[Peace-discuss] War crime

[Laurie at advancenet.net]

Why should my cynicism have bounds?  Are you suggesting that I should play
the role of Candide and go around saying and believing that we live in the
best of all possible worlds?  True to my intellectual background and
training as a social scientist and critic, I call everything into question,
accepting nothing as a taken for granted; I treat it as problematic in order
to understand what it takes to make it intelligible and possible as well as
meaningful.

I disagree with you as to what is or is not relevant in this context.  I
find chanting such quotations no matter if they are good or not and if I
agree with them or not to be very effective rhetorical tools without some
specific action plan relating the statement to a course of action and a way
to accomplish it. The articulation of such quoted statements does not
constitute action aimed at resolving an issue or problem per se for me; at
best they serve as a call to action aimed at mobilizing new recruits or as
means for generating solidarity among the anointed.  I do not think that
Carl posted to this list to recruit new converts.   He might have done so
because he felt that there was a need to generate solidarity among the choir
and encouragement among the true believers; but I am not sure that it is
needed with this group of list members.

In part, I do disagree with the statements and question the motivations
behind their being articulated.  While I am not going to question the
originator of the quotes and say that Jackson made them hypocritically; I
will say that the substantive meaning and significance of the statement in
light of history is hypocritical and serves to cover up the fact that in the
real world might does tend to make right in real politics and the spouting
of moral platitudes and absolute transcendental standards does not change
that empirically.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Morton K. Brussel [mailto:brussel at uiuc.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 5:29 PM
> To: laurie at advancenet.net; 'C. G. Estabrook'; peace-
> discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] War crime
> 
> Your cynicism seems to have no bounds. What you say may be relevant in
> some
> contexts, but it seems to me it is not relevant here. Do you disagree
> with the
> statements? Do you believe that they were made hypocritically?
> 
> --mkb
> Morton K. Brussel
> Professor emeritus of physics
> Loomis laboratory of Physics
> 1110 West Green Street
> Urbana, IL, 61801