Nothing is decided by this.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

In a recent discussion it was asked if civilized people can actually win against uncivilized people in a conflict of ideas while staying civil? and if not, is it preferable to accept defeat with one's principles intact or betray them in order to win?

Being a sucker for a good fight I feel that both of these questions really deserved thier own post.

In regards to the first point I am remind of a quote attributed to Ahmed Raisuni Al Rif but in all likelyhood apocryphal.

...I'd prefer to fight the European armies, but they do not fight as men. Men fight with swords, so they can see each other's eyes! Sometimes, when this is not possible, they fight with rifles. The Europeans have guns that fire many times promiscuously and rend the Earth. Nothing is decided by this. Therefore, I take women and children.

To me this quote illustrates the chief fallacy of the US/NATO's approach to modern warfare. We can declare "Mission Accomplished" all we want but the war isn't really over till both sides agree on who won. Because a fanatic would rather die than admit defeat this the so-called cvilized nations find themselves in a pickle. Either annihilate the opposition (a course of action discouraged by liberal values) or allow the conflict to continue.

This brings us to the 2nd point.

Tolerance of opposing views is seen as one of the pillars of our culture but is the tolerance of intolerance still a virtue? Does the principal of multi-culturalism apply equally? Or do some cultures have more value than others? If the latter, do we sacrifice the principal of tolerance to destroy one culture or save another?

It's a conundrum.

Comments

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Let us not forget that Islamism is a sub-culture that was spawned by a reaction to the brutality of both Russia and the US. It is more of a child of American culture than it is of Muslim culture.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Irrelevant to the question at hand.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Didn't you see the sign asking you not to discuss the outside world?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Your spelling is a conundrum. :P

But srsly. Tolerance to intolerance makes intolerance; intolerance to intolerance makes double intolerance... Damned if you do, damned if you don't, so choose the lesser intolerance (pst! it's the former!)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You're on a roll, omg!

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Lol

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Now that's some pretty ironclad logic there.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

LOL forever.................... <- (that is foreverness)

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

If you're fighting a war of ideas, then the truth is that if you don't remain civil, you've lost. Period. The problem is that not everyone agrees we're fighting a war of ideas, despite all this talk of "hearts and minds" and the like. A whole lot of people presume that we're fighting a war of survival. In a war of survival, your morals are at least potentially up on the chopping block. We did a lot of stuff that, by today's moral measure, was absolutely insane in WWII. We killed hundreds of thousands of people, most of them civilians, to do marginal damage to small production centers situated in major European and Japanese cities. We thought, even after years of ridiculous slaughter and all evidence to the contrary, that this next bombing run would be the one that causes the populace to overthrow their leaders. So we justified it, because we believed that to not do so would destroy the nation. We sacrificed our morals. Before WWII, American bombing fleets were supposedly "pinpoint"/precise weapons, despite the blatant reality that we couldn't use it without carpet-bombing a general area.

But this isn't a war of survival. The terrorist groups present no credible threat to the continuing existence of America, as a nation or a state or an idea. We are engaged in a war of ideas, and in that case, hypocrisy is the worst wound anyone can do to you. If you're going to stand for Truth, Justice, and Freedom, doing things like, say, torturing and imprisoning people for a decade without access to legal process is absolutely as powerful a weapon for your enemy as any plane they could hijack.

As for your question on tolerance: Obviously the adage that "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" applies. You tolerate anything that's not harming others. When people start threatening honor killings or attempting to impose sharia, then you push back. Freedom means the freedom to make shitty choices for yourself and your family.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

+1

Very well enunciated.

For short hand I always say, in the absence of formal coercion, my freedom ends where yours begins to arrive at basically the same result. The moment I try to use my freedom to alter or deprive you of yours, there is justified conflict.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

One option available to civilized people is to disengage with the uncivilized, to stop sending them money, technology, food, weapons or soldiers. There would then be no conflict to lose and no interaction that forces a compromise of the basic values of civilization. Civilized countries would then be able to focus on their own betterment, to improving the knowledge, health and wisdom of its citizens, and the uncivilized can wither and stagnate in their own ignorance. In other words, the war is over when we leave.

Regarding the second question, the requirement that intolerance be tolerated, that multiculturalism be applied unequally and that some cultures be valued more than others is based on political correctness, the very antithesis of the sort of honesty and open mindedness that is needed for true tolerance.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

One option available to civilized people is to disengage with the uncivilized, to stop sending them money, technology, food, weapons or soldiers. There would then be no conflict to lose and no interaction that forces a compromise of the basic values of civilization.

If people practiced that then they would stop paying taxes, stop inventing new technologies for the government to use against its people, and stop obeying, supporting or joining the armies--all in the U.S.

