(Side note for later reflection, there's a sort of evolution at play here, isn't there? "More advanced" civilizations end up with the means to take over and impose their advances on other cultures. It must have been unpleasant to be in Gaul when Caesar came through, but where would we be now if he hadn't?)
By "more advanced" we mean more advanced *militarily* (and possibly economically) - not culturally, morally, or any other -ly - which calls into doubt the merits of the "advances" they brought with them. Caesar had his day in Gaul, but a few centuries later the "barbarians" had their day in Rome, too. For a while the Mongols represented the more advanced civilization when it came to military might. They introduced some political institutions to Rus while draining it of money and craftsmen. Speaking of draining money, there were the conquistadors . . . Yes, it must have been unpleasant in Gaul, and Rome, and Rus, and the New World. The further back in history we go, the harder it gets to be sure that colonizers and conquerors made the world a worse place in the long run; that doesn't mean we can rest assured that they did the right thing. Hmm. I might be ready to say that "the world would be better off if no one ever invaded anyone." That would still leave the door wide open for economic and cultural exchanges (and, if it seemed necessary, for economic pressure in order to bring about change).
As for lessons learned for today and going forward, the principle is right that something has to be done when we see cultures/governments engaging in evil. Whether we invade or form a coalition and invade or stick with sanctions indefinitely or write lamenting op-eds in the NY Times or whatever - that's up for debate as each situation arises. Agreed. (What say you to Iraq? I say we ended up killing people and making things worse, and that we could have done a lot more good in, say, Sudan.)
I still need to reply to the last few lines of your comment; I feel like this goes back several entries to the one on population decline, on which I have decided opinions. :) (Tell people we have to reproduce for the good of civilization? As if! Maybe Europeans think (as I do these days) that global warming is going to wreck the whole earth, and they don't want to be responsible for subjecting their children to it, and that's why they're having fewer kids.)
- It's possible that cultural and moral advancement yields technological and (thus military) advancement. There's a fair case to be made that this - in part - explains our triumph over the Axis and (most of) the Communists. It's debatable, I know.
- Am I reading you correctly as a complete pacifist? If not, when would you endorse force?
- In Iraq, I felt the whole thing was trumped-up, in large part by the media who started asking Bush about Iraq once the Afghanistan story became uninteresting. We literally talked ourselves into it. Since the war was founded on a combination of this hype and lingering feelings of having left a job unfinished by Bush I folks in W's cabinet, the rationale for the war kept shifting as the administration looked for a credible cover. I don't think it was malicious or overt or a conspiracy - it was more subconscious and a result of media/political momentum - but certainly poor judgment was exercised, and no one in the administration had the guts to say, "Whoa - this is going a little too far; we made a mistake."
- That said, economic sanctions were a joke and clearly were not effective in achieving change, instead leaving the Iraqi people in misery. I don't think sanctions were the cure, and I think something had to be done eventually (or else the U.N. is pointless; I wasn't concerned that Iraq posed an immediate threat). I would like to have seen a real coalition and consensus among the world powers before we went in - this was everyone's problem, not just ours. The whole "pre-emptive war" jumped the gun and ruined our foreign policy leverage in both the Middle East and the West.
- Europeans should not avoid kids - and deny themselves the joy of children and their children the opportunity to live and determine their own future because of global warming or any other problem. The solution is to fix global warming. I understand that not everyone wants kids - but we ought to take a look at our priorities and wants when they shift such that they're causing the culture to die out. It seems especially true from an evolutionary standpoint - our culture as evolved into self-destruction, which should give the evolutionist some cause for alarm.
By "more advanced" we mean more advanced *militarily* (and possibly economically) - not culturally, morally, or any other -ly - which calls into doubt the merits of the "advances" they brought with them. Caesar had his day in Gaul, but a few centuries later the "barbarians" had their day in Rome, too. For a while the Mongols represented the more advanced civilization when it came to military might. They introduced some political institutions to Rus while draining it of money and craftsmen. Speaking of draining money, there were the conquistadors . . . Yes, it must have been unpleasant in Gaul, and Rome, and Rus, and the New World. The further back in history we go, the harder it gets to be sure that colonizers and conquerors made the world a worse place in the long run; that doesn't mean we can rest assured that they did the right thing. Hmm. I might be ready to say that "the world would be better off if no one ever invaded anyone." That would still leave the door wide open for economic and cultural exchanges (and, if it seemed necessary, for economic pressure in order to bring about change).
As for lessons learned for today and going forward, the principle is right that something has to be done when we see cultures/governments engaging in evil. Whether we invade or form a coalition and invade or stick with sanctions indefinitely or write lamenting op-eds in the NY Times or whatever - that's up for debate as each situation arises.
Agreed. (What say you to Iraq? I say we ended up killing people and making things worse, and that we could have done a lot more good in, say, Sudan.)
I still need to reply to the last few lines of your comment; I feel like this goes back several entries to the one on population decline, on which I have decided opinions. :) (Tell people we have to reproduce for the good of civilization? As if! Maybe Europeans think (as I do these days) that global warming is going to wreck the whole earth, and they don't want to be responsible for subjecting their children to it, and that's why they're having fewer kids.)
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- Am I reading you correctly as a complete pacifist? If not, when would you endorse force?
- In Iraq, I felt the whole thing was trumped-up, in large part by the media who started asking Bush about Iraq once the Afghanistan story became uninteresting. We literally talked ourselves into it. Since the war was founded on a combination of this hype and lingering feelings of having left a job unfinished by Bush I folks in W's cabinet, the rationale for the war kept shifting as the administration looked for a credible cover. I don't think it was malicious or overt or a conspiracy - it was more subconscious and a result of media/political momentum - but certainly poor judgment was exercised, and no one in the administration had the guts to say, "Whoa - this is going a little too far; we made a mistake."
- That said, economic sanctions were a joke and clearly were not effective in achieving change, instead leaving the Iraqi people in misery. I don't think sanctions were the cure, and I think something had to be done eventually (or else the U.N. is pointless; I wasn't concerned that Iraq posed an immediate threat). I would like to have seen a real coalition and consensus among the world powers before we went in - this was everyone's problem, not just ours. The whole "pre-emptive war" jumped the gun and ruined our foreign policy leverage in both the Middle East and the West.
- Europeans should not avoid kids - and deny themselves the joy of children and their children the opportunity to live and determine their own future because of global warming or any other problem. The solution is to fix global warming. I understand that not everyone wants kids - but we ought to take a look at our priorities and wants when they shift such that they're causing the culture to die out. It seems especially true from an evolutionary standpoint - our culture as evolved into self-destruction, which should give the evolutionist some cause for alarm.
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