Respect Our Enemies -- Why?

[Dr_Strabismus]

I think this woman said all there is to say on the subject:

http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/images/goldenrule.jpg

 

[Svenskaflicka]

What if it's their lives vs. the lives of an innocent, or many innocents? This is not a "false choice" - it's a real choice that faces law enforcement officers from time to time.

This is why I'm against killing at all. While I might use my martial arts to defend myself against an attacker, I will never agree with anyone who says that the only way to protect yourself or another innocent is by killing the threatening enemy.

We ARE humans. We should strive to be civilized. And a civilized person doesn't kill his enemy, he puts him in prison and makes sure that the enemy gets his basic needs of food and water and such things fulfilled.

A law enforcement officer - I suppose you mean a police(wo)man - has the choice of not KILLING a dangerous person, but merely injuring him/her. Personally, I'd like to see cops fire sedatives at criminals, to make them fall asleep - easy capture and transport to a jail cell!

It would be so much easier if we could see the world in black and white; "he doesn't think/feel/dress/talk/look/pray the same way I do - he's an enemy! I have the right to take his life away from him!"

But that would lower us to the level of barbarians. I'm for a more humane solution.

 

[neonlyte]

one classics scholar noted that the 'worthy enemy' is a concept found in classical Greece. if you look at the Iliad, Hector, leader of 'the enemy' is shown as having a number of virtues. indeed the Trojans are not vilified; Euripides could write of The Trojan Women, and convey their grief.

particularly with the advent of Xtianity, the 'enemy' became an *evil* person: as St Paul speaks of those who will come to know God's wrath:

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.... Furthermore, since they [these men] did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowldge of God, he gave them over to the depraved mind.... They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. .... Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them' Rom 1:25-32

Part of this picture is that the evil person *knows* he's evil but persists out of sheer spite and malice; this is a characteristic of the bad guys in Ayn Rand novels.

In the passage above, you can see how Xtians would apply the above to Native Persons. those who allegedly worship idols are *wicked*, that is, immoral. hence the Native People, as The Evil Enemy, have to be exterminated.

---

Thanks J.

I'm striken by how many of these posts (including the leading item) lack objectivity. I have no problem with the moral subjective view, I try to rationalise my opinion of others around my individual moral framework. A true enemy - someone prepared to take something of yours, at whatever cost, can only win or lose. You can only win or lose. The question is framed from the 'winners' point of view - as the loser, I am surely not expected to 'respect' the winner - not when I've gone into battle to protect something I hold dear. As the winner, I can be magnanimous in defeat of my enemy. Respect would be no more than platitude, a nobel gift bestowed to mellow the humbling of defeat.

There is no Morality in battle - it is a comfort zone constructed by the victor, an illusion to scour the stench of the fallen. Winning is all, like the pugalist who will beat his opponant senseless, only after winning will he enquire of enemies wellbeing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

This is why I'm against killing at all. While I might use my martial arts to defend myself against an attacker, I will never agree with anyone who says that the only way to protect yourself or another innocent is by killing the threatening enemy.

We ARE humans. We should strive to be civilized. And a civilized person doesn't kill his enemy, he puts him in prison and makes sure that the enemy gets his basic needs of food and water and such things fulfilled.

A law enforcement officer - I suppose you mean a police(wo)man - has the choice of not KILLING a dangerous person, but merely injuring him/her. Personally, I'd like to see cops fire sedatives at criminals, to make them fall asleep - easy capture and transport to a jail cell!

It would be so much easier if we could see the world in black and white; "he doesn't think/feel/dress/talk/look/pray the same way I do - he's an enemy! I have the right to take his life away from him!"

But that would lower us to the level of barbarians. I'm for a more humane solution.

I was afraid this would be your answer - "There's always another way." Unfortunately that is demonstrably false. Sometimes there really is no other way, and the stark choice is between the lives of innocents or the life of the guilty. I'm reluctant to play the game of scenarios - human shield, machine gun aimed at hostages, etc. If one is determined to deny that the unfortunate reality does sometimes exist, then there's really no point in me offering specifics the pick at.

