Re: Restored (and a final story for Luke and Daniel)

Jim writes:
<< Robbie, let me focus on a little word in my original statement:
"usually." >> And he elaborates.

I did see the word before I responded. I didn't believe that the examples I
gave refuted your statement. I was (and remain) unprepared to accept your
assertion -- even with the hedge -- because I'm not sure that such as you
describe constitutes a majority, or even an exceptionally large minority, of
all things that fall under "common sense."

I wondered if you were forgetting the extraordinarily commonplace and
fundamental "common sense," excluding which I'd be more inclined to believe
your assertion of "usually." Perhaps you were not forgetting the
extraordinarily commonplace and fundamental, and were making that assertion
anyway. Doubtless, I should have been more clear.

Jim then writes:
<< ["The whole is greater than the part" is] mathematically correct, but
once we attempt to apply this beyond counting apples we can move onto
dangerous ground.
Would you agree that "the state is more valuable than the individual" is a
valid extension of this principle? "Greater" here no longer applies only to
a numerical value, but to a moral or ethical value. It is common sense
that what is bigger is also more important, right? The numerical has
shifted, then. It has extended its domain to value judgments. >>

That's one way of reading it, I suppose. Though I meant the word "greater"
purely in the sense of magnitude -- and this is unambiguous in at least
several of the languages that this concept was first written in.

And in any case, your unease with the suggestion of the superiority of the
state (or tribe, or gang, or ball team, or whatever) over the individual
might be a somewhat modern, Western, perhaps even usually American unease.
I'm not sure I prefer that superiority either, and it can lead to a lot of
blood; but I don't think I want to be so negative about it. A Roman
legionnaire would be absolutely aghast at our stupid hubris. I think I'd
rather be me than him, at least right now, but I'm not ready to call him
stupid or wrong, either.

The position a society takes concerning the respective responsibilities that
characterize the relationship between the individual and his community is
one of the great, basic differences (THE great, basic difference?) that
manifests myriad differences between different cultures and value-systems.
Hell, it might even be that mixing some real Absolute, which Daniel and Luke
sense however vaguely, with the various (infinite) positions on this
continuum results in such various cultures and traditions we find around the
globe. It's a continuum that we modern Americans are near one far-end of,
and I'm pretty comfortable here, but I won't condemn the other side.

-robbie
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Received on Fri Jul 18 01:04:10 2003