The Wager (Re: Interview with Noam Chomsky by Radio B92, Belgrade (fwd)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Tue Sep 18 11:13:29 PDT 2001



> > That costly and protracted wars with high levels of casualties tend
>> to destablize all states involved, heightening social contradictions
> > & bringing down some regimes, is a matter of historical knowledge
>> (Cf. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War), independent of our ethical
>> preferences. How you make use of such historical knowledge
>> politically is up to you. BTW, there is another possibility that I
>> have not mentioned in my post that you condemn:
>>
>=========
>Historical knowledge is never independent of all agents ethical
>preferences; indeed alot of history is made as a result of agents
>ethical preferences. The independence assumption of 'historical
>methods' is too problematic to be of use at this juncture.
>
>Ian

That costly and protracted wars with high levels of casualties tend to destablize all states involved, heightening social contradictions & bringing down some regimes appears to me to be one of the truths that individuals of contradictory ethical and political dispositions can recognize, be they religious fundamentalist worriers, strategists for the U.S. national security state, or Noam Chomsky, if they do not to act like an ostrich with his head in the sand (and they don't, unlike some LBO-talkers).

While (A) all of us should do all we can to prevent a U.S. war on Middle-Eastern nations from happening, it is probable (B) that we will not be able to prevent it from beginning, given objective circumstances (only one in the entire U.S. Congress voting against war; a far larger number of Americans preferring military action, even if it results in civilian casualties, than those who desire other options; marginality and disorganization of leftists in the US; US governing elite's willingness to exploit the WTC bombings to test what Americans tolerate; etc.). (A) expresses my ethical preference; (B) is my prediction based upon historical knowledge and objective analysis of current conditions. Therefore, I think leftists should think about what may result from (B) & how to respond to it, and in that spirit I've laid out several possibilities (one of which may likely doom us all, whatever we do).

Try not to be an ostrich.

Yoshie



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