Hah, I wasn't speculating, I was wondering. There's a difference.
My guest post would look exactly like this (feel free to move this to the front page):
Dude, Stalin was really bad, and he killed millions of people, targetings several groups, including Ukrainians, Jews, and the officer corps. It really sucked to live in the Soviet Union under Stalin; even worse than it sucked to live in the Soviet Union under other leaders, which is saying a lot. And that's assuming you lived. Did I mention that Stalin murdered or encouraged the murder of millions of people? Also, read Life and Fate.
I wonder if he’d mention that Stalin targeted Jews on more than one occasion.
You know, it was official Soviet Policy not to talk about the extermination of Jews, specifically, by the Nazis, because it was thought that it would minimize the suffering of the other Soviet citizens. This is one of the reasons why Grossman’s Life and Fate was banned.
An amazing book by the way, if you haven’t read it – the letter from Shtrum’s mother is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read. It looks like you can read all of it here: here, starting at page 80.
I honestly can’t figure out what you’re going on about here. It takes a perverse “reasoning,” if it can be called that, to get anything from Wall’s post that suggests he’s excluding or denying any other genocide or crime against humanity, and as James said, you just seem to be saying that no one should talk about one genocide without talking about the ones that you’re interested in. I notice, though, that you haven’t once mentioned the Armenian genocide. Do you, sir, not think human rights are universal?! (See how silly that sounds coming from someone else?)
The mind is not rational, despite our every attempt to pretend it is.
That statement is even more opaque than the first. What does it mean for the mind to be rational? It certainly obeys an order, even if that order alludes us, and may forever do so. And it's a mistake to conclude, as many philosophers have done (at least in the modern era), that "emotion" or "feeling" is not rational, or that our heavy reliance on it, mentally, makes the mind irrational, because emotions are quite rational, as you'd expect from an evolved creature.
The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits, as some French dude once said. The question is, how do you react to the absurd? For most, the answer seems to be, adding even more unknowable stuff, that is, more absurdity, on top of it in order to make this stuff feel a little less absurd. I find it somewhat amusing that Bob, channeling Voegelin, thinks that is the less disordered approach.
If it's a bias, it's a bias towards the present, towards things that affect us clearly, directly, and frequently. If we were in a Buddhist country, people like me, or Jason, or Sam Harris, would focus on Buddhism, and your equivalent there would suggest we had an anti-Buddhism bias, as evidenced by the fact that we don't spend even close to as much time talking about Christianity.
I just meant I'm not sure where you think the bias comes from. I know quite well where it comes from.
I'm not sure what Blaise meant by that particular proposition, but I agree with what you're saying. Too often today "rational" becomes identified with "science," which is to say, with measurement, causal explanations, probabilistic predictions, etc., and while the life, and the world in general, is certainly not encapsulated in that, this does not imply that there is not some other sort of order to it, some reason to it, where order and reason are more than just causal order and reason.
I can't speak for Jason, but I personally will start making jokes about the silly end of the world predictions of the loopier adherents of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc., as soon as those groups begin to have the sort of impact on my daily life that Christianity does -- big enough, at least, for the crazies among the believers to start to appear on my radar. Until then, the crazies in those other religion just don't matter to me.
Does that make sense? That the dominant religious group where you are would get more attention, including negative attention? Or are you like Tom, and convinced that this is some sort of anti-Christian bias born of... I don't know what, but something.
I believe that if he does not receive authorization by today, he has 30 days to cease military operations. So come back in 30 days.
I hope you've also noticed that members of Congress from both parties have been speaking out about the need for Obama to get congressional approval. It's not really a team issue at this point (and really, it's difficult to take anyone who uses the "team" labels seriously).
Tom, the '67 borders has been official U.S. policy for as long as I can remember. It's true, that's not often shouted to the world, but I'm quite sure Israel knew it, even if they didn't know he was planning on telling everybody on television.
Except, Blaise, that his stated reason for leaving the party was the purge of the Jewish doctors. It's true that it happened after Stalin's death, his leaving that is, but that's because information from the Soviet Union came slowly, and they only learned of the purge and its ruse after his death. That's actually in Eribon's book (which is excellent). If you'd read it instead of quoting a review of it you might know that! You may say that he was a Stalin denialist, but leaving the party because of Stalin's actions pretty much makes that bullshit, or worse.
