On Apr 12, 2005, at 12:28 PM, Nick Arnett wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:08:54 -0400 (EDT), Robert J. Chassell wroteNick Arnett wrote
I cannot agree with the premise that underlies this -- that evil is "out there" and we "in here," if powerful enough, can eliminate it.
Well, how about a premise that includes people `in here'?
that some of the people who gain governmental power, whether here or abroad, are evil
I have no trouble agreeing with... or even better, there is evil in all of us,
including our government leaders.
That was the statement I thought you were probably leaning toward, myself. The idea of us vs. them is often toxic, though it can be useful as well.
However, when we start getting into really vague and nonabsolute ideas, such as what is good and what is evil, and then start trying to portray the world in terms of us good, them evil, and *particularly* when we start projecting a "whoever is not with us is against us" attitude, we're in very deep trouble indeed.
Your take on its being a worship of a nation is a new and interesting one to me. Though maybe it's not that new historically -- isn't that, after all, what is really meant by god-king?
I think that "The Fall" or "original sin," or whatever one might call it is
mischaracterized as meaning that people are innately selfish, greedy, etc. It
seems to me to mean that we have two sides to ourselves, or two hearts, if you
will, which fight for supremacy. That's quite Lutheran, I might add --
simultaneously saint and sinner.
It's certainly not in keeping with the dogma of Original Sin, which states explicitly that humans are in a fallen state and must climb out of it.
Buddhists also teach that the fundamental nature of each of us is goodness, or in some teachings enlightenment or even buddhahood. That's why they bow all the time -- they're bowing to the nascent buddha in each person. It's refreshing to encounter traditions that assume *goodness* as the fundament of human nature rather than evil.
It seems to me that a more sensible take on it would be one which assumes that people try to make the best decisions they can based on the information they have available *and* how they interpret it -- and that not all decisions will seem sensible to all people in all places at all times.
IOW situational ethics must come into play, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should forgive the atrocities of a Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot. (Or a Hussein for that matter.) Because sometimes one society's situational ethics can trump that of another or of an individual.
Contrarily, it's been argued that sanctions, etc. against Iraq weren't working after more than a decade -- but in places where empire did not impose itself on a regime to make a change, how long did it take for change to occur? With the USSR it was decades. With Africa, decades at least, and the same in India. Change didn't come to those regimes overnight, and I think based on those lessons it would be unreasonable to expect change in Iraq to occur in one generation as well.
The generational time is probably not an accident. The old guard has to change out, there has to be new blood and new ideas born into a nation and its meme pool before change can really be effected. That's one reason I have serious doubts about Iraq's fledgling democracy. In effect it is *not* a democracy -- it is just another governmental system forced in Iraqis by a higher power. I'm not sure that it's operatively different from hegemony or dictatorship.
But we didn't give the ideas time to take root. We didn't give Iraq five decades to ferment and grow. We invaded and imposed in an early stage, and while I know some are already trumpeting success, a *true* conservative will have to agree that the jury is still very much out on how well we've done the job.
That we're talking about how well *we* have done the job -- as opposed to the Iraqi people -- might say more than any arguments anyone can put forward.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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