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From: tonyb@olivej.olivetti.com (Tony Brich)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Democratic evisceration
Message-ID: <19007@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 28 Mar 88 23:07:39 GMT
References: <1125@deepthot.UUCP>
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in article <1125@deepthot.UUCP>, macros@deepthot.UUCP (R.) says:
> Am I jumping to conclusions here or does this imply that it is an
> unqualified democratic principle that aggression is to be exterpated
> at all costs; to strip men of their CAPABILITY for aggression, their
> exercise of any vestigial aggression. And hence, ANY display thereof
> is to be treated with contempt and relegated to the domain of
> immaturity and inhumanity.
> 
> If so, then what if aggression is an inherent human motivator which
> energizes man's boldness, inquisitiveness, steadfastness, etc.; does
> this not imply the inevitable road to self-contempt, self-loathing,
> and self-destruction?

In Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia", aggression was understood as a 
real motivator, or at least as a real behavior deriving from powerful
passions, and thus was honored in a series of ritual wargames played
mostly by men (as we seem to be innately more aggressive, at least
in Callenbach's view) and honored by the society with victory and
victim celebrations, etc. The great thing about the ritualizing was
that is was participatory, not spectator. I personally think that if
people need to be aggressive, it is best that they get hurt, physically,
in the acting out of the aggression, else we tend to learn a danger-
ously incomplete lesson from aggressive behaviour: you don't bleed and
possibly die from watching, but you very well might when you really 
play. And also, I think that it is important not to deny the aggressive
tendencies if in fact they are real, and I think there is case for 
that belief. 

Tony Brich.

> Also, how can one be a creator without destroying? (Politically, and
> socially, NOT theistically).
> 
> 					Raymond J. Tigg