If what is described here is true, it is pure evil.
Where are all the cultural relativists now? All those people who think all cultural beliefs or cultures are totally equal in every way?
And, even worse, certain people on the left in the Western world still obsess over “safe spaces” and “culturally insensitive” Halloween costumes. These whining, narcissistic, intellectually crippled, infantile idiots make me sick, given how much real evil there is in the world.
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lol. What are they going to do about ISIS in some place that they have no power in? And how is what ISIS is doing any different from the innocent people that have been blown up by the US. Students have some say at Universities and in America where they can try and right what they see as bad policies. I think bringing up the fact that people like Churchill and Jefferson were racist is something that matters.
ReplyDeleteAnd how is reading Richard Dawkins blog going to solve anything? Even the RAND corporation has published articles stating that we need to understand where the grievances of the people in ME come from, and Piketty has recently said inequality has a lot to do with it.
If you're so mad about I would be a big boy and enlist in an army that is fighting ISIS. --sb
"And how is what ISIS is doing any different from the innocent people that have been blown up by the US. "
DeleteJesus. Very different.
(1) a eugenics program like something out of Nazi Germany that kills children is grotesque in the extreme
(2) show me the evidence that the US does (1).
Whatever crimes the US commits are not in the same category of evil as (1).
"And how is reading Richard Dawkins blog going to solve anything? "
What the f*ck are you even talking about? What ahs Richard Dawkins got to do with this?
The ISIL practices are in league with plenty of western practices, such as the Nazis and perhaps Trump.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, this shows that there is equality. "Pure evil" exists in all cultures, and I defy you to name one that doesn't have such things.
And just who are "All those people who think all cultural beliefs or cultures are totally equal in every way?" I accept a number of ideas of cultural relativism, and certainly don't believe such blither.
(1) Jesus, here we go.
DeleteThere is no equality between this insane state and the US in 2015. The former state deliberately and cold-bloodedly throws gay people off building tops and enslaves women as sex slaves, and now kills Down Syndrome children.
(2) The fact that you think Trump is like the Nazis is sick in the extreme. Trump's worst statement has been his idea to ban Muslim immigration temporally -- this is NOTHING like killing Down Syndrome children and doesn't involve killing anyone at all. This is a vile slander on Trump.
In order for your first sentence to make any sense in your context, you have to define the US and ISIL as "cultural beliefs or cultures". And then you would have to deal with the idea of subcultures, and whether the US and ISIL are subcultures. But such clarity would make your rhetoric fail.
DeleteAttempting to exempt the US by limiting our cultural perspective to 2015 is sad. And it doesn't work either, considering our indiscriminate killing by drones. The history of the US is full of horrible crimes including slaughter of children of disliked races, slavery, lynching and eugenics: if you think that part of our culture could not easily be reawakened by assholes like Trump, then you are ridiculous. I gave the proto-fascist Trump a benefit of the doubt, by using the word "perhaps". You have illegitimately extended what I said to make your argument.
But the most ridiculous thing in your whole argument is that you didn't address my third paragraph: just who holds the positions you decry? Show us it's not a strawman.
As for Trump's worst statement, you are definitely not paying attention to the news.
Deletehttp://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/12/15/3732671/trump-isis-kill-family-members/
(1) The latter view of his is one I had not seen and does indeed cross the line into an ugly form of violent extremism, and deserves to be strongly condemned.
DeleteNevertheless, Trump's immigration proposal as stated elsewhere considered on its own terms would make the US have a highly illiberal, bigoted and unfair immigration policy -- rather like, for example, Japan and certain other countries. Japan, however, is not a "fascist" or "Nazi" state just because it has a highly illiberal and unfair immigration policy, nor would the US suddenly become "Nazi" if it adopted a rather similar and illiberal and unfair immigration policy. People on the left are too quick to just throw the label "Nazi" around at anything they don't like.
(2) You refer to "slavery, lynching and eugenics" and of course we have to go back quite a way to find a US guilty of these things. The first belongs in the 19th century -- over 100 years ago. If you are trying to argue that there is exact moral equivalence here and now, once again you have failed. Most of things you talk of -- e.g., "slavery, lynching and eugenics" -- don't happen any more. America has a black president. Slavery is gone. Eugenics experiments ended by the 1970s. When was the last time someone was lynched?
(3) "In order for your first sentence to make any sense in your context, you have to define the US and ISIL as "cultural beliefs or cultures... etc
This is truly absurd piffle. Cultural ideas and cultures can clearly be identified in and influencing the policies of the states in question.
Also, I admit I have not followed Trump closely and it is my mistake for having missed his latest extreme statements. For that, I do admit error and will research the matter more closely in the future.
DeleteHowever, the issues above I raise in (2) and (3) I stick by.
I am naive. I wasn't going to comment on this thread, as what is there to say? But I forgot about Mike Huben. I forgot there are people who watch the Dachau footage and shrug. "Well, at least they didn't call that nice Fox News lady a bitch."
ReplyDeleteI just love when people who hate me pretend they know something about me.
DeleteMy grandfather died in Buchenwald, and my grandmother survived concentration camp: I saw her tattoo.