By the way, he was never a particularly active member, nor was he a Stalinist.
that a.) doesn't point to denialism, and b.) contradicts Foucault's own stated reason for leaving the party when he did: the purge of Jewish doctors, by some guy of whose actions you claim Foucault was in denial. And I say this as someone who thinks Eribon's biography is a great read (your text, by the way, is from the review, not from Eribon's book). One could argue that Eribon understood the reasons for Foucault's leaving of the party in '53 that Foucault himself would likely be reluctant to talk about, at least in '53, but the very fact that he was quite clear that the purge was the last straw for him contradicts your assertion about his denialism.
And recall that a.) Foucault was not a very active member, and b.) he was never a Stalinist.
Dude, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you just continue to make stuff up, and on topics that I actually care about.
Foucault made much of differences between things, but pressed to take sides against the culture of denial and repression in Stalin’s USSR, he remained in the camp of deniers.
Foucault left the PCF in 1953 precisely because of what was happening under Stalism. I don't see any evidence in his actions or his writings to suggest he was a denialist. He was young, and only in the party for 3 years. After that, he was pretty objectively anti-Stalism and largely anti-Soviet socialism.
Bob, if Obama ordered an illegal execution, then I am all for impeachment. I'm not sure whether what happened was illegal (again, I'm not even sure what happened, and neither are you). From what I can tell, legal experts mostly feel it was legal, but are divided, and most if not all of them don't really know what happened either.
But for me, it's not just a legal issue, and the more important thing is the principle, and the idea of killing people without trial, whatever they've done, when they're not in a war zone, is just wrong (even in a war zone, there have to be rules about these things, but that's the simplest formulation).
By the way, your racism, or if you prefer, your bigotry towards Islam (sorry Tom, but that's real bigotry) doesn't help your case. And if you think Islam is gnostic, you don't know what that word means.
I can't imagine that many other presidents would have acted differently, to be honest. The fact is, a trial of bin Laden would have been a political nightmare, as would have not trying him but detaining him anyway. That doesn't excuse an execution, if that's what it was, but it's a political calculus that would likely have determined the actions anyone in either of the two political parties. That, I suppose, says all I need to know about our political system.
I don't know if I'm agreeing with Bob here, but it pains me to be even this close to doing so, but here goes.
For me, it isn't about the legality of it. I'm not sure whether it was legal, not only because I'm ignorant of the relevant law, but because I, and I imagine most of us, don't know exactly what went down either in the lead up to the raid of in the actual raid itself. I am pretty damn sure that nothing would ever come of it if it were illegal. There are plenty of members of the last administration who did legally questionable things, and last I checked, none of them have been tried, or even investigated.
However, for me the legal question is secondary at best. The more important question is the principle, or the morality, however you want to think about it, of the actions and the orders that instigated them. If a person who was hundreds of miles from any fighting, and unarmed, was gunned down in cold blood, under orders to do just that, then that's wrong, to me, whether it was legal or not. And it doesn't seem like the sort of thing a government, any government, much less one that represents me, should be doing.
To me, bin Laden was a criminal, one whose crimes were, of course, historically heinous, but a criminal none the less, and I don't know of any civilized nation that authorizes the killing of unarmed criminals, without trial, in the process of apprehending them, simply because of the nature of their crimes, however horrific those crimes might have been. That's pretty much what being civilized means.
By the way, the 328th Infantry Division headquarters were not, in case you're wondering, headed by Eisenhower.
And if you read the book from which that order is quoted, you'll find that the order was generally not followed, or at least that there's no evidence that it was.
Anyway, if you find evidence that Eisenhower issued that order, or that it was followed by anyone, I'll chime back in. Until then, have fun attacking me personally. I'm sure it will make you feel better.
What evidence? You said he gave an order that no SS prisoners were to be taken alive. That's a bold statement, one with implications about the American armed forces in World War II and about Eisenhower specifically. You've provided no evidence for such an order. You've merely repeated what I said in my first couple posts on the subject: that American troops murdered SS prisoners, and that Eisenhower used inflammatory language that probably exacerbated the problem. That's not issuing an order. But if you don't see that, it's not my problem. I've put it out there. You've flailed away with personal attacks and repeating more of what I've already admitted.
