flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/16/83)
From Laura Creighton (laura@utcsstat): I find the thought of IMPOSING my beliefs on others repugnant in the extreme. I do not think that this is the same thing as welcoming them in their attempts to impose their beliefs upon me, however. Uh-oh -- an artificial distinction is being drawn. By "not welcoming them ...", I presume Laura means she would resist forcefully if necessary. But any use of force constitutes imposing beliefs on someone -- if the others do not share Laura's belief that it is wrong to impose beliefs, what right does she have to force them to abide by it? What I think that you mean is that certain actions are bound to be prohibited by society. i would agree -- murder and rape, which spring to mind, are fine examples of actions which should be prohibited under any sort of legal code. However, "murdering someone" really does not sound like "allowing someone to express his belief that someone should be dead". it sounds like "suppressing someone's belief that he should be alive". It sounds like both to me. The only reason anybody would deny that murder can be an expression of beliefs, is the correct notion that that's a belief that nobody should have, combined with an incorrect attachment to the rhetorical advantages of condemning "imposition of beliefs". ...I find it impractical to define 'belief' in such a way that it allows you to enforce it on other people. Once you get into the business of forcing other people you have got out of the category of 'belief' even 'expressed belief' and have got into something very different. I think that this difference should be maintained through all further discussion. Otherwise it is too easy to condone the action of someone who "is only expressing his belief ...". So the supposed "right" to express one's beliefs is to be defended by a verbal trick of redefining "belief" to exclude what you don't like, eh? It won't wash. I've got a better idea: stick with the correct definition of "belief", and drop the spurious idea of a right to express any belief ... ----------------------------------- From Byron Howes (in response to a comment by Gary Samuelson): If moral guidelines are to be explicitly given, whose moral guidelines will they be? I doubt that you and I would agree on the moral guidelines for sexual activity, not to mention alcohol and (gasp) recreational drugs. I submit moral guidelines are the province of the family, not the school. It seems to me also a very short distance from the public preaching of morality to the public preaching of statist dogma as in the USSR or Nazi Germany. The purpose of the school is to provide information, not proper prescriptions for behavior. It would be intellectual dishonesty if I didn't voice my disagreement with this. I submit that moral guidelines are inevitably taught, at least implicitly, in school. So it might as well be done right. Teaching morality in school is nothing to be ashamed of either, as long as the right guidelines are taught. There, I said it. But by disagreeing with Byron Howes, I don't think I'm agreeing with Gary Samuelson -- I don't think *Christian* moral guidelines should be taught. I don't think moral guidelines should be taught specifically concerning drugs or alcohol or certain other extremely controversial things, either. And as for the slippery-slope argument about "statist dogma," well, our schools already teach democratic political principles. With political philosophy as with morals, we just have to fight (with legislation, not fists) to ensure that the right ones are taught and the wrong ones aren't. Wishy-washy pretensions to moral neutrality have got to go. I hate cold weather -- turn up those flames! --Paul Torek, U of MD, College Park umcp-cs!flink
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (10/19/83)
Note: this is long, yes, but I do not think that it is a flame. I could be wrong, given that I am rather angry about the article this is a followup to. Hmm, Paul we are going to go at it again. you are doing *exactly* what I tried to present was a dangerous course of action. Perhaps had I said nothing everyone would have missed this one. you never know... <laura> I find the thought of IMPOSING my beliefs on others repugnant in the extreme. I do not think that this is the same thing as welcoming them in their attempts to impose their beliefs upon me, however. I still stand by this. <Paul> Uh-oh -- an artificial distinction is being drawn. By "not welcoming them ...", I presume Laura means she would resist forcefully if necessary. But any use of force constitutes imposing beliefs on someone -- if the others do not share Laura's belief that it is wrong to impose beliefs, what right does she have to force them to abide by it? nothing doing. Sloppy language usage makes one believe that there is an artificial distinction being made here. Look, what I am saying is that it is quite possible to resist someone else' attempt to impose beliefs on me without my going about imposing my beliefs on them. There is a train of thought which says that "force is so inherantly wrong that it is far better to resist all the time and agree to whatever the person who is imposing the belief wants rather then to use force". I am sure that you have heard this. It is used by many extremist pacifists, and has been picked up by our local "ban-the-bomb"ers and it is also a common feature of several religions. Some people's efforts to poularise what they find interesting about Eastern religions comes out this way. "any use force constitutes of imposing beliefs on someone" is the capsul summary. You