Pyromaniacs?
I happened to hear an interesting paper the other day attempting to figure what beings should have rights? This exploration set my mind running along the usual lines. Aristotle had defined humans as being the distinctively "rational" beings -- not yet possessing rights in his time (enslaving barbarians and conquered Hellenes was the oldest game in town there and wars were thought to be the proper means for achieving 'peace and prosperity').
I pondered a bit the notion of psychopathy, the incapacity to feel empathy for other humans -- yet not a grounds for pleading legal insanity when having committed an egregious crime. Yet how can one morally blame individuals for a condition that they either inherited genetically or acquired through abuse in childhood or both? Is this lack of empathy perhaps even a distinctive human characteristic? Should it be grounds for denying rights, if so widespread amongst our 'clan'?
Then it hit me. We humans are uniquely the only animals that use (and abuse) fire! Perhaps only fire using ones should have rights -- this would get us past the hairy questions raised by Aristotle's criterion of 'rationality' which so many -- from Freud to Marx -- have challenged for its self-deceiving basic flaws.
But then, pressing a bit further, I realized that a fire using animal is all too likely to abuse fire. We humans particularly, let alone our science fiction monsters, seem to get quite a charge out of burning things -- and people! As I write this The Infinite Mind (npr) is running a program on the problem -- children fascinated by fire who set deadly fires.
Looking beyond children, however, adults, too, seem to delight in burning -- recall the Inquisition's auto de fe (act of faith, i.e. burning people) viewed then as an ultimate religious expression (as well as form of public entertainment). We NOW condemn those who practiced this unholy crime against humanity -- and let us not forget that Protestants (e.g. Calvin) sanctioned it as well as of Catholics -- it was a very 'Christian' thing to do -- witches beware!
And what ho! Burning innocent people in large numbers has more recently become one of the significant features of modern warfare. It began in my child's awareness with the fire bombings perpetrated by the Nazis on the nations they were conquering in Europe. Phosphorus is a relatively benign substance if kept where it belongs -- under water. But removed from its watery containment, phosphorous spontaneously ignites. Imagine the plight of Dutch citizens reportedly splattered with phosphorous during the Nazi attack on their country at the beginning of WW2 -- alternately ducking under the waters in a nearby canal and then reigniting when emerging to breath -- what a way to die!
The Nazis -- rather the good Germans -- got their comeuppance, however, down the line when the allies bombed Dresden with fragmentation bombs followed by incendiaries which created a monster fire storm there that killed many thousands swept into its center by hurricane force winds -- or who were asphyxiated by the sudden absorption of oxygen by the flames. And similarly we later blew away Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the ultimate weapon of pyromaniacs -- nuclear bombs -- which followed upon our even more deadly killing games in Tokyo, a city of wood and paper repeatedly fire bombed with the torching of more lives than the totals of the two nuclear targeted cities.
Fast forward to the Viet Nam war. American ingenuity devised an even more deadly fire bomb made of jellied gasoline -- napalm. Dropped in synchronized patterns from on high, these bombs skidded along the ground splattering anything in their paths with blazing gasoline. And so we saw the scenes of war represented by the picture of a fleeing girl whose clothing had been burned off her by napalm -- she survived and emigrated to Amerika.
Napalm may be out, but our ingenious weapons makers have been at it again. Do you remember the "daisy cutters" -- one or more of which we dropped on Afghanistan during the course of our invasion there? These were apparently first used in Viet Nam in 1970, but only emerged in public consciousness more recently when targeted against resistance in Afghanistan. They are ingenious things -- 15,000 pounds of kerosene combined with explosives dropped by parachute close to the ground where a first explosion releases the kerosene and a second ignites it with a mighty blast which kills anything within a square mile, animal, child, woman, soldier. One might call it our ultimate in pyromaniac weapons. It has the advantage of not spreading dangerous radioactivity to compromise invading troops -- as did our gas warfare during WW1.
Most recently we have admitted grudgingly that our newest terror fire weapon was used in our attack on Fallujah -- a new type of phosphorus bomb.
Numbers incinerated there were not determined, but reported graphically by a documentary filmed by an unembedded Italian journalist -- shown in Italy, not here.
Of the above one does not hear much in our own media. One wonders what more such toys our military has at its disposal or under development. I remember when the CIA was testing LSD on my fellow grad students back during Korean War days. I don't, however, recall reports of CIA torture. Possibly we might find more benign ways to get things done? Cutting off heads was considered to be a humane execution procedure in the time of Mary Queen of Scots -- reserved for aristocratic rebels and such -- one's relatives. And, of course, some still prefer the gas chamber as a more humane mode of execution: "Take a deep breath." Increasingly only in Amerika does our public get its jollies out of such things. I recall the picture of a small African American boy sitting horrified in one of Edison's inventions, the electric chair, waiting to be fried well done. I believe it was in the galleys of Langston Hughes' History of the NAACP which I had been sent to review -- also included in a recent NYC museum exhibit of picture postcard representations of U.S. lynchings in the past century which often involved burning to death.
For the record, lest there be any doubts about my own position. I am not a pacifist. I wore a naval officer's uniform briefly while undergoing military training during the Korean war. But I strongly oppose pointless and barbaric killing. Capital punishment is totally unjustified -- a barbaric hang over from the days when reformers were crucified by brutal Roman authorities. I cannot comprehend how anyone claiming religious affiliation can support such barbarity. And similarly most wars are NOT justified -- only defensive ones in extremis!
