International posturing, could Napoleon style militarism really sound

[abott1776 10]

One of the most annoying sights when watching the news lately has to be the endless international bullshitting going on between nations, for example the "tension" between the Ukraine and Russia. To me it is a huge sign of the shift in global culture. Objectivists tend to talk about changes in the American culture, rightly so because it can be argued to be the best we have right now. But the global culture probably says a bit more about man's fundamental beliefs, especially since the world is more interconnected, people can know within minutes what has happened on the opposite side of the world. In an international setting where there is no easily identified global culture people tend to search for a commonality when thinking about world events. Pre-WW1 I would assume when word reached about a nation invading another nation, people would choose sides, "who is right?", "which nation should we support?", "should we even care?", etc. People we're generally more self-interested or at least asserted an opinion if it was not self-interested. WW1 and after everything shifted to what is in the best interests of the world, how do we keep the peace, etc. Today, it has degraded even further to just avoiding war outright, force is not even considered to try to keep the peace (an already bad idea, but at least it was some sort of goal). When nations have issues with each other the last thing on their minds is war, armed forces if used are used to posture, everything has to be brought to the negotiation tables. The best example of this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, endless forced "negotiations" at the behest of the U.S. on Israel, and more than half a century of continual petty violence.

 

All of this is the D mentality on a grand scale, using Peikoff's DIM idea. I think it is a really bad sign, because either it is going to continue like this for awhile, our balls castrated metaphorically, or someone will grab power out of the chaos.

[frank harley 2]

One of the most annoying sights when watching the news lately has to be the endless international bullshitting going on between nations, for example the "tension" between the Ukraine and Russia. To me it is a huge sign of the shift in global culture. Objectivists tend to talk about changes in the American culture, rightly so because it can be argued to be the best we have right now. But the global culture probably says a bit more about man's fundamental beliefs, especially since the world is more interconnected, people can know within minutes what has happened on the opposite side of the world. In an international setting where there is no easily identified global culture people tend to search for a commonality when thinking about world events. Pre-WW1 I would assume when word reached about a nation invading another nation, people would choose sides, "who is right?", "which nation should we support?", "should we even care?", etc. People we're generally more self-interested or at least asserted an opinion if it was not self-interested. WW1 and after everything shifted to what is in the best interests of the world, how do we keep the peace, etc. Today, it has degraded even further to just avoiding war outright, force is not even considered to try to keep the peace (an already bad idea, but at least it was some sort of goal). When nations have issues with each other the last thing on their minds is war, armed forces if used are used to posture, everything has to be brought to the negotiation tables. The best example of this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, endless forced "negotiations" at the behest of the U.S. on Israel, and more than half a century of continual petty violence.

 

All of this is the D mentality on a grand scale, using Peikoff's DIM idea. I think it is a really bad sign, because either it is going to continue like this for awhile, our balls castrated metaphorically, or someone will grab power out of the chaos.

People today have developed an anti-war mindset precisely because of the horrors of the two world wars.

 

Otherwise, I believe that your suggestion that the US is somehow whimping out is far off base. To this end, perhaps you might explain DIM to the un-initiated, such as I

 

Lastly in two specific cases that you mentioned:

 

* I believe that 'bullshit' and 'tension' are poor words to describe the Ukranian situation. You have the overthrow of an unpopular, pro-russian government whose support was located in the Crimea, and Don Bass. Now it's evident that a regional majority want to become part of Russia. Fighting it out is lose-lose.

 

** Re Israel-Palestine, yes, we're forcing both sides to negotiate because all-out war would de-stabilize the entire region, from which we derive oil.

[abott1776 10]

People today have developed an anti-war mindset precisely because of the horrors of the two world wars.

 

Otherwise, I believe that your suggestion that the US is somehow whimping out is far off base. To this end, perhaps you might explain DIM to the un-initiated, such as I

 

Lastly in two specific cases that you mentioned:

 

* I believe that 'bullshit' and 'tension' are poor words to describe the Ukranian situation. You have the overthrow of an unpopular, pro-russian government whose support was located in the Crimea, and Don Bass. Now it's evident that a regional majority want to become part of Russia. Fighting it out is lose-lose.

 

** Re Israel-Palestine, yes, we're forcing both sides to negotiate because all-out war would de-stabilize the entire region, from which we derive oil.

1) The U.S. is "whimping out". It has failed to identify its enemies, today primarily islamic states and organizations that support (financially and intellectually) and carry out attacks against our country. It has failed to properly eliminate those enemies precisely because of what it fears will happen to the region if we did carry out massive assaults on countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran (both of which have attacked us in the past). We fear stepping on toes, hurting peoples feelings, and yes killing "innocent" people, probably many of them. Stabilizing the region would mean keeping the status quo, all of these enemies intact. We have to demolish our enemies, not get bogged down in dressed up peace-corps missions (Iraq and Afghanistan). The situation in Iraq today is easily explained, nobody takes us seriously, a country that we have recently subdued and replaced with a more "participative" government has been seen as weak.

 

2) I will grant you that many people do look at such wars in disgust. Perhaps that can apply to the rest of the world but it shouldn't apply to the U.S.. We're a superpower and could crush our enemies if we wanted to, no world war necessary, even against Russia or China, unless Obama dismantles more of our nuclear arsenal. The thing with Russia-Ukraine, like I said "which nation should we choose, or none at all?" would be a proper response. We should either have a national-interest in Ukraine, stand by our guns, Crimea is a green light for war or no concern what so ever. The reason we have all of these small conflicts, this bullshit as I call it, is that we like to have our cake and eat it too. We don't want Ukraine violated but we don't really want to get our hands dirty. Russia knows we won't go to war even if they took eastern Ukraine all together, and thus we get all of these negotiations and military tests. Same thing with Israel-Palestine, negotiation after negotiation intermixed by each side testing the other.

 

3) The DIM hypothesis by Peikoff illuminates his idea that there are three ways of thinking, Disintegration (there is no hierarchical concepts, theories, man cannot form principles about reality), Integration (this is basically the metaphysics and epistemology of Objectivism), and Misintegration (forming principles based on anything but reality, religion, etc.) Right now Peikoff would describe the world as living in a D mentality, thus as I would like to point out endless pragmatic adhoc decisions made by countries toward each other instead of principled polices.

[dream_weaver 500]

abott1776,

I would take exception to the middle east quagmire being "D", I would propose "M" on the grounds that both sides reference their respective "standards" for establishing their policies.

For Russia, China, Cuba, Korea, N. Vietnam, etc.,  - "D" makes sense.

 

Just about everybody is "against" war. But living near Detroit, and the political morass that surrounds it, it is not uncommon to hear words to the effect that the place should be burned to the ground. To me, this is not a consistent "bottom up" mentality, but rather a knee-jerk reactionary statement based on a world-view, shaped by the public indoctrination system. At this point, in this time, in this country, heavy "D" overtones.