Does this sound like an admonition? Such as in run for good health". Since the writer has experienced the University of Oregons legendary Bill Bowermann and since then has stuck to daily running and weight lifting interrupted by reading Russian such a call would be understandable. (It is not common knowledge: Before inventing Nike" the Coach popularized jogging.) No the subject here is not related to physical exercise although if it might be relate to an aspect of our mental health.
The topic is the way we allow negotiations to undermine our security and imperil our existence. It seems that we - America Europe and advanced systems now repeat the errors of the 1930s. The implication is that a link unfolds between the present and the past. Yes history is open to abuse. Bad history assumes that history will repeat itself. By itself it does not and when it does it did not have to and was avoidable. A variant of this is when history - the warning precedent - is overlooked by the ignorant misinterpreted by the confused or misunderstood by the superficial.
What is the original sin that is recreated in the present to imperil our future?
Since the Enlightenment we have assumed that all men" implying that man regards certain matters as self-evident". This assumption puts pleasing ideology above the facts. Proceeding from there a culture emerged that created a democratic civilization that made progress into a goal. The vision of a better future replaced the return to a golden past and its idealized static and harmonious ways. Concurrently the idea emerged that regardless of the culture that men inherit they would be able to assess their interests by universal self-evident" standards.
The resulting system functioned well on the local and the international level. After the First World War changes occurred that brought a breakdown. The follow up that of the conflict - the Depression being a catalyst - gave elements power whose ideology and modus operandi negated the progressive-democratic-humanistic order.
Communism Fascism National Socialism and the combative mutants of sick nationalism have turned on the system they were committed to abolish. These foes of an order of rational democracy differed from earlier rivals. Not a retreat into a simpler order and the security of inherited status was the goal. The new challenge was revolutionary and propagated the values of the egalitarian submission of a marching column. These emerging entities saw the world governed by conflict and not by competition within reason-governed pacific structures.
Our assertions have a global validity. Totalitarian movements are universal. They also see security as guaranteed only if it is total; that is achievable only by world dominance. The upshot of that flows into a conflict which is waged regardless of the reason-fed will of the designated victim to seek a compromise.
A further aspect of substituting the doing of deals with making war into a preferred instrument is the emergence of new players on the world scene. The mutants of third-worldism" but also of militant Islam inserted new elements into world politics. These do not fit the system that had developed since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.
The clash deepens by the sentiment of the newcomers that the system to settle conflicts contractually and without violence has unfavorable outcomes. Doubts of that system arise because it is not a product of the culture of belated participants and so it is said to ignore their interests. Furthermore the games roles leave late entrants unsuccessful if they stick to their traditional ways. Nationalism the most easily imported Western idea confirms that the copy of alien ways to success implies dishonor leaving as the manly alternative self-asserting conflict. Notably this view does not correlate fully either with race or with religion. However it makes the closing of the developmental gap and thus the good life for all unattainable.
Outsiders might consider underdevelopment in modern times as largely self-inflicted through the wrong choices. However those that are left behind differ. From their perspective underdevelopment is caused by the tutelage of colonialism". (The attraction of this theory is expressed by updating it to neo-colonialism".) From foreign control in the past the logical excuse is to blame present backwardness on foreigners. Those that accept the thesis will resist the use of outside approaches to government social organization and law. An exception is the militarily relevant products of the otherwise cursed modern world.
A doctrinal belief in past wrongs that confirms victim status completes the list. Actually the world is full of nations that can claim that they have been wronged in the past. The more it is invoked the greater the correlation with contemporary local turbulence.
Regardless of the location experience tells that past victimhood serves as a current weapon. Those that are licensed" to profess their victim status not only go for your purse but also claim immunity from what would be a crime if committed by others.
Those systems of the past century that were programmatically criminal have all claimed victim status. In it they found a moral justification by invoking claimed past wrongs done to them. Victimhood in such cases attributes moral superiority which extends from the pasts suffering into the planned misdeeds of the forgiven future. Once a state or a movement convinces itself that the suffering of yesterday justifies the future torment of others it becomes a threat.
