[Andrew] The problem with your opinion is that the destruction of culture is a valid military objective. Destroy the culture and there is nothing left for the people to fight for. Ask any Jew.
[Arlo] Not sure what this tangent is supposed to mean? Are you saying the "valid military objective" of the Chinese is to destroy Tibet's culture? I'm not sure how this changes what I, or the Lama, said. Tibet faces real aggression, and should respond to that in kind. Extending this to the general hatred for all people of Chinese descent is immoral. [Andrew] You hold Tibetans ( for example ) to an impossibly high moral standard. [Arlo] Higher than yours, apparently, whether that is "impossibly high" is something I'd disagree with. [Andrew] Consider the people of Dresden or Hiroshima and the concept of "total war". What the fuck did they do to us? Did we bomb them with brotherly love and understanding? [Arlo] Yikes, again I wonder how a "smart" guy such as yourself is able to miss such an obvious point. No, we did not bomb Hiroshima with brotherly love, we responded to a military aggressor with the goal of defeating them. If this extended to the belief that all Japanese people are inferior and we should "hate" them all just by virtue of their being Japanese, then this would have been immoral. [Arlo had asked] Would you say that violence or even "hate" against Americans of Japanese descent following Pearl Harbor was moral or even justifiable? [Andrew answered] You are giving me the choice to either agree with you or discredit myself. Go figure. Replace Japanese and Pearl Harbor with Muslims and 911. Think about this one and then ask me again. [Arlo] Easy. The violence and hatred towards all Muslims after 9/11 was immoral and unjustifiable. That many ideologues pander to that fear is immoral. Same with the hate and violence against Japanese-Americans following Pearl Harbor. Gee, I can answer all three. You can't (or won't, since you'd rather obfuscate than deal with being contradictory). Go figure. [Andrew] The problem here is that hate and "xenophobia" are not intellectual values. They are biological values. We should not discredit biological quality when reality calls for biological action. [Arlo] So your "logic" is that whenever we face a "biological" threat, hatred and xenophobia towards all people of that ethnicity are moral responses? If I am robbed by a white man, I would be morally justified in hating and proclaiming the inferiority of the white race? [Andrew] I see that you have mastered Google. Good work. [Arlo] I'm sorry, I know how much you dislike actual examples. Sorry, I'll try to be as groundless and generalizing as you'd like me to be. I mean, I know it must suck to have a spokesperson for very people you are talking about discredit what you are saying. We should just ignore it, yeah, or ridicule me for pointing it out, that's a good strategy. Yeah. [Andrew] Perhaps the Dalai Lama is not the last word on Tibet any more than Mr. Pirsig is the last word on quality. [Arlo] I'd say he is far closer to the "last word" on Tibet than you are. So I side with him on the matter. [Andrew] My original question transposed: How will truth and justice ( intellectual quality, social quality ) triumph when the people ( biological quality ) who have spent aeons evolving towards these ends are gradually displaced and ultimately wiped off the earth ( inorganic quality ) ? [Arlo] You could ask the same question of Lakota culture (or any given Native American culture). I don't know. But if the only way, as you seem to suggest, for Tibet to save itself is to fall into xenophobia and hatred for everyone, everywhere of Chinese descent, then that is a perversion of the very intellectual quality they have built up. Maybe many feel that its better to die holding onto superior intellectual quality patterns, then sink to immoral behavior of the very kind your philosophy stands against. [Andrew] I ask you and I ask the Dalai Lama. [Arlo] I think the Lama already answered this (for example in the text I provided). Sorry if the answer is simply over your head. 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/
