Sam Binkley's post reminded me to get back to this:
On Thu, 13 May 1999, tony ralph wrote:
> KJ Khoo wrote:
> "I'm just a lurker ignoramus shooting off his mouth -- but surely,
> given that this is the foucault list, the issue isn't about
> addressing every situation at once or none at all, but why some are
> addressed and others not? Who chooses who to address, or to bomb, or
> not at all..."
>
> [SNIP] Your: "Who chooses who to
> address, or to bomb, or not at all...", is a philosophical discussion about
> global morality, about good versus evil, its also about who has the right
> to create a just world, essentially its about human "redemption" and
> "salvation" above a landscape of "despair".
I think KJ Khoo's post is making a very different point: namely, that
rather than all this moralistic posturing (a la the head of the War Crimes
Tribunal, who wrote Milosevic a good stiff letter), rather than pointing
out inconsistencies and hypocrisies as if that were all that needs to be
said, we ought to be asking why it is that bombs fall in the Balkans and
not in Central Africa etc. And this question needs a deeper answer than
simply that the rich countries have strategic interests in the Balkans and
not in Africa, or even that there is some kind of racism at work which
values European (albeit Muslim) lives more than African ones (which,
personally, I think has more to do with it than strategic
considerations)--we need to ask what power relations stand behind that
realpolitik and that racism, so that rather than simply railing against
realpolitik and racism we can actually *do* something about them.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------
On Thu, 13 May 1999, tony ralph wrote:
> KJ Khoo wrote:
> "I'm just a lurker ignoramus shooting off his mouth -- but surely,
> given that this is the foucault list, the issue isn't about
> addressing every situation at once or none at all, but why some are
> addressed and others not? Who chooses who to address, or to bomb, or
> not at all..."
>
> [SNIP] Your: "Who chooses who to
> address, or to bomb, or not at all...", is a philosophical discussion about
> global morality, about good versus evil, its also about who has the right
> to create a just world, essentially its about human "redemption" and
> "salvation" above a landscape of "despair".
I think KJ Khoo's post is making a very different point: namely, that
rather than all this moralistic posturing (a la the head of the War Crimes
Tribunal, who wrote Milosevic a good stiff letter), rather than pointing
out inconsistencies and hypocrisies as if that were all that needs to be
said, we ought to be asking why it is that bombs fall in the Balkans and
not in Central Africa etc. And this question needs a deeper answer than
simply that the rich countries have strategic interests in the Balkans and
not in Africa, or even that there is some kind of racism at work which
values European (albeit Muslim) lives more than African ones (which,
personally, I think has more to do with it than strategic
considerations)--we need to ask what power relations stand behind that
realpolitik and that racism, so that rather than simply railing against
realpolitik and racism we can actually *do* something about them.
Matthew
---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto---
dear readers, my apologies.
I'm drifting in and out of sleep.
---------------------------------(R.E.M.)----------------------------------