However, "remaining silent" is perhaps not the best description of what WS recommends, since it can connote a refusal to be aware. One must speak up (as WS in fact does) against those who fall into the trap of taking action purely for its own sake and resist the easy falsehood that not to take sides is to attempt to escape responsibility.
On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 8:31 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bill: "Good God, are you still backing the bloody military dictatorship in
> Egypt? The blood in the streets doesn't cut any ice with you?"
>
> [WS:] Your thinking on this issue seems to be caught in the straitjacket
> of a false dichotomy of whom "we" should support - the military or Islamic
> Brotherhood. This is based on a fundamentally flawed premise that 'we"
> (meaning the US liberals and lefties) should do or support someone in this
> situation. The fact of the matter is, however, that this situation is a
> mess and the best thing 'we' can do is to remain silent and refrain from
> passing judgments on something that 'we' do not grasp.
>
> I understand it may be unsettling, that watching 'blood in the streets'
> requires closure and symbolic support of one of the sides of this conflict
> may give that sense of closure. But closure seeking can also be a sign of
> intellectual weakness - an easy escape from a situation of facing the
> unknown, the incomprehensible, and the insolvable into the safe shallow
> waters of canned speech and moral certitudes.
>
> I personally cannot empathize with Islamists of any kind - what they stand
> for is too reprehensible to my sensibilities - but the incompetence and
> heavy handedness of the military handling the situation is equally
> reprehensible. Ditto for Syria. So I stopped looking for closure - I just
> watch how the situation unravels and refrain from making judgments and
> taking sides. Remaining silent looks like the best option in this
> situation.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Wojtek
>
> "An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."
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