[Platt] Maybe so, but to be concerned about the possibility of atomic warfare represents a justifiable doomsday scenario IMO.
[Arlo] Disagree. I think it represents a valid, and important, concern, and something that should be part of the modern dialogue with regards to international affairs, policy, and diplomacy. However, I think using it as a "doomsday device" only servers power brokers and nightmare politicians. Some ways to spot this include "distance", that is how far removed from the proposed "threat" does "complete atomic destruction" lie? If someone says, e.g., "if Clinton/Huckabee is elected, get ready for an atomic war" is simply moronic fear rhetoric. Another way is those proposing "one solution", e.g. when someone says "unless we do exactly this ONE thing, the world will end in an atomic barrage". A third is in proposing that "YOU and ONLY YOU" want to prevent the event, e.g., "conservatives want the world to be polluted" or "liberals want to see American soldiers killed". All these tie into elaborating specific problems, articulating specific solutions, and accepting that a solution may be one other than what you have proposed. This is the type of clarity, for example, that is completely lost in the "illegal immigration" dialogue. It is one thing to say "if we do nothing to alter our present policies, we will face a 200 billion dollar additional deficit in 10 years" and then listen to solutions to this specific concern, and quite another to say "if we do nothing to alter our present policies, America will cease to exist in 10 years, and the only solution to this is the one I propose". The former lays out a concern intellectually, the latter is an attempt to use fear to garner power for a specific interest group. [Platt] Further, a return of the genocides of the 20th century are a legitimate doomsday concern for the populations at risk. [Arlo] Which is why more people should read and study history, to look at the events (both national and international) that contributed to these. It is not enough, I'd say, to simply say "we are prepared to kill anyone who does anything like Hitler did", we must say "what can be done to minimize the possibility a Hitler will ever rise to power again?" We must understand why Henry Ford received the highest foreign commendation from the Nazi Regime, why the events following WWI (not to mention the reasons for WWI) laid a foundation that enabled not only the genocide, but the patriotic fervor and acceptance of the German Folk for the Nazis. We can kill all the Hitlers, and all the Al Qaeda members, we can, but we will never see a world without them until we understand and accept the reasons for their being, and couple our legitimate and moral military responses with reasoned, intellectual foreign actions that undermine the foundation these despots stand on. Simply saying, "they hate us for our freedom" is about the most moronic thing one could say. All dialogues have two voices, and we must accept what ours has said, and think about what we want it to say. [Platt] Sometimes fear-rhetoric is required to arose people to real and present dangers, just as sympathy and similar emotional rhetoric is justified to right social ills. [Arlo] Fear rhetoric devoid of intellectual substance is never required, except by politicians and ideologues who are more concerned with using fear to manipulate people than with articulating concerns and discussing solutions. I have no trouble with the role of emotional rhetoric, indeed, as I say repeatedly, we are social beings. But there is a difference between evoking Rosa Parks as part of a speech outlining racial injustice, and fortelling the end of America if we don't build a giant wall along our souther border. Nor do I, as I've said, have any problem with meeting social-level anti-intellectualism with social-level condemnation. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
