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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (24976)	4/13/2002 9:15:30 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

So I point out that Falk's picture is entirely disconnected from reality of Arafat's actual behavior, and you answer that he "is one of our better international moralists right now." Don't moralists have a duty to connect themselves to the facts before making judgements? If he's one of the better ones, heaven shield us from the poor ones. I'm tempted to pass that one by since the point of my original post was simply to call attention to Scott's post. But, perhaps I should make at least one point. The phrase you use "Arafat's actual behavior" is clearly a point of contention between you and Falk. I presume he has as much to say about that as you do. He clearly has a different version of that, from which he comes to different moral conclusions. His conclusions seem to be consistent with his version of Arafat's behavior. What is the difference between his view of Arafat and yours? It's context. Falk tries to provide a context for Arafat's actions, which provide an interpretation. That context is the last decade or so, read as a text within a dominance-subordinate relationship. Makes a great deal of sense to me, particularly given my view of human action. Your view of Arafat pulls him out of the context of the dominance-subordinate position, makes him an actor isolated from his circumstances, and permits of no interpretation based on context. Thus, not surprisingly, I prefer Falk's view of the behaviors and his interpretation. That is not to say that he could be wrong in some things. I hardly know enough about all this to get anywhere near questions like that. As for the last paragraph quote from Walzer, that's fine. As I said before, I have concerns about the point of Walzer's writing in that article, but, be that as it may, the term "terrorist" is perhaps the best focus. As I've said repeatedly, I think it's a term that is being misused here. And badly so. And I think Falk is correct to point that out. There is very muddy water here if we go digging into the meaning of "terrorism", of targeting civilians, of just and unjust actions in a time of war, etc. Makes my head hurt to think about working on posts that would make my thoughts clear on it. As I've said lately, I've been reading Michael Ignatieff's body of work lately. He has much to say about all this as well but I'm very early in my thoughts. Much too muddy, and much too much work to get it clear. I need to do so but other things take a bit of priority. Unfortunately, being retired doesn't make my life completely free to type on this thread all day. Thank heavens. Finally, I hope the pointed character of these posts between us doesn't damage our thread relationship. You introduced me to a literature I would not have read, the literature on Islamism. And that changed my way of thinking about a great many things. And for that I'm grateful.