In a recent conversation with Lindsay the question of morality was discussed, and it is that conversation which now seems to demand some further attention. What is the issue here, in the light of the Paris killings? Is it, as well as the inevitable question of where we go from here, a moral issue, or is it one of survival? I think it is too easy to take a moralistic stance, and thus imply one has taken the high ground. In effect, to do that is to divorce oneself from the happenings, to "go up into one's head" or intellectualise the situation. That can even lead to spiritual pride as well as risking damning all those others "out there" who are not of one's nationality, race, creed, religion, political persuasion, or what-have-you.
And neither do I find the high-flown language coming from the French and American presidents particularly helpful either. The terrorists were not attacking French values, because those values are shared by many countries, races, religionists and others. How dare anyone try to be partisan about high standards shared by so many. As the Conservative Party were so fond of saying until recently about the economic mess the UK found itself in, "We're in this together!"
So let me be clear. I do not see the current issue as a moral issue. To take a moral stance one must first be alive to do so. There are eight terrorists and (currently) 129 innocent people dead who, presumably, can no longer hold a moral view. It is not for me, and I would suggest no-one else, to take a moral stance on their behalf, no matter how good and self-righteous that may make us feel. Thus, for me, the issue is one of survival; personal as well as group survival. Now either one can take the view, in light of these killings, that it is right to "turn the other cheek", and thus beg for more of the same, a particularly sick philosophy I feel, or we can admit that we wish to survive, own our instincts, and get on with the practical business of physical survival.
Once that step is taken, we can begin to start the process of thinking, yes thinking! Our distraught emotions have then served their purpose of awakening us to a very real threat. In any conflict, the attackers always hold the advantage; the defenders - usually far more numerous - the disadvantage. A response to this, and any other, terrorist incident requires an honest, thought-out response, not a knee-jerk, prejudiced reaction disguised by some sense of self-righteousness. President Hollande referred to the Paris killings as an act of war. Was it? Was it really? If so it is a somewhat one-sided war, because the air attacks on ISIL do not seem to be having much, if any, effect.
Democracies are slow to respond to aggression. It seems to have ever been thus. But there comes a point when a defensive posture is not enough. We need to open our eyes, and keep them open. We need to see that help may come from unexpected sources, if we do not alienate others who are just as innocent (even if they carry the "wrong" tags) as those who were murdered in Paris.
There may be no easy answers. We may need to take actions which make us feel uncomfortable, even distressed. And we need, always, to question where we are going, and the means we employ to get there. The ends do not justify the means, because the means all too often can change the ends.
Well, I have said my piece. Pouring out my emotions here would not have helped me, and might well have been unacceptable to my readers. If nothing else, I have tried to be honest in my thinking, and allow some clarification of thought to emerge. Whatever happens from now on is bound to affect our inner selves just as much as our outer world. God give us wisdom!
A thoughtful post, Tom. The knee-jerk reaction is to lash out, but your penultimate paragraph exhorts more careful thought.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Avus. Let us hope that no-one takes this business in Paris as an excuse to lash out, or to further an offensive agenda.
DeleteCould all happenings in this world depend on our personal evolution?
ReplyDeleteIf we are not born evolved enough we can not know nor learn what is right and what is not or can we?
An interesting question, Ellena. I suppose one can say that we cannot know what is right until one has become aware, or relatively so at least. If growing awareness is tantamount to personal evolution then it might follow that some "happenings in this world depend on our personal evolution." Yet we also instinctively, on occasion, behave in positive ways that do not seem to require any level of awareness, as does of course the rest of the animal kingdom. But it does not seem to follow that awareness necessarily means that we do only the right.
Deletebut... Instinctiveness also needs to evolute (?), does it not? I feel that unless the entire population on this earth evoluts (?) to the very same degree, there will be chaos.
ReplyDeleteI'm not at all sure that instinct does need to evolve, but maybe it does. But suppose the entire population on this earth does not evolve to the same degree, and there is chaos: so what? To the best of my knowledge there is no evolutionary law that says we must all evolve at the same rate. Actually, if one considers the various types of hominid that have existed, there is much to say that evolution does most certainly not take place evenly.
DeleteGood post, Tom; prods me to think harder than I feel comfortable doing this morning. Morality is subjective but survival is universal, and inherent. It is the responses we make that determine whether we are right or not. Saber-rattling is futile and farcical, not what we need right now, as you have already stated.
