ESR's Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto

[MaggieL]

All it would take is "yes" or "no"...is that so hard? "Appropriate action by credible means", to the extent that it says anything, reads to me as 100% weasel words.

If you can't or won't paraphrase it, or even nail it down as to agreeing with or disagreeing with Tony's proposition, it leaves me skeptical that you actually intend any fixed meaning by it whatsoever.

I'm not "oblivious to your intent", I only asked you to state your meaning plainly and with less ambiguity, rather than leaving enough wiggle room for your friends free to act as they please while you condem their enemies for similar behavior. Because *that's* the intent I'm perceiving right now.

"Semantics" is the study of the meaning of language; if you won't clarify your meaning, you can expect semantics to enter the discussion at some point.

[hermit22]

I've clarified my meaning twice. I refuse to give carte blanche either way. You have to respond in an appropriate manner, or you are engaging in the same type of behavior as the extremists you're protesting.

And who the hell are my friends? If you're trying to imply that I'm linked to terrorism or extremism in any way...I work and study incredibly hard so that I can get a job combatting it. So don't even try to paint me in such a corner.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by hermit22
I've clarified my meaning twice.

If you are not providing clarity, you can't be said to be clarifying. All you have said is "I say what I said and that's what I meant, go look it up". You refuse to simply say clearly that you either agree with or disagree with the proposition, so that falls somewhat short of "clarifying".

All I'm seing is a fig leaf of ambiguity that tries to cover the gap in your double standard with fog. Say clearly yea or nay, admit you won't respond...or leave it to everyone to reach that conclusion anyway.

[hermit22]

There's no double standard. It's called rationality, not extremism. You're calling for a definite answer to an uncertain question, and I provided you with a rational answer that says basically, if you would learn to comprehend what you read, that appropriate credible action is necessary and recommended. That's an unequivocable yes if a specific action is appropriate and an unequivocable no if it is not. You can not expect someone to foresee what will happen in the future and make a blanket permissive statement. That's like saying "Billy is a smart kid, so I respect and admire every action he ever does." That's foolishness, and it is even more foolish to apply that to a nation-state.

So it seems to me that your hang up that you think the world is black and white, right and wrong, good and evil; with no grey area. Well, I'm sorry, but you need to wake up. There is little to no such delineation in the world. It is almost all grey.

[MaggieL]

So...terrorist violence is an appropriate means of expressing idiology? Tony posed a specific example. Simply saying that "appropriate things are appropriate" is kind of empty.

The example you rung in of the Predator Hellfire strike certainly wasn't motivated by idiology, it was a tactical response to a tactical situation: someone the CIA knew to have attacked an US warship was detected enganging in further operations in that same country, and they interdicted him with violence. His idiology--the *reasons* for his attacks--were not at issue, nor do I think they should have been.

This brings us back to my earlier point: when a group attempts to advance it's politicsl and idiology by commiting acts of violence against any target they think will generate attention or sympathy, it's beyond foolish for the group attacked to allow such acts to actually advance that idiology on their own agenda.

This is why you don't humor a child who throws a tantrum; if you reinforce such behavior by rewarding it, you will only encourage more of the same.

The way I analyse Tony's hypothetical is:

You have offered the opinion that "now that the-group-that-shouldn't-be-called-fascist-or-islamic is comitting terrorist violence on Western targets, the West should pay more attention to the interesting social insights propounded by the group. That the West does not do so is evidence of Western religious and cultural prejudice and blindness".

Tony's response in this framework might be presented: "Very well, if the West does study these ideas as you propose, but concludes they are mistaken, is attempting to advance *our* ideas by picking targets for their terror value and obliterating them an appropriate response?"

"Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander", you see.

[Undertoad]

But Mags, now you've taken my rather flip statement further than I ever would, and it makes me look bad. I don't want to kill people just because they think differently, I want to kill them when they proclaim loudly that they want to kill me and then prepare to do so.

I guess the point is that I'm not really all that concerned with WHY they want to kill me. If they want to kill me, that is enough. I'm not going to fucking study why I should be killed or enslaved. To me, after they decide they want to kill me, their philosophy is no longer deserving of study. It's deserving of termination wth extreme prejudice.

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Undertoad
I don't want to kill people just because they think differently, I want to kill them when they proclaim loudly that they want to kill me and then prepare to do so...

Well...I certainly didn't mean to suggest that either you or I believed your hypothetical was something that *should* be done.

The point of it as I saw it was that by turning the situation around as you did, you were highlighting why the *original* violence was, to use the delicate term, "inappropriate"--a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>. This is why I pointed out that the Predator Hellfire attack wasn't idiological, it was self-defense.

I guess the point is that I'm not really all that concerned with WHY they want to kill me. If they want to kill me, that is enough.

That was my point exactly, before. But when I said I "didn't give a rat's fuzzy behind" about this idiology, I simply got a lecture on my lack of sensitivity to all the "interesting social observations" these people have made, and how unlikely it was that I personally might be a direct victim anytime soon. Apologists who say "Oh, there's no need for such an overreaction, a big country like ours should calmly take a few hits so these poor oppressed people can buy some press" are way off-base.

Again...advancing an idiology by sponsoring attacks on prominent high-value targets is *not* a legitimate method, and it's wrong-headed to cast a defensive response to such an attack as idiological.

