Subject: BHA: RE: Re: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Re Flourishing, Aristotle etc
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:14:30 -0500


Hi Howard,

The argument of Randolph Bourne, which I tend to agree with, is that neither war nor the state are healthy for children or other living things.

Regards,

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Engelskirchen [mailto:howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com] 
Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 11:04 AM
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: BHA: Re: Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Re Flourishing, Aristotle etc


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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