Collateral Damage
Images of a “measured response” Via The Angry Arab News Service
“Dear friends and colleagues,
You will all have to excuse me for sending this. It’s pictures of the bodies of babies killed by the israelis in South lebanon. They are all burnt. I need your help. I am almost certain these pictures won’t be published in the West, although they are associated press pictures. I need your help exposing them if you can. The problem is these are people who were asked to leave their village , Ter Hafra , this morning , within two hours , or else. …
So those who were able to flee went to the closer UN base where they were asked to leave. I think that after the Qana massacres in 1996 when civilians were bombed after they took chelter in UN headquarters , the UN does not want to be responssible for the lives of civilians.A FEW MINUTES AGO , the Israeli asked the people of Al Bustan village in the south to evacuate their homes. I am afraid massacares will keep happening as long as Israeli actions are uncheked. Please help us if you can.
Hanady Salman”
I have no doubt that these pictures will not see press time — wouldn’t want to offend western society with images of collateral damage that used to be play with dolls in the back yard now would we?
Hey… Any pictures from the missiles that landed in Haifa?
How about the ones that landed in the suburbs of Haifa?
I don’t know about you but I didn’t see anything about those either.
So let me guess… The media is biased both ways, huh?
You’re a nice guy, but sometimes you really make yourself look like a moron when you rant.
Scolding. It’s the new paradigm in public discourse.
No Vinny, but if I had ‘em I’d sure as hell post ‘em? If you got ‘em send ‘em.
– and while we’re talking “moron” why don’t you settle your ass into a chair and think about the most important line in the guys email
And then ask youself why that is?
Vinny, here’s a thought.
Stageleft has posted pictures of Lebanese casualties on his site.
Now, why don’t you post pictures of Israeli casualties on YOUR site…
And between the two of you, maybe you can help spread the word that the Israeli/US strategy IS NOT WORKING.
That’s not the point. He posted the pictures and the commentary about them not showing up in the west.
Well, duh. But we haven’t seen a whole lot out of Haifa or Safed either. So either the media is biased in both directions simultaneously or they just don’t have the pictures.
Repeating stupidity verbatim when it’s so easily debunked is stupid. Period.
Those pictures weren’t published in the west.
Fine.
Neither were the others.
So now, let’s examine what the point is? If the author’s point is that there’s some grand coverup of Israeli brutality, and the evidence of that is that the pictures aren’t plastered all over the western media, then he has to also acknowledge that, since there are NO pictures of Haifa, Safed, or soon-to-be Tel Aviv, I’m sure, then the media is also covering up for the Lebanese.
War sucks. On both sides. Lots of innocent people die. When a guy like this posts pictures of dead kids to make a point that’s easily and thoroughly debunked by anyone with more than two seconds of knowledge about what’s actually going on and in the media, and someone who’s smarter than that runs it, they must therefore be willfully ignorant of facts.
Anyone with half a brain knows we haven’t seen pictures from either side. No dead children in the streets photos from Haifa or Safed. Let the coverup continue, eh?
Please.
Balbulican, your solution is utterly idiotic. This isn’t about tit for tat, it’s about Stageleft posting inflammatory pics and acting as a mouthpiece for someone who has no damned idea what he’s talking about.
I’m sure those military bases that are in people’s homes in Haifa and Safed aren’t really collateral damage. No kids, women, or children died there.
Just Lebanon.
How about 5 images of dead Lebanese for every 1 image of dead Israelis?
Vinny, you’re creating an agrument for yourself. The author from the Angry Arab said that those particular Associated Press pics wouldn’t be used by western media. He was right, they weren’t. (so far)
If pictures get taken of Israeli casualties will we see them? Probably, either through broadcasted media or on the Internet somewhere, people are morbid that way, I just don’t think there’s been any yet.
“Balbulican, your solution is utterly idiotic.”
No, V. What’s foolish (not idiotic, V…neither of us are idiots) is your consistent effort to ignore SL’s broader points, in this and other threads, by attempting to drag every uncomfortable thread to the on one or two discursive frames you’re comfortable with.
How will Vinny dodge THIS one? Will he…
a) Accuse Stageleft of not providing equal time to what Vinny perceives to be “the other side”?
b) Seize on a phrase, pretend it’s the point of the post, and worry it to death like a tired dog with an old bone?
c) Both?
There is no “other side” on this one, V. This war is a dirty, bad, and pointless affair.
Save yourself some time, V…we can write those responses for ya. We’ll start with “It always amuses me…” and finish with “Just for once I’d like to see you (insert what Vinny would like to see). Just once. That’s all I’m asking.”
Take the tin foil off Vinny, or at least loosen it a bit, it doesn’t matter whether it is Israeli women, kids, and elders, Lebanoese women, kids, and elders, Iraqi women, kids, and elders, Syrian women, kids, and elders, or {pick a nationality any nationality} women, kids, and elders – they are refered to as “collateral damage”… a “something” instead of a “someone”.