[Skunks]

Originally posted by Undertoad
I guess the point is that I'm not really all that concerned with WHY they want to kill me. If they want to kill me, that is enough. I'm not going to fucking study why I should be killed or enslaved. To me, after they decide they want to kill me, their philosophy is no longer deserving of study. It's deserving of termination wth extreme prejudice.

That's all well and good -if- you have some way of guaranteeing your moral superiority. Even if you intend to avoid pissing people off, what's to say something out of your power wouldn't compell people to want to kill you? Diplomacy goes both ways; if you don't want people trying to kill you, it would probably help to not kill them at the drop of a hat.

Mind you, I fully understand what you're saying in the current context. I just think it's a particularly limited and short-sighted policy, applicable only to situations in which you're clearly on the side of Good and Light. How well will 'terminate with extreme prejudice' work when you're not dealing with morally ambiguous small countries or terrorists?

My biggest gripe about politics is the short-sighted and self-centered approach most people seem to have. If our goal is to <a href="http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/pd.html">survive</a>, wouldn't we be best off doing some sort of mutually-beneficial-make-people-like-and-respect-us thing?

--Sk

(edit: I suck at the grammar.)

[Undertoad]

Once they decide they want to kill me, they have given up that moral high ground.

I don't need everybody to like and/or respect me. In a civil society we can figure out how to get along anyway. I don't really like or respect the Amish, but I do buy their fine baked goods from time to time.

[Nic Name]

If you've decided to kill another, preemptively, do you still have the moral high ground?

[Undertoad]

Yes.

[Nic Name]

Is there any circumstance in which you don't have the moral high ground?

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Skunks

Mind you, I fully understand what you're saying in the current context. I just think it's a particularly limited and short-sighted policy, applicable only to situations in which you're clearly on the side of Good and Light.

Actually it's a tactical policy applicable to situations where you're under direct attack. Which is that "current context" you're talking about, no?

If our goal is to survive, wouldn't we be best off doing some sort of mutually-beneficial-make-people-like-and-respect-us thing?

Sure. :-) We'll just be...*nice*, and everybody will like us. Everybody. Except that tiny minority who have already declared 1) we're devilspawn and 2) they're ordained by God to set us to rights by the sword.

1) isn't really that big a deal, it's 2) that calls for some more energetic action.

Originally posted by NicName

Is there any circumstance in which you don't have the moral high ground?

Doggonit, I must have missed the episode where self-defense became immoral.

[Xugumad]

Undertoad
I guess the point is that I'm not really all that concerned with WHY they want to kill me.

Then you can't make any judgement call about their culture, their history, their political system, their society, their current belief systems, and their motivations. You cannot claim any sort of moral right. You are aware that you could 'know more', but you refuse to. Willful ignorance equals moral inferiority, simple as that.

If they want to kill me, that is enough.

They are of course wrong in wanting to kill you; but to use willful ignorance as a shield from finding out the reason why somebody would reach a state in which he wants your death is criminally narrow-minded.

I'm not going to fucking study why I should be killed or enslaved.

Maybe they want to kill you because your government is helping enslave their people? Maybe they want to kill you because your government is spending 1/3rd of its foreign aid to a state that has made racism its modus operandi, with their brethren - some of them completely innocent of anything - as the target?

Does that make their methods right? No, of course not. Does it make you incredibly ignorant for having

1. The education
2. The financial means (computer, internet)
3. The benefit of a democratic society to exist in
4. The gift of free speech and thought

and throwing it all away in blind hatred, rather than seeking to understand? Learning doesn't equal CONDONING, but in your hatred you don't want to know. Willful ignorance is your shield, assumed moral superiority resulting from that ignorance is your weapon. How does that make you different from a radical islamist who doesn't want to know about democracy and science and women's rights and history, and all the good things about the US, merely seeing his people blown up with American weapons and subdued with American money, deciding to blow up the WTC?

That's right. It doesn't. Ignorance is ignorance. Death is death. Wishing death on other without learning is wrong, either way. Stupidity is stupidity. Closing your eyes out of your own desire is the first link in the chain of terror.

To me, after they decide they want to kill me, their philosophy is no longer deserving of study. It's deserving of termination wth extreme prejudice.

Thus, escalation begins. Unless you are willing to commit genocide, you are the second step in a never-ending war of hate and ignorance.

It's fairly typical, actually, in the current anti-intellectual climate we are living in; seeking to know more and THEN making your judgement is condemned in favour of blind blanket condemnations. That may just be the reason why I find posting here subjected to increasing hostility: the praising of an anti-"idiotarian" manifesto, broadly painting all of different beliefs as idiots, is just another example of the aforementioned climate.

MaggieL
Doggonit, I must have missed the episode where self-defense became immoral

Oh dear. I must have missed the episode where murdering hundreds, if not thousands of innocent civilians who can barely read or write in a Third World country, lest alone organize resistance against their dictatorial oppressors, became immoral.

It happened. It'll happen again. Where does self-defense end, and murder begin? How smart are those smart bombs really?

Self-defense ends the second you kill an innocent. If you want to seek the high moral ground, try not to kill any children. I forgot. It was the Iraqi and Afghani peasant children's fault that the WTC was blown to bits. They deserved to die.

X.

[Nic Name]

Moral high ground not won on battlefield