Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:13:09 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, war


Hi Dick,

Since I used the word 'triumph' I can see how you got the impression
that I'm supporting the notion of inevitable outcomes in history. I'm
not. It's an open process. There are no guarantees.

Mervyn

 "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu> writes
>Hi Mervyn,
>
>To say that love triumphs over evil sounds to me much more like an
>expression of hope than a statement of accomplished fact.  That is my
>hope, but I don't believe that love has already triumphed, or that it will do
>inevitably.  To say that it will necessarily triumph sounds so much like a
>"force of history" argument, something like the belief that a global
>communist society is inevitable.
>
>Perhaps my reading of the historical record is different from yours, but it
>seems to me that one of the major contributors to fellow-feeling, or love,
>within a collectivity, is their common need to protect themselves from
>external enemies.  It is a commonplace that a major task of the political
>representatives of a collectivity is to organize it for protection against
>other, similarly organized, collectivities -- "tribes," "city-states," "nation-
>states," "alliances," "empires."  I take very seriously Randolph Bourne's
>aphorism, "War is the health of the state."
>
>Best regards,
>
>Dick
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mervyn Hartwig [mailto:mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk]
>Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 1:18 PM
>To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: BHA: Flourishing, Aristotle, etc.
>
>
>Hi Dick,
>
>But it hasn't, i.e. notwithstanding inter-(and intra-)specific aggression,
>species have proliferated and flourished. If aggression dominated both
>inter- and intra- the whole show would come to a halt (as of course it
>might yet owing to contingent aggression within a contingently powerful
>species, i.e. ours; it would remain the case that there could be no
>process of biological evolution if love did not triumph over evil, Eros over
>Thanatos).
>
>Mervyn
>
>
>
>
> "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu> writes
>>Hi Mervyn,
>>
>>You wrote:
>>
>>"One can argue that, given that biological evolution proceeds, it must
>>be the case that co-operation, care etc prevails over
>>self-preservation, aggression etc within species."
>>
>>But isn't it possible that conflict among (between)different
>>communities may prevail over co-operation among (between)them, even as
>>this conflict requires high degrees of co-operation within each of
>>these communities?
>>
>>I don't write this out of any basic disagreement with the other
>>arguments for the either the existence or the fundamental goodness of
>>something (not yet fully specified, perhaps) that we can point to with
>>the heuristic concept, "human nature."
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>
>
>
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>
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