On
Absolute Evil
A composite philosophical examination of the
nature of absolute evil compiled from various Facebook debates. In essence, I
conclude that goodness is an aesthetic concept while evil is stupidity…
Is
Breivik evil or insane (or both, or neither)?
“Insanity
in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs,
it is the rule.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond
Good and Evil, 1886).
‘The 33-year-old Norwegian was found insane in one examination, while a second
assessment made public last week found him mentally competent...’
See also
Marty Gull Song #20. Hate Destroys Everything
MB: He sounds conscious and aware of his
actions. I don't think he is insane.
Me: “Ordinarily he was insane, but
he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.” (Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856).
AF: clearley Mr Breivik has the
capacity and intelligence to plan his activities and effectivley carry them
out..This is a sign of 'organised and controlled' thinking..as opposed to
disorganised and uncontrolled thoughts [voices and what not] sufferd by those
with madness..However his acts speak of an individual with grandious ideads
fanatic ideology, harming others so a sense of rage alienation and a non
-empathy with other human beings [psychopath]. He could of used that
intelligance and effort into starting his own political party..or inspiring
others..he didnt..He used whatever means....If he did make himself presedent he
would probley go a bit hitlarish and massacer those he thought to be a
threat....So no rehabilitation for Mr Brevick...wont go so far as evil [
emotive word] but bad bad bad man jail yes mad house no
Me: I would go as far as describing
him as evil (which is not the same as hating him). The logic is tortuous, so I
won't clutter the thread (at this stage).
AF: good philosophical question @
chris what is evil????
Me: The killer question! That which
is evil is that which deliberately acts against that which is good. So, to
fully answer your question, I would need to explicate my manifesto for good.
This would be tortuous, but a broad and brief summation would be the agenda of
the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek (dubbed “the most dangerous philosopher
in the west” by the American neo-conservative magazine New Republic).
In (very) brief summary:
-
An oratorical approach
-
Reconciling Lacanian psychoanalysis with collectivist politics
-
Rejecting liberal relativism in favour of ‘truth’ as an understanding of power
relations
-
Exposing ‘postmodernism’ and ‘the post-ideological society’ as a global
capitalist scam
-
Scepticism of Derridan deconstructionism as bourgeois ‘writing about writing’
-
Using popular culture (art, films) to explore the ‘Symbolic Order’ of language
and the mind
-
Anti-capitalist/Marxist revisionist
-
Political/ecological manifesto for collective change to solve war and poverty
-
Rejection of liberal ideologies, facing up to ‘radical contingency’
-
Scientific, atheistic view of the universe
-
Reconciling determinism with free will in the realm of quantum uncertainty
Some key ideas
http://www.lacan.com/zizekchro1.htm
Obviously I would need to go into some detail about relative deliberations and
actions to define ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (which would take this thread way off
course). Just because someone disagrees or acts against my manifesto doesn’t
make them evil!
Further
excerpts:
AP: Let’s just say that a lack of
love is apparent, as well as compassion, tolerance, empathy and ethical/moral
balance. Does this make him “evil”? I think not; just a cold calculating,
indifferent and self absorbed loner......As I recall Prison used to be for such
socio/psycho-paths didn’t it? Lock him up for life with no access to the
outside world that he so detests and then forget about him, he deserves nothing
more.....Ond x
AF: @ chris hmm got a slight prob
with the 2nd sentance...so evil if delibratley act against....how would u
define good? and what if the same actions were done against the not so morally
good? do u mean like something done to I duno tibetan monks as opposed to lap
dancers? bad examples but off my head top............
Me: I’d rather not get too
sidetracked by a relativist discussion of “good” and “evil”. There are many
problems with defining “good” - and I’m certainly not advocating some kind of ‘absolute’
goodness. But I think we can broadly agree that survival, well-being and
compassion are generally considered to be good. The American
neuroscientist/philosopher Sam Harris asks us to consider ‘the worst possible
misery for everyone’ then suggests that anything which takes us away from that is
‘good’. This appealingly simple proposition does contain some epistemological
flaws however which I think require a separate discussion (for a brief outline
of some of the initial problems, please refer to Can Science Answer Moral Questions? http://martygull.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/chris-port-blog-250-can-science-answer.html).
