(Lack Of) Understanding Evil
Just when you think that the light of inquiry still exists in the world, and that rational, probing discussion still holds a place, Katzman at Winds of Blame steps out of his cave bearing his weighty log of truth via blunt force, grunts out dramatic oversimplifications, then shakes his log vigorously for good measure.
A procedural note: I'd appreciate it if you could make an effort to get the name of our blog right; the Ministry of Minor Perfidy is really Buckethead's and Johno's. I'm just an occasional writer. I promise to try and get "Winds Of Change" right from now on.
Where to start? The insults? Nope...I usually try to stay a little bit above that. Although, in the case of the comments on that particular thread, I did fire away at commenter Mary. My specific reason for doing so was in hope that she'd do exactly what she did do: Revert back to a factual discussion. She did so, laid out her position much more crisply, and provided references. "Ah!" I thought to myself, "this is exactly what I'd hoped for." I was not arguing a particular side...Mary's view and my own are actually very close. What I argue against is the ridiculous reductionism that applies to arguments rendered in heated, emotionally involved exchanges.
Katzman, apparently in search of non-existent support for his cowboy attitude, completely ignores the latter half of the comment thread, in which discussion resumed at an intelligible level. I am forced to wonder if he and I are from parellel universes, where dictionaries just don't have the same things written in them.
It has become distressingly apparent to me that I need to work through my meanings from first principles. I offer the following dictionary definitions; my use of the word "understanding" is a use of meaning one (1.), and not meaning four (4.).
con·done ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kn-dn) tr.v. con·doned, con·don·ing, con·dones
To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure.
un·der·stand ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ndr-stnd) v. un·der·stood, (-std) un·der·stand·ing, un·der·stands v. tr.
1. To perceive and comprehend the nature and significance of; grasp. See Synonyms at apprehend.
2. To know thoroughly by close contact or long experience with: That teacher understands children.
3.1. To grasp or comprehend the meaning intended or expressed by (another): They have trouble with English, but I can understand them.
3.2. To comprehend the language, sounds, form, or symbols of.
4. To know and be tolerant or sympathetic toward: I can understand your point of view even though I disagree with it.
5. To learn indirectly, as by hearsay: I understand his departure was unexpected.
6. To infer: Am I to understand you are staying the night?
7. To accept (something) as an agreed fact: It is understood that the fee will be 50 dollars.
8. To supply or add (words or a meaning, for example) mentally.
When I said "I can objectively understand the factors that lead to an action I do not agree with", I hope my meaning is now less opaque.
Let me be crystal clear. I judge suicide bombers. Over and over you write that I do not judge, in defiance of the plain meaning of the English language. There is no moral ground here that you occupy, and I do not. But while I judge, I also try to gain understanding, meaning one. By understanding, I do not mean empathy. I am somewhat devoid of true empathy, being hundreds of steps removed from the subject, in cultural and economic circumstance.
The difference between us is this: unlike you, Joe, I seek answers that operate at a level deeper than "psychotic death cult", and "Arafat sucks". Those two answers may be entirely accurate, but they are incomplete. "Psychotic death cult" means what, exactly? What sociological causes and effects underlie it? Are there any means of preventing it? Who has done the good thinking on advancing those means? In the comment thread, Mary usefully provides some references informing us on the origins of terrorist thought.
But, you don't want to have that conversation, because your brain shuts off as soon as someone tries to discuss the psychological factors that contributed to terrorism. To engage in the scientific method we must create hypotheses, test them against the facts, then refine and repeat. Part of that process is confronting ugly realities, and either proving or disproving them.
It's a time-honored method that you don't seem to approve of. Perhaps commenter Mary has brought her freshly reasonable fact-based discourse to the wrong place.
I wrote: "So what could push you over the edge? What within your life could happen that would make you a little crazy, make you lose the civilized veneer? What if that happened; a son or daughter lost, and your anger became uncontrollable?"
Armed Liberal tells us, in the comment thread, that "Ross, if I was in that situation only one thing would occupy my thoughts...how do I win."
When I wrote that, was I referring to an Israeli or a Palestinian? AL thought I was writing from the perspective of an Israeli. Others may have thought the opposite.
An Israeli father, losing a daughter to a bomb in a restaurant, may feel (perhaps must feel) that anger...a Palestinian father, losing a son to the IDF response, will feel that same anger.
I think I know what it's about. You don't like all this mushy talk about feelings. I view the emotions in the situation as a barrier to successful resolution; as such, we must understand them and their effects and formulate solutions that deal with them.
