Caesar said:
"Yes, but if we actually stopped whining, stomping our feet, and making statements of 'moral responsiblity', we might actually have to DO something, and you know, ACT. It's so much easier to abstain out of priniciple and avoid responsibilty for failure, even if it means giving up credit for success. Who cares if our best friend asked for our help? He acted like a dick, so we should sit here and let him fix the problem. Never mind that he is our primary client, and we his, teaching our friend a lessen is way more important than our financial health. We'll show him! Were doing this for the poor soul he's beating up...it's so unfair! You want us to actually help the poor lad? No. We didn't start it, we'll let our buddy sort it out. But don't misunderstand, we care about the poor boy, just not enough to step in and help pick him up. Our friend understands. I hope we're still invited to his party next week....."
Lol....
Glorified Ape said:
I'm sure that's how the "Jihadis" see it too.
You're most likely correct. I refuse to put conflicts into some "Good" and "Evil" boxes - people on each side see themselves and their cause as "good". I feel that "Evil" only exists on the plane of Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons, where factions recognize their cause as evil and pursue it for that reason....(I always wanted to fit those games into a political discussion...
).
That being said, how does one decide where to place their energy and support? Who to support if nothing ever lives up to the altruistic aims it holds as its ideals? I would (and do) approach it in a bit of a rough Mill-esque Utilitarian approach.
No political or social system will ever provide everyone with satisfaction. People will always slip through the cracks and many will never be happy with their lot in life. The way I see it, one should look to what systems provide
the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. As I said, the analysis is always rough, injustice will inevitably occur, and when you got down to smaller levels of community, divergence and reevaluation of what constitutes "good" can occur.
But basically, one can hold some sort of Hobbesian definition of "natural law" as a universal constant of how to compare social systems:
"The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto."
People, for the most part, really just want to live in peace, raise a family, and not have to worry about getting killed. Throw religion into this, and it is unchanging - people want to live their lives in peace as good children of God/Allah/Jehovah/etc/etc and make it to the afterlife (for which, Tolerance is required).
You can apply this basic model and see that Democracy, although far from perfect, has done a far better job of providing these goods
in the greatest amount to the greatest number of people. Looking at fascism, communism, and absolutism in the 20th century, they simply didn't make the cut. I look at the condition most people in the Middle East are in and I can make the same judgement; people under autocratic dictatorships or fundamentalist theocracies don't get to pursue a basic law of nature to the extent that they can under a more liberal social system. Sure, some may prosper (the mullahs, the sheiks), but most don't, and end up being victimized in something approaching Hobbes'
State of Nature (They have no legitimate covenant with the Leviathan, so they instead becomes victims of it).
Call it Westernism gone rampant, closed-mindedness, or an inability to see through others eyes if you want, but I think the proof is in the pudding by the fact that Iranian students continually push for reform, immigrants flock to instead of from the West, and most of the world's prosperity lies within societies which structure their systems around liberal democratic principles (I'm not talking about prosperity in terms of material goods, I'm talking about prosperity in terms of QOL, education, food, and relative peace and security - factors that support Hobbes' First Law).
Until a system that comes about that replaces the liberal democratic order in Utilitarian terms, I really care not for "Jihadis" who see us as interfearing with their "profit and personal pleasure" because the profit and personal pleasure benefits few at the expense of women (who are shunted away), outsiders (who are regarded as idolaters), and society in general (who have no choice in many of the aspects of life - if they derivate, they are beheaded). I have no doubt that we will often go afoul with many of our policies in the West - to err is human - but I have no compunction against claiming that, in the long run, the path we are taking is as good as it gets.
