In a sole-searing exhibit of disdain, an Iraqi heel slung two shoes at President Bush during a news conference. To his credit, Bush displayed considerable polish in dodging the flying size 10s, utilizing the reflexes he’s developed in sidestepping criticism and blame for the previous eight years.
The shoe-thrower, an Iraqi journalist, is believed to be an Oxford graduate. Secret Service agents were momentarily caught loafing as he pumped both shoes at the outgoing president, but managed to cobble together their wits and sock him to the ground.
PAD
UPDATED 12/15: Here’s something to ponder. If other United States politicos hold press conferences in Iraq, are all Iraqi journalists going to be required by the Secret Service to remove their shoes and check them in a box outside the room. I mean, one nimrod years ago failed in an attempt to sneak explosives onto an airplane via his shoes and since then we all have to go in stocking feet through the metal detectors. So if shoes ARE being used as a means of expressing disdain, is that going to be accounted for in future Iraqi press gatherings?
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“Fear not David’s brickbat. I agree with that entire paragraph. I never said I was superior by virtue of being American. In fact I said I was lucky to be born here and compared myself (borrowing from John of Salisbury) to a dwarf.”
Actually the quote about dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants is attributed by John of Salisbury to Bernard of Chartres, it is not his own.
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“I’m not saying that it would be the right decision or that I know better than Lincoln or anything. I’m just saying how I would’ve done it since you asked, Micha, and maybe because of that it’s a good thing I wasn’t in Lincoln’s place back then.”
What I want to convay is that such decisions are not that simple, not then and not today.
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“I don’t think I’d like to see the words “monstrous” and “evil” abolished from discourse.”
1) I think these words are better used for actions then for people if at all. That way your focus is the action instead of the nature of man which is more comlicated.
2) Moreover I find such language inflammatory and not very useful. I can call suicide bombers evil, and they’ll call me evil back, but it won’t really help me deal with the problem. To deal with the problem I have to address it in a cool manner as what it is. If i use force it should be in a rational manner not it terms of bad guys or monsters. If I use diplomcy (as I will probably have to too), then calling them monsters will only make my life more difficult.
Maybe I’m seeing things from the perspective of our own problems.
But I’m not advocating moral relativism. I just think that superlatives make it harder to see things the way they are, good, bad and ugly.
The Soviet Union was a problem that had to be dealt with. But there were limits to what could be done. Calling them bad guys or monsters does not affect that. The US was the only one with enough power to deal with the USSR. This was true dispite te fact that the US was not always a good guy. And when dealing with Nazism the same USSR, for all their evil, because that was a greater problem.
“There is a war to terminate evil that I would gladly support. An alliance of all western countries to kick the šhìŧ out of any country that tolerates genital mutilation of women. Ultimatum of 6 months for countries to eradicate the practice on their own. But I realize that there is little economical incentive to go to war to stop it, it’s not like there is any oil to be found in women’s private areas…”
Lack of economic incentive is the least of your problems with this little war.
Look at it this way: to refer to the Confederate States as monsters because they supported an institution that the United States supported for the previous 90 years doesn’t seem to make much sense. If they were monsters, so was the US, no? And since they were re-admitted to the US, what does that mean about the US?
Introducing treason to the mix doesn’t really help. Plus, their secession was motivated entirely by the desire to protect their “peculiar institution,” an institution that the rest of the civilized world was moving away from– particularly the part of the civilized world north of the Ohio River. It’s bad enough to tolerate slavery when it’s a product of its time– still evil, but a little more understandable. But when the rest of the planet– including 2/3 of your own country– is turning against the idea, maybe you should take the hint. I’m just saying.
When they were readmitted, former Confederates were barred from holding office and the ersatz Confederate States were required to adopt the Reconstruction Amendments as preconditions to having their Congressmen seated. The Republicans took a “state suicide” approach to reconstruction– the idea that the secessionists essentially caused their states to cease to exist, and if they wanted to be readmitted to the union, they had to earn their way back in. I think their readmission says good things about the US… until we sold out Reconstruction in order to settle the 1876 election, anyway. Whoops.
Incidentally, there’s a political science definition of conservatism as the belief in gradual change over time. That’s the concept I tend to self-identify with. People who get overly ambitious about remaking the world in “new and improved!” ways tend to get into the most trouble. The French Revolution’s and Communist attempts to remake human nature spring to mind. The French Revolution in some ways launched modern conservatism, as it prompted Edmund Burke’s Holy Freaking Crap!, better known under its more formal title, Reflections on the Revolution in France. I think your theory that we get a little too wrapped up in our own self-image has a lot to recommend it, and runs afoul of similar problems. Overconfidence causes us to write checks we can’t cash, to borrow a metaphor from “Top Gun.”
