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UNTHINKABLE

                                             August 6, 2012


  Thinking the unthinkable, revisited.


       There are some subjects where you're
       not allowed to be reasonable, you're      DRAMATICS
       supposed to shut your brain off just
       like everyone else.

           And once I come to that conclusion,
           I frequently just throw up our hands
           and wait for people to calm down--         COWARDLY_LIONIZED
           which presumes that they *will* some
           day-- but I'm wondering if there
           might be something else, some way of           MAD_WORLD
           treating with respect the people who
           think thinking clearly about
           horrible things is horrible...

               Another set of attitudes
               to lead to a different set
               of rhetorical strategies.

                                               INVESTIGATIVE_ETHICS
               Something besides the
               scanners and the cranched.
                                                             SCANNERS

  One touch stone:                      And in opposition, consider:

  Marshall McCluhan's essay             Chomsky, and to some extent
  comparing the state of mind           Dyson are dismissive of the
  of the protagonists in Poe's          likes of Herman Kahn.
  "Descent into the Maelstrom",         Dyson had a gentle contempt
  to the strange state of mind          for "the theology of
  needed to contemplate the             nuclear war".
  strategy of nuclear war.



                       One point: being willing to think
                       the unthinkable is no guarantee of
                       objectivity or rationality, it can
                       be a technique for rationalizing
                       anything, for ignoring any concern
                       that seems inconvienient.

                              It takes a tough-minded man to
                              "get things done", right?

                              What we need now is a "strong man"
                              to see us through this crisis.


   Norman Finklestein has made a
   point about the number of deaths
   attributable to the Holocaust
   inflicted by the Nazis: whether
   it was 4 million or 6 million is
   a matter of historical interest,
   but from a moral point of view it
   matters not all.

          For one purpose that is true:
          once you're at the millions level,
          it's already a crime difficult
          to comprehend.  Numerical increases,
          even by factors of 2 or 10 wouldn't
          change any questions like "How did
          this happen?" or "What can we do to
          keep this from happening again?"

              On the other hand, if you were faced
              with a choice between 4 and 6, then
              there would be a clear difference:
              in the absence of any clear alternative
              you'd choose to reduce casualties by 50%.

              We might even, grudgingly, conceed the
              wisdom of killing millions if we could      Avoiding this sort
              be assured it would save some other         of rational
              even larger group.                          calculation would
                                                          seem to be one
              Except that any such assurances are         thing you can do to
              almost certainly illusions, a matter        try to prevent such
              of a strange descent into a "theology"      things from
              such as Dyson commented on.                 happening again.



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