Aug 12, 2006
Deep, Dark Thoughts from a Deep, Dark Mind
Few things are quite so instructive (if not quite in the sense he intends) as watching John Derbyshire pretend to wrestle with what he supposes to be deeply transgressive thoughts about matters of politics, culture, and morality.
The topics vary. The method does not."Why, it is shocking to find myself considering things from this angle!" he says sotto voce."Yet one must be brave, and consider the possibility that I am, in fact, completely correct."
Derbyshire has pleased himself, for example, with the paradox of being "a mildly tolerant homophobe". On a more soul-searching note, he has contemplated his own erotic horror of any female on the far side of puberty. And lest you imagine the man to be obsessed with sex but indifferent to violence, he now informs us on the moral obligation to slaughter civilians.
It is, of course, proof that he shares in the noble spirit of a warrior elite -- uncorrupted by the morally softening effects of consumerism -- for Derbyshire to risk ABC warfare (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) on the Koreans behalf, if only as an imaginative exercise.
But that is only a warm-up exercise for more deep cogitation. His real concern is Lebanon.
Or rather, the civilians of Lebanon, who may (one must be bold enough to think the convenient) have been asking for it:
Now, that, too, is just a"passing thought," please understand....A profoundly interesting, deeply subtle, inexhaustably self-admiring, therefore quintessentially Derbyshiresque rumination.
Yet I can't quite shake the notion that I've heard it somewhere else before:
It's deja vu all over again! Consumerist passivity, the moral vacuousness of liberal democracy, the hard truth of collective responsibility.....
Why, by that reasoning, the Lebanese are almost -- how should one put it? -- well, when you get right down to it, a bunch of little Eichmanns:
So, okay, you'd have to change the occasional reference. But otherwise it's the same moral algebra: There are no innocent bystanders! If you are a bystander, you aren't innoncent!
Not that the analogy is perfect, of course. It's not as if Derbyshire has much concern for"brown-skinned five-year olds." As yoy may recall, Lolita was not Middle Eastern. And five really is a bit young -- though at least unravished by time, unlike a woman of 25, let alone (and here, the Derbster visibly shudders) 35....
The topics vary. The method does not."Why, it is shocking to find myself considering things from this angle!" he says sotto voce."Yet one must be brave, and consider the possibility that I am, in fact, completely correct."
Derbyshire has pleased himself, for example, with the paradox of being "a mildly tolerant homophobe". On a more soul-searching note, he has contemplated his own erotic horror of any female on the far side of puberty. And lest you imagine the man to be obsessed with sex but indifferent to violence, he now informs us on the moral obligation to slaughter civilians.
The South Koreans' lack of stomach for a civil war of reunification with their kin to the north is, it seems, a telling sign of the deep corruption that sometimes goes with the good life:
How long would it take South Korea to neutralize those Northern artillery batteries? Yet apparently South Koreans have no interest in liberating their fellow-countrymen. They prefer to enjoy the good life, driving their new cars, chattering into their cell phones, settling back before their 72-inch plasma TV screens. Perhaps it is impertinent of me to judge them. I am only recording passing thoughts.
It is, of course, proof that he shares in the noble spirit of a warrior elite -- uncorrupted by the morally softening effects of consumerism -- for Derbyshire to risk ABC warfare (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) on the Koreans behalf, if only as an imaginative exercise.
But that is only a warm-up exercise for more deep cogitation. His real concern is Lebanon.
Or rather, the civilians of Lebanon, who may (one must be bold enough to think the convenient) have been asking for it:
Eighty percent of the population of South Lebanon voted for “Resistance Party” candidates in last year’s election—that’s mainly Hezbollah, joined with a few like-minded groups. Now, that peasant who just got killed in an Israeli airstrike might very well have belonged to the twenty percent who did not vote “Resistance”; and the seven-year-old girl whose legs were blown off by another Israeli bomb while playing with her favorite doll, wasn’t even in the electorate. How can their killing be justified? By the doctrine of collective responsibility, which, if you allow its validity, applies even more strongly to Lebanon, where there have at least been elections, than to North Korea. This is your government. You have permitted this to be done to us. You -— all of you, any of you, and your children too -— are to some degree liable.
Now, that, too, is just a"passing thought," please understand....A profoundly interesting, deeply subtle, inexhaustably self-admiring, therefore quintessentially Derbyshiresque rumination.
Yet I can't quite shake the notion that I've heard it somewhere else before:
As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations [about the effect of economic sanctions on ordinary people in Iraq during the 1990s] with yawns. There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned with. Getting"Jeremy" and"Ellington" to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little"Tiffany" and"Ashley" had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And, to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays – for"our kids," no less – as an all-absorbing point of political focus.
In fairness, it must be admitted that there was an infinitesimally small segment of the body politic who expressed opposition to what was/is being done to the children of Iraq. It must also be conceded, however, that those involved by-and-large contented themselves with signing petitions and conducting candle-lit prayer vigils, bearing"moral witness" as vast legions of brown-skinned five-year-olds sat shivering in the dark, wide-eyed in horror, whimpering as they expired in the most agonizing ways imaginable.
It's deja vu all over again! Consumerist passivity, the moral vacuousness of liberal democracy, the hard truth of collective responsibility.....
Why, by that reasoning, the Lebanese are almost -- how should one put it? -- well, when you get right down to it, a bunch of little Eichmanns:
As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire, the"mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly.
So, okay, you'd have to change the occasional reference. But otherwise it's the same moral algebra: There are no innocent bystanders! If you are a bystander, you aren't innoncent!
Not that the analogy is perfect, of course. It's not as if Derbyshire has much concern for"brown-skinned five-year olds." As yoy may recall, Lolita was not Middle Eastern. And five really is a bit young -- though at least unravished by time, unlike a woman of 25, let alone (and here, the Derbster visibly shudders) 35....