seem to have bought it hook line and sinker. No wonder you are forced to call my notions of "imposed belief" rehetoric. However, the problem does not seem to be with my so-called rhetoric, but with the attitude expressed in this belief. Now I find this attitude the same one that is posessed by the spaniel dog that rolls over on its back when you kick it and waits to be beaten again, tail wagging. In case i have not made this clear, I am opposed to this idea. But what I find even more disenchanting is that even people who do not accept the spaniel dog position on life still think that If X wants to impose his beliefs on the unwilling Y, and Y resists he is imposing his beliefs on Y. THIS IS MERELY SLOPPY THINKING AND SLOPPY LANGUAGE. Unfortuately it is also a good slogan. Sorry to run over you so hard, but you weren't exactly nice with me either. Look, if you have a belief X then it has the potential for causing action Y. if I resist the action Y, I may make you miserable, and I am preventing you from attaining the state where action Y has occurred, but in no way need I effect your belief X. This happens all the time. A group of people feel that premarital sex is a bad thing. I do not. when I get chastised by them for having pre-marital sex, I do not let them force their beliefs into my reality, that is, I go on having pre-marital sex. This may make them sad for me, or angry with me, or sad for the state of the world, but I do not go up to them and say "Look, premarital sex is wonderful, and I am going to commit you to my local psychiatric hospital until you come out believing that it is so". How have I imposed my belief upon them? Perhaps, you will say, that through my bad example other people will come to the conclusion that premarital sex is a good thing. Then, you will say I have imposed my beliefs on them. NOTHING DOING. I let people make their own decisions. If you ask me for advice, I will give it. I may present my beliefs in a place where you may be influenced by it (such as usenet). But I do not impose them on anyone. Anybody who wants to adopt beliefs that I have, even if he decides to adopt them precisely because i have them has made his own decison. <Paul> The only reason anybody would deny that murder can be an expression of beliefs, is the correct notion that that's a belief that nobody should have, combined with an incorrect attachment to the rhetorical advantages of condemning "imposition of beliefs". I don't think that I undestand what "an incorrect ... beliefs" means. If you mean that I think that an "imposition of beliefs" is a rhetorical notion, then you are absolutely wrong. The notion of "inposition of beliefs" is central to my own personal system of ethics, which you should know by now given the amount of mail we have exchanged on the subject, no? Or maybe I haven't been understanding your mail and/or you have not been understanding mine. I want to contrast the difference between beliefs and actions which arrive out of beliefs. I find the difference very important. What i am saying is that the actions of murder, rape and whatnot should be resisted. I don't care if you have the belief that i should be raped and murdered, its just when you get around to putting that belief into an action that I get upset. Similarily I am not worried or upset that I am going to Hell for my premarital sexual activity, it is just when you start deciding to make my life a hell-on-earth that I start getting upset. If you will look in my original article you will see that I spoke of the action arising out of a belief as distinct from a belief. You seem to want to push them back together. <laura> ...I find it impractical to define 'belief' in such a way that it allows you to enforce it on other people. Once you get into the business of forcing other people you have got out of the category of 'belief' even 'expressed belief' and have got into something very different. <Paul> So the supposed "right" to express one's beliefs is to be defended by a verbal trick of redefining "belief" to exclude what you don't like, eh? Paul, i find that grossly unfair. I did not decide to go out and redefine belief, rather I objected to the people who do not make any disction between "belief" and "expressed belief". I did not go around defining "belief" to exclude what I did not like, I thought that that was more along your lines when you made your statement about the "belief that nobody should have". Sounds to me that you want to restrict beliefs to "permissible beliefs", and thus have a list that does not include murder and rape. This was not my idea at all. You are all perfectly free to go around thinking that murder and rape are wonderful things. You can express these beliefs in speeches and even usenet articles. But when you start to express these beliefs in an ACTION, that is a rape or a murder, I am going to stop you. (Or at least try) It won't wash. I've got a better idea: stick with the correct definition of "belief", and drop the spurious idea of a right to express any belief ... I think that I've got the correct idea of belief. And I think that it is possible to express most beliefs (granted certain religious and emotional beliefs are known to be nearly impossible to express). What I am objecting to is the notion that "an action that arises out of a belief is only a way of expressing that belief". Not all actions are equal. And I think there is a strong difference between having a belief, expressing a belief in an action, expressing that belief in an action that imposes that belief on other people and forcing people to have my belief. For example. I think pre-mrital