I haven't followed this thread too well, so i don't
know what the original point was. But in the last few
postings, it seems that laerm has made a valid point
that has been missed.
The point is, ironically, supported by analogies made
by the detractors: dog turds ARE (or at least, some
might feel are) a beautiful shade of olive-brown, and
jumping out of a plane without a parachute CAN be
thrilling - despite the bad consequences.
Everyone seems to agree that jumping out of planes,
dog turds, and fascism suck. Nobody said fascism was
good. And the specific qualities laerm pointed out
might unfortunately be bad examples. maybe a better
example is this: fascism has inspired alot of people
to NOT be fascist. That's a good thing isn't it? Or
would it be better if we didn't learn from our
mistakes?
The general point is simply that all things, no matter
how simplistic and bad they appear to be, are
complexes of qualities, and not every single minute
quality or long term effect of a thing will turn out
to be a bad one.
This argument says nothing about the value of fascism,
or about the relative number of good vs bad qualities
it might have. What people are attacking is in fact a
strawman version of this argument. (e.g., the argument
that fascism itself is "good" or in some way justified
by some good effect it tends to have.)
hopefully this issue was raised in connection with
some idm related topic, otherwise sorry for continuing
the totally irrelevant postings.
j
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