Sunday, July 17, 2005
Moral Imperative
My Norwegian friends used to tease my Swedish pals about being "neutral observers" during World War II, while they were busy sabotaging the Nazi occupation forces, and their other Scandinavian cousins in Denmark busied themselves running an underground railroad for Jewish refugees. They were perhaps a bit unfair in this judgment, but they had a point.
Oddly, what prompted this recollection was a comment by the antagonist in the movie Romeo and Juliet starring DiCaprio that I watched last night. To paraphrase, when Romeo entreated him for a peaceful reconciliation between the feuding families, he replied, "I loath peace".
Which got me thinking about the ideological positioning taking place in the US, especially within the anti-war faction, and just what it is they want and how they expect to get it. To be more precise, what they are willing to do for it.
For while it is arguably noble to oppose wars of aggression against those who have done you no harm, it is hardly a virtuous cause to decline to fight aggressors under any and all circumstances, as is the case with some of those that comprise the "peace and justice movement". I mean, Quakers and Mennonites aside, on what basis do the non-violent reject warfare of any sort?
Do they renounce the Zapatistas for arming themselves in self-defense? How about the African National Congress under Mandela? The Nez Perce under Looking Glass? The Warsaw Jews? You get my drift.
So when we talk about being anti-war and pro-peace in the context of our most modern imperium, I find myself asking, "Under what circumstances would the peace protesters embrace violence and perhaps revenge against those who presently wage the apocalyptic bloodshed from behind the walls of the Pentagon?"
For those who've read my books or essays and commentary, you know this suicidal course of action is not one that I endorse, but neither is the fruitless expenditure of energy in pious high drama. And if you accept my thesis of a perpetual war of ideas as the only hope for a less violent and depraved future, then its strategic employment is not only a pragmatic tool, but also a moral imperative.
Oddly, what prompted this recollection was a comment by the antagonist in the movie Romeo and Juliet starring DiCaprio that I watched last night. To paraphrase, when Romeo entreated him for a peaceful reconciliation between the feuding families, he replied, "I loath peace".
Which got me thinking about the ideological positioning taking place in the US, especially within the anti-war faction, and just what it is they want and how they expect to get it. To be more precise, what they are willing to do for it.
For while it is arguably noble to oppose wars of aggression against those who have done you no harm, it is hardly a virtuous cause to decline to fight aggressors under any and all circumstances, as is the case with some of those that comprise the "peace and justice movement". I mean, Quakers and Mennonites aside, on what basis do the non-violent reject warfare of any sort?
Do they renounce the Zapatistas for arming themselves in self-defense? How about the African National Congress under Mandela? The Nez Perce under Looking Glass? The Warsaw Jews? You get my drift.
So when we talk about being anti-war and pro-peace in the context of our most modern imperium, I find myself asking, "Under what circumstances would the peace protesters embrace violence and perhaps revenge against those who presently wage the apocalyptic bloodshed from behind the walls of the Pentagon?"
For those who've read my books or essays and commentary, you know this suicidal course of action is not one that I endorse, but neither is the fruitless expenditure of energy in pious high drama. And if you accept my thesis of a perpetual war of ideas as the only hope for a less violent and depraved future, then its strategic employment is not only a pragmatic tool, but also a moral imperative.
