RE: RE: not playing so nice

I agree that language is imperfect or rather we are imperfect. But your
example is interesting, it contains the word "created" which really trumps
your second interpretation since that instability as you say was settled
finally with a war. But it boils down to an unstable meaning that Luke
referenced, that being What is a man? or Humanity? that is key. In some
philosophies particularly the ones grounded in naturalism man is nothing
more than a clever machine subject to the empirical hows of randomly
evolving nature. When man is seen as such then truly the "all men" below
can be spun into who ever is more "fit" to survive and when it comes to man,
at least now, it means who has more power and rhetoric. But if "all men" is
seen as something more transcendent, such as a marred image of God then the
"all men" becomes universal and the freedom of which becomes worthy to die
and fight for. If you think that "all men" is a later evolution of "only
white male landowners" then I think you have your historical facts wrong.
There were men who were present at the drafting of those words who
understood all men to mean all men.

How does one know all men are created equal? By their deeds? By their
thoughts? By their perfect (what standard?) bodies? No, the maker said so.
Again this opens the door for the word equal and that can also only be
answered by an absolute, that being the ability to choose between good and
evil, this of course leads right into the framing of law and the
establishment of the good (Lawful) and the evil (unlawful). So finding this
in the preamble is very appropriate and only establishes the law if all men
means all men, again I am saying nothing new here and that many in those
days clearly understood.

Concerning who is men or human, I find it interesting that the nasty Roman
Catholic Church saw the Indians as human and so sought to advance their
religion and government to them but the more scientifically advanced sought
after stuffed aborigines of Australia considering them to be subhuman. All
this brings to mind the alphas, betas, deltas and gammas of the Brave New
World and of course the poor subhuman Penitente half-breed from a New
Mexican reservation. Amazing how universals can exert a correcting force
upon imperfect man but The Brave New World corrects imperfection by
eugenics.
But like they say "dam braces, bless relaxes", oh well.
Daniel

I think "instability" and "questioning" doesn't have to lead to
"meaninglessness," that's all. Even in paradigms that ascribe fixed
meanings to words, legislation over time reveals different interpretations
of founding documents. Furthermore, legalese is often deliberately vague to
allow for conflicting interpretations, mollifying disputing parties. "All
men are created equal" meant, literally, everyone to some people, and only
white male landowners to others.

Don't want to go into more detail now, though.

Jim
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Received on Mon Aug 11 17:40:45 2003