[Part One is here.]
Life is as meaningless as death. --Sociopath's axiom, from Depue.
Academics. Who would have thought that murder can sometimes smell like sheepskin?
--JdB, Ward "The Cleaver" Churchill Wants To Watch You Bleed
by Jerome du Bois
Sometimes the academic abyss gets deeper right when you're looking into it. I feel like James Stewart in Vertigo. The ivory tower inverts itself, plunging deeper into moral evil, revealing a nest of vipers. Look at the latest serpent Alma Mater has nursed at her bosom:
The Boise State University Philosophy Department presents a lecture by Jason Gatliff titled “In Defense of Terrorism: When is it Okay to Kill Children?” from 3:40-5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 10. Held in the Special Events Center at the west end of the Student Union Building, the lecture is free and open to the public.
Gatliff is a Ph.D. candidate at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and is a Boise State philosophy graduate. His talk will focus on the conditions under which an innocent civilian can be reclassified as a dangerous combatant. “Activities such as paying taxes are sufficient to make one a combatant,” he argues, thus nullifying immunity. However, he goes on to argue, identifying a person as a combatant does not necessarily mean it is permissible to target that person for terrorism. (Hat tips to Luke Lindley at Sterile Thunder, and lgf.)
[What's that music? The way things are go-wing, they're gonna reclassify me.]
Ward Churchill's lawyer will probably be waving this paper around soon. Mr. "I'm Gonna Get You For This" Churchill couldn't have ordered a better defense of his infamous sadism, since he couldn't have written the thing on his most coherent day. Even so, Jason Gatliff is his direct spiritual child, along with blackhearts like Haunani Trask. Like Churchill, Gatliff wants to kill words and their meanings first, to clear the way to shed real innocent blood. They've seen the future, brother: it is murder.
Nobody is innocent, Gatliff says. By this "reasoning," of course, he should turn himself in to the proper authorities as soon as possible, because he is a dangerous man. And he really is, because dozens of so-called academic professionals have already signed off on him --at Texas A&M, at Boise State, and at BGSU. Twenty years ago I attended many graduate seminars in philosophy, at Arizona State and the University of Maryland. At either place this guy would have been laughed out of the room after a couple of sentences. Now the system is poisoned at its heart, sucking blood, worshipping death.
Since Luke Lindley did the heavy lifting on Gatliff's thesis, I'll be quoting him generously. The reader should go read his whole posting, "In Defense of Terrorism?" Then I want to briefly discuss a true case of applied ethics: Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin.
[Choosing Tillman isn't for easy, gratuitous comparison: Gatliff has a preoccupation with (eroding) the morality of the professional soldier. If you can stay awake through it, he wrote about it in 2000, in "Gertian Morality and Moral Considerations in Military Decision Making."]
Luke Lindley writes:
To be a "combatant," Gatliff claimed, means to be "dangerous"; to be "innocent," in contrast, signifies a state of "noninvolvement in the war effort, not [a state of] moral non-culpability." Modern warfare, according to Gatliff, "is an enterprise which does not leave its civilians behind." The reek of Churchillian moral equivalance here is suffocating; one can almost hear, as a subliminal soundtrack to his speech, the nonexistent cries of those who were not killed at Jenin, a cruel counterpoint to the wails of those thousand "little Eichmans" who, by this absurd logic, somehow deserved to die. Gatliff further "refined" his definition of "dangerous" by stating that: "a person's behavior is dangerous if that person contributes to a causal chain that may cause harm, injury, or loss." And since, per Gatliff, it does not matter whether or not said contribution is voluntary, involuntary, or nonvoluntary, any of the following classes individuals could rightfully be considered "dangerous" in the "martial sense"; taxpayers; farmers; and children. Taxpayers, of course, contribute fiscally and socially to martial activities; farmers produce food not merely to meet the bare nutritional requirements of military personnel but also to promote and maintain such individuals' peak fighting capabilities; and children represent not only a tangible investment in future martial and economic activities but also may contribute to such activities through a variety of present means, such as, Gatliff argued, purchasing war bonds, conserving energy and raw materials, working in factories, etc . . .
