Angry Philosopher vs. writer Dabashi

@ comments is probably my favorite timewasting activity; sometimes even its productive.

To Angry Philosopher, it is important to be accurate, which is usually good, but also can be narrow-mindedness. Because someone doesn’t dot their I’s or cross their T’s is seen as a marker of stupidity; here, of course, it’s more than just about small grammar or spelling mistakes.

Reading the post by writer D. (as a good “organizer” I’ve filed this under “waiting” for internet connection, when I can move it out of my list of “to do” items, into “accomplished”, once I’ve found this dude’s full name and title. The article, which is partially in my “feeds” is Hamid Dabashi’s (also ‘son nom’ happened to be right there, but I hadn’t known til just now, silly me) “Aurora: Between fact and fantasy”. 

D. calls Batman and Spiderman rodents, which Angry Phil points out, is not the case, spiders are insects (or am I wrong?) and bats, (he adds, also are not rodents) are not flying rats, so they aren’t rodent cousins to rats; although probably many ppl figure, they might as well be.

I’m glad to know that Batman won’t at least have that on his conscience, rat being a lowlier species of animal, than say, a snake, which is a reptile I know that much) and also, eats rats for fun.

I’m not really trying to get Angry Phil over the top, into more angry, or 'infuriated’, just aiming for a slightly humorous, off the cuff introduction to this blog piece.

But sometimes, and I don’t know the writer well, small mistakes are not of import as much as the main premise is, so when pointed out are meant to prove the writer stupid; which may be considered by some to be below the belt. (I recall someone arguing with me about Indonesia and Pakistan being different countries, and both are Muslim Majority, to me, so it was irrelevant to me “which country was which”, which I had initially said as well, that led to her weak rebuttal; a waste of time because the debate I envisioned with her was about freedom of speech and Terry Jones vs. Muslims. See the blog post “Others are always stupid and not funny”.)

The other (imagined) problem with D’s article is the premise that the use of unmanned ‘drones’ is ‘sanitized’(the people manning them won’t be hurt (who are the killers, vs. the killed, who are getting hurt no matter which way you look at it), is largely unquestioned by the general public, in my opinion.) Which Phil points out to us is a wrong assumption. I must argue though, Angry Phil is not necessarily right on this count either, to get riled up too much, and I’ll explain why.

Somebody's gotta do it

Maybe the methods of training are at fault? Maybe the PTSD is caused by the training methods (and not by the killing), or other factors (most likely in combination with killing innocents, which must be a bummer, right?)not considered, yet? In the book, Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges shows how the American dream becomes a nightmare, from the TV shows people watch to other forms of entertainment, and also investigates pornography’s effects on male consumers of porn, and also the ill effects on women in the porn industry; more job-related in the women’s case. To explain the book better, it’s about the culture and how government uses entertainment to dumb or numb the public, as well as how “positive thinking” and so on are hurting people, and much more; a very good book. Sorry, not a much more concise explanation either, but there you have it; read the book. It’s also titillating in some parts, so, also semi-pornographic, in some sections (that’s the best I can do for a soft sell, C. H.)

Some soldiers are trainedwith pornography (or only use it before manoeuvers - revised), which arouses them while it is somehow supposed to be a tool for preparing them to do battle? Could this be a factor in their PTSD, has it been studied? They get aroused, kill and then are supposed to go home to families, or society, and have normal lives, except they can’t because they feel lousy. (This is the missing connection for Angry Phil. between ‘drones’ and the killer/suspected murderer who no doubt had seen his share of violence whether, games, television, or movies, etc.) I mean, can modern art or films be a factor in crimes against women, humanity, etc - revised)?

One ex-pornography addict tells in Empire of Illusion, how he hated women, and that’s (probably) the reason he stopped using porn. How would he be able to have a loving relationship with a woman, otherwise? He knew by self re/evaluation, and gut instinct, that the porn obviously was at fault, what else would be the real cause of his hatred towards women; porn was by far the most important, only probable culprit.

Dabashi is off the hook

Angry’s statement of stats that soldiers of ‘drones’ are as affected (or even more) than soldiers on the ground, who kill combatants or civilians up close and personal; I’m thinking, more innocents in the line of fire, which is the reason for ex-military’s guilt and shame, or mental illnesses/disorders; means that the killing is sanitized, but still creates mental illness, or disorder (PTSD) in the “killer” more than one would imagine. Yet, the soldiers on the ground, for example, can make all kinds of personal judgments about the enemy combatants, and are trained to kill, sometimes ordered to shoot on sight. Due to the training, and also the command structure, and so on, they are able to remove themselves from the situation enough to be able to mow down even innocent civilians, or bystanders, as well as people in their homes, in the line of duty. Not all suffer from PTSD at a later time; those that do, it usually manifests months or even years after events. (revised)

Dabashi even quotes Al Jazeera who wrote, “The strategy giving rise to anxieties…” but no proof is furnished about these fears, or any examples of how soldiers are coping; no proof is necessary in this particular debate, because the Professor is only detailing the effects of the “digitized” and “sanitized” warfare on the ‘enemy’, not the effects, also horrific to watch, in a different way, on the soldiers or ex-military, who perpetrated the killings. He at least is off the hook, here.

Why does Angry Phil question whether it is worse (for mental health prognosis) to kill ppl up front and personal, or from a distance, not even seeing the targets’ faces, expressions, and easily being able to ignore any signs of wavering, fear, or white flag waving on the part of the enemy? Obviously, there is another explanation to why some soldiers get PTSD and others don’t. For example, why don’t Israeli soldiers also report significant levels of PTSD? (Not that I’ve even considered this before, or researched an iota about it - we often see them on TV with friendly smiles on their faces, but why don’t they?) I think it’s worth looking into.

