Imagine the Quaker
an erstwhile mirror site for weblog on newquaker.com
archives | newquaker.comSaturday, November 20, 2004
In the light our vision of the US-led invasion of Iraq becomes much clearer and the truth of the situation there is finely elucidated. The scales fall from the eyes. We know now that if you are in Iraq and oppose what the US, the coalition, and the unelected US-appointed government of Iraq are doing in that country, you are what we call an insurgent—and you will be either killed, maimed by explosives, or captured for intense interrogation and then imprisoned. Because we're above the law, we don't abide by the Geneva Conventions; we will never subject our national security to a global test. We were caught torturing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, but that's all okay now. Our president has promised to build an even better prison there. If you are in Iraq and oppose what we are doing there, we will find you. We have an unwavering commitment to your destruction. You are an insurgent, an enemy of freedom. We are focused and determined. We will keep our resolve, and we will prevail. It doesn't matter where you are. You can be lying wounded, or perhaps praying in a mosque—we'll shoot you. You can be a woman or a child, it doesn't matter—we'll shoot you, too, or blow you up in the street. Surely we will at least destroy your home. In Vietnam we used Agent Orange to take away safe havens; in Iraq we can do the same thing with a simple 500 pound bomb. We will use bulldozers to level your small orchards. We are strong and resolute. We will make sure that Iraq is free, for then the world will be more peaceful and American will be more secure. This is a just cause. Freedom is winning. Life is good. God is on our side. Pray that you do not run out of oil.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 1:10 AM
Thursday, November 18, 2004
From my philosophy class.
Dear Teacher:
Question: We have to discuss the continued indentity of the self. Does that mean a philosopher's view on the self while a person is still alive and then the self after the person dies?
Answer: Do you really understand the question you just asked? I think many issues of so-called "life after death" can be answered by clarifying just what we mean when we talk about ourselves. One doesn't need to make any special assumptions in order to understand or discuss personal identity because commonsensically you know (and I think I know) that you are the same person who wrote this note to me at 6:32 PM today, even though you underwent many changes between 6:32 PM and now (for example, you may have lost hair, flakes of skin, ate and digested food, etc.). My point here is that we all work with a common idea of identity, enabling us to interact with the same people from moment to moment, from day to day. But if I finally understand what is the same from moment to moment, from day to day, I think I should also come to understand that talk about "life after death" becomes something not only outrageous, but really unintelligible. Perhaps that's why you framed your question in terms of "self" and "person"—as two separate things—because the idea of a life after death requires two things. Part of the problem with personal identity in two things (body vs. something not-body) is that you end up having to contend with two separate views of identity: one having to do with the identity of the body (as in the case of Theseus's ship) and the other having to do with the identity of what is the not-body; and then, of course, you have the problem of how it is that the two always show up together....
I took this roundabout way of answering your question with the hope that you would stop assuming that it is always easy to talk about someone living after dying. It seems easy to say, because we can put it into an English sentence. But when we actually consider what we're saying, it seems to make no sense. If it does make sense, then we have to move to the level of metaphysics and argue our way to the view that what we think are people are really two things: bodies and something not-bodies. The question then becomes whether we are entitled to think this. We need to stop indulging ourselves with the pleasing sound of the words and actually look at what the words mean, or at least what we mean by them—and why.
There are philosophers who think that we are somehow nonphysical things attached somehow to bodies. The bodies we see, but the nonphysical things we don't. Plato and Descartes are great examples of this. Others, such as Aristotle and many contemporary philosophers think that we are physical organisms which decay at death. Of course, there are other philosophers who hold a variety of other views, some because of a peculiar methodological view (perhaps it's a scientific view) and some because of a distinctive religious view (Scholasticism, Buddhism, Eckankar, for example). I like to think that philosophy helps us to reach a clearer understanding of the nature of things, and that it doesn't take what we hold to be true and somehow turn that into a kind of fairy tale.
The philosopher you choose to work with for your Research Paper ought to have a clear statement about what a person is, and should be able to tell us at least how that person is the same from one moment to the next. That philosopher may be one of those who thinks that persons can live after the destruction of the body, but you could also be working with a philosopher who doesn't believe that (for example, Bertrand Russell, Gilbert Ryle).
Let me know if this answers your question. I'm sorry I had to take the long way in answering it.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 11:10 PM
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Pardon our tax dollars at work. At the request of my friends at Sojourners, I sent the following letter to my elected representatives in support of HR 1258 to close the US Army School of the Americas, renamed in 2001 the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation as a cosmetic reform:
I write to urge you to co-sponsor HR 1258, a bill to close the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC), formerly the United States Army School of the Americas (SOA). The graduates of this institution have a long history of human rights violations. From the atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s to recent human rights violations in Colombia, SOA/WHISC graduates consistently appear in reports on human rights abuses in Latin America, including civilian massacres, assassinations, disappearances, death threats, and countless other crimes against humanity.
Changing the SOA's name did not change a continuing legacy of sacrificing human rights, transparency, and accountability on the altar of political expediency. Closing the SOA/WHISC would show that the United States is serious about supporting human rights and democratic principles in Latin America and about acknowledging its role in the tragic history of the region.
I urge you to support HR 1258 and work for its passage in Congress. There are currently 128 co-sponsors of this bill from both parties. Please write to me with your position on this issue so I can share it with the many other constituents who are concerned about human rights. Thank you very much for your time and commitment to this important matter.The combat training school in Fort Benning, GA, continues to use US tax dollars to commit the most egregious human rights abuses in Latin America. The School of Americas Watch is arranging its annual vigil in Fort Benning during the weekend of November 20-21, and planning is currently underway for SOA Lobby Days, February 21-22, during which faith-based people of conscience appeal to congressional representatives to close the WHISC.
posted by Merle Harton, Jr. 12:55 PM
© Merle Harton, Jr. All rights reserved. Biblical references are NIV® unless otherwise noted.
