Some thoughts on Bin Laden
With the announcement of Bin Laden's killing and the subsequent and inevitable celebrations around the US it's made me pause and think about about the degree to which we live under a vengeance paradigm. It's ubiquitous and all across movies, books, pretty much all of our pop-culture--the protagonist who will stop at nothing to extract vengeance on some bad guy, for something done to him (usually male)/lover/social unit/retirement plan/etc. The news mirrors this to a large extent, wars of retaliation in Afghanistan to gang wars of retaliation in North Minneapolis.
Looking around, people are bristling, wondering how to respond to whatever indignity might be around the corner. Think about it, does the urge to carry concealed weapons have more to do with keeping that guy from mugging you, are what you'll do to him if he tries to mug you?
Self-defense and self-preservation are vital parts of the survival of any creature but taken far enough and the results can be self-destruction. We were not created to be 'animals' in the sense of acting on 'animal' instinct. Consequently few animal species actually go so far as to try and completely destroy a rival--the energy required, the risk of injury to the perpetrator is too great to be justified for survival.
In Greek tragedy it is usually the protagonist's excesses that lead and hubris that lead to their destruction. In Antigone, Creon's insistence of vengeance a former traitor thorough refusing him simple burial rites per custom leads to the death of Creon's entire family. Likewise the punitive Treaty of Versailles is widely credited as leading to more than 60 million people killed in WWII.
The long view here and the point of this (isn't just how awesome a Liberal Arts education is) but that vengeance blinds one to reason and reasonability and is ultimately self destructive.
The killing of Bin Laden isn't going to bring anyone's loved one back, it is tragedy, they are gone, we miss them, but we must move on and we must move on for the sake of the future. Neither will it have made Bin Laden any less successful in having achieved the cycle of violence he set out create. But if we send armed persons into other countries to assassinate specific individuals, and party in the streets burning people in effigy (not to mention the holy books of another) we should be asking where this cycle will end. If not for our own safety, but for our humanity.
Looking around, people are bristling, wondering how to respond to whatever indignity might be around the corner. Think about it, does the urge to carry concealed weapons have more to do with keeping that guy from mugging you, are what you'll do to him if he tries to mug you?
Self-defense and self-preservation are vital parts of the survival of any creature but taken far enough and the results can be self-destruction. We were not created to be 'animals' in the sense of acting on 'animal' instinct. Consequently few animal species actually go so far as to try and completely destroy a rival--the energy required, the risk of injury to the perpetrator is too great to be justified for survival.
In Greek tragedy it is usually the protagonist's excesses that lead and hubris that lead to their destruction. In Antigone, Creon's insistence of vengeance a former traitor thorough refusing him simple burial rites per custom leads to the death of Creon's entire family. Likewise the punitive Treaty of Versailles is widely credited as leading to more than 60 million people killed in WWII.
The long view here and the point of this (isn't just how awesome a Liberal Arts education is) but that vengeance blinds one to reason and reasonability and is ultimately self destructive.
The killing of Bin Laden isn't going to bring anyone's loved one back, it is tragedy, they are gone, we miss them, but we must move on and we must move on for the sake of the future. Neither will it have made Bin Laden any less successful in having achieved the cycle of violence he set out create. But if we send armed persons into other countries to assassinate specific individuals, and party in the streets burning people in effigy (not to mention the holy books of another) we should be asking where this cycle will end. If not for our own safety, but for our humanity.