quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Tell me where in this thread or any other you have committed to any policy of "affirming life." That doesn't seem to be a component of your philosophy or your worldview.
Preventing people from murdering me and mine is most certainly life affirming. Wanting to end the conflict with the Arabs decisively instead of constantly renewing their hope that they can annihilate us is also life affirming.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:There is a right and a wrong in the Middle East as well.
I agree. Where I think you go wrong is in failing to recognize that there are more than two sides, and the one you're on is still wrong.
quote:It certainly doesn't require any kind of formal declaration. When the Germans moved into Austria, they didn't call it an act of war. Their puppets in Austria didn't call it such either. The Vichy regime didn't consider the Nazis to have committed war against France.
Yes, but at least both sides recognized the fact that at least one side perceived it to be a war and was willing to act accordingly.
<blink> Er... no. Neither side did. That's why I gave those examples of where neither side did. If you think otherwise, could you please elaborate? Which side considered it war?
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Can I assume from this that you disagree, and believe there are only two sides to this conflict -- and that you believe yourself to be firmly on the right one?
What evil do you not countenance, Lisa, in defense of the good guys? I'm curious as to where you'd draw the line, since you've already defended murder, assassination, extortion, sabotage, and kidnapping.
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I think the point you're missing in the Vichy example, Lisa, is that the "side" with which the Vichy were aligned was not the same side as, say, the side chosen by the rest of France. I think we can make exceptions for puppet governments when drawing up our generalizations, right?
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Well, to begin with, I don't think your examples really applied to my assertion in the first place. Wasn't the Vichy regime cooperating with the Germans? What they thought about it is irrelevant to my point.
Let me start over by trying a different approach.
I've agreed that murder in self defense is understandable. The question is whether murder that is not in self defense is acceptable. In your example with the Jews executing the two British soldiers, that would clearly fall into the category of murder that is not in self defense.
So is it justified? This is an important question because typically killing someone that is on the other side of a conflict is a crime and is punishable. Killing someone on the other side of a conflict when at war, however, is not considered a crime.
So is it justified? You say yes, they were 100% morally correct in doing that. I say it is morally wrong to murder someone (even a soldier) if it is not in self defense unless you are at war with the other party.
So what determines war? I say you are morally obligated to at least communicate your intent to engage in acts of warfare before you start kidnapping and executing people. Is that always convenient to do? Probably not, but if it isn't done, I don't see how anyone could justify killing someone outside of self defense.
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BTW, camus, I think you're doing an excellent job. I've done the "point things out subtly and somewhat snidely" thing too long to be able to confront people with clear and unambiguous statements -- which is a real weakness of my rhetorical style -- and I believe you've managed to make your case quite effectively.
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Simple solution, I'll just stay away from all threads relating to religion, politics, news, philosophy, advice, relationships, and ethics. That should keep me safe from having to argue with Tom.
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I wonder what starLisa would say in response to the interview I read between Time magazine and Perez Musharaff of Pakistan.
He said that they are opening the door to talks with Israel for the first time, this in response to Israel's withdrawel from the West Bank. He also said that the only thing stopping him from recognizing Israel as a state, is waiting for the creation of a Palestinian state.
starLisa has constantly said in many threads that all Arabs are the same, and that all their governments want you dead, and gone, and will never, ever recognize you as a state. So what is this then? a smokescreen?
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One of these sources mentions the quotation previously cited as coming from George Orwell writing about Gandhi, not Gandhi's own words. I think there's room for examining him in his own words and seeing some other perspectives on what non-violence meant in the context he was presenting it.
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Even when I think you're completely wrong-headed, I love you.
Huzzah for Bob and his indefatigable sense of reason!
starLisa, this passage from Bob's third link seems relevant to answer your concerns:
quote:Non-violent resistance means a willingness to die in the act of resistance, but it is not about committing suicide. The hope is that by resisting with dignity and calling on the opressor's conscience, the latter might eventually be won over without having to sacrifice life on either side.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: starLisa, this passage from Bob's third link seems relevant to answer your concerns:
quote:Non-violent resistance means a willingness to die in the act of resistance, but it is not about committing suicide. The hope is that by resisting with dignity and calling on the opressor's conscience, the latter might eventually be won over without having to sacrifice life on either side.
