Tom Bourbon [950210.1421]
Re: No laissez faire here
[Martin Taylor 950209 11:20]
Tom Bourbon [950208.1741]
Getting a little political here, are we?
In what way(s), Martin? I really don't understand. Can you explain what it
was about my post that you thought was "political?" Was the post I was
replying to also political?I thought so. It seemed to me that to use as a topic material something
that (in the US) is a politically touchy subject, and to assert a judgment
on it, was political.
I have often seen people write about touchy subjects on the net. Sometimes
they even assert judgments. When we are at our best (acting responsibly, of
course we try to use those discussions as illustrations of perceptual
control in action. That was what I tried to do in my post.
As an incidental observation, I find it interesting that during several
previous discussions on the net about gun control in the USA, people have
often weighed in on one side of the issue and no one ever pointed out that
their judgments were political.
I was replying to a post by Joel in which he used the example of a person
who says, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." I followed that
lead as a way to discuss the ideas that people who intend to kill people can
and do accomplish that end by many different means, and that none of the
*means* can be said to "kill people," except in the sense that they are
"efficient causes," in Aristotle's sense. On the other hand, any person
who intentionally kills another, by whatever means, is a "final causes" of
the other's death.
That's independent of whether the position you take
is one with which I agree (and it isn't).
Ah! A politial statement, if I ever saw one!
If killing were made
a leetle less easy, a gun being less readily to hand, would perhaps some
other means to that end be substituted for killing? Just sometimes?Not if the desired end is to kill, or if the higher-level end requires
killing."Just sometimes" is in your opinion "never?"
Of course not. I was attempting, without success it would seem, to avoid
talking about the topic at the level of a debate about the purported facts
concerning guns and violence.
The question is about the "if"
in your response. If the "if" is satisfied, of course you are right, but
that's not the point. The point is that when you have a very easy means
to satisfy a higher level reference, it will usually be the one that is used.
Martin, the statistics are against you on this count, and I mention this
only to introduce greater accuracy into the thread on responsibility. It is
*hardly ever* the case that, during a conflict, the availability of a gun
results in one person using the gun to injure or kill another, or even to
intimidate another. The result you describe is extremely rare. Think of
how many millions of guns are owned by Americans, then think of how many
times each year Americans have conflicts where guns are readily avaiable,
then think of how many times each year a person is injured or killed by
another who uses a readily-available gun.
I think we are looking at numbers similar to those for automobile
fatalities. People often decry the "slaughter" on American highways. It
is certainly true that each year tens of thousands of Americans are
killed or disabled in automobile acidents, but the probability that an
automobile trip will end in disabling injury or death is < .0000001 --
conversely, the probability a trip will end without one of those
catastrophies is > .9999999. Similarly, in spite of the number of guns in
society, and the number of conflicts that occur each year in places where
guns are readily available, I believe the probability of the outcome you
describe is extraordinarily low. Not zero. Extraordinarily low.
Do you think it is appropriate to apply your questions to some of the other
means for killing that I mentioned in my post? For example, if we
eliminated hunting knives and kitchen knives from society, would knives be
at least a little less likely to be used as the means to reach an end?Yes, of course. But it's much harder to kill someone with a knife if they
know you are trying to do it than it is with a gun. There just might be
a fight. You just might lose. With a loaded gun, if you aim straight, you
only have to pull the trigger. Quick, easy, and for you, painless (until
later).
All true, and all beside the point, if we are trying to discuss what a
PCT person might, and might not, be able to say about "(ir)responsible"
behavior as the means by which people control their perceptions.
I am trying to
understand why several participants on the net seem, to me, to talk about
one kind of inanimate object as though it plays the role of "cause" to the
behavior called killing.I haven't seen anyone on THIS list take that position.
Of course not. Neither do we see many people who call themselves
behaviorists take the position, overtly, that stimuli cause behavior, in a
lineal reflexological manner.
Granted, in the
public discourse, the necessary shortening required by the length of a sound
bite tends to induce people to talk that way. But I doubt that many of
even the strongest anti-gun people would claim that the gun gets up by itself
and hypnotizes someone into killing.
Look a little more closely at utterances from some of the more frothy-mouthed
discussants on that side of the debate in the general public. (Please
notice that I see some frothy mouths on all sides.)
If we were to remove guns, knives and all of the other means for killing
that I described in my post, would killing stop?Of course not. But it would be harder for any individual, by killing, to
control whatever higher-level perceptions result in killing nowadays (in
the USA). Other means, such as discussion, might turn out to be easier
in a lot of cases.
Certainly, Martin. But there would be (not merely "might be") many cases in
which removing guns from law-abiding people would leave them defenseless
when they were confronted or attacked by individuals bent on doing immediate
harm, rather than on holding friendly, productive discussions. In such
cases, and unfortunately there are many each year in the USA, the only
result made easier by denying legal ownership of guns by law-abiding
citizens would be the inflicting of harm upon them by those intent on
inflicting it.
Would there be any
unintended consequences, possibly including some that a majority of people
might not like? I am simply curious.And more than a little disingenuous, I suspect.
Martin, I am working hard to go up a level, but my most immediate thought
is that I take offense with the easy manner in which you attribute
questionable motives to me. From lower down in the hierarhy, I find your
remarks extremely repulsive.
I am trying to understand your position, and that of some others who seem
able to pass quick judgment on a topic I find vexing. In the debates about
guns, I believe I understand *some* of the diverse perceptions people in the
USA are trying to control. Also, my understanding of PCT allows me to think
I can explain some of the conflicts between advocates who take various
positions in the debate. What I do not understand is the ease with which
some discussants on this net assert "truths" on the subject. The only
explanation that makes sense to me is that each of us on csg-l is acting
like a hierarchical peceptual controller.
Of course there would be
consequences many people wouldn't like. There would be consequences they
would like, as well. Would the overall level of error in all the perceptual
control systems in the world increase or decrease? That's the unanswerable
question. Perhaps if we had enough guns, the population would decline
fast enough to stave off the coming ecological catastrophe, and people
would like the murder and mayhem better than the alternative starvation
and plague. Who knows?
Isn't that a rather contrived and silly conclusion, Martin?
At least the experience of countries with different degrees of access to
guns would suggest it might be so.Only on selective readings of history and crime statistics.
That's a VERY interesting comment, which I don't understand at all.
Well, I can suggest that you might improve your understanding were you to
look for and examine the statistics. In many political jurisdictions around
the world, large percentages of the population are armed. In some places,
the government requires that they be armed; in others, it allows them to be
armed. The relationship between the proportion of the population that is
armed, and the incidence of murder and other crimes that involve guns, is
not what is commonly assumed by the more outspoken anti-gun debaters in the
USA. I know many people do not understand that fact, I don't, but it is a
fact that will not go away. To me, it raises the possibility that something
other than the availability of guns is behind the murder statistics in the
USA. When you try to understand my inscrutable comment, also remember
my perspective on the probability that any given readily-available gun will
ever be used in an act of violence -- yet another statistic that is the
reverse of what is commonly assumed.
Again, I am, not trying to argue for or against legal ownership of guns.
Then your wordings were a little unfortunately chosen. Sorry for
misunderstanding you.
That's OK. I invite you to have another try at it. I was probably
equally wrong when I interpreted your carefully chosen words as advocating
the end of legal gun ownership by American citizens.
Whether or not you try to understand my remarks, please remember that I was
using this topic to illustrate something about perceptual control: Even when
we think we are talking about self-evident truths (guns are bad and should
be banned; guns are fine and should be widely owned; and any imaginable
position between those two), each of us controls his or her own preferred
perceptions, nothing more or less.
Later,
Tom