ReplyDeleteThank you Martha. I am glad you liked this post. It has been difficult to get through my intense feelings about the recent carnage, and come out the other side with some kind of inner resolution.
DeleteIt seems to me you’ve taken a rather extreme position here, Tom, which I’d characterize as sitting agonized on an uncomfortable fence. You seem to imply a necessary choice between morals and survival. You suggest that a moralistic stance is immoral, that it is wrong to take “the high ground”. You are scared of damning others for their differences.
ReplyDeleteI don’t see anything wrong with declaring outright that civilization is under attack by barbarity. We have every right to pride—spiritual pride, if you will, in the values we have inherited and have the opportunity to enhance further by our own actions, while condemning savagery no matter who is responsible for it. If you were to argue that it’s repulsive to hunt down someone like Jihadi John and squash him like vermin without due process or regard to collateral damage, I’d agree with you, but thank goodness you or I didn't have to make that judgement. We are not asked to be philosophers here.
Where I live there are rats under the joined rows of houses on either side of the street. We try to stop them gnawing through the floorboards to get at the sacks of flour that some of our neighbours buy from local shops. We can clear up heaps of garbage in backyards where they nest. The other day I saw a huge rat anxiously pacing back and forth on the fence between our two kitchens. I think she was pregnant and looking to nest somewhere. Rats are fellow-mammals. What can we do? Only be as humane as we can.
There are parents within a small radius of here whose offspring have been hunted in relation to terrorism. The police & security services have to deal with it. I have my own code of behaviour. It’s not a problem. I simply practise it. Fifty yards away on this same street is the mosque. Next door to it, separated by a mere six feet, is the Baptist Church which serves a much wider catchment area. I’m so glad to have been born into Christian values. I am truly sorry for those who were born into something different. Both survival and morality demand that I behave with lovingkindness to my neighbours. Survival dictates that I don’t criticize their religion. Their survival seems to depend on exactly the same thing. They don't have the benefit within their own culture of the kind of tolerance this country practises, & which (the ones I'm referring to) are failing to integrate with.
You won’t find anyone round here using the kind of high-flown language that incites tensions. Everyone is very careful. What happened in Paris doesn’t surprise me, but that doesn’t make it any less distressing. Those innocents you mention who got killed were just going about their business. I do feel that one should be specially proud of Paris and its defiant assertions. But I could never have said “I am Charlie!” here where I live. It would not have been popular, to say the least. This doesn’t stop me knowing perfectly well the difference between right and wrong. I am critical of what I see, but discretion makes me keep my own counsel. It’s not an issue. It’s simply the human condition.
And I don't see a moral dilemma that faces you and me. We see others saying things we don't agree with, in our own media, our own governments perhaps. that's the way it goes. Fortunately we are not sheep. We don't have to identify with any crowd,
Hullo Vincent, and thank you for your interesting comment. I must confess to feeling a little in awe at my apparent ability to sit, agonised on a fence whilst at the same time taking an extreme view. Or is it that sitting on an uncomfortable fence is of itself a position "in extremis?" If I jest, it is only that I may find a way into your comment, without either walking on eggshells on the one hand, or being heavy-handed on the other. Let me try to address your points as I may.
DeleteI did find that the recent events in Paris left me in an emotional turmoil, perhaps because those events were relatively close to hand, and because the areas in which those events took place are quite well known to us. I was trying to throw some light on the question, "Should our actions be decided on moral grounds, or on our need to survive?" I concluded that survival must be the primary consideration without which morality has no relevance. I am deeply suspicious of anything that can be used to bolster a sense of moral superiority. That is the way to dogma and bigotry, at least in my opinion. If I am afraid of damning others for their differences, it is because I find danger in damning anyone. That is not to say that I therefore accept, with supreme tolerance, everything they do. I do not like what I see of Islam, not because it is different but because to me it is intolerant of the legitimate rights of women. for starters. But I must add that I find the activities of other groups equally, if not more so, unacceptable; hunting for example.
I do not see the worlds conflicts as being a war between civilisation and barbarity. Oh that life were that simple. Civilised people can indulge in acts of barbarity that are worse - because they know better - than barbarians. That does not excuse any act of barbarism, because I do not agree with the thinking that says people behave badly, only out of ignorance.
