Just one more remark. On torture. I promise, I will shut up. This is one of the few issues on which I cannot countenance any moral grey area. Sure, I have pretty firm opinions on unions, on taxes, on intellectual property, on censorship, on criminal justice, whatever. You name it. I also see the opposing side as a good-faith stance usually erected on bad data, or bad analysis, or bad assumptions. Or sometimes, the error is mine. Not torture. Torture goes to the very core of Western, small-l liberalism. Torture subordinates individual human beings to an inanimate tactical calculus. Western liberalism certainly has a lot to atone for. Dont get me wrong. But one thing it *doesnt* need to atone for? Promoting *humanness* as the focal point. What is the charge against fascism? Human rights. What is the charge against communism? Human agency. What is the charge against plutocracy? Human mutuality. What is the charge against Islamotheocracy? Human inviolability. Whats at stake is more than some cliché about Machiavelli. Its about 400 years of continuous progress. Its about 400 years of humans becoming accountable, bit-by-bit, to other human beings. Not to idols, not to tribes, not to impulses, not to whims--to other human beings. Its about 400 years of replacing tributes with taxes. Its about 400 years of replacing blood money with contracts. Its about 400 years of replacing chain gangs with unemployment insurance. Its about 400 years of dramatically reconceptualising the world. Its about 400 years of outsiders gradually becoming non-citizens, as opposed to savages. Its about 400 years of having mustard gas, and tactical nukes, and coercive asymmetries that beggar belief--and yet ...not employing them because the *human* cost, outweighs ones *palace* gain. Its about 400 years of problems. But its about 400 years of having an ever-improving moral arsenal to address them. Thats what this is about. That. Is. All.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 18:46:10 +0000
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