Actually, that would probably be a good thing. I can see how that could create a more favorable landscape.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What is civilized?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Either annihilate the opposition (a course of action discouraged by liberal values) or allow the conflict to continue.
Yeah you're right, war is pretty much a series of mundane choices like whether or not eat Life cereal or have some oatmeal in the morning. If only we just decided to win, we would win! Easy-peasy!

Tolerance of opposing views is seen as one of the pillars of our culture but is the tolerance of intolerance still a virtue?
I don't know what I 'm tolerating or what it has to do with me, or if its any of my business, honestly. You're a big fan of rights, and would probably get annoyed if some crusader barged into your house on the flimsy grounds of pursuing some moral good, because their conscience is so tortured by your sinful ways they just have to do something. No wait, that's what the terrorists do! I thought being civilized just meant minding your own damn business and watching your own back, and not falling prey to the "plank/eye" hypocrisy of pointing out other people's sins.

It's a conundrum.
No it really isn't. It really isn't up to us morally police the world, even if we could, even if we had any right, or even if we had any place to do so.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You cannot fight evil by using evil's methods. Such is self-destructive. You must fight evil with good. And in terms of a Clash of Civilizations, that is so much sorry self-seeking bullshit of the highest order to sucker the idiots, nincompoops, and Miniver Cheevys who need purpose in their own lives it's not worth dignifying with contempt. This is a point raised only by those weaklings and weak men who need to fit their lives into a Lord of the Rings style epic where they're Aragorn charging the Morannon and forget that in the end there is no solution to anything gained by warfare. The USA/NATO approach to warfare, incidentally, is to deliberately seek out weak and incompetent enemies and/or rely on much stronger, evil factions to defeat "their" enemy and steal the credit of those factions. The USA miilitarily speaking is a Dirty Coward which can't and hasn't ever shown the ability to prosecute a war against a serious enemy. We have no idea how the USA would do in such a case if it had to do this by itself. The US Civil War doesn't count.

And frankly put all this Ludendorffism on the part of some "Western" soldiers confirms my contempt for the mentality that can't or won't comprehend that civilized societies contain war, they don't wage a total war unless there is an enemy justifying it. But the Ludendorffs and MacArthurs of the armies don't understand this because their fragile little egos can't comprehend the complexity of a world that is much bigger than they will ever be. The mentality you describe is that of the Stab in the Back legend, that of cowardice, that of the little sissy who can't or won't accept that societies aren't armies. That World War II was an exception. Total annihilation has almost never been feasible.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

When we invaded Iraq, we were told that we were invading a country of 26 million people and don't expect to be in control of anything. All these people treating war as if it is some kind of real-time strategy game annoy me. You wanna "annihilate the opposition"? Go ahead, start the draft.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If I am to be perfectly crude I think the US Army is institutionally a bunch of two year olds who relies on being idiotic dicks about what they get from civilians and that the US Army and military as a whole will receive respect from me institutionally the moment it ceases to blame civilians, the same moment it realizes that overwhelming force is not the answer to everything. I think institutionally the US Military is childish, petty, and reliant on mythology to make itself feel good about in reality deliberately avoiding major wars and having to do much of anything serious in the wars it's fought.

The USA has never prosecuted a serious war against a serious enemy when it hasn't had someone else doing most of the dirty work and/or enemies that are conveniently stupid in all the right ways. The US officer corps is a bunch of Ludendorffs who want to whine about civilians instead of fixing their own mistakes. Individual soldiers and veterans have no responsibility for the institution, this mentality crept in during Korea and got worse during Vietnam. I think if push came to shove the US officers would rather have been involved in the Freudian parties on May Day than serving in "freedom." Because at a crude level the US Army still in the 21st Century only likes democracy until it is subject to the same rules everyone else is, at which point it reveals it's still in the mentality that soldiers are superior to civilians.

Now, again, this is the institution. Individuals can't change it and have no responsibility for it. But if the OP's free to work on the Stab In the Back legend principle, I am not ashamed to point out the idiocy involved in said "principle."

[oportet.livejournal.com]

War is barbaric, or should be at least. In my opinion, trying to make it civilized actually pushes it in the other direction.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

So what about "regime change" wars like Iraq 2? Should there be limits to our actions or just go ahead with the white phosphorus bombing of daycares?

[usekh.livejournal.com]

As I said in that post. People have tried fighting terrorist type organisations by adopting similarly brutal tactics. It didn't work.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The problem with Imperial Japan was that they lacked the will to triumph.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

Tolerance of opposing views is seen as one of the pillars of our culture but is the tolerance of intolerance still a virtue? Does the principal of multi-culturalism apply equally? Or do some cultures have more value than others? If the latter, do we sacrifice the principal of tolerance to destroy one culture or save another?

At the risk of pissing off both the right and left, yes, yes, yes (well, cultural traits more specifically), no.

