I’m back! I’m back because I want to be a writer.
And I’m back because I can’t escape the noisy fact that apparently I do have a few things more to say.
And hopefully this fact — that I, that we all, have things to say — will stay with me until the end of my days because it means 1. that I am (we are) alive and 2. that I am (we are) aware. Though sometimes the second point is not always obvious.
Today I’ll jump right in with something that’s not at all personal. (Surprise.) It’s about US involvement in Libya. I am so conflicted and I want to figure out why.
So, calling upon Emerson’s advice — in order to understand what we’re thinking we must write it down — I’m going to make an attempt to understand why I am and why there are so many conflicting but intelligent voices on both sides of the issue.
I think the problem is that when we (individuals, government, society, whatever) operate under different sets of suppositions, we will always be conflicted. Conflict has always made me extremely uncomfortable and it is something I’m trying to teach myself to deal with better. To live with tension and paradox. To keep breathing in the murky gray areas and not panic when I can’t immediately see a solution. Or the exit door. Or even a chair to sit on for a minute.
On the one hand, if we make decisions based on Morals, we should go into not only Libya, but into Syria, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen as well. Not to mention Sudan and the Ivory Coast. And this sort of humanitarian interference should be done easily, quickly and at every notice BECAUSE WE BELIEVE NOT ONE INNOCENT AND DEFENSELESS SOUL SHOULD BE LOST TO POLITICAL VIOLENCE.
On the other hand, if we make decisions based solely on the bottom line, then we should never intervene anywhere because interventions always cost money and we either don’t have it or don’t want to spend it in that manner. When problems are viewed through a such a lens, then we only spend money on things that make us feel happy and everybody else be damned.
Obviously taken to the extreme neither of these starting points (morals vs money) are realistic nor sustainable. One needs the other. The arguments lies in how much of which part to apply to any given situation.
And thus the pundits will rage on and I’ll try to keep breathing and not feel like the sky is falling when good people disagree with each other.