Scott, I ask this in all seriousness. Do you think that people who dance with joy when Jews are murdered by suicide bombers are capable of being won over just because their victims stop defending themselves?
It's amazing how ethnocentric some of you are. Everyone must, deep down inside, be just like you. Horrified at violence and unnecessary death.
You honestly can't even imagine the idea that people might be so implacable in their goals that they honestly don't see killing those in their way as anything more significant than swatting flies.
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quote: Do you think that people who dance with joy when Jews are murdered by suicide bombers are capable of being won over just because their victims stop defending themselves?
Honestly? Yes, I do. But that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a lot of victims first. But there's more to principled non-violence than rolling over and not preventing someone from killing you; we've had plenty of examples of that in recent history, especially in Africa. It's about -- as a matter of principle -- giving someone else the choice to kill you, and making them aware of the fact that they're making that choice. The whole point is to make them conscious of your humanity.
The huge downside, of course, is that some people genuinely are sociopathic and/or conditioned to think of their victims as inherently inhuman. Gandhi himself observed that this strategy would not work against an enemy so ill. On the plus side, very few people are actually that sick; most are just numbed.
People are very able to rationalize monstrosity as "self-defense" or some other necessity; they make excuses for murder all the time. This kind of sacrifice removes any pretense of logic from that excuse, which indeed will pull on some individuals' consciences.
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quote:Scott, I ask this in all seriousness. Do you think that people who dance with joy when Jews are murdered by suicide bombers are capable of being won over just because their victims stop defending themselves?
I don't agree with non-violent defensive action in the situation in the Middle East. I think I've stated that before, but maybe you missed it.
My philosophy does not require that Israel engage in non-violent defense in order to win over Palestinians. Gandhi's does, and Bob's might-- you'll have to ask them.
I posted the excerpt from Bob's 3rd link so that you could comment on it. You know, provide a reasonable argument as to why it's an invalid opinion.
Also, it appears that you were at least somewhat mistaken about Gandhi's opinion on the Jewish situation in the Middle East and during WWII. You may want to thank Bob for educating you. Just an idea.
quote:It's amazing how ethnocentric some of you are. Everyone must, deep down inside, be just like you. Horrified at violence and unnecessary death.
Yes. Everyone SHOULD be "horrified at violence and unnecessary death."
I understand that there are some cultures that do not.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I posted the excerpt from Bob's 3rd link so that you could comment on it. You know, provide a reasonable argument as to why it's an invalid opinion.
Also, it appears that you were at least somewhat mistaken about Gandhi's opinion on the Jewish situation in the Middle East and during WWII. You may want to thank Bob for educating you. Just an idea.
quote:Even as late as June 1946, when the extent of the Holocaust had emerged, Gandhi told biographer Louis Fisher: "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs."
Now, had this said Eric Blair, I would have accepted Tom's claim that it was a figment of George Orwell's imagination. But since it's Louis Fisher, who heard it directly from Gandhi, and since it's consistent with the words that Gandhi wrote himself, I'm going to hold back on thanking Bob for the misinformation. I hope that's okay with you.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:It's amazing how ethnocentric some of you are. Everyone must, deep down inside, be just like you. Horrified at violence and unnecessary death.
Yes. Everyone SHOULD be "horrified at violence and unnecessary death."
I quite agree. "Must" in my post didn't mean that they should. It meant that people can't comprehend that there are those who aren't.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I understand that there are some cultures that do not.
And we're dealing with one of those. You can't expect us to deal with them as we would with people who value life.
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If your life were threatened and the only way that you felt you could defend yourself included methods that resulted in the killing of innocent bystanders, would you view that as morally acceptable?
In other words, if your enemy is one of those types of people that does not value life, does that absolve you of guilt from killing the innocent civilians that are used as shields so that the enemy can be destroyed?
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quote: I would have accepted Tom's claim that it was a figment of George Orwell's imagination.
Um. My claim? I'm pretty sure I claimed no such thing.
quote: And we're dealing with one of those. You can't expect us to deal with them as we would with people who value life.
