Hi, Platt
> You probably would have been swept up by the draft if you didn't
> volunteer. The "glory" of war went out with the invention of the tank and
> machine gun.
Alas, the people of the Balkans have yet to get the word. (See, the movie
BEFORE THE RAINS for a terrific portryal of the relationship between war,
killing and honor.)
> > But then, that is what societies do to their
> > young men, when they have failed them in other ways. Was it a
> moral war? In
> > that it sought to stop fascism, and there was no alternative but to see
> > innocent people swept up in its destructive path, there was moral
> > justification to the battle.
>
> Good. You agree World War II was a moral war. How do you feel about
> the Korean war? Was our participation moral?
Platt, we cannot cover all wars at this pace, nor would it be instructive.
So let me ask simply: what is your moral take on what is going on in Sierra
Leone and Liberia right now, and why it is that you are not, if I assume
correctly, not engaged in it in some way, if all that is needed to command
your involvement is that the conflict involve issues of morality?
> >But can one not imagine how an intelligent
> > foreign policy might have stopped Hitler and his ilk in their tracks?
>
> Diplomatic efforts were made to stop Hitler. Remember Munich?
> Diplomacy was underway at the moment the Japs attacked Pearl
> Harbor. No, I cannot imagine how an intelligent foreign policy could
> have stopped Hitler or Tojo.
Well, no one has ever offered up Munich and Chamberlain's policies and
actions there as an example of 'intelligent' forign policy. Indeed, it is
held up as an example of short-sighted, blind, weak and ineffective policy.
Historians of WWI and its antecedents have identifed several opportunities
to have stopped Hitler, in that he assayed various initiatives, and when he
found weak resistence proceeded with his evolving plans. (I'm not as
familiar with Japanese WWII history, but would be surprised if the same
stop-and-go mements were not present in US/Chinese/Japanese relations
preceding Pearl Harbor.) I do know that the 'diplomacy' that preceded the
days before Pearl Harbor were a sham on the part of the Japanese, but one
would also have to recognize that the US foreign policy community and State
Department were sloppy in their gathering of information and analysis -- and
that US policy at the time could hardly be called 'intelligent' -- whether
for those reasons or the general lack of cohesion of public opinion of the
role of the US in world affairs.
<snip>
> > As for the civil war...I cannot speak for Pirsig, nor know the
> reasons he
> > would argue for its morality. I'd be interested in your take on
> his views.
>
> Pirsig makes his views on the Civil War clear in Chap. 13 of LILA. He
> believes it was moral in accordance with the MOQ. I agree.
>
> > In the meantime, I will simply say that I see nothing moral in the civil
> > war. I see a bunch of broken down politicians, ego-driven, followed by a
> > bunch of broken-down generals inflicting enormous damage on a
> generation of
> > kids. And the odd thing is that the Europeans decided that there were
> > military lessons to be learned from the carnage, studied it voraciously
> > complete with battle-field tours post bellum, and managed to
> replicate the
> > insanity in places like Verdun a half century later. No, for
> me, morality
> > has to do with doing the right thing, and learning from mistakes. The
> > butchers of the US civil war and WWI fail on both counts. Ego
> should never
> > be allowed to masquerade as national or societal necessity, and
> kids must be
> > the first to call the old blighters on it.
>
> I take it the issue of slavery doesn't enter into your
> calculations of the
> morality of the Civil War.
For better or for worse, the morality of slavery was not the cause of the
Civil War. It became a symbolic issue with the Emancipation Declaration, but
if it were the dominant issue, one must wonder why the Declaration did not
extend to all slaves, whether in the territories controlled by the Federals
or not, and whether or not states with slavery did not return to the Union
by the deadline set by Lincoln.
This is separate from the fact that I do view slavery as a moral
abomination, whether it is defined by race or any other characteristic.
Question for you: where morally do you stand on the issue of current
'reparations' for slavery? Do you think Pirsig might have a take on this?
> > Now, your last question begins to go in a more viable direction: who and
> > under what circumstances would one kill if they were trying to
> kill you (or,
> > if we can enlarge the question, deprive one of a highly held value)? No
> > longer are you promoting 'giving away' one's life, but of
> taking that of a
> > threatener. Good. What is your thinking on this?
>
> No one should inititate the use of physical force. If threatened, one
> should meet force with enough force to eliminate the threat. The right of
> self-defense is absolute. Do you agree?
Yes, I agree. But this still leaves us with the conundrum of what should
happen when all parties to a conflict view their survival as being at stake
(such as the Israelis and Palestinians do). If we accept the right of using
force for self-defence, can one party to a conflict deny that same right to
those of their opponents who are threatened? If we don't accept this, are
we not allowing one party a DQ strategy, and limiting the other to a static
strategy?
Regards,
Lawrence
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:27 BST