The sleep of reason–and moral agency–produces monsters
Below, we have Goya’s famous etching”The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.”
It came to mind while I was reading Melanie Phillips, who is presently writing some of the finest analysis of the British (and, by extrapolation, general Western European) reaction to the war in Lebanon that I’ve read.
Phillips makes sobering reading. It does appear that, among a certain rather large segment in Europe, reason has indeed gone to sleep and monsters are afoot. The West, the birthplace of the Enlightenment and its dedication to reason, seems to have lost the ability to do so.
Read most especially and particularly this; (and also this, and this, if you have more time).
Phillips writes with an air of astonishment as well as outrage, the astonishment of the child who points out the obvious fact that the emperor has no clothes, and yet no one will listen. Her “J’accuse” will no doubt be rejected by those she’s criticizing in the press, the intelligentsia, and the Left.
Ms. Phillips writes that the West is in the grip of “a profound moral breakdown.” Some of this is fed by the lies and distortions of the BBC, which provides most of the information for the British populace; the BBC seems to have abandoned not only it’s vaunted objectivity but reason itself.
The consequences are dreadful, because, as Phillips points out, this isn’t about Israel anymore. This is about a genocidal intent on the part of Iran and certain Arab states to obliterate Israel, and to establish an all-encompassing caliphate. If the Jews have always been the canary in the mine (and I believe they have), we’re all in dire trouble. One of the troubles is that so few in Europe seem to recognize their own potentially suicidal defense of their enemies and their refusal to recognize their friends.
I could quote at great length from Phillips’s piece, but I’ll try to be as brief as possible and give you the essence of it. Please ponder this:
But the moral crisis in Britain extends far wider and deeper than the wretched BBC and other media. The surreally distorted response by so many to Israel’s attempt to destroy the would-be purveyors of genocide raises the question of whether Britain will ever again support a just war ”” because it no longer knows what a just war is, and no longer has the intellectual capacity to know. This is in large measure because moral agency has disappeared altogether from the analysis. Intention, the essence of moral actions, is now tossed aside as of no significance. All that matters are the consequences of an action. This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility. What someone intends to do is therefore held to be of no account. All that matters is the consequences of their action.
So the fact that Israel is at war solely to prevent the deaths of innocents is dismissed. All that matters is that the consequences of its actions are that Lebanese civilians are dying. The fact that the Israelis do not intend them to die is irrelevant. Those deaths are deemed to be the equivalent of the deaths caused by Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah deliberately sets out to murder innocent Israelis is irrelevant. Thus the only thing that matters is which side has more dead people. The fact that there are more dead Lebanese than dead Israelis settles the matter. The Israelis are in the wrong, are behaving disproportionately, are committing war crimes, are the villains of the piece. The fact that they are actually the victims of unprovoked genocidal aggression is deemed irrelevant. Thus the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s post-modern cultural desert…
Such prejudice [towards Israel] is not only despicable. It is also nationally suicidal. For such is the hatred of Israel that ”” fantastically ”” a world war is under way in which the designated victims don’t even realise it is happening.
If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons and wipes out Israel–thus coming a long way to finishing the job Hitler began–will Western Europe mourn, or rejoice? I begin to wonder. Phillips does offer some hope, however–evidence that the middle-class “man in the street” gets the situation better than the intellectuals–and despite the efforts of the press to shape opinion otherwise.
Mourn but accept the losses, because the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.
Sigh.
No it won’t.
You may choose to die with your moral superiority to your killers intact, but those who kill you will go on to kill each other in wars beyond your imagination. The wars will continue, you just won’t be morally culpable for your participation in them. The only thing you will prevent will be the memory of your living on this earth, or the further propagation and growth of Western culture and civilization. You and yours will simply be the infidels who were gloriously slain in the service of one God and complete monotheism – this is to say, God is all, and there is nothing else.
The killing will not be in your name, so then I guess that makes it OK. After all, that’s truly the most important thing, right? This is all really about you when you get down to it, isn’t it? After all, what about modern Western culture could possibly be worth saving?
You just don’t, won’t, or maybe even can’t understand the depth of their conviction, that everything Muslims do is right and everything non-Muslims do is wrong.
And you don’t see any irony in that statement.
