[1035] in peace2
Re: battered wife?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Nicholas Limerick)
Wed Sep 26 15:37:51 2001
Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010926152440.00b56210@hesiod>
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:38:20 -0400
To: "Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._Chien-ta Wu" <jimmbswu@mit.edu>,
peace-list@mit.edu
From: Nicholas Limerick <limerick@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <200109261836.OAA04550@barker-6-9.mit.edu>
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The problem with this article is two-fold. First is the analogy to the
battered wife. In this scenario the wife is an innocent victim of her
husbands violent tendencies. For her to adjust her behavior to avoid being
beaten would be illogical, no one deserves to be beaten. Although the
victims of this terrorist event are indeed innocent, the United States as a
country is not innocent. Our foreign policies are based on capitalistic
greed, and they hurt people, we just don't see it. Don't get me wrong I'm
a firm believer in both democracy and capitalism, however, both of these
systems require a humanistic approach. We must ask: when have we made
enough money? and is it ok to make money from the suffering of others? We
are not helpless housewives, we are a strong country that just got a
wake-up call that we are strong but NOT invincible.
The second fault in this piece is the idea of control. The very act of
terrorism tells a country and a people that they have no control. That's
the point. This issue should not be a global pissing contest to see who's
in control in the end. Our policy should be changed because it's
wrong. Changing our policy because we got bombed would be like saying,
"I'm not sorry I did the crime, I'm just sorry I got caught doing it."
The idea of changing foreign policy is not a new one. It just seems like
it is because people don't pay attention unless we lose thousands of lives,
a bunch of planes, and a few buildings.
Nick---
At 02:36 PM 9/26/01 -0400, Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._Chien-ta Wu
wrote:
>http://slate.msn.com/framegame/entries/01-09-19_115869.asp
>
>A fascinating column arguing against the view that we should change our
>ways to make people not hate us as much. His idea is that our policies
>do not warrant or justify such an attack, anyway.
>
>Thus, if we change our ways to get them to stop bombing us, that would
>be like a battered wife changing her behavior to get her husband to beat
>her less.. That is, it seems like she's doing something with a direct
>effect, but HE's really the one in control if he can get her to do
>things through negative and positive reinforcement.
>
>Thus, he argues, we should not give in to this situation and give the
>terrorists control over the situation by thinking about how to make them
>less mad. Instead, WE should be the ones in control by giving THEM
>negative reinforcement for bombing us.
>
>This does not mean that we shouldn't change our policies, just as a
>battered wife would try to prevent angering people in general, but she
>should not do it because she's afraid her husband might strike at her.
>
>So that was that,
>
>B, crackpot and defender of the status quo
>-----------
>http://www.mit.edu/~jimmbswu "Who Dares, Wins."
> --UK SAS
>"It is good that war is so terrible,
> else we should grow too fond of it."
> --R. E. Lee
