[Peace-discuss] War crime

[Morton K. Brussel]

It never occurred to me that that the meaning of hypocrisy should be  
be applied to history. I usually apply it to the statements of people.

On Sep 26, 2007, at 6:02 PM, Laurie at advancenet.net wrote:

> 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.

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?


Moreover, I would say that cynicism is not the same as skepticism  
(which I would agree is vital for a thinking rational person), so  
your allusion of Candide seems far off the mark.   
Cynicism" ("unbounded", no less!) for me implies a destructive  
pessimism, not allowing for honesty or sincerity on the part of others.
In fact, the Oxford dictionary defines a cynic as one "who  
sarcastically doubts or despises human sincerity or merit." It also  
gives the quote from Meredith (which I suppose you would reject),  
that "Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to others  
as they have made it for themselves."

We are playing with words.

  --mkb

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