No doubt many visitors to this site have seen my comments of late, which have become much more numerous. It is difficult to contain the outrage I feel at the willful ignorance of FACTS by much of the media when reporting on anything concerning the Middle East, Israel, “Palestine”, and the war against Islamic Fascism.
It’s as if we hadn’t gone through 1936 and WWII; the same ostrich mentality seems to be asserting itself throughout the “intelligentsia” and academia, the media, and other organs of the left. When I was younger, I always thought that “liberal” meant one was for freedom, democracy, and liberty. Now, the left seems only to support totalitarianism and terror. What happened?
Why are so many in the West so blind?
In most Western countries, post 60’s, a conscious effort was made by the left to capture the agencies of Poltical Socialization. “Political socialization is the process by which individuals learn the values and norms in their society and by which political culture is passed from one generation to another. Socialization happens both directly and indirectly.”
The main agencies of socialization in general and political socialization in particular are the family, schools, peer groups and mass media. It was first proposed as “The Slow Revolution” in about 1970 when it became clear that the small number of radicals were not about to overthrow the West. Jobs in government, teaching and media, in general, do not pay all that much and the elites and their children were focused on economic upward mobility and essentially turned these roles over to those who were in many ways determined to subvert their cultures in many ways. For example moral relativism replaced more “rigid” value sets.
The children who came of age during “The Great Western Cultural Revolution” of the 60’s had been the first generation raised on mass media, especially television. In addition child rearing mores mitigated against “indoctrination” defined as the transfer of moral values from one generation to the next.
Now 40+ years alter we are seeing the results of that Slow Revolution”. Just to take a small piece, children are no longer taught “what to think” they are actively discouraged from learning “how to think”. How you feel is the touchstone now.
Given our collective abrogation as citizens to protect our values is it any wonder that those who have captured the “means of production” are fighting to keep their power and continue their original mission, the destruction of all they find “evil”?
Mourn but accept the losses, because the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.
“the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.”
And the only way to stop living is to die.
I’ll fight to live, thanks.
the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.
true, but is that an actual recommendation?
if so, pathetic
Those who reject violence can still be slain by those who do not.
“Her “J’accuse” will no doubt be rejected by those she’s criticizing in the press, the intelligentsia, and the Left.”
I believe this is inaccurate. I would deem them the stupidigentsia, not the intelligentsia.
Also, the only realistic answer to one of the questions posed is “rejoice”. That would be true of our American liberals, as well at Europe.
I thought 9/11 would have been the wake-up call.
I would have thought the train bombings in Spain and Britain would have finally done it.
I thought the slaughter in Beslan and the ongoing genocide in places like Darfur would have done the trick.
Perhaps even the murderous rage shown over CARTOONS would have rung a bell.
I was pathetically naive, was I not?
I have a much better understanding of the 1930’s and how Hitler was able to rise to power unopposed, however.
Everyone wants to avoid the cost now, in order to pay it down later.
We will not wake up until it costs us dear, and when I say dear, I mean monstrously dear.
Let’s do some speculative math. World War II cost something like 50 million lives out of world population of under 2.5 billion.
The world population is now 6 billion+, I believe, and weaponry has increased in both lethality and in general availability at least several times over.
Even if we simply postulate a casualty increase of 5x, we can expect the next big war to cost us 250 million people; almost the entire population of the Unites States.
And even then, there will be those saying, “We brought this on ourselves.”
Hold onto your hats…
Gotta jump back in with one more thought – I think it was Trotsky who said “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Trotsky was a moral monster in many ways, but he was a very canny guy, and he understood human nature. Methinks he would understand exactly what is up right now.
Mourn but accept the losses, because the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.
It takes two to make peace, but only one to make war.
(I know, I know, fighting platitudes with aphorisms.)
Neo: awesome link to Phillips, thank you.
“This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility.”