I was horrified when you described the conditions where you live. I do not understand how one lives in an atmosphere of social fear...."discretion makes me keep my own counsel....?" That speaks to me of rank intolerance, that one is forbidden to criticise or even comment. Since when was it acceptable to marginalise others in that way? How does any society develop and evolve unless we are able to criticise respectfully? If a system cannot stand criticism, it is too deeply flawed to survive.
I hope in my response to your comment I have not been heavy-handed. I always enjoy reading what you say, as you well know. At least we are able to talk to one another, a process denied to too many....for fear of the consequences.
I meant that I thought you were extremely reluctant to commit to a view, on the basis, perhaps of "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". And indeed we may jest and never mind walking on eggshells.
DeleteWe are not in profound disagreement here at all, but I shall duck your point about moral superiority, for surely there is no generality in that. Within any culture, race, religion etc, some have high moral standards & others don't. That goes without saying.
As for dogma, prejudice & bigotry, I shall sweep that aside too. Of course it comes to the fore when something like this happens. Those who cherish these things will feel it's a good day to brandish them and say "I told you so!" Why even listen to them?
What I'm saying is that there is nothing to stop you and me from having a moral certainty about important matters, regardless of what anyone else says. You and I are perfectly entitled to thing that our morality is better than everyone else's; at least on the assumption that we are not going to impose it on others. If we had ministerial roles in a government, it would be a different matter. If we were going to take part in a demo which might turn into a riot with damage to persons and property, again it would be a different matter.
I'm not saying there is a war between civilization & barbarity; or that there should or shouldn't be such a war. I'm saying that surely we can recognize that you and I, living in France and England respectively, are fortunate to live in two of the most civilized countries in the world, worth preserving and defending against barbarism. And surely we can recognize barbarism, or if you prefer, failed states, where civilization cannot exist except in walled enclaves for the very rich.
Let's not confuse barbarism with sins and crime committed by individuals, which happen everywhere.
And as for "discretion makes me keep my own counsel", it's nothing to do with fear but ordinary decent behaviour. I'd like to say that anyone with sense refrains from trampling on others' cherished acts & practices, except where urgent intervention is required by someone strong & courageous enough to do so. In fact this is part of civilization. If we see a wrong in society, we take steps to make it illegal.
I feel no fear living here, only a discomfort about hidden intimidation resultant from dogmas embedded in certain other people's religion, whatever that religion may happen to be in a given instance. They put upon themselves the intolerance of not allowing criticism. I will not of course insult their prophet in their terms. that is why, living here, I cannot be Charlie. And of course it is not my job to criticise my neighbours, in any sense of the word. They are people like me.
"If a system cannot stand criticism, it is too deeply flawed to survive . . ." Yes Tom, this is the crunch, but your sentence needs completing: ". . . too deeply flawed to survive without intimidation backed up with token violence."
This is not a new thing. The civilization of which we are so proud, or at least are grateful to live in, has gone beyond systematic intimidation and violence to maintain its existence. But it hasn't spread to the whole world, and is being struggled against by atavistic forces which never went away and have not yet mellowed & matured.
Vincent; Thank you for the clarification. As so often is the case, the more we talk, the closer we become. And that is a worthwhile aim.
DeleteI hope you will forgive me this, Tom, but I'm going to re-post an article written by Chris Floyd in Counterpunch the morning after the tragedy in Paris. All who died there were victims of policies put in place by madness and greed.
ReplyDeleteWe, the West, overthrew Saddam by violence. We overthrew Gaddafi by violence. We are trying to overthrow Assad by violence. Harsh regimes all — but far less draconian than our Saudi allies, and other tyrannies around the world. What has been the result of these interventions? A hell on earth, one that grows wider and more virulent year after year.
Without the American crime of aggressive war against Iraq — which, by the measurements used by Western governments themselves, left more than a million innocent people dead — there would be no ISIS, no “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Without the Saudi and Western funding and arming of an amalgam of extremist Sunni groups across the Middle East, used as proxies to strike at Iran and its allies, there would be no ISIS. Let’s go back further. Without the direct, extensive and deliberate creation by the United States and its Saudi ally of a world-wide movement of armed Sunni extremists during the Carter and Reagan administrations, there would have been no “War on Terror” — and no terrorist attacks in Paris tonight.