If I had been forwarded images of Israeli kids laying dead and burned on the ground they would have gone on into the post. If I had my way about it images of every dead, bloody, maimed, wounded, innocent man, woman, and child on both sides of this crap would be plastered all over the front pages of every newspaper in the world so that the world could see them. If I had my way every orphan and every widow on both sides of this crap would have a picture and name so that the world knows who is suffering.
I want the world to see the uncomfortable, nasty, ugly bloody, severed limbs laying on the ground beside a mangled body, side of what is happening instead of just listening to the news and hearing about nameless, faceless, “civilian casualties” in the same breath as the words “regretable” and “the other guys need to stop first”….. and then tut-tutting a bit while they mutter, gee, isn’t that too bad, and finishing peeling the potatoes for supper.
And yet, it’s cool to show the bloated bodies of Uday and Qusay as you pointed out last week.
THAT is media hypocrisy!
Seeing pictures of dead children is heart-wrenching. I don’t see any Israelis rejoicing at this tragedy, unlike the Palestinian asswipes who were cheering over body parts of a blown-up Israeli soldier in Gaza today. The Israelis didn’t start this after all… the mad mullahs of Iran & their puppets in Syria did.
Hezbollah sends rockets into Israeli cities loaded with ball-bearings to shower passers-by for maximum damage. You know chemical or biological weapons are next.
Hypocrites like that surrender-monkey Chirac are only concerned that their countries will be choked off from their energy supply, or destroyed by their Islamofascist illegal immigrant populations.
Frankly, all the leftist apologists who do so much to prop up murderous states like Iran & Syria should give their heads a proper shake.
“Palestinian asswipes…the mad mullahs of Iran & their puppets in Syria … that surrender-monkey Chirac… Islamofascist illegal immigrant populations…leftist apologists…”
Does anybody else suspect the existence out there of a CIA-funded computer that randomly assembles exhausted cliches like these, links them with a handful of verbs, and cycles them through the blogs?
Having said that, it’s always nice to see “surrender-monkey” making a comeback, although I think it makes for a more forceful and compelling argument if you precede it with “cheese-eating”.
Agreed, and if we’re gonna envoke the classics I would also like to see the occasional “Pinko-Commi” thrown in.
You haven’t been to Canadian Sentinel for awhile, I take it?
>Stageleft has posted pictures of Lebanese casualties on his site.
Stageleft has posted what are claimed to be pictures of Lebanese casualties on his site. But, it’s bad enough that they are children who appear to have died violently.
Still, it’s a neat trick to have your clothing remain intact in the bed of a burnt-out pickup truck, isn’t it?
Wow, so thats the way they are trying to discredit the pictures. Anything to make the pics seem false, faked, or otherwise not genuine?
Shame on you SL, for trying to make the world understand the horrible nature of war!!!
Still, it’s a neat trick to have your clothing remain intact in the bed of a burnt-out pickup truck, isn’t it?
Oh, how transparent. To what are you referring exactly?
I’m on the verge of denouncing whole swathes of people as paid propagandists (or alternately, of using Balb’s CIA PropagandBot hypothesis) if I don’t see more evidence back up what certain people are claiming.
It’s difficult to figure out what lrC is really trying to do when he posts this sort of stupidity.
As far as I know, the fact that Israel is attacking Lebanon, and that large numbers of civilian casualties are occurring, is not in dispute.
As far as I know, there are cameras in Lebanon.
It follows, therefore, that pictures of the attacks and its victims will be taken.
So, lrC…you’re trying to suggest…what? That for some reason Lebanese are faking corpses and ignoring the real ones?
It’s the obloguy that sets off my alarm bells. Why can’t people just come out and say what they’re implying? Sure, you open yourself up potential ridicule, but if that’s the worse thing that happens to you today (as opposed to say, getting blown up) consider yourself lucky.
er…not obloquy…obliqueness.
“Why can’t people just come out and say what they’re implying?”
Because what they’re implying is very stupid, and they need to be in position to deny that’s what they were trying to say.
It’s a skill practiced by practically everone today, isn’t it? I can do it like a pro, but I never think it’s noble.
I am curious, though, as to exactly what lrC is trying to suggest.
lrC, is it your contention that:
- there is really no war in Lebanon? Or, if there IS war in Lebanon;
- that civilian children are actually not dying? Or, if civilian children really ARE dying;
- that for some reason people are not taking pictures of the REAL dying children, but of other live children posed to look like the children who are dying?
Enlighten us, please. Your scepticism about the Abu Ghraib pictures turned out to be erroneous, but heck, you can’t be wrong ALL the time. So what are you suggesting here??
IrC, just be thankful that balbulican hasn’t tried to somehow tie these issues into something he has seen, done, or experienced while in the arctic yet. Although im sure he’ll try to make a comparison at some point.
Focus, Labby. Try to stay on track.
>I am curious, though, as to exactly what lrC is trying to suggest.
