Month: September 2004

Story here. It’s been a bad few years for Ramones fans with the passing of Joey and Dee Dee in 2001 and 2002 respectively. This leaves drummer Tommy as the only surviving original member (though he was replaced after a year or so by Marky).

Johnny was also that rare bird: the right-wing punk rocker. He even insisted on changing the title of “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” to “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down” becuase he thought the original title was insulting to President Reagan (lyrics here). See here for a story on Johnny’s politics.

Requisat In Pace

Theologian Alister McGrath has a good essay in this week’s London Spectator on the decline of atheism. Part of it he attributes to the fact that we now know that doing away with God will not automatically lead to peace, freedom and justice (cf. Communism). This makes the rationalist atheism of the 19th-century, say, seem quaintly naive, if not positively deluded.

I also found this bit particularly interesting:

Historians of ideas often note that atheism is the ideal religion of modernity — the cultural period ushered in by the Enlightenment. But that had been displaced by postmodernity, which rejects precisely those aspects of modernity that made atheism the obvious choice as the preferred modern religion. Postmodernity has thus spawned post-atheism. Yet atheism seems to be turning a blind eye to this massive cultural shift, and the implications for the future of its faith.



In marked contrast, gallons of ink have been spilled and immense intellectual energy expended by Christian writers in identifying and meeting the challenges of postmodernism. Two are of particular relevance here. First, in general terms, postmodernism is intensely suspicious of totalising worldviews, which claim to offer a global view of reality. Christian apologists have realised that there is a real challenge here. If Christianity claims to be right where others are wrong, it has to make this credible to a culture which is strongly resistant to any such claims to be telling the whole truth. Second, again in general terms, postmodernity regards purely materialist approaches to reality as inadequate, and has a genuine interest in recovering ‘the spiritual dimension to life’. For Christian apologists, this is a problem, as this new interest in spirituality has no necessary connection with organised religion of any kind, let alone Christianity. How can the Churches connect with such aspirations?



Atheism has been slow, even reluctant, to engage with either of these developments, tending to dismiss them as irrational and superstitious (Richard Dawkins is a case in point). Yet it is easy to see why the rise of postmodernity poses a significantly greater threat to atheism than to Christianity. Atheism offers precisely the kind of ‘metanarrative’ that postmodern thinkers hold to lead to intolerance and oppression. Its uncompromising and definitive denial of God is now seen as arrogant and repressive, rather than as principled and moral.



The postmodern interest in spirituality is much more troubling for atheism than for Christianity. For the Christian, the problem is how to relate or convert an interest in spirituality to the Church or to Jesus Christ. But at least it points in the right direction. For the atheist, it represents a quasi-superstitious reintroduction of spiritual ideas, leading postmodernity backwards into religious beliefs that atheism thought it had exorcised. Atheism seems curiously disconnected from this shift in cultural mood. It seems that atheists are greying, inhabiting a dying modern world, while around them a new interest in the forbidden fruit of the spiritual realm is gaining the upper hand, above all among young people. Consider the immense popularity of the Alpha course, whose advertisements may be seen on London buses, and whose adherents are now said to number some 60 million worldwide; or the expansion of Pentecostalism, now attracting half a billion global followers. Even 9/11, a religiously motivated assault, did not prompt an atheist backlash, but an upsurge in interest in Islam. What, I wonder, are the implications of such developments for the future of atheism in the West?

Hey, who says conservatives aren’t hip? John J. Miller pens a loving tribute to, er…Iron Maiden at National Review Online. I guess listening to twenty-year old metal albums is one way of standing athwart history yelling “Stop!”…

Then I said truly, Polus that neither you, nor I, nor any man, would rather do than suffer injustice; for to do injustice is the greater evil of the two. — Socrates

Despite their disagreement on the permissibility of war, the pacifist and just war traditions agree on a fundamental point that puts them at odds with all “realist” or “survivalist” versions of morality: that it is worse to do evil than to have evil done to oneself. The result, as Hauerwas says, is that both pacifists and just warriors must concede that the innocent will suffer at times as a result of their convictions. For instance, if we refrain from targeting civilians, wars may be dragged out, more of our troops might die, and the total amount of suffering may even be greater.

It’s considerations like this that often motivate a more “realistic” position with respect to warfare. War is hell, we might say, and better to get it over with quickly by whatever means necessary. This it the kind of reasoning that has been used to justify the obliteration of cities, the torture and killing of prisoners, and other acts widely regarded as war crimes. The motivation is not necessarily sadism, or indifference to suffering, but precisely the opposite: a desire to minimize suffering (although often confined to avoiding suffering on our side).

The root of such “realism” seems to be the belief that death or defeat is the worst possible outcome in any conflict. If our lives or freedom are threatened, then we may legitimately employ whatever means are necessary to protect them. In extreme situations this may involve transgressing what previously appeared to be inviolable moral norms, such as the direct killing of the innocent.

By contrast, the just war and pacifist positions agree in saying that there are some things we can’t do even if they appear to be the only means of avoiding defeat. This implies, for example, that it would be better to surrender than to murder civilians if that was the only way to win.

Too often, I think, just war theorists don’t make explicit their disagreement with the “survivalist” ethos that underlies much thinking about war. For once that premise is accepted, the pressure to override moral constraints in war will become nearly irresistible. Moreover, as history shows, the bar for what means are “necessary” has a tendency to be lowered.

This concession to “survivalism” also allows just war theorists to present themselves as much more “realistic” than those dewy-eyed pacifists. But, just war theorists can, on their own premises, never subordinate the moral law to the survival of a particular nation or the success of a particular cause. When strictly adhered to, just war theory can look almost as “idealistic” and otherworldly as pacifism.

