Commentary From Another Blog

The Sarge has some great stuff today. Here it is :

Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin I came to win, battle me that's a sin I won't ever slack up, punk you better back up Try and play the role and yo the whole crew'll act up... -House of Pain

I used to have a quote at the top of the page that went a little something like this:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight: nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety: is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions and blood of better men than himself

Quotes are nice things. They are words that reveal profundities we feel, but could not express as eloquently as those who said them. Yet they are not a substitute for deliberate thought and meditation. You cannot hang a belief system or worldview upon them, for they are pointers towards deeper personal reflection and understanding of our world and how we live in it: a portal or rabbit hole that invites exploration and discovery.

Yet I see quotes and pithy phrases thrown about like so much confetti. People use them as a substitute for thinking, or think that the quote, once used, should end all discussion and debate once and for all. They become a crutch that hobbles the mind, until all the person can do is string together some buzzwords and catchphrases together into a semi-coherent thought, bereft of any real meaning.

"Killing does not justify more killing." Yes, it has a nice ring to it, but does it have weight? Can you roll it around in your mind and feel its heft? Does it point you towards deeper understanding, or is it merely a phrase that sounds nice, but is really a mere phantom; a void without any form? You cannot build a philosophy on nice soundbites. It's akin to eating a Snickers bar. It tastes good and it'll fill you up, but it offers no nutritional value to your body. It is merely an object you ingest to experience a brief moment pleasure. Which is not to say that Snickers bars don't have their place in the world. It is nice every now and then to experience empty pleasure, but man cannot live on candy bars alone. He must already be nourished by a balanced diet.

And so it is with the nice, short quotes. They cannot nourish your mind and soul. You can't build your beliefs upon them; else your mind will be malnourished. They make for the occasional well-placed plant in the house of your mind, but your mind cannot be a mere collection of flora haphazardly scattered about some empty ground.

Let's take the phrase "Killing does not justify killing". What does it mean? More importantly, what are the consequences of this belief and is it morally acceptable?

It seems like a perfectly reasonable belief, but at the outset I can see problems with it. I don't doubt the genuine motivations behind the belief. It is good to have the interests of your fellow man at heart. No one in his or her right mind likes to see killing or deal with the aftermath of the act. Human life is precious, and peace is precious as well. Good people like to see their fellow travelers in this world live a fulfilling and peaceful life, free from the evils that men can do.

The problem is that this belief is based on a feeling free rational and logical thought. It is a good feeling, but feelings that are not balanced and reinforced by reason lead to horrible consequences. You cannot have one without the other, as imbalance breeds disaster. It is tragic that while the belief of "killing does not justify killing" comes from a genuine desire to eliminate suffering, it actually leads to the reverse, as all those who believe it have absolved themselves of their responsibility to their fellow man, because it does not address the world as it is. It only addresses the world as it should be. It is the goal, the destination that we should be striving for, yet those who believe it treat it as the starting point from which a just world will be achieved. It is backwards.

It negates one's commitment to the welfare of their fellow man, because it does not take into account that there are those who do not wish for peace. They are fueled by rage, greed and a need for power at the expense at those who unfortunately stand in their path. They are the flip side of the emotional coin; the exact opposite of those who want to see everyone prosper. These people do not care about anyone else's welfare but their own. They will kill, plunder and enslave if it means attaining their goal of personal power. To them, people are merely objects to be used and discarded as the situation warrants.

It's hard for those on the other side to comprehend the dark hearts of their opposites. This is natural. Pacifists are true optimists. They tend to focus on what is good about humanity, and in doing so lose sight of what is bad about it. They want to believe that all people naturally want to do what is good and right, because that is what they believe as well. You need only work the Scrooge over and remind him of his own humanity and in the end he will see the light. Unfortunately, they see humanity as it can be, not as it is. There are those who will do ill because they can and no amount of wishing or cajoling will change their ways. The pacifists, though, will not, and probably cannot comprehend this basic fact. They will rationalize an evil man's actions. They will look for any way to redeem him. It cannot be so with some of the dark ones of this world.

"Killing does not justify killing" absolves one of their responsibilities to their fellow man because it means that those who mean ill can wreak havoc on everyone else and can continue doing so because you will not do anything to stop them. Thousands die and you do nothing. Hundreds of thousands live squalid lives of misery and pain, yet you will do nothing. It is a safe thing to believe, because it requires no more action on your part than to sit there and believe it. Belief unbalanced by action is meaningless and requires no more courage than to convince yourself of your own rightness. The humanity that you would like to see live in peace and prosperity is butchered and abused by those whose ambitions are unchecked. Those who do not take action will consign their fellow man and their descendents to ugly, brutal suffering at the hands of those who care merely for themselves. Of what use will your beliefs be then? How can the world you dream of be brought about if you take no action to bring it about, and is it morally correct to allow your fellow human beings to suffer and die while you do nothing? If life is so precious, do you not then have a responsibility to ensure that those who would casually take it be destroyed to the benefit of all? Killing is never justified, but could it be that it's sometimes necessary to perpetrate a little evil in order to prevent total and catastrophic evil?

Finally, we come to the question of how one can safely believe "killing does not justify killing", yet not have their contemporaries and descendents live lives under the brutality of monsters. It's because there are people who believe in keeping those monsters at bay or destroying them outright. These people, through the sword, allow pacifists to have a society through which they can comfortably propagate their belief. It is the balance of belief and action writ large, and it is only by maintaining this balance that we can secure the conditions necessary to maintain a peaceful world for others and our children. If the balance were to tip into pure pacifism, then we would open ourselves (and our descendants) to tyranny from without, tip too far over toward thoughtless action without a foundational belief in peace and we suffer tyranny from within. It is on the knife's edge that we must balance, else we all fall into chaos and darkness.

And so I think that we must all endeavor to not only maintain a balanced society as a whole, but also to maintain balance within ourselves as well. Balance does not allow absolutes, like "Killing does not justify killing" or "Kill them all, let God sort them out", which are unrealistic, unhealthy and ultimately disastrous beliefs. You must balance belief with action, optimism with realism and feeling with reason. Only with a balanced mind can you nourish your soul and work towards the benefit and betterment of others.