Compromise and Conceit

5 responses to “Comments Censored at Crooked Timber: Gaza Edition”

1. 

   J-D

   October 21, 2023

   The IDF are the most dishonest organization in the world

   Reading this makes me want to say to people I know: ‘I’ve got a question for you. Which would you say is the most dishonest organisation in the world?’

   If somebody asked me that question, one of the first thoughts that would pop into my mind would be the question of whether it makes sense to describe an organisation as being dishonest. Reflecting on it, I am inclined to think that there is a sense in which organisations can be dishonest, although it might be worth thinking about the difference between an organisation being dishonest and an individual being dishonest. Probably there is a difference between organisations which mostly honest, organisations which are somewhat dishonest, and organisations which are extremely dishonest. Is it something which can be measured, though? Could there be a unit of measurement, with, say, one organisation being 2.71 decibaphs dishonest and another organisation being 3.06 decibaphs dishonest? I don’t think so. Still, there are situations where it is possible to make comparative judgements without having a unit of measurement; it’s not necessary to have a unit of measurement for length (although it might help) to determine which of a group of objects is the longest. I guess it might make sense, at least in some instances, to compare two organisations and decide which of them is more dishonest and which less dishonest. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that there’s no way to compile a list of all the organisations in the world, and given that’s true, I can’t figure any way that anybody could determine which is the most dishonest organisation in the world. I might possibly have some justification for thinking that such-and-such an organisation is extremely dishonest, but there’s no possible way I could be sure that there isn’t some other organisation (or maybe lots of other organisations) which I have never even heard of but which is much more dishonest.

   So you chose to write ‘The IDF is the most dishonest organization in the world’ when there is no possible way you could know that to be true, and when you could have chosen to write something different such as ‘The IDF is an extremely dishonest organisation’. I think it would be interesting to know the reason you made that choice.

   I hope amongst it there will be some more serious material assessing where the liberal academic worldview went so wrong, but don’t hold out too much hope – I’m angry about the horrors being done by our governments, and if you’re not angry too (or if you’re angry at the wrong targets) you need to be reassessing your humanity.

   If my dominant response is not anger but grief, does that make me less human than you?

2. 

   faustusnotes

   October 21, 2023

   Since I wrote this J-D the IDF have bombed a hospital and killed 500 people, then denied it in the most slippery and grotesque way, while media organizations around the world rush to launder their lies. So I guess yeah you could say that some media orgs are more dishonest than the IDF. I can’t be bothered arguing about the distinction, the point remains that you simply can’t trust anything they said – as evidenced by the account of the survivor I linked to, who basically disputes every single point of the massacre narrative as it was presented. Now that lie is being used for war crimes. This is a Marco Polo Bridge, Gulf of Tomkin type activity. It’s hardly surprising to see in action, is it?

   It’s interesting that you bring up grief. Perhaps I would have been better off saying “if you aren’t angry you need to assess your analytical framework”, which doesn’t have the same rhetorical power but would have been much more accurate. I remember a year or two ago reading somewhere something that, if roughly paraphrased, would have said “the sole political role of the liberal is to bear witness to atrocity, grieving and doing nothing.” I think it was in response to a US mass shooting, and the way that liberal politicians in America would say so much about how upset they were and do nothing. Grieving is the left’s “thoughts and prayers”. Grief is the common emotional response to any loss of life, whether due to earthquake or old age or mass murder. Anger is the additional emotional response you feel when you know who did it and why they did it, and can do nothing about it. Grief proves your humanity, but stopping there also shows you aren’t willing to do anything about it. We, of course, can’t, so fine, don’t get angry. But our politicians, policy-makers, pundits, anyone with any influence *can* do something about it and they should! They should be angry! We shouldn’t just stand by shedding tears for hundreds of dead children murdered in a hospital by a criminal regime: we should get angry!

3. 

   J-D

   October 23, 2023

   Reading this makes me want to say to people I know: ‘I’ve got a question for you. Which would you say is the most dishonest organisation in the world?’

   I actually did this and can report on results if anybody’s interested. (It was interesting to me because of what it illustrated to me about the different ways people’s minds work.)

   I can’t be bothered arguing about the distinction, the point remains that you simply can’t trust anything they said – as evidenced by the account of the survivor I linked to, who basically disputes every single point of the massacre narrative as it was presented.

   Did I miss something? I can’t find the link you mention.

   That aside, if you are relying on an account which disputes every point of the narrative presented by the IDF, why are you relying on that account?

   I do find the following in your post:

   It turns out …

   That expression signals that what follows is your account. I surmise that it is a second-hand account (if you were giving a first-hand account I would expect you to introduce it with a different expression), relying on sources which you have not identified and whose reliability I therefore have no basis for evaluating.

   The idf announced it was doing air strikes in the area, info available on the cnn website but strangely not mentioned, …

   If you don’t trust anything the IDF says, it’s odd that you’re citing this announcement as if it is a reliable source of information (at least, it seems to me as if that’s how you’re citing it).

