In Western
civilization, logic and ethics are usually
mutually exclusive, while ideology and
ethics are invariably bedfellows.
Take Michael Ignatieff for instance, a great Canadian intellectual and
current Liberal Party leadership hopeful.
He salutes the United States as Empire-Lite (title of one of his books), and applauds its Nation-Building Lite
program that encircles the globe. Mr.
Ignatieff is doubtless a logical thinker.
His views on violence however, typical of centuries-long dominant Western
ethical tradition religious and secular, are profoundly illogical.
Prove it you
say? Like
taking candy from a baby! Article 3
of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is said to be succinct distillation of an
essential self-evident right accorded by Western civilized society to all humanity. It reads: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Mr. Ignatieff would argue that Canadian law
upholds that universal right for every Canadian without fail. Hence, no violent act by police that deliberately
takes innocent civilian life on Canadian soil is to be countenanced. Ever! Not
even just this once. One might say: no universal right lite!
You see? I’ve just proved it – or did you miss
it? Mr. Ignatieff is not ethically logical, rather imperially ideological. He is in fact, contrary to the Declaration’s
Article 3, committed to the most damnable mythology/ideology the West has
known: the myth of redemptive violence,
which is anti-Western-civilization (in theory) to the core (and originated
in the pre-Christian Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish.)
One could call Mr. Ignatieff’s mythical view redemptive violence lite.
While Mr.
Ignatieff would categorically reject all Canadian police action that calculatedly
destroyed innocent civilian lives to achieve its objectives, he fairly genuflects
to the U.S. Empire Terror Military Complex that deliberately, knowingly, methodically destroys civilians the world
over. He uses quaint American spelling
to designate “lite”
such “inhuman barbarism” against civilians (President Roosevelt in 1939). He seemingly does not intend us ever to think
of the mutilated bodies of innocent civilians “lit up” (another kind of “lite”) at
hundreds of U.S. Army check-points in Iraq; of thousands more killed through
“shock and awe”; and myriad lesser bombing sorties against civilians by U.S.
Empire whenever wherever, etc., etc., etc.
The U.S.
for decades has cornered the world’s bull market on development, distribution, and
deployment of a massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction: biological,
chemical, conventional and nuclear. Nothing
remotely WMD lite
about that Empire! On
the contrary. A Google lite
search immediately establishes this unconscionable
ethical obscenity against humanity.
In Canada
slaughter of innocent civilians would of course be condemned to the highest
level by Mr. Ignatieff. In Iraq or Afghanistan
(or… one could fill the rest of the page with U.S. Empire nation-building lite targets around
the globe the last 60 years), a diametrically opposite picture emerges. For Mr. Ignatieff, so ethically illogical to the core, that is all chocked up to collateral damage lite
(like 120,000 instant collateral-damage-lite victims at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Article 3 and all civilized ethics are
jettisoned – all ethical logic in fact be damned! Mr.
Ignatieff would call it “Might makes
right lite”. And he would indeed be right.
It could also be dubbed “Might
makes right ethical logic lite”, for in fact it
is lacking in all ethical logic known (in theory!) to the best of civilized humanity.
Turns out Mr.
Ignatieff is not such a smart man after all.
He in fact is profoundly illogical.
Sadly though, he is in almost universal ethical company in the West, and
that for centuries. Which is precisely
why Mahatma Gandhi answered Sir Winston Churchill’s question, “What do you think of Western civilization?”
with, “I think it would be a good idea.”
There is perhaps only
one effective stopper to the ubiquitous/iniquitous myth of collateral damage lite. It is a modest contribution to the great
ethical non-debate about this heinous Western slaughter-house lite mythology. Every time Allied bombers or military
personnel of any kind know there is likely to be “collateral damage” inflicted in
planned offensive action (like every time
“smart” bombs are dropped, missiles launched, WMD’s
deployed), the highest ranking commander at the battlefront must parachute in to the forefront of whatever
target a personal loved one before saying, “Fire!”. Or not give the command. Just one loved one will do. Perhaps Mr. Ignatieff for starters could
offer up one of his own?
Think of it as a modest proposal lite.