Twisted:

Animal rights activists have held a protest in Canada at the premiere of a documentary about three art students who videoed themselves killing a cat.

Demonstrators urged ticket-holders at the Toronto Film Festival to boycott Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat.

The documentary shows interviews with artists, police and activists – but not the animal’s mutilation and death.

The three men taped the skinning and decapitation of a cat in 2001 and later pleaded guilty to animal cruelty.

(via Catholic and Enjoying It)

Generally, I think the strongest argument against pacifism is it’s immoral. Namely, we abandon the innocent who should be protected. Just war is committed to believing that you cannot commit an evil that a good may come. You cannot bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s better for more people to die on the beaches of Japan than to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s murder. So we are people, those committed to just war and non-violence equally, who often have to watch the innocent die for our convictions. — Stanley Hauerwas

It may be asked whether, faint as the hope is of abolishing war by Pacifism, there is any other hope. But the question belongs to a mode of thought which I find quite alien to me. It consists in assuming that the great permanent miseries in human life must be curable if only we can find the right cure; and it then proceeds by elimination and concludes that whatever is left, however unlikely to prove a cure, must nevertheless do so. … But I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. — C.S. Lewis, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist”

Andrew Ferguson:

Am I the only one who sensed the spectral presence of Bill Clinton (pre-bypass) hovering over George W. Bush as he delivered his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention?



The speech, or at least its second half, has been widely praised as a stirring justification for the country’s continued vigilance in the war on terror — along with Bush’s subtle conflation of “continued vigilance” with “my re-election.”

But that’s not the half of the speech that reminded me of Clinton.



The first half, in which Bush outlined his domestic agenda, received less praise — a “laundry list,” critics called it — but it was much more interesting, and its political significance, I’ll wager, will be farther-reaching.



For in it Bush declared the death of American conservatism. As a guide either to governing or to politicking, conservatism is over, finished, kaput. The hovering presence of Clinton looked pleased.

…

Like Clinton, Bush pretends all this frenetic governmental activism is revolutionary — uniquely adapted to our unprecedented new era. (Every era thinks it is unprecedented.) There is much talk about “expanding choice.” Underlying it, however, is an idea that’s not new at all: the citizen as client, a consumer who fulfills himself by coming to rely on the blandishments of government.

For reasons that aren’t clear, Bush insists on calling his approach “conservatism.” Surely we can find a more accurate term. Has “Clintonism” already been taken?



More here.

The Big Hominid has a very thoughtful post on 9/11 and the events that have unfolded in its wake over the last three years, managing to avoid the cliches of left and right (n.b.: some bad language).

I have very little to add to the cacophany of commentary on the anniversary of 9/11. Suffice it to say, like most Americans, I was outraged and grief-stricken on that awful day. And unlike some of my more left-wing friends, I was unwilling to embrace the Noam Chomsky-ite perspective that this was an understandable, if not justifiable, response to American policies abroad. Certainly the U.S.A. has done shameful things in the Middle East and elsewhere, but there’s no case to be made that al-Qaeda and their ilk are engaging in a proportionate response to those policies. Nor is there a shred of evidence that their intention is the establishment of a just peace. Furthermore, the duty of a government to defend its citizens cannot be thought contingent on past good behavior. If that were the case, no government on earth could ever take up arms to protect its citizenry, since all governments have blood on their hands to some degree.

For those reasons, I supported our military campaign in Afghanistan as a just and proportionate response to the attacks of 9/11; ferreting out the terrorists from their holes, and destroying the government that had given them succor seemed (and still seems) to me amply justified by the canons of the just war tradition.

However, I got off the train on Iraq. I was never convinced (and subsequent events seem to have confirmed this) that Iraq posed anything like the threat to the U.S. that war advocates were claiming. Sure, Saddam Hussein’s regime richly deserved to be sent to the ash heap of history, but was it prudent to turn our attention there when al-Qaeda was the much more pressing threat? Moreover, it seemed that war proponents were being overly optimistic about establishing a stable (not to say democratic) regime in the ensuing power vacuum. And the idea of creating a liberal-democratic revolution in the Middle East seemed little more than a utopian fantasy, unworthy of anyone calling himself a “conservative.” Add to this concern about casualties (military and civilian) and the balance seemed to me to tilt decisively against going to war. (I remain agnostic about whether President Bush et al. “lied” about the presence of WMD; it would be the height of irrationality to claim Saddam had WMD if they knew he didn’t since this fact would certainly be disclosed after the war. More plausible is that the Administration believed there were some WMD, but that they exaggerated their degree of certainity about this, as well as the extent of the threat.)

All this places me at odds with both the “Bush=Hitler” crowd and those who cry “Appeaser!” at anyone who questions the necessity or justice of any aspect of the War on Terror. I certainly think that measured, proportionate warfare against al-Qaeda and its confederates continues to be necessary. But in the wake of Iraq, I am far from convinced that George W. Bush is the man to carry out that campaign. Nor am I fan of John “Culture of Death” Kerry. It seems irresponsible to sit out an election at so momentous a juncture in our history, but at this point I don’t know if I can support either one of these men in good conscience.

That’s what’s happening in the Netherlands according to Wesley J. Smith writing at the Weekly Standard:

In the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable illness. But what does that mean? In many cases, as occurs now with adults, it will become an excuse not to provide proper pain control for children who are dying of potentially agonizing maladies such as cancer, and doing away with them instead. As for those deemed “incurable”–this term is merely a euphemism for killing babies and children who are seriously disabled.

More here.