Ed Weick wrote:
> Chris, I'm not saying that disasters are a good thing.
Your previous statement (to which I replied) was:
>>> Rather timidly,
>>> I ventured that the disaster was a good thing.
Then you went on to name a few other disasters and the lessons they
taught...
> All I'm saying is
> that we learn from them and modify our behaviour.
Then the examples of disasters you mentioned are bad examples to make your
point, because they were not necessary to modify our behavior -- their
lessons could have been learned before by sensible thinking, without the
disaster actually happening ("Gouverner, c'est prévoir!"). It sounded
rather like a justification of bad governance (along the lines of "we need
disasters to improve policies"). This happens to coincide with Steve's
earlier suggestion that the speculators are necessary to point to mistakes
of politics. Here we are again with the concept that grafitti vandals and
burglars are necessary to enable homeowners to improve home security...
> Most certainly, I'm not
> saying that the Holocaust was a good thing. It was a thing of great evil.
> But can we not use it to keep reminding us that people must never again be
> treated the way its victims were?
This still suggests that the Holocaust was necessary in order to know that
racist persecution and collective guilt/killing is wrong. But it wasn't
necessary in order to know that. And unfortunately, it was not even
sufficient in order to know that, judging by how Israel is treating
Palestinians today.
Chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword
"igve".
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
