[OT]Re: Books...

[Manfred Nowak]

Hello John. You wrote:

> It's quite a simple cause and effect situation, and the muddy
> waters you create over legality were hardly helpful in addressing
> the "spirit" of the matter.  Honestly, one could argue away
> illegality on almost anything if enough ambiguities in semantics
> are asserted; the same goes for the use of rhetoric. 

The general problem with law systems is that they are complicated 
enough to be subject for Gödels theorem; i.e. they are incomplete or 
inconsistent or both. Replacing laws with substitutes like "respect" 
will not remove this inherent problem.

This inherent problem might be characterized as "muddy water" but no 
one is creating it, because it is unavoidable.


> But perhaps since it was only a /link/ to the
> definition, it doesn't mean that you actually agreed with it? ;-)

Very true. To my own surprise the definition embodied disrespect to the 
participants. But respect is a negation-unaware entity like politeness: 
as it seems impossible to point someone to his impoliteness without 
loosing ones own politeness, it seems impossible as well to point 
someone to his disrespect without being oneself disrespectful to that 
person.

Condescendence seems to be one further negation-unaware entity.

-manfred