Actually, I think the Amish a few weeks ago had a more realistic understanding of the reality that stark choices do exist sometimes, and a more honest appreciation of what their principles require. I don't know, but I suppose they would say, "Yes, the innocent will die and the guilty will live because I refuse to act." In my view they also have their own evasion, however: "It does not matter because this life is not what is important."

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

One of my philosophical "gurus" has shared this with me, and rather than steal this person's best lines I will just paste it:

"If Dyson wanted to say 'we should regard our enemies as human beings,' he would have been right, and should have said that. But instead he said, 'We should respect them as human beings.' This is what makes no sense, and it does suggest an attitude of non-judgmental tolerance toward one's enemies."

 

[Pure]

scurrilous little remark

RA Actually, I think the Amish a few weeks ago had a more realistic understanding of the reality that stark choices do exist sometimes, and a more honest appreciation of what their principles require. I don't know, but I suppose they would say, "Yes, the innocent will die and the guilty will live because I refuse to act." In my view they also have their own evasion, however: "It does not matter because this life is not what is important."

I'd chose the Amish over the Randians any day, on the issue of 'understanding reality.' Randians, as western middle class intellectuals have, so far as i know, no experience of persecution.
The little slander was floated in another thread: peace loving people are complicit in murder and fool themselves if they think otherwise.
(i believe it was titled 'are pacifists cowards?')

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'm striken by how many of these posts (including the leading item) lack objectivity. I have no problem with the moral subjective view, I try to rationalise my opinion of others around my individual moral framework. A true enemy - someone prepared to take something of yours, at whatever cost, can only win or lose. You can only win or lose. The question is framed from the 'winners' point of view - as the loser, I am surely not expected to 'respect' the winner - not when I've gone into battle to protect something I hold dear. As the winner, I can be magnanimous in defeat of my enemy. Respect would be no more than platitude, a nobel gift bestowed to mellow the humbling of defeat.

There is no Morality in battle - it is a comfort zone constructed by the victor, an illusion to scour the stench of the fallen. Winning is all, like the pugalist who will beat his opponant senseless, only after winning will he enquire of enemies wellbeing.

Neon, when you say "lack objectivity" are you really saying "pretend to be objective when no such thing is possible, because everything is subjective?"

Also, if I apply that "there is no Morality in battle" to the kind of law enforcement situation inferred in some recent posts of a criminal murdering innocent hostages one-by-one to obtain an impossible demand*, would you claim there is moral equivalence between the criminal and the innocent hostage? Or to be more precise, between the criminal and the police sniper who has the criminal's head in his crosshairs (the rest of him covered by a human shield). If I assert that objectively speaking they are not morally equivalent, would you insist that my assertion is subjective, not objective?


*I mean literally impossible, like requiring Fidel to release all his political prisoners, or morally impossible, like handing his ex-wife and children for him to murder.

 

[cantdog]

What if it's their lives vs. the lives of an innocent, or many innocents? This is not a "false choice" - it's a real choice that faces law enforcement officers from time to time.

So we should kill all the generals?

 

[cloudy]

So we should kill all the generals?

works for me.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

So we should kill all the generals?

Let's let R. Richard pick out the ones to put against the wall.

 

[3113]

Yes, the same meaningless tautolgical meaning: "respect = understand."

As I said, it's NOT if an understanding of "enemies" is rare and if bad things happen as a result. You can't MAKE the argument tautological just by saying it is. THAT is another questionable premis.

Very well, you want to expand the meaning to things like "normal soldiers." OK then, let's get specific, and imagine we're on a battlefield and the normal soldiers are trying to kill us.

You're defining yourself to victory again by insisting that this "respect" is meant to happen between men under fire. Which is absurd and, again, disrepectful of Dyson--it's ridiculous to think he meant that a soldier under fire is suppose to try and "understand the enemy."

More likely he means prior to battle, you try to understand the enemy. In a memorable scene in "Patton" the General beats Rommel's ass during a critical tank battle. He shouts out across the battlefield, "Rommel! I read your damn book!"--a perfect example, I think, of someone who respected his enemy (i.e. did not underestamate him), UNDERSTOOD his enemy, and thus, beat his enemy.

