Replying to LO27545 --
Dear At,
Thank you At, for going deep into the matters I had in mind. Hopefully we
all realise the importance and the influences of rules and laws upon our
lives, our community, and our individual and group behaviour. In my
contribution I made a grand mistake by using an unenglish word:
unjudgemental. I 'invented' this word while writing, and unfortunately I
did not consulted a dictionary. What I ment was 'unfair' or 'inequitable'.
So, my reasoning was that unfairness and arbitrariness delmolish the
complete framework of rules and laws. That is on a personal level but also
on a global scale. We have discussed on this list some time ago the
importance of trust. Ofcourse, that discussion was about the trust on
eachother. Here it is the trust in the system, the rules and laws. In
family, village, nation and worldwide.
I am wondering already for a long time how on all scales people apply
double standards on all sorts of things. It became clear during the
Apartheid in South Africa where the rest of the world applied with their
boycot the same measure as they were protesting. It became obvious in
other boycots. And now, after that terrible day of September 11 it became
clear again. But it was already for years common practice in several parts
of the world to fight the conflicts outside the court room, and killing
your (supposed) enemy seems much easier then trying to get hold of him
and bring him to court.
Also on more local scales one could see these double standards,
accentuated by money - those who have the money seem to have an advantage
above the poor. Even the court room where rules and laws are applied,
seems not always in balance.
As At wrote:
"Let us remember that Rule Of Law (ROL) is a commitment not to exclude any
person, especially ourselves, from any formulated rule or law. What
applies to one applies to all."
I am very glad that At has presented us such profound piece of philosophy
on the 10 commandments. Since I became member of this list, I have often
thought of formulating rules and laws in a positive way. This was more a
personal mental excercise, to translate my thoughts on the mental
push/pull issue. At made for me clear that it may very well possible that
the Ur-commandments were positive recommendations - the 10 stimuli.
Gavin, I know that you work and think with this issue of fears and stimuli
too. I wonder how you work with this in your consultancy and please, can
you tell us more about your experiences on the effects of positive and/or
negative forces.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
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