>lrC, is it your contention that:
None of the above. The one picture suggests someone posed dead children to produce propaganda. It wouldn’t be the first time made-up vignettes of war were printed on the web. I recollect a widely promulgated photoshopped picture of kids throwing rocks at tanks.
If someone posted a picture of a tractor-trailer rig under the heading “Mobile Iraqi WMD Lab Found”, I doubt SL would be so hasty to believe. A healthy sense of skepticism seems to desert him at times.
>Your scepticism about the Abu Ghraib pictures turned out to be erroneous
I can’t remember what I wrote here about those. I could be wrong, but whether or not I was wrong before has no bearing on that.
Ti-Guy, I tried to post this over at MyBlahg, but I keep getting caught up in Robert’s spam-killer…
There is a word for what you are seeing… it’s called
“Agit-prop”
“No one understood better than Stalin that the true object of propaganda is nither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought immediately reveals itself as a jarring dissonance.” Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Suggested reading “Blink”, and pretty much all the works of Alice Miller — About how large numbers of people can so easily get swept up in their worship of authority and authoritarianism — that they are capable of dismissing anything and indeed violently reacting to anybody who dares to utter sounds that resemble that “jarring dissonance”.
You have to understand — these are very lonely people, who until they found blogs, had nobody to talk to about how much hatred they felt towards various peoples and ideas in their lives. Having found communities on-line where it is safe to indulge in their collective “screaming at the TV” together… they bolster each other on into more and more hysterical rage.
Email me, I’ll send you some book titles that might fascinate ya.
“The one picture suggests someone posed dead children to produce propaganda.”
So…in a country where real children are really being killed by real Israeli bombs, where real grieving parents and friends have access to real cameras…someone posed some dead children for propaganda.
You’d be funny if I didn’t suspect your mind actually does work that way.
[...] I was reading through my blogs in Bloglines, and I saw a post over on Stageleft. It was mostly an e-mail from a site claiming to be the “Angry Arab News Service” that contained a few pictures of children killed in the recent bombings of Lebanon by Israel. A tragedy on any level to any thinking person. Innocent people dying in a war is tragic, especially children. [...]
>So…in a country where real children are really being killed by real Israeli bombs, where real grieving parents and friends have access to real cameras…someone posed some dead children for propaganda.
Most grieving parents and friends don’t take pictures of their dead as they lay and then push them onto the web with an exhortation to spread the word. But if you haven’t learned not to take still photographs and short film clips at face value at your age, you likely never will.
>You’d be funny if I didn’t suspect your mind actually does work that way.
The way my mind works is that it picks the inconsistency of alternating suspension of disbelief and resolute skepticism according to political and social views.
This is fascinating, lrC.
So…in your imaginary world…where do they get the bodies of children from? Do they steal cadavers from chilren’s hospitals, apply makeup and costume, then carefully construct a fraudulent bombsite…while just a kilometer or two away, real children have been killed and are lying in similar poses at real bombsites?
Do respond, I really am curious about how you imagine this works.
IrC is trying to introduce that glimmer of doubt that Conservatives love soooo much – it allows them to not have to care.
>So…in your imaginary world…where do they get the bodies of children from?
In my view there are two things here to which to object. One is that children have been killed. Another is that dead children are being used to create propaganda. I take it you only object to children being killed, and if the photos turn out to be arranged that is just cool with you as long as the correct ends are served?
I take it you only object to children being killed, and if the photos turn out to be arranged that is just cool with you as long as the correct ends are served?
This is sick.
Don’t dodge, lrC. You tried to introduce the sickening notion that these photos were somehow inauthentic. So have the balls to follow your repellent little fantasy through to its logical conclusion, and illustrate for us precisely how your mind works.
HOW and WHY, in your view, are these photos being faked, when there are plenty of bombed, mangled children being created every day in Lebanon? Please explain exactly what you think is happening here.
(For those new to this site, and to lrC – he has previously argued that no-one could “prove” the photos of Abu Ghraib were authentic – and then, once the US acknowledged they were, he argued that the actions illustrated weren’t really “torture”. I’m curious to see if he’ll argue that the children shown aren’t really “dead”.)
e-mail me, I’ll send you some book titles that might fascinate ya.
Meaghan, I’ve read as many as I need to. Morris Berman’s dour trilogy, Mark Crispin Miller’s take on the dyslexic emperor-moron, Paul Krugman’s lament for America’s economy, Michael Adams’s (of Environics) take in Fire and Ice and American Backlash and of course, Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback, which I read in 1999.
…I won’t mention Chomsky, since he upsets the wingnuts so much…
>Don’t dodge, lrC. You tried to introduce the sickening notion that these photos were somehow inauthentic. So have the balls to follow your repellent little fantasy through to its logical conclusion, and illustrate for us precisely how your mind works.
I took the photos at face value – for what they were claimed – until I saw the one of the fellow in the bed of the burnt-out truck. Can you discuss the possibility of fabrication without becoming an angry amateur psychologist?