On the other hand, I think your claim that US economic pressure [helped?] caused the Soviet collapse, but that we “lived with” them for 50 years is a false dichotomy. A direct confrontation would have been a civilization-ending mistake, which is why this is one of the longest periods that the international system has gone without a general war– mutual assured destruction followed by the Pax Americana. Economic pressure– including an arms race– and struggles through proxies were the only options we had. I tend to worry less about Vietnam or the South American escapades you mentioned for that reason– like carpet bombing Germany or nuking Japan, one does what one has to in order to survive. And as you mentioned, when we let our ideology drive our foreign policy, the results are arguably worse. I’m proud of our ideology, but international relations are a forum for realism and Clausewitz, not idealism and Carter.
Actually the quote about dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants is attributed by John of Salisbury to Bernard of Chartres, it is not his own.
It actually goes back even further than that. The direct quote I used was from John’s Metalogicon, though. Interesting book, that. John decried what he saw as the overemphasis on logic at the expense of theology among the universities of the time, and yet he’s primarily remembered now for a logic book that features the neat giants/dwarfs image. But I digress. 🙂
David: “I tend to worry less about Vietnam or the South American escapades you mentioned for that reason– like carpet bombing Germany or nuking Japan, one does what one has to in order to survive.”
I find that remark troubling for two reasons. First, neither Vietnamese nor South American communists were a direct threat to us. Hëll, the communists won the Vietnam war and eventually the Soviet Empire crumbled under its own weight. Second, whether intentional or not your remarks convey a rather cavalier attitude about the lives we took in those conflicts.
The French Revolution in some ways launched modern conservatism, as it prompted Edmund Burke’s Holy Freaking Crap!, better known under its more formal title, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Next to the headline at the LA times website (Obama team probe of Obama team finds no Obama team impropriety) that was the funniest thing I’ve read all morning.
“Incidentally, there’s a political science definition of conservatism as the belief in gradual change over time. That’s the concept I tend to self-identify with. People who get overly ambitious about remaking the world in “new and improved!” ways tend to get into the most trouble.”
I tend to believe a majority of people, now and always, don’t want any change at all.
I’m in agreement with you about the monstrous nature of the Soviet Union, and also that many countries that instituted rapid, radical change ended up commiting atrocities, but maybe, in the long run, things work out for the best.
This is, in now way, a defense of violent revolution, but the spectre of communism in other lands may have contributed for the upper classes in the West to think more carefully before exploiting workers too much. Better to make some concessions than risk what happened there, happening here, right?
I find that remark troubling for two reasons. First, neither Vietnamese nor South American communists were a direct threat to us. Hëll, the communists won the Vietnam war and eventually the Soviet Empire crumbled under its own weight. Second, whether intentional or not your remarks convey a rather cavalier attitude about the lives we took in those conflicts.
Vietnamese communists were pretty clear threats to the Republic of Vietnam though, and that country was kinda sorta democratic-ish. And it’s not like we knew that the domino theory was ridiculous. The Soviets had just taken over half of Europe, you know. Arguably if we wait for the “direct threat to us” test, we don’t fight until the opening credits of “Red Dawn,” and by then it’s a tad late.
I don’t mean to sound cavalier about civilian deaths. The US makes great efforts to minimize them. However, in WWII, there were no precision munitions, and rightly or wrongly saturation bombing developed into a strategy of its own. If the alternative to bombing cities was not destroying the Nazi industrial base, or a ground invasion of Japan that could have cost millions of lives, sometimes the best option is still horrendous.
Moving to a more cheerful note, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Christmas or Hanukkah as appropriate. I do enjoy these debates, and I wish everyone here the best over the holidays.
David:
“But I digress. :)”
That’s OK, this thread is about shoe puns.
Micha: “Actually the quote about dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants is attributed by John of Salisbury to Bernard of Chartres, it is not his own.”
David: “It actually goes back even further than that.”
Micha: I don’t know about that. The Wikipedia says it was used the first time in the 12 century. I can’t confirm or deny.
David: “The direct quote I used was from John’s Metalogicon, though.”
Yes. But in his book John attributes the quote to Bernard of Chartres. I haven’t read the book, but I wrote a short paper about 12th century Cathedral Schools (which later became universities). John of Salisbury attended several of them, so he’s a major source about them and about people like Bernard of Chartres. I also met John of Salisbury when I wrote a paper on Thomas Becket.
“Interesting book, that. John decried what he saw as the overemphasis on logic at the expense of theology among the universities of the time, and yet he’s primarily remembered now for a logic book that features the neat giants/dwarfs image.”
