. The new moral code is based of the self.
> What it takes for the individual to survive and live any way it pleases.
> ___________________________________________________
I cannot believe that quaint, obsolete moralisms like "rugged individualism"
and ideologies like "Social Darwinism" designed as propaganda by our rugged
industrial revolutionaries to justify human exploitation still have currency,
here or anywhere. Or that members of a group whose existence depends
precisely on mutual support would express themselves in anarchist terms.
Have you who retrogressively advocate these positions ever read Hobbes
or Locke in order to understand the historical and conceptual background
of "THE SOCIAL CONTRACT", and why the originators of democracy. which
protects the greatest individual freedom compatible with the social organ-
ization that makes this freedom possible, based their creation of democratic
social organization on it precisely?
What on earth is a "logical moral"? What happens the minute everybody
begins to live "any way it pleases"? Think about it -- what quality of life
would you expect? I expect exactly what Hobbes did -- "a life that is
nasty, brutish and short".
Please notice that I am not formally opposing your positions; mere curiosity
about your naiveté motivated this post.
Regards,
Bob
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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