Good points, Martin. I guess the suggestion of the Arab Spring having an impact serves more as an abstract example that self-determination is the key principle. The journey is at least as important as the destination. Nations - people - have a right to self-determination. It is not a luxury, but a necessity. I suspect even insurgency is a national duty, should your own country come to be invaded. This highlights part of the problem with aggressive wars - you trash the foundations of your own culture. We demand self determination for ourselves, but routinely deny it to others. The only way you can maintain the logic of right and defensible action is by setting a double standard as a method of self-denial, and to embrace the kind of paternalism and racism that treats other nations as children who are incapable of legitimately determining their own fate. Even a utopian end would never justify the means.
It seems difficult to escape the image of a criminal psychiatrist in Montreal developing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used today by purposefully destroying the minds of mentally ill people, reducing them to an infantilised, blank slate, because he had a mad theory that he could reconstruct them again - better, stronger and healthier. Even if he had been able to help them once he had destroyed them, the ends do not justify the means. It is undoubtedly better to live with depression than it is to be tortured back into infancy in the name of health - or indeed knowledge - never mind empire. (Ref: Ewen Cameron, Allen Memorial Hospital. keywords: depatterning, psychic driving)
I'm sure Reza is correct.
Little Mosque on the Prairie season 1 episode 1
https://youtu.be/k8APVztLSaw?list=PLqjqIHMmxdZeY-aQYyg0qiqDrXDgS-DkI
Good points, Martin. I guess the suggestion of the Arab Spring having an impact serves more as an abstract example that self-determination is the key principle. The journey is at least as important as the destination. Nations - people - have a right to self-determination. It is not a luxury, but a necessity. I suspect even insurgency is a national duty, should your own country come to be invaded. This highlights part of the problem with aggressive wars - you trash the foundations of your own culture. We demand self determination for ourselves, but routinely deny it to others. The only way you can maintain the logic of right and defensible action is by setting a double standard as a method of self-denial, and to embrace the kind of paternalism and racism that treats other nations as children who are incapable of legitimately determining their own fate. Even a utopian end would never justify the means.
It seems difficult to escape the image of a criminal psychiatrist in Montreal developing the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used today by purposefully destroying the minds of mentally ill people, reducing them to an infantilised, blank slate, because he had a mad theory that he could reconstruct them again - better, stronger and healthier. Even if he had been able to help them once he had destroyed them, the ends do not justify the means. It is undoubtedly better to live with depression than it is to be tortured back into infancy in the name of health - or indeed knowledge - never mind empire. (Ref: Ewen Cameron, Allen Memorial Hospital. keywords: depatterning, psychic driving)