Those that think to possess absolution ahead of their deeds will be cruel. Moral immaculacy detached from behavior also makes for unreliable negotiators. For these agreements with sinners" are not binding. Ultimately an agreement depends not only of verification but also on a felt moral obligation to abide by the covenant.
Developed countries are confronted by the hostility of those that resent their system and threaten their existence. Moved by their tradition the designated victims of the overthrow of the global order wish to overcome crises within the confines of their tradition. First there is an attempt to identify the disputed issues. Then follows the attempt to define rationally the position of the parties. Third an appeasing compromise is formulated. By meeting the outrageous halfway a deal is proposed that lets the cheeky save face. Conceding what should be rejected has an intended strategy: Giving in partially is to convince the other side that it can get a hearing for its moderated goals and that the other side" is not by design an adversary.
This approach is reasonable yet the results will be disappointing. The attempt to educate to a give-and-take is played with a party that refuses to give" and plays to take" all. If you have a chicken and a neighbor wants a few eggs then you might strike a bargain. If his purpose is not scrambled eggs but fried chicken then you will not only have to do without eggs you will consent to lose your hen.
Negotiating according to a tradition that attributes its success to fruitful compromises is understandable. However given the mindset of those that principally reject not only the status quo but also our right to exist the tested technique is misplaced.
We desire to preserve the peace because to a sound mind war is a to-be-avoided option. The rational mind sees war as an inefficient last resort that signals the bankruptcy of sanity. The inappropriate projection of our values means that sanity is attributed to those that do not fit the term because they prefer military agendas.
Thusly confused we pursue our wish to convince those that challenge the accepted procedural ways to alter the world order of our good will. However permissiveness against the relentless is ineffective because it rewards aggressiveness. This means that in practice we tend to run backwards when menaced. We retreat even if the game of chess has mutated into a hand of poker in which the winner wants all including the board and the table. Running predictably retreat as a strategy to educate the violent and to save the peace means that once cornered and forced to react in terms of the threat it becomes needlessly difficult to hold our own.
Does this sound like an admonition? Such as in run for good health". Since the writer has experienced the University of Oregons legendary Bill Bowermann and since then has stuck to daily running and weight lifting interrupted by reading Russian such a call would be understandable. (It is not common knowledge: Before inventing Nike" the Coach popularized jogging.) No the subject here is not related to physical exercise although if it might be relate to an aspect of our mental health.
The topic is the way we allow negotiations to undermine our security and imperil our existence. It seems that we - America Europe and advanced systems now repeat the errors of the 1930s. The implication is that a link unfolds between the present and the past. Yes history is open to abuse. Bad history assumes that history will repeat itself. By itself it does not and when it does it did not have to and was avoidable. A variant of this is when history - the warning precedent - is overlooked by the ignorant misinterpreted by the confused or misunderstood by the superficial.
What is the original sin that is recreated in the present to imperil our future?
Since the Enlightenment we have assumed that all men" implying that man regards certain matters as self-evident". This assumption puts pleasing ideology above the facts. Proceeding from there a culture emerged that created a democratic civilization that made progress into a goal. The vision of a better future replaced the return to a golden past and its idealized static and harmonious ways. Concurrently the idea emerged that regardless of the culture that men inherit they would be able to assess their interests by universal self-evident" standards.
The resulting system functioned well on the local and the international level. After the First World War changes occurred that brought a breakdown. The follow up that of the conflict - the Depression being a catalyst - gave elements power whose ideology and modus operandi negated the progressive-democratic-humanistic order.
Communism Fascism National Socialism and the combative mutants of sick nationalism have turned on the system they were committed to abolish. These foes of an order of rational democracy differed from earlier rivals. Not a retreat into a simpler order and the security of inherited status was the goal. The new challenge was revolutionary and propagated the values of the egalitarian submission of a marching column. These emerging entities saw the world governed by conflict and not by competition within reason-governed pacific structures.
Our assertions have a global validity. Totalitarian movements are universal. They also see security as guaranteed only if it is total; that is achievable only by world dominance. The upshot of that flows into a conflict which is waged regardless of the reason-fed will of the designated victim to seek a compromise.
