1. Write your response to at least ONE of the 4 and,
2. Respond to TWO posts by your classmates.
- What does Doug Porpora argue are the primary ways/reasons we allowed ourselves to become a party to genocide (as discussed in Chapter 6)?
- Define “neighbor.” Having done that, what is your response to Porpora’s assertion on p. 181?
It takes a positive morality of radical commitment to one’s neighbor to extend the concept of neighbor to those one does not see face to face, to extend the responsibilities of neighborliness to suffering peasants in a remote country. It takes such a radical commitment to neighborliness to care about the effects of political decisions on our neighbors everywhere. That, however, is a commitment that is largely unknown in mainstream American Christendom.
- Comment on Porpora’s assertion on page 197 that:
Most people are not used to considering knowledge a responsibility. When it comes to responsibility, we tend to focus on our actions, not on what is inside our heads. We tend to assume that if we act in good faith, that is, if we act on whatever knowledge we have with the best of intentions then what we do is not really blameworthy, even if it has negative consequences.
- What, if anything, do you take issue with Porpora about in his book? Explain your reasoning fully.
I agree with Porpora's statement on page 197. Most people are not used to thinking of responsibility as it refers to thought and knowledge. Yet, once someone has a superior ability of thought than someone else or is privy to information others are not, they must use that knowledge responsibly. I feel this is very pertinent in political aspects in many ways. The first example I can think of is Darfur. The US has knowledge of the events in Darfur and the power to do something about it. Yet, we don't. This corresponds to what I think that Porpora is trying to get at in this quote; that sometimes doing nothing is just as bad as participating. People think that because they didn't participate or that they didn't do anything, that they have nothing to be blamed for. But when you have the knowledge that something bad is going on, you have a responsibility to do something about it.
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with Porpora's assertion on knowledge as a responsibility. I also believe that it is not primarily viewed as such because it is very often more difficult to a) find the motivation to b) educate yourself. A combination of laziness and natural self confidence tells ourselves that what we know is correct, or viable, for what we need to do. Holocausts are fueled by propaganda, but which is spread by people with false knowledge. Furthermore, such people are unmoving in their convictions, making for a dependably horrific dictator. The last sentence of the passage broaches an extremely difficult issue to judge; should we in turn be judged by our intentions, or our results? I don't know the answer, but as my dad would say, "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
ReplyDeletePorpora's theory on neighborliness is correct. People tend to only think of their neighbors as those who share their religion, instead of thinking it as any fellow human being. Many do this because, like I said before, they only view those of their faith as neighbors, or those within their country, region, or intellectual level. Hence why when whole countries or people make decisions, they never think about how their decisions affect those that don't fall into these categories.
ReplyDeleteAssertion on page 197 - I think Porpora is correct in the statement that people do not consider knowledge a responsibility. There are many people that will act without proper knowledge. An example of this is someone who votes for a candidate in an election just because a family member/friend votes. One still would be acting in good faith with the best of intentions and would be fulfilling a right/obligation as a US citizen to vote however he/she did not have any knowledge of the candidate and it would therefore be an irresponsible vote. The same logic applies to following current events and basing opinions off of others’ interpretations rather then following the news and letting oneself interpret it. While these are somewhat mild examples, there are many instances where well-intended actions based on little/no knowledge could be catastrophic.
ReplyDeleteIn a non-literal sense, I guess a neighbor can be defined as a peer, with whom there is a shared sense of both basic values and solidarity. In more colloquial terms, someone in your world who walks in shoes similar to your own. My definition may be a bit specific though, as Porpora seems inclined to make the broader claim that its just a fellow inhabitant of your world, who is to be treated as your own (if that makes any sense). Therefore, Porpora is arguing for basic empathy as the key to the populist political process, as all decisions should be made accounting for neighborly prosperity, as well as individual happiness.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Doug Porpora argue are the primary ways/reasons we allowed ourselves to become a party to genocide (as discussed in Chapter 6)?
ReplyDelete- "Utter lack of knowledge on the subject"
- Disinterest/ignorance
- People didn't care, and instead were preoccupied with other issues.
