OK Chris, once again you win. You're right and I'm wrong. I give up.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Christoph Reuss" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 3:11 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Glorifying disasters 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 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
