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The Loony Left on war

Art Vandelay

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"There is nothing special to tell about this superfluous conflict. All wars are alike. They killed us and we killed them."
-Joshua Ashenberg, in a letter to, and endorsed by, the editor of Tikkun, discussing the Yom Kippur war.

Joshua is trying to paint a moral equivalency not only between the Israelis and the Arabs during the Yom Kippur war (which, according to him, the Israelis deliberately provoked), but between all sides in all wars. The Americans were no better than the Nazis, the Finns no better than the Russians, the South Koreans no better than the North Koreans. It was just a bunch of people killing each other.

It seems to me that there are two strains of the Radical Left: the "pacifists", who claim to be opposed to all violence, but seem to spend most of their time criticizing Western violence, and the militants, who are committed to destroying the existing oppressive hegemony so they can set up their own oppressive hegemony. The latter is constantly engaging in acts of violence against those that disagree with them, while the former is constantly trying to create a culture of passivity which prevents us from confronting this violence, because doing so requires us to engage in violence ourselves, and they have successfully fooled people into thinking that violence is evil in and of itself, rather than merely a tool, sometimes used for evil, but often needed to fight evil. One has declared war on the West, while the other is bent on a campaign of disarmament that by necessity will be unilateral. They make excuses for the aggressors, while demonizing those that fight them. And all in the name of being "progressive".
 
Art Vandelay said:
"There is nothing special to tell about this superfluous conflict. All wars are alike. They killed us and we killed them."
-Joshua Ashenberg, in a letter to, and endorsed by, the editor of Tikkun, discussing the Yom Kippur war.

Joshua is trying to paint a moral equivalency not only between the Israelis and the Arabs during the Yom Kippur war (which, according to him, the Israelis deliberately provoked), but between all sides in all wars. The Americans were no better than the Nazis, the Finns no better than the Russians, the South Koreans no better than the North Koreans. It was just a bunch of people killing each other.

It seems to me that there are two strains of the Radical Left: the "pacifists", who claim to be opposed to all violence, but seem to spend most of their time criticizing Western violence, and the militants, who are committed to destroying the existing oppressive hegemony so they can set up their own oppressive hegemony. The latter is constantly engaging in acts of violence against those that disagree with them, while the former is constantly trying to create a culture of passivity which prevents us from confronting this violence, because doing so requires us to engage in violence ourselves, and they have successfully fooled people into thinking that violence is evil in and of itself, rather than merely a tool, sometimes used for evil, but often needed to fight evil. One has declared war on the West, while the other is bent on a campaign of disarmament that by necessity will be unilateral. They make excuses for the aggressors, while demonizing those that fight them. And all in the name of being "progressive".
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"All wars are alike"? It is amazing to me that anyone would truly believe that. I'm not sure if many people do. It makes for good prostelizing, but isn't a very accurate view.

That being said, I actually do know someone who thinks that way. He doesn't even think WW2 should have been fought. Despite being completely off his rocker in that way, he is otherwise a really cool guy to hang out with. :)
 
Art Vandelay said:
It seems to me that there are two strains of the Radical Left: the "pacifists", who claim to be opposed to all violence, but seem to spend most of their time criticizing Western violence, and the militants, who are committed to destroying the existing oppressive hegemony so they can set up their own oppressive hegemony.
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Wow man, look at this exercise of the excluded middle.

You left out, at the very least, the lunatics, who tend to inhabit the radical right as well as the radical left.
 
Freakshow said:
"All wars are alike"? It is amazing to me that anyone would truly believe that. I'm not sure if many people do. It makes for good prostelizing, but isn't a very accurate view.
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Ewww. Let's not compare WW2 to Vietnam. (what's the "finger down throat" smiley face?)
 
Um, can't we agree that in principle, war is a bad thing? Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, we're probably always going to have them. Yes, sometimes they are necessary. But that doesn't mean that war itself is a desirable thing.

Likewise you could say losing a leg is a bad thing in general, but sometimes it's necessary to save the patient's life. The fact that sometimes it's better than the alternative doesn't make it a good thing.
 
jj said:
Wow man, look at this exercise of the excluded middle.