JG: Call me a sick bastard if you must but i
think a more appropriate punishment for Breivik would be Community service… In
Palestine.
Me: You’re a sick man :) The question is, is he?
JG: As sick as the sick ones go. He is a
cowardly freemason and a Zionist, you do the math.
JG: There are certain qualities in him though,
and i wouldn’t call him stupid. For example - Anders’ favourite composer –
Me: Admiring Wagner’s art doesn't make you a
Nazi (although being a Nazi tends to nudge you in Wagner’s direction). You
could say the same about Nietzsche. Nietzsche would probably have despised the
Nazis. Wagner, regrettably, would probably have been in his element :(
Me: Also, there are different types of
intelligence - and different types of stupidity. I would venture that, for all
his pseudo-intellectualism and practical cunning, Breivik is morally and
philosophically stupid.
JG: Over the next 5 days Breivik will get to
present his views and motives for the attack before the court and then they
will decide if he is insane or not. It seems pretty retarded to me considering
his views and motives are already well known and keeping in mind the things
that he believes/did, it would be hard for anyone NOT to label him as
clinically insane. I think he's not insane, but... I bet the court will declare
him "insane" and he'll be put in some lax Norwegian mental ward that
feels more like a retirement home filled with a bunch of other people who also
pretended to be insane so they wouldn't get sent to prison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4beUC3-ckw
Me: Keep your eyes open for epistemological
sleights of hand. They don’t invalidate the argument. It’s just not consistent,
that’s all.
Intelligence/Morality,
Stupidity/Evil
It is probably easiest to visualize intelligence/morality as a duality. In
humanist terms, they are essentially the same concept. Consider them as
analogous to an electromagnetic spectrum. I’m borrowing from the ‘worst
possible misery’ of Sam Harris here.
Stupidity/evil (another duality) increase towards the physically darker end of
the spectrum. They achieve a measurably definite* evil at absolute zero.
(* Almost. There would still be quantum fluctuations in the ground state).
By absolute zero I mean absolute zero degrees Kelvin, the ‘coldest’ possible
temperature. Entropy stops**. So does any possibility of life, intelligence or
morality - the escalating markers of the evolutionary scale.
(** Almost. As above).
I’m not concerned with moral relativism here. At this extreme, there is no
morality. In human terms, there is nothing.
So, ‘evil’ has a physical and measurable state within the limits of the
Uncertainty Principle. ‘Good’, on the other side, doesn’t. Consider good as the
relative absence of evil, and evil as the relative absence of possibility.
Human life (intelligence/morality) exists in a narrow band of the spectrum - a
‘Goldilocks Zone’: temperature, physical elements, environmental factors,
biology etc.
Evil will tend to increase towards the colder end of the spectrum. The
possibility of good will tend to increase towards the ‘warmer’ end (up to an
optimum upper temperature distribution for any given biosphere).
There will be complex localized anomalies in ‘the wrong place’ for some
measurements. This should be regarded as a separate methodological problem
though. The analogy still has its uses before being synthesized with an
antithesis.
It should be clear that the analogy is not self-sufficient. It is a physically
inaccurate analogue for a metaphysical structure. Other concepts from outside
the system must be introduced. Again, these should be regarded as a separate
problem.
Good has a physical upper temperature limit. Above that, entropy breaks down
survival systems. In environmental terms, it’s when global warming increases
adverse environmental effects. By adverse I mean such phenomena as pollution,
flooding, drought, crop failure, starvation, war etc.
Also, within the ‘Goldizone’ limits, even as entropy increases the availability
of energy for work, the system may not be efficient or effective at energy
extraction and distribution. At the local scale (e.g. our planet) ‘bad’ energy
distribution may result in extinction level events.
Morally responsible actions may be plotted against an intelligence/stupidity
(good/evil) morality graph. Not solely by deontological criteria but by
consequential logic applied to the parameters of the Goldilocks Zone.
Are Breivik’s words and actions likely to increase or decrease the probability
of adverse environmental phenomena (locally and globally, short term and long
term)? By plotting his acts against a metamodernist agenda, I would say
increase.
If I judge him to be mentally competent then I also judge him to be
intellectually and morally responsible. As I plot research of his acts on a
metaphorical graph, I prejudge him to be competent, stupid and evil. This
judgment may change if new ‘co-ordinates’ appear.
