Means and ends
Sep. 6th, 2007 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarfmanLast week, after failing to sort out my problems with the university blog server, my Freedom and Security in a Digital-Divided Society instructors endorsed my idea of making my entries here in my LiveJournal, and for the balance of the semester. So, for this week we were to read the first two chapters of Rules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky, 1971, the second chapter being on the lack of absolutes in the issue of means and ends, and answer the following questions about a "favorite social activism event, movement, or cause" of our own choosing.
A. identify the social activism event, movement, or cause The war between the English and the Spanish during the last half of the sixteenth century, when Elizabeth I and Protestant England were defying Catholic Spain's claim to rule over England, based on the Pope's granting the appeal of Philip of Spain to uphold Mary, Queen of Scotts' will leaving the English throne to Philip.
B. identify the rule of ethics of means and ends as presented in Alinsky's book Alinsky's seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends reads, "Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics."
C. identify the source (web URL, magazine citation, book reference and page number, etc.) The Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Spanish War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Spanish_War_%281585%29
D. tell why you believe the event, movement, or cause illustrates the specific rule When I read Alinsky's seventh rule it struck me as a rephrasure of what Blackthorne the British sea pilot says in James Clavell's novel Shogun about the war in Europe. Lord Toranaga the eponymous character of the novel reacts with outrage at the behavior of the British, stating that fighting against their liege lord as they're doing is treason. Blackthorne looks Toranaga in the eye and says, "Unless you win." Toranaga laughs... According to the Wikipedia article, England had most of its practical goals thwarted for the half-century the war lasted, but remained Protestant; while Spain won the war on points, so to speak, but ran out its purse doing so and never achieved the English throne. Therefore, by Blackthorne's and Toranaga's criterion, the rebellion wasn't, after all, treason.
A. identify the social activism event, movement, or cause The war between the English and the Spanish during the last half of the sixteenth century, when Elizabeth I and Protestant England were defying Catholic Spain's claim to rule over England, based on the Pope's granting the appeal of Philip of Spain to uphold Mary, Queen of Scotts' will leaving the English throne to Philip.
B. identify the rule of ethics of means and ends as presented in Alinsky's book Alinsky's seventh rule of the ethics of means and ends reads, "Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics."
C. identify the source (web URL, magazine citation, book reference and page number, etc.) The Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Spanish War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Spanish_War_%281585%29
D. tell why you believe the event, movement, or cause illustrates the specific rule When I read Alinsky's seventh rule it struck me as a rephrasure of what Blackthorne the British sea pilot says in James Clavell's novel Shogun about the war in Europe. Lord Toranaga the eponymous character of the novel reacts with outrage at the behavior of the British, stating that fighting against their liege lord as they're doing is treason. Blackthorne looks Toranaga in the eye and says, "Unless you win." Toranaga laughs... According to the Wikipedia article, England had most of its practical goals thwarted for the half-century the war lasted, but remained Protestant; while Spain won the war on points, so to speak, but ran out its purse doing so and never achieved the English throne. Therefore, by Blackthorne's and Toranaga's criterion, the rebellion wasn't, after all, treason.
