‘Normal’ people---I don’t want to put any weight on *our* being ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable’---see that the ratfuckers have gotten their respective nations in a jam. *This* war between Israel and Palestine ‘feels’ more violent, gruesome, and intractable than previous conflicts I recall---proving I’m one of the impressionable *normals*, not one of the rationally discerning, well-informed policy analysts, sociologists, and historians who see how things stand but are powerless to influence national actors’ real politik. Among the obstacles to peace is the reluctance of heads of state to defer to international diplomacy, especially through the UN. Rather, our ‘princes’ seem content to let Israel’s demolition of Palestine proceed until it reaches a threshold of ‘intolerable human catastrophe’. *Normal* me’s not confident that all state actors will agree when enough-is-enough. I doubt that regular ‘citizens’ can call the bluff on leaders who claim they’re doing the nation’s will, especially when they provoke their supporters to refuse evidence to the contrary.
That it’s still easy for us to personify whole nations as single-minded actors---as princes vying for advantage---fascinates me. Hobbes made it a staple of political economy. In the Treatise, David Hume tries to tell a ‘naturalized’ story of historical social conventions---except when the risk of offending readers makes him fudge. He agrees with “Political writers [who] tell us, that in every kind of intercourse, a body politic is to be consider’d as one person.” Hume allows that personal moral standards also apply to state actions. However, “there is a system of morals calculated for princes, much more free than that which ought to govern private persons.” He rationalizes this is because moral judgments that touch on interstate relationships “[have] not the same force as [feelings towards] private persons and may lawfully be transgress’d from a more trivial motive.” So Hume prevaricates: princes don’t feel strong moral obligations to other nations because they’re collectives---not people. He glosses over princes’ conviction of their prerogatives, and the fact that *normal* folks accept them too. [Selby-Bigge, ed., Treatise, bk. 3, prt. 2, sect. 11: 567-9]
‘Normal’ people---I don’t want to put any weight on *our* being ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable’---see that the ratfuckers have gotten their respective nations in a jam. *This* war between Israel and Palestine ‘feels’ more violent, gruesome, and intractable than previous conflicts I recall---proving I’m one of the impressionable *normals*, not one of the rationally discerning, well-informed policy analysts, sociologists, and historians who see how things stand but are powerless to influence national actors’ real politik. Among the obstacles to peace is the reluctance of heads of state to defer to international diplomacy, especially through the UN. Rather, our ‘princes’ seem content to let Israel’s demolition of Palestine proceed until it reaches a threshold of ‘intolerable human catastrophe’. *Normal* me’s not confident that all state actors will agree when enough-is-enough. I doubt that regular ‘citizens’ can call the bluff on leaders who claim they’re doing the nation’s will, especially when they provoke their supporters to refuse evidence to the contrary.
That it’s still easy for us to personify whole nations as single-minded actors---as princes vying for advantage---fascinates me. Hobbes made it a staple of political economy. In the Treatise, David Hume tries to tell a ‘naturalized’ story of historical social conventions---except when the risk of offending readers makes him fudge. He agrees with “Political writers [who] tell us, that in every kind of intercourse, a body politic is to be consider’d as one person.” Hume allows that personal moral standards also apply to state actions. However, “there is a system of morals calculated for princes, much more free than that which ought to govern private persons.” He rationalizes this is because moral judgments that touch on interstate relationships “[have] not the same force as [feelings towards] private persons and may lawfully be transgress’d from a more trivial motive.” So Hume prevaricates: princes don’t feel strong moral obligations to other nations because they’re collectives---not people. He glosses over princes’ conviction of their prerogatives, and the fact that *normal* folks accept them too. [Selby-Bigge, ed., Treatise, bk. 3, prt. 2, sect. 11: 567-9]