You left out, at the very least, the lunatics, who tend to inhabit the radical right as well as the radical left.
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No, he's only talking about the lunatic left.

When you start your own thread about the lunatic right you may feel free to exclude any mention of lefty lunatics without being guilty of any fallacies.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Um, can't we agree that in principle, war is a bad thing? Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, we're probably always going to have them. Yes, sometimes they are necessary. But that doesn't mean that war itself is a desirable thing.

Likewise you could say losing a leg is a bad thing in general, but sometimes it's necessary to save the patient's life. The fact that sometimes it's better than the alternative doesn't make it a good thing.
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Good and bad are relative terms. In a sense, anything that is better than an alternative is "good".

There are lots of unpleasant things I've been through that I know were "good" for me. Because I am aware of the alternatives.
 
Freakshow said:
Not always, no.
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Shocking. Have you no moral standards?

Killing someone is a bad thing. It's an absolute.

Sometimes it is necessary to kill someone. Sometimes it is necessary to be bad. But that doesn't make it good.

Unless you're some kind of moral relativist, which isn't generally the position admitted to by "the right".
 
TragicMonkey said:
Shocking. Have you no moral standards?

Killing someone is a bad thing. It's an absolute.

Sometimes it is necessary to kill someone. Sometimes it is necessary to be bad. But that doesn't make it good.

Unless you're some kind of moral relativist, which isn't generally the position admitted to by "the right".
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If something is necessary, and there is no alternative, and it achieves a greater good, it can be a good thing. As an example, imagine saving your life and saving your wife and daughter from being raped, by killing someone. This "someone" is a horrible person through and through and occupies himself by causing misery in others. The world is a much better place without him. How is that an absolute bad? I don't think it is.
 
The fallacy seems to lie in the idea that war solves more problems than it creates.
 
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Freakshow said:
If something is necessary, and there is no alternative, and it achieves a greater good, it can be a good thing. As an example, imagine saving your life and saving your wife and daughter from being raped, by killing someone. This "someone" is a horrible person through and through and occupies himself by causing misery in others. The world is a much better place without him. How is that an absolute bad? I don't think it is.
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Because you killed someone. That's bad. The situation might have made it necessary, might have made it more wrong not to kill him, but that will never make it good. An evil is an evil is an evil. There is no comparing it to other situations and saying that relatively, that evil is good. Because good and evil are not relative concepts...unless you are a moral relativist.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Because you killed someone. That's bad. The situation might have made it necessary, might have made it more wrong not to kill him, but that will never make it good. An evil is an evil is an evil. There is no comparing it to other situations and saying that relatively, that evil is good. Because good and evil are not relative concepts...unless you are a moral relativist.
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Opinions vary. And my opinion is that killing is not always bad.

And I am not a moral relativist. Quite the opposite.
 
Freakshow said:
Opinions vary. And my opinion is that killing is not always bad.

And I am not a moral relativist. Quite the opposite.
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If you are not a moral relativist, why are you defining the morality of an act by the situation? That's situational ethics, at the least, if not moral relativism.
 
TragicMonkey said:
If you are not a moral relativist, why are you defining the morality of an act by the situation? That's situational ethics, at the least, if not moral relativism.
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I would think that a moral relativist would think that no one, including them, can be in a position to make any sort of judgement call as to whether or not someone should be killed. I could be getting some terms confused, as I am VERY tired and fading pretty fast. :o
 
hm. If i got the chance to go back and kill hitler in WW1.. i wouldn't do it. I'm sure other people would, but i wouldn't.

I don't see ANY excuse for taking another life, and i feel that all wars are the same "in as much as they are avoidable, and waste of human life". I'm not saying all wars are equally bad though. And yes, i can see the point in fighting the germans in WW2, i'm not saying we shouldn't have.

I just think the entire war should have been avoided.

If that makes me a lunatic..then *shrug*
 
Freakshow said:
Opinions vary. And my opinion is that killing is not always bad.

And I am not a moral relativist. Quite the opposite.
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I've never studied moral philosophy, but if you are of the opinion that an action must be judged relative to its context, does that not make you a moral relativist? What does moral relativism mean, if it doesn't?

ETA: Note to self, reload before post. You already answered me. :)
 
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