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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (2327)	2/17/2002 2:45:35 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

Kinsley sums up the dissenters perfectly, as the voices of defeatism and moral relativity. Kinsley was talking about the way many right-wingers were characterizing everything that was not precisely on-message as defeatism and moral relativity. Pacifists were called defeatists and traitors. Anyone who was interested in looking at "root causes" not to blame the US but simply to understand where the enemy was coming from were called defeatists. Those who wanted to make sure the coalition was solid before we attacked were called defeatists. (Likewise, there were those on the left who saw attempts to keep them from, for example, staging peace protests at the funerals of the victims as censorship rather than simple self-restraint, consideration, and good taste.) Kinsley was not calling the dissenters defeatists or moral relativists. He was describing what a certain contingent was calling them. If these aren't agendas, I don't know what is. Defeatism is a state of mind that people experience when they are under attack, lack confidence that they can do anything to prevail, and become resigned to their fate. It may be a cognitive failure, a mental disorder, or a coping mechanism when one has a very weak hand. It is certainly not an agenda. Moral relativism is a philosophic construct that eschews absolute values. I suppose it could factor into an agenda, but it isn't one in and of itself. In this context I think it simply means that everything about us is not always right and the other guy/country is not always wrong. When the race is over, why don't you try reading the Kinsley article and then we can discuss if you like. Karen