There are two sides to every story. I seek an understanding of both sides of this one (once again, in the sense of meaning one, as I must make that clear). When we engage in angry rhetoric, we devalue the meaning of discourse, and make a solution harder. In short, fightin' words tend to make for more fightin' words, and just plain more fightin'.
Reasonable observers will agree that on both sides of this conflict, the last few years and seen substantial entrenchment, mutual dehumanization, and mutual demonization. This is clear deterioration. Ten and five years ago (in fact for as long as I can remember, before that), the Israeli government made a point of apologizing for accidental deaths in the terroritories. It does so no longer. I say this not in a judgmental sense, but simply to note a fundamental shift in viewpoint. Likewise, on the Palestinian side, a similar hardening has taken place, and has been sadly accompanied by increasing tolerance of the religious nutjobs who pretend to make a difference.
When we, as third parties to the situation, fail to exercise ourselves in reasoned discourse and search for truth, we aggravate the situation. We fail in our role as arbitrators. The first rule of arbitration is to gain the confidence and acceptance of the parties involved. This does not mean neutrality, necessarily. It means legitimacy, as perceived by both sides.
With your "there is no truth except my truth, and I am the messenger of truth" rhetoric and insult of ensuing discussion, you need look no further than any brief history of Islam to understand what happens when periods of discussion are closed. This, in my mind, makes you the "enabler". A fair-sized chunk of the dehumanization and resulting violence in the middle east is due to people like you, who actively preach it.
Here's the short version of this whole post, if it all came out wrong:
- You don't know a damn thing about me and how I view the world. You seem to have gone out of your way to misread and misrepresent what I've written.
- Dictionaries are helpful.
- People telling other people not to talk about something is one of my hot buttons.
- Unlike Joe Katzman, I believe that there is still hope, and an endgame is possible that does not involve thousands more dead and permanent hatred. I think the Israelis and Palestinians are both people who are stuck in a shitty situation. I think the rest of us need to find a way for them to get out of it.
- Unlike Katzman, I am not a spectator in a Roman Coliseum, cheering my chosen champion's bloody sword...
I trust my position is sufficiently reformulated. It might give you pause the next time you scream "terrorist" at the man next to you, in response to his wrinkled brow, or his expression of confusion about facts. Somehow, I think it will not.
[wik] Katzman comments, inexplicably repeating the misrepresentations of my viewpoint, ever so carefully expounded upon above...I guess that's life in blog-land.
on
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§ 18 Comments
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Ross,
Ross,
I find your posts thoughtful and usually well reasoned. To be truthful I don't know why you would even bother to engage someone in the way you've describe.
Unless you're just the scrappy type, who enjoys a fight for its own sake, why try to engage people with rational thought if they've demonstrated- repeatedly- they've no capacity for it?
I respect your conviction and willingness to argue your point, but is this particular fight worth the mental energy you've commited to it?
You've got your defenders...
You've got your defenders...
Katzman is a good writer and
Katzman is a good writer and a smart guy, but I think he gets a little doctrinaire, and overly - I don't know, hardcore I guess is the word - with his views. The incident with Trent Telenko over at winds of change a while back is more evidence of this.
I just went over and looked
I just went over and looked at the comments again. Telenko can be a little hardcore as well. The two of them are quite a pair of knowledgeable and bright guys who, I think, have a hard time dealing with people who haven't come to the conclusions that they have - or perhaps just taken the reasoning as far as they have.
Trent has a solid line of reasoning when he says that the real danger is for the Arab/Islamic world should some terrorist group inflict real damage on the US. He doesn't want that terrible endgame, which is one reason why he's so hardcore on the terrorists now. The other, for both of them, is a moral judgment that there is no justification for terrorism. Because of that, and because of the lamentable liberal tendency to "understand" - meaning four - terrorist and totalitarian groups; they react strongly to those who express anything that sounds remotely like that. In some ways, I find it hard to disagree with that, as tolerance for terror and communism is pretty foul in my book, and needs to be stomped on. I think they misjudged and overreacted in your case, Ross.
Good God. I think they did
Good God. I think they did more than misjudge and overreact: they inserted both feet firmly in mouth by not only misreading Ross' initial post, but by apparently wilfully misreading his erudite, considered, and thoughtful clarification.
Well, the internet was made for porn... politics is only a sideline.
I was trying to be nice.
I was trying to be nice.
Oh I know, and you were.
Oh I know, and you were.
I haven't been around for the last couple days owing to other duties calling louder. I check back in, and I find this hoopla.
