This thread is for discussing Chapter 7 -The Two Types of Cosmopolitanism: Liberal Versus Team. You can post within this framework or create your own threads.

Chris O'Connor

"For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them"

This chapter has my interest. Although I feel Harris' disdain for the 'intellectual' (I still cannot understand how this state of being has drawn so much disdain from the Neo-Con crowd!).

I like the comparison he makes between liberal cosmopolitanism and team cosmopolitanism. I love the line he takes from (i forget now) about, and I paraphrase, 'the cosmopolitan person claiming brotherhood to all when it actually is a means for that person to shun his community'. That may be me at times!

Diogenes was a dog! I like his style tho!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

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It was the team that drove out biology, and with it the evils of racism and prejudice of every form.

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HAVE THESE THINGS GONE AWAY!?!?!

Hooray...did I miss this? Sorry, I musy have dozed!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

I was on the phone with a potential client yesterday giving him quotes for his insurance. I did not know this guy personally and this was the first time we talked.

When I asked him if he had obtained any other quotes from other agents, he said 'yes, but the guy had a middle eastern accent so screw that'.

Sad...it really is.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

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By urging us to devote ourselves to an imaginary "community of all the men and women on the planet," it keeps us from focusing our precious energies and resources on the only practical solution that lies on the historical horizon.

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Mmmm.... so I think Harris wants us to be condemned to think of nothing new. Only to fix what exists. Instead we should only examine what exists and see if it is good.

Harris quickly gets back into form on page 119. Here he discusses how the romans imagined themselves. Mmmmm... so we can discuss how the romans might have imagined themselves, but it makes no sense to imagine utopia's because they are not real. Does this strike any one as hypocrisy? Here Harris says that any member of the team could become the leader. He assumes that all these potential leaders really don't want the power. He also ignores the intangible qualities a leader must posses and then suggests that the type A personalities shouldn't/wouldn't apply. Ok, I thought he said we shouldn't be looking at Utopian ideals. Can you imagine a place where the above conditions exist? I can't. Harris then goes on to say that having an office is a good defense against a charismatic leader. HELLO!!! The opposite is true. Now, a charismatic person can get elected to that office, which legitimizes their role in the community. After all, what were Reagan and Clinton if not charismatic?

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Harris quickly gets back into form on page 119. Here he discusses how the romans imagined themselves. Mmmmm... so we can discuss how the romans might have imagined themselves, but it makes no sense to imagine utopia's because they are not real. Does this strike any one as hypocrisy?

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I noticed this type of hypocrisy often gino, especially as you point out in this section! You cannot have it both ways Lee!

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Mmmm.... so I think Harris wants us to be condemned to think of nothing new. Only to fix what exists. Instead we should only examine what exists and see if it is good.

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Status Quo is a theme I have read throughout the book. Basically, Harris seems to condemn human beings to war and struggle, since that it has always been that way. I contend that since it has always been that way, and since we are an exceptional species when it comes to our ability to think, act and achieve, we should do everything we can to end that fault in ourselves.

By accepting what was as all there can be, we doom our children to the same strife; for we instill this into them by osmosis (ie - prejudice is learned). If we raise our children to reject the status quo and challenge the injustices of the past, we create people who refuse to fall into the same destructive patterns of our barbaric past.

I detest defeatism, and that is how I view the phrase "there will always be war".

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

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(I still cannot understand how this state of being has drawn so much disdain from the Neo-Con crowd!).

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Ah yes, those elusive Neo-cons. What is a neo-con, on your view?

Harris pooh-poohs the "neo-cons" in this article.

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Fallujah should spell the end of the neo-conservative fantasy that all human beings want the same things. It should awake the Bush administration from its dream that what the Arab street really needs is democracy. Fallujah represents the end of the road for that kind of thinking and that kind of talk. And if it doesn't, we are in serious trouble.

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Apparently, Harris is not a neo-con, whatever that is.

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What is a neo-con, on your view?

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www.csmonitor.com/special...on101.html

Over agressive, holier than thou, power hungrey people who think that just because they think their way of life is better than every else's, they have a right to push that, "through force if necessary" on everyone else.

But I think their words explain themselves better than I can.

McCain: Conservative
Bush, Cheney, Santorum: Neo-Con

Chris has mentioned that Harris has changed some of his views since the publication of the book. Maybe this is article is one example of that.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

Gin - Have you not heard the phrase, "There is nothing new under the Sun."?

And in a sense, it's true. All that we've "discovered" was already there..waiting for us to "find" it. This is a basic precept of living.

Even when science discovers a "new" application of tech...take the combustion engine for example...It still isn't truly "new". The principles behind it were THERE...we just found a way to study it, analyze it and exploit it.

In this way, we truly don't think of anything "new", but should always look for ways to improve what we "know"...as well as look for things that were there, but we didn't "know" that "they" were there before.

In Vino Veritas