[4336] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: selling my soul
abbe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abbe@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Feb 24 16:26:58 1994
hey, it's *my* soul, not yours. you have every right to feel fine
working for defense, and to think that the current military and
defense situations are necesary and good. but i personally don't want
to be doing it. i also don't plan to go out and stop every single
person who does want to work in defense from doing it, or even to
convince people on coatract to do that. but i don't want to be
personally responsible for creating a weapon or defense system, or
contributing to it. i don't want to do that with my brain, and i
don't want the moral responsibility. it's just one more level above
what i'm already doing (not protesting that we have a military and
defense.) and it's a level i wasn't planning to cross. (yet i've
decided i'm going to do it anyway, which is why i'm depressed.)
i mean, even if you believe that the army is necessary, that doesn't
mean you have to want to join rotc and be the one on the front
lines...i don't think that anyone who was posting was necesarrily
agreeing with my personal viewpoint. they were sympathizing with the
concept that i was depressed about.
coatrack isn't a place for debating the military. (although it
happened before....) it's a place where i say something where i'm
depressed. and a place where i would hope people will say "yeah, i
know how you feel". or not say anything at all, even. i could just
have easily have been complaining about going for an interview with a
toy company because i needed a job when i've always believed that toys
are morally wrong (hypothetical situation here), and the issue that
i'm depressed about isn't the moral principle, but the fact that i've
just decided to ignore it.
thank you for attacking me about my personal views. have a pleasant day.
