From: estropico@virgilio.it
Date: Tue Feb 18 2003 - 09:03:05 MST
From: "estropico" <estropico@virgilio.it>
X-Mailer: YaBB
Very interesting analysis from Mick Hume at the excellent Spiked-Online:
http://www.spiked-online.co.uk/Articles/00000006DC61.htm
In an age of political passivity, why were so many moved to march on this
issue?
It seems unlikely to be solely out of concern for the Iraqi people. For more
than a decade, the United Nations Security Council has imposed punitive
sanctions on Iraq that have caused considerable suffering.
[
]
The two biggest factors motivating Saturday's marchers were the growing
atmosphere of mistrust towards government institutions, and the pervasive
culture of fear and risk aversion.
[
]
In the field of politics as much as those of science and society, it is now
seen as unwise to do anything too far-reaching or innovative, for fear of
what the unknown side-effects might turn out to be. The general assumption is
that decisive action is most likely to make matters worse. This is reflected
in the anti-war lobby's argument that attacking Iraq is too risky because it
might lead to more terrorism in the West.
[
]
The obsession with avoiding risk informs the position of just about every
protest movement today, whether the object of their fears is the MMR triple
vaccination, GM crops or whatever else. All exhibit a deeply conservative
better-safe-than-sorry siege mentality. From this point of view, the new
anti-war movement appears to be modelled on the anxious outlook of the
anti-MMR lobby, projected on to the Middle East.
---- This message was posted by estropico to the Extropians 2003 board on ExI BBS. <http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=display;threadid=54829>
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