Can we expect you to deal with them as people who could value your lives? I think it's a ramen/varelse thing, and I think you're being awfully quick to write 'em off as varelse.
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On the contrary, Lyrhawn, I think she would make that distinction. Whatever you may think about her politics, I think it's safe to say she knows basic facts about geography in the region.
I wouldn't trust Musharaf farther than I could throw him, Lyrhawn-would you? This is the man we're allied with (unfortunately) who isn't exactly known for his fair treatment of disputes, after all.
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Gandhi's words, as they nearly always are in my experience, are moving and heartfelt. Unfortunately I think he might misunderstand what a Jew's obligation might be when faced with oppression. He says that it would be a brilliant and noble thing if the Jews faced the oppression in Germany (along with gypsies, communists, homosexuals)...but as has been pointed out, he faced no such systematic annihilation.
He says the best solution would have been for Jews to have been welcomed with open arms into their previous homes, accepted and tolerated and loved with equal measure as other neighbors are treated.
I tend to agree, that would be best. But frankly, it doesn't work like that. As a whole, as a race and religion throughout history, Jews don't get a fair shake for very long. Period.
As far as non-violence in response to Nazi German genocide goes...such a thing would be suicide. There is no appealing to the conscience of people who've already got the incinerators warmed up for your corpse.
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As for Palestinian Arabs claiming that Israelis don't value human life...I'm sorry, but they have at best suspicions that this is true. Frankly I can empathize with a Palestinian who says that Israelis don't give a damn how many civilians they kill, and go out of their way sometimes to do just that. But the trouble is, that's a guess, it's not a fact.
Whereas the Israelis can say, "The Palestinian Arabs don't care about human life because they gloat about targeting civilian bystanders for murder." And that's not just a guess, we've seen and heard it from the lips of Palestinian Arabs.
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quote:Can we expect you to deal with them as people who could value your lives? I think it's a ramen/varelse thing, and I think you're being awfully quick to write 'em off as varelse.
The comparison to the classifications ramen & varelse doesn't hold water, Tom. We can talk to them, they can talk to us. There can be, and there has been, diplomacy attempted.
The Buggers, well, there wasn't any communication at the time of the war. The Descoladores, the same thing. The Piggies, there was some communication, but it was very handicapped.
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quote: The comparison to the classifications ramen & varelse doesn't hold water, Tom. We can talk to them, they can talk to us. There can be, and there has been, diplomacy attempted.
That's my POINT, Jeff. They're NOT varelse.
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quote: If your life were threatened and the only way that you felt you could defend yourself included methods that resulted in the killing of innocent bystanders, would you view that as morally acceptable?
In other words, if your enemy is one of those types of people that does not value life, does that absolve you of guilt from killing the innocent civilians that are used as shields so that the enemy can be destroyed?
I know you asked Lisa that question, and it is an interesting one so I thought I would put in a response... There are a number of questions in your question that should be answered seperately. The first part is almost like asking someone would you die so that others may live. That is almost a different question than the second part The second part of the question is a lot more complex. I think that the taking of innocent life, even to destroy an enemy, will cause guilty feelings in the aggressor. That does not mean the enemy shouldn't be destroyed because innocent life will lost, and it certainly does not mean that it should be done either. The enemy is using innocent life as a shield so most of the blame would be placed on the enemy. However, if I am the soldier pulling the trigger, there is also blame placed on me. I would have dropped the bomb and I was the one who actually killed the innocents. The deaths of those innocents would be on my conscience as well.
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I understand that part, Tom. But there's another piece that goes along with it. If they're not varelse, and we can talk to them...but they continue to behave as if they are varelse...what then?
Humanity perhaps had an obligation to refrain from xenocide once they had the upper hand against the Buggers, and try diplomacy-or at best communication. But the Palestinians and Israelis started out able to talk to each other, and have been for decades. They've been communicating.
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quote: If they're not varelse, and we can talk to them...but they continue to behave as if they are varelse...what then?
Then we're both failing to do our jobs. Because if they're really ramen and not varelse, it IS possible to communicate our existence to them. We just need to find a way to do so. The alternative is for one side or the other to ultimately commit to the other's complete destruction, and I think we can all agree that this is an evil outcome.
