----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 4:34 PM Subject: Re: Just Wars
> Ian wrote -- in a post that Netscape wouldn't quote for some reason; I
> had to cut and paste it:
>
> "Nope, sorry it hasn't. Nor, I believe could it, for to do so would be
> to achieve moral certitude."
>
> It takes exactly as much moral certitude to condemn a war as it does to
> support it. Would you really have the godlike wisdom to declare the
> Vietnamese should not have resisted?
>
> Aren't you one of those who like to call reflexivity alerts? :-)
>
> The historical fact is that _any_ claim to moral judgment, including
> disapproval of murder on moral grounds, gets you into impossible
> antinomies.
>
> Carrol
==========
Carrol,
Indeed you are correct and that was my point.......The issue was not resistance as genuine defense when there are no antecedent politico-economic or other non-violent provocations of an "adversary" who inaugurates violence, but the inauguration of hostilities and the use of the preemptory defense justification. If I had written "reflexivity alert" it would have been redundant.
If we are to remain agnostic about the morality/ethics of war then why should anyone get upset about arms races and militarism? It's the tragedy of the slippery slope. Again, though, I would ask; in the absence of moral certitude where does the moral authority to inaugurate violence or command/persuade others to engage in violence come from and where does the moral authority to alienate the responsibility to refrain from violence come from? If we attempt to avoid the moral/immoral binarism then why do human beings even attempt to ask questions about "just wars", which are questions about the causes of wars [ex post] not what human beings do in war once they are attacked. Why should we even care what Bob Kerry and others have done? Why should Bob Kerry and others "suffer" "trauma" from their actions? It would be like asking about how angels can remain invisible. Yes these are the deepest antinomies and we are compelled to deal with them now more than ever "here" in the empire at the start of what could be another barbarous century if we are not careful.
Ian