From: zatavu-AT-excite.com
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 10:44:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Be done simone du boudoir



>  This you and others recurrently seem to forget - that the baseness of
>  your 'thoughts' is a violence to any intelligence.  That is why you seek
>  to abrogate violence - a ridiculous task that can only serve as an
>  excuse for more of the same repressive violence, more insidious and
>  covert now than ever.  Violence is not something that can or should be
>  eliminated...Violence - like science and knowledge - can only be
>  employed, for it is not an abstract condition, but the effect of a force
>  that may differ in nature according to its method of employment.  Your
>  Irigaray propositionism is nothing short of a Chritianized nunnery. 
>  Have pity on us - circulate, s'il vous plait!

Violence is indeed something that can be eliminated, and in fact has been
eliminated in certain cultures. As Edward O. Wilson points out in his "On
Human Nature," "The Semai of Malaya...seem to be innocent of even the
concept of violent aggression. Murder is unknown, no explicit word for kill
exists ("hit" is the prefered euphemism), children are not struck, and
chickens are beheaded only as a muhc regretted necessity. Parents carefully
train their children in these habits of nonviolence." Now, as to whether we
should get rid of all violence, as have the Semai, that is another argument
entirely - especially in the way you have broadened the defintion. But such
broadening of defintions asside, a nonviolent culture is entirely within the
realm of posibilities. Humans do have a tendency toward violence that is
found in all animals. However, we can create cultures where that violence is
minimized or even completely eliminated, if we so desire to create such a
culture. Now, whether such a culture is able to move forward (well, "change"
should be the word used, since I don't know what it means for culture or
evolution to "move forward") without some sort of "violence," that is
another issue entirely. But make sure you know what you are talking about
before you make naive comments about what man is capable and not capable of
doing.

Troy Camplin





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