We're stuck here on this legal jurisdiction together, despite our differences. Even if there is a Correct Moral Code to live by, I can't imagine any method to implement this code except through a democratic process. Oppressing the will of the people, regardless of how immoral those people might be, simply isn't possible. And the chances of a small minority being right on all policy positions for longer than a short reign is pretty remote. Democracy isn't good because we're great people who deserve a fair shake at governing ourselves. It's good because it's gives people a way to stop violence.

So yes, Lots of people think I'm pro murdering babies. And if that's what they think, it might appear justified in murdering a few doctors to stop that practice. But that sort of behavior only alienates people from their point of view, and gives me more political power to go off and murder more babies.

Even if it's wrong to murder babies, I still believe it isn't until a majority of people believe that murdering babies is wrong that we should actually stop murdering babies. Because stopping the murder of babies for one election cycle is nice. But to actually stop the murdering of babies, you need to convince the population it's wrong.

Americans bought and sold people. And it was unequivocally morally wrong. That cultural trait did not have value, even if it was really useful at times. But Americans had to change slowly, and old views had to slowly die off. While we still started a civil war to speed things up a little, I don't think anyone would pretend that someone could have gotten in a time machine and convinced the Founding Fathers to take the morally superior road to end slavery.

Tolerance is how we get along as demographics fight our cultural battle for us. It would be great if intolerance to intolerance would change minds. But I think military might only speeds up demographic inevitabilities, or quickly turns into an unwinnable quagmire. So I don't believe it's possible to destroy one culture to save the other. But it sure sounds like a nice possibility. Who doesn't like a good fire-fight knowing Right is on your side?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that everywhere else, even autocratic, cruel, clumsy, bumbling, blundering Tsarist Russia, slavery was abolished by decree, by law. Not by sending mass conscripts into hideous bloodbaths. Only here did slaveowners revolt and end up spending four years in that process.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Nuke them all from orbit.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

We can declare "Mission Accomplished" all we want but the war isn't really over till both sides agree on who won.

I don't think this is necessarily correct. I can see two problems with this:

1) A conflict can end because one side dwindles into irrelevancy. I think this is the aim of the more civilized branch of war. There are, after all, a huge number of sects and groups within the US that consider themselves virtually "at war" with the country they live in, but have dwindled to irrelevancy in the meantime. How many people live in constant fear of the Texas separatists, or the Mormon separatists compared to the size of the US? This is similar to the long-term collapse of groups like the Shining Path - a few hardcore members remain, but they rapidly diminish from danger to nuisance. Certainly nobody fears them. But this is a relatively minor point.

2) It depends on their being two sides in a war. That's true in conflict between nation-states or separate bodies, but in a 4GW/5GW context, it gets a little trickier. Wars may not necessarily have sides so much as they can have causes. Consider for instance the Mexican drug cartels (a textbook example of modern war if there ever was one). Even if you managed to call down the wrath of God and instantly kill all people currently involved in drug smuggling, the cause of the violence, the demand of Americans for illegal drugs, would probably drive others to take their place. Without either curing relative poverty among those groups who do the smuggling (giving them safer ways to make a living) or removing the demand, the annihilation of the enemy, or even their complete surrender, does not constitute a permanent end.

I think the second point forms the basis of a lot of criticism of the theory of "War of Annihilation", modern war makes it difficult to achieve lasting effect by annihilating the entirety of the enemy. As long as the root causes remain you've just bought yourself some time - at best - and caused yourself a lot of trouble at worst. This has been a pretty steady problem with annihilation-based policy, it's difficult to kill all the potentially unhappy people under an oppressive regime, just as it is difficult to wipe out crime by killing all potential criminals (since that's pretty much everyone). It's even more difficult since we're much more likely to fight in "allied" countries than "enemy" ones, where annihilating the country in question is a loss to us as severe as having them turn into an enemy.

Anyway, for issues of civil war, I don't think annihilation is a particularly good approach. It works in conventional war by enforcing separation - removing a country's military power prevents its people from impinging on the territory of another people, forcing a peace. In a civil war, the two sides are already geographically intertwined. If, as in many wars, you also can't determine who is going to be on which side until after the shooting starts, pre-emptive geographic separation is useless, and we have to think up new tactics. That being said, it's not all bad. Regardless of whether someone is our enemy or our ally, they seem to react in semi-predictable ways once they're in power anyway (well, not all the time, but it's good to remember).

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I have a request. Please do not refer to me by name ever again. Now when I think about it, I ask you to please not respond to me and I promise to return the favor, for the sake of ourselves and everybody around. I hope you will understand, and I thank you in advance.

[fierceleaf.livejournal.com]

The tolerant individual would be by definition intolerant of intolerance.

How to protect individuals against bullies?

From my non-civilized point of view, the multiculturalism should permit national dances in national costumes and absolutely ban people to oppress each other because it is their national tradition or religious stuff.