   Hamas’s account of the events …

   If you are trusting accounts given by Hamas more than accounts given by the IDF, you haven’t explained why.

   It’s hardly surprising to see in action, is it?

   It’s not surprising to me that people lie; it’s also not surprising to me that people tell the truth; and to round things out, it’s not surprising to me that people make statements which they believe to be true but which in fact are not. I’ve done all of these things in my lifetime and I imagine the same is true of everybody, or at any rate nearly everybody.

   It’s interesting that you bring up grief.

   It’s been on my mind for a personal reason. Recently I read a message in a WhatsApp group from one of my relatives about how one of their relatives (on the other side of their family, so not somebody I’m related to, and in fact somebody I’d never previously heard of) had been killed, and how there were no words to describe what the funeral was like. So I had to think about what kind of response from me was appropriate, and how I felt about it. I did feel grief, and part of my response was that I also had no words.

   Perhaps I would have been better off saying “if you aren’t angry you need to assess your analytical framework”, which doesn’t have the same rhetorical power but would have been much more accurate.

   If I’m not angry, what problem with my analytical framework does that indicate?

   Grief is the common emotional response to any loss of life, whether due to earthquake or old age or mass murder.

   Is it, though? I’m sure the way I felt about my relative’s relative being killed was not the same as the grief felt by my relative, and I don’t expect that your emotional response would be the same as mine, either. I’m not sure it would be accurate to say that I feel grief when I hear any report of people being killed, but I think it would be fair to say that it always makes me feel some sadness. However, even if this is true about me, I doubt it’s true about everybody. I didn’t mention (and I’m not going to) whether my relative’s relative was Australian or British or American or Japanese or any of the many other nationalities they might have been; I didn’t mention whether they were a police officer, or somebody killed by a police officer, or a Palestinian killed by an Israeli, or an Israeli killed by a Palestinian, or a Ukrainian killed by a Russian, or a Russian killed by a Ukrainian, or a Uighur killed by a Chinese soldier, or a Chinese soldier killed by a Uighur, or any of the other things they might conceivably have been: I mention these possibilities because I’m sure that they would make a difference to whether people felt grief or sadness on hearing the report–that is, maybe not you, and maybe not me, but some people, I’m sure.

   Anger is the additional emotional response you feel when you know who did it and why they did it, and can do nothing about it.

   This statement, in the form which you have made it, is demonstrably false. If you mean that anger is the emotional response which faustusnotes feels in those circumstances, you may be right for all I know, but in the form in which you made the statement it meant that anger is the emotional response which J-D feels in those circumstances, and I can assure you that is not the case. What (if anything) do you think that reveals about me?

   We, of course, can’t, so fine, don’t get angry. But our politicians, policy-makers, pundits, anyone with any influence *can* do something about it and they should! They should be angry!

   When people are being killed and there are other people who can do something about it, then they should do something about it. I don’t know, however, why you’re insisting that they should be angry. When there’s something I should be doing, I don’t have to be angry in order to do it.

   We shouldn’t just stand by shedding tears for hundreds of dead children murdered in a hospital by a criminal regime: we should get angry!

   I can’t figure what good that would do.

4. 

   faustusnotes

   October 23, 2023

   Sorry J-D, the link to the account of what happened in the attack is in my other post, and I didn’t link to it in this one (or in the comment at CT) because I was on a train when I wrote this. That account is an interview with a woman who survived the attack, i.e. it is a first-hand account of what happened, not laundered through the multiple spin-machines of the IDF, and it makes for unpleasant reading (which is why it’s not available anymore inside Israel, I guess). I think it’s helpful to read that account and bear it in mind when trying to interpret IDF statements about anything else that happened on that or any other day in this war. They lie, all the time. I think your other questions (why do you believe the IDF when they say they were doing air strikes on the Kibbutz, why do you believe Hamas) are just nit-picking, but in brief: the IDF often brag about their air strikes, and they’re often verifiable with damage on the ground, and in this case the air strikes they announced are consistent with the account from the ground of civilian deaths; and I didn’t say I believed Hamas, but their story differs from the IDFs, and is consistent with the account of the survivor, which gives it more weight; and actually do we have any evidence that Hamas are consistently dishonest? I’ve never put much thought into the matter but it’s inconceivable that they’re less dishonest than the IDF.

   I think in the second half of this comment you appear to be confusing the existence of grief with levels of grief. I’m not really interested in schooling you on whether, how, why or when you should get angry about the mass murder of children in a ghetto; let’s just say that if you’re not at least in some way a little bothered by this, I’m disappointed in you (person I’ve never met who occasionally comments on my blog!)

5. 

   J-D

   October 24, 2023

   Sorry J-D

   Hey, no sweat (person I’ve never met whose blog I read and who replies to my comments). I mentioned that I couldn’t find it only because that meant I was unable to comment on its content. (This is unchanged, because I haven’t figured out which of the links in your other post is the relevant one.)

   the link to the account of what happened in the attack is in my other post, and I didn’t link to it in this one (or in the comment at CT) because I was on a train when I wrote this.

