This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Video.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Flower, leader of the Whiskers, will do things I find morally abhorrent, like eat her own grandchildren (only the dominant female Meerkat has the right to breed, not excluding her own daughters). But then her tribe will survive while more gentle tribes die. Best pro-conservative argument I’ve ever come across.
hence also the critique of Chomsky as a “moral narcissist.” moral narcissism being, in this case, the conceit of criticizing the transgressions of one’s own culture, rather than participating in the survival-necessary activity of shadow projection.
the same critique could have been made of the bin Laden of the nineties in particular, when he was opposed primarily to the Saudi government, for its departure from genuine Islamic law.
in that case we have a dispute between two forms of conservatism. Islamic law – in practice, the prohibition of evil and exhortation of good – should i think be seen exactly as a form of survival-positive conservatism. the behavior of the Saudi regime and its supporting scholars might be explained in the same terms – as a form of conservatism aimed to satisfy the requirements of survival. the issue between them thus becomes which form is really survival positive. jihad is rooted in this issue; it being the playing out of what we might call the drama of the fittest.
the moral transgressions attributed to the Hebrews (genocide in Canaan, for example) might be understood in the same way.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
how odd…
sonja and i watched an episode of this last night (via itunes), for the first time.
Reply
January 29th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Flower, leader of the Whiskers, will do things I find morally abhorrent, like eat her own grandchildren (only the dominant female Meerkat has the right to breed, not excluding her own daughters). But then her tribe will survive while more gentle tribes die. Best pro-conservative argument I’ve ever come across.
Reply
January 29th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
hence Paul’s lament at the end of Dune Messiah: There are some things in this Universe, Duncan, that cannot be changed.
Reply
January 29th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
hence also the critique of Chomsky as a “moral narcissist.” moral narcissism being, in this case, the conceit of criticizing the transgressions of one’s own culture, rather than participating in the survival-necessary activity of shadow projection.
the same critique could have been made of the bin Laden of the nineties in particular, when he was opposed primarily to the Saudi government, for its departure from genuine Islamic law.
in that case we have a dispute between two forms of conservatism. Islamic law – in practice, the prohibition of evil and exhortation of good – should i think be seen exactly as a form of survival-positive conservatism. the behavior of the Saudi regime and its supporting scholars might be explained in the same terms – as a form of conservatism aimed to satisfy the requirements of survival. the issue between them thus becomes which form is really survival positive. jihad is rooted in this issue; it being the playing out of what we might call the drama of the fittest.
the moral transgressions attributed to the Hebrews (genocide in Canaan, for example) might be understood in the same way.
Reply