THE ENEMY IS ONE-WAY-ISM.

All of this "What can we do better?" discussion amongst American 
liberals is missing the point, namely - we can't fix what it is that 
the Islamic fundamentalists don't like about us, and we should not try.  

We are going to continue to produce and watch television, play 
music and dance, and expose our bodies to public view.  If those 
things are crimes to them, then they can not watch, and not do, 
those things.  Removing the injustices perpetrated by global 
corporations will not be adequate to their demands.  Doing so is a 
good idea, but will not solve this problem.  

As usual, when confronted with bad actors, we must address 
at least four dimensions: 

  1st) Stopping the action.
  2nd) Aiding the victims.
  3rd) Protecting the public from further occurences through 
        deterrence and isolation measures.
  4th) Addressing the cause of the injury that produced the 
        criminal so that more criminals are not generated, 
        and ultimately so that we can produce a greater justice, 
        a greater freedom, and true peace. 

In America, we have been egregiously lax about the fourth dimension 
and most of the discussion we see flowing through our email is now 
addressing this.  That's great.  It's about time we got serious about it, 
but.... 

The third dimension is woefully unattended, and it will always need 
attention even when all the brilliant fourth dimension ideas have been 
realised. Justice is defined differently in different societies and even 
by different people within the same society, so there is no way to perfect 
justice even though we must approach it. 

Our true enemy, without and within, is one-way-ism. This is a term for the 
beliefs and behavior of people who have decided they have a lock on 
righteousness. We all must focus on learning to tolerate differences, and 
then to celebrate them. This is a fourth dimension activity. 

However, even perfect global economic justice, were it possible, would not, 
by itself, eradicate one-way-ism.  Until everyone is practicing tolerance, 
at least tolerably well, third dimension measures will continue to be needed 
to protect everyone from the hate crimes perpetrated by one-way-ists of all 
flavors.  

(The two flavors prominent this week seem to be Christian and Muslim.) 

Rhodes Hileman
Seattle, September 16, 2001
mailto:rhodes@smsys.com