She’s getting to the core problem here. Far too many simply do not excercise their capacity for principled moral judgment. This is due to a deeper problem: the refusal to excercise their higher reason at all. Note the lack of reference to fundamental principles in the muddled discussion about this war. (“Don’t kill people,” taken as an axiom by many, is a deadly pseudo-principle — one which guarantees you will never win another war.) The focus is on details, concretes, and “results” because abstract thinking is taboo. Modern philosophy has done this to Western culture, it has all but killed respect for the mind — it has all but stopped the momentum of the Enlightenment. This is why things like 9/11 do not “wake people up” as they should. Seeing 9/11 and feeling shock is one thing; grasping its meaning — that a murderous mysticism has swept much of the world and is knocking at civilization’s door — is another.
It has indeed been about more than Israel for some time, and that is increasingly clear.
Humankind has always gone through fits of being unable to even understand moral reasoning, much less initiate it. These have usually been the product of tribal rages, however, and not the abandonment of principles per se.
The insistence on seeing the powerful as always wrong and the powerless as always right, a sort of reverse social darwinism, precludes even the simplest building blocks of morality – honesty, kindness, justice, proportion – from being put into use.
Watching MSM is like looking into the twilight zone. I for one am going to keep my sense of right and wrong and i dont care how long “cute and compassionate” news reporters try to persuade me differently. Long live the facts!
Mourn but accept the losses, because the only way to stop war is to refuse to fight.
Synova
As has been pointed out, this won’t stop war because others will fight.
If all of Israel refused to fight, after they were all murdered Islam would turn on Europe, the US, or other western targets.
When Islam is done with the west, there is still Hindus, Buddists, and so on in the east to deal with.
And when all others are gone, Shei and Sunni will be sorting out their differences.
But aside from that, ending war is not my goal: I’d be happy just to destroy my enemies.
A very well-written summary of the sad state of our culture. Reason, of course, means conceptual thinking. But as you point out very few will conceptualize the nature of Israel and her enemies. On one side we have a free people, in Israel, who for 50 years have wanted peace and security. On the other we have vicious hate-filled fanatics driven by a supremacist religious ideology, Islam, who want nothing more than to annihilate their neighbor. Yet the media, academics, and commentators talk about both sides with a bizarre moral equivalency. Being blind to the vicious nature of Israel’s enemies could only come about by the sleep of reason … as you remind us.
For the record, I was echoing sentiments I’ve heard lately from persons of my aquaintence from the other side of the Pond. I was also meaning to point out that it’s not a choice between mourn or rejoice.
Personally I agree with you all. The only peace for the pacifist is in the grave. It only takes one side to wage war.
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SeWasp spotlights those ‘..who have captured the “means of production” are fighting to keep their power and continue their original mission, the destruction of all they find “evil”?’
I wonder if any of us have sufficiently analyzed the actions of the MSM in this war. So much of what is being reported presently is absurd. It does require some stupidity among other things to buy the lies.
Have you ever wondered if certain forces (financial and Islamist in nature) might be exercising control over the behavior of the media??
Yep, I’m talking conspiracy, but still..
I guess I am a victim of that scene from ‘Network’ when the half?crazed newscaster (P.Finch) is introduced to the actual ‘gods’ who control the world and the news. I’m just wondering who those gods might be today.
sam… your point?
jgr, i tend to think MSM is playing the “enemy of my enemy” card. They are born and bred in majority leftist academia and see this as a chance to pile on with islamo fascist to weaken judeo christian power and influence in western cultures.
If i had to guess one underlying reason for their obvious hatred of George Bush i would say its the mans professed brand of conservative Christianity. Nothing in the mans governing policies alone can explain their personal contempt. He is even ridiculed for such liberal policies as the senior citizen prescription drug plan. Not because its a policy they detest, but because of the idea that if everything the man does is shown in a critical light, they may just possibly sway the 5% of voters who won Bush the last election.
They cant win on head to head ideas, so they have to distort what the ideas actually are and the factual results those ideas produce.
I think the reason why moral reasoning has been abandoned is not due to lack of ability, although there is certainly something to that idea.
The real issue is that in making a moral judgement, in deciding what is truly right and wrong, in seeing evil for what it is, you are impelled to do something, to make a choice, choose sides.
By not even making those judgments one can escape both the obligation to take a stand, and can avoid feeling shame or guilt over doing nothing.
This is why it is so important for some to paint Israel, or the US, or the West as just as bad the Islamofascists. By painting them with the same brush, they can claim none or better the other and they can avoid taking sides.
