Sojourner (sojourner@vt.edu)
Fri, 24 Jul 1998 15:48:31 +0100
At 10:14 AM 7/23/98 +0000, Jonathan B. Marder wrote:
>To get back to morality, the most "moral" solution to a problem is
>sometimes just as elusive and ambiguous as a protein folding problem.
>Furthermore, the chosen approach sometimes turns out to be wrong in the
>long term (as you so rightly state). But that doesn't mean it is moral
>to just stand back and let things take their course. In 1939, Gandhi,
>true to his absolute pacifist stance, condemned the declaration of war
>against Hitler's Germany. I don't question Gandhi's moral integrity, but
>I disagree with his moral choice on this issue. IMO opinion violent
>intervention against Hitler was justified to prevent much greater evil
>in the long term.
>
>Further comments on this most welcome!
wooooah nelly!! Seek not ye to predict the future, nor extrapolate ye
from the past. *grin* but since you did anyway, let's take a gander
at possible Gandhi parallel universes.
Let's imagine all other countries, not just Gandhi followers, decided
to be pacifist when Hitler waged his war. Seems like Nazi-ism would've
run over Europe effortlessly and we'd all be Third Reichers or else
dead right? hahaha not if the populace was pacifist too, and opposed
to his form of socialism. Gotta remember a leader is nothing without
his followers. Took millions of ordinary Germans to make the police
state possible. Perhaps if the world had accepted Germany and its
pains/injuries/loss of pride from WWI etc and said "we love you
anyway" I wonder if things really wouldve been so awful. Or if
the people could've kept on doing brutish Nazi things. And look
at this, Nazi-ism/Hitler failed WITH war, when he had all the
enemies on the world! How well could he have done with passively
resisting populaces?? (see Denmark for further info)
*grin*
Morality absolutely exists.
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