Ray E. Harrell wrote:
>
> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote:
>
> > Permit me to insert, in medias res, a concern I have:
> >
> > Ed Weick wrote:
>
> > > REH not Ed wrote this
> > > >Too bad they can't assess liability for lost families,
> > > >intellectual capital, land use ideas etc. It seems to
> > > >me that you are using the rules of a divorce without
> > > >separating.
> > > >
> > > >Better you start with the ideas of justice
> > > >and the rule of law as defined by both groups. The
> > > >truth is that one group has the power,
> > > ED was snipped
> > [snip]
> >
> > How to provide reparations to persons whose
> > lives have been adversely impacted by
> > the exploiters, *without* in turn doing
> > injustice to the persons (such as most of
> > ourselves) who are associated with the
> > exploiting classes but have not themselves
> > done significant exploiting?
>
> First, it is not the issue you are describing. It isthe abrogation of
> legal contracts that were ignored by
> looters and brigands who found their way into the
> government. Many of those people's children today
> are living off of the fruits of that theft.
Opening up Pandora's box.... One (among many) of
the admonitory messages of Hermann Broch's novel
_The Sleepwalkers_ is that the demand for justice
can itself cause great injustice (there is an
accounting clerk in the novel who causes the
most positive character to commit suicide, by
his [the accounting clerk's] demanding a full moral
accounting (that the "society's books" balance).
The issues here seem to me complex, but simply
punishing Nazis' children or people who bought
houses on putative former Indian territory,
thinking they had clear title,
doesn't seem to me to be the answer.
> I don't know
> of any private institution that could not demand
> recompense, the same as the Jews and the Swiss
> banks, with compensation for lost earnings and
> wasted lives. It seems to me that you are not
> believing in your own system. If not then what?
If one wishes to enlist the aid of the
children of the exploiters in helping bring
about conditions of more *universal* justice,
it seems to me that they [the children of the
exploiters] need to see themselves as benefitting
from the solution, *as well as* helping the
victims. And, again, I think the ultimately
nihilistic notion of *blood feud* (and related
consepts) is relevant here.
[snip]
> As I said I have no trouble
> losing a job to a person who is qualified, and
> connected. That includes minorities and women
> who are now connected.
It seems to me that the issue is how to
minimize the cases of *anybody* losing a job to anybody
else. The only problem I see here is similar to
that of two [wo]men lusting after one [wo]man:
In thos cases where a job can only be done by one
person, then some people will necessarily be
disappointed (astronomers may face this problem
in "getting time" on the best telescopes, e.g.).
>
> Over the years I have seen plenty of
> incompetent majority folks getting jobs for no
> reason other than their connections.
Heartily agreed! Perhaps the solution is
to help the rest of us to "get connected, too".
> I've even trained
> a few when they found themselves overwhelmed at
> what their BS had accomplished. I do find them
> lazy and prone to commit the cardinal sin in the
> performing arts, they are not dependable. Programs
> are cast sometimes four years away, with millions
> lost if not delivered. I would hire a martian that
> was both dependable and could do the work. I
> see no reason to hire an incompetent simply because
> they belong to the majority. But then the Arts like
> the sports world are a no BS tough assed profession.
Another [probably unpopular] point that interests
me. It seems to me at least paradoxical that
categories from the realm of necessity should
infect the realm of persons' [logically] free
cultural self-elaboration. Werner Herzog, with
his obsession with getting the film right to the
point of people being killed in the process
seems to me one example here.
I believe that the arts should be cultivated only under
conditions of "luxe, calme et volupte". No
charettes! (etc.)
>
> > But let me put it pointedly: What motivation
> > should a person have to help others when there is
> > nothing in it for the person him or herself? For,
> > if *that kind of life* is good for some, then
> > (applying Kant's universalizing logic) it should
> > be good for all, and, therefore, we should
> > help the exploited -- not to have reparations, but
> > to have more deprivation.
>
> Could you be more clear here. I am reading twocontradictory messages.
> I do remember a quote
> from Kant that said something like "You can never
> give a gift until you have paid your bills first, anything
> else is theft."
(Nice point for the "consumer [credit] society"!)
> Of course there is the issue of Usury
> as well which relates to the lack of integrity within
> the spiritual systems of the majority which makes
> them dis-loyal and undependable. "Who cares who their
> mother is if they can't shoot the basketball." Or maybe
> they should come do some of that high metal work with
> the Mohawks. We'll see how good they really are 54
> stories up with no safety rope. And then there is Y2K.
> I ran my computer ahead and if it is any indication we
> have been given a blow by the over-complexed that will
> cost lots of money and give lots of jobs to those who
> are not paying.
Yes, Y2K does seem much closer to "Dies irae" than
any of the spirits the Roman Catholoc Church (esp.
"the people's" metabolization of its doctrines) has
conjured up over the past two millenia.
>
> > Another popular idea I find dubious is
> > providing reparations to the living for the
> > harms done to the dead. Should a [black, indian,
> > etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor,
> > etc. be paid reparations for the harm
> > done to his or her ancestors, who, being
> > dead, are presumably beyond the ability of
> > earthly things to affect them any more?
>
> Legal contracts don't stop at death unless theysay so.
The whole issue of inheritance seems to me
in need of being thought about. Why should
person X have benefits just because their
metabolic point of origin was associated with
benefits (and vice versa)?
> The contracts
> with Indian people in the
> U.S. said as long as the water flows and the
> grass grows.