Again, let’s be as clear as possible: the hellish world we live in today is the result of deliberate policies and actions undertaken by the United States and its allies over the past decades. It was Washington that led and/or supported the quashing of secular political resistance across the Middle East, in order to bring recalcitrant leaders like Nasser to heel and to back corrupt and brutal dictators who would advance the US agenda of political domination and resource exploitation.
The open history of the last half-century is very clear in this regard. Going all the way back to the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953, the United States has deliberately and consciously pushed the most extreme sectarian groups in order to undermine a broader-based secular resistance to its domination agenda.
Why bring up this “ancient history” when fresh blood is running in the streets of Paris? Because that blood would not be running if not for this ancient history; and because the reaction to this latest reverberations of Washington’s decades-long, bipartisan cultivation of religious extremism will certainly be more bloodshed, more repression and more violent intervention. Which will, in turn, inevitably, produce yet more atrocities and upheaval as we are seeing in Paris tonight.
I write in despair. Despair of course at the depravity displayed by the murderers of innocents in Paris tonight; but an even deeper despair at the depravity of the egregious murderers who have brought us to this ghastly place in human history: those gilded figures who have strode the halls of power for decades in the high chambers of the West, killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands, crushing secular opposition to their favored dictators — and again, again and again — supporting, funding and arming some of the most virulent sectarians on earth.
And one further cause of despair: that although this historical record is there in the open, readily available from the most mainstream sources, it is and will continue to be completely ignored, both by the power-gamers and by the public. The latter will continue to support the former as they replicate and regurgitate the same old policies of intervention, the same old agendas of domination and greed, over and over and over again — creating ever-more fresh hells for us all to live in, and poisoning the lives of our children, and of all those who come after us.
I wish you and Lucy (and all your neighbors) peace and equanimity in these continuing turbulent times.
Hullo Susan; I can find nothing with which to disagree here. But the US has its supporters, apparently vying for American friendship. I will forward something that was forwarded to, written by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News.
DeleteWe have arrived at a crossroads. Few can have believed that the bloody killings of Charlie Hebdo’s staff would be the end of it. Today many may hope, but virtually no one will believe, that the ghastly attacks on the concert hall and restaurants in Paris will either be the end of it or, terrifyingly, the worst of it.
Since 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria, and with so many other conflicts in between, instability has spread outwards and progressed ever closer towards us in Europe, while engulfing much of the Middle East and Islamic world in a fire which seems unquenchable.
In Europe there seemed to be a pause in the threat for a while after the attacks in Madrid and London, but Syria’s descent into unimaginable carnage and the accompanying rise of Isis and their deliberate strategy to terrorise through deed and propaganda are a game-changer. The attacks in France this year have now brought this war to Europe. We feel under attack from without and within. People here in France have referred to last night’s attack both as a civil war as well as war with the self-styled Islamic State.
Where does this end? How does it stop? What is fuelling this? Certainly the fight between Sunni and Shia fought between Iran and Iraq in the eighties casts a long shadow. It’s been continued by proxy ever since, funded and encouraged by Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is seen right now in Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. Iran supports and arms and funds its proxy armies, and Saudi Arabia matches it in each country, but there is a fundamental difference. Isis are now a threat on a different level, either by deliberate plan or inspiration.
The causes of this spread of terrorism are complex, but one aspect we have to tackle head on — its ideological roots in Wahhabi Islam, the official religion of Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud rules at the mercy of the clerics, some of whom see jihadism as a legitimate method of advancing their religion. The state in Saudi Arabia may not directly fund Isis, but the fundamentals of the Saudi state and society mean many of its people do.
The tenets of Islam have become distorted for too many believers. When I was a child I was taught about the Prophet, and about Mecca. My lessons contained no sense of threat. There was even a whiff of romance about it. But across North and West Africa, leaking into Europe; across the Middle East leaking into Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and now frighteningly newly, into Bangladesh, the intractable Wahhabi fundamentalist belief system is spreading fast. But “leaking” is a generous word. Radical Wahhabi Islam has not so much “leaked” as it has been exported, financed, and pushed into and beyond these countries.
