Jean-Jaques Rousseau's only flaw is that he had a thing called the "Social Contract"
which was sooooooo delicate that *any* violation of it caused it to collapse,
and the state to dissolve, returning mankind to the state of nature from which
he came.
Oh, an apology BTW, I got myself nicely confused yesterday, and told you all that
Rousseau wrote "On Representitive Government". Well, that was a lie ;) It was
in fact J.S.Mill who wrote the aforementioned text.
> > Does a change in the law necessarily reflect the beliefs of society?
> Not exclusively. The same beliefs\values (pyramid's top) may be
> implemented on different laws due to different situations\reality
> (pyramid's basis).
There at least seems to be a consensus on this point :)
>
> > Can we, as individuals, or even as a group, successfully "persuade" society to change
> > for what we believe is the better?
> Persuade society - make its members think as we do - almost impossible.
> Infect society - insert our memes of a 'better world' into its members'
> aspirations - mostly possible. Again, 'dangerous meme' is quite
> NewSpeaky.
OK, how about "counter-productive memes"?
Oh, I looked up Oceania, but havn't had time to read it. Superficially sounds like
a fun idea, but little more.
>
> > Without groups fighting for people's social position to be changed, would society
> > stagnate, or would it evolve naturally?
> 'Groups fighting for people's social position to be changed' is part of
> that natural evolution. Examining such natural evolution when separated
> from this kind of cultural struggle is like seperating oxygen from air
> in order to examine the air 'without external additives'.
Point taken.
>
> Great questions Drakir, good to have you back.
Cheers Lior, I've been far too busy at work recently to get involved in anything,
so I ended up loosing the thread of most debates. Anyway, project finished, therefore,
me not too busy, so I thought I throw in a little something that's been bandied
around, and see if I could get a thread going that I could be involved in.
Drakir
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Richard Jones
jonesr@gatwick.geco-prakla.slb.com
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"We are the New Breed,
We are the Future."
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