[lit-ideas] Re: Why us?

  • From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2005 20:25:16 -0700

John McCreery wrote:

"One can easily agree with Eric that there are bloody-minded, bloody-
handed sacks of shit on both sides of this conflict, and that Osama Bin Laden and his ilk are moral idiots. It is no contradiction to observe that the ilk include the current president of the United States."


The argument, tacitly accepted by many, although I'm sure not by John, is that because Bush is a moral idiot, or whatever, somehow the West should not complain about the actions of that other idiot, Osama bin Laden, because—it is hard to articulate this argument—'we' somehow had it coming. 'After all, we started it.' But it serves no purpose in talking about terrorism, ancient or contemporary, to point out that George W. Bush is at best deluded and incompetent and at worst malign. Of course it is 'no contradiction,' but neither does it justify a particular response (or lack of it) to the London bombings. Pointing
to Bush's failings serves no useful purpose.


John:

"One can also agree with Eric that the endless tracing of blame is a
fool's game, among whose usual consequences are vendetta, which carried
to extreme results in ethnic cleansing.  It is no  contradiction to this
position to observe that, as a matter of empirical and easily
verifiable fact, an utterly barbarous and damnable attack on civilians
in a major Western city is cause for worldwide media coverage and
wringing of hands while the daily  exposure of Iraqi's (also Sudanese,
Congolese, Pakistanis, etc.) to  similar barbarism is relegated to the
back pages with a level of  sympathy not far removed from the
Churchillian attitudes mentioned  described in the quote above."

Surely you've just explained it: it happened in a major Western city, where camera crews, reporters, news service bureaus; as well as political spokesmen, emergency workers, etc., were already in place. Not only that, but these camera crews and reporters were relatively safe (London remained peaceful) to do their jobs. It's hard to cover bombings and assassinations in what, to the TV networks, are remote and dangerous places, hard for them to be 'on the spot' for each 'act of barbarism' (by whom it is not said) that takes place in the Middle East. The recent tsunami received days of coverage (as much, if not more than the London bombings), and before one shouts Disanalogy! one might consider just why this was so. The amount of coverage the media gives to an event is probably inversely proportional to the square of the distance from Atlanta, London, or New York, to the event; but there are reasons for this—logistical and practical—that are not always mappable onto considerations of morality or compassion.

John:

"Robert Paul is right that we will, of course, be more moved by the death or mutilation of those those dear to us and, at one remove, those to whom we feel akin, than to others. And, as someone remarked on another list, the differential in media coverage can be simply, if amorally, explained as the classic difference between "man bites dog" and "dog bites man." But what, pray tell, do these considerations have to do with judgments concerning the morality of what would appear to be equally barbaric acts, initiated and encouraged by equally barbaric "leaders"?"

I did not say that one would be more moved by what happened to our friends and family than by what happened to people in which we shared
no more than humanity. I think it would be odd if I cared more about what happened to a nameless Trobriand Islander, e.g. than about what happened to my children, but I did not say this in my first response to what John quoted from Rivers Pitt. Perhaps John has misread what I did say, namely, that


'[Rivers Pitt's reasoning] has exactly the same form as: You shouldn't carry on so about your child's having been killed by a drunk driver because it happens almost every day (somewhere), and the people in your family and neighborhood don't carry on about that, now do they?'

I said nothing about whether most people do, in fact, care more about those closest to them than about people they don't know. In any event, it now seems that what looked like a psychological truth is very nearly a tautology: what else could it mean to speak of those close to us than to say, among other things, that they are the ones we care about most?

Robert Paul
Reed College




John McCreery wrote:

On 2005/07/10, at 7:37, William Ball wrote:

I say respectfully, Veronica, I know, but did they come with car bombs
and bullets? Meant for men, women and children?




Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was sensitive to the cost of policing the Empire; and was in consequence keen to exploit the potential of modern technology. This strategy had particular relevance to operations in Iraq. On 19 February, 1920, before the start of the Arab uprising, Churchill (then Secretary for War and Air) wrote to Sir Hugh Trenchard, the pioneer of air warfare. Would it be possible for Trenchard to take control of Iraq? This would entail *the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death...for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes.*

Churchill was in no doubt that gas could be profitably employed against the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the Empire): *I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.* Henry Wilson shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an instrument of colonial control but the British cabinet was reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that had caused such misery and revulsion in the First World War. Churchill himself was keen to argue that gas, fired from ground-based guns or dropped from aircraft, would cause *only discomfort or illness, but not death* to dissident tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects of gas were mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would permanently damage eyesight and *kill children and sickly persons, more especially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical knowledge with which to supply antidotes.*

Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a *scientific expedient,* should not be prevented *by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly*. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels with excellent moral effect* though gas shells were not dropped from aircraft because of practical difficulties [.....]


Source: http://www.againstbombing.org/chemical.htm (One of several easily discovered by Googling "Churchill Iraq gas."



One can easily agree with Eric that there are bloody-minded, bloody- handed sacks of shit on both sides of this conflict, and that Osama Bin Laden and his ilk are moral idiots. It is no contradiction to observe that the ilk include the current president of the United States.

One can also agree with Eric that the endless tracing of blame is a fool's game, among whose usual consequences are vendetta, which carried to extreme results in ethnic cleansing. It is no contradiction to this position to observe that, as a matter of empirical and easily verifiable fact, an utterly barbarous and damnable attack on civilians in a major Western city is cause for worldwide media coverage and wringing of hands while the daily exposure of Iraqi's (also Sudanese, Congolese, Pakistanis, etc.) to similar barbarism is relegated to the back pages with a level of sympathy not far removed from the Churchillian attitudes mentioned described in the quote above.

Robert Paul is right that we will, of course, be more moved by the death or mutilation of those those dear to us and, at one remove, those to whom we feel akin, than to others. And, as someone remarked on another list, the differential in media coverage can be simply, if amorally, explained as the classic difference between "man bites dog" and "dog bites man." But what, pray tell, do these considerations have to do with judgments concerning the morality of what would appear to be equally barbaric acts, initiated and encouraged by equally barbaric "leaders"?

We could, of course, return to the classic Confucian position, in which our moral obligations are calibrated to the degree of kinship in our relations with others, and dismiss old man Kant and his universal principles as inhuman and utterly impractical.

Is this the direction in which the members of our list would like to see us move?

John McCreery






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