This not true of all, of course. Some are true believers in neo-Marxism, or pseudo-fascism or Islamism, but many are just trying to avoid getting involved at all.
That’s where that Trotsky quote comes in (although I had read somewhere they thought it was apocryphal).
They think they can avoid choosing sides, but eventually the enemy will make the choice for them.
senescentwasp —
The suicidal memes that infect opinion shapers of the left were the direct result of the Soviet Union’s insidious infiltration of our elite institutions last century. As Eric S. Raymond has written, “Indeed the index of Soviet success is that most of us no longer think of these memes as Communist propaganda”:
Chomsky, Moore, Fisk: Pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant
The suicidal memes that infect opinion shapers of the left were the direct result of the Soviet Union’s insidious infiltration of our elite institutions last century.
Sissy you got that right — also see: Students for Academic Freedom
…
We are watching, in painful ultra-slow motion, the evolution of another huge catastrophe for mankind. We have the means, but not the will, to prevent it. It is surely possible to extrapolate out 10 or 15 years and see Israel obliterated by a nuclear event, and then what…the USA nukes Iran?
Let’s face it: if 9/11 was insufficient, much worse will be needed to serve as electroshock therapy for the delusional, depressed, and (already) defeated West.
“Yep, I’m talking conspiracy, but still..”
There are real-life conspiracies. 9-11 was the product of one, as were Watergate and Rathergate.
Real conspiracies are typically only unearthed before the damage is done by trained detectives, though. Average joes, including the “Army of Davids,” only discover conspiracies after the fact, but even they are better at uncovering them than conspiracy theorists, who happily ignore any real-world evidence that does not suit their pre-planned ideas simply because their conspiracies are not quests for truth, but for fame.
Which, in turn, proves once again how meaningful intent really is. Going through the motions of a detective is not enough; to find the truth, you have to intend to find the truth, not find what you’ve already assumed true.
Wasp–I agree with your diagnosis and think that the ideas of Marxist Antonio Gramsci, about how to subvert a society by capturing the media and cultural elites and using them to devalue the target society’s key institutions, ideas and morality and then reanimate them with leftist revolutionary ones, have been carried out very skillfully indeed.
I am amazed at how thoroughly the mindset of the U.S. has been reoriented since the end of WWII. Think how profoundly the movements/concepts of “multiculturalism,” “diversity,” “woman’s liberation,” “political correctness,””deconstructionism,” and many others have changed have we view and how we behave within key social building blocks–the family, the church, schools, academic institutions, government and society in general, how they have changed what people generally believe to be moral and acceptable, how they have changed the key concepts of “good” and “evil” and “responsability” and how these new concepts have spread throught society and caused many to revalorise bedrock ideas and change ways of thinking, evaluating and behaving–all, as Gramsci advised, in the guise of “progress.” Progress that has brought us to the edge of the precipice we stand at now.
snowonpine,
While some radicals were studying Regis Debray, Che and Uncle Ho(Google and Wikipedia) others, who knew that they were in for a long haul were studying writers like Gramsci, a name I haven’t heard for years, and applied social science. Due to our country’s historical social and economic mobility, they saw that, in the longer term, replacing the elites was more effective than “The Revolution” and because they understand economics and delayed gratification; Keynes: No jam today. More jam tomorrow.; they were able to settle in and lead normal lives. There was, of course, a lot of backsliding and the usual fizzles due to drugs and alcohol. but the affinity groups gave them a support mechanism. They have been remarkably successful in maintaining their “received truths” through “alternative readings” of world events and breath taking self deception.
Phillips does offer some hope, however–evidence that the middle-class “man in the street” gets the situation better than the intellectuals…
This is the key. In fighting and winning the war against Islamofascism, it may be that the existing intellectual order goes out the window. I think that at some visceral level, the inhabitants of that hothouse world know it – which is part of the reason they are so terrified.
More interesting, especially in Europe, is what will replace it. We in blogland spend entirely too much time reacting to and talking about the BBC and the leftist intellectuals who so dominate European public discourse. To a lesser extent, they dominate in America too. We do need to talk about them, because they are important – but we also need to know far more about the opinions of the European “man in the street” and what those mean to the future of Europe.
Have you ever wondered if certain forces (financial and Islamist in nature) might be exercising control over the behavior of the media??
