Hey again,


Melisa wrote;

> > I think there are differences. Dialectial ones that realize their
> > potentialities when assesing the wholeness of each situation.
> > Hence pacifism for some instances and brute defensiveness in
> > others, yield very different results - each more effective than the
> > other, considering the circumstances.

Martin Smith wrote:

> I agree with this, but it addresses a different problem.  An actual
> use of pacifism or of aggression can so profoundly affect people that
> they say, in the case of a holocaust, "We will never forget."  I
> expect this will be an effect of the NATO bombardment on many people.
> You are talking about learning from the results, which is important,
> of course, but it didn't prevent the problem from occurring in the
> first place.  In a generation or two, we will have lots of new people
> who won't be worried about never forgetting, because they won't have
> remembered in the first place.  The metamodel of the system that
> generated the conditions for war has not changed.  The knowledge that
> we said we would never forget *will* be forgotten, because it was
> knowledge that was learned from experiences that cannot be taught.
> When the people who experienced it are gone, the knowledge will be
> gone, but the system that produced the conditions for war, and a new
> generation of ignorant people, will create another war.  Maybe it will
> be a different set of conditions.  Maybe there will be different
> reasons.  The system will generate the same result because the
> metamodel that defines what the system can do has not changed.

In the first place, for a pacifist movement to come to realization, the
system would have to fundamentally change in the first place. Or
atleast in the lives of a number or poeple. That's what is important.
And the historical dialetic continues...

Aside from that, just wait until capitalism ends, and wait to see
how left liberal the world gets then.... Funny how values are
sometimes inextricably tied to the economy, having nothing to do
with personality, fecundity within the natural world, among many
other things.... Quite the demeanor. Can't wait till the next fashion
show. Wondering who's going to be the new fashion designer - I
can't wait to buy in, without a bit of conscience towards my own
identity.

> > To be a pacifist, you do not have to commit every action to
> > pacifisim. Even Gandhi, that "idiot," had serious problems with
> > himself throwing rocks at monkeys who continually plundered his
> > garden - he continually suffered from low self-esteem and other
> > ravages of the psyche as a result. So in this case, you have to pick
> > and choose - active physical defense may be inevitable, and more
> > than that, a desirable outcome.
>
> I think pacifism is the belief that violence of any kind is
> unjustifiable.

True. In most respects I have read this. But the world and I are not
a static conception of cosmologies - we are living, fluid, breathing
cosmpologies with the tendencies to extend towards greater
differentiation. Hence when I say pacifism, you have all  my former
posts, and this one, to get my drift....

I speak of pacifist action - nonviolent action only - not theoretical
abstracts layed out like parochial conditions and habits, where you
become so heavenly minded that you are not earthly good. I think
we need to throw away our old canons that totalize every defintion
we come across - it makes a mockery of any potential for progress.
It's a kind of thinking, that puts a deep slang on the tone of
information, that falsifies all relavent culture, like a German trying to
actually "be" a cultured English person. If you totalize language
colonially, or throw away all words that have power like Nietschze
who stopped talking in a state of catitonia, you fail to bving a proper
dialectic to the polis of words, these seeks mutually and critically
words for everyone's sake.

On the other hand, I am just beginning to explore this whole area of
how philosophers rationalize things - and decide for myself what I
think is best... I don't consider myself completely educated in this
field yet....  As an undergrad in her very early twenties, I'm getting
there - and about to leave this computated system which I find
vastly pathetic...

But I do want to apologize for this seemingly theoretical
breakdown, which I should admit. And I do! But the world is not a
theory. Freedom is not abstract. We must look for concrete
defintions within the lives of people for a proper definition of
pacifism. For even still, within pacifism you have always to come to
terms with the definiton of violence, and what kind of pacifism
works for its own sake, with the greater "justice" (if we must resort
to such vice which I think is just another form of violence . . . )
being succeeded by the former.

Thus I argue that it does nobody any good to stand in front of a
potential rapist, and to simply let them rape you. It won't change
anything in you or the other person. But as a true social
movement, when the system has been changed within the realm of
the protestors who use nonviolence - that's something I real I
believe. You may never change thousands of people's atitudes, but
you probably have changed educational models, common
perceptions, as you have given an edge to society that it did not
have before. In short, I think the microcosms are not worth it, but
the macrocosm are - when you have enough people who are willfuly
disciplined.

And let us not take Gandhi for granted here. When he said it does
you no good to fast against people who have no moral agency, he
meant it. Pacifist movements in front of simply brutal
cultures/people, are not worth their grain of salt - ever.

On another note, Martin, perhaps I should use the word
"nonviolence" instead. I will.....


