3 ms·

As someone probably of similar age to you, my views on GWB have definitely changed as I've aged. When I was younger, I actively protested, saw his presidency a

by ethbr0 5y ago

As someone probably of similar age to you, my views on GWB have definitely changed as I've aged. When I was younger, I actively protested, saw his presidency as the antithesis of my values, etc. At my current age, I believe more that there is no pure "good" in the world. What is good in one way, is by definition tinged with evil in others. And that pursuing one good requires doing (or at least allowing) some evil. And that what's probably most important is being honest about the evils you do, in pursuits of your goods, and constantly re-weighing the balance on your moral scales. Biden abhors war and the employment of US offensive military power. That is a good. But it creates evil by providing space for unresponded-to aggression. Shipping weapons to Ukraine to defend its sovereign territory is also a good. But it creates evil by escalating battlefield lethality and depending on the service (and often sacrifice) of brave Ukrainians. The real world sucks, and there should be no easy answers that let us sleep soundly at night.

hnhg 5y ago
It seems to me more like Arendt's banality of evil is mostly at work (in many cases, anyway. There are certainly some people on this planet who I would say are truly evil but they are relatively uncommon): https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-...
notafraudster 5y ago
My own views sort of shifted but not in the same way. I was 17 when the War in Iraq started. My view at the time was of very skeptical support; having lived through the 90s I had an engrained view that the world needed to use force to help prevent ethnic cleansing. We didn't intervene early enough or strongly enough in Rwanda, and that particularly bothered me. After the beginning of the war, I pretty quickly became anti-war when it became increasingly clear to me that the pretexts (WMD, Saddam is going to attack the Kurds again) were not justified. I would say by about mid-2004 I was pretty comfortably anti-war. When Bush called for the "surge" I was definitely all the way against the War in Iraq. Today if you asked me what I thought about it, I would say Iraq was the worst and least justified misadventure America embarked on that had some ostensible humanitarian pretext. So I guess my position would be that I still wish we could prevent genocide, but I'm increasingly convinced it's difficult to tell justified reason from pretext in time to intervene, either as a country or as as individuals trying to hold our leaders to account. I guess I would say is that Bush struck me as a person who embodied the way in which misguided motivations could lead to terrible results. But with Trump, there was no misgivings. He had terrible motivations. His view on the use of force was two fold: (1) I don't give a fuck about any other country, why should I? (2) We're number one and I'll blow you up with my bombs. I think it's tempting for many to look at his isolationism as a repudiation of Clinton-Bush-Obama era, but it was a repudiation only of the duty to care about others. His frequent verbal escalations and tactical willingness to disregard collateral damage (in Iraq/Syria), as well as his weird outbursts like threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons, and his constant constant constant remarks expressing praise and respect for violent autocrats justified by admiration of their will to power make it clear that he was just as willing to use force, just as militaristic, just for somehow even worse reasons. I am very thankfully that none of the bubbling tensions ever came to a true head under him.
- tut-urut-utut 5y ago
  Trump is still the only US president in this century that didn't start a war, neither directly nor indirectly. He should get some credits because of that. As for his internal politics, as a non-American I don't care, as long as USA isn't concerned about internal and external politics of the countries I have some connection with. And also in that regard, the best US president ever since I remember, and that goes back around to Reagan time.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    > as long as USA isn't concerned about internal and external politics of the countries I have some connection with Coolidge and Hoover?
adventured 5y ago
> Shipping weapons to Ukraine to defend its sovereign territory is also a good. But it creates evil by escalating battlefield lethality and depending on the service (and often sacrifice) of brave Ukrainians. Shipping those weapons does not create evil. The evil (Russian military aggression) is already there, the evil is responding to the weapons with escalation in an attempt to overwhelm to prevent defeat. The proof is in not shipping the weapons: subjugation, slavery, for the Ukrainian people (quite possibly for generations to come). It can mean the complete wiping out of their culture, in the style of Tibet. The weapons draw out a more dramatic response from the attacking evil, they do not create more evil; and they - ideally - prevent an even greater evil, which is the enslavement of the Ukrainian people if the war effort is lost. All the weapons do is pull some of the future suffering forward in time (you suffer more now, so your people hopefully suffer dramatically less later), however the trade, the potential upside, is obviously the possibility to achieve freedom and vanquish the aggressor. The aggressor creates all of the evil, all of the suffering, they're solely morally responsible for it. The weapons make a positive possible, the lack of said weapons guarantee only darkness. Putin's conquest effort isn't going to be stopped by peaceful protest (some authoritarians might bend for that under some circumstances, he won't). The point is, the evil is already there. If you leave it alone (don't challenge it), you'll suffer more over a longer period of time. If you challenge it, you may suffer more short-term, however that challenge isn't creating any additional evil, it's creating the potential for good for the people of Ukraine. The suffering and evil can't be avoided, the only choice is whether you want to try to defeat it, or roll over and hand yourself over to its long-term chains.
- basedgod 5y ago
  This is the same logic (albeit different analogy) of closing your eyes, outstretching your arms and swinging them widely. Somebody is still going to get hurt, even if they really should get out of the way. Strewing together moral absolutes means you stop living in the real world. Violence and war brings more evil to the world, even if it is morally justified. Your failure to acknowledge any of this is appalling. Somebody whose lost their entire extended family and village by mortar fire because the Ukrainians fought back will be in an objectively much worse position than under a harsh Russian occupation. Weapons, in this case, escalated the conflict and created evil for this person, no amount of moral whitewashing over "freedom" and "vanquishing the aggressor" absolves this. It may very well be the case that the net utilitarian impact of Ukraine escalating their response to the invasion justifies the resistance, but we live in the real world, and nothing is as cut and dry as you claim, not even a hostile invasion by a despotic power.

