[Reader-list] poverty of debate on iraq

[Jamie Dow]

Polly,
Very to-the-point.

Curiously, I wonder if your email illustrates nicely the situation you
describe yourself as being in.

Our best attempts at abandoning reasons, and somehow thereby move to a
deeper discussion, giving up on good and bad, seem to be impossible. As soon
as we try, we seem to deny that we are capable of action at all. For to
choose a course of action necessarily involves seeing something good about
it. And so to abandon ever calling something 'good' is to abandon ever
choosing.

I don't think we can abandon good and bad, and the wealth of moral and
value-laden language. Part of the reason for this is that we are
psychologically incapable of the detachment this would require. But there is
a deeper reason than this. To fail to rejoice in justice, in a person's
growth & development, and to fail to be moved by another's suffering is a
failure of perception - a failure to see things that are there in the world.
And to see properly is to see some things as good, just, progress, and
others as cruel, sick, wrong. And it is to see these things as reasons for
action.

Review the last few emails - those that try to abandon evaluative language
actually just smuggle it back in on the sly!

What we do need is a more nuanced understanding of moral concepts, one that
is not characterised by a "one size fits all" cultural insensitivity, and a
failure to appreciate fully that moral decisions depend on specific
circumstances. But that is still to retain the concepts.

I am curious about a couple of things:
- why would it be humble to stop trying to change the world?
- how might giving up on trying to communicate through agreed concepts &
values possibly result in *deeper more meaningful* discussion? Giving up on
these things is to give up on communication itself, and the result of that
would be silence and isolation, no?
- why you characterise the 2 projects as activist and intellectualist. I
would like to claim both of these labels! ;-) Activism means talking about
how to act, and that is what I am doing. Intellectualism involves advancing
reasons, also what I am trying to do. I wonder if "aestheticism" or
"empiricism" might be better terms for the project of describing the flux of
forces, trying to understand them, with emotions fully engaged.

I remain to be convinced that we do not need good reasons to go to war!
Nor incidentally that there could never be good reasons for going to war.

Thanks for all this.

Jamie



-----Original Message-----
From: reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net
[mailto:reader-list-admin at mail.sarai.net]On Behalf Of polly hazarika
Sent: 20 February 2003 10:26
To: reader-list at sarai.net
Subject: [Reader-list] poverty of debate on iraq



  the war on iraq has thrown up exactly the kind of responses that
all debates on activism vs intellectualism seem to end up in...

jamie...is it even necessary to go looking for 'rational'
arguements for going to war? why would you assume that there is
any kind of 'justification'? simply pointing out that the reasons
forwarded by the US are not 'sufficent' or not 'clearly proved'
naturally suggests that in some cases a war would be
justified?...can we never speak about war except in this way,
where it may not be desired now...but is always a possibility
looming over the horizon?
i find it very difficult to imagine that the situation would be
any different even if all your suggestions were implimented...

  Are...i too want to believe that this is a world in flux, in
which concepts such as a universal 'good' and 'bad' are of not
much use in understanding anything...the problem is that if one
lets go of even that..then 'doing' becomes so impossible...and in
the face of the flux it even becomes futile...and i for one have
not acquired the humility to give up the attempt to 'change the
world' :)


Rana...just curious...is it really better to engage in arguements
at a 'level that everyone can agree on'? i probably do that myself
too all the time...but i was just thinking...maybe that is what
keeps the issue in binaries....maybe its just that kind of
political move that disables a deeper discussion...
between getting everyone to agree and saying something
meaningful...i at least have not yet been able to make the
choice.

:)
polly




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