quite a provacative email, richard. as an aside, let me say that i'm
being continually thrown off balance by my championing the "goodness" of
humanity in the face of all of this negativity; i'm usually quite
cynical. yet with all the responses that i've been getting, i'm mr.
sunshine. where do i start? firstly, i am interested in your
statement: "[the extent to which] human culture is...based on killing."
now, you recognized, in the same email of yours, that people do not, as
a matter of practice, go around killing those of their own: "very few
kill members of their own clans (on whatever scale these may be
constituted)...." so it appears that you are saying that intercultural
or intersocietal killing is your evidence that culture is somehow based
on killing. for example, you wrote: "In some countries it is obvious
that humans kills easily. In other countries the exploited are far away
and have don't have the cultural power to become part of the mediascape
and very few people give a damn." also, you talked about international
trade killing, etc. but what you have done is equated the foundation of
culture with a bunch of greedy bastards exploiting the politically weak
right under the noses of what you call "the current insularity of
western thinking." so i am suggesting to you that culture is not in
any way based on killing. but rather that killing is based on greed.
and not just any type of greed, but a very sick and twisted type. also,
as you stated, those being killed are usually "distant." whether in
another land or conceptually distant, i.e. the killer simply thinking of
the victim as being less than human, there is a distance, a
disconnectibility, the victims are not "real". so the psychological
impact of the killing is mitigated.
we both know that the best way to end the american consumer's
bloodthirst for cheap goods is to show them via the television the
horrid conditions of those who are exploited by their mindless economic
participation. unfortuanately most people have the memory of a rusted
trap that never quite catches anything. but this doesn't mean that
because of their ephemeral feelings that culture is based on killing.
rather it means that that kind of person has been politcally and
emotionally disconnected from the world, from other societies and their
cultures.
being continually thrown off balance by my championing the "goodness" of
humanity in the face of all of this negativity; i'm usually quite
cynical. yet with all the responses that i've been getting, i'm mr.
sunshine. where do i start? firstly, i am interested in your
statement: "[the extent to which] human culture is...based on killing."
now, you recognized, in the same email of yours, that people do not, as
a matter of practice, go around killing those of their own: "very few
kill members of their own clans (on whatever scale these may be
constituted)...." so it appears that you are saying that intercultural
or intersocietal killing is your evidence that culture is somehow based
on killing. for example, you wrote: "In some countries it is obvious
that humans kills easily. In other countries the exploited are far away
and have don't have the cultural power to become part of the mediascape
and very few people give a damn." also, you talked about international
trade killing, etc. but what you have done is equated the foundation of
culture with a bunch of greedy bastards exploiting the politically weak
right under the noses of what you call "the current insularity of
western thinking." so i am suggesting to you that culture is not in
any way based on killing. but rather that killing is based on greed.
and not just any type of greed, but a very sick and twisted type. also,
as you stated, those being killed are usually "distant." whether in
another land or conceptually distant, i.e. the killer simply thinking of
the victim as being less than human, there is a distance, a
disconnectibility, the victims are not "real". so the psychological
impact of the killing is mitigated.
we both know that the best way to end the american consumer's
bloodthirst for cheap goods is to show them via the television the
horrid conditions of those who are exploited by their mindless economic
participation. unfortuanately most people have the memory of a rusted
trap that never quite catches anything. but this doesn't mean that
because of their ephemeral feelings that culture is based on killing.
rather it means that that kind of person has been politcally and
emotionally disconnected from the world, from other societies and their
cultures.