By the way, have you noticed that you can't respond to me without attacking me personally? It's true, I've responded to you a lot, because you say a lot of blatantly false things with some frequency. It's a bit of a pathology with me. I've done the same to others when I think they're full of shit (ask Tom or Bob, who are at least principled and honest; I don't know what you are). And with the exception of making a jab at you about your personal stories (have you looked up General Ivolgin yet? He's a character in The Idiot, though lest you get offended by the title alone, he's not the Idiot himself), I haven't said a thing about you personally until just now.
Oh, and my spelling is atrotious (OK, that one was on purpose; I'm on Firefox now so I have automatic spell check). You and every teacher I had from the first grade on have noticed it. Good on ya. And I'm not a clinical psychologist, by the way. There are other kinds.
Spotsylvania has never been the symbol of that wars horror for me in the same way that some later battles have, or even the Wilderness that preceded it, largely because unlike those bloody battles, it served a real and important strategic purpose. If Grant gets behind Lee, the war is all but over for Lee's army, and therefore for the South.
I think of the pointless slaughter at Franklin because of Hood's wounded ego -- a thousand casualties an hour for five hellish hours. No strategic purpose, no purpose whatsoever. Just charge after charge at Union breastworks, destroying an army, because a general was angry.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “How to Think About John Demjanjuk”
Hah, I wasn't speculating, I was wondering. There's a difference.
My guest post would look exactly like this (feel free to move this to the front page):
Dude, Stalin was really bad, and he killed millions of people, targetings several groups, including Ukrainians, Jews, and the officer corps. It really sucked to live in the Soviet Union under Stalin; even worse than it sucked to live in the Soviet Union under other leaders, which is saying a lot. And that's assuming you lived. Did I mention that Stalin murdered or encouraged the murder of millions of people? Also, read Life and Fate.
"
I wonder if he’d mention that Stalin targeted Jews on more than one occasion.
You know, it was official Soviet Policy not to talk about the extermination of Jews, specifically, by the Nazis, because it was thought that it would minimize the suffering of the other Soviet citizens. This is one of the reasons why Grossman’s Life and Fate was banned.
An amazing book by the way, if you haven’t read it – the letter from Shtrum’s mother is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever read. It looks like you can read all of it here: here, starting at page 80.
"
I honestly can’t figure out what you’re going on about here. It takes a perverse “reasoning,” if it can be called that, to get anything from Wall’s post that suggests he’s excluding or denying any other genocide or crime against humanity, and as James said, you just seem to be saying that no one should talk about one genocide without talking about the ones that you’re interested in. I notice, though, that you haven’t once mentioned the Armenian genocide. Do you, sir, not think human rights are universal?! (See how silly that sounds coming from someone else?)
On “Liveblog at the End of the Universe”
it's not a dismissal. Particularly when it's in agreement with what you said.
"
I can't, of course, though I find neuroaesthetics interesting as a line of inquiry.
I don't see how the question is relevant, unless you equate unknown with not rational, which would be naive.
"
The mind is not rational, despite our every attempt to pretend it is.
That statement is even more opaque than the first. What does it mean for the mind to be rational? It certainly obeys an order, even if that order alludes us, and may forever do so. And it's a mistake to conclude, as many philosophers have done (at least in the modern era), that "emotion" or "feeling" is not rational, or that our heavy reliance on it, mentally, makes the mind irrational, because emotions are quite rational, as you'd expect from an evolved creature.
"
The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits, as some French dude once said. The question is, how do you react to the absurd? For most, the answer seems to be, adding even more unknowable stuff, that is, more absurdity, on top of it in order to make this stuff feel a little less absurd. I find it somewhat amusing that Bob, channeling Voegelin, thinks that is the less disordered approach.
"
If it's a bias, it's a bias towards the present, towards things that affect us clearly, directly, and frequently. If we were in a Buddhist country, people like me, or Jason, or Sam Harris, would focus on Buddhism, and your equivalent there would suggest we had an anti-Buddhism bias, as evidenced by the fact that we don't spend even close to as much time talking about Christianity.