I can’t tell from the image. From what I can see, the back end of the truck (where the body is) doesn’t look burnt-out.
In any case, your well-known habit of downplaying/dismissing racism, homophobia and global warming just reveals you to be a rightwing propagandist.
“Can you discuss the possibility of fabrication without becoming an angry amateur psychologist?”
Sure, let’s discuss it. So, lrC, HOW and WHY, in your view, are these photos being faked, when there are plenty of bombed, mangled children being created every day in Lebanon? Please explain exactly what you think is happening here.
>In any case, your well-known habit of downplaying/dismissing racism, homophobia and global warming just reveals you to be a rightwing propagandist.
A different point of view or hypothesis isn’t wrong just because it’s different. You can’t assume away cognitive dissonance.
>So, lrC, HOW and WHY, in your view, are these photos being faked,
HOW: a body is relocated, or a picture of the aftermath of one event is stated to be a picture of the aftermath of another. Note that it isn’t necessary for the photo to be staged.
WHY: as propaganda, to encourage people to draw a conclusion or adopt a view desired by the propagandist.
My observation doesn’t negate the probability that the pictures are entirely as they are claimed to be. It is simply that the uncertainty of provenance should be assumed by a prudent person, particularly when there appear to be anomalies in the image.
A different point of view or hypothesis isn’t wrong just because it’s different. You can’t assume away cognitive dissonance.
It’s not just a different point of view. It involves the marginalisation of people and not respecting their civil rights. That, IrC, is wrong. If that were happening to you, I would be the first to condemn it.
How is questioning the verisimilitude of evidence a marginalization of people or disrespect of civil rights? You seem to be reading a lot of your own demons into my skepticism.
How is questioning the verisimilitude of evidence a marginalization of people or disrespect of civil rights?
When do you ever discuss actual evidence? You mostly attempt (and fail) to discredit whatever evidence is brought up (while rarely providing any evidence yourself) and then go on to pontificate at length on how reality should work in theory. When you’re called on that, you become silent or obfuscate and prevaricate, as you are doing now.
It’s very bizarre.
What’s to discuss? If the pictures are genuine, what do you propose to discuss about them? I already know innocent people are being killed. Pictures don’t influence how I feel about that, or increase my desire to see the killing end. My view is that the Israelis should have accepted the battle casualties and gone ahead with decapitation strikes against Hezbollah, but apparently Israel has other ideas.
Well, thanks for finally making a point that seems to be relevant.
Knowing something and seeing the same thing are two completely different things, put a human face on that “something” that people hear about and it’s a different story. Everybody knows there are homeless people on the streets, but they don’t look at them when they go by… it’s easier that way, if they don’t see it they don’t actually have to acknowledge it. Neil Gaimon wrote a great book (Neverwhere) based on the invisable people society doesn’t want to see.
There’s a jaded perspective if I’ve ever seen one. Dead kids on the ground and it doesn’t change how you feel or result in an increase in the desire to see less people die… it speaks volumes.
>Knowing something and seeing the same thing are two completely different things, put a human face on that “something†that people hear about and it’s a different story.
Perhaps for you.
>There’s a jaded perspective if I’ve ever seen one. Dead kids on the ground and it doesn’t change how you feel or result in an increase in the desire to see less people die… it speaks volumes.
Should it? People control their emotions differently. A person who didn’t already grasp what was at stake might be shocked or otherwise affected, I suppose. You shouldn’t cast others into your own mold, or assume that your emotional state and responses grant some sort of intangible moral advantage.
Being able to feel empathy is considered a sophisticated emotion and by all accounts, is usually a trait of moral people. It doesn’t, by itself, confer greater knowledge, but it does open oneself to the possibility of understanding the issues on the other side.
You of course, would know about that, or at least you pretend not to.
It is false to assume overt displays of empathy are necessary to confirm the presence of empathy. Regardless whether empathy is strongly correlated with moral people, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to be moral. Finally, empathy doesn’t imply sympathy or agreement. It’s not the high horse you think it is. A person who feels empathy for someone and allows that to excuse bad behaviour is less moral than a cold fish who believes two wrongs don’t make a right.
It is false to assume overt displays of empathy are necessary to confirm the presence of empathy.
Absence evidence to the contrary, it’s a legitimate assumption. It can be a mistaken assumption, naturally.
Regardless whether empathy is strongly correlated with moral people, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to be moral.
Are you sure? That sounds awfully Randian to me. Ayn Rand made a big production out defining morality objectively, but her legacy reveals that she was a singularly unempathic person and some ways, quite immoral.
Finally, empathy doesn’t imply sympathy or agreement. It’s not the high horse you think it is. A person who feels empathy for someone and allows that to excuse bad behaviour is less moral than a cold fish who believes two wrongs don’t make a right.
You don’t understand the first thing about empathy. Empathy does not entail excusing bad behaviour. Where did you ever learn this? You’re confusing empathy with moral relativism.
