While accepting Doug's account of the causes & prehistory of the current
acts of international terrorism (it is not a war, surely, since one side
is incapable of more than token resistance) I'm bothered by his
conclusion that these acts are therefore 'inevitable'. There is a
determinism in this which must deny that empowered persons or bodies CAN
act in any other way: which makes any pretence of a democratic mandate
laughable. Okay, the facts support it, in this case as in many another -
what I question, perhaps, is the inevitability of the inevitability.
Not 'just' a question of politics but affecting all our lives including
the odd moments when we try to do things with words. Maybe the assertion
of freedom there, in what we do do with words, can open up others. Maybe
I'm just a sentimentalist to think so. But I reckon Doug probably thinks
so too.
AH
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