> > It stuns the offender by forcing them to realize their own moral
> > conduct - it hands them a mirror, gives them impressions, and
> > creates internal dialogue and tensions that create profound change
> > "within" the cyclical pattterns.
>
> Unless the stunned offender kills you.  But the rules I am talking
> about are the rules of the system that generated the situation that
> necessitated the decision of whether to use pacifism or not, not the
> rules of the system that is the situation itself.  I think you might
> not fully understand the concept of the metamodel.  I'm not surprised;
> I don't fully understand it myself.

But what generated a nonviolent protest in the first place? Why
doesn't that change count? Why not the aftertaste too?

(In fact I don't know jack-all about the metamodel, aside from which
I have read iN-Between the line. Please enlighten me. E-mail it to
me confidentially, or provide me with a reference, while not
disturbing this list. I will look it up....)

> > In war, on the other hand, this is not true. In war, both parties,
> > the defendie and the attacker agree to combat in one way or
> > another. No self- internal reflection or dialogue is called
> > for. Bruteness is the only rule, unless you are dualing as an
> > honourable gentleman (please don't even be fooled by such callous
> > presuppositions....).
>
> I won't be dualing with gentlemen, nor will I be dealing with
> pacifists, if and when I choose violence.  And in such situations, I
> don't care about the offender.  Sorry, but there it is.

In such situations I don't think anbody would care about the
offender, unless they really thought hard about it first - today.
Instincts are all in your head, and I don't think they are anything to
apologize for, no more than you can't ever claim to be an individual,
so long as you are just another product of the system. If you ever
want individuality, on the other hand, all individuality is determined
through its instabity to culture - its ability to walk away from the
norms, morays, and laws, and recreate itself away from the
institutions and familial groups that made it was it is. That's
personaliy. That's a true dialectic. Want some?

I'm not saying that in reference to nonviolent protests. I'm saying
that as a challenge. This is what we need more than ever within our
postmodern world.... I say it to myself. I'll say it to anybody...

> I might feel
> guilty later, especially if I am judged to have acted wrongfully, but
> I think I have an adequate understanding of the difference between
> good and evil.

"There is no Heaven or Hell, only thinking makes it so." - In
_Hamlet_ - Shakespeare

Not so sound amoralist, but we must continue to manufacture
morality. It's not fixed. It's not handed down and known. We have to
make it together among egalitarian lines. This is what I believe -
and not a monocrop of agricultural morality - but a true world with
rich ecologies that recognize at the same time, universalism.

> When I confront evil that is using violence, if
> violence looks like the last best or only hope, I won't be trying to
> stun my opponent with my dazzling moral conduct.

And I'm glad you feel self-determined. Keep it up.

> > So there are differences. With pacifism and its moral ju-jitsu, you
> > change the system by causeing reflection - internal reflection - you
> > change and flip over the whole "bloody" constitution into a process
> > of spiritual transformation which you have forced on the offender.
>
> It is a wonderful thing, and wonderful things sometimes don't happen.

True. But they have and can. In India, where the untouchables have
been forbidden to walk down road way for eons, they now can.
Mind you nonviolent protest was probably their only means - having
no other way to go about it. But it worked many times. And now
there is little indifference. The chain of violence has been broken in
many cases permanently.

> Nevertheless, when it does work, the system it changes is the system
> comprised of the two parties involved, ie the situation.  That isn't
> the system that produced the situation.

No. But in some case, the situation which produced the situation
(getting dizzy anyone? ;-)) is gone, forever.

The above example which I quoted, did not put an end to the
existence of untouchables, but it did do something. It is is still a
methodology nonetheless... It is no reason to discard it... not to
hope... no reason to think that it doesn't bring dialectical
tensions... like war. More than that, nobody died...

> > You have shown your wounds to the media like a wounded child,
> > and you have called out for a humanitarian ethic. You have
> > changed the system when the enemy realizes their faults, freezes,
> > reassesses themselves, and redefines century old problems, that
> > have not resolved for generation after generation.
>
> ...and won't be resolved for generation after generation to come.

Depends how you look at it. If it is the metamodel (???), I am
assuming probably not. Just because you can't change the world
personally, doesn't give you any reason to choose values that act
as mere puppets... or does it? If your values can't dictate, you may
think there is no reason to bother... But why would anybody want
egalitarianism to dictate? It's oxymoronic. (Of course I am not
implying that you meant any of this at all - merely offering a
rehetoric.)

 > > With war, none of these changes are brought about. Bruteness
> > simply prevails. And the only hope or salvation results in the
> > continual sieze fires, the complete extermination of the enemy, and
> > yada, yada, until you are left with a pile of nihilistic beliefs, that
> > send you away nashing your teeth.
>
> Not true.  War brings about equally profound changes.  See how
> devastated we are now when only 3 soldiers are captured.  Not killed,
> just captured.  The Vietnam war changed that.  See how concerned we
> are when one of our smart bombs misses its target and kills or injures
> civilians.  The Vietnam war changed that.  Maybe you weren't around
> back then.  We used carpet bombing to herd civilians into things
> called strategic hamlets, if they were quick enough.  We used agent
> orange to defoliate entire forests and caused countless cancers and
> birth defects.  We dropped napalm on villages.  You can be morally
> outraged by the way we conduct war now, but don't say the changes
> aren't equally profound.