Thus Gatliff extended the chain of casaulity to a ridiculous and meaningless infinity, crafting a definition of "dangerousness" so expansive that, in its explosive outward rush, it obliterates the necessary semantic distinctions that underlie our language, our society, even our morality. Words have, and must have, meanings; to define dangerousness down, as it were, is to render irrelevant any distinction between soldier and civilian, killer and victim, murderer and savior. For where does one draw the line? Surely children may contribute to the war effort, both in a contemporary and future capacity - it is a matter of simple finance, after all, to calculate the present monetary value of an investment expected to return, on average, X amount of funds to society each year for a given number of years. And if financial contribution can render one "dangerous," what are we to make of those foreign citizens who invest in American companies, who purchase American products, who contribute, through a variety of direct and indirect means, to the overall operation of the American economy and, as a consequence, to the dread "military-industrial complex," the paralyzing fear of which so obviously constitutes the subtext of Gatliff's fevered philosophizing. Gatliff, it seems, has crafted a perfectly recursive causality, in which all are to blame, in which all are at fault, and, most importantly, in which none can be judged.
The sociopath's creed, the nihilist's dream, eternal repetitive Hell, the dark meat of their Thanklessgiving meal. And Lindley makes clear at the beginning of his piece that Bowling Green State University's philosophy department is not only admired, but "revered." It's one of the best-esteemed in the entire world, with an admirable placement percentage.
You see what I mean by inversion? That's one deeep abyss. This heartless coward should be teaching at Hezbollah University, but he's probably going to get a pretty good gig right here in the cradle of liberty and freedom. I'm guessing at his age, but I'll bet he's not older than 27, and he's got thirty years of cushyville to look forward to.
Which brings me to Pat Tillman, the very definition of the phrase "110%," also known as "the full-tilt boogie," dead at 27 --may he rest in peace and victory-- and his brother Kevin --may he stay safe and live long-- and Gatliff's vapid attempt to undermine virtue ethics and military creeds, beating some dead horses --act-utilitarianism! Jeebus!-- along the way. He wrote the following as if it was a revelation, whoa-daddy:
One of things that I think makes Gert’s system so useful for the military is that it includes in its list of general moral rules: Obey the law, and Do your duty. After all, it is the ultimate goal of every service’s Core Value program, I believe, to get their members to follow these two rules: obey the law, and do their duty. More importantly, though, the duty of the professional soldier to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States is finally recognized for what it is—a moral obligation.
Finally? This lightweight thinks he's finally --along with his buddy Gert-- identified why a soldier does what a soldier does. Or a sailor, or marine, or Army Ranger. He doesn't see how basic it is to the citizenry itself, to ordinary American consciousness, much less the military. Clueless in the academic fantasyland, he traispes by the hard-won victories for freedom in the real world, and sees only the boneyards of history.
Not long after September 11, 2001, Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin made the decision to defend their country. They did and they have honorably. Here's a beautiful short profile of him by Tim Layden, first published in Sports Illustrated on June 3, 2002:
Last week Cardinals safety Pat Tillman, 25, told the team that he was leaving football to enlist in the Army, with plans to attend Ranger School after boot camp. It's a remarkable story: Star athlete walks away from the game in his prime, leaving millions in cash on the table, to put his life at risk in service of his country during wartime. It is one, however, that you won't hear from Tillman. Given the chance to self-promote and wrap himself in the American flag --on Memorial Day weekend, no less-- Tillman instead quietly declined to speak publicly about his career change.
No surprise. His decisions to leave pro football and to decline interviews are pure Tillman. The guy is a fearless nonconformist who has long refused to measure his life against ordinary standards. I met Tillman late in 1997, when he was a senior at Arizona State. He would soon be graduating after just 3 1/2 years with a 3.82 GPA, and he had been named Pac-10 defensive player of the year as an undersized (5'10", 202 pounds) linebacker. "It doesn't do me any good to be proud," Tillman said that year, "because I'll start being happy with myself and then I'll stand still and then I'm old news."