A further aspect of substituting the doing of deals with making war into a preferred instrument is the emergence of new players on the world scene. The mutants of third-worldism" but also of militant Islam inserted new elements into world politics. These do not fit the system that had developed since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.
The clash deepens by the sentiment of the newcomers that the system to settle conflicts contractually and without violence has unfavorable outcomes. Doubts of that system arise because it is not a product of the culture of belated participants and so it is said to ignore their interests. Furthermore the games roles leave late entrants unsuccessful if they stick to their traditional ways. Nationalism the most easily imported Western idea confirms that the copy of alien ways to success implies dishonor leaving as the manly alternative self-asserting conflict. Notably this view does not correlate fully either with race or with religion. However it makes the closing of the developmental gap and thus the good life for all unattainable.
Outsiders might consider underdevelopment in modern times as largely self-inflicted through the wrong choices. However those that are left behind differ. From their perspective underdevelopment is caused by the tutelage of colonialism". (The attraction of this theory is expressed by updating it to neo-colonialism".) From foreign control in the past the logical excuse is to blame present backwardness on foreigners. Those that accept the thesis will resist the use of outside approaches to government social organization and law. An exception is the militarily relevant products of the otherwise cursed modern world.
A doctrinal belief in past wrongs that confirms victim status completes the list. Actually the world is full of nations that can claim that they have been wronged in the past. The more it is invoked the greater the correlation with contemporary local turbulence.
Regardless of the location experience tells that past victimhood serves as a current weapon. Those that are licensed" to profess their victim status not only go for your purse but also claim immunity from what would be a crime if committed by others.
Those systems of the past century that were programmatically criminal have all claimed victim status. In it they found a moral justification by invoking claimed past wrongs done to them. Victimhood in such cases attributes moral superiority which extends from the pasts suffering into the planned misdeeds of the forgiven future. Once a state or a movement convinces itself that the suffering of yesterday justifies the future torment of others it becomes a threat.
Those that think to possess absolution ahead of their deeds will be cruel. Moral immaculacy detached from behavior also makes for unreliable negotiators. For these agreements with sinners" are not binding. Ultimately an agreement depends not only of verification but also on a felt moral obligation to abide by the covenant.
Developed countries are confronted by the hostility of those that resent their system and threaten their existence. Moved by their tradition the designated victims of the overthrow of the global order wish to overcome crises within the confines of their tradition. First there is an attempt to identify the disputed issues. Then follows the attempt to define rationally the position of the parties. Third an appeasing compromise is formulated. By meeting the outrageous halfway a deal is proposed that lets the cheeky save face. Conceding what should be rejected has an intended strategy: Giving in partially is to convince the other side that it can get a hearing for its moderated goals and that the other side" is not by design an adversary.
This approach is reasonable yet the results will be disappointing. The attempt to educate to a give-and-take is played with a party that refuses to give" and plays to take" all. If you have a chicken and a neighbor wants a few eggs then you might strike a bargain. If his purpose is not scrambled eggs but fried chicken then you will not only have to do without eggs you will consent to lose your hen.
Negotiating according to a tradition that attributes its success to fruitful compromises is understandable. However given the mindset of those that principally reject not only the status quo but also our right to exist the tested technique is misplaced.
We desire to preserve the peace because to a sound mind war is a to-be-avoided option. The rational mind sees war as an inefficient last resort that signals the bankruptcy of sanity. The inappropriate projection of our values means that sanity is attributed to those that do not fit the term because they prefer military agendas.
Thusly confused we pursue our wish to convince those that challenge the accepted procedural ways to alter the world order of our good will. However permissiveness against the relentless is ineffective because it rewards aggressiveness. This means that in practice we tend to run backwards when menaced. We retreat even if the game of chess has mutated into a hand of poker in which the winner wants all including the board and the table. Running predictably retreat as a strategy to educate the violent and to save the peace means that once cornered and forced to react in terms of the threat it becomes needlessly difficult to hold our own.