It is not a movement that represented the majority of Muslim believers, but its spread and growth mean it can now appear as the strongest force within Islam – a force that is deeply attractive to alienated young people across the Muslim world and Northern Hemisphere. That sense springs both from the economic and social alienation many of them experience, and from a deep-seated resentment against the way Islam’s holy places and the heartland of Wahhabism are managed. This explains, in part, why so many young Saudis have left and joined the so-called Islamic State. Indeed it explains why Wahhabi-believing jihadists joining Isis are revolted by the shopping malls and glitzy hotels that have come to dominate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, located in Saudi Arabia, as they are by the Assad brutality backed up by Shia Iran and infidel Russia.
Susan, this is the second part of the comment, the whole being too long for one comment:-
ReplyDeleteWe in the West can do something to try to reach out to the economically and socially alienated Muslim. But tackling those alienated by the management of their faith in a far-away land upon which we are so dependant for both exports and imports of oil, is a far, far, greater challenge. We need to tackle the unending rivalry between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, which splits the region and fuels the violence. The war in Syria has been sustained and worsened by Iran’s backing for a leader who started brutalising and massacring his own people the moment they demonstrated against him, and which has most recently been characterised by the routine barrel bombing of civilian areas. We may not blame Iran for the terror on our streets but many Syrians driven towards Isis blame them for the bombs on theirs.
We don’t yet know the balance between internal French-based Islamic radicals and external Isis-centred forces, in the planning and execution of these latest atrocities in Paris. But we do know that Saudi Arabia has a problem, and it looks like the rest of us have little chance of being able to influence its resolution. The Kingdom is under threat from the very ideology upon which its twentieth century founders centered their entire philosophy and belief system.
The more the Royal family bows to Western demands for women’s rights — car driving, voting, and the rest – the worse the confrontation with the Wahhabi zealots becomes. Indeed a recently retired British General, well versed in Saudi relations, told me only last week that if the House of Saud were to fall, the consequences for the world could be devastating. Yet there is a terrifying fusion between the Western resentment of the Saudi Royal Family’s failure to modernise, and the Islamic State’s conviction that the country’s rules have already joined the ranks of blasphemers.
For too many young Wahhabi zealots across the Northern hemisphere, Isis had become the guardian of the “true way.” Yet Saudi money continues to fund radical Wahabi preachers to establish Wahhabi radical Madrassas (faith schools) right across western Europe, North Africa and seamlessly through the Arabian peninsula into Afghanistan and the Indian sub-continent. What role any of this “export” played upon the distorted minds of those who loathed themselves enough to kill so many souls and then destroy themselves we don’t yet know.
#ParisAttacks
But we are now confronted by one of the gravest threats to our world and our way of life, since rise of the Nazism. We’d better start talking about it openly not only amongst ourselves, but with everyone with whom we relate who plays a role in its sustenance, and that of course includes the Saudis. They are increasingly themselves afraid of Isis, perhaps even more frightened of them that we are. Air strikes will not resolve what many Muslim scholars regard as a deep and insidious distortion of religious belief.
Indeed they may make it worse. Isis is winning converts with every passing day of war; Assad’s brutality has created fertile territory. We may even have to start looking for other ways to engage with the self-styled Islamic State itself. Somehow the self-loathing, the hatred, and fear of others together with a fundamentalist commitment to a world that predates mechanisation, let alone digitalisation has to be combated. Governments in the northern hemisphere may have to be prepared to move aggressively to staunch the funding and manning of this terrifying movement. Pray God it is already not too late.
It's a terrible mess, isn't it? I certainly don't have an answer but I do know there need to be alternatives other than more violence. We have to find a different way to fight the evil of ISIS. To begin we could mourn the dead in Beirut as fiercely as we mourn the dead in Paris and let Muslims know we don't see them as the enemy within. Attacks like the one in Paris test our capacity for this like nothing else. We can only pray that wisdom and forbearance will emerge - but I'm not going to hold my breath.
DeleteYes it is a terrible mess! But I think we must address the very real possibility, even probability, that more violence may be the only response that is taken note of. I cannot mourn the dead in Beirut as fiercely as I mourn the dead in Paris, because I am not big or holy enough to carry the world's troubles on my shoulders. Paris is closer both geographically, emotionally and culturally than Beirut. I cannot help that, and that is my reality which I must own. Anything else is a lie.
DeleteI do agree that we must try our damnedest not to see all Muslims as a fifth column. They in turn need to meet "us" on the common ground of decency and friendship. It is beginning to happen. Have faith! And that probably sounds strange coming from me.
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteA very thoughtful post about such a horrific event rather obviously where words don’t come easily. But I would also endorse your conclusions.
