MWC News - A Site Without Borders -

Home

Commentary

Editorial

In a New York Minute

Sep 11 2006

In a New York Minute

| Print |

E-mail

Editorial

By Walter A Davis

Article Index
In a New York Minute
Page 2

Page 2 of 2

Translation

(4)Is the innocent victim a category that also changes in the course of history? Is there a kind of innocence that was perhaps possible on 9-11 that is no longer possible? Can one claim the position of innocent victim and continue to support global capitalism and to reap its benefits? Is this a question we must now ask ourselves about the place we work, where we do business, the kind of vehicle we drive, where we live, even of where and how we worship? Or, to put it another way: 5 years after 9-11, what must we divest ourselves of in order to remain in the category of the (potential) innocent victim? Does maintaining this position now require the repudiation of global capitalism? Repudiation—a nice cosy armchair attitude that may itself be guilty of bad faith. How repudiate except by actively resisting?

Death's Dream Kingdom: The American Psyche since 9-11
By Walter A. Davis

(5) Killing from a safe bureaucratic distance has been the form of terrorism that Amerika has practiced since Hiroshima. That distancing of us from what our way of life costs the rest of the world in terms of death and suffering is the primary ideological gesture of the media and of the two party system. (Poor Clinton: so hurt that ABC is misrepresenting him in their silly little movie of the week. As if there weren’t the blood on his hands and that of his Party for all the Iraqi children who died as a result of sanctions; the desepericido that Madeleine Albright said were a sacrifice that was “worth it” in view of our goal.) We must abolish all distance that separates us from the actions that are taken to defend our way of life. We must learn to live outside the Green zone; inside Gaza; in New Orleans; in our prisons; in Guantanamo….

(6) For there is only one way to receive the news. To suffer it—as the discipline of a rage that must not be relinquished. That suffering and that rage are the only way today to do what the poet Blake said we must do: “cleanse the doors of perception.” Toward that end:

On Violence: A Hypothetical

The role of hypotheticals in Law school is to sharpen the legal mind. In Philosophy their role is to enable speculation to break free of ideological constraints.

So, indulge a fantasy. You are in a room alone with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Perle, Rumsfeld, Addington and the other prime architects. (Or, let’s say, you’ve also got all the CEOs of all the major oil companies; the main munitions profiteers; or most of McLean Virginia…) Moreover, you have the power to do whatever you want to them. (And to sweeten it, since it is only a fantasy, you will get off scot-free no matter what you do.) What would you do? What, ethically, would you be compelled to do or not to do, that is the question? (And you can’t wiggle out by saying nothing you did would change anything. That may very well be the case, but today’s a day of commemorating 9-11, so our common duty is to stay on ethical high ground.) Therefore, (1) knowing the extent of their evil would you still be required on ethical grounds not to kill them? (2) Or, on the basis of the same knowledge would you be ethically compelled to annihilate them?

The answer depends on two factors. (1) Your knowledge of their actions and the way those actions serve the agenda of global capitalism. (5 years after 9-11 we can assume that your knowledge here is advanced enough that if you haven’t read Fisk’s book (say) you’ve put it on your coffee table.) (2) Your ethical position on murder. Now I know from many painful experiences that number 2 is when things get sticky. Several friendships have, in fact, ended on this issue because there are many people who feel that there are no circumstances that can ever justify their committing an act such as murder. Moreover, that non-violence has the status not just of a personal choice but of an a-historical transcendental ethical value, a categorical imperative. Or, to put it in the popular, vulgar terms: if we kill them we become just like them. This is not true, as I’ll show, but the widespread and quick ascent to this commonplace indicates its ideological function in policing our thought on this matter.

But here’s another way to think about it. Is ethical purity of this sort actually the mask for one’s social position? And thus an ideology? What about the vast majority of those people in the world for whom violence is not the luxury of an ethical reflection on universal transcendental moral values but a necessity if they are to transform the situation that oppresses them?

That is, is it time to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer again? There is, as many of you know, a very good chance that nuclear weapons (though not the big ones) will be used against Iran in the not too distant future. Anyone who knows anything about depleted uranium weaponry knows that a new kind of nuclear war has already been and is being fought in Iraq. A new form of genocide, ecocide—and perfectly in keeping with the belief of Bush and Company that the only thing of value over there is the oil. Is it time to announce ahead of time that the world will not tolerate such actions and will prosecute those who undertake them by whatever means necessary?

The Innocent Victim

Killing from a safe bureaucratic distance has been the form of terrorism that Amerika has practiced since Hiroshima. That distancing of us from what our way of life costs the rest of the world in terms of death and suffering is the primary ideological gesture of the media and of the two party system.

