> We are supposed to be social scientists or historians, observing and
> recording events, and I trust the specialists in Afghan art and
> antiquities will be making a record of the destruction. But would it
> be ethical for professionals in the area of culture history to
> condemn actions of the Afghan rulers? We are not theologians. What
> they are doing is a well-document process in the history of
> extremism, and they are creating an archaeological record that can
> later recover that record.
i thought the leading paradigm these days was preservation "in situ," etc. - we
are the caretakers for the future - the past isn't ours to destroy, it's an
irreplaceable limited resource -
geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/[log in to unmask]