The Side of “Progress”

Deutscher and Trotsky

 

Leon Trotsky

Perhaps the most telling indication of someone’s ideological bent is how they face up to what would happen if their ideas were fundamentally wrong.

Here I will briefly discuss thought experiment played out by Trotsky. In it Trotsky considered what would be the case if his ideas of “History” were wrong; and Deutscher’s consideration of Trotsky’s thoughts on the matter.

E. H. Carr and Prophetic History

Moral Cretinism Part XI

E. H. Carr

The late writer and Historian Irving Howe wrote concerning the Historian and political ideologue Isaac Deutscher that: 

He never learned that unpredictable as human history may be, History is a bitch.1 

Lenin

A Note on his Politics

Young Lenin

Probably the most influential politician of the 20th century both directly and indirectly was Lenin. Sadly in many respects his influence was negative and in fact his career is a perfect of example of that old cliché the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The Philosopher as Tyrant

Critias of Athens

Critias

One of the most common conceits among intellectuals is the fantasy / longing by so many of them to rule and to get rid of the “idiots” who actually run the world and thus get stuff done. This fantasy goes back to Plato in his various dialogues in which he indulged in various fantasies about the “ideal” society, which would of course be run by philosophers. Thus Plato’s dialogues, The Republic, The Laws which were in large respects Mary Sue fantasies about how if we (Philosophers.), ran the world how much better things would be. Well we have an idea right at the birth of Platonic philosophizing what would happen if a Philosopher took over a state.

Fellow Travelers and Conducted Tours

Moral Cretinism Part X

I have in several previous postings mentioned the various examples of moral cretinism concerning Communism and Stalinism.1 Here I will briefly discuss the phenomena of Stalinist Fellow travelling in the 1930’s and 40’s through a very useful and informative text, The Fellow Travellers.2 The book supplies a gold mine of information about moral corruption and intellectual incompetence.

Coercion

Works

Book Cover

One of the most telling of popular myths regarding history is that history shows that force, coercion etc., do not work. Sadly this is simply not the case all too frequently violence does in fact work and work quite well in ”solving” problems. And this idea is allied with the notion that somehow success “proves” that the idea etc., was right.

Kant’s

Cant

Crossed Fingers

A few Years ago I responded to individual in a forum who accepted a great deal of what Kant said about lying.1 The result was a stew of nonsense. When someone brought up the hiding the Jews in the basement / attic situation the person hemmed and hawed outrageously. The following is the main tenor of a discussion I had with the individual over lying. I have chosen to exclude a tangential discussion where the person engaged in an ad hominem attack on me and my family. The individual in question made a totally un-evidenced comment about lying always ending badly and responded with a personal attack when I pointed out the comment was absurd.

Moral Cretinism Part IX

The ban passages, Genocide and Himmler.



William Lane Craig



The following is, in full, a blog posting by the so-called Theologian William Lane Craig in response to two questions concerning the infamous ban passages from the Old-Testament. The terrible passages that talk about how God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone and in some cases “all that breathed” in the towns they took and that they exterminated the Canaanites from the land with fire and sword.

Plato’s “Empathy”

Bust of Plato

In Plato’s dialogues there is sometimes the fact that the context, or set up, to his dialogue’s issues tells us more about Plato’s social attitudes than the overt statements of what the dialogue is about.

Pure Idiocy

Moral Cretinism Part VIII

Ethiopian Famine Victims 1985

In the 1980's there was published books in a series called the Marxist Regime Series. The books in the series were under the overall editorship of Prof. Bogan Szajowski of University College Cardiff Wales.

Annoying Carelessness

Map of America On Eve of Civil War

One of the most common yet annoying habits of far too many scholars when engaged in doing a study of a particular aspect of something is to assume a cavalier attitude about the facts regarding other aspects of what they are studying as if it is of little importance.

An outstanding example of this is provided by the book Upon the Altar of the Nation,1. It is subtitled “A Moral history of the Civil War”. The Author decided to provide five maps indicating the major engagements of the years of the Civil war along with who won, who lost, indecisive battles, the total size of armies and military casualties during each year.2

Moral Cretinism Part VII

The CPUSA, Stalin and Espionage

A Book Review

Book Cover

Ideological struggles and Academic one upmanship is as old as, well, academia and no doubt will exist as long as man exists a recent example of this is the victory dance academic one upmanship performed after the fall of Communism.

