Posted by lorelei (199.74.100.30) on January 25, 2002 at 00:18:09:
In Reply to: how old is this argument? posted by Alli on January 24, 2002 at 22:13:27:
Dear Alli,
This has nothing to do with drugs or sex, I
don't know what I said that triggered your
telling me about your piano and violin lessons.
I am not coming at you from a Bored Again
perspective. I'm coming at it from the power
of relying on the quality of uniqueness.
Because we value this quality of uniqueness,
we have a desire to maintain its integrity when
some force or agent comes by to threaten its
property. Thus in such a situation of threat
a person or group will act such that they maintain
this property of uniqueness. If we were all the
same it wouldn't matter who ate food or who
lives in a high rise or who has a country or not.
The very fact that you, a mix of ethnicities,
consider yourself Assyrian you are relying upon
this property of uniqueness to distinguish your
group membership. Not only am I a member of
the group humanity, i am a member of the group
assyrian.
And, because this quality of uniqueness is something
we value, we will defend its integrity when there
are threats to its loss. We counter assimilation
by teaching our kids to speak assyrain,
marry assyrians or go to assyrian parties.
We inculcate special values, we dress certain
ways and we rely upon certain handshakes and
forms of greeting because these are all
qualities of the property of uniqueness.
We defend its integrity simply because we value it.
Would I be wrong to say that it is "human" nature
to value things? I don't see you disagreeing
with that. If there was a strip of property
somehow available in Northern Iraq for permanent
assyrian autonomous settlement, i would opt to
move there, and i know many people would also
want to do the same given if the situation there
is safer, etc.
BUT, when we move as a collective unique unit
to this place, we will act then to maintain its
integrity. What i mean is we will define and
map borders, we will have officers at borders,
we will have diplomats representing us to other
countries, we will have a policing system, we
will have an educational system promoting Assyrian
values.
And if someone comes along and threatens that?
If all of a sudden Kurds say, the hell with
Assyrian autonomy, lets raid those m'fers?
We will defend it simply because we value it.
And that defense will mean a loss of life.
And therefore i wholehearteldy disagree
in the idea that we can survive as a civilization
without killing other people. I say that largely
because we cannot know for certain that other
people wont' act as agressors to our quality of
uniqueness.