Sounds to me like material for (what, this morning,
I am somewhat tiresomely calling:) *blood feud* -->
especially! if the terms have not been enforced for
a long time, so that the principle of compound
interest compounds(sic) the trouble.
For instance: If Europeans had never been allowed to
build on Pequot land, the land would still be
in its more-or-less original state, and it wouldn'd
be worth much to anybody. But if *today*, the
descendants of Pequots are to receive "justice"
in the form of the built-up properties which
now sit on the land, then a lot of people
are going to lose a lot (the current tenants)
and some other people are going to get a windfall (the
Pequots).
> And you and I are both legally
> responsible for those contracts whether we were
> born or not.
Very interesting issue. I do not relate
positively to being bound by any of the
doings or not-doings of *my* [biological]
ancestors, who, as far as I am concerned, might
as well have been a different species (and
maybe they were -- my maternal grandfather
did have what I seem to rcall as "Neanderthal"
"features").
Insofar as the fathers and mothers can *bind*
(foot binding, e.g.?) the sons and daughters,
it seems to me that the latter's "lives"
are in chains (etc.)....
[snip]> Brad, is there not a civil contract to have a
> society that works?
Another *big* issue! Clearly it is not
possible (even if it would be ideal) for
all "contracts" to require to be reneded at each
instant. But I think that's a better "ideal
pole" toward which to aim than the alternative
of eternally pre-frozen human relations (which,
in each case, since no person ever has complete
knowledge of all-that-which-is, tend over
time always to become increasingly dys-functional and
in-just).
> Making such a talented
> minority as the Blacks, in spite of the racist
> rhetoric from the bully class, mad as hell and
> holding them back seems guaranteed to put
> them in the same place as the Italians, the Irish,
> the Jews who resorted to organized crime.
I don't think anone should be "held back" (I,
for one, was [and I'm not in any
politicall-correctly-recognized "minority"]...).
But, on this point of meritocracy, I can imagine
that, in a perfect meritocracy, the less
talented might resort to organizing crime
because of their poor lot in life. Justice
and (v.) fairness and *each* [in each case "my"]
hopes (/ demands) for a lifehe or she
feels is worth living. For the sake of
argument, let's assume Bill Gates is
50 billion divided by 5 thousand times more
productive than some homeless wretch, not
because of injustice but innate talent and
"drive". Doea that mean Bill Gates should
have 10 million times as much
wealth as the talent-less person [who doesn't
even have enough to eat]? (Gets back to
socialism vs communism, perhaps: to each
according to his {work | needs}....).
> The Blacks are too many to be held down for
> long and it is to the advantage of our European
> brothers who have been patronizers for the last
> 100 years to help out the Black class. Class
> warfare just doesn't work in the U.S., there is
> that sticky constitution that is pretty rickety as
> it is. I can see the French and others delighting
> in exposing the "holier than Thou American
> hypocrites" that constitute the American majority.
> Our children having to avoid the Sorbonne lest they
> be accosted with what vile people their parents and
> grandparents were and are.
I would start having trouble when the Sorbonnese
started accosting me with what a vile person *I*
am. *That* would definitely bother me.
>
> As you well know, psychology is a
> powerful motivator.
That has been the direction of my musings here
about the children of criminals' relation
to their ancestors' crimes.
> I could see the European Union
> forming around the "U.S. as the enemy" with proof
> of the hypocrisy and betrayal of the Constitution
> placed in the treatment of a Black minority that has
> advanced and grown more since 1954 in Little Rock
> than any non-black minority grew either here 43
> years after the revolution or in Russia or any other
> revolution. They are all over the performing arts,
> sports, CEOs in companies and all in spite of a
> bully resistance in the non-black ranks.
(The above paragraph seems not quite clear to me.)
>
> Sounds
> almost like a potential South Africa with European
> boycott gleefully applied. There is plenty of
> ammunition and motivation as well. What would
> be the mutual benefit or the individual benefit in
> going down THAT road?
Is this my question about the children of
criminals being punished for their ancestors'
crimes?
>
> Did I hear that we are too powerful to fool with?
(Not in my posting.)
>
> Add up that beloved GDP and then put all of those
> feuding European state's GDPs together once they
> have unified against us. They would be the most
> powerful economic force on the planet. And if Japan
> decided it was in their interest to join them and make
> peace with the Socialist Chinese. Even I could write
> that novel. In the end they would say it was because
> they had sent all of the losers over here for the last
> 500 years.
I believe *this* is true: That a lot of the
people who came to America were onces who could not make it
in "the old country" (my maternal grandfather is a
clear example -- his parents apparently shipped him
over here because he was incorrigible).
> If you don't believe me then ask the
> Spaniards a few questions about culture. It will open
> your eyes.
What questions? What answers? (Sorry, but
I don't know enough about this area to "get"
you reference.)
[snip]
Another Nietzsche quote (although one which, here,
looks like it works mor against my "position" than fopr it):
World peace will come when one country is so
powerful that it dominates everywhere. This country
will tire of living under conditions of always
having to use its army to enforce peace. This
country will voluntarily unilaterally disarm
because it feels it is not worth living
as a police state. (Paraphrased)
I'm not sure what the *answers* are, but I
am pretty confident that the right questions aren't
being asked, and that everything that's obvious
is probably somehow wrong, and, to quote Neils Bohr:
You should take every assertion I make, not
as a statement but as a question.
"Yours in discourse" (which alone, despite
its insurmoountable fragility, can endure...)....
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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