You say humanitarian military intervention and the deposing of Assad. — Baden

I hate writing "That's not what I said." I hate it so much I usually opt to drop out of conversation as soon as I'm misquoted. Every once in a blue moon I make an exception.

I said that humanitarian military intervention would take out Assad. I don't expect that to happen. Clinton will likely be the next president of the US, and she has already stated that no ground troops will be sent to Syria.

Tell me how the Shia population would accept a government by the Sunni? Tell me how democracy would spring from the cesspool of ideology there? Outline your plan — Baden

I have no plan there, but I spent about six months last year reading several books about contemporary Islamic issues and how they're rooted in the histories of the various Islamic communities in the world. The view of some Islamic scholars is that Islam has a natural affinity for democracy and would flourish in secular societies. The bonus is that a secular government would resolve a quagmire surrounding Sharia.

Bottom line is that the Islamic communities the world over face serious challenges that no one can solve for them. They have to grow organically out of their mutilated history.

Again I say: you're diverting attention from the victim. That kid probably needs stitches. Where are his parents? Who is making a list of survivors so people can find their relatives? Do they need money?

It's not deception, then. It's that which diverts attention from the victim. That, and hypocrisy.

You know, the invasion of Iraq wasn't advertised as a humanitarian intervention. It's really just a side note that everybody knew Saddam and his sons were psycho.

Not now, not simply because major geopolitical foes of the US are responsible, not simply to give the false impression that America and its allies have grown a conscience. This is a face that should have been burned into the mind of everyone with the remotest scintilla of imagination and empathy from the beginning. — Baden

And here is where I need for you to stop and reflect. You're making this about the crimes of the West and your frustration.

You are diverting attention from the victim.

Remove Assad, how? . — Baden

The British Empire would have executed Assad and put in place a British governor. It wouldn't have been for humanitarian reasons, though. The BE's agenda was pure exploitation (or pretty close to that.)

What I'm condemning is the use of the term to cover strategic maneuvering that results in a worse humanitarian crisis than there was to begin with. As was the case with Iraq. — Baden

I see. It's deception that bothers you.

The fact that he would consider the invasion and occupation of Iraq as "absolutely" a humanitarian military intervention makes my point. — Baden

I was trying to understand what that point was.

And, yes, it is extremely frustrating to try to untangle what the best thing to do in Syria would be, and what would constitute a humanitarian intervention as opposed to a strategic one where Russia, Iran, the US, Saudi Arabia and co. are just playing geopolitics with the locals' lives. — Baden

The problem in Syria does not stem from geopolitics. I'm sure you realize that. It's a direct result of social instability that can be laid at Assad's door. He left his country vulnerable to invasion by fomenting unrest. A humanitarian intervention would remove Assad from power. No country in the world is going to take on that mission, though. What we're basically going to do is turn our backs on our brothers and sisters in Syria. This is what you have to consider when you condemn humanitarian military intervention. Turning away is fucking bitter.

I understood Thompson to be suggesting that ethical statements are generated in basically the same way normative statements about sight are.

I don't see how it matters that practical reasoning is used for validation. The normative statements themselves are supposed to be derived from an understanding of the human form. Our ability to do that sort of derivation in regard to sight is apparently apriori. Same goes for deriving moral principles. That is his position, right?

I saw the Bosnia example mentioned and it fits for me. It's one of those terms though that could be subject to, shall we say, strategic deployment. — Baden

True, but why is that worrisome to you? I'm asking earnestly. Is it because you encounter frustration in your quest to understand current events? Or just that propaganda irritates you? Or what?

Intervention in Bosnia.... that sort of thing. You have to have cojones to engage in humanitarian military intervention.

Kripke makes an interesting case for the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori. Scott Soames' history of AP rocks at explaining succinctly 20th Century ponderings on the subject.

I'd grant that the use of the concept of a life form is apriori knowledge.

