On being a soggy liberal
Oct. 20th, 2005 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perlmongerThis posting is a relocated answer to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lproven here on the subject of spraying pigs' blood at Muslim terrorists.
Liam said: They want to kill us and in return you want to /understand their motivations and cultural context?/ I sit amazed.
"They" are people. Just like you and I. The idea that "terrorists" and "rapists" and "cabinet ministers" and all other identifiable subgroups of humanity that do evil and (apparently) incomprehensible things are somehow different from "us"; that we, living through similar events, placed in equivalent situations wouldn't react in a similar way is a nice, comfortable illusion. It's "them" that are bad'n'wrong, not "us". "We" would never behave that way.
Sorry.
Yes "we" would.
I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't protect ourselves against attack from anyone and anywhere that attacks us: what I am suggesting is that we maybe look at longer term preventive measures by seeing why some people feel so (otherwise) powerless and angry that they want to attack us and maybe, just maybe, see if it's at least partially because we've backed them into a corner after a couple of millenia of political, military and commercial (to the extent that those three things can be separated) violence.
In what way is using someone's own insane beliefs to prevent them from committing a crime a "lynch mob mindset"?
By dismissing another world-view as "insane", you implicitly dismiss those who hold that world-view which, in turn, renders them "other" and safe to insult, abuse, incarcerate and kill as a collective group. That sounds to me very like the state in which black people were (and to an extent still are) in parts of the US; the state in which gay people are to a significant (but I hope) minority of people in this country; the state in which, increasingly, anyone of a Semitic (or, indeed, Brazillian) appearance is in this country.
Oh, and leaving aside for a moment the spraying of pigs' blood, it would also be nice if the measures taken by our government purportedly to counter the "threat of terrorism" (1) did so, rather than increasing that threat and (2) weren't just more steps to screw down the rest of the population and, as far as they can get away with it, abolish the rule of law using external threat (enemies are necessary to government) as a handy covering excuse.
lproven here on the subject of spraying pigs' blood at Muslim terrorists.Liam said: They want to kill us and in return you want to /understand their motivations and cultural context?/ I sit amazed.
"They" are people. Just like you and I. The idea that "terrorists" and "rapists" and "cabinet ministers" and all other identifiable subgroups of humanity that do evil and (apparently) incomprehensible things are somehow different from "us"; that we, living through similar events, placed in equivalent situations wouldn't react in a similar way is a nice, comfortable illusion. It's "them" that are bad'n'wrong, not "us". "We" would never behave that way.
Sorry.
Yes "we" would.
I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't protect ourselves against attack from anyone and anywhere that attacks us: what I am suggesting is that we maybe look at longer term preventive measures by seeing why some people feel so (otherwise) powerless and angry that they want to attack us and maybe, just maybe, see if it's at least partially because we've backed them into a corner after a couple of millenia of political, military and commercial (to the extent that those three things can be separated) violence.
In what way is using someone's own insane beliefs to prevent them from committing a crime a "lynch mob mindset"?
By dismissing another world-view as "insane", you implicitly dismiss those who hold that world-view which, in turn, renders them "other" and safe to insult, abuse, incarcerate and kill as a collective group. That sounds to me very like the state in which black people were (and to an extent still are) in parts of the US; the state in which gay people are to a significant (but I hope) minority of people in this country; the state in which, increasingly, anyone of a Semitic (or, indeed, Brazillian) appearance is in this country.
Oh, and leaving aside for a moment the spraying of pigs' blood, it would also be nice if the measures taken by our government purportedly to counter the "threat of terrorism" (1) did so, rather than increasing that threat and (2) weren't just more steps to screw down the rest of the population and, as far as they can get away with it, abolish the rule of law using external threat (enemies are necessary to government) as a handy covering excuse.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 08:52 am (UTC)In all seriousness, though, the common factor in what makes someone turn into a terrorist isn't a fanatical belief in religious dogma, but a sense of being oppressed and downtrodden. Arming the population with pigs' blood will increase the feelings of opression in the Muslim community. Creating more terrorists and so on.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 09:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 10:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 01:09 pm (UTC)But you're right. We won't agree.
This comment seems to me as utterly barking as the idea of strapping explosives onto yourself and going off and murdering a bunch of innocent strangers.
Religious people are irrational. It is pointless to try to treat them rationally; it is futile to try to reason with people who have no sense of reason.
