Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 09:43:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Gillen <c-gillen at sjca.edu>
Subject: pause for station break

RE: the 'atrocities' thread

  As I see it, this logjam is not likely to be resolved anytime soon for
two reasons:

1.) both main camps seemed to have stopped listening for anything besides
reproach and 'trigger' words in the posts of the other.  Any moral 'high
ground' that might have been claimed has since been lost in the morass of
recriminations, slanders and whatnot that have come to characterize this
thread.

2.) there currently exists NO possibility of agreement on the issue.  In
my view this is because -both- sides are in essence right, yet the main
arguments are seemingly mutually exclusive.  I say 'seemingly' because I
perceive them as fragmented facets of the same argument, yet without an
idea of the whole neither can find the common ground upon which to resolve
their differences.

  As to point one, there isn't much that may be done so long as both sides
retain the memory of past wrongs.  In this way the 'atrocities' thread
resembles the actual atrocities that spawned the discussion.  Mr. Ellis
made claim to Ms. Fahey's native territory.  Ms. Fahey responded by 
vigorous denial of his claim and moral indignation.  Mr. Ellis, confused
by such a reaction to what seems to him a most logical claim, began moving
troops into Ms. Fahey's territory.  Ms. Fahey fired on them.  Mr. Ellis
provided high-minded support for his ground argument.  Ms. Fahey shot down
many of Mr. Ellis' high-minded ideals and detonated a few bombs in Mr.
Ellis' own home territory.  Mr. Ellis received light political support for
his position while Ms. Fahey garnered occassional troop support.  This
quickly devolved into a war of entrenched positions where both sides make
no actual headway but spend most of their time sniping at the other while
rounding up elements of their home territory with any enemy sympathies and
summarily executing them publicly.  Metaphorically, its quite illustrative
of Mr. Ellis' main point of the innate ability to work atrocities (while
yet denying both he and Ms. Fahey the moral claim of resistance to such
urges.)
  Sad a statement as it may be, perhaps the best summation of the problem
was made in the early-80's cyberflick, 'Wargames', when, after running
through every possible combat scenario for WWIII, the WOPR defense system
concluded that, "The only way to win is not to play."

  As to point two, its a matter of will and motive.  The question is
really not whether all humanity is capable of committing 'atrocities'.  Of
course, we're capable.  The question is whether there can be shown to be
situations under which no one would refuse to commit (or participate
in) such an action, or rather individually-tailored situations leading to
the same conclusion, that we all have some trigger that could cause us to
condemn large swaths of mankind to misery and death.  The problem is that
no solution CAN be reached without universal testing (which is in the best
light patently impossible and in the worst grossly undesirable).  Both of
the main positions are grounded firmly in faith without proof.  Mr. Ellis
feels his own weakness and projects it on the world while Ms. Fahey feels
her own fortitude and surmises others (such as Mr. Breslin, who kindly
promises to commit no atrocities) must be similarly stalwart.
  To my mind, it is simply a matter of will.  There is no action that I
will admit is outside the realm of possibility for me, from the most
saintly to the most heinous, and which I could not with sufficient
provocation be led to.  I will admit however that I can conceive of NO
human who perceives their own saintly or heinous acts as such.  The truly
saintly believe themselves tarnished and the truly corrupt believe
themselves justified.  What is vaguely amusing to me is that in these
extreme cases the individual perceptions may well come closer to the truth
than the public perception, that NO act is virtuous or heinous in all
respects.  The fact of the case, I would assert, is that Mr. Ellis is
correct in the general sense and Ms. Fahey in the particular, which is to
say that all men are capable of committing what the majority of others
shall consider heinous atrocities, yet none is capable of committing what
they themselves shall consider an unjustified act.  Oh, we may believe we
did good or evil, but only by externalizing that section of the code we
have corresponded to or violated.  (ie. I violated God's law by following
my own desires. Bad me.)  All men by nature do not desire the good, all
men by nature rationalize the redefinition of good to accord with their
own whims.  Where they admit to having done evil it was because they
'could not resist it' or 'were just following orders', which is the
coward's way of saying 'I did as I chose, given the options', yet no man
believes himself unjustified in his choice at the time of that choice,
which is to say that on a universal scale there is no act which is an
atrocity in the mind of the perpetrator at the time of its commission,
and, as such, no man can commit an atrocity yet all are capable of
committing or of having committed one.

  This has been a public service announcement.  We now return you to
our coverage of the war.

  This is CNN.

- - Christopher Gillen, A'90