>Absence evidence to the contrary, it’s a legitimate assumption. It can be a mistaken assumption, naturally.
If it’s mistaken, it’s false. An assumption is just a substitution for fact until the fact can be established: measured, proven, etc.
>That sounds awfully Randian to me.
Whether it sounds Randian is irrelevant. Truth isn’t measurable by asking “What would Ayn Rand think?”. Empathy alone can’t make a person moral (empathy is not sufficient) and a moral person doesn’t have to feel empathy to make good judgements and commit good acts (empathy is not necessary).
>Empathy does not entail excusing bad behaviour.
I didn’t write that it must; what I wrote is that it can facilitate excusing bad behaviour. All it means is that empathy is, with respect to moral behaviour, a double-edged sword. It doesn’t always or necessarily promote the good.
So, if I understand you correctly, IrC, you’re saying you’re an insufferable bore.
Is that correct, or am I misreading you?
And because IrC has stated that empathy is not necessary nor sufficient to be moral, we should believe him. Especially since ethics and morals are an oft examined set of philosophical propositions that everybody agrees on.
IrC, what happens if I say that empathy is a prerequisite to sympathy, and compassion and is what seperates the mentally disordered from the sane – although not sufficient for moral behaviour, it is a necessity. Your personal belief vs. mine! MOOAHAHA!.
Hey, let’s vote.
Empathy is a requirement for morality. Nothing IrC, with his objectivist, mechanistic worldview can say will change my mind. Lack of empathy isn’t necessarily indicative of a personality disorder, but…it doesn’t help.
>IrC, what happens if I say that empathy is a prerequisite to sympathy, and compassion and is what seperates the mentally disordered from the sane – although not sufficient for moral behaviour, it is a necessity. Your personal belief vs. mine! MOOAHAHA!.
You can prove anything if you make up your data (ie. your premises). If any of your premises is garbage, your conclusion is unproven. For example: “I say that empathy is a prequisite to sympathy”. If that’s not demonstrably true, then your conclusion is unproven. “I say” is roughly equivalent to, “I pull out of my ass”, so there you go.
>Nothing IrC, with his objectivist, mechanistic worldview can say will change my mind.
Nothing you can say to a die-hard creationist about other theories of genesis and evolution will change his mind. You have your articles of faith, he has his. One is always free to take comfort in beliefs, but unproven beliefs are simply an irrational and hollow refuge of the mind. If you need to lock onto some wierd ideas about empathy and morality in order to promote or suggest some abstract and unsupported sense of superiority, your ego is the personality disorder here.
And once again I note that it isn’t necessary to be a drama queen about empathy in order to have empathy.
Blah, blah. Always questionning the premise of something while never providing evidence of the reality upon which that premise is based.
You can dismiss anything that way, IrC.
IrC: And you’ve proven your beliefs how? Defined morality how? Used what source? Proven that morals are objective how?
My point is identical to yours, in that your opinion regarding morality and empathy is utterly as marked with feces as ours. Morality, dear sir, is not something that we can objectively measure on a scale or with a ruler, which is why they’re STILL fighting it out in philosophy departments. Are we after the maximal good? The individual? Do the ends justify the means, or are the means an end in themselves?
As for empathy being a precursor to sympathy; I was making a side point about how morality and empathy is a matter of perspective, but in terms of straight definitions I could be sympathetic without empathy. On the other hand, empathetic people often end up with a compassionate outlook.
Here, I’ll try again to make the point about relativism: I might well have said “empathy is a precursor to being interesting”. I find sociopathology and lack of imagination deeply boring. And also, in my culture, deeply insane. (Sanity, as any ab.psych student will tell you, is more cultural than scientific. Insane is a legal term.) Dealing with someone who lacks empathy is sort of like dealing with someone stupid. You can explain stuff to them, but it won’t stick.
Would you now like to tell us that the colour red is unenjoyable?
…And although your general point is that the media is used for purposes of propoganda during war time, and no one here is disagreeing, you’ve ignored the fact that a) kids are dying, so why anyone needs to stage anything is questionable, and you’ve assumed that people would be too… what? To show pictures of real dead kids.
If MY kids were killed by somebody’s “righteous” bomb, you’re damn right I’d march across the web dropping pictures of their war torn little bodies. To show people the damage, and to hope they’d question why. And then I’d go utterly insane.
>IrC: And you’ve proven your beliefs how? Defined morality how? Used what source? Proven that morals are objective how?
The way it works is this: you put an argument up for consideration, and it is evaluated on its own merits. “You have no ideas of your own, therefore mine are true” is not a proof.
>My point is identical to yours, in that your opinion regarding morality and empathy is utterly as marked with feces as ours.