If they want to kill me, I want to stop them. If I can stop them without killing them, that, to me, seems like a better bet than killing them, because I am not a bloodthirsty killer; I am a rather pacifistic peacable vegetarian.
But if that doesn't work, then no, kill them. If that means a policeman holding them down on the floor of a Tube train and shooting them in the back of the head, then sobeit. It is of course tragic if this gets done to the wrong person by mistake, but people die all the time. Human life is not precious. Human life is very cheap; there are over six billion humans on our overcrowded planet. If killing a small number of people prevents them from killing a large number, that is worth it. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
But doubtless you will be horrified by this and consider it distasteful to the point of disgust. Sadly, your mindset currently prevails in much of the west and the developed world, which is why we are nearly overrun with a spectrum of ills from illiterate schoolchildren to violent crime at home and rising terrorism and religious fundamentalism around the world.
Unless the rational fight back, to protect rationality, the irrational and the stupid will win. And unless they are taught, most people are irrational and stupid; it is the natural state of man.
In reason, logic, culture, religion, we will be overwhelmed by the forces of ignorant fundamentalists, and in commerce and trade we will be overwhelmed by vigorous far-Eastern economies unfettered by unions and workers' rights legislation.
The upshot is that your cuddly fluffy worldview will bring about its own destruction.
This may well be a natural trend.
It's a shame, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-20 02:12 pm (UTC)My worldview is anything but "cuddly fluffy" (hint: the title to my post was meant ironically) and the number of people who share my worldview appears, from here, to be very few indeed, and none whatsoever in any position of power or influence.
Rationality is in the eye of its definer. I actually agree with you about religion, whether it be Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or Classical Economics; what I don't agree with is that you are necessarily any more rational than a rabid god botherer when you can spout the sort of incoherent gibberish that appears above. How the FUCK can you get from someone (me, in this instance) reckoning that a sociopolitical and historical understanding of conflict and its modes of expression is a Good Thing to my mindset being responsible for illiterate schoolchildren leaves me slack-jawed with amazement...
I've no doubt that all those ills you list are at least in large part caused by prevailing Western (for want of a better word) culture, but that hegemonic culture of alienation and commodification is one I despise with all my heart and mind, for all that I am embedded in and infected by it. When people are rendered alienated and powerless, they both latch onto any passing irrationality that gives their lives some sort of meaning and context and, if they're not totally crushed, they tend to fight back in one way or another. I'm a white, middle-class, educated, heterosexual, able-bodied man within occasional sight of neurotypicality and I feel powerless; I can only try to imagine what people without my privileges feel like.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-25 01:18 pm (UTC)Let me try to explain.
The path from religion to schoolkids comes from the, to me, fairly clear links from irrationality in one area - e.g. religion - extending to flawed reasoning in others - e.g. [1] hurting kids is wrong [2] but rewarding them for doing well is OK [3] so we'll just ban punishing children in homes and schools and they'll learn anyway.
It's all about tolerance. I feel that it's not OK to tolerate irrationality. I feel that it's not OK to respect others' viewpoints if those viewpoints are based on false information. I feel that it's not OK to allow people to advertise falsehoods, and that this covers religion, faith healing, alternative medicine, mysticism and claims of the paranormal and much else besides.
Tolerance itself is not a bad thing and understanding never is - but tolerance of irrationality, be it based on faith or tradition or culture, is an evil that is harmful to civilisation.
As for this post: well, I can only echo yourself back to you. I don't subscribe to any us-v-them "analysis" of the situation and I would, largely, agree with you. But personally I strongly suspect that the native state of Man is to be stupid, gullible and superstitious. We are all tainted by this, but some, perhaps, less than others.
As for rationality being hard to define and a subjective quality, that I would strongly dispute, but I don't think it would be a profitable or interesting debate. I tend to believe that there are absolutes of truth and falsehood in the objective universe and that it is possible by reason and logic to completely understand it, given enough time and resources. Any rational being that chooses not to do so, that chooses irrationality, is worth less to me.
As for alienation, commodification and so on; well, I wasn't addressing that at all. I don't honestly think, at first glance, that it's culpable here, but I'll think on it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-24 02:23 pm (UTC)- behaving rationally and working to understand situations?
- educating people?
- being gratuitously offensive to those we disagree with?
- locking them all up/spraying them with pigs blood/denying them the vote/getting stuck into pointless discussions about what it's OK to do to people you believe have done something bad enough to lose all status as a fellow human?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-25 01:19 pm (UTC)