Presently the site where the WTC stood is a huge hole in the ground. A void. (While haggling goes on regarding who shall profit from whatever is constructed there.) Should it perhaps remain the way it is today? A huge hole in the ground. An abyss. A void in the very center of the American and Amerikan consciousness. And thus something that can signify only by remaining an open wound. To the earth. To the psyche. One cannot be healed from a trauma before the trauma has been constituted. All the talk of healing is a flight from understanding our situation. But for that to happen the trauma must be sustained, deepened, suffered—by commemorating 9-11 in ways that will each year transform its meaning in order to make that event more traumatic. (Such is the effort of this essay.)

Selfless heroism such as the police and firefighters of New York City demonstrated 5 years ago today will always remain an object of reverence. By the same token it is something that should never be exploited for partisan political purposes. The position of the “innocent victim” of “terror” is another matter. A historical one. And one that today one has a right to claim for oneself only by rejecting both global capitalism and Islamic fundamentalism. That rejection must, of necessity, take new forms depending on where it is constituted. To do so here in the United States, for example, is not to do so in Gaza or in Baghdad or in Europe. And yet perhaps the only hope is that there will be multiple sites of resistance to both evils so that eventually those sites can become what Sartre called a group-in-fusion; i.e., a way of uniting many dispersed agents and agencies into a new consciousness committed to waging a war opposed in principle to the one that is now being forced upon us.

Biographical: Walter A Davis, Editor in Chief at MWC News

Contact Dr. Davis

Recommend this article...

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto:

Quote this article on your site | Views: 1069

Comments (5)

1. 12-09-2006 05:05

Questions....

Thank you for being nearly the only voice in the cacophony to properly frame the 9/11 melodrama so authentically and throw down the gauntlet so profoundly. You have asked many weighty, dangerous and embarrassing questions. I will try to find some answers.

Bob Boldt

.

Guest

Bob Boldt

2. 15-09-2006 15:41

Spirited disagreement

The article was interesting, in that it sparked thought. But it also sparks, to some degree, a sense of indignity on my part. It's a rather cleverly written article, but it puts forth a system of valuing that I don't think is what most people (either in our current culture or in the culture of the "terrorists" would agree with. I also am having a hard time buying some of his reasoning and unsupported conclusions (The war on terror is about oil is about global warming' seems especially facile).

Then, specifically, there's the author's relationship to violence and harm. For those who feel their sense of self or livelihood or health threatened by global capitalism (which I'm perfectly comfortable in supporting), he offers at least a hint at justifying this act. On the other hand, however, the author equates not-helping as being an active form of violence (see below):

"For us violence is an ethical question, and one that we answer by and large by refusing to get our hands dirty. But for some people violence is an immediate necessity, the only way to preserve oneself and to resist one’s oppression."

"Poor Clinton: so hurt that ABC is misrepresenting him in their silly little movie of the week. As if there weren’t the blood on his hands and that of his Party for all the Iraqi children who died as a result of sanctions;"

The problem with this is that it already presupposes a responsibility on each individual's part to alleviate the suffering and hardships of others - which the author doesn't offer support for and isn't particularly feasible, at least on a global level. Further, he puts the blame squarely on Clinton (in this example), despite the fact that it's easy to see how Sadam and the ruling elite were just as, if not more responsible for the situation regarding their own people. To me that just seems an absurd double standard, suggesting that the US has a higher responsibility than the government of that particular nation. To top this all off, he morally equates passive harm (which very well may be morally repugnant… especially to us who enjoy a "privileged socio-economic situation") with active violence (such as flying a plane into a building full of people).

Now, about global capitalism; it isn't an individual matter. That is to sat that we can, as consumers, try to not support imperialistic-style corporate entities. However it seems at the very least a bit extreme to suggest that our use of (and implicit support of) these entities makes us culpable in everything they do. I don't get arrested or suffer reprisals because I give a friend, who happens to be a murderer, 5 bucks to buy lunch. That, and this view also does away with the responsibility of governments and systems to protect the interests of their constituents (that double standard again). If a people don't want to be part of the global economic system, then it becomes the responsibility of those people and their governments to deny the entrance of that economic or political entity into their homeland. I can understand how violence on that front makes perfect sense. In contrast however, it wouldn't have been good form or made much sense for American colonists to go to Britain and kill civilians in reaction to the British government's treatment of the colonies.

There's more, to be sure. But I feel like this at least serves as a decent suggestion for both elucidation and perhaps re-evaluation of some of the tennants of this argument.

Guest

Andrew Partsch

3. 15-09-2006 19:22

another 'a-historical, transcendental e

The author of this editorial is right-on in so many ways that it is disappointing to me to see it decay into vapid moralizing at so many points. The Bush administration is Fascist to be sure, but not exactly for the reasons the author suggests. In addition, the author is wrong with respect to the implicit involvement of all American citizens in the moral decay of the universe.

