RidonKs
07-20-2015, 07:53 PM
You're responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions. You aren't responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions. There is no moral value to be had whatsoever in denouncing the crimes of somebody outside of your personal sphere of influence. Such an action is loathsome self serving at its worst.
This is not a complicated point. Yet I will substantiate it, though not in my own words. This thread is primarily in response to the following two posts made consecutively in another thread.
these shites and sundicks always reply back from their or their uncles violence with "you people did it too" as if doing it centuries ago justifies what they're doing now...
it's a common occurrence to see their fans knee-jerkingly change the focal point away from a reported Muslim perpetrator. On Al Jazeera english, with a good amount of Arabic and Muslim members but also many others, the average response to a terrorist attack on the US is pretty much "America is the real terrorist!". I'm guessing the deflection by far left Americans serves a few purposes.. a) not having to address tough, sensitive issues about other races/ethnicities/populations other than their own, b) makes themselves feel good by displaying how 'self-critical' and 'non-judgmental' they are, c) implicitly condones wrongdoings by others, because 'we are wrong too' and 'we are no different', thus quelling the discussion at hand, d) thinking the opposite of whatever conservatives are thinking, by default...
These two avidly passionate posters raise compelling points. If the conversation we're having is about the other guy's crimes, of what relevance are the crimes of our own? Well....
Let us begin by examining the limits to our moral action, since that will properly constrain us in discussion of which options are on the table. We use the Balkan Wars of the 90s as our arena.
Donahue: Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia; what might Professor Chomsky want to share with us about this agony today, and the United States' responsibility about it?
Chomsky: Actually I don't think that's been primarily a US responsibility. It's been tragic the way it's been handled. The situation has reached a point where it's not easy to think of a constructive solution anymore. A few years ago there were options, (see: Syria) but the way the Yugoslavian breakup was handled was almost guaranteed to lead to extreme conflict. I think it's primarily a European responsibility in this case, due to Germany's insistence on a rapid breakup, without any preparation, forcing the rest of Europe to go along in spite of their disagreement. Slovenia was pretty straight forward, they pulled out, became independent, not much strife. The insistence on Croatian independence, however, was done without recognition that there's a substantial Serbian minority, and that was a guarantee of war. And in fact then there was a bitter war. Bosnia was recognized without any preparation, again big Serbian and Croatian minorities, and the spillover from the Serbian/Croatian war immediately brought them into it. It was handled so as to maximize everything going wrong.
Now when you ask for constructive proposals at this point, it's pretty hard to suggest anything. I mean there are probably palliatives and one can imagine improvements, but to deal with the problem in a really constructive fashion is not easy I don't think. I have yet to hear a serious proposal.
Donahue: Would you agree with the view, that seems to be predominant in world media today, that it's really the Serbs who are the killers, the rapists, the murderers, and so on.
Chomsky: Well in these conflicts, the ones who commit most of the atrocities are the one's who have most of the guns. And in fact they have most of the guns, so they're committing most of the atrocities. It's not like they have different genes or anything...
Donahue: I am struck by your humble confession, or statement of helplessness. It comes from millions feel one of the most courageous social critics of our time. You almost went to jail protesting the Vietnam War. You have been thundrous in your denunciations of US foreign policy in Central America and elsewhere. You are the person who has reminded us most often of the probability of power and violence expressed by just about all governments. And here you are saying "boy, I don't know what to do in Bosnia". So what do we do now, with babies being slaughtered in Bosnia?
Chomsky: Well as I say there are probably palliatives. For example, I think the arms embargo on Bosnia should have been lifted a long time ago.
Donahue: So just hand out the guns and let them shoot each other?
Chomsky: No it's more than that. There are technical problems that one shouldn't underestimate. You have to know the topography and who's shooting from which direction and all of these details. It seems feasible to at least improve delivery of humanitarian aid and silence the guns shelling Sarajevo. Now that's technical; you have to know how to do that. You can't just say well let's send out planes and do it. Maybe it'd be possible.