Nobody should have to draw upon family history to refute assholeish ad-hominem imputations like yours. You should apologize.
No, I should not, because you likened those crimes to boorish folly from a blowhard. Trump *talked*, nazis *killed*. You should apologize for trying to exploit your family's suffering.
DeleteThis subthread with its personal vitriol is pointless.
Delete(1) if any offence has been given Mike Huben -- here or above -- I apologise sincerely.
(2) but further angry back and forth serves no purpose.
Sorry LK, but it has to be said: behold the Chomskyian Left. This is EXACTLY the point of contention between Sam Harris and Chomsky I mentioned on the other thread. I know perfectly well Chomsky is no moral relativist, but this kind of deranged tu quoque is exactly what the rest of us were talking about.
ReplyDeleteRight, Ken B, and Chomsky is the practically the guru who invented this form of 'argument'. Oliver Kamm wrote this about Chomsky:
DeleteChomsky habitually depicts the US as morally equal or inferior to Nazi Germany. This is an undeniable inference from a close reading of Chomsky. I take almost at random (in the sense that it’s the nearest Chomsky book on my shelves to where I’m sitting) his volume Rogue States (2000). There are five entries in the index for “Nazi Germany”. Every single one of those mentions is made in the context of a comparison with the United States, to the disadvantage of the latter. On page 45, criticising the notion of “humanitarian intervention”, Chomsky depicts Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia as part of a tradition that includes the US/UK bombing of Iraq in 1998. On page 85, Chomsky records that Theodore Roosevelt “was greatly admired by Hitler, and for good reason”. On page 162, Chomsky correctly states that “The Nazis broke new ground with industrialised genocide” – before declaring in the next sentence that, “Military attacks specifically targeting civilians peaked with the allied bombings of Germany and Japan.” On page 164, he comments on the alleged absence of soul-searching among Americans on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Tokyo, adding: “A prolonged record of victorious conquest is not good for the character, in my opinion, and I think history tends to substantiate that judgement. To take a recent example, Hitler was perhaps the most popular leader in German history, pre-Stalingrad.” Finally, on page 179, Chomsky notes the historical debate over whether Nazism or Communism was morally worse, only to complain at the lack of historical debate over “the devastation caused by the direct assaults of Western power and its clients during the same years”, which he terms “ideologically serviceable amnesia”.
While it is plainly outrageous and absurd to say the US is the exact moral equivalent of Nazi Germany, nevertheless it is a FACT that "allied bombings of Germany and Japan" involved deliberate mass bombing of civilians.
DeleteI mean look at your stupid comment:
"On page 162, Chomsky correctly states that “The Nazis broke new ground with industrialised genocide” – before declaring in the next sentence that, “Military attacks specifically targeting civilians peaked with the allied bombings of Germany and Japan.”"
The latter statement is true. A severe negative moral judgement is in order.
And you haven't even proven that Chomsky thinks that the US here was the *exact moral equivalent of Nazi Germany* at all.
Furthermore, see here:
http://new.spectator.co.uk/2013/10/the-bombing-war-by-richard-overy-review/
Both sides engaged in deliberate mass bombing of civilians. The idea that you cannot compare the two sides **in this respect and in this respect only** from a moral perspective is utter bullshit. It doesn't follow from such a limited comparison that you think or infer or even imply that the allies and the Nazis were exact moral equivalents. They aren't. But they both engaged in deliberate mass bombing of civilians. In that respect and in that respect only, it is reasonable to say they were comparable.
Chomsky's statement "Military attacks specifically targeting civilians peaked with the allied bombings of Germany and Japan,” was deliberately inserted after he referred to the Nazi extermination camps, thus implying allied bombing was worse than the holocaust. Do you agree with this?
DeleteWhile much of the allied bombing was not morally justified, it had the aim of destroying the enemy's ability to wage war. The Nazi camps had the motive of exterminating entire races because they were 'sub-human'.
Intent matters.
DeleteAnd if you want to discuss the bombing of Germany, you need to see the statistics Tooze presents. The bombing was enormously important in fighting the war. The bizarre notion it was not was promulgated by certain ideologues after the war. The evidence from war time German sources tells a very different story.
You are exactly right about the juxtaposition. Another example. Imagine LK accidentally misquoted Mises once, citing the wrong Mises brother. I write an article, "Liars abound. Faurisson is a lying anti-semite. LK misquoted Mises." Three consecutive true statements -- exactly as LK notes above in re Chomsky -- but deployed to mislead and misrepresent.
DeletePS. I wish this Anonymous would pick a name! we have the good Anonymous (here) and the bad Anonymous. (Or several of them).
"Chomsky's statement "Military attacks specifically targeting civilians peaked with the allied bombings of Germany and Japan,” was deliberately inserted after he referred to the Nazi extermination camps, thus implying allied bombing was worse than the holocaust. "
DeleteNo, it doesn't. He leaves one with the impression that this was different type of slaughter.
I have just read the full passage in context and it does not have that implication. This is just a case of people reading exactly what they want into a text by hostile bias.