I just meant I'm not sure where you think the bias comes from. I know quite well where it comes from.
"
I'm not sure what Blaise meant by that particular proposition, but I agree with what you're saying. Too often today "rational" becomes identified with "science," which is to say, with measurement, causal explanations, probabilistic predictions, etc., and while the life, and the world in general, is certainly not encapsulated in that, this does not imply that there is not some other sort of order to it, some reason to it, where order and reason are more than just causal order and reason.
"
Bob, you spend a lot of time attacking "secularists." I wonder why you're not spending an equal amount of time attacking Buddhists.
"
That, I admit, makes me want to mock Christianity more broadly
"
I can't speak for Jason, but I personally will start making jokes about the silly end of the world predictions of the loopier adherents of Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc., as soon as those groups begin to have the sort of impact on my daily life that Christianity does -- big enough, at least, for the crazies among the believers to start to appear on my radar. Until then, the crazies in those other religion just don't matter to me.
Does that make sense? That the dominant religious group where you are would get more attention, including negative attention? Or are you like Tom, and convinced that this is some sort of anti-Christian bias born of... I don't know what, but something.
On “America, Forever At War”
I believe that if he does not receive authorization by today, he has 30 days to cease military operations. So come back in 30 days.
I hope you've also noticed that members of Congress from both parties have been speaking out about the need for Obama to get congressional approval. It's not really a team issue at this point (and really, it's difficult to take anyone who uses the "team" labels seriously).
On “Only Nixon Could Go to China”
Tom, the '67 borders has been official U.S. policy for as long as I can remember. It's true, that's not often shouted to the world, but I'm quite sure Israel knew it, even if they didn't know he was planning on telling everybody on television.
On “Demoktesis”
Except, Blaise, that his stated reason for leaving the party was the purge of the Jewish doctors. It's true that it happened after Stalin's death, his leaving that is, but that's because information from the Soviet Union came slowly, and they only learned of the purge and its ruse after his death. That's actually in Eribon's book (which is excellent). If you'd read it instead of quoting a review of it you might know that! You may say that he was a Stalin denialist, but leaving the party because of Stalin's actions pretty much makes that bullshit, or worse.
By the way, he was never a particularly active member, nor was he a Stalinist.
that a.) doesn't point to denialism, and b.) contradicts Foucault's own stated reason for leaving the party when he did: the purge of Jewish doctors, by some guy of whose actions you claim Foucault was in denial. And I say this as someone who thinks Eribon's biography is a great read (your text, by the way, is from the review, not from Eribon's book). One could argue that Eribon understood the reasons for Foucault's leaving of the party in '53 that Foucault himself would likely be reluctant to talk about, at least in '53, but the very fact that he was quite clear that the purge was the last straw for him contradicts your assertion about his denialism.
And recall that a.) Foucault was not a very active member, and b.) he was never a Stalinist.
"
Dude, I hate to be the one to point this out, but you just continue to make stuff up, and on topics that I actually care about.
Foucault made much of differences between things, but pressed to take sides against the culture of denial and repression in Stalin’s USSR, he remained in the camp of deniers.
Foucault left the PCF in 1953 precisely because of what was happening under Stalism. I don't see any evidence in his actions or his writings to suggest he was a denialist. He was young, and only in the party for 3 years. After that, he was pretty objectively anti-Stalism and largely anti-Soviet socialism.
On “Foote’s Civil War: Spotsylvania and the Death of Jeb Stuart”
I was thinking of Cold Harbor as well.
On “Demoktesis”
For some reason, the word "futile" keeps popping into my head.
"
You could escape from Auschwitz! See?
OK, I'm just being facetious. That is, however, one of the most impressive, inspiring, and ultimately tragic stories I've ever heard.
On “America, Forever At War”
Bob, if Obama ordered an illegal execution, then I am all for impeachment. I'm not sure whether what happened was illegal (again, I'm not even sure what happened, and neither are you). From what I can tell, legal experts mostly feel it was legal, but are divided, and most if not all of them don't really know what happened either.
