Despite 6 years in uniform and lots of anti German propaganda during WW2 my dad retained a recognition of Germans as human beings, and related to German civilian suffering despite vivid exposure to German antisemitic war crimes. Also be was very critical of the description by the UK government of carpet bombing of German cities as strategic bombing of military and industrial targets. His sense of right and wrong transcended national and cultural boundaries. He was not a practising Christian.
How about your own opinion? I assume that you find “comfort homes” within which captives are subject to rape are disgusting. Is that opinion reduced in value because of cultural relativism? Do you not see that a culture which accepted it as “perfectly normal” is somehow diseased in its understanding of right and wrong?
I would agree that such things are utterly wrong and to be opposed. I just wouldn’t claim that that opinion comes from anything other than one culture finding another barbaric.
If you want a pithy summary, I guess it would be that I believe in a form of cultural Darwinism where stronger cultures out-compete weaker ones. Of course I want my own culture to triumph rather than go extinct - but that’s not because I think it has any greater objective “truth”, it’s just because it’s the one I live in, am used to, and happen to like.
Let me try another tack. The philosopher A J Ayer observed that he was in favour of scrupulous behaviour even though he could not find a confirmation of that in his philosophy. Currently I'm reading Beevor's 'The Second World War' and have come across the use of of 'comfort homes' for Japanese soldiers. Captured females were forced to have sex with up to thirty men a day (yes, there were targets). Is the condemnation of such behaviour as war crimes purely a matter of opinion about what constitutes unscrupulous behaviour?
Yes. If the Japanese had won the war then such things would now be seen as perfectly normal.
I doubt that, there was a reason the Japanese army did it to non-Japanese.
Yes, I meant that doing it to non-Japanese people would be seen as normal.
Let me try another tack. The philosopher A J Ayer observed that he was in favour of scrupulous behaviour even though he could not find a confirmation of that in his philosophy. Currently I'm reading Beevor's 'The Second World War' and have come across the use of of 'comfort homes' for Japanese soldiers. Captured females were forced to have sex with up to thirty men a day (yes, there were targets). Is the condemnation of such behaviour as war crimes purely a matter of opinion about what constitutes unscrupulous behaviour?
Yes. If the Japanese had won the war then such things would now be seen as perfectly normal.
I doubt that, there was a reason the Japanese army did it to non-Japanese.
Yes, I meant that doing it to non-Japanese people would be seen as normal.
Sure, but the fact that it wasn't done by the Japanese to the Japanese indicates a remarkable agreement between the various systems of ethics - there were always populations that were deemed as non-people and so were thus outside the protection granted by those systems.
I'm afraid that I'm finding the reduction of the horrors and abuses of the Second World war to the use as examples of comparative morality, in what was a more abstract discussion, rather less than helpful.
Thanks. I knew it was unintentional, and also I realise that some of us still have a personal connection to these things, through older parents, relatives and family friends, now mostly gone, who have in the past talked to us about their first-hand experiences.
I think it's possible to discuss some of their experiences that you relate, but I think it would need to be framed rather differently, and take into account the perspectives of those others who were involved.
Agreed. I chose my dad as an illustration of someone, living in a very polarised time, whose understanding of our common humanity transcended those times. While I can see that culture influences values, I knew from his example that it did not necessarily determine them.
Also because I was and still am very proud of him. He left school at 14, had these devastating experiences in his mid 20s, but remained a kindly and thoughtful man, without bitterness.
I see that as part of nature, human nature, as evidenced from great antiquity (the Counsels of Wisdom, Abraham under the Terebinth trees of Mamre, Naomi, Ruth, Boaz, Nathan the Prophet, Jonah, Isaiah (Proto), Aesop, Ezekiel, Aeschylus, Micah, Jesus, and therefore a hundred times further back). Our natural evil is strongly contrasted by our natural good. As can be seen in all higher animals. We love music because we were fish. One hundred thousand times further back.
We've been hearing stuff for half a billion years, over a hundred million years - 20% - as fish, with immensely sophisticated lateral line organs. What we heard would have come with emotional labelling. Daah-dah.
Emotion is natural. Taste. Gut feelings. Morality. Art. Are natural.
Comments
I would agree that such things are utterly wrong and to be opposed. I just wouldn’t claim that that opinion comes from anything other than one culture finding another barbaric.
If you want a pithy summary, I guess it would be that I believe in a form of cultural Darwinism where stronger cultures out-compete weaker ones. Of course I want my own culture to triumph rather than go extinct - but that’s not because I think it has any greater objective “truth”, it’s just because it’s the one I live in, am used to, and happen to like.
Yes, I meant that doing it to non-Japanese people would be seen as normal.
Sure, but the fact that it wasn't done by the Japanese to the Japanese indicates a remarkable agreement between the various systems of ethics - there were always populations that were deemed as non-people and so were thus outside the protection granted by those systems.
I think it's possible to discuss some of their experiences that you relate, but I think it would need to be framed rather differently, and take into account the perspectives of those others who were involved.
Also because I was and still am very proud of him. He left school at 14, had these devastating experiences in his mid 20s, but remained a kindly and thoughtful man, without bitterness.
Can you unpack that for me, please, Martin?
We've been hearing stuff for half a billion years, over a hundred million years - 20% - as fish, with immensely sophisticated lateral line organs. What we heard would have come with emotional labelling. Daah-dah.
Emotion is natural. Taste. Gut feelings. Morality. Art. Are natural.
Thank God, we've got 'em!
I can do that as a figure of speech. Gratitude is the only antidote for sure.