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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!gatech!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!herschel
From: HERSCHEL@AUVM.BITNET (Herschel Browne)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,talk.rumors,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <89250.222732HERSCHEL@AUVM>
Date: 8 Sep 89 02:27:31 GMT
References: <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> <89250.001226HERSCHEL@ <1682@convex.UUCP>
Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Lines: 51


In article <1682@convex.UUCP>, swarren@eugene.uucp (Steve Warren) says:
>
>Human
>nature is such that people refuse to spend their lives working when
>there is no direct tangible benefit to themselves as a result of their
>labor.
>
>Your wish to remove profit oriented corporations from the earth reveals
>the bankrupt motive for your argument.  It also reveals a foolish lack
>of understanding of basic human nature, as well as a frightening refusal
>to learn anything from the history of the nations that now exist.
>
Well, maybe "work" isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway. Perhaps
we should look at the other species and see what they do. Do otters,
or brown bears, or dolphins make some distinction between "work" and
"play"? Obviously not. Yet they get along, up to the point where their
interests conflict with ours. But sigh, there goes someone else
calling me names. I don't know why this seems necessary to so many
people. "Foolish lack of understanding", "frightening refusal to
learn", etc....why must we speak in such terms?

As it happens, I've spent the greater part of my life as a grown-up
studying history. As a sophisticate in that particular discipline,
I know that history offers no simple lessons, and that the people
who make pronouncements like "refusal to learn anything from the
history of the nations that now exist", in presupposing that
"history" somehow validates their beliefs, simply don't understand
how history works, or willfully falsify the things that history
actually can teach us. I also have learned that appeals to
"human nature" are generally thinly disguised justifications
of the status quo. The study of history has taught ME that
"human nature" is a social product; that is to say, it is
a historical artifact. What people believe to be "human nature"
has a history; it is not immutable. And of course, it is
generally ideologically tainted. You say that human nature is
such-and-such because you believe that the things thus
explained and/or excused are okay. Well, history shows me
that people have always made such appeals, but that the
"human nature" to which they have appealed wasn't always
the same--it undergoes metamorphoses as the ground of argument
shifts.

History is the mother's milk of my mind; please don't
tell me I refuse to learn its lessons because you think
it OFFERS lessons to support your point of view, and offers
none to support mine. It really doesn't work that way.
If you have labored in history's vineyards as I have,
you will know what I'm talking about.

H.