I don't see that protecting naturalistic normativity from the Sojourner Truth test. Sojourner Truth, a famous American civil rights activist answered a naturalistic argument for sexism by presenting herself as evidence (she was a six foot tall former slave.)

'You say that women have to be helped up into carriages and given the best places to sit. Nobody helps me up. Nobody gives me the best place to sit. Ain't I a woman?'

Naturalistic normativity ends in ambivalence because we can't be sure if what we observe is the human form or a cultural form (just one tiny portion of the human potential.)

I'm pleased that I could explain that without bringing up Nazi science. Crap....

No, normative naturalism contains a latent danger. It's better to remember that every generation does the best it can. Every generation screws up. The world will never be perfect.

I anticipated that most readers would find it puzzling that formal concepts that find application in experience could be known a priori. — Pierre-Normand

I personally wouldn't reach for Kant here. I'd go straight for Quine. The ability to apply logic to new situations has to be apriori knowledge. Quine's argument is directed at logical positivist claims that logical know-how is knowledge of conventional use of language (an attempt to give logic itself an empirical foundation).

Once we accept Quine's argument (from Truth by Convention), it shouldn't be too hard to accept that the application of "mammal" to a new situations demonstrates apriori knowledge.

BTW... I've been reading about the largest land mammal who ever lived... paraceratherium (about the size of a one-story house.) So I've been using that special apriori knowledge. :)

Where MLK envisioned an ideal, a utopia (hey didn't you do a thread about Utopia's) An ideal must be a fiction or a lie or it becomes real, and eo ipso no longer ideal. — Cavacava

The world's never going to be perfect. I learn that every now and then. Then I forget it again.

I think every time leftism has had a chance to demonstrate itself, it failed. It's lame without some rightism. I think the opposite is also true.

Ignore this if it seems derailing, but in regard to violence is the US... isn't it partly that we're somehow proud of it? Like we're all bad motherfuckers? What's up with that?

The issue is a failure of oversight of law enforcement and the resulting injustice. — m-theory

Obama has a history of sponsoring legislation to monitor racial profiling and to videotape homicide investigations (this was before he became president). Knowing that, I listened to his comments with interest. Basically, he said that all Americans should be paying attention to what happened this summer because it's not an anomalous. He said that "best practices" have already been drafted and adopted by some communities, but not all.

He mentioned that the goal is to create trust between cops and communities. IOW, if cops are brutal, people are more likely to run and fight back. If people run and fight back, there's more likely to be police brutality. That's likely to be at least part of the problem.

Are policemen racist? Some, I'm sure. There are racist lawyers, racist doctors, racist dentists, racist just about everything. There's no such thing as outlawing racism. We legislate behavior, not opinion.

Hi Vagabond! Nice to see you! And you too M-theory!

I didn't understand your view. Was it that there's no such thing as a Jew? Or just that Jews don't qualify as a race?

I am not sure sure where to place Malcolm X, or MLK for that matter. They were certainly radical for their time but were their ideas or goals radical left? The goal of the radical left, as I understand it, is the destruction of class in society. — Cavacava

I'd classify MLK as a civil rights activist. That puts his views in line with those of a 19th Century Liberal. So it makes sense that his point was that the US needed to live up to its own creed (which is basically an expression of some of the more lofty aspects of 19th Century Liberalism.... bla bla bla.)

I think Malcolm X would be offended at attempts to classify him by categories created in Europe. I read Black Nationalism as a call for black people to rise up and take ownership of their circumstances. Malcolm X doesn't so much attempt to achieve his goal by creating guilt in white people (he says that they're right to look out for themselves) His view was that black people needed to shake off the "Uncle Tom" persona and learn to defend themselves, their families, and their communities (which implies separation.)

I think they did have different attitudes about violence, but I don't think they had the same end goal. MLK saw black people as inheritors of the vision of the free society which was present at the founding of the USA. Malcolm X actually sounds a lot like Ronald Reagan talking about the USSR: he said that people who embrace detente are leading us into slavery. IOW, MLK's dream is a lie.

