Wow. Based on the comments, my post below on “Les Mains Sales” and Grim’s “On The Virtues Of Killing Children” missed the mark entirely. It’s an important issue, I believe, so let me take sometime soon and try to reframe it.
A capsule version is that I believe that Grim’s post was really about bearing the unavoidable costs of warfare – which include killing children – by, in no small part, soldiering well and winning. Mine was about bearing the unavoidable cost of living in modern Western society. Or any society with a long history, where what you have comes in no small part from the historical accident of your birth, and what you owe comes in no small part from that.
Working on a longer, clearer explanation…
I “got” them both, but it’s hard to communicate well across paradigms.
Let’s just talk about the food angle for a minute.
I have a notion that I have a moral obligation to someday personally take the life of something I eat / have eaten — slaughter a pig, perhaps. I haven’t done it yet. It might be that I never will. I’ve never even gutted a fish.
There’s a sense that someone else is doing my work for me (including looking the future food in the eye).
I am aware that there’s some chance I might never want to eat pig (or meat in general) again after doing that.
There are multiple atavistic-seeming resonances surrounding this matter. Oddly, there’s a faint correlation with the “chickenhawk” namecalling — I’m not of an age where I can enlist, but at least I can shoulder my meat-eater’s burden.
About killing people (kids included)
I think Raymond Chandler once said that every murder is an act of infinite cruelty.
It’s very hard to work that kind of math. And even Bourbaki and Cantor have their critics (that’s a math joke).
I think what you, Grim and those who grok your sentiment are up against is related to the “DPA” three-people-types model in _Team America — World Police_, but for comity’s sake you probably don’t want to go there.
I dunno – Daniel Markham’s comment about killing and eating terrorists was pretty damned funny.
Armed Liberal, you’re in a hole, and I recommend you stop digging.
#3
I agree. This appears to be driven by the false notion that we/you/I need to accept responsibility for the actions of others.
If the wrongs of history are redeemed in any way by the benefits you accrue from them, then whatever crimes you contemplate may as well be considered redeemed in advance as well. (end justifies the means … using the results of Nazi medical experiments … etc).
You obviously want to distance yourself from this conclusion, and yet what else can “I accept the blood on my hands” mean? There’s nothing else it can mean, while the irony is that you’re saying it in an effort to express a position of moral superiority and humility, and to justify your enjoyment of those benefits.
But it’s unnecessary. Liberals don’t believe in collective guilt and you are not judged according to what your ancestors did. Accordingly, you don’t have to come to grips with the blood on their hands and you certainly don’t have to accustom yourself to having blood on yours.
And I in turn hold up #4 as why A.L. needs to try again, even at the risk of further digging.
Although, A.L., rather than a “longer, clearer” explanation, you might try a _shorter_, clearer explanation if you can manage it.
It might be appropriate to revisit the _Dune_ quote which Matt McIntosh used a few months ago:
Sadly Matt seems to have wasted a good lead in as his essay produced more heat than light.
Quoth Adam (#4):
bq. Liberals don’t believe in collective guilt
What color is the sky on the planet you come from?
#6
Actually, they don’t believe in it…
bq. (whisper)_except for white males_.
#5: No, I think A.L. is right. Its about freeriding and whatnot. There are people and machines out there that kill 1000’s of animals so that none of us have to kill any. But the animals are still being killed.
I’m a little on the crunchy side (in the world of conseravtism – you know, labore est orare and what not) so I feel that if one despises or won’t even consider the dirty work involved, then one should just bow out.
I’ve found that leaders who don’t understand in any way the work involved in getting their orders done, are the worst kind. Its not that the leader has to be doing or should be doing these things, but understanding them through experience or at least knowing how they are done helps immensely.
In a sense, we deny ourselves understanding if we are not allowing ourselves to bear at least once the burdens that allow our society to work.
Its about the attitude involved more than anything. We know that we might never be able to or have to kill a steer, but our willingness to understand the process and do so if necessary speaks to a different attitude.
What did Pilate do wrong? He tried to wash his hands of Jesus’ blood. We must be mature enough to accept the guilt of our choices. Now the question is what does it mean to accept guilt. I can tell you one thing about it– no weeping is required. What is required I think, is action.
Think about it.
Nothing’s easy and nothing’s free in life. The cost of living in the most free and most wealthy nation in the world is the cost of keeping life that way.You don’t have to pay the price yourself (except on April 15) or do the hard work. Others can do it, and the call for more has not really been issued yet. You don’t have to kill your own beef or chicken to eat, and you don’t have to kill your own enemy in order to live free. But you can support and thank the people who put beff on the supermarket shelves, and who fight and work every day to keep you free. If you desire to do more, or be prepared to do more… Well, you are an American citizen, and that attitude is to be expected from you. Americans as a whole don’t sit around with their hands in their pockets waiting for permission to do something about a problem. Americans solve problems, even the messy ones that involve a lot of blood and sweat to complete. That leaves more time for the good things in life, right?
