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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WalleyB who wrote (9903)	4/16/1998 10:51:00 PM
From: Lady Lurksalot	Respond to of 71178

Jim, I had the same reaction. Yes, please protect us from the unexamined consensus supported by the majority as presented by the microminded. Holly

To: WalleyB who wrote (9903)	4/17/1998 11:56:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Goodness. This is the second time I get a reply and wanna say "but that's not what I meant!!". So I need to get the point that I expressed myself ambiguously. By consensus I don't mean short-term agenda-driven stuff like happened in Nazi Germany or the Inquisition. I'm not talking Machiavelli. I'm thinking more about those first Greek or Mesopotamian village states, where bands of once-hunters come together and say "Well, hunting-gathering has been good to us, but this agriculture thing might be the New Paradigm. Course that means I've got a new thing to deal with. Let's call it "neighbors". Yeah that's it. Now how do we all get along??" There will be short-term distortions as powerful people and groups come along and refashion the morality of the day to their own ends. Like Lenin or the KKK. But I am an optimist; I feel that the basic standard of decency does snap back to a more equitable optimum. Okay - if morality is not a product of consensus (read: Man the individual's accommodation with Man the collective), then where did it come from? (For argument's sake - the religious texts were written by humans.)