It is interesting to note:
1) As the intelligence/morality spectrum extends towards ‘good’, co-ordinates
become less physical and more metaphysical.
2) And, of course, vice versa. Nature, and our animal ancestry, are not moral
places. They exist only in the sense of pitiless survival. In pseudo-religious
terms, ‘the Beast’ is our repressed race memory of where our species once was.
3) More optimistically, the opposite may be inferred. As the spectrum extends
towards ‘good’, physical reality becomes less self-determinate. It is
increasingly defined with reference to more abstract terms.
4) The ‘lesser of two evils’/‘greater good’ is another duality. Essentially it
is a metaphysical phenomenon, not a physical one.
5) This ‘ontological incompleteness’ of reality creates an epistemological gap
for ‘God’. Not the ‘God of the gaps’ dismissed by neo-positivists but a
Wittgensteinian ‘God of the language games’.
6) I don’t like Breivik’s language games. So this whole pseudo-science analogy
was just a shaggy dog ruse. Intelligence/morality (or stupidity/evil) are
mostly a problem of aesthetics, not mathematics ;)
7) If I were a sick man, I might describe Breivik as an ‘Illegally Blonde’
musical.
“Evil is mostly a problem of bad taste. Except for ‘Legally Blonde’. Anyone who
likes that is clearly insane.” (Marty Gull)
8) If you want to get Nietzschean about it, perhaps intelligence and morality
are Einsteinian analogues. The moral universe may warp itself around until
‘God’ and ‘Evil’ meet as the ultimate SuperFiction. Maybe so. But that’s
another story…
9) See the problems with analogies in The
Incomprehensibility of Car Mechanics. http://martygull.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/chris-port-blog-265-incomprehensibility.html
What is
evil?
What is love?
What is the force that possesses us?
Where is the beauty?
Where is the truth?
Where is the force that watches over you?
What is it that makes us ashamed to be white
When we close our ears to the sound of machine gun fire?
And while the niggers of this world are starving with their mouths wide open
What is it that turns the coins we throw at them
Into worthless little tokens?
Why is it that anything on this Earth
We do not understand
We are pushed down on our knees
To worship or to damn?
Those are the rules of religion
Those are the laws of the land
That's how the forces of darkness
Have suppressed the spirit of man
That’s why human beings
Still walk on all fours
Whilst in the presence
Of their so called superiors
Something's telling you
To wake up and salute
The dangers of obedience
The violence of truth
God is evil, God is love
God is the force that possesses us
God is beauty, God is truth
God is the force that is watching over you
Deconstructing
‘Faith’ (Reconstructing Wisdom)
Carefully
consider the following imaginary debate about religious faith which has been
doing the rounds on Facebook. My repudiation of it follows immediately
afterward.
Professor: You are a Christian, aren’t you, son
?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD?
Student: Absolutely, sir.
Professor: Is GOD good ?
Student: Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student: Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer
even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help
others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you
? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Is Satan good ?
Student: No.
Professor: Where does Satan come
from ?
Student: From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me
son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t
it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness?
Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world,
don’t they?
Student: Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5
Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have
you ever seen GOD?
Student: No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever
heard your GOD?
Student: No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your
GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception
of GOD for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I’m afraid I
haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in
Him?
Student: Yes.
Professor: According to Empirical,
Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do
you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my
faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is
the problem Science has.
Student: Professor, is there such a
thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student: And is there such a thing
as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student: No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet
with this turn of events.)
Student: Sir, you can have lots of
heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no
heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero
which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such
thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We
cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir,
just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the
lecture theater.)
Student: What about darkness,
Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if
there isn’t darkness?
Student: You’re wrong again, sir.
Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light,
bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have
nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it
is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you
are making, young man ?
Student: Sir, my point is your
philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain
how?
Student: Sir, you are working on the
premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD
and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite,
something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses
electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood
either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact
that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor,
do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to
the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student: Have you ever observed
evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a
smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student: Since no one has ever
observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this
process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are
you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student: Is there anyone in the
class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student: Is there anyone here who
has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one
appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical,
Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With
all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor
stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to
take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir … Exactly !
The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive
and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want
your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
My
repudiation of ‘Faith’
I’ve
come across this before. It’s an ingenious and entertaining piece of sophistry.
