I agree with you on our lack of insight into the future, but I think that Carrol is talking about our judgment of an event in the past (namely the bombings of Dresden), which has implications for our judgment of events in the present that are either equivalent or analogous (e.g., based on the same logic though differing in scale) to it.
One doesn't retroactively blame 85% of Americans who approved of the successful atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They were ignorant of the nature of the bombs -- to say nothing of realpolitik that led to the decision to drop them.
It is disturbing, however, to find out that, in 1995, 59% of Americans still approved of dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
<blockquote>[I]n the first nineteen years after Hiroshima, most Americans did not notice this criticism [of Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]. They continued very strongly to endorse the 1945 atomic bombings, though the immediate post-Hiroshima support of 85 percent approval (with 10 percent disapproval),44 dropped somewhat in the 1950s and early 1960s. Nevertheless, nineteen years after Hiroshima, despite earlier postwar dissents from Herbert Hoover, former Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew, physicist Edward Teller, U.S. News (later U.S. News and World Report) editor David Lawrence, Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss, USSBS vice chairman Paul Nitze, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,4s and other notables, the 1945 use of the atomic bombs was not a broadly contested matter or of much concern to most Americans. The matter seemed settled and the answers obvious.
In ways that Truman probably never foresaw, attitudes changed in later years, and certainly historians have sharply argued since the mid 1960s, and the work of Gar Alperovitz (whose books do not appear on [Truman scholar Robert] Ferrell's "recommended reading" list [in his book Harry S. Truman and the Bomb: A Documentary History (Worland, Wyo.: High Plains Publishing,1996)]), about the use of the bombs on Japan in 1945. Over the years, the support for the 1945 use of the A-bombs has dropped considerably, and the opposition has grown appreciably. By 1995, when Ferrell was probably completing this useful book, approval had fallen to 59 percent, disapproval had risen to 35 percent, and America was deeply divided -- by race, gender, age, and income -- on this issue.46
In mid-1995, African Americans substantially disapproved (57 percent "anti" and 31 percent "pro") of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities, while whites overwhelmingly (64 percent to 31 percent) approved. A near-majority of American women (47 percent) disapproved of the atomic bombings of Japanese cities and 40 percent approved, while men overwhelmingly (74 percent) approved, with only 23 percent disapproving. Young adults divided almost equally (46 percent "pro" to 49 percent "anti"), while the elderly, who had lived through World War II, overwhelmingly (80 percent to 15 percent) approved. A near-majority of the comparatively poor (49 percent to 44 percent) approved, while the comparatively wealthy overwhelmingly approved of the 1945 atomic bombings (69 percent to 27 percent).47
(Barton J. Bernstein, "Truman and the A-Bomb: Targeting Noncombatants, Using the Bomb, and Defending the Decision,," Journal of Military History 62.3: 547-570, <http://www.alvernia.edu/cgi-bin/mt/text/archives/bernsteinbomb.txt>, July 1998)</blockquote>
Walter A. Davis, an esteemed literary critic, finds the return of the repressed in the act of naming the ruins of the World Trade Center "ground-zero":
<blockquote>What's in a name? Ground-zero, the term now used to designate the rubble of what was once the World Trade Center was the term coined in Alamogordo, New Mexico to identify the epicenter where the first Atomic Bomb was detonated. It was then used to locate the same place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki so that we could measure with precision the force of the Bomb and gauge its effects.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And so, we return to ground-zero and two possibilities -- one idealistic, the other ratified by events. The idealistic possibility: Hiroshima, unfinished business deep in the America psyche, returned on 9-11 to trouble us with afterthought and forethought? A mourning process long deferred would then have commenced and with it the recognition that guilt is not a psychological condition to be avoided at all costs but the primary source of knowledge and inner transformation. Internalizing that possibility we would have found what may be the true origin of ethics: the ability to realize what we have done to others when we see our deeds done to us. Ground-zero would then signify our transformation from subjects bent on rectitude and revenge to ones capable of reflection and restraint; capable of pursuing justice through international law, through the presentation of carefully gathered evidence to the United Nations and the World Court. We would have attained a recognition of the duties of world citizenship and thereby a way of honoring the innocent victims of terror with a fitting memorial.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But of course none of this happened. Nor could it. And the suggestion raises strong objections, even outrage because we have learned to recite, by rote, what has now become a national article of faith: that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, almost idealistic acts, undertaken with reluctance, as "the least abhorrent choice" but finally the only way to end the war thereby saving perhaps a million lives. (<http://users.netonecom.net/~davis65/index.html>, Walter A. Davis, "Death's Dream Kingdom:The American Psyche after 9/11," <em>Counterpunch</em>, <http://www.counterpunch.org/davis01062003.html>, January 6, 2003)</blockquote>
It is fortunate that Davis retired shortly after he published his perilous insight. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>