Or to give a more particular example the case of spying for the Soviet Union and the American Communist party. Case in point the book In Denial by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr.1 In the book our heroes, (Because that is how they see themselves), pat themselves on the back and do a victory dance.

"Tough Minded"

Atomic blast at Hiroshima

The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 will remain a bone of contention among historians but it is fascinating how the the decision to drop the bomb is justified. The usual argument, expressed in such books as Thank god for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell1 is about how those who gainsay the decision to drop the bomb are foolish sentimentalists, who don't understand war and the then war situation. That they lack the tough mindedness necessary in war and are mired in a sentimental fog.

What of course is absolutely fascinating is how those so called realists and tough minded people are also sentimental in their own way. They refuse to use such words as "massacre" "atrocity" "mass murder" "war crime" "crime against humanity" to describe the bombing. They studiously avoid using such tough minded unsentimental language to describe the bombing.

The fact is the vast majority of the victims were civilians and that the bombs were even more destructive and frankly indiscriminate and hard to escape from than conventional area bombing.

It is remarkable how many people who excuse the bombing use the argument that it helped to end the war don't seem to understand that even if that was the case it still is an atrocity, a mass murder of civilians a violation of the Hague conventions, a war crime and crime against humanity.

As for actually ending the war. Well it should be pointed out that the entry of the Soviets into the war just after the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima was likely even more important than the dropping of either bomb. Certainly it shook the Japanese leadership. Of course what was also important was that the Emperor intervened decisively (finally!!) to get acceptance of the surrender.

There also were available a few more bombs to be dropped just in case these two didn't work.

What is of interest is also that it appears that before the bomb dropped the Japanese were willing to accept almost any terms, what the Japanese were willing to accept was the retention of the Emperor as a condition and surrender unconditionally aside from that. Of course after the bombs were dropped the Americans accepted that the Emperor would be retained and told the Japanese who then surrendered. So ironically despite the bomb the Japanese did not surrender unconditionally.

In war engaging in atrocity to terrorize the enemy into surrender is an all to frequent tactic. And it is also one that works frequently, although at times it backfires or simply doesn't work. Assuming that the bomb worked to hasten the surrender of Japan. (I frankly doubt the argument that an invasion would have been necessary at all; Japan would have more likely than not surrendered before then.) The argument seems to be that some how that it is justifiable / excusable if dropping the bomb resulted in Japan surrendering. If that is the case than all sorts of atrocities throughout history become justifiable / excusable. In fact even if they don't work they become justifiable / excusable because the intention was to shorten the war and get the enemy to surrender. During the war the Japanese engaged in China in various spectacularly brutal campaigns called the "three alls" meaning burn all, loot all, kill all, during which millions of Chinese civilians were murdered directly and indirectly. The purpose was to terrorize the Chinese into submission. The Nanjing massacre could be viewed in a similar fashion.

The dropping of the atom bombs purpose was to terrorize the Japanese by destroying two Japanese cities and massacring large numbers of people in what was then a truly jaw dropping stunning manner. The debate over how much it had to do with Japan finally surrendering will go on with in my opinion no final resolution.

There can be little doubt that if Japan had used a weapon of similar destructiveness on the United States and if they had then still lost the war, those that had authorized the use of such a weapon would have been justifiably tried and found guilty of war crimes.

It is quite grotesque to hear how after the war those involved in the dropping of the atom bombs got so defensive and upset when their acts were described as crimes, atrocities etc. So much for realism, tough mindedness and a lack of sentimentality. About themselves and their decision they seemed to wallow in it.

What will also continue to go on will be those who argue that the bombing was justified will continue to decry their opponents as lacking realism and tough mindedness while avoiding using such tough minded and realistic words to describe the bombing as massacre, atrocity, mass murder, war crime, crime against humanity. They seem to competely lack the realism and tough mindedness to call a spade a spade.

1. Summit Books, New York, 1988. See also Feifer, George, Tennozan, Ticknor and Fields, New York, 1992, pp. 566-584, for another example of “tough mindedness”.

Bibliography

Grayling, A.C., Among the Dead Cities, Bloomsbury, London, 2006, pp. 77-79, 113-116, 147-158, 231-234, 250-254.

Katsuichi, Honda, The Nanjing Massacre, An East Gate Book, Armonk NY, 1999.

Calvocoressi, Peter, Wint, Guy, Pritchard, John, The Penguin History of the Second World War, Second Edition, Penguin Books, London, 1989, pp. 1033-1037, 1181-1208.

Pierre Cloutier