Subject:
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Re: In light of Tuesday's events (was Re: Are we doing the right thing?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:38:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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1204 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Alan Findlay writes:
> Rather, I am trying to reflect back to you the conclusions and philosophy
> that you have conveyed in your posts, and also to apply them to the very
> real tragedy at the WTC (as opposed to some hypothetical avalanche).
Fair enough. I'll try not to be testy...things have been rough and I guess I'd
rather this conversation have waited a week, but here we are.
> Your posts were written in a simpler time (was it just last week?)
Last week was a long time ago.
> Let's start with a recap:
>
> Exhibit A - On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, you wrote:
>
> > > Resorting to the destruction and
> > > murder of innocent non-combatants is butchery and moral wretchedness of the
> > > grossest sort
> >
> > If you, your children and the bus driver are trapped under an avalanche and
> > your children are starving, do you kill and serve the driver to avoid • watching
> > your children die of starvation? In answering this hypothetical, I do.
> > Morality is a fanciful phantom when your life is on the line. Duty to my
> > children is greater by far than duty to humanity.
Exhibit A and a half - On Thursday, 6 Sep 2001, I wrote:
> But when I see someone denying me of the rights that I consider
> sacred, if violence is the only way to respond, then to do so is
> just. If there are other plausible responses, then they are probably
> the best choice.
Which I think clarifies (prior to just now, in some imagined attempt to
back-padle) my stance.
> Exhibit B - On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, you wrote:
>
> > A group of people who are systematically wronged by another should feel • free to
> > do almost whatever it takes to free themselves from bondage.
>
> This second point you have stated several times (prior to Tuesday you gave
> no proviso) - for example:
Except that now you see that I have. And I could, if I thought it was
worthwhile, point to many similar statements over the years.
> > > > > > I disagree. Any people should use whatever methods they have at their
> > > > > > disposal to secure a fair measure of life. To do less is to accept
> > > > > > slavery. If their only recourse is terrorism, then their neighbors
> > > > > > damn well need to help solve their problems (or snuff them).
>
> I will deal with your proviso - "do almost whatever" - further down, so
> please bear with me.
>
> So then, these are your words. Now, if I were adopt these statements as part
> of my outlook on life, I would conclude:
>
> 1) My needs, as I define them, are the highest measure of what is right and
> good;
I never claimed that "right and good" entered into it. In fact, I have claimed
that morality is meaningless when pressed with life-or-death situations.
Rights and "morality" are issues that we can all afford because we have
developed infrastructure to take care of our basic needs. (Note that other
places in the world have a lower level of such infrastructure and those places
universally have what we consider a less sophisticated sense of morality and
rights.)
> 2) Whatever actions I take to ensure my needs are right and good;
Again, you're inserting ideas that can not be attributed to me. I am only
saying that I will likely do what it takes to survive, even if we would
normally consider those actions bad.
> 3) If there are victims from my actions (re:#2), their opinions are
> immaterial and their circumstances are of no consequence (see - the bus
driver);
Under some circumstances. There is a certain gravity of "badness" that I
suspect would buckle even my own cavalier attitude. As an extension, I am not
sure, for instance, that I'd be willing to magically terminate a million people
to save my kids.
> 4) Terrorism is a legitimate (ie right and good) way to achieve #1.
A) when no other, more constructive, method exists. B) You wrote #1 "needs, as
I define them" but I'm talking specifically about needs that everyone
recognizes. Eating is a need. It just is. Freedom is a need. (Apparently
not _everyone_ agrees with this one, but that's crazy.)
> 5) Annihilating a whole people (whether they be wrongdoers or the wronged)
> is legitimate if their attempts at achieveing #1 for themselves interferes
> with my achieving #1 (see - "or snuff them").
Legitimate isn't what I said. I wrote that it was a possible solution. And it
is. Legitimacy doesn't have any more bearing than morality (less, even!) when
your life and that of your family is on the line.
> These are the conclusions to be drawn from your comments.
Except as I've altered them.
> You've added the proviso "do almost whatever" late in the game, and you've
Not.
> stated "some ends justify some means". But, you also state (as "simply
> obvious") that there is no universal right or wrong (which actually conforms
> to #1 above).
And there is not.
> Without an appeal to universal right and wrong, there is no basis on which
> to measure your statements of "do almost whatever" and "some ends justify
> some means". What is justifiable to me may not be justifiable to you - so on
> what basis can my actions be declared right or wrong (good or bad)?
They can't. Not in any meaningful sense. Right and wrong is like all other
religious concepts, something fabricated to make people comfortable. The
concepts are helpful for building and maintaining a society. But they aren't
real or absolute.
> And so, based on your comments, we have no basis on which to condemn the
> terrorists who created such carnage on Tuesday.
Not true at all. They have violated our aesthetic so grievously that we will
respond and I suspect that when we do, we will land on them with both feet.
And I am completely OK with that.
We can either try to heal their wounds, so they have no reason to do this to
us. Or we can kill them all. Probably killing them all will be cheaper, so if
we have enough indignant righteousness built up over Tuesday's terrorist
attacks to ignore the terribly ugly scenes on the TV that it will cause, I
suspect that's what we'll do.
> It was right and good for them in achieving their needs.
If you think so. I don't think that "right and good" come into it at all. By
the same token, "evil" is a silly thing to call it too. (I know that most
folks will disagree.) The real problem is that it won't actually help them in
achieving their needs. They may well have baited us into a military conflict,
if that was their goal...but it won't help them. I expect the Islamic world to
run in rivers of blood as a result of this. That can't be good for them.
> By extrapolation, whatever response comes
> from the US will also be "right and good".
I think you probably know my answer to this already.
> These are the conclusions to be drawn from your comments. You may not like
> them (I hope you don't),
I don't dislike them beyond their inaccuracy.
> and you may not have intended them (I hope you
> didn't), but based on what you have said over many posts this is where they
> lead. And this is why I'm annoyed.
Hopefully, I've cleared some things up then.
Chris
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