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Author | Topic: Another one that hurts | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
dronestar writes: And secondly, if your writing about baseless name-calling, I completely agree. However, when someone writes something blatantly racist or clearly hypocritical on the forum, we've always called them on it. How can a debate forum function without. Yes, of course I'm talking about name-calling. Not baseless name-calling, but any kind of name calling. I hope when people have been called racist or hypocritical in threads I moderate that I haven't missed it or let it go by. If you think that's okay at EvC Forum then you've picked up a misimpression. I'm strongly against it. From the Forum Guidelines:
You're free to ignore me in this thread - I'm just a participant hoping that just noting a desire for civil discourse in this thread I started will have some effect. I have no moderator or enforcement power here. One little moderator note: one thing I noticed a few years ago is that when it's occasionally made clear that rule 10 will be enforced that members increasingly clamber about someone violating rule 10. Suddenly everything's a violation of rule 10. Moderators just have to stay consistent within their own criteria and judgement and ignore all the inevitable distractions and criticism. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
dronestar writes: Yeah, way, way back in the distant, nearly unmemorable distant past, america had a hegemonic past. How long ago were the Spanish-American, Korean, Vietnam, Nicaraguan, Granadan, etc., wars? Unmemorable and distant do not seem accurate characterizations. Or was the "" intended to indicate sarcasm, which would make it hard to understand as an appropriate response to what 1.61803 said. We're you trying to agree with him using sarcasm?
And conversely, my ability to travel effortlessly through airports, not have my phone or emails privacy violated, ability to travel to most parts of the world, and most importantly, not to financially support the murder of woman/children/civilians deaths are a direct result of someone else doing the very things humanity finds abhorrent. I get the sarcasm, but I want to make sure I still get your point. Converse to 1.61803's point that your comfortable life derives from past abhorrent acts, you're saying that the discomforts in your life also derive from past abhorrent acts. In other words, our entire present derives from our abhorrent past (and, I assume, any other parts of our past). Did I get that right? If so, then I don't think 1.61803 would disagree with you, but I think he would feel you've missed his point. I believe he was saying that while the west might have "all manner of horrors" in its past that past moral transgressions do not forfeit the west's right to make moral judgments today. The west is saying that ISIS is behaving in a morally repugnant fashion, and I think 1.61803 is saying that we didn't lose the right to say that just because, for example, we treated the Indians badly or bombed Hiroshima. --Percy
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vimesey Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 1398 From: Birmingham, England Joined: |
So you think we should treating them as if they were cartoonish bad guys? By which I mean, two dimensional. You think we should abandon any attempt to understand these people as complex humans? Feel free to psychoanalyse as much as you wish. What ISIS is doing is evil and depraved, however, and they are responsible for those actions. My point remains that in my view, it is more effective in limiting their appeal to potential recruits, to emphasise that they are murdering, raping and torturing innocent people, including Muslims, than it is to characterise them as noble freedom fighters, forced by external pressures into reluctantly taking action.
So I'm prohibited from presenting evidence for my claim that our opponents have human motivations and are not convenient nonhuman fairytale monsters because acknowledging this I would encourage ISIS recruitment What is it with the constant reference to cartoons and fairytale monsters ? Once again, they are really beheading, raping, torturing and murdering innocent people. There is nothing cartoonish or fairytale-like about it. And you are prohibited from no such thing - certainly not by me. I happen to disagree with you as to an approach to lessening their appeal to potential recruits. I believe that many recruits romanticise ISIS as the embodiment of a struggle against an oppressor - I am of the view that it is a fair challenge to that view, to emphasise that ISIS itself is a brutal, amoral and revolting oppressor of innocent Muslims. You are certainly not prohibited from presenting arguments to the contrary.Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 376 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
Do you think every member of ISIS is psychopathic? Psychopathic is a personal diagnosis based on the behaviour of the individual and is, I think, a hereditary genetic condition. So I would have to say no they are not all psychopaths. A sociopath is someone who willingly harms others who do not threaten them and is caused more by upbringing. I would say that the willing members of ISIS are good candidates for the label of sociopath. Most important is the understanding that guilt can only be established on an individual basis. So the child executioner in the video is not as guilty as the guy holding the camera.
If you were a Muslim young man in Raqqa - What do you think your position would be on the relative merits of Western bombing of Syria, ISIS, Assad etc? That is difficult for me to imagine but I can't see how my position would include support for killing Western civilians. If the US started to bomb Canada I wouldn't go to Detroit and start shooting people on the street.
I ask a genuine question to guage the level of empathy we are capable of achieving here...... I have overwhelming empathy for those who are caught up in the tide and I have little more than contempt for those who are willing participants.
