"Moral Clarity" Is for Psychopaths

I'm going to have to admit that I'm confused by a lot of things, as is Paul Campos:

Debates about the meaning of "terrorism" often feature some odd assumptions, including:

(1) Killing 500 civilians while making some attempt to avoid killing them is less morally problematic than killing five civilians while attempting to kill many more. I suppose this may be true, but it hardly seems self-evident.

(2) While blowing up a 19-year-old civilian walking down the street is either a horrendous crime or a deeply regrettable bit of "collateral damage," eviscerating that same 19-year-old with a sharpnel bomb a week after desperate circumstances have forced him to put on the uniform of the local security forces is morally A-OK.

The latter assumption seems particularly strange -- as if the fact that we claim wars have "rules" makes them less immoral.

Anyway, the editor of my column got mad about my failure to achieve Krauthmaurian moral clarity on these issues, leading to this little back and forth.

Likewise I have questions about this from Jeffrey Goldberg:

One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.

You don't have to be carrying water for Hamas to wonder why it should be that while displaying corpses for propaganda purposes is surely horrific, it could be any worse than than the killing that produces the corpses in the first place.

Comments

[DrDick]

"Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people"

Riiight! And how many condemnations of Israeli moral failings in creating so many child corpses have we heard in the media and from public figures of late?

*crickets*

That's what I thought.

[AIMAI]

In the first days of the bombardment I saw this bizarre quote all over the place, from Golda Meir

"Golda Meir once said that when Arabs love their own children more than they hate us there will be peace."

This was quoted approvingly and in searching for that quote I found it used over and over again to prove that what the jews do out of love for their children (bombing other people) the arabs do, mysteriously, out of hate for theirs. Paul Campos puts his fingers right on the bizarre nub of this continuing moral incoherence.

When Israelis go about their daily business in an armed, fortified state, they are classed by their own state and the world as "civilians" but when Palestianians go about their lives and wound up crushed between Israeli artillery and Hamas they are considered to be a kind of willing "human shield" who are sacrificing their children in order to destroy Israelis rather than victims of a brutal attack that *doesn't discriminate* between children and soldiers.

I'm disgusted, qua jew and qua human being.

aimai

[actor212]

Thers, this is one of those "no right answer" issues.

Like abortion is wrong (if you're conservative) until your daughter gets knocked up. Then you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Moral failings and moral clarity is just a smokescreen to cover "the other guy is fucking wrong, but I can't explain why without exposing my own hypocrises."

[gocart mozart]

If Palastinians didn't have children, Israelis couldn't kill them. Think about that.

[Melinda]

My crazy cousin Sharon believes that when we see video footage of Palestinian kids throwing rocks, there are actually adult Palestinians with guns just off-camera but the media are too anti-semitic to show it. Anyway, I'm not so sure about the unwrapping-shrouded-corpses story.

But anyway, years ago I shared an office with a guy, also Jewish, who believed that the biblical injunction against killing meant "don't kill members of your own tribe," not "don't kill anyone." In my bumpkin naivete at the time I thought he was the only person on the planet who thought that but apparently that belief is surprisingly widespread. Actor's explanation requires a self-awareness that I don't think is actually in play; it seems to me that there's actually a great deal of consistency within a twisted moral framework, which takes us back to some sort of pathology.

[SteveB]

Thers, this is one of those "no right answer" issues.

Really? And here I was thinking that NOT bombing the shit out of 1.5 million people might be the right answer. How silly of me.

[daphne]

I'm confused too. What's the difference between "accident" and "mistake"? And why does the word "deliberate" or "intentional" or the phrase "on purpose" appear nowhere?

[Guy in Jersey]

One answer is to ignore Goldberg. He writes for a specific audience,and I'm sure that they're happy to read him, just as Limbaugh's audience is happy to hear his opinions on American minorities.

[Aunt Deb]

I was under the impression, gleaned from reading and listening to Israeli leaders and pundits, that the attack on Gaza was done primarily as propaganda.

[Susan of Texas]

From pornography to war whoring is a natural progression.

Goldberg wants to be on the winning side but also wants moral absolution. He's certainly busy forgiving himself all over the place for his people's actions. He should be American enough to endure killing in your name without flinching.

He said about Iraq: "The administration is planning today to launch what many people would undoubtedly call a short-sighted and inexcusable act of aggression. In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality."

He's real big on morality, as long as it's been soaked in blood first.

[actor212]

Really? And here I was thinking that NOT bombing the shit out of 1.5 million people might be the right answer. How silly of me.

OK, I'm going to make this statement for the first and last time this year:

You got me, Steve. I was nuancing and you called me on it.

[offcious_pedant]

He's real big on morality, as long as it's been soaked in blood first.

It absolutely stuns me, just how far some folks are willing to go to escape culpability in things they support. "It's not my fault that these barbarians have forced me to sink to their level (even though my whole worldview is purportedly based on my resistance to having things forced on me, like taxes, and regulations, and education, and stuff), but having done so, it's so obvious that my choice is difficult, and terrible, and I am filled with regret, and that I make it (on behalf of others) as a last resort. Hey, I'm morally courageous!"

Stupid like that really should hurt.