   I am not at all surprised to find out that there is an explanation like this. You’ll notice that I wrote ‘Did I miss something?’ I miss things sometimes, naturally (and naturally other people do too).

   That account is an interview with a woman who survived the attack, i.e. it is a first-hand account of what happened …

   That’s what you tell me it is, and presumably what you’ve been given to believe it it, and it easily could be, as far as my knowledge goes, but then again, on the other hand, as far as my knowledge goes, it might have been misrepresented (with intent to deceive or, also a possibility, without an intent to deceive) as such. What one person tells another is sometimes true and sometimes not; if somebody tells an interviewer ‘I am a survivor of the attack’, it’s likely enough to be true, but not certain. I don’t know the basis for your confidence in it.

   … actually do we have any evidence that Hamas are consistently dishonest? I’ve never put much thought into the matter but it’s inconceivable that they’re less dishonest than the IDF.

   ‘I do not think that word means what you think it means.’ You may find it impossible to conceive, but I don’t. I’ve never given any thought to the question ‘Which organisation is more dishonest, Hamas or the IDF?’ but now that I’m doing so (and given my previous comment you really should be expecting this) I’m thinking ‘I’ve got no idea how I, or anybody else, could figure out the answer to that question, but it could easily be either, or neither.’ I don’t know what gives you your confidence that Hamas is less dishonest than the IDF.

   I’m not really interested in schooling you on whether, how, why or when you should get angry about the mass murder of children in a ghetto; let’s just say that if you’re not at least in some way a little bothered by this, I’m disappointed in you (person I’ve never met who occasionally comments on my blog!)

   Again, given my previous comment, you really should be expecting my response (since this is where the conversation has gone) that I’m practically always at least a little bit bothered in some way when I hear that somebody has been killed. Would you say the same? Does it bother you in some way when you hear that people have been killed, no matter who they were and no matter who killed them? (You are, of course, under no obligation to respond to these questions. You haven’t responded to some of my earlier questions, either. I have no specific expectation that you’ll respond to any given question I ask, and I don’t feel disappointed when you don’t, anonymous person who writes what you like in your own blog because you happen to feel like doing so. I frame the questions because I consider them worth thinking about.)

   Backtracking to parts of what you wrote earlier:

   I’m angry about the horrors being done by our governments, and if you’re not angry too (or if you’re angry at the wrong targets) you need to be reassessing your humanity.

   It’s not clear from what you’ve written there which governments you consider to be included in the category of ‘our governments’. It’s not the kind of expression I would be likely to use myself. I might just possibly say ‘my government’ if I meant the Australian government, although I’d be more likely to say ‘the government of my country’, and I suppose it’s conceivable (though even less likely) that I’d say ‘our governments’ if I meant the Australian government and the New South Wales government, or the Australian government and the governments of all the Australian States (and self-governing territories). I don’t get the feeling that you’re using the expression ‘our governments’ in that way. I think it matters more because this unclarity links up with the unclarity about what you mean by ‘the wrong targets’. If you’re angry about horrors being perpetrated, then the right target for that anger would be those who are perpetrating those horrors. I think many countries’ governments are currently perpetrating horrors. If we add in those governments which may not currently be perpetrating horrors but which have recently perpetrated horrors which are still fresh (if that’s a distinction that can meaningfully be made), we might have to include most governments. If somebody was angry at all governments for the governmental perpetration of horrors, would they be angry at the wrong targets? What about if somebody was angry at non-governmental perpetrators of horrors as well as governmental ones: would that be anger at the wrong targets?

   I remember a year or two ago reading somewhere something that, if roughly paraphrased, would have said “the sole political role of the liberal is to bear witness to atrocity, grieving and doing nothing.” I think it was in response to a US mass shooting, and the way that liberal politicians in America would say so much about how upset they were and do nothing.

   I think that there’s a common enough situation where people properly bear grieving witness to atrocity when there is nothing else it is within their power to do. (I think, for example, of my personal response to my relative, the one I mentioned earlier.) This thought naturally leads on to the question of what it is within people’s power to do, but also to the question of what counts as ‘doing something about it’. I wrote in a previous comment:

   When people are being killed and there are other people who can do something about it, then they should do something about it.

   Notice that I wrote ‘are being killed’ and not ‘have been killed’ (which I think now was the correct choice, although I can’t recall how much I reflected on that when composing the earlier comment.) For the people who have already been killed, there is nothing that can be done. There is nothing we can do now about the atrocity which Rome perpetrated against Carthage two millennia ago, except to remember it and bear witness to the fact that it was an atrocity. If we are angry, or bothered, or grieved about killings, horrors, and atrocities, then what we should do about it is try (on whatever scale is within the scope of our influence) to make the world a less atrocious, a less horrifying, a less murderous, a less violent, a kinder place. It’s often difficult to know what influence you or I might be able to exert to change the world in that direction, but I think it is worth recognising the importance of at least framing the right question. Castigation of politicians for doing nothing about it is more pointed the more you are able to say about what it is you think they should be doing about it.