sex is a good thing, and readers of net.religion will know that Larry Bickford does not. (Larry, this is not meant as a personal attack, ok?) This means that in net.religion or elsewhere we express conflicting beliefs. this is fine. Secretly or not we may nurture hopes that each other may change our beleifs. This is okay as well. However, if I get the urge for some pre-marital sex, rushing off to Saratoga and raping Larry Bickford is not what I would consider moral. Equally, if Larry decided to come up to Toronto and chain me to a lamppost I would find that immoral. (Remember we are talking about *my* morality here, which does not include imposing my belief on others). (And, no, I don't think that Larry Bickford is going to chain me to any lampposts. I don't think he expects to get raped by me in the near future, either) Remeber that this holds even if I think that a little pre-marital sex would do Larry the world of good, or if he felt that a few days chained tot he lamppost couldn't help but improve me. I suppose I ought to have left this statement for Byron Howes to respond to but I couldn't resist. <Paul> I submit that moral guidelines are inevitably taught, at least implicitly, in school. So it might as well be done right. Teaching morality in school is nothing to be ashamed of either, as long as the right guidelines are taught. And who is to say what is the "right guidelines"? Whose guidelines. I gather that you do not like mine. You don't like the Tom Craver version of Ayn Rand type selfishness. Now I see that you do not like the Christian fundamentalist version. What version do you like? Presumably you like your own version, which is understandable, given that if you liked some some other version better you would probably be trying to adopt it, but it leaves those of us who do not like your version at all with a very cold feeling. To my mind, anyone that tries to teach 'the right guidelines' is in the same boat, be they Christians, Randites, or you -- by saying that 'the right guidelines' is not only a knowable thing, but also a known thing that can be taught you are coming so extremely close to brainwashing that you are, to my mind, a menace. I don't think that moral guidelines should be taught specifically concerning drugs or alcohol or certain other extremely controversial things, either. Well, now you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. I thought that you said that morality is taught in schools implicitly. If you beleive this then you had better believe that moral guidelines are being taught about such things. A grade 8 girl in my mother's class was pregnant, had an abortion, and has transferred schools. You can bet what is on everyone's minds these days. Like it or not, my mother is going to end up teaching these children what she honestly beleives about these issues. Now my mother is a rather terrific teacher and she is saying things like "Well, I believe, but only God knows" which lets everyone know that what she is presenting is her opinion. It may be her learned opinion, but it is still that. What she is not doing is talking as if "God talked to me yesterday and this is what He said". I know some teachers who would present it that way, in complete sincerity. How would you avoid teaching such issues if they keep coming up. If you keep saying "Well, we can't talk about this" you give the impression that the whole thing is dirty and should not be talked about. this probably is a bad idea. Now, my mother believes that abortions are wrong. And she is teaching in a Roman Catholic School. You can imagine what trouble she might have in such a school if she personally believed that abortions were good things. Does she teach the morality of the school? her own? both? neither? sounds rather tough to me. And as for the slippery-slope argument about "statist dogma," well, our schools already teach democratic political principles. With political philosophy as with morals, we just have to fight (with legislation, not fists) to ensure that the right ones are taught and the wrong ones aren't. Same problem. Who picks the right ones? There is a raging debate in schools in Ontario right now as to whether Louis Riel should be taught as a hero or as a criminal in Canbadian history. (Riel held 2 rebellions in Canada against the government. He was eventually caught and executed. Some call him a filthy traitor and others call him a Saint to this day.) What gets taught? There is a motion in the Canadian parliament in Ottawa to give Riel a posthumous complete pardon. Will that change the way that history is taught? (These days he is given a sympathetic treatment up until he kills one man and then becomes a derranged lunatic in my mother's course). Wishy-washy pretensions to moral neutrality have got to go. I do not know whether you include me in this statement. I hope not. The moral neutrality that I am proposing is not "wishy-washy" at all. It demands certain courage to let friends and relatives do things that you find unwise because you respect their beliefs and let them live according to their fashion. It takes a great deal of courage to say to a group of people who are looking for answers that you do not have any. It seems far more corageous than warming up the old platitudes that have served generations. (unless, of course, you believe those platitudes, which is another case). To honestly admit that some things *are not known* and moreover *may be unknowable* is to expose yourself to a particular form of terror that is particularily feared in this society where everyone seems intent on covering their own ass. Laura Creighon utzoo!utcsstat!laura