I can offer an educated guess to explain that. In the 12th century the two leading centers or approaches to religious thinking were the cathedral schools and the monasteries. People pursuing a career in the Church studied in the schools, where the tools of logic and the writing of ancient philosophers were learned and were used to understand theology. The leading example of this is the troublemaker philosopher Abelard (of Aberlard and Heloise fame). On the other side the monasteries advocated a les logical and more spiritual approach to religion, based on the experience of monastic life and reading the traditional souces of religious knowledge rather than this new philosophy. The leading example of this approach is Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard made an effort to draw school students away from the life of vanity, career and logic to his order. Bernard didn’t like Abelard.
So, what John of Salisbury is saying is either that he’s OK on the spiritual side of things (asopposed to Abelard), or, more specifically in the context of the schools, that there is a vain over reliance on logic for its own sake rather than on theology, which is the really important thing as far as people in the 12th century were concerned.
Similarly Bernard of Chartes quote about giants and dwarfs is actually apologetic, because in the 12th century being new and original was not a good thing. Novelty was bad. So he’s basicaly saying that the thological thinking coming from the schools is not made by people thinking they know better than the traditional sources, but are in fact dwarfs standing on their shoulders.
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David: “On the other hand, I think your claim that US economic pressure [helped?] caused the Soviet collapse, but that we “lived with” them for 50 years is a false dichotomy. A direct confrontation would have been a civilization-ending mistake, which is why this is one of the longest periods that the international system has gone without a general war– mutual assured destruction followed by the Pax Americana. Economic pressure– including an arms race– and struggles through proxies were the only options we had.”
Micha: I think you’re reading history backwards. The US did not get involved in the arms race with the foreknowledge that after 50 years the USSR will go bankrupt. And between Korea and Afghanistan, it seems most of the proxy wars were not very successful and morally questionable attempts to prevent communists from taking over rather than a proactive attempt to topple the USSR or its satelites. Moreover, we see the US using warm and cold diplomacy in it’s relations with communist states and specifically the USSR and China. Of course, I don’t fault the US for not going to war with the USSR or China under the nuclera circrumstances. Like you, I’m a realist. But this is the reason why I recommend careful use of phrases like monsters, good guys or bad guys in this arena.
David: “Vietnamese communists were pretty clear threats to the Republic of Vietnam though, and that country was kinda sorta democratic-ish. And it’s not like we knew that the domino theory was ridiculous. The Soviets had just taken over half of Europe, you know. Arguably if we wait for the “direct threat to us” test, we don’t fight until the opening credits of “Red Dawn,” and by then it’s a tad late. ”
I don’t think you can brush away the many mistakes of the US in Asia or Suth America that easily even we agree that the intentions were well meaning. I certainly agree that the choices are not as simple and obvious as people on the left present and presented them any more than they are as obvious as the people on the right present them. Vietnam is a good example of bad choices. Letting the Vietnamese elect a communist government or support a not that democratic and corrupt government to prevent the rise of communism. Such dilemmas caused much problems to the US.
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Rene: “There is a war to terminate evil that I would gladly support. An alliance of all western countries to kick the šhìŧ out of any country that tolerates genital mutilation of women. Ultimatum of 6 months for countries to eradicate the practice on their own. But I realize that there is little economical incentive to go to war to stop it, it’s not like there is any oil to be found in women’s private areas…”
Micha: Actually this is a classic example of the moral dilemmas we face. It is not as if we have an evil dictator rounding up girls. No. We have ordinary people practicing a bad but deeply entrenched tradition, which the government probably could not and dare not end even if they wanted. How can you change that? By attacking countries like Egypt with modern armies? How? And if you conquer Egypt, what then? Could you try less miltary methods like sending civilian volunteers? Possibly. But be prepared to headlines like: American missionaries trying to convert Muslims to Christianity/infect Muslims with Aids/are Mossad agents. Tough choices.
I realize that is complicated. It’s more a wish-fulfilment fantasy of mine. The institution of slavery had a huge support structure behind it, unlike genital mutilation. How do you stop it? Anyway, I was only saying that this would be a use of military might I’d support.
The sad things is that we (the West) have lost much of our moral superiority (if we ever had it in the first place), by going to wars for the wrong reasons and with ulterior motives. There are still causes that are worth fighting for, but the world is so screwed-up, perhaps beyong repair.
Something as evil as South Africa’s Apartheid cannot survive, because there is no support, in this day and age, for a white regime to exploit blacks openly. But there is still plenty of room for males to exploit females in hideous ways, unfortunately.
A problem that always comes up when you try to stop a barbaric practice that is committed by people of faith is the idea that being religious is supposed to be a sort of free pass for you to do cruel things to people. If you want to stop it, you’re persecuting them for their religion.
It’s not unique to Muslims. The Heritage Foundation, for instance, is just one of the many Conservative groups that think Christians have some sort of “right” to persecute gays. Anyone fighting homophobia is denying these people their God-given right to deny gays certain basic rights.