I agree with you totally B, i'm just expressing my surprise and irritation in one go since I haven't had the opportunity to parcel it out.
GL, I wouldn't have done it
GL, I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it was worthwhile. It's just odd how the exact same misrepresentations are repeated, again and again...especially when I went right down to the "first principles" of language!
People read what they want to read. When you don't fit into one of their convenient boxes, they start twitchin' like a Star Trek Computer...
Ross,
Ross,
Your return to the first principals of the word "understanding" is indeed helpful.
Nonetheless, I'd ask your indulgence for repeating Paul">http://slate.msn.com/id/2093620/entry/2093641/]Paul Berman, from Slate, so that readers here can contemplate a possible disconnect between his words and yours. His first:
[The single largest fact in the modern history of the world] is the rise of a certain kind of political movement, animated by paranoid hatreds, by apocalyptic fantasies, and by the fanatical desire to kill people en masse. These have been the big totalitarian movements, Nazism, Fascism, Stalinism, and a few othersmovements whose greatest goal was to destroy liberal civilization.
[snip]
We have lost the ability to speak about mass international movements of that sort. Why is that? It is because most people have convinced themselves that modern totalitarianism no longer exists.
Now, yours, from this post. The paragraphs beginning:
There are two sides to every story...
and
Reasonable observers will agree that on both sides of this conflict...
Along with some others on the WoC thread, I am arguing from the perspective that Palestinian (not Israeli) society has in many respects descended to the level that Berman describes. You, from the can't-we-all-get-along tone of the cited paragraphs, disagree. Or refuse to surrender to that pessimistic judgement. Or won't face the ugly reality. Or perhaps you see more justice behind the stated claims of the Palestinians. (Which claims? Ashwari's? Arafat's? Rantisi's? Stated in which language, Arabic or English; for Arab or foreign consumption? Never mind.)
Hence the different approaches to the inflammatory phrase "psychotic death cult." Indeed, it is not the kind of thing that an honest broker should say. And yet--is it one of the harsh but truthful images that forces the West to contemplate the terrible futures outlined by Trent Telenko and Wretchard of Belmont Club--and how they might be averted?
I find myself agreeing with most of what you do say, but disagreeing with what you choose to leave unsaid on the subject.
"I find myself agreeing with
"I find myself agreeing with most of what you do say, but disagreeing with what you choose to leave unsaid on the subject." just absolutely has to be my quote of the week, if not the month! :)
Man, it's hard to argue with that.
When I say that there are two sides to every story, I am not saying that I think that they are morally equivalent, or that I give them equal weight. I simply state that there are two stories. In this case, very specifically, Israel's credibility is relatively high, overall. I lean fairly far in their direction, now. I don't think Israel is perfect in their behavior.
I am not yet ready to yield to the notion that we are dealing with the third coming of the third reich. I can see being convinced of it, but it'll take a lot.
Objectively, we cannot allow the actions of one side to affect our moral judgement of the actions of the other side. They are fully independent. Once again, one can understand (oh, the loaded word!) in context...but when making a _moral_ judgement, each side's actions must be considered independent.
Man, it's hard to argue with
Man, it's hard to argue with that.
Huh? Tee-hees aside, check out the Berman quote. And the gist of Wretchard's Belmont Club nightmares. Maybe he's Chicken Little. Or maybe you sometimes avert your gaze from relevant pieces of a harsh and complex puzzle.
I hope this provides you with additional, er, context for my remark about things left unsaid. But then, you twigged to it the first time :)
AMac, your first comment may
AMac, your first comment may be the single most intelligent comment ever posted on this blog. You managed to say what I had been fumbling towards both here and over at WoC, but better and with sources.
The only thing that prevents Islamism from being the large scale threat that Nazism and Communism were is lack of the power to carry out their wishes. That can change, and hence the worst case scenarios that Telenko et al write about. We need to take them at their word - believe what they say, and act now. If people had believed what Hitler and Lenin said, things might have been different.
Buckethead,
Buckethead,
Ive been recommending Bill's">http://www.ideofact.com/archives/000183.html]Bill's ongoing discussion of Sayyid Qtub's Milestones, and especially the reflections of Abu Noor in his Comments. Qtub is a big-time Islamic philosopher; his ideas are at work throughout the ummah, notably in Palestine (Hamas), Saudi Arabia (CPVPV), Afghanistan (Taliban), Algeria (GIA insurgents), and Malaysia (Mahathirs October 2003 speech to the OIC). And in Al Qaeda, of course.
