MCLC: Foxconn lifts wages (5,6,7)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: joe alvaro <jjalvaro at student.cityu.edu.hk>
Subject: Foxconn lifts wages (5)
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Regarding Bill Goldman's post:

I don't think anyone has the right to speak for 'many others on the list'
regarding what Bill Goldman or anyone else might write. Personally, I
enjoy Bill's Christian perspective on things and I certainly do support
his right to say what he thinks. This is what the list is about.

Should we second-guess the list moderator about what posts should or
shouldn't be allowed to see the light of day? For this, I trust the
arbitrator's judgement. List members who have lived in China know first
hand what censorship means -- and I, for one, hate it passionately. Maybe
I'm getting it wrong, but for me, the essence of this list is a spirited
dedication to the cultural, political, philosophical, artistic, literary
and social (yes, even religious!) freedoms of speech relevant to the
Chinese context. Can we keep it this way?

Joe Alvaro

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From: coleen berry <j.colleen.berry at email.und.edu>
Subject: Foxconn lifts wages (6)

I would like to second Judy's remarks, especially in regard to the
Christian messages which I find both out of place and offensive. I'd much
prefer to see everyone stating their views without reference to their
religious beliefs and certainly without quoting scripture.

Colleen Berry

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From: Bill (billgoldman at mac.com)
Subject: Foxconn lifts wages (7)

Response to Judy Amory's post:

Unless you are Humpty-Dumpty, the meanings of words surely have some
relate to their dictionary definitions, and when I look up the first
dictionary Google gives me, I find that while your stated meaning could
conform to definition 1, definition 2 is "serving to establish a
standard." - i.e. something like "normative". I think that a word like
"natural", or even just "usual", would have been more precise. I did not
put words in your mouth, but I think I inferred some of their possible
implications correctly.

Your remark "I think that's probably been a reality ever since the first
hunter-gatherer managed to hunt and gather a bit more than his or her
hungry neighbour." implies - perhaps not over-seriously - that human
societies began as competitive hunter-gatherer societies and gradually
progressed to what we have today, to capitalism. I question this
assumption. It is not a question of whether there are hunter-gatherer
societies in existence today, but of whether that is how human societies
began. So far as I know, we have no written descriptions or accounts of
ancient hunter-gatherer societies - the earliest ones being quite
different. Of course, you could argue that that is because such societies
don't write books or scrolls or keep records, if you wish to.

I don't know why, when I include some historical record, it is somehow
"Christian propaganda" rather than a true account of what happened. If
such facts as I instanced discomfort you for some reason, perhaps you
could think what is the reason. Of course I agree that energy is good,
though often misdirected - whether we are talking about "lust" or
"aggression". I was giving a historical example of energy directed to the
greater good, which perhaps ought to provoke you to think rather than to
dismiss it as Christian propaganda.

Bill