by ethbr0 5y ago

hnhg 5y ago

It seems to me more like Arendt's banality of evil is mostly at work (in many cases, anyway. There are certainly some people on this planet who I would say are truly evil but they are relatively uncommon): https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-...

notafraudster 5y ago

My own views sort of shifted but not in the same way. I was 17 when the War in Iraq started. My view at the time was of very skeptical support; having lived through the 90s I had an engrained view that the world needed to use force to help prevent ethnic cleansing. We didn't intervene early enough or strongly enough in Rwanda, and that particularly bothered me. After the beginning of the war, I pretty quickly became anti-war when it became increasingly clear to me that the pretexts (WMD, Saddam is going to attack the Kurds again) were not justified. I would say by about mid-2004 I was pretty comfortably anti-war. When Bush called for the "surge" I was definitely all the way against the War in Iraq. Today if you asked me what I thought about it, I would say Iraq was the worst and least justified misadventure America embarked on that had some ostensible humanitarian pretext. So I guess my position would be that I still wish we could prevent genocide, but I'm increasingly convinced it's difficult to tell justified reason from pretext in time to intervene, either as a country or as as individuals trying to hold our leaders to account. I guess I would say is that Bush struck me as a person who embodied the way in which misguided motivations could lead to terrible results. But with Trump, there was no misgivings. He had terrible motivations. His view on the use of force was two fold: (1) I don't give a fuck about any other country, why should I? (2) We're number one and I'll blow you up with my bombs. I think it's tempting for many to look at his isolationism as a repudiation of Clinton-Bush-Obama era, but it was a repudiation only of the duty to care about others. His frequent verbal escalations and tactical willingness to disregard collateral damage (in Iraq/Syria), as well as his weird outbursts like threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons, and his constant constant constant remarks expressing praise and respect for violent autocrats justified by admiration of their will to power make it clear that he was just as willing to use force, just as militaristic, just for somehow even worse reasons. I am very thankfully that none of the bubbling tensions ever came to a true head under him.

tut-urut-utut 5y ago
Trump is still the only US president in this century that didn't start a war, neither directly nor indirectly. He should get some credits because of that. As for his internal politics, as a non-American I don't care, as long as USA isn't concerned about internal and external politics of the countries I have some connection with. And also in that regard, the best US president ever since I remember, and that goes back around to Reagan time.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  > as long as USA isn't concerned about internal and external politics of the countries I have some connection with Coolidge and Hoover?

adventured 5y ago

> Shipping weapons to Ukraine to defend its sovereign territory is also a good. But it creates evil by escalating battlefield lethality and depending on the service (and often sacrifice) of brave Ukrainians. Shipping those weapons does not create evil. The evil (Russian military aggression) is already there, the evil is responding to the weapons with escalation in an attempt to overwhelm to prevent defeat. The proof is in not shipping the weapons: subjugation, slavery, for the Ukrainian people (quite possibly for generations to come). It can mean the complete wiping out of their culture, in the style of Tibet. The weapons draw out a more dramatic response from the attacking evil, they do not create more evil; and they - ideally - prevent an even greater evil, which is the enslavement of the Ukrainian people if the war effort is lost. All the weapons do is pull some of the future suffering forward in time (you suffer more now, so your people hopefully suffer dramatically less later), however the trade, the potential upside, is obviously the possibility to achieve freedom and vanquish the aggressor. The aggressor creates all of the evil, all of the suffering, they're solely morally responsible for it. The weapons make a positive possible, the lack of said weapons guarantee only darkness. Putin's conquest effort isn't going to be stopped by peaceful protest (some authoritarians might bend for that under some circumstances, he won't). The point is, the evil is already there. If you leave it alone (don't challenge it), you'll suffer more over a longer period of time. If you challenge it, you may suffer more short-term, however that challenge isn't creating any additional evil, it's creating the potential for good for the people of Ukraine. The suffering and evil can't be avoided, the only choice is whether you want to try to defeat it, or roll over and hand yourself over to its long-term chains.

basedgod 5y ago
This is the same logic (albeit different analogy) of closing your eyes, outstretching your arms and swinging them widely. Somebody is still going to get hurt, even if they really should get out of the way. Strewing together moral absolutes means you stop living in the real world. Violence and war brings more evil to the world, even if it is morally justified. Your failure to acknowledge any of this is appalling. Somebody whose lost their entire extended family and village by mortar fire because the Ukrainians fought back will be in an objectively much worse position than under a harsh Russian occupation. Weapons, in this case, escalated the conflict and created evil for this person, no amount of moral whitewashing over "freedom" and "vanquishing the aggressor" absolves this. It may very well be the case that the net utilitarian impact of Ukraine escalating their response to the invasion justifies the resistance, but we live in the real world, and nothing is as cut and dry as you claim, not even a hostile invasion by a despotic power.