Yep, I’m talking conspiracy, but still..
-jgr
No, I agree with the poster who replied “enemy of my enemy”. If Clinton was running the WOT, to a large degree the MSM would be more positive.
The left also reflexivly identifies with the weak, and warlike Islam is weak compared to peaceful captialism.
And, further, I think the left has trouble realizing the threat posed by Islam; protected by the capitalism and military they despise, they see all issues in terms of academic debate, not real violence.
There are real-life conspiracies. 9-11 was the product of one, as were Watergate and Rathergate.
Indeed there are. However, wide ranging conspiracies take a large number of actors, and consequently are prone to exposure. Small conspiracies can accomplish something, but the accomplishments are limited.
One other conspiracy: “Tail gunner Joe” was right. There was a Soviet conspiracy in the US, with a wide range of US citizens operating in Hollywood and elsewhere. Its effectiveness was limited by circumstances, and McCarthy never really proved anything. But he was right in that it did exist; Soviet records prove this.
Don-i was very interested in the VENONA papers when they were finally released a few years ago by the CIA because these intercepted and translated early Cold War era communications between Russian embassy personnel and Moscow did, indeed, confirm the depth and scope of Communist penetraton of the U.S. government and elites to an extent even greater than McCarthy was talking about. Predictably, the media was not interested in covering news that one would have thought “very newsworthy” but which would have called too much attention to the men and women behind the curtains who they have told us, over and over, were never there.
As for grand conspiracies, seeing how screwed up the large organizations I’ve worked for or had experience with were, I have always been very skeptical of such, particularly decades or generations’ long, conspiracies which would require immense dedication or a great amount of “wetwork’ to maintain. However, what the author of “None Dare Call It Treason” has called the “conspiracy of shared values”, that, I can believe in.
Maybe there is one valid conspiracy theory to explain current journalist behavior. A conspiracy created quite by accident. A result of 50 plus years of television where the long shot underdog is never wrong and the powerful are never right. Lets face it, we all would have preferred the Howells to be sacrificed if it meant castaways like Gilligan and the Skipper could have lived…LOL
snowonpine & SteveH,
I agree; not so much conspiracy as shared values. More like isolated communist cells working towards the same goal than cells that are centrally controlled and cooridinated.
“Great revolutions which succeed make the causes which produced them disappear, and thus become incomprehensible because of their own success.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, 1856.
snow–
I agree completely with what you’ve written above. The ideas of people like Susan Sontag, Herbert Marcuse, Martin Heidegger and so forth have become so embedded in our way of life that to think our present condition has an intellectual basis seems mystifying to many.
Roger Kimball’s The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America is a great read on the topic.
snowonpine wrote: how they have changed the key concepts of “good” and “evil” and “responsability” [sic]
Judging by what you wrote above, “they” have changed the “key concepts of” spelling as well!
Gramscian conspiracy is making neocons spell “responsibility” as “responsability” !!!
Perry–You have found out my secret! I don’t spell very well and spell check will apparently not work with Blogger for me. But can you discredit my ideas?
The new enemies of civilization are marked by an extraordinary lack of organization; they are essentially groups of complete strangers with shared values inimical to civilized society. They are a force that is powerful, yet formless, in the classic Sun Tzu sense.
Thousands of individuals making thousands of independent decisions, yet all leading to the same goal. Like the market forces of capitalism, but rather than seeking merchandise to buy, they seek the elimination of the twin devils of logic and reason, believing that, with them out of the picture, a magical world that loves and supports all humanity without requiring anything of them in return will spring into being. Not like the coldness of science or the scary threatening machinery of technology.
The enemies of progress call this mystical world that the evil wall of truth has sealed away “heaven,” or “gaia,” or most accurately of all, “utopia,” at least in the original Greek meaning of the word. For what those cursed demons of logic and reason act to bar us from, is literally no place. The void. Oblivion.
I fear that this formless force, most likely without realizing its own suicidal intent, will nonetheless marshal the power at some point to succeed in not just destroying civilization itself, but forever wiping away all the knowledge that could rebuild it. The preservation of the scientific methods and mathematical discoveries of the ancient Greeks, throughout their own self-destruction, through the Roman Empire that cared little for anything but conquest, through the Dark Ages of religious theocrats that actively struggled to eliminate historical records that threw their beliefs into dispute, was not inevitable by any stretch of the imagination.