- Many people never care about politics because they don't have much of a say.
- Concentration of wealth and its tie to politics: "Although we have only a single vote in the election that choose the candidates for office, the wealthy have much more say in determining who the candidates are in the first place."
- "Narrow range of positions"
- Declining voter turnout
- "Winner-take-all" system
- Politicians avoid taking sides in controversies to avoid losing popularity.
- "Complicity of Congress and the media"
- "Both the media and Congress approach complex problems in a superficial manner that misses the fundamental issues at stake."
- Reagan and the government made dishonest claims.
In this sense, if it wasn't clear from my initial post, I agree with Porpora's definition wholeheartedly because it encourages a more mutually beneficial political process that is adverse to nasty things like war and the like. So yeah.
ReplyDeleteDostoyevsky's The Brother's Karamazov has a scene in which Ivan, the intellectual cynical brother, is conversing with Alyosha, his younger sibling, who is a monk in training. Ivan proclaims that though he does believe in God, he cannot grasp the concept of loving thy neighbor. He does not believe that anyone can love someone so close to you, whose faults and flaws are made so obvious to you. Anyone as close as a neighbor would appear to be physically repugnant and impossible to love. Of course, within the context of the Bible, Christ implies that neighbor is a broad term, that applies to all our fellow men on this earth. In How Holocausts Happen, Propora takes up arms against this christen definition, saying that anyone outside of a humans immediate grasp would be impossible to truly love with all their hert and soul the way Christendom avocates. This theme of impossible love is agreed upon too by Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, who proclaims that humans are not as capable as Christ, and therefore unable to love those far and near with an equal neighborly affection. Here, it becomes clear that the distant between two "neighbors" is not the deciding factor in their importance and right to be loved, but rather it is a human fault. It is human that such love should be impossible, and to truly care about others in any faculty more ultimately self-serving than Frued's Superego or Mille's Harm Theory is an impossible feat. And it is this last definition that I agree with. It may sound morbid, and I don't want to be put on terms with Hobbes, but in the realm of brotherly love, there is a reason Christ's values are something humans strive for. We are not capable of this mass love and most of us are even incapable of this nearer, more literal neighborly love. Many people dont even care about the politics that effect them directly, so how can it ever be said that we must all care about politics that may never effect us at all?
ReplyDeletei also agree with Porpora's statement on p. 197. Like they say in superman, "With great power comes great responsibility": despite this being a quote from a popular movie it holds true in real life as well. The leaders of nations all have great power and part of this power is a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips, it is their responsibility to use this to the fullest extent and to share this knowledge so that the population is not in the dark. While some secrets are of course secrets for a reason, the more the general public knows the less likely they are to believe propaganda and the more able they are to make informed decisions.
ReplyDeleteAs Porpora says on page 176, " A government need not be totalitarian for it to get away with genocide, particularly if that genocide is carried out in a distant part of the world. All it takes is a compliant, indifferent population." Whether bystander or solider, American or contra member or Nazi, it is the indifference that enables the genocide to occur. In terms of the American invitation to the party, our nation was welcomed on the basis of our refusal to challenge. As a nation, we are used to not only getting lied to, yet simply accepting those lies. We have no desire to seek the truth and challenge the dogma or broadcasted messages that we encounter. We live in a nation where, on the rare occasion, that something is truly challenged, that opposition tends to be ignored or silenced, to the extent that they do not wish to voice opinions in the future. This results in the inability to act. People are informed, some are not. During both genocides, be they in Central America or in Europe, the informed were not passionate, and the clueless were uninterested. We have become a nation that accepts what our government does, a nation that accepts the accepted lies that we our fed. Yet, we still feel a sense of pride to defend our nation and its choices to the death, a deadly combination. We must learn to fight for our opinions, to combat the silence, and most of all, to educate ourselves as to deter the accepted viewpoints of our governments and media.
