From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:37:23 MDT
Hubert Mania wrote:
> Michael Wiik quoted from an Evening Standard report and
> I want to emphazise some of these quotes here:
>
> > "Like, the only way to get through s*** like that was to
> > concentrate on getting through it by killing as many people
> > as you can, people you know are trying to kill you. Killing
> > them first and getting home."
> > [...]
> >
> > He said: "S***, I didn't help any of them. I wouldn't help
> > the f******. There were some you let die. And there
> > were some you double- tapped."
<more quotes snipped>
>
> What I find absurd and annoying but typical, is that in this
> publication harmless words like *shit* and *fuck* are
> deleted while the description of being a killing machine is
> laid aout in detail.
I can understand your sentiment here but in the case of
newspapers I think there is likely to be pretty clear rules
about words that can't be used. Even if there are not, there
are some people who, for whatever reason, have a strong
negative reaction to certain words. So if one still wants to
communicate with those people (and papers still want to
sell them papers), then its simply more *effective* to change
the language so that a wider audience or readership will
actually be able to take in the story or the message.
> On the eve of the Iraq war I found a similar attitude here
> on the list, too. People who cold-bloodedly accepted
> that a lot of innocent civilians would die in this war
> accused me of using shocking terms that referred to
> these overwhelming peristaltic movements that
> automatically started in my guts when being confronted
> with pictures of your proud and praying nation.
Like you, I had a pretty strong negative reaction to the
war. I did not support this war. But I think I would
support some wars. I did support the previous war by the
previous President Bush. And I don't just suppport war as
an "absolute last resort" because such is empty rhetoric that
can't be operationalised. And at this stage of human evolution
some people will know when the rhetoric is just that and
take you to the brink. Saddam *was* a career brinksman.
Regardless of what was written I don't think anybody on
this list had a cold-blooded acceptance of the loss of
civilian lives. I think there was a lot of venting because
most people were affected by the war but did not really
perceive that they could actually do anything much about it.
> One person even claimed that with my description of
> this visceral activity I had left the path of civility while
> he and his co-patriots were willing to sacrifice
> thousands of human beings for a not existing threat.
I do think that the Secretary of Puke idea was probably
a suboptimal way of making your point on a topic very
*worthy* of serious discussion but very hard to have
when the stakes were so high and emotions so charged.
> Pretty soon these killing machines and mass murderers
> who did the job for you will return to your country and
> will live among you. I know what it feels like to live
> among mass murderes. My father was one, my 8 uncles
> were war criminals, when they survived WWII, the
> priests I got to know were mass murderers, almost all
> of my teachers had been killing machines and not a
> single one of them was healthy and happy. They were
> all broken personalities, somehow.
I can't agree with this assessment. Soldiers kill yes. So
sometimes so do police and incompetent doctors.
If you use the words killing machines and mass murderers
to describe ordinary soldiers, which seem to be the type
describes in the article above (or perhaps some of the
more crass less media savvy ones and media savvy isn't
big in military training) and to describe your own relatives
(who I imagine were also soldiers) then the words loss
their meaning when you really need them. From reading
your passae above I can't tell if there was a private
Mania who found under orders in a war he didn't
understand or if he was an architect or gas chambers or
a voluntary assistant who requested to be transferred to
work with Mengele. There is lots of room in between.
>
> To clarify my personal definition of a mass murderer:
> *every* person in a mass murderer who killed more
> than two humans in his life, no matter if he took part
> in a war of aggression or if he defended his country.
I think your definition is too sweeping to be useful. It
would include surgeons who only operate on the marginal
patients. It would include every military commander
competent or otherwise who ordered men into battle in
order to achieve an outcome of "less evil".
> You can laugh about my definition and start to
> enumerate the reasons for a just war - yes, yes,
> yes, but no, no no - I don't give a damn about any
> war convention
I'm not laughing. I do care about the rule of law and
of standards of decency and moral shades of grey.
> Even if you defend your country, *afterwards you
> must live with the guilt* of having killed human beings.
> I don't know anybody of the mass murderers I
> personally met who had not - in the deepest place
> of his heart - a rest of guilt he had to drown with
> booze or other anaesthetics.
As you say, you don't know.
> In my imagination transhumanism cannot be achieved
> before the territorial fighting mechanisms from the
> reptile brain are abolished or appeased or cultivated
> somehow. One generation has to start with this
> mission impossible. I would like to belong to this
> generation.
In your imagination is transhumanism a "destination" or
a "transitioning" perhaps more like a journey?
> Peace on earth
A noble goal but we must approach it *practically* and
with the use of our wits as well as our hearts. There is
no magic switch we can flip to right all that is wrong.
We must triage. And sometimes, in frustration, we may
vent and find fault with the different triaging decisions
made by others who also work on imperfect
information.
Regards,
Brett Paatsch
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