I've thought that the difference between Left and Right is that leftists promote the health of society over the health of the individual. Rightists do the opposite. 19th Century liberals were rightist, btw. 19th Century conservatives condoned aristocracy and noblesse oblige (so in some ways, they were kin to leftists.)

The Darwin analogy I know traces an account based on history/genealogy of both species and language, which isn't what Thompson seems to be saying at all: this paper presents a static, 'equilibrium' account which only gets itself into a muddle by comparing itself with language. — mcdoodle

How muddled? I thought he was aiming to say that when we identify what a thing is, we end up talking about a form. Its like he's talking to an audience who has no comprehension of the word "form", so he's giving an example of it: when we talk about a language, we're talking about a form (as opposed to any particular instance of it.)

One of my playlists provides a poignant vote for Un's point of view:

Cool. Good discussion.

Talk can be cheap. But it's also fair to say that the denigration of talk can destroy what is worth pursuing. Malcolm X, above, for instance -- that is a wonderful speech happening with people. — Moliere

Nobody's advocating silence. Malcolm X's point was that those who imagine that the democratic government of the US, with its ample talk, would ever solve the problems of the black community were chumps. He advised black nationalism.

Compare how things would be now if people had followed Malcolm X's lead in this to how things are now. What do you think?

What do you make of the Spanish revolution, then? — Moliere

Failed because they couldn't defend themselves. How do you assess it?

But Arendt (who I am more familiar with) includes speech as action. — Moliere

This is probably where we diverge. Sometimes speeches and other forms of communication are potent. The opposite can also be true. Talk is cheap. :)

OK. Where I'll put my foot down is this: anarchists absolutely can not engage in military action. Ever. That can't happen. It's impossible. It's a contradiction. No.

Other than that... I'm willing to concede that militant action is varied and complex. Really, the core of the question that prompted the OP is: isn't it true that there comes a time when action is necessary and any further attempts to talk things through is merely covertly accepting the status quo?

People do, but not me. I agree the mother and child need adequate care. But that's a separate issue from the moral status of abortion itself. — Thorongil

Good point. (Y)

That really seems wrong to me, Moliere. It must be that I'm not familiar with your definition of authoritarian.

Interesting to note that the Conservative Party has tried to co-opt King's Creed, since it matches up well with many of our founding father's thoughts. They also like the fact that he preached non-violence and they have sought to make it part of their Creed, but I think King's Creed is beyond their range of thought. — Cavacava

I think today's liberalism is tomorrow's conservatism. Here's an answer to MLK's dream speech: "It's time to stop singing and start swinging."

And I don't think that liberation requires authoritarianism. Even by militant means — Moliere

There's a fair amount of liberation that did happen as a result of military action (or so it would seem), for instance the American Civil War. Are you arguing that military action is never required?

It may be that something's been lost in translation. I'm from a country supposedly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Bringing up Chomsky and Marcuse means we're talking about claims of subversion that sounded like calls for revolution back in the day, but as these voices have aged, they sound more like abandonment of hope.

Tolerance has a specific meaning that one could gather by reading the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution (which, along with the rest of the Constitution specifically documents that which is supposed to have been subverted.)

As it happens, Marcuse's essay is online. How 'bout that?

http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/1965MarcuseRepressiveToleranceEng1969edOcr.pdf

Even so -- it seems to me that there's a difference between authoritarianism and conviction, which I would say is the counter to tolerance. We should be tolerant of any form of art, even if it seems "obscene", but we should not be tolerant of white supremacy -- we should have a conviction that white supremacy is wrong, and to oppose it is right, even if we happen to be in the minority, just as we should have a conviction that art should be open to all kinds of expression. — Moliere

So you aren't tolerant of white supremacy? Exactly what are you doing about it?

My faith is not of the dogmatic kind, but more of a decision. To believe in justice is not to fondly imagine it prevails already, but to commit oneself to making it somewhat more prevalent. My faith in humanity is of this order. — unenlightened

You could contribute to Doctors Without Borders and make justice somewhat more prevalent. That doesn't take faith in humanity.

