Peter,
Your post responds precisely to the vision I had when I forwarded the PORT
discussion; you have just outlined the primary reason that I take interest
in promoting the values espoused in Douglas Engelbart's vision: those
values are would promote the kinds of communication necessary to form the
bonds of trust you outline.
Jack
At 08:30 PM 9/12/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>My last post on this topic, because it [the atrocity] is so far removed from
>the unrev feelgood factor.
>
>Yes, it was an attack on symbols, with symbolic significance.
>Yes, it has deep and far reaching meaning because so much of what the U.S.
>is,
>is iconography.
>The terrorists struck at those U.S. values. No less.
>It was iconoclastic.
>
>But underlying that is pure horror; a horror that is beyond icons, that has
>only simple disgusting truth to it, that betrays facades, ferociously
>exposes core human values, and unites all compassionate men in confrontation
>with the blunt reality of the cold, fractured corpse.
>
>That the perpertrators would inflict this on the U.S. says to my mind that
>they have seen this before, and that they (for reasons they clearly believe
>intensely) see the U.S. as having been the root cause of that for them.
>(Whether the U.S. really was or not doesn't matter at this juncture, only
>that the mesh of symbolism is traced back to that origin for the
>perpertrators; for that too is part of mesh.)
>
>As I see it, it's an attack that says quite clearly, "Your values are wrong,
>in their aftermath we saw the truth, and now we return it all to you."
>
>One must also understand that many of the mores that the U.S. has
>promulgated so forcefully in recent decades overhaul centuries-old values of
>great sophistication in different cultures.
>And even I am inclined to suggest that many new American media values are
>shallow, fickle, trite and debasing, with no respect for awesome histories.
>
>It is certain that the attack was wrong, because it took human life.
>
>But it is also certain that the picture that America painted of itself led
>the attackers there, however mistaken they perhaps were.
>
>That countries refused to be policed by the 'Western Democratic Alliance' is
>no surprise to me.
>They believe the 'policemen' are corrupt (and again is that because of a
>self-portrait we painted?). It won't do any good to try overcoming that by
>force, verbal or physical.
>What is needed is the grounds for the trust that enables great friendships
>and collaborations -- genuine respect, compassion, love, and true
>generosity.
>
>Peter
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jack Park" <jackpark@thinkalong.com>
>To: <unrev-II@yahoogroups.com>
>Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:29 PM
>Subject: [unrev-II] Fwd: Re: [PORT-L] Comments On Terrorist Attacks
>
>
>On the PORT email list (I am currently unable to find the archives, so I'll
>quote a bit here), Peter Becker wrote (in part):
>"In my opinion the chain of causality starts in the States. Nothing can
>be an excuse for what has happened but I fear that what has happened
>will be an excuse for what might come now, if the States choose to
>answer terror with more terror, not even noticing that they might be the
>ones who started all this. Calling the Pentagon "a symbol of America's
>ability and determination to project and defend democratic values" ([2])
>is something that would be funny if it wouldn't be that serious."
>
>I responded with:
>"I am wondering how the wizards of Peircian thinking actually cast today's
>events. For me, it is perhaps an overly simple notion to lay the beginning
>of the causal chain on the US. "
>
>Cliff Joslyn followed:
>"Of course it is.
>My thinking is as much cybernetic as semiotic, and what that tells you
>is that no matter how good or true or accurate, casuality is but one
>possible model constructed by us, the subjects, to explain our
>world. It's not a "chain" of causality, but a multi-facetted web of
>interacting linear and cyclic network components, which moreover have
>a temporal horizon as arbitrarily far back into the past as one cares
>to draws one's boundaries. Therefore, WHERE one draws one's boundaries
>(e.g. the cockpit; the terrorist operatives; Bin-Laden (or whomever it
>actually is); Saudi Arabian or Iraqui or Iranian policy since 1985;
>the Taliban; Israeli policy since 1995, or since 1967, or since 1945;
>the Soviet Afghan invasion; US policy since 1991 or since 1967 or
>since 1945; the fall of the Ottoman empire following WW I; British
>colonial history since 1850; the Crusades; Mohammed; Jesus; Moses; or
>God for making the distribution of oil and people and temperate land
>masses unequal across the planet or setting the melting point of steel
>and the boiling point of Aviation A fuel) says SO MUCH MORE about
>one's OWN perspective than about any OBJECTIVE truth of "causality".
>So, Mr. Becker, while (despite working in the belly of the US
>military-industrial complex) I'm the first to criticize my government
>and my society for its arrogance and ruthlessness and evil, please try
>to get some perspective on what you're saying. For better or worse, on
>the order of 5,000, and perhaps as many as 10,000 or even 20,000,
>Americans are tonight the victims of the greatest terrorist attack in
>history, and the entire world is reeling. While certainly the overall
>socio-political context, and America's role in that, is relevant, no
>single, narrow historical analysis or fact can explain this, let alone
>justify it."
>
>Here is what follows. I post this because I believe there is merit in
>finding ways to look at information flow with an eye biased by the thinking
>of C.S. Peirce.
>
> >X-Sender: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey@mail.oakland.edu>
> >
> >¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
> >
> >Susan Awbrey wrote (SA):
> >Cliff Joslyn wrote (CJ):
> >Bob Rosenberg wrote (BR):
> >
> >SA: What the terrorists don't understand is that
> > the meaning goes far deeper than its symbols.
> >
> >CJ: I agree: this is where semiotics can help us, understanding these as
> > acts of COMMUNICATION. In that way, the terrorists are committing a
> > referential fallacy, mistaking the symbol for the referrent, the map
> > for the territory, the token for the sign function. Note that not
> > just the buildings are symbols; from the terrorists perspective,
> > the dead innocents also serve only as sign-vehicles, not as humans.
> > Indeed, from Bin-Laden's (or whomever it really is) perspective,
> > his own OPERATIVES are symbols. That's what martyrdom is,
> > elevating a person to the level of a symbol.
> >
> >BR: A few years after Perry opened Japan to the West in 1853, some
> >southern lords
> > adopted the slogan, "Restore the emperor and sweep out the
>barbarians."
> > Samauri killed a number of merchants, burned their shops, and so on.
> > Rebelled against the larger forces of Westernization, which they could
> > not put their hands on, by destroying the people and structures that
> > symbolized it. They restored the emperor (the Meiji Restoration)
> > in a nominal way -- the Westernization obviously did not stop.
> >
> >BR: Does this sound familiar? I have a funny feeling
> > there are a few other similar examples in history.
> >
> >In the spirit of examining self and other in the same image,
> >Friend U and Enemy X in the same frame, we might return to
> >Max Weber's 'Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism' --
> >he was not especially picking on Puritans and Capitalists
> >but died before he could complete his survey of worldviews,
> >economic, political, religious, whatever -- one of the most
> >crucial points of what he noticed being the way that abstract
> >symbols, detached from their humane context, can operate like
> >viruses, parasitically living off and often turning against the
> >substantial embodiments and the flowing lifeblood of meaning that
> >served as their initial host, now a hulk to be cast away. I think
> >that understanding the dynamics of this malfeasant conversion process
> >might be a useful bit of knowledge in these times.
> >
> >Jon Awbrey
> >
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