[lit-ideas] Re: It means nothing, absolutely nothing...

  • From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:43:34 -0500

You seem to be saying that all "movements" of like-minded people coming
together around a common set of ideas or ideals can only lead to oppression
on the part of those like-minded people.  What if a core part of the idea
people gather round is one of standing against oppression?  Is this the
equivalent of vehemently preaching that human values are essentially
subjective, while having to admit that your own values which consider human
values subjective are in and of themselves subjective?  Is there a way
around that?  Is it a given that all human functioning -- whether on an
individual or societal level -- is subject to the extreme of the value or
ideal du jour?  Every time this sort of topic is danced around I think of
Derrida's Tympanim.

Some examples lead to something akin to the ridiculous -- did emancipation
oppress those who wished to own slaves?

Did the WW II victory oppress those who wished to implement genetic
cleansing, and who wished to obliterate non-aryans?

Maybe another way to ask it is this:  At what point does freedom become
oppression?  Is it inevitable that freed people will become oppressors?

Is this an ethics issue?  Logic?  Sociological?  Political?  Something
different?

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:13 PM, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I've been thinking about David's post, too, wondering where I place myself.
> A non-violent, ultra-liberal, to be sure as far as labeling goes.  But where
> would I draw the line between allowing Nazi rallies and taking up arms
> (legally, hopefully) against them?  Are not rallies the beginnings of
> oppression?  They are the coming together of like minds, and that's the
> beginning of everything political.  So totalitarian, Nazi, fascist ideas, as
> ideas, are not dangerous, only their implementation (within the framework as
> I see it) are to be forbidden.  So, oppression isn't to be stopped at the
> beginning, rather, somewhere down the line, when it looks like there's a
> real chance that the implementation of such ideas, programs, agendas, etc.,
> might actually become a reality.  And when do you know that the line has
> been crossed?  How many deaths?  How many times?  The consequences are
> formidable.  Just ask William Ayers.  I too was there, not as a Weatherman,
> but as a fellow traveler.  I was much less brave, less headstrong, less
> daring, but no less convinced.  I hated America all through Vietnam.  I
> thought our country was evil on the scale of Nazi Germany.  But what can one
> do as an individual?  I just avoided it all, taught school.  I think now I
> should have stepped over the line, as our Founding Fathers did and enter the
> unknown.  As Lawrence would say of me, I was a coward, and he'd be right.
>
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ursula Stange" <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 3:55 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: It means nothing, absolutely nothing...
>
>
>
>  Yes, when you stand on principle, you don't always have a nice clean place
>> to stand.
>> Ursula
>>
>> David Wright wrote:
>>
>>> "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of
>>> one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that
>>> oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the
>>> beginning if it is to be stopped at all."
>>>    -- H. L. Mencken
>>>
>>> as always and ever,
>>> d.
>>>
>>>
>>>  ------------------------------------------------------------------
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-- 
Julie Krueger

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