[lit-ideas] Re: the standard for higher standards

The trouble is, if you're gonna live on the Bright Side, that is if you're gonna fight evil, then it makes no sense being evil as well, you've just gotta be good. Savvy?
I mean take the latest revelations by Sy Hersch. The Bush Administration, recognising that a war against Muslims just aint gonna work out, decides instead to provoke a war between age-old muslim factions. Brilliant. All muslims are evil, let them fight against each other and we, the good, the bright, can watch them get on with it. How do we do it? Simple, we aid the side we want to win, we arm those fighting with our allies, we pour loads of money (pallets of money) down the throats of Sunni insurgents so that they can fight the evil forces of Shi'ite islam (who are mere slaves anyway, or were).
So it comes to pass that the bright and the good, those who were attacked in New York by heinous Sunni terrorists, decide the best way of fighting that kind of terrorism is by aiding Sunni terrorists so that they can fight the other muslims who are their sworn enemies...
And because we are good, because we are bright, because we are right, it's obviously the way to go. 

You know I'm just not good at this - you know - defending the indefensible.
How 'bout you Eric? Fancy a go. How do you feel about your government channelling cash to Sunni terrorist organisations? 

Simon
The Lighter Side
----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> 
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:10 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] the standard for higher standards



>> That's hate speech doncha know!


Hate speech? I'll show you hate speech!
Maybe this "higher standard" stuff is just a caboodle of malarkey? How about a Nietzschean transvaluation of values here? Back to root assumptions.
In the political debates, when I seek to put some US actions "in context" and Judy patiently rejoins that "the US should be held to a higher standard," a mistake may have already been passed over in silence. King Arthur playing chess with the Shadow King and not overturning the board?
There should be no contextualizing and the US shouldn't be held to a higher standard. We shouldn't pretend to live in a Star Trek universe of benign multicultural federalism. Instead, everyone should just claim their savagery. Own our barbarity. Kill our enemies. Re-purpose dog food factories to save money on Gitmo. Give all of our enemies one month to calm down, and if they don't just start bombing indiscriminately. Or just bomb anyway. Blot out their sunlight with our bombers and missiles.
"But the US can't do that!" Oh sure we can. We have a hundred times more nuclear weapons than our nearest competitor. What are they gonna do? Send one missile and get a hundred back?
It would surprise a lot of people. Others would say, "See? I told you so!" Or maybe they would start to say "I told you so!" even as they were vaporized.
Let's see, what more outrageous hooey can I write? Something really nasty that offends even more sensibilities. There is a point though.
The point? To examine the assumption that the US or any nation should be held to a higher standard. To examine the notion of higher standards in general. Maybe higher standards are the problem? I mean, a higher standard that ensures cultural collapse is by definition not sustainable. And most nasty scandals (Death squads, Iran Contra, Abu Ghraib, Secret Prisons, etc.) involve a failure of these higher standards, or to put it another way, attempts to bypass higher standards because higher standards are not perceived as working.
"I wouldn't want to live in a world where advanced nations didn't try to live up to higher standards," someone might say. Fine. Don't. Vote with your breath.
Back to basics. Why higher standards? If higher standards just lead to a societal collapse and then to a re-assertion of an earlier barbarism, why have higher standards in the first place? Are these higher standards ends? Are they a delusion? A momentary display of politeness between savageries? Or will higher standards actually lead humanity somewhere?
Better to die by good principles than live by evil ones? Is it? I mean, that's what we assume, but is it? Is it true of nations? Have higher standards "worked"? And what does it mean to "work"? 

Expressing a radical pyrrhonist moment,
Mr. Bright Side
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