After our first viewing session, I was very affected by what I saw. This documentary stirred me emotionally (especially in combination with the driving music in the background) and intellectually on a number of levels. First, the magnitude of the issues is staggering. The numbers of people dying and the devastation of peoples is a grave topic in any scenario. Yet, the individual nature of the study--how it affect one man who went through all these things--gave it an intimate quality totally apart from the gargantuan events around which the movie's discussion flowed. Finally, intellectually one particular though kept impressing itself upon me, and it is on this thought I will focus the rest of this entry.
The thought is a simple one--nothing new to any of us or even this blog. In fact, Redlio mentioned this very specifically in the last post. The thought is that as we study political ethics we cannot escape the situations in which the questions arise. In Children of the Mind, a book by Orson Scott Card, a disciple of Malu says, "Malu is no fool. He knows there is no truth outside of context. So if he has to tell you the entire history of the entire human species you will sit and listen, because if he does so it means you will not understand what he has to say until you have heard the entire story." (You must know this is a very liberal paraphrase from the top of my head, but the point is the same).
The more I study and the more I experience life, the more I realize this is true. It is easy for us children of the 21st century to sit in our comfortable chairs with no real fears of international struggle and say the Cold War fears were foolish, or that Vietnam was a mistake, or that any number of actions committed by high-profile figures were errant or immoral. But the reality is that we can never truly judge the people who lived through those years because we simply do not understand the situation at the time. I cannot for the life of me imagine what it would be like to grow up in a world with nuclear bomb drills. I have no idea what it would feel like to have the choice of fleeing to Canada or being subjected to the draft.
In the same way, I have no idea what the leaders during these points in history could have been going through. They did not know everything we know now, and the context in which they made these huge decisions carried with it far greater, more stressful and more unpredictable consequences than we face as we read the cold, predetermined story of their decisions and outcomes.
I am not saying it is useless to study these things, or to pursue a moral education. Quite the contrary, I think attaining morality is one of the highest pursuits to which a person can aspire. What I am saying is that we can only learn from these things, not fully judge the people involved. To be able to judge morality requires that one completely comprehend another--something I believe to be impossible. It is difficult enough to try and determine another's intent and their level of education about the consequences of their actions. For instance, how can I judge Robert McNamara for filing reports resulting in the fire-bombing of Tokyo when I do not know if he intended for such bombing to occur, knew it would be the result of his reports, or even had any idea what action would be taken as a result of his research?
There was so much uncertainty in all the scenarios presented. In my opinion, ours is not to decide whether another person should feel guilty for his or her actions. Ours is only to decide what we would and should have done given the same scenario. That is the purpose of this class. Contrary to what some suggest, these situations do occur in real life, and how are we to act morally if we do not know what it actually means to be moral?
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I like how you said that children of the 21st crntury sit back in your chairs without the fears of international struggles, etc. because that is exactly how I felt, even though I am older than you guys are, and I did live through some of the events that is pointed out in the film, I still do not really have that much of a grip onto what actually occured because I was sheltered by most of it from my parents. But I do remember how afraid I was of a nuclear attack, because that is what I was learning about from school. This documentary is very interesting to me because I did live thru this time. This weekend I am in the cities and staying with friends. Her father was a pilot under LeMay, and was one of the ones that actually flew in the B-27's. She has shown me pictures of some of these events and of her father as a pilot in a B-27. She was inside one of these planes, and she met President Kennedy as a child. (Can I bring her to class for show & tell?)
ReplyDeleteIn ending though I do like your comment as well about how are we ti act morally if we do not know what it actually means to be moral?
Candi,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your response, because it's always enlightening to hear someone from another so-called "generation's" point of view. Fear is a strange (to me) and powerful thing. It strongly alters people's mentality. Fear is a step on the way to despair, and desperation makes people do extreme things. Internally, fear can cause horrible things--such as the ostracization of Communists during the Red Scare, or the hangings of the Salem Witch Trials.
Interestingly, fear between nations is usually reciprocal. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we were afraid of nuclear weapons and the Russians were scared of their implications but also mindful that their international prestige depended upon them not letting down an ally. Similarly, the Vietnamese were afraid of the United States becoming a new imperial oppressor while the United States was afraid totalitarian-Communism (now there's an oxymoron for you) would take over the world.
In all these examples and on all sides, the fears proved to be unfounded (or at least wildly misguided), which leads back to McNamara's original point: empathize with the "enemy." If we would all learn, as nations and individuals, to stop assuming the Strange Other is evil, and instead seek at all times to UNDERSTAND first before reacting, it seems to me that a lot of this trouble could be avoided.
I agree that we do not have the perspective from the time, but I do think the entire Cold War and many of the conflicts born out of it were frivolous at the time. What were we really that afraid of...a different economic system? The immediate lessons of WWII seemed to be ignored. We picked a potentially apocalyptic fight with a former friend. It also seems that the men in power were unable or unwilling to step back and look at the situation or empathize with their enemies.
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