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quote:A British military historian, interviewing German generals after the war, was told that they'd found nonviolent resistance much harder to deal with than armed and violent opposition.
I have written to the folks who put the site together to provide information on who the historian is and the name of the publication or book in which these interviews might appear.
But within Occupied Europe there were well documented victories for nonviolence. In Norway there was a successful teachers’ strike against being forced to teach Nazi ideology. In Denmark the opposition to the Nazis was led by the King, who said that if the Jews had to put on the “Yellow Star of David”, then he, the King, would be the first man in Denmark to put one on. When the Nazis moved to arrest the Danish Jews, members of the Gestapo leaked this news to the Danish authorities and in 48 hours virtually all the Jews in Denmark were gotten to safety in Sweden. In Bulgaria, which had no history of anti-Semitism, spontaneous civil resistance (including crowds sitting on train tracks) prevented the Nazis from shipping any Jews out of the country.
quote: 1. Would nonviolence have worked against the Nazis'? Nonviolence did work against the Nazi regime in February/May of 1943 when housewives protested against the arrest of their Jewish husbands, saving thousands of lives. Nonviolence always works (see question 3.); if the opponent is ruthless and you start late in the game, it requires correspondingly more sacrifice - and correct application. Above all, do not mistake the passivity of many of the Nazis' victims for 'nonviolence.'
and provides a quick overview of successful use of non-violent resistance throughout history herePosts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Bob, all those examples of non-violent resistance during WWII -- as wonderful as they are, and I have long known how exceptionally the peoples of Scandinavia acted in protecting their Jewish citizens during that time -- were carried out by people the Nazis were NOT attempting to kill.
Don't get me wrong. They were definitely risking their lives, and making themselves targets. But nonetheless, the options open to them were far greater than to those the Nazis were already attempting to kill.
IMO, passivity in the face of someone attempting to kill you is suicide. And absolutely forbidden by Jewish Law.
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My understanding is that nonviolent resistance is does not equate to "passivity." It is very pointedly not passive in some applications. It just is not violent.
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And rivka makes another good point as well. It's unfortunate, but the examples given of nonviolent resistance being effective weren't perpetrated directly by the people being threatened with death. I say it's unfortunate because I would love for that not to be the case, for nonviolent resistance to have worked on the part of the Jews in that situation.
But it didn't. And I think we can all agree that it would be deluding ourselves if we choose to believe that it would've worked indefinitely. After all, the 1000 yrs Reich was anything but, remember?
How long would nonviolent resistance have worked if the Nazis weren't fighting a bitterly contested war for their survival on two fronts?
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quote:It's possible Jewish Law does not share your perceptions, Tom & Bob.
I want to make it VERY clear that I'm not commenting on Jewish law or it's precepts. I am pointing out only what its main proponents have to say about what nonviolent resistance is.
I think the people who practiced this solution have said it better than I have, though. They aren't talking about passivity. They are talking very specifically about resisting a stronger foe.
I also hope that we can get some clarification and a source for the supposed statements from German generals about having a harder time dealing with non-violent resistance than with facing armed foes. I think that would be at least an interesting thing to think about in light of the common assumption that non-violence simply "would not have worked" against the Nazis.
At this point, I don't know how credible those statements are, but it'd be interesting to find out, no?
Or would such statements, even if corroborated, not change anyone's mind?
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I was not commenting on nonviolent resistance in general. I was commenting on what I understand to be a necessary component of nonviolent resistance.
As I understand it, for nonviolent resistance to work, many people have to be willing to give up their lives at the hand of the oppressor. The idea being that doing so will eventually save more lives, yes?
The trouble is, for each of those people making the choice to allow themselves to be killed (and while I do make some distinction between allowing myself to be killed and killing myself, I don't think it is relevant here), they do so not even to save actual specific people, but to save an amorphous group of people who may or may not actually be saved.
I will not debate whether this is noble. (I can see both sides.) What I do consider it to be is wrong. And asking or expecting anyone to do it is, IMO, evil.
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Also, I find it deeply and horrifyingly ironic: For 50 years charges have been leveled at the Jews (particularly the religious ones) that they "went like lambs to the slaughter" (there is even a rather ugly epithet in Hebrew that refers to the victims of the Holocaust as "soap," both because of its pliability and because there was some indication that becoming soap was the eventual result of the remains of some of them -- this may have been a hoax). But now I'm hearing that some people feel they should have gone more easily?!?
