so, anyway.

[zubird]

this is just a way i'm trying to make sense of something that confuses me. i don't think it's the only way to view the hurricane, and even i find it a little ludicrous in parts. but here.

***

misonou made this long post, a week or so ago, questions about the hurricane, and i tried to clarify, not because i know anything specific about the hurricane or

Comments

[misonou]

not many people know, but the States in general have a crime rate (and infant mortality rate, and percentage of people that drink polluted water - 8%) much higher than other developed countries.

i don't particularly like this revived mythologization of Europe (Europe is Civilised, European Philosophical Tradition will save us all, Europeans do no harm to the world) - as if the world wars have never happened, as if America isn't a product of colonisation started by whom?, as if Adam Smith was not from around. i'm always scared i might be sounding Eurocentric.

i also think the idea that people are wild selfish things kept in place with laws and armed forces is very dangerous. it's also a capitalist idea.

and that was a huge compliment up there. thank you.

[zubird]

heh, did you mean not many Europeans or not many Americans know? i would say all politically-aware American liberals are very very aware of this and remind each other of it incessantly. probably American conservatives don't believe it or don't care, or just imagine it comes with having so many dark-skinned people [people say this -- like if you praise some European welfare state or something, people will say, well, would this work in a more diverse society? as if all Swedes were blonde folk who wore braids wrapped around their heads] or is a fair trade for America's moral superiority. for the great bulk of Americans, those sort of facts are irrelevant because no matter what it's still the Greatest Country On Earth

i swear ill write more when i master the french keyboard

[misonou]

everything becomes simpler if you're less dogmatic about ideas. welfare state shouldn't be avoided like plague because it's the seed of communism, for example. think about solutions without focusing too much on word definitions, or concept definitions.