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Disagree. I just stumbled across this survey, which says over 50% of americans agree with “we should all be willing to fight for our country, whether it is right or wrong.”Source . You’re constantly making it seem as if I’m imposing my 21st century morality on people, and who am I to say that my morality is correct etc . But lee and rommel , like the people in the survey, know they are perpetuating evil when they do it. Do you agree with them on the survey question, and if you do, how can you claim that valuing lee is valuing peace? They value neither peace, nor morality. I do.
My point is, if you truly believe that there is no good side, the correct course of action is simply not to fight. Otoh, if there is a good side, the least you can do is not to fight against it.
I feel like the reason I can’t pinpoint your political position is that you’ve been cagey about what your position actually is. When I was defending the Enlightenment and classical liberalism during our discussions, I asked you more than once, ‘so are you an absolutist monarchist then, a theocrat, an anti-enlightenment reactionary? ‘ , and you just refused to answer, content to take potshots at other positions and implying that there was an undefined third way. You often present and act as an ally of @HlynkaCG ’s, who sees himself as a besieged supporter of the american republic, a position incompatible with the one you take here.
No. First, I don’t understand why the ‘good’ side in your hypothetical is killing civilians by the millions. I don’t endorse that, it’s pretty much the worst thing you can do. That kind of atrocity reverses the moral polarity. So it’s fine to fight for the new yorkers. I think you should consider the possibility that you have misinterpreted my position. Condemning lee does not imply crushing “evil” by any means necessary.
Of course in our real-life examples, in the civil war no one was doing that, and in WWII it was the ‘bad side’, rommel’s side, which was doing it. That’s why I called your hypothetical a convenient, massive stretch.
To illustrate my moral position on the killing of civilians, I think Hiroshima was justified because an invasion or just a blockade of Japan would have caused even more civilian deaths. And for examples of the failures of monarchy, and of the worship of a monarch’s authority as the impersonation of the state, you don’t need to look further than the staggering incompetence and casual evil of such figures as Nicholas II, Victor Emmanuel III, and, especially, Hiro Hito.
No one could accuse the japanese of not valuing “honor”, duty to their fatherland, and obedience. And yet, even the crimes of a stalin pale in comparison to theirs. So contra your ‘the honor and obedience that you scorn are to me hard-won social technologies that ward off an unspeakable array of atrocities‘, those social technologies have not only failed to ward off that unspeakable array, they contributed to it. While it is true that some atrocities have been committed for morality, people have done at least equally terrible things for god and country. And at least the moral man thinks about what he's doing and gives himself a chance to catch a mistake, instead of blindly obeying orders 'whether it is right or wrong'.
I told you why, because of the analogy to rommel, to the Imperial japanese army , and to the butchers of WWI. Lee’s defense is rommel’s defense.
I reject this political-military distinction, every man bears his own cross, he doesn’t get to pass it on to the president/ Führer because he wears a uniform. He’s not a responsible moral actor in one sphere, and an irresponsible tool in another. Somehow a common southerner should be condemned for his political decisions, but praised for his actions as a soldier? The decision to fight is eminently political.
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