Subject: BHA: Re: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Re Flourishing, Aristotle etc
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 11:04:26 -0500


I'm not getting this thread about healthy war.  I remember first hearing
that sort of thing as a child in an elementary school filled with military
kids where the argument was made that war produced all the great inventions,
was essential to scientific progress, etc.  Funny I can't seem to find much
healthy about the current war, or what its doing to the US polity.  I can't
imagine the UK is faring much better.  I doubt Iraqis found much healthy in
Saddam's endless wars.  Can't think of much that was healthy for the state
about Vietnam, Grenada was the state as fraud, etc.  Maybe I'm missing
something here.

howard



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 3:17 PM
Subject: BHA: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Re Flourishing, Aristotle etc


>
>
> "Moodey, Richard W" wrote:
> >
> > Hi James,
> >
> > One of the advantages of a list is that we are forced to be more
explicit about what we mean, and can review exactly what we said before.  I
think Bourne, and Hegel, are partially right, and partially wrong.  A state
can be "healthy" only in a metaphorical sense -- it isn't really an
organism.  So they are wrong.  But the metaphor suggests a number of
propositions about the state that I think are right.  Such as: war tends to
decrease internal conflicts within a state; war tends to empower officials
of the state; war increases the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the
people; etc.
>
> Would anyone seriously want to claim that "Plato," "Aristotle," even
> "Demos-archy" as we know them would exist without these three battles.
> Was not War not only the health of "the state" but of a whole,
> not-yet-formed culture?
>
> Carrol
>
>
>
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