But it is ontologically flawed and makes several category errors...
First, it’s a fictional Platonic dialogue. The student was NOT Einstein and in
no way represents Einstein’s views. Like many intelligent men, Einstein’s views
about God were complex. However, I think it fair to say that Einstein most
certainly did NOT believe in the traditional Judaeo-Christian concept of a
personal God. His views were much closer to Spinoza’s concept of a cool,
indifferent God without intelligence, feeling or will. In essence, God is the
laws of physics, not an entity.
The Professor first queries and ridicules the student’s belief in God by
identifying apparent inconsistencies in God’s alleged omnipotence and
omniscience. However, these may be dismissed (or, at least, evaded) by invoking
God’s alleged ineffability. Perhaps evil and suffering are part of some ‘divine
plan’ of which we are unaware?
Much the same ‘strategic’ argument has been used by more mortal military
authorities with an apparent straight face (e.g. “It became necessary to
destroy the town to save it” is a quote attributed to various American military
sources during the Vietnam War).
Perhaps God is not so much an infallible deity as a supernatural superpower
engaged in some celestial proxy war? Or perhaps evil and suffering are
illusions created to test our earthly avatars as our angelic souls lie in pods
of heavenly Matrix gloop? Who knows? (I certainly don’t!)
The interpretation of God as merciful is a comparatively recent New Testament
claim. The God of the Old Testament seems to have been more than capable of
cruelty and capriciousness. While religionists tend to cite the Gospels ‘as
gospel’, it is possible to believe in a God without subscribing to earthly
doctrine and dogma. Religion and belief in a God are not necessarily
synonymous.
The underlying question here is why an alleged ‘perfect’ deity would create
such obviously ‘imperfect’ human beings. The underlying answer here could
simply be: “God moves in mysterious ways”. That’s for Him to know and us to
find out.
The apparent lack of empirical evidence for a supernatural God is more
difficult to refute. The null hypothesis model suggests that the student should
observe the principle of Ockham’s Razor and allocate the balance of probability
to God’s non-existence.
However, in the case of a metaphysical God, there is an underlying flaw in the
methodology here. Put simply, the empiricist has no idea what to look for or
how to look for it. The refutation of the null hypothesis model as ‘unfit for
purpose’ in this instance is fairly lengthy. Please refer to God’s Null Hypothesis: The Banana Skin on
the Pavement… at http://martygull.blogspot.com/2011/05/chris-port-blog-261-gods-null.html?spref=tw
for elaboration.
The student’s counter-examples of accepted binary opposites, while ingenious
and correct in themselves, merely exploit category errors. The student is quite
right to assert that ‘cold’ and ‘darkness’ are not existent properties but the
absence of other existent properties. However, these are not analogous to God.
There are many putative definitions that may be proposed for God, but none of
them are based on the absence of other properties. God is always asserted as a
presence, not an absence.
It is correct to say that cold is the absence of heat, and that darkness is the
absence of light. However, whatever God may (or may not) be, He is not usually
described as the absence of Devil, or Evil, or Science (or whatever). This
would seem to be a mere ‘Straw God’, a ‘God of the Gaps’ being squeezed out of
supernatural explanations by scientific ones until there is nothing left for
Him to do. A ‘God of the Science Crumbs’ is hardly a compelling argument for a
deity.
The category errors become more pronounced towards the end of the argument.
Evolution is a lengthy and insentient process, so the fact that we don’t often
‘catch it in the act’ is not equivalent to ‘not catching God in the act’. God
(in this argument) is discussed as a sentient entity with the option of
manifesting Himself in the moment. This option is not open to Evolution and so
the analogy is invalid.
As it happens, Evolution is sometimes ‘caught in the act’…
Gene change in cannibals reveals
evolution in action
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4640-gene-change-in-cannibals-reveals-evolution-in-action
Evolution in Action: Lizard Moving From
Eggs to Live Birth
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/510637-evolution-in-action-lizard-moving-from-eggs-to-live-birth
Darwin’s finches tracked to reveal
evolution in action
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4619-darwin-39-s-finches-tracked-to-reveal-evolution-in-action
While no-one has yet seen the Professor’s brain, there is always the option of
scanning it or dissecting it. Again, this option is not available with God and
so the analogy is invalid.
