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Date Posted: 11:21:47 08/11/08 Mon
Author: Ned Depew
Author Host/IP: 75.106.171.83
Subject: This would be convincing, Dawg, except that ...
In reply to: Prairie Dawg 's message, "Re: Dawg - the "two wrongs" lesson..." on 18:33:50 08/09/08 Sat

... you can't possibly know that it is "true."

As I pointed out above, highly credentialed historians, members of governments who were on the scene in various capacities and privvy to the "insider information" of their own little "sphere of knowledge" have produced widely varying and conflicting reports of what kinds of negotiations were actually going on and what they "might" have led to.

Your patience may be "taxed" by what you see as revisionist history, but any historian worth his salt (and without a heavy ideological axe to grind) will tell you that the lesson of history in the 20th Çentury and into our own is that ALL history is "revisionist."

But all that is actually irrelevant. As a student of history, one always has to realize that there is never only one good choice - much less only one "good" choice. Instead, there are many painful choices and the study of history, (as well as of philosophy and ethics) is about our struggle to make such choices.

We (the US) made a particular decision in this case. How we "justify" or "rationalize" it is a matter for the past. The question in the present and for the future is what effect that decision had on our worldview (and that of the others in the world) today.

Of course, our "just5ification" and "rationalization" affects how we view today's world. If we accept the "but it saved American lives" argument, then we can (as G.W. Bush seems to want to do) justify any act of ruthless, murderous violence against any putative "enemy," civilian or military, on the grounds that "it will save American lives" (which he sometimes parses as, "keep America safe").

That's the moral hole you are digging for yourself. And the corollary is that If there's a moral "justification" for such actions by us, there must be an equal "justification" for such actions against us, by those who can argue as persuasively as the authorities you quote that what they are trying to do is "save (Fill in the blank) lives?"

In fact, this is the schizophrenic argument the Middle East has been having with itself for the past sixty years. Someone has to take the moral high ground. Everyone can trot out volumes of insults and injustices, murders and maimings going back into pre-history to "justify" their behavior.

Hopalong Cassidy would never shoot a man in the back, attack from behind, throw dust in his opponents eyes in an otherwise fair fight, no matter how he was provoked and no matter how "necessary" such behavior might seem for his victory - or even his survival.

Sometimes he would find another strategy to solve the conflict. Sometimes he would simply have faith in his own moral code to prevail. He was willing to take the risk.

The phrase "death before dishonor" - although it has of course at times been twisted into maniacal demagogic knots to serves selfish purposes - ought still to have some meaning for people, don't you think?

We have at least nine at least vaguely decipherable centuries of records of trying to make peace by violence, to solve problems by killing those whom we can't seem to learn to embrace (or at least share space with).

Do you think historical stupidity somehow makes present stupidity not only justifiable, but also in some distorted way "right?"

The crux of it is this: you write, "I too think never Again! but I recognize and acknowledge why it had to be done and that the outcome was far better than it would have been."

But you can't have it both ways. If you "recognize and acknowledge why it had to be done," then you must be able to envision similar circumstance in the future where it would "have to be done" again. That is a far (and mournful) cry from "never again.

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Replies:

  • Re: Dawg - the "two wrongs" lesson... -- Rick, 23:03:02 08/11/08 Mon
  • Acknowledging "Error" -- Ned, 10:14:01 08/12/08 Tue
  • Ned...some light reading -- Prairie Dawg, 00:03:26 08/14/08 Thu
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