Thus spake Robert J. Cordingley circa 02/15/2010 10:07 AM: > I think you argue *for* the UDHR! It is not a statement of 'what is' > but 'what should be'.
Abstractly, yes. Concretely, no. Let's take Article I: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." Those sentences are FALSE. Many human beings are not born free. And they certainly aren't equal in the rights granted to them by their government, society, or whoever controls them. I agree they are all born in equal dignity, though. Similarly, many humans are not born endowed with reason or conscience. And while the sentiment of acting towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood is a nice thought. I would not treat Sadam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, or George W. Bush as brothers of mine and they would not treat me as a brother, either. They are not my brothers in any sense of the word. Of course, that doesn't mean I would treat them like I treat plants or animals, either. I would treat them as misguided humans, perhaps even criminals, and make every attempt to either rehabilitate them or lock them away so they stop hurting others. And I would do the same to any (hypothetical) brothers of mine. But that doesn't mean that I would treat those men like brothers. So, in the VERY FIRST article, we have not only a vague ideological statement; but we have blatantly false assertions. And although I understand the principle "Hear what I mean, not what I say", these flaws make it a mostly useless document. > On privilege: is it a right to not be a slave or is it a > privilege? It is a privilege not to be a slave. When a prisoner makes a license plate, he is simply underprivileged. If he's innocent of the crime for which he was convicted, then well, that sucks. But we took away his "right" not to be a slave when we convicted him. (Yes, feel free to mince words about the meaning of "slavery" if you'd like. But the essence is adequately captured by "bound in servitude".) > Whether it touches real issues or not is a measure of the > quality of our education and maturity and how many good people remain > silent. No. whether it touches real issues or not is a measure of the degree of privilege of the authors. You won't find those of us who are so underprivileged as to, say, not be able to read or have access to the internet, understanding these things, much less writing them. And of the practical men who live in and recognize privilege when they see it, most don't have time to sit around writing hoity-toity manifestos. They spend their time inventing things, poking in the dirt, shooting guns at other people, or hitting the assembly line from 9-5 every day. The Washingtons, Jeffersons, and Lincolns are pretty rare. And as the POPULATION grows, the labors of such domain-crossers are made less and less effective. And although the absolute number of such men increases, they are harder to find and cultivate. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
