More On Anti-Israeli Protests

If these activities on American college campuses, and amongst American young people continue, they will become progressively more extreme. For it is in the nature of any such movement to seek out authenticity. For example a movement against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) on behalf of Tibet would naturally seek out increasingly more authentic Tibetan voices to speak out for the cause (against the Chinese government). It will covet individuals who are as close as possible to the true movement, the original movement.

In this situation that means the increasing involvement of individuals close to organizations such as Hamas, the PLO and the PLJ, which have unfortunately been the only large organizations associated with the cause of the Palestinian people. And the more young people interact with these extremists, the more they will pick up from them; especially being young and impressionable (and in many cases uninformed).

"What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish? ”

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French political writer.

“In the history of art, unlike that of science, what comes after is not necessarily better than what came before.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1947-) English psychiatrist and social critic.

You’re thoughts on what’s taking place on college campuses and the anti semitism being blatantly displayed

There has been a major shift in the culture. In years past, whenever the Palestinian/Israeli conflict flared up, anti-Israeli sentiment in America was limited to the fringe of the Left; with both the political Right, and the mainstream political Left standing behind the only liberal democracy in the region, and both sides recognizing the cynical, self destructive tactics of Israel's extremist enemies which stalemate the situation (Hamas, The PLO and the PLJ).

But Gen Z goes into the evaluation of this long enduring conflict with a completely different mentality. That is because it has been significantly shaped by a radical cultural ideology according to which virtue comes from victimhood and suffering rather than from proper conduct. Individuals are entirely a product of their social circumstances (says Critical Theory) and the conduct of the oppressed is an expression of their desperation and suffering at the hands of powerful systems. Those systems are themselves the only truly “unethical” force that is in play, and they must be reformed in order to reform the individual. In the 2020 riots, violence (including against the livelihood of civilians) was justified by the cause: the alleviation of alleged suffering and oppression at the hands of law enforcement.

The Palestinian Israeli conflict plays into this Oppresser/Oppressed (stronger/weaker) narrative where there is no “morality” there is only “justice” (which means “equity”). It leads to a justification of a “By Any Means Necessary” ideology , just as long as the means is not sufficient enough to turn the stronger party into the weaker party. Israel is the powerful more militarily dominant liberal democratic nation so it must be to blame in this clash between itself and a poorer, chaotic struggling society. The advocate of traditional Western morality however judges each party whether small or great according to the morality of its intentional actions. According to that calculus Israel is, for the most part, a free nation attempting to defend its citizens, Hamas, The PLO and The PIJ are obscenely immoral terrorist organizations that intentionally target the innocent, and the Palestinian people are victims caught in the middle.

The truly unfortunate thing is that this debate is spilling over in the form of anti-semitic language and behavior toward normal American citizens who happen to be Jewish. And of course the rhetoric of this classical anti-Semitism uses the exact same language of the oppressor/oppressed, "the Jews run the world, they own and control everything and we are their hapless victims." This was of course the rhetoric of the Nazis.

And as with the other paradigms of oppressor v.s. oppressed it doesn't actually matter if it's accurate or not.

“Liberty is like rich food and strong wine: the strong natures accustomed to them thrive and grow even stronger on them; but they deplete, inebriate and destroy the weak.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Swiss political philosopher.

“For many artists and critics beauty is a discredited idea … The modernist message, that art must show life as it is, suggests to many people that, if you aim for beauty, you will end up with kitsch. This is a mistake, however. Kitsch tells you how nice you are: it offers easy feelings on the cheap. Beauty tells you to stop thinking about yourself, and to wake up to the world of others. It says, look at this, listen to this, study this - for here is something more important than you. Kitsch is a means to cheap emotion; beauty is an end in itself. We reach beauty through setting our interests aside and letting the world dawn on us. There are many ways of doing this, but art is undeniably the most important, since it presents us with the image of human life - our own life and all that life means to us - and asks us to look on it directly, not for what we can take from it, but for what we can give to it. Through beauty art cleans the world of our self-obsession. Our human need for beauty is not something that [we] could lack and still be fulfilled as people. It is a need arising from our moral nature. We can wander through this world, alienated, resentful, full of suspicion and distrust. Or we can find our home here, coming to rest in harmony with others and with ourselves. And the experience of beauty guides us along this second path..."

Roger Scruton (1944-2020) British Conservative Philosopher.

The Morality Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

A small debate has arisen in Conservative circles over the morality of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One side proclaims that the decision was evil because it targeted innocent civilians on a massive scale (regardless of how many lives it may have saved) and furthermore anyone who will not denounce the decision is evil themselves. The other side declares that it was a moral decision because it saved more lives than it claimed. Now one error that many critics of the decision seem to make is that they speak as though this was merely a choice between the deaths of the innocent civilians of these two cities, and the deaths of a larger number of armed troops on both sides. It was not. If it were it would be an easier decision.

