From: ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ba.politics,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Ludwig von Mises again corrects Ronzone and Randroids
Summary: A Ronzone roast
Date: 4 Nov 92 23:43:58 GMT
Organization: Intergraph Advanced Processor Division - Palo Alto, CA

In article <1992Oct28.170637.383@netcom.com> phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>In article <1ckesaINN1kn@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> stephen@orchid.UCSC.EDU (x4604 (Hauskins)) writes:
>    >In article <1992Oct27.162347.10052@netcom.com>
>    >phil@netcom.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:

>    >>Again, individuals ONLY exist -- society is a convenient
>    >>fiction, misused and as relevant to discussions as Santa
>    >>Claus, or "the will of the poletariat".

Self-avowed disciples of Ayn Rand sometimes echo this assertion that
"only individuals exist," but this
is merely a poor understanding (or deliberate misinterpretation) of Mises.  


HUMAN ACTION, IX:  THE ROLE OF IDEAS

BEGIN QUOTE
It is always the individual who thinks.  Society does not think any more
than it eats or drinks.  The evolution of human reasoning from the naive
thinking of primitive man to the more subtle thinking of modern science
took place within society.  However, thinking itself is always an achievement
of individuals.  There is joint action, but no joint thinking.  There is
only tradition which preserves thoughts and communicates them to others as
a stimulus to their thinking.  However, man has no means of appropriating
the thoughts of his precursors other than to think them all over again. 
Then, of course, he is in a position to proceed farther on the basis of
his forerunners' thoughts.  The foremost vehicle of tradition is the *word.*
Thinking is linked up with language, and vice versa.  Concepts are 
embodied in terms.  *Language is a tool of thinking, as it is a tool
of social action.*

The history of thought and ideas is a discourse carried on from generation
to generation.  The thinking of later ages grows out of the thinking
of earlier ages.  Without the aid of this stimulation intellectual progress
would have been impossible.  The continuity of human evolution, sowing for 
the offspring and harvesting on land cleared and tilled by the ancestors,
manifests itself also in the history of science and ideas.  We have
inherited from our forefathers not only a stock of products of various
orders of goods which is the source of our material wealth; we have no less
inherited ideas and thoughts, theories and technologies to which our
thinking owes its productivity.

But thinking is always a manifestation of individuals.

END QUOTE


Now, to say that only individuals think, is NOT to say that only
individuals EXIST.  As Mises points out, there is a vast heritage
that we draw from, our culture, to which our thinking owes its
productivity.  It exists in a sense which is detached from the
individual ownership of those who are alive today.  We are born
into it.  We dont choose it any more than we choose our parents. 
To assert that society or culture "does not exist" 
is to be in serious denial of reality.


>    >>No one else, whether 1 in number of 1,000,000 in number, has
>    >>a claim on my existence.

What about your offspring?


>    >It is a fact that your are an individual in the sense of how
>    >far you can take that within yourself- but don't forget or
>    >ignore that the majority of your knowledge is the results of
>    >a historical collection of information by the whole of
>    >humanity.
>
>So? What has a bunch of Loathsome Oppressors a.k.a. Dead White Men have to
>do with it?
>Did Aristotle, Voltaire, Jefferson, Paine, Edison puty restrictions on
>their intellectual work that we must pay homage to them? If you have
>such knowledge, speak up. Otherwise, don't FUCKING dare to speak for
>dead people that were innumerabily far better than you, you blood sucking
>worm (my apologies to all worms).

No one is asking you to pay homage to dead white men.  I merely want you
to acknowledge that we are all a part of a culture which has continuity
through time, of which the dead white men were also a small part, and
that this culture, let's call it *Western Civilization,* in fact exists,
whether you want to sign the social contract or not.   If you filed
your 1040 forms last year, you signed the social contract, pal.

Every word that you post to the net is an attempt to influence others
that your point of view is valid and true.  *That* is the only way that
you can establish a society or change this society per your specifications--
if there is a general agreement with your ideas among many or all 
individuals within a certain geographical locale.

By your very actions of posting to the net, you are implicitly
admitting that you need the approval of others to put your societal
rules in effect.  YOU ARE ADMITTING THAT MIGHT (as measured by sheer
numbers of agreeing individuals) MAKES RIGHT (in the sense that a 
society has some defined ethical framework), even as you vehemently 
deny it and call people "Hitler" for even bringing it up.

In other words, you are a hypocrite.



>    >>************************************************************************
>    >>* Now, I REALLY want your answer to this question! *
>    >>************************************************************************
>    >>
>    >>Was the killing of those 6,000,000+ people wrong or not?
>    >>According to your "philosophy", it wasn't, because it was
>    >>done legally and with the acceptance of German "society" at
>    >>the time.
>    >>Was the killing wrong or not?

The murder of millions of innocent people by the Nazis was absolutely
wrong.  (It goes without saying that this is from our cultural 
perspective, which was not shared by the Nazis).

It was absolutely wrong because the Jews and others, who were a part of a
European community, had their just rights stripped from them, according
to the values of Western Civilization, of which they were a part.

Nazism was a renegade culture within Western Civilization which 
performed morally outrageous actions, and the rest of WC had no alternative 
but to gang up on it and try to destroy it.  I leave it to the imagination
of the net readers what we would now be saying and thinking
about The Holocaust if the Nazis had succeeded in taking over.  


Now, Ronzone. I really want YOUR answer to this question.

In Borneo, there are some cannibal societies.  Several geographically
adjacent tribes share this common trait.  They usually leave each other
alone, until by population multiplication they begin to intrude on
each other.  At such time, they go to war.  The winners eat the
losers, and a certain number of slaves are taken.  The slaves and the
eaten all accept that this is their fate, according to the ethics
and rules of their society.
This keeps the populations from intruding on each other for some
time, and peace returns.

By your absolute moral standards, can you condemn these societies?
If you realize that our ethics are inapplicable there, then you
recognize that absolutes are indeed relative.


--Al Date
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:59736 talk.politics.drugs:7452 alt.politics.clinton:16934