You would need faith in humanity if you believe that accepting diverse viewpoints with the aim of convincing people to see what you see is superior to actively removing injustice from the world.

Then there's the notion of tolerance, which doesn't necessarily go along with libertarianism even if we take it to be the only value that matters (who are intolerant when the values of libertarianism are violeted). But that might just be because I think of Authoritarianism along a spectrum and as the opposite of libertarianism. — Moliere

I think the opposite of libertarianism is acceptance of human government as either a necessary evil or as a vehicle for the expression of our potential. Authoritarian-leaning people are just conservative when all is well. If you're old enough to remember 911 (and you're American), then you saw how latent authoritarianism responds to stress. All of the sudden the population of the US was unified. It actually shocked me and frightened many people. Apparently, the US is always just one catastrophe away from ditching democracy and becoming a dictatorship.

.. more later, gotta go. :)

But this being the case, it should be possible to persuade people to agree to take the right decisions to the extent that they are not governed by fear, rigid tradition, propaganda etc, — unenlightened

Both Marcuse and Hitler agree with this except the sort of persuasion they favor is annihilation of the opposing view. Voila. No more fear, rigid tradition, or propaganda. Error has been "corrected" as described by Mr. Grady in The Shining.

Your approach would appear to require some faith in humanity. MLK came by his faith in a Christian church. Where'd you get yours?

Just so reductionism doesn't think it's being picked on... it's a solution to the mind/body problem. Since Leibniz's idea didn't catch on..

How do you explain the causal relationship between mind and body (recalling that physics originally meant body (the way the word is used in medicine... your body vs your mind))

No solution. I figured.

It seems like you're thinking through a lot of questions and I find it hard to reply even though the topic interests me. — Moliere

OK.

I expect I shall also loathe Trump as president. I hope to god that it won't be necessary. — Bitter Crank

Actually, I think it would be pretty funny to have Trump as president. I don't think he's going to win, though.

Didn't the revolutionary minority and the unrevolutionary majority get switched somewhere in this OP about the Trumpish appeal of authoritarian leaders? — apokrisis

Yea, but if you think about it, it doesn't matter. The basic form is:I'm right and therefore I should liberate you from your error.

It's not that I want to be a dictator, it's that I have an obligation to humanity to take over the world and ram my opinion down its throat. It's not leftist or rightist. It's not minority or majority.

Do you agree? If so, I think I understand why you think that way. If you disagree, what's your reasoning?

Semitic is a language group. What makes Jews unique is their ability to make a golem.

Precisely.

I think entropy is the tendency of things to go from higher to lower energy states. High energy states are sometimes pretty disorderly (like plasma). But when things cool down, all sorts of amazing things can start happening (like the earth's electromagnetic dynamo.)

And that just tapped out my physics knowledge. :)

As I said.. efficient and final causes are the answers to two different kinds of question. If you know what a sinus node is, you must have studied enough A&P to be impressed by exactly how dense the lines of final causation are with even relatively simple organisms. It's all about the questions we're asking.

This type of question is a challenge for semantic holism, btw. Atomists can handle it, but they have other troubles... like trying to imagine some causal chain from the first impetus to say "planet" which determines what I mean by it.

I believe the average pro-lifer genuinely believes that abortion is murder. You asked what accounts for the alternate view.... I was answering that with a fair amount of earnestness. It's because many people don't believe a fetus is yet a person. I was also pointing out that this is not a brand new way of looking at things. It's been around for a long time.

I work in intensive care, and I routinely care for people who require extraordinary measures to stay alive. I used to work in neonatal and pediatric intensive care. A fetus prior to about 24 weeks can't be kept alive by any machinery. Their lungs just won't work. All the tissues are just too fragile. The brain isn't developed enough. Frankly, they look like little aliens.

I respect the beliefs of those who say the lives of first and second trimester babies are sacred. I don't agree.