Thursday, September 04, 2008
An Evening With Shyster
Last night while I was drinking Shyster's fine beer and Bushmills (good Irish Catholic whiskey), I told him that, if I wasn't diagnosed with a mild form of asthma back in my younger-younger days, I'd likely be in some branch of the military right now. Then he accused me of perpetuating the nationalistic state that humanity needs to blah-blah-blah. I told him that Tolstoy and Nietzsche and Musil served time in the military, and had much greater insight into humanity because of it. Then he said something like, "blah-blah-blah perpetuating the neo-Con policies of blah-blah-blah..." Then I drank more of his beer and Bushmills.
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14 comments:
Just like a bastard to bastardize the actual exchange...
I could get much greater insight into humanity by learning to give enemas and proceeding to give enemas to 10,000 people. This is not a good reason to do such a thing.
My only real point, so deftly dodged by MFT (who will likely blame the whisky rather than his fear of taking me on point-for-point), was that if you sign on for military service, you do not abdicate personal responsibility and accountability by some vague reference to military structure or "following orders" or even "making sure my friends and I don't get shot." If you are fighting in an unjust war and kill someone, you are accountable for that; the blame is not properly placed on the leaders who started the war, as it was your choice to enter into a position wherein you were forced to kill.
Another point I attempted to make was that there may be some wars for which I'd be the first at the recruiter's office to sign up and fight. If you join the military, however, you do not get to make that choice. You go where you are told, and kill who they tell you to kill. You are, nonetheless, responsible; even if you kill a shack full of innocent people while fighting in a political war that no sane person would call just (and this is a hypothetical war, let's not turn this into a trite debate on Iraq).
Also, my statement on nationalism that MFT will likely pass off as "political discussion" out of fear of being incapable of responding, was simply this: The nation-state system is outdated and is to me a silly and anachronistic remnant of an age of humanity that should have passed long ago.
Since the views of others on the topic are apparently of interest, however, I'll end with this.
“Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. ''Patriotism'' is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by ''patriotism'' I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare /never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.”
~Erich Fromm
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
~Albert Einstein
“Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
~George Orwell
Also, you forgot to mention the beer-cheese soup. That was some damn fine soup.
OK, thanks mft. I had to hear the gist of shyster's shystings and now I get none of his damned fine beer and bushmills.
You owe me skilletboy.
As to you, Shyster, I (for one) appreciate your showing mft how to argue properly. Particularly the part about My only real point, so deftly dodged by MFT (who will likely blame the whisky rather than his fear of taking me on point-for-point),
I think he fakes a real whiskey habit because he would certainly have to have a healthy income to support the bullshit he tries to get away with here.
Pepe must own Saudi Arabia.
About your idea that nations are passé, I suggest you suggest something better than what we have.
The USA is a post-nation already, yet it holds together because of nationalist-sound sentiments.
A nation ought at least to have some common culture, but we don't. We essentially say that whoever accepts the Constitution can be a citizen, much like whomever accepts Christ is a Christian.
We can't let everyone in at once for practical reasons, and that's why we try to export our Americanness out to the rest of the world in the form of wars that you probably think are illegal, immoral, and fattening, or whatever.
Jesus, mft had a point that you're flat wrong, y'know?
mft, sorry about all the nasty things I have said.
Except about sumo. Who in the fuck cares about sumo?
Parroting party line (whether it's from the Right, or in Shyster's case, the Left) doesn't represent the higher realms of discourse I'm accoustomed to. You can join the military and not kill, Shyster: there are plenty of medics, and they are trained (this is after the 8-13 weeks of regular boot camp) to take care of any wounded, sick, and so on and so forth (you can feel Shyster rolling his eyes about here, and saying to his monitor, "Gimme a fucking break...").
I thought we laid this "just" and "unjust" mumbo-jumbo to rest last night, anyhow? If you want to use logic, then elaborate on what you mean by "just" and "unjust."
Or I can see where this is going already: you'll say "There's no AQ in Iraq," and then I'll say, "You're wrong: AQ is in Iraq, it's called AQ in Iraq, and my bro-in-law and other friends in the service are in Iraq struggling with and fighting them on a day-to-day basis." This is why Marine Recon-Snipers were placed along the Iraq-Syria border during and after the initial invasion: I've interviewed at least one, and have seen the pictures of weapons being brought into be used by the religious nuts.
The problem, here, is that you're confusing your understandable disgust with this soon-to-be outgoing administration with the desire you've expressed in the past, that is, to use secularism to combat religious fanatacism, domestic or abroad. Then I bring up a singular piece of evidence within the broader context, that is, some Kurdish neighbors who reside in Bismarck, and are here because of the late ruthless dictator, and you dodge this by saying, "What is the U.S. supposed to run around policing the world?"
By this point, of course, I've already downed a couple of your imported beers, and a couple shots of Bushmills.
That's really neat what Eric Fromm said, but a nation-state to you inherently implies Nationalism and Patriotism. Nation-states will continue to rise and fall within this evolutionary ameoba we call Western Civilization: something we know exists, but that of which escapes conventional geopolitical packaging. A nation-state does not imply puffed chests and us vs. them (the stuff political parties promote -- yeah, I know you'd get it). Those are human emotions, concepts currently ascribed to nation-states, but concepts that ante-date and will continue so long as humanity is around.