Have you read Stephen Law's takedowns of moral relativism? Probably nothing you don't already know but I recommend skimming over his posts. http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/02/moral-relativism.html
ReplyDeleteA big problem in today's world is that
ReplyDeletea) You can not suggest that the murdering of Down's Syndrome babies by religious fanatics is perhaps motivated by their understanding of their religión.
and
b) That to do so will only cause further "radicalizations" and cause more Western Muslims to join ISIS.
If we go down this absurd path, we will end up saying that we should not point out that ISIS drops gay people from the top of their buildings, because that will cause more Muslims to radicalize and join ISIS.
This is just one small example. http://www.thenation.com/article/how-dishonest-noam-chomsky/ The problem is, "small" examples like this happen all the time with Chomsky. All the time. Then toss in the misleading juxtaposition trick we discussed, the tendentious use of sources, and so on. You cannot read a paragraph and rely on anything he says in it.
ReplyDeleteFrom Dershowitz:
"My next encounter with Chomsky revolved around his writing an introduction to a book by an anti-Semite named Robert Faurisson who denied that the Holocaust took place, that Hitler’s gas chambers existed, that the diary of Anne Frank was authentic, and that there were death camps in Nazi occupied Europe. He claimed that the “massive lie” about genocide was a deliberate concoction initiated by “American Zionists” “and that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II. Chomsky described these and other conclusions as “findings” and said that they were based on “extensive historical research.” He also wrote that “I see no anti-Semitic implication in the denial of the existence in gas chambers or even in the denial of the Holocaust.” He said he saw “no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work,” including his claim that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II. He wrote an introduction to one of Faurisson’s book which was used to market his anti-Semitic lies.
In a subsequent debate at the Harvard Medical School, Chomsky initially denied having advocated a Lebanon-style binational state for Israel, only to have to back down upon being confronted with the evidence. He also tried to dispute the fact that he had authorized an essay he had written in defense of Robert Faurisson to be used as the forward to Faurisson’s book about Holocaust denial, but again had to back down. Chomsky took the position that he had no interest in “revisionist” literature before Faurisson had written the book. When confronted by Robert Nozick, a distinguished philosophy professor who recalled discussing revisionist literature with him well before the Faurisson book, Chomsky first berated Nozick for disclosing a private conversation and then he shoved him contemptuously in front of numerous witnesses." http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N25/col25dersh.25c.html
And let's not forget that WHILE THE KHMER ROUGE GENOCIDE WAS GOING ON AND INTERVENTION WAS POSSIBLE Chomsky denied it, then minimized it (I saw a clip of him saying there were perhaps a few thousand deaths after all).This is very serious. Maybe intervention would not have worked, maybe it would not and should not have been tried, but lying about the terror while it was occurring in order to forestall intervention is complicity, and IMO that is what Chomsky did. He lied. He would rather millions die than that the US military get credit for saving them. (I admit I cannot prove this LK, since it's about his motivations, but that is my judgment of the man.)
The evidence and points cited here are much stronger and indeed serious issues about Chomsky. Here's a simple point: I am willing to change my mind when confronted with evidence and good arguments. I admit my position on this needs revision.
DeleteThat's one of the reasons I read you. You are often wrong but I find you honest.
DeleteFine. At this point: I admit defeat on this issue here. My views on Chomsky's integrity etc. need revision. However, I stand by points (1) and (3) in the last post. People try and blame Chomsky for the Postmodernist and regressive left. That is unfair. It is also unfair to accuse him of not having a "social vision".
DeleteFacing down evil!
ReplyDeleteFrom Ohio's Chronicle-Telegram: "OBERLIN — Some Oberlin College students have taken issue with the campus dining services at the college, saying dining services is improperly preparing dishes and labeling them as Asian. Clover Linh Tran, a student at Oberlin and co-chair of the Vietnamese Student Association, called for a meeting with campus dining after noticing inaccuracies in several Asian dishes that confused students. For example, a Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich was being served, but used the wrong bread and had coleslaw on it rather than pickled vegetables. Another dish was called “tandoori,” an Indian dish usually served for the Hindu holiday of Diwali. However, the dish had beef in it, which many Hindus do not eat. The sushi served on campus was also a concern, one that some students even considered to be disrespectful."
Disrespectful sushi: this is the oppression they fight now at Oberlin. Oberlin FFS!
Finally, a comment that is properly relevant to original post.
DeleteYes, this is exactly what I am talking about. With all the serious problems in the world -- economic, social and political -- people like this have no sense of proportion.
A little off-topic comment: I don't think they properly understand why asian food is "americanized" in the first place.
DeleteThe reason behind it is because people in the US would be disgusted if they had the chance to eat actual asian food like sushi, for example, "traditional" sushi generally (but not always) contains raw fish.
By the way, sushi comes from southeast Asia, not Japan.
"people like this have no sense of proportion."
DeleteHuh? You are acting like "disrespectful sushi" is a legitimate complaint, just not an important one right now. But it's not. It's victimology straight up. It's a power play.
More on Oberlin. http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/17/oberlin-students-release-gargantuan-14-page-list-of-demands/
ReplyDeleteMore fried chicken is one.
Grammar lessons are not.