We may not be so lucky, in the next fall of humanity. Humanity may even live for the rest of its existence as nomadic herds of animals, having forgotten or even developed a superstitious aversion to the basic agricultural methods that were the foundation of the first civilization.
Our descendents might never even realize how much we truly lost.
Tatterdemalian . . .
“Our descendents might never even realize how much we truly lost.”
Our civilization, which seems so mundane, if lost, will be like the lost civilization of Atlantis.
snowonpine,
Check out ieSpell I use it everywhere on the web. Best of all it is free as in free beer. It installs as a IE browser plug in. Right click in your comment box and choose, “Check Spelling”.
Go here for the home page.
At the website
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0724-22.htm
Cecilia Lucas offers a “love poem to Hezbollah”!
Very interesting poem and accompanying comments.
“Cecilia Lucas offers a “love poem to Hezbollah”!”
Good for her. She’s managed to un-learn the entire works of liberal enlightenment, and now swallows whole the most blatant lies of a terrorist organization. All in the name of “feeling, not thinking.”
Truly a great success for the enemies of reason.
If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons and wipes out Israel …
Irradiating the holy land and devastating sacred sites?
If they were genocidal they’d be far more likely to use cheap, easy, effective biological weapons — leaving the holy land unharmed. If they were genocidal they’d already have done so.
I am a Canadian socialist. I follow conservative American thought via this blog, and the author’s recommended links. This is a link to Democracy Now. If your news consumption is mostly conservative or mainstream perspective, Democracy Now should be part of your diet.
Wasp–Thanks. Unfortunately, this spellcheck program does not yet work with Mozilla-based browsers, which is what I am using.
“Irradiating the holy land and devastating sacred sites?”
Yes, indeed. See, the holy land is only precious to Islam when non-Muslims are defiling it (especially with their mere presence). When Muslims defile the holy land, sacred sites, or even their own holy books, it’s not a problem, because they do it in the name of Allah.
You just don’t, won’t, or maybe even can’t understand the depth of their conviction, that everything Muslims do is right and everything non-Muslims do is wrong.
Case in point.
If it had been a nuclear missile, the survivors would be cheering it even louder, just because the fallout might claim the lives of Israelis, or the detonation itself might kill non-Muslim UNRWA representatives.
Irradiating the holy land and devastating sacred sites?
I’m not sure that sacred sites would restrain them, but I suspect they could miss most sacred sites if they focus on Tel Aviv, etc. (assuming thir missles are accurate).
In ’98, Pakistan detonated a 9 kt warehead; the blast radius would be about 1.5 km for an optimal airburst. For an airburst, there would be relatively little residual radiation.
If they were genocidal they’d be far more likely to use cheap, easy, effective biological weapons — leaving the holy land unharmed. If they were genocidal they’d already have done so.
If bio weapons were cheap, easy, and effective, they would have been effectively employed by now.
If they tried to use bio or chemical, Israel would destroy them. If they get nukes, they might be able to destroy Israel first.
“And you don’t see any irony in that statement.”
Because there is none.
You really believe us neocons are as bad as the Palestinians? That we feel that Bush can do no wrong and bin Laden no right?
It only shows how stupid you really are.
BTW I noticed poster Perry decided to declare me a “Neocon.” Some people just love that shove a square peg into a round hole thing; I guess it makes thinking easier for them. I’d hope I was more of a moving target than that.
You really believe us neocons are as bad as the Palestinians? That we feel that Bush can do no wrong and bin Laden no right?
I believe you believe Muslims are the Other.
It’s funny about the Other. I tend to think that Muslims are pretty much just like me. Most of them. I really appreciated a bit of an interview on Pat Dollard’s website of a US soldier in Iraq, to paraphrase… “You get orders and you think, this is stupid, go over there and get shot at… but you get here and you realize that these are people, living people, just like in America, and you want to help them.”
Not holding a group like Hezbolla to civilized standards is a way of marginalizing them… making them the Other. So it’s an Other that some people defend… still they are Other because they aren’t part of civilization, they are separate. Marginalized. Not responsible to uphold ideals of general human decency.