Dramatization aside, this really did happen between two soldiers, enemies, who were trying to kill each other. So it would seem that respect and understanding is possible and a good idea in certain circumstances.

Agendas - OK, Let's begin at the beginning. Why should Dyson write a piece that appears to promote a meaningless tautology in The New York Review of Books, and why should it publish that?

Let me ask you this: If you wanted to ask the question, "should we respect our enemies?" Why didn't you just ask it? Why did you present this battle between Mr. Dyson and Mr. Machan (who happens to be a liberatarian! Gosh, no Ajenda there!)? Because once you presented the question this way, with Dyson's opinion, and Machan's ad hominen rebuttle, you presented it as a battle between ajendas.

Which makes me think that you, who we know as liberatarian minded, want crow about Machan's trouncing of Dyson's arguement--not discuss this rationally, logically or grammatically.

How would you feel if this question had been presented in the opposite fashion? Machan having written a book, and someone presenting an article that trounced a single sentence in that book in a vicious, ad hominen argument? Would you say that the person had presented the question fairly?

I MAY agree with you under the right circumstances. But I'm not ABOUT to feel anything but irratation at an argument that uses logical fallacies to support itself. Dyson's argument is quoted pretty much out of context--so I can't judge it. I may disagree with it as well, as in full, it may be equally illogical. But as you presented the question, I can't make a rational, repectful decision and I certainly can't feel anything but disgust at Machan's ham-handed rebuttle.

Indeed - a can opened by those whose agenda is to convince us that "virtue" and "vicious" are essentially meaningless terms because there is no absolute right and wrong ethical people can distinguish.

And maybe they are meaningless terms. At what point is what someone does vicious? A pacifist might say that shooting anyone, even in defense is vicious. At what point is what someone does virtuous? A warrior might say that killing someone in defense is virtuous, and not fighting (as a pacifist) is not virtuous.

I'm sorry, but these terms are not absolute--much as you may want them to be. They shift with time and culture. We can agree upon them--like taking a majority vote. But they are not numbers which always add up to the same sum no matter if a caveman does it or a spaceman. If such terms and beliefs were absolute then there would be no change in them over time.

So we just "respect" them all.

This is the "slippery slope" fallacy. You assume that if one accepts the initial premis that we'll end up, like dominos, falling down to this crazy conclusion. This is not valid.

Illogical nonsense? Let each reader judge for him or herself.

I did. And I'm really sorry to see that you decided to turn this into an argument weighed down by such ajendas rather than posing it purely and with well defined terms for things like "respect" and "enemy." It might have been an interesting topic, one I could have respectfully participated in.

Instead, it has generated a lack of respect for differing opinions. And that's a shame.

 

[R. Richard]

Let's let R. Richard pick out the ones to put against the wall.

It is normally very difficult to kill the generals. They have their own safety as a primary concern. What you can do, in a war situation, is to make the generals use up so much of their resources defending what is very important to them that they have few resources left to be used to create trouble.

 

[Hooper_X]

we should respect our enemies as human beings in order to understand them.

I try to keep that precept in mind in my dealings with the vast majority of Americans.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

"We should respect our enemies as human beings in order to understand them."
I try to keep that precept in mind in my dealings with the vast majority of Americans.

I sincerely hope that you are being flip, and do not sincerely believe that the majority of Americans define themselves as your enemy, and seek to do harm to you, your social group or other innocent people.

If you define "seek to do harm" as "not doing enough to help" that raises a number of interesting assumptions and issues that would be fertile subjects for another thread.

 

[Hooper_X]

I sincerely hope that you are being flip...

No. I was as serious as ass cancer.

 

[3113]

the criminally insane I recruited. The criminally insane are what are referred to in military terms as 100% effectives. Properly led, a dozen of them are an effective striking force. Your normal severely retarded incompetents are perhaps 10% effective. Thus, if I am outnumbered two to one, I actually effectively outnumber the enemy five to one.

I can't recall the study where I read it, but there is a spike in murder and serial killings after wars end and soldiers come home. There's evidence that some soldiers, even if they didn't start out that way, end up enjoying the killing or just acting out of PTSD. They don't know how to stop.

