From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Subject: Re: Unbe Awakens
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 23:55:28 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.044833.21515@midway.uchicago.edu> mss2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>	"Person A and Person B may not disagree at all, fundamentally.
>Then again, they may.  And if they disagree, A is more likely to
>overemphasize the similarities between people, while B is more likely
>to overaccentuate the differences.  That doesn't necessarily mean that
>A is wrong or that B is wrong-- only that _if_ one of them is wrong,
>his error is more likely to go in one direction than another.  If I
>err, it is perhaps more likely that I see more fundamentally dividing
>human beliefs than there are.  I don't _think_ so, of course--
>believing one is _currently_ in error in one's beliefs would seem to be
>a contradiction (conversely, believing one _cannot_ be in error in
>one's beliefs would be arrogance bordering on insanity :-) ).
>Naturally, I think I've drawn the most reasonable conclusions given
>the knowledge I've been given or I'd be drawing different conclusions.

Liralen chuckles and nods.

>	"Of course, it's always possible that one of us is massively
>in error and the other is in error in the `unlikely' direction-- thus,
>that both Liralen and I are wrong either because there is far less
>difference in human belief than either of us thinks, or because there
>is far more crucial importance in even small ritual differences than
>either of us guesses.  But in such an argument I suspect we'd find
>ourselves essentially allied, whether against someone who claimed that
>Naziism and Christianity supported essentially the same values, or a
>17th century Puritan who believed that Catholics and Quakers (to say
>nothing of Jews, Muslims or pagans) were destined for Hell."

And nods again.  "Most likely."

[A tale of Chaunakka]
>	"Very nicely told.  But there's another way of telling the story:

She laughs softly and listens to Michael's telling from the side of the
Greeks.

>	"Which tale is the true one, mine or Liralen's?  _Both_,
>surely.  We've seen the tale before, many times.  Most recently in
>places like Latvia, where no sooner had Latvian nationality ceased to
>face Soviet oppression than ethnic Russians faced Latvian oppression

She nods.  Both are true, despite their emotionals discrepencies, despite
one group thinking the other 'wrong'.  The tree both does and doesn't makes
a sound when it falls.

>	"For the holiday, Liralen, who delights in tolerance and
>acceptance and the common threads which bind together disparate
>beliefs, told the tale of people whose valor and whose victory lay in
>their exclusiveness and in their conviction that their faith was
>superior to all its rivals.  So somehow it seemed fitting that I, who
>if anything must overemphasize the importance of the differences
>between faiths and the consequences thereof, should tell the tale from
>the point of view of the people who were accepting of new ideas and
>tolerant of differentness. 

And grins.

>	"Today, then, let us celebrate these two enemies.  Not because
>they were the same, for they were not.  Or rather they were, in many
>ways-- but it is their differences that are worthy of celebration on
>this day.
>
>	"To Judah and to Greece-- to courage of conviction and to
>wonder at diversity."
>
>	<< CRASH >>

        << CRASH >> 
-- 
Phyllis Rostykus    | "... and how you feel can make it real  | - _US_
aka Liralen Li      | Real as anything you've seen            |   Peter
li@Data-IO.com      | Get a life with this dreamer's dream."  |   Gabriel