Dreamer:

Steven Bissell wrote:
> 
> Bissell responds to the below: Your are correct, however my point was that
> just using the same words does not constitute the same meaning. Luke the
> psycopath was *not* experiencing "true beauty," he was just saying the
> words. The point of the post was that Jim Tantillo's (I think) use of
> aesthetics to describe hunting had parallels to Luke's torture of animals.
> It is *not* analogous, parallel, similiar, or in any way related merely
> because the same words are used. Same reason I objected to Chris Lees'
> constant use of child molestation as analgous to hunting.
> 
> My wife, and I love her dearly, is one of those people who use wild
> exaggerations to describe stuff. We were just in Mexico on a hike through
> some Mayan ruins in the Jungle. She said, "It's so hot I'm going to kill
> myself just to cool down."  She often uses words like "hate," "love," etc.
> to describe fairly mundane things, like food or whatever. She doesn't really
> mean that in any true sense of the word, she's just saying it. For her to
> say she "loves" crab legs, which she did say, and for me to say "I love my
> wife," are *not* parallel, analogous, similar statements. It's just using
> the same words. In one case the words are appropriate to the situation, in
> the other they are not appropriate. Using pathological behaviors as examples
> of non-pathologal ethical situations is a sophomoric debating technique.
> That's all I meant to show.

Dreamer:  I agree with your philosophy of language, Steve, but I'm not
sure how we can tell the the words aren't being used in the same sense
in the cases at hand.  Maybe Luke had a keen sense of the ironies and
pathos in the situation he created.  Maybe he reached an ecstatic peak
with artistic elements.  I'm reminded of the brutality conducted to the
background of Beethoven in Clockwork Orange.

I'm not sure Chris was using pathological behaviors as examples of
non-pathological situations.  His point was that both sets of behaviors
might/should be considered pathological.  According to the principles
he's articulated, recreational hunting SHOULD be considered
pathological.  Just because it happens all the time does not make it
objectively healthy.  Ceremonial human sacrifice, accompanied by
ecstatic ritual, happened all the time in many historical cultures.  But
observing that behavior from our vantage point, we might reasonably make
a case for labeling that behavior pathological.  (Or, again, perfectly
normal and acceptable.  Witness the macabre celebrations which continue
to accompany many executions under modern capital punishment policies).

a> sb
> (sorry for the spelling, microsoft just did one of it's wonderful things on
> me)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Davidson / Kate O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Saturday, May 01, 1999 8:06 PM
> Subject: Re: "True beauty"
> 
> Steven Bissell wrote:
> 
> > Bissell here; Last spring I had the opportunity to vist the d'Orsay Museum
> > in Paris. I got to see an entire room of Claude Monet's paintings. It was
> > true beauty. Therefore I must be exactly the same as a psychotic teenager,
> > correct?
> > sb
> 
> as a response to Chris Hope's criticism of aesthetics as a justification
> for hunting:
> >
> > "October 1, 1997 - Pearl, Mississippi. Luke Woodham, 16, stabbed his
> >    mother to death then went to his high school where he shot and killed
> two
> >    classmates and injured seven others. Prior to the killings, Woodham
> >    stated in his personal journal that he and an accomplice beat, burned,
> >    and tortured his dog, Sparkle, to death. He said it was "true beauty.""
> >
> 
> Dreamer:  Steve, I think Chris's point was that the susceptibility of
> particular conduct to refined aesthetic appreciation is a poor indicator
> of that conduct's moral or ethical acceptability.  Nero reportedly found
> the aesthetics of a burning Rome to be so sublime and inspirational that
> he would rather provide musical accompaniment than prevent the loss of
> life and irreplaceable culture.  So what?
> 
> Your appreciation of Monet does not make either you or Monet a
> psychopath.  Likewise, Luke's aesthetic appreciation of animal torture,
> or a hunter's aesthetic appreciation of recreational killing of
> outmatched animals, does not render animal hunting or torture ethical.


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