The thinly veiled suggestion that if I shop at Wal Mart or drive an SUV then I deserve to be killed by Islamist Terrorists is fascist in itself. I'm so sick of arm-chair moralizing on the part of the liberal elite (which, by the way, I consider myself a member). However, I do not fully agree with the arguments my brother has made in his response to this essay.

Here is the truth of this essay. The Bush administration is a fascist administration, but only because they leverage the fear of terrorism against the populace, lie to us, and frame complex cultural ideologies in terms of "good" and "evil" (fundamentalist rhetoric to be sure). Privileged persons have a moral responsibility to help those less fortunate or even oppressed. America has a debt of karma to the rest of the world for its continued imperialist policies.

Now here is where I take issue. The argument that the war on terror = oil = global warming is ridiculous. While global warming is a real symptom of the western gluttonous lifestyle it is not the cause of terror and the rise of fascism (yet it may be a small factor). The true issue is about imperialism, fundamentalism, and the appropriateness of the American lifestyle; for these are the root of the current environmental crisis and are largely responsible for the current political crisis.

While violence may be a forced choice for many across the globe that live daily with the threat of physical oppression or even death, this does not extend to the "Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the CEO of ExxonMobile" in the locked room scenario. With this argument the author loses all moral high ground. This argument is in many ways just as fascist as the fundamentalist-capitalist argument that the enemies of global capitalism are evil and deserve to die. While it's true that the "if we kill them we become just like them" is false in a universal sense, it holds up here.

Most Americans are, in fact, innocent. This is true in both in the pre-9/11 world and in the post-9/11 world. I doubt any American that died in the 9/11 attacks directly or indirectly caused enough suffering in the Middle East to justify his or her murder. By the same token, Bill Clinton may be complicit to some degree in the suffering of the Iraqi people, he is not a cold-blooded murderer as the author suggests. He is simply guilty of being careless and doing a bad job, with perhaps unfortunate consequences. However, it is still our moral responsibility to educate ourselves on the evils of the system of which we are part, and engage in the democratic process (which goes beyond voting to addressing our grievances to the power structures through letters, peaceful protests, and even acts of civil disobedience).

In closing, I hope we see less hate and less grappling for the moral high ground (a position which few deserve, especially those who openly try to claim it). I hope we see a move in the political discourse towards compassion and seeking of mutual solutions. I hope the author chooses to tone down his divisive and galvanizing rhetoric in favor of the truths that it is clear he sees, but that remain cloaked by his own hate and anger.

Guest

Jonathan Partsch

4. 19-09-2006 04:37

another 'a-historical, transcendental e

Andrew Partsch says that global capitalism is not an individual affair. To which I ask, where would global capitalism be without the individual? To make this simpler to understand: neither global capitalism nor any gov't would exist without the individual. So, Mr. Partsch...you're not an individual? If so, what are you?

Guest

James L. Secor

5. 19-09-2006 17:16

Clarificaton

In regards to Mr. Secor's comments, perhaps it is the case that I wasn't fully clear in what I intended to convey. What I mean to say is that Global Capitolism is not an affair merely of individuals. Individuals will choose to support or use multinational companies or the benefits of international trade as they see fit, obviously. However, at a systems level, a nation's government is primary in these concerns - the government is who decides if trade will be conducted with other nations, and in what way. Further, a Starbucks doesn't just spring up univited on a street corner in say, China (Currently Starbuck's fastest grwoing market) - they have to be invited in, otherwise the People's Army would have done away with them a long time ago. So... individuals may be impactful, but the government is always primary in that it sets the laws and controls the armies.

Further, just because a government or an econmoic system is comprised of individuals, that does not mean that it mirrors those individuals and their values and behaviors. We all (I trust) are familiar with the sociological phenomenon of group mentality, and I'm sure that we all understand that governments are only comprised of either people who vote (in places like the US) or the enfranchised or empowered group (like in the Sudan or the People's Republic of the Congo). Being comprised of the individual and directly representing each individual are hardly equivalent. I'm sure we can all agree on this.

As a side note, I honestly never feel that ad hominem arguments serve either individuals or the to raise the level of discourse. If we hope to better our understanding of our world and ourselves, such divisive moves only serve to hurt us all.

Guest

Andrew Partsch

Write Comment

Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article. Personal verbal attacks will be deleted. Please don't use comments to plug your web site. Such material will be removed. Just ensure to Refresh your browser for a new security code to be displayed prior to clicking on the 'Send' button. Keep in mind that the above process only applies if you simply entered the wrong security code.
Name:
E-mail
Homepage
Title:
BBCode:
Comment:
Code:*
	I wish to be contacted by email regarding additional comments