Finally, we come to the most telling category error: ‘Faith’. There are two
completely different senses of the term ‘Faith’ at work here.
In the case of the Professor, he is merely asking the students to trust his
judgments for the time being. He is not claiming infallibility, and the
students retain the option to challenge the Professor at any time.
God, however, is not asking for anything. He is not in the room and has not spoken
directly to the student.
The student’s ‘Faith’ in the Professor is conditional. The student’s ‘Faith’ in
God is unconditional. They are therefore not equivalent. Whether this is wise
of the student is the subject of another (far more complex) debate…
Are
morals objective or subjective? Is there anything that is morally absolute?
Wittgenstein
was wise to warn us against the ‘bewitchment’ of words. Philosophical problems
arise because of misuse of language.
When we say “ALL morality is relative” we become bewitched by the word “all”.
This is an objectivist term and thus appears to contradict the relativist sentiment
of the statement.
However, we should remember that philosophical problems are not ‘solved’ in the
same way as maths equations or discrepancies in scientific theories. The task
of philosophy is not to solve problems but to DISsolve them.
If we rephrase the statement as “EACH morality is relative” then the problem
disappears. Morality is an inter-subjective phenomenon. Inter-subjectivity is
equivalent to relativism.
Relativity is a scientific concept. It is sometimes useful to transpose
scientific ideas into philosophical ones. However, we should be wary of
confusing methodologies.
Science does not claim objectivity because it claims that there is no possible
objective frame of reference. Instead it claims to be a consistent method of
measurable approximations and falsifiable universality. That which cannot be
measured cannot be falsified, and similar conditions should create similar
results (up to the limits of the Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory).
Moral judgments are not the same as scientific measurements. ‘Facts’ form part
of our moral assessment criteria, but we are more influenced by aesthetic
judgments and cultural traditions. Morality is an interdisciplinary subject,
and moral arguments are based on emotion and rhetoric far more than empiricism.
Rape and murder are generally viewed as evil in most human cultures - except
when they are legitimized for political reasons (e.g. war). Rape and murder are
ubiquitous in the animal world, but we don’t apply moral terms to nature.
Morality, like humanity itself, is balanced precariously between the natural
and the divine. When those worlds move too far apart, we are plunged into
despair.
Heart
of Darkness
I love
this book. Anyone who hasn't read Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness doesn’t really know what they’re talking about. There is no
Jacob’s Ladder to heaven. But there is a Wittgensteinian Ladder out of the
green hell. Until you know the true horror of
reality, you can never know the true happiness of humanity. A lie, undoubtedly.
But a vital one. Question is, are you ready for happiness? ;)
‘Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Apocalypse Now” was
inspired by Heart of Darkness, a
novel by Joseph Conrad about a European named Kurtz who penetrated to the
farthest reaches of the Congo and established himself like a god. A boat sets
out to find him, and on the journey the narrator gradually loses confidence in
orderly civilization; he is oppressed by the great weight of the jungle all
around him, a pitiless Darwinian testing ground in which each living thing tries
every day not to be eaten.
What is found at the end of the journey is not
Kurtz so much as what Kurtz found: that all of our days and ways are a fragile
structure perched uneasily atop the hungry jaws of nature that will
thoughtlessly devour us. A happy life is a daily reprieve from this knowledge.’
(Roger Ebert)
Heart of Darkness (Full text)
http://www.classicalpursuits.com/toplevel/blog/info/heart-of-darkness.pdf
‘Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and
silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. “We have
lost the first of the ebb,” said the Director suddenly. I raised my head. The
offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading
to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky --
seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.’
Musical Hearts (of
Darkness)
Britain
has a heart of darkness. What (if anything) do musicals have to say about our
dark past (and even darker future)? We still haven’t learned the lessons being
taught to us by own military experts…
Deny the British empire’s crimes? No,
we ignore them.
‘Interrogation
under torture was widespread. Many of the men were anally raped, using knives,
broken bottles, rifle barrels, snakes and scorpions. A favourite technique was
to hold a man upside down, his head in a bucket of water, while sand was rammed
into his rectum with a stick. Women were gang-raped by the guards. People were
mauled by dogs and electrocuted. The British devised a special tool which they
used for first crushing and then ripping off testicles. They used pliers to
mutilate women's breasts. They cut off inmates' ears and fingers and gouged out
their eyes. They dragged people behind Land Rovers until their bodies
disintegrated. Men were rolled up in barbed wire and kicked around the
compound.’