But when you talk about serious intervention, chances are it would cause a lot more problems than it would solve. It could have quite unpredictable consequences. Take the possible reaction inside Russia. It's no big secret that there's an old tradition in Russia, that you have to save the Serbs from the Turks. There's a lot of concern in nationalist and military circles in Russia about the breakup of Yugoslavia. You can think of ugly possibilities.
Or suppose that some sort of international intervention would stimulate the Serbs to carry out the kind of desperate violent acts that are not uncommon in small states or communities that feel embattled. For example they might decide to move on Kosovo, bringing in the Turks, the Albanians. This could lead to a Balkan War. All of these are merely possibilities of intervention that are not to be treated lightly in reviewing foreign policy.
What follows is a simple parallel to the Soviet Union propaganda system during the cold war.
Frum: You say that what the media do is to ignore certain kinds of atrocities, committed by US and OUR FRIENDS, and to play up enormously atrocities that are committed by THEM and OUR ENEMIES. You posit that there's a test of integrity and moral honesty, which is to have an equality of treatment of corpses, so that every dead person is equal to every other dead person.
Chomsky: That is not my method. I do not have the ludicrous egotism to make myself the arbiter of all atrocities over the world. I'm not trying to give an A to this country and a B- to that country and so on. The principle that i think we ought to follow is not the one you stated. It is the principle that we rightly expect Soviet dissidents to follow.
What principle do we expect Sakharov to follow? What lets us decide whether Sakharov is a moral person? I think he is. Sakharov does not treat every corpse or atrocity as identical. He has nothing to say about American atrocities. When he's asked about them, he says "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them". What he talks about is Soviet atrocities, and that's right, because those are the ones he's responsible for.
Now we understand this when we're talking about dissidents in the Soviet Union, but we refuse to understand it when we're talking about ourselves, for very good reasons. Commissars in the Soviet Union don't understand that about dissidents. Commissars in the Soviet Union attack Sakharov and other dissidents because they don't talk about American crimes.
We understand exactly why that's just hypocrisy and cynicism when they do it. And we should understand the same when we do it.
The most important thing for you is to think about the consequences of YOUR actions. What can YOU affect? Those are the one's you primarily ought to be concerned about. Of course a corpse is a corpse, but there are some you can effect and there are others you can't do much about. I can be worried about things that happened in the 18th century, but I can't do much about them, and considering them has no moral value whatsoever.
This is not a complicated point. Yet I will substantiate it, though not in my own words. This thread is primarily in response to the following two posts made consecutively in another thread.
these shites and sundicks always reply back from their or their uncles violence with "you people did it too" as if doing it centuries ago justifies what they're doing now...
it's a common occurrence to see their fans knee-jerkingly change the focal point away from a reported Muslim perpetrator. On Al Jazeera english, with a good amount of Arabic and Muslim members but also many others, the average response to a terrorist attack on the US is pretty much "America is the real terrorist!". I'm guessing the deflection by far left Americans serves a few purposes.. a) not having to address tough, sensitive issues about other races/ethnicities/populations other than their own, b) makes themselves feel good by displaying how 'self-critical' and 'non-judgmental' they are, c) implicitly condones wrongdoings by others, because 'we are wrong too' and 'we are no different', thus quelling the discussion at hand, d) thinking the opposite of whatever conservatives are thinking, by default...
These two avidly passionate posters raise compelling points. If the conversation we're having is about the other guy's crimes, of what relevance are the crimes of our own? Well....
Let us begin by examining the limits to our moral action, since that will properly constrain us in discussion of which options are on the table. We use the Balkan Wars of the 90s as our arena.
Donahue: Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia; what might Professor Chomsky want to share with us about this agony today, and the United States' responsibility about it?
Chomsky: Actually I don't think that's been primarily a US responsibility. It's been tragic the way it's been handled. The situation has reached a point where it's not easy to think of a constructive solution anymore. A few years ago there were options, (see: Syria) but the way the Yugoslavian breakup was handled was almost guaranteed to lead to extreme conflict. I think it's primarily a European responsibility in this case, due to Germany's insistence on a rapid breakup, without any preparation, forcing the rest of Europe to go along in spite of their disagreement. Slovenia was pretty straight forward, they pulled out, became independent, not much strife. The insistence on Croatian independence, however, was done without recognition that there's a substantial Serbian minority, and that was a guarantee of war. And in fact then there was a bitter war. Bosnia was recognized without any preparation, again big Serbian and Croatian minorities, and the spillover from the Serbian/Croatian war immediately brought them into it. It was handled so as to maximize everything going wrong.