ReplyDeletePorpora asserts that moral indifference stems from media and governmental influence in a society like the United States’. He gives specific examples of moral indifference and lack of responsibility in citizenry when describing the Holocaust and the U.S. involvement in the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionary warfare; yet, there are other examples of genocide occurring with the complacence of American governments and citizens. Rwanda was overlooked by the United States while we had the knowledge of what was happening, as well as Darfur among other mass exterminations. However, he notes that “after the Holocaust, knowledge itself must become our responsibility.” It is wrong to turn a blind eye to any repressive event occurring in our lifetime and assume that acting in good faith will not be blameworthy. By the same token that people try and avoid blame by justifying that they acted in good faith and only lacked suitable knowledge, people can be held responsible for having adequate knowledge and not acting.
ReplyDeleteComment on Porpora’s assertion on page 197 that:
ReplyDelete-Wilson on altruism - we tend to sacrifice ourselves for glory and not know the implications of our actions
-US had valiant intentions but their involvement only contributed to Europe's ruin
-US wasn't even entirely sure what they were fighting for - as evidenced by the government's decision to only become involved after Pearl Harbor
I agree with Porpora's assertion to an extent. I believe that people should be responsible to have knowledge. One should not be excused for acting unlawfully because they did not know it was the law. For example, if one kills an endangered animal while it is against the law to so, they should not be excused because they were unaware the species was on the endangered animal list, it is their responsibility to know which animals are endangered if they choose to go hunting. But in the case of the Holocaust I do not believe the Germans can be blamed for neglecting this responsibility, although they did not know the truth about the war, it was not their fault because their leader was such a dictator that it became nearly impossible for them to do so. Much of the information they received was propaganda and it would be hard for them to differentiate from from reality because Hitler took away all means they had to get knowledge. So in the end, I agree with Porpora, but also think that along with this should go that all leaders are responsible for giving correct knowledge to their people
ReplyDeleteFROM KERRY FUSCO:
ReplyDeleteI think Porpora’s assertion is completely true. The common phrase: “actions speak louder than words,” reflects his idea that people don’t realize that knowledge is just as much a responsibility as how we act. An action may be more obvious than a thought or a piece of information we contain in our mind, but that doesn’t mean it is more important. The knowledge we hold in our brains has so much potential to grow and escalate into something dangerous. Sometimes what we think in our minds is right, is in reality harmful to somebody else.
Comments:
ReplyDeleteSarah-I agree that not taking a stand on a war is a dangerous position in itself. We have to force ourselves to learn about the issues so we can stand up for what is right. Switzerland, for instance, is a neutral country, but which has kept accounts for Nazis and other dictators, and is still paying back money to families of Holocaust victims.
Chris- eh, I don't talk to my neighbors. They've lived next to us for nine years. They threw mud on our trampoline and rocks at my little brother. If we did have basic empathy for each other, they would stop directing their water drains into our basement when it rains.
A neighbor is a homograph. Yes, it in fact has a literal definition, which means someone who lives next- door to someone else, but it also has the more figurative meaning where it means an obligation that someone has to their community and the people around them. I don't know if I agree with Porpora's response because I do think that this commitment of a neighbor is a commitment that is largely known in mainstream American Christendom. It is a commandment in the Old Testament to love thy neighbor, and the Christians do help their neighbors a lot.
ReplyDeletePretty much everyone wrote the same thing, so this is a response to all posts: I agree.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Porpora's statement on page 197. Because Americans were not directly affected by the savagery and cruelty, it does seem only natural that the Americans did not act to stop it. While this makes sense, it does not excuse the Americans' inaction. I agree with this statement in that we need to consider our knowledge to be a most momentous responsibility. As humans, it is our job to look our for our fellow humans. Yes - the atrocities seemed so far away and most Americans shared little in common with the holocaust victims in terms of cultural values and religion, but we all share the common thread of humanity. The Americans were probably not focused on the victims of the brutality because they did not possess enough correct knowledge about what was occurring. If this had been the case, the American inaction is still not excusable but it is somewhat understandable. Porpora goes on to assert that ignorance of the law is not an excuse to break the law. It is the job of the citizen to make his or herself aware of his or her surroundings. It is easy for one to remain ignorant when he or she feels so far removed from a dangerous situation. We must educated in order to prevent this from occurring again.
ReplyDelete