Bush was a killer not because his war murdered 100,000 Iraqis, but because his war murdered Casey. It's so much more comfortable to think that it's only the leadership that needs to be adjusted, not the underlying political and economic structures, not the thrust of 500 years of barbaric history.
There's some phrase in philosophy -- I think it's "misplaced concreteness", but I'm not sure. It's when you take something that is really abstract but you make it look really concrete and so more real than other things. I think the phrase is often applied to Plato's "ideas", since he took things like "tallness" to be the most concrete, most real things, and actual tall things to be mere images of them.
Anyway, the example you mention here I think is misplaced concreteness. It seems sort of natural to take one person who died in the war and to think, "Wow, this really brings it home! Look how sad this particular mother is over the death of his son!" It seems concrete, because it's an individual person. What could be more concrete than that? But actually the opposite is the case, and I think you hit the nail on the head with this by saying that what's really at issue here is the history of this country. If you look at it as an isolated incident, if you make it about particular people who die in particular situations, you lose what is going on. You're so focused on one person or one outcome, that you miss the context which explains why this is happening in the first place and what the experience even means. One person's death is senseless. Of course it's senseless. When the fuck does death ever make sense when looked at that way? But if all we can say about the war is that it's just senseless, then I think that obscures what's really going on. The war is not irrational. It's not the choice of a few irrational people. It's highly rational when viewed in the context of history -- the history of the United States, world history since 1991, the reorganization of capital since 9/11/01. Fetishizing individuals, diving wholeheartedly into particularism, and turning history into a special interest story all cause us to lose sight of the deliberate and even insideous structure of what is really taking place, and so it robs us of our ability to act.
And none of this is really a criticism of Sheehan but maybe just of how the media picks these things up and repackages them for us.
no subject
There's some phrase in philosophy -- I think it's "misplaced concreteness", but I'm not sure. It's when you take something that is really abstract but you make it look really concrete and so more real than other things. I think the phrase is often applied to Plato's "ideas", since he took things like "tallness" to be the most concrete, most real things, and actual tall things to be mere images of them.
Anyway, the example you mention here I think is misplaced concreteness. It seems sort of natural to take one person who died in the war and to think, "Wow, this really brings it home! Look how sad this particular mother is over the death of his son!" It seems concrete, because it's an individual person. What could be more concrete than that? But actually the opposite is the case, and I think you hit the nail on the head with this by saying that what's really at issue here is the history of this country. If you look at it as an isolated incident, if you make it about particular people who die in particular situations, you lose what is going on. You're so focused on one person or one outcome, that you miss the context which explains why this is happening in the first place and what the experience even means. One person's death is senseless. Of course it's senseless. When the fuck does death ever make sense when looked at that way? But if all we can say about the war is that it's just senseless, then I think that obscures what's really going on. The war is not irrational. It's not the choice of a few irrational people. It's highly rational when viewed in the context of history -- the history of the United States, world history since 1991, the reorganization of capital since 9/11/01. Fetishizing individuals, diving wholeheartedly into particularism, and turning history into a special interest story all cause us to lose sight of the deliberate and even insideous structure of what is really taking place, and so it robs us of our ability to act.
And none of this is really a criticism of Sheehan but maybe just of how the media picks these things up and repackages them for us.