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Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997
From: Charles <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#676> letters from readers
> From: •••@••.•••
>
> >Things often turn into their opposites (I forget the generic word for
> >this phenomenon). Thus regulatory agencies, instead of curbing corporate
> >power, become the vehicles for extending corporate power. Or a goverment,
> >set up to represent the people, ends up suppressing people.
>
> The term is "DoubleThink" or "DoubleSpeak" in which the Ministry of Plenty
> is in charge of rationing, the Ministry of Love operates the prisons and
No it isn't. Doublespeak is _calling_ something by the name of its
opposite. (The coinage dates only from 1948, as you know.) But there
_is_ a word for something that _becomes_ its opposite. Unfortunately I
don't have the proper reference material to run it down. (A reverse
dictionary of philosophy would be the best reference, if one existed.)
(By the way: if your OED is handy could you look up the term
`enantiodromia' for me?)
Now in the light of the latest postings about `Report From Iron Mountain'
we need to find another word: fiction (not prophecy) that eventually
becomes fact. (Another possible example of this phenomenon, of course, is
`The Manchurian Candidate.' I don't _think_ Condon meant it to be
prophecy.)
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"Enantiodromia" is in fact the word I was trying to think of. Bruce
Sterling used it in the 20th Anniversary Issue of The Whole Earth Review,
and explained:
"[Enantiodromia] is a truly cosmic and perverse principle embedded
in society. Anything of importance is going to breed its own
opposite. any sort of social impetus that you can see rising on
an exponential scale that looks like it's really going to go to
town and change things forever, is going to end up breeding
situations that negate it, in some subtle way."
A related word, "enantiosis", is closer to "doublespeak":
enantiosis: n., a figure of speech by which one says (usually
ironically) the reverse of what one means.
One of the most common patterns is where a tool turns into a master, as
with corporations, government, the Pentagon, or the intelligence services.
The media, which originally was supposed to observe events and inform, now
seeks to invent reality and mislead.
-rkm
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Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997
Sender: Todd HFillingham <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: cj#675> Update: Globalization 2000
Congratulations on your progress. This looks very promising.
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Date: Sat, 7 Jun 1997
Sender: •••@••.•••
Subject: Re: Huntington, friend or foe?
In a lecture a couple of years ago, Huntington defended his thesis by
challenging those with dissenting opinions to come up with their own theses.
He went on to bask in the glory of the uproar he had created.
Since that lecture, I have heard many arguments against Huntington's thesis:
economically-based, culturally-based, etc. My question: is anyone taking Sam
seriously? If not, do further discussions on Clash of Civilizations serve
any purpose?
I wrote a couple undergraduate papers detailing the faults of H's book,
chapter by chapter. But I have yet to find a reason to praise him. Can
anyone help me?
Michelle Meyers
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I take your point that Huntington's thesis is of undergraduate calibre, but
my point is that it's not to be taken as scholarship but as definitive
propaganda - the core-rationalization to be increasingly used as the basis
of much of US foreign policy. For that reason, refutations are worth
articulating, as they are as well for the equally shallow and fallacious
tenets of neoliberalism free-trade, reform, et al.
In my haste, I omitted mention of another of his core arguments - that
conflicts historically have been between different cultures, rather than
among similar cultures. Here he is reversing cause and effect: when
conflict has been desired by elites for whatever reason, cultural
differences have been invented or exaggerated for propaganda purposes, eg-
the Germans became "Huns" in WW I and the French were often "Papists" when
the British wanted to fight France over imperial turf.
He is to be taken seriously, imho.
-rkm
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Date: Mon, 9 Jun 97
From: RGregory <•••@••.•••>
Subject: a thought
After reading your mission statement, I was reminded of Escape from
Freedom - Erich Fromm really hit a classic note with that book, and I
think that you are onto the same agenda - perhaps more water has gone
under the bridge since his work but you are catching up with the same
stream - another talk by a fellow named Stuart Hill from McGill about
agriculture! struck a chord with me - that people just go on and on
without any real thought or awareness of the short and long term
consequences of what they are doing - as with sustainable agriculture.
He advocated that psychology was an intriguing place to begin to study
and create awareness in people - to advance their perspectives about
what they are doing and what that doing will mean in due course.
