On forgeting and the morality of remembering.
Howard Zinn :"... Once you have accepted the reasonable notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be skeptical of someone else's description of reality."
Our govenments take care of us. They manages our gilt. They digest the truth and regurgitate it for us in a more palatable form that we may live at peace with ourselves. Political ideas are centered on the issue of ends (What kind of society do we want?) and means (How will we get it?). The end jutifies the means. As we reflect on what we want our society to be, on what we have, the disparity between ourselves and the rest of the world become distorted and subjucated in the interest of maintaining the status quo by any means. If we, representing 10% of the world's population, consume 90% of world's resources, as uphauling as these figures may be, the thought of using less is inconceivable to most. To preserve our rights, any means become justifyable. We trust our governments to lead the way and to ensure that none of its citizens will have to do with less, regardless of the costs.
The American way of life takes on grand and moralistic connotations sending images of democracy, honourable work and the rags to riches stories that have been promoted in the interest of convincing all of its virtues.
The scientist Leo Szilard had met with Truman's main policy adviser in May 1945 and reported later: "Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war.... Mr. Byrnes' view was that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable."
Lost lives were the least of considerations.
Hiroshima mon amour, explores with intensity, the pain of remembering that which is too horrible to remember and juxtaposes that with the need to remember as a moral issue. Can we remember and go on? Can we learn from our memories? Do we need to selectively forget in order to live on? And if we must forget, then how can we ever learn?
Read: Airbrushing history, Howard Zinn.
Our govenments take care of us. They manages our gilt. They digest the truth and regurgitate it for us in a more palatable form that we may live at peace with ourselves. Political ideas are centered on the issue of ends (What kind of society do we want?) and means (How will we get it?). The end jutifies the means. As we reflect on what we want our society to be, on what we have, the disparity between ourselves and the rest of the world become distorted and subjucated in the interest of maintaining the status quo by any means. If we, representing 10% of the world's population, consume 90% of world's resources, as uphauling as these figures may be, the thought of using less is inconceivable to most. To preserve our rights, any means become justifyable. We trust our governments to lead the way and to ensure that none of its citizens will have to do with less, regardless of the costs.
The American way of life takes on grand and moralistic connotations sending images of democracy, honourable work and the rags to riches stories that have been promoted in the interest of convincing all of its virtues.
The scientist Leo Szilard had met with Truman's main policy adviser in May 1945 and reported later: "Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war.... Mr. Byrnes' view was that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable."
Lost lives were the least of considerations.
Hiroshima mon amour, explores with intensity, the pain of remembering that which is too horrible to remember and juxtaposes that with the need to remember as a moral issue. Can we remember and go on? Can we learn from our memories? Do we need to selectively forget in order to live on? And if we must forget, then how can we ever learn?
Read: Airbrushing history, Howard Zinn.
posted by .abc. at Monday, August 29, 2005
0 comments
