FM> Those who may harbor some disbelief that anybody on a philosophy echo,
 FM> of all places, could resort to substituting direct calling of nasty
 FM> names for reasoned argument might want to ponder the information
 FM> presented in a recently published book written by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
 FM> entitled _Hitler's Willing Executioners, Ordinary Germans and the
 FM> Holocaust_.
 DM> It does not require the substituting of nasty names for reasoned
 DM> dialogue, nor does seasoned argument erase the ugly. Many of the worst
 DM> Nazis could discuss philosophy and the arts, loved their children and
 DM> did pet their dogs AND*** could reason most clearly and effectively
 DM> along what we might call "evil ends". Goodness and human extermination
 DM> might be just the before lunch and the after lunch agendas. It is too
 DM> too easy to describe evil in ways that serve it. It is not easy to
 DM> suppress it or even consistently understand it. The dark corners of the
 DM> human mind are with us always and hard to comprehend, save for whatever
 DM> evolution sees them of value. It would be truly wonderful if we could
 DM> sort out what we could clearly define as evil and find a way to
 DM> neutralize it. Seemingly!!! philosophy has not been able to achieve much
 DM> in the past 2500 years .....but then things might have been worse
 DM> without it?
   I believe you are in error.  I view philosophy through its various
differentiations has achieve amazing clarity.  It is possible to hold that it
is we PEOPLE who have been lacking in adequate response to that which has 
een
representatively revealed since Parmenides.  Have you READ Goldhagen?  He
claims to have documentation for the assertion that men who served in the
police battalions were normally given a choice of whether or not to
participate in the directed massacres of innocent Jews.  Some actually did
exercise their choice to be excused from participating.  Most, obviously did
not.  
 FM> This was in no sense a condemnation of the German people as being more
 FM> evil than the rest of mankind but a warning of what can happen to ANY
 FM> nation when those who REALLY WISH TO COMMIT MURDER fall under the rule
 FM> of ideologues who utilize these dark dreams to portray murder and
 FM> torture as normal measures to take against those who do disagree with
 FM> them.
 DM> More evil ....less evil ...not a simple area of exploration.
 DM> I believe we are essentially a killer species and one way or the other,
 DM> will find a way to feed that hunger when it comes upon us.
   
   That is a bleak picture.  Why should we not simply succumb to it, then, as
individuals and use that excuse to follow the Adolph Hitlers, David Dukes and
other rabble-rousers (users of the lumpen proletariat) to go ahead and carry
out out dark purposes?  Why play around with Republics and representative
governments.  Perhaps, with Hobbes, it would be better to just get ourselves 

divinely appointed king and cede to him the responsibility for keeping
ourselves at bay.  Saying that we are essentially killers comes close to
saying that the summum bonum is a mere chimera but that the summum malum is
the only reality - in fact, that seems to be what you ARE saying, David.  Do 

interpret you wrongly?  
 DM> Though we also need to find a good reason, we revel in the actual act
 DM> *OR* in association with it (massive TV audience to share "vicariously"
 DM> in the Iraqi extravaganza).  John Wayne could have come up with the same
 DM> intense grimaces (which everyone *LOVED* including me) whether he was
 DM> killing Indians, Japs, Arabs or even Aztecs. It is only necessary to
 DM> define an enemy (even casually) and it all becomes a game, albeit a
 DM> complex one! If we began throwing  some unpopular group into a
 DM> "Romanish" arena, with tigers or more likely audience participation
 DM> laser guns, it would today likely score  enormous TV audiences with
 DM> actual seat tickets all bought up, and sell lots of tooth paste and
 DM> tennis shoes!
   Why not just sum it up along with the "Church" theologians who took
Christianity and invented the symbol of "original sin?"   I have a friend who
phrases it as "all of us are criminals - some are more stupid than others and
therefore lack the shrewdness to avoid getting caught and jailed."  
 DM> Our species' half hidden hunger for the dark star remains in our
 DM> evolutionary sequence, a leftover from past, the means to a present end,
 DM> or for some as yet unannounced destiny. History has shown that the
 DM> essential question of man's ugly side has NOT yet been asked in
 DM> constructive terms.
   How logical is that?  If we have not asked the question then how do we 
now
about an "ugly side" or how to distinguish it?  I assume it is your reasoned
judgement that Plato-Socrates, Jeremiah, Amos or "Jesus" had no knowledge of
"man's ugly side."  But you qualified it by "constructive."   This means, 
oes
it not, that not only Plato but the "Christian fathers" who formulated the
Christian epiphany as a further differentiation of the "opening" begun by the
classical Greek philosophers had nothing constructive to offer regarding
humanity.  Plato has Socrates say on the occasion of his murder that "others
will come."  This, I gather, you would see as a meaningless forecast and even
Aristotle did not "come."   Or what DO you mean, David?
 > "Metastatic faith is one of the great sources of disorder, if not the
 > principal one, in the contemporary world; and it is a matter of life and
 > death for all of us to understand the phenomenon and to find remedies
 > against it before it destroys us.  If today the state of science permits
 > the critical analysis of such phenomena, it is clearly a scholar's duty to
 > undertake it for his own sake as a man and to make the results accessible
 > to his fellow > men...."
 > " Ideology is existence in rebellion against God and man...."
 DM> I think it all sounds like more than it says! ......but I'm still
 DM> thinking on it. "Ideology" is a factor of everyday life, up and through
 DM> to nationhood and religion. In a relative world, it plays its roles
 DM> .....stronger or weaker, sometimes good and sometimes bad.
   David, in all of the seriousness I can muster, the man who wrote those
words could hardly have enjoyed the luxury of being as blase' about this as
you enjoy.  He was on the verge of having his books and his passport
confiscated (most of the books were) when he fled Austria for Switzerland 
ith
the Gestapo breathing down his neck.  He had committed the awful sin of
disagreeing politically and philosophically with national socialism and the
other ideologies (an unpopular stance even in the universities) and he stayed
in danger because he could not believe that the western democracies would
permit Hitler to go unchecked.  You might want to read the words again with
that in mind.  
 DM> Calls to chaos or ideologies are perhaps natural weeds waiting and
 DM> wanting also to be fine specimens in a garden. Much of my
   
