[lit-ideas] the standard for higher standards
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:10:44 -0500
>> That's hate speech doncha know!
Hate speech? I'll show you hate speech!
Maybe this "higher standard" stuff is just a caboodle of malarkey? How
about a Nietzschean transvaluation of values here? Back to root assumptions.
In the political debates, when I seek to put some US actions "in
context" and Judy patiently rejoins that "the US should be held to a
higher standard," a mistake may have already been passed over in
silence. King Arthur playing chess with the Shadow King and not
overturning the board?
There should be no contextualizing and the US shouldn't be held to a
higher standard. We shouldn't pretend to live in a Star Trek universe of
benign multicultural federalism. Instead, everyone should just claim
their savagery. Own our barbarity. Kill our enemies. Re-purpose dog food
factories to save money on Gitmo. Give all of our enemies one month to
calm down, and if they don't just start bombing indiscriminately. Or
just bomb anyway. Blot out their sunlight with our bombers and missiles.
"But the US can't do that!" Oh sure we can. We have a hundred times more
nuclear weapons than our nearest competitor. What are they gonna do?
Send one missile and get a hundred back?
It would surprise a lot of people. Others would say, "See? I told you
so!" Or maybe they would start to say "I told you so!" even as they were
vaporized.
Let's see, what more outrageous hooey can I write? Something really
nasty that offends even more sensibilities. There is a point though.
The point? To examine the assumption that the US or any nation should be
held to a higher standard. To examine the notion of higher standards in
general. Maybe higher standards are the problem? I mean, a higher
standard that ensures cultural collapse is by definition not
sustainable. And most nasty scandals (Death squads, Iran Contra, Abu
Ghraib, Secret Prisons, etc.) involve a failure of these higher
standards, or to put it another way, attempts to bypass higher standards
because higher standards are not perceived as working.
"I wouldn't want to live in a world where advanced nations didn't try to
live up to higher standards," someone might say. Fine. Don't. Vote with
your breath.
Back to basics. Why higher standards? If higher standards just lead to a
societal collapse and then to a re-assertion of an earlier barbarism,
why have higher standards in the first place? Are these higher standards
ends? Are they a delusion? A momentary display of politeness between
savageries? Or will higher standards actually lead humanity somewhere?
Better to die by good principles than live by evil ones? Is it? I mean,
that's what we assume, but is it? Is it true of nations? Have higher
standards "worked"? And what does it mean to "work"?
Expressing a radical pyrrhonist moment,
Mr. Bright Side
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