Best wishes
Thank you Lindsay. Oh God, I feel so drained.
DeleteI have learned so much by reading this amazing stream, and having learned, can add only one observation that is bringing tears to my eyes.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in a safe, warm place is a person, or perhaps a group of people, living well, whose money, and the money of their family for generations, has been provided by the production and sale of increasingly more sophisticated armaments.
I imagine them sipping on fine wine, sitting back and thinking
"Our work here is done."
Hullo Halle; That is indeed deeply saddening. And worse still, it may all have been deemed to be legal! And now we are being warned by the (French) government that there may be yet more to come.
DeleteMore to come. A self-replicating virus has nothing on this situation.
DeleteTom, you were brave to write this absolutely relevant, necessary and deeply thoughtful post and it has elicited deeply thoughtful comments and important background information. I'm not going to add to the discussion, I feel incapable of it, but I am most in tune with Susan's comment and the heart of your post.
ReplyDeleteHullo Natalie; Good to know you're here, and thank you for your comment.
DeleteTom, just thought of something I could say:
ReplyDeleteSitting on the fence is not the problem. The fence is the problem.
Maybe a solution could be found if the fence is lowered, turned into a very long bench crossing borders and oceans.
I like this Natalie. The creative adaptability of a given situation is necessary.
DeleteHi Tom -And we need, always, to question where we are going, and the means we employ to get there………………and the greatest resource of all is being largely overlooked is the rising tide of refugees. They can tell us a lot more than we could ever imagine, direct experiences and info from behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteIntelligence on how the money flows in to finance terrorism, how they operate and throw light on the actual conditions from deep within the organisation, on how social media is being used and so on. And what they really think. For instance it may be a big mistake to think of them in terms of simply saying they are all barbarians (even though I agree such horrific acts we naturally attribute to those of barbarians) as there is a logic in what they do since they believe by murdering others they secure an enhanced position, above all others, directly into heaven. But all of the Abrahamic religions are predicated on the idea of a heaven except they would reject the idea of a “jihad” (the inner spiritual struggle) as the outwards justification for murder/ violence. But the refugees can shed more light on how this distortion is being used so effectively as a lever in religion ( even though it has no relevance to scholars interpretations of the Koran ) to gain new discontented young people from all over the world. Once you start to understand more about the movement, you can formulate strategies over the decades ahead to stem its influence. In other words it’s more a question of survival, just as it always has been since time in memorial.
Best wishes
Hullo Lindsay; You make an interesting point. I am beginning to wonder - though I confess to not having thought it through - whether this latest terrorist attack is not just the outcome (violently warped though it may be) of a growing need for some kind of ecstatic development. What we are seeing here is an atrocity carried out, nominally, in the name of Islam. Is it possible, I wonder, that there is a general move by many - particularly young - people towards a mind-changing (whether it be social drugs or evangelical religion) ecstatic experience beyond what we consider as normal? Are we, in fact, set on a course of development from which there is no turning back?
DeleteHi Tom
ReplyDeleteI certainly do think Jihad as a realized ecstasy in horrific violence, nominally in the name of Islam, contrasts with the later Sufi notions of spiritual self-improvement, is a key factor. It carries with it the shift away from any notion to see religion as it is –as in a metaphor and in myth etc., so instead you have these splinter aberrations in literalism and their resultant terrible outcomes. So we have the allure that their terrorist’s acts is rather seen as the sweet perfume of a suicide bombers blood or of an assailant likely to be killed wafting up to heaven as a lion of Islam. An enticement to those who are both disenfranchised and others who are well educated and even affluent drawn in to this twisted eschatological vision.
Best wishes
I was thinking along the lines of Susan's quote but did not have the words, so thanks to Susan. Violence just causes more wars and more violence and who can ever win? Whatever happened to the Christian and Muslim and all faiths' diction: "thou shalt not kill". One does not need to be religious to believe this. It's all politics and power and seems never to stop.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughts, Tom, and everyone here.
Hullo Marja-Leena; If both sides eschew violence, then there is a chance that solutions can be found peacefully. But if one side insists on being violent, what then? I suggest that then it becomes a matter of survival, and the ethic of non-violence is pushed to one side. That it is possible even to suggest an alternative to violence is a hopeful step in itself, and perhaps represents some growth in humanity. But there needs to be a corresponding response.
Delete