I dont see how a Qutbist can subscribe to a secular social contract, or any social contract but a Qutbist one. As you say, we should take them at their word regarding their determination to bring down the West, and the US in particular. Their threat is not a question of intention, but of capability. Which is--what? Satellites and eavesdropping notwithstanding, the CIA, MI6, DGSE, and the rest just didnt have a clue regarding that conventional-state threat, Iraq. Not in 2003, or 1998, or 1995, or 1991: too high, too low, wide of the mark every time. So how far out of reach is that Pakistani or NK or Soviet nuke, or that Biopreparat vial of lyophilized hemmhoragic smallpox, or that home-made batch of anthrax or ricin? Well know the answer when we find out the answer.
Im not sure we need more understanding of Islamisms forms, or of the practices of their explosively deviant arts. Theyre clear with each other, and thus with us. Are the terrible ifs accumulating; are we approaching July 1914 or August 1939 or November 1941? We need better understanding of ourselves.
I'll definitely check that
I'll definitely check that out. The understanding we need is for the de-Qtubization process. First we need to get 1918, or 1945. Hopefully without all the devastation, though. Understanding is important, but for me it definitely takes a back seat to the need to defeat Islamism wherever we have to go to defeat it.
And I think certain elements in the West need to realize that it is a real threat - even if it currently doesn't have the strength to attack us directly.
I wish I had your optimistic
I wish I had your optimistic view on the chances for change on the Arab side in their war against Israel.
I'd ask that you include, in your efforts to understand the other side, that many of us have had our idealistic views and our optimism shattered by reality. How many more must die while we exhaust ourselves trying to understand and appease the other side enough to stop the killing... only to see the efforts bring even more violence?
I'd argue that in this case evil needs to be defeated before we understand it. The reluctance to defeat it, and the time spent trying to understand it only causes more people to die... on both sides.
Oceanguy,
Oceanguy,
I can "understand" your point, but I have to ask... why is "understand" linked with "appease" in your query? Also, why is "understanding" linked to "reluctance to defeat [evil]"?
Ross' entire point all along has been that you don't need to appease or like those whom you understand. You just need to understand them. Understanding them means you have an idea what makes them tick, and with that knowledge you can fight more effectively.
Maybe we need to understand evil IN ORDER to defeat it.
Ross, am I misinterpreting your gist?
Bang on, my good man.
Bang on, my good man.
You're absolutely right, one
You're absolutely right, one need not appease in order to understand. But... in the case of the Israeli-Arab war, I see further efforts to understand the other side, especially when that understanding involves imputing our (western liberal democratic) values and norms on the average palestinian Arab, as a waste of time that only gets more people killed.
At least from my perspective, I've passed through the "trying to understand them phase" and am impatiently waiting for the rest of the civilized world get to the same point.
I've drawn my conclusions, and one of them is that the longer this goes on the more innocent people are going to die on both sides. Time taken to understand why Arabs want to destroy Israel only helps the Arabs towards their goal. Time taken to understand Arab hatred of Jews only gives them more time to kill more Jews.
My frustration is borne of conviction that rational people with western democratic values are going to eventually arrive at the same conclusions I have made, and I'm not smart enough nor influential enough to hasten that end. The time you take to study and understand them is giving the PLO, Hizbollah, Hamas et. al. comfort and legitimacy that will only make it harder for us in the end.
We can study the history and place blame for the current situation on anyone we choose anyone: US, Britain, Arabs, Christendom, Islamdom, Jews.. but, however intellectually stimulating the debate might be, placing the blame now changes nothing on the ground. It only takes up time. The arguments are endless. Meanwhile people are dying, senselessly dying.
One of my conclusions is that it's beyond time for debate, it's beyond time for action, but because the action required includes countless people who aren't yet ready to act, I get more and more frustrated.
Time is on the Arabs side against Israel. Time is on the Islamists side against western civilization. Taking more time to understand them is, in effect, appeasing those I see as evil.
I concede your point, you can indeed understand someones actions without agreeing with them. But when someone is pointing a weapon at me, how much do I need to understand? Granted, I might eventually be able to analyze the motives of my assailant and might even eventually convince him to do me no harm, I may even be able to turn him into a good man but is it worth the risk?
Please continue your debate and efforts to understand the Islamists and the Arab hatred for Israel and western society. Be vigorous and open minded. If you do, and if you are, I have complete confidence that youll arrive at most of the same conclusions I have. Meanwhile Ill try to understand those who are willing to excuse palestinian-Arab behavior because we do not fully understand their psyche.