I think and worry about this constantly. I try to support those feeling anguish for people they actually know, whether in Gaza or Israel, who have been killed, maimed or traumatized since early October. At the same time, I am outraged at the violence being perpetrated by Hamas and by the IDF—and how both use people’s genuine pain and horror to forward their cause. And then there is the deployment of the words and the images, discursive performances built on honest, historically specific realities—meant for ideological conditioning in the strictest sense. So, yeah, I have an ideological position: warfare is ugly and wrong in almost every case, even when it “feels right.” Good post, Tim, for those of us who usually see more sides than two and probably aren’t very effective in real world conflict because of it.
Thanks Tim. Donald Hall, poet, made a case for The Third Thing. Indeed, and some day, there could be a Polish Roundtable model, in which there are multiple negotiating participants. It’s so easy to get complexity to two sides. And I can’t imagine who that grad school professor was!
I think and worry about this constantly. I try to support those feeling anguish for people they actually know, whether in Gaza or Israel, who have been killed, maimed or traumatized since early October. At the same time, I am outraged at the violence being perpetrated by Hamas and by the IDF—and how both use people’s genuine pain and horror to forward their cause. And then there is the deployment of the words and the images, discursive performances built on honest, historically specific realities—meant for ideological conditioning in the strictest sense. So, yeah, I have an ideological position: warfare is ugly and wrong in almost every case, even when it “feels right.” Good post, Tim, for those of us who usually see more sides than two and probably aren’t very effective in real world conflict because of it.
Thanks Tim. Donald Hall, poet, made a case for The Third Thing. Indeed, and some day, there could be a Polish Roundtable model, in which there are multiple negotiating participants. It’s so easy to get complexity to two sides. And I can’t imagine who that grad school professor was!
It's a mystery!