From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Mar 22 2003 - 11:36:58 MST
Eliezer writes
> I suggest that anyone who thinks war is a good idea take it
> upon themselves to keep reading this, until the day it finally
> cuts off. Just to remember that there are real people in there.
Probably the people who believe that the war is a bad idea
could read it with profit also. The essential thing to
remember is that not only are there real people in Baghdad,
there are real people wherever there are people.
It's impossible for anyone to come to grips with all the
independent "realities" of individuals in even a small village.
So our mental representations invariably abstract, and we
resort to thinking of "those Germans", or "those Americans".
Long ago I read some criticism of an author's work, where
the critic accused him of taking the stance "to know me is
to love me". But that phrase continues to haunt. Is it
true? Is it actually the case that were one of us somehow
intimately knowledgeable about the details of the life of a
random other person, one would come to love him or her?
I think that it *is* true. Perhaps (in almost every case)
what would happen is that you would learn to see everything
from this person's perspective, and you'd come to understand
and accept this person's own limitations (at least insofar as
they were limitations according to you). Thus enormous
natural sympathy would well-up within you for this person.
But surely this cannot be true of everyone, can it? I mean,
if you became intimately familiar everything ever done by
Ted Bundy, Charles Ng, Adolph Hitler, or Saddam Hussein,
surely you would still detest and abhor this individual, no?
Ron comments
> Eliezer, I don't think you can find anyone, "who thinks war
> is a good idea."
Well, what Eliezer undoubtedly meant to refer to were those
people who believe that invading Iraq is a good idea.
> Bill Maudlin, I think, said he saw two [people] like that in the
> 2nd WW. But then he saw a lot more soldiers than I ever have.
Yes, some creeps used to believe that war is a noble activity.
They're very similar in attitude to those who believe that
suffering in general is ennobling, or that our lives would
be much less rich without suffering.
> At best [most] you will find people who believe a war is
> necessary.
That's practically everyone; there have no pacifists, it appears,
even on this rather abstract and ideological forum.
> But that is almost always in a specific situation and
> only because they think the cost of not fighting is higher
> than the likely cost of fighting.
Yes---so believe those of us favoring this particular invasion.
It's definitely not that we see the thousands of lives being
lost as "for oil", but rather for saving even more in the future.
Still, I admit, it's rather gruesome to be investing in lives.
Yet, unless one accepts the pacifist stance, isn't that exactly
what one always does?
Lee
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