As D. says, “The nature of contemporary post-modern warfare is the fact that remote control bombing has no moral or physical encounter with the victims it targets…” because the war is conducted from afar and only later PTSD is suspected and diagnosed. Probably, the soldiers of ‘drones’ are able to kill for longer (obviously) and more accurately, and without conscience (“no moral” “encounter”) or for longer (on ‘auto pilot’) than normal soldiers on the ground, but with none of the physical encounters or dangers. Greater immediate impact (higher kill no’s) it would seem, leads (perhaps) to more hopeless mental outcomes later on. Again, the why? is missing. (revised)

Define “Terrorism”

Other comments agree with the point D. made, i.e. “terrorism” is political in this case (the Aurora mass shooting), although it is not 100 % correct, or even 75%. I think according to Angry Philosopher, terrorism is about “fear”, which is also correct. But in this case it is about gun control; too, therefore it’s political.

Yes, it was terrorism but not of the kind deemed important enough (“national security” related) to fight such as ‘Muslim perpetrated terrorism’; which is what D is arguing, yes? He merely blames the BBC for callousness, in not relating the real terror felt by all in the theatre being targeted, he is not playing word games, as accused. (I have not actually read or seen what the BBC did say about the killings, so I’m just going by what Dabashi has said in his post, just to caution anyone who attempts an argument on this point; I’ll just excuse myself, lol - revised)

Even the Dictionary agrees more with the idea (say, 70%), that terrorism is “political”, but it doesn’t have to be that either. So there is room for both arguments here. But it is not relevant to argue “apolitical” because, then it means this killing is just another “freak accident”, which lets the government, or the security guards, or whoever off the hook. (Fear, terror, “terrorism”, “no terrorism link” (to known groups), killing and horror, BBC reports on “No terrorism link”, Dabashi posts his piece, comments (by readers) on both sides for or against gun control, proving it is political, blame who for the tragedy?)

Interestingly though, people have come up with other ideas, such as it is the fault of psychiatric drugs and the drug companies, or developers, who give people drugs that are not sufficiently tested, say for more than a few years. Ideally drugs should be tested for about 20 years, is what most people would think, I’m assuming. What kind of follow up of patients is there, and so on? What was the case with this man in Arizona or Aurora? Another question is, what causes these people, especially men, to become mentally ill, or psychopathic in the first place?

I digress, a little.

Terrorism or horror

Terrorism as far as the U.S.A. is concerned is more about Islamic or religiously-motivated forms. So, Angry Philosopher is not completely right to dismiss D. (No one really is arguing that the event was not “scary”, and D. specifically argued that the events were “terror”, but deemed “not terrorism” by news organizations that do that sort of categorization, for their own purposes.) . (BBC has its agenda, and, yes, D. has another agenda)  D. could also revise his writing to include the possibility that some terrorism is just a “freak accident” (one sentence is enough). D. could also revise his writing to include the possibility that some terrorism is just a “freak accident”. Also, D is wrong to believe that movies (especially if viewed many times) do not impact negatively on ppl’s mind. The more intricate the machine, the harder it would be to fix; so extreme caution should be used when entertaining with movies or videogames, and so on. This is my best educated guess, having seen what so-called “innocent” entertainment has done to the culture in America, and the many problems in the societies who view entertainment as “pure fun”, and not “pure evil”. (revised)

Particularly, Dabashi writes how the mother and child scenario warms the hearts, even as the movie is about to begin, with all its chilling action about to blow them over, but the mother probably automatically grabbing a few hours of fun entertainment as her baby is lulled into deep sleep by the droning voice and sound tracks, muffled by the baby blankies s/he is wrapped up in. Not a really perfectly wonderful “Polaroid R “moment” TM if you ask me.

Points for review:

Hamid Dabashi is pro Iranian, therefore any bias in the media is believed by him to be part of an agenda of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

When he says that the BBC doesn’t accuse an American psychopath of “terrorism” he is not being fair to the generally accepted notion that “terrorism” is linked to a group, or Al-Qaeda, which is now widely assumed, and no one argues about this (except Muslims or friends of Muslims). Is it a word game? Well, yes. But it is a word game which the Western media is responsible for anyway. He is being “smart allecky” or whatever, so what? It’s not a worse crime than what the BBC does by saying “no known link to terrorism”, when in fact, it is irrelevant (to the dead) whether innocent movie goers were mowed down just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because the killer is a Muslim fundamentalist, not a mentally ill psychiatric patient with nice Jewish/Christian (or other) American parents, whose ancestors (might have) fought against slavery (and whose descendent now has just cold-bloodedly murdered 19 people (Americans, and probably some immigrants, too) and injured 58 others), who (also) weirdly colors his hair orange and yellow.

It is a “freak accident”, but the killer (to date I haven’t remembered his name) had lots of weaponry, therefore probably the issue will not or should not go away, because people want answers and/or solutions; such as a strict gun ban, etc. How can this be prevented, in other words, is on everyone’s mind in Aurora, or was immediately after the killings.

The solutions to these acts will be more gun control, more policing at screenings with gun detectors, trading guns for tickets to opening night, etc. (And) politicizing more - the debates surrounding crimes and the increased violence in society.

Then when the next “freak accident” or “massacre” happens, the media will again wonder if the perpetrator is a Muslim or not.

Is it all right to accuse Muslims before any proofs? No. But especially because so many times, it isn’t Muslims. How many massacres have happened since 9/11 not due to the machinations of Al-Qaeda or the work of a religious fundamentalist?