My beliefs have always been inclined towards the reformation of
war  - that it was simply a matter of keeping peace demonstrators
off the street. For example, the star wars project, was said to start
in reaction to the Vietnam anti-war demonstartions, because
America had to have a way to keep it's economic infrastructure of
war alive, while pursuing the battle overnight, before a real protest
could organize and emerge. This way the US government could
move in, do what they wanted to, and react to disclosed
information away from public sources, without any consent from
the public. All to keep other countries subordinated.

It's kinda like free trade. Nobody does it in the US government. But
if a small country gets a good economy going, or has resources,
the US wants in, with cheap labour and cheap resources. They
force free trade down other countries throats, install democracies if
they can. They use their military might to do it, if compliance isn't
met. But within the US, they're is relatively no free trade at all.
They have a standard of living they have to uphold, and if they don't,
captalism will collapse. Their dollar will fly bye-bye on them. This is
the threat that the anti-Vietnam protestors brought in my belief.
Not as a matter of moral agency. I'm much too cynical about the
industrical military complex in the United States for that kind of
"jargon."

> Nevertheless, I still disagree with you.

I still disagree with you. And I'm glad we can do it mutually.
I'm even enjoying it....

> > > Either way, you are validating those rules.
> >
> > I don't believe so.
>
> I haven't succeeded with my attempts to explain.

O.k.

> > > I think there
> > > will always be pacifists and there will always be non-pacifists.
> >
> > The trick is to do it dialectically. I too would take my fist right
> > through somebody's nose, if they attempted to rape me or
> > something. I wouldn't give it a second thought.
>
> That is not pacifism.  Are you a pacifist or not?

I'm an individual - not a blatant cosmology totalized on canvas. I'm
much more human than that.... I have blood in my arteries and
veins, that pulsate from the pressure exerted by my heart. I'm not
an atom - I exist with potentialities and I attempt to fulfill them, to
increasingly differentiated directions.

"Do I contradict myself. Very well then I contradict myself.
(Within me I contain multitudes.)" Walt Whitman in _The Sayer of
Words_

> > In a war, I'd either put myself up a pacifist, or for that matter,
> > if I choose to do less, pretend incontinence or some other fun thing
> > like that, as I piss all over somebody.... ;-)
>
> You are not a pacifist.

Agreed.

> > I would still like to challenge you to read the book "The Power of
> > Nonviolence." I think it talks about Norweigian history a lot too, in
> > the book.... That might interest you...
>
> I might read it.  But I understand the power of nonviolence already.
> It is not a lack of power in nonviolent action that induces me to
> choose violence.  It is the power of the violence used against me, or
> other people.

I think that is a perfectly relavent explanation. One I might use
myself from time to time...



> > Good. I'm glad to think that there are some anarchists who wouldn't
> > claim power the same way Lenon or Hitler did, by shooting anyone
> > who tried to stop them. Clearly, I think, for a utopian vision of
> > anarchism, we need a pacifist front that will be the cause and effect
> > of going from the bottom-up, through the direct-democratic
> > expressions of the bioregional polis, with their increasing
> > subjectiving in their ecological niches.
>
> I'm not an anarchist.  I think I'm left liberal.

Yuk! (sorry - impulsive typing) ;-)

> > Yes, I tend to think pornography is o.k. too. Just not the shit they
> > put out in the market the serves as a model for the world, to
> > replicate patriarchy, and other such strong vices. Eroticism is o.k.
> > when you have catharisis. I think it is utopic. I think there is a need
> > for it - erotic art classes and all. But unlike today's sweeping
> > commoficaiton of sex, we need to reclaim a lot more for the image
> > of pornography to actually become something healthy - before it
> > can realize its true potential for strong community relations.
>
> I wasn't talking about eroticism.  It isn't a political movement,
> Melisa.  It has nothing to do with community relations.  It's just
> sex.  That's all.  sex.  It's not a higher level concept.  just sex.

You sound like Jean Baudrillard and a few others. Another
postmodern sexual apetite... Got lots of those.... And before I
thought you sounded guilty and sexually repressed. Thought I'd
liberate you. Oh well. Nice try Mel!

> You didn't sound too forceful.  Thank you.

Yes, gut I'm conditioned to think that opinions are bad. I have lots
of them, and it sometimes makes me feel guilty. I try hard you
know!

Melisa