Letters to the Editor

 

 

 

I happened to be engaged in reading Stephan A. Hoeller's book on Jung's"Seven Sermons to the Dead" and found your site in a search for related information. Thank you for the very interesting and thought provoking site.

 

I have one comment on a statement made in your review of Hoeller's book.You state:

President Bush has been criticized for calling bin Laden and the terrorists responsible for the WTC destruction "evil". The critics are not saying that bin Laden is "good", rather are they implying that evil doesn't exist and we should look for reasons in socio-economic injustice.

 

As one of the many critical of President Bush for characterizing the terrorists as "evil" and the USA as "good", I would like to make a distinction. You are, of course, right in stating that I don't think bin Laden is "good", but I also am not implying that evil doesn't exist. What I am concerned about is the over-identification with one of the polar opposites. As Jung and Hoeller both state pretty clearly, over-identifying with one of a pair of polar opposites invokes the other. I worry about identifying the USA as wholly "good" in it's fight with "evil" without acknowledging the admixture of evil that exists in everything. I do believe that we should look at various socio-economic factors that my be less than just, but the primary reason for looking at them is to acknowledge that they exist. I fear a USA that stays in denial of the fact of the not always positive impact it has on other peoples of the world. People, cultures and nations will always be having adverse impacts on each other, life is like that, but denying it just makes it worse.

 

bin Laden is a perfect example of someone who identifies himself as wholly "good" and his enemies as wholly "evil". And this kind over-identification with "good" is not limited to religious movements, Hitler's fascism could also be characterized this way, even Soviet-style communism. They are all examples of a "one-sided" view of the world. These are hardly examples that I would like my country to follow.

 

Much more reasonable solutions can be created in the world when both sides accept themselves as persons, or countries, or cultures, that are neither wholly good, nor wholly evil, but somewhere in between.

 

Thank you,

Daniel McCoy

 


 

Dear Frank,

 

Thanks for SCR news... It's curious that Argentina is in trouble yet right at the forefront of agricultural technology being second to USA in its genetically modified crops production and is joining USA in calling on the WTO to force countries to take them when the indigenous populations really don't want them. Quite an interesting confrontation is building up where for cultural reasons a certain economic route is being avoided here in Europe, namely the commercial growing of GM crops, yet the WTO has the power to demand that trade outlets for the GM crop should nevertheless be fully accessible here.

 

David Heaf

 



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