The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is that, like contemporary discussions of slavery, this is a discussion of a different moral climate. Innocent civilians were not merely targeted by the H bomb but were regularly targeted by conventional bombs during the war in a way that would be entirely unthinkable today. Entire cities were bombed out. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were killed in German cities alone. So the grim practical choice here was between years and years of more targeted conventional bombing of innocent civilians, or these two acts against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If I were personally sent back in a time machine and given the power to make this decision I could not, for I am a product of a different time. The question is whether or not, within the context of that time, this was the best decision. In my opinion it was for the time. Some will object to my claim that this was a different moral climate pointing out statements of the era that express an awareness of the evil of targeting civilians. But we can do the same thing with slavery. Every single major founding father is on record condemning the institution of slavery as grossly immoral. This does not change the fact that it was a different moral climate; for in today's Western world the very notion of slavery is unthinkable.

The targeting of civilians was not some extreme deviation peculiar to World War 2 either. It was practiced in World War 1, and in most earlier wars, indicating that the extreme taboo against it presently is indeed a convention of the modern world.

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) American abolitionist and author.

"It is above all in the present democratic age that the true friends of liberty and human grandeur must remain constantly vigilant and ready to prevent the social power from lightly sacrificing the particular rights of a few individuals to the general execution of its designs. In such times there is no citizen so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be oppressed, and there are no individual rights so unimportant that they can be sacrificed...

-Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French political writer.

“Only a few prefer liberty- the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.”

― Sallust (86-34 B.C.) Roman statesman.

While the violent riots that erupted here in the U.S. in 2020 eventually ended, the political and cultural response to those riots (specifically on the political Left) conceived something that remains with us to this day; something that is beginning to cause a major problem within many communities. The decision to morally justify that violent behavior has lead to a continuing trend of open and bold store theft and looting. Unlike shoplifting prior to the 2020 riots these thieves are overt and casual in their behavior. But that is what comes with the feeling of being entitled. If you are a victim of oppression that has been robbed by the system, why would you not be morally justified in pillaging that same system?

And of course if one believes that the behavior in question is on some level justified, one will be very hesitant to punish it. Thus local leaders first embolden the criminals in question, and then refuse to prosecute them. The problem is that this behavior is causing store closures in poor neighborhoods around the country, leaving the inhabitants of those neighborhoods without access to vital goods and services. The most vulnerable within society are paying the price, at the hands of the "compassionate" political leaders elected to represent their interests.

"While 'greed' is one of the most popular—and most fallacious—explanations of the very high salaries of corporate executives, when your salary depends on what other people are willing to pay you, you can be the greediest person on earth and that will not raise your pay in the slightest. Any serious explanation of corporate executives’ salaries must be based on the reasons for those salaries being offered, not the reasons why the recipients desire them..”

Thomas Sowell (1930-) American economist.

"Experience has taught me that it is wrong and cruel to suspend judgment, that nonjudgmentalism is at best indifference to the suffering of others, at worst a disguised form of sadism. How can one respect people as members of the human race unless one holds them to a standard of conduct and truthfulness? How can people learn from experience unless they are told that they can and should change? One doesn't demand of laboratory mice that they do better: but man is not a mouse, and I can think of no more contemptuous way of treating people than to ascribe to them no more responsibility than such mice.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949-) English psychiatrist and cultural critic.

"Perhaps you and I have lived with this miracle too long to be properly appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation,"

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) U.S. President

Response To Previous Quote.

kvetcher-in-the-rye

Naive children are easier to enslave.

Philosophicalconservatism

Yes and children who believe they know more than they do are naive. Arrogant presumption is not knowledge or wisdom. What it is important to note is that although we are expanding children's choices we are increasingly shielding them from all consequences. Generation X was the generation of so called latchkey kids, and so many of us had more responsibility as children than many modern children do, but our parents never let us forget that we were merely children. What Dr. Szasz is talking about is the expansion of rights without responsibility, which leads to conceit not wisdom.

"In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults."

Thomas Szaz (1920-2012) Hungarian American psychiatrist

Response To Quote On Male Protection Of Women.

chinchillacrossing

Protect us from who? 🧐

Philosophicalconservatism

The very fact that you can ask that question is a stunning testimony to the effectiveness of male protection. A tribal woman living on the plains of Africa or in the jungles of the Amazon would never ask such a question. Women living in 17th or 18th century colonial America would never ask such a question. It is protection from both the physical threats and the stringent physical demands imposed upon the human race by a brutal natural world. Men are always protecting women either directly, as is done in more primitive societies, or indirectly by building barriers against nature around them, and an infrastructure that creates a far greater life of ease. Men also maintain that infrastructure.

Men are virtually all of the mechanical engineers, materials engineers, civil engineers, electrical engineers, petroleum engineers, construction workers etc. Men do almost all of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. And all of it is done to sustain and enhance this infrastructure which men have created in order to insulate and protect their families (which is to say, women and children) from the hazards of the natural world. That is why when there is breakdown in that infrastructure and some kind of tragedy strikes, that is the priority for men "Women and children first".

Original quote

"Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters."- Camille Paglia