No. What I wrote approximates a disproof by contradiction. If the hypothesis is that empathy is a necessary prerequisite for moral behaviour, the disproof only requires one person to exhibit good morals without any particular capability or expression of empathy. The exception disproves the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is that empathy is a sufficient prerequisite for moral behaviour, the disproof only requires one person who has empathy but exhibits weak moral thought. There may be some correlations, but empathy isn’t a gatekeeper criterion for deciding who can be moral or who exhibits stronger patterns of moral thought and behaviour.
>I find sociopathology and lack of imagination deeply boring. And also, in my culture, deeply insane
Good for you. How does that relate to empathy? Some qualities of a person require overt displays – joviality, for example – but empathy isn’t one of them.
IrC: I didn’t say mine suppositions were true. What part of subjective don’t you understand?
I said we were both talking about our opinion. You blathered on a bit about empathy not being a moral necessity, as if this was going to make people find your line of argument more convincing and less grotesque. Like we’d all be: “oh, yah! Eggs for omlettes! Propoganda! Dead babies are a tool! Never thought of it that way before! Oh, IrC, we’re sorry that we find your line of reasoning gross!”
But you can’t base an argument on YOUR definition of morality, ‘cuz among many of these posters, empathy is a prime moral virtue.
So we’re supposed to buy your redefinition of morality? Why?
Did you think that “morality” was a well defined term? Hee hee.
So before you get all excited to find a person who’s acting “morally” without empathy to disprove me, I can say that I define morality as that which references empathic consideration. (Even that which ends up being non-sympathetic.) Then, you pointing to a person doing something non-destructive or net-positive without empathy means nothing. Do you get it yet? Or did some book tell you what was moral and now the rest of us have to agree?
I can decide it’s the prime moral duty of all humanity to give Kraft Dinner to birds at 6:00pm, and if I have enough people who agree with me, than that’s what rules the day; and you coming out and saying “but that’s not morally necessary!” is… ridiculous.
As for sociopathology and lack of imagination relating to empathy – are you serious? Lack of empathy is a presenting facet of antisocial personalities. In non-sociopaths, lack of empathy is sometimes the unwillingness to “walk a mile in someone’s shoes” – usually, short of Freaky Friday like mystical body-swapping, this happens in one’s imagination. Do you follow, now?
You seem to be confusing the objective and subjective ideas of morality. The objective idea is that acts and outcomes are either right or wrong: one can’t redefine good and evil; that part is well-defined. The subjective idea is that one can decide (”define”) whether one will follow those precepts more, or less; that is the part of morality that is whatever you define it to be. When you propose that morality can be defined, you’re simply proposing that there will be rules you’re going to try to follow and rules which you’re going to ignore or discount. You don’t actually change the rules, because you can’t. What is “good” and what is “evil” are determined by deductive reasoning; if a conclusion is sound, the inquiry must arrive at the same conclusion every time you revisit it unless you truly have overlooked a premise.
A person who can examine a situation or proposal and say “that’s good” or “that’s bad” without needing an emotional goad doesn’t need empathy (whether he has it or not) to be moral. Regardless whether he has it, there are no magic credentials to be established by displaying it. There seems to be a misconception among some here that an expressive personality is necessary.
I’m not sure what prompts you to claim that a person who lacks empathy or has little of it, or doesn’t feel bound to express it, lacks imagination. Is there a particular flavour of imagination you meant?
I assume by “antisocial” you mean the clinical definition, and are not just referring to people who simply happen to not be gregarious.
I’m confusing nothing regarding morality.
No one has defined the first premises for everyone else. There is no universal agreement on what the rules are: there are communities where incest isn’t evil, and communities where women in bikinis are. If my moral code states as a first premise that no moral judgement can be rendered without first placing the action in an empathetic context – Oh, Golden Rule, I hereby invoke thee! – then that’s a Rule. You may disagree with my rule, and invoke the Bible, or the Koran, or a code of humanist *ethics*, and I’ll tell you that you’re amoral.
However, before you accuse me of being a moral relativist, I’ll tell you this: I can absolutely acknowledge the presence of moral codes different from mine exist, but I will also say they are wrong. *g*.
Check the wiki on it if you don’t believe me. Or better yet, take a general philosophy course.
“Morality deals with that which is regarded as right or wrong. The term is used in regard to three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments — sometimes called moral values — shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and codes of behavior or conduct derived from these systems.”
Now, *ethics* are slightly different.
To me and others, your comments were amoral; your kvetching that we didn’t understand morality highlights your lack of understanding that we think that sometimes? You come across as a jerk.
In other words: “.. one can’t redefine good and evil; that part is well-defined.” is a giant load of poo. I think that lack of empathy towards suffering is evil. There’s my definition. Go forth and sin no more.
Although, actually, my favorite redesign of the Golden rule is “do unto others, wherever possible, as they want to be done by”.
>No one has defined the first premises for everyone else.