Which makes Ted Bundy types virtuous in war, but vicious on the domestic front. Lucky for the domestic front, most soldiers are not criminally insane. They, are, yes, average joes who just want a normal life again--or rather, as much of a normal ife as they can have given what they've seen and been through during the war.

 

[JamesSD]

Because Enemies and Friends are not static, especially with countries.

Examples from the US:
Britain/UK (enemies from revolution more or less until sometime after 1812, very close ally now)
North/South (American Civil War, obviously now one country)
Mexico (Several wars, and yes, they are our friends now, despite what some people think of Mexicans)
Germany/Italy/Japan (All were enemies in WWII, all are allies now)
Iran (Bounces back and forth from our good graces, mainly dependant on if there's someone we like less)
Russia/USSR (Allies in WWII. Enemies in Cold War. Arguably now allies in dealing with North Korea)
The Taliban (The US supported them against the USSR. May not have been wise in hindsight)

I'd go on, but I'm bored of it. My point is, you don't want to be committing horrible atrocities against someone you may need to be allies with later down the line.

 

[JamesSD]

I can't recall the study where I read it, but there is a spike in murder and serial killings after wars end and soldiers come home. There's evidence that some soldiers, even if they didn't start out that way, end up enjoying the killing or just acting out of PTSD. They don't know how to stop.

Could it also be from killing unfaithful wives/girlfriends and/or their lovers?

 

[3113]

Could it also be from killing unfaithful wives/girlfriends and/or their lovers?

Heh. Altogether possible.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Let me ask you this: If you wanted to ask the question, "should we respect our enemies?" Why didn't you just ask it? Why did you present this battle between Mr. Dyson and Mr. Machan (who happens to be a liberatarian! Gosh, no Ajenda there!)? Because once you presented the question this way, with Dyson's opinion, and Machan's ad hominen rebuttle, you presented it as a battle between ajendas.

Which makes me think that you, who we know as liberatarian minded, want crow about Machan's trouncing of Dyson's arguement--not discuss this rationally, logically or grammatically.

Alright, 3, I'm not trying to be gratuituously contentious here. Of couse I have an agenda. It's one I've spent countless hours and electrons promoting here: My rejection of the moral relativism that is the dominant ideology here, and which I think is pernicious and full of contradictions.

It is a battle between two "agendas," here and in the real world. Machan is on my side of it, and Dyson is on your side. Let's be frank - this battle is what's really going on in that exhange between those two scholars.

Dyson chose a battleground that in my view exposes some of the "logical fallacies" of his and your worldview. Machan promptly charged in and used his adversary's error to expose these. You and what Ami would call the "usual suspects" are fighting back here. I might say that you are all irked because Dyson took you out on a rhetorical limb, and Machan responded with a well tuned chain saw. Whether or not I'm crowing about that is beside the point. ("Crowing" is a bit excessive, but I'm certainly not displeased.)

 

[Oblimo]

Dyson is talking about empathy, Roxanne.

Also, he's attempting to sound pithy and aphorical. Picking at an aphorism this way is useless.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

No. I was as serious as ass cancer.

If that's what you truly believe, and if you preach it to young African Americans, don't you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that those who believe it will fail to thrive in this society? Is it not true that many African Americans are actually thriving in this society, and doesn't that show the error of telling some that it is impossible for them to succeed?

(This is decidedly threadjacking, but what the heck.)

 

[rgraham666]

Forgive me, if you weren't speaking of me, Roxanne. But I am not a moral relativist!

I have a very strong sense of ethics. And I've paid a high price for them.

I just don't believe I know enough to be absolutely certain they apply in absolutely every situation.

And they aren't the same as yours. Which I suspect is my biggest sin.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Dyson is talking about empathy, Roxanne.

Empathy for Hitler, Bundy, child molestors and slave owners? Why? (Again, we are not talking about "understanding.")

 

[rgraham666]

I feel empathy for them. I've had experience in my life of how far your mind can wander from the path.

It is a horrible place to be, Roxanne, imprisoned in your own mind, ruled by your fear and anger.

Wouldn't prevent me from acting against them. It does make me pity them.