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

To: one_less who wrote (59297)	9/20/2002 7:51:59 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

you may use these documents to promote that condition. You can use the same body of words to oppress others, tyrannize the weak, corrupt the organization of a community, etc. Precisely, except you should say you can use the same body of words to promote or justify oppressing . . . The body of words does nothing in and of itself. That fits with our distinction between word and act. A code by itself is nothing but words. It has no effect in and of itself. The knightly code you cited is pretty words, but those pretty words were used to justify very brutal acts. The stirring words of our Constitution didn't prevent the internment of thousands of Japanese, or the enslaving of hundreds of thousands or millions of Africans. The words of the Bible were used to support the Inquisition. What matters are the acts people take. Words can inspire good deeds or bad deeds, but only the deeds matter. I'm not saying that words don't have power -- they can. They can have enormous power. But only because they can cause people to act in certain ways. The words are not the acts. They can cause good or bad acts, but they are not themselves acts, either good or bad. There are no acts here on SI. As a result, we cannot say whether the people who write the words that appear here consistently in their 3D lives where they DO act tend to act nobly, or ignobly, or kindly, or cruelly, or intelligently, or stupidly. We cannot know whether they would be delightful or awful companions to have at our dinner table. We cannot know with any certainty the acts they do from the words they write. The code of chivalry has nice words. No question there. But that's all it is. Until you see how the people who claim to follow the words act, you cannot know what their actual effect and power is.