At the end of one interview with Tillman, I asked him if he had ever been arrested for anything, a question that unfortunately has to be asked with athletes today. Tillman didn't hesitate to admit that he had been charged with felony assault after beating up a kid while defending a friend during his senior year in high school. He spent 30 days in a juvenile detention facility, and his conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor upon his release. Here's the point: Since Tillman was underage at the time, his arrest record was sealed, and he didn't have to tell me anything. But he did, because he's honest. And smart. He learned from his mistake and never repeated it.
There were doubts about whether Tillman was big enough or fast enough to play college football, but he played superbly. There were much deeper doubts about whether he could play in the NFL, but he has been a four-year starter and in 2000 set a franchise record with 200 tackles. You cannot keep him off the football. Last spring he turned down a $9 million, five-year offer sheet from the Rams and accepted a one-year deal with the Cards for a little more than $500,000 out of loyalty.
Tillman says he'll resume his NFL career in three years, and Tillman does what he says. In 1994 when then Arizona State coach Bruce Snyder was recruiting Tillman, Snyder suggested redshirting him in his freshman year. "I'm not redshirting," Tillman told Snyder. "You can do what you want with me, but in four years, I'm gone. I've got things to do with my life."
Now we know what things Tillman was talking about. Big things. Wouldn't you want him in your foxhole?
I imagine Pat and Kevin and their loved ones, huddled as most of us were around the TV that horrible day, and the days following, going back and forth with reasoning out their responses, which includes screaming and crying, too, but weighing the many options these two talented men had arrayed before them. Everyone with them helped, drawing on experience and reflection and reading and religion and the very concourse of discourse immanent but perpetually evolving in the culture, the ongoing conversation of right conduct after the Fall, after the knowledge that there is no valid Argument from Authority. We have to work out our own salvation --and we can, because we can reason. We are Americans. We're problem-solvers. We can do this.
So there they were, ordinary educated Americans with good souls. Everybody pointing out upsides, downsides, mortal stakes. Pat and Kevin listening to everything, including their own broken hearts.
But I very much doubt anyone there consulted Gert's unhelpful list--
(1) Do not kill,
(2) Do not cause pain,
(3) Do not disable,
(4) Do not deprive of freedom,
(5) Do not deprive pleasure,
(6) Do not deceive,
(7) Keep your promises,
(8) Do not cheat,
(9) Obey the law,
(10) Do your duty.
[Tell it to M. Atta, Gertie boy.]
--or Gatliff's article, with its simple foci, ranging from whether to
"pencil whip” training records in order to promote a deserving Airman, to deciding whether or not military sites in heavily populated areas should be targeted for bombing.
This is what applied ethics is bringing to the table these days, la-dee-dah, so-called "moral puzzles" that Pat Tillman and most ordinary citizens eat for breakfast all the time. We know how to handle these cases; these are the easy ones; and we knew what we needed to do, what hardships we needed to face, what changes we needed to make, when those murderous Muslims burned the core of our hearts and made our fellow citizens jump to their deaths.
Pat Tillman and Kevin Tillman didn't need to consult any tome, any article, any expert, to know what was right. Everything they needed to know was all around them, the beauty of it read right off the surface of the culture: the land of freedom and opportunity; the incredible cooperative infrastructure which sustained them; the peaceful resolution of internal conflict; the engine of imagination and commerce and life-extending technology. In fact, the sheer incredible exuberance of the country is mirrored by Pat Tillman, who, by all accounts, often had to be told to wind it down a little, to not always hit them at full speed. (To which he probably answered with a puzzled "Why?" That's what I mean by "the full-tilt boogie.") All Kevin, Pat, and their families had to do was point anywhere in the United States, almost, and say, "This is what I'm fighting for:this future: the arrow only points forward."
But Jason Gatliff, and Ward Churchill, will earn cushy incomes building giant termite mounds out of the manure of their minds. Welcome to the University of Death. You'll find the dungbeetles of Hell here. First you must find rat's alley, where the dead men lost their bones; then descend the stairs there, crackling over the rats' teeth, to room 101, and walk right in. They're waiting for you and your credulous sons, one with the dagger, one with the sponge.
Posted by Jerome at March 13, 2005 05:00 PM | TrackBack