A definition is only one form of a premise – an arbitrary one. Working backward to first premises requires effort, but isn’t impossible. In the meantime, there are some pretty straightforward premises that can lead you to derive many universal rules. If you’ve accepted that a person can be a rational moral agent and that there is no basis on which to prefer one rational moral agent over another, you already have tools to go a long way. If you instead accept that people are rational and moral only by accident or that some people are inherently preferable over others by some standard apart from the expression of the egos of others, then you might have problems deriving universal rules.
>There is no universal agreement on what the rules are
That’s because there is no universal understanding of what all the rules are. Ignorance can be a reason for ill moral conduct. A system of moral values is simply an arbitrary statement of how the universal rules are regarded – if at all – and, perhaps, ranked.
Consider the alternative: there are no absolute and universal rules. Then everything is permissible, except as decided according to the whims of each person: Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson did nothing objectively wrong; Israel is doing nothing objectively wrong right now in Lebanon. Any moral system you conceive is just the imposition of the whims of a majority at a particular time on whatever minority happens to disagree; in turn, each of the minority is at liberty to commit any deed in order to pursue his own preferences, subject only to the possibility of being punished by the majority.
IrC: Come on. You use English passably well, although your logic needs a spit-shine. You cannot be this dense. Do a little reading on the subject matter.
I have “considered the alternative: there are no absolute and universal rules.” Well, since we obviously disagree about absolute rules, they’re not universal, are they? What can you “prove”? There’s no evidence that the universe as a whole gives a crap whether we live, die, suffer, kill each other, or wear each other’s heads as hats. The dinosaurs came and went, and we may do the same: we have no evidence that that’s alarming in any way to the universe as a whole.
Who wrote YOUR universal rules? Was it Mohammad? Or Christ? Both, I should point out, valued loving one’s enemy…
Now, I happen to strongly believe in moral values. And I think that lack of empathy to human suffering is evil. In fact, I think we have a moral duty to mitigate human suffering. I’m very happy to say I believe that is a moral absolute, not based on anything universal, mind you, but based on a compassion I have for my fellow man. You and I may agree that Bernardo is more evil than someone who casually dismisses human suffering as the breaking of eggs to make an omelette: but anyone who does not have compassion, empathy, (and love for his neighbour as himself), is evil. Period. If that means you, that means you.
I believe you are trying to talk about ethics, which in its applied form tries to maximize good for the most numbers of people. The problem is, “good” is also an elusive concept. But ethics is more quantifiable.
In other words, IrC: go ahead and have your own moral values, but don’t try to get naturalist and logical in order to intimidate others into believing that you’ve got the moral authority to tell them their empathy requirement is unnecessary. Logic *doesn’t* support you: because we have to first assume that human life is somehow important – or, by my somewhat demanding standard, that human suffering matters. All of which may matter not at all to the life cycle and musings of the Atlantic Lobster, or to our planet as a whole. A strict naturalist who isn’t a humanist as well may very well not care a whit if the human species dies off; Ayn Rand may very well optimize on the individual; the various denominations of Christian all interpret the moral code extremely differently. What is of value in humanity? No sky writing makes that absolute: we are guided by our feelings and our history.
“Universal” is a description of scope of applicability, not a reference to the physical universe. You can disagree whether to follow any particular moral rule, but that just makes you immoral when you act on that disagreement.
>Who wrote YOUR universal rules?
No-one; the rules aren’t arbitrary. The rules are deduced.
>And I think that lack of empathy to human suffering is evil.
In view of that statement, I must ask whether you properly understand the meaning of empathy. It isn’t necessary to experience another person’s suffering in actual or virtual terms in order to be against human suffering, and to deduce and act on duties (moral imperatives) to mitigate it. A person who acts benevolently with intent and no empathy is morally indistinguishable from another who acts from the same intent while feeling empathy. People who are not emotive and who express very little empathy aren’t evil; they simply have different personalities. Blame the diversity of nature if you must. Or celebrate diversity, if that’s your way.
Ethics are codes to help people resolve moral dilemmas and overturn the proper ordering of moral imperatives. Ethics aren’t replacements for moral rules; ethics are guidelines for selecting and measuring moral rules. Consider what may be the most extreme example: military ethics. The whole point of military ethics is to codify exceptions to moral proscriptions and the circumstances under which those violations may take place.
>because we have to first assume that human life is somehow important
No, you don’t. That’s an unnecessary assumption. The physical universe and nature simply are what they are. The only importance you have to assume is the status of one moral agent relative to another; the prudent assumption is to assume all moral agents are created equal in stature and accept the corollary that more developed moral agents have the burden of more strongly governing their behaviour.
You know, IrC, why don’t you go read up on epistemology. Go away, read up…and come back when you’ve learned something.
Who else is looking forward to the return of IrC when he comes back from book-reading?
This is already a well-refined idea, despite your narrow understanding of the subject.
IrC: I did quite well in my philosophy courses during my degree. Your claim that you’ve somehow got the “answer” is laughable, and makes you an inadequate philosopher. You’re still not saying what you’re deducing your infalliable moral code from. Give me those, and I’ll give you your first premises. What are you optimizing for?