Needless to say the special horror of 9/11 was the burning bodies of nearly 3,000 innocent people. But how many have we Americans now burned in retaliation? I agree with Livy (who was cited approvingly by Machiavelli in his handbook on wars, The Prince): "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp
I pondered a bit the notion of psychopathy, the incapacity to feel empathy for other humans -- yet not a grounds for pleading legal insanity when having committed an egregious crime. Yet how can one morally blame individuals for a condition that they either inherited genetically or acquired through abuse in childhood or both? Is this lack of empathy perhaps even a distinctive human characteristic? Should it be grounds for denying rights, if so widespread amongst our 'clan'?
Then it hit me. We humans are uniquely the only animals that use (and abuse) fire! Perhaps only fire using ones should have rights -- this would get us past the hairy questions raised by Aristotle's criterion of 'rationality' which so many -- from Freud to Marx -- have challenged for its self-deceiving basic flaws.
But then, pressing a bit further, I realized that a fire using animal is all too likely to abuse fire. We humans particularly, let alone our science fiction monsters, seem to get quite a charge out of burning things -- and people! As I write this The Infinite Mind (npr) is running a program on the problem -- children fascinated by fire who set deadly fires.
Looking beyond children, however, adults, too, seem to delight in burning -- recall the Inquisition's auto de fe (act of faith, i.e. burning people) viewed then as an ultimate religious expression (as well as form of public entertainment). We NOW condemn those who practiced this unholy crime against humanity -- and let us not forget that Protestants (e.g. Calvin) sanctioned it as well as of Catholics -- it was a very 'Christian' thing to do -- witches beware!
And what ho! Burning innocent people in large numbers has more recently become one of the significant features of modern warfare. It began in my child's awareness with the fire bombings perpetrated by the Nazis on the nations they were conquering in Europe. Phosphorus is a relatively benign substance if kept where it belongs -- under water. But removed from its watery containment, phosphorous spontaneously ignites. Imagine the plight of Dutch citizens reportedly splattered with phosphorous during the Nazi attack on their country at the beginning of WW2 -- alternately ducking under the waters in a nearby canal and then reigniting when emerging to breath -- what a way to die!
The Nazis -- rather the good Germans -- got their comeuppance, however, down the line when the allies bombed Dresden with fragmentation bombs followed by incendiaries which created a monster fire storm there that killed many thousands swept into its center by hurricane force winds -- or who were asphyxiated by the sudden absorption of oxygen by the flames. And similarly we later blew away Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the ultimate weapon of pyromaniacs -- nuclear bombs -- which followed upon our even more deadly killing games in Tokyo, a city of wood and paper repeatedly fire bombed with the torching of more lives than the totals of the two nuclear targeted cities.
Fast forward to the Viet Nam war. American ingenuity devised an even more deadly fire bomb made of jellied gasoline -- napalm. Dropped in synchronized patterns from on high, these bombs skidded along the ground splattering anything in their paths with blazing gasoline. And so we saw the scenes of war represented by the picture of a fleeing girl whose clothing had been burned off her by napalm -- she survived and emigrated to Amerika.
Napalm may be out, but our ingenious weapons makers have been at it again. Do you remember the "daisy cutters" -- one or more of which we dropped on Afghanistan during the course of our invasion there? These were apparently first used in Viet Nam in 1970, but only emerged in public consciousness more recently when targeted against resistance in Afghanistan. They are ingenious things -- 15,000 pounds of kerosene combined with explosives dropped by parachute close to the ground where a first explosion releases the kerosene and a second ignites it with a mighty blast which kills anything within a square mile, animal, child, woman, soldier. One might call it our ultimate in pyromaniac weapons. It has the advantage of not spreading dangerous radioactivity to compromise invading troops -- as did our gas warfare during WW1.
Most recently we have admitted grudgingly that our newest terror fire weapon was used in our attack on Fallujah -- a new type of phosphorus bomb.
Numbers incinerated there were not determined, but reported graphically by a documentary filmed by an unembedded Italian journalist -- shown in Italy, not here.
Of the above one does not hear much in our own media. One wonders what more such toys our military has at its disposal or under development. I remember when the CIA was testing LSD on my fellow grad students back during Korean War days. I don't, however, recall reports of CIA torture. Possibly we might find more benign ways to get things done? Cutting off heads was considered to be a humane execution procedure in the time of Mary Queen of Scots -- reserved for aristocratic rebels and such -- one's relatives. And, of course, some still prefer the gas chamber as a more humane mode of execution: "Take a deep breath." Increasingly only in Amerika does our public get its jollies out of such things. I recall the picture of a small African American boy sitting horrified in one of Edison's inventions, the electric chair, waiting to be fried well done. I believe it was in the galleys of Langston Hughes' History of the NAACP which I had been sent to review -- also included in a recent NYC museum exhibit of picture postcard representations of U.S. lynchings in the past century which often involved burning to death.
For the record, lest there be any doubts about my own position. I am not a pacifist. I wore a naval officer's uniform briefly while undergoing military training during the Korean war. But I strongly oppose pointless and barbaric killing. Capital punishment is totally unjustified -- a barbaric hang over from the days when reformers were crucified by brutal Roman authorities. I cannot comprehend how anyone claiming religious affiliation can support such barbarity. And similarly most wars are NOT justified -- only defensive ones in extremis!
Needless to say the special horror of 9/11 was the burning bodies of nearly 3,000 innocent people. But how many have we Americans now burned in retaliation? I agree with Livy (who was cited approvingly by Machiavelli in his handbook on wars, The Prince): "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp
posted by Ed Kent at 9:22 AM
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