RE: [Leica] natural war

["B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

Well, George, I am absolutely NOT going to get into a p*****g match with
you...;-)....I too hope that one of these days humankind comes to its senses
and we have a world without racism, sexual abuse, serial killing, flying
airplanes into buildings, and war. HOWEVER, I would argue that serial
killing is a perversion, not a natural state or activity, and flying
airplanes into buildings is an extremely rare and bizarre behavior. Racism,
unfortunately, seems pretty natural and obviously has a great deal to do
with fear of the different, and the ugly human need to look down on another
person or group - and sexual abuse is, I suppose, failure of societal
taboos.

Anyway, it would be nice if we could eliminate all these ills, natural or
otherwise.

But, hey, someone has nominated George W. Bush and Tony Blair for the Nobel
Peace Prize for waging war on terrorism and bringing peace to the world.
Guess I must have missed the day they accomplished the later. ;-)



- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us]On Behalf Of George
Lottermoser
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 3:58 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: [Leica] natural war


bdcolen@earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)2/4/022:43 PM

> Well, George...Sad as it may be, re-read your list and consider
> when in human history there was a time and place when each of
> those items wasn't on the list. War is horrible and ugly, and
> inhumane - but quite obviously not inhuman. There seems to be
> something about the human animal - and maybe it
> is our animal nature - that repeatedly drives us to war,
> despite all the eons worth of information we have indicating
> what a stupid, disastrous, activity it is. Would that it were
> not so.

I will preface this note with my sincere and utmost respect for
your thoughtfulness, consitency, realism and pragmatism on almost
every subject you comment on. When you speak, I listen.

And I must agree that war seems a very human, possibly only human
(and some of those ants, I guess) endeavor. I simply must hope
that it doesn't fall into the category of "natural" behavior; and
further that we humans will, at some point get the "stupid,
disaterous" part of your message. I have a hard time imagining
stupid, disasterous behavior as natural. I guess I'm the pervert.

Maybe we should add:
racisim is as natural as breathing
sexual abuse is as natural as breathing
serial killing is as natural as breathing
flying commercial airliners full of passengers into office towers
is as natural as breathing
etc

On topic - The best documentary photography (journalism, cinema,
etc.) for me, has always served as a barometer to illustrate
through comparison and contrast the line between the healthy and
natural and perverse.

George


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