From: owen@autodesk.com (D. Owen Rowley)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Dworkin (was Re: Liberty)
Date: 11 Jan 93 20:09:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.035605.8645@macc.wisc.edu>, anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:
> 
> In article <18291@autodesk.COM> owen@autodesk.com (D.  Owen
> Rowley) writes:
> >I'm happy to see that here in 93 we see the return of
> >civility and honest discourse even while disagreeing.
 
> It has taken me this long to recover from the fainting
> spell!  :-)  In 94, I'm going to try to get you to spell
> better.

well it smells better in here already, but my spelling anti-skills
are probably bigger than both of us. heres  a clue though its as much a
tyoing problem as a spelling problem :-)

> >>In article <1993Jan5.030042.10601@netcom.com> onr@netcom.com
> >>(D. Owen Rowley) writes:
> >We are poised on the brink of many cutting edges, all at the
> >same time.  I think Clintons phrase *We can't aford to waste
> >anybody* sums up the new pardigm I *feel* coming.

> I think there is at least as strong a current of regression
> loose in the world.  Which direction things will go is
> anyone's guess.  I'd like to be hopeful, and in a general
> way I am.  But I'm also ever on the alert for rose-colored
> glasses.  Remember the phrase "you've come a long way,
> baby!"?  Virginia Slims cigarets, specifically marketing to
> women.  Baby?  What message does that send?  Buy into death,
> dearie.  What message does that send?  "Women's" products.
> What message does that send?  A *long* way?  *Do* be
> serious.

I hold a view of the world that can encompass both of our statements.
I see trends and currents of social reality as waves, with peaks
and troughs. My observation of life is that it is a dance which 
swirls us around in repeating patterns much like the ballance that holds the
planets in orbit around the solar orb.
I figure it is all necesary, and the thought that keeps me sane is the 
druidical maxim *there is no evil in the world that is not a greater good
than it is an evil*.

> You could be right that a big shift is in the offing, but
> for the most part it still looks to me like the SOS (same
> old shit) is being repackaged.

Well there is that primate condition.
As the Discordian proverb states.
" When a monkey looks into the mirror , no god looks out "
I take this to mean that when we look into the reflection of our lives with
our primate eyes we see our primate selves. By the same token when we 
look into the reflection of our lives with our gods eye ( third eye ?)
we see our god-selves.

> >Oh, making room for women on an equal basis, is exactly what
> >I'm saying.  I'd like it to happen in ways that increase the
> >overall self-worth of everybody, not just knock some off the
> >other guy and paste it on your self!
 
> Well, a problem with the quantitative rhetoric of that sort
> is that we're talking about qualitative aspects as much or
> more than things that can be counted.  Knocking men down a
> few pegs isn't going to kill them, and women *do* get killed
> or maimed, all too often.

But Jess, on a qualitative level, countering unfair discrimination
with more discrimination is not qualitatively fair. it is a direct analogue
of *two wrongs don't make a right
If unfair discrimination is not tolerable, it is hypocritical to 
apply more unfair discrimination as a remedy.
It's not like I'm arguing to keep the status quo, I am looking for 
progress. 

> >>Jess) Vestigial, my heinie.  Integral, foreground, omnipresent and
> >>omnipotent.  

> >interesting, your choice of words imply that there is no
> >hope.  I have hope, and that allows me to envision a future
> >that is different from the present.

> I don't think I imply a lack of hope, not at all.  But I
> distrust all this "things are improving" thrust, which I
> took your "vestigial" to be reinforcing.

*omnipotent* implied a lack of potential for hope to me.

LUX ./. owen
--
D. Owen Rowley {uunet,fernwood,sun}!autodesk!owen, owen@autodesk.com
[ EU-PHORIA: A STATE OF WELL BEING ]
Euphoria is my natural state, I do what I enjoy and an abundance 
of all good fortune comes to me for it.
Newsgroups: soc.motss