If this excercise is to prove useful at all, it must examine both sides of the argument fairly. What I’m guessing is that AL is beginning from a conclusion and then trying (with insufficient scholarship and expository skill) to find justification for that foregone conclusion.
This type of issue advocacy is exceedingly boring, if that’s what’s going on here. It’s simply not interesting to be sitting in the audience while the performer is still working out his lines.
On the other hand, it is also possible that AL himself isn’t completely sure of what to think on this (or many other, IMO) issues, and his inability to clearly articulate a short, direct explanation (I’m with lewy14 here) is symptomatic of this confusion.
In either case, I see no reason why an honest presentation of both sides of this issue by AL (i.e., not left to commenters to argue the opposing view) wouldn’t help elevate this from the muddled ramblings of an Advocate to the thoughtful musings of a Philosopher.
Perhaps I’m wrong, however, to presume AL aspires to the latter (at least in appearance) even while mired in the thinking of the former.
Maybe I read the whole thing wrong, but it seems to me the argument should be about what standards apply. In the case of eating animals, the classic Judeo-Christian formulation is that they are God’s creatures, not ours, and we have dominion over them, not ownership, because they are imbued with life, which only God can bestow. We are enjoined from causing unnecessary suffering or killing for amusement. Nowhere in that tradition is hunting prohibited. Other than ritual slaughter, there is no difference in the identity of the killer. Squeamishness is often a good first cut at moral judgment, but the evaluation ought not to stop there.
Similarly, we are obliged both morally and legally to use all reasonable means to avoid harming civilians in war. We are not obliged to refrain from waging war just because we might harm civilians. Enemy fighters and their weaponry are legitimate targets wherever they may be. The presence of civilians does not render them exempt from attack. When fighters blend with civilians, they are committing a war crime and the blame for civilian casualties rests with them. It is unreasonable (reductio ad absurdum) to expect that the commission of an actual war crime should make a fighter immune from attack. If they fight from a mosque, a hospital, or an orphanage, they make those places a target.
Obviously, there is some judgment involved. It would not be reasonable to level a city because a handful of enemy fighters were there; nor would it be reasonable to think that a handful of civilians at an enemy base would make it exempt from attack. When, as in this case, the enemy launches rockets from next to hospitals, apartments, and so forth, it appears to me that the press and “world opinion” are asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. I doubt it is an honest mistake.
Mitch, you said it better than I did. You are absolutely right. We are responsible for our actions, so how about some attention paid to the other guys for a change?
Those who have been following this thread of discussion here at WoC and/or at B5’s would probably find this post and dialog at Wretchard’s to be of interest as well.
It seems to me that the Left is applying the “last clear chance” rule when it comes to civilian casualties in war. This rule (most often associated with civil liability cases) holds that the party who had the last clear chance to avoid the incident in question is the party to whom primary fault is assigned, regardless of the legality, morality or wisdom of the other party’s actions.
In this case, even though Hezbollah may be putting Lebanese civilians in harm’s way, Israel still has the last clear chance to prevent those civilians from actually being harmed (by not striking at Hezbollah targets where civilians are located). Thus, by the “last clear chance” line of reasoning, Israel is to blame for those deaths.
What this goes to show is that an inflexible legalistic approach is a lousy way to arrive at a moral judgment – but when you have rejected the values-based approach for ideological reasons, the legalistic one is pretty much all that remains.
I don’t think AL should “stop digging”. Moreover, I think I can (sorta) guess what he’s trying to say — but, I’d like to know for sure.
Andy L – gosh, I’m crushed by your opinion of me…but I think I’ll keep playing wit hthe issue on my terms regardless.
You’re welcome to decide that’s a waste of your time and spend your time elsewhere…or to participate in the discussion. If you do stick around, ad hominems and issues of the writer’s competence (for commenters and posters alike) are considered to be argument-enders, not argument-promoters around here, and so to be avoided. I like discussions and arguments, they are the main reason I spend my time on this. So let’s see if I can write something that will provoke one.
A.L.
AL…you already wrote something that provoked discussion it seems. The problem for you is that it wasn’t the discussion you were hoping for….and I wasn’t the first or only one to point that out, you may have noticed.
And as far as wasting time here on occassion, it’s something that I’ve come to terms with as the price I must pay to live the kind of life that I’ve grown accustomed to.
America would not be what it is today without a long and proud history of high-level indolence (just to name but one example of numerous other wasteful actions), and thus I should think it irresponsible of me not to acknowledge, and accept (albeit hesitantly), that simple truth.
Perhaps I will compose a longer and more detailed post explaining the importance of this line of thought…when I get around to it, that is.