[Platt offers his pet quote] "Intellectuals must find biological behavior, no matter what its ethnic connection, and limit or destroy destructive biological patterns with complete moral ruthlessness, the way a doctor destroys germs, before those biological patterns destroy civilization itself." (Lila, 24)
[Arlo] And how do we decide whether a particular biological pattern will "destroy civilization itself"? I think we can make a fairly sound argument on how "murder", if left unchecked by social forces, would result in anarchy. And I think we can say that (as I have) unrestricted fornication in public will lead to a severe spread of disease that would likely disrupt the function of society. But I say the burden of proof is on those seeking to "destroy" a pattern. For example, others have claimed (as you seemed to support) that "interracial marriage" will lead to the "destruction of civilization". Some claim this now about "homosexual marriage". You've argued that allowing women to go topless, as men do, would result in the end of civilization. I say, make the argument on "how", then we can talk about what steps "intellectuals" must take in regulating or erradicating any particular "biological pattern". Recall that prohibitionists claimed that beer would bring about the end of civilization. Now we look forward to beer commercials each Superbowl. In short... you better be sure. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