   Is that intended to be a Voltarian jibe based on _Candide_? ("Let us
cultivate our garden.")
 DM> NOTE: What I'm saying does *NOT* mean I approve of inhumanity or the
 DM> tools and goads that bring it on, just that we as a species have our
 DM> warts that may not all be on "the other bad guy". Also we must consider
 DM> the possibilities that other forces and agendas are active in our
 DM> choices, individual and collective.
   
   Perhaps, but if your acceptance of ANY opinion as just as valid as another
then I wonder where you would find any "humanity" lurking ANYWHERE.  WHAT
other forces and agendas are active in our choices?  Perhaps that would
clarify what you're appearing to suggest.
 DM> I believe our steps through history are rare effected serious by
 DM> philosophers. If anything, like the Bible,  we can always find some
 DM> quote (or bend one) to justify almost anything.
   Said in classical form by the mature Lessing toward the end of the 18th
century in his _Nathan der Weise_.  A model of resignation quite fitting for
the "enlightenment."  One hears it on the street every day; "one religion is
as good as another as long as the communicant is sincere!!!"
 DM> I believe it likely that the "Hitler factor" upon History could NOT have
 DM> been prevented and was actually helped some tiny amount by massaging the
 DM> words of some few selected philosophers. And *neither*  of us would be
 DM> surprized if another "Hitler factor were to emerge! Probably all boils
 DM> down to evolutionary chemistry, magnetic fields and bent philosophies
 DM> ......and too much testosterone!!!???
   
   Surely you are not saying that Chamberlain was an automaton when he
accepted the promises of a confirmed liar at Munich and led a deeply
isolationist world (believing firmly that a head in the sand is ALWAYS the
best policy - until Pearl Harbor) into the false comfort that could produce a
U.S. Congress capable of the most amazing feat in modern history - passage of
selective service by ONE vote!!!
   Your argument IS important, David, for it does warn us that we should
expect no rapid or easy responses to the amount of reality that IS clearly
visible even to those who only participate in it without knowing its outcome.
Perhaps I should apologize for my experience, first of the reality of Gerald
L.K. Smith (Huey Long's lieutenant for propaganda) and then the reality of
having to fight the nazis.  Smith demonstrated to me in a sleepy little North
Louisiana town RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES the REAL face of fascism and I am 
rateful
for it.  I can possibly be cowardly before the phenomenon but RESIGNED or
BLIND I could NEVER be.  With the witnesses to the Christian theophany I 
hink
I have learned SOMETHING of "what is in man" but thankfully what is there has
its counterpoint in the pull of the golden cord.  If that is misleading then
as George Schweitzer (a physical scientists) remarked once in my presence "we
place our lives in a test tube when we elect for genuine faith (not the
evangelical ASSURANCE).  Perdition MIGHT WELL BE ALL THERE IS.  Then the
nihilist would have been right and LOOK WHAT HE GAINED!!  Many in 19th 
entury
Russia committed suicide and perhaps they were right.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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