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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (30322)	9/30/2001 10:53:54 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

An excerpt from a review of Jeffrey Hart's book Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe. What is the goal of human life? Athens says knowledge, Jerusalem holy or moral rectitude. It is a central part of Mr. Hart's purpose to show that the resilience of the Western tradition lies in its unwillingness to choose one of these exclusively. "The mind of the West," he writes, "was born amid tension and contradiction and draws strength from refusing to be either-or but rather both-and." .....the particular genius of the Western tradition has been its capaciousness, what Mr. Hart calls its 'dialectical' appetite. As he observes, the dominant Islamic tradition, in contrast, evolved a tradition of compartmentalized truths." .....The point is that plurality is inscribed at the center of the West. "We have Augustine's "Confessions' but we also have Voltaire's 'Candide.' There is Dante, but also Montaigne...The Western mind...embodies an argument at the core of its being. It is that fact above all, we may speculate, that enrages the terrorists. They may denounce US cultural imperialism or the Christendom of the West. But at bottom it is our intellectual and moral suppleness that they cannot abide. The West has taught the world to say Yes to the complexity of experience. Its respect for individual liberty is in part an acknowledgment of such complexity. Terrorism seeks to deny that affirmation through intimidation and slaughter....

To: epicure who wrote (30322)	9/30/2001 4:36:22 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

truth (trth) n. pl. truths (trthz, trths) 1.Conformity to fact or actuality. 2.A statement proven to be or accepted as true. 3.Sincerity; integrity. 4.Fidelity to an original or standard. 5. a.Reality; actuality. b.often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence. Let's throw out number one- because it does not seem possible to prove "facts" about what is "better" in fact or actuality- it's a matter of preference and perspective. No lets not throw out number one because that is begging the question. If you assume there are nothing that is absolutely, intrinsically or universally true then you can throw out number one, but that is the argument. If you assume your side of the argument as true it is easy to prove it true based on that assumption. Tim