tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post1496025785630827545..comments2024-03-27T23:57:29.971-04:00Comments on Joan Soble: So Already . . . : "Good," "Evil," "Heroic," and "Unbelievable": The 4 Adjectives of the ApocalypseJoan Soblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-7989473323427666002014-05-01T11:21:14.191-04:002014-05-01T11:21:14.191-04:00Hi, Jim --
Your comments about the "differen...Hi, Jim --<br /><br />Your comments about the "different categories" of some terrible events parallel some of the sorting challenges those of us on the "evil integration" team have been facing. All sorts of questions about intention, degree, etc. And different academic disciplines seem more and less interested in various examples of terrible things.<br /><br />What we hadn't talked about yet was the "glory" dimension of self-righteousness, several notches up from smugness and self-satisfaction aspects of self-righteousness, to say the least. We need to talk about self-perception and other-perception in regards to this. Will share with the team.<br /><br />Thanks!Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-35234061627880662102014-04-28T09:47:30.227-04:002014-04-28T09:47:30.227-04:00Joan,
Your examples are different in kind.
The g...Joan,<br /><br />Your examples are different in kind.<br /><br />The genocide and terrorism seem to have things in common, but the ferry disaster (greed and callousness) I would put in a different category. The bus accident a different category still.<br /><br />The trick about evil ideology is that it is usually suffused with self-righteousness, and it is the appeal to self-righteousness that gives it its power of appeal.<br /><br />When you are blowing people up at a finish line, you cannot feel noble about it if you are blowing up people. It has to mean something different from what it "really" is.<br /><br />It has to be in service of some notion of glory.<br /><br />In the name of patriotism. In the name of God. Something abstract.<br /><br />For many years, I have had contempt for glory, and I have believed that it is the duty of a friend to show people their options in specific, mundane terms.<br /><br />It is one reason that I have a lingering antagonism to all religions, even though I know that many religious people have accomplished good things, and sometimes in part because of their religious belief.<br /><br />All people want to feel good about themselves, justified. Especially people in crisis, who are desperate to avoid humiliation and fear. If they are angry too (usually are), it is not that hard to mobilize people with self-righteous slogans. Not that hard to demonize "them." Makes the atrocities seem like the next logical step, and a matter of self-defense and righteousness.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13178564939320109691noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-51699093386637033132014-04-22T20:07:10.347-04:002014-04-22T20:07:10.347-04:00Ron, I looked up Ken Alibek after I read your comm...Ron, I looked up Ken Alibek after I read your comment because I knew nothing about him. So many of the summaries of "Biohazard" laud his choices to defect and to write; Wikipedia, however, describes it as a "semi-romanticized auto-biography," so they share some of your skepticism about his moral and heroic stature.Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-57965837705124179462014-04-22T18:25:01.781-04:002014-04-22T18:25:01.781-04:00The former head of the Soviet biowarfare industry ...The former head of the Soviet biowarfare industry (Ken Alibek) wrote a book "Biohazard" describing his role and ultimate defection to the US. He was led to believe that he advanced a patriotic cause (good) because of the US (offensive) biowarfare industry (bad). After an exchange tour to the US where he learned the US lacked the animal facilities necessary for offensive biowarfare, he defected to the US (unbelievable) because the pay differential was enormous. I find nothing heroic about that...Where the 60,000 employees of the Soviet biowarfare industry relocated...nobody knows (20 countries?). Moral choice followed information, but maybe it was more about the Benjamins. Ron Sen, MD, FCCPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02421945373895318335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3714709754261276888.post-59842022298904229502014-04-22T09:37:13.501-04:002014-04-22T09:37:13.501-04:00Today's Boston Globe is such a curious combina...Today's Boston Globe is such a curious combination of Marathon gratitude and celebration and deeply disturbing stories of unhinging events: mass killing in South Sudan based on ethnic differences; reports that 234, not 100, schoolgirls are missing in Nigeria; 33 more deaths in Iraq due to suicide bombings; more information to suggest that the South Korean death toll did not need to be nearly so high.<br /><br />One thing about retirement: so much more time to pay attention to such stories as they unfold, without any sense that paying attention is any more than just that: paying attention.<br /><br />The beautiful bright spot besides the Boston Marathon news: the Jewish-Cape Verdean Passover Seder in Roxbury.Joan Soblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01428565769358582476noreply@blogger.com