Montesquieu, Cartas persas

[Totenkopf]

More moralism. The American Rev. was justifiable, more than likely. The point was more about context: given a revolutionary context, Jefferson's personal actions, or those he brought about, do not appear so immoral. Compared to the actions (for that is what should be assessed, not the presumed character) of VI Lenin or other revolutionaries, Jefferson's actions seem pretty benign.

The difference seems to be that marxists have this bizarre machiavellian view of politics where killing 1000s of the bourgeois is acceptable, but a bit of ethical inconsistency on the part of "liberals" is not: so Lenin, ordering the deaths of 10,000 following the attempt on his life is OK, but TJ f-ing some slave girl is Evil incarnate. Odd. That is some strange ideology (if not madness) that has nothing to do with reason.

I do not think Hume would agree to that intuitionist view of values, either. He did not suggest that people would do the "right thing" (conventionally speaking), when "reason is made a slave of the passions," or whatever (following his suggestion that all values are desire-based, and thus subjective).

[e_dog]

I didn't say everyone will do the right thing. tHATS WHY YOU GOTTA HAVE REVOLUTION. Some men ya just can't reach.

Hume's got his basic human sympathy, could be basis for solidarity. and i doubt even his tepid notion of justice could support slavery.

Theres simply no comparison 'tween what lenin did to counteract the counterrevolutionaries, and TJ's libertine proclivities. Not similar topics. All's i'm saying is that TJ is not to be revered as a saint. He's a hypocrite. Yes, it maybe true that the Am. Revolution was perhaps justified, tho i'm not so sure; one wonders whether the Am. South wouldn't have been freer sooner with English control than the oppressor Southern aristyocracy.

[Totenkopf]

All's i'm saying is that TJ is not to be revered as a saint. He's a hypocrite.

Now you sound like you are doing "virtue ethics". I never suggested TJ was a saint-- merely that his secular ideas (following from Locke, Voltaire, etc) were worthy of respect. That he was a slaveowner does not negate or "taint" his other accomplishments.

What if it was found out that, say, Einstein secretly practiced infant cannibalism? His discoveries and theories are not thereby discredited. He's still a great scientist, but a great scientist who secretly practiced infant cannibalism, which most sane humans might find unsavory. But that does not somehow disprove his experiments. You almost seem to suggest that it would.

[e_dog]

Everything's relative, eh?

There will be no infant cannibalizers in our youth's textbooks, not any more than Darwinites! Evolution and relativity theory are two sides of the same demonic coin!

[Totenkopf]

Don't your continental gurus suggest the same? Existence precedes essence, man. A point many PC leftists now seem to forget.

[jimboloco]

OK, let's agree to the proposition that "slavery is wrong" (evil, immoral, injust, etc.). But proving that to be a "true" statement is a completely different matter, as anyone who ever made it through a few paragraphs of Hume well knows (perhaps you recall ye olde fact/value distinction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume
Hume was the first great philosopher of the modern era to carve out a thoroughly naturalistic philosophy. This philosophy partly consisted in the rejection of the historically prevalent conception of human minds as being miniature versions of the Divine mind; a notion Edward Craig has entitled the ‘Image of God’ doctrine.[4] This doctrine was associated with a trust in the powers of human reason and insight into reality, which powers possessed God’s certification. Hume’s scepticism came in his rejection of this ‘insight ideal’,[5] and the (usually rationalistic) confidence derived from it that the world is as we represent it. Instead, the best we can do is to apply the best explanatory and empirical principles available to the investigation of human mental phenomena, issuing in a quasi-Newtonian project, Hume's ‘Science of Man’.

anti-intuition
not to be parlayed for a threepence
just a stumbling thru another dharmagate toward liberation
and what's wrong with an "insight ideal?"
if left to powers of onging scrutiny
and not confining boxes

even naturalism has its limits

why we invoke the spiritual
the mystical
the archetypal
imagery to stimulate the senses

even "facts" are subjective in the wrong hands, or minds

and it is a subjective judgement to say that some african slaves had it better than they would have in old africa

when i was looking at the carpet bombing while we were flying over east cambodia, the other pilot was talking about getting a divorce when he got home and the loadmaster was staring out at the bomb craters cradleing his m-16 with a smile on his face.

