Comments Elsewhere

Bidinotto: “Let me spell it out for you: You are assuming (1) that the American soldiers are acting immorally, and (2) that they know their activities to be immoral, but are ignoring that fact.”

No, I’m not. I’m asking you whether or not it is true that individual soldiers bear at least partial moral responsibility for the actions they carry out, even when they are acting on orders. And further whether large-scale surrender of individual conscience under military orders (whenever it happens) is “horrifying.” Neither I nor the passage I asked you about says anything at all about whether in fact the conduct of soldiers in the Iraq War specifically is immoral.

(And yes, I realize that the rest of the article does make that point. So what? The question is about the passage that you singled out for excoriation, not the rest of the article.)

Bidinotto: “Neither is the case. So — no, the last statement is not applicable.”

I didn’t ask whether it was “applicable” to the Iraq War or not. I asked whether it is true or false.

So, is it true?

Here’s the comment of Joel Stein’s that Bindinotto singles out for special outrage: “The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they’re following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.”

Isn’t this true?

Well, the maddening thing about the bombing in Pakistan is how perfectly happy the grinning hyenas of the War Party are to come out for so obviously disproportionate to the supposed gain. 18 innocent people were massacred in an attack that could have, in the very best case, by the government’s own claim, killed 4 top leaders. It’s one thing to claim that you can morally massacre, say, a half million civilians in firebombing and nuclear terrorism in order to save millions from death in an apocalyptic amphibious assault; I think that’s actually the height of immorality, but it’s an understandable vice. But it’s hard to explain what would make somebody think it’s OK to slaughter 18 innocents in order to get at most 4 of the guilty without simply resorting to the terms of madness and unhinged bloodlust.

Ah, sorry, I meant of course “suicide bombings of civilians”. I just haven’t heard about a whole lot of suicide bombings against military targets outside of WWII.

Sure you have. For example, Beirut (1983), the U.S.S. Cole (2000), and the Pentagon (September 11, 2001). Suicide bombing in the modern form mostly originated in the Lebanese civil war, where it was very often used against military or militia targets.

Three of the five men pictured in the first portrait — Washington, Jefferson, and Randolph — exercised absolute personal tyranny over more than 1,000 of their fellow human beings, and politically supported the system that extended that tyranny over some millions of their fellow Southerners. As far as I know, none of the men pictured in the second portrait hold slaves or support slavery.

Might it be the case that Leviathan has distinctly grown for some groups of people, but that it has also distinctly shrunk for others?

“I don’t think it justifies suicide bombings however.”

There’s nothing about suicide bombings that makes them essentially or even presumptively unjustifiable. The problem isn’t the method of delivery but rather the use of the method to attack civilians. (Would it be better if Hamas bombed innocent people from planes?)

Sorry. Pet peeve.

Jesus. He’s like the creepy aging Liberace of the fashion industry.

The photograph of him at the beginning of the story tells you as much or more than most of the interview, really.

Because it’s completely absurd to worry about widespread abuse in high school relationships. Right.

Still, does it have a third and fifth “ever?” I think not!

My favorite part is here:

R.T.: I was surprised that so much of your book was about Gloria Feldt, Ellie Smeal, Catharine MacKinnon. Only at the very end do you mention someone like Rebecca Walker.

K.O’B.: Are you asking about [why I didn’t discuss] twenty- or thirty-something feminism?

R.T.: Yes. The MacKinnon quote about how “all heterosexual intercourse is rape” is old news. There has been a whole other wave of sex-positive feminism in part in response to ideas like that. …

Because, you know, the “quote” that is “old news” does not exist.

Not that that’s ever stopped anyone from throwing MacKinnon to the wolves in order to unsuccessfully insulate their own hip sexyclub from antifeminist criticism, of course.

This…

R.T.: But social expectations make that —

K.O’B.: Society will never, ever, ever, ever validate it. Ever. Ever. So, next question. [Because] now we’re baying at the moon: Damn, life’s unfair! Damn! Life’s unfair!

… comes in as a close second. I think it’s the third and the fifth “evers” that really make the quote.

“Why shouldn’t this model be extended to teachers? Why shouldn’t schools be co-operatives/partnerships of teachers who compete against each other?”

They used to have these things in Europe; I believe they were called “Universities.”

The multiple layers of administrative bureaucracy that have piled themselves up on the shoulders of scholars are a relatively new “innovation,” which grew like a tumor and metastasized throughout the world mostly over the course of the late 19th and early 20th century.