Response to Barbara

[Philo Judaeus]

Richard Romeo wrote:
> 
> Barb wrote:
> >I just think the fewer people, the fewer countries, the fewer powerful
> >countries we have participating in violence around the world, the less
> >we'll see horrors like the holocaust. Assign whatever cause & effect or
> >blame you want, I just know in my heart we'll never get out of these
> >vicious cycles of death until we STOP killing people.
> -------------------
> Alas, a very unrealistic proposition. The destructive element in mankind is
> too strong, also not even mentioning those who are insane. Barb--get real.

Cain killed Abel, killed him with a stone.  


What's wrong with the destructive element anyway? Nature seems to have a
very powerful destructive element in her, no reason why humans should be
any different than the rest of nature I suppose. Got us here I'd say. 


Besides, how does one go about getting rid of the destructive element? 


And would getting rid of the destructive element in man necessarily
involve getting rid of other elements too, even the creative ones, the
ones that are necessary for community? 

Have humans, to a certain extent anyway,  simply taken over some of the
destructive events from nature and in so doing created a huge inequality
in  death? 


Lots of people are being killed by modern weapons and war. But deaths by
nature's many plagues and  disasters or "acts of god" have been reduced.
Humans put anthrax in the mail, but they also put penicillin into pills. 

It's nothing Karmic, it's a debt owed due to the inequality in death.
There is a debt the rich owe to the poor. The powerful americans owe a
debt to the poor and downtrodden muslims.  There is a huge inequality in
death. This is true not only on the globe but in Germany and in Los
Angeles, where poor nineteen-year-old couch Potatoes are murdered by
their drunk husbands while rich computer geeks fly jet airplanes and
engage in all sorts of risky fun, but live to the ripe old age of
ninety-two. A debt and  Retribution! This is the message in those
pynchonian  books. You just don't get it Richard.