History is not a morality tale. It's one continuous tragedy.
Shyster, you must have your book of quotes right by your computer. I didn't even get beyond that Eric Fromm one. Should we just start having quote-offs? You know, so we don't actually have to contextualize the quotes with the historical context in which they rose out of?
JJ, I drink whiskey when it comes along. Last night, it was along. So I had a couple slugs of it with Shyster.
A nation ought at least to have some common culture, but we don't. We essentially say that whoever accepts the Constitution can be a citizen, much like whomever accepts Christ is a Christian.
JJ, Fernand Braudel and I want you to define "culture" for us.
~mft
Just like a bastard to bastardize the actual exchange...
Good friends bastardize eachother like this.
I could get much greater insight into humanity by learning to give enemas and proceeding to give enemas to 10,000 people.
Shyster, what you do in your spare time is your business, but we want a full report with graphs, but no pictures. Absolutely NOOOOO pictures.
mft, anyone who knows who Ferdinand Bordel is has no culture.
Here's a reference for Shyster's benefit.
This is another one of my free historical consultations, Shyster.
Honestly, I think you use the "parroting party line" and "political discourse" evasion far too often. Simply because you disagree with something I say does not make it a "party line" or "political discourse." And I mean this sincerely; you insult my intelligence when you insinuate that my opinions and views are no more than regurgitations of some "party line." I could just as easily call you a neo-con warmonger for your views, but that's ad hominem; it's just that yours is veiled and mine is not. At any rate, I'll move on to the actual disagreement, which you did respond to in part.
You're right, you may not need to kill if you're in the military (though this is one hell of a gamble if you're going to plant yourself in the middle of a kill-or-be-killed warzone). I suppose if you were a medic saving lives, and never taking any, then my hypothetical scenario would be inapposite.
Whether a war is "just" or "unjust" is largely a subjective call I suppose, but it's one that many of us can make. This is most easily illustrated with extremes. Waging all-out war on Canada because we don't like how close together their eyes are is likely to be an "unjust" war. If you fight in that war and kill a bunch of Canucks because you claim to have no choice within the military structure in which you've enrolled, then my point is that you are, nonetheless, still accountable for the death of those poor Canucks.
As for the couple living in Bismarck, I apologize, I did not take that as an illustration of anything, but rather as a tired appeal to sentiment. In other words, I thought you were using a red herring and placing this poor couple up on a pedestal and rather than responding to my point, you said "look at them, are you saying you want them to go live under Saddam? How terrible."
As for using "secularism to combat religious fanatacism, domestic or abroad," I'll just point out that your example of a "singular piece of evidence within the broader context" involved a family fleeing from a secular government, which, as a result of our intervention, has now been replaced by an Islamic government. As I said, though, I honestly do not want to talk about Iraq, and I'm still not following a lot of what you say.
What is the purpose of your example of the couple in Bismarck? What does it illustrate?
And finally, for jj and MFT, I don't pretend to have a newer and better system worked out. I do agree that the us vs. them mentality is human borne and is channeled through the nation state concept rather than created by it. I think that as our economies globalize, though, we are finding that the emphasis we place on the nation-state is becoming unworkable; hence the EU, NAFTA, and the many acronyms out there describing economic blocs. We'll continue integrating, and hopefully someday in the future some aliens will come down and bomb someone and we'll all get pissed and the aliens will become them and then humanity will become one giant us and we'll kick some major alien ass in a just war to save humanity, and we'll all live happily ever after drinking our Bushmills and beer and eating our beer-cheese soup while arguing not only about philosophy and the state of the planet, but about whether or not we're arguing about those things as well.
And MFT. I say in the future, if we don't resolve a dispute within 60 minutes, we take 10 shots and put our new cast-iron skillets on our heads and run at each other from opposite ends of the Mason hallway. That'll learn us.
Shyster, maybe you'd like to join us at the retreat mft proposed. We can us versus them till the cows come home out in the boonies.
Bring yer skillets, though.
Honestly, I think you use the "parroting party line" and "political discourse" evasion far too often. Simply because you disagree with something I say does not make it a "party line" or "political discourse." And I mean this sincerely; you insult my intelligence when you insinuate that my opinions and views are no more than regurgitations of some "party line." I could just as easily call you a neo-con warmonger for your views, but that's ad hominem; it's just that yours is veiled and mine is not. At any rate, I'll move on to the actual disagreement, which you did respond to in part.
I said, "I'd probably be in the military if I wasn't diagnosed with asthma when I was younger..." Then you got to a point where you said that's perpetuating neo-Con policy. As for joining, I was thinking along the lines completely removed from politics. From my vantage, you politicized it. But they say there are several different ways of looking at the same egg.
And speaking of looking at eggs from different angles, we'll also need to figure out a harness system for the skillets. I don't think mine will stay on at a dead sprint down the hallway, or otherwise. I suppose we can hold them with our hands, but then we won't be able to chug beer and whiskey while in-bound. We need to formulate better technology and strategery.
Shyster, shut up for a second and look at this.
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