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Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 03:42pm Apr 23, 2001 EST (#2536 of 2538)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

I feel that the Guardian Thread Why isn't Japan facing up to past war crimes? has much excellent material on the question --

" why should anybody face up to anything -- isn't it just as well to leave the past alone, or fictionalize the past in any way that seems comfortable?

I think the whole thread, the bulk of which I did not write, is worth reading. http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee80cc0/0

I think the following entry http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee80cc0/204 applies reasonably to this thread. It adresses the question of shame. And may make more sense than a recent posting of mine, where I projected my view of the shameful on others who, knowing the same facts, might perhaps not feel the shame that would seem right to me.

Maybe "deep shame" isn't so essential. -- What seems most essential to me is an acknowledgement of the facts that were there and particularly the avoidance of the manufacture of fictions, to blot out the real facts.

Japanese life, like other life, is complex and variously demanding, and I have no doubt that most Japanese, most of the time, have a great deal to think about besides the Rape of Nanking.

Most Japanese alive today weren't born when the Rape of Nanking occurred.

So long as the facts are clear -- and especially, not denied and blotted out with fictions -- people, both Japanese and others, can make their emotional adjustments, and practical adjustments, to the same world -- they can cooperate because they are "reading from the same page."

For reasonable people, knowledge of the same facts is likely to produce emotional responses that can be reconciled, at least enough for the usual kinds of cooperation people want to engage in.

For reasonable people, knowledge of the same facts is likely to produce compatible decision making -- decisions and feelings about the facts may differ a great deal -- but if people know the same facts relavent to the interactions they need to do, they can usually work together.

. If people deny basic facts on which their interaction with others significantly depends, then they destroy or corrupt kinds of cooperation that might otherwise be possible.

. Because so many of her neighbors care a great deal about the facts of what Japan did in WWII, Japan should acknowlege those facts. The practical and moral costs of not doing so ought to be prohibitive from her point of view. These costs have surely been high for Japan.

Also, the aesthetics ought to matter -- lies that distort decisions or behavior - lies that mislead in ways that hurt people practically (and emotions are practical, too) -- such lies are ugly.

Those same points seem sensible with respect to nuclear weapons, and missile defense, and issues involving them.

These facts about nuclear weapons, including both technical facts and hisory matter, and matter as much as they do, for practical reasons. Including for reasons of emotion and justice - which are practical matters, too.

rshowalter - 05:29pm Apr 23, 2001 EST (#2537 of 2538)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

For a VERY wide range of circumstances, it is more beautiful to tell the truth, on entirely objective grounds, because truth is much more likely to fit the complicated, unpredictable circumstances that people have to deal with. Any lie may, in some unforseable way, cause a decision that matters to go wrong in a way that is ugly. Too many lies, and a culture's ability to adapt may be very compromised.

rshowalter - 05:41pm Apr 23, 2001 EST (#2538 of 2538)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Could it be that present actions of the Bush administration, both public, and in private, may be satisfying all the valid objections that I could have on matters of nuclear policy and missile defense?

The decision on the Howitzer yesterday, and the decision about weapon sales to Taiwan both seem good to me.

Perhaps so. I hope so. But on the basis of what I've seen I don't now believe it - though I'd like to be convinced.

I have no right to ask that facts be set out, and accomodated in my way or with my view of decorum, which is, in some respects, a rough-hewn one.

I have no right to ask that others share my interests, or my emotions on this or any other issue.

I have no right to ask that others share my personal sense of justice, or right proportion.

But I do believe that, in this area, the facts are so important that they need to be understood in all the ways that matter for technically, practically right decisions.

Because here, illusions and pretensions are not graceful -- they are often cruel, and very ugly.

And they could kill us.

Here, the most caring thing we can be is carefully right.

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