British Atrocities in Counter
Insurgency, Colonel (Rtd), David Benest OBE, 2011
‘There
is no comparable history of counterinsurgency anywhere in the world to match
that of the British record.’
‘The
truly disturbing aspect of this study is the manner in which senior officials
of both the military, civil service and government, thought it expedient to
steadfastly refuse to face the facts when atrocities took place. The ‘system’
has long taken the view that while it knows these crimes have been (and are)
committed, to admit to them - until forced by sheer weight of incontestable
evidence – is that admission would ‘give aid and comfort’ to the enemy. It is
furthermore of great concern that official papers on such matters were/are
withheld from the National Archive on grounds of political sensitivity.’
The Object Beyond War:
Counterinsurgency and the Four Tools of Political Competition, Montgomery
McFate, Ph.D., J.D., & Andrea V. Jackson
‘
In the most basic sense, an insurgency is a competition for power. According to
British Brigadier General Frank Kitson, “[T]here can be no such thing as [a]
purely military solution because insurgency is not primarily a military
activity.” ’
‘In
any struggle for political power there are a limited number of tools that can
be used to induce men to obey. These tools are coercive force, economic
incentive and disincentive, legitimating ideology, and traditional authority.
These tools are equally available to insurgent and counterinsurgent forces.
From the perspective of the population, neither side has an explicit or
immediate advantage in the battle for hearts and minds. The civilian population
will support the side that makes it in its interest to obey. The regard for
one’s own benefit or advantage is the basis for behavior in all societies,
regardless of religion, class, or culture.’
‘
Success depends on the ability to put oneself in the shoes of the civilian
population and ask: How would I get physical and economic security if I had to
live in this situation? Why would I accept the authority claimed by the powers
that be? In the words of Max Weber, “When and why would I obey?” ’
PSYOP of the Mau-Mau Uprising
Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen
‘In all the coverage of the atrocities
in Kenya, two words are missing’
[He
means Enoch Powell…]
“Nor
can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall
use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, ‘We will have African
standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here
at home.’ We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves
everywhere.” (Enoch Powell)
Ironically,
Enoch’s words have been brought home to us in reverse. Instead of applying
illusory standards of British decency to our retreat from empire (caused by
bankruptcy, not democracy) we started importing sweatshop standards to our own
economy. We are becoming consistent with our past foreign atrocities.
“
‘Someday this war’s gonna end’. That’d be just fine with the boys on the boat.
They weren’t looking for anything more than a way home. Trouble is, I’d been
back there, and I knew that it just didn’t exist anymore. If that’s how Kilgore
fought the war, I began to wonder what they really had against Kurtz. It wasn’t
just insanity and murder. There was enough of that to go around for everyone.”
(Apocalypse Now)
Stop saying sorry for our history: For
too long our leaders have been crippled by a post-imperial cringe
[It’s
difficult to express my contempt for this article. Ironically, it’s a classic
example of the sort of moral relativism despised by right-wingers in
‘Guardianistas’. Idiots like this are dangerous. They’re not so much evil as
counter-productively stupid.]
‘Of
course, British rule had blunders, cruelties and prejudices. And yet, by
comparison with the other great empires, from the Romans and the Persians to
the French, the Dutch and the Spanish, Britain’s empire stands out as a beacon
of tolerance, decency and the rule of law.’
In
the author’s sad mad dreams, perhaps it does. In the real world, dreams have
been overtaken by events. Time to wake up.
First
Draft PhD Proposal
What
Is The Current Role of The Martyr? Skeptical Romanticism and a Metamodernist
Renaissance: The Resynthesis of Art, Science and Philosophy in the Context of
Musical Drama
Horror
“I’ve
seen horrors... horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a
murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you
have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is
necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror... Horror has a
face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your
friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly
enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces... seems a thousand
centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp
after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running
after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had
come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of
little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried, I wept like some grandmother.
I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to
remember it. I never want to forget it... I never want to forget. And then I
realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond
bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God... the genius of that.
The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.
And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that
these were not monsters, these were men... trained cadres. These men who fought
with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with
love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten
divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have
to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their
primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without
judgment... without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
