[governance] Parminder's exchange with Bertrand

[Avri Doria]

On 26 Feb 2010, at 01:06, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> The people who are always yammering about how good and noble it is to be group-oriented or collective oriented, and ridiculing those of us who talk about the individual, always seem to forget that communities have boundaries, and some of the world's worst crimes come not from individuals attacking or exploiting each other, but from groups - states, ethnicities, religions, etc. - defining other groups as excluded and "the other." No individual, no private, profit-maximizing corporation, could ever produce anything like WW 2 and its national and ethnic carnage.


you have got to be kidding.

maybe it depends on the type of historiography one is partial to and as far as i can tell unless one believes in the relatively marxist historical moment sort of historical explanation, one is stuck with the great man of history explanation.  as far as i can tell most of the horrors of history have been caused by individuals, one a monster and the rest committing themselves to following along with the leader, the great man (always a man) of history.

it is individuals, natural and corporate, who commit all the crimes - at the boundary of the individual is where murder, rape and mayhem occur.  and it i the behest of the corporate person that most thievery occurs.

but without an individual in his very own individual voice or very own trigger finger nothing like WW2 or Vietnam or Iraq or .... could ever happen.

as one of those who yammer about groups being the only way to go  there is always the requirement that the individuals (the ultimate source of behavior)  behave ethically and that they have to leave the group or engage in civil disobedience or more  when the group goes strays from the ethical path.  each person always remains responsible for her behavior - not matter what the great man tries to make us do.


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