Fingernail on 10/4/2007 at 12:26
I don't see war as necessary or as something to be respected, so much as it is an inevitable yet lamentable symptom of the human condition.
I think the feelings and powers that cause wars to occur are no more complex than any other human emotion; of course one can choose to overcome, divert or supress them, but it is in the nature of many not to do so.
And I think that until you have experienced the same as any German person in the 20s and 30s, you cannot really begin to understand what motivated certain people to do certain things, let alone tar all with the same brush. Yeah, exactly, you'll never really know what it was like. As my Grandma put it the other day after seeing a short film about Auschwitz: "well nodoby asked me, I was 13 when the war started".
As usual, any attempt to translate the infinitely complex into the comprehensible simple is going to break a few eggs along the way.
*Zaccheus* on 10/4/2007 at 17:58
You have some very valid points there Fingernail.
Jonesy on 10/4/2007 at 19:21
Quote Posted by Dia
But what I wanna know is why Stronts gets to have a personal translator.
Everybody should have a chance to get their point understood without being engulfed in a deluge of apeshit replies and strawmanning at their poorly worded text.
In any case, it's my opinion those who accept war as an inevitable part of human life can see the savage beauty and irony in combat, while people who think that war can be halted forever (you're an
naive idiot if you think that) are embroiled in the horror of it.
Stitch on 10/4/2007 at 20:00
Quote Posted by Jonesy
The spectacle of war can be a great and beautiful thing is what he's getting at
I admittedly only skimmed this thread, but I think Strontz was referring to the result of war as opposed to the spectacle of it. War is, of course, hell--bodies torn up, lives utterly snuffed out, architecture and cultures destroyed--but the results can be beautiful and make the world a better place
overall. Not all that controversial a concept (although, as usual, Strontz did his best to fuck it up by going off topic on irrelevant incendiary tangents).
Pacifism is all well and good up until the moment diplomacy fails.
Chimpy Chompy on 10/4/2007 at 20:38
That makes sense. The argument against, as I see it, is that war shouldn't be necessary in the first place. Ie we shouldn't allow circumstances that bring about terrible aggressors, against whom war is the only option, to arise in the first place. Thus war is just damage control that we have to apply after we have failed.
Not that I'm necessarily convinced by that line of thought. But it would be nice if we could debate it in rational terms rather the kind of toxic waste dump that a Strontz Argument invariably becomes.
User123abc on 10/4/2007 at 20:56
I think that last statement was kind of wierd.
Are you saying that bodies torn up, lives utterly sniffed out, and architecture and civilizations wiped out are not to be understood as results of war?
It might sound like semantics, but I think that right there, separating costs/results/the-thing-in-itself, is another example of that odd kind of compartmentalization that dia and kolya were talking about.
Personally, I try to think of it in those absolutely unavoidable terms that were used, "organized mass murder." I think that reductionism (if I understand the term right) is exactly what we need here. Otherwise, the issue might get tangled and needlessly complicated, and all of a sudden "mass murder" turns into a "just war." How can there be such a thing?
I'm more of an egoist than a pacifist. The idea of risking my life for a distant cause or idealogy, or even of subordinating myself to the whims of a captain, lieutenant,general, etc, seems absolutely ridiculous. Talking about the influence of love here - I think that saying is correct. That's the only percievable way I'd be willing to give my life, to defend someone I genuinely love. If I was an optimist, I'd say that that is the very understandable source of those kinds of complications that justify war, and not some really warped sense of patriotism. And in the sense that civilization is based foremost on the ties that hold families together, maybe in that way war IS an unavoidable consequence of human nature, or maybe its an aberration if you want to call it (love) that.
And there's always the train of thought that goes: I wouldn't need to kill if these other guys weren't being agressive towards my loved ones, but in order to protect my loved ones I should be agressive towards them first (COUGH PREEMPTIVE STRIKE COUGH) - and so the other reciprocates in turn. I don't know how to get out of that one except to do like Ghandi and bend over.
PS - There's really great irony here. That utilitarian kind of viewpoint (okay, we're killing, which sucks, but we're doing it for the greater good) was exactly what motivated the practice of eugenics which Hitler more or less represented. Therefore, one might be likewise motivated to call you a bunch of nazis :) Though, to be fair, its an age old question with no real resolution: does the good in any way diminish the bad? At the very least, we should try not to delude ourselves into just brushing the question off by pretending that the bad doesn't exist, or is somehow less real than the good.
EDIT: Clearly the 'last statement' is not Chimp's statement.
Stitch on 10/4/2007 at 22:17
Quote Posted by User123abc
Are you saying that bodies torn up, lives utterly sniffed out, and architecture and civilizations wiped out are not to be understood as
results of war?
Of course not. Destruction is one of the things war does very well.
War is simply one huge complicated clusterfuck of a mixed bag, the contents both good and bad. On the bad side you have the massive price that is paid--fatalities, destruction, possible future region instability, etc.--while on the good side you have the positive results--overthrown despots, liberated people, halted genocides, etc. To view one side while denying the existence of the other is utterly naive.
War can do terrible things. War can do wonderful things. War is fucking war.
Dia on 10/4/2007 at 23:01
Quote Posted by Jonesy
Everybody should have a chance to get their point understood without being engulfed in a deluge of apeshit replies and strawmanning at their poorly worded text.
I was teasing.
User123abc on 10/4/2007 at 23:41
Well, uh, I agree with you dude.
It was a bad idea to single you out, I wanted to make my point before I read your post. That point is that there are two dangerous (and in your words naive) things being done here: either a judgement has already been made, or the fact there is a judgement to be made is being underplayed. I wasn't suggesting that you didn't consider that war does bad things, but rather that your separation of the results and the costs of war was artificial (as you said, war is fucking war) and subtly suggested the second possibility. If I wanted to be meticulous, I could say that the language of your last post also suggests the first possibility (despot, liberated, genocide, all extremely loaded terms, all stalwarts of political rhetoric).
I suggested a few ways to think about war. The first was to emphasize again the reductionist approach. The second was to question what level of goodness constitutes a just act, as in making a war something we should do (when does the good outweigh the bad, or does such an interaction betweent the two exist at all). The third was to approach the idea that war holds any real good by pointing out the circular and self-perpetuating nature of the reasoning behind going to war, especially in self defense (you can say it's bad because it leads to more violence, or it's not bad itself but rather the sign of a bad system that puts people in the position to kill each other).
I'm personally moved most by the reductionist approach. I believe that if we're so bold as to make a moral statement, we should apply it as a universal rule. So if I decide that it's not right to kill a man in genocide, I won't change my opinion if that man is being killed on a battlefield. And to me, the rest of the practical considerations surrounding war are not as important as that simple understanding.
However, if you ARE looking to apply such beliefs to practical matters, I will say that it's in no way a simple issue.
Also, the technological and economic arguments kind of suck. Rather than being an argument for the benefit of warfare, it's an argument against the benefit of governments that only allocate money to technological progress when their power is threatened, or against the benefit of economies that thrive when there's strife and suffering. Not saying I believe this, but just that this is what's really being suggested.
Ko0K on 11/4/2007 at 03:59
Quote Posted by Jonesy
In any case, it's my opinion those who accept war as an inevitable part of human life can see the savage beauty and irony in combat, while people who think that war can be halted forever (you're an
naive idiot if you think that) are embroiled in the horror of it.
So, how many wars have you lived through so far? Anyway, we're most likely to fail at preventing future wars simply due to the lack of trying hard enough, but you don't seem to differentiate between "can" and 'will.' We have the ability to do it, although whether we will is a completely different story.