Now when you ask for constructive proposals at this point, it's pretty hard to suggest anything. I mean there are probably palliatives and one can imagine improvements, but to deal with the problem in a really constructive fashion is not easy I don't think. I have yet to hear a serious proposal.
Donahue: Would you agree with the view, that seems to be predominant in world media today, that it's really the Serbs who are the killers, the rapists, the murderers, and so on.
Chomsky: Well in these conflicts, the ones who commit most of the atrocities are the one's who have most of the guns. And in fact they have most of the guns, so they're committing most of the atrocities. It's not like they have different genes or anything...
Donahue: I am struck by your humble confession, or statement of helplessness. It comes from millions feel one of the most courageous social critics of our time. You almost went to jail protesting the Vietnam War. You have been thundrous in your denunciations of US foreign policy in Central America and elsewhere. You are the person who has reminded us most often of the probability of power and violence expressed by just about all governments. And here you are saying "boy, I don't know what to do in Bosnia". So what do we do now, with babies being slaughtered in Bosnia?
Chomsky: Well as I say there are probably palliatives. For example, I think the arms embargo on Bosnia should have been lifted a long time ago.
Donahue: So just hand out the guns and let them shoot each other?
Chomsky: No it's more than that. There are technical problems that one shouldn't underestimate. You have to know the topography and who's shooting from which direction and all of these details. It seems feasible to at least improve delivery of humanitarian aid and silence the guns shelling Sarajevo. Now that's technical; you have to know how to do that. You can't just say well let's send out planes and do it. Maybe it'd be possible.
But when you talk about serious intervention, chances are it would cause a lot more problems than it would solve. It could have quite unpredictable consequences. Take the possible reaction inside Russia. It's no big secret that there's an old tradition in Russia, that you have to save the Serbs from the Turks. There's a lot of concern in nationalist and military circles in Russia about the breakup of Yugoslavia. You can think of ugly possibilities.
Or suppose that some sort of international intervention would stimulate the Serbs to carry out the kind of desperate violent acts that are not uncommon in small states or communities that feel embattled. For example they might decide to move on Kosovo, bringing in the Turks, the Albanians. This could lead to a Balkan War. All of these are merely possibilities of intervention that are not to be treated lightly in reviewing foreign policy.
What follows is a simple parallel to the Soviet Union propaganda system during the cold war.
Frum: You say that what the media do is to ignore certain kinds of atrocities, committed by US and OUR FRIENDS, and to play up enormously atrocities that are committed by THEM and OUR ENEMIES. You posit that there's a test of integrity and moral honesty, which is to have an equality of treatment of corpses, so that every dead person is equal to every other dead person.
Chomsky: That is not my method. I do not have the ludicrous egotism to make myself the arbiter of all atrocities over the world. I'm not trying to give an A to this country and a B- to that country and so on. The principle that i think we ought to follow is not the one you stated. It is the principle that we rightly expect Soviet dissidents to follow.
What principle do we expect Sakharov to follow? What lets us decide whether Sakharov is a moral person? I think he is. Sakharov does not treat every corpse or atrocity as identical. He has nothing to say about American atrocities. When he's asked about them, he says "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them". What he talks about is Soviet atrocities, and that's right, because those are the ones he's responsible for.
Now we understand this when we're talking about dissidents in the Soviet Union, but we refuse to understand it when we're talking about ourselves, for very good reasons. Commissars in the Soviet Union don't understand that about dissidents. Commissars in the Soviet Union attack Sakharov and other dissidents because they don't talk about American crimes.
We understand exactly why that's just hypocrisy and cynicism when they do it. And we should understand the same when we do it.
The most important thing for you is to think about the consequences of YOUR actions. What can YOU affect? Those are the one's you primarily ought to be concerned about. Of course a corpse is a corpse, but there are some you can effect and there are others you can't do much about. I can be worried about things that happened in the 18th century, but I can't do much about them, and considering them has no moral value whatsoever.