Israel, OTOH, is held responsible by the world for what they do. Just like the US is held responsible.
I guess it’s because we’re seen as grown-ups.
Synova, check out the interview with the leader of Hezbollah on Democracy Now. It’s an American exclusive.
SHEIKH SAYYED HASSAN NASRALLAH: [translated] “The only possible strategy is for you to have Israeli prisoners, soldiers, the soldiers as prisoners, and then you negotiate with the Israelis in order to have your prisoners released. Here, this is the only choice. Here, you don’t have multiple choices in order for you to choose one of them. You have no multiple choices. You have two options, either to have these prisoners or detainees remain in Israeli prisons or to capture Israeli soldiers.”
As I understand it, one of the “prisoners” that they want released is a man who led a raid into Israel that involved capturing an Israeli man and his child, shooting the father in front of the child (age 4 maybe) and then smashing the child’s head in.
You may admire these people.
I do not.
This man is a liar. He HAS choices. He HAS influence. He CHOOSES to make murderers into innocent heroes that require further action to free from their unjust imprisonment.
So? Tookie had his admirerers too.
Anonymous: Americans do not want nor will they accept ‘terrorist exclusives.’ Certainly, you may visit us anytime. If you’re a terrorist, you have death awaiting you.
What a shame that that’s all you CHOSE to take from the interview.
Not incidentally, who said anything about admiration? To quote Amy Goodman, “You don’t negotiate with your friends. You negotiate with your enemies. You come up with viable solutions that both can live with.”
Americans do not want nor will they accept ‘terrorist exclusives.’ Certainly, you may visit us anytime. If you’re a terrorist, you have death awaiting you.
Why do so many Americans spew gauche, jingoistic nonsense?
Sadly, as a kid, I always wondered how so many people could meekly trudge to the gas chambers without any urge to fight back. Now I know the answer. The left-wing intellectuals truly have the arrogance to believe that they can control and/or appease Islamo-fascism. They will be the first to go,spouting indignation.
We CHOOSE different things.
I choose to believe that Hezbolla are human rather than animals and as such are responsible for their choices freely made.
Nasrallah chose to elevate “prisoners” that by any account are murderers to victim status. You chose to allow it. That is your choice freely made.
It’s a common thing in terrorist organizations. Their “soldiers” get caught after murdering innocents and suddenly it’s a matter of justice that they are imprisoned unfairly. The IRA did it as well. In fact, take just about any instance you can think of where violence was threatened to get people out of jail and the people will have been in jail to begin with for violent reasons.
Nasrallah has only two choices, to take hostages and negotiate for a release or leave his people in jail *because* and only because sane people anywhere will not be pursuaded to take up the cause of murderers.
Insane people? Well… there’s those who think that kidnapping soldiers to try to leverage Israel is a reasonable thing to do… they must believe that those men in prison are innocents who should not be in prison. And as I said, Tookie had all sorts of cheerleaders who seemed to think he was a dandy fellow. So there’s always going to be someone who wants to cheer for the underdog, no matter what sort of bottom dweller scum sucker he is.
Congrats Synova. It takes genuine hubris to distort the message of that interview and its accompanying commentary, but you managed it.
“Why do so many Americans spew gauche, jingoistic nonsense?” Ah, but, Anonymous, it’s more than nonsense, as you know. It’s the gun to your head. Ask AlQ. Or Saddam. Or the Taliban. Who’s next? Hezbollah, Iran.. All of them understand violence.
Yup. That’s what I get from it.
Read it and Peck (or whatever his name is) talks about beliefs being the only reality. Oh how sincere, how intelligent and articulate is Nasrallah.
But what about real reality? Hmm?
Oh, how much the underdog he is, how noble in intent to serve the country of Lebanon and build that country up if it were only not for those terrible Israelis who wouldn’t leave for 20 years.
So Israel leaves. What good did it do them? Was leaving what Nasrallah wanted or does he want something else? What did he do for all of Lebanon in her diverse and (even by Western standards) liberal glory?
He announces intentions to kidnap Israelis. This is his plan made public. Does he tell about the innocent men held in Israel? No. Because any sane person would recognize that no matter how they were apprehended it’s a joke to call them innocent.