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 376 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
I agree, you cannot respect life by murdering doctors. https://www.washingtonpost.com/...unduz-hospital-a-war-crime Yeah it is pretty grim. Bombs are a repugnantly blunt instrument but not the same as shooting a female doctor who refuses to wear a niqab.
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
From today's New York Times:
Also posted this over at Message 4484. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Fix message link.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
My point remains that in my view, it is more effective in limiting their appeal to potential recruits, to emphasise that they are murdering, raping and torturing innocent people, including Muslims, than it is to characterise them as noble freedom fighters, forced by external pressures into reluctantly taking action. Sounds entirely feasible.
What is it with the constant reference to cartoons and fairytale monsters ? quote: I was just arguing against turning our image of our enemies into the above, courtesy of TVTropes.
Once again, they are really beheading, raping, torturing and murdering innocent people. There is nothing cartoonish or fairytale-like about it. I'm glad we agree.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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I'm seeing basically two camps forming here:
1. Islamists are repeatedly demonstrating what murderous monsters they are. 2. Islamists are a people being misrepresented by extremists and with whom we must be able to deal in the future. My father served in the Pacific in WWII (Seabees, master carpenter). He returned with strong hatred for the Japanese. Then in civilian life he had to do work on the homes of Japanese-American farmers, during which time he learned of our shared humanity. Yes, we do need to deal with the extremists. But at the same time, we still need to work out how to deal with the entire Islamic community in the long run. Because we will eventually end up having to live side-by-side. So how are we to do that?
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 376 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
I was just arguing against turning our image of our enemies into the above,... The problem isn't with the vilification of the head choppers and puritans. We should despise and destroy those people. The problem is being able to single them out.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9512 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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dw1 writes: I'm seeing basically two camps forming here:1. Islamists are repeatedly demonstrating what murderous monsters they are. 2. Islamists are a people being misrepresented by extremists and with whom we must be able to deal in the future. Personally I think arguments here have been caricatured on all sides. One recent analysis that I read and then lost, characterised ISIS fighters into three coarse groups 1. Psychopaths, sociopaths and the otherwise mentally ill and just plain angry and disturbed people. 2. Devout religious extremists fighting holy Jihad as requiered by their books. 3. Tribal pragmatists using the other 2 groups to gain control of territory. The view was that group three would ultimately sell out (literally) the other two groups and gain control. Amongst all that there is the Sunni vs Shia civil wars, Arabs vs Persian problem, Islam vs other religions and Islam vs the West. Attempting to reduce this mess into simple blacks and whites is absurd, and I doubt anyone here has a real understanding of any of it. So it all collapses into stupid bickering over trivia and/or stereotyping into perceived extreme positions. I was hoping for something better.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
The problem isn't with the vilification of the head choppers and puritans. Having this kind of mental image leads to...
We should despise and destroy those people. So yes - how we think of our enemies is important as it drives our policy decisions.
The problem is being able to single them out. There are lots of problems.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Tangle writes: We all always hope for something better...but that last post of yours summed up the arguments rather nicely. POTM I was hoping for something better.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 376 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
So yes - how we think of our enemies is important as it drives our policy decisions. Sure and how we should think of them is as head choppers and puritans. This is not a fabrication or propaganda. They really are killing non combatants deliberately. They really are throwing people from high buildings and executing women for their fashion choices. We should be motivated by these atrocities. We should be angry and dangerous in response. There are lots of problems and we should not mischaracterize the truth nor should we ignore our culpability. There are also such things as monsters and this idea about loving your enemy should be held in moderation. Holy should.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Sure and how we should think of them is as head choppers and puritans. This is not a fabrication or propaganda. They really are killing non combatants deliberately. They really are throwing people from high buildings and executing women for their fashion choices. We should be motivated by these atrocities. We should be angry and dangerous in response. Wow, Adam Gadahn might have struggled to justify killing tens of thousands of strangers with such brevity. You are right, to call this propaganda would be a disservice, perhaps you would prefer 'war mongering masterpiece'? Naturally we should continue killing and bombing blindly because of how effective this has proven over the last century.
There are lots of problems and we should not mischaracterize the truth nor should we ignore our culpability. There are also such things as monsters and this idea about loving your enemy should be held in moderation. War mongers and those infected with propaganda often seem to confuse 'know thy enemy' with 'love thy enemy'.
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vimesey Member (Idle past 101 days) Posts: 1398 From: Birmingham, England Joined: |
Just a spark of brightness to add to the discussions. After the London stabbing the other day, someone recorded a Londoner shouting at the attacker, who had been restrained by the police "You ain't no Muslim bruv !" He's thought to be a Muslim, but that's from context and partially from accent. This phrase has now started trending a lot on social media, and has been picked up by the mainstream press.
It'll probably be a bit of a flash in the pan, but I hope it picks up more momentum and contributes to a loud shout of denial against the extremists.Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
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