Ayn Rand.
Aristotle.
Buddha.
St. Augustine.
Plato.
The Stoics.
The Epicureans.
Need I continue with the list of very different moral systems posed through logical analysis? All from different starting premises?
If there is no premium on either human life or human suffering, then there is no need for us to have a moral code at all. Why would any human action be evil if humans don’t matter?
Hey, Ti-Guy, wanna help try to extract IrC’s first “moral” premises with me? As far as I can tell it’s:
IrC cannot be wrong (and)
Every noted thinker throughout time who is not IrC is an idiot.
Frankly, with those two, we could extract optimization for IrC’s greatest comfort, and his patent refusal to acknowledge any sort of framework other than his own.
(Which is a sublime failure of both imagination AND logic.) Interesting.
Now, of course, he’s given us some of what he imagines are his premises, but obtusficated them…
The ill-defined “moral-agent” and his status – handed down from some great moral board somewhere? Upon what rubric? – should act in an ill-defined “moral” way with greater burden on those who are “developed”… less feotal? More muscular? Hmm. Developed. Literate? Oooohh… Less Divine. Further, the “morals” of an individual are deduced out of something, but there are no assumptions made other than this diaphonous “moral-agent” and his “status” – which is *AMAZING*, since even all of mathmatics sits on a few critical assumptions (which, thankfully, are explicitly defined), and lacking in any definition of good and evil other than what IrC thinks are correct. Wowza.
See anything else there?
IrC: I’ll accept your badly laid out moral authority when you grow D-Cups and lactate elves out of them.
IrC: I’ll accept your badly laid out moral authority when you grow D-Cups and lactate elves out of them.
That wouldn’t be as far-fetched a likelyhood as you might think. A solipsist as profound as IrC could quite easily believe he’s doing just that.
>Need I continue with the list of very different moral systems posed through logical analysis? All from different starting premises?
That there have been many ideas doesn’t mean any of them have been complete or correct. There’s always lots of speculation on unknown questions, but ultimately refinement down to a single, correct corpus is the end state. The premises are generally what one must refine, except for overlooked faults in argumentation. One may expect a philosophy of morality to develop at least part of the whole, even if parts are missed. Many analyses will in the end turn out to be false starts.
>If there is no premium on either human life or human suffering
Because we can conceive of it, morality exists, even if it’s intangible. The existence of morality implies – at minimum – that there’s a premium on what moral agents do. There’s no reason, and no point, to extend moral duties to anything incapable of even a hint of moral behaviour.
>The ill-defined “moral-agent†and his status
You may be well-read, but evidently none of it made any impact. That a person can be rational is self-evident. That morality exists, because we conceive it, is self-evident. Those are premises. Are they falsifiable? I suppose, but only trivially. We can propose that a person can’t be rational, but the existence of a single rational thought has disproved that. (There’s no requirement that all people must be rational at all times.) We can propose that morality doesn’t exist, but that would contradict the existence of the idea.
Given that a rational being exists and morality exists, rational moral decisions can be made. “Moral agent” is just a definition: an entity which can make rational moral decisions.
Because we can conceive of it, morality exists, even if it’s intangible.
I can conceive of Santa Claus. Thereby providing proof of Santa Claus. I can conceive of martians. Thereby providing proof of martians. I am able to conceive of cold fusion. Thereby providing proof of cold fusion. Where is my Nobel Prize?
I am able to be rational, which means that all people are rational; a single rational thought negates brain dysfunction in all individuals.
Santa Claus, if he existed, would be tangible. The idea of Santa Claus certainly exists, but so what? Morality is an idea, with ramifications.
>I am able to be rational, which means that all people are rational; a single rational thought negates brain dysfunction in all individuals.
Your ability to be rational only confirms my statement that a person can be rational. It doesn’t follow that many or all people must be rational.
Shall I point you to the vast body of physics-related missteps that are based on intangibles? The ether? The mesmer box? Or perhaps Angels and Ghosts are more your speed?
Morality IS an idea, upon which different people take different approaches. Most often they’re optimizing for their ingroup.
Plato, you ain’t.
lrC…you’re outta your league, and you’re embarassing yourself. A friendly hint.
There isn’t a special league for it, B.
You’re mistaken, but that’s your privilege. Go to. We’re getting a laugh out of ya, and if you don’t mind, more power to you.
Laugh if it pleases you. An objective theory of morality is probable. If a coherent objective morality is defined based on incontrovertible principles, it’ll be difficult to ignore and it’ll render pointless any arbitrary theories (ie. the “It’s right because I/we/our god says so” theories). Of course, you will always be free to ignore it. No-one is going to live a morally impeccable life any time soon in any event.
Information Salad – Episode #3
This week, Vinny and I discuss everything from operating systems to the conflict in the Mid-East. We apoligize for the delay in getting another episode online. Things have been hectic, but we promise to settle in, and start producing episodes more regul