Nasrallah’s words are very nice. But he lives for war. He said so. The generation before him were ready to stop fighting. He said so. But the Youth would rather fight, and so they did. He said so. And they fought Israel and the world because Israel refused to leave Lebanon.
But then Israel left, and how can a fighter stop fighting? How can he maintain power without an enemy?
What if… when he was a Youth… he’d listened to those who wanted to stop fighting? What then? He lives in a world he made himself. Am I supposed to admire him for that? Am I supposed to think, “poor you… faced with this unending struggle… poor you?”
Am I supposed to think, “poor you… faced with this unending struggle… poor you?”
Are you asking if you’re supposed to empathize with your enemy? Of course. That’s my point in posting the interview. Who said anything about sympathy?
From an interview conducted by Antoine K. Kehdy of Middle East Insight magazine (February 2, 2000, http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/hzblhnsr.htm)
Q: Western countries have often associated Islam with terrorism. What is Hezbollah’s perspective on this and what message would you like to convey to the American public and policy makers about this?
A: In truth, the most conspicuous examples of terrorism are the actions undertaken by Israel in occupying Palestine and other Arab territories, its aggression against peaceful civilians and civilian installations, its destruction of villages and water sources, and the tremendous damage which it aggressively inflicts. All of this is done under the full protection of the American administration and with its help in the form of funds, weapons and political support. Truly, this is the terrorism. We are involved in legitimate resistance which is fully justified. This is what all people do when their land is occupied.
See similar sentiments expressed in the recent article (7/16/2006) in the Washington Post.
For a sobering education in the extremist Muslim point of view, watch the documentary, “In the Name of God: Scenes from the Extreme.” It takes the viewer inside extreme fundamentalist communities where Western secular men and women rarely set foot. You can grab it here.
Empathy, if it results in the inability to make judgements is a cowards way out.
I Empathize. I don’t suppose you’ll believe that, but I do. I just don’t think it matters in the end. EVERYONE is a good person from their own perspective. This is reality. Knowing that they consider themselves to be good people fighting a just cause doesn’t change *real* reality, which is that it’s not Israel that has made peace impossible *unless* you argue that it is the mere existance of the Israel that makes peace impossible.
What has made peace impossible is that non-state terrorist organization *won’t stop fighting*. That they have reason in their own minds doesn’t change that. They won’t stop fighting. They won’t lay down arms and allow Israel to exist. Yhamir, in a comment, has said that there is no way they can even be a threat to Israel… so if they are so beaten, why don’t they stop?
Arafat left his widow one of the wealthiest women in the world. How do you suppose that happened? Could it actually have been *profitable* to be the leader of the Palestinians when their children don’t have basic needs?
Think about that.
Arafat’s wife is fabulously wealthy and yet Palestinian children live in POVERTY. Where did he get his money? Why did it end up in HIS bank accounts?
Is Nasrallah, for all the hospital building done… is it better for the PEOPLE to fight? Does it contribute to their well being? Does it increase the wealth of the community? Or is it better for Nasrallah?
WHY do these people, so incredibly over-powered continue the conflict rather than admit defeat? Why do they have to keep the people fearful of the Jews, who we all know eat Palestinian babies? Who gains by this?
WHY do these people, so incredibly over-powered continue the conflict rather than admit defeat?
Probably because it’s not an option, culturally.
Again, if you have a torrent application, I’d recommend the documentary “In the Name of God: Scenes from the Extreme” (torrent link).
For more on the theme of empathy for the enemy, check out “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara.” There’s a segment that’s pointedly relevant to this issue, where McNamara describes a 1995 meeting with the former Foreign Minister of Vietnam. Fascinating documentary.
Culture is not sacred, anon. If your culture is unhealthy you *change* your culture. We’re human. We have the ability to do this.
Anyhow, I agree that their culture does not *allow* them to admit defeat… or at least it’s borderline enough that flexible people are willing to stop and others simply are not. Still, culture is an artifical construct when all is said and done. It’s not an *excuse*.
You’re not going to transform muslim culture through violent occupation.
Anyway, I don’t like the vibe here so I’ll be splitting now. Check out that documentary if you get the chance.