[lit-ideas] Re: -- Autonomy and Influence
- From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 10:39:43 -0400
A curious last paragraph, Lawrence. Of course it's better to survive
than allow ourselves to be destroyed. Where our differing
presuppositions come in is in the determination of why and whether and
by whom we are being attacked. The answers to those questions determine
what we do about the 'threat.' So there's nothing trivial about these
presuppositions. To paraphrase Nietzsche, the administration's
resolution to find the world ugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad.
An experiment.... This is in the news this morning:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S.-led coalition aircraft killed up to 80
suspected Taliban militants in a night airstrike on a rebel stronghold
in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said Monday. The local governor
said 16 civilians also died. A coalition statement said it had confirmed
20 Taliban killed in the attack on the village of Azizi in Kandahar
province late Sunday and early Monday, while there were ``an unconfirmed
60 additional Taliban casualties.''
I haven't read the rest of the story and don't know anything except what
these few sentences say. My first thoughts upon reading this follow from
my presuppositions about all kinds of things. The first words tell us
that 'aircraft killed.' I wonder whether that's intentional. Is this an
attempt to sanitize the process, taking our soldiers out of the equation
-- or worse, was this a drone aircraft and they're now leaving that word
'drone' out because it 'unsettles' people (and we know how Bush worries
about that). The word 'coalition' makes me fume. That word 'suspected'
looms far larger for me than it might for you. I don't easily come to
believe anything 'the coalition' says. 'Rebel stronghold' is suspicious
to me, conjuring images of pacified villages in Vietnam. And 'Taliban'
is used as though these people are all wearing name tags. They were the
government of Afghanistan and they were attacked and it's exactly that
same sentiment about how it's better to defend yourself than let
yourself be destroyed that motivates them. And then there are the '16
civilians,' all of whom had homes and hopes and worries and warts and
who, taken all together, should be too high a price.
Your turn...
Ursula
Lawrence Helm wrote:
Now in taking these trivial presuppositions forward in a study of
Islam, Islamism etc after 9/11, I did presuppose that it was better to
survive than allow ourselves to be destroyed or even to be continually
attacked by Islamists, but surely this doesn’t need to be elevated to
a presupposition. It is in our nature to want to be secure and to
resist being attacked by enemies. We are not like Lemmings who rush to
or invite our own destruction; although I won’t deny the possibility
that a Lemming-like inclination could develop as a social pathology.
In studying the nature of Islamism I attempted to evaluate the
seriousness of the threat. I did assume that the threat was real and
not a myth as John Esposito argued, but surely that is another trivial
presupposition.
Etc
Lawrence
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