Re: Iraq
I suppose some people wonder why I don’t write more about my political views like every other blogger on the planet. Partly it's that every blogger on the planet does it, but there’s a bigger reason.
I don’t believe I’m a well informed person at all. Actually, I believe all the information I come across is deeply suspect.
Not a like “the liberal media is brainwashing us” or “the corporations control all the media” kind of suspect (although there’s some truth to both those statements). More like the “Rashomon” kind of suspect.
“Rashomon” is a film directed by Akira Kurosawa made in the 50’s. A woman has been raped and her husband killed in a forest, and there are four eyewitnesses. Each eyewitness describes the crime from his viewpoint, and four completely different stories emerge (This technique made a huge impact on American culture; you see the “four viewpoints” device come up all the time on TV and in movies).
None of the eyewitnesses are deliberately lying; they’re just processing the facts of the story through their particular beliefs and worldviews – they’re not relating raw facts, they’re relating facts as they support each persons “greater truth”. Those of you who read philosophy will instantly recognize my Kantian leanings – the human mind is an originator of experience, not merely a passive recipient of information.
Therefore, I can’t rely on anything related to me as being anything but partial truth (and even some of the things I get firsthand, but I digress). This doesn’t mean I hold no opinions; I hold opinions on just about everything. A lot of my time is spent trying to ferret out the kernel of truth in everything I read, hear, or otherwise come across.
Once, I was hanging out with some friends, talking about recent events (this was several years ago, shortly after that plane from Boston to Paris crashed). A guy there said that his friend said “they knew for sure” it was shot down by a missile. I asked who his source was. He said his friend’s dad was somehow connected to the investigation. However, my Dad was at the time one of the chief technical officers of the FAA, working closely with the NTSB, and I was watching the investigation unfold over dinner every night. I was pretty sure there was no evidence of any missile involved. However, nobody else could have known that. They all have to rely on second- and third-hand information.
I try to keep my contribution to the general noise level to a minimum. No matter how much I may think I know about something, it’s usually just the tip of the informational iceburg.
11:52:24 AM 
|