I sometimes wonder if having intelligence and awareness - the ability to
see consequences and futures more clearly than the next person, isn't a
blessing in that one can lead, offer advice, study the situation and so
on and yet at the same time a curse, for others seemingly can't and
seemingly won't understand, will disregard what you know must be done,
and so on. Frustrating, like being a lemming with the intelligence of
something more, and a vision of something that could be - the ideal as
opposed to the reality.
Anyway, I enjoyed your comments, and wanted just to share some of mine.
Good luck with it all!
bob gregory
Robert J. Gregory
Department of Psychology
Massey University
Palmerston North, NEW ZEALAND
Pacific Means Peace
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Illumination from all possible directions (psychology, spirituality,
ecology, etc) can only help - let's shine the light on the human stage
however we can. But we have to keep bringing attention back to the
fundamental points of political relevance.
Consider the "human potential" movement, for example, and how that's been
largely channeled into pursuit of personal potential rather than collective
potential.
-rkm
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Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997
From: "colin s. cavell" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: Huntington: world system architect
Richard,
Thanks for the further elaboration on Huntington below which examines some
of the themes underlying his propaganda crusade. Still, may I suggest
that there is an underlying racist and white supremacist theme embedded
in his overall perspective or, as one commentator on WBAI in New York
stated, that Huntington's analysis is The Bell Curve on an international
level.
Regards,
colin
------------------------------- -----------------------------------
Colin S. Cavell "And there lies the most stupendous
Department of Political Science labor problem of the twentieth century
Thompson Tower, Box 37520 --transcending the problem of Labor
University of Massachusetts and Capital, of Democracy, of the
Amherst, MA 01003-7520 Equality of Women--for it is the
Internet: •••@••.••• problem of the Equality of Humanity in
Voice: (413) 546-3408 the world as against white domination
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cscpo of black and brown and yellow serfs.
--W.E.B. Du Bois, (1868-1963)
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Indeed. Here we find not another fallacious thesis, but rather a covert
"carrier meme" for Huntington's agenda: he's appealing to the racism which
has never been far from the surface of Euro-American attitudes toward the
rest of the world, but which has been out of media vogue for much of the
postwar period. They myth of democratizing the world - which was the
purported basis of replacing competitive imperialism with Pax-Americana
collective imperialism - called for a less racist "public consensus". That
"democratization" tide has now largely run its intended course, and the new
tide brings a change of doctrine across the board.
-rkm
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Date: Mon, 9 Jun 1997
Sender: •••@••.••• (Fractal)
Subject: Re: cj#679> cj Mission Statement
Richard,
I don't see why your interests wouldn't be relevant and meaningful in a book
of this nature. Certainly the decline of political power and lack of
direction of same is one "dimension" of global environmental decline.
Perhaps it is the most crucial facet of that decline. Maybe a clarification
on the author's part will give you a better idea how the political dimension
might be exploited to the benefit of the environmental. In short, I think it
would be a good thing for your views to reach another medium, and this may
just be the ticket.
Suzanne
If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane.
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Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997
Sender: •••@••.••• (John Lowry)
Subject: Re: cj#679> cj Mission Statement
>... the democracy/political issue: educating people about it
>and limiting my technical attention to the problems of education, political
>organizaton, and the architecture of democracy - which I see as three
>fundamentally inseparable problems.
Since "man evolved to run, not to reason," I'm not sure education (of the
masses) is possible. It seems reason is a parlor game we love to play but
do not allow to inform policy; that culture is an hypnotic trance in which
social relations are exercises in dominance and submission. Is it possible
to alter the architecture of this consciousness from within? -jl
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Your phrase "not allow to inform policy" underlines precisely my point -
about demonic disconnection of social mind and body. Yes education is
possible - altering the architecture of consciousness - and that is why the
elite media must devote so many billions to all-pervasive on-going
propaganda. THEY know the people are an awesome sleeping giant, even if
many of us feel resigned to our conditioned impotency.
-rkm
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997
Sender: •••@••.••• (John Lowry)
Subject: Re: cj#680> The chains of scientific specialization
"A specialist is someone who never makes small mistakes while moving toward
the grand fallacy." --Marshall McLuhan
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Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997
From: Gerold Root <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
Difference Between America and Russia
-------------------------------------
During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed
a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its
space capsules. After considerable research and development,
the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of approximately
$1 million U.S. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest
success as a novelty item back here on earth.
The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.
That would be funny if it weren't so sad. Your tax dollars at work!
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