In any case, there are stories upon stories of Jews that did indeed go to the gas chambers or mass graves while singing God's praises and even dancing. While the occasional individual Nazi may have been affected, there certainly was no measurably reduction in genocide.
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quote:I also hope that we can get some clarification and a source for the supposed statements from German generals about having a harder time dealing with non-violent resistance than with facing armed foes.
I'm suggesting it is probably absurd to believe this would work against people like the Nazis in the long run, because we have learned what Nazis did long-term to the people they despised and thought were oppressing them. They killed them in mass-murder camps. Is there any reason we should reasonably expect they would've responded to long-term nonviolent resistance with a lighter, more humane hand?
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quote: But now I'm hearing that some people feel they should have gone more easily?!?
I think this represents a misunderstanding of the doctrine of non-violence. You don't go more easily. You go visibly.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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No, rivka, more easily would be the opposite of non-violent resistance. You're ignoring the second word in the phrase. Sitting down en-masse and refusing to get on the trains would have been an example of non-violent resistance. Yes, many people would have been shot -- but it would have happened in public, not shuffled off to a camp where the majority of the German people could pretend it wasn't happening.
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I wonder how many of the people who feel that Holocaust victims should have fought back would. (Suggested reading: The Seventh Million)
And FYI, once word trickled back of what was happening in the camps, there were groups that refused to get on the trains. They were simply shot. And as far as making any impact, almost no one seems to even know that this even happened. And it was every bit as ignored as what was happening in the camps (which were often near population centers, so it took a bit more deliberate blindness than you're implying on the part of the local citizenry).
quote:Originally posted by camus: Lisa, let me ask you this.
If your life were threatened and the only way that you felt you could defend yourself included methods that resulted in the killing of innocent bystanders, would you view that as morally acceptable?
In other words, if your enemy is one of those types of people that does not value life, does that absolve you of guilt from killing the innocent civilians that are used as shields so that the enemy can be destroyed?
When we're talking about supporters of the actual terrorists, we've left "innocent civilians" far behind.
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quote: And we're dealing with one of those. You can't expect us to deal with them as we would with people who value life.
Can we expect you to deal with them as people who could value your lives? I think it's a ramen/varelse thing, and I think you're being awfully quick to write 'em off as varelse.
Thank you. That's exactly it. But they're not predestined to be varelse. They can be ramen if they so choose. Until the day that they do so, they can reap the rewards of being varelse by choice.
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quote:Can we expect you to deal with them as people who could value your lives? I think it's a ramen/varelse thing, and I think you're being awfully quick to write 'em off as varelse.
The comparison to the classifications ramen & varelse doesn't hold water, Tom. We can talk to them, they can talk to us. There can be, and there has been, diplomacy attempted.
But I don't think that other than verbiage, there was actual communication going on. All of the underlying premises have been and continue to be so different that I'm not sure "communication" is actually happening.
Peace to some people means finding a way to compromise so that even if no one wins completely, no one loses completely either.
Peace to others means that one side wins and the other loses. Completely.
So if two parties that hold those different views of what peace is come together and talk about peace, is it really communication? Despite the use of language?
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quote:When we're talking about supporters of the actual terrorists, we've left "innocent civilians" far behind
I agree that supporters of the actual terrorists cannot be considered innocent civilians, but I would not assume that all people used as human shields are supporters of terrorists.
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quote: But they're not predestined to be varelse. They can be ramen if they so choose. Until the day that they do so, they can reap the rewards of being varelse by choice.
One of the observations made in Children of the Mind is that the humans, despite all their desperate attempts to communicate, were ultimately the ones who wound up deciding other species were varelse all the time, attempting genocide at least twice (and considering it a third time). And this led Peter to speculate whether or not the humans themselves, for all their introspection, were not in fact the varelse.
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Blayne Bradley
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waaaait.... Ghandi said that in... 1938 BEFORE THE FINAL SOLUTION! At that time is was msotly y'know persecution and stuff.
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They're NOT varelse.