i did feel some awe, some shock, an enormity of an awareness about the quantity of the bombing, i remembered enough to calculate the approximate width of the cross section our route took us through, as well as the line of sight to the horizons based on our altitude, and an estimate of the quantity of bomb craters that were in the range of sight, the rectangle in a crater-filled area.
someone else later referred to it as a "strategic bombing zone."
prove that it was wrong?
how, by basic logic, does one prove that, like slavery, as a wrong?
prior perceptions, bundles of pre-conditioned reference, impose themselves upon unsuspecting minds.
if a resident of eastern cambodia at the time, i would be angry, forced to evacuate westward, perhaps into pnom penh, with burst eardrums and a seething anger.
if a b-52 pilot, just a feeling of climbing as the weight of the bombs let loose.
if a northvietnamese in a convoy heading south, an awareness that spreading out along the trail would assure that most would get through, because the arc-light flights of b-52's would have maybe 21 total aircraft in a v-wing formation, three flights of 7, able to cover only a relatively small area at a time, yet the total destrustion was enormous, a daily series of milk runs that destroyed a large area, but was relatively inneffective in deterring any troop or materials movement, but it did employ boeng and the armaments manufacturers and brought deep pockets more wealth.

so who here wants to prove that slavery is wrong?

it is a matter of conventional morality now, but obviously aerial bombing is not regarded with the same level of discernment.

[jimboloco]

how do you get people to change?
public outrage
values change as experiences change
and inform by experience, really a more intimate contact with difficult reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de ... ontesquieu
mercy what marvelous references
Persian letters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Letters

would i leave my wives in the care of eunuchs?
some of them might turn into lesbians and seduce away
whilst i wander aimlessly in paris, the subways on strike,
full of sadness back from the colonial war.

my wife's male friend is gay
what i cannot understand is why he is a right wing lunatic.

i would trust her with him more so than with a eunich.

[Arcadia]

values change as experiences change

[jimboloco]

Existence precedes essence
what comes first
el pollo or el huevo

[Arcadia]

what comes first
el pollo or el huevo

this it could be a good example of tricky mind

my wife's male friend is gay
what i cannot understand is why he is a right wing lunatic.

is your wife´s friend cuban?. The cuban revolution was homofobic. In the mesa also talked in the debate-time about it. There were persecution and censura towards cuban homosexual writers. There is also an anécdota about Che "depurando" a list of books donated by some eastern europe country to Cuba (not remember which one ) from gay writers.This aspecto was here subtly "forgiven" among pro-Cuba-revolution, and considered (most of the time with silence) as some kind of non desired revolution-side-effect. Who knows what were in the young revolutionaries minds to have that attitude and feel homosexuality as a danger. Weird.

[jimboloco]

i saw some art in miami by a gay cuban immigrant
nothing especially erotic or anything
one a personal vision of a large table with a red and white tablecloth
vase and flowers
yet well done on an immense scale
and an expressive style
not social realism
a personal and subjective effort

no, my wife's friend is from vermont
a yankee

he is a very nice guy
we had lunch together a couple of times
all three of us
but he sent my wife an anti-chaves propaganda forwarded from a network of right-wingers
so i pasted and copied all the preceeding addresses and emailed them all a rather angry response
and my wife said that he was upset
but
she is still his friend
as i said
on a personal level he is a nice guy
but is what we call a "log cabin" republican
a reference to abraham lincoln who was born in a log cabin
mercy
and dick cheney's daughter is lesbian and is a big republcan operative
when she is not marketing coors beer to the gay community.

so i can understand why the gay sentiment against authoritarian communism
i would hope that the situation in venezuela is more progressive today

i'll have to check it out

montesquieu evidently had his own prejudices
he thought woman could be president
but could not be the head of the family
as per wikid pedia

my step-son is living long term with an older woman
who has her own business
and he works for her

she is definately the head of household
and he is her concubiine

[Arcadia]

montesquieu evidently had his own prejudices
he thought woman could be president
but could not be the head of the family
as per wikid pedia

I didn´t check the wiki link yet.

my step-son is living long term with an older woman
who has her own business
and he works for her

there are different forms to live and try to be happy (or not). It has to be with socio-cultural-economic determination and also with the personal side of story/desires/expectations/values/needs/choices/possibilities at some moment. That´s ok! (that´s my explicit relativist side )