But for me, it's not just a legal issue, and the more important thing is the principle, and the idea of killing people without trial, whatever they've done, when they're not in a war zone, is just wrong (even in a war zone, there have to be rules about these things, but that's the simplest formulation).
By the way, your racism, or if you prefer, your bigotry towards Islam (sorry Tom, but that's real bigotry) doesn't help your case. And if you think Islam is gnostic, you don't know what that word means.
"
I can't imagine that many other presidents would have acted differently, to be honest. The fact is, a trial of bin Laden would have been a political nightmare, as would have not trying him but detaining him anyway. That doesn't excuse an execution, if that's what it was, but it's a political calculus that would likely have determined the actions anyone in either of the two political parties. That, I suppose, says all I need to know about our political system.
"
I don't know if I'm agreeing with Bob here, but it pains me to be even this close to doing so, but here goes.
For me, it isn't about the legality of it. I'm not sure whether it was legal, not only because I'm ignorant of the relevant law, but because I, and I imagine most of us, don't know exactly what went down either in the lead up to the raid of in the actual raid itself. I am pretty damn sure that nothing would ever come of it if it were illegal. There are plenty of members of the last administration who did legally questionable things, and last I checked, none of them have been tried, or even investigated.
However, for me the legal question is secondary at best. The more important question is the principle, or the morality, however you want to think about it, of the actions and the orders that instigated them. If a person who was hundreds of miles from any fighting, and unarmed, was gunned down in cold blood, under orders to do just that, then that's wrong, to me, whether it was legal or not. And it doesn't seem like the sort of thing a government, any government, much less one that represents me, should be doing.
To me, bin Laden was a criminal, one whose crimes were, of course, historically heinous, but a criminal none the less, and I don't know of any civilized nation that authorizes the killing of unarmed criminals, without trial, in the process of apprehending them, simply because of the nature of their crimes, however horrific those crimes might have been. That's pretty much what being civilized means.
"
By the way, the 328th Infantry Division headquarters were not, in case you're wondering, headed by Eisenhower.
And if you read the book from which that order is quoted, you'll find that the order was generally not followed, or at least that there's no evidence that it was.
Anyway, if you find evidence that Eisenhower issued that order, or that it was followed by anyone, I'll chime back in. Until then, have fun attacking me personally. I'm sure it will make you feel better.
"
What evidence? You said he gave an order that no SS prisoners were to be taken alive. That's a bold statement, one with implications about the American armed forces in World War II and about Eisenhower specifically. You've provided no evidence for such an order. You've merely repeated what I said in my first couple posts on the subject: that American troops murdered SS prisoners, and that Eisenhower used inflammatory language that probably exacerbated the problem. That's not issuing an order. But if you don't see that, it's not my problem. I've put it out there. You've flailed away with personal attacks and repeating more of what I've already admitted.
By the way, have you noticed that you can't respond to me without attacking me personally? It's true, I've responded to you a lot, because you say a lot of blatantly false things with some frequency. It's a bit of a pathology with me. I've done the same to others when I think they're full of shit (ask Tom or Bob, who are at least principled and honest; I don't know what you are). And with the exception of making a jab at you about your personal stories (have you looked up General Ivolgin yet? He's a character in The Idiot, though lest you get offended by the title alone, he's not the Idiot himself), I haven't said a thing about you personally until just now.
Oh, and my spelling is atrotious (OK, that one was on purpose; I'm on Firefox now so I have automatic spell check). You and every teacher I had from the first grade on have noticed it. Good on ya. And I'm not a clinical psychologist, by the way. There are other kinds.
On “Foote’s Civil War: Spotsylvania and the Death of Jeb Stuart”
Spotsylvania has never been the symbol of that wars horror for me in the same way that some later battles have, or even the Wilderness that preceded it, largely because unlike those bloody battles, it served a real and important strategic purpose. If Grant gets behind Lee, the war is all but over for Lee's army, and therefore for the South.
I think of the pointless slaughter at Franklin because of Hood's wounded ego -- a thousand casualties an hour for five hellish hours. No strategic purpose, no purpose whatsoever. Just charge after charge at Union breastworks, destroying an army, because a general was angry.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.