--- Travis Fast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
> Hey Chuck if everyone has a choice just what is it
> you and your fellow
> travellers are trying so hard to change about the
> world and on whose
> behalf ?
You can argue the need for a social change without resorting to bombasitc, demonstrably false hyperboles of the "poor victims, have no choice, the man made them do it" variety. Of the top of my head, I can think of several arguments for a radical social change that do not depend on such crude appeals to pity and misery:
- we need a less wasteful and more sustainable in the long run use of environment and material resources;
- we need a better quality of life for more people;
- we need to reduce unnecessary risks to wich some groups of people are exposed to a greater degree than other groups
- we need a a more humanistic society in which more people have better chances of pursuing their human interests instead of toiling for somebody's profit;
- we need more peacuful and cooperative international relations.
All these are powerful arguments for changing the status quo, so why relying on exaggerated claims and demonization of the enemy that are demonstrably false?
In fact, demonization of the enemy is usually a sure sign of intellectual laziness - unwillingness or inablity to undertake the difficult intellectual task of understanding your enemy - something that the US pundit class is notorious for.
Wojtek
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