message forwarded at John's request follows:

From jdblair@tenagra.sas.muohio.edu Mon Aug 15 20:51:15 1994 Received: from post.demon.co.uk by aiki.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA6112 ; Mon, 15 Aug 94 20:51:06 BST Received: from post.demon.co.uk via puntmail for jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk; Tue, 16 Aug 94 03:29:21 GMT Received: from tenagra.sas.muohio.edu by post.demon.co.uk id aa07959; 16 Aug 94 4:10 GMT-60:00 Received: by phoenix.aps.muohio.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA13160; Mon, 15 Aug 1994 23:10:53 -0400 From: Shalder Flow <jdblair@tenagra.sas.muohio.edu> Message-Id: <9408160310.AA13160@phoenix.aps.muohio.edu> Subject: Re: Are "they" really the enemy? To: jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 23:10:52 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <6011@aiki.demon.co.uk> from "Jim Dixon" at Aug 15, 94 05:23:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 3835 Status: R

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In message <940815.080301.3B8.rusnews.w165w@sendai.cybrspc.mn.org> "Roy M. Silvernail" writes:

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I am an agnostic. I don't believe that 'they' exist. I believe that you have a system staffed by a random selection of the American population, somewhat skewed because people have some control over what area they work in. To work with a system, you need to understand it objectively, you need something more than incantations.

You've been pressing this point for some time. I think the fundamental flaw in your reasoning is that you are assuming the system to be the sum of its parts. That's not the case, though.

What I said was : "to work with a system, you need to understand it objectively". Then your reply was : "the fundamental flaw in your reasoning is ..."

I did not 'reason', I said that it was necessary to reason rather than shout incantations. You then proceed to reason, and I of course have no objection to this:

Incantations! Hocus-Pocus! Eye of newt and head of toad!

I've been watching this for a bit (I lurk here a lot) and this discussion is really interesting. I have some questions. How are we going to understand the system objectively? By objectively do you mean logically, mechanistically, magically? Its clear you can't seperate yourself from "the system," even the "government system" as a member of this country. Sure, you can not vote, not participate, and try to observe it, but we're all part of those average americans that you point out make up the government.

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In _Systemantics_, John Gall conducts a very interesting examination of man-made systems and their behavior. He notes that all man-made systems exhibit certain traits, among them growth, encroachment and promulgation of intra-system goals. Your observation on the people employed by government may be right on target, but it doesn't take into account the entity of government itself. This entity cannot be touched, communicated with or coerced.

I'll have to check out this book-- it sounds very interesting. I'm bothered by the statement "all man-made systems." I find it hard to believe that such generalizations can be made. Is it all man made systems of a certain size? Of Western philosophical culture? Does my family exhibit these traits? My circle of friends? I must read this book myself to fully understand you point.

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I more or less agree. Now apply your arguments to this list as a man-made system.

OK, I should have read along a bit farther.

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Put another way, even though every person within the system may be a "good man", the system itself isn't necessarily good.

I agree. But recall that I never spoke of goodness; I just said that the people who work for the government are pretty much a random assortment of Americans. On the other hand, there have been several heated statements to the effect that 'all lawyers are X' and 'all government employees are Y'. It is this that I disagree with the most.

Makes sense... you dislike generalizations based on occupation.

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I'm sure part of this is a cultural difference, given your .uk address. The US Gov't probably looks better from outside than it does from within.

[the rest filled with well stated personal opinions based on experience refuting the above statement]

So what do we do? It seems we've pretty much agreed that governments are beasts beyond anyone's control, but so is _society_. So is the entire human population. Where do we start? If, or based on the words of many on this list, we tear down the government, will we understand the resultant human-made system any better?

yes, lots of questions and little statement... now fill my head with enlightenment.

-john.