[lit-ideas] Re: Why us?
- From: John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:19:02 +0900
On 2005/07/11, at 11:47, Robert Paul wrote:
I must, then, defer to the anthropologist in the crowd.
Please don't. Trying, I am, to shift the discussion in a
philosophical direction, toward consideration of two closely related
issues of major significance in today's world:
(1) Which should take precedence, the nation or universal values?
(2) Should we, if push comes to shove, place obligations to family
above those to our nation or humanity as a whole?
I pose these questions while recognizing that, as formulated above,
they remain ambiguous. What I conceive as universal values may be
quite different in many respects from those of, say, religious or
market fundamentalists. Does faith in my God or my Market override
the nation's merely political claims? What "family" means is, of
course, an anthropological conundrum, given particular zest by
current debates on such topics as gay marriage.
This very ambiguity, however, suggests fruitful domains for
discussion, elevated a bit at least above the level of political reflex.
Won't you play?
John McCreery
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