From: SWZwick@aol.com
Date: Wed Jun 02 2004 - 21:14:26 BST
But what does the MOQ say about the abuses? Or, for that matter, true
torture? This is an interesting question: to what extent were the abuses in Iraq
psychologically-driven, and to what extent were they logically-driven?
Logically, such abuse (and torture in general) can be opposed on the ground
that it doesn't work. People may cough up some "information", but it is rarely
"good" information. Furthermore, when one side indulges in torture or abuse
of prisoners, the other side is more inclined to do so as well. Abuse of POWs
simply does not bring the desired results, so employing it is illogical. The
intellectual level thus opposes it.
But something in our neurology, which is our biology, tells us that it will
work, so we do it. Perhaps we believe that it will in fact get the desired
results (despite evidence to the contrary), because we're hard-wired for
aggression. Or perhaps it makes us feel good. Or perhaps we are responding to the
pressure from our superiors to deliver results at any price.
The question is whether the kind of humiliating treatment delivered to those
prisoners in Iraq represents a biological impulse overriding an intellecutal
impulse or not. That's what makes it moral or immoral.
Isn't that what this forum is supposed to be about?
How did Chomsky get into this? The critiques of the guy are valid -- he
tends to take things in isolation that don't exist that way, and then forgets to
place them back into context to test his conclusions. And he's never said
anything we didn't already suspect at some time or another. He offers no proofs
of anything new, but rather proves a bunch of things we already know, and then
leaps into wild associative rants that don't really hold up -- because there
really isn't much to them. He's good at shooting down skytalkers, but then he
just replaces it with his own skytalk. Sort of like a Rush Limbaugh for the
left.... I'm tempted to say that he also appeals to a neurological desire we
have for the illusion of certainty and moral correctness, not unlike those
soldiers who abused those prisoners. And since his arguments don't hold up (since
they don't really exist), he also represents a case of the biological
overriding the intellectual. According to the MOQ, this makes him immoral.
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