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The reality of these lines are usually less noble than you describe in many cases. As an example, if you read about the motivations of specific actors in the A
by rtpg 8y ago
The reality of these lines are usually less noble than you describe in many cases.
As an example, if you read about the motivations of specific actors in the American revolutionary war, many of the top dissenters were basically interested in not paying taxes and being the boss of their own piece of land (instead of having oversight from across the pond). Nobody is ethically pure, of course, but the main push for the revolutionary war was done out of massive self-interest from people in power.
"There was a time that we were noble" is something that rarely plays out in practice. Why should it? If anything humanity has gotten more, not less, ethical and noble over time.
There's an idea of fighting for justice and truth, and then there's trying to die to establish lines on a map. They're not the same thing, and I'd say that it's rarely coinciding in practice
- beginningguava 8y agoI never said it was noble, but doing something in your own self-interest can still be positive. Even if the US revolution was for the founders financial benefit, the side effect was the spread of democracy and self-determination across the globe. They might just be "lines on a map" but they mean something to people, just 50 years ago those "lines" were the difference between living in a communist hellhole and freedom and prosperity. There's a lot of cubans and eastern europeans who risked their lives to get on the other side of some lines on a map and get a better life for themselves and their children. If people hadn't been willing to fight and die to defend those lines and their ability to live how they want, we wouldn't be able to have this discussion right now
- y4mi 8y agothats absolutely true for america. he might've been from europe though, and we really did have ... a lot of blood wasted to draw out these lines... we kept killing each other for them
- Ar-Curunir 8y agoThat still isn't noble.
- y4mi 8y agodepends on your definition of noble i guess. bloodshed and misery of the commons is a very ... 'noble' thing. by which i mean that every noble in europes history enjoyed it. i'd agree to the spirit of your message though, and the grandparent post probably as well. he probably didn't mean it like you interpreted it